Summertime's here babe, need something to keep you cool...

Well, Summertime will be here by the time we play. That's right, we're actually booking some shows. Thus far, it's June 30 with Vindictus at Rick's Bar and then possibly something in August out at the lakes. Our goal is to be playing once per month in various venues around the area, then pick up a few out-of-town dates once we have our sets solidified.

I know I've mentioned this before, but this lineup hasn't played live since the summer of 2008 - almost 4 years exactly. To the casual observer, it may seem that we pretty much played our last show, wrote and recorded 3 songs, and did little else other than repeatedly change the band name and lineup. A little bit about the writing process was addressed in the previous entry, but the other week local music maven Scot Heinze asked me a question that I'd never been asked before.

"How many songs have you guys written, including the stuff from 7th Seal?" I had to think about it for a few moments. In 7th Seal, we did 9 originals live at various points, 7 of which made the album.

Veracity
Genocide
Dusk
Original Sin
Spitting Lies
Out the Door
7th Seal
Dystopia
Blood on Your Head
(You can hear what studio versions were recorded here: (7th Seal)

I think we did Dystopia a couple of times live before we decided that it either wasn't gelling, or just wasn't a good live tune. It wound up becoming a "parts tune" instead of making the Conspiracies of Thieves album. I might have to revisit that one, because a couple of the riffs were pretty cool.

"Blood On Your Head" became "Awake". It was the first song that we worked up after Chris Fritz joined us, and we played it at the last two 7th Seal shows.

Since then, we added:

Act of Defiance
In the Wake of Fear
Waste Away
Perfect World
Another Life
(You can hear a couple studio versions here: (Rule 17)

These have all been played live in one form or another by all the lineups of "Act of Defiance". It was after this point that we've had to play some catch-up, so the following two have been added; Beyond and Inversion.

We still have to run these two through the final QC processes, so they won't be ready for the 30th. All told, that's 16 songs, with another 9 on the "to be learned" pile.

SO! We're doing an hour on the 30th at Rick's Bar with Vindictus. We're going to play a selection of these tunes (both from the 7th Seal era and after) in a way that we haven't before. Most of the set hasn't been heard since 2008, so it'll be fun to knock the cobwebs off the old tunes.

Hope to see you there!