Look What Rule 17 Dragged In

Have you ever had a really strange dream? The kind of dream where you maybe ate a bit too much potato salad, and that night you're in some sort of bizarre situation with a very random cast of characters? I have those kinds of dreams all the time. 

Here's one for you: I had to rush from work to get all of my guitar gear into a tent in a parking lot. There was snow on the ground. There had been a blizzard the week before; that's why all the snow was there. We were apparently opening for Bret Michaels at a cigar bar. But we couldn't smoke cigars at the bar, or within 20 feet of the door, because North Dakota had changed their laws. So there we are, opening for Bret Michaels, and my buddy Jon shows up and says "Hey, let's play 'Lights Out' by UFO." So we play the UFO song, and Daisy Duke circa 1980 walks in. I look over at Daisy and realize that I don't remember the words to Lights Out. Then, I try to step on the footswitch for my amp, and can't do it. A very short clown is sitting on it, trying to steal my shoelaces. I'm wearing slip-on shoes, so I try to convince the clown that his mission is in vain, but he persists. Then I wake up and go "wow, that's a WEIRD dream". 

Subtract the clown and Daisy Duke, and the rest is all true. 

Those in the know, which pretty much includes 90% of the people who will bother to read this blog post, know that Rule 17 plays original metal in Fargo, ND. They also know that it's a relatively small scene. I consider it kind of a comfortable room. Playing metal in Fargo is as rewarding or unrewarding as you let it be. Cover bands generally get higher profile gigs, but we generally have more hardcore fans. There are Rule 17 fans who have seen nearly every show we've played since we were known as 7th Seal, which takes it back to 2005. But sometimes, it's good to step outside your comfort zone. 

I've known Jon Stensland since we were kids. He's the one who recommended Dave for 7th Seal back in fall of 2004. It's well known that he works for Bret Michaels, particularly since he's on stage with him every show. Jon got us the in. It was textbook nepotism, which is fine by me.

We hit the stage at 6pm, not really knowing what the crowd was going to be like. We've never played that early. In our world, we generally don't do a soundcheck before 10 pm, often 11 pm. We got our gear there, got it set up, did a pretty comprehensive sound check, and let 'er rip. 

I don't think the crowd necessarily knew what they were in for. There were people camped out in the non-VIP area. The only familiar faces were members of Dave's family, the bar staff, and a handful of others. We played Act of Defiance, Troy had trouble with his pedal board, we finished the song and...people cheered. Huh. So we played Awake. No technical problems, and it actually went over relatively well considering its thrash metal pedigree. Oh, there were a few duds in there. We had picked "Dusk" from the 7th Seal album as a "friendly" tune, and that died like a doe on Highway 2. "In the Wake of Fear" suffered a similar fate, but that was okay because it's just a terribly fun song to play. Jon joined us for our final run through "Lights Out" by UFO - it was one of two covers that we did (Children of the Sea was the other). It was a lot of fun, although it wound up being a little improvisational since the 5 of us had never actually rehearsed it together. We ended with "Waste Away", which went over pretty well again.   

After our set, I ran over to the bar and grabbed some grub. JT's has a restaurant in the old smoking area, so I had a burger and some seasoned fries. Pretty good stuff. After that, I caught the last bit of Face for Radio's set and helped get Fritz's drums off the stage. 

Bret came out and played to a very receptive crowd. His band was really solid, the set was tight, and he did what he does very well. "Bret Michaels knows his crowd" was the thought that ran through my head as I watched the whole thing. Seriously, he knows how to work his crowd, which is a talent all its own. 

Overall, I had a LOT of fun playing. It was a big stage with a really good monitor mix. I always enjoy working with a professional crew and Bret's crew is very good. The JTs staff was helpful and accommodating. The crowd response was mixed, but the net result was positive. 

Big thanks go out to Jon "King" Stensland for really making this happen, JT Cigarro management and staff for being very flexible in working with us, the Bret Michaels crew for being super pros, and finally to Bret himself for letting us play in front of his crowd and for thanking us at the end of his set. 

Here's a little clip of "Beyond". Big PA meant big clipping on the camera with every kick hit.
http://youtu.be/gNVWfES-yfU

Red Lamb Recap

Last night was probably one of the shortest sets we've ever played, but it was a ridiculously fun show.

Reverence of Apostasy kicked off the evening with a short, intense set of metal. If death metal is your cup of tea, then these guys are definitely worth checking out.

We hit the stage for a half hour set. Now, we've been at this for some time through the years, and I can't remember ever playing a half hour set before. We're so used to trying to fill 2 hours that the notion of dropping songs just seems crazy. We managed to drop some stuff on the fly so that there would be sufficient time for Red Lamb to get rolling at 10:30.

Red Lamb were great., That's pretty much an understatement. Dan Spitz has put together a really strong touring lineup for that band, and I hope that a follow-up album to their debut features all of these guys. The Red Lamb material translated really well live, we were all front and center diggin' it. The Anthrax material that they did went over REALLY well. It was interesting to hear it with one guitar, but it really did work. I've always maintained that Danny Spitz has always been underrated as a player, and listening to him play from 5 feet away, I'm going to amend that by saying "tragically underrated". The guy's a monster.

Candy Machine Guns closed the show. At this point, my hearing was pretty well dying, but they sounded good to me. Really high energy modern hard rock/metal with some industrial influences. Lots of cool sound stuff happening with these guys. They're at the Legacy Ballroom next weekend (I think the 30th) so if you missed them this time around, check them out there.

One thing that makes shows like this so cool is when you get levels of camaraderie and mutual respect between nationals, touring acts, and local openers. Everybody at the show was cool and fun to hang out with - no ridiculous egos or anything like that. Our friends and fans were awesome as always. We always appreciate your support, and hope you have as much fun as we do.

On a final note, the whole point in Dan Spitz doing Red Lamb is to raise autism awareness. As I had mentioned in my previous post, he and his wife have idential twin sons with autism. For those who've never dealt with autism in any form, it's hard to really imagine the difficulties involved. One thing that he had mentioned is that the rate of children being born with or developing autism is still increasing. They're saying 1 in 50 at this point (they used to say 1 in 150). That's pretty scary, particularly when looking at what the future holds for people with very profound cases of it. My wife and I have dealt with some neurological issues with our son, (not autism, but that was one thing that the doctors were considering when he was about 2-3 years old). Something we sort of anecdotally noticed was that a huge amount of available data about autism and other neurological/communicative issues came from English universities. The USA needs to step up its game and start seriously funding research the way we fund research for other diseases, because at the rate things are going we're going to have a pretty massive health and human services issue in a couple of decades.

Respect the Badge! Red Lamb @ the Nestor - March 23

I'm massively excited for our next show, which is with former Anthrax guitarist Dan Spitz's new band Red Lamb.

For those who haven't been keeping up, this is something Spitz has been working on since the last "Among the Living" Anthrax reunion 6 or so years ago. He teamed up with Dave Mustaine on writing and production, and is taking the whole thing on the road in order to raise autism awareness. Yep, autism awareness. Dan Spitz has identical twin sons with autism. If you've checked out any of their tunes, that fact is pretty evident in the lyrics. Looks like they're doing a mix of Red Lamb and Anthrax tunes, which should make for a very cool set.

Other bands playing are Candy Machine Guns, who at this very moment I know very little about, but it appears that they're touring with Red Lamb for at least a number of dates. Reverence of Apostasy is playing as well. If you haven't heard Reverence of Apostasy, now's your chance. If you haven't heard OF them, then odds are you're actually even more out of touch than I am, which means you should probably win some sort of trophy or something.

Oh yeah, and RULE 17 is playing! We're all pretty stoked about this show, naturally since we're all old Anthrax fans. Back when we were known as 7th Seal, we used to do "I Am the Law" at most shows. No, we won't be doing it for this one - that's bad taste.

So Saturday, March 23rd, go to the Nestor and check it out!

Sticky in Nevada - The JT Cigarro Saga

Last night, we shared the stage with Sex Knuckle, who were nice enough to let us open for them. We hadn't played JT Cigarro before, so it was a really nice chance to get a foot in the door there. Every time we get to play somewhere new, it's a little victory for us.

Our set went pretty well, all things considered. JT's has a small stage, and with a bit of extra gear, it crowds up fast. One nice thing about JTs layout, though, is that you get people up by the stage. So often we play and I can't see more than a couple of heads outlined when the lights are on, so it's fun to be able to see everybody out there.

Here's a video of "Awake" -

http://youtu.be/bsTkxZ5Ow4E

Overall, it seemed to go over pretty well, and was quite a bit of fun. Somebody mentioned that for playing heavy music, I sure smile a lot. There's a simple answer for that - it's because it's fun! On the most basic level, it's insanely fun to plug a guitar into an irresponsibly loud amp and go "dern-dern-dern". Doing that with friends who are also inordinately loud just exponentially increases the fun factor.

During set break, Joel Carlson and I decided that Sex Knuckle should have a song or album named "Sticky in Nevada". Neither of us really knows that that means, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The not-so-fun part of the evening was the after effect of cold and flu season. I was fighting phlegm during our set, and Samantha from Sex Knuckle was also fighting similar vocal fatigue. Unfortunately, this meant that they had to cut their set short after a valiant effort. That was when the brainstorming began.

Rich Lahren and Cale Schjeldrup from Relevant were there, so they got up with the Chrises (Ellingson, from Sex Knuckle and Fritz, from Rule 17 and Relevant) and did some tunes - really well! Then Dave grabbed his bass and I grabbed Ellingson's guitar - and we played "Genocide" from the 7th Seal album (NEVER have done that with 1 guitar), "Lights Out" by UFO, and "Running With the Devil" by Van Halen. Cale joined us and gave me a much-needed vocal break on "Revelations".

All in all, a fun time! Now, it's a couple weeks and a couple rehearsals, then we open for Dan Spitz (former Anthrax lead guitarist) and his new band Red Lamb at the Nestor March 23rd.

March 2 Make-Up Show

Hey - just a quick update here. As I mentioned in the previous post, our February 22nd show was cancelled. We were lucky enough to get it rescheduled - to March 2.

So, mark your calendars: Saturday, March 2 - Rule 17 and Sex Knuckle at JT Cigarro (Rule 17 opens).

Show starts at 9:30.

 

Original songs and a schedule update

Band rehearsals are kind of funny. Some times, you just wind up rehashing stuff you already know just to prove that you still know it. Some times, you run through a set in preparation for a show. Some times you do a lot of work and make very little headway, and other times you get a whole lot of work done. Those are the best ones.

Today, we learned an original, currently titled "I Am Your Shadow". That's subject to change, but the lyrics are written, song is arranged, and we can start and end it at the same time. It's a bit of a landmark for us, because for the first time since 2007, we are closing the book on working up new original material.

That's not to say that "this is it". There's probably a good 10 or so other tunes that we could work up, and we probably will start on that later this year some time. But, we had decided some time ago that when we had over 45-50 minutes worth of "new" material, it was getting to be time to concentrate on releasing an actual album rather than constantly bombarding our audience with new unfamiliar songs.

So, we've come to a point where we can start shopping for a studio, concentrate on further honing the tunes we have, and start recording later this year - probably around summertime. We have no real plans yet regarding how we intend to do the full release. Obviously the classic "CDs at shows" approach will be back, maybe a few online retailers, probably get it on Itunes and that sort of thing.

Now, on to the schedule: we had been booked to play at JT Cigarro on February 22nd. That won't be taking place, as they got LA Guns for that night. So, our next appearance will be on March 23rd with Red Lamb. For those who don't know, that's former Anthrax guitarist Danny Spitz's band. It'll be at the Nestor.

Until the next update, later gators

Travis 

Rick's Recap (now with video!)

Ok, it's been a couple days since the Rule 17/Vindictus show at Rick's. It was a really fun last hurrah for Vindictus who we've played with quite a bit over the years.

Our set was the first we had played since last November, as we took December off. It went off pretty well, though. The fun thing about openers is that you can kind of concentrate more on the dynamics of the set rather than just set lengths, as often gets to be the case when you're doing the "dance band" rotation (set, break, set, break, set, end).

This time around, we decided that we definitely had to do what tunes Troy, Dave, and I had done at the first 7th Seal show. Unfortunately, of those songs there are only a couple which have survived over the last 8 years. The only original at the time was "Original Sin", and one of the covers was "Children of the Sea". Dave's wife caught video of Children of the Sea (a.k.a. "Chicken of the Sea".

At the end, I grab a pitcher of water (the post-Dio water grab - that tune does a number on me), and keel over laughing because Aaron requested "Psionic Illuminations" by the Lord Weird Slough Feg, which was also played at the first 7th Seal show (and he guessed it, too).

Another one that we had been batting around for quite a while was Powerslave by Iron Maiden. If you have 2 lead guitars, it's hard to not play a lot of Iron Maiden - it's kind of like having an Ortega Taco Kit and not making tacos. This was technically the first new cover tune since 2007, and it actually went pretty well for us only having run through it 3 times.

Vindictus played 2 sets, had a bunch of guests on stage, and a good time was generally had by all. We in Rule 17 would like to wish our Fargo metal cohorts in Vindictus (all members past and present) the best in their future endeavors. We've shared a lot of stages over the years, and have really appreciated all of the good times we've shared since 2005.

Travis