Our first "proper" gig was the first round of the Big Band Breakout. Quite a cool gig despite a rather confining stage at the Winston.


Orca
Numb
Aerials (System of a Down cover)
Lost Temptation
Prepubertal Superstar


Mullet count - 1 (excluding Matt's)

Unfortunately this was the gig we were knocked out of the BBB. It was quite a good gig nonetheless (despite dropped picks and what nots).


Orca
Numb
Gloam
Lost Temptation
Prepubertal Superstar

(With hindsight, prolly a bad idea to swap our set around, but hey who cares, we gave a lot of people the proverbial middle finger. BTW I must mention Wrust, our Black, Metal Brothers, they were truly awesome. - Brett )

Greg also managed to beat the rest of us by picking up the first groupie - I think Brett and Matches attributed this to his shiny new Ibanez EDR170 (actually I don't really think that ... but it does seem plausible...). I always knew it would be a guitarist - wink wink nudge nudge.

(From the way she was eating his head I thought we might have a chestbuster on our hands, it was actually kinda gross in a Aliens sort of way. FYI the rhythm section has far superceded the guitarists in groupy count by now - Brett.)

Mullet count - 1 (excluding Matt's)

After the BBB we were invited to play the Winston again, the main difference this time was that we were using the Winston sound system which was sadly not up that which was brought in for the BBB. Probably the only crappy gig we've had to date. I think we actually cut our (already short) setlist down!

(I fondly remember this gig as the one we ended with me telling the audience I needed a crap and was not gonna use Winnie's cans - Brett)

Mullet count - 1 (excluding Matt's)>

(There was a bit of a break in our schedule as we took time out to record our first demo - check out the downloads section. Thanks to Brett Langton of Catbun Studios for doing the recording.)

After a couple gigs in and around Durban we got the opportunity to travel up to Bloemfontein. We therefore found ourselves piling into my younger brother's Tazz (4 sweaty Durbanites) on a hot, sticky Friday. We arrived shortly before our gig and were pretty impressed by the size of the crowd: 1000 - 1400 people. The band playing before us, Afartheid (thanks to Lydney f or hosting us that night), put on an energetic show and were well received. We were therefore a little surprised by the vacant stares that we received from the majority of the crowd after the gig. I suspect that Brett scared them and I can hardly blame them ... he scares me too. There were however a couple people who really enjoyed it ... thanks for the support guys.

(Hmm vacant stares, personally i think we were playing to a crowd, of mixed up, mutant zombies, but I truly appreciated the looks of "what kind of daemon spawn are you?" we recieved from some of the female populous. And I had high hopes of first year girls...*sigh* - Brett)


Orca
Numb
Aerials (System of a Down cover)
Lost Temptation
Change (in the house of flies) - Deftones Cover
Prepubertal Superstar
Territory (Sepultura cover)
Ugly (obscure Smashing Pumpkins b-side)


Mullet count - 5 (excluding Matt's - to be fair these weren't from the gig but time spent buggering around in the city)

(Still surprised we weren't shot or burned or something - Brett)

We were welcomed to Bethlehem by Mario, the owner of restaurant and pub. A mix up / breakdown in communication involving equipment was quickly resolved and any initial concerns about the gig were quickly set aside. The audience was pretty small but highly appreciative. Really cool gig - thanks to Mario and the patrons of his establishment. After spending that evening at Mario's spare apartment (which has a strong truck theme - truck pictures ... even truck clocks - pretty weird man) we had breakfast at the pub and headed back to Durbs. Anyone heading through the area I strongly recommend stopping for food at the Game Cock - really wicked (especially the pizza with everything on it). We were also invited to play in the upcoming Battle of the Bands at Surrender Hill (see below).

(I must throw in my two cents worth regarding the hospitality there, it was truly awesome...)


Numb
Aerials (System of a Down cover)
Lost Temptation
Change (in the house of flies) - Deftones Cover
Prepubertal Superstar
Territory (Sepultura cover)
Ugly (obscure Smashing Pumpkins b-side)


Mullet count - 0 (except Matt's fledgling "do" which was practically screaming for attention)

As this is one of the band's standard haunts, we were all pretty excited to be playing at Burn. Unfortunately my stomach kicked into overdrive (I suspect it was the revenge of one of Johnny's Rotis) and I wasn't too well that evening but the boys were firing and the gig went down pretty well. Thanks to Dave and the Burn locals (especially all the nutters in front) - See you soon.

Yours truly scored the first stalker SMS - go me!

(Dean I checked the number, it was from my Mom :P. I'm proud though anyway - Brett)


Numb
Aerials (System of a Down cover)
Lost Temptation
Change (in the house of flies) - Deftones Cover
Prepubertal Superstar
Ugly (obscure Smashing Pumpkins b-side)
Territory (Sepultura cover) - Encore


Mullet count - 0

We didn't really know what to expect from this gig. Matches' brother's band (Dr Fox) had played the venue and had said it was pretty cool. I was pretty excited for the gig (though that might just have been because I had got the Roti behind me) and it turned out to be great gig. It continues to surprise me how people I would never suspect of enjoying our form of music sometimes go crazy go nuts. Time spent watching old Maiden vids started to pay off in the posing department. Decision made to acquire wireless leads for guitars once we can afford 'em after witnessing Greg jump out into the audience to bop away with the crowd.

(The Coyote bar was quite a different venue, as were the People from Umhlanga, they scare me man, personal gig hilight I think was the website number incident. - Brett)


Numb
Aerials (System of a Down cover)
Lost Temptation
Change (in the house of flies) - Deftones Cover
Prepubertal Superstar
Ugly (obscure Smashing Pumpkins b-side)
Territory (Sepultura cover) - Encore


Mullet count - 0

After sweating like pigs on our previous foray up to the Free State we decided to "Think Ahead" and took my folks airconditioned 4x4 up instead of my brother's Tazz. Ironically, the temperature never rose above 20C the whole weekend. Ah well ... at least we had a bit more space for our pseudo camping gear. We ended up leaving Durbs at about 6pm on the Friday. We decided to go have and a bite to eat at Jamie and Mary's (previous Burn / Jamies Owner). We arrived however to find that they were closed for some reason. We then proceeded to take a short cut on the way back which resulted in us really experiencing the Midlands Meander (Midnight Meander? Ok Ok I have Ranger blood in me... Happy - Brett). Its quite creepy driving around that area at night - feels like you are driving through a horror movie (or perhaps a porn movie depending on your viewpoint...). Anyway, we finally arrived at about 11:15pm and just caught the last couple bands playing in the evening. (The festival was structured so that entrants to the Battle of the Bands played early while the headline bands played later in the evening. Our prelim round for the BotB was only scheduled for the following morning so we roamed around and enjoyed the rest of evening before settling down for the evening - or trying to settle down because people only left the main tent (where we were camping that night) at about 3am. (It was damn cold by the way ... SWS big time ... or should that be small time ?)

Organisors started arriving the next day at 6am so needless to say we didn't get much in the way of shut eye. We then cruised back to Mario's apartment (the truck place) for a bit of a clean up. Our prelim gig was at 11am. Its really strange playing in daylight but we played pretty well. From a technical view point this was probably one of our better gigs. Fortunately, we were asked to stay for the finals of the BotB. We played 2nd to last (just before Mario's band) and we played to about an enthusiatic audience of about 400 people. This was by far most psycho crowd we ever played to - I'm surprised no eyes were lost. Thanks Surrender Hill - that was an awesome gig. A big thank you again to Afartheid (who had travelled out from Bloem for the festival) and Lydney for doing the lighting for us. Our evening was topped by being named by the judges as the winners of the contest. A welcome surprise - we will put the cash and recording time to good use! We stayed for most of the rest of the festival until the 3 hours sleep the night before began to catch up. We headed back to the apartment where I promptly passed out. The rest of the boys had a second wind and headed back to Surrender Hill - I believe things all went a little pear shaped when they got back there - lack of adequate supervision I guess ;). We stopped by at Game Cock Inn (great breakfast again) the following morning before heading back to Kzn.

Special thanks to the sponsors and to Mario for putting on a great festival. I believe another is being organised in about 6 months - I recommend anyone who enjoys festivals to attend - good bands, good organisation and good fun.

(Firstly, there was adequate supervision, I mean after all I am an adult, and a consenting one too, so what do you mean there was no supervision?? Secondly the rhythm section took the groupie lead at this festival. Final score 2:1... And why didn't we bring that blonde back?

Special mention must be made of Matt playing in the game of hunt the grunt (my drunken, joking bad) and winning hands down (all things aside though she was passable as human).

All I have to say is chaos, disorder my work here is done - Brett)


Numb
Aerials (System of a Down cover)
Lost Temptation
Change (in the house of flies) - Deftones Cover
Prepubertal Superstar
Ugly (obscure Smashing Pumpkins b-side)
Territory (Sepultura cover)


Mullet count - 5 (Special mention for the kid with the mullet and the guy with dreadlock mullet).

So there I was, sitting on a balcony, in 'toti, minding my own business ... when the aliens invaded!

No wait ... that's just the story the voices in my head told me. In reality the boys and I had traveled down to Amazimtoti to gig at the life saving club. How or exactly why we were doing this particular gig is still a bit of a mystery to me (blame Smeags - Brett) but it seems pretty plausible in the grand scheme of things. Ah well, where were we ? Oh yes ... 'toti. Upon arrival at about 5pm we were immediately blessed by the sighting of a maginificent specimen of a mullet. I only wish I had a camera so I could share this spectacle with future generations. Anyway, we quickly bellied up to the bar in the club and proceeded to warm up for the gig with a few sundowners. The rest of the evening past pretty uneventfully apart from the occassional stumbling and drunken meandering of the recent school leavers as they celebrated their matriculation beneath us on the beach.

Two other bands played before us Fat Fist and Deppressive Rag Dolls who put on good shows for the relatively small crowd that was in attendance. Eventually we went on and banged out a relatively short set before packing it in for the night Thanks to all the usual suspects who came out to support us - always makes a big difference to see a few friendly faces in the crowd. Until next time ...

Btw. be sure to go to Flux this new year - good times to be had. We will be playing 4pm on 1st Jan at the River Stage.

Beware the badgers and the mushrooms. Mostly the mushrooms.

OMG Where's Dean you invasive alien fiend... The toti gig, yes it will go down in my memory as the gig with the most offensive powers that be todate. Well that and the most amazing full face plant I've ever seen, drunken matric girls are one of the most beutiful spectacles to behold, beautiful, in a non physical sense of the word, ’cause some of them are just real dodge....

Must mention the frosted tip femme mullet, it bought a tear to my eye...


Umm some songs... I think

Mullet count - 4
Village People Video Extras - 1

Ah yes - nothing quite like a trip up to the middle of nowhere to get sunburn, sleep deprivation, mosquitos bites and hangovers.

I blame my masochistic and Brett's sadistic tendencies for our latest outing to the midlands.

(Personally I blame, the elves, but as they weren't involved this time, I think hmmm, the previous regime should take the fall for this one. After all it's the skape-goat for pretty much everything else - Brett)

The two of us and Brett's better (debatable :P) half, Lesley, travelled up to Mooi River on the 30th in anticipation of our gig on the afternoon of the first day of the new year. The camping experience started pretty much as expected with a few quick drinks before roaming around the festival grounds. Quite frankly I was disappointed with the attendance this year. The crowd was definitely smaller than the previous year and although there was still enough people to generate a bit of a vibe, there wasn't the same buzz I remembered.

The days passed pretty uneventfully as would have the nights had it not been for the rain which came pissing down and served to prevent me from sleeping (long story). By the time our gig arrived myself (in particular) and Brett were pretty buggered but fortunately adrenaline saved the day. (Matches and Greg arrived later and weren't looking like sasquatches like Brett and I were... well maybe Matt was ... but that's normal). The gig was actually alright despite the stage gremlins who tried to seize control on a couple of occasions. Many thanks to Dave Birch (yup the guy from Squeal) for mixing and Andrew for organising the festival.

(The Stage Gremlins were prolly my fault as I actually came fairy prepared for the gig (tools etc) and thus put myself in fates direct line of site...

Damn you Salizar... Damn You !!!!! - Brett).


Umm some songs... I think

Mullet count - 0 (Am very dissapointed - Brett)
Village People Video Extras - 0
The guy with the rugby ball - There is always one

It had been three months since our last appearance at Burn and we were all pretty keen to play to the Burn regulars. I was a bit bummed though when the rain started pissing down during the day. Nevertheless, a decent crowd managed to come out and support ourselves and Redhouse (whom it was nice to see again after we supported them for our first appearance). The great thing about playing at Burn is that because bands play virtually every weekend the whole process is very professional and there is always minimal hassle in sound checking and band switches which makes for a pleasant change. Many thanks to Dave (the owner) and Ray for doing the sound.

Our set was pretty much a standard fare (Prepubertal Superstar, Ugly, Suicide King, Aerials, Numb, Lost Temptation, Gloam with an encore of Orca into Territory). I was pretty happy with this setlist although perhaps next time around we will unleash The Medea and/or Janus on the poor unsuspecting burninators.

(Let us not forget the most amazingly timed pa whoops that added to our performance :) - Brett)

Many thanks to all the usual suspects for coming out to shout ... see you next time. Mullet count - 1