The Viper Room
I slept in until 12:08 which was bad because I was supposed to be rehearsing with Melissa, aka Skates, at 1pm. Luckily, she had left a voice mail asking if we could push it back until 2pm, so I got ready and loaded up the car but still didn’t make it to her place until a quarter after two. It took longer to get to west LA than I thought, even though all I had to do was take Santa Monica Blvd. about 6 miles, it took nearly 40 minutes.
I used to sort of perform with Melissa (also aka MQ) back in maybe 2003 or 2004 when she was performing under the name MQ. I first saw her opening for Nina Hagen at the Key Club when she had a dancer named Mickey and her boyfriend at the time, Sean, doing visuals. I thought she was very interesting and we ended up becoming friends and for a few shows I stood behind her laptop and would start the songs, pretending to do something during them when in reality I was just standing there. I did a remix of her song “Catfood” in a sort of Fischerspooner style and I remember being really proud when I saw her perform it at the Parlour Club in West Hollywood, especially because this guy who I really didn’t like was there to see her and didn’t realize that I had done the music for that song. Anyway, then she became known as Skates and was briefly signed to a record contract and had gotten some good press and played at CMJ in New York and then after that she disappeared for awhile. She moved to Maine and was very under the radar. I recently ran into her at 7-11 and told her about my drumming, and at the time I thought Invisible Material might be over and I wanted to continue drumming, so I offered to drum for her.
Anyway we rehearsed her songs with my electronic drums and had a good visit. I love her dog, Akira.
After that I drove back home and got ready for the Invisible Material show at the Viper Room. I’ve never even been to the Viper Room before, but I’ve always wanted to play there. Once, Shitting Glitter was supposed to play there and we were very excited for it. But we booked the show through SEAN HEALY PRESENTS, who I would never recommend to ANY BAND or musician EVER because they’re a complete sham. In order to play at the Viper Room, they wanted us to first play at Lava Lounge, a tiny little venue that was hip for a minute in the 90’s but not by this time (it’s not even open anymore). They gave us tickets to sell for both shows and had a certain dollar amount that we were required to turn in for each show. Whenever we told people about the shows, EVERYONE wanted to buy Viper Room tickets but not Lava Lounge tickets. So, we played the Lava Lounge and turned in money that we had made from Viper Room tickets, thinking that we would just sell more tickets for that show and cover the pay-to-play requirement for that show also. Well, after we played at the Lava Lounge, they e-mailed us to say we didn’t have enough people at that show so they were cancelling our Viper Room show. So, we had to refund all the people that had bought tickets to that show with OUR OWN MONEY, which meant we lost the $200 or whatever it was that we PAID to play at the Lava Lounge. This was after our first show with Sean Healy where the person working for the company tried to make us go on early until I produced a copy of the CONTRACT that we signed showing what time we were really supposed to play. In addition, their stupid asses left the side door open and many of our cheap-ass fans ended up coming in through that door, avoiding paying the door charge, making it look like we had half the people who had actually shown up for us according to their door person. Ugh!!!
Anyway, Brandon and Angie came and picked us up (they had also picked up Jared) and we went and parked about a block away from the Viper Room. I only had to bring my snare drum, kick pedal, sticks, and cymbals I had borrowed from Myles. The folks that worked there were surprisingly friendly, and when we entered the bar we were shocked to find that it was PACKED - standing room only (and barely)! This was not what I was expecting!
After the band before us finished, the curtain closed and they loaded off, and then we loaded on. We got to sound check in private behind the curtain, and once we were ready, they introduced us and opened the curtain! It was all so professional and rock-star-ish!
The set went EXTREMELY well! My arm didn’t go numb for the first time ever, and I can honestly say it was probably the best I’ve ever drummed. Not to mention that the sound was amazing and my drums were mic’ed very well and I could hear them in my monitor and we all looked great, especially Angie who danced with us. Robin was in top form and everyone seemed to love us. People were dancing, and at one point, Robin said we had free CD’s and DVD’s which he laid down on the edge of the stage, prompting a mad rush by people grabbing them all up.
Brad, Alf, Mike and Rob were all there, as was Melissa (aka MQ) and it was so awesome of them to come support us. They were all in great spirits after the show and we hung out to watch the next band, which was a hard rock band with a female vocalist; they were really good too.
After the show, Brandon took my equipment with him so that Dylan and I could walk over to Red Rock to meet up with the guys and we had a couple drinks before we started walking towards home on Sunset Blvd. We live just a mile or two from Sunset Strip but hardly ever spend any time there. We had a blast taking photos in front of Mutato Musika (Devo’s studio) and the various guitar art pieces, finally stopping in at the diner in the Standard for a late night bite before heading home.
I used to sort of perform with Melissa (also aka MQ) back in maybe 2003 or 2004 when she was performing under the name MQ. I first saw her opening for Nina Hagen at the Key Club when she had a dancer named Mickey and her boyfriend at the time, Sean, doing visuals. I thought she was very interesting and we ended up becoming friends and for a few shows I stood behind her laptop and would start the songs, pretending to do something during them when in reality I was just standing there. I did a remix of her song “Catfood” in a sort of Fischerspooner style and I remember being really proud when I saw her perform it at the Parlour Club in West Hollywood, especially because this guy who I really didn’t like was there to see her and didn’t realize that I had done the music for that song. Anyway, then she became known as Skates and was briefly signed to a record contract and had gotten some good press and played at CMJ in New York and then after that she disappeared for awhile. She moved to Maine and was very under the radar. I recently ran into her at 7-11 and told her about my drumming, and at the time I thought Invisible Material might be over and I wanted to continue drumming, so I offered to drum for her.
Anyway we rehearsed her songs with my electronic drums and had a good visit. I love her dog, Akira.
After that I drove back home and got ready for the Invisible Material show at the Viper Room. I’ve never even been to the Viper Room before, but I’ve always wanted to play there. Once, Shitting Glitter was supposed to play there and we were very excited for it. But we booked the show through SEAN HEALY PRESENTS, who I would never recommend to ANY BAND or musician EVER because they’re a complete sham. In order to play at the Viper Room, they wanted us to first play at Lava Lounge, a tiny little venue that was hip for a minute in the 90’s but not by this time (it’s not even open anymore). They gave us tickets to sell for both shows and had a certain dollar amount that we were required to turn in for each show. Whenever we told people about the shows, EVERYONE wanted to buy Viper Room tickets but not Lava Lounge tickets. So, we played the Lava Lounge and turned in money that we had made from Viper Room tickets, thinking that we would just sell more tickets for that show and cover the pay-to-play requirement for that show also. Well, after we played at the Lava Lounge, they e-mailed us to say we didn’t have enough people at that show so they were cancelling our Viper Room show. So, we had to refund all the people that had bought tickets to that show with OUR OWN MONEY, which meant we lost the $200 or whatever it was that we PAID to play at the Lava Lounge. This was after our first show with Sean Healy where the person working for the company tried to make us go on early until I produced a copy of the CONTRACT that we signed showing what time we were really supposed to play. In addition, their stupid asses left the side door open and many of our cheap-ass fans ended up coming in through that door, avoiding paying the door charge, making it look like we had half the people who had actually shown up for us according to their door person. Ugh!!!
Anyway, Brandon and Angie came and picked us up (they had also picked up Jared) and we went and parked about a block away from the Viper Room. I only had to bring my snare drum, kick pedal, sticks, and cymbals I had borrowed from Myles. The folks that worked there were surprisingly friendly, and when we entered the bar we were shocked to find that it was PACKED - standing room only (and barely)! This was not what I was expecting!
After the band before us finished, the curtain closed and they loaded off, and then we loaded on. We got to sound check in private behind the curtain, and once we were ready, they introduced us and opened the curtain! It was all so professional and rock-star-ish!
The set went EXTREMELY well! My arm didn’t go numb for the first time ever, and I can honestly say it was probably the best I’ve ever drummed. Not to mention that the sound was amazing and my drums were mic’ed very well and I could hear them in my monitor and we all looked great, especially Angie who danced with us. Robin was in top form and everyone seemed to love us. People were dancing, and at one point, Robin said we had free CD’s and DVD’s which he laid down on the edge of the stage, prompting a mad rush by people grabbing them all up.
Brad, Alf, Mike and Rob were all there, as was Melissa (aka MQ) and it was so awesome of them to come support us. They were all in great spirits after the show and we hung out to watch the next band, which was a hard rock band with a female vocalist; they were really good too.
After the show, Brandon took my equipment with him so that Dylan and I could walk over to Red Rock to meet up with the guys and we had a couple drinks before we started walking towards home on Sunset Blvd. We live just a mile or two from Sunset Strip but hardly ever spend any time there. We had a blast taking photos in front of Mutato Musika (Devo’s studio) and the various guitar art pieces, finally stopping in at the diner in the Standard for a late night bite before heading home.
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