Thursday, September 1, 2011

The End of Summer Blues

Man, I always feel like I lost something when the end of summer rolls around. The weather is still nice but one can feel the slightly cold nip in the air, creeping in, day by day. We only get to live through so many summers as humans, and every time another summer is over I feel that much closer to death. C'est la vie!
 We the Underlings played two separate sets at Eugene Celebration last weekend. We had a blast. Friday night, we jammed at Luckeys in the early-ish 8pm slot. The opening band was called John Craig and the Weekend and they were pretty swell. Very pop they were, with a Bass/Keys/Drums + computer noise + male/female vocal interplay. It was obvious that the fella John Craig was a mighty bassist. HE threw down with a technically satisfying bass solo over his computer/drummer groove and it was fucking killer. The band reminded me somewhat of the SF band the Lovemakers, who used to tour around these parts from time-to-time. After the first band, we were entertained by the gentle removal of a tweeked-out, amped-up individual who had been verbally freaking out patrons at the establishment. Kudos to the bar-staff for getting rid of troubled folks without resorting to violence. The Underlings (us) played a decent set and tor it up pretty well to a receptive crowd. Attendance was not as dense as last year, but we still rocked our balls and folks seemed to dig it, so we were pleased. The next day, Saturday, we kicked it down at the Eugene Celebration Eugene Weekly stage and watched Tyler Fortier and his band perform their very popular local songwriter-folk-rock to a crowd that was really liking it. They seemed to be just about right for the mainstay Eugene music crowd - something that would go over well at the Saturday market or at an open-air summer gig. Up next , it was US again, rockin' balls and sweatin' tons in the heat. Dan Jones came up and played I remember the Fuzz and Vice Squad with us and it was nice to have his sonic textures floating over the top of our ROCK. We finished strong and then got the hell off the stage so that the Golden Motors could get set up, which they did and they rocked it too and had some heavy, slow numbers with a lot of feel to 'em. I manned the merch table while my kids crawled all over our t-shirts and cds. I tried to keep them away from the 7" records because kids and records do not mix.. Here's a pic of us taken by Mr. Random: (peace out! -Ed)