Sixteen Candles and a Bottle of Rum

The show at the Good Hurt last night was really amazing. I mean, we played pretty well, I think, but who cares about that. I was really pleasantly surprised to see so many friends there on a school night. If you couldn't be there, Gerit drew a picture that, I think, captures the true essence of the evening . There are so many really good, sitcom-worthy stories that unfolded there too, but not all of them are mine to tell.

Amanda took these nifty pictures.


I'm torn between the desire to make us sound more successful and jaded than we really are and the urge to relay the weird discomfort of last night, but I can't resist the latter.

We were completely, 100% out of place on the bill. The first band, specifically, was way more, "Wheedle-ee, wheedle-ee," and "Metal" or whatever than we were. I'll say, unreservedly, that they were the absolute polar opposite of us. There's no way anyone could come up with a better example of different-than-The-Gold-State if they tried.


The guys all had really long hair and they all kept whipping the hair back and forth in unison, and they all had amps that were taller than them. The singer kept yelling "Masculine" things like, "Our songs are about smokin' weed and eatin' pu$$y! Whoo!" Their rather sizeable crowd seemed kind of like--and I say this merely out of an effort to be descriptive--a bunch of, um, "Rednecks." We figured we were going to get beaten up as soon as Brian took his jacket off and revealed his Morrissey t-shirt.


Of course we're watching this, and realizing that these people aren't going to like us, and just as I'm becoming comfortable with this idea and relishing it, the singer announces their final song, and prefaces it with some half-baked tirade about how, "Pop music," is , like, the worst thing in the universe or something, and then...THEN...they launch into the song which is actually entitled something to that effect, and I just turned to our little group in total incredulity. That's what you would've done.


As we were setting up, I crossed paths with the bassist from the first band, and I said, "That kicked ass," to which he responded, "Thanks. Good times."

So, we just got up there and played it as straight as we could.

That's what you would have done.