Tomorrow we have a show up in Everett at Tony V's with Astrovan. Usually on the eve prior to a show I'm really excited. Can't wait until the time comes to play... Especially since tomorrow we got a new song to be debuted (Taking My Anger Back). And the fact we're playing with Astrovan is an added bonus. Should be a good turn out of people. So why am I so apprehensive this time? Because I have freakin' cold. I know that I'm past the peak of it and I'm getting better. But there's always something in the back of your mind that says, "What if you're not better, what if you get worse?"
The funny thing is even if I do get worse or I'm not feeling 100% by tomorrow night, I'll still play and sing my guts out. Probably increasing my chances of passing or puking in the midst of the set. Just what has to be done.
I was so paranoid about this fact last night that I opted to make my own neti pot. For those who aren't familiar with the neti pot, I'll explain. It's a small tea pot looking thing, generally ceramic. The concept is that you fill it with salt water, lean your head over the sink looking to one side, jam the spout of this tea pot up your nose and dump. The water goes in one nostril and out the other cleaning out your sinuses. Some ancient Chinese holistic concept to help with colds, allergies and so on. The whole process is called neti lota.
I priced out some of these little pots at the holistic/hippy shops around my neighborhood. Stupid little pots are expensive. I thought to myself that I could make one of these that would be just as effective to see if this helps my cold at all. Just to clear things up really quick for all those folks out there who just say take some cold medicine of some sort and shut up. I don't like cold medicine. The daytime crap sends me into a shaky, panicy mess (No wonder they make meth out of it), the night time stuff actually keeps me awake. Generally speaking my usual cold remedy is an aspirin, beer and cigarettes. Cigarettes, oddly, being the greatest cough suppressants ever. But time is of the essence right now. I need to cut a day or so off some of these dumb cold symptoms. Some people say Zinc... BS! It doesn't do anything for you once you have a cold... Neither does Vitamin C or echnicia or chicken soup for that matter. All of these remedies suck! You're better off with a shot of whisky and a hot shower. Even WebMD says so... So it has to be right... Right?
Anyway, enough of that... On with this adventure. Back to the mini tea pot. I decided to build my own. I wandered around my house for awhile searching for something. Then it hit me... Here's what you need to make your own neti pot at home: 1 exacto knife, 1/2 regular drinking straw, 1 roll scotch tape, and an empty can... Mine turned out to be an empty PBR can... Go figure. Washed out the can... I didn't want a PBR nasal enema. Cut a small hole near the base. Inserted the straw at an upward angle. Taped it in place and filled in the gaps with tape to prevent to much leakage. I went on to make my salt mixture. Which on the internet said 1/4tsp per 8oz of water (again the interwebs said it so it has to be right... Right?). It burned... It sucked... Then I realized I was using iodized salt. Apparently this is a no-no. Every source said no iodized salt. Then I opted to just go with warm water. And I'll be dammed if it didn't help out. The sneezing stopped, I could breath... For a little while. Like a half an hour or so. Then the cold came raging right back with it's last round of pervasive snot. I hate colds....
Well, no matter what happens sick or healthy... Tony V's tomorrow is going to be awesome! I guarantee it!
WCG - Adam
Friday, February 25, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
In the beginning...
I decide to go ahead and start this here little blog because, well, I think everyone else has one and the peer pressure has started getting to me. Plus I often have free time on my hands and other outlets have restrictions on the length of what you can type. I set it up to be an outlet for news about the world of WCG as we tread through the waters of being an indie rock band. This will give you the insight for 4 guys who really like making music and wish we could make enough at it to pay our bills... The reality of that however, is very slim. So what keeps us trying after so many years? If you play music you already know. If you don't it's for the shear love of doing it. The feeling of playing a good live set, that you've put everything you have into it. Even though often times you feel exhausted, sore and just all in all ravaged afterward. If people enjoyed what you put out there and had a good time, there's nothing like it. It's also about that sense of accomplishment when you head to the recording studio and start laying the tracks for what you've written and realizing it's coming to fruition as the mix evolves and becomes what you always hoped it could. It's about writing that new song and realizing your own song is stuck in your head... All that and so much more.
I suppose for those of you who don't know us, I should go through the introductions... I'll start with myself. I'm Adam... I'm the singer and guitarist for WCG. Been at this music thing for a really long time. Playing in a multitude of bands. Some good, some god awful. I started out at it while in junior high. So I was roughly13 or 14 years old. Somewhere there abouts. I got my first guitar from my aunt. She had gotten it when she was in high school. It was some Sears special model and looked a little like a Fender Jag. It had an amp that came with that's speaker was a 6x9, which for all you out there that aren't guitar dorks, is a really weird size for a guitar amp. It didn't have any distortion or anything. Which was fine because I didn't really understand how that actually worked yet anyway. But it did have a vibrato setting which was really cool when I first figured out how to play the intro to Sanitarium by Metallica.
As I started to figure out a little more about guitars I saved up my duckets from my paper route and bought myself a Polaris guitar with a bitchin' red black cracked paint job... In all honesty I know I only bought for the paint job. I also outfitted myself with Peavy Rage amp... I was ready to rock. I hooked up with some other kids from school who sucked as equally bad as I and we formed a band. We had many names... I remember Wasted Time and GSS (which stood for Giant Shirtless Santa)... We didn't really know how to write or play, but we managed to come up with a few songs and take a crack at a cover of London Dungeons by the Misfits. We played one show at our junior high in the gym. We were laughed at... I then decided that maybe lessons wouldn't be such a bad idea.
I started taking lessons from a great guitarist named Tim Lerch who would begrudgingly teach me rock songs, but was very heavy handed about instilling the blues into me. So he would set aside some time at the end of each lesson to teach me whatever my favorite song happen to be that week... Cowboys From Hell by Pantera was one that I remember being the trickiest.
Anyway, during this time me some other friends formed another band with the ever so clever name Eargasm... We were short a drummer however. That's where Doug (The drummer for WCG) comes into play. He was introduced to us though a friend of a friend. We recorded some songs. I still have the reel to reel of it, but I don't really remember any of the songs other than Little Bunny Foo Foo. I don't have a multi track 1/2 inch reel player to listen to it again. We played one show that I recall a show that was actually really ground braking, but no one knows this. It was, in fact, the very first show at the Redmond YMCA, or the Old Firehouse as it's called now. It was for some one's birthday. They rented it out. I still have the flyer. Eargasm, Bill Grogen's Goat and Riki Tiki Tavi. There was no stage, we played on the floor.
As Eargasm that show was our last gasp. Shortly there after we parted ways with our singer. We went on to form I Fergit. Which also played the first city sanctioned show at the Redmond YMCA. We had a long legacy as I Fergit, even if we did stink at the time. We got better as time went on. Then I was given the boot out of the band... As I Fergit went on to become Evil Twin. I went off on my own and met up with another couple of guys that I had known for awhile, one of which being Wes (WCG Guitarist, but at the time Wes played bass). We went on to form Damnit Jim. Which could only be described as prog rock. We put way too much thought into it. It wasn't bad, but we were trying too hard to make it complicated. This was my first foray into the world of singing, although I shared the duties with Wes. Damnit Jim recorded one album called "I Told You Not To Touch Me There." We were going to have it mastered by a fella who ran his own indie label. He happen to like our music enough to sign us to a development deal. Big mistake! At the time we were way to volatile. We played one show at the Crocodile on an off night, I'll be honest I don't remember much from the show. We may have played good, but it was a long time ago. Well, shortly after that I ran into Doug again and we made amends from the past. Wes and I had the idea to move our existing drummer up to lead vocals and bring in Doug on drums. In theory it was a good idea our existing drummer was a better singer than drummer and Doug was a better drummer. We started writing new stuff a little simpler and heavier. Come to find his voice was a terrible fit. We had to let him go. A move we tried to do gently, but it's never gentle enough. We never spoke again. And in the end with that move, we owed money to the record label and had nothing to show for it.
So now as a three piece Doug, Wes and I formed Slop Shot. We tootled around town for several years. Making our biggest impacts on the outlying areas of the city, Everett, Stanwood and so on. We played a lot of shows in a lot of different areas. Then Doug found work in Las Vegas and Wes and I were fighting like two fat dejected prom dates squabbling over the last quart of rocky road ice cream. So instead of searching for a new drummer we called it quits.
Time went by, Doug did his thing down in Vegas. Wes, I know, was toying around with his own ideas and collaborating with other people while testing out his drum chops. I was trying out for varying bands. Time went by and Doug moved back up here. He formed Guns of Nevada. Wes and I later met up at a wedding and buried the hatchet there. A few weeks passed and one drunken evening I, gave Wes and Doug a call about maybe doing a reunion.
After several years off Slop Shot was back. But it wasn't the same. We were different. We played a couple shows and something felt off. We started writing again and it was darker, heavier and more riff rock oriented than it was before. It just different than the drinking and driving kind of feel Slop Shot had. So we opted to retool a bit. Wes decided since he always played bass like a guitarist, he would move over to guitar. Now we were short a bassist, we tried out a couple guys. We had fill ins come in to help us while we wrote new stuff. But nothing was the right mix. We were also in a naming crisis. We couldn't go by Slop Shot anymore. Lists upon lists were emailed back and forth. Some where funny, some were terrible, some were good, but we all agreed it had to be unanimous. White City Graves was one that was among the first round of names. I'll admit, I wasn't sold on it initially. I thought it sounded like a Body Count album title. But as the naming arguments continued Doug and Wes finally warmed me up to the idea. So White City Graves was born, but still sans bassist.
One day I went to post an ad for a bassist on Craigs List and I came across a post that said... "A pretty good bassist looking for a rock band." The ad finished out with, "I have a job and a dog and I don't have a beard." It was a strange enough ad that I had to respond. Little did I know the response was going to come from a fella with a great rock name like Lee Rude. Lee came out for a try out. It didn't even take the whole practice for us to all agree that Lee was our guy. Hell, the guy showed up to the try out wearing a hat that resembled a bat. He got into what we were writing, he picked it up quick and started adding his own flare and just all around awesomeness to it. We found the final piece of the puzzle. A guy that's a seasoned Seattle rock veteran playing with Chelsea Speed Party and Lee Rude and the Trainwrecks.
So that brings up to the recent. We have recorded 4 songs. We've released the demo version of one, "Let The Devil On In." We have even decided what to call our fun, new, macabre genre... Horror Core. Catchy ain't it? Off the demo version of Devil alone we have inked a deal with Cinderella Records. Got a bit of radio play. Lined up shows to keep us busy all over the northwest. The 4 song EP will be done soon. It will have the final version of Let The Devil On In. It will also have the songs Prophet, Blood Sweat and Gears and Skeletons.
So that's us... As time goes on I will regularly, or try as regularly as I can, to keep updates coming. It won't always be WCG related stuff though. I'm sure I'll get a bug up my butt from time to time and post other things here too. Like how to make really good chicken cordon bleu or what I thought of the movie Ice Pirates or how Bank of America yet again screwed me out of my money. Whatever... I may even have a life lesson in there somewhere... You never know... Because I am very wise... Doug's apparently a point shy of being a genius... Lee's a little nuts... And Wes... Well, Wes is quite the charming fellow. For all the other stuff like show dates and releases and junk just follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Reverbnation, Mysapce whatever...
That's enough for one day...
WCG - Adam
I suppose for those of you who don't know us, I should go through the introductions... I'll start with myself. I'm Adam... I'm the singer and guitarist for WCG. Been at this music thing for a really long time. Playing in a multitude of bands. Some good, some god awful. I started out at it while in junior high. So I was roughly13 or 14 years old. Somewhere there abouts. I got my first guitar from my aunt. She had gotten it when she was in high school. It was some Sears special model and looked a little like a Fender Jag. It had an amp that came with that's speaker was a 6x9, which for all you out there that aren't guitar dorks, is a really weird size for a guitar amp. It didn't have any distortion or anything. Which was fine because I didn't really understand how that actually worked yet anyway. But it did have a vibrato setting which was really cool when I first figured out how to play the intro to Sanitarium by Metallica.
As I started to figure out a little more about guitars I saved up my duckets from my paper route and bought myself a Polaris guitar with a bitchin' red black cracked paint job... In all honesty I know I only bought for the paint job. I also outfitted myself with Peavy Rage amp... I was ready to rock. I hooked up with some other kids from school who sucked as equally bad as I and we formed a band. We had many names... I remember Wasted Time and GSS (which stood for Giant Shirtless Santa)... We didn't really know how to write or play, but we managed to come up with a few songs and take a crack at a cover of London Dungeons by the Misfits. We played one show at our junior high in the gym. We were laughed at... I then decided that maybe lessons wouldn't be such a bad idea.
I started taking lessons from a great guitarist named Tim Lerch who would begrudgingly teach me rock songs, but was very heavy handed about instilling the blues into me. So he would set aside some time at the end of each lesson to teach me whatever my favorite song happen to be that week... Cowboys From Hell by Pantera was one that I remember being the trickiest.
Anyway, during this time me some other friends formed another band with the ever so clever name Eargasm... We were short a drummer however. That's where Doug (The drummer for WCG) comes into play. He was introduced to us though a friend of a friend. We recorded some songs. I still have the reel to reel of it, but I don't really remember any of the songs other than Little Bunny Foo Foo. I don't have a multi track 1/2 inch reel player to listen to it again. We played one show that I recall a show that was actually really ground braking, but no one knows this. It was, in fact, the very first show at the Redmond YMCA, or the Old Firehouse as it's called now. It was for some one's birthday. They rented it out. I still have the flyer. Eargasm, Bill Grogen's Goat and Riki Tiki Tavi. There was no stage, we played on the floor.
As Eargasm that show was our last gasp. Shortly there after we parted ways with our singer. We went on to form I Fergit. Which also played the first city sanctioned show at the Redmond YMCA. We had a long legacy as I Fergit, even if we did stink at the time. We got better as time went on. Then I was given the boot out of the band... As I Fergit went on to become Evil Twin. I went off on my own and met up with another couple of guys that I had known for awhile, one of which being Wes (WCG Guitarist, but at the time Wes played bass). We went on to form Damnit Jim. Which could only be described as prog rock. We put way too much thought into it. It wasn't bad, but we were trying too hard to make it complicated. This was my first foray into the world of singing, although I shared the duties with Wes. Damnit Jim recorded one album called "I Told You Not To Touch Me There." We were going to have it mastered by a fella who ran his own indie label. He happen to like our music enough to sign us to a development deal. Big mistake! At the time we were way to volatile. We played one show at the Crocodile on an off night, I'll be honest I don't remember much from the show. We may have played good, but it was a long time ago. Well, shortly after that I ran into Doug again and we made amends from the past. Wes and I had the idea to move our existing drummer up to lead vocals and bring in Doug on drums. In theory it was a good idea our existing drummer was a better singer than drummer and Doug was a better drummer. We started writing new stuff a little simpler and heavier. Come to find his voice was a terrible fit. We had to let him go. A move we tried to do gently, but it's never gentle enough. We never spoke again. And in the end with that move, we owed money to the record label and had nothing to show for it.
So now as a three piece Doug, Wes and I formed Slop Shot. We tootled around town for several years. Making our biggest impacts on the outlying areas of the city, Everett, Stanwood and so on. We played a lot of shows in a lot of different areas. Then Doug found work in Las Vegas and Wes and I were fighting like two fat dejected prom dates squabbling over the last quart of rocky road ice cream. So instead of searching for a new drummer we called it quits.
Time went by, Doug did his thing down in Vegas. Wes, I know, was toying around with his own ideas and collaborating with other people while testing out his drum chops. I was trying out for varying bands. Time went by and Doug moved back up here. He formed Guns of Nevada. Wes and I later met up at a wedding and buried the hatchet there. A few weeks passed and one drunken evening I, gave Wes and Doug a call about maybe doing a reunion.
After several years off Slop Shot was back. But it wasn't the same. We were different. We played a couple shows and something felt off. We started writing again and it was darker, heavier and more riff rock oriented than it was before. It just different than the drinking and driving kind of feel Slop Shot had. So we opted to retool a bit. Wes decided since he always played bass like a guitarist, he would move over to guitar. Now we were short a bassist, we tried out a couple guys. We had fill ins come in to help us while we wrote new stuff. But nothing was the right mix. We were also in a naming crisis. We couldn't go by Slop Shot anymore. Lists upon lists were emailed back and forth. Some where funny, some were terrible, some were good, but we all agreed it had to be unanimous. White City Graves was one that was among the first round of names. I'll admit, I wasn't sold on it initially. I thought it sounded like a Body Count album title. But as the naming arguments continued Doug and Wes finally warmed me up to the idea. So White City Graves was born, but still sans bassist.
One day I went to post an ad for a bassist on Craigs List and I came across a post that said... "A pretty good bassist looking for a rock band." The ad finished out with, "I have a job and a dog and I don't have a beard." It was a strange enough ad that I had to respond. Little did I know the response was going to come from a fella with a great rock name like Lee Rude. Lee came out for a try out. It didn't even take the whole practice for us to all agree that Lee was our guy. Hell, the guy showed up to the try out wearing a hat that resembled a bat. He got into what we were writing, he picked it up quick and started adding his own flare and just all around awesomeness to it. We found the final piece of the puzzle. A guy that's a seasoned Seattle rock veteran playing with Chelsea Speed Party and Lee Rude and the Trainwrecks.
So that brings up to the recent. We have recorded 4 songs. We've released the demo version of one, "Let The Devil On In." We have even decided what to call our fun, new, macabre genre... Horror Core. Catchy ain't it? Off the demo version of Devil alone we have inked a deal with Cinderella Records. Got a bit of radio play. Lined up shows to keep us busy all over the northwest. The 4 song EP will be done soon. It will have the final version of Let The Devil On In. It will also have the songs Prophet, Blood Sweat and Gears and Skeletons.
So that's us... As time goes on I will regularly, or try as regularly as I can, to keep updates coming. It won't always be WCG related stuff though. I'm sure I'll get a bug up my butt from time to time and post other things here too. Like how to make really good chicken cordon bleu or what I thought of the movie Ice Pirates or how Bank of America yet again screwed me out of my money. Whatever... I may even have a life lesson in there somewhere... You never know... Because I am very wise... Doug's apparently a point shy of being a genius... Lee's a little nuts... And Wes... Well, Wes is quite the charming fellow. For all the other stuff like show dates and releases and junk just follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Reverbnation, Mysapce whatever...
That's enough for one day...
WCG - Adam
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