Our first gig

We still didn't have a demo for our band, but we definitely needed one. We had done a few crude recordings during jam sessions with a boom box, but the quality was horrendous and I would of felt terrible charging people money for it. We decided collectively as a band, that once the school year was complete, we would get down to business and record a proper demo, since we would all have a lot more free time.

However with the warm weather in the air, the social scene was starting to liven up and there were house parties popping up left, right & centre. One in particular we attended, was a party that a punker from Jerry's high school invited us too. When we got there it was a fairly smaller crowd, maybe 40-50 people, and we didn't know any of the people except for the guy who invited us. I had seen a lot of the people there around the scene however, but I just didn't personally know any of them.

As we sat around being anti social, drinking & smoking, we over heard the owner of the house say "I should of got some bands to play" No sooner than those fateful words escaped his mouth, I jumped up and proclaimed "We're a band! We'll play your party!" The next thing I knew we were all in Jerry's car heading to our rehearsal place (Ryan's House) to grab our instruments and load them in the "S.E." (our nickname for Jerry's K-car, it was a Special Edition)
We bolted back to the party in lightning time, and I felt like we were so important piling into the house with all of our gear. I think this was the first moment in my life that I actually felt somewhat like a quote unquote Rockstar.

Even though the night was still young, we set everything up and began to play. The crowd wasn't huge by any means, nor very attentive, but we couldn't of given two shits, we were just happy to be performing to an audience for our first time. By the time we were a few songs in, we had lost half the crowd but half of them remained, focused intently on us doing our thing. When we played "Spandex Enormity" I serenaded the biggest girl at the party, who I watched earlier in the night chug a Mickey of rum in one giant swig. I don't think she realized I was taking a jab at her. When I got to the line "You fucking fat bitch" the jig was up, and she quickly exited the basement.

A few songs later I watched her return to the basement, but she tripped on the top step and fell right to the concrete basement floor face first. We didn't even flinch or stop playing. As I belted out lyrics, I watched some concerned people scrape her off the floor, her forehead was swelled to the size of a grapefruit, they carted her off yet the show went on.

Eventually we ran out of songs to play but one die hard fan demanded more, so we busted out a few half assed cover songs we had been working on, most of which weren't even full songs. The rest of the people cleared out, but that one die hard remained, focused intently on us.

When everything was said and done the die hard gave us mad props. The way I saw it, even if we truly only touched one person at that party, we now had one more fan than we had before, and that alone in my eyes made everything worthwhile...