some random tour pics

[johnspeck]

turns out, james from against me is a big guitar geek, too. he and tom came in to check out the racket and we talked 'gear'. (how fricking lame that sounds!)




here's a cool pic of against me coming off stage immediately following. we were on the side of the stage, and it was a great gig, judging from the looks on everybody's faces. up front, we have jordan the tour manager with andrew; warren the drummer is behind them, tony and i are alongside him, i remember making a joke about his 'pipes', as he's wearing a wifebeater tshirt, which he only did for the shows. rich is behind us, with a big 'great show' grin.




from stage left, against me. cool stuff in james' rack!




tony and james talking smack and having a heated foosball match. against me brought their own table. tony and i used to play in a winter bar league, so we were down to take it to them. we did alright, but they owned that thing!




the mighty foos get the job done!





all shots, i might add, are courtesy and copyright of mr david dominic, etc., etc...

[johnspeck]

best pic ever; our soundman, mr bill kozy, sometime guitarist in great local rock&roll band speedball, fulltime front-of-house for cheap trick, part-time rocket scientist.

here, he's sleeping off a hangover during the foos soundcheck. it was LOUD, and he's snoring away. totally sums bill up!

[Smakutus]

Cool stuff John...

Jeff

[fuzz_factor]

Great stories and photos; thanks.

Sorry if I missed something, but what's your band?

[Smakutus]

Originally Posted by fuzz_factor

Great stories and photos; thanks.

Sorry if I missed something, but what's your band?

John plays guitar and sings in the band Hifi Handgrenades:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm...ndID=153445998

Jeff

[dkaplowitz]

Cool photos! Thanks for posting.

[M@tt C]

Sweet!

Thanks for sharing your "behind the scenes" pics and stories. Good stuff!

[ericb]

Originally Posted by Smakutus

John plays guitar and sings in the band Hifi Handgrenades:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm...ndID=153445998

Jeff

AND NEVER talks it up on this forum ,but man are they a killer band!! Toured with the Foo Fighters this past year and did loads of great shows! Eric

[johnspeck]

Originally Posted by ericb

AND NEVER talks it up on this forum ,but man are they a killer band!! Toured with the Foo Fighters this past year and did loads of great shows! Eric

thanks for the kind words! actually, the band is kinda languishing now. we went broke overseas, and just burned out.
it was really cool while it lasted, but there wasn't any money to be made, and we couldn't continue to tour without.

didn't help, we were intentionally trying to ape the sound of some of our punk influences from our teenage years, ala descendents, dagnasty, replacements... kids don't care about that, they can listen to the real thing if they want.

we played to a lot of disinterested kids on warped tour and overseas. no eyeliner, no emo, no relate... got some awesomely bad press, too. it used to bum me out, but now i actually laugh when i read a doozy.

here's a good one:
Carry On is the 2008 release by US band HiFi Handgrenades, however when the band were deciding a name they may as well just used ‘Generic Punk Rock Band’ . There is nothing innovative, unique or mildly original on this record. In fact, I have the sneaking suspicion that HiFi Handgrenades have only recorded one track in the studio, then layered vocals on the same song ten times and gave it ten different names.

Musically, this album is dull and lifeless. Even by punk rock’s boring and repetitious standard, Carry On doesn’t even try. I have no idea what the band was thinking when they wrote these songs. Surely, at least two different riffs, some vocals that hold some kind of purpose and some goddamn emotion wouldn’t go astray. I thought I would never have the opportunity to say this, but guys, use emo as your role model. See how those little emo bands get so into their songs, by dressing up and actually caring about stuff. If you had a single ounce of their childish and retarded passion for music you would have made an album worthy of listening to and not this boring shit that I am hearing now. Yes, I compared you to emo and emo won.

For starters, you can all obviously pick up an instrument and play something in time and rhythm with other people holding instruments. My advice is to move on from this and start making music you actually care about, and people will notice, and your music will be – gasp – good!

I really don’t know what else to say. This is an atrocious album, even with the lowest of bars set by the best selling punk rock bands. The record is nothing but generic punk rock … and it even doesn’t do that well. I want my 22.8 minutes back.

now, i work as a guitar tech. it's nice to actually be able to pay bills while still working in something related to music. no plans to tour with my bands anytime soon.
i'm doing a big session next week, laying down some guitar tracks. who knows, maybe next summer, you'll hear some of my hack playing on a radio near you?!

[90wreck]

Awesome John.
Wish I had enough time/nerve to snap some pics.
To be honest, I think it would frowned upon as "Not doing my job".
Thanks for the pics and I am saving them on my HD!

[ericb]

Originally Posted by johnspeck

thanks for the kind words! actually, the band is kinda languishing now. we went broke overseas, and just burned out.
it was really cool while it lasted, but there wasn't any money to be made, and we couldn't continue to tour without.

didn't help, we were intentionally trying to ape the sound of some of our punk influences from our teenage years, ala descendents, dagnasty, replacements... kids don't care about that, they can listen to the real thing if they want.

we played to a lot of disinterested kids on warped tour and overseas. no eyeliner, no emo, no relate... got some awesomely bad press, too. it used to bum me out, but now i actually laugh when i read a doozy.

here's a good one:
Carry On is the 2008 release by US band HiFi Handgrenades, however when the band were deciding a name they may as well just used ‘Generic Punk Rock Band’ . There is nothing innovative, unique or mildly original on this record. In fact, I have the sneaking suspicion that HiFi Handgrenades have only recorded one track in the studio, then layered vocals on the same song ten times and gave it ten different names.

Musically, this album is dull and lifeless. Even by punk rock’s boring and repetitious standard, Carry On doesn’t even try. I have no idea what the band was thinking when they wrote these songs. Surely, at least two different riffs, some vocals that hold some kind of purpose and some goddamn emotion wouldn’t go astray. I thought I would never have the opportunity to say this, but guys, use emo as your role model. See how those little emo bands get so into their songs, by dressing up and actually caring about stuff. If you had a single ounce of their childish and retarded passion for music you would have made an album worthy of listening to and not this boring shit that I am hearing now. Yes, I compared you to emo and emo won.

For starters, you can all obviously pick up an instrument and play something in time and rhythm with other people holding instruments. My advice is to move on from this and start making music you actually care about, and people will notice, and your music will be – gasp – good!

I really don’t know what else to say. This is an atrocious album, even with the lowest of bars set by the best selling punk rock bands. The record is nothing but generic punk rock … and it even doesn’t do that well. I want my 22.8 minutes back.

now, i work as a guitar tech. it's nice to actually be able to pay bills while still working in something related to music. no plans to tour with my bands anytime soon.
i'm doing a big session next week, laying down some guitar tracks. who knows, maybe next summer, you'll hear some of my hack playing on a radio near you?!

Sounds like you're dealing with that ok , BUT dude , not everyone feels that way at all.. I haven't heard much of your music, but "Stupid" and "Smiling Judas" are classic great tunes, and I read all kinds of accts where people who saw you on the Foos tour thought you guys were great. Lots of people liked you guys better than "Against Me' too, and they can't stop playing "Against Me' on the radio here in Vermont... .

You guys check them out! :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNDezic03d4

I can understand not making money and it being hard to live doing the Warped Tour thing as there are SO MANY BANDS on that , but I would hope that you guys would 've done pretty well touring the US and Europe with the Foo Fighters? I'm sort of surprised and that sucks! But tis the nature of the game I guess... I made more money in cover bands than original bands and always thought that was 1 of life's biggest ironies.

Who do you guitar tech for now??

Eric

[johnspeck]

Originally Posted by ericb

Who do you guitar tech for now??

Eric

silversun pickups and dropkick murphys.

[ericb]

Originally Posted by johnspeck

silversun pickups and dropkick murphys.

Wow, both bands are damn popular. Hope you at least make some new great connections.

Rock on

Eric