Monday, March 2, 2009

Hot-lanta?

At approximately 8:55am on Thursday, February 26, 3/4 of the squad left the tarmac of LAX in the dust. Some winks later we touched down on the runway of Atlanta International. It took a second to figure out the airport, but we got the hang of it and split up; Ham and I ran the luggage claim and G saw about a car. With that said and done we lugged our gear and merch towards the shuttle and claimed said car (along with its damages). By five, Ham and I found ourselves in the lobby of a lone barbershop in College Park, waiting for Gary's turn in the chair to be up. A fresh cut and a sketchy deal later we hit the nearest Waffle House to get our smother, cover, dice, top, pepper, cap, and chunk on. After some laughs we hit the bricks to the homie Champ's house. That night, while Champ was at Foundation practice, we hit Little 5 Points for some pizza and a short stroll down the boulevard. While walking to the spot, Ham made friends with a local punker who swore he knew him. He was bombarded with false "Remember when..." stories while Gary and I ordered slices and some brews. After a pitcher or so, we all went back to the house to crash out.
Late Friday morning we awoke to the sound of rain against the roof and window pane. We scraped the sleep from our eyes and journeyed to another smothered meal at Waffle House. Early that afternoon we checked in at the Renaissance hotel in downtown ATL and lounged in our rooms until Kellen flew in.

A view from the top:



We left downtown towards the airport to pick up Kellen. After we circled the arrivals loop for about 45 minutes he emerged from the doors and piled into the whip. Off to the gig...
A drive that should have taken eight turns proved perplexing when a dead-stopped train blocked our path a block from the venue. We circumnavigated the sleeping beast and snaked our way to the PS Warehouse, an actual warehouse tucked away in an industrial district. It was my third show filling in for Lee on vocals, but the first in quite some time and I wasn't sure how it was going to go. Somehow I managed to lose a shoe shortly after we started playing and of course nobody knew where it was. I spent the rest of the set soaking up sweat and warehouse grime with my right sock and keepin heads from stompin on my dudes' pedals. All in all it was a good time. Back at the hotel G, Kel and I raged the rooms while Ham punked around in the lobby. The Renaissance was getting heavier by the minute. I overheard that something like 80% of the maximum capacity for the the hotel was filled by bands in town for the Scion fest. it was crazy. I've never seen so many people dressed in all black in such a nice place. We returned to the 19th floor, turned our sink into an ice chest, and proceeded to rage in 1921 til morning.
The festival on Saturday was absolutely insane. About 5,500 people came out to the Masquerade and enjoyed the Scion Rock Fest. Aside from the great lineup, good food and a ton of beer made the festival a good time. The venue seemed like it would be pretty weird for any type of show other than a huge metal fest. We played a 1,000 capacity room called Heaven and as I looked out over the crowd I saw a few familiar faces and a lot of strangers. A group of 30-something metal heads, who later admitted unnecessarily that it was their first time seeing us, stood front and center and were obviously pessimistic as the first chords rung out. As the set moved along, this group grew increasingly more excited and towards the end they were feeling it. A lot of metal heads and thrashers were excited about the set, hopefully that means some wacky tours in the future. Andy Rice's new band, Storm of Light, was awesome. As were Neurosis, Baroness, Pig Destroyer, Mastodon, Skeletonwitch, Boris, Krallice, Toxic Holocaust and so many more. That night the lobby of the Renaissance teemed with beards, long hair, and black clothing until the free for all party ended at around three am. While this went on we partied in the rooms, once again fashioning an ice chest out of the sink.
On Sunday a freak storm hit Atlanta and all flights out were canceled. Only a few people were able to make their flights back home. Those of us who didn't remained in the hotel, unsure of when our flights would be able to be rescheduled. Some said Monday, others said Tuesday.

On Tuesday we hit the studio to finish mixing "East of Eden," a new single coming out soon on Trash Talk Collective. Keep your eyes on the blog for info on that and other stuff. We're gonna have some shirts in the web store soon so be on the look out for those too.

Peace
S

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