TONE WORLD "NEWZ"
06/14/05
Live Notes, New 2nd Guitar Player Make His Live Debut.
For a band that didn't rehearse for a show, hasn't done a full length electric set in many years, and was debuting a surprise "new" 2nd guitar player, we were pretty f***ing good.
No one was more surprised at how good the set was than we were. As I'd explained in a past column, we couldn't get together to rehearse prior to the day of the gig. This was the very first small club appearance in a long time and we needed to fill up 45 some odd minutes. Seems we did a pretty good job based on the reactions of the guys in Happy Anarchy and the intimate crowd that was there. (It would have been nice if the club actually advertised us. You have the "ECW Band" playing the night after an ECW PPV, you think you'd want to let people know about it...)
Well, we did it, and showed no signs of "ring rust" as those wrestling folks like to say. We did all the tunes that we have played the last two years at "The Joey Ramone Birthday Bash" at Irving Plaza and pulled out a few surprises. We did an improvised mash-up of a bunch of our old ECW tunes. We played "Survive If I Let You.", "This Is Extreme!", "Huka Blues", and "The Stripper", all at the same time. (You had to be there.) We brought back an old Slashtones mash-up we call "La George" (ZZ Top meets the Jeffersons) and played the Dick Dale version of an old Greek tune called "Misirilou" (as heard in the movie 'Pulp Fiction' and on 'ECW Hardcore TV') and played it rather well considering we have never played that song together as a band!
As to the "new" 2nd guitar player, well, that would be me. I haven't played guitar on stage in a long, long, looooong time. Just to add to the band's current bizarre nature, I played an acoustic guitar during the ECW mash ups. Not something I plan to be doing full time as this band doesn't need a 2nd guitar player, but damn, it was a lot of fun.
I didn't get to see Dead South or Dirty Language perform, but Happy Anarchy kicked major ass with their set. If you haven't seen Happy Anarchy yet, you are doing yourself and your ears a disservice as they are, in my opinion, one of the best bands in NY right now.
Our set list, In case anyone's keeping track was:
Gilligan’s Wood
Stone Bunch
Immigrant Horse
ECW Themes
Welcome To The Family
Misirilou
La George
Rockin Gorilla
My Hillbillies
Next up is some recording time. We'll be announcing some more smaller club shows shortly. Everyone of us had too much fun and we won't be limiting The Slashtones' shows to major venues. "Sleazy Dirtbag Manager-in-training" Gabe Cynowicz has been given the green light to pimp us out to the highest bidders. Or the not so high bidders, as long as they supply us with beer so we can get high...
That's all for now, I'm off to see the wizard.
Regards,
Harry /