Low Profile live at the Lyons Den in Chicago
Friday December 12th
with Burnside Bridge, Shooting Blanks and the Cobs

Awesome fucking show. Actually, all day was pretty great.

I took off of work that day, slept late, went Christmas shopping, scored some good weed, ate down some Russells bbq, chilled and watched Blow and then picked up Lisa and headed to the show. Lisa and I were the first people there. I know, I'm a dork. Williams showed up a lil later with Jessica. Then all the other band folks showed up. We all chilled and chatted until it was time to set the stage up. I got our free drink tickets from the bartender and distributed them amongst my bandmates. 2 free drinks a piece. Pretty cool. We were up first. We did a soundcheck around 9. We played Boat Dreams From the Hill by Jawbreaker.

Earlier in the evening, I was chatting with Robin and Shaun about guitars and strings and stuff like that. I cursed myself by saying that I hardly ever break a string cuz I broke one during Outspoken. Luckily, I always bring a backup bass so I just ran over and grabbed my Nikki bass and got it set up to go. Dan was happy. He asked if I was gonna play that bass for the show and I said no but I ended up playing it anyways. So our set was:

Arnold Palmer and Katie Holmes
Outspoken
Think About It
Hate
Grudge
Figure It Out
Execution Style

We rocked out for sure besides for me wasting precious time with my broken string and fucked up input jack. Sorry people. I'll get that shit fixed right away. Both me and Williams jumped off stage and ran around using our wireless systems to the fullest. We got to record this show live so we'll probably have copies for some of u. Talk to the Bossman about it.
Bossman gave out a bunch of CDs and stickers. I gave out my last tshirt to a new fan who came with Cactus Matt and seemed to really dig us.

The Cobs were up next. They r 3 piece. They spend half the time on stage telling jokes and stories and trying to make u think or laugh. The songs they play r pretty funny. Some r strictly novelty but make u crack up. I really liked Your Brain is Made of Wood and Punch U In the Face. They really know how to entertain!!!!! Great guys all around. But were they on PCP???????
hahahahahahaha

Burnside Bridge were up next and it was truly their night. It was their CD release party. I got a free CD and bought a shirt from Josh. Great set all around guys. This was our 4th time playing with them and I like them a lil more each time we play or hang out with them. They covered Horror Business by the Misfits and Williams, me and Cactus Matt jumped onstage to sing along. Cactus Matt jumped on stage a few times to sing along. Their set was just.....great. We luv u guys!!!!

Shooting Blanks were up last. At this point, it was after 1 probably. They were all pretty drunk but they always rock. They played 2 new songs and covered Wish by Nine Inch Nails and Nikki (Kurt) ran up and sang their rendition of Home Sweet Home by Motley Crue. We had a great time watching, heckling and singing along.

I had a great night and I think everyone else did also. That show was a total success to me. Darius payed us $54.00 which was pretty awesome so we split that up right away. It covered some of the money we spent on drinks so that was good. They cut Shooting Blanks off and started kicking people out around 2am.

Alrighty, I'll end this with my thanks yous.

Thanks to Darius and Lisa for doing all the booking. Thanks to the soundman for letting us record from the soundbooth. Thanks to Burnside Bridge, Shooting Blanks and the Cobs. Thanks to my sister and Jean. Thanks to Jessica and Lisa for taking great pics. Thanks to Cactus Matt. Thanks to Nelson from FOTPunk. Thanks to Lynn who works Lyons Den for bringing me drinks all night. She went to my highschool and I haven't seen her since then so we shot the shit a lil about the old hs days. And thanks to anyone and everyone else who came out, paid attention and watched us. We appreciate it and had a blast. Hope u did too. Cya round.

-ERIK

2 Guiness pints
1 Bass Ale Pint
2 PBR longnecks
1 shot Jagermeister (with Brey and the girl he brought, more on her later)

I was hardly buzzed so I could have easily driven myself but whatever. I got there nice and early and we snagged a good parking spot. Loaded in -- Burnside Bridge and The Cobs showed up, then shortly after Shooting Blanks. Brey was going to be there late cause he was going to a Christmas party before hand.

I approched Mark the soundman and introduced myself. I explained that I knew they had a CD burner in the booth, and asked if they could record our set (which I knew them to have done before). I offered to provide the blank CD which I had brought and he said it was cool. I was glad to get that out of the way, since we were very eager to cop a live recording of the show many weeks in advnace.

We had been trying to get into the Lyons Den for a while. I maintain they have some of the best and loudest sound in the city. They have punk acts on Fridays thru a promotion called 'Punk Rock Night' which is a group of promoters that books for Fridays at Lyons Den in Chicago and Saturdays at some club in INdianapolis. The main dude is named Darius, who also is the CEO for Criminal IQ records. Criminal IQ has 4 bands on their roster: The Phenoms (seen em 3 times), MOTO (played with em once and saw em another time, and saw the guitarist at a random gig at the Lyons Den in a weird conincidence), the Functional Blackouts (just met one of the members online) and another band called Veedee which I'm sure is a great band but I know nothing about. The first time we played with MOTO at the Fireside months ago, I met Darius (although I didn't know his name, or that he had anything to do with Punk Rock Night at Lyons Den or Criminal IQ, and also another Criminal IQ guy named Jon. Jon later approached me at the gig since I had taken pics of MOTO for our site; he said he was there to photograph MOTO also and asked if I would share my pics with him, to which I readily agreed. I spoke to Darius only briefly at the show: Smear Campaign (we just met them that night too) were playing and Matt stripped naked and whatnot, and Darius came up to me in the bar randomly and was like 'That guy stripped his bloody clothes off!' or something crazy in a British accent, I guess hes from England. I was drunk and just laughed about it then.

Well I had seen a few gigs at Lyons Den: the Powerknobs, Squared off the Mashers and the Phenoms (AWESOME show!!) and also Johnny Vomit (got their live recording and its FLAWLESS!!!). Another part of Punk Rock Night is that Darius or the organization in general hires 'MCs' to introduce the bands at what not. Well they had this cunt bitch named 'Madame M' or some shit as an MC and Hilger got the idea that she was the promoter (she wasnt, just a lousy MC and this is information Darius gave me myself). She acted like she was the iron fist ruling Punk Rock Night and deciding who gets to play, and even after Hilger gushed on and on about us and gave her numerous CDs, she wouldnt return phone calls or emails or anything. Well I guess Lisa (Hilgers girlfriend) did some investigative work on the Lyons Den site. She must have found the link to www.punkrocknight.com. On that site is Darius direct email and she just emailed him and told him the story and he threw us on the bill with a bunch of our friends. Not only am I extremely greatful to Darius for listening to what went down and giving us the gig (thru a non-band member at that!) but also for putting us with great friends Burnside Bridge and Shooting Blanks (although he probably didnt know we knew them, he was just throwing us in). Thank you very much Darius and also Lisa. When Darius finally approached me at the show, I immediatley remembered him from the Fireside. He explained that he runs Criminal IQ and also Punk Rock Night and I was floored. He was super kind and giving us all kinds of props, giving my gutiar props, giving Robs drums props, giving our music props....super nice guy. I gave him a CD and thanked him profuesly as I am doing now.

Well Mark set up the mics and set levels real quick, then even let us do a sound check song. We opted for 'Boat Dreams from the Hill' by Jawbreaker. I wish I could get a soundcheck song at every gig, it helps me warm up so much. My voice was doing all kinds of weird shit for like the first :45 seconds of the song, then it felt some loose and I sang the rest very naturally and I was happy with my throat. The PA and monitors were so clean on the vocals that I had really good control over my voice and was able to do all types of fun shit all night long. After that I tuned my other gutiar (just in case) and tried to chill for the 45 minutes until we were set to go on.

I talked with the Cobs for a while. When I went to check out their site before the gig (I knew nothing about them, although I later found out theyve gigged with Burnside Brige many times), I found a link to none other then www.40ozmaltliquor.com run by my boy Bruz (check out the site!!!). Also for the bassist Keith's bio, I found that he likes to 'drink any malt liquor'. I dropped them an email and he responded and agreed that we would definately talk shop on malts at the gig. Well we did -- he asked about Camo Silver Ice, the newest, strongest American 40 @ 9% and also how he had found a 40 of City Slicker in Naperville (a rare score indeed!). HE also told me how him and their gutiarist Mike had gotten drunk and eaten dog food the night before, and how now they had the shits. They asked me for my expertise and I agreed that the medication they had on hand (Immodium) would definately do the trick on curbing the massive shit attack pouring from their asspipes.

Well we eventually took the stage. We opened with 'Arnold Palmer and Katie Holmes'. I regard this as one of our best songs and possibly my all time masterpiece of song writing. We would play it constatnly live except that it contains a very difficult jazz type of insturmental break that is very confusing and easy to get lost in (I have live once before and then we didnt play it for months until this gig). We rehersed the hell out of it in advance and we hammered it perfectly at the gig. The confusing break is based on 2 figures (well call them A and B), each with its corresponding accent.

x4 A
X4 A Accents
X4 B
x4 B accents

x2 A
x1 B
x1 A
x2 B

x2 A
x1 B
x4 accents B
x1 A
x2 accents A
x2 B

x4 accents A
x4 accents B

and all of that takes less then a minute of the song. Well we pulled that off without a stop and then went into the 1st track on our first album '15 Story Fireball' called 'Outspoken'. We hadn't played this live maybe since like 1999, but we reheresed it plenty in advance. I had no worries about getting lost in this one. We were approaching the 3rd verse and I was thinking ahead of what the next lyrics were when I heard the bass drop out. Hilger had broken a string. Broken strings are basically unpreventable, but that bass (Ernie Ball Musicman, no less) seems to break strings easily. I cannot figure out why but this may be time for Hilger to have it serviced by a professional. I looked at Rob while I was singing and playing to see if he wanted to stop the song (we were already near 2 minutes in probably) and we decided to play thru it. Hilger grabbed his 2nd bass and transferred the strap and jumped back in probably in about 45 seconds. Only problem now is that the passive electronics of the Nikki Sixx Gibson Blackbird bass (nice as it is) has a much lower output then the active elecronics of the Ernie Ball. So the bass was a little quiet. No matter -- we finished that track. A while later we played 'Hate', and during the end of the song I thrashed my head into my own mic which I've never done before. It hurt a bit but I'm not sure if anyone noticed. We ended up having to cut 2 songs from our set for time constraints. I don't mind and understand the grand scheme of the show, but the other bands played very long sets it seems, while from our recording I estimate our set at like 29 or 30 minutes, which I construe as serious nitpicking. But I'll let it go. We ended up closing with our third to last song 'Execution Style', and into the lead break at the end I jumped off the stage (wireless system baby) and played the solo in the crowd. It was pretty awesome.

AFter that I went back to the bar and pounded some more water. Then I ordered a Bass (which later ran out, so I switched to Guiness). Some chick named Trish came up to me and I must say she was a little bit of a bitch. I don't even know her and she just walked up to me and asked if she could use my phone. Plus she said that she didnt' even see my band. I told her she could, but that I would have to call the person myself and talk to them for a minute. I wanted to do that just to piss her off and amuse myself. The person didn't answer but then he walked in as we were standing there. His name is Jonathan and his number is 773 685 0089. Call him and harass him. He walked in and we made some stupid conversation then Trish told him that he missed the first band. Jonathan remarked that 'the first band usually has no talent'. Which proves he knows nothing about music. Slots are often chosen completely at random. Fuck them both. If they were a friend of someone I do know, no offense, but they were both out of hand.

The Cobs played next and they were crazy. They are a 3piece and their bassist sings. He was wasting a lot of time talking to the crowd and telling jokes which was very amusing. Then they would play a song that was like 20 seconds long. They played one song called 'Cash Money' (those are the only lyrics) and me, Josh and Corey from Burnside Bridge all jumped up their at Keiths request to sing along. Now Josh and Corey only knew the song since they had played with the Cobs before -- but I'm such a good musician myself I was able to 'wing it' and figure out the song as it played. And I was assisted by the band running through the 10 second jam once to acquaint the crowd with it before they actually 'played it'. They also played a crazy thrashing song where they called their friend from a band called the Dirtbikes up on stage to sing it. That guy and me later discussed Humboldt Park, as he grew up there and I work there often. Nice fella.

I've gone back and read their lyrics and they are hilarious. Me, Mike and Cactus Matt had a long talk about the Melvins, Nirvana and old school punk bands like Flipper (although I opted out of that one since I know nothing about those old bands).

After the Cobs set, me and Mike were chillin and eventually figured we should go check out Burnside although we were so relaxed in our booth up front. They rocked out and covered 'Horror Business' with Robin on vocals (a very nice twist) and me, Hilger and Cactus Matt all came up to sing along. I bought their CD and a shirt (cant wait to rock that at a show) and the CD was worth the wait. The engineering sounds great as do the songs.

Shooting Blanks took the stage last and this was the first time I got to see them with Deech back. 'Simple Song' gave me the chills hardcore. Maybe I had had just enough alcohol but I was enjoying myself so much when they played, I wish they could have played all night. Don't buy into Matt and the rest of his bands self-depreciation; they rock out time and time again even when hammered. 'Payback' was awesome with Scott from Ratbag Hero up front with me singing along. They did their awesome cover of 'Home Sweet Home' again and Nikki from the Mutiny, who was there as MC and sang along with Matt on the song when Shooting Blanks and Low Profile played the Mutiny earlier this year, sang along again. Cactus Matt jumped up there with him as well.

It was great to see Deech again and I must admit I suddely became verklempt and a little bittersweet at thinking of the blast I had with those guys this summer filling in for Deech. What a great band they are. Good luck on your upcoming tour guys!

Brey was wasted when he showed up at the gig late into the night. He had been at some Christmas party with a chick he used to date named Janelle (I think?!?!) who was looking real hot in a nice black dress. So many people came up to me asking if I seen her tits which I definately did. When Shooting Blanks was playing, this chick was standing next to me so I just fired off the camera at her tits at close range. She objected but not much, and I didn't give a fuck anyways. Brey was shitfaced at the bar and I bought a round of shots. When he was up there he was tanked but still played well. Except in 'Simple Song' he started out playing it a half step off which was hilarious, till he looked at Matt's gutiar and fixed it. Thats the best kind of drunken fuck up.

It was freezing out, eventually I got home and unloaded my ton of shit. The live recording came out pretty good, check it out. Thanx to Amber for coming, also Scott from Ratbag Hero, Sid and Cactus Matt and Hoser from Squared Off.

--satan165