Looks like Rocktober for Krashpad

[Brian Krashpad]

CRASH PAD: returns to the boards Oct. 14 at Backstage Lounge after a yearlong hiatus

Praise Band: 5 Sunday services, 1 church women's group meeting, 1 possible benefit for India missions

Pedagogy: 1 church Oktoberfest, 1 possible benefit for India missions, 1 probable benefit for owner of local venue (also a church member) with cancer

Assuming that the Hotheads don't book anything (probable), and that Cinnamon Hill doesn't book anything (50/50), I still get a possible ELEVEN performances in different groups, at TEN different dates/times (one performance might include me playing in 2 different bands).

Did I mention 5 probable Saturday praise band practices, 5 pre-service run-throughs, and probably at least 3 or 4 Crash Pad practices (though the CP practices will begin this month)?

Somebody hold me.

[Brian Krashpad]

Had a great show Thursday night with Crash Pad. Our drummer has been in hospital so it was touch-and-go, but our opener was a band whose drummer is an ex-Crasher, and he agreed to sit in. We had a 10-song setlist but mid-set I scratched one of the newer ones that the drummer had never played before. Given that we didn't even practice with the drummer it went great.

My rhythm guitarist's Marshall AVT solid state head crapped out and wouldn't turn on during set-up, so I got my little 15W Super Champ XD out of the van (always have backups, kids!), disconnected the 10" stock speaker, and used it to drive his 4x12 (fortunately, mic'd). Worked like a... champ! On the last song I was doing the usual knee-drop thing, look over to teh side and see both my guitarist and bassist lying on the floor, haha! New bassist sang some cool harmonies on a few songs, which is a first for Crash Pad (we've had backing vocals before but never actual harmony backings).

Crowd was small but appreciative and we had the coveted middle slot. Closer was an out of town band that was both visually compelling and very interesting. Their lead player was good but was playing through a little solid state Vox (mic'd) that sounded awful. Everyone else played acoustics direct to the board. No full kit, just a snare. Unfortunately some of their stage banter veered off toward the homophobic, which turned me off them.

We got a DVD which turned out fine visually, but the board mix had the vocals WAY too loud, so it's basically unusable. Next time I'm going to ask them to just use a room mic rather than a board mix, because there's no sense having picture with unusable audio.

Wouldn't be a Krashpad gig post without ridiculous pics, feel free to comment on my poseritude:









More pics to come.

[Brian Krashpad]

[Brian Krashpad]

[Eric***]

Looks nice, but...

Shorts on stage (by rhythm guitarist)?!?

[Brian Krashpad]

Looks nice, but...

Shorts on stage (by rhythm guitarist)?!?

I know I know.

[sunvalleylaw]

Looks nice, but...

Shorts on stage (by rhythm guitarist)?!?

I never had a problem with shorts on stage (likewise never really cared what anyone wears). If the music rocks, doesn't matter.

This guy always has done fine in shorts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA_yk...eature=related

Krash, glad your Rocktober is rocking!

[Brian Krashpad]

I never had a problem with shorts on stage (likewise never really cared what anyone wears). If the music rocks, doesn't matter.

This guy always has done fine in shorts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA_yk...eature=related

Krash, glad your Rocktober is rocking!

Haha, I totally forgot about Angus! Bad Krashpad!

Man, it's crazy.

The hippie band, Cinnamon Hill, added a show Wednesday after next, one hour at the Farmer's Market downtown, from 4-5 pm. So that will bring the 5-week total (including the first week of November) to 15 performances! I'm just about in cover-band territory, except for that many of the performances are Sunday mornings rather than weekend nights.



And that I'm not making crap for dosh.

[bigoldron]

Looks like you had a blast Brian!

[Robert****]

Cool dude = Brian!

Way to go, keep on rocking!

I see the Stage Showmanship is of the advanced kind!

[Brian Krashpad]

Cool dude = Brian!

Way to go, keep on rocking!

I see the Stage Showmanship is of the advanced kind!

Yes, I have a Ph.D. in Extremely Silly Behavior.

[Brian Krashpad]

Yes, I have a Ph.D. in Extremely Silly Behavior.

And speaking of extremely silly, for the praise team concert tonight WE SCORED A FOG MACHINE!

A fog machine, people.

This is going to rule harder than anything that's ever happened at that church.

[Brian Krashpad]

Praise team concert last night. In general it went well, though the drummer struggled with the song we do reggae style, and I'd forgot to notate to NOT solo over one particular instrumental part that basically doesn't have a nice single key. But that's only 2 out of 20. Wish we coulda got more people out though. We did raise over $300, only because some of the people were VERY generous.

Here are some blurry shots taken by my friend Laura:



Me on mandolin for one song:

[bigoldron]

Looks like you had a great praise show, Brian!

[Brian Krashpad]

Thanks Ron, we did.

Tonight is the first night of this year's Boo Fest, a/k/a B00X, a/k/a BooThousandTen! This fest/party has roots going back over 30 years now.



It's the clear strip to the south of the canal off the lake. Lovely bit of land with a a bonfire pit, sound desk, stage, and dock at the end of it. Or at least it will have all those things in 8 hours or so, if not already! I got the Rockmobile packed to the gills with guitars, mandos, basses, amps, a tent, a chair, camping mattress, the whole nine yards. In return for playing a set tomorrow night, I get fed and beered. Pics will be forthcoming once I've recovered.

B00!

[Brian Krashpad]

Well, I tried to take some photos over the Boo weekend, but they don't seem to be on the memory card for the camera, maybe they're somehow in the camera itself. Will check tonight if I can.

At any rate it was another great Boo. Went out Friday evening and watched the bands. Got there too late to be inside the band gate (closer to stage) as the area was all spoken for, so set up my tent just outside it, sat down and started playing some mandolin.

The guy working the band gate (this was just to keep any further vehicles out, everyone goes through the band gate on foot to get to the stage), Mark, who I did not know, heard me playing mandolin, and immediately "upgraded" me to camp at his place inside the gate. So I and Mark's well-meaning (but somewhat thick) friend and flunky Scott dragged my empty but already-set up tent down to their site, which had the advantage of not only being closer to the stage, but also to the porta-potties; it also had a fire-pit already going, which was another plus. After we dragged the tent down, I went back and moved the Rockmobile up there as well.

So I sat down and commenced to playing some more mandolin, and Cathy, another person I'd never met before, invited me to come over to their camp, the next over, and play, since Mark and Scott were still on gate duty and I was just hanging out by myself. Cathy introduced me to her husband Larry, who is a drummer. He lives out in Bell (a small rural town nearby) and couldn't find anyone to play with out there, so I told them about our great local music resource website, GainesvilleBands.com, where he might could hook up with some other players, and they were so appreciative you'da thunk I just gave them a free car or something. They gave me some of the food they were making, which was delicious delicious.

You can kinda see the sort of spirit that more or less pervades Boo, just from the first hour or so I was there. It's a like a big family of a couple hundred (I'm guessing) people, even the ones you haven't met yet.

My singer/keyboardist from my "church" side band, Pedagogy, Joel, came out that night, so I pal'd around with him. I showed him where the band food and beer were located, and we had some of that and watched the bands play. He had some stuff in town to do the next morning, so he didn't stay overnight.

It got down in the 30's F Friday night, so I slept in the van rather than in the tent. Put the big Ampeg SVT 8x10 bass cab face down, then put an air mattress on top of it, and that was my bed.

Saturday morning I went into the nearest town, Waldo, and got a couple of burgers for brunch, and washed my hair in the bathroom sink at the Wendy's. Back at Boo, I hung out for most of the afternoon at the Big Oil (another band playing that night) camp, back out on the other side of the band gate, listened to the Gator football game on the radio, and helped unload a pickup full of wood for their fire. Scott came down from the campsite I was set up at and hung out too. Our sitemate Mark had got up and seemed fine that morning, but ended up under the weather soon thereafter, no doubt from the prodigious amount of vodka, and/or the shrooms, he'd done the night before. His girlfriend Kim was there keeping an eye on him, but basically he just needed to sleep it off after having puked his guts out (thankfully somewhere aways from the campsite).

My Pedagogy bandmates arrived in the late afternoon, and we went and set up onstage once we got the go-ahead. Set went fairly well, though my onstage bass volume was higher than it should've been, or more accurately, Joel's keyboards should've been backlined rather than just direct into the board. I hung out with Joel and our drummer, Nickel, for a couple hours until they had to leave, and kept watching the bands right through to the closer, Big Oil. Before Joel and Nickel left, the band that had opened on Friday night had come up to us and asked if we wanted to ever do any gigs out in the country, they would hook us up, so Joel and them traded info.

As it turned out, I knew at least one person (frequently several) in each of the bands playing Saturday night, and saw lots of people I hadn't seen in years both in the crowd and onstage. My friend Rebekkah was wearing voodoo face paint and came running up out of the darkness and hugged me before I had a chance to figure out who she was. She was pretty drunk and looking for a mutual friend, so I made a point of sticking with her for awhile until she found who she was looking for. Boo in general is a pretty safe environment, but I didn't want her wandering off and falling into the lake or the canal.

After the bands ended, there was a laser light show for an hour or so, but I ended up at yet someone else's campsite. Two women invited me over as I was walking back to the van, again total strangers. We swapped stories for awhile and I took my leave to crash atop the Ampeg-bed in the Rockmobile again.

Woke up to pee quite early and realized it was almost sunup anyhow, so after getting some free coffee (this is available to all Boo'ers, as the owners of a cafe come up every year) I sat in the van (luckily parked facing east) with the heat on getting my core temp back up, and watched the sunrise. Once it was fully light and I could get the van out without any drunken Boo'ers wandering in front of (or behind, when I was backing out to turn around) me in pitch blackness, I headed back to Gainesville.

[Brian Krashpad]

Found a bunch of pics my buddy Eddie C posted on his fb. Here's a few.

View over the main fire pit (not yet fully loaded/operational), towards the free coffee tent:



Mannequin decorations and pumpkins are a tradition:



Looking west toward the band gate and, beyond that, the main gate (just at the trees):



Root Doctors, Friday night, note laser graphics above, by Boo staple "Laser Greg:"



Root Doctors rhythm guitarist Rich Groene, who owns the property, known as "Port Green:"



Boo'ers: