B0011! 11/4-6/11

[Brian Krashpad]

Hey kids, it's time for Boo Fest again! My side band Pedagogy played last year, and in 2005 and 2007 my other side band, Hoyt and the Hotheads, played. FINALLY this year my main band Crash Pad is playing! This thing is the shiznit! In fact our bassist is going to be out of state, so we talked his predecessor into sitting in with us so we wouldn't miss being able to play. Bands play for free, but get in free and get free food all weekend and beer the night they play (although no one really polices which night you played, if you catch my drift). At any rate I'm not drinking any more, post-cancer, anyhow, but its a ton o' fun with its origins way back in the late '70's. Bands play Friday and Saturday nights.

The festivities start Friday afternoon and go through early Sunday morning. Crash Pad play at 6 p.m. on Friday. There's camping, portapotties, a dock on a lake, and FREE COFFEE (bring tip money though) all weekend at a tent run by a local coffee house. The event is run by the mysterious and borderline mythological Scheck Family at an "undisclosed location" out in the woods of Alachua County, Florida, along with the RPP (Reality Prevention Patrol). Here's the poster for this year's event:



Here's a shot of the property from space, with north oriented at the top, as on a map. The stage is at the eastern edge of the property near the dock on the lake:



My van is in there somewhere!

Anyhow, if anyone's in north or central FL (or anywhere else, for that matter) and wants to attend, let me know and I can privately send directions. After the weekend will post pics.

[Eric***]

At any rate I'm not drinking any more, post-cancer, anyhow

What?? Is this a common post-cancer thing or a Krashpad-induced change?

Have fun anyway! Hopefully you can get a few pictures.

[Brian Krashpad]

What?? Is this a common post-cancer thing or a Krashpad-induced change?

A bit of both. At one point post-treatment I had some blood work done and some function or another was off and the doc asked "Have you been drinking?" (he hadn't told me not to) and I said yes. His response was "Don't do that." For awhile I of course took that to mean "don't do that right before blood work," but I'd been considering quitting for a long time anyhow. I knew I could live without it since I didn't drink for several months straight during treatment.

As of a couple days ago it's been a couple months. I just drink N/A "brew" (they can't call it beer) instead. Drinking alcohol is a risk factor for throat cancer, although usually only when "heavy" or in combination with smoking, but no sense pushing it. I mean, it's nothing for me to go through a 6-pack in an evening (or was), and I'm pretty sure the wusses over to the AMA consider that "heavy drinking."

Have fun anyway! Hopefully you can get a few pictures.

Will do, on both counts. My son Jack will help as roadie and take shots during the set. He took the ones of our "15th Anniversary" show a few months ago (his first time taking photos of a band) and did a good job; one of his shots was subsequently printed in the Gainesville Sun (in an article about our "Labor Daze" gig)! It will be fun to go camping with him, haven't done that since he stopped Scouting, in favor of high school wrestling (and this Spring, lacrosse). Plus he enjoys seeing all the drunks and weirded-out people, haha.

Speaking of photos, By weird coincidence I found a pic on the Boo site, of Pedagogy playing last year; I didn't get any shots of our actual set and had never seen this'un:



I am totally jazzed about this show. Next week should be crazy. I play a club with Pedagogy TH night, then I and the boy are going out to Boo on Friday afternoon.

Here's my side band the Hotheads playing in 2005:



Here's Jack, El Krashpadito, wearing my old leather, 2007 (now he's as big as me!):



Here's us:



Hotheads again (different lineup) in '07:



Man, I can hardly wait!

[Brian Krashpad]

So this weekend was Boo, also variously known as the Boo Party and Boo Fest. The event actually has its origin in a bunch of late 70's/early '80's Halloween parties in Gainesville which are the stuff of local legend. They appear to have fizzled out during the mid to late '80's (or at least there is no good record of them on the official secret webpage) and then come back on an annual basis in the early '90's, after which they've been held annually, usually the weekend following Halloween.

I played '05 and '07 with my side roots rock band Hoyt & the HotHeads, then last year with my pop side band Pedagogy. This year when Crash Pad was playing the local Labor Daze fest on the Bo Diddley Stage at the community plaza downtown at the start of September, I ran into Feck, the stage manager for Boo, as well as the band manager for one of its recent staples (and old buds of mine, with whom I've sold/traded a number of axes over the years) Big Oil. He asked if Crash Pad would like to be on the "reserve" list for Boo this year, because the bill was already full. I said of course, gave him my contact info and thought nothing more of it.

About a week before Boo Feck contacted me to see if Crash Pad could play. Of course I said yes. However, our bassist Joel was going to be out of state at a memorial for his grandmother, so I arranged for our former bassist Ronnie to sit in. We managed to get in one practice with the 3 guitars, and one full practice, before this weekend.

Friday we caravan'd out to Boo from my office (our practice space) with me in the lead and the guitarist Mitch and Ronnie in their cars, with our drummer to follow later. We set up camp with each of them pitching tents, but I discovered that the bag with my tent in it did not have the tent poles, so I resolved to just put my big cab in what there was of the the "tent" overnight and sleep in the back of the SUV. Which turned out to be a much warmer arrangement anyhow (though not as cold as the preceding year).

Sleeping quarters:



Gear "tent:"




Then we went to set up onstage, as we were opening the weekend's festivities. Here's a pic of me and stage manager Feck before our set:



One early problem was that Mitch had borrowed my Sunn 200S head for the set, which is an 8 ohm amp, but had brought a 4 ohm cab he'd borrowed from Ronnie. Just when I thought we'd have to borrow an amp from someone (there was no way I was gonna risk blowing up a vintage head), I realized that my Sovtek head had multiple outputs, so I let Mitch play through my 8-ohm Risson cab and used the 4-ohm output on my Sovtek head to use with Ronnie's 4-ohm Fender 4x12.

The first 3/4 of he set went really well. Feck came up and said there was some sort of crisis and asked us to stretch. Fortunately our setlist was about 10 minutes longer than the allotted 35 minutes anyhow, so we said no prob. However, the sun had gone down by then (we went on a little after 6 p.m.) and the temperature drop started playing havok with my tuning. Nevertheless we toughed it out and Feck was happy we could play a bit longer.

Turned out Trish, from the act following us, had cut her finger open 10 minutes before she was supposed to go on. She ended up super-glueing it back together, putting a bandage over it, and playing her set. It didn't start bleeding again until the end of her set. She was followed by my old buds the Root Doctors, who do a swampy psychedelic rootsy blues-rock; they were on fire, especially their lead guitarist Chaz. The night ended with Ancient River, a guitar-drums duo with lots of delay and effects and droney Hendrix-inspired psychedelia.

I didn't get shots of the other bands from Friday, but here's a few of us (note that Boo is a Halloween party, albeit a belated one, so I was in costume). The first shot is by my friend Rod Dark, from Big Oil (rest are by Mitch's gf):











Next post, some more live shots, Boo site pix, and Saturday bands! Meanwhile, as always, your comments on my poseritude are welcomed, and questions gladly answered.

[deeaa*]

It's always very enjoyable to read your gig reports because they're so well documented and you really get a feeling of the event. Thanks!

[R_of_G]

Thanks for posting this Brian.
I agree with Dee, you do a great job of documenting your gigs. This one seems like a very cool event.

[Spudman***]

That looks like it was fun. Thanks for posting it.

[Brian Krashpad]

My pleasure, guys. I found out a very long time ago that all the gigs tend to fuse together into one big amorphous blob if I don't make some effort to at least get photos. I try to get pics at all my shows, whether in side bands or Crash Pad, though I don't try to actually keep track of side band shows the way I do for Crash Pad. I've probably got the date, venue, bill, and band membership of almost every Crash Pad show we've done since our start in 1996 (I say "probably" because within the last year I ran across some photos or someone else's online recollection that disclosed at least one I'd missed).

[guitartango]

Nice T-Shirt Brian, did you buy it to match the guitar ?

[sunvalleylaw]

Awesome report! Looking good Brian!

[Brian Krashpad]

Nice T-Shirt Brian, did you buy it to match the guitar?

Haha, I bought it at a Goodwill or Salvation Army used goods store. Probably cost me a dollar or less. Actually it somewhat clashes with the guitar, as it has a very slight orange hue to the red, while the guitar is a deep cherry. By weird coincidence, my son bought the same t-shirt while he was on a mission trip to New York over the summer. So when I saw this second one in the used goods shop for next to nothing, I had to buy it.

[Brian Krashpad]

Btw, the official name of my costume was "My Mom's Long-Held Suspicions About Me."


Here's some more pics from the set. The usual silliness:



Duckwalkin'!



Bruce's Cheap Trick-inspired drum head, on his Bun E. Carlos prototype signature kit (he's a bit fixated, but since he was Bun E's drum tech back in the day he has license):



The Ramones stance yields extra stability to bring the rawk:

[Brian Krashpad]

Though a couple bands preceded them, the day two festivities kicked into high gear with Chicken Luv:



Penultimate band of night two Long Strange Day (note name's initials)



Big Oil closes night two:



One of the many pumpkins carved by "Pumpkin Bill," this one marked the entrance to the easterly portion of the Boo, housing the Main Bonfire, Music Stage, and Boo Cafe (free coffee all weekend!):



Laminates and the Big Oil "Boo Crew 2011" pin that glows in the dark ("so you won't get run over by a crew golf cart"):

[piebaldpython***]

Cool report and cooler pics. Gotta say......post-cancer.....physically, you look GREAT. You lost weight, look really slimmed down and you son-of-a-gun I'm jealous as hell. lol

[Spudman***]

Gotta say...you had better stage lighting Crash.

[Brian Krashpad]

Cool report and cooler pics. Gotta say......post-cancer.....physically, you look GREAT. You lost weight, look really slimmed down and you son-of-a-gun I'm jealous as hell. lol

Thanks, I feel a little guilty because I didn't really hafta do anything like alter my diet. For awhile there it was just very difficult to eat. I'm down about 45-50 pounds and I'm sure I'm healthier for it.

[Brian Krashpad]

Gotta say...you had better stage lighting Crash.

Than the night acts? Naw, it's just that my flash washed out the lighting in the night bands' pics. Here's a pic a friend took of Big Oil to show better what their stage lighting looked like:

[Brian Krashpad]

Oops almost forgot these. Friends took them.

Some additional Boo shots scrounged off the web.

This is Lucinda, who comes to all the Boos:



View of Boo from the eastern end (atop the laser light station) early on Friday, before most had set up camp. Imagine most of the space on either side of the center trail filled up with tents and RV's. In the foreground is the main bonfire pit, directly below us is the sound desk, and behind us is the stage.



The band and crew grub tent. Yum!



I hafta admit to a crush on the free coffee lady at the Boo Cafe:

[Commodore 64***]

I've got a crush on that manikin a few pics up...