02/16/08 Moral Crux Show

Last Saturday, the Secretions played with Moral Crux (and a buncha other cool bands) at Blue Lamp for the American Punk Fest 2008. Desite my broken foot and less-than-sunny disposition, I went and parked myself at the bar.

At first everything went fine. Bastards of Young and Giddy-Ups played first. Those are both REALLY good bands and you should add them on myspace, or at least give them a listen. Then Losing All Pride went on and it kind of went downhill from there.

First of all, they were wasted and kept stopping between songs to tell everyone how wasted they were...which is tacky. It's ok to mention it once during one of the scheduled breaks (like five songs in or so), but it's bad form to stop for like a minute after every song and babble incoherently into the microphone.

Secondly (and most disappointingly),they completely disregarded the tight schedule the show was on. Each band was allotted thirty minutes to play, with a couple minutes for setting up and tearing down their equipment. This is how is must be when you have a lot of bands on a show, especially touring bands. When Losing All Pride started setting up their equipment, the show was running about twenty minutes early. When they finally got their shit off the stage just over an hour later, the show was suddenly almost an entire band's set length behind.

Because of this, the Secretions ended up having to take one for the team and headline so that the show would stay somewhat on schedule as far as Moral Crux and the other touring bands (Teenage Rehab and Coffin Caddies) were concerned.

As it was, the show had poor attendance (it was little better than bands watching bands, despite the promotional efforts by Danny). How embarrassing for us and inconsiderate would it be to make Moral Crux, a legendary punk rock band, go on way later than they were supposed to and then play to the four people who aren't in bands that bothered to stay around that late? Not to mention the three other touring bands who still had to drive either all night or for the majority of the next day.

Moral of the story, don't be that band that fucks it up for everyone else. If you are given a time schedule, do your best to stick to it. Especially since there might be a little bitch in the audience who is going to be annoyed enough to give you a poor review. No one wants poor reviews.


Teenage Rehab and Coffin Caddies, both touring bands from far far away, were both AMAZING. Coffin Caddies has Michale Graves' old bassist, and they did a bunch of eerily imitative Misfits songs. Their singer has a great voice and their stage presence (from what I could see from my perch) was exceptional. Teenage Rehab also had a great sound, but due to the fat-ass standing in front of me, I wasn't able to actually see much of their set.

The Helper Monkeys followed and blew everyone away as usual, despite the fact that Jeff was deathly ill with the flu or something. It was still great though, because Jaz Brown packs more than enough vocal talent to handle the microphone by himself.

Finally, Moral Crux was able to go on. I was in a lot of pain and really exhausted by that time (having spent much of my energy at Ken Thrash's Moving Sale earlier that day) so I took off after a few songs. But from what I saw, and heard later on, they fucking rocked. I wouldn't have expected anything less.

During Teenage Rehab's set, the singer from Moral Crux (James) randomly walked up to where I was sitting and motioned for me to raise my leg so he could sign my cast. A little shocked, I kind of just awkwardly lifted my foot a little and he sat down next to me and signed my cast (there are pictures on Mickie's camera - to be posted soon). Then he talked to me for a few minutes about how I broke my foot and how good Sharpie smells. He was really nice. I like when I meet punk heroes and find out that they are actually totally cool, down-to-earth people.

It's too bad this show wasn't all ages. I think more people would have come if it had been. Maybe we can find somewhere to do American Punk Fest 2009 that will let in underage show-goers.

To see the rest of the pictures, click here. I need to add a few more from Mickie's camera. If you took pictures of this show that came out decently, please let me know.

:UPDATE:

Brought to you by Danny Secretion,

"Believe it or not, there were "80 people paid" for this show! The Blue Lamp only took 25% of the door for sound and security which allowed me $600.00 to hand over to the touring bands. Not a BAD night, but the sad fact is that there A LOT of alternative music fans who are over 21 and claim to like punk rock who I didn't see at this show. Just as it's important for younger fans to support their scene, us older folks need to get our collective asses off our couches and support bar shows! So in my little bit of ranting and raving...STOP TELLING EVERYONE HOW YOU HAVE BEEN A-PUNK-ROCKER-SINCE-THE-MOTHER-FUCKING-INCEPTION-OF-TIME IF YOU AREN'T DOING ANYTHING SUPPORTIVE FOR THE SCENE TODAY!!!!!

All in all, American Punkfest 08 was a blast. I got to play with bands I really admire and respect. American Punkfest 09 is already in the planning stages."