| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| May ??, 1996 | Meade Battle of the Bands. We saw an ad for this and decided it was about time to get out of the basement and play in front of people. We should have waited. This was fun, but bad. We signed up as Lupus, but changed our name to Kojak, and before we went on stage we were announced as Kismet the band after us. We were aloowed 2 songs, which for us was maybe 5 minutes. We changed our songs right before we went on, we did "Dramamine" and "Retarded". The slutty whore judges (I bet they had jean jackets with Skid Row and Bon Jovi patches, trust me) decided that Dramamine was a Green Day cover and caught Eric off guard and tried to make him recite the words. He blanked and I think they disqualified us, not that we'd win or anything anyways. But we had our first hit, when we got back to school the next monday we were greeted by chants of "Retarded!" Of course they meant our song, and not our set. |
| December ??, 1996 | The Unitarian Church in Annapolis. This was our first real show, we got to play a full set. We got the show when I gave a tape to a guy named John in my art class who went to the church. This show didn't go so hot either, apparently we blew the pa on the first song. It was pretty in all though, a couple people we knew came out to see us. Brian invited a bunch of girls from school (being the stud he is) but their car mysteriously "broke down". We played with Bridgewater and Project Gizmo. The guys from PG were pretty cool and we talked to them and they seemed to like us, which we thought was strange. We also got our first interview done by these two girls at the show, I remember answering that Tiger was my favorite Brady, and you get the idea of how it went. |
| Winter or Spring, 1997 | The UUC in Annapolis again. This show went much better than the first one, a bunch more bands played. Including the Thumbs, which was cool for us. It was our first time seeing them, but it sparked a big change in our band I'd say. It was also the debut of Last Chance, who later changed their name to the Varients, and now go by Kids Go Nuts. We knew these guys from school and it was cool to have another band we knew pretty much. Our set went alot better this time and was a lot of fun. This was also the begining of a long tradition of us going to IHOP after the shows. |
| May ??, 1997 | Meade Battle of the Bands, again. It'd been a year but we decided to go back for the hell of it. We got chosen to play first, most likely because they wanted to get us out of the way, and also because nobody in our band had mysterious circumstances where we couldn't show up until 8 o'clock. We changed songs again, to one we had written the night before, and it will go unmentioned, because it would only be played a few more times and then put to rest. There were more bands that year, and better ones, including Fawcett and the Misanthropes. Also Ray from Code Blue was there, but he wouldn't remember until like a year later that he saw us. It might have been better if he just never remembered. Oh yeah, we lost again this year, oh well. | May 25?, 1997 | America Legion in Glen Burnie. Finally someplace different to play! Good show put on by Brian from the Varients. The bands were us, the Varients, Half Gone (with Ben who later joined the Varients, Alex, who sang for Mendoza, and Joe who now plays drums in One by One), a rap group with Fred and Joe who had a head like a baked potato, Ranked Out, and I forgot the name of the first band which is really upsetting me. This was a good show and we finally started meeting a lot more people and making more friends in the "scene". |
| September 6, 1997 | Dimension X in Hagerstown Md. Ahh, here's some good stories. Brian from the Varients got us on this show with them. So we drove 3 cars full of our equipment up to Hagerstown, it was about a 2 hour or so drive. The place was pretty bad it was weird comic book store/battle field replica/some more crap store in te front, and a stage in the back, but gee at least we got free pizza...The drive up was pretty fun, we saw the most disgusting piece of roadkill ever, and a big tire in the middle of the road that Eric ran over. When we played, all the people sat outside and smoked pot, they were all apparently waiting for the last band. We played, then the Varients, then some really really heavy band from I think NJ, with just 2 members, called Manthing played. And then Shyster played, we talked to them and they were really cool to us, and they were really good too, unfortunatly not even they could get a crowd to come inside but they were another of the really good bands we'd had the fortune of playing with. Also when we got back, I got fired from my job because no worked for me while I was gone. | September 12, 1997 | Challenger Commission Basement, Arnold MD. We had gone and seen Code Blue play the week before, after Eric, KJ, and Brian met Pat from Code Blue passing out flyers in Ocean City. Good thing KJ wore his Hi-Fives shirt with Lookout! Records on the back, or else Pat might not have known how secretly punk rock they were, and not given them a flyer, and then who knows? Well we went to their show, and they hooked us up with this show the next week, which was cool for us. The Varients were there too, and jumped on to do a short set w/out Dylan, then we played, Code Blue, Challenger Commission, and Roosevelt's Plan, fom Va. This was a really cool show, and lots of fun, and then begining of a beautiful relationship, they ended with us and Code Blue making 500 black frisbees with music on them. | October 11, 1997 | The Unitarian Church in Annapolis. You didn't think we'd stay away for long did you? This show went pretty well, if not somewhat uneventful, at least I can't remember much, but I do remembe in the weeks before Code Blue had some people trying to pick fights with them on their guestbook and it was all supposed to end in a big fight at the show, we were amazed by this. It just wouldn't be Code Blue without some sort of guestbook scuffle. I'm gonna have to look at the Code Blue web page and check the list of old shows, maybe that will jog my memory. |
| November 21, 1997 | VFW #160 in Glen Burnie. This was a good one, lots of stories, not all that need to be shared though. This was the first show up at the VFW #160, and it turned out to be a good place to have shows around here, and there were plenty more shows to come there. I think this was our first or second show as a 3-piece, but it was fun. I remember playing a cover of "Little Bit O' Soul" and actually exciting some of the VFW types and only maybe a handful of others. We also played an odd odd, never again played version of our classic (haha) "Take Advantage". The other bands were 30-cent Thieves, Varients, Code Blue and the Thumbs. |