On Hiatus for Recording…

Here’s a quick breakdown of where you can see or keep yourself up-to-date on TBM:

March 13th - Distillery - Death Tribute show - We’ll be playing a cover.
March 26th - Vern’s - Train Bigger Monkeys w/ Cast in Stone and Meggido.
April 1st - RadioPark - Throes of Vengeance w/ Bloated Pig, United We Fall, and TBM.

You can also check us out online at these fine sites:

Facebook
Twitter - YuriNalarm, Dr_Awesome, DarkJ420
Fateless Empire
Myspace

Here we go again…

DRUNK.  We were fucking drunk, which makes writing this a little difficult.  Like most TBM shows, it began in usual fashion.  Our van wouldn’t start, the battery was somehow completely drained.  Is there really even a point to mentioning Emokill was dead anymore?  How about in the future I’ll just let you know when we make it to a show without Emokill causing us problems?

Somehow we got to Vern’s (mainly because I rule) in a timely fashion and snagged the nice back area for our drinking hole.  After introducing ourselves to Clint we proceeded to unload the van.  Of course, upon completion and attempting to move Emokill out of the fire lane we were unloading in, it wouldn’t start.  Who’d a thunk?  After letting her sit a couple of minutes and exhausting our mechanical know-how, miraculously Emokill started.  Just in time too, since just as we get it started the fire alarm in the building goes off.  Lucky Emokill was now running so we could move it prior to the Fire Department arriving and ripping us a new one for sitting in a fire lane.  At this point the drinking began…

I do remember all 3 bands before us playing.  I just don’t remember much.  I know Candaria did an amazing cover of Parabola - TOOL, which I most likely destroyed by signing along.  Bravado were up to their old tricks, but as it was their singer’s birthday they were in about the same shape as us.  And Meggido played.  I remember enjoying their set, and especially one of Russ’ solos, lots of moshing and such, but like I said I don’t remember much.

At one point we were supposed to be playing 2nd on the night.  Somehow we ended up playing last.  I’m not sure why or how, but it happened.  And we relished it.  I’d like to think that we played one of our best sets ever, and the reception we received afterwards, at 2am, pretty much confirms it.  More people than I’ve ever seen stuck around until the bitter end to cheer us on.  For this we are extremely thankful, because at 1am it is only the fans who can decide if it’s a good or bad show.  It was a good show…

Special thanks to Mandible for getting the van home and to Clint for the awesome hospitality and the delicious 2am shots!

P.S. - I got to finally meet my Best Twitter Friend SugarWilla.  And let me tell you, she’s even more scary in person. 

Saturdays tend to be more of TBMs style.  Some of our members need time, more time than you can imagine.  At times I’m more confident of my wife being ready for a nice dinner than I would be of TBM making it to a gig event free.  But with all the extra time on the weekend as opposed to Friday nights TBM was packed and loaded so early we decided to get to the gig with plenty of time to spare and prepare.  As well as do some good pre-drinking, but more on that later.

Emokill, our transport van, is somewhat of an enigma.  We can do all the preventative maintenance and replace as many parts as we want, and there’s still the nervous tingling everytime you start it up.  Will she go?  Today was a success.  Emokill started up with a waining grumble and a loud cough, but she started.  Pulling the van out of the garage is a little tricky, pulling the van out of the garage when either side is lined with cars is something else entirely.  But being the remotely excellent van-gineer that I am, she was removed from the driveway (only getting stuck once in the ruts…) with relative ease.  Emokill was on the road.

When we arrived at the Distillery, and maneuvered amongst a weave of parked vehicles and aggressive no stopping/parking signs, Lies from Elysium was already unloading and cheerifully greated us as we entered.  Our initial opinion; amazing.  we unloaded our gear down the “stairs of death” and assessed the venue.  Gorgeous layout, excellent stage, fantastic pit area.  Everything we need.  At this point, Jeffy the Lightmaster (and DD for the evening) was setting up, so we decided to go back up and park the van at the parking lot across the street.

Back on the surface, TBM was confronted by Emokill’s pissy attitude… again.  Our deepest fears have been realized, zut alors! the van, she is broken.  15 minutes later: after scouting good destination to push the van and 3 metal girls pushing it later, the van erupts in a screech of power and brute force.  Following the direction of Frosty and utilizing the convenient timing of the c-train crossing Emokill bursts into a furious eruption of anger across the street.  She was parked and now Jeffy the DDs problem to worry about.  A short hazy break and lots of chugging commenced.

The time is now 8:45 and doors are to open at 9, so we decided to head back inside.  But first we must pay for parking… WHAT?!?! On a saturday night?  Since when?  Oh well.  (It’s amazing how fast we can go from absolute rage to acceptance).  So we stroll over to the pay booth and are confronted by Sketchy McBum.  I’ve met these types of bums before, they go around and collect the parking slips from people as they leave and then resell them to others.  Since TBM is all about the charity stuffs, we did conduct some business with Sketchy.  A few short seconds later we find out we’ve been hosed.  He sold us a ticket from a different lot.  JC isn’t the one to take this kind of crap and chased after Sketchy, turns out this isn’t Sketchy’s first BBQ as he had a real ticket ready for the confrontation.  No Bum blood will be spilled today I suppose.

When we made it back to the Distillery a couple of familiar faces were present - Neil Melrose of Bravado was there as well as our friends in Corpsestone.   TBM took a seat with CS near the front by the pit and eagerly awaited the opening act Jezibelle, van pushers, and more importantly heavy rocked chicks.  That’s right, METAL CHICKS.  And they ruled.  I have to say that aside from the steady stream of late 80s early 90s heavy riff based guitar licks, my favourite part was by far the amazing vocals.  I didn’t get her name and at this point am too lazy to check, but she was both consistant and powerful all set.  This is War graced the stage next, utilizing 2 vocalists, they represented the sick metalcore style we all love in TBM.  Our set consisted of a new cover and 2 new songs, as well as some old favourites.  We had a decent pit going for some songs as well as a lot of audience participation for Mean Machine, which seems to be becoming our staple closer.  I’d like to think that us 3 openers did a fantastic job at warming the crowd for the headliner they all came to see.  Lies From Elysium, among their heavy rock attitude, and excellent pre-recorded light show, dazzled the audience with sick Godsmack style songs.  And the Tom Morello impersonating near the end was almost flawless.   Excellent CD release.

This brings us to the end of the night.  The van is all loaded up and us drunkys, after turning down the invitation to the after party because we’re all burnt out bums, TBM was ready for what can now only be called the Jeffy Designated Driver Adventure.  This was by far the icing on top of the cake we call metaland.  If the 3 of us riding with him weren’t drunk, I’d have to say we might have wet our pants.  Not from excitement but from FEAR!  I know you all want details, but I just don’t think it would be fair to poor old Jeffy after he did us a solid and did get us home in one piece… barely…

TBM has been doing some restructuring.  We have a few good gigs lined up.  Check out our myspace TBM for details.

We will be reworking how this blog is written in an attempt to be more direct with you, our fans.

Additionally, we are looking for a few more bloggers to generate some fresh ideas.  If you may be interested in writing for TBM send us your thoughts by email, through myspace, or right here in the comments section.

Life is good for TBM right now.  Keep it heavy.

Today’s question:

Why is it socially unacceptable to wear Velcro?

Yuri: Personally I think Velcro is the greatest invention ever and I am deeply saddened that I’m not allowed, or even given the opportunity to buy more clothes/shoes with Velcro.  But I think the stigma is more about the letter V, than it actually is about Velcro.  People generally seem to associate the letter V with childish, scary or unacceptable behaviour.  For example, video games, vanerial diseases, vasectomy, vapid, vicious, or a visit from your grandparents.  So together we need to stand tall and say “I will not be associated with this v-hatred.  I embrace all V words.  I love Velcro.  I love Video games.  I love VAGINAS!

DarkJ: Velcro in standard population just makes you look dumb.  If you can’t tie your shoe laces, you are more likely to buy noisy Velcro shoes.  These shoes look terrible with the big flaps, and make you look even dumber.  However, velcro unfortunately has become a part of society because of it’s reusable factor.  It is one of the only materials that can be reattached over and over again without any additional glues or anything.  Because of this fact, it has been proven useful in all sorts of applications.  For instance, space travel.  The standard space uniform consists of pants with velvro attached, t-shirts with velcro attached, and all manuals and foreign objects can be attached.  This has been proven very useful as you can constantly reuse this material, reducing flying debris in space.  Now, I’m off topic, but the reason it is socially unacceptable is because it is like having training wheels on a motorbike.  In a regular world, its kids that haven’t learned to tie their shoes, or seniors that can’t tie there shoes, that buy these shoes.  Beyond that, what else really has velcro anymore?  The zipper is much stroner and proven to withstand the trials of life alot better, just alot heavier.

On another note, the Sweeds have developed a metal version of velcro, that can be strong enough to hold buildings together, but easy to pull apart and reusable.  Is this world becoming one big jigsaw puzzle now?

Dr. Awesome:  The question is dumb.  People have velcro on almost every winter jacket.  The only place its looked down upon is shoes and I’m sure if more high priced shoe companies made better designs with velcro fastening, it would come back in style.  Can we get a ban on retarded questions?

*Remember, if you have a question that needs answering let us know in the comments*

Yuri + Dr. A: I mean either get obese or stay skinny.  None of this half ass shit, go for all or nothing people.

Yuri: Who’d a thunk it?

TBM would like to welcome Al to our mix.  He comes with plenty of experience and we look forward to some big contributions.  Welcome to the team.

JC: This is pretty good.  It would work really well as a metal song.

Yuri: It is metal.  It’s Tool.

JC: Oh… well I meant these violin parts would be really good as guitar.

Yuri: They are, this is the String Tribute to Tool.