Death in the Forest. It wasn’t in the forest. Well it was, then it was on a mountain, then it was possibly in the Garden State, then it was at an old church in Manhattan, and finally it settled in a three stage venue in midtown Manhattan. It must have been a very interesting two days for the promoter. That all happened in two days. Even day of the fest. Oh well, we had unrefundable tickets to New York. Maybe we could go see Cats.
First off, anyone willing to fly Impaled, the World’s Most Hated Band ™ out to a fest for a single show has a serious crack in their noggin. That was a bad sign from the get go.
Secondly, we just got back to the States. Now, offer me a trip to Europe or Japan, I’d probably be stoked. New York? You know what? I hate New York. There’s good folks in New York, of course, but seriously… fuck that city. Twice I’ve been there and twice was told I was being taken to the best pizza place in the world. Twice I ate at the same pizza place. Twice I deemed it the worst fucking food in the world. I’m reminded of the headline from the Onion that read something like “Man Sees Squirrel Forage Nut in Central Park: States ‘Only In New York.'” Guess what, New York? There’s other towns with stupidly huge buildings, squares of immense commerce, and food from around the world. I do not <3 NY.
On the flight over it was crowded. So crowded they made Jason check his carry on because there was just no more room. Never mind the business men who had four carry ons or the lady with the giant bag of clothes obviously terribly oversized, no, they picked on cute lil’ Jason. Jason showed a lot of prescience, too, when he deemed his bag would be lost. Sure enough, when we got to New York, it was nowhere to be found.
Our friend Ed from Fecal Corpse graciously picked us up from the airport. Also, my pal Granny Monster (no, she’s not old, nor a monster) showed up at the airport to meet and stay with us so we could hang out. We left with a very sullen and bagless Jason.
We stayed with our friend Aaron Cobbett. Aaron is the twin brother of John Cobbett, the guitarist for Ludicra. We got to his apartment in Brooklyn about 1 am, and I gave him a call. He was drunk in Manhattan. Only, it sounded just like John, and that was just throwing me off.
“Aaron, we’re here.”
“Oh, I thought you weren’t gonna be there until 1 o’clock?”
“Aaron, it is 1 o’clock.”
“Oh… shit… I thought you said 1?”
“Aaron, it is 1. I said 1. We’re outside your apartment.”
“Oh, fuck, sorry. I’m drunk.”
“Yeah.”
Hilarity!
Aaron got us into his apartment with a few phone calls. He finally showed up, and fuck… him and John at least should have different facial hair. It’s like they planned to try and popularize the “Cobbett” look on separate coasts and take over America. Well, Aaron looks a little happier. He’s a professional photographer. John is a professional musician. You do the math. When kids ask me about starting a band, I tell them, “Don’t.” It’s like smoking. Every time you do something musician related, it’s 15 minutes off your life.
Sean and Raul went and bought a couple cases of beer. I’m awfully proud of the level to which we can imbibe. Aaron got out some glamour sequined outfits that me and Jason and Granny tried on. I have to say, mine fit like a glove. I think I may have a new look. Maybe I’ll change my name to “Ross Sugar” and play nothing but Euro Glam techno like I’ve been threatening.
The next day, we had to wait three hours for Jason’s bag to show up and get delivered. Jason was calling the delivery place and yelling at them. “Hey, don’t get made at me, I didn’t lose you luggage!” the guy said. Jason yelled back, “Well, you run a delivery service, and your service is ineffective!” Don’t get a nerd mad. He’ll use some four syllable words and fuck your shit up. They finally got the bag to us when we got the word the venue for the fest had changed one final time. I must admit, I was expecting the worst.
It wasn’t the worst. There was still some fun chaos to be had though. First, no laminates for us. They ran out. Even after Belphegor and 1349 had cancelled at the last minute. You’d THINK that would mean more laminates were available. Nope… they just sharpied “BAND” on our hands. That was fine for entrance, but the security to the backstage said “Well, you could’ve just done that yourself.” No shit. I guess they didn’t get the memo that sharpies are hard core security in that venue. Oh well. I think all the beer was gone, anyway.
The schedule was up and summarily changed. Now, I don’t know how definitive a schedule this was. There was one copy in ball point pen on ruled paper taped up at the front of the club. I suppose I could’ve just gotten some binder paper and changed it to a new schedule. “Impaled – 6:15 to 9:15… Immolation – 9:20 to 9:25” We got bumped from the main stage to the second stage, which sucked because the main stage had glittery walls. I was in a glamorous mood from the night before.
There was a lot more people there than I expected. What with all the venue changes, I really thought there’d be only two hard core mapquest freaks there who could figure out the labyrinthine path to the correct place. We played a fun set, bouncing about, with a bunch of headbangers in attendance. It was opposite Skinless and Vital Remains, so we expected the worst, but everything panned out nicely. You can see the photos at: http://returntothepit.com/concert.php?date=2006-05-20&band;=impaled
Granny headbanged like a champ. Then she did pilates on the roof. Then she rolled around on the merch room floor. Then she fended off some big guy saying “You the most beautiful woman here, yo.’ She ended up crawling under the merchandise table. When we loaded our stuff out into the cab of the meanest cabby in NYC, she was told by some passerbys that she should smile more. She yelled at them as loud as she could “I’m just LIVING MY LIFE!! I don’t smile for YOU!!!” Granny is fun.
We did have a momentary thought that maybe we were going to get killed. See, we bailed on that Mortician tour, and we were in NYDM country, now. As it turned out, the promoter of that tour spoke to me, we traded some good words, and the hatchet was buried. Nice. We weren’t going to get our heads caved in.
At the end of the night, we went back to Aaron’s apartment and decided to chill. By chill, I mean drink more, but perhaps a bit slower. We headed to the roof of the apartment building. We drank and looked at the Statue of Liberty and where the WTC towers used to be. We saw big GayVN awards shaped like penises. Another fun night.
All in all, this trip has been a disaster financially, but it was well worth it to see some people again. We saw Aaron, Granny, Ed, the guys in Skinless, Rod from SMN, Pasquale, John and Jill McIntee, Bill Zebub, and it was good to meet folks like Donny, Joe, John, Megan, and Sparky. Oh, how can we forget Sparky? He wants to die at a metal show. Naked. In a flaming wheelchair. Crowd-diving from the stage. Godspeed to you, Sparky. May all your dreams come true.
