We got Haze-d

Good times down in 'kato last weekend! Highlights included getting sponsored by Sprint, seeing tons of our contingent rockin' out -- out-of-town-style, twin Livin' on a Prayer girls, spicy BW3's minutes before Set 1 (never a good idea), and of course, almost getting a cap popped in my ass while loading stuff out of the "club" at the end of the night. (the Haze apparently becomes a "cluuuub" at 12:30am sharp, as soon as the band is done playing - ghetto-licious!)


Anyway, it was nothing if not exciting. We're looking forward to coming back in October when school is in session and the place is supposed to be even crazier. Someone is going to jump out a window, get piss-drunk, or lose a toe. I just know it.

This weekend, we're working on perfecting all our Yoko Ono material in prep for the upcoming show with A Hard Day's Night at O'Gara's in St. Paul on the 25th.








Ieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! We're definitely covering this one:

Scrapbooking Rocks!!

We wanted to send a quick "thanks" out to the ladies of the Northwest Regional Scrapbooking and Jewelry Making Association - the NWSJMA - for their participation in our Rookie's show last Saturday.

A bit of background:

Rookie's Bar and Grill, one of our top favorite venues to play, is attached to the Radisson Hotel in Rochester. Because of this, the bar gets spill over from any event, such as weddings, bar mitzvahs, car show, etc, which happens to be going on in one of the many hotel conference rooms. During the Summer it's not unusual to find an entire wedding party and many of its guests dancing to a band at Rookie's, eschewing the DJ who was hired for their wedding.

Well, this weekend was no exception, except there were no weddings happening. Instead, the NWSJMA - a group of 150-or-so women between the ages of 24- and what seemed to be 223-years old who enjoy scrapbooking, bedazzeling, and making jewelry out of beads, dried cereal and mixed nuts - were in town for their bi-annual conference.

If we're being honest here, our first impressions upon hearing this news were not positive. We expected to find a group of "librarian-style" women heading for bed around 5PM after eating some corn dogs and slaving over a hot glue gun all day. Sorry. We're shallow and unlearned like that.

Needless to say, we were WAY OFF... The group of women we met were hell bent on doing three things in Rochester; "Scrapin'" (as they call it), f_ckin', and getting drunk. Not your typical group of women, that's for sure.

We were definitely up to helping them achieve at least two of those - I'll let your mind take over.

With some additional incintive from Minnow, the bar's manager, in the form of free drink tokens, we hit the convention hall and started making friends. While a few of the women took the drink tickets and made them into jacket buttons, many others took the tokens and started in on the partying. Many of these women let us know they'd be back for our show later that night.

Since we like to perform in front of crowds larger than 4 people, we thought we'd nail the invite home by coming back later that evening, pre-show, and perform an acoustic song for them. Upon arriving back at the hall a couple of hours later, we found the group STILL scrapbooking - - 4 hours later!! We came to find out they spent over 12 hours in the same room, scrapbooking... holy shit!

After waiting for the ladies to finish an intense game of Deal or No Scrapbooking Deal, Grant and I took over.

Grant strummed the chords for Sleepy Jean and I sang for the group. It went over much better than expected, even so much that a few of the ladies took their bedazzled-blouses off, showing us their screen-printed t-shirts underneath emblazoned with saying such as "Scrapbooking is God's Gift" or "Bedazzling Gets Me Off."

They loved us, thanked us, and after they finished for the evening, many of them came in and watched us perform.

So, a special THANKS to you ladies for helping to make last Saturday such a success and a blast!!!

Halloween Thanks

HUGE "thanks" to all of you - and there were a lot - who showed up Friday night at Tiffany's for our "Halloween" show! We had an absolute BLAST and couldn't have had as much fun without each of you.

Congrats to Matt "Harry Carey" Wanger on 1st place in the costume contest. Loved it!

Thanks to Jessica for her awesome job on Livin' on a Prayer - GREAT voice!!

We'll have some new photos on-line tonight, so check http://www.thesubsidies.com/ soon.

We'll be back at Tiff's soon, so stay posted. We're in Rochester on the 17th, Decoys and Tav on the Ave in December.

ROCK ON!

PS> Hey, Dave - it's ALL A JOKE, so relax... JEEZ!!!

Oh, the magic of flight...

"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” -- Plato

Ah, yes oh wise Plato dude, music does indeed give flight to the imagination, but apparently not to the body.

We all had a great time at Bunker's Friday night. After our set, Ben from Summite Ave. called me up on stage to do backup vocals on a tune. We'd been drinking free beer and people had been buying us shots all night. I was more than happy to jump up on stage again. After I got done singing, I though it would be a great idea to make my grandiose exit by leaping from the front of the stage. It was going just as planned until my right foot hit the floor.

"I cannot fly. I cannot fly. I cannot fly. I cannot fly. I cannot fly. I cannot fly. I cannot fly. I cannot fly. I cannot fly. I cannot fly. I cannot fly. ..."

on second though:

"I CAN fly. I cannot LAND."

John Carpenter's "The Fog"

Despite mild bronchial inflammation due to the industrial strength fog machine, half of the band hallucinating from the mixture of cold medicine and alcohol, and getting back home around 4am, we had a fantastic time down in Mankato at the Inferno Tavern. Kick Tin opened for us, and their set list brought me back to my earlier hard rock days. Very cool stuff.

And thanks to everyone we met that stuck around until the end and rocked and danced away. Anna, Stephanie, Rikki, She-Neuge, The Kick Tin guys, the Inferno staff.

We'll definitely make a repeat trip down to Mankato. But first, I need some sleep and more cold medicine.

Many, many, many thanks!

We want to thank those of you who made it out to the O'Gara's show. To get into this venue, we promised we could bring in a crowd of 150+, and we ended up with an incredible 269 people through the doors! The show was my personal favorite to date, and that's solely because of the awesome crowd. You guys danced and rocked out from start to finish. Hell, there was still a large crowd of people dancing and chanting for more at the end of Summit Ave's show around 1:30 AM!

Thanks everyone! I've uploaded a couple photos from the show, and I'll possibly have some video on there in the next few days. Scott Walker, a good buddy (and amazing professional photographer) took some pics, and I added a bunch of his. They are really good. To see some of his stuff, check out his myspace page and his main site.

Again, THANKS!

Earth to Rochester

The Subsidies made the arduous trek down to Rochester this past weekend and played at Rookies Sports Grill and Bar. While the crowd was, well, thin, we still had a great time playing. And water slides never get old. A few die hard fans came down to rock out, including Chris and Char Haschka, who, by the way, closed down the bar. Many props!

If you are a Rochesterian, err, Rochesterite, you need to check this place out. They get great bands, have a really nice sound system, a good stage, friendly (attractive) waitstaff, damn tasty cheese curds, etc. It's a little hidden, but it's worth the effort to find the place. Oh, they have a couple nice outdoor sand volleyball courts, too. By the way, Collin and I are part of a dominant volleyball team here in the metro. Our team is 31-16 on the season, and the playoffs start tonight (playoffs?! playoffs?!!!).

Thanks Minnow, Dave, Kevin, Lacy, and all at Rookies!

Bunkers, burgers, and merch

Now, that was fun. We had another great turnout this past Saturday. We opened for Summit Ave. at Bunkers in Minneapolis. Great venue, great crowd, great burgers, great 2nd band. Can't ask for anything more than that.

If you haven't been out to Bunkers to see some live music, be sure to. They've really got things figured out at that place.

And to make things even better, we had 5 ladies with Subsidies gear on! Thanks all!

Alcoholism alive and well in River Falls

We played for 300+ power drinkers last weekend, and man, they can drink. And drink. And race. And vomit.

If I remember correctly, the booze list consisted of 15 kegs and 40+ five-liter boxes of Franzia. Ugh.



My favorite moment came when we were tearing down at midnight in the darkness, and Dave nearly ran over a guy who was passed out on the lawn. Or maybe when Collin fell out of the boat the next morning trying to get his extension cable out of the tree.

Oh, and Thad is the greatest roadie of all time.

Party in the basement

JR Macs was an absolute blast, despite the terrible acoustics, the moldy smell, and the temperature swing (from about 58 degrees to 78 in about 30 minutes). We had a packed house, and the bar was completely unprepared for the turnout. Apparently, they ran out of several types of beer, had to go to plastic cups, as they couldn't wash them fast enough, and had to call in reinforcements. Nice job everyone!