ok, so after this show, post-pizza party and hazy cable rendition of one of the austin powers movies, i crashed into sleep like a train over a cliff. when i woke up, i took special pains to remember as many details of this dream as i could remember.

the setup - late at night, 3, 4 in the morning. drak's. aka the warehouse. aka "the compton of cheyenne". those translucent orange streetlights are everywhere, even in the buildng, which is "dream-sized", ie much larger than drak's really is. my band is setting up, getting ready to record, and we're psyched. jumping around like caffiene jelly beans. a loud banging noise romps around the warehouse, and the members of a questionably racist local band who loves their viking lore break up our recording party. they're all decked out on some seriously colorful outfits, red and yellow and white that all seem to emanate a sense of violence under the orange sleep colored streetlights. on the back is a swastika, surrounded by a large red no symbol (as in a "no smoking" sign), and some writing in german. the anti-nazi marching band that is this group of hooligans is acting nice enough... almost apologetically, or suspiciously nice... so when brian cracks the german code around the "no swastika" symbols, he informs us all that they read as follows:

"DON'T BELIEVE THIS SYMBOL - WE REALLY ARE NAZIS"

and now we've had enough. my dream-self has much larger testicles than my real-self, so with them swinging like bulbous water balloons behind me the rest of voice and i chase the recording-party crashing nazi's into the alleyway where they hop into their yellow jet-set style mustangs. i am the only one to hop on back of one of them before they take off. the sweet-dream air is rushing through my thorough head of hair. before anyone notices that i've stowed away on their too fast and furious nazi-mobile, i peel off the back license plate and start chopping at the hairless aryan face driving the mustang. the plate keeps cutting in, but it seems like putty, and while blood splatters in spots it feels like i'm doing a lot of work for nothing with this stupid license plate knife attack. but at some point the driver gets the hint that this metal rectangle is splitting open his melon head to expose the sweet cantaloupe juices, and he swerves to eject me from his mustang of hate. i flee back to the warehouse, where we begin to plan our next move,

and then i wake up.

the thing is, i usually only have dreams like this after wierd nights. and this show, dispensing of false halos - today i wait - betting on the muse - voice of simon - and stolen faith - was one such show.

first - every band was late. even mine. i had to work. fight the power, yeah D. that made for a shitty five band bill. by eight though, things got rollin'.

stolen faith's new material is tight as the stitching on a brand new baseball. tim writes some killer songs, gritty and punky enough to keep the patch patrol in sight, but with enough sensibilities of the minutemen (sorry tim, had to drop the name) and even some james brownian funk to keep the songs more than a four chord mosh jam. they have demo tapes, but i left mine with most of my guitar gear in a far away land, so i can't really review that for you fine folks yet.

at this point i realize that the big fancy stage lights aren't being used. instead, the lamps are casting an eerie glow that brings the meager crowd tighter together, even if they seem to be balking at the proximity of other human beings.

voice of simon. yes. an elmo pinata filled with candy and tampons. did you have fun?

a lone guy in glasses did an acoustic jam while dispensing... set up their stuff. it was some pretty good stuff, but all the acoustic players of late seem to be writing the same songs and i'm just kind of wondering how that's happened. anyways, he seemed to enjoy himself and the few non-smokers sticking around clapped and bobbed their heads in approval.

dispensing of false halos chose to go next. they played in buzz's garage once, touting the virtues of hardcore, faces steeped in rocky seriousness. this time around they had definitely found their path - matching full stack amps for the guitars and four separate bass cabinets to accompany the low end. they seemed to edge closer to the mosh aspects of hardcore and straying away from the intricate metal guitar play. but they had energy. the singer punched andrew in the nuts. you just can't catch a break lately, can you amigo? good set.

today i wait was a little more thrice and boysetsfire in the metallic hardcore genre, but they were really nice guys. and their sound was also spot on, but that kind of lick-driven pitch harmonic happy style can't really exist without intense attention to detail. they rocked and the singer was sick but very appreciative of the show and if it weren't already for the late-running night and little amount of energy i was running on i would have dug this set much more.

betting on the muse. i liked these guys, most of the band is civil and they have a good sound. but they were late, which was sad, because they weren't a touring band, they're from colorado springs or something. i can understand if they had to work or whatever, it was a friday night show, but we have strict time limits thanks to the neighbors' sensitive ears, so it really didn't help anything. they arrived during today i wait's set, drinking heavily and smoking inside and out of drak's though it's expressly forbidden (please note the earlier description of my real testicle size as far as strongarming rulebreakers goes). and the pa head crapped out. which we were upset about, but the singer lady of BOTM was waaaaaaay more upset about, so upset she stormed off in what could be misconstrued as a steretypical overreaction from a female. but those kind of prejudices, all of those i've mentioned so far, are all shitty. so the two songs that BOTM played, even without the singer, were tight. and even though the drummer put on his drama-queen hat and got a little moody, they got some cash for gas to get back home. or more beer. it's like water to them. sweet ass water.

levi rubeck*****