we got back to philly around two hours or so: couldn't sleep, so here's what went down last night - finished this a day later(this is quite long):

   at 5pm, right before we left philly for the show, we discovered a bent rim and leaking tire on jimmy's car. got a quick/temporary $8 gas station fix, switched to matt's car, and took off.

   driving from philly to new york is a snap but the last 1/2 mile before the lincoln tunnel (on sat night no less) can last 20 minutes. being quick thinkers, we opted for the far right 'express lane', and upon making our turn before the tunnel, were promptly pulled over by the fuzz. guess it wasn't an express lane. luckily, matt's cute and naive vibe (e.g. what does the registration look like?: i've never been pulled over before officer) got us out and on the road ticket-free in no time.

   minutes later, we found the house and a parking space. thank God their were a zillion bands playing and a 'essential equipment only' policy, which made the one easy loading trip to the house tolerable in the bitter cold.

   we got to the 'souse house' between 7-7:30pm, and the place was already filling with people: the bands and others alike. the house, HQ of dirt bike annie (D.B.A), was a two-story twenty-something pad, loaded with instruments and computers, decorated and accessorised in a post-slacker way but not excessively so. a comfortable place.

  after being greeted and briefed by D.B.A.'s own Adam, we soon located two long time grady friends: web design guru Mike 'study hard in school' Essl , back in NYC for the weekend from the motor city, and brooklyn's own Rachel (who i(chris) had high school chemistry with yet never exchanged a word with then): two really great people. the keg and booze were well frequented, new people were met, and then the rock began.

  most everyone headed down to the basement to watch dirt bike annie started off the event. man do i love playing house parties - everyone's so close together that sometimes you get to all groove as one (yeah it sounds cheesy, but it feels great). D.B.A. delivered a fun moderately-agressive poppy set which set the tone for the night. i pre-imagined the evening as being a menagerie of indie-ish rock (ala slint, elliot smith, drag city stuff, etc..) and us being the cro-magnon fast and sweaty pop-punk band, but was pleased to find that we were all pretty much musically like-minded. there were so many bands there (and a little too much alcohol in me) that i feel bad about not being able to give more details on most of the performances, but i do remember all the bands being full into performing, and givin' what they got and then some.

  i think we we're slated to go on 4th or 5th. whichever one, the ancient code of 'it isn't a party until someone breaks something' was finally realised halfway through our proceeding band's set when someone stepped / leaned / jumped / ? on the basement's hot water heater's outtake valve, and it suddenly became a pool party, not to mention an excellent opportunity for many people to become terminally electrocuted; there was a *lot* of musical equipment, hundreds of watts, plugged in, live and on the floor
  (as a side note, the basement ceiling and walls resembled a serpentine of pipes and such, all covered with a old, faded and ripped up white insulation material, completely exposed, bits of it falling from time to time down on us like a snow flurry. not naming it specifically, i'm pretty sure it's the same stuff that people dress up in "biohazard/space suits like the scientists in the third act of ET wore when around that long necked rodent looking alien at elliot's house" when removing it from old buildings. oh well: most medical research on it says that it's usually only carcinogenic when exposed to over long periods of time....yikes).

  so the music was put on hold for a while as the water was mopped and swept and the sump pump kicked some ass. grady and posse retreated to the kitchen, drank it up, took some photos, ate lucky charms (there were a ton of boxes of 'em out on the counter), as we (mostly me) got silly and made obnoxious retorts to each official announcements on the basement's status and not to flush the toilets (umm..hot water don't go through the potty, we thinks). props to essl for the poo poo platter slam dunk retort...

  time went by in a flash as the basement was cleaned up and the band went down to finish their set, and suddenly it was time for us to play our twenty minutes (the stipulation for all bands at the party). it was like getting woken up five minutes before taking the SAT exam (which i have experienced). we grabbed our stuff, went to the basement, plugged in and played.

our set was:

1. squirrel
2. unknown
3. cover - monroes: 'could you be the one'
4. thoughtless
5. friday night
6. (i've got the) phantasm ball (stuck up my ass)
7. jones

  the basement was lined with that egg crate like foam stuff, and the ceilings were *low*, especially on the drum riser. yet there's no stopping rock (except for flowing hot water heaters), and we rampaged through our set. we kept it pretty tight: it wasn't without some flubs, but we did spend two weeks practicing the specially designed 'souse house' set list with the 20min mark in mind, which helped a lot. it rocked to see folks in the audience physically grooving, and diggin' the music, which means more than anything to us when when plowing through songs at 30% the normal tempo. we could of kept playing till we fell over, but it was great just to get the chance to perform for a great audience, seriously.

  it was all really a lot of fun. we got to meet a lot of cool people that night (names remembered: mike, hillary (get yo mack on money matt), melissa, a nyu girl from west chester and her long haired male companion, the cool folks from the lynewoods(sp?) who came from so far away, margret and company, and many, many others. folks from jersey city, NY (long island, queens, manhattan, etc), springfield Mass., louisville Kentucky, and even Philly! we sold some cd's, gave away ton 'o patches, and even made money from the party's donation box! if anyone who was there is actually reading this, give us a what's up!

  also, we finally have performance pictures (courtesy of Mike E.), and shots of other bands and party people doin' their thing. these will be up here within a week.

  a special thanks goes out to Adam, Dirt Bike Annie, and the Souse House for having us up. they were great hosts, genuinely nice folks, and extremely generous with the Lucky Charms. hope to play again with them soon.