November 23rd, 2002
Joys Panic, The Muckruckers, and Short Round
Cafe Eclectica 1309 Solano Ave. Albany, CA $5 7:30pm

Joys Panic:
This was my first time seeing Joys Panic and I had never heard of them so I was interested to see what they are about. They opened the show as well as promoted it. They`re a poppy punk rock band, I can`t recall where they are from. They played an extremly long set, apparently it was pretty much unlimited time because only 3 bands played. In my opinion, the set was too long. There is a such thing as too much. I think they did a really good job though! They crowd, as it did last time I was there, sucked. They stood really far back and there wasn`t a lot of people present as well. It was pretty much other bands and company and a few fans, mostly Muck fans. I could tell people responded to them well, I saw feet tapping and heads bobbing. They had good energy. They closed with a rather amusing song about how one of their friends only drinks Jack Daniels and that was pretty cool, I can tell they like playing that song because their energy lever pretty much shot through the roof. Their guitarist broke his guitar so he borrowed one of Zachs, which was cool of Zach. The rock went on and I think everyone had "chilled out fun."
The Muckruckers:
The Muckruckers played pretty good for such a bad set, if that makes sense. Apparently they play a good every other show and this was one of the bad ones. They played the Vibe a couple weeks ago, I missed that show, but apparently they rocked hardcore. Zachs guitar amp fell over and broke the cable connectiing it. They had to search around for another one and then went on. That was only two songs into the set. That sucked. So I think they knew they were jinxed afer that. Personally, I didn`t think they played all that bad, even though they said otherwise. It wasn`t the very best muck show I have ever been to but it definetly wasn`t the Pound. (bad muck show) They played a new song, I don`t know the title, its one Nick sings and I love it. Their new stuff looks so fucking promising to me, I can`t wait to get a copy of it. They played the older songs like LACB and Osama, always crowd pleasers. The crowd definetly liked them, everyone moved foward and still no super enthusiastic people dancing around but you can tell they wanted to. Overall, I liked their performance, can`t wait to see them on Saturday in Pacifica. You can see pictures of them from this show at Muckruckers.com
Short Round:
The promoters probably should have picked bands that draw in Albany because neither the Muckruckers or Short Round have a strong draw there. But taking that into consideration I really liked Short Round. Most of the times I have seen them I was busy doing pictures for them, so it was always hard for me to concentrate on their performance and have a chance to sing along. This time I only took a few digitals and gor to enjoy them. Normally Jason is pretty drunk for shows, tonight I think he was sober and I thought he played well. Even though there wasn`t the normal amount of people you typically see at a Short Round show, they still gave us their all. Jason danced around and acted crazy, as normal and I enjoyed their show. There were a couple SR fans who requested a couple songs, and they played them, which was pretty cool. They played well. I just wish more people showed up, there was the potential for a super rock show.

well again, the sound wasn`t too great here. The vocals were a little quiet, but they got turned up shortly. The sound was muffled, like last time. But it was incredibly loud and having a mixture of loud bad sound isn`t good. I have terrible hearing from going to shows but my ears rung the whole night. I wish they would invest in better sound, that would be awesome. Thats about it. Rock n roll.

oxoxxxoxo
xJenx