Feb 24, 2008- Spring Break, Masterpiece, Vermefug

This show was at Sergio Typhoon's house or the "Brooklyn Bazaar" as it is sometimes called. The thing about this place is that when the bands play there it is like a reverse stage. You are down in a pit that is like the back porch and everyone watches you from the driveway which is above you. Its kind of hard to describe but you might be able to understand it from this photo from a previous show of ours there. At this house every show there is a party and it fucking rules. Sergio Typhoon is one of the raddest dudes alive and even though he is a total pothead he is always cool with the fact that we are a straight edge band. He has no problem talking shit to the cops and if they come to bust up his house party he will tell them that he just got home from Iraq and that its his birthday even though this dude has long hair and a beard. The shows at his house always draw the wildest and most random crowd, from hippies, to crust punks, metal kids, stoners, hardcore kids, and gangsta ass mexican dudes. Everyone gets along though.

Mother Speed and Grave Maker actually didn't play the show, so the first band to go on was VERMEFUG from NY City. These dudes looked like a cross between the crowd from a Metallica DVD and The Lost Boys. This whole band is amazing and their music was top notch. They are a straight up metal band and every song has at least one killer solo. They had song names like, "The Greatful Shred" and "Raped by Satan". They also covered "Caught in a Mosh" by Anthrax. These dudes were party animals and the singer kept saying, "We are gonna play all night loooooong!", this kind of bummed me out because even though they were awesome, the show didn't even start until 10:00pm. There was plenty of push moshing going on. They ended their set eventually and those dudes were really nice.

We played next and I had a feeling no one there was going to like us, but we still played an awesome set. Pat was there and he held it down. Following Vermefug we knew we would have to play our hardest because they were a tough act to follow. I just like the fact that we played a straight edge song to a bunch of people smoking pot and drinking. Most of our set had a hippie dude drinking wine from the bottle and moshing, awesome. Also during our set there were beach balls being thrown around. There was a little scuffle over some mosh drama and this chick smashed a beer can onto this one dude's face. Sergio did a roofie during our set, no not the date rape drug but a roof-stage dive. After our set everyone seemed pretty stoked on us and the drummer from Vermefug compared us to Cro-Mags and Madball which is probably the best thing anyone has ever said about our band.

Spring Break went on last and these dudes are pretty thrashy. There were plenty of metal heads with their arms around each others shoulders and head banging. They sounded pretty good but no one was really moshing by this time, I think people were starting to get partied out because it was already midnight.

Overall, the show was pretty wild. Parties at this place rule and if you're ever in San Diego and there happens to be a show at this house you should go because there is always something wild happening there.

Feb 22, 2008- Masterpiece, A Better Hope Foundation, Joyful Sounds, Renounce

This show started off with a potluck, me and Wade got there a little late but that didn't really matter because when we got there and met up with Jimmy, I ate almost a full pizza myself and then some cookies and some other random shit. I also threw some cookies at Jimmy and he was trying to throw chips into his own mouth.

To fully understand this show you will have to lock yourself in a room the size of a walk in closet and shove 50 other kids in there that stink and are throwing red bull into each others faces. This show was probably the wildest one we have ever played.

The first band that played was called Renounced and it was a 3 piece band with members of Joyful Sounds. They were a fast/thrashy band and they sounded ok but then I had to go outside so I could set up the merch for Masterpiece from the trunk of my Nissan Sentra.

Joyful Sounds played next and Kenny had a shark goggle mask on and a bunch of shit written on him including "Shark Attack" written on his chest.. There was a lot of crowd/stage banter and inside jokes which ruled because almost everyone at the show was friends. They covered SSD and Chain of Strength. There was plenty of moshing and diving and that whole set ruled.

A Better Hope Foundation was up next and their set was fucking wild. Also during their set 2 girls from Red Bull showed up and looked confused as fuck as kids were diving onto each other and acting like idiots. They passed out a ton of free Red Bull and that ended up just getting dumped into Kenny's mouth.

We were the last band to play and that always feel weird to me. After we played our intro Mike's amp exploded into 1,000 pieces and we had to borrow Eric's head from ABHF . Finally after getting that all sorted out we played "Living Legend", our new straight edge song. Danny Fresh was there and there was singing along going on but overall the first couple songs of our set seemed to be lacking crowd reaction. I had said that the first person to jump off of the 12 foot wall would get a free shirt. We started another song and then all of a sudden Wade jumped off stage and moshed everyone with his guitar and then that incited a riot.


Next thing you know some kid named Shaun climbs the wall, moshes on it, puts a hole through the roof and then did a 12 foot stage dive. It was one of the best things I have ever seen. Then for some reason everyone started moshing like it was a cross between an ECW match and fucking Ozzfest. I even said before one of the songs, "Mosh like this next song was written by Sepultara." There were dudes straight kneeing each other in the head, people spinning each other around while on top of their shoulders in a fireman's carry. It was like a warzone. Dude's were throwing water all over each other and I loved every second of it.


After the show we packed everything up, sold some merch and then called it a night, but not before that kid Kenny got a whole tray of random sloppy ass shit from the potluck dumped into his mouth/face. This was a fucking wild show. We all hit up Denny's after and then made the drive back down to San Diego.All photos were taken by Brandon T. except for the Denny's Jam, that was by me with my bomb ass iPhone.

Feb 21,2008- Down To Nothing, Violation, Cruel Hand, The Mongoloids, Masterpiece

This was obviously an awesome show. Even if Masterpiece wasn't on this show and some random shit like Silverchair was on it, all of us would have been there anyways because every other band that played rules. Those bands are some of the best bands in hardcore right now as far as I'm concerned. There was a really awesome turn out and I saw a lot of faces I haven't seen in a while.

We opened the show and started it off with our "Kingtro". We call it that because for the most part it is ripped off of a King Diamond riff. As soon as Jimmy started playing the drums kids started moshing side to side and I already knew that our set was going to rule. Right after that we played a new song and kids seemed to really be into it. After going through those two we went onto some material that the kids actually knew and we played "Dust to Dust", the first song off of our 7". I was really excited because everyone was going bat shit crazy. Jason C-Tech, Pat, Luke, Luke's Mullet, Orion, Chris, among others were holding it down and really set it off in the pit. During the set someone yelled out, "Drop the gimmick.", whatever the fuck that means, I don't know. Hecklers have no effect on us because we have always just gone straight from song to song and if playing as hard as we can on stage and having a good time is a gimmick than 90% of hardcore bands need to "drop the gimmick". We ended our set with "For the kids" and then the Masterpiece intro or outro, however you want to look at it. It seems like not playing that intro for a while then bringing it back was a good choice because every time we play that and the whole room is moshing it blows my mind. Shout out to Brandon T. for taking some more photos of us and the entire show.

The Mongoloids played after us and it ruled. They played a ton of songs off of Time Trials and there were even a few speaker dives from me and Jimmy. Lots of mosh and lots of head banging going on. They had a pretty awesome merch set up and it seemed like the Time Trials crew neck was the big seller that night...I got one.

Cruel Hand played next and their set was pretty sweet. They played pretty much all songs from the new CD on 6131 and kids seemed to really be into them. I saw Jimmy do a flip off of the speakers during one of the songs.

I grabbed a plate of Vegan Spaghetti from the kitchen and then caught Violation. They are my favorite band from California. and aside from Down to Nothing had the biggest crowd reaction of the night. If you haven't heard Violation yet, get out from under your rock. They just got signed to 1917 and soon they will be putting out a split double CD with Slipknot.

Down to Nothing played last and it was awesome to see this band again. This was the first night of their like 3 month world tour. Straight Edge rules. They played a good mix of songs from each record and the kids moshed and dived. I did a flip off the speaker and ended up falling on my wrist/ass, no big deal. This show was also the first time they had their new album called, "Unbreakable". This is both the Save it for the Birds and Splitting Headache albums re-released on Revelation Records. The CD also includes some random live footage. After they were done playing they ended up playing two more songs, Skate or Die and Home Sweet Home. Awesome set, I can't wait to see these guys when they are on tour with Earth Crisis and Terror.

Overall the show ruled. If you missed it and live in the San Diego area it sucks to be you.

And it begins...

I just made this blog to keep a record of Masterpiece shows. Since I have the dust to dust zine I am able to keep a record of reviews on shows I have gone too, this left me searching for an outlet for our own shows. What you can expect from this blog is an accurate acount from our opinion on what is happening in the immediate area of masterpiece. This will also serve as a tour journal for our upcoming tour with Grave Maker and Ill Intent.

We have a few shows this month:

Feb 21-
DTN
the Mongoloids
cruel hand
violation
masterpiece

Che cafe, $8

Feb 22-
masterpiece
A better hope foundation
joyful sounds
+more

The stripline, free

Feb 24
mother speed
masterpiece
grave maker
+ more

Sergio Typhoon's house, free

- Chad