Junebug Show Diaries: September 2013

Saturday, September 14, 2013

9/14/13 - Memory Lanes - Minneapolis

Set:

Poster designed by
Tony L. Kollman

We've been saying that this was going to be our last show of the summer. It really seemed like the first show of the fall. The temperature was in the 50s and it was cloudy and raining. I was happy I had my jacket with me.

Memory Lanes is always fun. It's a bowling alley and they set up the stage right over a few of the lanes. People are literally bowling right next to the stage, with that familiar thud... rumble... crash, in the midst of your performance. It's fun.

We played tonight with two other bands that we've played with before. Moving Parts and What Tyrants always put on a good performance. All three bands are a really good fit for a solid night of rock and roll.

What Tyrants performs on the Memory
Lanes stage as patrons bowl

We only had a forty-five minute set tonight, but we wanted to pack in as much as we could. The setlist that was written could have easily filled an hour, but we cut down on the between-song banter and only cut one tune. We brought life to that old mantra, "Less talk, more rock."

Everyone used Moving Parts' drumkit, which ended up being a minor challenge for me. No rack toms and only one crash cymbal. It's quite different from what I play, so there was a lot of on-the-fly split-second decision making. Sometimes I would fall into the song and give myself over to muscle memory, but then, oops. There's no drum there. Oops. I just dropped a beat. But that's okay. I made some different choices in some songs and they worked out well. It's nice to be challenged once in awhile.

Thanks for a great spring and summer, Junebuggers! We're not necessarily done with live shows for the year. I'm sure we'll play more, but we have already begun work on rehearsing the material for our next album Stan. There's more to come! Stay with us!

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

9/4/13 - Live From Studio 5 - KFAI Studios - Minneapolis

LIVE FROM STUDIO 5 on KFAI FM

KFAI's Live From Studio 5 invited us to perform on their program. We jumped at the chance. We've been wanting to do an in-studio performance for awhile now, and Beards is a great record to do it on.When we arrived at the station and started setting up, we learned quickly that everybody there was really, really nice. It was going to be a good night.

Setup went on and we all were pretty much ready, but we noticed it was only about twenty minutes to air time and we hadn't done a soundcheck yet. As it turned out, Studio 5 was having some major technical problems. They were able to quickly get us checked in the board and continued to work on their issue. In the meantime, the show started in Studio 4 with an interview and a couple spins from our newest album. We talked a little bit about our background and about the album and the fact that there's much more music to come.

Now, the main job of an audio engineer is this: problem solving. The guys that were there tonight, Mike and Mike solved it. It involved running a long cable snake down the hallway from Studio 5 and plugging it in to the board in Studio 4. It got the job done. The show went on. We got settled into the studio and kicked it off on-air with a classic Junebug track from our first album, "Poet (Who Didn't Know It)" and the rest of the first half of the show was filled with Beards material. There was a break in the middle for other regular segments, which gave us an opportunity to go outside and get some fresh air. We visited with the engineers. I drank some water. I stretched some muscles. I forgot to visit the restroom, which came back to haunt me later in the second half.

But no matter. We came back and after playing some more tunes, we realized that we had a little more time to play than we had originally planned for. We played some tunes off Share, a song off Modern Day Fairy Tales, and a couple covers for good measure. Dew Glass, the second half host, made mention of the four lads from Liverpool, and we decided we'd whip out "Please Please Me." We also threw in a little "All the Young Dudes."

We ended the show on "Heaven's Just a Mystery." The song was a bit longer than the time we had available. So the show ended before we were finished. But they told us ahead of time to keep going since the performance was being recorded. Hopefully, the technical difficulties did not prevent that recording from taking place. Because it was a swell performance that didn't all go out on the airwaves.

KFAI is a great organization. It's a public radio station that runs heavily on donations and a volunteer basis. It's so good to see this type of independent radio still happening in the age of huge corporate syndication. We were happy to be here. Listen to KFAI and support them.

We would like to extend our thanks to Doug the Thug, MJ Gilmore, Dew Glass, Georgia, Mike and Mike for making us feel welcome and showing us a great time.

Listen to the replay here!