Buffalo Soldiers

Mohawk Place in Buffalo..legendary venue in a downtown Buffalo area fully fit for a zombie movie...wind howling, vacant streets..homeless,pungent zombies with runny red eyes scraping for change...the venue had some legendary bathrooms that I'm sure some of our most fearless heroes would cringe upon tinkling in...but the PBRs were cheap, and the venue was loud and packed with friends and family of Bryn and myself...(the two Bang Camaro members with western NY roots)...this show was my Fav so far...Leslies set slayed the crowd with a chord crunching purpose propelled by lead singer /guitarist Sadler Vaden's young manhood and rock abandon, and their energy floated like a cloud virus over the room..there was plenty for us to inhale by the time we went on...and the bang head and shred party was brought down on the hungry crowd in spades! Sweat, beer and writhing,rocking commotion ensues! I cannot tell you how cool it feels to see fists up and mouths moving along to Camaro songs night after night.. Sure I can, I just did!

A day off today to see Niagara Falls...and then on to Kentucky...believe me when I say this...our grass is not blue!

From Allentown to Ithaca

Two shows in two days....high energy..massive volume....Allentown looks like a town that was never finished....The Crocodile Rock was the strangest club I've ever seen....part college frat furniture...part pizza shop...3 stenchy stages....double booked in the room we were in...wondrous energy on a loud stage...tinnitus makes its first appearance in 10 years....Emo Band battle in another room...lemmings following each other to see Days of The new in another...

Ithaca brought close friends of Bryn, Andre and myself to the venue. Tom, Melissa, Ken and GG showed up from Rochester to witness the sonic sprawl and spectacle of a chorus line of Rawk Godz..wheels were bound to fall off as rumored but we rocked a rowdy half house and stayed the course with ...the arc of the beer spray was magical in the stage light...the headbang sweat a true baptism in the maddest sense of the definition of Rock.

We pile into two hotel rooms 11 men deep, 4 air mattresses strong in various degrees of blurry eyes and bodily function.....a short rest before a three hour drive in the AM..errr afternoon...shuffling off to Buffalo. Western NY receives the Rock very soon.

Billy Joel is in my Head

We have a show in Allentown, Pa tonight. I wish my wife and son could make the trip so I could see them, but it is not to be. So I will pass the day today trying to get Billy Joel's epic "Allentown" out of my skull. Yesterday we were in the van for just under a million hours and stopped at a Super 8(yes,another one)in West Virginia. I don't have any memories of Allentown except passing throught there one year on a bus full of sullen people on their way to Nowheresville. I also have the aching dirty faces of the steel workers from the Allentown video etched in front of my eyes and am expecting everyone to look like that when we get there...so they will be in dire need of some hot rocking!

On a side note I will be coming to Rochester NY(my home town)a week from today to participate in and celebrate Meaghan's Run 2009. Please go to www.meaghans5k.com for details on how you can donate to my sister's dream of generating money for early detection research for lung cancer(non smokers). Well now its countdown to getting back in the van on the way to Crocodile Rock in Allentown. Horns up!

Recuperate at the Super 8

Last night's show was a thrilling swirl of emotions for me. I've never been more angry before a gig and I poured my frustration into my performance. It was headbanging to the tenth power..there was blood welling up behind my eyebrows and sparks in my hair from all of the energy. Even my bad ears were ringing this time around, in bright midranges left over from the resonance of burly riffs and the mood demons having a support group in my cerebrum. The emotions came from many places..none of them having to do with this great band.It was a great feeling to play at the legendary Masquerade...

I spent some time upstairs in "Heaven" trying to retrace my steps from the Alice in Chains show so long ago. Nothing had changed in that place...the floor was still wafting with a hypnotic scent of buried Budweiser and patterned with the stomped out scuffs of a million Doc Martens. The ghosts of dead rock stars were hovering in dark corners and funneling the wailing echos of lost voices throughout the speaker stacks in the empty hall.

The boys in Leslie and Bang Camaro did a tour on a cruise ship with Lynyrd Skynyrd last year and a good bunch of fans and road family showed up in support last night. I briefly spoke with Mary Rossington, a fiery southern redhead and daughter of legendary Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington. That was a short blast of rubbing elbows with rock royalty..but we had a show to do and I went on about my business of scales and preparation.

I also signed my very first autographs last night with a silver sharpie on a couple t-shirts for two completely enthralled young rocking gamers named Beau and Chase. Rock on young dudes!

We have 10-13 hours of Vantastic-ness to get to Allentown. There will be lots of podcasts and road songs on the headphones today.

Gearing Up for the Masquerade

I'm unbearably psyched to play at this venue tonight called The Masquerade in Atlanta,Ga. Its a legendary club that has been a downtown institution for decades. it is divided into three levels...Heaven,Hell and Purgatory.Of course the bands all play in Hell...incredibly appropriate. I lived in hot 'Lanta in 1992-1993 and had the pleasure of seeing Alice in Chains play there on the Dirt tour. I also had the pleasure of shaking Jerry Cantrell's hand post show and sitting next to Layne Staley at the bar pre-show clutching a cold one while there was nobody around. Looking back..I would have said something to him...for in the years that followed...the Dirt album was a monumental influence on me.

I also saw Blind Melon, Stone Temple Pilots and GWAR annihilate the stage in Hell. The end of my stay in Atlanta was really traumatic...but my memories of the Masquerade are fond and full. Let's make some more.....

Road Warriors

One of my favorite Bang Camaro songs is Life is Hard On the Road. Lead guitarist and co-founder Bryn Bennett tells me that the lyrics in the song are all true. There's a line in there that says they once had to use merch money to bail out a band member and to me, that is a classic road story.

So far(and brothers and sisters,its EARLY)we've had a few lyric worthy incidents that I've filed away on our travels.Yesterday we hit three states...traversing through Louisiana,Mississippi and Alabama.I had that ole' lyric "The south's gonna do it again!" in my head on the way.

The south is a strange and wonderful place with characters that you just happen upon while driving next to them at 70 miles an hour. Yesterday we were motoring along...and to our left is a dirty white Buick Lesabre with a portly woman with bad sunglasses and two jiggly chins at the wheel. A closer look inside the car that had an empty child seat, a blanket of Dorito bags, and a plethora of empty bottles revealed that the woman was driving SANS PANTS.
If that wasn't enough to set the entire van ablaze with guffaws and rubbernecking...we then see her arm reach down to her sweaty nether region for a scratch? No...too long for a scratch. A friendly midmorning urge to diddle herself while driving? No...her hand came up too soon. An emergency tampon on the way to work at the Shoney's up the road? No...again...that hand came up too soon. But...the next time that hand went down it had one of those empty bottles in it.
Yes....Yes...Yes!!!! Our protagonist was pedal to the metal while going potty in a bottle!!!! WOW. The van just erupted in disgust and comraderie for having witnessed such an event. Personally, I had no idea that that was possible for a woman to do!! IN A BOTTLE? ONE HANDED WHILE DRIVING? You get an A for effort, honey pie! Look for yourself on a YouTube video real soon under the title PEE BRAIN.

Now if your at your cubby reading this with a bagel and schmear on its way back up or nearby I apologize. But this story had to be told. I also saw Pete McCarthy(drummer extraordinaire) eat pickled pigs lips at a rest stop somewhere in Mississippi...Pete eats anything. God bless him. If we ended up off road stranded in a snowdrift,desert or jungle, Pete would be sole survivor. Dining on pickled toes of passed band members, fermenting ravioli and roots and berries. More Road Stories to come.....Today we wake up in a wooded compound right inside the Georgia border that happens to be owned by the wonderful mother of band member(and lead singer) Glen. Not just any woman welcomes 13 greasy rockers into her home late at night and then makes us pizza after pizza and feeds us while we shake off the road dirt and relax. Kudos to her and her bass playing boyfriend! Its on to Atlanta now. A place I once lived for a year and a half from '92 to'93.....and left in a horrible fury after a nasty heartbreak on multiple levels. Haven't been back since....The south's gonna do it again.!

The True Inspiration

I'm writing in the dark at a hotel right outside of Louisiana. Its not really dark. Its 915 am and the curtains are closed. I was squashed in a van with 12 other guys for a grueling trip out of Austin yesterday en route to Atlanta. I was very quiet for most of the day lost in thought and trying to keep an embolism from happening in my ankle.

There is stress everywhere in my life right now for a long list of reasons I'm not going to go into. I was on the verge of second guessing my decision to live my dream at a very advanced rock and roll age somewhere out on that highway yesterday...when I thought of my sister. I have not talked about Meaghan for a long time here, but she has been on the cusp of my psyche constantly. I felt a strangely renewed sense of a fierce need for tapping into my creative side after she died. I had been coasting along in cover bands, barely writing, depressed, stressed out and rattled by my blue collar future. I learned so much, albeit painfully while she struggled for that last year and a half...and one of those invisible lessons was to use the time you're given..it sounds so trite...but it really forced me to break out of this non committal shell of considering myself an artist.

I guess that's why I'm here...singing in a band and scrunching into a van.Because she reminded me what I was really put on this earth for again. To create. It has put a hard and heavy load of burden, fear and stress on the two people I love back home and I have a weighty heart when I lean against the van window and contemplate my choices...maybe nothing will come of this that would lead to anything of a career in music...but I have to believe as an artist that I'm doing the right thing.The real thing. My sister is still up front stage right..resting her arms on the monitors and singing along. I see my wife and son there too..proud of me and singing along..with little earplugs in Hudson's ears of course.

I hope to create new masterpieces somehow from the tales spun on this angly trek though America...and someday share them with whoever will be among the crowd.

Texas Flood

The river of my rock mind has been overrun for the last three days...flooded in fanatic festivity. In Austin, everyone is a dreamer, rocker, artist and I felt at home wandering around with abandon and explicit schedules among them...as one of them.
Among the highlights..besides performing with Bang Camaro to enthusiastic audiences was seeing bands like Leslie..our tourmates...blazing down home rock from these three outstanding southern gentlemen complete with lyrics that warm your heart and caress your soul at the same time. Hot Leg..Justin Hawkins(the Darkness) and his new band in all of their pomp glam rock 8o's glory.The Everyday Visuals..an incredibly harmonic Boston band somewhere between Beachwood Sparks and the Beach Boys with distortion.
Whorehound...a tight and rumbling steady stoner band from heavy Houston.Dean Lickyer...a hot quartet of classic rocking youngsters from Hamilton, Ontario with a lead singer cloned from the pieces of Steven Tyler, Mick Jagger and Chris Robinson.

We're off to Atlanta today...a trip that will take just about two days.

I hope you don't mind that Circle of Fits has turned into a tour diary for the time being...I will get back to the regularly scheduled rock snark and constructive criticism when the tour ends.....it would still be nice to hear from some of the regulars while I ride these lonesome roads............seano

Boston to Austin

We're here...SXSW. Austin, Texas. Disneyland for rockers of all shapes and sizes, hairstyles,odors,dirty boots,nose rings,skinny jeans,accents,passports,weird beards and cheap sunglasses. Lots of black attire in the blazing sun...me included. We play our first of two shows here today at a place called Lovejoys, whose wi-fi I am stealing right now.

Yesterday I saw some great bands from a handful of different genres. Gallows is a young punk/hardcore band from the UK who really impressed me. They not only encourage a pit, they set up and play from INSIDE of it.

Kylesa is a strong stoner rock band from Savannah, GA. who has a ferocious female lead guitarist who just slays her goldtop as is a co- lead vocalist who really gets her growl on. They have 2 drummers all southern rock style who bring the thunder and lightening to the ground splitting rhythm.

Black Math Horsemen are doom goth meets Mastodon with a slightly Elvira looking Amazonian on bass and lead vocals. She kind of has a low howl that floats out front of very spooky but dreamy dark rock. The drummer was going insane on his kit. I felt the heat from 4 rows back.



Lots more to talk about later.....Seano

Vantastic

The past 24 hours have been a blur of crooked rain, a pastiche of trees and the Smoky Mountains racing past semi dirty windows, a conglomeration of mysterious smells clinging to the big van air that nobody claimed, and a handful of stops for gas and Subway sandwiches in the not so fine rest areas between Harrisonburg, Va. and Memphis TN.... where I write this scrunched in a corner against smudged striped out wallpaper in a Super 8 somewhere.

We picked up 3 more passengers in Nashville...the members of the fine band called Leslie, and crushed many more items all Tetris- like into the trailer and set off. I kept myself busy reading and watching the first season of mad Men on my ipod....and thinking of my peeps little and big back in Pennsylvania.

Tomorrow we will reach Austin eventually along with 1200 more bands..descending on central TX like fire ants to a hive in the grass, like Muslims to Mecca, like white on rice. Hail Hail Rock and Roll.

On The Road

Well its been a few days....the NYC Show went really well. The crowd was nutso and sang along with everything...Andrew W.K. came up on stage with us to sing "Night Lies". Joe Perry was in attendance walking around with the assistance of a gilded cane. He watched his two suns in Tab The Band open the show for us from the VIP section. I did not get a chance to speak with him but he did look at me funny a few times. Nothing new, everybody does. My neck has swollen up with a bad case of headbanger-itis but I hear with repeat movements (reps)...I'll build an adequate muscle back there.

Today I leave for 4 weeks. It will take us several days to get to Austin for the SXSW Festival. I'm sad to leave my precious wife and son to follow this crazy dream that sat latent for 10 years and then suddenly appeared in front of me. It will be hard on my wife to be with Hudson alone for such a long time. I am thankful, that even through the stress of all of this, she has given me the OK to do it. I love her dearly for that and for her support.
It will be strange for Hudson as well...Mom knows very little about Hot Wheel Cars and drum circles and boy stuff...he'll wonder where his Dad is. I love him and will miss him.....

Gearing Up For The First Show

I'm seated in an Au Bon Pain while in pain on a Thursday Morning. I had to walk through Harvard Square to get here, and as my eyes met the hundreds of students rushing into classes where greatness is accumulated or achieved, who study furiously like I rock, I felt inspired to walk on to the first short bus that I could find. I could feel my brain cells tensing up in embarrassment. I waved to a man in a Harvard uniform sweeping up cigarette butts in solidarity.

I slept on a mid 70s orang-ish faux velvet couch last night after a great practice with Bang Camaro that lasted way past this daddy's bed time. But I better suck it up, because the road is ahead of me, and bed time is usually undefined within that parameter. As usual, a masterful headache arrived just when I needed it to LEAST: about an hour before practice.At this point, pain is like a cruel joke, accepted and given in to. I managed to push through and it was great to see how a "choral" vocal accompaniment to hard rock takes shape. I sing the high parts, which didn't help the right side of my temple much, but everyone was pleased and the rock was brought in spades. Tonight is another practice with all six singers in attendance. And tomorrow we head to NY for the first show. Its an early show for NY: starting at 9pm at a hot club called Santo's Party House. My friend Roger took me there once and we were wallflowering out of our element and stared at Chloe Sevigny dancing in the front while we sipped our 11 dollar Heinekens.

This show tomorrow night will feature another band as well called Tab the band. Two of Joe Perry's Kids are in the band so maybe he will be there and I can tell him how awesome I think his work from "Rocks" is and ask him if he remembers meeting my sister and I in 2006.
The night is hosted by Andrew WK (remember him?) who is a co-owner? of Santo's Party House. I really don't know what to expect...but I'll fill you in with the details as needed. I hope to see some of my NYC peeps in attendance.

The Journey Begins Soon

I'm headed up to Boston tomorrow to start rehearsals with Bang Camaro. Our first show will be this Friday night in NYC at Santo's Party House. Next week, the journey begins at SXSW in Austin TX. We have a show there Friday, March 20 and on Saturday, March 21.

Here is the complete tour schedule for the first leg of the tour. I will be missing the April 3 and April 4 shows to return to Rochester to participate in Meaghan's Run 2009 www.meaghans5k.com and the subsequent concert featuring a reunion/celebratory show of my old band One Ton Hush. If you're in any one of these towns..come on down and see us. There will be rocking that is required of you.


SHOWS

Mar 13 - Santos Party House - New York, New York - get tickets

SXSW

Mar 20 - Fri - Lovejoys - 8th Impression Showcase - Austin TX
4:30PM - 604 Neches St, about 15 yards up from 6th St - more info

Mar 21 - Sat - The Beauty Bar - Sparks Showcase - Austin TX
5PM - 617 E. 7th St - more info

Mar 25 - The Masquerade - Atlanta, Georgia - ALL AGES!

Mar 28 - Castaways - Ithaca NY, 18+ show - w/ Leslie, and The Everyday Visuals

Mar 29 - Mohawk Place - Buffalo, New York - ALL AGES!

Mar 31 - The Dame - Lexington, Kentucky

ON TOUR WITH ELECTRIC SIX

Apr 2 - The Small Planet w/ Electric Six - East Lansing, Michigan

Apr 3 - The Intersection w/ Electric Six - Grand Rapids, Michigan

Apr 4 - Rhino’s w/ Electric Six - ALL AGES SHOW!! - Bloomington, Indiana

Apr 6 - Double Door w/ Electric Six - Chicago, Illinois

Apr 7 - First Avenue w/ Electric Six - Minneapolis, Minnesota

Apr 8 - The Aquarium w/ Electric Six - Fargo, North Dakota

Apr 9 - Vaudeville Mews w/ Electric Six, ALL AGES!! - Des Moines, Iowa

Apr 10 - The Waiting Room w/ Electric Six, ALL AGES!! - Omaha, Nebraska

Apr 11 - Mojo’s w/ Electric Six, ALL AGES!! - Columbia, Missouri

Apr 13 - The Record Bar w/ The Electric Six - Kansas City, Missouri

Apr 14 - The Opolis w/ Electric Six, ALL AGES!! - Norman, Oklahoma

Apr 15 - Emo’s Alternative Lounging (Outside venue) w/ Electric Six,
ALL AGES!! Austin, Texas

Apr 16 - The Boiler Room w/ Electric Six - Denton, Texas

A Moving Picture

I found this girl through the Blogs N Roses site. I'm speechless and want to wake my son up and put him in front of a piano right now, wet diaper and all. Its 5 in the morning though, he'll be cranky.

Chris, You Couldn't Be More Wrong

One of the signs of the approaching apocalypse is upon us....The non- awaited release of Chris Cornell's new album "Scream" hits stores next week. And the shit storm of negative feedback has left the former grunge deity scrambling for a semblance of sanity and answers for the faithful who want to know why....Why do you need to have Timbaland produce your album, Chris? Why have you embraced hip hop beats and smooth grooves? Why perpetuate this madness even further? Chris had this to say to Rolling Stone about the backlash. “At this point, it’s all theory. It’s like when I got together with the Rage Against the Machine guys for Audioslave and there was all this talk about how it was sacrilege from Rage fans, Soundgarden fans — even old ladies on the street would come up to me and say, ‘That’s a terrible idea’! Maybe I’m an optimist or just an idiot but I really think the fans will come around to the concept,” he says. “I could sit down and make a wall-to-wall guitar album tomorrow. I think it’s important for fans to know that but if I’m doing something that inspires me musically then I think it will inspire someone else too.”

Do you think we are close minded, Chris? Do you want to believe that we will "come around to the concept" of a monumental banshee wailer of hard rockdom turning his head on rock when it needs a strong voice MOST to embrace a genre full of crunked out and criminal bling-ulists fronting a studio concocted belch of beats? Fuck no, Chris...Nobody in your target audience gives a shit about dancing. They want to rock, the economy is in the shitter, the want a release with some wail, distortion, pomp and circumstance!...OK,throw in some strings, an ambient bed, some soft acoustics here and there to showcase your voice, that's fine. We rockers can take it down a notch. But we will not be following you "to the club", amigo.

This will be a fiasco, brother. And I love you. I hoarded Badmotorfinger as a bitter bible for years, I fluttered in and around Euphoria Morning with aplomb,I made jewelry to match your jewelry! I think "Seasons" from the Singles soundtrack is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. I have traveled with you. I looked California while Feeling Minnesota, man! I was there when you spewed out Cop Killer to us Lollapaloozans in 1991! I understand your need for inspiration. But my journey ends here. I can't raise the roof by lowering the rock bar so low that I have to shake it just to make it. Wake me when its over, when all I can hear are birds chirping and angel wings flapping.

U2 -No Line On The Horizon Review

My love affair with U2 has been rocky.We were so tight during the first wave of our romance, as it started when I was just a Boy..we held hands and went steady in October, fell in love during War, burning hot during An Unforgettable Fire and planted ourselves firmly in The Joshua Tree. We were seeing other people while Achtung Baby played in the background. And then the alienation crept in,our slow turn of the wave of love... We've broken up several times...The first was after the Pop album and stayed incommunicado thru the Zooropa album. A long hiatus full of disbelief, memories and being deterred by the bombast and the spectacle of the consequent tours did follow. And we barely spoke until All That You Can't Leave Behind. The song Stuck In a Moment really brought us closer and because of it we happily cohabitated through How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. We rode the plateau....until now.

Now in 2009 after 4 years of day in day out, we've come to a crossroads. No Line On The Horizon is that crossroads. I'm happy to say that its a CHALLENGING U2 album that takes several listens to truly appreciate as a whole, but more than half of the tracks leave an immediate impact. Thanks to returning geniuses Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, U2 is experimenting again. This album has something to remind me of every roll, wave and plateau of my love affair. My 25 year love affair. Behold the ethereal beauty of No Line On The Horizon-The Title Track, hypnotic, driving and complete with Bono as banshee and bard........Magnificent is a scintillating stadium rock anthem that slaps you politely and then shakes your hand with a great chorus "Only love can leave such a mark"..... The track that lured me into the splendor though, was Moment of Surrender..a twisting and turning love affair song that leaves you floating with reservation while you wonder and wander through Eno's ambient bed in the background, quite reminiscent of the best of The Unforgettable Fire. White As Snow and Cedars of Lebanon are devine pieces of artwork...like travelling through a painting or pouring through a book where a frozen trance can lead you through a nuance of time and travel.

The ladies will love I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight as the song that most reminds me of a track left off of Atomic Bomb..this will get the 150 dollar cheap seat aisles hopping.
Even the weaker tracks like Breathe and Stand Up Comedy have elements of the U2 foundation that will attract and engage the average fan who may be looking to dance or high five each other with backwards baseball caps on.
Overall,I am thrilled with the range..the stretch and width of this album. It SOUNDS like it took four years to make and thats a good thing. Albums should be ideas, plotted out, pieced together,fought over razed and brought to life again until the end result stands the test of time in relevance,risk and beauty. No Line On The Horizon is one of those albums.

Funny Monday Cartunes

Seth McFarlane is the genius behind Family Guy, everybody knows that. But he's also been putting out cartoon shorts on his Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. Here are three rock-centric shorts complete with advertising. This should hold you over until I review the new U2 album tomorrow(I've had it for a while now,marinating in my cerebellum but tomorrow is the official release date) On to the cartoonage....







good stuff,huh?