The Colt 45, French Horn Rebellion of Septembris 6th of the Stanky Year of Our Lord, Two-Thousand and Nine

(Sneaky wrote the bones of this blog entry just hrs after the party)

My homies, French Horn Rebellion needed a Pittsburgh stop on their tour with Brazilian electro darlings, Database. Rob and David of FHR reached out to my other homie, Vince (of Down and Derby fame) for a Sunday show.

Anyway

Yr friendly neighborhood, super-heroes pulled together at pretty much the last minute. All of these yrs, swimming thru the ether… our art late-blooming, has led to tonight. This show was my favorite show ever. It felt right. What else can I say?
This:

There are a lot of amazing musicians out there. So many incredible song writers, writing great songs. But there’s something more. There has to be.

So I say, why not surround myself with amazing musicians… write some great songs and…

I know this is a blog, but the only way I can describe it is to perform, hopefully a show somewhere the caliber of what took place tonight. The sun is not yet up. The party is over. There’s a light rain falling on a cool Native American Summer dawn. All of my friends and my lovely new acquaintances have been seen safely to there vehicles. And the feeling is still fresh in my, whatever the scientists are calling it now-a-days, mind. It was better than drugs. Better than sex, even… and trust me I’ve had some amazing sex in my day…

We worked hard to gather a room of amazing people…everyone… in that room in that moment are special, and I think a lot more of us are capable of producing and enjoying such moments in time. This is the something more. And I honestly swear that we couldn’t have done it alone. For the other seventy or so other beautiful human beings that shared this experience with me… I thank you. We did it! All of our hard work has paid off.

Let’s remember this night. Take a picture, it’ll last longer…but for how long? Long enough.

One more thing… during our triumphant encore that included a cover of “Purple Rain”… I held in all of our energy for a little too long. It was exceedingly beautiful and I became overwhelmed. Standing there on a kick drum, in the center of the best of company, singing Prince’s words like a well-known sermon… I cried out of joy. Could you tell?

The Heist: July 1st,2009, Howler’s Coyote Café

In my eyes, a very solid line-up: from Bloomington, Indiana Prizzy Prizzy Please and on IHEARTCOMIX records, Totally Michael. Reppin’ the ‘burgh hard, as always was Lord Grunge from Grand Buffet and yr favorite party protagonists, the Hood Gang. A sick show on a Wednesday for Pittsburgh or by any city’s standards.

Howler’s has become one of the better local venues with a new stage, a revamped sound system, a bands-keep-the-door policy, and a ceiling covered with autographed t-shirts.

The hook for this show, what Sneaky was telling everyone, in the sweaty summer bars in the East End all June, was that he would bungee-jump off of the Bloomfield Bridge during the climax-freakout of “Go All Night.” No precautions were taken for this stunt except of course the Penguins winning the Stanley Cup a few weeks early, instilling the assured confidence in the power of a real Pittsburgher. The whole steel city was invincible still, like the few frenzied moments when Mario grabs the bouncing star. Sneaky envisioned a spectacular dive off of the center of the bridge all captured on mini-DV by roving camera-man, Los. Bungee or no-bungee Sneaky intended to bridge-dive into sure YOUTUBE glory.

The Hood Gang went on to rock the faces off of a roomful of friends and well-wishers. An ever amorphous musical entity, the Hood Gang brought yet another twist on their line-up to the bar; an 18 yr old, in fact. A music phenom, Jeremy Malvin on keys/guitar/aux percussion, who had just graduated from the same arts high school,CAPA, that several other members of the band had graduated from nearly a decade ago. Small fucking world… Pittsburgh.

With the crowd in a tribalistic fury, the finale of “Go All Night” began… “1,2, ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR!” And Sneaky took off in a flash, surprising the film crew. He was through the bar and out the front door with a Stanly Cup in one hand and a jingle bell wand in the other. Howler’s is about a block and a half away from the bridge. By the time Sneaky Mike made it through the first intersection he saw that no cameras had followed him and lost some steam. He settled for jumping onto the railing of the patio of the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern, which was having a fairly populated Drum and Bass night. His arms raised in a V, he screamed like he had in the streets of the South Side when the Steelers won their sixth Super Bowl. The small crowd of bar-ravers were pleased, and cheered along with Sneaky, one even saluted him with a “Roller Boogie” shout-out.

After the show, the lads from Indiana went back to Sneaky’s to party with some of the Hood Gang. The party lasted well into morning, and in the revelry, a new post-reality show was created entitled “Untold Moments of Dudes Hanging Out”. Production on the pilot will begin in early 2010, and the concept is being heavily pitched to both Showtime and HBO.

In the morning, Sneaky, was horrified to discover that he’d been ripped-off. His famous gold American Apperal tights, destined to someday adorn the walls of a very lucky Hard Rock Café, were gone. Sneaky flipped out and strip-searched all the guys from Indiana as well as every inch of their van. The priceless heirloom never turned up. There were vague signs of a break-in but perhaps that was a diversion, a cover-up, in a larger conspiracy. Many wild rumors and theories flew around and still are for that matter. One has the saucy, middle aged female bar owner of Howler’s, fleefing away from the scene huffing the pants. They were never autographed (actually that’s not exactly true, Sneaky had autographed his own crotch at the merch table at a show earlier that summer) and don’t appear to be hanging from the ceiling of Howler’s. Maybe the pants were retained for her personal collection or it may all have something to do with some sisterhood of the traveling pants-type shit.

HGinWV6.27.09

Yr favorite party legends rocked out three sets at The Irish Pub in Weirton, West Virgnia. The audience was awed by the Hood Gang's patented high-flying partycore antics. Prior to the show Sneaky, Drunk Monkey, and Los tail-gated with the Stanley Cup in the bar parking lot, sampled the culinary delights of the local Subway, found a haunted house straight from one of Sneaky's nightmares, and got called a "hippy" by an unseen assailant. Justin Brown and Chris upon arrival immediately challenged each other to a disgusting shots contest which left JB puking in the bathroom minutes prior to the 1st set. After an exhausting 3 set, 30 song, beer soaked ballyhoo the HG scrambled to find a strip club at 3am to no avail. Instead they rode an ATV, Sneaky had to be talked out of climbing the bar's roof, got paid $400, crushed the rest of the case of High Life's, revisited the spooky house on the top of the dead end hill. Chris got hopelessly lost. And on the way home to Pittsburgh Los made Drunk Monk pull over on the highway for an emergency piss right on the side of the off ramp.