It is Bandcramp Friday, which means they don't charge taxes or something, so I'm taking this as an opportunity to discuss our most recent album from 2020 called "Relaunch." It came as a follow up to 2017 release "Cancelled," based on the idea of man going crazy because his favorite cop drama was cancelled, and we had amazing help from friends old and new in creating short films to accompany the release. The story was loosely based on my experiences with mental illness, specifically with symptoms of PTSD/Major Depressive Disorder that I endured following our move from Columbus to DC. It's by far the most personal series of songs I've ever written, and at times questioned whether I not wanted to go through with it. But I did, we did, it was very therapeutic, and ended up being something quite special that I don't think we could ever replicate.

We were in the process of shooting videos for the "Relaunch" album when the pandemic started and we had to cease operations. We ended up doing those super fun streaming shows from our home, including a makeshift album release on May 16, 2020. But what we wanted to do for the album was never fully realized, and time marched on. We wanted to do a more hopeful album after doing one so bleak and despairing, then yeah, a bubonic plague happened. But we finished our nice little space album about the Challenger II crew, and were once again happy with the outcome. People understandably had other things on their mind, so we feel like the album went by the wayside a bit. We had a friend recently inquire about the meaning of the album's story, and with our plans for a new album called "The Next Day" scheduled for a Spring 2023 release, I thought what better time than now to shoehorn this explanation in. If you're intrigued about what this guy said, you can go stream/download the album at the 'Camp.

One morning in the early 90's I was laying in bed before school, listening to a Cleveland-area morning DJ on my clock radio. He was discussing how "Rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot was touring the country with his giant butt balloon to promote his song '"Baby Got Back (I Like Big Butts)." But he misread the copy as "Baby 'I' Got Back," and when the parenthetical was also not explained, the way he read it made it sound like the song's title was: "Baby, I Got Back. I Like Big Butts."

So upon hearing that, I pictured the premise of the song being that some guy arrives back home from a trip (see pictured), and defiantly yet cheerfully informs his wife that his journey gave him a new perspective on things, and upon his return he's realized that he "likes big butts," and perhaps this unfortunately changes the dynamic for them as a couple.

When I was a kid, I was reading a book about the solar system with my mom, and at one point we came to a part about the Big Bang, and she told me that this was an inaccurate theory that conflicted with our religious beliefs, in that some people believed there was an enormous "BANG!!" noise and then everything appeared as is, which is a pretty funny if you think about it logistically.

We were recently watching that special on Warren Jeffs and his cult, and there was a moment where they interviewing this ex-member about her experience, she detailed how difficult it was to assimilate into society afterwards, saying she didn't get everyday references people were making, such as those in SNL sketches.

It reminded me of this moment when I was in middle school; It was during my lunch period, and everyone was watching this boy give a speech as a candidate for class Treasurer. At the closing of his speech, he said people should vote for him because "He was good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, people liked him." As the kids cheered, I leaned over to my friend with genuine wide-eyed confusion and asked, "Did he just say 'goddamn it,' people like him?" My friend turned to me with a sarcastic disdain, and retorted, "Yeah, he said god-FUCKING-damn it."

By Mary Alice

The Date Auction episode of Saved By the Bell is quietly one of the best episodes they put out. I would argue it’s the single best one that doesn’t take place on location in one way or another (Mystery Weekend, which is my second favorite after the two part Christmas episode, is shot on a set, but takes place completely in a mansion instead of primarily in the school).

The fallout from the date auction, of which Jesse is NOT A FAN, has Jesse going to the dance with Screech, Slater with Kelly (because Jesse refused to bid on him), Lisa going with Brian (who we never see before or since), and Zack going with Wendy, whose body is of a size literally never seen on a high school girl at Bayside or any at other televised high school to that point in history.

Anyway, it’s a pretty messy (as you’d expect) but is honestly the most sensitive and realistic portrayal of actual TEEN PROBLEMS ever presented on Saved By the Bell. Zack is embarrassed to be going to the dance with Wendy. Jesse describes her as “not exactly [his] type” and when the whole thing blows up, Wendy identifies Zack’s disinterest as being the result of her not being “Lydia, Kelly or Elle McPherson!” Lisa changes her whole personality to appeal to Brian’s high-minded intellectualism, which makes him an odd choice for Lisa. Brian also gifts us with tearing down the fourth wall at some point and it’s magical, describing Jesse as a “pseudo-intellectual neurotic.”

Also, watching Jesse and Screech dance together is always a treat, no matter how many times I see it.

As a kid, I would often draw over/alter the pictures that I saw in the daily newspaper or weekly readers. In one instance, I drew sunglasses on Daniel and Mr. Miyagi on this poster for The Karate Kid Part II in the movie section of the paper - it pretty much looked exactly like this. My dad saw it later that day, and was fuming. "You know what this is?," he yelled. "It's called VANDALISM!"

August 19, 2005

Columbus

Skully’s

w/ Zachery Allan Starkey

House of Cards

Debaser

This was our first and only show at Skully’s, a large dance club that’s a staple of High Street. It probably qualifies as a “mid-size” venue, but to me it feels like a big chasm of dance floor emptiness (at least when a bunch of bozos play there, haha). Zack Starkey, another staple of High Street, was kind enough to put us on, along with our buds in Debaser and a band called House of Cards (who I don’t really remember anything about). I remember we got big buckets of free PBR from TJ Steppe, another staple of High Street, who was running sound that evening. I believe it was the first gig we were on where the bands got that sort of treatment, and I felt like Jon Bon Jovi.

Debaser went on first, and by this time they had switched from a rock band format to a Depeche Mode format. Our friend Bryan was still singing, and he was wearing a sparkly shirt while grooving around on stage. At one point he joked while pointing to a spot on the mostly empty floor that “Right here is where I pictured a bunch of people dancing.” Later in their set, Miles Curtiss (who was performing with Zack that evening) burst into the club and started dancing like a maniac in front of Bryan, which I think cheered him up. I told Bryan afterwards that I now had a major crush on him because of his shirt.

House of Cards went next, but that’s been deleted from my memory, probably due to the free PBR. We went after them, and I remember being disappointed that we couldn’t better utilize the enormous wall behind the stage for projection. We were still doing a slideshow at this point, so it ended up being this comical juxtaposition where these small images were being projected on a tiny portion of this massive space, and a little slanty to boot. I sang along to the massive booming sound from the PA, and flailed about on the enormous stage. At one point during the set Zack and Miles took it upon themselves to come up and start dancing, and to also jam my butt with the microphone stand. About ¾ of the way into the set, TJ quietly dropped me a note that said they were running late and that we had time to do one more, and “sorry about that,” and I think that made me feel like Richie Sambora. Zack then went on with both Miles and Brian joining him on synth. I don’t remember much of what happened, except for some drunken dancing and Zack arguing with a girl at the bar (from the stage).

We never had much luck booking Skully’s ourselves, and by the time I was confident that we could make at least a small dent in their space, we didn’t really have any contacts there. But so it goes, just like the club, with its gaudy sign outside that demands your attention to this day. Dance on, Skully’s.

August 18, 2005

Dayton

Elbo’s

w/ The Phonographers

BRP

This show marked our first performance outside of the greater Cleveland and Columbus area. It came as a result of obnoxious persistence. I had emailed the venue several times asking for a spot and received no response. So I decided to make a point to email them over and over with the same booking inquiry just to be annoying. To my surprise, after maybe a dozen messages, I received a reply of “How about next Thursday?”

Elbo’s was a cool little venue that’s now been gone for around 15 years. There’s sadly little info or pictures of the venue online, this photo I found here is just of some dudes on the stage. Once the night was booked, they put a picture on their website of me performing at Supraphonic Studios, and they added some cheesy-looking effect to the photo that I’m not sure what to call, but there were like these wavy lines coming out of me. It’s probably one of many pictures that I failed to rescue from MySpace before they migrated their servers and lost most of everything. Kind of like the Universal Music Studios Fire for a lot of us.

We were booked with The Phonographers and BRP, who I believe were both local. I don’t remember anything about BRP, I think they might have been hip-hop. We went on second, and I remember having a pretty good time. We had these soft yellow balls (I’m not sure what their real use would be), but we had them leftover from the “Pee Party” album release show. I took some on stage with me, and between songs I informed the audience they were filled with pee, and I threw them while people screamed and scattered. That’s something important I learned that night - If you say that something random is filled with pee and throw it at people, they will react in kind no matter how ridiculous the idea is. At one point during a song break this table with two girls yelled at me “How about a kiss, it’s her birthday!,” and without hesitation I replied “Sorry, I’m married” in the exact manner that Ken Griffey Jr. said to Hillary Banks when she was hitting on him in an episode of Fresh Prince. We saw them later after the set and I thanked them for coming, and they kind of gave me this look of “We weren’t really trying to make out with you, ya know.”

The Phonographers were young dudes, but damn could they play. They covered the Primus song “Mr. Knowitall” and absolutely killed it. I didn’t keep in touch with either band afterwards, but I saw who I believe was the drummer of the band at a later time. He had run sound for us at a Columbus venue, and later told his bandmate “Hey, guess who I did sound for? The ‘My-my-my Car Phone’ guy.”

I remember that when the bar asked how many members were in the band, I said without thinking it through that it was just me. Mary Alice was perturbed, because this was for the sake of drink discounts, and wondered why didn’t I just say the band had two members. This was back when her involvement was minimal, before she used a digital projector, before she was on stage singing, and largely before having any creative input. Looking back, I can admit to being somewhat insecure and overprotective about the identity and creative control of the operation. Ya know, songs about Urkel and all. But it was a unique arrangement that EG had in those days, and I kind of felt like it was mostly what I had going for me personally. I’m much happier to have a bandmate up there with me now.

I also remember leaving my credit card/tab open there. They were super cool about it, and even mailed my card to me. (I did that another time much later at a place that I can’t recall, and they told me to fuck off when I asked about them mailing the card). This was probably the best time we ever had doing a show in Dayton, and I’ll have more about that later.

Show #24: July 23, 2005

Columbus

Andyman’s Treehouse

w/ Tom Beardslee

Jason Roxas

I don’t remember much about this show, and I think that means it was pleasantly uneventful. I believe Jason Roxas played on his own (was later part of the group Psychedelic Horseshit), and Tom Bearslee may or may not have played with a band (now apparently teaches guitar in Belgium). We went second and had a good turnout, which prompted Tom Beardslee to remark that we “had a following.” Mary Alice began to say, “Well, it’s a lot of our friends,” and I was like “Shh! We have a following.” (Pictured) I do remember that Jason and Tom bailed before Quinn counted out the door, so we got all the money for the evening. Haha, sorry boys.

July 15, 2005

Columbus

Cafe Bourbon Street

w/ November Loop

Debaser

This - this show was something.

First of all, it was the last time we performed at Cafe Bourbon Street until February 2008.  It was a complete shitshow, and I took it as a sign that both sides should move on.  There were some very fine people on both sides, but enough was enough.  It marked our 5th gig at the venue, and I feel like there had been an issue with all of them.  This one took the cake.

It was partly my fault. OFFICIALLY it was all my fault, but if we’re being honest it was more 30/70 their fault. I had been in touch with the booking agent about this particular show (the same one as the YES YES YES YES email), and I sent several emails to them asking for a final confirmation.  After weeks of not hearing back, I figured this person was just lazy, so I decided for everyone that the show was on.  When we got to the venue that night to load-in, the area where we usually entered was locked.  I knew deep down we were in trouble, but I kept hoping against hope that it was just incidental.  We then entered through the front and told the bartender we were here for the gig.  “There’s a show tonight…?” she said.  Ohhhhhh crud.

I don’t remember or know who was tending bar, but she was cool about it.  She said she was glad for the gig, because duh, business, and that she would contact someone to work the door.  The person who had been contacted to do the door was my pal, the booking agent.  When he arrived at the venue on his bike, he was none too pleased.  “Which one of you is Pete?,” he asked with great annoyance.  He proceeded to dress me down, telling me the gig had not been confirmed, and that we were fortunate he needed the $25 that he’d get from working the door.  But at least the gig was a go.

There was a decent crowd that night, mostly to see November Loop.  I was stressed about everything that had happened, so I was getting pretty sauced while they were on.  The booking agent asked me during one of their songs to jump on stage and tell the crowd that certain cars had to be moved from a specific area.  I was pretty loaded by then and I didn’t really know what he was talking about, so when I got up there I got on the mic and was like “Yeah ya better move your fucking car, a-blurda-blur-blee-oooo…,” which made him shake his head in disdain and hop on stage to share the info himself.

We went on last, and I remember it not going well.  It wasn’t because I was too drunk, the crowd just didn’t seem into it.  Once our last song ended to mostly silence, a girl at the bar sarcastically yelled “‘A’ for effort!”  

Yes, the “White Men Can’t Jump” shirt there - I had one that Mary Alice bought me that looked exactly like this.  I was wearing it while performing that night.  Somewhere out there, there’s a picture of me sitting down in the middle of the stage, wearing that shirt and looking pretty bummed.  I think it was lost by the servers over at MySpace.  It was posted with the caption, “The show that never was.”  I was also wearing that shirt at my 32nd birthday party when I threw up all over myself and bruised my ribs falling over.  I eventually got rid of it, because it seemed like something awful happened every time I wore it.  Probably should have worn Billy Hoyle’s “Parental advisory’ sticker shirt instead.

Mary Alice: I remember much of the collateral from this story but don’t remember the show itself.

I mostly remember the White Men Can’t Jump shirt which was far funnier at the time than it is even now. I don’t know how funny it is now because my opinion is clouded by how funny it used to be, but I suspect it is still funny, so you can imagine how funny it was at the time.

Also Pete’s 32nd birthday was in 2010 and if you recall that year, you may be aware that an Early 90s Party theme was itself extremely funny and much less obvious than it is now. Hence the White Men Can’t Jump shirt. Man, I miss that shirt.

June 29, 2005

Cleveland

Rain Nightclub

w/ Colorforms

Johnny La Rock

I had a feeling about the date of this show, so I looked it up, and I was right - it took place on a Wednesday. So Mary Alice and I drove 2 ½ hours up to Cleveland and back for this gig, and it might have been the last time we did that. For a while I’d look back at the rate we were going in 2005-2006 (50+ gigs) and wonder if we’d wimped out by slowing down. I have a tendency to miss the obvious, which is that we were both in school at the time. Last night in fact, while watching A Different World, she and I were waxing nostalgic about the unpredictable schedules you keep in that setting, and the unusual freedom it often allows you.

So we drove up to Cleveland on a Wednesday night to play with pal Johnny La Rock, who was doing a solo experimental set, and a third and final outing with Colorforms. It was at a joint called the Rain Nightclub (which I can find nothing about online), which I remember had a stage that was awkwardly tucked off to the side of the bar. After we arrived, we were in the midst of talking to the bartender and our friends when a drunk guy at the bar yelled “Hey, why don’t you cut your hair!” at me. I chose to ignore him and turned away with my long black tresses while he chortled with a friend, but did notice later that he himself was balding, and lamented the missed opportunity for a sick comeback. In the type of moment you only dream about, he did it again. “Hey, why don’t you cut your hair!” he yelled. “Why don’t you GROW some hair?!” I fired back. He put his head down on the bar and laughed, and his friend cackled and gave me a thumbs up. (I think it was J Kyle Moyer from the Colorforms who turned to me and complimented my awesome burn).

My old friend Keith from my hometown was there, and I remember that specifically because he told me that the strobe light we were using on stage was making him nauseated. It cracks me up, because Keith has never sugarcoated anything with me. I remember asking him if he liked the album that we had recently done, and he told me without hesitation that the “electric organ sound” got on his nerves. Fair enough, Big Daddy. He was right about the strobe light though, especially in a setting that small, and I think it ended up breaking that night anyway. A crisp $20 for the trouble, and back to the ‘bus we went.

Mary Alice: I can say for sure this was the last time we drove to and from Cleveland on a weeknight. I remember discussing it on the way home.

Another thing I remember about this show is that TWO different people talked to me about the production value of our show. If you’ve been reading these as they come out, we were at this point just getting our shit together in terms of getting through a set without major technical difficulties. We were just getting some idea as to how to do the basics and now it was time to bring the quality.

I don’t know why people come to me with this kind of information because I’ve almost never had anything to do with sound quality, but I was told first by a member of the Colorforms that Pete’s vocals needed to be louder, across the board. People couldn’t hear him spout his hilarious lyrics and that was a problem. I can see that because without the lyrical content, the show would have just been really confusing. More so than it was when you could hear the lyrics I suppose.

Secondly, in feedback that dogs us to this day, I was informed that we need to pay more attention to lighting because people couldn’t always see the images. In response, we had all the lights turned out in the stage area, which as Pete mentioned was off to the side in this weird cubby hole area. The result was that it looked like Pete was performing in a cave or under a bridge or something. Neither the Spencer’s Gifts lighting effects nor the projector light did much to fix it. I think if anything, it made the whole thing weirder.

Show #21: June 23, 2005

Columbus

Bernie’s Distillery

w/ Fat Girls by the Snack Table

9-Volt Haunted House

I don’t know why I got in the habit of listing shows at Bernie’s as being at “Bernie’s Distillery.” It makes it sound way classier than it was. There was no finely-tailored mustachioed bartender serving craft beer to bearded patrons. Instead, picture the worst dive you’ve ever been to, multiply it by ten and then set it on fire. Either way, I was definitely excited for our second show with the Fat Girls at Bernie’s Fine Distillery.

We had Cleveland experimental band 9-Volt Haunted House down to open the show. If you wanted me to show you a photo of what an “experimental music group” looks like, it’d be a photo of these guys. I had known Craig from the group through my friend Mike, and the other members Jack and Matt through the ExBe message board. I was certainly glad they went first, because they had a fuckton of stuff to set up. After they were finished piling everything on stage, they played an old-timey loop of "A-Hunting We Will Go" until the show began. I recall Matt from 9VHH and I looking at an ad for a White Stripes album in the Alive paper, and mocking Jack White’s current Snidely Whiplash-esque appearance.

Our set went very well, so well in fact that at the end I spiked the microphone in triumph (our mic, don’t spike the house mics, children). Matt later noted on ExBe how much more “dynamic” I seemed that night than the previous time he saw me, and correctly attributed it due in part to my consuming a good amount of Miller Genuine Draft beforehand. I think as a result, MGD became my drink of choice for a while. This solidified my resolve to begin a routine of always having a bit before going on, which is a practice I’ll officially neither encourage nor discourage. It’s fueled some fun gigs, and caused difficulty for others. Know when to say when, and practice how to safely fall over.

The Fat Girls then were up, and they began having sound problems shortly after starting. Sara started yelling at the club sound engineer Ryan Vile and saying “Fuck Bernie’s!,” which I wasn’t sure was wise to do while they were on, but later realized that was par for the course for everyone involved. I believe the late great Don Bovee joined them on stage to do a rendition of the Batman theme-song that night, which for those who don’t know, was a bit of a rite of passage for Columbus bands. (We were able to do a crummy version with him once at a later Bernie’s show) Or come to think of it, I think Don may have tried to make it happen but Gretchen turned him away, and so Don stumbled over and told me they were both “bitches” and left.

We’re getting into the local Columbus music scene weeds here, so I think it’s a good place to stop.

June 18, 2005

Columbus

Andyman’s Treehouse

w/ The Whiles

The Receiver

“First of all, FUCK the Alive!” yelled Quinn over the phone. “Second of all, do you want to do a gig here next Saturday?”

We’ve seemingly always been fortunate to have a scheduled show in the queue following a performance I’ve been displeased with, it never gave me a lengthy window of time to throw a full-on “I quit” tantrum. I was already re-invigorated by the idea of using our laptop, so we re-purposed this $900 Compaq Presario that had been damaged by downloading Kazaa for the live show. While we’ve experienced plenty of problems since, we never again experienced that stupid problem.

I was told the show would be with The Receiver and Boob Cocoon. I couldn’t find any info online about the latter, but putting that name on the EG webpage certainly made for some interesting searches and site traffic. I found out the night of the show that “Boob Cocoon” was actually Joe Peppercorn. The band that he fronted, The Whiles, were all set to play the show, but I think that was up in the air when the booking info was sent to the papers, and he thought he may have to play solo. That’s right Columbus faithful, long before Sgt. Peppercorn’s marathon, there was Boob Cocoon.

I met Casey and Jesse Cooper from The Receiver that night, who told me that they were still deciding on their new band’s name, and were also considering using “Rocky III.” The Receiver went on to do quite well in Columbus and beyond, but damn it boys, you should have gone with Rocky III. I often brought that up whenever I saw them afterwards, and I feel like in the end it was something that maybe only I knew? Either way, now all of you know their deep dark secret.

I remember the night going very well, and we played this sort of blistering fast set without much talking between songs, because we were still figuring out how this laptop thing worked. But the whole thing was a relief and a breath of fresh air. Sort of like being inside a Boob Cocoon while watching Rocky III.

Congratulations to The Electric Grandmother and director Dylan Mars Greenberg for wining the 2022 Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award for the "You're in the Show" video!

Also get the new single right here at Bandcamp!