Hey,
My name is Doug Sakmann. I do a NY zine called “i am an evil carrot”.
Yesterday, after talking to Gavin through AOL, I was able to interview them
after they did the sound check. During the sound check, they played 6 songs,
all of which were new and all equally kicked much ass. During the interview I
was able to find out that next week after they get back to California they are going in the studio to begin recording a new album. During the actual show, they only played like 3-4 new songs, but they still rocked the house. Tramps’ world renouned “trampoline floor” as I like to call it was in full effect. I call it this because when you are in the basement right under the dance floor the celing goes up and down like a trampoline, and when you stand still on the
dance floor when everyone else is jumping you get slightly bounced around. I
always fear that the floor will collapse one of these days. I have to say the
band was very friendly and I had a great time. Some guys from H20, Pilfers,
and Bouncing Souls showed up backstage too. Also for anyone in the NY area,
right after I did the interview, Jason Dean from 92.7 LIR’s Ska show “One Step
Beyond” Did an interview with the girls as well and said it should be on the
air in the next few weeks. The ska show is on sunday nights at 8:30-9:00. I
guess that is all except I LOVE DHC!

if you want a copy of the “i am an evil carrot” zine when it comes out with
DHC , or any other issue, send $2 or $1 and 2 stamps tooo….
i am an evil carrot.
260-14 87th ave
Floral Park NY 11001
thank you for your time and effort
~evil doug

hey everyone,
i saw dhc last night and it was the best concert i’ve ever been to.
HERS MY STORY:
I was driving down the street on the way to the club and i saw two girls
walking down the street and i said to myself, “Wow they look alot like elyse
and karina, but it cant be , why would they be walking down the street?” It
turns out that it was them. When i got to the club i couldn’t get in yet but
where did i end up parking? right behind dhc’s bus. I got out to go buy
tickets and right as i was passing the bus door, elyse came out of the club on
the other side and walked right by me and said hi. I was so stunned that all i
said was hey and she got on the bus. How stupid am i. I had the perfect chance
to talk to her but of course i didn’t. When i finally went into the club some
guy bumped into me and said sorry. When he turned around it was mikey so i i
got a picture taken with him. i never realized how cute he is. It was so
weird. Elyse and Karina were just walking around the club casually and it
seemed like nobody cared. i would’ve thought that they would surrounded by
people but they were just standing by the pool table watching the gadjits.
Anyways, their show was awesome and i got to go on stage and sing He wants me
back. It was so cool. I actually got to sing with Karina. Well thats my story.

Later,
mary.

From the December 31, 1997 – January 7, 1998 issue of Metro (Silicon
Valley’s Weekly Newspaper), p. 31:

Live and Local, All Year Long: The best live shows of 1997 remembered ===================================================================== “Dance Hall Crashers and the Ataris, Nov. 24 at the Benson Center, Santa Clara. The last show of a tour can bring on either insouciance or a bout of the crazies. The hyperactive college kids wouldn’t let them go out with anything less than over the top, and the Dance Hall Crashers delivered.”

DHC was one of 17 shows in this article to get this “award.”

The show was held at the Sports Arena in sunny happy San Diego. Fifteen bucks for nineteen bands is a good deal any day. Most of the bands were worth it. There were two stages in the main arena and a lounge stage in the 21 and up Arena Club. In the main area, a band would play on one stage for about a half hour while another setup on the opposite stage across the arena. Between sets, everybody would move from stage to stage. If you were sitting in the seats, you would turn your head like you were watching a tennis match were the ball got hit by each side every half hour. The only problem was that you generally had no idea who was playing when. Posted schedules were hard to find. Some sort of flier that was handed out would have been a much better idea.

The sound in the arena was not too bad surprisingly. Some times the Sports Arena is an acoustic nightmare. It was a good idea to blow the sound out of speakers on both sides of the arena floor each time a band played on either stage. This compensated for any echo that might have existed.

It was definitely a ska/punk flavored evening. I guess you could call it a spunk show. HA HA HA. Very funny. Nineteen bands played including: No Doubt, Lagwagon, Vandals, Guttermouth, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Dance Hall Crashers, Buck O Nine, Unwritten Law, Blink-182, Sprung Monkey, fluf, Possum Dixon, Deadbolt, Sack Lunch, Dryve, Ghoulspoon, Swindle, Diablo 44, and Dry Socket.

I showed up late, and caught the last couple songs of fluf’s set, including my favorite fluf song “24-7 Years”. It wasn’t a total loss. During “24-7 Years” fluf’s singer O, instructed the members of the pit on how to dance to the song. “O.k., this is a slow part so move around slow. The punk rock part is coming up soon.”

Sprung Monkey played soon after. These guys remind me of the bastard sons of Rage Against the Machine and Faith No More. Apparently Ghoulspoon played sometime that night too. See either one. They might as well be the same band. Actually, Sprung Monkey played some new stuff that wasn’t too bad. Dance Hall Crashers got the crowd going after the earlier bands had merely warmed the crowd up. Crashers are a good ska band from Berkeley that are much better live than on record. The cool thing about these guys is that they have two very cool, very energetic and very cute female singers. They run around and hop up and down and the one girl spins her pony tails like a couple of tassels on a strippers’ breasts. I was interested to notice that the lead singer from No Doubt was hanging out and watching her ska competition while she spoke with some fans.

Blink-182 took the stage soon after. These guys are complete rip offs of the Vandals. They played their hit “M&M’s” off their first album “Cheshire Cat”, which actually isn’t too bad. They also bragged how they had just toured Australia with Pennywise and how Pennywise had paid for everything. Hey that’s great. No Doubt was popular with the crowd. They played an energetic set that included stuff of their new album like “Excuse Me Mr.” and “I’m Just a Girl”. The lead singer of No Doubt has a lot of energy. She DOES remind me of a little girl. If she ever needs a baby sitter, I’ll be there.

Buck O Nine, also a crowd favorite, continued the ska assault. These guys kick ass. They are a bunch of whacky, crazy, kooky guys. The crowd really dug ‘ em. They played stuff off their first two albums and their new e.p. “Water in My Head”. good music to pogo too. If you like horns, see these guys!

The Vandals nearly blew the other punk bands out of the place. These guys were one of the original 80’s California punk bands. The Vandals singer made a comment that they were being sued by Blink-182. Some people got the joke. We can tell an original from a fake. At one point on of the guys from Blink came out on stage, much to the chagrin of the Vandals. They weren’t too happy when one of the members from Pennywise came out either. The Vandals played a great set, punctuated by old stuff like “Pat Brown”, “Anarchy Burger”, and “Urban Struggle”.

One of San Diego’s more outstanding punk bands, Unwritten Law, also stood out. These guys used to be a heavy metal band and then decided they really wanted to sound like Green Day and Bad Religion mixed together. They are great live though. It was interesting to see the crowd gathered around the sides and back of the stage watching these guys. Their sets was topped off by “World War III”, and “Superficial Society”.

Another solid punk set was delivered by Guttermouth. I’d seen these guys before and wasn’t blown away by them. They kicked butt at this show though. The current buzz about them is justified. They tried to get a huge mosh pit started running around the whole arena but weren’t successful. Guttermouth got to count in the New Year.

I’d heard good things about the Voodoo Glow Skulls and really wanted to see them. They were just as good as I had heard. These guys are the perfect blend of ska and punk and have lots of energy. The were the best of the bands that played that I had never seen. They had a great horn section.

After the Voodoo Glow Skulls I retired to the Arena Club to see one of my favorites, Deadbolt ,who I’ve seen at least thirty times over the past few years. Harley Davidson, singer for the world’s scariest band, was just as abusive to the crowd as ever. He called punks fags, told audience members to “go get another fag haircut”, and apologized for “being drunk and hating fags”. He took a circular sander to his mic stand a couple of times, shooting sparks out into the audience. Deadbolt is fun, but it’s dangerous fun. You could lose an eye!!

Overall the Soma show went pretty well. The crowd was a little too rowdy, just like any Soma show. These kids can be dumb asses when they do things like throw shoes and lit cigarettes at people. They just don’t think about things. Slam dancing is cool but don’t force people to do it. Those little brats go pretty far when a guy like me pushes ‘em. I like to watch the expressions on their faces change.

There needs to be an underage scene and Soma fills a role. There need to be other all age clubs though. One club cannot have a monopoly over everything. This New Years show is an especially good idea because it keeps kids off the street and out of trouble. This gives them a chance to get together, see some bands, and bump into me and piss me off.