Fall Back '98

Once again we had a party scheduled on the same day Mother Nature decided to stage a flood event in Central Texas. Friends from North Austin called to tell us they were stuck in their neighborhoods. But some folks in South Austin stopped by in spite of the advisories telling people not to travel. So we all ate enchiladas and chili and jammed in the living room. Wolves@th'Door played a set and then it was a free-for-all open mike session. In spite of the small group, we all had fun taking turns making music (noise?). Bill brought a new banner for Club Spit made for us by Best Price Banners on 183 north. It was a total surprise to us and the folks at Best Price Banners had matched the font based on our website - good job guys! We didn't take any pictures this time other than the one of the banner out on Bill's van.

Mayhem '98
Saturday, May 9th marked the first Club Spit party for the summer of 1998. The neighbors knew it was coming with the arrival of the bright blue port-a-let and the Club Spit sign.

The opening band was supposed to be Backwash, but due to a flat tire experienced by the lead singer, Wolves@th'Door went ahead and got on-stage. For once, the cops didn't come out and tell us to turn down - must be the new 30 watt Laney amp that Rob is using now instead of the 100 watt Sovtek!

Next was the fantastic jam session put on by Fletch, Larry and others which was followed by Ashleigh Daniel. Still no cops - things were looking good!

At last Joel made it to the party and Backwash was able to get on-stage for their first public performance.

Apparently Backwash was a bit too much for the neighbors and their performance was cut short during their fourth song by the arrival of APD who had received complaints about the noise. Well, we DID have the amps turned up a little bit loud for 11:00 pm so we shut the live music down and switched over to playing CDs. At this point we noticed there were several other loud parties in the neighborhood so we're not sure we were the actual offenders this time.

The cops stopped by one more time to tell us they had a complaint from 8 houses down even though we were keeping it pretty quiet - in fact even THEY didn't think we were too loud, but we turned it down just a wee bit more. We're considering buying a decibel meter to PROVE we are staying in compliance with the noise ordinance next time!

In addition to the music, we had the webcam set up for those folks who couldn't make it. The old black-n-white cam served us well after a bit of surgery from Bill Woodland, though it is obviously on it's last leg - we'll have to buy a new one for the next party (this time a color one!) Unfortunately, we forgot to save any of the webcam shots, but did find this one picture that was left on the FTP site:

Later, after most of the guests had departed, we opened up the house and started the task of moving equipment back indoors. We had one more jam session to do - Marcos had come all the way from San Antonio to play with Johnny and since it was so late (or early depending on your perspective) we thought it best that it happen indoors. After we got the equipment set back up, the "secret" jam session began - Marcos on drums, Johnny on guitar and Ann on bass. What a blast! The perfect ending to the party. All was well until the next day when we discovered...

THE STOLEN STOLI

(we might put this story up someday...)