How Great Can It Be? It’s Fife…

OK, so normally I blog about local bands and what I think about them.  But today I have decided to do something different and talk about the Venue…That’s correct, The Rikk Beatty Band played at the lakebridge Forza in Lakwood and then we all thought we should grab a Pizza at Louie G’s Pizzeria in Fife so we can have a peak at the Venue the band would be playing at in a few weeks.  Louie’s was hosting James Honeycut this night and James was playing a solo acoustic set. 

What we first noticed was how the stage is set up for a large band to play with killer lighting and a fog machine to set a tone to the show.  The Sound man (Chris) knows what he is doing and had the perfect volume for James’ voice and guitar which made the event an intimate evening.  The group decide to order a ‘Large’ pizza and relax for a while when Louie asked if they wanted to play an impromptu set since we had some gear, plus this way we (Louie and Chris) can test out the new sound equipment.

We set the stage up for a quick set of about 5 songs or so and as we started the sound check we became completely blown away on how perfect Louie G’s sound really was!  Rikk said ‘the sound is what I imagine it to be like playing at the Paramount Theater or some other BIG venue place’ he went on and add ‘if the stage sound was only half as good as what the audience was hearing hearing then you know it sounded killer out there!’.  He was correct!  The sound for the audience was, in my opinion, as good if not better than some of the shows I have at the White River Amphitheater.

Now you throw in the lighting system and the fog machine and you just turned your Pizzeria into one of the hottest place in the South Sound to have your band play at.  Now let’s throw another thing into the mix…Louie G’s is an all ages venue too…How killer is that!! There have been many of times my boy wanted to go with me to see the Rikk Beatty Band and I would have to say ‘No’ cause he is only 7 years old; however, with them playing at Louie G’s I can bring the whole family for some of the best pizza I have ever eaten and watch an awesome musical event at the same time.

I have to also shout out about Louie, his wonderful bride Andrea and the Staff (I couldn’t remember everyone’s name) because when you walk into Louie G’s you are welcomed as if you are family.  This is not the dreaded family that you only want to see during the holidays either but the ones you call 4 or 5 days a week just to say hi. 

Let me give you a little bit about the title now…My buddy Caleb (Toe B- you need to ask him how is nick name) and I were telling people about Louie G’s, the Pizza, the sound and everything we enjoyed about the night and we had more then one person say to us ‘How great can it be…it’s Fife!’.  Let’s just say it was so great there that I only wished it was a little closer to Olympia so I could go there 3 and 4 days a week!

Finally, Louie has a saying ‘Welcome to my dream, you’re all in it!’  Louie, Thank you for the dream, I am glad to be a part of it!

Tatarus- The Next Best Rock Band to Come Out of Olympia?

Tatarus played down at the Midnight Sun Friday night April 1^st.   I received a call from their manager (Mark Carras) to come out and see the show, take some pictures and post a blog about the event as he believes this band is the next best rock band to come out of Olympia Washington.

Now I am a skeptic when it comes to bands being formed in high school as I do not believe they have the maturity as other seasoned musicians have.  I mean really, you take a 17 or 18 year old kid, throw some tail at them, ask them to continue to practice and play with more tail chasing them all the while their lady friend sits in the background…you have the making for another Yoko Ono situation!  Speaking of that, I did a little research to find out just how many bands were formed in high school to make a name for them in a greater light and you can count them on one hand!  With that said, they aren’t peanut bands either (and please if you know of other bands, great! But this is what I found). 

Genesis: good band lasted through the 80’s after being formed in 1967. 

Doctor Dolphin was formed at Davidson High in northern Sydney. They moved to Perth for one year to learn the ropes and changed their name to INXS, which unless you were born after the early 1990’s you have heard of them. 

Most everyone knows the band Sweet Children after their name change thanks to one of their teachers making the statement ‘it would be a Green Day in hell before you made anything out of yourselves’.  Thanks Teach!!

In 1976 Larry Mullen posted an ad on his Dublin school’s bulletin board ‘Looking for Musicians’. Mullen who would play drums must have had a magic pin or was very lucky cause the first day of auditions brought in Adam Clayton on bass, Dave (The Edge) Evans and some guy named Paul Hewson which is better known as Bono…the Band...U2

And finally Liverpool’s Quarry Bank High brought us The Quarryman!  That’s right a small band at first and when the changed their name, they became to best, most widely know and all time selling…blah, blah, blah…you guessed it…The Beatles…Ok so where does put Tatarus!

With influences like Pantera, Black Label Society, Lamb of God, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne.  Tatarus is placed in a perfect position to make something of themselves.  It seems that this type of music has been dying off over the past few years but we are beginning to see a comeback and Tatarus is a band that could make it on the scene. 

                                            

With the band only playing together for about a year and even less time on stage together, they do have some obstacles to overcome. The band is managed by Mark Carras who owns Rock my Monkey (www.rockmymonkey.com) which should be a huge help to the band as he has connections just about everywhere.  If the band listens to Marks knowledge and that of other willing to help them, they will be a great band.

                                            

I truly enjoyed the bands show Friday night as they were able to engage the crowd of about 50 people and show them how to rock!  Lead Singer Michael Parent is an in your face type of singer and this pumped the crowd up to the point to busting out an old school MOSH pit, oh how that brings back memories!  With only a few songs written by them, it was good to also know that they didn’t butcher to cover songs they did… As I stated in the beginning, I was skeptical about covering a band one year in the business, playing on stage together for a few months and also being a ‘High School’ band.  However, after April 1^st 2011, I am a fan of Tatarus!  I would suggest you to jump over to their face book page (here) and like them. 

So what is Tatarus?

I am also not one on classic mythology; however, in 400BC Plato wrote that the souls were judged after death and those who received punishment were sent to Tatarus!  This is a place in the underworld even lower the Hades…yeah