Yes, The Gay Blades WERE Here!!!

So, if you missed the extremely entertaining interview I had posted up here with New Jersey's The Gay Blades, well, then shame on you! (BUT don't fret too hard, as it WILL be included in Issue # Five of Urbancode, premiering later this month). The interview was raucous, randy and just plain sincere. Can anything ever be all of these things at once, you ask? Well, yes, they can in the distorted world of body convulsing drum beats and bass-less but bass-y, screamingly crunching guitar riffs that The Gay Blades dwell in. Oh, and you say that you missed their live show last night at DC9, did you? WELL then, that'll be another rap over the knuckles for you!...

...No, but seriously, NOT to sound like a musical, elitist a-hole or anything of the like, but if you didn't open yourself up to NJ's best kept secret, then you really missed out. In fact, I couldn't be mad at people for not showing up, because at one point, I felt like I was going through the induction process to a really cool, melody driven musical society last night. As expected, lead singer/guitarist Clark Westfield opened up with the room shaker, "O Shot" which was actually the first single off of their 2007 release, Ghosts. When I tried to convince he and drummer Puppy Mills that the newly-minted-love song "You're a Garbage Barge, I'm a dreamboat" should be their next single, they scoffed a bit, as they feel a "ballad is never the way to start out" as Clark Westfield proceeded to make a thumbs down motion accompanied by a sinking missile sound. Needless to say, Westfield was FULL of energy that night, mellow before the show, explosive during. He shimmied and swayed, and at one point jumped off of the 2.5' stage to slap a high five with a guy in a pink button up shirt that was, perhaps too old to be in the room full of 20-something hipsters, but louder than a room full of five year olds. This onlooker was pretty obnoxious- but even his loud mouth could NOT take away from the action on stage. Unfortunately, the band only got 30 minutes to play. I was bummed. In fact, when the sound guy shouted from the back of the intimately small room "Hey, ya got 5 minutes, guys!" i felt a sinking feeling. As their last song of the night came to a close, the feeling almost was relative to when you are a kid, coming home from vacation and watching the beach grow smaller and smaller in the distance from the back window of the family car.

The guys in hoodies reassured me, though, that they WILL be back, as they said "May-ish". I will most certainly be there, and I expect each and everyone of you to keep your eyes peeled for the next time they cruise through!




Visit The Gay Blades on their Myspace page HERE


All photos Courtesy Eyeball Records. Use of You Tube video courtesy and permission of Eyeball Records and The Gay Blades.