So Tuesday night 10-14-08 I realized that I had forgotten that White Mice were playing a house show on Indy's north east side. FUCK!! I have to go! So I went...it was one crazy night.
Now a little back story....I am not condoning or trying to sound cool here, but a friend and I decided to try Salvia last year about this time. We got some 20x good shit from the local Flea Market. I decided I was gonna listen to my new ebay find, Mouse Of Mendes by White Mice while "enjoying" my first Salvia experience. I hit this shit and the noisy droning madness that is White Mice kicked in about the same time my still inhaled hit began to do its chemical damn thang on my brain. I became one with the couch, the room started doing shit that the creator (Doom rolls eyes) couldn't even explain. My hearing holes realize that the audio emmisions of the noiseboxes in my altered omniverse are emitting a sound that is as bizarre as what is happening to me. Then the groove locks and I can not tell if existance is skipping, if my senses are skipping or if its just the record skipping. I come out of the Salvia trance and find that its just this badassed band White Mice and their hectic style of UltraNoiseGrindGoo tumbling into one of their killer noisedrone parts. I am instantly hooked......on the record. Only a completely insane person could be hooked on that crazy teacher plant Salvia.
Back to the show now. I read on the local message board that the show was moved up to 7 pm from 8 pm. I get off of work at 6 and am wayyy on the south side and still need to run home and get my buzz on (tweeds not Salvia you silly bastards). I do this and head over from the west side. I get there around 7:20 thinking I am late. Wrong. No one is there it looks like. The sign on the door says to go around back. I do, no one is back there. I knock on the back door and it opens because it isn't shut all the way. I hollar in, no answer. I walk around fron and see people eating. I feel goofy and bad interupting but I just drove from the west west ya'll. I knock and the same thing happens, the door opens up. I feel like a complete ass now because I am the nerd that shows up early and I seemingly opened the front door to some dudes house. So, I say hellooo is anything still going on tonight. The show promoter comes to teh open door and says "oh yea man I didn't realize what time it was". I ask if I should go around back and he says yea. We go around back and he says " The show probably won't start till 8, the first bands ride is late haha" Its 7:22 mind you. I ask if I should just come back and he says "That would be best." Now this is all good and don't think I am shit talking, this is just all funny to me. I appreciate the hell out of the shows this guy puts on. So I go back around front to my premo parking spot and go to the nearest Mexican Joint to grab a burrito and a white russian. The bartender doesn't know what that is. He is a hispanic gentleman working at this joint and has never had to make one. I ask if he has Kahlua, Vodka and milk. He nods and I tell him to mix the 3. He does so and makes a damn good one. He says in broken english that it looks tasty and asks how to pronounce it. I say White Russian and he repeats back "Rite Wushian??" I corect him and he says "Ahhhh White Russian, I will try one sometime." This shit cracks me up. Any way I head back to the place and thank goodness people have shown up by now. I am an awkward bastard around people I don't know so I was glad to run into a buddy, Bake. Now I would have someone to BS with since it was my first show at the 1511. He introduced me to Jon the tenant of the house. Jon was a good, stand up dude and was always kind enough to let people book shows in his basement. One stipulation...no smoking inside, it was even posted in the sign on the door. Thats not too much to ask at all. Anyway, we go down to see the first band.
Blarmageddon is a 2 piece instrumental group that hail from Lansing, MI via Lafayette, IN. They are an energetic, hectic, noisey pair that pour their souls into every beat and strum. Bigger gear would have made their already banging jams a little better. The one funny thing was when the guitarist had to unplug to tune up half way thru and the awkward drummer apologized in his squeaky voice. None the less a a fast paced 2 piece ElectroQuarterStaff like band. And to top it all off the machine gun blast beat at the end of the set was on point.
More funny stuff about the night in general. My dad called 5 times while i watched Blarmageddon bring it. So I call him back between sets. He never calls first off so I figure its important. He say "Hey whay you doing?" I tell him I am at a show in a basement. He wonders how the hell you have a show in a basement. Then the reason for his call....." Hey did you find out why those 2 stars were twinkling different colors??" I explain to him how we are seeing some stars through the atmosphere the long way instead of straight up and through. Good enough answer for him. Just funy that he called 5 times to find that out. Bake and myself go huff on a bowl of good green and return to the show.
White Mice....wow what can I say to sum up their sound??? Nothing, you just have to hear it (see vid at bottom). These are 3 grown ass men in homemade mice helmets. The bass/vocal mouse sets up his selfmade mic which is permanantly fixed to a stubby stand wraped in fur, beads and lords know what else. The PA cabinets are decorated with the White Mice inverted pentagram stenciled in white spray paint. The kick drum on the kit is ungodly huge and its adorned by plenty of cymbals. Then the noise mouses occilator stand full of sonic weapons of mass eardrum destruction. They aren't even playing yet and I am smiling like a 15 year old getting his first hand job. This is the first set that I have smiled thru the whole thing. They fire up and blast off, blazing thru fast grindy parts and slowing down to trudge thru the tektonic sections. The audio/visual overload is insane and over the top, just how I like it.
Ok, so Noise Mouse starts freaking out and penguin walking around this basement, working his way to the stairs. I follow him out the back door. He stays in character till we get next to the house, which is when I express to him that the show was way more than I could ever expect and I thank him. We get around front of the house and he sits down on the bumper of the U-haul they brought (parked in front yard). I hop up on the porch and stand there talking to Bake. John, the tenent of the house comes out as this Victor kid is coming around the house from the back. Remember I said there is no smoking at the 1511 per Johns request. Well Victor was disrespectful enough to smoke in the basement, Not Cool. Come to find out this wasnt his first offense or even his second. John says "Victor you smokingin my fucking house, AGAIN??" Victor replys "Yea John I did, its always me, WTF its a show" he said this in a very disrespectful manner. John comes down off the porch saying "I am sick of you disrespecting my house man" He then shoves Victor pretty hard into the bumper of the U-haul that Noise Mouse is still sitting on. Victors hefty "punk rock" buddy (Cheetah spotted hair, gangster ass attitude and all) comes around the corner just as John shoves Victor. Cheetah head didn't like that too much and bumrushes and tackles John from behind, sending him into the sidewalk pretty hard with Cheetah Head (CH from now on) stuck to his back. A skinny kid and Victor (drunk) are now squared off and boxing while CH is swinging on John pretty much unsuccessfully with his blows. Then A girl, I think Johns Girlfriend starts to get in this mess. I can't stand by while these dudes are swinging fists at each other. I don't know the girl, but have enough respect for Women and John, the guy kind enough to let us all in his basement to watch bands play. I jump down off the porch, Victor is the closest to me so I snag him up and pin him against the U-haul. Skinny Dude and a friend of his must think I am holding Victor so they can jump him. Wrong answer, I am trying to stop this shit. I tell them to back off while Victor thinks the same thing and beg me to let him go. I think I have him calmed down and I have Skinny dude and his buddy backed off. I let Victor go and tell him to just leave. I turn to see CH still swinging at John and co. He even takes his shelltoe off to apparently hit someone with it. I grab him by his forearms, he breaks away from me and rears back to swing. I yell "Do it and I will drop you, I am trying to help, Just Leave" or something to that affect. He refrains from swinging on me. I turn around just in time to see Skinny Dude blast Victor in the mouth twice. Then they shove each other into Noise Mouse, he gets up and removes himself from the situation. I split them up yet again and ask Victor to leave again. Victor and CH are walking out to the road to get in their car (drunk). CH turns around yelling " Fuck ya'll I will be back with 30 dudes and a 12g Shotgun". C'mon man I thought you were "Punk", turns out he wasn't so much "Punk" he was just a punk. He walks by Johns GF and spits in her face, she reciprocates by busting him in the head with her cell phone or something of that size and shape. He didn't like that too much and John had to run him off again. Now all this happened so fast that I may be fuzzy on some of the details, so if you read this and think something different of this story please feel free to leave it in the comments. I will edit the post accordingly.
the white mice - cheesus saves
