This weekend, Saturday the 11 was the first GRIDLOX PRODUCTIONS showcase at Mister Tramps. A pretty decent turn out, I thought.The showcase consisted of three local bands, and one surprise appearance by my good friends from Shitty Advice, . Autumn Stay, Violent Night, & Sober Daze Were on the bill.
Autumn Stay out of Waco, TX, showed about an hour before load-in. I was a little surprised to see a grip of 'teenage kids', hauling in equipment. Mind you, we booked these guys for Punx Picnic ATX, but I really didn't have a chance to watch, but a small hand full of performances, being as busy as I was. I didn't know what to expect. Turns out, these 'kids' were the band, and I don't care what anyone says, you won't see energy like this from any of us 'old punkers'. Swinging heads and hair everywhere, reminiscent of hardcore metal bands, from back in the day! These guys pulled it off with dark heavy riffs, power beats, and a well tuned, heavy wailing vocalist that is Danielle Blizzard.  Dani wasted no time in jumping off the stage and joining their fans on the floor, half way through the first song. Her aggression increased with every song, ending their set with a finale of an audience jumping in unison and an exploding applause. Thanks Dani, Zak, Cade, Clint, and Jackson, from GRIDLOX.
       After Autumn Stay, a technical problem surfaced at the worst possible time. One of my absolute favorite local punk bands, Violent Night, were next on stage. I don't think it took long for us to start having issues with the PA system after that. Being the awesome mother fuckers that they are, they still played with vocals, sporadically popping in and out. Of course, they pulled it off and it sounded incredible. This is one glitch that will never occur again. Our apologies to Gianluca, James, Ian, and Fatty.
    Next up was Sober Daze. These guys are coming up on their 10th anniversary and are one of the most well know and respected bands conceived out of Austin. At this point, they chose not to play, due to the pa problems. Hopefully I will get to catch their show again soon.
 
     It was still some what early, and most everyone at Mister Tramps were feeling pretty good. I had a chance to make my rounds and see some old friends as well as make some new ones. We had made an attempt to do a couple of interviews for the website, early that evening but thought, 'ehhh, we'll soon have other chances' so all of us from GRIDLOX decided to take it easy. A substantial amount of time with out live music had passed, when my roommate, GRIDLOX collegue, Candido Santos, also of the band Shitty Advice approached me and said with a grin and a question mark on his face. My whole band is here......' and to him I said, 'hell yeah'. They took the stage, despite the issues, which were minimal after the equipment cooled, and killed it!!! Of course Candi called to work the next day, with nothing more than a wisper. He had lost his voice, but he and his band had saved the show.
A huge thanks to Candido, Chris, and Curtis of SHITTY ADVICE.
zig