Well, it’s that time again, time for that laziest of all blog entries: The Year in Review!
Think of it as the clip show that every lame sitcom rolls out on the occasion of episode 100: Wacky hijinks, the buffoonish men past their prime, sexual innuendo—Hey, that’s us!
Roll em!
January: Old Friends, New Year
We start the year off with a jolly gig at the Observatory, with Cheap Sex and Lower Class Brats.
Good to catch up with old chums, we compare gray hairs and trade chile relleno recipes backstage.
And then a gala night benefiting Mike Atta of the mighty Middle Class.
Good thoughts Mike!
February: Now, get outta here ya crazy Canucks!
It’s a teary farewell jaunt with legendary DOA!
Of course, the fellas have just announced another twenty gigs on the farewell tour, but who cares?
We’ll take whatever they got!
March: The little people! Can you see them too??
There’s hardly time for the usual St. Patty’s debauchery, with a little roadwork up North with The Adicts!
After a stop in San Luis Obispo at Slo Brew, we hit Slims for a proper SF gig with the Ones in White.
Hilarity ensues:
April: Go Away! This is Willy’s Time!
May: Rolling the Rock
Well, if it’s May, it must be goddamn Punk Rock Bowling time, am I right?
After bowling, what? like 16 games in a row? (and failing to make it to Round 2–ahem!) we are thrown onstage in the blazing sun.
June: A final wave of the Flag
An annual tradition, we welcome Jay’s return to our shores with a Simpletones gig at Alex’s–..ooooh, California, indeed!
It is bittersweet to think this is the last time we will see White Flag on the boards with Bill Bartell.
RIP ya nut, we’re gonna miss you, not to mention the Flying V’s and cop mustaches!!
July: Hey baby….
We’re in the hot days of Summer now, brother, and what better way to cool things off than a harbor-front matinee?
It’s a rare all ager day-thing with Agent Orange, and we take advantage of the locale and float over on the trusty California Sun.
August: You won’t have CH3 to kick around any more…..we’re outta here!
What can be said about the 2013 European Tour that hasn’t been already said?
It all boils down to lack of sleep and fatty sausages, missing luggage and warm smiles.
Stay with me people!
September: More loss, and a loss for words.
A benefit at the Redwood bar for the Punk Rock Rovers, just a week after saying farewell to the best rover ever.
October: The big man goes down
An East coast jaunt with our old pals Kraut, it looked so good on paper!
We hit the ground running in Philly, a great set at Legendary Dobbs before heading to NYC for a Grand Victory gig….
The late night drinking at Trash Bar spills over to the next day at Manitobas, and seems a grand idea to cap our day in the city with fat steaks and gin martinis at The Homestead.
By the time we finally hit Brighton Bar in NJ, we’re fucked!
…..yeh yeh, a druken sloppy mess, our worst set of the year, and judging by social media, we suck!
Oh that’s no secret to us, but Jersey, we will make it up to ya— if you’ll let us—next time!
November: A look back
It’s back to Alex’s Bar as the Fall turns chilly–why, it hit below the 60’s right there around Thanksgiving!
This is a different kind of gig, a night celebrating our Cerritos/Artesia roots with the people that made it, you know, not such a bad place to grow up!
It is a grand night at our beloved club, a room full of a lot of familiar faces from the past:
December: Let’s wrap this fucker up!
And it comes back around, the jolly holidays, and we break out the ol Santa Suit once again.
It’s a fine way to cap off a nutty year, and as the last sticky guitar cord is rolled up and packed away for the year, we can only exhale, finally, with a contented if weary sigh.
Let’s go to the stats, shall we?
Yer old pals played a measly 28 gigs for the year, 25 of them at Alex’s Bar!—*rimshot*
We hit five different countries, drove approximately 13,798 KM, ate the equivalent of 11 medium sized feral pigs, drank an aboveground pool’s worth of shitty domestic lagers and destroyed several rest stop toilets on the way.
This here blog was read by 11,000 extremely bored people, presumably during work hours, on the toilet via disease ridden smartphones.
So what have we learned here people?
That another year passes, and we shake our heads in wonder.
That old cliche’, the one about time speeding up as you grow older?
Is it the shortened perspective, measuring these dawns and sunsets against our approaching doom?
Or maybe we’ve just seen it all before, in some form, these roads and clubs, rooms and faces.
We stare at the blank spaces on the new calendar, pen in hand, and start scribbling: filling in a new year, yet again.
The CH3 Blog 