channel 3, the plain dealers, and 3 other bands

the following is a guest post by my dear husband who is a self-professed music and coffee snob.  ha!  i asked him to blog about the channel 3 show expecting only a handful of words to accompany the photos.  i should have known better.  enjoy the thorough review.  i especially love his ginormous grin plastered across his face when i took photos of him with mike and kimm of channel 3.  so adorable.

so this past saturday i had the pleasure of going out with my beautiful wife. with the little ones fast asleep and fire sitter firmly in place, we ventured out to now that's class to, as prasti puts it, "see old guys play punk rock".

now that's class is a local dive punk rock bar split into 2 halves. this was my first time there and i wanted to get the lay of the land as i'll be playing there later this month (shameless plug haha!) anywhoo... the one side houses the bar, tv's and jukebox while the other is stage and skate ramp. over all a good place to see a show but be warned it is very loud, especially if there aren't any bodies soaking in the noise, as was the case with the first 3 bands.

ahhhh... the first three bands, i really don't have anything to say for their sets other than i didn't watch them. i tried when i first got there but a few factors crept in and pulled me out of the near empty venue. 1st was the aforementioned volume in the room. it's loud, now not motorhead loud, not even close, but loud enough that i didn't want my ears ringing when channel 3 came on.  2nd, having a night out with my wife away from kids where we can actually talk is a tremendous gift not to be wasted. so we sat outside, dank beers, people watched and generally enjoyed each others company. finally, i don't know who books or puts the shows together, but 5 bands is way to many for a show. everyone's ears get tired. the headliner ends up going on really late. maybe i'm just getting old and crotchety, but 3 bands is enough. as a consumer i feel i've gotten my money's worth and i can still get home before all the rookies out there are leaving their bars after last call.

so the first band we actually watched was the plain dealers, which if you are from or live in the greater cleveland area know that this is a freakin' awesome name for a band. name withstanding, i wasn't expecting much. i have seen the name on a couple of flyers in the past but that was all the exposure i've had to these guys. let me tell you, i couldn't have been more impressed. they are like a super rad, cleveland based u.s. bombs with a black duane peters. these guys were a mess in a good way. only hiccup of their show was a broken guitar string early in the set, but a backup guitar was up and running in no time. and by the way, thank you mr. guitarist for being a professional and having a backup ready. there is nothing as painful as waiting for some yahoo who breaks a string with no backup. so i would definetly see these guys again, though i won't be takin' my kids with me anytime soon if your pickin' up what i'm laying down.













and finally, out came channel 3.  if you don't know who channel 3 is you are a) lame, b) never lived west of the mississippi, or c) some one who is most likely not into the same type of music as me so i will not judge. channel 3 is punk band from the 80's from back in the old country of california. they put out multiple albums in the 80's and then had a bit of a renaissance in 2002 with a release on dr. strange records. when i found out they were coming to cleveland i was stoaked to get the chance to see them play live. so let's get this out of the way so we don't have to dwell, yes they have gotten older. no they have not "let themselves go". yes they still put on a great show and rocked this here town. with that said, they haven't lost a step playing out. their set was full of energy and they sounded great. after a couple of songs in there was a slight lull before the next song.

















i saw my opening and had to go for it, i yelled at the top of my lungs "LAST NIGHT I DRANK". i wasn't stating what actually was a true statement regarding the night before, no dear readers i was calling out one of my favorite songs from the band. now before anyone starts calling me a poser for liking the song, yes i know it's off the "poppy album" but man, its got a great hook and you can dance to it kids, come on now. then something incredible happened...   after callin' me out for requesting "that song"... they played it. it was awesome. then after that, something more incredible happened, mike magrann (vocals, guitar) start asking whats our next song. as soon as some one yelled something out, they ripped it. they kept doing it through out the set. let me tell you kids, that taking requests of songs that you wrote in 1982 as a 50ish performer and nailing them the way these guys did is no small feat in my eyes.  so needless to say i thoroughly enjoyed the show.

big shout out to my wife for headin' out to the show with me and for taking pics of her giddy hubby as he got pictures with channel 3.