October 9, 2000: The Movielife, The Misery, Brace @ the Sidebar, Baltimore, MD

Solid little show with a couple melodic hardcore bands as well as one more straight up. I can't remember which Brace line up this was. I also have no idea where I got that image for the flyer. What the hell is that? Since the Misery first popped up on here I started listening to the demo a bunch. Pretty decent stab at Saves the Day / Lifetime - style melodic pop/hardcore. The Movielife were great. I never bothered with "Has a Gambling Problem" but I love everything else they did.

October 2, 2000: The 65 Film Show, Kind of Like Spitting, Looks Like Rain @ the Sidebar, Baltimore, MD

I've written about all of these bands before and I don't remember any specific details about this show, so I'll keep this one short. Jamie Arthurs did the show and I made the flyer. I don't remember who the "plus one more" was. Solid line up though.

September 29, 2000: Strike Anywhere, Midiron Blast Shaft, the Allied War Effort, Looks Like Rain @ Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

I'd never met or heard of the promoter before this show but I had somehow heard that Strike Anywhere were playing at Johns Hopkins and found his contact and hit him up about Looks Like Rain getting added to the show. He was into it and I got to promoting the show right away. I'm not positive that Chorus of One was out at this time. They might have only had the demo still. Definitely a cool show. This may have been the one where The Allied War Effort didn't have a guitar player and convinced me to pick one up and make some noise while they played their set. I had no idea what I was doing, but it was fun.

September 24, 2000: the 1985, Swyvid, Looks Like Rain, Michinoku Driver 3 @ Ottobar, Baltimore, MD

This was one of the oddest shows I've ever played. I'm Looks Like Rain only got asked to play because Todd (Monozine/Ottobar booker) needed a band to fill out the bill. I have no recollection of what the 1985 or Swyvid sounded like or where they were from or who was in the band. Michinoku Driver 3 was Boson Au and maybe Joe Mitra doing really discordant noisy stuff. I can't remember if there was an angle behind it or not. Strange show for sure.

September 23, 2000: Time Flies, Fairweather, What Lies Ahead @ house, Falls Church, VA

Goddamn, I wish I could remember this show because this is one of my favorite Linas Garsys flyers. Who was there? Help me out.

September 19, 2000: Pollen, Choker, Fairweather, Looks Like Rain, Velvet @ the Sidebar, Baltimore, MD

Again, one of these things is not like the other and Looks Like Rain gets put on a show more out of our love for good pop/rock than a similar sound to the other bands. Pollen were a rad poppy band from Arizona. The first song ("Pollen") on their last full-length (Chip) is still an all-time favorite. Choker were a too-short-lived Doughboys-ish band from Baltimore featuring Dwayne from Latebloomer/Cross My Heart, Chris Camden from Cross My Heart, and a few others I forget, except the singer, Kevin, though I don't know if he did any other bands. They were pretty great. I loved Fairweather's demo, solid catchy pop/rock, but I couldn't get into much more than a few songs after that. Still, great dudes, and people still love that band to this day. I think they recently reformed or maybe just played some reunion shows. Velvet were from northern VA if I remember correctly, but I don't remember what they sounded like. Craig Boarman booked the show and I made the flyer. Coincidentally, the guy who made that drawing, which was scanned from a City Paper article, is the same guy who did the cover art for Ruiner's What Could Possibly Go Right? EP and a bunch of Misery Index records.

September 15, 2000: De Nada, The Chase, Crestfallen @ UMD Food Co-Op, College Park, MD

If this is the show I'm thinking of it was a blast. Tons of good friends in one room and everyone going nuts for all the bands. I had found this weird protective helmet, kinda like this one, while roaming around the underbelly of UMBC and I brought it to the show with the idea that I was gonna pour rubbing alcohol all over it and set it on fire and run around during De Nada's set. I hadn't tried lighting rubbing alcohol on fire in years though and I guess I was expecting a hell of a lot more of a blaze than I got. Oh well. It's the thought the counts. The show was still a lot of fun.