THE MANIFESTATION OF HUMANITY: June 2010

Greetings, readers! For the inception of our blog, we have decided to give a recap of the Humanity Falls “Divine Manifestation” Tour of May 2010. These are all recollections of the week we spent on the road. Some of it may be a bit hazy as we spent lots of nights not sleeping and some of the days blend together. I apologize! It was the first tour of the band, and hopefully the start of many things to come. Lots of alcohol and marijuana was consumed, and for that we thank you, fans! We also have corresponding pictures and videos that you can click to read or view. Most of the pictures were taken by us or friends of the band, any pictures that may be credited wrong please let us know. I hope you have fun reading as much as I did experiencing this. Enjoy!

-Eston Browne

This tour was originally scheduled to be with Abdicate (NY) and Short Bus Pile Up (VA). We were intended to start the tour May 14 with Her Virgin Womb at Ziggy’s in Tennessee, then proceed to West Virginia May 15 with them as well and begin playing with the aforementioned bands at Lotsa Metal May 17. A week prior to the tour, Short Bus had to cancel because of scheduling conflicts and a family emergency along with a string of bad luck hindered us from playing May 15 and May 16.

Monday, May 17: Clifton Heights, PA – Lotsa Metal

Anxiety here was running quite high amongst myself, Ed and Ammo due in part to this being our first show in Philly and the first one of the tour. Local Philly death metal band Polterchrist thankfully helped us out with this show. The closest we’ve came to play further south was Mojo 13 in Wilmington, Delaware but we didn’t get to play that show. This was back in December. We had all heard mixed things about Philly, and this being a Monday night, we had mixed feelings as well. I’ve only played Philly once in the past, and I’ve been there previously for shows and it’s always been respectable. A hit or miss as they say. A quick rehearsal and an amazing spinach omelete made by Ed’s sister Alyssa later and we were well and ready to hit the road. Ed’s friend Travis decided to accompany us for the trip south to man the merch but not before obliterating Taco Bell in the process. Along the ride and staring from the rear view mirror, we realized Ed strangely enough looked like G.G Allin. This made for lots of laughs and was a constant reminder on our travels. You decide for yourself.

Ah! Philly, home of the cheese steaks and the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. I have yet to try one. (sad…sad… I know.) We arrive to Philly and just our luck…it starts to rain! This is much like a bad omen of sorts. It always seems to be as if mother nature does not agree with us because it always rains on the days that we have shows. This was a bit funny because I jokingly mentioned it raining prior. God damn self fulfilling prophecies! Our expectations at this point were shot. It turns out the area we had to play on this night wasn’t too good after all, and it showed. This place was huge but not in a good way. Lotsa Metal is actually a pasta/sandwich store which they turn the back room into a place for metal shows. I respect that…and lots of places have recently been like this, but after getting inside and checking out the venue, we all worried very much about the acoustics of Lotsa Metal and if we were going to get the sound we needed to have a decent performance. We met up with our buddies Abdicate who were hanging outside and it felt great seeing Brian, Alex and all of the guys again. They were going on this tour with a session bassist, named Zynda and Juan on vocals…a former member of Unique Leader band Agiel since they parted ways with Yeti. There weren’t many people here and we figured the rain was the reason. However, amongst the people there were Joe and Riju of Pure Death Productions and John Hartman of Mortal Decay. These three seem to always be at shows in some way shape or form and it was nice to see Riju, who might I add, had on a spectacular Deeds of Flesh “Path of the Weakening” long-sleeve. The bar sold sandwiches and appetizers at reasonable prices and scoping out the food others ordered, I wanted to try some but didn’t get the chance and all the other stores were closed so I was out of luck. Maybe next time. Lame turnout, and I believe in my opinion that it was just an indecipherable wave of noise on our part…but it didn’t effect our morale as we opened up the show playing all of our tracks from our first full length. Abdicate was next, followed by Polterchrist and it seemed like the sound guy started to get into the groove of mixing everything…but the acoustics was just way too much for this place. A PA system is mandatory. We still got to play, so it was a successful day of tour. One thing about this day that we didn’t agree with was having the door guy charge our merch guy Travis the door fee and when we were supposed to get money for the gig as discussed, we got told there was no money made at the bar and at the door. No worries. And back to New Jersey we go… to drink and rest up at Ed’s place in Piscataway for the next show.

(Van used for tour)

(Breakfast from Alyssa)

(Our equipment in the back of the van)

(Travis, me, Ed and Ammo)

(On the way to Phila)

(Overall view of the stage at Lotsa Metal)

(Credit: Lewis/Abdicate)

Tuesday, May 18: Clifton, NJ – Dingbatz

This was the home show of the tour, so to speak. We had Gutter Christ hook us up with this show. We’ve played Dingbatz at least 4 times prior to this show so we knew what to expect. Kudos to Gutter for trying to keep the death metal scene active in New Jersey. It’s a dying breed to have shows such as this and he keeps it going on a monthly basis. Definitely is a great feeling to have some promoters in these parts of the woods who do shows for the genuine love and not for the money, as certain others in the past have been. Sharing the bill with our friends Abacinate who we played with a few weeks prior and Edifice was sure to make this show very exciting. Sadly, it rains….again. Also this being our “home” show, we tried to rally the troops to Dingbatz to rage with us. Me and Ammo got up early in the afternoon to meet up with my friend Ari, who worked in the city that day and to get other people we knew to come over to Jersey with us. The rain gets harder and after meeting with Ari, we proceed to get on the train to head back to Jersey…but all the trains are delayed and/or suspended! Welcome to New York, eh? So we had to take a detour to get to our destination. This, on top of traffic, made us miss Edifice’s set…much to our dismay. Our apologizes. It seemed like the Edifice guys weren’t taking a liking to us missing their set and brushed us off when we came to greet them to go outside and hang with their friends while we played. Sarge, the sound tech at Dingbatz, knows what he’s doing and he definitely knows how to capture our sound. I think this show was one of the best sounding shows we have yet to play at Dingbatz…and we brought out some familiar faces to the place. Justina Villanueva came through to snap some awesome photos of the gig, Jesper (guitar of The Binary Code), Jesse, Michael Berko (Merciless Mutilation) and a few other friends came and were all awesome. The crowd was significantly better than last night Philly but the rain deterred some people from coming out. Abdicate and Abacinate brought down the house respectively and a lot of people liked what Abdicate had to offer. We went back, celebrated with some beers and whiskey and passed out as the real road trip began in the morning.

(Initial show line-up, someone didn't change this obviously)

(Alex/Abdicate)

(Zynda/Abdicate)

(Abdicate set-list)

(Lewis doing backup vocals)

(Brian shredding on the guitar)

(Credit: Justina Villanueva)

(Todd and Dan of Abdicate wanking it up)

(Huh?)

(Jason of Abacinate)

(Justin of Abacinate)

Wednesday, May 19: Everett, MA – Champion’s Cafe

The disaster show. Simply put, the worst show of the tour. This was set up by Dilapidated Enterprises, with Dysentery, Abdicate, Her Virgin Womb and Scaphism. I began my day dropping my phone in Arizona Green Tea and losing all of my contacts, then running into the lovely traffic once we reached Massachusetts. There were a lot of car accidents on this day and the rain only decided to get heavier today than the other days. The traffic felt like an eternity. I should be used to this by now, no? We tried getting in contact with the promoter at the show to let them know what was going on, to no avail. We then get lost in Boston (no thanks to my GPS) and drive around for a few extra miles. When we finally arrive to Champion’s Café to learn that we either have to rush on stage or not play as we only have 5 mins to set up and 15 to play. The promoter (Blue, guitar of Dysentery) was convinced that since we had not contacted him that we no-showed but he was wrong. Blue tells me that he gave Her Virgin Womb an extended time to play and that Scaphism already played and that the show has to be over by 12. After explaining our case and being double parked on a busy street, we unload our gear into Champion’s, I find a parking spot around the block…do a double check to make sure our things are safe and I run back to the venue because Ammo and Ed have started to play “To Have Or To Be?” without me. This was very nerve racking for us all especially me. To have to drive six hours to Boston, to play a rushed 15 min set. I really thought we could have played longer as Dysentery ended up playing for 45 mins. We went through it, though…and the people at the venue were very receptive and understanding of us. The place itself was actually pretty nice. The place was split in half (literally) with a table separating the bar from the room where the show was taking place. Several people from the bar looked over at the cacophony we created while we played and seemed interested. Some folks took some CD’s, and we sold a few shirts so there was the trade off. At this show we met up with Her Virgin Womb who we’ve became great friends with over the past months and they smoked us into oblivion in their trailer. Us, Abdicate and Her Virgin Womb were all touring this week and this was the first day we all met together so we got acquainted. Abdicate were received really well at Champion’s and several people bought merch there as well. I happen to catch Mark Richards momentarily at the show and Dysentery ended the night on a solid note while I tried to catch up with HVW, Abdicate, and a few fans that were smoking outside. I love meeting new people who aren’t familiar with me or with the band because it’s a completely new experience for both parties. One of the smokers outside said to me while Dysentery were playing that he had wished we had played longer because he could see the potential in our music and invited us to come back to Boston sometime. Said individual said that bands like us is what’s needed to keep the death metal afloat from all the scenes and trends that happens here in America. I wasn’t sure if he was blowing smoke up our asses, or if this was a sincere judgment so I thanked him and I gave him a CD. That was very nice of this individual, and I never got to catch his name. If you’re reading this, contact us! We received no payment for this show, much like the Philly show. The promoter informed us that while the one of the bands were playing, someone spilled beer on the monitor or on something that had to do with the sound and that all the money from the show was supposed to go to fix that equipment that was broke that night. This sounded highly skeptical, but I didn’t question this as I wasn’t there to witness it. Blue, being a friend of mine, I trusted his word and he guaranteed that we would be there to reciprocate and help us out the next night. He offered us a place to stay but that we had to leave at 6am, which didn’t suit well with Ed…so we were in a hunt for a place to crash, and with our luck, Abdicate invited us to hang in their hotel room. Her Virgin Womb left as they were heading over to Canada to play a few shows so we said our goodbyes. It felt good seeing them again, as the last time we all hung out, we had to cancel and walk out of our show because we were disrespected by the promoter and the bands we had to play with that day. We drove over to the local diner to get our grub on, get more alcohol, laugh at the stupidity of infomercials and then call it a night. We also discussed how we all personally felt about the current state of the death metal scene and the bands before us. There was some tension between Ed and Lewis (Abdicate) in the room, but I think we may just chalk that up to the booze consumption. Ralph’s Diner is on the horizon, which was only a twenty minute drive away, if that…and we hoped for the best.

Thursday, May 20: Worcester, MA – Ralph’s Diner

I felt like a tourist being here. I still to this date don’t know how to pronounce this town’s name. War-star? Woo-ster? or Wor-chester? We butchered the name pretty bad when we were up there. Whenever we said the town’s name, we always got corrected. This day just seemed to be the day we needed from the start. No more rain and plenty of sun. There was a Chinese all you can eat buffet up the road and Alex, Zynda, Lewis and I took full advantage of it. Ammo and Ed went to the Friendly’s nearby to get breakfast and Brian, Alex and Juan were in the other room. Not sure what they did, but I can guarantee hangovers were in full effect. This Chinese buffet was amazing! I managed to get about 3 plates of food. 2 plates were stacked high and finished in one sitting, not before getting in some jello, apple pie and cheesecake to top it off. Gluttony at its finest…

(Entrance of the buffet)

(Plate 1 of 3)

We get back to the hotel and get ready for Ralph’s. We learned that they have this thing every Thursday called “Metal Thursdays” and that it’s a local attraction. That got our expectations up a little bit, but they were still pretty low after the Everett show. We arrived fairly early, but no one was there…so we stuck around in the parking lot drinking beers until the staff showed up. Once inside, this place was the nicest place we had encountered so far. Lots of signs and lights and Ralph’s Diner had 2 separate bars from what I recalled. The one that got our attention the most was the sign that hung over the bar that said “Time to Fuck”. That’s an eye catcher for sure. Ammo got down on some of the diner food there and the burgers looked tasty, but I passed…as the buffet still had me pretty defeated so I walked around to see what the Worcester women had to offer. I finally got a chance to catch up with Chris, the host of the local Metal Thursdays and that got my expectations up a bit. That and the fact that Ralph’s Diner just looked and seemed very fitting for metal. Sharing this bill with us was Abdicate, Dysentery and Goreality. We opened up the show and the Worcester women seemed to pack in to watch, along with folks from the bar and others who just came to see the metal show. People were very much into our music, more so than all the other tour dates and we managed to get some new fans to our surprise. It was a pleasure meeting and discussing bands and all my favorite record with the people that I met. Especially one friend of mine who I usually see at shows here in New York. That was strange as he was the last person I expected to see, but he enjoyed it the most. We talked about going back sometime in the future, and we hope to do so. Ralph’s Diner was very memorable. In addition, my expectations also got higher after meeting Aaron from Return to the Pit. I’ve heard of Return of the Pit for years, been a member of their forum momentarily…but never expected to ever meet Aaron. He’s a great photographer and he managed to get some great videos and pictures of us and all the others playing.

(Credit: Aaron/Return to the Pit)

The show was great, but we were left with a sour tastes in our mouths after hearing that the person in charge of the door took the money awarded to us and Abdicate from the show for himself and split it to someone else working at the bar. Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky.

We had no idea about this and when we did it was far too late. Blue tried getting us some cash but could only give us ten dollars and Abdicate a similar amount which we all didn’t feel great about. That was practically the story of the night. This, and my desire for a trip to the diner once again. I ended up not going and instead drank, went to go get some equipment that we left in the van and ended up falling asleep in the back seat until 6am. It was well worth it.

(Merch sign at the bar)

(Self-explainatory)

(Merch table)

(This is how we pre-game)

(Entrance to Ralph's)

(Abdicate)

(Ammo's burger from Ralph's)

(Goreality)

(Dysentery)

Prolonging the Inevitable

Friday, May 21: Clifton Park, NY – Northern Lights

It was stuck in the back of my mind that back at home, Flourishing had a show with Ingrowing. I wish I could have attended this event…but I heard many great things. It was due in my mind since we had a limited amount of music on the road, and Flourishing was the band we listened to the most next to Gigan. We check out at 12, then head over to the Ihop up the road. The trip to Clifton Park is due to be 5 hours and after the disaster on Wednesday, we tried our best to not let that repeat. We arrive at Northern Lights pretty early, and no one is there…so we scoped out the area…or lack thereis. For the location of Northern Lights, we expected the venue to be a little hole in the wall, or perhaps a bar or something…but it was far from that. This place was huge! Way bigger than Lotsa Metal, or any other place that we’ve played in the past. Looking at the stage alone had my adrenaline flowing. I guess if I had to compare Northern Lights to a local New York City venue, I’d have to say a hybrid of Club Europa and the Knitting Factory but with plenty of room in the crowd and a barrier. It’s been awhile since I went to a show that had a barricade in the front. After browsing around Northern Lights, I noticed that Skinless were doing a reunion show with the original lineup. Oh, the envy! I wonder what they are doing these days. There was a small rumor amongst us and Abdicate that Skinless would possibly show up and play the show with us since they are from Saratoga Springs, but that didn’t happen. It’s also interesting to note that Northern Lights is the venue of choice for the Skinless DVD, “Skinflick”. I only ended up seeing Jason and Joe Keyser and in the midst of getting acquainted with all the bands and running the merch, I didn’t get a chance to converse with either of them. In addition to that, there was a high school graduation or graduation party going on next door, so lots of underage and adolescent kids were around to hear the bands from outside while they played. That was interesting to say the least… This show today was being ran by Tentacles’ bassist Patrick Vesper and their guitarist Ernie Rau. It was a battle of the bands, and all the money from the show goes to charity for horses. The show was for a great and meeting Tentacles and playing shows with them was the highest point of the weekend from this day forward. Our performance was on point, despite us being really feeling the wear and tear from the nights before and Ammo hurting his neck. The adrenaline was in high gear, there was a lot of people watching and the people who came inside to see us made us feel welcome. Nevertheless, we blasted our final version of Ordaining the Apocalypse through the van for all the other bands to hear and they all enjoyed. Patrick helped us a lot with our travels and Ernie fired up a grill to barbeque for all the bands. Burgers and hot dogs all around for everyone and the weather was great, so this felt like a perfect day to play. Psytoxia, Tentacles, Her Virgin Womb, Abnormality, Hivesmasher were a few of the bands we played with that I heavily enjoyed and spent time with but overall it was a great show, with great personalities and everyone had a great time. Ernie invited us over to his house after the gig, and that’s where we crashed, drank and had a hilarious night to remember with his brother and all of the members in Tentacles. I passed out early in the night to prepare for the drive to Rochester but the others stayed up until the AM, drinking and pulling practical jokes on Jake, Ernie’s brother. It made for one comedic morning, that’s all I can say.

(On the way to Glen Falls)

(View from floor to stage)

(Her Virgin Womb)

(Juan/Abdicate)

(Mallika/Abnormality)

(Drumkit from hell)

Saturday, May 22: Rochester, NY – The Bug Jar

The ride to Rochester was a bit longer than expected. We got up early, and headed over to a local diner where my obsession for omellettes were in full gear. The show started at 3 and we arrived around 5:30. We made a few stops on the way since Ed wasn’t feeling too well and that happened to not work out in our favor. We were under the assumption that we were playing at 8 on this day and that Animals Killing People (another band that consists of Ammo and myself), but when we showed up we were told we were supposed to play already. There was a small bit of confusion, but the solution was that we had to play right away, which was no problem. It was just unfortunate that we missed a lot of bands prior to us playing and that me and Ammo had to do double duty right after. That was the most strenuous part of the gig, to rip through two half an hour sets with two completely different sounding bands. There was a free concert across the street which brought out a lot of people…and drunk driving. Luckily some of them came over to the Bug Jar to hang out and more people began to arrive as the show got later. I hung out with the Human Infection guys and they hooked me up with a free shirt and a free CD. I had not heard of them prior but what they gave me was pretty solid death metal in the vein of Vomit Remnants and Dying Fetus. They had a cover of “Kill Your Mother, Rape Your Dog” that was exceptionally good. Hearing the tracks they gave me on the CD-r made me really regret getting there late but the performances by Human Filleted and Abnormality made up for what we missed. More drinking and socialization ensued and lots of people were passing out in the bar. Javier, of Carnal is the first one that came to mind. I find it to be quite hilarious watching people getting drunk to the point of tripping over their feet and finding the will power to talk sometimes. I guess that makes me a horrible human being. This was the last day of the tour with Abdicate and with them being home, they made their presence felt…and before they finished, they let Yeti (former member) get on the stage and sing a few songs before closing out the night. Afterwards all of us and Tentacles got together (with 3 30 packs) at Yeti’s and his brother’s Mike’s house to celebrate…but I had to visit the diner first! It wasn’t too far away, but it was pretty packed for some reason and the waitresses took forever to serve us. The food was delicious and well worth that wait. Once again I did not part take in the partying and crashed out early to rest up for the drive to the Flying Squirrel.

(Defleshuary)

Sunday, May 23: Rochester, NY – Flying Squirrel

Last day of the tour. I wake up to Ammo, Patrick and the rest watching Jersey Shore and laughing at the pretentiousness of the characters. I couldn’t stand watching the reality television filth for much longer, so I got ready for the show. Me being the avid Cannibal Corpse fan that I am, I made it my duty to visit this local music store called “House of Guitars” before getting to the show. If you don’t know, this is the place that Rob Barrett, Jack Owen and countless others have been to buy guitars or accessories. A must see. We met Tentacles there, and when I got there I was amazed at how small it looked from outside and how easy it is to miss it. Inside was a different story. There were walls upon walls of guitars hanging, from starter guitars to expensive guitars played by the best guitarists in the business. As all guitar stores are, there were some kids shredding it up trying to prove their manhood but even they knew they were outmatched in this store. At the back of the store was another section devoted entirely to guitar cabinets. Stocked from the floor up, it was pretty overwhelming. If I played guitar, this store would be absolute heaven. So many cabs, so little time. It reminded me of when I saw Sunn O))) several years ago with how the store had the cabinets set up. I overheard from someone that there was a CD store connected to the House of Guitars and indeed it was. I had to go check out their collection to see if they had any good new tunes in. The CD store was just as big as the guitar store, much to my surprise and when you walked in there is a “Wall of Fame”. This wall has autographs by any rock or metal band, I kid you not. There some autographs that were from at least 20 years ago, from bands and from tours you wouldn’t have expected. (hed) PE, Anthrax, Incantation (1993 tour) and SOD were a few of the autographs that I could remember on the wall. It was my obligation to sign that wall and I did. I signed the wall, and I got so caught up in browsing the CD’s that they were going to close. I would really hope to come back very soon. That place was nice and I met a few people there who were genuinely into metal.

The Flying Squirrel was a fun place to play albeit a community center. This was set up our friend Noah who plays guitar for Neurolepsy. A few local kids came out to show some support and it was a really casual time. Ernie cooked up some food while we all waited and Brian from Abdicate came through to check out the show. Ernie also cooked up this idea to have all 3 bands play at the same time but to switch after each song so that the show is like a compilation. For example, Neurolepsy played one song, then Tentacles, then us and it went this way until we all finished out set. There’s always a first time for everything, so we went along with the idea because it sounded really cool but once we actually went through with it, we realized it wasn’t as exciting as it seemed because we would lose our momentum with our songs, especially Ed. He was having difficulty continuously raising his adrenaline and anxiety and then bringing it back up again. It didn’t effect his playing style, but we agreed that if we had done the idea with 2 bands instead of 3 it would’ve been a better result. It was still fun to try, though…and the Flying Squirrel was incredibly hot, so it gave us a chance to breathe. We ended up getting some food with Noah and Neurolepsy once the show finished and we hung out at a local diner, threw some gas and beer in the car and began to make our way back to New Jersey.

Monday, May 24: New York City, NY – Lit Lounge

We arrive back in Jersey a little after 8am. I was really exhausted from the show and the ride over, so I drove as far as I could, parked the car and decided to get some sleep. I was only envisioning it as a power nap but I ended up sleeping longer than expected while Ed paced around and drank some beer. I was half asleep, but Tentacles ended up meeting up with us…but somehow, I ended up getting back first. It turns out they were stuck on a military base and took a wrong turn and made a whole bunch of stops along the way. We stayed up and waited around for them to come and when they did they all began drinking (excluding me) until 1 or 2 in the afternoon. I believe at this point I was already sleeping. I wake up, we all eat and make our way over to the city. When we play the Lit Lounge, we always have a great time. We like to call this place our home away from home because of how comfortable we are there and because of how great of a sound we get when we play there. This bill was set up to be Idols Are Dead, an Italian rock band who were supposed to be visiting the states for the first time, Her Virgin Womb, Tentacles and us but when we got to the Lit Lounge, it turned out that Idols Are Dead could not play and after calling Joe of Her Virgin Womb told me that he couldn’t make it up so that left just us 2 bands. Thankfully we had some people swing by and Danny Nelson of Malignancy showed his mug, and a bunch of friends of ours decided to come down to check us out. We waited and Tentacles tore up the place. Despite there being just us two, the vibes in the room were flowing and positive the entire time. Curran and Ryan really enjoyed Tentacles and we played all of our tracks to a crowd of headbangers to end off the night. This was a great show, and it was a tour to remember. We shared some more beers with the Tentacles guys, gave them some money to get home with and we all said our goodbyes. All in all, it started off somewhat dismal and ended off awesome and I believe we all wouldn’t have traded this opportunity for anything in the world. We hope to see more of you the next time around! Cheers!!! And on a final note, here's some more random pictures from the tour and a few videos. I hope you enjoy!