Turd Filled Basement Show

Wait. A turd filled toilet overflowing down the stairs into a basement venue with turd water dripping through the floor boards onto gear isn’t a universal experience?

We’ll address this in a sec…. But first, has anyone heard from Johnny or Dan since the Switch 2 came out? We’re getting worried. Those Mercuri boys love their video games.

Back to the turds: In the fall of 2021, we got invited to play some shows with Fallstar and Lightworker. Very odd timing for small bands to play shows to say the least, but it was our first week on the road. Overall, great experience! Tying back into last weeks convo about booking shows, the bands booked most of the shows with previous connections. We got a spot in Sacramento with a local promoter. But as the run got closer and closer, he stopped replying to Joe Lightworker. Two days before we were set to leave, we got word from the guy that the show was off. He offered to pay us money for dropping the ball, but he never did that either. Cool behavior, right? Props to Joe Lightworker, he salvaged the date by snagging a rad spot in Tulare, CA, which wasn’t close to Sacramento but it at least got us going in the right direction. 

The morning after playing San Diego, The Undertaking! met up bright and early at Johnny’s house to hit the road. Tulare from San Diego is only 5-ish hours but we were eager to get rolling. Fallstar was NOT. Everyone in Fallstar was still asleep when we left Johnny’s. They might still be sleeping there. No one can know. 

Skip ahead a few hours - the promoter shows up late to the venue. We’ve been waiting out in the parking lot. The spot is a ghost town so we’ve got a weird feeling about the promoter. No one actually saw him drive up so… maybe he was a ghost…a bat? Hmmm. It’s a basement spot. Videos games, TVs, a cool bar, floor show. Really cool space. Despite being the stereotypical load in down a long flight of stairs kind of spot, it was cool. We dug it. With proper promotion and some advanced notice, you could see the spot being really cool.

Since we all had to wait a bit for the venue to open, bathroom time was overdue. One toilet at the top of the stairs. One toilet to rule them all, One toilet to find them, One toilet to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. No one really can clearly answer what happened next, we just know almost every member of the bands… used that toilet.

We set up gear. We play videos games. Laugh, Love, Chekov’s toilet. We sound check. All good. Allllll good until someone goes into the storage closet where we stored our gear and notices a little drip drip drip coming from the ceiling. “Hey - there’s water dripping on the gear. Let’s move it!” Wait a sec, that’s water dripping from the bathroom. WAIT A SEC, that’s poop water! 

So yea… someone checked the bathroom and the toilet was plugged and overflowing. Into the hallway, through the floor boards and… down the stairs. That poor venue owner. That poor poor man mopped so hard while muttering obscenities with that dangling cigarette in his mouth. He did a good job. Most of the turd water DID NOT make it down the steps into the venue. Most of it. 

To this day, we don’t know who was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. We don’t. We can speculate. (to clarify, the straw was a giant turd and the camel’s back was the toilet). 

Sometimes you gotta pivot! Sometimes shows get cancelled two days before you hit the road. Sometimes a bigger band agrees to a tour package and agrees to finances and agrees to the venues and dates and routing and coordinate you bringing the backline and then has their agent tell you they went a different direction and chose another band. Sometimes it sucks being a small band. But hey! rock n roll will never die. 

(I’ve hinted at shows in September… those aren’t happening anymore because the band we were supposed to play with changed their mind)

BREAKING NEWS! JOHNNY IS ALIVE. 

Mario Kart World (review by Johnny)

Listen. On the surface it’s another Mario Kart game. You know the drill. You race go-karts/dirt bikes/mini trucks as cartoon Italian brother plumbers (side question: Are they even considered plumbers anymore?) and their cast of friends, enemies, and associates. And also a cow. The tracks pay homage to either past Mario games or are re-envisioned tracks from previous MK titles. Fun, sure.

So what’s different?

Well, the aforementioned cow. Also all the tracks are now connected so instead of three fenced-in laps around Moo Moo Meadows, we’re racing through the meadow past the farm and up for a final lap on Mario Circuit. The amount of racers is now doubled to 24, so there’s the best kind of chaos as you’re marathoning through the world bumping into Mario characters while dodging cows, cars, and coin shells on your way to the finish. Oh, you can hop up to grind on rails now and barrel roll onto walls for mini boosts - new strats to try for faster times and figure out new routes for each course.

There’s a knockout mode in which each lap kicks the last 4 places off until you’re down to the final four; more chaotic fun. Battle mode returns too, same old; pop the balloons of your opponents. 

The open world option of play, which is the chill mode of cruising around the entire map at your leisure, is the big “new” mode for the series. You can spend your time collecting Princess Peach coins & hitting P-switches to try mini challenges (earning you cosmetic stickers for your vehicles) or just enjoy the day to night cycle, banger soundtrack, and hang with the Toads and Yoshis that inhabit the world. It more reminds me of playing the time trials mode in Mario Kart 64 and driving off road to Peach’s Castle, except there’s a few things to do & look at along the way. The areas I find wanting are a way to view where you are on the world map along with some indication of the completed challenges in each area.

Is the game worth $80? Ehhhhh, probably not. Depends if we’re in the new era of 1st party games all costing $80. Personally, it’ll be a game I return to for online play and family game nights with my kids so it is for me but I’m not sure if it has enough meat on the bones for the solo gamer.

(Austin here… I was joking about not hearing from Dan or Johnny earlier. The Switch 2 is here and it’s pretty sick. Bigger, bolder. I’m playing through the Switch 2 version of Tears of the Kingdom and having a blast).

SHOWS

Wednesday, June 25 at Brick by Brick

Saturday, August 2 at Brick (to be announced)

Friday, August 15 at Soda Bar 

ONLY LEFT ALIVE TO SEE THE END

Five song EP coming soon. Just need to finish up the vocal doubles and fine tune a couple things but… this will come out soon. 

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