So, playing a ubik.show in Everett was a bit of an experience... We were preparing for a place with a limited stage and no monitors, and we ended up in a pretty nice place, fairly large, that even had a monitor for the drums (pretty awesome when you walk into a place and see that). They had a mount for our projector, a spare DVD player (because we forgot ours), power for our recording gear... class act all around. Because of a scheduling/booking snafu (dunno which, so not throwing any blame around), however, our 3-band bill became a 6-band bill: our three seattle-area bands and another three everett-area bands.
I never really thought of Everett as its own city, really; not being from the region, Everett was just the northern part of Seattle, in my mind. Having played this show, I can say without hesitation that the seattle bands and everett bands that played were from different cities. Maybe different worlds.
When I was breaking down the recording gear, a fairly boozy older woman said to me: "You guys from Seattle?"
and that sort of thing struck me as odd, because I really didn't distinguish between Seattle and Everett. "Yeah. How could you tell?"
"It was very 'new.'" The word came short of everything but finger-quotes in the air. "'New Rock,'" she dubbed us. She didn't seem terribly pleased with us... I don't think 'New' is her thing. I still choose to take that as a big compliment.
That said, she was the only negative comment I heard-- a lot of the Everett crowd really loved ubik. A lot of people coming out had never heard anything quite like us before. They mic'd Tyler's kit to the nines, so people could really hear the intricate hi-hat work on things like The Spangler and The Planet's Kerploding! Joel and I always get the two-basses thing (individually, they flip out about his slap'n'pop and my pedalboards... i.e, his playing and my gear. *sniff*) and Michelle... Michelle had a big stage, and really put on a show. She probably had more of a stand-out night than any of us.
We made a big impact on the mailing list, playing in a town we've never played before. With any luck, we can get those guys to flier for us next time we head north... maybe ubik. will have a draw in Everett now.
I can only hope that's the way it will work for us: when we start playing down the west coast, we hit cities where no one knows us, play a solid show, impress the attendees, build up the mailing list, and then the next time we hit that town...