Rock me, Roll me, Jackyl me off

Ever have one of those days where everything is just messed up? Things just don't seem quite right and they just get crazier as time goes on. All you can do is sit back, drink a beer, and let the shit hit the fan as you relax. Before you know it, it is a new day that isn't all fucked up.

I knew there would be a pile of work yesterday. I just wanted to get it done. What I didn't need was a 15 minute discussion about my vacation time with my boss. I got a buttload of vacation days to take. 2 1/2 weeks beyond the 1 1/2 weeks I already have scheduled. But my boss wasn't on my case about what I have scheduled, but what I didn't have scheduled. She was pressing me to take more days off. She wanted to review what days I had off and what days I have scheduled. I was like, hey, let me do my work. I have a rock show to go to tonight and the sooner I get this crap done, the sooner I can have a cold beer at the lakefront.

I had that first beer at Summefest from the Leinenkugel Lodge. Sunset Wheat to be exact. It hit the spot. The Leinie's Lodge continues to be the best place to get a proper pour on the Summerfest grounds. They are still the champions. Well done beer people.

I got that beer and wandered over to the rock stage. Binky Tunny and the Farmland Chokehold were just finishing up. I had seen them 3 years ago and was wondering if they they were as strange today as they were back then. I caught the last song and while there was no chick tossing a baton around, Binky was there playing guitar, lying down on her back. Meh. I didn't miss anything.

I stayed for a couple songs from Beatlallica. Cute, but nothing I could stay to hear a lot of. The best part of the show was the Iron Maiden tunes played before the band came on. That says a lot.

I met up with a friend and we wandered around to the other stages. With Roger Waters playing the amphitheater, there were a lot of people walking around in Pink Floyd shirts. Lots of young people who may have never seen Pink Floyd but probably watched the Wall too many times or got stoned to Dark Side of the Moon in their parents basement. That really didn't explain why there seemed to be quite a bit of gospel music going on. At 3 different stages, there were huge bands on stage all playing gospel music. Except for the Miller Oasis which had a very shitty cover band doing all the same songs that every other shitty cover band does. At first I thought it was the Sweet Tarts, possibly the shittiest of the shitty cover bands in Milwaukee, but realized it was a different band that wanted to give them a run for the shitty title. Do yourself a favor. If you see a band named dot dot dot is playing, turn and run, DON'T WALK, run away. It is an assault on music. In fact, when they tried to play some Whitesnake, I told my friend if I saw any assclown in the audience shooting the horns, I would go and break their fingers.

Not wanting to listen to this crap anymore, we headed back to the rock stage and caught Bang Camaro again. I highly suggest everyone check them out if they are playing in your town. They are a riot. Funny in a good way. For having a bunch of "lead singers", the guys playing guitar have got the chops. You can hear strains of Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Van Halen in the shredding of the guitars. It was loud enough to get the ringing back into my ears and for me to have a good time. Good enough I bought the CD on the way out.

From there, it was walk back down to the Miller Oasis as my friend wanted to check out Heart. Not sure why as we heard 3 songs before we had enough. We were puzzled by the song they opened with. It started slowly and never really built up to anything. And it was long. Usually you want a tune that will pump up the crowd and get them going. If anything, this did the opposite.

Back to the rock stage to catch Jackyl. Now if I thought it was a small crowd for Slaughter, it was an even smaller crowd for Jackyl. Maybe 200 people. Maybe. It started off kinda slow as they played some obscure stuff. Well obscure to the casual fan like myself. I own the first 2 discs and only recognized one of the first 5 songs. In between, Jesse James Dupree would ramble on like a hillbilly doing his own Larry the Cable Guy act as he drank Crown Royal. About 45 minutes into the set they really got going with some of the best stuff they had. Down on Me, When Will it Rain and Redneck Punk. Enough for me to get my Jackyl fix.

Now as I sit here, sleep deprived, waiting for the end of the work day, I can't help but hope this day goes by quickly. I have one project I need to do. It involved research so I can put some music on and drift away.

I wonder if I can pull off a Costanza and sleep under my desk...