Tool & Die
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My Thoughts On Les Fest II
ing formed only two years ago, but play
together like they've been around much,
much longer. They are currently blowing
up on Sirius Radio's Octane. And I'm cer-
tain with their sound, song writing and their
relentless online marketing approach;
they will be a force to be reckoned with.
For those who were at the show, I believe
their performance was one of those per-
formances that will have people saying "I
was there when..." Check out the inter-
view with them in this issue!
Another highlight for me was the fi rst ever
show of the all star band LES. O. D. This
was a tribute band who played covers of
the eighties thrash band S.O.D. Whoever
came up with the clever name of adding
Les to the name is genius! This band con-
sisted of former BNS guitarist Kenny Dun-
ham on bass, and other scene veterans
(as well as dear, close friends of Les) Brian
Mann on guitar, Grant Waryan on Drums,
and Ses on vocals. If there was ever a
tribute band that would have made
Les smile, this was it! After bullshitting at
the bar over shots during LES.O.D.'s set, I
headed up towards the pit area to watch
them. After seeing the lame inactivity in
the pit, I took it upon myself to run on stage
and do a fl ip over Kenny's shoulders into
the stagnant crowd. I am way too old to
be doing this old school punk move, but I
had to stir things up in Les' honor, as well
as for the great job the band was doing
playing S.O.D. I think the shots of Jager
helped me survive this move surprisingly
unharmed.
The second to last highlight of the evening
was the fi rst ever performance by anoth-
er all star band, Elephant Mountain. This
band is the collaboration of my former fel-
low band mates Joe Altier and Slider, who
have always worked great together. This
is a long awaited performance since the
circulation of demos of the band earlier in
2009. I regretfully missed their set due to a
friend having car troubles outside, which
happened after Ledyard's set. I'm pretty
pissed about this because I had been
waiting to see them, and have been try-
ing to get to one of their practices for an
interview for months now. I heard they
kicked ass, and I'm sure they'll have many
more gigs in the future to check out. It
was cool that this show was the premier of
this long awaited band.
There are two last scenarios that both
equal the last highlight of the night and
made Les Fest II go out with a bang. If Les
was watching, he must have been pissing
his pants in laughter at these two things.
The fi rst was the headlining band Sinpush-
er fi nishing out the night, "but...but...where
is Jason Shelby?!" To me Syracuse native
bands Sinpusher and Thunderosa are the
fathers of the dirty rock n' roll scene that
Syracuse can call its own. Guitarist Jason
Shelby is, and always has been, the man
behind Sinpusher. Sinpusher has been
on a hiatus for a while, so this show was
their "return". Well I guess since the show
started at 3pm, poor Shelby had a few
too many by the time his band when on. I
went up to watch them and Shelby wasn't
on stage playing guitar. Was he puking
somewhere? Nope, he was passed out
about twenty feet away from stage left
on a couch completely visible to any-
one watching while his band played on.
PUREFUCK-
I N G - C L A S -
SIC. I hope
he's not too
bent out of
shape about
it. It was
great fun for
everyone to
witness.
The second
half of this
last
high-
light
was
me being a
c o m p l e t e
jack ass and
almost end-
ing up in jail.
Whenever
Les would
come over
to our prac-
tice room he
would bring
over fi reworks.
Wow, where do I begin? The second an-
nual Les Fest took place on December
20th, 2009. What a way to end an inter-
esting year and get ready for what's to
come in 2010. Although it wouldn't be
right for me to do a recap of the show
(most of it is much too blurry), I will try to
put in to words what my highlights of the
night were. There was a good vibe go-
ing on in the Lost Horizon that night so I'm
sure everyone had their own good things
to say about the show.
For you readers who don't know the back-
ground of Les Fest, it is a day to remember
our friend Les Daniels who died in April of
2008. He was one of those few people
that lived every hour of his life for music
and the bands that he liked. He had a
very critical ear and taste, and he didn't
care what people thought of this taste...
or himself for that matter. Although Les
had a tendency to be an instigator, and
was known for creating many aliases on-
line to get people riled up, which came
from his love of getting a reaction out of
people or maybe just from boredom with
the status quo, when you fi nally learned
to just ignore his instigating as `that is just
Les being Les', you would see that he was
a good hearted dude who, incidentally,
had a strange sense of humor. I could go
on and on writing a book about him be-
cause he was such a unique and complex
dude, but this page is about Les Fest II. If
you didn't know him, and you are inter-
ested in hearing more about him, attend
Les Fest III next year and I'm sure you'll
hear some interesting and hilarious stories
revolving around Les.
I was very excited for this Les Fest II be-
cause of the sheer awesome line up of
bands. The Sunday matinee, which start-
ed at 3pm with Dry Lung Whiskey Binge
and ended around 10 pm with the return
of Sinpusher, was an amazing line up of
kick ass rock bands. Syracuse's newest
promoter, Trandon of the Born Again
Rebels family, did a great job of picking
and booking a full day of bands that Les
certainly would have been proud to have
his name on. If you had to pick a day of
music that refl ected what Tool & Die
stands for, that show would be it! Check
out a fl yer of that show, and check out the
bands listed. There isn't a clearer picture
of the dirty, gritty rock and roll (which still
has no genre name) that Tool & Die is
working to show the world.
Although all of the bands kicked ass, there
were a few highlights of the day. The fi rst
for me was the return to Syracuse of the
Brooklyn based band Black Water Rising.
These guys are a relatively new band hav-
"Trandon"