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News will now be updated on the MySpace page...feel free to check on it anytime!
4/23/2006 Hot Night in Columbia Heights Wow! I could leave it at that but I won’t. Saturday night was a great night for Minneapolis rock due to a great lineup by Somnio Artist Group. Full Stack enjoyed a big and rowdy crowd that made it easy to bring a great show to the stage. The Art Heist, Far From Falling and The Lid closed down the show and the crowd appreciated it. If it weren’t for all those great fans we would be playing in our basement instead of a great stage like Star Central. Thank you all. Look for upcoming shows and our new album due out this summer. Rawk On!
3/14/2006 Winterland Twice Hope everyone has dug out of the snow by now, thank god for Les Pauls and strong backs! From 6-18” it sounds like from around this frozen tundra we call home and boy do I miss my Jeep. Before the giant snowfall we also went in to Winterland Studio(aka Echo Bay Studio) and met with Todd Fitzgerald who will be the engineer on our upcoming album. The meeting went well so we headed back to the space to work on pre-production. It is hard to decide which of the new songs will make the album as there are many great ones to choose from. We are enlisting the help of producer Matt Krikwold in making some final changes and putting some polish on the material and we hope to be tracking songs by April. Look for updates as they happen and a most likely CD release in August. Rawk! 2/28/2006 3 Times The Rock I would like to go on record as saying that The Triple Rock has the best sound in town! I think this is mostly due to their stellar soundman who got every little bit out of that PA and monitor system. Really feels like RAWK when the sound is boomin’ and your microphone smells like a combination of beer and puke. The crowd seemed to dig what everyone was doing and we had a blast. We debuted a new song to start the night(I am currently referring to it as John’s new one but I am sure it has a name) and it really got things goin’ in a hurry. That Johnny Funk really knows how to bring the hits! Really appreciate everyone coming out on a Monday night and rockin’ with us and we will let you know when the next show is happening. 2/6/2006 The Show Must Go On The Rock on a Saturday night is a good place to be, the drinks are tall and the crowds are pumped. Starting into Safe, one of the singles from our demo, the PA was kickin’ and all was well in Hooville. At about the 2 minute mark all of the bass pedals went down in flames and their was a mad scramble to produce any type of bass guitar. After finally giving up and plugging straight into the amp we plugged along, hard and rockin’, the bass sounding fully like a carp being slapped on the pavement. We debuted our new song, Evil, and it was received like the stone tablets from Moses(or at least like the news that you have been elected prom queen). In the big finally(think lazers, fog machines, helicopters with paratroopers) John’s guitar amp decided to channel communications from a far off galaxy and had to be shut down. After swearing profusely at the amp in Swedish John put down his Les Paul, grabbed his crotch and belted out the end of Strip It Away to a mesmerized crowd. It’s just rock ‘n’ roll baby. Looking forward to our first trip to The Triple Rock on February 27th and we hope to see you out there. We go on at 9pm and will be followed by Fly Black Bird Fly and Sluthumper. 1/31/2006 Thank You Very Much We have thanks to give out today to everyone that has been out there supporting the Full Stack. We are the most requested band on Scrub Radio’s The Dark Alley and we will be recording a promo spot for them this week. We also have been requested on 93X’s Loud and Local show enough that we have to provide them with another CD! Please keep up the good work and request us by emailing Patrick at loudandlocal@93Xrocks.com and Jen by posting at Scrub Radio...they forget easily so RAWK ON! Also, a big thanks to those of you that came out last night for a late night at The Fine Line. The crowd was fun and loud and the bar was happy….maybe rock isn’t dead. Lastly, we will be playing at The Rock Nightclub this Saturday, the 4th of February at 10pm. This is a great opportunity for us and a chance for you to come and kick it with us on a weekend. Hope to see everyone there! 1/20/2006 Scrub Radio Starting 1/21/2006 Full Stack will be featured on the Dark Alley, a radio show on Scrub Radio (www.scrubradio.com—internet radio). The show runs Saturday nights from 9pm-midnight central time. Tune in and get your fill of Full Stack! 1/12/2006 The Fine Line Full Stack will be playing at The Fine Line Music Café in Minneapolis on Monday, January 30th at 11pm. Bands that will be opening are Buzz Beade, Plastic Chord and Laredo Parish with Buzz Meade starting at 8pm. You can find comp tickets HERE so feel free to print as many as you like and come down and support real rock in 2006! 1/5/2006 The New Year After much consumption and extreme holiday laziness we have managed to drag ourselves back to the studio. The new set has been put together and a majority of the material for the new album has been written. We are planning to put together a show at the end of January to showcase some of the new material. Look forward to seeing you all soon! 11.28.05 Stuffed Turkey, turkey and more turkey….how it all fit in I will never know. Paul went all the way to Canada just to have his dog crap in his car and I remained in Minneapolis for the sole purpose of giving my nephew a crotch-level target to punch at repeatedly. I think we might have to do a ritual sacrifice of him at our next show so don’t miss it! John is crankin’ out the hits and we keep moving that much closer to having a full set of new material for the album. Looking forward to Christmas and Paul finishing school so we can put down the pedal and bring this baby back into the light! 11.17.05 Gettin’ Ready The first snow has fallen and we have brought our show up to speed with Paul so you can expect to see Full Stack shortly at a dive near you. We have been re-working the songs to suit our new, thicker style which matches perfectly with Paul’s thunderous drum kit. A couple of new songs are in the works and there is talk or heading back into the studio to record. John also is the proud father of a healthy baby Bogner and his Les Paul has never sounded better! If only we could get Paul’s wife to let us take the gong from their dining room and put it to good use...still working on that one. You will also see changes in the website this Winter as Paul and Brandt put their skillz to work to produce a site more appropriate to a bunch of freaks like us. Keep checking back for more updates and upcoming shows!!! 9.04.05 Paul's our guy We are extremely excited to have found Paul Rogne to fill out the Full Stack lineup. You'd never think that such a nice guy could terrorize a drum kit the way he does. Aye carumba! I'm going back to wearing ear plugs at rehearsal. Paul's a smart guy, a quick read and frankly, a top notch drummer. Don't be surprised to hear that we'll be playing out in the next couple months. AND we're also anxious to get back into the studio with some NEW stuff. 7.29.05 We'll Miss You Greg! It's with heavy hearts that we have to say the band has lost the services of Greg Brown. The parting was amicable and there are no hard feelings. Greg's a great guy and a fantastic drummer. He's also a father of three children, husband, homeowner and hard-working blue collar man. His first priority is to his family and we respect his decision to leave the band in order to make that possible. We wish him and Stacy and their clan all the best. 7.1.05 Full Stack/Modify/57 Stitch The Star Central will never be the same after the severe beating that we gave the PA the other night. The click track died on us after the 1st song so we kinda Sammy Hagar’d it thru the rest of the set but still managed to bring it. Thanks to all who came out and had a good time with us, I am sure that Stitch and Modify appreciate it as well. We look forward to our next live adventure! 6.4.05 The Next Show... The night you've all been waiting for is coming in two weeks. We're playing a Saturday night gig with 57 Stitch. It's going to be at Star Central in Columbia Heights. That's a show you won't want to miss. 6.3.05 Lost the Battle, but the war continues... Full Stack took 3rd place at The Rock Nightclub's Battle of the Bands contest last night. The contest is one of those deals where essentially the band that brings in the most people to fill out a ballot wins. We are extremely grateful for you folks who came out to vote for us and watch us play. The best part of the night was being able to play on the stage there. The sound was great and LOUD and plus the guys running the show there are extremely nice people. They really give a shit about live music and they really make musicians feel at home. 6.1.05 Our date with the Metal Gods Three fourths of Full Stack went to the Judas Priest/Queensryche show last night. Rob Halford melted our faces. Here's this 50+ year-old guy who's still got the pipes of a dude half his age. Amazing! The band opened with Electric Eye (one of my all-time favorite Priest songs). Halford appears on stage dressed in a full length leather coat with chains hanging from it, kind of like a chain-mail weeping willow. He trudged down the stairs in robotic fashion (I figured that coat was so dang heavy he was trying not to fall over) and finally made it to the front of the stage during their 3rd song or so. Glen Tipton and KK Downing haven't changed a bit. They did their same moves, played the guitars they always play and were just smokin'. Other highlights of the show: "Metal Gods," "Riding on the Wind," "A Touch of Evil," "Judas Rising," "Breaking the Law ('breakin the what???)" and of course "You've got another thing coming." Tickets weren't cheap and the Xcel was far from sold out. But it was an inspirational evening. Yes, you can still rock over 50. 4.24.05 Another big THANKS to everyone who came out to see us at Club Urban Wildlife last night. For those who couldn't make it, here's a recap: We played a 50-minute set - our longest yet - so we had to throw in some new songs we'd never played out before: "Good as it gets" and "Down". The sound in the club (at least on stage) was killer. And it sounds like (thanks to our enthusiastic fans) that the powers-that-be at the club would like to have us come back there and play. Thank you! Thank you! 4.23.05 Preparing for a show You may be asking yourself, "what do members of Full Stack do on the day of a show in order to prepare themselves?" Well, like most people we do our household chores, vacuuming, washing dishes and feeding the chickens. Then just a few hours before we go on stage we commence the blood sacrifice to the dark under-demon Gruuk - (patron demon of rawk). After the goat has been slain, and we've bathed our naked bodies in its blood, it's time for sound check and one final dose of PCP. In case you're wondering, every rock club in town has facilities for these pre-show activities in their dressing rooms. It's actually required by the Code of Rawk, Section II, under "Pre-show Preparations." Don't believe me? Just look it up. (Brandt) 4.6.05 We got shows... First of all, a huge THANKS! to everyone who came out to see us at Station 4 on Tuesday (4/5). The bar was very pleased with our turnout and have asked us to come back there in June. We have you to thank, because a band can suck, but as long people come in through the doors, the bar owner will want them back. We got some good feedback from audience members about the sound. From my vantage point on stage the sound was not so good. I could hear drums and a little bass, a lot of John's guitar, some his vocals in my monitor and luckily I could hear some of my vocals. My on-stage guitar sound resembled that of an AM radio broadcast of 20 iguanas farting. Greg played the show without being able to hear guitars or vocals, but luckily he could hear Bill a little bit. John and Bill both had a hard time hearing themselves sing. Which is actually all the more encouraging. Now we know that even if the stage sound sucks ass we can still play a half decent show. Now we're in the process of working up a little different set for the URBAN WILDLIFE show. Stay tuned for details about free tickets. We're all excited about the show because it's a Saturday night show. And we're very anxious to get as many as people as possible to come out. We want the bar to love us - so show us your love and come on down on April 23rd... (Brandt) 3.15.05 Rehearsal Time It's loud and hot in here. Over the course of a two-hour rehearsal the air gets a little rank and the PA starts to feed back a little more. By the end of the night both eardrums and guitar strings are deadened due to the noise and sweat. I wear ear plugs - can't stand the ringing anymore. Don't want to end up like Pete Townsend. Right now the band is doing two to three rehearsals a week. We're particularly working on a few newly written songs and trying to decide which ones we'd like to record. We're also preparing for the April gig at 4th Street Station. You know, we've got to figure out the important stuff like our dance steps, how to wear our hair and figuring out how we're going to fit a 30-foot, fire-breathing, paper maiche Llama on stage with us. (We don't want John to go up in flames like Hetfield did). But seriously folks. We're all really psyched to play some more live shows. Bringing your stuff to the stage is the ultimate test. You can't fake anything and if you screw up royally, the audience will let you know. Although in Minnesota, audiences are pretty polite. Instead of booing they'll just pretend you're not there. In case you missed the link on the front page, you can get free tickets to the show by clicking here. (BW) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entropy ...is defined as the 'inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society.' It also accurately describes the condition of the equipment of any working rock band. Billy's bass amp blew up a few weeks ago, Greg is constantly shredding drumsticks, denting drum heads and knocking the screws out his kit and I've got a stomp box that's looking like that dude from Goodfellas who caught the beatdown from DeNiro and Peschi. Entropy also describes how rock affects the body. We're not quite geezers, but we're not exactly spring chickens either. Wearing a heavy guitar is hard on the back and playing drums like Greg has got to make him feel like he's been playing middle linebacker for the Bears. But that's OK. Instead of taking up low impact hobbies like tantric basket-weaving or cake decorating, we've decided to rock. And we ain't complaining. But, damn dude, where's my Ben-Gay? (BW) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 02.18.05 We had some special guests drop by rehearsal last night. Brett, Rob and Jamie from 57 Stitch -- who rehearse down the hall from us -- stopped by for a quick jam. Brett -- Stitch's lead vocalist and rippin six-stringer -- took over my spot for "Venus." Then we played one of our newest songs -- "Strip it Away" -- for the guys. I think they dug it. Stitch has a new album out called Nerveblock (available at Best Buy, CD Baby, Amazon.com, Tower Records). Check it out. The guys in 57 Stitch are basically cut from the same cloth as we are. They play unapologetically hard, guitar-centric music. John and Brett are very close friends and have known each other for many moons. And, of course, John played in 57 Stitch for five years. Me and Billy have known Brett since high school. Perhaps we'll be opening a show for them in the near future. Stay tuned for details... (BW) 02.17.05 A week ago (2/10/05) we played our first show as a band. It was the graveyard shift (11:30 to 12:15 on a weeknight) at the Cabooze. We were nervous, played a little too quickly at times and had problems with the mix -- in short it was a rock and roll show. The few who watched, (thank you Leah, Liz, Kathie, Collin) seemed to dig it - although there was a bit of a sonic clash between our style and the jam bands that preceded us. They had some good players, but their little combo amps were no match for the 'mighty Marshall' stacks. The Cabooze stage is pretty big, so it was nice to be able to stretch our legs out as we played. However the drum riser was barely big enough to fit all Greg's drums and cymbal stands. We had to duct tape the stands together and to the riser to keep them from tumbling down. Since then he's decided to scale back a bit on the hardware. Still, it was a far cry from the rehearsal cave, which is pretty cozy. It's hard to do flying scissor kicks and windmills in there. Plus we can't fit Greg's flaming gong in there. How are we supposed to properly rock without our pyro and choreography? The other day we took the pictures that you see here on the website and listened to an "advance" copy of the new Judas Priest CD. We all agree that Rob Halford still has some of the best f---ing pipes in the business. The disk is a bit over-produced for my tastes, but hey, it's still Judas freakin' Priest back together (most of them at least). (BW) |
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