First show accomplished

So the first JOHN WILKES YOUTH show went off without with only a few hitches.

During "Cut Off," I did my best to be "that guy" who rocks out during his band's set. Well during the course of this event, I managed to somehow knock my A-string out of tune so badly that it was registering in the tuner as a G-string. Of course, being the idiot I am I didn't think that my expert (read as: amateur) ear could not notice this.

Two minutes of awkward silence later, we were good to go.

The rest of the set was fine. The usual "first show" fuck-ups, nothing out of the ordinary. I hope you enjoyed the little shake-up during "No Way Out." I have a lot of friends I'm trying to surprise with this, so please shut yo' mouth about it.

Holy crap, is that an entire LOLcat website dedicated to Star Wars?

After us, this band from Virginia called The Misled played and killed it. They're also an awesome bunch of dudes who let us borrow their drums and guitar cab. They sound like a much heavier NOFX with a lot more talent. At least to my ears. But I don't really listen to NOFX.

I also consumed three tallboys of Arnold Palmer and two bags of candy. I believe the term is "sugar high." I get a gold star!

Our next show is on February 6th in New Brunswick with our friends SEASICK, ZHENIA GOLOV, and OUTLAST. Seasick and Zhenia Golov both shred, and Outlast's demo is fucking sweet, so I'm stoked to see them.


That's all I've got for now. We've got demos, stickers, and buttons we're selling for approximately $free.99 but you can only get these things by coming to our shows.

Until next time,
MD

We're Friends!

Just wanted to take this time to thank our good friend James for including us in a blog post for his podcast We're Friends!. In a preview of good things to look forward to in 2010, James writes:

I'm not well versed in the world of punk and hardcore, but I definitely like some of it. Black Flag, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Paint it Black, Killing the Dream, Dead Kennedys, Misfits, Pulling Teeth, all great bands to me. So when I hear that two friends of mine are in a hardcore band, knowing full well that they are good at hardcore already, I am interested. The demo is fast, heavy, and aggressive, go download it! http://www.myspace.com/johnwilkesyouth

Ha! Richard and myself are already good at hardcore! Screw this, I'm done. Life goals accomplished.

So again, thanks to James, Dash, and all -3 of you reading this.

xoxo
MD

An introduction of sorts...

Helloooooo!

My name is Mike Davis, and I play guitar in JOHN WILKES YOUTH.

This band came about from, of all things, my good friend Richard NJ being very drunk at my old apartment in New Brunswick. In a state of premier drunkitude, Richard brings up to me the idea of starting a band called, of all things, JOHN WILKES YOUTH (Later, I'd learn that it was actually our friend Tom who had implanted the idea in Richard's head, but the story is there all the same). A Youth Crew kinda band.

Well, the only thing I love more than good hardcore is a good pun, so I was down.

Of course, nothing ever came of this for about a year.

In late August or so, Richard came to me with the idea of actually starting a band. Our immediate idea: JOHN WILKES YOUTH. Whoops, forgot to bold that. JOHN WILKES YOUTH. There we go.

Jokingly described by me as a "straight edge and/or vegan hardcore punk rock" band, Richard went out and recruited his friends Justin and Jordan to play bass and drums.

Richard's other band, the tubular Stressed Out was in the process of transitioning from a hardcore band with some thrashy metal influences into a thrashy metal band with some hardcore influences. While Richard loves both of these things, he missed playing plain old hardcore.

At our first practice, it was generally decided upon that we were going to play fun songs that would probably be less than two minutes long. No solo's, no problem. Which is good, cause when I try to solo, I look like this:


Anyway, thirteen or so practices, three or four 4-track recordings, and a full day of demo recording with Metal Tweet later, we've got a five song demo that is about five minutes long, and I've been lucky enough to get a lot of positive feedback (told you I love puns) on.

xoxo
MXD

And don't forget about these: