Shotgun Heard Around the World Party.
Orlando edition. Saturday May 24, 2008.
With Hot Hands, Slippery Slopes, Shit Eagle.
Photos and review by Jeffrey Howard.

This year Rich from Florida's Dying organized a party called 'Shotgun Heard Around the World' being held all over the country including Orlando, New York, Cleveland, Columbus, Seattle, Oakland and maybe even more. All the exact same moment, in this case 11pm EST, everyone shotguns a beer. And everything and everybody was connected via satellite.... aka cell phones.

Here in the Orlando edition things got off really rocky. The party was being held at one of the band practice spaces at the Fairview Mini Storage along OBT. Band nerds know all about this place. It's just rows and rows of storage spaces. Bands rehearse, people run car repair businesses, operate meth labs, etc. I've seen people even live in the spaces. It's pretty isolated. But tonight it was pouring down rain. Hard. It had been dry for weeks with fires ravaging the area but the clouds heard about the Shotgun Party (from Myspace probably) and decided to unload. The rain let up about an hour before the 11pm deadline. People slowly began arriving and suddenly by 10:45pm there were about 30-40 people. Garbage bags were filled with ice and cans of beer for makeshift coolers. Cans of Miller High Life, Coors, Sparks, PBR were all handed out. Cell phone calls were made to match up with the other participating cities at their parties whether it be at houses or in front of park fountains (serious!). The countdown came in and all 11pm the beer flowed mightily down everyone's throats. Insane!

Then everyone went inside the practice space for the bands. Kristin and I's band played first. We also share this practice space so our set list was tacked on the wall so we just went down our practice list. Well. Sort of. Like I said there was a lot of beer going around and Kristin had had more than her share. In Kristin's own words it was deemed "WORST SHOW EVER" which just may translate "best show ever" depending on how you take it. Haha. We were loud and sloppy and only managed to play half our songs due to Kristin's dwindling drumming ability and me playing in the wrong key (allegedly). Kristin was screaming into the microphone. You had to hear it to believe. There are no known photos of us playing. I'm sure if there were they'd be hilarious.

All the drinking didn't help Slippery Slopes either. They managed to win the fight of playing second against Shit Eagle. It seems everyone was getting too trashed to play. All music skills of the night were shot gunned away by the alcohol. It was a glorious mess. Slippery Slopes were still awesome fun. They even tried a brand new song and couldn't finish it --- twice. I gotta hear it! Shit Eagle played next but they didn't seem to effected. Or maybe they were - at least not as much as the two previous. I couldn't tell anymore. Tracey Blades was killing the drums. Robby was jumping all over the place - to the ceiling, to the middle of the crowded room. Shit Eagle's main man, Shawn tore the S&M porn off the walls with his sonic guitar.

After the show the party kept going. Other bands played - I didn't know if they were real bands or dudes just jamming. My attention was with Kristin who by this point could not stand on her own. This was a true Florida's Dying party.


Slippery Slopes without shirts.


Britches without a shirt. Yes, we really only has a nub for an arm.


Rich Evans, with shirt on - Slippery Slopes


Shit Eagle say "Col".


Shit Eagle sing "Girls on Film". Nice clarinet poster.

 

Now that you made it down this far, here's the video of the actual shotgun. Enjoy!

 

Links:
Florida's Dying Records
Hot Hands
Slippery Slopes
Shit Eagle

Kick Bright Zine | Shows

Photos copyright Jeffrey Howard 2008.
Please don't display elsewhere, thanks.