Monday, February 16, 2009

wow

yesterday was the ten year...one decade, anniversary of the lawrence arms, which is my band. Ten years ago I called this guy named neil from the student union at Northwestern and told him I wanted to do a band. I brought my friend chris along because he was really not doing anything of note, and next thing you know, we were in japan, europe, australia, hemet california et fucking cetera...it's been wild. ten years is a while...i just kind of don't believe it. I feel young, and i feel like our band is new...guess not. yup. pretty wild. happy birthday, TLA, now you're old enough to read MAD magazine and sit in the front seat.

25 comments:

Alex said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Alex said...

TLA- old enough to have one long awkward pube.

Mikey said...

so...your band has had a huge influence on me...in some way anyways.

TLA have made me look at things differently, made me want to start my own band and play music, etc. etc. etc.

so celebrate by coming to toronto/putting out new material. :P yup, i'm being of those fans. sorry. heh.

congrats though.

kylewagoner said...

That's not THAT old. My band is 4 and I'm only 17.

Crooks Blogojevich said...

BK, thanks for Slapstick, Broadways, and TLA (and le Falcon) during my high school-college-young asshole days. I can't imagine listening to any of the other shit during the same time.

Is it weird, or telling, that the word verification word is 'bought'?

Nina said...

here's to 10 more

Candice said...

congratulations! i love you guys. for real.

how about celebrating with a show in ny?

Anonymous said...

This TLA's 10 year anniversary, it's the Bouncing Souls' 20 year anniversary. You guys should have a birthday tour together!

lastrayoflight said...

When one of my favourite local bands hit their tenth birthday they put out stubby holders (I don't know what you call them in the US, beer coolers, maybe) which said 'Mindsnare - A Decade of Brewtality'. That was awesome.

Showtyme said...

No offense, but every time I see someone abbreviate The Lawrence Arms as TLA I think of the Theatre of Living Arts in Philly. Good venue, but it's no Troc or Church...

Zac said...

the lawrence arms are one of the greatest bands ever. i moved to chicago for a semester because they repped the city so much.

i'm going to tell a story in honor of the 10th anniversary. it was like 2003. i was 15 or 16. i had a $10 gift certificate to loserkids.com (tom delonge's shitty old website) for pre-ordering the last blink 182 record. i had downloaded "your gravest words" just from hearing internet buzz or whatever and decided to buy "apathy and exhaustion" with my fake money.

i showed my friend the album on the way to school one day and he ended up buying "the greatest story every told." i couldn't believe it was the same band. so different but also way badass. one of the top 5 records of all time.

then i saw them play at modified, this tiny art space venue in phoenix and it was ON. best performance i've ever seen. it was super crowded and every kid there was in love with this band. i felt like i was part of this sweaty, sensitive and pissed off gang. then after the show, the band members were just hanging out! i'm using an exclamation point cos at the time it was so crazy for that to happen having only previously seen weird al yankovich and blink 182 in arenas. so lame.

after the modified show i kept seeing them whenever they came to arizona, which was a lot. eventually i graduated high school and went to school in new orleans, but then katrina crept up and i had to change my plans. i was going to a jesuit school and all the other jesuit schools in the country were admitting any kids from mine who made it out. i was like, there's one in chicago, the lawrence arms are from chicago and sound like they totally love it, i'm going there.

then it was AWESOME. they played a secret show like a week after i got there. it was a crazy semester; aside from it being cold as shit, chicago rules if you've never been. like a week before i left they were playing a show at the legendary L&L but i couldn't get in cos i wasn't 21. i just waited outside to watch through the window (and it was like barely 20 degrees). eventually i was let in and i fucking got to play drums on a few songs at the end. cream dream ending, i know.

so ya. that's the story. it's not that good, but the point is the lawrence arms have had such a huge effect on me, and it's BADASS it's been a decade for them. so many of my friends are super into the band and now i don't have to go to shows alone anymore.

hooray the lawrence arms!

Daniel999 said...

Must be a pretty insane feeling. This band has been really important to me and my friends over the years and I'm sure there's a ton of others who feel the same way.

Anonymous said...

11 more until the Lawrence Arms can drink legally!

Anonymous said...

Haha here's to another ten years, I suppose. You guys should put out a DVD or something to commemorate this shit. Or, you know, a new record. Sorry, had to be said.

Anonymous said...

Hemet, CA?

Well, I guess old people can be pretty pissed off and smelly too...

T.NERB said...

my life has exactly 15 years on your band. i think i saw you guys for the first time when you were 2.

Nate B. said...

I think this ranks right up there with playing the Oakland Coliseum. You guys are my favorite band by far.

John Meyer said...

I thought I was too old to find another band that I loved this much. I thought I was too old and settled down to do a lot of things. Then I stumbled across TLA on some comp about 5 years ago and it seriously changed my life, made me see things differently, made me realize that we don't have a lot of time and we've got to live life every day. TLA has been the soundtrack to the best 5 years of my life. Thanks for the great tunes and great times.

planespotting said...

How long has it been since you played show #7 at Gabe's Oasis in Iowa City ... ?

nancy said...

In 2002 or '03 I saw TLA in NJ and Brendan said "the front row is also the back row" and I thought that was clever. Whatever happened to The Lawrence Army?

Steele said...

Yo BK Keller and I don't think we'll ever fuckin forget HEMETFEST 02. With a 11 band lineup. Man that shit was EPIC. I have never had a SET dedicated to me before. Keep on banging out. By the way why don't you ever talk about Bagpiping or Shrimping in your blog? Check
em out if confused.

Cheers,

Steele

Steele said...

Yo BK Keller and I don't think we'll ever fuckin forget HEMETFEST 02. With a 11 band lineup. Man that shit was EPIC. I have never had a SET dedicated to me before. Keep on banging out. By the way why don't you ever talk about Bagpiping or Shrimping in your blog? Check
em out if confused.

Cheers,

Steele

Matt said...

Have you ever seen that shirt with the cartoony picture of a typical California city and the caption says, "Fresno -- It really does suck here."

I'm pretty sure they need to make one for Hemet too.

congrats on ten years, TLA.

Katie said...

I'll drink to that

Unknown said...

I didn't realize TLA are 10 years old now! Shit...

I think the first time I saw you guys was in 2000, or 2001, in Toronto on an Asian Man tour - or possibly just a tour that coincidentally had asian man bands on it - Mu330, Big D, etc.

I had just found out about you guys from a girl in my school who had lent me the Big City... EP. She loved the Broadways.

Around 2002, or whenever Apathy... came out, I think you guys were on tour in Ontario but for the Toronto date ended up opening for a larger show in town, or just skipped Toronto? Either way, after not being able to convince anyone to accompany me, I some how made my way out to Oakville (a Toronto 'burb) to see you guys. It was awesome. You guys played basically a request driven set. The Sainte Catherines were on tour with you guys. It was fucking awesome.

After the show was over I realized that transit wasn't running, and I had to call my mom to come pick me up. haha.