Life is Shit Festival Zine, Vol. 2

Jack Evan Johnson - Founder Executive Director Tsvetelina Stefanova - Director Sponsorship Manager Angie Randazzo - Dive Bar Owner Head Of Security Nate Bruce - Dive Bar Owner Chairman Of The Beard James Howard Adams - Artistic Dictator Design and Layout By : Brock Frabbiele, Sebastian Pozos

@FEDERALIBOB

IN T H IS s h it t y Z IN E W or ds : - 1) Ja ck Ev an Jo hn so n (0 17 ) Gi rl s Ro ck Ve ga s (1 6Br ia n Gi bs on (1 8) , 35 - 36 ) Kr is Kr ai no ck (2 2- 23 Li z Ch ar on (2 4- 25 ) 33 ) Ha me ll on Tr ia l (3 1Ar no ld Kn ig ht ly (3 9)

SHITTY SCHEDULE 4:20 pm Better Broken 5:00 pm The Fat Dukes of Fuck 5:45 pm Anti-Vision 6:30 pm The Negative Nancys 7:15 pm Illicitor 8:00 pm Indigo Kidd 8:45 pm Dude City 9:30 pm Death Hymn Number 9 10:15 pm Hamell on Trial 11:15 pm Whoops 12:00 am DANGERBONER 12:45 am Magic Factory 1:30 am No Tides

Im ag es : Am an da Ri le y (0 , 32 ) Sp en ce r Ha le y (1 9) Sp en ce r Ol se n (2 0) Om ar Va sq ue z (2 1) Ka ri n Mi ll er (2 3, 39 ) 36 ) Aa ro n Ga rc ia (2 4, 25 , (2 6- 27 , LI S po st er ) Ja me s Ho w ar d Ad am s Se ba st ia n Po zo s (2 8) Ia n Ra co ma (2 9) Jo rg e Ca to ni (3 0) (3 4, 38 ) Ts ve te li na St ef an ov a T. G. Mi ll er (3 7) p va ll ey br ew in g co ., Sp ec ia l th an ks to ho ., an d th e di ve ba r. la gu ni ta s br ew in g co

Las Vegas has no dick (and I like it like that) A few months ago I played a show at a record store in Nashville with this year’s Life is Shit Festival headliner, New York-based musician and artist Hamell on Trial - or Ed Hamell as his friends know him - and at a bar after the show, Ed complimented my group of “unpretentious” friends. It was a nice thing to hear from a dude whom I respect personally and artistically, especially because I’m relatively new to Nashville, and being new to a place, you kinda just take the friends you can get.

It got me thinking about friendships and scenes and community and the people you surround yourself with, whether by choice or by default. It got me thinking about Las Vegas, where I lived most of my life, and Nashville, were I’ve lived a little under two years. For a few years before moving there, I visited Music City at least once a year, to record or to play gigs and hang with my cousin and a few guys from Las Vegas who had moved there. I fell in love with the place, and eventually fancied myself a bit of a Nashophile. I knew about the popular musicians who called it home, what records were made there, where to find the best barbecue, where Johnny Cash was buried, etc. And I even knew quite a bit about the local scene and who many of the players were.

But just like vacationing a place and living there are very different, stalking other people’s groups of friends on Instagram and actually making your own are very different. With the exception of one musician who owns a record store, I am still not friends with one single person I knew of but didn’t actually know before moving to Nashville. I play a lot of shows, but still don’t play any with any of the Nashville bands or songwriters I knew of before I showed up.

In the words of my Nashville buddy, a great unknown singer/songwriter from New England named Paul Nelson, “We’re still not sitting at the cool kids’ table in the cafeteria.” It just hasn’t worked out that way.

It has however, worked out, ‘cause I am friends with Paul, who I swear to god sounds like the offspring of Van Morrison and Willie Nelson and has become one of my favorite singers. I met Paul because he used to work with my good friend Shaylee Walsh, the badass drummer in popular Nashville all-girl rock and roll band Thelma and The Sleaze. She and I moved to Nashville together, and she still plays in my band occasionally. I am also good friends with Kashena Sampson, a Las Vegas girl I met through friends whom I didn’t know before she moved to Nashville as an unknown singer the same week I did, but who’s already been in Rolling Stone and is kinda blowing up. I have a killer bass player whom I met because he was dating my cousin. My former roommate started one of the best bands in Nashville while I was living with him. And many of my friends don’t even come from the 0

music scene at all, but from a barbershop where I worked. I may not be sitting at the “cool kids” table, but I think my friends are pretty fucking cool.

In author and musician Warren Zanes’ 2015 biography, “Petty: The Biography,” Zanes writes that Tom Petty once advised him to leave L.A. and start a band with his friends in his hometown. I’ve thought back to that advice again and again, and I think I get what Petty was saying. Like L.A., there are shit-hot musicians falling out of every tree in Nashville, but the kind of chemistry which is the component of any good relationship — and especially any great band — does not grow on trees. But it is organic. And though I’ve been lucky enough to find my piece of it in Nashville, it is the type of thing we have piles of in Las Vegas. And, it’s exactly what Life is Shit Festival was built from — a festival which I feel has become more about hanging out with your friends than the bands playing (even though we have great fucking bands).

Because in Las Vegas, there is no cool kids table. None of our bands are popular outside of Vegas. No hit records have been made in any of our recording studios. You aren’t going to run into the music director of a T.V. show in a guitar store, and you aren’t going to run into Jack White in a bar. You couldn’t suck a dick to get ahead in the music game if you wanted to. But what we have in Las Vegas is ours, and it’s cool as hell. I haven’t even seen anyone in Nashville murder a guitar the way Mercy Music’s Brendan Scholz does, no band sounds anything like Same Sex Mary, and there is no songwriter as weird and offensive as Nathan Fairbanks. The Bunkhouse is as good or better a venue than any of the internationallyknown small clubs in Nashville, and The Killers could have worked on their new album anywhere in the world but chose National Southwestern Recording at 11th Street Records.

None of Nashville’s dive bars with live music even allow smoking indoors, and I’ve yet to meet a sound guy with the stories of The Dive’s John Fucking Kirby (who I’m happy to say is not actually dead, despite what Indigo Kidd says).

The longer I am away from Las Vegas, the more I appreciate what I had — and still have — there. Had I not learned about community in Las Vegas, I might not value it when I find it other places. But, yeah. After years in the Vegas scene, I gave in to the temptation to see what else was out there — first moving to Australia, then Nashville. I’ve met some great people and played some memorable shows, but two of the best, and longest-lasting bands I’ve played with — Dude City and DANGERBONER — both were formed almost 10 years ago in Boulder City, not because we were the best musicians around, but because we were the only musicians around.

I have also come to understand what Joel from DANGERBONER meant when he once told me, referring to a few years spent living in Seattle, “Every city is as shitty as the next.”

So eat it up Las Vegas.

Jack Evan Johnson Nashville, September 2017

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Our shitty band name:

Better Strokin'!...amirite?!

Our band is the shit because:

We write most of our music in the shitte

r.

Our shittiest gig ever (and why):

This one...it's right there in the name.

Life is shit because:

if it wasn't, what would we have left to wri

te about?

brown, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s

sch.” it's probably craft beer and we prefer Bu can’t Lita Ford.” u can lead a turd to water, but you “Yo

Our shitty band name:

The fat dukes of fuck.

Our band is the shit because:

We do everything together.

We are a real family, weeth n eve er, er, dance togeth live together, play togof us ues have flexibility iss , bathe together. (Some to get our body so it's just an easy way to playallMaof o rc Polo). parts clean, plus we get played a Prince Our shittiest gig ever (and why): We r two after his death. Ouowd memorial show a day or cr big opener was "Purple Raining Blood" the was a real bummer.

Life is shit because:

Calories.

“If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s

brown,

best buds.”

Take a picture of it and send it to your “You can lead a turd to water, but

you can’t

drink that water.”

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Our shitty band name:

ANTI-VISION.

Our band is the shit because:

We give no fucks and always go hard. definitely be Our shittiest gig ever (and why): That would Ended up downing an Sacramento on our last tour.een us and played the entire bottle of tequila betw emb shittiest set we can barely rem er. we are enslaved by corporations.... as we write this on an iPhone. town.”

"If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, skip

Life is shit because:

"You can lead a turd to water, but you can't

make it love you.”

Negative Nancys. all fucked Jon Snow.

Our band is the shit because: We've dlined "Punk Rock Our shittiest gig ever (and why): Hea Port-a-Potty." will all become dust Life is shit because: You know you that dust and then and something will consedumate som e point. that dust will be excret brown, text a photo of it “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s to your friends.” you can’t say goodbye “You can lead a turd to water, but til we meet again, oldt, so, instead, you say 'un shi friend' and then you cry because life is man.”

Our shitty band name: The

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-or.

Our shitty band name: Illi-SHIT n't.

Our band is the shit because: We are

Wasn't a gig but I did security guards to lethad once convince a team of more pot) because I me leave a festival (to tget shit my pants. Does tha count? - Bob brown, then wipe, flush “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s ial (or don't) and go follow Illicitor on soc media.” you can’t get back into “You can lead a turd to water, but ” Life is Beautiful with shit in your pants.

Our shittiest gig ever (and why):

Indigo Skidd. n we take big boys, we Our band is the shit because: Whe take BIG BOYS. in Atlanta and Our shittiest gig ever: Rolling up g in a straight edge finding out we were playin tting. venue that the local DIY scene was boyco k your bandmates Life is shit because: You can't fuc gay. Fuck you Josh, without some asshole calling ya you're gay!” wn, better go fuck If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s bro your bandmates.” can’t take it to a You can lead a turd to water, but you movie without getting it popcorn first.”

Our shitty band name:

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Our shitty band name: Dude

Shitty.

We're getting the band back together. We're on a mission from God. t 2017. We Our shittiest gig ever (and why): Life is Shi l hasn't stil es Jam haven't played in 5 years andmiddle pocket. found the van key in Jack's

Our band is the shit because:

Life is shit because: Our

t-shirt is more popular than

our band.

“If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, wipe

'til it

bleeds.”

“You can lead a turd to water, but you can’t as

a band

agree on the answer to this question.”

Our shitty band name: death

hymn number 9.

we're friends and stuff. have them. ttiest gig ever (and why): we don't

Our band is the shit because: Our shi

every day we wake up not dead. brown, rub it in your “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s eyes.” you can’t have sex with “You can lead a turd to water, but ” a dead body without legal ramifications.

Life is shit because:

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Our shitty band name:

HAMELL ON TRIAL.

Genius and endurance. ball game. Boys.

Our shittiest gig ever (and why): Volley

Our band is the shit because:

Actually life is great. I'm just doing the gig cuz I need the money. marry it.”

“If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown,

Life is shit because:

“You can lead a turd to water, but you

can’t

impeach him

fast enough.”

Our shitty band name:

WHOOPS.

Our band is the shit because:

We are high and tight while being low and loo

se.

Our shittiest gig ever (and why):

er which led to a beer we played a smash mouth cov physical fight being thrown at us whichmyledmotom awhi finally between the thrower and ched in the ch eye. This was ended with me being pun job. also my first week at a new Life is shit because:

Everything seems fucked up all the time.

Put it back in “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, wn the cave with the rest of the bro eggs.” can’t Hold a turd “You can lead a turd to water, but you like a baby.”

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Our shitty band name: DANGERBONER. "Enter the Our first albumPeter Our band is the shit because: Gabriel, the by n ritte co-w and Bonerzone" was produced

original lead singer and flautist of the progressive Genesis.

rock band

including Banks, Rutherford, terhouse pupils sis Formed by five Char was named...

Gene lips, Phil ony Gabriel, and Anth as the why): Definitely our gigsTour Our shittiest gig ever (and in 93. We Secret World Liveket Bone Peter Gabriel's city opening band for r, and Blan ch (Bea to from city hit a few high notegs Bone d favorites), crow t isten cons two g bein r Risin the of e Hous e . And who can blam nitely there forofPeter but the crowd was defi drummer by water the out n blow tly isten cons were We ? them rhythm section, 's mesmerizingwork Bassist Tony Levining Manu Katche andicate . Also, we Stick Rain otiz hypn and intr 's and Peter t Jack aris guit our when tour the of s show e thre last missed the es. snak er pray iel's Gabr Peter of got bit by one question would be k the answer to this Life is shit because: I thin a job you hate, g to rt repo to up get you ing obvious every morn never have a thin ly nari ordi d woul you coworkers surrounded by after for a currency ing work life your ng day, wasti to do with. Day y imag eventually will that car a for pay To y. that is completela houseinar To support s. your be ly real r neve will break down, and leave youthat s along, come r bette one some ent mom a spouse that'll you alone.theAnd that dren chil e rais and feed to or die and leave the first chance into a you put and get, they you don aban will home the moment you grow old and feeble. oned Back when he was stati knew Life was shit.

Your grandfatherjung warm, still the ched clut he and hole shitle ic in some Pacif d mush that was once best friend, and shouted shrapnel fille in the sky. But the truth evades you now, as you curses at God tiny glowing phone screen, and order another stare into your latte. You're an empty vessel. You should really pumpkin spicedand read it every now and again. pick up a book chow down!”

“If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, Let's it to create a love “You can lead a turd to water, but you can’t get Your Eyes". The finest song as epic and lavishly beautiful asen,"Inand perhaps the best love song Peter Gabriel has ever writt song of his career."

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Magic Factory. derstand that Our band is the shit because: We un is a beautiful, magical e sometimes making music like sitting in a lin process and sometimeseakit's sewing soles on to sn ers. haven't yet played t Our shittiest gig ever (and why): We t when we do, it will be tha Hamilton, New Zealand bu one. Because it's a hole. make it, don't back Life is shit because: Life's what you date it, brown, Go to town.”

“If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s you can’t Always get what “You can lead a turd to water, but you want.”

Our shitty band name:

Our shitty band name:

No Shits.

full of shitty how to musicians, our singer doesn't even know tune his guitar.

Was opening up for Ty Our Shittiest gig ever (and why): bust strings on both !

Segall, two songs in ande, we rs either guitars at the same tim no backup guita brown, Mail it!.”

“If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s you can’t stop the flow “You can lead a turd to water, but of diarrhea.”

Our band is the shit cause: it's

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Girls Rock Vegas

is proud to partner Vegas seeks to empower ck Ro s rl Gi ! ar ye r he ot e our with Life Is Shit for an n and performance. Sinc tio ea cr c si mu h ug tho n ht summer girls and wome d over 300 girls, held eig he ac re ve ha we , 09 20 in founding five schools. ter-school programs at af ted uc nd co d an s, mp ca electric rams and learn to play og pr r ou to me co 7 nt 9-1 Girls ages cking up their instrume pi st mo s, um dr d an s rd the guitar, bass, keyboa eir own bands, and over th rm fo s er mp Ca e. tim at a showcase for the first al songs which they play in ig or ite wr , ek we a of ops on course so participate in worksh al s nd Ba . mp ca of d en DIY band concert at the e media, Riot Grrrl, and th in n me wo e, ag im dy rpop, bo positive e Coco Jenkins, Candy Wa lik s nd ba d an ts tis ar l lunchtime promotion. Loca rls and Wolves teach, play Gi d an y, Da y st Mi k, may so Katy Maro le models for girls who ro e tiv si po as e rv se d at Girls concerts, mentor an cian. Survey data taken si mu le ma fe l ca lo a t have never me es self-esteem, that the experience elevat ow sh ms ra og pr 's tive as Veg Rock eases academic and crea cr in d an e, ag im dy bo e develops positiv confidence. lowed us to from Life Is Shit have al ive ce re we se tho e lik Donations ise not afford d camp who could otherw ten at to s rl gi ny an ma pt acce n help ensure a girl has ca u yo , rs lla do y nt twe r can to attend. Fo . For fifty dollars, you ks ic st um dr of ir pa a om a instrument cable or strument instruction fr in of g in rn mo a s ha e re help ensure sh llars, you can help ensu do d re nd hu e on r Fo . professional musician r. she has an electric guita

Girls Rock Vegas is a Nevada non-profit corporation and a federal 501(c)(3) public charity. Donations made to Girls Rock Vegas are deductible under section 170 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Visit us at www.girlsrockvegas.org for more information.

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Open to all 21+

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