i started this last year. i tried to fill in the history a bit, but it's mostly a chronicle of all the shows since. i'm still not sure if i should be referring to a band as singular or plural. too tired to think of the rule.

02/??/200?   tanka ray, gc5   rapid city, south dakota   nik first show ever. Culture shock, formation of personal band ensued
many local shows 
6/19/2003 warped tour: rise against, anatomy of a ghost  bozeman, mt  nik, reilly dusty, then it rained. Aoag were bloody and dude hugged me
10/11?/2003  Afi, hot water music  fargo, nd  reilly, mike i mean, hot water music. duh. they played a circle jerks cover and it was awesome
4/22/2004 hot cross, lickgoldensky, bright calm blue, ricky fitts, sinking steps…rising eyes  sioux falls, sd  nik, reilly bcb were late, hot cross played a short set. Lgs invited nik on stage & poured water on him. Later they pulled us all on stage and I played guitar. 
7/21/2004 warped tour: Thursday, rise against, motion city soundtrack, coheed and cambria  bozeman, mt  nik really hot
7/3/2006 I would set myself on fire for you, mt bateaux  st. joe's pub, rapid city  nik, hank, john? not many people there, but fun. Short set.
9/9/2006 the lawrence arms  triple rock, minneapolis  john, matthew decent show, awesome set, fellas were drunk.
9/16/2006 strike anywhere  triple rock, minneapolis  john I killed myself. So much stagediving.
9/21/2006 mates of state  first ave, minneapolis  john, matthew fun to sing along. 
9/23/2006 cursive, the thermals  first ave, minneapolis  john, matthew the thermals were punk. Cursive was awesome. Horns on old songs as well as new. Encore w/gentleman caller and art is hard. matt and john attended
10/2/2006 mount eerie, calvin johnson  triple rock, minneapolis  lily, mark, siarhei fun show. Mt eerie is lots better live. Dude is kind of creepy though
10/28/2006 xiu xiu, congs for brums, dirty projectors  triple rock, minneapolis  amazing show. Dirty projectors stuff is catchy and weird. Congs for brums is some dude on the drums. Ridiculous vibes skill. Xiu xiu was LOUD. Congs for brums dude played drums for them. Mostly new stuff, but I didn't really care
10/29/2006 anathallo, page france  varsity theater, minneapolis  anathallo were really good performers. Singer was kind of creepy looking but awkwardly funny. Aux dude got really excited and made the show for me
11/12/2006 the decemberists, alasdair roberts  first ave, minneapolis  sean poor song selection by decemberists. Colin was sick too. 16 military wives was good.
11/13/2006 the album leaf, dirty on purpose, lymbyc systym  400 bar, minneapolis  lymbyc systym was surprisingly good. Wasn't into dirty on purpose, but they were great performers. Album leaf was weird…they were good, but they seemed like dicks. In retrospect, they were good though.
11/30/2006 devotchka  first ave, minneapolis  mike, dave holy shit. Aerial dancers. Wine bottle. Trumpet. Awesome. mike and dave were drunk and i had to drive them. we had the best pizza ever afterwards
1/25/2007 the appleseed cast, asobi seksu  triple rock, minneapolis  john asobi seksu were awesome and totally shoegaze. Appleseed cast were all right, new stuff sounds pretty sweet.
2/26/2007 do make say think, holy fuck  triple rock, minneapolis  keishi, mark, siarhei holy fuck was really good live. Bouncing all over the place and amazingly catch. Do make say think played every song imaginable and switched instruments a lot. Best band I've seen so far. I blew all my $$ on lps.
3/13/2007 red sparowes, william elliott whitmore  grog shop, cleveland  nick, kyle, cory, colin william elliott whitmore was awesome. Such a humble and amazing guy. He played requests. Red sparowes was loud. The bassist was really good. 3 guitars and sweet videos.
3/25/2007 isis, jesu, zozobra  triple rock, minneapolis  zozobra was good, but not into the music. jesu's bassist was pretty bad, and I feel like they're better recorded. Isis was boring and only played new stuff. 
3/26/2007 maps and atlases  triple rock, minneapolis  most amazing band ever. Restoring my faith in music. these arms are snakes also played, but they're shitty fashion core or something
3/29/2007 explosions in the sky, eluvium  first ave, minneapolis  john eluvium was so freakin' loud. Amazing to hear live, although others might call it boring. Loop after loop and rising and falling melodies….cool. Eits were ok. Mostly, they sounded similar to recordings, but the last few songs were really good (catastrophe and the cure with extra drum, monument)
4/5/2007 rocky votolato, owen  varsity theater, minneapolis  owen was really funny, rocky was sick but cool
4/23/2007 lifetime, the draft  triple rock, minneapolis  the draft were awesome. Everyone singing along. Dude was drunk and kind of looked like the one guy from ferris bueller's day off. Lifetime were awesome. Everyone moshing. Stilettoed. Guitarist had amazing facial expressions. Played nearly every song from jersey's best dancers.
4/27/2007 the books  walker arts center, minneapolis  lily, mark, peter, sean really awesome video, mind overwhelmed, existential experience, amazing cellist.
5/5/2007 naked raygun, dillinger four, the methadones, shot baker  triple rock, minneapolis  shot baker were kind of punk/hardcore. Methadones were ex screeching weasel, but sounded like green day. Dillinger four were so fucking fun, mosh for jesus. Talked about baseball, records, dude had a mac groveland shirt on. Naked raygun were old, but they gradually got more energy. whoooaoaoaoa
5/11/2007 strike anywhere, the loved ones  trea bingo hall, rapid city  luke, john, clark, laura the loved ones were all right. Drunk people and bad sound guy, but still enjoyable. Strike anywhere was awesome again. Luke and I were shouting all the lyrics, and I got the mic quite a few times.
6/23/2007 hex, from the muses of mt helicon  trea bingo hall, rapid city  nik, clark, john hex was amazing live. Muses were amazing live. Dur dur dur.
7/26/2007 we have hooks for hands, mouthful of bees, from the muses of mt helicon  dahl fine arts center, rapid city  nik, john, clark, hank muses was awesome, although not as sweet as the first time. Accordian song! Bees had a ridiculously cute drummer. Hooks was really fun live.
9/11/2007 animal collective  first ave, minneapolis  peter, sean, shivaun, mark, lily really loud, lots of new stuff. Peacebone and fireworks were great, though. As well as we tigers. Dancing! People smoking pot! Crazy lights!
9/15/2007 dillinger four, off with their heads  triple rock, minneapolis  peter, shivaun, joe d4 off with their heads was way fun. Really sincere dudes. D4 was about the same as last time. Not as funny, but tighter and drunker. Love that band. McLovin'!
9/21/2007 dance band  kagin commins, st. paul  peter, sean uh…dancing!
9/25/2007 the weakerthans, last town chorus  triple rock, minneapolis  shivaun, serri last town chorus was a steel guitar/guitar combo. The girl sang and was pretty silly. Weakerthans were very canadian, but really fun. foot tapping and they sang a song about curling. 
10/2/2007 smashing pumpkins  roy wilkins, st. paul  andrew one word: keytar.
10/6/2007 retainers  the alamo, st. paul  shivaun, ben, stefan owth cancelled. Retainers were cool though. Lots of drunk people.
10/7/2007 electric six  first ave, minneapolis  nick, jeremy really fun. Had a couple beers before hand. Danced. Singer was hilarious and hated our congresswomen, michelle bachman?
10/11/2007 the draft, the gaslight anthem  triple rock, minneapolis  neil, joe d4 got a poster. Draft was fun sing a long, but not a whole lot different than last time. 
10/21/2007 mono first ave, minneapolis john pussed out and did homework. Mono were really great live and blew the metal kids' minds. New song rules.
10/23/2007 do make say think, apostle of hustle varsity theater, minneapolis neil, colin apostle of hustle were pretty twinkly and talented. Dmst were phenomenal (sp?) again, and played in mind and hoorayx3 which made me very happy. On the way back neil's bike broke, so we split up bc I had the ol' radio show.
10/29/2007 minus the bear first ave, minneapolis why did i go to this show? so many bros...
10/31/2007 the mountain goats, bowerbirds 400 bar, minneapolis peter, sean, zach, kristen, joe d4, etc etc bowerbirds were really interesting, i can't wait to hear some of their recorded material. switching instruments and all playing percussion. damn you oink for dying. the mountain goats blew me away, which was unexpected as i haven't been way into the mountain goats for over a year. but they had an awesome drummer and lots of energy. very rocking, which was also unexpected. john is the most genuine and funniest guy ever.
11/07/2007 battles fine line, minneapolis battles are so awesome live, but the fine line is such a shitty venue. the sound guy was either deaf or retarded, because anyone with ears should be able to mix better than that. anyway, battles were fun regardless.
11/10/2007 frostblood dupre 5 laundry room, st. paul sean, peter, shivaun, ellie, etc. odin had mercy upon us as he evoked music through the individuals known as frostblood. he also reserved a washing machine and dryer.
01/18/2008 homostupids the alamo, st. paul stefan great show, glad i went. not much to say except that it was awesome.
02/02/2008 hot water music, lucero, able baker fox the metro, chicago chris, erick, jesse, keith, cory, zack, libby so i really wanted to see hot water music, and erick was going as well, so i asked him if i could tag along with his crew. erick is an awesome dude i met at powershift, but i didn't really know him that well. so i'm going to chicago with seven dudes i don't know, staying at some girl's house i don't know, in a city i don't know. i wouldn't have ever done this two years ago.

so friday at noon, i left for chicago. jeremy graciously drove me to the megabus stop and i was immediately stoked to see that we would be taking a double decker. window seat, second floor please.

chris and others missed the downtown stop, so they got on the minneapolis stop. they tipped the bus driver like $50 for waiting. i got some cheese in wisconsin, but not the brick that was shaped like wisconsin. anyway, the bus ride went by quickly and we were in chicago. 

chicago is fucking slushy as shit - it had just snowed like a foot and then began to melt. my feet were fucking freezing the entire weekend. from my limited exposure, chicago is the best city. it's fucking huge. all the houses are sweet and like 2 feet apart. they have over two million square feet of green roofs. there's shit to do everywhere - you don't have to drive to the cool area of town or something. if you need to go somewhere else, there's a great (though expensive) train system. we walked a bunch, too, which was not good for my toes. i don't know if i'd like to live here; the people i saw seemed kind of fake and superficial. but i could be wrong.

the dudes (as i've started referring to them - see "call more dudes" taco john's in defence video. chris was there and may have said "call more dudes." ps, apparently taco johns corporate hq heard about this.) are awesome. they're totally ridiculous and a little out of touch (see beards, flannel, and serious use of the word "orgcore," real life discussions of tchc message board), but they're totally fun to hang out with. 

so dudes and i went bowling at some bar/bowling alley, the oldest in chicago. instead of actually bowling, we just chucked the kiddie balls down the lanes, which made all of the serious bowlers seriously angry. i also made the mistake of telling them about how my name can fit with anything, and combinations like "kaineapple" ensued. we bowled until 2am. some random guy talked to us about hot water music, and then some random drunk guy talked to us about cursive and hot water music. although chicago has a bunch of rich yuppies, it also has an awesome punk scene and everyone listens to punk. 

so i slept in my sleeping bag on a hardwood floor until 12pm the next day. it was glorious/terrible. then we got up and had frosted flakes and then went to lake michigan and got in a snowball fight. from there, we went to lake michigan - great lake, or greatest lake? then we went to go eat the fucking biggest and best pizza slice ever. my one slice was twice the size of my large hands. i have a picture of it on my phone, please ask. mushroom and green pepper, so good.

then we saw abel baker fox, lucero, and fucking hot water music. the show was seriously phenomenal. i've never felt such an awesome connection to the bands and singing along and just being awesome. it's given me faith in punk music again, so i'm going to start going to more random shows on weekends. we saw random people from the chicago scene like some legendary punk producer, dudes from rise against and lawrence arms. the hot water music guys are so genuine, talented, and fun to watch. we were seriously front row against the barricade and in the center. they were also filming the show for a dvd and my face will be all over that shit. i bought so much shit, which will soon be 

after that, we went back home and got more pizza, this time stuffed spinach pizza. we told stories of high school hijinks and hooliganship.  dudes were much more destructive than me. now it's 2:03 and we're watching this awesome show about zero waste that is talking about turning worm poop (they seriously use the phrase "worm poop"). it's the best fucking show ever.

in short, this weekend was the best idea i've had in a while. taking opportunity of every moment in life is much more fun than stagnating and getting drunk every weekend. i'm going to try to go on more adventures in the twin cities. look out for that shit.
02/08/2008 gena, arms aloft, send messages the steak knife, minneapolis chris, erick, jesse, keith, cory, zack this show was really odd, because i've never really been exposed to the culture of the U. send messages are cory and jesse's pop emo band. they're really great, but not really my thing. arms aloft are fantastic. nothing creatively special, but really fun. gena are erick and zack's band. their guitarist is pretty badass as well, and their cd has awesome packaging.
03/14/2008xiu xiutriple rock, mplsnot as good as last time, but kinda fun. spring break!
05/03/2008the bananas, off with their heads, pretty boy thorson & the falling angelsthe alamo, st. paulshivaun, joe d4wow, what happened to going to shows this semester? i guess everyone decided that touring sucks. anyway, this was the best show. the bananas totally rule. i'm glad shivaun made me go. pretty boy were like mpls bike punk, or whatever that's called these days. they were pretty good. the bananas were fantastic, and i just remember being really happy seeing them. owth actually played and it was a total brodown. can't wait to see them all the time this summer.
05/29/2008a silver mt. zionvarsity theater, st. paulsiarhei, zachthis show totally ruled. so tight, such great banter. mountains made of steam was fantastic. "is this living?"
06/11/2008sigur rosorpheum theater, omahaabout when i arrived at about 7:30, the tornado warnings started going off. the clouds were  purple and churning and the sirens kept going for about 40 minutes. you could go inside the theater, but as soon as you did, they made you go downstairs. then the sirens stopped and it immediately started pouring harder than i've ever seen. i was standing across the street, and in the process of crossing, i got completely drenched from the knees down and the rest of me was soaked as well. they let everyone inside the building and tried to get them to go downstairs. they said they wouldn't start the show until the tornado warnings were scheduled to be turned off at 9:15. so we're all in this basement and seriously pissed off...
nearly there
and then all of the sudden we hear drumbeats. the band and all of their compatriots come out of a nearby door with marching band instruments: four really old beat up snares, horns and trombones, a bottle of wine to keep the beat. they completely improvised a couple of songs and were really good natured and fun. it was awesome. at about this time, the theater realized that they couldn't really control 2000 people, so they let everyone mill around until 9:15, then opened the doors. the show was obviously fantastic, too - although it seemed like an off night for the band.
6/30/08 brainworms memory lanes, mpls brainworms are so tight. so many beards. so much girth. memory lanes sucks, though (aside from $2 tall boys)
7/4/08 dillinger four, off with their heads trock USA
8/5/8 the ergs, used kids, strait a's alamo strait a's ruled hard, and i just got drunker from there on. i drunkenly claimed this was the best show i've ever seen, although not true, definitely top five
8/7/8 canadian rifle, agenda alamo shivaun didn't get drunk, wasn't much fun, but ok right!?
9/18/08 scared of chaka, dillinger four, off with their heads entry chris l.

off with their heads were annoying and played their same old set and i was ANGRY. but then scared of chaka played, and all was right in the world. unlike owth, dillinger four played a buncha new songs and it ruled.
9/25/08 sigur ros orpheum   awesome, more together than the last time, although it was only a 4 piece. gobbledigook was like the best thing ever!
11/22/08 the humanoids, banner pilot, the strait a's hexagon   great bands, solid dudes and ladies, backed hard
1/3/09 hot water music house of blues, chicago erick, libby, jesse great show, while the song selection wasn't as good as last time, chris embellished a lot of his parts and now hot water music sound kind of like they picked up a member of the replacements. weird, but it works. fun times, and chicago is the best city.
1/14/09 cursive triple rock john way more energetic than the last time I saw them, tim was fucking wasted. the new songs sound pretty rad.
1/17/09 the measure [sa], banner pilot, gateway district hexagon chris gateway district are two of the girls from the soviettes plus nate who was in rivethead and I think is now in off with their heads and banner pilot. but he plays bass in banner pilot. oh yeah, and some guy on drums. anyway, they're really great and I bought their 7". banner pilot were great as usual. the measure [sa] were drunk, but fun, and so was I. I didn't know mikey erg was in the measure, so that was a nice surprise. I think they are finally growing on me because the new ep is really catchy and great, even if I still don't really want to listen to their old stuff. overall, this was a fun punk show, and I gave some girl a crossed high five.
3/6/09 dirty projectors walker peter, jeremy, andrew not my favorite environment for dirty projectors, but still an awesome show. sounded awesome, band was tight, acoustic version of depression, all around fulfilling.
3/17/09 sinaloa basement, chicago shivaun sorta great, wish the vocals were higher. weirdos there though, and shivaun was bored as shit.
4/8/09 fucked up triple rock aaron m. new songs are sorta boring live, but the old songs still rule, especially police and baiting the public.
4/11/09 andrew bird state theater john, hannah andrew bird is really fun to see live, but probably wouldn't see again for $30 or whatever. looping.
5/7/09 vivian girls entry shivaun, stefan great fucking show. vivian girls killed it live.
5/10/09 mogwai first ave   LOUD. great setlist. 2 encores. nearly every song I wanted.
5/20/09 animal collective, grouper first ave sean, peter, andrew great fucking show - grouper sounded great, but the environment coulda been a bit better. animal collective actually played recent songs. in retrospect, wish I woulda seen windy and carl this night, but I had already bought an AC ticket.
6/7/09 grizzly bear cedar sean this is the tightest (as in, most put together) band I've ever seen. they sounded exactly what they wanted to sound like. but damn, was it hot in the venue and cold outside
6/19/09 loser life alamo shivaun man, loser life were great, but they shoulda played for longer
7/4/09 dillinger four, off with their heads, dear landlord trock   dillinger fourth of july, i mean, come on. had to leave early because I got hit by a car on my bike so I had to take the bus to this show. but I was drunk.
7/8/09 no age 501 club sid, melanie, lily, mark great show, this band rules live, but I wish they were more in a punk scene than a stupid indie noise pop scene
8/6/09 no age, dan deacon, deerhunter memorial union terrace, madison sid, melanie, nic, kiki, lynn, corbin, tran wow, was this loud. ears are still ringing 3 days later. got wisconsin beers. decent openers. insane crowd. deerhunter were way better than I thought they would be, and no age was better than last time. crazy crazy show. drove home right after!
8/15/09 used kids, tenement trock   I somehow got drunk but this show was awesome, man do I love the used kids
9/15/09 dirty three southern theater   this was a great show. the violin guy was like an acrobat. plus, australian accents are funny
10/03/09 tortoise cedar   OLD. but still tight. the opener was late and played for too long, but watching tortoise play was sort of surreal. everyone switching instruments all of the time.