Markel Farkel Friday

Wordless Wednesday

The Riveter Story, Part 2: Laurena picks the bass

So last time I left you with me not dying of the flu and Laurena wanting to start a girl band and vowing to learn an instrument.

Laurena decided on the bass. Smart girl, she rocks the bass.

Now it was just past New Years 2004, Mar and I had recovered from the flu and it was time to start creating a plan for our new band.

First, Laurena and I were going to start working on some cover songs.

Not having a clue, we just picked songs that we liked without regard for difficulty or whether or not our non-existent singer could sing it.

We picked songs like Tom Petty's "American Girl," AC/DC's "You shook me all night long," Sheryl Crow's "If it makes you happy." And also a couple songs that I already knew like Neil Young's "Heart of gold" and the White Stripes' "Dead leaves and the dirty ground."

Next we planned to audition singers and drummers.

I have to laugh at the audacity that Laurena and I — who had just started learning instruments — were trying out other musicians to be in our band. (Hello musicians, we don't know how to play yet, but let's hear if you're good enough for us ... crazy!)

We had a couple great gals sing for us and ultimately decided on Sally.

At the time, Sally was a copy editor for the newspaper where I work and she sang in an a Capella group in college (trying ... very ... hard to not ... make an Office reference ... 'Nard Dog ... doh). We found a cute young drummer, Nicki, from the local college, too.

We had all our pieces, now we just need to bring them all together. It was tricky at first coordinating all our schedules. Sally worked at night. Nicki was a student and Laurena and I were juggling full-time jobs and kids.

Before we knew it, we had our first gig. We were going to be play for Bill's work's end of the year party. This was a pretty big deal as the other band playing this party was a bunch of seasoned musicians, including my guitar instructor.

Not long after, we found out our drummer was going to be working at DisneyWorld for the summer.

So now we had our first gig, but no drummer.

I dug out the phone number for a girl I'd met at the bar through a mutual friend. This girl was a drummer (among other things). She said she wanted to be in a band with her husband, but barring that, she'd be interesting in being in an all-girl band.

I called her and pretty much convinced her that she would at least play with us for this one show. Now that I look back on it, it was pretty out of character for me to push a stranger like that, but I did.

Bridgett agreed and I said we'd be right over to bring her a CD of the songs we were working on.

Drummer problem solved.

We had four band members who had never practice together and about four weeks to get our set together.

Oh and we needed a name. Bill immediately started coming up with band names.

If you ever need a name for a band, Bill's your man ... most of the time. The first name he came up with was nixed summarily.

I'm hesitant to even mention it because he still thinks it's hilarious.

OK, Bill thought our all-girl band should be called "Camel Toe."

Yeah, no.

But I loved his second name ... Riveter ... after Rosie the Riveter, of course.

My Gramma Dearing was a Rosie the Riveter during World War II in the Alameda, California ship yards.

I ran it by Laurena and she liked it, too. As did Bridgett and Sally.

Riveter was born.

Bunny-head kisser

So I outed Sean as a bunny-head kisser. He says he doesn't remember kissing any bunny heads, but I do.

This originally ran as a column the Sunday editorial page and then I reprinted it over on the Haute Mamas blog, just so more people will learn that my stepson is a bunny-head kisser.

Click here to read the whole story.

Markel Farkel Friday

Look! It's Markel Farkel Friday on Friday. Wow!

Hockey, beer and family

Yes I realize it's Thursday and I'm just getting around to writing about last weekend, but rivetergirl's been busy, yo.

I took a vacation day last Friday and the three of us and our friend Rob drove over to the Front Range for a hockey tournament.

See, Bill's from Buffalo which means that he was indoctrinated from birth to love hockey and want to play it. That's all fine with me. I like hockey. Watching it live is my favorite and watching someone I know is the best.

So I was looking forward to seeing some hockey.

Margaret was excited to see Aunt Pat ... oh and everyone else, too.

I don't blame her. I've come to a conclusion this trip: my family is awesome. And I'm not just saying that because of a bunch of 'em read this blog.

You hear horror stories of families being mean or controlling or boring or unpleasant. My family is none of these things. Instead, they are hilarious and they like to eat donuts and drink beer (not at the same time). What more could a girl ask for?

Plus, how can you not love people who store their babies and purses together:
(Unfortunately that is the only picture I took at Pat's house even though we celebrated birthdays for two of my cousins kids and everyone from Denver was there that day, including my 87-year-old gramma. Doh!)

Oh yeah, Aunt Pat. My mom and Margaret stayed with Aunt Pat and Uncle Tom while Bill and I were in Texas last year. Pat got both of them addicted to those 450-calorie frappucinos. Plus Pat and Tom have every video game console ever invented and a gigantic TV to play them on.

Not only that, but she's a generous hostess (we asked if we could stay with her. After she said yes, we told her we were bringing Rob - whom she had never met - too. No problem, she replied), but she's fun to be around.

Uncle Tom taught Margaret the three positions that one can properly wear a hat: forward, backward and "locked" which apparently means wearing the brim to one side and how to play games on the Wii.

Bill and Rob had games Friday evening, Saturday morning and evening and Sunday morning.

We made it to Denver in time to visit briefly with Aunt Pat and head to the rink. After negotiating a kajillionty strip malls, we ate some spicy chicken wings and made it to the rink just in time for the boys to suit up and join their team.

Mar and I sat in the empty bleachers and watched the Junction team get their asses handed to them.

Unfortunately they were in the wrong division. But to their credit, the Junction guys had never played as a team before. And even though they got better with each game, they still got their booties kicked soundly.

Fortunately, the guys kept their spirits up and enjoyed being out of town and playing hockey.

Saturday evening I left Mar with Pat and Tom to play with two of my cousins' girls (if we had taken her with us, Mar would have begged to return to the house of Aunt Pat asap incessantly as she had done Friday night — at first I felt guilty about pawning my kid off on my aunt but then I realized that Pat brought it on herself, being all nice 'n' shit to my kid) and I had a great time watching the boys play and then hanging out drinking beer, eating free wings and playing Dimwit afterwards.

It actually turned out to be a very relaxing and super fun weekend and I didn't do anything but eat delicious bar food, drink beer and hang out with family and hockey dudes.

I don't think I'd have ever planned a weekend like that on my own, but it was awesome.

That's Bill shooting during warm ups. He looks pretty hot, huh?



This is just another reason why people don't like to go shopping with me. I made Rob take this picture of me and gigantasauraus in the sporting goods store where Bill was getting a new hockey stick.

I mean, why does that mannequin have to be so big? Where do they get his clothes?

The Riveter Story, Part 1: Robin gets a guitar

Margaret turned three during the summer of 2003. We bought her a little drum kit.

Wha'?

What do you think that 3-year-olds want?

They want to make a bunch of noise and bang on things. Drums are the perfect gift. Plus Bill begged to have at least one of his kids play the drums. Who am I to deny my adorable husband a lifelong dream?

So for weeks she banged joyously on her drums that sat in the middle of the living room floor.

Sean already was playing the saxophone and Bill had been playing the bass guitar for years.

I was left out.

I decided I was going to buy myself an acoustic guitar, take lessons and learn how to play Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" so I could sign along.

And I did.

I got a beautiful Epiphone acoustic-electric guitar — cherry sunburst finish, oh so pretty. And I started taking guitar lessons from Guy Stephens (formerly of JT and the Big Dogs).

I practiced my scales and chords. The first song I learned was the Beatles "I've just seen a face" — sans the fancy intro.

I told Guy I wanted to learn "Big Yellow Taxi." He told me it wasn't a beginner song as it had the dreaded barre chords. I didn't care, I wanted to sing along to some Joni Mitchell, so I learned barre chords.

It was the first time in my life that my giant man hands were useful. Barre chords weren't that hard once I got the hang of them.

Next I learned Neil Young's "Heart of Gold."

I was having a really good time practicing my few songs and singing along. I played all the time and everyone in the house had to listen.

By November I had made some decent progress mostly because I had a teacher that made the lessons fun and I practiced all. the. time. I played everyday and played for everyone whether they wanted to listen or not.

Then Margaret got the flu ... the bad flu. Of course, I got it, too. The two of us draped ourselves over the couches languishing from the fever, cough, chills and other flu horrors trying to watch movies and not die.

Bill brought me the phone and said it was Laurena.

I had met Laurena when I started working at The Daily Sentinel in 2002. She had since left the paper but we remained friends.

I croaked my hello into the phone. These were her exact words (OK maybe not exactly exact, but pretty darn close): "I want to start an all-girl band and I want you to play guitar. I'm going to learn to play an instrument."

I said OK but I had to not die of the flu and then I was all in.

I didn't die of the flu and shortly after New Years 2004 we got together to talk about our "band."

What a difference an hour makes

I started writing this post over here while I was still pissed off about the dude that got me all pissed off in the first place.

Then I had a whole shitpotful of work to do and had some time to breathe and think about people and their bad moods.

Bad moods are stupid. I'm going to work on not having them.

But man, I'm so good at being in a bad mood. Even though I want to not be all pissy, it's so hard especially when I sit alone and work alone and fester alone.

I'm still so tempted to publish the name of the dude that acted like an ass this morning and kicked off my bad mood, but that might cause me some problems.

More problems, this rivetergirl does not want.

But if you ask me in person, I'll be happy to tell you.

Riveter turns 5

This spring marks 5 years since Riveter played its first show in a faculty member's backyard.

We had about 6 songs ... barely.

I'm going to have to write some about Riveter's humble beginnings. It's quite a story tell: one full of guitars, lip gloss and boobs.

Markel Farkel ... Thursday

I know! It's Thursday and I'm Markel Farkeling.

I'm not going to be in front of a computer tomorrow and I want to make sure that LadyBug has her weekly Markel Farkel dose of Internety goodness.

So without further ado:


Make sure you click on the "Love-quiz" and read about how one woman put the zing back in her marriage.

Riveter opens for Bret Michaels: Part 2 Bret plays

So as I was saying, Riveter opened for Bret Michaels and his band, the Bret Michaels Band.*

We played well. We rocked the house and we loved every single second of it. The crowd was amazing and it was hard to pack up my stuff and get off the stage.

But Bret was a-coming, so off we went.

As we were loading out our gear, Big John was there to greet us.

He said that we did a great job and that he really enjoyed us. He commented on our cover of Betty Blowtorch's "Hell on Wheels" — the song we lead with.

Big John was a friend of the lead singer and bass player, Bianca — one of the most bad-ass rock 'n' roll chicks I've ever heard of. John said as we started to play, he said, "That's Bianca's song."

That kicked ass.

Not only did he know the band we were covering but was good friends with the chick who made it all happen and someone we all think was the most rockin' chick.

So we all had a moment that put a beautiful cherry on top of getting to play for Bret Michaels' awesome fans.

We hung around the back of the club, waiting to see if we'd be able to meet Bret who had just come in on a plane.

We watched the small group of fans get moved to the other side of the parking lot so that Bret could make his jog from the bus to the stage door — while we got to stand inside the barricaded corral (which totally added to our rock-star experience).

The introductions happened just as Big John said they would in his pre-show security meeting and then he was walking to Bret's bus with Bret's silver cowboy hat in hand.

Moments later, the bus door opened and the wee figure of Bret Michaels stepped out followed closely by Big John.

Bret is much shorter than I imagined — probably around 5'7" or so — and much better looking.

He waved to his fans and as he jogged by we three Riveter girls, he smiled, waved and said, "Sorry I can't chat."

Next thing we knew, the band was striking up the chords to "Talk Dirty to Me" — the Poison song that we've been covering for a couple years.

We squeezed our way on to the packed dance floor and watched the pro work the stage and the crowd.

Dude knows how to put on a mofo excellent show.
The crowd of mostly becleavaged girls got what they had waited hours to see. Bret Michaels in concert.
They played Poison songs, Bret's originals and a host of covers that songs we were truly excited to hear.
All the while, Big John was videotaping the show from on stage. Bret later shared that they upload the video and send it over to for the troops to watch in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The band was great, the music was great and Bret Michaels exceeded all of our expectations.

After the show, we watched Bill sticker up Bret fan after Bret fan — which you read about here.

We lingered with the other fans out back, hoping to get to meet Bret and to even get on the now famous bus.

But ultimately we decided that we'd had our share of rock-star fun — meeting Bret would've been fun, but not meeting him didn't dampen a truly amazing experience.

This is one story that we'll be telling and reliving for a long time to come.

Thank you, Bret Michaels.



*The Bret Michaels Band is actually the band, Evick, just without Bret. It's headed up by Pete Evick who is a really cool guy and his band RAWKS. I totally go see them even without Bret (just don't tell Bret).

Here's Pete and I after the show:

Riveter opens for Bret Michaels: Part 1 Riveter plays

Let me start off this story by saying that if anyone had ever told me that I'd be in a band that was opening for the lead singer of '80s mega-hair-band Poison, I would have laughed in their faces and then probably kicked them in the ding dong for being stupid.

I mean look at the facts people:

• I have a bachelor's and a master's degree in art history. Art history. Not music.
  
• For the last seven years, I've been the executive secretary to a newspaper publisher. Secretary, not musician.
  
• I'm a mom and a wife. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
  
• I never played any instruments at all until six years ago this August (well I did play the clarinet in middle school, but that didn't leave me with much musical experience).
• I'm 38 years old.

Nothing on that list spells "rock star in training," but that's what I love about our band. We don't sit back and do what's expected, we reach out and snatch opportunities even when we don't think opportunities exist.

So, yeah, Friday night.

I got off work and went home to start the prep work that goes into being a part-time rock star.

I was curling the hair and gluing on eyelashes, packing my stage clothes and loading my equipment into the car when Bill and Mar got home.

As soon as they got home, my excited rushed out of the house like air out of a stomped on balloon. You can read about that over here, but it's depressing. Let's just chalk it up to my kid looking for her share of the attention.

I was determined to have a good time, child be damned (OK not really damned, but if there wasn't blood, it could wait as far as I was concerned). But my and Bill's mood was definitely dampened by the events that proceeded our trip to the club.

We were somber and sad ... OK Bill was somber and sad. I was pissed.

Until we turned the corner and I saw two black buses and this trailer parked behind the Mesa Theater:
I immediately turned into a 13-year-old groupie and started screaming "Bret Michaels is here" over and over.

He wasn't there, of course, but his band was. As was Big John, his uber-cool security guy and friend.

As we loaded in my gear, we had to negotiate the buses and the barricades places around the back entrances to the club. I'd never seen anything like that before at the Mesa and it was pretty impressive.

The band was all there and we were trying to be nonchalant and hang around and be cool. Then it was our turn to load our gear on the stage. I set up my amp next to a giant rack of Bret's guitars which were being tended by Bret's guitar tech, Joey.

This is the stack of cases for the bands guitars and drums:
Like all the people associated with Bret, Joey was friendly and talked enthusiastically about the tour. He said they'd had great crowds with many sell outs.

Here we are hanging out with Joey before the show, right after he asked if we were all married:
After loading our gear on stage, we decided to spend some time getting all rockstared up. On go the fishnets and hooker boots, out came the hairspray and eyeshadow.

Once that was done, we had nothing to do but wait. There was about a half hour until the doors opened. While we were hanging around, I heard Big John gather the theater's security guys together for a briefing on how the evening would run.

I made Laurena sit with me and eavesdrop on the whole thing:

Oh man, it was interesting. They have their shows very closely choreographed and scheduled down to the minute. Anyone who knows me, knows that kind of stuff excites me (sad, but true). I think I audibly sighed in delight when Big John said, "... then the band will play a 72 to 75 minute set."

So now, not only did we know that Bret likes a plan, but we knew exactly where he'd be and what was going to happen.

Afterward, it was time to open the doors.

We were hoping there'd be a crowd for us as we opened. Boy were we in for a surprise.

First of all, the other opening band had another gig in town and asked if we could switch places with them.

That meant that they'd go first and we'd go ... right before Bret.

Um, hell's yeah! Awesome. We figured we'd have a better chance at getting a bigger crowd the later we played.

Silly girls.

When the doors opened, it look like this:
We were at the bar and the fans were pouring in.

They were stopping at the bar or hanging out. Nope, they were bee lining it straight to the front of the stage.

Where they stood until after Bret was done playing.

The place was packed. They were a few dozen tickets from selling out. It was amazing. I'd never seen the theater so packed for hours upon hours.

Now that the security work organized, Big John was hanging out, getting his picture taken with fans — like us:
We told Big John and we were the second band that night and he said, "Yeah, I know. I'm gonna come check you guys out." I then whipped out one of our "Snatch" EPs which included "Get Out" and told him about the song.

He genuinely seemed excited that we had recorded a song about his friend and the show that was making him famous (which is way more of a positive reaction than the one we got from Eddie Spaghetti when we opened for the Supersuckers and had TWO songs recorded about him).

Big John also said that he'd make sure to play the song for Bret.

Oh hell's yeah!


John is a very cool guy. Very laid back, not pretentious — he's totally someone that would be fun to be friends with. Plus he treated us great all night long.

8:30 came and Goodman, the first band, started belting out their hard rockin' covers. The crowd was into it. They were generous with their cheers and applause.

My excitement was building.

Then Scott started putting his drums together in the breezeway next to the stage. Unfortunately some asswipe decided the breezeway was a good place to blow chunks ... all over Scott's drums. Luckily they were still in their cases and he didn't have to play through the puke.

Before we knew it, Goodman was done and we were getting ready to play.
I stood on stage and gazed through the lights out to the packed club. And it was mostly packed with girls and their cleavage. It was like booby city out there.
I was nervous, but not terribly so. Really, I was excited. I wanted the crowd to like us. I wanted to play well. I wanted us to rock.

We got set up and the club owner introduced us — including in our introduction the fact that we begged and pleaded to get this show.

Then Scott clicked us in and we were off to the races.
And it was amazing.

Our songs were going well. We were rockin' really hard.
And the crowd really seemed to be digging us. Every song was followed by thunderous applause. It was intoxicating.
Our third song was "Get Out" which we wrote about Bret Michaels and Rock of Love. When I found Bill out in the audience, Big John was standing right beside him.

We played for 25 minutes, but it seemed like five. And while it happened so fast, I made sure to savor every moment, to try to play the best I could and look cool doing it.

And the crowd seemed to love us. Every time Kelley said the f-word or "Bret Michaels" they went crazy. They went crazy after every song. I can honestly say that Bret's fans are amazing and I'd play in front of them any day of the week.

I truly felt like a rock star.

I didn't want it to end.

It did, of course.

But the night didn't. Next time I'll write about our brief encounter with Bret, more about Big John and the Bret Michaels Band show.

OK, OK, here are some picture from the Bret Michaels show

Because y'all are making me feel like a slacker, here are just a couple photos of Riveter opening for Bret Michaels.

You'll have to wait for the details and pictures of wee Bret Michaels.

Living the rock-star life

I love tons and tons of stories and pictures and breathless moments to share from Friday night.

But since I'm sick and very busy at work and really tired, I'm just going to share probably the funniest thing that happened Friday night.

Hell, it might be the funniest thing that has ever happened with stickers.

A while back, we ordered a couple thousand stickers for our band that have our name and our contact information. They are inexpensive stickers and we like to stick them on everyone that comes to our shows.

Sometimes we just stick them on people even if we're not playing.

So Friday night before we opened for Bret Michaels (yes, I am going to say that about a million more times, because ... dudes, Bret Michaels ... I know), we were squeezing our way through the packed venue giving out stickers as we normally do.

After Bret (yes, Bret Michaels) was done (and his set was rockin' — seriously), we were lingering around, basking in our glory and having a few drinks.

Well, Bill had more than a few and he found himself in possession of our roll of Riveter stickers.

Somehow he convinced girls ... lots of girls ... to let him put Riveter stickers on their ... um, ... boobies. They agreed happily.

He kept yelling, "Robin, look at this."

I was too busy being a rock star to watch boob after boob being revealed and stickered.

One guy standing next to me wondered, "How is he doing that?"

Good question. But I think it was the power of Bret Michaels. His fans are hardcore and rock out with their ... well, uh ... boobies out.

After the theater kicked everyone out, we three Riveter girls lingered around talking to Big John and Bret's band while the security guys were trying to get the throngs of adoring Bret Michaels babes to move the hell away from the bus.

Bill, still with his roll of Riveter stickers, shouts out, "If you wanna get on the bus, you need a sticker." And with that he was engulfed in girls, boobs and the scent of coconut stripped oil.

It was quite a sight to behold, my husband standing outside Bret Michaels tour bus slapping Riveter stickers on rabid Bret fans.

Oh the power of rock 'n' roll.

Markel Farkel Friday

The new farmers tan:How the heck?
Don't mess with the garbage dudes:
Holy Kit Kat! Jesus' portrait:

Persistence pays off

"You are the most persistent person I've ever met" — Chris Neal, Mid-Fi Guy and road manager for the Supersuckers.

Riveter got to open for the Supersuckers.

Of course, we also wrote a song about lead singer Eddie Spaghetti (called Spot the Bunny — that song title is a long story, but basically it's called that because Laurena is mean). We also wrote a song, called Creepy Girl, about how one of us in the band stalked the Supersuckers obsessively (OK, it's about me).

And now here we are.

Earlier this year we released our EP "Snatch" which includes "Get Out" — our song inspired by Bret Michaels and the glorious VH-1 show, Rock of Love.

We're opening for the Bret Michaels Band tomorrow at the Mesa Theater.

This didn't happen because we're lucky or were in the right place at the right time. This happened because we made it happen.

Our song (much to the contrary of popular opinion) "Snatch" is about seizing opportunity whenever possible.

We've had to beg, promise, cajole, plead, do a little dance, make many phone calls, send many e-mails, make many in-person visits and then work our asses off to get where we are today.

And you know what? It totally pays off.

On our way to dinner last night I was telling Margaret that this was a good opportunity for her to see how hard work and persistence does pay off.

This is how she replied: "Yeah, OK, but you don't have to be all crazy about it."

Having a rock-star mom who is opening for Bret Michaels tomorrow night is just so boring to an 8-year-old — but it's beyond exciting for her mama.

Riveter is opening for Bret Michaels Friday!

My band just got put on to the bill for the Bret Michaels show at the Mesa Theater in Grand Junction this Friday, April 24.

I am using every ounce of will power to not TYPE IN ALL CAPS because I'M SO FREAKIN' EXCITED.

See, we have watched every single episode of Rock of Love ... every single one and we have talked about that show before many a practice, so much so that we decided to write a song about Bret and Rock of Love.

You can listen to it over here. It's called "Get Out."

This is a very big deal for our band.

Thank you, Bret Michaels!

Winner, winner, chicken dinner

Our dear friends, the Flenards, talked us into to going to Geeks Who Drink last night.

It's been a while since we Geeked and our normal Geeking posse it mostly out of commission due to the impending addition to the Reed family (Greg and Sarah's baby boy is bound and determined to come sooner than later it seems).

But last night, we three couples (oh and Serg, whose contribution was sarcasm) dubbed ourselves the Whispering Eyes (giggle, giggle, thatmeansvagina, giggle) and proceeded to kick all kinds of geek-drinking ass.

Now, you have to understand that I enjoy competition. I enjoy trivia. I enjoy playing games. But I LOVE winning Geeks Who Drink.

You know why?

Because it's hard.

There was an entire round last night on the Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Mofo Rings, people. I saw one of those movies and it annoyed me. I mean how many scenes do I need to see of that dude standing around holding that flippin' ring already?

Luckily for us our one of the couples, Wayne and Sandy, rocked that category. My contribution was to go to the bathroom and drink beer while they answered the questions.

Another category was on songs that had something to do with sisters. Tracee is a musical savant and kicked all kinds of ass on that one.

So basically everyone else answered questions while I drank beer.

But you know what? I was on the team of people who knew the most answers. So woo hoo, I'm a winner.

Winning is awesome.