WE DO NOT SET UP SHOWS!!!!!!!!
Probably the only reason you're on this page is because you want us to set up a show for you band, and you're too lazy to actually read all the things that say "WE DO NOT SET UP SHOWS". Please take the time to check us out, the music we made, and the shit we put out, but also take the time to note that we will never ever set up a show for any band that messages us here. The only results that will yield is a smartass, probably extremely mean and drunk response wherein we rip your band apart and insult your intelligence. So please, take note WE DO NOT SET UP SHOWS!
Holy Shit! We Broke Up! Why? Read On.....
Nobody tells you how to have your band break up. People will tell you their own experiences, people will criticize what decisions you make when your band breaks up, and people will even tell you how to go about forming a new band. However, nobody can really tell you what you and your band mates are supposed to do when your band decides to call it quits. Life would be so much easier if somewhere there were giant stone tablets that somebody hauled down from Mt Zion that outlined proper etiquite and procedure for having your band split up, but the fact of the matter is that when the inevitable happens everyone, if even just for a few moments, are left with that sick "so what now?" feeling in the pit of their stomachs.
Time is redefined. Days and nights when practice would happen suddenly seem void and empty, maybe for the better, and maybe for the worse. Shows that your band was supposed to play seem mocking, almost like all the other bands are just playing out of spite, just to say that they can stay together and your band cannot. Suddenly you look to the future without including plans like "tour" and "recording" into your calendar, and it feels weird. For some people it feels like a huge weight off their shoulders, and for some it feels like a hollow death creeping into their gut. But nobody can tell you that, it is simply something that you have to experience for yourself to really understand.
The SetUp was a band that was plagued by, if nothing else, miserable and terrible misfortune. Whether it was it was in the form of a stylish yet unreliable van, a guitar head found in a damp basement, flakey show promoters and venues, broken guitar strings, split drum heads, sketchy wiring from cords stolen from the lost and found boxes at clubs, members quitting, and terrible intestinal sighs, The SetUp had horrendous luck through and through. Our personal mantra was either "Knock on Wood" or "What now?", both of which saw us through hundreds of shows, about 7 tours, several dozen weekend trips, 5 records, 22 recorded songs, one line-up change, two vans, 4 or 5 guitar heads, thousands of cans of beer, an infinate amount of inside jokes and good times, and one very very big Johnson.
In November 2001 The SetUp began out of the ashes of other bands that the members had played in together, and soon after recording a few records our friend Andrew Clarke left the band to study Spanish and own a restaraunt. Soon after that we found David Cisco on our couch one evening, and the rest was history. In January 2006 it was decided that the band was breaking up. Some members wanted to be more active, some members wanted to be less active, and other still wanted to do more less active things. It was only natural and fitting that we called it quits on a cold Thursday night in a storage space in SouthSide Richmond.
Fitting into our trend of having bad luck, canceling shows, and maintaining our reputation as one of those bands that never could get their shit together, we also decided to not play a last show. Even though many people have openly criticized us for canceling several shows and not scheduling a last show, we had to hold our ground. When a band breaks up it is inevitably divided into two sections. The first being the members who are ok with the break up. The second, of course, is the more volitile side, and is not ok with the band breaking up. In the case of this particular break up it is easier to cater to the side that is the most hurt by the breakup and bow to their wishes to not play a last show.
Why?
Simply because sometimes it is easier and less painful to rip the band aid off in one fluild motion, rather that a slow, and sticky easing off. The playing of a last show would be prolonging the inevitable end of the band, ergo extending the discomfort of the members of the band whom wished that the band hadn't of broken up in the first place.
So The SetUp is no more and that is that. The question I have been most asked via email and myspace is "why not play a last show for your fans, and the people who supported you for 4 years?". The answer is simple: we've had a chance to sit down with all 6 or 7 of them and explain the situation and they're pretty understanding.
This leads us back to our mantra: What now?
The future for the members of The SetUp is uncertain and exciting, and after a few weeks of being broken up I'm certain that every member of the band can look ahead with with new plans, new bands (Cough, and My War), new anticipation and a new sense of purpose. They can also look back on The SetUp for what it was; 4 of the best years any 4 guys can have together. But nobody can tell you that, it is simply something that you have to experience for yourself to really understand.
Now go out and make your own music.
Our New Bands!!!!!
Tigershark
Mouthbreather
My War
Cough
CHECK OUT OUR VIDEOS AND RECORDS!!
click here to see our video for Any Where But Baltimore
click here to see our video for Calling All Ninja's
Discography To Date! (most recent, to oldest!)
all titles available at fine online distros such as Robotic Empire and LumberJack Online
split 7" with Wow,Owls! on Perpetual Motion Machine Records
split 7" with Back When, on Init Records
split cd/lp with Schematic of a Waking Life on Electric Human Project
"Tuned To Drop Dead" CD on Action Driver
split 7" with Serotonin on Action Driver
"...And We Call It Decay" cd on Action Driver
