THE TEAM SATAN STORY

1996

?/96 PHYLLIS MUSICAL INN
This was the debut of the Team back when we were only a three piece. We opened for the New Rob Robbies. The line-up was Todd "T-Bux" Uzel and myself on guitars and Wing on drums with Wing and myself handling the vocal duties.

 

What a mess. I remember the stage vibrating so much my vodka and soda tipped over during a song. I managed to get enough of those in me by the end of the night to make up for it. T-Bux was spitting beer on me onstage. Very disrespectful but not surprising. I think the immortal Mike Dixon was there. First time I ever laid eyes on him. I thought he was the guy who used to work at Wax Trax but I was wrong. People said we were great. We probably sucked. The Robbies needed to borrow Wing's PA, so putting Team Satan on the bill was brokered into the deal by Wing. Yeah, you can blame it all on The Robbies but they aren't together anymore. I know where to find most of them though.

?/96 BEDROCK'S
This show was with Bee Knees. Remember Bedrocks? Another club that Team Satan played that was literally demolished soon after. It was mostly a metal joint. It was pretty nondescript on the exterior but the interior music room was painted in some sort of fake stone. I think they were going for a castle motif. This show was kind of like a battle of the bands. I had to take a cab to the show straight from the Chicago Diner where all three of us in the band worked as cooks. Another show done as a three piece. Don't remember much of the performance except that people said we were great but we probably sucked. We had to borrow equipment which would become a theme with us for awhile. The barflies refused to turn around once during our entire set to watch. Yeah, I'm pretty sure we were awful... awfully brilliant!

 

7/13 GALLERY CABARET
"Thunder and Lightning Festival" with Jarvis Brown and Smitten. Not really sure why this was called "The Thunder and Lightning Festival" but it was. I think Mike Dixon had something to do with that. He made the flyers for it. Dixon was in Smitten at the time. Jarvis Brown featured Fergus Kaiser (who would later play with Lying in States) and Mark Morton (currently in Lamb of God). T. Bux was in that band too. And Tripp Hill.

 

Wing wanted to serve food at this thing so we set up a table and laid out some lame spread. I know there were deviled eggs involved, which is never a good idea.

Tripp from Jarvis Brown was drumming like such an absolute madman that he fell backwards off his drum stool during one song and before he could start another one, he grabbed an empty bowl from the buffet table and was seriously contemplating vomiting into it. He didn't. I thought they were fucking great.

 

I think this is the first show where Wing lit up a joint and passed it around to us before we started our set. That could have got us killed I think. The bar owner looked like he was capable of it. This was probably our first show with Lori Kolb on bass. Finally a four piece. We needed that extra piece of the puzzle, believe me. The deal was that the next person to walk through the door of our OFF-White practice space with a bass guitar would be our new bass player. That'd be Miss Kolb, bless her heart.

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7/27 KIMBAL HOUSE
This show was in the basement of the house Fergus and T-Bux lived in off Kimball Avenue, way, way the fuck west of where everyone else lived. I think some Virginians were in town and Bux and Mark Morton re-formed their old band Fatty Love to play that night. We opened. I know Wing passed the joint around again and I was instantly too stoned to tune my guitar by ear and I had no tuner. This is the first show that I thought we really ripped everyone a new one. It was over in about ten red hot minutes. After our set we learned that some nut-job had just set off a bomb in Atlanta during some Olympic ceremonies or some such nonsense.

 

8/18 BIG HORSE
With Burn the Priest. Whoops, Team Satan really fucked this one up by getting too drunk and making fools out of ourselves in front of the band that would become Lamb of God. Mark Morton wasn't in the band yet, but he was in the audience. He was not amused. Afterwards, Wing and I tried to wipe the memories away with a bottle of tequila and you know what? It worked. Actually, it must not have because obviously I still remember.

 

9/16 GALLERY CABARET
Again with the mighty New Rob Robbies. This might have been the "Around the Monkey Festival," not sure (Wing's answer to Wicker Park's annual "Around the Coyote Art Festival"). We did ok. Didn't pull the crowd we did the first time we played the Cabaret and the owner was keeping track. I went around the bar with the hat at the end of the night because we didn't charge a cover. One table told me that Team Satan made their night but we didn't make a plug nickel.

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1997

1/16 OFF-WHITE HOUSE
We played the OFF-White House after the Big Horse show with Lord Of Lightening and Gone Daddy Finch was cancelled due to blizzardy conditions. Gone Daddy Finch never made it out of Ohio and I'm not really sure what Lord of Lightning was about. It might have just been one guy. Anyway, Wing and I spent the afternoon digging out Mark Morton's van so we could get to the show, but it was all for naught. The night before, after a show at Lounge Ax, I stumbled upon Mike Dixon and his friend Keith Blaise in a 4am bar on Ashland where we drank and drank. The combination of the subsequent hangover and the van dig-out the next day caused me to almost pass out during our set, which was short and to the point and if I remember correctly, awesome. It was the kind of show only adversity can create.

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4/?/97 OFF-WHITE HOUSE
Easter Sunday. With Chapstik? Don't remember. Some Texas band, I think it was Chapstik. That one guy, the Chapstik manager, was a nutter. I remember him making a shitload of spaghetti for the band. Don't remember much about the show except that I have a recording of it and it's pretty funny. Wing was in top audience-baiting form that night.

 

7/3 LOUNGE AX
With REO Speedealer, Tedio Boys & I Love Rich. This was in the John Peters era of Team Satan. Lori Kolb had gone back to Richmond but then came back. T-Bux was chasing tail back to Virginy so we brought in Petes. We actually played one show with an all male version of the Team with Petes on bass. That would have been at the Big Horse but I don't remember the when or the who with.

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10/31 OFF-WHITE HOUSE
Halloween Show. There's a video of this or otherwise I would have remembered very little. Bad Ronny is given the microphone to substitute his own twisted lyrics or "raps" over classic Team Satan riffs. This theme would continue the following month when the Team would provide backing support for Bad Ronny's "Television Rap Opera".

 

11/9 BEAT KITCHEN
Backing Band for "Television Rap Opera Part II" by Ronald "Bad Ronny" Simsic. Where to begin with Bad Ronny? Shit. Wing and Kolb were working at Beat Kitchen at this point and that's where they met the white rapper from Detroit; Bad Ronnie. He wrote a rap opera about TV and had three separate performances at the Beat Kitchen where three different bands backed him up. I didn't see the other two because I had to work, but the one Team Satan did was pretty silly and I have video proof of it.

 

12/12 BEAT KITCHEN
w/ Grand Theft Auto & Fakir. The legendary Spot was crashing at Wing's house during a solo tour, so we brought him along for this BK show.

 

? POPS ON CHICAGO
w/ who? Good question. Pistol Whipped perhaps. Don't remember much about this show except that it wasn't very good. Pop's was kind of a hot mess all around. The owners liked their freakin' booze, that's for sure. I think Pop's eventually burned down.

 

11/20 BEAT KITCHEN
w/ The Renfields and probably someone else. I can't remember.

 

11/12 PHYLLIS MUSICAL INN
This was the musical part of Mike Wing's "Monkeys and Frogs" paint exhibit at Phyllis'. I think we were the only band.

 

1998

2/13 BIG HORSE
w/ Redneck Exorcist and Neutral Drop. Another Big Horse show. It probably went down something like this: Load out from the practice space in Uptown, drive to Wicker Park, load into Big Horse, drink, play, drink, load out, drive back to Uptown, load into the practice space, drink until the sun comes up, sleep a few hours and go to work. We had that shit down pretty tight.

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3/3 FIRESIDE BOWL
w/ Candy Snatchers, The Daggers and The Mashers. People bled at this show. Fortunately, it was the Candy Snatchers.

 

4/17 BIG HORSE
w/ Proletariat Seven and Fakir . See above.

 

8/18 BIG HORSE
w/ Burn the Priest and Daisy Farm. We get a chance to redeem ourselves for BTP. Did we? Who knows? Got this one on video.

 

9/5 BIG HORSE
With Redneck Exorcist and judging by the shitty flyer I made for the show (see below) "special guest."

 

10/12 EMPTY BOTTLE
w/ Brenda Kahn, Starless, and Tekluvi. Our last show!!! Or so we thought at time. Features the triumphant return of Todd "T-Bux" Uzel replacing the recently skipped town, John Peters. The original line-up reunites. How special.

 

1999

6/24 LOUNGE AX
w/ Mustache, Speedealer. In an attempt to resuscitate the ailing Team, T-Bux organized this show for Team Satan's death rattle. Truly the end of the band.