The Heavy Guilt in the News. Don't Blink or you'll miss us. You missed us.

Yes, this past Sunday the Heavy Guilt was featured in a brief segment on the KUSI morning news program. Brief is the amount of time it takes for Clark Kent to change into superman. Our band’s brand of brevity made Kent’s phone booth clothing swap look like elderly tortoises riding glaciers to molasses town. But as they say, there’s no such thing as bad publicity (though I bet lately some of the Catholic priests would beg to differ). On Thursday evening I got the phone call that the Artwalk had selected us to be their musical representative for their news segment on KUSI. We would be performing live on what was supposed to be Sunday morning. I reached out to the band and heard back quickly from Sean and Jason with a fearful and vehement “NO.” Their “NO” was the unique kind of “NO” that could only be related to a nightmarishly bad experience. The kind of “NO” one delivers after they were brutally beaten in Central Park and you ask them “Hey, you want to meet me at midnight in Central Park for a jog on a full moon on Halloween?” “NOOOOOO!!!” Apparently they had the dishonor of being rushed through the a.m. news cycle a few times and it had left an acrid taste in their mouth. Erik and I conversed and we thought it would be a worthwhile venture and it was either that or sleep, so…

Friday afternoon I received a call saying that they moved the newscast to Saturday morning. At this moment I texted Erik and he responded, “Yes, I’m in.” I responded to the artwalk with a confirming text, “Yes, we’re in”. Here is where the communication breakdown began. I was at work and seconds after my confirmation texts, two separate people dropped off about a thousand records for me to go through. This, coupled with the fact that I was the only guy at the record store, coupled with an already busy Friday afternoon, meant that I was going to be occupied for my remaining hours at the store. This is where I missed the pertinent call, text and email from Erik saying “wait a second, tonight is my sister’s birthday and there is a Chicago-style Celebration, so 8a.m tomorrow isn’t sounding so good.” This is also when I missed the email from the artwalk with directions and assorted information about the gig.

I met Erik at 8:45a.m. at the KUSI news studio. I was beat from going to the Swap Meet at 6:30a.m. and he was beat from a late night of sibling celebration inebriation..The best news all morning wasn’t the 30-minute heart stopping coverage of the local gem fair, but that we would be setting up outside, thus I had a legitimate excuse to wear sunglasses and didn’t just look like that d-bag with the indoor shades. We were told that we would play 3 songs, which was a pleasant surprise.

The first song would be short, the second song would be a “full” song and the third song would be a short song that they would fade out the show with. Erik and I had a pow wow, we plotted and planned, we would play Clove first, his whisper would evolve into a growl before they could fade out. Second, we would play Heavier than Mist, the logic behind this was that we would take the soft song and build it to a revelatory intensity that would win over the mass of people watching the local small network morning news at 8:45am. Third, we would perform Ashtray Blues, playing the show out with gritty enthusiasm, securing our newfound fame.

We started with Clove, Erik slowly growled the opening line “She’s a slow burning Clove cigarette”, but as soon as he made it to “burning” the camera, like a little kid on a sugar high in a free arcade, had fixed its attention on something else. An omniscient voice said “DONE!” before the first sentence of the song came to a close. “That’s alright” we said to ourselves, the true impacting punch lay in the end of our second and full song, the howling peak of lament and love lost would move the a.m. viewers to spirited and unexplained tears, they would run to their computers, ferret out our website, purchase 10 discs for friends, family and self. Or not.

The best part about this next song was the fact that it contains the phrase “God Damn.” Erik and I dissected it, “can we say that on the air?” we went back and forth, contemplating the ramifications, would a little controversy stir the Heavy Guilt reputation from neighborly gentlemen to bad boys of rock, a campaign of shock and awe starting on the KUSI morning show and ending in a smashed Hotel Room and a litany of young children that strangely resemble members of the band. After much deliberation we decided to edit the song live, cut out the “God”, slur the “damn” into some unintelligible chatter, sing the hell out of the rest. Unfortunately, by the end of the first verse, the same voice echoed out “DONE!” like a thunderclap of authority. The camera had moved on. We were stunned. If we were a punk band perhaps we could have fit one song in. The Descendents have a song called All, they may have been able to fit it in if they hustled. We made it about 1 inch from the first chorus.

So alas, this was not to be our coming out party equivalent to the Ed Sullivan show for the Beatles. This is the moment when the Suit says to me “Hey dudes, you guys want to play something with a little more bounce to it.” I kinda wanted to punch him in the neck and say “No “dude”, we’re not Fergie, we’re the Heavy F*^&kin Guilt, your gonna get .5 seconds of morose and bounce-less droning lovelorn lament.” But as usual, I kept my mouth shut. We played 3 seconds of our closing song and that was a wrap. Some lucky highschool nerd gave a longer performance on prom night….


If you have a second to view the video there are some interesting things to note.
http://www.kusi.com/news/goodmorning/90510259.html?%20video=YHI&t=a
The Heavy Guilt on KUSI

T-2:22: “T-shirt connoisseur.” Where is that even coming from and what does that mean?

T-2:13: Newscaster comes close to a fondle

T-2:04: Pause it at 2:04, notice the Al Howard ice grill. A hard look that seems to question the legitimacy of our presence there so early.

T-1:57: Coffee fueled cameraman cuts her head off

T-1:39: I love his response to “We transform Little Italy.” “I know.”

T-1:30: How long can we focus in on t-shirt? A long time.

T-1:15: That dead eyed dog portrait was staring at me the whole segment, judging me, accessing my a.m. discontent with it’s mute cold canvas eyes.

Notice how we are unsure of who says band name, is it Erik? Is it Al? Only two options here.

T-0:40: I tried to sneak my last name in there, it didn’t fit. This inspired Erik to do the same, also eclipsed.

Look at all these cool contraptions. Just don’t touch them suit-o.

The silence of my cool contraptions turns whispers to shouts.

That was our full song…

The artwalk is a great event, there is so much incredible artwork everywhere and the town is literally saturated with creativity. Hope you get a chance to make it down.

Here is what that song should have sounded like:



The Heavy Guilt Loves You,

- al