January 29th, 2000. The Phantom Shifters released their 1st (and only to date) full-length recording. "Given Half A Chance We'll Wreck It For Everyone" It was our 3rd show at Ottawa's Illustrious Dominion Tavern and it was our 19th ever Show. That I find a little surprising, it seemed so early in out "career". That night we played with Montreal's Frenetics and Orangeville's Torn Down Unit. A fairly strong bill for the first month of the New Millennium.
Phantom Shifter's CD Release January 19th 2000...
Because Chris Lee (drums) and gets a lot hotter and "sweatier" than the 3 Guitar Players in the band, he never really listened to us when we'd come up with a "Theme" for the night. We've never been a "dress-up band" like KISS or Gwar or Ottawa's Cowpint or Bertha Does MooseJaw, but we'd often have a theme for the specific shows, things like: "White Shirts and Ties" or even (sadly) "Hawaiian Shirts". For the CD Release the Theme for us (except Chris Lee) was "Blue Collar Rock" Ryan Kerr (Vocals and Bass) and Greg "Daniel" Cockburn (Rhythm Guitar) and I all dressed in Heavy Woolen LumberJack Shirts and we learned BTO's "Taking Care of Business" to play as an encore.
Greg Kerr and his trusty old '74 Gibson SG Deluxe...
In shameless advertising bid, both Greg "Daniel" Cockburn and I wore the new Phantom Shifters's T-Shirts that were delivered just that week. The Shirts were a blatant rip-off of the NHL's Logo.
Those fancy"NHL" Shifter T-Shirts...
That's about all I remember about that night... The Singer/Guitarist in Torn Down Unit didn't bring an Amp, so he played through the old Sunn Coliseum Amp I had at the time. It wasn't grounded properly and the guy was shocked by the Mic he was singing though, something that happened to me (or anyone with an old Amp) nearly daily... He guy had a pretty ugly "suck attack" up there on the stage, as the audience and his band looken on without a whole lot of sympathy.
Ryan Kerr sings and avoids the shock...
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