Moving to WV for about 6 months...

I have no idea what I'm getting myself into here, but me and my girlfriend/best friend/band mate are taking up residents in Pennsboro West Virginia. We're taking care of some property owned by her family, and then going back to Gainesville Fl. when we're done. I play in like 4 bands in FL., but I'm kinda stoked to get away from all the craziness for a little while. I'm basically inquiring about record stores, diy spaces, house shows, cool bars, cool people, and all that. I don't care if you're PC, vegan, straight edge, or whatever. I just want to know if there's punx in WV, and if there's a show somewhere near where I'll be staying every once in a while. Here's a bunch of links to bands I play in.

..... Oh wait I can't post links on this forum yet I guess. Just check out Assassinate the Scientist, and if you want to friend me on facebook before i get there, just search for Gary Kreitzer.

you're going to be living about 40 minutes from where a majority of the people who post here live (parkersburg, WV). despite what the majority of people who aren't from here think, there are shows. i am not sure about record stores in your immediate vicinity. i don't know much about pennsboro.

there's aren't record stores anywhere in wv, which is lame. you'll be staying right in the middle etween parkersburg and morgantown (pretty much). shows happen in those places. if you can drive a few hours, shows happen in huntington too. i live like 30 minutes from pennsboro in clarksburg and i'd be happy to show you around (for what it's worth). basically there are shows, but that's about it. about 40 minutes or so past parkersburg on rt. 50, there's athens, ohio and there's a pretty cool record store there. pennsboro is in richie county, and there's nothing there. it's a rural county that has a state highway that runs through it.

that's about it.

Thanks for the info! Do you know what places Parkersburg has shows? I would like to check it out if I can. If they have some kind of website, group page, or some shit let me know. Just trying to find something to do if I get stuck out there for too long.

Thanks!

Your best bet for finding out about shows would be this forum or you can join the HYAMP group on facebook but if you do you'll have to filter through a lot of bullshit to find relevant posts. https://www.facebook.com/groups/hyamp/

Athens has some good shows sometimes as well. And the record store there is pretty awesome. Let me know if you hit up Athens, i'm moving there in a couple of week.s

Oh man, good luck with Ritchie county, that place is desolate. Even Parkersburg feels empty, boring, and oppressive, but that's just me and I guess I can be a real downer sometimes. Still, there really isn't too much to do here besides self loathing, partying, and if you get lucky go to shows, which happen maybe 2-3 times a month (from my limited experience at least......I'm pretty antisocial/lazy so there might be more than what I'm personally aware of.)

Shows are either in Morgantown (a little over an hour North East from Pennsboro), Parkersburg (about 20-30 West of Pennsboro), or Huntington (about 3-3.5 hours South West from Pennsboro). Shows in Morgantown are 99% of the time at 123 Pleasant St., which is run by a group of the same few hipsters that do everything in their monopolistic power to stifle other musicians' creativity and drive by basically locking down all the booking that goes on just so they can have their own place to play in the same bands with recycled band members in front of the same people every weekend because the most important thing about playing music (to them it seems) is being seen and labeled as a musician by other people who only care about getting drunk. Once something else--Clusterfunk for example, which was this awesome, fresh, and ambitious group effort between local DJs to have a weekly EDM night/party where mostly dubstep, house, drum n bass, and trance were played--becomes visibly, and in the hipsters' eyes intimidatingly popular, they take it over, change the name (now it's called Spin Class), and replace every single DJ that played Cfunk with their shitty college radio DJ types that play nothing but animal collective or some shit. (I'm bitter.)


I don't know too much about Huntington other than the fact that it has the V Club, Shamrocks, and HYAMP (and probably more that I don't know about). I played at the V Club before (as well as 123 in Motown) and both places are pretty nice bars/venues. Huntington is another college town like Mo, so you'll probably have the same type of thing going on there in regards to how tightly knit the scene is and how hard it would be to break into it being an outsider, which is probably damn-near impossible, but, unlike Morgantown and Pburg, I've never lived in Htown so I'm not the best person to ask about that place.

Parkersburg is a fucking joke though. It's oppressive (above all else), boring (mind-numbingly so), and just overall shitty as fuck. There rarely are shows here anymore and when they do happen, they'll be at one of a very small number of places like the Route 47 community building, generous people's houses (R.I.P. the Space Pocket, it will forever be missed), or some bullshit dive bar (5th St. Pub/Six Pence/Raders) where the locals would rather you just play Lynard Skynard and Nu Metal all night. I am pretty antisocial as I'm sure most people here either don't like me or just don't give a fuck, so I don't typically make it out to too many shows in the Pburg area, so my assessment might be totally off at least in terms of the scene around here (I do know for a fact that this place recycles musicians at a depressingly high rate, which for me means that there's a fuckton of bands that share members and "new" bands that form are made up from the same group of ten or so people and usually all sound the same anyway.......no offense dudes, I'm just calling it how I see it). ANYWAY, Parkersburg is only good to be in if you're trying to go to a real show in either Columbus (2 hrs away), Cleveland (3 hrs away), or Pittsburgh (3 hrs away), which actually might be your best bet for finding decent/worthwhile shows being in Pennsboro and all.


There's also a joke of an "upscale" music venue in Marietta, OH (about 10 min. from Parkersburg) called the Galley (at the Adelphia) but the type of crowd that place attracts and tries so desperately to attract leave as soon as the music starts because its too loud for their fragile, aarp, aaa discounted ears. Drinks are fucking outrageously expensive, the staff look at people like me (young musicians) like we're filth and are constantly plotting to rob the place or something, and shows are equally as overpriced. Marietta also has a brewing company that has awesome beers and will sometimes have good music, but that's a rare occasion and if it's a week night, they might tell the bands to quiet down, which I think is the biggest insult a place can give. (Yes this happened to my band on more than one occasion.) (I',m bitter,)


As far as other shit besides the desperate, dying music scene in this godforsaken state, there's not too much else to do besides drugs if you're into those, but don't get your hopes up with that either because you have to know people and even then shit is fucking scarce.

Pburg has a small independent music store called the Sound Exchange that has a bunch of new and used CDs, DVDs, I think they might even have some used cassettes, T-shirts, and a piss poor selection of new and used vinyl. The North End Tavern makes their own beer and it's really fucking good, and like I mentioned before, Marietta Brewing Company makes their own dank ass beer too. My favorite is the Paw Paw Wheat (9 some % abv and fucking delicious to boot), but everything they make is good. Trust me, I've spent a late afternoon trying them all. If you make it to Morgantown, this place called The Den, which used to rule and still kinda does, sells 32 oz fountain drinks for a dollar, and is a head shop, and 123 Pleasant St. sell Carling Black Label beer, which is the best, shitty, cheap beer ever. Fuck PBR and all that other hipster shit, Black Label is where it's at.

OH! One more thing: you absolutely, and this is fucking imperative, HAVE to eat as many pepperoni rolls as humanly possible while in this great state. Seriously, go to almost any gas station and find yourself a Julia's original, Abruzzino, Home Industry, or fuck, any goddamn brand pepperoni roll. The most important part of your WV experience will be these fucking beautiful masterpieces of fine culinary innovation. If you like the gas station variety, maybe make a trip to Fairmont, WV (just south of Morgantown) and go to the original Colasessano's (just past downtown by the high school) where the pepperoni roll was fucking invented. Imagine a toasted hoagie bun with sauce, long strips of cubed pepperoni, and melted cheese. It's pure fucking heavenly bliss.



So to conclude my ridiculous rambling that barely anybody will read, the only redeemable qualities about living in this terribly bleak state are Black Label beer and fucking pepperoni rolls. and acompletearsenal

Bad Scene Everyones Fault wrote:Athens has some good shows sometimes as well. And the record store there is pretty awesome. Let me know if you hit up Athens, i'm moving there in a couple of week.s

the only shitty thing about that record store is that it's in a college town, so everything is like, exactly MSRP. it's pretty stupid, but as a business, they're doing the same thing that i, or anyone else would do. "ok cool, this is a college town, so we can get all these beatles remasters and used, non-valuable led zepplin wax and charge kids $40 that we buy for $1from another store." they have a decent selection and all, but it's really dumb that if you want like 4 records, no matter what they are, you'll probably spend like $100.

also, the main venue there is really anoying because you can't smoke in bars in ohio, so every time you want to smoke you have to go up and down a 40 step staircase.

other than those things, athens rules and i really wish i could live/go to school there. but athens is also like almost an hour and a half or two hours from where you'll be.

just keep posting here, man. you'll meet a lot of us probably once you get here. should be cool. my name is jay gonzales if you wanna reach me on facebook or something. i my url is /jgonzales1.

also when are you coming here

brummy wrote:Oh man, good luck with Ritchie county, that place is desolate. Even Parkersburg feels empty, boring, and oppressive, but that's just me and I guess I can be a real downer sometimes. Still, there really isn't too much to do here besides self loathing, partying, and if you get lucky go to shows, which happen maybe 2-3 times a month (from my limited experience at least......I'm pretty antisocial/lazy so there might be more than what I'm personally aware of.)

Shows are either in Morgantown (a little over an hour North East from Pennsboro), Parkersburg (about 20-30 West of Pennsboro), or Huntington (about 3-3.5 hours South West from Pennsboro). Shows in Morgantown are 99% of the time at 123 Pleasant St., which is run by a group of the same few hipsters that do everything in their monopolistic power to stifle other musicians' creativity and drive by basically locking down all the booking that goes on just so they can have their own place to play in the same bands with recycled band members in front of the same people every weekend because the most important thing about playing music (to them it seems) is being seen and labeled as a musician by other people who only care about getting drunk. Once something else--Clusterfunk for example, which was this awesome, fresh, and ambitious group effort between local DJs to have a weekly EDM night/party where mostly dubstep, house, drum n bass, and trance were played--becomes visibly, and in the hipsters' eyes intimidatingly popular, they take it over, change the name (now it's called Spin Class), and replace every single DJ that played Cfunk with their shitty college radio DJ types that play nothing but animal collective or some shit. (I'm bitter.)


I don't know too much about Huntington other than the fact that it has the V Club, Shamrocks, and HYAMP (and probably more that I don't know about). I played at the V Club before (as well as 123 in Motown) and both places are pretty nice bars/venues. Huntington is another college town like Mo, so you'll probably have the same type of thing going on there in regards to how tightly knit the scene is and how hard it would be to break into it being an outsider, which is probably damn-near impossible, but, unlike Morgantown and Pburg, I've never lived in Htown so I'm not the best person to ask about that place.

Parkersburg is a fucking joke though. It's oppressive (above all else), boring (mind-numbingly so), and just overall shitty as fuck. There rarely are shows here anymore and when they do happen, they'll be at one of a very small number of places like the Route 47 community building, generous people's houses (R.I.P. the Space Pocket, it will forever be missed), or some bullshit dive bar (5th St. Pub/Six Pence/Raders) where the locals would rather you just play Lynard Skynard and Nu Metal all night. I am pretty antisocial as I'm sure most people here either don't like me or just don't give a fuck, so I don't typically make it out to too many shows in the Pburg area, so my assessment might be totally off at least in terms of the scene around here (I do know for a fact that this place recycles musicians at a depressingly high rate, which for me means that there's a fuckton of bands that share members and "new" bands that form are made up from the same group of ten or so people and usually all sound the same anyway.......no offense dudes, I'm just calling it how I see it). ANYWAY, Parkersburg is only good to be in if you're trying to go to a real show in either Columbus (2 hrs away), Cleveland (3 hrs away), or Pittsburgh (3 hrs away), which actually might be your best bet for finding decent/worthwhile shows being in Pennsboro and all.


There's also a joke of an "upscale" music venue in Marietta, OH (about 10 min. from Parkersburg) called the Galley (at the Adelphia) but the type of crowd that place attracts and tries so desperately to attract leave as soon as the music starts because its too loud for their fragile, aarp, aaa discounted ears. Drinks are fucking outrageously expensive, the staff look at people like me (young musicians) like we're filth and are constantly plotting to rob the place or something, and shows are equally as overpriced. Marietta also has a brewing company that has awesome beers and will sometimes have good music, but that's a rare occasion and if it's a week night, they might tell the bands to quiet down, which I think is the biggest insult a place can give. (Yes this happened to my band on more than one occasion.) (I',m bitter,)


As far as other shit besides the desperate, dying music scene in this godforsaken state, there's not too much else to do besides drugs if you're into those, but don't get your hopes up with that either because you have to know people and even then shit is fucking scarce.

Pburg has a small independent music store called the Sound Exchange that has a bunch of new and used CDs, DVDs, I think they might even have some used cassettes, T-shirts, and a piss poor selection of new and used vinyl. The North End Tavern makes their own beer and it's really fucking good, and like I mentioned before, Marietta Brewing Company makes their own dank ass beer too. My favorite is the Paw Paw Wheat (9 some % abv and fucking delicious to boot), but everything they make is good. Trust me, I've spent a late afternoon trying them all. If you make it to Morgantown, this place called The Den, which used to rule and still kinda does, sells 32 oz fountain drinks for a dollar, and is a head shop, and 123 Pleasant St. sell Carling Black Label beer, which is the best, shitty, cheap beer ever. Fuck PBR and all that other hipster shit, Black Label is where it's at.

OH! One more thing: you absolutely, and this is fucking imperative, HAVE to eat as many pepperoni rolls as humanly possible while in this great state. Seriously, go to almost any gas station and find yourself a Julia's original, Abruzzino, Home Industry, or fuck, any goddamn brand pepperoni roll. The most important part of your WV experience will be these fucking beautiful masterpieces of fine culinary innovation. If you like the gas station variety, maybe make a trip to Fairmont, WV (just south of Morgantown) and go to the original Colasessano's (just past downtown by the high school) where the pepperoni roll was fucking invented. Imagine a toasted hoagie bun with sauce, long strips of cubed pepperoni, and melted cheese. It's pure fucking heavenly bliss.



So to conclude my ridiculous rambling that barely anybody will read, the only redeemable qualities about living in this terribly bleak state are Black Label beer and fucking pepperoni rolls. and acompletearsenal

i've had it explained to me why 123 is the way that it is, and while it bothers me, you have to look at it from LJ's point of view. he's running a business, and a business' main objective is to make profit (like i just talked about with hoffa's in athens). LJ could book shit like that catfeesh band or whatever and have like 20 people come, just so that band can get a little exposure, and that's fine. or, he can book one of the popular bands in town that he knows a lot of people are going to come out and see and spend money at the bar. if he does a show for a band that nobody cares about and 15 people come, he has to pay the door guy, he has to pay the sound guy, he has to pay bartenders and he has to pay a group of people to come in and clean it up the next day. so, even if those 15 people all spend like $50 on drinks, he's made absolutely nothing for his business - pretty much wasted a night of earning money just so a few dudes can treat a sound guy like shit and have 10 people watch them. so, although it's really shitty that the premier venue doesn't do as much as they could, we shouldn't expect them to lose money, you know? i mean, 123 still does all ages shows at least once a month, which, to me, is a waste of time. i guess it's cool for high school kids or whatever, but he can't open the bar for them so there's no way he could be making ANYTHING off of them. i know that chris frum tries really hard and does a lot. without him, there wouldn't be any all ages shows there. the past 2 that i've been to, and this has been years ago, were al but empty. hopefully things turn around for that crowd, but the reason i'm mentioning this is because if you wanna play at 123, get a hold of chris and hop onto one of those all ages things.

also, huntington is nothing like morgantown. if you're trying to play shows somehow while you're hear, i can help you out with huntington. i have a ton of friends down there and not a single one of them is pretentious. actually, based on your one post haha, i feel like you'd get along with them all really well. huntington has a few clubs, and my friends have a house where they do shows. it's pretty cool, but there aren't any record stores there or anything. it's the second closest thing we have to a "city" after charleston. i love it there.
eric, lets go to huntington sometime soon and hang out.

hosebeast wrote:

Bad Scene Everyones Fault wrote:Athens has some good shows sometimes as well. And the record store there is pretty awesome. Let me know if you hit up Athens, i'm moving there in a couple of week.s

the only shitty thing about that record store is that it's in a college town, so everything is like, exactly MSRP. it's pretty stupid, but as a business, they're doing the same thing that i, or anyone else would do. "ok cool, this is a college town, so we can get all these beatles remasters and used, non-valuable led zepplin wax and charge kids $40 that we buy for $1from another store." they have a decent selection and all, but it's really dumb that if you want like 4 records, no matter what they are, you'll probably spend like $100.

also, the main venue there is really anoying because you can't smoke in bars in ohio, so every time you want to smoke you have to go up and down a 40 step staircase.

other than those things, athens rules and i really wish i could live/go to school there. but athens is also like almost an hour and a half or two hours from where you'll be.

just keep posting here, man. you'll meet a lot of us probably once you get here. should be cool. my name is jay gonzales if you wanna reach me on facebook or something. i my url is /jgonzales1.

Don't forget about Brown Town. There's some really good shows there sometimes.

Pennsboro... yikes!

I agree with about 99% of everything everyone has posted. If there are shows around here that aren't nu-metal I haven't heard about them. I'm too busy with hockey and work that I hardly talk to anyone in this area anymore. I miss a great deal of you fucks and I'd like to go to a local show again (if they happen)..

The bar shows mentioned earlier are almost always full of shitbags by the way.. why anyone would go there is beyond me.

Good luck in Pennsboro man, I'm pretty sure there used to be a dirt track up there

-Jeremy.

hosebeast wrote:

brummy wrote:Oh man, good luck with Ritchie county, that place is desolate. Even Parkersburg feels empty, boring, and oppressive, but that's just me and I guess I can be a real downer sometimes. Still, there really isn't too much to do here besides self loathing, partying, and if you get lucky go to shows, which happen maybe 2-3 times a month (from my limited experience at least......I'm pretty antisocial/lazy so there might be more than what I'm personally aware of.)

Shows are either in Morgantown (a little over an hour North East from Pennsboro), Parkersburg (about 20-30 West of Pennsboro), or Huntington (about 3-3.5 hours South West from Pennsboro). Shows in Morgantown are 99% of the time at 123 Pleasant St., which is run by a group of the same few hipsters that do everything in their monopolistic power to stifle other musicians' creativity and drive by basically locking down all the booking that goes on just so they can have their own place to play in the same bands with recycled band members in front of the same people every weekend because the most important thing about playing music (to them it seems) is being seen and labeled as a musician by other people who only care about getting drunk. Once something else--Clusterfunk for example, which was this awesome, fresh, and ambitious group effort between local DJs to have a weekly EDM night/party where mostly dubstep, house, drum n bass, and trance were played--becomes visibly, and in the hipsters' eyes intimidatingly popular, they take it over, change the name (now it's called Spin Class), and replace every single DJ that played Cfunk with their shitty college radio DJ types that play nothing but animal collective or some shit. (I'm bitter.)


I don't know too much about Huntington other than the fact that it has the V Club, Shamrocks, and HYAMP (and probably more that I don't know about). I played at the V Club before (as well as 123 in Motown) and both places are pretty nice bars/venues. Huntington is another college town like Mo, so you'll probably have the same type of thing going on there in regards to how tightly knit the scene is and how hard it would be to break into it being an outsider, which is probably damn-near impossible, but, unlike Morgantown and Pburg, I've never lived in Htown so I'm not the best person to ask about that place.

Parkersburg is a fucking joke though. It's oppressive (above all else), boring (mind-numbingly so), and just overall shitty as fuck. There rarely are shows here anymore and when they do happen, they'll be at one of a very small number of places like the Route 47 community building, generous people's houses (R.I.P. the Space Pocket, it will forever be missed), or some bullshit dive bar (5th St. Pub/Six Pence/Raders) where the locals would rather you just play Lynard Skynard and Nu Metal all night. I am pretty antisocial as I'm sure most people here either don't like me or just don't give a fuck, so I don't typically make it out to too many shows in the Pburg area, so my assessment might be totally off at least in terms of the scene around here (I do know for a fact that this place recycles musicians at a depressingly high rate, which for me means that there's a fuckton of bands that share members and "new" bands that form are made up from the same group of ten or so people and usually all sound the same anyway.......no offense dudes, I'm just calling it how I see it). ANYWAY, Parkersburg is only good to be in if you're trying to go to a real show in either Columbus (2 hrs away), Cleveland (3 hrs away), or Pittsburgh (3 hrs away), which actually might be your best bet for finding decent/worthwhile shows being in Pennsboro and all.


There's also a joke of an "upscale" music venue in Marietta, OH (about 10 min. from Parkersburg) called the Galley (at the Adelphia) but the type of crowd that place attracts and tries so desperately to attract leave as soon as the music starts because its too loud for their fragile, aarp, aaa discounted ears. Drinks are fucking outrageously expensive, the staff look at people like me (young musicians) like we're filth and are constantly plotting to rob the place or something, and shows are equally as overpriced. Marietta also has a brewing company that has awesome beers and will sometimes have good music, but that's a rare occasion and if it's a week night, they might tell the bands to quiet down, which I think is the biggest insult a place can give. (Yes this happened to my band on more than one occasion.) (I',m bitter,)


As far as other shit besides the desperate, dying music scene in this godforsaken state, there's not too much else to do besides drugs if you're into those, but don't get your hopes up with that either because you have to know people and even then shit is fucking scarce.

Pburg has a small independent music store called the Sound Exchange that has a bunch of new and used CDs, DVDs, I think they might even have some used cassettes, T-shirts, and a piss poor selection of new and used vinyl. The North End Tavern makes their own beer and it's really fucking good, and like I mentioned before, Marietta Brewing Company makes their own dank ass beer too. My favorite is the Paw Paw Wheat (9 some % abv and fucking delicious to boot), but everything they make is good. Trust me, I've spent a late afternoon trying them all. If you make it to Morgantown, this place called The Den, which used to rule and still kinda does, sells 32 oz fountain drinks for a dollar, and is a head shop, and 123 Pleasant St. sell Carling Black Label beer, which is the best, shitty, cheap beer ever. Fuck PBR and all that other hipster shit, Black Label is where it's at.

OH! One more thing: you absolutely, and this is fucking imperative, HAVE to eat as many pepperoni rolls as humanly possible while in this great state. Seriously, go to almost any gas station and find yourself a Julia's original, Abruzzino, Home Industry, or fuck, any goddamn brand pepperoni roll. The most important part of your WV experience will be these fucking beautiful masterpieces of fine culinary innovation. If you like the gas station variety, maybe make a trip to Fairmont, WV (just south of Morgantown) and go to the original Colasessano's (just past downtown by the high school) where the pepperoni roll was fucking invented. Imagine a toasted hoagie bun with sauce, long strips of cubed pepperoni, and melted cheese. It's pure fucking heavenly bliss.



So to conclude my ridiculous rambling that barely anybody will read, the only redeemable qualities about living in this terribly bleak state are Black Label beer and fucking pepperoni rolls. and acompletearsenal

i've had it explained to me why 123 is the way that it is, and while it bothers me, you have to look at it from LJ's point of view. he's running a business, and a business' main objective is to make profit (like i just talked about with hoffa's in athens). LJ could book shit like that catfeesh band or whatever and have like 20 people come, just so that band can get a little exposure, and that's fine. or, he can book one of the popular bands in town that he knows a lot of people are going to come out and see and spend money at the bar. if he does a show for a band that nobody cares about and 15 people come, he has to pay the door guy, he has to pay the sound guy, he has to pay bartenders and he has to pay a group of people to come in and clean it up the next day. so, even if those 15 people all spend like $50 on drinks, he's made absolutely nothing for his business - pretty much wasted a night of earning money just so a few dudes can treat a sound guy like shit and have 10 people watch them. so, although it's really shitty that the premier venue doesn't do as much as they could, we shouldn't expect them to lose money, you know? i mean, 123 still does all ages shows at least once a month, which, to me, is a waste of time. i guess it's cool for high school kids or whatever, but he can't open the bar for them so there's no way he could be making ANYTHING off of them. i know that chris frum tries really hard and does a lot. without him, there wouldn't be any all ages shows there. the past 2 that i've been to, and this has been years ago, were al but empty. hopefully things turn around for that crowd, but the reason i'm mentioning this is because if you wanna play at 123, get a hold of chris and hop onto one of those all ages things.

also, huntington is nothing like morgantown. if you're trying to play shows somehow while you're hear, i can help you out with huntington. i have a ton of friends down there and not a single one of them is pretentious. actually, based on your one post haha, i feel like you'd get along with them all really well. huntington has a few clubs, and my friends have a house where they do shows. it's pretty cool, but there aren't any record stores there or anything. it's the second closest thing we have to a "city" after charleston. i love it there.
eric, lets go to huntington sometime soon and hang out.

yeah i understand it from a business man (THE MAN)'s perspective, which does make sense, but it is still stupid how the only popular bands are made up from the same group of ten or so hipsters that seem to only care about being seen, and those are the only bands that get booked on a regular basis.




and im definitely down to go to htown, but you know the deal: gas money or its a no go. i am no longer your taxi driver/chauffeur.

Bad Scene Everyones Fault wrote:

hosebeast wrote:

Bad Scene Everyones Fault wrote:Athens has some good shows sometimes as well. And the record store there is pretty awesome. Let me know if you hit up Athens, i'm moving there in a couple of week.s

the only shitty thing about that record store is that it's in a college town, so everything is like, exactly MSRP. it's pretty stupid, but as a business, they're doing the same thing that i, or anyone else would do. "ok cool, this is a college town, so we can get all these beatles remasters and used, non-valuable led zepplin wax and charge kids $40 that we buy for $1from another store." they have a decent selection and all, but it's really dumb that if you want like 4 records, no matter what they are, you'll probably spend like $100.

also, the main venue there is really anoying because you can't smoke in bars in ohio, so every time you want to smoke you have to go up and down a 40 step staircase.

other than those things, athens rules and i really wish i could live/go to school there. but athens is also like almost an hour and a half or two hours from where you'll be.

just keep posting here, man. you'll meet a lot of us probably once you get here. should be cool. my name is jay gonzales if you wanna reach me on facebook or something. i my url is /jgonzales1.

Don't forget about Brown Town. There's some really good shows there sometimes.

i've never been there, so i wouldn't know. i do kow that the y get good bands though, so yeah, whatever ghaha

brummy wrote:

hosebeast wrote:

brummy wrote:Oh man, good luck with Ritchie county, that place is desolate. Even Parkersburg feels empty, boring, and oppressive, but that's just me and I guess I can be a real downer sometimes. Still, there really isn't too much to do here besides self loathing, partying, and if you get lucky go to shows, which happen maybe 2-3 times a month (from my limited experience at least......I'm pretty antisocial/lazy so there might be more than what I'm personally aware of.)

Shows are either in Morgantown (a little over an hour North East from Pennsboro), Parkersburg (about 20-30 West of Pennsboro), or Huntington (about 3-3.5 hours South West from Pennsboro). Shows in Morgantown are 99% of the time at 123 Pleasant St., which is run by a group of the same few hipsters that do everything in their monopolistic power to stifle other musicians' creativity and drive by basically locking down all the booking that goes on just so they can have their own place to play in the same bands with recycled band members in front of the same people every weekend because the most important thing about playing music (to them it seems) is being seen and labeled as a musician by other people who only care about getting drunk. Once something else--Clusterfunk for example, which was this awesome, fresh, and ambitious group effort between local DJs to have a weekly EDM night/party where mostly dubstep, house, drum n bass, and trance were played--becomes visibly, and in the hipsters' eyes intimidatingly popular, they take it over, change the name (now it's called Spin Class), and replace every single DJ that played Cfunk with their shitty college radio DJ types that play nothing but animal collective or some shit. (I'm bitter.)


I don't know too much about Huntington other than the fact that it has the V Club, Shamrocks, and HYAMP (and probably more that I don't know about). I played at the V Club before (as well as 123 in Motown) and both places are pretty nice bars/venues. Huntington is another college town like Mo, so you'll probably have the same type of thing going on there in regards to how tightly knit the scene is and how hard it would be to break into it being an outsider, which is probably damn-near impossible, but, unlike Morgantown and Pburg, I've never lived in Htown so I'm not the best person to ask about that place.

Parkersburg is a fucking joke though. It's oppressive (above all else), boring (mind-numbingly so), and just overall shitty as fuck. There rarely are shows here anymore and when they do happen, they'll be at one of a very small number of places like the Route 47 community building, generous people's houses (R.I.P. the Space Pocket, it will forever be missed), or some bullshit dive bar (5th St. Pub/Six Pence/Raders) where the locals would rather you just play Lynard Skynard and Nu Metal all night. I am pretty antisocial as I'm sure most people here either don't like me or just don't give a fuck, so I don't typically make it out to too many shows in the Pburg area, so my assessment might be totally off at least in terms of the scene around here (I do know for a fact that this place recycles musicians at a depressingly high rate, which for me means that there's a fuckton of bands that share members and "new" bands that form are made up from the same group of ten or so people and usually all sound the same anyway.......no offense dudes, I'm just calling it how I see it). ANYWAY, Parkersburg is only good to be in if you're trying to go to a real show in either Columbus (2 hrs away), Cleveland (3 hrs away), or Pittsburgh (3 hrs away), which actually might be your best bet for finding decent/worthwhile shows being in Pennsboro and all.


There's also a joke of an "upscale" music venue in Marietta, OH (about 10 min. from Parkersburg) called the Galley (at the Adelphia) but the type of crowd that place attracts and tries so desperately to attract leave as soon as the music starts because its too loud for their fragile, aarp, aaa discounted ears. Drinks are fucking outrageously expensive, the staff look at people like me (young musicians) like we're filth and are constantly plotting to rob the place or something, and shows are equally as overpriced. Marietta also has a brewing company that has awesome beers and will sometimes have good music, but that's a rare occasion and if it's a week night, they might tell the bands to quiet down, which I think is the biggest insult a place can give. (Yes this happened to my band on more than one occasion.) (I',m bitter,)


As far as other shit besides the desperate, dying music scene in this godforsaken state, there's not too much else to do besides drugs if you're into those, but don't get your hopes up with that either because you have to know people and even then shit is fucking scarce.

Pburg has a small independent music store called the Sound Exchange that has a bunch of new and used CDs, DVDs, I think they might even have some used cassettes, T-shirts, and a piss poor selection of new and used vinyl. The North End Tavern makes their own beer and it's really fucking good, and like I mentioned before, Marietta Brewing Company makes their own dank ass beer too. My favorite is the Paw Paw Wheat (9 some % abv and fucking delicious to boot), but everything they make is good. Trust me, I've spent a late afternoon trying them all. If you make it to Morgantown, this place called The Den, which used to rule and still kinda does, sells 32 oz fountain drinks for a dollar, and is a head shop, and 123 Pleasant St. sell Carling Black Label beer, which is the best, shitty, cheap beer ever. Fuck PBR and all that other hipster shit, Black Label is where it's at.

OH! One more thing: you absolutely, and this is fucking imperative, HAVE to eat as many pepperoni rolls as humanly possible while in this great state. Seriously, go to almost any gas station and find yourself a Julia's original, Abruzzino, Home Industry, or fuck, any goddamn brand pepperoni roll. The most important part of your WV experience will be these fucking beautiful masterpieces of fine culinary innovation. If you like the gas station variety, maybe make a trip to Fairmont, WV (just south of Morgantown) and go to the original Colasessano's (just past downtown by the high school) where the pepperoni roll was fucking invented. Imagine a toasted hoagie bun with sauce, long strips of cubed pepperoni, and melted cheese. It's pure fucking heavenly bliss.



So to conclude my ridiculous rambling that barely anybody will read, the only redeemable qualities about living in this terribly bleak state are Black Label beer and fucking pepperoni rolls. and acompletearsenal

i've had it explained to me why 123 is the way that it is, and while it bothers me, you have to look at it from LJ's point of view. he's running a business, and a business' main objective is to make profit (like i just talked about with hoffa's in athens). LJ could book shit like that catfeesh band or whatever and have like 20 people come, just so that band can get a little exposure, and that's fine. or, he can book one of the popular bands in town that he knows a lot of people are going to come out and see and spend money at the bar. if he does a show for a band that nobody cares about and 15 people come, he has to pay the door guy, he has to pay the sound guy, he has to pay bartenders and he has to pay a group of people to come in and clean it up the next day. so, even if those 15 people all spend like $50 on drinks, he's made absolutely nothing for his business - pretty much wasted a night of earning money just so a few dudes can treat a sound guy like shit and have 10 people watch them. so, although it's really shitty that the premier venue doesn't do as much as they could, we shouldn't expect them to lose money, you know? i mean, 123 still does all ages shows at least once a month, which, to me, is a waste of time. i guess it's cool for high school kids or whatever, but he can't open the bar for them so there's no way he could be making ANYTHING off of them. i know that chris frum tries really hard and does a lot. without him, there wouldn't be any all ages shows there. the past 2 that i've been to, and this has been years ago, were al but empty. hopefully things turn around for that crowd, but the reason i'm mentioning this is because if you wanna play at 123, get a hold of chris and hop onto one of those all ages things.

also, huntington is nothing like morgantown. if you're trying to play shows somehow while you're hear, i can help you out with huntington. i have a ton of friends down there and not a single one of them is pretentious. actually, based on your one post haha, i feel like you'd get along with them all really well. huntington has a few clubs, and my friends have a house where they do shows. it's pretty cool, but there aren't any record stores there or anything. it's the second closest thing we have to a "city" after charleston. i love it there.
eric, lets go to huntington sometime soon and hang out.

yeah i understand it from a business man (THE MAN)'s perspective, which does make sense, but it is still stupid how the only popular bands are made up from the same group of ten or so hipsters that seem to only care about being seen, and those are the only bands that get booked on a regular basis.




and im definitely down to go to htown, but you know the deal: gas money or its a no go. i am no longer your taxi driver/chauffeur.

every band's goal should be to get seen. thats why we do it, for people to enjoy it.

and obviously, gas dollars.

brummy wrote:Oh man, good luck with Ritchie county, that place is desolate. Even Parkersburg feels empty, boring, and oppressive, but that's just me and I guess I can be a real downer sometimes. Still, there really isn't too much to do here besides self loathing, partying, and if you get lucky go to shows, which happen maybe 2-3 times a month (from my limited experience at least......I'm pretty antisocial/lazy so there might be more than what I'm personally aware of.)

Shows are either in Morgantown (a little over an hour North East from Pennsboro), Parkersburg (about 20-30 West of Pennsboro), or Huntington (about 3-3.5 hours South West from Pennsboro). Shows in Morgantown are 99% of the time at 123 Pleasant St., which is run by a group of the same few hipsters that do everything in their monopolistic power to stifle other musicians' creativity and drive by basically locking down all the booking that goes on just so they can have their own place to play in the same bands with recycled band members in front of the same people every weekend because the most important thing about playing music (to them it seems) is being seen and labeled as a musician by other people who only care about getting drunk. Once something else--Clusterfunk for example, which was this awesome, fresh, and ambitious group effort between local DJs to have a weekly EDM night/party where mostly dubstep, house, drum n bass, and trance were played--becomes visibly, and in the hipsters' eyes intimidatingly popular, they take it over, change the name (now it's called Spin Class), and replace every single DJ that played Cfunk with their shitty college radio DJ types that play nothing but animal collective or some shit. (I'm bitter.)


I don't know too much about Huntington other than the fact that it has the V Club, Shamrocks, and HYAMP (and probably more that I don't know about). I played at the V Club before (as well as 123 in Motown) and both places are pretty nice bars/venues. Huntington is another college town like Mo, so you'll probably have the same type of thing going on there in regards to how tightly knit the scene is and how hard it would be to break into it being an outsider, which is probably damn-near impossible, but, unlike Morgantown and Pburg, I've never lived in Htown so I'm not the best person to ask about that place.

Parkersburg is a fucking joke though. It's oppressive (above all else), boring (mind-numbingly so), and just overall shitty as fuck. There rarely are shows here anymore and when they do happen, they'll be at one of a very small number of places like the Route 47 community building, generous people's houses (R.I.P. the Space Pocket, it will forever be missed), or some bullshit dive bar (5th St. Pub/Six Pence/Raders) where the locals would rather you just play Lynard Skynard and Nu Metal all night. I am pretty antisocial as I'm sure most people here either don't like me or just don't give a fuck, so I don't typically make it out to too many shows in the Pburg area, so my assessment might be totally off at least in terms of the scene around here (I do know for a fact that this place recycles musicians at a depressingly high rate, which for me means that there's a fuckton of bands that share members and "new" bands that form are made up from the same group of ten or so people and usually all sound the same anyway.......no offense dudes, I'm just calling it how I see it). ANYWAY, Parkersburg is only good to be in if you're trying to go to a real show in either Columbus (2 hrs away), Cleveland (3 hrs away), or Pittsburgh (3 hrs away), which actually might be your best bet for finding decent/worthwhile shows being in Pennsboro and all.


There's also a joke of an "upscale" music venue in Marietta, OH (about 10 min. from Parkersburg) called the Galley (at the Adelphia) but the type of crowd that place attracts and tries so desperately to attract leave as soon as the music starts because its too loud for their fragile, aarp, aaa discounted ears. Drinks are fucking outrageously expensive, the staff look at people like me (young musicians) like we're filth and are constantly plotting to rob the place or something, and shows are equally as overpriced. Marietta also has a brewing company that has awesome beers and will sometimes have good music, but that's a rare occasion and if it's a week night, they might tell the bands to quiet down, which I think is the biggest insult a place can give. (Yes this happened to my band on more than one occasion.) (I',m bitter,)


As far as other shit besides the desperate, dying music scene in this godforsaken state, there's not too much else to do besides drugs if you're into those, but don't get your hopes up with that either because you have to know people and even then shit is fucking scarce.

Pburg has a small independent music store called the Sound Exchange that has a bunch of new and used CDs, DVDs, I think they might even have some used cassettes, T-shirts, and a piss poor selection of new and used vinyl. The North End Tavern makes their own beer and it's really fucking good, and like I mentioned before, Marietta Brewing Company makes their own dank ass beer too. My favorite is the Paw Paw Wheat (9 some % abv and fucking delicious to boot), but everything they make is good. Trust me, I've spent a late afternoon trying them all. If you make it to Morgantown, this place called The Den, which used to rule and still kinda does, sells 32 oz fountain drinks for a dollar, and is a head shop, and 123 Pleasant St. sell Carling Black Label beer, which is the best, shitty, cheap beer ever. Fuck PBR and all that other hipster shit, Black Label is where it's at.

OH! One more thing: you absolutely, and this is fucking imperative, HAVE to eat as many pepperoni rolls as humanly possible while in this great state. Seriously, go to almost any gas station and find yourself a Julia's original, Abruzzino, Home Industry, or fuck, any goddamn brand pepperoni roll. The most important part of your WV experience will be these fucking beautiful masterpieces of fine culinary innovation. If you like the gas station variety, maybe make a trip to Fairmont, WV (just south of Morgantown) and go to the original Colasessano's (just past downtown by the high school) where the pepperoni roll was fucking invented. Imagine a toasted hoagie bun with sauce, long strips of cubed pepperoni, and melted cheese. It's pure fucking heavenly bliss.



So to conclude my ridiculous rambling that barely anybody will read, the only redeemable qualities about living in this terribly bleak state are Black Label beer and fucking pepperoni rolls. and acompletearsenal

hahahaha i love how that's in there. but no, seriously...before you leave WV you need to find and listen to the acompletearsenal demo. someone needs to upload this, and by someone i mean matt barr.

hosebeast wrote:

every band's goal should be to get seen. thats why we do it, for people to enjoy it.

and obviously, gas dollars.

right, but havent those people been seen enough in morgantown? it's apparent they dont care about playing out or even remotely experiencing the world outside of motown. it seems theyd just rather have their little college town monopoly and not do anything else with their music. i mean, it doesnt look like they truly care about music, you know

man, i didn't realize west virginia was so shitty. i'm moving.

chrislynch wrote:man, i didn't realize west virginia was so shitty. i'm moving.

But dude, then who's gonna be on my basketball team?


Parkersburg has no music scene anymore, it's really about done. It'll revive in a few years I'm sure, but there are no houses to do shows anymore, the last DIY show we did had 4 people there, and the bar shows aren't bringing out crowds anymore.

Huntington isn't so much of a tightly knit scene. If anything it's the opposite. The only person in town who really gives a shit anymore is David Dunlap. And while he's about the only reason there are shows in this part of the state, they're the Bury Your Dead, Underoath type of shows. Shamrocks has a decent show every now and then. Chum is playing a reunion show there soon with the 'burner and that rules. Honestly, if I were you I'd probably sleep through the 6 months you'll be here.

brummy wrote:

hosebeast wrote:

every band's goal should be to get seen. thats why we do it, for people to enjoy it.

and obviously, gas dollars.

right, but havent those people been seen enough in morgantown? it's apparent they dont care about playing out or even remotely experiencing the world outside of motown. it seems theyd just rather have their little college town monopoly and not do anything else with their music. i mean, it doesnt look like they truly care about music, you know

i really don't care about playing outside of my town or, i guess, my general area. i LIKE to...don't get me wrong, but it's not something i feel like i must do. i am completely content with playing music to all of my friends and i DEFINITELY care about the music. i probably care too much, which is why it takes all of my bands like 6 months to do anything. i don't go to shows in morgantown and i don't even really know anyone in bands there, anymore. i could be wrong about them. i probably am. i am just speaking for myself and i am just stating that for me...my lack of drive(and again, i am not saying i don't WANT to play outside of my area or anything. i love to.) to play outside of my general area is not indicative of my level of care for my music.

as for the no place to have shows in parkersburg thing, in a few months...i will be in the position to change that. belly of the beast v2.0 coming soon. i promise.

brummy wrote:

hosebeast wrote:

every band's goal should be to get seen. thats why we do it, for people to enjoy it.

and obviously, gas dollars.

right, but havent those people been seen enough in morgantown? it's apparent they dont care about playing out or even remotely experiencing the world outside of motown. it seems theyd just rather have their little college town monopoly and not do anything else with their music. i mean, it doesnt look like they truly care about music, you know

oh yeah totally. i misunderstood.

All the bands/joke projects I've been apart of have almost always played out of the MOV. I'm pretty sure that I've played 3-4 shows total in the Parkersburg area... it had nothing to do with wanting to be seen, it's just nobody in this area was into the stuff I played...

so HEY... who wants to start an oi band? I know Justin would totally be down. I can play bass (not that well) but hey whatever right? I'm 100% serious about this too.

ijustwishi wrote:

i really don't care about playing outside of my town or, i guess, my general area. i LIKE to...don't get me wrong, but it's not something i feel like i must do. i am completely content with playing music to all of my friends and i DEFINITELY care about the music. i probably care too much, which is why it takes all of my bands like 6 months to do anything. i don't go to shows in morgantown and i don't even really know anyone in bands there, anymore. i could be wrong about them. i probably am. i am just speaking for myself and i am just stating that for me...my lack of drive(and again, i am not saying i don't WANT to play outside of my area or anything. i love to.) to play outside of my general area is not indicative of my level of care for my music.

as for the no place to have shows in parkersburg thing, in a few months...i will be in the position to change that. belly of the beast v2.0 coming soon. i promise.

Zetterberger wrote:All the bands/joke projects I've been apart of have almost always played out of the MOV. I'm pretty sure that I've played 3-4 shows total in the Parkersburg area... it had nothing to do with wanting to be seen, it's just nobody in this area was into the stuff I played...

I hope you guys don't think I was talking about you or the Pburg scene. All that shit throwing was totally directed at the Morgantown hipster collective.



Regardless, this thread has made me realize just how pointless it is to be here at reminisce-WV.com/iwishwewereallstillinhighschoolagain, so this is my last post and I don't even know why I'm even bothering to make a point of it. So in conclusion, this is stupid, I'm fucking out.

This shit is just depressing to read.