News

West Seattle Summer Fest is doing the Rock Walk again. Local bands, multiple venues, proceeds go to live music in the neighborhood. Via West Seattle Blog. It is a good thing. We have not been invited. This is the eighth consecutive year.

The official reason has been consistent since 2018, with some variation in wording: we go too hard for a family event. We do not contest the premise.

There are two incidents that keep coming up. We would like to address both.

The first is from 2022. Ricky had the flu. He did not know this at the time. He finsihed the set because the deposit was non-refundable and the sound guy confirmed this in writing.

The second is from 2023. Ricky did a stage dive. The crowd was not ready. Margaret, who we will not describe further, was seated near the stage. She said the landing was softer than it looked. We sent flowers. The flowers were recieved.

Ricky will be playing the garage that same afternoon, 3pm, free. Stage diving will be discussed on a case-by-case basis.

- Terror Ride

We owe Ricky an apology. He said the Green Lab sounded like somewhere they test things on people. He was not wrong.

The SPD Training Unit is looking for ten volunteers to consume marijuana and allow officers to practice DUI testing on them. Friday, May 29th, SODO, 9am to 4pm. Via West Seattle Blog. Bring your own marijuana and paraphernalia. They will provide lunch.

They are asking for your dietary restrictions. They are also asking for your transporation plan. You should not drive to or from the event, or for the rest of the evening. They can arrange a ride if needed.

Sit with that. The Seattle Police Department is offering to arrange your Lyft home from the building where they just spent seven hours checking if you seem high.

We are not lawyers. We are a noise metal band with 48 complaints on record and no remaining straight edge status, none of which was our fault. We are not qualified to advise on voluntarily getting stoned at a police training facility and providing your name and cell to Jennifer.Satterwhite@seattle.gov beforehand.

Ricky looked up "fruit of the poisonous tree." We are still thinking about it.

- Terror Ride

Jules here. Not the band. The band did not ask me to write this. They are not stopping me either.

The Morgan Junction all-wheels area is finally moving forward. This has been in the works for years. Years. There is finally momentum. West Seattle Blog covered it. It is mostly good news except for the red tape, which brings me to Nies.

Nies has concerns. I have been skating this neighborhood since I was nine. My knees are not getting better. We have a Statue of Liberty on our beach, a whole statue, about freedom, and we cannot build a skate park without a guy named Nies getting involved. Think about that.

Nies, with the utmost respect from me personally and not from the band, because again they did not sanction this post: skate or die.

- Jules

As of this past Thursday, Terror Ride is no longer a straight edge band. We are making this announcement ourselves, before someone else does, because we believe in transparency and also because Ricky's Instagram story was not as private as he thought it was.

Here is what happened.

We were at Jules' house for practice. Jules' mom, who we will not name but who we do appreciate and who has always been very kind to this band, recently began receiving mail-delivered medicinal ketamine as part of a supervised treatment program. She meant to offer us coffee. This is a misunderstanding that could happen to anyone and we do not hold it against her.

To be fully clear: she did nothing wrong. The prescription is valid and legal. What happened next is on us for not asking more questions about the small white packets she left on the practice room table before leaving to run errands.

We spent aproximately six hours in Jules' garage. We were not playing music for most of this time. We were playing music a little, actually. Ricky says it was the best thing he has ever heard and that the bass parts were "coming from the walls." We do not have a recording of this.

Terror Ride has been straight edge since 2009. Seventeen years. We want to say that this meant something to us and still does, in a way. We are also acknowledging that the specific circumstances here, a mom, a valid prescription, a good-faith misunderstanding involving coffee, exist in a gray area that we were not prepared to navigate.

We are not planning to make this a recurring part of band practice. We are also not prepared to say with certainty that it will never happen again, because we believe in honesty.

Greg was not present. For once, we feel this is worth noting.

- Terror Ride

Terror Ride would like to go on record: AI generated music is a blight on human creativity, a shortcut dressed up as innovation, and the single most spiritually hollow thing to happen to art since the jukebox. Music is supposed to cost you something. A riff should come form somewhere real, from rage, from a bad week, from that one drive home where everything felt like it was falling apart. You cannot replace that with a prompt.

That said, and we want to be careful about how we say this, it's kind of insane what it can do. We are not endorsing this. We are simply acknowledging, grudgingly, that some of what we've heard is genuinely impressive in a way that makes us a little uncomfortable. Like watching someone parallel park perfectly on the first try and feeling weirdly threatened by it. We don't like it. We are noting it.

To be unambiguous about where this band stands: if any member of Terror Ride is caught using AI to generate riffs, chord progressions, drum patterns, or anything that could reasonably be described as "the musical part," that person is out of the band for one week. Not forever. We're not monsters. But seven days, minimum, of thinking about what they did.

Jules has asked us to clarify that using AI to figure out the tab for a Pantera song does not count. We have agreed that it does not count. This is the only exception.

Play your instruments. Feel something. We mean it.

- Terror Ride

It has come to our attention that Nick Burgess has been going around talking shit about Mara. Specifically, he's been teling people at the Admiral Pub that she's "difficult" and "not even that good." This is incorrect on both counts, and Nick knows it.

For those who don't know the backstory: Mara ended things with Nick after she found out he'd been texting her sister. Her actual sister. We don't need to expand on this. The math is pretty simple.

Nick, we want to be clear: Mara can speak for herself and she will. We are simply letting you know, in writing, that this band is aware of what you're saying, where you're saying it, and approximately what time you get there on Thursday nights.

We are not threatening anything. We are just saying that we play shows in this neighborhood every few weeks, and West Seattle is not that large.

Think about it.

- Terror Ride

Jules' stepdad Greg will not lend him the truck to get to our show at Endolyne Joe's. If you are heading that direction and have room for one drummer and his floor tom, please reach out. Jules can be ready in 20 miuntes and will cover gas.

Greg has been informed of the show. Greg does not care. Greg says the truck "needs to be available." Available for what, Greg. It is a Tuesday.

For the record, Jules asked twice. Very politely, from what we're told. Greg remained unmoved. Greg is, and this is a direct quote from Jules, "being such a Greg about it."

Show is Wednesday, doors at 8pm. It would be very helpful if our drummer was there. He is the drummer.

DM us on Instagram or reply to this post. Do not contact Greg directly. We have considered it and decided against it.

- Terror Ride