Artist Entry: the_Network guitarist Kevin calls on his spidey sense

Real name/persona: Kevin Howley, guitarist, the_Network
Alias: Spiderdude
Location: Crusty alley, Birmingham, AL
Toxicity level: Moderate - High

One minute I’m swinging through a cityscape as Spiderman and the next I’m looking at the charred innards of some old car on a street in Baton Rouge.

For the past two nights, I’ve slept gloriously and indulged myself through a variety of dreams. Last night, in the van, I was Spiderman. I shot black webbing and nabbed plenty of bad guys.

A dream is kind of like a child’s testimony in a custody hearing; it’s full of emotion but the details lack certain things. For instance, my Spiderman suit wasn’t as cool as it is in the movies. I looked more like the Spider-men we saw in front of the Chinese Theater in Hollywood; my suit was all baggy and the definitive muscle structure was missing -- I might have even had a fanny pack full of tourists’ dollar bills. The foreboding black spider logo that is supposed to cover my chest hung to above my belly button and the intimidating white eyes sagged around my cheeks. So I looked ridiculous but I was asleep -- And I’d hang upside down in the town square in a bikini if it meant I’d be asleep.

Then I was awake.

I crawled out of the hot van and walked up to the house we played at last night. A guy inside told me that a transformer fell from a power line onto a car a few hours ago and that the two erupted in a fiery steeple of metal and smoke.

Next, I’m staring at the black skeleton of some little car from the '90s (I don’t know anything about cars). The wheels are literally singed into the ground and the inside looks like an ashtray near the last call at a Florida bar.

For some reason, I imagined bone, teeth, hair, and all types of roasted viscera entwined inside and scared myself. I’m glad that no one was in that car, or that the transformer didn’t fall on our van with Tim and I inside.

An alarm clock is bad enough to wake up to, but a burning face? Fuck that. That transformer sounds like a Decepticon to me.

So last night, we played at some guy’s house in Baton Rouge, LA and the night before we played with Converge, The Red Chord, Genghis Tron, and Coliseum at Club Red 7 in Austin, TX.

The Austin show was one of those amazing shows that reminds me why I live this ridiculous life style. I had never seen Converge or The Red Chord outside of New England before. That’s three bands --the_Network being the third-- from right around Boston tearing it up all the way down in Texas.

And tear it up we did. When Guy asked the crowd if they like Boston, hundreds of mouths screamed back with a uniform, “Yeaaaaaaaa!” The whole night was surreal.

On that night, we were in Austin surrounded by hundreds of people at a huge venue with a sound guy, light guy, employees, bars, bartenders, janitors, etc., and the next night we’re playing next to a kitchen where some kid’s pouring himself coffee while I’m plugging my amp in.

Sweat is the same whether under the expensive, professionally setup lights of a big venue, or the neon of those annoying kitchen lights -- and the excitement is no different either.

There’s tour for you:

you’re Spiderman,

you wake up,

you’re one of hundreds,

you sleep,

you’re sharing a small space in a living room,

you wake up,

and you’re looking at a car someone once cherished after a power line’s transformer treated it like napalm.