With their new lineup as a four piece, BOMF! set to work writing new songs and putting together a cover or two to fill in the set list. Mic Hole was heavily influenced by bands like Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam and Live, whereas Liable leaned towards NOFX, Bad Religion, Social Distortion, The Accused and Poison Idea. Burnt, on the other hand, was the one guy in the band with any lengthy band experience and came with a wide variety of hardcore, punk, and post punk bands as his influences. Being that Garcia was the drummer… nobody cared what his influences were. His job was to keep the beat and make it fast.

BOMF! practiced several nights a week at The Palace, an old warehouse in what’s now called The Pearl District in northwest Portland. In the early 90’s, the only pearls to be found in that area were the ones you dropped when you were being mugged by a junkie. The Palace was spectacularly awful and fabulous. Practice spaces could be had for a nominal monthly fee and you only really had to worry about the place burning down with you AND your equipment inside. The rooms were hastily put together plywood walls with foam rubber pads and cardboard egg crates to “insulate” the noise from the other bands. Every band could hear every other band practicing and on at least a few occasions, BOMF! was told to “shut the fuck up”. BOMF! didn’t care, though… they had a practice space.

Since three out of the four boys were new to Portland, they didn’t really have a huge social life, so it wasn’t uncommon to find the band at the Palace, especially on the weekends when most other bands had shows to play. As luck would have it, it was one of those Saturday practice nights that led to BOMF!’s first show.

On a boring Saturday night somewhere around mid April 1993, BOMF! was interrupted while practicing at The Palace by a knock at the door. Being a Saturday night, the Palace was virtually empty and it wasn’t quite closing time, so the boys were a little confused by who was knocking. It turned out to be the night security/attendant at the Palace and he said, “hey… I have Satyricon on the phone and they’re looking for a band to headline. Do you guys wanna play?”

Anyone familiar with the Portland music scene is also familiar with the legendary music club The Satyricon. The Satyricon was the go-to punk rock and alternative bar for PDX. If you played anywhere in the NW, you were bound to at least try to get in the door to convince Bruno to book you. Burnt and Liable had been trying to get Bruno to book their new band on a Monday at open mic night with no avail. Suddenly, along comes the opportunity to go swing dicks with some heavy hitters. The boys wasted no time calling Bruno back and accepting the very generous offer to bat cleanup after local thrash favorites 90 Proof. The boys also got on the phone and called every person they knew in Portland and told them to come down to Satyricon for our debut.

When the boys started loading in at the end of 90 Proof’s set, the room was packed. Drinks were drank, drunks were drunk, cocaine was undoubtedly marking many noses and the crowd was rowdy and ready for more of whatever came before. But what came after whatever came before was not 90 Proof, nor was it any of the rest of the bands that opened that show. What slinked its way onto stage with its smallish practice amps and a cauldron full of angst was BOMF! and BOMF! was about to introduce themselves to the PDX punk rock scene. The crowd wasn’t nearly drunk and/or high enough for what happened next.

With a quiet “hey everybody, we’re BOMF!”, the boys broke into their first song. Nobody had a set list and the set was only about 8 songs long, but between the first chords of the first song and the fading feedback from guitars left leaning on amps, The Satyricon went from packed-to-the-gills to damn near empty, save for a few people that either enjoyed being insulted and told to “fuck off” by the band or were too hammered to realize everyone else left. More importantly, though, BOMF! had a few friends that made it down to the club in time to see the boys clear the room. It didn’t matter, though… BOMF! played their first show and it was at Satryricon on a Saturday night. They felt like legends already.