The Hair, The Debate, and The Teeth
Now Playing: Victorian's Show-October 8th
Without a doubt, one of the strangest nights of my life.
For the GESO (Graduate Students Union) benefit, I was slated to play with Stars Like Snow, newcomers Villa Straylight, and The Teeth (from Michigan) at Victorian's Midnight Cafe in Columbus. The original intent was for some music to go on before the Presidential Debates, which were to be viewed on a large screen TV, followed by some music afterwords, lineup pending.
I knew something in the night was askew when upon mine and Foxy Girl's arrival we were informed by our friend Jill from Stars Like Snow that the band would not be going on, as a result of the rest of the band being stranded in Youngstown in a broken down van. (For those who don't know, Youngstown is not at all close to Columbus). This resulted in a lineup of Villa Straylight (pre-debate), followed by myself and The Teeth (post-debate). I felt for Jill, especially seeing as how she organized the damn thing.
Shift to slightly later in the evening...while outside sharing a cigarette with local friends, I remarked that I had heard it through the grapevine that The Teeth had thrown a slight fit about the idea of going on before the debate. My pal Josh, who was half of the debuting Villa Straylight, in true black-metal fan form, jokingly expressed disapproval for The Teeth and their perceived complaining, saying something along the lines of "No one knows who you are, who the fuck came to see you?" LO and BEHOLD, the lead singer of The Teeth was RIGHT THERE, taking a snooze at a nearby table. I only noticed him when he began to turn around, and I knew, I KNEW that he was in the band, I could just tell by the way he turned around. He wasn't too thrilled with what was being said, particularly with what Josh had said. He told Josh that he didn't think it was too cool of Josh to talk shit about people he didn't know, and he seemed confused as to why he had said anything like that in the first place. Now, this was what was going through my mind: For one, my heart dropped into my stomach at the unfortunate occurrence. Second, I felt bad for the guy from The Teeth, he seemed really hurt and bewildered. Third, I felt bad for Josh, seeing as how he was about to go on for the first time and he was already nervous, and then on top of it, he'd just stuck two feet in his mouth.
Now, for anyone who knows Josh, they know that he's extremely friendly, and ultimately a kidder. I was scrambling to think of way to communicate to the offended that Josh was just a lovable dipstick who was jokingly acting like a rock star. But, to someone who's a stranger, how do you explain such a thing? Josh was apologetic towards him, but mostly at a loss for words, possibly trying to think of a way to explain that he's not a bad guy, just kinda peculiar. Myself and my friend Jeff (also black-metal) tried to talk the guy from the Teeth down, worried about possible fisticuffs. He made it clear that he had no interest in fighting, just that he was perturbed at the comments made. Josh eventually went inside after deeming the situation as fixed as it could have been, while the singer from the Teeth remained outside, understandably pissed off.
Now I have to say, if it had happened to me, I'd have been pissed off too, no question. There's no way of explaining to a stranger the innocent quirks of one's (Josh's)personality, but I tried my best while sitting down next to the dude. After talking with him and another member (the drummer) of the band, I found them to be totally fucking cool guys, which made me temporarily feel worse about the whole incident. Turns out that the band and myself had a lot in common. They were into a lot of the same music that I was, and they said they injected humor into their music as well. I was blown away when the singer, Dave, told me that he was once in a band called
Kimmy Gibler! We had quite a fun conversation about punk rock and TV sitcoms, and we were getting pumped about being on the same bill. All three of us outside were in better spirits after chatting, and I was excited to go on, and then get to see them play afterwords.
I ventured inside when Jill began to introduce the shattered-nerve acoustic duo of Villa Straylight. They played five songs, and with the exception of a hot mic which was beyond their control, it went very smoothly, and I was happy for them. Shortly afterwords, we all sat down inside for the debates. It was quite a bias room, with the crowd being vehemently anti-Bush sans one supporter at the bar who stood steadfast. (Foxy Girl maintains that she was a plant).
An hour and a half later, it came time for me to setup. There had amassed quite a few bodies on the stage who had stationed themselves to watch the debate. It was a total bitch to clear them off, and then subsequently set up my equipment while asking people politely to get the bloody hell out of my way. Now, I had talked to the "Sound Engineer," who was also the bartender, about what I needed from him. He was blitzed out of his mind, and he seemed confused as to what I was asking of him. Long story short (too late), we got everything finally set up after what seemed like an eternity, the mic was already plugged in, but I couldn't get my music box to work over the PA. I had to first yell over the mic, and then send a messenger to communicate to this guy that I wasn't getting anything from my box. After many attempts to turn the volume up and down, it was finally ready to go, and it actually sounded really good.
I started out by lecturing the crowd about being "bias" during the debate...no one laughed. I then sternly told this drunk girl to quite punching Flippy, our dolphin balloon. I was doin' my tunes, having a great time, partying down with those in attendance, when suddenly during the third song, I look down to see Foxy Girl wrestling over Flippy with the same drunk girl. I interrupted the song to yell at the girl, but it was too late. She had punctured a whole at the bottom of our dolphin with her razor sharp fingernails. (Never fear! Flippy is/was fixable). I yelled and cursed her even more after the song...I gave her the "reap what you sew" line. Works every time...she got the sour look on her face, and eventually walked outside. I heard later she cried and pissed herself.
I was cruising along fine, when after my (11th? 12th?) song, I noticed my mic was turned off. Jill jumped up on stage and told me that the upstairs neighbors had been complaining about the loud ruckus...folks, my set is not
that loud to warrant complaints. The drunk owner approached the stage and told me we had to move it along, because it was getting late. Fine...I was bummed, but it took a while to set up, and the Teeth still had to go on, so, ya know. So, the owner enabled me to do one more, then I was off...at this point, I'm still thinking it's more of a time crunch than anything else.
So, at this point, I'm shutting down, and my buddies the Teeth are setting up. Out of nowhere, the owner begins lecturing all 5 of us, saying "This is a coffee shop--If you want to rock out, go to Bernie's," among other things. Keep in mind, the Teeth had note played a single note, but they're a loud punk band, so you can read the writing on the wall. One thing leads to another, and the Teeth and the owner get into a verbal confrontation about playing. The owner told them, in summary, "If you're loud, you're not going on." The Teeth took exception to this, as they had driven 3 1/2 hours from Michigan to play this shithead's club. The yelling escalated--the owner and the band tossing verbal venom back and forth. It started getting weird, when the Teeth were reiterating that they had come from Michigan to play, and the owner starting saying "I like Michigan," among other drunk ramblings such as "I'm not a musician, I can't sing, can't dance," etc. He wasn't at all cooperating in coherency, and this led to further heated tension from both sides. On top of it, both mine and their equipment was on the stage, and I was worried about the shit going down, both for people's safety and the integrity of the equipment, cuz it was about to be a riot in that motherfuck. Neh, maybe not, but there was a lot of screaming and anguish back and forth, and I did think for a minute it may go down...props to the Teeth for standing up to that bastard, and trying to get the crowd to coerce him into letting them play. The owner was calling them "fuckers," and all this fucked up shit...ugly situation. Needless to say, they didn't go on, and I was bummed, cuz I really wanted to see them.
There was a temporary idea a for a solution, as Pete the guitarist asked the crowd if anyone had a basement they could play in. Wrong town, really...basements to play in are few and far between in Columbus. There was also a last ditch attempt to call another club, but it was no use. The problem was that both the Teeth and I were booked by someone else, and the genre-specific protocol for the club was fuzzy at best. I felt really bad for the Teeth, cuz at least I got to play, and hell, I didn't drive from Michigan. "Play at Bernie's" he says...If we had our druthers, of course we would have played a place like Bernie's instead of that shithole. For one, that's where the show was booked, it was out of our hands; and second, contrary to popular belief, Bernie's is kind of hard to get into. This was a benefit, for Christ's sake. What a fuckin' moron. (NO, GESO didn't get money, but we gave 'em something to do dammit!)
Well, that's about it. We all said our goodbyes and parted ways; perhaps on a better day at a better venue, with at least a
less fucked-up owner, the Teeth and I can play a real show. They sound like the Minutemen, check it out: www.theteethband.com.
Weird evening.
Posted by electricgrandmother
at 1:56 AM EDT
Updated: October 13, 2004 4:09 PM EDT
