peeny wally

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November 18, 2002

A hundred lives are shoved inside … Gotta Get In But There’s No Room

Listening to “Marrakesh” by New Model Army, a perfectly sad song full of bittersweet longing. An autumn song. I woke up with it in my head.

I feel like today is to be used for getting everything in order. I’ve been so busy all last week, and so lazy all weekend, now I’ve got things I must do. Everything is messy, chaotic. And in my head, I’m still kind of reeling from Friday night at Emo’s.

I remember when I moved here, I thought Emo’s was the coolest club. A club dedicated to the idea that you shouldn’t have to spend a good portion of your hard-earned beer money just to get into a club and see a band. Founded on the belief that people who give a shit about bands should be able to see those bands.

I don’t actually know if the powers-that-were behind Emo’s actually believed that, but it’s the best that I could figure, and it’s what I wanted to believe and I was very excited about it. Two bucks? A pittance! Gladly, I’ll pay (although back in those days, my friends and I hardly ever had to pay a cover to get in). I remember laughing at people who used to complain, “I remember when Emo’s was free,” as that just seemed so greedy and overlooking such a gift horse.

Then I spent way too many weekends there. Too many nights when the fate of the Blue Flame(ingo) was uncertain, or too many good touring bands were playing that I couldn’t miss, or just plain nothing else to do. The vibe turned sour, sour. I recognized fewer and fewer of the bartenders and door people. Ownership changed hands.

One night I walked in and headed directly to the women’s bathroom on the left side of the club. It was crowded and I was following the herd simply in order to get to the courtyard. As we passed the bar, one of the guys working back there leapt up on the bar and across it and pounced on the guy directly in front of me, who was holding a bottle of beer. The bartender went directly for the guy’s throat, the beer went on the ground and glass found its way into my open-toed shoes. I was appalled. What sort of thug establishment lets and even encourages its employees to maul its customers?

I took a little break from Emo’s then. It had just gotten out of hand with the neanderthals running the joint. Good friends of mine will recall these as the “Hoo-hoo’s” years, where I was so disgusted with the place that I couldn’t bring myself to even name it out loud and so just referred to it as “Hoo-hoo’s” or “That Place.” (Where the name Hoo-hoo’s came from can only be found at the wrong end of a good portion of tequila sunrises.)

When I started going back a little more frequently, the cover had gone up. It was hardly ever less than five bucks, usually more like seven, even for local bands. All my friends have been forcibly removed from there, unjustifiably, girls and boys, some more than once. The other night we paid twenty dollars to see X, my favorite punk band of all time, ever.

X were brilliant. Everyone should love X. In their day, X transcended everything they were supposed to be. They were a Raymond Chandler novel, the dusty, desperate dream of the myth of the great west, the city of angels. And when I saw them just the other night, twenty-five years later, they still had it. The songs were haunting, haunted. It hurt to hear John and Exene harmonize on “White Girl” (supposedly written for Darby Crash’s old girlfriend) and “Back to the Base,” just thinking about how lived-in these songs were, how real and pained and still true. “The New World” never rang truer. The band was amazing. Billy Zoom and DJ Bonebreak were as tight and punk rock as ever. And John and Exene, in my deepest, sincerest, punkest heart of hearts, belong together, screaming and scowling, and it pleased me down deep to see them together, playing with each other.

That was the good part of the night.

The bad part is much bigger. The place was packed, too, too crowded. The surly and aged shoved and pushed and tried to act like they weren’t. They were condescending and loud and annoying. After the first few songs, I pushed my way out of that terrible crowd (worse than any hardcore show i’ve been on the floor for) and headed for the back and my friends. I discovered half of my group had been thrown out, and I’m still not really certain why. We were yelled at for standing on the stairs, even with nowhere else to go, no other way to see the band.

I hate that fucking place. I’ll continue to go there, as long as bands have nowhere else to play. I do it begrudgingly. I hate that fucking place.

Posted by pogo at November 18, 2002 9:55 AM