Fun and Games at the Rat Shelter. A music review.

[Richter]

...I watched the spectacle, and I prayed with giddie anticipation to see a man break himself by his own antics.

That was the hook and the interesting point of the whole evening.  Not that I was praying to anything specific mind.  More that adult anticipation you get when you know God or Santa won't fulfill you, but  you get the inkling that some odd twist of Providence might do the job anyways.

It started with the German Club hosting a "customer appreciation night".  Free food, live music, no cover, and subtly price-jacked beers.  We arrived, met our usual cohorts Enzo, Jen, Hockey Jake and Heather, and dove into the usual German fare, augmented with Italian food to pad the gullets of the guests.  One gluttonous feeding and two drinks in the bands started, making conversation impossible.

The first was a nondescript indie sound, whose name I've forgotten.  The second, much better act, was The Throttles.  Hipster rat-faces on the surface, they turned out to be GOOD.  Sort of like a nasal Revered Horton Heat, with a more classical guitar / Mason Williams influence.  Their bassist played the FUCK out of a huge upright, his matchstick arms banging the strings like a coated monkey banging cymbals.  There was method to this enthusiasm, as both he and the guitarist displayed dizzying accuracy in their frantic fret fricking.  In contrast to their properly channeled coke-rage, the drummer lolled, serene to near drooling as he focused on complex percussion.  Over all too soon, they quit the stage, and the next band set up.

...and the Midwest came to the front.  Like a jar of oil and vinegar being turned, cronies sporting unkempt facial hair, mesh backed hats, and flannel assembled.  Hockey Jake and Heather were long gone, due to Heather being mopey.  Jen and Enzo had taken off too, perhaps sensing what was to come.  All of the fuckers were drinking cheap, American made, Chinese owned beer, and no regular patrons were among them.   

The new band was a study in stage presence.  The lead singer / rhythm guitarist / lead penis, stood forward, a head high above his fellows.  His body language sported the best traits of gorilla management with stooped brow, hooded eyes, and forward knuckles.  When the music began, I was convinced I was in the elemental plain of generic country music.  The real lead guitar (standing well back, out of place, his flannel shirt uniform wearing HIM), and the "my parent's basement" keyboardist were carrying this show, letting him play the Big Ape.  Some Neanderthal yutz behind me kept whistling and hooting at a volume that tested my already volume numb ears.  Luna had won a bottle of liquor earlier, and I was running out of reasons not to feed it to his teeth.
(Luna encouraged this, but requested I use someone else's booze.)

The show went on, and the singer strutted his country music street cred.  Nashville TN was mentioned like a site of later day pilgrimage, as well as how bad his family had it during the depression.  The crowd ate it up, missing that he had just summarized "The Grapes of Wrath".  When he began playing again, between lyrics, he'd lean forward, his mouth agape.  A study of ecstasy from the G.W.B. school of public appearance.

I looked around, realizing that even the hipsters had fled.  Only this odd country boy wannabe diaspora crowd remained.  The German Club regulars and staff were taking shelter behind the bar, preparing antique Lugers and broom handle grenades for a Wangerian end.  Is it odd, even sacrilegious to wish a jackboot stomping Gestapo end to ones own countrymen? 

"American Dollars don't mean SHIT Tom!", came a cry form somewhere behind me.  The sentiment's smacking of backwoods pseudo intellectual disaffection fit the scene perfectly.  Then the bastards started to dance. 

It seems like it is "hip" not to wear belts these days.  Luna got treated to the sight of skanky skaner crack.  A couple tried to perform country dance moves around in front of the stage, beneath the singer's "How is babby formed" expression.  Another daring dude took to the top of one of the club's injection molded tables and began skanking.  With each exuberant move the plastic bent farther and farther.  I stared, rapt, until the legs finally gave.  He fell in a heap, and I laughed, long and callous.

The singer, his mask slipping, and intelligence shining through, decided it was time for the last song.  The keyboardist shut up, and they wailed out a fast and brutal rockabilly tune written under a previous band named "Brimstone".  The name was apt.  Head and shoulders better, but less mass marketable than their current fare, I wished they had been playing that all night.

A logical high point reached, and the hour getting late we fled before the inevitable hillbilly holocaust could take the hall.  Behind us came the sweet sounds of blitzkrieg as the staff brought order back into the establishment

[Luna]

Luna got treated to the sight of skanky skaner crack.

Not enough eye bleach in the world.  Seriously.

Was the same twitwad who was dancing on the table.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

FUCK YEAH.

There really is nothing like a howling pack of yahoos to make a regular night out epic.

[Luna]

FUCK YEAH.

There really is nothing like a howling pack of yahoos to make a regular night out epic.

I did wonder at at least one point if I was going to have to back Richter up when he went postal on the joint.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

FUCK YEAH.

There really is nothing like a howling pack of yahoos to make a regular night out epic.

I did wonder at at least one point if I was going to have to back Richter up when he went postal on the joint.

Having met the man, and having seen him totally fucking Dimo by accident, I think the best plan in a situation like that is to throw him a chair, and then dive behind the bar.

[Luna]

FUCK YEAH.

There really is nothing like a howling pack of yahoos to make a regular night out epic.

I did wonder at at least one point if I was going to have to back Richter up when he went postal on the joint.

Having met the man, and having seen him totally fucking Dimo by accident, I think the best plan in a situation like that is to throw him a chair, and then dive behind the bar.

That many rednecks in the bar?  Fuck, no, they might get lucky, just by sheer weight of numbers... and, well, weight.  Besides, why should he get all the fun?

[Eater of Clowns]

Ahaha!  It's unfortunate I had to miss this one.

I also regret the puns.  Those texts went sauer.

[Richter]

Ahaha!  It's unfortunate I had to miss this one.

I also regret the puns.  Those texts went sauer.

You think you're clever, but I've seen hrough your raus.

[Richter]

FUCK YEAH.

There really is nothing like a howling pack of yahoos to make a regular night out epic.

I did wonder at at least one point if I was going to have to back Richter up when he went postal on the joint.

Having met the man, and having seen him totally fucking Dimo by accident, I think the best plan in a situation like that is to throw him a chair, and then dive behind the bar.

That many rednecks in the bar?  Fuck, no, they might get lucky, just by sheer weight of numbers... and, well, weight.  Besides, why should he get all the fun?

, and

The evening was taking a good turn into SUCK.  Plotting a write-up of the whole brain damaged affair kept me from getting miserable at everything.

[Luna]

FUCK YEAH.

There really is nothing like a howling pack of yahoos to make a regular night out epic.

I did wonder at at least one point if I was going to have to back Richter up when he went postal on the joint.

Having met the man, and having seen him totally fucking Dimo by accident, I think the best plan in a situation like that is to throw him a chair, and then dive behind the bar.

That many rednecks in the bar?  Fuck, no, they might get lucky, just by sheer weight of numbers... and, well, weight.  Besides, why should he get all the fun?

, and

The evening was taking a good turn into SUCK.  Plotting a write-up of the whole brain damaged affair kept me from getting miserable at everything.

I do have to say, watching the speed you got that down on paper was more entertaining that what was going on up on the stage at that point.