High Times at the High Dive

I moved out here three weeks ago to play music. I love music; I started playing piano when I was 8 and bass guitar when I was 14. That's actually not the whole story - I quit the piano when I was about 13 after several years of wishing I didn't play it. It was a shame, in retrospect, because I wasn't that bad. Also, no one told me that being able to play piano when I was older would help me pick up women. Alas. I tried sitting down over the summer and playing something on the piano, but I was woefully bad. Woefully bad. But I really enjoy playing bass and also watching other people play bass, so it should be no surprise that I also really enjoy live music. Seattle is, of course, the place to be if you fit that description, and where I am going with all this is that last night was the first time I actually went to a show. Read on for more...

I had passed by the High Dive in Fremont several times. They've always got bands playing, and thus always have a cover charge. This initial financial offering had always dissuaded me, as I usually spend any cash I have on beer. But yesterday I figured that the time had come. So I paid the $5 and in I went.

They had a $10 minimum on credit cards at the bar, but fortunately for our hero I used to frat it up in college. So $3 PBR really hit the spot. Back on the East Coast, no one has PBR on tap. We always have to buy it in cans, and this Seattle trend of having The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous on tap everywhere really wets my whistle. So we sat around for a while before the opening act came on. The place was a decent venue: it was a long, narrow establishment, but the area in front of the stage felt spacious enough. Lighting was darkish red and blue, which I liked because sometimes venues will "soften things up" with a lot of orangeish lighting and I think it looks stupid.

Anyway the opening act was this guy with his bass and a synthesizer and he could lay down some grooves. But the real talent of the night was the headliners, a band out of LA called Dengue Fever. They had this middle-eastern sounding groove to them, and a super hot Cambodian lead singer whose sister is apparently a big pop icon in Cambodia. I met this guy who turned out to be the drummer for this band called Kinski who told me all this, and that most of their songs were covers from old Cambodian tunes of the 60s and 70s. Holiday in Cambodia! Anyways, she was very short and looked funny next to their super-tall, Vin Diesel bassist and an Arabesque guitarist who had a crazy beard. They played for about 45 minutes, and even though the words aren't in English the music forces you to dance, to move, to shake, or anything, because standing still suddenly seemed such a hopelessly wrong thing to do. Also, I had safely exceeded my $10 minimum for drinks, so my body was in perfect resonance with the tunes. A fabulous show. So it was a pretty good time - the bartenders there were also pretty chill. Maybe I'll go back tonight and see who's playing.

Kinski is playing Friday, October 14 at the Funhouse in Seattle with Green Milk from the Planet Orange. Worth checking out; it's their last show in the US before they go to Europe and Japan.

Fremont Blocktoberfest

Saturday afternoon found me at the Fremont Oktoberfest. I gather this happens every year, and festivities included some hippie displays of sarongs and jewelry, and one cool setup with a huge lens that focused sunlight to melt glass into earrings. I watched for a minute as a small red dot (I guess it was glass?) started smoking on a rock, but I didn't touch it to see how hot it was. About some things, I've found in my old age, I'm just not curious.

Before paying the $25 dollars to get in, we hobbled on over to the second stage, where a small band was playing something interesting but not up my alley. There was this big, goofy looking bassist whose guitar was the same color as mine who was absolutely losing his mind onstage. Fun to watch (I always love a live show), but not for too long. We passed by the beer garden for the hops of the event (get it?) and paid our money for a small mug plastered with labels for The Stranger and ten pieces of cardboard that looked like pogs, each good for one fillup of said mugs with a different microbrew.

I didn't count, but there must have been over a hundred different microbrews. Some I'd heard of -- Pyramid, Sierra Nevada -- but most I hadn't. I've never been much a fan of microbrews, so all the lagers and ales tasted pretty much the same. Decent in my emasculating plastic mug, but I'd never order a whole pint. I did have one porter called Big Butte and I made a crack to the guy serving it about the "big-assed porter" but I don't think he got it. Oh well, Peter Griffin would have.

Anyway, the mainstage was inside all this beerfest but we got in just as one band was finishing their set and although we sat around for a while the next "band" seemed to be these two guys who got up and rapped over good songs we already liked. It was certainly no "Walk This Way" and rest in peace Jam Master Jay thank you very much.

So the whole ordeal wasn't especially mind-blowing, but a beer-tasting is pretty much always fun. Although having the equivalent of two pints in the middle of the afternoon and then sitting around is generally uncomfortable. Basically, the nature of this post reflects my feelings on the event. I was hoping to flesh it out with a long talk about Star Wars, but I think I can put that off for now.

Fridays About Town

The number 23 has always had some special siginificance for me. Big things often happen on the 23rd day of the month, so I was excited about last night's prospects. The day itself was a reasonable success as well -- picked up a new set of aviators -- except traffic in this city totally sucks ass.

So that evening (late afternoon was more to it), my flatmate and I wander off to a party at a bar in Pioneer Square called Howl at the Moon. A fine lady who was a friend of a friend had won a party, and we were one of two or three other groups that got off work early (except me! haha) to get down at this place. We got two tickets for 75 cent well drinks each, and were also treated to free hot dogs and tacos. Which was pretty sweet, given our tenuous connection to the axisse of the party and the fact that we hadn't had dinner. Then these two cats get up to take requests on the two grand pianos that were center stage, and they ended up playing everything from "Ain't too Proud to Beg" to "Welcome to the Jungle." It was pretty fun, but most of the crowd were roughly 30, putting them in that awkward phase where they have to be really drunk in order to sing along. Isn't that strange? When you're younger you still care more about getting your song on than giving a shit, and when you're older you sing along because, dammit, you grew up with these songs and the hell with what some "hip" kid thinks of you singing along to your golden oldies. Or just groove. Anyways, the place filled up out of nowhere and everyone seemed to be getting along in their drinks (my two tickets were long gone), so I had to bust out my shiny new aviators, which I was promptly offered $20 for by some woman who must have been twice my age. I turned her down; I had only paid $8 but I had just got them earlier that day and -- let's be honest -- it's not like they restock these things down at the hardware store. Besides, I thought I could get the gentleman she was with to raise the ante, but to no avail.

Anyways, as I mentioned earlier the crowd's median age was about 35, and everyone seemed to be interacting with something to lose. I wasn't really in the mood to infiltrate a pressurized cluster of women, but I did anyway and proceeded to strike out with a rather striking lady. So it goes. Afterwards, we got up onstage to wish some woman a happy 40th birthday, then we bailed.

At this point it was only about 8:30, so we got home and watched all of Starship Troopers and part of Big Trouble in Little China before getting the call and driving out to Kirkland, which is a suburb of Seattle, to meet up with friends at this bar across from the Bank of America. I don't remember the name of the place, but they had a reasonably pneumatic clientele, and gave us free bottles of water on the way out. And we met one absolute tool, who shall remain nameless, but I got his business card and kept it so I could chuckle to myself all over again the next morning, which I later did.

But back to last night: the bar really bitched out on last call (bars close at 2, the lights went on at 1:15), and at our table were myself, Mat Brown, our friend Eric and his girlfriend Kauilani, a pretty girl named Desiree, and Toolius Maximus. Sorry about that last sentence. So there we were, the five of us, and we're invited back for pie, wine and lasagne at Desiree's place which was great because Eric's really funny when he's drunk. Also, Mat Brown has 20/15 vision so if you ever see him wearing glasses you'll know what he's up to.

Next up: the Fremont Oktoberfest is today! be sure to catch my recap tomorrow, which may be slightly more colorful because I'm really saucy when I'm hungover.

Social Networking 101

I arrived here in Seattle recently, having driven across the country from Washington, DC. Google maps puts the distance at 2,770 miles, and it took five solid days of driving to traverse, with a limited number of stops and no scenic detours. That's actually not true - we stopped fairly frequently becuase Mat has the bladder of a tender young girl. But five days, four nights, two frats, 1 tiny ass bar in North Dakota, and Idaho later, we showed up in West Seattle at about 6:30 Pacific Time on Tuesday, September 6, 2005.

I'm not usually inclined to keep reflections of my thoughts...my resolve to maintain any sort of journal doesn't last and I feel that revealing inner thoughts online is rather trite. However, my thoughtful mother suggested that this, if any time in my life, was a good juncture at which to record transitions, so I am taking her advice.

I'm glad I left the east coast. A time such as college (or my entire life up to that point) is like a radiant, shimmering ball of garbage. Well, it's more like there's a ball of garbage with light shining through the cracks; it's beautiful, but heavy and vaguely odiferous. I'm usually glad I leave these things behind, because from a distance, the smell is gone and all you can see is the light.

I have neither a job nor a place to live. Those concerns will most certainly work out, but right now everything is so uncertain. I'm treading water with no shore in sight, but it doesn't really have me worried or apprehensive or anything. I'm casually irked by the travails of finding a job, but mostly I'm not reacting at all to these new surroundings -> and that's what's weirding me out the most. I suppose I should be happy that ... no, everything's fine. I'm just lightly bored. I want to start going out and doing things and acquainting myself with the city, but for now I'm just wading in the shallow end. Let's go do something! I fear that Mat Brown may be setting himself up for a stifling semester. Perhaps this stage of limbo is more draining on him than it is me, and I need to be leading the way. Well, methinks I'll lead the way down to the damn bar, and take it from there.