just for kicks

Okay, just for fun, here's one of them photo clip thingies I made today. It's to the song "10 Long Years" by the now disbanded local group Convicted, friends of mine. This is me and my buddies over the years, doing what we do best.

By the way, there's a show tonight if you happen to be out and about and in need of some fun. Love in Arms at St. Mike's Pub on Gaines Street. Starts at 9pm. The beer is cold, the crowd is friendly. Here's to good times.

Every kid is my brother here.

Got up to the bar tonight and had a beer, two, five, buddies buying, my night off. Over time, it's like we pass a 20 between ourselves, my rounds this week, yours next.

Same crowd, new night. Same steps: greet your way around the bar, down two, join the parade out to the back corner of the parking lot, wander back inside to the pitcher. A gal I know was dealing with unwanted advances, so I put my solid bulk between her and the fellow. Better to puke on yourself and pass out next to the building than to be that guy, eyes rolling in different directions, unable to understand that he's got no shot tonight.

And the horns roar out, 3rd 4th 5th wave ska, arms and legs flying around the pit in front of the band. The beat thumps into me and I find myself loud, chanting oi! oi! oi! oi! and catching grins, up on the toes of my boots. Another beer, the band ends, home again.

local legends

Hey, The Engine Room, which is to say The Beta Bar, which is to say The Cow Haus, which is to say the longest running independent music venue here in Tallahassee, needs our help. Money is tight, bands are asking more to play, and the new owners are trying to keep shit running while they get their legs under them.

There's a show tonight and a show tomorrow (click that link up there for details), and on Saturday a whole mess of local acts are getting together to play and raise cash. I mean, this isn't just a bar, this is a local institution. If you're into punk, metal, real rock, alt country, hip hop - if you're into live music, you've been to shows here. I've fallen in love there. Embarrassed myself badly by passing out on an amp. Suffered mosh pit injuries. Made new friends. Danced my ass off to everyone from the Gossip to Hank Williams III. Attended a wedding. Attended a hair metal birthday party. Attended a wake. Drank enough beer to float a pirate armada. Witnessed streakers and holy rollers. And, if you are from here, odds are good that you've done some of that, too.

So, the line up on Saturday is:
me and the devil
oh geography
adam reid
boss fight
good morning engineer
only thieves
reylondondo
misha

The tunes start around 4pm and the door is only $5. Support our scene. Give what you can, because we get more back in return. And if they manage to make it through the weekend, I'm spinning tracks for Effed Up Punk Nite next Tuesday the 18th, starting around 9pm. Come on out, sing along, have a good time, keep it alive.

practice spaces I've known

I grew up playing around speaker wires and empty bottles. Cheap spaces in warehouses, basements - even, once, a room rented out in the Planned Parenthood office building - crammed full of musicians and reeking of stale beer and smoke feel as comfortable to me as most folks' kitchens. You know The Warehouse, that excellent local pool hall? Back in the way back, my dad's cover band rented it as practice space. My sister and I used to roller skate there while they worked out Lola and I Got You Babe and Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Here I am now, 31 years old, not myself a musician (although I was once in the single worst band to ever play in Tallahassee), and I still consider "going to practice" a legitimate social option. A night or two a month, I'll be out there in some storage complex on the edge of town, drinking warming cans of beer, breathing in that old familiar smell, listening to my friends play the same 4 bars of their newest song over and over until they get it just right.

I guess I just feel like real music - the shit that means something - is slapped together by hand. There's sweat in there, and drunken tomfoolery, and shocks from a faulty mic, and band drama. And a little tiny space rented dirt cheap so the musicians can still pay bills and raise their families. If I can't hear that in your rock, I've got no use for it.