Last Night
Last Night
Last night, I played a rock show for a bunch of teenagers at a fringe art gallery in downtown Bellingham.
I ran out of the PubliCola office yesterday after work, jumped in the car, and we drove the beat-up Mercedes north on I-5, the neon casino signs flashing and the roadside scattered with proclamations of Clint Didier's "game plan for Washington," 86 melancholy miles to the City of Subdued Excitement.
The Meat Market was on the corner of a subdued downtown block. Last night, it was a gallery of teenage art complete with vintage recliners and vegan food (Camden tells me he's been there), and sits next to a wine bar, across the street from Chuck's Midtown Automotive.
Inside, teenagers in hip costumes congregated around a video projector in the corner. Guys with thick glasses and scarves, cigarette boxes hanging out of their back pockets, looked around coolly. A pow wow of kids sat in a far corner painting each other's faces.
The gig was part of Ladyfest, a four-day DIY music gathering put together in part by a recent Western Washington grad named Cora, who presented us with our contract when we walked in the door. Jaen Black was in the corner strumming her guitar and cutting through the silence with that gorgeous tone that all the kids are copping from Regina Spektor . Black was one of the great collective of scruffy geniuses on hand.
Later when I was helping myself to some of the vegan food, there was a racket on the stage, and when I walked over to see what it was, a girl with a painted face was howling into the microphone and beating on a Sears Silvertone with a deep metallic surf echo.
A couple of college guys with slack faces wearing Christmas sweaters served as her rumbling rhythm section. They were called Mega Bog, and they sounded a bit like the Moldy Peaches with x-ray spectacles. I think at one point the girl singer lamented that she couldn't seduce the audience because they were underage. She also had a lyric about boogers.
When we went on, we were a little rough around the edges, but no one cared. The friendly, happy-kid crowd liked our soul-pop sound (it was just me and Seattle's Cristina Orbe up there on stage), and they also liked our bubble machine. The thirty-minute set was a fitting end to our schoolnight jaunt to Bellingham. We packed up the Mercedes and drove home.
I ran out of the PubliCola office yesterday after work, jumped in the car, and we drove the beat-up Mercedes north on I-5, the neon casino signs flashing and the roadside scattered with proclamations of Clint Didier's "game plan for Washington," 86 melancholy miles to the City of Subdued Excitement.
The Meat Market was on the corner of a subdued downtown block. Last night, it was a gallery of teenage art complete with vintage recliners and vegan food (Camden tells me he's been there), and sits next to a wine bar, across the street from Chuck's Midtown Automotive.
Inside, teenagers in hip costumes congregated around a video projector in the corner. Guys with thick glasses and scarves, cigarette boxes hanging out of their back pockets, looked around coolly. A pow wow of kids sat in a far corner painting each other's faces.
The gig was part of Ladyfest, a four-day DIY music gathering put together in part by a recent Western Washington grad named Cora, who presented us with our contract when we walked in the door. Jaen Black was in the corner strumming her guitar and cutting through the silence with that gorgeous tone that all the kids are copping from Regina Spektor . Black was one of the great collective of scruffy geniuses on hand.
Later when I was helping myself to some of the vegan food, there was a racket on the stage, and when I walked over to see what it was, a girl with a painted face was howling into the microphone and beating on a Sears Silvertone with a deep metallic surf echo.
A couple of college guys with slack faces wearing Christmas sweaters served as her rumbling rhythm section. They were called Mega Bog, and they sounded a bit like the Moldy Peaches with x-ray spectacles. I think at one point the girl singer lamented that she couldn't seduce the audience because they were underage. She also had a lyric about boogers.
When we went on, we were a little rough around the edges, but no one cared. The friendly, happy-kid crowd liked our soul-pop sound (it was just me and Seattle's Cristina Orbe up there on stage), and they also liked our bubble machine. The thirty-minute set was a fitting end to our schoolnight jaunt to Bellingham. We packed up the Mercedes and drove home.
