Last night was more insanity than is generally allowed. And for good reason – as I sit here with a bowl of frosted mini-wheats and apples and try to piece it all together – it’s still hard to believe that it all seemed like a good idea at the time. It involved the lottery, flyers, tequila, an MC battle, floodlights, $800 and a kitten.
Well – unfortunately, actually there was no kitten – but to make any story a really big deal, you really should try to include an animal of some sort. So I guess this story isn’t really THAT big a deal – and I should stop intro-ing it and just let you in on events, because at this point I’m simply building it up and you’re going to expect far more than you ought.
Though the audience went back quite a ways, our front row (normally where the mosh pit goes, you know?) consisted of tiny children. I didn’t map out the beats per minute, but past a certain tempo, they all ran in counter-clockwise circles. It was very odd.
First off – I hate to be late. Beyond that, I like to be early. Couple that with a hatred for traffic and I’d created a route by which we covered many miles of travel while avoiding every city’s individual rush hour on the way down to Chapel Hill, NC. You can pass through quite a bit – and on top of everything I was aiming to avoid Chapel Hill’s rush hour as well and so we arrived neatly in town at about 4.30pm for a gig that started at 10.
No problem – when it comes to killing time, Heather and I are mass murderers to the point of genocidal insanity – and so we pull into a perfect parking space and only have to pay for an hour before the meters shut down.
No sooner are we out of the car then we get handed a flyer. This flyer advertises a MIC BATTLE! Open call for all rappers, MCs, vocalists and comedians! Probably not our scene, plus it’s happening tonight and we don’t really have the time AND there’s a $5 cover… BUT there’s an $800 prize. Heather can rap. Heather plays djembe and raps. We figure we’ll look into the details and see if it’s worth our time.
I give the place a call: sign up’s from 7-9pm, the contest goes from 9-midnight, instruments are allowed. At this point we’re sitting eating burritos and Qdoba watching poorly typed closed-captioning on CNN and rain has begun to come down. We’re really waffling as to whether it’s a bad idea or not, but we walk over to the Boogalou Green Ultra Lounge and wait in line, read the rules sheet and decide… eh… what the Hell. No material copyrighted by other artists (all original, cool), 2 minute time limit (holy shit!), no Timberland boots (alright). We give them ten bucks, get wrist bands and then go and grab bubble tea. No-one seems to know how the order of performers works or anything and our gig at Jack Sprats is an open mic feature so THAT can happen anywhere between 10pm and 1am… we’re going to have to stake out both locations and keep track and hope.
ilyAIMY performing at the New Deal Cafe in Greenbelt, MD. Though the memories are mostly pleasant now, I did NOT have a good time at the New Deal Cafe this past Saturday. The place has been having contractual issues that, though theoretically settled by now, resulted in there being solely chili and cheesecake available for dinner. Though we’d gotten there at 5pm for our 8pm gig, sussed all sound issues and replaced any bad cables, suddenly we were in a last-minute tizzy of trying to find out what’s wrong because someone in the first band had managed to disconnect several cables through the clumsy placement of a heavy bag of gear. Fortunately, the Able Birds are always exquisite. I was glad Kristen has finally gotten to see them. Andre Cutair’s voice just gets sweeter and sweeter, and I think this band is his perfect vehicle.
And so I buy bubble tea and realize that I haven’t bought more electrical tape. I’d attempted and been thwarted Saturday night, forgot about it Sunday night. Monday night… well… I had enough for another show… I’ll get some tomorrow… aaand so I ask Bubble Tea Girl if there’s a convenience store around, she gives me directions and I speed-walk down Franklin in search for this nameless purveyor of miscellaneous, hoping that it’s miscellaneous enough.
I finally track the place down, but it’s pretty much a liquor store and my hopes are not high. I’ve called a couple of friends who’re coming to the gig and they all report that they HAVE electrical tape… at home… and they’ve already left. OK liquor store, you’re my only hope! SCORE! Right on the wall! However, the guy behind the counter has NO idea what I’m talking about and finally, in exasperation, tells me to just come behind the bulletproof glass and get it myself!
I step back out and give him two bucks for the tape – one of which has the numbers 189 scrawled on it. Another guy spends some time staring at those numbers and says in a thick Indian accent “these are very good numbers”. Unsure what the Hell he was talking about I made to leave but he stops me and says “no, these are lucky numbers! I play them!” He then proceeds to spend a dollar on a lottery ticket, plays the numbers written on my dollar bill and wins ten dollars. He thanks me, gives me a dollar out of HIS winnings… and I go sprinting back down to the bubble tea place. I tip that back to Bubble Tea Girl and tell her my story. She seems annoyed that I’ve interrupted the flow of tapioca but smiles when I put a tip in her jar. She also expresses relief that I HAD made it back because what she’s neglected to tell me was that though she didn’t know the ACTUAL name of the convenience store, she knows that everyone just calls it “the Murder House” because of the frequency of muggings.
ROIGHT!
So – I collect my Heather and it’s off to the Boogalou Green Ultra Lounge, or whatever it’s called. We’ve already paid so we flash our wrist bands and strut in like VIPs, get searched like VIPs and go on in to my first bass-thumping hip hop club. It’s what I was expecting. Large video screen, lots of mirrors and girls dancing in tiny shorts on small risers. Tipping was ACTUALLY perpetrated by throwing singles at the girls, leaving them scattered all around the floor and needless to say, I was very aware of being in the minority – to an extent I haven’t been since high school in PG County.
We’re getting text messages from friends at Jack Sprats and I explain as best I can what we’re up to, and ask them to explain to the host and that I’ll be over as soon as I can. I plan to pop by at 9.15 – but they start late – and I plan to be there at 9.30pm but that’s right when they start and Heather’s technically first on the list… but then they randomize the contestants (which was a really good thing) and we don’t figure out how it’s running till closer to 9.45pm. At around 10pm the hosts on the stage are complaining about the floodlights being on – a manager comes back to where I’m leaning against the wall, expresses that I shouldn’t lean on the light switches for the floodlights aaand I decide that it’s time to head back to Jack Sprat, grab our guitars and make sure everything’s cool with the host. I say hi to Jamie and Charlie and our other friends who are sort of laughing at us… I explain where Heather is to the inquisitive bartender, who almost chokes on his drink when I mention the name of the bar. I realize there’s a broken string on my guitar, and quickly restring… meep!
Anywho – we’ve got 10 minutes before we’re supposed to play at Jack Sprat at which point I go back to grab Heather – and just as I’m crossing the street, I hear her being called to the stage. I rush into the club to watch, only to get dragged back by the gigantic door guy. Quick explanation – “I’m not trying to get past you, I’ve got a wrist band and look, I’ve come back here to BE with you – that’s my partner on the stage – you should watch”. The moment she sets up a chair (she whispers to a girl: “can I borrow this for about 2 minutes and 30 seconds?”) the muttering starts “What’s she sittin’ down for!” – and then she whips out the djembe. We actually here a judge say “what the fuck?” and then Heather RIPS through a two-minute version of “Can You Love a Girl Gone So Long”. It was fucking BAD ASS. Halfway through the audience realizes what’s happening and goes crazy.
Heather gets off the stage – we hand out about a billion postcards – I grab her backpack and it’s off to the other club. We’ve got 20 mic-battlers left before they announce the winners… and if you’re not there when you’re name is called, the $800 goes to someone else.
So – we run back to Jack Sprats estimating we have at LEAST about 40 minutes. There are a couple of performers between us and our slot and we end up taking an abbreviated featured slot (during which A – the soundguy accidentally routes phantom power to my guitar rather than Heather’s drum causing massive feedback B – my newly restrung guitar rebels against being in tune and C- I develop a well-hidden nosebleed during the last song), planning to come back and close out the night as well – and Heather runs back to the club with the “I’ll text you when it’s time for us to play” “I’ll text YOU when I know more” plan in place. She promptly forgets her cellphone.
And SO I run that back to the other club, have trouble finding her – she’s at the centre of a group of guys – I hand her the phone, somewhere along the line the back’s come off (stolen by a kitten, perhaps?) – I make it back to Jack Sprat and update the whole bar that now, yes, Heather HAS her cellphone! It was sort of like old time radio. In-between every song the host would jump on the stage and yell “what’s the news from Heather!” and I’d report what I knew.
When I finally said “They’re apparently NOT announcing the winners! They’re going to have a SECOND ROUND!!!!” the audience actually GASPED. “And she needs her guitar!” People help me round up her parts (“where’s her guitar? Anyone see her guitar?” – on stage, sorry, pardon me – just keep playing “where’s her case? Has anyone seen her case?” – on stage… oh there’s her cables… really sorry…) and I run the guitar to her. She has to perform something else, just 2 minutes long…
And we wait tensely in the bar as performers get up and get down, waiting for updates. She mentions she’s in the final four but the other guys are really good… and then the host asks me what’s going on and I have to report that her most recent text message reads…
“YAX”
There are various hypotheses. Some involve crunk juice. Finally, just as I’m about to close out the night as a solo act, Heather comes back in and reports that yes, she’d made it to the final four, but was ultimately eliminated. I personally think she’d have won it if it wasn’t for the surprise of having to come up with a second 2 minute piece.
We play our set, meet some amazing performers. In general I’m pretty in awe of the people around me, including Heather – and though the $800 would’ve been nice – it made for a good story and next time we’ll be better prepared.
The night ended with a version of Desperado sung from behind a piano, being sung enthusiastically and passionately by the host and a guy with cerebral palsy who had the most magnificent voice of anyone I’ve met recently. Thrown to us with tendons taut – we close the bar down at 2am together and head home with an exhausted Jamie in tow.
Grateful for bed, climate-controlled or not. I sneeze and fall asleep, dreaming weird dreams of killing friends and acquaintances with a knife.
The trucks on I-85 are far too enthusiastic about being on top of one another. They merge and coagulate the highway, squeezing cars out of the way and pushing us to the side. They block the view and block the way and generally make me afraid for my Life with their mass. As we all accelerate into Charlotte, trying to beat rush hour to the city, tempers get tenser, linear speed decreases and lateral speed increases. All that is to say that there’s some weaving and dodging going on.
The sky’s been mostly holding itself in a pattern of slate-grey broken only by occasional momentary grins of sunshine – the last one was almost too picturesquely shining through to highlight a patch of black-eyed susans that had taken over one shoulder of the road. For thirty seconds the west side of the highway had glowed golden like sunset.
Ben just called. He said the magic word “fish tacos” and now we’re racing forward to make it to Pablo’s Tacos so that we can have enough time to eat dinner before load-in. We need fish tacos. We NEED fish tacos.
