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Finally Some Good News
Mar. 16th, 2011 08:30 pm Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since I've updated.
Well, part of it is that I'm on full time at work now so I don't have a whole lot of time online, that and it's finally warmed up enough so that I can spend a good chunk of time on an entry. And I finally have something awesome to share. An actual experience and adventure! Holy shit!
So I'm sure I've mentioned that I've started getting into psychobilly bands fairly heavily, at least as heavily as anyone with as eclectic a music taste as I have. Shortly after starting to become fascinated with the genre, Tom told me I would really get into a band called the Koffin Kats and downloaded one of their albums the next day. I went positively mad for Vic Victor's voice, which is nice and bass-y, a throwback to the male torch singers of the '50s. Elvis brought back to life, tattooed, and pissed off. Like a lot of American psychobilly bands they have a slightly punkier aesthetic.
Anyway, so all this band does is tour and make records (5 of them so far, all of them pretty fucking damned amazing) and they just started hitting clubs Stateside after a leg of touring in Europe. I found this out through Facebook (I liked the band and now get updates...I really need to do that with Nekromantix soon, among others....) and checked out their web site to see tour dates. Lo and behold, they were playing Tampa and I vowed to make it happen, come hell or high water. I scrambled to make sure I could afford two tickets (at $10 a pop for advance, technically $15 after Ticketmaster raped me with their taxes, that was no problem. Ironically I could have saved money and paid the $12 at the door, but I hadn't been aware that the audience would end up being so small. I'd wanted to make absolutely sure I'd be able to get tickets with barely three weeks notice).
So the show was Monday night and it was beyond amazing. It was at the Orpheum, a venue I'd known was small but hadn't been prepared for the fact that it was not much more than a rather large bar with a stage. The bands hung out at the bar and sold their own merch, including the Koffin Kats, which was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. I was a little dumbstruck and deeply moved by the entire thing and consequently unable to do much more than play it cool as I bought a couple shirts and a CD from Vic himself. Sure didn't help that he's quite handsome.
There were three opening acts, mostly punk acts aside from the first band with had elements of psychobilly without an upright bass. Tom and I hit the floor in front of the stage when Koffin Kats took stage and it was incredible. The energy, the freedom, and passion that I felt for the first time in years (with my clothes on) brought back the last missing piece of the puzzle of my once fractured soul. THIS was why I loved music and bands and I'll never forget that fact.
....I also got very, very drunk. At first I was going to just take it slow and drink beer all night. Then I asked the bartender how much a Jack and Coke was (my old preferred poison from back in the day, when I went bar hopping two to three times a week) and was pleased to hear the modest price of $6 grace by ears. All went downhill from there but men, those were some tasty drinks. Nice and strong, just like I used to get them at the Whirling Dervish. I'm telling you, if I lived a little closer to Tampa (or the highway didn't make it such a clusterfuck to get in and out of) I'd be happy to just visit the Orpheum as a nice experience at a real bar. Luckily I planned fr that possibility and had requested the day off yesterday so I could recover. My hangover wasn't wicked, seems the water I'd drunk and the late night visit to Steak and Shake on the way home made curbed it a bit so I just woke up with a slight head ache and a head stuffed with cotton. Easy to cope with but I was in absolutely no shape for work, as I'd imagined.
I have pictures and video if anyone cares, though the audio on the video clips are awful. I was standing right next to the amps, which was great for the show but bad for my camera's internal mike. I have less to show than I'd like. I think the lithium batteries I use for my camera are starting to go bad because they're not holding much of a charge so I had to turn the camera off between shots, which wasn't very helpful when something awesome was happening and I was fumbling with my camera....
Well, part of it is that I'm on full time at work now so I don't have a whole lot of time online, that and it's finally warmed up enough so that I can spend a good chunk of time on an entry. And I finally have something awesome to share. An actual experience and adventure! Holy shit!
So I'm sure I've mentioned that I've started getting into psychobilly bands fairly heavily, at least as heavily as anyone with as eclectic a music taste as I have. Shortly after starting to become fascinated with the genre, Tom told me I would really get into a band called the Koffin Kats and downloaded one of their albums the next day. I went positively mad for Vic Victor's voice, which is nice and bass-y, a throwback to the male torch singers of the '50s. Elvis brought back to life, tattooed, and pissed off. Like a lot of American psychobilly bands they have a slightly punkier aesthetic.
Anyway, so all this band does is tour and make records (5 of them so far, all of them pretty fucking damned amazing) and they just started hitting clubs Stateside after a leg of touring in Europe. I found this out through Facebook (I liked the band and now get updates...I really need to do that with Nekromantix soon, among others....) and checked out their web site to see tour dates. Lo and behold, they were playing Tampa and I vowed to make it happen, come hell or high water. I scrambled to make sure I could afford two tickets (at $10 a pop for advance, technically $15 after Ticketmaster raped me with their taxes, that was no problem. Ironically I could have saved money and paid the $12 at the door, but I hadn't been aware that the audience would end up being so small. I'd wanted to make absolutely sure I'd be able to get tickets with barely three weeks notice).
So the show was Monday night and it was beyond amazing. It was at the Orpheum, a venue I'd known was small but hadn't been prepared for the fact that it was not much more than a rather large bar with a stage. The bands hung out at the bar and sold their own merch, including the Koffin Kats, which was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. I was a little dumbstruck and deeply moved by the entire thing and consequently unable to do much more than play it cool as I bought a couple shirts and a CD from Vic himself. Sure didn't help that he's quite handsome.
There were three opening acts, mostly punk acts aside from the first band with had elements of psychobilly without an upright bass. Tom and I hit the floor in front of the stage when Koffin Kats took stage and it was incredible. The energy, the freedom, and passion that I felt for the first time in years (with my clothes on) brought back the last missing piece of the puzzle of my once fractured soul. THIS was why I loved music and bands and I'll never forget that fact.
....I also got very, very drunk. At first I was going to just take it slow and drink beer all night. Then I asked the bartender how much a Jack and Coke was (my old preferred poison from back in the day, when I went bar hopping two to three times a week) and was pleased to hear the modest price of $6 grace by ears. All went downhill from there but men, those were some tasty drinks. Nice and strong, just like I used to get them at the Whirling Dervish. I'm telling you, if I lived a little closer to Tampa (or the highway didn't make it such a clusterfuck to get in and out of) I'd be happy to just visit the Orpheum as a nice experience at a real bar. Luckily I planned fr that possibility and had requested the day off yesterday so I could recover. My hangover wasn't wicked, seems the water I'd drunk and the late night visit to Steak and Shake on the way home made curbed it a bit so I just woke up with a slight head ache and a head stuffed with cotton. Easy to cope with but I was in absolutely no shape for work, as I'd imagined.
I have pictures and video if anyone cares, though the audio on the video clips are awful. I was standing right next to the amps, which was great for the show but bad for my camera's internal mike. I have less to show than I'd like. I think the lithium batteries I use for my camera are starting to go bad because they're not holding much of a charge so I had to turn the camera off between shots, which wasn't very helpful when something awesome was happening and I was fumbling with my camera....
