The Droll Files

10-22-01

The Grotto

For some damn reason we had to play at a place called Joe’s Grotto tonight.  There’s really no excuse for doing a gig like this.  First, the place is tucked into a corner of an L-shaped strip mall in a run down neighborhood in the most redneck quadrant of north Phoenix.  Second, its not even a real gig, its one of those 6 band nights when everyone gets about a half hour, so more time was spent setting up and tearing down than playing. 

I admit that I was in a bad mood tonight.  Doesn’t look like the Overtones are going anywhere and it doesn’t look like NormalEyes is going to even survive.  After packing everything up in 3 vehicles, (the Overtones don’t travel light), and driving from Tempe all the way there, we quickly picked up on the metal vibe of the place.  It always gets your heart pumping a little when you get to a place for the first time and one of the things you notice is a “check colors at the door” sign at the main entrance.

We were fourth up from the point that we arrived.  I didn’t see the first band at all as I was outside eating Subway with the others. As we sat out there we debated three or four times whether we should go through with this.  If not for Kristen’s persistence, she being the one, it turns out, who knew the owner and signed us up, then we easily would have bailed. 

We finally all decided to go ahead since we were here anyway, and do it.  The thing about gigs at bars is that even the worst ones still have beer.  Beer can go a very long way towards making uncomfortable or untenable situations more palatable.  Therefore I ordered several and sat down to listen to the various groups.  Every time I complain about the absurdity of a particular gig D.R., who’s literally (almost) seen it all in a long career of musical peaks and valleys, always reminds me that he’s been to worse, seen worse, or done worse.  Tonight was no exception.  He has the patience of a bird watcher and I think he’s learned to close a door in his mind, a snake with an inner eye lid, to protect himself from the tedium that is part and parcel of every musical event.  He’s learned to use the droll too, to see the underlying brilliant satire that unintentionally beats all around us like rain on a lake.  I think I’m learning some things from him.

The first band to start up after we got situated with our beer was some young guys who were obviously just getting started but who had lots of friends throughout the bar to artificially create the feel of competence and crowd involvement.  Bar owners know it’s not a real crowd but why would they give a shit?  They’re selling booze.  Anyway, they sucked pretty bad and kept announcing that their name was something like Virgin Stool or something, as if anyone who didn’t already know them would give the slightest crap.  They were, however, extremely loud.  For non-musician Guitar Center bands loud is often enough.  But like D.R., I had seen worse.

Next was a band with a name that escapes me.  Let’s call them Ancient Mists for fun.  It would be difficult to imagine a group more different than the first.  Were it not for the fact that they likewise sucked, it would have been a 180 degree swing.  This act consisted of a violin playing female lead singer, a corpulent knuckled and ill-tempo’d Celtic drummer wearing what appeared to be Lederhosen, and a longtime local dijerderooist with sunglasses and a fedora.  As they sat up their gear and began warming up I was overcome with a wave of relief knowing that if the half-wit metal drunks in the audience could tolerate these guys then we would have no problem. However, if they beat or killed them that would be our clue to leave.  

What made the scene even more preposterous was this new band’s boisterous sound man/fool who was so overcome with glee at seeing his guys perform that he simply couldn’t contain himself.  Lots of yeses! And OK, OK, right there’s!  etc.  I simply thought, Jesus.  Well, as you can imagine there is a dynamic limit to the violin, celtic drum, dijeridoo combination in terms of range and style of music.  Lots of droaning and whacking and violin solos.  After about a half hour it became quite difficult to know when one song stopped and another started.  I know that music and the brain-triggers and emotional buttons that define us all are unique and individual and that’s part of what makes life interesting.  But is every sound good just because it’s a sound?  Is “different”, as this band irrefutably is, better just because it’s different or is it different because most people wouldn’t want anything at all to do with it?  Beyond the subjective it seems like there’s got to be some level of discernable difference between quality and garbage.    Or maybe there really isn’t.  I’ll have to ask Droll.

Anyway, the gig went without incident or interest.  An enormous pain in the ass tonight and no money exchanged hands.  I don’t know how much longer I can do this.