6/18/05
That being said, I was totally fired up for this show. How could I not be? We were playing with our buds in Go Like Hell, and opening for one of my favorite 80s metal bands. Back in the day I was in bands that covered Faster Pussycat. The fact that we were playing the Fenix didn't hurt my spirits either, as the place routinely packs on a Saturday night. Even as I wheezed from a combination of the crud I'd been fighting and the pound of dirt I must have ingested from my four softball games earlier that day, I couldn't wait to get at it.
Midnight Idols got things underway with a sound suspiciously influenced by the early 80's New Wave of British Heavy Metal, or the NWOBHM to all you really old schoolers. I didn't know anyone did that kind of stuff in weepy old Seattle. All in all, a pleasant surprise.
We blazed through a short set in which I sounded more like Harvey Fierstein than Joey Ramone. "I just wanna be sedated. Is that so wrong?" My voice just didn't want to play nice. I was on key for the most part - just really raw. The dancing crowd didn't seem to mind. I saw a lot of friendly faces out there, many whom I never expected to see at one of our shows.
Go Like Hell was next. They're not so much a band as they are an insistent blast of perverted energy. Think Plasmatics with a way hotter singer and you're close. They're easily the most visually striking band in town. All the guys in the crowd (and a few of the gals) stood agape at the sight of their scantily clad singer, Alexi, bouncing about screaming "LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME!!!!!"
And then there was Faster Pussycat. Though only Taime Downe remained from the first album, they still sounded as I remember them on record - loud, brash, and sleazy. By now I was getting pretty pickled, as a bunch of people from my day job and I were powering down shots of whatever was put in front of us. As their set progressed, I was randomly groped, fondled, and even jumped on by various women - some of whom I even knew.
This apparently wasn't an isolated phenomenon, as others there reported similar occurences. One gal actually leapt onto me scissor style - with eyes closed, legs around my waist, lips parted, and tongue about to dart out. Sorry to disappoint anyone expecting something to follow ala Penthouse Forum, but I had to quickly blurt out that I had a girlfriend that probably wouldn't be very pleased to find a strange tongue in my mouth. All I could think was "Where was this chick when I was 16?"
Increasing the weirdness factor were the radically different worlds I walk through colliding throughout the night. At one point the senior manager at my day job was standing next to some folks whom I've had exploits with that I can't even discuss here for a host of reasons. Some of my more buttoned - down cohorts were outright shocked at what to me is just another night out in Seattle. Seeing the looks on some of their faces at different points in the evening was absolutely priceless.
What could the next day's events possibly contain to top all of this?