Jan. 25th, 2009 - Herman's, Gothic, Ransom

Written by Kurt F. Stone Friday, 06 February 2009 22:09

Composed 1/24/2009 – 3:15 am

I’m catching my breath after a quick stint with Miss Friday Night (who raised her rates again, the economy is killing everyone) and I get a phone call from Kay who wonders, without any prelude or notion of being polite, where the hell I am. 

“Doors were at 7:30, and. . . it’s almost 8:30,” she berates me.  I start putting on my pants while holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder.

“Sorry, got held up at the office,” I tell her as I add another 20 to the stack.  This night just got a hell of a lot longer. I crack open a beer from Friday’s fridge and cool myself with it.

“When do I get to go on one of these adventures with you?” Friday asks.

“When you start kissing on the mouth,” I crush the can and toss it in the garbage, leave.

I picked up Kay from her apartment and drove south on Broadway, towards Herman’s Hideaway, to the first show on our hastily composed itinerary.

“You reek of sex,” says Kay. “Did you at least get her real name this time?” her tone wavers somewhere between jealousy and disgust.

“Why would I ruin a good thing by going about and doing something like that?” 

Tonight at Herman’s was Alice 105.9’s Almost Famous battle of the bands.  We get in with the cheaply made discounted tickets that look just like tickets for every other show. We arrive in the middle of fire-headed Jessica Sonner is on stage with her band. She sings sweetly, the crowd that has gathered tonight keeps the floor in front of the stage empty and they crowd around bar tables and stools.  Typical of the middle aged crowd that insists on towing children to their event.  It’s a good thing I am in a bar; in order for me to deal with kids I usually require a near lethal amount of vodka.

Jessica Sonner wraps up her set with the eponymous single off of her latest album “All We Need.” The overly-flamboyant radio host from Alice takes the stage between bands and provided a little soft-hearted humor for the delicate, middle aged crowd.  From behind me, someone tugs my sleeve.

“Excuse me, mister,” a short-statured lady of maybe 25 in an over sized down jacket says to me, “can you move?  I can’t see.  Thanks.”  She retreats to her seat at the bar before I can even reply.  She turns on the stool towards the stage and drinks her Pepsi with a straw.

 Herman’s Hideaway, mind you, is a bar.  Not a theater.  I order up three shots of vodka.

Melissa Ivey and her band takes the stage next.  When I first heard of Ivey, her voluptuous self was gracing the cover of the Colorado Music Buzz.  Back then, they were known as Melissa Ivey and the Gentlemen.  Since then, they have changed their name several times over and are probably calling themselves “Melissa Ivey and No Band Really Needs a Flute.”  Or maybe it was “Not even Melissa Ivey needs three guitars in her band.”

In short, Ivey is just another chick rock band.  Proving to not quite be "my thing," I drag Kay off to the Gothic where some form of heavy-metal birthday bash was happening.

We arrive between sets at the Gothic and I immediately start identifying various professionals and vagrants that I tie myself to in this sordid world of concert halls flooded with spilled beer.  I find Allen, he’s not hard to spot due to the fourteen pound camera that hangs from his neck.  He takes a moment to scroll through some shots he had grabbed from the last band. 

“Marc’s band is up next, we got some pictures of the downstairs action,” he tells me.  These pictures show the band lighting up various narcotics with women who were wearing next to nothing – enough to give anyone in the Herman’s crowd that night a heart attack.   Allen bounded up the stairs to the balcony to grab a decent spot to shoot from while half the audience went outside for a smoke. 

My other contact for the evening is Rockin Ricky, who is also not hard to find even though he barely stands five and a half feet tall.  If you ever meet him, you’ll be quick to notice his glass eye.  Ricky almost instantly takes notice of Kay, who happened to be standing in his only line of sight. 

Dressed modestly in a green cardigan and blue jeans, Kay definitely stood out among the heavy metal crowd that evening.  Most of the girl there were 1) under the age of 18 and/or 2) wearing something that only went thigh-hi or mid-drift.  And black, they were all obsessively black.  Except, of course, Kay.

“Look at that girl next to the stage,” Ricky says and points with a very minimal amount of discretion.  The girl in question is kind of dumpy with bright pink hi-lights in her otherwise dark brown hair.  “That girl is made of herpes and cocaine,” he says. 

After taking her in for a moment, I analyze further, “Yes, and held together with at least a gallon of spit and cum.  Just like half the girls in this place.”

Kay nails my shin with her foot, “Tact, Kurt, tact.”

“It’s true!” I counter.

“So they should be right up your alley. After all, I’m sure one of them will gladly accept your donations in exchange for sex.”    Touché

Before Marc’s band, Ransom, performs some of  the evening’s promotional guys take the stage.  This evening they are enticing everyone to stick around for the not-quite-shitty bands by raffling off a cheap guitar fashioned after a classic Flying-V something-or-other.  It is presented on stage by someone who has almost no microphone comprehension and a girl in a very tight tank top. 

Ransom is a progressive rap/rock group based out of Aurora.  Two guitars, bass, drum and two vocalists – one who sings, one who raps.  I first met Marc Perez, bassist, at an event hosted by the Colorado area Suicide Girls at Bender’s Tavern.  It was a suitable meeting – loud, drunk and tons of women who were underdressed for the weather (a freak snowstorm in October.  In Colorado no less!)  Marc passé off his band’s EP to me, I ripped it, and every now and again it shows up on my shuffle. 

Being a primary metal group, Ransom isn’t for everyone.  They’re loud, but they’re allowed to be, because they also have it together.  There is rhythm, guitar solos, freestyle and so much more which is packed into their performances. 

“I like the rapper, he’s pretty good,” Kay, a pronounced fan of Jessica Sonner, tells me.  I’m not much for rap, but the lyricist on stage seems to hold his own in his mandatory football jersey and sideways cap. 

“You only like him because he’s black,” I counter.  This is rewarded with another kick to the shin. 

To my right is another casualty of a 16+ show – private drama in a public place.  A girl with drawn-on eyebrows and a pierced lip sits, frumpy, in a chair while her alleged boyfriend tries to talk sense into her.  Around the duo is a posse off post-acne/ pre-facial hair teens with slicked back hair and baggy jeans (the kind that were sort of fashionable in the late 90’s).  I observe the situation for a bit before one of the young men gives me a “you wanna fuck with me?” Look. 

I look right back at him and take a long, delicious sip of my beer.  “One day,” I mouth to him over the band, “one day.”