Thursday, July 26, 2007

Wednesday Recap: Firethorn, Sickstring Outlaws @ O'Connell's, Morena Club

So I let all you scenesters not be bothered with me hogging the dancefloor while standing still at the Beauty Bar for Chromeo and Flosstradamus. Instead, I opted for a show at O'Connell's. It actually worked out perfect. I got a long nap (despite the ex-boyfriend dream), cleaned my house, and dallied around since Sean text messaged me that they wouldn't be on until 12.

I had only been to O'Connell's once before and I heard it expanded but unfortch, the "expansion" is really a remodel, which means that this is the bathroom situation:

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So if you have to go, you have to use these:

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Plainly, that sucks. First, the early drinkers aren't gonna stick around for all the bands, and second because those of us late drinkers there had to carefully weigh our consumption versus cleanliness factor.

I missed the first band entirely and didn't really hear any of the second band, mostly because Fran (Chris' girlfriend) and I were kicking Sean and Chris' asses in foosball. A clean sweep. Helps that I had a foosball table at my first "real" job and Fran just kicks ass on offense.

Anyway, Sicksting Outlaws were pretty much what the name describes...outlaw country, a little twangy, a little country-billy, but good. And the earlier bands and friends stuck around to watch them. Lynn gave Sean a quick lesson in swing and within a couple minutes, he was all over it.

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And here's a smeared pic of the band. I'm a sucker for standup bass.

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They're playing again this Saturday night at the Tiki House on Garnet. After the set I asked the singer who they are playing with and he said "Barefoot Roller Hockey" but I wondered if he meant "Barefoot Hockey Goalie", a band I knew very indirectly back in the day. Whatever.

Anyway, Firethorn played and as I said, they started at about 12:15 so it was more like band practice for them because everyone pretty much cleared outta the bar. I mean, it was a Wednesday, after all. Still , they sounded good and Sean's bass sounds so cool. They kinda remind me of Lies Lies Lies era GnR musically, and vocally like The Buck Pets, a band I loved back in the day.

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While they played, I got a text message from a very old friend. He found me after seeing me in the Reader and we've been slightly in touch, but it just so happened that he was across the street at the Morena Club. When Firethorn finished, I made my way across the street into a full on Reggae dance party.

In the past, I've mentioned that I'm not a big fan of Reggae. I guess part of that is that I'm not a part of the culture associated with such music, i.e. I don't smoke pot, and I'm also not big on dancing in general, but seriously, there was no way to walk into Morena Club and not get caught up in the general good vibe of a full crowd of people dancing away. It was $2 Red Stripe night and I couldn't help but get nostalgic for some random bar I found myself in when I visited New York in 2000. My best friend Alex and I ended up in this basement bar that was playing reggae and dancehall and everyone in the bar was speaking Spanish because they were all mostly Puertoriquenos or Dominicanos. Seriously, people at the Morena Club were getting down and I might actually find myself going back on a wild hair.

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Xavie and I caught up a bit and then the dreaded 2 o'clock hour came upon us and it was time to call it a night. While I'm sure everyone at Chromeo and Flosstradamus had a great time, I cannot for one second say that I didn't have a great time on my own exploring other pieces of San Diego's underground.

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