Statesman > XL Blogs > Archives > 2005 > January > 04 > Entry
A Hard New Years Day’s Night
I’m not a bad sport. Really I’m not.
It’s not that I mind celebrating the New Year by being set on fire, thanks to a smoker at Beerland and his amazing flying matches. It’s just that I was wearing my favorite extra-fluffy black cardigan, a gem lovingly unearthed from the overstuffed racks of New Bohemia only days before, and now it’s ruined. Sure, my flesh will regenerate itself, and if it doesn’t, hey, scars are cool. Still, believe me when I say, try as you might, there is just no saving vintage angora.
Aside from some minor burns and smelling like Ed Wood’s ashtray for a good portion of the evening the first full night of 2005 was a success. A friend and I started at Headhunters, a small club on Red River Street, decorated like Elvis would have decorated a tiki lounge if he had been a cannibal and there was no available yellow Naugahyde. We were there to hear Chadd Thomas & the Crazy Kings. Playing million dollar rockabilly in $12 suits, the quartet tore up the postage-stamp stage, with the added bonus of performing the finest rendition of “Folsom Prison Blues” heard on Red River since Johnny Cash played Emo’s in 1994.
Of course, there was dancing too. Gorgeous pinup girls with red lips and blue tattoos were deftly thrown around the tiny dance floor by equally handsome men who would sell their souls for a jet black Cadillac, if only someone would make them the offer. Eventually one of the men evidently tired of dancing with people who actually had senses of rhythm, took a break, and swiping at his deflated pompadour, asked me to dance. I graciously declined, citing inappropriate footwear, and made my exit.
It was partially true. The kneehigh platform go-go boots I had bought months earlier at The Bazaar on East Riverside Drive were not made for dancing, walking or any sort of ambulatory activity other than, say, leaning up against a wall while looking alluring and trying not to fall down. In truth, I had to leave Headhunters anyway because for really big game, I had to go to Beerland.
If Chadd Thomas & The Crazy Kings rocked the blazes out Red River, and they did, The Flametrick Subs and The Satan’s Cheerleaders rocked it right back in, and then some. The Flametrick Subs know how to put on a show. They know to impress in the Music City you can’t just have a stand-up drummer, a rock ‘n’ roll Viking all the way from Norway and a lead singer that makes Gene Vincent sound like Brenda Lee. They know you also need a one handed upright bass player named Lefty and half dozen vinyl-clad cheerleaders who could kick you in the teeth, individually or as a group, without dropping a pom. What you need most, however, is an audience, and a good one at that; an audience who “gets it.” People who want to be there and aren’t afraid of a little audience participation, whether it’s shouting “Beer Run!” at opportune times, or singing along in garbled Norwegian to a song called “Drinking with Dad.”
The First Saturday gang is always a good audience, they always get it; but New Year’s Day brought out an even larger crowd, many new not only to Beerland but to Texas. Take for example the photographer from Seattle, who is traveling across the country with a 4-foot-long stuffed rainbow trout. Now a grown man traveling cross country with a giant stuffed fish probably doesn’t get much (other than strange looks), but even he got it.
The Flametrick Subs put on a two-hour set, but to their credit the crowd had thinned out only a little by last call. Eventually the lights came on and the bleary-eyed revelers scattered, leaving alone or in pairs in search of food and sleep. A few stragglers remained to pose with the stuffed trout and smoke the night’s last, or maybe the morning’s first cigarette. It was Jan. 2, New Year’s celebration was over and it was time to go home. I surveyed the damage on my sweater (bad), and on myself (not so bad) and stepped outside into the gently falling rain; tired, smelly and ready to start my new year.
Permalink | | Categories: By Rhiannon Gammill
