One Night at the Joyce

Hi! I'm back from

here

and it was more fun than you can shake a shillelah at. You see, S has been at his self-proclaimed new hangout at this music store by our house this past week or so (he ended up working for them today) and thus has been particularly inspired. Leading, natch, to random guitar riffs suddenly doooo doo dunn dun dunn daaa..wa waaaa waa wah wha wahh!ing out of the office, and scaring the hell out of Fynn. Even though tonight there was a Laker game (more on that some other time) on tonight and usually nothing else, not even excessive eye-blinking or swallowing, must happen on Laker Night. So S's invitation, yeah, verily he asked me out on a date! With drinks! And live music! Five and a half years later! Sexy, no? ACTUALLY....no. Not so much sexy as... hilarious. I rummaged through my sweaters, trying to decide which one I would mind the least if it smelled like old beer in the morning. To clarify: I wasn't referring to S. and his offer as hilarious - it was all the people we saw there.

We filed through the back entrance, like all the cool kids, hoping not to be older than most of the patrons there. Turns out, we needn't have worried about it, since our collective ages would not have stacked up to many of the authentic auld blokes'. Not that I care, because the remainder of the crowd were either Chipsters, definitely present at Woodstock, happy attendees of Lillith Fair, or aging hipsters in backwards newsboy caps that they've had since aeons before Ashton "Look At My Cootch/Kutch/er!" (again, a story for Another Time) resurected them. There was also a strong presence of gals in sweaters and jackets that ranged from cute and paired with jeans and heeled boots to Christmas-y (paired with braids a la Pippi Longstocking) to puffy/quilted to I Just sewed this Roadkill onto my Collar and Cuffs. Unfortunately I also noticed a frightening resurgence of (original) leather Members Only jackets, tapered jeans or green khakis paired with athletic shoes and Cosby sweaters (dude..this is Not Tech Support, its downtown!) and other Fugly things that guys who don't have a wife/girlfriend/functioning retinas or mirrors tend to wear at a Certain Age.

The Attraction d'jour was the Laura Schlieske Band, and amongst the band members were a guy who looked faintly like the aging David Bowie (bass), the drummer (your typical young drummer with black knitted skullcap and jeans) the adorable guitar player, who was standing in with his mad skills!, and Laura, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Chloe on 24 (errmmm, I mean

Mary Lynn Rahsjkub

) Guinness in hand, I busied myself with listening to Laura and watching the crowd - I do this a lot, in fact I never used to leave the house without a sketchbook and a pencil, so its more habit than "randomly staring at people while shelling peanuts and swilling beer."

Musically, this was not really Our Thing, but we hung out for the first set, which included jazzy/bluesy covers of Billie Holiday's What a Little Moonlight Can Do, Astrud Gilberto's Samba Pa Ti/cut with the Girl From Ipanema, and a few others. Most of the band was formerly from Minnesota, which led to a lot of Fargo-ese ("Dontcha know?", "You betcha", "Ya", etc) and vigorous cheering for their football team (The Timberwolves? The Vikings? The...Snowmen?) who apparently, were winning. Clad in a fetching plaid lumberjack-y type shirt, chunky boots and jeans and tossing back manly shots of (tequila? vodka? gin?) some clear drink, Chloe/Laura's brassy voice filled most of the bar and invited outsiders in, as comfortable and friendly as an old wool sweater. The remaining members of the band were pretty much content to stay low profile, except for the guitarist - a fetching young chappie in ripped jeans, a grown-out buzz and Converse. Homie was technically very proficient, laying down licks, solos and lightning-quick little guitar riffs - but have you ever seen a pidgeon walk? Thier little heads go in-out, in-out, in-out, right? Ok, now imagine a guy holding his guitar about 6 inches below his collarbone, making funny little monkey/serious jazz musician faces and doing the pidgeon neck. Wah-wahhh-wa-waaaahhhahh.

See why we didn't stay for the second set? We were laughing to hard and sitting to close.

Yes, I am a Secret Mean Girl. But so is S.