The C-word
Walking to the Casbah the other night we passed outside The Pogues in concert.
“Do you want tickets?” asked a tout with eyes so far apart he resembled a Hammerhead Shark.
“Is Shane MacGowan with them?” I asked, faking interest. Anyone who knows music knows that The Pogues are nothing without their troubled front man.
“Yes,” said the tout excitedly, “And he’s sober!”
“Forget it then,” I said.
I wasn’t going to pay fifty bucks for a wake without booze.
We walked up through Little Italy to the club.
“Did you see the guys eyes?”
“Yeah, it was almost like he was the perfectly evolved tout, 360 degree vision so he can spot approaching cops.”
It was punk night at the Casbah, for five bucks we were being treated to five punk/metal bands from LA. Saber Tooth Tiger, Model/Actress, The Long and Short of it, Earthless and Qui.
We knew nothing about them really. Andro had come down from the Bay Area for a conference. We were drawn to the Casbah for the variety on offer and the option of escaping to the back room for beer and pool if we just wanted to hang out and talk.
Once in the club I read a flyer which described the night as ‘Christian Punk’.
‘Oh dear,’ I thought.
The first band on didn’t seem remotely Christian. But then again, it was so loud we couldn’t exactly make out the angry lyrics.
“They probably just put the ‘Christian’ tagline on to help a few kids escape from their crazy religious parents.”
The next band came on. They seemed even less ‘Christian’ than the last. Great drummer. Ear splitting guitar. Vocals screamed like a demon rather than an angel.
But the fact that the c-word had been used to frame the performance twisted up my mind.
I began to hear a repeated lyric, over and over in this one song as ‘You’ve got to bend the neck of the giraffe to fit it into the ark…’
“YOU’VE GOT TO BEND THE NECK OF THE GIRAFFE INTO THE ARK.”
I screamed the words at my friend. He considered it for a moment and then nodded his head.
Yeah, it could be.
I pictured a really pissed off Noah. The rain was falling. He was on deck shouting down at his feckless family, struggling to get the animals through a door designed more for elephants and rhinos…
“YOU’VE GOT TO BEND THE NECK OF THE GIRAFFE INTO THE ARK.”
All the bands had great drummers. And even though they didn’t seem remotely religious I painted bizarre biblical meaning onto every half heard word.
The last band on was called Qui. They started out by playing a cover version of Pink Floyd’s Echoes.
After all the noise, all the wild and brilliant drumming. It was a very pleasing interlude.
