Odious behavior at the Odeon Bar

Last night could have been one of the best experiences of my show-going life. The line-up of bands was perfect to feed into each other. The small venue with big tv screens showing the band to those seated away from the small stages was good for these acts, which I guess you could file collectively under “Odd Americana”. The bartender was competent and pleasant.

Papa Joe* came on when I arrived. They were great and the crowd was really getting into them. It was a pretty full crowd, about two-thirds women. The launched into a long piece that began to build a great mood. I was thinking “These guys are good. I wonder if they have a CD…” when, apparently, the guy running the video feed to the TVs got bored and decided to switch it to porn for a moment. Woman giving blow job appears on monitor with phone sex numbers all around. Crowd stares at screen in surprise and mystification. Mood created by band pops like a balloon. Crowd & band tried to get mood back. Continue to groove. Start to succeed. Monitor switches to an almost medically lit shot of anal sex. Pop.

Now, unlike a lot of women, I like porn. Not all porn, of course, much of it is crap, but I am not offended by the concept. Given that there wasn’t a mass exodus after the first couple times the video switched, I’d guess that most of the people in the room weren’t deeply offended. But it didn’t matter. He could have been switching to the surgery channel or news headlines and been just about as disruptive (and disrespectful to the musicians).

The next act was Baby Gramps, who was just amazing. Steel guitars, beautiful steel guitars which my friend Jun would have loved, and oddly syncopated singing and movements. Like a windup toy gone on the fritz. Very enjoyable. Fortunately, the adolescent idiot controlling sound & lights didn’t feel the need to break up the show with extended chunks of porn. I think it was his favorite act of the evening because Baby Gramps did multiple encores (one too many, I’d say, though he was very good) and so I guess A/V Boy wasn’t bored.

Once Baby Gramps went offstage, though, the video switched from being band interspersed with a few seconds of hardcore porn, to showing long stretches of the stuff. And the crowd began to thin more rapidly. Now note, the headliner has not yet come on and people are leaving. By the time Rube Waddell took the stage, the place had thinned out by well over half and the remaining crowd is only about one quarter women. I noticed the two bartenders standing idle several times and that ain’t so good on a Friday night between 11pm and 1am.

The Rubes start and the dork blows their focus in the first song by switching the video again. I decide to try to find somewhere in the club where I can see the band and not the monitors. (If I want to watch porn, I’ll do it at home and only with very carefully selected company). It turns out there’s no such location in the bar. I decide to visit the bathroom and do so extremely carefully, fearing A/V Boy might have set up hidden cameras in there; fortunately I was wearing a fairly long skirt which is the best trick in the girl’s book for preserving modesty. As I’m washing my hands and face and trying to regain the musical mood, I miss one of my favorite songs, “Tamale Lady”. I did hear them do it three times on Fat Tuesday at Ti Couz though, so no horrible loss.

Well, the remainder of their unfortunately too short set went about like the rest of the evening. Mood barely gets the chance to build before the porno king is doing his “Don’t pay attention to the band, look at the naughty thing I’m making happen, pay attention to me!!!” schtick. Tedious. On the bright side, I sat up front and got to watch the Reverend’s percussive skills and marvel at Max A. Millions’ ability to showcase the accordian, kazoo and washboard as instruments of raw, sexual passion. (Bass too, but that’s got some traditional mojo.) Forget the TV screens; the most erotic thing going on in that club last night was Max hurling himself into the music. I was thinking, as he threw his head back, lost his hat and released sweaty curls to fling around, “Man, if I had a locker, there’d be some glossy picture of this boy inside the door.” The poor Captain was right up by the TV facing the stage and between that and the low ceiling and the cramped quarters was barely able to lay down his own hot licks in Max’s wake. Unsurprisingly, harmonica worked a quite a bit better than sousaphone in this space. Now normally, as you may recall, I’m quite happy to eye the Mahatma and work whatever flirting possibilities may arise, but he was unfortunately positioned between me and that damn TV. This meant that I paid much more attention to the Reverend and, though he doesn’t seem – note I say seem – to be as much of a hussy as Mahatma Boom Boom, I did not find this to be a waste of time. By the way, that was the best hi-hat solo ever.

I understand the Rubes will be heading into the studio for a while, so I’m glad I got the chance to catch this show. I’m very glad that I was exposed to Papa Joe and Baby Gramps. As for the Odeon Bar? Will I ever go there again? Before the first time the video switched I would have told you I was considering becoming a regular. Now I think I’ll give it a miss.

*And I didn’t realize until this morning why the name Papa Joe felt so odd to me – it’s what we used to call my grandpa. Glad I didn’t think of that last night; nostalgic grief wouldn’t have been a good thing to add to the emotional mix. Good band, though. If anyone knows a URL for them or where I can get on their mailing list, do let me know.

** I shudder to think what the keywords in this post are going to do to my Google search results.