"Soaking Heat Up Thru Their Feet"- Summer In the City / Dallas Texas 7/15/06Good God it's hot. Even for Texas. You'd think after 30 years in this state you'd get used to the heat - well you don't. You just learn to tolerate it. And you sweat a lot. But you never get used to it.
It's a good 90 degrees even at 1100 at night when I step out of my nice air conditioned building, working hard and keeping the country free. I know Nate [
Nate Fowler's Elixer] is playing tonight at the Bar of Soap, but it's a whip getting down there and I'll bet they're off when I do get down there - what is it 45 minutes from here [DFW Airport North] to there?
But what else are you going to do, go get a six pack and stare at your own four walls again? You know the TV is on the fritz, too. And if
nothing else, I can get a DRINK and a vodka and tonic or three sounds mighty refreshing.
The drive from Irving to downtown Dallas is hot, but I have my window rolled down getting some fresh air and blasting the Kinks, trying to get pumped up for the Ray Davies show [tonight 7/21]. Between the airport and the Trinity is not too bad with the car moving - it's even slightly cool as one crosses the Trinity by Texas Stadium. But not five minutes down the road, one rolls into the heart of downtown and the ride from the I-35 / 114 merge down to the I-35E / I-30 mixmaster is the nastiest, hottest stretch of concrete this side of Houston. The cars never stop rolling on this stretch and the exhaust and constant rolling rubber never lets it cool off. I can honestly feel the heat coming up through the floorboards.
[How come no one talks about the miles and miles of concrete poured every day all over the world when they talk of global warming? Covering so much of the Earth with an insulating, heat absorbing material like this cannot be good for the Earth's cooling, though I still say it runs in cycles. But no, all you ever hear about is Greenhouse Gases. Hey, I got a Greenhouse Gas Emission for you - pull my finger!
And one more thing- you want to complain about the deteriorating roads? Look no further than all that green grass everyone wants. We're overwatering and all that runoff is going right into the streets and right under the streets. When I go home at night there's a river - okay a small stream running across Freeport Parkway where it's being over watered. And the chuckholes get a few inches of asphalt every few months, but it's buckled again and deeper this time. And every time that excess water runs into the street it gets a little worse...]
As a matter of fact, it only takes me 35 minutes to get from work to Exposition/ Fair Park where the Bar of Soap is. Exposition is at the far end of Deep Ellum, really just an afterthought as it relates to the 'Dallas Music Scene" way down at the end of Commerce, but it's a little area of lofts and bars that used to be a little sub culture back in the Deep Ellum heydays of the late 80's and the 90's. As the scene shrunk though, Exposition kind of fell off the map and died, though the Bar of Soap, a combination Laundromat and bar, kept having live music the whole time. Nate says they lost the little courtyard a while back, but they keep on keeping on. I can't count the nights Fowler and his various bands [Sixty Six, Atomic Rodeo, American Fuse, the Elixer] have played and we'd come down for drinks and pinball in the laundry room. A while back there was discussion when Tree's closed down of the Grungiest Club Bathrooms In Dallas - Bar of Soap ranks high. But it's a cool little place.
I wound up parking a few blocks away - the free lot behind was pretty full and I am not paying to park my dingy and dinged up little black pick up. There's a lot of cars lining Exposition and down Commerce. The little club that used to be the punk Club No [where we saw NOFX on the
White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean tour] is now some sort of dance club called MINC. The unmistakable thump and thud of four on the floor pooey Industrial music rattles through the walls. Pretty people head here. I keep walking. There's a few bars, small old fashioned watering holes open. I walk past a couple of art galleries which makes me smile. This is a sign that things may be coming around again. The corner is now some sort of restaurant with a big patio area that will be nice in the fall for sitting on and having drinks, but not this time of year.
I thought Nate told me that they had moved the bands to the back by the laundry machines, but as I walk in, the band is right there by the door in the right window [as you face out at the street] where they've always been. I whack him on the arm as I walk by and he gives me a "What's Up?" look as I go by. I immediately go to the bar. Hot as it is, there's only ONE bartender working. He serves about three people around me, goes down the other end of the bar serves about three people, comes back down, serves two more people around me hen back to the other end of the bar - 4 songs, 12-15 minutes and can't get a drink. I put my $20 back in my pocket at that point.
The band is LOUD as always [people literally had to get up on the bar rail and shout their orders into the bartender's ear] Fowler plays loud to begin with and Mike's drums crack light lightning and Kinley's bass rumbles around under them like thunder. I just settle back to watch the band and people watch. The band plows thru a familiar set list, then throws a few surprises out - Cheap Trick's
He's A Whore, AC/DC's
Shot Down in Flames... one guy is begging Nate and bassist Kinley Wolfe to do the Fuse's
Don't Chingale My Chevrolet - Nate keeps deferring to Kinley since he will have to sing it and Kinley just keeps telling the guy "No time, man." Then they wind up the set with a loud version of the Stooges'
Loose. Has anybody else noticed that Nate turns his back when he solos?
It's a sweaty show and the crowd is an old school cut across the Deep Ellum scene - some old scenesters hanging out, some long hairs, some younger kids just checking out a band on Saturday night the way me and my friends used to do, a wild girl in a plaid mini and some sort of high heeled Doc Martins and showing off her tattoos. A pretty Hispanic girl with very long hair down to her waist making out with a platinum blonde dude with Statue of Liberty spiked hair in one of the booths. I smile to myself feeling like I am only 30 again hanging out in a bar listening to a real rock and roll band. Only without the white crosses, driving to Dallas in Jim's car with no radio, singing Kiss and Alice Cooper songs and drinking 12 packs on the way to get a buzz started. No drunken driving home. No drama. Just a quick hour's worth of no bullshit rock and roll, one beer Nate managed to get while I help Mike load his drums up and then home, back across a slightly less oppressive heat...
