Listen and Follow

Filmore, late 80’s.

Was hanging around the band that was playing up in the other room for New Years, or maybe it was Halloween. Doesn’t matter. Maybe I’d be asked to climb aboard for a song or two. Why not? It was happening more and more. I would wait…hang around, carry gear, be a mate. This was my gang, somehow I pushed and got inside. These were fun dangerous people, these were quiet days and long nights, this was youth, this was everything I wanted; staying stoned, watching trees, seeing music every night, chattering on about nothing, strolling on the Haight, tripping at the Kabuki 8, sleeping on couches, listening to Anita at Ibeam, Sushi Sundays at Nightbreak, reading Edie on a rooftop off Baker & Turk, pesto pizza, meeting women with Mercedes, standing at the Other, curbing outside Dal Jeets, cold to the bone...endless, directionless, perfect.

The hall in the afternoon was bitter, dank, run down, dimly lit even with work lights on. The place was busy with circumspect workers standing around, moving kegs and cases of beer around on hand carts, bottles of booze, decorations, lighting, all of it was in a slow motion.

We had been relegated to the upstairs lounge, it was a VIP club within the club, it was perfect. The band was best in this kind of tight setting, rocking best with those right up front.

The rip, buzz and horror twang of Ivy’s guitar will never leave my pea brain…it is… undeniable… historical…sickening to the soul, to generations of me, and yet seductive... It is death scratching…It is mayhem…It is a razor; magnificent…It is pure volume to cave one’s chest to….Reverb to pull me out deep…It is evil…It is animal….It is the echo in my head.

Buck heard it first.
He set his guitar down.

“I think they’re checking.”

We followed like rats, sliding in the dark. We stood up in the balcony looking down on our heroes, not knowing what to expect.

“Is that them?” I wondered.

They were dressed in funeral attire, a Sunday best kinda thing. Sharp, dark suits for the men, a dark trench coat for Ivy, and she wore a headscarf that went over her slight bouffant. Dark sunglasses all around…

Classy folks.