I gave it my best shot, but in the end, the commitments of
middle age won over.
It was a Tuesday night show, something that I’m usually
opposed to in the first place, but on this weeknight, it seemed like I’d be
able to take advantage of some social networking and check out a band that I’d
barely heard before.
The band is the Dirty Pearls and they are from New York City .
They have a record out, Whether
You Like It Or Not, and a friend of mine played me a copy of a couple
tracks a few months back.
Evidently, a friend of his from way-back-when left the safety of a small
town abode and made his way to New
York City to become a studio engineer. He brought his
guitar along, and when he approached a band called the Dirty Pearls to lobby for a production gig,
they decided that his skills with the instrument were needed more than his engineering chops.
My friend reluctantly handed over the cd that he received to
me to examine, possibly fearing that I wouldn’t receive it well. But I am a man
of admirable tastes, and I can appreciate more than the average music fan.
This includes lite glam rock ruffians with a penchant for
the noun “irony.”
Then I see it. Tucked away in a modest font is the producer:
David Kahne.
“Holy shit!” I exclaim, “This thing was produced by David
Kahne!” My enthusiasm is neither shared nor understood between the two other
gentlemen in the room.
I begin to spit out the obligatory “Albums produced by David
Kahne” list, trying to make a case for his credentials.
“Fishbone! Romeo Void!” I begin, immediately noticing that I
am seriously dating myself and not bringing up anything relevant to the others
present.
Instead, I suggest that landing a production spot with Mr.
David Kahne could possibly be a six-figure investment. Obviously, my knowledge
of this is seriously flawed and based entirely on my love of Truth & Soul and “Girl In Trouble
(Is A Temporary Thing).”
The songs within Whether
You Like It Or Not weren’t bad, but they also weren’t enough to remember
Dirty Pearls. That is, until I got that aforementioned digital invite.
To make things easier, the band member with the local ties
to the area offered “No Cover Charge” at a sports bar not to far from my
comfortable home in the suburbs. It’s quiet around here, and with a “Doors open
at 8:00 pm” tag line, you just begin to get into that feeling of not wanting to
move, let alone take the five-minute drive to another fucking sports bar.
One of the comments that stood out on the number of
automatic updates that I was receiving on my phone was the promise, “Don’t
worry, we’ll have you home by midnight.” I should hope so, because I had
already planned to saw a few logs well before that promise, and as I pulled up
to the partially hidden cinder-block building just off the interstate.
I see an expanded late model van with New York plates pull into the parking lot
ahead of me. It’s around 9:00 pm by this point, so I’m starting to beam at the
notion that I’ve timed this outing perfectly.
I pull past the Indian grocery and then past the Mexican
one. I find an open spot not too far from the bar and pull in to have a
conversation with Bernie Kosar. Directly across from me, I notice someone in
their car talking to Herb Tarlek. Conversations like these are common, if not
required before a show featuring the Dirty Pearls.
It’s just a hair above freezing as I walk towards Otis' Tailgators, an impossibly bland sports bar with absolutely no personality or
theme. There are several big screen televisions and even a few medium screen
ones. In the back is a small stage, and making a very polite racket is an atypical power trio type.
I wasn’t expecting an opening band. For some reason I was
thinking the entire event was some kind of organic uprising. A collection of
locals celebrating their N.Y.C. transplant’s return to Iowa with a small performance at a cruddy
sports bar.
With the clock at a quarter after nine, the tepid trio with
the practice amps and part of the Dirty Pearls own drum kit played a competent
collection of loud/soft offerings. I nursed a Crown and Diet Coke as the band,
later discovered to be Resist and Reward, wrapped things up in their brief set.
A guy in a Hawkeyes hat and a Bettendorf , Iowa
Someone recognized him and came up to say hello. After
initiating some polite conversation starters, the union guy mumbled something
incoherent and accentuated it with “What the fuck is this shit?”
His friend was confused and changed topics.
“I just got in. Was the opening band any good?”
“Nah,” replied the union guy, “they fuckin’ sucked.”
“What was their name?” asked the friend.
“Dirty Pearls.”
“Wait,” said the friend after a long pause, “are they
playing next?”
They didn’t. Five dudes took the stage after the longest set
change in history, which was “managed” by a chubby bald dude in a black polo
shirt who just seemed to watch the band members set up their equipment and
point to the floor of the stage every so often.
"Wire go there. Fire chord. Big bang pow. Hungry."
The drunken union guy moved towards the front and began
yelling at the band to “Play some fucking rock and roll.” It appeared that the
band(s) all had a few relatives in the audience, and this second band was no
exception. At least, I think it was a relative of one of the band members who
suddenly attempted to shut up the drunken union fellow by knocking off his
Hawkeye hat.
He smiled at the middle-aged woman, had what appeared to be
a nice conversation with her that included a drunken hug, and then returned to
demanding that the band getting ready to perform, “Play some fucking rock and
roll.”
John June Year listen to a lot of Strokes and Velvet
Underground records. At least that’s what I heard during certain moments of
their set, a moderately enjoyable one that could have used a bunch more guitar
interplay and some justification as to why a synthesizer is even needed in the
line up.
By now, we’re after 10:00 pm, and it becomes clear that when
the Dirty Pearls say that “We’ll be out by midnight” they mean that they’ll get
around to starting their set around 11, which is not something that I’m willing
to endure on a Tuesday night.
Otis' Tailgators was nicely populated for a weeknight, but
this big pussy would call it a night well before the headliners played a note.
Fuck that noise. Rock and roll is competing against more
distractions than ever before. Why anyone would want to sacrifice more of a
potential audience just to feed the fantasy that we’re all in a great big
Slaughter video is beyond me. Up all night, sleep all day. That’s right.
We’re not. We go to work in the morning. We go to school in
the morning. And we tell everyone there about the shit hot band that we caught
at a reasonable hour.
I make dumb decisions about my sleep schedule when there’s a
band that I want to see, and sometimes these decisions end up being very poor
ones. But there is barely a chance in hell that I’m going to turn into a royal
cunt for a couple of days because I decided to stay up past my bedtime to catch
some band that I knew nothing about.
Here’s what I know about the Dirty Pearls at this point:
They have a record you can buy. It was produced by David Kahne. The guitar
player is from Iowa .
When they stand next to a drunk dude wearing a Pipefitters Union jacket and a backwards
Hawkeye hat, they look like total rock stars.
What I can’t tell you is if the Dirty Pearls did indeed play
some fucking rock and roll.
