The last Saturday so far, I performed with my group, Mr Yuck, at the Hurricane Cafe. The Hurricane is an earnest place, dirty and loud, with no need for faux-70's Daddy-O decorations. The restaurant seats 100, the adjoining bar, maybe a third of that. In this case, the bands were playing in the tiny corner stage, basically a drum riser with a red spotlight. During our set, the bar area was reaching its maximum seated capacity, with a clot of underaged would-be spectators congesting the portal between food and drink.

hee hee

I wish we could have taken 'before and after' pictures of the other bands' respect for us. When we first got there, Kris approached Eraknid (a one-goth-dude industrial act), and he was all tight lips and droopy eyelids (and spiky/transparent black clothing). "How's it going?" Kris ventured. "It's going," was the reply, in dismissive monotone. AFTER the set, Eraknid came up to Kris and broke into verbal applause. It was the sharpest contrast a show had ever produced for us, and I hope it is the predecessor of more like it. This gig was unlike every other we've played in that Kris was front man. In the past, we relied on Brandon for loudest vocals and most performance energy. We had been worried that we couldn't fill that void. No longer; shoes filled.

That night was too good to dwell on. I want to save some of that relish for a tougher time. On that same day, I got my George Bush brand "tax relief", the band won a rent discount (in a contest we weren't aware of being in) just for paying rent on time consistently, Julie (our most helpful band-friend) came to visit us from Alaska (or Colorado, depending on how you count), and then we had this gig... it resulted in immediate further bookings, contact with some of the most interesting bands I've heard in Seattle, quality-shmooze time with various attendees, a tiny amount of money, and some other, harder-to-articulate mental benefits.

One cool thing that happened is: someone who reads my "online journal" came to see us! Yes, one of the silent masses. (I finally did my stats, and I got ninety one thousand hits last month. Who are they? On the other hand, that way lies dumbness.) She brought her own fans, and thus they were there in (perhaps inadvertent) support of Mr Yuck, too! Her website also contains a journal, though it is perhaps more immediate and romantic than my own. It certainly loads faster.

The other cool thing that happened is that my old friends all met Helen (and then spent some quality time away from us at dinner trying to guess her age) and more spine-tinglingly, vice versa (feels weird, talking about it). Oh yes, and the guys from Kris' work were apparently trying to get up the nerve to hit on her (out of all the anorexic corseted goth chicks there) when I came to speak to them after my set. That was oddly gratifying, in a shallow, nervy way.

Does heavy music appeal to heavy people? -- Helen, absorbing the scene

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