Fermented Oranges
We’re still living the unemployed life. Without an alarm clock, I rise with the low winter sun. By the chatter of black squirrels on the sill. With the bitter chill, which permeates every crevice, draging you back into the frozen world of consciousness, kicking and screaming. It’s not all that bad, though.
We looked at two houses this week, and they were probably the worst houses I have ever seen. That includes the houses I’ve seen in films, on television, and in the most terrifying and disturbing of nightmares.
“Yes… the previous tenants made holes in the hardwood floor to hide drugs.” The landlady introduces us to the front room, shuffling around in snow-caked Crocs. “And they smoked the crack… without ashtray.”
OK, so the floor has a hole in it. That’s fixable. The bathroom, however, was not. In the basement, down a heavily soiled staircase that, even the ever-optimistic landlady Cristina admitted, needed repair. At the bottom of the stairs we duck through a dark passageway and into a claustrophobic, tiled room that must’ve been a dungeon at some point. Everything was grimy, and whilst the light was very poor, I’m pretty sure there was unflushed business in the bowl.
“Yes…” Cristina looked at me, “You will need to crouch to go into the shower.” And at that point I had a terrible feeling we would never be leaving the basement.
But we did escape, and it’s not a bad life. Without responsibilities we can stay up as late as we want. Last night we went to a party in a hat makers shop. It wasn’t quite as outrageous as it sounds, but there were free cocktails and a half-decent folk act in the shop window.
Observing the eerie icicles outside the house of doom / the Horseshoe Tavern.
Next door to the hat shop sits the Horseshoe Tavern, a balls-out all-American rock & roll dive bar, complete with custom Harley, pool cues for fightin’ and an autographed photograph of Link Wray on the wall. A stark contrast to the roots music and haberdashery we’d experienced just two doors down.
The Horseshoe is celebrating it’s sixty fifth anniversary with live music every night this month, and I guess you’d describe the bands and clientele as a mixed bag. The first band were by far the best. Not only because they were called Fermented Oranges, but because they were followed by two of the most outrageously cringe-inducing acts I’ve ever witnessed. And I’ve been to West St. Live on a Wednesday.
One of the acts were reminscent of a young Maroon 5, and not in a good way. Three clean cut, hip thrusting, pre-pubescent teens kicking out the kind of grooves that’d make Jesus proud, whilst Lou Reed slowly turns in his grave. The other were like a Canadian version of the Script, and I’ll leave it at that.
We left the Horseshoe with the bitter taste of betrayal in our mouths. How could a bonafide badass like Link Wray have played on the same stage as the Kings of Cringe? Fortunately, what followed what was probably the best burger I’ll ever eat, courtesy of a place called the Burger’s Priest.
Still feeling deflated by the anticlimax at the Horseshoe and weighed down by copious beef patties, it seemed all was lost. But then, on the recommendation of the Burger Priest’s doorman, we tried a venue called The Cameron.
I thought that comic sans was the worst font, until I picked up this free biker mag / Harlan Pepper at the Grand Ole Cameron.
It was two in the morning and Harlan Pepper had just started playing. With a lead singer that looked suspiciously like a young Dylan, it was safe to say that things were going to improve drastically. I don’t know exactly how old they were, but either way, they were far too young to be so good.
Inevitably, they played some excellent Dylan covers. Also some obscure surf tracks and plenty of rock and roll. We will be visiting The Cameron again very soon.
