Heaven and Hell 1-4-09 Pessimist Parade

Heaven & Hell
18th St.
Adam's Morgan
Washington, DC

Everyone once in a while, I give up an Idle Americans gig to play with Pessimist. This was one of those days.

So, I texted my phonebook about the gig tonight and Tara reminded me that there was a hardcore matinee show at The Quarry House and so we all went down there beforehand to promote and get a bunch of people from there over to Heaven & Hell later on. And a bunch of people did come.

Thankfully, they got there after the rappers.

Dave Murray, who bartends there on Sundays, had been doing an open-mic hip-hop night so a bunch of those guys "opened" for us. And it was surreal had bad they were.

Anyway, we got up and played our set (and I managed to stay sober long enough to, you know, remember the songs and stuff) and thankfully we had a bunch of Pessimist's regulars out there that knew the songs and were dancing. So, then all these brothers get up and start dancing too. Even to the Johnny Cash-type stuff!! You haven't lived until you've seen four thugged-out brothers with their arms around each other's shoulders moving their feet to punkabilly.

Good show all around.

Later on, I was getting my last drink and there was some confusion about the price 'cause it was late and the guy standing next to me offered to pay for it. Turns out he knows my old roommate Scott and he asked me if I knew Nick Curran.

I was floored.

I'm the guy that asks you if you've heard of Nick Curran. Nick Curran is a big part of the reason I'm doing what I'm doing. He showed me that you can get into the whole punk thing and still stay a roots player.

Anyway, he had booked some shows for Kim a while back and had toured as merch guy for Deke Dickerson (another of my top 10 guitar players) when he was 18. So, nice meeting you, Chris. Hope we meet up again sometimes.

Next: tonight at Cat's Eye w/ Idle Americans