I may not soon see one of the crazy kiwis or aussies from the Good Mixer in London and China may not soon accept Tibetans for how they want to live, thus disproving the logic of a children's song, but EL is a small town. This past Friday, the Hard Lessons, Oh My God and Gogo Yugo were all at the Small Planet out on Chandler Road.
And Christmas was here.
At the door, a man demanded proof that I was who I said I was and $10. That is correct, $10 for a bar that has never proven its worth in adventures for me before. If Peggy were not behind me and my chauffer for the night, I would have turned right around and walked out of that strip mall. And then walked the 2 miles back to East Lansing (the distance made me give the guy my cash - as an aside, apparently one of the bouncers was fired on the spot that night for embezzling cover). At this time, I only knew Gogo Yugo were playing.
Gogo Yugo were on stage when Peg and I walked up to the bar. The admission must be made that Peg and Dave, the bass player of Gogo, are good friends of mine, therefore the band will have an advantage in my evaluation. However, Gogo Yugo is a genuinely entertaining band. Granted, the sound guy was not living up to his job for the first band, but Gogo were energetic beyond the projection of their sound. Some of the 100 or so people sitting at tables were even swaying about and it was far too early in the evening for them to be very far into their spirits.
Some Monday past, Peg and I had gone to Rendezvous on the Grand to see Gogo and had a grand ole time. A man sitting at the bar smiling to himself with a white puff of hair atop his head began watching us instead of the beer taps when we sat down five stools away from him. When Gogo started into their set, the white top man came swaying over to us and asked us if we had gotten our exersise for the day. He insisted we should start a dance party on the floor. At this point, I took a quick survey of the entire establishment and counted no more than 25 people in the bar including the staff, band members of three bands and the parents of one band member. I was fairly certain a dance party would be very limited in party favors. We declined in a courteous manner and continued to drink to make sense of the situation. Later, after I had taken photographs of Gogo, the whitetop came back over and rhetorically asked, "You're a special girl, aren't you?" Crazy guy called me crazy. At least we can recognize one another.
Point is, on both occasions, Gogo Yugo was entertaining. Entertaining even before I had multiple whiskeys.
(photos from Rendezvous on the Grand)
While Peg was talking to people she knew, I recognized a man with a wild billow of curly black hair messing with speakers as the keyboardist of Oh My God.
After arguing with the sound guy for 15 minutes between sets, Oh My God rocked the stage, drawing the audience to its feet only to throw carrot and celery sticks at them. The band delivered "February 14" and "Get Steady" which I sang along with in addition to songs from their new album Fools Want Noise. I stopped attempting conversation with people I vaguely knew and sat entranced by the three men jumping about the stage and intimidating the crowd with insane facial expressions and removal of their shirts.
The Hard Lessons are adorable and they will rock you. The woman on the keyboards has a phenomenal voice, almost in the twangy country music way, but with the flavorings of Ypsilanti or Detroit dive bar cool kids added. The guy on guitar looks fairly unassuming, until he hurls the mike stand repeatedly against the floor of the stage and crashes his way through the audience to a table he wants to stand on. And their songs are pretty good, too.
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