So last night was spent in the Melrose, a bar frequented by musicians, loners and other freaks who all shoot pool and moan about the crap that gets churned out of other jukeboxes but the one in here is tolerable so it's here they stay and nurse their beers and look at the waitresses and think of the road.
Soon though, when the Melrose closes and rats go back to the starting line the ones who love life at night dance across 8th avenue to the billiards hall and shout at the cars and the stars and the tzars behind bars.
In the billiards hall down the steps away from the balmy night in an old cinema, they don't show pictures there these days, but guys and girls drink and play pool while the battered Wurlitzer juke in the corner blasts sounds that a generation would die for and did die for.
While the band play doubles I get involved with a game of shuffleboard which involves pushing a puck with skill and finesse along a polished salt covered surface, getting as far to the end as possible without slipping off, as well as knocking off the other players pucks. A trio of hipster musicians named Logan, Stanton and Joshua introduced me to the rules and we played a while. I'd wandered over there as I had grown tired of watching the pool, even though girls, entranced with taking aim, make very good painting subjects, but my skills with a cue are mildly horrific and I'd sooner try and balance one on my chin with a tray heaped with hot oysters on top than actually attempt a serious game. However, after departing the shuffleboard contest, I did play one game of pool and got four balls in the holes but it didn't change my life so I ended up at the bar with Danny who was trying to blag a free haircut.
This morning I woke up and discovered I had left the lava lamp on and fallen asleep to it's crooked glow, and during the night it had overheated and the glass had cracked. There was red wax all down the wall, a pinky molten mess had sunk into the carpet and the water from the lamp was surrounding the electricity socket. Hearing a pack of dogs going spare outside, and surrounded by clothes, loose change and lava lamp I had to change my environment, and fast. I found my jeans in the corridor and crashed over sideways as a result of getting my left foot stuck in a hole halfway down the leg. As usual we made life difficult for ourselves by sleeping in two separate buildings with one key for each building. Therefore my morning ritual involves rubbing the sleep outa my eyes while I walk to the other building, and then hauling myself over the gate, missing the barbed wire on the top and jumping down the other side to grab the key off the table to let myself back out, then waking the dead, or so it seems, from their unconscious slumber within a darkened lair.
Aptly today we were recording a new version of Smiling Makes The Day Go Quicker. I was slightly apprehensive as the first version has been around for ages, you all know it and I must have played it close to a thousand times. We've recorded the basis of most of the new record and deliberately left Smiling 'till last as we thought we knew it so well. Took about an hour and several coffees, but we ended up with a version that you'll have to wait to hear as this record isn't coming out for a while. If you still haven't got your hands on the current one, go to http://www.tankusthehenge.bandcamp.com and check it out. It won't be around forever. Neither will we.
Keep smiling, people, it's not the end of the world!
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