LOOK AT LIFE / COCO HAMES

Worst. Nashville. Venue. Ever. - The Bluebird Café. We know, because Oscar Wilde says so.

By Coco Hames

Nashville is a land of many wonderful things, like honky tonks, good  local beer, places you can go shoot guns (NOT outside my front door  you PSYCHOPATH who yells "EINSTEIN!" at every one of your seven Jack  Russell terriers, my little sister's in town for GOD'S SAKE have some  MANNERS) and musical camaraderie... the latter being something that  takes some getting used to.  There's a line in an early episode of Dr. Katz where Dr. Katz is wearing a fragrance because he had had a lady  friend over, and his friend at the bar notices the cologne, and Dr.  Katz says, "It takes some getting used to."  And his friend  asks if that's the name of it, "It Takes Some Getting Used To". It's a funny exchange, I'm not doing it justice.  But previously on  Lost, anywhere we'd lived or run around, we've been a potentially/actively violent punk troupe, which was easy, since that takes no acting.  Gotta keep people out of my space, off my back, out my business, off my friend, etc.  It was just a safe and logical way of operating, and we're very  comfortable with that.

However, since we've moved to Nashville, we've made some really nice friends.  Fear  not, we've tempered nothing (e.g. still stay WAY too late at the bar and molest the bartenders, still play loud, still fall  down and get blood EVERYWHERE, still throw pint glasses at creeps who brush Poni's ass, still fight, still French, still play our creepy '50s and '60s beat that will usually clear a room, though we're still dancing the night away) but our behavior scares some of them, or at least alarms them.  A lot of these friends are also musicians.  Some of them punks, some of them neo-garage candy sweets, some of them singer/songwriters.  And the singer/songwriters always feel compelled to play shows at the most obnoxious venue I have ever set foot in (not to be confused with the official worst venue ever, El Corazon in Seattle), the Bluebird Cafe.

 Possibly the harrowing snobbery can be conveyed through their official tagline and  mantra, which they proudly have prominently featured at their venue, on all of their literature and on their website: "Shhh!"

 Does anyone else think this is DISGUSTING?  How DARE you?  "Shh"? The rockers I know do not LIKE rules, let alone being told to hush up when they're out drinking.  And besides that, if you're GOOD enough, you have the ability to silence a room, haven't you ever been to a show like that?  You're jabbering on and one of two things happens:

1)      the rocker on stage gets annoyed at your texting or chatting and calls you out/throws a beer at you (which I myself have done, or have had verbally done TO me by the late, great John Mayer); or

2)      your conversation gets interrupted by how good a song or sound is and you just shut up.  You shouldn't tell people they have to be dead silent or you'll kick them out of the bar!  That is so gross.

 SO gross.  Every time I pass that place I just scowl and growl like Mad Madam Mim.  (Who, by the way, is my Disney villain mascot, if anyone ever asks you, "Hey who do you think Coco's Disney villain mascot is? Ursula from the Little Mermaid?"  "Yeah maybe, she's got good songs and they kind of have the same hair..."  No!  It's Mim.) It just really makes my ass twitch.

Get this (from the Bluebird's website): "As a listening room, quiet is requested at all times during a performance - which is why our slogan has become "Shhh!" You are welcome to drink and eat with us at any time, but if you are looking for an evening of conversation there are more appropriate places in Nashville."

 Did I mention they serve food?  They are a restaurant AND a bar, and their waitstaff is cute, and large groups of friends go on, like, a friends' night out... I just don't get it.  And, I don't like it. And listen, if you do, and you're some Nashvillian who's like, "OMG, I  LOVE the Bluebird, you must have gone on a bad night or something!" SAVE IT.  It's over.

Johnny summed it up on stage once (sometimes all-ages venues have rules about beers on stage) and it would have sounded trite and whiny coming from anyone else, but then that's Johnny's charm: "Man, I got into rock and roll because I don't FOLLOW rules." Here, let me prove a point.  The only reason I know anything about this GODFORSAKEN institution is because my singer/songwriter friend Landon Pigg (you can hear his creamy sounds and see his sexy moves in the film Whip It) and my  singer/songwriter friend Frally Hynes (who does pretty much the saddest cover ever of Patsy Cline's "She's Got You" - WHICH, by the way, the tiny baby early Ettes covered in 2004 in a Dee Dee Ramone 1-2-3-4 way, OMG where is that...) took me to see our friend Lucy Wainwright perform.  Lucy Wainwright (yes, it is in her blood) writes  beautiful songs, and sings real nice, so when I was feverishly whispering with Landon at the bar, I was jolted away from my conversation by something beautiful she did.  And I paid attention. And then this really gnarly yodel-style folk singer got up and whoosh, right back to my high-voltage murmur WHICH, by the way, got us in trouble several times.  As in, we got "shushed."  Uh, and then we left.  Landon has actually gotten kicked out several times.  I'm like, uh, what do you do with your tab?  Do you have to be like, oh, okay, yessir, let me just sign my tab aaaaaaand, yep, there's the tip, okay I guess I'll be on my way, so sorry for the, you know, noise...

I'm not ragging on open mic nights, although it has been many, many years since I've been to one.  I mean, you cut your teeth there, you don't ever want to go back.  You can read a previous blog to find out the kind of places I used to set up mic and guitar... I don't want to talk about it.  But I have a problem with this place. Blech.  And no, I'll never be going there again.  I remember having a whisper-out with one of the cute waitresses because she had pretty hair, and I whispered, "Oh, do you use Bump-Its?" and she whispered back, "No, but I have extensions, see?" and I felt her hair and I whispered "Ohhhh!  They're good, do you get them done here in town? I used to get them when I lived in LA but I haven't done them in years, I wonder if I would if I knew someone here." and she whispered, "Oh, my friend does them!  I'll give you his number!" and I whispered, "Oh, that'd be great, thank..." and then "SHHH!" from some woman who I ASSUME worked there?

 Unrelatedly, just WHY should boys have all the fun?  If I were better dressed, better behaved and differently, ahem, "equipped" they'd call me a bon vivant.  I'm like Oscar Wilde in moccasins and a sailor shirt.  Basically I'm Oscar Wilde.

 See you on the television!

 coco

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Blurt "co-co-editor" Coco Hames fronts The Ettes - Hames on guitar, Jem Cohen on bass and Poni Silver on drums. Their Greg Cartwright-produced album Do You Want Power arrived in stores last fall, their music was featured in the Drew Barrymore-directed film Whip It, and you bet we've got a big feature on the band in the latest issue of BLURT. Check out the band's MySpace page for music and tour dates.