Rather, the game opens with our two protagonists, Kane and Lynch, tied down and in the midst of getting brutally tortured with a razor sharp knife. Kane yells out to his torturer, in the most convincing and well, real voice acting ever heard in a video game:

“I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL Y-”

TITLE CARD

KANE AND LYNCH 2: DOG DAYS

Then level one (which takes place forty-eight hours before the gruesome knife scene) loads up and even then, the shit will hit the fan more or less immediately. The level objective will change from, “oh, I just gotta give this guy a message” to, “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST GET ME INTO, LYNCH!?” A foot chase will quickly degenerate into gunfight after gunfight. The formula of a third-person cover-based shooter has been distilled into its very essence here; shoot, duck behind something solid so as not to get shot, then come back up to shoot some more. Your enemies in this game are good about diving for cover as you and are, accordingly, just as hard to kill. You’ll have to learn pretty quickly to leave your protective barrier (some of which are easily destructible, anyways) and flank the opposition if you want to stand a chance. All the while, confused and terrified civilians will run or hide during the fracas, while some unfortunate individuals will do their best to duck down in their car seats as bullets whizz right by their heads and, often, into their windshields.

Level one will eventually reach its end and the shit that’s already completely gone to shit will get even shittier. A poorly-aimed shot from both Kane and Lynch will hit the daughter of China’s biggest crime lord, effectively making them Public Enemy Number One. Not exactly the best way to begin one last job.

It’s not all gunshots and f-words. There is a reason for these two to be back together in a literal Hell on Earth. The allure of One Last Job is too much for both men, now laying low and trying to fly right after the events of Kane and Lynch: Dead Men. Kane wants to use the money to support his estranged daughter, while Lynch (now settled down in Shanghai) wants to support his new girlfriend, Xiu. Of course, that one last job never, ever goes right.

Like the first game, the storytelling is wonderfully presented in the rawest possible form. Kane and Lynch are not relatable and not likable in any way, shape or form. They are the epitome of anti-hero; cold-blooded assholes taking out cold-blooded assholes even more cold-blooded than they are. The game’s visual aesthetic, that of an amateur documentary, makes things feel more hopeless and genuinely terrifying than any horror game made in the last few years. Alone in a dark and dirty slum, fending off thugs and police looking to collect the price on your head, Lynch’s realizes: his girlfriend is all alone in Shanghai! Suddenly, a tense situation only gets worse. I won’t spoil that part of the game, although it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it won’t be good.

Lynch’s battles with his own psychosis are a bit more subdued that last time, mostly because he’s actually been taking his medication regularly. However, as the situation escalates and bad things go down, his mental state will gradually decrease, to the point of mumbling to himself during down moments. The timer on that human time bomb starts ticking down again.

It wasn’t until I reached the last level of the game that noticed something: there is no music. Well, that’s not entirely true; if you’re close to a car, you can hear the faint sounds of music coming from the radio. But that’s it. No dramatic swelling during big moments (I can’t be the only person who makes a loud groan whenever a dramatic swell accompanies the motivational speech about how friendship can overcome anything), no hard-rock guitar riff during a chase, no bullshit. Just you, your partner and the entire criminal underworld of Shanghai, shooting and cursing at one another. There’s no time to nod your head to the tunes when the wall you’re hiding behind begins getting the tiles shot right off of it, dust settling in your face.

And that, simply, is what Kane and Lynch is all about: two hard-edged assholes doing bad things and getting worse things done to them back. The only real satisfying ending would be for the two of them to end their journey with a bullet in their brains. Rather, Dog Days ends with a moment full of pure desperation and nihilism that is absolute genius. It is a metaphorical middle finger to anyone expecting a drawn-out ending where everything is alright in the end, or at the very least, slightly less fucked up than the situation they’re in now.

There are some multiplayer modes to go through once you’re finished playing by yourself. They’re pretty fun! Granted, they basically all boil down to, “work together for points, then shoot your teammates at the end to get even more points,” but fuck it, it’s not any less cerebral than any other multiplayer shit out there. Although I will admit that making an online component centered around griefing and team-killing is either a pretty great idea or a sign that the developers threw their hands up in the air and gave up. Your mileage may vary, more or less.

If Mother 2 is the video game equivalent of an excellent newspaper article, if Live A Live is the video game equivalent of Yume De Aimashou, if Lost Odyssey is the video game equivalent of an epic poem and if No More Heroes is the video game equivalent of an exploitation film, then Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days might just be the best video game equivalent of a short story in an alternative press magazine. It is, or at least, what should be, a shining example of creativity in an industry where creative bankruptcy is a way of life. Whether or not that statement catches on, though, will be up to Father Time.

A few blocks down, the Flobots, one of Colorado’s many musical embarrassments, were playing an outdoor show that no doubt sucked. We weren’t here to see the Flobots. The Flobots are for the fools, the schoolkids in the midst of struggling to find their own identities let alone their taste in music and the Melissa Lovelies of the world. While the ‘Bots are playing to the Web 2.0 Generation, the three of us packed ourselves into this toaster oven of a building to see Air Dubai. Air Dubai are, to put it in simple yet backhanded terms, the Flobots done right. A blend of hip-hop and rock and roll topped off with freakishly energetic performances, they’ve more than earned their spot as being one of the hottest acts in the state. At least good enough to impress a group of apathetic judges at the Hard Rock Cafe and win a one night battle of the bands contest.

The stage is set. It’s show time. With barely even a hello, the six members of Air Dubai immediately rock out, to everyone’s delight.

Unfortunately, being front row for Air Dubai also means, I guess, that I get the honor and privilege of finding myself surrounded by a bunch of fucking jerk-offs who probably got kicked out of the Flobots show for trying to date rape the underage teenage girls in attendance. One song goes by. I applaud. The sound system here is so awful, it’s hard to figure which song is which, or what anyone on stage are saying. I feel a tap on my arm. Looking behind me, I see a clearly intoxicated middle aged man grinning at me, eyes squinted with the telltale sign of making my night a little bit harder.

“HEY MAN! YOU GOTTA DANCE!”

“No.”

“WHAT!? DUDE, YOU GOTTA MOVE YOUR FUCKIN’ FEET!”

“I don’t dance.”

Another arm nudge. My right eye seizes up as only someone as high-strung, as pilled up as myself possibly can. I can’t ignore this guy. He keeps fucking touching me. I can’t move away either. I’m front row center for Air Dubai; I’m surrounded by windmill dancers sporting unfortunate white guy afros and Heineken-wielding Masters of the MySpace Camera Angle. If I were claustrophobic, I’d probably suffer a breakdown from the sea of humanity I’m floating in.

“Fine. I’ll try and move my head a little bit, okay? Please don’t touch my shoulder.”

I check to make sure my wallet is still in my back pocket (it is) and I bob my head in time with the beat.

Here’s my “deal.” My “thing.” I don’t dance. I have never danced. I’m a product of nineties culture. Depressing, moody alternative music runs through my veins. I never grew out of Generation X. Please, don’t fucking tell me to get my freak on. Especially not when you look like a serial rapist and you put your hands on me and attempt to order me around the same way my abusive father would after downing a bottle of Jack Daniels. Slamming his leathery hands on my young shoulders, he’d try to get me to do some sort of menial task. I would never get around to doing whatever task this was. It didn’t take more than a couple minutes of whatever I was doing to be interrupted by him screaming at me, throwing things around the house like a toddler having a temper tantrum and referring to me using every possible synonym for the term “loser” in the English language. The difference being that then, I was a small, frail scared little boy. Now I’m a grown man pumped full of all kinds of shit trying to enjoy a rock concert. He nudges me again. I turn and yell, “WILL YOU FUCK OFF!?” Of course, I was blessed with a voice that can’t carry for shit in a loud, crowded room, so he must have assumed I said, “rock on, dude!” and not “I swear to Christ, I am seriously contemplating spending the rest of my natural life in prison for murdering you if you don’t stop pissing me off!” I’m seriously getting mad at this stranger! I guess that’s what happens when a head full of unresolved issues is confronted with a facsimile of the catalyst for said issues.

Air Dubai eventually finishes. I’ve never been so happy to hear the end of a song since the infamous Colorado Music Buzz competition. Alan turns to me and asks if I’m ready to go.

“YES.”

I get one last slap on the shoulder, followed by a, “FUCK YEAH!” before I leave.

My eyes roll around in my head while my brain gives me a simple demand.

“I need a fuckin’ drink…”

-SEVERAL HOURS EARLIER-

The first day in at least two weeks I’m not drugged up or feeling under the weather was, coincidentally, the same day as Colorado’s Underground Music Showcase. Well, one of them at least. The UMS was a week long event devoted to the state’s local scene. Rather than the traditional bar/concert hall set-up that is the norm, various bands would play, simultaneously, just about everywhere. Several small time, family owned pizza parlor, day care center, hair salon and porn shop found itself host to clumps of wild-eyed dreamers reaching for the stars. I would’ve been a fool or a masochist (redundant) to attend every single day of this showcase, let alone scramble to listen to every group (considering that several of them would be playing at the exact same showtime would have made that impossible anyway, unless I had the ability to clone myself and gamble on whether or not those clones would have a good time). Instead, surprise, I chose to go the day The May Kit would be performing. It would be disingenuous for me to say that going to hear Max play and subsequently hang out with him was the only reason for me to show up. After all, one day at the UMS costs twenty dollars to even stand around for a few minutes. I do believe I can spend time with him for much less. I had actually come to discover new acts; maybe the handful of good Denver bands would increase to, like, almost two handfuls. I also came to see what is My New Favorite Band At The Moment^tm, Consider The Raven. More on them later.

Earlier, I had alluded to not feeling well for some time. I’ve been spending the last several weeks getting some dental work done. Because there is no God, the anesthetic I’ve been given causes violent biological reactions in my body, so no more anesthetic for me! This naturally means that I get the pleasure of spending my mornings up close and personal with several intimidating dentistry tools and feeling every single second of it. I haven’t been in the mood to do much of anything other than power my way through Lost Odyssey (according to a post I left at a video game website, it is, “the most fun a person can have running around in circles”) and sleeping that wonderful pain-induced slumber.

Max was to perform at a church. I believe this bears repeating. Max Winne would be in a house of God. We were all sinners here. I would like to say that he, as always, gave an excellent show to the crowd huddled in the pews before him. I would like to say that he managed to outdo the quality of the other acts that day. I would like to say that there were probably a couple other musicians on the card who opened my eyes to them and their quality. I cannot say these things, however, because I showed up to the festival an hour late and missed his whole gig. An hour late on the second to last day of a music festival. Good thing I don’t get paid for this.

Eventually, I’d run into Max and our friend Catherine, who would go on to show her true colors later that night (more on that later, too) at a bar down the road. The three of us would also run into Alan (Baird) and Joel (Matthews) here (paranthetical asides courtesy of the American Education System for hammering home the point that I must be nothing if not skull-splittingly anal about making sure to explain who everyone and everything is, even if it’s been previously established). The five of us would head down to a parking lot converted into a sound stage, just in time to watch a wrestling ring get disassembled and a few straggling luchadores aimlessly wander about. I did not know that there would be an outdoor Lucha Libre event taking place. I was so mad and so disappointed to know that not only did I miss my friend’s performance, I missed some luchadores in action (there is never not a good time for some Lucha Libre!). My consolation prize was to stand in a crowd of fat teenage girls cheering their hearts out for a group called the Heyday. According to notes I left on my twitter account, they are, “trying way too hard and accomplishing nothing.” I can’t say that I hated them and that their music was SO BAD or anything like that. They were just…there. Harmless, generic, technically proficient music that left me bored and left this rotund young lady behind me in tears. The kind of tears that are normally reserved for The Beatles or the Backstreet Boys. The fact that their lead singer had something of a resemblance to Brian Crecente didn’t exactly win me over, either.

This was not a good start. To be fair, I didn’t really expect it to be. With as many bands as there were on as many days as there were, I would be stupid to assume solid gold quality every nanosecond. Or even every other nanosecond. Especially, as I’ve bitched about enough in the past, at a festival showcasing Denver music. Fun Fact: in addition to being responsible for the Flobots, the Fray and 3Oh!3, we also hold the largest population of Juggalos in the entire country. Moreso than Detroit, even. I for one would like to apologize to the rest of the world for that.

The next act, I was informed, was currently riding a Japanese bullet train of hype and good press who’s destination was bound for this stage at this very moment. The band was called Snake Rattle Rattle Snake. A really, and I mean really bad name, to be certain, I still held out hope that they had enough talent to overcome that. At times, I tend to forget that hype means fuck-all in the long run, and that the mainstream press tends to be full of jackasses with an I.Q lower than the average age of their readers (in that I mean that said I.Q is less than twenty). Ten seconds into Snake Rattle Rattle Snake, I loved them. I thought that they had some real potential. Eleven seconds into Snake Rattle Rattle Snake, I hated them. I thought that they had some real problems. It was less a musical performance and more of a spastic act of nihilism directed at musical theory. Chords and vocals and drum beats were all over the place and out of sync with one another. I thought the only way I would hear something this bad ever again would be to invent a time machine, travel back to my high school days and attend Smoky Hill High School’s Battle of the Bands competition, “enjoying” the sounds of every hardcore (code word for “terrible”) act with dreams of stardom that would eventually become unfulfilled.

Fuck it, the five of us had shared within our collective hivemind. We left the fat-bottomed girls and the wrestlers and the droll atmosphere to investigate the rest of this eight block clusterfuck. We split up into two groups: I joined up with Alan and Joel to grab drinks while Max and Catherine went off to do whatever. The three of us proceeded to walk around downtown Denver, passing by the slightly muffled sounds of some braying dickbutt behind a microphone every few steps. At some point, we stopped into our apparently favorite haunt, the Hi-Dive. The reason was simple: Joel and Alan had some sort of stupid bet in place. The bet was to see whether or not Joel could survive an entire Power Hour. For those not in the know (which is probably like, three of you), a Power Hour is when a person takes a shot of beer every sixty seconds, ending at a full sixty minutes. Joel lasted eight of these sixty minutes. While Joel drank himself stupid and Alan paid for my drinks, I caught the tail end of an act called Porlolo. Porlolo fall into a new genre of music I have made up during the pre-planning stages of this article: “Gorgeous Music For Gorgeous People.” GMFGP (or Gumfgup) is that final half-step into full-on emotional maturity. Softly spoken, heartfelt lyrics accompanied by masterful melodies that helped me to forget, at least for a moment, that I spent twenty dollars for the privilege of walking down a series of public sidewalks in downtown Denver.

Joel and Alan succeeded in their plan to get sloppy drunk before seven p.m (general mountain time). We left the Hi-Dive and Porlolo behind to discover more uncharted waters in the sea of local music, hoping we didn’t collide with an iceberg along the way.

But first, we needed to get something to eat.

I pointed to a nearby Asian cuisine. Fusion Asian Cuisine, to be specific. Right across the street from the Hi-Dive, I figured that it would be the right place to be. I was right. Their spicy-as-hell Dan Dan Noodles have to be the best example of fine Asian dining since the tragic closing of the Imperial Cafe over half a decade ago. I no longer cared about the music; this plate sitting in front of me made this whole night worth it. Three drunken men eschewing responsibility in favor of one night in the entertainment district, as happy as fate would allow, pigging out on a meal that would shorten our expected lifespans by at least ten minutes. We made it the best ten minutes of our lives.

Something I made a wisecrack about, only to realize that it was a factual statement moments later, was that the music in this place was better than at least eighty percent of the garbage outside. Which was funny, because this music was simply dreadful; the kind of thing that could only come about if Paul Oakenfold had a career in making elevator music (one could argue that he does this already).

At some point in time, we remembered that there was a music festival taking place and that, oh man, we need to go see Air Dubai STAT!

We all know how well that turned out.

It was a shame, considering that Air Dubai are pretty much the only rap/rock combo that I can stomach. Hold on, that sounds like backhanded praise, let me try again: Air Dubai are pretty much the only rap/rock combo that I can enjoy. The other crap conjures up awful memories of Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park. Talented kids with an energetic stage show that can even make cynical ol’ me crack a smile instead became talented kids with an energetic stage show and Goddammit I need to get out of here NOW!

We left the warehouse, me with a massive lead over the other two, and through a chain reaction of pure luck and braindead passerbys, ran into Max and Catherine again. At this point, Catherine bared her blood-sucking canines, put me into the dreaded Von Erich Iron Claw and stole the Tofu out of my styrofoamed leftovers. Well, okay. It wasn’t exactly that exciting, but I did indeed run into Catherine and I did indeed lose the Tofu mixed into my leftovers. I was kind of, not mad, but somewhat miffed that the best non-noodle part of my meal had disappeared. That bitch! Perhaps the next time someone asks to sample some of my food, I should just punch them in the ear instead? She’s a nice kid, though. I would later on, through the use of Bourbon-laced fingers, spill a drink all over her, making us even. And yeah, it should be pretty obvious that I’m only joking here; it’s not like I’m going to slowly kill her because oh no some food items of mine are missing or whatever.

With the night beginning to wind down, we ducked into a nearby coffeehouse, if for no other reason than to duck into a coffeehouse. Except for Joel and Alan, who both left after claiming that they were, “totally starting to feel hung over” at eleven at night. With those party poopers out of the picture, the three of us enjoyed the small coffeehouse band, Science Partner. Admittedly, I hated them. At first. They opened with some shit novelty song about Miley Cyrus and something about an octopus with nine tentacles. After the absolute debacle that was Air Dubai, I was certainly not in the mood for another awful performance. Song two kicked in and song two changed the tone. Holy Hell, I thought, this is pretty good! Science Partner are a three piece set, with a young man on vocals and acoustic guitar, with two women providing backup vocals. Think along the lines of a minimalist Joe Cocker, and you get the right idea for their set-up. Of course, it would be disrespectful of me to compare a band to another band, so let me put to you this way: Science Partner are a band that gets it. Some time ago, I asked myself, rhetorically, what the motivation was for so many kids starting up so many bands. Science Partner make music for the simple reason that they want to. Certainly a step-up from the endless list of attention whores seeking validation in the form of, “you totally killed it tonight, bro!” This is where I insert a lame joke about them, “certainly killing something, alright.” These guys looked to be having so much performing: doing things like improvising mid-song and joking with the small crowd to running to the coffeehouse counter, grabbing a drink and getting back in time to nail the chorus. It was fun and it was genuine and the music was a sobering example of purity in music-making. ADDENDUM: it seems that Science Partner are actually a five-piece band, with a bassist and a percussionist, neither of whom were performing that night.

The long reach of exhaustion eventually reached out to Max and Catherine as well. Once Science Partner finished, the two of them bid me farewell. Now alone, it was time for me to walk about eight blocks in a bad part of town in the middle of the night. My destination was a BBQ joint where the final acts of the night would play.

Surprisingly, I made it to my destination without incident. The destination wasn’t such a wonderful place to be. I guess the air conditioner or the ceiling fan were out of commission, because standing in this crowded restaurant felt as though Richard Nixon was playing with Hell’s thermostat. My black Voltron: Defender of the Universe t-shirt had suddenly become a moist, skin-tight nightmare and my glasses were beginning to slip off of my ears. I waited, impatiently, for this no-name band to finish up and take a hike. My reason for being here was to see Consider the Raven (remember, they are My New Favorite Band At The Moment^tm). I had seen them once before, at that Godawful underground bunker that is the Meadowlark; the claustrophobic, criminally understaffed hellhole responsible for exposing me to Something Something Teflon. It was a fun night of hearing these young men and women play only the best examples of Gorgeous Music for Gorgeous People and then trying to talk to them after the show due to having dental work done earlier in the day, leaving a bunch of shit in the back of my mouth brushing against my tongue, making it sound as though I had an embarrassing lisp.

But that was then. Science Partner had lightened my mood and now I was ready for what was coming. Again, pulling pretentious quotes from my Twitter, I had described this act as such: “like an interdimentional campout in your own backyard.” It’s funny now that I think about things. Three years ago, when I got the idea to make this site, I had nothing but angry and rebellious punk rock pumping through my veins. Maybe it was because I was working a really shitty job alongside tiny-dicked assholes with textbooks examples of passive-aggressive behavior and my life was basically work followed by a couple hours of Call of Duty on my Xbox followed by a few hours of sleep followed by waking up at four a.m just to repeat the pattern and dammit, I needed something to relate to; to feel even remotely human. That time has long since passed me by and now I find myself with a lower blood-pressure and a taste for soft vocals and sweet melodies alongside the finest Shibuya-kei to come out of Japan. Consider the Raven, along with pretty much any band I have said good things about in the last year, have fit this to a T. Although I think CTR may have an edge over everyone else. And even if it meant squatting in this crowded sweatbox to hear them, then it would have been worth it.

Of course, because I seem to have acquired a nose for this sort of thing, I was right. It was completely worth it. Even though the crowd had quickly dissipated the moment Frank Fuckhead and his No-Talent Bums left the stage, it didn’t seem to really bother these guys. It really only served to make the show a bit more intimate. At least, as intimate as a place serving sauce-soaked spare ribs can possibly be. One thing I can never not notice is the contrast between the dual-lead vocalists, Connie and Ali. Connie, despite her friendly demeanor, always looks so determined on-stage, as though every show is her last and that dammit, she had better make it count. On the other hand, Ali can’t seem to help but crack a smile and keep herself from giggling, as though being in a band is a surreal, dreamlike experience that she refuses to believe is real. The guitarist and drummer, Fletcher and James (respectively) more or less fade into the background, instead forming the musical backbone to their collaborative sound. It’s the musical equivalent of a midday Summer rain; It is a thing of beauty.

How appropriate it was, then, that the last act at the Underground Music Showcase was the best. The streets and bars and clubs more or less emptied after the show, leaving Downtown Denver look and feel like the creepiest of ghost towns. It was a wonderful end to a terrible night. The only evidence that anything happened that night were my terrible cell phone camera shots and my twenty dollar wristband. It was scary like that; a major show, complete with a nationally known band, took place here and not a single thing on these streets were out of place. No garbage. No begging homeless. Not even a grocery bag tumbleweed. Everything was back to normal. It was morning in Colorado.

I make my way to the main bedroom, where I meet a figure who has her back to me. I know who this person is, I just ask for her identity for customary sake. Sure enough, upon turning to face me, I recognize her immediately. It’s the same woman who’s appeared in my recent series of recurring dreams. As always, I’m hesitant, yet also excited to see her again. I begin our conversation by showing off a new t-shirt I brag about having to purchase from an online clothing store in Japan. It’s bright red and sports the logo for Flower, Sun and Rain. Flower, Sun and Rain is an obscure Japanese video game about a man who repeats the same day, over and over again, like a surrealistic Groundhog Day. How appropriate it is then that I’m wearing that shirt here. This woman, I guess we can still refer to her as my friend, is wrapped in a bedsheet and nothing more. I should also mention that she never stands up or moves around; she’s only seen in a constantly shifting reclining position.

She asks me if it’s true that war has broken out. I grimly inform that yeah, yeah it has. As someone from that part of the world, I thought she would have some sort of emotional reaction to this news. Instead, she just nods her head and rolls onto her side. I move my face closer to hers and ask her, as nervous as I’ve ever been, if we could ever be friends again.

She just laughs at me and replies, “James, we’ve always been friends!”

I’m relived that I’ll never see her again. On the other, strange and masochistic hand, I feel sad that I’ll never see her again. After all, you’re close to someone for so long and then, suddenly, it stops. Almost overnight, somebody I trusted and confided in more than anyone I’ve ever known; someone who considered me to be a “little brother” does a complete 180 and decides that no, James, I don’t like you anymore. In fact, I hate you. I hate her, too. I think. I never thought that being able to finally get a good night’s sleep would be so confusing and bittersweet.

The reason I’ve been writing about my dreams these last few articles is simple: I need to show off my frame of mind when I write these things. The last thing I want is for anyone to think I’m not being one hundred percent genuine; that I’m just playing up the lack of quality of Denver’s local music for laughs or to make my friends seem oh so much better.

As cynical as ever, I returned to the Larimer Lounge, the same place where Mr. Right would beg the audience to read their Twitter page. A Twitter page whose latest update was at least a month before I was asked to follow them, leaving me to wonder just what the fuck was so important about their stupid Twitter if it was completely and utterly lacking in content? Fantastic, you’re getting ready for a show that took place some time in the past. This is the present, followed by the future, try to catch up. A few days ago, I sold my soul and actually got a Twitter account (easy to leave show notes there, as opposed to waiting for Facebook to slowly load up on my phone). Yes, I added Mr. Right to my “Following” list. And yes, I thought it was funny at the time (by the way, don’t forget to follow Mr. Right on Twitter! Unless you don’t support our brothers and sisters serving overseas, Commie!).

Anyways. Back to the Larimer Lounge. I’d been invited to come by Max, as he would be performing that night. I had no hope. I just shrugged my shoulders and assumed that I would be in for a long night of drinking and hating myself. Although there may be no God, there is at least some force of nature at work who only works at the most unusual of times. After the disaster that was Something Something Teflon, Max’s line about only playing alongside good bands would start to regain some of its weight and meaning. A glimmer of hope would enter my embittered heart.

The first man up was Dwight Forcey. Again, another young man I had gone to school with who had musical aspirations (I seem to be the only Smoky Hill High School alumni who has no musical talent). I’d be lying if I said that I knew him really well. I don’t. He’s a nice enough guy to be around, though. Musically speaking, he began his performance with a solo acoustic act, before two more musicians entered the stage. The three of them formed like Voltron and changed the tone from somber acoustics to the kind of pop-punk that’s more reminiscent of the goofier side of The Blue Hearts or The Ramones rather than the manufactured garbage of Green Day or the Sex Pistols. Between songs, the three would crack jokes and reference one another’s Majestic Moustache. Certainly better than Dwight plugging a Twitter account or letting us know that his new single is available for download on iTunes.

Another band would take the stage. Unfortunately, I, uh, left after Dwight finished his set. A small-scale high school reunion was taking place on the Lounge’s front patio. Just about everyone I knew in school had shown up to hear the music. Naturally, this meant sitting outside in the brisk summer air, far away from any sort of music whatsoever. So to you, Band Number Two, I apologize for not giving you a chance. You were probably pretty good.

I returned to the venue, got a drink and waited for the next act to get ready. I didn’t know it then, but soon enough, I would find my mind completely blown by the quality of these guys. They were Theodore Black, a six-piece group from Denver that defied the standards set by the other bands I had spent the last year following. They were not Rock and Roll. At least not in the Billboard Top 20 sense. They were Rock and Roll in the philosophical sense. Rock and Roll in the sense that Buffalo Daughter, Zazen Boys and The Delgados are Rock and Roll. Theodore Black are a group who’s sound is self-described as, taken from their website, “Folk, Gospel, Rhythm and Blues tell a story of Original Birth cradled in a cement bed.” They did a better job of describing themselves than I would have. I was going to describe their sound as, “swinging a sledgehammer at an oncoming Ford F-150” or, “cutting your own hair with a razor sharp samurai sword (Washizaka, Katana or Nodachi, take your pick)” or, “hunting and killing a Kodiak with a Nerf gun.” Their sound is the kind of sound one would expect from an alternate version of the nineteen fifties, effortlessly playing to a rowdy crowd of dirty drunks, shifty-eyed gangsters and mystery women who could easily march a fool off a cliff. The soundtrack to that murder-mystery I’ve had simmering in the back of my mind: the scene where the detective meets his informant, shortly before fighting off an ambush of pimps, hitmen and dope peddlers in an alleyway. A sound that echoes a heated, rapidly emptying Tommy Gun.

They took to the stage with the fury of a force five hurricane. Acoustic guitars and harmonicas and keyboards and drums and bass and…whatever the hell the sixth instrument is struck their individual chords with a shotgun blast of force that rocked me to my core. I realized then and there that if Theodore Black does not make in the music industry, I’m joining a suicide cult, where I’ll ride out the apocalypse with a plastic bag and poisoned fruit juice. It was an enlightening experience. Max Winne, I will never doubt you again!

I managed to run into a couple of the band members outside, smoking cigarettes. A combination of liquor and pure excitement overcame any anti-social nervousness I would have normally had in this type of situation. I made sure to let them know that, of every act I had seen in the area, they were without a doubt one of the absolute best. Certainly better than [INSERT ROGUES GALLERY OF MUSCIANS INCLUDING WHITE LEATHER AND A COUPLE OTHER GROUPS THAT SUCK HERE], at least. They seemed to be very appreciative of and genuinely touched by this statement. Either that, or they were doing a really good job of humoring a rambling drunk. The main lead vocalist was sure to recommended a couple of similar acts for me to check out: Paper Bird and Tom Collins. Unfortunately, I forgot to ask which Tom Collins to check out. The Tom Collins, the indie band from Georgia? The Danish Tom Collins, whose MySpace page is a glaringly yellow, musicless husk? Or was it the other Tom Collins Google pulled up, whose web designing skills take me back to the nostalgic time of Geocities and xXxGOKUVEGETAJUGGALO666xXx’s HENTAI EMPORIUM? Regardless, I’m thankful for the time that they gave me. Please, I implore you to check out their website and take a moment to hear their music. You’ll thank me for it later.

In the downtime, I somehow found myself in a drunken debate with an old high-school friend about Sega games. Mostly over whether or not Shenmue is the greatest video game in existence. Shenmue is not the greatest video game in existence. Anybody with a working brain knows that Shigesato Itoi’s Mother series is the best thing to ever happen to video gaming since Nolan Bushnell did a whole lotta Coke and came up with the Atari 2600. Shenmue is a shining masterpiece of bad decision after bad decision. Stiffly wandering around a meticulously detailed Yokosuka asking faceless nobodies with annoying voices if they had seen any men in black suits around here lately. Or dealing with the frequent quick-time events (the worst thing to happen to video gaming since Nolan Bushnell did a whole lotta Coke and sold Atari to Warner Brothers) while looking for Chinese people. Any Chinese people will do, I guess. Long, slow, backwards investigations that involve you falling for just about every red herring that is humanly imaginable and your reward for finishing this exercise in tedium? You get on a boat SEE YOU NEXT GAME. MADE BY WONKY H, ISLE OF SAMA, HAPPY CHUCK AND YOU! THE END. No thanks. Ryu Ga Gotoku and Deadly Premonition have since done the whole, “investigating and fighting things” genre much, much better than the otherwise creative and hitmaking Yu Suzuki. Also, the only good thing about this game is Space Harrier. But then I could just load up my recent version of MAME and play Space Harrier there, without the load times and Ryo Hazuki’s vacant stare. Basically what I’m saying here is the game sucks what the hell, guys?

Max (The Maykit) seemed to overcome his issue with insecurity and nervousness that night. I’d never seen the man so confident before. He crooned and strung his chords as though he were a decade long institution in his class. His lightly smoky and ravaged vocals added to his meticulous guitar work put away any doubts I had about Max finding himself outshone and irrelevant in comparison to some no-nothing, sub-protozoan asshole like Nick O’Connor. Max had it. Max got it. I was as happy and proud of and for him as I had ever been. Listening to O’Connor is like masturbating to a photospread of Megan Fox’s barely concealed breasts. Listening to The Maykit is like having rough sex with God. Careful though, boys: the Lord is a clingy, psycho bitch; better to just put your pants back on and quietly slip out into the night.

The headliners were a post-rock dynamo that went by the name It’s True. Like Max Winne, the members of It’s True were large, heavily bearded melancholy minstrels. I love depressing, moody, slow paced music. Surprising, isn’t it? I fell in love with post rock when I discovered Don’t Mess With Texas, the best thing to come from Zagreb, Croatia since Serious Sam and Mirko Cro Cop. If Theodore Black could be described as, “swimming the 100 meter meet through a body of cotton candy,” then It’s True could be described as, “space walking through a saline solution and at the end, you meet all of your dead pets and find that they’re happy and healthy in this new existence.” Theodore Black had a sound that hit you physically and broke your body. It’s True has a sound that hits you mentally and breaks your spirit. The friction of Theodore Black’s dirty off-shoot of blues contrasted with It’s True’s silky smooth, seamless melody of experimental sound. My body was unknowingly moving in time with the sound and the beat. I wasn’t alone. A small group of my intellectual cohorts Andy Ace, a quick-witted Asian who often made self-flagellating jokes about his race, Cam, the tall, relatively silent (at least in comparison to mine and Andy’s motor mouths eternally set to a salesman’s pitch) young man with an excellent taste in music and Stephanie, the gorgeous young lady who seemed to be the only person around here who has their shit together. The four of us were put into a trance by this sound. A sound so heavy and yet so weightless, we could have been knocked unconscious with an errant whisper. It’s True obviously learned how to play music from the finest Cosmonauts to ever emerge from the Motherland. So fine-tuned; so perfect. It was a high that you never want to come down from. Tell Ground Control to give me five more minutes!

My time at the Larimer Lounge was time well spent. An eye-opening, paradigm shifting night that will only help bury the tragic mistakes of the past and to let outsiders know that the Colorado Music Buzz does not speak for the common man. A person who hears Dwight Forcey is a person who will never willingly put Take the Track onto their iPod. A person who hears Theodore Black is a person who will make a delicious batch of Udon noodles in lieu of McDonald’s drive-thru. A person who hears The Maykit will have seen the end of the Universe and will realize that life is too precious and too important to ever give White Leather the time of day. A person who hears It’s True will crash land back on Earth, a better person than when they had left. If it’s worth anything, my recurring nightmares seem to be gone, so maybe I’m right on this?

I’m sitting here listening to somebody tell a joke. It’s not a very funny one, though; it’s one of those extremely racist jokes that begins with the classic, “I’m not racist, but…” and ends with a paraphrased form of the heavy metal catchphrase, “Kill ‘Em All!” I guess it would be funny if I were like, fourteen years old and retarded. I’m not. I’m a grown man bending my bones like wire in this awful seat wondering about the type of company I keep. My brain and I have a conversation. I ask what we should do now. “Take a drink,” is the answer, and Lord, is that ever a hell of an answer.

The bottle in my dominant hand (that would be my right one) reaches my lips and gives me a kiss sweeter than that of any woman. A mixture of finely brewed poisons breaks off into different squads infiltrating my brain and my stomach and the tips of my fingers. The small group in the room with me are laughing at the joke. One of them turns to me with a fake smile and quietly tells me a rhetorical question (the tone did not end with a question mark), “Jesus Christ, was that horrible or what!” Nobody knows just who the hell the comedian is, or how he got here, but since it’s three in the morning he won’t be going anywhere so hey, let’s just humor the poor bastard. Suddenly, I worry less about the company I keep.

Time passes. The jokes about minorities have come to a thankful end. The asshole with the terrible sense of humor is passed out and given looks of scorn and some harsh words by passerbys that are unable to reach him in his deep sleep. I thought I heard somebody call the guy a “faggot.” I hope that was ironic.

His slumber was a sign of things to come. Things are winding down. What had been, before all this mess, a lively gathering of friends, associates and slightly tolerable folks, has now become a parade of tired eyes and numb limbs moving about as if underwater. I don’t watch much television, other than the channel that shows nothing but old movies. Sometimes you get gems like Rashomon or something with Audrey Hepburn. The rest of the time you get poorly made mysteries or alleged comedies starring complete nobodies who were only slightly less of a nobody even in their time. I always seem to notice something when I come to get-togethers like these: those movies always seem to have small parties in large homes attended by well-dressed, pretty white people tossing back martinis and calling each other “darling.” Time is cyclical. We are no different now than we were then. A bunch of white people downing shots of Jaegermeister and Grey Goose and cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon in expertly coordinated outfits engaged in conversations of absolute inanity. I think I may have crossed that fine line of self-parody.

The thought, combined with the liquor in my system, causes a negative reaction in my stomach. The bathroom is occupied, so I have to dash out the back door and lean my head over the balcony three stories high. The brown (or orange, hard to tell in the darkness) sickness violently smacking the pavement below is the only sound I hear. My eyes are closed, half out of drunken shame, the other half from my body’s reaction. When it’s all over, I haphazardly wipe my mouth with the sleeve of my jacket and lean back against the wall. All I can think is, Jesus Christ, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alone.

Part one ended with my mood going into an upswing, finally finding a show that didn’t make me hate myself and the end of my recurring dreams that only served to make me look and feel like an anti-social asshole.

Part two begins as such: my dreams have come back. Like the brooms in Fantasia, they only become stronger and grow in number the more I try to fight them. Lately though, they seem to have changed in terms of the events that transpire. Recently, I actually managed to get the attention of the woman I had been seeking out. Rather, she had found me. A non-chalant stride was followed by a standard, “Hello, James!” My unsure and nervous tone of voice could only respond with a stammered, “H-hello, um, Ella?” Suddenly, she breaks down in tears and repeats endlessly, “James! I’m so sorry, James!” I pretend to not know what she’s apologizing for (“What are you so sorry about?”), instead letting her cry on my shoulder, knowing that everything will be okay now.

And then I woke up, shooting up into a sitting position that’s seen in so many cliched television shows and/or movies. Things are not okay now. I don’t like this. I don’t like having these dreams every fucking night. I don’t like feeling like some kind of creepy stalker who just can’t let things go. That was then, this is now, yet my subconscious seems unable to successfully process this information, leaving me to relive things I would rather not.

Part two continues as such: I went to go see The Maykit again. The venue this time was a super secret underground bunker known as the Meadowlark, a bar so secret and underground it does not even have a front door. Finding this place on a map is a massive pain in the ass to say the least. Unlike my time at the Hi-Dive, this event was a fucking disaster. Upon entering the hidden hotspot, I was treated to the, airquote for sarcasm, wonderful novelty act, Something Something Teflon, a band who’s goal was, another airquote, “world domination.” Something Something Teflon isn’t their real name, of course, I just can’t be bothered to remember the entirety of the group’s name, so Something Something Teflon it is. Something Something Teflon (I know, I know) were a group of fat, bereted jackoffs armed with banjos and ukeleles and those rings that have smaller rings inside them that jingle and make noise (I do not know the technical name) singing songs about ordering pizza and performing terrible uke-powered Sex Pistols covers. I like (some would say love) punk rock music, which means I hate the Sex Pistols. A one-armed bandit telling me to check out his Twitter is the only thing I could possibly think of that could be any worse.

Sitting down and writing this now, I think, “Am I just out of touch?” Somebody, somewhere, thinks that these guys are good. Maybe bands with physical handicaps, barely updated Twitter accounts and poorly thought out plans of domination are the in-thing? Maybe I’m just not part of the target audience?

The reason I think of this now is because, the other day, I had gone shopping for clothes at a local alt-fashion store (I’m a tad embarrassed to admit the name, you see). Silently stewing in my own annoyance waiting for the slow-witted woman behind the counter to stop being fucking retarded and ring up my two (2) t-shirts (one depicting the image of Sonic the Hedgehog, the other some promotional artwork for the hit fighting game, Marvel vs Capcom, transferred onto 100% Haitian cotton), I saw a missing persons flyer hanging up behind the one-two combo of Team Edward vs Team Jacob and Juggalo 4 Lyfe paraphernalia. In other words, a place no normal person would ever think to look (har har, I am sooooo counter-culture). It was obviously a homemade production, with hand-written information with photocopied pictures adorning the top and middle right side of the page. The missing girl in question was Melissa Something Something (again with forgetting names), a.k.a:

MELISSA LOVELY

A missing teenager with an alias. An alias so awful and corny your average large-breasted, blonde haired and blue eyed pro wrestling valet or porn star (like there’s a difference, really) wouldn’t even consider using it for a single minute. The pictures haphazardly splattered all over the place were heavily-bloomed, perfectly angled MySpace photography. Miss Lovely posed for every amateur shot with one arm “sensually” held behind her head, a head which also sported a pair of lips pursed in a way I haven’t seen since a stripper gave me a (relatively) sensual massage. Said massage was given under false pretenses: she had believed that I was in a band of some sort. Truthfully, I was just a nineteen (19) year old drifter in a rapidly fading Misfits t-shirt. The lips on her face illustrated a feigned sense of comfort as she let me massage her breasts and make finger outlines of the left and right butterfly wings tattooed onto her respective shoulder blades. She was as into it as my bank account would allow.

Melissa Lovely’s photospread had no doubt attracted and conned the hearts and erections of many a man on the internet, up to and most certainly including the one who no doubt kidnapped her, had his way with her and then chopped her up into smaller, easier to manage pieces. He didn’t see through the act and she ended up paying the price. Maybe. For all I know, she’s probably still alive and hiding out at a friends’ place like other teen runaways.

This girl’s name and face etched itself into my mind the same way any dead girl finds her way into the mind of a complete psycho always looking to solve the next great mystery. Here I am, listening to a fat guy play a ukelele and scream out “PSYCHO KILLER! I AM A PSYCHO KILLER!” like something out of a terrible film made by someone who really liked David Lynch yet had no idea what actually makes his work work (see example: Southland Tales, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) wondering just what hell it is I’m doing with my life. And I seemed to be the minority, judging by the roar of applause that surrounded me and shook the walls and floor of the bomb shelter. The surrealism of this novelty act getting a larger ovation than My Bloody Valentine’s reunion show last summer (loaded from top to bottom with cross-armed hipsters bragging about seeing Band X play in front of Y people (Y in this equation was usually less than thirty) and being able to identify with total strangers because THE MUSIC WAS FUCKIN’ WICKED AND SPOKE TO MY SOUL, MAN) made me feel as though I were “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and I just discovered a pair of sunglasses. Said sunglasses allowed me to come to my senses. I was out of touch! The Melissa Lovelies’ of the world might have loved Something Something Teflon, bought an issue of Colorado Music Buzz due to White Leather appearing on the cover and subscribed to Mr. Right’s thrice-updated Twitter. I didn’t! But, it became apparent that I was not a Melissa Lovely. I lived in a musical bubble that contained things like Shoegaze and Japanese punk rock from at least ten (10) or twenty (20) years ago. Also Demi Lovato, but really, she transcends time and taste into something tangible; that inexplicable and indescribable “It.”

Something Something Teflon’s plans for world domination came to a close and Max (the one and only member of The Maykit, if you weren’t paying attention) began to play. As always, he doesn’t disappoint. At least outside of one issue, which I will bring up later. Tonight, though, it didn’t matter. Max, standing on a stage that couldn’t have been larger than 3×3 feet in size, played his heart out in front of apathetic strangers who already got their money’s worth listening to an awful cover of Anarchy in the U.K (which had been HILARIOUSLY called a Lady Gaga cover by “mistake”). The poor guy deserved better. At least better than my bubble.

Weeks would go by. I would see Max and Alan (Baird) again, this time performing on the same night. Finally, I thought, a chance to see my friends up on stage without the downside of listening to their supporting acts. A third act would be introduced: Nick O’Connor, a guitar player who also had the luck of being Nick Fox’s roommate (Fox is the lead guitarist for the Alan Baird Project).

I was wowed by O’Connor’s musical talent. Borrowing the non-Alan parts of the Project, he managed to add some extra spice to what would have been an otherwise solo act. I should also just cut right to the chase and tell you, the reader, what’s up. Nick O’Connor is a man who’s as full of himself as he is full of talent. I might like his music, but I do not like him. I promised my mother that I wouldn’t call him an asshole but, unfortunately for my mother, I’m going to go back on my word and Nick O’Connor is an asshole. The arrogance, the shitty attitude, the self-misconception that he is God’s Gift to Women are all backed up by that talent. He is the perfect villain. I’ll detail him when I get to his douchebaggery in the correct chronological order.

For as much of a no-good prick O’Connor was, Max was and is his polar opposite. O’Connor got the small crowd’s attention with minimal effort. Max, on the other hand, nervously played in front of a bunch of Chatty Cathy’s who would not shut the fuck up the entire time he was up on stage. I try not to let my personal bias show through in these things; Max Winne and the Alan Baird Project (among a select few other local groups, like Old Radio and Air Dubai) are good enough on their own without relying on me to be their mouthpiece. My other defense is that I’ve never heard a single Drop Dead Gorgeous song, even though Alan used to play guitar for them, so there. But this time, I’m going to let my personal bias shine right the hell on through and say: MAX WINNE DESERVES BETTER THAN TO BE SHOWN UP BY FUCKING NICK O’CONNOR. My one small complaint that I mentioned earlier was that he was too damned nervous. This is fine if you’re in a Shoegaze band; not like anyone is there for anything other than the music or the bragging rights anyway, not fine if you’re in a small, intimate bar performing in front of your closest friends. Max, take control of the situation and demand the crowd’s attention!

I finished cheering on Max and had a drink (what else is new?). To my left was O’Connor, not yet on my shit list, hitting on on two young ladies (one of whom will be a future Rock and Roll Strikes Back dot com columnist, I hope) in the most laughably bad, painful way imaginable. Hovering three inches from their faces like a vengeful ghost blowing his rancid breath, a breath that smelled like he washed down a bowl of cole slaw with a can of root beer, directly into the girls and to anyone in the immediate vicinity (read: me). If I didn’t know any better, I could’ve sworn that he upped the creep factor by a good tenfold and, no shit, began smelling the girls’ hair. Can you believe that he’s single, ladies!?

Some time would go by before Alan and company would go on. Myself, the future columnist Alex Olson and two of our friends shot the breeze, as people do. Here comes O’Connor, clasping his arms around Alex and announcing to us and to anyone else in the area: “HEY, HAVE YOU GUYS MET THE HOTTEST WOMAN IN THE BAR YET?” Awkward silence. Confused stares. Alex looking uncomfortable. “HEY, HAVE YOU GUYS HEARD ABOUT THE NEW KANYE WEST ALBUM? I HEARD IT’S GOING TO BE THE BEST, UM, LIKE, THE BEST FUCKING HIP-HOP THING, ALBUM, IN TEN YEARS!” My bubble was threatening to ’sperg out and give me a mental checklist of great hip-hop albums in the past decade. This was followed by more awkward silence. More confused stares. Alex looked like she was going to be sick. As if by osmosis, O’Connor, the class act, got the hint and rightfully fucked off. At least not until he gave me a free CD in exchange for a good review. Here it is: Nick O’Connor can play the guitar like a motherfucker. But when he’s not playing the guitar, he is a motherfucker. Thanks for the CD, you obnoxious douchebag, it’ll make a great coaster.

I would spot O’Connor again at the recent Tom Petty/Joe Cocker concert here at Red Rocks. His idea of enjoying the show was to jump around playing the air guitar, air drums, air keyboard, air bass and probably the air flute, air banjo, air oboe and air triangle too. He also came quite close to smacking my mother in the back of the head (and nearly losing his life as a result) with a dance that can only be accurately described as putting his arms to his side and running back and forth, pretending to be an airplane in mid-flight. I really don’t like the guy, if you weren’t already able to gather. I’d rather stay in my bubble and let the chopped up remains of Melissa Lovely support the guy. Fuck him.

Part two ends as such: I started the first concert “review” (another airquote) due to my reunion with Alan Baird and all the things that I had missed. All the good things in my past that slipped away along with my humanity. Before walking into the Marquis for the first time in two years, I felt as though I wasn’t me. Time would pass and shit would only get worse. My sleepless nights of being haunted by a Croatian office drone, the shitty music that I willingly dive head-first into and the massive writers’ block I’ve been struggling with for some time (you’re not the only person who has noticed that all of my fictional stories have been the same thing repeated endlessly with a few words changed around) have left me wondering about a lot of things. About myself and my future. About my friends and theirs. Nobody has to worry about Nick O’Connor or White Leather, they’ll end up making it in life. I do worry, though, about the rest of us. Wondering if our hopes and dreams will be remembered not by people who are entertained or inspired by the things that we do, but instead will only be remembered by these online entries and my metaphorical bubble?

Hopefully I’m wrong. Hopefully I can get a good night’s rest tonight. I’m hoping I can the reason for these dreams back in my life and come back with a stronger bond than ever before (I miss my friend as much as I resent her). In general, I’m just hoping against hope.

An explanation is in order. I’ve been having a recurring series of dreams off and on (mostly on) for the past month and a half. They tend to follow the same pattern, with subtle differences each night: I’m either back in my old high school or my old job, sometimes both of them are in the same building. I attend classes that I have never taken before, not done the assignments for and in some cases, don’t even know where they are in the building. My goal here is not to learn, though. I keep my eyes open, as I am looking for someone.

The imaginary classes let out and I rush to my store. I always have to sneak in, since I no longer work here and there’s no way any of the managers would let me in. The person I’m looking for is always here, constantly moving from place to place. This person in question is a friend of mine who I recently had a falling out with (in reality, not a dream). We had been pretty close for a good three years before she suddenly had a change of heart and decided that she didn’t want to be my friend anymore. No reason was ever given as to why she suddenly vanished from my life, which is probably why I look for her here. Every night, I manage to find her just as she’s walking into her office and I always follow her. No matter how much I wave my arms around and yell out her name, “ELIDA! ELIDA! ELIDA!” She never looks up at me. Sometimes she’ll get up and walk away from me, moving at a speed no normal human could ever hope to achieve.

Then I wake up. Grouchy. Angry. Frustrated. It is how I start my day nowadays. The dreams are always so vivid as to be real. Lately they’ve even become somewhat lucid, allowing me to control some of the events, at least until the end. As mad as I am about our friendship ending, I’m even angrier at Elida [XXXXX] for this horrible bullshit series of dreams (I’m too old to use the term, “nightmare,” so I won’t).

The previous paragraphs were both an explanation and a justification for my previous diatribe that made me sound like a bitter old man. I’m not such a foul, elitist prick like I make myself sound.

Luckily for me, this is not an article about The Alan Baird Project, a band surrounded by extreme abuses of the word “talent.” I won’t have to suffer through retarded teenagers trying too hard or “if the Foo Fighters and the Sex Pistols beat the crap out of Journey.” No, this time things will be different.

I had received an invitation to a show at the Hi-Dive (oh boy, I thought, the Hi-Dive again). There would be three bands: The May Kit, Old Radio and A Weather. Eagle eyed readers may notice a link on the right sidebar underneath “friends” that leads you to the May Kit’s MySpace page. Uh oh! Will James’ personal bias shine through yet again!? Sort of? Admission: The May Kit is actually a one-man act, a fellow by the name of Max Winne and much like Alan Baird, I’ve known Max since my days in high school who I’ve only recently come back into contact with. Unlike my last two pieces of work, though, I won’t end up saying something like, “THE MAY KIT WERE THE ONLY GOOD ONES THERE YOU ALL SUCK SUCK SUCK etc etc.” I had been promised a good concert overall. I would find that I would not be disappointed.

I met Max outside the venue. With long hair, a thick beard and surrounded by cigarette smoke, he definitely looked the part of a rock star. Max knew and understood my trepidation coming here. Two days prior, the both of us had seen The Alan Baird Project perform at Larimer Lounge (now the worst dive in Denver, beating out the Hard Rock “pay more for a shot of vodka than you would a copy of After Burner Climax” Cafe), which brought along its own horrors: a group of forty year old rock and roll ghouls and their laughable attempts at hardcore music and Mr. Right, the most obnoxious group of assholes I’ve ever had the displeasure to hear or see. Decked out in the ultimate in hipster wear; dress shirts, ties, thick rimmed glasses, Mr. Right would be sure to remind you before, after and probably during each song, most of which were, “dedicated to our brothers and sisters serving overseas,” that they were Mr. Right and to check them out on Twitter. Half an hour of my life went by listening to barely-reformed high school kids crank out generic bullshit and remind me that, “once again, we’re Mr. Right and you can check us out on Twitter: mrrightband.” Here’s your Twitter account, Mr. Right. All three wonderful entries. Now please shut the hell up.

My eye becoming even more jaundiced at the lack of quality I was exposing myself to, I was holding Max to his claim of, “only playing with good bands.” Otherwise I was worried I would have a Fred Sanford-esque “big one” and end up writing concert reviews that devolve into nothing more than a reflection of my own vanity and hate-ridden rants directed at people whom I’ve had to pay money to see. Thankfully that hasn’t happened yet.

I waited for Max to finish his cigarette (I don’t smoke, you see) before we went back into the Hi-Dive. It hadn’t changed an iota since my last appearance. It still had that wonderful lighting more reminiscent of a cave full of bats than a place to listen to music and chat up dumb scene kids for sex. The bathrooms were still just fronts for anonymous encounters. One improvement I did notice though, was that the shot glasses I ordered had more liquor in them than last time, even moreso compared to the Larimer Lounge, which felt like drinking the last remaining ring of backwash from a can of Sprite. It didn’t take much time or effort to loosen up in the chemical sense.

The show began, and Max was up first. Armed with an acoustic guitar, Max captivated the small house with a sweet melody and a soft voice that defied his outward, rugged appearance. The set was, all things considered, pretty damned amazing and much better than I expected (not that I expected it to be bad or anything, as horrible as that sounds). For the first time in a long time, I was actually having a good time. I think everybody was. The usual cast of characters had arrived: the hangers-on, the tattoo artists, the musicians, the fashionista, even Alan showed up, looking like he had just crawled out of a dumpster, but he showed up nonetheless. A party was going to happen.

Max had finished his performance. Several hours and several drinks later, he would ask me what I thought of his act. My response was simple, albeit slurred: “Man, that was so fuckin’ good! I loved it!” Before then, though, there were still two more bands who needed to play and there were still opportunities for my mean and overly critical eye to have its buttons pressed.

I heard Old Radio and A Weather perform. Like my experience with Max, I was not left feeling as though I had wasted my time. Coming to these sometimes makes me wonder why I bother. After all, I could just as well become a hermit, staying indoors listening to obscure Shoegaze I downloaded off of the internet (or even better, buying my friends’ albums and listening to those instead) and spend hours at a time playing marathon sessions of Demon’s Souls. But, of course, I don’t. I’m not a complete asshole, and, despite it all, I do enjoy seeing my friends regardless of the price (both figurative and literal) I have to pay. I can’t describe music in any detail other than a vague “they were good/not good” and linking to a MySpace page, so I’ll leave you with this: if we had more bands like these, I would not be such a cynical fuckhead about Colorado’s local music scene. I absolutely loved them, and would give them my highest possible recommendation. It should also go without saying that I would highly recommend Max as well.

I had reason to believe that a post-show party would take place. I was not wrong on this. We had all met up a pool hall called Tablesteaks, the same place I met my half-sister for the first time. The poor girl wanted to finally meet her father. Unfortunately for her, she had no idea that he was a heartless piece of shit who wanted nothing to do with her. I only wish I could have had the same treatment. My skill at Billiards had not diminished in the several year hiatus I took from the game; I suppose it’s no different than riding a bike or tying my shoes. Our waitress was a tragic figure with proportions that matched that of a SUPER KAWAII~ anime mascot and equipped with ill-intentions. Said ill-intentions involved overcharging for their terrible food and cheap beer, taking a Goddamned eternity to even provide said goods in a nearly empty hall while presenting a snooty, know it all attitude. These things are most certainly not SUGOI~ Ms. Anime! Despite that snag, I had an excellent time.

That night, something changed. I was expecting the same dream again, of searching for a lost loved one, only to lose them again. Instead, my dream involved Maresa Aughenbaugh behind the wheel of a monster truck, attempting to flatten my car. I woke up the next morning with a laugh. It was funny. It also gave me a small glimmer of hope that things would be different, that I wouldn’t allow myself to be controlled by events in the past shaping my present and my future. Maybe then I could move on.

I’ve been keeping my fingers crossed.

I hate to admit it, but I never felt a single twinge of emotion the entire time. It wasn’t out of some need for macho bullshit machismo or whatever. I just could not feel a thing for the event, for the murder or even for her. As far as I was concerned, she had been dead for some time.

Now, I’m not a cold human being (necessarily). I still feel pain and loss and sympathy and empathy and all that. It was just hard to feel for someone who had done everything they could to ensure that they would earn nothing but your eternal scorn. Someone who’s gone and completely fucked things beyond any and all repair. If the subject of her death were to somehow come up in a conversation, I would have to pretend to be affected. I would make empty claims of missing her and wishing, if only for a day, to have her come back. It was a stupid thing to say, but it worked. I always felt sick afterwards, hating myself for feeling the need to fake my own humanity. I wasn’t a monster for Christ’s Sake!

I remember what caused our rift. She was young. I was younger. We were bright, but as young adults in the early to late twenties, things go wrong in the brain and suddenly you find yourself as dumb as a post. I was born with a cocktail glass full of mental problems, unlike her. She spent her years taking large bites out of life, whereas I took baby steps through the most basic and menial tasks. I wasn’t retarded or anything, I just so happened to be growing up in a time when learning disabilities were finally being diagnosed and treated.

Eventually we both grew up and found that aside from our appearance, we had nothing that related us to one another. I spent my days aimlessly drifting from one bar to the next with my hipster friends, drinking hipster drinks, having sex with hipster women and listening (sometimes ironically) to hipster music. I had no purpose. My sister got married and had a kid at a relatively young age. I always saw myself as the “cool” uncle, you know?

One day, she sent me a letter. In it, she referred to me as nothing more than an embarrassment to the family. “Everybody in this family has become a success. We’ve all made something of our lives, while you mooch off of everybody without any shame!” I had no idea what she was talking about; we grew up on the poor side of town raised by a single parent, our mother, who barely managed to get by cleaning houses for a living. The bar had been set so low that any one of us could tip toe over it and become something just in comparison. She continued on this tirade of my various failings in life, ending her note with a simple message: “I do not ever want to see you again.” There was no signature at the bottom. Just that one heartbreaking statement.

I wrote a letter back, asking just what the hell her problem was. I never heard back.

Then she died, and I didn’t care. Some time after her death, my mother and I had been invited to her house. Her husband and daughter were going through her things and felt that we should take a look as well.

I did my best to avoid most of her crap. Let them reminisce on their own, I thought. A small box, no bigger than a shoebox, caught my eye. The design was of a cartoon dog I absolutely loved as a kid. That dog would just talk to anyone, he didn’t give a fuck who was listening. Curiosity getting the better of me, I popped the box open. What was this?

Cards. Lots and lots of cards. Christmas cards. Birthday cards. Valentine cards. Just about every holiday had a card representing it somewhere in here. I opened up the first card on the stack. It had my name on the inside. I looked at the next one. It had my name on the inside! I looked through at least a couple dozen more. These were all for me! I went back to the first card, reading the message inside this time.

“I’m sorry.”

That was it. A box full of cards full of apologies that had never been sent out. I was so pissed off that I wanted to burn this fucking box. I wanted to burn every fucking box. I knocked the cards over like a child having a temper tantrum, spilling them all over the floor. I sat down, my mind a blank, trying to figure out why she would go to the trouble of getting these cards and then not send them out. It was bullshit!

Next to my feet, a small note had managed to escape the mass of cheap Hallmarks I had knocked over. It was a doctor’s note. More accurately, a prescription. It was some drug, damned if I could pronounce the name, meant to help with patients diagnosed with…bi-polar disorder!? Suddenly, things began to make sense.

I wasn’t mad anymore. I don’t what I was. Sad? Disappointed, if at myself than nobody else? It was foolish, but I felt as though there was something I could have done; should have done, to help her. Instead, I let my pride and my bitterness affect me and not bother to keep on her. Keep sending those letters back asking for answers, rather than refusing to acknowledge her existence. Even if it were a fruitless endeavor, I should have tried something!

Of course, I know now that that probably would have accomplished all of nothing. I took the box of cards home, instead, where they sit in a drawer on my computer desk. I pull them out, every now and again, and just examine them. Look over every detail, like a detective, combing over every individual fiber, just to see if there was something I hadn’t noticed before. The cards are always the same.

I never did figure out a reason why these were never sent to me. All I could do was speculate: was it the bi-polar? Was she embarrassed? Did she not think I would accept them? She might have been right on that last one, actually. Whatever the reason, I have them now, taking them from the small corner they had been tucked away into another small corner to be tucked away, a reminder of the shitty hand life likes to deal you.

I miss you.

“Good morning, sweetheart!” he yelled out in a sarcastic tone. I was too grumpy for this shit, but I wasn’t going to be rude or anything. Getting kicked out would have been a bad idea, especially considering that I had no idea just where the fuck I was or how I had even gotten here in the first place. Instead I waved him off with a simple, groggy, “yeah, yeah…”

It felt like an eternity for me to stand up and get my bearings. The patio door was open, leaving us (leaving me) to suffer through the cold air that only seems to blow in at the worst time.

“Do you mind if I close this?” I asked.
“Go for it. Would you like a cup?” The owner was holding his cup of coffee up to illustrate what he meant.

The two of us sat at his small, three and a half seat dinner table, drinking poorly made coffee (Coffee is not that hard to make! How can it be possible for somebody to fuck it up?) while we discussed the events of the night before. My memory had become nothing more than a series of blurred photographs depicting events that either 1) actually happened or 2) are things that my subconscious unintentionally made up. For all I know, I could just be an amnesiac instead of a drunk.

Brushing an errant strand of hair from his eyes, the owner began asking me things. “Hey! Whatever happened between you and, um, what’s-her-name? You know, the redhead that you were palling around with last night? I thought for sure you guys were gonna end up fucking!”

The exposed slideshow of photographs began speeding up in my head, struggling to find out just who this guy was talking about. An abridged series of events unfolded: I could remember smoking cigarettes with this woman, pausing between drags to make out. Now I’m sitting on a couch, discussing the philosophical and cultural aspects of Final Fantasy X while she’s sitting across my lap, both arms around my head. The last thing I see is her getting pulled up from the floor to her feet by her designated driver, a clearly agitated man with a Napoleon complex and an unflattering jarhead haircut, and taken home. I yelled to the shut door, “DANGER CLOSE, OSCAR MIKE! THERE’S A TANGO OVER BY YOUR BRAVO! STAY FROSTY! Jesus Christ Call of Duty fuckin’ sucks, man!” I was left with a head full of questions, hands full of regret and a penis full of frustration.

I could remember the girl’s minute details moreso than her basic appearance: a cute, conservative spackle of freckles on the bridge of her nose, dark hair highlighted with four brilliant streaks of red and piercing green eyes that could and have captivated the attention of every weak-willed man who has ever gazed into them. Thinking about it started to turn me on all over again. But then I remembered where I was and kept those feelings to myself. That last thing I needed was to try and hide an erection in front somebody; that shit is always the worst.

“Ha ha, yeah man. I can just like, barely remember her! I can’t believe I got that fuckin’ hammered last night!” I lied. Like my arousal, I wanted to keep her all to myself. It had now become a journey for me to find this woman who’s name I can’t remember and whose appearance is only tangential to me at best.

Though really, who was I kidding? This was just a regular night. Ladies like her come and go to places like this and get hit on by guys like me. A never ending chain of events in our young lives. Get drunk, get laid and forget all about it in the morning. Sometimes I get worry as to whether or not I’ll ever grow up and do something with myself. I can’t keep this up forever, you know.

“Hey, um, hey, do you think you’d be able to give me a ride?” I ask.
“Sure. Where do you live?”
“I’ll give you directions on the way.”

Rewinding a few weeks into the past, the Colorado Music Buzz held a competition to crown a “best band.” This “best band” would then go on to be on the cover of their magazine. Problem: this was a “competition” in the sense that Pro Wrestling is an actual “fight.” I’ll cut right to the chase and tell you that, yes, this contest was rigged. Upon entering the concert hall, patrons were given a voting form, with which to vote on your favorite group performing that night. Halfway through the night, people coming in would receive voting forms with one particular band already marked off: White Leather, a soulless band of performance artists whose one notable feature, other than being untalented, was that their lead singer/guitarist only had one arm. Even if the poor bastard had three, I doubt it would help them any. I’ve never been nor have I met a victim of rape before, but I have a very active imagination. Your attacker sidling closer to you, his breathing becoming heavier to match his increasing arousal. The drugs you unwittingly took have left your body paralyzed, but left your mind somewhat active enough to register what’s going on and you know that you don’t want it. Watching in cloudy horror as your pants are unbuttoned and some sweaty, hairy-knuckled hand finds what it’s looking for. His tongue thrust into your mouth as if he were stabbing a piece of steak with a fork; no technique, no sensitivity or care. Closing your eyes, doing you best to avoid this horror since you can’t fight back, you can hear a belt unbuckling. Before he can enter you, though, God’s unusual sense of humor comes into play and your attacker suffers from a well-timed case of erectile dysfunction. Embarrassed, he leaves and tells all of his friends how much of a slut you are. This is the best way I can describe hearing and seeing White Leather play horrible chords and patterns lifted from the cultural zeitgeist of the mid to late 80s while trying to motivate an apathetic crowd.

The night ended, eight hours later (I had slow starting times and “indecisive” judges to thank for that) with the result: a tie! White Leather, along with Peace Officer, a group of goony white boys doing their damndest to make sure that hip-hop will never be taken seriously as a musical genre ever again, were the two best bands in Denver and I knew that I was damned.

Back in the present day, I am still smoking this joint with the Project’s bassist, on our way home from another terrible show. Again, there is no justice here. Only the purity of atrocity. My head buzzing from the marijuana and the alcohol I had ingested during the night was warm and comforting. In my hazy state, I opened up the web browser on my cell phone. Amongst the number of internet posts I had made regarding that night’s show (my way of keeping notes), was a small piece of writing by someone I was friends with a lifetime ago. It was a little over ten paragraphs long, eight of which were all either quotes from television personalities, radio-friendly alt-rock or passages from teenage romance novels. This plagiarized piece of shit got more love and attention than even the thirty-one flavors of lip service I get from people who pretend to know who I am! It might be the pangs of jealousy and frustration that got to me, or it was another example of the world of mediocrity I had surrounded myself with. It is a horrible time to be a nobody; hopefully The Project and I can rise above this high water level of raw sewage and become something. Otherwise there is no tomorrow for someone like me.

The show we had just left did not have the high stakes that the last one did. The only concern at a place like this is hoping that the promoter hands over a nice chunk of change for playing at their claustrophobic, poorly-lit dive. I had stepped into a den of sin, now it was time for me to see what God, or the Devil or hell, even both, had in store for me this night. It would not be pretty.

I suppose I could say that the opening act, a group a bouncy, irritating teenagers called Take the Track, was the White Leather of the show. The boring, droning sound drilling itself into my brain. The shit-eating grin on the face of the guitarist, who was stupid enough to wear sunglasses in a dingy bar that might as well have been illuminated by candlelight triggered my Douchebag Spider-Sense. The lead singer’s attempts to warm up the crowd: “Did you guys see me hit myself in the face with the microphone? God, that was so funny OHO HO HO HO HO!” Any dumber and the girl’s vocabulary would have been reduced to simple internet acronyms. LOL. I’m not nearly as much of an elitist prick as I’m unintentionally making myself sound here (this sentence is being used as a defense in the event you were smart enough not to click on any of the links I’ve posted thus far), but I have my limits. A group this bad can make a man turn to drinking, which they did.

I, along with a young fashion student I had met sometime prior to this night, had made a beeline for the bar. I had been here for less than an hour and already had three shots of strong liquor in my system. The Corbett family does not know the meaning of the word, “moderation.” Doing my best to ignore the crying souls of the damned behind me, I struck up a conversation with this young fashionista at my side. Wait, that sounds disingenuous. I struck a conversation with this young fashionista at my side because A: I wanted to get to know this woman, who I had only met once before (she was another fan of The Alan Baird Project), a little better. This young woman with a beer in her hand and a gleam in her eye was probably the best thing that I could have run into that night. Forget about the music for a moment, I also like to violently attach myself to The Project like a hungry leech for the people. Like Astro Boy’s mechanical heart, I become better with the more people I meet. I think it has something to do with my horrible, crippling issues with abandonment. The B: in this instance here is B: I was trying my best to ignore the crying souls of the damned behind me.

To be fair to these kids, though, how were they to know that their every action would be vigorously committed to the memory of some embittered fuckhead with more issues than a comic book store and a growing drinking problem? They were just looking to have a good time! Unfortunately for them, their idea of a good time was making sure I wasn’t having a good time. I go to concerts for the sole purpose of having a good time, sometimes to also show my love and support for my friends and beg like a dog at the dinner table for their castoffs; I gave my word, Scouts’ Honor, to sleep with any woman not worthy enough for the band. Considering that all four members of the band are in a relationship of some sort, that’s a long list for me to go through. You may call me a whore, I prefer to say that I’m just comfortable with and in my sexuality.

After a period of time that felt like an eternity, but could not have been any longer than thirty minutes, my newfound group of aural antagonists had had enough of their Chinese Water Torture and left the stage. It was time for The Alan Baird Project, the only reason I would ever come to a run-down shithole like this, to begin their set. My gorgeous friend and I rose from our barstools and made our way to the stage to play our part as cheerleaders. This has become my role, cheering on a band like some groupie who never gets any. It’s not as sad as it sounds. Of course, because it couldn’t do it while I was hunched over a stool in a complete state of misery, nature called mid-song. The bathrooms in this dingy dive were a joke. They were a great place if you were interested in some casual sex, what with the stall being covered by a curtain and not a door, or the fact that the lighting in here was even worse than the rest of the building. In fact, considering that there were at least two or three people in the one stall next to me, casual sex could have very well been going on. I had other things to worry about, though. Mostly the poor lighting that very nearly pitch black, making it nearly impossible for me to see my own penis in my own hand, doing everything I could to make sure I didn’t end up peeing on myself like a jackass. I’m only eighty percent sure that I succeeded.

I returned to the stage just in time for the finale. The realization that the good times would end the moment the Project stopped playing and the next homogenous produce freshly squeezed from the cesspool that is Denver’s local music scene would irritate me. My intuition was right on the money. There were two more bands who played that night who’s names I will have to Google Search for later (search results reveal one of them was named Simple Discussion, while the other one will be doomed to obscurity) had nothing to separate one from another other than a Duran Duran cover. They were offensive in the sense that they were inoffensive. They were boring and uninspired and seemed to only play instruments and form a band because hey, why not? No passion, no heart, nothing beyond having passable technical skill at what they do. I suppose hearing the terms, “great show!” and “ you totally killed it, bro!” are the validating pros to the numerous cons of being in a soulless band.

Why do you play music? A philosophical question that is never asked these days. Why do you do what you do? Everyone has a reason, regardless if they are good reasons or otherwise. Why do you play music? Is the answer anything beyond, “because I can play this instrument well?” “Because it was the thing to do?” The Delgados are long since broken up. They will never make another song or play another concert. Meanwhile, we’re putting White Leather on the cover of our magazines. Our perspective is fucked and it makes me feel like some barretted douchebag who’s read one too many Pitchfork reviews everytime I facepalm myself sitting through a series of poorly implemented setpieces leading up to my eventual whiny diatribe about WHY I HATE EVERYTHING.

The show ended and the bar closed. I wish I could say that I ended that night sleeping with the fashion student or the other young lady who showed up who I had met weeks prior by, quite literally, bumping into her while avoiding the fracas and panic and watching Alan Baird’s drunken cousin get his ass handed to him by a man twice his size. But, that would mean that this story would end with a happy ending and none of my stories have ever ended with a happy ending. Instead, I jumped into the van with the rest of the Alan Baird Project and smoked some of their pot while being introduced to the secrets that the band keeps from everyone around them, with all the horror that is associated with it.

I woke up the next morning hung over. The day was spent taking aspirin for my aching head and playing Lost Odyssey. I’m all but certain Jansen Friedh is the greatest video game character in existence.

Before I forget: on the way back to my place, Lady Gaga’s latest hit, “Telephone,” played on the van’s radio. At least I got to hear something somewhat good that night.