Christine and I drove up the coast, along Highway 1, to San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. If you live in California and you’ve never done this drive I highly recommend it. The scenery, especially around Big Sur, humbled me. Prior to the scenic stretch of the drive, Christine and I entertained ourselves with a surprisingly fun game, that I was unsurprisingly bad at. We tuned my Sirius satellite radio to the indie rock station and played a modified version of “Name That Tune.” Christine, who listens to “Morning Becomes Eclectic” on a near daily basis, kicked my ass. But the surprising thing was how much music neither of us had ever heard of. I mean for every Decembrists or Modest Mouse song, there seemed to be three or four by artists like Art Brut (eh), Bear Hands (Modest Mousy), Bees (Really chill, cool stuff), Kings of Leon (Big ups Anthony – you were right, really good stuff), and a handful of other indie bands I’ve never heard and can’t remember. So aside from keeping Christine awake and laughing at my ignorance, we both ended up getting a pretty good education.
Our last night in San Francisco, my friend Marcia took us out to a wonderful hole-in-the-wall, in the Mission District. It was the Tamale Lady’s birthday party. Who is the Tamale Lady you ask? Well, apparently around the Mission and Lower Haight, she’s pretty famous for dropping by bars late night and selling tamales to drunk, hungry patrons. To honor her, we paid ten bucks for dinner and a few hours of some (all you could drink) tasty San Fran microbrew (whose name escapes me, although let me recommend almost anything by Russian River, especially Pliny the Elder, and also the Racer 5 IPA). To top the evening off, the birthday celebration, which took place mostly outside on an expansive patio, featured a jug band.
An honest to god, real life, actual jug band. Complete with jug player, washboard percussion, spoons, kazoo, and washtub bass. It was quite a sight for these drunken eyes, and surprisingly enjoyable to listen to with these drunken ears. The kind of music I wanted to hoot and holler to. And you know what? I did. Stood up and clapped and banged around, and then promptly sat down when I realized I was the only one doing it. It was a good trip.
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