ROCK REPORT: Split Lip Rayfield

Okay. I have officially put the Simon and Garfunkel away and think it's high time we move on to other topics. So.

Last Sunday I went to the High Dive to see Split Lip Rayfield. It was kind of a weird crowd--I ran into Brandon from Ohio, and how on earth does that happen? I got there right as the opening band was wrapping up. I misinterpreted the show time and was afraid I may have missed the show altogether, so missing only the incredibly loud opening band was a relief. Frankly, by the time the show rolled around I didn't even want to go to the show anymore; but I'd already spent the money on the ticket, so I went anyway. As always, glad I did.

Split Lip Raygield is three guys on guitar, guitar, and bass (homemade from a Ford truck gas tank and a weedwacker string). The bass player used to look a lot like Boomhauer from King of the Hill. Now he's kind of long-haired and scruffy and wearing a t-shirt with kittens on it. Isn't it odd how rockers can pull of stuff like that and look, you know, rock? And the rest of us look like junior high spit us straight into wal-mart? Anyway. No drums. But the bass kind of does double duty--I can't figure out how he does it, but he keeps a pretty consistent tapa-tapa line running through it. That's cool.

I was standing kind of closish, but not too close, because newgrass brings out the wild dancing hippies like nothing else. Seriously, it's like catnip to them. At some point I started looking around and realized I was standing in the center of a Man Mob. Three deep in any direction, it was just beardy, grubby, darkly clad guys, either college Working Class Wannabes or post-college Real Life Working Class Guys. Hard to tell sometimes. And that's fine. They weren't a freakishly tall bunch, and as long as they're not being all tall in front of me, I don't care if it's a crowd of guys. EXCEPT...except for Dude next to me. Dude was the scruffiest, stocking cappiest, college attendingest guy in the area, and he was fine for the first three or four songs. And then...he started air bass-ing. Now that's just funny. More power to you, imaginary homemade bass playing dude! But THEN, halfway through one of the awesomest rockingest songs, he busted out with a mighty "haaaaaaaaaaaha!" There's this horrible sort of bluegrass hillbilly "yeehaw" that, as near as I can tell, only guys from like Winnetka ever make. And once they get started, they'll do it every chance they get--it's like they forgot all about the hillbilly hollar! But now! Now they remember! And I knew where this was going to go, so I just turned to him, looked him in the eye, and said "Aw, HELL NO," and walked away. Better to watch the show from a little further back than to endure that.

I had a quick little recap with Betsy and Western-Shirt Boyfriend (Ethan? Evan? Ivan?) and then headed on out. I had decided earlier that I didn't want to spend money on the high dive's flat, overpriced beer, and that if the show ended before 11 I'd go get one at MnM's. Which it did, and I did. Jessica was sitting there moderately alone, so I said hey, and then she was sitting all alone, so I joined her. "Geez," she said. "I'm glad you're here. It's sausagefest tonight." And I looked around to realize that the bar seating was all full of beardy, scruffy guys, and the side tables. And Ellen. So we had girl table (unsausage table? egg table?), until seats at the bar opened, and we moved up there. Momentarily along came . . .uh . . how to say? Let's call her "Armando". She confessed immediately to being out for beer, alone. Hey! So are we! Come on over to the estrogen end of the bar! So she did, and we had quite a giggly little Girls on the Town moment. And then I went home. The end.

Damn. That was a whole lot of words for a really lame story. Read it in it's verbose glory now, or maybe I'll edit it down to a nice, modernist little "went to rock show; good, I said" type of anecdote.