I’m at a bar that plays its music loud. I haven’t found a place like this since Tiki House down San Diego way. That bar is gone now, lamented by many. Tiki Dave was looking to hang up his spurs many years ago.
Anyway, I’m in a place called The Office in San Jose, and they keep the tunes cranked up. When I came in, there was some pretty serious hip-hop playing, confirming I’m an old white guy and I don’t really get it. But if I tuned out just enough to let the music happen to me, it worked out all right.
While I’ve been here the playlist has evolved, through some pretty sweet rock that I heard without hearing, until someone asked, loudly but in a sweet voice, “Can you hear the guns, Fernando?”
I could hear the fuckin’ guns. BOOM! When I was a kid I turned ABBA up loud. Especially this song. When was the last time you cranked up a purportedly easy-listening band like this, to make the listening not-so-easy? I was not the only person in this place singing along.
On a side note, this is a song an American could not write.
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During the typing of this episode, I’ve heard John Denver loud and now it’s Bay City Rollers! S! A! T-U-R! D-A-Y! Night!
Polkacide played a gig, many years ago, where one of the opening bands, a neo-punk group I probably didn’t know the name of that night much less now, finished off their set with a cover of Neil Diamond’s “Song Sung Blue.” And they didn’t take it at a maniacal thrashtastic tempo — it was pretty much at the speed Diamond recorded it at.
But it was freakin’ loud. And the crowd, after the obligatory “Neil Diamond, really?” moment, got into it. It was a triumphant sing-along moment. Volume plus alcohol plus lyrics everybody knows a few of is a killer combination.
Business idea 1: A cover band called Soft and Loud
Business idea 2: A bar called That Loud Place