September 14, 2006 "Gold Dust Kids"

09/14/2006 The Masquerade - Atlanta, GA
Other bands: Lola Ray

I wondered how many times you could play a burned out textiles mill cum creepy clubhouse and still be endeared by its charm.

The spooks hanging from the ceiling in fetters, the wrought-iron chandeliers, the vampish bartender girls who looked like thigh-booted clubgoers from The Crow. My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult in the chocolatey South.

There was always plenty of food and beer. Dinner entrees in the kitchen on the third floor. Snacks in the green room behind the stage on the first floor. It was hard not to get bloated sitting around with all the food and yeast-based beverages. But sitting around made you think too much about sitting around. The same jokes get told. The same dwindling conversational ruts. No longer an adventure, but a real-time observation of the degradation of a plot of real estate. Each go-around like a bi-annual snapshot of gradual sea change.

We brought suitcases into the clubs now, full of our Tesla-wear. Commandeered the dressing rooms and changed into our secondary identities. Nic would always find some way to amuse himself during the block of down time before stage.

He found an exterminator's backpack tank and sprayer and wore it in shoes with underwear. Nic's understated comedic nuance magnified its humor tenfold. I always thought he had the genius gene.

Someone big played up top. I never found out who. It was usually someone like Hank III or Mudvayne, and it was always after our show was over. We were still the After School Special. Not yet big boys, even though most band members in big boy bands were now younger than us.

Boredom was a tangible being. You could speak to it, but it would not go away.