Gay As In Happy For The Queers, Teenage Bottlerocket and The Copyrights

The Queers, Teenage Bottlerocket, The Copyrights
September 28,2013
The Bottom Of The Hill
San Francisco, Ca

Gay As In Happy for The Queers, Teenage Bottlerocket and The Copyrights

I asked Candice if she wanted to see The Queers. She looked over at me. “Do…? I…?” Her look contained several tiers. One part of her expression said that she had never known me to be not only homophobic, but also dunderheaded enough to openly use such words. This look was bookended with considerations as to the degree with which to smack me. “Nooooo,” I quickly clarified. “The band The Queers, the punkity crooners who reigned the broken hearted throughout the 90’s.”

“Oooh, right…Sure!”

So we hobbled on down to The Bottom of the Hill for a joyous evening supplemented by a trio of bands, each of which classically trained to quicken the pulse. We had on our dancing shoes dammit. I mean moshing shoes! Shoes for moshing. We’re punk rock! Just joshing… I mean moshing! The Copyrights were the night’s first band and they were having a grand old time up on the stage as we entered. The place was packed too. It was so sarcastically comfortable that we decided to take our drinks outside where we could enjoy the band in audio exclusivity. They were rad and fast and angry in that loveable way. I believe their variety of music is referred to as Pop Punk, which I guess is what they call it whenever the singer has a mleh mleh high-pitched voice. Don’t forget, punk is all about irritating people right? I love that shit.

After The Copyrights were done the crowd spilled out into our zone yearning for a refreshing cig and Candice and I were suddenly surrounded by folks. There was a semi-circle of young punk rockers who had found their way right in front of us, so we started talking to them. They were quite alright. They live in San Jose and one of them is in a band called Bread Club. They told us all about this rad DIY shit their doing down there, putting on punk rock shows and kicking figurative ass. Meeting younglings like that makes me hopeful for the future.

We back headed inside just as The Queers were firing up the crowd. I’ve been a fan of these guys since I randomly bought their tape Grow Up at my hometown music store Record Connection. I was a little pre-teen dipshit scouring the Punk Rock section and buying things more or less at random within that genre’s perimeters. I was a gigantic fan of the aforementioned Pop Punk and The Queers had ended up soundtracking my formative years. That night I relished in seeing them live as my stupid adult self. It was a great trip down the slippery memory slope and they sounded as good as they did when I was twelve years old. I mean that in a good way. Joe Queer made some references to Ben Weasel, the lead singer of Screeching Weasel. They were the band that, in these Back When Days I speak of, was housed in the neighboring compartment of my dual tape cassette recorder, next to The Queers of course. I was pleased as spiked punch.

The third and final act of the night was the co-headlining Teenage Bottlerocket. They were some A1 fast-as-hell glorious punk rock and they touched my stupid little heart when they sang repeatedly about skateboarding. Does it get any better than that? “Frick no!” Correct. They had some great stage theatrics too and a ton of energy, making them really fun to watch…from the sissy-stands far from the mosh pit. I even saw one guy who’d passed out at the bar, face buried in vomit, sleepily pumping his fist. Just kidding, but wouldn’t that be rad?

Candice and I were tickled. The night was a success and it made me wanna get the band back together. I mean my first band. I think we were called Texas Whore Hound or something like that. You’ll love us; we’re devilishly off-kilter. Maybe we could tour with The Queers! Get it? Me neither.