Soul Coughing
with Firewater at Avalon
by Lex Marburger
photos by Rich Rodichok
It was one of those days. You know, gray skies, freezing rain… A Saturday, too, and I had stayed up really late the night before. I was in one of those moods where I really didn’t want to see anyone, I just wanted to curl up on the sofa, rent a movie, drink some sherry. Just take the day off, get some energy back. I know, sounds like a personal problem, right? Still, I had promised to see Firewater and Soul Coughing that night, so I bundled up and prepared to push my way through hundreds of people I didn’t want to be around just to get to the bar.
Arriving at Avalon, I was pleasantly surprised to see that not too many people were there (yet), and there was some cool Gypsy or Middle European music on the PA, so I grabbed a drink and made my way across the floor to scope out a good spot where I wouldn’t be bothered by the various unsavory types who were there. Actually, in my mood, all types were unsavory right then. There were the backwards-capped frat boys, some pseudo-skater punks (and a few real ones, too) girls with shirts a few sizes too small (I didn’t mind them so much), and some nondescript folk who, under different circumstances, I probably wouldn’t have minded hanging with. A lot better crowd than the last show I saw there, Beck and Money Mark (as it turned out, I ended up seeing the show in the same spot as last time, too), where the crowd was so antithetical to my nature I almost left.
Soon, the lights dropped and Firewater came out, complete with bass saxophone and violin. Tod A immediately launched into “Bourbon and Division,” a dark cha cha (no, really) which pulsed and throbbed under the hands of this wedding band gone bad. I realized that even if I didn’t really feel like being here, I could still have a good time. Taking the crowd though a journey of the bourbon-soaked wanderer, Firewater played most of their album Get Off The Cross… We Need The Wood For The Fire (Jet Set), most noticably their last tune, a deep groove with keening, distorted violin and throbbing drums. Their set put me in a warm place, I actually started to feel glad that I had gotten out of the house.
After multiple encores, I left the club feeling refreshed, sated, and cleared, with those nonsensical lyrics running through my head. “Four and five, therefore nine / Nine and nine, therefore eighteen / Eighteen and eighteen, therefore thirty-six…” I still got that movie. Bad Lieutenant. I couldn’t be too happy, y’know?