Arab on Radar
with The Laurels at Jacque’s Cabaret
by Jessica Rylan
I work as a cocktail waitress at a little bar called Jacque’s Cabaret. Now Jacque’s is kind of a strange place. These women do lip-synch shows most nights. When I first started working there, I noticed some of those women looked a little funny. In fact, some of them looked like men! But I didn’t say anything. I’m just a cocktail waitress, after all. So on Sunday nights there’s rock ‘n’ roll shows. Now I’ve heard some of the “girls” who hang around the bar complaining that the bands scare away the regulars and they don’t make any money. Well, I don’t see how they expect to make any money anyway, just sitting around and talking to strange men at a bar all night. But I like the bands myself. I don’t always care for the music, but sometimes it draws in a crowd.
So this one night there were four boys wearing suits, and then one girl with short hair. She would’ve been pretty if she grew her hair out. But those young men looked sharp, kind of like the Beatles when they first started out. “So your band’s called Arab on Radar, huh? What kind of rock ‘n’ roll do you boys play?” I asked the cutest one. “People have a hard time booking us. We sound, uh, different. Then this one club asked us not to come back.”
“Oh my,” I said, “I guess your music must have been a little too rockin’.” I gave him a nice wide smile. “What’s the scene like here?” he asked nervously. “Well, it’s usually a very well-behaved crowd, never any fights or anything. But this one band that played here, honest to goodness, the singer vomited right on the stage.” “That’s exactly what I was hoping to hear!” he said with a smile. Then I got worried ’cause if he had wild ideas, I didn’t want to get blamed for encouraging him. Though honestly I was getting some pretty wild ideas about him!
Their drummer started off the set pounding so hard I thought he’d break the skins on his drums! He sure was an angry young man! Then their bassist started playing but it didn’t sound so musical to me, it was buzzing, all flat and angular. Then the guitarists both started playing really high notes. It sounded thin and piercing, like they were two cats screaming at each other. I felt like I was getting stabbed in my chest with a hypodermic needle. “Those kids!” I said under my breath. “A little rock ‘n’ roll is alright, but this doesn’t sound like any rock ‘n’ roll to me!” They weren’t playing any tune you could hum along with, just a bunch of notes real close together that didn’t harmonize so well. “Don’t they know what a melody is?!” I said out loud.
Just then that cute boy came on from the side of the stage and started to sing. Except he wasn’t singing so much as whining in a nasal voice, and having an epileptic fit. At first I was worried that maybe we should call an ambulance, but the bartender laughed at me and told me it was part of the show. “Kind of like Emo Phillips on crack, don’t you think?” he said. Well I tell you, I was so shocked by this sight that I forgot all about my tables, and all the kids started coming up to the bar for their own drinks.
After that band got off the stage, I asked their bassist, with some trepidation, what the Laurels were like. “They’re more rock, rock/pop than us,” she said. “You know, you’d look real pretty if you just grew out that hair of yours,” I said. There aren’t very many real women that come into Jacque’s, and I was hoping maybe she’d want to have some girl talk. But she just smiled kind of shy, and started talking to that cute singer of theirs. I went around to all the tables, but nobody needed anything.
The Laurels were all set up by now. Their drummer was slouching back in a folding chair. I’d never seen any drummer so lazy! But he started playing some fine beats. They were just a three piece – guitar, bass, and drums. Their bassist was singing through some kind of echo box. Some of their songs reminded me of rockabilly. I didn’t know what that girl meant when she called them pop, but they were all right. Then after their fourth song, I heard some terrible noise, and I saw their bassist had let loose. He was playing a lead solo up at the top of his neck, but it was so distorted I couldn’t even tell what note it was! “Good God!” I said, and I must confess, I forgot all about my tables again. Not to be outdone by that cute boy, the Laurel’s singer started flailing around and doing the duck walk himself. During one solo he played, he jumped up on the rim of the bass drum. It flattened out till it was egg shaped, then he bounced off like it was a trampoline. The song came to a crashing end. The manager came over to the stage and ran his finger across his throat emphatically. I guess he’d had enough. I tried going around to my tables again, but all those kids had bought themselves drinks from the bar again!
Well, I sure didn’t make too much money that night, but I did see some rather unusual sights. And I actually kind of liked both those bands, I wouldn’t be so sad if they played here again. But I’m just a cocktail waitress after all, I don’t know anything about music.
