Clubs

I went out to Los Angeles recently with my girl and we were doing the touristy stuff there and were walking down Sunset Blvd. (not as in: "Walking alone down Sunset Boulevard, feelin' hungry, feelin' mean, feelin' hard..." as Rollins once sang, although I was humming it for sure...) and we stopped in front of the Whiskey a Go Go to look at the calendar taped to the front door. I noticed the door was unlocked and said to my girl, "Hey, look we can go in". Before she could answer a guy walked up behind us and said "Hey, you guys wanna come in?" and I said Hell Yeah! Awesome! Thanks! I had been in there once before to see the Descendents, but that was 17 years ago. The guy explained they were upgrading the PA and he let us goof around on the stage and stuff and we said "X played here" and "Iggy was right here" and all that cheesy stuff, haha and took pictures of each other.



That got me thinking about clubs and all the ones I've been to and stuff like that. Then last week the topic was in my brain again cause I bought and watched this awesome and highly entertaining movie on an old club in Portland:




So in order, here's some clubs that I have great memories in:

The Squashpile- Asheville, NC

I can't find pictures on the Internet of it at all, although there are videos of Live! Naked Girls playing there on Youtube. If I remember correctly, some people moved from Chicago to Asheville and they owned it and I think they also owned the store What Do You Want? or something like that. It was all ages and they encouraged us to hang around and let our crappy band play there a couple times. The coolest thing they had was a rope on the stage that you could swing out on and use for stage dives, etc. Of course I was going bezerk during a Antiseen show and knocked myself unconscious and gave myself a concussion from one such stage dive. Some other bands I remember seeing there were Anti-schism, Bedlam Hour, Rednecks in Pain, M3, Tragic Mulatto, Pure, Sewer Puppets (Kurt from Buzzoven’s old band) and I think Neurosis was supposed to play there but didn’t show or something.
Most of the big shows at the time (late 80’s) were in Charlotte so we used to go down there to The Milestone (I still have dents on my shins from the corner of that stage) and the Pterodactyl Club and a couple others I can’t remember the names of. Or if it was someone we just HAD to go see, we would truck it all the way to the Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill.

The Milestone:





The Tabernacle- Atlanta, GA



I’ve only been there once, but it was to see Slayer on the South of Heaven tour. Overkill (ha!) and Motorhead opened. My friend Keith and I skipped high school, and drove the 6 hours down there and had to sleep in his two-seater car on a cold night which was miserable but totally worth it. I remember the sound in there was awesome and some dude had upside down crosses on his face, which was super crazy at the time.

Slayer melted my face. Slaaaaaaaayer!

924 Gilman St. –Berkeley, Ca



Well, there is a book and a movie about this club and yeah, there’s no reason to rehash all that junk here. I was there for 10 years or so and I moved to California because I had read about this club in MaxuimumRocknRoll, which is funny to think about now. I remember the first night I went there Neurosis (Word As Law era) was playing, and in full swing and I walked up to the back of the pit and this girl comes flying out of it and bites me on the chest, hard, and then throws me into the pit. I had teeth marks and bruises for a week. Welcome! Another not so good memory was when a skinhead punched me out and broke my nose and it’s still wonky as I never went to the hospital, I had to go work my 2am security guard job with two black eyes and a broken nose. Otherwise, every band played there and it was awesome and life changing. Maybe a future blog post all on its own.

Continental Club- NYC





I think I am still paying off on my credit card the time I flew from SF to NY for New Years to see The Ramones and at the time some crazy new band called Nashville Pu$$y. I am guessing that was 12 or so years ago. It was awesome though, first trip to NYC and I loved it.

I really wanted to go to ABC No Rio, but nothing was happening. Its still there though, so someday I will go hopefully!



I went by CBGB’s but it looked touristy and lame and had Salsa dancing or some crap.

There's a lot of clubs in San Franscico I could list as well, but these are the best memories I have.