A nun, a german shepard, and Clark Matthews walk into a bar...
Oh, you've heard that one?
The thing is, I haven't really spent much time in bars since college. I don't drink, so that doesn't lure me. I'm married, so that doesn't lure me. Typically, the only times I enter a tavern are at Christmas when my friends come home for the holidays and need a break from their families, and when I want to see a local band.
It is the latter reason that will see me at VZD's (NW 42nd & Western) tonight. Technically a local band from Denver, Fighting for the Universe is the brainchild of Yukon native Dave Howell. Howell was also the frontman of my favorite band of the late-nineties, Fixture.
Truthfully, if it had not been for hearing Fixture when dragged to "Millerstock" in 1996, I might still have been one of those white guys who refuses to listen to anything other than gansta rap even now. During my college years, I followed the band the way modern day hippies chase around Phish. If they got a gig at a bar in Stillwater, I was there. If they rented out a Knights of Columbus Hall for a concert in Yukon, I was there. After they signed with One Ton Records and started playing all over Texas, I was there (often). When the band broke up after their lead guitarist graduated from college with an electrical engineering degree, married a veterinarian, and got a full time job designing construction equipment (the typical rock and roll story), I had to satisfy myself listening to inferior music like Dave Matthews and Green Day while holding sacred the the two albums they left behind.
Anyway, I encourage everyone reading this to get out to VZD tonight around 9:00. If you see a bald headed guy with the remnants of red hair bouncing ideas for the Justice League off complete strangers come say "hi". I might even buy you a water.
P.S. Another band, Evenmark, started by Yukonites is actually headlining the show.
