Southern Fried Oregon

So I'm stuck in Corvallis, OR with a science buddy of mine. It's 1:00 AM at home, only 9 PM locally. We're tired, but we have to adjust, so it is important to burn the midnight oil.

He thought it would be good to hear some live music. Sure, cool college town, Friday night, should be easy. No F'n way!

We went to one of the town's three bars. The first had some boring jazz trio and $5 beers. The next had the band cancel-- no dice. The last was a place called Platinum, looked like a teeny-bopper dance shithole. However, upon close inspection it was revealed that there was a band playing that night, a creepy band. The flyer showed "The Brand" and featured 6 portly fellows with cowboy hats leaning against some cars or something. Each had a guitar. We paid the $4 cover to experience what was sure to be a Southern-Fried, Ass-Kickin', guitar extravaganza. I figured they'd play "Flirtin' with Disaster" by Molly Hatchett, a loser standby.

Within 30 minutes we were leaving, disappointed.

First of all, there were 7 guys in the band, 5 guitars, bass and drums, which was precisely 4 more than were present in the audience. A rule of thumb states that if you don't have many friends DON'T invite all of them to be in your band.

They started their set and I thought it was a warm up. Guitars were out of tune and the mix was a mess. They fumbled through some old standards with heinous harmonies. Then, I heard the droning "A" that could only be.... yes.... "Flirtin' with Disaster". I shit you negative.

Now, I played this song in 8th grade in my Warren Zevon tribute band, the Bloodworms. We rocked its ass off then. What I heard tonight would make Danny Joe Brown keel over and die if he weren't already dead. Instead he's spinning in his grave with a fury that may reverse the earth's magnetic field. 5 Fucking guitars and they couldn't work out the simple solos, the sailing harmonies that made Molly Hatchett a smudge this side of obscure.

The singer didn't know the words and I even hit the "Wa bop bop yeah..." in the right place where he missed it.

I wanted to stay because they had an American flag draped over a box with a tambourine on it, so I think a "It ain't no rag its a flag" tribute was soon at hand. However, my colleague had had enough and we left. As we did, there were half the number of non-band people in the room as there were before. We also didn't get to see/hear them play their confederate flag guitar. They was savin dat for "Freebird".

By the way, one guy was semi-talented. In case the band reads this review they can all injun wrestle to figure out who it were.

I suppose that when I get back to Northern Florida I'll see them there on tour. That place is much more their scene.