Sha La La La

It was hard to miss. A man in a lobster suit handed out pamphlets and a server handed out curried chicken samosas. This bar is resistant to change but the atmosphere was festive and the band was tuning up to launch into a series of crowd favourites and that's when I realized I shouldn't have come. I understand the need, in this town, for the band to bust out a bunch of over used covers. The average crowd here is, well, average. They don't want to hear anything but old favourites and are ready to ignore anything interesting. I think its odd in a town that has such an inexhaustible supply of great musicians, all of whom at one point or another have known the shame of playing "Brown Eyed Girl" night after night, they allow themselves to be pushed around by the people that keep songs from forty years ago on the radio. It might be easy to blame Ottawa's classic rock mentality but its time to call a spade a spade.

Anybody who has tried to pick up a guitar and teach themselves to play knows that only a few will persevere long enough, ignoring painful hand cramps and permanently creased fingers that ache all the time, to actually get into a band. Then there's the 'creative difference' element, endless fights over who's actually the singer and who's going to take the solo and then another round of fist fights over who drank all the beer (it was the drummer). Finding a place to practice, trying to get everyone there and then dealing with volume issues pale beside getting gigs and deciding who's on the guestlist. After all that you get set up and start playing songs that every other band is playing? Stop letting bar owners and drunken students dictate what you'll play and then maybe you'll earn back some of the self respect you developed after all those years of effort.

I left after an hour but I felt bad for the guys in the band. They were good musicians, just trying to make a couple of extra bucks and do what they love to do. I really do have to ask, though. Is it the chance to stand on a beer soaked carpet, put up with complaints from the manager about the volume, learning to deal with people who want to come up and sing along with you or the opportunity to chain link arms with the other guys in the band, across the front of the stage, to protect the gear from being used as projectiles when the brawl breaks out? I suspect it is none of the above. Hey, if your dream is to churn out creaky renditions of "Hotel California" for a room full of drunks, have at it, but I still think its time for the music scene in this town to stop pandering to beer sales and start doing what they worked at for all those years.

There, I said it. Feels good to get that off my chest. Now I'll just sit around and wait for the complaints from the guys in the band.