Welcome to Gonerroo. Tunnel Clones on This Side, Antenna Club Vets on That Side, Don't Trip Over The DJ.

Thanks To Rachel for letting me leech this picture

I swear this life gets more and more bizarre the longer I live it. Last night, I walked the fine edge between a pioneering moment in Memphis underground hip-hop and a punk rock dance party to end all punk rock dance parties.

I would love to tell you how I managed to do this from the comfort of my computer chair; but when 22 stairs seperate you from the outside world, there is no excuse for staying home.

First, Brendan coerced me into going back to Central BBQ again. I say 'coerced' when, perhaps, I should say 'lured me with the promise of favoritism in later events of the evening'. Every good boy deserves dessert, and after wrecking shop on a slab of ribs & four side dishes, we headed to Republic Coffee on Madison for a couple of slices of justice and some coffee. I must report that the Strawberry Cake (hand made somewhere in Mississippi according to our barista) and the Wild Berry Pie were both so good, I was afraid I may have felt the presence of wings, halo, and harp shortly after the ingestion was completed. Both desserts melted off of our forks, and we headed home shortly thereafter.

Unsuccessful in convincing Brendan to join me for either hip-hop or punk rock (or both), I decided to brave the Tunnel Clones' CD Release Party at the Hi-Tone. Now if you have been following the underground hip-hop movement in Memphis for a while, you know about the Memphix label, Tunnel Clones, Conscious Physics, scatterbraincasanova, and a whole lot of other family deep in the groove for the past umpteen years. If you haven't, you might have been one of the people who don't really consider themselves fans of hip-hop who helped Tunnel Clones & the Iron Mic Coalition tear down the fucking house last night. TC brought the pain last night with a show driven by passion, vision, strength, dynamics, flow, love for the crowd, love for their friends, and straight-up skills. Redeye Jedi, Hope Clayburn, Sam Bomar (did I spell that right? if not correct me), and a cast of characters straight out of the jungles of Memphis and Little Rock brought down the house, wrecked 'nuff shop, and let everyone know that this thing was for real. I know, I know...everyone always talks about hip-hop shows saying they were "off the chain" and blah blah blah; but I mean this quite sincerely when I say that I think last night's show changed shit for everyone. People who weren't sure, who might have thought the new Tunnel Clones CD Concrete Swamp was some sort of fluke, now realize what a lot of people knew all along. This thing is about to blow wide open. The Memphis underground hip-hop scene came out and showed a unity that can only be described as "infectious". Catch the disease, people. Seriously. Catch the damn disease and spread the love to ears everywhere. Respect is here given and respect is due.

Now the night could've well been over, but Rachel, Mark, and Helen wanted to go back to The Buccaneer where Goner Fest is in full swing (I decided I would rename it 'Gonerroo' just as my own private joke, but it seems to have caught on with certain 'neer-do-wells among us). They, instead, told me to head to XY&Z. As I was driving, I noticed a car following me no matter where I turned. I thought it to be peculiar, especially considering the route I was taking. When I pulled into the parking lot at XY&Z, I realized it was my friends Carlos & Jason. Carlos looked at me and was like, "We were mad bored looking for where people were, so I decided to stalk you for a minute." Good thing I don't drink or hit the solids, I might have soiled my nappies wondering who was behind me. I walked into XY&Z for about 10 minutes or so. I didn't see many (if any) familiar faces and, with not being able to reach Rachel by phone, decided to go home.

I got back out to the parking lot and sitting there next to my car, as if they knew what would happen, were Carlos & Jason just waiting for me, laughing at my cluelessness. "You weren't in the loop, kid," Jason told me. "They're at the Buc."

We stopped at the Young Avenue Deli for a quick bev and, by that time, everyone had arrived at XY&Z. The place was, literally, wall to wall with Antenna Club veterans, the Cooper-Young Cookie Factory cronies from way back when, and besides a kick-ass mix of jumping punk rock we were also treated to a performance by The Limes.

My friend Darren O'Brien was so shit tanked when I got there that when I reached out to shake his hand, somehow we ended up in an arm wrestling match of sorts. He managed to twist my arm and nearly snap my wrist off, screaming at me "SAY IT! SAY IT! SAAAAY IT!" As I was screaming "UNCLE! UNCLE!", he mumbled something unintelligible about how that wasn't the phrase I was supposed to say. Worried that I would lose the use of my arm and not be able to type, and being quite pissed off, I used an ancient Chinese technique taught to me by a wise and brave teacher: I put my cigarette out on his face. His friend Rachel stared on, jaw dropped as if I had just stubbed out a cigar on the Venus de Milo. Though her face displayed shock and surprise at the mess we had caused, we let it go and all three had a good laugh about it.

I ran into at least two people I have known for 20 years or more, one of whose sister April used to carpool with me to grade school years ago. Kelly and I have known each other forever, but when she kept referring to me as "Jeff", I couldn't resist the urge to call her "April" for a while. We settled out-of-court and all was well.

Among those whom I ran into waiting a minimum of 15 minutes to get a beverage (VERY slow bar service last night) were Tim Regan (whom I can't seem to escape seeing all week since I knocked him out of a Texas Hold'em game), Alicia Scott, Paul Taylor, Andy Grooms, Piper, some dude named Keith visiting from Austin (wearing a damn cool baseball cap I might add), and hundreds of other people slammed into the tiny bar.

The high point of the night was when some girl was talking to my buddy Greg Faison and she had the audacity to complain about people smoking. Ok, I know it's all "punk rock" to be anti-something or whatever, but to just keep bitching about it and making faces in a bar FILLED with people smoking shows no brains whatsoever. If you want to complain about it, go someplace where smoking is illegal like New York. Go to the City Council and have a good yell about it. During her attempt at punk rock vanity, she actually looked at us and said, "If I can kick heroin, you can quit smoking, and I've kicked heroin."

For the remainder of the night, I (and everyone else I knew who heard this comment) would stop and glare at her with eyes that were meant to transmit this message: "When you're at the bar, try to be friendly. You can always act like a bitch when you get home...if that's asking too much, why don't you go ahead and go someplace where you can be accepted for being yourself? Like...home?"

We wound down the night dancing to some more great punk rock from The Limes and eventually, even the most virile among us had to head to our personal bitch castles to look for the little house that exists in your mind where the highways meet inbetween half awake and sleeping peacefully.