Thursday, May 08, 2008

Music and a bar in NYC

Yesterday, Summerfest formally announced the Miller Lite Stage acts and I wasn't impressed. Today it was the Harley Stage and I am slowly becoming depressed. I am sure some people will look at the acts and think "Cool, OAR is there again! Or yeah, that chick from Idol is going to be playing singing." But I only look at it and think that this year could be pretty bad for a person with my musical preferences.

I am still holding out for Metallica being there on the first Saturday at the Amp. In the meantime, I am can be happy that Bobby Friss is playing the first weekend. Can't beat some simple good time guitar rock.

When I arrived in NYC last Thursday, the boys told me they were going to take me to some "old man bars". Old man bars, eh? Not sure exactly what that meant but I could figure it out. But the places we would go are not what I would exactly consider for old men. More like kitschy dive bars.

Pic from Pauly's flicker page

The first place we headed to was the P&G Cafe. When I walked into this place, I noticed two things. First, it was like this bar could be picked up and placed in just about any city and attract an interesting mix of people. The second thing was the music. It was power/speed metal. My ear was trying to pick up the artist but I couldn't recognize it. I asked the bartender who it was, thinking of how it sounded like Helloween or Gamma Ray but not quite. He told me it was a band called Kamelot. As he did, he even played air guitar.


We grabbed a booth and started drinking the Yuengling that Iggy had purchased. Apparently a pitcher of lager goes for $18 bucks. 18 bucks!!! Ay Caramba! But the atmosphere in the place was pretty cool so it didn't seem that bad. Funny, we would end up coming back each night to the P&G. As I said, it was a bar that could basically be anywhere that you could enjoy. And no they didn't always play metal there. The other nights the jukebox would be on and all kinds of tunes could be heard.

That is where I watched some crazy pimpy looking black guy talk to himself. Later, a bartender would say he was usually dressed like a woman. We would watch a gay guy come in and ask for drugs. And some really drunk Derby fans come in and share with us the legend of White Gold. White Gold was with some people that were in from Seattle. The one chick that was with them still lived there. When Pauly mentioned that he lived in Seattle for a while, she asked him "Why would you do that?" That cracked me up. Later, one of the group would pass out and Pauly would do the official "Hulk Hogan count" on him. Raised his are once, twice, and three times before calling the match. Yeah, they were plastered.

But at least they had a good place to finish their day partying. The P&G Cafe gets a thumbs up.

Stock update: Down 51 cents. Minor setback. Minor. I hope.

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