Beverly, Somerville, Stacey’s Mom

I’ve had a hard time writing lately. Sometimes it’s easier to just turn off my brain and try to enjoy the moment rather than focusing on the little details and wondering what I’ll say about it later. I feel like I have always loved a good story, and sometimes I’ll put myself in situations I may not even want to be in just for that story. But what happens when I actually want to enjoy all the things I’m doing? I can’t find a happy medium.

Here’s a few things I’ve wanted to write about lately, and have gotten very little to none of it completed:

*Caspian played a show at the Cabot awhile back with Joppa Road doing an after-party just down the street at the American Legion hall. Yup, another Beverly article, but where else does the fun shit happen? You could argue Salem, but it’s just so…young there. Anyway, I thought Caspian was great and the show was very unique. Problem was I was distracted. I can’t remember the last time I was at a seated concert, but it really makes me feel constrained. I was also focusing on, I shit you not, a light on the stage, thinking about how I’ll describe it later. Couldn’t even enjoy the music because I was trying to think of the correct name for a lightbulb. This is no way to live. My friend also texted me during the end of the show to come meet him at the after-party. Apparently he was the only one there aside from three old women who were, as he put it, “immune to his charm.” So I didn’t even see the whole show. Then, due to some confusion of when Joppa Road was going to stop playing and when exactly last call was, I didn’t stay for the entire after-party either, opting instead to head to the Lucky Dog to turn off my damn brain.

*The Northshore Mall. I live right across from it and they’ve been doing construction on it nonstop for I don’t know how long. The funny thing is this place used to be an outdoor shopping center. As those became more and more dated, it was converted to an indoor mall. Now that malls are dying (killed off by Millenials, one would assume), they’re slowly transforming it back to an indoor/outdoor hybrid. The Northshore Mall holds a particularly vile place in my heart because it was where I spent my awful teenage years as a “mallrat.” I was looking to be a part of any group that would take me in, just to be validated and feel like I was part of something. Thinking that wearing JNCOs, listening to Slipknot, and ripping countless cigarettes outside a mall would help me “belong” is perhaps the stupidest idea I’ve ever had, and I have had many of those.

*Joppa Road just played another show at Sally O’Brien’s in Somerville, away from their usual North Shore base at Opus in Salem. I was really excited about this show because I randomly ended up at this place after taking a girl to an awful show at Thunder Road just down the…road. Thunder Road (which is a venue and not just a Springsteen song, though apparently the venue is named after a movie) was advertising a cover band, of whom I will not name. I figured they would be playing the typical, safe, generic white-guy rock cover bands usually play. They came out playing Stacey’s Mom and it was the quickest I’ve gone from zero to completely horrifically upset at any show in my life. I had a visceral fear they would perform My Own Worst Enemy by Lit. My companion for the night was thankfully very understanding of my plight and we walked down the street.

First we went to Bull McCabe’s. We had a very enjoyable time there and their chef was able to make me a delicious burger in his itsy-bitsy kitchen. The next bar we found looked like a night club out of Lynn, down to the just-one window. There were maybe 5 people inside this wide space and the bartender didn’t know what a mule was. We then found ourselves in Sally O’Brien’s, where an adorable pop-punky, new wavey, female led band ended a song with a “meee-owww” that made us completely lose our shit. The vibe was nice, the bar was cool, the drinks were cheap, and the crowd was…interesting. Older and possibly drugged out.

Now when I got to Sally’s this time, I thought I knew what to expect. I did not realize there was going to be a band on about an hour before Joppa Road even started setting up. It was a country band. The aforementioned older, drugged out crowd (and I mean that in the nicest way possible) whom I was expecting were present, but had vastly multiplied, which I was not expecting. I felt very out of place and was unfortunately flying solo until the band and my Lucky Dog bar mates arrived. The set was fantastic, and the band has never sounded better. Predictably, not many people from the crowd for the first band stayed for Joppa, and a few looked very perturbed during the Piss up a Rope soundcheck. The ones who did stay were characters, to say the least.

Hopefully I’ll get around to writing some of these ideas, but holy shit am I sick of getting into a “writer’s voice” and making sure everything looks and sounds nice and accurate. Someone give me an editorial page and I’ll just fill it up with this kind of bullshit everyday for you, ok?