Bullets in Madison Emotes at the Empty Bottle

Special to the Flannel Diaries

It's about seven-thirty on a Tuesday night and I'm being dropped off at the Empty Bottle on Western Avenue on the beautiful West Side of Chicago. My girlfriend, the Woman who Holds the Bottle Opener to the Beer That Is My Heart, has an annoyed, peeved look on her face. I get that look a lot. It's a masquerade for true love. Especially for when I make her drive me around the city.

"So...have a good time," she intones, checking her watch and thinking about cookies. "Enjoy the show. Don't stay out too late."

"Decidedly."

"Tell the band I'm sorry I couldn't make it, but I had to, you know, whatever."

"Assuredly."

"And be sure to take out the garbage and walk the dogs when you get home."

"Abso....wait. What?"

Before I can protest that I surely will get back late, that I won't enjoy the show, and that I have no plans to be in any condition to do anything productive upon my return, she speeds away, still holding the keys to the car that I realize, belatedly, I'm supposed to drive home that night. Screams after her are unheeded. Frantic calls to her cell phone remain unanswered.

This sort of shit always happens to me when I'm sent to review a Bullets in Madison concert. Of course, none of it is their fault. I mean, it sort of is when you figure that if they didn't play these dives at these ridiculous hours, and if they would only spring for a press limo to take the reporters like me home...actually, it is all their fault. Bastards. I will make them rue the day they even formed a band. I have that power.

I am a music reviewer. I review music.

And occasionally, I listen to it.

**************************************************

I stalked into the Empty Bottle surly and mean. The place looked like the kind of joint BiM loves to headline: walls and a ceiling. I sidled up to the bar and growled at the guy behind the counter, "Gimmee a whiskey. Double. Leave the bottle."

He casts an eye over me, measuring me for manliness and ability to control strong drink. "I think you might want a nice Lemon Wedge," he offered. "They're tasty and nutritious, and there's nothing like--"

"Whiskey," I growled again. John Wayne doesn't have shit on me, I tell you. "The bottle."

"You're going to be on the floor in twenty minutes."

I ignored him, and eventually he went off to fetch it. It's at this point that somebody comes up to me. "Hey, man. Nice to see you again."

I cast a bleary eye in his direction. "Who the hell are you?"

"Brendan. Brendan Losch."

"Oh, great. But I already ordered my drink, so..." I made hand motions indicating that he could leave me alone.

"No, I'm the guitarist. For the band? We've spoken before. You've interviewed me like twenty times."

"Oh, Bren-DAN Losch. I thought you said BREN-dan." I made a face that I hoped looked friendly. "So. Uh, what are you doing here?"

Brendan made an effort to be patient. "We're doing a show tonight. You're reviewing it, right?"

"Right. Right." I made a mental note to do just that. "But you can't get me free drinks, right?"

Brendan stared at me. "No."

"Oh. Well...good. Got to support the economy, right?"

He eventually stalked off, looking pissed. Man, musicians and their big heads. I made another mental note to make a comment in my review about his shoes or something. However, before I could compose a pithy bon mot, I was interrupted by the bartender, who returned with my whiskey. I downed it in one gulp, just like they do in the tough-guy movies. Blech. It tasted like paint thinner.

"That's bad for you," the bartender remonstrated. "You're going to have the megrims."

I ignored him.

"Sure you don't want that Lemon Wedge?" the bartender offered.

"Go away," I muttered.

Three or four more whiskeys later, the house lights came on and the crowd started cheering. The show was apparently starting. And I was ready to review the show. After all, I am a Music Reviewer, right? It's what I came here to do, yes? So here's the body of my article, compiled straight from my painstaking notes during the performance:

Bullets in Madison rocked the joint. They really did. We Became Your Family When You Died is one hell of an album, I tell you. Full of...meaning and...vibrancy...junk like that. Man, my head is killing me...That trumpet thing they do? Woo. Powerful stuff...Don't know about all the bugs on the wall, though...This band, they've got rhythm...they've got music...who could ask for anything more? Ha. What is with the moving walls, though? Now they're moving and they've got bugs on them. Crap. Why didn't that jackass bartender just give me a Lemon Wedge? I hear those are good. Well...oh, man, I love this song! "Wiiiild thing...You make my heart..." ...wait...that's the jukebox...show must be over. What did I miss? Damnit. Oh well. I'll get some stuff about them from Wikipedia or something. Maybe I can go get some after-show interviews right now...Ugh. Floor won't stay steady.

Unfortunately, before I could corral any of them for additional comments, the band had sped off in a hired limo, champagne and caviar practically flying out the windows, Losch tossing a few oyster crackers in my direction and laughing as I scrabbled on the pavement for something to eat.

After a moment, they were gone, the last remnants of their esoteric performance ringing in my ears.

I was alone in Chicago. No review written. No car. No money. And a seventy dollar bar tab with a smug bartender waiting for me inside.

The perfect setting for a closing paragraph:

In a top single from their new album, "Sarah is a State of Mind," vocalist John Morton sings, "You slam the door shut to break it through / No one hears you." That may apply to Sarah, whoever she is. But BiM has slammed the door shut, doublebolted it, and set fire to it, which makes their breaking through it all the more impressive. Not to mention the fact that it is impossible not to hear them.

WBYFWYD is an album that pulses with a heartbeat never heard before in the Chicago indy rock scene, and a melody that grabs you by the lapels and throws you off your seat. The more BiM tours and gets this music out there, the better.

There. That should do it.

Now...where's a hotel?

Bullets in Madison Rocks at Reggie's

I'm chatting up a brunette waitress in a dive bar in downtown Chicago. Her eyes flicking behind me, constant sighs, repeated shifts from leg to leg and scowls of irritation all spell out entrancement to me. I am seductive. I am damn seductive. I'm so seductive, I could smooth-talk myself into bed. And I may have to, if this dippy broad doesn't get the hint in about ten seconds.

"I can totally get you backstage passes," I tell her, pausing to take a sip of my Cosmopolitan and adjust the collar of my Scooby Doo t-shirt. "I know the band."

"I work here," she says.

"Well, there's all kinds of backstage," I say after a moment's pause. Then I waggle my eyebrows. "If you know what I mean."

It's clear from her irritated look and imploring glances at the nearest bouncer, a guy with "Your Ad Here" tattooed on the back of his shaved, bull-like head, that she doesn't know what I mean, or else she'd be tearing my clothes off with her teeth right now. This irritates me no small deal. Women. Jesus. It's like they get more obtuse about blatant come-ons as they age. I shift my seat, take another swig of my drink, and try changing tacks.

"I mean a different kind of backstage pass," I say, tempted to draw it out on a cocktail napkin. "In my pants."

"Yeah, I got that."

"Anal," I say, pressing the point.

"I make it a point to never get involved with guys whose hair is thinning on top," she tells me, and my hand immediately flies to the crown of my head.

Damn her, I think as she walks away smirking, she's just toying with me. Or is she? I scamper over to a mirror on the wall, furtively examining my scalp and trying to decide whether the glaring white patch I'm seeing in the hairline has only just appeared, or whether it's been there for years and I just never noticed. My head is turning this way and that. My neck starts to hurt. My hands are shaking and there's the sour taste of approaching-middle-age desperation beginning to enter my mouth.

This can't do, I decide. I need to be up front and mature about this.

I immediately spin around and find the waitress again. I tap her on the shoulder. She turns. Recognizes me. Narrows her lips and waits.

"Bitch," I say calmly.

At that point, the bouncer approaches. I immediately tear off my Scooby Doo t-shirt and strike an instant flexdown. Pandemonium erupts.

--------------------------

If God really existed, I wouldn't have to keep following this goddamned band around the entire Chicago and suburban area into every two-bit dive and two-for-one-drink special club that agrees to hire these schmoes. But with the upcoming release of their new album, We Became Your Family When You Died, Bullets in Madison has been getting heavy airplay, and every screaming, frizzy-haired "Win a Dream Date with Brendan Losch"-hopeful teen (and not a few adults) has been demanding more and better media coverage. More, I can definitely supply.

So, after an early Father's Day evening out getting belittled by my immediate family in the Western suburbs, I climbed into my 1978 Pinto and prepared to make the forty-plus-mile journey to Reggie's, where they were scheduled to take stage at eleven p.m. My father looked dubious as I prepared to leave.

"You're not going to make it," he said. "It's late."

"Only for the old," I assured him while shrugging into my Wham! concert T-shirt and spraying my slowly-emerging mullet. "For the young and hip, the night is so not old. You just don't understand. You're not New Wave."

"Gregg, you're thirty-four."

"I'm thirty-three," I corrected him. "And I be chillin still."

"I still think you ought to at least have some coffee and take the train."

"That's what your mother said," I slurred wittily, backing out of his driveway and managing to carefully and expertly knock over his mailbox and garbage cans. My rapier wit had served me yet again, so I decided to reward it by parking the car at a nearby station, grabbing some coffee and taking the train downtown. Ha. Shows my father who's the boss of me.

During the ride, I snoozed and recharged for what I was sure would be a no-holds-barred one-in-a-million musical experience. At least, that's what it was the last time I saw them play. Bullets in Madison uses such a cacophony of musical appeals, they're difficult to categorize, but thanks to my expert training at the School of Writing Music, I can do so: They're Unique. However, I was worried that that might not be enough to satisfy my editor, which was why I was actually making the trip to the city to hear them. Otherwise, I would have just stolen the playlist, gotten a few sound bytes from the bar owner and made the whole thing up while drinking beer outside in my neighbor's kiddie pool. But music journalism is a harsh mistress and can sometimes be unreasonably demanding.

One hour and twenty minutes later, I staggered into the bar, Ready to Review. The first thing I noticed upon entrance was that every single dancer in a cage was not only thematically dressed (the Cheerleader, the Cowgirl, the French Maid), but could also pass for a pubescent.

My interest flared, then got confused.

Crap. I'd wandered into Roscoe's Titty Bar by mistake.

So it was another three hours (and several hundred dollars) before I made it to Reggie's, where, thankfully enough, the audience had spent so much time hectoring the previous bands and playing Beer Pong Twister, that BiM was only just setting up their equipment. Good. Problem solved. Starting over:

I walked into the bar, Ready to Review. I strode confidently over to the band, notebook in hand, fake smile plastered on my face, wiping the stripper's lipstick and boob powder off my cheeks, ready to do or die for indy Chicago rock journalism.

The keyboarder saw me coming. "Oh fuck me," he muttered, diving under the drum set and pretending to examine the floor beneath it. The rest of the band immediately looked as busy as possible doing the same.

"Come on out, you Gen-Next assholes," I raged, thumping the drums with the mike stand. "I know you're under there."

Evidently, the band conferred for a while, exchanging repartee like, "No, you go get rid of him," and eventually, one of the guitarists emerged. "Okay, make it quick," he said. "We've got to do a soundcheck. And order another round of Fuzzy Navels."

I snickered.

"What?" he demanded. "A lot of guys drink Fuzzy Navels now. They've come a long way."

I snickered again.

"Goddamn it, let's get this over with!"

"Well, I'm here doing another profile piece. I don't want to make the evening more stressful to you, but we just picked up another ten readers, mostly friends of my aunt, and they want to know about the new album."

The guitarist visibly gulped. A wiser head than I thought. My aunt's legions of fans can make or break a band in about five seconds. Look what they did to Menudo in 1985.

"Anyway, my editor wants two hundred words about either the show, the new album, or, if not that, transcriptions of the graffiti on the walls. So say something witty and engaging about it right now." With that, I whipped out a tape recorder and shoved it in his face. "Now, damn you."

He stammered and swallowed. "For the new album, we wanted to explore some new ground. We were looking to bridge the gap between the esoterics and objective message of our music, and found this was the best way to do it." He looked at me hopefully. "Okay?"

"Whatever. More." I pointed at my watch.

"Well, we found that the more we expected of ourselves, the more we managed to perform. It's like listening to the sounds of silence. It's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll. Come on, feel the noise. I don't know, shit, just give it a good review, will you? I've got rent to pay." The guitarist tossed aside his copy of Rock Music Clichés to Give the Critics and looked at me imploringly.

"Can do." I winked at him. "Get up there and kick some ass."

And they did. Or so I would imagine. I couldn't say for sure since, for the entire duration of the show, I was getting pummeled by a bouncer named Moose over alleged improper advances made towards Tiffany, the waitress of the brunette locks and disparaging comments about putative receding hairlines. As I spat teeth and bled internally, however, I could hear a few new songs in BiM's lineup that hadn't previously made the playlist at any of their previous shows. The new songs, it would seem. And you know what? That nimrod with the guitar was right: they really do blend feeling and thought. They really do emote. It really is a long way to the top (if you want to rock and roll).

So in conclusion, fans would do well to run, not walk, to the nearest library, where you can grab...a book. You know, because people aren't reading enough and shit. Also, jump on to a computer before the library lady yells at you about registration, log on to bulletsinmadison.com, and put in an advance order of We Became Your Family When You Died, out sometime this summer. Because if the other songs are anything like the ones I heard this weekend, then the whole album is going to sound a lot like those songs. Until then, Dear Readers, I remain, as always, your rock music appreciation superior.

Next Week: Whatever Did Happen to Menudo? Aunt Sally Tells All.

Bullets in Madison come to Abbey Pub

by db, classical music critic

Watching Bullets in Madison soar through a half dozen or so of their hits on the crowded stage of the Abbey pub is a lot like watching a band that practices a lot get together on a Saturday night to entertain performers at a faux Irish bar.

Stop and absorb that analogy for a moment. Got it? Good.

The band, which fires no guns and, as near as I can tell, doesn't even know where Wisconsin is on a map, took stage at nine p.m. At that point, I'd consumed four or five beers, so admittedly, I was a bit hazy. Still, I'm sure they played some kind of music, which is what they were supposed to do. So, at least they deliver, right?

Me, I was testy because I'd recently dropped my cell phone in the toilet and wasn't prepared to purchase a new one any time soon. So all the texts I would have sent the band during the show couldn't go out. Not that they'd appreciate them. Every time I send a message to one of them, they're all like, "Hey man, I'm trying to play a song up here! Do you mind?" Fame. It corrupts many an aspiring artist, I tell you.

Also, I'd gotten a parking ticket. My car had gone three minutes over the meter, which wound up costing me fifty bucks. Fifty! Literally highway robbery. Except I was on a city street, so I guess it's...city street robbery. Clever.

So the ticket, plus a new cell phone, plus the five or six beers and the ten dollars to get in the door, had me expecting perhaps more than was fair of the six musicians with the eclectic vibe and esoteric mixture of melodies and musings on the potentialities of feeling in an increasingly mechanized world.

And yet, they still delivered. BiM soared through their set without one screwup, blown amplifier, mistimed stage dive, rodent-head-biting stunt or smoke machine malfunction. They sang. They played instruments. I'm relatively sure I heard a drum rhythm in the background, and at one point, the lead singer even looked towards the audience. If that isn't showmanship, then I ask, what is?

I got to speak with the band after the show. "Well, we really thought people enjoyed it," one of them said. "We're releasing a new album in the next few months or so, and we're excited that people want to hear from it."

"I just couldn't believe it was fifty bucks," I said, pretending to take notes on his drivel. "Who the hell does Mayor Daley think he is? More like...Mayor Pay-me. Ha! Hey, that's good!"

"Anyway, we're always looking for a new way to do our kind of music," he continued. "It's important to us to keep it fresh. Without that, the juice stops flowing."

"That sounds great," I said, clapping him on the shoulder and causing him to spill his beer. "Hey, you think you can introduce me to Chris Martin?"

"I don't know him."

"You don't? Wasn't that him on the keyboards?"

Since I couldn't get another interview after that, that concludes this review. I sincerely hope my editor delivers the moolah on time, as I've got this damn parking ticket to pay.

I just got off the phone with my editor, and she says no way on the money unless I come up with a killer ending to this review. So here goes:

"Bullets in Madison remains a band that continually hones its act. Through their words, through their melodies, through John Morton's gravitas and the band's overall appeal to our finer sensibilities, they ensure our constant attention, and remain a promising star in the cluttered cosmos that we call local Chicago rock. Sooner or later, this star will go supernova. Until then, this is your friendly classical music critic saying, I'm going to enjoy watching their star rise."

Next week's column: Robert Fucking Plant. And maybe the rest of Pink Floyd, if I'm lucky.


Before showtime, Bullets in Madison meets to figure out where the hell they put their instruments.

My Dumb Vacation

Click here if you missed Part One | Click here if you missed Part Two

Part Three: The heady froth of Midwestern Culture. Plus, infant expectorations.

There are fewer things more depressing than approaching the darker side of your mid-thirties wearing a Cult Rocks! t-shirt, cutoff jeans and sporting three days' worth of stubble, only to throw up on yourself.

Trust me on this one.

We'd made the Black Keys concert by 10:30 p.m. Had a few beers. Had dinner. Had a few more beers. Had a breath mint. Had another beer. And at this point, I was steady as Senator Kennedy during a floor vote. I could have piloted a B-52 stealth bomber while playing chess with a chimpanzee.

But then Dewey (without whom there can be no late-night trip to a Black Keys concert, I might add) suggests we should eat something.

"Why the hell should I," I slur confidently. "What I really need is another drink."

Dewey tries to explain the concept of solid food absorbing alcohol, thus acting as a catalyst for its entrance to the bloodstream and further enhancing the pleasures it has to provide. I wave away his suggestions as if they're a swarm of gnats, but finally give in when he offers to pay for my 35-cent cheeseburger if I pick up the next round of Jim Beam on the rocks. I eagerly agree. Sucker, I think to myself smugly.

An hour or two later, we're taking what I like to call the Drunken Royal Express: the Blue Line to Cumberland, where my car sits, waiting like the world's most patient wife after Last Call. The landscape outside the windows is suddenly swerving and dipping alarmingly. It's not the beer. It's not the lateness of the hour. It's not the Jonas Brothers currently playing on the speakers (probably). It's Mickey D's, angrily battling with my gut for domination. I forgot how lousy their food is once you're not an undergraduate any more.

I get up, grasp onto a nearby pole, and try to fix my eyes on a stationary point: the floor. Which also, as it turns out, dips and sways alarmingly. When the train stops at Montrose, several stops away from our final destination, I turn a pleading gaze on Dewey. He sighs, gets up, and we exit. I just barely manage to make it to the platform edge, my 35-cent cheeseburger charging like the Germans at the Battle of Stalingrad. I pause, fighting for control. I concentrate. I summon every ounce of willpower and self-control.

Brap. My Cult t-shirt has definitely looked better.

Dewey stands ready behind me with an ace up his sleeve: a Black Keys Rock! t-shirt, newly purchased at the Metro a scant few hours beforehand.

"You're true blue, pal," I say, drawing a hand across my mouth.

Dewey shrugs modestly. "The day I don't help a pal," he says, "is the day I can't remember where he parked. And you're not sleeping on my couch tonight, so don't even ask."

Is there any substitute in this world for a good friend? You tell me.

-----

The last I left you, Dear Reader, I was standing in my aunt and uncle's front driveway, teetering from exhaustion, ready to embark on a two-day binge of theater and Michigan culture. Which I did. I saw Julius Caesar with my family, fighting the urge to drop off for the first two acts, then watching wide-eyed as the remaining players in the tragedy ran themselves on their swords. My favorite scene: Brutus tells Lucius to hold his weapon, leaps upon it, and yells, "Sweet, merciful crap! I said the sword with the black handle, dumbass!" The blood spouting from his gut looked like Buckingham Fountain during the Taste of Chicago--how in hell they get such great special effects is beyond me. I also liked how Lucius managed to turn pale--how did they do that? with trick lighting or something?--and retch visibly as he was hauled away. I don't remember that line, though. Probably they cribbed it from a Baz Luhmann unused script or something.

That night, while my aunt and uncle stayed home and went through my bags for their New York gifts, I went back for All's Well that Ends Well. I got to see them rehearse a bit beforehand due to a special Discount Rate that I purchased without even knowing it. When Helena comes out to do her repartee with the Count, it got pretty entertaining:

HELEN: You have some stain of soldier in you: let me
ask you a question. Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it against him?

PAROLLES: Keep him...uh, wait a minute, I know this line. Keep him...out! That's it!

HELEN: But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance.

PAROLLES: There is, uh, none: man, sitting down before you, will...uh, do something nasty.

HELENA: Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up! Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men?

PAROLLES: Uh, forsooth...thou...Hah! I get it now! "Blow up men," that's good!

HELENA: Jesus Christ, Franklin, learn your lines already, will you?

Ah, Franklin. You put Sir John Gielgud to shame.

The next day's visit to some high school to watch Fame! The Musical is a bit muddled in my memory. I don't remember any soliloquoys. Or dramatic monologues, or iambic pentameters. I do remember my uncle grumbling, "Somebody better run themself on a sword, or I'm outta here." And oh yeah, there was something about a Performing Arts high school. I gots to get me one o' them j-o-b's. Looks like all you have to do is periodically break into song. "These are my children...please take them away." I can see the rave reviews as I close my eyes.

And then it was time to take a train ride home. For four hours. Only to sleep for four more hours, and hit the Black Keys concert. And then sleep for four more hours. And then a drive to a wedding. A six-hour drive. To Saint Louis. Through...the Midwest.



Oh dear God. Not this again.

I hadn't been to a wedding in years where I had absolutely nothing to do but show up well-dressed (check), bring a gift (...hocked it) and dance with Kim and/or assorted female relatives (hey, it's not my fault every time a good song came up I had to go to the bathroom).

But the real scene-stealer, of course, was my nephew James.

James is the first newborn into my family since my brother was born three-plus decades ago, so of course he commands a lot of attention. He's already outperformed both my brother and myself at his age: he can say "da," he can clap, he can roll his finger across his lips and make a burbling sound, he can balance a checkbook, and he can even sort of dance, provided someone else does the motions and movement for him. At his age, my brother could roll onto his back. At my age now, I can barely avoid discharging fast food onto cheap concert t-shirts.

So it was no surprise when he managed to upstage practically every setting he appeared in. But the little guy got sick, probably due to the overpowering 100-degree heat (why the hell aren't August weddings outlawed already, anyway?) and so he wasn't too happy to put in an appearance at the church.

When the sitter and Kim arrived from the hotel with him in tow, I volunteered to get him from the car. My brother, who was standing at the wedding and was currently ushering, looked grateful. His wife didn't object. The sitter, whose last nerve was quickly unraveling, readily acquiesced. The only one who wasn't apparently grateful was James, who was howling lustily from the confines of his car seat.

Poor kid. He looked like an angel. A sweaty, full-throated, red-faced, two billion-decibel-loud seraphim.

I felt my heart fill to the brim with love for my nephew as I beheld him at his neediest. No fear, dear one. Your uncle is here.

I managed to unbuckle him, draw him out, hold him close. "I know, little guy," I crooned. "You just need a little understanding and love, and that's exactly why I'm..."

Brap. The little jerk threw up all over me.

"Well of all the..." Splutter splutter. "Somebody get this kid off me before I..." Splutter splutter. "Nobody ever told me babies vomit..." Splutter splutter.

My dignity thus discarded for the time being, I tucked him under my arm, sprinted to the church and lateraled him to my brother. As I grabbed the nearest box of wipes to rescue my good suit from baking in baby vomit, James shot a smug look in my direction. And as the bridal party descended on him to ooh and aah, clucking sympathetically over his soiled clothes, James leered appreciatively at his ready good luck, and my crappy situation.

Nephew: one. Uncle: zero.

I returned to my church pew sweaty, smelling a trifle vomitus and looking like I'd just ran a 10-K. My beloved, the Woman who Holds the Bottle Opener to the Beer that Is My Heart, cast a critical eye at the puke on my lapel. "Wow, twice in twenty-four hours?" she asked sardonically. "What are you, going for a record?"

Damn it. Got to stop telling her the stuff that embarasses me.

The ceremony ran longer than expected, so once we got assorted family and friends back to the hotel, it was time for a little drinky-poo. One turned into several, which turned into dinner, which then turned into a full-blown dance floor at the reception cum open bar. Charlie and the Nostalgia Number did live music, and it was right in the middle of a passable rendition of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" that James made his triumphant return: cleaned up, bathed and in a new set of clothes. I, on the other hand, was wearing the same befouled suit, rumpled hair and harried manner I'd had before, relying, in the absence of soap and water, solely on vodka and tonic to disinfect myself.

"He is so cute, gushed a nearby bridesmaid.

I stood up straight, puffing out my chest in pride. "I'm his uncle, you know."

"You've got vomit on your lapel," she said without even looking in my direction. James, apparently overhearing, sneered at me.

A half hour later, I borrowed my nephew and stuck a finger in his direction. "Kid, you're lucky you're so damn cute," I growled. "Or you'd be swimming with the fishes right now."

He acknowledged my riposte by grabbing my outstretched finger and dribbling on my shoulder. Nephew, two; Uncle, zilch. My heart melted.

"All right, you get away with it this time. But when you grow up, you're taking me to a Black Keys concert. I'll explain why later."

Epilogue:

Setting: New Year's Eve, 2069. Kim and I are sitting in the living room, poring over old photo albums. We've just celebrated our first twenty-four hours of wedded bliss. Yes, late bloomers are we, but you can't put a label on love, and now, as the fire on the TV screen crackles cheerily while the pollution and depleted ozone layer decimates the landscape outside, we exchange memories of Days Gone By, occasionally clasping hands and downing shots of Jack Daniels.

Me:"Look at this one. This was what's-his-name's and whosit's wedding that one summer in that city with the arch-thing, remember that place? You were so lovely."

Kim: "And you were a hunk stud. Oh, and look at James. Who'd have thought the future President of the United States would do so much upchucking on someone not working for the UN?

Superficial, worldly-wise laughter ensues here. Maybe some geriatric groping on the side.

Kim:"And here you are, warning him not to throw up on you again. Just so cute!"

Me:"And here he is, dancing with a bridesmaid."

Kim:"Is that the bridesmaid you were flirting with?"

Me:"Flirting? Me? Hell no. I bragged about being his uncle."

Kim:"Sure, to a hot bridesmaid. What about all the old ladies hovering around him?"

Me: "Listen, woman, know your place! The Marriage Santification Act, passed by President George W. Bush hours before he left office (HR 2172-2 Section Seven Paragraph 2), makes it a crime for me to be spoken to like that in my own home!"

Kim: "Your home? You damn mooch! When are you going to start pulling your weight, get a job and pay me some rent?"

Me: "I told you, I'm in a transition period!"

Kim: "And I told you, I was only allowing five decades for you to find a job singing in a musical. I don't care how senile you are now!"

Me: "Why you...you...you..." Brap.

I forgot. Nonagenarians shouldn't drink after only poached eggs and Soylent Green for dinner.

Geriatric bickering ensues. By New Year's Day, 2070, we're filing for divorce, and I'm sleeping on Dewey's couch. Guess we should have seen that one coming.

We would have made the Styx concert at Summerfest if we'd left on time. Or earlier. Or if Tso hadn't pissed away the afternoon "working late" (i.e. boozing it up at a company picnic). But that didn't happen. So, no Styx at Summerfest this year.

Foreigner--eh. They were on stage about forty-five minutes. Ten minutes longer than they needed for all their greatest hits.

That left Def Leppard. Who rocked.

They were on stage for about an hour and change. Only one song post 1989 (thankfully, no "Let's Get Rocked). Below: Def Leppard rocking it with "Foolin'."



Below, Def Leppard rocking with "Animal."



If those pictures were at all legible, trust me, you'd be impressed. As it is, I have to admit, they look more like a light wave vomiting.

Even more impressive--some stroke was passing out free tickets to Tesla's July 13 show at the Rave. For free! Like he was worried they wouldn't be able to pack the place. Puh-leeze.

I called Kim immediately after procuring said tickets:

Me: Hey, baby! Guess what I got for free just now?
Kim: Tesla tickets.
Me: (beat) Yeah, that's right! How'd you--
Kim: They suck. They're probably worried they won't be able to pack the place.
Me: Uh, well...you want to...
Kim: Hell no. I'm going to stay home and clip my nails.

Loser. Doesn't know what she's missing.

I must have this. What's $150, anyway?

You can rock at a Maiden concert on a school night.

Yes, indeedy, the Maidens rocked the house at the Allstate Arena Wednesday night. I whined. I puled. I howled. First about the late hour; then about the new album they were playing start to finish.

Let me tell you something: they rock.

I'm still digesting A Matter of Life and Death, but there are songs that scream "old school" to me. "These Colours Don't Run," or "The Greater Good of God." I've only listened to the songs in the car--I need to get them on my MP3, or in my living room. But I don't even know all the lyrics yet, and the only reason I know there's an anti-war theme is because of the bigass tank on the cover. My car is ok for acoustics, but the Allstate leaves much to be desired.

So there I stood, 31 years old, wearing a secondhand Hawaiian shirt and my dog-chewed concert jacket, cheering like a loon along with the appropriate lyrics from "Iron Maiden" and "Hallowed Be Thy Name." I'd never gotten to wail along to "Fear of the Dark" (it being post-1985 work of theirs), but I did not miss my chance Wednesday. They put me to shame: Dickinson has got to be past 50, yet he can still run and bellow high notes nonstop without even breaking a sweat. They had energy. They had depth. They knew how to put on a show.

When I left, my ears were ringing. My head was splitting. I needed a shower. I needed a drink. I needed to pull out all my Iron Maiden tapes and play them back to back until one a.m.

So why was it, then, that in the car, after fiddling with the radio for a while, I found myself singing lustily along to George Michaels' "Faith"?

Not exactly the capper for my first metal concert in over a decade. I swear, I have ADD for music taste.

Another freaking Styx concert.

You'd think an hour north to pick Tso's worthless butt up, another hour and a half north to Milwaukee's Summerfest, twenty minutes finding an ATM, another ten minutes parking the car and twenty minutes walking just to hit a wall of sweaty suburbanites making a mass exodus to soak up plastic bottles of domestic beer and buy ridiculously overpriced legs of meat to gnaw on would be something I'd be just as apt to do as seeing how many of my fingernails I could yank out before passing out.

But then, when Styx is in the bargain, that's a different thing altogether.

Crowd: insane. Sound: okay, except we couldn't get close enough to hear it the way it's mean to be heard. Lineup: the same songs for the most part. They still rock, except when the hell did JY Young start singing "Crystal Ball"? And no guest performance this time? I'm insulted.

No, Styx, unlike much of life, does not dissapoint. But the crowd often does.

I saw more fourteen-year-olds chainsmoking and texting each other from ten feet away than I would care to count. It made me sick, and I said so. Tso tried to remind me that both annoying/stupid habits were habits I either had for years, or still have today, but what the hell does he know? He works in a paper company, for God's sake. I'm surprised it hasn't blown away yet.

I saw plenty of potbellied middle-aged men with their overly-painted-in-makeup wives and halfwitted tagalong neighbors cluttering up space in the concert hall that could more advantageously been taken up with...I don't know...beer kegs? Strippers? Empty space for me to stretch my legs out in?

One group spent ten minutes interrupting a significant chunk of "Angry Young Man" and "The Grand Illusion" with an animated conversation about the Milwaukee Brewers. They all had those ridiculous Chicagoland mustaches that Chris Farley, et al made famous back in the nineties in those Saturday Night Live concerts. I wondered if I were overreacting when I contemplated ripping the mustaches off them and feeding them to their wives (who apparently only knew the chorus to each and every Styx song, judging by volume, enthusiasm and slurred vocal performances). I quickly decided, nope, no overreacting here.

And when the band broke into their encore performance of "Renegade," I was pulling a Frank Costanza, yanking on Tso's sleeve and pointing towards the exit. "Come on!" I bawled while Tommy Shaw was droning on about a great audience and the beer capital of the world. "We can still beat traffic!"

Well, Shaw will forgive me. Such disrespect in front of the masters will anger any ardent disciples.

So: that's Styx and the Cult in one calendar year. Sweet. Somebody tell the Black Keys or Big Head Todd to make an appearance before August, and I'll be content.