Shut Your Animal Mouth
January 6th, 2012Holy crap, I went to a concert last night. I haven’t been to a show in ages, and it was my first Portland show ever, and it was really nice to get out for a night. The drummer of the second band in last night’s lineup is friends with my current special person, and some of his other friends were there, too, so we decided to hop on the train & go downtown.
We missed the first band completely, and the last band was what you’d get if you mixed Metallica, the Offspring and Flogging Molly, took away the fiddle and every last shred of talent, and cranked it to 11.
Which brings us to the band we went to the Ash St. Saloon to see: Shut Your Animal Mouth.
Yes. Really. It’s a candidate for #badbandnames, but most bands around here are candidates for #badbandnames, so welcome to the Portland music scene, I guess.
When I was 14/15/16/17, I listened to loud, angry music A LOT. Like all the damned time. My mother (may she rest and her name be for a blessing) often wondered, aloud, when my hearing would be so damaged that I couldn’t appreciate the Bif Naked or Veruca Salt I was blasting from my bedroom & using to shake the walls.
For the record, I don’t have permanent hearing loss, just a wicked case of constant tinnitus, but that’s been there for as long as I can remember.
Somewhere inside this nearly-30-year-old body lies 15-year-old me. And 15-year-old me has gotten up off her bed, taken off the headphones that were blasting NiN “Hurt” on repeat for the last 3 days, taken a shower, and put this new-to-her band in her CD player. 15-year-old me has reached the anger part of post-breakup grief, called her best friends, gotten two packages of double stuf Oreos and a gallon of milk and is now blasting this music loudly.
How loudly?
Loudly enough that the boy down the block, who has a crush on this Oreo-eating gal who’s just been dumped knows it’s not safe to ask her out yet, but it’s safe to talk to her again.
It’s when she puts BNL in the CD player that he’ll have the stones to ask her out. Or he won’t ever have the stones to follow through, but he’ll at least entertain the thought again.
Not a bad introduction to shows in Portland, really.