In Praise Of Smoky Dives

Went to a blues club tonight. Hadn’t been for a while. Was running a bit late due to an exciting visit to Tesco’s, so didn’t smoke the evil weed on they way there, thought I’d wait. When I arrived however, I was startled to see that in my absence they’d tarted the place up. New glass doors, new slate forecourt in arty diagonals, polished wood and glass cases full of ‘art’ (a pair of shoes stuffed with feathers on the top shelf, a pile of white feathers which with only the addition of some fake blood which I sadly didn’t have on me, could pass as the aftermath of a cat attack) and a curiously ‘Sunday supplement’ looking clientele going in. I paid my money however and entered to find they’d done the cellar bar up too!! All steel and slate and ‘NO SMOKING’ signs all over the place.

 

Now, I don’t know about you, and I don’t want to get into the merits of banning smoking, but, man, this is a BLUES CLUB. You don’t go to a brothel and expect the queen’s sitting room (unless someone knows different); you don’t go to a circus and expect a library. You don’t go to the Rockies to admire the pond life, and you don’t go to a blues club to sip tea!

 

When I go to a blues club I want down and dirty. I want growly voiced women in low slung tops and red lipstick. I want an old dude who needs a guide dog rasping out about how his ferret died this mawnin, after a run of appallingly bad luck.  I want deals in corners, I want dim lighting, I want liquor made from rejected potatoes, I want to smoke any damn thing I want to!! I remember when I went to Prague the joy of the blues club there. It was packed tighter than a hen’s bottom with different nationalities, it was dark, it was growly, there was beer in abundance and you could barely see the singer through the smoke.

 

Sometimes I want down and dirty, sometimes I neeeeed down and dirty. Sometimes I want to come home smelling like I had the best time. I want to find packages in my pocket, at least three different scents on my collar, I want a sore throat and red eyes. I want to feel it was a different experience to visiting the supermarket on the way out.

 

These days, we’re all so conscious of health and safety, risk assessment and litigation that everything is the same. Soon you won’t be able to buy a wrap without it being cut on a nice wooden floor. Criminals will assess your state of health before bumping you off ever so nicely, and every street will be wallpapered in tasteful shades of beige. People will come home from holiday with photographs of appallingly dangerous areas such as a road with a section of pedestrian crash barrier missing, or a holly leaf that hadn’t been sucked up by municipal sharp leaf inspectors and nearly injured their toe.

 

Heck, what is the world coming to? Soon we’ll all  be bubble wrapped every morning before facing the world. Well, if they are going to do this to us, I demand they at least leave our smoky dives alone!!!! I demand the right to risk death by slouching in a smoky cellar bar having my ears torn out by a throaty singer who is definitely breaking the sound laws. I want to be propositioned by a shady lady, offered a cheap machine gun by a guy in a slouch hat, and followed home by a vampire. Sometimes I want to get away from the bureaurocratic nannying and the damn ‘put-it-out-brigade’

 

I DEMAND THE RIGHT TO BE LOW DOWN AND DIRTY!!!!

 

————————————————–

 

Yeahh, woke up this mawnin

ma wife had tied me to the bed,

YYYYYYeahhh I woke up this mawnin

and the damn dog it was deeead.

Never-thought-I’d-say-it-but-you-know-it 

It was like ma mama always said

 

(guitar wails, guide dog howls)

 

Weeell I went out this mawnin

stood on a leaf outside the daaww

YYYYYeahhh I went out this mawnin

I threw up all over the floooooor.

Never-thought-I’d-say-it-but-you-know-it

they said I couldn’t smoke no maaaaaww.

 

(singer hacks up a lung, dog wheezes)

 

Weeeel I went down to the crossroads

but they said it was just too dangeruuuuuuus

YYYYYyeah I went down to the crossroads

they said they’d fine me if I cussss.

Never-thought-I’d-say-it-but-you-know-it

they’re boring the devil out of uuuuussssss.

 

(Police arrive and arrest the dog for suspected fleas)

 

Thank you and goodnight. Please leave quietly and be careful of the wind, it could disarrange your hair. Please don’t worry about banging your head, all the ceilings have been coated with rubber. If you’d like an escort to your car just ask (nicely) and a member of the uniformed police will go with you in case of low flying sparrows that may have escaped the recent cull.