In the spring of 2010 the Growlers were touring up the California coast and they stopped for a spell in the small surf town of Santa Cruz, just an hour south of the City and the Bay.
"The Growlers?"
"They're a couple of friends of mine from high school," Grant said. "And they're good. And crazy."
"I like crazy." Which I do. A lot of good things come from crazy people. Like art and words and especially music.
Grant could hear the intrigue in my tone, and he was excited. "Good! Because they're playing tonight at the Crepe Cafe, and then they're comin' over after and shit's gonna get weird."
To say the least, it got weird. It got weird walking to Crepe Cafe. We parked down the street that dead-ends at the Rio and delighted in pulls from a handle of whiskey and shotgunned cans of Coors Original because hell, why pay for drinks at the bar when you can drink your face off right before. That was Santa Cruz. And some of us were definitely strolling on a spliff high, which makes strolling all the better. But before we could get to strolling an old fucked-up van pulled up and parked right in front of us. It was a jolting, sputtering jalopy of a ride and out came stumbling a tattered-rag, crazy-eyed band of psycho-lookers and they was carrying instruments, and even though they were swaying it looked to me that they knew how to use them. Like seasoned vets they were.
Grant greeted them with the handle of Jameson. "What's up, mutha-fuckas." He said it slyly with a hunch and a devilish grin and the boys mirrored his moves and swigged heartily with raucous laughter and we all walked in varying degrees down Soquel to the Crepe Cafe.
The Crepe Cafe is this not so big bar space in the middle of Santa Cruz, a little south of downtown. The drinks are good and cheap and so it fills up easy with a rowdy crowd of mountain men set on the sea. Some of these men and their fair-skinned lassies were our friends and we smash into them with hugs and familiar ways while the band sets up. Grant talks to his friend who's the guitarist or bassist or whatever; all I know is that the front man's (quite recently by the look and smell of it) bleached his hair, and the drummer's face is painted with diamonds and stripes of color, and while they set up they laugh and swill beers with a bottle swing and sink shots of whiskey by the double and slam them on the amps, and they all have the same wild thunder in their eyes like the distant focus of eagles on prey. They cock their heads likewise for inflection, but for the most part they have a mild-mannered disposition at cloud level while were all still stuck on the ground.
There's no stage, they play on the floor of about a third of the bar. Eye level. Monster's dancing with Brooks' mike stand because the mike's in his hand and he's in a gruff nasal hark, stumbling from one foot to the other in tired high cowboy boots, and his eyes squint and close and the chords come out in perfect unison and drawl. The whole bar is swaying in dance and mad drunk so the swaying swings into falling on top of and over one another. We're pressed in at the shoulders and the windows fog to the cold of the outside night. Layers of clothing come off and the bright dusted fabrics are tied over one shoulder. My jacket's over in a sweaty corner somewhere and when a camera comes around, I growl at it because the music makes me do it. I'm drunk on the twang of the the strings and the vocals. And the drums keep my legs knocking, and everyone around is a friend and their legs are knocking too, and we're all knocking into each other. Do I know the songs? No. Well, maybe one. But hell, it doesn't seem to matter. It's a fucking time to be had, it is. That's one thing for sure. And when Brooks tells us they're done, we yell, "Hell no! One more! No, three more!" It's all to no avail though. That damned bleached-haired satyr's had enough, and the diamond-eyed striped drummer throws his sticks in the air and tries to make his way to the bar for another shot of whiskey.
We pour out of the Crepe Cafe when it closes, and Grant says the band's coming back to King Street for the night.
"What the hell?! Okay." I don't remember the rest.
