Screamed at by a Ska Girl

On Saturday, November 1st, I had a litany of things to do, the final item being interviewing Sonic Boom 6, a ska / punk / reggae / Hip-Hop band, at The Knitting Factory after their show. Little did I know that this was no small show, it was a “three stories of ska” event featuring numerous bands and, of course, all of their fans. When I arrived at 7pm, right around when the doors were scheduled to open, I met up with fellow superstar journalist Bear Frazer. The line was literally down the block. We looked at each other, decided to pull rank, and that’s when the fun began.

As we approached the seemingly endless line, a line the likes of which I have never seen for a Hip-Hop show at The Knit as it was both long and well organized with everyone actually listening to the doormen, Bear turned to me and said “do you wanna see if we can skip it?” I replied “you mean, do you wanna be us?” Both questions were rhetorical. We started walking.

The act of walking up the line ruffled a few feathers as some of the kids (it was an all ages show) looked at us like we were stupid for thinking we could just waltz right past all of them. I started talking to the doormen as I approached them, being as humble as I could. Before I could finish a sentence, however, I heard a robust “hey, Adam, how ya doin!” It was Richie. Praise Jesus one of my people was actually working the door. I already knew Mr. Tibbs wasn’t going to be there and I figured the rest of the Hip-Hop crew would be gone, as well, just to avoid the ska crowd. Richie and I spoke for a bit, he let me know that he knew that he owed me a call, and then I asked the question Bear and I were hoping to hear a resounding yes to; “I’m here to interview one of the bands, is it cool if we just skip this line?” Without hesitation Richie gave me a screwface look as if to say “did you really think you had to ask?” opened the door wide and waved us in. As all of this was going on I heard a young teenage girl cursing in the background. Her “fuck” was extremely audible, possibly for blocks. As soon as we were inside Bear noted that the girl was directing her turrets-ish tirade towards us. Apparently she wasn’t thrilled she was still in line while we were inside. Note to self – ska girls don’t dig Adam B when he’s on his job… or possibly ever.

Inside I saw Sonia at the bar, who also owed me a phone call (yeah, lots of people owe me phone calls. Welcome to the game). We talked for a while and then I noticed Sonic Boom 6 was sitting right across the bar from us. I introduced myself to everyone, including their manager, Liam, and we hung out, shared a few drinks, and talked about music for a bit. The planning of the interview, however, wasn’t quite as simple. Because there were so many bands there that night the usual place to do interviews, the upstairs artist’s area, wasn’t going to be available, so we just said we’d all meet up after SB6 was done on stage and find a place to make it happen.

Side note – security for this show seemed to be double what it is for Hip-Hop shows. I had never in my life been asked so many times what I was doing there, or if I had a ticket. I asked one of my friends who was working about this and was told it was because the rock shows end up causing the most problems. I want to say that again – the rock shows cause more problems than the Hip-Hop shows. Ya hear that venues!!! Stop being scared to book us!

After SB6’s set, which was pretty impressive as they got the crowd moving after only a few songs and kept hold of them the entire time, the lone space we could find to do the interview that was even remotely quiet enough was in a little area next to the Tap Bar’s entrance. The interview went surprisingly well considering the conditions; you’ll read it here later this month. Immediately afterwards Bear and I made our way out of the venue, eager to leave the crowd of teenagers who, no doubt (pun intended), were growing less and less fond of us by the minute.

Thankfully I made my way to the train station in time to hop on the 11:22pm train home, which now officially qualifies as “at a reasonable hour.” Life continues to be exciting, even if the ska girls only want to scream at me.