Monday, January 30, 2012
The Spin Hate Life at Dino's Feat. Puffy Areolas, Obnox, Cheap Time and The Black Faces, 1/27/12
Posted by The Spin on Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 11:59 AM
It’s not often your more makeshift venues (dive bars, coffee shops, clothing stores, etc.) are able to offer up the intimacy of a DIY punk den without giving up the sonic comforts of a proper PA. In fact, it pretty much never happens. Hence, we weren’t surprised at the lack of audible vocals upon walking in on Cheap Time’s set at East Side dive Dino’s on Friday night.
At the risk of sounding like whiny show snobs, another quirk of a successful show at Dino’s is the total lack of stage visibility for anyone beyond the third row. We’ve heard, however, that when one is robbed of one of their senses — in this case, sight — the others are heightened. So when we stared at the head in front of us hard enough, we could almost kind of hear frontman Jeffrey Novak’s snotty croon over the band’s slick and glittery glam-punk riffing.
During the break, we learned we’d missed local openers The Black Faces — an ear-splitting, noisy rock three-piece featuring Hate Life organizer Ben Swank along with Jemina Pearl and Chet Weiss — and so we drowned that particular sorrow while supplementing Dino’s absence of hard booze next door at No. 308. We made it back over in time for the introduction of Cleveland, Ohio’s Obnox. Singer/guitarist Lamont “Bim” Thomas has spent the last 20 years drumming for some of Ohio’s most notorious underground rock 'n' roll bands — none of which we can actually claim to have seen, and therefore it’s not too strange for us to see him step up to the mic and belt out a furious combo of Detroit soul and Memphis garage punk. He was armed with a lone drummer as backup, and we gotta say, for a drummer, Thomas' banter was almost as entertaining as his tunes — which we also gotta say were among the most invigorating and enjoyable of the evening. We could even hear him sing a little.
Next up, Thomas returned to his better-known role behind the kit with headliners Puffy Areolas. While we doubt that’s anyone’s favorite moniker in rock 'n' roll, this Ohio trio droned out on a jazzy, fuzzed-out, feedback-infused, virtually instrumental (see first paragraph) pyschedelic punk trip for a solid half-hour or so. When all was said and done, we'd seen a good show, and we got drunk for less than $10 — so we’ve basically forgotten whatever it was we were bitching and moaning about earlier.
Comments (9)
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Hey "2 b in the G-nome", Love ya dude but you have to slow down when reading the articles here...Spin Dudes mentioned they had to go next door to No. 3O8 to get the hard booze. Also, did you give hate lifer Swank-man a hard time and show him how tuff you are getting from reading his advice column and taking his advice?
"you have to slow down when reading the articles here"
I was expressing disbelief that one of Nashville's best known dives doesn't sell liquor.
Oh, sorry about that TG. Yeah they could make more money selling liquor but they may be such a small operation and not big money makers and need to avoid the price of a liquor license.
Heard of? Yes. Been to? No. Do either of them sell liquor?
Even having lived in Nashville for more than a decade I'm still a little perplexed by Tennessee's restrictive liquor laws. In my home state they sell liquor at grocery stores, restaurants and convenience stores. To not sell liquor at a bar is counter-intuitive in the gnome-dome.
Beer bars are the oldest continuously operating bars in Nashville, Tobin, and there are a ton of them. It's actually really hard to get a liquor license if your bar doesn't meet certain conditions, distance from residences among them. Metro loosened up some of the stupider restrictions in the last few years, like the minimum number of available seats, and the state has tinkered a bit with the food sales percentage rules, but it's still just a pain in the ass to open a bar in this town. It's a shame, because neighborhood bars within walking distance of where people live make a neighborhood more neighborhood-y.
That doesn't necessarily explain why Dino's hasn't applied for a liquor license. My suspicion is that they can't afford the huge liability insurance that selling liquor entails.
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