Bad Decision

I know this will come as a surprise to some of you readers out there, but tonight, I went out.

I didn't feel much like staying home, so once again I travelled down to "the Lamplighter" (which is what my friends Dan and Jocelyn call it) to have a beer or two before retiring for the evening. It was about 9:45 pm, and a beautiful night. I arrived, and suddenly realized that there was live music on hand, though on break. I was told that it was an accoustical duo, playing guitar and...of all things...bongos.

Hey, I like Carmen Miranda, Gloria Estefan, and have watched Ricky Ricardo and his orchestra take a jaunt through some snappy Cuban numbers once or twice in my life. I was thinking that it would be interesting.

How wrong I was.

For the record, I will confess that the guitarist was quite good. In fact, more than good. He was great. The soloist/bongoist on the other hand, was quite a different matter. In fact, before writing this post, I needed to actually do some research on the bongo, to see if my thought process was correct and to really see if I knew Percussion 101. The burning question was: does one need to tune a bongo?

There were many reasons why I had to research this. After playing several tunes (most of them not familiar to me), I was getting a mind numbing headache listening to the bongos, of the likes of listening to jazz on a Friday or more likely a Saturday evening on WERN, and hearing a screechy, shrill saxophone (my LEAST favorite instrument) improvisatorily shreik during some acid jazz number. Also, when this bongoist was playing, it was just merely a random thumping, and not that pure bongo sound. Either his bongo was waterlogged from Hurricane Hanna, or he just couldn't play for.....anything. In fact, in a couple different numbers, those bongos sounded like Rosie singing the national anthem at a baseball game: fat and out of tune (and tempo). I was sure that like timpani, they must have to be tuned. And.....the verdict....

I was right. Our resident bongoist apparently didn't know that. My ears, on the other hand, did.

It was also very apparent that this person was NO Ricky Ricardo, and preferred to oversing, thereby being chronically sharp. I've mentioned Darlene Edwards before (and she sings sharper than Vermont cheddar-but at least SHE was FABULOUS-and did it on purpose), but this bearded wonder gave her a run for her money, and not in a good way. I'm sure a song like "Zombie" would have been an interesting choice.......wait.....oh yes, they did that song too. Brutal was the only word to describe what I heard.

From my observation of the crowd, I don't think anyone was too enthused about this dynamic duo either. In fact after every song, they had one person applaud (and does that really constitute "applause?"), though I lost track after 5 songs, not to mention lost interest in the process. For whatever reason, though, they felt it necessary to have an encore number (how lucky for everyone) given the magnitude of the ovation they received: some number by Jewel. I assure you, this number lacked all clarity and luster.

After two beers, I had to go home. I needed a break. I thought to myself that going out tonight was a bad decision, only to be confirmed and validated by this musical duo's name for their gig:

Bad Decision.