Last Saturday night, I traveled to an alternate reality. Far from my overheated home in Edmonds', I was linked arm-in-arm with my roommate, exploring the arctic tundra of Union Square in Somerville, Mass. Searching for a place called P.A.'s Lounge, and never having gone past Harvard Square on the 86 bus, I was in uncharted territory.
I really don't know Boston as well as I should, and I think that's pretty typical for Boston College students. After living in Paris for a month over the summer, and Quito for the past semester, it's sad to admit that I could draw a more accurate map of either city better than the place I've lived for two years. Knowing this, I was enthusiastic to check out a young, up-and-coming band from Tufts (Ezra Furman and the Harpoons) at an unfamiliar venue. I suppose I expected something more "hip": softly colored up-lighting, poetry scrawled on the walls, local hipsters smoking inside. We arrived around 9 p.m., planning to hang out, watch the band, and be back at BC to arrive fashionably late at a friend's party. But here we were, in a cozy sports bar with a Cheers-vibe and a rec -room-like stage area. There were probably 10 other people there, all over 25, and let's just say "not my type." My roommate and I slunk into a corner table that had baseball cards laminated on the top and sat there awkwardly, giggling uncontrollably about what we had gotten ourselves into.
Finally some music started, but it wasn't Ezra Furman. By the time we left, that band hadn't even arrived. Instead, we endured a set from Sick Room, self-described on MySpace as "an outlet for songs conceptualized as the future memories of a dying man reiterating his past through broken scenes of utter madness however significant as his mind shuffles in gloom." Quirky and strange, he sang about getting old, "Deviltown," ex-crushes from afar, and his backyard. The lead singer's voice was something between The Mountain Goats and Bright Eyes, or maybe it was just bad. I couldn't decide. When the next band started setting up and my roommate assured me there was neither a tenor sax nor balding men in Ezra Furman, we slipped out of this singular experience. Later on, after flip cup and chicken fingers, what came back to me was the chorus of Sick Room's catchy sing-along "Funeral Home." It had been an absurd excursion. And now I wish I had bought a t-shirt. Lesson learned: A new place in Boston, no matter how weird the experience, always beats sitting around in your residence hall watching VH1.
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