Last night I ventured to Anaheim’s famous Doll Hut to see Seattle-based rock band The Blakes.
I was worried I had missed them, showing up at 10 when the show started at 9.
Nope. Doll Hut owner Juan Reynoso, who was working the door (gotta love that!) told me they had yet to go on. I was in luck. . .or so I thought.
The next band to take the leopard print stage were The Ziggens. Ever heard of them?
Apparently they’ve been around for 20 years but left their sound somewhere in the early ‘90s. The band made us suffer through several cheesy rock songs and more bad jokes than Uncle Wally tells after a bottle of Makers Mark at Thanksgiving dinner.
Like this one: “So I bought a new snowblower, but I didn’t know how to turn it on. My dad told me, ‘just tell the snowblower you love it’.”
Commence eye-rolling.
Whatever, the four people wearing Ziggens T-shirts seemed to enjoy it.
The Pabst tallboys helped. Helped even more that they were served by an exquisitely surly blonde bartender with a cigarette dangling from her lips. You can't say the Doll Hut doesn't have character.
So The Ziggens finally ended their set. I perked up, thinking my band was on next.
Nope, not them. Ah hell, what’s one more tallboy.
This band was called the Go-Sheilas; mid-90’s pop and power-chord mania fronted by two female vocalists. At least they weren’t trying their hand at stand-up comedy. The closest thing to funny were the drummer’s blinky light up spectacles.
Dammit! Where the hell were The Blakes?! Some of had to work the next morning (and by morning I mean 11-ish)
Finally, at 12:30 a.-fuckin-m. The Blakes came on and rocked the twelve of us still remaining with a hard smack of swaggering ‘60s lo-fi awesomeness. Raspy screaming vocals over crisp, snake-like melodies a la garage padded with cheap amplifiers. Imagine The Stokes but so so sooo much cooler.
Even the toothless guy in the corner was enjoying himself.
Click here for the Weekly’s Cd review of The Blakes by Tony Ware (who doesn't like them as much as I do).
