Fastball/Whiskeytown
Tramps, NYC
Saturday April 4, 1998
by Danielle Tropea
My best friend Chris and I arrived at Tramps, a medium-sized club in Manhattan's Flatiron District, hungry. Before the show started, we decided to forgo the four dollar pack of Tic Tacs sold at the t-shirt stand for a "quick bite" at the next-door Tramps Cafe, which featured southern/cajun style cuisine. A fifteen dollar po'boy wasn't exactly in my budget so I got the cheapest thing on the menu, a five dollar plate of salad. Chris opted for shrimp cocktail at just under two bucks a shrimp. After this most filling meal, we went back to Tramps, where we discovered we had missed the opening band, Lords of Discipline.
Too bad the service at Tramps cafe wasn't slower or we could have been spared the trite Fastball. Their set was tight and they could play their instruments okay, but there just wasn't anything special about them. Neither their arrangement nor their lyrics were particularly innovative. The only thing they had going for them was a good chance to be the next MTV's Buzzbin clip. Any of you remember a little Canadian TV show called "Degrassi Junior High" broadcast on public television in the late eighties? Well, the lead singer is a dead ringer for Wheels. "It's the Degrassi Jr. High dweebs getting revenge," Chris told me, as he poked me in the back. Days after the show, Chris told me he saw them featured as an MTV Buzzbin Clip. Which, of course, is only more reason not to pay attention to them.
We planted ourselves in a prime viewing position. Not of the band. We were right behind a big support beam smackdab in the middle of the stage. No, I mean, in view of a short dark-haired dorky-glasses-wearing cutie. I spent the bulk of the Fastball act staring him down.
By the time Whiskeytown took the stage, Chris and I were beat. They took a good half hour to set up so I decided to ask Chris if the recent unusually pleasant climate (80's, incredible for NY in April) had spawned his hitting on me or if he had recently suffered a blow to the head. He told me that he always found me attractive and that our talk about how we could never hook up because we were such good friends was just him trying to find out if I felt the same way about him. I did something I never thought I'd ever do with a cute boy- I turned him down. I told him that I didn't want to be his "in the meantime" thing. It's insulting to have your best friend want to get it on with you because he can't find anything better. "Everyone thinks we're doing it anyway," he told me.
Why am I telling you this? Because Chris and I left in the middle of the third Whiskeytown song. We were bored as hell and tired and when you're bored and tired, the last thing you want to do is watch a middle-aged woman play fiddle.
