A night in the life of Roach McPoach

Slam One Down had a show at Don Hills Friday night opening up for Anaka. We were the first band of the night so we were playing pretty early. All of us got there at a reasonable time and were able to setup our rigs comfortably. We play the set and crush it, albeit to a small crowd. Whatever. We figured it would be a glorified practice and treated it as such. People loved it and we got praise afterwards, just like we do at every show. So we did our thing and crushed it.

After packing up the trailer and my car, there were a couple of other shows going on in the city that I wanted to catch. So after a quick bite to eat at a burger place where my friend makes a racist/dorky remark at the Asian waitress:

Jose: (to the asian waitress) Make it so.

Roach: Did you just refer to her as Mr. Sulu?

Jose: Yes and thank you for catching the reference.

He also tries to steal the mirror from the bathroom and gets a woman to sing Winter Wonderland. These are the people I choose to hang out with. After eating we traveled to Brooklyn. Now I have in my car Mrs. Roach, a coworker of hers, Tania, and a friend of mine who came up from North Carolina to see the show, Jose. So the four of us drive to Trash Bar, but first we made a quick stop at Duffs because Jose hadn’t seen Laurie Anne, their regular bartender, in years.

I filmed him as we walked into the bar and he sang a partridge family song to announce his entrance. She immediately jumps over the bar and jumps on him, wrapping her arms around him in a huge hug. She then immediately gives us the finger and tells us to fuck off. This is what I love about Duffs and the people who work there. Once you get to know the bartenders and the owner, it’s like family. You can say whatever the fuck you want to them and everyone knows it’s all in good fun.

Now we immediately leave. We were literally in Duffs for 5 seconds to say hi. No drink or anything. We jump back into my car and head to Trash Bar.

We get to Trash Bar and the place is PACKED! I’m talking wall to wall, front to back, shoulder to shoulder packed. We make it into the back room for the show and we had to muscle our way to the bar for a drink. I see some people I know as well as the people who are running the show. Joseph Schuftan from Horns Up Rocks and ‘Evil’Steve Ventura who booked the show as a fund raiser for Toys for Tots.

Now my boys in Odd Man In were headlining this show and it was their record release show. I’m sorry to say I didn’t get to catch them this night because I had a birthday party to go to later on in the night where I was promised Spanish food, a bed, and a bottle of Jaegermeister. What I did get to catch at Trash bar were two bands: World Lost, who Slam One Down are playing with in March in Delaware. They were fucking amazing, let me tell you. Old school heavy beat and riff metal at its finest.

Once they were finished, some guys started passing around those light up devil horns you can buy at any Halloween stores. I get some and put it on and find it coincidental I’m wearing my devil shirt this night. The next band to go on was King Hell. If you haven’t heard of these guys then you need to. These guys brought the fucking house down; groovy, funky metal complete with character and style. They have two lead singers, one calling on the spirit of Rob Halford while the other one, with his red and black Zoot suit and deep voice, held the crowd in a metal infused trance. The guitarist had on football pads with spikes on it, the bass player had on a 70’s style outfit complete with glasses and a real afro. The drummer looked like a demonic samurai, wearing a giant black Chinese straw hat and a red and black kimono while he slightly grooved to the beats he was playing. Their charisma and stage presence was phenomenal. Go to kinghellmetal.com and check them out.

So now I’m done after seeing this amazing performance. The wifey tells me we need to go if we’re gonna make this party. We stop at Duffs one more time to drink some more and I see Alex Gugi, Pablo Diaz, and Johnny Kook, a band called Gas who my previous band used to play with all the time, and they’re close friends of mine. After talking with them and Jimmy Duff for a while, I leave my friend Jose there, Drop Tania off at a train, and drive to my friend’s birthday party.

My wife is worried that the party might be over. It’s only 1am and the birthday girl is Puerto Rican, I know better. The minute we get out of the car, we hear loud music. I know it’s coming from the party. At 1 in the morning I just start yelling her name out in the middle of street, Devil shirt and Devil horns still on my head. She looks out the window and screams when she sees us.

We walk up to her apartment and it’s packed with Spanish people, young and old, and the music is pumping. I down the first vodka and cranberry she gives me and quickly ask for another. The music starts getting good so everyone starts dancing. Now this girl bought a stripper pole and set it up in the living room for her birthday. I had my camera at the ready just in case a girl decided to do some crazy shit and totally fail at it. The music was good, the liquor was good, I was feeling good. Then at 4am her landlord comes up and shuts the party down. DJ’s pack their shit, the beds are set up and I pass out.

I wake up the next morning, the birthday girl makes everyone breakfast. Everyone wanted to make breakfast for her, but she’s Puerto Rican; having things done for her is unheard of. After some pancakes, eggs and bacon, me and Mrs. Roach left to go to Chelsea so I could teach a student. All in the life of a musician…