New Year’s Eve

Some people fear New Year’s Eve. “It’s amateur night,” or, “I don’t want to be out on the roads with all those lunatics!”

You know what? Every night is amateur night and there are lunatics on the roads 24/7. If you want to have fun you have to take chances.

Some years my luck has paid off. I’ve thrown some fantastic parties, seen some great shows, had some amazing adventures. Other years my parties flopped, the shows were dull or the night ended in misadventures. But I’d rather take my chances on having fun than play it safe at home, pretty much any night but most particularly on New Year’s Eve.

In that spirit, I dug out one of my vintage tuxedos, figured out a designated driver, hopped in the car with the girlfriend and hit the town.

Fellow degenerates and I had planned on meeting at Bookhouse for a nice meal but the restaurant was closed, so JJ and I cruised up Ponce to Righteous Room for less “fine dining” but a fine meal.

Then, rather than take our chances at the show being sold out, we sped down to Clermont Lounge where other degenerates had already secured a table.  The club had boxes of accessories to chose from – party hats, horns, etc. – so accessorize I did. (This and random other photos by She Who Shall Not Be Named.)

The Clermont’s usual entertainment worked the stage behind the bar as the bands set up on the other stage. The crowd trickled in until The Biters came on and suddenly the room felt crowded – not sardine can conditions, thankfully, but a good crowd for a rock n roll party.

The Biters are one of my new favorites. Sure, I used to make fun of their hair and wardrobe. OK, I still make fun of their hair – but the kids can rock, and rock they did.

They didn’t even break between songs, transitioning straight from one tune to the next in lock step. Power pop done right.

The room was filled with familiar faces, old friends, and smiling strangers, along with the occasional hustling stripper or bustling waitress. I had been invited to a few parties and there were other shows worth attending, but with a crowd like this why go anywhere else?

I had seen a short preview set of the Forty Fives doing MC5 the night before at The Star Bar so I was amped to see the full set. There is no other band in town I would want to see reproducing one of my favorite acts of all time. They can well and truly “Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!”

MC Rotknee appeared a few minutes before midnight, only to tell the band to do another number before taking a break for the countdown. Poof – it’s 2011. It sounds so sci-fi.

Cheers, kisses, champagne – well, what passes for champagne at the Clermont. Some bubbly, sweet stuff that was more the Boone’s Farm of Champagne than anything fancy, but I was in the spirit (and they were in me) so I enjoyed it.

The Forty Fives rocked on through another few tunes, wrapping up with an encore of Kick Out The Jams. As I posted the night before on facebook, “‎45’s MC5 set makes me want to join the White Panther Party and crash the 68 Democratic National Convention. Too bad I was 1 year old then.”

Back to the table for more drinks, hugs, “happy new year,” all that stuff.

Then All Night Drug Prowling Wolves took over, inspiring the usual sing-a-long, drunken debauchery. I was half-tempted to use just this one photo, as it tells the tale.

But I got so many good ones I couldn’t resist posting more.

Then suddenly the crowd crawled over the barricade and joined the band on stage and things degenerated into happy chaos.

We reassembled our troups and piled into the van, thankfully with a pregnant driver at the wheel. I say “thankfully” because this is how things looked to me from the back seat.