PapaSweenBean’s Friday Night

PapaSweenBean’s Friday Night – by Liam Sweeny.

It’s Friday night. I’m on Messenger with Matty D. Hear he’s going to be landing somewhere on Remsen Street and I haven’t met him yet. Guy’s larger than life. Swear I’ve never seen a grown man pull off mirrored sunglasses and a feather boa without at least shaving first. So I’m on my way to the Twisted Fiddler in downtown Troy to catch Xavier Morris, a country act, and, according to plan, Matty’s first stop.

Now there’s ‘fishin’ Country’ and there’s ‘felony Country’ and I like the latter and Morris is the former, but I gotta hand it to him that whenever he’s leaving the stage (I have to leave early) he’s gonna have all of his fucks in his pocket ‘cause there are none on the floor to sweep up. And when I say ‘fishin’ country,’ that’s no dig; he asks if anyone’s going to hit the Stryper run on the Mohawk. Nobody here is going to hit the Strypr run on the Mohawk. Nobody minus one knows what a Stryper run is.

I bump into local jazz drummer and organizer Joe Barna, and we agree that, fishin’ country or no, cat can play. Good chops, good voice… If I wasn’t trying to catch the M.I.A,. Matty D, I’d hang around, but as it is, my gut stole a cup of coffee and you always gotta stand up to thieves.

So off to Speedway and their surprisingly not-convenience store-tasting Aztec Blend.

I meet my next-door neighbor working behind the counter. She says, “You know, the one with the bad kids.” To which I reply, “They’d be good kids if they lived in the country.” She appreciates the optimism.

On to Bye-I Brewing. Corner building, two huge windows, festive blue light streams cascading down like iridescent rain nestled in sprinkles of pure white pinpricks. And in the front, off to the left is Maurizio Russomanno, a gentle yet confident man surrounded by chord progression sheets and armed with a maple topped acoustic.

The crowd, relaxed. Maurizio, engaged in his craft. Me, sitting at the front table nursing a one dollar can of Coke, with time to ponder the great mysteries of the night…

Like where the hell is Matty D???

Twisted Fiddler did leave me with a taste for felony country, and Maurizio busts out a little Johnny Cash. Folsom Prison Blues. And he really jams it out too. Gotta hand it to him. Even Matty D is impressed. Or he would be,if he was here. Which he isn’t.

We don’t have an appointment or anything, so I figure he caught a groove somewhere and rode it wherever it took him up till nine, where it’ll land at his actual gig at Donnie Magoo’s. I know where he’s going to be at 9. And I know where I’m going to be at 9, and they’re two different places. So I set about the long walk home (about 5 blocks.)’

Of course, I’m making a point to enter any building on Remsen Street that promises low light and live music, and Spindles has a sandwich board and a keyboardist in the corner window. I go in, order a soda, and I’m watching the keyboardist with an industrial rig perched atop two kick drums.

I forget to ask him his name when he takes a break and I introduce myself. When a man plays keyboards in a dimly lit bar with sunglasses on, you don’t ask him his name. It’s like in New Orleans at Marie LaVeau’s House of Voodoo, where you’re not allowed to take pictures; it’s a damn law. Or it ought to be. His name is Jack, the bartender tells me. Jack had a heavy left hand punctuated with well-placed kicks, fits in great with the room.

And that was my Friday night.

*Matty D was not harmed in the making of this post.

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