The Inferno sits on the outskirts of town in a house next to a set of railroad tracks. A small nylon poster with the words THE INFERNO hovered above the front door. It reeked of a DIY spot. Their locked door gave Mike and I time to find a barbeque restaurant and laugh at a bookstore called The Frugal Muse. It was like our second honeymoon.
Once The Inferno opened we were surprised by its actual club status. It had a stage, monitors, two bars, leathery furniture, clean bathrooms, and a roped-off VIP room housing a very important glitter ball. There was even a humorless doorman with a shitty attitude who listened to earbuds while playing Memory on his laptop. Pretty legit!
Mike Behrends began the evening with life-battered guitar tales and shanties. I inadvertently added percussion near the VIP ropes by clanging together giant 3-foot earrings that decoratively dangled from the walls.
Butte, a 2 and a half piece band, followed with the world’s best alternative to a drum machine: a DVD projector projecting a drummer playing the drum parts to their songs. So a man replaced himself directly with a machine. The projector also provided the between songs banter in a girly voice. So the cute girl who is learning the bass was also replaced by a machine.
Madison’s AV Club gave the show some lovely press, including an interview and a half-page picture of The Bitter Tears for their Agenda. It officially brought 11 people to the show.
Esther joined the boys in the men’s room for the dress-up ritual while Mike combed the parking lot for more costumes. He entered the bathroom with a handful of what he called brambles, and what Wisconsinites and most other people call branches.
Alan opened the set solo on stage with “Grieving.” His arm performed the strumming of his guitar, no small feat after he broke it wiping out on a bicycle in Berlin. The rest of us emerged from the bathroom one by one with brambles poking in all directions from our clothes. In the lights it looked like a scene found on the cutting room floor of Where The Wild Things Aren’t.
During the show we played songs, but mostly provoked the small crowd into heckling us about Illinois/Wisconsin rivalry nonsense. The word “fib” (fuckin’ Illinois bastard) was used at us. Greg retaliated by referring to the Wisconsin audience as "SIDS." Alan used the microphone to berate Mike’s new character Brambleman, who seemed more like Rambleman. Esther’s playing was offered up for scrutiny during “The Love Letter.” Greg ended "Vanilla Bean" and the night with a crying trumpet note from the hostile but friendly audience.
Big thanks to Reem from This Is How I Will Get Famous for putting us up, feeding us dates, and recommending breakfast at Mickey’s Tavern. As I get older I’m beginning to appreciate towns like Madison that contain less anger, violence, and stress than fucking bastard Chicago. You have a great state, ya SIDS!
