Spot 6 and the Rumble in the Shuffle.

Date: 12/6/06
Show: Johnny Rumble, DJ Billy Oaks and DJ Geek at the Freeform Shuffle
Venue: Spot 6
Price: Free
Things I missed to be there: Sing Sing and Carezza at the Blog Cabin; DJ Rupture and The EX at the Hideout
Reason I went: Too cold/lazy to go to the Southside (this reason needs to die or I need to get my own car)


I have no tolerance for setlists that last longer than 30 minutes anymore. I can listen to a DJ spin bootyjams all night but I can't listen to the Boredoms pummel my ass for more than 45 minutes at a time. That was why Johnny Rumble, like so very many bands i've been seeing lately, got on my nerves. At first I was happy to see them. They were a rock band. Just rocknroll, no subcategories. Three cord melodies and feedback. Someone noted that "this is a natural progression of someone who grew up listening to a world of music where Kurt Cobain was already a dead hero."

Then their influence started to bleed through too much and they sounded like a soft Nirvana, which is kinda like Local H but without the pop chops. By the time their set got good for the hard jammy part at the end I already wanted them gone. They were annoying.

Speaking of annoying. I hate writing about the same show twice in a week like I'm doing here. It makes me feel like an underachiever. Not that there's much I can do about it, unless someone wants to pay me to write about shows, this will just be a blog and I'll just go to whatever shows I can, even if it means being at the same place every time, which brings me back to Spot 6.

I found Spot 6 a few years ago through my friend Budros (or maybe it was Boutros, fake names are annoying like that). He had just dropped out of Northeastern and was starting his burgeoning gig as a promoter with a goth night there. Though well conceived and fairly populated, it didn't work. The bar was a few blocks north of the general Punkin Donuts/Alley/Igor's Dungeon mallpunk strip, nestled right inbetween Boys Town and Wrigleyvile. It was death rock in a bright orange bar that was more used to club DJ and Mexican Karaoke.

The bars' owners must have a soft spot for death rockers though. I didn't think much about Spot 6 for a few years after Budros' show collapsed. Then I started hearing about shows there. This gothic beauty by the name of InGrog (again, a fake name, probably spelled wrong) was booking bands to play in the basement. Spot 6 was becoming a place where you could regularly see good experimental noise and hip hop, as well as industrial/EBM/fetish nights and straight up DJ nights. Now their location is paying off and I've noticed that on any night of the week, they'll pull in a fair amount of spooky kids AND Smart Bar rejects who all seem to feel at home there.

I think that's neat.