Most civilians [read: ‘people with real goals’] aren’t familiar with the general maladies of rehearsal space availability and quality in this town, or any other for that matter (Denver being the only other town I’ve had practice spaces in). Bands in San Diego don’t have the option of using a basement like bands in Denver luckily do. Though the spaces in Denver were bigger, they were a lot more sketchy. The space(s) I used in Denver could have been used as locations for raves, paintball, fight clubs and as headquarters for serial killers and satanic book clubs. Dark and dingy and usually in really bad neighborhoods or formerly bad neighborhoods like Five Points (gentrification anyone?).
This is essentially a mash up of actual conversations and comments I’ve heard or uttered as a person who has been in bands – in essay form.
Guys, this place seriously smells like shit. Yeah. Human fecal matter. I’m not sure what it is about this place but every time I walk through the door I gag with every breath. Its disgusting. You’d think the property manager would at the very least take out the trash. Its full of puke and cases of empty beer bottles. There are more flies inside our 8×8 room than by the dumpster near the tattoo shop across the alley. That homeless guy doesn’t even ask us for change anymore. How is that possible?
It smells like someone murdered an Indian man (dot, not feather) stuffed him with curry and cabbage then hid him in the wall right next to the managers office.
Hey dude, beer me that flesh turd, we’ll use it to mask the carrion-anus scent wafting through the rap metal bands door. Wait. A flesh turd is a baby right? You guys are drunk…But a baby would smell better than this hallway.
We pay our rent on time (sort of) but then of course the motherfucking air conditioning has been broken for the entire summer. Man the heat and the flies.
Is this like what those kids in Schindlers List smelled when they hid in the latrine? I mean I know it was a movie but I’m talking about the real kids that that story was based on. This is like walking across the bridge to get to Revolution in Tijuana when your drunk from Boones farm and MD 20/20 from the trolley ride and you’re on the way to the donkey show and you get that San Diego river smell. You know – that is where you can actually ‘smell the border’ like some wine aficionado’s can smell what time of year the grapes of their wine were grown or whatever. But instead of autumn and grapes it smells like burnt fetus and the inside of a Taun Taun.
This place smells worse than Scolari’s when Cattle Decap plays with all those crust punks there.
There’s some B.O. from that fucking hippie band that practices down the hall. Someone smokes cigarettes in their fucking room. Patchuli and GPC cigarettes. Are we practicing in fucking Berkely or Boulder. What the fuck? No consideration at all.
There is that amazingly lame 90’s alternashit band. I swear those guys are smoking crystal meth in there. And how many times do they have to play that fucking song? Theres no way they’ll win that opening slot for Godsmack. That alternashit band plays for hours, drinking beer. So where does their girl bassplayer piss? I never see her come out of that room. That may explain the piss smell. Maybe they have a bucket in their room for pee pee and poo poo.
These shit eating rooms don’t even have ventilation. Someone should hang that troglodyte manager from razor wire and shoot his dick with a paintball gun and those paint balls should be filled with lime juice or something super painful.
There’s some ass in here too. Smells kind of like that dive bar ass. Like a lot of old men farting and sweating on cushioned seats, seats that absorb ass and chode sweat. Theres some rancid foot dipped in sick in here too. So I suppose this place doesn’t just smell like shit. It smells like a bunch of other things too. Wow!
A Coat of Red Paint In Hell 