The night Cesareo danced - By N.L. Belardes
Boy, was this one of those interesting nights. I had just played some hockey down at the wooden-floored Rollerama. I was sucking air. I hadn't played in a few weeks. You know how that goes. You get tired just putting on the skates. There was a possible broken ankle injury. The victim was carried off and taken to the hospital. We lost a player and a goalie to that one. There were sweet passes and trick goals. And it was hot as hell...
After the game I stopped downtown. I went into an old furniture store where Mento Buru was practicing. They have a few big shows coming up and I am helping to promote one of them. It's all for the good of Bakersfield bands. So why not?
Mento Buru joked and laughed and appeared a little nervous running through songs. Maybe it wasn't nerves. Maybe it was just a little frustration here and there that bands go through as they work on old and new songs... Maybe it was just the comfortable mattresses that looked nice enough to fall asleep on. After all, I was dead tired.
I snapped some pics. There was a cool cat guitarist up against a wall, calm as can be.
Matt Munoz played some sax... he had on a slick hat.
But I was soon done with my indoor venture into ska-ness. I walked outside and sat on the curb and talked on the phone. I could see Riley's from where I sat and wondered if I should head inside and ask if the Pizza-a-go-go promoter was indeed in jail. Nah... it wasn't that important to me. Though I admit I wanted to know.
Soon Cesareo appeared ethereally out of nowhere. In a dead urban downtown here he had walked out of the jungle city shadows. He came and talked for a moment. We spoke marketing. Then he said, "These guys are great aren't they?" Cesareo once played for Mento Buru. He then walked over to the door to the furniture store and started dancing.
He danced and danced, happy in the ska-sounds that pounded the furniture store and into the 19th Street dark Bakersfield murder street blues. That was where his feet took him. While he continued to smile and dance I boogied to a burger stand.
Next stop: a burger joint that doesn't have a promoter that makes bands pay to play in the sorry cycle of bands found in downtown Bakersfield; where hip acts and second-tier musicians play to the cockroach heaps and pizza dung residue like machine operators from the Jacob Riis urban tenement blues.
Give me a burger.
Give me fries.
Give me an end to the night that Cesareo danced...
After the game I stopped downtown. I went into an old furniture store where Mento Buru was practicing. They have a few big shows coming up and I am helping to promote one of them. It's all for the good of Bakersfield bands. So why not?
Mento Buru joked and laughed and appeared a little nervous running through songs. Maybe it wasn't nerves. Maybe it was just a little frustration here and there that bands go through as they work on old and new songs... Maybe it was just the comfortable mattresses that looked nice enough to fall asleep on. After all, I was dead tired.
I snapped some pics. There was a cool cat guitarist up against a wall, calm as can be.
Matt Munoz played some sax... he had on a slick hat.
But I was soon done with my indoor venture into ska-ness. I walked outside and sat on the curb and talked on the phone. I could see Riley's from where I sat and wondered if I should head inside and ask if the Pizza-a-go-go promoter was indeed in jail. Nah... it wasn't that important to me. Though I admit I wanted to know.
Soon Cesareo appeared ethereally out of nowhere. In a dead urban downtown here he had walked out of the jungle city shadows. He came and talked for a moment. We spoke marketing. Then he said, "These guys are great aren't they?" Cesareo once played for Mento Buru. He then walked over to the door to the furniture store and started dancing.
He danced and danced, happy in the ska-sounds that pounded the furniture store and into the 19th Street dark Bakersfield murder street blues. That was where his feet took him. While he continued to smile and dance I boogied to a burger stand.
Next stop: a burger joint that doesn't have a promoter that makes bands pay to play in the sorry cycle of bands found in downtown Bakersfield; where hip acts and second-tier musicians play to the cockroach heaps and pizza dung residue like machine operators from the Jacob Riis urban tenement blues.
Give me a burger.
Give me fries.
Give me an end to the night that Cesareo danced...
This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on
Tuesday, June 21, 2005.
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