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two nights 7 BLACK CATS
I. IntroductionsShannon Cruse wanted to be an arthroscopic surgeon for racehorses. She earned an agriculture degree and everything, didn't take out a single loan. Cruse worked her way through school at bars around Colorado State - and found her calling.Three weeks ago tomorrow, Cruse and partner Maggie Mae opened 7 Black Cats, 260 E. Congress St., a new downtown tavern that boasts a disc jockey who doesn't play Blur, a talent night and live music three nights a week. Cruse, 31, who previously owned Double Zero, 121 E. Congress St., said booking has been a hit-or-miss experience so far. "We just kind of got anybody who would play and figured out who was good and who wasn't," she said. In a town of O'Maloneys, the poorly lit, punk-rock western ambiance of the Cat, housed in a former downtown antique store, brings a fresh and wide-open gallery feel to the all-too-many-80s-nights college beer hall scene. This is a place where you're probably unlikely to hear anybody cover "Machinehead." "Both of us want to support the bands because they're not making the money that they should," Mae said.
II. FridayWhen Al Foul hitchhiked from Boston to Tucson eight years ago, you could hear an echo down Congress on a Friday night. Things have picked up since then. Foul, who fronts 5-year-old Al Foul and The Shakes, said there are more gigs available for bands, though it's still difficult to reach crowds interested in hearing the same house band again and again.Now, "You could get kicked out of five or 10 bars and have five or 10 to go to," Foul said. Foul refinished the floor of 7 Black Cats and expected to hold his birthday party there Sunday, though he didn't plan to play. In the coming weeks, the bar will feature a Monday night talent show, Thursdays with Oslo B with the Grooves, Saturday and Sunday live shows and Friday nights with disc jockey Drew Groove, who prefers James Brown to techno. Groove, a lifelong collector of vinyl, figures some people "just don't know any better" than to take in the standard DJ fare, rather than "dance to good old funky music." Friday night is not quite silent time. A time for soul music and claiming a night for yourself as yourself, responsible to no one and with no will to anything but being. And drinking. A friend likes to tell about two Coke bottles stood lip to lip, always teetering. III. SaturdayThe crowd was all Downtown Hip and the Cardinals of Congress - the people in your neighborhood - for the first of two scheduled nights with Bob Log III, Holland's favorite Tucsonan. It's one of those nights where over $2 bottles of beer, one comes to realize that everyone who lives in this town (that is to say, spends summers here) is looking for something to do besides debate the merits of John Sayles. Log, who plays speedy-blues guitar in a crash helmet, is as distinct a Tucson institution as you're likely to find. And if you haven't heard him, you're likely to be peppered with tales of former Doo Rag street corner jamborees, until you feel like you are now in fact a bearer of important oral traditional tales to be passed on to others liberally and with great joy. The bar plays a part.Similar to the world-famous mine-shaft basement of Double Zero, the stage of 7 Black Cats is in the back corner. Doors are hung along the ceiling to insure quality sound in what might have been an acoustical nightmare, a relatively narrow space with a very high ceiling. With the blue-green light, the blurred-fast, hoe-down slide of Mr. Log, and the balcony seating over the long bar, it's sort of a doom generation western. Yee-haw. What do you have when you have 7 Black Cats? "It's lucky and unlucky at the same time," Cruse said. "It all equals out." |
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