Amoebas of Doom

Saturday night, Dibu, Rouzi, and I went to hear the Amoebas of Doom play at a bar in San Francisco. The Amoebas include the Trained Killer (in bleach-blond wig) and sing a bunch of late 70s and 80s songs, with a few more recent mixed in. Kind of like listening to KFOG about ten years ago, actually.


I used to say that the Amoebas sang "classic rock" but I started paying attention to what they were playing, and the songs were ones on the radio when I was in high school. That's not classic rock - that's the soundtrack of my adolescence. So besides the Amoebas being my friends, I always have fun at their gigs - I like all the songs they play, and they play them well.


When they played "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" by The Clash, of course I started to pogo. That's what we did at my high school - jump up and down bouncing our heads on the slow parts, and on the fast parts, spin and stomp in place. The place was mostly filled with people who were very young when that song came out, and Rouzi and Dibu don't pogo, I guess. So I was on my own, but when the music moves ya. . .


I snapped something in my neck because I was hurting by the time I got home. I figured that heat would help - it didn't. Yesterday my left shoulder and neck were hurting, and dipping my head forward (like to read small print on a monitor screen, for example) sent shooting pain down my back.


This afternoon I went to the chiropractor and told him I'd hurt myself pogo-ing. He looked at me blankly, so I said, "C'mon, you're not that much older than I am, you must know how to pogo!" He shook his head, so I described it to him.


It turns out that the chiro is a big Prince fan, and has been listening to Prince's records since the first one came out in 1978. He said he'd just purchased the DVD of Purple Rain to watch with his kids. Then he told me the story of when his niece got married a few years ago, she had him called up on to the dance floor. She explained that she remembered dancing The Bird with her uncle, and had him lead the guests in the dance. The chiro used to play basketball in college and is over six feet tall; with his long arms, it must have been quite the spectacle.


My pogo-ing days may be over, but not hearing the Amoebas!