Enrique Limn
It might be cold out, but we’re going for a drink, dammit!
It’s Monday and Mondays suck and it’s almost winter and winter sucks, too. We’re making phone calls and setting plans and eating plain pieces of bread in hopes that it’ll soak up some of the alcohol with which we plan to pickle our livers and dry out our eyeballs. We’re stepping into a cab because we’re responsible people, and we’re telling the driver that the corner of Galisteo and San Francisco is just fine.
We’re approaching the stairs that lead downwards and we are showing the door guy our ID’s for the bazillionth time (he’s just doing his job). We are silently judging the clientele—more out of jealousy than anything, because these are better looking people…the post-punks, the has-beens, the snowboarders and the jocks. We are saddling up at the bar for the best value in shots this whole stinkin’ city has to offer. We are thanking bartender Jonah for a well-poured drink and admiring his tattoo collection. We are debating why a punk bar would have a Get Up Kids poster, but burning with envy that it isn’t adorning our walls. We are feeling good and kicking back. Our ears perk up when we hear Charlie Feathers, more-so for Hank Williams.
We forgot about that one Misfits song, but after tonight we won’t ever forget it again. We are joined by more people: baby-boomers, the overdressed, loudmouths and shy weirdos. We take to the street, ciggies in hand to fight over Ramones vs. Descendents as Marvin Gaye blasts from the speaker in the window. We briefly consider taking up residence within a different bar, but change our minds when The Cramps segue into Fleetwood Mac into Dick Dale into Minor Threat. This is what makes the week bearable and what makes a dive the kind of place you call your home base. We wanna go where everybody knows our names, and we have found it and all of its punk-rock pounding, country-twangin’ and soulfully smooth style. This is The Matador, dammit! And it ain’t your grandma’s mom-rock, dudes with pony tails, let’s-hear-some-more-Americana kind of place. It’s gritty and dim and full of misfit freaks who weren’t meant to hang with normal society. This is The Matador, dammit! And it’s here to make Mondays your bitch.
We leave once we realize the drinks are so very fair that we may have overdone it, but man…that was a fine night of tunes.
Monday Nights at The Matador
8 pm, no cover
116 W San Francisco St., Ste. 113
