The Apt. - Times New Viking - Rip It Off - 2008

As an avid drinker and a nine year resident of the city of New York, I have complicated relationships with many bars in this city. There are the now defunct bars that I hated at the time, but romaticize in the past (The corny MC Exchange that was the bar of my Dotcom, the truly awful Village Idiot that used to sell cheap pitchers when i lived in Manhattan). There are the bars that I used to haunt but am now too old and cranky to tolerate the young clientele (Blue and Gold, Soda). The bars from my old neighborhood (Enid's, Matchless) that I don't visit so much anymore. The places I went with co-workers, the places I went to meet up before concerts, and the places I just found myself all have complex histories, but none is more convoluted than my relationship to Nevada Smith's.

I'm sure I must have talked about Smith's at some point, but for a quick recap: Smith's is a bar in the nether zone that is niether the East Village nor quite Union Square. It is uniformly dark, not especially cheap, generally smells like an arm pit, and it's owner is a cranky old asshole of the highest order. It remains the only bar I've ever been thrown out of in my entire life...but I've probably at this point clocked more hours in this bar than any other in the world.

You see, Nevada Smith's is the bar to go to, to watch English Premeire League Soccer. If my team's game isn't being shown on cable, it's basically my only option, and I am a devoted enough fan that I am willing to go to a bar at 730 AM if need be (for a 1230 kick off in London). This means that no matter how much I may hate this place, no matter how many times I've sworn that I'll never step foot in that place again...as long as EPL games aren't all on TV, I'll be forced to go (Well, "Forced").

But as I was there on Saturday to watch Arsenal beat Portsmouth, I stopped to realize how much the place had changed in the five years I had been there. When I first started attending, a heart broken young man looking for an excuse to drink in the mornings and finding it in soccer, the place was almost exclusively attended by Brits. We Americans were the intruders, the interlopers who would never really understand the sport. There were many colorful charcaters and even more colorful language. The Arsenal corner was ruled by a Frenchman named Andre who was always there and knew more profanity than the devil himself. Andre once broke his hand pounding on the bar during a frustrating match.

Gradually through the years a new type of patron began attending who was niether us nor them: NYU students looking for a place to keep an all night bender going or to kick start the day with beer. They knew the place was open at 7AM, and if the abuse of a few brits was the price to be paid then so be it...but gradually these obnoxious kids picked up the sport, and in a step me and my friends didn't even take, the culture.

I was struck by this moment on Saturday, when I realized that there was just as much singing as always in Smith's but not a single one of the singers was british. These kids had learned the songs and taken up the mantle, but had also driven their British teachers away. It was an odd moment, on one hand seeing American's embracing soccer and "football culture" was a source of pride, on the other it's sad to see the old replaced by the obnoxious new. I certainly left with my complicated relationship with Smith's even more complicated than ever.

Anyway, I get the deal with Times New Viking, they play catchy garage rock, but recorded at earbusting levels so that it seems that their engineer has no clue what they are doing. This is the same trick that has gone on since The Beatles first learned to use feedback, i.e. cover something sugary in so much noise that the listener has to dig to find the sweetness. Usually I'm a fan of this strategy, but frankly, to further put on my old man hat, I just think the sonic mess is too great...it just sounds badly recorded...and not even a "recorded in a dumpster" way that The Thermals sometimes pull, but in a "I can't hear the actual song" way that I just don't care for.

Kids these days!