by Poppy Robbie
www.poppyrobbie.com
The first time I went to The Art Studio, Inc. in Beaumont, it was to see Joe Jitsu play. I had heard about the place, seeing it’s name in the local paper’s weekend section each week, with write-ups of local shows happening when I was too young to be let out of the house after dark. It had sort of a mysterious mystique about it. They had been the longtime stalwarts of providing new and local artists a venue to play when all others turned a blind eye – at times being the only ones to even entertain the idea of letting bands play in the area. They always filled in the gaps when upstart venues would pop up and inevitably die away, and still continue to provide a creative space for local artists in that area to this day…
So, anyway. When Joe Jitsu played and I first saw the area where shows took place, I walked out into this giant open space and saw a tiny wood square off in the distance. As I approached and saw my friends setting their stuff up, I was a little confused. Was this where things were being placed before they went on? Tron was trying to get his cymbal stands to stop falling into random holes scattered across the wood they were standing on. As soon as one was vertical, another stand or piece of equipment would escape into the abyss. Oh – this was the stage.
By the time they found the perfect spot to set everything up where it would not move and the show started, it all made sense. The space was full of people flailing around and bobbing their heads to the music and the stage bounced along. I understood it’s purpose and was humbled and charmed by it’s age and wisdom.
So…
After The Koopas played in Houston, we were feeling pretty good. We booked a show February, 2000 at the Art Studio with The Diabetics and invited one of the more well known Houston punk bands Crash 81 to come play as well. We were ready to bounce around on those pieces of plywood and play some new material. We were so excited, we even felt it necessary to buy two giant green bouncy balls to throw out during our set so the massive crowd that would be in attendance for our “homecoming show” would be able to bounce them around while we played. Joy would be had by the masses.
We get to the Art Studio and the stage is gone. In it’s place is a brand new 3 foot high gallows with what I can only describe as tanning lights across the front of the construction, facing towards the band. As I’m looking at this structure, I’m convinced I’m either going to be hanged on it or will kill myself trying to climb onto. While, an impressive monument, I was a bit saddened that we wouldn’t be eye-level, in the mix, and instead would be hovering above the audience. This was likely the first show on the new stage and while I came to enjoy it in the future, I was definitely looking forward to dodging holes and stomping on rotten plywood instead.
Things continued to go downhill when the band from Houston cancelled. We weren’t entirely broken up about it though since we knew we’d still have a good time with The Diabetics and we could both just take as long as we wanted to.
I can’t remember what happened first or who broke what but either Jake or myself or both of us broke a string, we somehow ended up with The Diabetics guitars and then the bass amp we were using started dying out. It was one mishap after another, yet we somehow managed to finish a song or two. Oh, right! We remembered that we had bought those two big green balls and thought it may be a good idea to throw those out and distract everyone while we were completely eating shit. We threw the balls out and they completely missed the 8 or so people scattered around the massive space and rolled themselves to the very back of the gated lot, into the grass. One deflating in the process.
“That was totally worth it!” I hear Charlie say satirically from the darkness.
We struggled through the rest of the set and handed things off to the Diabetics to clean up our mess. An audience materialized and they tore through an outstanding set, even producing an old tube television and completely demolishing it on stage during their song “Murder My TV”.
Oh. THAT’S how you handle props
We’d both be back at the Art Studio playing an all day fest the very next weekend and had an opportunity to redeem ourselves. We got the hard part out of the way – once you’ve ate it hard enough, at a minimum no matter what you do afterwords should be decent, right?
As long as you’re having a good time.
The new 2021 27-track complete Koopas collection CD is also available now
from Mom’s Basement Records and Something to Do Records
