easy cure

Written by Cathoel Jorss, published 11 years ago

Found this dim-lit, twinkling little bar in an unexpected quarter of town. All seats were empty and the bar owner and his staff were sat around a corral of lounges playing The Cure and playing guitar. I mean The Cure, as in 1979: doomph/slup/doomph/slup/“Accuracy…” We sat down and the barman quickly flipped for the Rolling Stones. Ugh, I said to my companion as we let our eyes run over the heads and shoulders of the weird beers they had on display, these guys are like one-twelfth the band The Cure were. Sir Jagger left his garden party prematurely to drizzle out “Ruby Tuesday” and it felt like flat champagne, the musical excitement level had just dropped to a sad low tide. I remembered how actually the supposedly sweet, supposedly fulsome folk singer Melanie had turned this drear song inside out, stringently, dragging out of its melancholic chorus the brisk, tripping threat “stillummonnamissyou…” Guy who owned the bar came over to talk beers. He was finally able to explain why a German person would never have heard of a “lager.” (“How come now I’m in Australia I never see anyone drinking Fosters?” “ugh. Those are our… Export Beers.”) Lager is like a Pilsner only, he told us, “more lager.” They wanted to know would we like to join them. Meanwhile two ladies had burst in asking “do you do coffees?” then ordered tea. I described to him the album I had made with “a kind of collective” of musos recruited in clubs, on the streets, how part of it was kind of jazz and part of it “a kind of folk.” He took from me a card saying, “How did you know I would be into that stuff?” I lifted my hand to flop round the bare ceiling, the little white-clad tables, the squashy couches, the bare backed beers, the I dunno… “The Cure, baby.”