Better start getting your life in order, because it looks like God’s getting close to the bottom of his “Shit List.” Last night, the second floor of the BlackCat Lounge caught fire. This place has been the home of the most irreverant, joyous, wonderful, and absolutely kick ass psychobilly band, the Flametrick Subs, since they came here to Austin about 14/15 years ago. Now, the fire was on the second floor, and the windows up there were all busted out anyway, and the place overall is a piece of junk, but it’s still a horrible, horrible thing to have happened to such a wonderful venue. I doubt it will be much of a hinderance to the bands performance, but it still makes me terribly, terribly sad.
Not much of a rant, I know, but I just wanted to vent.
Oh, no! Peggy Suicide wasn’t hurt, was she? If anything happened to her before I won her love I don’t think I could go on.
Oddly enough, last night I was talking on the phone to a friend of mine I hadn’t talked to in a long time who used to be in a band that played every week at the Black Cat. They aren’t going to close the place down, are they?
Apparently, it’s worse than I thought. I saw another news story on it later on in the evening, and it looks like the entire place had been gutted. You could see straight through it. I believe the report said the damage was around $92,000. I don’t think it will be opening anytime soon.
Luckily no one was inside at the time. Unfortunately, Peggy Suicide is MINE!!!
Somehow, even that knowledge does help hold back the sorrow…
Did the fire damage any of the other clubs in the area? I can’t think of what they are, but everything’s really tightly packed in that area of 6th Street.
How could anyone tell? I mean, the place was basically just three walls and a roof. That was part of its charm.
Still, though- I’m glad nobody was hurt. I’m actually a little surprised, now that I think about it, that it hadn’t already happened- the place seemed like a fire waiting to happen (wood floor, excellent ventilation, paper flyers all over the walls).
Yeah, the place was pretty much a hole in the wall, which was most of it’s charm, so even though there’s nearly $100,000 in damges, I’m sure a lot of that’s probably left over repair work. It should get up and running, just not anytime soon. Keep an eye out, and we’ll have a big ol’ gathering when the show comes back home.
