Grease was Drooling Off the $.80 Hamburgers

Barsucho

Everyone is familiar with the term dive bar. It connotes grimy beer coated floors, dampness clinging to the walls, and an unwelcome scent that is guaranteed to stick to your clothes. Add to this, ripped upholstery, cave like lighting, and cheep beer and we have a vision of our classic dive bar. Oh, can we sprinkle in some shady characters also. This is also the texture of a barsucho.
We went to Bar de Juan, creatively named no doubt, to see an Argentinian AC/DC cover band. The guitarist was excellent and the lead singer barely spoke English. You could not distinguish one word from the next, you sort of just had to follow the rhythm and the pitch and play the words in your head.

The crowd ranged from 18-40, predominantly men, with long shaggy pony tales headbanging to She Shook Me All Night Long. The majority of the crowd was slugging liter beers and sucking down Marlboro reds. After stomping around in the mosh pit for a while I visited the lavatory. Huddled over an overflowing toilet bowl were three dudes snorting emphatically trying to be inconspicuous. THERE ARE THREE OF YOU IN ONE BROKEN BATHROOM STALL!!! One of the long haired patrons tilted his head back, looked in the mirror, and wiped his nose. He checked his amigo and gave him a thumbs up. The last head banger left the bathroom with white batter caked around his nostrils.

As the music accelerated the crowd would begin to mosh. Pushing and pulling, jumping around, and crashing into each other. I will say that everyone was pretty friendly about it, no bloody noises or cracked skulls like you would find at a hard core show. Sometimes we put our arms around each others shoulder to create a wall of bouncing and rocking bodies while belting out the lyrics to whatever song was attempted to be sung. If someone fell no one intentionally stepped on them.

The band gave three encores, and by encore I mean they stood on stage and played three more songs. They were neither dramatic or suspense building. We left the blackened cave after the last song and headed home. For a time reference, it was 5AM. The band did not go on until 2AM. Nothing is done early here. I looked down at my feet. My shoes were covered with tar like muck that climbed 5 inches up my pant legs. Mere washed my pants the following day and said the stains would not come out. I have a little bit of barsucho to carry with me always.