I had two jobs my senior year. One was working at the Red Hot Garage, the Chicago-style grill across New Hampshire Street from Wayne Martin’s furniture store and next door to the Bottleneck, the main music venue for KU students. The sound guy always came into Red Hot for lunch, and in recompense for the free Chicago dogs he let me sit in with him during the shows at night. I had just burnt all my cassette tapes of secular music and only had my recordings of bland CCM, so I was a blank slate. I took everything in—reggae, punk, power pop, folkies—but stubbornly refused to buy their records or commit their names to memory. But then there were the aftershows at the Outhouse—literally an outhouse on the old gravel road that 15th Street turned into east of town, where the skinheads, anarchists, goths, and stoners all went to mosh until night became morning. I had no parental supervision so I came home at daybreak sweaty, took a shower, and repressed all memory of the glorious, bruising night, then went to my morning bible study.
Just added to The List and the Story: Out of the Nineties
