Kissing the ASS goodbye, at Knuckleheads

Last night my besty, Gary, took me to see The Asylum Street Spankers (ASS), at a place called "Knuckleheads" that was was once a boarding house for railroad workers, then a motorcycle shop that had a "free beer" day, once a week, to get people to take the extra effort to find them, since they were tucked away in an older, out of the way industrial part of town.

The small clutch of buildings that make up Knuckleheads is set next to several sets of railroad tracks. We were made aware of this several times throughout the evening as trains crawled by, blasting their horns at the crossing.

It's not the most acoustically solid place, considering it was once a boarding house. Nor is it the easiest to navigate when one has had a few of the high octane beverages offered for sale there, with little wooden ramps between rooms indicating the next is at a different elevation than the last one you were in. More than once, I entered the next room stumbling.

Because it's still officially winter, though our current February weather is springy and mild, we saw The Asylum Street Spankers inside. Stepping outside for a smoke I saw that there was an outdoor stage as well, with canned lights hanging from the rafters.

The music The Asylum Street Spankers played was a mix of blues, vaudeville, bluegrass, hillbilly and country, played on traditional instruments. There were several guitars, dobro, ukulele, banjos, a whiskey jug, a double bass, fiddle, a few mandolins, slide whistles, a small drum kit and, something not commonly known as a musical instrument, but used quite well as one: a short length of log chain.

It was a PG13 show, for the blend of adult humor and a blue word bandied about from time to time. I wanted to see the ASS because of one song, in particular; a blue collar anthem from a working musician who might have to get a “real” job, called “Fuck Work,” but the song that's stuck in my head, today, is “Scrotum, scrotum, my wrinkly crinkly bag of skin. Scrotum, scrotum, it's what I keep my testes in.”

Last night we saw them on their “Farewell tour.” The ASS was missing a significant portion of their line-up with the absence of Wammo, one of their founding members. We'll never have a chance to see The ASS at Knuckleheads again.