Saturday Night: Roky Moon & BOLT At The Mink

Photos by Marc Brubaker

​Roky Moon & BOLT
The Backroom at the Mink
November 27, 2010

When we were all little, we had a piles of shoes and clothes that we outgrew, or those little tics on the kitchen wall where mom or dad would mark off how big we were getting.

The same thing happens to bands, we guess. You see them working their way up through flyers and lineups - opening a show at 8 p.m., then commanding their own mini-fest a year and a half later.

Roky Moon & BOLT are full-grown now, releasing their eponymous first full-length LP this past weekend. The first thing of theirs Aftermath ever owned was a CD-R with just three or four tracks, recorded on the fly. The first time we saw them live was at Walter's On Washington in March 2009. It was one of those shows that sticks in your brain, because you were smiling the whole time instead of scowling at the drama of it all.

The Ton Tons

​Saturday night the band played their record-release show upstairs at the Mink, in the very spot they have been rehearsing for months now. Nine bands opened, upstairs and down. The venue was packed in the front room and the backroom.

Roky shirts were everywhere. Girls' purses had the new album peeking out the side, next to their cigarettes and make-up. The alleyway and patio around the Backroom was choked with smokers and drinkers, all laughs and happiness.

By the time the Ton Tons came on before Roky, around 11:30 p.m., the PA was shot. Fried. The downstairs set-up was running strong, with the Watermarks closing up their own Wall Of Sound set a few minutes before. We Were Wolves' Fu Manchu-style riffs seemed to be the last upstairs band whose sound was on point.

Someone threw a drink at the Tons' Asli Omar, causing a small fray up front. Houston, thank you for being you, breaking up the fun times with some good old-fashioned fucked-up dramatics. What would the show be without people getting into testy arguments over Lone Stars and Camel Crushes?

Blown PA system and all, Roky's set started with "Hot Saturday Night." Sound techs were working feverishly to get the board back up to par In the back of the room, but the only thing we could hear was coming from the band's amps up front, and even that struggling to fill the room. You could tell lead singer Moon was busting a nut to get out the words - no vocals, but he was shouting his lungs out.