Happy Birthday Pinball Mafia
10 years of promoting pinball as if it were a band leads to…a freaking killer party at the Stork Club in Oakland! Saturday night (July 23) was a helluva a congrats party thrown by and for Joe, Emmitt, and their cohorts in pinball promotion. As I stood in a vintage 1947 Spartan Manor Trailer (“L’il Juju”, courtesy of Mike Schiess and the Lucky Juju Pinball Art Gallery) playing one of five pinball machines from the 60’s and 70’s, I looked out the window at telegraph Avenue in Oakland and thought to myself, “well this is pretty goddamn cool!” After an hour trying to win a free game on machines like Scuba and Top Card, it was into the club for hot links and then a pile of bands, including: a scaled back Cleve-land (who despite missing key members played and sounded great!); Edge City Ruins featuring ripping guitarist Jules Worsley (formerly of Kwik Way); Moon Eater from Santa Cruz who shredded and won the award for having the most kick-ass equipment (Josh’s Gibson Custom Shop goldtop Firebird was a sight to behold and sounded as good as it looked); Oakland’s own Hurry Up Shotgun, who simply rule and are the best band in the Bay Area right now (sorry Big Light, I love you too); the Rockonigles were next, also without a full-lineup; and Spider Garage closed out the evening. I confess I was distracted during those last two bands (they sounded good peripheraurally), as I was chatting up the guys in Hurry Up Shotgun to find out how to get their new single “Paths”, which was for me one of the highlights of their completely rad and totally manic set. Click here to listen to and/or purchase Hurry Up Shotgun music.
All in all it was a great night, and I even came home with a great flyer from the show, which can now be seen hanging on the wall of the Garage in its rightful place amongst the rest of the rock n roll memorabilia. Emmitt and Joe: Here’s to another ten years of Pinball Mafia Productions!
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