This is an open letter from me (your friend and admirer) and from your fans (whom I'm presuming to speak for), pleading for you to bring back the one-of-a-kind freak fest/gender fuck cabaret that was Pho Bang.
I've heard rumors about why and where things went awry--all that bar talk is your business, and I don't wish to get involved with your private lives. What I do want to do, though, is remind you both how unique Pho Bang was for this city, how you created a place where political correctness and punk correctness and all the other boring kinds of correctness were discarded in the trash like so many used falsies and Wet 'n' Wild lipstick blotters.
The two of you brought a wildcard to Thursday nights and passed it out, carte blanche, to everyone who paid the five-dollar admission--trannies, indie kids, drag queens, fag hags, punks, tourists, and whoever else got stuck to the sticky side of your John Waters-style flytrap. You paired deaf lip-synchers with bands so tight you could bounce a quarter off their performances, and you gave the punks who wouldn't be caught dead "clubbing" a night to dry hump around the dance floor.
It's hard to imagine something more punk in Seattle than two drag queens (and their entourage of demented and deformed "family members") who play in apocalyptic new wave/garage bands squirting condiments on their groins while groaning about getting laid, or screeching dirty jokes with punch lines about mouthfuls of body fluids (go ahead and make a list, but this is my letter so I get to decide what makes it here). We miss your sordid skits, too--the botched mock surgeries, your weddings to C-list celebrities like Michael Bolton, your Jackie Burgers (Pho Bang-appropriated White Castle crap), and the time you pretended Baby Jesus was a whole chicken stuffed in a can (and proceeded to throw the juice on the crowd).
And then there were the Pho Bang bands, everything from Zeigenbock Kopf to the Warm Jets to Créme Blush--where should they play now? There are places for them to have shows, but you provided the atmosphere, winding up the crowd with naughty comedy and launching us on the headliners so wired you might as well have been spiking our drinks. By the time the bands played it was like you'd starved us of music for days and we were finally getting a meal, and not just any old Wendy's special, but a four-course feast (although there were the bands that played the equivalent of a frozen Boca Burger--not every night was perfect).
Either way, you took chances on some acts that could maybe draw 30 people and gave them an audience at least three times that. You welcomed punk, metal, hardcore, electrotrash, indie, new wave, no wave, noise, and everything in between, getting your audience to cross genres as much as they crossed genders. Your stamp of approval and promise of a memorable (or forgettable, depending on one's alcohol intake) event was often enough to get people out to a show, and your presence was a vital part of Seattle's music scene.
Since you've been gone, new clubs have opened and new people are putting on shows and things are still interesting. But the thing is, there isn't a new Pho Bang. I've been to arty shows that weren't wild like I wanted... and wild shows that weren't arty like I wanted. With your day-glo punk amazon/Atlantic City grandma wardrobes, crass compliments, pancake makeup, and great ear for music, you brought it on like no one else has done since. Jackie and Ursula, your fucked-up parties reigned supreme in Seattle, and until someone comes along who can do something just as no-bars-rule cool, I'm begging you to jump-start everything all over again. After all, where else will those deaf queens get their Lil' Kim on? (Or, I should say, where else will they get their Lil' Kim on as the warm up act for Akimbo?) Nowhere. So don't make me whine. Let's save the crocodile tears for Jackie and Ursula's next crime of passion against a first cousin. I'm sure Zeigenbock Kopf would be happy to play the reunion.
XOXO,
