Beer and Golf For Breakfast

The four chaps from Indecisive Youth looked more than slightly out of place among the other patrons of Nevada Bob's Discount Golf and Driving Range when we showed up for an early morning round and interview.
"This is going to be a circus." I said to D.C. Ramirez, The Synthesis' lensman for this outing, as we pulled into the gravel parking lot.
"We'll drink right through it," said D.C. austerely. "It'll make for some great photo ops."
I wholeheartedly agreed with him. Besides, it was my idea to do the golfing interview in the first place. Taking one of Chico's favorite punk bands out golfing was a scheme I'd been working on for some time. Of course, I didn't have the foresight to leave my hangover at home that morning. I felt like Rome was burning inside my head while waiting in line at the DMV on Friday at 4:47 PM. Frankly, I was in no condition to be professional. Luckily for you, interviewing punk bands demands nothing of professionalism. As Richard Brautigan once remarked, "It's like shutting a barn door - nothing need be said about it."
And so in we went to the pro shop to get some practice balls for the range and to pay for our round. Surprisingly enough, none of the I.Y. guys brought clubs. Perhaps it didn't occur to them they would need implements of destruction with which to wage war on the golf course. I wasn't sure.
It was before 11 AM on a Sunday morning and I was having difficulty maintaining an abstract thought myself. D.C. and I gladly shared our clubs and we made a go of it on the driving range.
Rob, Indecisive Youth's drummer, was a case study in bad form, which led Brian, bass, to offer some helpful advice, "I'm telling you, less is more."
Rob took his advice to heart and replied with as courteous a thank you as could be mustered, given the setting.
"Fuck you," he said.
"He's not keeping his eye on the ball. He's turning his head when he swings," Brian quipped, turning to me. "He's trying to kill the ball."
"No I'm over that. That was at the beginning. Now I'm trying to direct the ball, strongly," said Rob.
We all felt this was a good way of looking at golf. We were there to direct the ball, strongly. Shawn, vocals, had an interesting view of direction. Instead of the balls taking off in a parallel direction from his swing, they often took a perpendicular trajectory, which added to the adventure of the morning. When Shawn teed off we made sure to keep a good eye out for errant balls heading toward our fragile parts. Even standing behind him, one couldn't be too safe.
Nick, guitar, and Brian both looked like seasoned pros (or at least moderately tenderized amateurs) on the range and pretty much made the rest of us look like jackasses, which of course, is exactly what we were.
Beers were bought and we headed to the first tee as Shawn made a prediction.
"I'm totally going to smear your guy's asses. I was just fucking around over there."
Brian made a different prediction.
"These beers will be finished by the second hole," he said. Sadly enough, only the latter prediction was right.
Indecisive Youth have been filling up local clubs and backyard parties since 1999. Their brand of silly pop-punk and glam-metal fashion sense was showcased in their 2000 release of From Now On, which cemented them as one of Chico's most beloved punk acts. Now, as they get ready to release the long-awaited follow up to that album, Songs To Celebrate The Uncool, they look forward to getting in front of new audiences and letting people hear the goods they've been slaving over for the past six months.
With the original tracks recorded in only two days, it seems the mixing process had them bickering intensely, albeit in friendly ways.
"We all feel passionately about what we're doing, so if it takes a long time it's because we want it to be good," said Rob, about the trial-and-error record-making process. "But that's what fun about it," he continued, "You go, 'I want like a swoosh effect', and the engineer's trying to give you the best swoosh effect, you know, and you're all, 'That's cool' and he gives you ten different options for a swoosh effect. He's like, 'This is a swoosh and this is more of a sweesh' and you go, 'The sweesh is pretty good, but I like a swash almost' and so it takes forever."
But the band feels very confident that this recording is exactly what they were shooting for.
"For the budget that we had, it's the best recording we could've done, for sure," said Brian.
And so it remains to be seen what audiences will think of it once they play their upcoming CD release shows, as well as some mini-tours down the coast in the not-too-distant future.
As for our golfing outing, it was pretty grim. By the second hole, the lost ball count was in the double-digits, except of course, for Nick and his hot pink "Flying Lady" golf ball, which he managed to get on the green with almost every hole and never lost through the entire round. By hole four, I had the shakes and needed more beer.
We didn't keep score but Nick spanked the rest of us by favoring a seven-iron for all his shots - even putting with it. Shawn spent a lot of time in the sand traps.
"Sand is fun," he observed. "Like the beach, only you get to hit things with clubs."
Nick, on the other hand, kept trying to develop parallels between golfing and another sport.
"Golf is like sex," he was saying as the rest of us nodded thoughtfully. "Everything goes in the hole. You put the flag in the hole. You have to replace your divots. You put your balls in the hole," although the other guys found fault with his theory.
"In sex you don't really want to be scooping out divots," said Shawn.
"If you're having sex you don't want to be hitting balls," said Rob.
"Okay, blow my theory," Nick conceded.
"No, some people might have sex that way," said Shawn with a straight face. "I don't think I've ever replaced anything I've dug out, but, you know…"
We were six gentlemen enjoying a leisurely day on the links.

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