So after a little rest back at the hotel, we all got together and started our trek on the subway, complete with gear, which was a little easier with 8 of us instead of just 4. Fortunately we didn't need to bring any amps or anything, just guitars & drum hardware, so this wasn't an impossible feat. A couple of subways and a few blocks on foot later, we were at the venue, Otto's Shrunken Head on 14th Street. The nature of the gig was this: on the first Saturday of every month, a promoter & fellow surf-head called Unsteady Freddie hosts a monthly "Surf Rock Shindig" 
at Otto's, which brings in surf bands from all over (although usually from the States). Freddie's an awesome guy, a real big personality who loves surf music, and it was really fun meeting him for the first time, since until then we only knew him through e-mail and his MySpace page.
The vibe of the place was incredible. Otto's is broken up into two separate rooms linked with a small hallway. The bands play in the back room, and the bar is in the front room. This was also the first tiki bar I've ever been to, and if I lived in NYC, I would be hanging out here on a very frequent basis. I was planning to settle in at first with a couple of tiki drinks, but after my first Suffering Bastard, I realized that I was not going to make it to 1am (when we were supposed to play) if I kept that up, so I had to switch to beer. (For reference, I've added the "Suffering Bastard" episode of TikiBarTV at the bottom, which explains everything you need to know about this potent concoction.) The cool thing is that, while they charge you an extra $5 as a deposit on the tiki mug, you also have the option of just taking it with you. Which we all did, of course. I had this awesome brown alien-looking thing. Dig it.
Also infinitely cool was the old-style photo booth in the hallway between rooms. Yes, it's one of those old close the curtain and get four poses photo booths. So, of course, Bridget and I just couldn't stay away. We were a bit confused when our photos got stuck in the machine, but the manager was able to open it up and fish them out for us. I think everybody in our group hit the photo booth at one point or another over the course of the night. Very cool.
Anyway, we just hung out for the first part of the evening watching the bands (and B and I sneaking off into the night for some mid-evening New York pizza). The stage at Otto's has a really cool backdrop, which you can see pretty clearly from the above photo of Mister Neutron, who were this great band who played before us. These guys are from New Jersey and were nice enough to let us borrow their amps. Also notice the awesome tiki statue on the back right - the PA speaker is actually built into it. Extremely cool!
Then around 1:30am, and after a short introduction from Freddie, we were ready to go. The show was really fun, and a lot of people stuck around really late, at least by our standards, which was incredibly cool. The photo on the right should give you a rough idea of the size of the crowd at some point mid-set: we actually had people dancing along
with our go-go girls until the very end of the show, which was around 2:30am or so. Very cool. Anyway, we got to meet some cool bands and ended up hanging out there until sometime after 3am, when we hopped in a cab to get us to the PATH station on our way back to Jersey City.As for Sunday, it was totally uneventful and hardly worth elaborating on. We just got up in the morning and drove home, which took all morning and afternoon, thus wrapping up an incredible weekend in NYC. Anyway, there will likely be another post later on with some miscellaneous bits from the trip, like videos of "This Guy!" in Central Park, and some of us playing, when they make it online. Until then, here's the Suffering Bastard episode of TikiBarTV. Tip Tip Hoorah!
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