Friday at the Safari Steakhouse
Safari Steakhouse 9430 Annapolis Road Lanham MD 20706

I missed the first set as a prior engagement went long. When I arrived, Nephew waved me into the booth with him where he sat with two of the three girls I hang out with at Safari Steakhouse performances. I asked them where their friend was, they said, "She's in Louisiana, she's in the military."

Doc waved me into the side lounge that I've never been in. Apparently, the band members hang out there during their breaks. I hung out with Doc, DP, Godfather, Packy, and Dwayne. Doc talked with Packy about the next night's performance at Club Levels - he said that even though he grew up with the owners, he feels uncomfortable there for some reason. He went on to talk about how he thinks that FF is catering to what they think the audience wants, instead of defining a sound and having the audience come to appreciate it. He said that Nelly and Outkast created their own sound and made the audience come to them and have been very successful (even though he added that in their latest album, OutKast use a lot of Earth Wind & Fire's grooves). He said that every band that has really defined its own sound has "f*cked up somehow" - Backyard had their own sound and then changed it; Northeast Groovers had their own sound (although he could hear Trouble Funk in them). "Chuck (Brown) started the groove, but Rare Essence perfected it."

DP and Doc compared how tired they were, having worked up until shortly before the performance, Doc won because DP didn't play at Xcalibur the night before. During this conversation, Kevin "Kato" Hammond and Mark "Teago" Ward of Take Me Out To The GoGo Magazine came by and introduced themselves to me. Kato asked Doc about Physical Wunders still performing.

The sound man (probably Googie), who is a friend of Doc, came in and talked with Doc - Doc had sold him a bass, that he in turn had sold to someone else and the amp for it had already cracked. Doc said that it was probably because whoever bought it had tried to play it too loud - that most GoGo musicians play much louder than they really have to because the PA system should amplify them anyway. He asked me how loud they were and I told him I had missed the first set. Doc asked Kato when he was going to take Whop's picture down from the front page of Take Me Out To The GoGo, I mentioned how Adia's picture was up for the longest time, Kato said he would put up another FF picture (I noticed later he has up a FF publicity picture of Godfather). Donnell called the other members of FF back to perform and I ordered food and said hello to Mama Chelle at the bar, then went and sat down.

Familiar Faces
The line up was complete: Mike, Adia (with her hair down for the first time I've seen), Donnell, DP, Dwayne, Doc, Godfather, BJ, Pooh, Bojack, and Charlie. The second set was pretty crankin'. I talked with Charlie - he couldn't believe how long my blog was. After the set, Mama Chelle sat down and talked to me, she said that because of her work, she can't go out during the week and enjoys reading about the shows she can't attend. She asked me about why there was no description of Thursday's performance; I told her that I hadn't had time to do it yet. Even people I didn't know knew me by name. One girl asked me "If I really liked GoGo or was I just doing this because it's my job" - I guess she, like other people, don't realize what I am actually doing. While some people think I am a reporter, I am actually working on my Masters thesis in folklore at the University of North Carolina. Also, I am doing my thesis on GoGo precisely because I am a GoGo fan. Fortunately, FF is busy enough that there is less time between performances, so it makes me longer to write descriptions.

After I finished eating, I went to get a drink (soda - I don't drink alcohol) and they started up. I decided to watch the third set from the bar because there was a better view from there. The third set, as usual, cranked the most. There were a couple of guest male rappers, one of them rapped during the performance of Terror Squad's Lean Back. One of the two guest rappers was Steve from Y2K. The third set was noticeably loud (given my discussion with Doc). I noticed for the first time that Safari had GoGo pics and sold roses. I talked with Donnell about the studio sessions; he told me that there were more sessions on Sunday at noon. I told BJ that I had videos of his drumming; he said he was interested in them.

I noticed on my drive home that the performance had really eased all my frustrations of the day.