A BRICK ROOM OF THEIR OWN
CORNER POCKET GOES FOR HIP CLUB LOOK
Murrieta, CA – As reported here several weeks ago, the Corner Pocket, a long-time bar in Murrieta catering mostly to the newly moved in, rather than the long-time-here locals at Joanie’s, the watering hole in Old Town Murrieta, has been remodeled. With a stainless steel look over the bar (really cool) and ‘brick’ wallpaper now covering the walls, the bar is looking like a trendy reflection of the brick room Mercantile of Old Town Temecula, except that you don’t have to step outside for a drink, and the CP didn’t forgo having ‘hot’ waitresses (a long time staple of the Corner Pocket) ready to take your ‘Medic’ order. Of course I was there for the music, not the medics, and in particular, to see the new bands that members of what used to be Nice Day are now playing in.
We arrived just after Peter Puffington and the Rocket Ship Explosion had just ‘exploded’ onstage and were loading out to play another set up at Trevi Entertainment later that night. Saying ‘hello’ to the guys, I stopped and looked around at the re-done digs, noticing that a lot of the usual ‘cougars’ and MILFs were not in attendance. The crowd was adequate and the bar busy. Jeremiah, who staged the show under his Ruckus Riot banner, and who used to be the drummer in Nice Day, took to setting up his drum kit for his stint in the Saints of Brinktown. Sean, whose picture graced the cover of issue no.2 of the valley’s Flavor Guide magazine, plays guitar and does lead vox. A bass player and a violinist rounded out the new group, but tech difficulties regarding the sound dulled the moment.
Next up but not listed on the flyer was Ian’s new band, called Felix Serene. Ian was Nice Day’s old bass player and his bass chops rounded out the four piece which featured a drummer, lead vox/guitar, and lead guitar/keyboards. There were no sound problems at all from the Marshall stacks that nestled behind the musicians onstage and the crowd, which had grown and was now full of fans for the new band, cheered mightily. I can’t express how much of a difference there is between the old CP ‘dive bar’ look that off work construction workers regularly got their drink swerve on at and the new streamlined ‘uptown’ appearance that the new Corner Pocket now has.
One thing that has not changed is the routine manifestation of Murrieta’s finest doing a walk-through to check on the patrons that look worth harassing. After FS’s set and while Tree Fingers was wowing the audience with their musicianship but before The Elm Street Rockers, who had played an earlier set that evening up at The Roadhouse, also in Lake Elsinore like Trevi, took the stage to set up, I watched the boys and girls in blue secure one person’s car to a tow truck. When they all left in a group, we too disappeared in a puff of smoke, passing a rolling patrol car that seemed to headed back to the ‘pocket’ for more ‘catch of the day’.
All in all, it was a fun night listening to new music and dodging the ‘man’, always an adrenaline kicker.