Police shut down Speakeasy show (The Burning of Rome play anyway)

So the Speakeasy show on Saturday featuring The Burning of Rome lived up to its name and got shut down by the police. But it moved to a hidden location deep in the bowels of the venue, where the band played their guts out.

The Speakeasy Studios is an Oceanside truck-repair shop by day and a rehearsal studio and performance venue at night. Both are co-owned by The Burning of Rome drummer Lee Williams and his father.

On the east side of the repair shop is a large parking lot, where they had a DJ setup, a bar, a small spoken-word stage and, behind and to the right of it, the main stage. When you enter the building (the truck-repair garage), the halls become an art-gallery maze leading you through and around the innards of the garage and into what I would call your standard “rock and roll loitering room”—with comfy couches, a bar, a fridge, a beer tap and rock posters hanging on the walls. On the back side of the room is a door that leads into a rehearsal room, a large, air-conditioned studio decorated with art, skulls, old gramma lamps on old gramma nightstands, Old Glory, various musical instruments and a giant, shiny bronze Buddha on a perch overlooking the entire space as if to give it his blessing and ward off the fuzz.

On Saturday, they had a spoken-word, art and music show featuring me on the spoken-word tip, an outrageous cello-core punk band from San Francisco called Judgement Day [sic] and, of course, headlining the event, The Burning of Rome (TBoR).

From Judgement Day's MySpace

The first two acts went off without a hitch. However, while waiting for TBoR to start, I spotted the all-too familiar visual of red lights bouncing off the bottom of the low, Oceanside marine layer.

The cops had come to break up the party.

It wasn’t a raid so much as a surprise inspection. In hindsight, I think the night was jinxed when Williams relayed the story of the last time The Man came to shut them down. Apparently, a local simian-core band called The Creepy Creeps were on stage when the cops arrived. Well, right at the moment when Williams was trying to soft-talk the sergeant into not shutting them down, or, at least, not imposing a fine, The Creepy Creeps started saying shit like “Fuck the pigs” into the microphone.

The Creepy Creeps, by the way, are a hard, fun, visually spectacular band in their own right but, apparently, not all that intelligent.

Anyway, there were about five or six police officers who entered the Speakeasy premises. They walked around for about 45 minutes, inspecting and investigating, then had a short meeting, then announced they were shutting us down. (Well, hey, at least they discussed it).

To be honest, it was a reasonable decision. The law says you’re not permitted to throw these kinds of events without documentation from the city. Basically, it came down to two issues.

1. They were charging a door cover.

2. They were selling cocktails.

To do either of these things, you need to be approved by the city and the state office of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Apparently, a parent called to complain that his minor child was present and alcohol was being served. I called the Oceanside Police Department to verify that claim and am still waiting on a response.

Anyway, as I was saying goodbye to The Burning of Rome, Williams told me that they were going to do a show inside the venue, in the rehearsal studio, for a small group of friends, and invited me to stay.

“Fuck yeah,” I told him. And I’m damn glad I did. That semi-private rehearsal studio performance was freaking awesome. A real rock and roll memory for me. Click here to read a review of that performance and view photos.

The Burning of Rome plays North Park Music Thing on Aug. 8