echo lounge @east atlanta (fujica ax-5)

In the days of way back, soon after I first moved to Atlanta, I was introduced to the Echo Lounge by a co-worker. One day while The Man was keeping us down, she mentioned her band, now defunct, would be playing that Friday at the Echo Lounge. I think that was the first show I saw in Atlanta and was certainly the first of many 3d5spd shows I attended.

While Sharks and Minnows, the opening band, were playing, I spotted an athletic long haired brunette in a simple dress with a tattoo on her back - how racy - smoking a cigarette at a table by herself. I walked over and chatted with her. Later on in the evening, when I requested her phone number, she simply replied, "No." I wish every woman was that succinct.

Highlights I remember from the Echo Lounge include discovering Sunday Munich and their unbelievable singer Sarah when Spy canceled the night their guitarist's first child was born, a Nightporters reunion show put on by Stomp and Stammer, and Methane Studios' annual poster sales.

My co-worker has long since moved away, most of the bands I saw there have fallen into the dustbin of unwritten history, and the Echo Lounge itself is in a state of disrepair. Rumor has it a new music hall and an Irish Pub are opening in the building, or may be open already - East Atlanta is no longer my stomping grounds, but rumors have swirled for several years, so I will believe it when I see it.

Now for the photographs of the Echo Lounge: first is a light fixture attached to the decaying roof, next up is rotting wood and twisted metal, after that, a tree growing up next to the building, and finally, the saddest flick of them all - a dilapidated for rent sign.

Most of the time, the decay is just there - a somewhat abstract commentary on the state of the country during the King George the Fourth era. In contrast, the slow disintegration of the Echo Lounge is personal and reminds me of a time in my life that I miss.