Despite the fact that the Pitcherhouse is approximately a five-minute drive from Carlos' pad, we had not ventured inside the PCH sports bar until Saturday night, when we went to see our friend Devin play bass for the Temporary Thing.
The Temporary Thing plays fairly mellow, introspective guitar pop. It is the sort of band that I would recommend to anyone who lists Death Cab for Cutie, Keane and Snow Patrol on their My Space profiles. The hour-long set was a treat but, despite that, I found myself growing more distracted by the minute. Towards the end, I had to take a smoking patio break just because I couldn't focus. This was no fault of the band. My latent case of ADD was triggered by the Pitcherhouse itself.
Generally, I imagine dives as darkly lit, small spaces filled with only a handful of regulars. The Pitcherhouse is larger than most of the Hollywood clubs I attend, brightly lit and filled with beachy-types of people who wear flip-flops and tans year-round. It seemed as though there was either a birthday party or cougar convention going on in one of the adjacent rooms, as middle-aged women in revealing clothing kept walking out of said room to lean over the bar and offer such complaints as "You gave me non-alcoholic beer" to the bartenders.
Then there were the walls-- a veritable collage of all things Dude. The ceiling was lined with album covers, mostly of the metal variety, and the rest of the club was so clogged with stuff that my eyes just darted back and forth between a Cassius Clay banner, a 1984 Los Angeles Olympics poster, more beer advertisements than at a NASCAR track and restroom placards that read something along the lines of "Sitting Bull" for the men and (this is verbatim) "Little Beavers" for the women. Speaking of NASCAR, an inflatable race car loomed over the band, it's string tangling with those of an inflatable beer bottle and a big, fat pink pig. The pig impressed me most and so I tried to take a photo. Alas, there is no flash on my cell phone and so the whole picture thing did not quite work.