The other day I was fortunate enough to catch Sin City: A Dame to Kill For with a good buddy of mine.  It was okay.  Afterwards we went to get wings.  The two options that immediately presented themselves were Buffalo Wild Wings and Hooters, and ultimately we picked the latter.  We go in, we sit down, he reminds me that eye contact is a kiss of death and, as per usual, I don’t pay even the slightest attention.  The pretty bartender with the glasses, the thick waitress with the sparkling eyes, the leggy waitress with the pretty smile, its no secret that part (read: 99%) of the appeal behind the infamous restaurant chain is the visuals, or “art appreciation”, as the French in France might say.  But beyond the busty women and surprisingly excellent customer service, the food is pretty damn good.

Many restaurants find themselves in this same scenario: nice appeal, good food.  Buffalo Wild Wings is a big sports bar, essentially, with TVs everywhere and bartenders who can hold a pleasant conversation about cocktails.  Local places have their personal charms too.  At the end of the day it comes down to the vibe the place wants to portray.

We ordered our food swiftly, and my buddy and I began to converse.  We spoke of trivial things, from the movie we had just witnessed to how he’s the spawn of evil because he prefers blue cheese dressing versus ranch.  Our orders came rather swiftly as well, but there was still a nice little waiting period from when we ordered our wings and when they got to the table.  At that time I heard what was playing over the sound system, and in my opinion it didn’t really measure up with the… scenery.  Around that time my eyes had wandered enough to see the jukebox in the distance.  A long time fan of such modern day adapted devices, I went to it with a few bucks and the hope that there would be plenty of quality tracks.

There were not.  Hooters isn’t the most ideal place for musical selection, but all the same I found a good selection of songs to match the vibe of the store and its proximity to the water.  A few songs to lighten the generic sounds playing over the system.  If this sounds a little elitist of me, that’s because it is.  Music is music, right?  Everyone has their cup of tea when listening to music, and one person’s pleasure is another person’s discomfort, right?  Well yes.

And no.

See, places give of vibes for particular situations, and some songs DO work better than others.  Random surf rock song from the mid-90s may or may not be appropriate for a coastal location, even if it sounds like it would be a perfect fit.  All the same, sometimes the best songs for the situations are comically ironic.  Now, about a week or so after the movie viewing in question, I can’t remember every song I played, and to be fair I could hardly remember all of them when they were fresh off of the jukebox, but I can remember Bob Marley’s “Jamming”, Chicago’s “25 or 6 to 4” and Michael Jackson’s “Remember the Time” amongst the selection, as well as Weezer’s “Island in the Sun” and OK Go’s “Here We Go Again”.  I’ll admit: the options weren’t the finest but I worked with what I had.

Hooters wasn’t very crowded at the time, so outside of me and my buddy (and sometimes just me), it was hard to tell exactly who was feeling the music.  Occasionally I would hear someone, normally a worker, comment once or twice on the tunes, but that didn’t begin to match my off-key singing.  Trust me, I have a voice like a condor, it was magical.  The reason I was so comfortable playing with the music was partially because it was so empty, and a lot of people tend to not care about what’s going on over the speakers.  Most people just want to eat and ogle the women; who says you can’t enjoy the music to?  Besides that, when a place is REALLY packed, the very human capacity of being opinionated comes to pass.  Put three humans in a room together and you’ll end up with twelve opinions over half a subject.  But again: this is Hooters.  The music comes secondary to the standard person’s love for food and ogling.

All the same, the jukebox offers something special.  It offers choice for anyone who doesn’t mind paying.  It offers a backdrop for what already is and a chance to brighten a mood.  The modern day jukebox is a marvelous grab bag, no pun intended.  Was there a pun at all in there?  I can’t even tell.  Perhaps.  Anyway, some are extensive and some aren’t; the Hooters one was not.  Once I went to Dave and Busters, and there was an extensive jukebox-like machine that let you mix a CD on it.

Unsurprisingly, my favorite jukebox machines were both found in Atlanta, one in a restaurant I can’t quite remember the name of, and the other at The Vortex Bar & Grill.  The former was a restaurant with a smaller customer base than many places, and maybe that factored into the terrific selection on the jukebox.  It was wide ranging, featured hundreds of songs (maybe close to, if not more than, a thousand) and some of the songs were as obscure as any hip-hop head could muster.  Not that De La Soul’s “Baby Phat” is “obscure” per se, but what are the odds of hearing it at a restaurant that looks like it gets filled with hipsters on a weekly basis?  So when a buddy and I ended up jamming to the song, even amongst the group we were in, it was funny.  Because De La Soul is amazing.

Then we had the Vortex.  This is a very popular place in Atlanta, with two locations, a comedy club, reasonable rules and a burger family known as the bypass.  Let me settle some of your fears: I’ve never had one of their bypass burgers: I enjoy life too much.  The place has a lively, but dark vibe, beautiful people working there, a very knowledgeable bar staff (they jokingly try to get you drunk, but if you aren’t smart you end up falling for their charms) and most impressively a jukebox with arguably the greatest selection I’ve ever seen.  Usually when I encounter a jukebox, I play six to twelve songs so my musical palette will be satisfied, and on this day, a faux-bachelor party for a great man, everything from A$AP Rocky’s “Goldie” to most of Little Brother’s The Minstrel Show was played, and I was only buzzed enough to a minor slip-up on the way back to my chair, with my Jack and Coke and distinct avoidance of cherry moonshine.

One comical anecdote: to really throw a wrench into the whole experience I decided to play a particular duet to, how do you say, “cleanse the palette” amongst all the stuff we were listening to because of my love for music.  We all laughed, but not due to the song.  It was because of someone in the bar who, at the start of the song, screamed an audible and passionate “OH!” at the first sung note.  To this day we can laugh about this event.  That particular song is in the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPCwPe4Tk-4

I love jukeboxes because of the personalization that can be applied to your dining experience.  Sure, you can get delicious, hot wings served to you by a busty girl with a nice smile and trademark orange short shorts, but we’re Americans.  We’re greedy and we always want more.  My “more” is music, and thank God that I wasn’t able to play something like Donovan’s “Season of the Witch”.  It would have been a terrific trippy track to compliment the wings.  So thank you, Hooters.  Thank you, the Vortex.  Thank you any and all locations that allow us to play with a jukebox and make our dining experiences even more special.

And on one final note, I did have a favorite song during that Hooters trip, and I don’t know if I’m happy or sad that the women weren’t picking up on it.  Check it here and don’t judge me tomorrow.