It’s 2006-ish, and Star Booty Salon owner Mimi Reilly is standing outside her shop on the 600 Block of Central Avenue by the old State Theater. With a hot pink hand-shaped chair next to her, her thrifted Starbucks apron is on, her hair golden in the sun, her hands are on her hips. Her big bright smile is there too, electric. A clothing rack of cheap band t-shirts and old goth boots perched next to her, the shop window packed with incense and cheap glass pipes for sale. Her dog, Dex, sleeps on the floor. Blondie or Devo or the Stooges blares from a stereo. A homeless guy comes in trying to sell her sunglasses and she politely tells him, “No thanks, maybe next week.” The walls are lined in concert posters and photos of rockers who sat in her chair for a cut or a shave. Gossip and bleach fill the air, someone is getting a purple mohawk for the first time.
“Whenever we start playing that song, ‘Asphalt Meadows,’ usually all I can smell is weed,” Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard announced to a shoulder-to-shoulder packed Jannus Live Tuesday night. But in this case, all Ben was getting was cigar smoke. “It’s the weirdest fuckin’ thing. It just keeps going.”