"Can't Go West, Can't Go East," A Bottle Rockets Landmark?
Sunday, February 21, 2010

"Right now my future's in the hands of the boys down at Firestone/Stuck in Indianapolis, feeling all alone," -- Bottle Rockets, "Indianapolis."

Outta' Indiana but possibly not before finding a shop name-checked in a song by one of my favorite bands. Chalk this up to Bottle Rockets fan nerd-dom to the Nth degree, but while stuck in Indianapolis myself I thought it would be cool to seek out a landmark immortalized in that classic tune, named after Indiana's capital city.

In the song "Indianapolis," songwriter Brian Hennemann (a guy who can write a song as good as they come, particularly when he teams with mysterious "5th Bottle-Rocket" co-writer Scott Taylor) tells a hilarious story of being broke down in Indy, homesick, sick of hearing about sex offenses, sicker of hearing John "The Coug" Mellencamp, and utterly bummed out.

I'm guessing this is the exact Firestone along Michigan Road in downtown Indianapolis that Hennemann sings of taking his van. Is there any way to confirm this?


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There is an article about me and my Hoosier Oddyseey in a blog called In The Mix Uncut, written by Indianapolan Kurt Matthew Pfeiffer.

Check it out here.


My co-author John is back in Indiana drinking, I mean, working on his half of the book now. Godspeed, sir.

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