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I went to a high school basketball game with my buddies, Dale Lawrence and Mike Crowder. Dale and Mike have been attending high school basketball games for the past 25 years and they’ve been to every high school gym in Indiana multiple times. Dale is the singer in my all time favorite Indiana band, The Vulgar Boatmen (I’ve seen them over 100 times) and he wrote a book about Indiana high school basketball. I first met Mike when he worked at Karma Records in Greenwood, Indiana back in the early 80s. That’s where I bought my first Ramones, Dead Boys, Butch Hancock and Devo albums and a lot more. Back in the days before the internet, these mom and pop record stores and the weirdos behind the counter were a lifeline to kids like me. I can’t imagine how bland my life might have been without these mom and pop record stores filling in the gaps. Indiana has some beautiful old historic gyms and I want to see them all while they’re still around. We took in Scottsburg’s home opener against their bitter rival, Austin. Two tiny schools that hate each other, what’s not to love about that? Mellencamp’s Pink Houses video was filmed in Austin, Indiana (FYI). The Scottsburg gym is called the Pressure Cooker. The school system only has around 800 kids, but a few thousand people pack into the Pressure Cooker for games. They take it pretty seriously. A reporter from a Louisville newspaper once wrote a piece about how the town takes it’s basketball too seriously, so the town had him burned in effigy in the town square. Supposedly the reporter laughed it off. It’s hard to describe how great the atmosphere was and it felt like stepping into a time machine. The crowd was unbelievably loud. It sounded like The Beatles at Shea Stadium every time Scottsburg hit a layup. It costs five bucks to get in and it was worth every damn cent. We’re gonna take in another game tonight and my buddy, Todd is gonna come along. I think I’m settling back into this Indiana groove quite nicely. . . . . . #hoosier #Indiana #indianapolis #history #ihsaa #basketball #recordstore

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