archive three

August 27th, Subhumans, Strictnine, The Enemies, and Ding Dang at slims...

Missed the first half of the Ding Dang set, as I got there late, and kept running into people outside from everywhere, so that was kind of a bummer... But what I did see was totally outrageous, pure country punk. Awsome, I will definately be seeing that band again. The Enemies were OK, I like a couple of their songs, but right during the middle of their set I ran into the vice-mayor of Arcata, and had to get into a philosophical discussion about the police state that is California. Hence I missed the remainder of the Enemies set, and the complete Strychnine set too.

So after hanging out with a couple of LA kids I know from a few years back, I ended up in the show right when the SUBHUMANS started playing. Classic! It brought great memories, and a few bad ones too... I actually caught two skinheads pissing into a trash can at once during one of my trips to the upper bathroom, and ran into a bunch of old skinheads who don't really go out that much anymore who kept buying me beer...

At the point I decided to leave, there was something like 28 cops outside fondling their plastic cuffs, so I decided a quick retreat might be in order. I did get the new strychnine 7 inch with Monterey Mark on the vinyle and a couple of SUBHUMANS patches for myself and a few others, so it was a really good show, and all for 8 bucks. Truly a spectacle to behold in it's finest!

Unfortunately I did leave early and ended up doing all sorts of fucked up designer drugs, so from there the show gets hazy, but at least it wasn't a "wallflowers" experience.

Thursday, August 20th, Crutch, Men of Porn, Matterhorn at the Covered Wagon Saloon...

It's Stinky's Peepshow! The craziest frat fun filled night in recent history, I got there and Matterhorn was playing a great tight set. I liked them, they seemed to have a pretty good sense of humor. Pretty fast kind of seattle influenced music, and fast too... I'd see them again in a heartbeat. Men of Porn came on, and I wasn't really impressed, they seemed a little like Noothgrush, but half as animated. Finally Crutch came on the stage, but not until the crowd of fratboys and punks was ushered into the notorious backroom for the secret show. The funny thing about this show is the topless robust women who take the backroom stage. I didn't catch her name, but she dripped hot wax onto her breasts and then proceeded to get it whipped off by a couple of frat-types. Actually the best part was watching her dominate the frat boys and make them pull down their pants and whip them!

Crutch is always a good time, Martin is the main singer, and even being confined to a wheelchair, he just rocks! James does some sort of harmonization, and makes me laugh when he plays the bass. Eric is a great drummer, and totally rocks out too! It's too bad I had to go to catch a bus, cause I was getting a little tipsy, and walking home in the SOMA area can get a little sketchy. Anyways, a good show, and a little revealing about human (frat) nature.

Monday August 17th, BAUHAUS at the Warfield...

What made me break down and spend 230.00 bucks on six tickets for this show? Well it is BAUHAUS you must realize... I'v been listening to BAUHAUS on almost a weekly basis since my friend Chris Carter turned me on to them in high school, pluss, my mom introduced me to punk rock via BAUHAUS. I had to go to this show, so the day that tickets went on sale, I set the phone on auto-redial and ordered six tickets in the hopes that myself and a few others would get to see the show.

After a month of waiting, BAUHAUS played last night. Stunning!

They opened with "Double Dare", and the whole show was an instant success with me. I love that song. Peter Murphy is pretty well aged these days, and Daniel Ashe has short hair these days, so the whole effect was a little chilling. For Double Dare, Peter Murphy sang into the mic offstage while his visual image was shown to the crowd via a huge TV set that was really cool. These crazy floodlights would sweep the stage intermittently with short swoops on the seething crowd in the bottom floor. The balcony was filled with enthralled goths and others who couldn't miss the spectacle that was unfolding on the stage below. BAUHAUS ended their set with Bela Lugosi's dead, and it was a fitting end song given the masses of fans who were there. I saw many a Marilynmansonite there, and the whole night was all about fashion. I was all decked out in my bondage suspenders and a GGFH T-Shirt, while Lauren was dressed in her pink gothic best. Adrienne and Mike looked dashing, her in a red velvet dress, and him in his black dress suit. Malati was there too dressed down, of course, because she hates goths but likes the music (she used to be a member of the Menudo fan club, so what can you say to that?).

To top it off, when the show ended, I looked to the back door, and there was the common guy there handing out posters, and there was nearly no one in line. I got the second to last poster that he handed out to the crowd! When I met up with the troops who had left via the front door, none of them had gotten a BAUHAUS poster! A truly great evening!

Friday August 14th, BABYLAND at Gilman Street...

Hung out with the Goth Delivery driver from Kinko's that night, Had a few beers and took Bart to Oakland to go check out the Coveted BABYLAND show. Met up with Mike and saw a few people from Virginia who were in the process of moving to the East Bay, pretty cool! Spoke to Smith and Dan before the show, and discussed the lack of good show places they can perform at in... Depressing really, these guys are fucking great! Played a bunch of new stuff off the soon to be released CD, and I must say it really sounds good, I'm breathless with anticipation. Gilman was Gilman. Lots of youngsters, and lots of fans... I'm beginning to respect Gilman a little more than the last few times I'v been there. Unfortunately I think I was a tad too obnoxious to a few people, cause the first thing I heard the next day was that I was a "troublemaker". hahahaha...

Thursday Aug 13th, the Wallflowers and Low Hum Satellite at some crappy gay disco club in San Francisco...

Ugh! You may wonder how and why I of all people would go to such a crappy show in the First place, and the answer's simple...Free Stuff! We got there stoked out with free tickets from some rich guy who operates a chain of photo developing places around the country, so we got 10 free tickets, and a whole posse of punk freaks went to boo the bands. Free Miller genuine draft, free pizza, free keychains, free blinking buttons, and MTV filming too! Totally ridiculous! I spent the evening just staring at all the huge muscleboys, leather daddies, and San Jose jocks who were getting truly lit from all the alcohol. Low Hum Satellite sucked, and the Wallflowers sucked too. Free is a good thing. I spent 5 bucks for about 20 beers, and that was just to tip the daddy bartender who was really cool. MGD up the wazzu!

August 7th, Strychnine, Suicide King at the Covered Wagon...

Strychnine is OK, they played an OK set with a few mistakes, but I'm just not into them very much. Likewise for Suicide King, all this rock and roll gets a little tiring after a while, I think I'm going to concentrate on more industrial stuff for a while.

August 6th, The Decline of Western Civilization III at the Red Vic, Drain Bramaged, Portrait of Poverty, and The Enemies at Mission Records...

Went to see The Decline of Western Civilization III with Kristen from Humboldt and actually liked the movie! Realized that one of the kids in the movie actually stayed at my house in Arcata for a few days and screwed some crusty punk chick on my living room floor while an audience watched from the alcove/roof we had at the time. Overall the movie was good, it had some great music by Final Conflict, Litmus Green, and Naked Aggression, and typical footage of crusty LA kids in squatter houses. I give it 3 stars. Went and drank for a few then walked to Mission Records to go see Portrait of Poverty and visit with the Tacoma kids for a while. Drain Bramaged was really good, saw the bassist guy hit his head on a cement block, start bleeding, and get up and play the last few songs. Spoke to him afterward and he seemed a little confused... That whole band had that whole cartoon-punk thing going strong. Hung out with Wendy and her girlfriend from Arcata outside for a while, but they were on some love trip that was making me physically ill, so I spoke to Flash from Portrait of Poverty and Cecil from the Barfeederz for a while, I think Cecil thinks I'm a nut.

Portrait of Poverty was really good this time, but there was hardly anyone there... I guess they are looking to find some warehouse space in the SF area, so if you know of anywhere, e-mail Flash. Finally got to see The Enemies, I have to say I'm not too impressed, they sound like too many bands out there already. But I have to respect the fact that they are at least doing something, unlike most other people I see in this hot fucking city.

August 3rd, Merciful Fate at the Maritime hall...

Really funny! King Diamond is back, and this time he's pissed. All the satanic heshers turned out in droves for this long-awaited metal show. As me and Kristen from Arcata were drinking in an alley a few blocks away, all these heshers were driving by in their cameros, blasting black metal. Hahahaha, the fashion was critical tonight I thought. The Council was just ending their last note to screams and boos all around for their set. Glad I missed that. So typically, Merciful Fate took forever to set up, giving me just enough time to get a quick alcohol buzz, and scope the crowd for Ed and Sarah from Oakland, but to no avail, although I did see quite a few Oakland denizens floating around. Merciful Fate played quite a few songs from all their albums, although I was disappointed that they didn't play "Time", or "Castillo Del Mortes" off the "Time" CD. But with a few new songs, I was happy enough to get a patch for three bucks from the roadie during the encore. It was worth it, but I did have to wear earplugs, because typically the sound in the Maritime is always bad, and this time it was the over modulated vocals. I'm already hard of hearing, I don't need to be deaf!

July 26th, The Neighbors (San Diego), Pretentious Assholes (Chicago), and Grimple (The East Bay) at Mission Records...

It was a small show, but packed with gutterpunks all wacked out on goofballs, but really, Mission Records is pretty small, but yet there had to be 150 people packed into that tiny back-room where all the bands played. Aside from the heat and the smell of dirt and grime, the show was epic! The Neighbors were just setting up when I arrived, so I got to catch their entire set, and it was great. Luckily flying to SF from San Diego is cheap!

The Neighbors set list was quick, but they had long gaps between the songs as the singer had to catch his breath after each song, too much carbon monoxide I think. Talked to him later as I was buying vodka for Sarah, cool, he was totally stoked about the turnout and was seriously into mission records setup... "This could never happen in San Diego."

I missed the whole set of Chicago's Pretentious Assholes, but did manage to stumble across the Grimple boys & talked shit for a while with the few people from Oakland I know.

Finally Grimple played to a packed house. I was able to last through all their set except the fourth song when all the shoving got to me. Grimace is definitely an icon of East Bay Punk/Metal. It's hard to believe that we all grew up in Santa Fe, and had the same friends... I see a lot of that here in the San Francisco area... WIERD.

July 23rd, Project Pitchfork, Front 242 at the Maritime Hall...

OK, so Venom canceled, and I had this ticket for the show that the nice Maritime people said I could trade in for any of the upcoming shows, so I chose to try the Front 242/Project Pitchfork show, cause I used to be a huge fan of Front 242, and I consider PP to be one of the better industrial bands out there these days. Project Pitchfork was pretty good considering the vocals kept cutting out, and the Maritime has huge sound problems Anyways, the guys in the band had funky makeup on and seemed pretty cool, and their roadie was really cool when I met him at the doors earlier, and kept my respect for their band scene. All their songs were great, and obviously done to the best of their ability considering the venue. The big setback to the whole show was the sponsorship of Live 105, the local 90's alternarock music station. Half the people there were the numerous industrial fans, with a whole bunch of old-schoolers there, but the other half were the typical raver types who seem to pop up in the most annoying places here in San Francisco. Ravers suck...

Front 242 took the stage, and the annoyance factor hit full blast... All the songs they did were techno-raver remixes of all their songs, what a disappointment. I took as much as I could and had to leave right after the encore started, so I could actually get home at a decent hour. I did manage to get a Project Pitchfork shirt from the roadie who helped me out earlier, so kudos' to Project Pitchfork, and a big thumbs down to Front 242.

July 21st, The Dwarves and One Man Army at The Bottom of the Hill...

Got to the show late, as usual. One Man Army is OK, Punk rock, but you hear it all the time, and it tends to get old when a band sounds exactly like a band that is still around. OK I guess, I spent most of my time smoking outside with Echo, and the Dwarves roadie Monterey Mark, talking about how Venom had canceled their California tour, and how pissed off we were. (actually, I met up with Pria from Oakland, and we spent about a half hour trying to figure out why that happened in the first place). Whatever, I won't be spending any money on their next tour, or Iron Maiden either.

The Dwarves? What can I say that hasn't already been written about? They rock. Plain and simple, they played five songs, all new stuff, had a friend of theirs filming it, Blag was in rare form, cursing and spitting, and being a general nuisance. He who Cannot Be Named was wearing nothing but a mask, and fishnet stockings, and kept fiddling with his dick, and the crowd loved every minute of it. The show abruptly ended with the drummer kicking over his drums, and then storming offstage. It was a great show indeed.

July 16th, Suicide Nation, and Noothgrush at Mission Records...

Damm, I got there too late to see the the Demonics cause I was too burnt after work to not take a rest, but I got there, and Marcus and Astrea were working the door, and told me the lack of people was due to another free show at the beach, and some other good bands playing at Gilman St. But oh well, those other people missed Suicide Nation who rocked! All their songs were typical crusty type music with lyrics that the singer handed out right after the first song so people could actually read what he was singing about, all environmental songs, and songs that were pretty positive in my eyes, I think one of them works at Kinko's cause the record inserts were pretty well done. Noothgrush has played a bunch of shows recently, but I keep missing them due to my inability to get to shows earlier than 10:00, but they were really good too, SLOW is the word for these guys, so slow in fact that they only had time to play about six songs in 45 minutes, bravo!

June 29th, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Pride Parade on Market street. (With Tribe-8, Chumbawumba, and others...

Jeez! I swear, I have never seen so many airline stewards in such a confined space. So after getting a few tickets to go see Bauhaus in August (balcony, boo hoo...) Me, Mike, Adrienne, Mark, and Scott Brown (of Anal Kitties fame, visiting from Portland) went to Market and Powell to check out the pride parade deal. I must say, it was great! Besides seeing my sister and her fellow office workers marching in the front, I have never seen so many gay people in one place, even taking the Bart ride there was an eye opener. Had my picture taken again and again for wearing my Lost Goat patch on my sweatshirt, and got told that Lucifer would lead me down the road to hell by some bodybuilder wierdo who I think was in league with the funky people who rented the plane that had anti gay rhetoric flying overhead. I did miss Tribe-8 and Chumbawumba although, because I was dragged to the Cocadrie to try and catch Zeke and The Strattford Mercenaries. Unfortunately I got food poisoning from the funky Mexican food place I went to in North Beach, so after paying 5 bucks, I found myself walking home, a sad ending to a great day, but I feel like it was a good move on my part.

June 21st, The Muffs, and two other bands at the Bottom of the Hill.

Exhausting! After not sleeping for a couple of days, and working my ass off all afternoon, I got on the bus and went straight to the Bottom of the Hill to catch the (supposedly) sold-out show that the Muffs were playing. I got there around nine, and the place was relatively quiet. So I sat outside for about two hours so I could avoid the cowpunk sounding band that played first, and the Lilith fair sounding type band that played second.

Finally, the Muffs came on stage, and played a rockin' set! Kim Shattuck totally balanced the shrieks with the melodic songs they played ( had never actually heard the Muffs before, so I was a Muff-Virgin!), and Roy was really funny, considering that throughout their set they were plagued with all sorts of technical problems (i.e... stripped mics, and busted amp problems). But in the end, they were great, and I got a couple of stickers to commemorate the whole show. And just to show what a cheapskate I am, I ended up giving one of the stickers to Karin from Arcata for her B-Day.

June 19th, The X-Files (fight the future) at the Metro Theater, and The Barfeederz with Portrait of Poverty at the Tip-Top Inn San Francisco.

The X-Files movie is GREAT! I went expecting a low-budget rehash with no real new info in accordance to the ongoing X-Files plot and left with a great respect for Chris Carter and folks for tying in a great number of loose ends into a cohesive film with a non-annoying plot with many funny X-mannerism that us fans enjoy. I won't pull an Ebert and reveal the plot, but I must say that out of all the films I have seen in the last few months, this is worth the overpriced UA ticket that I paid matinee prices for... (I waited in line ten minutes the day before to get tickets for my sister's birthday present if that is any indicator to how much of a geek I am).

I missed Portrait of Poverty's set due to a mix-up concerning which band would go on stage first, but talked to Flash of POP for a while and got the info on their tour dates during the end of the Barfeederz set...See this band, they are great guys, and certainly enjoy knocking back a few beers with the fans. I guess they are coming back to the bay area at the end of their rock-star tour with (a Warped tour date if you can imagine!). The Barfeederz were GREAT! as always. This being their first local date since their tour, they were especially fun to see, but as always there were a shitload of drunk jockboys there... (no problem with that, but the testosterone was quite apparent, driving quite a few regulars home early). I promised Matt and Flash I would see their set on Tuesday at Mission Records, and they were so cool about the mix-up that they gave me a few patches to handout to the homeless. (A public apology, but I never made it, I spent the night in Northbeach talking shit with a stripper friend of mine). I'll see PoP when they return in August...

On an related note, A friend of mine got arrested on a bogus warrant charge a few days ago, so if anyone knows skinhead oldie Joe, give him some sort of condolences for his stint in jail.

Another perspective I: As I was walking home from the Tip-Top Inn, I drew a correlation between the normal prostitution on 17th and Kapp, and the fucked-up cop action they started when Clinton was in town last week. For about four days, the cops were arresting all the whores and junkies in the mission area because Clinton was in town, and GOD FORBID!, Clinton doesn't want junkies or whore's in SIGHT! (unless they have an inviting orifice, or so I hear). So if you want a decent blowjob, all the good prostitutes have now moved down to South Vanness.

Another perspective III: if you read this, e-mail me, I love communication with others... especially if they want to trade or talk about music.

June 9th, Black Lung at Broderick's Chamber

I hadn't heard any of the music that black Lung has done before I went to this, so it was interesting to see that the setup was a table, and a little bit of DAT equipment. I felt a little cheated, I mean, didn't touring bands once use equipment or something? My only other gripe was that it seemed a little expensive to see a guy lean over a table (ten bucks). But the music was great, slow rave music, with a few quirky parts, and random noise inserted to throw the dancing goths on their toes. Interesting...