archive five

I spent a while in Seattle seeing the Need at my favorite drag queen bar, Foxes, as well as Ron Jeremy's Sex Circus and my new favorite messy punk band Teen Chtulu. I won't post the reviews tho because they were in Seattle. See these bands when they venture to your town tho... Especially The Need and Teen Chtulu!

July 15th, Phantom Limbs, Subtonix and Luck of the Draw at the 40th Street Warehouse in Oakland. (I had to leave before Wolfpack, but I heard that they were great!)

I wasn't expecting much from this show at first because the last two times I'd been to the 40th street warehouse for events, there was definately a pretentious crust/hippy mentality going on. Thankfully, this time everyone was really friendly and not as stuck up as I expected. First up was Luck of the Draw, and they were pretty much a slow cowpunk rockabilly band who had come up from LA to play for friends. They were OK, but not exactly my cup of tea. Really nice guys tho, and really fucking funny too!

The Subtonix hit the room and a good portion of the audience was really into their new wave brand of rock and roll. Both Jessies did a wonderful job too, although it must be hard to sing when you've got a cold! Jessie Trash was a little tolo close to where I was so I couldn't hear the keyboards for the most part, but people were hopping up and down like crazy! I love the Subtonix!

The Phantom Limbs took the floor and I swear I've never seen a response as positive as the one they got that night! The whole room was packed with happy-go-lucky people drinking, laughing, and dancing to their crazy sounding songs of wackyness. There was a guy videotaping the whole thing and he was getting thrown around the front of the room while trying to keep his shots in frame. It didn't help the poor guy that singer Ryan Hopeless was all around the floor freaking out the local jock kids and their girlfriends (who turned out to be really cool about all the people making fun of them). It was probably one of the best shows I've seen in Oakland since the Filth/Grimple reunion show and wake for Lucky.

The Phantom Limbs and the Subtonix are going on seperate tours in the near future, so if you're on the west coast, do anything you can to see them in action. Plus they are both in the tail end of releasing records, so I urge all to check out that action when it happens.

July 14th, Phantom Limbs and Deep Eynde at the Covered Wagon.

After being told that the show would start at 5:30, I arrived and realized that myself and my raver friend had pretty much been had on the time thing...SO, after playing abojut an hours worth of medieval Madness (Pinball game for those of you who don't follow these essential things), and saying goodbye to Sharon/Raver/ex-editor of Industrial Nation, Deep Eynde started. I liked them, and they were much better than what I was expecting. The best part was The Fly (used to be in the Insaints), and his crazy guitar playing.

The Phantom Limbs were as good as usual and made a few converts from their quirky gothic/punk hodgepodge of songs. Unfortunately there wasn't that many people there, but I videotapes a good portion of their set anyways.

July 11th, The Vue, The Faint, and Camera Obscura at Bottom of the Hill.

We walked in late and the doorguy [emo] told us that we had missed the first song by The Faint, which bummed us out a little, but at least we didn't miss their whole set! The Faint played around six songs off their new LP, "Blank Wave Arcade," and one remix off of the picture disc that they had brought to sell on their tour. I (of course) bought both the picture disc and a copy of the LP on white vinyl so they gave me a pin and a couple of stickers which was cool.

After a brief break where me and Malati checked out the people there [emo], Camera Obscura came on. Camera Obscure reminded me of a less experimental Sonic Youth so I got their CD too. After they played I was talking to Pat from Eureka about what he thought and he pretty much said that they were good live, but the CD would suck. I thought the exact opposite.

The Vue came on and we left halfway into their first song because they were annoying [emo].

July 1st, Vans Warped Tour at Pier 30.

Well myself and Malati the Hari Krishna got to the "festival" a little too late so we missed the Long Beach Dub All Stars, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, T.S.O.L., and The Dickies but we did get to see GREEN DAY, NoF-X, Jurassic 5, Pappa Roach, Hot Water Music, Good Riddance, One Man Army, The Donnas, Weezer, and the Lunachicks!

Jurassic 5 was a snoozer, plus rap music gets on my nerves unless it's funny. Pappa Roach is the new rage from Vacaville, but they just seemed like another of those annoying Korn/Coal Chamber metal rap type bands which people like because they seem like they are frightening to their parents, another big yawn there. One Man Army was OK, and attracted lots of emo types, so the fashion was more entertaining than anything else. Hot Water Music was interesting, but the sound was SO bad that we left after about 4 songs. The added bonus was meeting the singer at the beer booth later on when we ran into Jessie from the Subtonix, they're old friends from Florida or something. Good Riddance was OK, but we were more into heading to stage 2 to see the Lunachicks! The Lunachicks were the best part of the whole day, they were so good that both myself and Malatio ended up buying all their CDs at their booth later and as a plus their booth guy was polite and really cool too. I guess we are now Lunachicks converts! GREEN DAY was boring and annoying... They have barely changes since the days of having them play in my friends garage in Humboldt, and I hated them then too. NoF-X was the same, but at least they played a song off of S&M Airlines, my personal favorite of theirs. The Donnas were just bad.

The best part o the day was seeing Weezer on their last date for the tour (too short of a set tho). They played all the big songs that they're known for and a couple I hadn't heard before too! It helped that Malati had befriended a friend of a friend of theirs who let us in on all the secret info regarding their lack of touring and the singer's personal issues which seem to be happening (it's just fucked up, he has my sympathies). It turns out that he had heard about the show and traveled from New York especially to see them! That's some fan dedication! I spent half of their set people watching to see if people would mimic/sing-along to their songs. Weezer is awsome.

Festival shows pretty much suck. Give me a small intimate bar or club anytime.

June 29th, Mark Curry, The Excessives, Joe Buck at the Covered Wagon (Stinky's Peep Show).

Echo and Monterey Mark decided to breeze into town because their summer townhouse was about to be evicted onto the street, so after taking a well needed nap, I joined them at the house in preparation for Mark Curry (who seems to be a friend because we all get into all his shows for free). Anyway, we luckily missed most of the Joe Buck show, which is good because in my opinion his type of country music is SO played out that only a lackluster show can be had if you see him first. Unfortunately we saw all of the Excessives set. Why they did so many covers is beyond me! Finally Mark Curry came on stage, but I was so bored/tired that I decided to walk home instead of take advantage of the free 10 block ride back. Maybe I should have taken advantage of the free cocaine which was offered to me at the show...

June 25th, Lesbian Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Parade 2000, San Francisco.

Showed up a little late, so I missed the Dykes on bikes tyrade, but arrived in time to see the Braindrops float which was a huge behemouth of evil looking silver nuttiness and easily the most interesting float in the whole parade. It was blasting insane evil techno music and had a bunch of outlandish club kids marching alongside it. I spent half the day just following it around and taking pictures.

Whatever happenjed to the Society of Janus? They only had 45 people in the parade this year, hence less flogging and debauchery. Maybe it's because half their members were at the booth instead smoking pot? Whatever, maybe next year they won't show up at all, which would be a shame because they're still cast as the outcast every year. Even www.soj.org is down?

The highlight of the whole day happened when I was just aboput to leave the gathering. I decided to do a quick run through the booths and stages just to make sure I didn't miss anything. Much to my suprise I happened to end up right across the gated and guarded fence from Corey Johnson, who was on 20/20 last week after he came out of tbhe closet to his football team (here's a link to his 20/20 chat session). I admire his courage, so I tried to get a picture, but failed miserably. Anyways, as I was trying to do this the announcer brought the illustrious Jimmy Summerville of Bronski Beat on stage where he proceeded to sing a bunch of songs off of the Bronski Beat portfolio and a few songs her's done since! It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I never thought I'd get to actually see him in action.

June 24th, Dyke March/Pink Saturday Street Party with Malati.

Spent most of the day trying to figure out what the plans for the evening would be, and after much deliberation we decided that I would show my friend from Venezuela (Malati) the wonder that is the Dyke March. From what I understand (and correct me if I'm wrong) the Dyke March was originally built upon a female versus male rivaly between all the queer kids in San Francisco. The dykes got tired of the same old boys running all the gay affairs in the city when it came to entertainment, so they rallied and built a march from scratch so they could crash the infamous Pink Party.

We started off trying to take the 22 Filmore bus up to the Castro because we thought we were heinously late in getting there (mostly due to me being Momosa DJ for the evening), so imagine our suprise when the bus we were on stopped cold to let the cavalcade of toppless dyles cross the Valencia intersection we were trying to cross! We hopped out of the bus and started walking up 16th instead and ran the length of the whole parade (seeing many girl's privates in the process). After peeing in a few alleys due to the excessive beer drinking we were doing, we came upon the Pink party. I will end this story with the fact that we saw many a dick get sucked and many a yuppie's eyes pop out of their head. There were also many toppless chicks writhing in public places, something that (while interesting) could have been a little bit more intriguing with the right makeup and fashion sense.

June 17th. Northbeach adventure with Mark, Myke, and Sarah.

Since there was nothing of interest going on in the city tonight, we decided to show visiting punk-lister Myke Vermin the Northbeach area of San Francisco. We checked out Specks (an old beatnik bar that's pretty famous), but it was packed with a ton of tourists and yuppies, so after using their bathroom (where some tall lady walked in on me peeing), we headed over to the Crowbar which is one of Mark's favorite haunts. I ran into someone there who used to live with the Word Salad people from New Mexico, and we talked a little, but since he was working as a barback, I let him do his job. Things were starting to look grim, so I suggested that we kamakazi jump onto one of the roaming trolleys that kept driving by, not expecting that anything would come of it. Amazingly, we actually did it, and right after we got on board, we met the trolley party people whose birthday it was, and then they passed around a gallon jug of rum! After finishing that, we kicked back and anjoyed the view that the trolley gave us until its last stop at Club 1015 Folsom, one of the more famous nightclubs in the city. Taking a vote, it was unamiously decided to head to the Ha-Ra instead and grab a final drink for the night. So no bands, no plans, and yet it was a pretty memorable night.

June 14th, The Barfeederz, Portrait of Poverty, The Crosstops, and the Clinics at the Paradise Lounge.

Jen from Covolo and Myke from the Punk-list were both in town, and as the day was the hottest in San Francisco history (101 degrees in my neighborhood!) we decided to blow off my work completely and go drink beer and play pinball at the Paradise Lounge. It turned out to be a great idea because the bands playing were awsome! As we walked up, Flash from Portrait of Poverty said hello, asked us for a joint, and after some minor small-talk, we went inside to hammer a few Budweiser beers (too expensive) and check out the Clinics. I don't like them. The Clinics drummer is awsome, and it's not that their music is terrible, indeed some of the songs were really good... But the singer was just annoying in a Sam Kinesin sort of way. Lots of screaming which didn't add to the songs, and not enough substance (in my opinion). Actually the best song they did was the one where he actually sang the backing vocals. The Crosstops sang their special brand of trucker punk rock, they're not my favorite band of that genre, but they are good friends of Monterey Mark, whose opinion I respect more than most local critics. I thought they were comic, but got old quick. The Clinics came on for a second set, and it made me have to explain to my friend that even though they were the "Special Guests" it had all the special-guestisms of the people who have that title on late-night comedy shows.

Portrait of Poverty came on next and all I have to say is that these guys get better every year I see them. they're frequent guests in the bay area, so anyone who likes versatile bands who make fun of all sorts of punk rock styles should definately seek out their next show. Finally The Barfeeders jumped on stage, and suprisingly they played a near flawless set. I say this because I had run into Cecil (the drummer) outside nearly an hour before, and he had pretty much stated that there was no way they would be in their prime playing condition because due to a brown out in the city that afternoon they had all been drinking beer and mixed drinks since 4pm. Well they pulled it off swimmingly. The Barfeederz special brand of spastic drunken punk rock humor kept the whole crowd alternatly laughing and dancing around the main room for nearly an hour.

All these bands except the Clinics are awsome, so I encourage anyone to see them if they come to your area. Hell, see the Clinics too, at least they'll give you something to talk about the next day.

June 10th, 200, Midnight Mass! featuring "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" at the Bridge Theater.

Peaches Christ has a doozie of classic films lined up for the summer, so I urge everyone to check out the Midnight Mass! link. BVD is classic cinema. Written by Roger Ebert and directed by Russ Meyer, this film has it all, sex, drugs, rock and roll, and lesbian sex issues. As a bonus, The Carrie Nations (AKA Pansy Division) played a quick set which was marred by the apparent suicide attempt of their manager... Oh well, better luck next time. Plus there was some sort of date-hook up for San Francisco's most Tragic Drag Queen, Martiny, who was dressed up as the orange haired charavter from the Z-Man party scenes from the film.

I took 3 people who had never seen the film, and they were all impressed with it, to the point of continuously laughing through the whole movie! Next week, "Showgirls!"

June 2nd, 2000, The Subtonix at The Stud.

I'm a big fan of the Subtonix, so when Jessie told me to come it was an offer I couldn't pass up! There wern't too many people there, but I got to meet the mom of singer Jessie and watched her take pictures of her daughter aftwer hearing about her long-running musical roots. Unfortunately unless you knew the songs pretty well, the less than adequate sound marred the show a bit, but the stiff rum and cokes poured by the bartenders seemed to make up for it somewhat. I forgot what name the opening band went by (damn!), but the reminded me a lot of some of the music which was on the near-religious new wave movie, "Liquid Sky," so that really means that I enjoyed their set a lot. Both these bands need to play more, and maybe flyer a bit more in the SOMA area!

Jan 10th, 1999, "Pariah" at the Victoria Theater across from junkie heaven 16th St. Bart.

I had been looking forward to this movie all week, and I wasn't a bit disappointed. This film has been market toward the underground film community due to the release of American History X, which I gather was used by the promoters of that film to elbow out this film from hitting the underground theaters harder than it has. The AHX producer and director have made numerous comments and press releases on how parts of that movie were changed, and how they wish they had not had their names left on the movie after post production... I also gather that this is all just a bunch of hype, and made so that they can get the attention of the non-mainstream media film watchers. I could have guessed as much, so that's not really any surprise.

The basic plot revolves around this annoying actor guy who has a relationship with an African-American chick, but who throws himself into the skinhead subculture of violence after she gets raped by a skinhead gang, and subsequently kills herself.

The movie itself is based on two true stories, and is pretty good. I gave it high marks to the review committee, although I did get to meet the main "skinhead" gang leader, and he was just a foofoo actor, but again, that was no surprise.

What impressed me was the touched-upon subjects of homoeroticism, mainly the secondary skinhead giving blowjobs for cash to guys in camero's, and the lines that included the frequently mentioned "faggot" words (as everyone knows, all skinheads are repressed homosexuals anyways.). Also was the "Guilty" scene which took for fucking ever! My main gripes were the Lilith fair song they played during the aftermath of the rape scene (where the main character's girlfriend kills herself), If I had to listen to that song for as long as I did during the movie ever again, I'd kill myself too. This and the beginning could have been done with a little less cheese. But all in all, a great movie. See it when it comes to an underground theater near you.

Jan 8th Black Sabbath, Pantera, and Incubus at the San Jose Arena.

Spent an hour and a half braving the southbound traffic to San Jose for this one, a very scary experience indeed since I haven't really been in a car since being hit by one. Spent a while looking for parking before we realized that all the surrounding area around the San Jose Arena is a huge parking lot! Horrors! For about an hour we played heavy metal parking lot so we wouldn't have to see Incubus or Pantera. Both those bands just blow. Finally braved the massive arena, and found out that beer on draft was 5.25 per cup, and nacho's were 4.50! I always knew that arena shows sucked, and now I had the beginning of the notion why.

Jan 1 Fri. Seized (Canada), Dystopia, The Hitch (Arcata), Noothgrush at 924 Gilman

Got to Berkeley with just enough time to grab a beer, pound it, and head to Gilman (under their new more stringent NO-DRINKING-IN-THE-BACK-ALLEY policy). A definite bummer, but the Berkeley city council is a bunch of dicks who don't recognize the good things that Gilman does for the community. Enough about that, check out http://www.sfweekly.com for more details.

The Hitch is made up of Rosean from Sake, and the kats from Trailer Hitch, all proven punk musicians from Humboldt County, and they were really good! I was expecting something more country-like, but was pleasantly surprised by the slow heaviness of the tunes they spewed. They may play again soon, but don't expect such a regional supergroup to be around long, as they all have side projects they work on too.

I ditched seeing Noothgrush, cause they play too much, although seeing them is always enjoyable. Dystopia was great as always, they had the Seized guys a little bewildered it seems, but the newer music is always up to par with the classics they pump out. I love Dystopia! Unfortunately, I (as usual) had to miss the last band, opting instead to catch the BART back to SF's Mission area instead, although I heard later that nearly everyone at the show left at around the same time I did, as was evident on the BART ride home. Freaks everywhere, it warms my heart.

Dec 5th-Dec 31st Vacation in New Orleans and greater Mississippi.

Thursday December 3rd, Poison Idea, Bimbo Toolshed, and Hotbox at The Covered Wagon, (Stinky's Peepshow)...

We got there late, but fortunately due to the over 21ness of it all, none of the bands had started! Hotbox was pretty normal in the terms of punk rock. Nothing really memorable, although this was a week and a half ago. Bimbo Toolshed was OK, but still nothing really spectacular in my opinion.

Lately I've come to the conclusion that most punk rock is pretty boring. If a band that headlines doesn't catch my attention within the first few songs, I tend to fly off and travel to meet people either in the venue, or outside. Poison Idea fit this to a tee, I wasn't very drunk, unlike the rest of the patrons of the CW Saloon, so after 5 songs, I decided to leave. First I met some junked out kids outside and talked shit for a while and gave them a cigarette, then I met this cool Mexican kid on the bus travel to Valencia Street. Finally I went back to the homestead, and ran into the dregs of the show who likewise had left, due mostly to the driver tripping on mushrooms, and her inability to deal with all the bike messengers in the CW. I guess seeing Poison Idea just wasn't my thing that night, good music, but I've been gravitating more toward heavier crust material lately.

There's really nothing happening in December that I really want to see, for the money I have, so there will probably be a lull for a month in reviews... That, and I just got a ticket to go to Louisiana and Mississippi in the later part of the month, so I'll probably take a logbook of my experiences there for your enjoyment.

Friday, September 11th, John Denver copilot (Sacramento), Eulogy (Sacramento), Lung BuTTer at Mission Records...

I loved John Denver Co-Pilot, asked one of the band guys if they have any recordings out, but was informed that they were in the process of having a new bassist, so no recordings as of yet, but seriously if they venture out of Sacramento, go see them, they have a weird take on music, and they use keyboards too, bonus! Lungbutter sucks. Why have they been around for so long and have done nothing new or exciting? There is such a lack of everything when it comes to Lungbutter. Even my ex-roommate's girlfriend was saying how they've been around forever, and they get off on annoying people by playing their badly rehashed garbage over and over. How sad. Eulogy more than made up for lungbutter's lack of musical intent. Kind of like a polished black metal band made up of teenagers. All their songs were epic. I'd buy their record in a heartbeat if it was released, even locally. The singer looked suspiciously like smith from BABYLAND, but wasn't... The bassist chick was incredible, and their drummer rocked too. Even the guitarist dude was great, and he sings like a girl, in a good way. See this band.

September 10th, The Candysnatchers and Nashville Pussy at Slim's...

The CandySnatchers suck. If they just teased their hair a little more, they could be a bad eighties glam rock band like poison. Nashville Pussy on the other hand just rocks. Picture a 7 foot tall slim blond dominatrix type breathing fire onto the audience right after her and the female guitarist just had a lesbian make-out scene while going dueling guitar solos. Fantastic, well worth the endless hype I had been hearing for over a year now. I expected to be disappointed, but was very surprised on the musical aptitude of this rock and roll band.