episode 7

One of the main reasons I chose to move to San Francisco in the first
place was to be close to a place where every touring rock and roll
band would play.  Where I grew up we usually had about 2 or 4 concerts
a year and that just wasn’t enough, and certainly wasn’t enough
variety.  The closest they ever got to punk rock in Medford Oregon was
The Cars.  Heart would play one show there every summer.  I saw only a
handful of bands in my teens and I can name them all, Blue Oyster
Cult, T. Rex, Golden Earring, Bachman Turner Overdrive, J. Geils Band,
Rush, The Doobie Brothers, KISS, Steve Miller Band, Boston, and Black
Oak Arkansas.  I think that’s it except for Led Zeppelin, but I ran
away from home to Seattle for that one in 1977 when I was 15.  That’s
sort of when I knew I would eventually end up where the music was, one
way or another, sitting on that greyhound bus reading a copy of
Rolling Stone and meeting lots of other people heading to seattle for
the very same concert. That trip really was a defining time for me and
my allegiance to music.  This was my passion and these were my people
and running away from home was a strong indication that something
changed and it was never going to change back.  Rock and Roll was a
major priority for me and that was established.  None of the other
kids at school ever ran away from home to see a band, and no one had
that Led Zeppelin tour shirt that I bought either let alone lost their
virginity  to side three of Physical Graffiti.  So at 15 I was already
a hardcore Rock Snob and I knew deep inside where this elitism would
eventually take me, a city with a rich rock and roll history, tons of
famous venues and lots of songs written about it.  But first I would
spend a year at the University of Oregon in Eugene, only to be drawn
away from higher education by the sirens of punk rock, post punk and
the well-developed musical inclinations of a college town.  Eugene had
a music scene to be reckoned with but still it wasn’t quite enough,
San Francisco was the place to go, and Eugene often served as a
stepping stone to the city by the bay.  A natural migration of
musicians and thrill-seekers seemed to trickle down with regularity so
I made the move with big plans to see all the cool bands I loved, as
all bands played San Francisco.
At first I lived in the town of Benicia in the east bay but SF was
merely a hitchhike and a BART ride away so I started right in with the
shows.  I believe the first live show I saw was a big favorite of
mine, The Psychedelic Furs at the Old Waldorf on Battery.  It was an
intimate venue and I was right up front in the dry ice fog close
enough to touch the crooning Richard Butler.  Shortly after that it
was Echo and the Bunnymen at the same place with a great local band
called B-Team opening.  Then I started catching some big acts at large
venues like the Greek theater or the civic center auditorium like The
Clash and the English Beat, The Talking Heads, The B52’s, Elvis
Costello, The Pretenders, Roxy Music, Prince and more.  I was
surprised at how effortless it was to see so many of my favorites so
easily.  I was indeed fully able to do exactly as I planned, see an
endless list of great shows almost all the time.  Life was too good.
Eventually I started shopping for music in the city’s best record
stores, most of which back then were in North Beach.  My favorite one
was Rough Trade where I  purchased some amazing local bands that I
read about in a  publication called Punk Globe (which still exists
online thanks to creator and R&R lifetime achiever Ginger Coyote who
fucking rocks).  One of these bands was called The Vktms and they had
the number one single of the week with the song “100% White Girl.”
The other was a group that came highly recommended called  Flipper,
their song was called “Ha ha ha”.  I bought both seven inch singles
and went mad for local bands.  “Ha ha ha” was about the most
blistering wrong little slab of punk rock I’d ever heard in my life,
snotty, abrasive, noisy and pure genius while “100% White Girl” was an
instant anthem of hard driving power punk with a great female vocalist
calling all white girls to arms, a true classic that had me searching
the papers for when and where The Vktms would play.  Thats how I
discovered The Mabuhay Gardens or The Fab Mab on Broadway, the
legendary punk rock venue with its finger on the pulse of all things
hardcore and intense musically.  I first saw the Vktms there on a
Halloween night and they quickly became a favorite with tough girl
Nyna Crawford spitting out lyrics about dating midgets, life downtown,
death on muni, being a teenage alcoholic and more.  On that night
between songs she yelled “Sluts on stage!” and three of the most
shocking outlandish go-go dancing drag creatures jumped up on the
monitors and exploded in lightning fast furiously filthy dance moves.
It was devestating.  That was my introduction to Sluts A-Go-Go—the
performance group led by Doris Fish and featuring Tippi and Miss X.
The Mab became my favorite place to go and I caught some amazing shows
there by Black Flag (new meaning to the words slam-pit etched in my
mind and scarred on my body forever) The Dead Kennedys, The Screamin
Sirens, The Lewd, Frightwig (who became my first pet band that I
followed religiously), The Butthole Surfers,and many many more.  Local
acts really began to take hold of me, like Romeo Void and Translator
and Yo and The Donner Party and The Offs and artsy experimental acts
like Tuxedomoon and Chrome and Esmerelda and Noh Mercy.  I saw X at
the Russian Center on their Wild Gift tour, another show that left
scars and was utterly fantastic.
I was so completely immersed in the music scene that I found little
time for much else, including one big feature of this city that
thousands flocked here for year after year, the Gayness.  Indeed this
was the Gay Mecca, but I could immerse myself in The Castro or Polk
Street and walk among them and blend in but I always felt to a certain
extent that I marched to an entirely different beat.  The music in my
head was not Donna Summer and The Village People and it never would
be. It was The Stooges, X, AC/DC, The Gun Club, the Cramps, Hole,
Patti Smith and more. I dwelled in the house of rock and roll forever
and this somehow set me apart from the majority of  disco and
dance-music loving gays, and I liked it that way frankly.  Then I
began to realize that my generalizations were unfair and inaccurate.
I discovered that more and more gays actually do like rock and roll
and that rock and roll in many ways is gay as the day is long.  So it
became my personal crusade to write about, promote, DJ and educate
people about the joys of the devils music in every way I can.  I’ve
been forcing Rock and Roll down the collective gay community throat
for over two decades now and you’d be surprised at the lack of gag
reflex I find.  You like it!