For some reason or another it seems I’ve neglected the subject of music in my past few columns, enough so that the proverbial cup runneth over with worthwhile live shows I’ve attended, new and important rock releases and things currently enjoying repeated rotations from the DJ booth. There are even upcoming events to preview as well so I should just dig right in and catch all you readers up on what totally rocks. Where better to start than The Eagle Tavern’s live music Thursday about a month ago when I stopped by to see a local act who have generated quite the buzz throughout the indie rock scene, opened for Sonic Youth at the Fillmore recently and are currently touring Europe, likely garnering even more great reviews with their powerfully agit-funk post-punk angular cerebral free-form exercises in tension and release. The band is Erase Eratta, no doubt you’ve heard or read about them in numerous local papers as they rapidly rose to the level of indie-rock godhead with their crafty freshness and cool hard to categorize sound. They are a great band, lots of fun live and the music has a certain brainy pop sensibility underneath the layers of skewed rhythms and sharp guitar parts flying like shards of glass or knives. They have a sense of humor too and clearly enjoy what they do.
Because of all the buzz about Erase Eratta the Eagle was super packed, maybe busier than any past Thursday I could recall. As I milled my way through the crowd of skinny androgynous young people with unfortunate haircuts and long-faced introverted pouts all I could think of was a joke that Larry-Bob of Holy Titclamps the zine and online guide covering all that is queer and more, told me one night. He asked, “Why did the indie rocker cross the road?” I replied “I don’t know,” and Larry said, in a haughty tone with a roll of his eyes, “I can’t believe you haven’t heard this!” That in a nutshell kind of summed up the crowd, so much so that I had to leave before Erase Eratta’s set even started. They were apparently better than ever, producing a wildly chaotic response, baby dykes dancing on the stage and pool table, making up for the indie boys hidden under their old stocking caps, horned rim glasses and hair, withdrawing into their skinny emo selves, sighing despondently. I’m sorry I missed it but I really couldn’t handle the scene. Perhaps it was because I knew I would be attending a show the following night and was trying to pace myself.
Fast forward to the following night, I’m seeing two young hot NY bands opening for Jon Spencer’s Blues Explosion, one familiar Yeah Yeah Yeahs and one I’d only heard about, Liars. As soon as Liars took the stage I realized that I had seen them all at the Eagle the previous night in the crowd, and I believe I saw the Yeah Yeah Yeahs there too and for a moment I sort of felt like, wow, the Eagle was a full-on rock scene that night. It had been a long time since it felt like that in San Francisco. Oh look, there’s Bianca Jagger …and Kid Rock and Pamela…and Anita Pallenberg! Everyone was there.
Liars turned out to be the biggest surprise of my music month. Three normal looking young men fronted by a very tall thin guy who looked like a young David Johansen, calmly took the stage and started noodling with their instruments, the singer standing stationary with his eyes closed as if meditating. Then with a driving drumbeat the band exploded into sound and motion, the vocalist whipping his lanky form all over the stage while the bass players undulations furiously bounced his instrument off of his hips and the guitarist doubled over his like he was subduing an unruly creature with slaps and punches. Their aggressively danceable sound brought immediate comparisons to the agro-funk guitar assault of early Gang of 4 and a bit of the more rhythmic art-school explorations of Talking Heads and a host of other New York-based bands from the early 80’s like ESG (whom Liars borrow an entire backing track from for one of their songs, with permission and proper credits, of course) The Bush Tetras, and even a bit of the jazzy abstractions of The Contortions. It seems a whole new crop of bands are forming the core of a New York scene that unashamedly mirrors the No-Wave scene of New York from over two decades ago, augmented by a growing number of electro-pop and dance oriented synthesizer bands growing in popularity as well. As it often occurs in popular music, everything old is new again, but this doesn’t seem to make the music any less vital or exciting. Liars drove that point home perfectly with intensity and passion and lyrical political angst during their taut energetic set. Their debut LP more than adequately backs up what I saw live and is one of the best I’ve heard all year. Seek this one out.
I’ve been very anxious to see Yeah Yeah Yeahs ever since their debut EP, Master,
blew me away with just five songs of wailing, raw greatness and the beguiling voice of Karen O. Her range from delicate and childlike to mow-you-down with no warning power is lusty and enticing. I hear hints of greatness comparable to PJ Harvey, vocals that color outside of the lines unapologetically. This band is fresh and sexy and packs a big, loud punk wallop for just three people. Live I didn’t find myself warming up to them so instantly, but eventually was won over. Karen O is a wild front person, stalking about the stage like a cat, dancing wildly, always smiling, throwing martial arts kicks and gesticulating to the crowd, but the guitarist, a small man with a somewhat delicate New Wave look brought the necessary balance to it all with the type of guitar work that always makes me wonder how one player can get so much sound from their instrument. It amazes me that his playing supplied a low-end bass tone plus two very separate sounding guitar parts all simultaneously. Guitar wizardry always rates high with me and ultimately pulled Yeah Yeah Yeahs set up to the rather high expectations I had. Look for their first full-length release in the near future and remember, David Bowie has given this band his glowing seal of approval.
Another show I took in recently was Wire at The Fillmore. The great pioneering punk band with a rich catalogue of highly influential releases from the late 70’s to early 80’s then a reunion in the 90’s with a more atmospheric dance oriented direction, have returned 25 years since it all began and I really didn’t know what to expect from them.
Their set that night featured only one of their old songs, “Low Down” as one of their encores and the rest of it was all new material from two new releases, Read & Burn 01 and 02, both six song EPs that were on sale at the show and had only just recently been released. One might have expected the crowd present to be possibly disappointed by this but Wire took the stage and proceeded, looking a bit like mild-mannered elderly gentlemen, to absolutely pummel and totally win over the audience with sheer skill and a brilliantly powerful and menacing guitar assault. The crowd was transfixed. Everyone I talked to after the show was fully knocked back by this dazzling display of rock and roll mastery. I started to consider some of the Nu Metal acts all over MTV like Limp Bizcuit, Slip Knot, Papa Roach, Tap Root, etc. and their big tough harder than hard posturing and had to laugh thinking that four fifty year olds out of semi-retirement packed a punch that could wilt these tired acts effortlessly. The Read & Burn discs have also become staples in my DJ sets and when ever I put one on I find it difficult to stop after just one cut.
Speaking of the DJ booth, I’ve got a few new favorites in rotation as well as some not so new things that I’ve grown to appreciate more lately. One of the latter variety is the most recent LP by The Dirtbombs, Ultra Glide In Black which is about a year old and I didn’t fully appreciate this disc of covers by an all-star pack of prominent and influential Detroit music scenesters until I witnessed the magic live recently at Bimbos.
What can I say about a garage rock and soul influenced outfit boasting two drummers, two bassists and Mick Collins, a guitar slinging black man (a rarity in rock and roll) fronting the double-your-pleasure rhythm section monster? It became apparent why Collins is such a highly regarded figure in Detroit. They flattened the place with an infectious dose of rocking party funk that had me craving that disc immediately and far more often than before.
Another disc I cant seem to get enough of is Step Off the return of the legendary early 80’s group ESG. Comprised of four sisters from the South Bronx whose parents bought them instruments to keep them off the streets, the Scroggins girls created a minimal fluid dreamy funk sound that was discovered by factory records Martin Hannet and soon after the group was opening shows for everyone from the Clash to the Talking Heads and as time rolled on their sound proved to be highly influential and often stolen literally for use in lots of rap and DJ dance mixes. Step Off is their first record in over ten years and features three of the original sisters plus two of their daughters and it is magical. It sounds as if it were recorded merely days after the rest of their material, as if no time had passed at all. It’s simple and sparse and dreamily enticing, and no one else in the world can do it like they do, and believe me its been tried a lot. Someone told me that those ever-specialized employees/music critics at Aquarius Records had been slagging this record off as a huge letdown, as did Spin or Rolling Stone I think. Well, they are simply wrong, its brilliant and essential. Buy it.
Recently my friend Ronnie brought me a copy of a new record by Butcher Holler, a band featuring two of my favorite girls who rock, Jorgee and Kim formerly of Stone Fox. It’s a very fun record, showing a lot of stylistic variety but there is a definite standout cut that I’ve been playing a lot appropriately titled “Fuck Yeah.” It’s a 6 minute Black Sabbath-y metal dirge that features the ever sultry Jorgee slipping her voice around some seriously filthy sexual lyrics, and its just the right combination of heavy metal guitar and slutty talking to be, as my mother would say, “just no damn good.” Only bad girls sing things like, “Now you’re gonna get one good goddamn righteous fuck,” and play guitar so hard dirty and slow. It’s such a great song from some talents I’ve missed a lot since the demise of Stone Fox.
I couldn’t have been more surprised the other night while catching Fabulous Disaster at The Eagle when Jorgee waltzed into the bar looking delicious and effervescent as ever. She explained to me that Butcher Holler had just unexpectedly opened for The Foo Fighters show in this area. They had been scheduled to play at Kimo’s but that venue was closed down again and Jorgee has been working for the foo fighters as a stylist and was bummed about not being able to play and she mentioned it to Dave Grohl who magnanimously invited Butcher Holler to open for their show here. I told her how much I’ve been playing “Fuck Yeah” and asked her about the inspiration for it’s lyrics and she told me it was all stuff from that blaxsploitation comedy record called The Sensuous Black Woman. She is so funny. I can’t wait to finally see Butcher Holler live.
No sooner had I turned away from Jorgee when who do I see standing and talking with Doug Hilsinger, the Eagles resident rock star/booker/bartender, but another former Stone Fox member, the lovely Janice Tenaka, whom I had last seen on television at the MTV awards and on David Letterman as she now plays bass with Pink, who is now enjoying her fourth hit single from the album she co-wrote with Linda Perry, another former San Francisco musician. Again I started to think The Eagle really is starting to be quite the rock and roll scene on Thursdays.
Another fun band that you’ll soon be hearing about as the next big thing, much like you have heard about The Hives, The Vines and The Strokes, is a New Zealand group called The Datsuns. I’ve been playing a small handful of their songs I downloaded on the internet and they are definitely a furiously fun hard rocking blast of retro magic, aggressively spirited and apparently fantastic live. They’re debut LP should be hitting the stores soon and I just learned that they are playing Bottom of the Hill on Nov 16 on a bill with The Bellrays, who are back from a lengthy European tour and The Sermon, a local garage/soul type band with a bit of a buzz going on about them. Sounds like a great triple bill. Be the first on yr block to say “I told you so.”
Also coming up on November 13 at Bimbo’s are the incredibly bizarre and brilliant and blasphemous trio The Tiger Lillies from England. They have about 10 LPs to their credit and are comprised of an accordion player who sings in an otherworldly falsetto, a percussionist and a stand up bass player. Their gypsy-ish, circus-like, old-world street-performer musical style reels very nicely around some of the most truly fucked up, dark and abysmally wrong lyrical content imaginable. From crucifying Jesus to killing and fucking children and burning down buildings for fun, they touch on it all. They have one whole LP about beastiality, okay? I love them! Live they are awe-inspiring and unforgettable. Don’t miss this show.
Oh yeah, I just noticed that X in their all-original line-up is playing The Fillmore on November 26. Get your tickets for that show soon.
There, I feel caught up now.