I gotta say, sometimes when life feels utterly hopeless and abysmal and everything seems to not be going the way you’d like it to and you’ve really hit the end of your ability to Pollyanna your way out of the doldrums in any way shape or form, I suggest you crack open one of the local Weeklies to the section listing venues that feature live music and see what shows might be going on that very night. You might be pleasantly surprised to find maybe a band you really like is playing, or a band you’ve been curious about, or even a band wit h a crazy name that you know nothing about at all, and you could go see them instead of fantasizing about your own funeral and wishing ill upon those whom you feel have treated you poorly or acted in ways that fully disregard your feelings and or any sense of decorum, good manners, or knowledgeable distinction between right and wrong. If you can, like I did, put aside all the vivid violent fantasies running through your mind involving each and every individual who ever dissed you, told lies about you, fucked your boyfriend, fucked your ex-boyfriend, ripped you off, borrowed things they never returned, used you to advance their own career or social standing, got high with you then publicly referred to you as a drug addicted mess, fucked your other ex-boyfriend, broken a promise of confidentiality, stolen a trick right out of your arms, or hurt or threatened anyone you cared about and finally got you to really start to hate “everyone’s favorite city” for all it’s seemingly shitbag inhabitants and all the while thinking of themselves as your friend—if you can shelve the morbidly detailed punishments of these half-wit whores and back-stabbers dancing about your mind for just long enough to get out and catch a show, live music can be a remarkably effective way to pull the plug on your own personal pity party, yank you out of your depression and even stop your imaginary postal rampage, gunning down your friends like high school students on a safe fantasy level that keeps you from committing other rage fueled acts against them in real life, like kicking them in the crotch or pulling all their hair out or visiting their home and blowing out the pilot lights out on their stove, turning on the gas and leaving.
The event that caught my eye while wallowing in my emotional hell was being held at Stinky’s Peep Show on Folsom St., so I didn’t have any excuse to skip it because it was too far away. In spite of the fact that I know I’ll end up feeling better if I go, getting there at all is half the battle when I’m in that need to cheer up type mode. It certainly was a very pleasant surprise to see an old friend Damien, arguably the most handsome door person south of Market and clearly the most polite, working the door at Stinky’s. He’s worked the door of just about every venue in the neighborhood at some time or another. He ushered me in with a handshake and made me his guest. I was quickly enveloped in a scene I’m only somewhat familiar with but definitely feel at home in—a predominantly heterosexual crowd of swinging open-minded rockers and freaks seeking that good old cathartic, sexual and angst-ridden experience of loud and live rock and roll as well as some odd punk/lounge/karaoke/peep show features in the back lounge which I have yet to enter. In addition to this a variety of larger rounder and bouncier go-go girls are a staple for this club and I really love the big bold and beautiful attitude and presence in a nightclub during these days of never-too- thin, never-too-fit hyper-body consciousness. I was particularly fond of the blonde babe who danced while eating a box of donuts
I caught the tail end of a set by Blue Period the ever-evolving visually flamboyant new wave/glam rock five piece band fronted by gender maverick and fellow rock writer Adrian Roberts. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen them and it appears that they have a new guitarist and a stylistic leaning in a much harder direction. The last song of their set was a very rough and energetic romp, complete with syncopated jumps, terrific rock star posturings on Adrian’s part who was looking very Velvet Goldmine, and some pretty tight stop-on-the-dime musicianship all around. Everything seemed harder about them—the guitar, Adrian’s vocals, Swirlie”s throbbing kinetic bass, just all of it—this song was long and enticing and crunchy and powerful. It makes me excited for their soon to be released second LP.
Next up was a group called The Glamour Pussies and they were an outrageously sick and appropriate act for stinky’s peep show. Imagine four girls wearing white foundation undergarments with fake pussies and fake nipples pinned to the outside, lots of pin-up girl-styled long, piled and stacked hair, a few tubes of stage blood, some mock cunnilingus, a dramatic onstage interpretation of “the curse” or the onset of menstruation, a between song multiple-birth miscarriage, etc , etc, etc. The vocalist was the main ovulator and a voluptuous naughty beauty of that Stinky’s big girl style, screeching like a crazed hillbilly madwoman banned to the menstrual hut. I had a feeling their set was gonna be messy when I noticed the tarp placed first on stage during their set up. I had no idea how foul a concept could get—but it was pretty funny. It had a curious effect on the guys in front who had started contact dancing in that lame retardo macho kind of way…with each other. “Oh my god I’m starting my period,” followed by a frightening long scream of terror. Is it like that? I have to admit, they were really cracking me up.
The headlining act and the one that got me all excited about going out , Texas Terri and The
Stiff Ones have the dubious distinction of recording a song that ended up being my absolute favorite cut to spin when I DJ for several weeks running. The song is called “Lifetime Problems” and was originally done by The Dicks the Texas punk rock band fronted by blues/rock wunderkind and local artist Gary Floyd many many years ago. Gary himself told me that he thinks Terri’s version of the song is even better than the original. Texas Terri and The Stiff Ones lp Eat Shit was a difficult disc to find—it belonged to a fellow dj whose entire collection seemed to be hard-to-find, and then he quit, so I went to the show knowing there would be copies for sale there and I would soon have a real gem of an album to add to my personal collection. While waiting for their set to begin Brigitte Brat or God’s Girlfriend the seven foot tall trans-bitch guitar goddess wandered up and said hello—I told her how excited I was to see this band and she told me she had been hanging with them for a week and she could introduce me. I spotted Terri milling about the crowd greeting people—she seemed to know everyone, all the fans. It was unusually unpretentious and refreshing to see. When they finally took the stage and ripped into the first song it was clear we were in the presence of a balls to the wall rocker—a girl who was more into Iggy and Mick or even Jim Dandy Mangrum of Black Oak Arkansas than she ever was into Nancy Sinatra. I was also amazed at the way many of the crowd members seemed to know all the words to every song, as she punched the air and bent and strutted and shed her see-through blouse and complained about nipple laws and having to conceal them with black electrical tape because of nipple laws. When the band ripped into a cover of The Stooges “Down in The Street” it seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do, which is saying a lot about a band’s set so far if they can pull that off, and they did, but that’s not all. Terri left the stage on an elongated bop around the whole club leaving the rhythm section chugging hard and tight and the guitarist just laid into a lengthy and blistering solo that had the crowd going crazy. It was the kind of solo that a groupie puts out for.
I knew they had to be doing the song “Lifetime Problems” probably last and I was right. Terri said, “This song was written by Gary Floyd, are you here tonight? Where are you? Well Gary Floyd wrote this and Gary Floyd is my Husband!” For that song Brigitte Brat joined the band onstage and I gotta say she kept up on guitar in a way that really impressed me through that tense and fast paced scorcher of a song. Curious name for a song that truly helped me forget most of my problems. Liked it so much I bought a t-shirt on the way out, but come to think of it, I mostly bought the shirt because it says “Eat Shit” on it and sometimes that message will come in handy, I know it.