As you may have guessed, I went to see Stinkmitt play the Eagle Tavern’s live music night last Thursday. I’m often surprised to learn that after more than 8 years of presenting live bands for a low price in the infamous indoor/outdoor, smoker-friendly, smartly decorated and intimate SOMA landmark bar, there are still many people who have absolutely no idea that this live music showcase is a popular weekly tradition and quite often hosts bands from all over this nation and a few other nations as well. The atmosphere is festive and friendly and an emphasis is definitely placed on providing a great place for bands to play, and for many bands it has understandably become their favorite venue. You can find out who’s playing by visiting the eagle’s website at http://sfeagle.com/Tnl02.07.html. There’s some great events coming up this month and this last Thursday was a perfect example of just how much fun a night of live music at the Eagle can be.
I missed the first band, The Judy Experience, who are locals but heard from a few people that they were really good and visually interesting so its fair to assume they’ll be playing there again in the near future. The other bands on the bill were both Canadian acts who have performed at The Eagle before and are also distributed by the same record label, the young and fabulous Cochon records based here in San Francisco. Those bands were Procon from Toronto and Stinkmitt from Vancouver. These two bands are big fans of each other and have worked together on various remixes of each others songs and have undoubtedly toured together a bit so there was a sort of a one big happy family feeling running through the place. In addition to this the two guys who run Cochon Records Manuel Gutierrez and Juan Martin del Campo Jr were present and actually had been in L.A. the previous night with Procon and Stinkmitt for a show and they traveled all the way up to SF with the bands in true rock tour style, little sleep and lots of love. The crowd was peppered with members of several other Cochon bands like the exquisitely beautiful Jillian of Von Iva and Rhani of Veronica Lipgloss and the Evil Eyes, and members of Gravy Train and lots more fun folks. It was an especially effervescent crowd of people who were more than ready to hear these two bands do what they do best.
I arrived about halfway through Procon’s set and the male/female duo were definitely engaged and energetic, connecting with the crowd in a personable friendly way as the vocalist Countess Christsmasher belted out songs of sex, danger, drugs and rock with an athletic dexterity, setting the tone for what would turn into a night packed full of females ready to throw down and slay with their undeniably full tilt vocalizations. Count Feedback wore a very cool peach colored jumpsuit with lots of zippers and left the keyboards for a wild turn on the guitar, complete with drops to the floor and other super-hero guitar postures, all the while sounding very capable with an axe in his hands. It was a great set. Incidentally my friend Allison the super-beautiful roller-derby queen got to talking with the Countess after their set and learned that she also wears the skates, rolling for a Toronto based all-girl roller-derby team. What a coincidence, a totally awesome coincidence—we love them derby girls.
I really like it when the featured bands have relatively simple equipment set up. It means less time to wait between bands and Stinkmitt play to recorded tracks so their set up time was nothing. Hitting the stage in matching tracksuits that looked suspiciously like the ones favored by members of the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult, MC Betti Forde and MC Jenni Craige brought all the talent charisma and sex the stage could contain. They clearly still had their balls intact and weren’t waiting for a ride from the mothership hiding behind a comet. Stinkmitt were driving this joint and instantly heading for overdrive. Just before the show MC Betti Forde confessed that it was Jenni Craige’s 30th birthday the night before and they were extremely hung over, but you wouldn’t have known it from their performances. They gave it a hundred percent like true professionals, the kind of professionals who can party with the best and still pull it together for the show. I’ve heard from other bands they toured with that they are serious party girls and their song “Roadkill” pretty much maps out that scenario fearlessly, talking about having dealers in every city, and doormen who get them their shit for free, scoring and whoring through life on the road. In fact at one point they solicited the crowd for drugs, “all kinds because we might have friends who like some of the ones we don’t like.” I appreciate their honesty and stamina.
The one time I saw them before their set was kind of short but on this night they gave us a full long set of songs, all the best from their latest release The Red Album and many from their first, Scratch n Sniff. I was especially thrilled when they dedicated the song “Crime Scene” to me, always a pleasure having a song about menstruation dedicated to me. “I’m dropping rhymes while I drop an egg.”
The thing that I found most impressive about this show was the undeniable unabashed vocal skills these two performers have. They both can rap and they both can sing and every once in awhile you could tell they were going at it freestyle, changing words here and there to apply to the moment, the city, the venue and they did so with all the rapidfire ability of any of todays top rappers, male or female. MC Jenni Craige was in fine form as she belted out some of the greatest most soulful wails I’ve ever heard from the stage of the Eagle. She just escalated in power as the performance went on, echoing vocal greats like Alyson Moyet, Martha Wash and other force of nature female vocalists. Towards the end of their set she said, “This one goes out to all of you who need to be getting fucked harder.” Such a universal dedication, everyone believed that’s what they needed and that’s beautiful.