Category: From the archives…

The summer season is teaming with upcoming rock shows that I’ve chosen to preview for you, plus there’s been a very mysterious cancellation of a highly anticipated multi-band tour featuring an eclectic mix of artists all queer identified, sort of a gay Lollapalooza as it were, and it unfortunately is no more due to one big star’s sudden cancellation, and in the middle of this month we have the return of a ground-breaking singer songwriter from the late 70’s whose most notable contribution was possibly the first out Gay anthem ever in pop music history, “Glad To Be Gay.”  That singer is Tom Robinson, who will perform here solo for the first time in over fifteen years, sharing the bill with our very own homo-crusaders Pansy Division at The Paradise Lounge on Tuesday July 17.  When the first Tom Robinson Band LP Power In The Darkness, was released it spawned a top five hit in England with “2-4-6-8-Motorway” and then a follow-up single of a more serious political nature that actually made it in to the top forty.  Considering the lyrical message and content and the political climate of that time, it’s pretty amazing that this even happened or was heard at all.  That song was “Glad To Be Gay,” and Power in The Darkness was a definite landmark release in so far as placing gay politics and gay issues to the fore in pop or rock music.

Well, that was some time ago and Robinson has continued making music as a solo artist in Europe and oddly enough he took a wife and has two children now but maintains “I fell in love with a woman but it could have been a man,” and he continues supporting Gays and is involved in Rock against Racism and other issues of sex equality.  “Having a wife and children won’t stop the queer basher from kicking your teeth down your throat, in fact it will probably make him worse.”

Pansy division promises an unplugged style acoustic set for the bill, opening for a man whose bold statements in 1977 about gayness paved the way in part for Jon Ginoli’s mission of the 90’s, taking sexually celebratory, humorous, political and sensitive nuances of gay life to the masses.  It will be a night of songs ranging in content from basic gay pride to songs about liking dicks that are curved.  To me this sounds like progress.  Stop by the Paradise Lounge on July 17 for a lesson in out gay rock music history.  I’d also like to mention that Pansy Division’s drummer Luis has been DJ-ing Tuesday nights at the Hole In The Wall Saloon for a few months now and his impeccable, eclectic and diverse knowledge and taste continues to be immensely enjoyable and a real education.  His passion for music in general makes for a fresh and hip listen that more people should be aware of and enjoying weekly.

Now, about that big gay-themed multiple artist festival that was suddenly cancelled—the Wotapalava festival, brainchild of Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant was announced with a line-up of The Pet Shop Boys, a reformed Soft Cell, Rufus Wainwright and The Magnetic Fields.  Shortly after that Sinead O’Connor was also added to the line-up making the already great roster of talent conceivably one of the hotter tickets of the summer.  The Pet Shop Boys are known for their one-of-a-kind big stage extravaganzas, Soft Cell had just reformed and played some European dates, Rufus Wainwright has an extraordinary sophomore release with Poses and stands a chance of becoming the critics darling yet again with the masses soon to follow, and the Magnetic Fields would be exposed to a larger audience than ever before, and they should.  Then they added Sinead O’Connor, our favorite Lesbian Priest whose last record was under whelming but her live performances always deliver.  This Wotapalava thing looked like the show for the summer season, and tickets seemed to be selling briskly. I had visions of young gay people walking hand in hand down the methane gas-belching green lawns of the shoreline amphitheater unashamed.  There probably hadn’t been a coming out concert of this magnitude since Phranc opened for the Smiths at the Greek theater in 1986.

Well, kiss the notion goodbye because the entire tour was cancelled.  The reason why is a really totally bizarre one too.  You can add it to the long long list of Sinead-isms she has tossed out to her public like mackerel to a trained seal to gobble down and look back at her perplexed.  Sinead cancelled out of the tour two weeks before it started due to “unforeseeable family commitments.”  Among these commitments is her upcoming marriage to a man, a British journalist!

Now wait a second, didn’t she come out as a lesbian just last semester?  What is up with her?  And why was the entire festival cancelled because of her sudden absence when in the beginning she wasn’t even a part of the originally announced line-up?  I just don’t get it and I’m very disappointed that the only appearance of Rufus Wainwright I’ll likely have to remember from this year is him sitting in the barbers chair at The Hole In The Wall talking on his cell phone.  I was very much looking forward to seeing all of the acts on this tour.  And aren’t priests supposed to be married to their faith anyway?  Or rather aren’t Priests (especially Catholics) supposed to be Gay?  This whole thing is not going to win her any popularity contests; not that being a bald lesbian priest with her weakest record ever was doing much for her anyway.  But enough about her, let’s move on to some uncancelled music events you should know about and be purchasing tickets for in advance.

By far one of the best shows I’ve seen this year was when The Gossip played at Bottom Of The Hill a few months back.  This three piece act from Olympia via Arkansas have one of the most charming and gutsy and sincere and sexy and powerful young vocalists to hit the scene in a long time and they are coming to grace one of the finest halls in the city, The Great American Music Hall in all its fancy whore house rococo splendor.  The Gossip’s musical style is rooted in deep southern blues, thick and swampy yet simple rockabilly/blues guitar riffs matched to a voice that delivers it down and dirty but with an attitude of joy and a total lack of pretense.  There is something completely irresistible about this band and the tickets are really cheap ($10.00 in advance) so think ahead and buy them, I have a feeling this will sell out.  Local act Erase Eratta, who come highly recommended by Luis and have a great 7-inch single out currently, could possibly be the next great band to emerge from SF and they open the show on August 1st at GAMH.  Don’t miss this one.

Also on the horizon are two dates at The Filmore with Patti Smith on August 7 and 8 and I would snatch up tickets to that soon as well because she almost always sells out.  Since the death of her husband about 4 years ago it seems Patti Smith has become completely rejuvenated in her own music career, having released three great records and toured extensively she didn’t ease out of retirement as much as she bounded out, hitting a stride that is awe-inspiring yet seemingly makes her happy.  She is the queen, the god-mother of punk, a visionary artist whose music changed my entire perspective, defined the power of  the written word in a rock and roll context and started my record collection over again.  Plus she can be really funny and bitchy on stage with a crowd.  She rules.  Go see her.

Finally, there’s this group from New York City that the British music press has been going apeshit over called The Strokes, and rightfully so.  This five piece band of very good-looking guys have managed to tap into all of the best influences attitudes and energies of some of their most accomplished New York City musical predecessors like Lou Reed, Television, and more and have come up sounding fresh as a daisy and brilliantly melodic yet sharp and tough.  Their three song EP is sounding more and more like the perfect rock band with each listen.  There’s something vibrant and alive and very exciting here, and I believe this show marks their san Francisco debut.  They’ve been attracting all the folks in other bands to their shows and really knocking them back with stellar performances.  I can’t wait for this one at Bottom Of The Hill on August 7—buy tix in advance—the buzz is ever growing about the strokes.

By the time this paper hits the street on Thursday afternoon, you will have plenty of time to tear into these pages and peruse my column and learn that there’s an event going on tonight that you are not going to want to miss.  As some of you may know, the Eagle Tavern has been casually presenting Live Music on Thursday Nights for a few months now, featuring a wide variety of mostly local acts ranging stylistically from hillbilly homo to white boy hip-hop, quirky perverse pop to hallucinatory prog-rock, glam-rock cover bands to folk-y singer/songwriters, gothic country/western to the darkest roaring death metal, all for the best admission price in town, free.  They merely pass a hat around once or twice throughout the night for donations to be given directly to the bands by the people who most enjoyed them.  It’s always a pretty happy scene, bands who are playing a venue because they want to mostly, knowing that they aren’t gonna walk with much more than cab fare and all the beer they can drink, and the satisfaction and experience of playing live to an appreciative crowd.  Local rock and roll guitar hero and bartender Doug Hilsinger, with the help of other like-minded employees sharing a passion for music and a drive to give deserving bands the exposure they need, have a good thing going with this weekly showcase, and in a city that has seen far too many venues and rehearsal spaces disappear into the maze of developing noodle-fusion restaurants and other retail gems of gentrification or hollowed shells of the dot com gold rush, The Eagle’s live music Thursdays is giving something back to a music community that constantly faces an uphill battle to survive against conditions created by greed, development and the now slowing wheels of progress.  Things were looking pretty grim in general for the local music scene just a few months back but more recently a handful of smaller bars and clubs have begun to feature live music, though often not without noise complaints from neighbors that eventually and assuredly will squelch the option time after time, or force a place to do some expensive sound proofing like Kimo’s on Polk Street just did.  At any rate, with this live music night (which you can find more information on at www.sfeagle.com including images from past shows, booking information, upcoming shows and even links for further information on almost all of the featured bands) it is almost a given that other musicians would be turning up to see bands and support their friends and fellow musicians.  One such person who happened by the Eagle recently for a show was Rich Millman, guitarist for local band Zen Guerrilla.  He must have enjoyed it because he tracked Doug down and asked why Zen Guerrilla had never played there.  Somewhat taken aback by the suggestion, as Zen Guerrilla are comfortably poised on the edge of possibly being huge and Doug, like myself is a longtime fan and would like nothing more than to feature San Francisco’s most intensely over-the-top, unhinged, hard rockin, soul stirring, ass kicking band of note in a minute, but figured the headliners were well past the days when a hat was passed around for their fee, or their monster of a show could be contained in a smaller bar situation.  Well, think again.

This Thursday night (that’s tonight y’all) May 31, the Eagle Tavern proudly presents one of their meatiest double bills to date and definitely the best double-header rock and roll show this city has to offer anywhere else tonight, Lost Goat and the uber-magnificent, mark-my-words-this-is-THE-band-to-watch-as-they-climb-to-the-heights-of-Rock-and-roll-immortality, Sub-pop recording artist Zen Guerrilla!  I’ve gone on and on about this band many times before in these pages and I play them religiously whenever I DJ at the Hole in The Wall and The Eagle and they chart more frequently than any other band on the Hole In The Wall’s DJ’s top picks list, which can be found at http://www.holeinthewallsalloon.com/top_ten.htmand is regularly compiled and posted by our very own web-monster and bar owner John Gardiner.  So essentially, if none of these attempts at spreading the word and the godhead sounds of this phenomenal band have yet permeated your consciousness then you better just drag your asses down to the eagle tonight and witness what Zen Guerrilla do best, play live.  See a display of extreme talent and musical sense and the zeal of madmen, see the supernatural channeling of spirits that run dark and deep in the history of the devil’s music, watch a guitarist play like he’s walking on a live wire consumed by flames, see a demonstration of concerted power that should make bands like Pearl Jam and Creed and Metallica hang their heads in shame.  This is the real thing folks, white-hot R&B Blues-based transformative, visionary, hallucinatory goddamned rock and roll.  The last time I saw them stands in my memory as one of the very finest rock and roll performances I’ve ever seen, and I brought along a friend whose personal taste in music leans heavily in quite another direction with keywords such as BPMs, electronic, remixes, turntable, trance, etc., and he was completely transfixed and dare I say, converted.  Tonights  set should be great.  My only fear is that the ceiling above the stage area might be a bit low for the towering vocalist Marcus Durant’s 6 foot 7 inch frame, especially if he leaps straight up, catapulted by the spontaneous transcendent power of this band, unleashed.  I can’t fucking wait.  Look for the music to begin between 9:30 and 10:00, and don’t let my effusive banter persuade you to miss Lost Goat, as I’ve heard nothing but great things about their live sets of sludgey dark and droning metal mayhem.  They should set a perfect tone for a night of great music in a great bar with an unflinching commitment to rock and roll.  And you can’t beat the price of admission.

Speaking of commitment to rock and roll, few individuals I know in San Francisco exhibit such an undying and forthright dedication to presenting it, promoting it, thrusting it boldly into places it’s never been before, and creating it as well as my friend Nancy Kravitz.  From her humble beginnings as creator of Female Trouble the first nightclub to pair up dykes and rock and roll and feature and spawn dozens of all-female acts in San Francisco, to her hands on involvement and planning of entertainment stages at our biggest annual Street Fairs, to her being a member of a handful of different bands over the years, and her constant employment or association with at least one live music venue at all times no matter what for over a decade here in S.F., Nancy Kravitz lives, eats and breathes Rock and Roll.  At present time, the band she plays bass in for about three years now, Fabulous Disaster, have a new release on Pink and Black Records called Put Out Or Get Out, and when I picked up a copy at Tower the other day I was overcome with a warm mushy sentimental feeling.  There it was, in it’s own section with it’s own plastic identifying divider right there in Tower fucking Records, the photo of the band on back, Nancy wearing a shirt emblazoned with the words “Mister Fucking Nancy.”  I felt so proud of her.

Having just returned from a European tour with a variety of other bands from Fat Wreck Chords, Nancy told me of her antics on this rock and roll tour. Fab D being the only girls on board with a bunch of young and rowdy boy bands, what was she to eventually to do but start acting like an 18 year old boy, drinking too much, moshing around with the kids, playing stagehand and throwing stage-divers back into the crowd, catching the boys on the bus using a mirror to spy on one of their band members fucking some groupie in his bunk and joining in to watch, actually visiting Stonehenge and buying a souvenir flask, all really great little anecdotes.  She said the band was very well received and getting really tight in that way that only touring and playing night after night can do.

I popped the CD in as soon as I got home and we are talking about one seriously kick ass fast and tough achievement.  The disc opens with a snippet of dialog from some movie like Faster Pussycat Kill Kill or some bad teen drama of a man saying, “Do you, you, you and you know that bad girls go to hell?” Then the disc just slams into overdrive, constructed a lot like their live sets, song, quick pause, song, no stopping-for-breath full on assault of very complete and fully fleshed out songs that all clock in at around two minutes or less.  Some of the songs are re-recorded versions from their first release, a much less produced one-take live recording, and I’m thrilled to say none of the re-worked versions suffer at all from this process.  I hear nothing but total improvement on songs that already showed a promising structure and the newer previously unreleased songs clearly chart a band in synonymous motion progressing and growing as a unit.  The lyrics and vocals are much more distinct and easier to understand than on the previous record and basically the predominantly expressed emotion from song to song is good old-fashioned violent anger, and we all know much fun and practical usefulness that can provide in everyday life.  It’s even better when that sort of message is conveyed with such sweet sounding vocal harmonies matched to a driven bassline that pummels like heavy artillery and drums quick as automatic assault weapons.  Put Out Or Get Out is a prime example of a good band finally hitting their stride, and it just happens to be double-time, dipped in sugar, packing heat, and casting out vicious words that bite.  If vengeance had a soundtrack, it would sound like this.  The more I play Fabulous Disaster the less I care how old The Donna’s supposedly just turned.  I am reminded that over ten years ago I looked towards the Female Trouble scene for a vitality and aggression that seemed to be missing in music in general.  Look towards the girls of Fabulous Disaster because they definitely put out.

When I first heard the announcement that the main stage at the Gay and Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Pride Parade and celebration was featuring The B52s, a voice from inside me said “I’m going”, which was a stark contrast to the acid dripping jaded gay rainbow colored sentiments I’d usually be hearing from those “voices” around this time of the year.  In fact, I haven’t even vaguely acknowledged the intensely huge and commercial celebration for a few years running, having waved goodbye to it all the year that Jerry Garcia died and some hetero hippie dead head tried to sell me some stupid formerly grateful Dead I’m-tripping-on-acid bouncy antennae-like head gear that had been quickly modified with a rainbow flag paint job.  I went off on this person hitting me with a sales pitch, not wanting to aid them in their career transition, no matter how many years they’d scraped out an existence selling bootlegs, tie-dyes and LSD to patchouli wearing non-bathers with dilated pupils.  I was not going to be their new target market, especially not in front of the B of A mobile versateller vehicle parked like a queen bee in a hive, clusters of gay drones patiently waiting to touch the queen and have her dispense a reason to be, to go on, power, sustenance, energy, esteem, will.  Ah yes, Cash=Pride, and at that moment, with the one story tall inflatable beer bottle looming like a Kubrik-esque monolith in the background, it was all too vivid a picture.  Things had certainly changed a great deal for the Gay Parade over its nearly three decades in existence, and I had been present for about half of them.  I’ve taken part as an innocent wide-eyed spectator, as a journalist, as an activist, as a voting member in attendance at parade planning committee meetings, and as a part of a parade contingent comprised of a flatbed truck full of drag queens and freaks on drugs and make-up, queers of a more alternative ilk, a neighborhood threat with a We’ve-come –for-your-children attitude.  Sadly, many of those people are no longer having dilemmas over whether to attend Gay Pride Parades or not, and the tremendous loss of lives we all have experienced has a lot to do with an overall urge to just skip the largest single Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender celebration in the world.  Gay Pride Day is a magnificent highly anticipated celebration for hundreds of thousands of people who will have a great, empowering and important experience but it’s understandable why others have sworn off of it, feeling it represents a loss of certain ideals, blatant commercialization or even a painful reminder of those no longer with us to celebrate.  Instead of attending I generally chose other things to do on Gay Day in recent years, like paint the bathroom or do laundry.

Now, isn’t it funny that the one thing that came up and prompted me to change my mind and level of enthusiasm, the added feature that turned my attitude completely around and made my pulse race with excitement again over the auspicious final Sunday of June was a tacky little dance band from Athens, GA. Called The B52s.  I really can’t think of a better band to be featured for any gay day celebration past or present, aside from perhaps Sylvester but he had pretty much stopped performing by the time I attended my first parade and I most definitely had a genetic predisposition for rock and roll anyway.  Why are the B52s so perfect for Gay Day?  Lots of reasons as I see it.  Think back to the first time many of us ever laid eyes on this group.  It was likely their appearance as musical guest on Saturday Night Live and frankly it was one of the most unusual performances by a rock band many had ever seen.  Many of my own friends were freaked out by them or found them unsettling enough to say they actually hated them for being weird.  They failed to see the humor in it.   The fun-loving statements made by their unusual retro campy clothes and twitchy sped up dance moves and the salute to the heavily engineered hair-style achievement known as the bee-hive were lost on most guys who didn’t secretly enjoy playing dress-up with their older sister on occasion.  It was also sort of a given that any guy who danced around like Fred did, singing about trips to the beach with matching towels was probably a big fag.  Beyond all that, there was one thing I found irresistible about this group, and that was their reckless destination plan for each song to go to one place and one place only—on a collision course with fun—BANG!  Their abandon as they all fall to the floor during the “down, down, down “ part of  “Rock Lobster” kind of sealed it all for me.  They are not only fearless and unashamed to be looking different and acting in a way others might consider foolish, they’ll even fall down on the floor for you like children playing dead, and you knew they were having the most fun and the only way to keep up with them was to dance.  Thus began a long relationship with a band no one could ever accuse of putting a damper on a good party mood.

However, nine years and three hit albums after forming in 1976, guitarist Ricky Wilson, brother of vocalist Cindy died of AIDS.  It was hard to imagine the upbeat party band surviving this very real and very sad loss but they did, and eventually in 89 released Cosmic Thang, a fantastic strong and fresh release that yielded several hit singles and launched a big tour that touched down here in SF for five sold out nights at the Filmore.  Those shows were unforgettably joyous, a testament to the survival of the bands original intent, to be a fun-seeking tacky little dance band from Athens GA, to turn whereever they play into a free for all dance party.  That is what I anticipate from The B52s on Gay Day, a great band bent on turning the largest gay and lesbian celebration into a fun-filled colorful wig-dotted dance party, a sentiment and plan that in spite of daunting times has survived and is as Gay as the day is long.  So check out the printed schedule of entertainers on the main stage and be there ready to dance, and when you hear “Down, down, down,” just do it!

Finally I wish you all the happiest of Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Pride Parade and Celebrations and I urge you all to score your drugs ahead of time and do them with discretion and care and in non-lethal combinations and away from the eyes of authority and never take them with you to the nightclubs, it does everyone a world of good in the long run.  If you might be interested to see some of my old columns from Gay Days past you can find a few on my website at www.donbaird.com, and at some point during the weekend get away from the computer and try cruising the streets for tradition’s sake.  Preserve an ancient gay ritual before the only trace of it ends up being on printed paper in files at the Gay and Lesbian Historical Society

After a long wait of about a year and a half, signed up and obligated to stick with a new upstart company promising to provide free DSL service as soon as the technical ability reached my particular region of this proud land o’ mine, I finally got my DSL up and operating.  At last I had evolved to the next level of high speed information at my fingertips, the future was mine, I’d left the swamp walking on my hind legs, I would never accidentally tell the deaf neighbor boy that I baked his dog for him.  Things were looking up for me in the cyber-world with this newly added turbo feature, as speed is very important to me.  But approximately 8 or 9 hrs after I got it going, the new upstart company sent word explaining that they had gone bankrupt!  The progress was yanked away from me immediately. Suddenly my opposable thumbs were gone, I was back to that archaic and buggy 56K modem, lost connections, missed phone calls and download times of up to an hour for just one song on Napster.

Having had but a taste of DSL service I knew I just had to have it, even if it wasn’t free so I chose a more solid big brother-ish company and waited impatiently for the arrival of a modem and adapters and instructions and all that stuff, which came, but not without a myriad of complicated problems rendering certain functions of my computer useless or obsolete or improperly configured or just plain too fucked up to be understood by a parade of friends trying to help, all ready to apply their unique version of expertise to the predicament in spite of my raging bitch demeanor and often to no avail.  Once again in the wake of making a technological improvement on my computer, it turned into the same old two steps forward six steps back situation that makes me want to throw the whole fucking thing out the window, which I nearly did.  Finally it happened, the right lights blinked in unison, the proper update kicked in, the enabler enabled but in a good way, and I had DSL running properly.  I believe that was the very day that the court ordered Napster to stop distributing music they didn’t own rights to, wouldn’t you know.

I’m not exactly sure what this ultimately means for Napster because the entire legal odyssey sparked largely by Metallica member Lars Ulrich has been such a long drawn out battle with the upper-hand being volleyed back and forth between the two opposing factions, but the most recent rulings definitely make the future of Napster look pretty bleak.  Taking this into consideration, my DSL service and I paid the renowned music-trading program a visit.  I figured it would be like vultures picking over the bones of a battlefield, having heard on the news that Napster was being forced to whittle down their shared files by thousands daily but it wasn’t exactly like that at all.

Sure, running a search on major artists like Stevie Wonder, Eminem, Dr. Dre, Led Zeppelin, The Supremes, Marilyn Manson or Pearl Jam now produces no shared files, but if you pick something a bit more obscure like Placebo, Make-up, The Euroboys, Kyuss, Stereo Total, Los Amigos Invisibles, The Bellrays and other more Indie type bands or even local acts like Zen Guerrilla or Fabulous Disaster, you can still find tons of things, even rare covers, live cuts and other oddities you didn’t even know existed.  This works as well for a lot of older rock music of a more obscure nature like the MC5, The Dictators, The Sonics, etc.  It all depends on what other people are signed on and sharing from their personal collections and how much of the material has been officially made unavailable for sharing in this manner.  Now that I have DSL I’m downloading tons of stuff  because it takes so very little time, and there are lots of fun ways to locate great material,  we just don’t know for how much longer.

One of my latest methods for locating great music online is run a search for Kiki and Herb, the fabulously famous cabaret duo from San Francisco who have been ruling New York for a few years now with their unequalled theatrical/musical brilliance.  Last year they released a Christmas Album, “Do You Hear What We Hear,” and I thought if anyone on Napster is sharing files by Kiki and Herb well then they’ve got to have excellent taste so I see who has them in their shared files then I peruse their entire collections and find the most fabulous and eclectic and informed collections I’ve ever encountered on my searches.  And these libraries are growing fast, likely because they fear the impending demise or regulation of Napster as well.  Another very fun way to search for songs is to just put one word in the title part of the search box and see what songs it comes up with.  I’ve mentioned this before, it’s fun to try words like “crack” or  “suck” or “need” or “dick” and see how many titles come up with that word in them.  It can make for a lovely thematic medley for some cocktail party in your future, perhaps a farewell to Napster party because I just don’t know how much longer we’ll have the Napster that America made the fastest growing most downloaded music file-sharing program ever.  It’s my guess that we’ll have a fair amount of time remaining to continue finding great music for free, but you better get on it.

Speaking of Kiki and Herb, they have a website now that you can visit at http://www.kikiandherb.com.  Here you will find bios, show schedules, upcoming events, past awards, photos, where to purchase their fantastic album, and lots more fun Kiki and Herb related links.  Among them is one that is really fantastic that you must visit.  There’s a big banner that will take you to Spin.com for the streaming video feature Kiki and Herb present the 2nd Annual Anti-Grammys.  Brought to you live from the Fez in New York, Kiki and Herb reel through a sizable list of odd award categories in response to the historically lame Grammys.  The streaming video capabilities of my computer are much better now that I have DSL, so the nine short segments run smoothly and are totally brilliant.  Kiki is in rare form as she adds her own thoughts, opinions and personal experience to each award and nominee announced, revealing her friendship with Eminem’s mother Debbie Mathers, Christina Aguilera’s true age, and her bold feelings about the criminal charges brought against a number of todays biggest music stars.  This is Kiki at her stream of consciousness, ad-libbing and outrageous best, adequately capturing that inimitable between song banter that slays me every time.  This was such a great idea for Spin.com to showcase this talented duo, New York’s nightlife phenomenon, so that a broader range of people can see a bit of one of the greatest acts on earth.  Check out the site, it’s hysterically funny.

I got an e-mail from Justin Bond the other day and like any true star, He is busy, busy, busy.  He was heading to L.A. to be in Rufus Wainwright’s new video, a pastiche on Andy Warhol’s Heatin which he’ll play the Sylvia Miles role.  Then Kiki and Herb will be hosting the4th anniversary Mr. Lady Records showcase in North Carolina with Le Tigre and The Butchies.  Soon after that Kiki and Herb will open their extended engagement summer show in New York entitled Stop Drop and Roll at The Fez I believe.  In the meantime, Justin will be teaching a course at NYU in Performance Composition and towards the end of August they will be appearing at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  Oh yeah, I almost forgot, Michelle tea told me the other day that she was reading an interview in New York Magazine with Monica Lewinsky and the interviewer asked her what she did for fun, who she hangs out with, who are her friends, and Ms. Lewinsky said, “Justin Bond.”

As a final note I’d like to express my deep sadness over the untimely death of Joey Ramone.  The Ramones as a band remained together and consistent and true to their seminal punk rock glue-sniffing retardo rocker form for over 25 years and I remember a late night about 20 years ago at a friends house in Eugene, Oregon we listened to the song  “I Just Wanna Have Something To Do Tonight,” turned up full blast and jumping around the room and I have to say that at that particular moment in time Rock and Roll had never felt better.  I’ll always feel a little bit like that every time I hear that song.  Long Live the Ramones.

After a two-issue absence from the pages of Bay Times, I’m pleased to be back on board and raring to go again. Taking a well-deserved break put a lot of things in perspective for me, like for instance just how long I’ve been writing this column, which is (gasp!) over a decade, the many purposes and functions it has served over the years, the never-ending list of crusades I’ve attached the Beat This seal of approval to, the personal crusades I’ve maintained and led over the years like the constant tireless commitment to enlightening gays to the vital rebellion of rock and roll, or at least showing those queers out there who like rock music that they aren’t alone, or the consistent pro-drug, pro-honesty, anti-hypocrisy and non-judgmental stance I’ve always maintained regarding better living through chemistry, the many great artists I’ve watched develop and conquer and re-invent and triumph, the many talented and loved individuals who have died,  my avid interest in nearly every schoolyard shooting tragedy, well before they were so popular, and my learned views on the changing face of  gay male sexual behaviors in the age of AIDS and Aquarius.  In looking back upon a decade plus of Beat This it becomes clear that the amount of editorial freedom, dirty words, irreverent and illegal suggestions, highly personal ruminations and things that were just wrong as the day is long, would never have been tolerated, let alone printed by any other local gay publication than the S.F. Bay Times.  Whenever I went just a bit over the top with my content, S.F.Bay Times has stood behind me with an unapologetic aplomb, defending my character and level of professionalism when questioned by letters from uptight readers concerned by my references to casual drug use or suggestions of presidential assassination.  It is here within these pages where I shall continue to try to fuck shit up, speak the unmentionable, and point you readers in the right direction for the best rock and roll to be had.

Perhaps I’ve been feeling a bit retrospective and sentimental these days because certain events have really sparked a wave of nostalgia running deep and detailed through my consciousness in a powerful way.  The main catalyst for this would be the series of “going away” parties for Ggreg Taylor former nightclub promoter and event coordinator who for many years was responsible for really taking this town on a journey through a nightlife that was definitely world class, imaginative, unique and unforgettable.  Master Taylor has decided to pull up stakes and move to London, a very popular destination for all opulent superstars these days (Ggreg Taylor, Madonna, my roommates Adam and Michael, etc.), where I’m certain he’ll lead a content, successful and mainly vegetarian lifestyle. His final installment of the going away parties took place at The Eagle Tavern on St. Patrick’s Day, which was also proclaimed Ggreg Taylor Day in San Francisco and he was presented an official plaque by Mark Leno from the Mayor.  This get-together was the best party of the year in my book.  I hadn’t been so completely enveloped in a huge crowd of familiars in what seemed like years.  Many folks who have moved away returned for the event and there was just a huge good feeling going on about it.  The sadness that often comes with saying farewell to a friend was kept to an almost non-existent minimum, as it should be.  I’m thrilled for any of my friends who choose to strike out into bold new territory.  It only means that I’m more likely to travel abroad to visit them, and stop your sobbing, folks, Ggreg will definitely be back for Burning Man before you know it. I’m sure fun was had by all and I wish nothing but the best for Ggreg as he embarks on a new adventure as a strange one in a strange land.  One last thing about the party that I gotta say, for being the group of dinosaurs or “old queens” who remember and took part in all those events from ancient times-so many of us can still party like champs and are still looking so totally fuck-able!  No lie, this crowd was desirable.

And speaking of the Eagle Tavern, I’m pleased as can be to announce that I’m now DJ-ing the still-going-strong-as-ever Sunday afternoon institution known as The Beer Bust, on every other Sunday afternoon, alternating with owner and extraordinary DJ Joe Banks, who is always a pleasure to hear back in the booth again.  I must admit I was very nervous at first, spinning for one of the biggest assembled crowds going on any Sunday, but I took to it pretty easily, the crowd being full of energy, receptive, and even forthcoming with logical informed rock and roll requests, and compliments!  I began to wonder if all of these years of one-off rock clubs here and there where I pushed the rock and roll envelope on a gay crowd to varying degrees of success and longevity, have actually paid off.  After years of repetitive monotonous dance oriented disco being the norm for the eagle beer busts and most gay bars for that matter, a change in ownership brought a change in the musical style presented.  The Eagle would now rock.  That change was a few years ago, and presently it seems at long last that the crowd is actually embracing Rock and Roll with enthusiasm and interest.  I always thought leather was a more suitable match for rock and roll than it was for say Gloria Gaynor anyway.  Come on down to the beer bust and check it out.  I think the age-old tradition is more fun than ever and I’ve noticed lately that the crowd has been hanging around well past nightfall, cozy, warm and dark by the fire.

Since my schedule at work has changed lately, I’ve been freed up on Tuesdays and can now attend the ever popular five year old Tranny-phenomenon showcase Trannyshack at the Stud.  This weekly club has always been a total blast, sprinkled with the magic dust of San Francisco’s nightlife past; it maintains the ribald and outrageous spirit of drag performance with continually innovative and fresh new talent and future legends in the making.  More recently the over all appeal of the club has been brilliantly augmented by the gifted and demented sounds of DJ Pinky Ring, serving up a fresh enough mix of eclectic sounds to keep the crowd there and dancing well after the show is over, not to mention before.  The Shack has always featured impressive DJ’s, but with Pinky Ring they’ve really struck gold.  The sick motherfucker has got it going on.

This particular night’s theme was Ghetto Fabulous and the designated co host was the legendary Ethylinna Canne, making a trip up from southern cal where she has been residing on the right side of the law since her arrest-incarceration-release-and re-establishment as a productive member of society.  For those unfamiliar with the entire story, Heklina opened the show with a number that depicted Ethylinna’s entire history with credit card fraud in under three minutes, filling in the holes in the story with a rather scathing introduction, which didn’t seem to be delivered with a singular purpose of informing as much as insulting her co host.  You see, Ethylinna was a bit late in arriving and this brought out all kinds of feelings in Heklina.  Granted, habitually late people are annoying, especially for someone trying to present a cavalcade of performances with a good flow that continually engages the crowd, but news flash-Ethylinna Canne is not the only queen who has ever been late!  We weren’t the first Trannyshack audience who waited a little longer for show time. Shocking but true, many people have witnessed this rare dynamic before.  But far be it for me to want to make excuses for a late drag queen-as the evening rolled on several other comments that came about took precedence over the initial problem Heklina chose to share with all.  Before I nit-pick into the issue, one of the things that should’ve taken precedence over all these snide attitudes and aggressively slanderous remarks flying about that night was Putenesca. What a magnificent look, an assault of afro-slut chic that was large, very large and dripping with a raunchy sexuality to match the song she performed, a real gem by the oft-forgotten nasty gal vocalist from the 70’s Betty Davis.  Putenesca rules.  Also impressive was someone by the name of Cookie who bore some resemblance to the current Miss Trannyshack, only painted ghetto black.  She performed a very cool remix of a song by Tricky that features a slow cool female rap about guns and having a fucked up day.  Great performance, far more worthy of focusing on than the ugly situation that played out just beforehand.

While Heklina continued on with her diatribe against her tardy co host, it seems that one Ethylinna Canne fan started yelling things back at her, none of which I could actually hear but the comments angered Heklina so much she had the person removed from the club while yelling into the microphone, “You can just get out and go home and do your speed and stay up all night and pick holes in your face and go out tomorrow and we’ll see who looks better.”  The crowd sort of cheered Heklina on a bit but a touch of indifference or curiosity creeped across the room.  I was instantly appalled by this out of the blue drug reference and judgmental attack on a customer but frankly it wasn’t the first anti-speed reference I’ve heard coming from Heklina while onstage.  I really began to wonder why a person who runs a nightclub that stays open after hours and caters to a clientele who may very well be on all kinds of drugs would toss out such a blatant judgment on a patron.  Another curious thought that occurred to me was the totally different regard Trannyshack holds for another substance, alcohol.  It’s the cute and cuddly substance to do, and when you do too much you “black-out” a trannyshack buzzword used for their official T-shirts that read, “I blacked out at Trannyshack.” I sensed that alcohol abuse was promoted heavily by the club because if you drink too much you enter some state of adorable cartoonlike behavior, desirable and funny and “what becomes a legend most.”  While the Tranny crew might often brag about blacking out as if its glamorous or a source of pride, I beg to differ.  I’ve seen blackouts before and they aren’t pretty, and I’ve gone to trannyshack and been so overwhelmed by the stench of vomit I had to leave.  Is there anything right or adorable about that?  Not really, but I wont anticipate Heklina riding someone’s ass out of the club insinuating openly that they are hideous drunks just because they like a performer she’s mad at.

The point is, this is a nightclub we’re talking about, a place where people on any and every manner of drug should be able to come and never get harshly judged or put down or ridiculed for what drugs someone assumes they are on.  Heklina’s attack on that guy seemed so personally motivated.  I had to wonder if perhaps someone close to Heklina in the past had gotten involved with speed and maybe over- did it and their lives took a serious spiral downward that put a permanent strain on their relationship or caused a great deal of pain or anger that still very much affects him.  Sometimes when someone points an accusatory finger at another person, the bigger noise made could be the rattling of skeletons in their own closet.  Personally I wouldn’t know, and I felt resentful that I was prompted to think about these things when I was just out for a good time and to see Ethylinna Canne perform, which she finally did, and she was really good but I must admit, how the situation was handled definitely detracted from the overall show for sure.  I’m certain that some will read this and say, “Of course he’s offended, he’s a speed freak.”  Well, one needn’t have been much more beyond a simple human being to have been offended that night.

Heklina announced earlier that night that she and a couple more queens were going to New York the next day to do The Rikki Lake Show for the third time.  Perhaps that explains her behavior on this night, she was just warming up.  But at Ggreg Taylor’s party a little bird told me that ironically enough the subject matter of the Rikki Lake episode they shot, which are always fictitious and created by writers, consisted of Heklina being savaged by her friends for having a horrible drinking problem.  I hope someone tapes it; I tend to miss this sort of television programming.

Just as I was placing my bid on an autographed photo of Courtney Love on E-bay, I got an instant message from an acquaintance I made online about two years ago, a girl named Shaira who shared my enthusiasm for Courtney and other things and contacted me by e-mail and from there things blossomed into a fun little tit for tat online relationship.  We would share our latest woes with men, trade Courtney gossip, discuss various counter-cultural and artistic entities of underground note, and just generally kvetch.  It had been awhile since I heard from her and she was just bursting with the latest sordid Hollywood saga Courtney is embroiled in.  Before she divulged I asked, “This isn’t the fact that Courtney made Mr Blackwell’s worst dressed list is it?”

“Oh no, this is much better,” she responded.

It seems that Courtney Love’s sudden departure from a John Carpenter film called Ghosts of Mars last summer wasn’t due to an ankle injury she sustained during physical training for her first action/adventure feature as was reported initially.  Love did suffer an injury but it wasn’t her workout that caused it, no it was something much more delicious!  It seems Courtney’s current beau, music industry executive Jim Barber, had a wife with a bun in the oven whom he left for “the girl with the most cake” and the said party went into a bit of a funk/rage over the loss of her man and did what any girl in that situation might do, she went into full-on stalker mode and ran over Courtney’s foot with her automobile!  But that is not all…apparently this ex-wife Lesley Barber also tried to burn Love’s house down, stalked her daughter Frances by hanging in a car outside her school, and tried to plant cocaine in Loves car. The litigiously experienced Love has filed suit against Lesley Barber, saying that the injury sustained made her lose out on a film role that would have paid $500,000.  Friends of Barber claim the relationship had begun to deteriorate well before Love came into the picture

This little tidbit seemed so ironic to my friend and I because all those things the ex-Mrs. Barber allegedly did sound completely and eerily like something Courtney would’ve or could’ve done in a second during her less illustrious pre-Hollywood days.  In fact, not too many years have passed since the time when Love went running down Hollywood blvd. barefoot and in a slip because she heard Mary Lou Lord, a former love interest of her very deceased husband Kurt Cobain’s, was playing a gig somewhere on the strip and she wanted to kick her ass.  Oh well, you know what they say…people change.

On most other fronts Courtney is sitting pretty, as was exemplified perfectly by a brief interview recently in the chronicle by Liz Smith.  The two blondes talked about the steady serious and impressive film projects Love has lined up for the near future including Hello, Suckers!, the Martin Scorsese produced Scott Elliot directed biopic of legendary prohibition-era star of stage and screen Texas Guinan,  followed by the Steven Soderbergh (Traffic) George Clooney produced, Russo Bros. Directed Welcome To Collinwood, a comedy caper about a pawn shop robbery in working class Cleveland orchestrated by Loves character in the film.  After reading the interview, one could almost assume that the delightful LSD-taking, out bull dagger Liz Smith was unduly impressed by Ms. Love’s intelligence.  She couldn’t have been more glowing and obviously taken with Courtney’s capacity for knowledge on great women in film history.  I’d say Smith was probably a bit starry-eyed and even smitten.  Also smitten, I soon learned, was my friend Shaira who couldn’t wait to tell me that in the many months since we had spoken, she had found true love on the internet with a proper British gentleman who came to the states to meet her, they truly fell in love and he went back to collect his things and is moving here for good.

I remarked that it was an odd coincidence that another friend of mine recently met her true love online and he was British also, and he came here and married my friend and took her off to his homeland.  The friend I speak of is Omewenne Grimstone, the actress, playwright, musician, and an incredibly creative and prolific force in the S.F. underground theater scene over the past decade.  You might best remember her for her amazing play about the life of Nico which she wrote and starred in called Nico, My Empty Pages, and more recently the bloodbath of brilliant theater she directed and starred in at the Café DuNord entitled The Grimm Guignol, an unprettied-up adaptation of three stories by the Brothers Grimm.  Still others might remember her numerous roles in many Sick and Twisted Players productions over the years as well, many of which I had the honor of playing in also.  She was magnificent in the Piper Laurie role in Carrie and I recall her in the first ever S&T version of Halloween in the Jamie Lee Curtis role, and when that slasher classic hit’s a certain point in the storyline, the Jamie Lee Curtis character pretty much screams for the rest of the film.  It was at that moment when the screaming begins that I knew Ommewenne was an epic and monumental talent.  In rehearsal she always saved her voice by just saying in a normal tone “scream, scream, scream more, stab him…scream again, etc” but in performance her blood-curdling scream sent shivers like an electrical charge through my entire being.  She claimed to have applied technique learned from watching Faye Wray in King Kong.  This was a powerful talent, and a consummate professional who was never less than a joy to work with.  She also played the Margot Kidder role in The Amityville Horror and then years later ironically was cast in the last film project Kidder completed before she went missing and was found delusional and mumbling to herself in someone’s back yard in southern California.  I believe she played a love interest of Margot’s character. At the time of her sudden departure from San Francisco she was hitting on new levels of creativity with her music and adapting another batch of Grimm’s Tales for the stage, but love came her way on the internet and before too long she was married at the courthouse and then gone to live in England with her husband, a nice polite gentleman with the surname of Frost, a properly gothic name for Omewenne to happily take on.  I wish her all the best for her marriage and just hope to God she continues to create and perform, wherever she is.  This little burgh has lost a wonderful person and one of our most brilliant and unique talents.  I hope she shares her magic liberally with the people of her new home.  An occasional visit would be nice as well, but I’d travel great distances to see her perform, or to just see her.  I miss her already.

Gee, all of these internet-born romances blossoming all around me, you’d think that maybe my knight in shining armor should be just around the cyber corner as well, but no, none of that for me—just a few tawdry lack-luster chance meetings and an ever-growing number of no-shows not to mention a fair amount of winning bids on minor treasures spotted on Ebay and an occasional member of my high school class contacting me.  Oh yeah, I just remembered, I got an e-mail from the original cowboy from The Village People the other day.  A search engine probably brought him to my website at www.donbaird.com where I’ve been posting all of my old columns, one of which was on the first Village People reunion concert.  The note alerted me to his more recent work, a musical project involving some form of an Alien cover-up scheme. No lie.  Tongue in cheek or not, maybe I can sell it on E-bay.