Second Verse same as the First!
1-Sex Vid!!!!! Holy shit! Is it just me or is most of San Francisco walking round in crummy tie dye Sex Vid shirts?
Merchandise it keeps us alive. After seeing them first at the Hemlock I was wondering if it was worth going to the other show because they were just so impossibly great and how could anything else be so exactly what I wanted... But of course the sweaty basement show was like watching like Neos open for Void or being able to eat pizza for every meal with no consequences. Speaking of which; I can't believe people would wanna leave SF. It's fucking great here posers; we have good pizza, and good punks. Spoken in faux Valley girl accent, since I have returned from my brief sojourn to the UK I have seen THREE next level amazing best ever (for sure!) shows. I mean fucking SEX VID!!!! This band is the best. They are like a birthday present and and xmas present without yr family breathing down yr throat. Seriously, watching them play it's hard to believe a band that good is even possible in a climate such as today; doom clad shitty message board fucktard mythologies and depressing bug eyed record vampire cataloging fuckers. Sex Vid are like acid on the eyeballs of those boring dorks. And yes, I finally got a tye die shirt, as did the rest of this dirt bag city and so on and so on. The basement show, which was probably the best ever, at least for right now, I couldn't believe it would be even technically possible to top their previous achievements but they did so with venom and vigour. and I got to bro-down with the legend, True Bromance, with his Corrosion of Conformity/Void tatts etc etc (and that’s a long etc etc). I formed two conceptual bands, New Age Attack and Ancient Rage. Um Sex Vid are totally dreamy and doomy. Lately I have been into walking out to the ocean thru the foggy neanderthal trees listening to Die Kreuzen and the only thing that touches that experience is terms of radness would be watching Sex Vid play a basement show and everyone losing it totally and realizing, Greg Sage style, that now is the time, when is the truth.
2-Then Finally Punk and the New Bloods played a show at the Albany Landfill which I had to work for the duration of, which was a major irritant... BUT I heard a rumour that they were to be playing a show at a top secret bar, that night, in town. I harrassed people and made em all go and everyone that showed up was glad for this, really they were. Finally Punk! All girl Texas destruction like a Lilliput-Mika Miko-Bush Tetras-Amos and Sara-Unit 3+ Venus mash up. I dont know! I dont know! Just go see them; they are on tour now!! You will be totally wretched for missing out on their brand of radness; they trade instruments after every song and are just so genuine and exciting and cool. They have this deadly combo of detatched humor and charming attack, it’s ironic and genuine all at once, and is another situation where it's hard to believe something so rad is happening in front of yr eyes and yet it is... One thing watching them kind of reminded me of was seeing Erase Errata play the Smell when they had just put out their demo. It was a great show-Sharon Cheslow, Erase Errata and Quixotic, and I had never heard of Erase Errata before so they had nothing to prove in my eyes, just another lame support band. Watching them play was like watching the Beatles or something, I can’t exactly explain it, I don’t mean it was as mindblowingly amazing musically maaaan, because, to be honest, I only like about three Beatles songs total... But the thing I like about them as a band is their inherent charisma and individual personas, if that makes sense. They weren’t bland identikit pop idols. Watch a Hard Days Night. This relates to that Erase Errata show because... Um yeah, Erase Errata are not like the Beatles as people. I don’t know them at all personally but they all seem kind of shy and withdrawn; BUT what I mean to say in this long digression is that watching them on stage playing music, each member was so cool and charismatic and it was maybe like a watch where you can see all the machinery and it’s so delicate and intricate but the sum of it also makes an impact.... um! That was the only association I had in regards to watching Finally Punk play. They don’t really sound like Erase Errata, they are more aggressive and confident, but they had that visual excitement and presence, but you know they are PUNKER. Last time I saw them was at a crazy eviction show in Oakland, where kids were climbing out of the windows and throwing fireworks, so being able to actually see them and pay attention made me realize truly how great they are.... Then the New Bloods played. They are totally like what you wish wimmin's music was instead of crystals, mullets and folk song; gritty earthy basement Raincoats style with total fire and ferocity. SO AMAZING!! Live even better than on record: again, really! This may sound weird, but their music was strong and angry but not angsty in a way that makes it easy to write off as another post riot grrrl antagonism. It has this drive and power and authority that is really cool and um powerful? I can’t wait to hear their next record, and am really happy Kill Rock Stars are going to put them out, they are fucking great.
3-You should get all the 7"s and designer merch put out by all the aforementioned bands or lose out. I think that Finally Punk have a new 7" coming out on someone from uh Deerhunter??'s label. Does that sound right? I think so. (Ps there’s a pretty amazing interview with Dennis Cooper and that Deerhunter dude in the new ANP quarterly... the one with Phillis Diller on the cover) Anyways I am sure Kill Rock Stars will distro it; Finally Punk also have a 7” LP and a CDR. KRS are putting out the New Bloods, who have a 7” on Brown Sugar records (or is it burnt sugar?? Dude! I forgot. Brice White’s label...) and a CDR. Sex Vid are gonna be on a top secret division of CTR recs I think? a 12"? oh yeh. It’s not as punk as a 7”, but being that they have already released the two of the best hardcore 7” of this decade I guess it’s cool...
4-Hubb's story about going to see Tortoise with the intent of getting the dude in that band who was also in Mecht Mensch to issue/let him issue some sort of discography. Instead he wound up drinking a bunch of the Fucking Champs' rider and was so wasted by the time Tortoise finished their epic dirge of a set he has no recollection of anything at all except the worst hangover of all time.
5-Someone made fun of me for liking Comet Gain a while back, because apparently they aren’t ‘punk’ enough for the MRR compound. I admit I avoided them for a long time even when our bands would play together (early 90s London grrrl mod explosion) which I think was probably mostly because I hated the girl singer’s voice. As soon as they replaced her with the awesome Rachel, when all the lame people who wanted to ‘make it’ quit the band, I got into it. I would advise getting their last 12” Imagine the Shapes, it’s great, one song which is somehow created in the image of a Television Personalities song that didn’t happen (not sure about the exact story behind this...), the other feel good like a too much to drink, up all nighter on Brighton Beach singing old PP Arnold songs loud and shakily all at once. They are great. Their records always have clunkers and not-quite-made-its, but the last three LPs have all contained enough killer Swell Maps/TVPs/ Go-Betweens/Jam/Dance Stance references to keep this girl satisfied. I guess some of their early stuff is straight c86 indie pop, but they are punk, and more interesting than another boring power pop revival.
6-One day me and Holly met up and went to see Dan Higgs play a generator show on a bus. I don’t think Lungfish have ever been considered punk, and I admittedly only have gotten into them as I have neared crone-hood, ie gotten older... And if you had been at said bus show you priobably would have gotten out yr bullets belts and started trying to make all those D-Beeat war porn record covers a reality RIGHT THERE. BUT it was rad. It was a surprisingly warm day/evening for summer in SF. (Normally it is fuckin cold here all summer, because of some weird weather thing where the hot air of the central valley area of California combined with the ocean and maybe the bay too makes SF a foggy cold non- summery place til about October when it gets HOT for about a week, VAGUE SCIENCE! PROBABLY NOT ACCURATE.) Since it was Pride weekend the cops assumed the bus was a legal part of the festivities and did not get involved in shutting down the obviously illegal generator show. Bus shows rule. I like it when they are at the Albany Landfill or Potrero Del Sol Park under the overpass, but it was super rad being at a generator show in one of the most visible places in SF on a super nice day and not getting fucked with by cops. We hung out a bunch, got heavy into the primal Dan Higgs earth-ocean-sky spirit and left after the third song, ..
7-NOT because we were too punk, but becase we had plans to sneak into a screening of Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames. Which is incidentally as good on the lady punk move scale as Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains. Essential Logic AND Red Crayola on the soundtrack? oh yeh... An all girl 10 speed bike army avenging rapists and molestors? Oh yeh. Twin towers blowing up because of a post socialist revolution women's army plot? Totally! If you wanna see a post-apocalyptic 70s feminist punk movie that kind of makes no sense but is amazing and life changing anyway... this would be the movie. Watching the army of lady avengers on 10 speed bikes, in V formation, riding down empty revolution struck 70s New York City streets was as close to perfection as say, um watching Sex Vid play a bsement show? This movie was made over a period of seven years, so it starts out with afros and Staples Singers and ends with the Bloods (the New York girl punk band from the late 70s) and lots of Warriors style radio code messages. It’s just so inspiring and clumsy and cool...
8-Saw Fucked Up, heard that they are playing a show IN OLYMPIA with Spider and the Webs, AND Sex Vid. This is my dream show, just those two bands.
Fucked Up were actually really great even though I just got bored of them last year after they put out the double LP. Which I have only heard once! How lame am I? But a DOUBLE LP! It doesn’t make me think of Double Nickels on the Dime or Zen Arcade, more like um MDC’s Smoke Circles. Which is like most of that band’s out put bar a 7” or two, a bummer. Last time I saw Fucked Up it was a total old man in the mosh pit jamboree and this time was no different. Lots of aging dudes being manly. It’s like grown folks hardcore. They undeniably have great songs, as was clearly demonstrated by their set. BUT. There’s something missing from them as a band idea, and maybe musically too; the mystery ingredient that makes me crazy about bands like Finally Punk or Sex Vid. It’s like Fucked Up are too calculated, their myth is too self congratulatory and obviously intended to provoke a response. I don’t know, they do have killer songs, but the idea of an entire double LP of sigils and situationalisms, endless mocking irony is not what I want. Obviously that is not a problem in anyway for them or their future world domination program, I am a nerdy girl who likes the Frumpies better than 86 Mentality or whomever their audience like to mosh it up to so I am sure I am not the target message board dude anyways.
9-Mecht Mensch-Die in the Classroom
10-the Autoclave 7” on Dischord
Dudes. I am sorry, I really probably am not going to write you back. I totally suck at even writing to my friends or my family, and I think the only time I was ever able to make correspondence happen was during the halycon 90s emo pooh bear man lifting banner endpoint endracism longsleeve era. BUT maybe I will change.