2002

The Soft Boys, The Moore Brothers – Slim’s, SF, Sat., November 2

SETLIST : Hear My Brane, Kingdom Of Love, Queen Of Eyes, Mr. Kennedy, My Mind Is Connected…, Insanely Jealous, The Man With The Light Bulb Head, Chinese Bones, (unknown), Le Cherite, Sudden Town, (I Want To Be An) Anglepoise Lamp, Underwater Moonlight, Rock & Roll Toilet, The Bells Of Rhymney, I Wanna Destroy You, Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again, Chapter 24, Om, (encore), If You Know Time, Only The Stones Remain

After the demise of Maritime Hall, I found myself more and more relieved every time I’d see a show as a patron and not ushering at The Fillmore or The Warfield and such was the case again at this Soft Boys show at Slim’s. I had been ushering so many shows in a somewhat vain and desperate attempt to outrun or at least offset my growing angst with the deteriorating world situation and draconian fascism America was descending into at alarming speed. So, hearing Robyn Hitchcock return again with his first band, their music as brilliantly sophisticated as it was uplifting and humorous, was just what the doctor ordered. Yes, The Soft Boys had reunited the year before after over two decades apart and I had seen their first bay area show since then at the aforementioned Fillmore, but they had just released “Nextdoorland”, their first album of new material since their very long hiatus. We were treated to four of their new numbers in their set that night. They also did a free in-store at Amoeba Records the following day, but I had to miss it for some reason, probably working.

Before the music began that evening, there was the customary announcement over the speakers, one everybody who has ever attended a Slim’s show would be familiar with, spoken by the friendly voice of some young man, reminding the audience about the bathrooms and coat check downstairs as well as the food in the kitchen including their garlic fries which one would always be tempted by there with its unmistakable aroma. Opening were The Moore Brothers from Altadena, a mountain town just northeast of Pasadena. Brothers Greg and Thom sang in perfect harmony while strumming their acoustic guitars, a pleasant act to start the evening. They were very quiet, so my recording of them barely registered and I was only able to figure out the titles of their last two songs, “At Times” and “Open My Eyes”. This would be the only occasion I’d see them perform, but with a name like The Moore Brothers, their moniker has been shared with a number of other acts including a recent indy pop band from North Carolina as well as a family of Irish film actors from the earliest days of Hollywood. 

In those paranoid, cruel, and stressful times, it was always relieving to hear Mr. Hitchcock ramble on with his unique brand of scatagorical monologues between songs. He introduced the band early on asking, “What better ways to relax than with The Soft Boys?” and mentioned something about them being the offspring of “Mr. & Mrs. Soft”. They did the new songs “Mr. Kennedy” and “My Mind Is Connected…: early on followed by “Insanely Jealous” which Kimberley Rew did an impressive psychedelic guitar solo. The new material was pretty good, worthy of the Soft Boys and Robyn also did a handful of numbers from his extensive repertoire of solo work. In the middle of “Underwater Moonlight”, he went off on one of his trademark spoken word rants going “40,50,60 fathoms into the abyss” and so forth. 

The Soft Boys did a number of old covers that night starting with as Robyn phrased it, “a song we’ve been practicing since 1976”, “The Bells Of Rhymney” by folk music icon Pete Seeger. In a strange coincidence, a few shows before this, I’d seen Stan Ridgway at the Great American Music Hall play “Little Boxes”, another number penned by Mr. Seeger. The Soft Boys also did Bob Dylan’s “Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again” and one Robyn introduced as “from ‘Pipers At The Gates Of Dawn’”, “Chapter 24” by Pink Floyd. Afterwards, Robyn dedicated the last song of the main set, “Om”, to rock guitar pioneers George Harrison and Sterling Morrison. George from The Beatles (of course) had just passed away the previous November, Sterling from The Velvet Underground in 1995. This night would begin a remarkably busy month of November for me, seeing 13 shows in 30 days, much more active than my usual Novembers. And though mostly once again they would be ushering shows at The Fillmore and Warfield, I would soon return to Slim’s later that month to witness the disaster of the infamous non-performance of Kool Keith, but I’ll get to that when it’s that show’s turn. Stay tuned…

https://archive.org/details/the-soft-boys-slims-11202

https://archive.org/details/the-moore-brothers-slims-11202

The Residents – Warfield, SF, Thur., October 31

SETLIST : Tongue, Betty’s Body, Mickey Macaroni, Wolverines, Mr. Wonderful, Caring, The Weatherman, My Brother Paul, The Car Thief, Mrs. Wonderful, Baja, From The Plains To Mexico, Golden Goat, The Shoe Salesman, The Beekeeper’s Daughter, Honey Bear, Ghost Child, Vampire, Mr. Wonderful, Neediness, (encore), Demons Dance Alone

There are only a tiny cadre of bands that truly epitomize the perfect Halloween concert and certainly The Residents are one of them, without a doubt in the top three alongside perhaps guys like The Cramps and The Damned. The Residents had just released their “Demons Dance Alone” album and like the other times I had seen them at The Fillmore, they were mainly showcasing the new material. This would be part of the first of a three leg, 41 show tour that would stretch almost a year. In fact, three days after this one, they’d be in New York City at the Warsaw Theater where they’d record a live DVD of this new undertaking. And speaking of The Big Apple and the horrible events that transpired there the previous year, there was speculation that “Demons Dance Alone”, though on the surface a more personal story of love, betrayal, and loss, was an allegory for 9/11. Like all great works of art, this strange musical theater piece, which they described as an exploration into “the weariness of the follies of human nature”, The Residents’ new offering was certainly open to a measure of interpretation, one that’s ocean wide in the case of these weirdos. 

And there was without a doubt more than enough disturbing news around that time that we all could use their bizarro melange of mysterious music to distract us. For starters, the tense five day standoff between Chechen rebels holding siege to a theater in Moscow came to a calamitous and unspeakably tragic end when that psychopath Vladimir Putin sent in his stormtroopers, leaving 50 rebels dead along with 150 of their hostages. The day before this, DJ legend Jam Master Jay from Run DMC was gunned down in a recording studio in Queens and though it took over 20 years to convict his murderers, a judge overturned their convictions last year citing lack of motive. Finally, during the previous week, the news came through that the police had nabbed the D.C. snipers, John Allen Muhammed and Lee Boyd Malvo, who had terrorized the area all month, picking off people from their 1990 Chevy Caprice. Muhammed was executed seven years later and Malvo remains in prison, though there had been efforts to change his sentence since he was a minor at the time of this rampage. All three circumstances were indeed the sobering true stuff which Halloween horror stories could hardly compete. 

But back to the show. I was tasked to work all night as an usher clearing aisles, but it being one of those “An Evening With” gigs, it was just The Residents. They had set small tables and chairs all the way up front on the dance floor and when the festivities began, the audience settled in, stayed put, and I was able to crouch down on the short staircase leading to the dance floor, having  solid gold real estate to view and enjoy this mystifying yet unforgettable spectacle. There were as expected many amusing and imaginative costumes worn in the crowd that night though for the life of me, I can’t remember what I was wearing that time. Heavy metal this music is not, so I’m afraid my recording even at that close proximity came out all too quiet, but the setlist on the DVD they made was identical, came out stellar, and is readily available on YouTube. Like all of the music by The Residents, the new material was good yet would grow and fester like a cryptic virus in my brain, revealing its true brilliance more and more as the years  continue to accumulate.

Each song detailed a facet in this complex story of a couple, Homer Flynn fulfilling his vocal and acting duties with the gruff, southern twang as the man and Molly Harvey once again as the woman with her cute, nasally siren song, though the band as always remained anonymous, disguised this time under what looked like cumbersome, green camouflage beekeeping outfits, perhaps a nod to the new song “The Beekeeper’s Daughter”. Between their melodic back stories of melancholic yearning and co-dependence, a red masked little devil guy in a matching red unitard would scamper about periodically, at one point doing a trumpet solo that was obvious it was just him haphazardly blasting random, crude notes much to all our amusement. There was another moment where he ran up and down the aisles with a flashlight and took a beat to hang out literally within inches of me on that staircase. Let’s just say I got a close encounter with what Ethyl Meatplow would call the “Devil’s Johnson” and leave it at that. This was not the first Residents Halloween show in the city, but unlike so many others which take place on that ghoulish holiday, this one shamefully wasn’t given a poster at the end of the night. It would be another eight years until I would see The Residents again, that time on “Devil’s Night”, the evening before Halloween, at the Fox Theater in Oakland opening for Primus. That one got a lovely poster, but I had to pay for it. 

https://archive.org/details/the-residents-warfield-103102

Underworld, DJ Pricey – Warfield, SF, Sun., October 20

This would be the first occasion I’d be seeing this electronica duo from jolly old England and knew nothing about them when I came in that night. Though I was unaware of it at the time and didn’t make the connection, DJ Darren Emerson had left the band a few years before this and I had actually seen him once before perform at The Fillmore opening for Fatboy Slim. Underworld had just released their “A Hundred Days Off” album and this was the second to last of an exclusive 6 show tour in America after doing four festivals in Europe that summer. We were lucky to catch one of them. They would return back to Europe to start another stretch of shows three weeks after this one. Those EDM guys are real busy bees and god knows they stay up later than most. 

They had a DJ named Pricey warm up the crowd and since it was just him up there behind some turntables, everybody mingled casually which made ushering a cinch. He returned to the stage to spin records afterwards, but I didn’t have to usher for that part. Of that I was grateful, October having been quite an exhausting month between work and shows as usual and I had to work all night at that one clearing aisles. Still, the rave crowds are surprisingly easy to usher, despite what you might imagine, partially because the light show is so crucial to the experience, that most people diffuse about and pay little attention to what’s happening with the guys on stage. Though I will say that Underworld was more than just a couple guys spinning records and pushing buttons. They were one of those rare electronica acts that played real instruments, Kyle Hyde on guitar and Rick Smith playing keys along with his mixing duties. Both of them sang too, Karl on lead, Rick backing him up. 

And unlike many of their raver ilk, Underworld played bone fide songs, ones with real structure, not just an endless barrage of one long, electronic instrumental jam blending into the next. The two of them played at least an hour and half, but my tapes ran out early and the only song titles I was able to make out were “Dirty Epic” and “Born Slippy”. I liked what I heard, impressed by their skills as composers and was happy when they returned to town again only six months later playing at The Fillmore. Four years after that, I’d catch them at The Warfield again, though that time they were doing two nights and I caught them both. Sadly, none of these Underworld shows ever got a poster which is a real shame. These guys got talent and deserved at least one. They did a Warfield show just last year and they still didn’t give them one. 

https://archive.org/details/underworld-warfield-102002

Sound Tribe Sector Nine, Hamsa Lila, Sandfly – Fillmore, SF, Fri., October 18

SETLIST : (Set 1) T.W.E.L.V.E., Mischief Of The Sleepwalker, H2O & Bells –  Evasive Maneuvers, Today, Satori, (Set 2) Native Melody, Water Song, Muir Soul, Orbital, Potamus – Gobnugget, Grow, (encore), Baraka

This would be the second time I’d be seeing Sound Tribe Sector Nine at The Fillmore in just five months and likewise, I’d seen the first band, Hamsa Lila, on that very stage four months before this opening for Tabla Beat Science. For more backstory on these two bands, feel free to visit those previous entries. Sound Tribe or STS9 for short had returned to do two back to back shows and thankfully got a poster this time as I’d hoped. I would be seeing the first of the two shows, though a group called Trance Zen Dance would be the opener the following night. I was able to get all of all of Hamsa Lila’s set, but for some reason I can’t recall, I only brought enough tape to get about an hour of STS9. Maybe I was just tired since it was my fourth show in a row, these last three all being at The Fillmore, and didn’t care as much, particularly since I knew their loyal taper section would be there getting an infinitely better quality recording than my own.

I was particularly grateful that the tapers were there because as I had mentioned in my review of the night before with Patty Griffin, my headphone mic was crapping out. It went on for far too long, sabotaging a good stretch of shows I had done up till then, but better late than never and I finally replaced it after this one. The bad news is that it made about twenty minutes of what little I had unlistenable and I edited them out of what I posted here. But like I said, the tapers made a stellar copy and I had no trouble finding it on archive.org along with a copy of the second night as well. I still posted my copy of Hamsa Lila’s set and they were an entertaining opening act again, expert instrumentalists one and all, especially the saxophone player and the female singers. Once again, one of them busted out a didgeridoo and got the crowd to clap along and there was also a song with an impressive flute solo. It’s baffling to me that more times than not, the tapers never record the openers. 

I must confess this was one of those extremely rare shows where I had taken ecstasy, a substance I have only played with so infrequently that I probably could count the times I did it on one hand. Though the others I can’t rightly say which they all were for sure, I know for a fact another of those times would actually be only four months later at that very same venue seeing Col. Claypool’s Bucket Of Bernie Brains.  I never go out of my way to find ecstasy, but will do it if it was the appropriate environment, was available from a person I trusted, and others were enjoying it alongside me as well. Since all the conditions were met and let’s face it, STS9 is easily one of those bands the drug was made for, I leapt at the opportunity. I had to be careful to time my dosage just right, taking it so it would just begin to kick in as I was done ushering. The last thing I wanted was to have to clear aisles of patrons when I was tripping balls, but thankfully I got cut just as things were starting to get a little sporty.

One thing I remember distinctly about that night was the presence of dozens upon dozens of thin, interconnecting, bendable glow sticks that had been made readily available to the audience. After I was done ushering, I joined the handful of tripping companions in the house right back corner area near the handicapped elevator and we all adorned ourselves with these glowing, thick bucatini strands. I had fashioned a bunch together into hoops, doing three concentric necklaces around my neck and one as a halo-like headband. Personally, I thought I looked like some kind of psychedelic, florescent saint from a Renaissance painting and I know our freaky-deaky dancing caught the attention of the adjacent bartenders who likely concluded that we were a bunch of space cadets. Naturally, they were correct, or at least they were for the next few hours anyway. Needless to say, the forest of neon stands made for endless, bobbing and undulating light trails, a visual experience I don’t think I ever quite experienced ever again. 

Once more, I was floored by the mind boggling dexterity of STS9’s drummer, Zach “Zachtree” Velmer, a drummer so fast, it’s beyond belief. To this day, I still think he’s one of the best I have ever heard. They also brought up Rashida “Audio Angel” Clendening to add her soulful, angelic voice to “Satori” and later  during the second set during “Orbital”. I learned doing research for this show that Rashida had also made a name for herself doing voiceover acting work, including on the “Walking Dead” video game. Coincidentally, Gavin Hammon, the drummer of the Dance Hall Crashers, my brother’s old band, had also done voice work on that video game too. Small world. At the end of the second set, one of the band members thanked us all for “coming out this evening… It was a beautiful time”. He told us to “give it up for Audio Angel and Hamsa Lila and yourselves for being beautiful people and sharing this vibe this evening. We hope to see y’all tomorrow night. Love and respects”. I would only see STS9 one more time four years later on Halloween at The Warfield, but they continue to tour blowing minds from sea to shining sea to this day. 

https://archive.org/details/sound-tribe-sector-nine-fillmore-101802

https://archive.org/details/hamsa-lila-fillmore-101802

Patty Griffin, Peter Stuart – Fillmore, SF, Thur., October 17

SETLISTS : 

(PETER STUART) : (unknown), Roll Over Me, Vertigo, Let’s Get Lost, Small Wonders, Everything Falls Apart, With My Heart In Your Hands, (unknown)

(PATTY GRIFFIN) : Be Careful, Long Ride Home, Rain, Chief, Making Pies, Mansion On The Hill, Moon Song, Poor Man’s House, Ballad Of Hollis Brown, Truth #2, Nobody’s Crying, Top Of The World, Mil Besos, (encore), Let Him Fly, Dear Old Friend, Mary, (encore), Sweet Lorraine

This would be the second of three shows I’d see at The Fillmore that week, each artist’s music a severely radical left turn from the last. The night before was Dreams Come True from Japan and the night after this would be Sound Tribe Sector Nine, but on this cool October Thursday night, I’d be enjoying the angelic voice of one Ms. Patty Griffin. I believe this would be the first time I’d have the pleasure of hearing this petite songstress from New England, who after years of hard work performing in coffee houses and such around Boston was finally getting her much deserved recognition. Two years before this, after having been dropped by A & M, Patty met Dave Matthews who promptly signed her to his ATO record label and she was touring in support of her new release, “1000 Kisses”. It had just come out two months before this and would go on to be nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Emmylou Harris sang harmony on “Long Ride Home” which she sang for her second song of her set that night, and they’d tour together two years later.

Opening that evening was former Dog’s Eye View frontman Peter Stuart, who had mistakenly been listed in The Fillmore ads as having his last name spelled “Stewart”. These things happen. He had been discovered by Adam Duritz from the Counting Crows back in 1994. Like Patty, he too had put out a new album two months before this called “Propeller”, but had recently co-wrote new music for The Go-Go’s, a song of theirs called “Stuck In My Car”. Playing on an acoustic guitar and singing softly, my recording of him barely even registered, especially since I was all the way in the back of the venue by the soundboard. Still, he was pleasant to listen to and though this would be the only time I’d see him perform, I’m happy to say he’s alive and well, later earning a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and working as a family therapist in Los Angeles. 

Before I even heard so much as a single note of Patty’s honeyed angelic singing, I must confess that I was sprung. Seriously, I think she’s fine as May wine and it comes to little surprise that my beloved wife bears a striking resemblance to her. Obviously, I think my wife is more attractive and don’t you dare tell her I told you this. She absolutely despises when people compare her appearance to other celebrities, no matter how attractive they are. Anyway, like Peter, she was playing acoustic guitar and was too quiet for my taping at first, but after I was cut from ushering, I was able to march up closer to the stage and the sound improved. I appreciated that she brought along an accordion player with her small band, an instrument rarely seen with live acts.  I especially enjoyed his contribution to the final song of the main set which Patty sung in Spanish called , “Mil Besos”, meaning “1000 Kisses”, again the title of the new album. 

Her music was brand new to me, but I was transfixed by her siren song and listened as most everybody else did in total silence until it was time to applaud. Really, it’s rare when an artist can captivate a crowd to the point where you can hear a pin drop, truly a testament to her talent as a singer and a songwriter. Almost half of her set were new songs, but we also got to hear “Top Of The World” which wouldn’t be officially released until two years later on her “Impossible Dream” album. There wasn’t a poster given away at the end of the night by The Fillmore, but Patty’s merch people were selling a small tour poster, two of them in fact, and I liked her so much that I bought both of them. Three months after this show, she’d record her “Kiss In Time” live album in Nashville and as you might have guessed, I made sure to see her again in 2003 when she came back to town to play The Warfield alongside fellow female masters of song Shawn Colvin, Dar WIlliams, and Mary Chapin Carpenter. 

https://archive.org/details/patty-griffin-fillmore-101702

https://archive.org/details/peter-stuart-fillmore-101702

Dreams Come True, Brigitte DeMeyer – Fillmore, SF, Wed., October 16

SETLISTS : 

(BRIGITTE DEMEYER) : Mississippi Delta Time, Rooftop, Roll The Wheels, Another Thousand Miles, By Yer Side, Nothing Comes Free, My Everything

I’ve said it before though it bears repeating that one of the great things about hearing bands from other countries, especially at The Fillmore, is that they’re often playing tiny venues compared to the arenas and even stadiums they play on their home turf. Such was the case of Dreams Come True who were huge back in Japan, selling over 50 million records worldwide, though relatively unknown here. That being said, The Fillmore is located right on the border of Japantown in San Francisco, so you can imagine that all the locals and Japanese ex-pats were thrilled to have them so close by and the line outside the venue before doors opened clearly reflected that. Seriously, in all my years seeing and ushering shows there, I can only think of a handful of times when the line was that long to get in, especially that early. 

Dreams Come True had been around since 1988, led by bassist and composer Masato Nakamura, who had also penned the music to the smash hit video game “Sonic The Hedgehog”. On a side note, when the seminal 90’s rom-com film “Sleepless In Seattle” came out, it was Masato who composed the theme song for the Japanese version. The band had just released its “Monkey Girl Odyssey” album, their final one for Virgin Records before moving on to their own DCT label. Their keyboard player, Takahiro Nashikawa also left the band that year and would later hit a rough patch, getting busted for assault and drug possession. We were fortunate to have this Fillmore show since it would be the third of only five they would be doing on the west coast that year, the others being in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Vancouver. 

It was a curious pick of Brigitte Demeyer to open for them, a singer-songwriter from San Diego who had about as much in common with Dreams Come True as I did. Her syrupy sweet voice sounded a little like Sheryl Crow and armed with an acoustic guitar, accompanied by a fellow playing lead guitar whose name I missed, though she mentioned later that she had been playing with him for 12 years. Brigitte definitely had a southern twang to her sound, quite likely influenced by her friendship with rough and tumble psychobilly artists like The Beat Farmers and Mojo Nixon. Pleasant as her voice and music was, she sounded more akin to Patty Griffin who was headlining on that very stage the following night and would clearly would have been more appropriate opening for her. But then again, this was The Fillmore and the late Bill Graham was fond of putting disparate acts like Miles Davis and the Grateful Dead together to perform there back in the day. 

Brigitte had just put out her second album, “Nothing Comes Free” and half of her short set were new ones and began the night with a cover of “Mississippi Delta Time” by John Cowan, a renowned bass player amongst bluegrass circles. Afterwards, she thanked the crowd and mentioned, “Got my hair cut. How does it look?” before she moved on to “Rooftop”. Later she introduced “Another Thousand Miles” saying, “It’s the first thing I ever wrote, but if you don’t like it, it’s the first thing he ever wrote”, pointing to her partner on guitar next to her. This would be the only time I would see Brigitte perform and she has since moved to Nashville where I’m certain her music is appreciated. Sadly, my headphone mic crapped out during her last song and like wise did the same in the middle of the set of Dreams Come True, ruining about five of their songs. That damn thing had been shorting for some time and since I rarely listened to my tapes after these shows for some time, it was a while until I realized it I didn’t replace the damn thing until the end of the month for The Residents at The Warfield, apologies to all my loyal listeners. 

Anyway, before I continue, I want to point out the unique qualities of this predominantly Japanese audience. Along with their obviously devotion to the band, lining up so early, those who stormed in once the doors opened immediately went straight to the front of the stage. That wasn’t at all surprising, but what did astonish me was the almost mathematical precision they uniformly took their places filling out row after row from the center out. As they took their spots, the crowd formed a perfect triangle of people, its point facing the back of the room. Unfortunately, their steadfast devotion to this band ensured that the folks wouldn’t budge so much as an inch from their spots all night which meant they wouldn’t buy drinks from the bar. The looks of bitter disappointment on the faces of the Fillmore bartenders were heartbreaking. I’d experience the same thing when Japanese superstars B’z would play The Fillmore literally a year and two days later after this show. 

And I know how this might sound, borderline racist even, but honkies like myself, particularly those who have ever visited Japan will tell you the God’s truth, these kind, good mannered people were quite short. Yes, speaking as a man with the height of just a hair over five foot six, for the first time in my life, I was able to clearly see over the heads of literally everybody in the crowd. I finally felt what it was like to be my brother Alex who stands a good nine inches taller than me. Likewise, being generally diminutive in stature and packed so tightly together, it meant that there was actually quite a decent amount of space in the back of the venue remaining. This happens also for shows featuring artists who are very young since kids are also small and keen to pack up front. Conversely, this is one of the reasons why older hippie crowds are so difficult to usher, they seeking more personal space to dance and shall we say being not so svelte, making available space much more scarce.

Like I said, the music of Dreams Come True was quite different from their opener, sounding more akin to the well produced rock music one would hear on KFOG, sort of like The Pretenders. There were times that singer Miwa Yoshida even sounded a little like Sade and though they sang practically all their songs in the native tongue, I liked them and could see why they were so popular back home. The one song that they did sing in English that I could make out was called “One Yesterday”. At the beginning of their set, Miwa addressed the crowd in Japanese, presumably thanking everybody for coming and then Masato laughed and said with his thick accent, “It’s been four years since we did a show here at The Fillmore. Thank you very much! I try to speak in English! Poor English speaker!” 

After I was cut from ushering, I spent my drink ticket on a Sierra Nevada as always and toasted my beer with friend next to me cheering, “Kanpai!”, which literally translates to “dry the cup”. At the end of their set, Miwa thanked the crowd profusely giggling to point of shrieking, a tidal wave of “Arigato” from her and Masato alike. I was disappointed that Dreams Come True didn’t have a poster for this show, considering it must of sold out immediately, it’s proximity to Japantown, and the rare privilege of their visit. Like I said, Patty Griffin would be there the following day and likewise, she didn’t get one, though they had a tour poster amongst their merchandise in the back. But the third show, Sound Tribe Sector Nine would have one, being the first show of two days they were performing there, though a two show night doesn’t guarantee a poster. Jurassic 5 just did two shows at The Fillmore the week before and they didn’t get one. 

https://archive.org/details/dreams-come-true-fillmore-101602

https://archive.org/details/brigitte-demeyer-fillmore-101602

Stan Ridgway, Mark Growden – Great American Music Hall, SF, Tues., October 15

SETLIST : (unknown), Little Boxes, Train Of Thought, Beloved Movie Star, Afghan/Forklift, Stranded, Underneath The Big Green Tree, Long Black Veil, Operator Help Me, Running With The Carnival, Cool Water, Gone The Distance, Mission Bell, Ring Of Fire, Big Dumb Town, Wake Up Sally (The Cops Are Here), Police Call, Wild Bill Donovan, Masters Of The Id, (encore), God Sleeps In A Caboose, Peg & Pete & Me, An Act Of Faith, A Mission In Life

Everybody knew Stan’s work with the hauntingly original band Wall Of Voodoo and their hit song, “Mexican Radio”, but he had been on his own since 1989. I had picked up his “Black Diamond” album and was impressed by his songwriting, especially for numbers like “Big Dumb Town” and since he was playing just a block away from me at the Great American and I’d had never seen him live before, I decided to check it out. Stan had just released his “Holiday In Dirt” album, a companion piece to a series of short indy films of unreleased songs he had done accompanying each film and the series would be released on DVD three years later. Genius producer and musician Mitchell Fromm produced and played the organ on the new album along with Zander Schloss from the Circle Jerks on guitar, banjo, and slide guitar. Coincidentally, it was mixed by legendary audio engineer Tchad Blake who would do the next album for Gomez, who I had just seen at The Fillmore for the first time four days before this show. Small world. 

Opening that night would be singer-songwriter Mark Growden, a local artist who also composed music for several dance, film, and theater projects in the bay area, including for a recent tribute album to Sun Ra done by Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. He had put out his second album, “Downstairs Karaoke” in ’99, but would release his “Live At The Odean” album a year later, recorded at the bar of the same name in the Mission. I once had a crush on one of their buxom bartenders name Aisha back in college, as beautiful as she was kind and charming, but alas, naturally she was spoken for. It was just Mark up on stage all by his lonesome armed with only an accordion and since his set was so quiet, my recording barely came out at all. Still, I liked his songs and could see why Stan was impressed with his musicianship, mature beyond his young years. Mark, being a music teacher as well, was also proficient on the soprano saxophone, xylophone, glockenspiel, banjo, cello, acoustic guitar, bass drum, cymbal, triangle, even playing weird stuff like PVC pipes and scissors.

Mr. Ridgway had brought along a band which included his wife, Pietra Wexstun on keyboards whom he had collaborated with on a handful of other musical projects over the years including the band Hecate’s Angels. The only song I wasn’t able to figure out the title of was the first one strangely enough, probably a cover, one of many he did during his set. He immediately followed that with Pete Seeger’s “Little Boxes”. Stan would also play harmonica along with his acoustic guitar during a few songs like “Beloved Movie Star” with one of those harmonica neck mounts often used by guys like Bob Dylan and Neil Young. After his cover of “Long Black Veil” by Johnny Cash, someone accidentally spilled a beer on a cocktail table they had on stage with them, getting the suds all over his harmonicas. He jovially asked for a bar towel and joked, “These harmonicas are going to taste great!”

Stan’s a funny guy and would say clever stuff between songs like after doing a couple numbers alone he rambled about the “river Ganges” and navigating “through these American waters of confusion and concern” before beckoning Pietra to come back on stage to join him. She didn’t come at first, but he insisted that she “will appear on the gangplank any minute now”. She finally emerged nonchalantly explaining, “I got lost” to which he replied, “We all get lost every now and again, my love. Let’s get lost together… As the good waves here, the waves push against the planks of the good ship. We push ourselves off the pier now and into waters unknown. So cast off there”. And then Pietra did the little spooky organ intro riff from Bach’s Toccata in D Minor, often used in horror films and Halloween stuff, trust me you know it, and Stan made some joke about Lon Cheney. 

Then they did the very unspooky but lyrical “Cool Water” by cowboy crooner Marty Robbins. Speaking of country music, having done Johnny Cash’s “Long Black Veil” earlier, they also did “Ring Of Fire”, a cover Stan had done with with Wall Of Voodoo. Afterwards, he brought his drum and bass player back up on stage and took a drink saying, “Whiskey… beware the brown liquor… We’ll taste your wares later on… Go down to Larkin and just float outside that Outsider bar”, and then they did the aforementioned “Big Dumb Town”. In hindsight, I should have staked out that bar he mentioned, which was just around the block later to see if he and the band were having a little afterparty. During “Police Call”, he did a bit of the spoken word part from “The End” by The Doors, but stopped after a couple lines mumbling, “Sorry… Wrong song”. They then did “Wild Bill Donovan” followed by a spoken word freestyle bit with music where Stan went off about “building a hybrid, disco synth… Yes! Yes! We could give the kids a little culture if we did a little Dylan Thomas, John Hurt reading ‘Mary Poppins’, Anthony Hopkins doing cartoon roles” and then they got the audience to join in doing some sheep’s bleating. 

They had two more songs left in their encore when Stan reassured us that they were “going to sing goodnight, but it doesn’t mean we’re going anywhere” before doing “An Act Of Faith”.  When they finished, he announced, “We got ten minutes to get around the horn and get back to the other side of this country” and introduced his fellow band members before finishing the night with “A Mission In Life”. Stan said thanks to the Great American and “I’ll be there over by the happy swag booth to sign some stuff and meet all you guys and meet the people once we get lubricated”. I made sure to stick around and buy a poster they were selling that night with an image of Stan pushing a mummy wrapped in an American flag in a wheelchair down a fluorescent green hallway with the words “Bound For Glory” above them. Perhaps it was a message about America’s recent political climate which was steadily rolling downhill into oblivion under the Bush regime. I shook Mr. Ridgway’s hand and congratulated him and his wife for an entertaining set and that was it. I would see them again two years later at Cafe Du Nord and again there in 2005 and I would be spending the next three nights in a row seeing shows at The Fillmore. Stan would lead off this series of drastically divergent musical acts followed by Dreams Come True, a young pop band from Japan, folk singer Patty Griffin, and the instrumental, post rock, dance stylings of Sound Tribe Sector Nine.

https://archive.org/details/stan-ridgway-great-american-music-hall-101502

https://archive.org/details/mark-growden-great-american-music-hall-101502

Jurassic 5, Skillz, Planet Asia – Fillmore, SF, Sun., October 13

SETLIST : After School Special, I Am Somebody, Jayou, The Influence, Break, (DJ solo), Quality Control, Concrete Schoolyard, If You Only Knew, High Fidelity, Sum Of Us, Hey, Ducky Boy, What’s Golden, (encore), (freestyle) , Jurass Finish First, A Day At The Races, (freestyle)

This would be the first of two sold out gigs Jurassic 5 would be performing at The Fillmore and I had just seen them that July at the Smokin’ Grooves Tour with Outkast, The Roots, and a whole bunch of other people. I loved their set and was eager to hear them headline a show of their own for the first time. They had just released their “Power In Numbers” album five days before this night which included their new hit single “What’s Golden”. Coincidentally, that song samples a bit from “Prophets Of Rage” by Public Enemy and that pioneering east coast rap act had just performed of that very same stage the previous Thursday and indeed, they were on the stage, they raged, and were rollin’. And as usual, my lousy cassette recordings were what they were, though I’m glad to say I found an excellent copy of Jurassic 5’s set on YouTube while doing research for this entry. 

I only caught a bit of Skillz, also known as Mad Skillz, who was first up on stage that night, a contemporary of the emerging Virginia Beach scene, rapping alongside such notable acts as Missy Elliot, Musiq Soulchild, and Pharrell Williams. His career was short lived though, his only album never officially released in America, but bootleg copies of it circulated the following year at the Sprite Liquid Mix Tour. Planet Asia on the other hand, I was infinitely familiar with having recorded them three times at Maritime Hall and seen them as an opening act for the Cali Comm show with The Pharcyde also at The Fillmore the previous November. They got the crowd warmed up, always the dependable opening act, and are still rocking the houses to this day. Both opening acts came on at the end of J5’s set along with the always enjoyable east bay hip hop artist Lyrics Born to do some freestyling to wrap things up.

Seriously, we all needed this Jurassic 5 show to lift our spirits after one soul crushing bummer after the next was being dropped on the news around then. Not only were we being deceitfully led, marching heedlessly into war with Iraq a second time, but the day before this, a series bombings in Bali took the lives of 202 people, the worst terrorist act in Indonesian history. This was dark and melancholy stretch for everybody and my insatiable diet of concerts was therapy for me back then, as I’m sure it was for many others. But Jurassic 5 delivered, making me regret not seeing them again the following night Listening to them once more, with their clear diction and lightning fast cadences, hell… they made it look easy. This crew is easily one of the best which made it all the more frustrating that they didn’t get a poster at the end of the night, especially since it was a sold out, two show stint. 

https://archive.org/details/jurassic-5-fillmore-101302

https://archive.org/details/planet-asia-fillmore-101302

Gomez, Jason Mraz – Fillmore, SF, Fri., October 11

SETLISTS : 

(JASON MRAZ) : At Last – Sleep All Day, I’ll Do Anything – One Love, Unfold, Stuck On You – Dream Life Of Rand McNally, Common Pleasure, 0% Interest

(GOMEZ) : Shot Shot, Rex Kramer, Love Is Better Than A Warm Trombone, Get Miles, Las Vegas Dealer, Ping One Down, Sound Of Sounds, Here Comes The Breeze, 78 Stone Wobble, Silhouettes, Free To Run, In Our Gun, Ballad Of Nice & Easy, Get Myself Arrested, Revolutionary Kind, (encore), Army Dub, We Haven’t Turned Around, Detroit Swing 66. Whippin’ Piccadilly

This was a “sight unseen” show, coming in to enjoy Gomez and their opener, Jason Mraz, without any prior knowledge whatsoever of either of them. They had been booked for two back to back shows at The Fillmore, so I figured it was a safe bet that they wouldn’t be half bad, so I decided to check out their first night. It was a welcome distraction from the news as our country was heedlessly marching towards war with Iraq again and congress had just authorized military action if Saddam didn’t comply with the U.N.’s requirements on WMD inspections. Ironic since also that day, former president Jimmy Carter just won the Nobel Peace Prize. Anyway, I had just been at The Fillmore the night before seeing Public Enemy, the hip hop icons whom I was very familiar with, not to mention a totally divergent band musically from Gomez, which I would soon discover.

The opener, singer-songwriter Jason Mraz, was still brand new back then, and was just about to release his debut album, “Waiting For My Rocket To Come”, on Elektra only four days after this show. Hailing from San Diego by way of Virginia, Jason was clearly going through a transitional period in his life having just divorced his wife, but on the brink of artistic and commercial success. He thanked the audience, mentioning that this was “a milestone for my job” being the first time he had set foot in The Fillmore, much less performed in it. Jason appropriately began his short set with a cover of “At Last” by Etta James which blended into his song “Sleep All Day”. From there he did another original called “I’ll Do Anything” which included a chorus of Bob Marley’s “One Love”. Continuing to honor his influences, he also did a bit of “Stuck On You” by Lionel Richie. For some reason, I didn’t get the last two songs of his set, “Common Pleasure” and “0% Interest”. But I liked his voice, though I thought he personally was conspicuously inoffensive, the kind of music college girls enjoy. Turns out, he’s bisexual and I’m sure his music and success helped him score. Good for him. 

At first, listening to Gomez’s music, I thought they were American, maybe even from the south, but in fact they were English, from Sheffield in the north.

I was strangely intrigued by them partially because I couldn’t quite nail down what kind of band they were. Multiple members of the band took turns singing and they covered a variety of genres, ranging from psychedelic blues and folk to indy rock and downright experimental. Some have compared them to Wilco, who I had also seen recently, and they’re pretty close. I suppose there are worse bands to be compared to. I liked that their second song was named “Rex Kramer” after Robert Stack’s character in the immortal film comedy “Airplane!”, though the song made no reference to that film at all. Their fans loved them and one of the members had no trouble getting them to yell when he asked, “Can I get a roar, a loud roar?!?” They also got the audience to sing along to “Get Myself Arrested” near the end of their set. At the end of the encore, another band member thanked the crowd saying, “You guys have been nothing but brilliant all night”. As expected for a two night stint of sold out shows, Gomez got a poster at the end of the show and it was a good one from Chuck Sperry, one of the best poster artists around. I was impressed and made sure to catch Gomez when they returned to The Fillmore two years later. 

https://archive.org/details/gomez-fillmore-101102

https://archive.org/details/jason-mraz-fillmore-101102

Public Enemy, Blackalicious, Dilated Peoples – Fillmore, SF, Thur., October 10

SETLISTS : 

(BLACKALICIOUS) : Make You Feel That Way, You Didn’t Know That Though, Sky Is Falling, (unknown), It’s Going Down (Sit Back), Passion, (unknown), A To G, Paragraph President

(DILATED PEOPLES) : Pay Attention, The Platform, Expansion Team Theme, Work The Angles, Worst Comes To Worst

(PUBLIC ENEMY) : Put It Up, Welcome To The Terrordome, Bring The Noise, Son Of A Bush, Shut ‘Em Down, He Got Game, Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos, Revolverlution, Public Enemy No. 1, Give It Up, Don’t Believe The Hype, Rebel Without A Pause, By The Time I Get To Arizona, Fight The Power, Guitar Solo Medley – Whole Lotta Love – Don’t Call Me Nigger Whitey – Back In Black, What Good Is A Bomb, Prophets Of Rage, Can’t Truss It, Anti-Nigger Machine, Do You Wanna Go Our Way???, Gotta Give The Peeps What They Need, Night Of The Living Baseheads, She Watch Channel Zero?!, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf)

It had been three long years since I recorded Public Enemy at Maritime Hall and naturally was eager to see them again, but my affection for them had just been bitterly tempered by my mixed feelings about their latest release “Revolverlution”. This, their eighth album, had just come out that July and I discovered it quite by accident while thumbing through their works at Amoeba Records on Haight Street. While skimming over the track listing on the back of the album, my interest was piqued to see that they had included a couple live songs amongst a few new numbers and remixes. But you could have knocked me over with a feather when I reread Track 3 was “Miuzi Weighs A Ton – Live San Francisco 10/21/99”. I believe I even blurted out loudly right there in the store, “What the fuck?!?! This one’s mine!!!” 

Yes, once again an artist had taken the monitor mix DAT tape we gave them at the end of their show and used it on an official release. I immediately contacted my old partner Pete from the Maritime who in turn contacted Boots, the Maritime’s former honcho and in time, we were able to get some money from Public Enemy, though it was far too late to get credit on the album itself. As I said, I had mixed feelings about this revelation being beyond proud to have this song used on an official Public Enemy album, but horrified and furious that I was not given any credit. This single live track is perhaps the recording I am most proud of from my time at the Hall, easily in the top three. Seriously, fuck the money. This one was important. But what can I say? That’s show biz. Still, I have the solemn pride to know that it’s mine all mine and nothing in heaven or earth can take that away from me. And like so many other recordings blatantly ripped off from Pete and me, I can also say with pride that our stuff is at least good enough to steal. 

That being said, I overcame my butt-hurt soon enough and with Blackalicious and Dilated Peoples also on this Fillmore bill, I wasn’t about to miss this show regardless of what had transpired. I had just seen Blackalicious perform on the second stage at the Sprite Liquid Mix tour with Jay-Z, 311, N.E.R.D., and a bunch of others just a month before this and had likewise recorded them at the Maritime, though they hadn’t ripped off any of my work (that I know of). Once again, rapper Gift Of Gab got the crowd pumped up repeated getting them to holler after yelling, “Speak to me!!!” He introduced “A To G” joking, “San Francisco, bay area! Y’all starting to sound like 1st graders. Y’all starting to sound like school kids. We’re going to take you back to the first grade!” and then he started the song, doing the first few lines with words beginning with “A” then more starting with “B” and so on, rapping faster and faster as they went along. 

I had actually seen Dilated Peoples for the first time on that very same stage only seven months before this when they headlined the Scratch Tour there alongside Mix Master Mike, Z-Trip, Grand Wizard Theodore, and The Original Jazzy Jay, a cavalcade of master turntablists, though they were the only act on the bill with rappers. They were still promoting their “Expansion Team” album that had come out the year before, but because Public Enemy’s set went longer than I expected, I had to tape over some of their set, getting only about four and half songs, but they were good ones. Their rappers, Evidence and Rakka, got the audience to chant “When worst comes to worst, my peoples come first” during their last song of their set. 

Public Enemy had recently taken a page from other rap acts like Cypress Hill and had expanded their band to include a real drummer, guitarist, and bass player. They started the night with a new one called “Put It Up” and Chuck D addressed the crowd immediately afterwards, “First of all, it’s been a magnificent tour, Blackalicious, Dilated Peoples, 20 cities across the states. Y’all know that Flava Flav is locked up because of a diver license violation”. We all let out a thunderous “Boo!” to that one and Chuck echoed are sentiment getting us all to chant “Fuck The Bronx!” Yes, PE’s habitually troublemaking hype man, Mr. Flav, was in the middle of a nine week time out at Riker’s Island, just off the coast of The Bronx, for not paying traffic fines and blowing off a meeting with his parole officer. The band instead just sampled his parts along with DJ Lord spinning the music and Professor Griff filled in the rest. Still, Flav’s bug-eyed, manic harlequin presence was sorely missed. Later on in the set, Chuck took a water bottle, tipped it over gently, and had us join him to “spill the water for Flav” in his honor.

But the show must go on. They quickly dusted off the golden oldies “Welcome To The Terrordome” and “Bring The Noise” before busting out another new one, “Son Of A Bush”. We were still five months away from our country becoming hopelessly embroiled in the second Iraq war, but Chuck D and company made it painfully clear what they thought of our douchebag in chief. Let’s just say the lyrics to that one weren’t flattering and leave it at that, but I thought it was hilarious that they brought one of their crew on stage with a latex George W. Bush mask who monkeyed around them, getting pushed aside by PE’s members as he tried fruitlessly to get them to slap him five. Chuck got us all to chant “Fuck your president!!!” and “War is bullshit!!!” A couple songs later, they did “Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos” which sounded familiar to me, though I didn’t realize it till I re-listened to this show again that Tricky had also done a cover of it, in his signature trip-hop fashion.

Public Enemy incorporated some familiar covers of their own over the course of the evening, starting with a bit of “Soul Power” by James Brown during their juggernaut hit song “Fight The Power”. With a full band, this time these Public Enemy fans could truly “hear the drummer get wicked”. Chuck then spoke of “the beauty of the guitar” and praised the contributions of such pioneers as Les Paul, Muddy Waters, Elmore James, and Howling Wolf, who in turn inspired such British invasion guitarists as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Keith Richards, who Chuck added that he “gets younger by the day”. Lastly, he praised Jimi Hendrix who revolutionized guitar playing for everybody and the band went into an extended medley of classics including “Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin, Sly & The Family Stone’s “Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey”, and “Back In Black” by AC/DC. 

Though Flava Flav wasn’t there to crack jokes, Professor Griff, PE’s Minister Of Information, made sure to make his thoughts known between songs. He especially was critical of Bush, warning us (accurately, I may add) that he was “going to drag you into a war with Iraq” and reminding us that Saddam Hussein was “on the CIA payroll… Am I right or am I wrong?” They eventually got back to the music and finished their set with another Sly & The Family Stone cover, “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf)” and that was it. I would have burned the venue down if they didn’t make a poster for this sold out show, especially since they didn’t have when when I saw them there back in 1995. But I’m happy to report that not only did they have one, but it was done by Chris Shaw, one of my favorite poster artists and in fact, the poster from this night is currently framed and hanging on a wall in my apartment. 

It would be another five years until I’d see Public Enemy again, once more reunited with Flava Flav, at the Rock The Bells festival and as luck would have it, I am about to see them again in a couple weeks strangely enough at the unlikely venue of Stern Grove. If someone had told me back in 2002 that I would someday see this hardcore east coast rap group play amongst eucalyptus shaded meadows filled with people sitting on blankets having a picnic with their kids, well… let’s just say I would have referred to that idea as “flav data”. Anyway, this night would be the first of three Fillmore shows I’d see in only four days, immediately taking a severe musically stylistic left turn with the English indy rock stylings of Gomez, before returning to more hip hop with the Jurassic 5 that Sunday. 

https://archive.org/details/public-enemy-fillmore-101002

https://archive.org/details/dilated-peoples-fillmore-101002

https://archive.org/details/blackalicious-fillmore-101002

Jimmy Eat World, The Donnas, No Knife, Reuben’s Accomplice – Warfield, SF, Wed., October 9

SETLISTS : 

(REUBEN’S ACCOMPLICE) : Oh My God, Lost Sun, Happy Mondays, (unknown), (unknown), This Town. (unknown)

(NO KNIFE) : Permanent For Now, Academy Flight Song, The Red Bedroom, Angel Bomb, (unknown), Your Albatross, Riot For Romance!

(THE DONNAS) : Are You Gonna Move It For Me?, Do You Wanna Hit It, It’s On The Rocks, You’ve Got A Crush On Me, Take Me To The Back Seat, Hyperactive, Who Invited You, Midnight Snack, I Didn’t Like You Anyway, Take It Off, All Messed Up, Skintight

(JIMMY EAT WORLD) : A Praise Chorus, Bleed American, Your New Aesthetic, Blister, If You Don’t Don’t, For Me This Is Heaven, A Sunday, Call It In The Air, Get It Faster, Lucky Denver Mint, Just Watch The Fireworks, The Authority Song, No Sensitivity, The Middle, (encore), My Sundown, Goodbye Sky Harbor, Sweetness

Though Jimmy Eat World had blown up Warfield big by then with their smash hit single “The Middle”, I clearly was there to see The Donnas. I had fallen head over heels with those irresistible rock sirens when I first caught them opening for Alice Cooper on that very same stage two years before this and was eager to see them every time I could from then on. The Donnas too had been on a meteoric rise to rock & roll stardom and were there just a day shy of two weeks before the release of their fifth album, “Spend The Night”, of which we would be hearing 6 new songs, exactly half of their set that night. Jimmy Eat World had been continuing endless touring since “Bleed American” had come out the year before, though they temporarily changed the name of that album to simply be “Jimmy Eat World” out of sensitivity towards the victims of 9/11. They would change it back to its original title in 2008. 

Successful as they were by the time of this show, Jimmy Eat World had a bumpy road getting there. Formed in 1993, they struggled to get attention, being initially dropped by Capitol Records in 1999 before getting picked up by Dreamworks two years later. During the intervening years, members had to pay the bills by getting various jobs around their home of Mesa, Arizona, such as selling art supplies, auto parts, and working construction and car dealership jobs. Incidentally, while doing research for this entry, I noticed the band’s initials spell out “J.E.W.”, though I have no idea if any of the band members are Jewish. The story goes that singer/guitarist Tom Linton had two brothers named Jim and Ed who as brothers do, fought frequently as children. Perhaps in an effort to make fun of Jim’s weight, Ed drew a crude picture of Jim devouring the planet with the caption “Jimmy Eat World” and the rest is history.

Anyway, having been added late to the bill and were unlisted in the ads, Jimmy Eat World brought along fellow Arizona natives, Rueben’s Apprentice, who had toured with them previously and had just released their debut album, “Blame The Scenery”. Though they played to a mostly empty venue, they thanked who were there “for showing up early”. They were already working on songs for their next album, “The Bull, The Balloon, & The Family” which wouldn’t be released for another two years, but we got to hear two new ones, “Lost Sun” and “This Town”. Next up were No Knife, a punk band from San Diego who I’d previously seen opening for Helmet at Slim’s in 1996. I’m glad I caught them one more time because they’d break up a year after this night, though they have done periodic reunion shows since. They thanked a young soundperson named Candice who came up on stage to help them before they did “Angel Bomb” and thanked the other bands which they were proud to have toured with for the past four months. 

Talented as those openers were, the suspense I endured waiting for The Donnas was without measure but the musical gratification and the raging boner that I’d spring would make it worth the wait. Those brilliant women got down to business once again doing one tight number after the next, the singer Brett Anderson pausing from time to time between songs to pump up the crowd. She dedicated “Hyperactive” to “those of us who had a pot of coffee for dinner tonight”. Later, she said “Midnight Snack” was “for the dudes in here… Maybe you can pick up a few pointers”. Yes, I admit that I lustfully fantasized about going down on each and every one of them for all eternity, but my desire was only matched by my respect and admiration of their craft. The new material was absolutely brilliant, their best work in my opinion, including what would be their hit single “Take It Off”, which would be featured prominently in the soundtrack of the seminal film comedy “The Hangover” seven years later. My devotion to this band would lead me to see them the following year on the bill of the last Lollapalooza tour, and then four more times afterwards headlining their own shows elsewhere. 

Indeed, The Donnas were a tough act to follow, but Jimmy Eat World had no trouble getting the crowd to scream their little teenage heads off when they got on stage. My god, girls loved that band. I had actually seen them perform briefly at Live 105’s B.F.D. at Shoreline four months before this, but didn’t catch much of them, having to do my usual mad dash between stages to catch different acts. Hearing their headlining set proper, I was beginning to see what all these kids were on about and appreciated their songwriting skills. Like many so-called “one hit wonders”, Jimmy Eat World were unfairly shackled to “The Middle”, depriving them of the recognition they deserved for other rocking numbers like “If You Don’t, Don’t” and “Sweetness” as well as quieter ones like  “For Me This Is Heaven” and “A Sunday”. I would see them a couple more times after this, once opening for Green Day at the ballpark in 2005 and then helping to set up their gear at Live 105’s Not-So-Silent Night at Bill Graham Civic two years later and I’m happy to report that they are still alive and well. They’re in fact about to play at the Concord Pavilion soon, celebrating the 25th anniversary of their breakthrough album. Jimmy Eat World would also be the first in another one of my marathon streak of concerts during the notoriously busy month of “Rocktober”, seeing nine shows in only twelve days. 

https://archive.org/details/jimmy-eat-world-warfield-10902

https://archive.org/details/the-donnas-warfield-10902

https://archive.org/details/no-knife-warfield-10902

https://archive.org/details/reubens-accomplice-warfield-10902

Mr. Show – Warfield, SF, Sat., October 5

This would be the rare, if not only occasion, that I would see two different comedy shows in a row. The first was just two days before this with Jim Breuer at The Fillmore, coincidentally a fellow “Saturday Night Live” alumni to Bob Odenkirk, who had departed that show as a writer four years before Jim had joined. I was aware of Bob’s work with David Cross, his faithful, comedic partner on “Mr. Show”, when they met shortly before on “The Ben Stiller Show” which they wrote for and Bob had also acted. They actually won Emmys together for their writing on that series the year it was cancelled and would be also nominated for their work on “Mr. Show”, coincidentally during the same year that show was cancelled as well. It’s a painfully common thing to happen to such comic geniuses, just ask the people at “SCTV” and “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert”. 

But all the while, I was blissfully unaware of basically all of the brilliant hilarity they had created together on “Mr. Show” primarily because back when it was on, I didn’t have HBO. They had brought along fellow comedians and “Mr. Show” alumni Brian Posehn and John Ennis, Bob’s old friend from Emerson College in Boston, as well as a spunky, young lady by the name of Stephanie Courtney. It wouldn’t be until all these years later while doing research for this entry that I would discover that this woman was in fact “Flo” from the Progressive Corporation’s insurance commercials which have permeated the airwaves for what feels like forever now. She was only 32 years old at the time of these gigs and I thought she was a worthy addition to their stage cast. Indeed, in hindsight, I could see why her comedic talent and charisma led that ad campaign to be such a runaway success and for most comedians, even the successful ones, would be green with envy at the residuals she must collect from them. 

“Mr. Show”, or “Mr. Show With Bob & David” as it is known in its long form, had been off the air since 1998, ending its all too brief three year run on HBO. Bob and David had just released “Run Ronnie Run”, a feature length, spin off film expanding on their famous recurring sketches about Ronnie Dobbs, David’s mullet adorned hick with the uncanny ability to get arrested all the time. It went direct to video and both Bob & David publicly disavowed it, citing their loss of creative control of the film’s final edit. Mr. Cross had also played a small part in “Men In Black II” that year and was nominated for a Grammy for his comedy album, “Shut Up You Fucking Baby”. Bob’s career had hit a bit of a rough patch during those intervening years, though he pressed on vigilantly, ultimately leading to his breakthrough role of Saul Goodman in “Breaking Bad” seven years after these shows, followed by his blockbuster hit spin off series “Better Call Saul” in 2015. 

Like many comedy nights at The Warfield, there were early and late performances and I was lucky enough to be able to witness both of them. Fellow sketch comedy masters “Kids In The Hall” had done the same thing on that very stage earlier that May and likewise, their “Tour Of Duty” reunion occurred partially as a reaction to the very unfunny tidal wave of vitriolic jingoism that rose after 9/11. Bob & David were calling their two month campaign of comedy the “Hurray For America” tour and they began the night with a video projection of comedian Paul F. Tompkins playing the CEO of “Globochem”, the monolithic corporate monopoly whose company slogan boasts, “We own everything so you don’t have to”. He announced, “The following is a work of fiction. Current United States election law makes it impossible for any single corporation to buy election… However, we are working on it”. 

And as they had traditionally did on their TV show, Bob & David took the stage to greet the crowd before proceeding to their sketches. Noting the rather colorful Tenderloin neighborhood that The Warfield was part of, Bob pointed out the teenagers smoking crack outside and praised them for being “good kids”. Like other comedy shows I’ve written about, I won’t go into everything they did that night, which would make this review a touch on the long side. Though one golden oldie that made an impression was their visit to the “6-Star Restaurant”, The Burgundy Loaf. There, David brought Stephanie as his date and was taken aback when upon initially standing to go to the bathroom, was reassured by Bob, the uber-French waiter, that his dining chair was also a toilet. From there, he could relieve himself without the discomfort of having to leave the table and underneath his chair, there was a basket with “velvet cushions to cradle Monsieur’s leavings with the tender delicacy of a devoted nursing mother”. As David reluctantly dropped his trousers, revealing his partially exposed buttocks, I was impressed how Stephanie didn’t break character in the slightest, continuing to read the menu and act casual like it was totally appropriate while the audience hooted and hollered.

Among revisits to older material, they did some new notable political bits including a presidential debate between them where David declared, “I’m not from Washington and if elected, I’m not going to go there”. Then they kept one upping each other, first Bob saying, “If education had a dick, I’d suck it” countered by David’s pledge to “cradle its balls”. There was another announcement from Globochem revealing their plan to relocate the rich people of Earth to a new planet before their efforts to destroy this one were complete. On this new planet of “Glen Meadow Estates”, there would be “private security and a 3,019 hole golf course”. This would be “a planet where Lake Tahoe, The Eiffel Tower, and Niagara Falls are all within 30 miles of each other”, would be located “somewhere between the Sun and Mars”, and “the core will be made of real dirt, real dirt from Earth”. Globochem had actually been “digging it out in secret” and bidding to join this new colony would “start at $100 million dollars”. 

One final new sketch they did that I thought was particularly hilarious was one taking place in a courtroom where John, acting as the presiding judge, was allowing the others air their grievances toward Brian, who had just been convicted of murdering Bob’s wife and mother to David and Stephanie. Teary-eyed and filled with rage, Bob went on to berate Brian with a series of seemingly tame put-downs like “You’re a boob! A real boob!… You’re a cheesedoodle! Don’t look away. The night you murdered my wife, you pulled a real doozy! A big fat doozy with a cherry on top with sprinkles on the side!” Stephanie interjected, “You’re a real goof for killing my mother! A top notch dumb-body!” David then stepped forward, pointing accusingly at Brian, “You stink, mister! You stink like a stinky bird! Your head is made of poo!” Now, obviously being the straight man in this one, John interrupted and assured them that they could really say anything they wanted, implying that profanity was acceptable. Bob seemed to get the message but went on calling Brian a “rotten turnip” and declaring, ”You take the cake!… You took my wife’s life and gave it a giant kick in the pants!” And after Stephanie then yelled, “You’re a real turkey, mister!” John finally flipped out, completely befuddled at their milquetoast insults, asking Bob how would his wife feel about this. Then Bob nonchalantly shrugged at his question, admitting that they all thought his wife was “fuckin’ bitch” and a “goddamn asshole”. 

Bob & David finished by coming out as the 90’s R & B duo of Pootie T. and Wolfgang Amadeus Thelonius Van Funkenmeister The 19th and 3 Quarters, otherwise known as Three Times One Minus One. Dressed to the nines in their pimpish sharkskin suits, they crooned “The Greatest Love In History”, though David as Pootie did most the singing, with Wolfgang interjecting the occasional “Damn!”. Like the aforementioned Kids In The Hall whose material I had previously was ignorant to, everything I witnessed during that first early show was brand new to me and I would enjoy it even more during the late show, catching lines and nuances I had missed earlier. Yep, the staff rushed out the first crowd and promptly brought in the second to do it all over again and shortly after they started again, I was released from ushering to enjoy it.

At the end of this long night, Bob & David thanked the crowd, mentioning that they would be performing at a benefit at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles a month later alongside (once again) Kids In The Hall, Janeane Garofalo, and Triumph The Insult Comic Dog. Somebody in the crowd yelled out to add Joan Rivers, but Bob swiftly replied that she was “asked not to perform”. And that was it. We were treated to a lovely poster featuring Pit Pat, the adorable, cartoon  doughboy mascot of Globochem, standing on a trash heap, holding a bag and briefcase of money, with a giant American flag behind him. I’m glad I caught Jim Breuer and this night when I did, because I wouldn’t see another live comedy show for literally another year and a day when Lewis Black & Dave Attell would also do early and late shows at The Warfield in 2003. By then, America’s mindless bloodlust would embroil us into the hopeless quagmire of the second Iraq War and we all really, REALLY needed a laugh then. 

https://archive.org/details/mr.-show-warfield-10502

Jim Breuer, Paul Bond – Fillmore, SF, Thur., October 3

The brilliant, stoner comedy “Half Baked” had propelled Dave Chappelle front and center into A-lister status in 1998 and along with him his worthy co-stars, one of them being Jim Breuer. Before then, Jim had already been a comic success in his own right, being a regular cast member of “Saturday Night Live” for three years, standing out with his hilarious “Goat Boy” character as well as his unforgettable impression of Joe Pesci. Speaking of celebrity actors, Jim is also first cousin to Nancy Allen from “Carrie” and “Robocop”. By this time, he was hard at work on the road doing stand up, had just released a special on Comedy Central called “Hardcore”, also been in a short film around that time called “American Dummy”, and just appeared on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” the week before this show. 

He also hosted “The Jim Breuer Show”, but it was sadly short lived. Clearly, Jim was a fan of heavy metal music and was there at The Fillmore promoting his new DVD, appropriately titled, “Heavy Metal Comedy”, recorded at Irving Plaza back home in his native New York. Indeed, he had brought with him to this so called “Lighten Up” tour, guitarist Chris Cicchino and drummer Rob Liano to back him up on stage for some musical numbers. Incidentally, along with the usual utterly demoralizing news that accompanied the Bush administration during that time, we were all in the mood for a laugh since the Washington D.C. sniper attacks had just begun and wouldn’t be stopped for another three weeks. 

Jim had brought fellow Long Islander Paul Bond to warm up the crowd, who also was fond of musical comedy, doing mostly parody songs during his short set. The sequel to the raunchy teen comedy film “American Pie” had come out the year before in no small part as Paul put it, the original “left so many unanswered questions”. He went on to do a cover of Don McClean’s song of the same name, changing the lyrics to sing mostly about the first movie’s pie fucking scene. He then did a number about the actress Anne Heche and her recent split with Ellen DeGeneres, claiming that now “the smell of fish makes her sick and she really needs a dick”. Finally, Paul got the crowd to sing along and cheer to his parody of “My Sharona” by The Knack, instead turning it into the jingoistic rallying cry, “Die Osama!” A touch indelicate as it was, people were understandably still beyond pissed at Bin Laden and no one took offense to it. 

One of the difficult things about writing about comedy shows is that unless you write out the routine word for word, one can only do it so much justice. If you want more deets on the matter, buy the aforementioned DVD, I suppose. That being said, Mr. Breuer covered a wide range of topics during his set from such subjects as attending his daughters dance recital to his time on “SNL”. There was one funny bit in particular about him taking some psychedelic drugs as a young man and attempting to get home, hearing a demonic voice in his head growling menacingly, “Whatever you do, don’t look in the mirror!!!”. He said he made it home, made it past his parent’s room undetected, shut the door to his bedroom, and naturally, the first things he does upon entering to his horror was just that.

He told a story later about a malicious rumor that he thought “SNL” sucked and followed it with a version of the classic, silly folk dance song, the “Hokey Pokey”, done in the style of AC/DC, Jim doing a spot on impersonation of their singer Brain Johnson. Then, Jim goaded the crowd on who were fans of either the Giants or the A’s. Near the end of his set, he talked about meeting the actual Joe Pesci at “SNL” backstage and how Joe was giving him a hard time about his impersonation of him, complaining that he made him sound “like Mickey Mouse”. Fearing that he soon would become one of his victims in “Goodfellas 2”, Jim talked about he apologized profusely, saying he would never do the imitation again, and he was just happy to have met him. Joe asked him bluntly where Jim was from which he replied meekly, “Long Island”, and Joe threw it back at him laughing, “What the fuck, you from Long Island? I can’t take the piss out of you for five minutes? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Last but not least, Jim ended his set with an anecdote about another celebrity encounter. Jim claimed that late one night, he once shared an elevator with legendary actor Jack Nicholson who looked at him and laughed, “You look the way I feel right now”. Yes, Jim, having been the archetypal, harlequin hippie character in “Half Baked” will forever be associated with the partaking of the sacred herb, partially because of his naturally droopy eyelids. Dispelling any notion of him actually being a real stoner, he reassured us that if he actually smoked pot, his eyes would close completely. 

To Jim’s credit, he did one seemingly inconsequential sight gag that to this day, I have never forgotten. He showed his his impersonation of a “3-armed baseball umpire” and it was hilarious as it was elegant in its simplicity. He took his hand, walking out his index and middle fingers on top of the palm of his other hand, mimicking the whole “let your fingers do the walking” thing that everybody knows and then quickly extended the other three fingers at once shouting, “Safe!”. Corny as it may seem, it got a laugh, and like I said, I never forgot it. In fact, shortly after this show, I found myself at the wedding of my good friend and former roommate, Matt Riggs, down in southern California and repeated that joke in an effort to unsuccessfully impress a celebrity who was also attending there. Matt was marrying a woman named Alexis, who had worked on a touring company of the stage musical “Chicago”, starring Joey Fisher, acclaimed actress and half-sister to Carrie Fisher from “Star Wars”. 

Well, I showed her that bit and she didn’t so much as bat an eyelash, but drunk as I was at the time, I offered to show it to her a couple more times in hope that she’d react to it more positively which she cooly declined. As all comedians do, either pitifully amateur as myself or as professional as Jim, we both at least have in common the shared experience of dealing with a tough crowd. Speaking of tough crowds, though this was the only time I ever witnessed Mr Breuer perform, he ran into a rough patch a few years ago during the pandemic. Yes, apparently Jim got pilled and took a dislike to the whole vaccine thing back then, causing him to cancel dates at venues which required attendees to have taken their “Fauci ouchie”. I’m sad to say that his career has never quite recovered since. 

And on a personal note, I’ve always thought that people in general gravitate towards artists and celebrities that they physically resemble and one can put Jim and and I side by side and say there’s some of that, though I’ll freely admit Jim has much better, if not a lot more hair on the top of his head. Still, I’m glad I saw Jim that night, comedy shows being few and far between for me and in another strange coincidence, perhaps the only time this occurred during my ushering years, one comedy show was immediately followed by another one. Two days after I witnessed Mr. Breuer at The Fillmore, I would attend the early and late show performances from the genius comic duo of “Mr. Show” with David Cross and Bob Odenkirk. And ending this review with one mercifully final coincidence, I will add that Bob was also an “SNL” alumni, having been a writer for that show, though ending his tenure there a few years before Jim joined the cast. 

https://archive.org/details/jim-breuer-fillmore-10302

https://archive.org/details/paul-bond-fillmore-10302

Bela Fleck & The Flecktones – Warfield, SF, Sat., September 28

I had just seen Elvis Costello on that very same stage the night before and a strange coincidence occurred to me while writing about these shows which I had mentioned in the previous entry, but it still bears repeating. Elvis did a song that night called “My Mood Swings” which was featured in the cult classic film “The Big Lebowski” and the day before I wrote the review of that show, I had seen the San Francisco Symphony with Bela Fleck at Stern Grove. There, the Symphony performed “Pictures At An Exhibition” by Modest Mussorgsky which had also been featured in that epic Coen brothers comedy. What are the chances that 24 years later this unlikely triumvirate would occur once more? I’m not a betting man, but I would guess the chances are roughly the same of me winning the Powerball. 

Anyway, I had seen Mr. Fleck at The Fillmore back in ’95 and though I was impressed by his undeniable skills on the banjo, I wasn’t the biggest fan. Seriously, I have long complained about the bluegrass crowd for not shutting the fuck up and listening to the music being played and this night was no exception. The fact that this genre of music is so quiet that it barely registers on my recordings is bad enough, but my frustration was compounded by the fact that my headphone mic was shorting out and had been for some time which makes my recordings practically unlistenable. Sorry to those who attempted to do so and let me assure y’all, I more than share your frustration. Not to say that they were entirely a loss. There were parts where it was clear enough and one can easily appreciate the musical genius and mind boggling dexterity of Bela’s noodling as well as the musicians that he employed with his Flecktones. 

Being primarily an instrumental band, I hadn’t a clue what the lion’s share of his songs were titled, but I at least made out one cover song they did briefly. Yes, they did a few minutes of the immortal surf rock guitar anthem “Wipeout” by The Safaris. As the show went on, the band also busted out all sorts of instruments from a vibraphone to a train whistle which they also played masterfully. And though like I said, I’m not the biggest Bela fan in the world, he stepped up like a goddamn hero and earned himself some well deserved street cred last January when he bravely cancelled three shows at the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony Orchestra in protest to Donald Trump’s brutal defiling of that sacred institution. Bela’s ballsy defiance helped encourage other artists to do so and in no small part contributed to the triumphant removal of that stupid, virtueless pedophile’s name off the face of that iconic venue for all eternity. Mr. Fleck, I may not be a hippie, but if we ever meet, for that alone, I want to shake your hand and buy you a drink. 

https://archive.org/details/bela-fleck-the-flecktones-warfield-92802

Elvis Costello & The Imposters, Phantom Planet – Warfield, SF, Fri., September 27

SETLISTS : 

(PHANTOM PLANET) : Always On My Mind, Just A Scratch, (unknown), Lonely Day, The Guest, Nobody’s Fault, Badd Business, California, All Over Again

(ELVIS COSTELLO & THE IMPOSTERS) : Miracle Man, Clubland, Shabby Doll, Spooky Girlfriend, Tear Off Your Own Head (It’s A Doll Revolution), Rocking Horse Road, Green Shirt, 45, I Hope You’re Happy Now, The Judgement, I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down, High Fidelity, Man Out Of Time, Indoor Fireworks, Tart, Deep Dark Truthful Mirror, Shipbuilding, Brilliant Mistake, Alibi, Radio Radio, (encore), My Mood Swings, Dust 2…, When I Was Cruel No. 2, Alison, Pump It Up, (encore), Lipstick Vogue, Watching The Detectives, I Want You, Almost Blue

I had seen Elvis three times and though this was a treat, by then I might have taken him for granted. He had brought along his “Imposters” band, employing new bassist Davey Faragher from Cracker. Davey was replacing Bruce Thomas, also his former bassist from his original Attractions band, but they had a recent falling out, Elvis accusing him of trying to sabotage their latest record, the aptly named, “When I Was Cruel” which had come out that April. Bruce would join Elvis on stage a year later as Elvis Costello & The Attractions were introduced intro the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, but they wouldn’t perform together. Say what you want about Elvis Costello, but he’s no doubt prolific, this being his 19th studio album in only 15 years. And on a more personal note, Mr. Costello literally just ended his relationship with Cait O’Riordan a month before this show, having met Diana Krall at The Grammies that February. They quickly fell in love and would marry a year later at Elton John’s house and remain together to this day. 

He had also just finished lending a voice to the “How I Spent My Strummer Vacation” on “The Simpsons” where he and other rock stars royalty Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Tom Petty, and Lenny Kravitz, teach Homer and his friends music and stage persona at a rock & roll band camp. It debuted that November and is considered one of the show’s most popular episodes. In fact, the Simpsons merchandise people did a collectible action figure series of “25 Greatest Guest Stars” and he was one of them. During one scene in the episode, Elvis tries to convince Homer and the others to consider playing bass instead of guitar, since if everybody chose guitar, there wouldn’t be enough of them to go around.  They angrily rejected the suggestion and Homer knocked off his signature, rectangular, horn-rimmed eyeglasses which caused Elvis to lament, “My image!”. So, his action figure also incudes a tiny bass guitar as an accessory.

Opening that night would be Phantom Planet who I’d also seen at The Warfield the previous Halloween opening for Tenacious D. They’d been touring for a grueling 18 months straight, then promoting their new album, “The Guest”, which had come out that February. Their drummer, actor and Coppola family member, Jason Schwartzman, had also been busy appearing in the films “Slackers”, “Spun”, and “Simone” that year. Phantom Planet’s new hit single “California” would become the theme song to the teen TV drama series “The O.C.” the following year and Jason would leave the band for good to focus on his acting career which he has successfully continued to this day. Phantom Planet once again did an enjoyable set and still think they’re one of the better opening bands one can have on a bill. 

Before I continue with Elvis, I must apologize to all listening to the recording I made since there were periods of horrible mic problems, but the songs in the set were out of order. The setlist I’m sharing here is accurate though. My recording was quiet in the beginning too, sorry again, but after I was cut ushering, I got closer on the dance floor and it got better. The band came on stage to the sound of the “William Tell Overture” by Rossini playing over the speakers and promptly started with “Miracle Man”. In a strange coincidence, an unnamed opening act at Col. Les Claypool’s Bucket Of Bernie Brains show at the Great American eleven days prior did a parody song to the tune of that overture with the solitary lyric of “I’ve got a turtle head” repeated over and over again in rapid succession. The less said about them the better, being an unspeakably vulgar act, but feel free to go back a couple shows and read about them if you’re interested. 

But back to the show at hand. Elvis did seven new songs that night and though they were still fresh to his fans ears, he still had no trouble getting to sing along to songs like “45”, “Tart”, and “Alibi”. Of coarse, it was utterly effortless to get them to join in on his golden oldies, especially “Alison” followed by “Pump It Up” during the first encore. He busted out a little of “He Must Go” by Jim Reeves during the former and in the middle of “Deep Dark Truthful Mirror”, threw in a chorus of “You Really Got A Hold Of Me”, the R & B masterpiece by Smokey Robinson. Elvis also did his famous cover of “I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down” by Smokey’s fellow soul pioneers, Sam & Dave.

Another more interesting coincidence happened during this time when I was doing research about this show. At the beginning of the first encore, I overheard Elvis introduce his song “My Mood Swings” saying it had been the music Jeff Bridges character, The Dude, had been listening to in his headphones in the Coen Brothers immortal 1998 comedy “The Big Lebowski”. And just yesterday, in Stern Grove, I heard the S.F. Symphony perform “Pictures At An Exhibition” from Modest Mussorgsky that had a bit from it that was also in that film. And during that show with the Symphony, hippie banjo master Bela Fleck was playing alongside them, doing impressive versions of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody In Blue” and “Rodeo – Hoe-Down” by Aaron Copeland. And lo and behold, take a wild guess who I’d see on that very same Warfield stage the night after this Elvis Costello show… You guessed it, Bela Fleck. Somebody upstairs is pushing some buttons, huh?

https://archive.org/details/elvis-costello-the-imposters-warfield-92702

https://archive.org/details/phantom-planet-warfield-92702

Sleater-Kinney, The Bangs, Shannon Wright – Fillmore, SF, Mon., September 23

SETLISTS : 

(THE BANGS) : New Scars, (unknown), I Want More, (unknown), (unknown), Train Wreck, Southern Girls, Dirty Knives, Burnout

(SLEATER-KINNEY) : One Beat, Oxygen, Oh!, Get Up, I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, The Remainder, Burn Don’t Freeze, Far Away, Funeral Song, Youth Decay, Light Rail Coyote, All Hands On The Bad One, Combat Rock, You’re No Rock & Roll Fun, Sympathy, Hollywood Ending, Words & Guitar, (encore), Step Aside, The Promised Land, Turn It On, Call The Doctor, Dig Me Out

I was excited to be seeing Sleater-Kinney for the first time as a headlining act, having enjoyed them once also at The Fillmore opening for the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion in ’97 and just the year before this as one of the acts at the Power To The Peaceful festival in Dolores Park. This would also be the first of three sold out shows they’d be doing this time and they were touring in support of their new album, “One Beat”, which came out just a month prior and had also released it on the Kill Rock Stars website. In fact, their set that evening included every single song on that new album except for one, “Prisstina”. Shannon Wright would open all three nights, but The Bangs would only play at this show and The Quails would open the following two nights. I appreciated that they only charged $15 for the tickets, helping to continue cement their punk rock credentials and in hindsight, I should have least attended one more night of the run. 

The band members were busy around that time as one would imagine. Carrie Brownstein, still 9 years away from debuting her hit TV comedy series “Portlandia” with Fred Armisen, had acted in an indy film that year called “Group”. Corin Tucker had given birth to a son, though premature 9 weeks early, and the new song “Sympathy” was dedicated to him. I’m happy to say her son is alive and well and she now also has a daughter. It would be the last time I’d see Sleater-Kinney perform live for 23 years (fuck, that was too long!) when they turned up, strangely enough, at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in Golden Gate Park and rest assured, I made sure to get there early and was all the way in the front. I did however see Corin Tucker in 2019 alongside Peter Buck from R.E.M. as part of the supergroup, Filthy Friends, at the Swedish American Music Hall. 

I had seen the aforementioned Shannon Wright opening for the Dirty Three at the Great American Music Hall a couple years before this and liked her brief set. She had just put out her fourth album “Dyed In The Wool” and though I appreciated her talent, once again, I was befuddled trying to make out a single word she was singing. Granted, she’s from Jacksonville, Florida and clearly had a southern accent when speaking, but when singing, it sounded as if she had vocal coaching from The Minions. She was playing solo the last time I saw her, but this time she had a band and her guitars were screechy as hell. Still, the quiet songs when she was on piano were quite beautiful actually. I’ve come to learn that the band that followed, The Bangs, as they were accidentally listed in the ads and the poster they gave out at the end of the show, were actually just titled Bangs without the article in front. It’s a seemingly small but monumentally important distinction. It reminds me when Smashing Pumpkins became THE Smashing Pumpkins. The first name would be an action, the literal act of smashing a pumpkins. The second could be interpreted as pumpkins that are either smashing in the superlative sense or smashing as they are pumpkins that are smashing things. Personally, I like the original, but that’s just me.

Anyway, like Portland natives Sleater-Kinney, Bangs were from Washington state, from nearby Olympia and were also members on the Kill Rock Stars label. They had played the previous Wednesday at the Hemlock Tavern, a tiny venue attached to a bar just a block away from where I was living in the Tenderloin at the time, but I didn’t know about it. Bangs thanked the audience between songs and one of them admitted that, “we had a real bumpy ride here… a rocky road”. Apparently, their tour van was “going to die” and giving them trouble for some time. One of them also joked that they were calling it the Oh Shit tour, like “Oh shit, the band broke” and mumbled a half dozen things that went wrong. Still, they were cheerful, showing off the wristbands the Fillmore staff gave them. Their songs were fast and very punk, but I’m afraid this would be the only time I’d see them perform. Bangs broke up two years laster, though they did a four night reunion in 2010. 

In a recent review, which I’ve included in this entry, a writer at SF Weekly described Sleater-Kinney’s music as being “off putting”. Now that might seem little harsh at first, but for an artist, it’s really better than it sounds. Even the critics would agree that their songs are very intense and musically original. Nobody else sounds quite like them, though a handful come close. And yes, it can be a little exhausting after an hour or so of it. That’s why I think they’re the ideal band as an opening act or as part of a festival show. I’m happy to say, they did a stellar set and the new material was warmly welcomed. 

A few songs in, they played “I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone”, a loving tribute to the punk rock icon who passed away from lymph node cancer the year before, joining an endless stream of other artists covering his songs live around that time. After they did “You’re No Rock & Roll Fun”, Carrie said, “We’re so relieved to get to San Francisco…We’ve had an arduous journey through the southern half of your state.” She went on to tell a funny story about how they had to relocated their shows the week before at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles after country singer Faith Hill’s tour damaged the venue during a video shoot there. To their surprise and amusement, they instead did their shows at a local shopping mall, Carrie joking, “We sort of felt like Tiffany”. The second song into their encore, they did a cover of “The Promised Land” by Bruce Springsteen in honor or The Boss’ 53rd birthday that night. Afterwards, Corin thanked the openers and generously praised them for sticking out the “arduous journey through”.

https://archive.org/details/sleater-kinney-fillmore-92302

https://archive.org/details/the-bangs-fillmore-92302

https://archive.org/details/shannon-wright-the-fillmore-92302

Col. Les Claypool’s Bucket Of Bernie Brains, The Kehoe Nation – Great American Music Hall, SF, Sat., September 14

Col. Les Claypool’s Bucket Of Bernie Brains, The Braun Fellinis – Great American Music Hall, SF, Mon., September 16

As the years went on after Les Claypool first went on hiatus from Primus, his side projects only grew in number. One would think that The Holy Mackerel, Oysterhead, and The Fearless Flying Frog Brigade were enough, but his productivity was insatiable, thus giving birth to this new musical supergroup. It did however spawn rather accidentally. You see, earlier that June at the annual Bonnaroo music festival in Manchester, Tennessee, Bill Laswell was there with Buckethead and Brain performing in Praxis, but Bill couldn’t play for some reason and Les being there at the time, decided to fill in. The combination of these unique artists inspired them to continue aided by the legendary Parliament-Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell. Thus, Col. Claypool’s Bucket Of Bernie Brains was born. Yes, back then Les was still listing his military rank of Colonel between this band and the Frog Brigade. He’s since dropped it, though I argue that he should have been at least promoted to General by now.

Anyway, my experience with Les and Primus was already extensive by then and during the last couple years before the hiatus, Brain had of coarse been their drummer. I had also recorded Bernie and Buckethead at the Maritime Hall and though nobody had heard a single note of this new group together yet, these shows were beyond tempting. Incidentally, Buckethead and Brain had recently worked together with Guns N’ Roses, contributing their skills to the “Chinese Democracy” album which had been in production hell to put it mildly. The first official show the Bucket Of Bernie Brains did was actually that Friday at Slim’s, the night before the first show at the Great American. I found out about it too late and the tickets sold out, but when the Great American shows were announced, I hopped to it without hesitation and scored. There had been only one show originally booked at the Great American, but as Les mentioned that Saturday night, a second show was added for Monday which put his manager, Dave Lefkowitz, “in a tizzy”. 

On the Saturday gig, they had brought along The Kehoe Nation to open up. Led by frontman Bryan Kehoe of M.I.R.V., this so-called “shredabilly” band was quite new as well, being only a year old. It was a full band along with a sax player, a violinist, and a guy on stand up bass and they did indeed shred. Incidentally, there had been rumors back then of Slim’s, where they had played the night before, closing down and Kehoe addressed the issue asking, “Are we going to let a San Francisco institution die away?” Slim’s did remain open for quite some time, but eventually went the way of the Dodo in 2020. I wasn’t able to make out any of Kehoe’s song titles apart from “Narcolepsy In A Chinese Opium Den”, which Kehoe had abbreviated to simply “Narcolepsy” while introducing it. Afterwards, he asked us, “Hey, Who likes bread crumbs? Ants like bread crumbs. Remember that, young man. Always eat your peanut butter & jelly sandwich outside the bed…. OK, a drinking song! Cus’ guess what? I like to drink!” A decade later, Kehoe would join Mr. Claypool, side by side, just the two of them, in yet another musical side project called the Duo De Twang. 

Les and the band got up on stage eventually, but didn’t actually start for several minutes while they carefully tuned and set up their gear. Bernie led the way playing on his keys in a sort of circus organ tone, instrumental versions of “London Bridges Falling Down” and “All You Need Is Love” by The Beatles. The crowd cheerfully sang along to both of them. Les greeted us, “Welcome… For those of you who were here last night, welcome back. It was a good exercise, an experiment in spontaneity. What we do just comes out of us… like any other excrement. But I predict, last night I had a great time, but I think tonight is going to be three and a half times as good”. And then they began to jam together. Yes, this indeed was an exercise in spontaneity, because back then, these songs they played didn’t even have names. It wouldn’t be for another two years until the Bucket Of Bernie Brains would put out their first and only album, “The Big Eyeball In The Sky” and apart from the handful of cover song bits they did through the night, all this was totally new and unscripted as far as we could tell. 

A couple jam sessions later, Les cheerfully goaded Buckethead on saying, “It’s almost time to unleash the demons, Buckethead…. A smattering of demons” and then they did a chorus of “Come Together”, also by The Beatles. Later, Les took a break and spoke to us again, “Last night, we tried a little something, a little experiment… Didn’t really work. So, if it’s up to you guys, should I try again tonight?” We all cheered and he went on, “If it works out, we might do it again on Monday night. I’m going to hand out five cards to five individuals along with Sharpies. What I want you to do, it’s like a John Zorn type of thing. You guys know John Zorn? We’re going to take these cards and interpret the words you write on the cards. Last night, we got stuff like ‘Buckethead rules’ and ‘Bernie is god’. That is wonderful but we can’t really interpret them. You can write out ‘sunflower’ or ‘George W. Bush’, something we can respond to.” Les passed out the cards and then pens, though I wasn’t one of the lucky recipients. 

Bernie began the next song meandering on his keyboard again going from the old ragtime number “Jeepers Creepers” to “Once In A Lifetime” by The Talking Heads, a band Bernie had collaborated with back in the day as well. During a little breakdown, Les egged on Buckethead once more knowing full well that Buckethead never speaks on stage ever, “Hey… Hey, Buckethead… Talk to me Buckethead. Tell me what’s on your mind… C’mon, Buckethead. I’m your friend. We’re all your friends. Tell us, what’s on your mind, Buckethead? The world wants to know… Pink wants to know… Axl Rose wants to know… Super psychedelic strawberry smoothie”. Afterwards, the cards came back from the audience, the band read them as Les passed them around, “You want one Bernie? I got a question for ya’, Bern… Solve the riddle of three and humanity will be free.” And from the cards, Les said something to the effect of “Popcorn chicken bacon crotch knee jerks” and from those words, these able musicians did their best to make their best artistic interpretation of them. The jam they performed of coarse was fascinating, but I guess Les ultimately gave up on the whole card idea, didn’t do it on Monday night, and as far as I know, hasn’t done it since.

When the main set ended, chants of “You suck!” arose from the crowd until they returned once again to the stage. Bernie got us started again with a few licks of the old sea chanty “A Pirate’s Life For Me” before Buckethead did one of his amazing guitar solos, even playing bits from the original “Star Wars” soundtrack. They jammed a bit more before transitioning in to a unique cover of “Tomorrow Never Knows”, once again by The Beatles. As I had written before, with the Frog Brigade, Les had already dabbled with that song along with a few others like “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, “With A Little Help From My Friends”, and “Taxman”. At the very end, I stumbled out and did something unusual. By that time, I had made it tradition to record my so-called “walkout”, taping the few minutes of me leaving a venue, saying goodbye to people, and a little street noise. But because this was at the Great American and my studio apartment was just a block away, I recorded myself walking all the way back home, getting into my building, taking the old fashioned elevator with sliding grill door up to the fifth floor, fumbling with my keys, and walking into my place. The whole thing took around nine minutes, a little self indulgent, but I believe it was the only time I ever did it.

I had a day off between shows, but was back nice and early to get a good spot up front for the Monday one. I was grateful that the Braun Fellinis were opening this time, the acid jazz trio that I had seen and done some of my first bootlegs with back in the early 90’s when I lived next to the Elbo Room where they played every Monday. By this time, they had adopted a new stage persona giving each other afro-futuristic names. Drummer Kevin Carnes was now “Professor Boris Kamaz”, saxophonist David Boyce was now “Black Edgar Kenyatta”, and on bass was Kirk “The Redeemer” Peterson who replaced Ayman Mubarak. Kirk was excellent and worthy of the trio, doing a very impressive solo that night. This reborn trio proclaimed that “From the mystical land of Boohaabra which floats off the coast of Madagascar, surrounded by the Phat Temple, the Ministry Of Imagination and the Oasis Of Surprise can be reached through their music”. Their set was short and wasn’t sure what songs they did apart from “Gospel Of Fig Wasp”, but they were fantastic as always. Seriously, they should play with Les more often.

Now, before we go any further, to all the young people out there, the next act requires some parental guidance. To this day, I don’t know who or what this musical monstrosity was named that followed the Fellinis, so I’ve just opted to call them “Mystery Guy”. Their set was thankfully very short, but memorable to say the least, and I have opted to leave them, who will not be identified, unlisted in my records or even at the heading of this entry. Anyway, I will do my best to describe the horrors we witnessed. This was a duo of overweight, hairy, middle aged white men, both wearing only adult diapers, one on acoustic guitar and one singing. They proceeded to play a handful of parody songs where they took popular tunes, ones most people knew, and changed the lyrics to sing about, and I’m just going to come right out and say it, taking a dump.

On the surface, it doesn’t seem so offensive and might actually seem mildly amusing in a sort of middle school humor at first, but if you excuse the expression, things went south pretty quick. After doing a parody of “The Sounds Of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel, they went on to do one of “Night Moves” by Bob Seger, which I assume they called “Bowels Move”. I painstakingly transcribed some of the lyrics… Here goes, “Went to the bathroom to try to drop a few pounds. Pulled my pants off. Sat right down. Start pushing with all of my might, but that burrito was so damn tight… That Mexican restaurant was all you can eat, superb burrito with refried beans. No time at all, stuffed a lot. Now I sit straining on the pot. Trying to make my bowels move. Trying to drop off ten pounds of recycled food! Trying to make my bowels move… (grunting)…Tried apple juice but it’s no good. Trying to soften this payload of food. My butthole’s flexin’ and it’s turning blue. Please help me God. What can I do? Trying to make my bowels move. Sitting here for about an hour or two. Trying to make my bowels move… and night time’s closing in…”

I was laughing my head off, but the rest of the crowd was quickly losing patience as they went on to do “The William Tell Overture” with the solitary lyric of “I’ve got a turtle head” repeated over and over again in rapid succession. What really ticked everyone off was when he desecrated Bob Marley’s immortal classic “No Woman, No Cry”, mutating it into “My Swollen Brown Eye” Here we go again… “Well I remember my mama said to me, make sure you drink lots of water. Because your poop chute, it needs to be greased, otherwise you’ll block up your colon. I did not listen to those final words, I should have known better… Oh, my swollen brown eye! My swollen brown eye!” OK, OK… I’ll leave it at that, because after the first verse the booing made it nearly impossible to make out the rest. Seriously, the Great American is a pretty small venue, but it was like thunder in there.

The next song was a parody of “Piano Man” by Billy Joel, but god help me, I wouldn’t come up with a title for this one. Of what one verse I could make out something about him going to a hospital, seeing a doctor, who “pushed me over the table and pulled my buttocks apart, and from the cut of my butt, I let out a terrible fart. The servant, he fell over backwards, coughing and gasping for air. Then he fell and was gagging on the ground and then I went out of here”. The thunderous booing only encouraged them to continue, the singer taunting between songs, “One more?… Yes or no?” and when everyone bellowed “NO!!!” he continued with a cover of “I’ve Been Everywhere” reimagined as “I’ve Seen Pubic Hair”. Granted, at least this one wasn’t about caca-doody, but the boos kept coming. I was able to make out, “I’ve travelled all over this country and I’ve seen pubic hair. The devil I can bare. I’ve even got my share, man, beneath my underwear, man, stickin’ out here and there, man. I’ve seen pubic hair… short ones, thick ones, squishy ones, bushy ones, pretty ones, dirty ones, big ones, little ones” and it went on like that. 

At last, the longest twenty minutes of our lives mercifully came to a close and as they departed the stage, the customary chant at Claypool’s shows of “You suck!” was hurled at these guys and not in the usual, ironic endearing way. My friend Matt who was with me complained bitterly that the time we had just spent should have been listening to Les Claypool. But in appreciation of the Andy Kaufman-like merciless engagement of this audience, I declared this duo as “very important” claiming that someday “you’ll be telling your grandchildren about these guys”. Granted, neither Matt nor I have had offspring that we know of, I am imparting the memory of this profane pair of fecalpheliacs. And I can say with absolute certainty, as long as I have my marbles, that memory is seared into my brain no matter how hard I try to forget about it. (Deep breath… sigh)… So, thank you , gentle reader for helping me get through this and we can move on to less unnerving subjects.

Les and the gang came back and started things up again and he asked us, “How was your Monday?” They did more nameless jam sessions, but they did one exception, playing “Calling Kyle”, a song Les had composed with The Holy Mackerel. During one jam session, someone in a George W. Bush mask came out with a melodica, did a solo, and meandered about the stage. I could hear myself imitating the bum at the beginning of the sci-fi thriller “Escape From New York”, drunkenly slurring, “Hail to the chief… la da dee da dee daaaaa…” Les tried to get his attention, repeating, “Mr. President… Mr. President… Mr. President…” And then the guy in the mask pantomimed to a recording of Bush over the speakers saying, “I’ve apparently been misunderstood… I’m not the warmonger you think I am” or something like that. 

Bush got some boos too, but not nearly filled with the vitriol for the last act. Still, Les made it clear early on back then that he was no fan of George and rightfully so. The march to war with Iraq was well on its way and six months later, our country would take that disastrous plunge. I’m glad I went to these shows because the Bucket Of Bernie Brains project was short lived. I was able to see just one more of their glorious performances the following February at The Fillmore, but after that, Les reformed Primus and the rest is history. Though Buckethead and Brain are alive and well, I’m afraid Bernie passed away in 2016 at the age of 72 at his home in Everson, Washington, so there won’t be a reunion of this magical quartet. But the memory of those shows, despite the residual trauma of the “Mystery Guy” act, remains with me. 

https://archive.org/details/col.-claypools-bucket-of-bernie-brains-great-american-music-hall-91602

https://archive.org/details/mystery-guy-great-american-music-hall-91602

https://archive.org/details/braun-fellinis-great-american-music-hall-91602

https://archive.org/details/col.-claypools-bucket-of-bernie-brains-great-american-music-hall-91402

https://archive.org/details/the-kehoe-nation-great-american-music-hall-91402

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Rumah Sakit – Bottom Of The Hill, SF, Wed., September 11

SETLIST : Sleepytime (Spirit Is A Bone), (instrumental), S.P.Q.R., Flinch, Ode To 9/11, The Donkey-Headed Adversary Of Humanity Opens The Discussion, Powerless, Babydoctor, Cockroach

After being absolutely spellbound and wonderfully befuddled the first occasion seeing Sleepytime at the “Live Nude Bands” revue at The Fillmore the year before, I was eager to see them headline their own show, especially at a venue at small as Bottom Of The Hill. I wish I had noticed they had been there before, being quite the regular act at that venue. This would in fact be the tenth out of fourteen times they would perform at Bottom Of The Hill that year alone. Better late than never I suppose and have seen them many times since then. Six of the songs they did at the show they did there in June made it onto a live record they released later. Sleepytime was still promoting their debut album, “Grand Opening & Closing”, which was only a year old, but they had been busy working on new material at their warehouse-residence-practice space in Oakland they called “The Nursery”. Three of the new songs, the hilariously titled “The Donkey-Headed Adversary Of Humanity Opens The Discussion”, “Babydoctor” and “Cockroach”, would come out two years later on their “Of Natural History” album..

But this show came on a night of horrifying significance. It was the one year anniversary of 9/11. We all knew it and dreaded this night as the days grew closer to it. Sleepytime addressed the elephant in the room in their own special way as the show went on. First up was Rumah Sakit, a local instrumental band whose name means “Hospital” in Indonesian. It was pretty complicated stuff, lots of weird time signatures, very progressive. As usual, it was also plenty loud in there, Bottom Of The Hill being the small, low ceiling bunker that it is, so I had no trouble getting a clear recording that night. 

When Sleepytime took the stage, Nils Frykdahl, their singer-guitarist, in his customary, delightful, low key swagger, spoke to the crowd first, “Those of you requesting ‘1997’, I’ve been having some problems with my radiator. My internal radiator isn’t functioning properly, so I’m having a hard time standing up… And yeah, this song is called ‘1998’ and it’s a little mellower. Another related show, the ICS which is the Immersion Composition Society, is having its, I think its first live show with the Society devoted to producing immersion compositions, a great deal of music in a short period of time. All the members gather on what is usually a Saturday or Sunday and spend time alone and in their studio the entire day writing and recording as many songs as they can and at the end of the day, they assemble. And yes, apparently all over the place spawned over in Oak Village, the results of those are to be performed live for the first time. The Fishbowl? The Fishtank? Some of these songs we play tonight are from this process… 3405 Piedmont, Oakland, near the sawmill which you pass by on the 580 freeway all the time.”

And within seconds, I was reminded what captivated me when I heard these crazy art geniuses before and grateful that I would have them play over twice as long as they did the last time. After a couple songs, Nils addressed in his own droll way the solemn anniversary, “Thank y’all for coming out on a school night… Who-ah!… Maybe this time next year we won’t have to celebrate this holiday, cus’ something much WORSE would have happened!… Who-ah!” Then they did another song about a different empire, the Romans, called “S.P.Q.R.”. I learned later that this number is basically the only song they do that’s a cover of another band, one called This Heat, an English experimental rock band from the 70’s. But afterwards, they did another piece that was spoken word over incidental music that clearly was about this somber anniversary and without an official title, I simply call it “Ode To 9/11”. 

Dan Rathbun, their bass and many other instrument player, spoke the words in a droll, measured, nerd-like tone, “Now you fill your box with your stuff and removed also with your big brother, who is very strong, some body parts of my neighbors, who are uncomfortable because of the way you have treated me. And now that your big brother has cut off also some fingers of some of my neighbors because they refused to lend him a cup of sugar… Your big brother needs to eat a lot of sugar. And after so many years when a group from my neighborhood went to the large house of your brother and hid themselves in his closet until he was sleeping and then very skillfully snuck out and cut off his two longest fingers. Will he then with great indignation and this great injustice of his loss, proceed to burn down all of the houses in the neighborhood?… Because he is still not sure exactly who it was that cut off his precious fingers…”

At the end of their set, they did what I consider one of their best songs, the aforementioned “Cockroach”. It originally was a song they composed for a dance theater piece named “Onion” that was performed at the Yerba Buena Theater and Nils dedicated it to all the “theater people”. Really, it’s beautiful and hysterical as it is haunting. And speaking of haunting anniversaries, the 25th anniversary of 9/11 is quickly approaching as I write and though each anniversary is truly a somber event, there really wasn’t another that was a painful as the first one. I’m grateful that Sleepytime helped us get through it together. On a lighter note, I wouldn’t have to wait nearly as long as I did before to see them again and just three months later, I saw them again on that very same stage. And as of last year, I’ve seen Sleepytime on 11 separate occasions, joining the lucky few artists to join my “double digits club”. I actually just went through my archive and counted… There are only 18 others in that club, which actually is kind of a lot. Hmm. 

https://archive.org/details/sleepytime-gorilla-museum-bottom-of-the-hill-91102

https://archive.org/details/rumah-sakit-bottom-of-the-hill-91102

Wire, The Standard – Fillmore, SF, Mon., September 9

SETLIST : 99.9, (unknown), Read & Burn, The Agfers Of Kodack, Comet, The Art Of Shopping, Spent, I Don’t Understand, (encore), (unknown), Lowdown, (encore), Pink Flag

It had been a marathon weekend of music starting with Wilco at The Warfield, a double feature of the Power To The Peaceful festival in Golden Gate Park followed immediately by Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe at The Fillmore that night, and then the Sprite Liquid Mix tour at Shoreline with Jay-Z and a laundry list of others. Finishing it all would be this one, the post punk stylings of Wire. I admit, before this night I knew next to nothing about them, apart from Lush recording a cover of their song “Outdoor Miner” which they didn’t play that night. It’s a pity. I like that song. Wire had been around for quite some time actually, starting alongside other English punks in 1976 like the Sex Pistols, The Damned, and The Clash. But their sound was leaning towards more of the artsy, wall of noise stuff like The Fall. One could see how Wire influenced later acts like Sonic Youth, Minor Threat, and Guided By Voices. In fact, Elastica blatantly ripped off their song “Three Girl Rhumba” for their hit single “Connected” and after a lengthy lawsuit, was settled out of court. 

Wire’s career had been intermittent over the years, breaking up in ’79, reforming in ’85, then semi-retiring in 1990, before returning again in ’99. Their absences seemed to only reignite the demands from their fans to play again though, leading to a triumphant sold out gig at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 2000. Wire had recently released two combined EPs called “Read & Burn” followed by a third EP which was put out in 2007. I had missed them when they performed at the Great American a couple years before this night, but this time they were promoted to The Fillmore, a venue about three times larger. Opening that evening was The Standard, an indy rock band from Portland, Oregon who had just put out their second album “August” that year. They too were into ear splitting guitar wailing and their singer had a voice that was quite shrill, sounding a little like Brian Molko from Placebo.

Predictably, the show was so loud that it overloaded my headphone mic a bit and I made sure to stay in the back of the room for most of the night. Thank god for earplugs. Their set, like many English acts, was a short one, doing only a mere eight songs, though they did come back for two quick encores. As you might imagine, I was relieved anyway because of the long weekend I had already endured. Colin Newman, their frontman, at the end said, “Thank you! We love San Francisco. Thank you very much” and Graham Lewis, the bassist quickly joked after, “Don’t you wish you went to see Robert Plant?” The immortal singer of Led Zeppelin was indeed performing that night across the bay at Berkeley Community Theater, though I was unaware of it at the time. I have seen Mr. Plant since, but I’m afraid this was the only time I have ever seen Wire play and sadly, there wasn’t a poster at the end of the night to mark the occasion. I limped home over Cathedral Hill, grateful that I finally earned a day off. 

https://archive.org/details/wire-fillmore-9902

https://archive.org/details/the-standard-fillmore-9902

Sprite Liquid Mix Tour 2002: Jay-Z, 311, Hoobastank, N.E.R.D., Talib Kweli, Blackalicious, Nappy Roots, Nonpoint – Shoreline, Mountain View, Sun., September 8

SETLISTS :

(NONPOINT) : Development, Circles, Endure, Your Signs, Victim

(BLACKALICIOUS) : Paragraph President, First In Flight, Rock The Spot, Make You Feel That Way, It’s Going Down, A To G, Introduction : Bow & Fire

(N.E.R.D.) : Brain, Provider, Lapdance, Run To The Sun, Stay Together, Rock Star

(TALIB KWELI) : (unknown), Get By, Definition, Respiration, Love Language, Waitin’ For The DJ, The Blast, Too Late

(HOOBASTANK) : Better, Running Away, Hello Again, Let You Know, Up & Gone, Crawling In The Dark, Pieces, Remember Me

(311) : Freak Out, All Mixed Up, Beautiful Disaster, Unity, Hydroponic, Champagne, Applied Science, Amber, Homebrew, Reconsider Everything, Down, Who’s Got The Herb?, You Wouldn’t Believe, What Was I Thinking, Feels So Good

(JAY-Z) : Jigga My Nigga, I Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me), You Me Him & Her, Change The Game, Rock The Mic, Line ‘Em Up, What We Do, Do My…, Is That Your Chick? (The Lost Verses), Jigga What Jigga Who, You Don’t Know, 1 2 Y’all, Jigga That Nigga, Heart Of The City (Ain’t No Love), Hard Knock Life, This Can’t Be Life, Song Cry, Money Ain’t A Thing, Can I Get A…, Fiesta (Remix), Big Pimpin’ 

It had already been a long and grueling weekend of music, starting with Wilco at The Warfield that Friday, followed the next day by a double feature of the Power To The Peaceful Festival in Golden Gate Park and Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe at The Fillmore. And there I was, bright and early at Shoreline that Sunday to see another full day of music with the Sprite Liquid Mix tour. Looking back in my current stage of middle age decrepitude, I am still astonished that I was able to muster the energy for these adventures. Believe it or not, I still had one show the following night with Wire at The Fillmore before I was finally able to take a day off. As you might imagine by the length of some of these festival reviews of mine, even writing about them can be a bit exhausting. On a side note, because of that I have henceforth decided that when I write about a festival show, I will release it alone, instead of my customary two show release of reviews. Normal gigs will still be seen in bunches of two, but let’s face it, a festival is like pulling a double shift time-wise anyway.

But I wouldn’t be alone that day at Shoreline, having been accompanied by Tory Fink, one of my best friends, who enjoyed the festivities as he bounced between the stages with me. Tory had become a big fan of N.E.R.D. and Talib Kweli, so when I put in for comp tickets, he needed no convincing to come along for the ride. Equally astonishing as my former talent to endure these long stretch of shows was the affordability of this festival. If you took a young person aside today that one was not only able to see Jay-Z, but this laundry list of other notable artists for only $20, they wouldn’t believe you. Even in 2002 dollars, that was a steal. Granted, Jay-Z was still fairly new back then, but he had a worldwide blockbuster hit on his hands with “Hard Knock Life”. In fact, one of the only shows I regretted not being able to record at Maritime Hall after the firing of my partner Pete and my departure, was when Jay-Z performed there in January of 2000, only two months after that bitter milestone. I had recorded a lot of hip hop royalty there, but you’d be hard put to find anybody on planet Earth who doesn’t know who Jay-Z is these days. 

The Sprite Liquid Mix tour, obviously sponsored by that sugar-bomb, carbonated beverage, was wrapping up its 20 city engagement at Shoreline that day, much to the joy and relief of all involved. Many artists that day mentioned gleefully that it was the last show. There were the big acts on the main stage of course, but the artists lined up to play the second stage were impressive as well. Organized by Warped Tour producer Kevin Lyman, this sister tour also included an area with ramps for daredevil BMX bikers, a Playstation 2 “urban playground”, a giant canvas for graffiti artists, a full basketball court, and an area for “urban fashion”. Like the Warped tour, there was a conscious effort to meld white, suburban rock bands with black, hip hop acts from the big city, but as the Warped tour was about a 70-30 split in favor of the rock bands, this tour was about that proportion for the hip hop ones. Tory and I were one of the first people inside that day, before anyone was even playing on the main stage and made our way to the second stage to see Nonpoint, the first act of the day

Strangely enough, as we came in, there was a screen projecting a promo for the DVD release of a new movie that had come out that April called “High Crimes” with Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman. Why anybody at this festival would take interest in that forgettable legal thriller escapes me and though I liked the other works of those actors and the film’s director, Carl Franklin, I never actually saw it. Anyway,  Nonpoint, originally named Nonpoint Factor, were a nu metal band from Fort Lauderdale, Florida and had just released their second album on MCA called “Development”. Sparse as the crowd was, their lead singer, Elias Soriano, did his best to coax them to come closer to the stage, hoping that we “get our money’s worth”. It was a short set, only five songs long, and when they played their new hit, “Your Signs”, he encouraged us to “call your local rock radio station and request” it. Elias addressed the crowd one final time before they wrapped up with “Victim” asking, “Do I have your fuckin’ attention?!?… Get your middle fingers in the air!!!” and instructed us to repeat two words, “First word is ‘fuck’, the second word is ‘that’!”

We hustled back to the main stage to catch its first band of the day, Nappy Roots from Bowling Green, Kentucky. They had just put out their smash hit debut album, “Watermelon, Chicken, & Gritz” that February and it had already gone platinum. I loved their unique, raw, and dirty as all hell hip hop stylings. These guys were so relentlessly southern, they made Outkast sound like The Beach Boys. I regret that this was the only time I have seen Nappy Roots perform live, which makes me even more furious how quiet it was up on the lawn. You see, one of the reasons I despise Shoreline is that on festival shows like this one, they’ll often leave the speakers on the delay towers off during the first acts. Why they do this I can’t say for certain, but it’s a safe bet that it’s done to save money on electricity. Like most of the early bands at such festivals, theirs was a short set and we soon booked back to the second stage to catch Blackalicious.

Now Blackalicious was an act I was familiar with by then and was looking forward to hearing their set. Tory and I had recorded them at the Maritime back in 1998 and as luck would have it, I would be be seeing them again in only a month after this show opening for Public Enemy at The Fillmore. It was a relief to be able to hear them so loud and clear on the second stage after straining to make out the Nappy Roots beforehand. One of their rappers, Gift Of Gab, took a moment to give shout outs to all the cities in the bay area and they got the crowd pretty pumped up. To this day, there are only a handful of rappers who can match Gift Of Gab with verbal speed while maintaining perfect diction, one being Sir Mix-A Lot off the top of my head. Near the end of their set, he said, “I think y’all are ready to learn the alphabet and did a breakneck version of “A To G”. We high tailed it back to the main stage the microsecond after their set finished because we didn’t want to miss a moment of N.E.R.D.

Now practically everybody knows who producer, songwriter, and all around super-genius Pharrell Williams is now, but he was still pretty new back then, riding high on a wave of hit songs he produced with his childhood friend and collaborator, Chad Hugo, with their outfit The Neptunes. Hailing from Virginia Beach, he had recently assembled together with a band called the Spymob to make this new group whose name serves as an acronym for “Nobody Ever Really Dies”. Like everything Williams had leant his hand to previously, their debut album, “In Search Of…” was a runaway hit and even back then, we all figured that we wouldn’t be seeing this man as an opening act for anybody in the near future. Sadly, the delay tower speakers were still dead, so it was hard to make them out too well.

Pharrell urged the crowd to bum rush the near empty seated section claiming that security was told that people from the lawn could come up front until 5;30, adding, “Don’t run… Be responsible”. Many folks took him up on that offer, though I think this arrangement was the first time that any of the house people had heard of it and did their best to try to manage the surging crowd. In hindsight, I should have tried to bum’s rush too, but it was getting a little hairy up front and we to opted to stay put up on the lawn. After the first couple songs, Pharrell asked, “Wanna know what my next question is? Y’all know what a strip club is?” and then they did their big hit single “Lapdance”. He tried to get some more people down front afterwards saying, “The aisles are still empty, so more people can come down here! There are more of us than there are of them!” I felt a swell of pity for those poor ushers down front trying fruitlessly to deal with it all, some of which I knew. Pharrell then got us to chant and clap along to, “Let’s smoke together! Let’s get high together!” before they did “Stay Together” and then they finished their set with “Rock Star”. 

Tory and I bolted back to the second stage to catch Talib Kweli just as he was beginning. I was eager to see him perform, particularly since Black Star, the duo of Talib and Mos Def, had supposed to play at the Maritime in ’99 with Kid Capri but cancelled at the last minute. He busted out a couple songs from Black Star, “Definition” and “Respiration” and finished up with a couple other songs, “The Blast” and “Too Late” from his Reflection Eternal album, a side project he does with Hi-Tek. I would see Talib again just six months from this day headlining the KMEL House Of Soul show at The Fillmore with Common, Gang Starr, and Goapele and would see him again later that July out on Pier 30/32 during the Warped Tour. I was less enthusiastic to rush back to the main stage this time because Hoobastank was up next and I’d already knew them well enough.

I had seen Hoobastank on that very same stage only three months before this show as one of the first acts on at Live 105’s B.F.D. and when they opened for Live at The Warfield the year before that. They were still touring in support of their debut, self titled album and were working on their new one “The Reason”, though we didn’t hear any new material that day. Their singer, Doug Robb, made some joke about doing “the floppy fish dance” early on defending his moves, “No matter what you guys think, I think it’s cool”. They had brought up Eric, the drummer from N.E.R.D., to relieve their drummer, Chris Hesse, and play their hit single “Crawling In The Dark”, noting to him, “Anybody tell you, you look a lot like our drummer?… Chris’ long lost twin brother”. Before they finished with “Remember Me”, Doug plugged the show they were going to do at The Fillmore later that November and thanked Sprite, the other bands, and us for being there.

Like Hoobastank, I was quite familiar with 311 and this in fact would be the sixth time I’d be seeing them in only seven years. They were still almost a year away from releasing their “Evolver” album, but they did play one of the new ones, “Reconsider Everything”, near the end of their set. Amongst their hits, I was pleased that they also did their cover of Bad Brains’ “Who’s Got The Herb?” a song 311 contributed to the “Hempilation : Freedom Is NORML” compilation album, a number I don’t believe I ever heard them perform live before. Like some of the other acts, frontman Nick Hexum tried to encourage people to come up front claiming there was “plenty of room, come on down”. Their drummer, Chad Sexton, like so many drummers sorely underrated, did an impressive solo during “Amber” too.

But the crowd was downright chomping at the bit waiting for Jay-Z to come on.  He was still riding high on the success of his album, “The Blueprint”, a hip hop masterpiece he claims that he wrote in only two days, and had just started dating future wife Beyonce. It’s sequel “The Blueprint 2 : The Gift & The Curse” would be in stores that November as well, so one could say that Jay-Z was in a good place then. Still, he addressed the audience right after he opened with “Jigga My Nigga”, talking about a story that the L.A. Times and CNN had been circulating that quoted him saying “that Biggie was involved with Tupac”, but assured us “that was bullshit”. The crowd forgot all about it and went nuts when he followed that with his big hit, “I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)”, produced by the aforementioned Pharrell Williams and The Neptunes. Jay-Z covered a variety of material in his 70 minute set, but let a handful of “young guns” from the Roc-A-Fella Family come up and do a couple tunes. Freeway did “Line ‘Em Up” and “What We Do” and Memphis Bleek did “Do My…” followed by “Is That Your Chick? (The Lost Verses)”. 

Jay-Z got us to do some typical hip hop call and response stuff like, “Do the ladies run this mother fucker?… Do my dogs run this motherfucker?” and we would take turns, naturally shouting, “Hell yeah!”. He split us up trying to see which side was loudest and I could hear clearly on the tapes that we had planted ourselves on the right side of the crowd. Near the end, we were treated to a couple songs Jay-Z had collaborated with others recently such as “Money Ain’t A Thing” which he did with Jermaine Dupri and “Can I Get A…”, alongside Jah Rule & Ami. He finished up this gargantuan tour and the night with “Big Pimpin’” and at long last, my marathon of music came to an end. Tory and I limped back to the parking lot and made the long drive back to San Francisco. Though this was the only time I have seen Jay-Z perform, he is alive and well, still richer than God almighty, recently inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, and remains married to the fair Mrs. Knowles-Carter.

https://archive.org/details/jay-z-shoreline-9802

https://archive.org/details/311-shoreline-9802

https://archive.org/details/hoobastank-shoreline-9802

https://archive.org/details/talib-kweli-shoreline-9802

https://archive.org/details/n.e.r.d.-shoreline-9802

https://archive.org/details/blackalicious-shoreline-9802

https://archive.org/details/nappy-roots-shoreline-9802

https://archive.org/details/nonpoint-shoreline-9802

Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, Ursula 1000 – Fillmore, SF, Sat., September 7

I had just spent most of the day at the Power To The Peaceful festival in  Golden Gate Park, the annual gathering of music, political speeches, and left wing righteous indignation, organized by Michael Franti, the frontman of Spearhead. God only knows how I mustered the endurance to get through all that only to bolt straight over to The Fillmore to do two full sets with Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe as well as a set from the opening act, Ursula 1000, but I did it. Karl, soulful master of the saxophone, had actually joined Spearhead on stage for a couple solos that day and made sure to throw in a plug for his show that night. It was the second of two gigs he’d be doing at The Fillmore that weekend, but I missed the first one, being at Wilco at The Warfield the previous night. I had seen Mr. Denson perform with the Greyboy All-Stars a few times, but this would be the first occasion I’d see him with the Tiny Universe. Karl had just released their first album, “The Bridge”, less than three weeks before this show and had appeared on Galactic drummer Stanton Moore’s new album “Flyin’ The Koop” that year as well. 

The opening act, Ursula 1000, was the brainchild of producer and multi-instrumentalist Alex Gimeno. Incorporating 1960’s movie soundtracks, lounge, funk, and disco, he made a unique blend of music he playfully referred to as “retro/future sound”. He had just put out his second album, “Kinda Kinky”, that year and was a relaxing choice to start the night, a welcome relief considering what I had physically endured earlier that day. He sampled a healthy dose of groovy numbers like “Rebirth Of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” by Digable Planets, “Get Up (I Feel Like Being A Sex Machine)” by James Brown, “Erotic City” by Prince, “Groove Is In The Heart” by Dee-Lite, and Curtis Mayfield’s “Pusherman”. There was a reggae act up in the poster room that night, though I didn’t catch their name that played a couple Bob Marley numbers I knew, “Cath A Fire” and “So Much Trouble”.

Karl came on stage with his band and immediately greeted us all, thanking everybody for coming, and offering congratulations to somebody in the crowd named Holly P. who just accepted a marriage proposal. I didn’t have much luck deciphering Karl’s song titles, but I knew a few of the covers his band did that night including Funkadelic’s “Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On”, “Crosswinds” by Peabo Bryson, and “Spanish Castle Magic” by Jimi Hendrix. We were also treated to some expert guitar work from Leo Nocentelli from The Meters at that show as well as some brilliant solos from his percussionist, though I didn’t catch his name. I’m happy to say that there was a nice poster at the end of the night and I went home and got some well deserved shut-eye before getting up the next morning and driving down to Shoreline to see the Sprite Liquid Mix tour with Jay-Z and a laundry list of others. I would return to the Fillmore to see Wire the night after that before I finally got a day off, a long weekend indeed. 

https://archive.org/details/karl-densons-tiny-universe-fillmore-9702

https://archive.org/details/ursula-1000-fillmore-9702

911 Power To The Peaceful Rally 2002: Spearhead, Krist Novoselic, KRS-One, Jello Biafra, Mystic, Los Mocosos, Medicine Drum – Golden Gate Park Speedway Meadows, SF, Sat., September 7

SETLIST : (SPEARHEAD) : Everyone Deserves Music, People In The Middle, Stay Human (All The Freaky People), Never Too Late, Rock The Nation, Bomb The World, Sometimes

It was a hell of a day. This would be the fourth time around for Michael Franti’s Power To The Peaceful Festival, but this year had particular significance. The steady drumbeat to war had consumed the American people, especially as the one year anniversary of 9/11 was to be the following Wednesday. Our nation’s thirst for explosions and revenge clearly clouded our collective judgement past the point where the Bush regime could twist logic enough to convince us to go to war with Iraq, a country that never attacked us and had nothing to do with 9/11. Even back then, deep down we all knew this, but our invasion of Afghanistan merely was an appetizer and woefully inadequate for our raging bloodlust. But let it be said that Mr. Franti and the guests he brought along that day stood their ground and pleaded fruitlessly against the inevitable disaster we brought upon ourselves.

This desire to avert this boondoggle was shared by well over 20,000 others that day prompting Franti to move his annual gathering from the modestly sized Dolores Park in the Mission to Speedway Meadows in Golden Gate Park. But this also gave he and his band, Spearhead, to try out some new material which would later be released the following June on his fourth album, “Everyone Deserves Music”. We were treated to two new songs, the title track which they opened with and “Bomb The World” with its all too timely lyric, “We can bomb the world to pieces but we can’t bomb it into peace”. There were the customary variety of speakers between the musical acts again and when I had arrived, a spoken word artist named Nazelah was on stage doing a piece called “Next Big Thing”. She was followed by a tribal/ambient EDM band called Medicine Drum, introduced by an emcee who pointed out that one of them was from Australia and another was from England, so he insisted, “Let’s give it up! They came a long way! Australia is halfway around the world!” 

I didn’t catch the emcee’s name, but he cracked a few jokes here and there to counterbalance the righteous indignation and melancholy, saying stuff like, “A lot of people out here tonight. Dick Cheney wanted to get up on stage. We told him hell no! We want to see him dance on out of here”. He then brought up Kiilu Nyasha, who I had seen the previous year speak at this festival, a woman the emcee mentioned that Franti “got wisdom from her”. She rallied the crowd to form a “new people’s army” to transform our current “corrupt, racist, fascist system… Unlike W, we are not stupid”. Kiilu addressed a number of topics before summing up at the end, “Power to the people! Free all political prisoners! Liberate the planet! Remember Attica! Abolish the death penalty and love one another! Peace!” 

Jeff Mackler was up next from the Socialist Action Party who had been leading the Mobilization To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal campaign. As you might recall, the Power To The Peaceful Festival was originally founded in large part as an effort to help free Mumia and Jeff would continue that effort for many years as well as run for political office himself, first for Senate in 2006 and the as his party’s candidate for president in 2020. As expected, he didn’t win either though. Still, he was an eloquent speaker and brought our attention to the recent Longshoreman’s strike, expressing solidarity with them. He was followed by Eyad Pasale of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, a staunch critic of America’s support for Zionism. Eyad reminded us of the recent uptick of hate crimes against muslims in America and warned of us of the impending human death toll our armed forces would be responsible for if we were to carry out our war in Iraq. He pointed out that 1 in every 20 Iraqi was killed or wounded the last time we were there and though one can assume those numbers were exaggerated, nobody knows the true count for sure.

Los Mocosos, a Latino hip hop/ska band from the Mission was the next musical act, their name being Spanish slang for “snot nosed” kids or brats. Moco literally translates to “mucus”, but the name is synonymous with childish or mischievous behavior. Anyway, in doing my research for this show, I discovered that my friend and co-worker Mark Pistel produced their latest album, “Shades Of Brown” which had come out the year before this. Mark, the ever prolific and talented man of all things music, had done extensive work with Franti and countless others. Los Mocosos was a fun band and I could see why Mark liked them. It was pretty loud where I was up front and I offered my friend Matt who had accompanied me that day to tear one of my earplugs in half, so he could use it, but he declined. It was so loud in fact, that this would be one of the rare occasions that the bass from the subwoofers would overload my earphone mic, apologies to all those listening to these recordings. They dedicated their song “Mala”, originally about a bad woman, to President Bush and began it with a sort of homage to the old rock & roll standard, “Runaround Sue” by Dion.

Krist Novoselic, the former bassist of Nirvana, came up to speak next who was continuing to do the college lecture circuit speaking out on issues of democracy. He had in fact been on the “Spitfire” spoken word tour with Franti and Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys, who also spoke later that day, at the Maritime Hall the previous November, one of the last shows I recorded at the Hall. Between speaking engagements, Krist had dabbled back into music as well, forming a band called Eyes Adrift that year. He spoke passionately that our leaders only serve as “constitutional officers with power that is on loan from us” and also lamented that with gerrymandering, elections were becoming increasingly less competitive and most were uncontested. Krist stressed that “the voting booth is not a garbage can” and that we should all “vote your conscience”, not blindly throwing our allegiance to any one particular political party. 

The aforementioned Mr. Biafra followed him, preaching among other things that the “American people stopped the Vietnam War. We did it once. We can do it again”. He also predicted, accurately I may add, that “Iraq will be the worst foreign policy mistake of our lifetime”, joking that even the “Wicked Witch Of The West, Diane Feinstein” was opposed to it. One can argue that Donald Trump’s recent idiotic catastrophe with Iran might rival that mistake, but that one is still playing out as I write. I’ll get back to you on that. Anyway, on a conciliatory note, Jello  stressed that we should all “forgive the flag” that many people were proudly displaying after 9/11, noting most of those people have genuine affection for their fellow countrymen and aren’t right wing dickheads. But he made sure to bring home the message that our impending “piss poor military strategy” is ensuring that we were “planting the seeds for more Osama Bin Laden’s”. 

The next musical act to take the stage was Mystic, AKA Mandolyn Wind Ludlum, an R & B singer who was part of Digital Underground for a couple of years in the 90’s. She had put out her “Cuts For Luck & Scars For Freedom” album a year before this and though it performed poorly in sales, it made up for it with critical praise, earning her a nomination for Best Female Hip Hop Artist at the BET Awards that year. Her angelic voice and songs of unrequited love helped distract us for a moment from all the politics. She reminded the crowd that “we forget that the sun is shining” and “people are in love” before she sang her song, “The Life”. Mario Africa, who I had seen at the festival the year before as well, came up on after her speaking on behalf of Mumia again, rehashing the tragic events of the 1985 police bombing in Philadelphia on MOVE headquarters that killed 11 people including 5 children. Mumia had been a member of that black liberation group before he was imprisoned three years before the bombing. At the end, Mario shouted, “We are homeland security! Power to the people!”

This would be the first time I’d bee seeing the veteran rapper KRS-One since the unpleasantness of being part of having to sue him and his manager when they stole some of our live recordings from Maritime Hall of him to put on his “I Got Next” album. I had let bygones be bygones and Mr. Lawrence Parker had turned over a new leaf spiritually around then, embracing Christianity, a belief system he had once referred to as a “slavemaster religion”. He had just released his “Spiritual Minded” album earlier that January, though he only had time to do a few golden oldies including “The MC” and “The Real Hip Hop”, before ending with “Step Into A World (Rapper’s Delight)”. KRS-One did his usual effort to uplift the crowd at the very end, shouting, “Do not be afraid! This is not a time to be doubtful! Raise up your faith in yourself!” and repeated “power to the peaceful!!!” about ten times. 

Amy Goodman came up to speak next, somberly insisting that “our grief is not a cry for war” and spoke of our country’s tragic associations with dictatorships in Chile and Guatemala. She encouraged us to strive to become a global community instead of pursuing our selfish needs as a solitary nation. Amy was followed by Sat Santokh who had us all mellow out, take a deep breath, and sit down on the lawn for a bit. Sat calmly offered to “pray for all human beings” and spoke of the benefits of practicing yoga, something Franti was a fanatic, often leading a group in the morning before his shows. He also encouraged us to think rationally about the current state of affairs, asking ourselves “not who’s the bad guy, but what’s our strategy?” The emcee came out one final time, informing the crowd that there would be a rally at New College in the Mission the following day and asking the crowd to help make a $20 donation to help cover the expenses of the festival.

As Spearhead was setting up to begin, they played a recording of Mumia Abu-Jamal that he made in prison. Sadly, Mumia remains incarcerated to this day and his latest effort to appeal his sentence in 2023 was blocked by the presiding judge. Once more, Franti got the crowd pumped up and dancing, especially with old favorites like “People In The Middle”. He even did a little Louis Armstrong vocal stylings during “Stay Human (All The Freaky People)” before getting us all to chant the line “All the freaky people make the beauty of the world” and ending the song with a chorus of “Freaks Come Out At Night”by Whodini. They brought out a guy to do some human beatbox work during “Rock The Nation” who later did a few bits of the riff from “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana. I’m sure Krist Novoselic got a kick out of that. Franti solemnly reminded us that “9/11 took the wind out of us… We should be engaged in a war against militarism, not terrorism” before they did “Bomb The World”. 

One special guest of note that day was saxophone player extraordinaire Karl Denson who joined in for a couple solos during the set. As I said before in the beginning that it was a hell of a day and that was in large part that I would go straight from this festival to see him and his band, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, at The Fillmore later that evening. Karl had done a show there the night before, but I was seeing Wilco at The Warfield on that night. Karl gave a plug for his show before the set ended and Spearhead wrapped up the festival with their hit song, “Sometimes”. Franti thanked everyone in the crowd as well as all the speakers and artists, asking politely for the crowd to help pick up the garbage as we left. I would see one more Power To The Peaceful festival in 2005, but Franti would discontinue them by 2010, primarily because it just became too expensive to put it on anymore. 

https://archive.org/details/spearhead-golden-gate-park-9702_202606

https://archive.org/details/power-to-the-peaceful-festival-golden-gate-park-9702

Wilco, The Minus 5 – Warfield, SF, Fri., September 6

(SETLISTS) : 

(THE MINUS 5) : You Don’t Mean It, In A Lonely Coffin, Got You, Twilight Distillery, Great News Around You, Down Like Me, The Town That Lost Its Groove Supply, I’m Not Bitter, Dear Employer (The Reason I Quit), All The Time, Over The Sea, Don’t Be Denied

(WILCO) : Spiders (Kidsmoke), I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, War On War, Kamera, Sunken Treasure, A Shot In The Arm, How To Fight Loneliness, Someone Else’s Song, Heavy Metal Drummer, Jesus Etc, I’m The Man Who Loves You, I’m Always In Love, Misunderstood, Reservations, (encore), Not For The Season, When The Roses Bloom Again,  Less Than You Think, California Stars, Hesitating Beauty, (encore), Monday, Outtasite (Outta Mind), I’m A Wheel

Wilco had a hit album “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” on their hands the year before and now they were playing the big league venues like The Warfield, a gigantic and gratifying “in-your-face” to all the record executives who dismissed their modern masterpiece initially. I had the pleasure of seeing them play two shows at The Fillmore the previous December, but word definitely got out and a new documentary called “I’m Trying To Break Your Heart : A Film About Wilco” by Sam Jones about the recording of that seminal album was just to be released only a week after these shows. My friends, Sarah and her husband Jim, would appear briefly in it, meeting frontman Jeff Tweedy backstage at one of the shows from that tour. This was the first of two sold out gigs Wilco would be doing at The Warfield, opting out of the second one so I could see Michael Franti’s 911 Power To The Peaceful Festival in Golden Gate Park the next day, followed by Karl Densen’s Tiny Universe at The Fillmore later that night. 

One of the big draws for this show was that The Minus 5 was opening, a new supergroup with Peter Buck from R.E.M. and Scott McCaughery from the Young Fresh Fellows. Bill Rieflin, a drummer well known around industrial metal circles having played with Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, and the Revolting Cocks, had taken an interesting stylistic departure joining these guys, a testament to his versatility. The Minus 5 had collaborated with Wilco recently for an album called “Down With Wilco” that could come out the following February. They opened with a a cover of “You Don’t Mean It” by The Possibilities and then Scott introduced the next one, “This is a song about when I thought that I was dead and you know, let me tell you folks, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. This is a place I was living at that time. I was dead. It’s called ‘In A Lonely Coffin’”. A couple numbers later, they would do “Twilight Distillery”, a new one they’d written that wouldn’t be released on an album until three years later.

Near the end of their set, Scott said, “Thank you! This is really fun. We’re just thankful Wilco brought us along on this tour and we’re having a great time. You know, the fact is, we’re all just such wonderful human beings on this tour… We get along really well… And now, ‘All The Time’”. They followed that with “Over The Sea”, a song only available on a special tour CD they were selling at the merch table in the lobby, Scott claiming there were only 22 copies left remaining and reassured us, “We’re going to play all new songs tomorrow night so you won’t get bored. We can’t get enough of San Francisco, so we’re going to play Cafe Du Nord on Sunday”. Singer-songwriter Ken Stringfellow, who had worked with The Posies, Big Star, and alongside Peter Buck in R.E.M. had been part of the band back then and they played one of his songs, “Down Like Me” that night as well. The Minus 5 finished up with a cover of “Don’t Be Denied” by Neil Young and that was it. Thankfully, I would see them again, a perfect back up group to serve Robyn Hitchcock at Slim’s in 2006.

Wilco came on stage to the sound of Gene Wilder singing “Pure Imagination” from “Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory” playing over the speakers and they began with a brand new one called “Spiders (Kidsmoke)”. That song, “Less Than You Think”, and “I’m A Wheel”, which they played last that night wouldn’t be released until the “A Ghost Is Born” album two years later. I noticed their electronic sampling more during this show than from last time, one of the welcome additions to their new material, freeing them from the shackles of the so-called “alt-country” moniker. Some of the stuff sound downright futuristic, reminding me of guys like the Flaming Lips and Stereolab even. Mr. Tweedy made sure to mention, “We love San Francisco. We come here, like 30 times a year” before they did “Sunken Treasure”. I was cut from ushering then and had to miss the next few songs while I signed out and booked myself for other shows with Tina, the head usher, but I got back down to the dance floor in time for “Someone Else’s Song”. 

They continued with their hit, “Heavy Metal Drummer”, and afterwards Jeff teased their drummer Glenn Kotche saying he was making a “metal face” during that song, “wasn’t singing or making eye contact… maybe it’s just me”. Wilco actually finished their set with two rather slow, melancholy ones, “Misunderstood” and “Reservations”, but they returned for two encores, playing more upbeat tunes including a couple off the “Mermaid Avenue” album they did with Billy Bragg, “California Stars” and “Hesitating Beauty”. Despite it being back to back, sold out shows, there was no poster at the end of the night, a bit of a disappointment. This had been the last time I’d see Wilco play live and sadly I would never see Jay Bennett rejoin the band, having passed away from an accidental fentanyl overdose in 2009. But I did see Jeff do a couple songs as a solo act last year at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and he sounded fine as always. 

https://archive.org/details/wilco-warfield-9602

https://archive.org/details/the-minus-5-warfield-9602

Michael Rose, Mutabaruka, The Reggae Revolution – Slim’s, SF, Wed., September 4

SETLISTS : 

(THE REGGAE REVOLUTION) : Reggae Revolution, Jailhouse Rat, Two Becomes One, Be Thankful For What You Got, Inner Beauty, Him A Come, (unknown), (unknown), Timkat Day, Jamming

(MUTABARUKA) : Time We Realize, De System, Dem Belly Full, Thievin Legacy, Junk Food, Johnny Drughead, The Monkey, (unknown), War A Gwaan Dung Dey, Dis Poem

(MICHAEL ROSE) : Intro, Better Get It Right, Overture, Sensemilia, Draw The Weed, Ganja Bonanza, How You Fi Do Dat, Shine Eye Gal, Plastic Smile, Too Short Temper, Youth Of Eglington, I Love King Salassie, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, Bull In The Pen

It would be a worthwhile night out to see either one of these outstanding titans of reggae, but to have Mutabaruka and Michael Rose on the same bill, attendance would be mandatory. That, coupled with the fact that I hadn’t seen Michael since Pete Slauson and I recorded his live album at Maritime Hall three years before this and that album had also finally been released just before this show. Furthermore, I hadn’t seen Mutabaruka since he was on the second stage at Lollapalooza nine years before this at Shoreline, one of the handful of reggae acts to ever make it on that tour in all its history. Even then, I was only able to catch a couple songs of his. This was also one of those rare times where I saw a free in-store performance hours before a one at another venue later that night.

Yes, trip hop princess Lamya from the U.K. had just did a five song set that afternoon at Virgin Megastore downtown and I’m glad to have caught it, especially since she would unexpectedly pass away only seven years later from a sudden heart attack at the tender age of 45. I was also blissfully unaware that Kelly Clarkson had just won the first season of “American Idol” while I was at this show. Everybody on Earth, or so it seemed, was hopelessly obsessed with that TV monstrosity and though I made a point to never watch it, I admit I saw Ruben Studdard, the winner of the second season, do a show at The Warfield two years after this. Despite going as an usher and not paying a thin dime, I admit he had an excellent voice. But I digress… I ate dinner during the in between hours from the show with Lamya and shortly upon entering Slim’s, I ran into a friend of mine named Ace, who had worked alongside me for many a reggae show and countless others at The Maritime. It had been a full year since the Maritime’s untimely sinking and us veterans of that doomed venue were finally getting over the trauma of it all and could talk about it again. We caught up with each other for a bit before the first act got things rolling. 

The Reggae Revolution had been Pato Banton’s back up band before and I had seen and also recorded an album with Pato and them at the Maritime as well, so I knew they would do a solid set. They had put out a record of their own the year before, their self titled debut, and had started their set with three new originals before doing a delightful reggae cover of the R & B classic “Be Thankful For What You Got” by William DeVaughn. Their singer pumped up the crowd afterwards, shouting, “Make a joyful noise!” Near the end of their set, he introduced “Timkat Day”, first asking “Is there any Ethiopians in the place?” and describing the title as a holiday of that country in January “when the Ark Of The Covenant comes out and it’s a time when Christ was baptized for those who do not know this before”. They finished their set with a respectful rendition of “Jamming” by Bob Marley, one I recorded them do with Pato which included a brilliant guitar solo. 

Before Mutabaruka took the stage, a young man with his band approached the mic and talked to the crowd for a bit saying, “Let me ask everybody to think for a moment as we go into the media hype next week around the anniversary of September 11th” and reminded us that we were currently standing on “stolen land”. He pronounced that “war is not the answer” and only “love can conquer” Yep, the one year anniversary of that horrific day was exactly a week after this show and I would be seeing Michael Franti’s 911 Power To The Peaceful festival in Golden Gate Park just three days after this. Come to think of it, I saw Karl Denisen’s Tiny Universe later at The Fillmore that night after that one, making this the only time I would see a double bill in the same week. I guess those early and late show occasions weren’t as rare as I had once stated. 

Mutabaruka with his trademark white stripe across his dreadlocked brow would soon emerge and begin his set with “Time We Realize” a song of his new album, “Life Squared”, followed by the golden oldie, “De System”, which featured a little verse from “Dem Belly Full” by Bob Marley. I recently learned that the white stripe of hair is actually a medical condition called Poliosis, commonly known as a Mallen streak, caused by a lack of melanin in the hair follicles. Coincidentally, I am writing this just a day after Tulsi Gabbard, who also shares that hair condition, resigned from being the Director Of National Intelligence. Anyway, once again I digress…

A couple tunes later, Mutabaruka explained that “sometimes the poetry gets lost in the music” and that his songs were “about liberation”. He scolded us a bit saying that it was hypocritical to love animals though you eat them and that he was a supporter not only animal rights, but “life in all its forms”. Coming back to the subject of 9/11 and our then current effort to deceitfully extend the War On Terror to Iraq, he said that “I personally don’t like Saddam Hussein, but I don’t like your president either” which drew a big round of applause. He went on to mention that these days, there are “drugs for everything”, but that “the biggest drug of all” was fast food, so aptly named because it will “kill you quick!” Mutabaruka explained that “in India they don’t eat the cow. It is sacred… You’re eating dead animals” and compared it to us eating our pets, joking that none of us would eat a “Poodleburger”. That would be the segway into his song “Junk Food”. Years later, I would actually see an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” in 2008 where he went to Jamaica, interviewed Mutabaruka who cooked Anthony some some simple Jamaican (and obviously vegetarian) cuisine. 

A couple songs later, he would preach to us again claiming that “if there was a God in the sky, the Americans and the Russians would have found him already” and that “God was in all of us”. After declaring that the “middle class white man” was “fucking up the world”, he reminded us that animals such as the monkey don’t do the awful things that humans do to each other and the Earth and continued with “The Monkey” which explained that in song. He finished up his set with a long version of “Dis Poem” ending with an impressive drum solo.

A DJ from local radio station KPFA came up during the break, promoting his station’s show, “Music Of The World” which ran between 10 AM and noon. He also pointed out that Mutabaruka was generously sticking around to sign posters and his new CD at the merch booth and reminded us that fellow reggae poet Linton Kwesi Johnson was also playing on that very same stage the following night. In hindsight, I should have gone to that one too, but probably missed it because of work. I love Linton’s stuff and had likewise recorded one his shows at The Maritime in 1999. 

Michael’s band came up before him and began with a song called “Better Get It Right”, sung by one of his female back up singers, and then followed that with an instrumental overture of Mr. Rose’s most memorable hits. He came up after that beginning his set with the crowd pleaser “Sensemilia” and I can confirm your assumption that many a joint was fired up during that opening number. Michael followed that with “Draw The Weed”, one from his most recent studio album called “Never Give It Up” which came out the year before this. When the song finished, he shouted, “What’s my name ?!?!” which we gleefully replied, “Michael Rose!!!” and they continued with “Ganja Bonanza”. After a few of the hits, they did “Youth Of Eglington” where Michael broke the band down for a bit and got us all to clap along to the beat.

 It was gratifying to see another show at Slim’s again, especially since I had been spending so much time at The Warfield and Fillmore, but I would return there again later that November seeing The Soft Boys, a very different band from these guys indeed. Coincidentally, Black Uhuru, the legendary reggae band that Michael used to be the original singer for had just played The Fillmore only three months before this show, which I also enjoyed very much. Michael would rejoin Black Uhuru just two years later and tour with them until 2008, under the conspicuous label of “Black Uhuru with Michael Rose”. Still, I’m afraid this  Slim’s show was the last time I’d see either of these reggae geniuses again, though they remain alive and well, performing, and hope to get another chance someday. 

https://archive.org/details/michael-rose-slims-9402

https://archive.org/details/mutabaruka-slims-9402

https://archive.org/details/the-reggae-revolution-slims-9402

Lamya – Virgin Megastore, SF, Wed., September 4

SETLIST : Splitting Atoms, East Of Anywhere, Never Enough, Black Mona Lisa, Empires (Bring Me Men)

As mentioned in the previous entry, this was the third time I would see a free in-store performance at Virgin Megastore, the gargantuan retail palace that had just opened on Market Street, in only just under two weeks. A testament to the diversity of acts featured there, I would go from the brand spanking new sounds of indy rockers Queens Of The Stone Age to the deep soulful, ancient gospel stylings of The Blind Boys Of Alabama to Lamya, the fresh faced, trip hop chanteuse from jolly ol’ England. Originally born in Kenya, this opera trained vocalist Lamya Al-Magheiry would bounce between places like Cairo and Oman before running away from home to seek her musical career initially in New York City. It was there she would join Soul II Soul in 1990 and then become a back up singer for Duran Duran before then recently venturing out to pursue her own solo career.

Lamya had just released her debut album, “Learning By Falling” only two months before this show and had already had her hit single, “Empires (Bring Me Men)”, climb to the number one position on the dance charts. Futuristic and etherial as the song was, its lyrics were actually based off an old Samuel Walter Foss poem commemorating the 75th anniversary of California joining the union. Around that time, I had seen her singing it on one of the late night talk shows, either Letterman or Conan O’Brien, though I can’t exactly recall which. She had real talent and I really liked the sound of her voice, sort of squeaky cute, yet strong like Billy Hoilday, Bjork, or Erykah Badu, but with an adorable British accent. Like the other in-store performances I had seen there, it was a short one, clocking in at only five songs, but they were good ones. 

Lamya would later go on to tour with Macy Gray, briefly dated Nile Rodgers of Chic, and was just about to drop her second album, “Hiding In Plain Sight” in 2009 when she died suddenly from a heart attack at the all too young age of 45. Such a senseless loss and yet guys like Third Eye Blind and the Goo Goo Dolls get to live somehow. So, yes, this sadly would be the one and only time I would see this gifted young woman before she was called up to on high and as you can imagine, I am grateful I got this chance to see her. On a side note, this was one of those rare occasions when I would see an in-store gig early in the day and then I would go off to see another one later that evening at another venue. After this, I marched up the street to 11th & Folsom, got some dinner, and then enjoyed a night of brilliant roots rock reggae at Slim’s with Mutabaruka and Michael Rose. 

https://archive.org/details/lamya-virgin-megastore-9402

The Blind Boys Of Alabama – Virgin Megastore, SF, Thur., August 29

SETLIST : Wade In The Water, People Get Ready, Freedom Road, Amazing Grace

This would be the second free in-store performance at the newly christened Virgin Megastore on Market Street in only four days, the first being Queens Of The Stone Age, and I would have the pleasure of seeing Lamya do one there five days after this one. I’m glad I saw as many in-stores as I did back there then since billionaire Richard Branson’s behemoth, west coast temple of capitalism would close in 2009. Yes, The Blind Boys Of Alabama were back once more, they having the distinction of being the first band I would see that year when they played The Fillmore early that January. Feel free to revisit that review for further backstory on them. These sightless, septuagenarian scions of soul had just released their “Higher Ground” album with the assistance of Ben Harper along with Robert Randolph & The Family Band and had taken to the road to spread the Lord’s good word through song. 

As expected, it was very crowded and somebody standing close to me even brought his toddler with him who thankfully behaved and kept mostly quiet during their short set. One of the Boys served as emcee for the gig, repeatedly and not so subtly urging the audience to purchase the new CD, stating coyly at first, “If you like it, take it home with you… If you don’t like it, take it home with you”. Their performance was only four songs long, but the first three were on the new album. One of the vocalists did a falsetto solo during their cover of Curtis Mayfield’s immortal “People Get Ready” and afterwards, the emcee reiterated, “If you don’t have the money to get it today, tomorrow is just as good” adding that it was also available on Amazon.com, which was still relatively new back then. 

The Boys went on to “sing another song of faith”, “Freedom Road”, before finishing with their Grammy Award winning mash-up of “Amazing Grace” sung to the tune of “House Of The Rising Sun”. They had an impressive guitar solo with that tune and one of the singers amazed us all once again, ending it on a high note that seemed to go on for all eternity. Seriously, doing a high note for that long is physically demanding for any singer, but that elderly gent clearly was supercharged with the Holy Spirit on that one. The emcee plugged the album one final time, “We thank you for being so nice and we hope you enjoyed that. If you didn’t enjoy it, don’t tell nobody. If you did enjoy it, tell everybody… Take one of our CDs home with you and if you don’t like it, bring it back, get your money back”. This would be the last time I’d have the honor of seeing The Blind Boys since all of the founding members have since passed, George Scott just three years after this show, Johnny Fields in 2009, and J.T. Hutton in 2012. But Clarence Fountain outlived them all, making it all the way until 2018, reuniting the band in heaven at the age of 89. They certainly earned their eyesight being restored to them up there. 

https://archive.org/details/the-blind-boys-of-alabama-virgin-megastore-82902

Sonic Youth, Erase Errata, Quix&o&tic, Zmrzlina – Fillmore, SF, Tues., August 27

SETLIST : Candle, Bull In The Heather, The Empty Page, Rain On Tin, Skip Tracer, Plastic Sun, Radical Adults Lick Godhead Style, Shadow Of A Doubt, Karen Revisited, Kissability, Drunken Butterfly, Sympathy For The Strawberry, (encore), Disconnection Notice, Making The Nature Scene, (encore), Silver Rocket

This would be the ninth time I’d be seeing Sonic Youth play, in less than 10 years, the second time at The Fillmore as well. Coincidentally, the first time I saw them was at The Warfield in 1993 with the Screaming Trees and the day before this show, I had just seen former Tree, Josh Homme, perform a free in-store set at Virgin Megastore, promoting the new album of his brand new effort, a little band he would call Queens Of The Stone Age. This was the first of a two day stint Sonic Youth was doing at The Fillmore and they too did a free in-store the day after this at Amoeba Records, though I had to miss it, having to get up for work dark and early at 6 AM that day. Sonic Youth had just released their 12th studio album, “Murray Street” earlier that June and though it was just seven songs, clocking in a hair over 45 minutes, they played EVERY single song from that album in their set that night. .I always respect bands that devote at least half their live sets to new material. Good or bad the songs may be, it shows maturity and to be honest, bravery to do so. 

The first opening act that night was the cryptically titled Quix&o&tic from Washington D.C. I found out later that they had to add the ampersands because they shared their name with an EDM band from New York and had to find a way to change their name. Their post-punk style was brutal and minimalist and I was only able to identify the songs “On My Own” and “The Breeze”. Unfortunately, the first disc of my CD set malfunctioned, so I also lost the first three songs of their set. Don’t buy Memorex. I’m glad that I saw them when I did, because they would soon break up after this show.  In between acts, there was an experimental noise band called Zmrzlina playing up in the poster room who did mostly instrumental stuff, adding in some samples to their lo-fi guitar, bass, drum jams. They would add a flute to a song they would do during their second set.

Erase Errata from Oakland were up next a brand new band who had just released their debut album “Other Animals” the year before this. Their music was frantic, a relentless onslaught borderline exhausting, but brilliant. Their singer, Jenny Hoyston, joked that “it smells like grass in here and I think that’s great!” Like the band before, I was only able to make out a couple of their songs, being “Delivery” and the final number, “Tongue Tied”. Near the end of their set, Jenny urged the crowd to vote no on Prop N which was on the ballot a few months later, the so-called “Care Not Cash” initiative. She declared bitterly that the vouchers that would be given to the homeless would be for “non-existent services”. The Proposition ultimately passed, but all would agree that it clearly didn’t solve the homeless problem in San Francisco and the proposition’s effectiveness remains a point of debate. 

Sonic Youth got things started off early, opening with the golden oldie “Candle” followed immediately by “Bull In The Heather”.
 Like the other times before , their setlist was a spread sheet listing which band member was playing what instrument and who was singing. Singer-guitarist Thurston Moore greeted us afterwards, “I hope everybody’s having a good summertime… Enjoy your summertime romance… beach blankets, wearing much protections and lotions” before playing the first new song of the night, “The Empty Page”. Jim O’Rourke was still with them then and bassist Kim Gordon had also collaborated with him that year with their short lived musical project, The Supreme Indifference, along with Alan Licht. Sonic Youth kept the new material coming, doing “Karen Revisited” which they then called “Karenology”. The new album cover was a picture of Kim & Thurston’s daughter picking strawberries with her friend. Before delving back into another oldie, “Kissability”, Thurston accidentally introduced it as “Candle” which they opened the show with before he was corrected by guitarist Lee Ronaldo who dryly quipped, “Right era, wrong song”.

Before they did another new one called “Skip Tracer”, Thurston had to take a beat to get a Band-Aid for his finger, Kim teasing that it was a “small medical emergency… We don’t know if the show can go on”. At the end of their set Thurston joined us as “we express our ‘Sympathy For The Strawberry’” and Kim gave a shout out to the opening acts, noting that collectively that night, that there were “more girls than there are boys”. They came back for two encores, the first, Thurston thanking renown poets Richard Kersh and Ken Taylor for attending that night. Richard and Ken have since passed on, Richard in 2018 and Ken the year after. For the second encore, Thurston introduced it saying, “I can’t stop this feeling that inside of me is hot and nasty and I think that it’s a good time to set a song out to Jerry Garcia, cus’ this song is appropriate. It’s about taking a trip on a ‘Silver Rocket”. 

Afterwards, Kim thanked us and shouted “See you tomorrow night!” Though I couldn’t witness the second night, they played almost all the new stuff again, but those people got to hear “Kotton Krown”, “Schizophrenia”, “Eric’s Trip”, “100%”, “Kool Thing”, and “White Kross” in the place of the golden oldies we were treated to. I’m glad to say there was a lovely poster at the end of these shows, particularly since I had been deprived for the last recent handful of gigs I had seen at The Fillmore, including Judas Priest, Nadine’s Wild Weekend, Angelique Kidjo and La Ley, all of which sorely deserved one, Angelique and La Ley especially since they came halfway around the world, Benin and Chile respectively, to play there. Thankfully, I would see Sonic Youth return to The Fillmore once more only two years later.

https://archive.org/details/sonic-youth-fillmore-82702

https://archive.org/details/erase-errata-fillmore-82702

https://archive.org/details/zmrzlina-fillmore-82702

https://archive.org/details/quixotic-fillmore-82702

Queens Of The Stone Age – Virgin Megastore, SF, Mon., August 26

SETLIST : You Think I Ain’t Worth A Dollar But I Feel Like A Millionaire, Monsters In The Parasol, Gonna Leave You, If Only, No One Knows, The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret, Song For The Deaf – Regular John – Song For The Dead, God Is In The Radio

It’s practically impossible not to notice Josh Homme for he is often the tallest man in the room. I had seen him briefly with his first band Kyuss at The Warfield opening for Faith No More back in 1993 and three years later at Lollapalooza in San Jose when he had joined the Screaming Trees. It was there that Josh would meet Brody Dalle from The Distillers who was then dating Tim Armstrong from Rancid and Josh would eventually marry her in 2005 and have three kids together, a daughter and two sons, before they would later divorce in 2019. I would see Josh again with the Trees at Slim’s in 1997 but around that time, the seeds had been planted for the band that would break him into the mainstream, Queens Of The Stone Age. Coincidentally, the first time I saw the Trees was for them opening for Sonic Youth also at the Warfield, just a couple months after that Faith No More show, and fast forward to this show in 2002 and the band I would see the following night would be none other than… you guessed it, Sonic Youth, who played The Fillmore. Small world. 

Honestly, at that time, I hadn’t actually made the connection that Josh was that guy from the Trees and was more interested in the show specifically because it was free. Though there had been some hype built up around this new band, joining a cadre of fresh artists that were mercifully relieving us from the bombastic, nu metal frat boy scene into something more sophisticated. It didn’t hurt that Josh was, and I say this with total confidence in my heterosexuality… a tall drink of water as well. Like I said, I mainly was going to this show because it was free, what I believe was the first of a handful of in-store performances I would witness at Virgin Megastore. The brainchild of billionaire lunatic Richard Branson, Virgin has just taken over the corner building on Market Street & 4th, adding another flagship location for his “everything store”, basically a gargantuan Barnes & Noble. 

The Queens had actually just played a free in-store in Los Angeles three days before this at Amoeba Records, promoting their new breakout album, “Songs For The Deaf”  which would officially come out in stores literally the day after this show. Likewise, Sonic Youth would play an in-store at Amoeba in San Francisco only two days after this one, though I couldn’t attend. The Queens were also on tour with And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead at the time. This new smash hit album would soon be certified gold and chalk up a couple Grammy nominations for Best Hard Rock Performance. It was packed as expected, but it was so loud, that nobody had trouble hearing them. Josh made some wisecrack in the beginning, greeting us with, “Welcome to VH1 Storytellers! My name is Willie Nelson”. After “Gonna Leave You”, Josh joked that “It is good to be here, man. It seems like six weeks since I’ve been here”. They had in fact just played again at Slim’s that June.  It was all new to me, but about halfway through their set, they did what would be their big hit single “No One Knows”. 

I wasn’t able to snag their setlist, but I was able to write it down on the only thing I had to write on at the time, a movie ticket stub I had in my pocket of “XXX”, the Vin Diesel action movie which I had watched earlier that day at the AMC 1000 on Van Ness. The Queens played an impressive set, but little did I know that they would grow to be the A-list arena rock band that they would became. Only a year after this show, I would see them again headlining at The Warfield, clearly a much larger vevue. Part of me wishes that I lined up with the sparse number of others by the Megastore’s escalators after the set was over who got to meet & greet the band and buy an autographed CD. It was the first in-store concert I would see at Virgin Megastore, but it certainly wasn’t the last. In fact, I would enjoy the Blind Boys Of Alabama on that same stage only four days later and Lamya just three days after that. 

https://archive.org/details/queens-of-the-stone-age-virgin-megastore-82602

La Ley, Volumen Cero – Fillmore, SF, Sun., August 25

SETLIST : Animal, Delirando, Eternidad, Hombre, Aqui, Prisoneros De La Piel, Fuera De Mi, Paraiso, Teledores De Ilusion, The Corridor, (Drum Solo), Mentira, Intenta Amar

I was beginning to scratch the surface in my education of popular music from other countries, but I still had a long way to go and seeing La Ley was a small but significant step forward. To my knowledge, I had never seen a band from Chile before, not to mention that I was totally ignorant then that people from Central and South American countries were obsessed with the Goth and New Wave bands that had emerged from England in the 80’s like The Cure and The Smiths. In fact, La Ley had been much darker in their appearance and style up until this point and their recent effort to gravitate to a more arena rock sound like U2 and Peter Gabriel had actually alienated some of their longtime fans. But their new stylistic adjustments hadn’t hurt their career none, having just released an “MTV Unplugged” album the year before that went triple platinum in Argentina and Mexico, their best selling album to date.

La Ley literally translates to “The Law” in Spanish, so you can imagine that when I attempted to do research on the band, I ran into a lot of legal websites. They were founded in Chile in 1988 when lead singer Beto Cuevas returned to his home country after fleeing the Pinochet dictatorship with his family when he was a child and growing up in Venezuela and Quebec. Beto had just married Estella Mora the year of this show and though they would divorce five years later, she would remain as the band’s manager. Like many Spanish speaking acts that would play the nightclub sized Fillmore, the crowd was filled with ex-pats who were eager to see this band who would easily fill arenas back in their native country of Chile. I overheard my fellow usher Dave Fineman shout, “Walk, please!”, to the enthusiastic fans charging in trying to be first to stake their spot up front. He should have shouted, “Camine por favor!” instead, but I believe his tone of voice made his intentions clear. 

Opening that night was Volumen Cero from Miami, formed by fellow Chileans and other folks from Peru. Their name translates to “Zero Volume”, though they originally called themselves Orgasmic Bliss. They too were into the Goth stuff, even recording a cover of “Lovesong” by The Cure for a Spanish Cure tribute album, though they didn’t perform it that night. Volumen Cero had been working hard since 1993 and had just signed to Warner Music Latina the year before this and as expected, they spoke Spanish to the crowd between songs. Though I couldn’t understand what they were saying, I did manage to hear them give a shout out to their new album, “Luces” which had just been released that year. I wasn’t able to make out their song titles other than “Hollywood” though. This is one of those shows that made me wish I hadn’t taken German in high school. 

The crowd went predictably loco when La Ley took the stage, I mean it was deafening and they began with “Animal”. I was able to make out most of their setlist since it was practically the same as one they would perform only four days later in Mexico City. Like Volumen Cero, Beto naturally spoke Spanish to the crowd between songs, but about halfway through their set, he addressed us in English saying, “This is not a love song. This is a song about the very existence of the soul inside that never dies. It is called ‘Fuera De Mi’”. That was one of their more recent tunes off of their last album, “Uno”, released in 2000 and they played at least five tracks off that one at that show. Unfortunately, my tapes ran out after “Intenta Amar”, but I got most of their set. “Paraiso” sounded a lot like U2. Later, Beto brought up a young boy on stage from the front of the crowd and asked him how old he was. The adorable boy shouted “Seven!” and Beto asked him, “Want to sing this song? Ok, you can hang out. You’re our very special guest!” and he gave him a bottle of water. 

La Ley did play one song in English, a moody little number called “The Corridor” and afterwards their drummer, Mauricio Claveria, did an impressive extended solo, doing short pauses to have a sort of call and response thing with the audience. When they finished, Beto switched back to Spanish and introduced his fellow band members before wishing us all a “Buenas Noches, San Francisco!” They had also brought up a beautiful female back up singer for some of their later numbers who had the voice of an angel, but I didn’t catch her name. Sadly, like the last show I had seen at The Fillmore two nights before with Angelique Kidjo from Benin, there wasn’t a poster which is a shame. Both those acts came halfway around the world to play there. You’d think The Fillmore would have sprung for it.

https://archive.org/details/la-ley-fillmore-82502_202605

https://archive.org/details/volumen-cero-fillmore-82502

Angelique Kidjo, Henri-Pierre Koubaka – Fillmore, SF, Fri., August 23

I had gotten to know Angelique very quickly, this being my third time seeing her in only a little over a year. She had just been there on that very same Fillmore stage only five months before and my first time was seeing her open for Dave Matthews Band the previous summer at the first show ever to be staged at San Francisco’s new baseball stadium, then known as Pac Bell Park. Being the first act on that day, technically she was the first artist to ever perform there. Ms. Kidjo had been expanding her reach past Dave Matthews into the hippie jam band crowd, opening for String Cheese Incident earlier that spring in 2002 too. She had done a lot of charity work that year, recently becoming a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF and performing at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo honoring Jimmy Carter, who had won the Prize that year for his work with Habitat For Humanity. I actually remember seeing her interviewed on NOW by Bill Moyers on PBS that year as well. 

Angelique was still doing pretty much the same set, featuring songs from her most recent album, “Black Ivory Soul”, and by this time, they had become familiar to me. But I had never seen Henri-Pierre Koubaka, the opening act before, and the skills of he and his band were formidable. He was from Senegal and brought along a bassist named Basil, a guitarist named Dave, and two incredible djembe players from Guinea, one of whom was named Mohammed. I tried to find out more about him online, but despite his exotic name, he actually shares it with quite a few other guys out there. He was an excellent opening act and no trouble pumping up everybody. Henri-Pierre got the crowd to chant “Kidjo! Kidjo! Kidjo!”, though he insisted if they did it, that they had to keep the beat. Afterwards, he mentioned that he and Angelique would be signing autographs and CDs in the back at the end of the show. 

Like the time before, Angelique was talkative between songs, but her heavy accent made it hard to make out what she was saying. Before she did “Afrika”, she said something about the power of people who have no hope, yet have unconditional love. A couple songs later, she did a cover of “Ces Petits Riens” by Serge Gainsbourg, a blast from the past that I had recently been getting into, so I was pleasantly surprised to hear it. After that, she dedicated “Loloye” to her family and went on saying, “I did everything that wasn’t supposed to be done” becoming a singer, “Man or woman, in Africa, it wasn’t considered a job. You would be called a prostitute or a junkie”. But she insisted that if “you want to sing, it’s freedom… Parents, please raise them to love themselves first”. She got us all to jump in unison and moved right along, joking that she got our legs all nice and warmed up. 

Her band was brilliant as before and took us a little by surprise doing a few verses of “Let’s Groove” by Earth, Wind, & Fire near the end of her set. The last number I was able to record before my tapes ran out was “Tumba”, a song about the village that her father grew up in and writing songs from her roots. Angelique thanked the audience, saying that “San Francisco has always been a supporting town” and that was it, the last time I have seen her perform. Looking back at these years, I count myself lucky that I was able to see so many talented artists from Africa on that stage like Baaba Maal, King Sunny Ade, and Youssou N’Dour. But it always makes me bitter that none of these shows would ever get a poster and this one was sadly no exception. I would see La Ley from Chile on that stage two days later and though they too came halfway around the world to play there, they too would be denied a poster. But Angelique is alive and well and might return to The Fillmore again one day and who knows, maybe she’ll finally break my losing streak.  

https://archive.org/details/angelique-kidjo-fillmore-82302

https://archive.org/details/henri-pierre-koubaka-fillmore-82302

Nadine’s Wild Weekend 2002: Luce, Essence, Noe Venable Trip, The Locals – Fillmore, SF, Thur., August 22

SETLISTS : 

(LUCE) : (unknown), Numb, Long Way Down, If I Had The Wind, Good Day,  Electric Chair, Eleanor Rigby, Divine, Life, Sunniest Of Weekends, (encore), Sister Golden Hair

This was the second and final occasion I’d see the flagship show of Nadine’s Wild Weekend at The Fillmore. On this night, they were in fact celebrating it’s fourth year of promoter and producer Nadine Condon’s cavalcade of bay area talent, boasting of an impressive roster of roughly 135 bands, 30 shows in 20 venues, over four days. This confederacy of music had expanded that year to other cities like Sacramento, San Jose, and Modesto as well. For more backstory on Nadine, feel free to read my previous entry of her Weekend from the year before. I will say that the line up that night was a considerable stylistic hard left turn from the heavy metal pioneers Judas Priest which graced that stage the night before this and leave it at that.

First up on stage that night was the boner inducing, singer-songwriter Essence who I had seen opening for Shawn Colvin there only a month before this show. Yes, Ms. Essence Goldman was without a doubt as fine as May wine, but more importantly, she wrote great songs and had the voice of an angel.  I recognized a couple of her tunes from the time before including “Anything Is Possible” and “Still Crying”, the latter which I had also heard her playing during her soundcheck before the doors had opened. Nadine came out to introduce her, greeting us with her trademark salutation, “Hello, Babydolls!” Essence had been just solo acoustic when I first saw her, but she had the backing of a talented bunch of musicians in her band this time which really helped fill out her sound. I believe this was the last time I have seen her perform live, but she still makes music to this day, teaching and admirably using her talent to help people suffering from ALS with music therapy.

Nadine thanked her fellow producers and The Fillmore staff including Michael Bailey and Morgan Pittman before introducing Noe Venable and her Trio. Still quite young herself, Noe had been busy working locally at the Young People’s Teen Musical Theater Company and had opened for an impressive roster of notable artists like Ani DiFranco, They Might Be Giants, Dar Williams, and Boz Scaggs. Her music had also been recently used in the soundtrack to an indy film called “Cherish” starring Tim Blake Nelson, Robin Tunney, and fellow musician Liz Phair. Noe was promoting her new album “Boots” and mentioned an upcoming show she was about to do at the Hotel Utah, adding that the last time she played The Fillmore was opening for the aforementioned They Might Be Giants, though that was one occasion where I missed them. She joked that up front there were “a couple of enthused people yelling extremely random things” at her like “Save the whales!… But I appreciated their spontaneous burst of exuberance.”

She went on to say that she “brought my very small orchestra with me and we’ll attempt to make as much sound as we possibly can… The next song is a song about my favorite footwear of choice that you can’t see behind the monitors, but boots they are” and they then did the title track of the new album. Noe and her other bandmates took turns playing cello, violin, keyboards, and bass, but she also added that they had brought along an electric drum machine they playfully called Penelope. Though “Boots” was the only song I could make out the title to, she did introduce one song as being “about a girl who climbs up into a tree to escape the troubles of her life, but it’s also kinda like about what it’s like to make something, any kind of art, whether you’re writing a song or a story or whatever and to show it to people”. She introduced her last number claiming that it was “my mom’s favorite song… ‘That’s your hit, honey!’ It kind of inspired by feral cats” and somebody in the crowd shouted out “Meow!”

Last up on the bill that night was Luce, who were similar but slightly more palatable than some of the other local musical atrocities that Nadine help brutally unleash on the world like Third Eye Blind and Train, may God forgive her soul. Nadine came up to introduce Luce as well, wishing someone in the crowd named Lydia a happy birthday and joked, “I don’t know what this is about and if it involves some dancing boys, that is good with me”.  Fronted by Tom Luce, they had only been together for a couple of years, but had been hard at work, claiming that they had already put 18,000 miles on their van, zig zagging across our nation that was only 3,500 miles wide and the year before had won the California Music Award for Outstanding Debut for their self titled first album. Tom had quite a few friends and well wishers in the crowd who helped him sing along to “Good Day”, his new single that had been used in the soundtracks to the seminal Rom-Coms “13 Going On 30” and “How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days”. 

Afterwards, he brought up a small string section and admitted that they were playing the song “Electric Chair” for the first time live that night, followed by a respectful cover of “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles. They followed that with a new one called “Divine”, an unreleased track that wouldn’t come out until many years later on a live album they did called “Live Stuff & Junk”, though that album had actually been recorded at Slim’s earlier that June. Like the others, Luce did a short set, only ten songs long, but Nadine urged them to come back on stage for an encore and they did one more, a cover of the 1975 America song, “Sister Golden Hair”. This was the only time I’d see them live and though I wasn’t a big fan, I felt sorry to hear that Tom’s house burned down in 2007 and the band had their equipment stolen from their trailer shortly afterwards when they were on the road. There was no poster at the end of the night, but they were handing out free promotional stuff at the door, someone shouting, “Free bag! Everyone wants a free bag!”. 

Outside on the sidewalk, we were treated to an impromptu couple of songs from The Matches who were then known as The Locals. I had seen them perform in the poster room of The Fillmore and later on the sidewalk when The Get Up Kids did a two day stint there only two months before this show. I only caught a couple songs, but they did “Dog-Eared Page” and “The Jack Slap Cheer” which I had heard them perform previously. Like I mentioned in my review of those shows in June, these kids, still in high school, had actually been working at The Fillmore at the time, one as a member of the kitchen and another as a server, but would go on to modest success in the years to come, headlining The Fillmore themselves on a couple occasions. Though I wouldn’t see those shows, I’m happy to report these young local heroes made good had earned a couple nice Fillmore posters of their own. 

https://archive.org/details/luce-fillmore-82202

https://archive.org/details/noe-venable-trio-fillmore-82202

https://archive.org/details/essence-fillmore-82202

https://archive.org/details/the-matches-the-locals-fillmore-82202

Judas Priest, Skinlab, Brian Kenny Fresno – Fillmore, SF, Wed., August 21

SETLISTS : 

(BRIAN KENNEY FRESNO) : (1st Set) : The Star Spangles Banner (Drunk Version), Sydney Stole My Kidney, Slurpees & Pornography, Big Tujunga, (2nd Set) : (unknown), Chupacabra

(SKINLAB) : Slave The Way, Second Skin : New Flesh, Coward, Purify, Scapegoat, Breathe, (unknown)

(JUDAS PRIEST) : Bloodsuckers, Metal Gods, The Sentinel, Blood Stained, One On One, Victim Of Changes, Devil’s Child, Diamonds & Rust, Exciter, Hell Is Home, Breaking The Law, Turbo Lover, You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’, (encore), Electric Eye, Living After Midnight, (encore), Painkiller

I had only just seen the leather clad, metal gods Judas Priest that January at The Warfield and they were already back to do a more intimate little thing at The Fillmore. This would be the last tour they would do with Tim “Ripper” Owens on vocals before the band would reunite with their original frontman Rob Halford a year later. Though they had just signed to Atlantic, their new album “Demolition” would be the final album they would ever record with Ripper. And after Rob returned, Priest would never perform any songs off that album or from their previous one with Ripper, “Jugulator”, live again, officially ending this nu metal era of the band. I would see the newly reformed Priest seven years later playing alongside Whitesnake at the Concord Pavilion, but that would be the last time I’d see them in the flesh.  As usual, I was oblivious to these comings and goings at the time and was grateful to be in such a cozy venue, surrounded by Priest’s army of delightful heshers.

It was a hairy time around the world and this show was a welcome distraction from the bad news of the day. Not only was our invasion of Afghanistan closing in on its first year anniversary and the steady march toward our disastrous occupation of Iraq approaching, but the Russians were bogged down with a bloody insurgency in Chechnya. Just two days before this show, the separatists had shot down one of their Mi-26 cargo planes killing 127 of their soldiers, making it the worst aviation disaster in that country’s history. But one could not get farther from those quagmires than to be up in the poster room of The Fillmore watching the one and only Brian Kenney Fresno doing his oddball schtick for all those who came early enough to the show to enjoy it.

Brian had been up in that room many times before, brandishing his custom made guitar-like instrument, bearing a resemblance to a Chapman Stick, though he would forcefully insist that it wasn’t one if asked. He opened his set with a hilarious rendition of our national anthem, changing the lyrics to celebrate getting drunk. Imagine if you will these lyrics to the tune of that anthem, “Oh, let’s drink some beer, until we all just fall down, and we’ll get so damn drunk, that we’ll wake up the whole town”, then moving on to the high notes, “And we’ll puke in the trees and we’ll crawl on our knees, and we’ll piss off your mom as we drink until dawn, cus’ we got no job”. I and several others respectfully stood up with our hands over our hearts until he finished and I made sure to applaud and give him a salute. He continued to do a song about being betrayed by a young woman he met on a train while traveling across Europe that went, “Sydney stole my kidney while I was looking out for my heart” and later in Amsterdam that he “woke up in a hotel bathtub filled with ice and a note explaining my situation”. 

Brian had a little keyboard that he would activate a sample of people clapping between songs too. Afterwards, honoring one of the many fine produce products of his native namesake city of Fresno, he passed around a “holy chalice” filled with raisons and I’m honored to say he approached me first, asked my name, and introduced me to the others watching and I proudly went about the room offering these tiny purple gems to all who would receive his sweet fruity sacrament. I made sure to solemnly mutter, “body of Christ”, as each audience member took one. Brian also spoke of how he was banned from Burning Man and that the city of Fresno had given him a grant to make his art, though he admitted that he had already spent all the money on “Slurpees and pornography”. I only had time to catch four of his songs before I had to return to work, but the last one was an ode to an adorable dog he once had named Big Tujunga, named after a stream in northeast Los Angeles county that flows from the San Gabriel mountains. Sadly, the dog in question ultimately ran away. 

Back on the main stage, the opening act of the evening would be Skinlab, a band I was more than familiar with having recorded them a whopping seven times at Maritime Hall, more occasions than I think any other band that played there. This was the first and only time I would see them at another venue after the Maritime sunk the year before. But I’ve said it on previous occasions and I’ll say it again that Skinlab was one of those bands that gradually improved as the years went on and by this time, they had genuinely grown on me. God knows that they could have released a box set of live material I had recorded of them during those years at the Hall. Skinlab would break up the year after this show, but would reform in 2007 and would in fact released a live album a year later with the brilliant title “Skinned Alive!”, but that one had been recorded at The Metro in Oakland. 

Skinlab was touring at this show in support of their new album, “ReVolting Room”, which included some funny samples of rantings of their fans who had called and left messages on their free fan club phone number. Their singer, Steev, reminded all those in the audience that the new record was on sale in the back for “10 fuckin’ bucks”. He also mentioned that it was their “first time we got to play The Fillmore and we’re suckin’ weed like a motherfucker” before they played the song “Purity”. Afterwards, Steev admitted, “I thought you were going to boo us off the fuckin’ stage. This song goes to all the scapegoats in the fuckin’ crowd. You got a fucked up boss. You got a fucked up friend who refused to take responsibility for their own actions” and then they played “Scapegoat”. I couldn’t make out what their last song of their set, but it was a miracle I made out any at all considering how deafening the volume was in there that night. It was one of those rare shows that was so loud that it overloaded my headphone mic a little. After their set ended, I went back upstairs and caught a couple more songs from Mr. Fresno, including a lovely one about the Chupacabra. 

The crowd was chomping at the bit, chanting “Priest! Priest! Priest! Priest!”, by the time they took the stage. They would continue chanting that between songs all through the night and especially at the end after their encore. I suppose I was lucky to hear the Ripper songs since they’d never be played live again and he introduced “Blood Stained” asking, “How about we get a little heavier?” He naturally did all the golden oldies one more with the respect they deserved and let out an impressive scream when they finished “Victim Of Changes”. A couple numbers later, Ripper joked, “We’re going to slow it down a little here. Get your dance partners ready” before they did their cover of “Diamonds & Rust” by folk legend Joan Baez. Recorded in 1977, that was actually the first song of theirs to get radio airtime and Joan herself praised their unexpected version of it. Ripper made sure to mention their recently released “Live In London” DVD before they finished their set with “Living After Midnight” and had no trouble getting the crowd to sing along to one of the choruses near the end, accompanied by just the drums. Sadly, there was no poster at the end of the show and I would return to the Fillmore the following night for a very different bunch of bands for Nadine’s Wild Weekend with Luce, the Noe Venable Trio, and Essence. 

https://archive.org/details/judas-priest-fillmore-82102

https://archive.org/details/skinlab-fillmore-82102

https://archive.org/details/brian-kenney-fresno-fillmore-82102

Area 2: Moby, David Bowie, Busta Rhymes, Blue Man Group, Ash, John Digweed, DJ Dan, DJ Tiesto, Shoreline, Mountain View, Wed., August 14

SETLISTS : 

(ASH) : Jesus Says, Submission, Girl From Mars, Goldfinger, Cherry Bomb, Shining Light, Oh Yeah, Walking Barefoot, A Life Less Ordinary, Kung Fu, Burn Baby Burn

(BLUE MAN GROUP) : (unknown), (unknown), (unknown), Up To The Roof, Persona, (unknown), Your Attention, White Rabbit, Sing Along, I Feel Love, The Complex, What Is Rock

(BUSTA RHYMES) : As I Come Back, Woo-Ha! Got You All In Check, Genesis, Get High Tonight, Holla, Scenario, Dangerous, Put Your Hands Up Where My Eyes Can See, What It Is, Break Ya Neck, Pass The Courvoisier

(DAVID BOWIE) : Life On Mars?, Ashes To Ashes, Breaking Glass, Cactus, China Girl, Slip Away, Fame, I’m Afraid Of Americans, I’ve Been Waiting For You, 5:15 The Angels Have Gone, “Heroes”, Heathen (The Boys), A New Career In A New Town, Fashion, Everyone Says Hi, Let’s Dance, Ziggy Stardust

(MOBY) : 18, Extreme Ways, Go, Porcelain, Another Woman, James Bond Theme, Find My Baby, In My Heart, Move (You Make Me Feel So Good), Bring Back My Happiness, Natural Blues, South Side, We Are All Made Of Stars, (DJ Battle), Body Rock, Honey, (encore), Blitzkrieg Bop, Feeling So Real

Writing about festival shows is always daunting. They always make me feel like I bit off a little more than I can chew, recounting a show that encompasses enough musical material to comprise two to three normal concerts at a typical venue. The Area 2 Festival is especially a challenge having to transcribe the chit chat from such verbose artists as Busta Rhymes, David Bowie, and Moby, the festival’s founder. Thankfully, The Blue Man Group is shall we say, less talkative. Extensive as it is, I’ll try to keep it tight. I had enjoyed Moby’s Area One tour that came through the year before and it had returned with another eclectic line up and with Mr. Bowie in tow, there was no way in holy hell I was going to miss it. This was the second to last of only 12 shows this tour would do and I was frankly shocked that it wasn’t well sold, though it did make it easier to get around and enjoy. Likewise, it was no problem getting free comp tickets and I was there with my friend and fellow usher Matt Thayer. We made sure to get there early and by the end of the night, I would have 5 CDs worth of material, one of the only shows I kept in two separate CD sleeves. 

I had mused to Matt during the show that I guess the next year’s festival would be called “Area 3”, but it wasn’t to be. As of today, 24 years later, the Area tours remain on infinite hiatus which is a shame. It was genuinely an eclectic tour, whose variety in genres was appreciated, especially with the end of the Lollapalooza tours. For whatever reason the festival stopped, it coincided with the beginning of a rough patch with Moby. But he was having a banner year in 2002, perhaps the very height of his career, having released his “18” album that May, the long awaited follow up to his breakthrough blockbuster, “Play” and the single “Extreme Ways” would be used in the soundtrack for the action film “The Bourne Identity” as well as all of its sequels. After this tour, Moby even would go on to perform at the closing ceremony at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The bad news was that he was experimenting with alcohol, drugs, and getting his freak on, not to mention the inexplicable feud he was sharing with Eminem at the time. He called Moby a “36 year old, bald headed fag” and Moby countered that Eminem had “an unrequited crush” on him. Anyway, back to the show.

The first act up bright and early was Ash, an indy rock band from Ireland who were catchy, but definitely radio friendly. They even made a point to thank Live 105, calling it their ”favorite American radio station”. I wasn’t sure if they were serious or not, but they dedicated their second song of the set, “Submission”, to the Spin Doctors. Afterwards, their singer said, “Thank you, beautiful people of San Francisco! You have a beautiful climate. We’re digging it… We want to interact with you. We want to have intercourse with the entire audience!” A few tunes later, he introduced “A Life Less Ordinary” as being the title song of the 1997 Danny Boyle movie, saying it was “a straight to video kind of affair, but it’s pretty good anyway”. They followed that with “Kung Fu”, which I originally mistook for “Teenage Lobotomy” by The Ramones. It did mention teenage lobotomy early on in the lyrics and there had been a lot of bands covering Ramones songs since Joey Ramone died, even then though it had been since April of 2001. In fact, Moby would do a brilliant cover of “Blitzkrieg Bop” during his encore at the end of the night.

Between songs, one could easily hear the telltale thumping of the subwoofers coming from the DJ tent from the lawn and there was a lot of talent in there as well, though Carl Cox wasn’t on the bill during that show for some reason. First up was DJ Dan, renowned turntable master, formerly of the Funky Techno Tribe. Writing this comes with a tinge of sadness because DJ Dan had just passed away only two weeks ago at the all too young age of 57. That man had talent. Flanking the DJ tent was a large skateboard ramp and as the music played all day out there, skaters would drop in and do their tricks, accompanied by a young man commenting on the loudspeakers. While Dan was spinning, the emcee gave away swag and mentioned that Jeremy Lee, one of the skaters there that day, was recovering from an injury that he got a month before the show, claiming “the doctors said he’d never ride again!” 

I hurried back so I wouldn’t miss any of the Blue Man Group, this being the first time I’d see them perform. I knew of their eerie mime-like persona and obviously their trademark blue from shaved head to toe appearance, but I knew nothing of their music. Just as well, because practically all of the stuff they played was brand new and wouldn’t be officially released for another year on their second album, “The Complex”. Though they had been brand spanking new to me, they actually had been honing their act in New York City since the late 80’s. Slowly and steadily, they just got bigger and bigger, helped that they were a big hit and frequent guests on the late night talk shows like Letterman. I just wish I was down in the seats and not up on the lawn for their set. It was too early and bright on to see them on the video projection screens and there was obviously a lot going down there visually. 

Theatrical and maybe even downright gimmicky as they were, I was instantly impressed by the skills as percussionists and the homemade instruments they came up with were truly original as well. Though they were known as an instrumental band, these blue weirdos apparently sworn to a vow of silence, this time they had brought along a female singer, Annette Stream from the band Venus Hum. She had a beautiful voice and did a brilliant cover of “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane, a high bar vocally, especially at Shoreline, the house that hippie music guru Bill Graham himself built. But the Blue Man Group’s cover of the disco anthem “I Feel Love” by Donna Summer was positively transcendent. Seriously, it gave me a feeling of total serenity even hearing it again all these years later and I still consider it one of the best cover songs I have ever heard. I was glad that I finally got to see them and would be lucky to catch them once more only a year later at The Warfield, up close and personal that time. When they were done, I high tailed it back to the DJ tent and caught a little more of DJ Dan too. 

I was already familiar with Busta Rhymes, having recorded him at the Maritime Hall back in 1998 and seeing him headline The Fillmore only six months before this show. He and the Flipmode Squad made quite an impression on me and I was pleasantly surprised when they were added to this bill. He was about to release his “It Ain’t Safe No More” album that October, but we heard no new material that night. Busta had also been busy continuing his acting career, appearing in “Halloween : Resurrection” which came out just a month before this show and was a critical and commercial bomb, though he’d later be in “Narc” which came out that December and fared better. Mr. Rhymes and his crew actually had to miss the Area 2 show that was in Toronto because he got held up at the Canadian border by Immigration for some reason. 

The crowd was still relatively sparse by the time he got on, but he and his hype man Spliff Star got things warmed up quickly. Like many hip hop acts, Busta made a point to give a shout out to the cities around the bay area and was one of the few, maybe the only one to bother to mention Mountain View where the show was actually taking place. After the first song, he  said, “It’s OK if you don’t know about this cus’ we’re on this tour to change the mind state of those people who have not been listening to hip hop music too long. We’re going to have you leaving here with a whole other perspective of rap shit, hip hop culture. We are going to change your way of thinking about that way” and then they did the classic “Woo-Ha! Got You All In Check”. That helped loosen things up and then they got the crowd to leisurely clap together and Busta joked, “I got a little Tom Jones in me this evening. Is that cool with you? I feel like Marvin Gaye. I feel like Luther Vandross. I feel like Barry White this evening.”

One thing this bay area crowd could identify with Busta on was their love of ganja and he took advantage of that saying, “This is the part of the show where you minors have to stay in your place. The old folks, reach in your pocket. Hopefully, you brought your Easy Rider, your bamboo sheath, your licorice paper. Hopefully, you brought a bong or a pipe. Hopefully, you brought you Backwoods cigars… Hopefully, you brought a fuckin’ notebook if you got to roll up on that shit. Whatever you smokin’, this is the part of the show where we like to collectively involve everyone in this particular extracurricular activity. So if you don’t mind, feel free to roll your spliff, light your spliff, smoke your spliff. Last but not least and most importantly in this direction, pass your spliff… In the meantime, while you’re doing your architectural work in the construction and manufacturing of this product, we’re going to put the music on that goes most appropriately with the moment like this. It’s called ‘Get High Tonight’”. 

With the herb doing its good work with the audience, Busta found it easier to have them make some noise as he goaded them, “Turn up the volume knob! Give me a good impression so I can talk shit to the next city tomorrow. You ready for some classic vintage Busta Rhymes shit?” and then they did “Scenario”. Afterwards, he introduced his band who playfully did a few licks of “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath, followed by a bit of the theme song from the TV show “Knight Rider”, before they dropped into “Put Your Hands Up Where My Eyes Can See”. A couple songs later, Spliff Star mentioned, “I brought an ambulance truck with me… That can mean only one thing” and Busta asked, “You ready to break up your foot? You ready to break your back with us today, people? How about us break our fuckin’ necks in here, people?” and then they did “Break Ya Neck”. Busta even did a little bit of the chorus of “Give It Away” by the Chili Peppers during that one. 

Enjoyable as his set was, it finally had come to an end. Busta introduced the last song, “I just want to recap what transpired this evening. We came out and introduced ourselves. Some of y’all didn’t love us. Some of y’all did. And the good thing though, some of y’all who didn’t love us, it appears that you do now and I just not want to take that for granted in the slightest way. Thank you very much… Converted. Thank you very much for being open minded and coming around and just appreciating us, that much more than you did initially. God bless you all. Can you come over here and touch me please? I want to feel the love. Thank you very much. I appreciate the love.” And then Busta noticed a pregnant woman up front and smiled, “Oh! God bless you and your baby! Congratulations! We got a young hip hopper on his way, that’s right!” They finished off their set with “Pass The Courvoisier” and as usual brought a bottle of that spirit on the stage and generously shared it with the fans up front. 

I was able to make it back down to the DJ tent to catch the end of Tiesto, a world famous DJ from The Netherlands, the first of his craft to hold DJ Magazine’s world title three years in a row starting that year. I joked with my friend Matt on the way there that at least Alex Graham, the son of the late Bill Graham, wasn’t performing there that day. We had just witnessed an interminable set of his opening for Jane’s Addiction at The Warfield the month before this show and agreed that it was possibly the most boring DJ set ever had to be endured by human ears. I quipped that if Alex had been on the bill, that “nobody would be in there. He would be alone.” Tiesto was quickly followed by John Digweed from England all the while the skaters continued their tricks next to the tent on their skate ramp. Digweed was so loud that it was one of the only times that the subwoofers were overloading my headphone mic. 

Jeremy Lee was up again on the skate ramp attempting to do a 900 degree spin trick and the emcee kind of made us all cringe when he pointed out Jeremy’s arm. Apparently, in his last demo, Jeremy had accidentally ripped the skin off his forearm, taking all the hair with it, so he now had hair on one arm and not the other and the emcee had his show his arms to the crowd and we all collectively winced. Still, the emcee was able to get us all to chant, “Spin! Spin! Spin!” as Jeremy attempted to do as the emcee put it, “Not 1 full rotation, not 2 full rotations, but 2 and a half rotations to make a 900!” We all held our breath as the emcee teed him up, “Here he comes! The Spin Doctor!” and we all cheered as Jeremy pulled off the trick flawlessly. 

But the night belonged to Bowie and I made damn sure to get back up on the lawn in time for the beginning of his set. Personally, I thought it was strange that they would put him on before Moby and I overheard myself saying to Matt while walking that I thought a lot of the crowd would leave after Bowie’s set and I was right. But the Area festival was Moby’s baby and what was done was done. David casually strolled on stage to thunderous applause wearing a black vest and pants with a white button down shirt, reminiscent of his “Thin White Duke” look around the time he put out “Station To Station”. He was joined by Mike Garson on keys, Gale Anne Dorsey once again on bass and backing vocals and Earl Slick on guitar. Looking back, it’s hard to believe that Bowie was 55 years old then, only a little over a year older than I am now. Damn, he looked good for his age. He had just put out the “Heathen” album just two months before this show, his (gulp!) 23rd studio album to date, produced by Tony Visconti, his first collaboration with him since they did “Scary Monsters” in 1980. 

David opened the show gradually with the golden oldie “Life On Mars?” and you can feel the entire crowd get goosebumps as he hit the high note at the end of the first chorus, his trademark tremolo belting out, “Ma-a-a-a-a-ars!” He greeted us after, “Good evening Palo Alto!”, and paused a moment, “You’ve got to say ‘Good evening, David & all your friends!”, and followed it with “Ashes To Ashes”. He then apologized, “Sorry you saw so much of my back in that last song, but I’m learning the drums, so I got to watch him a lot”. It is a rare honor when Bowie covers another band’s song, but The Pixies were given that honor when he did a respectful version of “Cactus” which was included on the new album along with “I’ve Been Waiting For You” by Neil Young. I assume David took a shining to Neil after he performed at Neil’s Bridge School Benefit in 1996. Always looking to try out new material on the road, David treated us to six songs from his new album that night. Still, he joked, “We’ll be doing songs from the 1980’s. 70’s, 60’s… All the way back to the negative years. The negative years are really interesting” and then he talked like he was talking backwards for a bit. 

Afterwards, he produced a Stylophone, a pocket synthesizer that he first began using when playing “Space Oddity”. The crowd went wild when he played a couple lines of that classic song and he described the instrument as something “thrown together in the 60’s… You can get your very own. I’ll be coming among the audience. I have these in three colors, yellow, blue, or white… 19, no 15? $12.95 each! But wait, there’s more!… And of course, we have an endless supply of Juggalos” and then they did “I’m Afraid Of Americans”. Bowie did a quiet start to “Let’s Dance” before the drums kicked in and then they finished their glorious set with “Ziggy Stardust”. And that was it. I would see Bowie one final time a year and a half later at the Shark Tank in San Jose before his tragic passing in 2016, but I’ll always be grateful that I got to see him perform as many times as I did.

Like I said, a good chunk of the crowd bailed after his set, but I liked Moby and wanted some closure to this long festival of music. Though I had already seen Moby five times in only three years, including recording him once at the Maritime Hall, he did have the courtesy to put this little wing ding in the first place and I thought it was also just polite to hear him out. Obviously, I was familiar with his music by then, but we did get to hear five of his new tunes that night. He opened with two new ones, “18” and “Extreme Ways”, and a couple songs later did “Another Woman”, which he introduced, “When I first started coming to San Francisco in the early 90’s, one of those things that always impressed me about the San Francisco dance scene was the sort of subtlety and femininity that was missing from the other dance scenes. So, I would very much like to dedicate this sultry, sexy little disco song to all the wonderful people in San Francisco who have been making and supporting dance music.”

He did his usual noodling on his electric guitar, once more boorishly demonstrating how eclectic he was with his musical tastes, first doing a few riffs from “I Love Rock & Roll” by Joan Jett. He went on, “Even though I had a straight, white trash upbringing in New England, there is a part of me that always wanted to be from the south, largely in part because my mother was a literature major and she loved southern gothic literature like Tennessee Williams and Walker Percy… So, in my white trash, New England way, I’d stay home summers and I’d read these books and dream about growing up in the deep south with mangy dogs finding a place to die and dirty diapers in the front yard, in-laws having sex with each other… But this next song is a testament to my deep desire to have grown up in the deep south” and then they did “Find My Baby”. 

Moby continued with his electric guitar riffing, saying that he wanted to start a cover band that just did five seconds of each song, the logic being that nobody has time to hear 60 songs during a set. He went on to do five second samples of the opening riffs to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana and Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” and “Stairway To Heaven”. Before they did “South Side”, Moby commented that this was the first song of his that he had ever seen available on karaoke. Afterwards, he moved over to a keyboard and played the beginning of “House Of The Rising Sun”, adding that he had a compulsion to start a wedding band. He then introduced his new single “We Are All Made Of Stars” as the only song he had written after 9/11 and rejected the notion that it was a patriotic song and actually “has more to deal with quantum physics”. 

Afterwards, Moby put an afro wig on his shiny, bald head claiming, “I need this afro to challenge RJ to a DJ battle in a fit of hubris” though he was “just a skinny twerp from New England… I’m not even skinny anymore” and complained about his slowing metabolism, eating too many carbs, and that even his crack addiction wasn’t helping anymore. He finished his set with “Honey”, giving a shout out to his back up singer, “This song is a sexy song enhanced by the presence of Diane Charlemagne… Diane Charlemagne, the alchemist of love, the seething cauldron of pure carnal sexuality over here, Diane Charlemagne. There are men that she has ravaged that have been never heard from again. You’ll see her disappear with some poor unsuspecting man. All that’s left in the morning are some shoelaces, a couple of credit cards, and fingernail claw marks on the wall. OK, I’ll shut now and we’ll play this dirty, sexy song”. 

Moby came back out for his encore and graciously thanked the other acts, “I am going to try to use my diminishing mental powers to remember every single person on this bill. We have Dieselboy, The Avalanches, DJ Dan, Tiesto, unfortunately Carl Cox couldn’t be here, John Digweed, Ash, the Blue Man Group, and Busta Rhymes and I think that’s everybody… I think, no, that’s everybody. Far as I know, that’s everybody who’s on the bill. Oh wait, no… Wait, but I do have three simple words I would like to say on a completely unrelated subject and those words are David Fuckin’ Bowie. If you were to talk to me when I was 15 years old and obsessed with David Bowie and listening to “Heroes” and “Station To Station” and “Low” and “Scary Monsters” obsessively and talked to me and said at some point that I would be sharing the stage with David Bowie, I never in a million years would have believed you.”

He introduced his band, saving his string section for last and joked, “They’ve written a song as big fans of industrial music and death metal. They’ve written a piece of music that they say is utterly terrifying. I haven’t heard it yet. They want to debut it right now. If by some lucky twist of fate you brought Depends with you, you might want to wear them because apparently this is such a terrifying piece of music, that it will make you lose control of your bladder and your bowels”. Naturally, that wasn’t the case and the string section played the first few bars of “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” by Mozart. Moby then had the lights turned up and pointed a pocket camera at the audience and said, “But now because of my pathological low self esteem, on the count of three, will you all give me the finger and yell out ‘Fuck you, Moby’?” We obliged him, he took the picture and said, “Thank you. I needed that. That was some sweet deprecation.”

He finished this long marathon of music with “Feeling So Real” which he described, “In my humble opinion, one of the most beautiful disco songs ever made”.  Matt and I joined those who remained to the bitter end, shuffling wearily back to the parking lot having enjoyed a long day of quality live music. Suffice to say, we definitely got our money’s worth at that show, especially since I got the ticket for free. I would see Moby one more time three years later at The Warfield, but I haven’t seen him since then. Thankfully, he was able to clean himself up and got sober again in 2008. In a semi-related topic to drugs in one’s blood stream, Barry Bonds had just hit his 600th home run just five days before this show. Anyway, the Area 2 tour would continue up north to its final show at The Gorge in Washington, ending the short but sweet tenure of this festival. It’s our loss really and I hope that Moby brings this tour back from the dead someday. 

https://archive.org/details/moby-shoreline-81402

https://archive.org/details/john-digweed-shoreline-81402

https://archive.org/details/david-bowie-shoreline-81402

https://archive.org/details/dj-tiesto-shoreline-81402

https://archive.org/details/busta-rhymes-shoreline-81402

https://archive.org/details/dj-dan-shoreline-81402

https://archive.org/details/blue-man-group-shoreline-81402_202604

https://archive.org/details/ash-shoreline-81402

Mystik Journeymen & The Living Legends Crew – Fillmore, SF, Sat., August 3

I’m fairly certain that this was the first time I was seeing any of these east bay hip guys since the sinking of the Maritime Hall the year before this. I have plenty of history with these fine artists from previous entries, so feel free to go back to those for more backstory, but for now we’ll stick to their present, or at least the present that was 2002. Productive as always, the Journeymen had put out their “Almost Famous” album the year before and were about to release a new one called “Magic”. It has always been a sore spot for me whenever a group, especially one like this that I recorded on three separate occasions at the Maritime, gets a live album dropped by the Hall that I didn’t record and this was one of those, “Live In San Francisco” released also in 2002. It still stings and part of me knows Boots the owner did it out of spite to me and my partner Pete. He had plenty of material to choose from and didn’t use a single song we did together, opting to use material from a show they did there after we had parted ways. Still, as years pass, the butt hurt is more tolerable and in the end, I’m just glad that ANY live stuff they did at the Hall got out officially. And if Bob Dylan, who had just returned that day in 2002 for the first time to the Newport Folk Festival since his infamous electric performance in 1965, could find it in his soul to move on, I too could also find the strength to do so. 

This was a home town gig for them and the task of keeping track who was coming and going on that stage was an exercise in folly, so forgive me that I didn’t even try, much less figure out what songs were played. Rest assured all them were there and then some including Murs, The Grouch, Scarub, Eligh, Luckyiam, Sunspot Jonz, and Aesop, just to name a handful. It was a long night, exhausting as it was thrilling, clocking in at well over three hours of non stop, hip hop fun and games. Apart from the usual suspects between The Journeymen and the Living Legends crew, there were however a few oddballs on the bill. There was an emcee for the night who came up to introduce people and crack jokes, warning one heckler early on, “You don’t want to dis me when I’m on the mic, I-ight, cus’ I got the mic and I’ll be Def Comedy Jam up in this motherfucker”. He brought up a couple members of Felonious : One Love Hip Hop, who I had just seen open up for LL Cool J less than two weeks before this on that very stage. Their human beatbox guy did quite a solo and the crowd loved him again. 

They were followed by the Rebels Of Rhythm from Sacramento who had a very talented female rapper in their crew. Another unexpected guest was Morganics all the way from down under, Sydney, Australia. He was funny guy claiming he was “representing for all the crocodile hunters” in the house. One of the DJs from the Hieroglyphics was there backing him and another female rapper and they were also both quite skilled in the arts of the human beatbox. They did a clever bit vocalizing the “March Of The Empire” from “Star Wars”. Afterwards, M.O.S. or the Misfits Of Styles came up led by a rapper named Doug Esquire. The emcee kept true to his warning earlier of going all “Def Comedy Jam” on one guy up front, urging the crowd to “boo this motherfucker in the blue shirt!” 

The Living Legends crew came out afterwards, promoting their new album, “Fallen Angels”, and goaded the crowd, offering a free copy to whichever side was the loudest. At one point one of the members had the lights dimmed and said, “September 11th was fucked up. A lot of people died. People die all the fuckin’ time and I’ve come to realize that whatever you believe in, this house is filled with people that are alive… This ain’t no bullshit. I know motherfuckers that ain’t got no legs. I know motherfuckers that can’t see. I know people that ain’t got no money. I know people that are alive, right? So, if you feel like being alive and being on the planet Earth right now, it’s a pleasure, it’s a privilege. I want everybody in this mother to say, ‘Yeah!’” Later, they brought up Jay Emcee for a few songs, cracking jokes with the audience like, “Front row motherfuckers who haven’t even had a chance to piss, what’s up?!?” 

The Journeymen came on stage to the sounds of a sample of a droning voice saying, “Mystik Journeymen-dot-com” over and over, scratched by the DJ a little. Among the many jams they dropped that night, one couldn’t help but recall the one where they proclaimed that “mean bitches suck and the nice girls swallow”. Interpret that as you will. A long and comprehensive night of rap and DJ skill that it was, alas, there was no poster at the end. I’m not sure I ever saw The Journeymen again live, at least not at a show they were headlining, though I’m sure I’ve seen some individuals from their ranks showing up at shows with other bay area crews like the Hieroglyphics and such. Their members went their separate ways over the years as people do, Murs and Luckyiam quitting the band ten years after this show. Aesop passed away just last year, I’m afraid. But I’m proud to have spent so much time with these genuine DIY underground hip hop pioneers during that brief time and their legacy continues. 

https://archive.org/details/mystik-journeymen-fillmore-8302

Femi Kuti, Hamsa Lila – Fillmore, SF, Sat., July 27

SETLISTS :

(HAMSA LILA) : Invocation, Hey Mustapha, Patchamaina, Were, Oshun, Om Tara, Illumane, Turka Lila

It had been 7 years since I’d seen Femi Kuti on that stage and I was eager again to hear the joyful sounds from the Nigerian afro-pop star and his Positive Force Band. Femi was continuing the family business, the son of the legendary Fela Kuti, and likewise had been fighting for political reforms in his native country. Nigeria was in the middle of an election that year and there would be later accusations of rigging… sounds familiar. Anyway, Femi had just put out his “Fight To Win” album which featured Mos Def and Common and had contributed his father’s song “Water No Get Enemy” to Fela’s tribute album, “Red Hot & Riot”. This music would be a definite stylistic departure from the band I saw the night before on that stage, the bombastic, post-punk Mission Of Burma from Boston. 

Opening that night was Hamsa Lila, a local world music jam band who I’d seen earlier that year also opening at The Fillmore for Sound Tribe Sector Nine. They began their set very gradually and gently with an extended flute intro. They played for a full hour too, long for an opening act, but I got their whole set. It did however cut into the time of Femi’s set, so I sadly got little over an hour of it, but it came out great. Dumbe Djengue playing on bass that night is one of the best I’ve ever heard on that instrument. It was a sizable band too, having three female back up singers, a horn section, and four percussion players. Between songs, Femi talked about how his songs were political, to make the world better for the next generation, and that he had “no apologies whatsoever” for his lyrics. 

He livened things up after, getting the crowd to do the usual call and response chanting and there were a lot of talented dancers on and off the stage. Halfway through the set, Femi got us all to step together, “To the right, the the left, to the right, to the right” and later dance low to the ground. There was no poster that night, but I would see Mr. Kuti again on that stage two years later, though I wouldn’t see him again until 2018 at Stern Grove. I am happy to say that the Kuti musical line is in good hands with Femi’s son, Seun Kuti, who had been performing with his dad since he was nine years old, singing and playing sax. He has since grown into an extremely talented headliner of his own who I’ve seen a couple times playing alongside his father’s old band, Egypt 80. 

https://archive.org/details/femi-kuti-fillmore-72702

https://archive.org/details/hamsa-lila-fillmore-72702

Mission Of Burma, Silkworm, Mike Watt & The Secondmen – Fillmore, SF, Fri., July 26

SETLISTS : 

(MIKE WATT & THE SECONDMEN) : Boilin’ Blazes, Puked To High Heaven, Burstedman, Bedtime Story, Forever… One Reporter’s Opinion, Sweet Honey Pie, The Big Bang Theory, The Red & The Black

(SILKWORM) : Treat The New Guy Right, Bourbon Beard, The Third, Contempt, (I Hope U) Don’t Survive, (unknown), The Old You, Plain, A Cockfight Of Feelings, Couldn’t You Wait?, LR72, The Brain, Is She A Sign, Severance Pay, Slave Wages

(MISSION OF BURMA) : Red, Peking Spring, Dumbells, (unknown), Max Ernst, Secrets, Dirt, This Is Not A Photograph, Forget, Mica, The Enthusiast, Einstein’s Day, That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate, The Setup, Fame & Fortune, That’s When I Reach For My Revolver, Dead Pool, The Ballad Of Johnny Burma, Class War, (encore), Fun World

I know it might sound cliched and reductive, but as time went on, I discovered that the more I knew about music, the more I realized that I didn’t know. Though I had been educated by this time by hundreds of shows, I was barely scratching the surface of the deep well that the popular music of my time had nourished itself on from the past. That being said, it was yet forgivable that I was unfamiliar with the works of Mission Of Burma at the time, especially since they had disbanded in 1983, when I was a wee lad of 11 years old. Yes, after 19 long years, this post-punk band from Boston got back together for a reunion tour and their stop at The Fillmore would obviously be the first time back in San Francisco since then. Like I said, I knew nothing of them before, though I was familiar with their song, “That’s When I Reach For My Revolver”, which had been covered by Moby and the Foo Fighters before. I had been of course oblivious to its origin. But with this show, their return to The Fillmore in 2004, and my research for this entry, I have established a foothold with them.

Another reason I knew little about Mission Of Burma before is that prior to their disbanding, they were only together for a short time, just four years, and had in that brief period only released 2 singles, an EP, and an LP called “Vs”. Their singer and guitarist, Roger Miller, originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan, where my wife grew up, had studied music composition at U of M before emigrating to Boston and originally formed the band as a a trio. Incidentally, Michigan just won the NCAA Basketball Championship just before I wrote this. Go Blue! Anyway, they then added Martin Swope to be their audio engineer who added effects and tape loops to their songs, creating a sound that was truly original. The notoriously temperamental frontman of The Fall, Mark E. Smith, once said that Mission Of Burma was the only band he could tolerate. I recently asked my friend and mentor Frank Gallagher, a veteran soundman who had worked with many of the bands on the east coast back in those days like The Ramones and the Talking Heads, if he ever did any work with them. He said no, but he believed he once “made them lunch” at Irving Plaza. 

Like many musicians broaching a new musical style, Mission Of Burma’s shows were hit and miss and they had difficulties on the road. In fact, at their final show in 1983 on Staten Island, Public Image, Ltd. refused to let them use their PA and rushed them off the stage when they were done, a truly unsanctimonious end to their short tenure as a band. But the ear splitting volume at which they played soon took its toll on Roger as well who developed a serious case of tinnitus and the members moved on to other projects. Roger founded the much quieter band, Birdsongs Of The Mesozoic and drummer Peter Prescott joined the Volcano Suns. But the legacy of their music which influenced many notable artists like Sonic Youth and R.E.M. and the reissues of their recordings lit the spark that grew into the fire underneath the former members to reunite. First, there were only two gigs, one in New York City and the other in Boston, but they both sold out and the response was so positive, that they added another New York City gig and then later organized this tour. 

One artist on the bill I was quite familiar with though was Mr. Mike Watt, the venerable bass player of The Minutemen and Firehose, who I had seen on several occasions before this show. He had been out of commission since 2000, recovering from an infection that he contracted in his perineum. For those who don’t know what a perineum is, let’s just say it’s a place you don’t want to have an infection and leave it at that. But Mike was back and had a new band he playfully called The Secondmen and had a bunch of new songs at the ready that he would eventually release two years later on “The Secondman’s Middle Stand” album. He would in fact perform that album’s first three songs in order at the beginning of his set. The new stuff was sophisticated and I had never heard Mike perform alongside a keyboard player before this. They dusted off a golden oldie from The Minutemen called “Forever… One Reporter’s Opinion” and did a couple unexpected covers, “Bedtime” by Madonna and “The Red & Black” a real oldie from Blue Oyster Cult. It was gratifying to see Mike back on stage again and on the mend with his joyful grin, playing his heart out as always.

Next up was Silkworm, a band from Seattle by way of Missoula, Montana. They had been together since the late 80’s, though I hadn’t heard them before, and had just released their 8th album, “Italian Platinum”, produced by grunge pioneer Steve Albini. They kind of reminded me of Pavement and I liked them. The members cracked jokes between songs, one of them saying “I’m too depressed to do the next song” before they did “Is She A Sign”. One of them thought their set was over and started to leave the stage before their last song when another harkened him back joking, “No, you’re in prison! You have to stay. Have you ever seen such cowardice? This man is a worm!” This was be the only time I’d see Silkworm though, since they disbanded only three years later after their drummer Michael Dahlquist was tragically killed in a car accident. They did have a brief reunion in 2024 for a show at Steve Albini’s memorial and then toured the following year. 

Mission Of Burma maintained their reputation of being an extremely loud band, but Roger was prepared this time, donning a pair of earphone cans normally used by folks at a rifle range. Martin Swope wasn’t along for the tour this time, but was replaced by Bob Weston, the bass player of Shellac, who handled the duties of tape manipulation and live engineering. Roger looked happy, saying between songs, “Stick around! We’ll play four hours at least… Believe me, I’m lying”. He kept the gallows humor flowing, as he described the song “The Enthusiast” saying it was about when you “like something so much that it makes you die” and introduced another one, “Keeping to our tradition, we’re going to do something really depressing”. Considering the historic nature of this reunion tour, I was relieved that The Fillmore had a poster at the end of the show. I would return the following night to see a very different act altogether, Femi Kuti from Nigeria, on that same stage.

https://archive.org/details/mission-of-burma-fillmore-72602

https://archive.org/details/silkworm-fillmore-72602

https://archive.org/details/mike-watt-the-secondmen-fillmore-72602