In the Game Archives — Page 6 of 6 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Noise Pop: Blag, guts, and pussy

-

February 21, 2007

› duncan@sfbg.com

Love ’em or hate ’em, the Dwarves are as close to punk rock royalty as San Francisco is ever gonna have. They’ve been in the game since emigrating from Chi-town in the ’80s, with nary a letup for soul-searching acoustic meandering or trips to rehab.

"What you wanna do, B? What you wanna do?" a voice queries in "Demented," from 2004’s The Dwarves Must Die (Sympathy for the Record Industry). "I wanna fight, fuck, and destroy like they used to" is vocalist Blag Dahlia’s answer.

Dahlia, born Paul Cafaro, and the ever-naked (except for a Lucha Libre mask) Hewhocannotbenamed on guitar have been the core of the Dwarves for longer than some of their audience members — and dates — have been alive and got the band booted from Sub Pop in 1992 for engineering a Hewho death hoax. Living in San Francisco, one can count on good burritos, high gas prices, and experiencing six or fewer degrees of Blag separation at all times. I made out with a girl who claimed he’d stolen her spiked belt when they lived together. On a snippet from Thank Heaven for Little Girls (Sub Pop, 1991), an audience member at a Dwarves show says, "The lead singer’s a fucking shithead, man. He broke a fucking glass onstage. I get bumped by the crowd. The next thing you know, my hand’s fucking sliced." I could swear this happened at a show I was working security for at Slim’s.

While Dahlia has certainly created an impressive myth, just how worthy of their legacy — or relevant — are the Dwarves in 2007? The Dwarves Must Die has the middle-aged Dahlia rapping, of all things, to hilarious effect on "Massacre," on which he spouts the line "This one goes out to Queens of the Trust Fund: you slept on my floor, now I’m sleeping through your motherfucking records," which led to a much-publicized dustup with Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme at a Hollywood club. I’ve even spotted Dahlia playing around town as MC Blag. He takes swipes at "fake punkers" Good Charlotte, but he’s apparently cowritten songs with them, as well as produced more than one Offspring album.

"I don’t ride a skateboard and love what you hate for / And don’t give a fuck about punk-rocking no more," Dahlia raps on "Massacre." To me, it’s this willingness to not be punk rock that makes the band even more so. Musically, things took a turn for the poppy on 1996’s The Dwarves Are Young and Good Looking (Epitaph), and that’s when they got interesting. Far from being merely a glass-smashing nihilist, Dahlia is also a frustrated romantic, a ’50s protorock crooner like Dion or Del Shannon in fingerless leather gloves (see Must Die‘s warped piss take on Shannon, "Runaway #2").

According to one of Dahlia’s ex-lovers, "He’s very mellow and affectionate. I’d get random 3 a.m. voice mails with him singing old soul songs where every word that was romantic would be changed to my name." She went on to say that despite his onstage calls for violence, during their time together she’d never seen him in a fight: "He’s kind of a pacifist."

All this, of course, is neither here nor there. As far as I’m concerned, after 1990’s death blast Blood Guts and Pussy (Sub Pop), with its iconic, Michael Lavine–photographed cover of two naked women and an equally buck-ass midget drenched in blood (the midget appears to be making nice with a bunny rabbit), they could have basically shit in jewel cases for the rest of their career and still worn the crown. That record is basically the punk rock version of Slayer’s Reign in Blood (Def Jam, 1986): 12 tracks in 13 minutes and six seconds — pure punk bliss. And they were smart enough to not try to repeat it every record. Really, what’s Josh Homme have that can hold a candle to that? *

DWARVES

With Girl Band and the White Barons

March 4, 10 p.m., $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

>

On the Download — Ridin’ the wi-fi

-

January 31, 2007

0

ON THE DOWNLOAD Don’t doubt it: southern hospitality is real, and it’s especially so in the rap game now that Lil Wayne and Chamillionaire have released free downloadable mixtapes of their latest rhymes on their Web sites. As mixtapes so often incorporate other rappers’ beats without written permission, the circuit, despite its hype and promotional benefits, has become a sizable source of controversy in the recording industry following the Jan. 16 arrests of DJ Drama and Don Cannon in Atlanta. In a Jan. 21 Reuters-Billboard article, Young Jeezy, a rapper who’s collaborated with Drama and other mixtape DJs, is quoted as saying he was "getting booked for shows in Detroit, D.C., places [he’d] never been" because of his mixtapes, which have each sold thousands. According to the same article, the Recording Industry Association of America is behind these arrests, apparently intending to target "illegal CDs" by way of "anti-piracy activity" — problematic designations at a time when artists and major labels monetarily support their proliferation. Luckily, legalities aren’t trapping Chamillionaire’s and Wayne’s new tapes, which both showcase major steps forward in their talent.

Chamillionaire, hailing from Houston and best known for megahit "Ridin’," posted Mixtape Messiah Pt. 2 on his relaunched site for free download on Christmas Eve. It’s a bitchin’ present, to be sure. This guy’s mixes are anticipated for a reason: his flow’s got such a malleable step that even the simplest rhymes smack of brilliance, plus the man can sing his own choruses. No Akon necessary! (It is, however, a terrific bonus that he appears on "Ridin’ Overseas.") Despite the title, Chamillionaire is disarmingly charming in his sentiments throughout — he comes across as a genuinely nice guy, pledging an end to dis tracks on the skit following his take on Nas’s "Hip Hop Is Dead," a remix that’s considerably more thrilling than what Nas himself committed to record.

As if topping Nas on his own beat wasn’t enough, "Roll Call Reloaded" shows Koopa convincingly imitating several friends, including Lil’ Flip, Slim Thug, and Bun B and Pimp-C of UGK. The gee-whiz factor doesn’t stop there: "I Run It" would be single material if it weren’t all about the biz, and "Get Ya Umbrellas Out" lays down a swaggering, believable promise of continued greatness over an AZ beat: "I’m about to bring the rain so they know how the thunder sound / Get ya umbrellas out."

Umbrellas are also advised as Lil Wayne continues to "make it rain on them" with his own playfully warped flow on Lil Weezyana the Mixtape Vol. 1. Credited to Lil Wayne and Young Money, it’s mixed by Raj Smoove and features MCs from the Young Money label, Wayne’s own imprint alongside Cash Money. The other MCs — including Curren$y and a secret weapon known only as Elle — don’t quite shine like Wayne, who blazes over Jay-Z’s "Show Me What You Got" in a way that leaves one feeling pretty uneasy about Jigga’s supposedly tight rein over the scene. Wayne’s rhymes are always intriguing, including such clever quips as "In the game, I’m manning up like Eli" and "Coupe blue like the do on Marge."

Smoove’s beats constantly switch up their style, allowing Wayne to exhibit his ability to kill just about any beat: "Secretary" employs a scratch-based hip-hop track, while "Vans" is finger snaps and an 808 behind a whispering Weezy. There are more serious moments, as on "Amen" and "I Like Dat," and the sincerity on these tracks is as compelling as the surreal wordplay elsewhere. This tape, alongside last year’s Dedication 2 (Gangsta Grillz) with the aforementioned DJ Drama, shows how dramatically far Wayne’s skill has come since his days in the Hot Boyz — you may not have guessed it from "Go DJ," but this guy is now spittin’ with the best. *

www.chamillionaire.com/mixtape/

www.youngmoneyent.com/ymaudio/index.html

Who’s your sugar daddy?

-

January 29, 2007

0

Guardian A&E intern Elaine Santore discovered MillionaireMarch.com, and nothing has quite been the same since; here’s her take on the online dating site:

Not long ago, a good friend alerted me that we were behind on our MRS degrees. In a panic, I grabbed my BlackBerry and clicked on the “Tasks” icon. Sure enough: below reminders to “Wash my face” and “Do NOT text/IM/call/MySpace that guy” was “Get MRS degree.”

At 24, I feared I’d missed the trophy wife boat forever. Thankfully, the good folks at Jane magazine spotlight online dating in its Feb. issue, and mentioned MillionaireMatch.com. Millionaire Match’s homepage poses the all-important questions:

“Does your economic success make it difficult for you to meet that special someone?” Um, duh. Non-intern men in SF are very intimidated by my success. So much so that I had to move back into my parents’ house just to feel at their level.

“Why try other dating websites that can only claim to get results, when you can meet tens of thousands of successful and quality singles and friends right here!” Awesome! I need friends.

Millionaire Match defines a millionaire as anybody who makes over $150,000 a year. Non-millionaires and celebrities (no income bracket provided) are also invited. The site allows you to create a free profile, but offers a gold membership for $19.95 a month. (That’s half the membership fee for Parisexposed.com. Hot.)

After a couple hours of perusing the site, I found that some members appeared to be actual millionaires. A fair share of men my age, however, looked like they were in search of a sugar mama. No shame in the game, boys. Holla for the dollar!

NOISE: Lady sov takes another stab!

-

January 10, 2007

0

Guardian contributor Ari Messer checked out Lady Sovereign at the Mezzanine on Jan. 8. Here’s his review of the show:

Love her or hate her – doesn’t she look adorable?

Around seventh or eighth grade I made the transition from oversized Stussy sweatshirts and hypercolor basketball T-shirts to even bigger local punk band tees — I remember a burgundy Fury 66 shirt that reached to my knees. So imagine my surprise when, after DJ Frampster adroitly warmed, cooled, and dancehalled the packed, couple-heavy crowd (did one partner drag the other?) at the Mezzanine on Monday, Lady Sovereign, “officially the biggest midget in the game” according to herself, poked out from behind the backdrop curtain displaying her silhouette in grand scale, and proudly flashed her sparkling clean white Stussy hoodie. Not only was it practically the same Stussy from my past, but it kind of fit. The 21-year-old Londoner and rising grit-rap grime star immediately busted out one of her tastemaking ditties, “Ch’Ching.”

Like her tune “Hoodie,” “Ch’Ching” was seemingly designed specifically for viral MySpace distribution. Something about the white girl sporting white, plus the remarkable number of Brit dialects and breaks in Frampster’s over half-hour set, which got the crowd moving in language-as-dance-partner waves, established the unexpected mood for the evening: playfulness.

Gonzalez on the fence?

-

January 8, 2007

2

By Tim Redmond

I think Luke Thomas at FCJ is the first one to officially claim to have unofficially announced that Matt Gonzalez is really running for mayor. But everyone in town is talking about it, and the typical discussion is around not whether but when he will join the race.

There are two conflicting schools of thought here. Some think Gonzalez would need to get in soon if he’s going to raise money and be taken seriously. Others (including, I suspect, Matt himself) would rather wait until the end of the summer and get in at the last minute.

Personally, I think the late-entry plan is a mistake. Four yeas ago, nobody expected Gonzalez to enter the race; he wasn’t even a factor in the discussions. I was on a tv show with him about three months before he wound up entering the race, and we both agreed that it was unlikely there would be any candidates beyond Gavin Newsom, Tom Ammiano and Angela Alioto. There really was a last-minute draft-Gonzalez movement when it became clear that Newsom was headed for an easy victory; part of his appeal was the novelty of it all.

Of course, he pissed a lot of people off, especially in the queer community, but jumping in and effectlively shooting down Ammiano’s campaign. But I don’t think it was a sneaky pre-meditated strategy. Gonzalez can be an impulsive guy; he just decided one day to go for it.

This time, anything he does late in the game will be seen as nothing more than a political strategy. It will look as if he’s intentionally holding back to see who else runs, to let the race play out a bit, and to give himself an advantage. That won’t fly so well in 2007.

There’s already too much talk; too many people have too much riding on this. We need a progressive candidate, and if it’s not Gonzalez, then perhaps someone else will enter (and Gonzalez will look like a spoiler at the end). If he’s going to run — and I hope he does — he should decide soon and get on with it.

I called Gonzalez today, and he insisted that he hasn’t made any announcement, prive or public, official or unofficial. “I’m not running for mayor,” he said. “I’ve made that point over and over again. I have said that I’ve thought about it, and I have. But I’m not getting in anyone’s way, and if another strong candidate wants to run, they should go ahead.”

I told him that I think he needs to make a final decision soon, and rule himself out if he isn’t going to run. “I agree with that,” he said.

THURSDAY

-

December 27, 2006

0

Dec. 28

MUSIC

Violent Femmes

There are few bands from the last 20 years more iconic than the Violent Femmes. Their brand of acoustic punk, played with equal parts smirk and sneer, has been a staple of modern rock radio since they released their first album way back in 1983. Their songs, such as “Blister in the Sun” and “Add It Up,” are instantly recognizable. True West, a reunited 1980s psych-rock mainstay, serve as a perfect counterpoint to the Femmes, who should be glad they took that name before it was snatched up by a women’s Roller Derby team. (Aaron Sankin)

With True West
8 p.m., $27
Fillmore
1805 Geary, SF
(415) 346-6000
www.thefillmore.com

MUSIC

Free Moral Agents

In the game of six degrees of rock ’n’ roll separation, who would have thought there would be a connection between punk-spirited prog rockers Mars Volta and chilled-out bong loaders Long Beach Dub Allstars? Such is the case with the trip-hop jazz of Free Moral Agents, the musical brainchild of Long Beach musician Isaiah “Ikey” Owens, who is most notably the pianist with both the Mars Volta and Long Beach Dub Allstars. A far cry from the rock of the former and the jamminess of the latter, Free Moral Agents’ sound is rooted in vintage soul and experimental music of bands like Can and Neu. (Hayley Elisabeth Kaufman)

With Triclops!, Anavan, and Attractive and Popular
8:30 p.m., $10
Bottom of the Hill
1233 17th St., SF
(415) 621-4455
www.bottomofthehill.com

Stunted growth?

-

November 28, 2006

0

(Activision; Xbox 360, PlayStation2)
GAMER The latest incarnation of the greatest skateboard video game series ever is here, and it’s a mixed bag. Wait, have any skateboard video games besides this one made it past part one? Anyway, the Xbox 360 version will both please and infuriate fans of the series, just like life. Players who are new to the game will be better off picking up an old copy of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 or 4, because that’s when this franchise peaked.
One of the major differences between the early Tony Hawk games and the newer ones is that there’s an involved story now. The early versions were more focused on digital shredding, while the new versions have a bunch of silly dialogue and some variation of a rags-to-riches story. The story this time: Tony Hawk is assembling a skate team that will be eight skaters deep. He’s searching for the top skaters to fill the spots. You start out ranked 200th and have to skate hard to make the top eight. When you get there, a skateboard shoots out of the Xbox 360 disc drive. It’s incredible and dangerous.
The controls, as always with this franchise, are consistent and responsive. Fans of the Hawk games will feel right at home and will be ripping immediately. Players new to the game won’t have trouble figuring out which button makes you ollie and which makes you grind. There is, however, one glaring update to the control scheme, and that is how a manual is performed. Ever since the manual was introduced in THPS2, players have had to quickly tap down-up or up-down to get into a wheelie position. Now all you have to do is press a button, and voilà — you’re manualing. The old up-down still works, but the automatic manual button takes the fun out of the combo game. Manuals, reverts, and spine transfers link tricks together for huge points and enjoyable challenges. Now you don’t even have to revert out of a transition to initiate or continue a combo. Curses. This single development in the game will make THPS fans want to break the disk in two, and you should too. But if you decide not to break it, you’ll be rewarded with some amusing junk.
Progression through the game is achieved by the completion of challenges. All the usual suspects are present — grind hella far, launch hella high, do hella tough tricks — but there’s one new sexy challenge: Nail the Trick. To do this you must click the analog sticks, at which point the camera zooms in on your board and time slows way down. Each stick controls a foot, and you have to do lots of incredible tricks. It’s kinda neat. It looks similar to the intro of Girl skate video Yeah Right.
As you’d expect on a next-generation system, the graphics are solid. But who cares — graphics have looked amazing since the Dreamcast came out in 1999. Until we’re controlling what appear to be real humans, games all have about the same level of niceness when it comes to looks. New bail animations and sound effects do make a great update.
Lots of guests are incorporated, such as skaters Bob Burnquist, Paul Rodriguez Jr., Ryan Sheckler, and leading man Jason Lee. Lee, of My Name Is Earl fame, was once a pro skateboarder and a great one at that. If you don’t believe me, go buy Spike Jonze’s 1991 short, Video Days, and buckle up for brain-exploding skating. The guests love talking about tricks and sometimes pass along tips to help you progress though the game. They are pretty nice guys.
The Xbox Live online experience is hella amazing. You play online with people, which is nice when you don’t feel like playing against computers or when you don’t feel like actually going outside and skating. But just go outside and skate, for goodness’ sake. (Nate Denver)

Warriors, stay in and playiyay!

-

November 15, 2005

0

AN ENTIRE GENERATION was introduced to the 1979 cult classic film The Warriors in 1993 when Ol’ Dirty Bastard warbled "Warriors, come out and playiyay!" on Wu Tang’s "Shame on a Nigga." That’s why I rented it. It was one in a long string of rentals prompted by the Wu, and just like Shaolin vs. the Wu Tang, Shogun Assassin, and Master Killer, it was great. Now the most controversial company in video gaming has made a game based on The Warriors. Yes, the company that brought Grand Theft Auto to the world and prompted Hillary Clinton to declare war on vulgar video games, is at it again. As expected, The Warriors (Rockstar Games; PS2 and Xbox) is chock full of violence, street culture, swear words, and antisocial missions. The game loosely follows the movie with recognizable scenes and characters popping in and out, but unlike the movie, it is pretty monotonous: How many hobos and hookers do you have to mug to prove you’re capable of strong-arming digital victims, especially when there’s no variation or challenge in the act? And swearing? Unless there are hidden new swears that were recently invented, I’ve heard and grown bored with them. The fighting engine is pretty simple and easy to use: Kick, punch, and grab buttons allow you to kick, punch, knee, and throw people. It’s somewhat cumbersome and generally leads to button-mashing, but if you have patience and press buttons in certain sequences or twice in a row, special moves occur. Rembrandt, the new blood, sprays paint in his enemy’s face while yelling, "In your face!" Ouch. The game starts a few months before The Warriors are framed for killing gang kingpin Cyrus, which is when the movie begins. The story mode leads you through missions that involve tagging, jumping in new members, and other junk. Unlockable levels reveal the backstory and history of The Warriors. Rumble mode features minigames and a Create a Gang feature. A two-player mode allows you to play through the game with your best pal. Rival gangs like the Satan’s Mothers present all kinds of problems, but you’ll be all right. Each level has you play as a different character, which is great. Playing Rembrandt is the best because you get to tag walls. Tagging is accomplished by navigating a spray can over an on-screen pattern with the analog stick. If you veer from the line, the stick vibrates and paint is wasted. To get more spray paint, you just buy it from a guy on the street, which is totally realistic. To get money to buy paint, you can steal car radios, rob stores, and mug people. If you manage to get whooped by a rival gang while tagging, mugging, or looting and you find yourself lying lifelessly on the ground with a red cross floating above you, a fellow Warrior will revive you if you have Flash, a street drug easily purchased from drug dealers hidden in dark alleys. If I saw my niece playing this game, initially I would want to murder the game designers, but then I’d come to the conclusion that if a kid is stupid enough to want to buy drugs because he/she saw them restore his/her health in a video game, that kid is probably a moron and should be on drugs. In GTA you hump hookers to restore your health; in The Warriors, you do drugs. Big deal; Rockstar loves shocking people. Sex and drugs? Dudley Moore desensitized us to those long ago. Video game voice-overs have improved dramatically in the last few years. This game features great voice actors, including DMC, Aesop Rock, and some people from the original film. The city walls feature art by artists like Futura 2000 and DONDI (RIP), and SEEN’s Hand of Doom car is in the game. The soundtrack is an eerie horror drone occasionally interrupted by rock and soul songs. (Nate Denver)