SFBG Blogs

Heads Up: 8 must-see concerts this week

Tony Robles
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Heads Up: 8 must-see concerts this week

When does cute become cloying? Because this newly viral video of a baby playing along to the Beatles with his dad is seriously tickling me pink — it’s pretty damn adorable — but after watching it a dozen or so times, it’s left me longing for something noisy and gross, just to wash off the darlingness of it all.

And the best shows this week are something of demonstrative polar opposites as well. There’s sugary Australian pop act Lenka, and fellow Aussie post-punks Total Control, then global dream popsters Trails and Ways, and metal battlecruiser Slough Feg, Americana punks Parquet Courts, and the Sunset Island fest, known as the “electronic music picnic.” They are all in the mix.

Here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end:

Lenka
Here’s a sweet little slice of pop for your foggy SF summer. Lenka’s newest album Shadows, on her own Skipalong Records, is about as breezy as it gets, with the songwriter’s child-like whisper whipped into pleasant melodies rising over fiddle-de-dee beats and bells; they’re songs that have been described as modern lullabies for adults. But don’t let the lilting pop fool you, the Australian singer-songwriter (and wife of visual artist James Gulliver Hancock, who does much of her album artwork and stage design) has major creative chops, having worked as an actress by age 13 in her homeland, and in collaboration with Australian electronic group Decoder Ring on the soundtrack to ’04’ film Somersault.
With Satellite
Wed/5, 9:30pm, $15
Café Du Nord
2170 Market, SF
www.cafedunord.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW8rg6XeP3U

Slough Feg
“Once a constant presence on local stages, metal battlecruiser Slough Feg has been hiding in a nebula of late, awaiting the moment to strike. The time is now ripe; the band returns this week to the Eagle Tavern, also recently on hiatus. But though the historic SOMA leather bar has undergone a few renovations, expect no such changes from Slough Feg when it returns to the Eagle’s long-running Thursday Night Live series. The band’s inimitable sound continues to mix galloping classic metal with infectious melody; vocals by singer-guitarist Mike Scalzi veer from Sci-Fi to show tunes to philosophy and sometimes encompass all three at once. When he ducks offstage to change costumes, brace yourself for incoming fire.” — Ben Richardson
With Owl, Wounded Giant
Thu/6, 9:30pm, $10
Eagle Tavern
398 12th St., SF
www.sf-eagle.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDgAAQBlANs

Permanent Ruin
Here’s another show at beloved taqueria, Casa Sanchez — is this becoming a thing now? That’s great — chips, salsa, and live punk bands. And Maximum Rocknroll is presenting this one, headlined by Permanent Ruin, a grinding Bay Area hardcore band that blasted out seven-inch Más Allá de la Muerte on Warthog Speak, earlier this spring, and has in the past opened for bands like Gehenna and Tragedy.
With True Mutants, Dead Pressure
Thu/6, 7pm, $5
Casa Sanchez
2778 24 St., SF
Facebook
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZT789KUPWE

Trails and Ways
The melodic Oakland quartet, which was named one of the Guardian’s Bands on the Rise earlier this year, will play its biggest headlining show yet this week. It’s part of its first full US (and Canadian) tour. All of this is in celebration of a record that’s been buzzed about since the first hints were dropped a year or so ago: the Trilingual EP is here.
With Social Studies, Astronauts Etc.
Fri/7, 9pm, $12,
Independent
628 Divisadero, SF
www.theindependentsf.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbX0NaoAo8U

Parquet Courts
“The genre “Americana punk” doesn’t describe the music of Parquet Courts as much as it describes their story. The Texans relocated to Brooklyn a few years ago, and now that they’re in a jungle of a city, they’re going to do what they want. With songs off of Light Up Gold (2012) such as “Yr No Stoner,” “No Ideas,” and “Stoned and Starving,” the band projects the attitude of people whose greatest care is deciding between Swedish Fish or licorice. Any laziness in subject, though, is undermined by music that captures and emits real energy. Parquet Courts may be punkish, but they understand where they came from. And considering their weird and exciting breed of rock, we can’t wait to see where they’re going next.” — Laura Kerry
With Cocktails, Pang
Fri/7, 9pm, $12
Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell, SF
(415) 861-2011
www.rickshawstop.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWAdh4YIpd8

Total Control
If you somehow missed killer 2012 LP Henge Beat, Total Control is an Australian punk supergroup of sorts, featuring members of Eddy Current Suppression Ring, UV Race, and more. The band, which recently put out a split with Thee Oh Sees, sounds like a mix of Suicide and Joy Division, with lyrics aimed at sci-fi curiosities and paranoid guitar lines doused in just the right amount of doom and gloom.
With Thee Oh Sees, Fuzz
Sat/8, 9pm, $15
Eagle Tavern
398 12th St., SF
www.sf-eagle.com

With Grass Widow, Neon Piss, Synthetic ID
Sun/9, 8pm, $10
Uptown, 1928 Telegraph, Oakl
www.uptownnightclub.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaBhBbG8PFM

Lumerians
It’s been awhile since we’ve seen the Lumerians out and about in San Francisco, as the five-piece spacey, psychedelic wanderers (also recently described as a “Oakland stoner quintet”) reminded fans on social media this week. They also claim to have some secrets in store for the crowd at this show, which opens with fellow locals Wax Idols, at SF’s newest music venue, the Chapel.
Sat/8, 9pm, $15
Chapel, 777 Valencia, SF
www.thechapelsf.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WTIHwUjg68

Sunset Island
“From boat parties in the bay (and Croatia!?) to a campout in Belden Town, Sunset Sound System is putting on bigger, bolder events than ever in 2013. But still, the one I look forward to the most is this “Electronic Music Picnic” on Treasure Island, which recalls both the crew’s name and its origins, dancing as the sun went down on the Berkeley Marina in 1994. The key word in this year’s lineup is “live,” featuring sets from the all hardware Detroit duo Octave One and vintage toned Chicago house veteran Tevo Howard, as well as the deep sounds of Midwestern DJ DVS1.” — Ryan Prendiville
With Galen, Solar, J-Bird
Sun/9, Noon-9pm, $10–$20
Great Lawn, Treasure Island
www.sunsetmusicelectric.com

The incoherence of the American right

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According to the American Right, circa now, the following are truisms:

The bias in the liberal media is crippling the valiant patriot but to re-implement the Fairness Doctrine (where both sides would get equal time) stifles the same valiant patriot.

An undocumented immigrant must wait ten years and pay massive fines to become an American citizen or at least work here legally and that’s nowhere near the imposition of a half hour background check.

Scientists on no industry’s payroll that say man made climate change is real only do so for “reasons of political advantage” (that are never explained) while scientists that do not are always on the petroleum industry’s payroll are work in “think tanks” funded by same.

In order for Jesus to return, Jews must occupy certain sections of Jerusalem and once they do, Christ (a Jew) will slaughter all but 144 of them. AKA “The Rapture”, a biblical event that’s not in the Bible.

Poor people caused the real estate crash of 2008. Without owning anything.

ACORN’s fraudulent voter registration cost the GOP the White House in 2008 as well. ACORN registered 2 million voters over the course of its entire existence and Obama won by 9.7 million votes.

Sharing bicycles in New York, says one of their mouthpieces in the Wall Street Journal, is “totalitarianism” (because the bikes all look alike)(Bicycles really do set these people off, bike lanes in Colorado, according to the same Right is part of the UN-installed New World Order).

Solar power is more effective in Germany, because they get more sunlight. Never mind that Boston is hundreds of miles south of middle Germany as is Seattle, those two bastions of great sunny weather.

These came to me in 10 minutes. 

These are core beliefs of one of this country’s two major political parties.

Nah, we’re not fucked–really. 

 


Google and Wikileaks: The takedown

Zelda Bronstein
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Google and Wikileaks: The takedown

By now half the Internet has read the New York Times piece Julian Assange wrote on Google. In theory, it’s sort of an analysis of “The New Digital Age,” a book by Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and former State Department official Jared Cohen, which got a lukewarm review in the Times a month ago. In practice, it’s a total slam at Google and its “don’t be evil” slogan.

Assange isn’t impressed by the Googlers; in fact, he argues that the book is just a manifesto for a new digital age of American imperialism:

 The book proselytizes the role of technology in reshaping the world’s people and nations into likenesses of the world’s dominant superpower, whether they want to be reshaped or not. The prose is terse, the argument confident and the wisdom — banal. But this isn’t a book designed to be read. It is a major declaration designed to foster alliances.

 “The New Digital Age” is, beyond anything else, an attempt by Google to position itself as America’s geopolitical visionary — the one company that can answer the question “Where should America go?” It is not surprising that a respectable cast of the world’s most famous warmongers has been trotted out to give its stamp of approval to this enticement to Western soft power. The acknowledgments give pride of place to Henry Kissinger, who along with Tony Blair and the former C.I.A. director Michael Hayden provided advance praise for the book.

More:

 Google will interpose itself, and hence the United States government, between the communications of every human being not in China (naughty China). Commodities just become more marvelous; young, urban professionals sleep, work and shop with greater ease and comfort; democracy is insidiously subverted by technologies of surveillance, and control is enthusiastically rebranded as “participation”; and our present world order of systematized domination, intimidation and oppression continues, unmentioned, unafflicted or only faintly perturbed.

It’s easy to paint Assange as a crazyman seeing conspiracies everywhere (I’d get that way too if I were cooped up in an embassy and unable to escape.) And that’s how some of the tech journals are playing it.

But let’s get beyond Google Glass and information capture and the scary shit that technology will be doing to us all in a couple of decades. Let’s take Google out of this altogether.

Is it unusual for giant corporations based in the US that control important technology to work closely with the government? Of course not; it’s been going on for more than a century. Standard Oil, J.P. Morgan, General Motors, Lockheed Martin … the list goes on. Corporations that operate on that level are and always have been a part of American foreign policy — and almost always for the worse.

Google doesn’t build missles or spy satellites (although you know they’re working on drones), but what it does is even more powerful — it collects and controls information. And while much of its mission involves making the world’s knowledge available to all, there are other sides to that. And it would be shocking if the State Department/CIA/Industrial Complex DIDN’T involve Google.

At a certain level, if you’re running a big coporation, you have to do more than have a slogan to avoid being evil. Assange’s article is a bit over the top, but I think that’s what he’s trying to say. And it’s absolutely true.

 

 

 

Some wins, some losses in Sacto

Zelda Bronstein
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Some wins, some losses in Sacto

The state Assembly and Senate passed the usual flurry of bills on May 31, the last day for initial-house approval, with some unusual drama that temporarily sidelined a medical-marijuana bill by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano.

By the time it was all over, several other Ammiano bills passed, a measure by Assemblymember Phil Ting to ease the way for a Warriors arena on the waterfront won approval, and state Sen. Mark Leno got most of his major legislation through.

The pot bill, AB 473, would have established a state regulatory framework for medical cannabis, something that most advocates and providers support. Still, because the subject is marijuana, it was no easy sell — and at first, a lot of members, both Republicans and Democrats, expressed concern that the measure might restrict the ability of local government to ban or limit dispensaries.

Ammiano, in presenting the bill, made it clear that it had no impact on local control, and that was enough to get 38 votes. Typically, when a bill is that close to passage, the chair asks the sponsor if he or she wants to “hold the call” — that is, freeze the vote for a few minutes so supporters can make sure all of their allies are actually on the floor and voting and to try, if necessary, to round up a couple of wobblers.

In this case, though, Speaker Pro Tem Nora Campos, of San Jose, simply gaveled the vote to a close while Ammiano was scrambling to get her to hold it. “That’s very unusual, not good behavior,” one Sacramento insider told me.

Ammiano was more respectful toward Campos, simply calling it a “procedural mistake.” He told us he would be looking for other ways to move the bill. “The door is never fully closed up here,” he said.

However that turns out, the veteran Assemblymember, now in his final term, won a resounding victory with the passage of his Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, AB 241. The bill would give domestic workers some of the same labor rights as other employees, including the right to overtime pay and breaks. “These workers, who are mostly women, keep our households running smoothly, care for our children, and enable people with disabilities to live at home and remain engaged in our communities,” Ammiano said. “Why shouldn’t they have overtime protections like the average barista or gas station attendant?”

An Ammiano bill restricting the ability of prosecutors to use condom possession as evidence in prostitution cases also cleared, as did a bill tightening safety rules on firearms.

Ting’s bill, AB 1273, would allow the state Legislature, not the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, to make a key finding on whether the new area is appropriate for the shoreline. Mayor Ed Lee and the Warriors strongly backed the measure, clearly believing it would make the path to development easier. Ammiano voted against it — showing that the San Francisco delegation is by no means unanimous on this issue.

Leno had a string of significant victories. A bill called the Disclose Act, which would mandate that all campaign ads reveal, in large, readable type, who is actually paying for them, cleared with the precise two-thirds majority needed — and it was a straight party-line vote. Every single Republican was in opposition. “They know that if their ads say “paid for by Chevron and PG&E, the won’t work as well,” Leno told us.

He also won approval for a bill that would ease the way for people wrongfully imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit to receive the modest $100 a day payment the state theoretically owes them. There are 132 people cleared of crimes and released from prison, but the process of applying for the payment is currently so onerous that only 11 have actually gotten a penny. “We victimized these people, and we shouldn’t make them prove their innocence twice,” Leno said.

Bills to better monitor price manipulation by oil companies and to expand the trauma recovery program pioneered by San Francisco General Hospital also cleared the Senate floor.

But Leno had a disappointing loss, too: A bill that would have helped tenants collect on security deposits that landlords wrongfully withheld died with only 12 vote — a sign of how powerful the real-estate industry remains in Sacramento.

 

Mt Everest and tantrum-tossing talk junkies

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The world has been rather ugly of late, hasn’t it? From man-made horrors in Turkey as the government sprays its people with agent orange to Syria’s unending conflict to Mother Nature’s wrath in Oklahoma–more trouble every day as the Mothers sang in 1966. So when I saw an article on Mt. Everest, the highest place on the planet (outside of Burning Man, of course), I figured it might be a heartwarming look at mountaineering. Oh how wrong I was.

Anecdotally and via computer model, Mt Everest and much of the Himalayas have become ground zero for a warming earth. With a snow line rising almost 600 feet and glacier fed rivers drying up, the world’s summit is like a rocky measuring stick for the damage fossil fuels are doing. In fact, the Sherpas–the locals that haul climbers up and down the mountain for a living–are saying that the climb is becoming much more dangerous, as what was once frozen is now thawed and loose and falling. 

Not like this is really any surprise to legitimate science, which by 97% believes climate change is happening and man made. Nor is it any surprise to deniers of same that will contort themselves into pretzel shapes trying to defend their paymasters, the oil, natural gas and coal companies. But at this point, given that predictions of more severe climate have come to pass, how can anyone anywhere say this isn’t so (Joe)?

The reason is the same as it’s always been, at least in the US. An enormous segment of the population feels put upon and offended at the idea that their God-derived right to squander resources is being impacted. The fact that said segment considers itself “conservative” is one of the cruelest and most insane semantic games extent–cherishing the privilege to waste as an almost constitutionally-mandated right is the polar opposite of conservation.

These are, after all, the same foolish people that blew a headgasket over energy-saving lightbulbs. That so many of them live proximitous to beaches and continue to act so capriously when their own property may resemble a structure in an aquarium in 30 years matters not–why is this?

Because at heart, the American reactionary is a tantrum-throwing five year old. Exercising their power by screaming and throwing themselves on the ground when they don’t get their way 100% of the time is how a kid makes their unhappiness felt by an adult. That these are adults, at least by age, is flummoxing. By making the rest of the world suffer from their fit throwing is ultimately gratifying to people who have no real say in anything–best of all, it “pisses off the libs”, which translated into English means “anyone smarter and saner than I am who I resent for that”. Oy.

Any San Franciscan that goes along with this ugly strain of arrested development has a slow death wish. Rising seas mean a flooded Marina and Mission frequently as opposed to rarely. They mean Treasure Island disappears sooner rather than later. But because the sheer, puerile joy of giving the raspberry to those tweedy know it alls from Berkeley is too much fun, they’ll happily see lower Market Street into a Venetian canal.

As Ray Davies sang, ‘‘they’re conditioned that way”. Too bad the rest of us have to suffer physically because these fools refuse to face reality even as it drowns, floods or draughts them to death.

 

 

Lou Reed’s not so perfect day

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Last Friday, it was revealed that Velvet Underground co-founder and occasionally proclaimed “godfather of punk rock” Lou Reed had undergone a life-saving liver transplant in Cleveland. Reed, 71 was “dying” according to his third wife, Laurie Anderson. She says that Reed is already improving and up and around doing tai chi, but that “he will never be completely better”.

Given that Reed is in his eighth decade on the planet and is notorious for drug-related anthems like “Heroin”, “Waiting For The Man” and “White Light/White Heat”, there is a pushback of a sort. Why would this elderly reprobate, surely the cause of his own misery get leap-frogged ahead of a younger person. Someone more deserving.

This kind of ridiculous moral posturing and shrill self-righteousness is at the heart of every argument when anyone with a self-inflicted ailment seeks treatment. First of all, Reed’s liver failed from complications from Hepatitis C. Like many intravenous drug users, he had no idea this existed when he was using–no excuse you say? He should have known better–how? And that if he’d only lived an ascetic existence, this never would have happened? Reed has been intermittedly sober for almost 30 years as documented on his album “The Blue Mask”. Secondly, that he’s 71, why “waste” an organ on him? 

Because he’s ill. Just as you’d wish a measure like that would be taken if you had made it to 71 and had loved ones. The idea that a chronic smoker shouldn’t get a lung, or an obese person a lapband because they’d brought this onto themselves and were now too old to benefit–that’s a rather strangely “anti-life” attitude.

Yeah, it isn’t fair that Reed or David Crosby, Mickey Mantle or Phil Lesh got priorities for a new liver having run the old one down to nothing (which is quite a feat, as Cedars’ liver expert John Vierling told me years ago, the liver is the body’s strongest organ). Especially when there are younger people whose livers didn’t fail from abuse but from organic causes. But the afore-mentioned have something in common–they’re wealthy. Perhaps if the financial issue weren’t part of it and it was a “liver lottery” and paid for by Medicare, this would be “fairer”. But as long as moral scoldery and the adoration of the “free market” seem to be on the same (right) side of the political coin, fat chance.

I’m happy for Lou and Laurie. Lou’s songs are among my favorites and anyone that nay-says his skill because it’s simple music sung by someone with a limited vocal range can pound sand. Long may he run.

 

Sonny Bono, inventor of punk rock

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Did Sonny Bono invent punk rock?

“I Got You, Babe” and “The Beat Goes On” are at root the most primitive songs of the era–just as neanderthal as “Wild Thing” or “Gloria” or “Louie Louie”. The latter song is a three note bass lick–even Suicide wasn’t that minimal (usually).

And these were enormous hits.  

And he was high on dope when he skied into a tree and died. (And it’s said he was murdered and the official story is a lie, a la Nancy Spungen) Top that, Johnny Thunders!

Jean Stapleton, RIP

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Jean Stapleton, best known as “Edith Bunker” on TV’s “All In The Family”, passed away in New York. She was 90.

Not only was she an actress of amazing skill and poise, but consider the obvious: There would never be an “All In The Family” today (discounting cartoons like “The Simpsons” or “Family Guy”).

Every lefty PC pressure group would be screaming bloody murder about Archie’s “hate speech” and every RW blabbermouth would be spittle-flecking mics everywhere about how “this show makes real Americans look stupid”. (With subtle and probably not so subtle references to the show’s “Hollywood elite producers”, ie, Jews).

In reality, Archie was a lovable character, as was Edith. His daughter’s husband, the leftist meathead, no. Edith balanced off her husband’s reactionary nitwittery with common sense, as opposed to the dopey rhetoric spouted by the collegiate know it all. Which is how life is supposed to work and why it was the greatest TV show of all time.

Nothing without daddy

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Reading Rand Paul’s prescription for a bigger and better GOP, I was struck by an interesting thought–since 1988, only one Republican nominee (coincidentally the only one I thought of voting for, Bob Dole), owed virtually none of his success in life to his dad. ( Rand Paul to say the least, owes everything to his dad). The rest–wow!

George HW Bush’s dad was a US senator. Bush’s son’s dad was the POTUSA. McCain’s dad was an admiral and Romney’s the governor of Michigan/CEO of American Motors. (In McCain’s case, his second wife’s dad bankrolled him–double nepotism!).

In contrast, for the Democrats in this time frame, only Al Gore was a “daddy’s boy”.

For a party that believes in “pulling yourselves up by the bootstraps” to become a “self made man” that’s a “maker and not a taker”, their role models are more or less the opposite in real life, ain’t they?

 

Staggering Hypocrisy

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Apparently, the Republicans in Congress are railing against food stamps–fosters a “culture of dependency”, they say.

A few things–most of the beneficiaries of TANF are children–who are dependents.

Secondly, who is more dependent on the government than a congressman?

Thirdly, also completely dependent on the government are the farms where food is grown or meat is herded. One such farmer is leading the charge in Congress against food stamps.

Fourth, “food stamps” are the biggest economic stimulation the government provides–about a buck seventy five for every buck spent on them. Contrast that with “weapons”, where even the military wonders what benefit such spending does. 

Lots of people lost their jobs and homes through no fault of their own–and must learn “self-reliance”–while the people that caused this situation “had to be rescued”.

Beating up on people that have little to placate the misguided hatred of same that is at the heart of every reactionary would be considered “bullying” on my kid’s schoolyard and cause to be expelled.

Expel these assholes now.

Philip Glass at 75: an intoxicating series, live scores to ‘La Belle et la Bête’ and more

Tony Robles
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Philip Glass at 75: an intoxicating series, live scores to ‘La Belle et la Bête’ and more

Last June, legendary composer Philip Glass treated our fair city to a one-off collaborative performance with indie-folk visionary Joanna Newsom. Just two months ago, he made a joint appearance with Beach Boys collaborator and eccentric songsmith Van Dyke Parks, in NYC. Last weekend, Glass paid SF another visit with a career retrospective festival, featuring live productions of two original, highly influential film scores. Glass is no ordinary composer, and even at the age of 75, his prolificacy and flair for innovation challenge that of any working musician.

With the official Philip Glass Ensemble in tow, the Glass at 75 festival featured live performances of two of the composer’s most celebrated movie scores, played in conjunction with screenings of their respective films: Godfrey Reggio’s influential audiovisual spectacular, Koyaanisqatsi (1983), and Jean Cocteau’s early “Beauty and the Beast” adaptation, La Belle et la Betê. (1947/1994).

After studying music in Paris, and transcribing Ravi Shankar’s compositions into Western notation to make a living, Glass would go on to assemble one of the most mind-bogglingly diverse back-catalogues of any composer in history, ranging from early explorations of classical minimalism, to collaborations with David Bowie and Allen Ginsberg, to stacks of operas, symphonies, ballets, and film scores.

Yet, in a career defined by resistance to classification, Glass’ wildly revisionist soundtrack for La Belle et la Betê remains his most categorically ambiguous work, and an anomaly in the world of composition. After gaining permission from the Cocteau estate in ’93, Glass superimposed an opera atop the entire length of the film, revamping the music completely, and replacing each line of spoken dialogue with operatic vocals. An international tour followed, featuring silent screenings of the film, accompanied live by the Philip Glass Ensemble on synthesizers, woodwinds, and vocals.

The ensemble’s three performances of La Belle this past weekend put Glass’ radical act of synchronization on full display, and the result was intoxicating. Unusually immediate and approachable for a Glass production, “La Belle” sported greater melodic range than the composer’s more aggressively minimalist works (see Koyaanisqatsi), with the dynamic jolt of live vocals cutting through the music’s often meandering flow. Dominated by richly atmospheric, intertwining synth arpeggios, Glass’ score effortlessly mirrored the film’s emotional complexity, its lushness accentuated by comparison to the antiquity of Cocteau’s black-and-white production aesthetic.

With the film projected up high, the ensemble playing below, and four plainclothes opera singers situated on either side of the stage, the result was a meta-opera of sorts, rejecting the pageantry of your average stage production in favor of displaying a raw, unadorned creative process. Yet, despite the austerity of the presentation, and the impulse to passively observe the creative process in action, there was no shortage of musical sublimity to be swept up by: from the pillowy synth tones, to the added texture of flutes, clarinets, and saxes, to the synchronization of singers onstage and actors onscreen that, at times, bordered on transcendence. The final product was as novel, transportive, and involving as any stage production I’ve seen in recent years.

While it didn’t quite live up to the standard set by La Belle, the Glass Ensemble’s production of Koyaanisqatsi was incredibly stimulating, as well. The result of a collaboration with experimental filmmaker Godfrey Reggio, Koyaanisqatsi (a Hopi term for “unbalanced life”) made a huge cultural impact upon its release in ’81, weaving disparate film footage and Glass’ signature minimalism into a multimedia experience, whose impressionistic, plotless structure would prove highly influential in the years ahead.

As with La Belle, the Glass Ensemble performed the score live onstage, with identical instrumentation, and the film projected overhead. Most notably different was Glass’ presence onstage; while absent from La Belle, he operated one of five synths during Koyaanisqatsi, primarily hitting bass tones that brought a nice, visceral thump to the proceedings.

The score, while synth-heavy like La Belle, was far more characteristic of Glass’ minimalistic period, opting for mantraic vocals and emphasizing repetition, as opposed to the fiery energy of the opera format. Alternately free-flowing and mechanical, Glass’ minimalist structures provided a fitting musical context for the film’s central theme of nature vs. industry, emulating the roaring waves of the ocean in one section, and the unrelenting automation of a hot-dog factory in another. Apart from a few misplaced vocal phrases, the Glass ensemble performed the score flawlessly, making the ultimate experience of a film designed to be “experienced” in the first place.

While no two compositions could appropriately encapsulate Glass’ wildly diverse career, his ensemble’s productions of La Belle and Koyaanisqatsi were masterfully performed, giving insight into the mind of a vividly imaginative composer, with little regard for genre boundaries or classical traditionalism. He might be 75 now, but with a new opera opening in London next month, a collaboration with Joanna Newsom in the rearview mirror, and a triumphant festival of film scores under his belt, Glass shows no signs of slowing down.

Activists to governor: Please un-frack California

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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A statewide coalition of more than 100 environmental organizations has formed to pressure California Gov. Jerry Brown to ban fracking – an environmentally harmful oil extraction method technically known as hydraulic fracturing.

On May 30, environmental activists from the Center for Biological Diversity, Credo Action, Food and Water Watch, Environment California and other nonprofits rallied outside the state building on Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco to launch the campaign and hand-deliver stacks of petitions calling on Brown to put an end to the practice. The action coincided with a similar show of opposition to fracking at the state building in Los Angeles.

Fracking has already taken off in Pennsylvania and North Dakota, and has the potential to transform vast swaths of landscape in California, where a geologic formation known as the Monterey Shale is estimated to contain some 15 billion barrels of oil.

With chants of “Jerry Brown, take a stand, don’t let frackers ruin our land,” the activists waved signs proclaiming, “Don’t frack California.”

“In California, water is more precious than oil,” said Becky Bond, political director at Credo Action. “It’s not just a question of will this produce some jobs.”

Bond added that the activists were targeting Brown because “we know that special interests have so much more influence in the Legislature than they do in the governor’s mansion.” And besides, she added, “even if good legislation passes, it ends up on the governor’s desk.”

Earlier in the week in Sacramento, legislation that would have imposed an indefinite moratorium on fracking was scaled back, much to the dismay of environmentalists. AB 1323 was introduced by Assemblymember Holly Mitchell, and would have imposed a statewide moratorium on fracking until an independent evaluation of the health and environmental impacts of the practice could be completed.

However, changes to the language of the proposed bill did away with the independent evaluation process and called for a moratorium only until the California Department of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources finished hammering out a set of regulations around the practice. A similar piece of legislation to impose a fracking moratorium, AB 1301, was kept on suspense file and won’t move forward this year.

“It renders the moratorium essentially meaningless,” Food and Water Watch political director Adam Scow told the Bay Guardian shortly after the changes were made. “We have a bill that is inadequate for protecting Californians from fracking.”

And that’s partly why Brown is the new target for anti-fracking activists. Elijah Zarlin, a campaign manager at Credo, jumped on the megaphone during the rally. “We’ve seen what fracking has done in Pennsylvania,” he said. “Governor Brown has the power to not let that happen in California.”

Both sides DON’T do it

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As someone with a lot of friends and contacts in the real world and on the Net, I hear pretty much every opinion under the sun. From die-hard Communist all the way to equally didactic (and tellingly similar) Objectivist, I get it all day every day. 

Lots of interesting stuff. And it’s no secret where my head is at on most things. I’ll listen to pretty much anything with one major exception–this odd idea that “both sides do it“, that right and left are equally to blame for the gridlock in DC and the animosity elsewhere.

The basis for this thinking, I assume, is Newtonian. For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. If it isn’t physics, it’s metaphysics best expressed by the Byrds’ biblically-derived second #1 hit song, that there’s a time and purpose for everything.

But there isn’t. Politics isn’t physics and left and right aren’t identical yet opposite, which would have to be the case for this proposition to be true. The psychology of the authoritarian vesus that of the anti-establishmentarian is completely dissimilar. If one side sees everything as black and white and a struggle where it’s good vs evil (and they’re the good guys) 100% of the time and the other side believes in nuance, degree of intensity, reason and logic based on evidence, both sides don’t do it. Yes–both sides are engaged in politics. But if one side “makes shit up and then sues for the right to do it legally” and the other is “if it isn’t factual, lose it”, then both sides don’t do it.

Filmmaker Michael Moore expressed it best when talking about his 2007 movie, “Sicko”. Every fact in that film was picked over by fine-toothed comb because he knew that any fuck up would be blasted over our “liberal media” 24/7. Contrast that to the soon to be retired from Congress Michele Bachmann or 2012 GOP candidate Mitt Romney who lied so much that it became impossible to keep up with them. And yet, until her recent campaign finance troubles, Bachmann was rarely if ever called to task in her hometown paper and with Romney, his unending string of fibs actually endeared him to his supporters!

If “both sides do it”, explain this remarkable bit of Anti-Americanism?

Because ”lying for the “cause” is, in the mind of the American Rightist, acceptable, because the cause is a holy war for the “soul of America”. Odd that the same people that lobby for the posting of the 10 Commandments everywhere seem to forget #9, the “false witness” one. 

People on the left lie, too. There is no doubt of that, all people lie to a degree. But claiming that one side’s crapola is identical to the other is like saying that “Red Sox 12, Yankees 2” is a tie, because, after all, both teams scored runs, so they’re equal. Nope, were that so, the score would be 7-7. But that’s math. Which doesn’t lie. And as such, is pesky.

(It has to be said that the people that claim “both sides do it” in correspondance with me are always right-leaning. I think they’re have trouble letting go, but they’re getting there). 

Adlai Stevenson, failed candidate for president said it better than I or anyone else can: I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends… that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them. 

That was 61 years ago. If he could only see us now. 

 

 

 

Couples and docs galore, plus Will Smith and magicians: new movies!

Sue Vaughan
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Couples and docs galore, plus Will Smith and magicians: new movies!

This week there are two very different movies about two VERY different couples (Before Midnight and Sightseers). Pick your poison by checking out Lynn Rapoport’s Midnight review and my Sightseers review. Also! A doc about WikiLeaks, a doc about the Williams sisters, a doc about conservation, a sci-fi movie in which father and son Will and Jaden Smith play father and son, and a doc about magicians who rob banks. (I wish, anyway.) Read on for more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhh31xYtop0

After Earth In around a century, we’ll board penitentiary-style ships and evacuate Earth for a sexier planet. Let’s call it a middle-aged migration — we all saw this coming. It’ll be dour, and we’ll feel temporary guilt for all the trees we leveled, bombs we dropped, and oil refineries we taped for 1960s industrial films. Like any body post-divorce, our planet will develop defenses against its ex — us humans — so when Will Smith and son Jaden crash land on the crater it’s toxic to them, full of glorious beasts and free as the Amazon (because it was partly filmed there). Critically wounded General Raige (Will) has to direct physically incredible Kitai (Jaden) through the future’s most dangerous Ironman triathalon. It’s more than a Hollywood king guiding his prince through a life-or-death career obstacle course, it’s a too-aggressive metaphor for adolescence — something real-world Jaden may forfeit to work with dad. Call that the tragedy beneath After Earth: it makes you wonder why the family didn’t make a movie more like 1994’s The Lion King — they had to know that was an option. Director M. Night Shyamalan again courts the Last Airbender (2010) crowd with crazy CG fights and affecting father-son dynamics, but for once, Shyamalan is basically a hired gun here. The story comes straight from Papa Smith, and one gets the feeling the movie exists primarily to elevate Jaden’s rising star. (1:40) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MHDYZJWLXA

Now You See Me Magicians rob banks in this ensemble caper starring Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman, and Woody Harrelson. (1:56)

Rebels with a Cause The huge string of parklands that have made Marin County a jewel of preserved California coastline might easily have become wall-to-wall development — just like the Peninsula — if not for the stubborn conservationists whose efforts are profiled in Nancy Kelly’s documentary. From Congressman Clem Miller — who died in a plane crash just after his Point Reyes National Seashore bill became a reality — to housewife Amy Meyer, who began championing the Golden Gate National Recreation Area because she “needed a project” to keep busy once her kids entered school, they’re testaments to the ability of citizen activism to arrest the seemingly unstoppable forces of money, power and political influence. Theirs is a hidden history of the Bay Area, and of what didn’t come to pass — numerous marinas, subdivisions, and other developments that would have made San Francisco and its surrounds into another Los Angeles. (1:12) Roxie. (Dennis Harvey)

Venus and Serena How do you compress the remarkable life and stunning career of one Williams sister into a doc that’s a shade over 90 minutes, much less fit both of their stories in there? Venus and Serena can’t do much more than offer an overview of the sports phenoms, shadowing both during what proved to be an unfortunately injury-plagued 2011 season. It also flashes back to chart the sisters’ rise from Compton-raised prodigies to Grand Slam-dominating forces of nature, and features glamorously-lit interviews with the women, a handful of their relatives, and famous admirers (with Anna Wintour stopping by to purr that they are “fashion gladiators and tennis gladiators”). Though directors Maiken Baird and Michelle Major don’t leave out the more controversial bits — the sisters’ feelings about their domineering father (their former coach); their on-court tantrums; their frank talk about religion, race, dealing with stress, etc. — the straightforward Venus and Serena lacks any stylistic flair, a shame considering how important style is to the sisters. It does offer a few unexpected off-the-cuff moments, however, as when a karaoke-obsessed Serena launches into “Hole Hearted,” by 1990s hair rockers Extreme, after a disappointing day at Wimbledon. (1:39) (Cheryl Eddy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdezJrNaL70

We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks Call it the unenviable yet altogether fascinating task of the smartest moviemaker in the room: capturing the evasive, mercurial and fallible free-speech crusader Julian Assange and his younger church-going, trans-curious cohort Bradley Manning, all sans interviews with the paranoid former who’s in hiding and the guileless latter who was incarcerated without charges for a year by the military. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) documentary maker Alex Gibney seems to be just the guy to take on this project, pulling back the curtain on the transparency-first site, navigating the labyrinthine contradictions of a classic Internet-age antihero, and telling the previously untold story of the young man who tied himself to WikiLeaks’s, and Assange’s, fortunes. It starts out innocently (or not) enough, with Assange and his minuscule band of volunteers uploading and unleashing the still-shocking video footage of a Reuters news crew and their rescuers, mistaken for insurgents, being mowed down in a hailstorm of friendly fire by US forces in Iraq.

Assange’s notoriety and undoing comes with the arrival of a mass of easily shared government intelligence uploaded then passed along to him by computer wiz Private Manning in the biggest leak of state secrets in US history; the lonely analyst’s unexpected friendship with Sacramento hacker Adrian Lamo, who ultimately turns him in; and the rape charges that finally ensnare Assange in a web of lies, ironically, of his own making. Seemingly on the side of Assange, Net anarchists, and the free flow of information at the start of the saga, Gibney uses extensive interviews with (Bush-era) intelligence experts, Lamo, an Assange sexual-assault accuser, WikiLeaks supporters, and reporters; animation; and footage culled from journalists and likely anyone with a cellphone camera in shooting distance of Assange to tell this riveting story of good intentions and ego run amok, sidestepping the WikiLeaks poobah’s approval in a comprehensive, impassioned warts-and-all way that he even might appreciate. (2:10) (Kimberly Chun)

Week Two

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Week Two

Week two of blogging here in the books.

To paraphrase your most famous musical export, what a short strange trip its been so far.

I have to admit that it’s taken me aback, the bizarre level of rancor aimed at a website by the same people that can’t seem to live without it. And the even more incredible fixation on the inner workings of a modest media institution that doesn’t pay your bills. It reminds me of the ladies at the local lavanderia completely absorbed in the telenovelas Mexicanas. They seem blissfully content to insert themselves into the lives of their onscreen heroes–here, it isn’t bliss but irate irrationality.

And over what and whom? Tim Redmond? I’ve known Tim 19 years (and he isn’t gonna like this, but fuck it): He isn’t that interesting–in fact, he’s kind of drab. A soccer dad that can’t sing that once tried to convince me of the athletic prowess and brilliance of Alex Smith–you get worked up over THAT? 

The fixation over me, who cares? 

The source of the fury strikes me as plain and simple—people love having sunshine blown up their asses and neither of us care to fill that role. Let’s face it–America, having no royalty or aristocracy invented one, our landed gentry. They play the part of kings and queens and when taken to task for arranging bailouts of their failures or creating sweetheart deals for themselves or having a symbiotic relationship with the people’s stewards, the government, their admirers scream bloody murder. “Class warfare“. Redmond thinks it’s the nonsensical paradigm of “one day I too will be rich and I want to be able to keep all my money”, I don’t. I think it’s more like people don’t want to be reminded of who they really are and can’t blame their paragons for their plight, so it’s either people below them or the messengers (HELLO!) that remind them of their actual and not imagined place.

This is a nation where the top 1% made 121% of the gains in the anemic recovery. And you didn’t and still identify with them. And don’t seem to grasp that Atlas Shrugged was fiction.

I love this gig.

See ya tomorrow!

  

 

Emulating Switzerland

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Emulating Switzerland

Today’s “human nature is revolting” story comes from the state of Utah. Apparently, one the state’s leading gun-rights activists was busted for threatening his ex-wife’s family with a 2.5 tom Army surplus vehicle, as he intended to run over all of their cars with his. His lawyer says it’s no big deal and he was just “having fun in his big boy toy.”. 

I guess that crushing other people’s property could be construed as boys will be boys, assuming the boy in question is another porcine asshole with privilege issues, but it got to thinking about the mess that is the gun debate in America. Around and around it goes and as it accelerates, it gets crazier and meaner. Gun control advocate Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, is getting ricin laced hate mail from people that are apparently terrified that he’s gonna do to the Bushmaster as he did to the Big Gulp. Bloomberg’s PAC is sinking a ton of cash into gun control friendly candidates, making him the embodiment of the anti-NRA. The latter group has kept their lawmakers in check for years by threatening to run well funded opponents against anyone not toeing their line–if Bloomberg can match them dollar for dollar, this is a new ball-game.

And a new one would be coming anyway, Bloomberg or not. While sales of firearms are up, gun ownership is down. The same people are simply buying more weapons, wound up to the gills with the irrational fear that “Obama’s gonna take your guns”. The market is getting smaller, though and the NRA–no longer a gun safety or hunter’s rights group but really a trade association dedicated to expanding gun makers revenues–is getting cranky.

The center can’t hold. It is inconceivable that the US government would ever seize the millions of weapons in private hands, even if there was overwhelming public demand for same, it’s physically impossible. It’s also inconceivable that the public’s patience for inaction will remain much longer. A simple vote on innocuous background checks–which are supported by about 90% of the country--was unable to pass cloture in the Senate. The senators that voted against it watched their approval ratings plummet. So what now?

How about a new idea that works wonders elsewhere. In Switzerland, where there is no standing military, able bodied males over 18 are issued a rifle and bullets and fulfill the role of militia. As the Second Amendment attaches the right to bear arms to a “well regulated militia”, why not implement the same idea of a sort in the US? Every home in the US becomes required by law to have one firearm per adult, registered to same and with a reasonable amount of ammunition for same. Training and safety courses must be passed every few years like a trip to the DMV is. 

Surplus weapons can be sold back to the government. And locked up in armories.

I can see where both sides would hate this idea. Gun control advocates would be furious at the idea that the hated and lethal firearm would be mandatory–but who says they have to be loaded? The firearm fetishist upon whom the gun industry depends would be furious as well as their collections would be depleted–but once again, an idea–“remove and prove”. You collect weapons, remove firing mechanism and prove same.

Yes, it’s a pain in the ass in a lot of ways, but America can’t continue down this path. If every home has a couple of guns in it, according to the logic of the pro-gun cadre, no one will rob it (I know this isn’t true, but bear with me). Everyone will be presumably safer (that is to say, less scared)–isn’t that what they want?

Most people, yes. The NRA, of course not. As an adjunct to business, they have to show higher revenues each quarter and this idea more or less ends them. But that’s coming anyway–fairly soon, the gunmaker could be anyone with a 3-D printer. Sorry, Mr. LaPierre.

It is but a simple suggestion, but I think it’s a workable compromise. Because the all or nothing gambit is getting us nowhere. 

The Performant: Cracks in the pavement

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The Performant: Cracks in the pavement

Gentrification-proof poetry

Although the ongoing eviction saga (and upcomng relocation!) of Adobe Books, “the living room” of the Mission, from its 16th Street digs dredges up memories of all the neighborhood bookstores that have closed/moved in recent years, it’s worth being reminded that the book trade has only ever had a limited impact on the persistence of the written (and spoken) word, particularly where poetry is concerned.

In fact, the more tenuous the economic climate, the more tenacious poetry becomes, pushing itself like a hungry weed through the unavoidable cracks left in the superficially smooth pavement of gentrification. That poets are themselves accustomed to staying hungry yet artistically fruitful is a condition immortalized in the famous Robert Graves quip that “there’s no money in poetry, but there’s no poetry in money, either.”


There’s not much money, but plenty of poetry outside the 16th Street BART Station every Thursday night, rainy or not, when a constantly rotating crew shows up to the unnamed, (un)official poetry jam, armed with the essential tools of urban poets everywhere—tall boys in brown paper bags, open ears under fleece hoods, and a cache of words waiting to be unleashed.

As nightlifers in expensive shoes stroll out of the station en route to the increasingly upscaled Valencia Street, they pass by the chalk circle ringed by a throng of scrappy street poets, belting out their offerings with the hoarse-throated projection of people without a microphone to hide behind. Instigated in 2004 by a passel of performance poets from the now-defunct New College up the road, Thursday nights have continued to attract a wealth of wordsmiths for almost ten years: some published some not, some regulars some newbs, some lifers some dilettantes. There’s may be some good-natured vying for stage time, but the bottom line is anyone with something to share is welcome to jump into the circle, and there’s almost always at least one participant who electrifies beyond anticipation, making even the otherwise mostly oblivious passerby stop in their tracks and pay attention.

Meanwhile, in the Lower Haight, a more carefully curated reading series takes place at The Squat, attracting its own adherents with its appealing blend of irreverence and celebration. Conceptualized and commanded by one “Janey Smith,” The Squat is less of an actual squat (no-one actually lives in it) than a liminal territory for an underground intelligentsia to congregate without the burden of pretension.

Beware the published starting time—the real determiner is the setting of the sun, since readings at The Squat are conducted, perhaps by necessity, in the dark. After night falls sufficiently, the group is led in abrupt silence from Smith’s iconic San Francisco apartment to the “venue,” a completely empty apartment upstairs, barely illuminated by rows of flickering tealights (“if you have hair, try not to catch on fire” Smith cracks). We squeeze into the “living room” together, encircling a pile of sawdust, the “stage.” 

Of the four readers, three locals (Ben Mirov, Erica Lewis, and Cedar Sigo) and a special “guest star” from the East Coast (Alex Dimitrov), the one whose poems most stick in my mind are Mirov’s, whose chilly distillations of word and image and deliberately affectless tone perfectly suit a body of poetry written in and for a digital age. Lewis reads from her latest project, a linked series called darryl hall is my boyfriend for which she provides mixed tapes of Darryl Hall’s music for emphasis, Sigo, most recently published by City Lights, presents a series of short poems rife with lush imagery, and Dimitrov works the increasingly vocal crowd with his confessional anecdotes, both written and spontaneous. The police don’t show and no-one catches on fire, so the event is deemed a success. Housing scarcity being what it is in this town, surely this apartment can’t stay empty forever, so get down there while you still have a chance, or head down to 16th Street on any Thursday around 10 p.m. Either way you’ll quickly discover that though our bookstores might be under siege, our poets refuse to surrender the fight.

Live Shots: Chvrches at Mezzanine

Tony Robles
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The night started with shrieks. Well, back up. It actually started sedate. Opener Still Corners had cancelled at the last minute, due to visa issues*,” so we knew it would be a bit of a wait before headliner Chvrches came to the stage at Mezzanine. In the meantime, we stood around commenting how nice it was that there was no one under 21.

The show had originally been scheduled at the Rickshaw Stop, but when it sold out quickly, it was moved to Mezzanine, and anyone under drinking age was issued a refund. This meant there wasn’t the early crush of teenagers permanently camped out at the front of the stage.** I know, I know, it’s not nice to gloat over someone else’s exclusion. Maybe I forget about being that age and not understanding how I wouldn’t get to see my newest musical obsession live, just because the venue was 21+. I remember now, though, because twenty minutes before start time the other side of the spectrum arrived: the banshees.***

You know them. The kind of people who slip through the crowd, pretending their friend is just…over…there, until suddenly they stop in the gap you’ve made for them to pass, and you realize that their friends are actually behind them, daisy-chained along (and now standing on your feet). The kind that love, love, love each other (and are so glad they’re all here!) but don’t give a damn about anyone else. The kind that re-count how many free shots they’ve been given (not recount as in a great story, but re-count as in they can’t keep track of the actual number at this point).

The kind that seem a few penis straws short of a bachelorette party. The kind that — when you supportively catch them mid-stumble and extricate them from the remaining inch between your date — turn to their friends and act like you manhandled their pudenda. The kind that are (of course) joined by their moist, B.O. laden friend Owen****, who is the kind of guy that just happens to be surrounded by assholes all the time, since his breed of loud, shrieking belligerents has the perfect mix of self-awareness and obliviousness to make it seem like assholes surround them wherever they go. The kind of people who have to say, “Let’s not fight tonight.” *****

Obviously, it wasn’t really that bad, but whenever you wait extra long without an opener, the crowd starts to feel a bit hellish. In which case, Chvrches coming to the stage with a slow downed version of Prince’s reverent intro to “Let’s Go Crazy” was the perfect segue into the musical reward for our suffering: 

Dearly beloved
We are gathered here today
To get through this thing called life

Electric word life
It means forever and that’s a mighty long time
But I’m here to tell you
There’s something else
The after world

A world of never ending happiness
You can always see the sun, day or night

Once on stage, the Scottish electronic pop trio started out with “Lies,” and the bright sharpness of singer Lauren Mayberry’s voice quickly pushed the shrillness of banshees out of mind. It has an instantaneous accessible quality to it that immediately hooks in and grabs attention, validating the lyrics “I can sell you lies, you can’t get enough. Make a true believer of, anyone, anyone, anyone.” It goes a long way to explaining how, after posting just a few songs online, the group of Glaswegians has captured such attention.****** On “Recover,” played later in the evening to the crowd’s largest response, Mayberry sings with a monosyllabic attention, giving such clarity to the words that they hardly even matter. It could be the alphabet.

Refreshingly, this focus comes without grandstanding.******* Mayberry is rather stationary on stage, but the clarity of her iconically pop voice is by itself without pop-cliche affectations, dances or costumes.******** The band functions best as a unit. Iain Cook and Martin Doherty are the musical foundation, combining elements of post-punk and synthpop, updated with some trap elements (see: the intro to “The Mother We Share”).

Both act as multi-instrumentalists and backing vocalists on stage, with Doherty most notably giving a little oomph to chunky drum samples on the MPC, and Cook bringing his bass to the forefront on songs like “Lungs.” When Doherty took lead vocals for a song, his singing was a little more raw, a little more tender — like early Bernard Sumner — with a pleading stage presence and a more obvious Scottish accent.

After playing as much already released and new material as a band that hasn’t actually released an album could have — with Doherty thanking the crowd for the largest headlining show they’ve ever done — Chvrches returned to the stage (and the Purple One) for a cover of “I Would Die 4 U.”

*It always seems to be visa issues when a band cancels. Is that just the all-purpose excuse?
**The luxury of an empty bladder.
***The only reference to Scottish culture I’ll make, since sadly it’s all I know.
****He is always named Owen.
*****With emphasis on “tonight” because it happens frequently enough to be a normal occurrence.
******To the point that their first live show was reportedly already filled with label types and music journalists.
*******Choice quote: “As my mom says, we’re all the same, nobody’s special, we’re all shit.”
********So, pre-Madonna stage with a Madonna-esque voice, but not prima donna.

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