By Christopher Lotto
I’d say about a fourth of those who came out to see MF Doom at the Independent on Sept. 18 took off when they found out he wasn’t going to be performing. The rest of us stayed – way to go, SF – to watch Pigeon John, a lithe, high-energy smart-ass from the LA underground. The Independent’s consolation was to open its doors and waive the admission fee, promising full refunds to ticket holders, so why not shtick around for a little what’s his name? I mean, it was Tuesday night, and it was free.
A skilled MC and a well-rounded stage performer, this Pigeon John. He kept it simple: himself, some turntables, some tubs. The set stayed tight even as it went beyond what had been rehearsed for his opening act, and his avuncular talkshit played extremely well between numbers that featured both his Tin Pan Alley tenor and a sharp flow – think
“private-college gangsterism.” He took off his sweater to demonstrate the “Pigeon John,” a sort of go-go-gadget-
arms, semi-apoplectic running man followed by the gratuitous but ever crowd-pleasing slide from side to side. And he pulled some hilarious faux big baller moves, including handing out a couple $10 bills to audience members.
He likes “black white girls” – don’t we all? – and his music seems informed by a variety of popular influences: at the end of the show he had DJ Eq spin the famed guitar intro to “Blackbird,” an appropriately rhetorical sign-off (love for the “Grey” and the “White Album”).