Me First and the Gimme Gimmes are led by incomparable show biz aficionado Spike Slawson, backed by an all-star punk cred band, in this instance featuring CJ Ramone on bass, Scott Shiflett on lead guitar, Fat Wreck special teams superhero Dave Raun on the drums, joined by fellow Lagwagon member and solo singer/songwriter Joey Cape on rhythm guitar.
This excerpt of them mauling a Paul Simon fave was shot live at Slim’s amidst three sold out 2019 San Francisco Christmas shows. See what you missed as Spike cajoles the horde and leads the band through a tightly wound, heroic 90 minute set of rock classics. Be sure to click to expand the video, and kick up the video volume if it’s muted in the streaming embed below!
It was a greatthrillto catch Chip Kinman, his drum bashing son Giuliano Scarfo and their energetic hair whipping friend Brian Melendez on bass all rip through a set of Dils classics at a sold out Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco for the fortieth anniversary of The Temple Beautiful. In this video Chip Kinman, now 63, mentions a recent cover version of his song “Class War” by Ty Segall and seeing the “younger set” get into the music has inspired him, before he plays it himself with his spritely new backing band.
Since the death of his brother Tony, with whom he co-founded The Dils in the late 1970’s, Chip’s finally seen fit to revisit the beloved band’s past punk rock glories and brought his son along to revive their fiery message laden music, that blended the best of power pop and the brashness of early punk.
The Dils, founded by brothers Chip & Tony Kinman arose first out of suburban Carlsbad, California in late 1976, and soon relocated to San Francisco, later moving to Los Angeles and even recording some of their seminal material in Vancouver CA. Their tight brotherly harmonies fed into fierce , fast tunes oft with fearless political stances, made them one of the preeminent punk bands up and down the West Coast. Use your cursor to navigate within the 360° video embedded below Chip Kinman recounts recording “Sound Of The Rain” in Vancouver with late drummer “Zippy Pinhead“, whose supportive father was in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and wasn’t keen on lyrics about dead cops.
The brothers dropped The Dils name by 1981, and went through various incarnations over the years including Rank & File, Blackbird and Cowboy Nation, but never performed again as The Dils.Prior to this latest iteration, the last Dils gig was in 1980 at Blackie’s in Los Angeles (Black Flag opened the show.)
Here’s the whole Dils set from the show as shot from deep in the jostling joy that was the pit down by the floor wedge monitors at stage front by Gil Warguez on a trusty Sony MV-1 synched to the audio from one of my stray cams that caught a slight bit more vocal…
A Tribute to Elvis Costello featuring loud mouth blabbering Blag Dahlia, HeWhoCannotBeNamed playing with his organ & Salt Peter putting the bass in yo face just like he always did in that classic Dwarves line-up are seen here tackling Elvis Costello’s Mystery Dance, joined by fk’d up friends Eric Moffat on guitar & Dave Leonard on drums.
Multi-Cam Clip shot live at the Make-Out Room in 2016 by @LilMikeSF
Geoff Turner, Mark Haggerty, Dante Ferrando, and Steve Niles unloaded a rawkin’ one buried in the WGNS vaults for decades.
Yes, just in time for the Oscar winning movie to confuse people that missed Queen the first time around, now Gray Matter creates further Gray areas. This time it’s with a punky revamp of Queen’s “We Will Rock You”, a demo was recorded at WGNS when Grey Matter were rehearsing it to play at a benefit concert in DC and then shelved for decades…
Here are Redd Kross, currently comprised by band co-founders, the McDonald brothers, Jeff & Steven, plus recent additions of drummer Dale Crover, and guitarist Jason Shapiro. They were captured in action at Slim’s in san Francisco, doing their song “Pretty Please Me” originally featured on their 1997 album “Show World’. You can catch Redd Kross on tour during the summer of 2019 in GA, & NC, and all over US in the fall with the Melvins.
Teenage Bottlerocket “Stay Rad!” Record Release Party live acoustic set at Fat Wreck Chords HQ in San Francisco
Ray Rocket , in from Wyoming, and on his way to Disneyland with his son, stops by Fat Wreck Chords HQ to sing” Little Kid”. The occasion as to celebrate the release of the new Teenage Bottlerocket album Stay Rad! . This album marks the return of the band to the label after a brief hiatus, and is the band’s eighth full length LP in all. “Stay Rad!” also is the first new album since of original material since the sadly sobering drug related death of drummer Brandon, Ray’s twin brother, back in 2015.
Teenage Bottlerocket are no longer teenagers, and in fact are proudly punk rock “dad rock”. Stay Rad! closes out with the track featured here “Little Kid.” A somewhat somber song, that explores the minefields of memory, reflective no doubt on the loss of Ray’s brother and the changes that fatherhood has brought. When Ray Rocket achingly yodels “I can’t figure out how to be a little kid again,” it’s impossible not to feel tinges of his grief, if not some sadness of our own childhood’s being gone for good as well.
Here’s another multi-cam video I shot at a sold-out Ivy Room in Albany CA by The Briefs doing a track off their first new LP in a decade #PlatinumRats. The album is out now in the USA on BURGER RECORDS and Damaged Goods in the EU
A band for over twenty years, formerly based in Seattle and now spread all over like a blood spatter at a crime scene, Die Feisty Fab Four aus Seattle schießen locker aus der Hüfte zwei neue Punkrock-Smasher, die sich anhören, als ob keine Minute vergangen wäre. Und immer noch wildern sie sowohl in 70er und 80er UK- als auch US-Gefilden, um ihren Sound zu schmieden. のニューアルバムがお出ましだ！何時ぶりなんだいったい！わっしょい！
