Below is a video link to The Re-Volts caught live in action disgracing themselves doing a stunningly sick seventies throwback recreation as DOUBLE VISION at the Bad_Acid_Presents Hallorager VIII at San Francisco’s storied Bottom of the Hill on 10-30-2021 …
They perform two Foreigner Facsimile songs in this quickly edited clip, two corporate cock rock classics: Long Long Way From Home and Cold As Ice ( which was a top ten hit back in summer of ’77).
The posse comin’ at us is led by Spike Slawson, who has taken to heart (vest and wig) the role of Lou Grammatico in his Halloween DOUBLE VISION Foreigner Tribute. Here is backed by pedigreed punk pals including co-founding Dwarves member HEWHOCANNOTBENAMED on keys, local ne’er do ‘ell and jocular jerk of all horns Jamin Barton , Jack Dalrymple on guitar, Colin Delaney on skins, and Paul Oxborrow in the role of late great OG bassist Ed Gagliardi .
Yasuto Muraki, who has spent 3 years playing with the Japanese Doom Metal purveyors Church Of Misery is leaving the fold next month, and this was one of his final US appearances. Church Of Misery, who specialize in dark doom metal inspired by various infamous serial killers brought their 25th Anniversary North American Tour through San Francisco and ended their set with Murderfreak Blues (Tommy Lynn Sells) a dirge from their 2016 album “And Then There Were None” .
multi-cam clip shot with Insta360, and Zoom Q2n cameras imported and edited on my LG Android & iPhone phone using KineMaster, YouCut and audio mixed and sequence prepped with Adobe Premiere
CHURCH OF MISERY live at Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco on 25th Anniversary Tour
The pounding synth sounds that start up Giuda’s studio version of this track on their latest album E.V.A get buried in the crowd roar of this live version shot at the Bottom of The Hill in San Francisco. This energetic Italo rock band has become known for mixing 70’s style glam pop and skinhead moonstompin’ punk riffs into a new spacey interstellar sound.
The main two songwriting members of Giuda are singer Tenda and guitarist Lorenzo who have known each other since childhood in Rome, and used to perform in a band called Taxi before they had started Giuda. In fact the very first US performance of Taxi was a memorable gig at Thee Parkside in 2003, when a big redneck lookin’ dude in a “God Bless The U.S.A.” t-shirt walked up and raised the tension level by confrontationally approaching Tenda and stood stoic, eye to eye in front of him while he was performing on the barely raised stage platform, Tenda didn’t flinch. When asked about this evening at The Bottom Of The Hill, Tenda said eventually after the set ended up, the possible bad guy ended up buying Tenda beers by the end of the night.
Since the late 1980’s the band NOFX has been torturing audiences coast to coast, and eventually worldwide, and they’ve only gotten more popular for some mysterious reason.
Below I’ve embedded a rare video I shot of the band circa 1992 at a show at the Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco, and you’ll get their 2019 single and the most recent US search trends data from Google on who is looking up the band.
I think the video above was shot an early all ages Sunday show circa December 1992 at Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco. Aaron Abeyta ( aka El Hefe) was a recent addition, and I think the White Trash Two Heebs and a Bean album had just been released. It could’ve also been 1993…I can’t recall, I know NOFX toured Japan with All You Can Eat in 1994, but this is definitely before then… Does anyone else remember this gig?
Here’s google search data on where in the whirled peeps keeps looking these guys up
Arrow de Wilde of Starcrawler (live shot by @LilMikeSF)
A wild throwback to shades of the seedy 70’s Sunset Strip nights at Rodney’s English Disco, or teetering down the steep stairs to find whatever awaited in CBGB ’s toilets, Starcrawler are actually a vehicle for frenetic millennial LA wunderkinds seemingly born decades too late to make those scenes.
The band, comprised of Henri Cash gtr, bassist Tim Franco, and Austin Smith on drums started out as raw amateurs just practicing Runaways’ covers, and have evolved into their own show biz phenomenon, fronted by the fearless gangly nymphette Arrow de Wilde on vox. Their sound and stage presence has built a solid following on the road supporting bands such as the MC5 and Spoon.
I caught one of the opening nights of their fall 2019 tour in San Francisco and Starcrawler’s musicians presented an impressive sonic spectacle, caustically cool, crunchy, captivating and a perfect foil for the caterwauling of frontperson Arrow deWilde. While deWilde’s antics at the mic stand, and mostly on the floor between songs are what draw eyeballs, do not discount the pulsating precision rhythm section that drives the throbbing sound, or the slashing guitar and vocal support of Monsieur Cash in his green satin suit looking reminiscent of something Gram Parsons might’ve left behind
Starcrawler have released their Nick Launay produced sophomore album “Devour You” on Rough Trade and are hitting the clubs across the USA to earn more cash and converts as they establish themselves as a vibrant exponent of 21st century hypnotic rock n roll abandon. The first single to the new album has a video directed bythe enigmatic Jellyclaw called “Bet My Brains” inspired by subterranean urban dwellers both real and imagined.
Says singer Arrow de Wilde “that song came from thinking about the tunnel people in New York and Vegas and the Catacombs in France, and the underground village of people who live in the sewers of the L.A. River. I was fascinated with the fact that there is a whole other world happening right under our feet.” Guitarist and vocalist Henri Cash adds: “Arrow and I hadn’t even talked about it yet, but I’d already written something about the same thing—about how these people’s eyes adapt to pitch-blackness, and they end up going crazy from never seeing the sunlight.”
Arrow promises “We want to put on a real show and give people some kind of escape from all the shit going on in the world,” she says.
The band make several west coast stops in the wake of their Bottom Of The Hill performance in San Francisco on October 5th, and will play two Third Man Records Halloween shows in different cities, and make it as far north as Montreal. See the complete show date list below to find a fall 2019 show near you, and click the link get your tix before they’re all gone HERE.
Starcrawler – official band photo by Arrow’s mother Autumn de Wilde
Starcrawler tour dates 10/4/19 – San Diego, CA – The Irenic 10/5/19 – San Francisco, CA – Bottom of the Hill 10/7/19 – Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios 10/8/19 – Vancouver, BC – Fortune Sound Club 10/9/19 – Seattle, WA – The Crocodile 10/11/19 – Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge 10/12/19 – Denver, CO – Lost Lake Lounge 10/14/19 – Kansas City, MO – The Riot Room 10/15/19 – Omaha, NE – Reverb Lounge 10/16/19 – Saint Paul, MN – Turf Club 10/17/19 – Chicago IL – Lincoln Hall 10/19/19 – Toronto, ON – Horseshoe Tavern 10/22/19 – Montreal – Bar Le Rtiz PDB 10/23/19 – Somerville, MA – ONCE Ballroom 10/25/19 – Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg 10/26/19 – Philadelphia, PA – Boot & Saddle 10/27/19 – Washington, DC – Pie Shop 10/28/19 – Pittsburgh, PA – Club Café 10/30/19 – Detroit, MI – Hell Night @Third Man Records 10/31/19 – Nashville, TN – Halloween @Third Man Records 11/1/19 – Atlanta, GA – Aisle 5 11/2/19 – New Orleans, LA – Gasa Gasa 11/5/19 – Austin, TX – Barracuda 11/8/19 – Phoenix, AZ – Valley Bar 11/9/19 – Los Angeles, CA – The Fonda Theatre
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…
Flipper’s 40th anniversary is this year and they are playing later this week in their hometown of San Francisco at Great American Music Hall. I guess I gotta shell out the big bucks if I wanna see ’em again. Should I do it? It will be sorta like a family reunion, in that not everyone will be there, and those that are, might not even be recognizable the way you remembered them, or even the members you’d want to see the most.
Here’s live video clips I made featuring songs made infamous during Flipper’s early years…
One further down below is newer from the 21st century, featuring current vocalist David Yow doing Love Canal and Ha Ha Ha which were on an early single. The other just below is about 20 years older, you hear part of their final Subterranean single “Someday” and the closing song “Way Of The World” from a daytime outdoor show in the early 90’s when the reconstituted band soldiered on after the death of original member Will Shatter. At the time a guy named John Dougherty was brought in on bass, and just like Will, Dougherty too would also die of a heroin overdose shortly after this 8mm footage was shot.
Here’s a more recent live lineup performing past glories from the band’s break-thru single originally released on Subterranean Records in 1981
Both songs are masterfully jaded methed up narcoleptic noise rock takes on the American Dream gone awry, setting the tone for the emerging ennui amidst a painful wasteland of suburban consumer conformity and corporate malfeasance that would be known as the 1980’s.
For a year or two in the late eighties, I used to answer Flipper’s fan mail, not for the money, uh, just for the glory I think… besides they were too lazy. Their singer Will Shatter would show up and sit beside me at the Subterranean record label store front on Valencia St circa 10 am with a Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler in hand. He was really just hoping to cash spare royalty checks before the rest of his bandmates, and seemed disinterested in the fan mail I showed him from geeky kids in far off Poland and Kentucky. The label guy would maybe throw him a few bucks to get rid of him lurking around the storefront, and Will might even pilfer a couple 7″s on his way out to sell somewhere else. But Will was a beatnik poet, and really just a guy from Gilroy, and he died soon after of an OD…
me on day will shatter’s death hit the news
The Flippant Men Who Make The, Uh, I Guess You’d Call It “Music”
Steve DePace is the entrepreneurial mercenary and life force trying to preserve the band’s legacy, Ted is more chill, a laconic Vietnam Vet, frazzled and still the easiest to be around to this day. I think Will was the sweetest of the bunch, while Bruce, now put out to pasture, was obviously the most mischievous, which is kinda cute when you’re young, less so as you creep into middle age.
When Flipper Kinda Lost Its Way In The World …
By the early 90’s Bruce’s drug taking manifested itself beyond pranks into petty feuds and worse, he became such a jerk, that after Will died, he was actually caught climbing through the ceiling vents of his own indie label warehouse to steal his own master tapes. It was all part of a coked up cash-in ploy and they sold the reels to Rick Rubin and Henry Rollins for chump change.
Bruce “Loose” Calderwood on stage 1994
Selling the tapes got a cash infusion, but sorta proved to be a stupid move, as not only did they burn the true foundational business bridge to their past glories, as soon they took the new money from Rubin, (an amount that barely woulda bought a decent new van), all the early Flipper tapes & LPs were soon out of print. Most of their legacy material was basically lost to the netherworlds of corporate negligence… They put out one new record on a major label in 1993 that stiffed, and I think Steve DePace had to sue to buy back their own music from Sony or whomever ended up owned and kept it dormant for well over a decade into the 21st century long after iTunes and eMusic downloads were already in decline.
Flipper mighta been a buncha drug ravaged idiots, but they were also brutally inspired artists without fear who made a definite caustic sonic mark on the rock music world. Really a band with no apologies, and a legacy of noise that still always makes me smile despite actually knowing the muther fuckers. Original singer Bruce “loose” Calderwood is a more than half crazy old mountain man misanthrope, constantly complaining online about his back, lashing out in recriminating rants while David Yow of Jesus Lizard cavorts the globe singing the songs Bruce made famous, much to Bruce’s chagrin and anger.
They were one of the great band’s of the early 80’s post-punk scene, and the only thing that held them back was everything. especially their own dysfunctionality. I consider them America’s nasty little answer to the pomp & circumspect Public Image Limited., but with much more sincerity, true grit and heart. They made dark deep wounding records that still stand the test of time, and their songs churn away in the background like psychic sewer dweller anthems. As Krist Novoselic of Nirvana has said of the band he briefly joined “Their music drew me into a universe where bleak was beautiful. I realized the work was as heavy and transcendent as anything in the rock echelon. Mainstream convention was shattered. Flipper were too weird and dangerous for the world. And if the world didn’t get it, that was just another loss for humanity. “
Apparently the world as another chance to catch on. Steve DePace mentioned to me in April when I inquired about the band’s 40th anniversary tour, and working on a documentary of their career “The time is right! I am going to get it all done over the next year or two! We will be rebuilding and relaunching the brand and the band in a big way. Lots of shows and many other things…”
On a Sunday afternoon in the fall of 2015 the Public Flipper Limited corporation reconvened their bored members and brought the beast out for a walk. David Yow (best known as frontman of Jesus Lizard and Scratch Acid) took the lead vocal mic for a brief tour that saw the band play San Francisco, Southern California, Brooklyn, Philly and I believe some tempting gigs in Italy that were the real date bait.
Here’s some footage from the show I was able to capture, it was pretty dark but the sound was good and gives ya an idea of how it went.
The lineup also consisted of Bruno DeSmartAss (also of Flipper pals band The Sluglords) on bass, original skinsman Steve DePace , and veteran guitarrorist Ted Falconi plucking the six strings…
“Ever” is a dark Will Shatter era classic from their 1981 “Generic Flipper’ LP, seen here performed at The Bottom Of The Hill in SF 10/10/2015.
Ever live a life that’s real
Full of zest, but no appeal
Ever want to cry so much
You want to die
Ever feel that you’ve been had
Had so much that you turn mad
Ever been depressed that (to) those you turn to, you bring distress
Ever sit in tormenting silence
That turns so loud, you start to scream
Ever take control of a dream
And play all the parts and set all the scenes
Ever do nothing and gain nothing from it
Ever feel stupid and then know that you really are
Ever think you’re smart and then find out you aren’t
Ever play the fool and then find out that you’re worse
Ever look at a flower and hate it
Ever see a couple kissing and get sickened by it
Ever wish the human race didn’t exist
And then realize you’re one too Well, have you … ever .. I have
So what
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Here are two songs featured on the original Osgood Slaughter cassette demo that was recorded with Jonathan Burnside at Razor’s Edge on Divisidero St in 1987, but recreated live in 2017 on stage some 30 years later.
One deals with parenting the late great Bruno Bersani way… Our hero recounts how he left the whiskey soaked bar crawls of SF’s side streets to raise a child, and how that demon had to be tamed. The second is about the “Weirdo On The Block” another concern of the young Bruno Bersani, and of which he undoubtedly feared he’d become…
These songs were recorded live at The Bottom Of The Hill October 14th 2017 at the band’s last known performance of tunes that originally surfaced on the 1987 Osgood Slaughter demo. The original studio versions are available at Bandcamp and one is embedded below for your streaming or downloading pleasure, as archived via the “ChewyMarzolo1” Bandcamp page, a treasure trove of indie music you likely ain’t heard.
Oh are you still here? … well then you get the ULTIMATE REWARD! This is a rarely seen clip of Bruno Bersani’s 1984 oddball electro pop group’s only video that aired on an Oregon cable access show… here’s a story about Bruno’s Moose Lodge cribbed from the panicon13th blog where I found it
The song comes from “a demo of amazing synth punk. Hilarious lyrics and a band that can really play. Years after this came out, John O’Neil told me he’d hung out with lead singer Bruno while he smashed copies of the tape in his garage with a hammer. Too bad, because there weren’t many to go around, my copy was #86 of 100. I only got to see them play once, it was at a high school dance where they had the plug pulled on them after 10 minutes. “It appears that we’re done for the evening…” Bruno said, barely started on his two liter bottle of wine cooler sitting prominently on his synth before a room of teenagers. “
Here is footage of the SF based heavy comic rockers Osgood Slaughter performing a rock oddity about “Fruit Bats!” in the unlikely locale of a Guam public park circa 1989.
As I post this I just got word that Osgood Slaughter’s vocalist Bruno Bersani has left this earthly realm and I send condolences to his extended family and many friends. I was never tight with the guy, but always in awe of his gruff persona, and expecting a laugh. As my pal Dave Pehing wrote after his recent passing of his larger than life stage presence “Bruno was a brilliantly weird and compelling character onstage. ”
Bruno’s most memorable lyric in my opinion was the guttural chorus “Live like an animal, die like a vegetable!” and will I try to edit a clip of him performing that song at the band’s farewell reunion show for drummer Chewy Marzolo’s 50th birthday in 2017. In the meantime enjoy this one from the wayback machine…
Osgood Slaughter was a loud, enigmatic and unavoidably omnipresent force in the dark dingy maze of hedonist hell-hole nightclubs that were San Francisco’s rock scene for a few years in the tale end of the late 80’s through early 90’s. Osgood Slaughter were a confusing comedic combo, somewhat akin to a Northern California alternative to LA band Pygmy Love Circus in some ways, with a caustic and bizarre biting sense of Zappa-esque humor mixed with thrash metal proficiency. They were too weird for the metal crowd, being more bike messenger than biker gang, and not sad or serious enough for the indie rock effete elite, so Osgood Slaughter stomped, wailed and terrorized military bases, bars & backyard bar bq’s alike in search of fame and fortune on both US coasts, and even the South Pacific before disbanding and splintering off circa 1993.
When i first moved to San Francisco, this band soon hit my radar as more persistent than popular, but always active on the underground, and had revolving lineups featuring guitar work from a couple of my earliest punk guitar god pals, such as John Cobbett (of Malefice, Gwar and later Ludicra/Hammers of Misfortune) and one of the guitarists featured in the video posted here Barry D’live (known fortouring ax man stints in Gwar and Me First & the Gimme Gimmes, several albums with RKL, and now playing with MDC).
The embedded Osgood Slaughter track “Time To Be A Transient” features the John Cobbett era lineup circa 1990 and is from their Take This All Of You, And Eat It album available on Bandcamp if you can’t find yr crusty old CD copy like me. If you delve into Chewy Marzolo’s overflowing bandcamp, you will find many more Osgood outtakes, unreleased would be albums, and side projects from the members.
