“Hello you beautiful people! …so began an email plea from my friends that run the SF Make-Out Room, amidst all the worrisome news related to the covid-19 panic was the news that a few dozen fine people I know, and the businesses they work for are desperately struggling during to the efforts to stem the spread of some “novel” virus…
It continued “I hope everybody is holding up OK and staying safe during these unprecedented times. As many of you know, once we are free to go back to our day to day lives, the city of San Francisco, and many of our favorite bars and venues, wont be the same, if they are even there at all.”
Then came the call to action…
“That’s why the Make Out Room and the Latin American Club need your help. And why I am begging you to donate anything you can. ”
Scenes from the Make-Out Room
-click to read more at link below from my friends on the Make-Out Room Staff hard hit by the Corona Virus lockdown and if you can, help support them while their jobs are in limbo…
Or as my pal Pat Thomas (a multipurpose culture vulture whom you can see talks with here) put it more succinctly: “In 1997, my band Mushroom played their first ever gig at the Make Out Room in San Francisco. Our most recent gig (August 2019) was there too. Over the past decades for many of us – the Make Out Room has been a home away from home. Not only a place to play, but a place that has had weddings and funerals for members of the Bay Area music scene. I encourage every San Francisco musician who has ever graced the stage, every fan who attended a show, every drinker who got wasted there to donate even just $10-20 dollars – if we all do it, we can save Marty’s sweet succulent ass. click on the link here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-the-make-out-room-and-latin… “
Here below are some linked videos I shot to give ya an idea of the type of recent music related events the Make-Out Room has hosted over just the past 5 years… the club also hosts numerous gigs, “Writers With Drinks” & “Litquake” spoken word events, comedy, burlesque, DJ music and many other types of community gatherings ranging from birthday parties and political benefits to cumbia dance nights.
I donated instantly because music seems about main thing that makes my life worth living, and there is no where else left in SF that would serve as a clubhouse people like this… it is a creative concentration camp of affable alcoholics, cantankerous cranks, dapocaginous DJ’s, hirsute hipsters harboring bad bourgeois beards, musical misfits & morose mopers amidst the last of the loquacious & lovely ladies that all should know better. This injustice will not stand…this too shall pass. Vive La MakeOut! There’s links below to two dozen some videos of various live music I’ve edited from the Make-Out over the past few years fer yer perusal
A groovy Free Design cover performed by super talented Bloodshot Records recording artists The Flat Five from Chicago Illinois. This cover song was recorded Jan 18th 2017 on the final show of the band’s first ever Pacific Coast Tour in San Francisco.
The Chicago based quintet of Kelly Hogan, Nora O’Connor, Scott Ligon, Casey McDonough, and drummer Alex Hall were surreptitiously recorded for posterity (but Nora kept spotting the lil’ cameras everywhere, cuz she’s still pretty observant for a road weary mamacita). For more info on the Flat Five and to obtain their debut album visit their website http://www.theflatfivechicago.com
If ya dig it, please consider donating a $1 to keep my channel alive & kicking http://paypal.me/lilmikesf …
😀 𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙣x 𝙁𝙤𝙧 𝙒𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜! 🚩
Video graciously hosted for free by LBRY.TV where unfettered free speech & courageous uncensored and non-corporate content can still circulate on the internet
Greg Dale joins Kid Congo Powers for a live version of a song from the Gun Club’s seminal Las Vegas Story album.
Recorded live at “Sorrow Knows: Jeffrey Lee Pierce and The Gun Club” , a tribute show held on Kid Congo’s birthday March 29th 2015 in San Francisco. This song features Greg Dale on vocals, joined by special guest Kid Congo Powers on guitar, with a band also consisting of Jozef Becker on skins, Jeff Klukowski on Bass plus even Mo Guitars by E-Wreck Mo-Fat and Douglas Arthur Hilsinger.
The annual Gibbsmo Xmess Craptacular wouldn’t be complete without the classic “Fairytale Of New York” as delivered by our husband & wife team of Tom & Deidre singing Shane MacGowan’s holiday classic, recently voted the all time fave Christmas song in the UK.
Tom dedicates this version to his friend, the late great Bay Area rock musician Roy Loney, who passed away, just a week prior to this concert.
The UK Guardian has compiled several perspectives including Pogue’s lyricist Shane MacGowan, and multi instrumentalist band member and musical composer James Fearnley’s accounts as to how the song came arduously together and was piecemeal edited through trial and error into an eventual musical masterpiece, well over the course of a year or two, at this link here
My band got to open for the Pogues at The Fillmore in December 1987 when the ramshackle folk/punk troubadours released this storied tune, and have been amazed to watch from the sidelines, as it slowly grew in acclaim, and into far wider public acceptance. It is hard to imagine that it would eventually beat out established family friendly platinum offerings associated with Irving Berlin, Gene Autry & even Paul McCartney. Ironically, the year that The Pogues released their brilliant LP “If I Should Fall From Grace With God” and it’s Christmas single “Fairytale Of New York“, the Pet Shop Boys actually topped the December single charts in the UK, with their sappy 70’s disco cover of Elvis Presley tested MOR fave “You Were Always On My Mind“.
Video shot by @LilMikeSF via 4 cameras at the Make Out Room in San Francisco with some bonus mid song audience angle footage added from Gary Hobish’s iPhone footage borrowed from a Craptacular synopsis post to his Facebook page …all the more the merrier Xmas y’all!
Bob Reed is seen here singing a soulful rendition of a classic composition by Stax songwriters William Bell & Booker T Jones with special guest backing vocalists Meryl Theo Press and Karina Denike. Bob has sung in numerous bands over the years in the Bay Area, notably grunge flannel flyin’ power pop band Overwhelming Colorfast whom he was with I first came across him in the early 1990’s.
Every year for at least the last eleventy or so, there is a SF-Marin Food Bank benefit in late December put on by my friend Parker T Gibbs featuring lotsa local acts such as the talented Marc Capelle & the Casuals, seen here as the backing band. This video was recorded on multiple cameras I manned around the room at The 2018 Gibbsmo Holiday Craptacular in San Francisco at the Make-Out Room.
Here is the first clip I’ve had time to edit from the annual Xmess Craptacular at the Make Out Room in San Francisco.
These two songs below are sung by Mark Eitzel, (formerly of American Music Club) with the band consisting of Tom Ayres and Bart Davenport on guitars, Pete Strauss on bass, Michael Urbano on drums with that mini Capelle on percussion holding down the rhythm section. These surprise numbers were definitely among the evening’s roller coaster of highs and lows and highlights for low lifes who get back on and ride again.
more videos from this annual event that benefits the San Francisco food bank and livens up a dreary holiday season will be forthcoming as time permits…stay tuned
Here’s a two song video clip from the opening salvo of the Chuck Prophet Official annual two night stand at The Make-Out Room this weekend as his post Hardly Strictly after party tradition. The two tunes I edited up here are the set opener “Bobby Fuller Died for Your Sins” from the Yep Roc album of the same name and the song “Balinese Dancer” which appeared first in the early 90’s on one of his earliest solo albums. The sound for these San Francisco shows this first weekend of October 2019 was pretty darn good, especially with dedicated knob twiddler Damien Rasmussen handling duties at the board.
Here is a capture of the live feed provided by the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass fest website of Chuck’s full set Friday from the Swan stage at the outdoor festival in Golden Gate Park, as reposted by Craig Love
Chuck Prophet & The Mission Express Live At The Make-Out Room
There was a unique Roky Erickson Birthday Tribute earlier this week by several local musicians of note in San Francisco. GibbsMo emCee Parker Gibbs introduces Eric Moffatt’s JACKSHACK . This cover of Roky’s “Goodbye Sweet Dreams” was by the loose coalition known as JACKSHACK featuring Eric Moffatt on guitar & vocals, with Cindy Giuliani on bass, Ricky Wayne Garrett on drums, and Roman Yamilov on guitar.
Video is excerpted from footage I recorded at the recent Sad Bastard’s Club Roky Erickson Tribute Night held at The Make-Out Room in San Francisco July 15th 2019 … Eric Moffat insists on calling his rotating backup band JACKSHACK, and until he comes up with an even shittier name I guess I’ll let him. Personally I already suggested Chief Sour Mashantucket & His Pale White Jazz Hands but he wasn’t interested.
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
