It was lil’ bit smutty, a lil’ bit rock ‘n roll as the old school Dwarves lineup of Blag Dahlia, HeWhoCannotbeNamed and bassist Salt Peter Strauss were onstage along with Rex Everything and spry lad Hunter Down on the drum kit. As host John Waters says of the Burger Boogaloo , “Burger Boogaloo is the perfect cult gathering of young and old music rebels who hate everybody in the world except each other.” Or as Blag himself put it “the place to be” in vogue Oakland with the “greatest rock band in the world”, apparently his own.
Here’s a 360° video perspective the Dwarves closing down their set with “Unrepentant”, the lead off track from their 1997 album “Dwarves are Young & Good Looking” which was their first release after getting booted by Sub Pop for pranking the death of one of their own band members in a PR seeking stunt meant to ride the 90’s post Kurt Cobain suicide sympathy wave. The song is all chunky riffs and bluesy wails, dark humor augmented by some anti-crowd control antics as they end their ribald appearance at Burger Boogaloo July 6th in Oakland’s Mosswood Park. They are joined by some feral female friends like Burlesque Boogaloo beauties Ms Edie Eve, Szandora LaVey and voluptuous Bo Vixxen.
“Live action show In stereo On TV, radio Smokin’ dust Like there’s just no tomorrow But they don’t know Said they don’t know Yeah, they don’t know! Aww, they don’t know!!
Yeah, I’m unrepentant And I don’t regret it There isn’t any other way Yeah, I’m unrepentant “
– Blag Dahlia ( aka Paul Cafaro )
I brought a new 360° camera to capture some of the action stage side at Day 1 of the Burger Boogaloo but as soon as I took it out, the frantic pit action and stage diving of big boy Blag Dahlia soon knocked the lil dual lensed guy off its gimbel mount and into the mud, so I apologize for the smeared lens on some of this footage. Thankfully my co-camera operator Eric Moffat noticed it flying and snagged it from the mud, I later saved his camera as it was knocked around onto the ground minutes later during the stage diving and crowd surfing caught at the end of this number.
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.
In August 2001 the Dirtbombs from Detroit Michigan convened at the Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco for a memorable gig that has stood the test of time nearlt two decades later. Here’s an exclusive never before seen edited HD clip of the Dirtbombs opening number shot with two Sony digital video cameras in the back of a sweaty sold out club on a warm San Francisco night. This newly rediscovered & remastered HD edit of the opening number from the show features the closing track of their 12 song 1998 debut album “Horndog Fest”.
Then below this never before seen video is another of the band tearing through a medley of back of back tunes from the same set:
Cedar Point ’76/ I’ll Be In Trouble/Chains Of Love/Maybe Your Baby
Creem Mag inspired poster for the show by Detroit artist Dennis Loren
The Dirtbombs, fronted by the then 35-year-old Mick Collins (already a veteran of budget garage rawk groups such as Blacktop & The Gories), were out and about mainly to promote their sophomore album, Ultraglide in Black on the In The Red label. At the time, rock scribe, Jennifer Maerz interviewed Collins for an interview that was published days prior to the gig in SF Weekly where she noted Collins got the idea for the Dirtbombs back in 1992, while on tour in Europe with the Gories. At that time, he said the punk trend was to chuck the bass player and just have drums and guitars — a trend he reacted to by having two bass players. Since then, the band has gone through 10 lineups. “There’s enough ex-Dirtbombs to make five whole bands. There’s a couple people whose names I don’t even remember,” chuckles Collins. (The latest configuration includes Ghetto Records owner Jim Diamond on bass, Tom Potter on “fuzz” bass, Pat Patano and Ben Blackwell on drums, and Collins on vocals, guitar, and harmonica.)
Mick told Maerz “We’re extremely loud live because we have two drum sets and two full bass rigs — and we keep the beat going all night,” says Collins. “In addition to “loud,’ I guess “unpredictable’ is a good word. We never know what’s going to happen. There’s a lot of give-and-take with the audience — the more they’re into it, the more we are. We encourage people to dress wild, wear costumes and stuff. Don’t worry about looking cool; don’t worry about that scenester crap. We don’t fit in, why should you? Let your freak flag fly high, baby! Let it all hang out!”
A rock concert video shot at big bear-like vocalist Gary Floyd’s ersatz 21st Anniversary Dicks celebration at the late great Paradise Lounge on 11th Street along Folsom Gulch in San Francisco.
Unable to bring together the Texas lineup for another year or so, this was a locals only version of the band featuring an all San Francisco citizen lineup. This song featured here, “Sidewalk Begging”, a caustic indictment of the SF Bay Area’s infamous yet still shocking urban poverty problem, first emerged on The Dicks 1985 album, “These People”, recorded and released on Alternative Tentacles records. Lynn Perko who plays drums on this live track, was in the later Dicks lineups with Gary ( as well as Sister Double Happiness), after moving to the region from Reno NV
The reunion here was really with Lynn Perko-Truell on drums, also recruited for the eve guitarist Matt Margolin ( R.I.P. Matt also played in Smoking Rhythm Prawns & Gary’s Black Kali Ma band) …plus Ed Cagnacci (later of Dirty Power, and now in PDX) on bass… This show was taped May 16th 2001 from the Paradise Lounge large room balcony… show was so loud it overloaded the lil’ microphone on my Sony Digital Video Camera…
The club this was shot at was originally known as Febe’s back when it was a South of Market gay biker bar in the 70’s and 80’s down the street from the original Stud location, in the late 80’s it was purchased by the late Robin Reichert and renamed the Paradise Lounge.
The bar grew from a small 50 person capacity joint to a multi-level club with many staircases, and even a large annex next door called the Transmission Theater. Eventually Dicks singer Gary Floyd was employed there in the mid 90’s after Sister Double Happiness deal with Warner Brothers dried up and the band members started to need some side money between gigs , and Gary often would be found working the door on many nights.
Here John reads a passage about how time takes its toll and about the lingering influence of bands like The Germs, Gun Club and Flipper. He recalls the first waves of punkers and not quite classic rockers like Top Jimmy, Biscuit Turner, D. Boon, Jeffrey Lee Pierce and Will Shatter who didn’t get a chance to live long enough to make the kind of money and acceptance available to 21st century bands that would later ape their memorable moves and music.
John Doe and Tom DeSavia authors of “More Fun In The New World” engaged in a book discussion with audience members as well as with moderator Beth Spotswood. Thanks to Craig Love for getting down to Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA and documenting this book release Q&A event 6/8/2019 .
Towards the end of this nearly hour long video Q & A segment, John Doe talks about doing a documentary of the first book he wrote with DeSavia, “Under The big Black Sun”, and securing Allison Anders as show runner “… so she’s gonna be our advocate, and so far so good, someone has approached us about doing a scripted version of it and we entertained that…but I think I’m gonna put the kibosh on that because they always get it wrong. There’s no movie even if it’s the best best ever network, it could end up like that horrible show “Vinyl”, embarrassing. I don’t want to see that ruined and I think the final nail in that coffin was hearing what everybody had to say about that one.
He talked about artists who didn’t get their due, like Top Jimmy, who “was a great blues singer and he killed himself because he drank too much, and Country Dick Montana, who was a great, like very simple drummer, and had this awesome voice, and he passed away because he also did too much of everything. So people look back on that, or Rank-and-File…the Germs were were a complete mess, and they would end their shows by playing this song called “Shut Down” which is a kind of similar to the Willie Dixon song “Spoonful” and it was endless and they they just they ended their show through attrition. So they were great, they transcended moments. The Alley Cats, The Plugz were and The Weirdos were all fantastic bands that didn’t really get their due, or get great recordings.”
You can read more about this and other topics covered by John Doe and Tom DeSavia as well as see over 4 dozen rarely seen photos of the era in their new DeCapo Press book “More Fun in the New World: The Unmaking and Legacy of L.A. Punk” which is linked below for purchase online…
Event host & organizer as well as author of a Leonard Cohen biography, Sylvie Simmons, introduces solo guitarist Matt Baldwin who performs a classicprogressivefolk tune from the late 40’s. apparently “PASSING THROUGH” is the only published tune by a Chicago folk musician named Richard (Dick) Cleveland Blakeslee. Inspired to send it to the People’s Songs organization in New York, his home-cut acetate disc arrived at the offices of the loose knit non-profit predecessor to “Sing-Out’ whose members included Mo Asch, Anges “Sis” Cunningham, Tom Glazer, Woody Guthrie, Lee Hays. They regularly published a newsletter to share new folk songs for the progressive labor movement to shareand in turn, the tune was soon introduced via the newsletter to sympathetic subscribers around the same time as We Shall Overcome. Blakeslee’s song was recorded and popularized by Pete Seeger, and sung by him regularly throughout the 1948 Presidential election campaign when Seeger was backing Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallace. Other renditions of the song have been recorded by The Highwaymen, Cisco Houston, Earl Scruggs, & on a 1970 live album by Leonard Cohen.
I saw jesus on the cross on a hill called calvary “do you hate mankind for what they done to you? “ He said, “talk of love not hate, things to do – it’s getting late. I’ve so little time and I’m only passing through.”Passing through, passing through.
Sometimes happy, sometimes blue, Glad that I ran into you. Tell the people that you saw me passing through.
I saw adam leave the garden with an apple in his hand, I said “now you’re out, what are you going to do? “ “plant some crops and pray for rain, maybe raise a little cane. I’m an orphan now, and I’m only passing through.”Passing through, passing through
…I was with Washington at valley ford, shivering in the snow.
I said, “how come the men here suffer like they do? “ “men will suffer, men will fight, even die for what is right Even though they know they’re only passing through”Passing through, passing through
…I was with Franklin Roosevelt’s side on the night before he died. He said, “one world must come out of world war two” (ah, the fool) “yankee, russian, white or tan, ” he said, “a man is still a man.
We’re all on one road, and we’re only passing through.”Passing through, passing through …Passing through, passing through …
-Dick Blakeslee
This was recorded at a post-humous Cohen tribute and benefit for the San Francisco Community Music Center held at The Chapel at 777 Valencia St in San Francisco. The San Francisco Community Music Center ( http://SFCMC.org) is a non-profit school founded in 1921 with the mission of making music accessible to all people, regardless of their financial means. They offer classes for people of all ages, abilities and interests and financial aid to all who need it.
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.
The Crowd Pleasin’ Kitsch Heavy Glam Rock Of Italian Band Giuda Never Fails To Entertain. Here They Are At A Packed Show I Shot At The Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco
The main two members of Giuda are the songwriters Lorenzo (guitarist) and Tenda (lead vocalist) who have known each other since they were toddlers and were also in a band called Taxi for ten years in Rome before Giuda put out their first album in 2010. That debut album, “Racy Roller” , was described as “Cock Sparrer twinned with the Equals” and features the studio version of this song in the video I just cobbled together. Giuda music is available as purchasable actual vinyl artifacts or even streamable through all the evil innernetted outlets in the universe.
I first caught a glimpsr of Giuda by chance in a packed Thee Parkside circa summer 2016, when I was there to catch the Briefs.
It was hot and sweaty and equipent wise and position was ill equipped for the frenzy, late to hit the thick sweaty pit and get appropriate images of their act down for posterity. When Giuda came back to the Bottom of the Hill a year later in the fall of 2017, I made sure to spread a few cameras around, and try to trap a little of the glory. Unfortunately batteries started fading during opening sets by Buster Shuffle Official and So What and then Giuda’s road manager ixnayed me placing a camera up on the stage where I could get the prime view…
By the time the mighty power pop professionals of Giuda came downstairs and popped onto the stage to deliver their 70’s style schtick like the equivalent of a Sardinian Slade tribute or a Sweet & Cheap Trick influenced Italian suedehed band, I was down in the pit up front clutching an iPhone 6, a bootleg Go Pro knock-off and a lo-rez outdated Zoom Q3 I had found in the garbage a year earlier. (All 3 devices are since either fried, dead and buried or lost).
Pinched by the front of the stage, behind a floor wedge, whilst getting elbowed by a still photographer with a big pro looking lens and constantly getting banged into by moonstompers from behind, I hoped for the best. I made a go of capturing some shaky lo-fi video shots while trying to avoid concrete poles and flying drinks, and hopefully getting some not altogether too overloaded and muffled audio.
It took about 8+ hours to edit and render this puppy while home sick one day, much of it spent on trying to EQ and balance the audio so you could at least hear a semblance of vocals over the boomin’ bass amp I was right in front of.
I’ve now watched it at least once and it seems pretty rockin’, capturing the goonish cartoonish style of these swarthy saviours of the lost sounds of the 70’s, that they’ve remade into a catchy 21st century glam punk hybrid. Enjoy
Veteran touring rockers David Immergluck, Victor Krummenacher, Greg Lisher, Chris Pedersen of the Camper Van Crows hit the road once again as the Monks Of Doom in 2018 and I was lucky enough to catch their rare San Francisco matinee show at The Make-Out Room in the Mission District. They played a lengthy set of faves old and new and slipped in an off the cuff mid-set cover of Fleetwood Mac’s rockinest tune of all time “Oh Well”
