The Gits – Absynthe
Beloved and feisty Seattle band whose path to punk rock glory was cut tragically short…
Here they are performing in a rare clip of a show I shot at the Covered Wagon Saloon in San Francisco in February 1993.
Culture Club – The Truth Is A Runaway Train (original version)
Boy George & Culture Club toured the US in 2015 and this is their original country flavored version of Truth Is A Runaway Train, that later was arranged differently for a more soul feel when the album officially came out.
Soul Asylum – Never Really Been (Live at The Rat)
a song from their classic Twin/Tone album Hang Time recorded live on VHS by Lew Summer at The Rat in Boston February 13th 1987
Gary Floyd’s Buddha Brothers …it was the happiest day of their lives
Live at The SF Eagle
“Franklyn & Susie got married…it was the happiest day of their lives”
…and then some sh/t went down…
Just another folk fable as sung by the mighty Gary Floyd. A true San Francisco via Texas music icon, since arriving in the city by the bay with his band The Dicks in the early 80’s, Gary Floyd has painted with many musical colors, from the red , hot & fierce roars of bands like Black Kali Ma, to the more subtle swamp tones he tends to hit here with The Buddha Brothers. Whipping up wistful folk with some sweet & occasionally nasty down home blues elements, imagine Gary and the boys on some shaded country front porch obliviously jamming as the day passes by. Gary’s mournful howls rise above the sound of squealin’ baby pigs in the nearby sty, and his Buddha Brothers keep happily hammering home harmonies, and rapturous riffs a-plenty long after the sweltering sun goes down.
Check out these links below to Bandcamp and search for Buddha Brothers music, you can find at two separate releases from this informal amalgamation of San Francisco Bay Area musicians.
The most recent release basically features the lineup in this video, and was recorded by Donny Newenhouse at El Studio in San Francisco in 2018 on fat two inch analog tape and includes a striking cover of Karen Dalton’s “Something On Your Mind” https://chewymarzolo1.bandcamp.com/album/buddha-brothers-2018
The first Buddha Brothers digital collection was recorded a couple years earlier by Doug Hilsinger who played some pedal steel along with a lineup that included
and Ms Caroleen Beatty on backing vocals
https://garyfloydandthebuddhabrothers.bandcamp.com/album/buddha-light
IAN SVENONIUS AS ESCAPE-ISM live at Make-Out Room in San Francisco
Long before Ian Svenonius became known for his artistic sonic role playing in projects like Chain & the Gang, The Make-Up, Weird War, Cupid Car Club, and Nation of Ulysses, even before he was crowned The Sassiest Boy in America, he was just a kid I used to hang out with on the church steps.
We weren’t particularly pious, unless you call catching screaming sermons from guys like John Stabb and Ian MacKaye akin to a religion. It was the early 80’s and we were just staright-edge DC punk teens waiting out the set changes between bands before we’d go back into the sweaty hot church basement for another slam pit.
It had been years since i’d seen Ian, but he was much the same, albeit older, still wacky, but also wisened. He is like a psychedelic sage, without the drugs…a seer, but not quite a believer…now he sells Esacpe-ism…or at least rents it out.
The 78 RPMs from their album Pulsator
When it comes to extinct Bay Area bands, we will stop at nothing in our quest to unearth the finest of the trash rock greats…
One such bands that never failed to impress was the frenetic 78 RPMs who released two albums and several singles, mostly on their own Dill Records label…this track is from their final full length offering “Pulsator” via the Shrunken Head label
In this video cobbled together at the turn of the century by the DBL VZN crew ( basically me and “Fatty” Jeff McColgan) that we shot on two $900 digital video cameras at The SF Eagle, Galia & Kimo’s circa 2001 …and then edited on a trusty new $4000 PC in a Mission District flat whose rooms rented for $260. Nowadays the gear could be had for less than $500 but the rent would be $4000 a month …go figger
Remembering Alan Turing : The Man Who Cracked The Nazi Code
The day after the anniversary of D-Day also marks a less remembered event, it marks the anniversary of brilliant mathematician Alan Turing’s death in 1954. The unsung hero of the Allied Forces ability to crack Nazi Enigma machine codes and whose work helped enable D-Day invasion, died a decade after the war, of an apparent cyanide suicide at age 41 . At the time of his passing, Turing, already “chemically castrated” by the UK authorities, was facing yer another trial over his unacceptable propensity for homosexuality after a man was found in his home. The NY Times marks the anniversary with a recap of the troubled father of modern computing’s life and accomplishments as part of a series of obituaries on overlooked people whose deaths weren’t contemporaneously noted.
Turing’s story is now recounted in films, and he even received a posthumous pardon from the Queen not long ago, but it all comes too late in a world that seemingly did not appreciate what he had to offer during his lifetime. Turing came up with the fundamental conceptual workings behind Artificial Intelligence, had influence on modern encryption and cryptography, of course changed history by helping crack German military codes with his Turing machine, and is generally thought of to have been the father of the digital computer age.
Listen To Part One Of A BBC Programme Of Turing’s Early Years
Here is a movie about Turing’s war time computational heroics that is free to stream for Amazon Prime Members…and available to rent otherwise
Garland Jeffreys & Chuck Prophet – Wild In The Streets
Lou Reed’s college roommate, Garland Jeffreys is retiring from the stage with two farewell performance sets on June 29th 2019 at City Winery in NYC.
The sexiest man in Scandinavia! The poet laureate of Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn! He is hanging up his high heel sneakers. The Matador is throwing down his cape.
My ol’ pals Chuck Prophet and Stephanie Finch and are going to be onstage as special guests to bid him adieu, as well as other musical luminaries from his past. I hear, David Johansen and a few more musicians are expected to make it one for the history books. Garland’s 75 now, and it’s your last chance to see him onstage.
Here are Chuck & Steph with him from a gig I was lucky enough to be at his final west coast show at the Bootleg Theater LA on April 22nd 2016.
In the heat of the summer
Better call up the plumber
And turn on the street pump
To cool me off
With your newspaper writers
And your big crime fighters
You still need a drugstore
To cure my cough
Running wild in the streets
We got a gang called Shady
And a midnight lady
And two transvestites
To beat the band
You better not touch us
You best believe us
Your teenage Johnny’s
Gonna be a man– Garland Jeffreys “Wild In The Streets”
Runnin’ wild in the streets
Mrs. America
Tell me how is your favorite son?
Do you really care
What he has done?
Runnin’ wild in the streets
Have You Met Scott McCaughey ?
Thank God for Obamacare, y’know? Or rather, thank the people who did this compromised half-assed version of health care, which really added up to something for me. And now they’re busy trying to get rid of it. So,
#FuckMitchMcConnell… you can quote me”
Read the great profile by Jason Cohen of Scott McCaughey, the multi talented musician who co-founded such bands as The Minus Five, The Filthy Friends and Young Fresh Fellows, and who has contributed much to the sounds of others either live or in numerous studio sessions with such artsists as R.E.M., The Walkabouts, Mudhoney, Alejandro Escovedo, Arthur/Buck and many others ad infinitum
https://news.streetroots.org/2019/05/10/have-you-met-scott-mccaughey
Here are some videos from our archives featuring Scott McCaughey
The Revolts – Equator (Live)
The Re-Volts at Thee Parkside in San Francisco
Here’s a multi-cam live clip I shot in the thick of the pit at Thee Parkside in San Francisco of The Re-Volts performing their latest rawkin’ 7″ single release, now available on Pirates Press Records