World Famous In San Francisco

I'll start this by saying I think we should have waited for the Wooden Shjips show this Friday with Fuckwolf and Sic Alps. That show has more to offer in a the way of variety; all of the acts at the Edinburgh this evening specialized in the drone and I don't take the right drugs for three hours or four hours of that to hold my interest. I'm naturally wired for an hour at best. Apparently, though, Aquarius Records does take the right drugs as they featured gushing reviews of both Expo 70 and Metal Rouge on the front page of their last new release newsletter.

Anyway, back in time to when we parked in the sketchy alley behind the Edinburgh. We had arrived a bit late in hopes of missing Metal Rouge, not because we knew anything about them but because we're too old for bills with four bands on them. Unfortunately, we get upstairs and realize we haven't missed anything other than the fact that the show room had been rearranged since the last time we'd been there (which was... I don't remember when. My point is this might not be news). Metal Rouge sets up on stage -- electric guitar and amplified santur -- and proceed to play this one note for about twenty or thirty minutes. They must love that note. It must be the most awesome note because they played it for a long time. Its like all drone shows where eventually you get so into that note you become the note. I just wasn't into this note. The folks over at Aquarius report that everybody else was super into this note and were blown away, so what do I know? Here's a clip, you can tell me what I don't know:

Actually, I was kinda into that clip. I don't have any idea what I'm talking about!

Next was Rahdunes. Guitar + effects and bass. These dudes set up in two different places on the floor amongst the crowd and did their thing. It was like musical evolution: two notes. I was actually pretty into these dudes, the bass set up a nice rhythm (not really a groove, this was too academic for that) and the guitar made loud sounds over that -- what those sounds were really didn't seem to matter. These guys were having a ton of fun, laughing a lot of the time and it was fun to be on the floor with them.

Then there was much speculation as to whether the band setting up was Expo '70 or Wooden Shjips. It looked like Wooden Shjips but they're so mysterious because they don't play much so how could we know?? The band gets to playing and we convince ourselves it must be them and its kinda disappointing. The guitar was pretty awesome, but on the whole the band was kinda limp. The drummer didn't really seem to be up to the task of carrying us through their dirges. Its too bad, the seven inch I have rules and the songs on myspace are pretty good. I had read they weren't great live over on detailed twang so maybe that colored my opinion but I'm accused of being opinionated and hard to please so I don't think that was it.

After that we just couldn't stick around for Expo '70. It was late and we wanted to go hear the jams at Tubesteak Connection! But once we were outside we realized we were defeated by the drone and we were tired so we went back behind the Edinburgh to the sketchy alley and hoped nobody had camped out inside the car.