World Famous In San Francisco

Faces of Meth


My favorite Rufus Wainwright video is the fan video, Faces of Meth. Sometimes it makes me cry but most of the time I just laugh super hard. What other video/music thing can do that?

I'm so confused about what to think of Wainwright. When it comes to gay men, every single one seems to have a different opinion on the swollen cheeked Gap ad crooner.

I've heard that while at Badlands in the Castro, Wainwright once got so upset that he reminded all the bartenders that he was Rufus Wainwright by shouting out his own name. I've also heard that he used to hang out in the Mission before his career took off... whatever that means. I guess both of those things are cool. So whatever his behavior, he seems to be the kind of musician that is liked by gays who don't really listen to music. I'm irritated by his overexposure, but I have to admit, I like some of his stuff. So, what do you think of him?

So I've been sick lately, half consicous on the couch watching Nancy Grace. Bitch is crazy, going on and on about Drew Peterson.

In my delirium I thought she was talking about Scott Peterson.

Whilst perusing other music blogs dedicated to the bay area scene I happened to notice that the Bay Bridged is sponsoring a day party at SXSW. They are calling it the Bay Area Takeover. I'm calling it the Bay Area Leftovers.

The only dim rays of light in an otherwise boring ass line-up are the aptly titled 60 Watt Kid and the Blacks. I went through and listened to the streams posted. Apart from the two bands I just mentioned, I thought I had found some long lost OC Soundtrack. Everything was so safe.

I know people love Two Gallants but I personally can't get past the drum sound. It is like someone wanking on a kit in Guitar Center. Let's hope the Texas Police toss 'em in the clink for more than just a few days this time around.

To me, the majority of these bands fall into the "but they're really nice" catagory.

Ahem...... Film School, Von Iva, Loquat. Yeah, their music is boring and I personally would not go see any of them or buy they're records but.....

they're really nice people! OK call me an asshole but a really good friend has enough substance to tell you when they do not like your band. Besides, it is just my opinion and I could completely wrong. Some of these people might not be so nice!

If these bands are going to take over anything, it's the cut out bin at your local record store.

I've been to these Bay Area showcases at SXSW before, they're attended by everyone from the bay area who happens to be in Austin. You might as well be at the Uptown in Oakland. Point me to the Neiman Marcus Last Call outlet and the Rainbow Cattle Company for ladies night.

Anyway, since a lot of people do like these bands, here's the poop:

(I do give props to the Bay Bridged for doing such a nice job with the web site, posting streams (for me not to like) and doing a really excellent job of promoting these groups. Too bad their taste is not more in line with my own.)

The Bay Area Takeover
Thursday, March 13th
Beauty Bar
Austin
noon-6
www.thebayareatakeover.com

So the girls show was so good, and there's photos and good times write ups coming, but... I'm just going to get this over with.

The best thing I can say about Yes Please is I really hated it. Sadly, though, it was a reaction to the performance and less to the music, which I heard best described as sounding 'like the Juno soundtrack'. Who likes this stuff? And Feist! Cat Power has a lot to answer for.

Speaking of Cat Power, the performance. This was like some art piece based on Chan Marshal's disastrous and irritating performances. The show starts and when I walk up to the stage I see four precious indie girls sitting at the edges of the stage. Posed on stage actually. If these girls weren't posed, then good for Yes Please for having a set of Stepford Urban Knitters at her disposal, but my guess is they were posed. Anyway, they are rapt by what is center stage. Rapt!



Center stage is what I assume to be Yes Please -- crouched under a blanket, rocking back and forth, and warbling over the Juno soundtrack which is magically coming out of the PA even though there isn't an instrument in sight. Eventually this girl makes her way out from under the blanket, she's so vulnerable! Meanwhile, a new set of kids take the blanket she's crawled out from underneath, spread it out picnic style, and sit down on it and watch -- no adore -- adore her.

What the fuck alternate reality is this? Eventually she sits down Indian style and plucks out a few notes from a guitar she's had hidden away. When I turned to walk out I noticed I was the only person not on stage or on a blanket.



On the plus side, her set was short!

This is like the easiest potshot ever, but over here in Berkeley apparently they're celebrating the 50th anniversary of the peace symbol. Hey give the peace symbol a chance, Berkeley's been doing it for 50 years. Come for the symbol, stay for the folksingers.

http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2008-02-19/article/29275

He is mean, drunk and completely predictable. It doesn't matter how nice, genuine and willing-to-forgive you are - he'll unleash his pain, frustration and confusion on you in any social situation (outside of the Marc by Marc Jacobs store) by attempting to humiliate you. His play-dough filled brain will keep interest in this activity for countless years, just like my late senile grandfather's daily interest in Flintstones reruns. I'd call him a bitter queen but I don't wanna disrespect any bitter queens who read this blog. I'd feel bad about this passive-aggressive post if I hadn't given him plenty of hugs and chances to redeem himself. He's a walking (probably biking) total-bummer and not in an ironic 90s kind of way, in a real-life-2008-wake-up-it's-your-cell-phone-alarm-clock kind of way.

Hey Fierce Perm, I know you're on hiatus or whatever but the internet is not. It is totally time to log into your myspace account and change the password, I am seriously sick of the dating spam.

Also, even though you're on hiatus, don't you have an album coming out on Mandagger?? You should really be logging into that and taking care of your business anyway. Fans hate annoying bulletins.

Not too long ago I attended a pretty rad Oakland houseparty. I thought I was having a good time when all of a sudden a bunch of my friends left, and I noticed that the party was inundated with Burning Man ravers, most of whom seem to have stayed sartorially stuck in 1997. Predictably, I became annoyed. Hey burners, do you really have to wear your furry pants to a punk rock house party?
The "burners" self segregated themselves in the kitchen, totally missing out on the band action in the living room, which included San Francisco's most charming punk rock combo as well as their glamorous LA counterparts.That's what I love about "burners" though -- they're the most solipsistic group of individuals. They try and re-create BM wherever they go, and for all their professed open-mindedness, God forbid they should step outside of their cozy fake fur cocoon, drop the ketamine bumps and the spandex body suits, and actually expose themselves to something a little bit different.
On another note, I heard that a super-underground rock band called the Foo Fighters played a show down the road at the Oakland Coliseum that same night, and word on the street is that their drummer is pretty awesome.

First Person Magazine has finally gone and done what I've been asking for. Girls, the new and uncommonly great San Francisco band, are finally playing a show! They're for real, its not a hoax, and word on the street is the band sounds awesome. I don't know who these FP Magazine people are but somebody should thank them!

Also playing are Yes Please, Raccoons, and Soft Hug. I checked the word on the street and nobody knows who these bands are but Yes Please are on at 9 PM sharp, so get there on time if you're curious. We're curious! Actually, we probably need to run an errand over at Chrome so maybe we won't see Yes Please. But we're firm believers in doing everything so we're going to try!

This is going to be super fun. You really should come.
Saturday Feb 16th
Cafe du Nord
2174 Market St
9 PM 10$

Tonight, The Clap is reborn as Vis á Vis at the Vortex Room. They may have said goodbye to Tuesdays and Aunt Charlies, but they haven't said goodbye to good times, awesome music, and amazing performances.



This party is totally underground, so if you don't know where the vortex room is you can: make friends with Vis á Vis on myspace, email them at v i s a v i s _ s f a t y a h o o d o t c o m or email us at w o r l d f a m o u s i n s f a t g m a i l d o t c o m.

Details:

The party starts at ten, and we send you on your way at 3am.

Guest DJ Tom Marzella (He of magnificent bands such as Hard Place, Puce Moment, Master Moth, Mon Cousin Belge)
plus DJ's Der Blaue and Gary Fembot spinning 60's, Garage, 70's, rare soul and disco, Voguing classix, herky jerky new wave and more.

Performance at 1am by -PRINCESS KENNEDY- with Johnny Cocksville.

2 enormous walls filled with Der Blaue Reiter's classiest/trashiest visuals-you will definitely be tuning in and turning on...

This event is also an after party for the Friday Night at the De Young Series, which you should all go to (it's free, and from 5-8:45) featuring Fauxnique, Penelope Houston of the Avengers, and Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys)

In addition to performers and attendees from the De Young stopping by, we're hoping that some of the Weimar NY people will pop in, making for a transatlantic artiste explosion....

Please add vis a vis as a friend if you haven't already-myspace.com/viscodisco

Our myspace of the week is Danyol, artist and member of carletta sue kay and woman of color, because this pretty much sums up my thoughts on IBR. And for finally giving Kenny Rogers the lesbian makeover he desperately needed.

Its already been a big week, what with all these crazy drag queens in town and tonight -- well, alright, its more drag queens. Oh, and Valentines day. But what could represent romance more than scorned men in dresses?



Don't call it drag queen Carletta Sue Kay and electro sexy vocals Von Iva perform tonight at the Hemlock. Why is there only one kind of strong sexy woman vocal in these parts? You know what I'm saying? Its ok though, this show will be super fun because both of these bands put on a show!

Also tonight, gays, lot of bands, one drag queen, many many hours. Queer punk club All Men Are Evil Except My Girlfriend is throwing its first annual valentines day homo massacre at the stud!

MARIAH CAREY- TOUCH MY BODY


Mariah Carey wrote a new song for me! It's called Touch My Body and it's about teddy bears, YouTube, favorite jeans, tropical breezes and getting touched! How am I supposed to not think this is the greatest song of all time? You all know that I'm so rock and roll, but when I listen to Mariah I turn into a 14 year old mall girl all over again.

So my band dad, Kelley Stoltz, has been pretty absent due to his successful career. He was on the home page of MySpace for, like, three days. That's crazy! He got like a billion plays obviously. If you watch TV you've probably heard his jam Birdies Singing on some commercial - I can't really remember what the ad was about even though I've seen it, like, five times. He's touring the world with his new record, CIRCULAR SOUNDS, that's out on Sub Pop Records. It's really good, DUH, so go buy it. Here is the video for his first single:

Kelley Stoltz - Your Reverie

Add to My Profile | More Videos
Directed by M. Moorton

Elton Tom was all "don't post these, we only ever post about stuff Myles and I are in". At first I was going to go along with that because, well, its true. And, the photos are maybe a bit more Lucifer Rising than Puce Moment. But, I'm going to post them anyway because I don't really have anything else to talk about and there's three other people in the band and he's not actually in the photos because a) Drummers are hard to photograph, b) drummers are always in the back and c) the show was at the knockout and the light is terrible there. So whatever. The band was pretty good -- guitar and keyboard songs that maybe sound like they're from New Zealand. But maybe they don't -- in addition to bad lighting the sound at the knockout isn't the greatest (but we love the knockout anyway). It was a good first impression.





Also, this band fpodbpod played and they were pretty good despite their name and the fact they're into being the deli's band of the month. I just listened to their myspace and its weird, they were so much more electric live. I think maybe they're better live. Go see them and don't click on that link. Greg Ashley also played but he should stick to the full band thing because his cute, pudgy little face can only take that acoustic guitar so far. Seriously.

And you'll pretend to enjoy it.

Hey it's the week for new contributors. I will be bringing my own particular brand of the hate, but sometimes the love.

Lately, Arthur Magazine has really been annoying. I mean they've always run small annoyances like that column for the practice of magic, or as they like to say "magick". I don't know, affected early-modern English nonstandard spellings really annoyye me.

In the December 2007 issue, Douglas Rushkoff, regular contributor, wrote the tedious "Raising Baby Einstein" to make a point about how raising a baby has become so commercialized and professionalized. And I usually really like what he writes, you know tearing down the whole edifice of 9/11 conspiracy thinking as a waste of valuable time was right on! But Rushkoff made the regrettable error that afflicts most parents, the belief that what they're undergoing is so special and magical that they must then inflict the magic of parenthood on the rest of us. I tried to read the whole thing but had to quit when I reached the paragraph on, "the lost art of breast-feeding". Writers, please do not use the word "latch, nipple, draw, and infant's lips" in a column published by a putative music mag. Gross. Seriously.

A year ago Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond annoyed me when she renounced her class hate in favor of a particularly icky brand of Topanga Canyon free-love. But I would expect that from someone named Lavender Diamond. Rushkoff, you're losing your edge to the babies.

Guess. What. Elton Tom's new band, Puce Moment, is finally going to debut after, like, five years holed up in some basement practicing. Well, maybe not five, but it sure seems like it sometimes. I was beginning to think they were really just catching every performance at Theater Rhinoceros or something.

Anyway, the band also features Gary Fembot (of Vis-á-Vis, feelings on a grid, and sta prest) and an ex member of The Aislers Set but I don't hold that against him.

Oh, and if you're wondering what a puce moment is, its a Kenneth Anger film about , literally, a puce moment. Seriously. But if you're on the leading edge of cool then you know its all about its impossible (and uncredited) soundtrack. You can check this post over at WFMU for more info if you've got a day job and can't be on the leading edge of cool.

Oh yeah, greg ashley is playing too.

Monday, Feb 4
Smile @ The Knockout
10 PM, $5
greg ashley
puce moment

If you were in the Castro last week it was very obvious that somebody was filming a movie. If you asked around, people seemed a little confused and slightly annoyed that there weren't any parking spots. Instead there were old timey cars, 70s-looking shop signs and awesome community bulletin boards. That's right. The Castro looked way cooler.

And when I saw Gus Van Sant in real life, he didn't look as hot as I was hoping he'd look. He was wearing really practical boots, ugly black jeans and some kind of L.L. Bean parka. So yeah - nothing was going to go down even though he was looking at me. I don't care if I love his movies, I don't want to make love to him.

You can still find lots of bulletins if you go down there. I ripped a bunch off the first night they were put up. In other news, Christopher Owens from Girls got a call back to be in a bar scene with Sean Penn. Very cool. I can't wait to see Milk.

Hello this is Ashley.
This is my first blog and I am very frightened. I read the posts of elton tom and shamus and I am ashamed for I am listed as a blogger but have yet to have blogged anything.
So I suppose I should now tell you some stories from my current life and times.
I think I will tell you about a lovely Russian-prussian-Italian 66 year old something or other that comes into my place of work to molest the mannequins and man handle the lady workers. He calls himself Franco and he has invited me to sail with him and eat lobster and clam on the beach with him. He also says he is an artist. Once he said he was on his way to teach a twelve year old boy..I have seen the work that he carries around in his gym bag too...not too shabby... thin water color/crayon on cardboard of sailboats and pen and barely erased pencil handwritten poems about love and the many girls he meets [molests in places they cannot escape from too quickly, like work or the gym or a bus] More details about those later. As for our encounters with Franco in the store, I'll keep it short, because it is late and I have never written a blog about anything before. Apparantly any girl that says "yes" in any way to him is in love with him. So girls, pretty boys, whatever you are, keep that in mind, if you say 'yes' to anyone anywhere, be prepared for that someone to get the wrong impression. Anyhow, he comes in to buy some skinny jeans and he admires my breast immediately and lets me and all my coworkers know about it. then he comes out with his pants unzipped proclaiming, "hey! They makes these too tight! Who of zyou zyoung ladyz iz going zo zzip me up?!" No girl of course. so one of the guys does and immediately he gets a boner through the slim slacks. And, surprisingly enough, I have never seen a 60 + penoid get so hard under such tight denim under such bright lights so fast in my life, so I couldnt help but laugh with a shameful glee. He says "oop! look what you make-a me do!" So we give him a 50 percent discount every time he comes in now. He came in today though again to fondle us again and he had a couple good stories I would like to share for a moment (after he took my hand to "kiss" but then started licking and giggled " I show you now what I do with woman's clitoris!" Why do women love me so much?! They are always bending over for me..in the gym...in the street..everywhere!" Of course! I love that ferocious optimisim/
Anyhow, some Franco stories:
"So, I see this girl on ze dock before I am 'bout to go sailing..she is very beautiful...I not saying more than you , no, but in a different way...with honey blonde hair to here [he motions to his sun bleached, grey half shaved neck] and very big breasts! Even bigger than yours! ]. And so I ask her if they are real and she say 'yeah' not yes! but 'yeah' and then I know that she feels something for me ]...and then I ask her if I can hug her and she says "yah" and then we hug and our legs melt like butter and I know we are like Pow! And im like' tunnel explosion'! you know !But then her boyfriend comes, and I didnt know she had a boyfriend ..so I's go to the living room ]..and I am so excited by her that I masturbate into a cup and I leave it by the sofa. Later, I come back to get the cup, but it is gone! But then I see my lovely girl again, and she has a wet spot over her breast and I know! I know she drank that entire big cup of-a my sperm! And you know I fill an entire plastic cup because I was exploding!"
And then, ten seconds later, making my work-day go by thankfully, much faster he adds " I really don't know why, but weemen, zey just love my cum!" i say," wow, your realllly lucky" He says, "Yes, and once I was at my doctor's office waiting room next to sexy black girl. And she touch my leg i think and so my penis, it gets so big...two inches thick [he shows me with his fingers how thick] and I am just about to explode, so I ask the nurse for a bathroom key and I masturbate into a cup. And then I bring it to the seat and I show the girl that I taste it. And so she puts her finger in to taste it too and she says it tastes great too! So what-a more can I say!"
I say....awesome... as awesome as a pizza burrito! ten lbs of cheese in yo face! You go get it Franco! You can cum in the store anytime!