World Famous In San Francisco

This was my first time at Club Feral. I don't really know what I was expecting, but it wasn't the mix of 50's man lesbians, PNW indie grandma clothes (and underwear!!) and clippered head punk scene that was going on. It was cool though, those kids are all really nice and I had fun even if I don't quite get the fashion sense.

It was kind of a weird evening. The Passionistas felt somewhat out of place on the line up with Didimao and Connie Fucking Francis. Actually, I like lineups that don't sit quite right. But also Aaron, one of their principal song writers and guitarists, was home sick sick sick and they were playing with Elton Tom on drums because Tina was out of town. They're such troopers.

Because this was a benefit for cutter photozine, there were celebrities in the audience. Its really too bad Aaron was sick, because most notably Gwen Stefani showed up. She said she came because she loves their album, specifically Aaron's songs and voice, and she wanted to ask him to be on a single she was recording that night. She was totally bummed he couldn't be there and said it was too bad it didn't work out. She couldn't stay long but we did get some photos with her:







Look at her, she's amazing! Its like a spotlight follows her everywhere she goes. She's almost larger than life! And she had three costume changes with her. This lady is totally prepared and put together.

Admittedly we were in a daze for the rest of the show, so I'm going to rely on Gwen's reactions. Didimao reminded her (and me) of being in college, specifically the student union at some punk show. It was totally that nineties unwound kind of sound.



Gwen thought The Passionistas played a lovably disastrous set. They included some of Aaron's songs, just for Gwen. She thought they did a great job, especially since half of the band couldn't be there!



Finally Connie Fucking Francis played. Gwen loved the idea of this -- bratty punk rock covers of Connie Francis songs. She loved the way it sounded when these kids tore it up. But, I have to admit, after having seen them a few times I love the idea more than sitting through a whole set. I think I'm alone in this sentiment because Thee Parkside was packed solid and everybody was dancing as Connie's songs were dragged kicking and screaming into the guttter.



see the rest here!

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!

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

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Directed by M. Moorton

Did you see my article in this week's San Francisco Bay Guardian? Didjah didjah? In it I talk about my YouTube videos, Chris Crocker, my mother, Chucky, Alien and a bunch of other cool stuff. Pick up a copy, or you can read the article online.

Photo: Carletta Sue Kay spotted at the Hard Place show....Photo by Jeremy Smears


The Clarences, The Passionistas, Carletta Sue Kay, Gran Via.

January, 25 2008 at Ghost Town Gallery
2519 San Pablo Avenue, Oakland,
Cost : 5 bucks

18+ Do Not Leave Valuables in Your Car!

Ok, this is turning into some kind of Passionistas PR blog... I've gotta find some new stuff to post about. Like, maybe, make up some new years resolutions, do a way belated best of list, figure out a new myspace of the week, work on the World Famous Super Club I keep talking about, make those "To Catch a Predator" outtake videos we've been talking about, or maybe even get the Mexican Party Bus back on the road and go to the next Gravy Train show -- they seem to be ever popular but I just don't get their ironic gay party underwear rap jams.

Anyway, I do love the The Passionistas. So, even though I'm, like, ninety percent sure all of our LA readers know this already because they're friends with Myles, lets talk about their LA mini tour this weekend. Just in case! From New And Used Records:

Hey Passionistas fans, your favorite quartet will be in the region of Southern California this weekend for four shows that promise to be varying levels of amazing. They are as follows.

Friday, January 11
In-Store @ Buffalo Records / 6PM / Free
105 S. Oak Street., Ventura, California 93001
(Highly recommend attending this one if you can. You can see them live, shop for records, and even get an autographed copy of God's Boat).

Friday, January 11
Club Good Hurt / 8PM / $5 / 21+
12249 Venice Blvd, West Los Angeles, California 90066
(The Passionistas will be opening for Sweetness and Lonely Mattress Salesman, so get there early. You can also stick around after for DJ Brazilian Booty Butt Jamz).

Saturday, January 12
Pool Party in Venice Beach / 2PM
(If you were invited to this one, then you know where to go)

Saturday, January 12
Mr. T's Bowl / 9PM / $10 / 21+
5621 1/2 Figueroa St. @ Ave. 57 in Highland Park
Los Angeles, California 90042
(The Passionistas headline, along with The Boars, The Guilty Hearts, The Jinxes, The Thingz. It looks totally punk rock and should be awesome).

Using the power of their sexuality, the passionistas have made a commercial for Sonic Living (a bay area based upcoming.org kinda deal, except dedicated to music and with artist profiles and links to iTunes so that you can buy from apple instead of the artist.). Really, its not surprising. It's been their goal since before the dawn of time. And now that Myles has a video camera total pop success can't be that far off for them.

I mean music video, but its easy to see how I could get it confused. I mean, what with all the hot tubs, steam, parents, and skin shots. These guys are totally following the Britney arc. The innocent phase is over and the slutty one has begun! Quick, somebody get them some undies before the paps catch on.

Um, yeah. Anyway, this video is choice. At first I was sad that they weren't singing over a boombox, but then I realized getting electrocuted in your parent's hot tub, while great publicity, might ruin the video. And possibly the new year too. Check:

I've been sick and busy with work and all sorts of fun stuff, but I'm back on the scene. More about that later.

Anyway, a few weeks ago Bridez, Forever, and The Passionistas played at Cafe du Nord. Bridez were totally killer. Fronted by Liza of So So Many White White Tigers and cobain in a coma, I think this band represents a different side of this girl. Unlike the intentional disaster area that a SSMWWT show is/becomes, where Liza does her best Courtney Love impression -- antagonizing the audience and throwing things -- while the band thrashes itself into the ground rather than actually beating out a song, Bridez is the flip side of that coin where disaster follows Liza around while she and her band mates honestly try to thrash out an actual song. And you can just about make out the song they're trying to play -- even as keyboards crash to the ground, stands collapse, and monitors are knocked over while Liza paces the stage like she can't articulate herself -- and that song is pretty awesome. Seriosuly, I think this girl has talent.


More here!

Forever were totally some kind of whiskey soaked or road ravaged rock band, the singer and guitarist looking into each others eyes like they're in love with... well based on their sound and what their myspace page says, X. I liked these girls because they were excited to be on stage, but sometimes their songs were a little too much like later X, which is a little to straight up rock 'n roll for me. Hopefully they can figure out how take that X influence and turn it into something more their own. Oh, and do you think they like X so much because its two Vs touching each other? Hmm.



More here!

I'm not even going to get into the Passionistas. They already think they're the greatest band of all time. Even if I were to write something to the contrary would their eyes even be able to see it? Would their brains be able to comprehend it? I think through sheer force of belief my words would turn into praise.



More here!

So it's true. I've been really occupied. I found time between moving to call my father yesterday. He has discovered google; and has been busy googling himself. It turns one of his books is worth over a hundred dollars now. It's funny to me that there are people out there who care about my father's poetry, because I never did.

My dad has fought very hard to escape the ghosts in his past. It's amusing to me that they're coming back to haunt him. He wasn't thrilled about my idea to leak some old stock he has in boxes.

He's been done with a new novel for a while now, but is scared to release it. He is teaching high school in a very conservative school district. They'd most certainly frown upon some of the adult subject matter. It's funny: no matter how much admiration an artists receives, they're still required to act like any other rational human and just bottle it up most of the time.

He was pissed about the YouTube video I made where my bandmate, Aaron, burned me. I can see why. It has the potential of threatening any reputation I develop in the future as a working, contributing and sane citizen. My dad has made some really dumb decisions that I'm not stupid enough to blog about. Even so, we're glad some people out there appreciate my dad for all that he is.

So keep you dreams alive everyone! Because if don't, they'll just come back to haunt you. There is no turning back.

Great show tonight at Cafe Du Nord with some of WFISF's favorite bands. It's free and fancy!



Click to enlarge flyer

Look, its totally hard to keep a blog going when everybody who writes for the blog is having some kind of real life happening. Real life??? Don't worry though, we're not quitting like some other blogs out there! Check this:

* My computer is busted up. I'm blogging on the sly from work!
* Myles is moving and looking for a job. Got any leads? Help him out!
* Elton is totally in Florida where blogging doesn't exist.
* Some of us are starting a record label. Its true!
* Some of us (not me, I'm not award winning. yet.) are off winning awards, also true! With video:

Chris Crocker @ The Crib SF 10/25/07


As you can see in the video above, Chris Crocker proved his quote all too well on Thursday. The thing is, Chris IS talented. It's just that his medium is so new that it has not been acknowledged or even noticed yet.

Part of Chris' old shtick was pretending to be famous in videos posted on his MySpace. Most of his videos took place inside of his grandparent's rural house when they weren't around. His audience was the Internet; the wide, abstract and grossly impersonal Internet.

Not participating in human contact with your audience can provide a really interesting environment for an artist to develop. This kind of development has been romanticized in the art world forever. These personalities range from pretentious home-recordists like Jandek, to scared shut-ins like Henry Darger and countless other people probably including your mom. Outsider artists (for lack of a better term) are the one type of artist that goes unquestioned. Their motives seem true and their output feels authentic.

Chris' videos, for me, felt very much like a outsider artists' home-recorded album. His videos ranged the span of human emotion, they seemed sometimes... pointless. They felt lonely. They showed that same sort of sexy courage that we only posses when we are alone in our bedroom.

It was interesting to see Chris live at The Crib on Thursday. I realized Chris is now famous. I felt really lucky to see one of Chris' first performances on stage in front of hundreds of people. I understood his craft wouldn't translate to stage, but I was very curious to see how he was as an entertainer. His performance felt rehearsed but determined. It was fun and fanatical. It was new and nerdy. I loved it. This new generation is much different than my own. They didn't have their mind blown by Kurt Cobain or The Chronic. Something else happened that we're not aware of yet. It may have something to do with the Internet.

I thoroughly enjoyed spending the night locked in the club with my art/business partner Aaron. We didn't buy any drinks for the nineteen year olds who asked. We leaned around and people-watched just as fathers do when they become overwhelmed by shopping malls. We felt old.

Big Blue Whale need to chill
Six months ago my band was entered along with Big Blue Whale (pictured above) in The Deli Magazine SF's band of the month competition.

My band, The Passionistas, decided to make a series of YouTube videos to promote the contest called "Haterz Beware." We made the videos because that's what our favorite band would have done if put in the similar situation. At the time I was obsessed with Chris Crocker of the recent "leave Britney alone" fame. I was astonished by his popularity and decided to mock his style of hater themed video monologues.

Pretty much everyone got the joke, except some of the bands we were competing against. My initial hope was that our videos would inspire these other normally pretentious and humorless bands into making fun videos too. Well, none of them did. What ended up happening is some took it as seriously as humanly possible. Here is a comment Ashley from Big Blue Whale left on The Deli today (six months after the fact):  

I think it was your band, the Passionistas, who erroneously told the SF Chronicle that your band was victorious in the Deli's monthly poll, when we actually bested you friendly folks by about 300 votes. I shouldn't even mention all of the hate messages you sent the other bands throughout the contest.

Kanye West loves to storm award shows and claim victory even when he doesn't win. To me, it was so obvious that we were copying Kanye West. I hate the idea that "inde" has all these manners that completely prevent staged drama or conflict. What people fail to realize is that this drama motivates people to listen, pay attention and buy records. Maybe I'd rather be in a soap opera than a jam band. Or maybe I'm more at home at the top of the pops than in this scene.

You can read some recent banter over at the Deli if you wish.

How can you not??? Elton and Myles are too modest to post here about their own shows so once again I'm here to tell you all about their awesome shows. Hard Place and The Passionistas under the same roof at Smile! After having gone to all these theme parties down in LA (like this or this), I'm thinking about how we really need one up here. So, I haven't discussed this with the club or the bands and I'm totally making this up, but this show is totally the "Wet Dream Before Halloween" party, so dress like that! Oh, OK. I'll stop.

Friday, October 19Th
Smile @ The Knock Out
3318 Mission St

Tonight I will see Port O'Brien at Bimbos. Port O'Brien frontman Van Pierszalowski and I go way back. We grew up together in this tiny pretentious village set in a pine forest by the sea known as Cambria. We've reconnected over this past year after realizing we were both on similar paths... we're both trying to make our life's work, music, a career - starting in the Bay Area.

Van and I have a very different approach to our life and art. Van loves the little town we grew up in - his girlfriend's name is even Cambria - and she's also a member of the band. Van loves his parents - actually naming the band after the port in Alaska where they met. Van loves nature. He writes on the boat he works aboard during the Alaskan summers.

I really don't like that little town we grew up in. When I go home it feels like I'm in a desert with no water... one that is host to all my bad memories and frustration. I don't have the same appreciation for nature that Van does. I feel lonely in nature. I will take a man-made landscape over a natural one any day. I love human invention more than mother nature's. I love my parents, but don't really like them. I would never name my band after them. I obviously haven't forgiven my parents yet. I know they tried the best they could... enough already! For now, I'll just stick to sleeping with guys twice my age. I can make amends to my parents on Oprah.

But Van and I DO share a lot of things in common. We both like Lily Allen. We both were very lucky to have liberal parents that traveled and appreciated art. We were very lucky to have Mr. O'Neil as a music teacher. We were lucky in the sense that our town didn't have any culture beyond blown glass and beeswax candles. We learned to make music to make up for the lack of a movie theater or radio station.

I am really excited to see what adventures lay ahead for Van and I. The Passionistas and Port O'Brien are two totally different takes on life. It's funny to look back ten years ago and remember our similar sounding punk bands. In general, it's funny we're from the same place and doing the same thing. Van's music is getting a lot more attention than mine. But I'm not sweating that at all, I love watching one of my homies make it.

Port O'Brien play Bimbo's tonight (10/12/2007) in support of Rogue Wave.

There's a nice review of The Passionistas show at Trans Am over on the deli (shhhh!). I missed the show, but I've scored some photos:


Photos by Geof Teague
Those boys (and gal) know their audience. I did actually make an appearance at the club, but after the bands and the drag queens and the general faggotry. Even though it was late (by San Francisco standards that is) the gays still seemed to be out -- so it seems I wasn't out past the general buggery. There was a pretty good dj downstairs playing some standard eighties fare (siouxie and the like) but I heard some Opal and that was cool. Upstairs was this other DJ and his fall out boy record collection -- I don't really know what that could have been about, some kind of ironic fraternity boy worship? -- and I needed to get away from that fast but Myles and I were asked to pose for gay.com. Completely absurd, we can't wait to see what that looks like!

Always posting these last minute:

This pretty much speaks for itself.

Come!
I'm going!
The Passionistas are going with their new drummer!
The Real Janelles are going and they better be as fun as the songs on their myspace page or there's gonna be a fight. What? I can throw down!