When I walked in, Orchid’s set was already underway. I had mixed feelings about this local band when I saw them back in Feb. ‘08, but this time I thoroughly enjoyed their set. They had the cleanest sound of the evening. I stand by my past review that their vocals are stellar, and the drummer kicks ass. ‘Eastern Woman’ is a great song. I will be seeing them again…soon.

Hammers of Misfortune are another local band. This six piece includes two females who share vocal duties with one of the male guitarists. They have a strong metal opera vibe- they sing, not scream, over their heavy metal backdrop. It’s not the kind of thing I would listen to, but it was interesting to watch play out on stage.

Nachtmystium brought the loudest, fastest, highest energy set of the night. Hailing from Chicago, this four piece brought an aire of demented danger. I think they are one of the better newer metal bands….they manage to occupy an interesting space somewhere between Black Metal and Psychedelic Rock. Lead singer Blake does a fierce helicopter headbang while playing…..Dethklok! I really enjoyed their set- they are part heads down playing complicated stuff, part thrash around stage with lots of energy. ‘Assassins’ and ‘Ghosts of Grace’ are really good tracks.

Time for Pentagram! By now DNA was packed, and a lot of people were very excited to see something that they probably thought they would never see. Granted, the only original member is singer Bobby Liebling….but who really needs more than that guy?

Let me comment on Bobby Liebling for a bit. At 55 years old (hmmm….), I can’t decide whether he could potentially be the coolest dad in the world, or an old man creeper. Watching him run out on stage, black pants with hot pink stitching, see through floral shirt with bedazzled detail, and frizzy hair…I truly couldn’t decide if I saw him on the street whether I’d want to give him a hug or mace him. He’s led a rough life I’m sure…the most recent evidence of this is an apparent recent crack cocaine run in at a French airport. You have to check out Photo Ray’s pics of him. One is below:

That said, he is one of the most entertaining people I’ve ever seen on stage. The rest of the band, capable but none a stand out, definitely played second fiddle to his antics. There were times he would attach himself to the speakers, like a fly stuck to sticky paper. He makes the most hilarious faces, like he is channeling the guitar through his face….oh, and he plays air guitar a lot. He sounded pretty good, but I found the sound in general to be kinda quiet and muddled for their set.

The crowd seemed very very into the set, singing along and reaching out their hands, both to touch Bobby and to throw horns and show the metal claw in appreciation. There was a bit of pushing and shoving, but it wasn’t until the end that I became the final domino in a line of people who got knocked over. It’s been a long time since I’ve been leveled to the floor- kinda fun!

I forgot to pick up one of these posters- anyone know where I can get one?

The cool thing about DNA Lounge shows is that you can listen to the sets here (up for 2 weeks).

This video is from the Peace and Love (hippie much?) Festival in Sweden this past weekend. You can download audio of it here.

See my Chris Cornell reviews here, here, here.

His hair keeps getting longer…..HRC likey.

A while back, I posted about how the ABC is doing some ridiculous things to some of our local venues.

And it continues. Visit Stop the War on Fun to see how you can help keep our local venues alive. Imagine SF without seeing the ‘NO CROWD SURFING’ sign at Slim’s, or smoking on the patio at Bottom of the Hill, or go-go dancing on a platform at DNA Lounge, or admiring the sheer beauty of Great American Music Hall. This makes me sad

You can find additional coverage of this story at SF Weekly.

Ayria is on stage, flanked by a drummer (turned sideways and tucked in the corner) and a laptop guy (who as my friend pointed out, was surprisingly using a Dell- GASP!). Their music is light industrial with somewhat ethereal vocals that occasionally meander into a rap. The singer, in blonde pigtails and Hot Topic, is bubbly, bouncing around the stage like a goth cheerleader. It was just way too cheesy for me. Especially one of her final songs, where she does a lot of counting…I was seriously expecting a toe touch to make its way in there.

As soon as War Tapes hit the stage, I remembered someone recommending them to me a year or so ago. They are a doom/goth pop 4 piece from LA. I immediately remembered why I couldn’t get into them- the singer’s voice. It feels fake, and like it’s on its way to going out of tune. His stage presence also really bugged me- between songs at least three times he would repeatedly shout “are you ready for VNV Nation!”, and then talk about how amazing the crowd was (that was slightly bigger than when I walked in, but not very active or enthusiastic). Then he did what looked like a failed stage dive. The drummer and guitarist were ok, the female bassist looked bored. I was on the verge of liking some of the songs, but never quite made it there.

VNV Nation has a dramatic entrance with a video screen spewing positive propaganda. I mean, the group has a motto and it’s ‘One should strive to achieve; not sit in bitter regret’. I think the majority of the music I listen to is about sitting in bitter regret, but anyway…

The crowd has now filled out the room. It’s uber goth- platform boots, black black black, corsets of unusual size, guyliner, and a surprising number of VNV Nation branded shirts. But the weird thing about the crowd is this: they are all smiling! I am not familiar with this breed of smiling goths. Where do they come from? What do they eat? How do they spend their daylight hours?

Frontman Ronan Harris is quite a character. He loves to talk, taking intermissions between songs that are almost as long as the songs themselves. Throughout the evening, he did things like gather all the bald men that resembled him near the stage and took a picture with them, let a young attendee sit on the corner of the stage out of harm’s way, and called security multiple times to diffuse people who were trying to start moshing (and I mean really, who moshes to this???). He does a funny speed walk skip thing when he sings. He spoke of letting go of anything bothering you to enjoy the show, and of living drug free…it was all a bit confusing for me. But it was kinda nice- I wanted to hug him by the end.

There are a few tracks of theirs that get me dancing a bit, but they always lighten up. I prefer harder/darker/faster; VNV goes into rave space. It’s not bad- in fact they put on a very good, entertaining and personable show- it just doesn’t ring my music bell.

San Francisco loves VNV, and they love San Francisco back. After a double encore, neither the band nor the audience wanted to leave. And by the time we did go, it was a cold night in SF.

VNV’s lighting and my camera were not friends:

The crowd busting out lighters for a VNV style ballad:

To the girl who stood near me and continued to emit that terrible sound (imagine a yodeling goat being slaughtered), please don’t ever do that again. You owe me a bottle of Advil.

I have to thank Umlaut for arranging VIP access for me- without it my experience would not have been as unique. However, I got a text from him at 10am, while I was still lying around thinking about my Air Guitar review, warning me that Gallows would be on at 11. I swiftly replied: PM? Haha no- Warped Tour is an early affair for the kids. Luckily it doesn’t take me long to get ready.

I was able to get to the Guest line right at 11, but due to inefficiencies of multiple band guestlists and such, the line moved at a snail’s pace and I didn’t get in until NOON. I missed Gallows…..HRC starts off her day kinda bummed out. So I start wandering around kinda overwhelmed by the whole thing….feeling old and uncool, except for some of the old punk band members and roadies, who still make me feel like jailbait. It kinda felt like I was in some sort of age purgatory- everyone seemed to be either 10-15 years younger or 20 years older than me. Weirdness.

The schedule situation was another issue for me. I’m a planner, and there isn’t a pre-released schedule for this show. It’s just all posted on a huge inflatable bulletin board. So I hunt that down and take some notes in my iPhone to make my gameplan. Warped Tour needs an iPhone app…..hahaha not.

I knew that I wanted to see Dommin, so for fear of getting lost I made my way over to that stage. These smokin’ hot girls were up there performing some girly punk- Civet from LA. At first glance I was really worried it was going to be some watered down Hot Topic girl punk, but they sing about alcohol, bitches, and lust- good stuff. The bassist looks like Traci Lords circa Cry Baby. Umlaut and Photo Ray joined me to catch the Dommin set- yay familiar faces!

At about this point, I noticed the Dommin guys milling around getting ready for their set. I’m watching Civet from the side of the stage, and Kris Dommin walks up by me. Well, Umlaut thinks this is funny because he knows I have a little crush on him, so he whips out his camera and shoots a candid pic of me attempting to make small talk. Goth kids in the sunshine!

MOVING ON…I’ve seen Dommin twice this year, so obviously I’m into their whole goth rock thing….it was interesting to see them perform in the daylight, just like seeing NIN do so when I followed the NIN/JA tour around. For performing early and to a rather unideal crowd, they brought a lot of energy and showed me that they are growing as a band.

The next couple of hours were spent wandering around near the main stage and the old school punk stage- never staying long enough for a full report of anything. I saw a lot of sunburned kids that had been kicked in the face. The beer lines are short because everyone is underage. I didn’t realize that every band has a booth where they sell their merch and do meet and greets- that’s pretty cool for the kids. At one point I met up with my friend Mick Punk who introduced me to Arturo Vega, the artistic director for the Ramones. Mick introduced me as a ‘famous blogger’ (ha! thanks, Mick), and then I had a short conversation with Arturo about the appeal of music blogs. Kinda interesting.

Then I decided to catch In This Moment, who I’d seen a while back open for Ozzy and Rob Zombie. Maria Brink has created quite a stir in the metal community- she can scream and she’s really well endowed is what it comes down to. She was recently in Playboy, though she wasn’t in the buff. I wish I could like this band, but it’s just too manufactured for me…and Maria looks more and more like a Bratz doll. This is not a good thing.

Next, I was very excited to see Shooter Jennings….though I was having a really hard time wrapping my head around him being part of this festival. I’ve seen him several times before, but surprisingly not since I started writing HRC: opening for Willie Nelson in Austin, an extremely drunken set at The Independent in SF when I first moved here, and at Irving Plaza in NYC. As soon as we walked backstage, I saw him standing there. He’s shorter then me. He walked by several times but I couldn’t drum up the courage to ask for a picture….

Shooter Jennings is just about the only new ‘country’ music I can listen to, and he’s really got a lot of rock elements in there, so the country music label is more an association with his legacy as Waylon Jennings’ son than anything. As a Texan, seeing him reminds me of home….and it’s always good to revisit your roots, from afar, under the Bay Bridge in liberal SF.

The set was a short but sweet- Shooter transitioned from playing guitar to piano a couple times. I admired his intricate leather tooled guitar strap bearing his name, and he has a tattoo of a single action on his arm, and a bullet on his hand. Shooter is cool.

Next up was Black Tide- teenagers in a metal band. I only caught their last couple of songs- but these guys are lewd and crude- a rare find in a young metal band these days. The first thing I hear them say is, “I hear you guys like to suck cock”. Whoa there little man. Watching them thrash around on stage got me interested- they were a bit messy, but I’d check them out on their own sometime.

I tried to catch NOFX on the main stage to end my day. Umlaut and I walked up to the side of the stage, but became completely surrounded by friends and family and couldn’t see, so we decided to call it a day one song in.

Warped Tour is interesting- it’s good that the kids have a cheap festival ($40) where they can experience a wide variety of music and meet the bands. They may be much more tattooed and pierced than back in my day, but it’s good to see them still into the DIY punk aesthetic and thrashing around to metal. Except those kids in the tremendous line to meet Jeffree Star- ya’ll don’t count. I’m all for gender benders- but the music freaks me out.

I decided to clear my head by walking the 20 blocks or so home….my feet hate me today, but I had a good time at my first Warped Tour. Maybe I’ll go back in August when it comes around again so I can catch Gallows…

BUT- the whole thing makes me laugh. And laughter is the best medicine, right?

The show begins with the Star Wars theme introducing the ‘Master of Air-emonies’, Hot Lixx Hulahan, who is the current reigning world champion. As in he took Finland. You’ve seen the documentary, right? He goes over the rules and the judging criteria: technical prowess, stage presence, and ‘airness’. Then he recruits a girl to play air drums from the crowd (wearing a homemade shirt that says Vodka on it), as well as a guy to play air bass, and is joined by Bjorn Turoque to play as an air band to warm the crowd up.

The three judges for the evening are Bjorn Turoque, Aesop, drummer for Ludicra, and Marc Hawthorne, a judge from last year who apparently recently ‘departed The Onion’. Sad times.

On with the show. You gotta give major props to anyone who goes up there and does this….that said, some of them are really, really bad. Luckily the judges were drinking Boones, sponsor for the evening, from the bottle….as a lot of the funnies came from them. Aesop turned out to be like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, making some of the most inappropriate yet hilarious remarks of the evening. For instance, one of the competitors, who I remember from last year, had a stroke recently, but still wanted to compete. However, he had some physical limitations with the performance. So Aesop gives him a low score, saying “I don’t want to send some stroked out guy to Finland”, or something to that effect.

There were quite a few forgettable performances…but ones I do recall are: Dirty Airy’s Sabotage performance, the emo kid in purple tights that showed a bit much of his bits, the guy in the Donnie Darko shirt with black fingernails, Awesome- last year’s winner, the raver kid, the guy who made pedals and amps out of cardboard, and the guy who wore underwear as a bra with his head through the crotch. There were more, I just had to…drink.

Luckily someone compiled a montage:

About a third of the way into the first round, when the crowd was angry with some of the scores from the judges, Hot Lixx told us that we were free to throw things at the judges. For the rest of the evening, beers and things were being thrown up there, and Bjorn was hit squarely in the face at least twice. Marc retaliated at one point by ‘accidentally’ dropping a whole bottle of Boones, which luckily didn’t hit anyone.

After a short intermission, the top 5 scorers are announced: Awesome, the Donnie Darko guy, the Emo Destroyer, the underwear bra guy, and Dirty Airy. It was time to reveal the song that they would all have to air guitar to. At first, they played ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’, and we were all a little confused. And then it happened: Beat It.

It was the first time I’d heard an MJ song in public after his death, and I got a little emo. It’s crazy.

First up was the Donnie Darko guy, who busted out some MJ dance moves, and finished with lifting his shirt to reveal RIP MJ scrawled on his chest. I don’t know how he knew to do that, but it was there and that’s all that mattered. The crowd ate it up. Another memorable performance from the top 5 was Dirty Airy, who performed only wearing a sock on his manparts. I don’t know how it stayed there, because he sure moved around a lot. Funny to see everyone whip out their cameraphones for that part. The final performance was from Awesome, who came out wearing an MJ shirt that looked like he had been in possession of since he was twelve, from the Victory tour. Another amazing foresight. He just killed it- this guy was made for Air Guitar- which is kinda sad and kinda cool at the same time.

Awesome took home the prize- he’ll be going to DC to represent us in the US Championship in August.

The night ended with everyone onstage performing air Freebird. No, I didn’t get up there, but I busted out a little HRC air guitar for anyone who was watching.

Here’s me with Awesome last year, when he was still known as Shred Begley, Jr.

Sunn O)))) @ The Independent 8/8/09

Down, The Melvins @ The Grand 8/14/09

The Psychedelic Furs & Happy Mondays @ The Grand, 9/17/09

Children of Bodom @ The Grand 10/9/09

Plasmatics/Sex Junkie: Wendy O Williams just put it ALL out there.
The Plasmatics – Sex Junkie

Air/Sexy Boy: Not a huge Air fan, but have always loved this song.

The Faint/Worked Up So Sexual: One of The Faint’s great story songs.

CSS/Music is My Hot, Hot Sex: Also not a huge CSS fan, but this song makes me laugh, and is oddly true, bad translations and all.

Stone Temple Pilots/Sex Type Thing: One of the best STP songs.

Honorable Mention:

Revolting Cocks/Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?: RevCo covering Rod Stewart? Yes, please.

At $55 a pop, you can get one of your favorite lyrics on a basic tee. I imagine most of that must be for licensing the lyrics….at least that is my hope. Regardless, It’s a decent concept, a nice looking shirt, AND it comes bundled with 10 iTunes tracks.

The fact that U2’s “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” is a top seller says a lot about our society.