Sunday, April 09, 2006

News Du Jour : Big Aussie Surf & Canada's Killer Hits etc

On Friday night I was lucky enough to catch most of the Jeffrey Lee Pierce / Gun Club tribute happening down at the recently rechristened 5th & Folsom nightclub spot now known as Annie's Social Club in San Francisco. I say lucky enough to catch most of it, because even though I got their early by 9ish, in time to see Lil Tuffy autographing fresh silkscreened posters, but later I was so busy galavanting around the room all night and catching up with folks, occcasionally a I'd miss a quick cameo onstage or two.

One in and out notable was Eric Drew Feldman who I came around the corner to spot for a minute playing some keys with a pickup group featuring Chuck Prophet and some other Rock & Roll renegades. Back in the day as they say, Chuck had been to Jeffrey Lee's mom's pad off Sunset in LA to jam on the couch & was actually asked to join the Gun Club at one point.

Marcus Shelby Jazz Ensemble gave a unique & "horny" reading of a tune off The Las Vegas Story, and Rykarda Parasol & Colleen Brown did their eerie version of "She's Like Heroin To Me" before heading over to the photobooth. Corey Porter & The Subletters were in fine form, and Tom Heyman's band did "Jack On Fire" after Tom told a tale of meeting Jeffrey Lee Pierce backstage at The Peppermint Lounge in the early 80's. Douglas Arthur Hilsinger of Waycross/Bomb etc even showed up to play some impromptu covers of "Promise Me" & "Bad America" after finding out about the event only 24 hours earlier from an email I'd sent him. Don't know why Dougie didn't start up a jam with Pat McDonald from Timbuk 3 who was conspicuously lurking around & enjoying the show from the side of the stage.

There were just so many folks, and lotsa other special guests doing their fave Gun Club tunes all night until The Dwarves took the stage around 1 am and put the whole thing to bed with a blistering mini set including "Sex Beat", "For The Love Of Ivy" & a fiery version of "She's Like Heroin To Me" while He Who Cannot Be Named celebrated his 46th B-day...naked in a wrestling mask & rolling on the beer covered floor...

Congrats to Eric Moffat for playing, organizing & stage wrangling the whole thing... Indeed.
well done

then

it was good & loud & last call...

and onward we go...

Two cab rides later, I headed to a late night party with plenty booze, some wacky lighting, smoke machines, DJ's and good conversation on mobile phone interfaces with a GUI expert I dubbed Mobile Mike...

Then I realized I had to be at work by 8 am, and slpit to get home to shower & shave shortly after 5 am...

It was then, stationed behind the monitor, but with a global perspective available, I found some stuff on the interwebs today...

notes du jour:
With avian flu found on the isle, Britain's lifting it's requirement that organic chickens be free range.

Speaking of British birds , apparently Prince Harry, Charles & Di's wayward son turned up to oogle some at a Spearmint Rhino strip club enjoying lapdances & lager's with Army pals recently. The Scandal of it all ! Oh My !

Australia is apparently experiencing some of the biggest surf in 30 years... Some fishermen are feared lost at sea, and only the most experienced riders at Bondi Beach can brave these monster waves.

So that means ... Australian music moment


first up Australia's own Colin Hay , John Butler Trio, the legendary INXs, and a pub band called The Giants


Colin Hay (Men At Work)- Land Down Under ( live on Nashville's WRLT in 2004)

John Butler Trio - Ocean (live Aug 05 in Carson CA)

The Giants - Lone Rider

Inxs - Disappear ( Morales 12" Mix)

Now for a surf break...

Jon & The Nightriders - Storm Dancer

Torpedoes - Sea Legs

The Brimstones - Abandon All Hope Ye Who Surf Here

The Supertones - I Surf In Black

The Beach Boys - Feel Flows


The Lively Ones - Surf Rider

and it just gets weirder and whatnot in these waves...




Punch Drunk - Surf Devil

Rev Horton Heat - I Can't Surf

Nico - Surf Rap





Saw that Canada's new conservative government has added the Tamil Tigers to it's official list of terrorist organizations, and now any of Canada's 250,000 Sri Lankans who may donate to the rebel group could face legal penalties, up to a 10 year prison sentence. The Tamil Tigers, or LTTE, who hold the northeastern portion of Sri Lanka are especially known for suicide martyrs & bombing attacks, including one that took out female Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi in 1989. The U.S and Britain have already had the LTTE on their "sh*t" list for some time, but Canada has the largest population of of the Sri Lankans diaspora in the world.

Some Sri Lankan background, after almost 500 years of Colonial rule at the hands of the Portuguese, Dutch and British, the Buddhist Singhalese people took political & economic control of the island. The Sinhala people are the largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka, with the Hindu Tamils a minority who have been struggling for self determination. The largely impoverished North Eastern based Tamil Hindu's & Muslims who believe in reincarnation and martyrdom. They are challenging the military airstrikes & incidents of genocidal rage directed against their people, fighting a "war, that eventually could lead to their own state of Tamil Eelam.

Meanwhile in Ontario, the government can't even get a grip on the organized crime that seems responsible for a strange multiple murder scene in rural Ontario's rhubarb capital. The creepy crime scene has captivated the press, causing Canada.com ( "Where Perspectives Connect") to refresh us all in numerical order of victims, the names of the glorious culprits, of the all time worst murders in recent Canadian history....Oh, Boy! Let's go down memory lane....

-Fourteen women killed by anti-feminist Marc Lepine at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique engineering school in December 1989. Lepine wounded another nine women and four men and fatally shot himself.

-Thirteen people died after being herded into a storage room in Montreal's Gargantua nightclub in 1975. Some were shot but most suffocated when the building was set on fire in what was believed to be an underworld contract hit.

-Nine people gunned down by Mark Chahal, a spurned son-in-law in Vernon, B.C., who killed his estranged wife, her bride-to-be-sister and seven other relatives before killing himself in April 1996.

-Nine people slain in 1967 in Shell Lake, Sask., by Robert Hoffman, who was later sent to an Ontario mental institution.

-Nine miners killed by deliberately set blast in Yellowknife's Giant Mine in September 1992. Roger Warren, a striking miner, sentenced to life in prison for setting the bomb during a bitter strike-lockout.

-Seven people, including six children, murdered in 1965 by Leonard Hogue, a former Vancouver police constable, who then killed himself.

-Bodies of six campers found in burned-out car in Wells Gray Provincial Park north of Kamloops, B.C., in 1982. David Shearing of Clearwater, B.C., confesses.

-Bodies of four adults and a baby associated with the doomsday cult Order of the Solar Temple found in the burned-out remains of a chalet in Morin Heights, Que., in 1994. The couple believed responsible fled to Switzerland where they were among 53 cultists who were killed or committed suicide.

-Five people found dead on a farm in Abbotsford, B.C., in September 1996. Police believed the killings were related to the drug trade.

-Four employees killed at OC Transpo transit garage in Ottawa by co-worker Pierre Lebrun in April 1999. Lebrun, who had complained of ongoing harassment in the workplace, then killed himself.

-Four members of engineering faculty at Concordia University in Montreal gunned down in 1992 by Valery Fabricant, a disgruntled colleague sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 25 years.

-Three people killed by wild machine-gun fire in 1984 when Canadian Forces Cpl. Denis Lortie invades Quebec legislature. Lortie freed on day parole in 1995.

-Three people killed and a fourth injured after a botched robbery at a McDonald's restaurant in Sydney River, N.S. in 1992. Three men handed life sentences for the triple-slaying.

-Three shot to death in 1992 at Ontario Glove, a plant in Waterloo, Ont., by co-worker Patrick Dombroskie. He then drove to nearby Cambridge and surrendered to police.
© The Canadian Press 2006




it just makes me say ... Oh Canada.com ! Thanx for the memories !

here's an Icelandic/Canadian vegan musician moment from Mr. Thorir...

Þórir - Canada oh Canada (version II)



He's also in a thrash band called Fighting Sh*t who recorded the lovely tune "Girls Kick A$$".

Fighting Sh*t - Girls Kick Ass

Meanwhile I decided out of general boredom to toss in a few more random tunes for y'all ,

Ben Light & His Surf Club Boys - When You Gotta Go

Ben Light & His Surf Club Boys - Give It To Me Daddy

The Dwarves - Massacre

Pat McDonald - Strangelove




and now I gots to get back to work...

Friday, April 07, 2006

Gene Pitney passed away earlier this week...

He was a Connecticut native, born in 1941, who had his greatest success & popularity in Britain, travelling their after his first self penned hit in 1961. It hit #26 on the UK singles chart & just broke into the top 40 in the US.

Gene Pitney - I Wanna Love My Life Away

His early music is reminiscient of his contemporaries like Buddy Holly, Neil Sedaka & serves as an audio time capsule of a more innocent time.

Gene Pitney - Yesterday's Hero

Incidentally track was written by Vanda & Young circa 1964... Harry Vanda & George Young are actually a Scotsman & a Dutchman who became Australias best known songwriting duo, who scored some hits with their Sixties group the Easybeats. Most notably was Friday On My Mind, which has been covered by David Bowie, Peter Frampton, Gary Moore, and even Richie Scarlet, whose version I posted last week ... Anyhow, I digress as usual... Maybe we'll have to cover the Vnda & Young saga in greater detail since their streak includes ties to AC/DC , Flash & The Pan, Rose Tattoo, Inxs and numerous other groups over the years...

Gene was a Brill Building songwriter who even before his singing career took off, had written one of Ricky Nelson's biggest hits "Hello Mary Lou". He had been helped out initially by Burt Bacharach & Hal David, and later recorded some of their songs which became big hits like "The Man ho Shot Liberty Valance" and the classic "Only Love Can Break A Heart" which hit #2 in the US. At the time his recording was #2, he had written the number 1 song that week , "He's A Rebel" A Phil Spector production , recorded by The Crystals. All in all Pitney himself recorded 16 top 40 songs in the US from 1961 to 1968.



Gene's biggest popularity was in England, where he used the Rolling Stones publicist Andrew Loog Oldham to get his fame established, which has lasted there to this day. In the UK, Gene had 40 top-40 hits through 1974. He finally hit #1 in the UK in 1990, performing a duet with Marc Almond of Soft Cell. Pitney died on tour, reportedly of "natural causes", while fully clothed on his bed at a Hilton Hotel in Cardiff , shortly after performing a concert.



uh... anyway my weekend is starting & I just wanted to stop by & throw some Gene at ya...

which I did...

and now I feel like I can go...

& as long as Libby is squealing like a stuck capitalist pig...

here's sumpin' extra for ya...











Green Lantern w/ Dead Prez & Immortal Technique- Impeach The President

& if that's too nasty to play for your Mom...hey, maybe try the "clean" version

Green Lantern w/ Dead Prez - Impeach The President ( Clean Version )

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Doc Me Gently on The Celluloid Scene

I don't really mind checking out films now and then, in fact I helped contribute to the $70 million raked in at the boxoffice during Ice Age II sequel debut last weekend. Hey , I have a 7 year old niece... what else was I gonna take her too?

Basic Instinct II ?

But if it comes down to it, my real love is documentaries...

Docs like those that fill programming time on my fave satellite channels like FSTV, The Documentary Channel and The Sundance Channel's special Monday blocks of Doc Day. Yesterday I tuned the ol' DVR into the Sundance Channel, and I fattened the hard drive up with 2 1/2 hours of "The Corporation" plus a stirring and artistic glance upon the life of the Chilean socialist politician deposed in a Nixon era coup d'tat "Salvador Allende". Later I also checked out the great and largely unheralded "Overnight", a portrait of an egotistical brat bartender named Troy Duffy who was put on the cover of USA Today & Variety when his first screenplay caught the attention of Miramax in 1997. His big mouth soon got him in pre-production trouble, and his future was collapsing faster than his mouth could keep his whacked out wheels spinning. Truly an amazing cautionary tale, with tons of candid footage captured over a 5 year period that puts the shallow goals of most "reality" TV to shame. The documentary producers actually cut off contact with the blustery gun toting and disturbed Duffy to finish their film according to an article in LA's Citybeat (the last indie weekly in So Cal).

Two new schizo music relaed docs I'd like to catch include You're Gonna Miss Me, a Roky Erickson doc and The Devil and Daniel Johnston directed by Jeff Feuerzeig.


The folks behind the long running Other Cinema series at SF's Artist Television Access started a DVD releasing arm awhile ago, and man they've got some good stuff for those who like truly independent cinema and docs. Not only did they back the distribution of unique stuff from longtime series curator Craig Baldwin, but they've expanded the repetoire to assist other filmmakers reach a wider audience.

The latest is a film ( out this month on DVD) that intertwines America's fascination with psychedelics and the Internet with America's most maligned misanthrope, that disgruntled dropout known as Ted Kaczynski, aka The Unabomber...







The Net : The Unabomber, LSD, and The Internet -
preview Quicktime clip w/ David Gelernter



plus some music from the Das Netz soundtrack

Catched him (MP3)
Reflexion 8 (MP3)
Unabomber (MP3)




"This exquisitely crafted inquiry into the rationale of this mythic
figure situates him within a late 20th Century web of technology – a
system that he grew to oppose. A marvelously subversive approach to the
history of the Internet, this insightful documentary combines
speculative travelogue and investigative journalism to trace
contrasting countercultural responses to the cybernetic revolution."

"Circling through themes of utopianism, anarchism, terrorism, CIA, LSD, Tim Leary, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, THE NET exposes a hidden
matrix of revolutionary advances, coincidences, and conspiracies."

or as essayist David Cox writes :
"The Net revisits very, very familiar ground for those historians and media archaeologists like myself who have a vested interest in keeping the story “clean,” in which the good guys (artists, philosophers like Leary, Brand, Weiner, Fuller) are on one side and the bad guys (the evil CIA, the US Military, project MK Ultra et al) are on the other. Das Netz reveals that the truth could easily be that the two sides of the art-freak/CIA coin are really not so easily separated after all. Like the complementary opposites of the yin/yang, there's a piece of the dark side in the light, and vice versa."


more of David Cox's in depth & serious look is posted at the Other Cinema site

http://www.othercinemaDVD.com/net.html




Baldwin , the mad scientist who started the Other Cinema series is no slouch in the filmmaking dept, with his works confronting the miasmas of modern life via found footage collages and cut up techniques set aginst Baldwin's clever and oft comedic takes on conspiracies, corporate & political agendas and the hidden meanings in myopic modern mythology. My faves being'Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America' (1991) ,'O No Coronado!' ( 1992) and Sonic Outlaws ( 1995) which covered the legal travails of Negativland.






In other film related news... Billionaire NBA team owner & new media magnate Mark Cuban is warring with Comcast Cable Corp, and a local Bay Area filmmaker is caught in the crossfire. Read about the drama surrounding Caveh Zahedi's new flick "I Am A Sex Addict", which has been pulled from it's Landmark Cinema run in Berkeley due to Cuban's feud with Comcast & IFC. The outspoken founder of Broadcast.com is angry that Comcast cable won't carry his HD channel programming, and is set on blocking Caveh's flick from exposure in his Landmark theaters as a bartering chip.
http://www.indiewire.com/biz/2006/04/sex_addict_pull.html

In other cinematic legal scene news related to documentaries:

Steve Buscemi has filed a lawsuit against a Ft. Lauderdale based film distributor who basically went belly up and destroyed the viability of his documentary co-production on NY's late & not quite legendary lower East Side ne'er do'ell Rockets Redglare.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/13865718.htm


------------------------

speaking of fave ne'er do'ells & troubled junkies


My pal Parker is helping put together a night at Annie's Social Club this Friday in a tribute to Jeffrey Lee Pierce and The Gun Club. Mr. Eric Moffat, a nice guy with a questionable affectation for skanky junkie punk rocker worship, is organizing the musical assault on the stage. Moffat has done this type of thing before, and he's no doubt enlisted some suspicious types and luminaries to mine Mr. Lee-Pierce's back catalog. Amongst them I gather is my friend & part-time superstar Chuck Prophet, who has no doubt had occasion to know Mr. Pierce during their debauched daze of yore. Although Prophet lives, and is actually quite robust and healthy for an aging rocker dude, not so Mr. Pierce ( R.I.P since March 31st 1996)



If yer not familiar with the work of Jeffrey Lee and The Gun Club and their prodigious output on various labels throughout the eighties...ye have missed out a bit my friend. Pierce the consummate white boy rapscallion infatuated with the lonesome blues arose out of the sprawl of late 70's LA wasteland to create the "Fire of Love". He mixed the sputtering amateur night spirit of early punk with the timeworn imagery of the blues and it's connotations of mystery, inebriation, magick and sexual prowess with religious iconography, and good ol Hendrix inspired rock n roll.

I can still recall the first time I heard the band banging out Sex Beat in th early eighties, and the songs nasty personality & force still reels me over to this day. I totally recommend getting any of the early pre-1984 stuff in yer hot little hands if you want to hear a raw, rockin band ahead of it's time, dead set on destroying & saving rock & roll.

However, as time wore on, the Gun Club output didn't seem to retain that initial spark, and I mostly lost interest...

Needless to say Pierce himself did not fare well over time either, and within ten years of my discovering his music, he had become a bloated casualty of hepatitis C, HIV, cirrhosis, all no doubt brought on by his personal indulgences into needle freakiness and yukky stuff like that. I'd almost compare him to a west coast version of Johnny Thunders, except Pierce seemed to lack the sense of humor that kept Johnny rolling through the darkness. Perhaps Jeffrey starting believing his own mystic bullshit, or was just smarter than every one else. Either way... these things seldom end pretty...

For those interested in some Jeffrey inspired caterwauling, I will start with the obvious choices and add a few others as they occur or appear to me...

here's a very early sample of what young Mr. Pierce and his pal Kid Congo Powers were up to when they formed Creeping Ritual, a band name later rejected when Jeffrey's roommate Keith Morris of the Circle Jerks / Black Flag suggested a better moniker. Supposedly their early influences included War, Marty Robbins, as well as numerous old Rockabilly & Blues records Jeffrey reviewed for the Slash fanzine.

The Gun Club - Devil In The Woods

Slash records has the definitive 1981 era Gun Club tracks, released via Chris D's side imprint Ruby...and the best known from that prime era might be Sex Beat... all these below are produced by Chris D of The Flesheaters, and feature Ward Dotson on fierce slide geetar as Mr. Kid Congo Powers had already been stolen by The Cramps ...

The Gun Club - Sex Beat

but here's track from that same two day LP recording session where Jeffrey fires up his Baptist Preacher alter-ego

The Gun Club - Preaching The Blues

and aw heck , here are some more from the "Fire Of Love" release

Gun Club - Promise Me

Gun Club - For the Love of Ivy

Gun Club - Black Train

By 1982, Jeffrey had ended the brief association with indie Slash records, and released some things on Chris Stein of Blondie's label "Animal"... a younger, more innocent Pierce had been head of the Blondie Fan Club in LA, and was excited to put out the album "Miami", with major label distribution via the then hot Chrysalis. The songs were still dirty & bluesy, creating a harrowing atmosphere amidsts Pierce's growing derangement, but not the commercial breakthrough the label was counting on.

The Gun Club - Like Calling Up Thunder

The Gun Club - Carry Home

The Gun Club - Brother And Sister

the old Jody Reynolds composed title track for the last LP appears mysteriously on 'Miami', here's a live version...

Gun Club - Fire Of Love ( live version)

By 1984, the band released an EP called The Death Party

Gun Club - House on Highland Ave

After various lineup shifts had plagued the egomaniacal and difficult to work with Pierce, Kid Congo returned to the fold. While live bootlegs and unofficial demo recordings began circulating due to old band members vengeful attempst at recompensation for lost wages, Jeffrey & Kid Congo went to work, They followed up with a final attempt on Animal called "The Las Vegas Story" in 1984. While better received in Europe, in teenage America, the demographic that buys the majority of the records were unaware of bluesy and introspective dementia spouted by Pierce or his darkside compatriots mining similar turf like Nick Cave & The Cramps. "College Rock" like REM, Smithereens and whatever dance music was on MTV were more the rage, and The Gun Club were doomed to nothing more than underground status stateside. When The Gun Club came home to LA after their tour, Kid Congo recalls them playing to an almost empty club with 50 people, mostly friends present in the music industry capital of the US. After a period of exhaustion and frustration, Kid Congo left the Gun Club again to eventually settle in London, and later Berlin.

Pierce attempted to turn himself into a marketable commodity as a solo act, releasing Wildweed, an album on the French import only Statik label in 1985. The re-issue of this record 20 years later on Sympathy For The Record Industry supposedly even has a Flipper cover in the bonus tracks.

Jeffrey Lee Pierce - Love And Desperation







Jeffrey continued with a solo band, but pasted together a new Gun Club lineup as Kid Congo resurfaced after stints recording in Berlin with Die Haut, Einstruzende Neubaten and the Bad Seeds. It was discovered at a Ramones gig that that Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins was a fan and they began recording together with Robin as producer.

Jeffrey managed to get the resulting studio effort released in 1987 as "Mother Juno", and it was perhaps the bands last shot at success. Despite drawing well in big American cities, it was only released as another French Import only. This no doubt was among the reasons the band never broke out in the US, as the records were harder to find and more expensive than Jeffrey's beloved heroin. Bad omens abounded, like a big festival show cancelled due to riot in Greece, and more trouble including Jeffrey's increasing Cirrhosis of the liver dogging him since the 'Miami' era.

Sex Beat circa 1986 at Vera in Holland.
Gun Club - Sex Beat ( Live 1986)

With accompaniest Kid Congo growing sick of Jeffrey's depressing decline into ruin, he began playing more with more lucrative rival act Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. Kid Congo was entering a period of attempting to clean up, and quit booze, while Jeffrey was more or less pill popping, becoming unreasonable and drifted in a downward spiral during this period.

They continued to convene, and put out recordings in Europe mostly, like this bonus live cut from a soporific 1991 release, one of the band's final efforts before Kid Congo just drifted away and Jeffrey's health sunk ever deeper into darkness.

The Gun Club - Yellow Eyes (live)

Eventually Jeffrey returned to LA as his relationship with his bassist & lover Romi ended, and he was was deported from England. He began hanging out at The Viper Room, which was just up the street from his mothers house. At some point people cajoled Kid Congo Powers into joining Jeffrey onstage again and they decided to play a few one off shows, including one at The Viper Room and a benefit for a musician friend dying of Aids.

The Gun Club played their final show in December of 1995, and for one night only in SF this week, you can at least hear some of the music in a live setting, and possibly experience the sound that still makes them mighty memorable & even vital to this day...

Here's Mr. Parker Gibbs invite to you to attend:

As we all know, tributes usually suck major ass, unless they are tributes to hair metal bands, because, quite frankly, how can you fuck up something
that's already beyond retarded? This tribute, however, offers to be
memorable because of the talent involved and the love these people have for
one of this generation's most unheralded bands.

Jeffrey Lee pierce died ten years ago in a hot air ballooning accident over
the NAPA valley after leaving a corporate fund raiser for PETA. His balloon
was never found. Or he died alone and penniless after kidney failure from
hepatitis C. I can't really remember. All I know is I saw him at the I-Beam
back in the day (probably top five shows EVER) and it's shame that he is
dead.

Friday will be a celebration of the man, his band, and some of the best
talent in SF (see flier; I'm really not into giving any personal shout outs
for many reasons). There will be drink specials (order the Jack On Fire!, or
the Sex on the Beat!) and I'm pretty sure that there will be wine and hot
air balloon safety demonstrations. I'll be drunk. Audra will be mad. And
there is bound to be nudity.

Hope to see you all there, and if not, then come to the show and have the
balls to tell me to my face why you wouldn't want to attend.


Parker




psst...
The band have finally had many of their prime early works re-released by Long Gone John's Sympathy For The Record Industry imprint... which perhaps you should indeed check out...

The Gun Club - Ghost On The Highway

and here's one from a Kid Congo solo release

Kid Congo - You Hang The Moon For Me




Some Jeffrey Lee Pierce tribute and/or cover tracks

Enon - Sex Beat
Rykarda Parasol - She's Like Heroin To Me
Blondie - Under The Gun
Mark Lanegan - Carry Home

psst...Looks like Jeffrey Lee's former pardner Kid Congo Powers had a recent pre-SXSWparty with a Gun Club tribute in NYC last month.

hey, a great repository of Gun Club info is The Gun Club .net

oh,
also if you are a Nick Cave/Kid Congo / Gun Club fan, then you have no reason not to check out New York Night Train's in depth multi part oral history with Kid
------------------------------

and here's a few more things to keep us all busy, like that cool dude Enki , the Mongolian Beermaker and my friend Mike Dingle, who have got a special art opening happening on Thursday Night at The South of Market Cultural Center.

I'll let Enki tell ya in his native language... check the websites listed below for more info...

Sain baitsgaana uu?

Ih Mongol Uls baiguulagdsanii 800 jiliin oid zoriulan San Francisco
hotiin SomArts Gallery-d garah "Mongoliin Ih Guren" uran zurgiin
uzesgelengiin neeltiin ajillagaand ta buhniig hureltsen irehiig urij
baina. Ug uzesgelend Mongoliin shildeg 50 garui zuraachiin 100 orchim uran
buteel oroltsoj baigaa bogood Mongoloos zuraach D. Erdenebileg, Ga.
Monkhtsetseg, Ch. Khurelbaatar nar urigdan irj oroltsoh bolno.

Neeltiin uyeer Mongoliin Ih Gurenii tuhai erdemten professor D. Tumen guai
tovch taniltsuulga yaria hiij, hoomii, morin huuriin besreg toglolt bolno.

Neelt: 4 sariin 6 nii Purev garigiin 17:30-19:30 tsagiin hoorond

Hayag: SomArts Gallery, 934 Brannan Str, San Francisco, CA

Uzesgelengiin ajillah huvaary: April 6-27, 2006.
2-7 pm, Tuesday- Friday
1-5 pm, Saturday

www.artmongolia.com


SomArts.org

------------------------


amongst other happenings in the california zone ... my long lost silly pal Slater is coming through town with her band The Pretty Flowers... I'm not sure if she rocks a mean tambourine, yodels orgastically or what but here are some MP3'z to satiate yer curiosity and the days they'll be rolling through the Pacific Coastal zones...

tourdates below for the Pretty Flowers, the kings and queens of Tardcore, on their West Coast tour

4/8 Lava Lounge, Los Angeles
4/9 Knitting Factory, Los Angeles
4/11 Studio Z, San Francisco
4/12 Thee Parkside, San Francisco
4/16 Ash Street Saloon, Portland
4/17 IWW Hall, Portland
4/19 Funhouse, Seattle
4/21 Seattle Drum School, Seattle


http://prettyflowers.org/shows.html


Pretty Flowers - Knife Fight

Pretty Flowers - Little Bitch



Also my pals in the L.A based angsty poppy sugar punker band Underwater City People have been touring again throughout the southwestern & midwestern U.S zonas... So check em out if ya get a chance... they make a heroic return to Hollywood in May , but here's their tourdates until then & stop by their evil Underwater MySpace page and get informed....




Apr 7 2006 6:00P
Cesspool Castle-ALL AGES!!! Joplin, MO

Apr 8 2006 8:00P
The Boobie Trap-ALL AGES!!! Topeka, KS

Apr 9 2006 7:00P
The Bali Satay House Ames, IA

Apr 10 2006 9:00P
High-Noon Saloon Madison, WI

Apr 12 2006 8:00P
Punk Rock Wed at Club Underground Minneapolis, MN

Apr 13 2006 8:00P
The Riverwest Commons Milwaukee, WI

Apr 14 2006 6:00P
Live on the air KDHX with Tim Rakel St. Louis, MO

Apr 14 2006 8:00P
Lemmons St. Louis, MO

Apr 15 2006 8:00P
The Corral Room Madison, WI

Apr 16 2006 8:00P
Live on the radio Council Bluffs, IA

Apr 16 2006 10:00P
Ted and Wally's Ice Cream Shop-ALL AGES!!! Omaha, NE

Apr 17 2006 8:00P
O'Leaver's Omaha, NE

Apr 18 2006 10:00P
The Starlight-ALL AGES!!! Fort Collins, CO

Apr 19 2006 7:00P
Bico's-ALL AGES!!! Kearney, NE

Apr 20 2006 8:00P
15th Street Tavern Denver, CO

Apr 21 2006 7:00P
Club NVO-ALL AGES!!! Logan, UT

Apr 22 2006 8:00P
Jive-n-Java. ALL AGES!!! Fallon, NV


plus







Homecoming Gig
May 5 2006
9:00P


First Friday @ The Key Club-ALL AGES
Los Angeles, CA






http://www.underwatercitypeople.com

visit



pssst...Here's some bonus Mp3 action for all you complete post trollers

word is...another one bites the dust,

and it appears this time, 1960's British teen idol Gene Pitney has suddenly died while on a tour in England.

Gene Pitney - I Wanna Love My Life Away

I'll post some more Gene tracks, and bit more about him, when I have time to go home & bust 'em out...

Meantime, I gotta go... enjoy what ya got y'all