I'm Trying to Stay Calm Like a Bomb....

But that seems nearly impossible. Look, I'll admit it. I've become a little jaded by rock and roll. However, as it becomes harder and harder for me to be as excited about certain shows as other people, i'm always really excited by the prospect of another Coachella Festival. I've never been to this (now) three day musical endurance test in the hot Southern Californian desert, and though i've heard from first-hand accounts that the water costs an arm and a leg, that you can't bring in a whole bunch of your own stuff, and that it takes more time to walk in the herds from stage to stage than it does to sit through most of the bands' sets, i still want to go. Ever since i saw the Woodstock movie and started learning more and more about the legendary festival on Max Yasgurs' farm in 1969, i've been fascinated with music festivals. Even when subsequent Woodstocks have been considered hokey cash-ins on the legacy of a great festival, or misplanned nightmares that exploded with ritous abandon, it still seems like it would have been fun to be there when Green Day started a mudfight at Woodstock '94, or when Metallica, Korn, Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit, Megadeth, Insane Clown Posse, the Beastie Boys, the Offspring, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rage Against the Machine turned Woodstock '99 into a blazing inferno of pent-up adolescent boredom. Personally I blame Jewel, Alanis Morisette and the Brian Setzer Orchestra (they were there too).

People think i'm crazy when i tell them this. Not the blaming Jewel part, but the part about my actively wishing that i had been there during the riot that was Woodstock '99. I've always felt like i was born in the wrong era, that i missed one of the potential zeniths of human culture; i got the city right, just a couple of decades too late. Even though Woodstock '99 was not the positive, beautiful event that the original festival turned out to be, it was still a good example of modern youth culture and it's flaws. It would have been interesting to be part of a musical event that not only made major news headlines, but probably changed the way that modern music festivals are organized. Plus, i mean, how kickass was that lineup? Though my tolerance of bands like Limp Bizkit, Korn and Kid Rock has drastically dwindled as i get further and further from age 16, the sight of Fred Durst riding around on a two-by-four singing George Michael songs will most likely still be entertaining. Please enjoy these clips from Woodstocks past:

"F.O.D" by Green Day @ Woodstock '94


"Faith" by Limp Bizkit @ Woodstock '99


"Blind" by Korn @ Woodstock '99


"Seek and Destroy" by Metallica @ Woodstock '99


"Bulls On Parade" by Rage Against the Machine @ Woodstock '99





So, speaking of Rage Against the Machine...they're reuniting for Coachella this year. To be perfectly honest, Rage was a band that i really enjoyed when i was younger and angry for no reason, but as i got older the paradox of a band called Rage Against the Machine being carried by a major record label (ah-hem: the machine) began to dawn on me. My buddy Hans once said about Rage, "Man, them fools got millions of dollars. I don't need millionaires telling me about how my people are oppressed." Which would be a valid point, if the lyrics didn't so perfectly match the vitriol and heaviness of the music. I mean, Audioslave could and should have been one of the greatest rock bands to ever destroy the earth with rock. i mean the band from Rage and Chris Cornell from Soundgarden? When i heard that that was going to be a band in the wake of the demise of Rage Against the Machine, i was pretty excited. As it turns out, Chris Cornell is getting...um...less heavy...in his older years...at least musically, and the band behind him didn't sound like Rage or Soundgarden. To put it simply, Audioslave sucked. Balls. I mean even the name sucked, and even though they had the same design company as Pink Floyd do their album covers (btw Pink Floyds' album covers are some of the most iconic rock art ever. Period), even those sucked. "I Am a Highway," "Like a Stone"? Shudder.

So yeah, maybe there are some problems with their renegade image while they rake in millions of dollars. I'm sure that they're making bank just on their Coachella appearance alone, but they're also adding four shows to their tour in 2007, due to the fact that their headlining day at Coachella sold out in minutes and scalpers are charging rediculous amounts for extras. But it just gets better, because the shows they're playing after Coachella are on the Rock the Bells tour with the Wu-Tang Clan. Maybe Tom Morello will be right...maybe they will dismantle the Bush Administration by the time this tour is over, or at the very least a couple of arenas and amphitheaters near you. You might not agree with their motives, or politics, but i am so looking forward to this show because any time a band can inspire this much fervor in the public, any time that a band can incite riots at their shows by their mere presence and attitude, that shit is powerful, and you can't deny that. I mean, do you expect a fan-police confrontation at the next Bloc Party or Grizzly Bear show? I didn't think so. Here, have a pocket full of shells, you might need them.

Sometimes a job is just a job

When i tell people that i used to work in a pet store, most people's first reaction is to light up in delight at how much fun it must have been to live out the scenario in the song "How Much Is That Doggie In the Window?" They squeal at the prospect of being payed to play with little fluffy bunny rabbits (which we didn't sell) or puppies (which we also didn't sell) or kittens (again, no kittens either). You may be asking yourself, what kind of shitty pet store was this? See, the city of San Francisco has all these weird rules about about only being able to buy dogs and cats from licensed breeders and kennels, and not the Pet Connection at 31st and Judah. I mean, this was not a PetCo by any means, but we sold food, and cages, and aquariums, and we had a wide selection of fish, reptiles and rodents.

If you know anything about the geography and neighborhoods of S.F., the intersection i heretofore mentioned will bring up images of endless, pastel colored, post- WWII cookie-cutter suburbia smothered in fog. My main area of work was in the basement of this building, where i would knock my head against the pipes, train my peripheral vision to watch for mice and rats and hamsters that had escaped from the multitudes of cages that i had to move up and down stairs and clean every goddamn day, and resent the fact that even though San Francisco minimum wage was around eight dollars at the time, my employer had found a loophole in the law that helped small businessmen screw their employees by continuing to pay them the existing minimum wage, which was six dollars and seventy five cents an hour.

Did you know that it takes 80-100 chinchillas to make a fur coat, and that these animals clean that precious fur by rolling around in dust?

Did you know that picking 500 live crickets from an aquarium and trying to get them all into a plastic bag is just as hard as you think it is?

Did you know that mice and rats cannibalize each other?

I could go on for hours about how terrible that job was; i mean, they wouldn't even let me rock out to Sailing the Seas of Cheese and Purple Onion as hard (read: loud) as possible while I put my hands into some of the foulest things most of you can imagine. It robbed me of my soul so many times over i had to convince myself that i was still a decent human being every time i had to murder mice and rats. I would get on the N-Judah to go home after another four hour shift of cleaning excrement, urine and dead animal carcasses out of at least fifty or sixty animal cages, the stink of work still clinging to my clothes and hair, every muscle aching and cringing at the fact that i would have to do it again the next day, and you could see people being affected of a weird smell on the train. I was that guy when i came home from work. Smelly train guy. Ugh.

Sounds real cute, doesn't it? i'm telling you this because it prefaces what i'm about to talk about extremely well; people always carry expectations of certain occupations as being filled with wondrous delights, but when it comes down to it, sometimes a job is just a job.

These expectations are things that i failed to understand before i actually worked at a music venue. I would go to shows as a fan and see people who worked at the venues who walked around like they had Atlas' globe for a chip on their shoulder, and while i was still washing the blood of innocent rodents off my hands all they had to do was move the occasional case of beer or, oh, i dunno, sit on a stool for three hours while you get to listen to music performed by some of the greatest musicians in the world. I could not comprehend how you could have a bad night at work when you work somewhere like the Fillmore, or the Warfield, or the Great American Music Hall.

Now that i am one of those people, i can tell you that every night is NOT the greatest night in the history of live music, nor is every band going to suit your musical taste. I mean, to put it another way, i've had to sit through so many terrible versions of sixties and seventies radio hits performed by absolutely fucking terrible wedding cover bands. Or have you ever been to a metal show where all four bands sound like they're playing the exact same song, six songs a set, for four fucking hours?

The other thing that we take into consideration which is always a topic of consternation and conversation during and after the shows is how the general intelligence, showgoing experience, and common sense of an audience can completely change the attitude of the staff. Even though it's one of the greatest, weirdest jobs in the world, sometimes when you're holding a sixty-pound tray of food and you have to maneuver through a dark balcony full of chairs and drunk, dancing idiots who stand in the fire lane after you've told them that they can't stand there and who are completely oblivious to the fact that while they're there to have a good time there are also people in the building whose job it is to make sure that certain societal and federal laws are enforced, it's easy to forget that shit could be worse. Or on your hands. Sometimes the band guys are jerks, sometimes people are stupid, sometimes a job is just a job.

But then there are the times you have to ask Elvis Costello to please get out of your way so that you can deliver a basket of fries...and he apologizes to you. So, you know...strikes and gutters.

the Elephant in the Room

So last night, the mighty Dog Beaver played their eighteenth anniversary show at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. Dog Beaver is a random consortium of multi-talented fools who just so happen to play in a band that has played the Fillmore more than any other band in the universe. oh, and i'm in this band. Ratdog came on after us, and though i love the Dead, Bob Weir and Ratdog are the least interesting offshoot of the post-Jerry (can we say that after ten years?) era, but the poster, featuring the gigantic bow and arrow on the Embarcadero is awesome. ANYWAY, after playing the Fillmore, the venue that hosted my first rock show experience, i found this blog about the beurocratic goings on at Clear Channel/Live Nation...dig it.

Live Music Blog.com

Welcome, please open your bags and hold your own tickets...

hey there and welcome to the new and improved blog. blog. god, the more i say that word, the more it bothers me. it's like when you say any word over and over again, it starts to lose its meaning and instead becomes a sonic rubick's cube of annoyance for your brain. ANYWAY, the purpose of the redirection of this blog is to recount the various (appropriate and non-damning) stories of my experiences as a member of the staff at two of san francisco's greatest live music venues, the great american music hall and slims. these two shrines have hosted some of the greatest names in music throughout the years, and i get to do the fun part, dealing with the people, the fans. fans are the people who keep places like ours in business and they keep the music industry rolling along with new sets of ears to be exposed to new music all the time, but it also supplies the security with an arsenal of jokes and stories about all kinds of assholes and idiots, and i mean that in the nicest and friendliest possible way. i was working in the pit at a NOFX show at slims a couple weeks ago, and due to my freakishly large largeness, i was getting in a couple of people's way. normally, i'm extremely conscious of the fact that i'm gigantic and i let smaller people stand in front of me, but like i told her and all the other pissed off people around me, "hey, me and my security buddies are here to make sure that all these knuckleheads don't kill each other, and that we all have a good time." this seemed reasonable to me, but your average concertgoer seems to forget all reason and common sense when they've had a couple long island iced teas or high life's or whatever and they walk into a music venue. and sometimes i don't blame them. music venues are places where fantasy and unreality take over and people allow themselves to be transformed for a couple hours, it just sucks for the people who work there when you happen to transform yourself into a complete moron. Anyway, not only does NOFX rock, they also happen to be really nice people, so enjoy this clip of their show from the Roxie in LA, where apparently the security was so lax that the crowd could take video...just sayin'

Wynona's Big Brown Beaver--Primus