Happy Industrial Monday w/ VNV Nation, War Tapes, and Ayria @ The Grand, 6/29/09

by hardrockchick [about 8 months, 15 days ago.]

It was a warm Monday evening in SF. I walked into The Grand, which was surprisingly empty. I thought this show might fit well as a finale to Pride Weekend.

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.

wartapes

wartapes2

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:

VNV

The crowd busting out lighters for a VNV style ballad:

lighters

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.

Genre(s): My Musical Adventures

2374Comments (0)2009-06-30+20%3A36%3A47hardrockchick

The Kids Are Alright ~ Warped Tour SF @ Pier 30/32, 6/28/09

by hardrockchick [about 8 months, 17 days ago.]

It was my first Warped Tour. My dislike for festivals reaches far back into my youth, when I was the target demographic for this event (12-16 year olds would be my guess). The only exception I made was a couple of Ozzfests- because I heart Ozzy. Of course, I was total jailbait at those, but that’s another story.

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…

Genre(s): My Musical Adventures

2361Comments (6)2009-06-28+19%3A32%3A25hardrockchick

Make Air Not War – The U.S. Air Guitar Regionals/SF Golden Gate @ The Independent, 6/26/09

by hardrockchick [about 8 months, 17 days ago.]

As I get deeper and deeper into making HardRockChick a legitimate website, building up my own credibility as a writer that bestows music insights upon you, I feel a little weird about still going to see Air Guitar.

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.

Genre(s): My Musical Adventures

2355Comments (1)2009-06-28+07%3A41%3A13hardrockchick

Rockin’ You Soon: Sunn O))), Down, Psychedelic Furs, Children of Bodom

by hardrockchick [about 8 months, 18 days ago.]

Sunday @ 10a:

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

Genre(s): Rockin' You Soon

2349Comments (0)2009-06-27+01%3A32%3A54hardrockchick

Rock Out SF: Air Guitar, Warped Tour, VNV Nation, Pentagram

by hardrockchick [about 8 months, 18 days ago.]

Friday-June 26: U.S. Air Guitar Championships- SF Golden Gate Regional @ The Independent
Saturday-June 27: Warped Tour @ Pier 30/32
Sunday-June 28: ——
Monday-June 29: VNV Nation @ The Grand
Tuesday-June 30: ——
Wednesday-July 1: Necrophagist @ The Grand
Thursday-July 2: Pentagram @ DNA Lounge

Genre(s): Rock Out SF

2347Comments (0)2009-06-27+01%3A23%3A19hardrockchick

Top 5 Sex Songs

by hardrockchick [about 8 months, 19 days ago.]

Songs with ‘SEX’ in the title.

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.

Genre(s): Lists

2343Comments (0)Top+5+Sex+Songs2009-06-26+06%3A24%3A23hardrockchick

rock and shop: i/denti/tee

by hardrockchick [about 8 months, 19 days ago.]

i/denti/tee: “music tees for music lovers”

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.

Genre(s): Things to Spend Money On

2339Comments (4)rock+and+shop%3A+i%2Fdenti%2Ftee2009-06-26+04%3A09%3A17hardrockchick

Metal to My Ears w/ Isis, Helms Alee @ GAMH, 6/23/09

by hardrockchick [about 8 months, 21 days ago.]

I’m driving through the Tenderloin, dodging crazy people who wander into the streets, looking for parking. I have two spots stolen from me, and am heckled on the street as I walk to the venue. But stepping into the Great American Music Hall makes it all go away (as does the bartender’s extremely stiff drink).

I’ve missed the first band, but Helms Alee is setting up as I take my spot at the right corner of the stage. This three piece from Seattle consists of a male guitarist/vocalist, a female bassist/vocalist, and a female drummer. I look around and notice that this crowd is particularly male dominant- and I wonder how well this will go over. The girls are chatting on stage before they start- the bassist comments about how the straps to her shirt keep falling off her shoulder. Hmmm….The band begins playing, their dreamy metal somehow not filling up the venue. The pieces just don’t all fit together- the vocals in particular really bother me. The crowd is being polite…except for this one guy. He keeps yelling, in an English accent I think, “come on now!”, as if that is going to make them perform better. Now, I may not like what I am hearing, but you never, ever do that. The band did a good job of ignoring it. At one point the drummer poured water over her head- just a tiny bit, like a metal baptism. I kept thinking about how it is cool that this fairly beefy guy is in a metal band with two girls, and how I wish I liked it better. Oh well.

I will share a very personal story that will explain why I’ve never seen Isis before, and only recently started listening to them. I had a cat named Isis when I was in my early 20’s. I was also dating and living with this psychotic asshole. He used to hurt my cat when he got mad at me. One day, my cat mysteriously fell ill and I had to put her down at barely over a year old. I have my suspicions. So, I just had a really hard time having any connection to a band I knew I would like simply because I couldn’t bare to be around that name.

Moving on….Isis takes the stage a little after 10pm. They mention that the set is dedicated to their tour manager, who is going through a tough time. As they launch into their first song, I am taken aback by how clean and perfect the sound is. When I go to see a band like this- technical, melodic metal- I always worry a bit that it will sound as good live. Especially in comparison to the previous band, and even in light of my never ideal side of stage and close to a speaker location, their sound is immaculate.

The five piece look as I would expect a technical metal band to look like. Most of them are unassuming, in t-shirts; the lead singer, bearded and looks in need of a meal; and the man behind the electronics, playing the occasional guitar, a young Dio dressed in an Egyptian-esque tunic- the only semblance of a ‘costume’ in the band.

The floor erupts next to me as the boys start slamming into each other. The band is able to gracefully transition from what is almost like metal elevator music in the best possible sense, to very heavy stuff complete with growled vocals. That heckler tries to start his shit again, but somebody shut him up. Most of us are swaying in our spots, geeking out watching these guys geek out on stage.

During the second song- ‘20 Minutes/40 Years’, one of their heavier songs (and also one of my favorites)- some shirtless guy jumps onstage and looks like he is about to cause trouble. There probably should have been a barrier for this show. He ends up jumping back into the crowd on his own accord.

Aaron Turner can easily maneuver screaming to singing to the point that I thought there might be two people sharing vocal duties. When he sings, he has a velvet voice that sounds oddly similar to the vocalist for 311. It’s pretty impressive. When he plays the guitar, he gets very close to those in the front row, banging his head close to the tops of theirs, as if showing mutual adoration through their metal body language.

If anyone ever doubted that metal can be beautiful, they’ve never heard this band. While comparisons to Mastodon and Tool are abundant, Isis manages to avert any menacing edge, without losing their heaviness. It’s a delicate balance to provide a soundtrack for a positive trip- I was lost in the music, and never drifted into a bad headspace once.

There was a guy in the crowd who kept doing an ear piercing whistle between songs. It was really irritating. He would do it, and then look at his female companion and chuckle. I don’t understand this behavior- is this a football game? No.

I couldn’t help but notice some cute stuffed animal perched on a speaker- a very fat cat or something. It was oddly out of place, but actually made me smile when I noticed it.

They played for about an hour and a half, coming back out to perform ‘Celestial’, my other favorite, for an encore (and thanking the staff of GAMH- these guys seem very nice and polite). Because their songs are all quite long, the set felt short, and I think many of us left wanting more. This is never a bad thing.

Afterward I picked up this beautiful poster to add to my collection.

OVERALL: 9/10
Isis performance: 9.25/10
Helms Alee performance: 5/10
venue (GAMH): 9.5/10
crowd/scene: 7.5/10
value ($16.00/ticket): 9.5/10
memorable: 8.5/10

Genre(s): My Musical Adventures

2332Comments (3)2009-06-24+19%3A00%3A03hardrockchick