A Quick Aside: Victim's Family/Street Eaters at Cafe Du Nord 9/30/11

Victim's Family, Bay Area weirdo punk institution, is back and playing shows these days. Kelly Kaos, friend of the blog, decided to head over to Cafe Du Nord on Friday to check them out with Street Eaters. Here's what she saw...

As I walked up to Cafe du Nord on Friday night, I heard what sounded like a girl band already blasting out of the doors from downstairs. It was rather early and I hadn't expected the show to start right at the stroke of nine. I sauntered down into the club and discovered that Street Eaters had already taken the stage. What I thought had been a girl band turned out to be the falsetto of John Geek and his life partner, Megan, who was pounding the drums as if she a guy three times her size. For a two piece, they made a lot of noise. Attendance was sparse (it was still early after all) but the few audience members there to enjoy it were appreciative all the same.

Next up was a band called Two Headed Spy. They were more of a straight up rock group, who seemed fairly competent. I could see why they were booked with Victim's Family. They had a similar sorts of guitar licks between lyrics, kind of a swooping, if you will. I can't say I minded them all that much, but they weren't my cup of tea. I went outside to smoke.

At one point I thought that I saw my friend Janna, so I went up behind her to give her a hug and it turned out to be a woman I don't think I ever met, but she and I went with the pretense of it and we spoke to each other like we had met at Thee Parkside in the bathroom line or something. Now I have a new best friend called Belinda, who followed me around. Always make sure you know who you're about to hug.

Victim's Family, the band I came to see, lived up to the expectation. The crowd was pretty excited too. Many of their most rabid fans were there to pay respects to one of the most long-lived old school punk bands in the Bay Area. The combination of punk/jazz and funk via Larry's git-down guitar slappin' style and Ralph's frenetic intellectual lyrics was intoxicating to both the crowd and the band themselves. You could tell they were having a really good time. Ralph was sweating profusely and drummer Tim was banging it out while Larry preformed a never ending dance with his bass. It was sublime for a Victim's Family fan. Even Jello Biafra was there, not surprising because Ralph is also presently playing with Jello Biafra and the Guantamano School of Medicine. It seemed that the sound was better way in the back of the club, even though you wanted to be up front where the pit was going on. You could even really hear Larry slap that bass from the ladies' room.

I hung out with John Geek and Megan from Street Eaters after the show and John told me that The Fleshies (John's old band) have a show coming up at some warehouse in the Tenderloin on Dec 9th. Keep your eyes out for that. I know I'll be going.

-Kaos Kelly

We Got Totally Warped On Saturday and Had a Pretty Fucking Good Time!

Ah, the The Van's Warped Tour, how far it has come. The tour has evolved from an odd, smallish festival featuring Quicksand, a pre-famous No Doubt, Sublime with all members alive and breathing, L7, Seaweed, Sick of it All, CIV, and a young upstart band known as Deftones, to a multi-stage, sensory assault who's alumni has included such heavy hitters as Green Day, Weezer, Blink-182, Eminem, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, and more or less the entire Fat Wreck and Epitaph Records' rosters at various points over the years. It went from two stages, to what seemed like well over ten at one point in the mid 2000s, and now back down a "respectable" seven stages this year, still making you feel like you're in Las Vegas' hottest, loudest, most crowded casino as you attempt to navigate your way through the madness. Aside from the audio/visual over-stimulation, you are surrounded by thousands of kids between the ages of 10 and 22, which are OBVIOUSLY who I want to be spending any sort of afternoon with, right? Did I forget to mention that more often than not, you are in some sort of giant dirt patch or asphalt parking lot with minimal amounts of shade? Sounds like hell right? Tell me about it.

For all the shit often talked about Warped Tour, I always somehow manage to end up at it at least once, often twice a summer. More often than not, some friends of mine are on it, and there's usually one or two bands that are actually awesome on it, and a couple of guilty pleasure bands that people claim they don't like but secretly love. This year was shaping up to be just like the last, with Saturday's line up in Mountain View, CA boasting A Day To Remeber, August Burns Red, The Devil Wears Prada, Less Than Jake, Attack Attack!, Against Me!, Set Your Goals, The Acacia Strain, Winds of Plague, Moving Mountains, the EVER controversial Dance Gavin Dance, The Wonder Years, I Set My Friends On Fire, Unwritten Law, Lucero, Street Dogs, The Aggrolites, and Simple Plan. Only a handful of those bands are worth watching, and we ended up catching about six of them.

Our day started at what is normally the main stage in the ampitheater, but when Warped Tour comes through town, they split that stage into two smaller stages, this year called the Nintendo 3DS and Tilly's AP stages, respectively. These stages are often crossroads for bands. Usually they are split equally between bands well on their way to stardom (I saw Four Year Strong, Set Your Goals, and Miss Katy Perry herself on these stages in 2008), and bands plummeting to either their timely or untimely demise (Unwritten Law, Dance Gavin Dance, and Relient K were repping for the FAILBOAT this year). As far as these stages go at the Warped Tour stop at Shoreline, they're awesome because THEY'RE IN THE SHADE and if you don't have special wrist bands like we had, you can actually sit down and not be moshed to death by teenagers. Here's who we checked out in that neck of the woods this year.

Unwritten Law



Unwritten Law were part of that wave of skateboarder/surfer-oriented punk bands that blew up in the mid-90s. Their peers were bands like Blink-182, Dancehall Crashers, Fenix Tx, MxPX...you get the idea. If you're wondering why someone rocking a Kvelertak shirt on that specific day was even interested in checking these dudes out, well, nostalgia will make a man do crazy things. To be honest, early on in their career, they were pretty fucking good. They sort of walked the line between Green Day's adolescent innocence and Pennywise's limited aggression. Check out this banger:



That song is called "CPK" and as my boy Sergeant D over at the almighty Stuff You Will Hate blog will attest to, its the SHIT. So naturally, I was hoping for a sweet flashback to my younger days. That isn't too outlandish to expect, right? Welp, I was wrong. What Unwritten Law delivered was a thirty minute set of shotty, outdated songs (only one of which I recognized, "Teenage Suicide"), and frontman (and from what I gathered only original member) Scott Russo pitching rockstar-esque fits over gear malfunctions I've seen high school aged bands recover better from. While what I saw onstage Saturday was not the UL I grew up loving, I can't say that there weren't a (very) small contingent of fans there excited to see them, belting out every word. Apparently they've kept putting out records and all 60 people that bought them showed up to Mountain View that day. Needless to say, it was a sad sight, and an obvious omen that it's time for these dudes to wrap it up. The 90s ended eleven years ago, and Unwritten Law's relevance was arguably out the door even before the millenium ball dropped.

Moving Mountains



I discovered Moving Mountains when I came up on some tickets to see Say Anything in San Francisco. The other bands on that tour were some bullshit I didn't care about, but I decided to look into this random band I was unfamiliar with. I was expecting some sort of pop punk, whiny, fake emo bullshit that seems to be running rampant throughout suburbs across our great country, but I couldn't have been more off. Moving Mountains play throwback 90s indie emo with the complexity of and as captivating as Sunny Day Real Estate or Braid, but put through a shoegazer-ish filter evoking comparisons to My Bloody Valentine, Ride, or Cerberus Shoal. The band's first full length, Pneuma, was chock full of horns and additonal vocalists which made for an outstanding record that flowed seemlessly from one song to the next, but left me wondering how they would address this sound live, because there was no way they were taking that many people on a van tour.

I ended up missing the Say Anything show they were on, but caught them on tour with that shitty Biffy Clyro band that only people in the UK seem to care about. That night at the Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco, Moving Mountains completely blew me away and when their set ended, it was the first instance in a long time that I wished a band would have kept playing. Seeing them added to this years Warped Tour line up got me fucking siked, and I was ready to watch them turn heads and potentially steer some impressionable teenager away from listening to some shitty band like Black Veil Brides or Of Mice & Men. Moving Mountains did not disappoint. Their swirled through a thirty minute set comprised mostly of songs of their new record Waves (which is a banger and needs to be up in your mix ASAP), and "Cover The Roots Lower The Stems" from Pneuma. The band sounded just as full and dynamic as they do on record, and persevered through guitar straps breaking due to their dramatic yet genuine body movements their music drives them to do. If you appreciate 90s melodic emo, indie rock, or shoegaze, you need to be up on Moving Mountains.







Lucero



To be honest, I was surprised to see Lucero as an addition to the 2011 Warped Tour. I have been a fan of the band for well over seven years and throughout that time, have seen them sell out several respectably sized venues in the Bay Area, and seen them be major draws on Austin, TX's Fun Fun Fun Fest, as well as supporting such heavy hitters as Against Me! and Social Distortion. Their folky, americana tinged punk is definitely not what the young ones seem to be interested in these days (especially judging by some of their fashion choices). To anyone with ears that work, it is rather obvious that Lucero are a band with a much older audience than the average Warped Tour alumni, and knowing that, it was puzzling to see them participate knowing that they probably wouldn't be on a "huge draw" stage there. What's in it for them? Some secrets never leave their circles. Naturally, being on the older spectrum of Warped attendees, I wasn't about to miss them.

The band started out their set with my favorite song, "That Much Further West", but it was cut short due to some sort of bass technical issue. Oddly enough, it was via technical issues that the crowd was able to see how much more of a real band Lucero is versus many of their peers on the Tilly's/AP stage, much less the entire tour. While techs scrambled to fix the issue, frontman Ben Nichols lead their pedal steel and keyboard players in a song that didn't require bass, never losing the attention of the audience. Eventually, the bass issue was resolved, and the band resumed their set as if there hadn't been any issue with the bass rig while the ampitheater seats continued to fill with curious onlookers. One thing noticeably absent from their stage set up was a set list, and at when a fan yelled out "Kiss the Bottle", Nichols said "All right, we haven't done that on this tour. Let's give it a go". Nichols called off the famous, heart-wrenching Jawbreaker song and played arguably better than Jawbreaker did. Their allotted half hour seemed to end all too abruptly, proving that Lucero's real home is headlining a stage in a dark club rife with cheap beer and decent whiskey, not in a sparsely full ampitheater playing to curious onlookers while 3OH!3 is annoying the world from across the parking lot.

After this, we moved over to the Advent Stage, which is stage of bands that could probably hold their own on the main stage, but bring the mosh a little too hard, or are at least a little too aggressive for the average high school student with a stupid haircut. Some of the bands we didn't care to see on this stage were Miss May I, Of Mice & Men, Woe Is Me, Black Veil Brides, The Word Alive, and We Came As Romans. Sitting in the hot sun and baking seems less torturous than enduring any of those bands. However, the Advent Stage wasn't completely devoid of talent or at the very least, entertainment. Here's who we caught.

Winds of Plague



I have to be honest. I would barely consider myself a fan of Winds of Plague. I always saw them as a watered down version of Bleeding Through(right down to the gothy female keyboardist) with corny lyrics and Southern California "bro dude" posturing. Then I saw this video...



IS THAT NOT THE AWESOMEST SHIT YOU HAVE EVER SEEN IN YOUR LIFE? This is probably the greatest Madball song written in years. The mosh parts are just stupid heavy, the lyrics are over the top aggressive, and the video homage to bands like Biohazard and Life of Agony are TOO GOOD not to like. So upon discovering this only days before going to Warped, I was fucking siked. I was ready to mosh hard for the state I call my home...

...BUT THEY DIDN'T EVEN PLAY THE FUCKING SONG! WHAT THE FUCK, BRO? How does a band leave by far its greatest musical accomplishment ever off of the set list on a tour that has them playing to thousands of aggressive youths everyday? I know the song has vocals from Martin Stewart of Terror and the guy from As Blood Runs Black, but cmon, is it that hard for Johnny Plague to handle on his own? NEWSFLASH WINDS OF PLAGUE: SEIZE THE MOMENT AND PLAY THE BEST SONG YOU'VE EVER WRITTEN WHEN YOU'RE PLAYING A BIG DEAL FEST LIKE WARPED TOUR. The kids were into their other stuff, but no other WOP song would have opened the floor up as much as "California" would have. Not the "I don't fear evil, evil fucking fears me" song, nor whatever other Bleeding Through leftover song they polished up and called their own. The only other notable parts of their set were a rather questionable sample of Barack Obama saying "The United States has killed Osama Bin Laden" (don't get me wrong, that was a gigantic moral victory for New York and Bin Laden himself was an asshole, but using that sample to get mosh pits pumping harder strikes an odd chord with me), and the female keyboardist's unusual playing stance that more often than not had her nearly bent over with her hair whipping (I'll let your imagination fill in the blanks on that one). I more or less sat through a half hour of unimaginative mosh metal for one song that wasn't even played. Uber bummed on that.

Set Your Goals



Yeah, I know we reviewed their new record Burning At Both Ends last week and loved it. So knowing that, did you really think we WEREN'T going to watch them wreck shop at Warped? I mean c'mon, this site is run by a dude. Dudes are predictable. Needless to say, when Set Your Goals hit the Advent Stage (and hard, might I add), not only were we there rearing to go, but so were a couple of thousand kids who instantly went ballistic as drummer Mikey Ambrose counted the band in and lead them into Burning's opening jam, "Cure For Apathy". The next half hour saw the Advent Stage turn into a trampoline for the band as they went through "Echoes", "The Fallen", "Summer Jam", and the new single, "Certain". As Set Your Goals got deeper into their set, the crowd seemed to go even more wild, with the stream of kids rolling over the top of the crowd and over the barricade becoming more rapid and the mosh action getting so out of hand that at one point, a fight erupted that from what I gathered, security did not come out on top of. The band closed their all too short set with the anthemic "Mutiny" (a rather ironic choice after watching a security guard get his ass handed to him by the crowd), during which the frenzied crowd energetically surged one final time before the band retired to their merch tent for autographs, photographs, and hugs for fans.




Bands we sort of saw, but didn't see enough to really review, but we will be checking out again at the August stop in Sacramento:

Bad Rabbits



A band who can cover Michael Jackson this well is on some next level shit. We caught them while we were waiting in line for our passes, but that half-focused look was not nearly enough to make a proper judgement on them. However, based entirely on their Stick Up Kids EP and this cover, this band is probably primed to be gigantic.

The Acacia Strain



These dudes are heavy as fuck, did some dates with our good friends in Disembodied a few months back, and also brought our friend Jesse from The Wrath up to do guest vocals. However, I had go to play dance music in Oakland later that night and needed some downtime, so we took off during their set. However, the amount of shit they were talking on Black Veil Brides (who directly followed them on that stage) was enough for me to know that I will be needed to investigate these dudes closer in August.

The Wonder Years



I'm a sucker for good pop punk, and these dudes do it. Don't really have much more of a reason than that.

Thank you to Matt and Set Your Goals for getting us in and being gracious hosts. We will be checking out the Sacramento date August 11th because its obvious that we missed some gems Saturday.

Playlist from Happy Hour at the Ruby Room with B-Moss 6/26/11

Set 1:
Bison BC - Slow Hand of Death
Red Fang - Prehistoric Dog
Witch Mountain - Wing of Our Lord
Ted Nugent - Stranglehold
Pentagram - When The Screams Come
Norma Jean - Memphis Will Be Laid To Waste
Saviours - We Roam
Mercyful Fate - Evil

Set 2:
Hostage Calm - A Mistrust Earned/Rebel Fatigues
Shook Ones - So Grown Up
Living With Lions - A Bottle of Charades
Descendents - Cameage
Joyce Manor - Constant Headache
Piebald - American Hearts
Anne - Stripping
Screeching Weasel - El Mozote

Set 3:
Lil B The Based God - Like A Martian
Notorious BIG/Method Man - The What
Tyler, The Creator/Frank Ocean - She
Pete Rock and CL Smooth - T.R.O.Y.
Lil Wayne - 6 Foot 7
Young L - Loud Pockets
Kool Keith - Make Up Your Mind
Earl Sweatshirt - Drop
Trash Talk - Explode
Rotting Out - Laugh Now, Die Later
Modern Life Is War - D.E.A.D.R.A.M.O.N.E.S.
S.O.S. - Keep Me Outside

Set 4:
White Zombie - Thunderkiss 65
Alice In Chains - Would?
Pantera - I'm Broken
God Forbid - Anti Hero

The Healing Power of Punk Rock: Santa Rosa's Siren Reunites To Fight Cancer

I moved to San Francisco in 2005 after spending a few years being a tour lackey for a couple of different metal hardcore bands. My first (and only) job in the "City by the Bay" was working in the bakery of one of "America's Largest Natural Food Store" (I am leaving out the name of this company, but it shouldn't take a genius to figure out who my employer was). For the first three months of my five year sentence at that company, I was an average, run of the mill treat bitch. I boxed cakes, baked bread, and took a lot of shit from uppity Pacific Heights residents who couldn't handle the fact that the strawberry chiffon cake was made with conventional, not organic, strawberries (like I had any fucking say in what went into our cakes at that point in my grocery store career). One day while stacking cookies, stocking cake slices, or some other mind-numbing, menial task, I noticed three heavily tattooed gentlemen shopping for what appeared to be lunches they were taking back to their office. They approached the bakery counter and began to eyeball the vegan cookies. I offered to help them, and as I handed one of them their vegan treat, my white chef's coat sleeve rode up, exposing my Jawbreaker "I Kissed The Bottle" tattoo on my right forearm.

"That's a pretty awesome tattoo, but its not quite as cool as this guys," said the shortest of three sleeved up dudes as he pointed to the tallest of the group, sporting a beard and an obvious resemblance to the speaker. The tall, bearded guy pulled up his pant leg, exposing a tattoo of two rabbits with "Jinx Removing" underneath them in a banner.

"Whoa...that's fucking awesome," I uttered, feeling somewhat like a dumb fanboy and cursing myself internally for saying something that seemed so teenage girl-esque and void of intelligence.

And that was how I met Kevin McCracken.

Kevin was the shorter, bespectacled gentlemen who noticed my tattoo, while his younger brother, Kerry, actually had the Jawbreaker tattoo that bested mine. As months went by, Kevin and I would chat about punk and indie rock whenever he would come into the store for groceries, and soon enough we began running into each other at shows around town. Eventually, Kevin asked me to play guitar for the band he drums for called Aim Low Kid, a dynamic indie rock outfit not unlike Modest Mouse or Built To Spill (I eventually proved to be a little too "extreme" for the band, and bowed out of my guitarist position after a few months). During my time in the band, Kevin and I grew to be great friends. I became friends with his wife, Nicole, as well as his parents Tom and Maureen. In more recent times, Kevin's non-profit screen-printing company, Social Imprints would hire me on as a merch dude for the Noise Pop Festival in San Francisco, and because of our friendship, I am lucky enough to know his adorable infant daughter, Kaitlin.

In 2010, Kevin's wife Nicole was diagnosed with breast cancer. Breast Cancer that needed chemotherapy and surgeries to treat. I was devastated by the news. Not that I think anyone deserves to get cancer more than anyone else, but Nicole, a vegan yoga instructor who treats her body and health better than I've treated any possession I've ever had in my life getting breast cancer? What kind of fucked up world do we live in? Kevin, being the stand-up, motivated individual he is, instantly shifted his intense focus and uncanny ability to make things happen/get shit done onto his wife's well being. He started a Facebook group to keep friends and family informed of Nicole's progress and well-being. Nicole utilized both traditional medical treatments for cancer, as well as holistic and natural options as well. So far, Nicole has been responding well to treatment, and things appear hopeful.

However, cancer is expensive, both emotionally and monetarily. They, like any family going through a tragedy like this one, need help through this incredibly trying time. Kevin has deep roots in the Bay Area punk scene, most notably as the drummer for Siren, a melodic hardcore band from Santa Rosa who were most active around the Bay in the mid-90s. While they may have never achieved the notoriety of some of their peers like Rancid, Jawbreaker, or AFI, they had the respect of those who were fortunate enough to see them in their heyday, and kept a cult-like following of what are mostly now aging Bay Area punks who may have traded in cut-off dickies for slacks, but kept the spirit and values with them as they matured in life.



I never caught Siren live when they were around (I was merely teenager growing up three hours away from Santa Rosa and two hours away from San Francisco or Berkeley, so getting to every show every weekend proved to be a challenge). Kevin sent me four songs he had digitized that hadn't graced my ears in probably fifteen or so years. I can honestly say that Siren still sound fresh and relevant in 2011. Melodic, driving hardcore never really went out of style, and if anything has had new life breathed into it via bands like Set Your Goals, Title Fight, and Shook Ones. While the newer, younger bands may have touch more ferocity and speed to them, Siren would easily hold their own on a line up with any of those bands, if not outshine them in terms of passion and ability achieved only through maturation and life experience.



In the face of tragedy and hard times, coming together is the first step towards getting through the turbulence. Punk may evolve sonically, socially, and aesthetically every five to ten years, but punks helping each other overcome struggles and challenges has and forever will be one of the most important aspects of this counterculture that continues to thrive even though it has come so far from where it began. The McCracken family needs help. so it was time to get the band back together...



Saturday June 25th, Siren will reunite as part of a benefit show for the McCracken family called Music Heals Nicole at The Phoenix Theater in Petaluma. In addition to Siren, the show will feature sets from The Velvet Teen, Cropduster, , and The 50/50's. There will be a silent auction as raffle prizes all attendees have a shot at winning, and of course, all of the evening's proceeds will be put toward the McCracken Family's fight against Nicole's cancer. Tickets to Music Heals Nicole are $25 each and are well worth it seeing as how you're getting an evening of incredible music, and also because your money is going to help one of the greatest families in the Bay Area battle through an incredibly trying time in their life.

Kevin and Nicole McCracken, along with their daughter Kaitlin, are three of the most special people I've had the privilege of getting to know throughout my 31 years on this planet. Over the years through their careers, friendships, and Kevin's music, they have touched the lives of many people in need, giving hope and a chance to those who thought they had neither. Now they're in need of some extra support, so let's make sure they get all the help that's available to give. If you are in the vicinity of Petaluma, or the Bay Area Saturday night, please make your way to the The Phoenix and take part in Music Heals Nicole. It's not often that bands reunite for worthwhile reasons, especially bands as awesome as Siren. Help a family in need by enjoying an evening of incredible music and extraordinary friendship.