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Friday night in San Francisco, I got stuck working late which forced me to miss band practice, eat a completely nasty dinner in Millbrae, then crawl my way up the 101 back to the city. Once again, as the sun set, I saw the famous San Francisco fog completely engulf the peninsula and I couldn’t wait to get home, get high and pour myself a stiff drink. Now what could get me out of the house on a chilly foggy Friday night after a long and tedious work week? A booty call? Perhaps. My dog crying for a walk? Most definitely. A local bands record release? Not so much, but when that band is the Passionistas you can count us in.
The Passionistas are like rappers in the sense that they know they’re the best and like rappers even if they aren’t the best they’re still going to boast that they are the best because that’s what you do. Well our hopes for this show were high. We saw Passionistas open for Hard Place in L.A. and we liked what we saw. They were young and cute and they told everybody in the audience to fuck off. Since then, we’ve become familiar with their material posted on MySpace and we liked it. When we heard the Passionistas debut album “God’s Boat” was recorded and produced by Kelley Stoltz (if we have to tell you who he is go buy a copy of Mojo Magazine and then go fuck yourself) we were excited for us as fans and for them as a great band who deserve to be seen and listened to.
Well Friday night at Cafe Du Nord we come to find out that we actually are on the guest list (yay for Shameless in San Francisco!) and that we missed the first band, The Specs. However we were lucky enough to catch the Dilletantes featuring Joel Gion of BJM fame and we dug it. O.K., we were into the paisley underground in the early 80’s so we like the psychedelic pop sounds that are a prominent influence with the band, plus they had an energy about them. Joel’s poses and tambourine playing are the stuff of legend. I think they are much better than the Brian Jonestown Massacre who always had a faux fey British thing going on, whether it was Stone-sy blues, mimicking Spacemen 3 or wanna-be Oasis. When Joel sings he brings in shades of Lou Reed and Modern Lovers era Jonathan Richman, his own unique sense of humour and style and melds it all together with his British influences. The band, especially guitarist Jefferson Parker, bring in other uniquely American sounds like Byrds guitar and the punk jingle jangle of Arthur Lee and Love. There’s nothing new going on here but they were a pleasant surprise and did a good job of warming up the crowd and making the music their own.
Awesome, time for the big event. Just from the stage props alone we can tell the the Passionistas went all out for their record release party. Helium balloons shaped like pizza slices and rainbows and a flag designed for when the band eventually form their own country adorn the stage. We quickly make our way up to the front. The band take the stage and begin with a punk number “God’s Boat” slightly reminiscent of early B-52’s Kleenex/Liliput and they have Kelley Stoltz on the drums. He sounds good but we weren’t prepared for the bit of theater we were about to witness. Between songs the band announces that their drummer had to go to Modesto to attend his little sister’s graduation (aww) and they thank Kelley for filling in. The Passionistas sound great, alternating lead vocals between Myles Benham-Cooper (was he born with a hyphen?), on songs like “One Foot On A Banana Peel” who at times sounds suave, think Bid (circa early Monochrome Set 1975) or Beach Boys with shades of Velvet Underground and Aaron Mayfield-Sunshine (again with the hyphen) on his numbers “So Rock & Roll” and the title track “God’s Boat”, Sunshine is responsible for a more herky jerky post punk feel with yelps and lots of start/stops. It a good combination that works well for the band who at times reach an absurd level of Beefheart/Yoko Ono inspired insanity. To everyone’s surprise mid-song the drummer comes running in from his trek back from Modesto, throws off his backpack, grabs the drumsticks from old man Stoltz and gets down to business nary missing a beat, bringing the overall energy level up way past 11. Now the band really starts rocking. You can’t plan stuff like this, it made everyone in the audience smile and the party was on.
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How can these young kids reference all the rare great DIY music of the late 70’s. At times the music they were playing could easily fit onto a Messthetics compilation (Steppes, TVP’s) or Crippled Dick Hotwax’ excellent “7-up Singles” comp (I-jog & the Tracksuits, Jerry and the Holograms). Do they have vast record collections? or are they just kids who like Mariah Carey and Rap? Kids who aren’t the most skilled musicians in town, kids who write about stuff that’s important to them (be it grandma or goin’ gay). It is this crowning, unskilled approach which makes their music come completely out of left field (especially when compared to what else is happening in San Francisco these days), recorded somewhere on God’s Boat floating in the middle of a vast ocean surrounded by nothing, creating something fresh, unique and new. This sophisticated release bodes well for the brand new “New & Used Records” label. We liked the Passionistas performance so much, we bought a CD.
Next up on the bill, Mr. Passionistas producer himself Kelley Stoltz. Here’s the good part, a lot of Kelley Stoltz fans were in the audience, the place was packed and we were happy that the Passionistas had a good crowd for their record release. Even better, it was a very good crowd, cheering on the Passionistas almost to the surprise of the band who were quite pleased and somewhat amazed with the response. (also, Kelley did a great job producing Passionistas, the record is awesome review tk soon!) So why was his live performance pleasant yet uninteresting? I don’t know, I mean you’ve got kids like the Passionistas breaking/ignoring and making up all the rules and you’ve got Kelley and his band of session musicians (Kevin Ink may be a studio whiz but he’s hella dull on stage) boring us to the point of indifference. Stoltz, who’s proved he’s a fantastic songwriter, should get a new band to back him up, maybe they wouldn’t be as technically precise as the monkeys he had on stage with him at du Nord (at times I felt we were watching them all go bald) but at this point we think Kelley could learn something from his proteges, long live the Passionistas!
Did you enjoy this review? Well, all we ask at Shameless in San Francisco is that you put us on the guest list and in return, we’ll review your band. It’s as simple as that.
