Gig Archives: 1995
(Disclaimer: this may be incomplete or inaccurate)Friday, July 21st, 1995 with Dreamland: First gig with a more pared-down lineup (me, Jenya, Mantra, Dan, Michael, and Ginny), headlining at the Stork Club with our pals NC-17 opening up. Fairly decent gig despite sketchy soundcheck and being too full of Cambodian food eaten right before performing. Dan took a 10-minute sax solo at the head of "Wet Dagger." I played "Subtraction" on guitar with the E tuned down to B to cover the bass parts during the verse so Dan could play sax on it.
Sunday, July 23rd, 1995 The unofficial first JOB gig, and the first of many to take place at the wonderful Chameleon, located within the kind and loving Mission district of San Francisco. This was sort of a preliminary meeting, as Jai Young was unable to attend. Mark and Matt performed as Hemi-JOB, making noise with guitar, bass, drums, and that out-of-tune and inaudible piano that people are afraid to remove lest there actually be space to move around on the Chameleon stage.
Sunday, August 6th, 1995 The real first JOB show, once again at the Chameleon in San Francisco. Many attendees. Matt succeeds in stabbing himself with his bass drum during load-in. Late in the set Dan Plonsey sat in on saxophone and even joined Matt in a scat singing duet. Other than all that, this show can be considered "uneventful," as far as first official gigs our concerned
Friday, August 11th, 1995 with Dreamland: Played at the Nightbreak in SF, opening up for both Idiot Flesh and Eskimo.
It was a pretty awesome night of music, with good attendance of course. Only
one bummer: some cop gave me and Jenya a ticket for parking illegally while
we were unloading our gear. So much for making any money that evening.
Dreamland is still rearranging songs left and right as members keep coming and
going.
Sunday, August 13th, 1995 The second JOB event, also at the Chameleon. The noise generated went unrecorded, which is just as well since some geezer wandered into the club and was hooting and hollering throughout the set. "Hoop! Hoop! Hoop!" he'd yell, in time with the plentiful grooves. Then he kind of just sulked and seethed when the music turned arhythmic, springing back to life again once there was a recognizable pulse, yelping "Hoop! Hoop! Hoop!"
Sunday, September 3rd, 1995 Another "unofficial" JOB performance, as Mark was absent from this one, and it was held in conjuction with members of two other bands, those being Sparklecock and Dreamland. All told, this ensemble consisted of Matt (on electric bass), Jai Young (on keyboards and violin), Jenya Chernoff (on drums), Oran Canfield (on drums), Eli Crews (on upright bass), Dan Plonsey (on saxes), and Steve Mays (on saxes). Matt actually utilized Jai Young's violin during one improv, much to Jai Young's chagrin. This madness, alas, went unrecorded. And yes, this was at the Chameleon.
Tuesday, September 12th, 1995 with Dreamland: We played at the regular Tuesday improv series that Gino put together at
the Hotel Utah in SF, so it wasn't our "normal" set. Mantra began with a
solo voice improv over prerecorded tape. Then we launched into a
long improv conducted by Mantra. Had a good loud bass solo. And then we
started doing the instructed jams, one of which called for me to simply be
boorish and fuck with other peoples equipment. So I put my bass down and
sternly tampered with Mantra's microphone, dismantled Jen's drumkit piece
by piece, detuned Michael's guitar, poked Dan's sax, and for the coup I
stormed off stage and returned wielding toilet paper which I streamed
around Michael and Jen. I think we lost the audience after that. We
did some more silly things that were more indulgent than entertaining,
but still, fun. Ended with another tape, which we all ambiently played
on top of.
Sunday, September 24th, 1995 The official third JOB show. Guess where this was held? Wrong! It was at the Chameleon in San Francisco, silly. This event was recorded to DAT as well as video tape. Upon viewing the video tape, all members of JOB decide action must be taken in improving stage performance as well as in wearing long pants. Features what will later become known by the devoted fans as the "Astral Voyager" jam.
Friday, October 6th, 1995 with Dreamland: Pre-tour warm up gig of sorts at the Nightbreak in SF. It was kind of
anti-climactic as we were forced to go on first at the last minute, nobody
was there, then we had to cut our last epic off mid song as time was running
out. We were joined by Paul and Laura for the first time on this short set -
good practice as they'll be playing with us the first two shows on the tour.
I have no recollection of the other bands playing that night as we left right
after we were done. Fuck 'em.
Thursday, October 12th, 1995 with Dreamland: On Tour: Dreamland Pacific Northwest 1995 Juanita's, Chico, CA w/ Silicone Milk, Idiot Flesh
Friday, October 13th, 1995 with Dreamland: On Tour: Dreamland Pacific Northwest 1995 Arcata, CA w/ Idiot Flesh
Saturday, October 14th, 1995 with Dreamland: On Tour: Dreamland Pacific Northwest 1995 Salem, OR w/ Raised by Yaks
Wednesday, October 18th, 1995 with Dreamland: On Tour: Dreamland Pacific Northwest 1995 Laurel Thirst, Portland, OR w/ Francis Farmer Gals
Thursday, October 19th, 1995 with Dreamland: On Tour: Dreamland Pacific Northwest 1995 Eastside Tavern, Bremerton, WA w/ some local rock bands
Friday, October 20th, 1995 with Dreamland: On Tour: Dreamland Pacific Northwest 1995 Paris Theatre, Portland, OR w/ Tales Untold
Saturday, October 21st, 1995 with Dreamland: On Tour: Dreamland Pacific Northwest 1995 New Music Showcase, Portland, OR w/ Land of the Blind
Sunday, October 22nd, 1995 with Dreamland: On Tour: Dreamland Pacific Northwest 1995 John Henry's, Eugene, OR
Wednesday, November 1st, 1995 Dan threw together an ensemble of local heroes to perform his "Bootless Ragpicker" piece. This included me (not so much a hero) on bass, John Schott, Steve Adams, Laura Carmichael, Jenny Schienman, Carla Kihlstedt, Matt Brubeck.. and anybody else? Oh, and Dan of course. Otherwise I don't remember. It was a wacky, fun mini-epic - just like all of Dan's stuff, and performed at Beanbender's.
Thursday, November 2nd, 1995 with Dreamland: We shlepped all the way down to Fresno in Jenya's giant Volvo which fit all of
us and whatever gear we needed that we weren't borrowing from Idiot Flesh who
was headlining the evening at Club Fred. Also performing that night were
E is for Elephant. First time I saw them play live. It was a fun night of
random prog rock though not really great attendance down there in Fresno.
Dan accidentally tore the gearshift out of the socket while borrowing the
car earlier to get dinner. It was reattached, albeit loosely, so the long ride
home afterward was made less fun due to all the rattling. Stopped in Los Banos
at 3:30am for gas and a chocolate chip ice cream sandwich, and was home in
Oakland by 6am. I actually thought I was going to make it to work after that,
but I failed.
Sunday, November 5th, 1995 The last of the original Chameleon shows, and by far the best of the lot. Short and to the point. The noise was recorded, thank the heavens, parts of which ended up becoming "Dead Stop Traffic in the Middle of the Afternoon" (as heard on our Kafka-esque production K.) and "Clear" (on Let's Talk about God and Party at Ilan's). Also created was the cult classic "The North American Man-Boy Love Association."
(At this point it should be noted that most of the Chameleon shows JOB played before, after, or with various members of Sparklecock, a group containing Oran Canfield, Eli Crews, Johnny "Donuts" Finkbeiner, and JOB's own Mark Schifferli.)
Saturday, November 25th, 1995 The first official Mumble & Peg show, and a historic gig in general - a classic
Stork Club moment. Opening the show was indie rock band Munk, then we went on.
But it wasn't me and Chunk backing up Erik strumming and singing his tunes.
Instead we perfomed one tune: Brian Eno's "Driving me Backwards" - for almost
a whole hour. The "extended" version with each section stretched out forever.
Plus we had guests - Jenya, Wes, and Dave Cooper on drums and Nils on
percussion guitar. All of the drummers lined up in back, standing and only
playing bass drum and floor tom in unison (boom... bap bap...). All of us had
black clothes and black stocking on our heads. And a strobe light flickered on
us the whole hour we were up there. It was audience abuse to the nth degree,
and poor Monopause had to follow all that.
Anyway, we went back to playing Erik's tunes as a trio at future gigs.
Saturday, December 2nd, 1995 with Dreamland: Another gig at the Stork club for me. Despite continual instrument/member flux
within the band this was a fun, good sounding set. The band was once again
augmented by Paul and Laura on violin and voice. Jenya rocked it as she was
accidentally locked out of her house all afternoon so she had nothing to do but
warm up in her rehearsal space. Headlining was Charming Hostess. Classic Stork
Club kind of a night.
|
