my blog was lost...

...but now its found.

As a member of a small and misunderstood group of people known as "Fiery Furnaces Fans,” I was bound by internal laws and rituals to see them finally play at a decent space in SF for once, the Great American Music Hall. Nobody wanted to come with me. (although one soul did try...). Understandable, as most people I know don't seem to like them. This includes my son, who summed up most people's discomfort with the Furnaces: "she sings too many words too fast... and the music is just weird... " The kid is always spot-on (other day on the way to Costco he comes up with: "you know why I like Costco?  Cause it's not IKEA.  Nuff said). I've heard similar complaints from others, and even the prospect of a free ticket and a paint-the-town-red, big night out in the City with the skirblog wasn't enough to extract even the most open minded from their lairs. Again, understandable, FF is def. not everybody’s cup of bitter tea.  I often buy two tickets to shows just in case, but don't mind going myself.

As usual for the Great American, parking in the Outerloin (Outer Tenderloin) was an adventure. I was unlucky that night and could only find a spot about six blocks away, more into the heart of the beast. I used
to live near the area, the "Tenderloin Heights" I called it, “lower Nob Hill to your realtors, (by now I’m sure  Bush St is considered Nob Hill proper) and walked around there all the time. But that’s when I was less gray in the beard and more motorcycled and leathered. The Loin was and is is a mixed bag of the   fascinating, the inviting, the disgusting and the scary. The inviting: a rabbit warren of great smelling and interesting looking Vietnamese joints that are even more prevalent than when I haunted, and I make a bunch of (now forgotten) mental notes to try this one or the other; not to mention the hidden, tiny Mexican, Afghani, Indian, places which are still sadly outnumbered by the throngs of suspicious and predatory characters busy prowling the night, a Thursday night, and the Loin was teeming like a city unto itself, an alternate, anti-city, where folks raved and stumbled from the corner liquor stores, fires burned in illegal pits, and a dazzling array of cross-dressed, hybid-like creatures pissed brazenly, fell into the streets, eyeballed and leered. Eye contact was not a good idea that night and I felt all too white and old and straight to be walking Hyde and Larkin, not the lolling gait of the unconcerned, but too quickly, afraid, as the Furnaces would say, "... that I would get there too late."

(See below, "Straight Street)

But no, due to all bands’ inherent lateness I was in time to see the latter half of the opening band, (my favorite time to arrive at a show). They were called "Grand Ol' Party," (horrible name) and apart from looking good in person and perhaps on paper (attractive woman drummer wearing frilly, bridesmaid dress, playing drums, singing lead), they didn't quite pull it off. The drumming was a bit of problem. As were the vocals. Then the requisite long wait for the Furnaces to play and I noticed a dude with almost as gray a beard as my own standing up near the stage, from the looks of it, chaperoning his kids, who suddenly left him for the balcony, abandoned to dig the Furnaces solo, which he seemed to dug. It was a very sparsely attended show (see above), but more room for me to maneuver a good spot to see E. Friedberger close enough to actually watch her annunciating her words as only she can do. Annunciation, man, who knew it could be such a turn-on?

Questions:  What is up now with my two favorite lead rock women and their hair all  in their eyes?  Ms. Mosshart from the Kills stands behind lovely cascades of it, swinging silky waterfalls of hair, that offer brief glimpses only of her face; and now, E. Friedberger wears a curtain of hers, parted in the middle, never to show any millimeter of forehead if possible. And why was the same E. Friedberger staring at me the whole time she was singing?  No, I have not lost it, (…throat clearing),  I fear to even ask a question so preposterous, lest I appear (more) delusional (than usual). I go to a lot of shows and know for a fact that when you, me, anyone thinks a performer is looking at you they are not. I’m mean Alison Mosshart never glanced my way, (even though I was sending out plenty of psychic rays to the contrary. But so were literally at least 80% of the men and women in the place, so there was undoubted a lot of interference). So when, sans-psychic rays, Ms. Friedberger kept staring me down, I chalked it up to nothingness. I did change positions a few times (unwashed hog-like, tall boys rushing the stage), yet her gaze seemed to follow. The Mona Lisa effect? Sure. But then other people in the audience started glancing at me as well. Either a paranoid inducing drug was slipped into my Jim Beam and Diet Coke, (only consumed at either the Great American Music Hall or upon the Alameda Oakland Ferry) or other people were also wondering who was this gray-bearded fuck Eleanor was staring at? So then I got weirded out, but decided to hold my ground cause at the end of the day, I love a good stare down.  I can glare with the best of them, right, guy in Bart station last week? You know what I'm talking about.  It's dog pack mentality; you cannot be the first to look away. So a nifty little staring contest developed between me, and the performing, annunciating, and hair curtain-plastering E. Friedberger, who I guess didn't have enough going on up there, what with memorizing roughly one million complex puns and word plays to the various FF songs, playing the guitar on many, and asking her brother to open beers for her.

She won.

The first three songs from Widow City were excellent, but not everything from that album worked so well live, most of the rest of them actually. Their re-working of older stuff was generally excellent, esp. “Single Again” a nd an all out metal-trance bombastic version of “My Dog was Lost…” The only bummer for me was the lack of Blueberry Boat, which apart from “Dog…” had them blasting through an odd and angry version of "Straight Street," which was so rushed and un musical as if to say, "we HATE Blueberry Boat already! Stop making us play it!" I can probably understand this. They’ve moved on quite a ways from the Boat.  But shit, the Boat is still up there as a crowning achievement, for them or for anybody.

I was overjoyed to see they were touring with drummer-extraordinaire, Bob “more-crazy-fills-per-second-than-any-drummer-anywhere” D’Amico. Guy’s sick. There was also a woman off to the side, “Annabelle,” Matt Friedberg kept calling her, who played a mini- Casio (flawless classical riffs on demand) and also this vibraphone type instrument where she donned metal finger tip coverings, "plectrums" I guess you’d have to call them, but they didn’t pluck, they struck the vibe bars and made bell-like tinkling noises.  Who was she? What was that instrument? You don’t know or care since you hate the Furnaces, but find out for me would you?  I mean I do a lot of leg work over here for you, just asking for something in return.

Are you my age and want to feel even older than a dad ditched by his kids at a Fiery Furnaces show?  Then go out and see the new Indiana Jones movie, Kingdom of the Temple of the Lost Crystal Skull Arks or whatever its called. Now, logically that movie should have those of us in our mid 40s feeling young, not old. I mean, you got your Harrison Ford up there in his 60s or whatnot, and looking a bit too tired and creaky to be running through the jungle, so to speak.  And your Karen Allen who, again looks her age, so by comparison your standard issue skirblog would feel pretty young by comparison. But no, I was exhausted and downtrodden after this film, one that seems to pretend only a few years have passed since the first film, not decades. It’s not just the actors ages that hurts this illusion, it’s the lifeless, convoluted, rehashed, remixed Stephen “Why-Won't-People-Believe-Me-About-The-Aliens” Spielberg story and direction that sinks this warship. Don't tell my kid this by the way, he loved the movie and therefore I give it high marks as kid-friendly. But privately, between you and me, it was really sad. Not only does H. Ford have the man-breasts now, and did they fail to give Karen Allen a new haircut, but I had the uneasy feeling that the movie’s biggest influence was not its previous incarnations, but its namesake ride at Ditney Land, where you can get on, and catch glimpses of tropes from franchise, but you’re only expecting to be shaken up and driven fast by the cool cars at the very least.

I was plenty shaken up however the other night by a film called Perfect Creatures, which I watched, as all vampire movies should be watched, right before going to bed. This film was interesting and odd.  Filmed in New Zealand, it had a fascinating “steam punk” look to it, good premise (vampires and humans have co- existed for 300 years, vampires being immortal and having enhanced senses and powers are thought of as “holy” and comprise the “brotherhood” of the major, Catholic-like religion in the film. Humans attend church and donate blood to keep the “brothers” alive; the brothers watch over and use their science and knowledge to keep humans alive. Symbiosis.). The movie actually reminded me a lot of my other favorite blood-centric film, Ultraviolet, set not in the sleek, spandexed Milla Jovavich future, but an alternate Dickinsonian, rags and coal fired past, starring the equally lovely Saffron Burrows, who may just have the longest neck of any female actor working today. Perfect target for your less than pious vampires who are up to no good…

Also up to no good, but in an all good (Bakery Inc.) way was the finale of LOST, network TV’s only esoteric, highbrow creepfest, so full of arcane allusions, hidden meaning,  philosophical, theophysical and metaphysical referencing as well as its own surrealist invented mythology that its hard to believe it has the backing and acceptance the “viewing public.”  I mean I know people hate “hidden meanings,” which is why they reject most of the literary canon of the post-WWII era, (and the pre-WWII era as well). Its all a massive highbrow in joke that we’re not in on, right!  But instead of being rejected as "elitist," Lost’s allegories are seized upon and analyzed with a fervor usually reserved for JFK conspiracy theories or your garden variety lit crit by MA graduate students. What gives? Maybe next Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminati Trilogy will be made into a weekly teevee show? We can only hope.

LOST tends to unnerve me. I look forward to it, but I’m glad when its over, cause it stays on my mind. Maybe it accesses a vein of truth about “reality” that I’d rather not access, yet somewhere recognize as correct. What exactly that truth is I’m very unprepared to say.  LOST is a tour de force of conception and writing, from its roots as a supernatural survival piece, to a far reaching underground pseudo secientific time travel, hieroglyphical mind fuck. And that’s all good (Bakery Inc.). In brilliant fashion the two-hour season ender answered so many questions, showed us much that was hidden, then simultaneously posed as many more questions, leaving us satisfied for having watched this season, and looking forward to next, where our beloved reality will be dragged through the mud yet again.

The fabric of reality has only changed slightly for the skirblog itself. You will notice (I’m sure you already did, hawk-eyed, eagle-eyed readers that you are), a new search apparatus up on the upper left up there. It’s a thing that just searches the skirblog, powered by Google and 1000 other high tech, complex servers, systems and providers just so you can see how many times I’ve mentioned, say, “Fiery Furnaces” since the inception of the skirblog, back in Aug. 04 (22 it seems, not counting this post…).

Yes kids, almost four years now since we’ve been broadcasting all things skirb to you and yinz own. And when I look back at the archives to the first few posts I’m happy (I think) to report not all that much has changed. I’ve been  obsessing about pretty much the same shit now this whole time: beverages, movies, the occasional book, and especially music: What's (kinda) interesting for (probably only) me is to realize the shift I took from male-centric music of my yoot and most of my life, the Who, Stones, Zeppelin; Buzzcocks, Clash, Joy Division; CAN! (an era all to themselves); Screaming Trees, Granddaddy, Polyphonic Spree; to female-centric music. This seemed to happen around the time I started the blog. Until then I believe I actually had an aversion to female rock vocalists, Nancy Wilson and Chrissy Hynde non-withstanding. But then suddenly came Deerhoof, Sleater Kinney, Joanna Newsome for Christ's sake, the Heartless Bastards; Fiery Furnaces, the Kills.  What happened folks?  What did my blog find?  Other than a somehow different skib looking back at it?