WORLD FOR RANSOM

Once in a land far, far away, Billie Eyeball grew bored sitting on the steps, squashing ants into the cracks on the sidewalk.

Suddenly, she had an idea.

She could sing.

But she couldn't dance.

But she could kick.

And, inspired by LISA KUDROW, she could write.

So she schmoozed famous people.

Jammed around town.

Received a few endorsements.

Called up all her friends and started a band.

The rest is HERSTORY.

News from Billie:

Hi, everybody. Me and Abbey, with help from Mark, Pete Slankster and Catie Murphy, have just finished a song for a Moby Grape tribute album that's going to be released around August 1st. The name of the tune is Queen of the Crow, written by Moby Grape bass player/singer Bob Mosley. The song is from one of Moby Grape's later albums. It's a bit more obscure than some of their other music. As soon as we hear what else is on the album, we will let you know. We haven't found out the order address yet.

Lot of new things on our ever-expanding website this month, and I thought I'd list them here. There are reviews of Lou Reed's new CD called Ecstasy, David Bowie's Thursday's Child album, Jethro Tull's newest album Dot Com, Something Else Now by Lesley Gore, a big long thing on Quicksilver Messenger Service, plus Yearly Lists (I'm not sure what that is even). But most of you may be looking for the local music section which begins below and includes the Local Music Top Ten.

I'm pushing to get an interview of a local band in here on a regular basis so we will see what happens.

- Billie.

WORLD FOR RANSOM

PRESENTS

RANSOM NOTES

WHO SAYS SAN FRANCISCO DOESN'T HAVE A SCENE?

Wow. We just went to a show in San Francisco that probably won't be duplicated in very many places around the country. It probably wouldn't be legal in most places. The show was at the Fillmore and it featured Essence, Storm, The Gun and Doll Show, Tribe 8, The High Fives, Three Day Stubble, and a couple of other bands - all playing short sets and most playing naked. Billed as "Get Naked Two," or something like that, one big guy in the audience took the event at its word and wandered the premises, bending over to touch the floor occasionally for whatever reason, and scared the bejesus out of the tourists from Kansas. The big guys like to come out for the Naked events it seems.

The audience and the performers were pretty much divided. The audience came to gawk, not to strip - so this doesn't seem part of a cultural revolution or something - though maybe it's too early to tell. But still: Up on stage, Tribe 8 kicked the stuffing out of a guy pretending to be a sexist dude, and cut off his nether region with a sharp blade. They dangled the bleeding mess, and then threw it to the audience. And people cheered. For Tribe 8, nakedness and sex are a part of meaning and message and their rocking energy just gets better with time. For Three Day Stubble though, whose meaning has always been a little questionable, nakedness just pushed an over-the-top retard act into the garbage bin. Nakedness mixed with nose-pickingly obnoxious music and scenarios that show no sympathy for any kind of living pervert, just cloys after a minute or two.

The Gun and Doll Show were finally upstaged for a change, by Storm Large all by herself. There were other people on stage with Storm, but I hardly noticed. There was a time when nakedness and the female body were considered an exploitative action. I'm not sure where the change came and what the politics are, to be truthful. A lot of the books are on the shelf - Defending Pornography, The Beauty Myth, Susie Bright, even some Andrea Dworkin - but the details are lost in the clouds. Storm has that certain something called a "commanding" stage presence. Whereas all the guys at the show who buffed out looked a bit dwarfed and uncomfortable ("Is This Working?), the women seemed to own their bodies, and were able to harness and convert the energy into creative sparks. Maybe it's all a matter of how your AC/DC flows. Different people probably saw the event differently, and I'd love to hear some reaction. Reaction is what I always miss when observing SF spectacle.

The Gun and Doll show started out playing in front of about 15 topless women who exited the stage after the first number and left us wondering where the show would go from there. Their "New World Order" song featured the "Dolls" taking off military uniforms and marching through the rest of the songs in sexier outfits. "New World Order" was fun - probably a "meet the new boss, same as the old boss," type of thing. But it was the guys who ended up shedding it all. Performance really can enhance, deflate or neutralize a song's meaning.

But in some ways it's a dead end - the spectacle will run its course. Which means if performance doesn't expand beyond nudity, it just becomes a crutch. That's what we are going to take a look at for at least a part of our top ten songs this week.

CHECK OUT OUR LOCAL TEN SONG LIST BELOW. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN SUBMITTING SONGS FOR CONSIDERATION, PLEASE POST THEM TO:

LOCAL 10 SONG LIST

I'd heard "Bounce to This" before, but hearing the song while watching Keith and Josh strip down to nothing, gave it a whole new energy release freedom freak ambiance. Right now, adding nudity to a San Francisco local music show is a neo-tribal assertion of what artistic expression should be - pushing boundaries and having fun. For the Marginal Prophets the ploy is just an escalation of an already hyper performance ethos. Josh and Kurt roam the stage while Stark Raving Brad flips around in acrobatic and rhythmic magnificence. If the "Get Naked" series of shows is going to ultimately synergize the audience along with it, it's going to take some humorous lyrics and some heavy grooves - both of which the Marginal Prophets have in abundance.

But if nudity is going to remain a voyeuristic experience for the average local band club-jumper, then it's bound to run into an aesthetic dead-end rather fast. Storm has been a pioneer of sorts in this particular direction. A few years ago, in Flower SF, she used her body in expressive ways, and her presence on the scene is probably the impetus for the "Naked" series (other pioneers would have to include the gone, but not forgotten, Buck Naked and His Bare-Bottom Boys). Storm's artistry remains posed somewhat between 'hippie chick' naturalness and rock diva extravagance, when pop-rock canniness seems to be the flavor of the month. Her roaring version of Bob Dylan's "Hollis Brown" is not the type of tune you are going to hear the average girl-pop band in San Francisco tackle, but in many ways it's a pinnacle of her potential. I think the tune Storm sang at the "Naked" show when stripped down to her G-string (nice grapes on the front) was "I'm All Right." Storm rises above the voyeuristic opportunism she's involved in by projecting sexual invulnerability. The song itself is a vulnerable, yet insistently self-affirming tune; and matched with the sexual facade, it created a strange duality. "It's All Right," like most of Storm's songs, is pitched beyond sex - she may be vulnerable in some ways, but not in this particular, sexual way. In her audience banter, she recognizes both sides of the sex show, exploiting it, but somehow defusing it. She came off as a pro in this show, when most everybody else (Tribe 8 the exception) looked like amateurs in dealing with the sexual ramifications. It's a neat trick, one that is very far removed from the sexual exploitation of Top 40 pop music in general, with pandering pop-girls unwittingly singing songs written by older men.

Sex is sometimes a theme with Imperial Teen. "Yoo Hoo," from their What is Not to Love album, has an obscure subtext with references to "rock stars." But the words aren't as important as the snaky guitars, the riffing melodies, the falsetto chants and the beautiful guitar buzz. You don't really need words to sound sexy and you don't really need words if you sound this good. A lot of people liked Seasick, but What is Not to Love is where Imperial Teen's sound became soulful.

Sex as a theme is partially the downfall of Mother Hips, whose overwritten lyrics and classic rock and roll style sometimes are a throwback to an adolescent (sixties-ish), macho sense of sexual relationships, as opposed to Imperial Teen's emphasis which is only ostensibly teen-oriented. Imperial Teen's sound may come off as powder-puff when compared to Mother Hips roaring guitars and rock and roll swagger, but they somehow come off as heavier in sexual emphasis. But Mother Hips just played a concert, and an old song they wrote called "Poison Oak" seemed angrier, deadlier, and more important than it did back on their debut album. In fact, the band's whole show seemed heavier in meaning and lighter in approach. When the lead vocalist started repeating "Poison Oak's" ending line, "She's the naked skin and I am the oil," the evil side of sexuality seemed absolutely believable. Time for a new look at Mother Hips.

At this point our sexual thread runs out, because it's not always that pertinent to a band's emphasis. Devil Eye Brown has just released their debut CD - Protect Us From The White Coats - and they manage to avoid folk music earnestness and girl-screeching flamboyance with a nice batch of pop-tinged tunes that are elevated by good taste. The omnipresent Eric McFadden shows up with some great Spanish guitar on "Insect," but it is "Ignorance is Bliss" which may be the highlight. Nice harmonies and violin in a lament about people who grow accustomed to loneliness - and perhaps a sense that the singer might find the situation preferable than the one she is in: "Ignorance is bliss - Is there anything I will miss?" Good debut from a fairly new local band.

The Fingers win our respect because they aren't afraid to mention Grandma and Grandpa on "All These Traces," which is a heart-felt, break-up song. Most writers of love songs have such a hard time handling sentiment that they taint the whole genre - from Whitney and Britney to Secada and Anthony. Which leaves good romantic writers tinged with a touch of suspicion. Not The Fingers, who have enough rock power and pop hooks to lead us anywhere they want to go. Prophets and Casanovas is one of the strongest CDs we've heard lately and it's not because of the band's image, or success, or hip scene-making, or naked performances. They just know how to craft a song. It's neat how local bands, impoverished and ignored, manage to scrape up the extra bucks to make sure a backwards guitar gets the right emphasis, or a droning arpeggio intertwines in a nice way with another instrument, or a project gets stalled and goes over-budget while somebody looks for a twelve-string guitar that has to be used for a thirty-seven second intro. That sense of invention flavors Prophets and Casanovas. On "All These Traces" the chorus is "And I long to feel your face, and I miss the way you taste ... I have your pictures and you books: Did you mean to leave me with all these traces?" Subtle is everything on a song that could sound like drivel. It helps that Alex Mandel has such a perfect voice.

Let's say a Back to the Future kind of thing happened and you suddenly found yourself at a mod club in England circa 1965 and The Who were up on stage playing. And let's say that the night before, in year 2000 San Francisco, you had been listening to a local band called The Fistners and one of their songs had stuck in your mind so rapturously, that you were singing it in your head while The Who got ready to play. Let's say that after the show, for some reason, The Who invite you backstage (they like your girlfriend?). You tell them you play guitar and you want them to hear a song you wrote - claiming "Uppers and Downers" as your own. They make fun of you, but you play them The Fistners "Uppers and Downers" and Townshend likes it so much he decides to knock one of the songs he isn't sure about off of the debut album they are recording. My point is the song really wouldn't be that out of place on The Who's classic first album. My point is that the song might even be better than a few of the songs on The Who's classic first album. Of course, The Who would probably perform it better considering Keith Moon's and John Entwistle's energetic, manic power. But let's say the song they kick off of the debut album is "My Generation" and "Uppers and Downers" becomes the big hit for the Who. And then when Peter Townshend is immediately forgotten after the disastrous Iron Man theatrical production sometimes in the late-eighties, a Back to the Future thing happens and Townshend finds himself a homeless alcoholic on the streets of San Francisco circa year 2000. He meets The Fistners and he offers them the rights to the only song he never sold to a commercial. The Fistners like it, they pay him fifty dollars and a bottle of vodka. The Fistners record the song just like The Who recorded it, mimicking the drums, the bass, the stuttering. They put "My Generation" out on their debut local CD. Nobody gives a shit.

I walked past the Boomerang, which is still my favorite club as far as underdog band ambiance in San Francisco goes, and saw a flyer posted on the window for Enslavior. Walking into Amoeba, and glancing over at the bargain bin, I saw Enslavior's CD in the bargain rack for $2.95 - which would actually be the fair price for any CD if we lived in the real world. Some lousy local CD's have turned up this way, but the coincidence of the flyer and the CD was too much. You have to listen to these things. So I put it on when I got home, and a blustering, heavy-rock, metalish attack kicked it off. The intro to the first song had a metal meets prog-rock ambiance and at first it sounded promising. But when the lead vocalist started haranguing in a gruff, low, stereotypical-Metalica voice I frantically glanced around the lyric sheet and found this really funny song called "Ice Cream Casualty." Even better, I spotted an instrumental. The instrumental was remnants and it's played kind of sloppy, but it's a real nice prog-rock kind of thing in embryo. I'll listen to the rest of the CD when I'm in the mood.

The High Fives played at the Fillmore Naked Show, but they didn't get naked. It would have taken them too long to get out of their tight suits and ties probably, while trying to keep up with their fast-paced, lightening chord, garage rock throwbacks. The High Fives and Three Day Stubble both represent the kind of bands I used to hate when I was out in the San Francisco scene scrambling for a good gig: they haven't played anywhere you know of for at least two years, then suddenly they are playing a good spot on one of the most coveted shows in town. It turns your stomach. The problem with the High Fives as an idea was that they remained stuck emulating a certain style without being able to show the natural progression that the people they emulated always were forced into. So they never seemed like a real band, just a real band facsimile. But contradiction is our forte, and I enjoyed them on this particular night. Especially "Welcome to My Mind," which seemed as good as the Troggs for an ephemeral 2 1/2 minutes.

If you don't own a CD by Quicksilver Messenger Service, you don't own a CD by one of San Francisco's greatest bands. They were somewhat maltreated by the national press, because the national press never really has time to take band's too seriously given short deadlines, the next new thing, and upward mobility which leaves younger record reviewers taking their bosses place and these youngsters are too busy reviewing new stuff to give a crap about the past. Perhaps the greatest piano player rock and roll has ever known - Nicky Hopkins - played in Quicksilver from 1969 (Shady Grove) to their reunion album in 1975 (Solid Silver). Just a partial listing of Hopkins' credentials are astonishing: he played with The Rolling Stones on many of their greatest discs (he was asked to join the band in 1969); he played with John Lennon on some of his greatest solo material; he's on some of the Beatles' tunes; Hopkins was a member of the Jeff Beck Group featuring Rod Stewart; he played with Graham Parker, The Kinks, The Who, Jerry Garcia Band, and countless more. But his greatest sustained showcase was with Quicksilver Messenger Service. He played alongside John Cipollina, who had a beautifully compelling guitar style and an ability to write instrumentals that combined the catchy quality of surf tunes with the dexterity of jazz classics. Greg Elmore had a kick-foot that awesomely sped along the rhythm section of David Freiberg (bass) and Gary Duncan (rhythm/lead guitar). During most of the Hopkins' era, they were fronted by hippie-maverick Dino Valenti, whose jamming sense of song structure helped make these guys a great band to listen to no matter what they were playing.

Let's propose "Edward (the Mad Shirt Grinder)" as one of the greatest rock and roll piano tunes ever written. It's a Hopkins' tune that is both structured, and all-out inspired. If you want to get an idea of just how great Quicksilver was when jamming, take a listen to Jammin' with Edward, the inferior jam-album by the Stones which features Nicky Hopkins, or take a listen to a different version of "Edward" on Nicky Hopkins 1970 solo album which featured George Harrison, Klaus Voorman, and a host of other hot-shots: they can't come close to the Quicksilver version. Forget the next new thing. Check these guys out. Dinosaurs are magnificent creatures.