Is your axe insured?

 After reading Lambo posts on "What is SF Rock?" Thought I'd put a list of together of rehearsal spaces in the area since it's the most likely place you will hear SF rock.  While doing it I stumbled on RHL Rehearsal Spaces.     Haven't ever been in any of there rooms so I can't say too much about them but they do have a page where they list a buch of places to get insurance.

Now I tend to fall on the more trusting side, but i've been around long enough to know there are plenty fuck knuckle shit stain ass wipes who would take another mans axe.   I believe karma works most of those things out in the end, and the low life trolls get theirs... but hey no sense in not getting a little extra insurance to make sure your rock is not interrupted.  Sounds like a good idea anyway ... one of those things I always tell myself to do but haven't gotten around to it. 

Hmmmm.... wonder if I'll do it now that I've added the links below

Clarionins.com

CSICoverage.com

Heritage-ins-services.com

Musicagencyinc.com

Musicproinsurance.com

So what is SF rock?

So what is SF rock? orr better, where is SF rock? The reason I ask this is it seems every time I go see a local band in this town I feel like I'm at a burning man decompression party. 

Gimmie a fuckin break!

 This is it? Quirky combos with old drum machines and trombones? Fedora hats and 1890's circus ring leader facial hair? Striped pant wearing 'artists' playing bicycles? Maybe I'm missing something here. 

  Sure, all kinds of bands come here on tour. There are plenty of great shows to be taken in but how does the local 'scene' expect to make a blip anywhere else (let alone here) if that's what we're made of?  How can we expect people in the bay area to come out and support if that is the bulk of what's offered?

  Four or five years ago I thought it was kind of cute. But not cute enough to go out of my way to see more than once. Now in 2010, most of these bands are still doing the same thing -though the pants are tighter and the sideburns grayer. The music has not evolved in the least.  Yeah,  new bands come along and mix in some different flavors of cheese but it too often comes off as a well rehearsed spoof.

   Sure there is an electronica scene, and every town has some decent pop, but that aint rawk.  right?

   So where is SF rock? Simple.... in the rehearsal rooms. Just stroll the halls of a multi room rehearsal complex and you're bound to hear some great bands of all types. Adventuresome collectives that hit hard. So, where are they playing? I already told you where ---- the rehearsal rooms. In other words -for the most part, not in the clubs. 

  Okay, that is a bold generalization but somehow it seems to fit and It feels like it's been that way for far too long. 

  You may notice that I haven't picked a specific genre of rock because it doesn't matter.  What matters is other cities, some smaller,  don't seem to have this problem. 

   Who's to blame?  The clubs? The patrons?  Maybe we're all too cool to go out and hear something that doesn't have a ringleader and  vaudville dancers. Maybe those things are 'it' and I should shut the hell up but it seems that if that stuff hasn't flown this many years down the line, it most likely won't.

   Surely the clubs will book any band that fills the room and sells beer.  Simple economics

  Now, how do we get people out to see local shows?  ummm that's a subject for another day

  until then,   

see ya on the playa -bro


-lambo

digitizing cassettes sucks, but I did it anyway.

Recently I got a wild hair to hear the track "Beyond Babylon" by the 80's hair metal band Rock City Angels.  Why is not important, but before you go casting stones about the shittiness of hair-metal (the words butt-rock will not be tolerated on this blog, 'k?) I'm sure we can all agree that in the late 80's when the cassette was king and we all had craploads of tapes, and the shiny new compact disc that was looming over the horizon seemed like an exiting new option and everything, but there was no WAY we were gonna replace all of those tapes with CDs.  If you're like me, you still have a box or a suitcase (or both) full of tapes somewhere.  I even have a glovebox full of awesome mix-tapes in my van that spill out periodically, even though the tape-deck hasn't worked in 4 years.  Man, those tapes are awesome.

There are albums that I have bought 3 or 4 times in my life already, first on vinyl, then the tape, then the disc, and most recently the mp3.  what a shitty deal, since I can't ever really own a song after all that.  The platform continues to change, and it's current incarnation (mp3) is all encoded and shit, so you don't really have access to the tracks like you do with a CD.  I haven't owned a functional CD player in years either, but I have hundreds of those shiny chunks of plastic garbage crammed into my crannies. You do too.

What do you do with these things that were once loved, and now have been replaced?  You fuckin' pack that shit away for a rainy day or something!  Well look outside now, it's raining buckets and you can't buy the Rock City Angels first album (Young Man's Blues) online anywhere because it's been out of print since the year it was released (1988), and the LP is going for $45 on Amazon - no thank you.  Time to figure out how to digitize cassettes since I'm just sitting around indoors getting stoned anyway.

It's actually really easy to do if you have a Mac.  Just make sure you have a tape-deck that works, and this is harder than you expect.  I think the clock ran out on tape-decks sometime about 3 months ago, because the one you have in the basement or at your mom's house has most likely shit the bed already and you just won't know this until it's pissing rain and you have a hard-on to start digitizing tapes whilst smoking bongs.  My advice is to have a sacrificial cassette at the ready to stick into that old deck before you proceed with anything else, (maybe not the bong, you can go ahead and smoke the bong).  My girlfriend had a Paula Abdul tape for some reason (?!?), so that's what I used.  Who on Earth would care if a Paula Abdul tape gets munched by a decrepit old piece of obsolete technology?  not me, and you sure don't want to put the tape you care about into a dinosaur's mouth, right?

I had to repeat this exercise with 3 different tape decks by the way, and I amassed a pile of "e-waste" in the process (that's electronic-waste kids, you can't put this dead shit into the landfill anymore, now we ship it overseas for slave-labor-people to pick apart and sell it back to us. it's awesome).  It was a boombox that finally came though for me, and the fucker still plays CD's too.  this particular boombox probably dates from the early 2000's because it's shaped like a piece of space-age dogshit, all silver and futuristic molded-plastic with lights that don't mean anything on it, but it works.  (you can also still buy a cassette deck at Radio Shack for about $40 that's a total piece of garbage that you will hate, but in a pinch, you do what you gotta do I guess.  I was ready to kill & die by the time the third tape-deck I had borrowed & tried failed to actually play a tape, and the goodwill stores etc. didn't have any for sale, but I was determined not to buy a new one because WHO THE HELL BUYS A NEW TAPE DECK IN 2010?)

Ok.  So now you need to figure out the cord situation, which you probably already have in a drawer somewhere because ipods have made it so everyone has stereo-mini everything.  you just need to plug that stereo-mini cable into the input of your computer and make sure the setting is for a line-in instead of the built-in mic on your Mac.  (god help you if you use a PC, I have no idea how they're supposed to function and you should probably just give up).

Now you need the most important thing, a freeware program called Audacity that allows you to change audio files a variety of different ways.  Audacity is kind of confusing, but also kind of intuitive if you have ever screwed around with audio software before, or even a 4-track.  Screw around with it, you'll figure it out.  Audacity needs to be in record-mode (with the pause-button pressed) in order for your tape player to come through the speakers on your computer.  check the levels, cue that shit up and record it.  Then export it, (Audacity will prompt you to download their mp3 converter called LAME, which you will need if you want to make an mp3.  you can also do this in iTunes). Now you name it move it to it's new home in the ether and have a beer or 3.

The sound quality is not great, but the source was a tape, remember?  whatev's.  at least it can be done.  One more bit of advice, don't wait to do this because the tape-players of the world are dying faster than the polar bears, and you know you have tapes that need to change platforms before the landscape shifts again and we're all uploading playlists to bio-wave formats or something that require cranial-implants. (which would be awesome).

Dig.

- buzzsaw

the hotel utah

The sound is terrible, the place is cramped, but some how the vibe makes up for it in spades!
I you get a chance read the history, the club has been about having a space for artists to sharpen their knives. It's the kind of spot you don't appreciate the 1st couple of times but somehow you end up back there.

Saw the Saturday show, Kevin Meagher played a set. Haven't seen him on stage since Bluebeard
played Slims... 2003..4 ??? He's still rocking the 6, and sounds like he may be connecting with the Pete The Crusher Gerad ... the Crusher because he hits those skins so damn hard! High probability of rockage ...


- superuberO

Code Monkey (Jonathan Coulton )plays 2 SOLD OUT shows At the Great American

So how do you fill the house 2 consecutive nights at the GAMH?

Step1) write a catchy tune about something a lot of people can relate to...
Step 2 ) get some cool animation and post to youtube (anyone got any ideas about this step ?)
Step 3) let the hits roll in
Step 4) once you get to 2,000 hits you can think about booking a show at an entry level club aka ... The  Hotel Utah
Step 5) if you get to 20,000 hits on your youtube video, you can start thinking about playing some gigs in the local area at clubs where you may make enough for gas money home. definately update your myspace page and probably should start a blog
Step 6) at 200,000 hits-  now you should probably have some merch specific to your youtube one hit wonder... you can spread you geographic gig potential.  YOu'll probably have to take time off from your day job, and if the merch doesn't sell well you'll be in the whole but fuck it ! You're on the road playing Rock n Roll ! it's F-ing Rock n Roll fantasy camp!!!!
Step 7) at 2,000,000 hits .... book the show at GAMH!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Wy7gRGgeA

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/


- superuberO

Is it safe to rock again in SF ?

You stopped?

-superubero