By Gene Mahoney
Send press releases to editor@sfherald.com.
Press releases may be edited to appear in this column.
*****
Subject: Beatlesque matters
From: "Robert Battaile" <battaile@calexas.com>
Date: Mon, July 14, 2008 2:34 pm
To: editor@sfherald.com
Priority: Normal
Hello Beatlesque fans and industry folks.
Please put it on your calendar: Friday, August 8th at the Glaser Center in Santa Rosa.
A Beatlesque Singalong Show called "All Together Now." That's right, the audience is part of the entertainment.
We'll be working out harmonies and enjoying the power of group singing
– with timeless Beatles songs.
Glaser Center is at 547 Mendocino Ave. Friday, August 8th from 7:30 -
9:30 Admission $12.00
http://www.glasercenter.com/events.php
----------------------
Also, a glimpse of Beatlesque in action. The four-minute video trailer.
(It's a big file so give it a minute to download.)
http://www.beatlesque.us/media/beatlesque-demo-V2.mov
*****
Yesterday I went fishing for wild steelhead on the Deschutes River up in Maupin, Oregon. It’s a beautiful spot, and I was sure I’d return with a whole mess of fishies. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The mistake I think I made was choosing to bring a gun instead of a fishing pole. The gun was a Nighthawk Custom 10-8 combat pistol, and while it’s a great option for the military or police, it’s a decidedly terrible choice when it comes to recreational fishing.
In hindsight, this probably should have been obvious to me, as all my previous attempts to shoot fish out of the water have been a failure. Even so, I am stubborn, and I suppose I thought this time might be different. It wasn’t. I spent hours silently trolling the river looking for the perfect fishing spot, gauging wind and water temperature, attempting to use my fishermen’s sixth sense to determine where the steelhead might be lurking. Finally I found the spot, a little eddy on the north side of Mount Thielsen. There I found a huge school of hungry fish just waiting to be caught. Well, let me tell you something: as soon as I opened fire on those fuckers, they swam away, never to be seen again. All that work for nothing.
Fucking fish.
And it goes on from there. No, that wasn’t from Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan. It wasn’t one of Jack Handey’s Deep Thoughts from Saturday Night Live gone amok. That was an excerpt from Michael Ian Black off his website, MichaelIanBlack.com. I don’t know if it was just a posting on his site or if it was from one of the 45 essays that appear in his new best-selling book, My Custom Van. Check out his aforementioned website for more info.
*****
Subject: Sub Pop tour update
From: "Teal Garrels"
Date: Wed, July 16, 2008 10:14 am
To: "Teal Garrels"
Priority: Normal
A list of dates can be found here:
http://www.subpop.com/tours
Thanks!
Teal
CSS - Donkey
Release Date: July 22, 2008
Touring With: The Go! Team
Bio, photos, mp3s: http://www.subpop.com/media/css
Out Soon:
CSS Donkey (CD/LP) -- July 22
Oxford Collapse Bits (CD)-August 5
Death Vessel Nothing Is Precious Enough For Us (CD/LP)- August 19
Chad VanGaalen Soft Airplane (CD) --September 9
Blitzen Trapper Furr (CD/LP)- September 23
Daniel Martin Moore Stray Age (CD) -- October 7
Out Now:
Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer
Fleet Foxes-Fleet Foxes
Mudhoney--The Lucky
Ones
Mudhoney--Superfuzz Bigmuff: Deluxe Edition
No Age--Nouns
Flight of the Conchords--Flight of the Conchords
Foals--Antidotes
Sera Cahoone--Only as the Day is Long
Grand Archives--The Grand Archives
The Gutter Twins (Dulli & Lanegan)--Saturnalia
Ruby Suns--Sea Lion
Kelley Stoltz--Circular Sounds
The Helio Sequence--Keep Your Eyes Ahead
*****
Subject: Hear the Music of the Peanuts Comic Strip for the First Time at the Charles M. Schulz Museum
From: "Schulz Museum" <Gina@schulzmuseum.org>
Date: Thu, July 17, 2008 10:54 am
To: editor@sfherald.com
Priority: Normal
Experience the Passion of Two Great Artists in One Show
Schulz’s Beethoven: Schroeder’s Muse showing at the Charles M. Schulz Museum
August 16, 2008 through January 26, 2009
Santa Rosa, California. Musicians are often pleasantly surprised to find that they can actually play the musical notes floating
above Schroeder’s miniature piano in the Peanuts comic strip, and they are even more amazed to learn that it’s not just anyone’s
music Schroeder is playing—the compositions were created by none
other than his idol, Ludwig van Beethoven!
The Charles M. Schulz Museum and the Ira F. Brilliant Center for
Beethoven Studies at San Jose State University have organized a
joint exhibition, Schulz’s Beethoven: Schroeder’s Muse, to
provide the public with an opportunity to deepen their
appreciation of two great artists brought together by a tenacious cartoon character.
The exhibition runs August 16, 2008 through January 26, 2009 at
the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, and from May 1
through July 31, 2009 in the Special Collections Exhibit Hall of
the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library at San Jose State
University.
For the first time anywhere, visitors can hear the Beethoven
excerpts that Schroeder plays in the Peanuts comic strip via
audio wand. Dr. William Meredith, co-curator and Director of the Beethoven Center, believes that hearing the strips with music
adds a completely new layer of meaning and, in a few instances,
is even the punch line. Excerpts from the complete recordings of Beethoven’s sonatas by internationally–renown pianist Craig
Sheppard, Professor of Piano at the University of Washington in
Seattle, will be featured on the audio wands.
This exhibition, co-curated by Jane O’Cain from the Schulz Museum and Dr. William Meredith from the Beethoven Center, explains why Schulz chose certain compositions to feature in his strip, and
explores how his strips provide insights not only into the lives
of Schroeder and his friends, but also serve as a biography of
sorts of Beethoven’s turbulent life.
For more information consult the Museum website at:
www.SchulzMuseum.org.
*****
http://www.nields.com/
That’s the website for folk-pop band The Nields, whom I think are out of Boston. Or the Boston area. I forgot. It’s deadline and I don’t have time to look it up. I do remember seeing them perform at St. Michael’s Alley in Palo Alto when I lived there… man… it must have been 1994. They were very nice when my friend and I spoke to them after the show. I also remember my friend asking me why The Nields sung in Irish accents if they were American. I told her that Boston was full of Irish so maybe it rubbed off. Besides, Green Day are American and they sing in British accents, so what’s the big deal?
*****
Subject: Margaret Cho's Return to TV and new tour dates!!!!!
From: "Ken Phillips" <kpgroup@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, July 28, 2008 9:20 pm
To: "Ken Phillips" <kpgroup@yahoo.com>
Priority: Normal
MARGARET CHO’S “BEAUTIFUL” TOUR EXTENDED WITH NEW DATES THRU THE FALL
MARGARET’S NEW TELEVISION SERIES “THE CHO SHOW” DEBUTS ON VH1 AUGUST 21
MARGARET WILL GUEST ON “CHELSEA LATELY” SHOW AUGUST 20 AND “THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH CRAIG FERGUSON” SEPTEMBER 5
Thanks, Ken. If you never saw the Good Clean Fun comic where Chauncey goes to a Margaret Cho concert, click on “Dyke Eye for the Straight Guy V” at:
http://cal-list.com/SF_Herald/index.html
*****
Subject: Small Press Spotlight on Briana Miller
From: "Andrew Farago" <gallery@cartoonart.org>
Date: Wed, July 23, 2008 11:26 am
To: "Press 5" <gallery@cartoonart.org>
Priority: Normal
Cartoon Art Museum Exhibition: August 16 – November 30, 2008
Beginning on August 16, 2008, the Cartoon Art Museum's ongoing Small Press Spotlight will feature the art of Briana Miller.
Briana Miller is a Berkeley-born, East Bay resident who has lived in almost every city that touches the eastern side of the San Francisco Bay. She
created her first comic in 2000 and quickly discovered what she wanted to do
for the rest of her life. She has produced at least one hand-drawn,
hand-silk-screened comic a year ever since.
Each of Miller's comics is a self-contained story with no recurring
characters or story lines. Her stories are often a mixture of whimsy and
loss that becomes magical realism in unexpected moments of comic-book
maturity. In Walk Like Tall Birds, an old puppeteer at the top of each page
tells a story of lost love with his marionettes: a giraffe and an elephant
who were once in love. In Catch Me If, a girl walks around town with her
best friend, a giant lifeless hand, as a boy watches from afar.
*****
Last summer I ran this news article in the Herald…
HAMPTON BAYS, N.Y. -- Police on the east end of New York’s Long Island found the body of a man dead more than a year sitting in front of his television, which was still on. Vincenzo Riccardi, who was blind from diabetes, had apparently not been seen or heard from since December 2005, Newsday reported. But his neighbors, thinking he had been hospitalized or moved to a nursing home, did not think to check on him. The body was found Thursday by officers in Southampton who were checking on a report that a pipe had burst. Jeff Bacchus, an assistant at the Suffolk County morgue, said the body was well preserved because of a lack of humidity. Riccardi had been a widower for several years. A neighbor told Newsday she used to read his mail to him and perform other tasks, but stopped when they had a fight in the summer of 2005, after Riccardi demanded that she stay and help him when she had to go to work.
###
Then I offered this commentary…
I had trouble believing the above story when it came out. Having grown up on Long Island I couldn’t conceive of a body anywhere in New York being mummified due to “a lack of humidity”. A magazine article about it pointed out how odd it was that the electricity had been left on despite the fact the bill hadn’t been paid in quite a while. My friend Ashok, an immigrant from India and proprietor of Burlingame Smoke Shop in San Mateo County, has another take on it:
“They probably quit checking on the guy because they couldn’t take him anymore. I get these old people who loiter in my shop all day long. Their sons and daughters drop them off here. I asked one of them the other day, ‘Can your kids start paying me babysitting money to watch you?’ He told me, ‘How dare you! Why, I could be your father!’ and I told him, ‘You’d have had to screw my mother to be my father.’”
I recently spoke with Ashok and he told me that after that story appeared in the Herald, old folks stopped being dropped off at his store.
The power of the media.
*****
Subject: Cal-List, Mill Valley philharmonic auditions
From: "Laurie Cohen" <laurie.cohen@sbcglobal.net>
Date: Mon, July 28, 2008 12:58 pm
To: "Gene Mahoney, SF Herald" <editor@sfherald.com>
Priority: Normal
Dear Gene,
Mill Valley Philharmonic is holding auditions for volunteer players in our community orchestra. Our Fall season begins on September 10th. I hope you will join me in getting the word out!
Please let me know if you have any questions, or are interested in discussing this further. We would be happy to be in contact. If you would
like photos or images, please let me know. Thank you for your consideration. The release is in an attachment and in text below.
Thank you,
Laurie Cohen
Laurie Cohen, Director
Mill Valley Philharmonic
611 Springfield Way
Mill Valley, CA 94941
415-383-8013
fax: 415-383-0930
<http://www.MillValleyPhilharmonic.org>
laurie.cohen@sbcglobal.net
-----------------------------------------
Mill Valley Philharmonic seeks volunteer violins, violas, basses and trumpet
for its fall season.
2008 marks the 75th anniversary of the signing of the New Deal. Mill Valley
Philharmonic revives its multi-media program, The Works Progress
Administration: Orchestral Music and Art of the 1930s. The program includes
orchestral works from the 1930s (Bacon, Copland, McKay and Still) as well as
narration and a short video.
MVP seeks skilled volunteer musicians to fill out the violin, viola and bass
and trumpet sections. Rehearsals begin September 10th; performances in
Marin on November 1st and 2nd; outside the Bay Area on November 8th and 9th.
Please contact director Laurie Cohen for auditions.
415-383-0930
info@millvalleyphilharmonic.org
MillValleyPhilharmonic.org
*****
Steven “Mr. Fabulous” Capozzola emailed me the latest from the great Will Franken. The modest guy he is, he thought it was better than anything he had written. Here it is, and contact Will if you have any gigs for him…
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=149960017&blogID=411262536
*****
Subject: PR: Exotic Erotic Ball Announces San Francisco Travel Values
From: "Christopher Buttner" <chris@prthatrocks.com>
Date: Fri, July 18, 2008 4:17 pm
To: Recipient List Suppressed:;
Priority: Normal
Thanks for your consideration of this press release from the Exotic
Erotic Ball announcing its artist and talent line-up. The
festivities will occur the weekend before Halloween - October 24 and
25, 2008 - at the event's new waterside location on Treasure Island
in San Francisco, California.
Who's Coming? Danny Bonaduce, MySpace vixen Bobbi Billard, who is now
the world's #1 downloaded model on the entire net, and Asian
Supermodel Akira Lane, The Genitorturers, and performance artist
Mobius8 will be bringing his multimedia stage show to the Ball's
electronic stage. The Ball will feature one of the most uninhibited
and gifted artists in the world, Pricasso, all the way from
Australia. You would need to check out his site to get a full grasp
of his talent: http://www.pricasso.com
The rest of the entertainment lineup, totaling over 65 acts in all,
will be announced in the coming weeks and months.
The complete Exotic Erotic Ball press release, with images of the
aforementioned performers, can be found at this URL: http://www.prthatrocks.com/pressrel/eeb08arttalentpr.htm
Thanks for your consideration of this press release from the Exotic
Erotic Ball, announcing the best travel deals to San Francisco in the
Ball's 29-year history.
The complete press release is online at: http://www.prthatrocks.com/pressrel/eeb08travelhotelspr.htm
It is also attached as a WORD document, with two thumbnail images of
one of our partner hotels, San Francisco's historic Renoir Hotel, and
it is pasted into this email, below.
"The Exotic Erotic Ball" is widely considered the world's #1
adult-themed party event with live headline entertainment on five
stages - music, electronic, burlesque, circus, and fetish. The
legendary Halloween extravaganza has been called "The World's #1
Wildest and Sexiest Party," by E! Entertainment TV, Playboy TV
recently featured the Ball in their hit reality program, "69 Sexy
Things to do before You Die," and Art Mann Presents continuously
calls it, "The World's Greatest Party."
Very Best Regards,
Christopher Buttner
President
PRThatRocks.com - Pandering to the Mainstream
PRThatRoXXX.com - Tickling their Sphincters
tel: 415-381-8647
fax: 415-381-8682
email: chris@prthatrocks.com
"If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it."
Albert Einstein
*****
From the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History…
Subject: new Woods book: Who Killed the Constitution?
From: "Thomas Woods" <woods@xxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, July 8, 2008 9:03 am
To: "Thomas Woods" <woods@xxxxxxxxxx
Priority: Normal
Dear friends,
Just letting a few of you know about my new book, with Kevin R.C. Gutzman (the New York Times bestselling author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution), just released today: Who Killed the Constitution? The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush.
This is some subversive stuff, in the best sense. I talk about it here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods92.html
Without my even asking, some folks I don't even know all that well set up this website: http://www.whokilledtheconstitution.com.
The publicity on this one is pretty light, so we hope to get some buzz going on the Internet.
Hope you enjoy it!
Best,
Tom
http://www.ThomasEWoods.com
*****
From my web designer…
Subject: Re:
From: "craig clifford"
Date: Fri, August 1, 2008 2:31 pm
To: gmahoney@sfherald.com
Priority: Normal
I added Google tracking to your site...interesting.
Top search queries (actual string searched where your site popped up in the results):
[ranking, % of searches, term searched, placement]
1. 48% herbert e meyer 9
2. 20% san francisco herald 2
3. 16% pearl harbor and the explosions 8
4. 8% counting crows lead singer 8
5. 8% "herbert e meyer" 9
Here is who is linking to cal-list.com currently (by way of the redirect from sfherald.com):
http://www.google.com/search?q=link:www.cal-list.com&hl=en (Butch Vig!)
Others that link to Sfherald.com:
http://cliassf.blogspot.com/
http://meneame.net/search.php?p=tag&q=san+francisco+herald
http://www.bayareapress.com/
Wow. More people come to Cal-List by searching for Herb Meyer, the Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration than by searching for my old newspaper.
At least I don’t get the wackos who type things into search engines looking for the West Virginia Surf Report:
http://thewvsr.com/searchengines.htm
*****
Subject: Forestville Expo Aug 21
From: "Vesta Copestakes" <vesta@sonic.net>
Date: Tue, July 29, 2008 9:33 am
To: vesta@sonic.net
Priority: Normal
The Forestville Chamber of Commerce is planning a Forestville Town
Social and Business Expo for Thursday August 21st in the field
downtown Forestville across from Mosaic Restaurant (the future Town
Square).. Local businesses and individuals are invited to set up a
booth or table, sell their wares, give away promotional material, and
feed & entertain everyone who comes to enjoy each other's company.
Local restaurants will be serving up take out; musicians will
entertain; and anyone who wants to be a part of the action just needs
to call either Vesta at 887-0253 or Karen Dion at 887-3320 or pick up
a form in downtown Forestville or download it from the Forestville
Chamber web site at: http://www.forestvillechamber.org/events.htm.
Booth space is $15 for Forestville Chamber members and $30 for
non-members.
*****
August Shows for the San Francisco Improv Festival:
The Election Show
Week Five: Genre Improv with The Election Show and Get Up at The Purple Onion!
SPF7
Week Six: Battle of the Sexes with SPF7 and Silver City Pink at The Purple Onion!
It's the men against the ladies. It is Los Angeles against San Francisco. It's smoking hot improv against...well...smoking hot improv! Catch San Francisco's SPF7 with Los Angeles Silver City Pink at The Purple Onion!
Pale Irish Bastards
Closing Weekend: Race and Comedy Weekend with Pale Irish Bastards and Oui Be Negroes at The Purple Onion! A great way to close the festival is with the hilarious Pale Irish Bastards from
Los Angeles and San Francisco favorite staple Oui Be Negroes! It's Ebony on Ivory for the closing of SFIF08 at The Purple Onion! Don't Miss it!
*****
In an early issue of the Herald I implied that I printed one of David Highsmith’s poems just because he took out an ad with me. And let me tell you, Dave got a bit peeved by that.
So now, in this early edition of Cal-List.com, are the poems of David Highsmith.
(Oh, by the way, Dave just took out an ad link on the Cal-List business directory. Check out his store, Books and Bookshelves under Home and Garden in San Francisco. But that has nothing to do with my printing his poetry here. Hit it, Dave…)
Subject: submission for California Herald
From: "David Highsmith" <poetrymail@sbcglobal.net>
Date: Sat, July 5, 2008 7:22 pm
To: editor@sfherald.com
Priority: Normal
Hi Gene,
Here are the poems you asked me to send. Let me know if you'd rather have attachments; the format is pretty straightforward.
Titles:
crap shoot
C.S.I.
diet
for B.P.
Upon a Garden Path
Best,
David
David Highsmith
99 Sanchez Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
415-621-3761 (work)
poetrymail@sbcglobal.net
crap shoot
our providence
a spark
calypso and/or venus
a barricade to scuttle "fault"
our spirits to breathe
a purer air
a figure
cast from clouds
by clueless gods
hurtled thus
a blessing scorned
however "just" the celebration
C.S.I.
another spectacle you’d like us to see
“TV dinner by the pool”
you make it sound easy
real-mode logistics, cd-rom support
you recover the cranium
as calmly as you might sterilize a wound
you secure the scene
block this shortcut into Hell
you tell us just how poison works, each meal
a possibility, an end to conscious growth
diet
patients within a random sampling
laze parallel awaiting value
glower at nutritional units
detection a grinding rivalry
seizure & hysteria sacked
the main thing is an IV
a vacuum of formal expiation
for B.P.
a punt
carried him nearer
two lane
Louisiana
I satiate
destruction
“some consolation"
in a neophyte's car
Upon a Garden Path
but the faces, unreal, reach out, oleander, leaves with razor
edges, it is hoped that nothing will happen
the beds made by assistants, those who pull the shade
at evening, or at thrust, of objects into garbage
torn scraps, a vacant past, tequila sunrise on the grid
or suspended into strata, the bills, TV, & rent
animus, remembered, its peculiar trembling, discordant
& relieved, acute angles form a bed
a potato is boiled, gently, for texture, skin, & not
the stuff inside, the starch we’ve chosen to discard
to discuss only with discretion, arranged just so
upon a garden path, or in an estuary’s fork
in collaboration with Darrell Gray, 1979
*****
Subject: 2nd Annual American River Music Festival Press Release.
From: "american river music" <matt@americanrivermusic.org>
Date: Mon, July 14, 2008 6:19 pm
To: matt@americanrivermusic.org
Priority: Normal
The 2nd annual American River Music Festival is September 19-21, and is the largest music festival in El Dorado County.
The festival is bringing 12 terrific bands from throughout North America,
which will give over 22 Americana, Folk and Blues performances and
workshops. We are thrilled to have bands such as Gandolph Murphy and the
Slambovian Circus of Dreams, from New York, which the Falcon Ridge Folk
Festival (recently voted the #1 festival in America) states "Imagine a band
that has mixed 25 years of rock and roll with a dash of folk and a pinch of
Americana into an enormous caldron over a blazing fire. Stir it all with
creativity and season with talent. The result is the sound of a yesterday
long forgotten, and a refreshing revival of what made you listen to music in
the first place."
Tickets and all information can be found at
www.americanrivermusicfestival.org or by calling 530 622-6044. Or for a
quick and fun listening experience go to
www.myspace.com/americanrivermusicfestival.
*****
Maybe Michelle Obama will show up…
Subject: New release: Women's Conference
From: "Radical Women" <calradicalwomen@yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, July 23, 2008 9:45 pm
To: "Cal Radical Women" <calradicalwomen@yahoo.com>
Priority: Normal
NEWS RELEASE
From: Radical Women
New Valencia Hall
625 Larkin Street, Suite 202
San Francisco, CA 94109
calradicalwomen@yahoo.com
Activists and scholars to gather at milestone international women’s
conference
“The Persistent Power of Socialist Feminism” is the theme of Radical
Women’s 41st anniversary conference to be held at San Francisco’s
historic Women’s Building, October 3-6, 2008. The major goal of the
three-day public event is to produce a concrete education and action
plan to focus and strengthen the U.S. feminist movement—one that can
win survival issues, such as 24 hour childcare, nationalized healthcare
and full reproductive rights.
Keynotes and panelists from Central America, China, Australia and the
U.S. will demonstrate the capacity to unite across national, race, age,
and sexuality lines; discuss the impact of women of color and
immigrants on the revival of the labor movement and the need for
on-going grassroots mobilizations that are independent of the
Republican and Democratic parties; specify ways to expand multi-racial
organizing; and help build the leadership of youth and queers.
Skills training workshops will teach media relations, banner and
leaflet design, public speaking, campus organizing, and starting an RW
branch, among other topics. Issues workshops will range from
reinstating affirmative action and recognizing females’ stake in
antiwar actions, to connecting radical youth with rebel elders,
fighting fascism, and studying Marxist feminist theory. A book signing
party for recently published Viva La Raza: A History of Chicano
Identity and Resistance, by Radical Women leaders Yolanda Alaniz and
Megan Cornish, will be part of conference activities.
Bay Area RW Organizer, Nancy Reiko Kato, whose branch is hosting the
conference, notes that Radical Women is one of a handful of women’s
groups founded in the 1960s that is alive and well today. “RW is
unique,” she says, “in its financial and ideological independence from
government officials and corporations. We have expanded into an
international organization because of our anti-capitalist, multi-issue,
pro-worker program and dedicated active membership. We invite everyone
to the conference who wants to end misogyny and advance the rights and
living conditions of all people.”
Registration is $15 per day; students and low income $7.50 per day.
Register at www.RadicalWomen.org. For more information, phone
415-864-1278.
*****
NICE JEWISH GIRLS GONE BAD
FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KVETCH! KVETCH!
THE CHOSEN CHICKS RETURN TO THE BAY AREA
Sunday, August 17th @8pm
Red Devil Lounge
1695 Polk St. at Clay
San Francisco
www.reddevillounge.com
1-866-468-3399
Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad are going get jew, Sucka. These chosen chicks – badass balabustehs of comedy, music and burlesque - return to The Red Devil Lounge on August 17th at 8pm to schtick it to the man.
We've got big news. After cruising the US for 5 years, Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad opened Off Bway at The Zipper last December to rave reviews - The NY Post called us "hilarious", The Voice called us "Super Fun" and the Forward kvelled and made our mama proud.This rendition of mishagas on wheels features new
songs (“The Filthiest Song About Hamantaschen”), “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen Remixed” and the mystery of Judaism solved: “What’s in Gefilte Fish?” (it's “Fear Factor” for Jews!).
This rendition of Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad will feature comedians Shawn Pelofsky (E!, Comics Unleashed), Joel Moss (YouTube), Scotty the Blue Bunny Go-Go booty shakin’ by Honey Lawless and Dottie Lux. Klezmer magic will be provided by house band The Yiddidiots and, as always, the show is hosted by the queen
of the quick change, The Goddess Perlman (Last Comic Standing).
Co-sponsored by the JCC Hub.
Here are recent reviews:
NY Post
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04042008/entertainment/theater/girls_bawdy_and_nice_104870.htm
Jewish Daily Forward
http://www.forward.com/articles/12327/
Backstage Review
http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/nyc/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003682057
The Village Voice
http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/0802,musto,78812,15.html
*****
Get the scoop on last night's hottest shows and the live music
scene in your area - Check out TourTracker.com!
(http://www.tourtracker.com?NCID=aolmus00050000000112)
*****
On August 1st I was lucky enough to see two of my favorite bands from the ‘80s, The Alarm and The English Beat, perform at San Francisco’s Fillmore. No, it’s not because I dusted off my wallet and actually paid for a ticket. (Thanks to Ken Phillips, the publicist for The Alarm, for getting me in to the show and into the Meet-and-Greet afterwards.)
Mike Peters is still fronting The Alarm. Actually, he’s the only original member of the band left. I heard the first few tracks from their new album, Guerilla Tactics, a couple of hours before the show as I was getting ready. I told him that when The Alarm’s first album came out in… I think it was 1983… the review of it in Rolling Stone claimed it sounded like a cross between Bob Dylan and The Clash. As people, even rock stars, get older, they tend to become more mellow, so I figured his new work would resemble Dylan more than The Clash. But this doesn’t. As a matter of fact, it reminded me of The Clash’s second album, Give ‘em Enough Rope. I asked him if this more aggressive approach was influenced by his desire to defeat lymphoma, the disease he was diagnosed with a few years ago and is still fighting (successfully). That this defiant punk posture (mixed, paradoxically and inevitably, with middle-age wisdom) was an offshoot of the adversarial relationship he had with the disease. He said indeed it was. Good for you, Mike. Keep kicking Lymphoma’s ass! It’s Rumble in the Jungle and it’s Foreman and you’re Ali and it’s been pounding you on the ropes but now it’s out of gas and you’re still STANDing. Lymphoma started it but you’re finishing it, babe.
I’ve heard a lot of people say that Mike is a nice guy and I really have to concur. He spoke proudly of his wife and kids and… the band he’s in with Captain Sensible from The Damned… Dead Men Walking, which he describes as a punk version of The Traveling Wilburys.
It was also great to see The Beat (or the English Beat as they had to be called over here because of… I think it was the Paul Collins Beat). Anyway, there’s only one Beat in the world of Ska-influenced rock and these guys are it. It’s not often you come across a band past its heyday that express such humor and humility, and really know their place in the world. It was so cool how they took the stage to Henry Mancini’s “Theme from The Pink Panther” and interacted with the adoring audience. The crowd ate them up. I could go on about how great they were but it’s deadline so you’ll just have to just take my word for it, even if it’s something as banal as “The crowd ate them up.”
I wanted to write about this young woman I ran into who made it from New York to San Francisco on 13 cents, but let’s save that for next time.
Ta Ta. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. See you in September.###
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