Mesh Magazine

By: David Ma

Photos by: Anabella Pinon

The wonderful Sharon Jones stopped by a sold-out Bimbo’s last week, dancing, joking, singing, and simply working her ass off during an active, two-hour set. The Dap Kings showed why they were ask to back Amy Winehouse on her Back To Black album, switching rhythms and sounding more magnificent live than they normally do on record. Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings more than deserved everyone’s price of admission that night. They were so, sooooo good.

I plan on talking to Ms. Jones about this sold out tour (stay tuned!), her current career, and all the recent, well-deserved attention they’ve been receiving. But for now, here are some pictures from that mighty evening. 

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Show Review + Brother Ali Talks on Recent Tour With Rap Legends
By David Ma
Photos By Misa Nguyen

Rakim, Ghostface, and Brother Ali played two nights (November 1st @ The Catalyst & the 2nd @ The Mezzanine) here in the Bay last week. In addition, all three acts were backed by a very solid ten-piece band, The Rhythm Roots All-Stars.

Brother Ali, usually the headliner, was the opener this time around. Ghostface, whose career is shaping up to be quite epic, opened for Rakim; who is possibly the most revered rapper ever. Thankfully, their stop at The Catalyst was an impressive one.

Ghostface did verses from 36 Chambers, and selected solo verses, including a cover of Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “Shimmy Shimmy Ya”. The exuberant performance was preceded with a speech about ODB, adding weight and character to the performance. He also took time to acknowledge Rakim’s influence on his own career before finishing, stating that “he wouldn’t even be here without Rakim’s influence”.

Rakim was Rakim. Being the most quoted rapper alive means that your words are immediately familiar, even amongst a crowd that’s too young to tell. From “Paid In Full” to “Mahogany”, Rakim was all quotables. He performed without the clamor of an entourage, delivering lines that were written two decades ago without a shaky syllable. Rakim was, still is, and will be, an emcee with sharp lines that don’t seem to lose relevance with time.

As the opener, a fan, and successful rapper, Brother Ali spoke to Mesh the day of the show. After the jump are his thoughts on a tour that’s merging different eras of hip-hop with class and vigor.
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I caught New York Ninjas (who, inexplicably, hail from Southern California) at the Stork Club on Saturday. The band blended late ’70s, early ’80s style punk rock with, well, Ninja-influenced lyrics, fog machines and confetti and was incredibly entertaining. Headlining the show was Chicago’s Flatfoot 56, who kicked out Irish-style punk rock, complete with mandolin, reminiscent of Flogging Molly. The show also served as a CD release party for Cliff Greenwood, who laid down roots punk rock with his backing band The Monsters. Unfortunately though, Mr. Greenwood’s CDs didn’t arrive, which I think he planned as a statement on the record industry and a show of solidarity with the Greenwood brothers’ band.


Photos by Brian Brophy. More photos and a New York Ninjas mp3 after the jump.
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On Saturday, I attended the Matt & Kim/The Mall show at Bottom of the Hill for Blahdrey’s birthday. Good times. At one point in the show, Matt pulled out this marshmallow pizza they found at a store, asked who would eat it, so of course I raised my hand. He threw it to me and I chomped into it. Yum yum. Actually, gross, completely disgusting and I feel nauseous just thinking about it still. And The Mall is outta here for New York. Bastards. (And good luck, I hope they have much success on the East Coast.)

PS: Mesh SF Dot Com should be back in full effect after June 11th.

Thanks to all of you that came out and to Hey Willpower, Rubies & Erlend Øye, Casy & Brian, Jenny & Omar and everyone at The Rickshaw Stop. Super, super fun times.

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Went up to Point Arena (population 400) on the Coast in Mendocino County on Saturday to see Two Gallants, Vetiver, Michael Hurley & Morning Benders at the Point Arena Theatre. Unfortunately, I got to the theatre too late see Morning Benders, but I did catch Michael Hurley, Vetiver & Two Gallants. The whole thing took a crazy dirt-twirlin’ turn during Vetiver’s set. Wish I had some photos of that.

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31 Knots frontman Joe Haege looks like a preacher out of Flannery O’Connor’s twisted south when performing. He seems slightly possessed throughout the the set: when he takes the stage in a marching band outfit, stumbles around, swings his guitar wildly (almost decapitating some audience members) and deliverslyrics to “Chain Reaction”, screaming “And results/Results/Speak louder than words.” His vocal abilities go far beyond his room-commanding shouts; Haege sounds like a crooning standards singer during most of his songs, over music that can be dissonant, melodic, technical, prog-ish, and dub-influenced, yet somehow manages to maintain cohesiveness, while being challenging and accessible at the same time. 31 Knots stole the show. I picked up the band’s new album, The Days and Nights of Everything Anywhere and holy shit it’s good.

Headliners Two Ton Boa blasted away at their songs off their debut full-length Parasiticide and their previous, self-titled EP. Frontwoman Sherry Fraser’s voice is always something to behold, full of tremendous power and range. Unfortunately it was swallowed up by terrible levels, with one of two bass guitars being about five times louder than anything else. Scott Seckington played keyboards on some songs, which were completely inaudible. The band’s good performance was overshadowed by these audio problems. The band did go out on an impressive cover version of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit.”

Totimoshi kicked things off (well, The Cassettes did, but I got there too late for their set) with a somewhat more melodic set than the last time I caught them, but still pounded away with metal riffs from frontman Tony Aguilar and massive rhythm sounds from bassist Meg Castellano and drummer Chris Irizarry.
31 Knots


Lots more photos, clickity clack: (more…)

The Rockout @ The Knockout went off on Saturday night, with epic sets from three bands: openers Sholi, who I’d never seen before, and completely blew me away with their melodic, angular sounds, MOGGS, who came in from the North Bay, and rocked the joint with Sir Plus’ crunchy guitars and Miss Minor’s syncopated rhythms, and headliners Tartufi, who with the aid of a large line of pedals, recreated the swirling, noisy sounds of their latest release, Us Upon Buildings Upon Us, and those with closed eyes could easily forget that the group is just a duo. Thanks to all the bands, The Knockout, and especially Ben & Christian from The Bay Bridged for putting it all together.
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I checked out Von Iva at the Digital Lifestyle Outfitters & Culturecatch.com Macworld event at Great American Music Hall. Von Iva was nice enough to put a bunch of their friends on the list for the show, and thank god, because other than Von Iva’s performance, the whole event was completely wack. Attended by a mix of people in pleated khakis and old dudes who are probably really into Burning Man (it was emceed by a guy in his 40s wearing skinny sunglasses and there was another guy in his 50s walking around in a top hat), the event didn’t really seem to have anything to do with Macworld (nobody gave me a free iPhone). The MC let us know that it was being put on by Culturecatch.com about 10 times “check out our Web site… text message your friends.” Looking at the Web site, I can’t really figure out the audience it’s trying to reach. It covers a completely random mix of things, and doesn’t focus on one geographical area. Von Iva, now a trio, took the stage and rocked a set of all new songs, which will be appearing on the new album they are currently recording. This was the band’s first show in awhile, but they should be gracing the stage for more appreciative audiences soon. In the meantime, catch Jillian Iva at our Gucci Time event this Saturday @ The Rickshaw.

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Throwing Muses, 50 Foot Wave, The Moore Brothers
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Great American Music Hall

Kristen Hersh is a badass. Playing twice in one evening, and rocking hard the entire time, Hersh reminded me why I consider her to be one of the most talented rock musicians ever. There, I said it. Maniacal: 50 Foot wave’s sound is a thicker, more emphatic version of Throwing Muses, (I suggest you pick up an album or EP if you haven’t already) The power trio includes drummer Rob Ahlers and Muses’ bassist Bernard Georges. Watching this petite soccer mom looking woman expertly work her gargantuan Thor guitar arm was truly inspirational. After the performance I wondered if Hersh would have it in her for round two…
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