Tuesday, September 5th
Speedealer, The Streetwalking Cheetahs and American Heartbreak
Live at the Cat Club in San Francisco, California
Well up first this night was American Heartbreak. Who were another bad-ass-punk-rawk band. Although these guys strayed from the mold quite a bit with a much stronger pop sensability than most of their contemporaries. They were basically the sound check band and played quite a short set to not-very-many people. They were fun and entertaining and put on a good show. But that was about it really. Up next were The Streetwalking Cheetahs who were also part of the fast and furious rawk crowd. From what I remember, which isn�t too much, they put on an energetic and strong show. Fast and furiuos with a lot of metal-ish guitar wankery that worked well for them. Again a fun band to see live, but sorry, it�s just not my cup of tea.
 And then, the headliners, and the band that Isis and I were there specifically to see: Speedealer. We actually skipped the Grand Canyon leg of our sight-seeing journey to make it to San Francisco in time to see these guys. I�d seen them before, opening up for Motorhead and Fu Manchu in Victoria and didn�t really �get it� so I was sort of leaning towards skipping Speedealer and seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. But Isis persuaded me into it because she�s buddies with the guys in the band. I�m definitely glad she did. Speedealer were excellent! Much better as a headliner in a small club than an opener in a bigger venue.
From start to finish Speedealer were crushingly heavy and expertly tight. Floating smoothly between Eyehategod-esque power-crunch-chords and screaming-growls into more Skynard style licks and smooth stoner guitar riffs and even touching on some punk rock/speed metal for good measure. The main thing about these guys is that their songs are damn fine and they play them aggressively and super-tight without missing a note. Don�t miss them if you get the chance!
Wednesday, September 6th
Nebula, High on Fire, Acid King and The Heads
Live at the Maritime Hall in San Francisco
 Again with The Heads. Alright already! Hehe � Actually this was the last time I saw The Heads and this was by far their best performance. They really had their stage-legs for this show and they leaned right in and gave it their all. The Maritime Hall is a big joint too, with two massive video screens that were playing live feeds of the bands on stage filtered through mind warping psychedelic effects filters. This really helped me enjoy The Heads a lot more. Focussing my attention on the psychedelic vision of them on the screens while getting absorbed into their rather lengthy distortion drone sessions was a perfect mixture for the senses. I had even decided to buy their awesome gatefold double vinyl release that they were flogging at the previous shows. Unfortunately they were all gone by the time I gained an appreciation for these guys. They assured me that they�d send me one in the mail for review though. And I�m looking forward to it!! I ended up buying a cool Acid King t-shirt, that says �I got busted in Busse Woods� on the back, instead! (Directly from Lori S. herself I should add..)
And speaking of the devil. Up next were the dirge demons themselves: Acid King. This was only my second time seeing Acid King in the flesh and they did not let me down. Except that the volume was no where near loud enough. When I saw them in Portland at the Satyricon they nearly achieved a sonic boom and Lori�s guitar tone nearly made me melt! At this show at the Maritime Hall it just didn�t come anywhere near those heavenly volume levels. But otherwise their set was absolutely massive! They started off with an instrumental which I think was Busse Woods. After that they proceeded to play all their solid gold hits including Silent Circle, Electric Machine, Teen Dusthead and Drive Fast, Take Chances. And finally as an added treat they played one of their new songs to close their somewhat short, but still satisfying set. I think this must have been a song from their upcoming split with The Mystick Krewe of Clearlight coming out soon on Man�s Ruin. And it was a ripper too. Dirge �n� Roll baby, all the way!
 High on Fucking Fire. Oh YEAH!! Again this was only the second time I�d caught these dirtbag geniuses on stage. High on Fire, as opposed to Acid King, was easily three times as good as when I�d seen them previously. Due probably to the fact that their equipment all worked without any failures. Which is surprising given the punishment these metal heads inflict on their amps!! Matt Pike had all 4 of his Green Matamp cabinets out for this show too and he played like a true guitar hero! The great thing about this set was that the stage was nice and big and gave him and George some room to move around a bit. Which they did, with Matt Pike frequently leaning on to the monitors with one foot up on them while delivering blistering lead after blistering lead! And I forgot my camera for this show too, fuck fuck fuck! I could have got some real nice �guitar god� poses of Matt on file and I got no pics of Acid King either.
 And then, again, Nebula was up. If my memory serves me correct they really changed up their set on this one and played different songs than the two recent times I�d seen them. Which was great and kept things nice and fresh. Especially with the tripped out video footage on the big screens and a pipe being passed around in the audience! And once again they were tight and right on the money with excessive smoke and great lighting. This time they closed off the set with an encore performance of Fly On. Awesome! Again! I really regret that I didn�t get my camera to this show, coulda got some super sweet shots!
Thursday, September 7th
Lost Goat, The Man Scouts of America, Gammera and Pink Kross.
Live at the Covered Wagon in San Francisco, California
 Pink Kross was a 3 piece female punk band from Dublin, of all places, complete with super thick Irish accents. So nobody could understand what they were saying in between songs (hehehe), which were pretty boring. Just straight up 3 chord punk with very little variety. But they were cute and they got everybody pumped up a bit for Gammera. Who were really fucking cool. Robwrong really loves these guys on CD but I�ve always been kinda unsure about their stuff. Well seeing them live changed my mind immediately and forever. These guys are heavy, loud, downtuned and swerve from dirty dirge rock to full on Sabbath riff styling into almost psychedelic spacey parts. If you like heavy duty rock, don�t miss these guys on their current west coast tour with Natas!
 Up third were The Man Scouts of America with their full-on punk rock fashion statements and stage presence. These guys played fast, furious, and dare I say �good� punk rawk with excessive amounts of rebel attitude. And they had enough special effects during their show to skin a cat (huh?). Hehe. From exploding sparkler cannons (uh� can�t remember what those are called now?) to flame throwing torches on the ends of their guitars to a full-bore sparkling fireworks display at the end of their set. The singer had the best rock-n-roll grimace that I�ve ever seen, he breathed smoke directly from the smoke machine and he wore a leather jacket with leather bat wings sewn under the arms!! Man, live punk rawk does not get better than this.. Check these guys out if you ever get the chance, you won�t be disappointed!!
 Headlining this show was Lost Goat. My all time favourite doomy-math-rock band (well they�re tied with Witch Mountain for that spot!). I am not ashamed to admit that I�m a bit of a Tina and Erica groupie!! Hehehe � Hey they�re gorgeous and they rock out with the very best of �em! What can I do? This was my second time seeing Lost Goat and they exceeded their last performance by leaps and bounds, and I was blown away the last time I saw them! There�s just something about this Lost Goat that really turns my crank. Their songs are extremely well written and dynamic. Their compositions are complex, mathy and tight yet they�re somehow exactly the opposite of monotonous and boring, never getting too technical for the average punter. What can I say? I love �em. Lost Goat rules!
 The Covered Wagon Saloon is an especially cool venue and to my surprise Tim Moss from The Men of Porn was the door man when I arrived so I got to catch up with him before the show started. This Man of Porn is super genuine and a truly nice guy and he introduced me to Billy Anderson and a guy from The Demonics which was groovy. And I can�t forget the �big and beautiful� (cough!) go-go dancers that I was afraid to even look at for fear that they might look back at me!! Hehehe � Another noteable thing about this show was that George and Des from High on Fire and the drummer for Neurosis were up front and center for most of it. I even got a cool photo of George Rice rockin� out to Lost Goat with Erica in the shot. (Photo shown to your right, click it for a larger version). Fun, Fun, Fun!!
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