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Part I: Sleazefest is Decadent and Depraved . . . and So Are We.

Something smells in San Francisco...

...And I think it's the load in GG Olin's drawls. But we'll get to that later.

I didn't write last week because I was there in the home of the 49ers, earthquakes, hippies and fairies. And the 3 weeks before that I tried to write a few articles but they were about as fun as going to church on Super Bowl Sunday. Oh yeah, the Steelers lost since I last wrote. Fuck you.

We flew out for the first ever Sleazefest West. I have this whole vision in my head of Ma and Pa Clampet packing up the old clunker and heading off to Californy ta show them high-strung hippy Californians what rock n roll, eatin' and drinkin' is all about. (Go here if you have no idea what Sleazefest is). My girlfriend's mom lives out there, in a house in Oakland near Berkeley, so I stayed a few more days after the band left. We flew out to the City by the Bay on Valentine's Day. We're drinking here and there, and we have a layover in Nashville and we have a few overpriced beers at an overpriced airport sports bar there. Then we get on the plane, and Joann and I were sitting together and the rest of the band got seats in the back. Apparently Vee, Jeff and Matt were having a bit too much fun, because the stewardess decides to cut them off. What a bitch. This event marks the beginning of a string of people we manage to piss off on our trip.

We finally landed at Oakland international. Joann's mom picks her up and the band grabs a cab.

Cabbie: Where you guys going?
Us: Uh, the Metro Hotel.
Cabbie: Where's that at?
Us: Ummm. I think it's near Haight Street or something.

Luckily the cab company is used to tourists like us and sufficient enough to find the place with a bit of communication to the dispatcher.

On our way the cab driver, a middle-eastern guy (surprise surprise) was telling us about how we can get anything we want in San Francisco if we look for it, but a bit of advice, we better watch out because sometimes you see a really hot San Franciscan chick, take her home and the next thing you know she has a hard on the size of Florida.

We drive over the Bay Bridge from Oakland and arrive in San Fran greeted by the city lights and enormous billboards in a place I later learn is among the most expensive advertising space in the country. We drive deeper into the city, up and down those steep-ass hills and immediately I think of the car chase scenes in the Dirty Harry movies.

The hotel turned out to be on Divisadero St. It was one of those Victorian-type houses but not as colorful and ornamented as a lot of the ones in the surrounding neighborhoods. There was a little café on the bottom floor called the Metro Café, with all kinds of hipster types going in and out with shaved heads and black turtlenecks and black rimmed yellow-lensed prescription glasses. We check in and get to our closet of a room for $80 a night and we look out on the fire escape and there's one of those rainbow flags hanging there. And I'm wondering if the woman at the desk wasn't one of those chicks-with-dicks the cabbie warned us about.

We're tired but thirsty, so Jeff and I go out and learn quickly that on every corner there's a store with some foreign guy selling liquor, beer n wine. We drink a little and about an hour later some people that drove up from L.A. come into town, including native Pennsylvanians Tobin Shea and the infamous Olin brothers, Zack and Charlie. We immediately locate the nearest non-rainbow-flag-waving bar and commence getting fucked the fuck up.

Drink I can't stand: Southern Comfort. God that shit sucks. It's too fruity tasting or something. Anyway I had a bit of that and I ended up puking outside of the bar that we went to. Everyone else is on the way back to the Hotel which is just across the street and I'm still puking and hollering "It's ok! I'm from Pennsylvania!" in the middle of the street.

So we're up in Tobin's room and Chuckie (GG) Olin is telling people to hock loogies in his hand, and there are about 4 or 5 loogies in there when he fucking eats it. Back in our room we climb out on the balcony drunk yelling "Fag! Fag!" for no reason, and Jeff climbs on the roof and I look in the room and there's GG Olin with his dick out trying to get the window open. Later he gets hungry and eats part of the Gideon's bible (I think II Samuel). Now I know why they call him GG. And that was only night 1. Oh yeah, and we broke another fucking bed that night.

Friday morning I'm itching to check out the neighborhood so I wake up at 10 for a walk in the brisk air. I walk down Haight St. from Divisadero and check out the cool-ass Victorian architecture and the little stores and shit. I walk about ten blocks, and the next thing I know I almost walk into a Snoop Dogg video. A brother says "What's up!" to me, but not in the "Hello fellow American, welcome to my lovely urban neighborhood" tone but like he's warning me I better get the fuck off his block. I look down the street and there's all kinds of brothers drinking 40s and smoking blunts at 10 am, so I do an obvious 360 and get my honky ass out of there.

Friday is the first Sleazefest night. There's nothing to do all day before the show, so we walk up to Haight/Ashbury which is about a mile away and eat at this little deli. We walk down the street and check out the weirdoes. There is some hippy stuff up there but that's more for the tourists than anything else. There's a Ben and Jerry's and a Gap and all that gay shit. But what's cool up there is the dense collection of weirdoes in one spot. There's freaky kids with tattoos on their face and brandings and shit, there's old rolling fucking drunks and winos, in the middle of the day looking like I do at 4 am on a Saturday. There's old hippies and denizen bikers, half naked bums, and acidheads and pot dealers and a few junkies here and there. We went into a music store on Haight and Amoeba Records, which had everything I could think of. Tobin got a Molly Hatchet record for $1. Beard Rock!

We still had some time to kill so we got some supplies and started drinking around 1pm or so. There's a cool little patio at the back of the Metro Hotel, so we go out there and drink and bullshit for a few hours. We had to take a cable car, or streetcar or whatever it's called, but it's an electric bus to the Bottom of the Hill, the club where Sleazefest took place. The fare is only $1 and it runs all night. Here's a tip if you ever go to San Francisco: Don't talk to the bus driver. Most of them are stupid assholes that don't know shit.

"Does this go to 17th and Missouri?"
Looks at you like you're insane: "I don't know. On or off?"

So we get on the bus and we're feeling a little drunk and acting like total tourists. "It's ok! We're from Pennsylvania!" "Hey where's all the fags!" I don't remember what was said exactly but something to that effect.

Luckily we find the place after the bus driver almost kicked us off a few times.

The club turns out to be a cool little place with a decent sound system. And the cool thing, for me, about California bars is all the smokers have to go outside. I can be out all night and don't have to smell that stale, rank smoke smell on my shirt the next day. I recognized a few people from NC, namely the band Ghost of Rock. Friday's line up kicked ass. Ghost kicked ass, Fireballs of Freedom were amazing, the Woggles stole the show as usual, fuck who else played? The Immortal Lee County Killers put on the best show I've ever seen them play. I was half crazy and bombed on this night. I pulled apart some silver garland shit they had hanging at the front of the stage and was throwing it everywhere, on the stage, in my drink. It felt like New Years Eve.

1:30 a.m. comes around and I'm mumbling about nothing to everybody, superstar Jeff Robinson is walking around in one of those fluffy feathery rock chick coats, GG Olin is making a piss-puddle around the stage somewhere and the staff is politely asking us to leave. Zack says "Oh since you said to leave, I think, I think I'll stay longer!" Tobin and Beth and I think Vee get a cab back and piss off the cab driver, who screeches to a halt in the middle of the street and says "Wha did ju say? Wha diju say to me?" Tobin replies, "Get movin buddy, the meter's running." I leave Matt and the Olins there and stumble around 17th St for a good 40 minutes with silver garland hanging from my neck, not knowing where the hell I am and too drunk to read the maps at the bus stops. So I wait and hope the 22 comes and luckily it does and I get off up on Fillmore and manage to stumble back to the hotel. Luckily I had the key. They lock the front door after midnight and we only have one key per room.

Day 2. I get about 3 good hours of sleep the night before. I think somebody may have slipped some mild acid into my drink because when I try to close my eyes I have those wild kaleidoscope visions based loosely on breathing Victorian houses and rolling hills. It's probably just jetlag and high alcohol intake and lack of sleep.

Pretty much everyone is hung over not knowing whether to shit or puke and we go to this little Mexican joint down the street and no one finishes their meal. IUP alumni Graham Sherwood shows up from Seattle and we have a few beers. I should've taken a nap because I'm dead all day into Sleazefest that night until I have some Beam which puts a match under my ass.

The show was good once again, kicked off by Oklahoma's Sleazefest vets Billy Joe Winghead. Their signature homemade beef jerky does me right. Tobin pushes Orange Co., CA's own Throw Rag and they become my new favorite band. The Bad Checks from Raleigh represent NC superbly and the 45s explode as usual. I hang back for a while with Winghead drummer Bo and his girlfriend and I'm still not drunk. Bo suggests this California alcoholic energy drink but I hit the Beam and start feelin awake.

Dead Moon closes and they are a great band with some good songs and I'm STILL not drunk after about 11 drafts, 3 beam and cokes and some gay energy drink. Vee's looking bad and he's carried out of there. Charlie Olin smells like ass all night. We get a ride home with Jeff's new girlfriend and me, Matt and the Olins squeeze in the back.

She drops us off but drunk Vee still has the hotel key inside and we're outside wondering what to do. Charles, smelling so rank it's making our eyes water and we're about to puke, tries to climb up the fire escape and gets about a story up and falls off the building and hurts himself. Me and Jeff decide to find a payphone and try to call the rooms. No one answers and when we get back to the door Matt and the Olins are gone. Luckily other hotel guests arrive and we follow them in. Our room is open and I just want to sleep and me and Jeff decide we better check and make sure Matt and the Olins got in. So I go downstairs to go to Tobin's room and I'm met with the hotel lady yelling at me that we're being to loud. I tell her I just got in 5 minutes ago 12 times so don't yell at me but it doesn't seem to register with that stupid bitch. She threatens to call the cops so I tell her I'll tell everyone to be quiet because I don't want the cops coming in a bad mood deciding to give us hell, search and seizure. Apparently Matt and the Olins managed to break in the place through the side. Fuck that bitch lady.

Sunday rolls around and I get only 4 hours of sleep the even with how dead tired I was. Chuck "GG" Olin comes out of the bathroom holding his clothes and says casually, "It turns out I shit myself last night."

We go to a sandwich place down the street and Jeff orders Pastrami with Jack cheese but the Chinese guy somehow hears Cheddar.

Deaf Chinese Guy: "Who have chedda?!"
We stare blankly.
Deaf Chinese Guy: "Chedda! Who have chedda pastrami?!"
Brian: "I had ham."
Jeff: "I ordered Jack cheese."
Deaf Chinese Guy: "Ahhh sheet! You never say Jack! You say Chedda!"
Jeff: "I ordered Jack."
Deaf Chinese Guy: "You have Chedda!"

So in San Francisco we managed to piss off a stewardess, a bus driver, a cab driver, the bartenders at the Bottom of the Hill, the hotel lady and a Chinese guy that serves Italian sandwiches.

We go over our set in the hotel room and it's off to Sleazefest, where everyone is dead tired and we open the show. We played okay but I was so hung over and wired from lack of sleep that I kept missing chords. Joann and her mom showed to see us play, and we get a decent crowd padded by our west coast friends and the next band, Killer's Kiss and the touring Jimmy & the Teasers who had just arrived in town. Other bands that day were the Roofies, a weird weird girl band that fucks with your head, the Lords of Altamont, who look like a vintage motorcycle gang out of The Wild Ones. One guy even had the Lee Marvin stripes. So that was good. The Sons of Hercules from Texas was a highlight for me. They are a Ramonesish Stoogesish punk rock band that look like something out of a horror movie. I talked to Len from the Lazy Cowgirls but I regrettably missed their set (fuck!) because I was up in the band room partying. Dead Moon closed and they are a bunch of big bad motherfuckers with power tools playing some dark surfy music.

I got left because everyone thought I left early. I talked to the guitarist of Sons who invited me to a shindig they were going to. I thought about it but I didn't want to wake up not knowing where the hell I was so I caught a ride back to the Metro with Jimmy & the Teasers. I was once again locked out and tried to break in from every angle but couldn't, and almost started looking for a safe place on the street to catch 40 winks. Luckily another musician who was also playing in town just got back from a gig and had a key.

Next day everyone is dead and it's check out time at the Metro Hotel. Jeff gets back in the nick of time to grab his shit from our room, which looks like the inside of Jeff's car. Ann Marie, Jeff's new girlfriend, gives me a ride to Berkeley where Joann and her mom will pick me up and she gives the rest of the band a ride to Oakland where they find a hotel near the airport to sit and watch movies all day, which is all anyone had the energy to do. You must understand the damage Sleazefest inevitably does do your mental and physical well-being. Ann Marie is playing the Stooges in her car, and we ride over the Bay Bridge and we roll into Berkeley and Iggy's going mad on Funhouse, insane like Screamin Jay Hawkins and I'm going on 12 hours of sleep this past weekend and mildly hallucinating feeling the Satanic psychedelic voodoo of the music and of the city....