Your Flesh, the long-running and seminal fanzine based in LA is having their first showcase this weekend in San Francisco. Over the past 27 years Your Flesh, which was first a photocopied fanzine, then a fancy perfect bound magazine and now a bustling website, has nailed down with impressive accuracy some of the most important heads in the huge spectrum of rock'nroll music. They Featured everyone from Alice Cooper and Angry Samoans to Youth Brigade and Motorhead and has had every one from Art Chancery and Shepard Fairey to Coop and Dan Clowes do their cover design. And now, three decades later have moved their format to an exclusively on-line venture. Certainly, in retrospect Your Flesh has not only left an indubitable mark on rock journalism, but has open the gate for many pasty-faced and socially awkward music enthusiast to follow the same path.
So on Tonight, at the height of Labor Day weekend, Your Flesh is throwing a party designated the Your Flesh Invitational #1 at the Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco. Kicking off the night is the local act Traditional Fools, who will surely bring their fuzz-fisted mash-up of retro flavor party rock and will get this fete started correctly. After releasing their debut full length on Wizard Mountain this summer and banging out a consistent barrage loose moral tunage, it's clear that these guy's have cemented themselves in the budget rock order.
Also, recently releasing their full-length debut, Nothing People have the next slot on tonight's bill. Their new album on SS Records blaring shows their ability to slide from a psyche band into a gritter form and exemplifies the boundless genre melding zeitgeist that is currently changing the face of underground music. You still pick up Nothing People's debut LP here.
Chicago's Mannequin Men are playing the next slot, and over the past couple of years these dudes have completely blown up. Their LP on Flame Shovel released last year got piles of accolades and after playing shows with the Black Lips, The Ponys and even opening for The Smoking Popes earlier this summer the rest of the world should be catching on to their brilliant raw and exposing music in no time.
There is no doubt the Intelligence have left a creator in the landscape of underground music since they released their unique brand of futuristic and oddly primitive tunes on this dull world. They are truly one of a kind, and can be credited for the explosions of Glue-wave and its ilk over the past coupe of years. But where would we all be without the Urinals? At the height of the 70s as punk had blistered the west coast, the Urinals stuck out as one of the eras most memorable and adversarial bands. Their sound, at the time, was completely alien and has held up over the past 30 years to such an extent that they are amped by countless bands to this day.
