Wednesday, Aug 27th 2003
Thee Parkside - San Francisco, CA

A very last minute show that Karen sort of forced our way into. See this guy Tait from Junk Sick Dawn, whom she works with, was supposed to play that night, but he had to cancel at the last minute. Karen overheard the cancelling conversation and stepped up to offer the Beautiful Engine services for the evening. Mike, who also works with Karen, and was the one putting the show together, agreed. He had no choice. She had incriminating photos.

So we got to play Thee Parkside - one of the last strongholds of the San Francisco "SCENE", we've been trying to infiltrate for a while. Just goes to show, it's not how good you are, or how many times you send your press kit. It's who you know. Damn, that sucks, but it's the cold hard truth.

Cool thing about this night, was that it was all duets playing. Unintentionally, most of them were drum and bass combos. Crazy.

Mike started it all off with Rosie as his drummer, also known as FIX WITH A FRIEND. Samples of politics and drug use, meshed and weaved with earsplitting bass noises, often as a result of bludgeoning his instrument with metal pipes, slide whistles and anything else within his grasp. Rosie was truely in her element, as she had free reign to do the craziest, drum filliest, fasted playing for as long as she wanted. It was cool to see her get to let loose.

After that was Meow Meow and the Meow Meows. This was Larry, the bassist for Victim's Family on drums, and a girl who we didn't really meet officially on vocals and bass. She had a simple, straightforward sing song voice, perfectly poppy, over melodic basslines (how does she do that?), and Larry on a tight little drum kit. Garagy, but not gritty. Pop, but not pretty. Dancey, but not silly. It totally worked.

Then we had the rarely spotted, but undeniably geniusness of The Tonewheel Orchestra. Another of Karen's c-oworkers named Darryl, plays the Hammond B3 organ. And we mean he PLAYS this thing. It was a joy to not only see such a beautiful instrument up close and personal in a punk club, but to see someone like Darryl, unassuming as he is, just tear it up. Joining him for the first time was John the drummer. Fantastic drummer. He gelled with Darryl, and no one would've ever known they hadn't been playing together for years.

We wrapped up the evening for whomever was punk enough to stay late on a Wednesday night. Just a sweaty, fun, unexpectedly cool last minute show. Thanks Mike for letting us play!