Featuring Death Angel / Judgement Day
Public Works, San Francisco
November 1, 2012
This was a classic "only in San Francisco" night. Hometown boy and lead guitarist of the biggest Metal band on the planet recently published a book chronicling his mind blowing collection of vintage horror posters, masks, toys and other collectibles. Tonight was the official release party and it featured pieces from his collection on display as well as performances by burlesque and fire performers, actors stumbling around the space as zombies, as well as musical performances by Judgement Day and also Kirk's longtime friends Death Angel.
I had never heard of Public Works before but it was great; modern and spacious with 2 levels. Appropriately it was also located at the end of a dead end street called Erie (Eerie!). Two hours prior to the doors opening for the general public, the author hosted a VIP party for his family and friends. It was really mellow and great with a lot of members of the Umlaut Nation in attendance. Food, drinks, and killer tunes flowed as the author casually mingled with his guests. Rock Star sightings included Joe Satriani, Mike Dirnt of Green Day, Tom Hunting and Jack Gibson of Exodus and probably a couple of others who I didn't recognize.. and this happened:
"Brain" not "Brian"!
Geek Alert: The limited edition dust jacket on copies of the book sold tonight were red. For each of his book events Kirk has a different colored dust jacket printed to make it unique and collectible. I love that! The Geeks shall inherit the Earth. It was a really, really fun evening already as I caught up with old friends... and the music hadn't even started yet. Dude, Kirk even busted out the original Misfits Horror Business drum head (painted by Glenn Danzig in 1979!) for the night:
[Photo courtesy of Cable Car]
Zombie Kirk Hammett or Zombie Jack White?
[Photo courtesy of Cable Car]
The warm up acts were a nice distraction before the Metal closed out the evening. There was a woman who did a burlesque act that featured a hula hoop, a musical performance by the violin / cello / drum trio Judgement Day (who call themselves a "guitar-less" Metal band...), and a woman who danced with fire. It was all very artsy fartsy.. but in a good way.
Tonight was the appropriate show for Death Angel to wrap up their latest tour cycle which has lasted over 2 years! Road Dogs! They kicked their hour long set off with 'Thrashers' and it was a tight deluge of Death Angel hits old and new including 'Seemingly Endless Time' and awesome versions of their new anthem 'Relentless Revolution' and also the quintessential Bay Area Metal anthem 'Kill As One'. They even threw in their cover of the KISS song 'She' for good measure. Nice.
[Photo courtesy of Photo Ray]
After running through a fun medley of Metallica riffs the band was joined onstage by the guy who produced their first demo a million years ago. For better or worse, shows in the 21st Century can be summed up this way: As Death Angel and Kirk steam rolled into blazing covers of the Misfits 'Horror Business' (natch!) and Metallica's 'Trapped Under Ice' (!) the floor did not erupt into a massive pit of raging humanity as it would have 25 years ago. There was a small hint of mayhem but that was overwhelmed because half of the people on the floor were holding up their smart phones (and even an iPad or two) taking pictures and video of the stage. Yayy YouTubeInternetsSocialMedia... Not. However, the modern technology did not take away the fact that it was a very special and very San Francisco way to close the night of celebration.
As the dust settled I didn't roll back into Casa de Umlaut until 2:00am... which was beyond impressive for a School Night. Wow.. what a really, really fun night. Rock Stars should publish books and have release parties like this more often.
If you bought one of every Kirk Von Hammett merch item you would have paid around $500. On the way back to the car, some pimply-faced teenagers called me a fag. The coolest moment out of many tonight was when the author signed my book and then mumbled through his fake fangs "Dude! Can you believe that after all these years we both have books published!?" Crazy, man. Crazy.
"Too much horror business.. Drivin' late at night.. Psycho '78.."
