Zen
Guerrilla@ Bottom of the Hill
San Francisco, USA
September 14, 2001
The biggest flag in San Francisco, California, West Coast, USA is on display tonight behind the stage. in fact, it’s so big one can only register about 22 stars, and half the colonies full of stripes.
While the crowd is not overtly nervous, there’s a definite sense of need in the air. For the past few days we all have been bombarded with the flood of images, words and feelings -- the USA has been attacked, thousands have died in an incredible, devastating assault upon the citadel of our economic and technological hegemony, and our entire national identity, including the ostensible and inevitable nihilism of rock & roll in the 21st century, must ask the question WHY? and WHAT NOW? The reality of collapsing buildings has cast a whole new light on our party.
The club is crowded. For the past few nights, just Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday since the attack (at dawn here on the WestCoast), things have been shut down. Most didn’t work Tuesday or Wednesday, streets were empty, workplaces silent, a sense of dread come over the entire country as we waited for numbers to add up and anger to add down, where it will no doubt fester.
There’s not the kind of crazy, fuck you feeling one would have expected. Instead there seems to be a quiet intent to rock out, rock on, get some feeling and share that. The crowd is about half and half -- half the city types who find big beat rock & roll like oxygen for the soul, the other half from the suburbs and less happening but no less desperate tonite. But everybody seems to feel just like a part missing.
What can SF’s leading act, Zen Guerilla, bring to the stage? The pressure is truly on, the band and crew set up early and then remain patiently present thru the openers, soaking up the feeling and energy which will power their appearance. No dressing room dilettantes, these guys are looking a bit nervous, but won’t be hiding tonight. Out on the patio (smokersland, for you non-Californians - smoking inside a workplace is illegal here, even in rock & roll bars) the band is getting ready. These guys appeared out of nowhere (Delaware? Smallest state in the Union), are pros, deliver the goods, will leave soon to promote their latest rockin’ major label (SubPop) release, SF’s own (now), toured Europe opening for Scott Morgan, etc. They’re not gonna drop the ball, they’re prepared to grind it out, like always.
It’s hard to put a finger on Zen Guerilla’s exact sound. For one thing, they can be described as a ‘gimmick’ band. Marcus, the lead singer, depends on an old B&H speaker deceptively fed thru some kind of delay, giving every sound he emits a deep b-flat echo surround, like out of a tenorman’s bell. It’s the most unique PA in rock & roll today, but after a few numbers it seems like only a necessity. He’s the kind of big guy with fuzzy outlines who can use his stature and smarts to deliver a soul-cry vibration, exactly the thing we need tonight. He’s got the pipes and he’ll use them, but it’s hard to imagine his voice without the added echo.
Rich Millman on his black Gibson, not afraid to turn it up and go wild. He’s got chops, drive and imagination. While ZeeGee may be a ‘punk blues’ kind of band, Rich takes the sonic path out of the red dirt laterite and into latter-day shattered concrete constructions.
But the real power in Zen Guerrilla lies in the boiler room - - Carl on bass and Andy on drums. There’s probably no rhythm section better working in America today. The beat is always up-front, the bass line always active, the dynamics always positive and bringing the melody into a neat circle with Rich’s shredding Gibson and Marcus’ bellowing vibration.
It’s a powerful combination and one rooted in basic R & B gospel blues roots. a lot of big chords and progressions seemingly tapped out of the dirty dirt that was trailed upstream from Congo Square in New Orleans, down where the Mississippi drains the continent. It’s ancient hoodoo, channeled this time thru these four guys, and sent welling up by Marcus’ electric feeling. He’s a shakin’, quakin’, swamp doctor, casting his sly electro-spell, but only because he has no choice.
The band takes the stage and wastes no time going off like a bomb. But a love bomb. there’s a great release in the room, everyone has got just one aim - rock and feel the vibration -and the surge towards the stage seems to raise the volume.
ZG usually rely on a repeated building of tension, which breaks down into a big blues release. Their habitual second number is ‘slow motion rewind’ (from their 1999 album "Trance States in Tongues".) It starts out with Andy’s savage strikes on the snare, and explodes into a fast ‘boogie’ beat made cosmic by Marcus’ wailing harp. the song pounds on to a midway guitar break, taking the crowd over the top. Lyrics are something about forgotten but persistent memories, accompanied by demonstrative and emphatic hand-gestures by the 6’4" leadman. "Do you hear what I’m feeling ... Do you wanna hear the reason? .... ‘Cause I been gone. I don’t wanna be gone." The song has the same effect on the crowd. We’re delirious with the boogie-ology. This is the REAL fundamentalism. Rhythm and melody and a big, big beat -- straight to the soul, as only American rock & roll can bring it. Yea, though we wander through the shadow of the valley of death....
The show goes on, more of the same, with songs regularly winding down in the middle only to erupt with Marcus’ kicks and jumps. Rich pushes the envelope by pushing his Gibson into feedback range, Carl & Andy keeping every beat there in the sonic ring. The only time the set slows down is with an announced ‘blues’ number, altho practically every song could be called a ‘blues’.
A mid-set covers section includes "Can’t Explain", a song perfectly suited for the tenor of the times. The crowd gets off on the fairly faithful version. One particularly gospel-drenched number features Marcus pointing towards the sky with the only understandable lyrics being "Forgive me for I have sinned".
By the end of the set the crowd is satiated, given the release that they craved. Confused, scattered, bludgeoned into feeling and beyond with a true disaster movie that screens endlessly on our American soul. There is a sense that we are all huge buildings that a jetliner fully laden with fuel has been deliberately crashed into, bringing us crumbling into the ground. We’re sick, chastened, grieving, questioning, angry and apprehensive. In short, perfect victims to be freed through the redemptive power of America’s greatest export, rock and roll.
Tonight, Zen Guerilla is the band that gives us the sonic vibration we need - working an uncanny melding of sound, bombast, power, irony, feeling - that encapsulates the American experience, and once more puts the soul front and center, lifting us back up in the streets, to rock on another day.
- Ig
