Babyland at 924 Gilman Street

Here is a belated review from last month's trip to San Francisco!



Emily had caught Babyland at Gilman back in September and said their live show is pretty damn awesome. Well it is!! The best way to describe it is how they do: electronic junk punk. Their percussion is steel barrels/cans and lead pipes. You can't see it in the vid I took above, but when Smith starts with the sparks flying, Dan has put on a football helmet. Also in the very short next to last clip, I was trying to tape these 2, 3 guys who were so smushed against the front of the stage that they were just bent completely over and headbanging on the stage with their hair flying around.

924 Gilman is like a West Coast CBGBs to us who listened to California punk like Green Day, Operation Ivy, Rancid and other bands who played there before they got famous. Gilman is pretty cool, it's all volunteer-run, by people of all ages, which actually seemed like really young kids! We had to buy a $2 membership before we got tickets. The membership says that we will adhere to their club's policies, like respecting people, no alchohol, etc. It's pretty darn neat. Here is their website: http://www.924gilman.org

Anyway, the door people all look like 15 year olds! A few look even younger! It's way too cute, even for my jaded heart :) Once we get inside, we marvel at the place like it's the Sistine Chapel. I take way too many photos of the girl's bathroom!! :D Then my sister realizes she lost her glasses somehow, so we have to rush back outside and we find her glasses right on the sidewalk by the parked car, one block from the club. Someone comments that it looks like John Lennon's. We are kinda morbid.

Back inside, I'm taking pix of the ceilings and walls and crap. There's this wall of photos when you first come in and there's also flyers of upcoming shows. I tell Evelyn I saw one for Pinhead Gunpowder and ask are they still touring? Then she goes all wide-eyed and can't believe it, they're reuniting for a few select shows. (Later on she spends time at Emily's computer looking up more info. Apparently it's very major. Tickets for some other shows are going for a lotta money.)

We've arrived after the show starts, so I think the third or fourth opening band is setting up. We go to check out the merch table. There are cute free Babyland pins. Emily recognizes the guy setting up the Babyland CDs as one of the two band members, so she tells him that she bought her NYC friends to check them out. He asks us which part of NY? We say Queens. The guy is named Smith and he says that his wife is from Queens too, but can't remember the neighborhood off the top of his head. He says that she is Colombian, where could that be? Evelyn and I say Jackson Heights at the same time :) He said, no, that's not it, try again. Corona? No. Elmhurst, I try. Yes, that's it!! he says. Haha, no way, that's where we are from. He is a very nice guy, starts to go into this whole humorous timeline of their entire discography, how when they started off ages ago they hated everyone so they named their album You Suck Crap and how people said they wouldn't last, so they named another album Who's Sorry Now and now they're more mature (hee) so they named their next album Outlive Your Enemies but now they don't care what everyone else thinks so it's The Finger. Something like that. I tell him we'll come back at the end of the show for the CDs, since we left our jackets and bags in the car.

The opening bands were okay, the stand outs being Everything Goes Cold and the Replicator which was having their last show. It was kinda sad! Eight years! Then the band before Babyland was called the Sixteens and I think they were more into their look and their slideshow than music, so it was kinda tedious. But Babyland came on and everyone was dancing like crazy, and during the second song a fight was about to break out in front of me, cuz this girl got really angry at this other girl but the guy friend came in to defend her with this really big shove and the first girl was going to take them both on, but her own guy friend quickly tackled her away. In between the shoves, I actually put my hand on both of the girls' shoulders to push them apart before they got into anything. That's when the guys came in. During another song another fight breaks out on the side, but this time it must be bigger, cuz the band sees it and says that drunken guy has got to leave.

Babyland has great music (you can hear some full tracks on last.fm) and great in-between song banter. At one point Smith asks that people stop smoking, because it gets hard to breathe. There are a coupla boos, but the singer Dan Gatto lightens the situation by also saying "yeah, and could i also ask that people wearing stripes and polka dots cut it out? it's so 90s." At one point one of the Gilman staff has to come up to make an announcement, that Rafael's mom is waiting for him outside. This makes the crowd crack up. The band says Aw c'mon, that's kinda embarassing. So they make a deal by saying if Rafael brings in his mom to the club that they'll give him a free t-shirt and every single one of their CDs. The crowd goes crazy and claps for Rafael's mom (who never actually shows, drat!). Later on someone in the band says "Who wants manlove!" and my sister hears this guy behind her say "Who doesn't?!" :D Anyway, great fun.

Oh! The Gilman store! There's this cute room in the back where you can buy super cheap snacks and drinks and zines and vegan donuts (those were $1.25). I spent a dollar on a Crunch bar, Tootsie pop and earplugs. One whole dollar. It's fantastic. We also buy this zine that lists all the bands that came by for past 15 (i think?) years. Right after Babyland ends their set, I make my way over to the merch table and Smith is right there! He's talking with this guy who is trying to give him $10 but wants no CD. Smith doesn't seem to understand, but the guy explains that he has downloaded all of their music and would just like to give him money. Smith seems like he still wants to give the guy a CD. Anyway i miss the rest of the conversation when Emily comes over and we are discussing what CDs to get. Smith then turns to us and pulls out the two latest CDs and two EPs which he is gonna give me all for $20. Dang, when they say the Babyland guys are nice, they really mean it! My sister and I go to veg out on a couch, while Emily uses the bathroom When she comes back she tells us she's been talking to Marco who sang some songs with Everything Goes Cold. Man, everyone is really nice! :)