Black Rebel Motorcycle Club in SF
San Francisco has held on to its hard-on for Brit pop and shoegazer bands for more than a decade. I remember, back in the early 90s, my best friend here was David, an expat wannabe. With his heartthrob Damon Albarn looks, and a prime CD collection?mostly imports?of acts like Pulp, the Stone Roses, Ride, the Boo Radleys and Suede, he was a walking All Music Guide to UK rock. The first time I dropped acid, David and I listened to Slowdive's "Souvlaki Space Station." As the layers of effects painted galaxies in my brain, I swore we were on a rocketship to some stylish musical planet in outer space. For the next couple of years we checked out live shows by everyone from the Inspiral Carpets to the Jesus and Mary Chain.
By the end of the decade, though, it felt like all the good Brit bands had disappeared. Groups like Oasis and Blur got bloated and boring, softies like Travis crept onto the stage, and the local Brit pop club turned into just another meat market for high-schoolers with fake IDs. The musical Anglophiles in town were getting steamrolled by vans of indie rock kids and the pop scene here was long on style and short on substance. But through those seemingly dry times the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club was keeping the shoegazer movement alive.
The BRMC formed in the Bay Area in 1998. The band has only one member from the UK?drummer Nick Jago is from England, the other two boys hail from East Bay 'burbs?but they still manage to make the most narcotic, wall-of-guitars rock since the Jesus and Mary Chain officially disbanded in 1999. In fact, BRMC sounds exactly like JAMC, mixed with a little Spiritualized and My Bloody Valentine. Since none of those bands has played around lately, it was great to watch an act that keeps up with the spirit of its influences, paying attention to visual atmosphere and the effects-laden noise seeping out of the amps.
When BRMC took the stage at Bottom of the Hill, dirgey space rock returned to a packed house of ecstatic fans. The trio played for an hour and a half, jamming through most of the tracks on its self-titled debut on Virgin Records. They spun a captivating web of distortion with tracks like "Red Eyes and Tears," "Spread Your Love," "As Sure as the Sun" and "Salvation." BRMC increased its cool factor the farther it left reality behind, as fog machines, strobe lights and red and white stage lights enshrouded the boys in a stark haze. I momentarily regretted my decision to swear off most drugs.
Even though I spent most of my evening on the rocks instead of tripping off them, BRMC's show still took me to a place similar to the one Slowdive had taken David and me almost 10 years earlier. I was on the planet of the young and hipper-than-thou, rocketing through guitars and bouncing on waves of oceanic melodies. Even frontman Robert Turner's lilting British-by-association accent took us far away from the hotboxed San Francisco club. Sure, BRMC's staged world is a pretty pretentious one to revel in for too long, and it's at the other end of the galaxy from the raw punk rock 'n' roll that usually drives me wild. Still, I'll always have a soft spot for bands like the BRMC. Parts of life may get kind of dated as you move along, but if something's still looking good a decade after the fact, there's no reason to give up on what ain't broken. With BRMC, (California) Brit rock is looking pretty fine.