16 EXPRESS January 31, 1997

POP-PUNK
TEAM DRESCH, PANSY DIVISION,
CYPHER IN THE SNOW, HALF EMPTY,
and EYE CLAUDIA
At 924 Gilman Street, Sunday,
]anuary26.
At 5:00 p.m. on Super Bowl Sun-
day, the faithful were gathering, and
not only to watch the Big Game. The
truth is there are more kinds of faith-
ful then football fans, and one set of
them came together at 924 Gilman,
there to witness the last show before
the February 1 opening of the behe-
moth Pyramid Brewpub across the
street, which punk rock patrons fear
may change the tenor of the neigh-
borhood for good.
G
iven the character of the day, it
was perhaps a bit ironic that
Sunday's lineup saw the all-ages punk
club at the zenith of its power as a
haven for alternative culture. As the
rest of America, in seeming unison,
was cheering the Packers on, this
small musty room full of graffiti and
noise and tables selling queer fanzines
and Noam Chomsky speeches be-
came full of exuberant
teenage energy and belligerent queer
liberation; it became, in short, the
perfect antithesis to White Male Cor-
porate Aggression. If, like me, you
hate the Super Bowl and all that it
stands for, there was literally no bet-
ter place to be.
It says a lot about 924 Gilman's
warm and cohesive nature these days
that one could have a perfectly pleas-
ant time there just eating candy and
reading fanzines, even though most
of the early bands on the bill weren't
that interesting. The fourth band up,
Pansy Division, played a set that was
full of new material. It went over well
with the pit, but there were hordes of
little riot grrrls in the back who were
a bit bored by it, and who can blame
them? Unfortunately, this band's light-
weight jokey stance on queerness has
worn a bit thin over the past two years.
Let's face it: songs about clicks are
songs about clicks, whether they are
by Motley Crtie or Jon Ginoli. Both
bands objectify the object of their af-
fections to a surprising degree: it's a
tribute to Ginoli's geniality that Pansy
Division isn't as immediately loathe-
some as, say, Warrant.
Still, Pansy Division was a great
lead-in to Team Dresch because its
shortcomings only served to empha-
size the latter band's strengths. Where
Pansy Division Oike so many Gilman
Street bands) plays straightforward
punk pop, three chords deep, Team
Dresch plays much more complicat-
ed music. At its best, Team Dresch is
a cross between Biohazard and the
Smiths, only exhibiting a lot more con-
viction than either.
Team Dresch-,-which is led by
Reed University graduate Jody Bleyle
(who also drums in the otherwise
straight male band Hazel) and under-
Life Under the Bushel
ground legend Donna Dresch-is
anomalous in a number of other ways
as well. For one thing, the band has
a sense of humor about its lesbian ac-
tivist nature. Mid-set, for example,
Bleyle good-humoredly told the audi-
ence in a mincing voice, "Oh yeah-
all our lyrics are really lesbian posi-
tive and urn, woman friendly."
Alas, live, Team Dresch's reach
exceeds its grasp, and despite its
lighter moments, the Gilman Street
show could not be called this band's
finest moment. One problem is that
Team Dresch has a new lineup, with
Amanda Keliy replacing Kaia Wil-
son on guitar. Kelly doesn't sing, so
Bleyle is left to vocal duties all by
herself. And although she's a great
singer on record, she needs some kind
of backup to round out the sound in
live performance.
Another problem with Team
Dresch's live act is that Bleyle and
Dresch are really superstar caliber
musicians, and anyone who plays with
them is bound to fall short. Dresch is
a better bass player than Gilman Street
usually ever sees, and Bleyle, in par-
ticular, radiates star quality: seeing
her perform reminded me of other
acts I've seen in surroundings too
small to hold their charisma: Eddie,
Kurt, Billie Joe. But Team Dresch ob-
viously has a more casual attitude

than those guys' bands ever did, and
the performance it clocked in with
was fraught with pauses and patter-
including a moment when Dresch
tried to introduce the members of her
chat room to one another, and another
when Bleyle surfed the pit.
I
n truth, however, bad sound and a
long day-the band had appa1'ently
been at the clubhouse since noon-
combined for a brief and highly disor-
ganized set, which contained only
eight songs. Later, when I asked why,
Bleyle sounded disgusted. ''Well, you
know we're lesbians," she said sar-
castically, "and today was full of les-
bian tension."
When they were good-"Uncle
Phranc," "To the Enemies of Politi-
cal Rock," and a new song that fea-
tured the only synthesizer I've ever
seen played at Gilman Street-they
were very very good. In fact, they
were so good that part of me wished
that Team Dresch would take that
leap: get professional, practice a ton,
and put on the kind of rip-roaring,
end-to-end, heart-stopping show that
its material and front people are clear-
ly capable of.
But I also know what that means
now: getting serious, taking someone
else's money, and most of all, forego-
ing the punk network and its ethics.
Even on a bad
day, Team Dresch
J brings superstar
Team Dresch
It is a bit frustrating to see these wom-
en hide their light underneath a
bushel, and yet one can only respect
their decision, particularly since both
Bleyle and Dresch have experience
with the other side of the coin (Bleyle
with Hazel and Dresch with the
Screaming Trees) and thus know ex-
actly what they're doing.
Besides, on Super Bowl Sunday,
the value of bands like Team Dresch-
and Pansy Division and Cypher in the
Snow and Eye Claudia, not to mention
Gilman Street itself-stands out in
stark relief. Life under the bushel has
its compensations, and they were all
in evidence last Sunday.
-Gina Arnold
SPOKEN WORD
HENRY ROLLINS
At Zellerbach Hall, Saturday,
February 22.
O
ver the course of an engrossing
-if exhausting-three-and-a-
half-hour spoken-word performance
at Zellerbach Hall, the theme Henry
Rollins returned to most often was
time: time spent waiting in lines,
watching bad TV, or just trying to get
some sleep. The man's obsessive
about the stuff; early on, he spoke
charisma to 924
Gilman.

about using a stopwatch on someone
holding up the line at an airport metal
detector. He likened each passing sec-
ond to a small murder. In measured,
almost frightened tones, he asserted
that the important thing to remem-
ber about time is that you can't get it
back. For Henry Rollins, the clock is
always ticking.
Such seriousness came as no sur-
prise to his fans in the audience: since
Rollins' early days in the '80s singing
for the seminal punk band Black Flag,
his herculean work ethic has been al-
most legendary. On stage, that trans-
lates into an antic, off-color, and deeply
cathartic sense of humor. Spinning a
hilarious web of morality tales, he drew
from the unlikeliest sources: the con-
cept of sex with Mark Fuhrman, a
documentary on the Great Wall of Chi-
na, a cover of "Funkytown" with Ru-
Paul. All of it was told in a friendly,
I've-got-this-story-to-tell style that's
quickly endearing, but betrays a
deep talent. He's able to shift topics
from Auschwitz to Pamela Ander-
son without missing a beat.
Of course, just telling a good sto-
ry isn't enough for Rollins-by his
logic, that would mean wasting the
crowd's time and thereby killing about
1,500 people. The verbal acrobatics
have a point, and every joke was told
to the end of hammering down some
basic home truth about strength, tol-
erance, and self-respect. His onstage
persona is the Regular Guy in irregu-
lar situations, just as confused by the
world as anybody else, despite being
a self-proclaimed "alternative icon": it
doesn't matter how you learn to be
yourself, he suggested, so long as you
do. All the same, he had a better sto-
ry about it than most folks do, which
involved playing a transatlantic, punk-
rock version of Horse with Iggy Pop.
"You learned all this in third
grade, right?" Rollins asked repeated-
ly throughout the evening. Of course
we did, but by asking those ques-
tions Rollins shows his immense abil-
ity to make those old saws sound
somehow crucial and immediate.
And, of course, told with nary a sec-
, ond wasted. -MarkAthitakis