Night four: Bottom Of The Hill, San Francisco CA, Lookout auditions, Karaoke, BBQ (afternoon), Uranium Nine Volt, The Groovie Ghoulies, Pansy Division, Tilt.

Everybody was due down at the Bottom Of The Hill by 3:30PM for the Lookout auditions, but the sugar/booze hangover from Slim's was tough to overcome. The Smugglers and Yvette from Mint ended up staying at the Pansy Division house for a pajama party/screening of THEE hot bootleg video of Pamela "Baywatch" Anderson and Tommy "Motley Crue" Lee. Yes. Unedited and uncut... well, Tommy Lee was cut! Ba-boom! It's a truly wild piece of... film. My favourite scene is when Tommy honks his yacht's horn with the head of his hard cock, much to the giggling delight of camera-gal Pammy. Pansy Division's drummer Luis had a great quote to describe the sex: "it looks like he's stuffing a turkey! This is GROSS!!!".

Once the tape hit rewind and we had settled down with a couple of Luis' menthol smokes we made the scene down at the Bottom Of The Hill for the Lookout auditions. Granted, this seemed like a strange event, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. Basically, Lookout "auditioned" twenty young bands, everything from pop-punk to heavy metal, folk and roots music, played by groups from all over California. Each band had five minutes maximum to play their best song. None of the bands were guaranteed to be signed out-right, but there were a couple of contenders in the mix. The Lucky Three stood out, and for my money, the outrageous 80's hard-rock hair band Bite was a fucking hoot. They rocked. It was really strange strolling around the Bottom Of The Hill that afternoon. In every corner sat nervous young guitar players warming up, strumming their guitars and humming the words to their chosen song. All the bands received a package of thanks mailed to them from Lookout and I hope everyone had a good time. As an added bonus to the audience and the bands, the club brought out an all you could eat BBQ buffet.

Up next on the afternoon stage was Karaoke. Little did anyone know how hysterical this event would turn out to be. Several folks have mentioned it as their favourite part of the weekend, and I must agree, it was definitely the sleeper hit. One of the reasons it was so successful was due to the hilarious hosting capabilities of Smugglers guitarist David Carswell. I guess I do most of the yapping when the Smugglers are playing and forgot just how outrageously funny Dave can be on stage.

Another great aspect of this Karaoke was how it brought fans, band members and Lookout staff together for mutual fun. Ok, I'll say it (don't puke): bonding. Everybody had a chance to sing, and Dave arranged it nicely, with the help of his Spice-like assistant Vanessa, so that a Lookout artist would sing, then a fan, then a member of a younger band, etc. And this wasn't 'punk-eoke' either. Just oldies and classics in Pappa Dave's hit-sack. Extreme highlights included Joel MTX and Danny Smuggler pulling off an amazing version of Young MC's "Bust A Move", Dave and Kepi Ghoulie doing a bust-a-gut redition of the Jagger/Bowie "Dancin' In The Streets", all the Italians from Genova trying to sing "Born To Be Wild", and Pansy D's Chris Freeman taking on "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" ("Fuck With With Your Big Cock"). The sweetest moment had to be when the punk rock couple from an auditioned band, the Secretions, got up to sing a heart-tuggin' duet of "Day Dream Believer".

After the Karaoke finally wrapped up to much applause and encore, everybody was forced outside in the rain so the club could clean up and get ready for the night's show. Almost everyone who was there for the afternoon's events planned to go to the last show, duh, so just about everybody politely lined up in the downpour to wait for tickets. There was no complaining either! I would have been freaking out and whining like a baby, but I must hand it to those fans for their patience and goodwill.

Once again, the show that night was jam-fucking-packed. Up first for this last night was Uranium Nine Volt, who, next to Black Fork, I knew the least of any other group of the weekend. I didn't realize I was supposed to MC this last night again so I missed the first couple songs of their set, but once I finally squeezed into the club, I was treated to an onslaught of chugga-chugga-chugga explosive and tight emo-core. I still don't know anything about Uranium Nine Volt... but one day I will, I hope.

Hitting the stage next was a weekend highlight for everyone. Storming forth after triumphantly touring the world, constantly improving and expanding on their live shows, records and persona, it was time to ROCK with the Groovie Ghoulies. This band is very special to me and I can certainly say that, hands down, in all the countless times I've rocked with the Ghoulies, this was THEE BEST time I've ever seen them. They were on fire! Their set list was impeccable. Everybody surrounded the stage and sang along. I almost cried in "Here Comes Tomorrow", and I'm not kidding around. The show was just so great. A oddly foul-mouthed but highly energetic and emotional Kepi sent shout-outs to almost everyone, most-notably to the Queers and to the Ghoulies #1 fan and performer, supporter, and all-around-great-guy from Lookout's history, the legendary Jon Von. The Ghoulies gave tons of free tour artifacts away, plus the usual load of cool prizes and candy. Joel MTX made almost as many on-stage appearances as me over the weekend when he hopped up and provided the bass lines and superb harmonies on the great chesnut "I Wanna Have Fun". As Roach, Dan and Kepi finally stumbled exhausted from the stage, everyone realized they just saw a knock-out performance from a band that is quickly turning into a cornerstone of Lookout, and it couldn't happen to better folks than the Ghoulies.

Once the dust cleared, another one of Lookout's long-time synonyms ripped into their set. Unlike many of the other bands of the weekend, Pansy Division chose not to play all of their fave-hits from their five albums on Lookout, but to showcase all-new material and a slightly new direction in their sound and attitude. Gone in some form are the obvious songs about sucking cock and fucking ass, to be replaced by more subtle commentaries on relationships and life in general. Pop songs, in other words. I was apprehensive of this new move for this event, thinking they should revert to "Fuck Bunnies", "Groovy Underwear" and "Dick Of Death" and told 'em so, but Pansy Division wouldn't hear of it. To me, Pansy Division have always been a definition of punk: not being afraid to express yourself, to feel good about it at the end of the day, and to do whatever the hell you want no matter what anyone says. On this night they did just that, and to postive reaction. They played ALL new songs, including a true and bonifide HIT sung by Chris Freeman entitled something like "You're Gonna Need Your Friends". It's got this great minor-chord chorus that will prove irresistable to any pop fan, Beatles to Hanson. I can't wait to hear it on a record. The relatively new additions (at least to me) of kick-ass drummer Luis and lead guitarist Patrick also make Pansy Division better than they've ever been. It's also interesting to note, that, though he had been in town almost all weekend, it was not until Pansy Division's set that Lookout founder and 'visioneer' Lawrence Livermore actually showed up, when he breezed into the club, suit-clad, with a girl on either arm. Up last to finally end this long weekend of rock'n'roll was the special, one-time re-formation of Lookout legends Tilt. Unfortunately, I don't know too much of the history of this infamous band, besides the story of them flipping their van on a highway, and that Jeffrey and Cinder make our t-shirts now. Nonetheless, there was a lot of emotion built up for this performance, and since it was the last band on the last night, Lookout chief Chris Appelgren took the honours and introduced them. The band proceeded to perform a pretty solid if somewhat devil-may-care set, and when the lead singer forgot the words, the audience was able to sing them back to her. There were a couple moments when I thought an inter-band fight was errupting but they kept on rockin' so I guess nothing was amiss.

As Tilt wrapped up and said goodnight, it was time for a lot of good byes. Ciao ya later Italy, goodbye Boston, piss off Philadelphia, it's been great England, adieu Oregon, cha-cha and ta-ta Calgary and Toronto, y'all be good Altanta, kudos Kentucky, farewell Florida, sayonara Japan and bye bye Brazil. All the Lookout folks and band members got together for a big group photo (I love group photos... almost as much as I like yelling "group photo!" right before an actual group photo), and the amount of flashbulbs going off was... really weird. Lots of cameras. Lookout's sexy publicist Tristin thought she lost her glasses, but as it had to be a perfect ending, they were found safe and sound. Once everybody had hugged, kissed said their final, final, final goodbyes, we looked around at the aftermath of the empty, bright, wet Bottom Of the Hill and we suddenly realized that us Smugglers were the only ones left. We drained our Archor Steams, took one last look and headed out into the rainy San Franciscan night and headed for home.

Thanks for the great party, Lookout Records! See you in 2008!

This is taken from the Lookout! Records site so go there and check out the rest of their site.