A resurrection, just in time for HalloweenOne thing isn't being mentioned in the recent hysteria over the "closing" of Kimo's: The club's still open. Tyler Sauer, the manager of the venue for the past five years, says he's reached an agreement with the complaining neighbor who's been behind all the troubles. "We're going to do a little bit of work, and we also agreed we're going to be more reasonable [about noise levels]," Sauer says via phone. So, on top of the $20,000 already poured into the soundproofing, Sauer will do $4,000 of abatement work on the wall abutting the neighbor's apartment.
Landon Gale-George
The Un-Dead Kennedys: The courtship of Jello's
replacement (Brandon Cruz, on right).
Related Content
More About
Starting again last week, the club began hosting rock, punk, and metal bands Friday through Sunday. If things go smoothly -- a big if -- Kimo's will expand its lineup to seven days a week. Since longtime booker Matt Shapiro quit in frustration over the sound issues earlier this month, the reins have passed to Dejah Williams, who has worked at the Justice League, La Peña, and Maritime Hall. "I want to get a lot more groups in there that are more melodic and a little easier on the ears," Williams says. "More indie rock, some punk, some metal, but not the real heavy stuff." A hip hop artist himself, he also hopes to feature such local rap acts as Zion I, Felonious, and the Coup.
While Sauer is optimistic about the club's chances, there's a sense of urgency in his voice. "If we lose the upstairs [live room], that's it -- we lose the whole bar," he says. Sauer explains that Kimo Cochran, the owner, was recently diagnosed with cancer of the lymph nodes. "He's like, 'Get it running again or I'm closing the doors.'"
Bands can contact Williams for booking at (510) 721-7624 or kimosbooking@aol.com. Meanwhile, Shapiro's metal night, "Lucifer's Hammer," has moved from Kimo's to Curve (on Tuesdays), where it's bound to confuse the SOMA venue's button-down regulars.
What ever happened to "California über alles"?Recently, the reconstituted Dead Kennedys sent out a press release announcing that the group had been "banned in San Francisco." The promo message, reprinted at www.deadkennedys.com, suggested that Dawn Holliday, the booker for Slim's, was blackballing the punk outfit. "She's a very powerful person," East Bay Ray, the band's guitarist, explains by phone.
"They basically got it right, except I didn't say, 'Good luck getting a gig in San Francisco,'" Holliday says when asked about the press release. "What I said is, "Without Jello, there aren't any Dead Kennedys.' No sooner would I book X without John [Doe] or Exene [Cervenka]."
Holliday has a point. A Jello Biafra-less DKs -- even with Brandon Cruz, the one-time child star of The Courtship of Eddie's Father and leader of '80s punk act Dr. Know, on vocals -- promises to be a toothless tiger: It may still slay people, but it will have to gum them to death. Ray insists, "Our shows are going great. Two-thirds of the shows have sold out; we just played the Holidays in the Sun festival in Blackpool, and we had the biggest draw of anyone." Plans for tour stops in Japan and Europe, including a New Year's Eve date in the Netherlands, are in the works.
As for being refused gigs in S.F., the group's claim doesn't hold water. Ray says the DKs just confirmed a Nov. 21 show at Studio Z. And Holliday says she would be more than willing to book a show if the original foursome were to reunite: "As a matter of fact, I would be honored." The likelihood of that event occurring, however, remains slight. Biafra and the others continue to sue each other over the rights to the band's back catalog, and Ray sounds bitter. "We were ripped off by our record label," he says about Alternative Tentacles, which Biafra runs and which held the rights to the band's material until last year. "Our record label lied to us and cheated us, and somehow people have a hard time seeing that."
Corrections Concerning last week's Matty Luv remembrance, Sarah Trigueros writes, "Matty did not die of just a simple heroin overdose. Heroin was probably a small factor in his death. He was drinking heavily along with taking a lot of Klonopins. The paramedics believe that he passed out from the pills and choked on his vomit." Also, she points out that it was Chewy, not Chubby, who passed out Hickey CDs. We regret these errors.
foam order.com
