Event Review: Trans Am at Club Eight

This past weekend the boyfriend and I had a friend visiting from the land of grey skies and evergreen trees, also known as Seattle, and we debated long and hard about where to take him on Saturday night for a taste of gay San Francisco before finally settling on Trans Am at Club Eight. Neither of us had been there before, but we knew there would be a performance by the inimitable Frieda Laye, and we were curious what sort of tracks Jason Kendig would lay down for a "rock night" - and the fact that it was only five bucks to get in helped as well. We had a good time, but my initial impression is that Trans Am is basically like going to The Eagle beer bust, inside, at night, with a younger crowd.

We arrived aroud 10.30, being, as usual, among the first attendees, with the upstairs space still being closed. We lingered in the outside smoking area (really just the alley between Club Eight and the building next door, but lit very nicely with Christmas light palm trees) through our first drink, and then went back inside to find a small crowd coming together just in time for Frieda's performance at 11. Following her a gothy rock band, complete with lead singer in vampire face, took to the stage, while we took to the upstairs.

The crowd seemed small - when we left around 1 the downstairs was completely empty - but this was a weird weekend out on the city, and everywhere we went there were fewer people than you would normally expect. I also suspect that many of the folks who would be drawn to the music and crowd of Trans Am were out at the various bear events associated with Hairrison Street Fair. Of the guys who did show up, though, most were of the sort you might expect to see at the Eagle on a Sunday afternoon, pierced, tattooed, punky, but probably about ten years younger on average than your typical Eagle beer swiller.

The music was also very reminiscent of the Eagle, but the tracks leaned more toward the Arcade Fire than the Stooges. When Jason Kendig went on upstairs there was a dirge-like, droning quality to his selections, though later he slipped into stuff with more distinct beats and a clearer sound. The thing I really noticed, though, was that no one danced, at all, to anything. Maybe if we had stayed later there would have eventually been some dance action, or if there had been a bigger crowd, but this was the way in which Trans Am felt most like The Eagle to me - lots of guys standing around, drinking to rock music. The overall vibe might have skewed more to indie/emo college rock, but I would completely expect to see many of these faces on Sunday afternoon as well, as though they had just shifted from one location to the other.

I'm curious to see what Trans Am is like on a busier weekend, and whether it gears over into a more lively scene. I had an okay time, and if I was looking for a fairly low-impact Saturday night of hanging out and drinking I would certainly consider Trans Am, but, even with the promise of a live band, a $5 cover seems a bit much for what is really a bar night with gay DJs playing rock music. Why not go to The Eagle, or the Lone Star, where you can get pretty much the same thing without paying a cover?

Charlie Horse at The Cinch, "PJ Harvey Night"

This past Friday I made it up to The Cinch on Polk Street for another installment of Charlie Horse, this time with the theme of PJ Harvey - yes, drag queens and PJ Harvey are two things that go great together. DJ Dirty Knees once again played a set of generally inoffensive "rock" that made for tolerable background as I hung out with several members of Comfort and Joy who were finally recovered from last week's Afterglow escapades.

Anna Conda was just back from a European tour, including a chance to see The Decemberists in Amsterdam. Her take on Euro club music was that it was "awful," being all "canned house" that reminded her of "mecha-Cher." I was very curious about what she was talking about exactly, and where she had gone to hear this awful music - while it's true that Euro prole-techno is among the most horrible atrocities ever committed upon the ears of humans, my impression is that you would only hear this stuff in the most prole clubs, since the cool kids are all spinning minimal these days. Anna went on to say how lucky we were to have two "gay rock" nights in San Francisco, Charlie Horse being one, the other being Trans Am, also DJed by Dirty Knees. I suppose it makes sense for drag queens to be into rock, since long, abstract tracks with no lyrics don't really present performance opportunities, and for a drag queen, anything that distracts an audience's attention from her has got to go. Personally, I prefer clubs where people dance rather than stand around with their arms folded over their chests, but that's just me.