The Family Curse on the Shaman's Den

(Erika wrote:)

This week there were two Shaman's Den's! The second Shaman's Den was on Monday night with the The Family Curse. They play noise, electro industrial and rock music. They play at all different places that feature different kinds of music and they said that they don't fit into any one musical genre. Frank said just like us, always on the outside! We have been through all the sub cultures, first they embrace us and then they freak out. Like the noise festival, we were too noisy for them!

The Family Curse is made up of Marc and Jeff on guitar and Megan wailing, singing, screaming on vocals while she sexily slithers on the floor. Frank said that Megan beat Pattie Smith when they first saw Pattie at a little club in Berkeley before she was famous. Megan and Pattie have a similar quality of being very physical and moving around on the floor sexy. Megan said that it helps her to get the words out, or the screams out and that at first she felt the screams sounded better than when she would sing. Frank and Linda talked about how when they were auditioning for lead singers for Frank's band he wanted Raw and he couldn't get it. The women who auditioned wouldn't belt, they were sweet. Frank would have Linda show them what Frank was looking for they wouldn't do it! Megan of The Family Curse is RAW and sexy!

Linda said that The Family Curse was really fun and easy to video during their set. They moved together as one body and it was not just a chick and couple of guys, They were fun to look at, juicy and alive, moving together. They are an exception. Most bands are a chick and some guys. Frank said that Megan had a "meaty presence" and that she reminded him of Bob Matageon of Fluff Girl. He is raw and physical, drawing people in and a very sweet guy. Bob is always burning his pubic hair, wearing a slab of meat for a g-string and is always drunk, and he is the one who was always calling them and getting things going. He was the one who was following up on what he said he would do when most people did not. Frank said "Now you know why I loved you guys." They really liked hearing that from Frank.

Frank asked the band where they play when they come to the bay area and they said The Hemlock, Annie's Social Club, The Knockout and Gilman Street. They live in Seattle now after Marc and Megan lived in San Francisco for several years. They said that they feel more at home musically in Seattle. All three of them grew up or went to school in Kansas near Kansas City and that is how they met and started playing together. Frank later asked them what a normal day is like for them and Megan said that she works a 9 to 5 day job doing digital web design media research work and then there is all the ad min work of the upkeep of the band like booking tours. She and Mark who are no longer together, but they have a three year old son and their son is with Marc during the day. They live just down the street from each other.

Frank and Linda talked about a new book they are reading about the punk scene full of interviews from bands from the 70's and 80's. They found out in the book that Mabuhay Gardens was just starting when they started performing there. The Family Curse really enjoyed hearing the story about how The Outrageous Beauty Review started. Frank and Linda were hanging out at the strip club on Broadway in the 70's with his students who he was coaching on their strip club characters. One night while they were wondering around Broadway they went into Mabuhay Gardens and Frank asked Dirk Dirksen if he could do a play there and Dirk said, "What do you got?" Nobody came to the play but Dirk loved it and said that they could come back anytime. Six monthly later they did The Outrageous Beauty Review and the place was packed and the press filled the first two rows of the audience. Dirk came out and said that The Outrageous Beauty Review would be happening weekly and Frank being flexible said ok! Frank said that The Family Curse reminded him of the music that happened there but it was musically better.

The Family Curse talked about playing at Gilman Street and that the kids there were way more organized than most all the other clubs that they played at. It was fun to hear about when Frank played at Gilman Street just him singing along to taped music like Hank Williams. The guy who was running it then said maybe you should sing more current songs. Frank called up the Feeders and they learned all of Franks taped hooky songs and the guy at Gilman Street just shook his head afterwards. When Frank performed at the Anti-Club, a punk club in LA, he did the same routine. He would get on strange and sing along to songs like Hank Williams and then Linda would come out and they would do a Sonny and Cher song. At first the people at the club could not understand why they let Frank on the stage and by the end they were singing along and putting their punk jewelry on Frank and giving him a neck massage.

The Family Curse said that they had played a show in Vegas that had been just awful! It was fun to hear the story about when Frank and Linda answered an ad to play at the MGM Grand. They showed up for the sound check and even toned the performances down. The back up singers were in tuxedos, Frank wore a suite. Then came the make out scene with two women for the Meatloaf song, then one of the cast members did her weiner routine making a parfait out of hotdogs. Everyone was leaving their gambling tables to come watch and the owner of the club put a stop to it and told them they could not perform and that had just been the sound check!

Megan, Todd and Marc really enjoyed hearing all of Frank and Linda's the punk period stories and Megan said that they had such a colorful history of the underground music scene. It was a cozy Shaman's Den full of loud take your hearing aid out music, wailing, screaming, sexy slithering and punk club performance stories.

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ah, yes... As I said on the show, they are in my top ten high power /energy bands EVER!

In Freedom,
Frank Moore