Bob Calhoun is set to read from The Murders That Made Us in a punk spoken word apocalypse with no wave trailblazer Lydia Lunch and two-fisted man-of-letters Eugene Robinson at the Make Out Room in San Francisco on Thursday, Aug. 5, 2021. While no guitars will be busted or burned during this night of oral bombast and experimentation, it promises the intensity of the sweaty punk shows that spawned these performers.
With San Francisco just starting to emerge from the pandemic lockdown, Calhoun called on his performance art past to promote his just-released true crime history, The Murders That Made Us, on street corners and outdoor oddities fairs. Before Calhoun began his foray into journalism as a contributor to Salon.com and the true crime columnist for SF Weekly, he wrestled men in Sasquatch suits while drunks threw food at him in Incredibly Strange Wrestling, San Francisco's punk-lucha-libre fusion. He detailed these years in his memoir, Beer, Blood and Cornmeal: Seven Years of Incredibly Strange Wrestling (ECW Press), a national bestseller which Wired.com called “breezy and hilarious.” Calhoun took his wrestling persona, the self-help huckster Count Dante, and fronted the martial arts infused band, Count Dante and the Black Dragon Fighting Society, which achieved such musical heights as opening for ArnoCorps during several of its audio assaults and serving as the backup band for the body-building metal god Thor whenever he journeyed down the rainbow bridge to the Bay Area.
Writer, fighter, lover, actor, martial artist, spoken word performer, publisher, musician Eugene S. Robinson is the most dangerous man in music today. He is the frontman of the experimental metal noir band OXBOW as well as the seminal Northern California hardcore band WHIPPING BOY. Recently, Eugene left his position as the editor at a well-known multimedia vertical to strike out on his own with Look What You Made Me Do, his Substack blog that tackles a wide range of topics ranging from the underground music scene, street violence, MMA, and American racism. He has authored hundreds of articles and published numerous books including an asskicking how-to titled Fight: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ass-Kicking but Were Afraid You'd Get Your Ass Kicked for Asking and A Long Slow Screw, his gritty and grimy novel set in late 1970's New York City.
It's safe to say that shows like the one on August 5th wouldn't exist at all without LYDIA LUNCH, and that's not just because she's headlining it. Lunch hit late seventies New York City with the killer instincts of a born survivor and bent the Big Apple to her indomitable will through her savage stage performances with Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, a pillar of the no wave scene. Lunch quickly branched out to conquer other mediums with spoken word pieces, memoirs and underground films. In any forum, Lunch's art draws its disturbing imagery from the abuse of power, both sexual and political. Having collaborated with a diverse collective of artists, writers and musicians including Alan Vega (Suicide), Hubert Selby Jr., and Nick Cave, Lunch inspired future luminaries such as Nicolas Jaar, L7, and Sonic Youth, who embraced her as the violent heartbeat of their artistic rebellion. Fiercely independent, Lunch continues to make art that is confrontational and shockingly relevant without the support of major labels or media conglomerates.
Thursday, August 5, 2021
Spoken Word with
Lydia Lunch
Eugene Robinson
Bob Calhoun
+ DJs Foodcourt and Paul Costuros
21-and-over; $13 at the door
at the Make Out Room
3225 22nd Street & Mission
San Francisco, California 94110
Lydia Lunch will be appearing the following night on Friday August 6th at the Roxie Theater for a screening of LYDIA LUNCH The War Is Never Over, the first career-spanning documentary retrospective of her confrontational, acerbic and always electric artistry. The Roxie is located at 3117 16th Street (at Valencia), San Francisco, CA. Click here for tickets and details.