If you’ve seen Curse of the Birthmark, you’ll understand why I was thrilled and a bit nerve-racked at the opportunity to interview the trio after what was to be their last show with keyboardist Eric Hunt at the Bottom of the Hill.
The club, one of San Francisco's premier venues for local, indie, and underground music, is situated amidst warehouses and artists' spaces in the soma [south of market] district of the city. Inside, rock concert posters line the stone walls. Red and blue neon compete with dank bar lighting, inspiring a seedy comfort. This is a musicians' club.
Tonight the 150 capacity space is nearly full and the all ages crowd mingles and sways to a steady torrent of obscure 80's rock. This will be a night of no-wave gluttony and noise orgies.
Curse of the Birthmark is a three-piece - guitar/vocals, keyboards, and drums - receiving a bit of attention lately with the college radio circuit, as well as a few independent label courtesans. They are Eric Park (ex-guitar player for Providence, RI band Laurels), Simon Phillips, and Eric Hunt, all east coasters who’ve been playing together out west for about three years. Their sound is obtrusive, in the same vein as Providence noise connoisseurs Arab on Radar and Lightningbolt, and unmistakably influenced by early new york no wave (they've been compared to Mars and DNA).
Park’s vocals (when you could hear them) were brash and screechy. At his most pedantic he sang of being... [edited for content] ...and appeared to mean it as he barked: "you'll get what you'll get now, don't think i don't know how," ...but he knows how to have fun, too. At one point, I swear he was singing "what-you-call-your-lawyer?" His guitar is a no less screechy, Arab On Radar-style, and he’s lucky if he doesn’t break something while flailing around on stage.
Keyboardist Eric Hunt appeared to be dishing out all physical manifestations of a neuroticism one can only speculate at - we are probably better off just speculating - as he pounded and poked and dove across the keys like a thirteen-year-old at the arcade: hopped up on Ritalin, desperate to win enough tickets for the switchblade comb by bashing heads of unsuspecting rodents on Whack-A-Mole.
The drummer, Simon Phillips, beat up the skins with an intensity rarely seen in humans. His riffs were innovative, athletic and confusing, and he refused to let up for their entire show. When I was finally able to pull the guys aside during the break between bands, Phillips sat in the outside beer garden in the cold November evening, clouds of steam rising from his sopping body.

N: that was great. so this is your last show?
EP: for the time being.(gesturing to Hunt) the last one for this guy.
EH: (nods) yeah.
SP: he’s being replaced by that oaf. (Simon gestures to the man setting up on stage, Weasel Walter of the Flying Luttenbachers.)
N: weasel’s gonna’ play keyboards?
EP: yep.
N: i didn’t know he could play keys.
SP: i don’t think he can.
N: have you guys played together yet?
EP: no.
(there is an uncomfortable silence. I sense tension between the bandmates.) N: (to Hunt) so why are you quitting?
EH: (picking nervously at his cuticles) moving on to other things.
N: you guys talk a lot.
SP: it’s weird right now. that was a weird show.
N: why?
SP: it’s like the end of a relationship.
EH: yeah.
N: what do you mean?
SP: well we’ve been doing this for two years now. someone leaves, you know. . .
EP: just like any relationship.
N: so is that why there’s all this tension?
SP: tension?
[Edited for content again. Come on, Naomi. Watch the mouth. -ED.]
N: so where does the name Curse of the Birthmark come from?
SP: (to Park) you want to field that one?
EP: it’s just a name. It was the first one we came up with in a long line of crappy ones, so we eventually just decided to stick with it.
N: does it mean anything?
SP: there’s the obvious, you know, like, a branding. we’re branded at birth by so many different people and whatever, and the sort of burden you carry with you as far as other people’s expectations, or your own, of yourself, that. . .
EP: shut up.
SP: yeah, I’ll shut up
EH: for me it’s more directed at the audience, like ‘poor audience, has to be subjected to this noisy gang of thugs’
EP: ...band of assassins
N: what do you guys think of W?
SP: he’s doing a great job. it’s obvious he cares about the American people.
N: do I sense sarcasm there?
SP: enough politics
N: isn’t everything politics?
SP: I hope not. Shit
EP: you could read anything you want into the name. Essentially a band has to be identified somehow, even if your name is "no use for a name" - so that’s what we are. I’d rather talk about the music.
N: you don’t like 'No Use For a Name?'
(Silence)
EH: no comment.
N: so what about the music? Who are your influences?
SP: six finger satellite.
EH: and bands like the butthole surfers and birthday party. Lydia lunch, contortions, whatever. . .
N: the new york no wave.
EP: yeah but that’s sort of incidental.
N: how do you guys write that stuff? It seems so messy, but also deliberate.
EP: mostly we get in there and fuck around and slowly a structure comes out of it.
N: it’s very structured.
SP: sometimes one of us has an idea and, you know, we present it and then the others kind of throw in their take and if we’re lucky it goes somewhere.
N: how many songs have you thrown out?
EP: about five times as many as we kept.
N: why san francisco?
EP: (gesturing to simon) that’s where this guy was.
SP: there’s a really good scene here now. Or I mean for the past few years it’s been pretty alive as far as people being interested in creating something new. Numbers, who are playing tonight, Erase Eratta, Crack: We Are Rock. Weasel’s (flying Luttenbachers) out here now and has amassed a new slew of scum. The XBXRX guys are here, and they’re at it again. Too many good bands to count.
N: Erase Eratta has probably garnered the most national attention.
EH: yeah, well they’re good. SP: I think they might be done, though.
N: really?
SP: you know how rumors go.
EP: there’s a lot of crap here, too.
SP: yeah, I guess there always is.
N: have you guys toured?
EP: we’ve played Portland and L.A. a few times, but nothing extended.
SP: L.A. sucks.
EH: oh, yeah.
EP: there’s a little bit there but for the most part, yeah. . .
N: really?
SP: yeah, but don’t take our word for it. We’re jaded.
EP: don’t play the qtopia.
EH: yeah, it sucks.

[At this point sounds are coming from inside. The boys are growing restless.]

N: so what’s the plan for the future?
EP: we’re gonna start with weasel in december, see how that goes.
SP: yeah, starting next year we’ll be writing new stuff and recording the stuff we have already.
N: is there a record coming?
SP: Liquid Death/Hello Pussy records out of ohio is putting out a full-length cd next year.
EP: and (Swedish Label) Deleted Art wants to do a 12".
N: so you’ll be busy next year?
EP: yeah.
N: any plans to tour?
SP: definitely. We want to come east. I haven’t been back in so long and I’ve got a bunch of people I want to see.
N: will you play in vermont?
EP: I hope so.
N: iowa?
EP: sure.

[Inside, Die Monitr Batss out of Portland has started, and the boys are downright antsy.]

N: I can see you guys are done.
SP: this is our first real interview. How’d we do?
N: fine.