Dunno if it had been the San Francisco sunshine, the reverberations from going to that lesbian club night in Oakland with the city’s best queer porn stars the other night, the pints of Lagunitas, the nice guy named Rob who bought the beer, the tiny girl who said she loved my hair and kept shimmying up against me or the excellent sound system that made the March 6th gig at San Francisco’s Independent so good.

Coulda also been the silly drone of Australia’s Pets With Pets, the psychobilly of Bordeaux, France’s Magnetix (I have so much amour for these two) and the enormity of the moment when I realized that locals Thee Oh Sees were putting on one of my favourite shows of this year so far.

Yeah, this was one of those nights: insane psychedelic-PsychicTV-Cramps-indie-surfpunk-rock sorta goodness, wrapped in a tattooed five piece – with double drums, motherfunkers! It was Thee Oh See’s John Dwyer, clutching and licking his clear guitar, sucking on a mic, with Brigid Dawson playing counterpoint to Dwyer and being lethal with a tambourine.

It was Lars Finberg eyeing other drummer Mike Shoun so carefully that they were matching each other bash for bash. It was the most wonderfulness of Petey Dammit in his suspenders and Docs, wearing his bass literally around his neck, grinning like a loon and stamping. And it was 7 minutes of “The Dream” sounding like a spazzy freakout. That’s what made it so good. That one big mess. A San Francisco treat. Bliss. \m/