San Francisco, California |
Slim's |
All this madness began back in November 2003, with five dedicated Red Elvises Ninjas, a harried mother, and three outfits thrown together for less than $20. You can see the three males in our original plumage in the March 2004 Archives of this most excellent fanzine, under Thanksgiving.
[Red Pages Photo Editor's note: Or here, for your viewing convenience...]:
 |
Suffice to say, we saw Your Favorite Band at Slim’s, in San Francisco. It was a pivotal moment in all our lives, one of those events that changes the way you see the world, like losing your virginity. Or going blind. This… was simply the greatest live performance we had ever seen. The band made us laugh. They made us cry. They made us rock. The glory flew through the air like shining beads of Igor-sweat, and we grasped for it madly.
So we decided to do it again.
We assembled our forces- 10 people from Humboldt County, decked out in their finest redness and animal print (why animal print? BECAUSE, that’s why.). We gathered our strength, and our money, and flung ourselves southward in two great minivans full of madness. And as we hurtled towards San Francisco, a name was coined. We were a hyperactive, uniformed horde of fanatic ninjas with buckets of soul and shoestring budgets. We were the Red Army.
 |
We were late arriving to Slim’s - an extended dinner engagement and a brief but violent imbroglio with a horde of Scientologists in Union Square had delayed us. We missed the opening act, a band called “The Rock and Roll Adventure Kids.” According to our man on the scene, they were excellent, but they only played for a half hour and so we missed them..
Fie. They weren’t what we came for. What we came for… was Siberians.
The band came out. Tragically, we also must have missed Oleg’s famous “HELLO CLEVELAND!” but Our Favorite Band was looking sharp that evening. Igor was resplendent in his tigerstripe suit and red and yellow checkerboard shoes, Oleg was gorgeous in his yellow silk suit, and Schramm - ah, the lovely chrome-domed sex machine that is Schramm (he is NOT BALD, he is SOLAR. Got it?) - was in red and black tigerstripes with his patented shades and hats. Roman and Craig - new boys by us, we had never seen them before and we were frankly vastly impressed by their power and beauty - were in the requisite animal print themselves and looked ready to rock. Oleg had opened his beer, and as he held it out over the audience he said those words we longed to hear:
“Beer,” he said, his voice somber with wisdom of the ages, “the more you drink, the better we look.”
They were already so sexy it was beyond us.
They kicked off with "Love Pipe," the best opening number in history. We jumped to our feet, our red-clad bodies already swaying with the music we had longed to hear for so long.
The band played through the first set, hitting their old classics - "Strip Joint is Closed," "Boogie on the Beach," "Gypsy Heart" (with a new, and excellent, flute solo), "Sex in Paradise" - “And remember, this song is CRAP without ze pelvic motion!” - and newer stuff, "Night Butterfly" and "Love Rocket." This stuff, I respectfully suggest, is the best new rock anywhere in the world and I challenge anyone to show me something better.
Then they cleaned up with "I Wanna See You Belly Dance." Now, this song is already great beyond all possible reason. But the fact that it gave us a chance to dance onstage… was glorious.
All ten of us made it up there, frolicking in red and animal print. And once the song ended, a buddy of mine tapped Oleg on the shoulder and pointed at me. “We have a birthday here!”
Yep, sports fans, it was in fact my birthday.
Grinning, Oleg unslung his balalaika and said, “We have a birthday up here - what’s your name?”
Panicking, I successfully forgot my own name. “Steve.”
"Happy birthday, Steve!” And they began to play.
It was the happiest moment of my life.
The second set was a blur, as we danced through the classics - "Rocketman," where we watched Schramm do pelvic thrusts with his keyboard and got to see Igor do his “2001: A Space Odyssey” impression- after doing ten minutes of drawing cheers from the halves of the crowd, he says, “That vas great, so great, so great…” Brief pause. “Zat is why ve have to do it again.” And we would have, gleefully, but he struck the band into action and we danced away.
At the end, we demanded and got an encore - "My Love is Killing Me," a beautiful and touching (well, not so much touching as scratching. And gnawing. And savaging) love song, particularly for the whips-and-chains crowd.
And as it ended, Igor leaned out to us and he said, “Thank you for wearing red.”
I almost cried. What a man.
We’re doing it again as soon as Our Favorite Band returns to Slim’s. We plan to catch them twice this time, once in Petaluma, once in San Francisco itself. Maybe we’ll see you there. You’ll definitely see us… watch for the crimson blurs.
This is Comrade Steve of the Red Army, signing off.