I saw an excellent dude last night at the Knockout. Yes! He was fantastic. He was enthusiastic. He was spastic. He was: Mosquito Bandito’s One Man Band!
Mosquito Bandito (http://www.mosquitobandito.net/) is a wonderful guy from Oregon who gets up on stage with just his self, his guitar, a kick drum, and some cymbals. When he first started, I thought, “Whoah, he loves the Cramps!” But then later, I moved on: Reverend Horton Heat... the King Khan and BBQ Show... Reigning Sound... Against Me!... Restaurant... a friend that was with me said Flat Duo Jets, Dexter Romweber... I don’t know! Maybe a little bit of some of them, maybe a lot of all of them, maybe nothing from any of them! All I know is that he rocked. He smashed the cymbals fiercely with his guitar headstock. He made quick stops of the guitar and drums and then out flowed a litany of lyrical musings that sounded stream of consciousness but probably weren’t.
As can sometimes be the case with one-man or one-woman offerings, it was impressive to watch him. The fact that he was playing guitar and drums and singing all at the same time did not in any way lessen his fervor. And the drums, although unsurprisingly not the most complicated beats ever, did not seem to fall into the trap that drums in this situation sometimes do, which is to say, become extremely repetitive (in an almost distracting way) due to the fact that there’s only so much drumming you can do when your hands are otherwise engaged.
It was yet another case of being really pleasantly surprised by a band that, prior to the show, I had not even known existed. I picked up a 45 and I am looking forward to hearing it. Strongly recommended if he comes through your town!
Aside from Mr. Mosquito, the Knockout (http://www.theknockoutsf.com/) was featuring the likes of The Custom Kicks (pretty sweet), The Started Its (not my thing) and Unko Atama (a local fave). It was a free show, which was really, I mean, how can you get better than free? It’s good stuff. It’s appreciated! And the Knockout is usually a good time. At the beginning of the night they were playing some kind of John and/or John and Yoko documentary on a screen up on the wall. It occurred to me that for some reason I haven’t really watched any John and/or John and Yoko documentaries, and I would like to. From there they treated us to the movie Leprechaun 3. This I have not seen either (aside from at the Knockout, with no sound), but I think I’ll go ahead and skip. That leprechaun? He’s creepy!