From drumming to all girl bands to honky tonking, singer/songwriter/musician Jean Caffeine has lived nine fascinating lives. Her life adventures vaulted her from drumming for the San Francisco all girl punk band The Urge, to New York in the 80's, where she was recruited by founder Ann Magnuson to drum for Pulsallama, forming Clambake with Holly George Warren and two former Austin punkettes, to moving to Austin, where she currently resides, where she fronted her y'allternative country band, Jean Caffeine's All Nite Truckstop. To celebrate her early punk roots and the 40th anniversary of the California punk rock scene, Jean, described as a "cross between Brenda Lee and Patti Smith" by the "Austin American Statesman", recently released "Sadie Saturday Nite", a concept album on vinyl about Jean's coming of age in the San Francisco punk scene, on Joe Records.
To celebrate the release of "Sadie Saturday Nite", her first record since 2011's "Geckos in the Elevator", Jean will be performing her one woman show about a drummer in an all-girl band, tomorrow, 10/26 at The Slipper Room (167 Orchard St). Jean will also be performing a music set this Sunday, 10/29 at Muchmore's in Brooklyn (2 Havemeyer St). "Sadie Saturday Nite" features spoken word and songs about growing up punk in San Francisco in the 70s, a timely reminder of the 40th anniversary of important debut albums by bands including X, the Clash, the Damned and Sex Pistols, as well as the birth of many regional first wave punk bands. Jean says, "'Sadie' speaks to anyone who loves punk, or who's been a part of a scene, or who's had their heart broken.
On the heels of the video for the first single from "Sadie Saturday Nite", "All Girl Band", which chronicles Jean's tenure in three all female bands, she has released a video for "Winter of Hate", a song about the last Sex Pistols show at Winterland in San Francisco on 1/14/78.
"I remember having a lot of mixed emotions about the show," she says. "It was exciting that they came to play my city but the venue seemed like a sell out. John asked from the stage, 'Do you ever feel like you've been cheated?' Although when I watch the footage from that show now, the show seems great, the answer at the time was yes. The band was on the verge of a breakup and that show seemed to push them over the edge."
Here's a link to check out the video for "Winter of Hate":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_d_ahrq_i8She recalls, "After the Pistol's show was an party that went on for at least a day at Vicki and Lamar's house. I didn't get there until the next afternoon. Sid was at the party careening about and holding court in a closet with various girls and he propositioned a friend of mine." "The 'Summer of Hate' was also a joke that I remember Alejandro Escovedo kicking around. If 1968 had been the 'Summer of Love' in San Francisco, it seemed fitting that 1978 was the 'Summer of Hate', which just had it's 40th anniversary", she says.
The video was directed by esteemed Austin painter, sculptor and animator, Paul Beck, who did all the animation. Beck contributed animation to the films, "Waking Life" and "Tower", and Jean and Paul became friends when they both contributed animation to Richard Linklater's "Waking Life". Jean is the assistant director of the video for "Winter of Hate", contributing on the conceptual and planning end, and she reached out to SF punk photographers Ruby Ray, Jim Jacoy, Richard Peterson and James Stark for their photographic contributions. "Sadie Saturday Night" was originally created as a one woman, one guitar player show, which she performed at the Hamilton Fringe Fest, Buffalo Infringement, the Hyde Park Theatre, and a City of Austin Arts Cultural Arts Division sponsored project at the Hole-in-the-Wall. The show then morphed into an album, which features Josh Robins and Thor Harris of Swans and Thor and friends.
Another highlight of the album is the first single and video, "All Girl Band". "Each verse of the three verses is a shout-out to each of the all girl bands I was in." She continues, "When my punk band The Urge played The Hong Kong Cafe in Hollywood, we were told by the owner that we were the worst band she'd ever heard and that Bill Murray had just walked out. If people aren't gonna like you, you might as well go big!" You can check out the video for "All Girl Band" here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH-L6I3mYuM&t=1sFrom The Urge to Pulsallama to Clambake (whose unreleased EP was mixed by Alex Chilton), after years behind the drums, Jean released her debut solo album, "Knocked Down 7 Times Got Up 8" in 1998. She then fronted Jean Caffeine's All Nite Truckstop and played "electrified porch music and garage country" for six years in Austin's honkytonks, beer joints, back porches and alternative lounges. The band's self-titled debut CD was released in 2001 on the Blue Million Miles label in Germany
In 2007, Jean released her second solo album, "Idee Fixe" to an enthusiastic response, and her last solo record, "Geckos in the Elevator", was released in 2011. It's been a long journey for Jean. She says, "While the show, 'Sadie Saturday Nite' is dark and raw, the album is much lighter, and the songs have a minimalism that draws both from punk and 60's pop. I call my sound these days primitive pop." http://www.jeancaffeine.com/http://twitter.com/#!/jeancaffeinehttps://www.facebook.com/jeancaffeineappreciationsociety/
Comments
To post a comment, you must
register and
login.
