zOMG - I Didn't Even Tell You!

So, I recently played a show with my band*, Cracktion, here in San Francisco. It was at a divey little place in the Polk Gulch called Kimo's. I played 'lead' guitar, and the set of 7 songs came in at about 27 minutes long. Not a whole lot of opportunity for me to get off a lot of Guitar Heroics in those 27 minutes, but I did get to knock out a couple of solos and some cool rambling.

This whole band thing just sort of gelled out of a Friday Night jam session I've been attending at work for some time now. The 'practice space' is really just an elevated empty space that my creative director was storing his drums in; someone would go up there and hammer out a beat now and again, and that was about it. But slowly people started to bring other instruments and equipment and leave it up there. At one point there was so much stuff up there that it had to be moved around and organized to allow people to still fit in the space while they were playing. There was a time when an art director I work with was playing pretty regularly with some old friends of his up there, but they both had babies at the same time and that whole thing kind of petered off.

I'm not sure exactly when things got going again up there, but there was a time when a few of us would hang out, share a few beers and make some bad music together. It was low-key, sloppy, and fun. Then someone signed us up for a 'Battle of the Bands' and things kicked into gear.

We were utterly unprepared. In a panic, we all started practicing like mad, asking everyone in the agency if they could play any instruments, and assembling a modest set list for the show. Fast forward two months and we had seven people in the band and a four-song set together. The show came, we played our set, the show went. Good times.

Perhaps more out of habit than anything else, five of us from that band continued to get together on Fridays and refine the set. We added a couple of songs and had a good time with it. One of us made the comment that, "...we only really get serious when we have a show to get ready for," so I booked the show at Kimo's.

And that show rocked ass. We'd expanded the set to seven songs (well, more like ten, but we cut a few that we were less fond of for the show), and got costumes together. We even had a smoke machine there, though we forgot to use it. The show's bill was eclectic, the crowd was enthusiastic, and the house was jumping. The booking agent said it was the best Thursday night crowd the joint had had all year, and offered use another gig at a different club.

So, we'll see how things progress.

*To be perfectly clear, I play guitar in this band. It's not my band, as such.

Beer Science

Here's a sentence I'm overjoyed to have need to write - I've been holding blind beer taste tests at work lately.

About every two months or so, I put on a lab coat and compose a series of verbose and urbane emails about how taste testing beer is the only way we are going to propel humanity into a suitably progressive future. I ramble on a bit about how Science (always capitalized) is an unstoppable collective effort, and how "[it's] hobbled without the fervent participation of a gang of dedicated adherents such as all of you. Together we will heave back the leaden curtain of ignorance and complacency, and reveal a gilded world of knowledge and progress rolling out to the horizon before us." And so on.

This all started during a party at my apartment building here in san Francisco. Most people were drinking beer that evening, and one guy in particular was drinking a Pabst Blue Ribbon, the hipster beer of choice. Someone gave him a hard time about drinking a beer that was so simultaneously lauded and abhorred, and he shot back, "Man, if you took the labels off this and a high-priced Pilsner, no one would be able to tell the difference." I took that as a challenge and set up a taste-test.

As I recall, it was PBR vs Bud Light vs Stella Artoi vs Tsingtao vs Coors vs some craft brewed pils (can't remember that last one). I set up six cups labeled 'A' through 'F', and made score sheets on which people could record their impressions of the beers on a scale of 0-5. Someone made some pizza, and there were salted nuts there as well, so it wasn't the most scientific thing ever, but it was a good time. In the end, PBR ended up dead last and, somewhat surprisingly, Tsingtao came out on top. Myth Busted, as they say - PBR truly does suck ass.

Fast forward a couple of months to my Creative Director and his buddy enjoying a few cans of Tecate in the kitchen at work. Someone gave my CD a hard time about Tecate being gross, and he said, "Man, if you took the labels off this and a high-priced Mexican beer, no one would be able to tell the difference."

And that is how Beer Science was born. The first challenge was Mexican Lagers (titled the 'Mexican Standoff', of course), but the idea caught on well in the office, and there have been four more 'testing sessions' since then: Stouts, IPAs, Belgians, and Asian Lagers. I approach these 'tests' in a more stringent fashion than I did the initial PBR test; donning a lab coat, upgrading the scale to 1-10, not allowing food other than water crackers to accompany the beer until the testing is done, &c. I've even made a spreadsheet on which to tabulate the results, which I then disseminate among the entire office as soon after testing as I am able. It's a lot of fun, and a good excuse to get the whole office together sample a little brew.

What were the results of all these taste tests, you ask? Well, here you go:


Mexican Stand-off

1 - Corona
2 - Modelo Especial
3 - Tecate/Pacifico Claro (tie)
4 - Dos Equis
5 - Sol

Stout Science

1 - Young's Double Chocolate Stout
2 - Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout
3 - Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout
4 - Sierra Nevada Stout
5 - Murphy's Stout
6 - Guinness Stout


IPA Inquisition

1 - Sierra Nevada Torpedo 'Extra' IPA
2 - Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA
3 - Speakeasy Big Daddy IPA
4 - Lagunitas IPA
5 - Stone Brewery IPA
6 - New Belgium Ranger IPA


Abbey Inquisition (Belgian Ales)

1 - Chimay
2 - Blue Moon
3 - Fin du Monde
4 - New Belgium Abbey
5 - Duvel
6 - Saison Dupont

Asian Persuasion

1 - Tiger (Singapore)
2 - Saigon (Vietnam)
3 - Tsingtao (China)
4 - Kingfisher (India)
5 - Singha (Thailand)
6 - Sapporo (Japan)

What does the future hold for Beer Science, you ask? Probably a Red Ale, then a Pale Ale, then a Porter, but who can know these things? I usually let people vote on what they'd like to taste before I set up a Beer Science, but once we are through all the normal beers I'll have to get creative. In any case, the journey is the destination, is it not? Yes, it is...