Local
Grooves
Lil'
Pocketknife
Pants
Control EP (Narnack)
Though only five foot two, Lil' Pocketknife says she can conquer you.
It's true. I know that as soon as lead MC Lil' Pocketknife, a.k.a. Kristy
Geschwandtner, gets on the mic at a show, my ass is hers. And as soon
as I play her trio's new EP, Pants Control, my jeans gyrate uncontrollably,
having succumbed to the Atari-age electro-punk beats. Each time LPK
hijacks my slacks. So how does she do it? The five-song disc clearly
plays by the rules of hip-hop, with raps that match "pocketknife"
with "hella tight," make liberal use of the f-word, and include
a lot of spelling (yo, B to the double-O-T-Y). Yet fans of mainstream
hip-hop, of OutKast even, might be caught off-guard by LPK's references
to the pleasures (Tofutti) and plights (ADD) of suburban youth, not
to mention drummer Lynnae Burns's unabashed lack of prior experience,
and lanky third member George Patterson's incongruous falsetto extolling
LPK's virtues. I have suspicions that a former girl-punk lurks beneath
this Prince-size rapper, especially when I hear the final track, "A.D.D.,"
which incites the crowd to "eat sugar, eat sugar, stay up all night.
Start this revolution. Fight, fight, fight!" Part of the message
here is that if a petite white girl originally from the Jersey shore
can get up and rock "your motherfuckin' ass" with goofy Pac
Man bleeps and keytar riffs, then she can do anything: slay dragons,
travel to Mars, or resolve the East Coast-West Coast conflict. Lil'
Pocketknife play Sat/24, Hemlock Tavern, S.F. (415) 923-0923. (Deborah
Giattina)
DJ Garth
Revolutions
in Sound (Grayhound)
Of all the English flotsam and jetsam that washed into San Francisco
in the early '90s on the high tide of house music, DJ Garth seems to
have flourished the most. I wouldn't touch the long-dead controversies
that pitted provincialism against colonialism with a 10-foot speaker
cord, but suffice it to say that whatever his origins, Garth is now
a visible ambassador of San Francisco house. Gathering 16 tracks from
his label, Grayhound Recordings, Garth spins a mix that manages to rise
above the typically redundant flavor usually associated with label compilations.
Not that there isn't a uniting flavor: dubby echoes, a liberal dose
of grinding funk, and more than a dash of psychedelic production tie
together tracks as dissimilar as Ambusher's mildly progressive "Know
What You Mean" and Rocket's gritty "Revolution." But
through judicious programming, Garth explores the various shades in
tone and beats that Grayhound has released in the past five years. If
Revolutions in Sounds has one main fault, it's a somewhat meandering
energy level. And please, please retire "Twenty Minutes of Disco
Glory"! Its 15 minutes were up in 1997, and even a decent Mirror
Boys remix doesn't breathe life into this dead horse. All nitpicking
aside, there are some gems here, from the delicious sample in 2000's
"U Don't Know" to a pair of choice collaborations with Wicked
partner Markie Mark. (Peter Nicholson)
