Noise | San Francisco Bay Guardian

Magnificent obsession
Wild game playing and Byzantine mythmaking with Zeek Sheck, the lady tyrant on the edge of the edge of San Francisco music.

By Gabriel Mindel

No longer was there fun in the world, for no one looked up from their singular tasks to see that there was a whole world out there thriving and waiting for the swell of the party to begin once again, in a golden age of reason and wild, creative game-playing and love potions!!!!

Zeek Sheck

MYTH, AS we generally see it, is common in rock music. In fact, our modern concept of rock is essentially drawn from a cycle of myth developed throughout the middle part of the last century. The Diva, the Lover, the Bad Boy, the King, and the Virgin are all part of a monomythical pantheon for our contemporary culture of musical commodity. In the great Mount Olympus of modernity that is VH1, we see these archetypical gods and goddesses in a constant rotation of devotion. Yet these myths are ordinary, common. In the "underground," – the dark, wooded, high-mountained, remotely deserted sphere of art and culture – there lurk other creatures. In this region, strange beings come out of hiding, possessing our fellows and demanding their place on a stage.

One such creature is Zeek Sheck. She is a real woman who also goes by another name, and you'll see her out and about. She's performed in Dot Dot Dot, a band of ladies who played deconstructed tunes in Chicago's Now Wave heyday of the mid-'90s, and also briefly in the local cadre of rock animals known as T.I.T.S. She is also the brains behind a small consortium of noise collectives such as Mount NB, Goofice, and Woof Pies. She's been a constantly challenging, often brilliant, and largely marginalized musician on the edge of the edge of the San Francisco music scene. Though there is an undercurrent of sexism in the degree to which her talent is overlooked, both here in the Bay Area and beyond, she provides very little opportunity for people to celebrate her music. She performs rarely, releases records quietly and irregularly, and has created a body of work that is mind-spinning in its aesthetic and conceptual density.

Of course, it's hard to judge a person who is not simply your average musician, but is in fact the channel for a creature from another place. Zeek Sheck is an evil tyrant who gets her head cut off at the very beginning of the era of Zemag Daeh. Her cut-off head gets put to work by the Care Company Re-Brainwashing Services, who release subliminal musical works in the form of Zeek Sheck's albums. The company is taken over by Beepers, who dismember Zeek Sheck and the other Shecks so that they can use their bodies for fun and games. Unfortunately the Beepers forget why they were partying, and that they were playing games in the first place, and the world descends into chaos, pain, and fear. Ironically it is the former tyrant Zeek Sheck and her fellow Cryers who must tell the story, remind people of a time before the Beepers, and hopefully liberate people from their dull and lifeless existence.

Sheck's story is being told over the course of five albums. The most recent one, Careco (Swezlex, 2004), is the fourth in the series and is easily Sheck's masterpiece thus far. An incredible stream of layered vocals and drumming, the album stretches out like a fever dream, repeating themes, growing and fading, and constantly dissolving into itself. Musically it seems to sit well within the realm of modern electronic music, but lacks any singular anchor to give it an easily qualified genre. Its odd polyrhythms and loose choral aspects draw connections to African and early black American music – from slave songs to fife-and-drum bands. Appropriate for a record conceived in outer-dimensional slavery. It's strange and subliminal and quite otherworldly – not a far cry from Sheck's more stripped-down and queerly arranged live performances. So when you see her perform, you will see a woman unlike any other. But remember she's not what you think. What you're seeing among the strange costumes and evolving instrumentation and cast of musicians is an embodiment of a myth and ritual.

Zeek Sheck performs with Violet Beauregarde, If Rebecca Horn Played Guitar, Project Renovate, and Paper Boats, Tues/7, Kimo's, 1351 Polk, S.F. Call for time and price. (415) 885-4535.