Looking for a fresh double-bill to help you forget the week is here? Check out Spoon and The Heavenly States, who are taking over San Francisco's Fillmore Monday through Wednesday. Fans of urgent, conscientious rock ought to go home ready for weekend.
"I'm a huge fan of Spoon," confesses Heavenly States honcho and Star Wars (and Hardware Wars) nerd Ted Nesseth. "When we were asked to do these shows I kind of felt like the Rock Guy in The Never Ending Story: 'These hands, so strong.'"
Nesseth is a bleeding-heart rocker whose vocals and ax have injected a healthy amount of geopolitics and geekdom into his NorCal band's brainy catalog. He's also a huge fan of Hardware Wars spoof maestro Ernie Fosselius: Nesseth's first band was called Fluke Starbucker, and he convinced Fosselius to direct the video for The Heavenly States' early tune "Car Wash."
"Working with Ernie was a highlight in our career," Nesseth explains. "He carved out a stage and wooden automaton puppets in the likeness of the band and our equipment. He's brilliant! He didn't want the puppets to float and flop like marionettes, so he built the wires in reverse, under the stage, so we had percussive control over them. We could stop them on a dime. The whole video was shot in a train car he converted to a mini theater. By the way, he's being honored for his lifetime of work at this year's B Movie Celebration."
But as much as Nesseth loves Star Wars' goofy copy, he's not a fan of the original's new animated iteration hitting the malls near you.
"The love, and buck, stops at the animated feature," Nesseth says. "Shame on you, George Lucas. Shame! It's crapanimation."
this audio or video is no longer availableUnlike The Heavenly States latest effort Delayer, which is the best thing the band has ever done, according to critics and fans. But Nesseth has higher hopes for the sequel, which is being hammered out as you read this.
"I don't want to sound like Soul Asylum, in more ways than one," he jokes. "But thisnext one is totally the one!"
Photo: Heavenly States @ Myspace
