Birdsaw live on KUSF

The two tracks here were recorded live at KUSF's studio, 3/3/1998.
Castro's Viagra would eventually become another song, Pounding Tin. The reason that it is instrumental here is that Robin forgot one of her pedals at her apartment, and had to run back over there to retrieve it. The fidelity sucks, but I love the fact that I pulled off a little drum solo in 10/4. Dan Laks's cool deadpan in the intro is a fine illustration of his characteristic sex-mad sarcasm.
Immediate Sky was never recorded after this occasion, and was dropped from the repertoire later in the year.
http://soundcloud.com/search?q[fulltext]=Birdsaw-Castro%27s+Viagra
http://soundcloud.com/search?q[fulltext]=Birdsaw-Immediate+Sky

Lithium Milkshake-Last recordings, 1996

Lithium Milkshake was formed in 1990 in Fremont, California.  Justin Martin played guitar and sang, Hans Stahl played bass, and I played drums.  I will post video with this lineup, along with a bit more descriptive writing.
The songs featured here were recording in mid-1996, at Lennon Studios on Dore Alley in San Francisco. This lineup of the group featured Jeff Alves on bass, as Hans had decided not to be involved in what was essentially a reunion try.  The group as configured played two shows, at The Edge in Palo Alto and at the corner of 6th St. and Taylor in San Francisco.
As mentioned in a previous post, Justin died on 10/19/96 in San Francisco.  Jeff has resumed his painterly ambitions.  I've seen his paintings posted on the web, and they are great. I'm not sure where Hans is.
I wish these tunes could have been recorded at a proper studio.  I love the simplicity of them. Justin wanted a stripped and slowed down set of tunes to work with. He seemed to be going for maximum emotional impact, by way of sheer simplicity in presentation.
As we worked on the tunes, he got sober, then fell off of the wagon. The last time I saw him, upstairs at the Paradise Lounge, he told me "I'll be alright" as he headed downstairs an onto the street.  I thought he was heading back to his home base of Antioch, but I guess he and Jeff had other plans for the evening. Justin died later that night, inside of our lock-out rehearsal room at Lennon Studios. 
I still miss Justin a lot. I wish he could have worked out his problems and lived longer.

The Lithium Milkshake tracks are copyright 1996, Lithium Milkshake.  I'm not sure who owns them.

 

https://lithiummilkshake.bandcamp.com/album/1996-demos

 

My first show with Ovipositor, 2/25/2004

I joined Colin Frangos in Ovipositor in July, 2003. We spent the next four or five months working on songs Colin had written and trying to find a new bass player.  Ovipositor's first bass player had moved to another state, just before I'd come on board, in order to pursue post graduate work of some sort. 
Matt Carter answered our craigslist post right in the nick of time.  We were getting  a bit disheartened after several bad bass player auditions. He jammed with us one time, and both Colin and me knew we'd found our guy.
Now that we'd found a bass player, we could start working of songs that Colin had been developing, along with booking shows.  I was particularly excited about the prospect of playing shows with a Rock  band again.
Colin booked our first show through his pal Nate, who drummed in Nasturtiums, along with the first configuration of Ovipositor.  The Stork Club on a Wednesday night in February is pretty much a guaranteed bust in terms of money or attendance, but I couldn't have cared less about any of that.  I was happy to be playing out again. I was also happy to be doing so in the company of two very cool people, people that had enthusiasm for just making music. It felt great to be rocking out just for the hell of it, with no expectations except for the sheer joy of the process.

Thanks to Melissa for coming to the show and taking the great pics!

Ovipositor on Pacific Noise

This video was filmed by Pacific Noise, an on-line 'zine.  Taping was in late 2006 or early 2007.  Laurin Askew was the bass player for Ovipositor at the time.  He left the group in June 2007, as he had to move back to his home state of Virginia.  His mother had been diagnosed with cancer, and he dutifully went home to be near her for her last years.  Laurin, you're a mensch.  Watch as we stumble through a brief interview, then dig on my featured vocal tune, We're Hermits (lyrics inspired by Lester Bangs). 

More Birdsaw 2003 tunes, a picture, a drumhead, an explanation.....

This picture was taken in 1999, at Fais Do Do, a club in East L.A.
Birdsaw's critics accused us of "playing Rock Star", but we handled every aspect of the band ourselves: booking, CD production, artwork, etc. We never thought about having a manager. Pity the person who would attempt to manage any of us, anyway.  This independent stance made us have to play off the beaten path a lot. In L.A. music scene terms, Fais Do Do is REALLY off the beaten path. 
The bass drum head was hand painted by Ilan Laks.  He's a pretty successful artist in Portland, these days.
A few more of the last demo tunes here:
http://soundcloud.com/mark-pino-on-drums/07-birdsaw-2003-07-1
http://soundcloud.com/mark-pino-on-drums/12-birdsaw-2003-12-1

The chorus of the first tune was the chorus from a song that I'd written for the band on a really cheap Fender Jaguar.  They only liked that part, so I had to be happy with having it cloned on to a riff by someone else.  Robin's lyric "Can't wake up/ can't run/out of my skin/can't give it away" pretty much summed up how I felt about the fate of Birdsaw, and my own personal situation, at the time of these recordings. 
I guess most people who pursue creative endeavours suffer for it, so at least I know that I wasn't alone.

A flyer that I liked a lot.

The central image was taken from a massive tome of Hegel that I'd been trying to read.  I really liked it, and begged to get it on a flyer.  Robin usually reserved the right to flyer design, but for this one, she relented.  Black Kali Ma KILLED it that night.  Gary Floyd is fucking rad.  Boomshanka is kind of a dumb name for a band.  Then again, so is Birdsaw, so there you go. 

Self portrait

I'm pretty sure that this was drawn on a slow day at my furniture installer job in the early 2000's.  At the time I was reading a lot of post-Structuralist philosophy.  I think it plays well to my surrealist Spanish roots.

Birdsaw was a band that I played in from 1997 to 2003.  We had a small bit of success, in that we toured a bit nationally and a lot regionally.
The characteristic sound of the band was the LOUD alto of singer Robin Coomer.  I always admired her singing, along with her abstract approach to lyrics.  These factors may have been a bit of a hindrance to the band.  It seemed like people found her voice daunting, especially in the live setting.  I'm not sure that her subjective lyrical style gave people much to "relate" to either. 
Often overlooked was guitarist Dan Laks.  I grew to love his much-considered tone, along with his melodic style and heels-over-ass soloing, especially live.  His style in Birdsaw was the aloof  one favored by older players like Ritchie Blackmore or Paul Kossoff.  I always appreciated that.  I grew very fond of Dan.  I hope he's well.
Bassist Tom Jordan was all bedrock playing.  He was not flashy, but his parts served the tunes, and his finger-picked style was low and warm.  He's also a really funny guy, his humor honed by living an abstemious life in a decadent society.  Tom plays bass in a great band out of San Jose called Rivals.
The tracks featured here were recorded at our Hudson St., SF, rehearsal studio in early 2003.  We recorded these, and others, at a proper studio later that year, but the band imploded that June, symbolically smashed apart during Dan's post-set destruction of his beloved black Stratocaster at the Hotel Utah.  As I watched him maniacally savage his axe, I realized that all of the pressure we'd put on ourselves for the previous five years was finally taking it's toll, and opted out.
Don't expect a reunion show, but I will post a ton of other stuff in the future.  I loved that band.
The picture below was taken at Oakland, CA's beloved Stork Club, ca. 2002.

http://soundcloud.com/mark-pino-on-drums/13-birdsaw-2003-13-1
http://soundcloud.com/mark-pino-on-drums/15-birdsaw-2003-track-15-instrumental

PLAYBACK IS A BITCH trailer

Colin Frangos is a talented and creative guy. I've played with him in Ovipositor since 2003. Above, a short video he produced, resulting from our day at New, Improved! Studio, 5/25/2010.