SF band the Freak Accident headlines the Golden Bull
Long-running side project/solo band of Victims Family guitarist and founder Ralph Spight the Freak Accident plays the Golden Bull Friday night with fellow veterans Kingdom First.
While Spight has been dealing out a complex style of punk rock since first coming together with bassist Larry Boothroyd in Santa Rosa during the early '80s to start Victims Family (not to mention subsequent related bands Saturn's Flea Collar and Hellworms), the Freak Accident didn't come together as an alternative outlet for some of Spight's other music until the early 2000s.
Mixing elements of more traditional pop and rock songwriting with surf, punk and even Tom Wait-ish tango influences while always exhibiting the songwriter's surrealist barbed-wire wit and outlandish guitar pyrotechnics, the initial recording by the band for its self-titled 2004 debut on Alternative Tentacles was essentially just Spight singing and playing guitar, bass and keyboards with a variety of guests including fellow member of Jello Biafra's Guantanamo School of Medicine Jon Weiss on drums, fellow six-string virtuoso Eric McFadden and punk horn player Ed Ivey.
Since that first effort, Spight has put together a full band with another player from the GSM Kimo Ball (Mol Triffid, Plainfield, Griddle) on bass that would release several albums and EPs, included an instrumental surf tribute to Joy Division entitled Tropical Depression in 2016 that featured onetime Victims Family drummer Eric Strand. More recently, the Freak Accident has issued it's ripping third album Misfortune Teller as well as a lost set of songs recorded with an early line-up of the band back in 2009.
The band's latest album Outer Space Is Boring features the current line-up of Spight with bassist Henry Austin Lannan (Othered, KnightressM1) and local drumming institution Stark Raving Brad (The Hellbillys, The Mutaytor, Marginal Prophets, Undercover S.K.A. and many others). On Friday at the Golden Bull, the Freak Accident get support from reunited San Francisco band Kingdom First.
Though they only had a brief existence in the late '90s and early 2000s, the band featuring former Alice Donut guitarist Richard Marshall, singer Matthew Jervis (The Clarke Nova), guitarist Chris Carroll (Stimmies), bassist Dave Baldini (Swirl Happy) and drummer Christian Stark (Decal) established a reputation for hard-hitting live performances around San Francisco. The group recorded a single bracing album with noted producer/engineer Alex Newport before splitting up. After several members came together to perform punk classics by the Damned and the Saints at a memorial concert in 2022, the positive response spurred the members to pursue a full-blown reunion.
The group played a blistering set for a Noise Pop tribute concert for acclaimed photographer Peter Ellenby last February proved the quintet could still deliver onstage. Kingdom First brought another Portland, OR-based musician into their ranks with the addition of Nasalrod guitarist Mustin Douch. The band has stayed steadily active in the past year, playing its first headlining show in San Francisco in decades last February and touring the Northwest twice. Kingdom First also plays the Bottom of the Hill Thursday night. Opening the show is Dollar Store, the latest project from Crimpshrine and Fifteen guitarist Jeff Ott.
The Freak Accident with Kingdom First and Dollar Store
Friday, Sept. 8, 7:30 p.m. $13
The Golden Bull