The Tip

Gary Wilson: Feel the Beat

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:53:00 EDT

"Feel the Beat." Free.

Gary Wilson : 11/02/2011

Don't fight. You will NOT be able to get this earworm out of your brain.

download track

Feel The Beat, Gary Wilson

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:28:00 EDT

“Feel the Beat,” Gary Wilson’s first Tip Records single. Here. Now.

Warning: you won't be able to get this earworm out of your head. But by all means, surrender to Endicott, New York’s favorite son. And as you are seduced by the new single, prepare your soul for 14 more torrid tales of Linda, Mary, Cheryl and Lugene, coming later in November on an incredibly catchy new Gary album, also called Feel The Beat, available in digital, vinyl and even old-school CD, only on Tip Records.

Download "Feel the Beat" single from iTunes.

Stream "Feel the Beat" single on your Android.

Tipmas 2011

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 13:52:00 EDT

The year's Tipmas finds Duncan/Channon's devotees celebrating the First Annual Tip Records Holiday Extravaganza on Friday, November 4. This solemn/utterly ridiculous day marks the official launch of Tip Records and official release of the new Gary Wilson album on Tip Records, as well as the official annual celebration of the entire Tip Records roster of superstars. It also marks the official release of a bunch of whoop-dee-do involving food, fire, booze, hotpants and rubber gloves. Due to overwhelming demand, 2011's Tipmas observances will be taking place at the Public Works venue in San Francisco's swingin' Mission. A happy Tipmas in advance to all!

Current Releases

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 00:02:00 EDT

Current releases from Tip Records

Gary WIlson

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 23:49:00 EDT

The best place to get the whole juicy (and true) story is to go to Netflix and order up the mid-2000s documentary You Think You Really Know Me: The Gary Wilson Story. Whether you're fan or curious onlooker, this'll grab you.

Robots are coming!

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 13:48:00 EDT

We all learned a thing or two this past Friday when medical anthropologist, cyber-sexpert and MD/PhD. candidate Laura G. Duncan (not necessarily no relation) brought her "Hey, Where's My Robot Girlfriend?" multimedia show to the never-more-aptly named Tip. Musical foreplay was provided by Chel C. Faith, who performed a live PA salute to robot eroticism on stomboxes, loopstations and mixers. Aphrodisia was provided by 600 Hog Island oysters served raw and al fresco on the Tip roof and washed down with a fearsome concoction called Robot Sex on the Beach created by D/C's friends at The Alcohol Enthusiast. One thing we learned was that there's a masturbatory machine world way beyond the mere vibrator. The other thing we learned was that masturbatory machines are a surefire way to pack the house.

Can there be a serious discussion about something called "teledildonics"?

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 13:17:00 EDT

Find out September 30th at the first officially NSFW Toast of the Tip! "Hey, Where’s My Robot Girlfriend? An Exploration of Sexual Robotics, Teledildonics and Carnal Technology" is the presentation's full title. So you get our drift. But beyond the titillating (no pun) headline, it's a fascinating picture of what's really going on in sci-fi and in a real-life subculture that has discovered a, shall we say, deeper engagement with machines. A Brooklyn-based medical anthropologist, sexual health researcher and Trekkie, Laura Duncan (no relation) has been presenting her multimedia lectures all over New York to rave reviews from the Village Voice, New York magazine and Lemondrop.com, and a profile in Time Out. In addition to her forays into pop culture, the overachieving twenty-something pursues a career as a researcher, writer, sex educator, doula and student pursuing an MD/PhD in public health. It seems all too appropriately inappropriate that she has found her way to the Tip.

New friend Rachel Fannan, old friends 1776: now that was some roofie

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 06:00:00 EDT

Tunes at the Tip took a transcendent turn Wednesday with our first-ever concert on the rooftop, starring Portland's 1776 and the Bay Area's Rachel Fannan. The fog cooperated, providing excellent visual interest, and not too much cold, leaving only the musicians to deliver chills. In a word: beyond awesome.

Roofie at the Tip: 1776

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:40:00 EDT

It's 1776 again. Not the year when something probably important happened, but the amazing young band from Portland (on the Dandy Warhols' record label) who played the Tip last year. They're back for an electric gig in the Mission and have agreed to serenade us beforehand with an acoustic set -- al fresco -- on D/C's fab roof deck.

The Tip presents Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, Brian Jones, Buddy Holly, John Lennon

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 20:29:00 EDT

Jeff Nolan, the undisputed heavyweight King of Rock History, last night brought an entire pantheon of rock artifacts to the Tip, along with goosebumps and even a few tears. Thanks to the generosity of Hard Rock for the spectacular memorabilia from their 40th anniversary tour (check hardrock.com for where the museum-on-wheels goes next). And thanks to Jeff for bringing it all to life. Check here for your pics.

Toast of the Tip, Jeff Nolan

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 17:05:00 EDT

Experts confirm that no one knows the people, places and things of rock as well, or talks it with more passion, humor and authority, than Jeff Nolan. But this Monday is not just about jaw flapping. Prepare yourself for the ultimate rock ’n’ roll show-and-tell, as Nolan, who does his historicizing for our favorite music-related hotel, casino and restaurant empire, offers an up-close and exclusive encounter with select items from Hard Rock’s 40th anniversary memorabilia tour. Michael Jackson’s red leather “Beat It” jacket? Hendrix’s Flying V guitar? Buddy Holly’s glasses? Bieber’s autographed skateboard? All will be revealed at the Tip (of course) on Monday, June 13th. So ready your cameras. And let Marie know: rsvp@duncanchannon.com.

Tip's 225th birthday/cinco de mayo caught on tape

Wed, 25 May 2011 18:45:00 EDT

Tip's 225th birthday/cinco de mayo caught on tape. Judging by this footage, a very good time was had by all. Especially certain visitors from the east who shall remain nameless. And faceless.

Tipo de Mayo: memories of a bar's bicenvicenquinquennial

Sun, 08 May 2011 08:35:00 EDT

Tipo de Mayo: memories of a bar’s bicenvicenquinquennial

Remember last Thursday? Maybe not. It was certainly a perfect storm of a party: the Tip’s 225th birthday, Cinco de Mayo, beautiful weather – and a brand new roofdeck from which to enjoy it – a lost movie trailer, the launch of this site and of Tip Records, the Donnie Finnell Trio and their debut single, Easystreet, a big brass plaque, a big brown bunny and a guy from the government – and his wife – who may not get out much. Well, to jog your misty, water-colored memories, there are now a bunch of pictures. For better or worse.

Easystreet

Thu, 05 May 2011 19:47:00 EDT

Easystreet

It was Erich Honecker, former Chancellor of the Communist East German Republic (the PDR), who first brought Easystreet to the attention of San Francisco music impressario Sid Butterfield, who in turn brought them to the attention of Tip Records talent scout Elgin Fergus (then known as Fergus Elgin). But the true story – or what seems to be the truth – could only be pieced together after the fall of the Berlin wall and opening of the files of East Germany’s dreaded and omnipresent secret police, the Stasi.

The story is that there was a band called Easystrasse back in the day, and, according to the surveillance reports, Honecker would seek them out at Spaetzle 54, an official “underground” disco club, and bully them into playing Bavarian polkas on their homemade synthesizers. Night after night, often until six in the morning, the reviled leader would sing along, tearfully, to the mawkish likes of “Eine Freitag Nacht,” “Umlaut, Umlaut, Mein Umlaut,” “Fraulein Va-va-va-voom!” and other musical relics, set to a disco beat.

Ten thousand pages of surveillance, not to mention two-plus minutes of blurry black-and-white Stasi surveillance video, attest to this. But Michael Blitzen, Easystreet’s flamboyant lead singer, refuses, angrily, to confirm it, as does longtime band partner Velvet Chang, the enigmatic electronics maestro. Of course, life under the Stasi would tend to make one a little reticent, if not fully paranoid, about events in East Germany. And seven years on the run – following their escape from the PDR, they circulated throughout Eastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, before landing as “cultural refugees” in San Francisco, USA – would tend to reinforce that.

In any case, everything is sweetness and light now, as the once subjugated (or not, as the case may be) disco/techno/post-punk former polka whores unleash their mad happy worldview of glitter and gold-lame-hot-pants, throbbing subtones and throbbing flesh, of full-tilt freedom, fun and tanz-tanz-tanz, on a world sorely in need of it.

And Tip Records helps them do it with the release on 6 June 2011 of International Supernatural, the debut album from the incredible Easystreet, featuring “Gold Theme,” “(More than a Machine) To Me” and many more.

“Who cares where we come from?” says Michael, flashing turquoise dagger-eyes, straightening his fishnets and pronouncing W’s as V’s. “We are here now. In your heart.”

More from Tip Records

News • Current releases • Gary Wilson • The Donnie Finnell Trio • The Tip Records story

Location

Thu, 05 May 2011 15:45:00 EDT

Location of The Tip

The Donnie Finnell Trio

Tue, 03 May 2011 19:46:00 EDT

The Donnie Finnell Trio

Donnie’s first hit arrived early. Maybe too early. The year was 1959, and “Little” Donnie Finnell, as he was known, was 13. First released on the Baltimore label, Ardell, “Cup Full of Kitten” quickly climbed the regional charts, and Donnie’s contract was snapped up by Parrot Records, later to gain fame as the home of Tom Jones (in fact, Jones has said in multiple interviews that it was hearing Donnie that first got him interested in becoming a singer). Composition of “Kitten” was credited to Dick Clark, Robert Weston Smith (aka DJ Wolfman Jack), T. Budrick Helson and Donald J. Finnell, but experts say the credits probably represented the train of payola that got the song onto the radio, and it is likely that Donnie, just as he has always claimed, was the sole composer.

An irresistible pop confection sung by the then squeaky-voiced teen from Nashville, “Kitten” reached number 7 on the Billboard charts, selling 42,000 copies in its first week of national release. But Donnie never saw a dime. And when he protested to his manager, Frankie Sheets, the song inexplicably sank from the charts and disapppeared from stores. Even today it seems there has been a conscious effort to erase “Little” Donnie Finnell from the history of rock ’n’ roll. His song has never been anthologized and, though he performed a record 17 times on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, footage is nowhere to be found on YouTube.

It seemed as though Donnie Finnell’s career would begin and end with “Cup Full of Kitten.”

Enter Tip Records talent scout Elgin Fergus. Known as “The Gael with the Golden Ears,” the plucky transplanted Irishman (he received a kidney from his late sister in 1989) first heard Donnie on the legendary KROQ in Los Angeles. It was love at first listen. But when he went to buy the record, it was nowhere to be found. That set Fergus on a lifetime journey, in search of “Little” Donnie Finnell.

That search ended in 2010 when Elgin, now A&R Director for Tip Records, happened to read that a painter named Danny Fennell was having a one-man show at the La Jolla Museumo. Fergus flew down for the opening and, as he approached the door, could hear an unmistakable voice – sure, half-an-octave lower, 40 years more sophisticated and all grown up – but still unmistakable: “Little” Donnie Finnell. Yes, Donnie had become a celebrated abstract artist, but as he painted, he sang. And sometimes, when the mood struck, or someone asked, he would pick up a microphone and let fly with a depth of feeling and technique that his preternaturally talented 13-year-old self could only have dreamed of. Egged on this night by the museum curator, Danny Fennell, painter, had once more transformed into Donnie Finnell, torch singer extraordinaire.

Picking himself off the ground, Fergus immediately signed Donnie to his new label and brought him what is sure to be his first top ten hit in 42 years, a swingin’ little number about the war between the sexes called “(Just the) Tip,” written by Dick Clark, Wolfman Jack and Elgin Fergus. (And not, despite his pathetic claims to the contrary, Lance Duncan.)

Donnie is joined in the trio, all based in sunny San Diego, by his brilliant longtime accompanist, Gary Wilson, the blow-up-doll-loving, avant-rock luminary who, in a different guise, shock-rocked Duncan/Channon’s 2009 Tipmas bash, and Carlos Rull, the most inventive drummer to have ever tickled skins. With a full EP in the works, the Donnie Finnell Trio is poised to assume their rightful place in the modern jazz pantheon. Best of all, the inimitable prodigal son of pop – Donnie Finnell – is back. And Tip Records has got him.

More from Tip Records

News • Current releases • Gary Wilson • Easystreet • The Tip Records story

Intro

Tue, 03 May 2011 18:54:00 EDT

Smokin’ Bud: The Tip Records Story

Cat's name was Bud Helson. And he loved music more than anything. Blew tenor – but, by his own account, not so good. Unable to become the world’s greatest music maker, he made himself the world’s greatest music fan. Around Fifty-deuce and up in Harlem, all the cats knew Bud. Bird. Trane. Diz. Even Bud Powell knew Bud. And from ’47 to ’55, there wasn't a jam session the guy missed. But then “Mad” Mickey Haff – famous for having way more cents than sense – put Bud in his private train car and took him to Frisco.

Bud was totally gone on the Bay. Mickey took him round to all the joints – the Firepit, Art & Harry’s, the Jazz Boat and a little bop-and-burlesque joint in which Mickey had a piece called the Tip. One look and Bud Helson was never the same.

Bud took the lease on an office one flight down from the penthouse dive and, having spent a year as a copywriter back in the day, opened an ad shop. Called it Helson & Son – though in truth he had no family, least no one who'd admit it. And while the agency barely made ends meet, it perfectly served Bud's purpose – he no longer had to stagger crosstown when Goon Phillips, the Tip’s crusty barkeep, threw him out. He could pretty much fall down the stairs to his office. Then one day, a skinny little kid from Fort Riley walked in. Parker Shannon was the name – or that’s what Bud heard. Kid looking for a break. Told Bud he’d be happy to clean up or run errands.

But Bud saw bigger possibilities. He gave Parker the title of Executive Creative Director and told the kid his job was to cover for him.

It was a big job. And after a few years of Bud being 99% AWOL, Shannon had learned a few things. And business was starting to grow. Parker hired a brokedown ex-rock critic named Dunkin to help him, and a few years after that, with Bud so far gone even falling down stairs was a feat, Shannon and Dunkin quietly changed the name of the agency to Duncan/Channon and brutally cut Bud out.

Clients and staff were told Bud’s departure was for unspecified “medical reasons.” And, yeah, you could say he had health problems. Alcohol mostly and reefer. And sure, he was driving the agency into the ground – he once hired a “snail car” to shoot flames outside the front door for an evening. But before he went all the way down the tubes, that drunken hophead was also the guy who came up with the catchphrase: “Pickles with pizza?!?!”

Bud Helson was the guy who changed the game.

In any case, music was his passion. And though he’s been gone from the agency for 17 years, and from the planet for three, his professional “sons” have never forgotten him, or the smell of his 200-proof breath in the morning, and have chosen to honor Bud Helson in the way he would most appreciate: with a tax dodge called Tip Records.

More from Tip Records

News • Current releases • Gary Wilson • Easystreet • The Donnie Finnell Trio

Tip toasts esteemed rock editor, MTV pundit, Joe Levy

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 02:00:00 EDT

Tip toasts esteemed rock editor, MTV pundit

Some rock stars hide their contraband in the most curious places, he discovered. But it’s not something Joe Levy cared to fully elaborate on, as he shared his less salacious — if no less amusing — tales of ten years as Rolling Stone music editor and go-to rock critic on MTV, VH1 and elsewhere. The third in Duncan/Channon’s Toast of the Tip speaker series, the evening played to an enthusiastic, sold-out crowd at the agency’s historic dive-bar-in-the-sky, the Tip.

Editor in chief of Blender since February, Levy was stopping in SF en route to the VMA’s in LA, where he was sure to see his friend, and the show’s opener, Britney Spears. In an interview with recovering rock critic Duncan, Joe allowed that his all-time fave rave is Pavement — but only after confessing that A Chorus Line was among the first three records he ever purchased. He shared insights into the collapse of the music business and the rise of a gazillion bands on the Internet — and, arguably, of a new golden age of music. And he strongly seconded the buzz for English rocker Pop Levi, whose “stereo” video is a dawning YouTube sensation. Finally, he touted a band he’d seen at South-by-Southwest, but whose name he couldn’t remember until later (get out your notebooks, obscure band afficionados): Racine.

All in all, Joe Levy brought the heat (literally — it was a record 93 in downtown) and did his part to prove that, at the Tip, as the ancient motto on the wall says: “We never give you the shaft.”

A woman named Maria has a lot to answer for: Kuleto (photos)

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 01:23:00 EDT

A woman named Maria has a lot to answer for

Never mind why. It was just part of the rollicking visit by legendary restaurant designer/developer/owner Pat Kuleto to the pseudo-legendary Tip last Thursday night. Not only did the irrepressible Kuleto provide fascinating insights into his design and development process — which is grounded in storytelling, of imagining the building as a narrative motivated by site, city and history — he also provided insight into his romantic initiation. Unfortunately, he then challenged his interviewer, a certain D/C ECD, to do the same. Luckily, the ECD did not also take him up on the challenge to sing, which Kuleto, a former folksinger, did beautifully, entirely accapella.

On behalf of a mesmerized, fire-code-defying crowd that spilled out the door of the Tip and a completely agog Duncan/Channon staff, we offer a tip of the Tip’s hat to Pat Kuleto, who is both one of the world’s great restaurateurs and raconteurs.

He got the beat, Gottehrer

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 01:02:00 EDT

He got the beat

Next month at the Tip, Duncan/Channon’s fantabulous, crytpo-famous penthouse lounge, we’re going to kick off a monthly speaker series. Not boring, corporate speakers or academic pontificators. Not self-promoters or product hucksters. And definitely not anyone in the advertising business. The idea, as the mission statement has it, is to get “people who matter in the world today,” folks with big ideas and deep resumes and, preferably, a well-developed sense of humor. The series is titled “Toast of the Tip,” but, more importantly, it’s subtitled: “Private conversations with people we think are cool.”

And, holy shit, did we score.

Our first guest speaker is a guy by the name of Richard Gottehrer. If you’re in the music biz, you know his name (and if you don’t, you’re not really in the music biz and/or — all due respect — get the fuck out). If you’re a true fan, you know his name because you pay attention to album credits (and if you don’t, sorry, you’re not really a true fan). And if you’re just a garden variety music-appreciating civilian, well, brace yourself. Dude’s the mack. And you’ll be kicking yourself that you didn’t know him before. Anyway, here’s the brief bio we put together for the invitation:

He’s a man of the future with the most incredible past. In fact, it’s hard to imagine any one who spans more ages and phases of popular music, popular culture and popular technology than Richard Gottehrer. He is a legend who has never become an oldies act, a visionary who has remained a visionary for close to half a century, a fun guy who, in a business characterized by biblical-scale betrayals, has never lost his sense of humor. He also happens to be a composer, performer, producer, entrepreneur and sage. Among other achievements, he is co-composer of "My Boyfriend's Back" and co-composer and performer of "I Want Candy," co-founder of Sire Records, producer of Blondie, the Go-Gos, Raveonettes, Dum Dum Girls, and co-founder of The Orchard, the first digital music distributor. His songs have been covered by David Bowie, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bow Wow Wow, Aaron Carter and Spice Girl Melanie C. His story is nothing less than the story of rock ’n’ roll, complete and unabridged.

Update: The event took place June 20th and was nothing less than boffo.