Great American Music Hall

Noise Pop: Little twin stars

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

So are they or aren’t they? A pop twosome that make lovely music together in more ways than one is the irresistible scenario embedded in more rock, soul, and country partnerships than one can count — who doesn’t fall for the notion of torturously entangled C&W soulmates that extends far beyond Walk the Line turf and into the year in and year out of George Jones and Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner, Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty, Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons territory? Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood’s affections remained unrequited up to the latter’s 2007 death, as did the palpable chemistry between Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell.

Well, gawkers remain out of luck here, says Matt Ward, a.k.a. M. Ward, the manly half of indie rock’s latest sweetheart duo, She and Him. He and actress-singer-songwriter Zooey Deschanel are just friends, friend. "People are always going to think whatever they’re going to want to think, no matter what they read in interviews or what the facts are," the extremely soft-spoken Ward says from Omaha, Neb., where he’s currently mixing his next LP, with Bright Eyes’ Mike Logan. "I think music is a lightning rod for people’s imaginations — and I don’t think that’s a bad thing."

He can hardly expect a listener to stop dreaming while listening to the Deschanel originals. With Ward’s production and arranging input, the tunes take on the luscious feel of gimlet-eyed ’60s-style girl-group protorock ("I Was Made for You"), pedal-steel-sugared, chiming country ("Change Is Hard"), and subtly colored girl-singer pop ("I Thought I Saw Your Face Today"). Leslie Gore, Darlene Love, Julie London, Ronnie Spector, and all of those other dulcet voices of teen agony, ecstasy, and crash-and-burn romantic disaster, move over: Deschanel is the next worthy addition to those ranks — a doll-like upstart cross between Sinatra and Carole King — thanks to She and Him’s maiden outing, Volume One (Merge).

Director Martin Hynes brought Deschanel and Ward together to cover a Richard and Linda Thompson tune for his as-yet-unreleased film The Go-Getter. Deschanel and Ward discovered they were "mutually fans of each other’s work," the latter says. One song led to another and, he adds, "eventually Zooey mentioned she had some demo songs that she had under her hat. I had no idea she was a songwriter — let alone a really incredible songwriter and vocalist. They had really beautiful chord progressions, and as a producer, it makes things easy when you have great songs and amazing vocals." He decided to play Phil Spector to her King.

"We started with a pile of songs that I had written," Deschanel e-mails from her current movie, "and had found their life up to that point completely in the safety of my bedroom. It was amazing to see what such a creative individual as Matt could bring to those songs. He brought a tremendous amount of life to them without killing their original essence. His instincts are dead on."

Deschanel wasn’t above making the bizarre instrumental contribution: the mysterious bazookalike sound on "This Is Not a Test," for instance, "is actually me playing mouth trumpet," she writes. "I said, ‘This song needs a trumpet,’ and then I said, ‘You know, like this’ and I did that bit. Matt liked it. We didn’t have the budget for horns so I just did it."

They took each song as its own "island," as Deschanel puts it. "The compositions tell you where they want to go," adds Ward, who strived for a warm analog production. "We tried keeping it away from computers and digital technology as much as we could. I think that’s the main reason the record sounds good — that and the songs are good."

The approach perfectly jibed with Deschanel’s aesthetic. "I have always been attracted to old music. I have always been a fan but I continue to discover ‘new’ old music," writes the vocalist, who says she started writing at age eight, was in bands in high school, and later had a cabaret act called the Pretty Babies. Elf (2003) gave her a chance to sing on film, but otherwise she had limited her music primarily to demos: "Demoing became sort of a hobby that I found relaxing."

She isn’t concerned with trying to please hipsters or cool kids who might view her as a movie-star dilettante simply passing through the trenches of indie pop. "I hope each person responds to [Volume One] naturally without any agenda of mine seeping into the matter," she offers. "Ideally audience and artist should be uncorrupted by each other."

Not a surprise from a singer in love with the passion and craft of country music. "I think," Deschanel opines, "sincerity is hugely underrated."

SHE AND HIM

With Whispertown2000, Adam Stephens, and Emily Jane White

March 2, 8 p.m., sold out

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com

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Noise Pop: Hot shots

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Mika Miko


Los Angeles’ proudly punky ladies have been busy tearing out new tunes back home. Expect them to show their hand in their constant quest to drive the audience bonkers. Also on board is more of their characteristically dark imagery. "There’s nothing worse than happy-joy-joy," drummer Kate Hall says. "You gotta go through some dark stuff." (Kimberly Chun)

With DJ Amp Live and Tempo No Tempo. Tues/26, 8 p.m., free for badge holders and VIPs. Rickshaw Stop, 55 Fell, SF. (415) 861-2011

Minipop


Indie pop rarely gets sweeter — or more radio-friendly — than in the hands of San Francisco’s preternaturally poised Minipop. The foursome found an avid listenership early in their career, and the recently released A New Hope (Take Root) finds the unit looking fondly back at the dreamy alt-pop of the early ’90s, with graceful nods to 4AD forebears. (Chun)

Feb. 27, 8:30 p.m., $12. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com

The Mumlers


Perhaps the Mumlers were channeling the spirit of William Mumler, a mid-19th-century man famous for claiming he could photograph ghosts, but once all seven band members touched their fingers to a Ouija board’s planchette, the board, they claim, spelled out their group’s name. Regardless, it’s clear their swaggered ruckus pop channels dead folk musicians galore. Despite the ghostly origins of their handle, the Mumlers’ live appearances tend into turn to lively celebrations, with the outfit dancing about the stage. Their repertoire of instruments rivals any philharmonic’s and includes guitars, drums, upright bass, various keyboards, euphonium, French horn, trumpet, clarinet, tambourine, pedal steel, and recently, eagle whistles from Mexico. While the tunes give old-time music an indie pop sheen, beneath the group’s sprawling arrangements the lyrics and vocal delivery compare to those of Johnny Cash’s later recordings — with a touch of early Bob Dylan. (Alex Felsinger)

With the Entrance Band, honey.mooon.tree, and Golden Animals. Feb. 27, 9 p.m., $14. Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.cafedunord.com

The Morning Benders


This group has no shortage of hooks and crescendos, and with a lighthearted indie pop style familiar enough to capture anyone’s attention and enough creativity to hold it, they stand out from their peers. Listeners have drawn comparisons to Voxtrot, the Shins, and Of Montreal for good reason, but in the end the Morning Benders’ biggest debt is to the Beatles. So far they’ve recorded all of their releases at home but have always managed to mimic that old analog sound, even when using nothing but a laptop and one microphone. With their upcoming debut, Talking Through Tin Cans (+1), they’ve successfully stepped into hi-fi wonder without losing their homespun feel. The Morning Benders don’t break any musical molds, but their solid songwriting and smooth deliver serve pop tradition well. (Felsinger)

With Kelley Stoltz, Grand Archives, and the Weather Underground. Feb. 28, 8 p.m., $14. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

The Blacks


SF’s grungy indie rock band the Blacks sound so much like the Pixies that they ought to be called the Frank Blacks, but they trump the re-formed Pixies in stage presence tenfold. Vocalist JDK Blacker doesn’t sing much at all but rather focuses his energy on livening up the audience: sometimes he’ll help drummer Gavin Black smash cymbals, or perhaps he’ll simply thrash around with his trusty tambourine. Vocalist Luisa Black holds the group together with solid alternating rhythm and lead guitar, while Gavin Black’s drumming shines with stripped-down, solid beats. The Blacks take the simplicity of ’70s punk and garage rock and jump-start the attitude: the concept isn’t new, but then, a combo doesn’t need to be entirely original to rock. (Felsinger)

With Cursive, Darker My Love, and Judgement Day. Feb. 29, 8 p.m., $18. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. www.gamh.com

Jeffrey Lewis


Crass saved punk. They never fit the part, never ripped off the Rolling Stones, and never tried to become famous, because they genuinely wanted to create a better world and thought they could do so through music. But in the past four years every kid with a leather jacket has picked up an acoustic guitar to sing against the war and capitalism, recorded some songs on their PowerBook, then thrown them up on MySpace. Folk punk has swept the nation’s underground to the point where 924 Gilman Street Project hosts a monthly Acoustic Night. Bringing it full circle, New York City’s Jeffrey Lewis recently released 12 Crass Songs (Rough Trade), composed entirely of acoustic versions of Crass numbers, including some of the group’s best. Lewis came out of his city’s so-called antifolk scene — a Crass cover LP ought to be deemed anti–folk punk, right? — and his vocal patterns have a hushed, somewhat raplike flow. The CD’s best track has to be "Punk Is Dead," which Lewis delivers as a wistful ballad. Hearing a folk singer recite the lyrics 25 years after the first recorded incarnation makes more sense than ever — because the words are certainly truer today. (Felsinger)

With the Mountain Goats, OKAY, and Aim Low Kid. Feb. 29, 8 p.m., $18. Bimbo’s 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF. www.bimbos365club.com

British Sea Power


Do You Like Rock Music? is the provocative title of British Sea Power’s new Rough Trade LP. Well, sure, but do I like their brand of grand indie? Their engorged drums and highly dramatic overtures just might get them discounted as the Big Country of the ’00s, though their quieter moments and more experimental textures hint at increasing — and welcome — complexity and nuance. (Chun)

With 20 Minute Loop, Colour Music, and Off Campus. March 1, 9 p.m., $14. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com

Immigrant


These SF vets of Evening have come a long way from would-be bell-ringing bouts, taking on an epic yet poppy, synth-dappled alt-rock veneer with the self-released Novakinesis. (Chun)

With Panther, Wallpaper, and Distraction Fit. March 1, 9 p.m., $10–$12. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. (415) 861-2011

Port O’Brien


One might note that the flowing harmonies between the four members of Port O’Brien work so well onstage that the audience would be doing a disservice to the band if they joined in. But that would be an unfair request. Port O’Brien’s music emits the instant atmosphere of a warm campfire sing-along. The group’s more intimate acoustic concerts are now only rare gems, and their recorded efforts tend to fall short of capturing the same level of energy, yet their glowing personalities and dedication to the crowd are still evident at their amplified full-band performances. (Felsinger)

With Delta Spirit, What Made Milwaukee Famous, and the Mayfire. March 1, 9 p.m., $10–$12. Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.cafedunord.com

The Virgins


Imagine Julian Casablancas with a freshened-up adenoidal approach and jaded ‘tude intact, backed by sloppy-cool disco-rock rats. Equipped with a taste for that tatty late ’70s intersection where punk and disco met, snarled, and duked it out on the train on the way back to the boroughs, these New York City decadance-kins seem likely to outshamble Babyshambles and their louche ilk. Too bad you can only be a virgin once — wonder what the combo’s next trick will be? (Chun)

With Airborne Toxic Event, the Blakes, and Man/Miracle. March 1, 9 p.m., $12–$15. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

Folked-up Noise Pop: Whispertown2000 harks back to Y2K handles

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whispertown.jpg

By Alex Felsinger

Ridiculous nicknames were once reserved for football locker-rooms and saloons, but the Internet has given everyone the ability to bestow any embarrassing name they please upon themselves.

In the early days, Whispertown2000 actually went by Vagtown2000, and then thankfully realized their mistake within a year. But the real mystery here is that instead of starting with a clean slate, they decided to stick with the millennium-village theme and changed their moniker to Whispertown2000.

All ragging on their naming ability aside, founder Morgan Nagler’s vocal delivery evocates female folk vocalists like Mary Chapin Carpenter, but since their songs include either sparse acoustic guitar or low-key synth over mid-tempo drums, the band becomes more of an indie-rock version of Melissa Etheridge. (Felsinger)

Whispertown2000 plays with She and Him, Adam Stephens, and Emily Jane White. March 2, 8 p.m., $18-$20 (sold out). Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF.

Ballin’

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER "I get to go to the ball!"

Longtime Oakland soul hopeful Ledisi isn’t spilling the beans about what designer she’ll be wearing to the Grammy Awards on Feb. 10, but on the phone from New York City, where she’s as deep into the wardrobe as the lion and the witch, she guarantees, "I’ll be cute!"

Red-carpet frocks, on-and-off awards ceremonies, and nominations for Best R&B Album for last year’s Lost and Found (Verve Forecast) and, get this, Best New Artist ("People say I’m a new artist, and I am a new artist in this mainstream world," says the woman who put out her previous two CDs on her LeSun label. "I’ve never had third-party involvement in anything!") — it’s all high drama for Ledisi Anibade Young. Nonetheless, she knows she’ll be enjoying herself to the core and even more because she’ll be exactly where she wants to be: namely, comfortable in her own skin.

"I just feel like I’ve finally come into my own, meaning I’m OK with myself," the vocalist says, bubbling like de Brignac. "I’m still hungry, but I’m not begging anymore."

As we speak, Ledisi is floating, as she puts it, in more ways than one: she’s drifting between residences in NYC, Oakland, and Washington DC and lifting higher about the national spotlight that comes with her nominations, a recognition laid on a clutch of other once and present Bay Area artists like Keyshia Cole, Machine Head, and Turtle Island Quartet and local indie label Six Degrees (for Bebel Gilberto, Ce’U, and Spanish Harlem Orchestra). Regardless of how you feel about the continuing relevance of the Recording Academy paperweights — yes, the Best Polka Album category is still in place — the thrill a nominee like Ledisi feels is catching, especially when one considers the flights of ups and downs she’s undergone over the years.

"I didn’t think I wanted the pressure of being in the front again, with all the issues of image and the style of singing and choosing a category to be in — you know, all that kind of the pressure!" she says, recalling the times she thought about giving up performing. After her debut, Soulsinger (LeSun, 1999), won near-universal praise but garnered zero coveted R&B radio attention, she left Oakland and moved to NYC because, she says, she was "tired of going around in circles." With an understudy role in Broadway’s Caroline, or Change in her change pocket, Ledisi had begun developing the stage version of The Color Purple when she signed to Verve and dropped out of the production to work on Lost and Found.

But after working for a year and a half to get her deal, "the guy who signed me," Verve president Ryan Goldstein, was suddenly laid off among many others. She finished the record, took a breath, and went back into the studio, fearing the new powers that be would require further alterations.

Meanwhile, she adds, "I was finding myself in my personal life": she ended a long relationship and met her father. Her R&B vocalist mother had already told her that her biological father was Larry Saunders, but only when Ledisi traveled to Amsterdam and mentioned his name to a DJ there did she realize others knew The Prophet of Soul, the name of Saunders’s 1976 Soul International LP. "He said, ‘We know who he is!’ and pulled out his record," Ledisi remembers. Her parents had met on tour when Saunders was a starring performer and her mother a backup singer, and when Ledisi finally met her father, "it was just like peas in a pod. I never felt so complete. Now I don’t have those things around me going, ‘Who am I?’<0x2009>"

Ledisi also discovered that her father was the love child of blues vocalist Johnny Ace, who achieved legend as an early rock ‘n’ roll casualty, allegedly shooting himself during a Russian roulette game on Christmas Day, 1954. "When I found out," she says, "I was, like, ‘No wonder we’re all singers!’<0x2009>"

"You know this record is really powerful, with all this happening during its process," she says of Lost and Found, which eventually debuted at number 10 on Billboard‘s R&B chart. "I tell you, with all the stuff that went on, it’s all worth it. Win or lose, I’m just so complete. I just want to stay in the moment — couldn’t ask for a better moment to happen."

WALKING PNEUMONIA, HERE WE COME

THE EVERYBODYFIELDS


Everything’s OK with these tenderhearted crust-country kids. With I See Hawks in LA. Wed/6, 8 p.m., $12. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

PIERCED ARROWS


Dead Moon rising: "Walking Wounded" vets Fred and Toody Cole keep flying that lo-fi flag. With Black Lips. Fri/8, 9 p.m., $15. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. www.gamh.com

TERRIBLE TWOS


Motor City kiddies trade in snot-laced cacophony. With Top Ten and Wylde Youth. Sat/9, 9:30 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

PALEO


Gimmick or gimme-gimme? Brooklyn’s David Strackany followed in the footsteps of Suzan-Lori Parks with his "Song Diary" project: 365 songs, one written and recorded each day for a year. But his next trick after that media blitz? With the Blank Tapes and Eddy Burke. Sun/10, 9:30 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

MERLE HAGGARD


NorCal’s country music giant reaches east with 2007’s The Bluegrass Sessions (McCoury/Hag) — see where it takes him. Mon/11, 8 p.m., $65. Grand at the Regency Center, 1290 Sutter, SF. www.ticketmaster.com

LOS AMIGOS INVISIBLES


The very newest sounds from the Venezuelans of disco derring-do? With Si*Se and DJ Franky Boissy. Mon/11–Tues/12, 8 p.m., $22. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

Furries, for real

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Super Furry Animals are a mischievous lot. Having marked the universe with their tech-pop grandeur for 15 years, they must now keep the world wondering where their music will pop up next and in what form. For their new album, Hey Venus! (Rough Trade), the Welsh quintet maintain their love of vast, Donald Fagen–esque noodling but have stripped down into a craftily introspective niche. In keeping with their new sound, they have a secret weapon in the studio, and it isn’t bleeding-edge sonic wizardry or Timbaland at the desk. It’s a dulcimer — a hammer dulcimer, to be exact, and it’s wielded on some songs with as much aplomb as any siren, blip, or squawk that’s graced any of their previous seven full-lengths. What gives? "For some reason, [the album] has a ‘band playing in a room’ kind of mood," lead vocalist Gruff Rhys offers simply, speaking on the phone from Cardiff, Wales, in early January. "Nobody brought any samplers to the recording sessions."

Super Furry Animals emerged from the Welsh capital city amid a wave of other acts, effectively marking a movement that included bands like Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci and Catatonia. The core members of the group had originally come together as a techno outfit — a background that set them apart from their contemporaries. The group’s first album, Fuzzy Logic (Creation, 1996), saw the combo establish its mastery of cheekily strident pop tunes. Its next release, Radiator (Flydaddy, 1997), upped the ante with an inventive melodic complexity that the Furries had obviously already mastered.

The band made its mark by continuing to issue fearless, originally crafted indie rock that stemmed at least in part from Rhys’s schizoid musical background: he was in a jangle-pop band called Emily before moving on to noise ensemble Ffa Coffi Pawb. The Furries’ next release, Guerilla (Flydaddy, 1999), is a densely layered technorock symphony that ranges between the cheeky blips of songs like "Wherever I Lay My Phone (That’s My Home)" and the introspective balladeering of tracks like "Fire in My Heart." Each disc since has been notable for a particular reason, whether it’s an all-Welsh double album (2000’s Mwng [Placid Casual]), a special DVD with a video crafted for each song (2001’s Rings around the World [Sony]), or the quirky explorations into spaced-out country rock and überharmonic ruminating on recent albums Phantom Power (XL, 2003) and Love Kraft (XL/Beggars, 2005). Hey Venus!, Rhys explains, is partially based on the mellow mood he described earlier in our conversation. "In the past I wrote all the lyrics, and then the last two years [the band has become] more confident and has started to bring complete songs to the soup." He pauses, then confirms, "I suppose this was a songwriting kind of record."

Which brings us back to that dulcimer, most prominently used on the bittersweet "Carbon Dating." It’s a signature Furries multicultural hash: a kaleidoscopic ballad that begins as a carnival waltz before morphing into Motown–meets–Ennio Morricone doo-wop surrealism. Rhys credits its composer, keyboard player Cian Ciárán, calling it "the most beautiful song on the record" before explaining that Ciárán also played dulcimer on it. Demonstrating the band’s virtuosity and playfulness in the studio, the dulcimer is showcased like a sonic effect throughout Hey Venus!, echoing like a ghost as all other instruments drop away. Lest fans think the Furries have gone fully folk, Rhys laughs and explains the instrument’s lure: "Dulcimer for us represents a lot of the old Michael Caine cold war spy movies. He always had [it] going on in his soundtracks."

Cosmopolitan kitsch aside, Hey Venus! runs an emotional and socioeconomic gamut, albeit with a wink of the eye. On the Shangri-Las throwback "Runaway," lovers flee each other while wistfully recalling the other’s "banking details." (The video is an ’80s-inspired romp with Matt Berry of United Kingdom comedy series The Mighty Boosh.) There are also moments of quintessential SFA lyrical humor, as on "Baby Ate My Eightball," which offers the apologetic understatement of the decade, "See you on the other side / Sorry to cut your life so short." Equally acerbic is the track "Suckers!," which offers a straightforward litany of gripes concerning the world and its gullible inhabitants. Rhys wryly calls it a "miserable, complaint-rock song" that came to him at a dark moment on a rainy day in Cardiff: "Sometimes I sing that song tongue in cheek, and at other times I sing it and it’s absolutely sincere."

Rhys sounds like he’s still skating on that schizoid musical past. Yet while Hey Venus! seems to function as a musical exorcism of sorts, the frontman sees it as part of the natural order of the Super Furried Universe, with each recording a reaction to the last. He suggests that the next effort will depart from their current space age moodiness. "Maybe next time we’ll bring back the electronics," he says. He pauses and laughs before adding, "And I can start writing lyrics that are less exposed!"

SUPER FURRY ANIMALS

With Holy Fuck and Here Here

Sat/9, 9 p.m., $20

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com

Blow by Blow: At the beck and call of Khaela Maricich

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The Blow’s Khaela Maricich is a charmer – and lord, the girl knows how to multitask, moving into her new Portland, Ore., studio while fielding questions all the while. For the first part of the talk, go here. And she performs tonight and tomorrow, Jan. 22 and 23, at Great American Music Hall, so look out!

SFBG: So Jona [Bechtolt of Yacht] won’t be performing with you at Great American Music Hall?

Khaela Maricich: He hasn’t been performing with me for a year and haf. He’s been doing own thing with Yacht.

SFBG: How would you describe your current act then?

KM: Well, I come at performing from a lot of different angles. I never really thought of myself as a musician. I never thought of myself as a performer either and I always thought I’d be a visual artist. As a kid I remember there being video cameras from a TV station and me being under the table, not interested at all in being the center of attention. I never had a sense of being, “I want to be a musician,” and so I never think it’s going to be a great music show! I look at different angles of entertaining myself and different ways of using the stage to make a show.

I think it’s a lot like stand-up and performance and karaoke. It’s electronic music – there’s no laptop onstage. It’s just me and a microphone.

Get Health! The LA noise combo gives up their secrets

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Everybody’s talkin’ ’bout Health – as well as Dan Deacon, who the LA noise combo plays with tonight, Jan. 17, at Great American Music Hall. It’ll be an awesome show. I traded e-mails with the outfit this week, and here’s what they graciously coughed up.

SFBG: How did your name come about?

John: We wanted a name like Television, an everyday word. Went down a list with the interweb. Health was left.

SFBG: What makes you play music?

John: Gets me AMPED, man. Unless you’re a little kid, music is the only way you get someone to rage with you.

Jake: Is that a big question or a small question?

SFBG: What sort of “Health”-y things do you do?

John: Kombucha

Jake: Watch out for excess sodium.

Club Guide

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AMNESIA


853 Valencia

(415) 970-0012

ANNIE’S SOCIAL CLUB


917 Folsom

(415) 974-1585

ARGUS LOUNGE


3187 Mission

(415) 824-1447

ASIASF


201 Ninth St

(415) 255-2742

ATLAS CAFE


3049 20th St

(415) 648-1047

BALAZO18


2183 Mission

(415) 255-7227

BAMBUDDHA LOUNGE


601 Eddy

(415) 885-5088

BAOBAB


3388 19th St

(415) 643-3558

BAZAAR CAFÉ


5927 California

(415) 831-5620

BEAUTY BAR


2299 Mission

(415) 285-0323

BIMBO’S
365 CLUB


1025 Columbus

(415) 474-0365

BISCUITS
AND BLUES


401 Mason

(415) 292-2583

BOHEMIA LOUNGE


1624 California

(415) 474-6968

BOOM BOOM ROOM


1601 Fillmore

(415) 673-8000

BOTTOM
OF THE HILL


1233 17th St

(415) 621-4455

BROADWAY
STUDIOS


435 Broadway

(415) 291-0333

BRUNO’S


2389 Mission

(415) 643-5200

BUBBLE LOUNGE


714 Montgomery

(415) 434-4204

BUTTER


354 11th St

(415) 863-5964

CAFÉ CLAUDE


7 Claude

(415) 392-3515

CAFE COCOMO


650 Indiana

(415) 824-6910

CAFE DU NORD


2170 Market

(415) 861-5016

CAFE INTERNATIONAL


508 Haight

(415) 665-9915

CASANOVA LOUNGE


527 Valencia

(415) 863-9328

CATALYST
COCKTAILS


312 Harriet

(415) 621-1722

CAT CLUB


1190 Folsom

(415) 431-3332

CITY NIGHTS


715 Harrison

(415) 546-7938

CLUB CALIENTE


298 11th St

(415) 255-2232

CLUB DELUXE


1509 Haight

(415) 552-6949

CLUB NV


525 Howard

(415) 339-8686

CLUB SIX


60 Sixth St

(415) 863-1221

CONNECTICUT
YANKEE


100 Connecticut

(415) 552-4440

CRASH


34 Mason

1-877-342-7274

DALVA


3121 16th St

(415) 252-7740

DANNY COYLE’S


668 Haight

(415) 431-4724

DELIRIUM


3139 16th St

(415) 552-5525

DNA LOUNGE


375 11th St

(415) 626-1409

DOLCE


440 Broadway

(415) 989-3434

DOLORES PARK CAFE


501 Dolores

(414) 621-2936

DOUBLE DUTCH


3192 16th St

(415) 503-1670

DUPLEX


1525 Mission

(415) 355-1525

EAGLE TAVERN


398 12th St

(415) 626-0880

EDINBURGH CASTLE PUB


950 Geary

(415) 885-4074

EIGHT


1151 Folsom

(415) 431-1151

ELBO ROOM


647 Valencia

(415) 552-7788.

ELEMENT LOUNGE


1028 Geary

(415) 571-1362

ELIXIR


3200 16th St

(415) 552-1633

ENDUP


401 Sixth St

(415) 357-0827

FAT CITY


314 11th St

(415) 861-2890

FILLMORE


1805 Geary

(415) 346-6000

540 CLUB


540 Clement

(415) 752-7276

FLUID ULTRA LOUNGE


662 Mission

(415) 615-6888

FUSE


493 Broadway

(415) 788-2706

GLAS KAT


520 Fourth St

(415) 495-6626

GRAND


1300 Van Ness

(415) 673-5716

GRANT AND GREEN


1371 Grant

(415) 693-9565

GREAT AMERICAN MUSIC HALL


859 O’Farrell

(415) 885-0750

HARRY DENTON’S STARLIGHT ROOM


Sir Francis Drake Hotel

450 Powell

(415) 395-8595

HEMLOCK TAVERN


1131 Polk

(415) 923-0923

HIFI


2125 Lombard

(415) 345-TONE

HOMESTEAD


2301 Folsom

(415) 282-4663

HOTEL UTAH SALOON


500 Fourth St

(415) 546-6300

HOUSE OF SHIELDS


39 New Montgomery

(415) 495-5436

ICON ULTRA LOUNGE


1192 Folsom

(415) 626-4800

INDEPENDENT


628 Divisadero

(415) 771-1421

IRELAND’S 32


3920 Geary

(415) 386-6173

JACK’S CLUB


2545 24th St

(415) 641-5371

JAZZ AT PEARL’S


256 Columbus

(415) 291-8255

JELLY’S


295 Terry Francois

(415) 495-3099

JOHNNY FOLEY’S


243 O’Farrell

(415) 954-0777

KATE O’BRIENS


579 Howard

(415) 882-7240

KELLY’S MISSION ROCK


817 Terry Francois

(415) 626-5355

KIMO’S


1351 Polk

(415) 885-4535

KNOCKOUT


3223 Mission

(415) 550-6994

LASZLO


2534 Mission

(415) 401-0810

LEVENDE LOUNGE


1710 Mission

(415) 864-5585

LEXINGTON CLUB


3464 19th St

(415) 863-2052

LINGBA LOUNGE


1469 18th St

(415) 355-0001

LI PO LOUNGE


916 Grant

(415) 982-0072

LOFT 11


316 11th St

(415) 701-8111

LOU’S PIER 47


300 Jefferson

(415) 771-5687

LUCID BAR


580 Sutter

(415) 398-0195

MAD DOG IN THE FOG


530 Haight

(415) 626-7279

MADRONE LOUNGE


500 Divisadero

(415) 241-0202

MAKE-OUT ROOM


3225 22nd St

(415) 647-2888

METRONOME DANCE CENTER


1830 17th St

(415) 252-9000

MEZZANINE


444 Jessie

(415) 625-8880

MIGHTY


119 Utah

(415) 626-7001

MILK


1840 Haight

(415) 387-6455

MOJITO


1337 Grant

(415) 398-1120

MOOSE’S


1652 Stockton

(415) 989-7800

NICKIE’S


466 Haight

(415) 255-0300

OLD FIRST CHURCH


1751 Sacramento

(415) 474-1608

111 MINNA GALLERY


111 Minna

(415) 974-1719

PARK


747 Third St

(415) 974-1925

PARKSIDE


1600 17th St

(415) 252-1330

PIER 23


Pier 23

(415) 362-5125

PINK


2925 16th St

(415) 431-8889

PLOUGH AND STARS


116 Clement

(415) 751-1122

PLUSH ROOM


York Hotel

940 Sutter

(415) 885-2800

POLENG LOUNGE


1751 Fulton

(415) 441-1710

PUBLIC


1489 Folsom

(415) 552-3065

PURPLE ONION


140 Columbus

(415) 217-8400

RAMP


855 China Basin

(415) 621-2378

RASSELAS JAZZ


1534 Fillmore

(415) 346-8696

RED DEVIL LOUNGE


1695 Polk

(415) 921-1695

RED POPPY ART HOUSE


2698 Folsom

(415) 826-2402

REDWOOD ROOM


Clift Hotel

495 Geary

(415) 775-4700

RETOX LOUNGE


628 20th St

(415) 626-7386

RICKSHAW STOP


155 Fell

(415) 861-2011

EL RINCON


2700 16th St

(415) 437-9240

EL RIO


3158 Mission

(415) 282-3325

RIPTIDE BAR


3639 Taraval

(415) 240-8360

RITE SPOT


2099 Folsom

(415) 552-6066

ROCCAPULCO
SUPPER CLUB


3140 Mission

(415) 648-6611

ROCK-IT ROOM


406 Clement

(415) 387-6343

ROHAN LOUNGE


3809 Geary

(415) 221-5095

ROYALE


1326 Grant

(415) 433-4247

RUBY SKYE


420 Mason

(415) 693-0777

SAVANNA JAZZ


2937 Mission

(415) 285-3369

SHANGHAI 1930


133 Steuart

(415) 896-5600

SHINE DANCE LOUNGE


1337 Mission

(415) 421-1916

SKYLARK


3089 16th St

(415) 621-9294

SLIDE


430 Mason

(415) 421-1916

SLIM’S


333 11th St

(415) 255-0333

SOLUNA CAFE AND LOUNGE


272 McAllister

(415) 621-2200

SPACE 550


550 Barneveld

(415) 550-8286

STUD


399 Ninth St

(415) 252-7883

SUEDE


383 Bay

(415) 399-9555

SUGAR LOUNGE


377 Hayes

(415) 255-7144

SUITE ONE8ONE


181 Eddy

(415) 345-9900

SUPPERCLUB


657 Harrison

(415) 348-0900

1015 FOLSOM


1015 Folsom

(415) 431-1200

330 RITCH


330 Ritch

(415) 541-9574

TOP OF THE MARK


Mark Hopkins Intercontinental Hotel

1 Nob Hill

(415) 616-6916

TRANSFER


198 Church

(415) 861-7499

TUNNEL TOP


601 Bush

(415) 986-8900

12 GALAXIES


2565 Mission

(415) 970-9777

26 MIX


3024 Mission

(415) 826-7378

222 CLUB


222 Hyde

(415) 864-2288

UNDERGROUND SF


424 Haight

(415) 864-7386

VELVET LOUNGE


443 Broadway

(415) 788-0228

VODA


56 Belden

(415) 677-9242

WARFIELD


982 Market

(415) 775-7722

WISH


1539 Folsom

(415) 431-1661

BAY AREA

ALBATROSS PUB


1822 San Pablo, Berk

(510) 843-2473

ANNA’S JAZZ ISLAND


2120 Allston Way, Berk

(510) 841-JAZZ

ASHKENAZ


1317 San Pablo, Berk

(510) 525-5054

BECKETT’S


2271 Shattuck, Berk

(510) 647-1790

BLAKES


2367 Telegraph, Berk

(510) 848-0886

CAFE VAN KLEEF


1621 Telegraph, Oakl

(510) 763-7711

DOWNTOWN


2102 Shattuck, Berk

(510) 649-3810

FOURTH STREET TAVERN


711 Fourth St, San Rafael

(415) 454-4044

FREIGHT AND SALVAGE COFFEE HOUSE


1111 Addison, Berk

(510) 548-1761

JAZZSCHOOL


2087 Addison, Berk

(510) 845-5373

JUPITER


2181 Shattuck, Berk

(510) THE-ROCK

KINGMAN’S LUCKY LOUNGE


3332 Grand, Oakl

(510) 465-KING

MAMA BUZZ CAFE


2318 Telegraph, Oakl

(510) 465-4073

19 BROADWAY


19 Broadway, Fairfax

(415) 459-1091

924 GILMAN STREET PROJECT


924 Gilman, Berk

(510) 525-9926

NOMAD CAFÉ


6500 Shattuck, Oakl

(510) 595-5344.

PARAMOUNT THEATRE


2025 Broadway, Oakl

(510) 465-6400

RUBY ROOM


132 14th St, Oakl

(510) 444-7224

SHATTUCK DOWN LOW


2284 Shattuck, Berk

(510) 548-1159

STARRY PLOUGH


3101 Shattuck, Berk

(510) 841-2082

STORK CLUB


2330 Telegraph, Oakl

(510) 444-6174

SWEETWATER


153 Throckmorton, Mill Valley

(415) 388-2820

TIME OUT BAR AND PATIO


1822 Grant, Concord

(925) 798-1811

21 GRAND


416 25th St, Oakl

(510) 444-7263

UPTOWN


1928 Telegraph, Oakl

(510) 451-8100

WHITE HORSE


6551 Telegraph, Oakl

(510) 652-3820

YOSHI’S


510 Embarcadero West

Jack London Square, Oakl

(510) 238-9200

Bold as love

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The only thing that prevented Entrance’s resplendent Prayer of Death (Tee Pee) from being one of my top picks for 2007 was that it came out in 2006. Lately, when I want music to overwhelm me I reach for Prayer of Death. Alas, it wasn’t always so with Entrance, the nom de plume of Baltimore-born Guy Blakeslee. I first saw him perform in a dingy college basement sometime after the release of his 2003 debut, The Kingdom of Heaven Must Be Taken by Storm (Tiger Style). He played with a drummer, and while the two summoned an impressive racket, Entrance’s blown-out blues felt too much in the shadow of the ascendant White Stripes.

Four years later, the White Stripes are a parody, while Entrance has moved on to Los Angeles and sounds more and more visionary. He’s hardly the first to try to harness the invocatory power of early death-letter blues — associated with the likes of Charley Patton, Son House, and Skip James — with a Dionysian surge of electricity, but rarely has abandon felt so reposeful as on Prayer of Death. Arrangements for slide guitar ("Grim Reaper Blues"), violin ("Silence on a Crowded Train"), and sitar ("Requiem for Sandy Bull") roll and tumble, but Prayer of Death‘s power finally rests with Blakeslee’s fearless vocals, which tirelessly weave sandpaper scratch, banshee wail, and larynx-bursting vibrato. The lyrics read as so many death wishes until you realize Blakeslee has composed a suite about the revelatory power of song, specifically its ability to wrest life from a void. The boldness of the endeavor is further revealed in the fact that this is the first Entrance album without a cover song — though the title track’s skeletal gospel will have you double-checking the track listing of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music (Smithsonian Folkways, 1952) to be sure.

Watching Entrance unleash his killer power trio at the otherwise lackluster Source Family show at the Cafe du Nord a couple of months ago, I couldn’t help wondering why his project hasn’t received more plaudits. Perhaps it’s simply the result of East Coast critics all too eager to pull the retro trigger. Entrance isn’t the only one at this special Great American performance who deserves better than the implicitly denigrative "freak folk" tag. Kyle Field finally checks back in from the endless summer for a slow stroll through his Little Wings songbook, and Nevada City’s Mariee Sioux can’t lose with her majestic verses. Throw in Vetiver’s Andy Cabic on DJ duties, and you’ve got a bill that’s some kind of dream team.

THE ENTRANCE BAND

With Mariee Sioux, Little Wings, Lee Bob Watson, and DJ Andy Cabic

Jan. 10, 8 p.m., $16

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

www.musichallsf.com

Josh Wilson’s musical bests for 2007

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circle sm.bmp
Perfect? Circle.

Newsdesk.org editor and music critic Josh Wilson weighs in with his best in music for the year:

– Hammers of Misfortune at the Great American Music Hall, Feb. 22. Glorious thunder and truth.

– Circle at Bottom of the Hill, Sept. 27. If Can were a dadaist metal band from Finland.

– Faun Fables with Daevid Allen and Josh Pollock at Cafe du Nord, Nov. 28. Mad Canterbury beatnik styles, eruptive guitar on a tight leash, plus a truly riveting vocal and kinetic display by Faun Fables.

Band together for 21 Grand

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER "Fuck New York. I can stick it out longer. I’ve got a masochistic streak!"

Cue divine, mad laughter. No, this isn’t a disgruntled renter pushed out by another owner move-in or a painter or sculptor resisting the draw of the trad national marketplace — the speaker is Sarah Lockhart, who runs 21 Grand, the jeopardized arts nonprofit and music space around the corner from the Mama Buzz Café, Johansson Projects, and other galleries participating in the insanely popular monthly Art Murmur walk set in what has become the grassroots-art epicenter of Oakland and the East Bay at large.

Going on seven and a half years downtown, Lockhart has been toiling in the trenches of ambitious music and arts programming longer than most. But in the past few weeks she and partner Darren Jenkins have had to close the doors and move shows after a troubling visit by the Alcohol Beverage Action Team, a unit of the Oakland Police Department that also ushered in the closure of underground music venues like the French Fry Factory and Oaklandish. "My thing is to work on this and fight it," the ever-feisty Lockhart continues. "We’re actually going to stay open and maybe provide inspiration for others. I want to have at least 10 years, because Tonic in New York City closed — they lasted nine years — but we’re still here." She chuckles, contemputf8g her tenacity and the vaunted East Coast experimental music club, which closed in April. "I get competitive about weird things! No money, lots of work — let’s see how long it takes before I totally burn out. This is our form of an endurance test."

Consider their current gauntlet the latest in the uncanny, imaginative struggle to provide a place for visual artists, film and video makers, poets, and, notably, musicians — working in every esoteric, noisy, experimental, rockish, improvy, and otherwise unclassifiable stripe — to show, speak, or sound out. Some of the best live music shows I caught in 2007 were at their space: Marnie Stern, the Gowns, the High Places, Lucky Dragons, and Breezy Days Band, which made the programming there the best in Oakland, if not in the running for tops in the Bay. Lockhart and Jenkins have survived nightmare landlords and condo push-outs — first at 21 Grand Avenue, then on 23rd Street — but this new challenge has to be their most frustratingly Kafkaesque.

On Dec. 1, ABAT officials were looking into Shashamane Bar and Grill, whose kitchen door shares the alley entrance with 21 Grand. The latter was closing for the night after a performance. Recycling buckets with empty beer bottles, a tip jar, and a cooler led one of the visitors to give Lockhart a card, saying, she recalls, "We don’t want you to have any problems in the future." Lockhart was alarmed enough to put a halt to most of December’s shows, explaining, "I’m 33 years old. I feel like I’m too old to risk horrible fines from the department and have to call my mother and say, ‘I have a fine for $10,000 — can you lend me money?’ That’s how things began, and then the ball started rolling and things started escautf8g."

It wasn’t enough for Lockhart to simply apply for a cabaret license; she had to navigate a bureaucratic maze of Byzantine proportions while she attempted to get special-event permits from the police in order to continue to put on a few larger shows by artists like Zeena Parkins and Eugene Chadbourne, which led to efforts to get approval from the fire and building departments. "For all they know, we’re a large firetrap that has raves for 4,000 people, so they weren’t signing off on anything," says the exasperated Lockhart, who recently put in 40 to 70 hours of footwork on paperwork and approvals. The nonprofit has been organizing shows for years using grants from the city, but 21 Grand’s hard-to-define, multidisciplinary programming has puzzled bureaucrats.

Still, the onetime Artists’ Television Access programmer is hoping that the few helpful city officials she’s encountered, who are familiar with the closure of spaces like Oakland Metro, can help the nonprofit. Lockhart wants to resume shows next month beginning with a Tom Carter and David Daniell performance Jan. 10, and in the meantime she’s trying to maintain a sense of humor: "the irony is not lost" on her that their recent fundraiser had to be moved to someone’s home and that new legislation allowing the Fox Theatre to be redeveloped as a live-entertainment venue within 300 feet of a school, library, or church might help 21 Grand, which has had its share of developer travails, to get a cabaret permit for their present spot near a Presbyterian church.

Going the private-club route like the 924 Gilman Street Project or heading underground isn’t an option. "Our goal is to have 21 Grand actually have a public presence," Lockhart says. "I want to do something that’s advertised and open to the public so a kid in bumfuck nowhere can see something about it and say, ‘This is cool. I’ll go to this.’ " *

RAPPING DAY

DARONDO


The onetime Bay Area soul-funk-blues cult legend rolls into town — though not in his mythical ivory Rolls. With Nino Moschella and Wallpaper. Wed/19, 8 p.m., $10. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. www.rickshawstop.com

CHARLIE HUNTER


Welcome back the ex-Bay guitar-picking virtuoso as he plays with keyboarist Erik Deutsch and drummer Scott Amendola, and sit back and marvel alongside an audience of hotshots like Kirk Hammett. Wed/19–Sat/22, 8 and 10 p.m.; Sun/23, 7 and 9 p.m.; $16–$24. Yoshi’s, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakl. www.yoshis.com

MOTHER HIPS


The proudly hippie group reassembles — surf or no surf — for butt-shaking holiday sets. Fri/21–Sat/22, 9 p.m., $20. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. www.gamh.com

ASCENDED MASTER


Take a hit off the bongos of this local experimento-psych combo. With Top Critters and NVH. Sat/22, 9:30 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

Year in Music: Move me

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It was during my early teens that the obsession struck. I oversaw the building of a stage, booked a bunch of bad garage bands, and charged $10 for admission to boondocks Maryland’s first semiannual Punk Fest. During my high school years I snuck into the seediest venues that Baltimore and Washington DC had to offer — still the scariest I’ve seen to date. By my arrival in San Francisco, I was a full-fledged music scene devotee, immediately taking a job at the Great American Music Hall to pay the rent during college. My SoMa warehouse hosted concerts a few times a month — my bed was a futon unrolled over a segment of 58 Tehama’s stage. For years my drinks were comped, my seats were great, and I was always on the guest list.

It wasn’t until the final months of 2006 that I realized I’ve spent most of my postpubescent life inside concert venues. It was getting increasingly difficult to ignore my ringing ears, to justify the copious waves of shift-off cocktails, and to keep my love for music intact. Flag down any soundperson, bartender, or bouncer working anywhere in the city tonight, and they’ll tell you the music industry breeds bitterness.

How to live in San Francisco without working in the music business? At least my job kept me firmly in the so-called creative class — a label that made me feel much better about my financial situation. Moving to a less expensive city could mean a better standard of living and a way to cut the industry apron strings for good. My husband, having spent more than a decade working in music stores, was game. His only stipulation was that he would not, under any condition, be taking a record store job ever again.

We caught a train to Chicago, where my husband promptly took a job at a record store. I managed to stay away from music for a month, instead focusing my energies on writing food reviews for local publications. But by the time the festival season rolled around, the prospect of seeing Patti Smith perform against the impressive skyline of my new hometown ruined everything. The University of Chicago recently published a study comparing the music scenes of American’s top metropolises. Chicago kicked some serious ass. The study described Chi-town as "a music city in hiding."

I doubt I’ll ever shake music totally, but living in Chicago has taught me it doesn’t have to be a way of life anymore. When it comes to the scene these days, I’m nothing more than a music fan in hiding.

TOP 10


1. During my last night at the Great American Music Hall, I danced like crazy to the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

2. Tyva Kyzy. Anyone who missed this all-female group of Tuvan throat singers is probably still kicking themselves.

3. Barbarasteele’s 7-inch release party at Cafe du Nord blew some minds. Rest in peace, Mike J.

4. Patti Smith performing at Lollapalooza in the pouring rain.

5. No, I wasn’t among the Milanese elite who got to see Ennio Morricone at La Scala opera house, but just knowing about this show makes me a better person.

6. Rediscovering Townes Van Zandt’s Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas (Snapper UK).

7. The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir, The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir (Bloodshot).

8. Thanks, Sopranos, for making Journey relevant again.

9. Happy centennial to the glorious buildings that house the Great American Music Hall and the Cafe du Nord.

10. De la Soul closing out the Pitchfork Music Festival in style — with a little help from Prince Paul.

Year in Music: Throwback or keeper?

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I was born at the dawn of the 1980s, and as I’ve gradually climbed the aging ladder, the remnants of what I recall from my childhood have slowly faded into a dim star set to expire in some far-too-advanced digital-age contraption. I’ve been pretty hungry of late for an endless helping of nostalgic pop culture, and nothing satisfies an empty stomach more than watching The Making of Thriller or catching a five-second clip of Hulk Hogan leg-dropping Mr. Wonderful. You see, when I was a wee youngster, I channeled many of my fantasies from TV debauchery: I wanted to be the Karate Kid and yearned to live on the set of Pee-wee’s Playhouse. I started watching MTV before kindergarten, and the thought of soaring from a wire above the sea of 10,000 screaming fans in Bon Jovi’s "Livin’ on a Prayer" music video seemed like heaven to me. I longed to spike a volleyball in some drunken beachgoer’s face during the weeklong episodes of MTV’s Spring Break, but the closest I ever came to a beach was the grungy kiddie pool in my backyard. Sadly, I was never able to find another means of capitalizing on my fool’s paradise, but I remain convinced in my adulthood that something will eventually creep up and take me back to the Cosby generation.

YouTube finally answered my prayers in the beginning of 2005. Then I had the entire 1980s at my fingertips, and I’ve been hooked ever since. It’s been nothing but talking cars, pastel-clothed coppers, and cat-eating aliens from the planet Melmac in my tiny universe. I can now explore and eat up all of the catchy theme songs from old faves such as Pinwheel, Hey Dude, and Hickory Hideout, or scratch my head and wonder why I found Punky Brewster so compelling in the first place. I’m able to watch Alanis Morissette getting slimed on You Can’t Do That on Television, and then I can immediately point and click on a poor-quality money shot of Mr. T flexing his muscles in front of a burning helicopter. It’s so damn bad, but it’s addicting. I’ve come to realize that most of these flashes from the past should have stayed in my childhood, simply because they seemed so much cooler back then. Just last week I watched the first two segments of The Decline of Western Civilization, but they didn’t do it for me, because I just didn’t identify with those lifestyles as a toddler.

Much of my compulsion of wanting to relive the ’80s stems from the fact that all of my idols from that period — from Luke Skywalker to the Lost Boys — were larger than life. And I suppose I’m seeking an escape from the perpetual yawn of reality TV. I might not be Marty McFly, but if I ever find myself behind the wheel of a time-traveling DeLorean DMC-12, I will probably set the flux capacitor to the year 1989 and put it in park.

TOP 10


Britney Spears loses it

The Spits at the Great American Music Hall, Oct. 15

No Age, Weirdo Rippers (FatCat)

Christian Fennesz and Ryuichi Sakamoto, Cendre (Touch)

Calvin Johnson at the Rickshaw Stop, June 15

Black Dice, Load Blown (Paw Tracks). Someday they could become a really great pop band.

Paula Abdul’s drunken interview on the Fox News Channel

Japanther at the Hemlock Tavern, May 30

Aa, GAaME (Gigantic)

Kanye West, Graduation (Roc-A-Fella). My favorite album of 2007. I hear he’s remixing a Michael Jackson song for the 25th-anniversary rerelease of Thriller.

Year in Music: Nonplussed and pissed

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Usually around Halloween, I start a top 10 list in my head of the best musical moments of the past year, both live and recorded. Maybe it’s my fucked-up state of late — I’m not feeling too thrilled about anything — but the idea of making such a list didn’t cross my mind until a week ago. I had no obsessions, no CD that wouldn’t leave the deck. But I could remember a few dismal concertgoing experiences:

Jan. 26: The Heartless Bastards play 12 Galaxies on a Friday at the end of a crappy workweek, wherein I was nearly moved to violence against one of my coworkers. Not proud of it, but woot! — there it is. You can only push the Dunc so far before his Cro-Mag DNA reveals itself. So this show, which I had been looking forward to for so long, may simply have been an example of "kicking the dog," or what psychologists get overpaid to call "transference." In the middle of the show some yahoo got within inches of my date’s face, talkin’ about "Hey, what’s up?" She turned to me in horror, I told him to go away, he pleaded his case with his hands waving too close to my face, and the next thing you know he’s on his knees and I’m pounding him on top of the head, which hurts the hand more than the head. It’s still the Age of Quarrel.

Sept. 24: I finally get to see the almighty Bad Brains live, only to have my nose broken in the pit by the back of some Fred Durst wannabe’s exceptionally hard dome as he does the "nookie" dance. Punk rock may not be dead, but it’s sure been infiltrated.

Oct. 8: Turbonegro play Slim’s, and I use my plus one on a sweet but very stoned German girl I don’t know at all. Everything is going swimmingly until the barricade, which appears to be made from San Francisco Police Department fencing and kegs, starts collapsing around security and the band leaves the stage.

In the ensuing soccer chants of "Oh-oh-oh-oh, I got erection!" some tool with an erection starts chatting up my Teutonic friend. That’s all well and good — she wasn’t my girlfriend and we weren’t even dating, but nonetheless, she came to the show with me and I’m standing right next to her. When I tell him to go away, he goes through a beer-soaked nightclub version of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief. (1) He denies that there is any issue. (2) He gets angry and gets in my face, saying he isn’t "scared of an old man." (But if I crack you in the face, it’s going to hurt, unless you’ve got the adrenaline from being afraid, so fear might be beneficial.) (3) He bargains with me, trying to bro-down with some rock-lock handshake. (4) He gets depressed when I refuse to be his rock ‘n’ roll, Turbo sailor buddy and keeps yapping in amazement how he can’t understand why I won’t talk it out with him. (5) In a reversion to the anger stage, he gives me his best hockey shoulder check as he walks by, at which point I am compelled to jack his arm behind his back and pray to whatever god or gods might be listening to restrain me from bringing my knee to his face. I do this praying by shouting, "Someone get this motherfucker out of my face!" Security takes him out the back door. I’m sure the cold night air ushered in feelings of acceptance.

Of the three times I’ve seen Turbonegro, the first was flaccid and boring, the second was incredible, and the third was, well, this.

My New Year’s resolution is going to be to meditate more regularly so I’m not driven to aggravation and violence at shows. Or perhaps I’ll just see bands more sparingly. With a little heavy mental excavation, I’ve come up with some good to great musical moments in 2007, which I have saved for my top 10 list.

TOP 10

1. Grinderman at the Great American Music Hall, July 26, and Slim’s, July 27

2. The Stooges at the Warfield, April 19

3. Qui, Lozen, and Triclops! at Cafe du Nord, Sept. 12. Qui’s Love’s Miracle (Ipecac) is most certainly top 10 material as well.

4. Love Me Nots at the Elbo Room, Aug. 31

5. The Shout Out Louds, "Blue Headlights," Our Ill Wills (Merge)

6. King Khan and BBQ Show at 12 Galaxies, Nov. 16

7.Rykarda Parasol and the Tower Ravens at Cafe du Nord, Jan. 5

8. The White Barons, Up All Night with the White Barons (Gearhead)

9. Neil Young, Chrome Dreams II (Reprise)

10. Les Savy Fav, Let’s Stay Friends (French Kiss)

Club Guide

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PHOTO BY LYLE OWERKO

AMNESIA


853 Valencia

(415) 970-0012

ANNIE’S SOCIAL CLUB


917 Folsom

(415) 974-1585

ARGUS LOUNGE


3187 Mission

(415) 824-1447

ASIASF


201 Ninth St

(415) 255-2742

ATLAS CAFE


3049 20th St

(415) 648-1047

BALAZO18


2183 Mission

(415) 255-7227

BAMBUDDHA LOUNGE


601 Eddy

(415) 885-5088

BAOBAB


3388 19th St

(415) 643-3558

BAZAAR CAFE


5927 California

(415) 831-5620

BEAUTY BAR


2299 Mission

(415) 285-0323

BIMBO’S
365 CLUB


1025 Columbus

(415) 474-0365

BISCUITS
AND BLUES


401 Mason

(415) 292-2583

BOHEMIA LOUNGE


1624 California

(415) 474-6968

BOOM BOOM ROOM


1601 Fillmore

(415) 673-8000

BOTTOM
OF THE HILL


1233 17th St

(415) 621-4455

BROADWAY
STUDIOS


435 Broadway

(415) 291-0333

BRUNO’S


2389 Mission

(415) 643-5200

BUBBLE LOUNGE


714 Montgomery

(415) 434-4204

BUTTER


354 11th St

(415) 863-5964

CAFÉ CLAUDE


7 Claude

(415) 392-3515

CAFE COCOMO


650 Indiana

(415) 824-6910

CAFE DU NORD


2170 Market

(415) 861-5016

CAFE INTERNATIONAL


508 Haight

(415) 665-9915

CASANOVA LOUNGE


527 Valencia

(415) 863-9328

CATALYST
COCKTAILS


312 Harriet

(415) 621-1722

CAT CLUB


1190 Folsom

(415) 431-3332

CITY NIGHTS


715 Harrison

(415) 546-7938

CLUB CALIENTE


298 11th St

(415) 255-2232

CLUB DELUXE


1509 Haight

(415) 552-6949

CLUB NV


525 Howard

(415) 339-8686

CLUB SIX


60 Sixth St

(415) 863-1221

CONNECTICUT
YANKEE


100 Connecticut

(415) 552-4440

CRASH


34 Mason

1-877-342-7274

DALVA


3121 16th St

(415) 252-7740

DANNY COYLE’S


668 Haight

(415) 431-4724

DELIRIUM


3139 16th St

(415) 552-5525

DNA LOUNGE


375 11th St

(415) 626-1409

DOLCE


440 Broadway

(415) 989-3434

DOLORES PARK CAFE


501 Dolores

(414) 621-2936

DOUBLE DUTCH


3192 16th St

(415) 503-1670

DUPLEX


1525 Mission

(415) 355-1525

EAGLE TAVERN


398 12th St

(415) 626-0880

EDINBURGH CASTLE PUB


950 Geary

(415) 885-4074

EIGHT


1151 Folsom

(415) 431-1151

ELBO ROOM


647 Valencia

(415) 552-7788.

ELEMENT LOUNGE


1028 Geary

(415) 571-1362

ELIXIR


3200 16th St

(415) 552-1633

ENDUP


401 Sixth St

(415) 357-0827

FAT CITY


314 11th St

(415) 861-2890

FILLMORE


1805 Geary

(415) 346-6000

540 CLUB


540 Clement

(415) 752-7276

FLUID ULTRA LOUNGE


662 Mission

(415) 615-6888

FUSE


493 Broadway

(415) 788-2706

GLAS KAT


520 Fourth St

(415) 495-6626

GRAND


1300 Van Ness

(415) 673-5716

GRANT AND GREEN


1371 Grant

(415) 693-9565

GREAT AMERICAN MUSIC HALL


859 O’Farrell

(415) 885-0750

HARRY DENTON’S STARLIGHT ROOM


Sir Francis Drake Hotel

450 Powell

(415) 395-8595

HEMLOCK TAVERN


1131 Polk

(415) 923-0923

HIFI


2125 Lombard

(415) 345-TONE

HOMESTEAD


2301 Folsom

(415) 282-4663

HOTEL UTAH SALOON


500 Fourth St

(415) 546-6300

HOUSE OF SHIELDS


39 New Montgomery

(415) 495-5436

ICON ULTRA LOUNGE


1192 Folsom

(415) 626-4800

INDEPENDENT


628 Divisadero

(415) 771-1421

IRELAND’S 32


3920 Geary

(415) 386-6173

JACK’S CLUB


2545 24th St

(415) 641-5371

JAZZ AT PEARL’S


256 Columbus

(415) 291-8255

JELLY’S


295 Terry Francois

(415) 495-3099

JOHNNY FOLEY’S


243 O’Farrell

(415) 954-0777

KATE O’BRIENS


579 Howard

(415) 882-7240

KELLY’S MISSION ROCK


817 Terry Francois

(415) 626-5355

KIMO’S


1351 Polk

(415) 885-4535

KNOCKOUT


3223 Mission

(415) 550-6994

LASZLO


2534 Mission

(415) 401-0810

LEVENDE LOUNGE


1710 Mission

(415) 864-5585

LEXINGTON CLUB


3464 19th St

(415) 863-2052

LINGBA LOUNGE


1469 18th St

(415) 355-0001

LI PO LOUNGE


916 Grant

(415) 982-0072

LOFT 11


316 11th St

(415) 701-8111

LOU’S PIER


300 Jefferson

(415) 771-5687

LUCID BAR


580 Sutter

(415) 398-0195

MAD DOG IN THE FOG


530 Haight

(415) 626-7279

MADRONE LOUNGE


500 Divisadero

(415) 241-0202

MAKE-OUT ROOM


3225 22nd St

(415) 647-2888

METRONOME DANCE CENTER


1830 17th St

(415) 252-9000

MEZZANINE


444 Jessie

(415) 625-8880

MIGHTY


119 Utah

(415) 626-7001

MILK


1840 Haight

(415) 387-6455

MOJITO


1337 Grant

(415) 398-1120

MOOSE’S


1652 Stockton

(415) 989-7800

NICKIE’S


466 Haight

(415) 255-0300

OLD FIRST CHURCH


1751 Sacramento

(415) 474-1608

111 MINNA GALLERY


111 Minna

(415) 974-1719

PARK


747 Third St

(415) 974-1925

PARKSIDE


1600 17th St

(415) 252-1330

PIER 23


Pier 23

(415) 362-5125

PINK


2925 16th St

(415) 431-8889

PLOUGH AND STARS


116 Clement

(415) 751-1122

PLUSH ROOM


York Hotel

940 Sutter

(415) 885-2800

POLENG LOUNGE


1751 Fulton

(415) 441-1710

PUBLIC


1489 Folsom

(415) 552-3065

PURPLE ONION


140 Columbus

(415) 217-8400

RAMP


855 China Basin

(415) 621-2378

RASSELAS JAZZ


1534 Fillmore

(415) 346-8696

RED DEVIL LOUNGE


1695 Polk

(415) 921-1695

RED POPPY ART HOUSE


2698 Folsom

(415) 826-2402

REDWOOD ROOM


Clift Hotel

495 Geary

(415) 775-4700

RETOX


628 20th St

(415) 626-7386

RICKSHAW STOP


155 Fell

(415) 861-2011

EL RINCON


2700 16th St

(415) 437-9240

EL RIO


3158 Mission

(415) 282-3325

RIPTIDE BAR


3639 Taraval

(415) 240-8360

RITE SPOT


2099 Folsom

(415) 552-6066

ROCCAPULCO
SUPPER CLUB


3140 Mission

(415) 648-6611

ROCK-IT ROOM


406 Clement

(415) 387-6343

ROHAN LOUNGE


3809 Geary

(415) 221-5095

ROYALE


1326 Grant

(415) 433-4247

RUBY SKYE


420 Mason

(415) 693-0777

SAVANNA JAZZ


2937 Mission

(415) 285-3369

SHANGHAI 1930


133 Steuart

(415) 896-5600

SHINE DANCE LOUNGE


1337 Mission

(415) 421-1916

SKYLARK


3089 16th St

(415) 621-9294

SLIDE


430 Mason

(415) 421-1916

SLIM’S


333 11th St

(415) 255-0333

SOLUNA CAFE AND LOUNGE


272 McAllister

(415) 621-2200

SPACE 550


550 Barneveld

(415) 550-8286

STUD


399 Ninth St

(415) 252-7883

SUEDE


383 Bay

(415) 399-9555

SUGAR LOUNGE


377 Hayes

(415) 255-7144

SUITE ONE8ONE


181 Eddy

(415) 345-9900

SUPPERCLUB


657 Harrison

(415) 348-0900

1015 FOLSOM


1015 Folsom

(415) 431-1200

330 RITCH


330 Ritch

(415) 541-9574

TOP OF THE MARK


Mark Hopkins Intercontinental Hotel

1 Nob Hill

(415) 616-6916

TRANSFER


198 Church

(415) 861-7499

TUNNEL TOP


601 Bush

(415) 986-8900

12 GALAXIES


2565 Mission

(415) 970-9777

26 MIX


3024 Mission

(415) 826-7378

222 CLUB


222 Hyde

(415) 864-2288

UNDERGROUND SF


424 Haight

(415) 864-7386

VELVET LOUNGE


443 Broadway

(415) 788-0228

VODA


56 Belden

(415) 677-9242

WARFIELD


982 Market

(415) 775-7722

WISH


1539 Folsom

(415) 431-1661

BAY AREA

ALBATROSS PUB


1822 San Pablo, Berk

(510) 843-2473

ANNA’S JAZZ ISLAND


2120 Allston Way, Berk

(510) 841-JAZZ

ASHKENAZ


1317 San Pablo, Berk

(510) 525-5054

BECKETT’S


2271 Shattuck, Berk

(510) 647-1790

BLAKES


2367 Telegraph, Berk

(510) 848-0886

CAFE VAN KLEEF


1621 Telegraph, Oakl

(510) 763-7711

DOWNTOWN


2102 Shattuck, Berk

(510) 649-3810

FOURTH STREET TAVERN


711 Fourth St, San Rafael

(415) 454-4044

FREIGHT AND SALVAGE COFFEE HOUSE


1111 Addison, Berk

(510) 548-1761

JAZZSCHOOL


2087 Addison, Berk

(510) 845-5373

JUPITER


2181 Shattuck, Berk

(510) THE-ROCK

KINGMAN’S LUCKY LOUNGE


3332 Grand, Oakl

(510) 465-KING

MAMA BUZZ CAFE


2318 Telegraph, Oakl

(510) 465-4073

19 BROADWAY


19 Broadway, Fairfax

(415) 459-1091

924 GILMAN


924 Gilman, Berk

(510) 525-9926

NOMAD CAFÉ


6500 Shattuck, Oakl

(510) 595-5344.

PARAMOUNT THEATRE


2025 Broadway, Oakl

(510) 465-6400

RUBY ROOM


132 14th St, Oakl

(510) 444-7224

SHATTUCK DOWN LOW


2284 Shattuck, Berk

(510) 548-1159

STARRY PLOUGH


3101 Shattuck, Berk

(510) 841-2082

STORK CLUB


2330 Telegraph, Oakl

(510) 444-6174

SWEETWATER


153 Throckmorton, Mill Valley

(415) 388-2820

TIME OUT BAR AND PATIO


1822 Grant, Concord

(925) 798-1811

21 GRAND


416 25th St, Oakl

(510) 444-7263

UPTOWN


1928 Telegraph, Oakl

(510) 451-8100

WHITE HORSE


6551 Telegraph, Oakl

(510) 652-3820

YOSHI’S


510 Embarcadero West

Jack London Square, Oakl

(510) 238-9200

Turn up the volume

0

› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER I read the news the other day, oh boy, and the dimming days of early winter appear to have gotten darker: the Xmas lights have begun to twinkle down my street, above the Red Poppy House, but they can’t draw attention away from the little shrine of bedraggled plastic balloons and dampened candles around the corner dedicated to 21-year-old Erick Balderas, who was shot to death at Treat Avenue and 23rd Street on Nov. 18. I hobbled home from No Country for Old Men and a lychee-infused cocktail just a few hours before he was slain only a block away, but I failed to hear the gunshots. Thinking about his death and that of 18-year-old Michael Price Jr., shot near the Metreon box office by, allegedly, another teenager, one wonders why nightlife has grown so deadly for the kids who can really use some fun.

Reading is a safe substitute. When going out seems to be getting more hazardous, who can blame a culture vulture for wanting to stay in and nest with a good book and a CD, preferably the two combined in one? Those in the market for juicy boomer-rock dirt will likely dig this year’s Clapton: The Autobiography (Broadway), ex Pattie Boyd’s Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me (Harmony), and Ron Wood’s Ronnie: The Autobiography (St. Martin’s) — survivor’s tales all. But perhaps this is also the moment to revisit a musician who perished as violently and mysteriously as autumn’s lost boys: Elliott Smith. Photographer Autumn de Wilde manages to skate between the coffee table and the fanzine rack with a handsome tome of photos, many snapped around the time of Smith’s Figure 8 (DreamWorks, 2000).

Figure 8 was a divisive recording, alienating early lo-fi lovers and seemingly reaching out to the "Miss Misery" masses, and Smith looked self-consciously awkward slouching in front of the music store swirl that turned into a shrine after his death. Talking to friends, exes, family, managers, and producers who haven’t gone on the record since Smith’s death, de Wilde gathers snatches of intriguing info — for instance, it was engineer ex-girlfriend Joanna Bolme who gave Smith the sorry bowl haircut that de Wilde documents — and thoughts on the art of capturing spirits like Smith on the fly. Centering Elliott Smith (Chronicle) on images from her "Son of Sam" video, a poignant reworking of The Red Balloon, she finds the innocence that made Smith’s songs — and their anger over quashed hope — possible amid the listener cynicism and the songwriter’s lyrical bitterness. The kicker: an accompanying five-song CD of live acoustic solo Smith tracks, culled from 1997 appearances at Los Angeles’ Largo, including a sweetly screwed-up rendition of Hank Williams’s "All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down."

Another volume to really turn down the covers with is Wax Poetics Anthology, Volume 1 (Wax Poetics/Puma), a mixologist’s spin cycle of stories from the great mag. Editor Andre Torres taps interviews with golden era hip-hop knob twirlers Prince Paul, the RZA, and Da Beatminerz, as well as pieces on James Brown’s drummer Clyde Stubblefield, reggae producers King Tubby and Clive Chin, salsa giant Fania Records, Henry Chalfant of Style Wars, and much more than you can down in one chill evening. Extensive discographies aside, the only thing that’s lacking here is a soundtrack.

Not so with the much slimmer but no less passionate new issue of Ptolemaic Terrascope zine, once financed by the Bevis Frond. Mushroom drummer and Runt–Water Records consultant Pat Thomas has assumed the editorship. Apparently after 15 years and 35 issues, previous head Phil McMullen was "burned out, for lack of a better word," Thomas told me from his Oakland home, where he was happy to get away from a take-home exam on menstrual cycles. The new editor is even on the cover, looking appropriately put-upon; it’s the Alyssa Anderson photo shot in the Haight that was adapted for Devendra Banhart’s Cripple Crow (XL). Banhart is so ubiquitous these days that some Guardian staffers are tempted to start a swear jar to gather quarters every time his name is invoked. But he’s a natural cover star, also doing a jukebox jury piece with Thomas and Vetiver’s Andy Cabic within Terrascope.

United Kingdom folk luminaries like Shirley Collins and Davey Graham crop up in interviews and on the zine’s CD, which teems with wonderful unreleased tracks by the Velvet Underground’s Doug Yule, Willow Willow, Six Organs of Admittance, Ruthann Friedman, and Kendra Smith, among others, all playing off the issue’s Anglo-folk orientation, though pieces on Elaine Brown and the Black Panther Party parallel Thomas’s ongoing work assembling a box set for Water on the Panthers’ music and spoken word. The editor already has interviews with Wizz Jones and Ian Matthews ready for the next issue, but he’s tempted to put the zine on hold while he assembles a guidebook to black power music, foreshadowing new turns in Terrascope. "The magazine was always, for lack of a better word, very white," Thomas quips. "I want to blacken it up a little bit." 2

For more picks, see Sonic Reducer Overage at www.sfbg.com/blogs/music.

THE RUBINOOS BASSIST AL CHAN’S TOP MUSIC BOOKS

<\!s>The Kinks: All Day and All of the Night: Day by Day Concerts, Recordings, and Broadcasts, 1964–1997, by Doug Hinman and the Kinks (Backbeat, 2004)

<\!s>The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, by Michael Weldon (Ballantine, 1983)

<\!s>Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere: The Complete Chronicle of the Who, by Andy Neill (Virgin, 2005)

<\!s>Hollywood Rock, by Marshall Crenshaw (HarperCollins, 1994)

<\!s>The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, eighth edition, by Joel Whitburn (Billboard, 2004). "I can just sit down with that on an eight-hour flight and look at charts. I’m a total music geek!"

The Rubinoos open for Jonathan Richman, Thurs/6, 8 p.m., $15. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. www.musichallsf.com.

Hail “Conqueror”

0

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

"Is that the venue? It looks like a shack!" Justin Broadrick says, and his bandmates laugh uproariously. They’ve just pulled up outside their venue in Austin, Texas, and it’s not looking good. "Sorry," he apologizes to me on his cell phone. "It looks like a shed!" Broadrick is only joking, in surprisingly good spirits for being sick and a man who has a reputation as the king of bombast, the creative force behind the grindcore of Napalm Death in the ’80s and the psychotic industrial blast beats of Godflesh in the ’90s. Instead, he is disturbingly good-natured and genuinely concerned about taking the ethereal doom of his latest musical incarnation, Jesu, on the road while being ill. "It’s infuriating," he confesses. "It’s not like we’re here every six months or anything." His words ring with a touch of wistful evangelism, as though there’s a message that needs delivering.

That new missive is Conqueror (Hydrahead), Jesu’s second full-length and a bleakly epic knight’s tale where melodies spiral upward into ominous gray clouds of static to create ingenious, thundering shoegaze. It’s a rude awakening for anyone expecting the tortured howls and demonic riffage of yore, but in many ways it’s the obvious next step, particularly for someone looking to introduce pop music, his long-harbored love, into previously uncharted terrain. Conqueror, Broadrick explains, was created with an aim of "extreme prettiness and extreme heaviness at the same time. I guess we’re taking melodies that are derived from popular culture and juxtaposing that with a sound which is basically rooted in extreme music." Where Jesu’s last EP, Silver (Hydrahead, 2006), offered a more straightforward dose of anthemic pop crushed under the weight of plodding beats, Conqueror crackles and glows like a low-pressure system, trapping its dirgelike sound before releasing it into crashing cymbals and Broadrick’s low, clear, mournful vocals. As pop music goes, it is nearly impenetrable, with hints of Broadrick’s earlier works readily apparent throughout.

Broadrick’s entry into the annals of music history came early, in the form of an invitation to join Napalm Death as a guitarist in 1985. Only 15 at the time, he would later find himself labeled something of a noise savant — with accolades from John Peel furthering the myth. Andee Connors, one of the owners of Aquarius Records, describes Napalm Death’s work as "intense, furious, forward-thinking heavy music. Short, sharp bursts of ripping, pounding, superpolitical, sort of lo-fi, crusty metallic grind. At the time nothing like it had been heard." It was Godflesh, however, that saw Broadrick truly take the reins as both composer and performer. In the same way that Napalm Death informed noise bands for the next decade, Godflesh were the architects of a now widespread unyielding morass of skull-pounding rhythms and guttural, scraping vocals.

But while Godflesh provided catharsis for a generation of noise-obsessed listeners, Broadrick is quick to point out the central irony of the band’s mythos: "I’m one of those people who are ultrahypersensitive. Godflesh was a defense. My weapon was the sound." Though appreciative of all of his musical accolades, Broadrick is firm in his distinction between past and present, explaining simply, "I don’t want to be confined by the genres that I helped create in some way." He sees Jesu’s marriage of oppressive guitar and sweet melodic loops as "more personal, more indulgent, and more honest" than any music he has composed before. On "Weightless and Horizontal" he ends by chanting, "Try not to lose yourself," repeatedly through an ever-approaching onslaught of beats. It is an impossible combination, a hymn of brutality wrapped with hope. "It’s the type of a song that is filled with despair, but it immerses itself in it so far that you can see the light and you can see the positive," he says. "And it’s your own light, obviously. It’s not man-made. It’s not religious."

Lyrically and personally, Broadrick is clearly on a solitary quest. He left city life behind 15 years ago, opting for the countryside of northern Wales, and laughs as he concedes that even with his grindcore days far behind him, his music is "still rooted in misanthropy." But there’s little or no time for introspection on a tour bus, and even less when you consider how many projects Broadrick has going. In addition to Conqueror, the EP Lifeline (Hydrahead), and a split album with Eluvium (Hydrahead/Temporary Residence), this year also saw Pale Sketches, a skittering electronic treatise of Jesu songs that didn’t fit on any previous discs, by way of Broadrick’s Avalanche label. Misanthrope or no, our errant knight of doom has found himself in a good place, as he explains with a shout-out to our local heroes: "There was a song by Flipper called ‘Life,’ and the chorus was ‘Life is the only thing worth living for.’ I really do feel like that." *

JESU

Tues/6, 8 p.m., $15

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

www.gamh.com

Pay to play

0

› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Some of the sweetest words to deliver to impecunious types like myself: pay what you can. This I can work with — be it a noise show at 21 Grand or the new Radiohead album. After blowing my newspaper wage-slave paycheck on rent, ramen, recreational intoxicants like lychee jellies, and sticker pics of my homegirls in goth Lolita getups, there’s not much cheddar left to slap on surplus grillables. So taking a cue from Radiohead, what say we pretend this is a just world where we have the leisure and the leeway to bitch the would-be Hills cast member behind the counter down a cent or two for that Elvis Reese’s cup? How much would we fork out for these recent releases?

RADIOHEAD IN RAINBOWS (SELF-RELEASED)


They get at least $5 for getting us talking again about wiping the high prices of CDs and putting the music out there on the imaginary block: how much is this worth, unheard? More than a million queued up for a taste and an alleged average of about $8 per album download. A bargain compared to iTunes’ $1 per track.

But what about the songs themselves? The sly wink lodged behind the downloadable album’s flexible price has kept in check the ear-popping pressure of creating another masterwork on par with 1997’s OK Computer (Capitol). In keeping with the darkly miniaturist mode of Thom Yorke’s 2006 solo disc The Eraser (XL), In Rainbows is a subtle, contained meditation on love, trapped in a bell jar when it doesn’t soar into creamy, cumulous, string-strafed regions ("Reckoner") or dip into the red, bristling with distortion and thumbing its nose at wincing audiophiles ("Bodysnatchers"). Fidelity is the last thing on the mind for this band off the leash, as on "House of Cards," on which burly bass lines buzz, glassy synths shiver, and Yorke oozes, "I don’t want to be your friend / I just want to be your lover." How about $9.99 and rising as I find new reasons to love In Rainbows?

SOULJA BOY TELLEM.COM (COLLIPARK/INTERSCOPE)


"Crank That (Soulja Boy)" gets about $2.50 for putting a crystallized Caribbean spin on crunk and imbuing steel drums with a certain refried dementia. SB also snatches 25¢ for working Robocop into the rhyme. But I’ll take that 25 back for the doofus idea of writing an ode to a Sidekick, pandering to the ringtone market. I’ll drop another $1 for the album title, which triggers flashbacks to the late ’90s, when every new business felt the need to add a ".com" to its handle. The final price.com: $1.25.

CAVE SINGERS INVITATION SONGS (MATADOR)


The way these Seattlites juxtapose ex–Hint Hint vocalist Pete Quirk’s adenoidal croon with skiffle snare, guitar drone, and nodding tambourine on "Seeds of Night" scores them at least $3, as does the barn-raising thrum of the eerie "Helen." But the group hug on the cover lands them in the $8 range. Is it ironic — a poke at the freely folkish movement from onetime rockers like former Pretty Girls Make Graves bassist Derek Fudesco? "It’s pretty genuine, actually," Quirk told me last week from his native New Jersey. "It’s not supposed to be a joke. We don’t really take ourselves too seriously, and we usually have a good time with the things we do — we do the group hug a lot!" Sounds like Cave Singers are actually pretty sensitive dudes. "That was our first band name, Sensitive Dudes, but it was taken," Quirk joked. My bid: $8 and a standing invitation to a friendly clinch.

THE GO! TEAM PROOF OF YOUTH (SUB POP)


I’d throw out $10 and a pint of blood for a daily dose of the superenergized Proof. Mastermind Ian Parton makes extremely aggro joy, collaborating with the rest of his band and working with Chuck D (embedding him in the bustling funk of "Flashlight Fight"), the Double Dutch Divas, Rapper’s Delight Club, and Solex. The up-on-the-upbeat Proof resembles a giddy kidsploitation action flick score on a Fruity Pebbles sugar high. Most important, the band has coalesced into a living, breathing entity. "The world doesn’t need another laptop geek onstage," a sober Parton explained from London. "I wanted to make it a real gang, if you know what I mean, with people who are quite different. I didn’t want to be just another indie band. I look beyond the NME." Kid’s rate: $10, give or take a box of Kix. *

THE GO! TEAM

Fri/19, 9 p.m., $15 advance

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

www.mezzaninesf.com

THE CAVE SINGERS

Oct. 24, 9 p.m., $12–<\d>$14

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

www.theindependentsf.com

SIDELONG GLANCES

VELVET TEEN, SAY HI (TO YOUR MOM), AND A-SIDES


Pop sublime from Santa Rosa, Seattle, and Philly. Wed/17, 9 p.m., $12. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com

MATTHEW DEAR’S BIG HANDS


Motor City’s microhouse might finds an indie-pop thread with Asa Breed (Ghostly). Thurs/18, 9 p.m., $22 advance. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO


The songwriter untethers a wide-screen ambition on her The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams (Emarcy). Mon/22, 8 p.m., $25. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

AUDIBLE DELUSIONS ENSEMBLE


Free jazz, noise, punk, and electronica come out to play when XBXRX guitarist Steve Touchton brings together chums to celebrate ADE’s debut, Winter Weapons (Heathen Skulls). Tues/23, 9:30 p.m., free. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

JOE HENRY


Civilians (Anti-) issues timeless stories from the home front. Tues/23, 8 p.m., $20. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. www.gamh.com

Gimme lip

0

› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Do you believe in magic? Or voodoo? Or the links between ecstasy and long-term memory loss? If you’re a firm believer in the last, then you probably can’t recall the good ole days of garage rock — and no, I’m not talking about ’60s snarlers like the Seeds, the Standells, and the Chocolate Watchband nor ’80s revivalists like the Fleshtones, the Chesterfield Kings, and Holly Golightly. I’m searching the motley gray matter for that fuzzed-out, lo-fi, house-rockin’ turn-of-the-century blast from the early ’00s past, the one that teetered forth in the crusty, musty, mop-topped form of the Hives, the Von Bondies, the Vines, the Dirtbombs, the Strokes, the Detroit Cobras, the White Stripes, the Makers, the Datsuns, et al. In ’02 you were crap on a cracker if you didn’t come with the thes and the esses and the three chords and the loud, plowed, and way-too-gristly grizzly rock ‘n’ roll.

So where did all the good times go, troglodytes? The initial ’60s American garage rock siege was hopped up on the rawboned, blues-indebted British Invaders. But this time around did the bands simply get bored of the same few chords? Or weary of the uniforms? Was it simply another historical hiccup in musical trend cycles, a brief burst of energy fed by pink-slipped creatives and millennial joie de vivre?

Still, longtime listeners know garage rock never quite stops. The ahistorical trendoids who leaped aboard the bandwagon — who didn’t know your Kingsmen from your Chesterfield Kings or "Louie Louie" from "Talk Talk" — may have moved on to the next flavor of the weak. But snotty rock springs eternal — like mucus. Among the main remaining perpetrators today are those bone-deep bad boys with one foot in rock’s past and another in the future the Black Lips, the kid bros of all of those ’00s garage third wavers, who arrived kitted out with a tumescent, prepubescent sense of humor, a hot and sweaty live show, innumerable 7-inches, and now four full-lengths. I remember taking a listen to the Black Lips’ first self-titled Bomp! CD four years ago and finding that it rose above the pile of garage-bound by-the-bookers like so much toxic, nonnutritious, black-flecked, punky foam.

The Atlanta group’s latest CD, Good Bad Not Evil (Vice), finds them name-checking girl-group matresfamilias right up front — looking to a line from the Shangri-Las’ "Give Him a Great Big Kiss" with the album title — while still plying their grimy tricks: they sing the praises of "Magic City titties," strike pseudoreverent poses with "How Do You Tell the Child That Someone Has Died," and invoke the spirit of Professor Longhair and the 13th Floor Elevators while slamming the "ruthless old bag" that swept through N’awlins on "O Katrina!" The epicenter of Good Bad Not Evil might be "Veni Vidi Vici," punctuated by creepy slaps and skin-crawling licks as vocalist-guitarist Cole Alexander mocks, "Mirror, mirror on the wall / Who’s the greatest of them all / My man Muhammad, Boy Jesus too / ‘Cause I came, I saw / I conquered all / All y’all, all y’all, all y’all / People look towards Mecca’s way / Sistine Chapel people pray / It don’t matter what you do / Holy World War will come for you." Call it flower punk, as the Black Lips are wont to do, or conscious garage rock or backpacker bop, but it sounds like the scamps are reaching past the retro toward some real issues these days.

Of course, the Black Lips won’t spill the goods. Not that they can, when talking to Alexander, 25, turns out to be an exercise in total frustration. On a mobile and on the move through Indianapolis with the rest of the combo, the vocalist kept dropping out — or hanging up — betwixt juicy tidbits on dating Osama bin Laden’s niece Wafah Dufour ("We discussed making some instrumental tracks and hung out. She was really nice and pretty and cool, so we’ll just see how it goes") and giving equal Lip to Israel and Palestine, performance-wise ("These things make it seem like we’re more politically involved, but we just like to have fun. None of the Palestinians were able to come to see us, so we played in front of a mosque with just guitars. There are posters everywhere of suicide bombers’ faces — those guys are like rock stars there. But the kids loved it and were really intrigued that a punk band would play for them"). Still, after spending more time yammering to dead air than engaging with the vocalist — and finding "Veni Vidi Vici" inexplicably skipping on my copy of the new LP — I finally understood: these kids were born under a bad sign, and how. Good bad, though, not evil. *

THE BLACK LIPS

With the Spits

Mon/15, 8 p.m., $15

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

www.musichallsf.com

THE VOODOO YOU DO

RUINS


With the departure of bassist Hisashi Sasaki, drummer Tatsuya Yoshida goes it alone, boosting the virtuosic noise spasms and live and unreleased skronkercise of Refusal Fossil (Skin Graft). With Good for Cows and Birgit Ulher Quintet. Wed/10, 9 p.m., $10. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

BRUTAL SOUND FX NO. 43


The noise-peddling umpteenth iteration includes Winters in Osaka, Pink Canoes, Mykel Boyd, Kukie Matter, Mr. Mercury Goes to Work, Ozmadawn, and Head Boggle Domo. ‘Nuff said. Thurs/11, 8 p.m., pay what you can. 21 Grand, 416 25th St., Oakl. www.21grand.org

CRYPTACIZE


Chris Cohen, once of Deerhoof, and Nedelle Torrisi dust off their new Asthmatic Kitty combo, Cryptacize. With Half-Handed Cloud, Lake, and Joel. Sat/13, 7 p.m., $5. Mama Buzz Café, 2318 Telegraph, Oakl. www.mamabuzzcafe.com

MATT POND PA


News flash: ebullient indie rocker overcomes stolen gear and The O.C. associations. Tues/16, 8 p.m., $14. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. www.musichallsf.com

Acousticity

0

› johnny@sfbg.com

The Night of the Hunter is at the top of a list of favorite films compiled by Colleen, a.k.a. Parisian musician Cécile Schott, and Iker Spazio’s lovely cover art for the new Colleen album, Les Ondes Silencieuses (Leaf), more than hints at that film’s magic and menace. In Spazio’s paper cut–influenced dark and starry nighttime vision, Colleen is viewed from the back as she plays the viola da gamba at the edge of a forest by a body of water. A bird descends to the ground, a butterfly floats by a tree, and a cat is curled up in a flower bed. The orphans of Charles Laughton’s classic might as well be floating by, so strongly does the imagery evoke The Night of the Hunter‘s famous riverside ballad sequence.

The CD art’s dark allure, mixing a sense of innocence with sinister undercurrents, is also present in the recording’s title. While a relatively literal translation might be "the still waters," the phrase les ondes silencieuses is also meant to evoke the infrasonic sounds detected only by animals before an earthquake. It’s tempting to view the album’s spare, acoustic arrangements as ballads composed for the moment just before this world’s apocalypse, a perspective that strips away any of the whimsy or preciousness that one might attach to Colleen’s use of antiquated instruments — crystal glass, spinet, and the aforementioned viola da gamba — to create and play these latest compositions.

In the past, Colleen has been associated with unique electronic recordings such as last year’s lengthy EP, Colleen et les Boîtes à Musique, which is composed of and constructed from loops of music-box melodies. On that recording, "Rock a Bye Baby" and "Pop Goes the Weasel" are contorted into new shapes, with song titles to match, but most often the enchantment isn’t so easily recognizable, and the atmosphere is haunted rather than whimsical. The minimalist symphonic effect of "What Is a Componium? — Part 2," for instance, suggests Terry Riley in a bad mood. In interviews Colleen has noted that a search for music-box melodies in movies revealed that they were often paired with scenes of rape or murder, an observation that — along with Colleen et les Boîtes à Musique‘s final track, "I’ll Read You a Story," with its oceanic, nighttime waves of classical guitar — brings us right back to the Grimms’ Fairy Tales imagery on the cover of Les Ondes Silencieuses.

Bowed like a cello but with seven strings and guitarlike frets, the viola da gamba is at the center of the disc, which finds Colleen experimenting with acousticity and a live recording style that involves minimal overdubs. This approach yields meditative rewards on "Blue Sands," on which a sea- and seesawing rhythm cuts across delicate fingerpicking. The spidery spinet melodies on "Le Labyrinthe" and forlorn duet between clarinet and acoustic guitar on "Sun Against My Eyes" are as unsettlingly beautiful. There’s a persistent sense of lightlike sound intensifying and then fading into deep empty space, especially on "Echoes and Coral," on which Colleen plays crystal glass in a manner that suggests Aphex Twin at his most ambient as much as it suggests one of her instrumental influences, Harry Partch. As one listens, it’s hard not to think about the precataclysmic aspect of the album title. In fact, while The Night of the Hunter is on the top of Colleen’s list of favorite films, the final position is occupied by Apocalypse Now.

Much like his cousin in classical guitar composition Colleen, Jose Gonzalez employs acoustic reverberation as a musical metaphor for personal or universal being. That sounds heady, but the appeal of Gonzalez’s music stems from its unadorned, understated direct address. On In Our Nature (Mute/Imperial), Gonzalez maintains his trademark tender brevity, but there’s a stronger sense of lingering discord — brought across through the increased force of his open strumming and plucked bass notes — than on his 2003 debut, Veneer (Mute), or the 2005 EP Stay in the Shade (Hidden Agenda). The tension suits a collection of disenchanted songs that apply equally to world affairs and affairs of the heart.

Gonzalez has partly made his name through transformative cover versions of electronic pop songs such as the Knife’s "Heartbeats" and Kylie Minogue’s "Hand on Your Heart," and on In Our Nature he performs similar wonders with Massive Attack’s "Teardrop," using his vulnerable tenor to make the word feathers float and the word breath breathe. Just as contemporary Devendra Banhart can err on the side of poetic whimsy, Gonzalez can tend toward overly literal earnestness.

But both possess special talents. Gonzalez’s is pensive. "Abram" uses the figure from the Torah, Bible, and Koran to chide religion, and throughout "Time to Send Someone Away" his recriminations against obesity and war lust are sung in a voice so sweet and soft it’s a surprise to realize the words are meant to sting. In Our Nature rivals or even matches the bittersweet wisdom of Caetano Veloso’s sublime first album in exile — 1971’s Caetano Veloso (a Little More Blue) (Philips) — on "Down the Line," on which the word compromising gives way to the word colonizing above frantically swaying six-string melodies and rhythms. "Don’t let the darkness eat you up," Gonzalez repeats insistently at the song’s close. There’s paradox in the hopefulness of his ever-beautiful tone, as if a darkness that eats up evil just might be fine.

COLLEEN

With Beirut

Mon/8–Tues/9, 8 p.m., $25

Herbst Theatre

War Memorial Veterans Bldg.

401 Van Ness, SF

(415) 551-2000

www.anotherplanetent.com

JOSE GONZALEZ

With Tiny Vipers

Mon/8–Tues/9, 8 p.m., $20–$22

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.musichallsf.com

Mates of down-home states

0

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

I might as well just fess up and own it: as much as I love the concrete and anonymity of the city, I’ll always remain a country boy at heart. I grew up in a town of 2,000 people, where everyone knew one another’s business. Intimately. Moose in the backyard were a regular occurrence. Country music was everywhere. Potato-sack racing and the 4-H club played an integral part of my childhood, as odd as it is to contemplate such things over the din of traffic outside. And just as my hometown has grown and citified over the years since I ran from it screaming, so has my perception of it. Back in the day, I couldn’t wait to leave. Now that I’m older, I overromanticize the hell out of that place. Show me a dirt road and just watch the sentimentality pour out of me.

Perhaps it’s these feelings that first drew me to the down-home comforts and easygoing twang of local rural Americana raconteurs Or, the Whale. Or perhaps it was their lush, Opry-fied harmonies or the fact that their recent self-released debut, Light Poles and Pines, surges with a sense of camaraderie and community that reminded me of small-town life. Whatever the reason, I was hooked, and soon enough I found myself sharing a picnic table at Zeitgeist with four members of the band, eager to learn more.

Named after the secondary title of Herman Melville’s classic tale of struggle and strife Moby-Dick, Or, the Whale is — sticking with the zoological theme — still a mere calf. Because the bandmates sound like they’ve played together forever, it’s a surprise to learn that the septet formed less than two years ago, partially through Craigslist ads. "Some of us were already friends," singer-percussionist Lindsay Garfield explains, "but a lot of us had never met before that ad. But here we are, like a family. We’re very lucky."

Lucky us, while we’re at it: Light Poles and Pines, recorded one year after those fortuitous e-mails, makes for a mighty impressive introduction. Recorded in two days, mostly using entire takes with few overdubs, the disc feels like an informal front-porch session between seasoned musicians who have shared endless miles on the road. How else to explain the confident looseness of stomping barn burner "Bound to Go Home," the hoedown ebullience of "Threads," the intuitive heartstring-tugging musicianship of "Rope Don’t Break"?

Add to this the fact that the group has four lead vocalists — and the remaining members all sing backup — and it isn’t much of a leap to imagine Or, the Whale as a modern-day incarnation of another gang of rural mythmakers, the Band. Before I can indulge in Robbie Robertson–<\d>Levon Helm comparisons, though, Garfield chuckles and sets me straight: "We’re nowhere close to that yet! And we’re definitely not session musicians." She adds, "We’re certainly huge fans of the Band, though," as bassist-vocalist Justin Fantl jumps in: "We’ll gladly take the suggestion, thanks."

No problem, and I’ll stick by it. Here’s why: over the course of 13 songs, Light Poles and Pines swings effortlessly between knee-clapping bluegrass, campfire country-gospel sing-alongs, straight-up classic Nashville tearjerkers, and probably a few other forms I’m forgetting. Yet taken together, they are a clear and cohesive expression of the back-to-our-roots ethos at work here, much like that of Robertson et al. Vocalist–<\d>guitarist–<\d>banjo player Alex Robins jokingly describes Or, the Whale’s sound as "a big, delicious stew," and he’s right. Hearty, rustic, nostalgia inducing — sounds like a stew to me.

How did they muster such fine home cooking? "With this album we wanted to create the feel of a live show, happy flubs and all," vocalist-guitarist Matt Sartain suggests. "It’s those little imperfections, which give it a real, honest feel, I think." Robins is quick to agree: "No one had veto power. If everybody else liked that I missed a note in a particular part of the song, it didn’t matter that I wanted to do it over. We’d keep the flub anyway, and eventually I’d see that they were right."

It’s this level of openness and mutual respect that may prove to be Or, the Whale’s greatest asset. By the time this goes to print, the close-knit, fiercely DIY band will be wrapping up a 25-city coast-to-coast tour that it orchestrated itself — proof positive of the commitment the members share with one another and their cause. Garfield, Fantl, Robins, and Sartain — along with fellow members accordionist-organist-vocalist Julie Ann Thomasson and drummer-vocalist Jesse Hunt — will end their journey here in San Francisco, at the Great American Music Hall, deserving of a hero’s welcome. "This tour — booking everything, promoting it all ourselves — it means everything to us," Garfield explains. "We’re really proud of what we’ve done. This truly shows how much we mean to each other, and it’s just going to bring us even closer together."<\!s>*

OR, THE WHALE

With Birds and Batteries and Social Studies

Aug. 25, 9 p.m., $12

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.musichallsf.com

Chin music, pin hits

0

› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Drifting into a coma at last week’s lethargic Oakland A’s–<\d>Los Angeles Angels game, I suddenly woke with a snort, dropped my bag of peanuts, and realized what was missing. No, not some bargain-price rookie flamethrower, though that wouldn’t hurt. It was too quiet. I needed some screeching Queen songs to drown out the deranged A’s fans screaming behind me.

But it wasn’t just me — the A’s and their fans were suffering from a dearth of head-bobbing, fist-punching at-bat music, in addition to a real game. One lousy Nirvana snippet does not inspire high confidence or achievement, making it hard for the team to compete with the sleek multimedia machine of, say, the Giants, the Seattle Mariners, or heck, any other ball team out there blasting tunes at top volume to work up the crowd into a bubbling froth whenever a hometown hitter saunters to the plate or whenever the action lags. Of course, the selections have fallen into predictable patterns: Barry Bonds has tended to favor Dr. Dre minimalist power hooks to usher in his home-run hits. There are the inevitable Linkin Park, Metallica, and T.I. tunes as well as "Crazy Train," "Yeah!" and, naturally, DJ Unk’s "Walk It Out," beloved of so many athletes and audio staffers — although sometimes musicians have their say, as when Twisted Sister asked John Rocker and the Atlanta Braves to stop playing "I Wanna Rock" after the player’s racist, homophobic, and sexist mouth-offs back in 2000.

Maybe we’re just damaged, in need of a perpetual soundtrack to go with our every activity and our shrinking attention spans — though some might argue that baseball, like so many sports, needs an infusion of new but not necessarily performance-enhanced energy. We can all use some style to go with our substance, which might explain why presidential candidate John Edwards was said to be pressing flesh at the still-unfolding, long-awaited Temple Nightclub in SoMa last week. And why it wasn’t too surprising to get an invite on a bisected bowling pin to Strike Cupertino, a new bowling alley–<\d>cum–<\d>nightclub down south in Cupertino Square, a withering mall off 280 where the venue has planted itself on the basement level. Its neighbors: a JC Penney, a Macy’s, a Frederick’s of Hollywood, an ice-skating rink, an AMC 16-plex, and lots of darkened store spaces. I stopped to admire the wizard-embellished pewter goblets and marked-down Kill Bill Elle Driver action figures at the sword-, knife-, and gun-filled Armour Geddon — still open for all your raging goth armament needs.

Strike, however, was raging all on its own, without the skull-handled dagger it never knew it needed. In a wink toward the Silicon Valley work-hard-play-hard crowd Strike’s owners hope to attract, Angela Kinsey from The Office threw out the first ball in the black-lit, modish alley. A luxe bar dreamed up by Chris Smith, one of the team that designed Nobu, was swarming with guests clamoring for free Striketinis.

Apparently Strike Cupertino isn’t original: the first one sprung, after a full makeover, from Bowlmor Lanes in Greenwich Village, New York City, in 1997, and went on, according to the press literature, to become the highest-grossing bowling alley in the world. Others are located in Bethesda, Md., Long Island, and Miami. But what, no Vegas? Strike seems perfectly suited for Sin City, with its bright, flash, well-upholstered decor — equal parts retro ’50s and ’60s, both American Graffiti and Goldfinger — and multiple massive plasma screens distractingly flickering the Giants game, ESPN, any game, above the lanes, the lounge, and every surface. Peppy, poppy ’80s rock and R&B — "Hey Mickey" and "Little Red Corvette" — coursed from the DJ booth next to the raft of pool and air hockey tables and the game arcade as upscale clubbish figurines, blue-collar bowling diehards, and Asian and Latino kids tried out the lanes and tables and some fair American and Asian finger food.

I stuck a kiwi into a chocolate fountain and spurted sticky brown stuff all over my white shoes and shirt and wondered, could this be the future of clubbing — or sports? Amusement parks for adults, lubricated with fruity but muscley cocktails? Or maybe this is as hellacious as it gets in drowsy Cupertino.

Still, I thought Strike was worth swinging by, if only to play on a sparkling, well-waxed, seemingly nick-free lane for the first time, in fresh, BO-free shoes, with immaculate, grimeless balls. Also, knowing how many miles per hour your ball is traveling is a trip, if somewhat discouraging for featherweights like yours truly. Yes, I know the $5 cover after 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays seems excessive for, well, a bowling alley, but Monday evening seems a deal with all-night unlimited play for a flat $14. Word has it that the nightspot also enforces a dress code — and that even Bonds would have to leave his cap at home — but I say perhaps just cut back on the supershort bowling-shirt dresses and fishnet stockings on the teenagey waitresses. We’re not in Vegas yet, Toto.

STRIKE CUPERTINO

Cupertino Square

10123 Wolf Road, Cupertino

(408) 252-BOWL

www.bowlatstrike.com

YOU SCORED

OLIVER FUTURE


The Los Angeles buzz band generates scratchy, acidic melodic rock with plenty of post-punk seasoning. With Boy in the Bubble and 8 Bit Idiot. Wed/8, 9 p.m., $7. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com

ROBBERS ON HIGH STREET


Veering from tree cities to familial familiars, the NYC combo come with Grand Animals (New Line). With the Wildbirds and the Old-Fashioned Way. Thurs/9, 9:30 p.m., $8. Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.cafedunord.com

GREAT NORTHERN


Melodic pop for modern-rock romantics. With Comas and Twilight Sleep. Sat/11, 9 p.m., $13–<\d>$15. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com

MIKAELA’S FIEND AND SEXY PRISON


Driving punk tumult meets salacious death disco. With Mika Miko and Twin. Sun/12, 8:30 p.m., call for price. 21 Grand, 416 25th St., Oakl. www.21grand.org

PELICAN


The Windy City instrumentalists skew shorter — seven minutes at most — and focus on songs on their new City of Echoes (Hydra Head). With Clouds and Garagantula. Sun/12, 8:30 p.m., $13–<\d>$15. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. www.musichallsf.com

Dirty truth bombs

0

› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Been around da block as Jenny and I have? Then you’re all way too familiar with that cad Hoochie Coochie Man, that bogus Boogie (Chillen) Man, and — natch, Nick — that Loverman. But hey, who’s this new game, Grinderman? This grind has little to do with a full-bodied Arabica, the daily whatever, or the choppers that go "Clink!" in the night. It’s all about that which is toppermost of the poppermost on young men’s minds, always skirting young men’s fancies. Namely, sex, sex, and more sex. Oh yeah, and sex.

No pretense, prenups, or prenatal care here. "An overriding theme of mine is, I guess, a man and a woman against the world," Grinderman’s primo romantic, Nick Cave, murmurs. "But for this record, the woman seems to be down in the street, engaged in life, and the man is kind of left on his own, with, um, y’know, a tube of complimentary shampoo and a sock."

It’s the rough, sordid, inelegant, dirty-old-man truth, youth — and judging from Grinderman’s self-titled debut (Mute/Anti-), it sounds awfully good to me. Consider the configuration of Cave on vocals and guitar along with three Bad Seeds (violinist and electric bouzoukist Warren Ellis, bassist Martyn Casey, and drummer Jim Sclavunos), his solo band set free to create music collaboratively, loosely tethered to Cave’s mad songwriting skills. There’s sex, yes, but Grinderman is also about finding fresh, new positions and approaches to the old rump roast of rock ‘n’ roll, copping new moves to old blues, and finding new grooves for honest old dogs. After all, Cave will have been on this blighted speck for half a century this year. "Look, I’ve been turning 50 for years, so it’s kind of academic at this stage," says the polymath who won over critics with his screenplay for the 2005 Aussie western The Proposition. "I think there’s an old man’s anger behind this record and a sense of humor about it as well, I guess, that you only get with age, really. Where all you can do is kinda laugh. But I do think there’s a sort of rage that’s 50 years old."

It’s there in "Go Tell the Women": "All we want is a little consensual rape in the afternoon<\!s>/ And maybe a bit more in the evening," Cave coos. Scenes abound of balding devils treating themselves to lonely hand jobs in the shower or restlessly flipping channels, fondling the changer, on universal remote; on "Love Bomb," Cave grumbles, "I be watching the MTV<\!s>/ I be watching the BBC<\!s>/ I be searching the Internet." He’s aware of the "mad mullahs and dirty bombs" out there ("Honey Bee [Let’s Fly to Mars]"), but instead of succumbing to death and devastation, Grinderman gets lost in the life force, a many-monikered lady, the old in-and-out, monkey magik — real Caveman stuff.

The band wisely avoided choosing the latter label. But amid testosterone, no one lit on the charm. Congenialman doesn’t have quite the same ring, though the Cave I speak to from his home in Brighton, England, is definitely a lighter, brighter, wittier, and much more charming creature than I ever imagined. Searching for a lighter midinterview, Cave is in fine spirits — Grinderman had only done three shows and an in-store, but he and Sclavunos were pleased with the reception to their collective nocturnal emission.

At the larger Bad Seeds shows, Cave explains, "the audience is a long way away. It’s just been really good to kind of … see what an audience looks like again."

The four first came upon the idea of starting a new group when, while performing as the Bad Seeds, Sclavunos says, "we’d catch glimmers of it in rehearsals or sound checks. Someone would make some awful noise, and we’d all get excited and start playing along with it."

The sole American member of Grinderman and the Bad Seeds — and a onetime member of the Cramps and Sonic Youth — laughs abruptly when I ask him to describe his dynamic with Cave: "Hah! Complicated!" They talk a lot, about matters beyond music. "There’s such a tendency, such an anti-intellectual streak in rock ‘n’ roll music," Sclavunos continues. "Such a fear of seeming to know things and such a tendency to dumb things down for the sake of trying to make it seem more real or give it more integrity. Don’t let it get too complicated or it starts smacking of prog rock or something! But Nick’s not afraid of ideas, and he’s not afraid to try out ideas, and in that sense we’re all of the same mind."

Grinderman is likewise as collective minded as possible. "We do it in very much the traditional democratic manner of bands," Sclavunos offers. "Whoever can be bossier in expressing an opinion about something has the opportunity to speak up, and if there’s anything really objectionable going on, you can certainly count on people raising a fuss!"

The idea was to try something different, Cave confirms. "I asked Warren Ellis what I should sing about lyrically because we had a pretty clear understanding what the music was going to be like, and he said he didn’t know but just don’t sing about God and don’t sing about love," Cave details. "A piece of information like that initially throws me for a six, but it’s actually enormously helpful for me as a writer because it kind of cuts down your options and pushes you into another place." Contrary to belief, the idea was not to re-create Cave’s cacophonous early combo, the Birthday Party. "The Birthday Party were actually way too complicated," Cave says mirthfully. "We don’t have enough brain cells left to be able to cope with that kind of thing."

Sooo … what with all the "No Pussy Blues" and the odes to "Depth Charge Ethel" shoved down Grinderman’s trou, one wonders what Cave’s wife, Susie Bick, must think of the lyrics? She likes the band and the shows, he says, then sighs, "Um, yeah. You know, I think there may have been a certain confusion to begin with, but I cleared that up." As in, who exactly you were writing about? "Yeah. Exactly. Yeah."<\!s>*

GRINDERMAN

Thurs/26, 9 p.m., $26 (sold out)

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

www.gamh.com

Also Fri/27, 9 p.m., $26 (sold out)

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

www.slims-sf.com

ROAMING, CHARGED

CRIBS


UK punk pop with enough energy — and provocation, thanks to the Femlin-perpetuated sex and violence in the video for "Men’s Needs," off their new Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever (Warner Bros.) — to shiver your baby bunker’s timbers. With Sean Na-Na and the Hugs. Wed/25, 8 p.m., $11–<\d>$13. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com

BAT FOR LASHES


Another kick inside for Kate Bush lovers? Vocalist Natasha Khan is an ethereal ringer for the lady. I dug the all-girl folk-and-art-song combo when they played South by Southwest — and the affection is catching: Bat for Lashes’ Fur and Gold (Caroline) was recently short-listed for UK’s Mercury Prize. Mon/30, 8:30 p.m., $10–<\d>$12. Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.cafedunord.com

Sweet Youth

0

› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER "It was a period where you thought anything could happen," Thurston Moore once told me, talkin’ ’bout the early ’90s alternative rock scene spawned by Sonic Youth’s widely regarded masterpiece, Daydream Nation (DGC, 1988).

One might say the MTV-coined catchphrase "Alternative Nation" went as far as to take its cues from SY’s double disc, which was self-aware enough to dub a track "The Sprawl" and heady enough to venture into the big-statement two-LP turf also being hoed by once–SST kindred Minutemen and Hüsker Dü. Honestly, back in those hazy days, I recall giving it a handful of spins, sensing the distinct odor of a masterpiece, and immediately stopping playing it. Daydream was much too much, too rich for my blood, too jammed with the brainy, jokey pop culture ephemera that had riddled Sonic Youth’s LPs up to that point — positioned as the polar opposite of a hardcore punk 7-inch, which was short, sharp, and built for maximum speed. Yo, you’d never catch Minor Threat doing a double album. Instead Daydream thumbed its nose at the closeted cops in the mosh pit and unfurled like a dark banner announcing: We can’t be contained by your louder, faster, lamer rules. We’re gonna speak to a imaginary country — off Jorge Luis Borges’s and Italo Calvino’s grids — of naval-gazing, candle-clutching misfit visionaries looking for clues in trash cults, Madonna singles, and the burned-out butt end of the Raygun-era ’80s.

Now nearly 20 years old, Daydream — recently given the deluxe reissue treatment with an additional disc of live tracks — brings back memories of prophesy and triggers reminders of mortality. Around the time it first came out, I recall ranting to kindred record store clerks — and anyone who stumbled into my predated High Fidelity daydream — how everything will change when Sonic Youth meets Public Enemy. And it sort of did on Daydream, coproduced by Nicholas Sansano, who engineered PE’s ’88 masterwork It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (Def Jam).

Apparently we were also talkin’ ’bout nation building back then, finding a face and a place for a generation still living at home and struggling for an identity. Imagining a meeting of the most powerful forces in American rock and hip-hop seemed like the next best thing to moving out — and it foreshadowed Goo and touring collaborations to come. Little did I — or Moore — realize that a dozen years after Daydream Nation, the meeting of rock and rap would degrade into what Moore described as "negativecore" and rap-metal units like Limp Bizkit and debacles like Rapestock 2000. Daydream Nation offered a whole other, embracing view of a youth revolution with its opening track and college radio hit "Teen Age Riot." Sonic Youth had dared to write an anthem for a new age of kids, tagged with Kim Gordon’s "you’re it!" — and everyone was on the same page, stoned on Dinosaur Jr.–style Jurassic distortion and thinking-Neanderthal riffs and racing as fast as they could through dreamlike pop pastiche, as embodied by the accompanying video, a kind of decades-late Amerindie response to "White Riot" or "Anarchy in the UK."

On Daydream pop hooks emerged for the first time alongside the ever-coalescing SY aesthetic, with euphoric, charging chord progressions seemingly unrooted to the blues, and the way the group would open into intentionally pretty passages, flaunting the delicate uses of distortion and a feminized rock sensibility. We were all dreaming of Nirvana, a fringe seeping into the pop marketplace. Honestly though, listening to that Daydream again, I couldn’t help but be disappointed. Its brute approach has become a part of ’90s rock’s wallpaper — as Moore confesses in the reissue notes, black metallists have even owned up to copping licks from " ‘Cross the Breeze" — and therefore perhaps sounds more pedestrian. The triptych of "Hey Joni," "Providence," and "Candle" now sounds more charged than "Teen Age Riot" and "Silver Rocket," and I can’t help but think that Sister may be a stronger, more concise album. Perhaps we’re still too close to the stalled staling of the Alternative Nation, though maybe the faded nature of Daydream Nation is tagged to its very status as a classic — how does one pump life into, say, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band?

It does help, however, to play it loud. *

SONIC YOUTH DOES DAYDREAM NATION

Thurs/19, 8 p.m., $35

Berkeley Community Theatre

1900 Allston Way, Berk.

www.ticketmaster.com

HOT TO TROT: THE LOVEMAKERS

There was a time when the Bay’s Lovemakers looked like they were going to get all the love nationally — an Interscope deal tucked neatly into their back pocket and a heavy-breathing following around town. So what happened?

"Interscope asked us if we wanted to do another record," vocalist-guitarist Scott Blonde says from Oakland, "and we said no, because our A&R guy was obviously really into us and he and his assistant worked really hard for us, but it didn’t seem possible to get Brenda Romano, who runs the radio department, to get into it enough to put it ahead of 50 Cent and Gwen Stefani." He chuckles.

These days, the band members are focusing on making love on their own terms: their Misery Loves Company EP comes out July 24, the first release on San Francisco’s Fuzz label.

"Obviously we got more cash dollars’ support on Interscope," vocalist-bassist-violinist Lisa Light adds from the Mission District. "But the thing is the way it gets spent. Interscope would spend $5,000 doing stupid things — in bad taste a lot of times too. Not only were you embarrassed by the dumb posters they did, they weren’t in the right places. We’ve been able to hire a radio promoter and a cool PR company. It’s all about finding the people who actually care. You cannot pay for that at all."

"We’re looking at the future of music a lot, and selling CDs isn’t really part of the future seemingly," Blonde continues. "So it’s kinda about coming up with really innovative ways of getting our music out there in the biggest way possible." He says the Lovemakers have already gotten more radio ads on stations like Los Angeles’s KROQ for the first single off Misery than anything off their major label release: "We thought Interscope was going to be our ticket."

LOVEMAKERS

Sat/21, 9 p.m., $18

Bimbo’s 365 Club

1025 Columbus, SF

www.bimbos365club.com

MUSIC TO GO

EDGETONE MUSIC FESTIVAL


Are more listeners seeking out music’s edgier tones? Edgetone New Music Summit mastermind Rent Romus believes that’s the case. "I’ve been running the Luggage Store series for five years now — last night we had 70 people," he told me. "It’s not about the hit song but about performance and performers." His fest has that critical mixture of daring performers: SF trumpeter Liz Allbee and bowed-gong player Tatsuya Nakatani, Wobbly, Darwinsbitch (sound artist–violinist Marielle Jakobsons), instrument inventor Tom Nunn, High Vulture (with MX-80 guitarist Bruce Anderson), Hammers of Misfortune vocalist Jesse Quattro, Eddie the Rat, and the Gowns. July 22–28. See www.edgetonemusicsummit.org for schedule

PUSSYGUTT


The noisy Boise, Idaho, bass-drum duo waxes darkly on Sea of Sand (Olde English Spelling Bee). Wed/18, 9:30 p.m., $5. Edinburgh Castle Pub, 950 Geary, SF. (415) 885-4074, www.castlenews.com

SHOUT OUT LOUDS


Sept. 11’s Our Ill Wills (Merge) is unveiled by Sweden’s shouters. Wed/18, 9 p.m., $15. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. www.rickshawstop.com

LET’S GO SAILING


Rilo Kiley keyboardist Shana Levy charts a sweet indie pop course with her debut, The Chaos in Order (Yardley Pop/GR2). With Oh No! Oh My! and the Deadly Syndrome. Wed/18, 8 p.m., $12–$14. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

YOU AM I


Three number one albums strong, the tuneful Aussie rockers muscle onto the US scene with Convicts (Yep Roc). Wed/18, 8 p.m., $13. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com

JOHN NEMETH


The blues vocalist and harp player bubbles up with Magic Touch (Blind Pig). Fri/20, 8 and 10 p.m., $15. Biscuits and Blues, 401 Mason, SF. (415) 292-2583, www.biscuitsandblues.com

SHOTGUN WEDDING QUINTET


The Mission’s Jazz Mafia collectivists bring out the big guns for their CD release get-down. With Crown City Rockers. Fri/20, 9 p.m., $15–$18. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

RED MEAT


Love Jill Olson’s "I’m Not the Girl for You" off the SF C&W combo’s new We Never Close (Ranchero). With Big Smith and William Elliott Whitmore. Sat/21, 9 p.m., $15–$17. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. $15-$17. www.gamh.com