Live Review

The Aislers Set reunion welcomed with open arms, nostalgia at The Chapel

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By Rebecca Huval

After an 11-year hiatus, dream-pop lovables The Aislers Set played to a sold-out room swooning with nostalgia at The Chapel Sunday night.

Singer-songwriter AV Linton sang catchy melodies backed by a curtain of reverb and Yoshi Nakamoto’s chest-thumping, punk-infused drumbeats. Unlike the typical audience of young rapscallions drawn to Valencia, this late ‘90s band surfaced the 30- and 40-year-olds — and even had them jumping and dancing past 11pm on a Sunday.

In the late ‘90s and early aughts, the San Francisco-based Aislers Set drew comparisons to contemporaries Belle and Sebastian, and toured with Sleater Kinney and Yo La Tengo. But after Linton burned out on tour, the band went bust about a decade ago, much to the chagrin of its Bay Area and international fans, with members dispersing to New York, Germany, and Sweden.

But The Aislers Set is back — at least for now. Though Linton has moved back to California, the band’s members still span the states and Europe. They reissused 1998’s Terrible Things Happen and 2000’s The Last Match on Sept. 23, and they’ll reissue 2002’s How I Learned To Write Backwards on Oct.14, all via Slumberland.

On Sunday night, as a familiar chord broke the silence, the crowd clapped and laughed with relief, as if the distance between now and that year when they first heard the song had just dissolved. They were transported. Linton and Alicia Vanden Heuvel wore roomy T-shirts and sneakers, and they sounded as comfortable in their voices as they were in their clothes — not overly performative, but beautiful in the basics. They harmonized, occasionally going slightly out of key, but in a way that lent truthfulness to their anguished lyrics.

“I was so mistreated when you danced with me,” Linton sang to Nakamato’s deceptively cheerful beats and the trill of a tambourine. At the end of “I’ve Been Mistreated,” the crowd chanted “Yoshi, Yoshi!”

After a broken amp in the beginning of the set, the band smoothed out its kinks and had commandeered the audience’s hearts by halfway through. The wandering guitar riffs and piercing trumpet lines of “Mission Bells” filled the room, thrusting several fists into the air. Occasionally, an organist would pop up to play jingle bells or the glockenspiel, often in time to the disco lights sparkling around the ceiling.

Throughout the set, The Aislers Set exuded polite wholesomeness. Vanden Heuvel exclaimed “Thanks for coming out on a Sunday night!” and threw her arms akimbo, as if she was about to hug the crowd. When she accidentally spoke over Wyatt Cusick, she said, “Oh, sorry to interrupt you!”

Then, Wyatt introduced the one song he sang, the sweet “Chicago, New York,” by saying, “It’s so nice to have so many people ask to play your only song.”

After a decade away from their fans, The Aislers Set seemed genuinely grateful to be back. And we were happy to have them.

Arca underwhelms at Gray Area

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By Ryland Walker Knight

Gray Area Arts & Technology is a newish venue, admittedly a work in progress, with construction and renovation continuing when the doors are closed, but they are already booking unique electronica acts. My first visit was, as it happens, the first time Tim Hecker played a show in San Francisco (late July; great waves of processed sounds), and my second, Tuesday night (Sept. 23), was one of the five stops on Arca’s current DJ tour along the West Coast.

Arca is probably most famous for being hired by Kanye to tweak tracks on Yeezus, though another of his collaborators, FKA Twigs, is gaining ground in the weirdo electronica game. The Venezuelan-born DJ artist will release his first full-length record, Xen, in November, and the lead single has been streaming for some time. His brand of music is harsh yet spacey, chugging bass syncopated against stabs of high end melodies, a math-y brew of garage and trance with some dubstep for good measure.

On this small tour, he’s playing four CDJs with a fellow collagist, Total Freedom, while Jesse Kanda projects all manner of videos (some YouTube sensations, some original animations, some outre body images, all inflected, at least in my brain, by the word “trauma,” which was the title of a joint piece he and Arca performed at MOMA PS1 in 2013). At Gray Area, the visuals were projected on three walls and one screen in the middle of the room. A lot of the early visuals played campy against the “ironic” remixes, and “arty” noise, but the interest in bodies was striking because every single body was “wrong” in some way.

I spent a lot of the show curious what this “confrontational” bent was for, and it made me feel old (gasp!), but the beat scene has always been about manipulation, so it makes sense that, if somebody wants to warp sounds they would want to twist and turn our physical matter in tandem. This doesn’t mean the music is necessarily heady, in fact most of the crowd was dancing pretty hard, but there is an “art school” bent to the onslaught of irreality.

What made it doubly difficult for me, however, was the interruption of a neighbor’s complaint that made the music cut out for a spell, and drained the room of the energy that had been building. I want to blame the night of the week (Tuesday) as much as improper sound proofing, but the fact of the matter is: the house was on fire with bass and sinewave screams and if you’re not ready to party that way, no matter who or how old you are, I’m gonna bet you’d rather that snap-cackle-trap shut the hell up.

Live shots: Beck christens the new Masonic

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It’s not often that you get to see a new venue on opening night — so yeah, even if Beck hadn’t been part of the deal, we would’ve been stoked to spend Friday evening at the newly refurbished and rebranded Masonic.

While it’s not technically a new venue, it might as well be: After months of construction (and literally years of fighting with Nob Hill neighbors) the historic Masonic temple reopened this weekend with a new sound system, completely revamped stage and seating areas, new bars and concessions, a shmancy new VIP section, you name it.

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The renovations also upped the venue’s capacity to 3,300 — compare that to, say, the Warfield’s 2,300 — which makes it all the more impressive that the jam-packed amphitheater-shaped, with seats on the upper level and standing-room only on the floor — actually felt pretty intimate. Of course, several hundred strangers sweating on you will also do that.

“There’s no opener tonight, so we’re kind of gonna open for ourselves,” Beck told the crowd, to cheers of approval. “And we’ve been playing a lot of festivals. We thought we’d play some of the new album for you first, which we haven’t really gotten to do — this’ll be nice to stretch out a little.”

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Accordingly, the first 30 minutes or so were made up of harmony-heavy, melancholy numbers off February’s Morning Phase, which Beck has said was intended as a companion to 2002’s Sea Change, his other (truly masterful) collection of heartbreakingly beautiful songs to take along on a solo post-breakup road trip. “Blue Moon” was as triumphant and warm as it was, well, blue; accompanied by an image of a werewolf-howl-worthy moon on the giant video screen behind him, the song lulled the crowd into a reflective state. The always-welcome “Golden Age” sealed the mood, with our ringleader at the guitar and harmonica.

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And then, very abruptly, it was time to dance.

One almost forgets exactly how many hits Beck Hansen has written over the course of his 20-year career, until one sees them performed back-to-back. “Devil’s Haircut,” “Loser,” “Where It’s At” — if you were a young person in the 90s, there’s a good chance these lyrics are wedged permanently into some corner of your brain. A super-heavy “E-Pro” devolved into band members physically crashing into each other and falling down in a pile of guitar reverb, after which Beck, straight-faced, turned it into a crime scene, stretching a piece of yellow caution tape across the stage.

The highlight, though? Devotees of Beck’s live show will know to expect “Debra” — quite likely the best tongue-in-cheek sexytime jam ever written, and certainly the best one about wanting to romance both an intended paramour and her sister — but it doesn’t matter how much you’re anticipating it, or, say, if you saw him do it last year at Treasure Island Music Festival. When he catapults his voice into that falsetto, then busts out the regional specifics (“I’m gonna head to the East Bay, maybe to Emeryville, to the shopping center where you work at the fashion outlet…”), and actually looks like he’s still having fun with it, no matter how long he’s been doing this — well, that shit’s contagious. 

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If we have any complaints, it’s that the show was encore-less. But when you open for yourself and play a solid, nearly two-hour set that spans 13 studio albums, with roughly half of the songs involving running around the stage like a madman in a little sport jacket and Amish-looking hat, and don’t seem to have broken a sweat by the end of all of it — we’ll forgive you. Billboard recently called Beck “the coolest weirdo in the room,” which, seeing as this room was in San Francisco, at the start of Folsom Street Fair weekend, that might have been a stretch.

On the other hand, we’ve had this stuck in our heads for the past three days. Keep doing what you do, sir. We’ll probably be in the crowd next time, too.

 

 

Kiesza storms the pop scene at the Rickshaw Stop

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By Rob Goszkowski

It’s entirely possible that Kiesza outgrew her gig at the Rickshaw Stop a few minutes after it was booked. Those in attendance at the Pop Scene-presented show were fortunate to see the singer, songwriter, and dancer from Calgary in such an intimate club venue on Thursday, Aug. 28, given the staggering rise that she’s in the midst of.

“Of all the places we’ve played — including Wembly Stadium — this has the biggest energy,” she said midway through her set. “Everybody told me this is probably where I belong.” The 25-year-old has already had a #1 single in the UK, among other European countries. Her video for “Hideway,” a single-shot dance routine made on a shoestring budget, has around 97 million views — and lately, it has been tacking on an additional one or two million per day.

If she’s scrambling to get her performance chops up to the level she’s reaching, it did not show on Thursday night. She and her backup dancers only slowed down when Kiesza sat down at a piano for a couple ballads. While she expressed concern about the condition of her voice prior to the show, it proved to be strong throughout the night, particularly when she sang Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Halfway through it, she got up and finished the song over Mobb Deep’s “Shook Ones (Pt II)” beat, another prime example of the 90s aesthetic that has taken over popular culture. In this case, the odd juxtaposition worked. And so did her unironic cover of Haddaway’s “What Is Love?,” the first of the two ballads she played.

Before the show, we caught up with Kiesza to find out how she’s adapting to her newfound success and how she got to where she is.

San Francisco Bay Guardian Welcome to San Francisco. How’s your tour going so far?

Kiesza It’s sort of a tour mixed with promo-touring that has been mixed with finishing up the album. We’ve set an Oct. 21 release date, so it’s nice to have that finished. I’m going to NYC soon, [then] back to the UK for press…there’s a lot of back and forth between continents going on right now.

SFBG Dancing is an important part of your performance. How involved are you with choreography?

K I usually go searching for styles or dance moves that I like and bring them to my choreographer (Ljuba Castot) and say, “I really like this style, can we infuse it into what we’re doing?” Locking is one, there’s a few Bollywood moves that I’ve gotten into recently that I might try to sneak in. I like fusing different styles together and throwing them over different music that they’re not usually associated with. I work really, closely with my choreographer, though. We’ve known each other for three years now.

SFBG It sounds like you keep a close circle. Your brother shot the video for “Hideaway.

K Well…if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, you know? We’re a good team, very creative, we’ve all started from the bottom and now we’re rising together. It’s not like we’re closed to other people. There’s a lot of collaboration that goes on when we bring people into the nucleus.

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SFBG You’ve got a real 1990s aesthetic to what you’re doing.

K I’m into that era right now. It was a great time for music, some of the best ballads were written around that time, some of the best dance music. It was all about the divas! And soul, R&B. Then there was David Foster, I think he wrote the most epic 90s ballads and he just called me up the other day! I went to his house for dinner and he was just the coolest person ever. We talked about writing together and I think it’s going to happen.

SFBG Do you have a grasp of what’s happening right now with your career?

K It’s strange. It’s been happening so quickly. In January, I was completely anonymous. Now, it seems like wherever I go, people recognize me. I’ve been working in the music industry for years but to have it blow up so quickly? I started as a writer so I haven’t even had a chance to develop the way that a lot of other artists have. Usually, it takes a bit longer to launch a career. So this one just exploded on me, but I’m very grateful for it. I feel like we’re almost catching up to the song. It’s just been let loose!

SFBG You tacked on an additional two million views between Tuesday and Wednesday.

K It’s going up so fast! I think we’ll hit 100 million soon and that’s mind-blowing.

SFBG Where are people into your music?

K It started in the UK. Then Germany. Finally Canada — which is a little funny. Someone wrote an article where they said that it’s hilarious that I went No. 1 in the UK and my country doesn’t even know about it. The next thing I know, Canada was all over it. So they’ve been really supportive, too and it’s amazing.

SFBG It sounds you struggled to find success as a writer in the music business. And then one day “Hideaway” came together almost as an afterthought.

K It kind of channeled itself, really. I was going to catch a plane to LA. from the studio. We were finished with the session we were working on and my producer was playing around with the synth (sings the first few chords of the song) and I loved it! That’s such a mysterious sound and the melody just popped into my head as I was about to leave. I turned around and asked him if I could lay something down, just really quickly. It wasn’t even a produced track, just a chord progression. And then I laid down pretty much the whole “Hideaway” melody. It just came out.

We were like, “Oh my gosh. . . this is really good! Let me write some lyrics!” I was rushing right through it because I was late for the plane. So I wrote them out and demo’d the lyrics and said to send it to me when I arrive. It was done by the time I got to the airport but I was so late that I couldn’t listen to it before I left. When I arrived in LA, I opened it up and the demo vocals sounded so good that we just kept it. We didn’t send it off to be mixed and mastered, he did it himself. That’s it. The whole thing, everything was done in 90 minutes from start to finish, even the production.

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SFBG The video came together pretty organically as well, with you bringing together your network.

K The single shot was my producer Rami Samir Afuni’s idea. I knew that I wanted to do some street dancing and I went to Ljuba who said that she always wanted to try something like this. Rami’s sister Lianna and I went location scouting and we ended up finding this street we liked that captured graffiti art and the New York skyline. And then I called my brother and said, “Can you please film this for us?” He lives in Toronto, so the biggest expense was flying him from Toronto to New York. The rest of it involved rounding up friends to perform in it. My brother was the most professional person there!

SFBG And he paid the bills by working at weddings.

K Yeah, he’s a very proffesional cinemetographer, but that’s exactly it. Weddings paid the bills. But he’s so phenomenal at these wedding videos!

SFBG All he had to do was apply that skill to this project and he’s getting recognized for it.

K Right! Now he’s a go-to guy for music videos, or at least it definitely helped him.

SFBG What’s driving you? Do you have a dream gig?

K I’ve never thought about that. I just want to keep getting bigger and bigger, but the drive is to keep topping myself, to keep getting better. It’s a challenging show that we do. Singing live, dancing live. There’s no backing tracks and it seems like a lot of people sing over top of vocals to help with touring. Maybe I’m a purist, but I’m just like, “I won’t do it! I can’t do it!” I’d rather be out of tune than do that.

I work really hard, too. I’m always studying other artists. I’m kind of doing it all in the spotlight because it blew up so quickly. A lot of people develop off the stage or off the camera and then when it goes off, you’re seasoned. But with “Hideaway,” that was basically the first time I did the street dance. Ever. And now I’m really learning about that style of dance. I did ballet for years, so I was coordinated. I could pick up dance moves. But now I’m learning the movement, the style, the swag of all these other dances. It’s very different, but it’s fun. With all this creativity behind us, there really is no limit to how far we can go and what we can do.  

Paul McCartney bids Candlestick a fiery goodbye

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My earliest memories of Candlestick are formative ones. Like any Bay Area kid who cut her baseball teeth on Giants games at the notoriously frigid stadium, I thought every family prepared for sporting events by piling on 17 strategic layers and stuffing their car full of sleeping bags and other accoutrements that could double as equipment for scaling Mount Kilimanjaro.  

This has been, of course, most of the park’s (limited) charm: By default, it’s for die-hards only — very few folks want to deal with that traffic and that wind and that fog and that everything else just to sit at the bar and not pay attention to a game — because the place ain’t easy to love. Like so many ex-boyfriends throughout history, it’s been cold, distant, difficult to reach. And, like all great exes, Candlestick needed one last night. 

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Paul McCartney, who bound around the stadium’s stage for nearly three straight hours last night [Aug. 14], clad in black dad jeans, a white collared shirt, and red-and-black-striped suspenders, making silly faces, reading from the signs in the front row, punctuating the ends of songs with a double thumbs-up, and giving the people what they wanted by way of Beatles anecdotes as stage banter, filled that sentimental need in a way it’s difficult to imagine anyone else pulling off.

“I don’t know if you know this, but the Beatles played our last gig at Candlestick,” Sir Paul said casually, about an hour into the set, after an energetic, check-your-pulse-if-you-don’t-find-this-uplifting rendition of “We Can Work It Out,” to a roaring crowd of people from all over the world who definitely did know that. “We got so pissed off we never did it again.”

“No, there are some great memories here,” he continued, “and it’s sad to see the old place closing down. But we’re gonna close it down in style.”

And then he led the entire stadium in a sing-along of “And I Love Her,” turning his back to the crowd and shaking his butt during the sweet, brief guitar solo.

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If you were among the 44,000 people lucky enough to actually make it inside the park (in a timely illustration of one reason the Niners are departing for greener pastures, as many as 6000 frustrated ticket-holders reportedly either turned around and went home after being stuck in traffic for four hours or didn’t get in until nearly 11pm, as the stadium’s one remaining parking lot took on Lord of the Flies undertones), you were treated to what you’d been promised: a 72-year-old living legend — a cliche, but it applies in this instance — reminding you exactly why he’s a legend, and also kind of making you wonder what he’s on that he has this much energy at 72. Vegetarianism?

With a backing band of four — a lead electric guitarist, a bassist, a keyboard player who took care of strings, horns, and all other instrumentation with the somewhat disorienting press of a key, and the super-animated Abe Loboriel Jr. on the drums (who by all appearances was snatched from a Sublime cover band but has in fact toured with McCartney for 13 years) — each of them singing their asses off, as you can only imagine you would do if given the responsibility of filling in for John Lennon and George Harrison on harmonies that used to make girls literally pass out — Sir Paul led a dialed-in, bombastic rock ‘n’ roll show last night.

And it was a rock ‘n’ roll show, from the show-opener of “Eight Days a Week” to the show-ender (rather, second encore-ender) medley of “Carry That Weight,” “You Never Give Me Your Money,” and “The End,” aka a condensed version of the ending suite from side two of Abbey Road. In between, there was “Paperback Writer,” with McCartney playing the same guitar he used on the original record (one of at least a dozen he played over the course of the night). There was “All My Lovin’,” there was “Lady Madonna.” There was a story about Jimi Hendrix learning Sgt. Pepper’s within two days after it was released in 1967, but using so much whammy bar on it when he played in London that his guitar was then miserably out of tune, and he had to ask Eric Clapton, who was in the crowd, to come tune it for him. 

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There was “Eleanor Rigby” and “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” and “I Saw Her Standing There,” and “Yesterday,” and “Back In the USSR,” and a stadium full of gleeful adults who pay their taxes and run large companies and get the senior discount at the movies singing their faces off to “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and the Look at meeeee part of “All Together Now.” (“One of my most serious compositions,” McCartney allowed at that one’s conclusion). There was a ukulele-led “Something” as a tribute to George Harrison. There were unreleased black-and-white photos of the Beatles at Candlestick in 1966 projected behind him as McCartney jumped into the last song they performed that night nearly 50 years ago, “Long Tall Sally.”

He did a handful of Wings songs, prefacing each one with a smirking, self-indulgent “Wings” hand signal. Were they fine? Sure, they were fine. Are they Beatles songs? They are not Beatles songs. They are not “Blackbird,” which he played solo in a spotlight, on top of an elevated portion of the stage (after an introduction that stopped disappointingly short of getting political when he mentioned being inspired by the Civil Rights movement, and terrible things happening “in the Southern part of the United States”). Nor were they “Maybe I’m Amazed,” off his 1970 solo album, which would have sent chills down spines even without the standard “I wrote this for Linda” opening. Songs off the new record (New) played well, with McCartney perched behind a psychedelic rainbow-colored piano: the title track, the jumpy keys-driven “Queenie Eye,” and “Everybody Out There,” from which the “Out There” tour draws its name. Huge-screen videos of Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp signing the lyrics during “My Valentine” were, well, huge-screen videos of Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp. No complaints. 

The highlights, though? You could point to the the fireworks that shot out of the stadium and the five-foot flames that burst forth from the front of the stage on the first chorus of a super-heavy “Live and Let Die” — though I couldn’t help but think it all would have been cooler if they actually began demolition on the park during that song, maybe letting Paul take the first swing of the sledgehammer?

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Instagram // alexaikochan

But no. The highlight was — look, this was a pretty awful week to be a person who reads the news. There are awful things happening in Ferguson, Missouri; there are awful images still pouring out of the Middle East; and one of the world’s most reliably uplifting, warm-hearted class clowns decided he didn’t want the job anymore. We want comfort food at times like these. We want things that we know and love to keep on being the way we know and love them.

You know what’s more reassuring than tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich? Paul McCartney singing “Hey Jude” to an entire stadium as a campfire lullaby. Couples in their 70s and 80s with their arms around each other, remembering, looking like they don’t mind the cold one bit. The knowledge that the sight and sound of 44,000 humans of all ages all holding their stupid iPhone lights and singing along to a Beatles song nearly involuntarily, because the melodies are in their bodies, because of the way Beatles songs have transcended the pop canon and are now seemingly passed down to children through DNA or the public water supply, apparently has the power to make you feel like maybe humanity isn’t doomed after all.

We needed that this week. And for Candlestick, it was one hell of a one last time.

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Notes:

— Tailgaters: Well-off middle-aged people in heels and/or NorthFace jackets drinking white wine and microbrews outside of their luxury SUVs in the nearby business park parking lots.

— His set list was not all that different from the one he played exactly a year ago at Outside Lands, several people have noted. None of these people have seemed especially upset by that.

— Shout-out to the people “looting” on their way out (trying to tear a “wine bar” sign off a second-story concrete wall).

— Paul McCartney is starting to look a little like a grandma, yes. But his skin is eerily smooth and there was no denying his energy last night. I do wish he would ditch the hair dye.  

Snarky Puppy brings sweet fusion to the SF Jazz Center

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By Paul Kenyon Krantz

While hordes of people were packed into Golden Gate Park for Outside Lands Aug. 9, the all-American quasi-collective known as Snarky Puppy made the walls of the SF Jazz Center made ring with their particular frequencies of jazzy, instrumental fusion.

It had been a long day, one in which Snarky Puppy set a personal record by playing a total of four shows in 24 hours. The shows were split between three venues; they started the day in San Jose and closed out the night with two back-to-back sets at the SF Jazz Center. Despite how tired the band members must’ve been, their riffs kept the audience on the edge of their seats, literally leaning forward to watch the band members’ hands and mouths make music.

Beyond the awe-inspiring amount of technical skill SP demonstrates, what makes their live show special is their brotherly presence on stage. It comes through in their interactions, like when Cory Henry shouted, “Take your time” at guitarist Bob Lanzetti, as he began a long, soulful solo. Or when the two keyboardists of the evening — Cory Henry, in bronze-rimmed glasses, and Mike Maher, with sunglasses hanging from his shirt — battled it out on stage, taking turns trying to out do each other with ever faster riffs, until their fingers were twirling so quickly through the notes that it felt like the whole room was flying through space.

Or in the middle of each song, when they’d really start to get into it. The band’s composer and bassist Michael League bobbed with a coy smile while Mike Maher rolled his head around as if he was sniffing a glass of wine, and the guitarists had practically become the strings they were playing. Corey Henry started to clap, and the horn players’ cheeks were puffed out to nearly full capacity, and Robert Seawright was smiling like he was the definition of happiness from behind his drum set, and percussionist Nate Werth was shaking a hand as if to signify “it’s okay.” Then suddenly what had seemed to be a runaway train of never-ending rhythm fell off a cliff, and a split second of silence was filled by someone in the audience shouting, “YEAH!” before the rest of the song dropped over everyones’ heads like chains shattering around the room.

All of this to say that the members of SP demonstrate of level of intimacy that can only be explained by the fact that many of the band members met in college, and have since spent roughly a decade touring and playing music together.

Sometime between the middle and the end of their first set at the SF Jazz Center, Michael League made the audience groan by announcing that this would be the “last tune of the show.” Then he clarified, “It’s okay, cause it’s 46 minutes long,” and the groans were replaced by cheers. Already, anticipation of the last song hung like static in the air around the room, with many of the audience members knowing which song was coming.

SP recently was awarded a Grammy for “best R&B performance” with Lalah Hathaway, but they are still in the process of garnering attention from mainstream listeners. Hence the creation of “Lingus,” the catchiest tune from their latest album, We Like It Here.

Michael League said onstage that the song was his attempt at writing the SP version of a dubstep song, adding that it was named after an airline on which he had been riding when he composed the song — while an obnoxious fellow passenger drank beer after beer in the seat next to him and left a pile of cans by his feet.

The fact that the track isn’t in the right time signature for dubstep, as League pointed out, makes it all the more impressive that the influence of computer-generated music comes through on a song played entirely on live instruments. As the song began and the horns came in, lurking behind the beat like a secret agent, I closed my eyes to take it in and, had I not known better, I might’ve imagined that the sounds I was hearing were the result of Beats Antique pairing up with Miles Davis’s band. Sweet fusion, indeed.

Capitalism, performance art, and a whole lot of ass-shaking: Notes from a Beyoncé and Jay Z show

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First off: To review a Beyoncé and Jay Z show, in the traditional way that music writers generally review live music — assessing and critiquing the sonic experience, the songs performed, the technical skill and effort put into reimagining and translating studio albums into an engaging performer-audience interaction — is totally missing the point.

Yes, they performed songs. More of hers than his, which is how it should be, since her self-titled album that dropped last December like a shiny, extremely well-produced and overtly sexual early Christmas present is roughly nine times better than Jay Z’s Magna Carta…Holy Grail, which came out five months earlier to a resounding critical chorus of “meh.” Taking turns onstage for most of the night (exceptions: “Drunk In Love,” Jay-Z’s timeless chinchilla-themed verse on “Crazy In Love”) before coming together for “Forever Young” and a couple other moments near the end of the two-plus hour show, the duo didn’t exactly perform one song and then another so as much as they led musical theater-style medleys of songs. The pace from start to finish was a full sprint, which is even more impressive considering Bey’s 45 costume changes (maybe a slight exaggeration).

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There were few suprises, aside from a sweet cover of Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor.” They mainly did the biggest, showiest parts of the biggest, showiest songs. If you are a person who likes to hear the full version of a song, who relishes the fact of two complete verses before the chorus, who enjoys the quiet build-up, just for example, on Beyoncé’s album-opener “Pretty Hurts,” which is the thing that makes the triumphant chorus on that song really punch in the particular itch-scratching way that makes for a damn good triumphant pop chorus, you might have been a little annoyed at the constant rush. 

Yes, the sound was terrible. Did you know? AT&T Park was not designed with intimate musical performances in mind. The overdriven, speaker-shaking bass drowned out two-thirds of everything else, two-thirds of the time. I probably lost several frequencies from my hearing range last night. Apparently you could hear the show loud and clear (probably clearer than it sounded in the 26th row) for about a mile in every direction. 

This is all beside the point. 

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Even if you do not give two shits about Beyoncé and Jay Z, even if you only listen to NPR and don’t own a television, even if you’re a survivalist living somewhere in the middle of Montana with no Internet and several guns, you have probably, against your will, heard that there are rumors about their marriage being on the rocks. This is how it works these days; the knowledge enters your consciousness without you even having to read or click on the headlines. Tabloid osmosis. Will they make it to the end of the On The Run tour? Is Jay Z sleeping with Rihanna? Are they all secretly members of a demonic cult that drinks the blood of the young to stay beautiful and also controls the media and/or US government? What does their friend Michelle Obama think? What could this cryptic Instagram picture of them sitting on the beach and laughing with their child possibly mean?

I am fairly certain, after last night’s Beyoncé and Jay Z show, that said rumors did not just coincidentally surface as pop culture’s wealthiest power couple hit the road for an international tour. There is a narrative here, and no matter what you think, they own it and they run it. The text on the screen behind them at the show’s opening read “This is not real life,” and made way for spastic black and white video montages that were interspersed between songs (J and B smoking, J and B wearing masks, riding horses, looking cool, shooting guns, doing some kind of film noir homage, doing some kind of Bonnie & Clyde homage, Bey crying in a wedding dress that kind of turns into a stripper outfit, oh look J’s smoking again).

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By the show’s end, after songs about anger and sex and distrust and single ladies (yesss), they performed “Halo,” and on the screen behind them was footage from home movies, in color. There’s J and B holding hands jumping off a boat together. There’s Blue Ivy climbing on Jay Z like he’s just a normal dad. There’s B laughing for real, and actually not voguing for a minute. As the show came to a close (Jay: “Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs. Carter,” Bey: “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Carter,” bow, hug, walk off stage with arms around each other), the screen read “This is real life.” 

You know what happens when two consummate performers forge a partnership? One hell of a performance. The phrase “Beyoncé and Jay Z show” is redundant. Beyoncé and Jay Z are a show at all times — a walking, talking, completely filtered, directed and produced reality show that is making a lot of people a lot of money (as of this writing, the tour’s grossed around $100 million). And we — everyone in that sold-out ballpark last night — we’re all complicit. “Some Andy Kaufman shit,” mused my friend on the tipsy, ear-ringing walk home, as we discussed how the Carters stand in for our royal family. (Sorry, Pippa Middleton, I’ll take Solange all day, every day.)

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You don’t have to give them that much credit in the subversivity department. But you do have to acknowledge that they’re an amazing business — an industry, really — and you are paying attention, whether you like it or not. If Madonna brought performance art to mainstream pop music, turned it into a capitalist transaction? The Beyoncé and Jay Z show has taken the American cult of celebrity, our obsession with reality television, our hunger for knowledge of what famous people are “really like,” and smushed it all together into a product, into capitalism as performance art. At roughly $385 a ticket, plus fees.

I’d go again tonight, if I could.

Random notes: 

— Beyoncé’s body is insane. It is a force of goddamn nature, and she was putting it to work in every way possible last night, in heels, in a thong, with a mass of hair around her shoulders, without a touch of makeup out of place, for two straight hours. It was something to behold. If we are lucky, she signals an evolutionary step forward, as in, in the future, all humans will hopefully look like Beyoncé.

— Relatedly: As fun as it was to hear “99 Problems” and “Hova,” you kind of had the feeling every time Jay Z was on stage by himself that everybody was just waiting for Bey (and her team of super-hot and also mega-talented dancers) to come back out.

— Beyoncé also has an all-female band and most of the members have afros and they looked and sounded fuckin’ great

Jay Z did score some Bay Area points with a brief cover of Too $hort’s “Blow the Whistle,” which he also did last time he was in town, with Justin Timberlake. (Someone should get him on some E-40.)

— There are a lot of rich teenagers in this city. 

Jimmy Cliff high-kicks his way through 50 years of music at the Fillmore

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Jimmy Cliff is a goddamn maniac. It’s about 45 minutes into his 90-minute set at the Fillmore on Saturday night [July 19], and while the sheer volume of ganja smoke in the packed room is making real movement — beyond the standard shuffle/sidestep, white reggae fan head-bob, and occasional 30-second pogo accompanied by the triumphant fist-in-the-air move — seem an insurmountable challenge for most everyone on the dancefloor, 66-year-old Jimmy Cliff is onstage in matching bright yellow-and-red pants, a robe, and a hat, quite literally running circles around everyone.

He’s high-kicking. He’s goose-stepping. He’s pouring buckets of sweat, but his stage presence is magnetic, his control of the room masterful. He never stops grinning. And, supported by a guitarist, a drummer, a bass player, a saxophone player, two keyboard players, two backup singers, and the Fillmore’s very dialed-in sound system, Jimmy Cliff sounds better than the last dozen 25- to 34-year-old rock stars I’ve heard live. He definitely has more energy.

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His voice is strong and somehow heartbreakingly clear, whether on songs from his most recent album, 2012’s Tim Armstrong-produced Rebirth — like “Afghanistan,” an update on the classic “Vietnam,” or the upbeat, surprisingly modern-sounding “One More” — or on theclassics, which are almost too many to list: “The Harder They Come,” of course, “You Can Get It If You Really Want,” a chill-inducing “Many Rivers To Cross,” “Sitting In Limbo,” etc., etc., etc. —  Cliff stomped and shouted through the last 50 years, darting back and forth not only throughout, you know, linear time and political movements, but the evolution of reggae and Jamaican music itself, tracing the genre from from ska to rocksteady to dancehall. Forget your knowledge of or even affinity for these genres; the weight of the air feels different in the presence of an artist who’s been through, and influenced, so much of what you take for granted as musical history. And I’m pretty sure that wasn’t just the ganja.

 

Jimmy Cliff “One More” from dan sampson on Vimeo.

In between songs, he bantered (fan: “We love you Jimmy!” Jimmy: “I love you more!” Another fan two minutes later: “We still love you Jimmy!” Jimmy: “I love you double!”), gave history lessons (focused mostly on artists he claims responsibility for discovering: Sam Cooke, Bob Marley), led an audience-participation section for a new song he’s working on, and pretended the show was over and he wouldn’t be coming back on at least three times. And then he came back, three times. The encore fake-out was such that by the time the band walked off stage for real and the house music came over the speakers, the stoned, smiling masses didn’t believe it, chanting “one more,” for a good 10 minutes, until a stage hand who looked like she hated life at that moment walked on to unplug something; she was greeted with a collective groan.

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It should be said here: I do not generally identify as a “reggae fan.” Having grown up in the Bay Area and having gone to Reggae on the River once when I was 10 (long story) and having attended a public California university full of dudes with board shorts and blacklight posters, I do not have fantastic associations with large throngs of mainly white people dancing to reggae music.

And yet: I found it difficult to dislike the bro-y, backward cap-sporting contingent at this show, which is a really weird feeling for me. They all just seemed too damn happy. Whatever Jimmy Cliff’s doing at age 66 to keep on doing what he did on Saturday, it’s keeping him healthy, and joyful, and it’s clearly catching. We should all be so lucky.

 

Live Shots: OK Go power through technical difficulties at The Independent

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Ok Go’s catalog is the sonic equivalent of Fruit Loops. Bright, fun, tasty, and far from satisfying or substantive. They are also one of our generation’s greatest bands. Because what Ok Go lacks in musical imagination and originality, they make up for tenfold with the way they have revolutionized and thoroughly dominated the art of the music video.

Harnessing the power of internet culture and viral videos, Ok Go burst onto the music scene and the blogosphere in 2006 with their now-famous treadmill dance video for “Here it Goes Again.” Now, a century later in internet years, Ok Go continues to churn out pleasant power pop and a steady stream of mind-blowing film pieces (“music videos” almost seems condescending for these painstaking projects—while most bands go on set for six hours to two days, singer Damian Kulash pointed out, Ok Go works on theirs for six weeks to six months).

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Somehow, the band has managed to continuously outdo itself with each new video, spending incredible amounts of time and energy on stunningly creative videos featuring stop-motion, Rube Goldberg machines, optical illusions, and the pure power of great choreography.

Perhaps fittingly, playing music seems to be a more of a side effect than a focus of Ok Go’s live show, which more prominently features bright video displays, interactive apps, and truly mind-blowing amounts of confetti (although, unfortunately, no dance routines). And, as with most technology-based things, a certain amount of troubleshooting was required.

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However, despite a lot of technical difficulties, stalls, and spotty sound quality at their sold out Wednesday show at The Independent, the audience’s enthusiasm was not dampened in the slightest. A large part of Ok Go’s charm comes from their youthful excitement, curiosity, and energy, all aspects that translate beautifully to a live setting.

During glitches, while guitarist/keyboardist and “genuine, bona-fide nerd” Andy Ross worked on fixing technology failures, frontmen Damian Kulash and Tim Nordwind entertained the audience with Q&A sessions, and even (in what may have been the highlight of the show) a full run-through of Les Miserables’ “Confrontation,” with Kulash as Javert and Nordwind as Jean Valjean.

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Ok Go are truly great performers. Their energy is high, their spectacles spectacular, and their banter playful and plentiful. I was taken aback, however, when Kulash casually called San Francisco a city “known for having a lot of faggots.” Even though Kulash is public about his support for gay rights and he followed this statement up with a lame “I say that with love in my heart,” it felt inappropriate and offensive. And all this was even before he called SF “Boston with Disneyland attached.”

But clearly not everyone in the audience took issue with Kulash’s faux pas, and there was an air of excitement and appreciation in the intimate venue from the first song to the last flurries of confetti. When the show had ended, leaving behind deep drifts of the colorful paper, fans didn’t want the fun to end. When I departed, half an hour after the show’s finish, people were still laughing, shrieking, and throwing confetti to the sky.

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Live Shots: Phono del Sol 2014

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So, what did you get up to on Saturday?

From an abundance of flamingo decorations to the sight of skateboarders with a penchant for performing dangerous acrobatics off stage barricades, July 12’s Phono del Sol — the hometown pride-filled music festival thrown with a new level of fervor each year by the Bay Bridged at Potrero del Sol Park — showcased a variety of genres and kept the musical midsummer blues at bay.

Here’s the best of Phono del Sol 2014.

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Best dark horse: Yalls
Hands down, sickest set of the day — literally. Berkeley-based musician Dan Casey battled a bout of bronchitis but delivered a powerful performance, taking the microphone as if there were no tomorrow for his bronchial tubes. Admittedly, I was a little wary of his set before it began. I first saw him perform as an opener for chillwave superstars Small Black back in March. Yalls reigns as king in venues such as the Rickshaw Stop, where the smoky stage and club lighting complement his beats well. However, he successfully conquered the unfamiliar territory of a sunny, outdoor stage in the middle of the day. I was impressed (his doctor probably isn’t) — not even his slightly nasally vocals could detract from his songs.

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Best ’90s throwback: Tony Molina
Tony Molina’s biggest strength can easily backfire on him and become his biggest weakness. Making the perfect mixtape for a friend is tough — even tougher when you had to work with an actual cassette tape without the help of iTunes’ drag-and-drop features. It’s important to include a varied selection of songs that also flow into each other. Local musician Molina only halfheartedly hit the mark on Saturday. While he found the delicate balance between grunge and pop in each song, he seemed like he’d simply forgotten to spice his set up a bit. He’s known for exceedingly short songs (none of the tracks on his latest album exceed two minutes) that all flowed into each other a little too well during his afternoon set. Oftentimes, it was difficult to figure out when a song would end and when a new one would begin, which wasn’t a problem when I listened to his 2013 EP Dissed and Dismissed.

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Best dressed: Blackbird Blackbird
Blackbird Blackbird’s Mikey Maramag has come a long way since he opened for Starfucker in 2013, when I overheard someone in the audience murmur “It’s a wall?” after he asked us to sing along to his song “It’s a War.” Although security cut his set off, Blackbird Blackbird was a notable highlight due to his impeccable sartorial splendor, persistence in trying to connect with the audience, and ethereal vocals. Effortlessly clad in a Hawaiian shirt, he alternated between requesting that “everyone get fucking closer” and enveloping the crowd with dreamy vocals that occasionally battled for dominance over the synth.

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(Das Bus photo by Amy Char)

Best German thing (Das beste deutsche Ding): Das Bus
Two disappointments: the World Cup final took place the day after Phono del Sol and Sportfreunde Stiller’s unofficial World Cup anthem from years past is far too trite to appreciate unironically. Otherwise, the German national football team could’ve claimed this title as well. Das Bus is the Bay Area’s mobile Volkswagen photo booth. In this modern age, we’re both obsessed with photos of ourselves and anything vintage, so Das Bus is simply a rad match made in heaven. A chalkboard outside the van even proclaimed that the experience was pet-friendly, so the family dachshund can jump in with you.

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Best audience participation: Nick Waterhouse
Watching this set from a distance while enjoying the food trucks’ offerings, my friend and I marveled at the wall of audience members who swung their bodies along to Nick Waterhouse’s soulful, old-timey tunes. We were impressed by how the number of participants grew steadily throughout the set and the demographics of the dancers. Coachella gets a bad rap these days because some of its most notorious attendees are rich college kids in hipster headdresses. But because Phono del Sol takes place in a small, neighborhood park, it caters more to music aficionados of all ages — ones who don’t pretend to recognize “bands … so obscure that they do not exist” à la Jimmy Kimmel Live. The toddler swaying to Nick Waterhouse’s “This Is a Game” in his mother’s arms and the multitude of well-behaved dogs should remind us that we’re damn lucky to have an annual festival like this just a mere Muni or BART ride away from our neighborhoods. 

Best snippets of stage banter: Bill Baird
As the first act of the day, Bill Baird’s sense of humor was appropriately low key and easy to miss if you trickled into the park late. “We’re Bill Baird,” he announced, in a deadpan voice, before a spiel about the presence of deodorant as one of his stage decorations and how heavily he himself relies on deodorant. (Practical, yes, but I never knew deodorant could be trendy.) Introducing the second lo-fi song, “Your Dark Sunglasses Won’t Make You Lou Reed,” he confessed that the song was originally about talking shit about himself, but the meaning evolved over time; the track now talks shit about one of his bandmates. He may not confess this (if he did, I missed it because I wandered away early to catch the Tiny Telephone tour) but he could very well be talking shit about a pretentious festival-goer…

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(Marvin the studio cat photo by Amy Char)

Best hidden gem: Tiny Telephone tour and Marvin the studio cat
Musical magic happens in a small, unassuming corner tucked away behind the park the other 364 days of the year. I couldn’t tell if the Tiny Telephone recording studio tour was poorly advertised or capped at a certain number of people, but it was worth sacrificing the opportunity to see a couple of artists. We explored the studio with owner John Vanderslice, who must be one of the most genuine professionals involved in the music business. His enthusiasm was infectious — he spoke about the difficulties behind monetizing art, the aesthetics of reclaimed wood, and his preference for analog recording (as opposed to something computerized, which is commonplace today).

We even met Marvin the studio cat, who snoozed on top of the console in studio A’s control room. (Adorable, but not affectionate.) I quickly forgot about the studio’s proximity to 280; it felt like I was walking around a cozy cabin in the woods. Still, the studio was weird enough to justify its location in the city — studio B used to be the home of a weed-selling auto shop before it went out of business amidst the rise of dispensaries. 

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Best all-around: Thao & the Get Down Stay Down
Hometown heroes Thao & the Get Down Stay Down kickstarted their headlining set with Thao Nguyen’s sincere welcome: “Hello, my hometown.” From the 50-minute-long set alone, I could tell that she’s one of the most talented and down-to-earth modern indie musicians, from her expertise on at least three instruments (not including her impromptu takeover of the drums and her beatboxing prowess) to her introduction of John Vanderslice, “a.k.a. the nicest man in indie rock — it’s a fact.” (The band recorded its last album at Tiny Telephone.) Thao’s energy and stage presence was intoxicating; it was evident how much all the band members love what they’re doing when they lost themselves in the music. The set easily transcended genres even within the first two songs of the set, with a folkier emphasis on the violin on “Know Better Learn Faster” and a louder, rock sound on “City.”

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Best festival ending: A little boy’s jam session on the drums under Thao’s helpful eye

“There’s a lot to be proud of living in San Francisco and I hope we remember that,” Thao remarked in between songs. As the crowd slowly dispersed after the band’s encore, I ruminated on her words as I watched her lead a little boy from backstage over to the drums, where she grabbed two pairs of drumsticks: one for her and one for him. She taught by example; whenever he successfully imitated whatever she had done, Thao joyfully raised her arms up and cheered. What was left of the audience quickly followed with an enthusiastic round of applause. I overheard someone behind me mention how this must be the most adorable festival ending ever.

Clutching the setlist I requested from Thao as temperatures steadily returned to normal San Francisco averages, her words rang true. All Phono del Sol attendees should be proud that a festival like this, whose inaugural event was free just three years ago, happens right in our very city…not to mention that it’s a steal compared to Outside Lands.

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(Set list photo by Amy Char)

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Mac DeMarco underwhelms at Amoeba — until he busts out the covers

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Mac DeMarco has one of the most charismatic, clearly defined personas of anyone in indie rock. He chain-smokes, cross-dresses, makes out with interviewers, and — in what might be the key piece of apocryphal Mac mythology — once stuck his thumb up his ass at a gig. But none of the puzzle pieces forming the whole of Mac’s persona really deal with his musicianship. Though the back cover of his recent album Salad Days shows him obscuring his face with a guitar, the image of him actually holding and playing one is unlikely to factor into the average fan’s mental picture of Mac.

As such, actually seeing Mac DeMarco playing music live during his afternoon show at Amoeba Records yesterday [July 9] was somewhat surreal only in how larger-than-life he didn’t seem. At times, it was hard to distinguish him from his bandmates. He wasn’t much taller than any of them, his clothes weren’t much more vivid, and his front-and-center position onstage actually made him more difficult to see — though this isn’t his fault so much as Amoeba’s for tucking their stage into a corner of the establishment.

He also isn’t quite as charismatic a performer as you’d expect from someone so mythologized. His vocals were quiet and understated, and his bassist did most of the yelling. Yet DeMarco didn’t seem uncomfortable or shy at all. It’s just that the music he plays is essentially soft rock, and as such, it doesn’t require any screaming, stage-diving, or anything else likely to coax a crowd into a frenzy.

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Thus, he’s not an artist I would have died unhappy without having seen live. His original songs didn’t sound a whole lot different than they do on record, but they were nice to bliss out to. I might have had a better time if I’d seen him in an actual venue or at an outdoor music festival. His music isn’t designed for dancing, moshing, or head-banging but rather for swaying — something difficult in a venue criss-crossed by an immovable grid of shelves.

Perhaps that’s why his set only really started to kick in when he launched into one of the unpredictable cover medleys he frequently performs live. After leading off with a guitar solo that displayed virtuosity beyond what I expected of him, DeMarco took his band into a cover of Bachmann-Turner Overdrive’s “Taking Care Of Business.” I wasn’t quite sure if this was a display of irony or Canadian pride (DeMarco and BTO both hail from our northern neighbor), but the subsequent inclusion of the Beatles’ “Blackbird” and Tool’s “Schism” suggested the former.

I’m usually averse to this treatment of “uncool” rock, especially given that “Blackbird”‘s ubiquity as a late-party singalong shouldn’t be cause for it to be lumped in that category or sung in as screechy and mocking a voice as the one DeMarco’s bassist put on. But given that DeMarco probably isn’t going to be sticking his thumb up his ass again anytime soon, it was nice to see him and his band do something in the spirit of a show. Their cover selection seemed less about elevating themselves above their source material as providing a thrill for the audience — who wouldn’t want to see Mac DeMarco cover “Schism?” And given how DeMarco’s music just isn’t that entertaining live — as good as it is — it was the best they could do to leave everyone with a memorable experience.

Live Shots: Nick Cave hypnotizes the Warfield two nights in a row

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It took Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds all of two songs to whip the audience into a mighty frenzy at the Warfield Theater on Monday night [during the first of a pair of sold-out shows at the venue]. Not totally surprising, but all the more impressive when considering that Cave and company pulled it off by playing new material, a pair of tracks from their latest album, Push the Sky Away.

Starting with the uneasy rumble of “We Real Cool,” Cave began the night by plunging right out to the front of the crowd to render the line-up-at-3pm fans in the first row slackjawed and bedazzled with the song’s slow drama, before steadily building “Jubilee Street” to a rowdy climax. It was a moment worthy of the encore, even as they were only ten minutes into a two-hour performance.

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It’s hard to imagine many other bands accomplishing this some 30 years into their career with anything other than their greatest hits. But of course, Cave and the Bad Seeds aren’t your average…well…anything, and they showcased their singularity in fantastic form at the Warfield with this first of two sold out shows.

Playing close to 20 songs across a dozen albums, Cave had a lot to offer during Monday night’s performance. There were beautifully quiet moments, such as “Into My Arms” and “God is in the House,” as well as exquisite obscurities (if obscurities even exist with Cave’s fans) like “Sad Waters.” Still better yet was the poignancy and poise of “The Weeping Song,” with Cave calling up opener Mark Lanegan to join on vocals.

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Yet for as good as these offerings were, Cave is at his best when he’s at his meanest. Stalking in and out of the shadows on the Warfield stage with the menacing authority of a fire and brimstone preacher, he delivered furious renderings of songs like “Tupelo,” “Red Right Hand,” and “The Mercy Seat.” And while these may be typical tracks for Cave’s setlists, the small room combined with the crowd’s investment seemed to give them added weight, an intimacy and intensity that went well beyond Cave’s showing at the Bill Graham Auditorium earlier last year. This was most notable on “Stagger Lee”, the slowly unfolding massacre off of Murder Ballads, that built with greater and greater malevolence as Cave bullied the song forward, eliciting shrieks and hollers from the audience.

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The Warfield retained a dense capacity even as the show reached the two-hour mark and the band moved through a stellar encore that included “Deanna” and “Jack the Ripper,” before concluding with the “The Lyre of Orpheus.” As the house lights came up the speakers let loose a Tom Waits track amid the din of the departing crowd. It was a good  (and perhaps, the only) comparison to be made. Cave, like Waits, is so unique in his artistry that it not only defies every well-tread aspect of the known music universe, but seems to only be getting better with age. And, as Cave’s fans would have attested walking out of the Warfield, that all makes perfect sense.

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Live Shots: Burger Boogaloo 2014, Take #1

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About 30 minutes into this year’s Burger Boogaloo, I noticed a guy walking around in a Tool shirt. Ten minutes later, I saw another dude walking around in a Meshuggah shirt. This wouldn’t be so remarkable at most concerts, but it’s worth keeping in mind that this was ostensibly an indie rock concert. Most fans of progressive metal wouldn’t dare enter that often rigid and snobbish universe, just as most indie fans would consider those heavy-but-impeccably-produced bands well outside the accepted parameters of “cool.”

But Burger Babes, Burger Boppers, Burger Bitches, Burger Boys, and Burger Heads are not most indie fans. This is a community that has room for 5-year-olds and 70-year-olds, for classic-rock bar bands and summery beach-pop groups, for queer-as-fuck punk rockers and dudes with handlebar mustaches and chain-link guitar straps. In the often overly cool-conscious world of indie rock, it was not only refreshing but relieving to see a community this accepting. Messrs.Tool and Meshuggah might have been wearing those shirts ironically, but at an event like Burger Boogaloo, it would have been less cool to do so than to wear them with pride and earnesty.

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Burger seemed to be willing to throw anything at the audience. And at a single-stage festival with ample seating and few extraneous distractions (a “music & arts festival” this was not), there wasn’t much reason to ignore any of the bands. Given how few of these artists were recognized names outside of very underground regional circles, it seemed like the primary purpose of such a diverse lineup was to introduce the audience to as much new music as possible.

The most striking thing about the Burger Boogaloo lineup was how much older the artists were than at most indie showcases. Of the four headliners, none had a frontperson under 30.  Shannon Shaw of Shannon & The Clams is 31; Thee Oh Sees’ John Dwyer is 39; OFF!’s Keith Morris is 58; Ronnie Spector is 70. Milk ‘n’ Cookies have been around since 1973, The Gizmos since 1976, Phantom Surfers since 1988, the Muffs since 1991, and Bananas since 1993. Danny James’ Pear and Reigning Sound both seemed like middle-aged ensembles stuck in the rock era, and they could have as easily opened for Santana as Thee Oh Sees — yet this was not to their detriment, as they were all incredible musicians.

But with the exception of Spector (and Morris to some extent — more on this later), these artists weren’t cross-generational juggernauts or revered influences but rather veteran bands who had honed their craft in obscurity for years.  Though the audience could roughly be split into hip kids and older music-scene stalwarts, it was interesting to see both sides of the audience devour such unhip music with equal relish.  This indicated to me that Burger fans aren’t looking for the coolest, most cutting-edge music.  They’re just looking for a solid supply of rock ‘n’ roll to dance and party to, and Burger Boogaloo provided that and more.

* * *
DAY 1

The first day opened with White Fang, who were either the best or the worst festival opener I’ve ever seen. Frontman Erik Gage walked out in an American flag T-shirt, kissing his guns like the most cartoonish male lover imaginable, before tearing into a short set of songs chiefly about partying and marijuana.  Though they were sloppy and lacked any semblance of self-seriousness, they all but blew the two bands that followed offstage. Though Terry Malts and the Trashies were both competent bands with fine instrumentalists, their singers lacked any of White Fang’s charisma.

Wand upped the energy substantially; though they were a good band, I could not get past their uncanny sonic resemblance to Ty Segall, particularly his Fuzz project. But it was Thunderroads that pumped the energy back into the festival. Hailing from Japan, the trio rolled through a set of unhinged, ’50s-style rockabilly songs sung through thick accents that rendered most words incomprehensible except for rock’s great buzzwords — “rock ‘n’ roll,” “tonight,” “everybody.” Needless to say, they didn’t need much more to get their point across.

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Next came the aforementioned bar band Reigning Sound, the extremely good surf band Phantom Surfers, and Sacramento punk band Bananas, whose caterwauling vocalist culled the crowd enough to secure me a prime audience position for Nobunny. Though his spirits were significantly lowered by the audience’s refusal to catch him were he to jump from the amplifier stack, the man in the bunny mask still put on one of the best shows of the night. He more than made up for his admittedly lacking vocal skills through a menacingly cartoonish stage presence, ample crotch-bulge display, and above all else, a set of great rock songs.

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Next came Milk ‘n’ Cookies, a ’70s power-pop band who could not distinguish themselves from the festival’s more pedestrian pop acts despite their clout. Finally, the big two headliners: OFF! and Thee Oh Sees.

OFF!, the current project of Circle Jerks frontman and founding Black Flag member Keith Morris, was by far the most interesting act at the festival. Morris has long given up adhering (or pretending to adhere) to punk’s staunch anti-commercial aesthetic, evident in his recent promotions with major brands like AOL and Vans (and Burger — OFF! isn’t actually on the label).  But he plays punk because it’s the music he loves — and he performs it with as much fury as in any of his previous projects.

And what fury. Despite his short stature, Morris seemed to tower over the sea of moshing kids at which he directed his harangues. It was an invigorating performance in part because of how tight the band was and in part because of how in love with the music Morris seemed — as pissed-off as his songs were, he looked genuinely happy to be up there.

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Even better were Thee Oh Sees, whose recent departure for L.A. sent waves of dismay through the Bay Area music community but who are showing no signs of abandoning their hometown fans. Bar none, Thee Oh Sees were the best live band I’ve seen all year. Despite being a relatively new incarnation of the band (singer/lead guitarist John Dwyer being the only constant), they rocked as hard as ever, with Dwyer’s almost Hendrix-like guitarwork carrying the bulk of the sound this time around. But the true star of the show was Dwyer’s voice, a tiny coo that can nonetheless hold an entire crowd captive. He can scream as well as anyone, but why would he need to when he can do so much with so little?

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Thee Oh Sees’ music seemed to transcend genre. It was hard to say exactly where the roots of such music lay — there were elements of punk, metal, garage rock, and grunge, but none seemed like an apt signifier. Rather, the hallmarks of each genre combined into a monolithic slab of rock ‘n’ roll that encouraged the audience to move and engage with it rather than analyze it. This focus on rock as a form of music rather than an aesthetic or a concept unified all the bands of the day. At Burger Boogaloo, it didn’t matter how old or how uncool a band was — at the end of the day, it was all about getting down. And isn’t that what a rock show is supposed to be about?
 
DAY 2
 
After the head rush of Day One, it was hard not to be a bit disappointed with Day Two. The lineup pulled a lot of the same tricks to diminished effect. A lot of the bands seemed to be the equivalents of bands from the first day. Pookie & The Poodlez played White Fang’s role as the silly, punky opening act; Meatbodies played Wand’s role as the heavy, grooving jam band; The Gizmos filled Milk ‘n’ Cookies’ role as obscure power-pop legends unearthed from the annals of history. But the day also brought with it some pleasant surprises — not least of which was Ronnie Spector, whose dynamite set ran completely contrary to my expectations.

Pookie, a member of Nobunny, showed up onstage still brushing his teeth. (Apparently he’d overslept but luckily lived a few blocks away–though this is a fun story, the aesthetic appeal of a cute, skinny man walking out onstage with a toothbrush in his mouth to open a festival is just a little bit too good.)  His set was brief but fun, though the similarities to White Fang’s set were a bit obvious — especially after he introduced one of the songs as being about “Slurpees and kissing and marijuana cigarettes.”

The next run of bands was thoroughly disappointing. Summer Twins were, if possible, even more generic than their name suggests. Though my friend theorized they would sound like “Best Coast but less mainstream,” they sounded more like a Best Coast ripoff hastily assembled for a commercial by someone whose grasp on indie aesthetics was limited to 500 Days Of Summer. I was surprised a label like Burger (or any label) would sign such a band. The beach-rock fad has been over for over three years, and it’s easy to tell when a band is still clinging to it — usually they have words like “Summer” or “Twins” in their name.

Dirty Ghosts were interesting only because they were difficult to pin down in a genre — their music wasn’t quite funk, rock, punk, or psychedelia, but it was largely forgettable and didn’t benefit from its implacability. Danny James was similar to the previous day’s Reigning Sound but a lot tighter. La Sera was essentially a better version of Summer Twins. Meatbodies sounded like a less heavy Wand, while the Gizmos played with little effort or enthusiasm and could only have been there because of their clout as an obscure but veteran protopunk band.

Of the mid-day acts, folk singer Juan Wauters was the most enjoyable, but it was hard to tell if it was because of the quality of his music or because he was by far the most unique attraction of the day — he initially performed as a solo artist before being augmented by a bassist, a guitarist, and a percussionist. San Francisco band Personal & the Pizzas were likewise entertaining, but their schtick–pop songs about pizza and brass knuckles played by three tough-looking dudes–got old very quickly.
 
The Muffs ramped up the energy substantially. Fronted by Kim Shattuck (best-known these days for her brief stint in the Pixies), the group started out playing tough yet grooving pop songs driven by Shattuck’s ferocious voice. (She screamed an average of about 10 times per song.)  Yet their set never recovered from an ill-advised mid-performance slow song, which disrupted what could have evolved into full-on moshing but never progressed beyond a lot of enthusiastic bouncing and head-nodding.

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Shannon & The Clams were a fine act, but they were disappointingly low-energy for their late placement in the lineup.  Their show was better because the crowd, desperate to mosh, took it upon themselves to have a good time. The result was a bizarre sort of mix of moshing and slow-dancing that mainly entailed a bunch of people shoving into each other at very deliberate speeds.  Being in the mosh enhanced the performance substantially; the Clams’ girl-group balladry was best suited for slow dancing, and brushing up against a bunch of random strangers with romantic music in the air is pretty much the second-best thing to that. Nonetheless, the fast-paced “The Cult Song” was the undoubted highlight.

I was expecting Ronnie Spector‘s set to be mostly just a glorified celebrity appearance from the woman whose run of Sixties records with the Ronettes inspired a substantial chunk of the festival’s acts.  Instead, I was surprised to be treated to the night’s most electrifying performance.  Over a top-caliber band of stern, professional-looking musicians, Spector let loose with her vocals in a way she was never able to do as part of the homogeneous Wall of Sound her ex-husband/producer Phil Spector pioneered.  Some of her vocal turns were absolutely haunting.  Though she may not sound like the twenty-year-old starlet she once was, she sounds now like what she is–an incredibly gifted vocalist with a natural presence as an entertainer and a long and tumultuous life behind her.

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But the true star of Spector’s set wasn’t her or her beehive hairdo but the songs, and one song in particular.  The words “Be My Baby” had been placed over the stage in gold balloons hours before, and the inevitability that she would perform it created a natural climax to the festival.  Either directly or indirectly, that song had inspired nearly every act there.  Its maelstrom production practically launched psychedelic rock, while its unmistakable drum opening has become an obvious way for backwards-looking pop acts from The Jesus And Mary Chain to Girls to pay tribute to their influences.

True, that drum opening was the most scream-inducing moment of the entire festival.  But I felt she played it too soon.  Her set was much shorter than it should have been, and deploying the ultimate weapon after only five songs ruined a bit of the song’s climactic nature.  Furthermore, her shout of “my favorite part!” over the reprise of the drum opening defused its impact. But I forgive her — I don’t know if she realizes how revered that song is in the indie community. 

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Furthermore, treating that song like a sacred artifact would be incongruous with what made Spector’s set so effective — that she wasn’t treated like a sacred artifact. As massive as her influence pop music is, I believe she was there because of her skills as a performer, not for the baggage her name carries. It would be contradictory to Burger’s ethos to bring such a revered artist on if she wasn’t a great performer. Burger Boogaloo isn’t about the mythology of old-school rock ‘n’ roll, but about the sound — and just how great it is to hear that sound live.

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Future, the Auto-Tune rapper du jour, had a very lazy night at the Regency

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Future, America’s Auto-Tune rapper du jour, is in a cushy position. His recent album Honest is one of the year’s most critically acclaimed rap albums so far, and it’s moved enough units to establish him as a major presence on 2014’s hip-hop scene. Hip-hop fans know who he is, as do a lot of indie kids who’ve stumbled across fawning reviews of his work online. But he’s not yet a star.

As such, he doesn’t get a lot of high-profile hate. His most notable detractor is his direct stylistic predecessor, T-Pain, who’s expressed resentment towards the acclaim Future’s garnered through his use of the same software T-Pain was so often mocked for during his own career heyday. Auto-Tune was — and still is — viewed by musical conservatives as a crutch, a fancy tool for artists who couldn’t sing and were thus “talentless.” Along with laptop DJing and lip-synching, it is one of the most likely factors anyone will cite in arguing music has gotten worse.

All three of these factors were part of Future’s Regency Ballroom set on June 30. And as highly as I hold my own musical non-conservatism as a value, I must admit I have a much better conception of why the rockists, live-music defenders, and Tupac worshippers of the T-Pain era were so incensed. I still believe laptops, lip-synching, and Auto-Tune are not mutually exclusive to a great performance. But I also see how people can use them to cut corners.

Future didn’t even try to put on a show. He made no attempt to hide the fact that he was rapping over a pre-recorded vocal track, frequently staring off into space and taking brief but obvious pauses to catch his breath. His stage banter was incomprehensible. He moved around a lot, but not with any particular charisma — his stiff, awkward bounces made him look like a figurine being held by the head and “walked” by an invisible child. His job was not to perform or to rap — his job was to be Future, to stand there and be important while the DJ absent-mindedly cued up his own songs.

The most glaring aspect of his performance was the lack of his trademark vocal processing. Without it, the weakness of his flow and rhymes stuck out like a sore thumb — especially given how good he sounded on the pre-recorded track, all effects intact. At the risk of sounding like one of the rockists who unfairly accused T-Pain, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West of using Auto-Tune as a crutch, I am prepared to lobby the same accusation at Future. He simply doesn’t seem able to do anything well without it.

The opening acts easily showed him up. The show kicked off with mini-sets by members of Future’s Freebandz crew, at least two of whom were both better performers and rappers than Future but who engaged in some heinous misogyny and uncomfortable crowd interactions (hearing a rapper spend 12 acapella bars describing an audience member’s vagina isn’t really fun for anyone except the rapper). Rico Love’s set was worth watching if only because his trio of DJs made their own beats live; Love himself was buffoonish, one of those alpha-male lovermen who seem more obnoxious and dated as each of their peers falls from grace (Chris Brown, Robin Thicke, Justin Timberlake).

This might sound like a nightmare to sit through. For the uninitiated, perhaps. But the artists increased in popularity as they decreased in showmanship, meaning that a Future fan could be thrilled by the openers, even more thrilled when Future drops one of his trademark tracks, and come out of the show having had a great time. Future’s set was essentially a bunch of Future recordings being played over a massive sound system, with the man himself MCing. If you’ve heard and come to love “Move That Dope” and “Turn On The Lights,” hearing them on such a scale must be a treat.

And for the audience, that seemed to be the case. The entire floor shook during “Move That Dope,” with all the diverse audience demographics — hip-hop fans, bros, middle-aged staff, the occasional Hitler Youth hairdo who could only have been there because of Honest‘s 8.1 on Pitchfork — jumping up and down in a massive communal wave. Blunts were lit every six feet, couples did the grind, hands were thrown in the air. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Which brings me back to my criticism of Future’s set, and my own insecurities over my willingness to play along with the natural and unstoppable (d)evolution of live music. How can I criticize Future for not putting any effort into his show when nobody really seemed to care? Is it fair to judge his set as an outsider, when those who know all the Honest songs by heart can revel in singing along to them? If people are willing to shell out 30 bucks to watch their favorite artist not give a shit, so be it.  As for me, I’ll be at home, illegally downloading his albums.

Robyn + Röyskopp + Pride = lots and lots of glitter

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By Tiffany Rapp

When two major figures in the Scandinavian electronic music scene collaborate for a mini-album and tour, it’s bound to feel like something special. But when a Röyskopp and Robyn tour comes to San Francisco and it’s Pride weekend — when there’s always a little magic (and quite literally glitter) in the air, anyway — it almost seems like strobe-lit, sparkly fate.

At the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Saturday night, a good portion of the crowd was already decked out from the day’s festivities, sporting neon pink wigs, rainbow leis, gold short shorts, and more articles of clothing that can light up than you maybe thought was possible.

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Röyskopp was the first headliner to take the stage, remixing some of their most popular songs — “Happy Up Here”, “Remind Me”, and the peppy “Eple.” The number of glowsticks in the very packed house made it feel like a less drug-fueled (maybe?) rave. The group bobbing illuminated gummy bears up and down didn’t hurt, either.

Next up was Robyn, donning bright yellow Muay Thai boxing shorts and a mullet for the ages. The crowd began to shift from swaying to booty-shaking when she belted “Indestructible” from 2010‘s Body Talk. Everyone upstairs was on their feet with “Call Your Girlfriend,” which still makes you smile four years later, despite the not-so-happy sentiment of the song. Then, with an almost acoustic performance of the single “Dancing on my Own,” Robyn allowed us all to do what we really wanted to in that moment — reach out to hold your friend’s hand and sing along at the top of your lungs.

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Though by this point of the night certain people might have desperately needed a bathroom and/or water break, fog machines and flashing lights cued that the main event was about to start. With a quick change of costume, including disco ball-like masks for Röyskopp and everyone on stage except for our puffy-coated Robyn, the set began with the bass-heavy “SayIt.”

The performance of candidate for Song of the Summer “Do It Again” ended with confetti shooting fiercely into the air and the crowd jumping for joy. The trio still had room for one more, doing an encore of Robyn’s “None of Dem” to cap off the show, before sending the satisfied crowd out gleefully into Saturday night — and onto the rest of a very glittery weekend.

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Sharon Van Etten banters happily through the sad songs at The Independent

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Sharon Van Etten had yet to play a note before someone in the crowd shouted forth a marriage proposal toward the stage. The term “adoring fans” might sound generic, but it’s apt in describing the audience at Van Etten’s first of a pair of sold-out shows at The Independent last night [Sun/29 — the second is tonight].  For just short of two hours they sang along and showered the 33-year old singer with love at every chance they got.

“You guys seem really…happy,” Van Etten said, aware of the mismatch, “because my songs can be really dark.”

That certainly may be true, but Van Etten wasn’t fooling anybody: She was easily the happiest person in the room all night. Upbeat, droll, and genuinely down-to-earth, Van Etten threaded her fantastic 14-song set with banter and sass throughout the evening, inciting her fans to ever more gleeful misbehavior.

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Leaning heavily on songs from her recently released new album – Are We There – Van Etten showcased the new work in front of a deft four-piece band that provided lush and layered compositions on tracks like “Taking Chances” and “Break Me.” This new material carried the show forward with little lull, embraced by the fans with as much enthusiasm as the older songs (“Serpents” or “Don’t Do It”), possibly because Van Etten herself appears equally enamored singing them. Even still, her performance of “All I Can” (from her 2012 album Tramp) may have been the evening’s surefire highlight, carving Van Etten’s niche somewhere in the orbit of Suzanne Vega and Leslie Feist.

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But still, that juxtaposition is there. How do those “really dark” songs render such a jovial atmosphere? After all, Van Etten’s bio infers that her music was generated as a means to cope through some tough times. And if so, her presence and performance on Sunday night would give the impression that she has emerged successfully…with a small catalogue of wonderful songs under her belt, no less.

And that is where it gets really interesting. Before the last song of the night – “Every Time the Sun Comes Up” – Van Etten encouraged the crowd to sing along, because, as she put it, “This is the one fun song on the album.” And it really is, as cheeky as it is soulful (“We broke your glasses/but covered our asses”). As the last song on the album, it leaves you the impression that Van Etten’s next move might be her most interesting one yet. Maybe dark…but playfully dark. Less Joshua Tree and more Achtung Baby.

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As the last song of the show, it punctuated the evening with the feeling that Van Etten is on the ascent, destined to play rooms much larger the next time she comes to town. And maybe that is the answer to why she seems so happy.

LA siren BANKS enchants The Independent

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On Wednesday night at The Independent, a sold-out crowd anxiously awaits the mysterious creature known as BANKS. Cloaked in layers of black fabric that fall to her ankles, the dark chanteuse struts deliberately to center stage, where a spotlight shines onto her pale face. The L.A.-based signer-songwriter seductively sets into the dark R&B track “Before I Ever Met You,” recalling instrumentals by The Weeknd, with whom she toured last year.

“Everyone knows I’m right about one thing,” she breathes into the microphone. The stunning singer pulls off her long sheer robe to reveal a sleeveless black leather top and black asymmetrical skirt. “You and I don’t work out,” she hums. Banks’ soft crooning overlays the sultry drum beats and rugged electric guitar of her two-person band.

The poised musician seamlessly swims through her set. She pulls her dark straight locks out of her face when she dances seductively to the emotional industrial tracks. At times, she slinks to the back of the stage, surreptitiously veiled behind the strobe light haze.

Despite her coyness, BANKS unveils intense vulnerability as she chants about love and loss. Her lyrics divulge an aching heart but also a fierce confidence. She plays with two personas: a shy soulful singer and a strong, fierce femme fatale.

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BANKS at The Independent. All photos by Laura B. Childs.

In heartfelt gratitude, the spiritual singer puts her hands together in prayer, thanking the crowd before diving into the entrancing anthem about women’s empowerment, “Goddess”— BANKS’ newest single and the title of her upcoming full-length. “You put her down, you liked her hopeless, to walk around, feeling unnoticed,” she begins in singsong, with unassuming sexiness. “You shoulda crowned her, cause she’s a goddess, you never got this.”

BANKS connects with the audience through her compelling no-bullshit lyrics. “Fucking with a goddess, and you get a little colder,” she sings before passionately throwing the middle finger in the air. The singer uses singing and songwriting as a means of empowerment during dark times. Her lyrics uncover haunting themes of heartbreak and separation; she first started writing music when she was 15 as a coping mechanism after her parents divorce.

The singer’s honesty is contagious as she reaches her hands out to the audience. She creates an candid connection as the crowd sings in harmony to “Brain.” The song begins with the priestess’ guttural moans about the games we play in the name of love. She repeats the sultry lyrics until the instrumental interlude. “I can see you struggling, boy don’t hurt your brain,” BANKS cries out to the crowd. She rocks back and forth on her black platform boots, twisting her wrists like a somber belly dancer.

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Twenty-five-year-old Jillian Banks — simply known as BANKS — got her beginnings on SoundCloud, like many of her peers. She has created a remarkable fan base online, released two EPs, Fall Over and London, and is finishing up a full-length album to be released in September. She is noted for her reluctance to use social media and conceals herself with entrancing tracks and haunting grey-scale music videos. She’s cited musical inspirations ranging from James Blake to Aaliyah.

“I get very nervous before shows,” says BANKS at the show. She sings covers backstage, she says, to feel more comfortable. At the mention of covers, the crowd goes nuts because they know she’s about to sing Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody.”

BANKS brings a sexy, come hither vibe to the 1997 single by the late R&B singer. In a stripped-down acoustic version, she unearths a powerful stage presence, luring her audience to her like a musical siren. Her honeyed voice feels slightly dangerous. “Boy, I’ve been watching you,” she sings. “Like a hawk in the sky that flies and you were my prey.”

Yes, she’s shrouded in mystery. Make no mistake, this mystery is deliberate. The California native strays away from overexposure and she always leaves you wanting more. But the enigmatic priestess doesn’t need to reveal all of her secrets. She’s opened her heart to us with her music. Her message is clear. She’s here to empower us, unshackle us from heartbreak, and liberate us from sadness. “You are all so perfect,” says BANKS to her fans in between songs, “and every woman is a goddess.”

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Panda Bear brings the Grim Reaper to The Fillmore

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By Ryland Walker Knight

The last time Panda Bear/Noah Lennox toured through the Bay as a solo act, he played The Fox in Oakland, offering the crowd a swamp of bass in waves of noise that probably wasn’t what most of those in attendance wanted to see and hear that night. Nobody complained, of course, and did their best to dance, but it was more an evening of sounds than songs.

Last night, at the Fillmore, Lennox played songs. He also layered sample on sample of himself, of synths, of squibs, of bass, of beats, but he seemed determined to work through the very real structures of all new songs (until the encore), getting bodies moving and people smiling. Perched behind a table of electronics and a blue-foamed mic, Lennox started slow, drawing in the ears with a simple organ progression and tremolo-effected vocal swoops of unrecognizable words. Not that the words matter, per se. The first “single” off this new record was first called, simply, “Marijuana,” and the refrain, such as it was, went something like “Marijuana makes my day.” Not very deep, though kinda funny; the thing that made the track was the vibe, the feeling. That sounds just as goofy as the lyrics, but psychedelia is, in one way, about getting beyond language.

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Furthermore, these new songs seem designed to look beyond the stage, beyond the instruments and private practices of making the music that typified Tomboy and its tour. The repetition remains, the loops and strategies aren’t terribly different, but the tone is brighter, with more snare drums in the mix, and Lennox’s voice, sometimes just making vowel sounds up and down scales, seems pointed backwards to the Brian Wilson styles found on Person Pitch and his guest spot on Daft Punk’s “Doin It Right” from last year. In fact, it seems like this batch of concoctions has been designed to pick apart harmony, to sort of suspend its pieces in a kind of constellation that brightens here, dims there, and pulses forward always.

A lot of that is simple arpeggios, and I’m not going to argue that Lennox is some Bach-level genius writing symphonic fugues for a digital age or some mumbo jumbo, but there is a certain kind of genius to syncopating things just right — letting silence space out a jam, even on an eighth note, or knowing when to push your voice beyond its range is okay, when it’s okay to break down your own capabilities, only to let a breakbeat bounce in underneath that cloud of yearning and get your betters lifted once again.

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There’s a new song he’s playing about midway through his set that begins with a harp melody lilting up, bellow to bright, and builds variations of Lennox caroling “in the family” on that towards a hook (of sorts) wherein he chant-cries “You won’t come back, you can’t come back” that brought the house so quiet in awe it felt like we were all holding our breath. I don’t think it’s an accident that those words stood out, or that he made them the most accessible. One of the more ingratiating aspects of all the Animal Collective music, across their varied catalogs, is how naked they are about pain. It was around this time that I remembered the working title for the new album: Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper.

That’s when the visuals started to make sense, too. The projections were great from the start, a series of shifting fields as ever, this time marked by cherries and waves of cranberries (in my eyes), changing to skin, and then a kaleidoscope of one nude, blue dancer, arranged Busby Berkeley-style into a wave of flesh from one point of perspective, like a shell’s curves, which rhymed with the strings of light roping across the screen at other times, and her face reappearing, quite large, painted like death. Later in the show she emerged from behind Lennox in a red cowl, carrying a sickle, coming for all of us, as she will, only to be multiplied and fed ice cream (?), which she then regurgitated. It was beautiful, hilarious, stupid, hard not to love.

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After roughly 10 songs, there was a break, of course, and when he came back out, Panda Noah Bear Lennox gave the goons what they wanted: something to sing along to! And it made me think about necessity. My favorite art is made, rather simply, out of the artist’s innate drive, some might say compulsion, that makes it a necessary outpouring. It doesn’t need an audience, though art without an audience is a fool’s errand, and if music only exists to trigger familiarity, what’s the reason you’re paying your money to experience this arrangement? Is it vanity? Simple distraction? I know I revel in the new, no matter how much a return may appeal, especially if it’s pleasure circling back, as a gift, to swim through me. But pleasure isn’t necessarily necessary; or, it’s only necessary to alleviate pain.

I suppose this is the old catharsis idea, and that may be the basic desire for live music, to transport, which this show certainly did. But what truly great art, and truly great experiences might offer is a picture of those poles suspended as if in either hand, both present at once. So a Grim Reaper makes sense, again: If you want sky, like Lennox once sang, your only route to the clouds is down, into the dirt.

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Live review: Mastodon at the Fox Theater

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They still exist: big metal bands that go on old-fashioned tours, rather than exclusively playing festivals or headlining package tours (aka shows that start at 4pm and are comprised of two bands you actually want to see and five others the label shoehorns in because that’s the only way they’ll get exposure). Also still in existence: a band that will tour between albums, in fact hitting the road less than two months before a new album drops, and play a set that contains two new songs (to give fans a taste of what’s to come), but is mostly composed of familiar back-catalogue tunes. 

Not, however, still around: actual Mastodons.

No worries, dudes — Mastodon the band shows no sign of going anywhere, and based on what drummer Brann Dailor said at the end of last night’s show at Oakland’s Fox Theater, they’ll soon be back in the Bay Area, pumping their sixth studio release, Once More ‘Round the Sun, which arrives in late June. Based on the two new songs heard last night (“Chimes at Midnight” and “High Road;” stream the latter via the band’s Soundcloud page, or check out the “Audio Visualizer” below the jump), your sludgy summer soundtrack awaits.

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This between-albums tour was slightly more stripped-down than, say, shows supporting 2009’s Crack the Skye, which boasted a hypnotic visual component built heavily around the album’s astral-projection-meets-Rasputin-themes (in other words, it went well with the funny-smelling smoke that tends to waft around during Mastodon shows). Here, we just got a backdrop of a pair of psychedelic eyes, plus a light show with occasional Laser Floyd flourishes. But Mastodon is not a band that needs bells and whistles to enhance its crushing riffs. Nor does it spend a lot of time chatting up the crowd between songs, though it’s clear this is a band that appreciates its fans, evidenced by the huge array of t-shirt designs and other merch available in the Fox lobby. (Personal favorites: a shirt inspired by the “Come and play with us, Danny!” scene from The Shining, and a pair of gym shorts with “Asstodon” emblazoned on the booty. Perfect attire for the Bay Area’s recent heat wave, no?)

Opening the show for the Atlanta, Ga. foursome were a pair of heavy-hitting European imports: Kvelertaka personal favorite of the Prince of Norway — and Gojira (“We are Gojira from France!”, as the Bayonne-based band is fond of saying). The latter summed up the feeling of the crowd with its enthusiastic performance, and singer-guitarist Joe Duplantier’s frequent declarations of how fuckin’ stoked he was to be on tour with the mighty Mastodon. Us too, bro. Us too.  

Hurray for the Riff Raff grow up at the Independent

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By Avi Vinocur. Photos by Avi Vinocur and TJ Mimbs.

So as we speak I’m crammed between an NPR listener, a Louisiana native longing to be home for Jazz Fest, and a cool dude with lensless glasses awaiting the gospel of a Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx, who found her home in New Orleans singing mountain music. I love America.

Her name is Alynda Lee Segarra — short, cute, Aubrey Plazaesque (but smiley) with an incredibly evocative voice not quite like anything I’ve heard. fHer songs are simple and short in a way you might find at the Grand Ole Opry in 1950. Currently she is standing on the side of the stage swooning over the opening band Clear Plastic Masks.

I get her attraction. These songs are good. I can tell that Andrew Katz — the Mick Jagger-lipped lead singer — is a closet stand-up comedian. Not to mention they have the most exciting bearded drummer since Meg White. The guy, Charles Garmendia, can’t even stay seated. It’s tough to do so when the guitar tone is this good. I also immediately realize that their song “When the Night Time Comes” contains one of the, if not the, best uses of the phrase “too cool for school” in show business. All in all I’m liking this band. Their energy level is high. How will a girl with a stripped band and an acoustic guitar feel after this?

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Clear Plastic Masks photo by Avi Vinocur.

Alynda Lee Segarra, the soul of Hurray For the Riff Raff (who are playing on Conan tonight, Tue/29) takes the stage alone, in her sequin country nudie suit and begins with her own “The New SF Bay Blues” — a slow picked ballad with an epic seventh note that gets me every time. For a crowd rocking out moments ago, they are silent, respectful and focused. The line “If you love her, she’ll give you all she’s got, and buddy, that can be an awful lot,” sails over the sold-out room, and over most of our heads. But I think I get it. This set has a stark simplicity that feels both effortless and like she’s giving San Francisco “all she’s got.”
Fiddle player Yosi Perlstein, upright bassist Callie Millington, drummer David Jamison, and slide/keys player Casey McAllister join Segarra on the stage and dive into “Blue Ridge Mountain” the old-timey fiddle laden opening track from their phenomenal new record “Small Town Heroes”. I find myself relating to her immensely. Born of the big city, but feeling at home in the humidity with simple, calm, accepting people — playing music, living cheap and easy.
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Hurray for the Riff Raff photo by TJ Mimbs.

“The Body Electric.” Finally. I was waiting for this song. It strikes me in such an honest earnest way. Maybe it’s the profound simplicity of the song itself — being only two and half chords. Or maybe it’s the fact that this murder ballad, with a titular nod to Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, (Whitman too left New York for New Orleans) is one of the few semi-political songs our over-saturated generation can still stomach. I think truly its success is in her delivery of this beautiful poem. Like she is listening to herself say every word and intending every annunciation to be understood by the crowd. Like suddenly she is singing into the eyes of the audience instead of into darkness. This is the song that proves single-handedly that this band has much more depth to uncover as they continue to develop.

The set comes to a close with the fun and vibrant “Little Black Star,” the breezy yet lonesome “St Roch Blues” and a cover of Lucinda Williams’ “People Talkin’.” The excitement with seeing this band isn’t necessarily the show itself, but knowing you are witnessing this group turning into a timeless American band. And buddy, that can be an awful lot.

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Photo by TJ Mimbs.

Motörhead delivers a classic ear-beating at the Warfield

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There’s something special about seeing the name Motörhead, umlaut and all, mounted on that grand Market Street marquee, next to a strip club and at the intersection of one of San Francisco’s seediest streets. If you know anything about the band, its history, and iconic frontman Lemmy Kilmister, it just feels right.

The black-clad masses had congregated outside the historic Warfield Theater well before showtime and the mood was noticeably high, as show-goers were surely thankful for either a first chance, another chance, but hopefully not last chance to see and hear the true king of metal live and in-person.

The room was about half-full for opener Graveyard’s set and those in attendance were engaged and impressed.  The Swedish ’70s revival rockers played a solid set consisting mostly of songs from their first two albums, peppered with a few from Lights Out, their third and decidedly less metal offering. Motörhead’s Phil Campbell would later describe them as “the only good thing to come out of Sweden.”

graveyard
Graveyard. All photos by Brittany Powell.

As the main event neared, the room packed up quickly and the mood felt like what one might expect at an appearance of the Pope at a monster truck rally, with the latter being a bit closer to the beating that our ears were about to take.

With the predictability of the tides, the loudest band in the world emerged and delivered the standard greeting:

“We are Motörhead, and we play rock and roll.”

They immediately lunged into “Damage Case,” Lemmy’s head craned upward towards his trademark high mic, where it would remain for most of the show.  He doesn’t move around much these days, but did he ever?  Nonetheless, at 68, his gravelly snarl is still a force to be reckoned with. The floor got rowdy pretty quick and security could be seen ushering, quite roughly, more than a handful of audience members off the floor and presumably out the door. This is the effect that Motörhead has on people, and it has some significance at the Warfield, which used to have seats that went all the way to the front, until the first three rows were ripped out in 1984 at — you guessed it — a Motörhead show. 

motorhead
Motörhead

After the second number, “Stay Clean,” Lemmy took a moment to address the dipshit (or dipshits) in the crowd who were hurling water bottles at the stage. “Please don’t throw shit at us and we won’t throw anything at you,” he said in a polite deadpan, before Campbell threatened  to walk off if it continued. One final item, a pink lighter, whose hurler Campbell called “a real star,” hit the stage — and the barrage was finished, probably thanks to crowd or security intervention, or perhaps a combination of both. 

Despite the disrespect, Lemmy twice told the crowd that we were the best on the tour and that “Coachella definitely isn’t giving [us] any competition.”  Maybe he was just being nice, but I believed him.  

motorhead

The remainder of the show went smoothly enough, with the band playing most of the live favorites punctuated by Campbell’s glowing (like, actually glowing) guitar solo and Mikkey Dee’s bombastic, elevated drum solo, bookended by blasts of smoke, both of which felt a little dated, but this is real rock ‘n’ roll ,and modern-day gimmicks  weren’t needed. The guys didn’t waste much time between songs, except for the occasional intro, and a moment to dedicate “Just ‘Cos You Got the Power” to the “politicians who are stealing all of our money.” 

motorhead

The regular set ended with “Ace of Spades,” during which nobody missed their chance to scream “That’s the way I like it baby, I don’t want to live forever,” all the while probably wishing that Lemmy would live forever, so they would’t have to wonder how long it might be before they’re reminiscing about the times when rock gods still walked the earth. 

SETLIST
Damage Case
Stay Clean
Metropolis
Over the Top
The Chase is Better Than the Catch
Rock It
Lost Woman Blues
Doctor Rock
Just ‘Cos You Got the Power
Going to Brazil
Killed By Death
Ace of Spades
Overkill