Arts & Culture

Arts & Culture

Inbal Pinto Dance Company

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PREVIEW Two years ago the Inbal Pinto Dance Company made its San Francisco debut with Oyster. On first glance it looked like a freak show, one of those traveling circuses that paraded so-called human deformities to titillate audiences. I mean, what are you going to do with a two-headed, four-armed MC and a crone who controls live puppets? The entire piece looked like a mix of Fellini, without his loving acceptance, and early Günther Grass, without his sardonic humor — plus a solid dose of that French invention, "new circus." Watching the performers move and dance in that no man’s land between fantasy and reality, you couldn’t quite let yourself relax to enjoy Oyster‘s sheer theatrical punch, because underneath all the merriment hid a ghost in the basement.

For their return visit, this Israeli group, appropriately co-managed by a choreographer and a theater director, is presenting its latest work, Shakers, which has nothing to do with condiments or 19th-century New England religion. Its inspiration comes via one of the most common kitsch objects you can buy in tourist locations ranging from Oslo and Moscow — where they make sense — to Cairo and Bombay — where they don’t. Remember snowglobes, those little glass-domed, hermetically-sealed trinkets you shake and snow keeps falling, falling, falling? Shakers.

INBAL PINTO DANCE COMPANY Sat/11, 8 p.m., and Sun/12, 2 p.m., $39–$27; family matinee, Sat/11, 2 p.m., $12–$25. Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 392-2545, www.performances.org

Hawnay Troof

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PREVIEW When I think of Hawnay Troof after listening to approximately one-half of his first full-length, Islands of Ayle (Southern/Retard Disco), the cover of the Geto Boys’ We Can’t Be Stopped (Rap-A-Lot, 1991) comes to mind. I might have found out about the image — Bushwick Bill just forced his girlfriend to shoot him, and he’s in a gurney that the other dudes in the group are pushing down a hospital corridor — from Vice magazine. Does that mean it’s not a legit memory? I struggle with this sometimes, but listening to Islands of Ayle renders it moot. It’s bursting with a sort of straight-ahead energy that only has room for the present moment.

The man behind Hawnay Troof is Oaklander Vice Cooler. He was in this band called XBXRX, which was notorious for a lot of reasons, including originally being from Mobile, Ala., and being initially mostly high-school age. If you’ve followed the group’s career, you’re probably not surprised that Hawnay Troof makes the kind of confessional, but not self-pitying, music he does. The backdrop to Cooler’s stream-of-feeling flows is a suitably hyperactive strain of Casio-crunk, punctuated with brief, looping interludes that sound something like Nurse with Wound producing for Peaches.

The positivity that makes me happy when I hear Hawnay Troof seems to acknowledge shitty stuff — maybe not shot-in-the-eye bad, but pretty demolishing personally — yet manifests an even stronger will to improve, a reaching out. This seems to proceed directly from Cooler’s experiences: on the southwest leg of his current tour, for example, Cooler and his roadie were pulled over in their Enterprise rental car by Arizona police en route to a show. The vehicle was searched without a warrant, and when the cop discovered the roadie’s license was suspended, he impounded the car, leaving Cooler to finish his dates by U-Haul. Apparently there’s no stopping the performer, though as one of the harder-working men in show business, I’m sure Cooler would appreciate a few more open ears at this show, his last stateside before he heads to the United Kingdom.

HAWNAY TROOF With High Places and Ponytail. Wed/8, 9 p.m., $10. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455, www.bottomofthehill.com

Nachtmystium

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PREVIEW Nachtmystium, Chicago’s premier experimental black metallers, are on their fourth album with Assassins: Black Meddle, Part 1 (Century Media). Beyond the surface punning and musical nods to Pink Floyd — "One of These Nights" is the black mirror reflection of "One of These Days" from Meddle (Capitol, 1971) — the Chicago foursome seem to be out to offend the sensibilities of black metal traditionalists with spacious production, electronic scribbles, bluesy solos, and a deeply epic scope. It might be an attempt to escape the pall that their indirect association with NSBM — that’s "national Socialist black metal" or "Nazi metal" to you — temporarily cast on their rising cachet with hipsters (Black Meddle got a Best New Music nod from Pitchfork at the time of its release).

Blake Judd, Jeff Wilson, John Necromancer, and Zack Simmons have gone out of their way to dissociate themselves with politically motivated music, but it’s still tricky territory. In the search for more extreme, more dubiously authentic sounds, where can one find the line in the sand? It’s like seeing a Burzum patch on the Gossip guitarist’s hoodie: that’s not simple irony, accepting something to express a deeper rejection, right? In the case of a band like Nachtmystium, there’s the question of whether its aesthetic is inherently bound up with black metal’s anti-Semitic history, or whether the path it’s pursuing — cutting across classic rock and even classical tropes — messes with the smooth functioning of this equivalence mechanism.

Nachtmystium shares a bill with Wolves in the Throne Room — a band of cooperative-farm-dwelling radical ecologists whose relationship to black metal’s aesthetic/political orientations is more obviously strained, but is equally provocative. Don’t worry — there’s still time to bury your going-out clothes in the earth and arrive at the show smelling like decay.

NACHTMYSTIUM With Wolves in the Throne Room, Saros, and Embers. Sun/12, 8 p.m., $12. Oakland Metro Operahouse, 630 Third St., Oakl. www.oaklandmetro.org

Married in Massachusetts

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REVIEW Mike Roth and John Henning’s engrossing documentary chronicles the public firestorm that ensued after the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex wedlock in 2003. A state constitutional amendment (loudly supported by Gov. Mitt Romney) was promptly drafted to ban it. When election time rolled around the next fall — after several months of marriage ceremonies — candidates’ stance on the issue was make-or-break for many citizens. (Beliefs are held so strongly that when one conservative family ultimately doesn’t see things going as they hoped, they plan to move out of the state.) The directors mix fly-on-the-wall reportage with vividly etched portraits of individuals, from senators to poignantly hopeful gay couples and activists on both sides of the fence. While things do inevitably get nasty, it’s to the filmmakers’ credit that at least some of the "one man, one woman" types met here come off as earnestly misguided rather than flat-out bigoted and vindictive. Though the film’s events may seem like pretty old news now, it excitingly captures the high emotions around a battle that continues to be fought, as an interviewee says, "one state at a time."

SAVING MARRIAGE opens Fri/10 in Bay Area theaters.

Obliterating the dollar

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REVIEW Andrew Schoultz is prescient. A week or two before Wall Street and Washington were forced to admit they’d obliterated the US economy, he unveiled new work that literally slices and blows up the dollar bill. In his A Litany of Defense and a Liturgy of Power (Come) from the Palm of His Hand, shards of the pyramid, all-seeing eye, and other mint-y green fixtures slice through the air alongside similar fragments of currency from other countries. These literal markers of economic chaos add yet more kinetic distress signals to the meta-intersections of iconic bird flocks, medieval warhorses, and whirlpools in Schoultz’s already claustrophobic vision. A hand-rendered George Washington stares blankly from the center of one relatively quiet piece, unaware that his image needs to be multiplied 700 billion times to begin to balance a different George’s checkbook.

"In Gods We Trust" finds Schoultz adding flagrant emphasis to his political content — most of his titles are declarative mouthfuls. Conversely, he veers away from wall murals into mixed-media pieces that only might be more market friendly. He braids collage elements into drawings and paintings. He’s also constructed a centerpiece installation that presents scales of justice set catastrophically awry. Subtlety isn’t on the agenda, and maybe it shouldn’t be. After all, Schoultz’s timing couldn’t be more right.

The visual impact of the work in Schoultz’s first major SF solo show in four years is best experienced one piece at a time, and at close range. Obsessive-compulsive repetition is a chief facet of some of the best San Francisco paintings and drawings of the past decade, and Schoultz, who has lived here around that long, is a standout representative of the practice. But unlike OCD peers’ veerings toward op art or pointillist tactics, his graffiti or mural aesthetic doesn’t always fit into a frame — it can seem murky from afar. This isn’t a matter of scale — in fact, my favorite pieces in "In God We Trust" are small ones — as much as perspective. I like Schoultz’s art most when I’m close enough to stare into the eye of the storm, or, in Sinking Slaveship, the blue (as opposed to black) hole.

ANDREW SCHOULTZ: IN GODS WE TRUST Through Oct. 25. Tues.–Fri., 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.; Sat., 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Marx and Zavaterro, 77 Geary, second floor, SF. (415) 627-9111, www.marxzav.com

High Places

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New York — you never cease to surprise me. For all these years, I’ve been completely convinced that Brooklyn was a continuous swath of pavement, brownstones, and ironic T-shirts. Apparently there’s an altogether different, little-known ecosystem hiding in Hipster’s Paradise. Tucked in the darkest pocket of the borough sits a teeming rainforest, a sea of green in which rainbow-bedazzled birds shake their hot pink plumage while chattering monkeys swing through the lush canopy.

Or so Brooklyn electro-primitives High Places would have us believe. The duo — vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Mary Pearson and percussionist Rob Barber — embrace the notion of geography as a driving force in music, but it’s not their New York surroundings that inspire. Rather, they get their spark from environments far removed from the urban landscape — namely, jungles, of both the terrestrial and the mental variety. As the name would suggest, the pair concern themselves with elevated states — not only do they wish to take us climbing to the top of the tallest trees, but the journey also involves clearing one’s head with a luxuriant tangle of interwoven rhythms.

Vocals are drenched in reverb, guitars buzz as reconfigured insectoid samples, and keyboard melodies whir in unexpected patterns — yet it all feels wondrously organic. High Places have their antecedents — look to Brian Eno’s ambient "fourth world" explorations and the rainforest-dub of The Slits’ Return of the Giant Slits (CBS/Sony International, 1981) for touchstones — but ultimately, they arrive sounding like emissaries from a world yet to be surveyed.

High Places’ just-released self-titled Thrill Jockey debut — not counting the label’s summer-issued singles compilation 03/07–09/07 — feels tailor-made for swooping among the tippy-tops of the Amazon jungle, having meshed Pearson’s carefree, birdlike melodies with curious rhythmic tics, tribal polyrhythms, and the cicada-buzz of treated electronics. Many of the disc’s primeval shuffles, bumps, and thumps come from a full shelf of wood blocks, mixing bowls, and rattles. "The Tree with the Lights in It," for example, fashions an alluring rhythmic undercurrent from what sounds like sandpaper scratches and water sloshing in a bowl.

Elsewhere, the ricocheting electro pings and the clip-clop twitch of "A Field Guide" offers a sun-soaked tropical counterpart to Burial’s haunted dubstep, while "The Storm" tosses disembodied banjo into a slithery gamelan groove punctuated by echo-steeped synth chirps. Far away from her Brooklyn home, Pearson’s winsome flutter beckons from the tallest trees, where she makes the sweetest of observations: "Now my clothes are stained with pitch … it was worth it." Who could say no to such great heights?

HIGH PLACES

Oct. 8, 9 p.m.

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

www.bottomofthehill.com

Razor-blade snickers

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Earlier this month at the Toronto International Film Festival, I ran into Dead Channels Film Festival director Bruce Fletcher more than once — not surprising, considering we were both haunting the same Midnight Madness screenings. This is, after all, the local programmer who brought 1975’s Welcome Home Brother Charles — with director Jamaa Fanaka in tow — to the 2007 Dead Channels fest. He’s also the mastermind behind White Hot ‘N’ Warped Wednesdays, a weekly summer series hosting such should-be cult classics as Pakistan’s first (and only?) gore film, Hell’s Ground (2007).

Fletcher’s 2008 main event unspools Oct. 2, with more than a week of films not suitable for the faint-hearted. Making its US theatrical premiere is Puffball, the latest from Nicolas Roeg, known for 1973’s Don’t Look Now and 1971’s Walkabout. Fay Weldon’s son, Dan Weldon, adapted the script from Mom’s 1980 novel — appropriately enough, since the story deals with motherhood in its more terrifying forms. A young architect (Kelly Reilly, prissy enough to have played Caroline Bingley in 2005’s Pride and Prejudice) decides to renovate an Irish country cottage, not knowing the neighbors are baby-obsessed and black magically–inclined. High production values and the participation of Miranda Richardson and Don’t Look Now star Donald Sutherland (in a glorified cameo) lend Puffball a gloss that Dead Channels’ lower-budget selections don’t have. But the story — which treads semi-close to a mix of The Wicker Man and Rosemary’s Baby — never quite came together for me, in a way that was unsatisfying rather than acceptably ambiguous.

Still planning that Irish vacation? The horrors of the Emerald Isle are further explored in David Gregory’s Plague Town, yet another film that exists to remind city folk to NEVER GET OFF THE MAIN ROAD. Seriously. Because you know if you do, you’ll wind up stranded within evil-cackle earshot of the locals, most of whom happen to be hostile mutants.

Better cancel that road trip and hang out at the Roxie instead — Dead Channel’s opening-night flick, Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In, is highbrow enough to be playing the current Mill Valley Film Festival. It involves vampires (totes hip) and picked up a big award at the TriBeCa Film Festival this year; see it now and brag to your friends that you caught the Swedish original when the just-announced remake by Cloverfield director Matt Reeves is eventually released.

Other Dead Channels trick-or-treats include Frank "Basket Case" Henenlotter’s freaky-deaky latest, Bad Biology, which opens with the line, "I was born with seven clits — seven that I know of," and gets more satire-tastic from there. When a seven-clitted girl meets a boy with a "drug-addicted dick with a mind of its own," what do you get? Maybe the first horror film to ever feature a vagina’s-eye-view shot, for one. Also on tap at the fest: Justin Paul Ritter’s A Gothic Tale, whose distinction of being narrated by Rowdy Roddy Piper is enough to intrigue me; San Francisco–spawned nugget o’ zombie weirdness Retardead; and a late-night program of woman-made shorts hosted by Viscera Film Festival director Shannon Lark, herself a filmmaker and Fangoria magazine’s first-ever "spooksmodel." Dead Channel’s other shorts program is comprised of international thrills and chills, including Oliver Beguin’s Swiss import Dead Bones. The setting is the old West; the cast boasts Ken Foree and Ruggero Deodato (that squealing sound you hear is the horror geek next to you, who no doubt worships both). The gory tale — bad taste? Or tastes like chicken? You decide.

DEAD CHANNELS FILM FESTIVAL

Oct. 2–10, $5–$10

See film listings for venues and schedule

www.deadchannels.com

Free for all — and freewheelin’

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Hardly Strictly Bluegrass has never been about full-tilt traditionalism and musical purity, though real-deal legends like Ralph Stanley and Earl Scruggs, plus true believers such as the Del McCoury Band and the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers, have always graced its stages. Here are a few new, yet somehow familiar, and irreverent faces to the Golden Gate Park bash. (Kimberly Chun)

BONNIE "PRINCE" BILLY


Don’t get Will Oldham started on these whippersnapper actors today. When the subject of promising thespians came up during our recent interview, I suggested Shia LaBeouf. "I heard going into [Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull] that he was good, but it was awful and he was awful," said the Matewan child star, who saw it in Corte Madera during his recent Headlands Center for the Arts residency. "It was awful in the same way the first new Star Wars was awful — it seemed like it was designed to create the video games that were accompanying it."

Sun/5, 1 p.m., Rooster Stage

LOS CENZONTLES WITH SANTIAGO JIMENEZ


The Chicano band’s moniker may translate as the Mockingbirds, but there’s no mocking these activists’ grasp of Mexican roots sounds, including Tejano and Son Jarocho. Traditional folk instruments like the uke-like jarana will mingle with Jimenez’s Tex-Mex squeezebox stylings.

Sat/4, 11 a.m., Arrow Stage

HEAVY TRASH


Tube amps burst, echo machines eke out, and rockabilly kittens swoon when groovy-hate-fuck cats Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray bend those badass notes.

Sun/5, 5:45 p.m., Star Stage

THE INFAMOUS STRINGDUSTERS


Three prizes at last year’s International Bluegrass Music Association Awards went to the combo.

Sun/5, 2:10 p.m., Arrow Stage

IRON AND WINE


A long-tressed Sam Beam and his Wine-ers broke onto Letterman with The Shepherd’s Dog (Sub Pop, 2007). So what’s next?

Sun/5, 3:25 p.m., Rooster Stage.

MARK OLSON AND GARY LOURIS


Two forces in the criminally unrecognized Jayhawks reunite — long after vocalist Mark Olson moved to the Joshua Tree area to be with now-ex Victoria Williams. Coming on the heels of Louris’ Vagabonds (Rykodisc) is their new Chris Robinson–produced collabo, Ready for the Flood (Hacktone).

Sat/4, 1:30 p.m., Rooster Stage

ROBERT PLANT AND ALISON KRAUSS


The warmth and intimacy of this simpatico musical coupling was enough to ward off the chill at this summer’s foggy show at the Greek Theatre as the lion-maned duo tamed the Zep-happy mob with hushed versions of "Black Dog" and "The Battle of Evermore."

Fri/3, 5:15 p.m., Banjo Stage

WACO BROTHERS


OK, these yobs are far from unknown: Jon Langford and Steve Goulding can be sighted among the many Mekons, and Alan Doughty survived Jesus Jones. Good-timers like "Drinkin’ Cheatin’ Death" show why this band drives its hometown Chicago crowds nutty.

Sat/4, 12:05 p.m., Star Stage

PEGI YOUNG


Neil Young spotters will hope he’ll sit in, but give the woman who masterminded the Bridge Benefit her due. Pegi’s self-titled debut (Warner Bros., 2007) found her stirring from the support role, wrapping sugar-dusted, languorous tones around slow-dances à la "When the Wildlife Betrays Me."

Sun/5, 4:30 p.m., Arrow Stage

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 8 runs from Fri/3-Sun/5, in Speedway Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF. Free. www.strictlybluegrass.com.

Please, Hammer, don’t hurt my bluegrass

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It’s a combination that raised more than a few eyebrows: MC Hammer performing at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 8. We have it in our hearts to get country, but is this show for real? As it turns out, the connection is a fairly straightforward one. "I thought it was a very good idea since I’ve always been a very positive artist and always embraced the kids," Hammer, born Stanley Burrell, explained when I spoke to him by phone recently.

Hammer became involved with Hardly Strictly when a mutual acquaintance introduced him to festival benefactor Warren Hellman. He performs Oct. 3 during an educational program for children that is part of Daniel Pearl World Music Days. Founded in 2002 by the Daniel Pearl Foundation, Hammer is enthusiastic about his involvement in celebrating the memory of Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter killed in 2002 in Pakistan. "It is an honor to participate in anything that uplifts [Pearl’s] sacrifice and his commitment," he said. Add Hammer’s interest in community programs for children — he has sponsored Little League teams for more than a decade — and his appearance at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass becomes too legit for him to quit.

Just in case you think this is the extent of Hammer’s forays into the entertainment industry, think again. While the rest of us were building pages on Geocities.com, the artist formerly seen with resplendently large trousers was amassing an arsenal of tech knowledge. "Very quietly I got involved with tech all the way back in 1994," he said. "I was trying to figure out how to get my videos on the Internet." He visited firms like Silicon Graphics and Apple Computer, keeping an eye on QuickTime and similar applications, and now feels that video is finally ready to take center stage, describing it as "the main component of Web 2.0."

Thus the man who tried to teach Arsenio Hall to do the Chinese Typewriter is no longer simply a hip-hop artist: he has fashioned himself into an entrepreneur in high demand. Hammer has delivered a keynote speech at an Intel CEO summit, appeared on one expert panel at the TechCrunch20 Conference and yet another at the AlwaysOn and STVP conference at Stanford University — this one in the company of Chamillionaire and Mistah FAB. His connection to TechCrunch is notable, since its founder, Michael Arrington, has invested in Hammer’s company, DanceJam, an online community based around all types of dance. Users can upload videos of themselves to participate in battles, learn new dances using tutorials, or browse performances uploaded by users. "The ideas that I’ve had the chance to crystallize, and come up with content for and build communities around, those are the things that people are looking to do today," Hammer opined.

Considering Hammer’s deep immersion in the possibilities of contemporary pop culture and modern music, you might think the hip-hop artist’s appearance at a bluegrass festival would faze him. He laughed. "That’s why it’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass," he said. "I’ve got a song called ‘Help the Children.’ This is not new territory for me."

MC Hammer performs Fri/3, 11:30 a.m., for local students and the public on the Star Stage.

Magical madness

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He’s bald, his house beats bounce like no others, and he’s blue — at least in the cartoons. British underground producer Mike Monday is taking aim at something more than niche success with his recent signing to San Francisco label Om, but his new album, Songs Without Words, is hardly mainstream house fare. From titles that reference Spongebob Squarepants to track styles that veer from dubstep to 2-step to banging house and back again, Monday keeps listeners off-balance in the best way.

Monday — born Michael Mukhopadhyay — did time at Oxford studying music before heading into the nightlife wilds, as well as playing sax in 1990s live electronic outfit Beat Foundation (his partner Andy Cato went on to form Groove Armada). But Monday is best known for his work on 12-inch singles and songs like "Bhaloboshi," which M.A.N.D.Y. included on its Fabric mix, and "I Dream of Ducks," from his first album, Smorgasboard, released two years ago on the producer’s Playtime imprint. His thick slabs of synths, sparkling production, and springy beats have found homes in both minimal and electro camps with DJs like Claude Von Stroke and Tiefschwarz championing his tunes.

Songs Without Words, however, is not about tools for Technics, even if Monday admits his DJ background influenced not only the song order but the songs themselves. Over the phone from his London home studio — built in a garage in his garden — Monday confides that he tweaked tracks so they worked together, even changing the key to achieve the proper fit. "You can call it an album and have all different sorts of music," he says. "What matters is the pacing and the flow and how it listens from beginning to end. I almost spent as much time wrestling with the [song] order as I did with the music itself."

Despite initial doubts about signing his album to a more commercial label — and a Yankee one at that — Monday overcame his hesitations due to his affection for the people behind Om and his respect for their attempts to release electronic music in more than one genre, an openness that seemed to mirror Songs Without Words‘ breadth. And having more resources behind him has allowed for amusing excursions — such as animated cartoons showcasing flying key-tars, pink cats, and a blue Mike Monday. Produced by Drunk Park, the cartoons are as weird and wacky as Monday’s music. "I really like the idea of not using dour, cool artwork for electronic music," he explains. "Because to be honest, that’s not the type of person I am." (Peter Nicholson)

MIKE MONDAY

Sat/4, 10 p.m., $15

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

Raging hormones

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REVIEW Romeo and Juliet — the ballet, not the play — is not exactly known for its wit. Prokofiev’s heavy-handed use of thematic material at times makes Wagner sound frivolous. But leave it to Mark Morris to turn ballet’s most beloved 20th-century tragedy into a fairy tale whose comedic overtones are difficult to miss. Does the piece — which was given its West Coast premiere by Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall Sept. 25 — work? Up to a point it does, because Morris set clearly defined parameters and shaped his take accordingly. At the end, however, the choreographer falls flat on his face.

Morris’ Romeo and Juliet, on Motifs of Shakespeare is the result of musicologist Simon Morrison’s discovery of the composer’s original manuscript in Russia. It doesn’t include a balcony scene, nor do the lovers die. The most welcome revelation is that the music was not designed to hit you over the head. The orchestration is thinner, shading its colors instead of splashing them on.

When tackling the largely unchanged libretto, Morris decided to keep the story at arm’s length. His characters are not quite flesh-and-blood people. The dancers inhabit their roles against the backdrop of a story we already know well. And they do it superbly. In many ways, Morris is playing a game with us. It’s witty, fun, and distanced.

The minute the work opens and we see the good citizens with their wooden swords, you know that this is make-believe. There is no conflict between these families: everybody, including the parents, is immature. Hormones rage. Stuff happens. The whole society is kept together by Escalus (a fabulously effective Joe Bowie) who prowls the town like a playground supervisor.

Morris’ handling of the crowd scenes works. He treats them like accidental encounters, akin to neighborhood gossip that swells then recedes. It’s one way of dealing with Prokofiev’s propensity for repetition. The ballroom scene’s formality resembles early Martha Graham with Romeo posturing like a pouting teenager. In a nod to the famous pillow dance, Morris includes a parlor game involving a cushion.

He explores a similar thematic development in the market scenes. A hop and turn motive spools the citizens on stage as if they were coming off a conveyor belt. As for the love story, Morris makes it into a puppy love that unexpectedly grows into something the kids can no longer handle. Noah Vinson’s Romeo is splendid, tender and ready to jump out of his skin from sheer happiness. Maile Okamura’s Juliet evolves nicely into take-charge maturity.

In the end, Morris’ Romeo falls apart. The divertissements in the bedroom look like caricatures, as do Romeo’s and the Friar’s ex machina appearances. Morris’ imagination fails him badly as he transports the lovers into a literally star-crossed universe. The choreographer prides himself on using every note of a composer’s music, but perhaps that’s not always such a hot idea.

Do look back

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REVIEW By now, the Italian American mean streets of New York — that colorful bustle of energies shadowed so enticingly by the wickedly romantic lives of entrepreneurial mafiosi — are an immovable fixture on the post-Scorsese, post-Sopranos landscape of cultural memory. So much so that, in its more run-of-the-mill versions, this world strikes the outsider as virtual at best: no more than a manufactured dreamscape. But authenticity is hard to fake. And with Chazz Palminteri, you can’t help feeling one degree from the real thing.

This sensation is all the more impressive given that the actor-playwright’s semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story has a highly cinematic flavor and arc that on reflection seems maybe a bit too picaresque and neat, pitching his boyhood self between two competing father figures and two intimately entwined but distinct paths. Not to mention that it comes projected from a big Broadway-style stage, amid a set that looks like its serviceable sections. The head-on slice of a two-story apartment building and the street lamp announcing the intersection of 187th Street and Belmont Avenue might all have been borrowed from a backlot in Burbank, suggesting something like Sesame Street for wise guys.

But if these sound like reservations, they’re not. The revival tour of Palminteri’s A Bronx Tale, courtesy of Best of Broadway, is a vital and greatly entertaining piece of work, driven by a tour-de-force solo performance that must be every bit as deft as it was nearly 20 years ago off-Broadway, before it was transposed to the screen, with Palminteri starring opposite Robert De Niro. In fine trim, the now-50-something Palminteri holds Golden Gate Theatre’s ample stage effortlessly for the 90 riveting minutes of director Jerry Zaks’ razor-sharp production. Moreover, Palminteri’s playful, inextinguishable exuberance throughout suggests this is no mere attempt to cash in on an old hit, but rather a deep-seated desire to consider afresh a treasured patch of hallowed ground.

That patch — 187th and Belmont in the Bronx of the 1960s — comes initially bounded by the actor-memoirist’s nine-year-old stoop-bound world of baseball, pasta sauce, and corner doo-wop crooning. Until one day, that is, when little Cologio Palminteri’s refusal to rat out the perpetrator of a murder that unfolds a few steps from his house brings him under the paternal wing of the neighborhood’s rising mob boss, Sonny — setting up a conflict internal and external between Sonny and the boy’s upright bus driver father, Lorenzo. After leaping ahead to his 17th year, the focus shifts somewhat to a budding interracial romance between Cologio and a neighborhood girl, as well as a test of trust between the young man and his adopted gangster father figure. But the pace never flags.

In Palminteri’s expert quick-change characterizations, the story brims with an assortment of suitably outsize personalities carefully, lovingly etched by human idiosyncrasies, foibles, doubts, and contradictions. No doubt one sees here the hand of devilishly charming storytelling, but beneath the theatrical/cinematic veneer is an authenticity of place and passion that reaches to the bone.

A BRONX TALE

Through Oct 19

Tues.–Sat., 8 p.m. (also Wed. and Sat., 2 p.m.); Sun., 2 p.m., $40–$85

Golden Gate Theatre

1 Taylor, SF

www.shnsf.com

Wanderlustful

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Sweet home Europa — be it central, eastern, or so southerly that you’re smack in the Amazon, shooting the rapids like Aguirre and grabbing inspiration from the jaguar guts of the jungle. Call the recent Balkan music invasion on virginal indie hearts and minds the stealth revenge of new, weird Old World sounds on arrogant Amerindie rockism — just listen to the brainy, brassy blast of Beirut or the fiddle-borne shakedowns of A Hawk and a Hacksaw or the gypsy, or Romany, mess-arounds of Brass Menazeri — I dare you not to jig. Yet the rip-roaring, marrow-slurping, living end of all fiddlin’-round roma punks are the longtime "Think Locally, Fuck Globally" champeens Gogol Bordello.

Larger-than-life Gogol vocalist Eugene Hütz adores the fact that Romany sounds are finding new audiences — "It clicked for me one day," he says from New Orleans, "that gypsy music is going through exactly the revolution that reggae went through, from being a regional phenomenon to being a much larger music section in the store — much bigger visibility because if you’re not visible, you’re fucked." But trust the man to set me straight on sloppy assumptions regarding that same music, especially regarding Gogol Bordello’s next album, which was influenced by Hütz’s move this year to Rio de Janeiro. Will the recording — about which, Hütz promises, "people are going to shit in their pants when they hear it, because we’re already shitting in our pants" — give off a heady, flowery whiff of tropicália, and sound like the Pogues and Os Mutantes in steel-cage match?

"Forget that!" he retorts. "It’s like being in Spain and saying there’s only flamenco, or there’s nothing in Eastern Europe except polka. It’s what every tourist knows." Hütz was initially lured to Brazil by a lady, but he says, "the next thing I knew there was a huge gypsy community to discover. Next thing I knew I was traveling through Brazil with Manu Chao and seeing the other side of it, and the next thing I knew I was calling my mom to send all my shit over.

"I love New York City and I always will," Hütz continues. "It gave me everything, gave me understanding and initial recognition. But I feel like the road is still calling me. It ain’t no time to settle."

The allure of unexplored vistas could go a little way in explaining the appeal of Gogol and its brethren to New Worlders like ourselves. What fan girl or boy isn’t tempted to have their blasé, boring butt kicked by the very unironic, passionate Gogol Bordello — not for nothing is the band’s 2002 album titled Multi Kontra Culti vs. Irony (Rubric) — which takes nothing for granted, and while it’s at it, takes no prisoners.

PLASTIC FANTASTIC Czech Republic underground OGs Plastic People of the Universe, who perform with promising Budapest band Little Cow this week in San Francisco at Slim’s, are all too familiar with incarceration. The group will also make a Q&A stop at the American Conservatory Theatre production of Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll, a semi-bon mot to the band who were forbidden to perform, whose fans were beaten, and members were eventually imprisoned by the Czech government in the ’70s for their dark, "antisocial," Velvet Underground- and Frank Zappa–inspired art-rock psychedelia.

Guitarist Joe Karafiát tells me by cellie, as the many in the seven-piece snoozed their way to Burlington, Vt., that Plastic People of the Universe didn’t set out to be activists or the initial inspiration for the human rights petition Charter 77 (which landed Václav Havel in jail) — much like they didn’t set out to be such diehard Zappa or Velvets heads. "If we didn’t understand what [those bands] were saying," Karafiát says, "we kind of felt what those guys were talking about."

PPU’s untamed shenanigans led to, for example, the jailing of freejazz sax player Vratislav Brabenec for a year. As he states via translator by e-mail, "Most of our adventures were crazy, as you can imagine. After the arrests in 1977, most of our concerts were suicidal. We didn’t know if the secret police would come and kill us or put us back in jail. But we had a lot of support from [future President] Havel and the underground culture. Trying to record albums in Havel’s barn under our situation — no real power source, police lurking around — it was all an adventure." Eventually, Brabenec was forced to flee to Canada.

It’s remarkable to think that PPU and their compelling skronk still persists, years after the Czechoslovakian government tried to grind them down and despite their continued underground status in their homeland. "We are on the edge," says the guitarist with a chortle. "Most Czechs are consumers. They consume TV, McDonald’s, and there’s just small group of people looking for something different." Those unusual suspects could find it at the slew of PPU sets before and after Rock ‘n’ Roll performances in the Czech Republic.

But perhaps that’s another reason we’re feeling that Old World sound: maybe we’re looking for the type of resilience integral to powerful, affecting art forged during tough times. With those survival skills, slipping onto the bill of bluegrass and country at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 8 is a cinch. "Speed metal bills, jazz bills, traditional Egyptian music bills," Hütz says. "We’re entirely inappropriate everywhere!"

GOGOL BORDELLO

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

Sun/5, 4:15 p.m., free

Star Stage, Speedway Meadow

Golden Gate Park, SF

www.strictlybluegrass.com

Also benefit for Muttville

Sun/5, 9 p.m., $30

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

www.slims-sf.com

PLASTIC PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE

Reception and CD signing Oct. 9, 7 p.m., free admission for Slim’s ticket holders and past and future holders of Rock ‘n’ Roll tickets

American Conservatory Theater

405 Geary, SF

www.act-sf.org

Performance Oct. 9, 9 p.m., $15–$20, Slim’s

Manifestos and sodas

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

INTERVIEW Joshua Clover is probably just as well known as alter ego jane dark. It’s the pseudonym under which s/he writes sugarhigh! (janedark.com), which makes equal space for dialectical thinking, pop and country music, and film. I’ve spent time talking with friends about his criticism and his two books of poetry, 2006’s The Totality for Kids (UC Press, 76 pages, $16.95) and 1997’s Madonna anno domini (Louisiana State University Press). On the page and in person, he radiates the kind of information-density that encompasses everything from Gossip Girl to Karl Marx, Taylor Swift to John Ashbery.

Clover grew up in Berkeley, went to school there and graduated, then went to Iowa and graduated, then spent a period as an "indigent, unskilled worker" before the first, extremely limited-run issue of sugarhigh! landed him a job writing for Village Voice and, soon after, Spin. Which he did for a couple of years, until he didn’t like it anymore and began teaching at UC Davis. When I approached him about this Q&A, he — perhaps slightly jokingly — agreed on the condition that we talk about the economy.

SFBG You’ve written about the value-density of art — as the economy has gotten less stable, works from a Damien Hirst or Francis Bacon go for record prices. This makes me think of the value-density of poetry relative to visual art, and what Wittgenstein wrote about poetry not being involved in the "language-game of giving information" that’s connected to the functioning of capitalism. Is poetry’s struggle for a popular audience connected with the fact that it explicitly undermines the structure of capitalism?

JOSHUA CLOVER That’s a very noble way to frame poetry that’s politically righteous — like it can’t be swallowed by the maw of capitalism and spat out. But one of the best-selling books of poetry in the 20th century, Howl by Allen Ginsberg, is an explicitly brutal critique of different kinds of domination, including economic domination.

The sad fact about poetry in the US [today] is not that political poetry cannot be swallowed, but that it can be swallowed quite easily. There are always a couple pages in Poetry magazine set aside for left liberal carping. Poetry is having an event for the 100th anniversary of Filippo Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto, asking various writers to write manifestos to be read at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The obvious irony is that any manifesto worth its salt would be a manifesto against Poetry, the kind of poetry they publish there, their $150 million [donated by Ruth Lilly], and their alliance with MOMA. It’s a lovely museum, but it lives because manifestos died.

We haven’t had many famous manifestos since the great ironic manifesto that is Frank O’Hara’s "Personism" [1959]. The period of famous, powerful, persuasive, well-known manifestos — from 1905 to 1925 or 1930 — was an age of desperate terror and unhappiness at the historical victory of the bourgeoisie. That victory is complete now.

Political poetry is popular in other countries not because America is apathetic or has forgotten how to read poetry, but because those are countries where political closure hasn’t happened, where social relations can change. From the right and the left, there are poets who’ve filled coliseums in Poland in the ’80s or in South America now. If people want politically powerful poetry that’s popular, they have to produce situations of political openness — then poetry that was true all along will have its opportunity to be true on a mass scale.

SFBG Here’s one question I’ve long wanted to ask you: is there any chance of convincing you to write a 33 1/3 book on Cupid & Psyche ’85 (Warner Bros., 1985)?

JC I would think about it. Scritti Politti is truly great and I had the opportunity to spend some time on the phone with Green Gartside. We talked about what you’d expect — Derrida and Hegel. Although the one time I met Keanu Reeves we talked about Schopenhauer, so you’d be surprised who’s smart. If I were to do one of those books, it wouldn’t be about Scritti Politti —

SFBG — [Neneh Cherry’s] Raw Like Sushi (Virgin, 1989)?

JC Wow, that’d be great. Since [Prince’s] Sign o’ the Times (Warner Bros., 1987) has already been done by Michelangelo Matos, I’d try to do Girly Sound, the non-record of demos that Liz Phair made while she was at Oberlin. It circulated as a tape in several different versions. It has some of the songs that later appeared on her first record, Exile in Guyville (Matador, 1993), and other songs that didn’t. It can be reassembled. I’m interested in albums that don’t quite exist, so another possibility would be … is the Guns N’ Roses album called Chinese Arithmetic?

SFBG It’s Chinese Democracy.

JC Chinese Democracy. "Chinese Arithmetic" is an Eric B. and Rakim song. The Guns N’ Roses CD which has been in the offing for 15 years — I think that would be a fun one to write a book about as well.

LIT CRAWL 2008: THE BEST OF THE BELIEVER

with Joshua Clover, Jessica Fisher, Troy Jollimore, and Melinda Mellis

Sat/11, 8:30–9:30 p.m.

Latin American Club

3286 22nd St., SF

www.litquake.org

Bend Sinister

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

With Litquake fast approaching and his new book hitting the shelves, the time is right to check in with San Francisco writer, comedian, and reluctant self-help guru, Bucky Sinister. Yes, you heard that right: self-help guru. Move over Dr. Phil and Dr. Drew and every other faux-folksy TV platitude-puss. Mr. Sinister has the kind of wisdom — and writing skills — that can only come from experience. Below, he talks about creativity, redemption, and Get Up: A 12-Step Guide for Misfits, Freaks, and Weirdos (Conari Press, 176 pages, $14.95).

SFBG How did you come to write a 12-step book?

BUCKY SINISTER I’ve been sober for six years, and I was doing shows about my experiences. One of the editors at Conari Press saw me and asked if I wanted to write a book.

SFBG How is Get Up different from other 12-step books?

BS When I was an addict, there were two things that kept me out of programs. One, I thought, "If I get sober, I won’t be able to write anymore." And two, I thought, "If I join, they’re going to try and make me believe in God." But I found out those things weren’t true. That’s what this book is about. You don’t have to believe in God and you don’t have to stop being creative to get sober.

SFBG As an atheist, how do you get around the higher power question?

BS My main thing is something I call the Ideal Image. A lot of the things we admire in people we don’t have in ourselves. But then you tell yourself these qualities are within your power. You’re going to have to work on it. But if you keep that Ideal Image number one in your mind, it’ll guide you. The same way that religious people have God.

SFBG Not to put you on the spot, but what are some Bay Area writers you think people should go out and read?

BS David Lerner, Eli Coppola, and Jack Micheline — he’s Matt Gonzalez’s favorite poet, by the way. You should probably also include Vampyre Mike Kassel — that guy was something.

Also, there’s Michelle Tea, Beth Lisick, Daphne Gottlieb, and Alvin Orloff.

SFBG Why do you like them?

BS They’re all different, but if you put them all in an anthology, you get a pretty good idea of what it’s like to live in SF.

SFBG Some of your short stories are compressed like poetry. Where did you learn to write prose that way?

BS I learned to write from Jon Longhi, a Bay Area writer. When I was younger, I wanted to do a pop transgressive thing, like Dennis Cooper’s [short story] "Hitting Bedrock." There’s no redemption in the kind of stuff I was reading when I was learning to write fiction.

SFBG How would that tie in with what you’re doing in Get Up?

BS Being in my 20s, I was looking to shock people. Now I’ve come to be at peace with myself more and I don’t just want to freak someone out. The goal of Get Up is to help people. Fuck, I never had that goal before.

LIT CRAWL 2008: THE BABBLE-ON READING SERIES PRESENTS THE TITANS OF ONLY-IN-SAN FRANCISCO LITERATURE

Sat/11, 8:30 p.m.

Dog Eared Books

900 Valencia, SF

(415) 282-1901

www.litquake.org

No satisfaction

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Readers:

In a recent column, I mock-lamented the lack of a better expression than "tit for tat" to describe the writer’s situation and received not one but two gently chiding notes assuring me that there was indeed another phrase commonly used to express the concept of rote reciprocity. This one was kind of cute:

Dear Andrea:

If not a better, then at least a non-punning expression for "tit for tat" is "quid pro quo." I eagerly await a male reader’s letter complaining of erectile dysfunction and marred by a dangling participle.

Love,

Funny Reader

And now back to our previously scheduled tedious marital concern.

Love,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

I recently broke it off with my boyfriend of three years. The thing is, I was married the whole time. I never meant to fall in love with my boyfriend. I met him in a forum I found to talk about my marital problems. He was doing the same, though he got divorced more than a year ago. Before I met him, I was somewhat dissatisfied with the lack of sex and affection in my marriage, but accepted it as my lot in life. I figured my husband was a good man every other way, so I could put up with those problems. With the BF, though, I experienced intense passion, love, and attention. Now that we’ve broken up, it feels like I went from the hot tub into a cold pool.

I want affection. I want my husband to hug me, hold me … to care. I’ve asked him numerous times, but the only way he listens is if I threaten to leave. I guess what I’m asking is, how can I make my husband listen?

Love,

No Satisfaction

Dear No:

Yes. Um. It all depends on what you want him to hear. I’m willing to bet that if you murmured, "Oh, by the way, honey, I’ve been cheating on you for three years every chance I get, and I’m really sad now because I broke up with my cheating-partner, who was much better than you in bed and out, so won’t you please hold me?," he’d listen. Seriously. I’m almost positive.

Look, it may be that your husband was stingy with the demonstration of affection. That can be hurtful, even harmful. It is well within one’s rights to request more demo (more affection is probably another story), but it doesn’t work to treat another person as a sort of affection vending machine: you put in, I don’t know, time, dinners, and blow jobs, and they crank out the sweet words and spontaneous hugs and kisses?

I think more to the point here, though, is that it’s entirely possible that ship has sailed. He may have been insufficiently demonstrative (or actually insufficiently affectionate, who can tell?) due to his own innate temperament or some sort of damage. Your marriage may originally have been short on sex due to low libido (his, apparently) or bad habits or lack of spark. I can’t help guessing, though, that in the intervening three years (at least), you were emotionally (and sometimes physically) absent yourself, and this cannot have escaped his attention. There is a reason why divorce suits on the grounds of infidelity used to cite "alienation of affection." I have to assume your recent behavior has turned a bad situation worse and very likely made the marriage unsalvageable. Sorry!

No, really, I am. How committed, though, could you really have been to salvaging it? I am a big fan of Internet forums, and I don’t make the mistake that others, less familiar with the concept of chat, might make of thinking that you went there expressly to attract someone new, someone who might really "understand you." If you’d been looking for a date, you could have skipped the chitchat and gone straight to Match.com. You certainly did nothing to avoid attracting and then cleaving unto another dude, though, did you? Don’t you think, as a married woman who was concerned about the state of her marriage (or really, just a married woman, period), that was … unwise?

Gallivanting off with Boyfriend and then complaining, once it’s over, that your husband is just as apparently uninterested in you as before and wondering how do you fix him is not cricket. It isn’t fair to your husband to use him as a somewhat unsatisfactory second-stringer, and worse (at least for you), I don’t think it’s going to work. I think the next time you get mad at him for his inherent or reactive cold-fishiness, you are going to slip up and, instead of merely threatening to leave him, crow that you did, in fact, leave him for three years and he never noticed. And that will be that. I think, since you have nothing good to say for him beyond "he’s a good man and I figured I just had to put up with him," you ought to let him go. Surely being unsatisfied and miserable is not your lot in life, any more than being treated as a combination encumbrance and convenience ought to be his, poor guy.

Love,

Andrea

Got a salacious subject you want Andrea to discuss? Ask her a question!

Spread it

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› superego@sfbg.com

Who’s ready to get tingly with 85,000 freakazoids of affection? Multi-tentacled outdoor rave-a-thon LoveFest quickly approaches, a candy-colored octopus of sonic yummers. Oh, yes, there will be floats — as the parade twirls up Market Street and lands in the throbbing bass vortex of Civic Center Plaza. And in this, its fourth year, the LoveFest takes on a crucial mission: "We do not dance in the streets to escape the reality of our times. We dance to face them as a community, pointing the direction to a better way, set to beats and the full color of our expression," organizers say.

Can’t beat that with a bat. True to its kaleidoscopic intent, there’ll be scads of pre- and after-parties accompanying the 300 DJ–driven event. Below are a few keepers — you can find a ton more at the LoveFest Web site.

QOÖL LOVEFEST KICKOFF The longest-running weekly dance joint in San Francisco, Qoöl, starts the whole shebang with a strong evening dose of the classic San Francisco techno sound — deep but not too deep, clean but humorous, just right for "doing your thing." With DJs Alain Octavo, Syd Gris, Messiah, and Spesh. Wed/1, 5 p.m., $5. 111 Minna, SF. (415) 974-1719, www.qoolsf.com

PENDANA One of the "social action" parts of LoveFest — and a damn good-looking party to boot — benefiting NextAid.org, which helps African kids in need. With DJs Jeno, Lance DeSardi, Alland Byallo, the Staple Crew, and more. Thurs/2, 9:30 p.m., $10 with RSVP to events@nextaid.org. Supperclub, 657 Harrison, SF. (415) 348-0900, www.supperclub.com

DIRTYBIRD LOVEFEST PRE-PARTY Let your freak feathers fly early with SF’s current reigning dance label kings, minimal-goofy Dirty Bird Records, including Claude Von Stroke, Justin Martin, Worthy, and the aptly named Hookerz and Blow. Fri/3, 10 p.m., $20. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 625-8880, www.mezzaninesf.com

GET WEIRD The title says it all for this annual LoveFest event, as DJs Lee Burridge, Tim McCormack, and Mike Khoury get wiggy on the tables for a plethora of costumed weirdos — proud and loud, baby. Fri/3, 10 p.m., $20 advance. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. (415) 626-7001, www.getweirder.com, www.groovetickets.com

INFUSE — LOVE RULES! Underground burner beats behemoth Opel presents an uplifting after-LoveFest must for bouncy tech-funk and breakbeat heads, plus folks who like their bass floor-shattering. Prediction: fire twirlers and stilts, or at least what’s left of them at the end of the day. The UK’s elusive Elite Force make a special appearance. Sat/4, 10 p.m., $15 advance. Temple, 540 Howard, SF. www.templesf.com, www.groovetickets.com

THE MORNING AFTER THE LOVE Hangover, wha? No time for that — chill out on your fancy feet at the EndUp for a whole day of beats and no-end-in-sight freaks, with expansivist techno DJs Nikola Baytalo (one of our best right now), Three, Nikita, and about 50 others. Rave on! Sun/5, 6 a.m., $20 advance, EndUp, 401 Sixth St., SF. (415) 896-1095, www.theendup.com, www.groovetickets.com

Fourth Annual LoveFest begins Sat/4, noon, at Civic Center Plaza, SF. Donation requested. www.sflovefest.org

Get rhythm

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Perhaps because Marin County is the pasture to which many a semi-retired rock star got put out, the Mill Valley Film Festival has long emphasized music-related film and live performance. Now that the festival is officially over 30 (and hence untrustworthy according to ancient wisdom), MVFF ’08 will wave its vintage freak flag even harder than usual.

We have seen the future of retro-rockumentary here, and it is groovy, man. Nothing dials the lysergic clock to quarter-past-wow faster than a dose of tribal-love rock. Pola Rapaport’s Hair: Let the Sun Shine In (2007) memorializes the musical that brought counterculture sounds, politics, genitalia, and follicles to 1968 Broadway. Which it duly freaked out — becoming a worldwide cultural phenomenon and launching careers for performers including Melba Moore, Keith Carradine, Tim Curry, Ben Vereen, Diane Keaton, and Donna Summer. Those first four are interviewed alongside composer Galt MacDermot, director Tom O’Horgan, co-book author and lyricist James Rado (mercurial co-creator Gerome Ragni being a famous casualty), and collaborators on the 40th-anniversary Public Theatre production now headed to Broadway.

There’s no end of amusing, exciting, and tragic backstories around Hair — far more than this brisk documentary can encompass. But it still rewards, not least for original-cast performances on TV’s Smothers Brothers and Tonight Show that offer near-pure glimpses of O’Horgan’s joyous avant-garde staging.

Rock purists grew huffy about Hair (musical theatre = corny!) and commercial rock’s perceived inorganic nature, as flavored primarily by tasty processed studio additives rather than "pure" singer-songwriters whose bands (unlike original-sinners the Monkees) actually played on platter and tour. Denny Tedesco’s The Wrecking Crew (2007) pays homage to those older, jazz-trained virtuosos who really played on practically every 1960s pop record. They brought incalculable invention, but were almost never credited on hits by the Beach Boys and umpteen others. Now geezers, they (including solo-star breakout Glen Campbell) are a hoot; ditto the onetime beneficiaries of their craft who also appear in interviews, like Cher, Brian Wilson, and Herb Alpert.

At the time regarded as pure of saints and free of such creative taint, the Beatles remain so holy that no messing with the original script(ure) is allowed. MVFF documentary All Together Now — about the creation of Cirque du Soleil’s Vegas spectacular Love — fascinates mainly because it reveals what a ginormous ass-pain dealing with today’s legal guardians of Beatledom can be. As we see, the combined weight of fan fanaticism, $180 million in production costs, and "protective" input from widows Lennon and Harrison (George Harrison’s friendship with Cirque founder Guy Laliberte having inseminated Love) nearly crushes this project’s tortuous incubation. By contrast, a jovial Paul McCartney and dead-cool Ringo Starr blithely approve all messing with a catalog they deem solid and nostalgic, but hardly sacred.

Speaking of legends, Bill Graham is back and funny as hell in Last Days of the Fillmore, a once-ubiquitous (at weed-choked midnight and campus shows), long-inaccessible 1972 documentary newly restored for imminent DVD release. When this concert flick about the Fillmore West’s (temporary) closing came out, audiences lined up for the groovers, not the backstage shmoozers. Yet Graham’s fed-up phone rants now seem more engaging than the bloated blooze-rawk of Cold Blood, Hot Tuna, Elvin Bishop, and even Santana or the Grateful Dead.

Other movies likely to make you thrust your Bic high in triumph include Mika Kaurismaki’s Sonic Mirror (2007), a film about world-beat percussionist Billy Cobham. Annual vintage-clip presenter John Goddard’s "Hi De Ho Show" promises rockin’ archival moments from Tom Jones, Janis Joplin, and Bette Davis.

Having near-nuffin’ to do with rock is Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla, his best movie since … ever? (‘Cuz the others were crap.) This one mercifully doesn’t involve his overbearing wife, hazy "philosophy," or the genre recyclage that made 1998’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and 2000’s Snatch smartie ADD quasi-classics. And Rene Villarreal’s Mexican Cumbia Connection is a sexy class-crossing triangle that almost entirely eschews dialogue, driven instead by the sinuous beats of cumbia music.

MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL

Oct 2–12, various Marin County venues

See film listings for ticket information and schedule

1-877-874-MVFF

www.mvff.com

All American Rejects

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In a world populated entirely by curfewless teenagers, where seemingly nobody is checking IDs at the door, the amount of high-pitched drama that can go down on a Friday night between dusk and dawn is virtually limitless. At least an entire teen-movie subgenre has been constructed upon this premise, and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is the latest entry to put its sturdiness to the test.

Somewhat reprising his role in Juno (2007), Michael Cera plays Nick, a soft-hearted indie boy who’s the bassist in a queercore band with his two best friends (Aaron Yoo and Rafi Gavron). Nick (straight) is in mourning over his six-month relationship with a vapid über-bitch named Tris (Alexis Dziena), who happens to be school frenemies with Norah (Kat Dennings), who happens to have made a habit of rescuing Nick’s lovelorn mix CDs from the succession of trashcans into which Tris has callously tossed them.

We know that Tris is all wrong for this emo boy — her hair salon highlights alone scream, "I would never have gone out with this guy in the first place, so why did you cast me in this role?" Regardless, the film further underscores her unsuitability by painting her as an outsider to the world of true indie rock fandom, a poseur who doesn’t appreciate a good breakup mix and, worse, fumbles the name of the coolest underground band in town.

Said band, Where’s Fluffy, famed for its secret shows, is the engine that drives our awkward hero and heroine and their cohorts out into the night, and the film is basically a tour of young indie rock New York City, with pit stops all over lower Manhattan and Brooklyn and a cameo by freak folker Devendra Banhart. But all the madcap piling in and out of cars and motoring around in search of Fluffy begins to look like work, and so, at times, does Nick and Norah’s inch-by-inch romantic progression. A soundtrack packed with signifiers like Vampire Weekend and Band of Horses might not be enough to keep us in the mood, leaving us wishing they would find Fluffy already and let us go home. (Lynn Rapoport)

NICK AND NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST

Opens Fri/3 in Bay Area theaters.

No Seth Rogen

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REVIEW Two young family-hungry couples, one unassuming victim of the staff Christmas party, and a lonely alky wife and mom-bonking boy-next-door all find themselves variously knocked up, around, and for a loop by the reproductive process in Imaginative Productions’ stage adaptation of its 2006 independent film, "conceived" and directed by Tonya Foster. And reproduction really is a process containing as much social baggage as genetic code in these predicaments which, while ranging from the urban banal to the tragically suburban, are all pretty much as thematically familiar as familial.

Unfortunately, the relatively slim potential in this otherwise pregnant theme is rarely pursued with much vigor or insight, as the multicharacter storyline meanders away from its subjects in seeming perplexity as to what to do with them. Further muting things is a muffled soundscape that sounds like unintended lobby noise. The more workable areas of drama and comedy, meanwhile, suffer from uneven performances and static direction — although, ironically, a visit by single preggy waitress Anna (a relatively strong and sympathetic Quinne Brown) to an actors workshop-cum-support group — led by a deeply histrionic drama instructor (a vibrant Erin Coker) — arrives as one of the more unexpected and apt scenes.

KNOCKED UP Through Oct. 18. Thurs.–Sat., 8 p.m., $23–$25. Studio 300 Theatre, 442 Post, SF. 1-888-410-8355, www.imaginativeproductions.com

Electric gospel

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PREVIEW As I find myself in another part of the world, I ask myself, "How did I get here?" Then I realize everything’s same as it ever was, and that I need to get this piece in at some sort of reasonable hour.

But seriously, Talking Heads’ "Once in a Lifetime" was synthesizer rock glory. On NPR’s "All Things Considered," the band recalled becoming "human samplers" while making "Once in a Lifetime," back when hip-hop was in its genesis and sampling wasn’t even a method. Rather than write their songs first and play later, singer-songwriter David Byrne, composer-producer Brian Eno, and the band would improvise, manually repeat the layers they liked, then stack those layers on top of each other until they got the finished result.

Byrne and Eno would repeat this approach on their own collaboration in 1981, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (Nonesuch). Percussion-heavy and Afrobeat-oriented, Ghosts provided a vivid look into combinations of international rhythms and sampled vocals, inspiring producers like Hank Shocklee of Public Enemy and Moby.

The pair reconnected during the 25th anniversary rerelease of Ghosts, and surmised that the world could handle another collaborative effort; Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (Todo Mundo, 2008) is the result.

Even "as the days go by," Byrne and Eno demonstrate that their musical bond resonates, even if they are sending their snippets and works-in-progress via e-mail. For the most part, Eno opts for straightforward rock riffs with some traditional folk chord structures and a trademark smattering of electronic, atmospheric effects. Byrne follows Eno through these uplifting melodies and, in typical fashion, lends vocal harmony, depth, and variation, raising the cadence, complementing and augmenting Eno’s production. If this is "electronic gospel," as both proclaim, here’s to preaching to the choir.

DAVID BYRNE Mon/6, 8 p.m., $59.50–$89.50. Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF. (415) 621-6600, www.davidbyrne.com

David Banner

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PREVIEW There has never been a more fitting musical stage name than the one chosen by Lavell Crump. Crump’s pseudonym of choice, David Banner, perfectly sums up his style and his struggle: he, like the protagonist of The Incredible Hulk, is a man of stark contrasts.

The MC and musician is unafraid to voice his progressive social beliefs, and is a dedicated humanitarian who raised more than $500,000 for Hurricane Katrina relief in Louisiana and his home state of Mississippi. He weaves engrossing tales about the struggle and strife that surrounded him growing up in a destitute section of a racially divided Jackson. All his albums contain touching tales of Americans fighting to survive in one of the most maligned and ignored areas in the country. On his latest, The Greatest Story Ever Told (Universal), Banner respectfully acknowledges his state’s blessings and problems on the swirling salute to the past, "Cadillac on 22’s Part II": "Mississippi is the place where your boy came from / But so many people are still afraid to come / But, I’m gon’ tell the truth / It’s just real good food / And real strong people / Who still refuse to move."

Of course, like the fictional scientist Dr. David Banner, the performer has an alter ego. Though all Banner’s recordings include sobering, powerful tracks, they all also contain formulaic "booty jams" like his biggest hit — and possibly worst song — 2005’s "Play." They tend to come off as scurrilous and awkward instead of titilutf8g. Myopic critics often focus on these missteps, and Banner gets the unfair reputation of being another derivative, chauvinistic rapper. Story is a perfect example of the duality that both gives Banner life and holds him back. The disc’s versatility keeps it interesting, as he coolly shifts from pensive, engrossing numbers ("Hold On") to real heaters that showcase the rapper’s signature flow ("So Long"). But he falls into the same pitfalls of his earlier albums with the sleazy "A Girl." Expect all sides of Banner to be in full force when he performs live, backed by the Rhythm Roots All-Stars.

DAVID BANNER With Talib Kweli and Little Brother. Thurs/2, 7 p.m., $32. The Grand Ballroom at the Regency Center, 1300 Van Ness, SF. (415) 673-5716, www.goldenvoice.com

Wipin’ up the competition

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REVIEW Little man fights big business — you’ve seen this story before. But that doesn’t mean it’s not effective when done right. There may be a formula to Flash of Genius, but in this case it works. Greg Kinnear stars as real-life inventor Bob Kearns, who developed electronic intermittent windshield wipers. (You’re probably not all that impressed, but just try driving through a storm without them.) After Ford Motor Company steals and markets his idea, Kearns spends the next 12 years fighting for recognition. That long trudge through bureaucracy is portrayed as brave, yes, but also endlessly frustrating. In fact, the success of Flash of Genius relies on its ability to inflict some ambiguity on a cliché-ridden genre. Even lawyers who say things like "I believe in what I do; I believe in a little thing called justice," get fed up with Kearns’ unflinching idealism. He may be the Mr. Smith of car parts, but he’s also a stubborn pain in the ass. His wife moves on, his kids grow resentful, and the "Is it all worth it?" question lingers throughout. It’s no wonder the film ends not with life-affirming sunlight but a torrential downpour: for an underdog story, it’s kind of depressing.

FLASH OF GENIUS opens Fri/3 in Bay Area theaters.

Vacancy and claustrophobia

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REVIEW Matthias Hoch’s disconcerting skill as a photographer is connected to a pair of paradoxes. His close-ups of the byproducts of "moderne" European cities and suburbs, from geometric ceilings to business parks, feel like panoramas. In his wider shots — of large concrete grids, or one otherwise "perfect" building’s sad slant — claustrophobia and a sense of vacancy commingle. The German artist’s new work on display at Rena Bransten Gallery focuses on Almere and Rotterdam, cities in the Netherlands that don’t have the touristy resonance of Amsterdam or the Hague.

I wonder what Carl Jung would have said about modernity’s strange architectural sprawl. Are we growing a new set of archetypes? Hoch’s latest photographs provide one answer: a sense that nothing has changed. Rotterdam #20 and #24 (both 2007) are like an overmanicured zen garden in a bad dream. The bent green lighting in Almere #11 (2007) recalls the tarot suit of Swords, representative of overthinking. If you stare long enough, the fluttering white shape on what looks like fake grass in Rotterdam #26 (2007) becomes the foot of a Buddhist statue, about to lift.

Almere #1, Almere #2 brings together two engrossing short videos. In the second, the thick black pipes of a parking structure are as lively as the worm-things in 1990’s Tremors. In the first, the shifting textures of light in reflective/refractive glass become a wide-sweeping eternal dawn. Like Hoch’s photographs, these videos are ultimately pictures of good-byes. When I left the show, I could hear one of my personal favorites — Lou Reed and John Cale’s melancholic adios to Andy Warhol, "Hello, It’s Me" — in my head. I couldn’t help thinking that Hoch’s timely pictures would have looked great in even bigger prints on the walls of the once silver, now defunct Factory.

MATTHIAS HOCH: NEW WORK Through Oct. 11. Tues.–Fri., 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.; Sat., 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Rena Bransten Gallery, 77 Geary St, SF. (415) 982-3292, www.renabranstengallery.com

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