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Bunny ballin’

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Nobunny loves you — that much is clear by the end of the first track on his debut, Love Visions. But where did the masked maven of caffeinated garage-punk come from? I met with the leather-jacketed, now Bay Area-based "half-rabbit, half-jackalope, half-human" at an Oakland bar, angling for two rabbit-earfuls of explanation. It’s hard not to be curious: the aforementioned Visions, released last year by 1-2-3-4 Go! and Bubbledumb, motorbiked outta left field to become 2008’s most delightful lo-fi slab of clambake party jams. Even heavy-hitter Jay Reatard recently designated it as his new favorite record "to jump around in [his] underwear and eat pizza in bed to!"

Eight years ago, Nobunny was conceived as "The No-Money Bunny" near the mountains west of Tucson, where, after having cleaned up a hard drug habit, the soon-to-be bunny-eared dude thought he ought to become "a rabbit Elvis impersonator … no joke!" He followed a peculiar familial precedent for masked musicianship — mom with the Moos Brothers and the Blues Chickens, dad donned punk garb in the Blues Burgers, and Nobunny himself prefers to remain anonymous — and busked on Tucson’s avenues before his first paid gig: an April 2001 show at Chicago’s Fireside Bowl on Easter Sunday. As it turned out, it was also the day Joey Ramone died — a strangely appropriate DOB for a project that would pick up the Ramones’ pink punk shoelaces and tie them to what Nobunny calls a "no boundaries, all id" ‘tude.

After early gigs opening for Blowfly and the Black Lips ("There was no competition for the cool slots in Tucson," Nobunny says), the live performance bug has since had him by his oft-visible balls. "Anything from a tape deck to a nine-piece band" backs him up as he cranks out tunes with a rousing, familiar-feeling bubblegum jubilance. He admittedly enjoys "Frankenstein-ing" together fragments of songs he loves, but make no mistake: such sugary album cuts as "I Am a Girlfriend" and "Church Mouse" are the keyboard-drum grind of Nobunny and nobody else!

Since the LP’s release, he has put out a 7-inch single, "Give It to Me"/"Motorhead With Me" (HoZac, 2008), and when we spoke he alluded to several new releases on the way, including an new album. "Not a single review of the other album could apply to the next one," which he said will be "all acoustic," powered by handclaps, beer bottles, and stomped-on phone books. For a good time, look up Nobunny’s line — it’s probably scrawled on a bathroom wall somewhere.

NOBUNNY

With Thee Makeout Party

Feb. 4, 8 p.m., $5

Knockout

3223 Mission, SF

www.theknockoutsf.com


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Snap!

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Who says dumb can’t be a whole lotta fun? "One of our friends called us ‘bubblegum for skinheads,’" says Carlos Bermudez of his band Photobooth. "I don’t go for the Oi! thing myself. But I guess it is bonehead bubblegum."

Ah, but what boneheady pop bliss — bouncing along in its own happy three-minute/three-chord oblivion, whether live and thriving at last year’s Budget Rock fest or documented for garage posterity à la "Pretty Baby." Studded with "ba-ba-ba-bas" and propelled by an inexorable Troggs-y drone, the track will come out in a month or two as a 7-inch on Raw Deluxe.

Another tuneful case in point: "Da Me Tus Besos," recently released as a single by Daggerman — a number Bermudez, 25, describes as a "cheesy Spanish glitter rip-off."

"My Spanish is really, really bad," confesses the guitarist-vocalist. "I was trying to get my mom to work out the Spanish, which is embarrassing in itself, because I feel like I should know it by now." Yet simultaneous grammatical and lyrical perfection was not to be. "I had to make it grammatically atrocious to make the syllables fit," Bermudez adds.

No need to belabor it. Instead, how about a blurry B&W shot at Photobooth’s origins? Bermudez’s last group, the Mothballs — the de facto house band at West Oakland’s Cereal Factory, the site of many a fun summer barbecue show — had split, and his pal Jason Patrone, ex-vocalist for FM Knives, had just moved to the Bay Area from Sacramento. "We were bored because we didn’t have anything going on at the time," Bermudez recalls, and so one night in late 2007 the two drunkenly conceived a project named after a song by the Fevers.

Housemate Matthew Melton was pulled into the group before veering off to concentrate on his other combos, the Bare Wires and Snakeflower 2, which Bermudez also plays with. Now with Robbie Simon on drums and Tim Hellman on bass, songwriters Bermudez and Patrone figure an album is their next step — though god forbid Photobooth grows too solemn or careerist.

"It’s really boring when people take themselves so seriously," says Bermudez matter-of-factly. "The cool thing about garage rock is that it’s not really self-conscious about ripping off other people. It makes it more of a party thing than a cool thing."

PHOTOBOOTH

With Buzzer and Die RotzZz

Sat/31, 8 p.m., call for price

Knockout

3223 Mission, SF

www.theknockoutsf.com


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Rage onstage

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kimberly@sfbg.com

Yep, you too are essential to the band, especially your super-sweet triangle solos. But roughly speaking, garage rock — be it in, out, or lurking merrily on the fringes — often comes down to one visionary or prime mover, though in the tight local music scene, one never rules out the cosmic convergence of several git-‘er-done leader types.

GREG ASHLEY — THE GRIS GRIS, THE MIRRORS, SIR LORD VON RAVEN


The Gris Gris may be dormant, but the life this producer, solo artist, and guy-with-seemingly-a-jillion-bands-up-his-sleeve pulls out of his organ and guitar with Oakland’s psychy-garage Sir Lord Von Raven makes us sit up, rub our eyes, and wiggle our bee-hinds a little harder as we fetch ourselves another PBR.

www.myspace.com/sirlordvonraven

DREW CRAMER — THE MANTLES, PERSONAL AND THE PIZZAS


"I Can Read" — an excellent reminder. Personal and the Pizzas is not only the funniest joke band — and Dictators jab/mash note — in town, but Mantles dude Drew Cramer can’t stop writing catchy songs, even in the service of a Bowser-riffic group that began as an idea for a TV show. "We were going to do a sitcom — The Young Ones–style," Cramer told me this fall. "It just turned into a band. The idea is we sit around all day eating pizzas, listening to the Stooges, and drinking beer." Makes you wonder about the next warp in the more ethereal weave of the Mantles.

ANDY JORDAN — THE CUTS, THE TIME FLYS, BUZZER


The Cuts appeared to go out with a bang following From Here on Out (Birdman, 2006) and the Time Flys seemed to have flown, but don’t lose hope for this manic son of a record-store man: Buzzer takes its cues from the wild-child kicks of ’70s glitter punk and messes with hole-in-the-head stranger dangers à la "Trepanation Blues."

Buzzer with Photobooth and Die RotzZz. Sat/31, 8 p.m., call for price. Knockout, 3223 Mission, SF. www.myspace.com/buzzeroakland

TINA LUCCHESI — THE BOBBYTEENS, THE BACI GALOOPIS, TOP 10


The lady keeps the up-dos swinging at Down at Lulu’s, but she also finds plenty of time to pour a lotta love into the rock scene. Top 10 makes us wanna mix cornrows in our pop charts.

MATTHEW MELTON — SNAKEFLOWER 2, PHOTOBOOTH, BARE WIRES


Photobooth is now in the mustachioed, Oakland-by-way-of-Memphis rock ‘n’ roll maven’s past, Snakeflower 2 is still simmering, and Bare Wires — the Jay Reatard photog’s old band with his River City Tanlines cohort Alicia Trout — has risen once more, peopled by Paul Keelan and ex–Time Flys member Erin Emslie. Looking forward to BW’s Artificial Clouds LP (Tic Tac Totally).

Bare Wires with Static Static and Fun Blood. Feb. 5, 9 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.myspace.com/thebarewires

RUSSELL QUAN — THE MUMMIES, THE DUKES OF HAMBURG, THE BOBBYTEENS, THE COUNT BACKWARDS, THE PHANTOM SURFERS, THE FLAKES, THE MERSEY WIFE BEATERS


He’s the OG of garage rock in the Bay, a madman on drums — and the dude can also whip out a mean rock ‘n’ roll DJ set. Does he get extra points because he’s a genuine garage rocker? Auto repair is his forte when he isn’t bashing out beats and generating positive vibes.

TY SEGALL — TRADITIONAL FOOLS, THE PERVERTS


The one-man rock-out machine fronts the Traditional Fools, temped in the Mothballs, and recently saw his super-energized self-titled solo debut come out on John Dwyer’s Castle Face label.

Feb. 6, 5 p.m., $5. University of San Francisco campus, SF. www.myspace.com/tysegall

SUPERCHARGED: MORE BANDS

MAYYORS


Everyone loves a mystery: the Sacto band has almost zero Web presence. Also no interviews and nada on promos. According to their kinda-sorta rep, Mark of the mount saint mountain (mt.st.mtn.) label, both of Mayyors’ mt.st.mtn. singles, Marines Dot Com and Megans LOLZ, were sold out in days and re-presses for show sales evaporated just as quickly. Tough, love. Yet somehow the chatter — the old-school mouth-to-mouth variety — is on, thanks to the blitzkrieg force of tunes like "Airplanes," bruising ultra-lo-fi Brainbombs allusions, and memorable performances like their set at 2008’s Budget Rock. About as garage rock as the Coachwhips or the Hospitals, Mayyors sports FM Knives’ Chris Woodhouse on guitar and Sexy Prison’s John Pritchard on the mic. Oh, and me likee the outfit’s soundtrack to Jay Howell’s The Forest City Rockers Motorcycle Club animation.

THE OKMONIKS


The Tucson, Ariz., terrors have a way of bending an organ to their will — and word has it they’re moving to the Bay Area. www.okmoniks.com

THE PETS


I’m in love — with the boy-gang vocals, delivered with the proper nasality and snot levels, on the Oakland band’s latest LP, Misdirection (Static Impulse). Midwestern proto-punk in the Dead Boys mode and bad-boy fast-loud-hard à la the Saints, with a dab of MC5 to do ya. With Buzzer and Bare Wires. Feb. 21, 9:30 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, SF. www.myspace.com/thepetsoakland

SIC ALPS


The SF duo always had the pop chops and ideas but somehow they just keep getting better. Garage rock gone noisy and classic rock-y at the same time. www.sicalps.com

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Revved up on garage rock

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Grease monkeys gotta scratch their coconuts and wonder: why have the words garage rock become so dirty? Especially when a garage-rock explosion of sorts seems to be going off all around us.

Few want to be tagged as such — though their affection for three chords; adoration of the square-one pleasures of guitar, bass, and drums; and love of a classic pop hook are out there for all to see. Does retro spell lame-o in a year beset with cultural, economic, and political change?

Not if you recall the last late-’90s/early-’00s garage rock resurgence, which arrived on the heels of a boom in tech-sector/dot-com creativity and coincided with a burgeoning home-recording underground — a rough, eerie corollary of the ’60s-era moment when British Invasion bands sparked a zillion garage-rock combos. No coincidence, I believe, that as digital home recording and online musical dissemination made it possible for every guy’s and girl’s band to reach a wide audience, so too did a world open up for vinyl and analog lovers of the most hidden and once-unheard-of musical niches, who were suddenly able to find newbie listeners.

So perhaps change, of the most DIY variety, is the very reason why so many bands in the Bay Area — and out past our waters where Wavves, Vivian Girls, and Jay Reatard ripple — are tapping into the garage-rock vein that oldsters like Legendary Stardust Cowboy (who bunks down in the South Bay) would recognize as similar to their own. Do you have an affinity for the early blues-based rock ‘n’ roll that can be traced from Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins to the Rolling Stones and the Kinks to their alternately upbeat and haunted progeny the Troggs, the Seeds, the 13th Floor Elevators, and San Jose’s Chocolate Watchband, then onto ’80s revivalists like the Lyres, the Scientists, the Cynics, and the Fuzztones, and further on to late-’90s wavers like the White Stripes, the Dirtbombs, the Detroit Cobras, and the Von Bondies?

Noisy, psychy, punky, gay, straight, sweet or grating — however you twist it, the current nu–garage rock explosion in the Bay is nowhere near as easy to tag, bag, and classify. How do you reconcile the ear-burning blast of Mayyors with the sweetly contrarian kicks of the Nodzzz’s "I Don’t Wanna (Smoke Marijuana)"? The latter’s parentheses are crucial here because theirs is a cry against easy conformity, really, rather than drugs ("I don’t wanna smoke marijuana… I just wanna get high / On another drug!"). Subverting the white-straight-boy paradigm also seems to be part of the plan for outfits like Hunx and His Punx, and the LaTeenOs.

Eric Friedl — owner of esteemed Memphis garage rock label-shop Goner Records and ex-member of the Oblivions — has noticed the rock ‘n’ roll energy surge coming off of SF: Sic Alps and the Oh Sees played 2008’s Gonerfest, and Goner releases by Ty Segall and Nobunny are on the horizon. "For whatever reason we like the bands coming out of there," Friedl says of the Bay. "In the ’90s there seemed like a lot was going on, and then it kind of died out, but yeah, I think it goes in cycles. People got tired of the garage-rock bands in the late ’90s, and it took ’em another five or six years to get back to straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll."

Geoffrey Ellis, who puts out the zine Sadkids and documented Bay Area bands’ excursions out to Gonerfest, agrees. "It seems like in the last few years [garage rock] has hit its stride where it hadn’t existed for a while and was pretty relegated to undergroundish types of scenes," says the graphic designer whose garage rock images will be exhibited as part of "Rock Show," a group photo exhibit. "But now it’s just taken off everywhere."

Still, for all the new activity and faces, one of the pleasures of garage rock remains the breaking out of musty ole vinyl and listening to the San Jose–born Count Five’s "Psychotic Reaction," the Standell’s "Try It," and the Human Beinz’s "Nobody But Me" — and wondering where my Music Machine LP is. The last so-called garage-rock revival gave you the impression that the bands weren’t so much listening to the, er, originals as much as each other — many of those groups’ general raw sound seemed to be the main reason why they were dubbed garage rock, apart from some true believers and record collectors in Detroit. Garage rock was a somewhat commercial brand last time around. But this current surge seems content to ride tides far from marketable shores, melding garage rock’s ruff ‘n’ tough joys with surf riffs, hardcore aggression, proto-metal heavitude, or psychedelic exploration.

These bands seem closer to the scenario that Don Waller wittily sketched out in the liner notes to a Nuggets ’80s reissue: "The typical punkadelic band came from some suburban Anywheresville and consisted of one kid who’d grown up copying Chet Atkins licks on his uncle’s hollow-body, another who’d had 10 years of classical piano lessons, a hyperactive woodshop dropout on drums, a lead singer with a range of three and a half notes, and a bass player brought in for his ability to attract girls."

The garage may be gone, if altogether nonexistent, for many in the densely populated Bay Area. But considering that even the purportedly first garage-rock combo, Tacoma, Wash.’s fresh-faced Wailers (who made a big impression on the Kingsmen with their own "Louie Louie"), wryly made a big deal of recording in a "proper environment … namely a recording studio," in the liner notes of Out of Our Tree (Etiquette, 1966), the hands-on wherewithal of today’s bands isn’t so far from that of yesteryear’s ensembles.

"Pushin’ Too Hard"? For a while there "everyone was too self-conscious," opines Carlos Bermudez of Photobooth and Snakeflower 2, "but now there are a lot of bands that are doing well and playing sloppy again — all the garage stuff that people seemed to have grown out of. Schlocky fun party music is starting to happen again."

ROCK SHOW

Through April 7; reception Sun/1, 6 p.m.

Rite Spot Café

2099 Folsom, SF

www.ritespotcafe.net

NOISE ALLOYS

MAN/MIRACLE AND EAGLE AND TALON


The former plunges fists-first into ’00s-y sing-along fun and an ’80s synth-sensitivity vibe; the latter duo into grrrly lo-fi. With Railcars. Thurs/29, 9 p.m., $5. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

MATT AND KIM


Where’s the dance party? It’s wherever the pair’s primal pop is hopping. Their new Grand (Fader) sneaks up on you with its larger-than-life lowdown. With Hawnay Troof. Mon/2, 8 p.m., $10. Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.cafedunord.com


>>MORE GARAGE ROCK ’09

Punch drunkle

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› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Hola, age of change. My 2K9 nightlife motto: less musing, more cruising — just watch out for the bruising, child. A few blurry dawns ago, out of nowhere, I got bopped full-on in the kisser by some drunk fool outside the club. Tragedy struck.

Luckily, my impeccable cheekbones are fashioned from silky Teflon and my major Ukrainian modeling contract survived intact. But it was a good reminder, a "slap in the face," if you will — and you will: always be aware of your surroundings and don’t drink yourself too unfunctional. Hear me alike, dear macho bar queens, PBR fixie pixies, Bebe-clad bachelorettes, darling dragzillas, electro-spandex starlets, popped-collar wannabros, and pretend hip-hop producers. Let’s be careful out there. For more tips on surviving your midnights out, San Francisco’s guardian angels of the dark, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, are, as usual, eager to provide at their Web site under “features.” Now, let’s get it on.

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THE ID LIST

TINGEL TANGEL


This glorious cabaret monthly brings a touch of Weimar Berlin to San Francisco by way of NYC nightlife impresario Earl Dax. This time around, wacky Seattlean hostess Dina Martina wilkommens tunesmith Spencer Day, space-gother Kiddie, harpist Deirdre Egan, and more, ol’ chum. Wed/28, 9:30 p.m., $16. Café Du Nord, 2174 Market, SF. www.tingeltangelclub.com, www.cafedunord.com

SPECIAL DISCO VERSION


Part of LCD Soundsystem never dies? Not if the indie dance juggernaut’s members stay true to their retro-underground roots. LCD drummer Pat Mahoney keeps it fresh by pumping up the past as he DJs the West Coast debut of this roving club classic. Cheekbone bonus: a special Hercules and Love Affair DJ set. Thurs/29, 9 p.m., $10-$15. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC SHOWCASE


Don’t let the serious name put you off — that UK queen of intel freak-uencies, BBC Radio’s Mary Ann Hobbs, is flying in to curate a dance explosion of razor-sharp local talent, including Ghosts on Tape, Lazer Sword, Kid Kameleon, Disco Shawn, Shane King, and more. Now, if only the BBC would archive her streaming weekly broadcasts for more than a month. Thurs/29, 9:30 p.m., $5. 103 Harriet, SF. www.1015.com

HOTTUB


The electro-rap trio of trouble destroyed the Guardian‘s Best of the Bay 2008 party and sent Jello Biafra to the hospital. Now they’re inaugurating a new monthly by two solid party producers, Popscene vs. Loaded, at the Rickshaw — and celebrating their latest record release. Watch out for blood puddles. Fri/30, 10 p.m., $10. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. www.rickshawstop.com

AMON TOBIN


Proto-dubstepper? Future-glitch engineer? Global grooves genius? Let’s just say all three, then drool all over this singular Brazilian legend’s laptop. Stunned noggin-nodders at last year Treasure Island fest know he’s made a seamless live transition from vinyl to electronics — and teases serious dance breaks from the wizardly ambience. Fri/30 and Sat/31, 9 p.m., $23. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.independentsf.com, www.hacksawent.com

SUPPERVISION


Burning Man meets alternaqueer for a multimedia pajama party, with trippy visuals and outré drag performances. Wait! Don’t stop reading! Video artist III is truly talented, and his projections, combined with edgy queen antics, add up to more than the sum of my whole first sentence. Honey Soundsystem brings the noise. And, yes, wear pajamas. Sat/31, 9 p.m., $12 in pajamas, $20 without. Supperclub, 657 Harrison, SF. www.supperclub.com

HERR-A-CHICK


Too many puns to count in the name, too many too-hot queer rock bigwigs involved to miss this new live showcase and dragstravaganza monthly at DNA. Charlie Horse’s Anna Conda teams up with the Trans Am boys and Revolver’s Lucy Borden for alterna-excess, with the Ex-Boyfriends and Ethel Merman Experience all plugged in. Feb. 4, 10 p.m., $5. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. www.dnalounge.com

JUICY LUCY


Swank Brazilian resto Bossa Nova, in the old CoCo Club space, just opened its lusciously remodeled basement up for late-night affairs — and is going big from the get-go with this kaleidoscopic affair. Detroit techno slayer Mike "Agent X" Clark headlines, with soulful spinner David Harness, funky househed Greg Eversoul, and live jazziness from Lovelight Liberation. Feb. 6, 9 p.m., $10. Bossa Nova, 139 Eighth St., SF. (415) 558-8004.

2562 AND THE GASLAMP KILLER


Those ambassadors of dread bass, Surya Dub, are bashing for their monthly club’s second anniversary, with Dutch dubstep (Dutchstep?) heavyweight 2562, who couches his rumble in deep techno soundscapes. Also reverbin’: Los Angeles low-low lover the Gaslamp Killer, who can rip a slice of perilous psy-hop quite rightly. Local boy Lud Dub leads the congratulatory proceedings. Feb. 7, 9 p.m., $15. Club Six, 60 Sixth St., SF. www.clubsix1.com

Lindstrom

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PREVIEW The epic dance track has had somewhat of a revival over the last few years, whether through the hipster strut of LCD Soundsystem’s "45:33" (DFA, 2007), or the obliquely historical morphing minimalism of Ricardo Villalobos’ "Fizheuer Zieheuer" (Playhouse, 2006). It isn’t all that surprising to find Hans-Peter Lindstrøm joining this mini-movement since he brings the same sort of transcendent musical facility to space jams of the non-Bugs Bunny kind that Villalobos brings to techno. In fact, it seems natural: prog-inflected electronic music is built upon monoliths such as Ash Ra Tempel’s epic "E2-E4." On Where You Go I Go Too (Smalltown Supersound, 2007) — his first proper solo full-length recording after a half decade of 12-inch singles, compilations, and collaborations — Lindstrøm presents a three-track, almost hour-long suite. The most audacious gesture is the 29-minute opening title track, which rides a midnight express on through the whirligig motif of Cerrone’s "Supernature" and the bicyclist-breaths of Kraftwerk’s "Tour de France" before reaching — and extending — a climax.

Elsewhere on Where You Go I Go Too, Lindstrøm flirts with gauche Euro trance sounds ("Grand Ideas") as much he does the seemingly chic-again disco touches (sublime closer "The Long Way Home") often associated with his recorded output. Redefining and fusing genres rather than obeying them, he’s a leader, not a follower, though this particular change in direction has been a divisive one. While the electronic music guru of one Bay Area music store listed Lindstrøm’s solo debut as his favorite recording of last year, another local shop trashed it. Rumor has it that Hans-Peter has been back in the studio with his sometime partner-in-crime, Prins Thomas. For now, he’s visiting the Paradise Lounge, which owes some of its current liveliness to the disco revival his music has helped spark in San Francisco.

LINDSTRØM With Beat Broker, Conor, and TK Disco, and visuals by AC. Sat/31, 9 p.m.–4 a.m., $15. Paradise Lounge, 1501 Folsom, SF. (415) 252-5017, www.paradisesf.com

Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen and John McEuen

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PREVIEW Country-rock pioneer and original Byrds bassist Chris Hillman prepares to throw down some bluegrass with longtime friend, banjo player Herb Pedersen, at Yoshi’s SF this week.

As a founding member of the Byrds and later the Flying Burrito Brothers, Hillman was a staple of California’s fabled Laurel Canyon music scene during the late 1960s. Although the musician’s roots are steeped in bluegrass, it wasn’t until meeting his eventual Byrds bandmate Gram Parsons in 1968 that the group took on a significantly unique direction. The Byrds’ critically acclaimed Sweetheart of the Rodeo (Columbia, 1968) was a product of the outfit’s expansion into country even if it failed to chart. Hillman’s full-fledged emergence into the genre has inspired a spectrum of artists, including collaborators such as Emmylou Harris and fans like Beck. I don’t think the pedal steel sound heard on Beck’s "Rowboat" was even possible without the Burrito Brothers paving the way.

Throw into the mix multi-instrumentalist and Nitty Gritty Dirt Band veteran John McEuen, a.k.a. "America’s instrumental poet," and expect Pedersen, who played with Hillman in the Desert Rose Band and paid his dues picking five-string banjo with the likes of Jerry Garcia, to do just that: play some banjo. After all, this is bluegrass we’re talking about. Just remember, it’s all about the twang.

CHRIS HILLMAN AND HERB PEDERSEN AND JOHN MCEUEN Mon/2–Tues/3, 8 p.m., $30. Yoshi’s SF, 1330 Fillmore, SF. (415) 655-5600, www.yoshis.com

Fresh jam

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER The perfectly passive postmodern approach to pop nostalgia? Allow the milky waves of 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s retro navel-gazer rehash to simply wash over you — like so many warm, narcotic jets of synthetic baby formula. The opposite tact is the one that San Francisco trio Mi Ami takes: reject the rockist, retread trappings of the old and stale and make new and likely original sounds from a place of authenticity and openness. Breathe. Good. An excellent example might be Mi Ami’s recent spasm of songwriting after the completion of their debut, Watersports, out Feb. 17 on Quarterstick: the jams weren’t quite "up to snuff," as vocalist-guitarist Daniel Martin-McCormick puts it. But the essential flow was restored after drummer Damon Palermo spoke up in favor of letting the songs flow and allowing the changes to happen naturally rather than getting clogged with details.

"We started opening the songs up and started letting the changes happen naturally," explains the clear-eyed Martin-McCormick on this clear-skied, brilliant, balmy winter day in the Mission District. "I feel like when it works, it’s really great because it doesn’t seem like something locked in by something like repetitions of four. But at the same time, when it doesn’t work it can be kind of frustrating because it’s just like trying to have a conversation when you’re just not feeling it. It has to be like a lived experience. You can’t fake it."

You might not know it from glancing at the tall, lanky, check-shirted bandmates stalking down Alabama Street in search of coffee and nutrients at Atlas Cafe, but Martin-McCormick — a former member of Dischord punk outfit Black Eyes along with Mi Ami bassist Jacob Long — and the soft-spoken Palermo are pop philosophers of sorts: amiable, laid-back, yet ready to hold forth politely and passionately on their favorite disco singles and free jazz LPs, the multiple meanings one might glean from the title Watersports, or the role African funk guitar might play in, say, pulsing workouts like "The Man in Your House."

It’s easy to get lost in Martin-McCormick’s high-pitched, keening vocals, equal parts no wave nervousness and androgynous nerve; his bursts of scratched-out guitar skronk; Palermo’s primal-power beats; and Long’s reassuringly melodic bass lines. But Mi Ami never over-thinks its lengthy forays into that anxious and pleasure-strewn interzone between improv and noise, space-is-the-place dub and neverending party jams. Like groups such as !!! and the Rapture and locals à la Tussle and Jonas Reinhardt, which Palermo also drums for, Mi Ami sounds as if it was bred on hardcore’s aggression and reborn on a seething dance floor.

Martin-McCormick and Palermo met two years ago, after relocating from the East Coast and Vancouver respectively, while performing at an Adobe Book Shop art opening. The one thing they were sure of: they didn’t want to be a rock band. "Boring!" blurts Martin-McCormick.

"We are a rock band," says Palermo mildly in Atlas’ noisy back patio. "But you know what we’re talking about. There’s a lot of cool bands that are rock bands but a lot of it is a default setup, the structure of the songs and instrumentation."

"I think we came to be a guitar, bass, and drums trio very much on our terms," Martin-McCormick offers. "I didn’t want to play guitar when I started, but I realized that was what I’m best at and began to find ways to play it that suited what I was looking for." Their resistance to rock habit was helped by the fact that Palermo didn’t own a drum set: at first the duo had only two drums between them. They acquired bits as they progressed, while relying on a janky drum machine prone to crapping out at crucial moments — like their September 2007 opening date for No Age at Bottom of the Hill.

The turning point arrived when the twosome ditched the drum machine and put out a Craigslist ad for a bass player in ’07. "We got a few responses," says Martin-McCormick. "One was super confrontational. I wrote that we’re into disco, gamelan, and no wave — and no old people. We wanted someone who was kind of our age-ish. I just didn’t want an 48-year-old dude who was like, ‘I just need to jam!’ This guy wrote back and said, ‘How do you think gamelan musicians learn? They respect their elders, blah-blah-blah. You should go fuck off and die!’ Whoa!"

The second response: a hip-hop producer working with an "awful singer-songwriter." The third: Long, who happened to be roaming Craigslist during his day job.

"There was no going back after that," says Martin-McCormick. Listening to the forward-facing future-rock of Watersports, I’d say there’s little fear of that scenario. *

MI AMI

Fri/23, 10 p.m., $10

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

www.bottomofthehill.com

ROCK FOR LOVERS

THE ETTES


The primal beat band got theirs — where’s yours? Thurs/22, 8 p.m., $10. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. www.rickshawstop.com

E-ZEE TIGER


One-man massive energy generator Anthony Petrovic rouses himself from dormancy. With Wooden Shjips and Hank IV. Thurs/22, 9 p.m., $7. Eagle Tavern, 398 12th St., SF. www.sfeagle.com

WAVVES


Going big with bristly, lo-fi garage rock. Fri/23, 9 p.m., $16–$18. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. www.gamh.com

AZTECA


The sprawling fusion combo including Pete Escovedo and Sheila E. rocks for autism awareness. With War, El Chicano, and Los Cenzontles. Sat/24, 7:20 p.m., $45–$75. Warfield, 982 Market, SF. www.goldenvoice.com

THE PHENOMENAUTS


The selfless Oakland space-rockers dish out For All Mankind (Springman). Sat/24, 9 p.m., $13. Slim’s, 33 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com

JAY REATARD


He’s watching you watching him. With Nobunny and Bare Wires. Sun/25, 9 p.m., $15. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

It’s a hit

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

I’m glad I finally got my mitts on the self-issued CD-R from San Francisco titans High Castle: I feel like I’m back in ear-bleeding country with the trio’s Unwound-ishly, damaged style of noisy rock, nursing an insatiable appetite for more tinfoil-scorched guitar scuzz, blown-out low end, and full-tilt drum thwackage. As each song unloads, three howling voices punctuate the maelstrom. Try if you can to pass on this seven-song album after just one spin. If the punked-out oomph of "Soloman" and "No Mind" don’t bite you hard in the ass, then the annihiutf8g whomp of "Small Town Gay Bar" will certainly dish out the finishing touches.

As surprising as it may sound, this shower of pandemonium comes from three individuals who had their hearts set on becoming a pop group when they first convened in the summer of 2007. I yapped it up with the threesome over bowls of fideo and garlicky steak fries in drummer-vocalist Shaggy Denton’s SoMa apartment, while bassist-vocalist Wilson Drozdowski explained that High Castle aimed at becoming an actual band within the trio’s large circle of noise-making friends.

"We were like, ‘let’s start a rock band,’ because I felt I hadn’t seen a drum-bass-guitar band with songs in a long time," he disclosed. "It seemed like it was either improv or noise, so we wanted to do the opposite of that to see what would happen."

"We actually wanted it to be a pop band," said guitarist-vocalist Erin Allen with a laugh.

"None of us knew how to write pop music, so what ended up coming out was the closest we could get to doing that," Drozdowski continued. "Even when we try to write something that we think is poppy, it’s not poppy in the traditional sense. We always try and make the vocals very apparent by singing together."

"I guess that’s the one pop element that surfaces," Allen added. "But it’s not like the Mamas and the Papas."

Before HC, all three resided in Southern California, meeting through tours in bands such as Duchesses, Saviors, and Child Pornography. As Drozdowski, Denton, and Allen became jaded with the SoCal lifestyle, each separately trekked up to the Bay Area because, according to Denton, "the option was LA or here — and it was not going to be LA."

Reuniting in San Francisco with each member’s respective group in limbo, the three formed HC, but not before putting the collaboration on hold because of an unfortunate encounter between Allen and a car.

"We had to take a break because this one got hit by a car," Denton joked, pointing to Allen. "He was supposed to come over to my house and have some fideo and play PlayStation. I was worried because I kept getting the answering machine, and then somebody from General Hospital calls me and is like, ‘Um, do you know an Erin Allen? He told me to give you a message: he got hit by a car.’"

Aside from Allen’s slight dinger, the combo has been very active during the past year and a half, playing in just about every performance space dotting the Bay Area underground music scene with the likes of K.I.T., Stripmall Seizures, and Death Sentence: Panda! HC is currently in the mixing stages of its 12-inch debut for the Zum imprint, and after embarking on its first national tour last summer, the group hopes to hit the road once again this year. Whatever avenue this threesome decides to explore in the future — be it noisesome or poppy — I know I’ll be all ears.

HIGH CASTLE

With Stress Ape, Didimao, and the Dawns

Fri/23, 9 p.m., call for price

Kimo’s

1351 Polk, SF

(415) 885-4535

www.kimosbarsf.com

Wale watch

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

If you went to the 2008 Rock the Bells festival at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, then you probably missed Wale Folarin. Barely an hour into the 12-hour-plus event, he was on the main stage, rocking back and forth in a half-crouch, spitting rhymes from his viral hit "W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E." to an arena that was one-quarter full.

Wale may be a padwan among hip-hop’s big dogs, but many of the genre’s tastemakers and fans call him a rising star. Though he has yet to release an official album, Wale has already graced the covers of several magazines. His most recent mixtape, The Mixtape About Nothing, landed on major 2008 year-end lists, including Pitchfork’s. Earlier in the year, the Roots, who have a history of recruiting hot prospects, gave him a guest spot on Rising Down (Def Jam, 2008).

Before dropping out to pursue a musical career in 2004, the DMV (District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia) native bounced through three colleges on football scholarships. He has subsequently attacked the rap game like an offensive coordinator, eschewing offers from majors like Epic to sign a production contract with Mark Ronson’s Allido Records. In turn, Ronson negotiated a joint deal with Interscope to distribute Wale’s debut, tentatively scheduled for this year.

Everyone loves raw, unformed talent, and hip-hop fans are no exception. They love MCs who can freestyle for days, never mind that their stanzas flow with rhyme but with neither reason nor hooks. They venerate rappers who compile mixtapes chock full of half-ideas. Great American Songbook traditions like harmonic structure and verse-chorus forms are nonexistent or merely subtext to the rapper’s unyielding voice.

Wale’s Mixtape About Nothing is nominally built around samples from Seinfeld, punctuated by Jerry Seinfeld’s standup bits and Jason Alexander’s antics. But Wale, with his twangy Southeast accent, takes center stage. He mostly wanders around, offering flickers of insight amid heaps of undistinguishable lines. Then he "goes in," to use a hip-hop phrase that describes a moment of clarity.

On "The Kramer," he opens with a snippet from Michael Richards’ infamous 2006 standup routine at the Laugh Factory, when Richards’ shouted to a heckler in the audience, "He’s a nigger!" Wale uses it to launch a sprawling discourse on race. He begins by confessing, "And P said that I should stop saying nigga / But what’s the difference / I’d still be a nigga." But at the end, he declares, "Make sure everything you say / Can’t be held against you in any kind of way / And any connotation is viewed many ways / ‘Cause under ev’ry nigga there’s a little bit of Kramer / Self-hatred / I hate you / And myself."

Two years ago, Lil Wayne rocketed to superstardom on the basis of these kinds of rambling tone poems. Hundreds of his tracks fueled a cottage industry of Weezy mixtapes. As a result, everyone is flooding the Internet with rangy bedroom studio cuts, proclaiming their status as "the truth" to anyone who’ll listen. In 2008, Brooklyn MC Sha Stimuli issued 12 mixtapes in 12 months, basing one around the 2007 Jennifer Aniston comedy The Break Up. Charles Hamilton dropped eight mixtapes in two months. In most cases, all this sound and fury signifies nothing; worse, it makes it difficult for a talented artist such as Wale to stand out.

"Everybody’s doing blogs. Everybody’s doing freestyles. Everybody’s doing, like, way too much stuff on the Internet," Wale complains by phone. "It’s like, c’mon, we get it. It’s way overdone now." It’s the most provocative statement the 24-year-old makes during a brief interview. Otherwise, Wale keeps his answers amiable but bland. When I ask him about the dreaded "hipster rapper" tag, he claims not to know what I’m talking about. Even when I point out that XXL magazine asked him the same question for a cover story, he responds: "I’m not familiar with that term. Nobody’s said that about me."

Yet Wale is keenly aware of his atypical tastes. "I think it goes over a lot of people’s heads," he says. "By no means am I comparing myself with Leonardo da Vinci or nothing, but by no means do I understand the significance of the Mona Lisa. But there are millions of people who do, and appreciate that piece of work. So eventually you have to do stuff for the people who appreciate what you do." For the moment, his esoteric creative decisions seem to work, including his widely mimicked freestyles over rock hits like Lily Allen’s "Smile." As he says on his 100 Miles and Running mixtape, "Y’all believe me when I do it. Don’t sass me for doing it."

WALE

Jan. 31, 9 p.m., $15

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

www.mezzaninesf.com

Bringin’ on the heartache

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Twenty-year-old North London–born heartbreak crooner Adele Laurie Blue Adkins, or simply Adele to her fans, has had some big breaks amid her romantic woes. She appeared in 2007 on the BBC alongside Paul McCartney and Björk, and performed this past October on a Saturday Night Live episode that not only included Sarah Palin, Mark Wahlberg, Oliver Stone, and Tina Fey, but was seen by 17 million viewers.

Since then, her Burt Bacharach–styled symphonic pop hit "Chasing Pavements" has been ubiquitous, receiving constant airplay on local stations like Alice 97.3 FM. Her debut, 19 (XL/Columbia), is nominated for four Grammys, but Adele has had a tough time shaking comparisons to other British female neo-Motown vocalists such as Amy Winehouse, Duffy, and Lily Allen. "We’re a gender, not a genre," she quipped recently to London Guardian reporter Hannah Pool, revealing the same strong, honest qualities heard in her music. Adele’s songs revel in love’s bittersweet see-saw emotions ("Crazy for You," "Melt My Heart to Stone") while her equally elastic voice recalls Dusty Springfield and Jill Scott.

No telling if her luck will hold up, but with a new album for 2009, her formidable voice, and self-assured performances, Adele’s likely to outlast the trends.

ADELE

With James Morrison

Jan. 29, 8 p.m., $24

Warfield

982 Market, SF

www.goldenvoice.com

Straight outta the garage

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Garage rock’s latest souped up wave hits the Bay. We’re supercharged on Nodzz, Hunx and His Punx, Hank IV, Nobunny, and more ….

>>Revved up on garage rock
Grease monkeys gotta scratch their coconuts and wonder: a trip through the new explosion
By Kimberly Chun

>>Seeing starzzz
Nodzzz ditch the Pitchfork and ride a wave of praise
By Chris Sabbath

>>Gimme gimme
We’re putty for the slutty rock ‘n’ roll of Hunx and his Punx
By Brandon Bussolini

>>IV to the floor
Bastard bonus combo Hank IV let it rock
By Kimberly Chun

>>Bunny ballin’
Loving that loopy, lupine, leather-bound Nobunny sound
By Michael Harkin

>>Snap!
Photobooth pictures perfectly sloppy pop — plus some really bad Spanish
By Kimberly Chun

>>Rage onstage
A highly selective map to the Bay’s gnarliest garage rock
By Kimberly Chun

.

Calvin Johnson

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PREVIEW It’s not hard to see Calvin Johnson as the obverse of Henry Rollins in the protean world of ’80s underground rock. Johnson’s teddy-bear huggability, and the straightforwardness and purity of sentiment of a track like his old band Beat Happening’s "Honey Pot," has nothing to do with Black Flag’s macho angst. Rather than burying his emotional life under muscle, Johnson’s appeal came from an embarrassing vulnerability. While he’s better known for his historic role and his work as K Records’ head honcho than for his current endeavors, Johnson remains au courant: his most recent release, Calvin Johnson and the Sons of the Soil (K, 2007), finds him backed by the likes of Adam Forkner, a.k.a. Portland, Ore., drone chief White Rainbow.

At press time, San Francisco opening act Grass Widow tentatively canceled its performance due to multiple family emergencies, so this Club Sandwich event will likely be rounded out by screenings of Heart of Nowhere, a stream-of-consciousness documentary about life in Alabama, and Crisis in the Credit System, a 2008 film by Melanie Gilligan. If you’re missing the cold, these hits of sunshine might not be for you.

CALVIN JOHNSON With screening of Heart of Nowhere and Crisis in the Credit System. Mon/26, 8 p.m., $6. Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia, SF. (415) 824-3890, www.atasite.org, clubsandwichbayarea.com

Department of Eagles

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PREVIEW Considering that the Brooklyn band Department of Eagles’ much-praised, tres delectable nugget of fast-forward/throwback rock, In Ear Park (4AD), resides so firmly in those lazy, hazy, haunted memories of youth, there’s something exquisitely fitting about the fact that 26-year-old East Bay native Fred Nicolaus is bringing his collaboration Grizzly Bear member and ex–New York University roommate Daniel Rossen back to the Bay for its first show at a venue frequented as a ska-loving Oakland kid. "I remember seeing a weird swing band there — Lee Press-On and the Nails?" he recalls from snowy Pennsylvania.

The Nails don’t crop up on the album — the follow-up to the group’s 2003 debut, The Cold Nose (The Whitey on the Moon UK LP) initially released by Oakland’s Isota Records and reissued by American Dust — nor do the years between NYU and today that Nicolaus spent toiling in the nine-to-five trenches of publishing ("The first magazine I worked for was Industrial Equipment News — the most doomed experience of all time!"). Instead DOE plunges into a many-pleasured, multitextured wonderland teeming with groaning cello, swooping samples, clattering toy pianos, and blissfully ethereal vocals — and tender backward glances to neglected classical LPs, childhood retreats, and the more ecstatic musical ruminations of Van Dyke Parks. "It was about taking that idea of using weird, amazing arrangements and applying them to music that’s more poppy," Nicolaus says of the band, once dubbed Whitey on the Moon UK after the protestations of the SF combo also named for the Gil-Scott Heron track.

The twosome worked on In Ear Park for years "in the margins of Grizzly Bear’s recording and touring schedule," with Nicolaus dreaming up with the raw ideas for the songs and Rossen molding them into shape. "When you work on something for five years," Nicolaus explains humbly, "you can afford to throw away stuff that isn’t up to par." Now the pair is tackling their studio creations live, assisted by a full band that includes Grizzly Bear’s Chris Bear, on an outing that Nicolaus believes "might be our only tour, really," since Grizzly Bear is committed to completing a 2009 full-length. Still, Nicolaus is delighted to find that DOE’s tunes can work without their aural finery: "It’s reassuring that with these songs, if you took their clothes off they’d still be able to stand up."

DEPARTMENT OF EAGLES With Cave Singers. Sun/25, 7 and 10 p.m., $15. Café Du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016, www.cafedunord.com

Mo Biggie

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Wait for it, wait for it: the moment when Jamal Woolard as Notorious B.I.G., a.k.a. Biggie Smalls, a.k.a. Big Poppa, utters, with admirable understatement, "Mo money, mo problems." The woman he married three days after he met her, vocalist Faith Evans (a sad-eyed Antonique Smith), is pregnant but estranged; his spunky protégé Lil’ Kim (Naturi Naughton) is hopping mad that her lover-protector-mentor has dropped her and is instead bossing her in the studio; his original baby mama is miffed that his daughter gets zero Big Poppa time, and his ex-BFF Tupac Shakur (Anthony Mackie) thinks Biggie is out to get him, and the East Coast vs. West Coast beef is now fully fired up. ‘Nuff said.

"Mo Money Mo Problems" is the obvious alternate title for Notorious, which has the ring of a men’s cologne by Sean "I Am King" Combs, aka Puff Daddy, aka P. Diddy, aka Diddy, the film’s executive producer. It’s certainly more glammy — and feeds into the mythmaking that Combs has been so adept at when it comes to his Bad Boy artists — than Unbelievable: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of the Notorious B.I.G. (Three Rivers, 2004), the title of the book by Cheo Hodari Coker that this biopic is based on.

The drive-by shooters who killed the legendary rapper, born Christopher Wallace, at the far-too-young age of 24, remain cloaked in mystery, despite the attention given the MC’s murder in Randall Sullivan’s 2002 book, LAbyrinth (Grove/Atlantic) and Nick Broomfield’s ’02 doc Biggie and Tupac, and his death is still embroiled in knotty intrigue, having triggered multiple wrongful-death claims against the Los Angeles Police Department. But of course, history is written by the winners — and those happen to be Combs and Notorious‘ producers, Biggie’s mother Voletta Wallace and Biggie managers Wayne Barrow and Mark Pitts — and in the end, they prefer to skip the speculation and allegations of conspiracy surrounding the rapper’s unsolved murder and focus on the love.

So much like recent musicmaker biopics à la 2007’s Control, which privileged the perspective of Joy Division frontperson Ian Curtis’ wife over his bandmates’, there’s an element of noticeably selective memory-picking to Notorious — even as it tries to play fair with those outside the equation, such as Shakur and Lil’ Kim. The latter has slammed the movie, according to MTV: she believes it hews to the version of history as written by Biggie’s mother and wife and portrays her inaccurately.

Still, director George Tillman Jr. (Men of Honor, Barbershop) seems to have thrived on the tension between a mother who adored Biggie but disapproved of his criminal activities, and label heads and managers aware that the dope-dealing, dues-paying gangsta grind girding Notorious B.I.G.’s lyrics must be shown to authenticate the first-person experiential honesty the rapper was known for. Thus we get a multidimensional Biggie — the big-kid vulnerability he showed to his moms and his "Faith-Faith," as well as the tough, rock-slinging-to-pregnant-crackheads, money-making front. Plenty of respect is also given to the MC’s art, which this rags-to-riches/gats-to-bitches tale (with much due given to a kind of golden-age of hip-hop label patronage in the form of Puffy [Derek Luke] and Biggie’s friendship) reverently visualizes on the street, in the basement, in the studio, and on the arena stage.

Putting his interest in street-level soul, characters less than well-represented in mainstream Hollywood, and his touch with rappers to work, Tillman subtly injects more cinematic interest into his already-dramatic material than it might have had on the page. Biggie’s childhood is washed with glowy, golden hues, while his time dealing on the street is leached of hues and clad in corroded grays, blacks, whites, and browns, until the MC battles another rapper on the sidewalk and color begins to enter the picture.

And unlike 2008’s Cadillac Records, which bought into the overt displays of bling that talent can bring, Tillman and company give adequate shrift to the musicmaking that built Biggie’s renown: the mic is shot as if it’s a grail, swathed in a silvery aura. The symbols of power — such as the Big Daddy Kane–like throne Biggie mounts — speak louder than his kicks, cribs, or cars. And the scenes in which Woolard actually raps — particularly in a basement scene after he emerges from prison and a bout of lyric writing and soul searching — are believable and compelling: flecks of his spit shimmer in the harsh light. Woolard, who grew up blocks from Biggie’s original hood and had a promising career until a shooting in front of NYC’s Hot 97, is the perfect choice to portray the man.

Notorious‘ melodramatic, overly amped conclusion may ring a bit artificial with its drawn-out return to the opening scenes: as "Hypnotize"’s "Rise" sample ripples through the dancers, Notorious B.I.G. says, in flashback, that he’s finally found peace, he’s become a man, and, well, he’s Ready to Die (Bad Boy, 1994), to crib the title of his classic debut. But I dare anyone to not get choked up by Notorious‘ coda, as Voletta Wallace, portrayed with grand-dame grit by Angela Bassett, looks out on the crowd surrounding her son’s NYC funeral procession, playing his music and flinging their arms, and realizes that, though she never quite trusted the easy money and fast friends surrounding her son, Biggie will always be remembered for his way with words.

NOTORIOUS opens Fri/16 in the Bay Area

———–

JUST PLAYING

BRIGHTBLACK MORNING LIGHT


It’s not a hologram: the roving musicmakers return to the region they once called home. Wed/14, 8 p.m., $15. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

LOS YEUX NOIR


They’re dark-eyed and infatuated with gypsy, Yiddish, and Manouche jazz. Wed/14, 8 and 10 p.m., $20–<\d>$25. Yoshi’s SF, 1330 Fillmore, SF. sf.yoshis.com

LENKA


Cutie-pie pop oozes from the Aussie charmer who once studied acting with Cate Blanchett. Thurs/15, 8 p.m., $13–<\d>$15. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

WILD WEEKEND


We’re lost in an all-girl punk rock wilderness. Sat/17, 9:30 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE


The popsters go acoustic with tunes from an album-in-progress. Sun/18–Mon/19, 8 p.m., $25. Café Du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.cafedunord.com.

BARRINGTON LEVY


The acclaimed live performer taps Obama samples for his new single, "No War." Tues/20, 9 p.m., $28. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

Goin’ Coconut

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› johnny@sfbg.com

It was winter-coat weather the night Coconut played music at a release party for a book of Veronica De Jesus’ memorial drawings. After a slide show by De Jesus with a revelation about how the project was born from loss, Colter Jacobsen read a sharp first-person essay about her portraits, those lively renderings of dead poets, movie directors, baseball team owners, and Romanian table-tennis champs displayed on the windows of Dog-Eared Books. Then Tomo Yasuda joined Jacobsen to play some songs. One of them was a quasi-cover of Matthew Wilder’s "Break My Stride" that gave the 1983 white-lite reggae pop hit a heart transplant, allowing the song to briefly race forward before slowing to a near standstill.

Coconut has traveled from a quiet spot to meet you and your ears. The tracks on the duo’s triple CD-R collection, Rain/Cocoanut/Hello Fruity (Allone Co., 2007), form and fade in relation to energy and inspiration. The longest one, "Dubbud Song," might even be composed of the moments between the music: the strums, hums, and drones that briefly take shape and then fall away. There is no need for a vocal on Rain‘s "Blue Umbrella." The guitar sings. On holiday from other endeavors — Jacobsen is a visual artist; Yasuda records solo and plays in Tussle and Hey Willpower; both were part of an earlier group called Window Window and Lets, a side project of Deerhoof’s Satomi Matsuzaki — Coconut explores a world of echo at a relaxed pace. Jacobsen and Yasuda are on self-timer.

Now I’m onto another thought: Cocoanut, the silver entry in the duo’s blue-silver-yellow CD-R trilogy, is my current favorite. It might be the way "Tide Sun 7th Generation" layers lolling, rolling acoustic melodies while still leaving room for backward masking effects and other little embellishments. It might be the talky, off-kilter, get-your-goat riffs at the beginning of "Tree of No Tree," before a glowing harmonium harmony arrives to transform the composition into a tango for oddballs. It might be that "Vacation (I don’t want to go to work)" sounds like it was recorded on a warm day in a barn with a makeshift kitchen.

Or it could be the spindly pluck of Cocoanut‘s "Webs on a Grid" and "Evidence," songs that prove Jacobsen and Yasuda are on the sunny side of the ocean on a bicycle built for two. The 101 is a hard road to travel, but they’re ready for excursions into the unknown, so it isn’t completely unsettling when "Webs on a Grid"’s final minor-chord descent is coupled with what sounds like dying stars falling through space. That astral passage and the electronic personality of Yasuda’s too-little-known album For Many Birthdays (Daft Alliance, 2006) make the warp shift to sci-fi dub on Cocoanut‘s final track, "Should I?" — which pushes squares, without the macho math-nerd beat displays — more natural and less surprising.

Back on earth, Jacobsen is inclined to sing for a fine stretch of time every now and then. "Rainbow," a number on Rain, allows him to tease out the difference between a jeweler and a jail man. On Cocoanut‘s "Gannet Song," he blesses the listener with a prankish anecdote. The quiet rustle of his voice moves to the fore on Hello Fruity, where "Human Nature" ponders the meaning of second place in a two-person race, and "100 %" multitracks a godly-and-creamy choir of reassurance into something vaguely unsettling. There is a light sense of wordplay in these tunes that extends to the way other songs’ names ("Sarah Rain," "Rain in Sahara," "Hell O Hello") play off of the CD-R’s titles and each other.

It was T-shirt weather the night Coconut played music at a release party for Bill (Gallery 16 Editions, 45 pages, $25), a collaboration between Jacobsen and the poet-essayist Bill Berkson. Sunlight beamed through the open windows. After playing a set of songs from and beyond Rain/Cocoanut/Hello Fruity, the duo was joined by Berkson. He read a line from the book, and they punctuated it with a brief blast of rhythm or a touch of acoustics. When he reached the end of the poem, it wasn’t the end of the performance — Coconut’s music keeps dancing in and out of San Francisco, and its words and pictures.

COCONUT

With Aero-Mic’d and Elm

Thurs/15, 9 p.m., $6

Hemlock Tavern

1121 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

Hang on, Ramsey

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Venerable jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis will be 74 in May, but you’d hardly know it from his packed tour schedule and mounting awards. The Chicago native and 2007 NEA Jazz Master honoree hosts a nationally syndicated radio show, has recorded nearly an album a year since 1956 plus tours with his trio, does regular duets with Dave Brubeck, and moonlights as a member of smooth jazz supergroup Urban Knights. But perhaps Lewis’ greatest accomplishment was bringing jazz and pop together in soulful harmony.

Sample libraries and hip-hop production would be diminished were it not for Lewis’ funky covers ("Dear Prudence," "Soul Man," "People Make the World Go Round," "Slipping into Darkness"). Likewise Lewis, whose been playing since age four, has a sense of history: he studied Bach, Beethoven, Hayden, Duke Ellington, and Art Tatum before forming the Cleffs with Eldee Young on bass and Redd Holt on drums, his first of many trio configurations.

As the Ramsey Lewis Trio he scored hits in the mid-1960s on Chess-Cadet label releases like "Wade in the Water," "The In Crowd," and Motown cover "Hang on Sloopy." Lewis did for the piano what Stevie Wonder did for the harmonica, made the instrument swing. He also managed to evolve with the times, switching to Fender electric piano and writing originals like "Uhuru" and "Bold and Black" on 1969’s Another Voyage (Cadet) produced by studio great Charles Stepney. Sun Goddess (Columbia, 1974), which showcases enduring Lewis collaborator Maurice White of Earth, Wind and Fire on drums and vocals, was rediscovered by DJs decades later and ushered in the early-’90s acid jazz movement.

His most recent recording, 2005’s With One Voice (Narada) includes gospel standard "Oh Happy Day," redone with a house groove, and soulful reggae number "Keep the Spirit." These days bassist Larry Gray and drummer Leon Joyce fill out the trio, and the group makes an extended stop at Yoshi’s SF, a great prelude to the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and Barack Obama’s inauguration.

In 1967 Columbia Records president Clive J. Davis said: "In the next century or so, we may very well no longer draw distinctions between what is ‘jazz,’ what is ‘classical,’ what is ‘progressive,’ ‘rock,’ or ‘soul.’ It may all just be called music, and let it go at that. For it’s all here, in the music that Ramsey makes." Davis’ hope for an end to genre distinctions may not have come to pass yet, but he was right about Lewis, it is all in him.

RAMSEY LEWIS TRIO

Thurs/15–Fri/16, 8 p.m., Sat/17, 8 and 10 p.m., Sun/18, 7 p.m.; $65

Yoshi’s SF

1330 Fillmore, SF

(415) 655-5600

sf.yoshis.com

Wise blood

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

The only real city within a 1,000-mile radius, Denver perches a full mile above sea level, a windswept plateau superficially blanketed by strip malls, widget manufacturers, and convention centers. Bereft of both cosmopolitan peerage and any truly cohesive sense of cultural identity, the loneliness of the native Denverite is pervasive, haunted, and misunderstood, but not wholly undersung. For within the discomfited bosom of the Centennial State, an entire subgenre of music has continued to flourish — attracting devotees from far beyond the state line.

At the forefront of the Denver sound, even before there was such a term, has been David Eugene Edwards. Formerly a member of the Denver Gentlemen — as was fellow standard-bearer, Slim Cessna — Edwards’ most well-known band, 16 Horsepower, had all the requisite qualities characteristic of the Denver sound: conviction, intensity, and an uncompromising spiritualism that manifested itself in fire-and-brimstone lyricism, American Gothic instrumentation, and the feverish denouncements of a traveling preacher man. It is difficult to speak of Edwards without the specter of 16 Horsepower looming large behind the context, but Edwards’ current band Wovenhand, an entity in progress since 2001, has finally broken away from the tyranny of the past to fully inhabit its own potential with a new album: Ten Stones (Sounds Familyre, 2008).

Ten Stones is as elemental an album as Edwards and present company have ever crafted. From the rock-solid, faith-shaken lament "Not One Stone" to the north wind-inhabited "Kicking Bird" to the curiously moving cover of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s "Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars)," which sounds as if it had been recorded underwater, almost every song on the album corresponds intriguingly with a companion force of nature. One of the album’s particular surprises, the druggy rocker "White Knuckle Grip," feels like the rising tension of clouds gathering before a particularly fierce Colorado thunderstorm — the kind that splits the sky in two and harks back to the great flood that drowned the world. The album showcases the metamorphosis of the band as a whole from solo side project into a tightly knit collaborative, drawing inspiration from the impassioned religious fervor for the supernatural that characterizes much of the Denver sound, and from a greater reverence for the immutable power of the strictly natural, and of the music that lies buried at the heart of both.

Peter van Laerhoven, Wovenhand’s lead guitarist since 2005, especially comes into his own on Ten Stones. Like a spirited horse finally allowed his head, he rises to the challenge — penning two of the disc’s songs, most notably the aforementioned "Kicking Bird" — and smoothly lending earthy heft to the otherworldly divergences of bandmate Edwards. Stripped of many of the alt-Americana bells and whistles of Edwards’ earlier music, this strong guitar base helps anchor the tunes in a thoroughly modern context, without diminishing the ageless quality of their emotional weight. And while a driven, revival-meeting furor was essential to the development of the original Denver sound, this willingness to encompass other forms of reverence has become its new watchword. Call it a tempering process, or simply call it maturation. The refined blade of Wovenhand may have been forged in the youthful fires of what was once 16 Horsepower, but with a steel all its own, it cuts straight to the bone.

WOVENHAND

Tues/20, 9 p.m., $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

www.bottomofthehill.com

Fair game

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› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Oodles of great blasts polished off 2008 — surely more heavenly reassurance that getting fucked up and fabulous is recession-proof, even if your outfit’s from Discount Fabrics and your liquor is too. But my favorite New Year’s Eve party wasn’t one that "everybody went to," or even one I went to all at once.

Hunky Beau and I had just scrammed from our midnight toasts at an as-yet-unnamed new bar on Market Street when the jagged chimes of an amped-up Guitar Hero rang out in the busy darkness. The Zep-like noodling tugged at our ears until we reached Church Street and joined two or three others gawking at the source, as fog-shrouded fireworks boomed in the distance. "This is what 2k9 nightlife is gonna be all about," I slurred in my own mind, because I was shit-faced. "Happy accidents." No strobe lights or Flash site, no four-color flyers or flown-in high-fivers, no electro-this and micro-that and all those totally denied friend requests. Just some cute dude in a light-gray hoodie who plugs his ax into the shut-down Safeway and makes a little dance floor in the parking lot.

It was a New Year’s miracle.

After that peak, I surfed a bipolar adrenaline rush and spent the whole night discoing out of control. At least I could still spend something, right? The After School Special point here is that nightlife is exactly what you make it. Never say a party was boring because that means you were at it. Don’t buy into trends: people who buy too much into trends are like walking planned obsolescences, dissolving in the storm of next new things. And if no one else is dancing, fuck ’em. Do the mashed potato, and get skronked. Everything is on the table.

PARTY MONSTERS So what the hell did happen in Clubland last year? A heckuva lot, Brownie, but damn if I can remember it all. Here are a few things that stood out.

Losses: the great Steve Lady passed away, an incredibly sad asterisk at the end of the Trannyshack, which shut its bloodied wings as hostess Heklina crawled forth to discover herself. Beloved anarcho-hipster hangout the Transfer got gutted so that the kind of OK gay Bar on Castro could move in — opening date: Jan. 20 — and become the, er, Bar on Church. And Pink, one of the few clubs left in the city devoted to house music — remember that? — closed Jan. 4. I disagreed with some of the fancy-schmancier aspects of Pink’s approach, but I still loved it in occasional doses. And I’m hearing rumors about the Stud, right when it’s riding a Milk-mention wave of fame, so please go there and buy cocktails.

Wins: New regular rip-roarers that freaked me included the cumbia-rific Tormenta Tropical, outrageously draggy Tiara Sensation, free-for-alls Honey Sundays (gayish, discoish), and Infatuation (straightish, electroish), roving furry dress-up party Beast, the Hole-y ’90s-worshipping Debaser, slinky Gemini Disco, crazy Look Out Weekend, and the hyperenergetic Work. Gone but not forgotten: Trans Am, Fag Fridays, Tits, Sucker Punch, Stiletto, Monster Show, Drift, and, finally, Finally. Another win: with the opening of Chaps II and the relocation of Hole in the Wall, there’s now a big gay leather SoMa "Miracle Mile" bar crawl again! Overall it was an awesome year, one in which a new generation rushed the club doors, so a big bold heart-heart to all the level-headed bar staff who scraped us off the sidewalk and helped find our flippin’ iPhones. Rawk.

Best: You really need to take the N-Judah night owl bus at 2:30 a.m. Way too cute …

The Funeral Party

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PREVIEW By the late 1990s, the better part of the country had reached a consensus. The whole East Coast vs. West Coast thing had officially run its course and was, decidedly, un-chill. A pimp-stick-wielding Snoop Dogg blowing a gasket at The Source Awards and doing his damndest to incite a riot was one thing. But, once the two most transcendent, brilliant musicians of the generation were murdered in cold blood, America and everyone else involved decided, enough was enough.

Ten years on from Biggie’s death, a new crew of whippersnappers has decided to boil up some East Coast/West Coast beef. Though they aren’t talking about engaging in sexual congress with anyone’s betrothed, Los Angeles dance-punk quartet the Funeral Party is sick of the Big Apple hoarding all the indie cred. On the raging "NYC Moves to the Sound of LA," from their jarring debut EP, Bootleg (Fearless, 2008), the precocious upstarts take aim at the "unoriginal," "contrived" New York City scene. Vocalist Chad Elliot venomously spits, "Stole all of your ideas from other cities<0x2009>/ Things are lookin’ stale<0x2009>/ It’s time to turn around<0x2009>/ New York City loves to mess around with the LA sound!" You hear that, Vampire Weekend? You’re fucking going down!

Only time will tell if this sick burn will plant the seeds of a feud that will dominate the back pages of publications nationwide. If I was a betting man, I’d give the "FP vs. NYC" feud between a 2 percent and .00231 percent chance of captivating America. But I would bet the ranch that the Funeral Party’s arresting brand of punk-based dance-rock — imagine Babyshambles on uppers, jamming with At the Drive-In-era Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Johnny Marr — landing them on the front pages of a few magazines in the coming years. Popscene has a knack for booking artists with solid buzzes before they blow up, so get ready to add the Funeral Party to the list of bands you saw before Carson Daly 2.0 informed America who they were.

THE FUNERAL PARTY Thurs/15, call for time, $8–$10. Popscene, 330 Ritch, SF. (415) 902-3125, www.popscene-sf.com

Inca Ore

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PREVIEW In the liner notes to his Automatic Writing (Lovely Music, 1996), Robert Ashley talks about how he tried to source text for his 1967 opera That Morning Thing by soliciting recordings from his friends narrating, without psychological or moral interpretation, scenes from their life that they’d chosen to keep secret. Describing the results of his survey as "very bad," Ashley decided to synthesize his own text, the result being the viscerally creepy "Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon."

The mercurial earth-mother drones of Inca Ore — the solo moniker of Oakland’s Eva Saelens — have, in their blown-out glory, a circuitous sonic relationship with the whining Moog ambience of Ashley’s strangest music, and the raw psychic effects of last year’s Birthday of Bless You (No Fun) are comparable to the composer’s work. Leaping from the absolutely banal to the densely metaphysical, Bless You‘s world is psychology- and morality-free, and when words replace bodiless moans, the effect is evocative, occult, and informed by a slight but potent sense of self-parody. As she declaims through a delay pedal at the conclusion to scrape-scape "Infant Ra": "to all jewels buried in the grass, awake, discovery, in oyster shells!" It’s not a hard world to get sucked into.

INCA ORE With Mangled Bohemians, and the Why Because. Wed/14, 9 p.m., $6.

Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923, www.hemlocktavern.com

Beautiful voices

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

In the 2005 Martin Scorsese documentary No Direction Home, Bob Dylan noted an era when people desired "beautiful voices over very melodic songs." He referred to the early 1960s and pop balladeers such as Doris Day and Johnny Mathis. But the description fits the current soul scene, too, and its celebration of black — and, increasingly, white — artists with wondrously perfect voices and virtuous, albeit sexually complicated lives. A friend of mine used to call it "church."

If the soul scene resembles a megachurch, then John "Legend" Stephens is its deacon. His rise in the music industry — from backup vocalist on Jay-Z’s "Encore" to flagship artist on Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music imprint — was balanced with a years-long stint as music director at Philadelphia’s Bethel A.M.E. Church. In photos accompanying his 2004 debut Get Lifted (G.O.O.D. Music/Columbia), Legend stood in the aisle of a nondescript church, bathed in sunlight, his hands resting on two adjacent pews. Thematically the album followed Legend’s transformation from hip-hop kid with a roving eye ("She Don’t Have to Know," "Used to Love U," which pays homage to Common’s "I Used to Love H.E.R.") to chastened man trying to save his relationship ("I Can Change," "Ordinary People") and, finally, spiritually and physically devoted lover ("Stay With You," "So High"). He performed these songs with a studious air. His voice alternately massaged and swayed, like an altar boy brushing the dirt off his shoes as he enters.

Legend has moved on to other themes of love and devotion, but the Christian aspects of his music remain. The "church" probably wouldn’t have it any other way. The modern R&B industry resembles the old-school pop industry — before it lapsed into the Madonna/whore syndrome personified by Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus — in its celebration of carefully manicured personalities with stylish (but not too avant-garde) fashion sensibilities and gossipy (but not too slutty) love lives. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with going to church. Still, whether used as a metaphor or visited as a place of worship, a church and its congregation idealize the world around it.

As a result, most soul vocalists sing about love and sex, reducing the vagaries of life to intimate relationships. A few, particularly the great Anthony Hamilton and Raheem DeVaughn, address the black community, the effects of violent crime and rampant poverty, and the idea of working hard for a paycheck and dreaming of better days. But that’s not really Legend’s thing. He imagines as a songwriter and composer in the vein of Quincy Jones and Billy Joel. He cuts a dashing figure on the cover of his 2004 album Once Again (G.O.O.D. Music/Columbia), tinkling a grand piano in the middle of busy New York City streets and spinning light, romantic numbers such as "P.D.A. (We Just Don’t Care)." "Let’s go to the park, I wanna kiss you underneath the stars," he sings in a breezily sultry voice. "Let’s make love."

Much like Burt Bacharach, the old-school mandarin of fluffy Brill Building pop, Legend is an ace craftsman of modern standards. His best songs mix concise and thoughtful lyrics with subtle melodies, expert musicianship, and standout choruses. For his new full-length, Evolver (G.O.O.D. Music/Columbia), he adds "Green Light," a seductive come on buffeted by drum and keyboard programming. "Give me the green light, give me just one night," croons Legend as stray synth melodies pop and sparkle around him. Andre 3000 from OutKast shows up after the second hook, promising to have "you giggling like a piglet / Oh, that’s the ticket / I hope you’re more Anita Baker than Robin Givens."

The cover of Evolver, where Legend poses mysteriously in a Members Only jacket, plays on "Green Light"’s promise that the traditionalist is playing a new game. But, of course, it’s the same tricks. Get Lifted successfully mixed A-list rappers with familiar neo-soul grooves: baby-making music with a contemporary edge. Despite the subtle nods to ’80s babies nostalgia, Legend doesn’t wander too far from that winning formula. Instead, he offers creamy ballads such as "Cross the Line," where he admits, "I don’t want to risk losing everything."

For all the loveliness of Legend’s voice, it would be nice to hear him write more challenging material. Get Lifted drew unpredictable, exciting tension from his classical tendencies and hip-hop’s swagger, but with Evolver he veers dangerously close to blandness. Of course, his "church" probably wouldn’t want it any other way.

Back in 2006, I saw Los Angeles singer-songwriter Esthero open for Legend. Walking on stage barefoot and in loose-fitting clothes, Esthero’s funk jams and earthy Bjork-like trip-pop drew snickers from the audience. She was almost booed off the stage. It took Legend to pacify the old ladies and married couples.

"Hey, do you remember this one?" he teased them, playing a few notes from Jay-Z’s "Encore" and Slum Village’s "Selfish." He sang in fine form that night, and the church was pleased.

JOHN LEGEND

With Estelle

Mon/12, 8 p.m., $50.50–$76.50

Paramount Theatre

2025 Broadway, Oakland

www.apeconcerts.com

So Fox-y

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Wow, 80 years old and such a beauty: I took a peek at Oakland’s Fox Theatre — yes, a distant relation to San Francisco’s late, lamented Fox — before the holiday break and, whoa, wolf whistles. The friendly rival to the Paramount around the corner is definitely beginning to feel like her glam self once more, decked out in a fabulist fantasia of Indian-Moorish finery, and in December, positively glowing beneath the hands of the workers intent on restoring her to her rightful splendor — and upgrading her in key spots with new bathrooms, dressing rooms, balcony seats, and a new Meyer sound system.

The now-2,800-capacity live-music venue operated as a movie house from 1928 until it closed in 1965. Placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, the Fox was purchased by the city of Oakland in 1996 — after undergoing the threat of being turned into a parking lot and the indignity of arson, water damage, and neglect — and is now under the aegis of developer Phil Tagami and Another Planet Entertainment, readying to reopen Feb. 5. Its first show is on Feb. 6 with Social Distortion.

According to Another Planet VP Allen Scott, "We have been working on this project for close to four years and there has been a lot of blood, sweat … and now cheers." The Fox will be APE’s flagship venue — showcasing everything from rock to soul to Latin.

Great expectations, yet from the mere look of it, the Fox’s prospects are as marvelous as its beauteous shell. It’s safe for me to say — after walking by the magnificently lit-up neon marquee, tiled towers, and faux-sikhara for years and wondering what was inside — the Fox will not disappoint anyone who wants an eyeful of glorious, orientalist movie-palace exotica. Two Hindu gods look down on shining new floors from the sides of the gold-hued stage, styled to resemble the temples of Palitana, below a highly ornate star-splashed ceiling. The mezzanine: a magic-carpet ride of tiled niches and stenciling patterned after Persian carpets. The venue itself will be topped by Oakland School of the Arts and be flanked by a restaurant and bar that will keep the corner lively when shows aren’t scheduled.

It’s a miraculous save — long coming — for Fox followers like Patricia Dedekian, founding board member of Friends of the Oakland Fox. "Every time I go in there now I start crying because it’s so exciting and emotional," Dedekian said. She hopes to raise money for an endowment for the Fox’s continued preservation and upkeep.

"I used to describe the Fox Oakland as the black hole that sits in center of Uptown," she continued. "It was clear this was a big project waiting to happen. Now I can believe it when I see it."

ZAP! After a horrible fall on Landers Street during a drunken stumble home on the rainy eve of Nov. 1, San Francisco underground artist S. Clay Wilson, 67, is drawing again, reports his partner Lorraine Chamberlain.

Chamberlain is still trying to track down the Good Samaritan — or guardian checkered demon — who found Wilson with a fracture and gash in his head lying between two parked cars, made the 911 call, and waited with the artist till the ambulance arrived — an act that saved the cartoonist from perishing from hypothermia. "He was like a block of ice," Chamberlain told me. "If he had been there a couple more hours they would never have been able to stabilize him." But right now she’s glad that after spending his first two weeks in a semi-coma with a bout of pneumonia, Wilson is attacking his colored pencils and vellum with gusto, making drawings that don’t quite resemble the super-maximalist, sensory-overload, iconoclastic pieces of Zap Comix, though Chamberlain added, "they’re quite good."

Word has it the cartoonist is cracking wise in his room at Davies Medical Center, though he still suffers from aphasia and impaired short-term memory. "He called me in the morning and said he was doing a drawing of hobbling zombies — he said it three times. He meant, rotting zombies," explained Chamberlain, an ex of Frank Zappa’s who coined his nickname, Lumpy Gravy. "He talks on and on about things that aren’t based in reality, and I realized he was doing a verbal drawing, just talking a drawing rather than doing it."

The Christmas artwork he gave her was "pretty hideous. A couple of ugly guys, one guy in a gray suit and a little guy standing there with a muffin tin of steaming piles of shit, and a big ugly guy with a shovel with holes in it and it says, ‘Merry Ex Mass.’"

Wilson is on Medicare, Chamberlain said, but needs continuing care. Thus checks are being sent to S. Clay Wilson, POB 14854, San Francisco, CA 94114, from all over the country — the Jan. 11 fundraiser comes courtesy of his friends in Brutal Sound Effects (a blues benefit happens Jan. 24 at Mojo Lounge, Fremont). Meanwhile Chamberlain can’t wait for Wilson to come home. "I miss him," she said. "He’s a pain in the ass, he’s hard to live with, but I got used to it!"


www.thefoxoakland.com


S. CLAY WILSON BENEFIT, with Anvil Encephalopathy, Liz Allbee/Agnes Szelag, Skullcaster, Loachfillet, Heartworm, Heule/Dryer, and others. Sun/11, 6 p.m., $7–$20 sliding scale. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

———–

BLOODIED, BUT UNBOWED

FREE BLOOD


Ex-!!! vocalist John Pugh pushes it further with Madeline Davy in their DFA project. With Landshark. Fri/9, 9:30 p.m., $10–$20. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. www.dnalounge.com

DIRTYBIRD FOUR-YEAR


Claude VonStroke, Justin Martin, Christian Martin, and Worthy get filthy at their first quarterly at the venue. Fri/9, 10 p.m., $10–$15. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

3 Inches of Blood

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PREVIEW Keyboard neckties. ‘Ludes. Neck beards. Meerkat racing. The 2005 Dan Alvarez would have told you that all of these things have a better chance at becoming popular with kids than the dork fest that is power metal. This is coming from a guy who spent his formative years listening to groups like Rhapsody, known for their symphonic epics about goblins and dragons and their uncanny ability to induce crippling bouts of prolonged virginity. So you could imagine the 2008 Dan’s surprise when groups like Dragonforce, Dream Evil, and Protest the Hero began headlining shows and moving units with the very same operatic (read: cheesy) vocals and bombastic (read: indulgent) qualities I hold so dear.

One of the undisputed leaders of power metal’s shocking renaissance is Vancouver sextet, 3 Inches of Blood. The armor-wearing, orc crushing — they actually have a song called "Destroy the Orcs" — miscreants craft technically impressive, melodically sophisticated captivating battle anthems. They are led by a twin-vocal attack, highlighted by the aptly named Cam Pipes, who recalls a young Rob Halford and who is seriously into larping. Pipes’ glorious, shrill falsetto is backed by the brutal, guttural barks of second vocalist Jamie Hooper. Though Hooper had to take the year off due to throat problems related to his intense screaming, guitarist Justin Hegberg makes sure the band retains its steel by effectively stepping in for Hooper. The group’s frenetic live shows seem guaranteed to go over well at the metal-friendly Slim’s. Sharpen your broad sword, tap your mana, and get ready for war!


3 INCHES OF BLOOD With Toxic Holocaust and Early Man. Tues/13, 8 p.m., $15. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. (415) 255-0333, www.slims-sf.com

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