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Music

Budgin’

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Why so glum, Chun? Well, for starters, the economy is sucking about as hard as an insecure groupie attacking her/his fave-rave rocker head-case, and the stock market is making me more nauseated than the time I mixed deep-fried Twinkies and the Giant Dipper roller-coaster ride at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Oh, sure, we’re all gonna die giggling with sheer, unrepentant delight when the Barack Star pulls it off come Nov. 4. But in the very lean meantime, we gotta scrimp ‘n’ scrape to find the joy.

So why not mix good times and sound — arf! — financial advice from those adventurers in fabulously gritty lo-fi sonics and rock ‘n’ roll derring-do at Budget Rock Seven music fest?

Yes, I may be high. Ask rockers — oft dismissed as guitar-collecting, ramen-chawing spendthrifts lacking in fiscal acumen — for budget suggestions? Don’t you know that the sweaty, loud ‘n’ danceable rawk gathering has little or nada to do with tightened (white, skinny) belts during tough times — having plucked its name from a Mummies long-player, not its accountants? Sho’ ’nuff, impecunious stuff. Nevertheless, if a truly depressing nu-depression-style bottoming-out occurs — B-Rock or no — it can’t hurt to look to grassroots rabble-rousers for tangibles on living it up on little scrill.

"I have nothing to offer but bad tips," Darin Raffaelli — ex-Supercharger member and now in Budget Rock bands the Baci Galoopis and supa-group Mersey Wifebeaters — apologizes in a recent e-mail. "Go to the taco truck and don’t be afraid to get face meat if they run out of the standard meats. Don’t be a deadbeat weefie and carry your own load. Doesn’t matter how big your carriage is — just fill it to the tarp with whatever you can and the goodhearted folk will make sure you get by. Don’t get tattoos, and take care of your feet.

"Hope that helps."

It’s like pouring loose change, slugs, and paper clips into those supermarket counters: every little bit helps. Brian Girgus, who drums for rising Mantles-spinoff proj Personal and the Pizzas, has more low-dough advice: "Sneak a flask of whiskey in. Drink during Happy Hour. Make your pizzas at home. Roll out the dough really thin to make the pizza seem bigger. Buy used vinyl at the thrift stores."

"Budget? I’m not an expert on that. I’m up to my ears," opines festival co-founder and co-organizer Chris Owen by phone. He’s got more important things on his mind, like convincing Budget Rock performer Roy Head — renowned as "the white James Brown" for his crazy-agile dance moves, and his 1965 hit, "Treat Her Right" — to record "Just Head" by the Nervous Eaters and "Teenage Head" by the Flamin’ Groovies for his Hook or Crook Records. The dynamic Head — who Owen says is still amazing (The 67-year-old "is like Iggy Pop in the way he puts himself out there") — just might play those tunes live, if we’re lucky, when he performs here for the first time since the ’60s.

Owen says there was an attempt to move Budget Rock back to San Francisco — where it first laid down a beachhead at Thee Parkside — but, as we laugh, "the city wasn’t having it!" With assists from Bobbyteen Tina Lucchesi, Guardian staffer Dulcinea Gonzalez, and others, Owen threw the bash together again at the Stork Club. "Sometimes it’s worth it to just have a blowout in a smaller place," he explains. "At a smaller place, they’re happy to have you. I can’t imagine anyone drinking more than the people who go to these things!"

Budget planning? I got my BR grandma-panties in a bunch to catch In the Red combo the Lamps, Bare Wires, Nodzzz, Thee Makeout Party, the Pets, Hunx and his Punx, Ray Loney and the Phantom Movers, Sir Lord Von Raven, Hypsterz, Christmas Island, and Russell Quan’s 50th Birthday Party. As for Owen, he’s especially psyched about Human Eye (a Clone Defects variant that rarely plays Bayside), Haunted George, Seattle band Head (I see a theme emerging), and Personal and the Pizzas ("A MySpace band that suddenly became a real band — basically they wrote two of the catchiest songs I’ve ever heard"), as well as the Top Dog-sponsored hot-dog-eating contest and the pancake breakfast aided and abetted by ex-Parkside honcho Sean O’Connor’s Batter Blaster invention.

"When I first announced the lineup people were, like, ‘Who the fuck are these bands?’" Owens says of the eclectic nature of this year’s festival. "There are a whole lot more bands that are more difficult — more influenced by New Zealand pop music and not necessary garage rock and punk."

But seriously, back to budgets? "I would say, don’t take any advice I’d give you — that’s the best advice," Owen says. "But with this thing: $5 beer and cheap food, 34 bands in four days. That’s pretty good. If you’re trying to maximize your dollar, that’s less than a dollar a band." *

BUDGET ROCK SEVEN

Preview with Lover! and Nobunny

Wed/22, 5:30–8 p.m., free

Eagle Tavern

398 12th St., SF

Festival runs Thurs/23-Sun/26, various times, $10–<\d>$30

Stork Club

2330 Telegraph, Oakl.

www.myspace.com/budgetrock

SIDEBAR

HEAD OUT

THE USAISAMONSTER

Maybe after Barack Obama wins, the Load combo can change its name to THE USAISINRECOVERY. Fri/24, 9:30 p.m., $8. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk St., SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

BRIDGE SCHOOL BENEFIT

Whoa, Nellie: Band of Horses is the latest add to the benefit helmed by Neil Young and family. Sat/25, 5p.m., and Sun/26, 2 p.m., $39.50–$150. Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View. www.livenation.com

AGAINST ME!

Do the Florida punks have a persecution complex? Mon/27, 8 p.m., $22.50. Grand Ballroom, Regency Center, Van Ness and Sutter, SF. www.goldenvoice.com *

Ane Brun

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Fall is San Francisco’s most gothic and recognizable season. In contrast to our drab winter skies, unpredictable spring showers, summer microclimates, and endless foggy afternoons, autumn arrives in a snap, with crisp air, long shadows, and dramatic full moons. Stockholm-based Norwegian singer-songwriter Ane Brun’s introspective music is perfect for fall: she thoroughly explores uneasy moods on her aptly named fifth full-length, Changing of the Seasons (Cheap Lullaby).

The album’s hushed title track includes gently picked acoustic guitar work and a spacious arrangement where Brun muses about the moment when one contemplates leaving a lover for someone else. "It’s hard to be safe," she sings, "difficult to be happy." Tension and uncertainty is ever-present in Brun’s writing. She excels at exposing love’s contradictions and disappointments with a delicate emotional perception that, despite all the heartbreak, doesn’t wallow in self-pity.

Whatever her poetic narratives are about, Brun sounds fantastic singing them. She’s a rare talent who wields an arresting falsetto that’s both classic and modern. She’s been compared to Dolly Parton, Carole King, and Nico as well as Björk, Adele, and K.D. Lang. Excellent phrasing and austere lyrics invite the listener to contemplate, debate, and empathize with her subjects and material, which is often intimately autobiographical. Listening to Brun’s work, it’s tough not to feel like a guilty eavesdropper sneaking a look in a friend’s diary while house-sitting. Not that Brun would mind.

She isn’t afraid to sound vulnerable, barely holding on to her emotional composure on songs like "The Fall," in which she croons, "We were wrong, to stay this long / Let me go, let me fall to the ground." Like other numbers on Seasons, the track is laced with tasteful string accompaniment, arranged by Denmark’s Malene Bay-Landin and New York City’s Nico Muhly.

Although the "strings and sad singing" motifs conjure Nick Drake in his Bryter Layter (Island, 1970) period, Seasons also showcases inventive, percussive numbers like "The Puzzle" and "The Treehouse Song," which gallop, swing, and accentuate Brun’s cadence. "Armour"’s heavenly harmonics could support a scene from the 2001 French movie Amelie.

At the wonderfully cozy Café Du Nord, listeners will have an excellent chance to hang on Brun’s graceful notes, which trapeze playfully through compositions like "My Star" and "Linger with Pleasure." One hopes she’ll touch on selections from 2004’s masterful A Temporary Dive (DetErMine/V2), a putf8um seller in Scandinavia, and with drummer and vocal accompaniment in tow, Brun will usher us effortlessly into autumn’s dark, hopeful moments.

ANE BRUN

With Tobias Froberg

Tues/28, 8 p.m. $12

Café Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

Cosmic backlash

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> johnny@sfbg.com

Everyone agrees that disco is alive and proliferating. But is it devolving from au courant status into something that deserves the 21st century version of a stadium vinyl bonfire? Genres are vague in the realm of electronic music, and disco has become almost as ubiquitous and generic an overarching tag as techno. The neo-disco banner now stretches from the Fire Island revivalism of Hercules and Love Affair, and Escort to the cosmic expeditions of Lindstrom and his disciples. Clearly, it must be made of something synthetic.

Between the flaming diva pageantry of Hercules and the heterosexual prog geekery of Hans-Peter, one finds the languid romantic intellectualism of Morgan Geist. In recent interviews, Geist questions contemporary disco’s existence, though his rarity compilation Unclassics (Environ, 2004) and his work with Metro Area have played a major role in its formation. Yet technically speaking, he’s right. His new Double Night Time (Environ) kicks off with "Detroit," where instead of disco, the North American home of techno is evoked. Still, austerity aside, "Detroit" is a techno track as much as it’s a disco track, meaning not very. It is new romantic: an effete little brother of butch post-punk and femme disco, with a Motor City radio DJ heart that belongs to Mike Halloran as much as the Electrifying Mojo.

The late avant-disco pioneer Arthur Russell is often invoked in relation to Geist, but Double Night Time is cooler and more reserved. Guest vocalist Kelley Polar doesn’t croon with the mannered zeal that defines his own 2008 venture away from Metro Area, I Need You to Hold on While the Sky Is Falling (Environ). In fact, he’s hard to differentiate from the album’s other mannered vocalist, Jeremy Greenspan of the Junior Boys. While Russell’s music is cerebral, his tenor never seems detached. In contrast, when Greenspan declares that he wants to cry during "Most of All," it comes across as a come-on. That doesn’t mean it isn’t seductive, though, and Geist’s chiming sound reaches a chilly peak on the low-key yet bravura relationship post-op "Ruthless City."

Lindstrom’s first proper solo album — after a compilation, and a full-length collaboration with Prins Thomas — is a different neo-disco creature. Whereas Geist presents nine pop-inflected compositions in less than 50 minutes, Where You Go I Go Too (Smalltown Supersound) stretches three tracks to nearly an hour. Where exactly does Lindstrom go on the 29-minute title track? To my ears, he disappears into a Tangerine Dream and reemerges as Cerrone: a whirligig melody that echoes the motif of Cerrone’s 1978 disco classic "Supernature" adds whimsy to wave upon wave of arpeggio. But what do I know? One local music shop detractor has compared Lindstrom’s latest to the sounds of Paul Lekakis, the actor-model-vocalist who brought the world "Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back to My Room)."

On Hatchback’s Colours of the Sun (Lo Recordings), San Francisco’s Sam Grawe steers clear of any Lekakis-isms, though arpeggio for arpeggio, there’s a definite Lindstrom-on-ludes feel to the penultimate track, "White Diamond." Hatchback drives right up to the exact spot — a couch at the edge of a dancefloor? — where disco slips off the term cosmic disco. Grawe knows krautrock and cosmiche music inside out, but like his pal Daniel Judd of Sorcerer, he’s at his best crafting soundtracks for cheesy movies that don’t exist but should. "Closer to Forever" is exquisite, and "Jetlag" is a slab of montage funk that could make Harold Faltermeyer jealous and even get David Hasselhoff to stop eating burgers off the floor.

If neo-disco and its cosmic substrata are courting a backlash the size of Paul Lekakis’ glutes, it’s because of an onslaught of opportunistic comps with "space" or "disco" in their titles. Especially when placed in close proximity to one another, those words — along with "Balearic" — are surefire groan inducers. Yet there are always a few exceptions to the rule. One is Cosmic Disco?! Cosmic Rock!!! (Eskimo), a mix co-created by the man who invented cosmic disco, Italian DJ Daniele Baldelli. While it doesn’t approach the euphoria of Baldelli’s 2007 Baia degli Angeli mixes, its strictly ’80s sources — further proof that neo-disco is new romantic — include some eccentric pleasures, especially "Ulster Defense," perhaps the world’s first and only pro-IRA dancefloor anthem.

Likewise, Alexis Le Tan and Jess’ Space Oddities (Permanent Vacation) transcends a generic title through a combo of irreverence and dedication that’s as rare as any of the European library grooves it rediscovers. The bloodless boogie of a track titled "Cloning" is hypnotic. Better still is "Black Safari," an electronic answer to Moondog’s jungle-sound freakout "Big Cat." If a 1977 disco track can cast its net wide enough to capture Moondog and roaring elephants and growling tigers, then surely a 2008 neo-disco track can find a sense of humor within its vast cosmic — or retro-homo — space. In fact, that’s exactly what 21st century disco will require to escape the hipster equivalent of a stadium bonfire. *

Wildildlife by numbers

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Whether we’re talking about the volatile US economy or the amount of CD-R releases Wildildlife has produced to date, the base-10 numeral system is a useless reference point.

"Three or four, five or six — let’s call it ‘medium-four.’ Or ‘five-esque.’" This is the disc count consensus from the Seattle group, whose membership is definitely three: Andy Crane on bass guitar, Matthew J. Rogers on guitar, and Willy Nilz on the drums. All provide vocals, and their collective tune was chortle-laden as they chatted via speakerphone from their tour van, parked on Bainbridge Island, Wash., a short ferry ride from Seattle, before the opening show of their present West Coast tour with Mammatus.

It would be frivolous to assign integers to Wildildlife’s whacked variety of superjams: their psychedelic weird-metal gets mad heavy, but they kick terrific pop hooks when, you know, they feel like it. "We’re super poppy — it’s almost lame," one exclaims before another threatens that they’re "gonna drop it like Kid Rock!" Eh. That frighteningly high-pitched live vocal effect they often use isn’t that pop. Pop or not, the heaviness has gelled into something that has allowed Wildildlife to survive two radical geographic relocations: from Boston to San Francisco, and, earlier this year, to Seattle. Originally named Wildlife before a group called the Wildlife sent them a threatening letter about it, the band started after the three had been jamming together as college students in Boston. Although more restrained at that time, they now dish out a spaced acid-sludge that only medium-four years of epic practice sessions could have wrought.

What brought them to SF in September 2006? "It was a three-way commitment — ‘you guys all want to move?’ We pointed it out on a map and headed there. Sorta like Coming to America,” is the answer.

Crane describes their one-time dream of starting a pancake van in Dolores Park with Nilz’s family recipe. What kind of cakes?

"Cornmeal pancakes."

"Weed pancakes."

This truck never came to fruition, but the combo quickly came to feel at home alongside such newfound, freaky rock brethren as the New Thrill Parade, Tulsa, and Shellshag. They recorded their 2007 debut, Six (Crucial Blast), shortly after their arrival, laying down tracks as long as 18 minutes in the process. One number, "Kross," has a slowly strummed guitar and vocal passage that gives way to delicate Steve Hackett-reminiscent trilling (circa Lamb Lies Down on Broadway [Atco, 1974]) before the metal hammer smacks down again, while "Tungsten Steel/Epilogue," with that scary effect-ed vocal leading the way, is hot as that doorknob that Joe Pesci grabs in Home Alone.

The closest you’ll get to a precedent for the Wildildlife sound is Atlanta, Ga. band Harvey Milk, which the group opened for on HM’s first West Coast dates earlier this year — an experience Wildildlife were especially excited about in a year that, despite the move, has been pretty damned productive. They’ve produced a CD-R out of a WFMU live set recorded earlier this year, and a new EP, Peas Feast, will soon be released by Crucial Blast on 12-inch, along with a dropcard for a new EP, The Drongalet Demos. Their songs have been shorter lately, but to no detriment: tracks like Peas Feast‘s "Shining Son" beckon circle pits unlike any before it. Plans are also afoot for an old EP re-ish and a remix 12-inch.

Why is their album called Six if whole numbers don’t suit them? "It’s spelled in letters," they point out. There are also seven songs on there, alas — if inexactitude reaps such brutal greatness as that of Wildildlife, may we never file taxes again.

WILDILDLIFE

With Mammatus and Three Leafs

Sat/25, 9:30 p.m., $8

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

Take your time

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

In this age of instant gratification, it feels excruciating to wait six minutes for something. In the case of the Notwist, fans had to content themselves with waiting six years. It’s been that long since the German quartet were ready to unleash more of the cottony, mellow glitch-pop that put them on the map. Their new album, The Devil, You + Me (Domino), is the result of just over half a decade of ships passing in the night, two years of recording, and one very concerted effort to get every last wisp of romantic longing down for posterity.

So, Guns N’ Roses aside, who the hell takes this long to make a record? I caught up with keyboardist Martin Gretschmann on the eve of the Notwist’s North American appearance in Toronto. Before I could politely ask if they were big fans of say, MMORPG gaming, Gretschmann explained that it’s enthusiasm for side projects that caused the big delay. Along with founding brothers Markus and Micha Acher, Gretschmann and new drummer Andi Haber are the most overextended musicians around, contributing to roughly five other bands, most notably 13 and God and Lali Puna.

"That’s why it took quite a few years for us to make a new record," he mused. "All the bands make records and do touring, and then it took around two years to record the new album, and before you wake up, it’s six years."

What inevitably brings these very busy gentlemen back together is the lure of the Notwist’s essence: a politely sputtering amalgam of samples, love songs, and bits of string section to tie it together. The band spent the last 20 years and six albums evolving from post-hardcore punk (their 1990 debut Notwist EP [Subway]) to indie trip-hop jazz (1998’s Shrink [Zero Hour]) to their current state of introspective electronic perfection.

Where 2002’s critically acclaimed Neon Golden (Domino) was a beautiful bouquet of freshly cut schizophrenia — a banjo leads off one song, barely there keyboards pepper another, lyrics have noticeable emotional range — The Devil, You + Me hovers like a question mark over the listener, asking "Why not?" in a steady stream of cloudy grey guitar chords and hiccups of static. Gretschmann explained: "Neon Golden is like a collection of songs. This one is rather stream of consciousness — more homogenic in a way."

Those semiconscious recurring themes of isolation and introspection are never more present than in their video for "Boneless," a downtrodden skateboarder’s reverie shot in Valparaiso, Chile. Gretschmann reveals their inspiration for the clip was none other than infamous cult-hero Donnie Darko. "The lyrics deal with growing up in a little town and always feeling different," he said. "You just feel like an alien somehow."

"Boneless" displays typical Notwist ingenuity: a deceptively bouncy piano loop that succumbs to Markus Acher’s lonely, searching vocals. The song is light and airy, borne aloft by a trace of tambourines and pop chords, but the effect is one of unmistakable fragility, of thoughts almost too sad to think.

On their new song, "Gravity," there are lyrics like, "I see the planets spinning faster / or is my body too slow?" The last six years have brought great changes for Notwist. Gretschmann was clear in the appearance of deep-seated emotion, of "some really heavy moments and sad moments" that found their way onto The Devil, You + Me: "That’s definitely one reason why some people say it’s very dark." He tempered this by sharing the jubilant mood of the band, who haven’t toured this continent since 2004. "[Toronto] is the first concert." He sounded a bit awed by his words, then laughed. "We have to see what comes out!" *

THE NOTWIST

With Jel and Odd Nosdam

Mon/27, 8 p.m., $20

Bimbo’s 365 Club

1025 Columbus, SF

(415) 474-0365

www.bimbos365club.com

Archie Shepp and Cecil Taylor

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PREVIEW The 2008 San Francisco Jazz Festival’s Vanguard Series is screaming. There, I said it. Both neophytes and adepts need to turn out this week for what will be personal milestones — those moments of "aha" and inspiration you’ll want to crystallize in something stronger than words — starting with mystic saxophonist Archie Shepp at Herbst Theatre Thursday. Considered one of the inventors of avant-garde jazz, Shepp blended blues, spirituals, and free-form music into a sound that transcends classification. Those who are familiar with his recordings are not getting the full message. Bearing witness is the only way to truly see.

Bearing witness is the only apt term for Cecil Taylor playing at Grace Cathedral on Friday. Taylor, one of the most prolific, experimental, and daring pianists in jazz or any other music, attacks the keys, coaxes polyrhythmic twists out of the music, and chisels chords from the dissonant, while traveling to the sublime and back again. Mix Grace Cathedral’s seven-second reverberation and Taylor’s inviting, deflecting, infuriating, and always inspiring compositions, poetry, and persona, and you get a religious experience. Go now — or regret later.

ARCHIE SHEPP Thurs/23, 7:30 p.m. (pre-concert talk at 6:30 p.m.), $25-$65. Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF. 1-866-920-JAZZ, www.sfjazz.org
CECIL TAYLOR Fri/24, 8 p.m., $30–$50. Grace Cathedral, 1100 California, SF. 1-866-920-JAZZ, www.sfjazz.org

What’s Up

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PREVIEW Post-hardcore is as straightforward as it sounds: the bands that hardcore musicians started that drew on a broader range of music beyond the self-imposed limitations of hard ‘n’ fast. After those bands imploded or stagnated, new groups emerged to incorporate influences from so-called world music and the fringes of contemporary classical, making for a helping of instrumental, textural artists on the one hand (Black Dice), and hyper-technical indie rockers on the other (Dirty Projectors).

What’s Up, however, is that rare thing: a technical instrumental band with lots of feeling. When I tell keyboardist-guitarist Robby Moncrieff by phone that I sense a lot of positive energy in the way the music is packed with bright, run-on melodies, he replies, "It comes from just being fed up with how things were going in town in a sense." "Town" is Sacramento, though Moncrieff, drummer Teddy Briggs, and bassist Brian Marshall recently relocated to Portland, Ore. "Sacramento’s got a great little underground thing going on, but it’s too small to support itself," Moncrieff continues. "There’s a lot of moral support, and it’s a great starting point, but it’s hard to try to grow there."

What’s Up is prepping to drop its first LP, Content Imagination, on Chicago’s upstart Obey Your Brain label in the spring. Although people might hear traces of Moncrieff’s work in 8-bit interpreters the Advantage, this band is a different beast. Briggs’ and Marshall’s solid, lurching rhythm section gives plenty of space for Moncrieff’s hyperactive, distorted keyboards to turn out melodies that shimmer for a moment before contradicting themselves. If there’s a signature What’s Up track so far, it’s "Harper’s Introduction." There’s something in the way the melody rides on the dirty keyboard bounce and the jerking rhythm of the drums and shaker that makes it seem like it could be some of the best beach music ever.

WHAT’S UP Fri/24, 8 p.m., call for price. Red Door Gallery 371 11th St., SF. (415) 652-4054. Also with Zach Hill, Oaxacan, and Religious Girls. Sat/25, 8:30 p.m., call for price. 21 Grand, 416 25th St., Oakl. (510) 444-7263, www.21grand.org

Live bait

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

Thirty-something British band Wire secured its place in rock history with three soberly brilliant LPs released in the late 1970s. Born Ruffians, a much younger Canadian combo, gets steady attention despite having only two uneven releases under their belt. Both groups will be playing likely well-attended shows this week, to audiences who either cut their post-punk teeth on Wire’s Chairs Missing (Harvest, 1979) or got really into Born Ruffians’ Red Yellow and Blue (Warp) since its release eight months ago. As different as these outfits appear, something about the expectations hovering around their shows seems to call for a slight recalibration of the rock-crit machine — what people are going to these shows for might not be what they actually hear. Even if you don’t read the reviews and haven’t scoped the scenes, someone lodged inside the Web marketing machine has done it for you. The more dimly aware you are of it, the better it works.

And this is what bothered me about Born Ruffians. I like Red Yellow and Blue fine, but before I’d even managed to really hear the band, I’d been blitzed with ancillary information. These three Torontonians, led by a thin, raw nerve of a man named Luke LaLonde, play a jangly form of indie with lots of off-mic huddle-chants — something like a summer camp take on Animal Collective’s harmonizing. In a way, the critical air support that followed the LP release seemed premeditated, hard-pressed to point out anything really compelling beyond a checklist of standard genre tropes. Still, listening to the album later, I was surprised that, while longing gets mentioned, nobody else noticed that it’s the engine of the music. Which can make even their best songs, like the scribbly "Hummingbird," a bit of a painful listen — not because they’re not afraid to look like fools, but because it cuts too close to the raw experience. Born Ruffians don’t dwell on pain as much as they let it seep in, an approach that makes me want to run at first but resolves into something modestly beautiful.

Wire, on the other hand, is in the unique position that even their most dedicated fans haven’t listened to the bulk of their discography. Their latest full-length is called Object 47 (Pink Flag) because it’s the 47th thing they’ve released. Wire’s initial trilogy — Pink Flag (Harvest, 1977), Chairs Missing, and 154 (Harvest, 1979) — remain the high-water mark against which they’re judged, and rightfully so: they invented a formal vocabulary for punk and rock in a hugely inspired fit of art school imagination. Yet one doesn’t get the feeling that anyone who has bothered to listen to their releases since then has actually heard anything other than a lack of those three albums, or subtle tweaks on the fecund language they opened up. The most interesting qualities of Wire’s recent recordings have little to do with their early shirt-and-tie experimentalism. Object 47‘s linchpin is "One of Us," a sweet pink heartbreak confection whose compassion is miles off from "The 15th"’s relationship semiotics.

All of which is to say that both concerts are worth going to for reasons that have little to do with the narratives swirling around each group. It shouldn’t be too difficult to let go of the stories anchoring these bands and experience them as something both more and less than the sum of their facts. *

BORN RUFFIANS

Wed/15, 9 p.m., $8

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

WIRE

Wed/15, 8 p.m., $25

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.livenation.com

Independence day

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Labels come and go. Not long ago, Moedoe and Frisco Street Show were among the most important outlets for Bay Area rap. Now both manufacture energy drinks instead: Hyphy Juice and Hunid Racks, respectively. Rap frequently favors money over artistry, but eliminating the art entirely is a bit much. To pose the Jacka’s musical question, "What happened to comin’ the dopest?"

The answer may be found at 21st and Mission streets, home of SMC Recordings.

"Rap’s a hustle because of where it’s from," 26-year-old co-owner and A&R head Will Bronson says. "I understand that, but in the end it’s still about making good music."

A shocking philosophy in today’s industry, but SMC makes it work. Not only has the company released some of the biggest recent Bay rap discs — including 2007’s Da Baydestrian by Mistah FAB and Da Bidnes by PSD, Keak, and Messy Marv — but it’s also building a national roster. Atlanta acquisitions like Pastor Troy and Killer Mike, whose current I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind 2 received critical acclaim, hitting No. 16 on Billboard’s rap chart, have raised the label’s nationwide profile.

"It’s going well," Killer Mike reports. "Major labels spend money on you, but never listen. SMC entertains every idea." This includes everything from letting Mike executive-produce his disc to approving his risky lead single, "Bang," attacking what he sees as the present lameness of Atlanta hip-hop.

"In rap it’s OK to be yourself," Bronson says. "No matter what level they’re on, the artists we sign are loved by their fans. Our records sell longer due to their quality."

SMC’s success wasn’t overnight: it evolved from late ’90s imprint UTR, whose founders included SMC co-owner Ralph Tashjian. The industry veteran long dreamed of starting a label here in his hometown. When his partners bailed, Tashjian brought in former UTR intern Bronson to continue as the Navarre-distributed Sumday Entertainment, whose successes included Keak’s Copium (2003), co-released with Moedoe, and Messy Marv’s Disobayish (2004). Switching distributors in 2005, when Bronson became a full partner, prompted another name change.

"Independent distribution is the future," Tashjian says. "Independent distributors are all successful while the majors are dying. As that began, Universal launched its own independent distribution, Fontana. We were one of their first labels. We had no obligation to Navarre, but for appearances we changed the name to SMC: Sumday Music Corp."

Such powerful distribution and an artist-friendly environment — artists own their masters, for example, which the label licenses — have helped SMC score bigger acts. It’s even invaded New York City, signing Capone-N-Noreaga for their third album. In a late-breaking development, SMC has now entered into a joint venture with the legendary Rakim, though details have yet to be announced.

Such moves, unprecedented for an independent Frisco hip-hop label, come at an interesting juncture in the Bay’s post-hyphy moment. There are cross-regional promotional opportunities; Mess, for example, is on Killer Mike’s disc, which includes an ad directing listeners to Mess’ upcoming project. Most important, as it goes national, SMC has reaffirmed its local role, partnering with Thizz Entertainment to launch two series, Town Thizzness for Oakland acts and Thizz City for SF, at the consumer-friendly price of $9.99. Town Thizzness has already released the two hands-down best local discs this year, Beeda Weeda’s Da Thizzness and J-Stalin’s Gas Nation. And the Bay isn’t confined to these series, as the upcoming San Quinn album, From a Boy to a Man, due Nov. 25, attests.

These series, Bronson says, "testify to our commitment to the Bay. We’re in SF so we need a marquee Bay Area artist. We need to develop the new Quinns, new Messy Marvs, in some way." It’s about time someone made that commitment.

You can’t kill them

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They’re on the fringe, and they don’t plan to leave it. Though mostly overlooked in their home country of New Zealand during the last two decades, the free-rockers in the Dead C will be the first to tell you that they’re not terribly bothered.

"We are not seen as plausible cultural ambassadors," stated guitarist Bruce Russell by e-mail from his home Down Under, citing the failure of the "laughable New Zealand media" to cover what’s artistically adventurous as one of the reasons his three-piece rarely can make it abroad to play shows. One would hope that Russell, Michael Morley, and Robbie Yeats would be more seriously considered for Kiwi government arts grants: indie rockers of yesteryear and the narcoleptic noisemongers of today repeatedly cite the Dead C as an influence on what they do. Just look who’s opening for them on their upcoming US gigs: Thurston Moore (who hosted them at All Tomorrow’s Parties’ "Nightmare Before Christmas" in England two years ago), Blues Control, Wolf Eyes, Six Organs of Admittance — all serious contenders on the experimental circuit, and all projects that garnered something, aesthetic or emotional, from the Dead C’s history of desperate clatter.

The Dead C got its start in Dunedin — members are located in Port Chalmers and Lyttelton today, about 225 miles apart — when the self-designated "AMM of Punk Rock" released its 1988 full-length debut, DR503, on Flying Nun, the infamous home to pop bands like the Clean, the Chills, Tall Dwarfs, and the Verlaines, for whom Yeats once drummed. A pop group the Dead C are not, but for an ensemble so ardently free-form and unmarketable, they’ve done nicely.

"The irony is, we’ve done very well in commercial terms by being ‘uncommercial,’" Russell explained. "I don’t know many of our contemporaries in New Zealand who are in better career positions than us. We make money. We can make any kind of record we like."

Much of their international clout was forged in their ’90s relationship with the Siltbreeze label, run and recently revived by Tom Lax of Philadelphia, with whom they released some of their most acclaimed discs, including 1992’s Harsh ’70s Reality, 1995’s White House, and 1997’s Tusk. This period saw them create what many consider to be their most vital material, flirting with darkly catchy riffs while always doggedly blazing space for noisy, alien buzz and scrape. Secret Earth is their brand new release, shortly following last year’s Future Artists (both Ba Da Bing) and recorded over two days, six months apart. Morley’s eerie exhale oversees a stupor-inducing slow grind that renders track titles a useless roadmap for proceedings: after a few minutes with the Dead C, one won’t notice such trifling details as the stops, starts, and riffs anymore. They are, after all, masters of mood. Morley and Russell’s guitars-at-odds and Yeats’ distantly mic’d drums consistently scare up an unsettling, deconstructed blues-groove that makes clear the precedent for Sebadoh’s stoned angst cassettes.

Regardless of influence, the upcoming US dates mark only their third outing to the States since getting together — damn! What do they do on the rare occasion they’re on a stage? "We approach live shows quietly, without undue fuss, so we can take ’em by surprise and wring their necks before they can fight back," Russell wrote, pointing out that there’s nothing static about a Dead C track — other than that staticky sound.

Any fan with the whoops and feedback screeches of "Driver U.F.O." committed to memory will hear something that sounds rather otherwise if that song shows up in the set. "We are ‘fully improvised,’ though every now and then we’ll attempt an item from our back catalog," Russell continued. "But we never, ever practice them."

This back catalog is becoming more available thanks to Ba Da Bing, their US label for the past few years, which will be reissuing DR503 and 1989’s Eusa Kills (Flying Nun) on vinyl. The band is, according to Russell, also hoping to reissue its pre-1990 work next year (working title: Complete ’80s Reality). Immediately available, however, is the tour-only 12-inch, which includes recent live recordings, and gives an added incentive to check ’em out this week.

Why not? It’s hard not to be charmed by their passive-aggressive, cavalier mode of operation. "We just do what we do and dare people to ignore it," Russell offered. "Which they duly do, and we could not care less."

THE DEAD C

With Six Organs of Admittance

Thurs/16, 8 p.m., $20

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com

Writing on the Wallpaper

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SONIC REDUCER Everyone knows sex sells. But who knew, so many years ago, when hip-hop was still reporting from the streets and dance music revolved round the love and stardust thrown off those glittering mirrored balls, that overt consumption itself would sell just as well? So much of today’s mainstream pop and hip-hop continues to hobble along on the crutch of an all-glam, imagination-free, Benjamin-flaunting, daydream-stoking, showroom/showoff mentality, which masquerades as genuine energy and originality. Check, for instance, T.I.’s Cinderella-fantasy "Whatever You Like" video. Still, is Britney Spears ushering in a recession-era pop backlash against gimme-gimme materialism with her recent "Womanizer" clip? Its up-to-the-millisecond, dashed-off put-down of Wall Street traders ‘n’ traitors is delivered nekkid from a detoxing, rehab-ready sauna.

And you know the East Bay’s dance-pop provocateur Wallpaper is on that tip — with his own ironic-hip-cat zazu. The Wallpaper project itself, says mastermind Eric Frederic, is "a device to critique pop music but also popular culture, and I think things are getting exponentially worse — as far as consumer culture, cell phone culture, the culture of me goes. Even for those of us who think we understand it and are separate from it."

Take, for example, texting — my least favorite thing to watch in a dark movie theater and the subject of Wallpaper’s "Txt Me Yr Love" off its T Rex EP (Eenie Meenie). "That song is obviously a knock on text-obsessed people," Frederic continues. "But I probably send 100 text messages a day. I do it way more than I want to and way more than I’m comfortable with, and that represents, again, an inner struggle with this kind of stuff."

Fighting, thought-provoking words from a sharp, very funny mind. I first caught Wallpaper a while back at Bottom of the Hill, and Frederic’s uncanny pop hooks and cheesy-hilarious way of styling his performance — delivered in character, from a vinyl La-Z-Boy, as the egocentric would-be-superstar Ricky Reed, alongside drummer Arjun Singh — made me bookmark him for better or worse. Whether you catch the two live or Frederic in one of his wittily clueless video blog entries, you’ll find that Wallpaper brings that sense of humor so sorely missing from local pop, dance, and indie rock scenes.

And rest assured, the tousled-haired songwriter, who just graduated with a degree in composition from UC Berkeley, is nothing like his satirical persona.

"The character is a real jerk, and I don’t want to be anything like him or embody him in my daily life at all," says the Bay Area native while tackling a turkey sandwich at Brainwash Cafe. "He’s arrogant, and he’s chauvinistic, and he’s material-obsessed. He just represents everything that bums me out." Frederic laughs. "He’s not very bright. He doesn’t really get it, and he doesn’t realize that the joke’s on him half the time." Hence the surprised reactions from fans — apparently Wallpaper blew minds during their ’08 Brooklyn and Philadelphia shows — when they approach Frederic. "Usually the first response is, ‘I didn’t think you were going to be so nice to me!’"

He’s nice and hard-working apparently: Frederic toiled on the EP, played alongside party-starters like Dan Deacon, and did some requisite remixes while completing work on his degree, and now he’s deep into making an album, a form that he’s studying intently.

"It’s definitely hard because with today’s music culture or climate, you have to do remixes and video blogs and stuff just to keep people’s attention. Making a really intensive, really smart full-length record while doing all that stuff with a short period of time is really challenging," he says. Frederic’s happy with what he has, but "I put a lot of pressure on myself," says the songwriter who, in one hilarious video blog, threatened to quit the biz if Wallpaper’s EP was outsold by Grand Theft Audio IV. "I’ve been listening to Thriller about every other day. If you don’t set your goals to be the best, what are you going to do? Just be mediocre or halfway to the median? There’s no reason why anybody should not be trying to make timeless records." And who would get the last laugh if this semi-joke band made one of those? *

WALLPAPER

Fri/17, 10 p.m., $10–$15

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

www.rickshawstop.com


BARACK OUT OR …

LAIKA AND THE COSMONAUTS
Wipe…out! The Finnish surf combo bids, "Aloha," with this farewell tour. With Pollo Del Mar and the Go Going Gone Girls. Thurs/16, 8 p.m., $12. Rickshaw Stop.

GRUPO FANTASMA
Austin’s funky jamkins meld reggae, cumbia, and salsa grooves to a great din of buzz. With Boca Do Rio. Fri/17, 9 p.m., $15. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.independentsf.com

MARY J. BLIGE
More drama, puleeze. With Robin Thicke. Sat/18, 7:30 p.m., $33.75–$119.75. Sleep Train Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass, Concord. www.livenation.com

TINA TURNER
Love’s got everything to do with it when it came to adding another show to the leggy legend’s San Jose stand. Sun/19-Mon/20, 7 p.m., $59.50–$150. HP Pavilion, 525 W. Santa Clara, San Jose. www.apeconcerts.com
KILLERS
Will the upcoming Day and Age (Island) be another Bruce’s — I mean —Sam’s Town (Island, 2006)? Tues/21, 8 p.m., $37.50. Warfield, 982 Market, SF. www.goldenvoice.com

Stereolab

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PREVIEW Eighteen years, nine studio albums, and dozens of singles and EPs along, Stereolab just might have been misnamed. Are the Europa-spanning pop-history-conscious groove alchemists better dubbed Stereogame? After all, founder-guitarist-keyboardist-songwriter Tim Gane describes the band’s music-making process as more akin to intelligent child’s play than anything strictly scientific. "I tend to look at it like a puzzle," he said by the phone during a tour stop in Detroit. "I’m the opposite of a classic songwriter — someone who contrives to write songs to convey something. To me, it’s the opposite thing. I have nothing to say, but I want to find out …"

Stereolab’s latest full-length, Chemical Chords (4AD), teems with archetypal melodicism along with a certain age-old genre restriction: more often than not, the songs unfold their brilliant petals, blossom seductively, then recede around the three-minute mark. Longer tracks like "Nous Vous Demandons Pardon" play friskily bright snare, plonky vibes, and bell-like keys off a familiar Motown bounce. The music of Hitsville USA as well as the Brill Building provided a kind of rulebook for Stereolab’s fun and games this time around. To add an element of uncertainty, he worked out the chords to the songs on guitar, then applied them randomly over four rhythms the band had already recorded with drum loops. As a result, he said, "you seem to listen to it for the first time."

That strategy of recontextualizing somewhat worn rock ‘n’ roll touchstones evokes filmmaker Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising (1964) soundtrack, which Gane references. And what is the wildest use for Stereolab’s pop? "It was," Gane said, "used for a toilet advert in Italy."

STEREOLAB With Richards Swift. Tue/21, 8 p.m., $27.50. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 346-6000, www.livenation.com>.

Heavy Heavy Low Low

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PREVIEW Things could have been so easy for the Bay Area’s best young group. After building a buzz with their uncompromising, spastic EP, Courtside Seats (self-released, 2005), San Jose’s Heavy Heavy Low Low signed to Ferret Music, the metalcore equivalent to mid-1990s Death Row Records. Ferret brought new exposure and high expectations, which the lads lived up to on their stunning 2006 debut, Everything’s Watched, Everyone’s Watching. EWEW was the sound of a band breaking out of the metalcore scene they grew up in by building a battering ram of noisy fuzz. Though they shunned many of the genre’s hackneyed clichés (screamed verse/sung chorus, asymmetrical haircuts that double as eye patches), they embraced their roots with punishing breakdowns, abrasive guitar gashes, and vocalist Robert Smith’s brutal, distinctive ramblings.

Though EWEW was a critical and commercial success, the guys had no intention of rehashing it when they went into Oakland’s Panda Studios to record what would become their new LP, Turtle Nipple and the Toxic Shock (Ferret/New Weatherman). According to Smith, "We didn’t really have any goals or anything like that. We just wanted to make a weird album that wasn’t as affiliated with, I guess, metal or how Heavy used to be." While most hardcore/metal bands shun their heavy roots for crossover appeal under the guise of experimentation, Turtle Nipple is actually less accessible than their previous recordings. While this has turned off the average lazy scenester, the astute fan will rejoice in the disc’s depth and variation: this time jazz, surf rock, and psychedelia are juxtaposed with the brutal breakdowns and blast beats.

HEAVY HEAVY LOW LOW With Fear Before. Fri/17, 7 p.m., $12. 418 Project, 418 Front, Santa Cruz. (831) 466-9770, www.the418.org

Songs in silver

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Meara O’Reilly has brought a book to our meeting at a café near her Mission District apartment. The author is Mary Hallock-Greenewalt, a visionary musician-inventor who worked toward synthesizing light and sound in the 1920s. It’s a special kind of musician who feels compelled to devise her own instrument, and O’Reilly takes obvious pleasure in having discovered a predecessor.

Her own tonal invention, which provides the cornerstone for her music as Avocet, is an elegant metal hanger on which a half-dozen silver forks dangle in front of contact microphones, suspended by threads of horsehair. "Michael Hurley calls it the belladonna," she notes with a laugh. O’Reilly’s instrument still doesn’t have a fixed name, although there is something of an origin story: "I had these amazing pieces of silver my godmother had given me. I would drop them, and they would ring out for 10 seconds or so. It was so beautiful."

The Sebastopol native devised her resonating instrument while living on a dairy farm in Vermont. "I played a show with it when it was really in prototype form, and I was actually using my own hair," she recounts. "My hair wasn’t thick enough, so it kept breaking. It actually sounds really good, though, better than the horse hair." Avocet’s hear-a-pin-drop live sets make for a bracing contrast with O’Reilly’s previous gig with Feathers, a New England psych-folk collective that released a single album before parting company. The instrument-swapping group afforded her the social comfort of a band, but it was only one part of a private musical development encompassing everything from noise rock to gamelan.

O’Reilly periodically switches to guitar in her sets, though her unconventional fascination with sound still shines through on the more familiar instrument. She sings songs from Greece and Mongolia and professes a deep interest in the distinct tonal possibilities of different tongues. The drifting sustain of her performances is generally blue, with notes and melodies in free-flight, perilously close to oblivion. In spite of the obvious volume differential, Avocet might fairly be compared with any number of sculptural drone bands. She is, after all, a student of metal. "I’ve been trying to learn about different eras of silver because there are different putf8gs and compositions of the metal," O’Reilly says. "So other than just looking at the shape and figuring out the physics of what note [a fork] would be, there’s also the composition of it." Then she finishes the thought, "I’d like to know more." 2

AVOCET

With Brightblack Morning Light and Iasos

Tues/14 and Oct. 15, 9:30 p.m., $15

Café Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

Also with Brightblack Morning Light

Oct. 16, 9:30 p.m., $10

Starry Plough

3101 Shattuck, Berk.

(510) 841-2082

www.starryploughpub.com

All is well in the land of Pigeon Funk

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"This is the most we could come up with our small minds over a long period of time," says Joshua Kit Clayton, who often stops the phone conversation to ask what this author is wearing and whether he’s having a good day. Pigeon Funk’s second album, The Largest Bird in the History of the Planet … Ever! (Musique Risquée), took four years to make. For much of that time, Clayton was largely absent from the city’s techno scene after having once been one of its dominant figures. He finally reappeared this year with two 12-inches: "Grey Amber" and "I Left My Heart My Heart in San Francisco," the latter a double-A single with Sutekh.

"I don’t go to a lot of dance parties anymore, although I saw Seth [Horvitz, né Sutekh] at a rave the other night," Clayton muses. "I couldn’t even tell what kind of drugs people were on. But other than that, I haven’t been out to a dance music night in a very long time…. I have no idea what other people are doing today. I am sheltered."

"I almost feel like a strange outsider at this point," adds Sutekh, who says the aforementioned so-called rave gig was a rare occurrence. Musically, though, he’s stayed active, most recently dropping the "Influenza B" single earlier this spring.

When Pigeon Funk issued its self-titled EP in 2001, the group fit right in with the glitch/IDM/experimental wave cresting throughout the techno world. Years later it’s still about glitch, except house and hip-hop producers like Glitch Mob and Daedelus hijacked it. Meanwhile, the techno scene has moved on to minimal and — surprisingly — trance.

With few current trends to categorize it with, The Largest Bird sounds happily out of step. Abandoning the computer programming that has been a hallmark of their careers, Sutekh and Clayton turned to analog keyboard equipment, random vocally-generated noises, and disparate acoustic equipment. The eclectic beats range from wacky exotica lounge ("Alma Hueco" with vocalist Anna Machado) to funky bangers ("Bacchanal").

Touting The Largest Bird’s therapeutic qualities, Clayton says, "I think it would be really dope if people used this inside their yoga classes, their exercise classes, meditation classes, workforce training classes, any type of self-growth, whether it be erotic, financial, religious, or fitness. I think this album is something that would lift them up."

New lost blues

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I began noticing the signs soon after moving to the Bay Area: Arthur Magazine, revivals of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s movies, and print dresses and feathers all pointed to a vogue for the psychedelic aesthetic extending beyond the tie-dyed Haight. Psychedelic rock is the 800-pound gorilla of San Francisco music, though subsequent punk scenes clustering around Mabuhay Gardens and 924 Gilman defined themselves in direct opposition to its flower-power. I was surprised, even a little put off, by what seemed like a fundamentally conservative revival.

That was before I saw Comets on Fire. The group reclaimed the mad, exploratory spirit of ’60s psychedelia precisely by not being overly dogmatic in their interpretation of the original sound. Just as vintage outfits like Quicksilver Messenger Service and Blue Cheer — to name two local bands often championed by the current crop — deconstructed bluegrass and R&B, so too do the artists following in Comets on Fire’s wake reconstitute old school psychedelia into freshly disorienting supernovas. In the case of Comets, the game-changer lay with showing how you could collapse the distance between the Grateful Dead and the Stooges. The set I saw at the Hemlock Tavern was as much a piece of music criticism as it was an explosive performance. They made psych-rock seem a realm of possibility instead of the tattered rump of a dancing bear.

Five of 10 ensembles playing the first Frisco Freakout are based in the Bay Area, with all but Mythical Beast hailing from within the Golden State’s borders. Each band dials in subtly different equations of texture and influences, though Sleepy Sun’s MySpace message probably speaks for all involved parties: "Let’s get weird." Inspired by the legendary bills at the Fillmore and Matrix in the ’60s, Relix contributing editor Richard Simon and Wooden Shjips shredder Ripley Johnson collaborated on organizing the all-day showcase.

Music journalists use the word psychedelic to describe everything from Beach House’s gauzy organ trip to My Bloody Valentine’s overripe swan-dives — not to mention the adjacent freak-folk scene — so it’s probably worth specifying that most of the Frisco Freakout groups are close to the original psych-rock article, as defined by the hard, face-melting electricity of the early Dead and their cohorts. Whether listening to the endless spirals of Earthless, the prog-laced kick of Crystal Antlers, or the smooth drip of Sleepy Sun, one is repeatedly tempted to describe the sounds in terms of metallurgy.

"These bands are going to play hard and fuck with your head," Simon bluntly jokes by phone in SF. "I’ve been interested in trying to shunt some of these bands into Relix, to reconnect branches in this family tree that originates here."

Correctives to the jam-band theory of psychedelic rock are always welcome, though one perhaps worries about flying the freak flag too high. "You’re reluctant to identify a scene because once something is a scene it gets co-opted and commercialized," Simon confesses, but I’m in full agreement that it’s better to take a proactive, artists-first approach rather than waiting to be uncomfortably grouped as Pitchfork’s flavor-of-the-week.

Given the friendly demeanor of the event — it’s being billed as a "psychedelic dance party" and, more important, it benefits visual art nonprofit Creativity Explored — the Frisco Freakout goes a long way toward clearing up the discomfiting idea that a lot of neo-psychedelia is strictly for collectors. This isn’t to question the passion of any of the musicians involved, but simply to wonder aloud when the willfully obscurant approach to band names and releases translates to outright fetishism. In a year in which a black man is running for president, a limited-edition, colored vinyl doesn’t pass as a freakout.

Then again, these performers are compelling because of their attention to aesthetic detail and creative sense of rock historiography. It’s unavoidable that musicians weaned on punk would approach psych-rock differently from those only a decade or two on the Dead’s coattails, but one is struck again and again by their experimental impulse. Certain key reference points are a given: besides the aforementioned ’60s groups, there are usually traces of Neil Young, Spaceman 3, and the Velvet Underground. But so too do most of the groups venture further afield to add dabs of Terry Riley, Can, Morton Feldman, or Skip Spence to their spectroscopic sounds. Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound’s improbable mix of raga, Canned Heat, sci-fi sounds, and Black Flag is batty enough to warrant a Greil Marcus study.

Psychedelic rock exists, like almost any music genre in the Internet age, beyond regional boundaries, but it still makes a special fit with California’s earth-tugging landscape. At the same time that the Western mythos of the frontier crumbled in Vietnam’s shadow, the original Frisco freakouts pushed past the real wilderness for a psychic one. These newer bands thrust us even more precipitously into this "lost" mental space, seeking to refurnish psych-rock with its dangerous luster. 2

FRISCO FREAKOUT

Sat/11, 2 p.m., $15

Parkside

1600 17th St., SF

www.friscofreakout.com

Mashed up

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› Kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Remember the bad ole days when giving a damn about food was uncool? When it was all about toughing out the gurgles in the gut — or snatching sheer, pleasure-free sustenance by grabbing a cheapie, microwaveable green burrito from 7-Eleven and shoveling it down the gullet before racing to the hardcore show at the Vet’s Hall.

Well, M.F.K. Fisher be praised and pass the white truffle oil and broccolini. Times have changed, and the signs of the shift in this chow-fixated city of biodynamo-organo-locavores have even seeped into its musical crannies, from shakuhachi player Philip Gelb’s organic, vegan cooking class-feast-performances and curator Brianna Toth’s dinner shows in her Mission District kitchen to Hawnay Troof/Vice Cooler’s mini-vegan cook-zine and Godwaffle Noise Pancakes brunches that gird gingerbread griddle cakes with quality noise. We won’t even mention all the musicians who also cook or wait for a living. Jesus Christ in a chicken basket, even big pop shots like Alex Kapranos have license to poop out tomes like Sound Bites: Eating on Tour with Franz Ferdinand (Penguin, 2006).

So when I smelt Lost in the Supermarket: An Indie Rock Cookbook comin’, I had to try some recipes and find out how this collection of treats from this oddball yet provocative assortment of music-makers came about. Authors Kay Bozich Owens and Lynn Owens were clearly indie fans of the most eclectic variety. Belle and Sebastian’s and Fugazi’s chosen eats are paired with Japanther’s and USAISAMONSTER’s. Some recipes tickle the taste buds like Icelandic experimentalist Mugison’s — say wha? — Plokkfishkur, a.k.a., fish stew. Others resonate like a zen koan (see Xiu Xiu’s take on tofu — "3. Eat it with a fork. 4. Stare out the window"); test one’s, erm, taste like 16 Bitch Pile Up’s "Birthday Cundt Cake," an anatomically correct, iced red-cake interpretation of a dismembered torso; or tease the imagination as with Carla Bozulich’s "Recipe for a Melodramatic End."

Lynn Owens attributes the hearty response that he and wife Kay received to the pervasiveness and renewed cool of foodie culture, the mindfulness with which people are paying attention to food and its origins, and the low-cost and creative side of cooking-it-yourself. "The kitchen is a place for creativity," says Owens, who teaches sociology, concentrating on radical politics and social protest, at Middlebury College in Vermont.

"And it is cool again: dinner party culture is big now." Additionally, he says, many musicians saw it as yet another outlet: "To an extent, cultural producers are branching out — now you don’t just do one thing anymore."

The project kicked off when the couple moved to Connecticut a few years ago: Lynn — who once made pizzas in SF alongside his friend, Deerhoof founder and 7 Year Rabbit Cycle leader Rob Fisk — was teaching at Wesleyan, and the bored and unemployed Kay began e-mailing bands about their favorite recipes, not expecting anyone to write back. But they did — with at times startling passion. "The Country Teasers, who actually have a reputation of having music that’s super-misanthropic, were super-duper helpful," Lynn marvels. "Almost everyone in the band sent recipes, and they introduced us to other bands who wanted to participate, and then when they played in Providence, R.I., they invited us to come to the show." Lynn went so far as to pull rank as a Wesleyan instructor in order to get alumni Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls to cough up a chocolate zucchini cake recipe. Students were enlisted as test kitchen guinea pigs.

Piqued by Lost‘s inclusion of multiple chili and mashed potato recipes, I decided to try my hand with the taters, a band favorite, natch, because they’re "filling and relatively cheap," as Lynn puts it. Black Dice’s Eric Copeland, another active contributor with multiple recipes and advice, forked up a relatively simple mashed potato recipe made of potatoes, sour cream, and "spices," which meant seasoned salt, pepper, and other mystery add-ins. Decent, but not as imaginative as I’d like from a Black Dicer.

The real revelations were Gris Gris member Oscar’s "Jalapeño Mashed Potatoes" and Solex’s "Amsterdam Mashed Potatoes with Sauerkraut." The former’s combo of almost-carmelized, hot-sweet jalapeños and onions combined with mash and chunks of queso fresco was an outright oral fiesta. The latter Dutch doozy was comfort food Eurostar deluxe, juxtaposing bland creaminess with sour ‘n’ savory sauerkraut, onion, and buttah. You won’t find Alice Waters or Thomas Keller level cooking in Lost, but fans of, say, starving college student cookbooks or quirky compendiums of Spam or ramen recipes will find plenty of tasty notions here — as delectable as all the aforementioned potato heads’ music. As the Rae-monster might roar, "Yummo." *

REFRESH, RENEW, REUNITE

AWESOME COLOR AND KAYO DOT

The Michigan acid-rockers and the Brooklyn avant explorers kick out the jams. Wed/8, 9 p.m., $8. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

CAKE

Oakland vocalist John McCrea and company put the rock into their politics — and raise money for Proposition H. Fri/10, 9 p.m., $49.50–$99.50. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK

Whoa, these guys look like the alternate cast of Entourage. Fri/10, 8 p.m., $37.50–$77.50. HP Pavilion, 525 W. Santa Clara, San Jose. www.livenation.com

QUINTRON AND MISS PUSSYCAT

Quintron makes an appearance in Lost in the Supermarket with a lemon meringue pie recipe. Sat/11, 9 p.m., $15, Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

NOW AND ZEN FEST

UK soul diva Duffy teams with ex-Eureka-ite Sara Bareilles. Sun/12, noon–5 p.m., $25. Sharon Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF. www.radioalice.com

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

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

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

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