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Music Features

Collision Fest, Convergence Fest, and “Faux Real”

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PREVIEW Children, go where I send you. Seek out the wild women of the Mission Creek Music Festival Collision Fest.

Sure there are some sweet boys — any pleasure-seeker with eyes and ears should enjoy Mike Mantle of the Mantles (headlining July 22 at Hotel Utah), or Myles Cooper’s solo journey outside the Passionistas (opening a June 24 El Rio bill). But this year’s MCMF says here’s to the ladies who launch — the women who make new musical rules in order to break them.

Ryder Cooley reps recent Bay Area ingenuity on Thursday at the LAB. But the double bill bonanza crazier than any acid trip involving Tony Danza goes down same place, same time the next night, when Dynasty Handbag and Ann Magnuson take the stage. Dynasty girl Jibz Cameron is a treasure as classy as your mom’s favorite perfume — not even Lypsinka sinks her teeth into the art of lipsyncing with such ferocity. Try not pee yourself as she puts the p in performance and prepares you for the musical dramatics of Ms. Magnuson. What can be said about the queen of Bongwater, besides that on the cover of Power Of Pussy (Shimmy Disc, 1990), she was both outdoing and lampooning Burning Man before it even became a phenomenon?

Since Magnuson rubbed extremely pointy shoulders with Klaus Nomi back at the Mudd Club, it’s safe to assume she would be intrigued by the Nomi-esque stage theatrics of Fauxnique, a.k.a. Monique Jenkinson, who is bringing her recent show Faux Real back for a weekend stint outside of the Mission Creek rubric. Word has it that the show is brilliant — for real.

While Magnuson and Dynasty Handbag exemplify the Collision Fest’s cross-disciplinary antics, the Convergence Fest is a trip into filmdom. And in the case of Ira Cohen’s 1968 cinematic mirror-warp The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda (Sun/19 at Artists’ Television Access), I do mean trip. Along with a documentary about Krautrock godheads Faust (Sat/18 at ATA), Cohen’s movie is one of MCMF’s screen gems.

FAUX REAL Thurs/16–Sat/18, 8 p.m. $20. Climate Theater, 285 Ninth St., SF.(415)704-3260, www.climatetheater.com

COLLISION FEST AND CONVERGENCE FEST www.mcmf.org

Dead ends

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Clean Hands Go Foul (Hydra Head/Dymare), the posthumous release from doom metal supergroup Khanate, has been sitting with me for a while. But its potency only increases over time. With each successive listen, I feel increasingly like one of H.P. Lovecraft’s doomed protagonists — characters who unwittingly gamble away their sanity as they attempt to piece together the horrifying totality of a universe controlled by beings not of their time or space. I’m not sure what I am losing when I listen to Khanate, but I feel lost nonetheless.

There are few moorings on Khanate’s slate sea of negativity — none of metal’s usual signifiers, no lyrical invitations to trample on sacred institutions, no head-banging riffs. The four tracks on Clean Hands are emotional dead ends where vocalist Alan Dubin’s howled protests of rage, disgust, and futility are left to fester in the gutters built by guitarist Steven O’Malley, bassist James Plotkin, and drummer Tim Wyskida.

Composed of material improvised during the recording sessions of 2005’s Capture & Release (with Plotkin editing in Dubin’s vocals later on), Clean Hands plays more like a belated précis for the group’s deconstructed yet unrelentingly crushing interpretation of metal than a coherent album. Like Keiji Haino’s renowned power trio Fushitsusha, Khanate understood that metal’s heaviness could be chopped and screwed into different shapes without diminishing its brutality.

Some of Clean Hands‘ tracks are more successful at conveying the band’s protean dynamic than others. "In That Corner" — a staggering, Haino-worthy dirge — starts out at full blast before quieting down into a series of mournful echoes of itself. But it is album closer "Every God Damn Thing" that best displays the group’s propensity for grueling duration. Taking up close to half the album’s running time, it pairs 30 plodding minutes of input jack/cord buzz, bass rumbles, scraped guitar strings, the occasional feedback howl, and random bits of percussion with Dubin’s long-form, bile-filled disquisition on the title phrase. (Some sample lyrics: "Everything poison. Even flowers disgust"; "Out there, someone is dying. Hopefully, it should be all of them.")

Dubin is Khanate’s secret weapon. Other than Die Kreuzen’s Dan Kubinski or Swans-era Michael Gira, I cannot think of a vocalist whose rasp is severe enough to make you feel skinned alive and whose lyrics convey the vicissitudes of antisocial sentiment with such uncomfortable immediacy and — at times — surprising poetic force.

"It’s all bad, again!" Dubin screams at the close of "Every God Damn Thing." Such a statement of futility is fitting for a track that seethes in anticipation of a climax yet falls short of delivering the goods in its final paroxysms. An uneven postmortem, Clean Hands proves Khanate was never interested in giving listeners the satisfaction of a climax. The forces that compelled it toward such uncompromising, bleak musical extremes were also, unsurprisingly, what led to its breakup. Hell is indeed other people — including your bandmates. "Man’s greatness resides in knowing himself to be wretched," Pascal once said. With this final nail in the coffin, Khanate has proven itself to be so great.

Out of the blue

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

ESSAY This is the briar patch, the place from which all funky thangs flow. On the anniversary of the death of my Afro-Algonquin Southern (re)belle mother, my bare feet are planted in the dirt. Since it’s also the last days of Black Music Month, I am out of my head, thoughts swirling across the amber waves pondering the intersections of family, flesh, and funk, questing after new sounds and cultural concepts even as I journey into my sonic past. The last time it seems I was so enmeshed and empowered by cultural renaissance was just over 21 years ago, when Neil Young first heralded his now released Archives project, and I embraced the notion that Neil Young’s work is black music.

My late mother was a restless adventurer born in Virginia — and I perceive Neil Young as the same via osmosis from his maternal grandfather, Bill Ragland, a Virginian émigré to the Great North and scion of the Southern planter class from Petersburg. The Neil Young I love most is the direct heir of aspects of Daddy Ragland’s personal lore: he had the first radio and gramophone in Winnipeg, Canada; he fiercely retained his American citizenship while big pimpin’ in Manitoba (foreshadowing his grandson’s famous Canadian retentions despite residing in California).

Daddy Ragland boasted that his grandfather had freed the enslaved Africans on the family plantation. But he was also descended from the original British invaders who established Virginia Colony, destroying my people’s lifeways and ecology in process, setting precedents for America’s current crises around violence, resources, and the environment. The glories and tensions in Young’s family fables would appear to be the benefactor of much of his catalog’s leading lights: "Southern Man," "Cortez the Killer," "After the Gold Rush," "Country Girl," "Pocahontas," "Here We Are In the Years," "Alabama," "Broken Arrow," "Powderfinger," and "Down By the River."

Young’s internal narrative of ur-Americana (literally carried on the blood) is enacted again and again and refashioned throughout Reprise’s 10-disc Neil Young Archives — Vol. 1 (1963-1972), a collection that traces his odyssey from Ventures acolyte and early earnest folkie to embryonic trickster of eco-metal. The epic nature of Young’s work, akin to a late modern, machine age substitute for Greek myth — at least for the hippie, Coastopian jet-set — was once lost on me. The voice beaming over the radio waves in "Helpless" and "Sugar Mountain" was repellent to these ears, raised in the 1970s when Mother Nature was on the run and the last universally-recognized golden era of black music abounded with diverse male songbirds (Ronnie Dyson, Carl Anderson) and badass lovemen (Teddy Pendergrass, Eddie Levert). But one day, after yet another wearisome visit to a coffeehouse festooned with Harry Chapin songs and some showoff girl’s fey rendition of "Helpless," I encountered three Neil Young masterpieces that forever altered my hearing: "Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing," "Broken Arrow," and "Cinnamon Girl." I became a Buffalo Springfield devotee for life.

What also went down? Somehow, pre-Web and locked away in the wilds with limited resources, I discovered my favorite bit of rock trivia: Neil Young was in a band with Rick James signed to Motown for a seven-year deal, the Mynah Birds. Young’s engagements with psych, punk, and grunge are well-documented — even if most shirk the challenge of unpacking his electro output — but the lurking presence of the funk in his aesthetic is often ignored. Now, I ain’t saying ole Neil could come down to my former hood and swing with a Chocolate City go-go outfit (maybe he could trouble the funk?), but on "Go Ahead and Cry," the ringing of his unleashed 1970s guitar sound is already evident. The sublime meeting of Young’s thang with "The Sound of Young America" makes one lament how differently (black) rock history might have looked had the Mynah Birds triumphed at Hitsville.

My view is that Young couldn’t have written some of his best songs, like "Cinnamon Girl" and "Mr. Soul," plus freakery I dig such as "Sea of Madness," without that brief spell at Motown. (It’s interesting to imagine former auto-line worker Berry Gordy and car enthusiast Young rapping by chance). In a weird way, the shades of Young that appeared on the pop stage and relentlessly morphed between "Clancy" and "When You Dance I Can Really Love" seem to coexist with turn-of-the-’70s Motown mavericks who also flirted with polemics, space rock, and soul yodeling: Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Eddie Kendricks.

The Mynah Birds are sadly absent from volume one of Archives, despite a fleeting citation in its chronological timeline. But a few months before the box set dropped I acquired my grail of Mynah Birds tracks, and the picture of Young as a potential R&B artist who brought some of the Motown sensibility to bear upon the aesthetics of his next band, the Buffalo Springfield, emerged tantalizingly. Alongside it was the turbulent back story of the striving front man Ricky James Matthews (a Mick Jagger acolyte who later renamed himself), who failed to gain support for his hybrid vision of black rock even as his old bandmate soared from the ashes of Woodstock Nation.

Aside from the future Super Freak, Young’s key ace boons on the funk express were Bruce Palmer (1946-2004) and Danny Whitten (1943-72) — besides Stephen Stills, the stars of this first set. Palmer, a native of Toronto who shared a deep spiritual bond with Young, had been in an all-black Canadian band led by Billy Clarkson even prior to his membership in the Mynah Birds. He subsequently brought his low-end theories to the Springfield; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (before being replaced by young Motown bassist Greg Reeves); and Young’s thwarted revolutionary electronic project Trans (Geffen, 1982). Palmer also reunited with Rick James after the Springfield’s implosion, producing the beautiful psych-jazz classic The Cycle Is Complete (Verve, 1971), a rival to Skip Spence’s Oar (Columbia, 1969).

Columbus, Ga.,-bred Whitten might still be Young’s most fabled collaborator. His premature death by heroin overdose inspired "The Needle and the Damage Done" (included amongst other Harvest tracks on disc eight of Vol. 1) and the dark and stark standout of the "Ditch Trilogy," Tonight’s the Night (Reprise, 1975), which will feature in the next Archives installment. Even before starting the Laurel Canyon-based Rockets (which became Crazy Horse), Whitten had been a live R&B dancer and seems to have restored some genuine Southern rock ‘n’ soul flava to the mix of his boy twice-removed from Dixie. Every time I hear the vainglorious funk bomb that is "Cinnamon Girl," I recognize that element is there and regret Whitten’s passing even more.

I first and foremost swear fealty to Buffalo Springfield. But for all his seemingly mercurial guises, the plaid-and-denim-clad Young who conjured Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Reprise, 1969) and the songs from the Ditch in company with Crazy Horse and other canyon pickers appears to be the most enduring direct influence on later generations. To try to make sense of Young’s legend, I consulted an amen corner: Harry Weinger, VP of A&R at Universal Motown; famed Harvest producer Elliot Mazer; and young J. Tillman.

I also saw my Alabama-bred friend Patterson Hood at the Bowery Ballroom, bringing an element of Stills and Young’s guitar duels and Young’s volume to the stage, backed by the Screwtopians. Brother Hood’s chief band, Drive-By Truckers, came to most folks’ attention with 2001’s Sept. 12 Soul Dump release Southern Rock Opera, a sprawling masterwork in two acts that dealt with — among other Southern myths — the complex relationship between Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd icon Ronnie Van Zant (see "Ronnie and Neil"). When we discussed the Archives before the gig, Patterson professed to be waiting on tenterhooks for the next volume, due to the Ditch releases: TTN, Time Fades Away (Reprise, 1973), and my favorite, On the Beach (Reprise, 1974).

Tillman — Pacific Northwest-dwelling solo artist and multi-instrumentalist member of Fleet Foxes — was illuminating on the subject of Young as artistic forebear. This year, the Foxes were summoned by Young to tour with him and perform at his annual Bridge School benefit, even as Tillman promoted Vacilando Territory Blues (Bella Union) and began to develop his next solo recording Year In the Kingdom. Kindly, he paused amid all this flurry to speak on Young’s influence when we crossed paths earlier this year:

"Neil is a figure to follow and not follow. Following him is kind of antithetical to the spirit of his music, but it’s hard to resist the mythology …

"Neil’s understanding of the technical side of the recording process, and his obsession with gear and tone, stands in total contrast to his completely intuitive approach to making records." he continued. "Each of his records has an environment that is as big a part of the record as the songs. Recording in a barn, an SIR storage space, doing honey-slides with Rusty Kershaw — he always positions himself for moments of magic."

Despite Young’s great capacity for harnessing magic, what Archives demonstrates beyond the master’s curatorial intent is the vast gulf between the violent-but-halcyon time that begat his earliest works and now, when ever more plastic reigns in our common culture. When I cited surprise at a sudden small surge in younger folk and country-rockin’ artists who profess overt adoration of and respect for Buffalo Springfield and Stills’ Manassas, Tillman voiced skepticism:

"Our generation has been told that we can buy authenticity. Advertising is so enmeshed in our thought life we’ve developed Stockholm syndrome. People buy the idea of the ’60s and ’70s like a product, like it’s something you can own by buying things, or conversely, by becoming a product fashioned in the style of the ’70s. There are plenty of people dying to make a buck off that. It’s sad how commodified music has become, how people just do it to be it, instead of doing it because they are it. Neil refused to be bought or sold or owned in his own time, like any of the greats."

As for Young followers on the blackhand side, they may not be legion but today — more than four decades after he was meant to produce Love’s masterpiece Forever Changes (Elektra, 1967) and long after his road dawgin’ with former Malibu neighbor Booker T. Jones — there are more than you might think. Richie Havens still cut what might rate as the best-ever Young cover: his desperate, electric, heavy metal "The Loner" on Mixed Bag II (Stormy Forest, 1974). The other week I attended a taping of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and after the show, when Roots’ guitarist Kirk Douglas spotted the behemoth Archives box I was toting, he ripped a few blazing riffs from "Cinnamon Girl."

Outlaws don’t always go out in a blaze of glory. Some, like Young, abide, too ornery for entropy to overtake them. I expect him to continue restlessly exploring where he and Sudanese bluenote sound intersect in the eye of the volt. As for the native rights supporter who came off like the inscrutable brave in Buffalo Springfield’s dynamic cowboy movie — but who totes a cigar store Indian onstage? The rebel in me that thrills to Young’s peculiarly suhthuhn quixotic qualities and access to American African’s obsession with freedom wants him to account for these lyrics about my ancestral sovereign Wahunsunacock’s martyred daughter, Matoaka:

I wish I was a trapper

I would give a thousand pelts

To sleep with Pocahontas

And find out how she felt

In the mornin’ on the fields of green

In the homeland we’ve never seen.

Hey now hey … my my my. Aren’t we both, the contested bodies, still looking for America?

Kode 9, Spaceape

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PREVIEW "The mainstream of dubstep is becoming such an abortion," Kode 9 complained to electronic music advocate (and former Bay Area writer) Philip Sherburne in an eMusic.com interview. It’s a curious statement from someone who is being marketed (along with Burial, Skream, Benga, and a handful of others) as leaders of the dubstep incursion, a hybridization of 2-step garage, jungle breaks at half-speed and good ol’ ragga. (It’s the amalgamation of "dub" and "step.") Only two years after Burial’s Untrue (Hyperdub) brought pop’s cool-hunters to this bastard genre, it seems, dubstep is already eating itself.

U.K. electronic music (and its Anglophile offshoot) is herded by theorists, and Steve "Kode 9" Goodman is one of them. He has a doctorate in philosophy, and recently received a commission from the New Museum of Contemporary Art’s Rhizome technology initiative for a forthcoming documentary, Unsound Systems, that explores the use of sound as psychological weapon. His record label, Hyperdub, started out as a Web site spotlighting futurists like Kodwo Eshun and was responsible for the aforementioned Untrue as well as Zomby’s recent spin on ’90s ‘ardkore dynamics, Where Were You in ’92? (Werk).

Kode 9’s first collection, 2006’s Memories of the Future, pairs bleak echoing tones with pummeling bass thuds. One popular track, "Sine," finds vocalist Spaceape reinterpreting Prince’s "Sign O’ The Times" as dread intonation: "Sign o’ the times mess with your mind, hurry before it’s too late."

Declaring that a scene is "over" just as the great unwashed embraces it — recent dubstep parties in San Francisco have packed dance floors — seems particularly snotty and perverse. But by disappearing into thicker brush, Kode 9 stays ahead of pop mediocrity. His new singles, particularly "Black Sun / 2 Far Gone," add melancholic melodies and popping bass, retracing a path back to 2-step. Accordingly, U.K. critics have made it an example of a silly new subgenre called "funky." (George Clinton would laugh at that one.)

All this ideological shoegazing shouldn’t distract you from enjoying Kode 9’s tunes. But it should tell you that U.K. electronic music has traveled very far up its own arse. "I think U.K. electronic music is a bit of a mess right now and very microsegmented, to be honest," said Kode 9 in the eMusic interview. "But there are some lines of intersection that are promising."

THE FUTURE: KODE 9, SPACEAPE, THE FLYING SKULLS Fri/10, 10 p.m., $10 (advance). 103 Harriet, 103 Harriet, SF. (415) 431-8609. www.1015.com/103harriet/events

Andy Votel, Gaslamp Killer, Free the Robots

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PREVIEW A small portion of music nurtures body, mind, and soul. A minuscule subsect does so by ripping you magnificently out of your familiar musical safety zones with unpredictable and compellingly fresh organizations of sound. Some have baptized the songs that fall under this rarefied territory of music "face-melters," and for good reason. Assiduously dissolving toughened aural skin, face-melting music inspires knowledge of the outer galactic and inner expansive reaches of the embodied mind. Its dangerous allure has solicited varied responses from thinkers, poets, and musicians throughout history. Plato advises to obliterate such enigmatic revelry in The Republic. William Blake seeks to illustrate its destructive purity in Songs of Innocence and of Experience. More recently, Afrika Bambaataa’s "Searching for the Perfect Beat" embodies the infinite quest for mystical rhythms.

The DJ, producer, and deep crate-digger Andy Votel has made a career out of cultivating and archiving the face-melting phenomenon. Conducting the freaked-out, electronic psych epic Styles of The Unexpected (Twisted Nerve Records, 2000), and helping spearhead Finders Keepers Records to reissue international instances of obscure and intensely monstrous tracks from around the world, Votel is a leading expert on the limit zones of post-World War II music. Notable Finders Keepers reissues and compilations that will rewire your neural networks have emerged from Anatolia (Mustafa Özkent, Selda), France (Jean-Pierre Massiera, Jean-Claude Vannier), and Pakistan (this year’s comp Sound of Wonder).

One contemporary contributor to the Keepers catalog is Los Angeles’ feral beatsmith and DJ the Gaslamp Killer. A mad scientist of the Low End Theory collective, GLK psychedel-ifies hypnotic boom bap cuts and mutates vocals into chilling hums and fuzzed out screams locked toward another kind of prayer. But don’t believe me, peep his avant-garde corpse ringer mix I Spit On Your Grave (Obey, 2008). Once you’ve trained your ears on his radiated sewer funk, flip it fresh on Gaslamp’s collaboration with fellow Theorist, Free The Robots, for the jazzier side of the gutter on The Killer Robots (Obey, 2008).

To mark the third birthday of SF funk wizard DJ Centipede’s Catch the Beat party, Votel, GLK, and Free the Robots have come together for a face-melting good time. Leave your mask at home.

CHANGE THE BEAT 3RD YEAR ANNIVERSARY PARTY With Andy Votel, Gaslamp Killer, Free the Robots, DJ Mahssa, DJ Centipede, Citizen Ten. Fri/10, 10 p.m., $10. Paradise Lounge, 1501 Folsom, SF. (415) 252-5017. www.paradisesf.com

Daydream city

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

In the Bay Area’s labyrinth of low-lit warehouses, cramped house parties, and grimed-out dive bars, it’s a cacophonous tug-of-war for the three-chord crown.

This latter-day resurrection of traits from the late 1960s — the Sears Roebuck guitars; the off-key, offbeat attack; the onstage fearlessness — has brought many unpretentious all-for-one-and-one-for-all shows to the scene. Poised to snag a bit of the shiny rock ‘n’ roll royal headdress is Oakland’s Snakeflower 2, a trio whose blistering, bare-bones repertoire seems to spring newly alive from a dusty, attic-dwelling bin of decades-old abandoned vinyl.

Vocalist and bassist Matthew Melton’s lo-fi roots stretch — like the world’s longest amp cord — all the way back to his hometown in Memphis. There, he grew up playing in garage bands and jamming with prolific punk hero Jay Reatard.

Discontented with the Memphis scene’s lack of fire, Melton eventually put together a ramshackle, road-ready outfit that became Snakeflower’s first incarnation. The group played what Melton, a lover of subgenres, describes as "art punk non-songs." Moving his musical dreams and new band to California instigated a gift-and-curse scenario. "We decided almost overnight to go on tour," he says. "It was really ill-conceived. We did a full U.S. tour literally calling venues from the road, jumping on these bills and having pretty crazy shows along the way."

Snakeflower mark one had wilted by the time the group made it to San Francisco, and Melton’s bandmates stranded him in the city and left for Los Angeles. Nonetheless, he decided to stick things out and reform the band with two new members, drummer Billy Badlands and guitarist Tim Tinderholt.

"Where I grew up in Memphis, you can be guaranteed that no one’s gonna pay any attention to you," Melton says. "Here, there’s much more energy in the scene. Plus, being surrounded by so many great bands is a motivation to keep making great music."

It’s easy to hear what the California scene has done for Snakeflower 2’s live shows and recordings — the group’s aggression is undeniable. The late 2008 release Renegade Daydream (Tic Tac Totally) is steeped in the dire urgency of a fragile heart under pressure. It grooves hard, thanks to dagger-sharp hooks and vicious chord progressions, all registering at shit-hot speed to keep up with Melton’s nervy vocal swagger. "Memory Castle," the album’s single, pairs psychedelic tunnel-vision reverb with a rumination on lost dreams and the courage it takes to get them back.

Melton’s already looking in a new direction for the group’s next album. When his other brainchild, the smooth-punk outfit Bare Wires, gained popularity, Snakeflower 2’s gigs took a hiatus. But during that time, he devoted himself to writing fresh, epic material.

"I’ve actually been working in secret to write and record a 14-minute long cantata called ‘Forbidden Melody,’" he explains. "I had to set time aside to isolate myself [and] work with really pure ideas. [The new music] is something totally different, almost like a rock opera. I’m trying to go a little bit further, really trying to come up with something new."

While much of the local garage scene sticks to the ordinary and familiar. leave it to Melton and his mates to shoot the moon and score an album in the process.

SNAKEFLOWER 2

With the Vows, In the Dust

July 13, 9 p.m., $5 (day of show only)

Elbo Room

642 Valencia, SF

(415) 552-7788

www.elbo.com

Michael Jackson, 1958-2009

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It was a strange day. It didn’t start normally, nor did it end that way. It began with a disturbing run-in with one of my roommates. I was getting ready to work at 6 a.m., while he was trying to hook up after pulling an all-nighter. After that awkward encounter, I made my way into work with an uneasy, ill feeling. It was inexplicable. My sour mood took twists and turns and like the onset of what I imagine feels like a nervous breakdown. Something was wrong. Everyone knows peripheral, typical job frustrations, but I had a scowl on my face for my entire shift. I work in a newsroom at an all-news radio station.

Early on, the death of Farrah Fawcett was announced. Hmm, that’s too bad, I thought to myself. I heard it was cancer. She was very much an icon and sex symbol, but her bout with the disease was lengthy, much publicized, and we all saw it coming. Let’s see … Ed McMahon, Farrah … uh oh. Famous people die in threes, right? Something bad was going to happen.

After leaving work, I wanted to stop at a few record stores before going home. In between Rasputin and Rookie Ricardo’s, I got a text from a friend who had dressed as Michael Jackson along with me a few Halloweens ago: "MJ in the hospital!"

My previous inkling about trios of death had now become more of a dark premonition. I thought it was strange that the story had completely evaded the wires in the newsroom. I was off the clock, and I had been scooped. Things soon took a dire turn when the friend called to say she got an IM that TMZ had confirmed his death. Yet I remained skeptical. It was a bit much to process so quickly.

Once I was inside Rookie’s, people came out of the woodwork via text message and I started to believe the unbelievable. I’m not usually one to make a fuss or bring attention to myself, but this was one instance where I just had to know: Did Michael Jackson really die? I was more than moved, compelled even, to make a public announcement. Actually it was more of a question. So I went ahead and shouted out in despair to the clerk and all four customers, "Did you guys hear about Michael Jackson?" Everybody sorta perked up and looked at me strangely. "I think he might be dead." A patron checked his iPhone and the sad truth was revealed. I left soon after. I was in no mood to look at the old soul records that were the primary foundation of Michael’s musical roots.

In the early 1980s, MJ just looked cool. The jherri curl, aviator shades, and that mysterious sequined glove were all signs that someone special was about to do something great. Up on stage (the place where, like many icons, he claimed to be most comfortable), his tall, slender body was perfect for much of the angular choreography he created. He took inspiration from and expanded on the stage moves of his hero, James Brown, to create his own repertoire. He popped and locked in the ’70s to the Jackson 5’s 1973 "Dancing Machine," doing the robot with such precision, I’m convinced to this day that he must have been at least part alien. I don’t need stock footage or YouTube to remember when he debuted his mind-blowing moonwalk at the Motown 25 TV special. His voice had a flair for high notes, but could also make the walls resonate like thunder. Listen to him shudder toward the end of "The Lady in My Life," on Thriller (Epic, 1982), or as the Scarecrow in The Wiz (1978) during his opening number "You Can’t Win." So deep. Quintessential soul. He will probably always be every bit as enigmatic as he was charismatic.

No one will ever truly know the inner turmoil of Michael Jackson. But his decaying exterior over the years is a good clue. People tend to disregard his creative efforts post-Bad (Epic, 1987). But there is much to be said about MJ’s latter-day lyrics. His mood and tone can be cold, agonized, and despairing. On "Will You Be There" from Dangerous (Epic, 1991), almost crying instead of singing, he assures us that he’s only human (despite the monster that we’ve made him out to be) and prone to mistakes — essentially, a child that needs to be held. The lyrics are of a shocking introspective nature, most poignant during a spoken passage at the song’s close where he expresses loneliness and violent frustration. Clearly it is gospel-influenced. He’s singing for salvation.

The opening lines of "Stranger in Moscow" (a new track on the 1995 Epic compilation HIStory) couldn’t have been more clear. I was wanderin’ in the rain / Mask of life feelin’ insane, swift and sudden fall from grace. At that point, MJ was aimless — having achieved uncharted greatness, but the glory behind him. In a sense, his mask, or face, was both his fault and ours. We are the ones who put him on the pedestal since childhood and gave him the fame that would eventually eat him alive, whether he liked it or not. We saw him grow up then blow up and couldn’t get enough. Maybe he didn’t want to be recognized anymore. Maybe he wanted to become a monster so that we would leave him alone. If so, it all backfired and made "Jacko" a laughingstock to the mainstream media for the remainder of his life.

The same song also contains the line "Armageddon of the brain." Those four words always resonate with me when it comes to analyzing MJ’s psyche. They paint a picture of an explosion inside his head, a virtual inferno of the mind. Perhaps a reference to the moment he snapped or reached his breaking point.

Yeah, I am a genuine fan of Michael Jackson. His musical gift, contributions, and accomplishments are unfathomable. I don’t blame people for calling him a freak. I know he’s misunderstood, and if I were in his shoes I’d probably have slit my wrists long ago. I don’t know what he was guilty or innocent of in his private life, but I do know that in death, he’s free of persecution. If anyone believed in magic, it would be MJ, so maybe he knew I was having a shitty day and gave a true fan a final parting gift. He knew I needed all those texts from people checking on me to see if I’d heard the news, showing they cared. I guess you know who your true friends are when Michael Jackson dies. God bless tortured souls.

Forever our kings

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

The simplified, VH1 history of rock music tells us that Black Sabbath’s landmark first two albums Black Sabbath (Warner Bros., 1970) and Paranoid (Warner Bros., 1971) buried the 1960s rock aesthetic with the strength of a thousand Sha-Na-Nas at Woodstock. But Sabbath wasn’t quite the peerless anomaly that popular mythology makes out. Under the group’s massive transatlantic shadow toiled an eclectic assortment of rock bands just as disillusioned with the pop music of the past decade, and just as compelled to forcibly harsh some vibes.

Pentagram has remained the most vital of these groups. The OG southern Hessians have maintained a cult fan base throughout a 38-year career, but the 2002 compilation First Daze Here (Relapse) helped a new generation of metalheads embrace their lo-fi proto-metal. Classic tracks like "Livin’ in a Ram’s Head" and the power chord masterpiece "Forever My Queen" justify Pentagram’s doom legend status, while softer numbers like the garage rock ballad "Last Days Here" and a relatively faithful cover of "Under My Thumb" serve as reminders of the band’s musical roots.

Pentagram is coming to town, and whether or not the various kick-ass opening acts on the bill were influenced by them, there’s a distinctive retro vibe at play. Since 2007’s Instinct: Decay (Southern Lord), Nachtmystium has been experimenting with old school electronic effects, lacing its basement black metal sound with Pink Floyd-like Moog and theremin drones. Last year’s Assassins: Black Meddle Part One (Century Media) finds Blake Judd and company taking their experiments in blackened space rock even further — the headbanging energy of the songs’ traditional verse-chorus structures is complimented by Sanford Parker’s haunting electronic textures. Since Nachtmystium’s current approach is tailor-made for live drone-jams, it’ll be interesting to see how the Chicago black metallers’ set plays out.

Some enterprising dork could probably spend a lifetime documenting all the leftover Summer of Love tidbits that have informed the San Francisco music scene over the years, but trying to fit a band as innovative as Hammers of Misfortune into a greater rock canon is a total cop-out. Peter, Paul, and Mary they ain’t; clean, folky vocal harmonies take on a warped life of their own in the context of Hammers’ elegantly doomy guitar work, making what in lesser hands would be an obnoxious gimmick into an integral part of the group’s sound. They’re also way too fucking metal for their own good.

Be forewarned, indeed.

PENTAGRAM

With Hammers of Misfortune, Nachtmystium, Orchid, DJ Rob Metal

Thurs/2, 8:30 p.m. (doors 8 p.m.), $20–$25

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

(415) 626-1409

www.dnalounge.com

The Tallest Man on Earth

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PREVIEW In strictly literal terms, the Tallest Man on Earth’s Kristian Mattson is not the tallest man on the globe. He is probably the Best Bob Dylanesque Tall Dude on Earth, and also perhaps the Tallest New Swedish Musical Talent on Earth, but I suppose those monikers wouldn’t have quite the same ring. Along with no-nonsense yet playful songwriting chops, one of the things I find most fetching about his debut album Shallow Grave (Gravitation, 2008) is its direct zest. Mattson fingerpicks melodies with sprinter’s speed but never loses a nimble grace. The Tallest Man on Earth toured the U.S. with the equally austere Bon Iver recently, but I have to say I prefer Mattsson’s energetic acoustic spirit to the comparative mope of Bon Iver leader Justin Vernon. Shallow Grave‘s gloomy title is a bit misleading — on one of its signature tunes, "I Won’t Be Found," the underground dwelling is a quite lively mole hole.

The keening nasality of Mattson’s vocals are his most overt link to the Dylan tradition. His songs traverse comparatively narrow territory though, bypassing societal commentary for explorations of emotion and more intimate human relationships. In lesser hands, such intent yields forgettable schmaltz — or worse yet, the kind of music you want to forget and can’t. But Mattson avoids sentimentality and vagary through earthy imagery and a vital energy that avoids easy softness. The sonic equivalent of a splash of ice-cold water on one’s face in the morning, his songs are a bracing alternative to the melancholy brooding of his countryman José Gonzalez. The Tallest Man on Earth is also a contender for the Handsomest Tall Man with a Ceiling-Scraping Pompadour on Earth, a factor that can’t possibly hurt him as a live draw.

THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH With Nathaniel Rateliff and the Wheel. Thurs/2, 8 p.m., $12–$24. The Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. (415) 771-1421. www.independentsf.com

Summer Slaughter Tour

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PREVIEW Summer metal tours, notably Ozzfest, operate like feudal hierarchies. As night descends and the stages get bigger, lesser known vassals doing fealty in the parking lot give way to the landed headbanger aristocracy, who in turn cede the stage to some anointed monarch of metal.

In recent years, package deals like Summer Slaughter have taken a more republican approach, recruiting bands of middling stature to represent a vast array of black-hoodied constituents. Though the ticket buyer is not snared by the ermine-furred eminence of a Maiden or a Priest, a large number of quality upstarts can cast a wide net. Throw in three or four majority whips with reliable fanbases and good reputations, and you’ve got yourself a Congress of carnage.

Suffocation is the biggest name on the bill, and the veteran New York City death metal band will cater to the "never-too-brutal" crowd with its bludgeoning low-end assaults, including cuts off a new full-length, Blood Oath (Nuclear Blast). Death-heads will also be there for cult German tech outfit Necrophagist, whose impossible chops and mind-bending arrangements justifies its headlining spot.

D.C. thrashers Darkest Hour is embarking on its first U.S. run without departed lead guitarist Kris Norris, and will be eager to show its many detractors the fighting fitness of a new lineup and a new, Norris-less album, The Eternal Return (Victory Records). Folk-inflected Finnish battlers Ensiferum round out the tour’s Big Four, promising the best in war-kilts and anthemic, epic barrages. Whatever your particular poison, slaughter is imminent.

SUMMER SLAUGHTER TOUR With Winds of Plague, Dying Fetus, Born of Osiris, Origin, Beneath the Massacre, After the Burial, Decrepit Birth, Blackguard. Wed/1, 2:30 p.m. $30. Regency Grand Ballroom, 1290 Sutter, SF. (415) 673-5716. www.regencycentersf.com/grand

Kingston nights

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

Everybody loves bounce. It persists as a state of mind, an epiphany of sexual exhibitionism and physical delirium: Baltimore club and San Francisco’s hyphy movement; Rio de Janeiro’s baile funk to Puerto Rican reggaeton; and London grime and dubstep to Berliners’ dub.

Philadelphia label owner, producer, filmmaker, and occasional journalist Wesley "Diplo" Pentz has probably done more than any other American DJ to popularize the notion of club music as an international phenomenon with common roots and regionally distinct varieties. Last year, Paste magazine claimed he "has updated the template set by 20th century song hunter Alan Lomax." Much like Lomax, Diplo has brought "undiscovered talent" to Western ears, from his early championing of Atlanta crunk as one-half of the pioneering DJ duo Hollertronix to his support of Brazilian rappers Bonde Do Role. However, just because he brings those artists to hipsters’ attention doesn’t mean they aren’t successful within their Third World communities.

Yet even if some myths of cross-cultural exchange persist, they aren’t fraught with as much racial tension as in Lomax’s day. This leads us to Diplo’s latest project, Major Lazer, with U.K. producer Dave "Switch" Loveys. The two traveled to Kingston, Jamaica, last year, recording with dancehall and reggae stars such as Turbulence, Mr. Vegas, Vybz Kartel, and Prince Zimboo at the Marley family’s legendary Tuff Gong Studios. The resulting Guns Don’t Kill People … Lazers Do (Downtown) is a wildly libidinous dance party, a hymn to club nights where pussies pop and guns blaze.

"We both concluded that there’s a lot of talent in Jamaica that isn’t really being exposed at the moment," Switch says from New York City. Many of Major Lazer’s Jamaican collaborators — including T.O.K., author of the infamous gay-bashing anthem "Chi Chi Man" — have had U.S. deals in the past. However, with the music industry’s continuing decline, U.K. label Greensleeves’ meltdown and purchase by equally troubled imprint VP Records, and the cyclical nature of Jamaican music’s popularity, they haven’t received as much attention as in the recent past. "All we’ve tried to do is expose the talent … on a more global scale than just in Jamaica," Switch says.

Switch is the lesser-known of the Major Lazer squad. He first drew recognition in West London for producing garage house tracks. He called his work "fidget house," and the term stuck: the English love their nomenclature. A U.S. trip to work with Spank Rock and Amanda Blank inadvertently led to credits on Santogold’s "Creator," a major hit that, coupled with his widely-acclaimed contributions to M.I.A.’s Arular (Interscope, 2005), helped fuel the Major Lazer project. "Now when we approach things, people are more willing to trust us when we want to make it a little bit more quirky," Switch says.

Both producers have traveled to Jamaica before. Diplo has released material by JA artists like Ms. Thing on his Mad Decent label, while Switch announces his love for the hot Kingston street party Passa Passa. After the two returned to the U.S. to assemble Major Lazer’s debut "in little bits" between other DJ and production gigs, word of the project leaked out to their American friends. "As soon as they heard we were putting it together seriously, they were, like, if you need any help, let us know," Switch says.

Perhaps the best parts of Guns Don’t Kill People … Lazers Do come when their American friends nestle against their Jamaican counterparts: Amanda Blank answers slack rapper Einstein with an equally filthy rhyme on "What U Like"; Brooklyn singer Jah Dan kicks a conscious flow on "Cash Flow"; and criminally underrated harmony sisters Nina Sky sing coquettishly on "Keep It Goin’." Sometimes it’s difficult to appreciate our bouncement artists until you hear them hold their own with their Jamaican counterparts, like when Santogold chants a hook for Mr. Lexx’s gruff war chant on "Hold the Line." It’s then that you realize that club music’s lingua franca — swagger, sex, and having fun — has no borders.

Meanwhile, the cover art for Guns Don’t Kill People … Lazers Do pays homage to the comic art found on the back covers of old Jamaican albums like Scientist Meets the Space Invaders (Greensleeves, 1981) and the Upsetters’ Super Ape (Mob Entertainment, 2006). "Major Lazer is basically a fictional character we dreamt up to give this whole project we did down in Jamaica an identity, rather than it just being me and Wes — two white guys going down to Jamaica and trying to make a record," Switch says. "We tried to make it a little more fun."

MAJOR LAZER

Fri/26, 9 p.m., $26

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

(415) 673-5716

www.spectrumfest.com

Under the umbrella

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Understanding music through the kaleidoscopic lens of jazz is daunting. But it’s a challenge made for virtuoso drummer, multiinstrumentalist, rapper, and arranger Karriem Riggins.

Riggins allows jazz’s free-flowing aesthetic to guide his quest to study genres, explore amorphous coagulations of sound, and synthesize diverse sonic influences and life experiences. His muse opens an expansive universe of musical possibilities. "I feel like I’m one with music," he says, during a recent phone interview. "But I want to reach the point where it’s so effortless to do anything I want to do. Any genre — I want to do everything." Whether playing drums for powerhouses like Ray Brown and Herbie Hancock or producing and rhyming with Madlib, Riggins shows a rare adeptness at either transcending or crossing skillfully between musical traditions.

As a youngster in Detroit, 17-year-old Riggins got his big break when singer Betty Carter invited him to perform with her band as part of the esteemed Jazz Ahead program in New York. He found himself awestruck by the city’s explosive music talent. "I stayed there, I didn’t want to go home," he says. "There were more people my age playing incredible [music]." After a two-week stint grooving with Carter, Riggins found work playing drums for pianist Steven Scott and jumped on opportunities to hold down percussion for Roy Hargrove and Benny Green, steadily absorbing their mastery through musical osmosis.

But Riggins also aspired to refine his other passion, hip-hop. After returning to Detroit, he honed production and lyricist techniques with Common and No I.D. while they were producing One Day It’ll All Make Sense (Relativity, 1997), even flipping a track of his own for the record. Since then, Riggins has laced textured beats for the Roots as well as soul conjurer Erykah Badu and finished the production on J Dilla’s brilliant posthumous project The Shining (Bbe, 2006). Riggins’ raw formula balances live instrumentation and samples, keeping the creative process free while allowing the final vision to cohere within a holistic jazz sensibility. "I feel like hip-hop and a lot of other genres are under the umbrella of jazz," he insists. "Jazz is really the core of the music." He nonetheless notes at least one fundamental distinction between jazz and hip-hop. While hip-hop’s flavor requires simplicity, jazz demands colorful and rhythmic experimentation, a complexity that would detract from hip-hop’s minimal solidity. The singular manner in which Riggins’ negotiates this tension is what makes his multifaceted sound so damn compelling.

In the upcoming Virtuoso Experience Tour, where Riggins plans to introduce his new quintet with pianist Mulgrew Miller, either Pete Rock or DJ Dummy will collaborate on the turntables. "There are very few musicians who are revolutionary musicians, who take the music into their own world and develop something really innovative," Riggins says, noting luminaries like Miles Davis and Gary Bartz. "That’s the type of artist that I want to be."

KARRIEM RIGGINS VIRTUOUSO EXPERIENCE TOUR

With Mulgrew Miller, Pete Rock (Wed/24) and DJ Dummy (Thurs/25)

Wed/24–Thurs/25, 8 and 10 p.m., $20

Yoshi’s

510 Embarcadero West, Oakl.

(510) 238-9200

Detroit rock city

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Last year, Motor City troubadour Rodriguez’s 1970 recording Cold Fact (Light in the Attic) rightfully topped many critics’ lists as the best reissue of 2008. This year, another Detroit act, Death, is experiencing a similarly vital revival, through its jaw-dropping proto-punk onslaught For the World to See (Drag City). As Rodriguez hits SF in conjunction with the reissue of 1971’s Coming From Reality, I caught up with him by phone as he visited the office of his new label. I corresponded with Death’s Bobby Hackney by e-mail, with some help from Drag City’s Nicole Yalaz. (Johnny Ray Huston)


SFBG What were some of your favorite haunts and places in Detroit?

BOBBY HACKNEY (OF DEATH) Of course the Grand Ballroom, and later on, the Michigan Palace. Most of the shows we would see would be either at the Cobo Arena or Olympic Stadium.

SFBG Rodriguez, have you spent time with John Sinclair?

RODRIGUEZ Only as of late. We did a show together that involved music and poetry on a [street] corner. He’s quite a hero. We burned one.

SFBG Rodriguez, how important was Detroit and your experience of it to the lyrics on Cold Fact and Coming From Reality?

R I consider myself urban as opposed to rural or suburban. Any city has its heart, and my background is in the social realism of the urban setting.

SFBG Bobby, will the reformed version of Death be touring soon?

BH What a timely question. We have just finished a four-month process of production and rehearsals and this past Friday announced our first show at the Majestic Theatre in Detroit on Sept. 25.

RODRIGUEZ

With Fool’s Gold, Sam Flax and Higher Color

Fri/26, 9 p.m., $17–$19

Slim’s

333 11th St, SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

Bill Callahan

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PREVIEW If Bill Callahan is a shepherd of the lo-fi reformation, his musical evolution suggests a shell-like spiral. His initial releases in the late-1980s to early-1990s were ramshackle home recordings, mostly instrumental. In the realm of the professionally recorded, his mid- to late-1990s creations utilized more instrumentation and experimented with lyrics, while allowing him to hone his vocal style; his post-2000 releases mildly reduce the instrumentation while maintaining the consistent, almost affect-less, baritone singing Callahan developed under the Smog moniker.

After Dongs of Sevotion (Darg City, 2000), Callahan changed his alias to direct attention toward the music itself, rather than the idea of "Smog." After 20 years, the dissipation of Callahan’s Smog marks another transformation. Disposing of the nom de plume, he’s become more direct, plain, and open. The woeful and despair inherent to Smog has lifted — the sky seems visible once again, albeit occasionally cloudy.

Bill Callahan as Bill Callahan has already revealed a mini-spiral, like a mirror reflection of the larger spiral of Smog: his initial releases in 2007 reveled in a rhythm-driven aesthetic that abandoned most of his lo-fi leanings. But this year’s Sometimes I Wish I Were An Eagle (Drag City) returns to the intimate, acoustic-based Smog sound. "Jim Cain," the opener on Eagle, starts like a Callahan thesis. Using poetic enjambment for effect, he declares, "I started out in search of /ordinary things … I started telling the story /without knowing the end /I used to be darker, then I got lighter, then I got dark again." Brian Beattie’s subtle string arrangements compliment the sentiment in Callahan’s slight reversal from the lightness of Woke on a Whaleheart (Drag City, 2007). But the sun peeps out when "Rococo Zephyr" finds Callahan momentarily "jaunty as a bee."

On Eagle, Callahan radically confesses an inherent inability to know everything. Not knowing the end of the story allows for ideas to evolve, and each Callahan album captures his sentiment at that moment. But a shepherd never strays too far from his flock, and even as Callahan’s overall travels take the form of a spiral, he returns to similar themes and sounds. "Well maybe this was all /Was all that meant to be /Maybe this is all /Is all that meant to be," he sings at one point on "Rococo Zephyr." Sounds like an epiphany, even if it takes him a few tries to get it out.

BILL CALLAHAN With Bachelorette. Tues/30, 8 p.m., $16. Bimbo’s 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF. (415) 474-0365, www.bimbos365club.com

Black Skies

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PREVIEW I grew up in Chapel Hill, N.C., and I have to tell you, there’s not much allowance for rebellious rage on its well-manicured, dogwood-lined, basketball-crazed streets. James Taylor, not a noted sonic ruffler of feathers, also grew up there. That’s not to say the whole town is powered by sweet (baby James) tea — other acts that have emerged from Chapel Hill’s collegial womb and into the national spotlight include piano rockers Ben Folds Five; much-celebrated indie stars like Superchunk and Archers of Loaf; and throwback novelty acts like Southern Culture on the Skids and Squirrel Nut Zippers. Statewide, Cackalacky boasts of birthing some darker, heavier sounds, along the lines of Raleigh’s Corrosion of Conformity and Cape Fear’s Sourvein. New to my ears, and hopefully hinting at a burgeoning metal movement lurking beneath Chapel Hill’s tidy McMansion scene, is Black Skies, a trio who took their name from the South’s capacity for awesome, jaw-rattling weather (and indeed, the kickoff track from their self-released 2008 EP, Hexagon, is "The Quiet Before the Storm.") Like many bands, they cite Sabbath, Melvins, and High on Fire as influences; on recordings, guitarist-singer Kevin Clark at times sounds like he’s singing from the bottom of an angry, murky well. When he claws his way out, and hits the stage at Annie’s with bassist Michelle Temple and drummer Cameron Weeks, I suspect there’ll be eardrum punishment for all in attendance. Yes, yes, y’all!

WITH TOTIMOSHI, DUSTED ANGEL, AND HASHISHIANS

Sat/27, 9 p.m., $8

Annie’s Social Club

917 Folsom, SF

(415) 974-1585, www.anniessocialclub.com

Rusty never sleeps

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johnny@sfbg.com

I’ll be honest: interviewing Rusty Santos was a last-minute thing. I just found out that Santos’s group the Present is coming to SF. And let me tell you, I’m bummed. While Santos and bandmates Jesse Lee and Mina are making music here, I’m going to be across the country in their hometown of New York City. One listen to Santos’ production for Panda Bear’s sublime Person Pitch (Paw Tracks) is all it takes to recognize his special studio grace, and based on the spacious beauty of World I See (Lo Recordings, 2008) and the new Way We Are (Lo Recordings), the Present is one of the few contemporary bands I’m eager to see live. So if you check out one of the shows, tell me how good it was for you.

SFBG What are some of the first sounds you remember?

RUSTY SANTOS The sweet potato salesman’s song I heard as a kid in Japan. A lot of the vendors there sing these jingles that have probably been sung for generations and remind me of hymns. I lived in Nagoya for a few years when I was growing up, and my earliest sonic memories are from there.

SFBG What were some of your favorite musical experiences as a kid, in terms of listening to music and making it?

RS Playing in hardcore bands in high school was my most formative musical experience. Also singing in chorus in elementary school was important. My life was changed the first time I heard Michael Jackson.

SFBG You’re from Fresno and you’ve also lived in the Bay Area. What things did you love and not love about both?

RS I love how Fresno rests in the valley at the foot of an immense mountain range. Being at sea level but separated from the ocean felt pretty isolated, but there’s also this sense that the sky’s the limit. San Francisco has a lot more history, and is of course more worldly, so that was my introduction to the kinds of cultural activities I would pursue after moving to New York.

SFBG The Present is the Present, and as Rusty Santos you have songs or titles such as "Eternity Spans" and "Moving Time." What is it about time that interests or compels you?

RS Time has always fascinated me because I kind of feel like it doesn’t exist or at least doesn’t behave in exactly the same way recording equipment captures it. I feel that with music it’s possible to change the way people perceive time and help [them] appreciate it more.

SFBG Did you see that Alan McGee of Creation Records fame named the Present as one of his favorite groups?

RS Someone showed me that. I like a lot of Libertines and Babyshambles songs, and of course My Bloody Valentine. And Felt.

SFBG What’s the strangest or best description you’ve heard of your music?

RS That would have to be Alan McGee comparing it to [Wolfgang Voigt’s project] Gas. He’s wrong, but that’s a huge compliment.

SFBG Panda Bear’s Person Pitch is one of my favorite albums of recent years. You recorded it in Lisbon, and I’m wondering about your impressions of that place and how it might have influenced you.

RS Portugal is amazing. My last name is Portuguese and the first time I traveled there I felt like there was some lost family connection.

SFBG In an interview I did with him around the time of Tilt (Fontana, 1995), Scott Walker said he doesn’t like the compression of most modern recordings. Would you agree with his view?

RS Yes, I completely agree, except for when I disagree. Most of the time new music sounds flat and over-compressed, but in some cases it’s used to genius effect.


SFBG What are you looking forward to doing while you’re in the Bay Area?

RS I’m looking forward to checking out the bands we’re playing with and seeing old friends. It will also be nice to get some coffee and visit Golden Gate Park.

THE PRESENT

With Queens, Religious Girls, Our Brother the Native, New Future

Thurs/18, 9 p.m., $7 (21 and over)

The Knockout

3223 Mission, SF

(415) 550-6994

www.theknockoutsf.com


With Queens, Railcars, Egadz

Fri/19, 9 p.m., $8 (21 and over)

Thee Parkside

1600 17th St., SF

(415) 252-1330

www.theeparkside.com

Goran Bregovic

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PREVIEW I’m a reactionary when it comes to miscegenated American pop and world music: Paul Simon’s South African appropriations (unself-conscious baby-boom entitlement), Vampire Weekend’s recent iteration (self-conscious, sneering entitlement), and Beirut’s similar (well-meaning, self-conscious attempts at naturalness) foray into the Eastern European musical forms. I mean, come on you well-born Eastern-seaboard Protestants, don’t you have your own cultural traditions to plunder?

Without a qualm, one can look toward the Balkans as a source for authentic cultural product. In the previous century alone, this region’s peoples have been battered about by bitter battles among fascist, communist, and capitalist systems. Against this political backdrop, ordinary life takes on an air of untethered surreality, and life can imitate art, and/or art becomes the most logical response to the ambient chaos. In the case of Goran Bregovic, his life resembles an amalgam of Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n Roll and Aleksandar Hemon’s Nowhere Man. Half-Serb, half-Croat, Bregovic has had a long musical career (he’s been a professional guitar player since 15) and currently composes film scores as well as modern-day gypsy music.

Bregovic played with a Yugoslavian rock band called the White Button, and became a bona fide Balkan teen rock idol. He lived in a drug-dazed Italian exile at 20, and was nearly a professor of Marxism by 24. He is a thoroughly modern global star, and has collaborated with Iggy Pop and Cesaria Evora. Bregovic is currently on tour with a nearly 40-person ensemble called the Wedding and Funeral Orchestra. The gypsies are real, the horns are very likely 100 years old, and there’s a string ensemble, a men’s choir, and three Bulgarian singers. The tunes range from mournful to ecstatic; if cathartic party music speaks to you, this is your show.

GORAN BREGOVIC WITH WEDDING AND FUNERAL ORCHESTRA Sun/21, 7 p.m., $20-$60. Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium, 1111 California, SF. (415) 776-4702. www.sfjazz.org

Hightower, One in the Chamber, Futur Skullz

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PREVIEW Hightower is quite possibly the only prog rock group that could be accurately described as "gnarly" (sorry, Van Der Graaf Generator). Proving that complex compositions and unpretentious rock ‘n’ roll aren’t mutually exclusive, the San Francisco power trio mixes unpredictable tempos and spacey guitar shredding with beer- and weed-fueled skate thrash to create a style tailor-made for raging circle pits and blacklight poster stare-downs. With song titles like "Wizardhawk" and "I Am the Wallride," the band celebrates and pokes fun at some of the, er, imaginative concepts of their bell-bottomed forefathers. But even if you think the term "progressive rock" is shorthand for overly complex wanking, Hightower proves the genre can be surprisingly crucial.

I inadvertently stumbled into a show featuring local metal band Futur Skullz about a month ago and was blown away by how LOUD these guys play. There’s nothing about them that isn’t deafening — the thrash-meets-sludge guitar, buzzing bass, crusty-ass vocals, and thundering drums are ready to pummel, but with enough variation to keep their sets interesting. Like Hightower, Futur Skullz combine massive, arena-ready riffs with relatable garage band energy; it’s a case of powerhouse heavy metal filtered through punk rock sensibilities. Oakland-based One in the Chamber’s collage of punk, stoner metal, aggressively jazzy weirdness, and everything in between completes this bill, which should be a revelation to anyone whose nights out have been lacking raw power.

HIGHTOWER, ONE IN THE CHAMBER, FUTUR SKULLZ Sat/20, 9 p.m., $7 (21 and over) El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. (415) 282-3325, www.elriosf.com

To Serge, with love

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"Some people have their hang-ups about making music on a computer," opines tech house DJ and producer Serge Garcia, a.k.a. Greco Guggenheit. "Then again, some cinematographers during the silent era believed that the introduction of sound to films was fraudulent."

A relatively fresh face in the Bay Area, the 24-year-old Los Angeles native Garcia has more than a few bass monsters he’s itching to unleash. Wielding the Detroit techno scene and its forefathers as his beacon, he compounds elements from minimal house and peak-time techno into one banging track after another.

Garcia spent part of his youth in Mexico City, then Barcelona, where he played a lot of soccer (his "first love," he confesses). His introduction to electronic music began thanks to what he describes as "random CDs with the label ‘Techno/House Music’" that his older sister would mail to him. "Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Kerri Chandler, Derrick May," he incants, when asked about some of the DJs and producers who appeared on these CDs. "Basically, dance music that came out of Detroit and its surrounding areas in the 1980s and early ’90s."

In the last year, Garcia has split his time between San Francisco, Stockholm, and Berlin. He plans to make Berlin his home base later this summer, citing record label interest in and around Germany and an aversion to SF’s 2 a.m. curtain calls as motives for his move. "After visiting Berlin and experiencing places like Panorama Bar, Cookies Club, and Watergate, I remember coming home and feeling very alive and creative," he explains. "Here in the states, electronic music isn’t part of mainstream culture [the way] it is in many parts of Europe."

GRECO GUGGENHEIT

With Buttercream Gang, Magnanimous

Wed/10, 9 p.m., $6

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

Tears of a thug

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

The first time I interviewed Shaheed Akbar, a.k.a. the Jacka — in December of 2007, during a midnight session for Tear Gas (Artist Records/SMC), due June 16 — he was rolling purple and green weeds plus two types of hash into a Sharpie-sized blunt. I felt like Paul Bowles interviewing Bob Marley. Having known him three years, I can assure you that even in the Bay’s smoky atmosphere, Jacka blazes like a forest fire.

I dwell on this because it’s one facet of the Tear Gas concept, beyond the title’s literal meaning. The perpetual cloud enveloping Jacka is as much a part of his persona as his mobbed out tales of street life, based on experience. Like many artists, the MC enlists his favorite plant in the service of music.

"Weed helps you concentrate on certain things," Jacka observes, during a follow-up interview last month. "Nothing that contains too much multitasking. But if you don’t rap, try writing one; it’s hard as fuck. Weed gets you outside your normal realm so you coming up with crazy shit."

ARE YOU EXPERIENCED?


Yet, considering his consumption, Jacka barely raps about weed, or at least no more than most rappers; he has other things on his mind. When I e-mail Paul Wall, one of several big-name features on Tear Gas, to ask why he wanted to work with Jacka, he emphasizes the authenticity of his collaborator’s verses.

"He speaks from experience when he rhymes," Wall writes. "Like he’s rapping from a hustler’s perspective for other hustlers."

The experience Wall cites consists of details which, in the aggregate, might make for improbable fiction. Jacka’s rise to local notoriety at age 18 as a member of C-Bo’s Mob Figaz — whose eponymous debut (Git Paid, 1999) moved something like 140,000 units — is fairly well documented. But the story begins much earlier. Born of 14-year-old parents, young Jacka saw his mother get addicted to crack, and his father go to prison for a decade only to be murdered shortly after release. The result was an impoverished childhood in various hoods in Oakland, Richmond, and finally Pittsburg, where the Mob Figaz began.

"As a kid, everywhere I lived was in the projects," he says. "A nigga’s whole thing is to get out of there." Such ambition led Jacka to start dealing crack as early as age 11.

"Say you’re in school," Jacka continues. "Moms ain’t working. Pops ain’t around. The other kids at school have everything you don’t, as far as clothes and packing they own lunch. All that matters when you’re a kid. You go to junior high and you eating free lunch, people are like, ‘What kind of nigga is you?’ So when you’re from the hood and can hustle, that’s definitely helping your self-esteem. You pulling out wads of cash and motherfuckers who used to laugh at you ain’t got shit. That made me feel hella good."

"Things I had to do to survive is one thing," he says. "But how I feel about it now is another."

BLUNT (OR DEEP) EMOTION


Jacka’s willingness to probe psychological wounds reveals another implication of Tear Gas. Paradoxically or not, in a genre where emotions are usually limited to elation and anger, a large part of Jacka’s appeal is his emphasis on the melancholy ambivalence of street life. It’s subtle, of course, sprinkled into stories of coke-dealing and cap-busting. But contrary to his assertion on the Traxamillion-produced "Girls," an infectious thug-pop remake of the 1986 Beastie Boys classic, Jacka doesn’t just "knock hoes and live it up."

"You can only shoot the breeze so much; you gotta drop a jewel on people," says Jacka, citing 2Pac, to whom he pays homage in "Hope Is for Real." "He had to be a sheep in wolf’s clothing because he had to reach me, the niggas in the hood, but look what you learn from him. So I have to study and get wiser to even make a song."

To be sure, Tear Gas isn’t a sociological treatise; like the blues, it voices the despair of a culture rather than proposing solutions. But such articulation is exactly what makes the music of both Pac and Jacka so powerful.

"Listen to Marvin Gaye," Jacka continues. "I guarantee he’s going to grab your soul. He knows something and could put it together with the music. And what he talked about was the struggle, the pain. I try to make shit that’ll stick to your soul. Like the music my parents used to listen to."

Besides his social consciousness, Jacka’s success rests squarely on quality. Last year, his single "All Over Me" — included on Tear Gas — hit No. 7 on KMEL’s playlist and No. 15 on Billboard’s "Bubbling Under" singles chart. Yet he refused to rush his album to capitalize on this exposure. Instead, he released 11 side projects. Two of them debuted on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop chart: Drought Season (Bern One), a collaboration with rapper Berner, at No. 55, and The Street Album (Artist Records), a "mixtape album" with KMEL DJ Big Von, at No. 91.

"Motherfuckers like shit that make them think," Jacka says, when asked about his appeal. They also like real albums and, taken as whole, Tear Gas is among the best rap discs in recent history, major or indie. Despite its array of producers and perhaps a few too many guests, Jacka has fashioned a tight, coherent album where every track is vital — an extreme rarity in contemporary hip hop. With its minor-key, exotic flute and harp textures, the new single "Glamorous Lifestyle," also produced by Traxamillion and featuring André Nickatina, epitomizes the overall feel.

"It’s not an easy process unless you really listen to music, and follow all kinds of genres," says Jacka. "Some people just listen to rap, but other music helps you grow as an artist."

THE VOICE


Being a rapper, Jacka’s voice is ultimately his most important asset, an instantly recognizable, rounded, mellow drawl — even when he raps fast — that is never raspy, despite the steady diet of blunts. His melodic, half-sung delivery, moreover, perfectly fits his vocal texture and mournful themes.

"My style really comes from the struggle," he says. "I’m not trying to make you like what I’m saying — I’m trying to get into your soul." This spiritual goal reflects what he credits as his primary influence: chanting the Koran. Surprising or not, given his gangsta themes, smoking, and even drinking, Jacka is a devout Sunni Muslim. It’s the result of a spiritual quest he began at age 9, when he joined the Nation of Islam.

"They showed me how to be black, because I really didn’t know," he explains. "I just knew we were in America, we used to be slaves, but I didn’t know why it was so tough for us. They made me read books that taught me to be proud of who I am. They can be a little strict sometimes, but they have to be; there was so much taken away from us."

When Jacka began intensively reading the Koran, however, he began to question some of the Nation’s teachings. "I realized that what it said in the Koran is what I should do," he says. "Not that plus something else."

The development of Jacka’s faith toward more orthodox Islam accelerated circa 2000. The Mob Figaz’ momentum slowed when C-Bo went to prison and Jacka caught a robbery case that landed him in county jail for a year.

"In jail, I was reading the Koran and realized the Sunni Muslim way is for me," Jacka remembers. "It’s the way I can pray directly to God." Following his release, Jacka took his shahada, declaring his formal adherence to Islam. But as rap money dried up in the Bay during its leanest years (2000-04), he returned to crime at a whole new level, even while beginning his solo career with The Jacka (Akbr Records, 2001).

"When I started working on my album, things changed for me — I really got into the streets," Jacka says. Rap celebrity gave him connections he otherwise would have lacked. "Whatever rap niggas was talking about, we were living," he says with some pride, although he feels he’ll one day have to answer to Allah for his misdeeds. Details of his criminal past are necessarily vague, though if you consider that fellow Mob Figa Husalah was arrested for transporting "over five kilos" of cocaine, a case culminating in his 2006 sentence to 53 months in federal prison, you get the picture.

"The streets are dried up for me," says Jacka. "Once the feds knock your boy, you can’t fuck around for the rest of your life. I’m hot. So I stay with the music now."

"I didn’t take the business as seriously as I should have," he admits. "So I had to start from ground zero." Fortunately, by the time Jacka’s second "official" solo album The Jack Artist (Artist Records, 2005) was ready to drop, the Bay began to heat up again. Even in the heyday of hyphy, the conspicuously non-hyphy Jack Artist sold some 20,000 copies, or "more than all those niggas put together," in the words of the man behind it. Yet despite this success, Tear Gas sounds little like its predecessor. Instead, it reflects Jacka’s artistic growth now that he’s settled down to music full time.

"I wouldn’t trade this for those times again — never," Jacka says, when asked to weigh yesterday and today. "This is something legit we’re doing that’s real. My dream as a child was to do this."

www.myspace.com/thejackamobfigaz

The Lemonheads

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REVIEW For a brief time in the early 1990s, Evan Dando was an It boy. He wore great jeans and hid behind his hair — the shaggy pop songs didn’t hurt either. His band, the Lemonheads, coasted to success with an easy cover of "Mrs. Robinson," and then Atlantic took a bath on Come On Feel the Lemonheads (Atlantic, 1993), an album that’s likely still haunting remainder bins. These are the facts, but the melodies that snag your adolescence are destined to boggle any attempt at objectivity.

I still remember picking It’s a Shame About the Ray (Atlantic, 1992) off the rack after spotting it in an older friend’s collection — I must have been 11 or 12. Soon, I went the extra mile for a couple of bootleg cassettes I then listened to in ritualistic isolation. In Dando, I heard the sympathetic reticence of a dropout. I beached my shyness on his languid refrains; he was good company. I wouldn’t say I wanted to trade places (Ben Lee took up this mantle on "I Wish I Was Him"), but the Lemonheads furnished my imagination with yearning and ennui — sensing those things without knowing them was sublime. I loved the band for coming from Boston; their stoned melodies padded the lonely stretches of Memorial Drive and sandy dunes of Cape Cod where I moved into my feelings. Nearly all Lemonheads songs are letters, and I imagined I too would come to know a "you."

Trying to sort out how memory imprints my continued weakness for these melodies would require a novel rather than a capsule review, but I like to think the Lemonheads albums still hold up because I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I don’t put them on very often, but I can easily lose a whole afternoon when I do.

THE LEMONHEADS With Kim Vermillion. Wed/10, 8 p.m., $21. Slim’s, 333 11th St, SF (415) 255-0333. www.slims-sf.com

DJ Quik

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PREVIEW Matthew Africa jumpstarts his new mixtape The Best of DJ Quik with a young Quik’s ambitious plans to be "America’s Most Complete Artist." What follows is an expertly mixed collage of rapid-fire blunted rhythms and gangsta blues that captures the zeitgeist of Los Angeles’ illustrious G-Funk era. Channeling the slap bass bounce of the Ohio Players and the dance grooves of Zapp & Roger, Quik conducts his singular, Compton-articulated swagger over percussion that still knocks.

Quik’s diverse catalog certainly provides fodder to grant him status as the best hybrid producer and lyricist in the game. No seasoned emcee touches his pimp strut flow graced with jazzy finesse. No daring beat conductor successfully ventures into his textured boogie-pop compositions and sounds just as cohesive, raw, and frenetic. But Quik’s ultimate edge is the charisma in his braggadocio style and the consistent humor in his street-refined vulgarity.

On this month’s BlaQKout (Mad Science), Quik teams up with Dogg Pound luminary Kurupt to reinvest some gutter spirit into today’s changing rapscape. A buzz is already building around "9 Times Outta 10," where Kurupt spits hypnotic, stop motion bars over a starkly dissonant drum clap and mushroom-induced atmospherics. My anonymous sources (Internet leaks) tell me we’ve got some ferocious beats and rhymes coming our way.

DJ QUIK AND KURUPT With Quik’s live band, Trackademicks, the Kev Choice Ensemble. Thurs/9, 8 p.m., $20. Ruby Skye, 420 Mason, SF. (415) 693-0777, www.rubyskye.com

Do the ‘bot

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

It’s a flagship band on America’s taste-makingest dance music label, but the Juan Maclean’s second full-length of peerless pop disco, The Future Will Come (DFA) is a low-stakes affair. In contrast to the orbit of expectations around the Field’s recently released Yesterday and Today (ANTI-/Kompakt), there isn’t the sense that it should — or can — be read as a measure of the group’s artistic viability.

Which is not to say that Future hasn’t undergone intense scrutiny. Last year’s monster of a teaser single, the 12-minute "Happy House," weathered pages of heated message board discussion among sample spotters, who pointed out that the group lifted the track’s driving two-chord piano vamp from Dubtribe Sound System’s decade-old "Do It Now."

"It was pretty funny," John (a.k.a. Juan) MacLean says by phone, as he and his bandmates drive through Georgia. "Someone was accusing me of ripping someone off in a style of music that has been almost entirely sample-dependent."

Although it has taken on a massive life outside of Future, "Happy House" shows what TJM is capable of: namely, superb pop that uses dance music’s production techniques and structures. This elusive combination was hinted at on its debut, 2005’s Less Than Human (Astralwerks). Now vocals have a more prominent role. Songs such as "One Day" feature a back-and-forth between MacLean and LCD Soundsystem member Nancy Whang that recalls Dare-era Human League.

"We paid a lot more attention to how we were doing [vocals], stylistically," says MacLean, "On the first album it was more like we laid vocals on top of instrumental songs." With Future, the studio effects that masked MacLean’s voice are removed to reveal even colder circuitry. Like Brian Eno or Gary Numan, his tone is both affected and affectless. At times, it’s also goofy unto distraction. Then again, a line like "I’ll be here after midnight, wearing my beleaguered frown" isn’t angling for verisimilitude.

Future also pares down some of the trickier production flourishes that made Less Than Human feel a little insular, if satisfying in its complexity. MacLean describes the process as "nowhere near as difficult" as it was on Human. "This one has so much live playing on it that it’s been a pretty straightforward transition," he says.

The conciliatory quality at the base of Future‘s sound is cleanly framed and well-articulated in a manner that rebuts the tongue-in-cheek prohibition of TJM’s early single "You Can’t Have It Both Ways." The sequencing, for example, places the longer club tracks ("The Simple Life," "Tonight," and "Happy House") squarely at the beginning, middle, and end, spaced out by pop-length songs. MacLean has a history with structure and discipline as aesthetic strategies — from his earliest releases with Six Finger Satellite, he’s consistently taken cues from Kraftwerk over, say, Creedence.

The Juan MacLean makes music that’s uncomplicatedly likeable, even as the group emphasizes robot drama, traditionally not an easy sell with American audiences. "It’s easier to be crazy and out-there and experimental," MacLean says. "The pop music world is more difficult to navigate." Future puts that difficulty across to the listener with "Human Disaster," which sounds like a piano ballad with every other chord taken out. If I could get past just how bummed out MacLean sounds, I might hear it as a rebuke to listeners looking for recognizable emotion.

The album’s title track, on the other hand, plays as straight-up satire, and comes close to calling trust-funders out by name. It’s hard to tell brilliant and clumsy apart as Maclean pronounces "Your life in the city is a paid vacation /Your suicide note was a part of your thesis" over a hopped-up conga loop. "In New York, you find yourself surrounded by people who just talk a lot about doing things without ever getting them done — types that don’t have to live all that desperately," MacLean explains.

This is an assuringly human sentiment. On Future, class antagonism and Teutonic robots might be shunted aside by listeners in favor of values like emotional immediacy, personal agency, and dubiously coded ideals of authenticity and originality. Ultimately the Juan MacLean’s latest serves to emphasize that DFA is a label based on fandom committed to communicating the pleasure of listening. It gives us a glimpse of its maker’s canon, and a host of new thrills.

THE JUAN MACLEAN

With the Field

Sat/6, 9 p.m., $20

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

Musical, political, alchemical

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

Quick, name a magus of the female persuasion, a black sorceress who wields sound like a talisman. The first image we have of Erykah Badu is her calmly walking on stage during the summer of 1997, lighting a series of candles to begin the ceremony. She would summon ghosts: Billie Holliday, the Nation of the Gods and the Earths, scruffy B-boys on a street corner. Her band — on her debut Baduizm (Kedar/Universal Motown, 1997), it is often neo-soul locus the Roots — played balletic grooves at a languid pace. She was a strangely beautiful apparition, a high priestess of soul.

Ever since, Badu has embraced and chafed at her mystical reputation. In 1998 she appeared in the mediocre coming-of-age flick The Cider House Rules as — guess what? — a voodun priestess. Meanwhile her romances with Andre 3000, Common, and, lately, Texas rap prospect Jay Electronica (with whom she recently had a child) have occasionally made her a target of the hip-hop paparazzi. She’s bragged in interviews of her prowess as a mackstress; other times, she’s refused to comment on her private life.

On last year’s Universal/Motown release New Amerykah Part One (4th World War), Badu finally seems at peace with her eccentricities. Past albums exhausted her former glories for fresh inspiration: 2003’s Worldwide Underground (Motown) included "Danger," which opens with a refrain from Baduizm‘s second single, "Otherside of the Game." Its intro track "World Keeps Turnin’" returns to the "on and on" lullaby of "On & On," Baduizm‘s Five Percenter-quoting breakout single ("And on and on and on, my cipher keeps moving like a rolling stone"). New Amerykah doesn’t look backward. Its starkly illustrated theme — a woman standing strong amid a world roiling in war and chaos — uneasily imagines the future present.

"This year I turn 36," Badu sings on the elegiac "Me." "Damn it seems it came so quick, my ass and legs have gotten thick. It’s all me." Thankfully Badu hasn’t settled into an adult contemporary middle-age, singing baby-making ballads for grown-ups. Few of her 1990s peers kept pace: last year, Spin magazine noted that D’Angelo, Maxwell, Lauryn Hill, and others from the neo-soul generation have mostly disappeared from view. But while Maxwell is drawing SRO audiences as he tours the country in preparation for BLACKsummers’night‘s July 7 release, and D’Angelo plans a similar comeback in the fall, it’s doubtful either will match Badu’s fiercely creative restlessness.

For New Amerykah, she turns to her artistic sons and daughters, musicians who used her blazing example to reinvigorate underground soul. The L.A. music collective Sa-Ra Creative Partners helm several tracks and 9th Wonder produces "Honey," a luscious love song that closes New Amerykah on an optimistic note. Wiggy soul-jazz aesthete Georgia Anne Muldrow appears on "Master Teacher," a heartbreaking yearning for positive influences in the black community. "A beautiful world is hard to find," sings Muldrow. "What if there was no niggas, only master teachers? I’d stay woke."

"Master Teacher" has been viewed as a tribute to Dr. Malachi Z. York, an esoteric philosopher whose mix of Egyptology, Islam and other pan-African ideas influenced Badu and other hip hop and R&B artists in the 1990s. (He was arrested and convicted for child molestation in 2004, and is currently serving a life sentence.) But without blunting the song’s original intent — many of "Master Teacher" York’s supporters believe he’s the target of a government conspiracy — it seems clear that Badu is the master teacher. Throughout her career, Badu has demonstrated a knack for communicating hardcore black ideologies in universal terms, educating and subverting her mainstream audience. She has always worked in alchemical ways. But with the arrival of New Amerykah, she finally turned the focus away from herself.

"Humdililah, Allah, Jehovah, Yaweh, Dios, Maat, Jah, Ras Tafari, fire, dance sex music, hip hop," Badu sings on "The Healer." "It’s bigger than religion, hip hop. This one is for Dilla."

ERYKAH BADU

Sat/6 9 p.m., $60

Warfield Theatre

982 Market, SF

(800) 745-3000

www.ticketmaster.com

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