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Music Features

Summer camp on wheels

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Summer camp on wheels

emilysavage@sfbg.com

MUSIC While Rupa Marya of Rupa & the April Fishes and Gabe Dominguez of Shake Your Peace are crossing their fingers for cloudless, sunny days ahead during their joint week-long bicycle trek around the Bay Area, in some ways, they were brought together by a storm.

It was a storm both physical and figurative: the scattered downpours during their first encounter at the now-dispersed Occupy SF campsite at Justin Herman Plaza last November (11.11.11) during the Occupy Music Festival — where both bands played — and, the subsequent storm of ideas that lead to the bike tour agreement.

“So it was kind of like the perfect storm,” says Dominguez, sitting next to Marya in the Nervous Dog Coffee cafe on Mission Street in early April. “It was an auspicious day,” Marya later adds. “Oh my god, what a day.”

The fruit of that brainstorm, the Bay Rising Tour, will kick off tomorrow at Stanford University, with the ragtag bicycle caravan of around 15 core riders heading counterclockwise around the Bay, stopping in nine cities over 10 days, playing both conventional music venues and guerillas art spaces. The musicians on bikes piled high with gear will turn their final corner on to Divisadero to play the Independent April 28.

Marya and Dominguez had walked into the Nervous Dog that afternoon smiling, bubbling with expectations of the impending tour. The two are clearly platonically smitten with another other’s passion for social justice, global music, and good old-fashioned bike fun.

As Marya nibbles an empanada from the cafe, Dominguez continues their story. “We made the connection that both of our bands make multicultural dance rebel music, rock music for the ecotopian revolution. Bicycles, bioregionalism, now being the time — it all just coalesced.”

One key difference that’s soon to evaporate: Shake Your Peace has done many bike tours, but this will be Rupa & the April Fishes’ first (though they’ve done some trial runs in preparation).

Along with leading Shake Your Peace, and playing in Tiny Home with his girlfriend, Sonya Cotton, Dominguez is a co-founder of the yearly Bicycle Music Festival (since 2007) with Paul Freedman, who too plays a role in the Bay Rising Tour.

Freedman’s company is Rock the Bike, which built the pedal-powered audio system the groups will use in the open space and outdoor venues — San Jose Bike Party, Fremont Earth Day Grounds, Keller Beach Park.

Along with those mentioned, the tour will roll to A Place for Sustainable Living in Oakland for an Earth Day party (with food cooked by Marya’s urban farmer brother), a Beaver Liberation show in Martinez, and a Glen Cove ceremony by Ohlone Leaders in Vallejo.

Out on the road between venues, the caravan has three transportation strategies: people carrying their own instruments on bicycles, those packing larger instruments like guitars on Xtracycles — an Oakland company that sells an extension for the back of the bike — and lastly, a few riders on electric-hybrid bikes carrying six-to-eight foot trailers.

They also are encouraging other cyclists and Bay Area residents to come along for the day rides between shows — to help map out the flattest routes. There’s a real community effort feel to the plan.

“In the wake of where we find ourselves right now, economically, sociopolitically, we can’t wait for someone to hand us the reality we want. We have to build it, we have to create it. And that’s what’s so exciting about this way of touring,” Marya says.

She adds, “it’s not asking for permission, it’s just doing what you do as a musician, which is to mobilize yourselves…bring people on your journey, have a chance to interact with them in another way, which is so different than get on the tour bus, be isolated, be backstage. We’re going to create the stage, we’re going to create the experience.”

Both bands make the kind of music that invites interaction and discussion, so an interactive tour, flipping the tradition of a clear separation between artist and audience, seems the right direction.

Rupa & the April Fishes — now wrapping up their third studio album, Build — have long been fixtures on the global music scene, a Bossa nova bumping mix of Brazilian, Indian, Latin, and French influences, sung in three languages. While based out of San Francisco, they’re often out exploring the world, most recently Chiapas, Mexico; Amsterdam; and Athens, Greece.

Shake Your Peace started out in New York as folk trio, but now “Shake Your Peace 2.0” makes a style of music that Dominguez has dubbed “whup” — a melding of Afro-Latin beats with bluegrass instruments such as fiddle, and gospel harmonies.

“W-H-U-P, it’s a celebratory spirit with a philosophy, a political approach,” Dominguez explains excitedly. “We’re not just fighting for better wages, we’re fighting for life. It’s the spirit of your heart kicking. The scream when you come out of the womb. Life, yaow!”

He appears equally amped on the Bay Rising tour itself, adding again that others should join the rides with the bands — “they’re welcome to experience this rolling summer camp with us.” And they’ll both be Tweeting their locations along the way for the day rides.

As the effusive conversation in Nervous Dog comes to a close, Dominguez and Marya are still talking about the logistics of the trip, including where they’ll crash at night, and the importance of gathering tarps to cover all their gear, just in case of bad weather. 

BAY RISING TOUR

With Rupa & the April Fishes, Shake Your Peace

Thu/19-Sat/28

Various venues, Bay Area

www.theaprilfishes.com

 

Alter egos

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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13
Alter egos

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC At first blush the music of St. Vincent, the alter-ego of accomplished guitar hero Annie Clark, and that of live looping sensation tUnE-yArDs, born Merrill Garbus, don’t appear to have a lot in common.

Sure, they share a gender, a label, and an impulse for quirky alias and chimerical shape-shifting, but Clark’s complex guitar-and-synth driven compositions and Garbus’ polyrhythmic ukulele and percussion spree emerge from completely different musical impulses and backgrounds.

Even so, their upcoming double-header at the Fox Theater promises to be a thrilling combination, as both ladies share a reputation for explosive stagecraft and are currently creating some of the most uniquely stylized pop music in the country.

Annie Clark aka St. Vincent, may have hit the cover of Spin‘s “Style” issue, but in interviews Clark is more likely to refer to herself not as fashionista but as a “nerd”. As in, a prog-rock-loving, guitar-shredding, architecture of music kind of nerd.

Her third solo album Strange Mercy (4AD, 2011), an oblique reflection on old traumas and fresh starts is characterized by contrast. Bell-clear vocals edging towards the ethereal, meaty guitar riffs ricocheting in from unexpected directions, and soaring organ and mini-Moog fills contributed by acclaimed gospel musician, Bobby Sparks, (easily the second most striking musician on the album).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eOt1GWD7gU

A study in contraposition both as a musician and as a media personality,Clark admits to a fondness for playing with character — further evidenced by her stage alias and deceptively delicate off-stage physicality, which belies the raw power of her live performances — but is equally quick to assert ownership of all of her public faces.

“Whenever you walk onto a stage you are fundamentally yourself,” she explains over email. “It’s just that you hold a mixing board to your personality and turn up some aspects and turn down others.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB3dBiD5Bj4

It’s almost impossible to speak of Oakland-dwelling Merrill Garbus, or tUnE-yArDs, without referencing the time she spent studying Taarab music in Kenya. The frenetic, border-blending polyrhythms on w ho k i l l (4AD, 2011) transport the listener into an experiential space in which music and body are inextricably enmeshed.

In the current ranks of American pop-makers it’s difficult to find an act to compare her to, though TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe does occasionally rise to mind, particularly in the context of vocal phrasing and politicized lyrical content.

No less of an onstage powerhouse than labelmate Clark, Garbus’ personal aesthetic skews more towards that of performance artist than rock star. With a fondness for facepaint, explosive vocalization techniques, and the rubber-mask facial tics of Lily Tomlin, Garbus’ previous training in the theater arts still serve as a springboard for her approach to performance, as well as composition.

“The music stems from how I can envision myself performing it,” she explains. “I like to think of the music in terms of…altering space, and transformation, and the experience of the group.”

Whether onstage or in the studio, Garbus flows smoothly between laying her own rhythm tracks, pounding fiercely on her uke, and charging into the musical fray with her battle cry vocals, but her personal fascination is with uncomfortable moments — highlighting them as absurdities and working thorough them with her audiences. Her other proclivity — that of an almost exaggerated playfulness — is less a spontaneous expression of id than an intentional construction of a persona who unifies the many strands of Garbus’ transcontinental influences and obsessions into one cohesive force.

“There is power in the facepaint, and in the performance, and of a warrior stance of sorts,” she opines. “I’m not using ‘tribal fashion’ in an ironic, disconnected and aloof way. I’m a freaking badass. And I wear face paint.” *

 

Can’t get enough of that tUnE-yArDs character? Look for extended interview highlights with Merrill Garbus online at sfbg.com

 

MERRILL GARBUS OF TUNE-YARDS WITH BUSTER KEATON SHORTS

Mon/23, 8pm, $20–<\d>$25

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.sffs.org

 

ST. VINCENT/TUNE-YARDS

With Kapowski Tue/24, 7:30pm, $29.50

Fox Theater

1807 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 548-3010 www.thefoxoakland.com

Weird me out

Andrew Lam
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0
Weird me out

emilysavage@sfbg.com

MUSIC Here is a partial list of not quite idioms, butchered sayings, and quasi heartfelt beliefs the Melvins’ Buzz “King Buzzo” Osborne peppered throughout a conversation during a phone call last week from his home in Hollywood.

“We can’t be lion tamers all the time.” “You can accuse me of a lot of things, being lazy isn’t one of them.” “When in fear, or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.” “Treat me right, I’ll be your best friend. Treat me wrong, you don’t exist.”

At least one of those deserves to be crocheted on a throw pillow. Or screenprinted on a Melvins backpatch.

“WE CAN’T BE LION TAMERS ALL THE TIME.”

Singer-guitarist Osborne met his longtime collaborator, drummer Dale Crover, in 1984, Aberdeen, Wash., one year after the Melvins had formed and were performing mostly Cream covers. Crover was also in a bad cover band, but Osborne knew he could play well, so he invited him to join his band.

“There’s a fine line between genius and stupidity for both of us. I like playing with him, one way or another,” Osborne says of their continued relationship. “And it seems to work, no reason to quit — until he gives me a reason, then that will be it.” Osborne’s speech patterns raise often with sarcasm; in person that signature fuzzy grey ‘fro of his is likely shaking, punctuating each joke.

After that first shaky year, the Melvins got an early foothold in the blending of punk and metal, influenced by first round Black Flag (The band would go on to influence scores of musicians itself, recently, Mastodon).

“Somehow I realized even then that I needed to work on writing my own music, not relying on playing cover songs — even though we love to play cover songs, and we still do. But I started writing music pretty quickly. Sometimes we still play those first songs I ever wrote.”

“YOU CAN ACCUSE ME OF A LOT OF THINGS, BEING LAZY ISN’T ONE OF THEM.”

In the past some 29 years, the Melvins — which is made up of a rotating lineup, save for Osborne and Crover — have recorded 19 full-length albums, and that’s not counting countless other releases (singles, EPs, comps).

Since the end of December, the band recorded more than 50 songs, Osborne notes proudly as his Jack Russell Terriers scream in the background. Included in that batch is The Bulls & the Bees EP, released for free download through Scion last month and the Freak Puke LP, which will be out in June on Ipecac.

“WHEN IN FEAR, OR IN DOUBT, RUN IN CIRCLES, SCREAM AND SHOUT.”

The head bang-worthy The Bulls & the Bees is five classic Melvins cuts, thundering drums, doomy guitar, and Osborne’s low octave howl, it’s drum-happy sludge rounded out by frequent Melvins players Jared Warren and Coady Willis from stoney LA band Big Business.

Up next, there’s the upcoming Freak Puke, which is being touted as Melvins Lite. In this record, the band is a trio: Osborne, Crover, and Trevor Dunn of Mr. Bungle and Fantomas fame on stand-up bass.

Freak Puke is similarly dense and dark, so that’s not the reason for the ‘Lite’ attached to the name. Is it? Osborne explains: “You be the judge. We’ve always done lighter stuff. I’ll just say it’s Melvins lighter in weight, as in, our weight is less with three guys in it, as opposed to four. That record just has a different vibe.”

He’s, of course, right, it’s more the vibe of the record that sets it apart. The frenzied plucking of strings that kick off “Baby, Won’t You Weird Me Out” take the Melvins even further down the strange hybrid wormhole they’ve long been building out of mud — yet not so far that we can’t recognize their inimitable sound.

“TREAT ME RIGHT, I’LL BE YOUR BEST FRIEND. TREAT ME WRONG, YOU DON’T EXIST.”

After Osborne moved from Aberdeen, but before his trek to LA to be with his wife (and now, their many dogs), he lived for seven years in the Richmond District of San Francisco, near the Presidio. And while he claims to not be sentimental about the past (“I’m more of a ‘what have you done lately’ type of person”) he mentions that he remains loyal to the promoters at Slim’s and Great American Music Hall, where the Melvins four-piece/non-lite will be performing all the tracks off the new EP later this week. “As long as those people want to continue doing shows with us, we’re there.” 

MELVINS

With Unsane

Thu/12, 9pm, sold out

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com

Rollercoaster

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Rollercoaster

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC “I get frustrated when things are repeating in life,” says Jon Philpot of Brooklyn trio Bear In Heaven. “I feel like I’m always trying to find ways to push people into doing things that maybe they don’t feel comfortable with or haven’t done before.”

Phlipot’s penchant for pushing boundaries is likely why each release from these experimental indie rockers is a metamorphosis from one sound to the next. For its third full-length, I Love You, It’s Cool, out yesterday on Dead Oceans/Hometapes, Bear In Heaven embraced a pop sensibility that transformed its inventive layering of swirling, cosmic textures into its most approachable work thus far.

“I wanted to make a dance record, that’s for damn sure,” Philpot explains. “We didn’t make a dance record, so we ended up with a record that’s somewhere in between [that] and what we are.” Philpot’s catchy vocal melodies lend an element of familiarity to the epic arrangements of pulsing, otherworldly synthesizers, distorted guitars, and dizzying percussion on I Love You, It’s Cool.

It’s a far cry from the bizarre, down-tempo dissonance of 2007’s abstract debut Red Bloom of the Boom, but the transition is apparent on its sophomore effort, Beast Rest Forth Mouth, which looked toward a new pop sound while one foot remained firmly planted in droning, avant-garde territory.

A surprisingly warm reception to the second album culminated in a year and a half of extensive touring, which also helped shape the band’s current aesthetic. “We used to be like — we didn’t want the audience to enjoy themselves,” says Philpot. “Like, ‘You’re gonna come to our show? Alright, prepare. We’re gonna shred your ears open.’ [Now] we’re into it. When the crowd’s into it, it’s nice.”

In making I Love You, It’s Cool, Bear In Heaven was unfazed by the weighty expectations that came with Beast Rest Forth Mouth‘s success. “We sort of closed our eyes and ears to all that noise and just made a record that we felt good about,” he says. “We wouldn’t do that kind of thing, try and make something that doesn’t feel natural. There’s not enough incentive in it for us to do that. This is what we are, this is what we’ve done, this is what we’re gonna continue to do. If you like that, welcome aboard.”

On board with these straight-shooters is a curious number of fellow musicians. “I don’t know why that is, but musicians love us,” he remarks when I mention spotting drummer David Prowse of Canadian rock duo Japandroids in a Bear In Heaven t-shirt. “I guess we’re pretty fun to hang out with, that’s one thing. We’re getting a steady normal people fanbase, too.”

Fans recently got a taste of the new tracks at South By Southwest in Austin, TX. “I was nervous,” Philpot admits. “There was a lot to figure out still. At each [show], we fucked up at least once during a song, but I think all in all it was really good. There were a lot of people there.” Philpot also tells me he’s building a light show the band can manipulate from on stage, sounding a little uneasy when he says, “It could be chaos.”

In the kaleidoscopic video for the album’s charming lead single, “The Reflection of You,” cameras zoom in and out on Philpot, guitarist Adam Wills, and drummer Joe Stickney at a rapid pace as strobe lights flash beneath them. It’s a hyper-stimulating, entirely accurate depiction of the band’s sound; once the rollercoaster ride is over, you can think of nothing but jumping back in line and doing it all over again.

BEAR IN HEAVEN

With Blouse, Doldrums

Sun/8, 8pm, $15

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF.

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

Dream Layers

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Dream Layers

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC Unable to resist a siren song with dark underpinnings, hanging low with heartbreak then taking you higher? Let Chairlift co-founder Caroline Polachek love you down when it comes to “Take It Out on Me,” off her Brooklyn band’s second album, Something (Kanine/Sony).

Maybe it has to do with the choked-up soul with which Polachek wraps her hollowed-out vocals around the fat, round syllables of the chorus, “Forget forgiveness / Forget all the rules / Just please don’t do it here / Bring on the fire / Cause business is cruel.” Or the way that the track’s clear, bell-like synth tones shiver delicately in the background — icicles pelted by a thunder shower of arpeggios. But the overall effect sounds like a consummate sad girl’s hit, à la Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

“That’s one of my favorite songs on the record,” Polachek, 26, says sincerely as her band’s vehicle makes its way to Montreal for a show. “I don’t want to get all emo on you in an interview, but it was about a frightening series of events in a dream. My dream family was being threatened, and I offered up myself in exchange for them and I was killed. I witnessed my own funeral at the end, too…”

She abruptly stops. “Wow, we just saw an eagle, a big white raptor!” A moment later she’s back. “There’s all kinds of vultures circling above us. Well, if our vehicle goes missing, you’ll know where we were!”

Edging away from that particular blackened fantasy, Polachek — part visionary with a watchful, Patti Smith-like eye for opportune inspiration and part down-to-earth every-girl happy to start an interview late so she can eat a sandwich — quickly picks up her thread once more: the blazing hot August 2010 day she and bandmate Patrick Wimberly, 27, worked on the song.

“The idea for the vocal movement came into my head, and I got excited about how it was sounding together, but all I could think about this was this horrible dream I had. The mood of the song was so sexy and fun and grooving, but this mood was so dry and awful and dark — somehow the two things happening at once was what that was. I think that’s one of the neat things about this record — there are layers like that, and darker songs have elements of lightness.”

The feeling of willingly bearing adulthood’s burdens — Chairlift co-founder Aaron Pfenning is long gone — combined with Polachek’s tendency to gravitate to the uncanny has rarely sounded so sumptuously effervescent than with the compulsively listenable, synth-dominated, and undeniably ’80s-hued Something.

If you’re itching for pop hooks, discover “Met Before” and “Amanaemonesia,” but if you’re yearning for aural thrills and spills, you’ll find those, too — in the spiraling Slinky keyboard runs of opener “Sidewalk Safari” and the tinkling, buzzing textures of “Frigid Spring.” The feeling of hermetic sonic richness, combined with Polachek’s undulating jazz- and R&B pop-touched vocals, stands alongside nothing less than Kate Bush’s The Dreaming (EMI, 1982) in its epic scope, tapestry of fictions, and blending of pop and prog.

“I was thinking a lot about textures when I was working on this record,” explains Polachek. “I kind of have a mental genre in my own head that kind of sounds like swimming pool music — with a chorus on it that makes everything sound not culturally cool but literally refreshing. Things that sound frosty and crystalline.

“And I got into a mental genre of sounds that were acidic and driving, like a dragon opening its mouth and hissing,” she continues. “I was gathering playlists, and some of those ideas found their way into the record. We’re living in a really playlist-y age, digging through the crates of history. I’m really into new age bath-time music.”

Unfortunately while the pair was busy drawing Something‘s warm bath, Polachek’s art-making has fallen by the wayside, apart from Chairlift videos. Still, her creative energies have obviously found a consuming outlet in her band. “It’s about all the desire,” she says, “to play like little kids play.” 

CHAIRLIFT

With Nite Jewel, Seventeen Evergreen

Tues/10, 8pm, $15

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF.

(415) 771-1422

www.theindependentsf.com

Marathon of sound

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1
Marathon of sound

emilysavage@sfbg.com

MUSIC There is just no easy way to define longtime Oakland band, Faun Fables. But here goes: send a classically-trained dark folk duo into the brush and bramble of a snow-tipped forest as part of a nefarious fairy tale, then ask them to sing for their supper. See? It’s difficult.

That’s precisely why the band (Dawn McCarthy and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum’s Nils Frykdahl) was chosen as one of the headliners for the fifth annual Switchboard Music Festival — the eight-hour-long marathon of fearless composers and bands making music that doesn’t fit neatly anywhere elsewhere in the Bay. “The idea with the programming is that a lot of this music doesn’t really have a home because it doesn’t fall easily into one genre or another, so Switchboard is trying to be that home for these groups,” explains co-organizer Ryan Brown.

The day will include 13 dizzying sets: some at just 15 minutes, most at 30 minutes, and two headliners at 45 minutes. Along with Faun Fables, the other headliner is Volti, an a capella chamber choir. “They do this incredible modern music for choir with all these extended vocal techniques and different sounds from around the world,” says Brown. “We’ll have them together on stage [with Faun Fables] for a song or two as well — that’s what I’m really looking forward to.”

Other acts this year include Dominique Leon, Cornelius Boots, Ramon and Jessica, Mercury Falls, Jeff Anderle, Beep, the Hurd Ensemble, and Grains. The SF Conservatory Guitar Ensemble will play a piece composed by Brown on six classical guitars, electric guitar, electric bass, and percussion.

“The sets are short enough that… you hear things back to back and you can sort of start to make these connections between different genres and styles that you might not otherwise make if you were exploring on your own,” says Brown.

Now completing their PhDs in music composition at Princeton, Brown and pal Jonathan Russell first came up with the Switchboard concept shortly after receiving their masters from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The two hung around the school after graduating — teaching and working in the box office — and routinely ate lunch together, which is where they discussed a desire to showcase the musicians they’d met. Jeff Anderle, a clarinetist at the school, came in to the discussion and the three came up with Switchboard.

“We wanted to do something that brought together all the amazing musicians, different scenes, and genre-blending zeitgeist that that seemed to be happening in the city,” says Brown. “Genre lines were being deliberately broken down, things were being mixed in strange ways.”

That first year the three organizers just made a list of people they knew who were breaking down those barriers and programmed the event. The first three years the event was held at the Dance Mission Theater, capacity 135, and last year it jumped to Brava Theater, which can house around 350 people. “The sound there is incredible, it’s just a really cool space and size,” Brown says.

And in that space there will be nearly 100 musicians milling about, both in the proper concert room where bands will be playing, and out in the lobby, where there will be merch, food and drink, and a projection of the live music. Attendees will be given wristbands, so they may also mill about during the eight-hour stretch.

As in years past, nearly every band playing the festival is from the Bay Area. It’s been a deliberate choice, as Brown and his co-organizers feel the region doesn’t get the attention it deserves for having such an innovative music scene. And, they feel like they’re filling a niche in that scene.

“There are other festivals here that are doing what they do really well,” says Brown. “Outside Lands, showcasing a certain type of rock music, Other Minds, showcasing a certain type of contemporary music, the jazz festival — but what about the music that doesn’t fit into any of these distinctions?” 

SWITCHBOARD MUSIC FESTIVAL

Sun/1, 2-10 p.m., $15

Brava Theater

2781 24 St., SF

(415) 641-7657

www.switchboardmusic.com

 

Extra points

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0
Extra points

emilysavage@sfbg.com

MUSIC If the triumphant theme to 1986-released video game The Legend of Zelda sends a knowing shiver down your spine; if you’ve ever spent hours obsessively clicking homemade remixes and covers of the soundtrack on Youtube (oh hey Deadmau5); there’s finally a highbrow spot for you among the upper crust: “The Legend of Zelda™: Symphony of the Goddesses Tour” is making its exultant, geeked out way to Davies Symphony Hall this week.

It features two hours of the theme from that first game — originally created by legendary Nintendo composer Koji Kondo — and themes from subsequent games in the Zelda franchise, up through 2011’s Skyward Sword for Wii, in a complete four-movement symphony, orchestrated and arranged by Chad Seiter.

Back to lowbrow YouTube for a moment. This comment on Zelda perfectly sums it up: “There is only ONE tune,? ONE game that unites all other gamers together and defines who we are. Here we have the pinnacle version of that tune.” Hyperbolic? Certainly, but you get the point. People freak out about the music of Zelda.

The inspiration for this momentous high-low culture mashup sprang from the 25th anniversary of the Zelda franchise and a longtime gamer/producer. Jason Michael Paul had been producing video game-inspired concerts since the early Aughts, including “Dear Friends — Music from Final Fantasy” in 2004, and “Play! A Video Game Symphony” in 2006.

Nintendo, for its part, was planning some unique releases to coincide with both the anniversary and the Skyward Sword release — anniversary concerts and a symphonic CD.

Music director Seiter took the short motifs and expanded the themes for the orchestra. Throughout the symphony, video projections of Princess Zelda and Link flash behind the classical musicians, matching up with key orchestral moments and providing the full live Zelda experience. Fans should be jumping in their seats.

“THE LEGEND OF ZELDA™: SYMPHONY OF THE GODDESSES TOUR”

Weds/28, 8 p.m., $45–$125

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness , SF

www.zelda-symphony.com

www.sfwmpac.org

Feeding time

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0
Feeding time

emilysavage@sfbg.com

MUSIC In San Antonio last week, waking up on a living room floor with assorted Burger Records crew members and friends, record label and brick-and-mortar record shop owner Sean Bohrman, 30, was already thinking three steps ahead.

The next morning at 11 a.m., the traveling Burger pen would play a pre-South By Southwest Burger blowout. Then it was off to Austin for the official SXSW showcases. A few more shows along the way, and now shattered fragments of the unofficial posse will hit the impressively titled Burger Boogaloo fest in San Francisco this weekend.

The three-day affair, which takes place at Thee Parkside — with pre-parties Wed/21 at Bottom of the Hill and Thurs/22 at the Knockout — boasts a motley, pizza-and-burger loving pack of noisy garage rockers, fuzzed out post-punkers, and sleazy generally genre-less local and national acts such as King Tuff, Audacity, Dukes of Hamburg, Heavy Cream, Dominant Legs, White Mystery, Thee Oh Sees, Strange Boys, Burnt Ones, Tough Shits, and a whole lot more.

It’s a mix of Burger bands and acts that play the fall SF festival, Total Trash Fest (some are one in the same). The Boogaloo began when Total Trash organizer Marc Ribak contacted Burger last year with the idea and it snowballed organically from there, says Bohrman.

It’s no huge surprise that Ribak, who is also a member of Rock N Roll Adventure Kids, and the Burger dudes hooked up — they have similar styles and lots of crossover acts.

“Music in general is a huge web — everyone is connected. That is my favorite part — who produced what, who recorded what, what bands everyone was in before,” Bohrman says. “To just be following the web, to be creating our own web, has been really amazing and awesome.”

Burger began as a way for Bohrman and longtime pal Lee “Noise” Rickard to put out their own music, Thee Makeout Party — a bedroom rock band formed in Anaheim in 2001. The label really started in 2007 when Bohrman and Rickard were cruising around in nearby Fullerton, Calif. one day talking about putting out a record for another friend’s band, Audacity. They decided to put it out, and thus an indie label was born. Burger has since dispersed 50,000 cassette tapes from more than 200 bands, and released over 15 LPS.

In 2009 Bohrman was hoping to tour with Thee Makeout Party but his job wouldn’t let him go. He quit, cashed out his 401k and funneled it back into the label, also purchasing a storefront in Fullerton with Brian “Burger” Flores, which would become the Burger Records store. It’s naturally the buzzing hub of the empire.

Whenever Vermont-born, LA-based King Tuff (aka Kyle Thomas, also of Happy Birthday) visits the store, he says he essentially walks away with a new record collection. “They’ve created a family — I go down to the record store and just hang out. It’s really like we’re all part of something.”

While King Tuff is officially signed to Sub Pop — which he also describes as having a familial atmosphere — he also is a part of the greasy outstretched arms of Burger (it put out his limited, personalized LP Was Dead). While the acts may be loosely tied together as friends, there’s no set of rules dictating what makes a Burger band.

“We’ve been successful by putting out stuff we really love, not beholden to any genre. This is our life. We can do whatever we want. There’s no ceiling above us. We can do anything, even if it seems impossible,” says the endlessly upbeat Bohrman.

His voice slightly raising, he adds, “The music means something to us. When we hear music it’s not ‘are we going to be able to sell this in a commercial’ or something. It’s about people making awesome music, not selling the songs for a Pepsi commercial.”

That’s how King Tuff grew up making music as well, without the predetermined rules of industry. He recalls his dad bringing home a guitar one day when he was in fifth grade, picking it up, and learning to play. “I was never interested in learning covers, and I never took lessons.” That improvisational spirit shows in his brief, freaky jams with surf-tinged psychedelic guitar and nasally intonations; it’s waves of stringy hair and rattling bones, jittery lyrics like those in “Bad Thing” off his upcoming self-titled release, “when I play my Stratocaster/I feel like an innocent kid/But when I’m looking in the mirror/Remember the bad things I did”

You can hear some of these same freaky-jittery qualities in the heaping mess of acts playing the Boogaloo in SF this week, and for that matter, Burgerama, another like-minded, Burger Records-endorsed fest happening concurrently down south. On top of all the fests, Bohrman and Co. are still producing cassettes (“Cassettes are handy, they’re like little business cards, they’re durable and cheap to make and buy.”) and running a successful little shop.

“It’s been a dream come true, but it’s still so much work. We just keep piling it on for ourselves,” Bohrman sighs. “It’s hard building a legacy.”

BURGER BOOGALOO

Fri/23-Sun/25, individual shows $7–$12, weekend pass $35

Thee Parkside

1600 17th St., SF

(415) 252-1330

Facebook: Burger Boogaloo 2012

Texas highlights

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Texas highlights

>>View Mirissa’s complete SXSW 2012 diary here.

MUSIC To be at SXSW is to know you’re missing out on a lot of good music. Fortunately the music you do see makes up for the difference, and very often it’s the unexpected showcases, the things that weren’t on your radar until that very moment, that end up being the highlights of your experience. That said, here are some of my impressions from this year’s slate:

 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14

On the way to the ZZ Ward show I stumbled upon Grupo Canalon playing on a street corner. Incidentally, a friend from SF had recommended it as an act that shouldn’t be missed. The group hails from the town of Timbiqui in Cauca and plays traditional Afro-Colombian roots music, with lots of percussion, a marimba, and a capella vocals. Even the hipsters on Sixth Street couldn’t resist dancing.

Amid an extended sound check plagued by feedback, a frustrated ZZ Ward assured the Bat Bar audience that her performance would be worth the wait. The words seemed cocky in the moment but she and her band delivered. Based in LA, the chanteuse’s “dirty blues with beats” sound has gathered its fair share of buzz and she seems to have the poise and the chops to become a star.

As I walked through the heart of Sixth Street not only was every venue overflowing with showcases but it was hard to swing a stick without hitting an “unofficial” street showcase. I snapped photos of two guys furiously strumming acoustic guitars in front of the Ritz Theater. When asked what their band’s name was, the taller one replied “Well I’m Mike and he’s Gabe… that’s as far as we’ve gotten.”

 

THURSDAY, MARCH 15

In the afternoon I wandered downtown only to run into Andy and Christian of San Franpsycho. They had a rack of clothes and a mobile screenprinting setup — representing SF style deep in the heart of Texas. As we commiserated about the craziness that is SXSW, SF local Danny Lannon of The Frail happened by.

Then it was off to catch a few songs by the White Eyes at the Taiwan music showcase. Frontperson Gau Xiao-gao was festooned in a nude leotard with fabric streamers while she led her band through the punk and straight-forward rock paces.

Later on I went to Spinlet’s All Africa party at Copa. After some confusion about the schedule, Kenya’s Sauti Sol took the stage. The first thing to notice about Sauti Sol was the band’s incredible clothing. The musicians were all wearing these beautifully tailored kanga-print jackets with beaded epaulets. En masse it kind of resembled an East African Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The second thing to notice was the great music. It navigated effortlessly from rocking out to singing soaring harmonies, all the while spontaneously breaking into lockstep dancing. The crowd ate it up.

 

FRIDAY, MARCH 16

At the big SPIN blowout Santigold‘s rhythm section entered the stage wearing Max Headroom-esque caps, her backup singers came out in outfits that were a spin on matador chic, then Santigold herself finally came out donning a crown. While her big hits like “L.E.S. Artistes” sent the crowd into frenzied sing-a-longs, her new material was received almost as enthusiastically, boding well for her album release come April.

At the globalFEST showcase the crowd was enjoying the sounds of Janka Nabay and the Bubu Gang, M.A.K.U SoundSystem, and Chicha Libre. Boston’s Debo Band closed the night with its take on retro Ethiopian pop music. I first caught the band a little over a year ago and since then its live act has grown by leaps and bounds. The band has been working with producer Thomas “Tommy T” Gobena of Gogol Bordello and it seems it learned a few things from the Gogol performance playbook. Keep an eye out for its release later this summer.

 

SATURDAY, MARCH 17

As I crossed the threshold into Empire Auto’s warehouse space I was enveloped in a complete sensory overload. The room was bathed in a light that made it feel like the crowd was hanging in suspension, and dubstep producer Starkey had that crowd feeling his beats. Literally. The bass was so pounding that it rattled my organs. A few minutes later the bass cut out completely, leaving the crowd adrift as Starkey protested over the PA “Yo, I wasn’t even in the red! Is anyone out there even working?”

The production manager told me that the bass was so heavy that it had knocked Starkey’s laptop off his table, and they were trying to get him to take it down a notch. Yet the thing the manager was even more worried about was that Daedelus was returning to the venue later that evening. Apparently two nights before his bass was so relentless that it had blown two woofers, cracked two windows, and fried the hard drive of the computer delivering the club’s visuals. Hopefully that night didn’t go out with too much of a bang.

Over at the Nat Geo showcase Israeli culture-clasher Balkan Beat Box was rocking songs from its newly released album Give. One track that had particular traction was “Enemy in Economy,” which details leader Tomer Yosef’s experience being taken for a terrorist on an Alaska Airlines flight. The crowd couldn’t get enough of the song’s hook “Welcome to the USA/we hope you have a wonderful day.”

Meanwhile Nigerian-German singer Nneka was inside playing her beautiful blend of politically conscious music. My SXSW experience closed out with Jimmy Cliff‘s set on the patio stage. By kicking things off with “You Can Get It If You Really Want” he wasted no time in giving the capacity crowd what they really wanted. As the patio tent got progressively more hazy it seemed the perfect moment to bid adieu to the festival and make my way home.

Who’s afraid of Jesse Michaels

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Who’s afraid of Jesse Michaels

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC East Bay ska-punk band Operation Ivy was arguably one of the most influential underground bands of all time. Not only was it a major influencing force behind the ska-punk boom of the 1990s, but lead singer Jesse Michaels’ angry yet intelligent, politically minded lyrics resonated with thousands of frustrated teenagers for years to come. Yet, the band never achieved much in the way of success until after it broke up in 1989.

“I never expected it to make any impact, but it did, which creates a different view of the past than what actually happened,” says Michaels. “We just played a little music and attracted a modest amount of attention. Everything that happened afterward — influence, the sense of history — it all feels kind of like a movie that people are making up.”

Operation Ivy guitarist Tim Armstrong and bassist Matt Freeman would eventually form the hugely successful punk band Rancid. Michaels would spend the next couple decades occasionally emerging with different bands such as Big Rig and Common Rider.

It wasn’t until 2008, when he formed Classics of Love, that he finally fronted a group with as much immediacy and chemistry as Operation Ivy. His bandmates — Morgan Herrell, Mike Huguenor and Max Feshbach, also known as San Jose post-punk trio, Hard Girls — offset Michaels’ ’80s hardcore-style songwriting with warm guitar tones, indie-rock sensibilities, and a musical virtuosity Operation Ivy never knew.

“From the first note we played together it worked. I had never experienced that before,” Michaels says.

The foursome got together thanks to Mike Park from Asian Man Records. Michaels was looking for musicians to play on his solo album that Asian Man was planning to release. Park recommended Hard Girls.

Huguenor didn’t know what to expect before meeting Michaels. “I was really nervous because when you think of his lyrics, you think of someone who is really concerned about social issues. There aren’t many songs he’s written that have a lot of humor in them,” he says. “It turned out he was down with jokes about weird stuff that would make Freud puke, so it was OK.”

This musical and interpersonal chemistry led Michaels to scrap the whole solo record idea and instead form a group with Hard Girls. Michaels brought in blueprints for songs, but the group worked together as a whole to arrange the songs.

Classics of Love released its self-titled debut full-length on Feb 14. The album rides a line of old and new punk rock — it showcases subtly complex instrumentation that still manages to sound raw.

The record’s engineer Jack Shirley, who is also the guitarist for Comadre, helped give the album its unique sound quality. Working with one of his musical heroes, Shirley was also relieved to learn that Michaels was down-to-earth. “You can tell he understands the importance of Op Ivy, but he’s not the least bit arrogant about it,” Shirley says.

Michaels is not only modest about the impact he’s had on so many people, he at times is downright uncomfortable with it.

“I am very wary of fame and notoriety because it paints an inaccurate picture of people. It doesn’t just distort people’s views of the person, it also can distort people’s views of themselves,” Michaels says.

More than two decades after Operation Ivy split, Michaels continues to write exceptional punk songs and finds simple joy expressing himself through music. Of course, it helps that he found those like-minded bandmates.

“Jesse is a weirdo and Morgan, Max and I are weirdos. We hang out and say horrible things that mostly don’t make sense. That’s how you get through life,” Huguenor says.

CLASSICS OF LOVE

With Joyce Manor, Gnarboots., and Kill the Bats

Sat/24, 8:30 p.m., $9

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 861-1615

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

Moment of Zen

Andrew Lam
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Moment of Zen

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC When I spoke with art legend-cult hero Laurie Anderson — known for her experimental music involving invented instruments and poetry — her soothing manner caught me off guard. She’s critical, yet positive; accomplished, yet humble. She’s also somewhat of a Zen goddess (although she’d probably dislike that tag).

The lasting impression of her visit to Hope Cottage, a retreat tucked into the pastoral hills of the Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in Marin County, will bring Anderson to the 142 Throckmorton Theater this week for a conversation with San Francisco Zen Center’s senior dharma teacher, Tenshin Reb Anderson. The event directly benefits the restoration of Hope Cottage — a Bay Area refuge that has recently fallen into fiscally prohibitive disrepair.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: What drew you to the Hope Cottage restoration project?

Laurie Anderson: Hope Cottage itself. It’s such a beautiful place. I went there with my dog, and it was sort of an experiment to see if I could learn to communicate with her better. I heard dogs could understand 500 words, and I thought, ‘I wonder if I go to an isolated place and spend a lot of time with her, we can learn to talk?” It was a lot of fun.

SFBG: How did Buddhism become an important part of your life?

LA: I first started doing meditation in the ’70s, and it was just a way to train my mind to not be so crazy. I realized a lot of painful experiences are stored in the body in a coded and interesting way and that when you meditate, you can find those places. I found that really fascinating and helpful.

SFBG: Do you have any advice for people interested in getting into Buddhism? I’ve tried to meditate, but I can’t sit still for long enough.

LA: It’s very difficult to do. Then you realize if you try and break it down into smaller pieces, it becomes a little bit more possible. We live in a culture that’s so obsessively dedicated to getting stuff done. The last time I was out at dinner, I realized, we were all reading our emails! I said, ‘Read [your] last two emails. Let’s see what we’re spending this time doing.’ We did, and they were idiotic. I thought, ‘Whoa, this is what I’m giving up human contact for?’ You have to be really careful about that stuff. It can eat you alive.

SFBG: What have you been up to artistically?

LA: Right now, I’m interested in painting — something I hadn’t done in a very long time. I started just making a lot of music and films. One of the reasons I came back to [painting] is because of scale. It’s really fun to work with physical things that don’t necessarily fit on your computer screen because we pretty much live in a world of screens, and you think, ‘If I’ve seen it there, I really understand it.’ And that’s not true in the world of painting.

SFBG: What made you transition from fine art to performance art in the first place?

LA: I like stories, so I was trying to record things and put them into talking sculpture boxes or something, and I thought, ‘Wait a second. Why don’t I just say them?’ One of the great things about the so-called multimedia artist is that you can do a lot of different kinds of things and no one can say, ‘You’re a painter, you shouldn’t be writing a novel!’ So, it gives you a little more freedom to stay out of your box because, you know, artists just get put into boxes and are supposed to stay in them.

SFBG: It seems like you’ve completely transcended that.

LA: Well, I don’t know that I have because it’s difficult to move from one thing to another. You can try, but here come the art police saying, ‘Stop doing that! Why are you painting? You’re a filmmaker! Where’s your sense of propriety?’ You’d think when you live the life of an artist, you live the life of freedom, but it’s not quite like that.

SFBG: So, what projects do you have in the works?

LA: I’m working on a book of stories, an exhibition of paintings, a new show — a bunch of different things. It’s fun to work on them all at once.

SFBG: And you recently performed a show in Taiwan? How was that?

LA: I can’t say I speak Mandarin at all, but I found it really exciting to work with a translator. You know, English is such a complicated language that you can write one thing and it means five things, so when it’s translated into another language, particularly Mandarin, you have to choose which one of those things you really want to have emphasized.

Spending this last week in Taiwan, I realized how completely different their culture is from ours. But, if you can make a joke in Mandarin and people laugh, then it is sort of one world, you know?<0x00A0><cs:5>2<cs:>

AN EVENING WITH LAURIE ANDERSON AND TENSHIN REB ANDERSON

Benefiting Green Gulch Farm’s Hope Cottage

Thurs/15, 7 p.m., $50

142 Throckmorton Theater, Mill Valley

50years.sfzc.org


 

 

Punk rock Robin Hoods

Andrew Lam
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Punk rock Robin Hoods

MUSIC In today’s modern music world, when iTunes and MP3s have dominated the mainstream market, and digital distribution is now the norm, a lot of vinyl aficionados wax nostalgic about the thrill of buying a new record, pulling out the disc, checking out the gatefold art, reading the liner notes, and enjoying a multifaceted musical experience.

Although vinyl records obviously never really went away, the quality of releases declined steadily over the years as consumer demand waned and the number of manufacturers around the world dwindled. But that void has been filled by — among other indie labels — local imprint Pirates Press Records. The independent manufacturer and record label has been reissuing Cock Sparrer’s older records; it also released a live LP/DVD, Back In SF, recorded in 2009 at the Pirates Press fifth anniversary party at Great American Music Hall.

Eric Mueller, 31, started Pirates Press in 2004 out of a love for vinyl, after he grew disillusioned with the way he saw another manufacturer he was working for treating their clients and employees.

“I decided to take my business and hard work and put it elsewhere, and did it with people who were of like-minded motivations,” says Mueller in his office in Potrero Hill, surrounded by an array of records and posters that Pirates Press made. He added, “We’re all super big vinyl nerds — it’s fun to make records, and we enjoy collecting the products that we make.”

That mindset, that a record doesn’t have to simply be a medium by which one listens to music, is palpable when browsing through the company’s releases. Brightly colored vinyl, picture discs, and even specially-shaped records — designed locally, and manufactured at a special pressing plant in the Czech Republic — display the label’s rich artistry and imaginative outlook on the industry.

“We’ve developed a lot of new products and technologies — we have proprietary software and hardware that allows us to cut records in a completely unique way from every other manufacturer,” says Mueller.

Another example of the company’s innovation is its current focus on flexis — thin, flexible discs that were popular inserts in magazines and other publications in the past, but have mostly ceased to be made. Thanks to three years worth of work by Pirate Matt Jones, 29, advances in materials and manufacturing have helped Pirates Press make flexis that sound far superior to those of the past — the company is even starting to make paper postcards with grooves that play music.

The label, which pressed nearly 1.75 million records last year, has certainly grown since it began as a bedroom operation, but the initial goals remain the same: try to make the process as easy as possible for all involved — something Mueller proudly stands behind.

Mueller is also proud of the artists that Pirates Press Records is releasing: punk icons such as Cock Sparrer along with up-and-coming local bands.

“It’s like ‘punk rock Robin Hood’ in a sense,” Mueller says. “I can make money pressing records for everybody under the sun, big label, small label — and turn around and take some of our profits and reinvest them into music that everybody in the office stands behind.”

www.piratespress.com

Cock Sparrer is mates first

Andrew Lam
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Cock Sparrer is mates first

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC While it may not be a household name in the mainstream music world, Cock Sparrer has been one of the most beloved and influential bands in punk rock for four decades and counting.

Hailing from the East End of London, childhood friends Colin McFaull, Mick Beaufoy, Steve Burgess and Steve Bruce — who all remain members of the group today, along with Daryl Smith, who joined in 1992 — formed the band in 1972.

I first encountered Cock Sparrer blasting out of a stereo at a friend’s house in high school during the mid-1990s, and became an immediate fan of its powerful, sing-along anthems propelled by simple, yet infectiously catchy and memorable melodies and hooks. This is all with lyrics that — while written about growing up working class in England — anybody who grew up in a similar environment could relate to regardless of geography.

A few years after I was bitten by the Sparrer bug, it was announced that the band would be coming to the United States to play a few shows, something it had never done before. One of those gigs in 2000 was at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, so I made the trek up the coast from Santa Cruz with a big group of friends, and we were not disappointed — it was an amazing experience, a huge sing-along that felt more like a giant party than paid concert.

Two return shows in 2009 in the city delivered the same adrenaline and endorphin rush, as did the one I flew to Las Vegas for last year. Local fans can rejoice again, as Cock Sparrer will be gracing us with its presence at two special 40th anniversary shows at the Warfield, co-headlining with Rancid, which will be marking its 20th year.

“We wanted to celebrate our 40th birthday with some special shows and when the opportunity came up to return to San Francisco, we jumped at the chance,” singer Colin McFaull told me from his home in England. “The city holds a special place in the history of Cock Sparrer and we love playing there.”

McFaull points to the fact that band was born out of a group of friends, and that they all remain close, as one of the main reasons that Cock Sparrer has managed to survive for so long, and outlast many of its punk contemporaries.

“We’ve always maintained that we are mates first and band second. We tend to do things at our pace and on our terms. Someone once described us as ‘the biggest little band you’ve never heard of’ and we like that.”

Forty years ago, when the group first got together, this frame of mind was in place — it informed the naming of the band. “We wanted to have a name that was synonymous with where we came from — it’s just an old East London term of affection and means ‘friend.'”

Despite the fact that Cock Sparrer has influenced generations of streetpunk and Oi bands, and the group plays to sold-out crowds when it does venture out to perform live, all the band members still have regular jobs back at home in England — which McFaull says he is perfectly fine with.

“It would be possible to earn more from the band but that’s not really what we’re about — we’ve never taken ourselves too seriously, there are no egos in Cock Sparrer, we wouldn’t allow it. We don’t believe in putting on rock star airs and graces.”

“We’re the sort of band that you’ll find in the bar of the venues we play chatting to fans and on the odd occasion even buying the beers.” 

COCK SPARRER

With Rancid and Factory Minds

March 23-24, 8 p.m., $30 (March 23 sold out)

Warfield

982 Market, SF

www.thewarfieldtheatre.com

Cruising for a bruising

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Cruising for a bruising

MUSIC On my first foray to Florida, I’d be checking into a hotel in Miami’s South Beach for a night then immediately embarking on the Carnival Imagination for the second annual Bruise Cruise to Nassau, Bahamas.

Over the next three days I’d witness a pole-dancing waiter, seasick garage rockers, and a bachelorette party that could easily be recognized by excitable shouts of “woooo!” Indeed, some of this was expected as part of the cruise culture that had mockingly seeped its way into both my reality and that of about 500 others. Together we’d bear witness to what at heart was a music festival where bands, usually in the cruise-ship lounges, gave their all. Apprehensive at first, I was ready to submit to a bizarre and unlikely voyage.

“I’d hug you, but I just barfed all over myself,” was the first thing Shannon Shaw said to me from the point of take off. Slightly worse for wear from a late night and pre-party performance where she joined Ty Segall in a cover band called the Togas, she and Segall’s drummer Emily Rose Epstein rolled in with instruments and prepared to check in. Later I’d join them for a cafeteria-style lunch and listen rapt during their stories of touring Europe: apparently German prostitutes have turf wars and badass outfits.

The Bay Area presence on the Bruise Cruise was heavy and I was genuinely thrilled to take it all in. Before I could see Thee Oh Sees, but not before a double rainbow mystically appeared during our safety briefing out on deck, the Dirtbombs had the first crack on the Xanadu Lounge’s stage. That’s when it hit me.

The first rough waves became apparent. I joined seemingly unlimited punk-rock paparazzi near the front. The entire audience was swaying, but not necessarily to the music. It was every bit as disorienting as a drug experience. The band ripped through its recognizable hybrid of Detroit rock and soul while a pina colada quelled my nerves.

Thee Oh Sees charged through a 45-minute set in typical electrifying fashion and I caught up with band member Brigid Dawson afterward. She said the camaraderie amongst our local music scene was one of her favorite things about it. “We’re just lucky. We have a lot of great bands right now. There are a lot of us here,” she said.

After confiding to her that I nearly had a panic attack from the vertigo, she recommended fresh ginger or Dramamine. Nonetheless, I was feeling better and it was time to experience what Carnival calls “fine dining.”

This was a more overt example of the Bruisers — if not easily identifiable by their tattoos, then by the fluorescent green wrist bands — co-existing with the normals, aka common cruise ship goers, for a unique mealtime experience. Once you managed to get the meal down (I didn’t hear too much praise for the fare and my fish was rubbery) before you knew it, T-Pain’s “Apple Bottom Jeans” was blaring while the mostly male waitstaff danced suggestively. Right before this, a call and response announcement was made that, “Whatever happens on the ship, stays on the ship!”

Other highlights included the Bruise Cruise Dating Game, followed by Vockah Redu’s request not to label him “sissy bounce” as he got a blow-up doll in a memorable display of athleticism before snagging one of his hair extensions on a stage fixture in a whirlwind of choreography.

Day two left Bruisers to their own vices for relaxation and an opportunity to explore Nassau. Strange Boys’ Philip Sambol, who wears a toga well, and Reigning Sounds’ Lance Wille rounded out the aforementioned cover band performing searing renditions of ’60s psych nuggets. Fanaticism trumps criticism as I thought their set blew Soft Pack’s and Fucked Up’s away. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the Toga’s versions of “Helter Skelter,” “Teenage Kicks,” “96 Tears, and even a Pleasure Seekers cover, of course sung by Shaw.

By Sunday morning we were back on international waters and the waves were noticeable. Quintron hand delivered non-drowsy anti-nausea medication to a fellow rocker. Meanwhile, Miss Pussycat’s “Puppets and Pancakes Breakfast” was a hit.

I somehow missed Kyp Malone from TV On the Radio’s performance in which he announced Whitney Houston’s death. Shortly after, San Francisco’s Mikal Cronin took the stage and delivered a solid performance with Segall doing double duty on guitar.

Things reached a fever pitch when an open bar was called during Quintron and Miss Pussycat’s energetic set. Then a feather-adorned King Khan & the Shrines followed as the final live act.

In one of the last dance opportunities aboard the ship, Quintron DJ’d a Swamp Stack Dance Party mixing Archie Bell and the Drells’ “Tighten Up” with the infectious Bohannon beat.

Three days on a cruise ship is ridiculous enough, but adding the Bruise Cruise to the mix is insane. You meet people, you make friends, but you’ll be happy to see your next show back on land.

Against the grain

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Against the grain

marke@sfbg.com

MUSIC It began as a burbling “Eeep!” It was June 7, 2000; we were in Davies Symphony Hall, in the middle of the second movement of Charles Ives’ super-intense Symphony No. 4 from 1910-1916. Yet despite the whirling maelstrom of that work — imagine three Fourth of Julys at once, in which a vast orchestra overlaps itself with marching band themes, spirituals, dance hall ditties, and children’s songs — I could still make out curious sounds coming from the audience behind me. Soon onlookers were shouting out nonsense; one down our row jumped up from his seat. For my part, I felt my shoulders twitch involuntarily, and my partner let out a loud hee-haw guffaw. The memory-triggering dissonance, expertly transmitted through conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, was having a spazzifying physical effect, making us active participants in Ives’ chaotic Main Street Parade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYvWwI6YRsE

San Francisco has never lacked for excellent performances of works still often classified as “contemporary classical,” despite many being a century old. But the first American Mavericks festival, more than a decade ago, did much to elevate San Francisco’s status in the cultural world at large. We were at the very edge of the tech bubble, a maverick cultural achievement of its own, of course. Yet not much bold, native art had risen in response to all that “future now” attention and money. The much-hyped Mission School visual art movement was in its infancy, and concerned more with hermetic understatement than Bay reppin’ (a nice answer, in its way, to Web 1.0 bombast). Native dance music forms like turntablism and dirty breaks were being superseded by bland lounge house, hyphy was only hatching, Green Day was over, and literature hadn’t yet been Eggered and Chaboned.

The SF Symphony is justly famed for its impeccably polished sound and MTT’s cheeky programs pairing classical comfort food with spunky aperitifs. But American Mavericks was pretty damned ballsy for a major symphony — almost a month’s worth of edgy, attention-grabbing, well-funded gems from 20th century composers like Ruth Crawford Seeger, George Antheil, Meredith Monk, Duke Ellington, Steve Reich, Frank Zappa, Lukas Foss, and a dozen more. There was a plethora of symphonic reconfigurations and unique instrumentations: an extra brass section blared from the basement for the Ives symphony; audience members brought their own instruments to play along with Terry Riley’s ecstatic “In C.” At a very materialistic moment, American Mavericks illuminated the wild-eared, transcendentalist spirit of native music while showing the world that SF still had a huge, unfettered freak flag to fly.

American Mavericks is back Thu/8-Sun/18, this time spreading its wings to include Symphony stops in Chicago, Ann Arbor, and Carnegie Hall. And while some have bemoaned fewer and somewhat less ambitious performances on the whole (we’re in a recession, after all), there are plenty of pieces to jump up and shout about.

Ives returns, this time with astonishing masterpiece A Concord Symphony — I always hear crisp leaves crunch beneath my mental feet when this is played. Profoundly quirky enchantress Meredith Monk is back as well: in a coup of idiosyncrasy, she’ll be singing John Cage’s Song Books with magnificent diva Jessye Norman and experimental champion Joan La Barbara. Later, Hometown hero John Adams will premiere a new work, Absolute Jest, as will local techno-influenced composer Mason Bates, with “Mass Transmission.” There’s loads more packed into a mere 10 days, including pieces from Oakland instrument-inventor Harry Partch, San Francisco Tape Music Center founder Morton Subotnick, and Bay Area indigenous music devotee Lou Harrison.

Will it have the same cultural impact? Here we are back in an overconfident tech bubble — and once again our total cultural output seems a bit, well, blah. An irony of the social media onslaught is that all this personal expression seems to be quashing true individuality. So we’re having a materialist and conformist moment. A good dose of musical eccentricity from old school visionaries/crazies who turned their backs on the rat race might just do us a world of good. Here’s to more “Eeeps!” among the bleeps.

AMERCAN MAVERICKS FESTIVAL

Thu/8-Sun/18, various prices and times

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness, SF.

(415) 864-6000

www.americanmavericks.org

 

Together forever

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Together forever

arts@sfbg.com

FILM It’s hard to imagine taking on the controversial subject of genre-defying performance artist and musician Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and finding a hitherto-unexploited angle of approach — but Marie Losier’s delicate filmic collage of an artist as an elder pandrogene is full of whimsy and surprise. Losier’s portraits in film of other counter-culture figures, most notably both Mike and George Kuchar, helped shape her into the ideal candidate to tackle filming P-Orridge and her late, great life partner, Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge, over the course of several years, documenting their partnership and their pandrogeny project for posterity.

SFBG There’s a whole backstory about how you two met, that you stepped on Gen’s foot at a party, but how did the relationship develop from there?

Marie Losier It was immediate in the sense that I had seen Genesis reading poetry and songs with Thee Majesty [the night before]. I was kind of shy, and I said, “I really loved what you did,” and she looked at me with her big smile and her gold teeth appeared — and I was like, “Wow, that’s beautiful!” And we just spoke shortly but it was very tender and I felt it was very unusual because of the coincidence of timing, and she said, “You can write to me,” and gave me her card, and I emailed her. That was the beginning, for me, of a great adventure. I had no idea about the pandrogeny project except that I was discovering [Genesis and Jaye’s] resemblance and their love, and that’s when I started filming, without knowing that this would become the main subject.

SFBG How much of the film is your footage?

Losier The only archival footage was this tiny minute of William Burroughs, one minute of Gen in Throbbing Gristle, and this really great footage of Coum Transmission where Gen is really young. Then, the archive of [P- Orridge’s children] Genesse and Caresse singing “Are You Experienced?”, and a little tiny image of Jaye performing when she was much younger in New York City.

SFBG That moment when they are in the alley, dressed up in leather, and Gen has the little Hitler mustache?

Losier Sorry, yes, this is footage that Bruce LaBruce gave me. That was interesting because I would not have staged that, but it showed Jaye in a way that I didn’t have.

SFBG One thing that strikes me is that there’s quite a large chunk in the middle in which Jaye does not appear. I wonder if you had originally intended to interview her more about her past and her art? Losier Yes, but Jaye was a lot more shy, or a lot more fleeting in front of the camera, so I spent more time, in a way with Gen. But even if you don’t see her as much in the film, she’s very present. S/he never dies because even to the end she’s still there, and also you feel her in the atmosphere all the time through the film. But it’s true I had less footage of Jaye, and it was only when s/he passed away that I realized I didn’t have enough to make her own full story, but in a way that also made sense. She was very kind but also kind of wild, more secretive than Gen, so it also corresponded to her personality.

SFBG Were you ever intentionally trying to go for a cut-up feeling or technique while you were filming the film, or trying to shape it?

Losier To be totally honest, it’s really the way I edit. If you see my short films, they are all made this way because they are all shot with non-sync sound, 16mm, three-minute rolls of film … so it’s already a collage. I also always mix between the surreal aspect of tableau vivant, and the construction of daily life. I think with Gen and Jaye I found the symbiosis of the perfect cut-up couple to match how I work, and how I build a story.

Check out Pixel Vision for an extended version of Nicole Gluckstern’s interview with Marie Losier and film subject Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.

THE BALLAD OF GENESIS AND LADY JAYE opens Fri/9 in Bay Area theaters.

Deep aroma

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Deep aroma

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC At some point in our lives, we all feel lost or confused, like we’re picking up the pieces of our broken selves and trying glue them back together. Rather than surrender, Seattle’s Perfume Genius, aka Mike Hadreas, takes these experiences and turns them into art.

Recorded at his mother’s house after a battle with addiction, Hadreas’ 2010 debut Learning (Matador) was an understated, deeply personal collection of lo-fi piano pop songs that earned him critical recognition and a circle of devoted fans.

For his sophomore album, Put Your Back N 2 It, also on Matador, Hadreas once again found himself navigating the confusing process of recovery. “That wasn’t the plan,” he says. “I didn’t plan after the first album like, ‘ok, now I’m gonna do round two and then I’ll make another album.’ It just unfortunately worked out like that.”

No one was more surprised than Hadreas that Learning was so readily embraced, but this time around he wrote with an audience in mind. “At first I was thinking about everyone, and that I had to make something that everyone would like,” says Hadreas. “But that was too crippling, so I started thinking about who I wanted to hear the songs, people in my life that I wanted to make songs for, and kids that wrote me from the first album. I didn’t expect to have a career [and] now I feel really purposeful.”

It’s for this reason, perhaps, that a resolute strength and optimism run through his second batch of songs. “I will carry on with grace / Zero tears on my face,” Hadreas sings on “No Tear.” There’s redemptive healing and an almost gospel quality to Put Your Back N 2 It. “I’ve always been kind of scared of religious or spiritual music because I thought most of the religions weren’t going to let me sing with them,” he explains.

An openly gay artist, Hadreas tackles subjects that are often absent from the indie music scene. “All Waters,” for example, explores internalized homophobia. The video for his gorgeous pop ballad, “Hood,” features burly porn star Arpad Miklos grooming and embracing Hadreas. Though the tender clip was widely praised by blogs and magazines, a 15-second ad containing scenes from the video was rejected by YouTube for “promoting mature sexual themes” and being “not family safe.”

“I just really didn’t get it, to be honest,” he says. “The actual ad itself was really sweet and tame. But I think everybody’s happy now because way more people saw the ad than if it would have just gone through.”

Hadreas is adorably timid when he talks about his music, yet fearless in his approach to songwriting. “Whatever fears I have, when I’m actually doing something I try to get over it, at least for that moment,” says Hadreas. “Even if I still struggle with confidence, I try to do that with my daily life and not when I have to make something.” Due in large part to studio recording, Hadreas sounds more confident here. His vocals ring out with clarity and his once subdued piano-driven arrangements are lush and expansive.

“Dark Parts,” which soars triumphantly over the galloping thump of a bass drum, is the album’s most hopeful track. “I will take the dark parts of your heart into my heart,” he sings as it concludes. It’s a promise that captures the deep connection he shares with fans, who he regularly thanks for the letters they send. “I haven’t been very helpful my whole life, really, until this. I was mainly just apologizing for 20 years,” he says. “Whatever bullshit I still have, when I read those messages, it makes me remember why I’m doing all the things that I’m doing.” *

 

PERFUME GENIUS

With Parenthetical Girls

March 21, 9 p.m., $12

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

The unidentifiable dance grooves of ESG

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The unidentifiable dance grooves of ESG

MUSIC Even the strangest sounds tend to lose their unfamiliar aura after a few listens. But no matter how many times I spin ESG’s “UFO,” I find myself utterly incapable of identifying that synthetic warbling that meanders through the minimal groove. Is it water gurgling in old gas pipes, a whirling police siren, the ferocious grumbling of a subway train? Or something more disturbing: Clanging echoes of gunfire, successive bursts of city noise filtered through apartment hallways?

It’s as if the song prompts a flux of associations that never find a place to rest. But as much as the song prompts a heavy dose of uneasiness, it works a curative spell on the body. That mysterious noise, whose relentless growth heightens the pulse of the rhythm, ultimately triggers an urge to break out in rhythm, and to put it quite simply: dance.

“Coming up in the South Bronx, in the 1970s, we watched Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” says lead vocalist and writer, Renee Scroggins, who together with her sisters — Valerie on drums, Deborah on bass guitar, and Marie on congas — originally composed ESG with a couple friends. “At the end of Close Encounters, they have that do do do do in the background when they communicate with the aliens,” she continues. “So I was sitting at home one day, and I thought: What would it be like if a UFO just landed in the middle of the projects? And that’s how I wrote the song. It begins with chaos and craziness, because I know what would happen,” she laughs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o5vuMYQyhE

Over 30 years have passed since ESG (Emerald, Sapphire and Gold) pressed “UFO” to wax on its debut seven-inch for Factory Records in 1981. Today, the unlikely story of the vinyl’s origins seems to be the stuff of lore. While still teenagers, the Scroggins sisters had been performing in New York’s downtown scene for a couple of years. “We were opening for A Certain Ratio at a club called Hurrah in New York when Tony Wilson [of Factory Records] heard us,” Renee recalls, “and he said, ‘how would you like to make a record?‘ I was like, yeah sure, because I didn’t think he was serious. But this was on a Wednesday night, and by Saturday, we were in the studio recording with Martin Hannett.”

Hannett, Factory’s eccentric in-house producer who is likely best known for his work on Joy Division, lent his uncanny touch to ESG’s sound. Bookmarked by the diss song “You’re No Good” and the other end of the love spectrum, “Moody,” with its emotional highs and lows, the EP consists in a stripped down polypercussive funk that would mark ESG’s style for the rest of its output: loosely structured drum patterns weave around pockets of emptiness and stark bass lines, letting Renee’s vocals flutter and hypnotize. It caught the attention of Ed Bahlman at NY’s 99 Records, who was already unofficially managing the outfit but hadn’t realized its full potential in the studio. The Scroggins followed with another EP and recorded their debut full-length for 99, Come Away with ESG, at Radio City Music Hall in ’83.

Come Away solidified its magnetic role during a fertile period of New York’s musical history, in which at least three strands of musical forms encountered each other to unexpected effect. The angular edge of post-punk deconstructed the blues guitar, no wave bands challenged rock purism by stressing the danceable groove, and block parties exploded in the South Bronx, establishing the conditions for what would eventually come to be known as hip-hop. ESG — which shared the stage with the Clash, Gang of Four, and Grandmaster Flash, and performed at Paradise Garage, Danceteria and the Mudd Club — was at the threshold of all this momentum.

What might single ESG out from its peers, though, is its rooted lineage in soul. “James Brown is definitely one of the biggest influences on my writing style,” says Renee. “He would always take it to the bridge, and cut loose, and I’d be like — ‘I didn’t want that part to ever end!’ But, I thought, if I could write a song, and just keep that bridge part going, then people could dance all night.” It’s not all that surprising that ESG’s talent for elaborating, intensifying, and prolonging the aesthetics of the bridge, in frenetic jams off its debut like “Dance,” “The Beat,” and “Christelle,” would correspond with the birth of the DJ, who would attempt a similar effect by looping breaks found in dusty bins of soul, funk, and rock. Soon enough, “UFO” became one of those sampled records.

Listening to “UFO” is all the more disorienting because of the overwhelming dispersion of offspring it calls to mind. That synthetic siren has been sped up, modulated, faded behind layers of reverb, or even spliced in its pure form onto a new backbeat. There are too many to name: Big Daddy Kane’s “Ain’t No Half Steppin’,” Notorious B.I.G.’s “Party and Bullshit,” and countless more from J Dilla, Beastie Boys, Q-Bert, among hundreds, if not thousands of others. You’d think that such an influential legacy would neutralize “UFO,” finally render it to that sterile status of the familiar, but the effect is much the opposite, as if its staggered mutations have only increased the alien, yet maddeningly ecstatic element, within the song.

ESG returned to the recording studio in the 2000s, introducing both Renee’s daughter as well as Valerie’s to the family venture. It dropped two albums of solid new material for Soul Jazz, which also released compilations of its classic singles and rarities. But after more than 30 years of performing and making raw grooves as well as some pop oriented songs in the mix, ESG plans to self-release its final record, Closure, this month (esgclosure.com), to coincide with a farewell world tour. So this might just be the last time its unidentified funk touches down live in San Francisco. 

 

ESG

Presented by No Way Back, With DJ sets from Solar, Conor, and Junior

Sat/March 3, 9 p.m., $20

Mezzanine

444 Jessie St., SF

www.mezzaninesf.com

Back in sight

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Back in sight

MUSIC Roky Erickson spent much of the past few decades as the subject of endlessly rehearsed cautionary tales about the dangers of mind-altering drugs and mental illness, and romantic anecdotes framing him as a quasi-oracle, gifted and cursed with a second hearing into the weirder vistas of rock ‘n’ roll.

Following the release of Keven McAlester’s You’re Gonna Miss Me in 2005, Erickson reemerged as a subject of a different kind, as McAlester’s documentary dispelled some of the more profound biographical shadows, shedding light on the catalogue of ghosts and demons that haunt Erickson’s expansive body of recorded work.

Now 64, Roky Erickson has had such an indelible influence on psychedelic music, many would call him an architect. In the 1970s he reappeared, Rip Van Winkle-like, to a changed pop music landscape, where he would take a nascent approximation of punk and run it through his own esoteric sensibilities (“horror rock,” he called it), stumbling upon a lo-fi home recording aesthetic in the interstices of this period, though largely out of necessity, mind.

Most recently, Erickson carved out a provisional home in windswept and country-inflected indie. Never permanent, these dwellings serve as temporary shelters — motel rooms — for a restless and untethered voice, part Hank Williams, part Howlin’ Wolf, but even this doesn’t do it justice, and the veritable grimoire of demonic (lately divine) lyrical figures through which it moves.

His most recent record, True Love Cast Out All Evil (2010, ANTI-) — his first new material in more than a decade — saw collaborating band Okkervil River orchestrate a ghostly kind of folk rock capable of tracing the unpredictable contours of Erickson’s musical ideas. But the most memorable moments occur when the smooth continuity of the record is punctuated by intimate and acoustically frayed sounds emphasizing the fragile nuances of Roky’s performance.

The music dissociates into a field of droning harmonies, interspersed with snatches of studio banter, of singing birds and rapidly cycling TV channels. It’s hard not to hear these fragmentary moments as consciously referencing the intrusive sounds and voices that partially characterized his mental illness, yet here they have the feel of an exorcism, casting out, as it were an insistent static.

If there’s an underlying consistency to his immense and scattered catalogue, it’s that Erickson is a consummate blues singer, keenly attuned to the expressive potentials of rock n’ roll, and moreover, preternaturally skilled in reaching his listeners. Roky built up a rich lyrical world of vampire bats and B-movie extraterrestrials, and intangible vibrations that, in the minds and ears of listeners, came to stand in for a wealth of emotional timbres.

We feel, however faint or garbled, a connection through the cadences and inflections of Erickson’s voice. Like reading a novel written in a language you only half understand, you experience his music through these shifts in tone, through his alternating waves of anger and frustration and sadness, and the rare moment of contentment where Erickson retires into a sonic labyrinth of his own design.

When Elvis Presley died, Lester Bangs made the observation that we were all, effectively, saying goodbye to one another, having lost a figure whose music we could all come to a tentative agreement. Bangs’ fantasy of a capacity for a radical and far-reaching empathy encoded rock ‘n’ roll is one that we’ll most likely never stop repeating to ourselves.

Presently, it’s an invitation to patiently listen as the haunting and singular voice of the 13th Floor Elevators, of Roky Erickson & the Aliens, and a vast catalogue of hotel tapes and live recordings and rarities drifts from Austin to San Francisco. 

 

ROKY ERICKSON

With the Night Beats

Sat/3, 9 p.m., $25

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

Whither indie?

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Whither indie?

MUSIC How does one trace the warp and woof of Bay Area indie rock’s silky, sick, multihued tapestry — with ticket stubs to long-ago shows, holey concert T’s, or grainy snapshots of sweat-swathed guitar players, red eyes gleaming in a haze of smoke machine emissions? Perhaps one way is to chart SF indie’s course from the first Noise Pop to the latest 20th anniversary edition, teasing out the tenuous connections between the first fest’s headliner Overwhelming Colorfast, reunited this year, and newish local poobah Young Prisms.

The pinging, ringing unifier might be found in the cascades of distortion, the buzzsaw guitars, used to drastically different ends. Fighting it out, too, beneath Overwhelming Colorfast’s fleet-footed crunch and Young Prisms’ smoggy overhang of echo-chamber shoegaze are clearly discernible, sensitive hearts, pulsing through the dulcet vocal lines and delivered with perfectly imperfect, threadbare falsettos. You can hear the ties that bind the two bands in the tide of romanticism and even sentimentality running under OC’s onslaught, YP’s haze.

Back in their 1991 to ’96 day, I confess I lost track of Overwhelming Colorfast: I don’t think I even saw them during their brief lifetime, although the music-snob friends respectfully granted that OC were kind of OK. So it feels thoroughly weird to play catch up with the most praised recording, Moonlight and Castanets (Headhunter/Cargo, 1996), by Antioch’s finest. Just as Overwhelming Colorfast was breaking up (only to reassemble, in time, as Oranger), Moonlight came along. Sprawling and ambitious with a bit of everything, it evokes the exploding mind of a particularly imaginative punk/rock fan, stuck in the suburbs and succored on chicken-fried ’70s and ’80s FM rock and moshpit-ready Amerindie hardcore bands that could be your life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7xH5axRHM4

Of course, much like Young Prisms, accusations of derivativeness dogged Overwhelming Colorfast, whose inspiration and albatross was Hüsker Dü. Founding vocalist-guitarist Bob Reed couldn’t help it — he had clearly ingested far too much SST, with a very special emphasis on 1984’s Zen Arcade and Double Nickels on a Dime and 1985’s I Don’t Want to Grow Up. But listening to Moonlight now —particularly its forward-thrust first side — those snap dismissals and facile comparisons seem unfair.

The side starts “Starcrunch” with its heavy-outta-the-gate guitars that match Bob Mould and J. Mascis lick for lick, moves through “Mickey’s Lament,” which goes Weezer one better with its smart-kid, enjambed vocal delivery, rhythm guitar chug, and Stooges-y impaired piano drone, and closes the tender, breathy “Last Song” with a back-and-forth guitar line that captures the indecision as Reed sings, “Got a stupid note here / It’s from me to you. It’s all I could do / Thought I might just toss it / But it took so long. Tell me if it’s wrong.” Eventually a way-too-exuberant fusillade of guitars busts in, attempting to obliterate uncertainty: it’s as if Reed peered into the overwhelming darkness— wondering whether he should hold this awkward note and whether Colorfast could last—then decided, “Fuck it.”

The precarious, ground-shifting nature of SF indie — so often fielding copy-cat accusations, so far from the so-called music industry centers — also touches Young Prisms, also reared in SF’s bedroom communities yet looking to influences further afield, across the Atlantic, in the form of My Bloody Valentine and the Jesus and Mary Chain. Like Colorfast, the outfit has also coped with its share of membership switcheroos: the title of debut Friends For Now might have foretold the departure of guitarist Jason Hendardy and the arrival of vocalist-guitarist Ashley Thomas, whose vocals along with vocalist-keyboardist Stephanie Hodapp’s, pushes Prisms further toward the vaguely feminized, sonically diffuse space of the Cocteau Twins.

Songs like “Gone,” off YP’s upcoming second LP, In Between (Kanine), hinge on nursery rhyme-like vocal lines and a fluid wall of rhythm guitars against which a singular New Order-like guitar line dances. Guitars are used as pretty, pointillistic devices, seamlessly incorporated with washes of synth. People come and go, but here, sonic elements coexist in a more generalized, less personalized harmony, where lyrics are obscured and vocals are used as effects, rejecting the jolts — and listen-to-me force — of Reed’s more intimate, ungainly urgency. Do the Prisms reflect a kind of indie progressiveness — an evolution from the punky and individualistic to the ambient and collective? For answers, revisit In Between in 15 years.

 

YOUNG PRISMS

With Melted Toys, Tambo Rays, Preteen

Weds/22, 7 p.m., $14

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

2012.noisepop.com

OVERWHELMING COLORFAST

With Oranger, Slouching Stars, Peppercorn

Sat/25, 8 p.m., $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

2012.noisepop.com

Shorts: More top picks from Noise Pop

Andrew Lam
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SNOB THEATER

Noise Pop isn’t all studied, somber plucking, ethereal soundscapes, or morose, twisting in the night song lyrics; there are solid yucks to be had. Kata Rokkar and Noise Pop are presenting another installment of Snob Theater at the Noise Pop-Up Shop pre-main events. Hosted by comedian-music blogger Shawn Robbins, it’s a mashup of indie rockers and indie comics, a real giggle fest for the musically-inclined. Brendon Walsh (Comedy Central, Jimmy Kimmel), Dave Thomason (SF Sketchfest), Janine Brito (Laughter Against The Machine), and Chris Thayer (Bridgetown Comedy Festival) bring the comedy, rockers the Ferocious Few and Bobby Ebola and the Children MacNuggits bring the raucous tunage. (Emily Savage)

Feb. 17, 8 p.m., $10

Noise Pop-Up Shop

34 Page, SF

2012.noisepop.com

 

DIE ANTWOORD

 The chances that this South African freak-hop duo will roll onstage with LED-tricked wheelchairs, wearing onesies that make flat-topped emcee Ninja and devil-pixie singer Yo-Landi Vi$$er look like plushies are not high — the two already worked that look for the “Umshini Wam” video, accessorizing with a telescope-sized joint and firearms. No matter, this hot-ticket sell-out show will have a gonzo pack of hipsters twerking to the weird-ass lyrics like there’s no tomorrow. Die Antwoord, like most hip-hop groups these days, is plagued by questions of authenticity (it reps for South Africa’s working-class demographic that its members may not actually hail from), but the performative aspect of its schtick makes it a cultural artifact regardless of where Ninja went to high school. Hot tip for those that dig a long shot: keep one eye peeled for Celine Dion. Die Antwoord’s pegged her as their dream collaborator. Weirdos. (Caitlin Donohue)

Feb. 22, 7 p.m., sold out

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

2012.noisepop.com

 

HIT SO HARD: THE LIFE AND NEAR-DEATH STORY OF DRUMMER PATTY SCHEMEL

Along with Last Days Here, currently screening as part of the San Francisco Independent Film Festival, Hit So Hard is one of the most inspiring rock docs in recent memory. Patty Schemel was the drummer for Hole circa Live Through This, coolly keeping the beat amid Courtney Love’s frequent Lollapalooza-stage meltdowns after Kurt Cobain’s 1994 death. Offstage, however, she was neck-deep in substance abuse, weathering several rounds of rehab even after the fatal overdose of Hole bandmate Kristen Pfaff just months after Cobain (who appears here in Schemel’s own remarkable home video footage). P. David Ebersole’s film gathers insight from many key figures in Schemel’s life — including her mother, who has the exact voice of George Costanza’s mother on Seinfeld, and a garishly made-up, straight-talking Love — but most importantly, from Schemel herself, who is open and funny even when talking about the perils of drug addiction, of the heartbreak of being a gay teen in a small town, and the ultimate triumph of being a rock ‘n’ roll survivor. If you miss Hit So Hard at Noise Pop, it’ll be back around for a San Francisco theatrical run starting April 27. (Cheryl Eddy)

Feb. 22, 9 p.m., $10

Artists’ Television Access

992 Valencia, SF

2012.noisepop.com/film

 

GRIMES

After listening to Grimes on heavy rotation for the past couple years I still find myself mesmerized by Claire Boucher’s voice. It leaps and falls, circles words in repetitive motions, ciphering their sonic texture and tone into a perpetual undoing of sound. Grimes consistently induces this siren effect, inhabiting that mysteriously seductive threshold somewhere between waking life and dream world. Its third full-length, Visions (Arbutus/4AD), is no different. It continues to draw resources from spectral pop wherever it can, from the processed rhythms underpinning a constellation of electronic dance genres, to the gushing melodies of New Age cassette tapes and 1990s R&B, and even disparate psychedelic folk from across the globe. What holds Grimes’s aesthetic together though is, simply put, mood: whirling awfully close to planetary rapture. (Michael Krimper)

Feb. 22, 8 p.m., $10, sold out

Grimes and oOoOO

With Born Gold, Yalls

Rickshaw Shop

155 Fell St., SF

2012.noisepop.com

 

THE BUDOS BAND

Few bands working within the new wave of funk revivalism during the past decade are as tight as The Budos Band. The Brooklyn-based outfit has released all three of their records, each simply self-titled and numbered, on Daptone Records, home to powerhouse soulstress, Sharon Jones. But The Budos Band has a bit more of a worldly spectrum than other Daptone releases firmly rooted in 1960s R&B. They take influence ultimately from the funk diaspora launched by James Brown: Fela Kuti’s afrobeat jams and the Latin soul of Fania, to the psychedelic ethio-jazz culled by Mulatu Astatke. The drums are deep in the pocket, wah-wah guitars get gritty, and the horn section hits hard, all with the frenetic urgency of a score straight out of a Melvin Van Peebles’ blaxpoitation flick. (Michael Krimper)

Feb. 23, 7:30 p.m., $20

With Allah-Las, Pickwick, Big Tree

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

2012.noisepop.com

 

JOLIE HOLLAND

This longtime San Franciscan (and seventh-generation Texan) may call the road her home — with brief pauses for righteous swimming holes — but we’ll always think of her as a perfectly impure product of the Bay’s musical bohemia, the latest in long line of city songsmiths succored on prog politics, cultural patchwork, and high times. Whether Holland’s warbling about her mind reeling, blood bleeding on “Black Stars,” that wicked good “Old Fashioned Morphine,” or real-world psychic vampires (referenced in the title of her latest long-player, Pint of Blood (Anti), she taps a deep vein of blues —one related to a familial history steeped in Texas swing and her own soulful explorations here and abroad. This waltz around, she alights in trio form, playing with Carey Lamprecht and Keith Cary. Long may she ramble and roam. (Kimberly Chun)

With Will Sprott of the Mumlers, Dreams, and Emily Jane White

Feb. 24, 7 p.m., $16.50–$18.50

Swedish American Hall

2174 Market, SF

2012.noisepop.com

 

MATTHEW DEAR

Matthew Dear has a talent for surprisingly rewarding detours. With Asa Breed (Ghostly) in 2007, he departed from the pure percussive bliss of minimal techno and house, which occupied the scope of his previous efforts, in favor of pop song structures and vocal stylings in the spirit of Brian Eno. My favorite winding road came with 2010’s Black City (Ghostly): a record prefaced by bubbly vocals and rhythms, whose lightness quickly disperses into an orgiastic sort of density typical of film noir’s crowded urban landscapes, and the lustful encounters they tend to prompt. Last month’s Headcage EP (Ghostly) marks the most recent tangent into drum patterns that glide and skitter, but if Matthew Dear’s past wanderings are any indication, it promises yet another fruitful pathway in the ever expanding multiverse of his sound production. (Michael Krimper)

Feb. 24, 8 p.m., $16

With Maus Haus, Exray’s, Tropicle Popsicle, DJ Mossmoss

Public Works

161 Erie St., SF

2012.noisepop.com

 

VERONICA FALLS

There are a lot of great bands returning to the Bay Area this year during Noise Pop, but one in particular hasn’t made it yet. Veronica Falls was originally scheduled for its debut SF performance at the Brick and Mortar Music Hall last September, when an issue with visas forced the UK quartet of indie pop morbid romantics to cancel at the last minute. At the time of the cancellation the group was also releasing its first self-titled LP on Slumberland Records, so on the plus side there’s been extra time for anyone awaiting Veronica Falls’s appearance to take in the music. It’s an album that delivers on the promise of early singles “Beachy Head” and “Found Love in a Graveyard” — a hauntingly retro British sound with layered vocals led by the bittersweet Roxanne Clifford, laid on top of the classic combination of jangled guitar rhythms and a punchy back beat. (Ryan Prendiville)

Feb. 24, 8 p.m., $14

With Bleached, Brilliant Colors, Lilac

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

2012.noisepop.com

 

UPSIDE DOWN: THE CREATION RECORDS STORY

Danny O’Connor’s doc about legendary British indie label Creation Records is named both for the Jesus and Mary Chain single that helped launched the imprint — and the go-for-broke attitude shared by many of the freewheeling characters involved in its story. Most of them chime in to help tell the tale, including founder Alan McGee, a Scot whose thick accent is among many collected here that may make Americans long for subtitles. And, of course, what a tale — filled with colorful encounters, drugs, major-label wooing, drugs, “shockingly out of control” behavior, drugs, and all of the expected trappings of music-biz stardom. The soundtrack is filled with Creation’s many alt-rock, acid house, shoegaze, and Brit-pop success stories, including Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Swervedriver, Teenage Fanclub, and Oasis. Where were you while they were gettin’ high? Director O’Connor appears in person for a Q&A after the screening. (Cheryl Eddy)

Feb. 25, 7 p.m., $10

 Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF 

2012.noisepop.com/film

Everlasting Noise

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Everlasting Noise

emilysavage@sfbg.com

NOISE POP Thao recalls hosting impromptu beer trivia with Mirah during their joint show a few years back, a festive moment she says is telling of Noise Pop. Cursive vocalist Tim Kasher retained playing one of the “most hungover shows imaginable” many years ago at Bottom of the Hill and it still being one of his favorite shows. Archers of Loaf bassist Matt Gentling has a fuzzy memory of playing the fest in 1997 with Spoon and Knapsack. Roddy Bottum and Jone Stebbins of Imperial Teen once declared themselves “King and Queen of Noise Pop” due to a tireless week creeping nearly every show.

Chances are, if you’ve been in a touring band at any point in the past two decades, or you’re a Bay Area music fan, you’ve got a Noise Pop memory or 20. My own? That incredible moment a couple years back when Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon were rejoined on the ornate Fox stage by Deerhoof, Petra Haden, Harper Simon, and a half dozen more for a stage-audience sing-along of “Give Peace a Chance.”

Longtime Noise Pop co-producer Jordan Kurland clearly has endless stories from the fest. Sitting casually in the bright, spacious Mission office of his own Zeitgeist Artist Management, he smiles as he quietly recounts his life within Noise Pop; Guided By Voices at Bimbo’s in 2002 playing an encore of the first eight songs off 1994’s Bee Thousand, taking duel legends Frank Black and John Doe out to breakfast the morning after their co-headlining show, watching Joanna Newsom — a soon to be star — play her third ever show opening for Cat Power.

He then begins methodically ticking off great shows of NP past: Flaming Lips, Grandaddy, Creeper Lagoon, Death Cab, Rodriguez (M. Ward’s early act) at Great American Music Hall, Two Gallants, Superchunk at Bimbo’s, Wolf Mother at Bottom of the Hill — Lars Ulrich happened to be in the crowd for that one. “When you look back at some of the bills, it’s pretty amazing — and the fact that people still come and appreciate it, it’s gratifying,” he understates. Later he mentions, “we’ve had some misses over the years too, stuff that just doesn’t connect.” But he’s too polite to indulge those.

The Noise Pop festival began in 1993, founded by Kevin Arnold who continues to this day, along with Kurland, to produce it. That first year, there were five bands playing one venue, one day. This year, there are 128 bands, playing 19 venues spread out over six days. Plus there’s the Noise Pop-Up pre-events, and the Thurs/16 pre-party with Class Actress, a Painted Palms DJ set, and Epicsauce DJs at the California Academy of Sciences.

“It’s changed so much,” Kurland says. “When Kevin started [Noise Pop], it was about celebrating a scene that really wasn’t well recognized, and most of the bands were like Hüsker Dü or Replacements, you know, noisey pop.” Now, he says, “it’s really just about independently-minded artists. It doesn’t mean that every band that plays the festival is on an independent label, it’s just a certain approach to the craft.”

He adds that they’ve expanded over the years to include electronic music, dance music, and underground hip-hop. “I feel like we’re all getting older — I know, weird. But our staff is immersed in the culture of this so we have a good sense of what people are listening to — I mean, we’re not going to start booking yacht rock.”

Kurland joined Arnold in 1998, the sixth year of Noise Pop. “At that point, Kevin had been saying for the past five years, ‘this is the last year,’ ‘this is the last Noise Pop, I can’t do it anymore.’ He had a day job in the technology industry, but I was working for another management company so it was easier to weave [booking bands] into the fabric of my day.”

The year Kurland joined, the Flaming Lips did the momentous boombox experiment (pre-Zireka) at Bimbo’s, and Modest Mouse played its first show at Great American Music Hall. In the years that followed, the organizers introduced the Noise Pop Film Festival, which screens music-enwrapped flicks, and have toyed with different music education forums. There was once Noise Pop Night School, this year, there’s Culture Club at Public Works, where you can learn how to bounce with Big Freedia, or all about art, animation, and film with Aaron Rose and Syd Garon. The fest, which began a small indie music creature, is now a many-headed culture beast.

This year is a significant year for Noise Pop, as Kurland is well aware. “You only get one 20th anniversary…so for this year it was a big effort to bring back bands that have played.” He and Arnold called up acts such as Flaming Lips, Archers of Loaf, Bob Mould, and Imperial Teen, all of which played early on.

There’s also Thao and John Vanderslice, locals who have both separately played Noise Pops past in different incarnations, and who this year will co-headline Bottom of the Hill. At that show Thao will be testing out five to six new songs, and says “depending on the reaction, they may or may not go on the new album.”

There is, however, one act that will be brand new to Noise Pop this year and yet, is still part of the tradition in a sense. Kurland has been trying to nab Built to Spill for the fest for the past 14 years, to no avail, though it did once play Treasure Island (also part of Noise Pop Industries). His annual reach-out for the act has become a tradition in its own right. “Every year it’s like a joke, I call them up, and it actually worked this year!”

That Built to Spill show at the Fillmore, however, is long sold out, as are many of the big names — Flaming Lips, Atlas Sound, Imperial Teen, even comparatively newer acts like Grimes. Though those who purchased badges will still have the opportunity to check them out, and there are dozens of other impressive lineups. “It’s definitely moving quicker this year,” Kurland says when the rate of sell-outs is pointed out. “I think there’s more attention on the festival.”

“It seems obvious, but I feel every year we get a little more established,” he adds. “I feel like not that long ago people who should know what Noise Pop is, didn’t.”

Noise Pop also inevitability brings a whole batch of artists wandering the city. Stebbins from Imperial Teen is hoping to catch Archers of Loaf at Great American Music Hall, Christie Front Drive at Cafe Du Nord, and Craig Finn at Bottom of the Hill, among other fellow artists. Interestingly, Kasher from Cursive also mentions those exact shows. Kurland, the eternal music fan, is also ready to haunt SF’s venues yet again. “I’m kind of stressed about some of the nights, I’m like, okay, Saturday night I’ve got Surfer Blood, but also Archers of Loaf…”

Time again to start marking those schedules, fanatics.

NOISE POP

Feb. 21-26

Various venues, SF

2012.noisepop.com

 

Symmetry

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Symmetry

arts@sfbg.com

NOISE POP It’s been a few months since I’ve seen Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, and while many have dedicated countless hours selflessly contributing to the Ryan Gosling meme, which continues to grow and mutate like an uncontained bacterial infection, I’m still utterly and helplessly seduced by the score.

Allow me to draw a rash conclusion in the limited space allotted: Few films have coalesced around a form of sound as succinctly as Drive. On the one hand, the melancholy synth-pop music magnetizes the sense of nostalgia that saturates the film in a mythically neon Los Angeles of the 1980s, or the sprawl imagined in ’50s noir. On the other hand, the score motivates the emotional awakening of a lonely Gosling stricken by an unfolding love for his neighbor of angelic innocence.

What emerges from this tension between loss and erotics parallels none other than Vangelis’ extraordinary dystopian soundtrack for Bladerunner (1982). Through some kind of alchemical dissimulation, currents of machine generated sonic particles make visceral a disturbance within the dream distributed by Hollywood — a disturbance that nevertheless satisfies waves of desire as much as it unsettles.

Although Drive‘s score owes much to Cliff Martinez’s stark drum programming and warm synthetic melodies, some of the most arresting moments are due to Desire’s “Under Your Spell” and the Chromatics’ “Tick of the Clock.” Both songs belong to the musical vision of Johnny Jewel, a tireless producer also behind the Portland group of night stalkers, Glass Candy, and in general, much of the output from the Euro disco revivalist imprint, Italians Do It Better.

If you’re like me, and fiended for more Jewel after stumbling out of the theater under the spell, then you might have come across a few online interviews regarding his own mysteriously scrapped soundtrack for the film, encrypted with announcements for an unspecified future release date.

Then, just at the end of last year, 37 songs comprising nearly two hours of cinematic music quietly appeared like a gift from the void, under the appropriately vague title Symmetry / Themes for an Imaginary Film. The official statement in the press blurb insists, however, that this is not the allegedly trashed Drive score. Instead, it consists of a series of abstract experiments culled over the past three years from Jewel and partner Nat Walker on tone, mood, and structure, stripped of the lyrical motifs and pop formulas that tend to mark their signature work.

I have to admit I’m not entirely convinced by this back-story, but for all listening purposes, it doesn’t much matter. Symmetry draws on the same affective narrative underpinning Drive: As soon as a sense of artificial enclosure reaches the limit of relentless claustrophobia, a rupture slowly deflates from within, without any grand arrival or explosion. And while we may feel the euphoria of its release, the anticipation of an event ever more devastating to come, still crawls wonderfully under our flesh. *

GLASS CANDY, AND THE CHROMATICS

With Soft Metals, Omar and BT Magnum (DJ)

Feb. 24, 8 p.m., $19

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

www.mezzaninesf.com

 

NOISE POP CULTURE CLUB

Johnny Jewel on scoring, Glass Candy, and more

Feb. 25, 2:30 p.m., $10

Public Works 161 Erie, SF

2012.noisepop.com

Bounce with me

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Bounce with me

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately this show has been cancelled due to Big Freedia’s health. We wish her well and hope to see her again soon! Please read this revealing interview with her multi-talented DJ and producer, Rusty Lazer.

arts@sfbg.com

NOISE POP Despite its continual popularity in New Orleans for the last 20 odd years, it’s been a while since the regional, uptempo, call and response driven style of dance music known as bounce has appeared on a national level. The Juvenile (featuring an adorably young Lil Wayne) track “Back That Azz Up” may be the most recognizable hit, but not the most representative of the genre, especially the rising queer-friendly subsection that Big Freedia rules as “Queen Diva.”

Appearing in her nationwide debut performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last month, Big Freedia, born Freddie Ross, possibly brought bounce back into the lives and sets of people outside of NOLA, but they may not have been getting the whole picture. “I get a lot dirtier when it’s a club performance, and I can really get raw,” Big Freedia said in a phone interview last week, “but that was for TV so it was a little more PG.” Freedia, who answers most questions with Southern politeness and a “Yes, sir,” is nothing but grateful for the experience in which her dancers worked with “one of Beyonce’s choreographers,” Frank Gatson, for the segment, but to an observer at all familiar with her reputation for wild live performances, it was pretty tame.

In part it was just a matter of skin. One of Big Freedia’s signature songs at this point is “Azz Everywhere” and it’s the scantily clad dancers in particular that bring the idea to life, making moves and taking positions not unlike a 2 Live Crew show (or the Kama Sutra). We’re talking booty bumping, full splits floor humping, upside down synchronized air thrusting, and other gyrations typically reserved for strip clubs near airports and really great office Christmas parties.

For Big Freedia, who comes with her own crew of male and female dancers, call and response isn’t just lyrical — meaning that when she yells “I got that gin in my system” you should probably retort “somebody gonna be my victim” — but also that people might get called out for not getting down on the dance floor. At her shows, “everyone is involved.” Big Freedia said. “Whoever wants to get onstage can get a chance to come on stage. I’m very connected with the audience so I try to make everyone involved.” This interaction with her audience was the other thing missing from the Jimmy Kimmel performance, where a crowd looked on more as spectators than participants. For her part, Freedia tries to meet people at her shows halfway, saying “I can’t put them all on stage so I have to put myself on the floor with them.”

Effort means a lot for Big Freedia, who has long been known for doing shows at least six nights a week in New Orleans and continues to run a successful decorating company. She considers it part of her message that one can “Make the impossible happen being gay. Working really hard at things you have dreams behind and succeeding no matter what color, creed, walk of life.” Idealistic as that is, it also explains in part her egalitarian approach to dancing. Unlike some artists (::cough:: Sir Mix-A-Lot ::cough) it’s not about a certain type of butt; everyone’s got one, you just have to know how to bounce it. And if you don’t know that, well, she also offers classes.

 

WITH HARD FRENCH DJS, VOGUE & TONE, DOUBLE DUCHESS

Feb. 25, 9 p.m., $16; Culture Club bounce session, 11:30 a.m., $10

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

2012.noisepop.com

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