Noise

Treasure Island 2013 lineup is out! Animal Collective, James Blake, Little Dragon, Tricky, Cayucas, and…

Tony Robles
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Hey look, it’s Animal Collective! Oh, and James Blake, Little Dragon, Tricky, Cayucas, Phantogram, Beck, and Deep Siver Diver, along with locals Antwon and Giraffage. Treasure Island 2013 (Oct. 19-20) is shaping up to be a pretty great festival season closer, heavy on the electronic.

Tickets are on sale this Fri/31 at 10am. Treasure Island Festival lays it all out here:

General admission tickets:
Early Bird 2-Day Ticket – $130.00 (On Sale Friday, May 31st at 10am)
Advance 2-Day Ticket – $140.00 (Limited Availability When Early Bird Sells Out)
Regular 2-Day Ticket – $150.00 (Limited Availability When Advance Sells Out)

The just-announced line-up is below:
Atoms for Peace
Beck
Animal Collective
Major Lazer
James Blake
Little Dragon
Sleigh Bells
Phantogram
STRFKR
Disclosure
Japandroids
Holy Ghost!
Real Estate
Tricky
Lord Huran
DJ Falcon
Haim
Palma Violets
Poolside
Adult
Cayucas
Robert Delong
IO Echo
Giraffage
Deep Sea Diver
Antwon

Björk plays the part of stunning mad scientist at the Craneway Pavilion

Tony Robles
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With purple lightning bolts of electricity jagging toward one another in a steel cage center-stage, powerful pipes that reverberated through the pavilion and rippled out onto the sea, and a fuzzy Snow Cone wig of every color — cherry red, orange, lime green — Björk seemed like the mad scientist of the natural world last night at the relatively intimate Craneway in Richmond, Calif.

She also thanked the audience often, ‘t-ank you, Bay Area, gggrrrratitude!” (she rolls her Rs beautifully) and offered up a 16-piece coven of sequined and hooded Icelandic choir princesses, so you can assume she’s the benevolent type of creator.

The vibe was weird to start, with most of the audience confused as to where to go, do we sit or stand, what is this place, will she come out before dark even though the whole place is encased by floor-to-ceiling windows? Will I cry when she appears? There were a few poofy pink or orange wigs dotting the crowd, and at least one swan costumed fella, who, also benevolent, took time to pose for photos with fans after the show.

The Craneway only holds 4,000 people, which still seems like a lot until you realize that when Björk’s Volta tour came through, it went to the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, which holds 22,500. And with the stage in the dead center and the aforementioned ripply waters just outside the windows, it did feel like the smallest possible way to view Björk. “Did she just look directly at me?” It must have been thought dozens of times throughout the night during this Biophilia stop.

The show itself began auspiciously enough, with a young woman stepping out onto the stage to patiently ask the crowd to put away its cell phones and cameras, to live in the moment for the night. People cheered, as concert-goers are sick of the constant interruption at shows (or maybe I’m projecting). Most got the point — hello, we were about to be in the presence of a legendary elf and sonic genius, live in the now — but plenty decided to shirk the suggestion, just too giddy with social media attention. (Full disclosure: I posted a photo of the empty stage long before the show started, but still, I admit to that tugging need to let people know I was there, near her.)

At 9pm, a National Geographic documentary-style voice (actually British broadcaster David Attenborough, narrating Biophilia‘s intro) came over the loudspeaker and explained the night would be about “NATURE, MUSIC, AND TECHNOLOGY.” It also asked us to expand our minds, and a few other ideas that I missed due to excitement. Just listen to the album introduction, it’s all there.

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

The cloaked Icelandic choir — all blonde, Viking-esque, and vaguely Kirsten Dunst-looking, wearing oversized smocks of glittery green or velvety amber-brown with large hoods — marched out and stood in a hunched and humble circle on the already circular stage and began chanting. A sea of impressive vocals rose with immediacy.

And then Björk rose up like a bewigged phoenix from the ashes, and lightly shuffled near the Tesla coils as they crackled with purple electricity inside a human-sized bird cage (technically, a Faraday shield). She later called the Tesla coils her “fun new toy.” The set began with “Oskasteinar,” then electrifying “Thunderbolt,” which teetered between grinding techno thanks to arpeggios timed to the coils and passionate love song, given Björk’s leaping vocals. This was followed by “Moon” (large moons floating and shifting on the circle of TV screens surrounding the stage) and “Chrystalline” (crystal gems dance across said screens). Most songs had a visual component on those screens, a natural element growing and twisting like a video game or early web screen-saver. The image of the earth’s mantle cracking open looked straight out of a biology book.

Björk and the hooded Kirsten Dunsts sang their way through most of Biophilia — the main star of this tour — but also revisited old favorites like “Hidden Place,” which was matched to a neat video of colorful starfish frolicking underwater, and incredibly sexy Vespertine hit “Pagan Poetry,” which burst out of Bjork’s mouth like fire, filling the room with warmth. That powerful “I love him/I love him/I love him/I love him” breakdown felt almost too personal in such a small place. But then the choir piped up with that tender backup “She loves him,” and it brought us all back to the present.

While she sang, Björk one-two shuffled around in platform glitter shoes and a glittery beige haute couture dress that looked like it was covered in 3-D alien breasts. She pushed her body forward and back. She shot her hands out and spread her fingers like she was casting spells to the beats. She pulled out the iPad to play during a handful of songs, and was also backed by a live drummer, a musician on “computers and shit,” and a truly epic harpist, also wearing a glittery oversized smock. Large pendulums swung to and fro just off the stage.

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

Björk and the Dunsts left the stage after an hour, returning a few short minutes later with “Possibly Maybe” off 1995’s Post, “Nattura,” and finally, closing with Volta’s “Declare Independence.” For that last song, she asked that everyone stand (VIP area was seated) and sing-along, “Declare independence/Don’t let them do that to you” and everyone obliged, hoping to please their mad scientist master with repeated declarations of independence. Make your own flag, raise your flag higher, higher. 

Set list:
1. “Oskasteinar”
2. “Thunderbolt”
3. “Moon”
4. “Crystalline”
5. “Hollow”
6. “Dark Matter”
7. “Hidden Place”
8. “Heirloom”
9. “Virus”
10. “Sacrifice”
11. “Generous Palmstroke”
12. “Pagan Poetry”
13. “Mutual Core”
14. “Cosmogony”
15. “Solstice”
Encore
16. “Possibly Maybe”
17. “Nattura”
18. “Declare Independence”

A chance meeting with the Doors’ Ray Manzarek, RIP

Tony Robles
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Ray Manzarek, co-founder and keyboardist of the Doors, died today at 74. Complications from bile duct cancer.

As the master of the spooky-sounding and creepy organ first heard in rock and roll in “96 Tears” or “She’s About A Mover,” Manzarek was both the embellishment and the bottom for Venice, Calif.’s most famous band. They had no bass (live, on records they did). The bass was Ray’s left hand — according to Manzarek, every time they tried to add a bass, the sound became leaden and useless. And so, that oddly springy feel the Doors made real owed as much to Ray as it did their colorful frontman or their jazzy guitarist and drummer.

He also produced X’s first four discs and wonderfully, too — never tried to clean them up or polish them and while his keys were all over their debut, they disappeared afterwards, when the band was better known and more confidant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XzHotB5-To

He was cool. Changed my life too!

When I was 16, my friend Tommy got us backstage passes for the Doors/Dr John gig on the Boston Commons (Tommy knew Chuck Leavell from Florida, Chuck was playing keys with Dr John.)

As Dr John was doing his gris-gris thing onstage, I found myself standing next to Ray Manzarek and as I had a J in me pocket, I sparked her up and passed it to my childhood hero. He and his wife and I finished the reefer.

I couldn’t even talk — not because of the herb, but because I had SMOKED A JOINT WITH RAY FUCKING MANZAREK!!!!!

Thanks for helping me be a kid, Ray. Peace to you.

Heads Up: 7 must-see concerts this week

Tony Robles
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Bjork is coming! She’ll bring Biophilia’s ambitiously in-the-round and touch screen app-filled show to Richmond, Calif. this week. Plus, the educational component of that tour will make its way to the Exploratorium via a handful of science and sound experiments.

The sparkly avant-pop star is the major music news this week in the Bay, however there also is the annual (and reliably well-curated) SF Popfest, plus a bunch of other shows you should be checking out as well, like Japanese doom masters Boris, Swedish indie popsters the Shout Out Louds, the gritty B-side soul goodness of the Detroit Cobras, and local rock’n’roller Mikal Cronin — high on the release of a celebrated new solo album, MCII.

Here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end:

Boris
The experimental Japanese drone legends are playing two shows at the Rickshaw Stop this week — only one of those is sold out (that would be Tuesday). At Wednesday’s show, Boris will perform the four song, 70-minute masterpiece/“cult classic” album Flood, in its entirety. The ‘00 sludge-rock album hovers between psychedelic and doomy in all the right ways.
With deafheaven
Wed/22, 8pm, $18
Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell, SF
www.rickshawstop.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvCLhq8okxc

Mortar and Pestle
On its self-titled new full-length, Oakland’s Mortar and Pestle sounds something like a trippier Little Dragon. There are bouncy keyboard lines and scattered upbeat found-sound touches boosted by the lush and dreamy vocals of lead singer Janaysa Lambert. On first single “U.V” there’s even the familiar ping-ping-ping of a classic pinball game, forcing you to picture the full Mortar and Pestle set-up placed neatly between games in a 1980s arcade. The tropical synth-pop trio is also one of the first acts to see release on Metal Mother’s new label-collective, Post Primal, so you know it has her stamp of approval.
With the Visibles (Record Release), Great Spirits
Wed/22, 9pm, $8
Brick and Mortar
1710 Mission, SF
www.brickandmortarmusic.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqEGK6li2rE

Bjork
Can you even recall your first run-in with the mythic, boundary-less creature that is Björk? Perhaps it was bounding through the forest with crystals underneath her eyes as a giant paper-mache bear chased her through Michel Gondry’s video for “Human Behaviour,” off 1993 solo album Debut. Or maybe it was poised for the tabloids in an elegant swan dress, holding a large egg purse at the ’01 Academy Awards after her devastating performance in Dancer in the Dark (2000). Those long obsessed will likely point to first hearing ’88’s “Birthday” by the Sugarcubes, her early Icelandic act (post teenage punk bands), on international radio. Whenever — and however — it went down, it left a lasting impression, the stunning shock of that otherworldly voice tends to permeate memories. Solo, Bjork has long coupled that voice with innovation, always grasping at new objects and sounds, or as she described it to me in conversation, she’s “like a kid in a toy shop.”
Wed/22, Sat/25, Tue/28, 8:30pm, $75
Craneway Pavilion
1414 Harbour Way, Richmond
www.craneway.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvaEmPQnbWk

Shout Out Louds
“My favorite songs by this Swedish pop group have clear antecedents in ’80s New Wave. With Our Ill WIlls (2007) opener “Tonight I Have To Leave It” singer Adam Olenius was a ringer for Robert Smith at his most ebullient (read: “Just Like Heaven”) and “Impossible” hit on the Human League and Simple Minds. It could be derivative, but with the Joy Division via Interpol meets the B-52s sound of “Glasgow” on its latest album Optica, the system the group has is working, particularly the sparkling production. Opening band Haerts seems a perfect match, as its slick debut single “Wings” sees the SOLs referent for referent, and adds in some Spandau Ballet and Stevie Nicks vocals to great effect.” — Ryan Prendiville
With Haerts
Wed/22, 8pm, $19
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell, SF
(415) 885-0750
www.slimspresents.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dXpmbZDnRk

The Detroit Cobras
“Some bands you’ll just never be able to judge by their album cover(s). Some bands just don’t have time for all that studio nonsense. They wanna rock — and they wanna rock with you. Up close and personal. In your face. Get it? That pretty much describes the rough-and-ready Detroit Cobras method, after releasing a scant handful of albums, they’ve continued to tour extensively, bringing the husky, tough-girl vocals of Rachel Nagy and the gritty, jangling guitar riffs of Mary Ramirez to the people. Their reinterpretations of vintage, B-side rock, soul, and Motown give songs that could have been contenders a brash new life, while their relentless stage show gives their adoring fans a good, old-fashioned, foot-stomping workout.” — Nicole Gluckstern
With Pangea, the Chaw
Thu/23, 9pm, $16
Slims
333 11th St., SF
(415) 255-0333
www.slimspresents.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8ZhLBO9NZY

Sea Lions
The pizza-loving Sea Lions (think a more beachy Vaselines) come to the Bay via Oxnard, Calif. courtesy of this weekend’s SF Popfest. And that fest lineup for the evening is rather ingenious, bookended with the awesome “stoner-punk” LA shredder Colleen Green — go now and check fuzzy “Heavy Shit” — along with distorted-pop maker Permanent Collection, and more.
With Still Flyin’, Burnt Palms
Fri/24, 9pm, $12
Café Du Nord
2170 Market, SF
www.cafedunord.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko_FxbKq9PM

Mikal Cronin
“Mikal Cronin has been bouncing around the San Francisco music scene for a couple of years as an unsung hometown hero, collaborating with Thee Oh Sees, recording with Ty Segall and performing in the Ty Segall Band, while quietly releasing his own solo records and singles. Finally, Cronin is no longer sidekicking. This year’s full-length MCII has received rave reviews from major music publications (SPIN and Pitchfork have labeled it among the best new music of the year) and Cronin is enjoying a headlining slot on a national tour. Tonight’s gig at the Rickshaw Stop is a much-deserved album release-party, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if Cronin pulls up some old friends to help him celebrate.”  — Haley Zaremba
With Audacity, Michael Stasis
Sat/25, 9pm, $12
Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell, SF
(415) 861-2011
www.rickshawstop.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S2eTV2v3V0

To twerk at the symphony: Tipping on the tightrope with Janelle Monae

Andrew Lam
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To twerk at the symphony: Tipping on the tightrope with Janelle Monae

There was a moment at Janelle Monae’s show at the SF Symphony last night when it looked as if the diorama of world-class musicians behind the diminutive person in black-and-white striped shoes, pompadour, and endless progression of tailored tuxedo jackets was a natural growth. If the trombone-and-oboe look isn’t an every day occurance for Monae, she did not let on as the final moments of Prince’s “Take Me With You” surged around her. The andro-android turned her back to the audience and almost subconsciously, began waving her arms, a sudden conductor. 

And then by the end of the next song the entire spangly gown crowd was on their pave-jeweled feet, twerking in the aisle. Maybe Monae can’t always have a back-up symphony, but the Symphony should always have a Monae in front of it.

“I’ve never seen that before,” said a friend whose been to “over a dozen” shows at Davies Symphony Hall. The crucial moment when floor-length dresses with complicated back straps found themselves navigating approximations of Monae’s duck-footed pops and jazz hands, came about three quarters of the way through the show, after her covers of the tender “Smile” (originally an instrumental in Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, eventually sung by Nat King Cole in 1954), the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”, “Goldfinger”, and her own concotions: “Peach Tree Blues”, “Sincerely, Jane”.

“I did not quite feel comfortable with myself as a young woman,” the famously androgynously attired Monae announced to the crowd. The song that followed, she said, was meant to assist anyone feeling similarly unhinged. “For everybody out there who has ever felt weak, this song is for you.” 

She launched into a one-two of her singles “Cold War” and “Tightrope”, and we went there. Had the elder statespeople, the rich blonde stunners, the swath of young, well-turnt, and apparently rich (considering the ticket price for the show, which was a fundraiser gala for the Symphony’s impressive public school programming), the tightly-curled man who secured his ginger locks with what I swear was a black tie scrunchie, ever felt out of place? “You better know what you’re fighting for,” Monae hollered, thrillingly. You could feel the crowd feeling their own, each, personal fight, even if it was just their plans to breach the VIP lounge at the post-show open bar reception across the street at City Hall. 

She ran into the crowd? She dropped her new single featuring Erykah Badu in an absolutly inevitable encore? She wins the day. On Monday, Monae takes the show to Chicago’s Symphony, a stand-in for an ailing Queen Aretha Franklin. I doubt the Windy City will be disappointed, and I hope it wears its dancing scrunchie. 

FYI, the show was one in a series of concerts at which the Symphony is featuring guest artists from varying genres — Rufus Wainwright is coming up June 9, will he get the crowds rolling ass in the aisles too?

Party Radar: Save Esta Noche!

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Party Radar: Save Esta Noche!

Many of us barely remember growing up there, meeting our first hot papi, trying out our first cha cha heels on stage, and living the Selena dream. And some of us go back every week to relive those experiences! Now, that many-mirrored treasure trove of characters, Esta Noche, may have to close its doors — forever.  

The city’s only (official) Latin gay bar owes the city $7,000 and may be history if it can’t cough it up in the next two weeks. But you know the fundraising party Sat/18 is gonna be fabuloso.

The whole situation’s due to a silly technicality: Last year, the Board of Supes passed widely supported legislation designed to make it easier for bars and clubs to pay their licensing fees. But there was a catch no one properly understood: bars would now have to pay all fees for the year in one large lump sum. Supervisor David Campos is working to change this, but it may be to late for the fantastic characters of this beloved bar.

So his office, via scenester mover and shaker Nate Albee, is helping organize the big time fundraiser — assisted by an all-star cast including Heklina, Anna Conda, Per Sia, Brown Amy, and DJs Carnita and Taco Tuesday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXhKc8ntBOw

4 reasons that spending $150 on Janelle Monae tickets is not 100 percent ridiculous

Andrew Lam
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4 reasons that spending $150 on Janelle Monae tickets is not 100 percent ridiculous

1. Her Thu/16 show is at the symphony It is! The show is at Davies Symphony Hall and features actual symphony musicians playing actual orchestral arrangements to back up android-andro chic Ms. Monae, whose set will include material from her new album even. She’s dropping through the Chicago Symphony later this month as a last-minute stand-in for Aretha Franklin, so you can go to her SF gig and chortle about the Windy City getting our original orchestral arrangement sloppy seconds. This will be a wonderful chance to see the Symphony dames approximate Rocky Horror Picture Show, if Thursday night’s fashion scene is anything like this episode of 106th and Park:

2. It’s a fundraiser Your million dollars are going towards teaching childrens how to play musical instruments. The SF Symphony’s Adventures in Music program reaches all 23,000 kidlets on the 91 SF Unified School District campuses, and exposes them to in-school concerts, musical curriculum, and private concerts at Davies Symphony Hall. Elementary school kids in SF get to go through five years of Adventures in Music programming, and the program also does professional development offerings for teachers and administrators. 

3. Alcohol, mingling Few concerts you will attend this year figure pre-and-post-parties into the ticket prices, but there you are — the Symphony has you covered. Get to the venue at 7pm and you will dive politely into a carefully meted vat of sparkling wine in the well-lit, curving foyer wonderland of Davies Symphony Hall. After the concert, all will reconvene across the street at City Hall to talk about how wonderful everything was during yet another cocktail hour. 

4. Monae’s new single with Erykah Badu You’ve heard this, right? Not guaranteeing that it’ll be performed on Thursday with the full compliment of world-class musicians, but we have heard that Fat Belly Bella has been creeping around the Bay recently, performing at the Bonobo show at the Warfield earlier this month. Manifest it, friends. The video is genius: 

Janelle Monae at SF Symphony

Thu/16, 7pm reception, 8pm show, $150-340

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness, SF

(415) 864-6000

www.sfsymphony.org

Yo La Tengo plays the hits at the Fillmore, covers Black Flag

Tony Robles
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Yo La Tengo plays the hits at the Fillmore, covers Black Flag

The last time I saw Yo La Tengo, on its fabulously gimmicky Spinning Wheel tour, the trio delivered an abrasive, garage-y opening set under an alter-ego, Dump, and closed with a Jackson Browne cover. This past Friday, the band took the Fillmore stage with a loose, meditative acoustic set, before eventually closing with an incendiary rendition of a Black Flag song. There’s no predicting the content, or structure of a Yo La Tengo show; yet, no matter how vigorously it flips from one genre to the next, it sounds unmistakably like Yo La Tengo.

From its yearly run of Hanukkah shows, to its infamously vast archive of cover songs, the Hoboken, NJ trio of Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, and James McNew has cultivated a rich mythology over nearly three decades as a band. It’s also maintained remarkable consistency and prolificacy within its recorded material, which, like Stereolab, has caused many a fan to take its casual greatness for granted. Alternating between insistently bouncy pop songs, blissfully droned-out jams, and cozy ballads to wear your autumn sweater by, Yo La Tengo has assembled a wildly eclectic back-catalogue that continues to pleasantly surprise, and occasionally confound live audiences.

At Friday’s show, the band threw out a curveball right away, with an understated, acoustic rendition of “Ohm,” the decidedly electric opening track from this year’s Fade: its 13th LP, and arguably its most muted, direct work to date. Kaplan and McNew powered through the drony, hypnotic guitar riff at the song’s center with a quiet, chugging insistence, reinforced by Hubley’s understated, yet undeniably groovy drum brushing. It was a captivating opener, and a shining example of Yo La Tengo’s penchant for elegant simplicity.

The remainder of the opening set showed similar restraint, shuffling through several other new songs (the Beach House-y “Two Trains,” Hubley’s gorgeously vocalized “Cornelia & Jane,” the raga-ish “I’ll Be Around”) intermixed with material from the band’s back-catalogue. One definite highlight was a stripped-down rendition of “Decora” (from 1995’s Electr-o-pura), while “No Water” (from its second LP, 1987’s New Wave Hot Dogs) was easily the night’s most unexpected selection.

After a short break, during which many bespectacled audience members pined for a louder, freakier closing set, Yo La Tengo retook the stage with a full drum kit, and an arsenal of electric guitars, providing a jolt that the first half was missing. “Beanbag Chair” (from 2006’s curiously titled I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass) delivered on the band’s talent for effervescently hooky pop songcraft, while “Deeper Into Movies” (a high point from 1997’s seminal I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One) set a darker, angstier mood, foregrounding Kaplan’s fuzzed-out guitar sensibility.

However, a Yo La Tengo show wouldn’t be complete without a sprawling, 10+ minute epic, and the band delivered handsomely with “The Story of Yo La Tengo.” Beginning with ambient washes of guitar and synth, the sprawling jam morphed slowly into a devastating guitar freakout, complete with Hendrix-esque stage theatrics. Given Kaplan’s soft-spoken, dryly funny live persona, watching him attack his fretboard with prog-like dexterity and ferocity was incredibly endearing, in a brain-melting sort of way. Although Hubley and McNew both took turns fronting the band, proving Yo La Tengo as one of the more democratic ensembles around, Kaplan absolutely stole the show.

In true Yo La Tengo tradition, the band came back for an encore set of cover songs: in this case, Black Flag’s “Nervous Breakdown,” and the Scene is Now’s “Yellow Sarong.” Following an uncompromisingly pissy, noisy punk number with a kinder, gentler pop selection, the pairing was perfectly symbolic of the trio’s stylistic range.

Few ensembles can claim Yo La Tengo’s dependability while remaining so utterly unpredictable, and fewer can sustain such a balancing act so unpretentiously. Even after three decades and 13 albums together, Kaplan, Hubley, and McNew continue to record and perform as vitally and infectiously as many bands on the first leg of their journey. If Sonic Youth’s dissolution is for real, we can officially claim Yo La Tengo as the reigning champions of the autumn-sweatered indie set.

Heads Up: 7 must-see concerts this week

Tony Robles
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This video has been floating around of Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield floating in space, slowly turning inside his vessel, playing the acoustic guitar and singing Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie (“Space Oddity,” naturally). It’s an arresting image, melding science, sound, nerd culture, and pop culture together in the coolest of ways. And it was his goodbye love letter to space, as he returned back down to earth yesterday.

Outside the spaceship, and also back here on earth (and playing San Francisco this week, naturally) there are bands that are grounded by gravity, though little else — the celestial atmospheric head case of Kisses, larger-than-life Big Boi, otherworldly solo pounder Black Pus (Brian Chippendale of Lightning Bolt), cosmic soul duo Myron and E, and more invade our shores in the coming days. Maintain your curiosity, and greet them live in the flesh, eyes and ears wide with wonder.

Here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end:

Kisses
Los Angeles dream-poppers Kisses (a.k.a Jesse Kivel and Zinzi Edmundson) have sonically stripped down for their sophomore album, Kids in LA. But the electro duo (analog keyboards, drum machines, robot moans) remains dedicated to breezy synth-pop with hints of the bleak LA underbelly peaking through the palm trees in the form of chilly vocals and anxious beats.
With Sister Crayon, Astronauts etc.
Tue/14, 8pm, $10-$12
Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell, SF
www.rickshawstop.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO9KZQRZ0H8

Big Boi
“Any lingering notions of Big Boi as the “conventional” half of legendary Atlanta hip-hop duo Outkast should be dispelled by his two solo albums, including his most recent effort Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors, released last November. Aided by cameos from Phantogram and Little Dragon in “Vicious,” Big Boi dives into rock guitars, female vocalists, and electronic bass to present a fearless, kaleidoscopic vision of rap.” — Kevin Lee
With Killer Mike, Fishhawk, Goast
Thu/16, 8:30pm, $35
Mezzanine
444 Jessie
www.mezzaninesf.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRUVMg6yvCs

Midi Matilda
“Midi Matilda is the embodiment of everything that’s missing from contemporary twee-pop. It has a sense of intimacy, soul, and joy, embodied by great hooks and hilarious choreographed dances that are absolutely infectious. Operating backward from most bands, Midi Matilda wrote and recorded music before it ever established a live presence, gaining attention on the web with its “Day Dreams” music video.” — Haley Zaremba
With OONA, holychild
Fri/17, 8:30pm, $12
Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell, SF
(415) 861-2011
www.rickshawstop.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzdyhuhE694

KFJC’s Battle of the Surf Band
Alameda-based trio Aloha Screwdriver will play this yearly event for the second time. And the 16-band battle also includes Beachkrieg, Deadbeats, Mighty Surf Lords, Tomorrowmen, Frankie and the Pool Boys, Meshugga Beach Party, and more surf acts with cheeky names. The event benefits the station itself, and also will be broadcast using Live Cam.
Sat/18, noon, $10, all ages
Surf Spot
4627 Coast Hwy., Pacifica
www.kfjc.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RKqyITE7zk

Myron and E
Listen to Myron and E’s single “If I Gave You My Love” and you’ll start to feel some involuntary movements, your head bouncing in agreement, shoulders shimmying side to side. It’s the nature of the solid gold soul beast. The duo was recently signed to tastemaker Stones Throw, and will release newest album Broadway, backed by Timmion Records house band the Soul Investigators, on the label July 2. With a handful of 45s already out there, the two — Bay Area bred Myron Glasper and Eric “E da Boss” Cooke — have successfully maneuvered an authentic soul sound that’s at once smooth and celebratory (with the help of some well-placed horns).
East Bay Soul Stomp 2 with Bang Girl Group Revue, New Love Soul Revue, DJ Derek See, DJ Der.
Sat/18, 8pm, $9–<\d>$12
Starry Plough
3101 Shattuck, Berk
www.starryploughpub.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkkCRD0pLnI

Black Pus
The first thing you need to know about Black Pus is that it’s just a looping Brian Chippendale — he of Lighting Bolt fame. For this project, the madman drummer (and forever art-school kid at heart) uses percussion, a triggered oscillator, and those echoing, distorted Lightning Bolt style vocals you’d expect. Most tracks sound like a spaceship lifting off and exploding into starry darkness, repeatedly.
With CCR Headcleaner, Reptilian Shape Shifters.
Sat/18, 9:30, $10
Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
www.hemlocktavern.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZKJs2tAayg

Gothic Tropic
“For a band that has released so little music — only the 2011 EP Awesome Problems — Gothic Tropic has a developed sense of itself. Part of it is in frontperson Cecilia Della Peruti’s tendency to perform shoeless so as not restrict her dance moves. The primary feature, though, is the band’s sound. As its name suggests, Gothic Tropic plays sunny and exotic psych-pop tinted with some grit and darkness, and it plays it well. See the band in all of it’s fully-formed glory at Brick and Mortar.” — Laura Kerry
With Seatraffic, Cruel Summer
Sun/19, 9pm, $10
Brick and Mortar
1710 Mission, SF
(415) 800-8782
www.brickandmortarmusic.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU-QqrMApDQ

Jamaican Queens on major influences, ‘Wormfood,’ and Detroit

Tony Robles
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The Detroit-based trio, Jamaican Queens, makes instantly catchy, hip-hop-influenced, electronic-soaked pop gems and performs them in a dance-inducing glam pop fashion. Although Ryan Spencer, Adam Pressley, and Ryan Clancy have been laying down beats together for less than a year, they have already released a full-length album – Wormfood – hit their hundredth show, and written album number two (which they’ll record once they’ve concluded their lengthy West Coast and summer tours).

I spoke with Jamaican Queens before they opened for Javelin at the New Parish in Oakland last week. After the boys grabbed a few local brews (Anchor Steam, of course), we went up to the roof and talked about their eclectic sound, living in Detroit, and the projects in the works. If you missed the Oakland show, catch them this Sunday at Brick and Mortar as Jamaican Queens could quickly become your favorite new band. (That’s been the case for yours truly.)

SF Bay Guardian How would you describe your sound?

Adam Pressley It’s hip-hop influenced and really abrasive.

Ryan Spencer It’s also experimental, but at the same time in the veil of pop. And lyrically, it’s very glam. We want to make music that makes people feel some sort of emotion – whether it be good or bad.

SFBG Who are some of your chief influences?

RS Most of the vocals I’m influenced by are dramatic – like the way David Bowie sings or the way the London Suede sings or T. Rex.

AP When we were making Wormfood, I started listening to the Magnetic Fields, and I was heavily influenced by what they were doing production-wise.

RS Yeah, they make very exaggerated pop music and can wrap up a huge amount of emotion in a two and a half minute song.

SFBG What type of music do you tend to listen to on your own?

AP I listen to only pop.

RS I listen to some more avant-garde stuff. I like Cambodian music and Jamaican Dancehall. That’s kind of where “Jamaican Queens” came from: Dancehall music. I love that stuff. But I like music that’s all across the board. Reggaeton. Insane punk rock. Everything. As long as it can make you feel something.

SFBG Do you guys have a favorite song to perform?

Ryan Clancy The dexterity and movement our songs require make them all really fun to play.

AP Our songs could be performed by six people, but we’ve got it so that we can all perform two instruments at once, so I’m playing a bass and a drum pad, Ryan Clancy is playing electronic drums and real drums, and Ryan Spencer is playing guitar and sampler. That’s “Water” right there.

SFBG Who’s behind your “Caitlin” video? The cinematography is unbelievable.

RC The cinematographer is our good friend Dan DeMaggio.

RS Our friend Caitlin, who the song is about, is the main character in the video. It’s a really dark story. She was living with Adam at the time, and her great aunt got murdered. A team of con artists started working for her great aunt and then ended up breaking into her house and murdering her. This is the song we wrote for her when she was going through that. It was a really intense time.

SFBG So, what’s it like living in Detroit?

RS I imagine it’s a little bit like Oakland. It’s a really supportive community, and the art and music scenes are very small so everyone knows each other and all of the bands that seem to be cool work together and help each other. Most of our friends don’t really have jobs, so you’ve got a lot of creative people working really hard on their art.

RC Yeah, I think one of the reasons we have such cool videos is because the art and the music scene are very incestuous. Everyone who’s a good photographer is also probably in a band or something.

SFBG What are you guys up to this summer and fall?

RS We’re doing a lot of festivals throughout the summer as well as working on going to Europe for the first time. We’re also making remixes, releasing some vinyl stuff in the UK, and recording a new album, which will be a long time coming because Wormfood just came out last month.

SFBG What do you think of the Bay Area so far?

RS The weather’s amazing, the people are cool, and it’s really liberal. It’s great.

Jamaican Queens
With Maus Haus, Black Jeans
Sun/12, 9pm, $7
Brick and Mortar
1710 Mission, SF
(415) 371-1631
www.brickandmortarmusic.com

Live Shots: Marina and the Diamonds at the Warfield

Tony Robles
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I like a little grit. Usually I feel that a great show combines unpredictability, recklessness, and some raw, unpolished vulnerability. That’s what makes live music exciting and dynamic. If we wanted flawless vocals and sonically airbrushed instrumentals, we’d just stay at home and listen to the music on iTunes. So I’m trying to figure out why Marina and the Diamonds’ shiny, choreographed, factory-sealed set at the Warfield Sunday night felt so right.
 
Marina looks like an actual Barbie doll, with the kind of proportions people go under the knife for and a no-hair-out-of-place look straight out of a Bettie Page photo shoot. Her live persona is a hyperbolic take on teen idolhood, oozing confidence as she strutted, posed, and gracefully reclined on the daybed featured in her onstage bedroom set (complete with a coat rack, television, and stuffed animals.)
 
As Marina ripped through a packed setlist studded with costume changes and flawlessly executed pop routines, the sold-out audience — 1/3 tween girls, 1/3 their mothers, 1/3 Castro on a Saturday night — screamed and gushed at every opportunity. Fans wore homemade sashes bearing the Marina slogans “teen idle” and “heartbreaker” and nearly everyone had her trademark little black heart painted on their cheeks. And I can see why.
 
Marina is insanely talented. Her rich, clear voice is pitch-perfect. Her songs are catchy, extremely danceable, and overall just good, old-fashioned fun. She shone brightest when the camp factor was turned up to eleven, as it often was, with prop martini glasses full of glitter and neon lighting. Her more stripped down moments, featuring just Marina and a keyboard, lacked the punch and glamour that makes her presence so awesome.
 
But I think what makes Marina so likeable, despite her unbelievable precision and Mattel-like beauty, is that when she sings “I am not a robot,” you believe her. There is something very genuine about Marina’s hyperfeminine persona. When she said, “San Francisco, are you living in this moment right now? Because I am,” it rings true.
 
Usually my feminist blinkers would be going off at the sight of this woman in a crop top singing to tweenage girls about being a prima donna, but instead I found myself singing along with thousands of devoted fans, “Oh my God, you look just like Shakira/ No, no, you’re Catherine Zeta/ Actually, my name’s Marina!”

The simple fact is that Marina knows what she’s doing. Her image doesn’t seem contrived or commercially driven — it seems like a reclaiming of the femme fatale.
 
Marina may not be redefining dance music or pushing any major envelopes, but she rules at what she does. She absolutely dominates the stage, reminding everyone that there’s no shame in letting yourself enjoy a great pop hook, and that a powerful woman can still totally rock a pink vinyl minidress.

The Rolling Stones rock hard, bring surprise guests, almost make up for outrageous ticket prices

Tony Robles
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It’s one of those things about attending a concert – any concert – at HP Pavilion in San Jose: no matter how you approach the venue, you’re likely to run into those hardline Jesus freaks waving signs and condemning you to hell for whatever music you’re about to enjoy. So, like clockwork, last night as I walked towards the ticket office outside the arena, one of them turned his bullhorn on the bunch of us crossing the intersection and, in full brimstone righteousness, shouted – “what are you gonna tell the lord after you die?” To which, a lone voice from the crowd responded – “I’m gonna tell him I saw the Rolling Stones.”
 
It pretty much summed up the enthralled vibe of last night’s crowd, even before the group got into the venue. Neither obscene ticket prices nor the threats of judgment day were going to stop the concert-goers from catching the Stones one last time, and the enthusiasm was clearly palpable (if not heavily intoxicated) inside the arena from the start.
 
I went into HP last night with a million things on my mind about this show, and left with a million more. I could likely write a doctoral thesis about all the issues that surfaced in my brain surrounding the Stones and their half-century legacy: of what it means to grow old in rock’n’roll, or whether there’s any rebellion left in music (“punk rock” gala at the Met, anyone?), and most of all, this time around, of what we’re willing to spend for a concert experience versus the integrity of what we’re actually getting. But if we push all of that to the side for the minute and just attend to the million-dollar question, about the quality of the band’s performance last night, I’d say that the Rolling Stones were (excuse me Jesus freaks) pretty goddamn fantastic.
 
I can’t speak for their show last week in Oakland, or the earlier East Coast dates of this tour, or for that matter….whatever the hell happened to you that night when you went to see them at Madison Square Garden in ’75.  But last night, at the Shark Tank…the Stones seemed like they were out for blood.
 
Kicking off a 22-song set that would run close to two-plus hours, the band quickly blazed through a few big hits – including “Paint It Black” and “Get Off of My Cloud” – with Mick Jagger immediately charging around the length of the stage in dervish-like blurs of energy. The Stones were all smiles when they pulled up guest John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater fame to turn out a rowdy cover of the Valentinos “It’s All Over Now” early in the set.
 
The show really got traction towards the middle of the night as the band stepped away from its biggest hits and settled into developing lesser known tracks (well…in comparison, at least), including riveting takes on “No Expectations,” “Bitch,” and “Emotional Rescue,” before calling up Bonnie Raitt to play slide guitar and duet with Mick on an epic rendition of “Let It Bleed.”
 
Yet, for however much the band sent the place ape-shit with “Honky Tonk Women,” the show-stopping cold blooded killer of the evening was clearly a ferocious 12-minute version of “Midnight Rambler” with former guitarist Mick Taylor surfacing to add formidable contributions to the already impressive mix. At any other concert, it was the slam dunk moment to shake your head and feel like you’ve officially gotten your money’s worth. But on this tour, the band really upped the ante on when and if that moment could occur.
 
Of all those peripheral issues surrounding the Stones performance, the ticket price was the one that –rightfully – dominated the conversation since this leg of the tour was announced. And since the moment we all realized that the $1200 asking price for a pair of lower tier seats didn’t include a four-night stay in Hawaii, Stones fans began to determine their threshold for paying to see the band, possibly for the last time.

Those prices (officially termed “dynamic pricing,” which really just means institutionalized scalping) were criticized in editorials, and kicked around in chat rooms. It was a horrendous strategy for the band on what really is a victory lap of its 50-year legacy, being both a betrayal of its fans and far cry from what is supposed to be to its roots as a group of bluesmen.
 
But it still brings us back to the same point, anchored off the actual performance, and whether or not the band’s showing could live up to those prices. And last night, Mick and Keith sounded pretty savage on that third verse of “Jumping Jack Flash,” and Ron Wood did more than his share of heavy lifting on some big tracks (in addition to just being the coolest guy on stage), while Charlie’s backbeat kept the house ushers busy all night trying to quell the manic dancing in the aisles from song to song. There was even a local choir (from SJ State) to properly deliver “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” And maybe most of all, Mick was still moving 900 miles per hour during the last few songs, even as much of the crowd watched the encore half-exhausted from the non-stop energy he exhibited all night.
 
So in this sense, the question regarding the quality of the Stones’ performance seemed to be pretty much a no-brainer to last night’s crowd.
 
But as far as the tour’s big question, of what you’re willing to pay to see such a show, well, I’ll leave you to answer that one for yourself.

Get festy: Burger Boogaloo, BottleRock, and nachos

Tony Robles
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Get festy: Burger Boogaloo, BottleRock, and nachos

Flop, flop, flop. Can you hear that? It could be a burger flipping. Or maybe that’s the sound of your tanned, bloated belly landing between crisp white sheets after long stretches of outdoor music-listening, dirt(y) dancing, craft beer-imbibing, and gourmet food stand-patronizing. It’s festival season, and there’ve been some tasty developments in the past couple of weeks.

Burger Boogaloo (July 6-7) excited Oaklanders and beyond by releasing its delictable lineup full of icons and punks, Outside Lands (Aug. 9-11) announced its even fancier food lineup, and hey, BottleRock is this weekend (May 9-12)

BottleRock Napa (May 9-12)
So BottleRock is a bit of a trek — it’s out in Napa Valley, but it’s a four-day-long fest in a real pretty location (that’s bound to get more unclouded sun than SF). It kicks off this Thu/9 with live music, food, comedy and yes, beer and wine. The top billing on the lineup is a bit ho-hum, with broadly appealing rock’n’roll, blues rock, and folk acts like Kings of Leon, the Black Keys, and Zac Brown Band, but there’s also the Flaming Lips, the Shins, and the thunderous Alabama Shakes. And for a certain breed of ‘90s kid: Primus and Cake.

There’s a safe, solid comedy showing too, with Jim Gaffigan, Demetri Martin, Tig Notaro, Rob Delaney, and Daily Show alums Wyatt Cenac, Kristen Schaal, and Aasif Mandvi (not appearing together).

Tickets: www.bottlerocknapavalley.com.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svZNjhsk2ys

Burger Boogaloo (July 6-7)
Here’s the one to watch. Burger Records just keeps outdoing itself. It has fests around the country (including a recent biggie on its home turf of Orange County, Burgerama II) and brings together an elite mix of sloppy, legendary, and up-and-coming surf, garage, fun punk, and slack doo-wop acts. Burger Boogaloo is even more special because it brings Burger together with our own local slop heroes Total Trash Booking, for a mega-fest created by two equally appealing masters. Plus, the Boogaloo is in a park, so things could get steamy.

Everyone is talking about the disparate headliners early LA punk band Red Kross and Modern Lover/singer-songwriter Jonathan Richman — and rightfully so, they are incredible — but can we also take a minute to thank satan for the Trashwomen addition to the lineup? Epic. For those somehow unaware, the Trashwomen are Bay Area noisy surf-punk royalty, born of the ‘90s, and featuring Tina Lucchesi (of every band ever), Danielle Pimm, and Elka Zolot (Kreayshawn’s hot mama).

Add to that Ty Segall’s early trio Traditional Fools, Audacity, Guantanamo Baywatch (listen to thumping “Barbacoa” now, please), and Pangea. And, with the addition of NY Night Train’s Jonathan Toubin, there will be a Mosswood Park soul clap dance off.

I can hardly wait to kick off these smelly sneakers.

Tickets: www.burgerboogaloo.com.

Outside Lands (Aug. 9-11)
The crème de le crème of foodie-meets-rocker outdoor fêtes, Outside Lands knows what its fan base wants. So with nearly as much fanfare as its band lineup (which this year includes Paul McCartney, Phoenix, D’Angelo, Foals, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and around 20 or so others), the fest also releases its noted food vendor roundup.

There are 75 food stuff sellers at Outside Lands’ “A Taste of the Bay Area” 2013 including “returning favorites” like massive pizza truck Del Popolo, carnival fare brick-and-mortar business Straw, 4505 Meats, American Grilled Cheese Kitchen, and Pacific Catch. Newbies this year include newish SF favorite Wise Sons Deli, Rich Table, 1300 on Fillmore, Blue Bottle Coffee Co., and Nopa offshoot, Nopalito. And worry not, my personal favorite from last year (besides Metallica), Azalina’s, will be back with the Malaysian nachos that stole my blackened heart.

The vendors are usually placed in two distinct sections, with somewhat close proximity to the main stages, plus there’s the Wine Lands circus tent, Beer Lands, and Chocolate Lands. So much better than overcooked hot dogs and stale keg beer, right?

Tickets: www.sfoutsidelands.com.

Party Radar: Honey Dijon, Kenny Dope, Plastic Plates, Daniel Maloso, Pearson Sound, more

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Party Radar: Honey Dijon, Kenny Dope, Plastic Plates, Daniel Maloso, Pearson Sound, more

It’s too sunny out to read! My eyes keep glazing over with lusty sparkles and unicorns in mankinis. Let’s meet in the park with a duffel of cold 40s, listen to some fun music with our tops off, and plan our party outfits for the following weekend blowouts (click on the titles for more details).

Oh, and PS: the only reason I didn’t include one of the best parties of the the spring, the Sunset Boat Party, is because it is, as usual, sold out. But check out the Sunset FB page for afterparty deets.

>>PEARSON SOUND

UK wiz kid David Kennedy updates that good ol’ UK bass sound with some neat twists of his own. 

Thu/2, 9:30pm-late, $10-$15. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF.

 

>>DEEP CRATES

Two great musical tastes will make a delicious, peanut-buttery dance floor sandwich: bathhouse disco prince Bus Station John and house/techno pumper Brian Bejarano giving us some rare classics. Diggin’ deep and finding gold y’all! 

Fri/3, 9pm, $5. UndergroundSF, 424 Haight, SF. 

 

>>SOME THING: THE BACHELORETTE PARTY

The best art-drag club in the city takes on party buses, “woo girls,” stiletto disasters, and puke-in-the-purse with this celebration of all things Bachelorette. Watch your fucking tiara or you will get cunt-punted into another sorority.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJNOOBOyn20

Fri/3, 10pm-late, $7. The Stud, 399 9th St., SF. www.studsf.com 

 

>>DANIEL MALOSO

Cute Spaniard, who in his darker moments can’t quite shake the influence of Liaisons Dangereuses “Los Ninos Del Parque” (and that’s just fine), will have you bopping around at the impeccable No Way Back party.

Fri/3, 10pm-4am, $15. Monarch, 101 Sixth St., SF. www.monarchsf.com

 

>>KENNY DOPE

The master — as in one half of the actually legendary Masters at Work — bangs out the heavy rhythm house and hip-hoppy jams with equally adept and beloved DJ Spinna.

Sat/4, 10pm-late, $20. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

 

>>PLASTIC PLATES

He’s an electro-pop smoothie! Love the Aussie-via-LA producer’s irresistible takes on songs, givng them a moody bounce. 

Sat/4, 9:30pm, $15. Monarch, 101 Sixth St., SF. www.monarchsf.com

 

>>SWAGGER LIKE US

Supercute, super-diverse monthly queer hip-hop party — where, incidentally, you’ll hear some of the most cutting-edge music going on in the dance world right now. With special guest DJ Rapidfire!

Sun/3, 3-pm, $5-$8. El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF.

 

>>HONEY DIJON

The first mistress of NYC house has come along way since we all used to cheer at the EndUp back in the day when she’d accidentally play the same record three times. (And yet she ALWAYS turned it out for the children.) Miss Honey will sinko your de mayo. 

>Sun/5, 10pm, $10. Holy Cow, 1535 Folsom, SF. 

Live shots: Baby Dee and Little Annie at Amnesia

Sue Vaughan
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Baby Dee and Little Annie are a match made in camp heaven. The women, nearing their 60s, may have only been playing for 25 people, but boy did they put on a
show Thu/25 at Amnesia.

The two looked like characters out of a B movie or a dirty New York speakeasy. Annie, a diminutive little creature, looked like a gypsy in a headwrap and heavy eyeliner. Dee towered over her in an ’80s-esque leopard print sweater and leggings with a pink tulle skirt. When Baby Dee finally appeared an hour after the show was advertised to begin, she sat down at the piano and called into the microphone, “If anyone sees Little Annie, tell her the show has started.”

Soon Annie was located, and the duo launched into their first song (with a little help from a man in the audience to lift her tiny frame onto the stage.) Little Annie’s low, gravelly voice — which sounded like two packs a day and 40 years, if not something a little harder — was deliciously ragged and worn over Dee’s cabaret-like piano. As Baby Dee headbanged and bashed the piano keys, Annie swayed and posed on stage, using her cane as percussion. Two songs into the set, however, Annie stopped the show because she had forgotten to pray. “I’m discombobulated,” she cried. “Our makeup is crap and I forgot to pray.” As Annie knelt by the stage, Dee said a little prayer of her own. “Please Jesus,” she requested sweetly, “make someone get me a Scotch on the rocks. J&B or Dewar’s.”

When she was informed that Amnesia is a beer and wine bar, Dee screamed, “Fuck you, Jesus! I didn’t want your fucking scotch anyway!” before launching into her next dirge.

After, she repented. “Jesus, I’m sorry. Can I have a beer?”

Calling each other exclusively “honey” and “darling” Dee and Annie played, jested, and improvised through an hour-long set that felt about an hour too short. In between songs each woman told fantastic anecdotes from their tremendously colorful lives. Annie spoke about her short time living in San Francisco, when she got held up for food stamps in the Haight. Dee told a story about curating a Christmas show at the Pyramid Club, in which she dressed a 400 lb woman as the baby Jesus and put an Entemann’s chocolate cake down “the world’s biggest diaper.”

Halfway through the set, I realized something amazing. There was absolutely no side conversation through the entire show. Here we were, in a bar in the Mission, and not a single person was idly chatting with their friends. It’s a testament to the amazing showmanship and magnetic personalities of Baby Dee and Little Annie that every eye was on them for the whole hour they played. The crowd was small, but every person was there for them.

“This has turned out to be a really nice show, hasn’t it?” remarked Baby Dee. “Now I’m happy. It took me a while, but now I’m happy.”

Party Radar: Prosumer, Kafana Balkan, Night Light, Adnan Sharif, Shonky, Distrikt, Derrick Carter, Ana Matronic, more

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Party Radar: Prosumer, Kafana Balkan, Night Light, Adnan Sharif, Shonky, Distrikt, Derrick Carter, Ana Matronic, more

Jajajaja — this installment of Party Radar is going to be like a last minute dump, since I’m still kind of drunk and the weekend, she is here. Besides, bloggity bloggity blah blah blah, let’s just get to the good stuff. But let’s first have some delicious beef for breakfast:

No not this weak beef, this one:

Kinda makes me like Leger’s music. Now let’s guetta way from all that, and get into this. Click on the titles for more info.

 

>>EAGLE GRAND OPENING

And what a truly grand opening it shall be! (Right next to the back trough.) The legendary gay leather biker bar has been open for a couple months now, to great success — I guess this party means its here to stay. Hurray! With a gaggle of old school faves including Trauma Flintstone, the Ethel Merman Experience, Anna Conda, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and the Whoa Nellies.

Fri/26, 6pm, free. Eagle, 398 12th St., SF. www.sf-eagle.com

 

>>PROSUMER

Ok, not just the lauded house master from Berlin, BUT his hottie partner in yum Murat Tepeli, AND NYC diva on the tables Mike Servito AND Huerco S., Vereker, Ghosts on Tape, Shawn Reynaldo, Rollie Fingers. All under he auspices of Honey Soundsystem, Icee Hot, Grey Area Foundation, and The Bunker NYC. Gonna be real cute and you will actually dance. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzoyc60din8

Fri/26, 9pm-4am, $15. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com

 

>>DERRICK CARTER

This weekend is exploding with legends who hapen to be gay, just sayin’. The Chicago boogaloo house master has ruled the decks for more than two decades (he played at a party I threw back in 93! old) — and is appearing out of thin air, it seems, at Harlot. Derrick can turn anywhere into an instant party.

Fri/26, 9pm, $25. Harlot, 46 Minna, SF. 

 

>>NIGHT LIGHT

One of the coolest things to happen every year — a multimedia garden party at SOMArts featuring spme spectacularly cool and forward-thinking art, much of it interactive. With audio-visual performances by Pod Blotz, ChuCha Santamaria y Usted, Stephen Parr-Oddball Films, and Francois Chaignaud and Marie-Caroline Hominal. 

Sat/27, 8pm-12am, $12. SOMArts, 934 Brannan, SF. 

 

>>DISTRIKT

Fark yes, it’s Burning Man camp fundraising party time — and this beloved biggie is throwing an appropriatey huge, all-day block party at Public Works. Sheer tomfoolery! And Justin and Christian Martin headline, so really good. 

Sat/27, 1pm-4am, $40. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. 

 

>>KAFANA BALKAN

Come early to this packed, ecstatic bi-monthly celebration of whirling gypsy music and Balkan culture. It’s one of the great parties of San Francisco, bringing all kinds of people together with some mindblowing music. Half the time I cant even begin to guess the time signature. With DJ Zeljko, dancer Jill Parker and her Foxglove Sweethearts, and awesome band Inspector Gadje. 

Sat/27, 9pm, $15. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF.

 

>>SHONKY

One of my absolute fave deep house DJs of recent years. The sweet Parisian’s mixes are the kind you can really listen to and inhabit, while making you move as well. Plus he has an infectiously good-vibe stage presence that lifts the crowd. 

Sat/27, 9pm-late, $10-$15. Monarch, 101 Sixth St., SF. www.monarchsf.com

 

>>ADNAN SHARIF

Adnan is one of those people who are the true heart and soul of the Bay Area techno scene. His roving, underground Forward parties have rocked us for a decade and hes just a sweetheart of all swearthearts, with a great mystical take on beats. Hes decamping for Brazil, leaving us bereft, but happy for him. Let’s dance together one last time before his altar, at Honey Soundsystem.

Sun/28, 10pm, $10. Holy Cow, 1535 Folsom, SF.

 

>>ANA MATRONIC

The former Scissor Sister recently compared the energy at the mainstream gay White Party in Palm Springs to that of early punk rock trash drag era Trannyshack, which not only rewrote gay nightlife history, but surprised the fuck outta me. She should know though, I guess: she was an integral part of SF’s rough-and-rarin’ club kid scene in the ’90s before she hit the big time – and at least she’s brought some weirdo-ness to the Glee crowd. Now she’s doing her own thing, and this will be a glorious homecoming affair, hosted by Juanita More.

Sun/28, 9pm, $20. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF.  

 

TNGHT whips the Mezzanine’s 420 crowd into a frenzy

Tony Robles
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Like a microcosm of our ever-morphing music culture, electronic duo TNGHT stands squarely between the traditions of EDM and hip-hop, reaping the benefits of both musical forms, and generating something new in the process. Comprised of Lunice (from Montreal), and Hudson Mohawke (from Glasgow), the pair stopped by the Mezzanine this past Saturday after a two-weekend Coachella run, bringing their shiny, brassy, bass-loaded grooves to a sold-out crowd of ecstatic 420ers.

On paper, Lunice and Hudson Mohawke seem like natural collaborators. Both musicians specialize in an oversaturated, hypermelodic brand of electronica, often resembling the glossy tones of the Sonic the Hedgehog soundtrack, if it were layered atop big, punchy drum loops. However, the pair’s self-titled debut EP as TNGHT is impressive in its lack of melodic drive, relying on huge bass and punishing hip-hop beats to do most of the heavy lifting. Although the lack ear-candy melodies left something to be desired, this groove-based approach resulted in the danciest output of either artist’s career so far: five songs, waiting for a hyped-up audience to whip into a frenzy.

Saturday’s show got off to a rocky start with two sets from DJ Dials and DJ Bogl. While both DJs spun a decent, eclectic selection of tracks (ranging from trap music to Flying Lotus-esque wonkiness), neither of them displayed the showmanship necessary to justify a combined four hours of stage time. Watching someone stand in front of their MacBook is only engaging for so long.

However, when it took the stage at 1am, TNGHT made up for the enthusiasm deficit, and then some. For two guys poking at electronics from behind a desk, their crowd-pleasing skills were extraordinary, with Lunice leaving his workstation every five minutes or so to run to the front of the stage and rev up the audience, crowd-surfing twice before the night was over. His infectious stage presence, combined with the duo’s relentlessly thumping beats, and seizure-inducing, strobe-laden lightshow, made for a vitalic, completely immersive performance.

For a duo with just one EP under its belt, TNGHT churned out a remarkably fluid, hour-long set, alternating between original tracks (“Higher Ground,” “Bugg’n”), a few Hudson Mohawke numbers (most memorably, “Cbat” from 2010’s Satin Panthers EP), and a number of hip-hop songs from the likes of OutKast and Rick Ross, with original productions layered on top. The sequencing of the set was basically perfect, with no dull moments to be found.

The crowd was befitting of TNGHT’s crossover appeal, ranging from snappily dressed urban professionals, to 420 bros, to hip-hop heads, to hipsters resembling the guy on the Zig Zag logo. Everyone seemed equally intent on dancing their ass off, though: a welcome alternative to the stiff, self-conscious audiences that populate all too many shows in this town.

As long as the musical landscape remains in its current state of flux and uncertainty, we should be thankful for projects like TNGHT, bent on exploring the grey area between disparate genres. The fact that Lunice and Hudson Mohawke can contribute so meaningfully to the conversation, while remaining so effortlessly, viscerally likable, is no small achievement.

Party Radar: Bruno Pronsato, No Way Honey, Harlum Muziq, Tube & Berger, Candis Cayne

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Party Radar: Bruno Pronsato, No Way Honey, Harlum Muziq, Tube & Berger, Candis Cayne

This week’s Super Ego clubs column is full of signs and wonders for the coming weekend, but here’s a further quintet of banging joints to top you off just right, Your soundtrack is “Triscuits,” because that’s my theme song right now. (Oh, and just a reminder — that rained-out, positively drenched Hunky Jesus contest has been rescheduled for tonight, too!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_Qtkc4Tov0

 

BRUNO PRONSATO

The massive Texan technician, now hailing from Berlin like everybody else pretty much, hits us with a stop on his short, sharp tour. Really good, often wiggy but groovy stuff.

Fri/19, 9:30pm-3am, $10-$15. Monarch, 101 Sixth St., SF. www.monarchsf.com

 

CANDIS CAYNE

The knockout transgender club legend comes to our favorite kooky-artsy drag weekly Some Thing — it’s gonna be a mix of something wonderful and strange, methinks.

Fri/19, 10pm, $7. The Stud, 399 Ninth St., SF.

 

NO WAY HONEY

Two of our best DJ crews, No Way Back and Honey Soundsystem, continue their fruitful collaboration, and give kids some space to just dance to killer house and techno.

Fri/19, 10pm-4am, 10pm, Beatbox, 314 11th St., SF. www.residentadvisor.net/event.aspx?463602


TUBE & BERGER

I’m throwing a little bit of underground in here, as the longtime German duo, which has gotten a lot more sophisticated lately, takes to the waterfront somewhere.

Fri/19, 9pm, $10-$20. tubeandberger.eventbrite.com

 

THROWBACK WITH HARLUM MUZIQ

One listen to the masterpiece vinyl mix below by Jayvi Velasco from a previous Throwback party, which pumps up the old-school ’90s house jams, will let you know why I’ll be living on the dancefloor for this. Harlum Muziq label heroes David Harness and Chris Lum will preside. With Julius Papp, Galen, and — yes! — Jayvi Velasco. High kicks.

Sat/20, 9pm-late, free. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

Catching up with Young Prisms: new video, new process, and those pesky Cure comparisons

Tony Robles
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At their show at Elbo Room on Friday, Young Prisms are going to play new material that they’ve never performed in front of an audience.

“It should be interesting,” bassist and singer Gio Betteo told me last week at Mission Pie.

Vocalist Stefanie Hodapp added with a laugh, “Especially for us.”

That sort of relaxed good humor seems to define their whole attitude toward making music (past characterizations have used the word “slacker,” which doesn’t quite fit). The band, currently comprised of four members, including Jordan Silbert on drums and Matt Allen on guitar, produced albums in 2011 and ’12, and now wants to take its time creating a third.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxvZ65K2IA4

Young Prisms have been experimenting with a new process that removes the pressure and constraints of their past songwriting. Now, they create when something comes to them. Betteo has been the primary writer of new material recently but only because he has been feeling inspired to write.

The result, they say, sounds more like genuine emotion and less like grasping at genre such as psychedelic rock or dream pop.

Not that they attempted to fit into any specific category in the past. When asked about the many comparisons that have been drawn between the band and noisy shoegazers such as My Bloody Valentine or the fuzzier Mazzy Star, Betteo and Hodapp looked at each other warily.

“I’m not dumb. I definitely hear it,” said Betteo. ”Whether it’s bands like No Joy and Weekend, that are currently doing it, or bands like Chapter House and My Bloody Valentine and stuff from 20 years ago, we like those sounds. It plays its own role in our writing and ideas, but never intentionally.”

Once, a fan came up to them after a show and praised the song that sounded like the Cure. Though they didn’t know which the fan meant (and suspected the fan didn’t know which he meant), the comparison was apt; they had spent the entire tour before they wrote the second album listening to the Cure. Though they don’t strive to mimic the band, they admit that they are drawn to certain musical ideas.

Over their years of playing together, these musical ideas have shifted. In the writing of their first album, Friends For Now, they didn’t care about creating relatable songs. “We just wanted to make fucked up sounds,” Betteo said. “I wanted this guitar to sound like a fucking car accident, and this drum beat to sound like a headache, a pulsing headache.”

In Between, the second album, represented a few steps toward developed structure and audience accessibility. They wanted to allow people to “find the song in it.”

Their new material, they say, will be a few steps further in that direction.

But they don’t want to lose their experimentally hazy sound, their relaxed outlook, or the sense that they’re in this to have fun. That seems unlikely.

With three out of four members of the band living together (they assured me that their home lives are too boring to merit a sitcom or reality TV show), one can imagine either the chemistry or the easygoingness required to sustain the bandmate-roommate relationship. Whatever the formula, it seems to have worked in the past and will seemingly continue to work as Young Prisms release their next album, maybe in early 2014.

Until that time, they have a new video for their song, “Runner,” a side project called Breathr that’s going to come out in the next couple of months on the label Dream, and shows around the Bay Area.

Young Prisms
With SISU, Chasms
Fri/19, 9:30pm, $12
Elbo Room
647 Valencia, SF
(415) 552-7788
www.elbo.com

Bat for Lashes brings an occult celebration to the Regency Ballroom

Tony Robles
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There’s an idea in literary theory that co-opts the philosophical notion of the concrete universal. The value of a poem, character, or story, it says, can be determined by the particular balance of how general and specific an entity it represents.

The remarkable thing about the music on the three albums of Bat For Lashes, the moniker of British musician Natasha Khan, is its melding of opposites. The songs simultaneously exist in the realm of the ancient and the new, the weird and the ordinary, and the grand and the intimate. And the even more remarkable thing is that seeing it embodied on the Regency Ballroom stage in front of an audience didn’t compromise these effects; it heightened them.

Entering a smoky stage set with lanterns in a costume of a shiny red dress and matching cape, Khan began to sing the album opener, “Lilies,” in a quiet but reverberating voice. Live as in the album, it was hard to determine how much of the otherworldly quality of her singing was due to added effects, but her magnetism, a consequence of both the force of her voice and her presence on stage, deemed that question beside the point. 

As the songs built, with drums, a cello, pulsating bass, and synthesizers entering to create a layers of ethereal noise, Bat For Lashes’ captivating movements and controlled singing provided a strong focal point for the sweeping sound. 

She never lost her audience during the journey along a spectrum of styles. In upbeat tunes such as, “Oh Yeah,” in which a surprisingly clubby backbeat motivated hip-heavy movement both onstage and in the crowd, you could picture that with a different singer and less eerie synth sounds, the music could be straight pop. 

As is, though, it wouldn’t be the soundtrack to a dance club, but an occult celebration. The performance, then, resembled theater, and a fourth wall existed between the audience and the remote but captivating spectacle on stage (which did not deter the audience’s dancing). 

On other songs like the gentle ballad, “Laura,” which Khan dedicated to her father, the wall came down. You could hear each intake of breath in a deeply personal song accompanied only by a piano. 

Most songs, though, occupied a space that combined the poles of theatrics and intimacy. “Siren Song,” which began with the singer accompanying herself on the piano and built to an explosive chorus, exemplified the extremes. In the quiet opening, she sang, “Are you my family? / Can I stay with you a while? / Can I stop off in your bed tonight? / I could make you smile.” The prosaic verse spoke from the vulnerability of a single human narrator. 

The chorus, though, which started, “Till the siren come calling, calling,” and included lofty words such as “evil,” “wickedness,” and “sin,” expanded the scope of the song to the sphere of mythology.  Like many of the others, this one spanned the realms of ancient legend and the ordinary everyday. 

In the melding together of such different scales, Bat For Lashes put on a show that was simultaneously entertaining and haunting. In the seven years that Bat For Lashes has been making music, she has developed a richness in her performance that reads like a well-rounded text. In each line of the show, the universality of myth and feeling crystallized into the concrete form of the enchanting performer. That balance is no small achievement.

Heads Up: 7 must-see concerts this week

Tony Robles
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Heads Up: 7 must-see concerts this week

Macca, Hall and Oates, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails – what is this, 1976, or ’99? I kid; the Outside Lands 2013 lineup is again a meaty mix of nostalgic, revived, and shiny new acts. There’s the initial punch of a former Beatle slotted alongside NIN, RHCP, plus Jurassic 5, and Willie Nelson, then French synth-pop Phoenix, classic indie darlings Grizzly Bear, the National, Vampire Weekend, and up-and-comers King Tuff, Surfer Blood, the Growlers, along with inspired picks like D’Angelo and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Tickets are on sale Thu/18 here.

While the release of the lineup is exciting news, that fest isn’t ’till the end of foggy summer (Aug. 9-11); so focus on the sunny days ahead, the bands that are here now: a reunited King Khan and BBQ Show, the Bay Area debut of both Savages and Lady, plus Night Beats, the 2 Bears, and locals Life Coach and Dreamdate’s Anna Hillburg.

Also, a non sequitur reminder that Record Store Day is this Sat/20. Check a list of supporting shops here. And don’t forget to patronize your local brick and mortar vinyl vendors year-round.

Here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end:

Night Beats
“Seattle’s Night Beats has all of the fixings of a good psych-garage act; the lo-fi recordings, the raspy vocals with punctuated yelps, and the noisily manipulated guitar. But the band, which takes its name from Sam Cooke’s best record, has a direct link to the more soulful breeds of music the title suggests, such as R&B. “Dial 666” is simple, 12-bar blues, “High Noon Blues” borrows sentiment and structure from that genre, and “Puppet on a String” seems to call for some old-fashioned dance moves.” — Laura Kerry
With Cool Ghouls, Primitive Hearts, Big Drag
Wed/17, 9pm, $10
Brick and Mortar
1710 Mission, SF
(415) 800-8782
www.brickandmortarmusic.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=545oNrQqgNY

The 2 Bears
“I don’t need caffeine. My computer just starts playing “Work” by the 2 Bears at 7am, complete with rising organ, a pulsing groove, and motivational chorus: “We’ve got to work harder, for the future, my love we got to work.” It might not even be the best song on Be Strong from the 2 Bears (Hot Chips’s Joe Goddard and the Raf Daddy), as it faces stiff competition from hilarious, cuddly club anthem “Bear Hug” and the uplifting, romantic space dub on “Church.” But, it does the job of getting me moving, and by the time the disco queen vocals kick in I’m likely showered and downstairs having breakfast.” — Ryan Prendiville
With Sleazemore, Richie Panic (Lights Down Low)
Wed/17, 10pm, $15 presale
1015 Folsom, SF
www.1015.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxI8QliBOKs

Savages
When all-female British post-punk group Savages hit the East Coast last year for the annual CMJ conference, the word spread quickly to the West: this blistering quartet is one to watch. All these anxious months later, this headlining show will be Savages’ first SF appearance, on the heels of a “spine-tingling” Coachella appearance with “heavy vocals and a fast-paced set that had the crowd cheering in appreciation.”
Thu/18, 8pm, $15
Independent
628 Divisadero, SF
www.theindependentsf.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y-cVzbBBQ8

Anna Hillburg
You may already know Anna Hillburg’s sonic touch, without knowing you know her. The Bay Area trumpet player has guested on Dodos and Fresh and Onlys records, and she’s one-third of power-pop girl group, Dreamdate. As she puts it, she’s hella local. Get to know her more intimately on her new self-titled solo album — released on vinyl, March 25 on California Clap. Left to her own devices, the songwriter and multi-instrumentalist hops genre barriers and eras over the course of 13 tracks, mixing classic ’60s pop with girl group harmonies, cry-ing-over-you ballads and dreamy whispers to forlorn lovers, with hat tips to fuzzy ’70s folk, Joni Mitchell, and the like. The only constant is Hillburg’s pleasant and confident crooning. Also, can we talk about this album cover? Perfection.
With Luke Sweeney, Garrett Pierce.
Thu/18, 9pm, $10
Eagle Tavern
398 12th St., SF
Facebook: SFEagle

King Khan and BBQ Show
And they said it wouldn’t happen. Remember all the way back in ’10, when sloppy doo-wop masters King Khan (Arish Khan) and BBQ Show (Mark Sultan) imploded over a series of on-stage arguments on an ill-fated tour? The Canadian garage punk duo has since mended,and has been patching things up with fresh songs and a few short tours. This is Khan and Sultan’s first time back in SF together since the break.
With Sir Lord Von Raven, Wild Eyes SF.
Fri/19, 9pm, $16
Slim’s
333 11th St., SF
www.slimspresents.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ellItasoK2s

Life Coach
Phil Manley was a founding member of influential DC post-rock trio Trans Am, and has played with the Fucking Champs and Oneida. He’s produced albums for Wooden Shjips, Grass Widow, Date Palms, and Golden Void. And most recently, he released a textured, guitar-heavy drone rock album called Alphawaves (April 16, Thrill Jockey) with his new band, Life Coach. The release show for which is tonight.
Sat/20, 9:30pm, $8
Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
www.hemlocktavern.com
http://vimeo.com/63207718

Lady
Yet another SF debut tonight – this one from super-smooth vocalists Terri Walker and Nicole Wrap, a.k.a., the soul duo known as Lady. The London and Atlanta based singers have individually performed alongside the likes of Mos Def, Q-Tip, Missy Elliot, the Black Keys, and Kid Cudi. They paired up over a love vintage soul, recorded an album that’s also called Lady for Truth and Soul Records, and are currently on tour opening for funky R&B-blues headliners Lee Fields and the Expressions.
Sun/21, 8pm, $25
Bimbo’s
1025 Columbus , SF
www.bimbos365club.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3IMPYJ7MiY

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