Noise

Diego’s Umbrella breaks out the lasers and the lesbians

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By Caitlin Donohue

At a certain point, hibernation becomes a bit of an issue. There’s the odd smell emanating from the heater, the mice scooting about in the antechambers, holiday treats that last night’s hostess convinced you to take home taunting you from the fridge. I appreciate that chilly climes sanction being all cozy inside your Christmas lights and heavy blankets but sometimes… you… need to get out. Tough love, I know.

But, you would-be grizzly bear you, there’s a show this weekend that practically has a stay-warm guarantee.

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Diego’s Umbrella has more fun in a puddle than you did last month

Diego’s Umbrella is hella fun. Fun like they perform wearing matching, home-made stage costumes. Fun like they’ve dubbed their genre “Mexicali gypsy pirate polka” and it works. They play fun songs, like the klezmer inspired toe tapper “Lasers and Lesbians,” and people get fun when they watch them. Last time I caught a Diego’s Umbrella show a vast percentage of the crowd was dancing, or rather, jumping gleefully about and flailing their limbs by the end of their set. It’s that kind of music.

2K top 12: A dozen from Mosi Reeves

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Guardian writer Mosi Reeves, who contributed a stellar essay to our Decade in Music package, weighs in with a lucky dozen of favorites from the past decade. Says Mosi: “Yep, I probably need to go outside now.”

*Ghostface Killah, Supreme Clientele (Epic)
*Ellen Allien, Berlinette (BPitch Control)
*Cannibal Ox, The Cold Vein (Definitive Jux)
*Modest Mouse, The Moon and Antarctica (Epic)
*Edan, Beauty and the Beat (Lewis)

*Flying Lotus, Los Angeles (Warp)
*Quasimoto, The Unseen (Stones Throw)
*Boards of Canada, Geogaddi (Warp)

*M83, Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts (Mute)
*Colleen, The Golden Morning Breaks (Leaf)
*Portishead, Third (Mercury)
*TV on the Radio, Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes (Touch & Go)

Magnetic Fields, Mark Kozelek, Atlas Sound to play Noise Pop 2010 Feb. 23-March 1

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By Kimberly Chun

Word’s come in about the dates and lineup for Noise Pop 2010 – this year highlighting headliner Magnetic Fields. This from the organizers:

“Event Producers, Noise Pop Industries, have announced the dates of the West Coast’s premiere celebration of independent music, film and art – Noise Pop 2009. The 18th annual Noise Pop Festival will take place February 23 through March 1, 2009 at venues throughout San Francisco, CA.

“Early artist confirmations include Magnetic Fields [above], Mark Kozelek, Rogue Wave, Atlas Sound, The Soundtrack of Our Lives, Four Tet, John Vanderslice, We Were Promised Jet Packs, Wallpaper, Zee Avi, The Limousines & Foreign Born. More shows will be announced in the coming weeks along with films, art shows, and more.

Sonic Reducer Overage: Timbaland, Grooms, Metallica, Grace Potter, Zero 7, Man/Miracle, and more

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By Kimberly Chun

Love the rain, hate the frizz, love the fuzz box — more SF sounds than we could fit into print.

Captured! By Robots
Jokin’ thrash, the classic San Fran tradition. With Grayceon and Dirty Power. Sat/12, 10 p.m., $12. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455.

Evangelista
The Thrones put the kibosh on their performance due to a busted-up van and illness, but Carla Bozulich’s immensely intense and talented ensemble carries on. With Late Young. Sat/12, 9:30 p.m., $12. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk., SF. (415) 923-0923.

Garage a Trois
Oh, what a fine, fierce jazz-rock super group it is. The misnamed foursome includes Marco Benevento, Stanton Moore, Skerik, and Mike Dillon. With DJ Dan Prothero. Sat/12, 9 p.m., $20. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. (415) 771-1422. www.theindependentsf.com

Let’s get Wonderfull

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By Michael Krimper

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Few musicians, if any, have influenced and contributed to the sprawling landscape of contemporary music like Stevie Wonder. The songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and singer boasts a discography far too overwhelming for me to even paraphrase in this blog post. Luckily, New York icons DJ Spinna and Bobbito a.k.a. Kool Bob Love have already done the homework. The self-professed Wonder nerds dug deep in the crates, studied the liner notes, traced the lineage of classics and obscure credits alike, and now share all their research with the Wonderfull party. That’s right, a showcase of music dedicated strictly to revisiting and reimagining the legacy of Stevie Wonder. It’s a pastiche of raw soul and computer funk, the ebullient essence of boom bap and pummeling grooves, all timeless, all Stevie.

Originally started as a one-night celebration dating back to NY 2001, the party has since traveled across North America, touching down in San Francisco for the past five years. And the word is, we know how to jump off like nobody else. This year should prove no different with support from local favorites Hakobo, Proof, and King Most on the wheels of steel. So, if you were looking to escape this winter’s frigid onslaught, as we approach 2010 on the near horizon, I’d recommend sweating it out at the retro-futuristic dance party of decade.

WONDERFULL
Featuring DJs Spinna and Bobbito
With Hakobo, Proof, and King Most
Sat/12, 9 p.m. – 4 a.m., $20 presale, $25 door
The Mezzanine
444 Jessie St., SF
(415) 625-8880
www.mezzaninesf.com

Ready, set, Whirling Dervish

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By Caitlin Donohue

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Get lost in the whirl of the Mevlevi, better known as the Order of the Whirling Dervish

Recents events involving an unlit bicycle, an unsignaled left turn onto Geary and an unexpected phone call from the emergency room have impressed upon me the true cyclical nature of this crazy world we live in. Viewed from a properly meditative perspective (difficult when one is contemplating ambulance bills san health insurance), it can be a calming thought; that the ups and downs and round abouts we experience are merely a reflection of a turning universe.

The Order of the Whirling Dervish, or the Mevlevi, are a Sufi Islam sect that holds that to revolve is life’s original nature. Electrons, protons and neutrons revolve, the human being’s life cycle revolves from the earth to life and back again. The prophet Rumi developed their traditional “whirling” dance, the sema, 700 years ago to reflect this fact and to bring one closer to the “Perfect,” or the god force.

At one point banned from their religious practice in Turkey by a political regime for being excessively mystic, the Mevlevis are allowed to continue their sema in their home country for purposes of tourism- but not to vocalize their prayers to Allah. In 1986 the head of the Mevlevi sect sent his son to America to spread their beliefs. Since then, the Order has had several successful US sema tours- and apparently has accrued some American faithful as well. The US Mevlevi website posts an announcement of an “obligatory practice and tuning for all semazen (as the participants in the ritual dance are called) turning in SF and Sacramento” to proceed the public event at the Palace of Fine Arts on Friday.

In practice, the semazen are hypnotically tranquil in their dance. Traditional Sufi music accompanies the dancers, an atmospheric affair of sitars that provide fertile foundation for whatever meditation you bring to the performance. The men and women are dressed in white robes to signify “ego’s shroud” and tall camel hair fez-like hats portraying “ego’s tombstone.” They whirl about the floor on their right feet, weaving through one another in one long motion of prayer with one arm extending to Allah and one cradled in front of them, delivering a message to their fellow human beings on earth. Altogether, they look like maple tree seed pods, helicoptering down from their branches. Its calming, almost enough to make one appreciate that in life’s twists and turns lie an equilibrium of sorts.

In the meantime… anyone know a good bike lawyer?

Fri/11 8 p.m., $25- $45
The Palace of Fine Arts
3301 Lyon, SF
www.ciis.edu

Live Shots: Timmy Mezzy, Maggie McGarry’s, 12/3/09

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Text and photos by Ariel Soto

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I have a new favorite song and I need to share it with all of you. It’s about bubbly water and it’s by the band Timmy Mezzy … and it’s amazing.

Timmy Mezzy, hailing from The Sunset District of San Francisco, have other musical delights, such as love songs dedicated to ice cream and a tune about having nothing to do at all. The five piece combo rocked Maggie McGarry’s in North Beach on Thursday night to a thoroughly enthused crowd, peppered with obvious groupies who sang along to Bubbly Water and boogied across the tiny dance floor late into the evening. These guys have got something going, so check out their next show, because their music makes me happy and want to smile and I know it’ll make you all bubbly too.

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Sonic Reducer Overage: Black Crowes, Califone, Rob Cantrell, and more

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Whoa, get ready for the El Nino rains — time to duck inside for some quality sounds.

The Black Crowes
If you step into the Four Seasons you might get a glimpse of the free birds, in town for a series of shows. Sat/5, 9 p.m., and Sun/6, 8 p.m., call for prices. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 421-8497.

The Black Hollies
Give the psych combo its medication. With the Shys and Hot Lunch. Sat/5, 10 p.m., $10. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455.

‘Kill All Redneck Pricks’: KARP doc benefit goes off Dec. 19

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You must remember KARP, the combo that spawned members of Big Business, the Melvins, Tight Bros. From Way Back When, and many other loud, loud outfits? (Me, I remember seeing the group at Yo-a-Go-Go way back when.) Well, do that remembering on camera when a doc benefit gathers Dec. 19 in Oakland. This in from the organizers:

“In addition to being a band biopic, Kill All Redneck Pricks: KARP LIVES! 1990 – 1998 is the biography of a friendship. Set in the Pacific Northwest against the backdrop of the Olympia, Wash., post-punk and riot grrrl movements of the early ’90s, Kill All Redneck Pricks: KARP LIVES! 1990 – 1998 details the joys and tragedies of a band called KARP as each band member’s life serves as a lightning bolt to a separate destiny.

“The band debuted in ‘94 with Mustaches Wild LP, which K Records catalog described in the following way -‘album number one sinks to the pit of your stomach. Karp, straight out of Olympia’s Tumwater High, gay blades heavy and sweaty. Looks like a deck of cards playing war for real. Feels like a chunk of concrete stapled to your forehead.’

“All Music Guide commented that ‘the ability for one to incorporate mood swings into their musical creativity is apparent on the debut full-length by Washington’s Karp. At the drop of a hat, they can go from slow and blistering to upbeat and pounding, all while remaining at a very low, heavy tone. Deeply influenced by Black Sabbath and the Melvins, Mustaches Wild has the potential to be a very dark release
with their very tongue-in-cheek lyrics.’

SFS snags Grammy nom-nom-nom

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By Marke B.

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Oh, MTT. You and your Grammy noms and your Nehru collars.

“I dare you to sit through San Francisco Symphony’s exhilarating new CD of Symphony No. 8, the so-called ‘Symphony of a Thousand,’ and not leave your body a few times,” some scallywag wrote in the Guardian a couple months ago. And the Grammy committee must have been lifted off its tippy-toes as well, because it just nominated the SFS — thrice! — for its absolutely heavenly recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8.

Behind the Mahler 8 scenes

Find more videos like this on San Francisco Symphony Social Network

Best Classical Album, Best Choral Performance, and Best Engineered Classical Album are the relevant cats. The recording utilized an array of groundbreaking techniques that give it an almost 3-D sound, which is pretty awesome when you’re working with a huge orchestra and chorus of almost literally a thousand. If you pick up one classic classical release this year, this one should be it. (And if you pick up one avant-classical release, try this.) Also nominated for a bunch of stuff: some Green Day people or whoever.

PS: The Bay’s own jazzy Latinist, John Santos, who also scored a Grammy nom nod in the World Music category, will be performing at the SFS’s uniquely nightlife-oriented Davies After Hours shindig on January 15.

Sight + Sound fundraiser: For a more beautiful, harmonic green

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By Caitlin Donohue

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Myrmyr (inset) and Odessa Chen raise their voice for arts and the environment

“How does sound affect the environment and how does the environment affect sound? How can sound help the environment? How do we green sound? What compositions and performance can influence environmental change? How can the environment innovate the sound experience? How can environmental concepts engage, inspire, and challenge audiences and performers with a new, exciting, bold and intense aural experience?”

I totally know how important these questions are- dog, I went to a solar powered Dead Prez show this summer at Yerba Buena Center, I’m on it. If you’d like to be as environmentally on the ball as I- who doesn’t, really?- trot yourself over here to buy tickets for Green Sight + Sound, tomorrow’s benefit fundraiser for the forces of good in the eco-friendly art world.

The event will accrue funding for two very up-on-it causes; ME’DI.ATE’s fourth Soundwave Festival and Ecoartspace. Here’s their deal:

ME’DI.ATE’s Soundwave Festival seeks to provide exceptional auditory experiences for its attendees, actually paying its artists (revolutionary!) so that they are able to treat the performance not as a gig, but a project. Next year’s festival, “Green Sound” (whose formative questions I swiped to begin this post) will include music in the Batteries up in the Marin Headlands, a performance that promises to rival this year’s “musical bus rides” in concert-going uniqueness. You’ll be delighted to know that they have arranged for a few wonderful musicians to partake in Friday’s benefit, including electro-acoutical duo Myrmyr and wintry songstress Odessa Chen.

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Snap them up at Green Sight + Sound’s silent auction (its for a good cause/s!): Christy Rupp’s Kitchen Towel, woven by a co-op in Guatemala “to combat that queasy feeling at home” and Linda MacDonald’s print, Map of California

Ecoartspace was one of the first national organizations to bring together and support all types of creative forces looking to make positive moves on environmental issues. They will be coordinating a silent auction of environmentally themed piece, priced from $5-$5,000 up for bidding. Their selection most definitely meets my critieron for ripe holiday shopping, as well- one more reason (as if you needed another) to make Sight + Sound your destination tomorrow night.

Green Sight + Sound
Fri/4 6 p.m.-4 p.m., $25-$35
Mina Dresden Gallery
312 Valencia, SF
www.me-di-ate.net/green-sight-sound
www.projectsoundwave.com
www.ecoartspace.org

A rockin’ Balkan good time

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By Megan Gordon

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Brass Menazeri play this weekend’s Kafana Balkan.

Kafana Balkan is part sweaty dance party, part traditional Serbian cultural event, part circus show, and part night at the bar – all benefitting a worthy cause. Though the event — held next at Blue Macaw on Saturday, December 5 — may be hard define, it’s probably even harder not to have a good time when attending.

There’s always dancing, there’s always a variety of folks coming together to celebrate the vibrance of the Yugoslavian culture, and organizers try to have the traditional Rakiya liquor on hand. The ever-talented Brass Menazeri is the resident house band. (Specializing in gypsy powerhouse music, their Web site states, “the energy is infectious—toes tap, bodies slam, sweat flies as vital energy radiates from the dance floor.”) How could you go wrong?

The event was the brainchild of Zelijko Petkovic and Boban Djurkozic, both Serbs who conceived of the gathering as a way for local Yugoslavians could come together and celebrate. Then Joe Mama of the Humanitarian Circus got involved, helping with promotions and marketing and eventually stepping into the driver’s seat.

Squeeze box plus Sparkly boobs: the Accordion Babes equal the truth

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Text and photos by Caitlin Donohue

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Reneé de la Prade rocks an accordion version of ‘I Wanna Be Sedated.’ In a corset. Get it, girl.

“She is the truth.” Last night I turned to see my boyfriend struck starry eyed over a girl with pink hair, a matching corset, and a punk rock way with a squeeze box. We were at the Hubba Hubba Revue/Accordion Babe calendar release party at the Uptown Night Club (928 Telegraph, Oakland), and I had to agree.

There is something about accordion that goes smashingly with burlesque. The two art forms are unapologetically vintage with rather cumbersome apparatuses (stiletto heels, fluffy boas, weighty bellows) and would almost be entertaining enough to look at standing still. But dance burlesque dancers do, and rock accordionists will. Last night’s program went something like this: funny guys, badass accordion song, lady gets naked, monkey clears stage, funny guys, repeat.

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Emcees and monkey men break up the broads at the Hubba Hubba/Accordion Babes bash

Live Shots: Hip-Hop DanceFest, Palace of Fine Arts, 11/22/09

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Text and photos by Ariel Soto

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For the 11th Annual Hip Hop DanceFest, 11 dance troupes graced the stage for Sunday afternoon at the Palace of Fine Arts. The dance companies hailed from California, South Korea, Norway, Canada, London and New York, showcasing a diverse definition of what hip-hop dance means today. There was some tap dancing, classical music, and Michael Jackson tributes. The ages of the dancers ranged from very young kids to seasoned adults, but their skill and proficiency was perfectly cohesive and steeped full of energy. There was also a spectacular trio, the ILL-Abilities Crew, made up of three dancers with various disabilities who danced with such passion and talent that it brought the whole crowd to a standing ovation. It was obvious after seeing these dance companies perform that hip hop is a dance of all nations, where everyone speaks the universal language for throwing down.

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Marriage by fire: Grooms find the joy

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GROOMS
Rejoicer
(Death by Audio)

By Kimberly Chun

Grooms is a slightly better name than Muggabears, the moniker of vocalist-guitarist Travis Johnson’s original teenaged bedroom recording project — it errs on the side of blah-blankness rather than cute-grotesquerie. Regardless, **Rejoicer** makes me want to look for Johnson in the future.

Sonic Youth and its **Speed Trials** ilk are the touchstones here — from the refined, sensuous use of carefully controlled noise blasts to Johnson’s smudgy, adolescent yowl — while the addition of drummer Jim Sykes conjures thoughts of his former combo Parts and Labor. It’s as if the threesome were on a treasure hunt for junked beauty among the grunge era’s corroded metal salvage shop — with breaks for twanging, seductively supple guitar torture — and listening to this thoughtfully assembled collection of songs, I’d say they’ve found what they were searching for.

Hey is for Horse’s Ha: English folk meets backcountry bossa

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THE HORSE’S HA
Of the Cathmawr Yards
(Hidden Agenda)

By Kimberly Chun

Sidestepping the gutbucket ‘n’ gritty, tear-in-my-beer country of Freakwater and the solid indie psych of Eleventh Dream Day, Janet Beveridge Bean takes a whole other route — toward the music of the English folk revival — with the Horses’s Ha, a collaboration with Brit ex-pat James Elkington. Working with such talented players as cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm (Wilco, Jim O’Rourke), bassist Nick Macri (Euphone), and drummer Charles Rumback (L’Altra, Via Tania), the pair have dreamed up a series of songs and sounds that lightly touch on the C&W soundtracks of ‘70s American cinema, the immaculate vocals and folk-rock orchestrations of Fairport Convention, and the agile southwestern fusions of a sleepy Calexico (Martin Wenk of the group contributes trumpet). Wryly named for the fictitious Welsh graveyard in Dylan Thomas’ zombie short story, “The Horse’s Ha,” Of the Cathmawr Yards is far from a carrion-chomping critter. Bean and Elkington and ensemble make English-folk bossa the most natural thing in the world to pick up and artfully play with.

They Might Be Giants: Fact-based rock

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By Dan Abbott

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Music journalism is a little awkward for me. As a musician, most of the artists I like are those that I have a personal connection with. So most of the articles I’ve written on music have necessarily been prefaced by some sort of full disclosure statement. But though I have never met them, They Might Be Giants has had a disproportionably huge impact on me as both a musician and a lifelong nerd. Is it possible to be objective about them? Of course not! But a full disclosure about TMBG would be longer than article ought to be.

So when I heard the smart-alecky Brooklyn, NY-based duo-cum quintet would be playing two shows in San Francisco promoting their latest record, Here Comes Science, an epic battle ensued between the TMBG fanboy and the intrepid journalist that lurk within me. I’d like to say the journalist won, as my phone interview with guitarist John Flansburgh proceeded with minimal squealing. Thank you, whiskey.

But it is hard to deny the rabid devotion that TMBG inspires, as evidenced by their sold-out Nov. 13 show at the Fillmore. The night before that, a line stretched around the block to see their free six-song performance at Booksmith on Haight, where they signed copies of another release, Kids Go!, a children’s book with accompanying CD. The extraordinarily prolific group has put out three children’s albums in recent years, prompting a bit of head-scratching among fans of their more experimental and gloomy early works.

Sonic Reducer Overage: Toots, Vic Chestnutt, White Pee, Dizzy Balloon, and more

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Why succumb to the post-turkey day l-tryptophan lethargy? There’s music to see and hear when you’re not deleting your funds at the sales. (Anyone else notice that odd, oft-aired Sears commercial — an attractive black couple ask a salesperson about Black Friday and proceed to kinda-sorta flirt with him?)

Toots and the Maytals
The well-sampled combo had a recent brush with Amy Winehouse backing-band greatness. Fri/27, 9 p.m., $26. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 346-6000.

Hatebreed
Does thrashsome, so-called groove metal get any more poppy yet menacing? With Trivium, Cannibal Corpse, Chimaira, Unearth, Whitechapel, Born Of Osiris, Hate Eternal, and Dirge Within Fri/27, 3 p.m., $26-$30. Warfield, 982 Market, SF. (415) 421-8497.

Photo Essay: Snoop Dogg at the Warfield

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Photo and text by Ariel Soto

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Snoop Dogg, why you gotta be such a tease-izzle? You tempted us all night on November 21, as we waited and waited for you to come on stage, the early morning hours coming nearer and nearer. Finally you made it, slipping your way through the thick cloud of ganja goodness to tickle our ears with your naughty lyrics and seductive dance moves. We loved that you sang us all the classics and can’t wait for your new album, Malice in Wonderland, to debut in December. Snoop, you are our hip hop hero … for shizzl.

Sonic Reducer Overage:Kiss, Fanfarlo, Lake, and more

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By Kimberly Chun

Rick Springfield and Sister Christian should be forever indebted to Boogie Nights for being draped so unforgettably in that terribly tense deal-gone-drastically-wrong scene. Too bad Kiss never got the proper Ramones/Rock and Roll High School treatment with **Detroit Rock City** — but hey, they’ve got reality TV. More shows than we could fit into print.

Fanfarlo
High on life like Los Campesinos and a mite folkier. Sun/22, 2 p.m., free, Amoeba Music, 1855 Haight, SF. (415) 831-1200. Also with Freelance Whales and Mumlers. Sun/22, 8 p.m., $10-$13. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. (415) 861-2011.

A treasury of Tiësto moments

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By Marke B.

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The shoe

In this week’s Super Ego clubs column, I talk to pop-trance juggernaut Tiësto — certainly the most branded, if not the most bombastic, “big name” DJ out there. (Funny, though, whenever I told people I was talking to the “Biggest DJ in the World” they all thought I meant Paul Oakenfold.)

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Hawking the shoe

I’m not against people making a living as a DJ — or even getting rich off it. Or even being signed to Ultra Records. But there’s a point at which you become a cliche, actually working against the advancement of electronic music, even when you’re at the point of including the most disparate listeners into your polished genre’s fold. That’s why I pricked up my ears when Tiësto so easily shrugged off any attempt to still categorize himself as “underground” and began rebranding himself as a pop artist, a producer, and then finally “just Tiësto” during our brief conversation.

In any case, he’s still a bit of a hoot. After the jump, some of my favorite Tiësto moments. He’ll be at the Cow Palace this Saturday.

In your face: Indie goes Icelandic in the hands of Skakkamanage

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SKAKKAMANAGE
All Over the Face
(Kimi)

By Kimberly Chun

Sounding for all the world like the lost Icelandic kin of Spoon’s Brett Daniel with his happen-now snarl and way with a jittery Amerindie hook, vocalist-guitarist Svavar Petur Eysteinsson could have grown up in Ohio, Nebraska or Texas, listening to the Breeders, Yo La Tengo, Uncle Tupelo, and any number of Homestead and Saddle Creek combos. His Icelandic husband-and-wife band, Skakkamanage, bears more than a passing resemblance to indie rock brothers by other mothers. A sweetness, naked earnestness and on-edge undercurrent of anxiety permeates tracks like “Costa Bravo” and “Like You Did,” helped along by the boy-girl vocals of Eysteinsson and wife Berglind Hasler, on piano and synthesizers. Mum’s Orvar Poreyjarson Smarason contributes harmonica and backing vocals, and throughout such assists and audibly in-your-face inspirations, Skakkamanage appears to be quickly approaching, by dint of its raw courage, a sound of its own.

Sonic Reducer Overage: Grant Hart, ‘In C,’ Flobots, Talk Normal, and more

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By Kimberly Chun

I recommend taking some cult-cha with your cold cereal — it’ll make the pre-Thanksgiving/Black Friday mania go down easier. More fun stuff than we could fit into print.

Ty Segall and Culture Kids
The raging Goldie ‘09 winner lets it fly with the buskable, combustible Bay Area noise makers. With the Baths. Sat/14, 9 p.m., $7. Amnesia, 853 Valencia, SF. (415) 970-0012.

Turks
The Oakland combo likes its tempos convulsive and screams pitched a few notches above the deep, dark pit of post-punk hell. With Rats Eyes and La Guardia. Sat/14, 9:30 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923.

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