Noise

Men and their Moogs: Junior Boys vs. Sebastien Tellier

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By Andre Torrez

I went to Bimbo’s to see Junior Boys on a whim. I knew someone who had an extra spot on the list. I didn’t know what I was getting into, and was just happy to hang with my friend. Parking was a bitch, but we settled on a lot and made our way into the swank club. North Beach was definitely in the house.

Looking around, I couldn’t help but notice that this wasn’t exactly my scene. I felt like I was in an episode from The O.C. where the kids somehow get to hang in the bar and watch the latest “cool indie band” circa-2004. Waiting in anticipation of a band you don’t know usually proves to be anti-climactic, but there was something about the performance itself that was amiss. It didn’t take long for me to put my finger on it: I was annoyed at the lack of camaraderie between the band members, especially the core songwriting duo: the front man and the mysteriously silent man on the Moog synthesizer directly to his left. The drummer was in the background as expected, albeit all Genesis-looking because of the cool lighting, but the lead singer and this Moog man were placed prominently next to one another even though Moog man never spoke a word. I guess he had a cool haircut and all, but if you’ve got nothing to say and little to do, why take the spotlight? He might as well have been a prop. It was almost as if a wall was dividing front man and Moog man — they had little to no interaction with one another on stage. Not even a glance.

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Moog man and frontman.

The two main men of Junior Boys would be better off pursuing separate musical paths, instead of catering to trends by fusing the electronic with the organic. With his scruffy look, the lead singer-guitarist came across as more of a traditional songwriter. He focused on lyrics and on connections with the audience. He was adept at banter and seemed to thrive off the audience’s energy. The man at the Moog admittedly held down the electronic portion of the show, but he was utterly detached. Given the opportunity to let loose, I’m sure he’d come alive — if he just wasn’t stifled by that other guy with the words and guitar. Both parties would flourish creatively if they just ditched the commercial combination sound. But who am I to judge? It’s probably payin’ the bills.

One night later at the Independent, Sebastien Tellier had the Moog-and-guitar combo down to a science. His sound was a perfect balance of heavy, deep, and dark elements. He had a lot more fun mixing synthesizers and rock star posturing, with a guitar representing a full-on phallus.

How To Destroy Your Eardrums, Part 6

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By Nicole Gluckstern

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Throbbing Gristle blur the lines at the Regency Ballroom, 4/23. Photos by Morlock E.

It’s a veritable rogue’s gallery at the Regency Ballroom on April 23, every single statesperson of the Bay Area underground having emerged from their respective lairs for Throbbing Gristle, the first, the foremost industrial noise band come back to destroy the universe, one eardrum at a time. The last time I saw such a profusion of familiar faces was, well, last week at Leonard Cohen. And just like at Leonard Cohen, the faces around me bear expressions that are expectant, electric, slightly starstruck. Unlike Leonard Cohen though, the band launches first into a sweet little ditty penned in tribute to the Moors Murderers Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, “Very Friendly”.

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Genesis P-Orridge, hand out

“Could you imagine what might have happened if Myra Hindley and Ian Brady had met me and Cosey back than?” quips Genesis P-orridge, who wears the role of flamboyant frontperson like a comfortable pair of bright pink polka-dotted stockings. An array of “greatest hits” follows: “Persuasion”, “Something Came Over Me”, the infinitely creepy “Hamburger Lady”. The set may verge on this side of predictable, but honestly, these are the songs we all want to hear.

The venue lights stay on, loud; the sound system cranked, loud; Genesis P-orridge channeling Marianne Faithfull in a bright orange Stevie Nicks tunic, loud. More “disciplined” than dangerous, the evenly rhythmic computer-generated beats smack just as much of Coil as chaos unleashed. Still, at certain points in the evening, the relentless throb threatens to dislodge both my intestines and my equilibrium. “If I stand with my legs apart I get an erection,” I hear someone mutter. And ultimately, that’s the crux of this whole experience, this sonic onslaught. Industrial at its hard core is precisely the music of solitary erections, the music of intestinal distress, the music of bondage games, vertigo, and boots of shiny leather (just like Cosey’s). That said, all those iMacs onstage? Neither sexy nor disturbed. The blue-screened sea of iPhone photogs below me? Ditto. The price of progress, I suppose, disturbance demystified.

Pics: Karamo Susso hypnotizes Red Poppy Art House

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Photos and text by Ariel Soto

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The Red Poppy Art House, an artist community and intimate performance center in the heart of the Mission, welcomed Karamo Susso, a world famous kora player from West Africa, who performed this Saturday, April 25th. Susso, who was raised in Mali, is a master of the kora, a 21-stringed instrument originally from Gambia, that is played solely with the thumbs and index fingers, creating tones that sound somewhat like a harp, a guitar and maybe just a bit of toy piano.

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Ballad of Marianne Dissard

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By Kimberly Chun

Champs Elysees cool cuddles up with dustbowl derring-do: it’s an unlikely union but it works beautifully on Marianne Dissard‘s self-released 2008 debut, L’entredeux. The filmmaker behind the Giant Sand documentary, Drunken Bees, Dissard played the silky seductress to Joey Burns’ easy dupe in Calexico’s cowboy noir “Ballad of Cable Hogue.” L’entredeux sees her donning assorted new chapeaux with help from co-writer and producer Burns. Count on the chanteuse to smoke up the room with her fivepiece when she stops at the Hemlock Tavern on April 29.

Beautiful losers and dour dreamers who can’t make that date will likely dig the 12-track L’entredeux. Calexico’s John Convertino pitches in on drums, along with Willie Nelson contributor Mickey Raphael on harmonica and Tin Hat Trio player Rob Burger on piano, accordion, orchestron, cimbalom, and organ. Now planted in Tucson dust, the French native apparently found plenty of common ground with Burns in the making of this music: the music of Nick Drake, Serge Gainsbourg, and Django Reinhardt as well as the films of Sam Peckinpah. They save the violence for the future recordings – this is music for hot, hazy, lazy days.

The Balky Mule rides to brilliance on rickety romance

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By Todd Lavoie

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THE BALKY MULE

The Length Of The Rail

(Fat Cat)

Stubborn? Who’s stubborn? Don’t be thrown by the Balky Mule name — Sam Jones might have selected his pseudonym in honor of an unyielding beast of burden, but his newest release is quite an amiable fellow, actually. The formerly Bristol, England-based musician (known for his stints in Flying Saucer Attack, The Third Eye Foundation, Movietone, and Crescent) relocated to Melbourne, Australia and focused on crafting wobbly-footed D.I.Y. pop and alluring folk/electronica collisions. In spite of a resume flush with hazy spin-drifts of guitar feedback and creeping atmosphere, Jones’ Balky Mule project is a considerably more playful affair; The Length Of The Rail is a bubbling, bleeping romp of toy-shop psychedelia and likable shy-boy vocals. On this sophomore release — though best of luck to you in finding its predecessor, as it appears to have been a limited-run and self-issued — the English ex-pat clearly seems to be having a grand ol’ time, picking up every instrument in sight and banging upon every available surface in pursuit of finding the right combination of curious ping-pings and plunkety-plunks.

Still, the disc is very much a bedroom creation, and one can almost imagine Jones skipping and grinning from behind the safety of his teetering piles of instruments; behind that wall is a bashful, boyish warble, pitched somewhere between Robert Wyatt and a more lucid version of Syd Barrett. It’s a thin, sweet, incredibly vulnerable tenor — perhaps not always perfectly-pitched, but channeled wisely for tremendous emotional impact. Set against sputtering electronics and delicate guitar textures, Jones’ innocent rambles trigger both the sad sighs of nostalgia and the cheerier heart-flutters of childhood memories.

Slow down, show love for Jimmy Sweetwater

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By Ari Messer

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In the era of Slow Food in the City of Fog, I wonder why more people don’t slow down for a second and get out to taste some local music. Think about the last time you were willing to fork over more than a fiver for some local talent. Seriously. San Franciscans sometimes seem fonder and more aware of what the Bay Area attracts than of what it produces. Jimmy Sweetwater is out to change that. Sweetwater is the rare breed of promoter who is also a musician — he plays a mean harmonica and a dirty washboard. He has been giving his all to keep his series of local music going in a town drawn to touring bands. Sweetwater, a historian of Mission District music from the past 20 years, has put on five shows at the Great American Music Hall, four at Slim’s, and one at Cafe du Nord. According to Sweetwater, club staff has largely been supportive, but it’s a struggle to fill venues in these times of financial woe. "There’s a ton of local talent that never gets to play the big clubs," he says, noting that he tries "to combine different kinds of music in one night." All-local nights and combinations of different genres — these aren’t traditional strategies, but the Bay Area is the perfect place to unleash them.

This weekend sees a diverse Jimmy Sweetwater Presents lineup at the Red Devil Lounge, including the high-speed-Calexico-like Diego’s Umbrella, honkeytonkers 77 El Deora, the East Bay’s Ben Benkert, and the Mission Three, a group including Sweetwater that will play a number of tunes by the Band, even one of my favorite (and rarer) Band joints, "Acadian Driftwood." Sweetwater always seems to be doing a thousand things at once. It’s all for the love of song in this songlike town.

JIMMY SWEETWATER PRESENTS: DIEGO’S UMBRELLA, BEN BENKERT, 77 EL DEORA, AND THE MISSION THREE Sat/25, 9 p.m., $10. Red Devil Lounge, 1695 Polk, SF. (415) 921-1695. www.myspace.com/jimmysweetwater

Nite Trax: Kush Arora’s ‘Dread Bass Chronicles’

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By Marke B.

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I’ve been living with SF dub stalwart Kush Arora‘s new release Dread Bass Chronicles in my headphones for a week now — partly out of addiction to its golden production and throbbing bass (this shit will truly bang the dancefloor), but also because it’s given me a lot to think about. Kush is part of the Surya Dub collective, which has become a Bay classic by melding bhangra raveups with dupstep wigouts at its monthly parties at Club Six. A couple years ago, Surya started throwing around the phrase “dread bass” to describe its direction — more aggressive, more dancehall-oriented, less electronically psychedelic than other “worldly dubstep” nights — and here we have the most definitive statement of dread bass to date. (OK, OK, dread bass was also a miniature jungle movement in the early ’90s, but nevermind that.)

Suitably, that statement comes from Surya’s most audio-aggressive member, who claims death metal and punk among his early influences, and who told the Guardian‘s Tomas Palermo last year that he believes his family’s roots in the often-volatile Punjab region between India and Pakistan breathe through his music. “That’s why I like bhangra. It has an element of aggression and sadness,” he said.

In this, Kush’s seventh release, however, most bhangra references are almost completely subsumed into ornate background decorations to the 11 tracks’ insistently energetic thudding and boasting. Yes, there are some bubbling tablas and burbling, looped flutes — but it’s Kush’s other Bay nightlife association, with Sunday night dub and dancehall mainstay Dub Mission, that’s more telling here.

Snap Sounds: Camera Obscura

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By Marke B.

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Morrissey may have crapped out of his stint at the Paramount, Belle and Sebastian are probably off looking for 20 more band members — and whither the classic Bluebells, I ask you?

But at least on this overcast break from yesterday’s heatwave we have the 13-year-old and much overlooked Scottish popsters Camera Obscura — no, not this camera obscura, although the music has the same ethereal shimmer — to keep us melancholically sunny with their new, lushly orchestrated My Maudlin Career (4AD). Somehow the 11 slightly countrified gems on this release seem like the ones that got away from both Neko Case and Rough Trade …

Camera Obscura, “French Navy”

Bonus! Bluebells (Hey, I’m in the mood for jangly Scottish maudlin today)

The Bluebells, “I’m Falling” (much better sound quality here)

What do you know? The singers look quite a bit alike ….

View the previous Snap Sound here.

Gudrun Gut beguiles with a missing essence

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By Brandon Bussolini

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Now two years old, I Put A Record On (Monika Enterprise, 2007) is a record worth lingering over. In addition to being the first solo release from Berlin-based musical gadabout Gudrun Gut, it’s remarkable for how unhurried Gut was in getting around to it: she’s been appearing on recordings and taking part in bands, including a very early incarnation of industrial pioneers Einstürzende Neubauten, for more than 25 years. Her intervening projects give her the aura of a post-punk Zelig: the all-female punk band Malaria! formed in 1981, toured with the Birthday Party, put out records on Belgian boutique label Les Disques du Crepuscule, and performed with Nina Hagen at Studio 54. That the group’s "Kaltes Klares Wasser" would later be covered by Chicks on Speed was a foregone conclusion.

The synthy Matador followed Malaria!’s collapse, but Gut’s ear eventually led her, like any good punk, to techno. With typical great timing too: Berlin had just undergone a techno surge, spearheaded by local duo and label Basic Channel. Abandoning the constraints of playing in a rock-derived idiom in favor of more uncharted territory, Gut also had the good fortune to run across Thomas Fehlmann, a producer with post-punk roots who had recently collaborated with Alex Paterson’s downtempo pace-setters the Orb. The two founded Ocean Club, producing a weekly genre-stomping radio show as well as parties that paired up the likes of experimental techno producer Thomas Brinkmann and splay-shirted southern gothic aficionado Nick Cave.

Gudrun Gut, “Move Me”

None of this is new information, yet all of it is useful in figuring out how something like I Put A Record On came to be. It’s beguiling, though free of big emotions — a left-field album that functions as an homage to the hypnotic state that arrives when you’re sucked into your favorite records. The best indication of its intentions is provided by the sole cover, of Smog’s "Rock Bottom Riser." Gut’s multitracked delivery, over a pistoning and downtrodden bass drum, is affectless enough to make Bill Callahan’s stoic delivery on the original seem fraught. But by the end, she’s wracked by giggles, as flecks of color appear like dried spittle around the monochrome production’s edges. Gut is not an innovator: both she and Callahan are committed to the old, inexhaustible pleasure of listening, regardless of genre. And this is exactly what allows them to give back to their respective genres, if we care to name them, some missing essence.

FIRST PERSON MAGAZINE BENEFIT PARTY FEATURING GUDRUN GUT with Thomas Fehlmann, Grecco Guggenheit, and Nate Boyce. Fri/24, 10 p.m., $10-$15. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 625-8880. www.firstpersonmag.com/events.htm

Snap Sounds: Dan Deacon

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By Michelle Broder Van Dyke

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Dan Deacon
Bromst
(Carpark)

Dan Deacon’s latest album forfeits one-man prowess for a more expansive sound — realized on tour by a 15-piece ensemble — that swaps electronic exclusivity for a tightly woven tapestry of bleeps, samples, and acoustic instruments like the guitar, glockenspiel and marimba. The resulting sound is less alienating-irritating than on previous releases.

Bromst still has endorphin-inducing tracks, like “Woof Woof,” a bouncy, buoyant opener that spazzes out with animal calls that loop backward as the rest of the song moves forward into catchy cacophony. Deacon has honed his skill at building suspense all the way up to a climactic finish, as in the standouts “Build Voice” and “Paddling Ghost,” which crescendo and then plummet like a roller coaster ride. I imagine the noisy culminating track “Get Older” as a scene in Fantasia 3.0, filmed shortly after the apocalypse, in which abstract butterflies and birds repetitiously stream through a realm of light and darkness before lightness finally wins out.

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Dan Deacon gets a hand. Photo by Josh Sisk.

All of Deacon’s work possesses an inherent sense of humor, exemplified by the fold-up tent that is central to his current iconography. But Bromst taps some emotional depths, thanks to “Slow Horns/Run For Your Life,” with its moving staccato piano break, and “Snookered,” with its poignant lyric, “We’ve done this so many times before…but never quite like this.” Such new hints of maturity leave me anticipating the next act by this mad scientist of electronic noise.

DAN DEACON
With Future Islands, Teeth Mountain
Thurs/23, 9 p.m., $13
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell, SF
(415) 885-0750
www.gamh.com

Deacon talks about Bromst, after the jump:

Beach demon Wavves baptizes SF

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By L.C. Mason

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Even though I’m in my twenties, I feel firmly stuck in teenagerdom, where absolutes reign supreme, the world is always about to end, and indifference is not only allowed, but is a right. Evidently, so does fellow 22-year-old Nathan Williams, the mastermind of the SoCal noise-scrubbed punk project Wavves. At Bottom of the Hill on April 13, his arty, minimalist gospel of hazy boredom and elation churned the sold out spitfire crowd like the hippest TV evangelist with a guitar, drumset and one Herculean Marshall stack in the middle.

The genius of Williams’ sermons are the one-line gems of angst-ridden pubescent sentiment (“Everything’s so fucked”; “You see me / I don’t care”; “I’m getting high / to pass the time / no reason why”) he deftly delivers under a mask of cool ennui –the elusive equilibrium that every teen strives for, but few achieve. Therein lies Wavves’ universal charm: the music gives us a chance for emotional redemption, cleansing our minds of the hormone-fueled confusion that plagues our youth.

R.W. Ulsh and Nathan Williams of Wavves
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Williams and his bespectacled drum-wizard R.W. Ulsh unleashed their set with “Beach Demon,” a speed-ridden amp-sizzler with a lean riff and meaty drums serving up a clanging two-step beat. Usually awash in snaps, crackles and pops, Williams’ on-stage vocals were crystal clear, showcasing his San Diegan drawl. He wailed words we’ve lived by for the past eight years: ”Nothing to do / nowhere to go / everything’s wrong / everything’s wrong,” and his rapid-fire chorus of “Going nowhere / going nowhere / going nowhere” propelled the audience into a maelstrom of fist-pumps and matted hair. Williams’ fuzzed riffery during the extended breakdown not only got the house sweaty but also smelly in its reverie.

The Wavves-brand slow jam was “Side Yr On,” a mournful tune about missed phone calls. Williams’ stony, soaring falsetto and dirge-riffs vividly evoked the sobering brutality of the kind of rejection that hurts at any age.

The night’s coda, “Wavves,” started with gratuitous bass drum and snare beats and whimsical, falsetto Beach Boys croons with a singalong quality that the ladies on the floor couldn’t resist. Williams clearly enjoyed it; a mischievious grin painted itself across his face when their chirps rose above the noise. His boyish string of declarations “I wanna be with you / I wanna be a punk / I wanna see the sun / I wanna be your daddy-o,” reference past pop-punk classics and condense life’s most simple pleasures into music. The one-man juggernaut’s seething, feedback-laden guitar freak-out closed the set, only to leave the rest of us panting for more. The anointing of the San Francisco sect of fervent Wavves fan had taken place.

Tiger Beat-for-punks pic of Williams
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Live Wavves clips after the jump:

Sex-children of the Throb

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By Marke B.

Throbbing Gristle, “Discipline” live at Kezar, 1981

“Like always I persuaaa-aade you.” My audiophile pals have been burbling for weeks about Throbbing Gristle’s return to the Bay Area — an event of enormous sonic-historical magnitude that both Brandon Bussolini and Nicole Gluckstern write about in this week’s issue. And they’ve mostly been taken by the series of vids recorded at Kezar Stadium (“the stadium of dead souls”) in 1981 that documents the raw, uninhibited mind-warp of the group at the time — a perfect tonic for our still-obsessed post-punk indie-bop era. It’s pretty amazing, and I’m loving the obvs tripped-out audience. Also, it looks to have much more in common with composer John Adams‘ Berkeley music-concrete happenings than the overloaded, multimedia Wax Trax spectaculars that industrial would soon veer into, livewise.

The above extended cataclysm, plus this one below by Germany’s Liaisons Dangereuses from 1982, tells a seedy, sweaty, and dirty-sexy industrial story, with a space for women even (“are you ready boys, are you ready girls?”), that I wish had been pin-patched and bedazzled onto Haight Street kids’ jackets rather than the hypersteroidal/paranoid-pop Skinny Puppy-Nitzer Ebb-Ministry one (and hey, doesn’t Depeche Mode have a new album out?)

Liaisons Dangereuses, “Los Niños Del Parque”

It’s a wonder to me how all those macho mid-80s big-time industrial acts could simultaneously be so testosteronal and yet so castrated. Maybe it was all the trying too hard (and it kind of happened again in the 90s with, ew, rap-rock). But, you know, I shaved off my devil lock and fled the industrial dance floor once KMFDM’s “Control” became inescapable. Now that was torture, even though now I find them quite adorable. It’ll be very interesting to see what kind of crowd shows up at the TG show on Thursday, to say the least, and whether they’ll have the spikes to ride the experimental thrust into polysexual purgatory, industrial’s true Valhalla (not hell at all), with barest, brief release.

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From the LA Times Coachella blog: “I think I’ve had three orgasms already,” Genesis P-Orridge said after the first song of Throbbing Gristle’s set. All right, so we know it was good for the fair-haired, transgendered leader of the British industrial act, but how was it for us?

The Bay’s Grass Widow sounds out mesmerizing shapes

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By Michael Harkin

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Grass Widow‘s harmonious post-punk tension is fostered below SF street level, in a former meat locker containing, among other things, a very charming quilt with the band’s name patched into it. In anticipation of an impending record release — the band plays Thursday at ATA — I met there with bass player Hannah Lew and drummer Lillian Maring (guitarist and trumpet player Raven Mahon was overseas), who, although living far apart — Maring is on the East Coast at present — were clearly very happy to be together.

"It’s not like there are any dispensable characters," explains Lew. After the dissolution of Shitstorm, Lew’s former band with Mahon, the two started playing together in 2007 with Maring, who was in the city for the summer from Washington state. Though Maring went back up north for a bit, she says she quickly returned and the trio "got really serious" — serious enough to tour the U.S. the following summer after cranking out a wonderful demo CD-R/ cassette that makes up most of their upcoming self-titled 12-inch on the local Make a Mess label.

Sonic Reducer Overage: Vivian Girls, Ghost, Spinal Tap, How to Destroy the Universe, and more

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Take the wheel: Vivian Girls’ “Tell the World.”

How to destroy a weekend – or, for that matter, a weeknight? Sticky, sweaty, and sill up for fun – SF knows how it’s done. Telling ya, there’s so much more to see and hear than we could fit into print.

Dry Spells
Folk rock gets another angelic kick upstairs when the Bay Area band gets onstage. With Pillow Queens and Vultures. Wed/22, 9 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923.

The Pets
The Oaktown garage-rock threesome preps for its European journey. With International Espionage and Master Volume. Wed/22, 9 p.m., $5. Kimo’s, 1351 Polk, SF. (415) 885-4535.

Snap Sounds: Telepathe

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By Brandon Bussolini

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Telepathe
Dance Mother
(IAMSOUND)

This debut album by a pair of self-styled producers finds Telepathe at a turning point some bands only reach several albums into a career: ditching trad-rock instruments for synths and sequencers, and turning an eager ear to mainstream pop for cues. A recent profile of the Brooklyn duo of Melissa Livaudis and Busy Gangnes (formerly of First Nation and Wikkid, respectively) portrays the band coming into their own by teaching themselves Logic, a software production program. Dance Mother fleshes out the bedroom MIDI sketches with typically precise production from TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek. It also plays up the retro-tinged futurism: indie rock’s an insular enough realm for a Mannie Fresh influence to be novel.

Dance Mother’s opening salvo of “So Fine” and “Chrome’s On It” crutches on indie’s high tolerance for mumbled lyrics. The melodies are potent stuff, though, and the songs’ productions, which might not have taken more than an hour to throw together, stand in contrast to the vogue for wet, overworked psych in the band’s home borough. There’s some unevenness to those two compositions, which are the album’s most accessible — it’s hard to decide if we should be frustrated or charmed by the way “Chrome’s On It” smooshes lovely, indistinct verses into a daffy breakdown. (Livaudis sings, with a kind of suburban carriage, “I can feel the real bang bang, I can do the real thing thing.”)

Telepathe, “So Fine”

By track three, Telepathe’s trying out both the Velvet Underground’s “Murder Mystery” sing-speak and the heavy romantic deconstruction of the Kim Gordon-led Sonic Youth Evol track “Shadow of a Doubt.” By track six, Livaudis and Gangnes are making a serious bid to be your new favorite band with the heart-tugging swoon “Can’t Stand It,” which marries the chiming samples of Seefeel and waifish contemporary doo-wop. It’s so measured that you take your emotional cues from the repeating floor tom-and-cymbal motif. This is one to put on the shelf next to Merriweather Post Pavilion for achievements without guitars.

More vids after the jump:

Freakin’ with Dan Deacon

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By Michelle Broder Van Dyke

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I first saw Dan Deacon perform at Oberlin College’s venue the ’Sco, a den of nascent creativity that eventually brought me to a city sometimes referred to by the same three-letter abbreviation. Deacon was there, balding and bearded, his glasses taped to his head, his muffin-top iced by a bright pink T. He set up his mad scientist’s table of electronics in the audience’s usual domain. Different colored cords sprang out in every direction and there were multiple mics for his one-man show. Lit by a neon green skull, Deacon began stretching, then implored the audience to stretch. They did.

Not only did we all stretch with Deacon, we danced with Deacon. For a generation that has been taught that to move is to be judged — or whatever excuse keeps scenesters so static — such an act is similar to the miracle of the Virgin Mary getting pregos. Deacon’s inhibition-less philosophy was infectious: not only were the undergrads dancing, they were willing to participate in a high-five conga line and compete in a dance-off.

Dan Deacon, “Crystal Cat”

Although the complexities of Deacon’s music become clearer when heard on an iPod, the experience verges on seizure-inducing. Live, the same music becomes hypnotic. Like his earlier work, Deacon’s newest album Bromst (Carpark) is as much a singular composition as a collection of tracks, which should make it exhilarating to encounter. In concert, he has arranged for it to be played by a 15-piece ensemble. Now that he’s decidedly bigger — in band, popularity, and girth — it’s hard to predict how the intimacy and audience participation aspects of his performance will be affected. But it is sure to be a blast. And a bromst. (Deacon said he made up the word for his album title because it doesn’t have a meaning and he likes the way it sounds.)

DAN DEACON With Future Islands and Teeth Mountain. Thurs/23, 9 p.m., $13. Great American Music Hall. 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750, www.gamh.com

Snap Sounds: Two San Franciscos

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By Marke B.

Two recent releases, both based on the Bay by Bay favorites. The first, “Young San Francisco” by SF’s Boy in Static, aka Alexander Chen and Kenji Ross, from their new album, Candy Cigarette (Fake Four Inc & Circle Into Square) is way too cute — check out their new “East Bay to Back Bay” XLR8R podcast mix for a great listen to some more new, slightly twee West Coast indie pop (loving “To the Sea” by Portland’s Mint Julep).

Boy in Static, “Young San Francisco”

The second recent track focusing on the Bay is by SF hip-hop stalwart Kero One, “Welcome to the Bay,” off his sophomore disc, Early Believers (Plug Label). I really wanted to like this one more — I’ve been a fan for a while, and Kero’s def got the chops, working with everyone from Talib Kweli to Mark Farina — but it seemed a tad too polished for me, despite the nice groove. Still, it’s a breezy listen for a steamy day. From what I’ve heard of Early Believers it’ll be a perfect summer BBQ collection.

Kero One, “Welcome to the Bay”

Something both of these songs have in common is a young Asian American perspective on the homebase. Kero’s is especially poignant, talking about why his parents came here at a time when “words like ‘chink’ were teachable.” Really feeling the latitude of historical perceptions coming forth in two distinct tunes.

View the previous Snap Sounds here.

Nite Trax: Pangaea

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By Marke B.

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Pangaea, younger than the Pleistocene

I’ve already freaked out to the atmospheric dubstep track “Maybes” by Mount Kimbie, and now comes along this just as lovely underground hit by London’s Pangaea, “Memories” — as remixed by Aaron Jerome, via Shook:

Sampling Gladys Knight, of course, is one of the easier ways for an earworm to burrow into my frozen heart.

Alas, though it’s on every respecting dubstep DJs playlist, “Memories” probably won’t be released singularly — groove to it, and his too brief mix for Mary Anne Hobbs’ Experimental Showcase at his MySpace.

I think that along with “Tea Leaf Dancers” by Flying Lotus — was anyone else at his amazing show at Mighty last weekend? I told you FlyLo was the smilingest DJ ever — well, we’ve got the beginnings of a lovely ambient dubstep mixtape on our hands ….

Super Ego: Fun with electro-kuduro

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By Marke B.

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Burakin’

That unflappably chipper “progressive kuduro” Portuguese foursome, Buraka Som Sistema — who I write about in my latest Super Ego clubs column — may have been joking when they said they based their truly wonderful smash “Kalemba (Wegue-Wegue)” track on a misheard lyric from an old house mix of More Kante’s late 1987 classic “Yeke Yeke.” Just for fun, here’s “Kalemba,” then the Afro Acid mix of “Yeke Yeke” (whose stock has risen enormously since techno god Richie Hawtin has claimed it as a signature tune to close out his sets), and afterwards some genuine Angolan kuduro from rapper Puto Lilas.

You can see in the Puto Lilas that the original kuduro form recounts sprawling tales of street life, something Buraka truncates to focus on a more danceable takeaway. (Incidentally, Buraka’s name comes from a misspelling of Buraca — a suburb, or frequesia, of Lisbon. And “som sistema” is also a mishearing, a bastardization, this time of “soundsystem.” Buraka’s global-minded dance floor antics really are subtexted by a kind of “map of mishearing.”)

PS: If you dig the Afro Acid, the man behind it, basically the originator of acid house, DJ Pierre, will be at Vessel on Thu/23 with his Acid Afro project, 22 years after the “Yeke Yeke” mix came out, yikey yikes!

Anyway, here we go:

Buraka Som Sistema, “Kalemba (Wegue-Wegue)”

Sonic Reducer Overage: Silversun Pickups, Bloc Party, Atmosphere, Kylesa, free shows, and so much more

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Manic panic: Silversun Pickups’ “Panic Switch.”

Lucky you, you aren’t broiling in the desert at Coachella – you’re keeping your cool in SF, and boy, you’ve got a lot to keep your bad self outta trouble. So partake in the Coachella spillover – and then some…

Intelligence
“Icky Baby” is in the eye of the beholder – and the mind of the Intelligence, those hard-driving, gristly lo-fi smarty-pants. With Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall. Fri/17, 9 p.m., $8. Annie’s Social Club, 917 Folsom, SF. (415) 974-1585.

Loop!Station
Loops, vocals, and cello are Robin Coomer’s and Sam Bass’ tools, arriving now with a new CD.
Fri/17, 8 and 10 p.m., $10. Yoshi’s, 1330 Fillmore, SF. (415) 655-5600.

Mini-Japanther: a quick, claws-out Q&A with Ian Vanek

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Kristy Geschwandtner caught up with the pun-happy, former-Brooklyn, art-punk duo Japanther‘s Ian Vanek after their show at the Hemlock on 4/13.

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SFBG: When will Japanther perform “Dump That Body in Rikki Lake” in San Francisco?
Ian Vanek: We are keen to do JAPANTHER performance pieces the world over. DTBIRL was a giant puppet rock opera we did on 06, if you didn’t know. The puppets are in art storage so anything is possible. Know any investors?

SFBG: Did Japanther really relocate to Southern California?
Vanek: Yes, we spent the winter in sunny LA and the greater west coast. Now that the spring is here it’s back to work! Basically we went homeless to tour in 09. Paying rent in a recession is so 1990s.

SFBG: Where is your favorite place to play?
Vanek: SF is up there for sure (and the whole Bay). We also love Australia, Montreal, Toronto, Juarez and of course our hometown, BROOKLYN.

SFBG: Did you ever make it to Russia to play?
Vanek: Not yet but we got as far as the official invites… We will make there in the next year for sure!

Snap Sounds: Dawn of the Dead

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By Johnny Ray Huston

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Various artists
Unreleased Soundtrack Music from George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead
(Trunk, 2009)

I’ll put forth a declaration. Two of the biggest influences on neo-prog, contemporary post-rock, and 21st century cosmic disco — in other words, a lot of vital music today — are a pair of film directors: John Carpenter and Dario Argento.

Carpenter’s influence is as a musician. His thrifty yet supreme scores for Halloween (1978), Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), and others have been a major inspiration for a group such as Pittsburgh’s duo Zombi, whose new album Spirit Animal again is packed with ’70s horror keyboard sounds.

Trailer for Zombi: Dawn of the Dead (feel free to add to the comments!)

Argento’s influence is as a musical curator. And the Zombi reference extends to him, since the word zombi kicks off the full title of his Italian re-cut of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, a version that has its own auteur charms. Major among those charms is Argento’s monumental crate-digging. According to Jonny Trunk, he “added over sixty tracks to the score utilizing not only [Music] De Wolfe’s extensive library but also its subsidiary labels Rouge and Hudson.” In the process, long before reissue and archival mania, he brings viewers and listeners loony waltz music (“The Gonk”), dissonant orchestration (“Cosmogony Part 1”; “Sinistre”), dorkily polite cock-of-the-walk rock (“Cause I’m a Man,” by Peter Reno), scary transmissions from the outer space of early electronics (“Figment’s Park”), marching band mayhem (“Ragtime Razzamatazz”), Bernard Hermmann string tension (“Barrage”), and plaintive Lucio Battisti-like Italian prog instrumental interludes. Dude. No Goblin, though.

Snap Sounds: Don Cherry with Latif Khan

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By Johnny Ray Huston

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Don Cherry with Latif Khan

Don Cherry/Latif Khan

(Heavenly Sweetness, 2009)

Who cares about cherries in the snow — Cherry is in the air. I’m talking Don Cherry, whose spirit is casting new spells via mysterious vinyl reissues, renewed interest in Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1973 Holy Mountain — check Matt Borruso’s new art show at [2nd floor projects] — and this proto-world music collabo, a reissue from 1982 taken from a one-day recording session in 1978, with tablas great Khan.

Don Cherry in Bombay

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