› Kimberly@sfbg.com
SONIC REDUCER Bay Area, puh-leeze: can you get up, pull your shirt back over your treasured chest, trot your bad ‘elf over to the bar, and fetch me another New Year’s Eve teeny pomegranatini? I like them wet and wild and deliciously unsettling, like an extrabratty, ultraseasonal, El Nino–style holiday storm, or like the $1.99 drugstore silver glitter paint I dab on Bay-bee’s claws. And while you’re on your hind legs, kick those ugly Xmas sweaters to the curb along with those faded concert memories of souped-up Daft Punk, daffy Hannah Montana, and residencies by everyone from the Smashing Pumpkins to Morrissey. That heat rash from Coachella has healed nicely, so prepare to hoof with me over those white-watery storm drains toward this year’s choice musical New Year’s Eve entertainments. Yes, Mr. Area, you have to keep your pants on — though you’re allowed to doff the hoodie for the hangover-slung, hard-nippled, underwear-only touch-football game in honor of the first day of ’08. In the meantime, read it and reap.
ROCK OUT TILL A COCK’S OUT
Blowing up your punkoid politico consciousness for more years — and fixed gears — than we can count, This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb explode with post–Buy Nothing Day charm alongside zany Sacto melodikins Bananas at the Hemlock Tavern (www.hemlocktavern.com). Fruit rules! Shades of Josie Cotton: singer-songwriter starlet Katy Perry debuts her "Ur So Gay" laters to an ex in San Francisco at Live 105’s bash at Mezzanine (www.mezzaninesf.com), with Capitol Records kin Blaqk Audio, ever-popular popsters Moving Units, and a Junior Boys DJ set. The mind-blowing antics continue — lovin’ you big time and a long time — as the Mars Volta bust out the electrified and acoustic jams during a seven-hour splashdown at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium (www.livenation.com). Betcha those guys never, never sleep alone. The Eternals, DJ sets by Peanut Butter Wolf and Nobody, and an old-school light show are a few of the big eve’s diversions. Also kicking out the post-punk heavy rawk weather is Alternative Tentacles’ newest Bay band, Triclops!, matching ecstatic earache bouts with the Melvins and wailin’ faves Comets on Fire at Slim’s (www.slims-sf.com). Raising consciousness in bigger rooms for longer than the Internet: Cake take it and bake it at the Warfield (www.livenation.com) alongside the Lovemakers’ dark delights.
BA needs some hair on his pretty pecs, so we’ll ask Old Grandad to put the grizzle in the shizzle and the metal in our muddle at the revived and reopened Bender’s Bar and Grill (www.bendersbar.com). Yet all that hair just won’t do for spunky Scissors for Lefty, who spit-shine and cuten up well-scruffed indie rock at Bottom of the Hill (www.bottomofthehill.com). It’s all about the brothel creepers and rockabilly jeepsters at Big Sandy and His Fly Rite Boys’ showdown at Bimbo’s 365 Club (www.bimbos365club.com) and then the debauched hard rock horseplay at Drunk Horse’s rendezvous at the Stork Club (www.storkcluboakland.com). Got a case of the Jam-a-lamas? Les Claypool’s third annual NYE Hatters Ball Extravaganza can take care of that for you at the Fillmore (www.livenation.com), as can ALO, Animal Liberation Orchestra (www.theindependentsf.com), applying a suave, boogie-based touch. Expect the dudes in untucked striped shirts in force.
Cover me, kid, when Fat Wreck Chords supergroup Me First and the Gimme Gimmes put the punk rock spin on the AM-FM radio dial at Thee Parkside (www.theeparkside.com), whereas Wonderbread 5 yuk it up with oldies at Red Devil Lounge (www.reddevillounge.com). And for the real thing — sorta — old-schooly hardcores with refreshed Germs burns might want to catch the Germs and the Adolescents at the Uptown in Oakland (www.uptownnightclub.com). Still got hair in dire need of a band? Well, if you missed Y&T last NYE at the Avalon in Santa Clara (www.nightclubavalon.com), you can make up for lost time — if not lost locks — with the SF retro metalists and ex–Rainbow howler Graham Bonnet’s Alcatrazz. No escape from the rock, indeedy-do.
SWANKIN’ BEATS
Massive is as massive does: True Skool, Dee Cee’s Soul Shakedown, and Daddy Rollo dreamed up a doozy with "Champions of the Arena 3: Clash of the Titans" downtown at Club Six, though there’s no CGI on dancehall star Shinehead or the Bay’s hip-hop ensemble Crown City Rockers. Expect everything from electro to reggaetón, hip-hop to breaks from DJs like Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist, Apollo, and DJ Sake 1. Uptown, those nice men in Crystal Method make you believe it’s the tweekend once again at Ruby Sky (www.rubyskye.com), lording over — say, what? — Trapezeworld (if the opening night of Kooza was any indicator, this could also be Almost-Slipped-and-Fell-to-the-Death World). School’s out, but Berkeley’s Lyrics Born is in at the Shattuck Down Low (www.shattuckdownlow.com). San Franthizzgo’s electronic new-schoolers Futuristic Prince, Lazer Sword, and Ghosts on Tape gather at Hotel Utah (thehotelutahsaloon.com). Brazilian Girls and Kinky strut sexed-up beats at "Sea of Dreams: Metamorphoseas" at the Concourse Exhibition Center (www.seaofdreamsnye.com). On the bluesier side of the street, expect award-snagging son of a big gun John Lee Hooker Jr. to turn up the temp at Biscuits and Blues (www.biscuitsandblues.com). Creole codgers the Radiators sonically spice BA’s Brut at Cafe du Nord (www.cafedunord), while Topaz cooks up a soul-funk-blues goulash at the Boom Boom Room (www.boomboomblues.com). And throw those jazz hands in the air at the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, ringing it in at Yoshi’s in Oakland, or at local soul songbird Ledisi’s stand with the Count Basie Orchestra at Yoshi’s SF (www.yoshis.com).
So there you have it — don’t Tase me, bro Area — a brief menu of all the flavas of NYE love, with plenty of ear and eye candy for the senses, lots of places to watch the ball drop, and oodles of alleys to toss ye olde cookies in. What more can you want, Bayz? A "decadent breakfast buffet" to go with your $50-plus cover? Just remember, you can stand under my umbrella-ella-ella-eh-eh-eh. Under my umbrella-ella-ella-eh-eh-eh … [Fade from consciousness] *