superego@sfbg.com
SUPER EGO "I was just in the bathroom splashing water on my knob," my excitable amigo Scottish Andy breathlessly dished at a mid-Market bathhouse-disco club last Saturday night. (You have to imagine this entire anecdote related in a hyper Scottish-Californian brogue. Like Highlander on poppers.) "And I heard someone majorly tooting in the stall. Snort. Snoooort. Like that. I thought, ‘someone is really sniffing the fuck out of their baggie in there.’ But then my friend came in and swung open the stall door and no one was in the stall.
"Marke! There’s a ghost doing coke in the bathroom!"
Perhaps that’s a metaphor for what dance floors around the world have sounded like for the past three years? Not just the whole disco-house-electro-wave-whatever revivalism thing, but a kind of ectoplasmic Hoovering of all of dance music’s past into a digital flush of half-heard echoes?
I drifted, boozily, from that club up to Triple Crown to check out Boston’s Soul Clap (www.soulclap.us), for my trick money the most rewarding DJ-production duo on the planet. The pair perfectly embody the now sound — ranging in reference from Motown to French electro, early blues to micro-house (with a special emphasis on late-’80s R&B) they smoothly discombobulate retro-fetishism to the point where you suddenly realize you’re throwing down hardcore to Chris Issak. Or are you? Soul Clap’s mid-tempo, ahistorical edits are cheeky sleight-of-ear. "There’s that wobbly brass blast from that early Heaven 17 12-inch floating over that Boyz II Men bass line," you think. But when you finally track it all down, you realize your self-satisfied trainspotting was slightly off. Soul Clap is making sounds that only sound like those sounds. Simulacrum disco. They have that now, on computers.
BONER FIESTA
Look, there are gonna be a lot of Cinco de Mayo parties — right now the thought of a shit-ton of drunk Americans celebrating Mexico seems, frankly, a relief. But only one party takes a sequin-sombreroed Alf as a mascot. That is electro-rock god Richie Panic’s weekly Wednesday Boner Party, and it will truly squeeze your lime and pop your piñata.
Wednesdays, 10 p.m., free. Beauty Bar, 2299 Mission, SF. www.beautybar.com
AYBEE
DJ Said’s soulful afro-house We & the Music monthly was off-the-chain at its April premiere (get there early) and shows no sign of stopping, this time around bringing in the fantastic Aybee of Deepblak Recordings. If you’re in the mood for dancing with a grin, I can’t recommend this enough.
Fri/7, 9 p.m., $7. 222 Hyde, SF. www.222hyde.com
SHOWNUFF
"I wanted to provide a remedy for music lovers who don’t usually catch live music late at night, a location that suits them, and prices that are easy on the pocket book," says promoter Conrad Schuman of his new Friday live-music happy hour, this week pumping with 11-piece funk explosion Stymie and the Pimp Jones Luv Orchestra, DJ Chris Orr, and Phleck. Don’t argue!
Fri/7, 5 p.m.-9 p.m., free. 111 Minna, SF. www.111minnagallery.com
THE TWELVES
Another intriguing duo, this time focusing on new electro from Brazil. I’m sweetly humming their new poppy-cowbell redo of Two Door Cinema Club’s "Something Good Can Work," which shows their range extends quite a bit beyond the "Rio de Janeiro’s answer to Daft Punk" descriptor they’ve been tagged with.
Fri/7, 10 p.m., $15. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com
CHROME
The boys behind queer punk-rock extravaganzas Trans Am and Sissy Fit have revived their monthly nightlife ode to fixed-gear hotties (or whatever that new thing all the bike kids are into, I forget its name, I walk). DJs Pickle Surprise and Le Perv pump the rock and roll disco faggotry, while live electronic whiz SamuelRoy tunes the tranny.
Sat/8, 10 p.m., $5. Club 93, 93 Ninth St., SF.