WEDNESDAY 10
Vijay Iyer Trio Jazz fans recognize Vijay Iyer as one of the genre’s reigning superstar composer-pianists. Iyer lends a bold and dynamic style to both his original productions and live performances, an approach that stems from teaching himself to play the piano as a child and picking up works by legends like Thelonious Monk by ear. With bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore, Iyer’s trio earned critical acclaim for 2012’s Accelerando, which features clever reinterpretations of tracks by Michael Jackson, disco group Heatwave, and electronic DJ Flying Lotus. When not touring, the UC Berkeley alum writes about jazz theory and teaches jazz piano and composition at the Manhattan School of Music and New York University. (Kevin Lee)
6:30pm, $20 Hotel Rex 562 Sutter
(415) 413-4708
THURSDAY 11
“Ghostbusters: Live On Stage”
Why has a 1984 film about a group of misfits determined to cure New York City of its ectoplasm explosion endured for so many years? As Ray Parker Jr. once sang, “Bustin’ makes me feel good!” The intrepid local thesps of Rhiannastan Productions — picking up the grand San Francisco tradition of turning cult films into stage plays; anyone else fondly remember Evil Dead: Live? — take on Venkman, Spengler, Zuul, Slimer, the Keymaster, and the rest, mounting Ghostbusters: Live On Stage. There will be Proton packs, there will be puppets. Frankly, if you don’t already love Ghostbusters enough to be excited by the very notion of this, you might actually be a ghost. (Cheryl Eddy)
Through April 27
Thu-Sat, 8pm, $20
Dark Room Theater
2263 Mission, SF
FRIDAY 12
“Chaos/Clarity”
A funny thing happened between here and Style Wars, and its name is tech-sponsored street art. The pleasantly grimy David Choe famously got share-rich after decorating Facebook’s original office walls with his smut in 2005, and Marin artist Ian Ross completed a one-year residency at the Social Network’s pristine campus down south. Recently, Ross opened a gallery in SoMa, SF’s techie hub, where he hypes artists who bridge art and web in a similar fashion. Fellow Mariner muralist and sometimes-app designer Zio Ziegler contributed to the striking 250-foot mural that blankets the Ross gallery exterior, and Ziegler’s solo show that opens today features vast works and smaller drawings that pull together the lands of Picasso’s cubism, literary allegory, and color-rich pattern that wouldn’t look amiss in a Kenyan textile bazaar. (Caitlin Donohue)
Opening reception: 7-10pm, free
Ian Ross Gallery
466 Brannan, SF
Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester
Steeped in the seductive and sumptuous sounds that grew out of Germany’s Weimar Republic era, Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester take the songs, styles, and instrumentation of the 1920s and ’30s and bring them into the 21st century. Performing with a clever, coolly detached demeanor, Raabe at times wows the listener with his vocal abilities, and then forces laughter at others with his deadpan riffing between songs. The elegant orchestra plays both traditional German pieces and classics such as “Singin’ In The Rain,” as well as tongue-in-cheek covers of more contemporary pop tunes, all making for a one of a kind show that’s not to be missed. (Sean McCourt)
7:30pm; Sat/13, 7:30 and 10pm, $35–$85
SF Jazz Center
201 Franklin St., SF
SATURDAY 13
“Small in a Big Way”
Mark Warren Jacques’ paintings capture large ideas in tiny spaces of graphically colorful canvases. A detailed picture of a tent under an arcing progression of moons encompasses his relationship with his son, the activities he loves, and, well, the universe. His exhibition at White Walls Gallery, made up mostly of pieces the size of a standard sheet of paper and smaller, explores how humans exist in the middle of a scale of extremes — the many miniscule atoms that comprise the giant world, the parts that comprise a machine, the memories that comprise a life. That may sound like an overwhelming load to take on, but Jacques’ meditative pieces are up to it. (Laura Kerry)
Through May 4
Opening reception: 7pm, free
White Walls
886 Geary, SF
(415) 931-1500
Ewan Pearson
Pearson describes the art of remixing in this manner: “It’s like getting a massive Lego set for Christmas. You’ve got this stuff that somebody else has made and you get to re-create it.” The English-born, Berlin-based DJ and producer has been rejiggering tracks for two decades for the likes of Depeche Mode, Chemical Brothers, and Junior Boys. He’s also produced for Everything But The Girl’s Tracey Thorn, the Rapture, Ladytron, and M83. Pearson pumps synth stabs and grizzled basslines into a number of his mixes and productions, a culmination of his old-school acid house, new-school electro and techno influences. Last year, he co-founded new record label, Machinists, which skirts away from the digital and dips back into analog. (Lee)
As You Like It with Iron Curtis, Conor, P-Play
9pm, $10 (before 10pm, $20 after)
Public Works
161 Erie, SF
(415) 932-0955
Poliça
In Poliça, the electronic pop-rock band with doses of R&B, Autotune manipulates Channy Leaneagh’s voice in every song, live and recorded — a far cry from her folk roots. You can take the girl out of folk but you can’t take the folk out of the girl. In “Lay Your Cards Out,” the refrain that ends, “Girl, get your head right,” begins, “By the waterside, summer wading in sunder,” a simple lyric that could come from just about any folk song The strange juxtaposition, which continues in variations throughout Poliça’s repertoire, makes for intriguing music that is both minimalist and complex, laid-back and upbeat, and overall, as we’ll see at Mezzanine, pretty epic. (Kerry)
With Night Moves
9pm, $22.50
Mezzanine
444 Jessie, SF
(415) 625-8880
SUNDAY 14
2 Chainz
Let’s pretend that this College Park, Georgia rapper’s hit single “I’m Different” is real-for-real his ode to doing the game in an innovative manner. How different is the player formally known as Tity Boi (he changed his handle to be more family-friendly, although you’ll notice he rarely keeps the neck bling to two pieces)? Well, the song goes on to explain, he makes tons of money, will totally fuck your bitch, and drives convertibles. So yeah, not different at all. That being said, the Fox Theater is gonna go collectively ham when “Birthday” comes on (of “all I want for my birthday is a big booty ho” fame) and it’s sure to be a bad bitch contest. Ya may as well be in first place. (Donohue)
8pm, $35
Fox Theater
1807 Telegraph, Oakl.
Beardyman
If you follow competitive beatboxing — who doesn’t? — you will be very familiar with the name Beardyman. London’s Darren Foreman, the man behind the beard, became the first person to win the UK’s beat boxing championships two years in a row in 2007, before being placed on the judging panel in ’08. If you weren’t able to attend, don’t fret: Beardyman has a vast body of bizarre and stunning material recorded for your listening pleasure — just check out his jam-packed YouTube channel. The music is made up almost completely of his own inhuman vocal chords, run through various effects. Foreman has built up an incredible and incredibly unique collection of DJ-effects units called the Beardytron, which he will unveil in all its glory on this six-stop tour. For his live shows, Beardyman builds his show up one sound at a time, using masterful looping to create entire, full-bodied songs one weird noise at a time. (Haley Zaremba)
With DJ Real
8pm, $20
Independent
628 Divisadero, SF
(415) 771-1421
Bat for Lashes
Natasha Khan of Bat for Lashes often feels like a supernatural being; her music has a mystical quality that can’t be of this world. In “Two Planets” from her second album, Two Suns (2009), an echoey voice chants over bass-heavy percussion, “Show me moonlight on the sunrise / I’ve seen so many planets dancing / I’ve seen so many people hiding,” and we can feel a spell being cast. In The Haunted Man from October, though Khan loses some of the reverb and symbolic imagery, she maintains her otherworldliness. As she’ll demonstrate at Regency Ballroom, however, the real force from her stripped down, personal music comes from its intimate expression of her humanity. (Kerry)
With Nite Jewel
8pm, $25
Regency Ballroom
1290 Sutter, SF
(415) 673-5716
TUESDAY 16
Shantala Shivalingapa
In Western cultures, young dancers are often told to study ballet because “with ballet you can to anything.” It didn’t used to be that way, but today you rarely see a professional dancer — in whatever style — where you don’t recognize remnants of the classical language’s rigor and discipline deep inside the body. When Shantala Shivalingappa first performed in SF, we loved her as a superb exponent for Kuchipudi — one of India’s five classical dance forms. Perhaps, it was the Kuchipudi training that gave her the security and freedom to branch out. On her third visit to SF Performances, Shivalingappa brings four solos: Ibuki by Bhuto artist Ushio Amagatsu, Solo by Pina Bausch, Shift, her own choreography, and Smarana by Bharata Natyam dancer Savitry Nair, who also happens to be her mother. (Rita Felciano)
8pm, $25–$50
Herbst Theatre
401 Van Ness, SF
(415) 392-2545
Japandroids and Cloud Nothings
Anyone who was paying attention to the most lauded indie albums of 2012 will know that this lineup is a dream come true. Together these bands have demolished the myth of the sophomore slump, laughing in its face through crashing cymbals and killer riffs. Last summer, Japandroids released their second album Celebration Rock, a bombastic, over-the-top garage rock record that blew the minds of critics and fans alike. Cloud Nothings released their second studio album Attack on Memory, taking a delicious turn for the heavy and dark. Each of these bands could easily headline this show alone and make a lasting impression — Japandroids are especially notorious for their all-out performances and awesome energy. Together, the amount of killer musicianship and sweaty sincerity is nearly inconceivable — and that word means exactly what I think it means. (Zaremba)
9pm, $25
New Parish
579 18th St, Oakland
(510) 444-7474
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