Comics

The World’s Best Artist©: Getting weird with Mitch O’Connell

Andrew Lam
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Can you guess which of the 290 pages of Mitch Connell‘s jampacked new, puffy-covered-like-cheap-tablecloth art anthology he is most proud of? It is not the vaguely seedy Hanna Barbera art, commissions all for Warner Brothers that were never utilized commercially. It’s not the illustrations for porno mags, the public works benches in Chicago, several Newsweek covers, untold numbers of event flyers, or his late-1980s pop art aerial views of reclining women hoisting hot dogs.

It’s the crazy shit he drew after he discovered his wife had been chronically cheating on him. You thought the rest of it was wacky!

But hoist a copy of Mitch O’Connell: The World’s Best Artist — you should, it’s awesome — and there’s no telling where you’ll get lost amid the artist’s decades of work. The book is a (puffy-covered) homage to an insane career of drawing and illustration, accomplished by a man (PS, not this guy) who has managed to raise a family on his skills while steadfastly pushing the bounds of good taste. The Chicago-based artist is coming to the Bay Area tonight (Thu/21, Berkeley) and tomorrow (Fri/22, San Francisco) for book tour dates. If you like insane, and talent, and professionally insane talent, you’ll most likely be there. 

We email-interviewed him, to talk.

SFBG: You did a few series of drawings for Warner Bros., how on earth did that come about? What was your highest hope for that collaboration?

 Mitch O’Connell: After doing this drawing thing forever, it would be hard NOT to accumulate a long list of clients. If I hadn’t, I’d be writing this from my cardboard box estate situated on the sidewalk of Michigan Avenue.

I’ve done little bits and pieces for Warner Brothers over the years, working with art directors who must have just seen my art here and there, but the “Hanna Barbera” series was the most fun and involving. I think I pushed a few of the paintings into PG-13 territory, but they encouraged me to be irreverent. Which might not have been a good thing. Once they got the finished art and started pondering how it might look on a kid’s lunchbox it seems they rethought their initial enthusiasm and put the job on the shelf. Where it’s still collecting dust. But I still like ’em!

Your next lunchbox

SFBG: You’re favorite and/or most disturbing tattoo you’ve done?

MO: ALL the tattoos I actually tattooed into peoples flesh were disturbing. Mostly because the clients kept on squirming, screaming, and bleeding. How the hell am I supposed to get any work done with those type of folks?! Actually, now I’m just sticking with simply designing the tattoos, and leaving the actual permanent engraving to the professional tattooists. It was much too nerve-wracking trying to get the art right the first time. As for my best ones, I’m working on my fourth set off flash [ink newbs: “flash” refers to the 11″x14″ sheets of sample ink that hang in tattoo parlors] now, and I like how it’s turning out the best of all. But I’m biased. Tattoo shops, start clearing some room on the walls!

SFBG: How long did your “covering up the naughty bits” gig for Fox Magazine last?

MO: The Fox mascot will hopefully be on the cover blocking out nipples and vaginas as long as there’s a Fox magazine. I did the painting a dozen years ago, it’s all up to them where/when/how often it appears. The more the merrier!

SFBG: Besides its puffy cover (please explain that feature) what are you most proud about with this book?

MO: The graphic design work of my pal Joseph Allen Black (yes, that would be www.josephallenblack.com). He took my rough placement of where I wanted everything and made it look stunning. Think of me as the guy who delivers the 4000-pound block of marble to Michelangelo. As for the puffy glittery cover, a) I loved the look, and b) wanted my book to stand out from the millions of others. At least I’ll have a better chance of folks actually picking it up out of curiosity. Then, considering what’s inside, the better chance of them putting it back.

I kid! They’ll LOVE it!

SFBG: Advice for aspiring freelance illustrators?

MO: Try to be more creative, distinctive, easy to work with, and talented than anyone else. Sadly, you’ll never be able to be the best, because I’ve already copyrighted it.

SFBG: We must know: What does makes you the World’s Best Artist?

MO: One reason was that no matter who reviews it, they have to use the title [of the book]. That way if the opinion is “Mitch O’Connell the World’s Best Artist sucks!” I can turn that into “‘The world’s best artist!,’ raves the New York Times!”

Also, if you keep on repeating something, at some point folks might start falling for it. Think “weapons of mass destruction,” “trickle down economics,” and “guaranteed to add inches to your penis!”. And I’m STILL waiting for my money back!

Mitch O’Connell: The World’s Best Artist book tour

Thu/21, 7-9pm, free

Pegasus Books

2349 Shattuck, Berk. 

www.pegasusbookstore.com

 

Fri/22, 7-9pm, free

Mission Comics and Art

3520 20th St., SF

www.missioncomicsandart.com

Our Weekly Picks: February 13-19, 2013

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 13

Dirty Looks Road Show

How Do I Look? asks a seminal weighty tome addressing queer film and video theory from 1991. “Dirty!” I always wanted to shout back to my dusty bookshelf when it caught my eye. Well, hey — 22 years later along comes NYC’s Dirty Looks collective, which showcases queer experimental film and video with startling freshness. The edgy gems on offer in its two-night visit to SF may have slipped through your Youtube crack. Thu/14’s “Yesterday Once More” at SFMOMA, www.sfmoma.org, gives you contemporary coolness from Matt Wolf, Zachary Drucker, Mariah Garnett, and Chris E. Vargas. Then check out Fri/15’s “Pickle Surprise! The Eyes of Tom Rubnitz” at Artists Television Access, www.atasite.org, which has me jumping for joy — this ’80s underground clubkid, filmmaker, and musician caught the spirit of one of our civilizations most vividly glorious times before he died of AIDS. Legendary drag queens and trashy foodstuffs galore! (Marke B.)

“Yesterday Once More”: Thu/14, 7-9pm, $10

Phyllis Watts Theater, SF MOMA

151 Third St., SF

“Pickle Surprise”: Fri/15, 8pm, $6

992 Valencia, SF

www.dirtylooksnyc.org

 

Comedy! Comedy!

As the name subtlety implies, this event will showcase humor. Hosted by the sardonic upstart comic Cameron Vannini, this event, billed as a standup show for comics and by comics, will be the first ever comedic event at the nascent Chapel, signaling more standup shows in its future. Going up to bat tonight will be an all-local slate featuring Kevin O’Shea, Clare O’Kane, Jules Posner, Sean Keane, Brendan Lynch, and Kevin Camia. O’Shea, O’Kane, Posner, Keane, and Vannini will all be coming fresh off recent gigs at Sketchfest. The blunt and jabbing Camia, whose record Kindness was voted among the top 10 best comedy albums on iTunes in 2010, is a stalwart of the local scene and recently has been rumored to be making “the move” down to LA. A night like this should be the perfect respite for those still pining for Sketchfest. (George McIntire)

9pm, $15

Chapel

777 Valencia, SF

(415) 551-5157

www.thechapelsf.com

 

Stone Foxes

Remember rock’n’roll? You know, that dynamic and gritty music before the age of synthesizers? The Stone Foxes show at the New Parish might jog your memory. Launching into experimentation from strong roots in blues, the band plays a range from the catchy interpretation of Edgar Allen Poe’s gothic, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” (“Everybody Knows”) to the elegy in minor, “Battles, Blades and Bones,” which repeats, “We need someone to sing/’Cause we’ve turned everything/To battles, blades, and bones.” In their third album, Little Fires (which came out Feb. 12), collaboration with Girls’ producer Doug Boehm proves that polish doesn’t mean sterility, that good production doesn’t mean overproduction, and that good old rock’n’roll lives on. (Laura Kerry)

With Mahgeetah, Black Cobra Vipers

9pm, free

New Parish

579 18th St., Oakl.

(510) 444-7474

www.thenewparish.com


THURSDAY 14

“The Algorithm of Love”

Sam Yagan might be as qualified as anyone to decipher the formula for love. Yagan and his three Harvard classmates founded the online dating site OKCupid as a spin off from the Spark Notes study guides they created at the turn of the millennium. Since then, Internet matchmaking has become a booming business, and Yagan and Co. capitalized in 2011 by selling OKCupid to rival Match.com. Yagan, now Match.com’s CEO, uses data from 8 million users to quantify the unquantifiable, to dissect what exactly goes into fuzzy feelings and unexplainable attractions. Bay Area matchmaker Joy Nordenstrom and SFGate blogger Beth Spotswood will be on hand to help translate the love equation. (Kevin Lee)

6:30pm, $7–$20

Commonwealth Club

595 Market, SF

www.commonwealthclub.org

 

The Wooster Group/New York City Players: Early Plays

However it pans out as a performance, this has to be one of the theatrical events of the year: A rare Bay Area appearance by the famed Wooster Group in collaboration with another NY-based contemporary experimental theater company of renown, Richard Maxwell’s New York City Players. Maxwell directs members of both companies in a trio of “Early Plays” by Eugene O’Neill —three one-acts also known as the Glencairn plays, after the ship on which work the men of Moon of the Caribbees, Bound East for Cardiff, and The Long Voyage Home. Each unfolds in the director’s emblematic affectless style, which seeks out the unfamiliar beneath layers of received theatricality and, in the case of these young yet also experimental plays, lingering melodrama. (Robert Avila)

Through Sat/16, 8pm, $20–$30 ($10 Thu/14)

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

750 Folsom, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

Feed Me with Teeth

Britain’s Jon Gooch has many alter egos. He’s a producer and a DJ, he’s Spor and he’s Feed Me. No matter what the role or the moniker, however, Gooch remains constant and consistent in his creation of unrelentingly catchy electro and yes, dubstep. Teeth, Gooch’s newest creation, is the element that pushes Feed Me’s act over the line from just another EDM act and into the realm of a truly spectacular performance that’s going to keep you talking about it for quite a while. The Teeth are comprised of 20 jagged LED screens that create a huge, crooked grin that flashes and pulses in sync with Feed Me’s expert mixing. Dancing shoes required, party provided. (Haley Zaremba)

With Mord Fustang

9pm, $38

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

www.theregencyballroom.com

 

Body Cartography: Symptom

Last time Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad’s Body Cartography Project performed locally downtown, it was difficult to tell the dancers apart from the mingling pedestrians. Shortly after that the company left its home turf of SF for greener pastures, Minneapolis, as it turned out. From there Body Cartography has taken its expanded investigations of physicality — both geographically and the mediums within which it works — around the globe. For its return engagement as part of CounterPULSE’s Queer Series (running through March), Body Cartography is bringing a relatively small group, Ramstad with sibling Emmett. One is a dancer, the other a visual artist. They look very much alike; they are even dressed alike. They have called what they do Symptom, a work they say is “sculpture, drawing, movement and text.” (Rita Felciano)

8pm, $20-30

Also Feb. 15-17

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

(877) 297-6805

www.counterpulse.org


FRIDAY 15

“Engulfing the Elusory”

Here are some of the themes that the sculptures of Rachel Mica Weiss undertake: human vulnerability, large-scale disasters, self-inflicted limitations. Does an image come to mind? I’m guessing that it does not resemble Weiss’s black net installations. But when you see the twisted rope, the rough stones, and the tarnished wood that comprise Weiss’s previous work, idea and object click. The artist condenses so much conceptual work into physical pieces of inexplicable poignancy. Let’s throw a few more themes in: boundaries, environmental change, cultural constructs. All of it will be on view in the windows of the Arts Commission Gallery. (Kerry)

Through April 27

6pm, free

SF Arts Commission Gallery

401 Van Ness, SF

(415) 554-6080

sfartscommission.org/gallery

 

 

Every Time I Die

The metal life isn’t for everyone. Constant touring, an over-crowded industry, and headbang whiplash causes many bands to give up their brutal dream early into their career. Buffalo, NY’s Every Time I Die isn’t one of those bands. ETID has been churning out its distinctive Southern-tinged hardcore since 1998. Six studio albums, a billion bassists, and a tour with Steve-O later, the Buckley brothers are still going strong. Incredibly, their high-energy live show has shown no signs of fatigue in well over a decade, and their reputation for intensity continues to be well-earned. Come for the snarky lyrics and clever songwriting, stay for the circle pit. (Zaremba)

With the Acacia Strain, Vanna, Hundreth, No Bragging Rights

8pm, $17

Oakland Metro Operahouse

630 Third St, Oakl.

(510) 763-1146

www.oaklandmetro.org


“Hip-Hop Beyond Gender”

My first compact disc was Salt ‘N Pepa’s masterful ode to minding one’s business, safe sex, and superlative/godawful male companions, 1993’s Very Necessary. Imagine my confusion, then, upon my discovery that the rest of the hip-hop world was hardly as empowering for females as that power-sass had led me to believe. But hip-hop has always been a site of subversion, where societal rules are flipped, and so it makes perfect since that some day, its lovers would take back the form from the silly misogynists on the Billboard charts. So, yay: tonight, nu-world griots Aya De Leon, Raquel Gutierrez, Chinaka Hodge, Carrie Leilam Love, Dawn Robinson, and Kity Yan examine hip-hop’s queer-feminist revolutionary potential through spoken word. It’s the first of five La Peña events in 2013 focused on breaking down hip-hop’s gender barriers. (Caitlin Donohue)

8pm, $15–$18

La Peña Cultural Center

3105 Shattuck, Berk.

www.lapena.org

 

Ott and the All-Seeing I

If you’re into dub, electronic, Middle Eastern, and psychedelic sounds, you must meet Ott. Ott — a veteran electronic British musician-producer who has worked with big names like Sinéad O’Connor, Brian Eno, and Simon Posford (Shpongle) — makes rich, ambient, trancey electronic dub jams under the moniker Ott and the All-Seeing I. “Owl Stretching Time,” one of the band’s signature tracks, could just as easily be the anthem to a Jamaican surf trip as the soundtrack to a night out in Berlin. Ott handles electronics alongside Naked Nick (guitars, synths, percussion), bassist Chris Barker, and drummer Matt White. (Mia Sullivan)

With KiloWatts, Desert Dwellers, Outersect

10pm, $15

1015 Folsom, SF

(415) 264-1015

www.1015folsom.com


MONDAY 18

Buke and Gase

Before we begin, let’s establish a few definitions. Buke: an altered six-string baritone banjo. Gase: a blend of a guitar and bass. Surely, a band that carries its own invented glossary approaches music differently. Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez, the duo that with its homemade instruments manages to sound more like an offbeat orchestra, alters language, genre, and the overall assumptions of the listener. The driving cacophony in the recently released General Dome shouldn’t make sense. Somehow, though, with Dyer’s expressive singing, the building repetition of sounds, and the band’s confidence in its own inventiveness, it all comes together. See Dyer and Sanchez create their own rules at Café Du Nord. (Kerry)

With Aleuchatistas, Yassou Benedict

9pm, $10

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016 

www.cafedunord.com

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Win tickets to the Cynic Cave Presents: Ron Lynch

Maria Poblet
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The Cinecave space continues to have film programming but is excited to grow its reputation as a hotspot for live comedy in the Mission, participating as a venue in both the nascent San Francisco Comedy and Burrito Festival and the long established SF Sketchfest – and proudly bringing the cult legend comedian Ron Lynch to the Cave in his first San Francisco performance in more than five years!

Ron Lynch was part of the Boston comedy scene back in the ’80s that spawned such comics as Steven Wright, Paula Poundstone, Bobcat Goldthwait, and Marc Maron. He’s been making a living at it ever since in New York, San Francisco, and now Los Angeles where he keeps his hat.  Lynch is widely revered among comedians for his experimental approach. Rarely is there a structured joke or a contemporary observation in his act. Some of the characters in his repertoire include a silent magician who does no actual tricks, a demented hypnotist who is just twirling produce bags on the end of old antennae, and an animatronic comic.

Find out more here. To win a pair of tickets, email your full name to sfbgpromos@sfbg.com with “Ron Lynch” in the subject by Fri/8. Winners will receive confirmation via email while supplies last.

Sunday February 17 at 7pm and 9pm @ Lost Weekend Video, 1034 Valencia, SF | $12

 

 

 

Out of the Batcloset

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Out of the Batcloset

marke@sfbg.com

VISUAL ARTS “When I first saw the 1970s comics version of Batman by Neal Adams, I got a bit weak-kneed — though I was too young to know what that meant at the time,” comics artist Justin Hall (“No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics,” “Glamazonia”) told me over a beer at his Mission apartment. “Here was a more realist Batman, with muscles and chest hair … and he had gotten rid of Robin at that point, which left room for me!”

Venturing into a comic nerds’ den — especially one containing Hall and Rick Worley (“A Waste of Time”), two of SF’s comicus nerdii ne plus ultras — can make for a heady experience, involving intricately detailed discussions on topics as varied as copyright infringement, Tijuana Bibles, Bob Dylan vs. Roy Lichtenstein, Alfred Hitchcock’s lesbian subtexts, the evolution of the muscle daddy in popular culture, and recent scandals like that of Vertigo Comics executive editor Karen Berber’s rather abrupt departure from the DC Comics fold.

In short, in this case, a delectable mental Bat Cave full of Gotham arcana pertaining to the hoariest slash-fic topic this side of Kirk/Spock, the enduring homo subtext of the Dynamic Duo. With “Batman on Robin,” a group art show at Mission: Comics and Art opening Fri/8, Hall and Worley are displaying the works of dozens of comics artists willingly tackling the theme — and finding that beyond the Boom! Pow! Splat! of the men-in-tights 1960s camp TV classic or the suggestively archetypal narrative of brooding, rich, handsome Bruce taking in and mentoring (and, in the ’40s, even sharing a bed with) young orphaned circus hustler Dick, there are innumerable points of entry and intrepretation for queer fans.

Of course, that candy-colored, vaguely existentialist TV show does have a lot to answer for, along with its direct descendants. “I’m pretty sure I first encountered Batman when the Tim Burton movie came out in 1989,” Worley told me. “I saw a table display at a B. Dalton in a mall, and I was intrigued because it was the first time I had ever seen comic books displayed like that in a bookstore. The comics there were Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum and Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, and my mom wouldn’t let me look at them because she said they were too dark. I would have been about seven, and in the case of those comics she was probably right. So obviously, that just made Batman all the more intriguing to me.

“The first time I actually saw something with Batman in it, though, was probably afternoon reruns of the Adam West show, and I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it because I really wanted to bang Burt Ward as Robin. The Robin costume has always been hot to me since then.”

But once Worley and Hall put out the call to other artists for their graphic interpretations of Batman-Boy Wonder relations, they were inundated by all sorts of personal takes.

“The pieces we have in our show are amazing,” Worley said. “We have paintings, like a Gustav Klimt homage by Andrew Guiyangco. We have more indie style comics. We have some more Yaoi looking-ones, a cute chibi one, one by Brad Rader in a very classic ’40s Batman illustration style, only with Robin butt-naked. We have a story of a lesbian encounter between Batwoman and Catwoman by Tana Ford, which she did with sort of JH Williams-style layouts. Justin’s doing a Batman Kama Sutra. There’s so much stuff.”

The broader history of interpretations of the Dynamic Duo’s sexuality is full of twists and turns. “I think what has changed most over time is the awareness of gay identity,” Worley said. “If you were gay in the ’40s, there was almost nothing gay available for you to see. It was exciting when you found things [in comics]. I think what’s happened in the meantime is a kind of convergence. As people don’t have to be closeted, figuring out if somebody is or isn’t gay isn’t as much a part of gay life. Now in comics, there are superheroes who are gay, you don’t have to find signs and create your own interpretations of ones who may or may not be. And if you’re a gay writer trying to include that subject matter in a comic you’re writing, you don’t have to encode it, either. But because mainstream superhero comics are dealing with characters who were created decades ago and who have been worked on by hundreds of artists, those characters have now accumulated the baggage of all those interpretations and it’s part of what is always present when they’re being used.”

Hall adds: “In his 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent, Fredrick Wertham pointed their relationship out as particularly unwholesome, and so I think it’s fair to say that ever since Robin burst onto the scene in his little green Speedo and elfin shoes, there have been suspicions about the goings on in the Bat Cave. The Batman-Robin fantasy has changed some over time, as queer relationships have become more normalized and mainstream. But many readers still have a perverse joy in finding unintended homo subtext in work like the Batman comics.”

“BATMAN ON ROBIN”

Opening reception Fri/8, 7pm, free.

Show run through March 3.

Mission: Comics and Art

3520 20th St., Suite B

www.tinyurl.com/batmanonrobin

 

Libertine dream

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Libertine dream

marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO One of my supreme happy places, apparently, turned out to be the packed dancefloor of an underground fundraiser for Radical Faerie Burning Man camp Comfort and Joy, right around 3am a couple Fridays ago, when the drag queen DJ dropped “Rock the Casbah” and some behooded elfin rogue’s giant LED rainbow wings lit up and blinded me. Joe Strummer smiles from heaven, surely.

Alas, that drag queen, mi amiga grande Ambrosia Salad, will soon join the current nightlife exodus to Los Angeles, to follow her twinkling star (and cheaper rent) along the path to immortality — or at least an all-night churro cart. Can we get one here please thanks. But just when I despair of the city emptying of its precious idiosyncracies and after-dark characters, someone amazing pops up to charm the hotpants off of me and remind me of both San Francisco’s resilient weirdness and its cyclical subcultural nature.

“Oh, I moved out of the Castro when the drones moved in. Everyone started wanting to look the same, dress the same. It really took the fun out of the gay scene, these marching costumes coming in and stamping out the magic.” That’s twinkle-toned Todd Trexler, poster artist, AIDS nurse, and legendary bon vivant, speaking over the phone — not about about the samey-samey Wienerville the Castro has become, but the Castro clones of the mid-1970s. For all the renewed interest in the workboots, cut-offs, and mustaches of pre-AIDS SF gay culture (see local director Travis Mathews’ exciting, upcoming, James Franco-starring Interior. Leather Bar, which imagines the lost orgy footage from classic homoerotic/gay panic slasher flick Cruising and wowed ’em at Sundance last week), it’s good to remember there were also some fabulous butterfly dissenters to that macho wannabe world.

Trexler was a player in one of the seminal moments of alternative gay culture — after snagging an art degree from SF State, he designed the posters for the queer-raucous, acid-kaleidoscopic performance troupe The Cockettes’ first official shows, as well as the Midnight Movie series, later the Nocturnal Dream Shows at the Palace Theater in North Beach in the early ’70s, back when North Beach was a magnet for free-lovin’ freaks and nightlife oddities. (See, anything can happen). Now, he’s reprinted many of those iconic and visually stunning “Art Deco revival meets Aubrey Beardsley louche meets underground comics perversion” ink-and-photo masterpieces for surprisingly affordable purchase at www.toddtrexlerposters.com.

Divine in her iconic, kooky crinoline (“Basically she just threw on a bunch of stuff from the trunk of our car and voila, Divine!”) outside the Palace of Fine Arts for the “Vice Palace” play and, later, starring in Multiple Maniacs and “The Heartbreak of Psoriasis”; Sylvester looking his sultry best for a New Year’s Eve concert, and featured on a controversially explicit piece for decidedly hetero rock outfit the Finchley Boys; Tower of Power, Zazie dans le Metro, Mink Stole as Nancy Drew, the Waterfront gay bar — Trexler’s platinum stash of memorabilia will reinvigorate anyone zoinked out by our increasingly conformist, consumerist moment. (Trexler was prodded into reprinting by my favorite classic SF eccentric, Strange de Jim.)

And hey, there’s some hope for a freakish future, even: lauded local theater troupe Thrillpeddlers, which includes a couple gorgeous surviving Cockettes itself, will put on the Cockettes’ 1971, Trexler-postered “Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma” starting March 28, www.thrillpeddlers.com.

Trexler’s importance to gay culture doesn’t end with his glamourous posterization, however. After his ’70s time “crafting assemblage sculptures from gems found at Cliff’s Variety Store, hand-drawing the posters in the flat at 584B Castro Street, smoking weed with Sebastian [Bill Graham’s accountant, who instigated the whole Nocturnal Dream Emissions insanity], and hanging out at the Palace and the Upper Market Street Gallery,” he moved down to Monterey and became a registered nurse, cared for the first GRID, aka AIDS, patient in the area, and pitched in on the groundbreaking early work on the epidemic with UCSF and the National Institutes of Health.

“What troubles me most now,” he says, reflecting on his experience, “is the rising prevalence of HIV infections among young gay men.” Some cycles don’t need repeating, k?

 

BROWN SUGAR

Heck yes — the classic hip-hop soul joint is back, scooping you up for free after the Oakland Art Murmur’s First Fridays blast, which is amazing. Brown Sugar crew Jam the Man, The C.M.E, and Sake 1 spin with the Local 1200 crew on the street and then take it inside to the spanking new Shadow Lounge (formerly Maxwell’s). Welcome back, fellas.

Fri/1 and first Fridays, 9:30pm, free. Shadow Lounge, 341 13th St., Oakl.

 

MATTHEW DEAR

Moody-poppy Detroit techno pretty boy is a favorite around these parts. He may have started the recent (sometimes regrettable) trend of DJs singing, but he’s one of the best at it — and his compositions aren’t afraid to get deep and edgy.

Fri/1, 9pm, free. 1015 Folsom, SF. www.1015.com

 

VINTAGE

Icon Ultra Lounge is dead — please welcome new, neater venue F8 in its place. Also, after a horrific hit-and-run accident last year, beloved and crazy DJ Toph One is alive! He’s returned with his crew to reboot this eclectic-tuned early evening fave every Friday to fly you into the weekend.

Fridays, 5:30-9:30, free. F8, 1192 Folsom, SF. www.feightsf.com

 

KAFANA BALKAN SIXTH ANNIVERSARY

Holy Balkans, Batman! Six years of wild, whirling, stomping, shouting Romani-inspired music goodness from one of the best and most unique parties anywhere, with DJ Zeljko, the Inspector Gadje brass band, and a Balkan bellydance blowout with the inimitable Jill Parker and the Foxglove Sweethearts. Get there early.

Sat/2, 9pm, $15. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. www.rickshawstop.com

 

GAVIN AND ROBBIE HARDKISS

OK, the headliner for this event is actually the excellent old-school California techno wizard John Tejada (along with fellow mage Pezzner playing live) downstairs in the big room of Public Works — but the big news is a reunion of two of SF’s wiggy, wowza Hardkiss Brothers all night long upstairs in the loft. Bigness!

Sat/2, $12 advance, $15 door. Public Works, 131 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com

All kinds of work and one play

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All kinds of work and one play

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER SF Sketchfest, running this year Jan. 24-Feb. 10, has changed the face of comedy in the Bay Area. It has done this by importing faces, many very funny faces, and mingling them with a complement of local ones. The precise composite changes yearly but, 12 years on, the juggernaut founded by David Owen, Cole Stratton, and Janet Varney has developed one of the largest comedy profiles in the country. My spellcheck may still not recognize improv as a word, but there’s no denying the influence this festival has had on the Bay Area’s exposure to the greater world of comedy.

Fans of drama may wish to know that this year’s comedy feast — which again unfolds across everything from standup to game shows to film-related events — also includes a little theatrical soufflé called SEX a.k.a. Wieners and Boobs, a 1998 work for the stage penned by State cofounders Joe Lo Truglio, Michael Showalter, and David Wain. The play, although hardly what you’d call regional fare, has since been published, and gleefully mounted by amateur companies here and there. But its creators — who famously went on to other things, including films such as Wet Hot American Summer (2001) — are only now revisiting the work themselves.

Lo Truglio explains that the genesis of the play was owed to Maria Striar, founder of New York’s Clubbed Thumb theater company, who in 1998 called up her old Brown University classmate Showalter with a last-minute invitation.

“They were doing a summer series, and one of the plays had dropped out,” recalls Lo Truglio by phone from Los Angeles. “So Maria called Michael Showalter and said, ‘Do you guys have anything you want to do?’ He said yes immediately. The catch was that we didn’t have anything ready. So we had to write the play in about three days.”

They started with the title, according to Lo Truglio, only because Striar needed to place an ad in the paper the next day. Coming out of theatrical left field, he acknowledges that a grabber was in order. “We just came up with that title to get people to come see it,” he explains. Taking no chances, the ad also promised a scene from David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross — a claim the authors later make good on in one of the play’s brasher non-sequiturs.

The plot was borrowed from High Noon and set in a Teaneck, New Jersey menaced by a cranky desperado named Tad Theaterman. That narrative spine supports some wayward elephantine flesh, including a meta-theatrical opening scene involving a Q&A with the audience, and the aforementioned segue into Mamet (pronounced “mam-AY” in the play). Other moments were derived from previously untapped material, as Lo Truglio remembers.

“We had some bits that might have come from, probably not the State, but some stuff that David [Wain] and Showalter did at Stella, when they were doing live shows in Time Cafe on Lafayette in New York City. I also performed there and did some characters. I think a few characters and maybe a couple of the scenes in SEX were born out of that. But the majority was just this new-sheriff-in-town idea. We have a scene from Glengarry Glen Ross, because we just thought would be so cool to perform. [The process] went along those lines: what kind of thing would we like to see in a play? What bit do we have that we haven’t been able to use anywhere else?”

San Francisco audiences will be the first to see what this late 20th-century opus looks like in the garish light of a new millennium, with its creators in the roles they originated 15 years ago.

“I have no idea how it’s going to play after so many years,” admits Lo Truglio. “It’s very vignettey, which is a new word I’m coining. Looking back now, I think we would have cut out a lot of it. But it’s only about 55 pages anyway.”

A glance at the script suggests there’s still gold in them there pages, and anyway it’s hard to imagine the play’s triumvirate disappointing an audience reared on the State and all the subsequent work it has spawned. For his part, Lo Truglio looks forward to returning to a festival he recalls fondly and sees as essential.

“It’s fantastic that Janet Varney and the rest of those guys have created an annual event where really the best people in comedy go to perform,” he enthuses. “I think it’s important. It’s very similar to the way I feel about Marc Maron’s podcast, which I think is a terrific, really important record of some amazingly talented comics and actors. At Sketchfest there are so many people who are interested in comedy, different types of comedy, that it creates a terrific environment for it to thrive.” 

SEX A.K.A. WIENERS AND BOOBS

Feb. 8, 8pm, $30

Marines Memorial Theatre

609 Sutter, SF

www.sfsketchfest.com

 

 

The Performant: Music men

Andrew Lam
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Mark Growden’s solo show and variations on a theme with Hand to Mouth 

There’s something so charmingly unassuming about the Red Poppy Art House — a by-now venerable institution on the Mission District’s quirk-centric music scene — it makes you want to invite it home for a Hangtown Fry and mimosas. From the mismatched chairs to the frayed curtains, the whitewashed walls to the cramped toilet, the Red Poppy’s overall ambiance is that of a sort of ramshackle country parlor, right down to the upright piano.

Though you’d never mistake him for a church lady, Bay Area bard Mark Growden does exude a touch of the rustic — a down-home demeanor rooted in his rural Northern California upbringing. From the moment he opened his set on Friday night at the Red Poppy with a haunting, desert lament played ingeniously on his signature set of bicycle handlebars, it was as if he were unfolding a map of the hidden pockets of America and inviting us on an introspective journey through them.

Assisted ably by trumpeter Chris Grady, who employed a number of mutes throughout the show, probably to keep him from blowing the heads off the front row seated literally at his feet, Growden worked his way through a repertoire of old songs and new which hearkened to the barroom backrooms of the South, the windswept plains of the American West, and the lonesome riverbanks of the Truckee, and the Mississippi.

Though much of Growden’s music is tinged with a fragile darkness, the mood of the evening was light, jovial, the banter flying thick and fast between stage and oddience, and slyly humorous counterpoint provided by Grady. By the time it came around to the group sing-a-long, we were all good friends, a chummy crew, no doubt assisted in part by the closeness of our quarters, the conviviality of claustrophilia.

Music was also the theme at monthly comedy event Hand to Mouth at the Dark Room Theatre. Since 2011, Hand to Mouth has been hosting eclectic lineups of funny-persons who are encouraged to perform sets that relate to a pre-announced topic, and much of the fun comes from discovering how each comic will interpret the theme.

Sure, there were a few comics who merely riffed on the topic by dissing bands they didn’t like or making fun of raves, easy targets all, but co-host James Fluty broke the trend by coming out onstage with a guitar and playing a lewd ballad about Mormons (take that Trey Parker and Matt Stone) and Jesse Elias shattered what was left of it by giving a totally hilarious power-point presentation he called “A Lecture of Music History.” Ostensibly a comparison of the evolution of classical to contemporary music, Elias spent time comparing music from “Der Gloeckner von Notre Dame” and “Wicked,” introducing us to the “orchestra hit” sample, and comparing the “two distinct sounds referred to as ‘electric piano’” which involved a straight-faced comparison of various video games soundtracks versus Disney credits music.

Keeping it weird, DJ Real (a.k.a. Nick Stargu) contributed a retiree version of a NIN tune (“I Want to Play Some Canasta”), the Unwatchables sold their souls to the devil in order to be able to play the blues for Bruce Willis, and Drennon Davis ended the show on a literal high note by turning himself into a radio with the help of a loop station and station-appropriate DJ patter that ranged from the growling bro-down of hard rock station “Radio K-O-C-K” to the passive-aggressive mellow of “Free Jazz Radio” (“just want to clarify something about our name, we are not ‘free’. We are listener-supported.”)

It would appear allowing comedians to stretch their creativity to encompass yet redefine a specific theme is as good for them as it was for us—and makes it easy to look forward to their February installment at Lost Weekend Video, when the theme will be “Jobs”. Hell, I’ve got a few jokes about that myself….

Louis Dunn: So long, Spain!

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Guardian artist Louis Dunn salutes Manuel “Spain” Rodriguez, the iconic underground artist who died of cancer at his Bernal Heights home on Nov. 28 with his daughter and wife at his bedside.  He was 72.

Spain, as he was known and as he signed his work, did 12 or so front page graphics for the Guardian, each one a gem.  Editor Tim Redmond wrote in Spain’s obituary that working with Spain was a pleasure and that he “was just a wonderful guy who happened to be one of the most talented artists of his generation.”

He ran his “Flashman” comic strip in the early Guardian and then in the 1980s his comic strip “Factwino V. Armageddon Man,” which also became a Mime Troupe play.

Tim wrote that when he went to see his wife Susan Stern, to get some pieces of art to run with his Guardian obit, Susan showed Tim the amazing unfinished mural he was doing

on the wall of his studio.  “He worked on it every day,” she said.  “It was as if he had to draw or die.”

His publisher, Ron Turner at Last Gasp Comics, sent out an email to the Last Gasp community the morning of his death.  “Spain was a wonderful father, husband, and friend,” Ron said.

“His art challenged and enlightened and entertained us for over five decades.  His passing coincided with the penumbra eclipse of the moon, like Spain’s shadow from the outer

edge of the art world’s face.”  Spain was a regular at the famous Last Gasp Christmas party, coming up next week, and I like to think that it will be something of a memorial service

for  him.  More formal services are pending and I’ll keep you posted.  B3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No brand

Andrew Lam
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No brand

caitlin@sfbg.com

STREET SEEN To the casual observer, it may have appeared as if I had taken a painful, rainy early morning Muni ride into SoMa for the sole purpose of eating plastic-wrapped Japanese pancakes filled with red bean paste in a chain store. But to adherents of the Muji phenomenon, I was actually witnessing the birth of cross-Pacific retail revolution.

“The minimalism of Muji fits San Francisco perfectly with what the city is trying to do with conservation,” said store manager Eric Kobuchi, who was standing with the cash registers behind of him, and the sleepy-eyed attendees of the November 30th press preview and reception in front of him. His company was to open its first West Coast location (540 Ninth St., SF. www.muji.us) in an hour-and-a-half.

Among minimalism aficionados, this brand is paramount. Muji was born in 1980, originally as a line of 40 house and food items that were sold in Seiyu supermarkets. The name itself means “no label, quality goods.” The items were cheap, but relatively high quality. These savings were possible, said the company, by simplifying packaging and production, and utilizing offbeat materials, like the parts of the fish near the head and tail for its canned fish.

Muji fans kindled to the line’s recycled, plain packaging (the company has courted the “sustainable” label for decades). Being a Muji consumer is an identity unto itself, at least according to the brands’s brilliant ad campaigns. From a 256-page coffee table book of such endeavors presented to me at the preview: “Muji tries to attract not the customer who says ‘This is what I want,’ but rather the one who says, rationally, ‘this will do.'”

Zen. Today, Muji’s selection is an Ikea-Gap mélange. The San Francisco location, says Azami, has a similar, but smaller product selection (minus the food — tight regulations here make importing comestibles complicated), and the same layout and presentation as its Japanese stores. I don’t doubt that little changes have been made to the Muji formula for its West Coast audience — during the press preview, display prices for some of the stock were still only visible in yen.

Muji is but one simple, made-from-recycled-material package in a shopping bag full of newish Japanese brands to hit the Bay Area. Daiso, in my eyes the epitome of dollar (or rather 100 yen, roughly $1.50) store excellence, has been plying lunch boxes, fake eyelashes, party wigs, and stationary on the West Coast since 2005. It has several stores from SF to Milpitas (SF locations at 570 Market and 22 Japantown Peace Plaza).

We have homegrown Japanese retailers as well. Lounging in a bright office lined with shelves of Japanese comics, Seiji Horibuchi explained to me how he came to open retail complex New People (1746 Post, SF. www.newpeopleworld.com) in the heart of San Francisco’s Japantown.

Dressed in head-to-toe Sou Sou, a neo-traditional line of Japanese worker comfortwear whose signature item is its brightly patterned split-toe shoes, Horibuchi says he moved to the city in 1975, and started his anime-manga publishing house Viz Media in his adopted city in 1986. Viz Pictures, a distribution company for Japanese films followed, and then New People was born, originally as a movie theater at which to play Viz titles.

But the project grew, and by its opening in 2009, the J-pop mall included a gift shop, art gallery, and entire floor of Japanese fashion brands like Sou Sou and the babydoll goth Lolita brand Baby, the Stars Shine Bright.

New People is a bit different than the new megachains in town, however. Even the casual visitor can tell Horibuchi’s inventory couldn’t have come from any other country — unlike a lot of Muji’s stock, comprised of simply-universal products, most of New People’s vinyl dolls, high design flatware, and frilly babydoll bonnets could really have only come from Japan.

But Horibuchi understands why brands like Muji choose San Francisco for their debut on this side of the country. “We’re more open to foreign culture,” he says. “San Francisco is very flexible, livable.”

Plus, Asian Americans make up nearly 36 percent of the city’s population — and that ratio has grown in recent years. Companies know that many residents are already familiar with their brand, Horibuchi says. “I’m sure they’ve done enough marketing research.”

A company that has certainly done its marketing research is Uniqlo, which opened a popup shop (117 Post, SF) this summer, then a full-size West Coast flagship store (111 Powell, SF) in Union Square in October. In its opening weeks, the latter attracted 100-plus-person lines of shoppers with cheaply-priced rainbows of colored denim and ultralight down jackets.

In a calm moment on a busy holiday shopping day, I got a chance to talk with Uniqlo’s John “Jack” Zech, a “superstar store manager” according to a publicist that sat with us while we talked.

The three of us had a view of Uniqlo’s specially-designed-for-SF “magic mirror” (put on a down jacket, press a button, and the hue of your garment in the reflection shifts through the line’s different colors), its staircase of melting rainbow tones, and slowly rotating armies of mannequins clad in ski-ready fashions, ensconced in glass cases.

Zech worked in Uniqlo’s Japanese locations for months before the SF stores opened, and he says the company’s goal is to bring the Japanese concept of supreme customer service, irrashai mase, to the rest of the world.

When you walk into Uniqlo, a person in a happi day kimono greets you warmly. But other than that, I couldn’t see much of a difference between the cheery sales staff there versus that of any of the other chain stores in the neighborhood.

You won’t find happi on sale at Uniqlo. Instead, its affordably-priced cashmere, “Heat Tech” clothing — that I promise you, actually tingles and heats your skin up — and $9.90 packable raincoats (the only clothing item made specifically for the SF store) dominate the sales floor.

In 2010, the company’s official language switched to English. All managerial staff worldwide is required to speak it. “We found that people basically need the same things in Japan, France, London, here,” chirps Kech. “[CEO] Tadashi Yanai thinks we can improve the world by being a global company.”

Which snapped me out of the reverie I’d been lulled into by banks of $29.90 beige boot-cuts. Are Uniqlo and Muji really all that different than the globalized brands from the United States? Walmart, after all, has store greeters.

“If the product is good, it will sell,” regardless of geography, Horibuchi told me. These big brands have real cute stuff (admittedly, I would like to draw Santa’s attention to Muji’s $38 cardboard MP3 speakers.) But you’re not being worldly by shopping at them, though you are being globalized.

 

Our Weekly Picks: December 12-18

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 12/12

"The Lion and the Lamb"

Sam Flores, a graffiti-inspired artist whose work often deals with religious themes, now turns his attention to the conflicting symbols of violence and innocence. His recent paintings, which show a more classical style than previous works, depict the lion and the lamb amongst other figures in chaotic, urban settings. These bold and deeply hued paintings convey the convoluted relationship between good and evil. As a prominent artist in the crossover between urban and fine arts, you may have found his work alongside painter-designer, Jeremy Fish or tagger-tattoo artist, Mike Giant. Like many others, Flores got his start designing for skateboard and clothing companies, but with more and more solo exhibits, his painting has begun to flourish. This show should be a great example of the strong voice he has found. (Molly Champlin)

Through Feb. 12

Opening reception tonight, 6:30pm, free

Fifty24SF

218 Fillmore, SF

(415) 861-1960

www.fifty24sf.com

WEDNESDAY 12/12

Charles Phoenix Holiday Show


Oddball Americana guru Charles Phoenix has explored and celebrated the best in kitschy, cool, and kooky artifacts and history for many years now, having written several books on mid-20th century, deep-fried pop culture, fashion, lifestyle and more. The author of tomes such as Southern California In The 50s, and Americana The Beautiful brings his hilarious holiday show and talk to the city, set to roast not just Christmas, but all of the holidays with his ever-growing collection of slides and tales of his off-beat and always colorful road trip adventures. (Sean McCourt)

8pm, $25

Empress of China Ballroom

838 Grant, SF

www.charlesphoenix.com

WEDNESDAY 12/12

"How The Grouch Stole Christmas"


The Grouch is continuing his annual holiday hip-hop tour through 18 cities across the West Coast. This year the merry night in San Francisco will include performances by Bay Area native Mistah F.A.B., Minneapolis-based artist Prof, DJ Fresh, and of course, the Grouch and Eligh. Apart from the live show, Mistah F.A.B. will host a Battle of the Bands/MCs Showcase where participants will have the platform to show their own talent. The freestyle champion will win a Grouch Merchandise pack and a pair of Able Planet studio headphones. (Soojin Chang)

8pm, $20

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

www.theregencyballroom.com

THURSDAY 12/13

Subterranean Arthouse’s Third Annual Chanukah Party


Yiddish supergroups, klezmer dance parties, and tzedakah, all wrapped into one shiny gold coin of an evening. The Subterranean Arthouse’s Chanukah Party is part of Heather Klein’s "Hungry for Yiddish: A Mitzvah Project" concert series, which donates proceeds from events to the Berkeley Food Pantry and similar organizations; and the event is co-presented by KlezCalifornia and the Jewish Music Festival. Acts include Klein’s Inextinguishable Trio, Anthony Mordechai-Tzvi Russell, noted Yiddish dance instructor Bruce Bierman, and Saul Goodman’s Klezmer Band. With instructions from Bierman, the lovely Yiddish songs of both Klein and Russell, and Goodman’s brassy klezmer, this should make for a fun, frenzied mid-point party during the festival of lights — and yes, they’ll light the menorah. Chag Sameach, Berkeley. (Emily Savage)

9pm, $10–$20 donation

Subterranean Arthouse

2169 Bancroft, Berk.

Klezmer.brownpapertickets.com

FRIDAY 12/14

Dylan Moran


Perhaps best known to American audiences for his appearances in Shaun of the Dead and Run, Fatboy, Run, Irish comedian Dylan Moran is a huge hit in his native UK, notably for his brilliant role as a cantankerous and drunk, yet lovable book shop owner in the tragically short-lived BBC series "Black Books." His live stand-up is where he’s really making his name now though; his current "Yeah, Yeah" tour is only stopping in New York, Los Angele, and here in San Francisco — consider yourself lucky and don’t miss your chance to see one of funniest comics on either side of the pond. (McCourt)

Also Sat/15, 8pm, $35

Marines Memorial Theatre

609 Sutter, SF

(415) 771-6900

www.marinesmemorialtheatre.com

FRIDAY 12/14

The Mountain Goats


I’d like to sit on some front porch (any porch, really) with John Darnielle and just listen to him tell stories — maybe over a glass of whiskey and several puffs of something. Sometimes telling the truth, but mostly relying on a wild imagination, the Mountain Goat’s dynamic leader has been writing songs about addiction, infidelity, and more sensitive subjects for the last 20 years. The group’s new album, Transcendental Youth, has been an excuse for Darnielle to branch out, inviting avant-symphonic rocker, Matthew E. White, to write horns for the album and working with Owen Pallett to arrange the songs for a collaboration with the a cappella quartet, Anonymous 4. This should be a well-worn show — mixing old and new in a chaotic journey through the picaresque scenes of Darnielle’s mind. (Champlin)

With Matthew E. White

9pm, $28

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

FRIDAY 12/14

"Diez Por Arriba"


The glorious annual flamenco season is in full swing — so much emotion, so much drama, so much invigorating live sound and movement, olé! It’s all a perfect rehearsal for your upcoming family holiday gatherings. Next up, fantastic choreographer Yaelisa and her Caminos Flamencos company, an enthralling troupe that stomps, whirls, hypnotizes, and enraptures like a force of nature, all under the expert musical direction of Jason McGuire "El Rubio." I would say the distinguishing feature of Yaelisa’s work is its generous spirit and breadth of technique. As evidenced by Caminos’ show last year, she favors longer solos and duos, giving each featured performer enough time to weave a spell of exquisite technique and subtle variations. Gorgeous costumes (hello, tight-pantsed toreadors!) and music from an international ensemble helps turn up the magic past 10. (Marke B.)

Also Sat/15, 8pm; Sun/16, 3pm, $20–$40

ODC Theater

3153 17th St., SF

www.caminosflamenco.com

SATURDAY 12/15

"In One Hand A Ghost, The Other An Atom"


As urban art has become more popular, many taggers are making a profit from their work in the gallery world. New2, who has been writing in Australia since the movement began in the early ’80s, is one of these. He’s worked in a variety of spray paint alternatives when bringing his work indoors, including paint, sculpture, and paper. His most recent project, "In One Hand A Ghost, The Other an Atom," uses intricate, paper cut-outs to merge his long tradition of writing (the ghost) with his futuristic take on letters (the atom). In the show, care and thoughtfulness form the same bright colors, geometric currents, and space themes that he has developed in years of experimentation on trains and empty walls. (Champlin)

Through Jan. 5

7pm, free

White Walls Gallery

835 Larkin, SF

(415) 931-1500

www.whitewallssf.com

SATURDAY 12/15

Pilot 61


Making dances — we all know — is a lonely and precarious enterprise. You can’t just sit down on your keyboard and write your poems. You need bodies and a bigger area than your kitchen. That’s why ODC’s Pilot program is such a gift to young choreographers. They get 11 weeks, a studio, a tiny budget, and a lot of feedback. In return, they have to commit to two public performances — of which we are the beneficiary. Seeing what gifted but not-yet-established choreographers come up with is a thrill like few others. In its 61st incarnation, Pilot will introduce Jenni Bregman, David Schleiffers, Katharine Hawthorne, Erin Malley, and Phoebe Osborne. They are calling the program Nightcap. (Rita Felciano)

Also Sun/16, 8pm, $12

ODC Dance Commons

351 Shotwell, SF

(415) 863-9833

www.odctheater.org

SATURDAY 12/15

Found Footage Festival


You’ve seen ’em: those piles of mysterious VHS tapes, often unmarked, gathering dust at Community Thrift. Found Footage Festival curator-hosts Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett live for the thrill that comes from finding bizarre, hilarious cast-off videos — and they’re on the road, sharing their fascination with audiences across the country. The 2012 program of repurposed entertainment looks to be stuffed with gems, gut-busters, and things that make you go "WTF?": ferret-care tips, freaky craft-sponging, and something called "The Sexy Treadmill Workout." Head to the FFF website to whet your appetite with the "VHS Find of the Day" feature. Two words: cat massage. (Cheryl Eddy)

Also Sun/16, 8pm, $13

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

www.foundfootagefest.com

MONDAY 12/17

Dee Dee and Brandon


Dee Dee from the Dum Dum Girls and Brandon from the Crocodiles are in love — married, in fact, and make a rather swoon-worthy couple. She with her thick-lined lids and vertical striped tights, he with his dark sunglasses. Listen to Dee Dee’s crooning on "Bedroom Eyes" off 2011’s Only In Dreams, in which she repeats "fear I’ll never sleep again" and you start to get a sense of their connection, and the pain they feel apart on separate tours. To view said connection live, in all its gushy splendor, be the voyeur at their joint Rickshaw Stop show tonight; a very special showcase, indeed, where both will perform songs from their respective catalogs and — as I can only imagine — harmonize like old lovers do. Like Johnny and June, Exene and John Doe, all those passionate, oft-heartsick music mates that have come before them, the duo is sugar and spice with a splash of whiskey. (Savage)

With Gio and Stef (Young Prisms)

8pm, $15

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF (415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

TUESDAY 12/18

Kinky Friedman


Although he has garnered a considerable amount of national mainstream success in the last 25 years as the author of a series of popular mystery novels and non-fiction books touching on politics, writer and all-around raconteur Kinky Friedman first made a name for himself as a singer and songwriter. In the early 1970s, along with his band the Texas Jewboys (he was raised by Jewish parents in the Lone Star State), he penned a slew of country and twang-tinged tunes such as the rollicking and humorous "They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore." He hits the city tonight as part of his "Bipolar" tour. This is your chance to meet the man, as he promises to "sign anything but bad legislation!" (McCourt)

With Brian Molnar

8pm, $25

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

www.cafedunord.com


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W. Kamau Bell returns triumphant to the Bay, needs burrito

Andrew Lam
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Attention burrito vendors of the Mission, there is a sale to be made at the arrivals gate of SFO this weekend when newly-minted TV star W. Kamau Bell makes his triumphant return to the city in which he spent 15 years honing his comedic chops. He is aching for a Mission burrito like this city is aching for a more efficient MUNI system.

Culinary yearnings aside, this Sunday Bell headlines a standup show at the Fillmore as part of his “Kamau Mau Uprising” tour. The tour’s moniker should come as no surprise to those who are familiar with Bell’s politically progressive, acerbic wit.

These days, that category includes more people than ever. Earlier this year Bell ditched left our lovely 49-square-mile patch for Gotham when he was offered his own TV show on FX (Thursdays at 11:30pm). And it looks like he’ll be spending more time back east — said show Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell just got picked up for a second season that will start January 17.

In the inaugural season of Totally Biased, Bell and his crew of writers have covered a lot of ground, exploring the differences between Sikhs and Sheiks, sweet potato and pumpkin pies. They’ve made a fake PSA telling men to stay home and watch porn on Election Day instead of vote, and watched presidential election returns with the Brooklyn Young Republicans (some of whom are not, it turns out, are not so young.)

Now that both he and President Obama will be back in 2013, Bell looks forward to holding our Commander in Chief to task. Right before the Thanksgiving Break, and just hours after finding out his show got renewed, the self-proclaimed “billionth most famous person in the history of New York” took some time to chat with the Guardian about his homecoming, and on what makes a San Francisco comedian different from those from NY, LA, or Boston. Plus, on whether he’ll ever drop a “hella” on Totally Biased.

SFBG: In the past you’ve referred to Totally Biased executive producer Chris Rock as the “foul-mouthed Yoda.” How far along have you come in your Jedi training?

Assuming that this is the original prequel, I would say I’m probably halfway through the first movie. Although Yoda wasn’t in the first movie, so I’m screwing up my nerd status, but I’m at the very beginning of the Jedi training, if it’s Empire Strikes Back, I’m at the point where I lifted the thing out and then I got scared.

SFBG: What’s Mr. Rock’s involvement in the show? Is he more hands-on or hands-off?

WKB: I just talked to him and he literally said, “I’m around if you need me, call me.” He’s as available as we need him and he jokes that’s he’s on sabbatical from show business because he has no projects right now. He comes to all the tapings, but then again he also wants this to be my show so he allows me to use him as much or as little as I want to. Overall, I’ve used him a lot less than people thought I would.

SFBG: Would you say that your show is in competition with The Colbert Report and Daily Show?

WKB: Not really, but I would say that they’re a standard that we’re measuring ourselves against. You know, I’m just the new guy who likes “Hey guys can I hang out!” We’re certainly aiming for a lot of the same people, but I think that by the nature of Totally Biased we’re also reaching a group of way different people.

SFBG: Do you ever plan on saying hella during the show?

WKB: Here’s the thing, by the time I moved to San Francisco, I knew if I started saying hella, people from Chicago would think I had lost my mind. On the back of the set, we have these designs and there are a couple of Bay Area shout-outs and that’s the closest I’ll get to saying hella on air.

SFBG: How did your stand-up show Ending Racism in a Hour prep you for Totally Biased?

WKB: When I wrote that show, the idea behind it was: what kind of show would I write if I was famous? I would have a screen, I would have a computer, I would talk about the world, I would talk about racism all the time, and I would be very topical.

So I did Ending Racism the way I would do it if I had a TV show and through lots of luck and hard work I ended up with Totally Biased. I know for sure that I would not have gotten Totally Biased if I had just done stand up. And by the time Chris saw me at the UCB (Upright Citizens Brigade) Theatre in New York, I had already been doing for about three or four years.

SFBG: Do you have writers from the Bay?

WKB: Janine Brito, Kevin Avery, Kevin Kataoka, and Nato Green.

SFBG: What’s the history of your relationships with them?

WKB: I used to do “Siskel & Negro” with Kevin Avery, who’s from San Jose, on Live 105 back in the day and I met him right when I moved out to San Francisco. We did a lot of shows together, we were writing partners and almost got hired to do a D.L. Hughley show for CNN.

Kevin Kataoka is originally from Oakland and I met him when I first moved to San Francisco, in the SF comedy scene. He actually introduced me to Chuck Scolar who’s an executive producer of the show, and he’s the guy who introduced me to Chris Rock.

I’ve said many times that Janine is my comedy daughter, who’s this little hipster, half Cuban, all lesbian. I met Nato on the scene about six or seven years ago, so I had already been on the scene by the time I had met Nato and Janine.

Myself, Nato, Janine, and at one point Hari Kondabolu (fellow TB writer) had a three-headed standup comedy monster called “Laughter Against the Machine” that we started in the Bay Area and the New Parish in Oakland was the home base for that show. We’re currently working on a documentary about going on the road last year to various political hotspots in America.

SFBG: What’s your take on the SF comedy scene?

WKB: The thing about San Francisco is that it always has had a good reputation as a good comedy city. Ever since Mort Sahl stepped on stage at The Hungry i in the ‘50s San Francisco has had a great reputation as a comedy town. Even though we’re not the biggest city, all the greats come through San Francisco.

I remember seeing [Dave] Chappelle when I moved to town, and he was already packing the club despite not being nationally famous. This is was big because this was before the Internet took hold. He was already a legend and I remember one night when he was stage and he said yeah I just finished filming this movie and it’s all about weed! I saw him go to the next level when he got his own show, and so San Francisco is a great city for developing comedic talent.

If you come up in the San Francisco comedy scene, clubs like The Punchline and Cobb’s are loyal to local talent if you show loyalty to them. You will work with the best in the business. I’ve heard that New York comics say that San Francisco comics know more headliners and have more personal relationships with headliners than New York comics do because San Francisco comics hang out a lot before and after shows, whereas in New York everyone is always running to the next thing. The city is known for having good comedians but there’s not a style called “San Francisco comedian.” You can pick out a Boston, New York, or LA comedian but you can’t really pick out a San Francisco comedian.

SFBG: How does it feel to headline a show at The Fillmore?

WKB: In some sense that’s bigger than getting a TV show [laughs] when they said that I was going to play The Fillmore, I thought “wait a minute! It’s too soon!” And time will tell if it is too soon. It’s just weird to me that it’s happening now. I think a lot of it is because I’ve built up a name in the Bay Area.

SFBG: Will you have time to stop by your old spots?

WKB: I’ll have a chance to visit my old spots and look at the “did that really happen?!” look on people’s faces.

SFBG: What are places and things you miss the most about the Bay Area?

WKB: The one thing overall that both my wife — who’s from Monterrey — and I miss most is that the style of living in Northern California is so easy. When I think about my time in San Francisco, even walking outside my house, it feels like a baby bird being born. When I think about New York, every time I walk out of my house, I feel like a paratrooper jumping out of a plane. And there are definitely five or six Mission burritos in my future because New York does not understand how burritos work.

I also want to go back to The Punchline on a Sunday night where all of it really started for me. That place is my mecca. I just need to go there and walk around the stage seven times and really reflect on all that is happening. And oh! I’ll be probably ride the N-Judah and visit my old block of Ninth and Irving.

SFBG: I know you just found out about the second season but now that the election is over and your boy is back for a second term what direction do you think the show will be taking?

WKB: My career and act has followed Obama’s presidency and a lot of comics say it would have been better if Mitt Romney had won and I’m like noooooo this black president thing has worked out for me nicely. And the great thing about Romney being gone is that now we can actually talk about Obama from a more critical angle. Now we can talk about how Obama is not a great president, we can talk about Guantanamo and immigration. I don’t just want to be a cheerleader.

The Kamau Mau Uprising

Sun/9, 8pm, $29.50

The Fillmore 

1805 Geary, SF

www.thefillmore.com

Damn, that’s crazy: Frankie Quinones’ TV debut on Nickelodeon

Andrew Lam
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W. Kamau Bell’s recent success notwithstanding, when it comes to Bay comics, we love Frankie Quinones as our stand-up ambassador. His shows — including a packed-to-the-brim gig a few we attended months ago in the cozy basement space of Bossa Nova — are where you want to go to watch the grown-and-sexy of the Bay Area crack. Up.

Anyway, he sent us a video of his old crush from Martin, Tisha Campbell introducing his set for an episode of NickMom Night Out that premiered last month. Moms making butterfly nets out of pantyhose are involved. Onward and upward, Frankie! 

The comic formally known as ‘The Iron Chink’

Andrew Lam
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The comic formally known as ‘The Iron Chink’

It’s a symbol of the atrocities suffered by Chinese Americans on this continent: a lumbering machine that stripped thousands of their livelihood and was even named for the epithet used against them, the Iron Chink.

For Escape To Gold Mountain graphic novelist and community activist David H.T. Wong, who will read from the book at a Sun/11 event in Berkeley’s Eastwind Books, the 1903 invention of the mechanized fish gutting machine that stole cannery jobs from Asian immigrants — who already had to fight racism to find jobs at all — made the perfect title for his historical graphic novel. 

But, and perhaps this is a sign of the historical progression that Wong converted into panels for us in his graphic novel, things just don’t get named the c-word anymore. 

“Though it’s a historically accurate name of a real artifact, people today will not accept these sorts of racist terms,” writes Wong in the afterword of Gold Mountain. The name was changed before it was officially released.

We don’t get enough Chinese history in the United States. Growing up, even in a Sunset District public elementary school that had 90 percent Asian American students, the only thing I recall learning about the Asian diaspora here was Chinese New Year, Japanese internment camps.

This is a wrong that Wong’s Escape to Gold Mountain corrects, and in comic book form at that. The book follows Chinese laborer Wong Ah Gin to the United States, where he becomes inextricably linked with the capitalists’ quest to build a railroad across the United States.

The task was accomplished using Asian immigrant labor, the cheapest on the market. After the coasts were connected, many communities rejected the workers who made the task possible. We all know this story: use immigrant labor to accomplish previously-impossible tasks, then castigate the same people for stealing jobs.

In the case of Asian communities in the United States and Canada, this xenophobia lead to extreme violence. In 1885, mass killings occured in Wyoming and Washington. Tacoma’s Chinatown was even burned to the ground by bigoted townspeople. After the physical violence came the bureaucratic castigation: elaborate immigration codes that stopped refugees from coming to North America and separated parents from their kids.

Escape to Gold Mountain wends its way through all this injustice via Wong and other characters, ending up at a Chinese restaurant in Victoria, BC. The author’s panel work makes an at-times painful history easily read (my only quibble is small: why must most of the characters’ mouths be frozen in mid-word?) 

Spoiler alert: there’s a hopeful ending. Escape to Gold Mountain ends on a look at the Chinese Americans who have been elected to public office in the 20th and 21st centuries, and a real-life reconciliation story that will make you grateful for your own awkward trips home for the holidays.

The comic is really a jumping-off point for those interested in the subject matter — the epic research that Wong put towards the book made for enough bibliography and reading resources to launch a thousand syllabi, or at least a sense that an important portion of history may have been missing from your childhood textbooks. 

David H.T. Wong reads from Escape From Gold Mountain

Sun/11 7pm, free

Eastwind Books

2066 University, Berk. 

www.asiabookcenter.com

Listen to the comic! Save CCSF, vote yes on Prop A

Andrew Lam
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San Franciscans were bummed when, this summer, it looked for a second like we’d lose our only community college. And we weren’t the only ones who would have been affected — City College of San Francisco isn’t just the biggest school in the city, it’s the biggest school in the entire state, providing vital job training, family development classes, continuing education, and a springboard into four-year university for undergrads. 

The folks at Mission Mini-Comix sent us this comic stating the case for Prop A, which would ensure that CCSF gets the funds it needs to keep educating us. (You can check it out in its full glory on their website, or snag one of the free mini-books they’ve been handing out around town.

>>PRINT OUT OUR QUICK ‘N’ GUIDE TO THE CITY, STATE, AND NATIONAL RACES

>>READ UP ON THE FULL GUARDIAN ENDORSEMENTS 

Here’s the skinny on the panels, from Mini-Comix artist Rio Roth-Barreiro (who won an all-ages Guardian comics contest when he was younger — says mom Robin Roth the recognition “got him started on this path!”): 

So, this is another comic that attempts to tackle local San Francisco issues. We do tend to do this every couple years or so, with mixed results, but we’re normally drawing a comic against whatever legislation is being voted on. In this case, we’re happy to do a comic supporting Proposition A and City College of San Francisco.

City College is a very personal issue for me. Not only are my mom and god-cousin teachers there, but I got my AA degree and most of my job skills training there which did end up setting me up well with a career in the tech industry (newsflash, cartooning doesn’t really pay the bills) and I’d like to see every young person in this city, county and larger bay area have access to the same opportunity and resources I did. This goes to the larger issue of where our priorities are in this country, with trillions being spent on our military, foreign wars and tax cuts for the rich while schools at home are literally falling apart (both physically and financially). Even in the liberal “hotbed” of San Francisco, we’re seeing the same tired arguments that are being trotted out all over the country to justify the systematic dismantling of public education.

“Teacher’s are getting paid too much!” “It’s all the Teacher’s Unions’ fault!” I see this sentiment getting echoed with infuriating regularlity in the Chronicle and in online news sources such as SFGate, but it doesn’t really mesh with the actual facts of life for City’s teachers, who have seen their classes double in size (twice the work) with many not having seen a raise in 5+ years. Having California cut money to education every year isn’t helping things. CCSF is being starved for funds and then the fact that they can’t meet their budget is being used as an excuse to take away their accreditation and/or close them down. Teachers are being painted as being greedy when every year they are getting less and having to work more.

Meanwhile, crushing education is going to have long term negative impact on local and national economies as our schools prepare less kids with the skills they need for technical and skilled jobs. People getting paid less means there will be even less government income to pay for things in the next budget and having a less skilled workforce will only lead to more jobs getting outsourced to India and China. It’s a vicious cycle pulling our economy down the drain, but some can’t see beyond the latest budget or the need to invest in our (and our children’s) future.

Proposition A on the San Francisco ballot and Proposition 30 on California’s ballot both seek to raise funds and prioritize education and I hope y’all be voting for them. And if you aren’t registered to vote yet, go get yourself registered, son! California now has online registration so you can be ready to stand by our schools and CCSF’s mission statement for a affordable and high quality education to be available for all. Registration deadline is October 22nd and voting is on November 6th

Oh yeah, I almost forgot our own accreditations, but this comic was written by me with a lot of help and input from Robin Roth, Leslie Simon and Amber Straus (and my wife Beth came up with the subtitle) and was drawn by me, Mike, Audrey and Justin.

 

Our Weekly Picks: October 10-16

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WEDNESDAY 10

Happy Hour at 251 Post

Stumbling on 251 Post Street feels a lot like clicking on a square in Minesweeper that opens up an awesome chunk of mine-free space. The entrance is nudged between a designer sunglass shop and high-end French clothing store, but it leads to six floors full of innovate artwork. Granted, the art might be in the same price range as the surrounding stores, but hey, admission is a lot cheaper than a museum. The happy hour will feature artist talks at four of the six galleries, including the Bay Area painter Brett Amory, whose simple but beautiful paintings are evocative of my lonelier dream visions. His work, focused on figures and buildings he encounters in Oakland and San Francisco, reduces everything down to the essence, creating empty spaces where buildings and figures seem to recede and appear before your eyes. (Molly Champlin)

5pm, free

251 Post Street Art Galleries, SF

(415) 291-8000

www.artgalleryweek.com

 

Dinosaur Jr.

We don’t need to tell you that Dinosaur Jr was one of the most influential alternative rock bands of the 1990s or that these dudes can really shred. We’ll just let their 28-year career attest to that. What we will tell you is that their new album is not to be overlooked or underestimated. These Dinosaurs have aged well. I Bet on Sky, their 10th full-length, is a loudmouthed snarl of a record. It features all the best quirks of Dinosaur Jr’s extensive catalogue: frightening amounts of fuzz, weirdly engaging hooks, and deep dark lyrics in J Mascis’ disengaged nasal yowls. Don’t forget to bring earplugs. (Haley Zaremba)

8pm, $32.50

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-3000

www.thefillmore.com

 

FRIDAY 12

Lenora Lee Dance

The history of Chinese Americans in the Bay Area is not exactly a closed book. Over the years many artists — including dancers — have opened a few of its pages, but I can’t think of any choreographer who has taken an approach as simultaneously intimate and large scale as Lenora Lee. In her work, the personal and the political intertwine inextricably. As part of her fifth anniversary celebration she, and some very fine visual, musical and text collaborators, are presenting a triptych that is still in the making. “Passages: For Lee Ping To” is the most personal — based on Lee’s grandmother’s story; “Reflections” looks at conflicting ideas of maleness; and “The Escape”, a work on immigrant women. (Rita Felciano)

Fri/12-Sat/13, 8pm, $15–$25

Sun/14, 3:30pm

Dance Mission Theater

3316, 24th St., SF

www.dancemission.com

 

 

The Raveonettes

The collaboration of Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo feels like 1950s and ’60s rock’n’roll overlaid with electric noise and coupled with darker, more introspective lyrics. Their sound recalls grunge and captures a shoegazy moodiness that’s both mysterious and lyrical. The Danish duo has been making music together as the Raveonettes since 2001, has developed a cult following along the way, and has been credited with spawning somewhat of an American indie rock renaissance. Wagner relates Observator, the group’s recently released sixth album, to “a heavenly dream that you slowly realize is actually taking place in hell.” (Mia Sullivan)

With Melody’s Echo Chamber

9pm, $25

Bimbo’s

1025 Columbus, SF?

(415) 474-0365

www.bimbos365club.com

 

 

Morbid Angel

Time was that Morbid Angel could do no wrong. Tampa was bursting with bands in the later Reagan years, but few combined brutality with complexity as well as guitarist Trey Azagthoth, drummer Pete Sandoval, and bassist-vocalist David Vincent. With the release of 2011’s Illud Divinum Insanus, however, that time officially ended. Industrial and electronic textures alienated fans, leaving them uncertain about the band’s new direction. Thankfully, having missed the Illud… sessions while recovering from back surgery, Sandoval is now back in the fold, which bodes well for a return to death metal roots on the band’s current tour. (Ben Richardson)

With Dark Funeral, Grave

9pm, $31

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415)-255-0333

www.slimspresents.com

 

SATURDAY 13

Life is Living Festival

Even in the season of street fair, Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s Life is Living Festival stands out. The overarching theme for the fests — they take place in ‘hoods across the country, from Houston’s Emancipation Park to Chicago’s South Side to the Bronx — is bringing green to the black community, uniting the sustainability movement with a hip-hop sensibility. The fest overflows with hip-happenings: Oakland’s first youth poet laureate Stephanie Yun will take the stage, there’ll be a street art contest, a show by a local team of dunk artists, vegan Filipino food, free breakfast (a park tradition started by the Black Panthers), youth science exhibition, dancing, hip-hop cipher — oh, and Talib Kweli will DJ. The fest prides itself on being an uber-positive, multi-generational show of strength. You won’t go home frowning. (Caitlin Donohue)

10am-6pm, free Defremery Park 1651 Adeline, Oakl. www.lifeisliving.org

 

Alternative Press Expo

Besides, of course, the sweetly self-conscious parade of Optimus Prime, Misty from Pokemon, and Clockwork Android costumes, my favorite part of the dearly-departed Wonder Con was the sociology nerd comics panels. “Women in Comics,” “Social Justice in Comics,” the list goes on. Graphic novels present the perfect, neurosis-friendly media in which to delve into alternative culture, which is why the Alternative Press Expo will make you forget all those Hollywood blockbuster star panels. Go this year to delve into the best scribblers of alt culture, like the Hernandez brothers of Love and Rockets Latino punk fame, a queer cartoonist panel moderated by Glamazonia’s Justin Hall, and the chance to connect with a gajillion like-minded indie comic freaks. (Donohue)

11am-7pm; also Sun/14, 11am-6pm; $10 one day, $15 two day pass Concourse Exhibition Center 635 Eighth St., SF www.comic-con.org/ape

 

Yerba Buena Night

Art allies in the Yerba Buena district are rallying together for another installment of Yerba Buena Night. The neighborhood will be full of people getting their musing-spectator on during the gallery walk, rocking out at the three main performance stages, and chatting with class at the champagne reception hosted by Visual Aid. Be sure to stop by 111 Minna to see surreal graffiti and pen artist Lennie Mace, who operates in both America and Japan, as well as some of Mike Shine’s paintings and props from Outside Lands (minus the live carny folk, unfortunately). Or visit Wendi Norris Gallery for beautifully bright but often gruesome narrative paintings by artist Howie Tsui: think pop-surrealist Mark Ryden with a Chinese influence. (Champlin)

3pm, free

Yerba Buena District

701 Mission

(415) 541-0312

www.yerbabuena.org

 

MONDAY 15

David Byrne and St. Vincent

Old and young, man and woman, beauty and beast (albeit a hip beast with now slick, silver hair), David Byrne and St. Vincent make quite the unlikely pair. Despite, or maybe in light of these differences, their respective talents fit together like puzzle pieces in their joyously poppy and horn-laden collaboration, Love This Giant. The album, released in September, rings in like a call to action and touches on issues of wealth, prescribed and individual culture, love, and forgiveness. Aside from the fact that everyone loves a rock show backed with an eight-piece brass band, this is set to be a memorable night.(Champlin)

8pm, $63.50–$129

Orpheum Theater

1192 Market, SF

(888) 746-1799

www.shnsf.com

 

The Sheepdogs

If you’re itching for some classic rock nostalgia but aren’t in the mood for the full-on experience (i.e. Dark Star Orchestra), check out The Sheepdogs. This Canadian quartet looks like they were pulled straight out of the ’70s and has been sonically influenced by rock icons like The Grateful Dead, Credence Clearwater Revival, and Steely Dan. These guys released a self-titled, debut album with Atlantic Records last month. (They released their first three albums independently.) The Sheepdogs thrive on three-part harmonies, produce extremely catchy tracks, and have been rumored to put on fun, blissful shows. (Sullivan)

With Black Box Revelation

7:30pm, $15

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com


TUESDAY 16

Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin

Not quite nu-jazz, math-rock, or classical minimalism, Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin attacks Reichian time signatures with the borderline robotic technical skill of a group of Juilliard grads, the undeniable groove of an airtight funk band, and the Steely Dan-worthy production values inherent to ECM, the venerable European jazz label to which they’re signed. Bärtsch’s piano playing is remarkably dynamic, flowing between resonant, open tones and muffled, percussive hammering, while generously layered drums, agile bass-plucking, and exotic woodwinds (contrabass clarinet, anyone?) create a dark, steely backdrop. Considering the Swiss ensemble’s masterful ability to anchor soulful acoustic instrumentation with a relentlessly electronic pulse, Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin is as compelling, and unmissable, as any live ensemble currently working. (Taylor Kaplan)

8pm, $20

Yoshi’s Oakland

510 Embarcadero West, Oakl.

(510) 238-9200

www.yoshis.com/oakland

 

Vampyr with live score by Steven Severin

Get your Halloween on a little early this year with Steven Severin, founding member and bassist of Siouxie and the Banshees, who comes to haunt the city tonight with two special live performances of his new score to the classic 1932 horror film Vampyr. The third installment in Severin’s ongoing film accompaniment series “Music For Silents,” the darkly moody synthesizer score perfectly matches the surreal scenes on the silver screen, working in conjunction with the somewhat unorthodox style of filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer, who continued to use elements of the silent era, including dialogue title cards, even though the film was made at the advent of the talkies. (Sean McCourt)

7 and 9:30pm, $15

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

www.roxie.com

 

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Best bets for indie comic inspiration at APE

Andrew Lam
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We cried wet, hot, nerdy tears when Wonder Con moved south to Anaheim this year — but then wiped them away with the hem of our Bat Girl and Wonder Woman-printed flouncy skirt when we remembered that the Alternative Press Expo (APE) was, as ever, on its way to the Concourse Exhibition Center.

The alt-comic gathering descends with a swish of self-published zinery Sat/13 and Sun/14, and with it, passels of adorable, print-oriented babes who read. (We hear our favorite drag illustrator, the UK’s Rosa Middleton, is even around on the town, check her, and her glitterized versions of reality out.) With no furthur ado, here is a list of highlights to look out for among the speakers and on the expo floor. 

Queer cartoonist panel

One of our favorite parts of APE — besides the chance to hobnob with the best and brightest DIY, indie comic book fans — is the surplus of panels the explore the expansion of the comic universe. This year, with the closet shattering of the Green Lantern fresh in our minds, we’re excited to see what this starry panel of queer comic artists have to share. Have a seat and listen to moderator Justin Hall (of Glamazonia fame), Tara Madison Avery, Tony Breed, Dylan Edwards, Steve MacIsaac, and Leia Weathington reflect on four decades of out and proud panels.

Sat/13, 2:45pm

Watercoloring comics demo

Feel free to learn more than just watercolor techniques from San Francisco artiste Jamaica Dyer. In 2008, Weird Fishes, her graphic novel about bunny boys and a young woman who sees ducks who talk became a Internet hit, garnering a deal with a publishing house that helped give it a life outside of computer screens (that means they printed it.) Today, she’ll be showing off her brush skills, surely an inspiration to draw things just the way you like them.

Sat/13, 3pm

Comic Creator Connection

This is where the magic happens. Do you have a fab idea for a magic carpet tale through the ruined car factories of Detroit? Perhaps a super-sleuth sloth who looks for danger in the depths of the rainforest? Maybe you just want to draw the crap out of one of the above? APE provides this space specifically so that indie comic makers can find each other, in the hopes of spawning future collabs and extending the genre into the future. RSVP to assure yourself of a spot.

Sat/13, 4-6pm; Sun/14, 3-5pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLZDIUt6-d4

The Hernandez brothers

Few siblings have created a world as vast, complex, and racy as Jaime, Gilbert, and Mario Hernandez of Love and Rockets fame. The three’s graphic novel saga of Latino punks, queers, and troubled souls will discuss what it’s like to play God with your two brothers, and, probably, what it takes to work together for over 30 years without brandishing a sharp Bic at the others’ throats.

Sat/13, 5:45

“Bay Area Comics: Past, Present, and Future”

But enough about you, let’s talk about us. At this gathering of Bay comic greats (Thien Pham, illustrator of Sumo, Gene Luen Yang’s fab Level Up, and other amazing odes to the Asian American experience; Andrew Farago, curator of the Cartoon Art Museum; and Jason Shiga, who penned Empire State, an epic ode to cross-country geekery), our terrific comic legacy will be discussed — and harebrained ideas put forth about where exactly we are headed in the new millenium.

Sun/14, 4:45pm

Alternative Press Expo

Sat/13, 11am-7pm; Sun/14, 11am-6pm, $10 one day pass/$15 two day pass

Concourse Exhibition Center

635 Eighth St., SF

www.comic-con.org/ape

Shake, rattle, and read

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Shake, rattle, and read

LIT What do you get when you bring together a horde of ravenous bibliophiles in a city that’s known for the possibility of a future catastrophic event? No, not the zombie-nerd apocalypse: Litquake, the largest annual independent literary festival on the West Coast. This year’s nine-day festival runs from Fri/5 through Sat/13, ending with Lit Crawl, the infamous booklovers pub-crawl that words up the Mission. The festival’s venues are as diverse as its writers, ranging from theaters, coffee houses, bars to a barbershop, a bee-keeping supply store, even a parklet. The jam-packed program is expected to bring even more attendees than last year (a whopping 16,581), and features 850 authors in 163 events including hundreds of readings and a multitudinous array of panels and cross-media events.

Originally dubbed Litstock, the festival was conjured up by Jane Ganahl and Jack Boulware at the Edinburgh Castle pub in San Francisco, a watering hole where local authors had been doing readings of their work. Ganahl and Boulware’s idea was simple: get a bunch of writers together to read their work in Golden Gate Park, and see what happens. With the help of Phil Bronstein, then editor of the San Francisco Examiner, they got $300 for a sound system, and on July 16, 1999, Litstock was born. Twenty-five writers read from their work, and to the surprise of Ganahl and Boulware, 300 people came to hear them. In 2002, the festival acquired its new, quintessentially San Francisco moniker, Litquake, and has been growing exponentially — more than 3,650 authors have presented to more than 83,500 people.

(About this year’s installment, Boulware tells the Guardian, “”This year, the festival feels like the programming has more depth than in previous years. We’re including more events at museums, more events outside the city, in particular the Berkeley Ramble, more tributes to noteworthy authors — Lenore Kandel, Woody Guthrie, and Juan Rulfo — and much more diversity in our expanded Lit Crawl schedule. We’re overjoyed to help cement the Bay Area’s rightful place on the national and international literary map.”)

As the story goes, the renaming of the festival in 2002 was partly inspired by an article in USA Today reporting that San Franciscans spend more money on books and alcohol than the residents of any other major city in the nation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Added to the festival in 2004, Lit Crawl has becoming the living, breathing embodiment of San Francisco’s happy marriage of books and booze — more than 6000 scribes and fans take part in venues in the Mission. San Francisco’s Lit Crawl (this year on Sat/13) has been so successful that there are now Lit Crawls in New York, Austin, Brooklyn and, soon, Seattle.

As neighborhoods go, the Mission is the perfect setting for the event, given its noteworthy independent bookstores and Dave Eggers’s brainchild, 826 Valencia. Like North Beach and the Haight, the city’s former literary hotspots, the Mission has an inherited bohemian spirit (some would call it Beat) that gives life to the idea of literary community.

This year’s Liquake roster of readers is a hefty one, spanning various genres and including such notable participants as Christopher Coake and Daniel Alarcón, both among Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists, along with local legends like US Poet Laureate Robert Hass and poet D.A. Powell. A bound-to-be-popular panel featuring cartoonist Daniel Clowes and Eggers himself will surely to draw a crowd, as the two discuss everything from the creative process to their favorite comics, books, and movies.

And for history buffs, there will be panels on little-known and formerly censored poetry of Beat poet Kandel and a tribute to Jane Austen featuring Karen Joy Fowler, author of bestseller book The Jane Austen Book Club.

It’s a fitting testament to San Francisco’s rich intellectual heritage that, in a city known for its ballooning tech industry (the oft-feared culprit behind literature’s “imminent demise”), San Franciscans’ literary love affair shows no signs of waning. Our lust for books still causes the city to tremble.

LITQUAKE

Fri/5-Sat/13

Various times, venues, and prices, SF.

www.litquake.org

 

Don’t blink

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Don’t blink

FALL ARTS If there’s such a thing as seasonal themes in the art world, then we’re about to see the summer of performance art gradually give way to the autumn of geography. Look for big institutional shows and smaller gallery projects that present ideas about places and spaces. To that point, this roundup starts with two exhibits that should get you out of the city.

 

Barry McGee Arguably the most famous and influential visual artist to emerge from the Bay Area in the last few decades, McGee is getting the mid-career survey treatment at the Berkeley Art Museum. His activist-leaning work pulls from graffiti, comics, sign painting, and hobo art, usually in ways that interrupt and transform the spaces where they’re installed. The exhibition promises a broad retrospective sampling from early work to new projects, and if for some reason you haven’t already heard of Barry McGee, this is your chance to get up to speed. Through Dec. 9; bampfa.berkeley.edu

ZERO1: Seeking Silicon Valley ZERO1, the Silicon Valley-based (and funded) art and tech biennial, is curated this year to showcase international perspectives on place and placelessness in the post-Internet world. Over 150 artists from 13 countries will participate. Take heart, commute-averse, projects will be hosted at venues throughout (and in the sky above) the Bay Area. Among those, Nelly Ban Hayoun’s space opera music video penned by Bruce Sterling and performed by NASA employees; ISHKY’s Pi in the Sky, which utilizes skywriting planes to remind you of what comes after 3.14; and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s interactive pirate radio station. Sept. 12-Dec. 8; www.zero1biennial.org

Six Lines of Flight: Shifting Geographies in Contemporary Art Comparing six global cities that are important regional cultural centers but not global art commerce centers, Six Lines of Flight brings together progressive artists from San Francisco; Beirut, Lebanon; Cali, Columbia; Cluj, Romania; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and Tangier, Morocco. If it’s as good as I hope, the exhibition will showcase possible models for social art making that bridge regional and transnational identities. Sept. 15-Dec. 31; www.sfmoma.org.

re(collection) In the wake of the March 2011 tsunami that devastated northern Japan, volunteers and cleanup workers salvaged and preserved more than 750,000 family snapshots and photos, a community performance both defiant and touching. Some of those photos make up this exhibition, alongside collaborations and new work by Mark Baugh-Sasaki, Ariel Goldberg, Mayumi Hamanaka, Taro Hattori, Sean McFarland, Kari Orvik, and Kelli Yon. Sept. 12-Nov. 3; www.theintersection.org

Guy Overfelt: Blacklight I confess. I’m sending you on a blind date to Guy Overfelt’s October show. I have no idea what he has planned, but if recent work — which usually involves burning rubber, inflating stuff, and performance — is any indicator, the 2012 SECA nominee will not disappoint. Oct. 6-Nov. 3; www.evergoldgallery.com

The Parade: Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg Dazzling, funny, and unsettling, “The Parade” combines kaleidoscopic, person-sized bird sculptures with five stop-motion animated films by Djurberg featuring ingenious synchronized soundtracks scored by Berg. I caught this in a rush at the New Museum in New York; can’t wait to spend more time with it here. Oct. 12-Jan. 27; www.ybca.org

Liam Everett Liam Everett’s lovely and haunting minimal abstract paintings usually incorporate alcohol, paint, and salt to distress and age unstretched canvases, making vibrant palimpsests and riffing on color field painting and installation work. Nov. 1-Dec. 22, www.altmansiegel.com

Jasper Johns: Seeing with the Mind’s Eye Elder statesman of the American post-war period and pop art master sees a new major retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Organized with Johns and spanning the last 60 years, this latest survey of Johns’ work will include 85 paintings, works on paper, and sculptures, many of them from Bay Area collections. Nov. 3-Feb. 3; www.sfmoma.org

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