Dance Archives — Page 123 of 147 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Treasure Island: No shutter shades!

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September 23, 2008

By Marke B.

The upside of the Treasure Island Music Fest Ferris wheel.
All photos by David Schnur.

Well, I was kind of wrong, despite doth protesting too much. There was not one single neon louvered spectacle at the Treasure Island Music Festival on Saturday, for a lineup that was topped with rockin’ French duo Justice. And I’m pretty sure it’s not because everyone reads my bitchy repartee in the Guardian. It’s because San Franciscans are so way ahead of those tired Hipster Runoff hater trends!

Ravin’ with a barnacle to pop-hop DJ Mike Relm

And yes, Justice was fab — the sustained set of dance beats after a day of stage hopping dance-floor blue balls was like a huge release, although I must admit that Hunky Beau and I dashed in the middle of their glowing-cross set to beat the bus rush. (Maybe for a whole day of “dance acts” there should also be a nearby tent of continuous local DJs so people can bounce their rocks off once in a while, uninterrupted by stage patter or slow songs?). In fact the whole day, though some folks’ hands turned purple with early autumnal chill, was amazingly lovely, if the energy was a bit scattered.

Amon Tobin blows the crowd (and almost himself) away

There was a broad spectrum of dance music available, from sexy Aesop Rock’s intel-hop, to Goldfrapp’s Kate Bush/Cocteau Twins revival act to Foals’s frantic indie guitar-and-sequencer patterns (unfortunately the solar-panelled sound system crapped out on them for a spell). For every other kind of dance music except house, Latin legend Amon Tobin happily filled in the windy gaps, with an inner-ear/inner-thought blowing set that nodded not only to his super-brainy brand of ambient sway, but also lazer bass, break beats, reggae, and dub step. This was the first time I saw him using a laptop for his sets along with turntables — and, natch, he was a natural.

Clubs: Seeking Justice with DJ Richie Panic

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September 18, 2008

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By Marke B.

Justice, “DVNO”

Bonjour, Fifi! In this week’s Guardian I go after French hardcore electro sensation Justice (Kim Chun wonderfully defends them), and share a few personal thoughts on the explosively glitzy banger scene that’s grown up around their sound. Some people have written me to call me “old” and “a scold” — that rhymes! Others have lauded me as an “old-school defender” and for “finally taking a hard look at today’s materialistic youth.”

I don’t know about all that. I am old-school — I’ve been around a while — but that doesn’t mean I want to divide stuff up and take sides. Move on dot org!

I can see good things and bad things about most kinds of nightlife. And I surely feel a positive energy and musical innovation at certain banger clubs like Blow Up, even as I worry over some of the materialistic and surface aspects of the hardcore electro scene. Nightlife is an art, and like any art critic, I retain a moralistic vision — but I know that the wonderful purpose of art is to blow up (get it?) any moralistic vision to smithereens and go beyond mere words. But I’ll always totally be down with, as fabulous DJ Richie Panic says below, “going out at night, doing drugs, having sex in bathrooms, and listening to DANCE music.”

It’s difficult to try to objectively critique an underground scene I love and support! BUT at least it’s not this, roight:

Rockstar SF @ Roe/Prive

And here, for comparison’s sake, is Blow Up:

Besides the hipster quotient and economic differences (the banger audience is def not $200 bottle service — yet speaks better french!), and also A LOT more comfort with the gays and female empowerment, plus far less douchebags in dimestore cornrows laughing about rape — HAHAHA — I think I root the difference mostly in the music. I get chills when the change comes in on the lovely Empire of the Sun track above. (With mashups of “Obsession” …. not so much.) And that’s a fundamental of underground nightlife right there — better music and hair than the douchebags. See? We’re still all one.

Anyway, back to Justice. They’re weird! they can fill giant venues, which kind of forfeits underground cred, yet they still somehow retain underground cred. For illumination, I turn to Richie Panic, one of my favorite DJs, the king of the Cali banger scene, and a real sweetheart. Plus a genius. Oh, and he’ll be playing a monster show at Mezzanine with Too Many DJs and Soulwax on Oct. 30 — so catch that! His take below:

Hot Chip, ahoy

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September 17, 2008

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Think of a silkily sexy, deliriously polyrhythmic Hot Chip track as the rippling, bell-shaking musical incarnation of a Persian rug: beautifully detailed; seamlessly groovy; a sensuous, hip-twisting pleasure to dance to or on; and intentionally flawed.

"We hope that maybe the music ends up sounding more refined than polished — there are things we manufacture into the sound that deliberately sound like mistakes," says multi-instrumentalist Al Doyle. "We don’t want to end up sounding like Hall and Oates or something like that. That’s not the kind of sound we kind of go for, totally smoothed out."

Doyle is in a high-flying mood, strolling the streets of Camden in London with what he describes as "a bag full of fancy dress clothes. Quite strange." Hot Chip is set to play a festival on an island off the south coast of England, though, he adds merrily, "we never dress up for anything. We thought we’d do it this time. Make us feel better."

Eight years along after its origins in the hands of ex-schoolmates Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard, the band should be feeling just fine — even if they choose not to don pirate gear for the Treasure Island Music Festival. Hot Chip’s latest, excellent album, Made in the Dark (Astralwerks), sounds like the dance-pop disc that New Order never made. Of that recording, Doyle allows, "We’ve got generally favorable reviews on Metacritics. A lot of people really liked it, and some people were confused about it initially. It’s quite an odd record, I’d say, a little bit all over the place in terms of very quite slow songs and big, loud, fast songs. Quite an experimental moment, with a few big pop hits. But we never thought it was odd. It was just the music we made."

The tracks emerged from everyday highs, like, ahem, Salvia divinorum — the inspiration for the swaying, elastic "Shake a Fist" — and were recorded by the full five-piece. "It was a transition record to a more band-oriented project," says Doyle, who happened to attend Cambridge the same time as Taylor and occasionally moonlights live with LCD Soundsystem. "It’s much more about the groove, and it’s very loud as well," Doyle says of the latter band. "It’s like a fucking bomb going off with LCD. Lasting damage!"

Hot Chip prefers to do benevolent damage to their own tunes live. "It’s much more easygoing and there’s a lot more improvisation. It’s a dance party — the audience goes nuts," he explains. The addition of a new drummer, Leo Taylor, should really make all and sundry go off, so much so that the hard-working Doyle is looking forward to the end. After tours of the United States, United Kingdom, and Mexico, "we finish at the end of the year. The holy grail that we’re all looking forward to."

Hot Chip appears at 4:25 p.m., Sat/20, on the Bridge Stage at Treasure Island Music Festival.

A Bay pas de deux

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September 17, 2008

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

REVIEW Coming right off the top of the new season, two local choreographers, Liss Fain and Erika Chong Shuch, have thrown a spotlight on the marvelous richness of Bay Area dance. These women couldn’t be more different from each other. One creates cool, intricately flowing balletic dances; the other, spunky and quixotic dance theater.

Fain is something of an outsider if for no other reason than that she choreographs to a different tune. No easy beats or slapped-together sound collages for her. Her most recent Liss Fain Dance performance included Bach, Reich, Messiaen, and Bartók. Fain’s is a refined though restricted sensibility, which manifests itself in carefully structured work that floats through time and stage space without establishing linear trajectories. Often the music gives the pieces something akin to a backbone. Her longtime collaborator, Matthew Antaky, envelopes her filigreed choreography with masterful light and scenic designs. Rarely has Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ Novellum stage looked as good.

A world and a local premiere shared the evening with reprises of the courtly couple-dancing Crossing (2004) and the haunting The Line Between Night and Day (2005). Ejmaj Design’s punk leather and lace costumes for the new At the Time suggested theatrically pungent subject matter. But Fain’s slow romp of entangled limbs for Dexandro Montalvo and Bethany Mitchell remained pretty tame.

For the US debut of 2007’s elegant Looking, Looking, inspired by trips to Eastern Europe and Cambodia, Fain responded to Bartók’s folkloric echoes with couple dances and a sense of searching — in the air and on the ground. Full of lively arm gestures, some possibly inspired from Asian mudras, Looking‘s high point came with Montalvo’s partnering two of Fain’s most expressive dancers, fiery Kai Davis and lyrical Daphne Zneimer. Line, performed to parts of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, is a more angular work that, thankfully, avoided literal references to the music’s place of origin: a concentration camp. Somehow it managed to be both elegiac and hopeful.

Also at YBCA, in its Forum space, Erika Shuch Performance Project’s existential musing, After All, Part I, engaged with its excellent performers. The stage oozed with talent and energy, thanks to the eminent, wistful dancer Joe Goode, singer-composer Dwayne Calizo, charming teenage vocalist Gracie Solis, percussionist-actor Matthias Bossi, and actor Beth Wilmurt, not to mention a quartet of dancers and a motley movement chorus of 23.

Drawing from a number of writers, Chong Shuch fashioned dances, monologues, and songs into a circular structure about, well, the meaning of life — as seen mainly from the perspective of a goldfish. Shuch has gathered — and created — marvelous material but it needs to be more organically shaped.

Individual segments work well. Wilmurt inhabited Michelle Carter’s sparkling text as naturally as her pisca-sartorial accoutrements of sunglasses and form-hugging sequins. Though plagued with what appeared to be vocal difficulties, Calizo’s character of a hobo Santa Claus who carries everything with him was a fanciful creation. Bossi roared through Octavio Solis’ "Last Psalm" (an inversion of "The Lord Is My Shepherd") with a mixture of bravado and cynicism. Given the current political climate, he was as hilarious as he was chilling.

Still, what After needs is somebody — just as in the initial fable — to hold it up. As it was, it didn’t leave enough footprints in the sand.

No peace, so Justice

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September 17, 2008

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>>Justice for all? Read club snob Marke B.’s response to this essay here.

› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Is it wrong to like Justice as much as you like your iPhone? Can a rocker adore Justice as much as they love AC/DC? What’s wrong with the fist-pumping, head-banging reaction the French duo inevitably pull when their pop bombast hits your brainwaves?

There’s no denying that the duo of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay go for the drama, even while piling on the classical melodicism, teasing with sonic textural interest and gently provoking with image and concept. In play are the detached yet still loaded signs and symbols of a de-centered, post-nationalist, millennial Europe — where the virtual village square, an imagined common ground, is littered with logos and branding detritus like corporate trademarks (à la their sparkling ’80s font-anime fete of a vid for “DNVO”) and crosses (a.k.a., the title of Justice’s 2007 Ed Banger/Vice/Downtown debut), the latter of which might be read at various points as a crucifix, a space-galleon, or a coffin with wings.

But perhaps that common ground is also the beat — a constant that shifts intriguingly. The beat doesn’t possess the primacy one would imagine from an outfit so associated with disco, the so-called nouveau French touch scene, or anything resembling dance music culture, if there was ever such an animal. Instead, Augé and de Rosnay are ciphers: the friendly, unobtrusive absence at the center of Justice, as identifier-free and countenanceless as they are in their Grammy-nominated “D.A.N.C.E” video. These children of Jean Baudrillard dare you to deny their ball-busting bounce, ear-bleed volume, and bloodless hooks, sans even the cartoon/anime-cool, featureless, anti-human “faces” of Daft Punk, or the too-cool-for-school ‘tude of, say, Death From Above 1979. As with their recently banned video for “Stress,” Justice are tinkering with pop violence, devoid of true gore, a.k.a. passion.

So is it wrong to think of Justice as a user-friendly lil’ post-modern contemporary performing unit (CPU), right there along with my favorite multi-tool and time-wasting-toy iPhone — generating content that doesn’t burden me with biography, calculated ways of winning my dollar, or even, despite the iconography, religion, politics, or deep thoughts designed to program or convert me. “Justice is music without a message and without politics,” de Rosnay told Pitchfork this year. “We don’t want to tell people what to think.” Regardless of whether I buy †‘s Christian allusions — “Genesis,” “Let There Be Light,” “Waters of Nazareth,” and even divinity or “DVNO,” I believe de Rosnay’s, ahem, sincere. Like any tool, the Net, or any number of platforms available online, Justice provides a blank for me to fill in like the animation-bedecked T-shirts of the “D.A.N.C.E.” video. “T,” here, stands for tabula rasa, ready to be doodled on, graffitied or defaced — even while cheekily offering, for one millisecond, “Internet Killed the Video Stars,” this gen’s knowing rejoinder to the first video aired on MTV.

And despite the adoring masses, Augé and de Rosnay came off as far from superstar DJs in their shadowy absence-presence at Coachella in April 2007, where I first, er, saw Justice deliver what they’ve described as their first live music performance, non-reliant on turntables or CD mixers. Chalk it up to the cool relief of the evening after the blistering heat of the day, the locale of the relatively chill dance tent at the far end of the festival grounds, the gorgeously retina-searing, candy-colored hot neon and cross-flashing light show, or the duo’s own excitement, but their set — epic, melodious, and full of those big, fat, dumb beats that detractors love to slam — turned out to be the sweet spot of the entire event. By comparison, the duo’s MySpace-sponsored turn at the SF Design Center this spring tapped a slightly menacing Nuremberg rally–style vibe with its impenetrable black wall of Marshall stacks centered on a crucifix, above which the duo worked like two hipster Ozs cloaked in darkness. Even without the pastel flash, the kids punched the air with joyful anguish up front as latecomers skipped toward the stage. Justicemania.

But as Chinua Achebe promised and Justice referenced in their party’s-over “We Are Your Friends” video, things fall apart. All five-alarm strings and raver-y emergency broadcast system wail, “Stress” was the least likely track Justice could have chosen. The vérité smash-up of La Haine (1995), Costa-Gavras dynamism (The clip’s director, Romain-Gavras, is his son), and the media-savvy Medium Cool revolves around a multiracial gang of Justice cross-jacketed toughs committing senseless acts of violence in a collision between the two Parises: an alienating, multicultural and cosmopolitan urban milieu, and the quintessentially old-world City of Light. Was this rough Justice? Mais non, considering the injection of irreverent wit when one gangbanger kicks out a car radio bleating “D.A.N.C.E.” Concluding with a fourth-wall-busting scene as the boom operator’s arm catches fire and the gang descends on the camera-wielder, the video appears to be literally turning the easy thrills of the soundtrack-sourcing music on its head.

“Stress” segues with this year’s DJ Mix Leur Selection (Tron) from Justice, which shows off the pair’s puckish humor by aligning Dario Argento collaborators Goblin along with their heroes Sparks, supposed rivals Daft Punk, SF metal abstractionists Fucking Champs, and — who said the French lack wit? — Frank Stallone. The DJ Mix‘s finale — Todd Rundgren’s “International Feel” — gives you a taste of what the twosome might have in mind to follow †‘s tonally varied orchestration of older tracks, dance pop, and more stately instrumentals — as Rundgren wails to his time-traveling synths, “And there is more / International feel … interplanetary deals … interstellar appeal … universal ideal.” After the tantalizing whirl of signs and symbols — hinting at everything and nothing — is there more to Justice than what dazzles the ear and eye?

Justice performs at 9:15 p.m., Sat/20, at the Bridge Stage.

Jabbing at Justice?

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September 17, 2008

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>>Justice among us? Read rocker Kimberly Chun’s response to this essay here.

› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Pack up your travel-size Palin Porker-Pink™ CoverGirl Lipslick, kids, ‘cuz we’re about to time-travel through the recent dance floor past, with a brief stop at Negative Nellyland. All aboard the Wayback: toot, toot.

In the past couple of years, five new genres have taken over US underground clubs — all with wriggly roots in Europe and Canada. (If you’re looking to read any entrails about America’s loss of influence in the world, check out our lube-slip grip on global dance floors.) These genres are the following: minimal techno, a brainy but often stunning strip-down of the much-maligned techno beast; dubstep, with its post-postcolonial fusion of reggae, two-step, bhangra, and more; retro disco, summoning the shimmering ghosts of gay bathhouse, italo disco, and other pre-digital ’70s and ’80s micro-movements; lazer bass — or “bastard bass,” or “psychedelic robo-crunk remix action” — the blippy, bowel-shaking deconstruction of chart-prevalent hip-hop.

And then, of course, there’s hardcore electro.

Honestly, hardcore electro — and the glam-slam banger scene that grew up around it — can sometimes bug the bejesus out of me. The genre has mind-blowing aspects: thumping energy, quick-witted mixing, exhilarating stuttered vocals, old-school breakdowns, and key-skipping basslines. I was raised rave, so its primo combo of mannered anarchy and DJ worship — along with its genre-bending conflagration of metal, crunk, acid, and techno — is right up my tender alley. Bring the noise.

Yet there’s something a little too “party like a rockstar” about it. With its accompanying over-the-top neon-hipster look (attack of the sunglass tees!), sex-obsessed provocations, and fist-pumping non-dance moves, hardcore electro is the new hair metal. The banger kids I’ve met are all lovely and motivated, and in the right DJ hands — Richie Panic, Vin Sol — the mix can achieve perfection, cheekily blasting stadium-size sounds to an up-to-the-minute crowd. But there’s sometimes a shallow, for-the-cameras sheen to the scene — mirroring the often robotic, often black-faced “let’s get fucked up and fuck” lyrics spat from the speakers. Sad face.

Plus, no one ever STFUs about goddamned Justice.

OK, look, I’m no hater — do you see any frown lines on this immaculate face? Thought not. If 10,000 people wanna throw on electric-blue shutter shades and American Apparel tube socks and lose their shit to two smirking French dudes, I’m all for it. I may even join ’em. But if I get one more MySpace friend request from a DJ tag team in Spiderman masks who fall on their knees before Justice, I’m gonna hurl coconuts. Can we get a little originality on the runway, s’il vous plaît?

Justice — superstars of the Ed Banger label, for which the banger scene’s named — are OK. Any politically savvy decks duo that flawlessly drops “Master of Puppets” and “Standing in the Way of Control” into ear-splitting, ADD sets gets my vote. They’re wicked smart, too: the hilariously grandiose symbol-title of their first album, † is the ascii symbol for dagger — an Internet-based irony perfect for our religiously warring times, and one surely expected from the two sharp former graphic designers. They don’t wear masks, whew, and I can’t totally blame them for the look and feel of their scene.

So why do Justice make my snobby shit list? First, they overreach, in that tired rock-star DJ way: their stadium tour of this country was partly downscaled in the face of poor ticket sales. Plus, their poker-faced religious bombast act is too one-note to enjoy, and their first major US TV appearance, on Jimmy Kimmel Live, was a lip-synch of their welcome-worn-out-quickly hit “D.A.N.C.E.” performed by Michael Jackson and Prince look-alikes — a cynical joke that turned the song’s utopian lyrics (“Under the spotlight / Neither black nor white”) into a racial minefield and completely underestimated the audience. I realize Justice gets a wry giggle from such overblown deflation — that’s so French — but I can’t afford enough flip-flops to go with all their tacky punch lines. Mean ol’ rock stars.

Then, where is the love? Surely you’ve heard of “the love”? It’s enshrined in the House Nation constitution, the underlying sentiment of dance music from the dawns of disco and house through the second Summer of Love exactly 20 years ago — and still running under the floors of many clubs today. I’m not a metaphysical person. One body’s enough for me, thank you. Well, maybe three on the weekend. But even I can feel the spiritual dimension of dance, the slightly corn-tinted, otherworldly glow of souls united in motion. Love is the message.

Sure, Justice promised that “We are your friends / You’ll never be alone again” with their friends Simian in the undisputed juggernaut mix of ’06. But it came off as more snide than divine. Their shows get too hyper for full transcendence: more cool than heat, more status than soul. And Justice’s horrifying misstep of a video for “Stress,” which follows a group of youths as they rob and beat random Parisians (yes, I get that it boldly activated European fears of “the other,” but, bleh), sets the banger aesthetic up as the nihilistic opposite of love, while desperately lunging for punk-rock street cred. Boring!

But maybe unblinking devotion to “the love” is an outdated, pre-Internet means of global dance floor connection and validation — and something those of us glowsticking it with Big Bird in the pre-Dubya years had the fortunate leisure to indulge in and mystify. Maybe now thrashing out with like minds to an aggro blizzard of metal samples and jittery synths — and looking good doing it — is the perfect escape pod: dance-floor justice, for these apocalyptic times. Maybe.

Treasure Island Music Festival 2008

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September 16, 2008

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It’s a Treasure Island Music Festival free-for-all, and we’re ready to rock and/or dance overboard with the all-star line-up at the gonzo weekend-long sonic blast. In the name of rockers, Sonic Reducer faces off against the dance-floor repping Super Ego over French electro-pop juggernaut Justice, headlining Saturday. What has the stylish duo wrought? Plus: we also look at TV on the Radio, Goldfrapp, Hot Chip, Vampire Weekend, prep school rock, and other artists appearing Sat/20-Sun/21. For the complete fest schedule and details, go to www.treasureislandfestival.com and dig for gold.

>>Sonic Reducer: No peace, so Justice!
Stressing on semiotics and skipping to the bomb-blast beat
By Kimberly Chun

>>Super Ego: Jabbing at Justice?
“Help! I’m drowning in shutter shades,” yells club kid
By Marke B.

>>No castaways here
Treasure Island jewels to drool over
Our Picks

>>Channel surfers
Flip the switch and begin anew with TV on the Radio
By Mosi Reeves

>>“Seventh” heaven
Goldfrapp ascends to the astral, while throwing roots down in the real
By Kimberly Chun

>>Does Vampire Weekend suck?
A critical mass of critical stabs at the afro-pop punks
By Brandon Bussolini

>>Class revolting
Chester French fronts the new school of college-rockers
By Brandon Bussolini

>>Hot Chip, ahoy
Fancy dress, hearing loss, pop highs
By Kimberly Chun

New mission, dance moves for Hank IV

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September 10, 2008

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Hank_IV_Promo geoffrey ellis.jpg

All hail, Hank IV. Vocalist Bob McDonald completed successful knee surgery earlier this year on a torn ACL from a Bottom of the Hill show: Bandmate Anthony Bedard tells me, “On surgeon’s orders, he’s had to alter his ‘Robbie the Robot meets Ian Curtis’ style of dancing” in favor of a more stand-and-deliver strategy.

The SF combo will also see their new Siltbreeze album, Refuge in Genre, recorded with Tim Green earlier this summer, come out in October — and then there’s Hank IV‘s latest mission: opening for Mission of Burma (playing Signals, Calls, and Marches and Vs. start to finish) throughout Cali, including Sept. 26 and 27 at the Independent.

HANK IV
With Mission of Burma
Sept. 26 (Signals, Calls, and Marches) and Sept. 27 (Vs.), 9 p.m. $20-$35
Independent
628 Divisadero, SF
(415) 771-1421

Jam econo

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September 10, 2008

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› duncan@sfbg.com

Look, I can’t tell you, OK? It’s not that I don’t want to, but when I tell someone it’s "off the record," it’s off the record. It’s not like divulging the day job of Nicole Laurenne, super-saucy singer and Farfisa player for the Love Me Nots, would be some kind of huge, Valerie Plame–style leak, but I refuse to be the Scooter Libby here. Let’s just say she wants to keep her professional and garage-rock lives separate. Brain surgeon? Test pilot? Miniskirted, go-go-booted commando, doing the swim behind enemy lines? "Just tell them I’m a spy. I work for the CIA," Laurenne says during a phone interview from her office in stifling Phoenix, Ariz., or, perhaps, from her secret lair in the caldera of an extinct volcano.

Whatever it is she does, let’s just say Laurenne and the rest of her black-and-white-garbed, pin-sharp quartet aren’t quitting their day jobs any time soon. Not because the band doesn’t pack enough full-throated, ’60s soul, Mosrite fuzz, and hip-shaking, back-alley R&B stomp to rock the door off the proverbial garage — because they do, in spades. This is clearly evidenced by their 2007 debut, In Black & White, and their newly dropped Detroit, both produced in a chicken slaughterhouse-turned-recording studio in the Motor City by Jim Diamond (the White Stripes, the Romantics, the Charms) and both on Love Me Nots’ Atomic a Go Go imprint. "Our day jobs pay for everything," Laurenne tells me. "We’re very careful to work around them. We decided a long time ago we didn’t want to live in a van for a month and play on Tuesdays in Wichita." This allows them to practice an approach that more seasoned touring bands like Les Savy Fav have turned to after decades of midweek dates in nowhere towns: the tour as surgical strike. "We’ll go out to the East Coast and do New Jersey on Thursday and New York on Friday and Boston on Saturday and fly home on Sunday," she says.

I can hear it already: "Man, that’s not punk rock. Where’s the DIY? I’m revoking their indie street cred." Sell out? Hardly. The Love Me Nots are an example of a new paradigm, or at least a rare one: they actually put the horse before the cart. While grinding away in various Phoenix garage outfits over the years — with the exception of their new bass player, Kyle Rose Stokes, a 26-year-old grad student, they’re all in their 30s — the Love Me Nots realized they had to make money so they could do it right from the get-go: they release their own music on their own label, do the distribution, copyrighting, publishing, artwork — not to mention writing songs, rehearsing, and playing gigs. They may not be gluing together 7-inch sleeves, but they’ve got more in common with the DIY ethos of bands like Minor Threat and Black Flag and the labels they created, Dischord and SST, than trustafarians trying to scam street cred by sprinkling a steady diet of ramen with cocaine binges, hoping to float to hipster heaven on the sparkly fart of the first A&R douchebag who recognizes their Casiotone genius.

"You’ve got to give ’em what they want," Laurenne advises an unnamed "little girl" as Detroit nears its crescendo, before adding, "without losing what you’ve got." And while it’s delivered as romantic advice, it sums up the band’s outlook: deliver the goods, on your own terms, in your own time. You can have the career, and the band, and the love life — Laurenne and guitarist Michael Johnny Walker recently got engaged — and not have to slack off on any element of being alive. It is, however, somewhat of a balancing act. "We try to avoid doing stuff that’s too connected," the vocalist says when I asked her if the band’s been asked to play Christmas parties. "We definitely don’t mind people who enjoy that style of music coming out and enjoying it. They certainly need their own release. And, honestly, a lot of people in this type of suit world have other, non-suit interests too, and I think they feel validated, like, ‘Oh, I guess it’s OK to be a sort of renaissance person. You can pursue your own interests, and it’s not shameful anymore.’<0x2009>"

Perhaps it’s my brief stint in the dirty, amoral trenches of mind control, er … "advertising," that immediately leads me to a tag line: "The Love Me Nots: Making It Safe for the Squares to Dance," I tell Laurenne. "That’s your next T-shirt."

THE LOVE ME NOTS

With the Hi-Nobles and the Laundronauts

Fri/12, 9 p.m., $8

Annie’s Social Club

917 Folsom, SF

www.anniessocialclub.com

Lose yourself

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September 10, 2008

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Every big city hosts its fair share of great bands that attract crowds with centrifugal force. While other performers flyer mercilessly only to play to the opening act and bartenders, some draw a crowd only money can buy. But money seems to have little to do with it — some acts are just really fucking good.

I sat down with Ty Segall in the Lower Haight last month to find out what he was putting in the water. "If I put out a hundred records in my life, I’ll die happy," Segall said after a good, hearty spiel praising Billy Childish.

Segall sets the scene physically. Onstage, the 21-year-old can be sighted in tight jeans and a striped T-shirt, crouched over a guitar in front of a bass drum with a tambourine duct-taped haphazardly to the front. The reverb is turned up so high you can hardly tell where the lyrics end and guitar begins. Then imagine it sounding great — almost like you’re listening to an old record. Every pause between songs is heavy with echo and the hiss of amplifiers. Suddenly you realize that punk’s not dead — we just weren’t doing it right.

"It’s all about the sound … the old, live rock thing," he explained. "Childish is famous for saying you don’t need more than a day to record something. That’s how I feel recording should be done. Quick, on the fly, fast — real."

The new sound is the old sound. In a media-saturated culture where you can listen to anything from GG Allin to the Shangri-las without having to have a cool older brother, the only place to turn is your roots.

"For me, there’s nothing better than oldies stations," Segall said. "All the girl groups and Buddy Holly — it’s real rock ‘n’ roll. It’s not even the song. It’s how it sounds. It’s got soul. The style of recording, the real, live sound, and the real feeling it portrays. You can feel the live, on-the-fly mentality."

Ask Segall about his influences, however, and you’ll get a lot more than Childish. You’ll get an array of genres and styles: surf music, glam, the Stooges, and local bands. Segall has basically jumped into a dream.

"I’m the luckiest person in the world," he said, referring to his upcoming US tour with indie greats Thee Oh Sees and the Sic Alps. "I’m touring with two of my favorite bands in the city. This is as far as I ever wanted to take this project, and I’m already there." And the man has gone even further: Thee Oh Sees’ John Dwyer is releasing Segall’s new self-titled album on his Castle Face imprint, though at this point he has released only one other recording — by his own band — on the label.

But then everyone gets carried away and forgets him or herself when they see Segall live. In fact, you almost forget to dance. His songs are so spot-on and inspired that you lose your focus on the surroundings. Instead you glue your eyes to his performance the same way you fix on a TV set when you’re hungover. People already consider Segall’s SoCal-ish lo-fi ballad "The Drag" a classic, and I have the hypnotic, Syd Barrett–inspired "Who Are You?" on every playlist on my iPod.

I mean, I don’t want to get all afterschool-special about it, but if you want to see something new and don’t want to waste an entire night, catch Segall the next chance you get. And you know what? If Segall puts out a hundred records in his life, I’ll die happy too.

TY SEGALL

With Thee Oh Sees and Sic Alps

Thurs/11, call for time and price

Eagle Tavern

398 12th St., SF

(415) 626-0880

Also with Master/Slave and Girls

Fri/12, 9:30 p.m., $7

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

www.hemlocktavern.com

Buddha system

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September 10, 2008

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› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Gadzooks! I’m lunching with Sen-Sei at Prana, the nifty Thai resto attached to zentastic club Temple, Sen-Sei’s hazel eyes reflecting the brilliant curlicues of my ginger-garlic prawns. No, I’m not assuming the lotus position. Not in these heels, Dharma.

Scenesters know Sen-Sei as the classically trained pianist who’s been plugging his keys into mixers and tapping out sen-seitional "live house" since the early ’90s. But his day job is Marketing Genius for Temple — or, more accurately, for Zen Compound, the new downtown Buddha-themed complex with more business arms than a wriggly Vishnu — and he’s giving me the downward-dog scoop.

Besides luscious Prana, the compound houses a production studio for the Temple Music Group label, a soon-to-be-opened school for yoga, tai chi, and more (wait for it: "The Zenter"), and an Irrawaddy Delta’s worth of antique Buddhist artifacts — srsly, it’s like Raiders of the Lama Ark up in there. Plus, of course, the zenterpiece: Temple nightclub, a spiffy, vast space that includes the generous first-floor Shrine Room, and, beneath that, the blinding white Destiny Lounge and cozy Catacombs. The joint also admirably touts its commitment to sustainability — it’ll be rocking a gonzo solar-paneled float at LoveFest on Oct. 4 — but much of the green’s attached to grants and guidance from PG&E, so, environy.

Listen, huge clubs scare me. They do! You know that clubber nightmare where you’re busting fierce moves to some comfy old-school funk — when suddenly you look up to find yourself on the floor of the Republican National Convention, surrounded by rickety ‘nillas awkwardly "getting down"? Then you vomit fluorescent begonias? Gurl, I’ve been there — mostly at some megaclub megacatastrophe. When you have to fill a couple acre’s worth of dance floor every night to break even, drink and cover prices usually soar while crowd quality plummets. B&T + LCD = nightlife tragedy.

Temple isn’t that — Sen-Sei tags it as not a megaclub, but an, er, "ultraclub" — and although it can get crowded with far-Bay playa-wannabes puking on their knockoff Jimmy Choos, the stellar talent booked is often off-the-karma-chain, and there’s always a core of dedicated dance fans near the speakers. This can lead to some real Siddharthan surrealness — like the night me and 20 others were losing our mandalas over breakbeat gods LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad in the Shrine, while below us 200 cologniacs ground out tired threeways to Jeezy in the Catacombs.

"We’re trying to achieve a balance," Sen-Sei says, appropriately, "between staying afloat and still appealing to an open-minded crowd willing to be musically educated. But I swear to you, we’ll never be Ruby Skye."

And I believe him. For one thing, the whole ball of bodhi-wax is owned by DJ Paul Hemming, a bass-heavy synth-techno nut who takes to the decks most Saturdays. For another, almost everyone I met on the business end of the club had already made legendary names for themselves as DJs or promoters — it was like the ’90s all over again! The good part, not the black tar.

For a third, despite its slightly belabored Orientalism, Temple does follow an enlightened philosophy: "Fuck all that same-sounding superstar DJ Paul Van Dykenfold-Tiësto bullshit," Sen-Sei advised. "’Oh, look at me, I can beat-match in a stadium.’ Big deal. We just want to bring back the love, build a dance floor family, and take it into the future. Is that so impossible now?"

TEMPLE

540 Howard, SF

www.templesf.com

Collaboration! Dance & Music 2008

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September 9, 2008

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PREVIEW Hope you’re hungry to see a big show, because for this concert you need an appetite for the unruly, the new, and the short. Collaboration! Dance & Music started 10 years ago in Marin County as the brainchild of Dance Outré’s Lorien Fenton, who wanted to showcase new work primarily by Marin artists. But the event took off and several years ago it traveled from the tiny Marin Center Showcase Theater across the Golden Gate Bridge to the 437-seat Cowell Theater in Fort Mason. In the past the pieces have come in all shades and colors, from jazz to Kathak to modern to Butoh. Part of the fun is seeing which choreographers hitch up with which composers. In dance, collaborating with musicians has long been a storied tradition, even back when Tchaikovsky’s colleagues thought that working with such intellectually inferior arts as Marius Petipa’s ballets was below the composer’s dignity. Yet Stravinsky’s most-frequently played scores are the ones he wrote for Balanchine. And it was through Martha Graham that Aaron Copeland’s most popular piece got its name, "Appalachian Spring." It’s unlikely a masterpiece will emerge from the 10-minute collaborations by this year’s 10 choreographer/composer couples. Still, the principle stands: two artists from different disciplines putting their heart and soul into a work can come up with some amazing stuff.

COLLABORATION! DANCE & MUSIC 2008 Fri/12–Sat/13, 8 p.m.; Sun/14, 2 p.m. Cowell Theater, Marina and Buchanan, SF. $17–$20. (415) 345-7575.

Berkeley Old Time Music Convention

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September 9, 2008

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PREVIEW It’s strange for a music to be called "old time" if it’s played today. Granted, webbed fingers because your parents were cousins might keep you out of Internet distribution, and Deliverance (1972) didn’t help any, but old time music really is more than country music’s hillbilly brother.

The Berkeley Old Time Music Convention fiddles away four days of concert performances, square dances, contests, and tailgate string band sessions. San Francisco’s swanky Make-Out Room opens the festival with a square dance: expect straw on the floor, bolo ties, and polished boots.

All hat but no cattle? Learn to support your cowboy swagger at Ashkenaz on Sunday with a clogging workshop, or at Thursday’s panel discussion at UC Berkeley’s Hertz Hall. If you play, polish your chops at one of Sunday evening’s JazzSchool workshops (unfortunately scheduled too late to prep you for Saturday’s string band concert). The convention’s main event, the string band competition, pits band against band, with the winner awarded a trophy of gilded roadkill and second place taking home a jug of moonshine and homemade candles.

For professional fare, Freight and Salvage and Ashkenaz bring the best out of the woods for nightly concerts and square dances showcasing fiddler Benton Flippen, banjo player Paul Brown, and guitar player Frank Bode — all southern Appalachian born and bred.

Not to drape a flag, but for the oldest form of North American traditional music (other than Native American music) to host its festival on 9/11 seems particularly fitting.

BERKELEY OLD TIME MUSIC CONVENTION String Band Contest, Sat/13, 11 a.m., free. Civic Center Park, Martin Luther King Jr. and Center, Berk. (510) 848-5018, www.berkeleyoldtimemusic.org. Convention runs Thurs/11–Sun/14, see Web site for details.

Pics: 18th Annual Autumn Moon Festival lights up Chinatown

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September 8, 2008

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By Ariel Soto

There is no such thing as a lull on Grant Avenue in San Francisco’s Chinatown, but this past weekend things were especially active and colorful in observance of the Autumn Moon Festival, a celebration of the beginning of the fall and the hope for a bountiful harvest season. As a photographer for SFBG, I get to cover many such cultural events and happenings (yes, my job is awesome!) and after visiting several of these street festivals this summer, I really think this one takes the cake, possibly a sweet moon cake, for being very authentic and for giving visitors a real taste of the true Chinatown. Musicians played traditional Chinese folk music with a plethora of unique and beautiful instruments, while men competed in a Chinese Chess championship, while munching on steam buns and salted peanuts. Vendors sold everything from orchids, to hair dyes and curry fish balls, and many other items that I really couldn’t identify since all the signs were written in Chinese, which made the festival even more fun and an example of how this was really a celebration for the neighborhood community and not just for the out of town tourists passing through. My two favorite parts of the afternoon were a lavishly dressed singing duo who took the stage to sing and dance and just make everyone smile with their catchy tunes, and the 10-pound bag of dim sum I took home and devoured with a hot cup of tea.

“Peering Through the Portal”

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September 3, 2008

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PREVIEW This weekend CounterPULSE features two groups that thrive on collaboration. They have in common an Asian American background that informs but doesn’t determine the work they do. Melody Takata is a San Francisco artist with a broad perspective and 20 years of experience. Trained in taiko (she is the founder of GenTaiko), the three-stringed shamisen, and Japanese classical and folk dance, she grounds her pieces in the past but creates a contemporary language for them. In 2007’s Quest (with saxophonist Francis Wong and poet Genny Lim), Takata uses taiko drumming and both styles of Japanese dance to demystify some of the exoticism that surrounds Japanese American culture. This year’s Shimenawa (Rope) grew out of a concern that plans for the extensive remodeling of Japantown will cut one of the ties that bind the Japanese American community. Los Angeles–based Elaine Wang and San Francisco resident Lenora Lee, who began their modern dance partnership in the early 1990s, recently revived Lee & Wang Dance. Their 2007 Gale Winds and Turya explores conflicting internal voices and the role of dreamscapes and memory in the search for identity. Wang’s new duet, Swoon, pairs her with flautist/dancer Kaoru Watanabe in an exploration of connection, separation, and the quiet space between the two. Mina Nishimura and musicians Tatsu Aoki and Hideko Nakajima also perform in this interdisciplinary program.

PEERING THROUGH THE PORTAL Sat/6, 8 p.m.; Sun/7, 1 p.m. CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, San Francisco. $10–$15. 1-800-838-3006, www.counterpulse.org, www.brownpapertickets.com

Hello ta-tas

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September 3, 2008

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CLUB REVIEW I love a pair of tits, but nothing’s better than four of a kind. That’s what I wanted when I hit electro/hip-hop party TITS, the bimonthly breast bash at the Transfer thrown by Parker Day. The woman puts on so many events we’d have to change our name to the Day Guardian to cover them all. Day divulged that the night’s all about "drag shows and break-dancing, birthdays and binge drinking, broken bottles and blood."

Well, I demanded even more — sometimes more is less for your typically hoodied hipoisie. And before Transfer owner Greg Bronstein even considers instating a dress code at the soon-to-be chi-chi-fied bar, it’s still in-yer-face TNT (ta-tas ‘n’ ta-tas) action or bust for me. Call me a perv, but I follow a long line of true journalists, extending from Hugh Hefner to Helen Gurley Brown. And if Parker and her posse can man-nipple-ate 20-somethings into taking their tops off, then so can I. Trust.

So, camera in hand, I made my way past the dance floor to the sexy photo room in back, where there’d surely be some desperate publicity seekers — Tara Reid, much? — willing to do anything to be in a picture. Well, not so much. But channeling my best Hoe Francis, I managed to convince two straight boys (who worked there and had to do it), a gay boy (who was drunk), a woman (who had posed nude before), and finally another woman (a friend of the promoter, who also had to do it) and a Janice Dickinson male model (who’s from LA and has no shame) to drop top and pose tit à tit. Ain’t no stoppin’ me now. So who’s unleashin’ CLITS?

TITS

First and third Fridays, 10 p.m.–2 a.m., $5

Transfer

198 Church, SF

myspace.com/itsthetits

More power to the righteous

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September 3, 2008

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Do I admire Michael Franti? You bet your ass I do. In the scary days after 9/11 he had the balls to stand up to a fascist tide led by flag-waving goon squads and cheered on by most of America. Franti and a handful of Bay Area artists, including Paris and the Coup’s Boots Riley, took a stand when it mattered, when free speech wasn’t free anymore.

Making albums is one thing — making history is another. In the case of Franti and artists like him — those who are loosely described as "political" — there’s a connection between one activity and the other. So which yardstick do you use when sizing up a career? Franti’s major label releases with Spearhead didn’t sell much, the Coup’s Kill My Landlord (Wild Pitch, 1993) went out of print, and Tommy Boy dropped Paris because of his politics.

But from today’s vantage point — with hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq and the Bill of Rights sacrificed in the process — how do you factor in the foresight and courage these artists displayed in battles that involved all of us, even if we tried to hide out on the sidelines?

In Franti’s case, his social and political vision has been consistent, voiced over constantly evolving sounds and styles. He emerged in the mid-1980s with the Beatnigs, a fabulous, noisy, funky, radical mess of a band built around his seething manifestos and Rono Tse’s ear-splitting percussive experiments. When the sometimes-exhilarating Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy were born from the Beatnigs in 1990, Franti softened the noise, sharpened his voice, and gained musical elevation courtesy of avant-jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter.

Spearhead and the hip-hop mainstream came next, and two albums later, when he parted ways with Capitol, Franti was free to explore — like it or not. Without a hip-hop straightjacket, his more recent work has been as interesting as any since the days of Disposable Heroes.

Franti’s latest album, All Rebel Rockers (Anti), drops Sept. 9, a few days after his now-annual "Power to the Peaceful" festival will likely draw some 50,000 people to Golden Gate Park. That said, All Rebel Rockers interests me like yoga and veganism, which isn’t much. Franti recorded the full-length in Jamaica with durable rhythm section Sly (Dunbar) and Robbie (Shakespeare) co-producing. There was a time when reggae was lifted by menace and invention — a dissonance that’s been lost along with the anticolonial hope that inspired musicians like the Wailers to take a stand in the first place. While it’s no surprise that Franti turned to Jamaica for an album, he seems to be chasing a kind of holistic harmony that’s long on shelter but short on threat. That’s fine unless — like me — you need an outlet for outrage.

The post-corporate music world is a vast, constantly shifting collage of musical and social niches in which Franti has created a big, warm home for himself. On Rockers his words are more clever than they are challenging, and the rhymes are tight and infectious in a way that serves the dance floor, but they go down like fast food. Franti’s got hardcore fans, which arguably makes him famous enough to be glibly autobiographical, even when he sounds like a ’70s singer-songwriter. The chorus of the opening cut, "Rude Boys Back in Town," is a call-and-response between Franti and fans: "Michael, Michael, where you been …" But in the past, when critics have asked that he mix the personal with the political, I don’t think this is what they had in mind.

I still consider Franti one of the Bay Area’s genuinely important artists. Without his work, as well as that of the Coup and Paris — whose latest album, Acid Reflex (Guerrilla Funk) also comes out in September — the world would be the worse for it. And not just on Saturday night. At the end of the day, I can’t deliver higher praise. *

10TH ANNUAL POWER TO THE PEACEFUL MUSIC AND ARTS FESTIVAL

With Michael Franti and Spearhead, Ziggy Marley, and more

Sat/6, 11 a.m.–5 p.m., free

Speedway Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF

Also "Power to the Peaceful" after-party with Spearhead and all-star jam session

Sat/6, 9 p.m., $15

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

Also "Sunday Yoga Jam" with Franti and others

Sun/7, see Web site for time, $35–<\d>$110

Yoga Tree Castro

97 Collingwood, SF

www.powertothepeaceful.org

Man in the middle

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September 2, 2008

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>>More: For the Guardian’s live coverage of the Democratic National Convention 2008, visit our Politics Blog

› steve@sfbg.com

As the Democratic National Convention was drawing to an explosive close Aug. 28, Barack Obama finally took center stage. In an address to more than 70,000 people, he presented his credentials, his proposals, and his vision. Most in the partisan crowd thought he gave a great speech and left smiling and enthused; some bloggers quickly called it the greatest convention speech ever.

I liked it too — but there were moments when I cringed.

Obama played nicely to the middle, talking about "safe" nuclear energy, tapping natural gas reserves, and ending the war "responsibly." He stayed away from anything that might sound too progressive, while reaching out to Republicans, churchgoers, and conservatives.

He also made a statement that should (and must) shape American politics in the coming years: "All across America something is stirring. What the naysayers don’t understand is this isn’t about me — it’s about you."

Well, if this is really about me and the people I spend time with — those of us in the streets protesting war and the two-party system, people at Burning Man creating art and community — then it appears that electing Obama is just the beginning of the work we need to do.

As Tom Hayden wrote recently in an essay in the Guardian, Obama needs to be pushed by people’s movements to speed his proposed 16-month Iraq withdrawal timeline and pledge not to leave a small, provocative force of soldiers there indefinitely.

After a 5,000 mile, 10-day trip starting and ending at Black Rock City in the Nevada desert with Denver and the convention in between, I’ve decided that Obama is a Man in the Middle.

That creature is essential to both Burning Man and the Democratic National Convention, a figure of great significance — but also great insignificance. Because ultimately, both events are about the movements that surround and define the man.

THE BIG TENT

Nominating Obama was a historic moment, but the experience of spending four days at the convention was more like a cross between attending a big party and watching an infomercial for the Democratic Party. It was days of speeches followed by drinking — both exclusive affairs requiring credentials and connections for the biggest moments.

This year’s convention saw a new constituency come into full bloom. It was called the Big Tent — the literal name for the headquarters of bloggers and progressive activists at the Denver convention, but it also embodied the reality that the vast blogosphere has come of age and now commands the attention of the most powerful elected Democrats.

The tent was in the parking lot of the Alliance Building, where many Denver nonprofits have their offices. It consisted of a simple wood-frame structure two stories high, covered with a tent.

In the tent were free beer, food, massages, smoothies, and Internet access. But there was also the amplified voice of grassroots democracy, something finding an audience not just with millions of citizens on the Internet, but among leaders of the Democratic Party.

New media powerhouses, including Daily Kos, MoveOn, and Digg (a Guardian tenant in San Francisco that sponsors the main stage in the Big Tent) spent the last year working on the Big Tent project. It was a coming together of disparate, ground-level forces on the left into something like a real institution, something with the power to potentially influence the positions and political dialogue of the Democratic Party.

"When we started doing this in 2001, there just wasn’t this kind of movement," MoveOn founder Eli Pariser told me as we rode down the Alliance Building elevator together. "The left wing conspiracy is finally vast."

The Big Tent constituency is a step more engaged with mainstream politics than Burning Man’s Black Rock City, an outsider movement that sent only a smattering of representatives to the convention, including me and my travel mates from San Francisco, musician Kid Beyond and Democratic Party strategist Donnie Fowler, as well as the Philadelphia Experiment’s artistic outreach contingent.

It’s an open question whether either constituency, the Big Tent bloggers and activists or the Black Rock City artists and radicals, are influencing country’s political dialogue enough to reach the Democratic Party’s man in the middle. Obama didn’t mention the decommodification of culture or a major reform of American democracy in his big speech, let alone such progressive bedrock issues as ending capital punishment and the war on drugs, downsizing the military, or the redistribution of wealth.

But those without floor passes to the convention represent, if not a movement, at least a large and varied constituency with many shared values and frustrations, and one with a sense that the American Dream is something that has slipped out of its reach, if it ever really existed at all.

These people represent the other America, the one Obama and the Democratic Party paid little heed to during their many convention speeches, which seemed mostly focused on bashing the Republican Party and assuring heartland voters that they’re a trustworthy replacement. But that’s hardly burning the man.

Photo by Mirissa Neff

AMERICAN DREAM

It’s been almost a year since Burning Man founder Larry Harvey announced that the art theme for the 2008 event would be "American Dream." I hated it and said so publicly, objecting to such an overt celebration of patriotism, or for setting up a prime opportunity for creative flag burning, neither a seemingly good option.

But I later came to see a bit of method behind Harvey’s madness. After announcing the theme, Harvey told me, "There was a cascade of denunciations and maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. It pricked people where they should be stimulated." He asks critics to read his essay on the Burning Man Web site explaining the theme: "It says that America has lost its way."

But he also said that the disaffected left and other critics of what America has become need to find a vision of America to fight for, something to believe in, whether it’s our Bill of Rights (pictured on Burning Man tickets this year) or some emerging manifestation of the country. "Americans need to find our pride again," Harvey told me. "We can’t face our shame unless we find our pride."

I was still dubious, since I tend toward Tolstoy’s view of patriotism: that it’s a bane to be abolished, not a virtue to be celebrated. Harvey and I have talked a lot of politics as I’ve covered Burning Man over the past four years, and those discussions have sharpened as he has subtly prodded participants to become more political, and as burners have reached out into the world through ventures such as Black Rock Arts Foundation, Burners Without Borders, and Black Rock Solar.

I’ve become friends with many of the event’s key staffers (some, like BWB’s Tom Price, through reporting their stories). This year, one employee (not a board member) I’m particularly close to even gave me one of the few gift tickets they have to hand out each year, ending my five-event run of paying full freight (and then some). I’m also friends with my two travel mates, Kid Beyond, a.k.a. Andrew Chaikin, and Fowler, who handled field organizing for Al Gore in 2000, ran John Kerry’s Michigan campaign four years later, and was attending his sixth presidential convention.

Kid Beyond and I arrived at Black Rock City late Friday night, Aug. 22, and found the playa thick with deep drifts of dust, making it a difficult and tiring bicycle trek into the deep playa where San Francisco artist Peter Hudson and his crew were building Tantalus. But it was worth the ride, particularly if seeking a great take on the American Dream theme.

Like most creations at that early stage of the event, it wasn’t up and running yet, but it would be by Aug. 24, when the event officially began. Still, even in its static state, it was an art piece that already resonated with my exploration of how the counterculture sees the national political culture.

Tantalus looks like a red, white, and blue top hat, with golden arms and bodies around it. And when it spins around, totally powered by the manual labor of visitors working four pumper rail cars, the man — a modern American Tantalus — reaches for the golden apple being dangled just out of his reach and falls back empty-handed.

It’s a telling metaphor for such a big week in American politics.

There were plenty of political junkies on the playa, including two friends who let me crash in their RV for two nights and who left the playa for Denver after a couple of days. Fowler’s sweetie, Heather Stephenson, is with Ideal Bite (their logo is an apple minus one bite) and was on an alternative energy panel with Mayor Gavin Newsom, Denver’s mayor, John W. Hickenlooper, and Gov. Bill Ritter of Colorado.

"The American Dream to me is not having barriers to achievement," Stephenson told me. It is Tantalus getting some apple if he really reaches for it. Fowler said that it is "the freedom to pursue your own dream without interference by government or social interests." But, he added, "the American Dream is more a collective dream than an individual dream."

Bay Area artist Eric Oberthaler, who used to choreograph San Francisco artist Pepe Ozan’s fire operas on the playa, hooked up with the Philadelphia Experiment performers years ago at Burning Man — including Philly resident Glenn Weikert, who directs the dance troupe Archedream. This year they created "Archedream for America," which they performed at Burning Man and the Democratic National Convention. Weikert told me the artistic and collaborative forces that Burning Man is unleashing could play a big role in creating a transformative political shift in America.

"These are two amazing events that are kind of shaping the world right now," Weikert said. "A lot of the ideas and views are similar, but people are working in different realms."

Tantalus. a Burning Man installation
Photo by Steven T. Jones

MEDIA, 15,002 STRONG

Kid Beyond and I arrived in Denver around 8 a.m., Aug. 25, after a 16-hour drive from Black Rock City, cruising through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado, a couple of which Obama will probably need to win in November if he’s to take the White House.

We headed into the city just as a gorgeous dawn was breaking, arriving with a few hours to spare before our Democratic National Convention press credential would have been redistributed to other journalists, who reportedly numbered more than 15,000. After arriving at my cousin Gina Brooks’ house, we showered, got settled, and jumped on our bikes to pick up our press credentials.

All week, we and others who rented or borrowed the thousands of bicycles made available to visitors used the beautiful and efficient Cherry Creek Bike Trail to get around. It cut through the heart of Denver, passing the convention and performing arts centers, which boasted a great sculpture of a dancing couple, and ran close to the Big Tent in downtown on one side and the convention hall, the Pepsi Center, on the other.

It was a great way to travel and a marked contrast to the long car trip, which felt as if we were firing through tank after tank of gas. Bike travel also proved a smart move — most of the streets around the convention were closed off and patrolled by police in riot gear riding trucks with extended running boards, with military helicopters circling overhead.

The massive Pepsi Center was less than half full a couple hours after the gavel fell to open the convention, but it filled quickly.

The broadcast media had it good, with prime floor space that made it all the more congested for the delegates and others with floor passes. Most journalists were tucked behind the stage or up in the cheap seats, and we couldn’t even get free Internet access in the hall. But journalists could get online in the nearby media tents, which also offered free booze and food.

Even though Hillary Clinton announced she was releasing her delegates to vote for Obama, those I spoke to in San Francisco’s delegation — Laura Spanjian, Mirian Saez, and Clay Doherty — were still planning to vote for Clinton on that Wednesday, although all said they would enthusiastically support Obama after that.

"It’s important for me to respect all the people who voted for her and to honor the historic nature of her candidacy," Spanjian said. "And most of all, to respect her."

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tried to rally the faithful for the "historic choice between two paths for our country." She belittled the view that John McCain is the most experienced presidential candidate. "John McCain has the experience of being wrong," she said, emphasizing his economic views and his instigation of the "catastrophic" Iraq War.

There were only a smattering of protesters outside the convention center, the most disturbing being anti-abortion activists bearing signs that read, "God hates Obama," "God is your enemy," "The Siege is Here," and one, wielded by a boy who was maybe 12, that read "God hates fags." Family values indeed.

THE ROLL CALL

San Francisco Sup. Chris Daly was giddy when I joined him in the two-thirds full California delegation during the nominating speeches for Obama and Clinton. It was partly because he was finally an official delegate, having been called up from his role as alternate a couple of hours earlier. But an even bigger reason for his joy was that he’s a serious political wonk and just loves the roll call, the only official business of the convention.

"This is the best part of the convention, roll call. It’s cool," Daly, the consummate vote counter, told me as we watched the chair ask each state for their votes. "The speeches are OK, but this is what it’s about."

And pretty soon, this kid in the candy shop was losing his mind as we watched a series of genuinely newsworthy developments in an otherwise scripted convention: California Democratic Party Chair Art Torres was saying "California passes" rather than reporting our votes, states like New Jersey and Arkansas were awarding all their votes to Obama and causing the room to go nuts, and a series of states were yielding to others.

As the chair worked alphabetically through the states, Obama’s home state of Illinois became the second state to pass. Very interesting. Indiana gave 75 of its 85 votes to Obama. Minnesota gave 78 of its 88 votes to Obama, then erupted in a spirited cheer of "Yes we can." Daly and San Francisco delegate London Breed were on their feet, cheering, chanting, and pumped.

With Obama getting close to the number of delegates he needed to win the nomination (there was no tally on the floor and I later learned Obama had 1,550 of the 2,210 votes he needed), New Mexico’s representative announced that the state was "yielding to the land of Lincoln." Anticipation built that Illinois would be the state to put its junior senator over the top.

Then Illinois yielded to New York, and the screens showed Clinton entering the hall and joining the New York delegation. "In the spirit of unity and with the goal of victory," Clinton said, "let us declare right now that Barack Obama is our candidate."

She made the motion to suspend the vote count and have the whole hall nominate Barack Obama by acclamation. Pelosi took the podium and asked the crowd, "Is there a second?" And the room erupted in thousands of seconds to the motion on the floor. She asked all in favor to say "aye," and the room rumbled with ayes. To complete the process, Pelosi said those opposed could say no, but simultaneously gaveled the motion to completion, causing the room to erupt with cheers. I heard not a single nay.

The band broke out into "Love Train" and everyone danced.

NEWSOM’S STAGE

Mayor Gavin Newsom threw a big party Aug. 27, drawing a mix of young hipsters, youngish politicos, and a smattering of corporate types in suits and ties. Although he didn’t get a speaking slot at the convention, Newsom is widely seen as a rising star in the party, far cooler than most elected officials, and maybe even too cool for his own good.

Comedian Sarah Silverman did a funny bit to open the program at the Manifest Hope Gallery (which showcased artwork featuring Obama), then introduced Newsom by saying, "I’m honored to introduce a great public servant and a man I would like to discipline sexually, Gavin Newsom."

Apparently Newsom liked it because he grabbed Silverman and started to grope and nuzzle into her like they were making out, then acted surprised to see the crowd there and took the microphone. It was a strange and uncomfortable moment for those who know about his past sex scandal and recent marriage to Jennifer Siebel, who was watching the spectacle from the wings.

But it clearly showed that Newsom is his own biggest fan, someone who thinks he’s adorable and can do no wrong, which is a dangerous mindset in politics.

Another slightly shameless aspect of the event was how overtly Newsom is trying associate himself with Obama (the party was a salute to the "Obama Generation") after strongly backing Clinton in the primaries. And then, of course, there’s the fact that his party was sponsored by PG&E (a corrupting influence in San Francisco politics) and AT&T (facilitators of the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping policy).

I was able to interview Newsom about Clinton before the party. "People can criticize her, but I do think that you’ve never seen a runner-up do so much to support the party’s nominee," Newsom told me. "She’s done as much as she could do, privately as well as publicly."

Clinton’s dramatic roll call moment
Photo by Mirissa Neff

OBAMA NIGHT

Amid all the excitement, there were scary moments for the progressives. For example, Joe Biden, accepting the vice-presidential nod, urged the nation to more aggressively confront Russia and send more troops into Afghanistan.

During one of the most high-profile points in the convention, halfway between the Gore and Obama speeches, a long line of military leaders (including Gen. Wesley Clark, who got the biggest cheers but didn’t speak) showed up to support Obama’s candidacy. They were followed by so-called average folk, heartland citizens — including two Republicans now backing Obama. One of the guys had a great line, though: "We need a president who puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney," said Barney Smith. "The heartland needs change, and with Barack Obama we’re going to get it," he added.

Of course, these are the concerns of a progressive whose big issues (from ending capital punishment and the war on drugs to creating a socialized medical system and fairly redistributing the nation’s wealth) have been largely ignored by the Democratic Party. I understand that I’m not Obama’s target audience in trying to win this election. And there is no doubt he is a historic candidate.

Bernice King, whose father, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech 45 years to the day before Obama’s acceptance speech, echoed her father by triumphantly announcing, "Tonight, freedom rings." She said the selection of Obama as the nominee was "decided not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. This is one of our nation’s defining moments."

But there is still much work to do in convincing Obama to adopt a more progressive vision once he’s elected. "America needs more than just a great president to realize my father’s dream," said Martin Luther King III, the second King child to speak the final night of the convention. Or as Rep. John Lewis, who was with King during that historic speech, said in his remarks, "Democracy is not a state, but a series of actions."

BACK TO THE BURN

We left Denver around 1:30 a.m. Friday, a few hours after Obama’s speech and the parties that followed, driving through the night and listening first to media reports on Obama’s speech, then to discussions about McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

The Obama clips sounded forceful and resolute, directly answering in strong terms the main criticisms levied at him. Fowler said the Republicans made a very smart move by choosing a woman, but he was already getting the Democrats’ talking points by cell phone, most of which hammered her inexperience, a tactic that could serve to negate that same criticism of Obama.

We arrived back on the playa at 5:30 p.m. Friday, and a Black Rock Radio announcer said the official population count was 48,000 people, the largest number ever. The city has been steadily growing and creating a web of connections among its citizens.

"That city is connecting to itself faster that anyone knows. And if they can do that, they can connect to the world," Harvey told me earlier this year. "That’s why for three years, I’ve done these sociopolitical themes, so they know they can apply it. Because if it’s just a vacation, we’ve been on vacation long enough."

Yet when I toured the fully-built city, I saw few signs that this political awakening was happening. There weren’t even that many good manifestations of the American Dream theme, except for Tantalus, Bummer (a large wooden Hummer that burned on Saturday night), and an artsy version of the Capitol Dome.

Most of the people who attend Burning Man seem to have progressive values, and some of them are involved in politics, but the event is their vacation. It’s a big party, an escape from reality. It’s not a movement yet, and it’s not even about that Black Rock City effigy, the Man. Hell, this year, many of my friends who are longtime burners left on Saturday before they burned the Man, something most veterans consider an anticlimax.

It’s not about the man in the middle, either; it’s about the community around it. And if the community around Obama wants to expand into a comfortable electoral majority — let alone a movement that can transform this troubled country — it’s going to have to reach the citizens of Black Rock City and outsiders of all stripes, and convince them of the relevance of what happened in Denver and what’s happening in Washington, DC.

Larry Harvey can’t deliver burners to the Democratic Party, or even chide them toward any kind of political action. But the burners and the bloggers are out there, ready to engage — if they can be made to want to navigate the roads between their worlds and the seemingly insular, ineffective, immovable, platitude-heavy world of mainstream politics.

"As hard as it will be, the change we need is coming," Obama said during his speech.

Maybe. But for those who envision a new kind of world, one marked by the cooperation, freedom, and creativity that are at the heart of this temporary city in the desert, there’s a lot of work to be done. And that starts with individual efforts at outreach, like the one being done by a guy, standing alone in the heat and dust, passing out flyers to those leaving Black Rock City on Monday.

"Nevada Needs You!!!" began the small flyer. "In 2004, Nevada was going Blue until the 90 percent Republican northern counties of Elko and Humboldt tilted the state. You fabulous Burners time-share in our state for one week per year. This year, when you go home please don’t leave Nevada Progressives behind! ANY donation to our County Democratic Committee goes a long way; local media is cheap! Thanks!!!"

Change comes not from four days of political speeches or a week in an experimental city in the desert, but from the hard work of those with a vision and the energy to help others see that vision. To realize a progressive agenda for this conservative country is going to take more than just dreaming.

Ed Note: The Guardian would like to thank Kid Beyond, who traveled with Jones and helped contribute to this report.

Clubs: Sweet majik tunes for summer’s end

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August 28, 2008

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By Marke B.

But first, a bonus! — the ecstatical, fantastical, local maniac DJ Richie Panic at Dance, LA last week — good lord, did half of hipster-perf SF go down there for this? Hilarious moment @ 2:47 = dancefloor opera, go Richie!

CLUB DANCE (RICHIE PANIC)

And now the meat. In this week’s Fall Arts Preview, I thumb out a gaggle of rad parties happening in the near future, and sound off about a few of the lovely club jams I’d like to see hit the floor for fall. Here’s some extra-poppy ones I bounce to right now that have interesting video accompaniment: for the ipod of your mind. Nothing too edgy or new — we’ll all fall softly and boppily into autumn’s orange arms

Plug: Look out for our next stylish Scene nightlife and glamour supplement to drop on Sept. 17 for more club goodies.

I said you’d be “so over” this next track by last Wednesday — but I was K.I.D.D.I.N.G. I love Cazwell, the gay rap dream from NYC, and in this one LA megafag Jonny Makeup, gives us the hooks and cell phone heebie-jeebies. It’s 1989 in clubland and all’s well again.

Cazwell w/ Johnny Makeup, “I Seen Beyonce at Burger King” (click here for hi-q)

Diverse moments

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August 27, 2008

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

The sheer quantity of advance notices piling up over the summer could overwhelm even a committed dance observer. But then come the aha! moments where you grab your pencil to fill in one more slot on the calendar. The Bay Area is still an exceptional place to watch dance, whether you do it at the prestigious Zellerbach Hall or the Mission District’s humbler CounterPULSE. By including four local choreographers who have risen to the forefront in recent years, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’s Bay Area Now 5 (BAN5) series just may be the most noteworthy shows of the fall season. The works of the Erika Shuch Performance Project (After All, Part 1, Sept. 12–14), Robert Moses’ Kin (Toward September, Sept. 18–20), Dohee Lee (Flux, Oct. 16–18), and Keith Hennessy (Delinquent, Nov. 13–15) couldn’t be more different from one another. So these world premieres, supported and — at least partially — commissioned by the YBCA, are a vote of confidence in the health of local dance (check www.ybca.org for performance details). Read on for more notable dance dates.

Courage Group When longtime dancer and arts activist Todd Courage started his own company some six years ago, his work immediately stood for the breadth of its references and its theatrical savvy. Pinpoint, an evening of three world premieres, is his most ambitious endeavor yet.

Sept. 11–13, Project Artaud Theater, 450 Florida, SF. (415) 863-9834, www.odctheater.org

Shawl-Anderson 50th Anniversary Gala With dancers flying in from across the nation, this event is a huge celebration of the lives and works of Frank Shawl and Victor Anderson, who have run Shawl-Anderson Modern Dance Center — the Bay Area’s oldest dance studio — for the past five decades. The gala is preceded by two performance salons Sept. 19.

Sept. 20, St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College, Berk.; www.shawl-anderson.org

Keyhole Dances Erin Mei-Stuart is a smart, witty, idiosyncratic choreographer. For this series of matinee performances, she takes her EmSpace ensemble to the third floor of a Victorian flat in the Fillmore neighborhood. Buy a ticket and find out location details.

Sept. 20–28. private home, SF. www.emspacedance.org/keyhole

Mark Morris Dance Group Romeo and Juliet without a balcony scene, but with a happy ending? If anyone can bring this off, MM can. His Romeo and Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare, is based on the old standby’s recently discovered original libretto and score, and is said to reflect Prokofiev’s initial vision for the piece.

Sept. 25–28. Zellerbach Hall, Bancroft at Telegraph, UC Berkeley, Berk. (510) 642-9988, www.calperformances.org

Chitresh Das Chitresh Das has managed to popularize Kathak, one of India’s most rhythmic dance forms. For these performances, Das and his musicians will challenge each other to ever-greater heights. It’s dance in which improvisation and structure go hand in hand.

Sept. 27–28. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-2787, www.kathak.org

Nâ Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu Patrick Makuakane is master showman but also a deeply serious practitioner and student of hula. He has gorgeous dancers, and the "Hula Show 2008" promises to be spectacular, witty, and fun. Includes a family show on Sunday.

Oct. 11–19. Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF. www.cityboxoffice.com

Kirov Ballet A superb company (and orchestra) — but why such a conservative repertory for an ensemble that these days performs George Balanchine and William Forsythe in addition to the story ballets?

Oct. 14–19. Zellerbach Hall, Bancroft at Telegraph, UC Berkeley, Berk. (510) 642-9988, www.calperformances.org

Merce Cunningham Dance Company This four-program series is superb overview of half a century of dancemaking by a giant of an artist. The Nov. 7 performance includes colloquia and a conversation with Cunningham.

Nov. 7–15. Zellerbach Hall, Bancroft at Telegraph, UC Berkeley, Berk. (510) 642-9988, www.calperformances.org

Axis Dance Company Over the years Axis has redefined long-cherished ideas about who can and who cannot dance. They are true revolutionaries. This 20th anniversary concert includes works by Sonya Delwaide, Joe Goode, Alex Ketley, and Kate Weare.

Nov. 14–16. Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice, Oakl. www.axisdance.org

Diablo Ballet With "An Evening on Broadway," featuring the work of George Balanchine, Lynn Taylor Corbett, and Christopher Stowell, Diablo takes a very welcome step away from in-house choreography.

Nov. 21–22. Dean Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek. www.diabloballet.org

Forecast: blackout

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August 27, 2008

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› superego@sfbg.com

Midtempo is the new uptempo, FGGT is the new AZN, and I just adore your hot ass plumping through that tight pair of Evisu No. 13 Lazy S Lefts, no homo — which is the old yay homo. Other topsy-turvy pre-fall clubland updates: drag goes glitch, DJs quit dressing like twins, and everyone drops their Marvel masks and flocks to the last great summer blockbuster, Final Destination: Kanye Glasses.

That smell you hear ahead is the slow-burn return of PLUR. Best new shriek from the stalls: "Whose line is it anyway?!" Five fantasy dance-floor jams: Rondenion’s drrrty D-house groove, "The Beautiful Memory," laidback dip-step to heaven "Stellar Way" by Acos Coolkas, Shy Child’s hyperactive meta-smackdown, "Astronaut," any remix by and of Flying Lotus, and deliriously simple rave-hop looper "Slave 1" from Mark E. (no relation). Relapses don’t count if they’re properly scheduled. You’ll be so over Cazwell’s "I Saw Beyoncé at Burger King" by the time you read this.

What else do you need to know? Oh, the below:

Ellen Allien If you missed the Berlin DJ queen of full-on old-school techno vibe’s triumphal appearance earlier this year at Mighty, complete with Fantastic Planet projections and water bottles squirted over the mushroom-shuffling crowd, you punched yourself in the blunder pants. Do not do this again. It hurts. With multigenre cut-ups Modeselektor, fresh from starring in your Burner headphones.

Sept. 5. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. (415) 626-7001, www.mighty119.com

BLOWOFF If this fall you choose to go to one giant party full of shirtless, hairy, gay musclemen (and straight friends!) put on by an alternative music superstar — no, not Perry Farrell — let Blowoff be it. Why? It’s not your normal circuit-lousy-techno mess: rock and electro are there in the mix, as Bob Mould, formerly of Hüsker Dü and Sugar, and cheeky producer Richard Morel bring their enormously successful traveling to-do to Slim’s, of all places. Weird, but true.

Sept. 6. 10 p.m., $12. Slim’s, 333 11th St., (415) 255-0333, www.myspace.com/blowoffevents

Digitalism No more rock, no more techno, only electro — I love that T-shirt! Gimme three in puce, and turn up Digitalism, the laptop-heroic duo of Hamburgers who in any other era but our electro-dominated own would be filed under "New Orderish" but, happily, give us kids DJ sets to die for, including chiming guitar lines, naff Brit-accented vocal lines, and enough buzz in the speakers to rise above contemporary genre bed-death. They perform with glammy stompers Midnight Juggernaut and kooky the Juan Maclean.

Sept. 12. 103 Harriet, SF. www.blasthaus.com

Black Market Techno A secret: the Black Market techno parties, every third Saturday at Oasis in Oakland, are one of the cutest all-around joints going right now for aurally adventurous fanboys and fangirls. I hope they’re legal, or I just fucked it up. September’s installment is superstacked with all-day and all-night edgy DJ delights, including Rich Korach of Detroit’s Paxahau club, Craig Kuna of local banging monthly Kontrol, and EO of Mouth to Mouth recordings. Yes, it is also free, so get on the damn BART already.

Sept. 19. Oasis, 135 12th St., Oakl. (510) 763-0404, www.myspace.com/blackmarkettechno

Ron Carroll Geez, I miss house. There are so many places in the city right now to jerk around ironically, wig out dub-steppingly, or punch the air like an American Apparel hesher. Yet the list of smooth-groove, soul-drenched dance-floor opportunities is thinner than, well, an American Apparel hesher. So is it true that Chicago legend Ron Carroll has somehow been convinced to do a residency at Temple? Could the man behind a wealth of ’90s orchestral house hits be at the vanguard of an SF house regeneration? Whether he’ll be a regular or not, his turntable domination on Sept. 13 promises to be a sweet revival meeting for househeds and fans of golden tunes.

Sept. 13. Temple, 540 Howard, SF. www.templesf.com

Dirty Bird Lovefest Pre-Party The enormous and consistently lovely Lovefest (Oct. 4) is no longer the same weekend as the Folsom Street Fair (Sept. 28) — farewell, gorgeous sight of hirsute leathermen in bunny ears! — and this year it’s really pumping its kind-of yawny Dutch trance headliner, Armin Van Buuren. But it’s still a primo time for our local lights to shine. If you can’t wait for the endearingly handmade floats to parade your favorite Bay beatmakers down Market Street, why not let your freak feathers fly early with SF’s current reigning dance label kings, minimal-goofy Dirty Bird Records, including Claude Von Stroke, Justin Martin, Worthy, and the aptly named Hookerz and Blow.

Oct. 3. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 625-8880, www.mezzaninesf.com

Frisco Freakout Can we catch a break from all the gadgets, please — the Ableton–whatnots and Pro Tools paraphernalia? Fab. The all-ages psychedelic rock dance party Frisco Freakout is a whole day’s worth of swirl and twirl at the city’s "premiere dive venue" (their words, not mine), Thee Parkside. Unpack your wavy caftan, tie-dye your Converses, and jack the tab with a zillion chiming howlers like the Bad Trips, Wooden Shjips, Crystal Antlers, Earthless, and Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound.

Oct. 11. Parkside, 1600 17th St., SF. (415) 252-1330, www.myspace.com/friscofreakout

>>More Fall Arts Preview

Stage names

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August 27, 2008

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

SEPT. 2

Estelle The British soul femme gets a chance to sing to the subjects of “American Boy.” Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. (415) 771-1421, www.theindependentsf.com

SEPT. 8–9

Built to Spill Pulling off Perfect from Now On (Warner Bros., 1997) from start to finish. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. (415) 522-0333, www.slims-sf.com

SEPT. 10

Robert Forster Two years on from Grant McLennan’s unexpected death, the dandified half of the Go-Betweens’ now-fabled songwriting duo returns to the stage with an album that includes three songs cowritten with his old bandmate. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750, www.musichallsf.com

SEPT. 19–20

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Mellow with age? No way, say the Grinderman and crew. Warfield, 982 Market, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.ticketmaster.com

SEPT. 19

Al Green and Gladys Knight The Reverend is riding high on the acclaim for his latest recording, Lay It Down (Blue Knight), while Aaliyah’s aunt has kept her voice healthy and powerful in a manner that certain other divas must envy. Sleep Train Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass Rd., Concord. Also Oct. 7, Mountain Winery, 14831 Pierce, Saratoga. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

SEPT. 19

My Morning Jacket Southern men channel their Evil Urges (Ato). Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley, Berk. (510) 809-0100, www.anotherplanetent.com

SEPT. 20

Herbie Hancock Loved the fusion maestro’s bon mot to Joni Mitchell. Nob Hill Masonic Center, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

This Land Is Your Land Songsmiths and word slingers Sheryl Crow, Cat Power, Henry Rollins, Mike Ness, and Son Volt pay homage to John Steinbeck, who’s been dubbed “the Woody Guthrie of American authors,” and Woody Guthrie, who has been described as “the soundtrack to Steinbeck.” Guthrie’s granddaughter Sarah Lee and husband (and Steinbeck nephew) Johnny Irion round out the bill of this event — a portion of the proceeds go to the Steinbeck and Guthrie family foundations. Sleep Train Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass Rd., Concord. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

SEPT. 20–21

Treasure Island Musical Festival Stunning views, equally awesome sounds — who could ask for anything more? Try a full day of dance beats (Justice, TV on the Radio, Goldfrapp, Hot Chip, et al.) followed by another of all-out indie rock (the Raconteurs, Tegan and Sara, Vampire Weekend, and the gang). Treasure Island, SF. www.treasureislandfestival.com

SEPT. 22–24

Spoon Can’t get enough of Britt Daniel and company? Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

SEPT. 24

Journey, Heart, and Cheap Trick Feathered-hair flashbacks in full effect. Sleep Train Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass Rd., Concord. Also Sept. 27, Shoreline Amphitheatre, 1 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com. Also Oct. 7, Mountain Winery, 14831 Pierce, Saratoga. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

SEPT. 25

Silver Jews With a likely gentle assist from Why?’s Yoni Wolf, David Berman flashes his sterling songwriting once more. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

SEPT. 26–27

Mission of Burma The Boston life-changers play 1982 post-punk classic Vs. (Ace of Hearts/Matador, 1982) in its entirety. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. (415) 771-1422, www.theindependentsf.com

Rancid Up from Gilman and back on the ginormous Warfield stage, alongside the Adolescents and the Aquabats! Warfield, 982 Market, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.ticketmaster.com

SEPT. 26–28

San Francisco Blues Festival The 36th annual throwdown kicks off with a blues film series at the Roxie Theater and continues at the Great Meadow with Hot Tuna, the Delta Groove All Star Blues Revue, Johnny Winter, and Gospel Hummingbirds. Various locations. www.sfblues.com

SEPT. 28

Beach House Baltimore’s Alex Scully and Victoria Legrand — the niece of Michel — rewards the devotion of listeners who’ve discovered that the endlessly resplendent Devotion (Carpark) is a contender for album of the year. Swedish American Hall, 2174 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016, www.swedishamericanhall.com

Earth, Wind & Fire, Angie Stone, and Michael McDonald A slab of ’70s soul fantasy, a little stab at post–Celebrity Fit Club redemption, and a whole lotta distinctive yacht-rock vocalization, all under one roof. HP Pavilion, 525 W. Santa Clara, San Jose. (415) 421-8497, www.hppsj.com

SEPT. 30

My Bloody Valentine The moment has finally arrived for MBV fans. Will they stretch the distorted bridge of “You Made Me Realize” into infinity? Here’s hoping the answer is yes. Concourse, 620 Seventh St., SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

OCT. 3–5

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 8 Dang, bluegrass, country, and roots fans are in for one of the most diverse lineups yet: Earl Scruggs, Emmylou Harris, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss with T Bone Burnett, Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, Hazel Dickens, the Gourds, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Tift Merritt, and Greg Brown mix it up with Gogol Bordello, Odetta, Elvis Costello, Iron and Wine, Richard Thompson, the Jayhawks’ Mark Olson and Gary Louris, Heavy Trash, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and MC Hammer. A free downhome massive in every sense. Golden Gate Park, SF. www.strictlybluegrass.com

OCT. 3–NOV. 9

San Francisco Jazz Festival Lovers of singing can go straight to the source: the indomitable Jimmy Scott. Lovers of song can sit by the piano of one of the American songbook’s best-known authors: Randy Newman. Lovers of soul can pick up their prescriptions when Dr. Lonnie Smith leads a groove summit. Lovers of revolution can break free from election propaganda with the Brecht-tinged jazz of Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra. And lovers of the late Alice Coltrane can pay respects to the music of her son and bandmate Ravi. Various venues, SF. 1-866-920-JAZZ, www.sfjazz.org

OCT. 3

Sigur Rós All hail the Icelandic etherealists. Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley, Berk. (510) 809-0100, www.anotherplanetent.com

OCT. 4

Lovefest The dance music massive and procession is a-twirl with beatmakers à la Armin Van Buuren, Above and Beyond, Kyau and Albert, Deep Voices, Colette, Hil Huerta, and Green Velvet. Various locales, SF. www.sflovefest.org

OCT. 5

Cut Copy The spirit of ELO is a living thing that chugs through the stadium disco of these DFA-affiliated Aussies, and the swoon of OMD isn’t too far away. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 625-8880, www.mezzaninesf.com

OCT. 11–12

Santana The pater familias teams with his scion’s Salvador Santana Band. Shoreline Amphitheatre, 1 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, and Sleep Train Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass Road, Concord. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

OCT. 13

The Black Kids The Wizards of Ahhhs initiate the Virgins. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

OCT. 14–15

Brightblack Morning Light For those about to rock in a manner that makes Spiritualized seem like meth heads, we salute you. Café Du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016, www.cafedunord.com

OCT. 18

Mary J. Blige Mary, Mary, quite contrary to … smoothie opener Robin Thicke. Sleep Train Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass Road, Concord. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

OCT. 23–26

Budget Rock Seven Magnifico garage-rock from folks who mean it — and love it. Don’t you dare miss Mummies’ Russell Quan’s 50th birthday with Hypstrz and the Rantouls; Ray Loney and the Phantom Movers with Apache; Hank IV with the Lamps and Bare Wires; and Thee Makeout Party with the Pets. Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph, Oakl. www.storkcluboakland.com.

OCT. 27–28

Girl Talk Master of megamix mayhem Gregg Gillis returns to SF, albeit without the pay-what-you-like system offered to those who purchase his latest album. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

OCT. 31

Yelle The French electro vixen pops up again. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 625-8880, www.mezzaninesf.com

NOV. 1–2

Madonna Break it down, New York magazine-style. Tabloid sensation dissipates, while ageless sex appeal, hardcore show-womanship, and — please remember, your Madge-sty — good songs are a girl’s real best friend. Oracle Arena, 7000 Coliseum, Oakl. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

>>More Fall Arts Preview

Reclaiming San Francisco — from cars

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August 26, 2008

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY On Sunday, Aug. 31, the Mayor’s Office and several community groups join forces to bring San Francisco into an international movement to increase physical activity, break down invisible borders, and make scenic space available to all during the city’s first ciclovia.

More than 4.5 miles of streets will be closed to cars that day from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. for Sunday Streets, the first of two ciclovias scheduled this summer. The idea of the ciclovia — which is Spanish for "cycle way" or "bike path" — was conceived in Bogotá, Colombia, during the mid-1990s and has since spread throughout the world.

The concept is to take existing roads — the province of cars — and turn them into temporary paths for walking, jogging, cycling, and other physical activity.

"I think it really helps us re-imagine our city streets as places of safe, non-auto physical activity," said Wade Crowfoot, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s director of global climate change. "From an environmental perspective, it’s time we re-imagine our space and our streets, and to make streets accessible to everyone."

The route extends from Bayview Opera House, up Illinois Street to the Embarcadero, along the waterfront, and across Washington Street into Chinatown. Five activity pods will feature dance classes, yoga, hopscotch, jump rope, and more, and participants are encouraged to explore as much of the route as they can. The Giants’ stadium will be open to pedestrians and bikers who want to run the bases, and event facilitators say they hope this 4.5-mile stretch will grow into something bigger.

"We hope this is just the beginning, and that it succeeds all over the city," said Andy Thornley, program director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

The man largely credited with starting the ciclovia is Gil Penalosa, who implemented the idea as Bogotá’s commissioner of parks and recreation in 1995. Penalosa now runs a nonprofit called Walk and Bike for Life that promotes the ciclovia and other forms of active living.

San Francisco’s event is modest: Bogotá closes off more than 80 miles of looping streets every Sunday and on holidays. More than 1.5 million people turn out each week, according to the Walk and Bike for Life Web site. Ottawa closes more than 30 miles of space on Sundays from May to September, and events have taken place all over Europe in addition to the American continents.

The ciclovia is also part of the car-free movement, an international effort to promote alternatives to car dependence and automobile-based planning.

Besides saving energy and promoting fitness, event planners at ciclovias in Bogotá noticed the events were causing a cultural shift. The Christian Science Monitor reported in an Aug. 18 article that residents from different neighborhoods began interacting as never before. Indian residents of poorer neighborhoods used to halt at the imaginary dividing lines of the more affluent European neighborhoods, and vice versa, but now people mingle freely.

San Francisco organizers hope to use Sunday Streets to create a similar effect here.

"We deliberately chose the route that connects the Bayview to Chinatown, two communities that are historically disconnected," said Susan King, the event’s organizer. "We want people to go to Hunters Point and Chinatown and see what’s out there, with the hope that people will see things they want to come back to."

King also noted that these two neighborhoods lack adequate open space. "We want people in those communities to experience what people who live adjacent to Golden Gate Park and the Presidio get to experience on a regular basis — an opportunity to exercise and not worry about getting hit by cars," King said.

Another international trend that Sunday Streets continues is the reclaiming of waterfront space. Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City, said he recently visited Vancouver and experienced its 28 miles of bicycle and pedestrian paths along the water. Paris also has a ciclovia every summer that closes a major expressway and creates a beachfront and promenade along the Seine.

"[The Embarcadero] — that big, dangerous roadway — cuts the city off from the waterfront," Radulovich said. "We want to think about the possibility of reclaiming the water space more successfully for San Franciscans."

One of the few voices of opposition to Sunday Streets came from a group of Pier 39 merchants who worried about the economic impact.

The Board of Supervisors voted Aug. 5 not to delay the event until an economic impact report had been released, but Crowfoot said traffic impact analyses will be done this weekend so that there will be better understanding of the impact of any future events. But many ciclovias have actually increased business because people are more prone to stop and look in stores when they walk by instead of just driving past them.

Fall Arts Preview 2008

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August 26, 2008

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> johnny@sfbg.com

I don’t know about you, but I hear something is happening in early November. Since I can’t quite identify exactly what it is, let’s focus on all the events around it this fall — especially the spaces on stages and screens and pages and in museum and gallery rooms.

A little birdie tells me this fall will be propagandized, rather than purely politicized, into infinity. In times like these, it helps to have art that finds a realm outside the false promises, a place from which to look back at our society — including the politicians who try to rule it — and say: you better perform!

That’s the case this week’s fab four cover stars, Guillermo Gómez Peña, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, JoAnn Selisker, and Tim Sullivan. This quartet of singular creative forces is united in using imaginative performance to reject inhibiting norms.

Gómez Peña and his group La Pocha Nostra are bringing Mapa/Corpo 3 — an interactive ritual involving "political acupuncture" that was banned in the United States for three years — to Theater Artaud as part of Litquake and the Living Word Festival. At SF Camerawork, they’ll also be trying out what they call performance karaoke, which is sort of an aesthetic, political, and ethical update on the popular game Twister. There, they are part of "I Feel That I Am Free But I Know I Am Not," an extended exhibition (curated by Chuck Mobley) that also includes some live video by Sullivan, whose photographic and video work looks at everyday imagery and familiar pop iconography from new and sometimes hilarious angles.

New views of everyday pop banality are also JoAnn Selisker’s forte. Presented by Litquake and ODC, her latest piece, Off Leash: Who’s a Good Girl? uses text and dance to explore the relationship between dogs and their best frenemy, humans. Everything goes full circle with Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore — you can see some of Gómez Peña’s flair for radical sexual and political performance in his past activism with Gay Shame, and like Sullivan and Selisker, his image doesn’t come from Macy’s. In his new novel, So Many Ways to Sleep Badly (City Lights, 256 pages, $15.95), he shows readers a San Francisco that Frommer’s doesn’t know about.
This fall, Gómez Peña, Bernstein Sycamore, Selisker, and Sullivan are just part of a blitz that’s bringing everything from multiple Chinese art exhibitions and film programs to the premiere of Gus Van Sant’s Milk. Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy season.

>>Connect four
Cover stars: A quartet of our favorite artists and performers sounds off

>>Diverse moments
Dance: Highlights run from modern to the Bard
By Rita Felciano

>>Curtain calls
Stage: Theater gets political, playful, potent
By Robert Avila

>>Vizzy with the possibilities
Visual Art: We scope out the promising shows
By Katie Kurtz, Kimberly Chun, and Johnny Ray Huston

>>Sino the times
Visual Art: Bay Area museums and galleries home in on Asia
By Glen Helfand

>>Olympic disc toss
Music: Will these new music releases go far or fall flat?
By Kimberly Chun and Johnny Ray Huston

>>Stage names
Concerts: Got live if you want it — and you do
Johnny Ray Huston and Kimberly Chun

>>“Daughter” goes to the opera
Classical: Amy Tan revamps her bestseller. Plus, more classical picks
By Ching Chang

>>Forecast: blackout
Clubs: The season’s prime parties offer plenty to fall down about
By Marke B.

>>Autumn reels
Film: 10 big-screen release dates to remember — for better and worse
By Cheryl Eddy

>>Cinemania
Film: 50 ways to rep film this fall
By Johnny Ray Huston

>>Notes of a dirty old man
Lit: Or, a portion from a wine-stained notebook
By Charles Bukowski

>>FALL FAIRS AND FESTIVAL GUIDE
More festive events than you can shake a bare tree at
By Duncan Scott Davidson, Kat Renz, and Ian Ferguson