Drag

SFBG TV: Pageant tidings from planet Faux Queen

Andrew Lam
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In this city, you can’t walk, saunter, or sashay 50 feet without running into a drag queen. We are a queen-heavy city, and we love it. But ask the average Joe who their favorite faux queen is, and all you might get is a glazed look or a raised eyebrow.

Faux queens are drag queens stuck inside a woman’s body — women pretending to be men pretending to be women. A simple enough idea that got its due in 1995 when Diet Popstitute and Rooby Tuesday started the now-legendary Faux Queen Pageant. After a seven year hiatus, the tradition continued on September 16, bringing lashed lovelies from the deepest reaches of space who would give veteran drag queens a run for their money.

I got a chance to interview Bea Dazzler as she was briefly visiting earth from planet Faux Queen. I’ll be honest, I never met a extra-terrestrial who loved women and animals so much.

>>CHECK OUT ERIC CUADRA’S LAST EPISODE OF SFBG TV: BAKLAVA BONDING AT THE ARMENIAN FOOD FESTIVAL

Insider/Outsider art: Paul Festa’s ‘Tie It Into My Hand’ at ODC Fri/21-Sat/22

Sue Vaughan
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Insider/Outsider art: Paul Festa’s ‘Tie It Into My Hand’ at ODC Fri/21-Sat/22

In a way, his first film, the experimental documentary Apparition of the Eternal Church (2006), did for Paul Festa what years of classical musical training and fiction writing never yet had: it put him squarely before the eyes and ears of the world as a serious artist. Ironically, he’d never trained as a filmmaker. He was following a musical muse, to be sure, but down an unfamiliar path.

Asking how we listen — why we listen — to music, Apparition gathered an eclectic assortment of interview-subjects (friends, drag queens, his Juilliard mentor Albert Fuller, even his old college prof, renowned critic-scholar Harold Bloom), had them strap on headphones, and then describe their reactions to Olivier Messiaen’s Apparition de l’église éternelle, the composer’s unrelentingly intense 1932 piece for organ. It was a simple notion that produced complex, and completely absorbing, results.

That unscheduled journey through film has been to the benefit of audiences literally around the world, as Apparition not only received awards and enthusiastic reviews but also toured widely in the lead-up to the centenary of Messiaen’s birth in 2008. In April of that year, it screened at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral as part of a larger program that included Festa on violin, performing the West Coast premiere of Messiaen’s 1933 Fantasy for violin and piano (only published in 2007).

It also marked a vital new turn in Festa’s career, which continues this weekend with the world premiere of Tie It Into My Hand, his new experimental documentary and a fascinating exploration of the artistic life, as rollickingly entertaining as it is insightful and stirring. The premise is again cunningly straightforward: ask a wide range of artists (but no violinists) to give the filmmaker a violin lesson. (After many years of serious study at Juilliard and elsewhere, Festa had retired from playing music in the wake of a hand injury. In the film, he attempts passages from Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.)

Going from the insular world of Juilliard, with its disciplinary rigor and institutional certitudes, to the wide-open prairie of independent filmmaking, is not a typical trajectory for an artist. Festa’s work both expresses and investigates precisely those tensions — between professionalism and amateurism, mentorship and independence, success and failure, glamor and alienation, opinion and taste, beauty and pain — stirred up in his own unconventional path through life and art.
Among the film’s invariably interesting interlocutors are many local artists as well as prominent national figures, but the variety lies as much in the breadth of artistic disciplines represented: actors, drag queens, performance artists (including an uncompromisingly blunt but ever-precise Penny Arcade), poets, musicians (barring only violinists), writers (Daniel Handler, for instance, an old friend from middle and high school years in San Francisco), at least one historian, dancers, theater directors, and playwrights (ACT’s Carey Perloff and Theatre Rhinoceros’s John Fisher being examples in both categories), and painters (including the last recorded interview with the late William Theophilus Brown, for whom Festa had previously modeled and who, as part of the project, produced three color drawings of the violinist-filmmaker).

“It’s a combination of people with whom I’ve had a long acquaintance, some people I had just met at [the Yaddo] artist colony, or wherever else, and then people I was referred to. Apparition of the Eternal Church was really skewed more toward people in my circle. There were only two people in Apparition of the Eternal Church who I met for the first time at the interview.”

If Apparition of the Eternal Church asked questions about the perception of art, and specifically music, for different people, Tie It Into My Hand asks questions about the artistic impulse itself. But the conversations, culled from roughly 120 interviews, range widely, and Festa’s shrewd editing clusters the themes that arise in purposefully harmonic and dissonant clusters, while threading certain leitmotifs throughout. Tie It Into My Hand screens tonight and Sat/22 as part of a triptych of short films (the full program is discussed below), culminating Festa’s theater residency at ODC.

The filmmaker talked about his process, and his circuitous artistic career, while attending to some final color corrections at ODC a couple of days ago. Sitting in the control booth at the back of ODC’s theater, Festa admits he’s not gotten enough sleep of late, but speaks thoughtfully about the necessity of bridging strikingly different artistic terrains.

SFBG You were saying how this project transitioned from a theater piece to a film?

Paul Festa How it went from a theater piece into this film. It’s funny. Carey Perloff has this wonderful line in the film about how men have their nervous breakdowns ten years earlier than women. Well, I had mine right on schedule, six months from my 40th birthday. It had to do with the theater piece, and it had to do with the death of three of four really central mentors to me. Three people died in a four-year period. The first one was George Dusheck, who used to be a reporter here in San Francisco and he dated my mother. He became a really central father figure and mentor. He moved up to Mendocino and introduced me to this whole group of amazing artists and musicians up there. And he died in 2005.

And then Albert Fuller, who you see in this film, who was also the star of Apparition of the Eternal Church, who was the great mentor whose philosophy and whose teaching about music, ostensibly about music, is really what created me as a filmmaker. His imagination about music, his harpsichord music — it had nothing to do with opera or ballet, it wasn’t like he was in the theater, but he had his own theater going on up here. Exposing that to us, he was the origin, and he was the first interview of Apparition of the Eternal Church. And in a sense that whole film is an expression or a crystallization of his teaching. And he died in 2007.

And then this woman Juliette died in 2009. And about three weeks later I had a conversation [about the proposed theater piece at ODC] with a guy who had helped me put on the Grace Cathedral evening. And he kind of looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “What are you talking about? First you did music, and you didn’t make a debut or cut a record. And then you were a writer and you didn’t finish the novel.”

He basically accused me of being a dilettante. He said, “Wow. You’re middle-aged. Do you know that? Are you aware that it’s difficult to get funders and audiences and everyone else to take you seriously?” He didn’t phrase it in quite such a judgmental way; that’s how I took it. He was more amazed that I had the nerve to do that. He’s very wealthy, and he said, “I would be concerned about my own security. Do you have no concern for your own security?”

Well, that’s how I had my nervous breakdown. I became morbidly concerned with my own security. “Holy shit. What have I been doing? Have I been asleep for the last 25 years?” And so at that point I stopped sleeping. There were a lot of practical things [concerning me]. One of the practical things was you can’t even apply to an artist residency or a lot of different things unless you have work that is less than four years old. And Apparition of the Eternal Church, my only film, was about to age-out of that system. So I’d lay awake just trying to think my way out of this disaster that I had somehow engineered for myself. You know, kind of the worst-case nervous-breakdown anxieties.

And I thought, “OK, I’ll make a film, and I’ll introduce the theater piece with this film, and I’ll sort of kill two birds with one stone or I’ll sort of rescue the theater piece and rescue my career with this movie. And it’ll be a silent film comedy, and I’ll accompany it live on the violin. So I’ll keep all the things in the air at once. Kind of like the Grace Cathedral thing, I’ll finally bring everything together. So that became this silent film called The Glitter Emergency, which is set to the second and third movement of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto. So the idea was that that would be the prelude to the theater piece.

What wound up happening was that it ended up being the conclusion to a triptych of films called Three Short Films by Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky. The first of which is this thing. The second of which is a ballet fantasy, which we’ll watch a text-based storyboard of, with me playing live, on [Fri/21]. And then there’s The Glitter Emergency. So it’s one kind of enormous short film and two 20-minute short films.

So that’s how it all came about. And every step of the way, ODC was right with me. When I told [former ODC Theater Director] Rob [Bailis] the theater piece had really evolved and would now be a series of short films, he was totally down. ODC has been a really incredible partner for the last three years.

SFBG Tie It Into My Hand does have elements of self-examination of course, which resonates with the context you describe, but part of why it is so very approachable and compelling is the way it invariably goes much further in what it explores. Did you have a sense of what you’d find?

PF It was like Apparition of the Eternal Church in that it was this big experiment. I didn’t know what the hell was going to happen when I walked into these lessons. I mean, I had an idea: I wanted to accomplish what Apparition of the Eternal Church had accomplished, which was to get people to forget that there was a camera on them. When the headphones went on, I realized that’s why you can watch Apparition of the Eternal Church and just watch talking heads for 35 of those minutes: because they’re doing something, and responding to something.

When you get the download from people, usually they become very cerebral and very careful and they speak in measured tones — and these people were kind of losing it, and that was fun to watch. So I wanted to give them something to do, and that’s what the violin lesson did — and it involved music without the headphone conceit. But also I learned, from everywhere I’d been to music school, that the best way to get someone talking is to have them teach. I heard so many great stories from my teachers.

So I hoped, and I think I was right, it would turn out to be a really productive pretext or device for an interview.

SFBG I would agree. In addition to longer conversations, there are just so many wonderful lines in the film; some very funny, others very perceptive, and often both.

PF What are some you remember?

SFBG For instance, one question was, “Is that as painful to play as it is to listen to?”

PF [Laughs] And the answer to that question is, actually, yes. Thank you, Mink Stole.

Tie It Into My Hand

Fri/21-Sat/22, 7pm, $15-$35

ODC Theater

3153 17th St, SF

www.odctheater.org

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THEATER

OPENING

Family Programming: An Evening of Short Comedic Plays Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Opens Fri/21, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 13. Left Coast Theatre Company performs short plays about gay and alternative families.

ONGOING

Asteroids: Live! Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; (415) 401-7987. $20. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 29. Interstellar comedy “based very, very loosely on the arcade game.”

Henry V Presidio of San Francisco, Main Post Parade Ground Lawn, SF; www.sfshakes.org. Free. Sat/22-Sun/23, 2pm. The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival celebrates the 30th anniversary of Free Shakespeare in the Park with this history play.

Invasion! Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; crowdedfire.dreamhosters.com. $20-35. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 29. Crowded Fire mounts the West Coast premiere of Swedish-born playwright Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s postmodern dark comedy, a deconstruction of language and power in an American culture of perpetual war, which made a well-received New York debut last year. Translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles, and directed by Evren Odcikin, the play immediately subverts the usual multi-culti narrative of otherness and tolerance with a po-faced feint (featuring ensemble members Lawrence Radecker and Olivia Rosaldo-Pratt) that ends with a boisterous disruption of the proceedings from unexpected quarters (courtesy of ensemble members George Psarras and Wiley Naman Strasser). From there, we get a series of interrelated largely comical scenes, wherein — in shades of Martin Crimp’s Attempts on Her Life — a certain figure by the name of Abulkasem dissolves into the ultimate cipher, tied to everything from terror to pick-up lines in bars, and meaning absolutely anything and nothing. Nevertheless, in the interstices of language lurks real power — as the play implies most overly in a scene of intentional mistranslation, which twists a hapless and bemused immigrant’s tale into line with the war-on-terror mythos. In the end, the complexity the play adds does not completely dissolve that liberal narrative skewered at the outset, and its efforts remain only half-convincing. The problem may lie partly in the production’s inconsistent, often sluggish pace, as well as a tendency toward didacticism in director Odcikin’s staging. The material of this sardonic play doesn’t support too literal or even empathetic a reading, but rather seems best translated as a raucous premonition, dream, or intimation of our own guilty seduction by the sadistic, totalizing power of such stories. (Avila)

Kiss of the Spider Woman Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; secondwind.8m.com. $15-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 29. Second Wind presents Manuel Puig’s acclaimed drama about cellmates in a Buenos Aires jail.

My Fair Lady SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-70. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Sept 29. SF Playhouse and artistic director Bill English (who helms) offer a swift, agreeable production of the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical, based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. The iconic class-conscious storyline revolves around a cocky linguist named Higgins (Johnny Moreno) who bets colleague Colonel Pickering (Richard Frederick) he can transform an irritable flower girl, Eliza Doolittle (Monique Hafen), into a “lady” and pass her off in high society. A battle of wills and wits ensues — interlarded with the “tragedy” of Alfred Doolittle (a shrewd and gleaming Charles Dean) and his reluctant upward fall into respectability — and love (at least in the musical version) triumphs. The songs (“Wouldn’t It Be Loverly,” “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “Get Me to the Church on Time,” and the rest) remain evergreen in the cast’s spirited performances, supported by two offstage pianos (brought to life by David Dobrusky and musical director Greg Mason) and nimble choreography from Kimberly Richards. Hafen’s Eliza is especially admirable, projecting in dialogue and song a winning combination of childlike innocence and feminine potency. Moreno’s Higgins is also good, unusually virile yet heady too, a convincingly flawed if charming egotist. And Frederick, who adds a passing hint of homoerotic energy to his portrayal of the devoted Pickering, is gently funny and wholly sympathetic. (Avila)

The Normal Heart American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $25-95. Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sun, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm (also Sept 23, 8pm). Through Oct 7. Larry Kramer’s groundbreaking 1985 drama about the AIDS epidemic — winner of a 2011 Tony for Best Revival of a Play — has a limited run at ACT.

The Other Place Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, Third Flr, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $22-62. Previews Wed/19, 8pm. Opens Thu/20, 8pm. Runs Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/22 and Oct 3, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30 (Oct 7 show at 7pm instead). Through Oct 7. Sharr White’s plot-twisty thriller has its West Coast premiere at Magic Theatre.

Port Out, Starboard Home Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.foolsfury.org. $12-35. Wed/19-Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 2pm. foolsFURY performs the world premiere of Sheila Callaghan’s black comedy.

The Real Americans Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Sept 29. Dan Hoyle’s hit show about his trip across America returns.

Rigoletto War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.sfopera.com. $10-340. Wed/19 and Sept 25, 7:30; Fri/21, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 30. “Fidelity is for weaklings!” Despite this rousing cry from its philandering villain, SF Opera opens its 90th season with a faithful and winsome double-cast production of Giuseppe Verdi’s immortal Rigoletto. Based on a play by Victor Hugo, the story concerns the titular court jester and hunchback (played opening night by the imposing Serbian baritone Zeljko Lucic, who alternates nights with Italian Marco Vratogna) whose attempt to revenge himself on the goatish Duke of Mantua (Sardinian tenor Francesco Demuro, alternating with Mexican tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz) for seducing his beautiful daughter, Gilda (the thoroughly enchanting Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak, alternating with Russian coloratura soprano Albina Shagimuratova), backfires with tragic consequences. The production includes free simulcast presentations at AT&T Ballpark on consecutive weekends for those more inclined to recline, especially in the fresh free air, but either way the show’s a little staid but charming and the music, under SF Opera’s Nicola Luisotti, utterly transporting. (Avila)

Strange Travel Suggestions MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm. Through Sept 29. Author and Ethical Traveler founder Jeff Greenwald (Shopping for Buddhas, Snake Lake) has done his solo show Strange Travel Suggestions dozens if not hundreds of times and still has no idea where it’s going. No wonder he and his audience keep coming back for more. The unknown, an aphrodisiac to the traveler, also makes great catnip for the storyteller. Still, there are consistent elements. There is no need to reinvent the wheel — or the impressive Wheel of Fortune that sits just off center stage, painted with a map of the globe and ringed with symbols abstract and evocative enough to conjure up myriad adventures, peak experiences, and humbling encounters from the vivid grab-bag memory of an accomplished travel writer and inveterate globetrotter. There’s also a real grab bag, just in case, and an oversize tarot card, a sort of visual aid cum talisman sporting a classic image of the Fool, patron saint of the traveler’s heedless leaps of faith. Greenwald’s stories possess a fine sense of humor and a knack for the shrewd detail and telling observation. They also contain a Zen-inflected homespun wisdom no doubt born of leaving home on a regular basis. If slightly self-conscious at times, these tales are always genuine and appealing. In the end, Greenwald’s show, as reliable as it is unpredictable, mimics a genie-from-a-bottle experience: What you get is three spins, three stories, and a lot of unexpected truth. Note: capsule condensed from 2008 feature review of this production. (Avila)

Tripping on the Tipping Point Stagewerx, 446 Valencia, SF; (707) 322-5731. $15-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 29. Human Nature performs a new comedy about global warming.

Twelfth Night San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, Hyde Street Pier, 2905 Hyde, SF; www.weplayers.org. $30-80. Fri-Sun, 5:30pm (also Sat-Sun, noon; matinee only Sat/22; no performances Sept 29; evening performances only Oct 6-7). Through Oct 7. We Players board the Balclutha and the Eureka for this jazzy take on Shakespeare’s romance.

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through Sept 29. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events` in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar “doood” dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Chinglish Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-99. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no show Oct 5; additional 2pm show Oct 4); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through Oct 7. Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) delivers this inconsistent but generally lively and fascinatingly au courant comedy about a down-on-his-luck American businessman (Alex Moggridge) who visits China hoping to win a contract for English-language signage. Hiring a British expat (Brian Nishii) to smooth the way for him, he enters negotiations with a local official (Larry Lei Zhang). Although things seem to be going well (across some hilarious scenes of half-assed simultaneous translation), he finds the deal running inexplicably aground, then finds unexpected help from a hard-nosed, initially hostile, and beautiful Party official (a standout Michelle Krusiec), with whom he soon begins an extramarital affair. But the American (who has a past of his own that eventually comes to light with surprising consequences) has no idea of the machinations taking place behind the formal business meetings and other confused cross-cultural encounters. What unfolds is a sometimes stretched but generally shrewd and laugh-out-loud funny assessment of has-been American delusions through the prism of rising Chinese ambitions and clout, cultural and otherwise. If the central dynamic between the lovers is not always convincing on the individual or metaphorical level, Leigh Silverman directs for Berkeley Rep a super slick production, complete with rotating sets and precisely timed entrances, featuring an enjoyable cast rounded out by Vivian Chiu, Celeste Den, and Austin Ku. (Avila)

The Death of the Novel San Jose Rep, 101 Paseo de San Antonio, San Jose; www.sjrep.com. $23-69. Wed/19, 7:30pm; Thu/20-Sat/22, 8pm (also Sat/22, 3pm). Vincent Kartheiser (a.k.a. Pete Campbell from Mad Men) stars in Jonathan Marc Feldman’s drama about creativity in post-9/11 America at San Jose Rep.

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 30. Playwright Kristoffer Diaz, a self-professed fan of the aggressively-theatrical spectacle that is professional wrestling, delivers much more than a “wrestling 101” primer for the uninitiated with The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. Beneath the razzle-dazzle of the arena lighting (Kurt Landisman), the gaudy costuming (Maggie Whitaker) and the giant televised image of a hot bikini babe (Elizabeth Cadd, video by Jim Gross) lies the trampled luster of an American Dream. The dreamer, Macedonio “The Mace” Guerra (Tony Sancho), a wiry fall guy for THE Wrestling, wrestles not for money or glory (he is rarely privy to either), but for his love of the strange ballet that occurs in the ring. Guerra’s job is to make his opponents look good, including the pec-flexing, bling-booted Chad Deity (Beethovan Oden), leaving him to wrestle alone with the identity politics of being a marginalized but fully capable warrior battling perennially stacked odds. Willing suspension of disbelief does get stretched pretty thin when the character Vigneshwar Paduar, a smooth-talking hustler chance-met on the basketball courts of Brooklyn, rises to championship levels in record-breaking time as the truly cringe-worthy persona known as “The Fundamentalist,” but Nasser Khan’s skillfully self-possessed performance as Paduar makes it impossible not to root for him all the way. Rod Gnapp as foul-mouthed bossman “EKO” and fight director Dave Maier as a whole squadron of hapless B-list wrestlers round out the excellent cast. (Gluckstern)

The Fisherman’s Wife La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 29. The latest from playwright Steve Yockey (Bellwether, Skin) is an exercise in pure pleasure, not least for the devious sea creatures preying lustily and unashamedly on the hapless human flesh of a small coastal town. There, in cracked fairytale fashion, an unsuccessful fisherman named Cooper Minnow (an endearingly nerdy but passionate Maro Guevara) is preparing to set out to sea, leaving at home frustrated wife Vanessa (a wonderfully, volcanically bitchy yet complex Eliza Leoni) and their sinking marriage, when he meets an oddly brazen pair of sexy, sassy bathers in old-fashioned beach attire (the swimmingly synchronized duo of Sarah Coykendall and Roy Landaverde). At more or less the same moment, a devilishly dashing yet prim traveling salesman (poised, nicely offbeat Adrian Anchondo) is offering a clearly aroused Vanessa an erotic woodcut featuring monstrous tentacles groping human victims at a very familiar-looking dock. Will she take the woodcut? Will she ever! And later she’ll defend her husband’s honor and swap places with him too, much to the commercial advantage of the ever-accommodating salesman who — like Yockey’s smart and sure sex farce — has a little something for everyone. Directed with smooth precision by Ben Randle for Berkeley’s Impact Theatre, The Fisherman’s Wife again finds Yockey playing productively with the fine fuzzy line separating human nature from nature at large (as in Large Animal Games, the winning 2009 co-production from Impact and Dad’s Garage). The animals come through for playwright and company once more, with a thoroughly enjoyable comedy whose borrowed maritime mythos has just enough metaphorical pull to lead those so inclined out beyond the shallow waters. (Avila)

Keith Moon/The Real Me TheaterStage at the March Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu, 8pm. Through Sept 27. Mike Berry workshops his new musical, featuring ten classic Who songs performed with a live band.

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Oct 14. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Check website for schedule. Through Sept 30. Marin Shakespeare Company performs the Bard’s classic, transported to the shores of Hawaii.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Comikaze Lounge” Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; www.comikazelounge.com. Wed/19, 8pm. Free. Comedy with Kevin Camia, Mike Drucker, Paco Romane, Lydia Papovich, and more.

“Dogsbody” Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission, SF; dogsbody.eventbrite.com. Fri/21-Sun/23, 8pm. $10. Erik Ehn’s play about child soldiers features choreography by Erika Chong Shuch.

“Elect to Laugh” Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Veteran political comedian Will Durst emphasizes he’s watching the news and keeping track of the presidential race “so you don’t have to.” No kidding, it sounds like brutal work for anyone other than a professional comedian — for whom alone it must be Willy Wonka’s edible Eden of delicious material. Durst deserves thanks for ingesting this material and converting it into funny, but between the ingesting and out-jesting there’s the risk of turning too palatable what amounts to a deeply offensive excuse for a democratic process, as we once again hurtle and are herded toward another election-year November, with its attendant massive anticlimax and hangover already so close you can touch them. Durst knows his politics and comedy backwards and forwards, and the evolving show, which pops up at the Marsh every Tuesday in the run-up to election night, offers consistent laughs born on his breezy, infectious delivery. One just wishes there were some alternative political universe that also made itself known alongside the deft two-party sportscasting. (Avila)

“The Ella Effect” Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th St, SF; www.ftloose.org. Fri/21, 8 and 9:30pm. $15. Josh Klipp and the Klipptones join with a crew of local dancers to honor the music of Ella Fitzgerald.

“Fauxgirls! San Francisco’s Favorite Drag Revue” Infusion Lounge, 124 Ellis, SF; www.fauxgirls.com. Thu/20, 8pm. Free. With Victoria Secret, Alexandria, Chanel, Maria Garza, and more.

“Hella Gay Comedy Show: Bear Comedy Night” Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; www.decosf.com. Sun/23, 8pm. $10. Comedy with host Charlie Ballard and performers Kurt Weitzmann, David Gborie, Nick Leonard, Antwan Johnson, and more.

Kathy Mata Ballet San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak, SF; www.kathymataballet.com. Fri/21, 8pm. Free-$30. The company performs a variety of dance styles, including ballet, jazz, modern, and belly dance, plus guest performers the Gnosis Dance Collective and live musical accompaniment.

Napoles Ballet Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Buchanan, SF; www.napolesballet.org. Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 7pm. $18-25. The new company presents Carlos Molina in the world premiere of Fausto.

“Open” Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/21-Mon/24, 8pm. $20. When a couple decides to try an open marriage, hilarity (and jealousy) ensues in Jeff Bedillion’s play, performed by Back Alley Theater Productions.

“Second City for President” Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.captivatearts.com. Sun/23, 3pm. $30-55. Political comedy revue by the renowned Second City troupe.

Gina Yashere Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/22, 8pm. $18-20. The British Nigerian comedian performs.

BAY AREA

“Freedom House” Eastside Cultural Center, 2277 International, Oakl; (510) 420-0920. Fri/21-Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 2pm. $10-25. dNaga, Eastside Arts Alliance, and the Asian Pacific Islander Center present this “dance art experience” inspired by the experiences of people of color who live in Oakland.

“Risk for Deep Love” Temescal Art Center, 511 48th St, Oakl; www.eroplay.com. Fri/21, 8pm. Free. Frank Moore leads this “ritual audience participation experience experiment.”

 

Snap Sounds: Laetitia Sadier

Tony Robles
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0

LAETITIA SADIER
SILENCIO
(DRAG CITY)

In her 20 years as the lead singer of Stereolab, Laetitia Sadier has dependably imparted a vital, earthy humanity to her band’s sterile, mechanized productions.

In turn, on Silencio, her newest full-length, Sadier forgoes Stereolab’s rigid aura, in favor of a warmer, airier sound, more relaxed in approach, and endearing in its lack of cohesion.

Jumping between sun-kissed bossa nova tributes (“Moi Sans Zach”), psych-lounge numbers a la Air (“There is a Price to Pay for Freedom”), and breezy, Yo La Tengo-ish pop tunes (“Auscultation to the Nation”), Silencio allows Sadier’s various musical influences to breathe and linger, without being upstaged by the motorik propulsion, and Jetsons kitsch, of the Stereolab formula. An ideal sunny-day-in-the-Mission-with-headphones record.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7bSAsvHFjo

Call Miss Jenkins

Andrew Lam
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2
Call Miss Jenkins

marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO I’m not one to gossip, but …. Story of the month, courtesy of weekly Friday drag extravaganza Some Thing at the Stud: a giant party limo parked outside the club. Blah blah Kirsten Dunst, blah blah Alexander Wang, blah blah a dozen hangers-on blah. (I was inside chilling with the true star of the evening, OG NYC clubkid Desi Monster.) Formidable doorperson Dean Disaster: “Seven dollars each, please.” Wang hanger-on, clutching pearls: “But we’ve never paid cover before!” Disaster: “Here, let me guide you through it. Give me seven dollars. And then I’ll let you in the club.” They paid. We’re all VIPs in this house, henty.

ALTON MILLER

The Detroit-Chicago master was integral to the early techno scene (he co-owned the world’s first techno club, the Music Institute) and has produced a vast catalogue of beautiful, grown-up deep house grooves rooted in African drumming’s expansive rhythms and personal tech flourishes — see lovely 2010 album Light Years Away. He also happens to be one of my favorite people ever. (Sorry, journalistic bias!) Join him at fantastic weekly Housepitality for a trip to the stratosphere and some sophisticated magic alongside locals DJ Said of the Fatsouls label and Ivan Ruiz of the just-launched Moulton Music label.

Wed/12, 9pm, $5 before 11pm, $10 after (free before 11pm with RSVP at www.housepitalitysf.com), Icon, 1192 Folsom, SF.

L O S T • C ? T

Weird biweekly dance party. Recommended.

Thu/13, 10pm, $3. Showdown, 10 Sixth St., SF. www.tinyurl.com/lostcatsf

BODY + SPACE

The bi-annual, summer-long Soundwave sonic festival is still in full effect, and this special event sounds experimental-awesome. Example? “Genesis,” a work by Polly Moller “explores 11 dimensions of the universe and the magical creation of a new 12th dimension.” Also: mechanical tone poems, anxiety dances, sonic wombs.

Fri/14, doors 7:30pm, show at 8, $15. Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission, SF. www.projectsoundwave.com/5/

MADE IN DETROIT

For the past little while, you could actually almost hear the Detroit techno torch being passed to young’uns Kyle Hall and Jay Daniel. It sounded like a butterfly exploding in a Model T factory. Kaychunk! But it actually sounded like an ingenious melding of deep bass sounds and post-glitch effects applied to classic cosmic techno ambiance. Seeing the duo tagteam classic vinyl at this year’s Movement festival cemented my love for them. This As You Like It party may do yours the same.

Fri/14, 9pm-4am, $10 before 10pm, $20 after. Beatbox, 314 11th St., SF. www.ayli-sf.com

RUSTIE

Adore the laser-cut future bass gems that Rustie the Scot has hewn from his sparkling imagination. He’ll be warping 1015 with another great, Kode9, along with sublime electro-stoner Elliot Lipp and locals DJ Dials, Slayers Club, tons more.

Fri/14, 10pm-5am, $20–$25. 1015 Folsom, www.1015.com

BRING YOUR OWN QUEER

Bring Your Own Queer self (not in a paper bag, please!) to this annual free outdoor daytime funfest, filling the Golden Gate park bandshell with hot pick dance party craziness! DJs Carrie Morrison and Steve Fabus, live sets by Adonisaurus and Darling Gunsel, and, like, zillions more. Plus the Jiggalicious Dance Babes. Gotta love the Jiggalicious Dance Babes. Double rainbow part two!

Sat/15, noon-6pm, free. Music Concourse Bandshell, Golden Gate park. www.byoq.org

ANNA CONDA’S BIRTHDAY

She’s 45 alive! SF’s favorite queer-activist drag queen won’t exactly be roasted at this fundraising event for the Harvey Milk Club, but she will be toasted — something like 45 other queens will take the stage at this killer rock ‘n roll dance party (DJs Dirty Knees and Jon Ginoli) and tribute to her royal lowness.

Sat/15, 9pm, suggested donation $5–$10. The Edge, 4149 18th St., SFF. www.tinyurl.com/annaconda45

Our Weekly Picks: September 12-18

Andrew Lam
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0

WEDNESDAY 12

Zero1 Biennial

This week, when the weather is right, SF designer Ishky will coordinate a massive 3.14-ecetera to be written by five planes over the Bay’s skyscape. The work heralds the arrival of Zero1 Biennial, sure to be a different look at Silicon Valley. SFMOMA, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Stanford will all be participating in the tech-art fest, but “Seeking Silicon Valley” is a good place to start exploring. Artists from 11 countries have created innovative odes to computerlandia at Zero1 Garage, a specially-designed new permanent art space in San Jose. Expect virtual tunnels connecting cross-Atlantic museums and the first dot com rise and fall, as interpreted through shots of a vertiginous Argentinian mountain. (Caitlin Donohue)

Through Dec. 8, Various times and Bay Area venues

“Seeking Silicon Valley”

Zero1 Garage

439 First St., San Jose

www.zero1biennial.org

 

Chelsea Wolfe

Like a gloomier incarnation of Julia Holter, or PJ Harvey with a stoner-goth edge, Chelsea Wolfe has a knack for sounding like everyone and no-one else, all at once. On last year’s Apokalypsis, her wispy, high-pitched vocals stood in stark opposition to the record’s sonic atmosphere: robust, foreboding drums and guitars a la Slint, wrapped up in lush electronics, layers upon layers of reverb, and the vague ethos of the hypnagogic pop movement. One of those “weird” records whose weirdness is rendered highly palatable by its confident execution, Wolfe’s debut was one of last year’s most compelling rock statements. (Taylor Kaplan)

With Crypts, Dia Dear, DJ S4NtA_MU3rTE, DJ Nako

8pm, $12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com


THURSDAY 13

Femina Potens’ ASKEW Film and Performance Festival

Should your post-convention feminist outrage still be clouding the edges of your vision, mark your calendars for a weekend of smart, sex-positive female-made films and readings at YBCA. Tonight, take in multimedia memoir presentations by adult industry stars-authors Oriana Small and Lorelei Lee, then a documentary on SF strippers’ fight for justice in the workplace by Hiwa B., an ex-dancer herself. Later this weekend, Madison Young’s doc on her first year as a mama in SF sex culture awaits (Sat/14), and Mollena Williams’ interactive short on the ways racism can emerge in the world of BDSM play (Sun/15). Forget “legitimate rape,” it’s time to start developing our own vision of the way we want the world to work. (Donohue)

Through Sun/15, $10/screening

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

Nommo Ogo

The Bay Area is overloaded with ambient electronic acts inviting you to lose yourself in their Pink Floyd-on-codeine haze, but Nommo Ogo’s attention to detail sets it apart from the pack. Balancing old-school, Cluster-meets-Zelda synth tones with live guitars, field recordings, jittery percussion, and the occasional buried vocal track, its records are unusually dynamic, and compositionally advanced, for “ambient” fare. This Thursday, the Oakland-via-Anchorage outfit will unleash some new material, as it celebrates the release of its forthcoming LP, Endless Dream, at Bottom of the Hill. Will the new album follow the sturdy progression of the back catalogue, or will it present a bold change of direction? (Kaplan)

With Candle Labra, Secret Sidewalk

9pm, $10

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com


FRIDAY 14

John Cage Celebration: PICO

You have one chance this weekend to wish John Cage a Happy 100th Birthday. With a razor mind, often barely visible behind his affable façade, Cage and Merce Cunningham turned inside out cherished traditions about listening and seeing. A European composer once asked Cage whether it was not difficult for him write music so far away from the Tradition. His reply: “it must be hard for you write music so close to the Tradition.” PICO: Performance Indeterminate Cage Opera, based on Cage’s Fontana Mix — less a score than a manual for proceeding — is a very Cagean enterprise with live and recorded music, three channels of video, 20 plus dancers, and audience participation (should you be so inclined). PICO also pays tribute to kindred spirits Marcel Duchamp and Nam June Paik (Rita Felciano).

7:30pm, $7

Berkeley Art Museum

2626 Bancroft Way, Berk.

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

 

Rustie

Who needs restraint, or tastefulness, when you’ve got Rustie? Like fellow producers Hudson Mohawke and Lone, the Glasgow-based beatmaker specializes in a high-gloss brand of dubstep-tinged electronica that overwhelms with its kitchen-sink approach. Much like an alternate Sonic the Hedgehog soundtrack, as envisioned by the venerable Warp imprint, his debut LP, Glass Swords, was one of 2011’s most ecstatically go-for-broke records. Garish, fluorescent synths compete relentlessly for the spotlight, anchored (just barely) by grooving, thrashing percussion, on a hugely celebratory record with the irresistible energy of a basketful of puppies. One can only imagine the potential of Rustie’s maximalist approach in a live setting. (Kaplan)

With Kode9, Obey City, Anna Love, Dreams, Dials vs. Bogi, The Slayers Club Crew

10pm, $20

1015 Folsom, SF

(415) 264-1015

www.1015.com/onezerothree

 

Phenomena

Everyone’s heard of 1977’s Suspiria, but Dario Argento’s filmography is full of should-be horror classics — including 1985’s Phenomena, which returns to Suspiria‘s boarding-school milieu but shifts the action to Switzerland, where the new girl in class is the troubled daughter (Jennifer Connelly) of a movie star. She sleepwalks, she communicates with insects, she befriends a local professor (Donald Pleasence, Halloween‘s Dr. Loomis) and his chimpanzee companion, she runs afoul of the local murderer … man, growing up is tough! With lamé’d costumes by Giorgio Armani and songs by Iron Maiden, Motörhead, and Argento faves Goblin, Phenomena is a gloriously ’80s relic. It screens with animated classic The Iron Giant (1999) and young Connelly’s Muppet-tastic breakout film, 1986’s Labyrinth. (Cheryl Eddy)

“Midnites for Maniacs: Trix Are For Kids Triple Bill”

7:30pm, $13

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.midnitesformaniacs.com

 

J.B. Smoove

After starting his career on Russell Simmons’s Def Comedy Jam in the ’90s, J.B. Smoove has since solidified his status as a foolproof secret weapon within the comedy world. Uncredited appearances and writing work on Saturday Night Live, in addition to scene-stealing supporting roles in films such as Pootie Tang, helped land him his current role as Leon (“Pepitone, Pepitone!”), Larry David’s opportunistic house guest/sidekick on recent seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm. As a stand-up performer, Smoove combines physical comedy with hilarious storytelling, courtesy of his unmistakable vocal delivery. (Landon Moblad)

8 and 10:15pm; Sat/15, 7:30 and 9:45pm, $25

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.cobbscomedyclub.com


SATURDAY 15

Los Straitjackets

Nashville, Tenn.’s Los Straitjackets have been pairing genuine musicianship with over-the-top gimmick for more than 20 years and 11 studio albums. True, quality songwriting and matching costumes sounds oxymoronic, but Los Straitjackets defy common sense. The foursome plays instrumental, surf-inspired rock music, with an extensive list of covers, including “Deck the Halls” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” but their original material is where the band shines. During performances, they dress identically in all black with gold Aztec-inspired medallions, differentiated only by customized luchador masks. Not to worry, they also have synchronized choreography. (Haley Zaremba)

With Daddy-O Grande, Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys

9pm, $20

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com


SUNDAY 16

Faux Queen Pageant: The Next Generation

Now, San Francisco cherishes an exceptional portion of the world’s most glamorous and inventive faux queens. But in 1995, when Diet Popstitute and Ruby Toosday unleashed the Faux Queen Pageant, there were few outlets for “drag queens trapped in women’s bodies.” The doors FQP helped throw open make its 2012 reincarnation all the more intriguing, as SF’s big and brassy faux queen contest returns under the auspices of Bea Dazzler, Holy McGrail, and the Klubstitute Kollective. With MCs Leigh Crow (as Captain Kirk) and Trixxie Carr at the helm, and a firmament of local star judges (Heklina, Fauxnique, Birdie Bob Watt, Cricket Bardot, Ruby Toosday, L. Ron Hubby and Deena Davenport), Faux Queen Pageant: The Next Generation promises to take you where no woman has gone before. (Robert Avila)

8pm, $15

DNA Lounge

375 Eleventh St., SF

(415) 626-1409

www.fauxqueenpageant.com


TUESDAY 18

Mark Bittman

Veteran New York Times opinion and food columnist Mark Bittman claims he’s not a chef and he’s never been professionally trained. Yet, his How to Cook Everything is recognized as a veritable recipe bible for curious home chefs. Bittman, nicknamed “The Minimalist” for his unfussy approach to cooking, delves even further into the fundamentals with this year’s updated How to Cook Everything: The Basics. The newest edition is an encyclopedia of tips, ranging from how to set up a pantry to how to tell when particular foods are done cooking (always important for those house parties). As if writing for the Times and authoring more than a dozen cookbooks was not enough, The Minimalist debuted his new Cooking Channel show of the same name earlier this fall. (Kevin Lee)

In conversation with Jessica Battilana

7:30pm, $22–$27

Herbst Theatre

401 Van Ness

(415) 392-4400

www.cityboxoffice.com


TUESDAY 18

Paloma Faith

Thanks to a string of hit singles such as “Do You Want The Truth or Something Beautiful?” along with starring roles in several films, including Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, acting opposite Tom Waits, British singer Paloma Faith is a noted star over in her native UK. Fusing modern pop with sultry ’50s rock sensibilities and a classy, retro-inspired look, the 27-year-old Faith is hitting the United States for her first ever tour, in support of her new album, Fall To Grace. Fans can be sure that next time she comes around, it will be in a much bigger venue. (Sean McCourt)

8pm, $15

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell St., SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian, 71 Stevenson, Second Floor, SF, CA 94105; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Chauvinism: Not a good tool for fighting chauvinism

Andrew Lam
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9
Chauvinism: Not a good tool for fighting chauvinism

I know we’re all feeling a little queasy from all the Tampa tidings, but let’s remember why we’re here.

Mark Morford’s column on SFGate on Tuesday should have been another smart, snarky putdown of anti-feminist Republican platforming. But it turned out to be even more of a bummer than Condoleeza Rice hiding her pro-choice-ness under a podium.

Here is Morford on Lulli Akin, wife of Todd, a fact which automatically means we should probably just leave the poor woman alone:

Let us move on to… Akin’s wife. There is Lulli, standing next to her man as if dipped in concrete, tight-lipped and hard as a frying pan, looking for all purposes like someone removed her heart 40 years ago and replaced it with a brick.

Akin’s wife appears to us as a wan facsimile of a vibrant, authentic female, something not altogether real, unmoving and unblinking as her husband tries to backpedal violently, saying “No no no, of course rape is a terrible thing, of course women should never get raped, and that’s why I sure hope they stop asking for it very soon because angry Jesus does not like it one little bit.”

Male journos: please erase the phrase “authentic female” from your lexicon. Trust me.

Afterwards, it is AkIn’s two teenage daughters turn, who appear to be at the age least capable of handling critiques of performance on national TV. Morford has this to say: 

Oh my God, the daughters. Just look. Look at the two Akin managed to drag on stage with him. It is they who inspired this column. It is they who have a look in their eye like they’ve just been made to swallow a fistful of broken glass. Again.

I hate agreeing with a website whose banner reads “exposing and combating liberal bias,” but Morford, sir! Assessing the female offspring of politicians (really, any gender) based even slightly on their physical appearance is best left to expert assholes like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

The column goes onto give condescending well wishes to the girls in their escape from Dad’s ethos system.

Shall we repost the palate cleanser of the week? Take it away Samantha Bee. 

Psychic Dream Astrology: August 29-September 4

Andrew Lam
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0

ARIES

March 21-April 19

Not everything that hurts is actually bad for you, Aries. You are being challenged to decipher the difference between the pain from things being unhealthy and that of growth and healing. Take your time and reflect on what you are reacting to. The more clear-headed you are, the better choices you’ll make.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

There is a total lack of control that we have in our lives that can make you crazy if you think about it too long. Strive to find a balance between being graceful in the face of what you cannot change, and pro-active about the things that need doing. Don’t succumb to passive inactivity this week.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

Instead of looking at things from every angle and considering what everyone else might do, feel or think, try sitting with your own complicated self, Twin Star. It doesn’t matter what someone else would feel in your situation, what’s inside of you? Figure that out before you do any other thing this week.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

You cannot change what is, even if you seriously don’t want it to be true. Instead of fighting against a reality you’d rather not deal with, it’s time to get accepting, Cancer. Come to the end of this cycle, so you can finally start a new one. Only accepting your current situation will give you the freedom to change it.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

You must assert yourself in order to keep things going on the track you want them on, Leo. Be considerate of the wishes of those around you without watering your own needs down. Bring kindness and levity to your dealings, because what you make now stands a chance to last for a very long time.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

This is a ripe time to learn more about your emotional nature, Virgo. Open up your heart to something or someone; really feel vulnerable and hopeful, with all of the uncertainty that comes with it. Notice if you feel inspired, scared, or excited? Better understand yourself by being present with what you feel this week.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Life is like a picnic at the end of a long hike, Libra. If you drag around too much extra crap, you’ll tire yourself out before you reach your destination. If you don’t bring enough useful supplies with you, a minor mishap can become a major pain in the butt. Be practical and well prepared this week.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

Coping with your stress levels is way more important than whatever is upsetting you this week. Avoid the temptation to analyze details with a magnifying glass, and instead get enough steps away from whatever’s bugging you so that you can see the whole picture. The Devil’s in the details, Scorpio, so treat them with kid gloves.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

How one holds the things that they value says a lot about a person. This week you should keep your attentions fixed on how you do what you do with what you treasure, Sagittarius. If you cherish a thing, do you protect it, use it till it’s gone, hoard it? Notice this stuff as a way to more fully experience love.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

Do not resist going through emotional pain this week, Capricorn. What feels like your biggest problems are in fact your teachers, hecka determined to get you to pay attention to your lessons. The only way to learn about your self is to encounter yourself. Be humble as you investigate why you react as you do.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

Your ego can get you into real trouble this week if you don’t keep it in check. If you assert yourself beyond your rights you will set a chain of reactions in motion that will bring about unpleasant results. Stay grounded, take your time, and consider the impact of your actions before you strike out, Aquarius.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

When you stop trying to contain or direct the flow of your life, opportunities can arise out of nowhere. This week there’s much to be gained from letting things reveal themselves to you. Do not make impulsive decisions or force your will, Pisces. There is great strength in waiting, it is an active process for to engage in.

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 18 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com to contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading.

Music Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead or check the venue’s website to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Visit www.sfbg.com/venue-guide for venue information. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 29

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Black Cobra Vipers, French Cassettes, Brass Bed Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Bleached Palms, Big Drag, Standard Poodle, Apopka Darkroom Cafe Du Nord. 9pm, $7.

Civil Twilight, Morning Parade, Vanaprasta Independent. 8pm, $14.

Desaparecidos, Velvet Teen Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $25.

Guella, Grand Nationals, One Way Station Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

Johnny Legend, Top Ten, Chuckleberries Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $7.

Nathan and Rachel Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

"SF Underground Music Fest" 50 Mason Social House, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. With Mr. Kind, Phoenix Twins, Felsen.

Virgil Shaw and the Killer Views, Human Condition, Devotionals Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $10.

Thee Oh Sees, Enorchestra, Dirty Power Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $14.

Versions, Monuments Collapse, Cascabel, Braeg Noafa Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $6.

Greg Zema vs Joel Nelson Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9:30pm.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cat’s Corner with Nathan Dias Savanna Jazz. 9pm, $10.

Cosmo AlleyCats Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; www.lecolonialsf.com. 7-10pm.

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Eric Garland’s Jazz Session Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Bela Fleck and the Marcis Roberts Trio Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $30; 10pm, $26.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 6:30pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita MORE! and Joshua J host this dance party.

Coo-Yah! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. DJs Daneekah and Green B spin reggae and dancehall.

Hardcore Humpday Happy Hour RKRL, 52 Sixth St, SF; (415) 658-5506. 6pm, $3.

THURSDAY 30

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Black Mountain, Quest for Fire Independent. 8pm, $17.

Hello Echo, Tzigane Society, Campbell Society Amnesia. 9pm, $7-$10.

John Lawton Trio Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Lusjoints, Extra Classic, Sun Life Cafe Du Nord. 8:30pm, $10.

Jason Marion vs JC Rockit Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9:30pm.

Pains of Being Pure at Heart, A B & the Sea, popscene DJs Rickshaw Stop. 9:30pm, $15-$17.

Erica Sunshine Lee, Windy Hill Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $5-$7.

Two Gallants Amoeba Music. 6pm, free.

Ugly Winner, Hazel’s Wart, Big Mittens Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Why?, Doseone, Serengti Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $18.

Yonat & Her Muse, Juanita and the Rabbit, Bye Bye Blackbirds Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Bela Fleck and the Marcis Roberts Trio Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $30; 10pm, $26.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 7:30pm, $10.

Ned Boyton Trio Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 7-10pm.

Savanna Jazz Jam with Eddy Ramirez Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Twang! Honky Tonk Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm. Live country music, dancing, and giveaways.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-$7. With DJ-host Pleasuremaker spinning spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

All 80s Thursday Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). ’80s mainstream and underground with DJ’s Damon, Steve Washington, and Dangerous Dan.

Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, and more with DJs Don Bustamante, Apocolypto, Sr. Saen, Santero, and Mr. E.

FRIDAY 31

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Back Pages Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Rome Balestrieri, Jason Marion, Guido Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9pm.

A.A. Bondy, ESP, UFO Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $17.

B. Hamilton, Chrystian Rawk, Feral Cat Amnesia. 9pm, $7-$10.

Chixdiggit!, Meat Sluts, Boats! Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

CyClub, East Bay Brass Band Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Ryan Darton Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Go Van Gogh Make-Out Room. 7:30pm, $8.

Jounce, Elephants in Mud Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 7:30pm, $5-$8.

Modern Heist Brainwash Cafe. 8pm, free.

Revision Evenodds, Under the Musical Direction of Kev Choice Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 10pm, $8-$10.

Solwave, Super Adventure Club, Major Powers and the Lo-Fi Symphony Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $10.

Swamp Angel, Fascinating Creatures of the Deep, Badmen Cafe Du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Turbonegro Slim’s. 9pm, $28.

Vaselines Independent. 9pm, $22.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

Black Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 9pm, $10.

Terry Disely Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 5:30-8:30pm.

Bela Fleck and the Marcis Roberts Trio Yoshi’s SF. 8 and 10pm, $40.

Bryan Girard, Graham Bruce Palindrome Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Baxtalo Drom Amnesia. 9pm, $7-$10. With live music, gypsy punk, belly dancing.

Taste Fridays 650 Indiana, SF; www.tastefridays.com. 8pm, $18. Salsa and bachata dance lessons, live music.

Chucho Valdes Pena Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8pm, $20-$39.95.

DANCE CLUBS

Joe Lookout, 3600 16th St.,SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 9pm. Eight rotating DJs, shirt-off drink specials.

Old School JAMZ El Rio. 9pm. Fruit Stand DJs spinning old school funk, hip-hop, and R&B.

Original Plumbing Elbo Room. 10pm, $3-$7.Trans dance party with DJs Chelsea Starr and Rapid Fire.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

SATURDAY 1

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Band of Heathens, Trishas, Birdhouse Cafe Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12-$15.

Brown Bird, These United States Independent. 9pm, $14.

Burn River Burn, Fortress, Cormorant, Prizehog Slim’s. 8:30pm, $8.

Citizen’s Arrest, Yadokai, Rat Damage, Wartrash, Stressors Thee Parkside. 2pm, $10.

Foxtails Brigade, Yesway, Whiskerman Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

Goldenboy, New Familiar Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Honey Wilders Band Riptide. 9:30pm, free.

Lost Bayou Ramblers Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 8pm, $7-$10.

Promise Ring, One AM Radio Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

Sands, 3 Leafs, Body Swap Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Nathan Temby, Jason Marion, Guido Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9pm.

Ticket to Ride Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

Bela Fleck and the Marcis Roberts Trio Yoshi’s SF. 8 and 10pm, $40.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrod Atlas Cafe, 3049 20th St, SF; www.atlascafe.net. 4-6pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Bearracuda Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $6-$8.

Bootie SF DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10-$15.

Haceteria Acid Meltdown with Exillon Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; www.decosf.com. 9pm, $5. With Nihar, Tristes Tropiques, and Jason P.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-$10. With DJs Lucky, Paul Paul, Phengren Oswald.

SUNDAY 2

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Dropdead, Bumbklaat, Permanent Ruin, Vacuum, Elegy Thee Parkside. 1pm, $10.

John Lawton Trio Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Laurie Morvan Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Melody and Tyler, Ali May 50 Mason Social House, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 8pm.

Men Independent. 9pm, $12.

Old 97s, Those Darlins, Rhett Miller Fillmore. 8pm, $26.50.

Sandro Perri, Steer the Stars, Max Porter Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Pharcyde Yoshi’s SF Lounge. 9pm, $26.

Tidelands, Yassou Benedict, Hannah Werdmuller Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Vektor, Hatchet, Apocryphon Thee Parkside. 8pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Mike Greensill Trio Old First Church, 1751 Sacramento, SF; (415) 474-1608. 4pm. $14-$17.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Kally Price Old Blues and Jazz Band Amnesia. 8-11pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

Dancing Ghosts Raven, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.ravenbarsf.com. 9:30pm, $5. Darkwave dance party with DJs Xander and Sage.

Domingos Latinos Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $8-$10. With DJ Sep, Ludichris, Vinnie Esparza, and soundsystem set with Mista Chatman.

Hero White Party Ruby Skye, 420 Mason, SF; www.rubyskye.com. 6pm-midnight. With David Aude, and Jamie J. Sanchez.

Jock Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 3pm, $2.

MONDAY 3

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

"Cowgirlpalooza" El Rio. 3pm, $10. With 77 El Deora, Rumble Strippers, Patsychords, Kit and the Branded Men, Kitty Rose.

Damir Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Gold Panda, Doldrums, Nanosaur Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $16-$18.

Hot Snakes, Mrs. Magician Slim’s. 8pm, $19.50-$23.

John Maus Independent. 9pm, $13.

Superhumanoids, JJAMZ, Teenage Sweater Cafe Du Nord. 8pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

James Cotton Superharp Yoshi’s SF. 8, $28; 10pm, $20.

Bossa Nova Tunnel Top, 601 Bush, SF; (415) 722-6620. 8-11:30pm, free. Live acoustic Bossa Nova.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Belle Monroe and Her Brewglass Boys Amnesia. 9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.

Crazy Mondays Beauty Bar, 2299 Mission, SF; www.thebeautybar.com. 10pm, free. Hip-hop and other stuff.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. DJs Timoteo Gigante, Gordo Cabeza, and Chris Phlek playing all Motown every Monday.

Soul Cafe John Colins Lounge, 138 Minna, SF; www.johncolins.com. 9pm. R&B, hip-hop, reggae, dancehall, and salsa with DJ Jerry Ross.

Vibes’N’Stuff El Amigo Bar, 3355 Mission, SF; (415) 852-0092. 10pm, free. Conscious jazz and hip-hop with DJs Luce Lucy, Vinnie Esparza, and more.

TUESDAY 4

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Big Business, Federation X, Pins of Light Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Fat Tuesday Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Ferocious Few, Tumbleweed Wanderers Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, free.

Heavy, Silent Comedy Slim’s. 8pm, $16.

King Khan and the Shrines, Apache Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16.

Kishi Bashi, Last Bison Cafe Du Nord. 7:30pm, $10-$12.

Lightning Bolt, No Babies, Future Twin Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Something Fierce, Occult Detective Club Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

SparkBox, Annie Girl & the Flight, Emily Jane White Amnesia. 9pm.

Stan Erhart Band Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

True Mutants, Apogee Sound Club, Yes Gos Knockout. 9:30pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Debo Band Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $16.

Gaucho Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 7-10pm.

Marty Eggers Pier 23, Embarcadero at Filbert, SF; (415) 362-5125. 5-8pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Appetite: Outside Lands, as seen by a food writer

Andrew Lam
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This year’s Outside Lands, the three-day extravaganza of some of the top musical acts in the world and quality food and drink (this is SF, after all) in the beauty of Golden Gate Park, felt more packed than ever. But despite throngs descending on SF from all over the country that turning Golden Gate Park into a sea of trash — thanks clean-up crews! — Outside Lands magic happened each day.

For example on Sunday, when performer Jack White popped up for an impromptu set, surprising fans who happened to be traversing the eucalyptus groves near Choco Lands. It was magic eating local foods in a festival setting, like dreamy Italian Del Popolo (although hour-plus lines and daily sell-outs were a drag) or everything from Ryan Farr’s two 4505 Meats stands sustaining us on those long walks between stages with the perfect “damn good cheeseburger” and “yum yum” fried chicken sandwich. You could feel the magic in the new-this-year Beer Lands, where one could sip craft beers while taking in the Foo Fighters, Regina Spektor, or Beck (Although the training given to those pouring beers was far from magic. One pourer for The Bruery on Saturday told me confidently that this incredible brewery from the O.C. was from San Diego.)

Magic occurred when Metallica, flames, lasers, and all, delivered the tightest, hardest-rocking set of the weekend. Not long after the noon hour, fun. swept up the entire Polo Field in their rousing anthems. Magic reigned at Stevie Wonder’s set on Sunday night. His voice sounded as tight and beautiful as ever, even at age 62. His joy and wisdom radiated from the moment he took the stage, streaming out to a field full of thousands basking in waves of pink, blue, and green lights, foggy Pacific Ocean air, and the voice of a legend.

Full captions: 

1.  Ryan Farr’s ridiculously good Chicken “yum yum” sandwich was one of the festival’s best eats. Watch for it at Ferry Plaza Farmers Market

2. 4505 Meats’ chicharrones bars were like rice krispie treats made with Ryan Farr’s unparalleled chicharrones, puffed rice, marshmallow, and Apple Jacks or Cocoa Puffs

3. Misty, dreamy lighting changes colors, illuminating Golden Gate Park trees at night

4. The hilarious, improvisational Reggie Watts rocked comedy and music Friday afternoon (and here, in the media tent following his set)

5. The Wine Lands tent impressed once again with 49 wineries. 2012 highlights included Villa Creek, Robert Sinskey, Qupe, Kermit Lynch, Palmina, The Scholium Project, and Wind Gap 

6. Beck keeps the crowd happy at the Land’s End stage on Friday

7. The new-this-year Beer Lands hosted 16 California breweries selected by brewmaster Dave McLean of Magnolia Pub. Highlights included the Bruery’s brilliantly bitter Humulus APA and Sierra Nevada’s Outside Lands saison 

8. Under faux Victorian facades, chef John Fink of The Whole Beast grilled eight to 10 whole lambs per day at Lamb Lands, an excellent 2012 addition to Outside Land’s food selection

9. Michael Mina’s RN74 and Bourbon Steak served whole roasted lamb gyros, lamb poutine, sweet corn in lamb sausage crumbs at Lamb Lands

10. Thousands swarm the Polo Fields

11. Saturday in the media tent, Magnolia and Alembic brewer Dave McLean (center) talks Beer Lands and The Whole Beast’s John Fink dishes on lamb

12. Choco Lands was an enchanted, Tim Burton-esque fantasy in the eucalyptus groves, with Day of the Dead accents and an array of chocolate carts and treats

13. Outside Lands ends with best set of all: Stevie Wonder exudes joy and life to thousands in the Polo Field, his voice in top form

Subscribe to Virgina’s twice-monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot

 

Our Weekly Picks: August 22-28

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 22

Time Stands Still

The Tony-nominated (Best Play 2010) play Time Stands Still comes to Theatreworks Mountain View, after the hugely successful Broadway run starring Laura Linney. The play, written by Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies, is the intriguing story of a couple traumatized by their work in Afghanistan — one as a photojournalist, one as a print journalist. Margulies explores how they attempt, through their professions, to bring insight into the US occupation. The central theme explored is the division between the professional and personal, and how nonexistent the line between the two can become, when a journalists’ foreign correspondent work is so emotionally taxing. While the play works on a larger political scope about the implications of US foreign policy, soldiers, and civilian deaths, the perspective is told through the couple, exploring what drives them to this dangerous profession. (Shauna C. Keddy)

8pm, $31–$51

Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts

500 Castro, Mountain View

(650)- 903- 6000

www.theatreworks.org

 

AM and Shawn Lee

London-based musician-producer Shawn Lee has established himself as one of the foremost retro-futurists currently in on the scene. Recalling the prolificacy of John Zorn, the aesthetic consistency of Stereolab, and the endearingly hokey escapism of a Martin Denny record, Lee has stumbled upon a winning balance between exotica and funk. Based in LA, indie-popster AM takes a similarly exotic approach, and having toured with Air and Caetano Veloso, he seems due for a Lee collaboration. So, things should get interesting when the two join forces on the Cafe Du Nord stage, cranking out space-age-bachelor-pad music with a singer-songwriter’s touch. (Taylor Kaplan)

With Nina Moschella

8pm, $12

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

 www.cafedunord.com


THURSDAY 23

Kool A.D.

Victor Vazquez, a.k.a. Kool A.D., represents one third of Das Racist, the politico-rap genius group that brought us the viral hit “Combination KFC and Taco Bell” in 2008. Though Das Racist hails from Queens, Kool A.D. grew up in San Francisco, and lately he’s been getting back to hit roots on the best coast. 51, Kool A.D.’s brand new mixtape, was recorded in Oakland and features an impressive array of local talent, including budding rap duo Main Attraktionz and longtime artist and activist Boots Riley. The lyrics, which continue Das Racist’s tradition of quick wit and scathing sociopolitical criticism, are peppered with Bay-centric references. Victor, it’s good to have you back. (Haley Zaremba)

With Fat Tony, Main Attraktionz, Trackademics, Kech Phrase

9pm, $20

New Parish

579 18th St., Oakl.

(510) 444-7474

www.thenewparish.com

 

The Iguanas

Formed in New Orleans back in 1989, the Iguanas quickly started blending a host of musical and cultural influences, drawing inspiration from each of the members’ backgrounds, ranging from Latin and Mexican sounds to the deep rooted styles of Southern blues and country, all boiled together in a rockin’ gumbo befitting their adopted hometown. Their latest record, Sin To Sin, came out this past April, full of the same fiery spirit and attitude that kept them going even after having to leave the Big Easy for a time after Hurricane Katrina. (Sean McCourt)

With Beso Negro

8pm, $16

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com


FRIDAY 24

Mica Sigourney’s Work MORE! #5

This latest iteration of the searching, always surprising drag performance event curated by VivvyAnne ForeverMORE! (drag alter ego of artist Mica Sigourney) promises to be one of the coziest, most unusual, maybe least comfortable, maybe more exciting yet. Again blurring the line between nightlife and theater realms, this weekend’s show divides the stage into quadrants, in each of which unfolds a distinct time-based performance as audiences press in and rotate through sort of haunted-house style. In addition to ForeverMORE!, the drag queens, dancers, visual artists, and designers participating include Diamanda Callas, John Foster Cartwright, Liz Tenuto, Mona G. Hawd, Tessa Wills, and Martha T. Lipton (the failed actress). (Robert Avila)

Fri/24-Sun/26, 8pm, $15–$20

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission Street, San Francisco

(415) 626-2060

www.counterpulse.org

 

Cannibal Corpse

Buffalo, New York’s death metal deity Cannibal Corpse is about to celebrate 25 years of brutality, and the band is gearing up for the anniversary with the Summer Slaughter tour, a national run that includes a laundry list of some of death metal’s biggest and blackest names. The tour coincides with the release of its 12th album Torture, a seamless continuation of the group’s signature pounding cacophony and ultra-violent lyrical content. Cannibal Corpse’s flair for all things horrific has lead to its music being banned in several countries throughout its career. So metal. (Zaremba)

With Between the Buried and Me, The Faceless, Periphery, Veil of Maya, Job for a Cowboy, Goatwhore, Exhumed, Cerebral Bore

2:30pm, $32.50

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

 

The Very Best

The Very Best’s latest album MTMTMK represents the first time the band recorded as a duo, following the departure of original member, Parisian producer Etienne Tron. If anything, Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya and London-based producer Johan Hugo have turned up the intensity, setting an uplifting tone throughout the album. Mwamwaya alternates between English and his native Chewan, and his ascending vocals provide a sharp contrast to Hugo’s quick and bass-heavy club beats. Hugo adds in enough Afrobeat and reggae to keep listeners engaged. Renowned African musicians K’Naan, Baaba Maal and Amadou a Mariam all make supportive cameos. (Kevin Lee)

With Seye, Palner, Miles the DJ

9pm, $15

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com


SATURDAY 25

Foreverland

Michael Jackson might be moonwalking around the giant amusement park in the sky, but Foreverland won’t stop ’til we get enough. This time, SF’s premiere tribute act to the King of Pop is going all out, adding a string section to its 14-piece lineup, and for good reason; this August marks not only MJ’s 54th birthday, but the 25th anniversary of Bad (1987), as well. Ever wanted to hear “Smooth Criminal,” embellished by a team of six percussionists? Or, “The Way You Make Me Feel,” with the dynamics of a live band replacing the, arguably, dated ’80s production sound? (Sorry, Quincy Jones.) Then, jump on it! (Kaplan)

9pm, $22

Bimbo’s 365 Club

1025 Columbus, SF

(415) 474-0365

www.bimbos365club.com

 

Rock the Bells

With an impressive list of both up-and-coming acts and long prevailing hip-hop royalty, this weekend’s Rock the Bells fest is bound to be a titillating conglomerate of endless styles and sounds. Look to A$AP Rocky chanting effortless swag while transforming the typical rhythm and rhyme in to a codeine-infused fusion of his favorite regional influences. Or J Cole to worry earnestly aloud about 21st-century problems, set to 1990s jazz beats. But at the end of the night, leave it to masters like DMX and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, who have stood the test of the Internet boom and Tumblr rap-craze, to show how certain thematic and lyrical concerns have continued to stay in focus throughout the last decade in hip-hop. (Soojin Chang)

11am, $265 for two-day tickets

Shoreline Amphitheatre

1 Amphitheatre, Mountain View

www.rockthebells.net

 

Slaughter By The Water

Looking for a real “heavy metal” festival? How about one that takes place on 33,000 tons of floating steel? Hosted by Testament’s Chuck Billy, Slaughter By The Water 3 features Bay Area thrash legends Exodus, along with Autopsy, Impaled, Philm, Fog of War, Severed Fifth and more, all performing on the USS Hornet, a World War II era aircraft carrier that is now a museum in Alameda. In addition to the Hornet’s legendary combat service, it is also purportedly one of the most haunted ships in the world — will a day and night of blasting metal be enough to wake and raise the dead? Find out at one of the most unique shows to come along in some time. (Sean McCourt)

Pier Stage: noon-9pm, free

Main Stage: 5:30-12:30am, $35–$45

USS Hornet

707 W. Hornet Ave., Pier 3, Alameda

www.slaughterbythewater.com


SUNDAY 26

Theophilus London

The charismatic and eclectic Theophilus London gained notoriety by splicing together a few clever bootleg compilations. The Trinidad-born, New York-based emcee rhymes over Bill Withers and Kraftwerk while slipping in some original works on 2009’s “This Charming Mixtape.” In last year’s debut LP “Timez Are Weird These Days,” (Warner Bros.) London crooned over indie pop, new wave, and electro-tinged productions. Latest mixtape “Rose Island Vol. 1” sees London switch back to rhymes, while borrowing from Wang Chung, Marvin Gaye and Big Boi. Confused yet? Outside of music, London is setting trends and foraying into fashion design. London’s recently released $360 rose-embroidered velvet slippers could describe the tastemaker himself — smooth, stylish, and perhaps just a touch showy. (Lee)

With Iamsu and Antwon

8pm, $20 Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com


MONDAY 27

Maurya Kerr/tiny pistol

This coming Monday at Z Space will be both depressing and exhilarating. Maurya Kerr, a 12-year Alonzo King Lines Ballet dancer whose career in 2006 prematurely ended due to injury, will present the first full evening of her own choreography. At the same time, her concert will be the curtain call for San Francisco’s long running WestWave Dance Festival, which, during its 21 years, presented 523 choreographers, 393 world premieres and 2,092 performances. Kerr, who has been choreographing around the country, made her WestWave debut last year with “Billy Tate,” a finely crafted solo whose thrust strongly communicated Kerr’s artistic intent. For this concert she and her nine tiny pistol dancers are preparing three works: “Buck” (2011), “Sick with Joy” (2011), and the world premiere of “FreakShow”, an exploration of otherness. (Rita Felciano)

8pm, $18–$23

Z Space

450 Florida, SF

www.zspace.org

www.brownpapertickets.com

 

Bomb the Music Industry!

New York’s Bomb the Music Industry! likes to do things its own way. Since 2004, the band has been recording its spastic ska-punk in basements and bedrooms, releasing it for free, encouraging fans to make their own T-shirts and bring their own instruments to shows, and generally just doing its best to stir things up. Beyond the DIY charm, Bomb the Music Industry! produces some of the funniest, most poignant music you’ll never hear. The songs are a little too heavy on inside jokes and the recordings a little too raw for the band to ever reach mass appeal, making it one of independent music’s best-kept secrets. Sadly, being this underground is not exactly lucrative. The band has announced that this summer likely marks its final tour. You won’t want to miss it. (Zaremba)

With Classics of Love, Street Eaters, Point of View

8:30pm, $9

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

Clipd Beaks

Post-punk? Indie rock? Industrial? Like TV on the Radio, or Liars, Oakland’s Clipd Beaks like to keep us guessing, and for that reason, they’re one of the most fascinating outfits the Bay Area has to offer. Taking thorny, decidedly un-hooky hooks, and drowning them in dense layers of reverb and noise, Clipd Beaks is much more production-focused than your average five-piece rock band. (Kaplan)

With Creepers, Feral Kizzy, Disappearing People, DJ Longhairs

9pm, $5

Elbo Room

647 Valencia, SF

(415) 552-7788

www.elbo.com


The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 487-2506; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no text attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THEATER

OPENING

Daughter of the Red Tzar Thick House Theatre, 1695 18th St, SF; www.thickhouse.org. $30. Opens Fri/24, 8pm. Runs Sat-Sun and Aug 31, 8pm. Through Sept 2. ScolaVox and First Look Sonoma present the world premiere of Lisa Scola-Prosek’s chamber opera about a meeting between Churchill, Stalin, and Stalin’s teenage daughter.

BAY AREA

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Previews Fri/24-Sat/23 and Aug 29, 8pm; Sun/26, 2pm; Tue/28, 7pm. Opens Aug 30, 8pm. Runs Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 30. Aurora Theatre Company opens its 21st season with Kristoffer Diaz’s comedy about pro wrestlers.

The Fisherman’s Wife La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Previews Thu/23-Fri/24, 8pm. Opens Sat/25, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 29. Impact Theatre performs Steve Yockey’s tentacle-porn-inspired sex farce.

Time Stands Still TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, SF; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Previews Wed/22-Fri/24, 8pm. Opens Sat/25, 8pm. Runs Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Sept 16. TheatreWorks performs Donald Marguelis’ drama about a couple — one a photojournalist, one a war correspondent — struggling with their recent experiences covering a war.

ONGOING

Believers Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. $20-25. Thu/23-Sat/25, 8pm. As a couple of research scientists and a former couple to boot, Rocky Wise (Casey Fern) and Grace Wright (Maria Giere Marquis) are simply mad about love in Wily West’s world premiere of local playwright Patricia Milton’s exuberant but patchy comedy. Employed by a small, less than scrupulous pharmaceutical firm reeling from a product recall and attendant lawsuits, reclusive Rocky toils away after a formula for a drug that will inoculate the user against love — a secret agenda of his own inspired by the broken heart Grace left him with several years earlier. His boss (a comically brassy Jon Fast) thinks he’s working on a commissioned "love activator," and to that end woos back former employee Grace to keep the fires burning in the lab. The strained reunion does the trick, if not exactly in the way intended. Meanwhile, a wacky born-again receptionist (Kate Jones) —"only recently come to the Lord" (and her Texan drawl by the sound of it) — fields calls from desperate people in a world despoiled by corporate greed and seemingly already in the throes of the end times. There are some moments worthy of a titter or two, but director Sara Staley’s cast is less than precise or compelling with dialogue that is already hit-and-miss. Despite a promising scenario, Believers remains too uneven and muddled to generate much love beyond the stage. (Avila)

Dog Sees God Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $16. Wed/22-Sat/25, 8pm. There was always a lightly subversive if not latently radical bent to Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts strip, with its implicit championing of nonconformity, its restless and half-confused longing, and its convincing blend of gentleness and cruelty. Playwright Bert V. Royal mines it all with inspired confidence and fighting spirit in his portrait of the Peanuts gang as a fractured set of contemporary fucked-up if formidable teens. First among them is a sullen but resilient CB (Andrew Humann), blockhead of the title, reeling from the death of his dog and his awakened love for broodingly gifted, deeply estranged pal Beethoven (Bobby Conte-Thornton). In Boxcar’s winning production, the boisterous, often hilarious and poignant story — which includes real-life issues of grief, abuse, abortion, homophobia, and suicide — comes animated by a talented and thoroughly persuasive young cast under beautifully calibrated direction by artistic director Nick A. Olivero. (Avila)

Les Misérables Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market, SF; www.bestofbroadway-sf.com. $83-155. Wed/22-Sat/25, 8pm (also Wed/22 and Sat/25, 2pm); Sun/26, 2pm. SHN’s Best of Broadway series brings to town the new 25th anniversary production of Cameron Mackintosh’s musical giant, based on the novel by Victor Hugo. The revival at the Orpheum does without the famous rotating stage but nevertheless spares no expense or artistry in rendering the show’s barrage of colorful Romantic scenes (with Matt Kinley’s scenic design drawing painterly inspiration from Hugo’s own oils) or its larger-than-life characters — first and foremost Jean Valjean (a slim but passionate Peter Lockyer), nemesis Javert (Andrew Varela), and rescued orphan beauty Cosette (Lauren Wiley). Chris Jahnke contributes new orchestrations to the rollicking original score by Claude-Michel Schönberg (music) and Herbert Kretzmer (lyrics) in this flagrantly sentimental, somewhat problematic but still-stirring meld of music and melodrama in dutiful overlapping service of box office treasure and powerful humanist aspirations. (Avila)

My Fair Lady SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-70. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Sept 29. SF Playhouse and artistic director Bill English (who helms) offer a swift, agreeable production of the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical, based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. The iconic class-conscious storyline revolves around a cocky linguist named Higgins (Johnny Moreno) who bets colleague Colonel Pickering (Richard Frederick) he can transform an irritable flower girl, Eliza Doolittle (Monique Hafen), into a "lady" and pass her off in high society. A battle of wills and wits ensues — interlarded with the "tragedy" of Alfred Doolittle (a shrewd and gleaming Charles Dean) and his reluctant upward fall into respectability — and love (at least in the musical version) triumphs. The songs ("Wouldn’t It Be Loverly," "I Could Have Danced All Night," "Get Me to the Church on Time," and the rest) remain evergreen in the cast’s spirited performances, supported by two offstage pianos (brought to life by David Dobrusky and musical director Greg Mason) and nimble choreography from Kimberly Richards. Hafen’s Eliza is especially admirable, projecting in dialogue and song a winning combination of childlike innocence and feminine potency. Moreno’s Higgins is also good, unusually virile yet heady too, a convincingly flawed if charming egotist. And Frederick, who adds a passing hint of homoerotic energy to his portrayal of the devoted Pickering, is gently funny and wholly sympathetic. (Avila)

The Princess Bride: Live! Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; foulplaysf.com/princessbride. $20. Thu/23-Sat/25, 8pm. Dark Room Productions presents a live tribute to the cult fairy-tale movie.

Rights of Passage New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Wed/22-Fri/24, 8pm. Opens Sat/25, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 16. New Conservatory Theatre Center presents the world premiere of Ed Decker and Robert Leone’s multimedia play, inspired by global human rights laws in relation to sexual orientation.

Vital Signs Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat/25, 8:30pm. The Marsh San Francisco presents Alison Whittaker’s behind-the-scenes look at nursing in America.

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm (starting Sept 6: also Thu, 8pm); Sat, 5pm. Extended through Sept 29. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events` in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar "doood" dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

War Horse Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. $31-300. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 9. The juggernaut from the National Theatre of Great Britain, via Broadway and the Tony Awards, has pulled into the Curran for its Bay Area bow. The life-sized puppets are indeed all they’re cracked up to be; and the story of a 16-year-old English farm boy (Andrew Veenstra) who searches for his beloved horse through the trenches of the Somme Valley during World War I, while peppered with much elementary humor too, is a good cry for those so inclined. The claim to being an antiwar play is only true to the extent that any war-is-hell backdrop and a plea for tolerance count a melodrama as "antiwar," but this is not Mother Courage and no serious attempt is made to investigate the subject. Closer to say it’s Lassie Come Home where Lassie is a horse — very ably brought to life by Handspring Puppet Company’s ingenious puppeteers and designers, and amid a transporting and generally riveting mise-en-scène (complete with pointedly stirring live and recorded music). But the simplistic storyline and its obvious, somewhat ham-fisted resolution (adapted by Nick Stafford from Michael Morpurgo’s novel) are too formulaic to be taken that seriously. And at two-and-a-half-hours, it’s a long time coming. A shorter war, the Falklands say, would have done just as well and gotten people out before the ride began to chafe. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Circle Mirror Transformation Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $20-57. Wed/22, 7:30pm; Thu/23-Sat/25, 8pm (also Sat/25, 2pm); Sun/26, 2 and 7pm. Annie Baker has enjoyed a wave of Bay Area premieres this year, beginning with Aurora’s sharp staging of Body Awareness, followed by SF Playhouse’s triumph with The Aliens. Now Marin Theatre Company and co-producers Encore Theatre Company offer Baker’s other "Vermont play," set in a community center drama therapy class run by baby-boomer groovy lady Marty (Julia Brothers). She’s joined in a series of drama exercises (and ill-masked personal convolutions) by her husband James (L. Peter Callender), fretting over his estrangement from his daughter by his first marriage; Schultz (Robert Parsons), a middle-aged recent divorcé smitten with the cute girl in the class; Theresa (Arwen Anderson), said cute girl, a nubile 30-something and recent New York transplant; and Lauren (Marissa Keltie), a reluctant, cloudy teen perpetually absent her mother’s check for the class. If Boxcar Theatre’s current production, Dog Sees God, builds flesh and bone from a comic strip, Baker’s amusing, bite-sized scenes (separated by blackouts) tend to lean in the other direction. Despite elaboration of a certain dramatic metaphor flagged in the title, the play’s thematic possibilities are restrained by an easy if highly palatable humor that flirts knowingly with caricature but to only middling affect. There’s a move in the final scene that nicely expands the reach of the action, but that limited if affecting turn is two hours in the making. That said, this fine production insures it’s no great burden getting there. The cast under director Kip Fagan is uniformly enjoyable. Brothers is terrific in giving Marty a bounding personality and just enough ambiguity to make her positive vibes suspect, and Callender finds wonderful opportunities for fleshing out the character of a charming but frustrated man who has not realized his potential. Parsons’ at first foolishly giddy then bitterly imploded Schultz is wholly convincing opposite Anderson’s zany but compelling Theresa. And Keltie’s sly and sullen teen is rightly the smartest tool in the shed. (Avila)

For the Greater Good, Or The Last Election This week: Montclair Ball Field, Montclair; www.sfmt.org. Free (donations accepted). Thu/23, 7pm. Willard Park, Berk; www.sfmt.org. Free (donations accepted). Sat/25-Sun/26, 2pm. Various venues through Sept. 8. "Don’t they understand that without us they don’t have anything?" asks Gideon Bloodgood (Ed Holmes), investment banker at the top of the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s vivisection of the "real" American Dream, For the Greater Good, Or the Last Election. But surely the hero of a Mime Troupe show cannot possibly be a billionaire? Well, sort of. Though Bloodgood enriches himself dishonestly with precarious investments and outright theft in this Occupy-era melodrama, he actually does occasionally spare a sentiment for Mom and apple pie, or anyway his daughter Alida (Lisa Hori-Garcia) and cookies baked by the unsuspecting victim of his ill-gotten gains, the Widow Fairweather (Keiko Shimosato Carreiro) — now living at the last Occupy encampment standing in the city. Alida, however, displays no compunction in throwing aside his affection and her prospective seat in Congress, running off to join the occupiers for reasons that truthfully appear about as politically motivated as her father’s parasitic avarice, leaving him to join forces instead with the most unlikely of allies — the impeccable, ingenuous Lucy Fairweather (Velina Brown), heiress to a stolen legacy, and staunch patriot. Based loosely on 19th century play The Poor of New York, The Last Election attempts to turn a presumptive ode to the free market into its swan song with good-humored, if predictable, results. (Gluckstern)

Happy Hour with Kim Jong Il Cabaret at the Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750,l www.themarsh.org. Free. Fri/24, 6pm. Comedy work-in-progress by Kenny Yun, with live music by cabaret singer Candace Roberts.

Henry V Sequoia High School, 1201 Brewster, Redwood City; www.redwoodcity.org. Free. Sat/25, 7:30pm; Sun/26, 2pm. San Francisco Shakespeare Festival presents the Bard’s history play as part of its "Free Shakespeare in the Park" series.

Keith Moon/The Real Me TheaterStage at the March Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sept 13, 20, and 27, 8pm. Mike Berry workshops his new musical, featuring ten classic Who songs performed with a live band.

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Oct 14. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Check website for schedule. Through Sept 30. Marin Shakespeare Company performs the Bard’s classic, transported to the shores of Hawaii.

Our Country’s Good Redwood Amphiteatre, Marin Art and Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.porchlight.net. $15-30. Thu-Sun, 7:30pm. Through Sept 8. Porchlight Theatre Company presents an outdoor performance of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s play about Royal Marines and prisoners in an 18th century New South Wales prison colony.

Precious Little Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $18-25. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sept 1 and 8, 3pm); Sun, 5pm. Through Sept 16. Shotgun Players presents Madeleine George’s new play about an expectant mother who studies near-dead languages and befriends a "talking" gorilla.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

"Along the Way" Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.caitlinelliotdance.com, www.detourdance.com. Fri/24-Sun/26, 8pm. $15-30. Caitlin Elliott Dance Collective and Detour Dance present this evening of world premieres, including performances Fancy and Imitations of Intimacy, and the dance film Pedestrian Crossing.

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 8. $10-25. This week: "Original Broadway Cast and Moments of Transition" (Thu/23); "Double Feature" (Fri/24); "The Naked Stage" (Sat/25).

Circus Finelli 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.circusfinelli.com. Thu/23, 7-10pm. $6. Clowns, cocktails, comedy, and klezmer rule in this performance of "Big Time and Little Something’s Big Adventure."

"Elect to Laugh" Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Veteran political comedian Will Durst emphasizes he’s watching the news and keeping track of the presidential race "so you don’t have to." No kidding, it sounds like brutal work for anyone other than a professional comedian — for whom alone it must be Willy Wonka’s edible Eden of delicious material. Durst deserves thanks for ingesting this material and converting it into funny, but between the ingesting and out-jesting there’s the risk of turning too palatable what amounts to a deeply offensive excuse for a democratic process, as we once again hurtle and are herded toward another election-year November, with its attendant massive anticlimax and hangover already so close you can touch them. Durst knows his politics and comedy backwards and forwards, and the evolving show, which pops up at the Marsh every Tuesday in the run-up to election night, offers consistent laughs born on his breezy, infectious delivery. One just wishes there were some alternative political universe that also made itself known alongside the deft two-party sportscasting. (Avila)

"Jump Into Dance! ODC School Family Day Open House" ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF; www.odcdance.org. Sun/26, 8:45am-3:30pm. Free. Children, teens, and their families are invited to check out the ODC School Youth and Teen Program, with sample dance classes and faculty on hand to answer questions.

Rome Kanda Main Pagoda Stage, Japantown’s Peace Plaza, Geary and Buchanan, SF; www.j-pop.com. Sat/25, 2:30pm; Sun/26, 1pm. Free. The Japanese comedian stops by the J-Pop Summit Festival for a stage appearance and signing of his new digital manga series, Samurai Spirit: The Story of Rome Kanda.

Maurya Kerr/tinypistol Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon/27, 8pm. $18-23. WestWave Dance presents this evening of works, including world premiere FreakShow.

"Measure for Measure" Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; sftheaterpub.wordpress.com. Mon/27, 8pm. Free ($5 suggested donation). SF Theater Pub performs the Shakespeare play.

"San Francisco Drag King Contest" DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.sfdragkingcontest.com. Thu/23, 9pm. $20-35. The popular, raucous contest returns for its 17th annual incarnation.

"San Francisco Improv Festival" Eureka Theater, 215 Jackson, SF; www.sfimprovfestival.com. Wed/22-Sat/25. $5-35. With local improv talent including BATS Improv, Un-Scripted Theater Company, San Jose ComedySportz, and more.

"Sea Music Festival" San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, Hyde Street Pier, SF; nps.gov/safr. Sat/25, 9:30am-5pm. $5 (15 and under, free). Singers, intrumentalists, and dance troupes perform in celebration of maritime heritage to coincide with the America’s Cup races.

"Soundwave 5: Revelation Zen" San Francisco Zen Center, 300 Page, SF; www.projectsoundwave.com. Sat/25, 6-9pm. $12-25. Performances by En, Sean McCann, and Marielle V. Jakobsons.

"Work More!" CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Thu/24-Sat/26, 8pm. $15-20. Theater performance meets nightlife experience in this drag installation with Mica Sigourney/VivvyAnne ForeverMORE and Ox.

Music Listings

Andrew Lam
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Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead or check the venue’s website to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Visit www.sfbg.com/venue-guide for venue information. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 22

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Am & Shawn Lee, Nino Moschella Cafe Du Nord. 8pm, $12-$14.

Emperor Norton Lost Church, 65 Capp, SF; thelostchurch.com. 8pm, $10-$20.

Keith Crossan Blues Showcase with Tom Pollitzer Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Nobunny, Apache Dropout, Burnt Ones Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $10.

Ocha La Rocha, Sweet Chariot Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $8-$10.

Pine, Band Practice, Lady Stardust Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Terry Savastano Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Greg Zema vs JC Rockit Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9:30pm.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cat’s Corner with Nathan Dias Savanna Jazz. 9pm, $10.

Barbara Cook Rrazz Room. 8pm, $55-$75.

Cosmo AlleyCats Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; www.lecolonialsf.com. 7-10pm.

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Eric Garland’s Jazz Session Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Kenny Neal Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $15; 10pm, $22.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 6:30pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita MORE! and Joshua J host this dance party.

Coo-Yah! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. DJs Daneekah and Green B spin reggae and dancehall with weekly guests.

Full-Step! Tunnel Top. 10pm, free. Hip-hop, reggae, soul, and funk with DJs Kung Fu Chris and Bizzi Wonda.

Mary Go Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 10pm, $5. Drag with Suppositori Spelling, Mercedez Munro, and Ginger Snap.

Megatallica Fiddler’s Green, 1333 Columbus, SF; www.megatallica.com. 7pm, free. Heavy metal hangout.

Shutter Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. With DJs Nako, Omar, and Justin.

THURSDAY 23

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Alex Clare Mezzanine. 8pm, $10.53.

Animal Kingdom, Atlas Genius, popscene DJs Rickshaw Stop. 9:30pm, $13.

Bayonics, Comet Empire, Edison, Beautiful Machines, Pollux, BangBang Slim’s. 7pm, free.

El Cajon, Steakhouse, Warbler Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Gunshy Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

John Lee Hooker Jr. Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Iguanas, Beso Negro Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16.

Eleni Mandell, David Dondero, SHEL Cafe Du Nord. 8pm, $12-$14.

Two Star Symphony, Not An Airplane, Fleeting Trance Amnesia. 9pm, $10.

Matthew Stewart, Paige and the Thousand, Roem Baur Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 7pm, $10.

St. Valentinez, Handshake, Fever Charm Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Rags Tuttle vs Greg Zema Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9:30pm.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Barbara Cook Rrazz Room. 8pm, $55-$75.

Ned Boyton Trio Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 7-10pm.

Lydia Pense & Cold Blood Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $16; 10pm, $20.

Savanna Jazz Jam with Eddy Ramirez Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Kentucky Twisters Atlas Cafe, 3049 20th St, SF; www.atlascafe.net. 8-10pm, free.

Twang! Honky Tonk Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm. Live country music, dancing, and giveaways.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $8. With Funk Ark, and DJ-host Pleasuremaker spins Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Get Low Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. Jerry Nice and Ant-1 spin Hip-Hop, ’80s and Soul with weekly guests.

Thursdays at the Cat Club Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). The best of the 80s with DJs Damon, Steve Washington, Dangerous Dan, and guests.

Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, and more with DJs Don Bustamante, Apocolypto, Sr. Saen, Santero, and Mr. E.

FRIDAY 24

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Alan Evans Trio Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 10pm, $5-$13.

Albino!, Fog Dub Elbo Room. 10pm, $10.

American Steel, Reckless Kind, Ilona Staller Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Be My Baby: Hot Toddies, She’s, DJs Wham Bam Ashleyanne and the Whiz Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10.

Easy Leaves, Alison Harris and the Barn Owl, TV Mike and the Scarecrows, Emily Bonn and the Vivants Independent. 8pm, $12.

Rick Estrin & the Nightcats Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Fast Times Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $10.

Hank 3, Hellbilly, Attention Deficit Domination, 3 Bar Ranch Regency Ballroom. 8:30pm, $28.

Mermen, Red Meat Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $15.

“Rockabilly Boogie Pt. 1” Cafe Du Nord. 9pm, $12-$14. With Texas Steve & the Tornados, Rumble Strippers, Golden West Trio.

Slow Club Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 7:30pm, $10-$13.

Tall Shadows Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Turks, Winter Ox Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Very Best Mezzanine. 9pm, $15.

Womp, John Beaver, Frank Nitty, Switchblade Slim’s. 9pm, $18.

Greg Zema, Rome Balestrieri, Randy Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9pm.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

Barbara Cook Rrazz Room. 8pm, $55-$75.

Terry Disely Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 5:30-8:30pm.

Carol Luckenbach Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $8.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Baxtalo Drom Amnesia. 9pm, $7-$10. With live music, gypsy punk, belly dancing.

Rafael Mendoza Mission Cultural Center Theater, 2868 Mission, SF; www.missionculturalcenter.org. 7:30pm, $12-$15.

Taste Fridays 650 Indiana, SF; www.tastefridays.com. 8pm, $18. Salsa and bachata dance lessons, live music.

DANCE CLUBS

Anomie Belle, Blockhead, Yppah Public Works. 9:30pm, $12. Ninja Tune showcase.

Chase, Pharaohs, Jason Kendig, Ash Williams Public Works. 9pm, $5-$10.

Joe Lookout, 3600 16th St.,SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 9pm. Eight rotating DJs, shirt-off drink specials.

Old School JAMZ El Rio. 9pm. Fruit Stand DJs spinning old school funk, hip-hop, and R&B.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

True Skool 13-Year Anniversary Mighty SF. With Sake 1, Jah Yzer, Platurn, Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist, Davey D, and more.

SATURDAY 25

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Rome Balestrieri, Greg Zema, Jason Marion Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9pm.

Brownout, Will Magid Trio, Senor Oz Elbo Room. 10pm, $12.

Cutthroats 9, Rock Bottom Bender’s. 9pm, $5.

Dirty Hand Family Band Riptide. 9pm, free.

Foreverland with strings Bimbo’s. 9pm, $22.

Fred Frith and friends play Gravity Slim’s. 9pm, $20.

Fusion Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Gliss, City of Women Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $8.

Hammerlock Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Paula Harris Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Hooks, Chris Von Sneidern, Eastern Span, InterChords Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

In Rare Form, New Up, Sean Leahy Trio, Blisses B Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $10-$13.

Mantles, English Singles, New Faultlines Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

Petty Theft, Minks Cafe Du Nord. 9:30pm, $15.

Roadside Bombs, Sydney Ducks, Synthetic ID Thee Parkside. 8:30pm, $10-$15.

Ronkat Spearman’s Katdelic Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

Barbara Cook Rrazz Room. 8pm, $55-$75.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

“Chinatown Music Festival” Portsmouth Square, Kearny Street between Clay and Washington, SF; www.c-c-c.org. 11am-5pm, free.

Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit, Tresspassers, Harmed Brothers Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $15.

“J-Pop Summit” SF Japantown, 1746 Post, SF; www.j-pop.com. 11am-6pm, free.

Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrod Atlas Cafe, 3049 20th St, SF; www.atlascafe.net. 4-6pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Bootie SF: Michael Jackson’s Birthday DNA Lounge. 9pm, $15. With DJs Tripp, Tyme and Nathan Scot, Dada, Smash-Up Derby.

Burner Bon Voyage Public Works. 9pm, $5-$10. With M.A.N.D.Y., Dejan.

Go BANG! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; www.decosf.com. 9pm, $5. Atomic dancefloor disco action with Marke B. birthday set, Derek Opperman, Carlos Corcho, and more.

Icee Hot: Hieroglyphic Being, Roche Public Works Loft. 10pm.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

SUNDAY 26

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Col. Bruce Hampton Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 7:30pm, $3.50-$10.

Crashfaster, Minusbaby, Awkward Terrible DNA Lounge. 8pm, $16.

Kristin Hersh, Moore Brothers, Terese Taylor Cafe Du Nord. 9pm, $17-$20.

Theophilus London Mezzanine. 8pm, $18.

OK Go, Family Crest Sigmund Stern Grove, 19 Avenue and Sloat Boulevard, SF; www.sterngrove.org. 2pm, free.

Park starring Happy Mayfield & Nate Mercereau, Buttercream Gang Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, free.

Terry Savastano Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Barbara Cook Rrazz Room. 3 and 7pm, $55-$75.

Adrian Areas Latin Jazz Band Savanna Jazz. 7pm, $7.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Alex Cuba Yoshi’s SF. 7pm, $18.

Heeldraggers Amnesia. 8pm, $7-$10.

“J-Pop Summit” SF Japantown, 1746 Post, SF; www.j-pop.com. 11am-6pm, free.

Twang Sunday Thee Parkside. 4pm, free. With Alabaster, Tell River.

DANCE CLUBS

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, 6. With DJ Sep, Maneesh the Twister, Taal Mala.

Jock Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 3pm, $2. Raise money for LGBT sports teams while enjoying DJs and drink specials.

La Pachanga Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.

MONDAY 27

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bomb the Music Industry, Classics of Love, Street Eaters, Point of View Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $9.

Brian Bergeron Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Clip’d Beaks, Creepers, Feral Kizzy, Disappearing People Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.

Turquoise Jeep Hemlock Tavern. 8pm, $15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Bossa Nova Tunnel Top, 601 Bush, SF; (415) 722-6620. 8-11:30pm, free. Live acoustic Bossa Nova.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Earl Brothers, Water Tower Bucket Boys Amnesia. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar, 2299 Mission, SF; www.thebeautybar.com. 10pm, free. Hip-hop and other stuff.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. DJs Timoteo Gigante, Gordo Cabeza, and Chris Phlek playing all Motown every Monday.

Vibes’N’Stuff El Amigo Bar, 3355 Mission, SF; (415) 852-0092. 10pm, free. Conscious jazz and hip-hop from 1960s-early ’90s with DJs Luce Lucy, Vinnie Esparza, and more.

TUESDAY 28

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Ash Reiter, Kapowski, Sugar Candy Mountain Amnesia. 9:15pm, $7.

Desaparecidos, Velvet Teen Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $25.

Beres Hammond, 9Tomorrows, DJ Inferno Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $30.

Kayo Dot, Author & Punisher, miRthkon, Atomic Bomb Audition Elbo Room. 9pm, $8.

Mallard, Cool Ghouls, Dead Ghosts Knockout. 10pm, $7.

Mean Jeans, Big Eyes, Meat Market El Rio. 7pm, $7.

Stan Erhart Band Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Windham Flat, Side Hackers, Los Broskis Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Gaucho Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 7-10pm.

Virginia Tichenor Pier 23, Embarcadero at Filbert, SF; (415) 362-5125. 5-8pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Post-Dubstep Tuesdays Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521.10pm, free. DJs Dnae Beats, Epcot, Footwerks spin UK Funky, Bass Music.

Study Hall John Colins Lounge, 138 Minna, SF; www.johncolins.com. 9pm. Hip-hop, dancehall, and Bay slaps with DJ Left Lane.

Tastes of Cindy: Drag artists re-enact Cindy Sherman portraits from SFMOMA show

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Tastes of Cindy: Drag artists re-enact Cindy Sherman portraits from SFMOMA show

To celebrate the incredibly engaging Cindy Sherman retrospective at the SF MOMA (through October 8), we asked four of San Francisco’s premier drag performance artists to re-enact four of Sherman’s iconic portraits. It’s all about looking twice — or in Sherman’s case, four or five times — and we wanted to see how many layers of gaze her work could hold.

Read Matt Fisher’s review of the retrospective here and Rob Avila’s review of accompanying show, “Stage Presence” here. All re-enactment photos by Keeney + Law.

 

>> FAUXNIQUE: UNTITLED #351

 

The truly artistic Fauxnique, aka Monique Jenkinson, currently holds a fellowship through the de Young Museum: she’ll be Artist in Residence for the month of September in the de Young’s Kimball Education Gallery, working in an open studio setting, co-hosting “Dance Discourse Project #13: Working in Museums” with Dancers’ Group and CounterPULSE on Saturday, September 15 at 2pm), and making new work, including “Instrument,” a solo created in an experimental collaboration with choreographers Chris Black, Amy Seiwert, and Miguel Gutierrez premiering at CounterPULSE in November.

 

>> BOY CHILD: UNTITLED #355

 

A relative newcomer to the scene, Boy Child stretches drag performance into phantasmagorical new directions, mashing neon hip-hop swagger into goth-electro darkness. Lately, she’s been representing SF in New York and the Pacific Northwest and gaining attention for her photography.

 

>> LIL MISS HOT MESS: UNTITLED #360

 

One of the only queens who could have most of SF’s colorful nightlifers dancing the hora to “Hava Nagila” at her Bar Mitzvah x2 party — or falling on their bums at her annual rollerskating birthday jam — Lil Miss Hot Mess will be stepping down as Miss Tiara Sensation during next month’s pageant (Saturday, September 29, 9pm, $10-$20. Rickshaw Stop, SF. www.rickshawstop.com) and enrolling in grad school, to begin her new life as a career girl.

 

>> LADY BEAR: UNTITLED #354

 

 

Always elegantly but firmly large and in charge, Lady Bear hosts monthly parties Hot Rod at the Powerhouse and Dark Room at the Hot Spot here in SF and Cub Scout at the Eagle in LA. As Dragoon the actress, she’s currently starring in the uproarious “Designing Women Live!” (Tuesdays through August 28, 8pm, $20. Rebel, 1760 Market, SF.) and the upcoming “Roseanne: The Play” in September. She also recently starred in a short film, Love and Anger, with Cousin Wonderlette.

 

 

Photography: Keeney + Law

Art direction: Brooke Robertson

Assistant: Caitlin Donohue

Concept: Marke B.

Our Weekly Picks: August 15-21

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 15

Family of the Year

The most compelling aspect of Family of the Year’s live show is the transparency of the band members’ genuine affection for each other. The Los Angeles-based indie group weaves together folk influences and male/female vocal harmonies to create a fun, lighthearted brand of nostalgic rock. If this sounds familiar, look no further than West Hollywood, where Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes have been doing their own multi-gendered feel-good folk melodies for years. Apparently the Magnetic Zeroes also noticed these similarities, because they asked Family of the Year to tour with them in 2011, shortly after Ben Folds chose them out of 700 bands as his opener at Symphony Hall. (Haley Zaremba)

With the Colourist

9pm, $10

Brick and Mortar Music Hall

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.com


THURSDAY 16

Squeeze This! A Cultural History of the Accordion

Was there anything more unexpected in season three of Mad Men than the scene in which Joan brought out her cherry-red squeezebox, and serenaded a dinner party with “C’est Magnifique?” And yet, accordions were once a bastion of adult gatherings; there were bona fide accordion stars — Dick Contino, who played San Francisco’s Barbary Coast in the 1940s, made it on the pop charts — but in this century, they’ve left the mainstream, resurging underground in pockets of klezmer, pirate polka, Tejano music, and gypsy jazz. In her new biography, Squeeze This, writer-musician Marion Jacobson delves deep into the history of the instrument and contemplates its place as a cultural technology. At an event this week, Jacobson will likely discuss some of her findings with the Accordion Apocalypse crew (and sign copies of her book), followed by squeezebox-filled performances by Luz Gaxiola, the Mad Maggies, and Sheri Mignano. (Emily Savage)

7pm, free

Accordion Apocalypse

255 10th St., SF

(415) 596-5952

www.accordionapocalypse.com

 

Whiskerman

The cover of Whiskerman’s self-titled 2011 album features a sharp dressed man in a a forest clearing, his untamed hair brimming out from behind an animal mask, while he holds up a violin. The intriguing cover art introduces us to a sound no less whimsical and complex: led by Graham Patzner, Whiskerman boasts an inventive alternative rock meets folk sound. The Bay Area band demands attention with softly building songs such as “Brother Jim”, while their rock’n’roll songs like “Blind Saint” are undeniably catchy hits. Patzner comes from a musical family — his brother Lewis (Judgment Day) plays cello in the band, and their eldest brother Anton Patzner plays violin in JD. The work of the Patnzer brothers can be characterized by their attention to musical craft, but also, a certain magical quality. Whiskerman takes each magic moment and stretches it out — until you, and everyone else privy, becomes immersed in the wild sounds that are their nature. (Shauna C. Keddy)

With Con Brio $10, 9pm

Ashkenaz

1317 San Pablo, Berk.

(510) 525- 5054

www.ashkenaz.com

 

Dr. John and the Lower 911

Locked Down — the latest from the inimitable Dr. John — opens with a Afro-strutting, funky rhythm that’s swamped with confidence. And it’s for good reason, because at this point in his career, the New Orleans based bayou blues rocker has little to prove. An influential session player and solo artist — without whom Beck’s “Loser”, Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz, and that band from the Muppets would not be the same — Dr. John has laid his hands on so many genres and has a lengthy list of collaborators that it’s simply exhausting to think about. The Black Keys’s Dan Auerbach lends some playing and production to the new album, which will likely win Grammys in all the relevant categories. (Ryan Prendiville)

With John Cleary

hu/16-Fri/17 9pm, $39.50

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 

Alejandro Escovedo and the Sensitive Boys

Alejandro Escovedo’s illustrious career spans four decades, beginning with his role as a founding member of San Francisco punk band the Nuns in the 1970s. From there, he moved to Austin, Tex. to play alternative country and roots rock, first with Rank and File, and later as True Believers with brother Javier. Escovedo released his first solo album in 1992, Gravity, a heartfelt record that explores themes of love and loss while showcasing a variety of his musical influences. Escovedo has performed with his band the Sensitive Boys as of late, and their most recent album, Big Station, sees Escovedo turn up the amps and embrace his heartier, rollicking rock’n’roll side. (Kevin Lee)

With Jesse Malin

8pm, $25

Bimbo’s 365 Club

1025 Columbus

(415) 474-0365

www.bimbos365club.com


FRIDAY 17

Blue Note Rendezvous Cabaret

One of the great things about America is that people are free to blend ideas and concepts to their hearts’ content. (Personal favorite example: Korean tacos.) In this grand tradition, the folks at 50 Mason mix and match Blue Note-flavored music with belly dancing at the quarterly Blue Note Rendezvous Cabaret. Professional gyrators shake and slither to live bands hammering out jazz, swing, and whatever happens to be the music of the night. This installment’s headliners, MWE, call themselves a Middle Eastern marching band, and bring festive sounds that also evoke the Balkans, Greece, and Turkey. Opening five-piece local ensemble Horns a Plenty ditched drums, strings, and piano, instead opting for an all-brass jazz approach. (Lee)

With MWE, Horns a Plenty

9pm, $10

50 Mason Social House, SF

(415) 433-5050

www.50masonsocialhouse.com

 

Nosaj Thing

Nosaj Thing (pronounced “no such thing”) cemented his position in the post-dubstep community in 2009, no small feat considering the number of already-established Los Angeles-based beatmakers. He gained an international following in 2009 with the release of his haunting, spacey debut LP Drift, along with well-received remixes of Flying Lotus, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Radiohead. Live performances at Spain’s Sonar festival, at California’s own Coachella — and seemingly everywhere in between — solidified Nosaj’s reputation for dreamy, woozy, electronic hip-hop. Fans are pining for a new full-length but will have to settle for bits and pieces Nosaj will likely drop during his set. Opener Mux Mool has just released Planet High School, a playful mix of ’80s-rooted beats and video game synths. (Lee)

With Mux Mool, Manitous ft. Swoonz, Drewmin

9:30pm, $15

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

(415) 932-0955

www.publicsf.com


SATURDAY 18

Pedalfest

Babes, your bikes put up with a lot. Literally, think of how supportive they are of your behind, through denim and spandex, skirts and shorts. Why don’t you take it somewhere nice? This weekend provides the ultimate opportunity for two-wheeled QT: the East Bay Bike Coalition’s second annual Pedalfest, where bikey will encounter new and interesting peers like the WhymCycle art bike collection, BMX stunt rides, even a bike that, owner attached, swings on a rope through the air in looping aerial acrobatics. Ambition! One of the largest cycle events in the Bay, last year Pedalfest attracted 18,000 happy riders. Kids activities, snacks galore, relay races, and live tunes — JLS is going to be the place to show love for the bike that gets you to where you need to go. (Caitlin Donohue)

11am-8pm, free

Jack London Square

Broadway and 1st St., Oakl.

www.pedalfestjacklondon.com

 

Midnight Magic

It’s become apparent that the PR agents have discovered the trick to getting my attention: listing the name of a band next to the words “ex-mems of LCD Soundsystem,” thereby exploiting the hole left in one of my bodily organs by that now defunct group. The connection here is a bit tenuous, referring to former members of Hercules and Love Affair (quite a good name drop on its own) enlisted to play backup at LCD’s last shows. Moving beyond the past, the nine piece disco outfit’s releases so far — “Drop Me a Line” and “Beam Me Up” — have a promising, lively romanticism that’s doing all the influences justice. (Prendiville)

With Tron Jeremy, Brother Sister, hosted by Ava Berlin and Andy Vague

10pm, $10-$15

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

Lee Fields & the Expressions

Lee Fields is a soul singer’s soul singer. Between innumerable session gigs, years of touring with bands like Kool and the Gang, and a string of early-’70s singles that have become legendary among crate-diggers, Fields has paid his dues since 1969. So, it seems deliciously redemptive that in 2012, Fields has found himself in the most prolific stage of his career, churning out records for the bona-fide Truth & Soul label as the bandleader of the Expressions. Faithful Man, released earlier this year, has drawn comparisons to soul heavyweights, from Stax/Volt to James Brown, and as far as throwbacks go, it’s the real deal. Which poses the question: can Fields channel the vitality of his recent recordings when he graces the Independent on Saturday night? One way to find out. (Taylor Kaplan)

With Hard French, Top Cat & Miles Ahead

9pm, $25

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 

Mrs. Doubtfire

Dolores Park gets all the hipster love, but li’l sis Duboce Park is not to be overlooked — especially when it hosts an outdoor screening of San Francisco-set 1993 comedy Mrs. Doubtfire, a movie that’s earned a cult following despite its gentle, family-friendly content. A father (Robin Williams) goes undercover as an elderly nanny so he can spend more time with his kids, thus circumventing the court-ordered wishes of his estranged wife (Sally Field). Plus: Harvey Fierstein as the make-up whiz behind Doubtfire’s drag; immortal lines “Hellooo!” and “It was a run-by fruiting!”; and enough camp cachet to inspire at least one portrait tattoo (Google it). Just be sure you bring a low chair or a waterproof cloth to sit on at the screening; Duboce Park’s rep as a doggie paradise is irrefutable. (Cheryl Eddy)

8:15pm, free

Duboce Park

Duboce and Steiner, SF

www.friendsofdubocepark.org


SUNDAY 19

Calvin Johnson

Having founded Olympia, Wash.’s influential K Records and Dub Narcotic Studio, Calvin Johnson has signed, recorded, and collaborated with countless Northwest music icons, from Modest Mouse to the Microphones. Since 2002, he’s issued a handful of solo, (mostly) acoustic efforts, built around his unmistakably drawling baritone. Walk into a thrift store in Olympia, though, and odds are you’ll find a stack of mixtapes for sale, compiled by you-know-who; this Saturday, Johnson will headline the release party for the Believer’s music issue cassette along with a roster of tape-centric outsider-artists handpicked by the king of Oly, himself. (Kaplan)

With Katie & the Lichen, Laura Leif & A.P.B., the Shivas, the Memories, Tomorrow’s Tulips, Mom, Happy Noose

8:30pm, $8

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

 

Braid

The year 1993 saw the conception of what was soon to be one of the decade’s most influential and controversial genres: emo. Braid was one of the frontrunners of the scene, lamenting lost loves and expressing the melancholy nature of youth over minor chords years before My Chemical Romance would don its first guyliner. The group disbanded through most of the Aughts, but reunited in 2011, for the band’s 600th show. Now that emo has turned into a cabaret of red eyeshadow and comically impractical hairstyles, Braid bears little resemblance to the current wave of emotional rockers, but it can still get down with the sadness. (Zaremba)

With Owen, TS & the Past Haunts

9pm, $20

Slim’s

333 11th St, SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slimspresents.com

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 487-2506; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no text attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Music Listings

Andrew Lam
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Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead or check the venue’s website to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Visit www.sfbg.com/venue-guide for venue information. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 15

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Estocar, Intangible Animal Grant and Green. 9:30pm, free.

Family of the Year, Colourist Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $10.

Guido vs Jason Marion Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9:30pm.

Hard Skin, Brilliant Colors, Sydney Ducks, Neon Piss Elbo Room. 9pm, $10.

Hot Panda, Apopka Darkroom Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Little Huricane, Vandella, Hudson Bell Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Love Ax, Follow, Hodges, Real Numbers Cafe Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Nathan & Rachel Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Matthew Santos Hotel Utah. 10pm, $8.

“SF Underground Music Fest” 50 Mason Social House, SF; (415) 433-5050. 8pm, $5. With Jesse Brewster, Tom Huebner and the Real Deal, Brad Brooks, Felsen.

Shannon and the Clams, Audacity, Primitive Hearts Knockout. 9:30pm, $8.

Soul Train Revival feat. Ziek McCarter Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $5.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cat’s Corner with Nathan Dias Savanna Jazz. 9pm, $10.

Cosmo AlleyCats Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; www.lecolonialsf.com. 7-10pm.

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Eric Garland’s Jazz Session Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 6:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Marlow Rosado y La Riquena Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $22.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita MORE! and Joshua J host this dance party.

Coo-Yah! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. DJs Daneekah and Green B spin reggae and dancehall.

Hardcore Humpday Happy Hour RKRL, 52 Sixth St, SF; (415) 658-5506. 6pm, $3.

Mary Go Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 10pm, $5. Drag with Suppositori Spelling, Mercedez Munro, and Ginger Snap.

Megatallica Fiddler’s Green, 1333 Columbus, SF; www.megatallica.com. 7pm, free. Heavy metal hangout.

That Good Public Works. 9pm, $5. With Hopie, Zyme, Johnny 5, Taso, Triple Cup, AKM, and more.

THURSDAY 16

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Steve Barton, Marvin Etzioni Cafe Du Nord. 8:30pm, $15.

Matty Charles Hemlock Tavern. 6pm, $5.

Charli XCX, Neighbourhood, popscene DJs Rickshaw Stop. 9:30pm, $13-$15.

Cherry Poppin’ Daddies Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $22.

Dr. John and the Lower 911 Independent. 9pm, $39.50.

Alejandro Escovedo, Jesse Malin Bimbo’s. 8pm, $25.

H.U.M.A.N.E.W.I.N.E, Sansa and Shiri Show, Jessica Pony Hunt, Eliza Rickman Amnesia. 7pm, $8-$10.

John Lawton Trio Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Alexz Johnson, Xiomara Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 8pm, $15-$30.

Mallard, Wimps, Big Drag Thee Parkside. 9pm, $7.

Northerlies, Country Mourns, Shawerma Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Phenomenauts, Prima Donna, Dirty Hand Family Band Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Rags Tuttle vs Guido Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9:30pm.

Twin Shadow, Poolside Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $21.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Ned Boyton Trio Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 7-10pm.

Savanna Jazz Vocal Jam with Master Trumpeter Eddy Ramirez Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Jeannie and Chuck’s Country Roundup Atlas Cafe, 3049 Alabama, SF; www.atlascafe.net. 8-10pm, free.

“San Francisco Son Jarocho Festival” Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. 7pm.

Twang! Honky Tonk Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm. Live country music, dancing, and giveaways.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-$7. Senor Oz birthday throwdown with DJ Pleasuremaker, plus resident percussionists.

Arcade Lookout. 9pm, free. Indie dance party.

Get Low Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. Jerry Nice and Ant-1 spin Hip-Hop, ’80s and soul.

Nicky Da B, StayGold DJs, Future Perfect DJs Public Works. 9pm, $10.

Thursdays at the Cat Club Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). The best of the 80s with DJs Damon, Steve Washington, Dangerous Dan, and guests.

Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, and more with DJs Don Bustamante, Apocolypto, Sr. Saen, Santero, and Mr. E.

FRIDAY 17

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Acid Blast, Bar Fight Benders, 806 . S. Van Ness, SF; www.savekusf.org. 9pm, $5. Save KUSF benefit.

Bay Area Heat Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

B-Side Players, La Misa Negra Elbo Room. 10pm, $15.

Buxter Hoot’n, Jugtown Pirates Cafe Du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

Cobra Skulls, Fucking Buckaroos, Dead Set, Hides Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

Dr. John and the Lower 911 Independent. 9pm, $39.50.

Colin Gilmore, Russ Bartlett Amnesia. 6-10pm, $7-$10.

Guido, Rome Balestrieri, Jason Marion Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9pm.

Howlin Rain, Strange Vine Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $13-$15.

Meat Market, Spyrals, Lotus Moons Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $6-$9.

“Phish After Party” with Polyrhythmics Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $15.

Residential Echoes, Pink Films, Swiftumz Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Super Diamond, Duran Duran Duran Bimbo’s. 9pm, $22.

Tremor Low, Genevapop, Mothra Washington Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

Twin Shadow, Poolside Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $21.

Vokab Kompany 330 Ritch. 9pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

Ben Bacot Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $8.

Terry Disely Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 5:30-8:30pm.

Jazz Crusaders Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $40; 10pm, $25.

“Sound of Love” Sound Healing Concert Grace Cathedral, 1100 California, SF; www.soundhealingcenter.com. 7-10pm, $30.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Baxtolo Drom Amnesia. 9pm, $7-$10.

“San Francisco Son Jarocho Festival” Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. 7pm.

Taste Fridays 650 Indiana, SF; www.tastefridays.com. 8pm, $18. Salsa and bachata dance lessons, live music.

DANCE CLUBS

DJ What’s His Fuck Riptide. 9pm, free. Spinning old school punk rock.

Joe Lookout, 3600 16th St.,SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 9pm. Eight rotating DJs, shirt-off drink specials.

Nosaj Thing, Mux Mool Public Works. 9:30pm.

No Way Back and L.I.E.S. Public Works Loft. 10pm, $10-$20. With Legowelt, Xosar, Svengalisghost, Ron Morelli, Solar, Conor.

Old School JAMZ El Rio. 9pm. Fruit Stand DJs spinning old school funk, hip-hop, and R&B.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Pledge: Fraternal Lookout. 9pm, $3-$13. Benefiting LGBT and nonprofit organizations. Bottomless kegger cups and paddling booth with DJ Christopher B and DJ Brian Maier.

Scene Unseen 1015 Folsom. 10pm, free with RSVP. With Flosstradamus, Riff Raff, Floating Points, and more.

Trannyshack: Stevie Nicks vs. Kate Bush Tribute DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $15.

SATURDAY 18

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Rome Balestrieri, Guido, Jason Marion Johnny Foley’s Dueling Pianos. 9pm.

Catacomb Creeps, Hornss, Guitar Magazine Hemlock Tavern. 5pm, $5.

Cut Loose Band Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Lee Fields & the Expressions, Hard French, Top Cat & Miles Ahead Independent. 9pm, $25.

“Guitar Slingers and Blues Singers” Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $13. With Volker Strifler, Terry Hiatt, Tia Carroll, Dave Workman, and more.

Mad Mama and the Bona Fide Few Riptide. 9:30pm, free.

Midnight Magic, Tron Jeremy, Brother Sister Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $10-$15.

Permanent Collection, Bilinda Butchers, Love Cuts Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Range of Light Wilderness Slim’s. 8pm, $10-$12.

“San Frandelic Summerfest” Thee Parkside. 2pm, $15. With Spindrift, Electric Flower Group, Outlaw, Mr. Elevator & the Brain Hotel, Glitter Wizard, and more.

Super Diamond, Duran Duran Duran Bimbo’s. 9pm, $22.

Thee Mile Pilot, Dramady Bottom of the Hill.10pm, $20.

Tracorum Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 11pm, $5-$10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 1616 Bush, SF; www.audium.org. 8:30pm, $20. Theater of sound-sculptured space.

Jazz Crusaders Yoshi’s SF. 8 and10pm, $40.

Suzanna Smith Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $8.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

“San Francisco Son Jarocho Festival” Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. 7pm.

Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrod Atlas Cafe, 3049 Alabama, SF; www.atlascafe.net. 4-6pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Bootie SF Ninth Anniversary DNA Lounge. 9pm, $20. Bootleg mashup party.

DJ Garth Public Works Oddjob Loft. 10pm, $5-$10.

Fringe Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5. Indie music video dance party with DJ Blondie K and subOctave.

Rob Garza, Afrolicious Mighty. 9pm, $15.

OK Hole Amnesia. 9pm.

Paris to Dakar Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Radio Franco Bissap, 3372 19th St, SF; (415) 826 9287. 6 pm. Rock, Chanson Francaise, Blues.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-$10. With DJs Lucky, Paul Paul, and Phengren Oswald.

Smiths Night SF Rock-It Room. 9pm, free. Revel in 80s music from the Smiths, Joy Division, New Order, and more.

Wild Nights Kok BarSF, 1225 Folsom, SF; www.kokbarsf.com. 9pm, $3. With DJ Frank Wild.

SUNDAY 19

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Braid, Owen, TS & the Past Haunts Slim’s. 8pm, $20.

Chiddy Bang Independent. 9pm, $20.

EmptyRoom, mnttaB, Diesel Dudes Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

John Lawton Trio Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Calvin Johnson, Katie & the Lichen, Shivas, Memories Cafe Du Nord. 9pm, $8.

Parlor Tricks, Ps & Qs, Liz O Show Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 8pm, $5-$8.

“Tricycle Music Festival” SF Main Library,100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. 3pm. With Recess Monkey, Frances England, Hipwaders, and more.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Jazz Crusaders Yoshi’s SF. 6pm, $30; 8pm, $35.

Savanna Jazz Vocal Jam with Kelly Park Savanna Jazz. 7pm, $5.

Vagabond Lovers Club with Slim Jenkins, burlesque with Sweet Sasha Va Boom Amnesia. 9pm, $7-$10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Dead Frets O’Reilly’s Irish Club, 622 Green, SF; www.sforeillys.com. 9pm, free.

“San Francisco Son Jarocho Festival” Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. 7pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6-$9. With Dreadsquad, Kush Arora, DJ Sep.

Jock Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 3pm, $2. Raise money for LGBT sports teams while enjoying DJs.

La Pachanga Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.

MONDAY 20

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Damir Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Dunwells Independent. 8pm, $14.

Myonics, HLYR, Bleached Palms Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

Satisfaction: The International Rolling Stones Show Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $20.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Bossa Nova Tunnel Top, 601 Bush, SF; (415) 722-6620. 8-11:30pm, free. Live acoustic Bossa Nova.

DANCE CLUBS

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar, 2299 Mission, SF; www.thebeautybar.com. 10pm, free. Hip-hop and other stuff.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. DJs Timoteo Gigante, Gordo Cabeza, and Chris Phlek playing all Motown every Monday.

Vibes’N’Stuff El Amigo Bar, 3355 Mission, SF; (415) 852-0092. 10pm, free. Conscious jazz and hip-hop with DJs Luce Lucy, Vinnie Esparza.

TUESDAY 21

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Ash Reiter, JJAAXXNN, Blonde Summer Sleepy Todd Amnesia. 9:15pm, $7.

Dana Falconberry, Emily Jane White Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

Mike Huguenor, Josh Staples, Miss Cloud, Brendan Getzell Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $9.

Lightin’ Malcom Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Measure, Kirk Hamilton, Whitney Nichole Brick and Mortar Music Hall. 9pm, $5-$8.

Michael Pedicin Quartet Yoshi’s SF. 8pm, $16.

Stan Erhart Band Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Wooster Boom Boom Room. 8pm, $5.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Gaucho Bottle Cap, 1707 Powell, SF; www.bottlecapsf.com. 7-10pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Brazilian Wax Elbo Room. 9pm, $7. With DJs Carioca and P-Shot.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Post-Dubstep Tuesdays Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521.10pm, free. DJs Dnae Beats, Epcot, Footwerks spin UK Funky, Bass Music.

Lens flair

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3
Lens flair

arts@sfbg.com

VISUAL ART Cindy Sherman is nearly always described as a groundbreaking postmodern photographer and pioneer. The mostly excellent, just-the-hits traveling retrospective currently visiting the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is carefully curated to justify that praise. All the high points of Sherman’s prolific career are here, and her virtuosic scrambling of photographic conventions and assumptions are shown in high relief. As an act of institutional pedagogy, it’s certainly effective if not exactly revelatory.

Luckily for us, in pairing her retrospective with the “Stage Presence: Theatricality in Art and Media” group show across the hall, SFMOMA makes interesting work of recasting Sherman as primarily a performance artist who utilizes photography as a tool. “Stage Presence” curator Rudolf Frieling’s scruffy show fashions a strong lens through which to see Sherman’s work from new angles, and if you bounce from one show to the other you’ll see undercurrents drawn out by that context.

>>Drag artists re-enact Cindy Sherman portraits: view our “Tastes of Cindy” photo essay

The retrospective leads off with “Untitled Film Stills,” Sherman’s breakout 1980 series of 69 images, presented together in the show’s first gallery. These black and white photos, staged and composed to resemble European film promotion stills, show Sherman in costume and makeup inhabiting dozens of distinct, recognizable tropes and types. These are not self portraits, and understanding that point is a kind of prerequisite for digging beneath Sherman’s body of work. Although she appears in every image, Sherman is an actor playing a role. Or more precisely, she’s performing the act of recreating herself and slipping between multiple roles.

Completed when Sherman was 26, “Untitled Film Stills” sets out the major themes she would follow for the next 30-plus years: fascination with media and film, deliberate manipulation of photographic conventions, ability to stitch together and swap out identities like costumes, a flair for storytelling, and a complicated allegiance with the characters she invents.

And about those pictures. As both photographer and model for her images, Sherman appropriates, tweaks, and ultimately tries to outrun established photographic idioms. At the heart of these single-frame performances, Sherman couches the act of slipping into character within familiar conventions of portrait work — series formats include publicity stills (“Untitled Film Stills”); centerfolds (her 1981 work commissioned for and then scrapped by Artforum magazine); classical portrait painting (over represented, frankly, in this show); headshots (here, from 2000); and large-scale society portraits (from 2008). By turns creepy, gaudy, lurid, ugly, garish, and exhilarating, her photographs put up a testy fight to keep you from instantly or casually objectifying the woman or man — usually woman — in the image.

While each tableau is meant to show a persona, it’s also meant to keep you at distance. Her facial expressions throughout are steely, usually blank-ish, and they project thin personalities that reveal only slivers of the people behind them. Across series she repeats the same narrative beat in her work, namely a moment of resistance in her characters to being fully captured on film. She’s rubber and you’re glue. Your gaze bounces off her and sticks to you.

Still, don’t be fooled by what may seem to be sarcasm — she is emphatic and earnest about the complications of photography’s lies, and by extension about the sum of ways we can possibly present ourselves to each other. One of the main reasons art historians love Sherman’s work is that she injects complicated arguments into the trajectory of identity and liberation theory. In her work, you see traces of an adaptable, slippery identity that represents itself only by wearing and exchanging costumes and masks. The self in Sherman’s work is an actor that acts, and never leaves the stage. It’s not that mastery of appearances allows for the actual presentation of the real, it’s that appearances are the only thing there is. There is no presentation of the real, only the constructed reality of the presentation.

Viewed together with “Stage Presence,” Sherman’s work fills in for performance artists you might find oddly absent across the hall. She stands in for both Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy, as well as Bruce Nauman. All the same concerns that those artists (yes, male) are known for — forces played out in the body by abjection, failed desire, absurdity, and the grotesque — abound in her work. In this context it’s hard not to see both commentary on and participation with those artists in her clowns, fashion, and grotesque series. This angle is made most explicit by her work of the last dozen or so years. Less referential to film, her headshots and society portraits since the late 1990s include more plausible, abject characters whose constructed lives and identities are in various states of decay.

For another day or two, Sherman’s photographs can be seen in contrast with the exuberant Jean Paul Gaultier retrospective at the De Young Museum (closing August 19). In some ways Sherman is the yang to Gaultier’s yin, both addressing the slippery nature of identity and the performance of norms through the clothes and apparatuses of presentation. Highly recommended.

CINDY SHERMAN

Through Oct. 8, $11-$18

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third St., SF

www.sfmoma.org

 

Off the walls

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3
Off the walls

arts@sfbg.com

VISUAL ART As the Cindy Sherman retrospective draws huge crowds to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s fourth floor, visitors will find it the gateway drug par excellence for a neighboring show just a few steps away. Taking in Sherman’s frozen drag — in which visual art harnesses performance as both subject and tactic — is already to broach the invigorating dialogue underway in “Stage Presence: Theatricality in Art and Media.”

>>Drag artists re-enact Cindy Sherman portraits: view our “Tastes of Cindy” photo essay

The eclectic group show, curated by SFMOMA’s Rudolf Frieling, gathers choice pieces from the museum’s collection, plus some vital loans, to consider the increasing role of theatricality as theme and strategy in contemporary art since the 1980s.

It further includes a “live art” component courtesy of the museum’s curator of public programs, Frank Smigiel — a weekly performance series that continues through Labor Day weekend in a commissioned space adjacent to the gallery, a lush little jewel box of a theater-cinema designed by Bay Area artist Tucker Nichols. This week’s performance piece is a highly anticipated appearance by Los Angeles-based troupe My Barbarian: Broke People’s Baroque Peoples’ Theater, a raucous, multi-layered work that figures the American financial system as a garishly absurd spectacle of waste. (In addition to this site-specific series, a performance finale takes place October 4 in the museum’s atrium: Rashaad Newsome’s Shade Compositions, a choreographed choral work for 20 women of color.)

Whether live or otherwise, the bridging of the visual and performing arts in “Stage Presence” encompasses a truly wide range of work. Highlights include some fascinating projected pieces on view in one or another of the floor’s darkened recesses — each one furnished with a glass window allowing visual access from the gallery proper, whether or not one wants to venture into the screening room.

One of these is Charles Atlas’s Hail the New Puritan (1986), which collapses the visual and performing arts by way of a made-for-BBC faux-documentary portrait of Scottish dancer-choreographer Michael Clark, supposedly captured over the course of one monumental but half-desultory day as he and his company rehearse his New Puritan (1984). With endless interruptions and segues — and a soundtrack sharpened by ample doses of post punk’s jolly downers, the Fall (whose Mark E. Smith and Brix Smith even appear in a staged TV “interview” with Clark) — Hail the New Puritan remains a gorgeous work whose ’80s-era aesthetic (a little like Godard meets Culture Club) retains a questioning and mocking insouciance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLm0tgyH4cc

It’s such jubilant indifference, including toward previous standards of seriousness or taste, that has contributed to a significant turn in much new work in the 1980s. Frieling, in an email correspondence from Europe, describes it as “a moment where the historic era of performance art and conceptualism had been challenged by a more exuberant, playful, and hybrid way of working — Charles Atlas, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, or Robert Wilson [all represented in the show] being three examples from that time despite their huge differences.”

Other salient themes running through the show explore the conceptual and practical possibilities in rehearsal, reenactment, and the speech act. To this end, the installation Today Is Not a Dress Rehearsal — which repurposes video of a Judith Butler lecture and other materials from an eponymous three-day collaborative performance by Mika Tajima (with her group New Humans) and Charles Atlas in the museum’s atrium in 2009 — offers subtle food for thought amid a visual and aural repositioning of a privileged form of address.

Also intriguing along similar lines is Sharon Hayes’s restrained yet progressively enthralling four channel video work, Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) Screeds #13, 16, 20, & 29 (2003). In each of four television screens fixed with audio headphones, viewers see and hear the artist reciting from memory each of Patty Hearst’s four video messages to her parents while a hostage of the SLA in 1974, with prompting from an unseen audience each time she veers even slightly from the script. It becomes, especially in the era of Occupy, a resonant occasion for a collective act of remembering as well as re-presenting, re-creating, resituating, and reformulating an iconic but elusive link to a radical past.

“Rethinking formats of presentation is a key to many of the works and the whole show,” says Frieling. “We were ultimately interested in art works that stress this open process while reflecting about the conscious act of staging.” *

“STAGE PRESENCE: THEATRICALITY IN ART AND MEDIA”

Through Oct. 8, $11-$18

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third St., SF

www.sfmoma.org

 

Our Weekly Picks: August 8-14

Andrew Lam
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0

WEDNESDAY 8

Beats for Lunch

Tired of eating lunch at your cubicle, under harsh fluorescent lighting? Monarch feels your pain, and wants to do something about it. Launched last month as RECESS, Beats for Lunch is the second installment of the club’s rather experimental stab at an afternoon, workday dance party. Featuring several Motown DJs from MOM SF, the party crew that’s had our fair city shaking it on a weekly basis since 2009, this is exactly the kind of all-inclusive dance-a-thon we could use more of. With free cover (and free sandwiches!) to boot, checking out this month’s Beats for Lunch should be a no-brainer. It doesn’t matter what you wear, just as long as you are there. (Taylor Kaplan)

Noon-2pm, free

Monarch

101 Sixth St., SF

(415) 284-9774

www.monarchsf.com

 

Fox & Woman

A group of poets in the Mission District of San Francisco formed the band Fox & Woman over a year ago, with a goal to “stretch and tear at the shortcomings in pop music.” In turn, they offer a refreshing mix of the rambunctious and the beautiful. Along with riveting lyrical and vocal power, the band treats listeners to violin, mandolin, cello, and ukelele, creating lush orchestration. Check out “Break Into My Heart” off its six-song EP (streaming on the band’s website) and peep the rest of the album while you’re at it; nod your head to passionate anthems, stomp your feet to every tight rhythm. Let the slower ballads created by this five-piece woo you, and then be prepared to jump right back into the dance groove. (Shauna C. Keddy)

With the Thoughts, Split Screens

9pm, $10

Brick and Mortar Music Hall

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.com

 

Redd Kross

When brothers Jeff and Steve McDonald first formed the band that would become Redd Kross in the late 1970s, they were just 11 and 15 years old — and famously played their first gig opening for Black Flag. Returning with their first new album in 15 years, the excellent Researching The Blues, which dropped this week, the group continues to twist infectious melodies and pop sensibilities into short, stunning bursts of rock’n’roll. Some acts would struggle to regain that explosive chemistry after such a long break, but Redd Kross picked up right where it left off. (Sean McCourt)

With the Mantles, Warm Soda

8pm, $20

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com


THURSDAY 9

The Big Eat

Why Leo Beckerman and Evan Bloom would reveal the secrets to their divine pastrami is beyond me. The Wise Sons Delicatessen founders and local meat men-of-the-moment are among the mavens congregating at The Big Eat to discuss the nexus between cuisine and creativity. Each expert has a story to tell — distiller Arne Hillesland, a.k.a The Ginerator, created a kosher-for-Passover gin in 40 days. Artist Deborah Lozier fixed Norwegian wood to vintage silverware in a series of pieces that blend nature and civilization. SFMOMA pastry chef Leah Rosenberg uses ongoing exhibitions as inspirations for her stylized cakes, while Bryon Waibel harvests honey in the Mission, laying legitimate claim to being the world’s first urban beekeeper.

(Kevin Lee)

6:30-8:30pm; $10 general, free for museum members Contemporary Jewish Museum 736 Mission, SF (415) 655-7800 www.thecjm.org

 

Young Moon

Sure, Phil Spector and My Bloody Valentine are great, but we’ve officially reached a saturation point with this whole wall-of-sound thing. Too many imitators using viscous layers of reverb to conceal lazy songwriting, ill-conceived lyrics, and half-baked hooks. However, Young Moon stands out as an exception. Recalling Deerhunter’s balance between the robust and the ethereal, this project of local multitracker Trent Montgomery pays tribute to the goopy production of Pet Sounds, while churning out the bona-fide hooks to back it up. A release party for his debut album, Navigated Like the Swans, Montgomery’s set this Thursday might well be the beginning of something. (Kaplan)

With Danny Paul Grody, Vestals 9pm, $6 Hemlock 1131 Polk, SF (415) 923-0923 www.hemlocktavern.com

 

YG

Though his name stands for Young Gangsta, this Compton-based rapper abandoned his gang-affiliated lifestyle when he got signed to Def Jams at just 19 years old. Now 22, YG has produced some of the best guilty-pleasure tracks in recent hip-hop history, including 2010’s “Toot it and Boot it” and this year’s charmingly titled “Bitches Ain’t Shit,” both of which cracked Billboard’s Hot 100. 2012 has also seen YG’s acting debut alongside Snoop Dogg in the hip-hop teen flick We the Party. Though the rapper is yet to release his debut album, he’s been keeping himself busy with side projects and collaborations. YG’s hyper-sexual and hook-laden mix tapes have kept a hold on the industry’s attention. (Haley Zaremba)

8:30pm, $18

New Parish

579 18th, Oakl.

(510) 444-7474

www.thenewparish.com


FRIDAY 10

 

Christeene

After six video singles — starting with attention-grabber “Fix My Dick” (all directed and produced by PJ Raval) — insatiable, downright nasty, slyly loveable CHRISTEENE is unleashing a full album. The release party for the Austin-based sensation and self-described “drag terrorist” (alter ego of actor Paul Soileau) headlines the first installment of Church, a new nightlife event by co-presenters Peaches Christ, Bearracuda, and DJ Carnita. Sure, the back-alley beauty looks like a thorough mess with stringy black hair framing a wild-eyed pan whose rubbed out lipstick makes a skanky halo around her gold-flecked smile, but her rhymes (delivered over salacious hip-hip, R&B, and techno beats) and balls-out floor show got more business than Mitt. (Robert Avila)

With Peaches Christ, Bearracuda, DJ Carnita

9pm, $20

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

(415) 932-0955

www.publicsf.com

www.peacheschrist.com


SATURDAY 11

James and the Giant Peach

Though 1993’s The Nightmare Before Christmas gets more cult love (and 2009’s Neil Gaiman-inspired Coraline snagged an Oscar nom; we won’t speak of 2001’s Monkeybone), James and the Giant Peach, director Henry Selick’s 1996 take on the beloved Roald Dahl tale, is well worth revisiting. Especially this week, when the Tim Burton-produced film — rendered in an exquisite mix of stop-motion animation and live action — screens at the SF Film Society Cinema alongside a presentation by artists who contributed to the San Francisco-made project. Puppets and props from the film will be in attendance (Miss Spider FTW!), and superfans take note: these artists are also working with Selick on his next film, another spooky Gaiman adaptation. (Cheryl Eddy)

11am, $8

SF Film Society Cinema

1746 Post, SF

sffs.org/cinema

 

Tornado Wallace

Melbourne-based producer Lewie Day lives a double life. By day, he produces house music for electronic labels like Murmur and 8bit. By night, he’s one of the biggest DJs in Australia’s electronic scene. As a teenager, he threw himself into the DJ scene as a favor to a friend who needed a spot filled. Today, Tornado Wallace is extremely prolific, churning out original disco-tinged tracks and remixes at lightning speed. His quantity plus quality approach has garnered the attention of many of the house scene’s major players, and Resident Advisor recently featured him on their highly esteemed podcast — and named him as an artist to watch out for. This summer marks Tornado Wallace’s first-ever US tour. (Zaremba)

With Bells & Whistles, Habitat SF

9:30pm, $12

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

(415) 932-0955

www.publicsf.com


SUNDAY 12

Al Jarreau, George Duke Trio

One of the most versatile, expressive vocalists of the last 50 years, Al Jarreau jumps restlessly between soul, jazz, pop, and samba traditions, refusing to let any genre tags define him. George Duke is an undisputed keyboard champion, whose ’70s jazz-fusion recordings have permeated modern hip-hop and neo-soul to an astonishing degree. These two legends will share the beautiful Stern Grove stage, collaborating on a range of jazz tunes, in an afternoon of (free!) music, not to be missed. Bring a beach towel and a six-pack, and cross your fingers for some Keytar action from Mr. Duke, himself. (Kaplan)

With Mara Hruby 2pm, free

Stern Grove

19th Ave. and Sloat, SF

(415) 252-6252

www.sterngrove.org


MONDAY 13

“Incredibly Strange Television!”

Sure, your nightly channel-surf turns up some intense weirdness: Extreme Couponing, Cajun Pawn Stars, Bikini Barbershop. But make no mistake — TVs were beaming uber-bizarreness into living rooms long before reality programming took over. The one and only Johnny Legend invades the Roxie for three nights of brain-blowing transmissions, presented under the banner “Incredibly Strange Television!” First up is tonight’s two-part ode to comedy (featuring premiere eps, forgotten pilots, and more, with glimpses of greats like Jackie Gleason, George Burns, Don Knotts, and a young Betty White). Tomorrow, it’s the world premiere of “Johnny Legend’s TV in Acidland,” a live-TV extravaganza spanning decades; Wednesday’s “Shock and Noir!” promises “strange and demented” prime-time snippets from the 1950s and 60s. (Eddy)

Aug. 13-15, 6:15, 8, and 9:45pm, $11

Roxie Cinema

3117 16th St., SF

www.roxie.com


TUESDAY 14

Red Hot Chili Peppers

“Let me tell you about the Chili Peppers,” intoned comedian Chris Rock in April. “If Brian Wilson and George Clinton had a kid, he’d be as ugly as fuck, but he would sound like the Chili Peppers.” Rock helped induct the Chilis into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, three decades after four high school friends began jamming together in Los Angeles. Through the drugs and death of founding member Hillel Slovak, through eight Grammy Awards and 85 million records sold, the Chili Peppers have endured with their funk-punk sound. Even now, with lead singer Anthony Kiedis and bassist Flea pushing 50, the Chili Peppers remain one of the most dynamic live shows in rock. Darling Swedish electronic group Little Dragon open. (Lee)

With Little Dragon

8pm, $39.50–$59.50

Oracle Arena

7000 Coliseum Way, Oakl.

(510) 569-2121

 www.coliseum.com

 

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian, 71 Stevenson St., Second Floor, SF, CA 94105; fax to (415) 487-2506; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no text attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

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