It’s over! Well, for me, anyway — the festival rolls on through the weekend, but tomorrow I’ll be jetting back to SF, watching edited-for-content episodes of The Wire on Air Canada’s seatback television. I only had one spontaneous celebrity sighting (Wyclef, scampering into an SUV outside his hotel as I plodded past in search of breakfast this morning). But I did see some enjoyable movies these last two days, plus a few feh offerings.
Festival
Pics: 18th Annual Autumn Moon Festival lights up Chinatown
By Ariel Soto
There is no such thing as a lull on Grant Avenue in San Francisco’s Chinatown, but this past weekend things were especially active and colorful in observance of the Autumn Moon Festival, a celebration of the beginning of the fall and the hope for a bountiful harvest season. As a photographer for SFBG, I get to cover many such cultural events and happenings (yes, my job is awesome!) and after visiting several of these street festivals this summer, I really think this one takes the cake, possibly a sweet moon cake, for being very authentic and for giving visitors a real taste of the true Chinatown. Musicians played traditional Chinese folk music with a plethora of unique and beautiful instruments, while men competed in a Chinese Chess championship, while munching on steam buns and salted peanuts. Vendors sold everything from orchids, to hair dyes and curry fish balls, and many other items that I really couldn’t identify since all the signs were written in Chinese, which made the festival even more fun and an example of how this was really a celebration for the neighborhood community and not just for the out of town tourists passing through. My two favorite parts of the afternoon were a lavishly dressed singing duo who took the stage to sing and dance and just make everyone smile with their catchy tunes, and the 10-pound bag of dim sum I took home and devoured with a hot cup of tea.
Toronto International Film Festival: Days 3-4
While San Francisco was having some of its nicest weather of the year, it rained in Toronto. Fortunately, my chief focus was indoors, in the dark, so it didn’t matter, really — soggy socks be damned. I made it to JCVD, Belgian director Mabrouk El Mechri’s surprisingly dignified tribute to Jean-Claude Van Damme, and probably my most-anticipated movie of the 2008 festival. I’d be lying if I said I was totally satisfied with it — there were some hilarious moments, but not many; there were a few action scenes, but also a lot of talking (including Van Damme’s very own emotional monologue). I guess I was expecting something bigger, louder, and more obnoxious (yes, those are code words for “better”), but kudos are due to Van Damme for playing himself — especially since he’s not always portraying himself in a flattering way. That said, if you hunger for fun, tacky, old-school JCVD, you’re better off putting your VHS copy of Hard Target (1993) through its well-worn paces.
Toronto International Film Festival: Days 1-2
If you ask me, there’s no better way to start your Toronto International Film Festival experience than with a film that contains a money shot revolving around a shredded set of intestines. Ohhh yeah, I knew the France-UK-Belgium co-production Vinyan was gonna be intense when I noted the director, Fabrice Du Welz, had also helmed 2004’s Calvaire — one of those don’t-get-off-the-main-road horror flicks that rang more depraved than most. In Vinyan, we meet well-off Euro couple Paul (Rufus Sewell) and Jeanne (Emmanuelle Beart) whose Christmas vacation turned to horror when their young son was washed away in the Indian Ocean tsunami six months prior. Or was he? Semi-convinced that he may instead have been kidnapped, the pair has stayed in Thailand grasping at hope — and in Jeanne’s case, sanity. A Heart of Darkness-style excursion into the wilds of Burma (where’s John Rambo when you need him?) pushes both partners into places of utter terror, both physical and psychological. Vinyan is also the best freaky-little-kids movie I’ve seen in awhile — we’re talking Who Can Kill a Child? (1976) territory here.
The grateful undead
› kimberly@sfbg.com
SONIC REDUCER Looking back at Outside Lands and ahead to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and the last lingering Indian summer sighs and huzzahs of the festival express season, I’d say we all have plenty to be grateful for. At Outside Lands, I was thankful for Sharon Jones’ sass, Radiohead’s nu-romantic lyricism (amid two moments when the sound cut out and Thom Yorke’s jesting "OK, who put beer in the plug?"), Beck’s persistent pop groove as fence jumpers leapt the barriers, Regina Spektor’s and Andrew Bird’s old-time songcraft, Los Amigos Invisibles’ and Little Brother’s bounce, and Primus’ pluck. No doubt the bison are grateful for the quiet betwixt gatherings — and we all envy them after those night strolls through the cool, darkened park, passing kids listening to the music echo through the arboreal cathedral.
I could go on about how gratified I am for a somewhat chiller city now that burner getups on Haight Street are discounted and their would-be buyers are happily grilling on the playa. But the most grateful of all has gotta be Sam Adato, who I chatted up last week on the eve of practice with his hard rock band Sticks and Stones. The group has a Sept. 5 show at Slim’s, for which he’s likely grateful, but most of all he’s happy to be alive and not buried beneath some beater. He was on his way to his store, Sam Adato’s Drum Shop, July 31 when, he says, a woman driver running a red light at Ninth Street was hit by another car heading down Folsom. "The impact made her swerve and go directly into my shop," he says. "It had to be quite fast to crash through the storefront." Adato usually gets to the store by 11 a.m. — he missed colliding with the driver by about 15 minutes. "Thank god," he marvels. "I probably would have been dead." His wife rushed over thinking he was in the store when the crash occurred, and their tearful embrace outside was captured by at least one photo-blogger. "Thank god no one was hurt," Adato adds. "Walking on the sidewalk or in the shop — it could have been a bloodbath. Things can be replaced — people can’t."
Adato’s alive, but half the storefront was wiped out, and he estimates that about $10,000 in inventory was destroyed. Now everything is in storage, the store is boarded up, and repairs have begun. Meanwhile he’s been producing a CD for his other band, The Bridge, which opened for Deep Purple at the Warfield last summer. "That’s been keeping me busy, but the ironic thing is Oct. 12 will be my 15-year anniversary — it just might be the grand reopening, 15 years after I first opened," he says wryly. At that time he was at a crossroads. "Rather than audition for touring bands, which is great but it’s hard to make a living and more often than not you’re just a hired gun, I decided to open a drum shop. I had no doubt in my mind it would succeed," he says firmly. "There are no drum shops like it anywhere. A drummer can come in and say they need their drum fixed, and I’ll fix it right there and then."
Until a certain car crash, he was living the drummer’s dream. Though Adato now throws down his sticks in South San Francisco, he actually resided in his SF shop for its first two years. "It was great," he recalls. "Stay up late, get up, take a shower, turn on the lights, open the door, and you’re ready for business, surrounded by drums day and night. Thank god for giving me this life." *
STICKS AND STONES
Fri/5, 9 p.m., $15
Slim’s
333 11th St., SF
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HOWLS IN THE WILDERNESS
CENTRO-MATIC AND SOUTH SAN GABRIEL
Will Johnson unites his two groups on the release of a two-CD set on Misra. With Sleepercar. Wed/3, 8 p.m., $10–$12. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. www.rickshawstop.com
DESOLATION WILDERNESS
The Olympia, Wash., combo on K Records jangles brightly at the end of a dreamily desolate echo chamber. With Family Trea and Ben Kamen and the Hot New Ringtones. Wed/3, 9 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com
MOMMYHEADS
Reunited and it feels like Mommy is home. After the 2007 passing of drummer Jann Kotik, the ‘heads decided to track old and new songs for the revitalized You’re Not a Dream (Bladen County). With Brad Brooks and The Mumlers. Wed/3, 9:30 p.m., $12. Café Du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.cafedunord.com
DAEDELUS
Taz Arnold of Sa-Ra and rapper Paperboy make it onto the LA beat-R&D specialist’s new Love to Make Music To (Ninja Tune). Thurs/3, 7 p.m., free. Apple Store, 1 Stockton, SF. Fri/5, 10 p.m., $5–$10. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.elbo.com
MORTIFIED
You know you like it — the pathos and chuckles of reading oh-so-private love letters and diary entries in public. Fri/5-Sat/6, 8 p.m., $12–$15. Make-Out Room, SF. www.makeoutroom.com
NINE INCH NAILS AND DEERHUNTER
Certainly one of the more unexpected pairings of late: the determinedly independent Trent Reznor meets the persistently raucous Bradford Cox. Fri/5, 7:30 p.m., $39.50–$55. Oracle Arena, Oakl. www.apeconcerts.com
DEATH VESSEL AND DAME SATAN
DV’s heartfelt folk meets its ideal match in SF’s DS, whose Andrew Simmons is planning to drop a haunting solo EP, Tabernacle Word, Pioneer (Ghost Mansion). With Micah Blue Smaldone. Sat/6, 10 p.m., $10. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com
ISE LYFE
The über-versatile Oakland MC recently cometh with Prince Cometh (7even89ine). With Bambu and DJ Phatrick, Do D.A.T., Power Struggle, EyeASage, and Emassin. Tues/9, 9:30 p.m., $10–$13. Café Du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.cafedunord.com
SF Electronic Music Festival
PREVIEW Five days, 18 performers, one ensemble, countless cords and magic boxes, and weird sounds times infinity. I mean, hell, if you’ve got an electric current and an instrument (in its broadest interpretation), you may as well use ’em together.
In this spirit, eight Bay Area sound-art wizards have organized the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival for eager electro-lovin’ ears for the ninth year in a row. Could there be a musical gathering more eclectic than this? Not likely. After nearly a decade of tapping into the electro-acoustic grab bag, the lineup is still stretching diversity to new levels, ranging the melodic-discordant gamut from drone to pop and contemporary chamber to industrial and then some. There’ll be internationally renowned pioneers such as sonic meditator Pauline Oliveros, and emerging artists like Oakland’s folklore-inspired pop duo Myrmyr. Many performances feature sfSoundGroup lending its modern improvisational twist. And don’t forget the science-derived computer music and harsh noise, synth-y innovations and rearranged Persian classics, electro-trombone and minimalism by way of New York City. You know you wouldn’t dare argue with an "intense noise artist" named Sharkiface.
SFEMF pummels the boundaries of your deconstructed notions of avant-garde postmodernism, then does it a few more times, till you’re left with the sharpened edge of experimental glinting through the soundwaves. Why not totally saturate your sonic-scape and save a few bucks with the five-day ticket? ‘Cause you love the Moog and the Mac, and for one week, you have it all.
SF ELECTRONIC MUSIC FESTIVALWith Jen Boyd, Monique Buzzarté, Edmund Campion, Clay Chaplin, Ata Ebtekar, Hans Fjellestad, Christopher Fleeger, Phill Niblock, Tujiko Noriko, Carl Stone, Alex Potts, Akira Rabelais, Rutro and the Logs, Ray Sweeten, and Richard Teitelbaum. Wed/3–Sun/7, 8 p.m. (Sat/6 at 7 p.m.), $12–$17 per day; $55 all five days. Project Artaud Theatre, 450 Florida, SF. (415) 626-4370, www.sfemf.org
“Trouble the Water”
REVIEW Anyone impressed by Cloverfield‘s camcorder frenzy needs to see the remarkable video diary Kimberly Roberts made in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward while Katrina wailed and the government balked. Trouble the Water directors Tia Lessin and Carl Deal initially came to the city in hopes of investigating the way in which National Guard support was waylaid by an America being stretched thin in Iraq. The film opens with the directors talking to a bureaucrat, but within moments Roberts and her husband Scott bum rush the side of the frame and never let go. The New York–based Fahrenheit 9/11 producers thankfully let Roberts’ eyewitness footage run for long segments, underscoring its The Hague–worthy indictment with periodic cutaways to the naysayers (George W. Bush, FEMA’s Michael Brown, and so on). When we return to her shot of a neighborhood drunk who died in the storm, it feels as significant a victory for the documentary process as the stabbing in Gimme Shelter (1970). The storm interrupts Roberts’ camerawork the first time; months later, back in the Ninth Ward, it’s the police telling her to stop rolling. Even when Trouble the Water moves into more conventional over-the-shoulder filmmaking, Kimberly and Scott Roberts remain enthralling subjects. It’s doubtful festival-goers saw anything as breathtaking as Kimberly Roberts’ autobiographical rap "Amazing" at this past snooze of a Sundance, where Trouble the Water claimed the Grand Jury Prize. Rappers, it turns out, make the best reporters.
TROUBLE THE WATER opens Fri/5 at the Sundance Kabuki.
Horn dogs unite
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Lately I’ve been thinking about buying a trumpet. I had one once, though my mom sold it back to an instrument shop years ago — long after I’d ditched it and jumped the fence to a cappella choir about midway through high school. By that point I couldn’t have cared less, but more recently I’ve found myself daydreaming about it, its gleaming shine, its sleek curves. Mostly, though, I reminisce about its power — roaring and robust and showy as hell, that trumpet gave my mild-mannered little self a shot at being loud and free. And yet somehow, incredibly, I gave it up: too uncool, I’d told myself. Damn fool, what was I thinking? I take a mental inventory of my favorite songs — trumpets everywhere. I scan my record collection — yep, brass galore. I recall the new artists who are getting me the most hot ‘n’ bothered — can you guess the common thread? So, anyone want to sell me a trumpet?
As much as the current brass boom appears to be in full flourish from coast to coast, we here in the Bay Area are particularly spoiled for choice when it comes to horn-driven delights: rapturous Balkan brass bands, wickedly deep Afro-funk, and sweet soul music are all solid fixtures on the local menu for lovers of trumpets, trombones, and beyond. Still, the range of flavors extends even further than this quick list. As the longstanding booking agent for San Francisco’s Amnesia Bar, Sol Crawford, can attest: "I was thinking about all of these amazing bands we have in our area, when it occurred to me — so many of them feature brass! So, I decided, why not put together a festival to spotlight brass in all its diversity?"
And what a spotlight it will be. Boasting 11 days’ worth of brass-tastic revelry involving 30-plus artists and 21 shows, Crawford’s showcase offers thrilling testimony to the endless taste combinations proffered by local horn players — and the bands who love ’em. The festival’s name was inevitable. "As I began organizing this festival, I thought of it as a feast," he elaborates over iced tea at a Mission District café. "Then I pictured a cornucopia — this great big horn-shape with food spilling out. Perfect. A hornucopia, then!"
With a roster as impressive as this, the Hornucopia Festival is a veritable bounty deserving of the food analogy. Consider the sweet-and-savory possibilities of any given evening, and you’ll have rung Pavlov’s bell and set your mouth a-salivating: there’s the hot-pepper punch of Afrobeat powerhouse Aphrodesia, the hard bop/hip-hop grease of the Realistic Orchestra, the crisp crunch of punk-rock march-brigade Extra Action Marching Band, and the corn whiskey–marinated Dixieland delirium of the Gomorran Social Aid and Pleasure Club, for a start. Floor-burning Balkan brass band bacchanalians Brass Menazeri will elevate heart rates with a release party to herald the arrival of their latest self-released CD, Vranjski San. Lord Loves a Working Man’s heavy-soul workouts should keep crowds feeling limber … and so on. Add them all up, and that’s some serious Bay-representing horn love. One last coup: Crawford also enlisted the help of eminent New York klezmer daredevil Frank London, who will debut a sure-to-electrify ensemble: the SF Klezmer Brass Allstars.
Asked about the drive behind orchestrating such an enormous event that not only includes shows but workshops and panel discussions, Crawford’s answer is simple. "It’s about connecting," he explains. "There’s a great return to acoustic-based music happening right now, and a lot of these artists are mixing and melding genres in fascinating ways. And I want to bring them to a larger audience." My eyes continue to widen in awe upon hearing the full extent of what it has taken to put together this colossal labor of love, but he returns my sense of wow with an easy smile. "My friends have been great in helping out," the organizer adds. "So have the bands. It’s the scrappy brassy little festival that could."
HORNUCOPIA FESTIVAL
Sept. 4–14. Includes Frank London’s SF Klezmer Brass Allstars Sept. 5 at Café Du Nord; Brass Menazeri, Aphrodesia, and bellydance Sept. 12 at Great American Music Hall; and Polkacide Sept. 13 at Café Du Nord. For more information, go to www.hornucopiafestival.org
More power to the righteous
› a&eletters@sfbg.com
Do I admire Michael Franti? You bet your ass I do. In the scary days after 9/11 he had the balls to stand up to a fascist tide led by flag-waving goon squads and cheered on by most of America. Franti and a handful of Bay Area artists, including Paris and the Coup’s Boots Riley, took a stand when it mattered, when free speech wasn’t free anymore.
Making albums is one thing — making history is another. In the case of Franti and artists like him — those who are loosely described as "political" — there’s a connection between one activity and the other. So which yardstick do you use when sizing up a career? Franti’s major label releases with Spearhead didn’t sell much, the Coup’s Kill My Landlord (Wild Pitch, 1993) went out of print, and Tommy Boy dropped Paris because of his politics.
But from today’s vantage point — with hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq and the Bill of Rights sacrificed in the process — how do you factor in the foresight and courage these artists displayed in battles that involved all of us, even if we tried to hide out on the sidelines?
In Franti’s case, his social and political vision has been consistent, voiced over constantly evolving sounds and styles. He emerged in the mid-1980s with the Beatnigs, a fabulous, noisy, funky, radical mess of a band built around his seething manifestos and Rono Tse’s ear-splitting percussive experiments. When the sometimes-exhilarating Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy were born from the Beatnigs in 1990, Franti softened the noise, sharpened his voice, and gained musical elevation courtesy of avant-jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter.
Spearhead and the hip-hop mainstream came next, and two albums later, when he parted ways with Capitol, Franti was free to explore — like it or not. Without a hip-hop straightjacket, his more recent work has been as interesting as any since the days of Disposable Heroes.
Franti’s latest album, All Rebel Rockers (Anti), drops Sept. 9, a few days after his now-annual "Power to the Peaceful" festival will likely draw some 50,000 people to Golden Gate Park. That said, All Rebel Rockers interests me like yoga and veganism, which isn’t much. Franti recorded the full-length in Jamaica with durable rhythm section Sly (Dunbar) and Robbie (Shakespeare) co-producing. There was a time when reggae was lifted by menace and invention — a dissonance that’s been lost along with the anticolonial hope that inspired musicians like the Wailers to take a stand in the first place. While it’s no surprise that Franti turned to Jamaica for an album, he seems to be chasing a kind of holistic harmony that’s long on shelter but short on threat. That’s fine unless — like me — you need an outlet for outrage.
The post-corporate music world is a vast, constantly shifting collage of musical and social niches in which Franti has created a big, warm home for himself. On Rockers his words are more clever than they are challenging, and the rhymes are tight and infectious in a way that serves the dance floor, but they go down like fast food. Franti’s got hardcore fans, which arguably makes him famous enough to be glibly autobiographical, even when he sounds like a ’70s singer-songwriter. The chorus of the opening cut, "Rude Boys Back in Town," is a call-and-response between Franti and fans: "Michael, Michael, where you been …" But in the past, when critics have asked that he mix the personal with the political, I don’t think this is what they had in mind.
I still consider Franti one of the Bay Area’s genuinely important artists. Without his work, as well as that of the Coup and Paris — whose latest album, Acid Reflex (Guerrilla Funk) also comes out in September — the world would be the worse for it. And not just on Saturday night. At the end of the day, I can’t deliver higher praise. *
10TH ANNUAL POWER TO THE PEACEFUL MUSIC AND ARTS FESTIVAL
With Michael Franti and Spearhead, Ziggy Marley, and more
Sat/6, 11 a.m.–5 p.m., free
Speedway Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF
Also "Power to the Peaceful" after-party with Spearhead and all-star jam session
Sat/6, 9 p.m., $15
Mezzanine
444 Jessie, SF
Also "Sunday Yoga Jam" with Franti and others
Sun/7, see Web site for time, $35–<\d>$110
Yoga Tree Castro
97 Collingwood, SF
Inside Outside Lands fest: on music-loving and littering hordes and sustainable music gatherings
Heads gather round: Radiohead. All photos by Spencer Hansen.
By Kat Renz
I was in the throes of a particularly conflicted love/hate relationship last weekend. The first Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival in Golden Gate Park – so much to appreciate (the music, scenery, intention), so much to loathe (the overlapping performances, long lines, the great green marketing strategy).
Scoping out Beck.
“We deserve a festival,” folk-rocker Matt Nathanson told journalists during a press conference on Saturday, Aug. 23, the second day of Outside Lands. And though he was being ironic, he echoed the sense of entitlement sweeping through Speedway Meadows on down to the Polo Fields, like the restless ghost of a spoiled brat. Between concert-goers tearing down fences and elbowing relentlessly (and pointlessly) through the audience, or getting so pissed they could barely make out Thom Yorke on the giant TV screens and littering like motherfuckers, the scene got pretty obnoxious.
But, duh, what else did I expect with 150,000 people?
Hat club for men: Sean Hayes.
Let me diverge, briefly, from the rantings of my inner curmudgeon: Oakland’s bluesy outfit Howlin’ Rain struck an inaugural chord on the tiny Panhandle Stage, jamming through a half-hour set fueled by the soul rasp of front-howler Ethan Miller and Joel Robinow’s organ harmonies.
In the swim: Rupa and the Fishes.
Curtain calls
› a&eletters@sfbg.com
Fall arts resolution No. 1: have no faith in leaders. Obummer and McPain will only disappoint, or worse. (Probably worse.) If faith you must ooze, kindly direct it toward people who really care about you and have your interests at heart. Why did Gore Vidal write his play The Best Man (1960), for instance? Most likely it wasn’t to get elected (though he did try). And Frank Wedekind was even less enamored of the powers that be when he penned his way-pre-punk "tragedy of childhood," Spring Awakening, a late 19th-century cri de coeur against authority whose transition to Broadway and electric guitars has both an aptness and an irony going for it that might have amused old FW. As Tom Stoppard confirms, power is a compromised and compromising affair whatever side of history you happen to be on, but rock ‘n’ roll will save your soul. So will Teddy Pendergrass, for that matter, as soul-survivor and kinetic Philly memoirist Colman Domingo brilliantly attests. So this fall, remember who your real friends are. You can direct any remaining or follow-up questions to author-playwright Kobo Abe, as well as the other miscellaneous sage nonconformists referenced in the list below.
The Best Man A Broadway hit for Gore Vidal, this political comedy-drama remains fresh as a daisy, if such a sweet olfactory simile can apply to the mosh pit of electoral politics.
Now playing through Sept. 28. Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk. (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org
San Francisco Fringe Festival The mighty Exit Theatre turned 25 this year. The SF Fringe Festival, the annual small-theater smorgasbord the Exit serves up each fall, turns a sexy 17. Judging by this year’s lineup, that means stripped-down, butt-plugged, bare-bones, rock-hard, strap-on sexy.
Sept. 3–14. Various venues, including the Exit Theatres, 156 Eddy, SF. www.sffringe.org
A Boy and His Soul (Thick House) and A Bronx Tale (Golden Gate Theatre) If only it were a double bill. These two solo plays about growing up (in Philadelphia and the titular Bronx) take place on radically different Bay Area stages, and deal with radically different stages in the lives of what you might call radically different actors (Coleman Domingo and Chazz Palminteri, respectively). Both are masterful, and as long as you’re at it, throw in Carlo D’Amore’s own deft and hilarious family-centered solo, No Parole, coming to the Marsh in November (www.themarsh.org).
Sept. 3–14. Thick House, 1695 18th St., SF. www.thickhouse.org
Sept. 23–Oct. 19. Golden Gate Theatre, One Taylor, SF. www.shnsf.com
Spring Awakening Best of Broadway brings to town this rock musical makeover of Wedekind’s great drama.
Sept. 4–Oct. 12. Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF. www.shnsf.com
Rock ‘N’ Roll Here comes Tom Stoppard’s character-concentrated take on Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution, as well as on leftist politics across several decades of Cold War history. It’s a good play to argue about afterward, in your highest pinko dudgeon, over pinot and tartare de boeuf at the Grand Cafe.
Sept. 11–Oct. 12. American Conservatory Theatre, 415 Geary, SF. (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org
HyperReal Bay Area performance artist Sara Kraft’s low-key brilliance by now merits a neologism: krafty (with a k!). Krafty = shrewd, inventive, technically savvy, wry, playful, tuneful, eerie, unsettling, and, generally speaking, not to be missed.
Oct. 10–12. CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF. 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com/event/36251
War Peace: The One Drop Rule Living Word Festival 2008, titled "Race Is Fiction," features a new collaborative work by Youth Speaks alumni and Teen Poetry Slam champions Chinaka Hodge, Rafael Casal, Daveed Diggs, and Nico Cary. Directed by festival curator Marc Bamuthi Joseph, War Peace imagines a drought-ravaged Bay Area as potential war zone.
Oct. 23–24. Theater Artaud, 450 Florida, SF. www.youthspeaks.org
Angry Black White Boy Felonious’ Dan Wolf and Tommy Shepherd unveil a poetical rap-fused remix of Adam Mansbach’s satirical and incendiary novel about race and identity in the United States, adapted by Wolf.
Oct. 23–Nov. 16. Intersection for the Arts, 446 Valencia, SF. www.theintersection.org
Continuous City Last year’s work-in-progress is this year’s full-fledged multimedia outing as New York City–based boundary pushers, the Builders Association, returns with a three-pronged narrative (incorporating much Bay Area–derived material) negotiating the ever-more permeable membrane between the global and the local, and our networked and unplugged experience.
Nov. 6–8. Novellus Theater at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF. (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org
Friends Brava! For Women in the Arts’ new artistic director Raelle Myrick-Hodges carries forward the spirit of its founding mission with offerings eclectic and unexpected. The revival of Woman in the Dunes author Kobo Abe’s play Friends promises to be a timely and potent production, though Abe penned his scathing absurdist take on gentrification some four decades ago.
Nov. 6–17. Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St., SF. (415) 647-2822, www.brava.org
Cinemania
› johnny@sfbg.com
Mock Up on Mu Craig Baldwin’s latest opus, on rocket science and Scientology in California, with the director in person.
Sept. 2. Pacific Film Archive
Obscene A new documentary about Evergreen Review and Grove Press publisher Barney Russet and his many battles on behalf of free speech and real art.
Sept. 5–11. Roxie Film Center
Lost Indulgence and In Love We Trust A pair of films by up-and-coming Chinese directors Zhang Yibai and Wang Xiaoshuai.
Sept. 6–20. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Wattis Theater, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org
"History Stutters: Found Footage Films" Bruce Conner’s John F. Kennedy–assassination film Report (1965) and Ken Jacobs’ Malcolm X. assassination response Perfect Film (1984) is on the same bill; program also includes a movie with Ed Henderson.
Sept. 9. Pacific Film Archive
Leave Her to Heaven The 1947 Technicolor noir — and ultimate swimmer’s nightmare — returns with a demonstration of film restoration.
Sept. 12. Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael. (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org
"MilkBar International Live Film Festival" Three days of experimental cinema, including more than 20 local short works.
Sept. 12–14. Noodle Factory Performing Arts Center, 1255 26th St. #207, Oakl. (510) 289-5188, www.milkbar.org
"Unknown Pleasures: The Films of Jia Zhangke" At last, China’s vanguard contemporary filmmaker gets an extensive Bay Area retrospective.
Sept. 12–Oct. 17. Pacific Film Archive
"The People Behind the Screen" Local programmers contribute to "Bay Area Now": Jesse Hawthorne Ficks presents girl rock; Stephen Parr of Oddball Films shares a giddy taste of his mega-montage project Euphoria; and kino21 puts together performance cinema; Peaches Christ, Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project, and DocFest also have nights.
Sept. 13–Oct. 18. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Shatfest Thrillville’s tributes to the one and only William Shatner continue with his 1968 spaghetti western White Comanche.
Sept. 18. El Cerrito Speakeasy Theater, 10070 San Pablo, El Cerrito. (510) 814-2400, www.thrillville.net
"Taylor Mead: A Clown Underground" The legendary wit Mead visit for screenings that showcase his best starring roles (1960’s The Flower Thief and 1967–68’s Lonesome Cowboys).
Sept. 18–21. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Forbidden Lies The Roxie is distributing this look at con artist Norma Khouri, which gets a theatrical run after a successful trip through the festival circuit.
Sept. 19. Roxie Film Center
MadCat Women’s International Film Festival Ariella Ben-Dov’s fest turns 12 with eight archival greats (including one by Samara Halperin) and silent films with live rock scores.
Sept. 19 and 23. Various venues. (415) 436-9523, www.madcatfilmfestival.org
"Psychotic and Erotic: Rare Films by Tinto Brass" Ass-fixated erotica that includes talking animals and naked cannibals.
Sept. 24. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
"How We Fight: Iraqi Short Films" Kino21 kicks off a series with Argentine director Mauro Andrizzi’s feature-length compilation of short videos shot by US or British soldiers, Iraqi militia members, and corporate workers.
Sept. 25. Artists’ Television Access
"James Dean Memorial Weekend" Come back to the five and dime, or failing that, the Castro, and be sure to wear your red windbreaker.
Sept. 26–28. Castro Theatre
Film in the Fog Gene Kelley is singing in the rain — and the Presidio fog.
Sept. 27. Main Post Theatre, 99 Moraga, SF. (415) 561-5500, www.sffs.org
The World’s Largest Shopping Mall The debut or preview of a film by Sam Green and Carrie Lozano is at the heart of a program devoted to psychogeography.
Sept. 27. Other Cinema
Deathbowl to Downtown Coan Nichols’ and Rick Charnoski’s look at the history of NYC street skateboard culture, narrated by Chloë Sevigny.
Sept. 29. Castro Theatre
"Bette Davis Centennial" She’ll tease you, she’ll unease you — all the better just to please you.
Sept.–Oct. Castro Theatre
Dead Channels You can never get enough weird horror and fantasy.
Oct. 2–5. Roxie Film Center
Mill Valley Film Festival The major fall Bay Area festival turns 31.
Oct. 2–12. Various venues. (415) 383-5256, www.mvff.org
Rosemary’s Baby and The Devils Double the demonic hysteria!
Oct. 3. Castro Theatre
"No Wave: The Cinema of Jean Eustache" The series includes 1965’s Santa Claus Has Blue Eyes, his 215-minute masterpiece The Mother and the Whore (1973), his hog-slaughtering documentary — shades of Georges Franju? — The Pig (1970), and a 1997 doc portrait of him.
Oct. 4–22. Pacific Film Archive
"Rediscovering the Fourth Generation" The post-Mao cinema that laid groundwork for directors such as Jia Zhangke gets a SF showcase.
Oct. 4–30. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Wattis Theater, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org
Vertigo The greatest San Francisco movie ever — maybe greatest movie ever — gets the outdoor screening treatment from Film Night in the Park.
Oct. 4. Union Square, SF. (415) 453-4333, www.filmnight.org
"Spirit of ’68" and "Know Your Enemy" A pair of programs compiled by Jack Stevenson
Oct. 5. Oddball Films, 275 Capp, SF. (415) 558-8117, www.oddballfilm.com
Manhattan and Muppets Take Manhattan Mariel Hemingway, meet Miss Piggy.
Oct. 7–9. Red Vic Movie House, 1727 Haight, SF. (415) 668-3994. www.redvicmoviehouse.com
"French Cinema Now" A new minifestival from the San Francisco Film Society.
Oct. 8–12. Various venues. (415) 561-5000, www.sffs.org
"Superstars Next Door: A Celebration of SF Amateur Sex Cinema from the ’60s" Stevenson looks at that time in SF when everyone would take off their clothes for a camera — with film in it.
Oct. 9–11. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
"Midnites for Maniacs: Back to School … in the ’90s" Jesse Hawthorne Ficks serves up Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1991), Romeo and Juliet (1995), and Starship Troopers (1997).
Oct. 10. Castro Theatre
"Envisioning Russia: A Century of Filmmaking" The expansive 16-film program extends across eight decades.
Oct. 10–30. Pacific Film Archive
"Protest-sploitation" A lecture-demo by Christian Divine looking at six "youth" films made in 1970, along with a screening of that year’s The People Next Door.
Oct. 11. Other Cinema
RR James Benning’s train film finally reaches a Bay Area destination.
Oct. 14. Pacific Film Archive
Arab Film Festival The festival turns 12 this year.
Oct. 16–Nov. 4. Various venues. (415) 564-1100. www.aff.org
DocFest IndieFest’s doc extension turns seven this year with a slate of at least 60 films.
Oct. 17–Nov.6. Roxie Film Center and Shattuck Cinema, 2230 Shattuck, Berk. (415) 820-3907, www.sfindie.com
Leslie Thornton A three-program SF Cinematheque series devoted to the director behind Peggy and Fred in Hell (1985–present) and other experimental works, with Thornton in-person.
Oct. 19–26. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
United Nations Association Film Festival Environmentalism is the focus of the festival’s 11th year.
Oct. 19–26. Various venues. (650) 724-5544, www.unaff.org
"I Love Beijing: The Films of Ning Ying" Ning and her acclaimed Beijing trilogy — which spans from the Peking Opera to dogs, cops, and taxi drivers — visit the Bay, capping things a screening of her 2005 "Chinese Sex and the City" feature Perpetual Motion.
Oct. 23–27. Pacific Film Archive
The Werewolf of Washington The president’s speechwriter is a lycanthrope in this Nixon-era flick.
Oct. 31. Pacific Film Archive
"The New Talkies: Bollywood Night" Kino21 presents six works of live narration to Bollywood film scenes.
Nov. 1. Artists’ Television Access
"Occult on Camera" Erik Davis charts out the Aleister Crowley–Kenneth Anger–Led Zeppelin triumvirate-of-evil — what does Jimmy Page’s appearance in the closing ceremony of the Olympics mean?
Nov. 1. Other Cinema
Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine The SF premiere of a new documentary devoted to the sculptor.
Nov. 2–3. Red Vic Movie House, 1727 Haight, SF. (415) 668-3994, www.redvicmoviehouse.com
Ghosts Nick Broomfield’s excellent first non-documentary feature, about the abuse of Chinese immigrants in the United Kingdom.
Nov. 7–13. Roxie Film Center
San Francisco International Animation Festival The burgeoning fest and showcase turns three with a program that includes the Cannes favorite Waltz with Bashir.
Nov. 13–16. Various venues. (415) 561-5000, www.sffs.org
Luther Price New works by one of the more scathing and harrowing filmmakers on the planet, presented by SF Cinematheque.
Mid-November. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
New Italian Cinema Will it include Matteo Garrone’s Cannes critic’s fave Gomorra?
Nov. 16–23. Various venues. (415) 561-5000, www.sffs.org
"Films by Martha Colburn" A night of kinetic works by the collage creator, presented in conjunction with a show at Berkeley Art Museum.
Dec. 2. Pacific Film Archive
Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy Thrillville stuffs your stocking with a gem from 1957.
Dec. 11. El Cerrito Speakeasy Theater, 10070 San Pablo, El Cerrito. (510) 814-2400, www.thrillville.net
James Hong A sneak peek at the local director’s expose on Japan’s rewriting of history, Lessons in the Blood.
Dec. 13. Other Cinema
"At Sea" Peter Hutton’s At Sea (2004-7), about the life and death of a colossal container ship, is the centerpiece of an oceanic SF Cinematheque program.
Dec. 14. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS/OTHER CINEMA
992 Valencia, SF
(415) 824-3890
CASTRO THEATRE
429 Castro, SF
(415) 621-6120
PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE
2575 Bancroft Way, Berk.
(510) 642-5249
ROXIE FILM CENTER
3317 16th St., SF
(415) 863-1087
YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS
701 Mission, screening room, SF
(415) 978-2787
Fall Arts Preview 2008
> johnny@sfbg.com
I don’t know about you, but I hear something is happening in early November. Since I can’t quite identify exactly what it is, let’s focus on all the events around it this fall — especially the spaces on stages and screens and pages and in museum and gallery rooms.
A little birdie tells me this fall will be propagandized, rather than purely politicized, into infinity. In times like these, it helps to have art that finds a realm outside the false promises, a place from which to look back at our society — including the politicians who try to rule it — and say: you better perform!
That’s the case this week’s fab four cover stars, Guillermo Gómez Peña, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, JoAnn Selisker, and Tim Sullivan. This quartet of singular creative forces is united in using imaginative performance to reject inhibiting norms.
Gómez Peña and his group La Pocha Nostra are bringing Mapa/Corpo 3 — an interactive ritual involving "political acupuncture" that was banned in the United States for three years — to Theater Artaud as part of Litquake and the Living Word Festival. At SF Camerawork, they’ll also be trying out what they call performance karaoke, which is sort of an aesthetic, political, and ethical update on the popular game Twister. There, they are part of "I Feel That I Am Free But I Know I Am Not," an extended exhibition (curated by Chuck Mobley) that also includes some live video by Sullivan, whose photographic and video work looks at everyday imagery and familiar pop iconography from new and sometimes hilarious angles.
New views of everyday pop banality are also JoAnn Selisker’s forte. Presented by Litquake and ODC, her latest piece, Off Leash: Who’s a Good Girl? uses text and dance to explore the relationship between dogs and their best frenemy, humans. Everything goes full circle with Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore — you can see some of Gómez Peña’s flair for radical sexual and political performance in his past activism with Gay Shame, and like Sullivan and Selisker, his image doesn’t come from Macy’s. In his new novel, So Many Ways to Sleep Badly (City Lights, 256 pages, $15.95), he shows readers a San Francisco that Frommer’s doesn’t know about.
This fall, Gómez Peña, Bernstein Sycamore, Selisker, and Sullivan are just part of a blitz that’s bringing everything from multiple Chinese art exhibitions and film programs to the premiere of Gus Van Sant’s Milk. Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy season.
>>Connect four
Cover stars: A quartet of our favorite artists and performers sounds off
>>Diverse moments
Dance: Highlights run from modern to the Bard
By Rita Felciano
>>Curtain calls
Stage: Theater gets political, playful, potent
By Robert Avila
>>Vizzy with the possibilities
Visual Art: We scope out the promising shows
By Katie Kurtz, Kimberly Chun, and Johnny Ray Huston
>>Sino the times
Visual Art: Bay Area museums and galleries home in on Asia
By Glen Helfand
>>Olympic disc toss
Music: Will these new music releases go far or fall flat?
By Kimberly Chun and Johnny Ray Huston
>>Stage names
Concerts: Got live if you want it — and you do
Johnny Ray Huston and Kimberly Chun
>>“Daughter” goes to the opera
Classical: Amy Tan revamps her bestseller. Plus, more classical picks
By Ching Chang
>>Forecast: blackout
Clubs: The season’s prime parties offer plenty to fall down about
By Marke B.
>>Autumn reels
Film: 10 big-screen release dates to remember — for better and worse
By Cheryl Eddy
>>Cinemania
Film: 50 ways to rep film this fall
By Johnny Ray Huston
>>Notes of a dirty old man
Lit: Or, a portion from a wine-stained notebook
By Charles Bukowski
>>FALL FAIRS AND FESTIVAL GUIDE
More festive events than you can shake a bare tree at
By Duncan Scott Davidson, Kat Renz, and Ian Ferguson
Gnarls Barkley
PREVIEW Many a gnarly happening has occurred since I last spoke with Danger Mouse, né Brian Burton. If memory serves, at that time in 2004, around the time he remixed The Beatles ("The White Album") (EMI, 1968) and Jay-Z’s The Black Album (Roc-A-Fella/Island Def Jam, 2003) into The Grey Album, the grounded DM was easily forthcoming about his standard-setting, electronic civil disobedience–inspiring endeavor and waxed rhapsodic about art house cinema. The years — and, no doubt, experience as a prolific collaborator (Gorillaz, Van Dyke Parks, and rumored future projects with Sparklehorse and Black Thought) and producer (Beck, the Rapture) — have left Burton more reserved. Regarding Gnarls Barkley — DM’s project with Cee-Lo Green, which recently released the acclaimed The Odd Couple (Atlantic) — Burton chooses to simply rough out the partnership as that of hometown buds from the Atlanta area. "We knew a lot of the same places growing up," Burton says from Athens, Ga., where Gnarls Barkley concluded a recent tour. "I’d try to sneak in with people, and I’m sure he was already walking right in the front door."
But affection for late rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Ike Turner brings the Mouse out of his shell. Burton wanted to produce Turner and enlisted the Black Keys to serve as the backing band and songwriters. "We did some demos for some of the songs, but it didn’t quite go in the direction we wanted," Burton says. "Ike’s voice was so deep and so heavy — it didn’t really fit as much as Dan’s." So instead DM agreed to produce the Keys’ kudo-clad Attack & Release (Nonesuch). Turner even got to hear the finished product, and plans were in the works for the Keys to write fitting songs in varied styles for the musical elder before he died. Now Burton tells me he’ll try to work with some of the Turner-Keys tracks, and he’ll remember the man, who "randomly" stepped in to play on the last Gorillaz release, as a longtime friend who was "very honest. I don’t know what he was like when he was younger, even though he told me many stories. But he made you humble."
GNARLS BARKLEY with Ozomatli, the New Pornographers, Medeski Martin and Wood, and Lebo at Slow Food Rocks. Sat/30, 11 a.m.–7 p.m. (Festival continues Sun/31 with Phil Lesh and Friends, G Love and Special Sauce, John Butler Trio, and London Street.) $10–$160. Great Meadow, Fort Mason, SF. 1-877-655-4849, www.festivalnetwork.com/sfr
“Japanese Wolf”
P>REVIEW When was the last time you chatted on your cell in a crowd of yaks? Or honored the dewy lavender morning with a steaming cup of green tea and a goat friend? Or crouched with a pack of sunset wolves howling on your back?
No offense, but I bet your social circle isn’t this diverse. For the girl-woman at the center of Yumiko Kayukawa’s paintings, though, communing with nonhuman creatures is typical. Born in the small town of Naie in Hokkaido, Japan, Kayukawa found her muses amid the land’s sweeping beauty and native fauna. Her connection with those elements runs throughout her body of work: the giant tiger perched atop the earth, enjoying the company of three lounging pop-tart girls in Sekai De Ichiban Neko (The World’s Biggest Cat); the wide-eyed tarsiers helping to hang wishes for stars on bamboo in Tanabata (Star Festival); and the contented whales cuddling a pink scuba-suited underwater heroine in Oshizukani (Quiet Please). Kayukawa makes such intimate relationships with the wild animal kingdom look effortless.
And seductive. Kayukawa’s humans are young and pouty-lipped, with bright eyes, suggestively bent backs, and painted nails that are never chipped — even when keeping a frothing bear at bay. Saturated hues and pastels — sea green, cantaloupe, camellia, pale yellow — heighten this playfulness, as do the requisite kanji, floating in space like manga dialogue and titling each curious scene. Kayukawa’s eroticized pop vision is imbued with a fearless openness, evident in her decisive lines but even more so in the intention embedded in these paintings. When was the last time you had a tiger by the tail, much like her protagonists, and got away with it?
JAPANESE WOLF Through Sept. 6. Tues.–Sat., noon–7 p.m. Shooting Gallery, 839 Larkin, SF. (415) 931-8035, www.shootinggallerysf.com
Guardian Eye: Arab Cultural Fest brings out community
Photo and text by Ariel Soto
The hip yet traditional beats of MC Rai filled the San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park for the 14th Annual Arab Cultural Festival on Sunday, August 24. The Tunisian musician got the audience clapping and even singing along as he played an Arabic metal drum, while outside the auditorium visitors perused booths selling organic olive oil from Palestine and handmade art, jewelry and ceramics. There were crepes and pitas stuffed with meat to munch on and different types of teas to sample. More than 23 Arab cultures were represented at the festival and a true sense of community enveloped the whole atmosphere at the event.
People ride bikes
by Amanda Witherell
Record bike attendance at Outside Lands Friday night
I volunteered for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition on Friday evening, valet parking bikes during the Outside Lands concert in Golden Gate Park. It was busy: Radiohead fans ride bikes. Even though it was a hustle to move all the bikes and keep the waiting line flowing, it was a remarkably smooth and stress-free experience, which I’ll chalk up to the healthful effects of cycling and a general good feeling from being around bikes. People walking by the pen of parked bikes kept commenting on how it was a sight to see so many bikes in one place.
According to a “thank you” email I got from the SFBC today all previous bike parking records were broken. We parked over 1,000 bikes on Friday night, and over 2,400 for the entire weekend. As I was riding my own bike out of the foggy park on Friday night I saw thousands more bikes locked all over the containment fencing of the festival, meaning a significant number of people cycled to the festival.
And just today the Chron noticed that more people are riding bikes.
Rock the Bells: Did the fest pull off its blend of old school and new?
Tales from… : Tre of the Pharcyde. All photos by Mosi Reeves
By Mosi Reeves
Rock the Bells was tiring but fun. The Aug. 16 event showcased 14 acts on the main stage, as well as an additional eight on a side stage, and the only way to catch them all was to run around Shoreline Amphitheatre like a chicken with its head cut off.
The day began super-early at 10:40 a.m. with Jay Electronica. I didn’t arrive to the stadium until 11:30 a.m., just in time to catch Washington, DC, rapper Wale finish his set with “W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E.,” his hit viral remix of Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E.” That meant I spent an exhausting 11 hours at Shoreline. Other audience members were less committed: the venue didn’t reach capacity until around 4 p.m. Still, it was a little early in the morning for hip-hop.
“Hip-hop doesn’t really start until noon,” said Murs before launching into popular underground cuts like “Silly Girl,” “L.A.,” and “Lookin’ Fly,” a new track from his upcoming album Murs for President. The great thing about Rock the Bells is that it draws audiences that actually know who Murs is. He enthusiastically ended his set by saying how grateful he was to be on the main stage this year – last year, he headlined the “Paid Dues” side stage (named after a festival he launched in 2006) for the West Coast leg of the tour. “I get to have cereal with De La Soul. I dare y’all to enjoy yourselves more than me.”
Live forever: Immortal Technique.
Kim Gordon gets down in Saratoga
“C’mon and turn it up,” for sure. I really dug Kim Gordon’s last project, Free Kitten’s Inherit (Ecstatic Peace) – the resurrected Gordon, Julie Cafritz (Pussy Galore), and Yoshimi (Boredoms) collabo came out earlier this year. But what sort of feline mischief has the Sonic Youth player been up to of late? Apparently the indie-underground icon has been toiling as an artist-in-residence at the garden-green Montalvo Arts Center in otherwise-burby Saratoga – so says the press release that came over the transom recently. Sounds like Montalvo is picking up where it left off with the 2006’s noise- and art-filled Bleeding Edge Festival, which brought together Matmos and Zeena Parkins (also working with Gordon this time around), Yo La Tengo, Sunroof!, and Tim Hecker:
“On Sept. 26, Montalvo Arts Center will present the world premiere of ‘Kim Gordon Meets Phantom Orchard,’ a musical collaboration featuring internationally renowned artists at the forefront of the alternative music scene. Kim Gordon, bassist, guitarist and founding member of Sonic Youth, joins the Phantom Orchard duo of laptop artist Ikue Mori and harp innovator Zeena Parkins, plus special guests Trevor Dunn on bass and drummer Yoshimi. The artists are in development with their new project, entitled ‘The Song Project,’ as part of their Montalvo Arts Center’s Lucas Artists Programs residency.
“Kim Gordon has enjoyed a long and storied career as a musician and a visual artist. In 1981 Gordon, with future husband Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, helped found seminal alt-rock band Sonic Youth. Though they started out as a decidedly underground act, Sonic Youth emerged from the New York City music scene to become one of the most iconic and influential American rock bands, earning praise for their unique, unorthodox rock guitar style, strong studio albums (which have been included in Rolling Stone’s ‘Greatest Albums of All-Time’ list), and career stamina that has spanned over the course of nearly three decades. An established visual artist and curator, Gordon has exhibited her work across the U.S., Japan and Europe (sometimes incorporating live music in her exhibitions), written for respected art publications and has had several books published highlighting her original art.
Flower children: Ikue Mori and Zeena Parkins.
Collage boys
› a&eletters@sfbg.com
As we enter the intoxicatingly rich world of Zona, we encounter a deceptively simple melodrama. It unfolds in shadow play on a gold-hued screen fronting a kind of rectangular tent at the back of the stage. We see the silhouette of a mother cradling her newborn infant, swaddled in a blanket, as an old recording of an Italian operatic duet comes seeping through. The woman sets the baby down and briefly retires from the scene, giving opportunity to a snarling beast which promptly swoops in and snatches up the child. Returning to find the babe gone, she collapses in a fit of grief and anguish as the music swells to its climax, her gently unduutf8g hand rising from her swooning body in a kind of unconscious farewell.
This same gesture, delicate and precise, returns later as another woman, played by the same male actor (a deft Stephen Lawson, now out in front of the curtain in another of several consecutive female guises), finally greets the beast that has been pursuing her — a naked male figure with the head of a bear — with a frightened reflex that suddenly transforms into a come hither call.
In its straightforwardness, the shadow play at the start of Zona is anything but straight. It sets up a number of complex tensions that will wend their way through a layered 55-minute multimedia collage of drag performance, lip-synch, camp iconography, and dark revelry presented by Montreal cabaret performance duo 2boys.tv (Lawson and Aaron Pollard). These tensions include the art form itself, as Zona recycles the tropes of queer cabaret in a focused reclamation of an intensely dark strain in midcentury American film and theater brooding on madness, desire, and loss.
Not that Zona isn’t also immediately rewarding and funny. A scene in which Lawson repeatedly mimes a looped sample of Elizabeth Taylor’s screams in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) is as hysterical as it is, frankly, hysterical. But it’s less an excuse for knowing camp humor than part of an attempt to push the queer cabaret form in a more dramatically serious direction, while allowing it more self-reflexivity than ever. Enveloped in an often breathtaking series of video-based images and a haunting soundscape, Zona traces a somber, troubled mood throughout, while eschewing any easy resolution of its themes.
Although originally created for a 2006 theater festival in Calgary, Canada, rather than a bar or cabaret, Zona‘s design stays true to its roots in underground queer theater, and is so intimate and compact it almost makes the modest stage at New Conservatory Theatre Center look overly roomy. At the same time, Pollard’s video and audio direction add greatly to the show’s ingenious layering of textures, cultural references, and associations. In one achingly lovely movement, a reclining Lawson, as the actress whose love has led her to the brink of madness, opens a large book toward the audience from the lip of the stage. On its blank pages appear two small video projections: one of the naked beast with bear’s head, and the other of the actress’ character herself, both dynamic images subtitled in halting phrases of pain, regret, and remembered passion. Lawson’s mesmerizing performance, meanwhile, strikes an eerie balance between human emotion and jagged masquerade.
Zona marks the West Coast debut for the Canadian duo, with thanks due to NCTC’s artistic director Ed Decker for bringing the denizens of Montreal’s vibrant scene out to the Bay Area. Here’s looking forward to the next time the boys are back in town.
ZONA
Wed–Sat, 8 p.m.; Sun, 2 p.m., $22–$34
New Conservatory Theatre Center
25 Van Ness, SF
(415) 861-8972
Singing softly, carrying big ideas
NICOLE ATKINS AND THE SEA
Atkins would probably do well on American Idol. Her big, bellowing voice sounds tailor-made for balladeering, and breathy, heartbroken pixie girls have edged talent like hers out of the indie market. But Atkins refuses to cover "Bridge Over Troubled Water," and has instead crafted a huge power-pop sound all on her own. (Laura Mojonnier)
1:40 p.m. Sun/24, Presidio stage, Lindley Meadow
DEVENDRA BANHART
Is the Venezuelan-bred naturalismo god a freak-gypsy poet-prophet, or just a rambling, acid-damaged ghost of San Francisco past? You decide, long-haired child. (Mojonnier)
2:15 p.m. Sat/23, Sutro stage, Lindley Meadow
BON IVER
Which one’s Bon? And is this really a … singer-songwriter? Regardless, Justin Vernon has made a gorg album — multitracked vocals and all — with For Emma, Forever Ago (Jagjaguwar). (Kimberly Chun)
3:10 p.m. Sun/24, Presidio stage, Lindley Meadow
BECK
Known as much for his musical range as his idiosyncratic artistic sense, Beck’s songs veer from dadaist dance tunes —à la Guero (Interscope, 2005) — to melancholy blues ballads like those on Sea Change (Geffen, 2002). He’s come a long way from 1994’s single "Loser" with his latest album, Modern Guilt (Interscope), a collaboration with coproducer Danger Mouse and guest Cat Power, proving that he’s no one-hit wonder, but rather a truly multidimensional songwriter. (Molly Freedenberg)
6:40 p.m. Fri/22, Sutro stage, Lindley Meadow
ANDREW BIRD
It isn’t easy to overshadow Ani DiFranco — especially in a concert hall filled with her fans. But that’s exactly what Bird did when he opened for the quintessential singer-songwriter on her 2005 tour. Bird’s spectacular vocal and musical abilities — particularly his trademark whistling and violin playing — are mesmerizing. But even more so is his ability to weave beautiful, emotionally honest songs from so many kinds of lyrical and musical threads. The combination has brought him not only acclaim, including a position blogging about his songwriting process for the New York Times, but status as an indie heartthrob. (Freedenberg)
3:35 p.m. Sun/24, Twin Peaks stage, Speedway Meadow
JACKIE GREEN
Polished Versatility is the SF singer-songwriter’s middle name, his first is Jackie, but fans call him their own personal Roots Savant. (Chun)
1 p.m. Sun/24, Lands End stage, Polo Fields
SEAN HAYES
Don’t you know you gotta water sunshine? The fiercely independent SF singer-songwriter has worked with all manner of great artists round town, including Ches Smith, Ara Anderson, Etienne de Rocher, and Jolie Holland. (Chun)
3 p.m. Sat/23, Presidio stage, Lindley Meadow
NELLIE MCKAY
So get off McKay’s back and take your ape-ish size 12 shoes off her madcap persona because, as the New York City singer-songwriter drawls on "Identity Theft," "I’m tired of maturity, airport and security, running from the thought police, fighting with the go-betweens." Yes, I hear Bob Dylan in those wildly loopy lines, but you gotta love the musical theater-inspired, wittily whittled wordsmith’s divine verbosity — via songs that leave ’em crying, with glee, at the disco. (Chun)
4:20 p.m. Sat/23, Panhandle stage, Speedway Meadow
REGINA SPEKTOR
Is it Spektor’s old world beauty or postmodern songwriting — both evident in her breakthrough video "Fidelity" — that charms audiences so much? We think it’s probably both, though her distinctive vocal style, songs that read more like short stories, creativity with instrumentation, and magnetism onstage are surely what have brought the Russian-born chanteuse so much success. (Freedenberg)
5:15 p.m. Sat/23, Sutro stage, Lindley Meadow
M. WARD
Sometimes Ward’s friends let him play on their records (Bright Eyes, Cat Power, Jenny Lewis). Sometimes Ward gets his friends to play on his records (My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Neko Case). Sometimes Ward’s gently rollicking guitar flirts with Zooey Deschanel’s sweet country honey (She and Him). And sometimes Ward plays a big outdoor festival all by himself. (Mojonnier)
3:40 p.m. Sat/23, Sutro stage, Lindley Meadow