Girls

Multilingual beats, Obama love: Brazilian Girls move on with ‘New York City’

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By Brandon Bussolini

Brazilian Girls just released an album named for a city that they’ll be leaving for a little bit. They used to tour a lot, but now vocalist Sabina Sciubba, keyboard player Didi Gutman, and drummer Aaron Johnston are leaving New York City to spend time elsewhere. This makes sense since Brazilian Girls’ music has no single place of origin or definite direction. Their new album, like its predecessors, sits across several different styles and changes from minute to minute.

It can be a fun game to chase down the kinds of music Brazilian Girls incorporate into their own, but the sound itself has very little to do with tradition or context – it’s synthetic, and at its best is good enough to stop you from wondering whether what you’re listening to is world music or not – and whether there’s even anything wrong with that.

Sciubba’s voice is the band’s most distinctive element, but the songs themselves are little intelligent machines, and they work unhurriedly and with economy. The new full-length’s first song, “St. Petersburg,” is where this clicks into place immediately, with its samba-techno rhythm and big triumphant chorus, where Sciubba’s typically arch delivery breaks with sophistication and becomes uncomplicatedly raw and moving. I had the opportunity to speak with Sciubba as the group began a short tour supporting New York City (Verve Forecast). Brazilian Girls play Mezzanine Saturday, Sept. 27.

SFBG: I read that after completing the album you took off for Paris. Was this a vacation, or something more permanent?

Sonic Reducer Overage: Calexico, SEVA, Jose Gonzalez, We Are Wolves, and so much more

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SW a-swirl: Calexico’s “Crystal Frontier.”

San Francisco can’t stop, won’t stop – as usual there’s far too much to do, see, and hear. Here are a few worthies to check out.

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THE GIRLS
Yeah, you heard me right: the Girls, man, the Girls. Meaning, the Seattle garage-wave combo whose perky song stylings have caught Spin‘s ear (much like SF’s Girls, sans “the”). Wed/24, 9 p.m., $8. Uptown Night Club, 1948 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 451-8100.

JOSE GONZALEZ
His handsome Veneer and haunting songs – we’re smitten. Wed/24, 8 and 10 p.m., $25. Yoshi’s, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakl. (510) 238-9200.

Kim Gordon

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PREVIEW Say it loud, say it proud: aeons after the year punk broke and Sonic Youth introduced their budding little-bro band Nirvana to their label, DGC, I’m still girl-crushed-out on SY’s Kim Gordon! Especially after finding out we’ve been reading the same book at just about the same time: Sheila Weller’s Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon — and the Journey of a Generation (Atria), a possible inspiration for Gordon’s "Phantom Orchard" performance with avant harpist Zeena Parkins, DNA’s no-wave diva Ikue Mori, Boredoms drummer Yoshimi, and ex–Mr. Bungle bassist Trevor Dunn.

"Everyone said, ‘Ooh, it’s got to be really trashy,’" says Gordon from Northampton, Mass., where she, Thurston Moore, and their 14-year-old daughter, Coco, reside. "I started reading it and thought, you know, this is actually a pretty good, interesting, sociological overview of these women during that time in the early ’60s. So, I don’t know, maybe a theme might come out of that … I always wondered when [Sonic Youth] was on tour with Neil Young, what’s it like for someone like Joni Mitchell? I got a sense of the boys’ club." She emits a soft, low, self-deprecating chuckle, a recurring bass note in a conversation with Gordon, who often sounds more like a grave, thoughtful teenage girl than an underground rock icon.

A certain Kimly kismet is going down, for sure, and one hopes a similar synthesis will emerge from this week’s improvisations by Gordon, Parkins, Mori, Dunn, and Yoshimi. The latter most recently played on the raw ‘n’ lyrical Inherit (Ecstatic Peace), by the resuscitated Free Kitten, Gordon’s project with ex–Pussy Galore-ist Julie Cafritz. Everyone knows girls rock, but what continues to draw this archetypal post-punk woman, who has seen so many sides of rock’s boyzone, to work with other ladies? "Women communicate differently," she muses. "And, um, women communicate!"

For more of an interview with Kim Gordon, see Noise blog at www.sfbg.com.

KIM GORDON MEETS PHANTOM ORCHARD Fri/26, 8 p.m., $15–<\d>$55. Montalvo Arts Center, Carriage House Theatre, 15400 Montalvo, Saratoga. (408) 961-5858, www.ticketmaster.com

Mao and Coca-Cola

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› johnny@sfbg.com

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is in the grip of full-on Fridamania when I first pay a visit to "Half-Life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Logan Collection." Nonetheless, Yue Minjun’s terracotta warriors attract photo-ops: a little girl poses next to a solitary Yue sculpture with his hands behind his neck, while five other Yue statues (each a life-size body — barefoot in white T-shirt and blue jeans — with an enormous head: eyes closed, mouth frozen in anxious "smile") stand in formation near the exhibition’s threshold.

A single Yue also welcomes visitors to the quieter, more expansive "Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection" at the Berkeley Art Museum, where 25 more Yue statues (from the 2000 installation 2000 A.D.) and numerous oil-on-canvas renderings of Yue — including a chain of 13-or-so Yues looking down on everyone — await inside. A decision to use this icon of cynical realism as a host of sorts unites the SFMOMA and BAM shows, which also feature a number of the same artists: Bird’s Nest Stadium designer and provocateur Ai Weiwei; satirical painter Yu Youhan; gay gazer Zeng Fanzhi; repetitious self-portrait specialist (like Yue) Fang Lijun; disturbing dreamer Yang Shaobin; chilly portraitist Zhang Xiaogang; candid snapper Liu Xiaodong; mordant physical observer and landscape artist Liu Wei; Tiananmen Square lookout Yin Zhaoyang; and Li Songsong, who coats memory in cake icing.

A collection of work dating from 1988 to 2008 by 25 artists, "Half-Life of a Dream" is less expansive than "Mahjong," which draws from Uli Sigg’s world’s-largest collection of contemporary Chinese art and dates back to the late stages of the Cultural Revolution. Its conceit is also more specific and restrictive: digging beneath the Beijing Olympics slogan "One World, One Dream," the SFMOMA exhibition taps into the myriad dream facets or "masks, shadows, ghosts, reveries" (to quote from Jeff Kelley’s titular essay) that drift through pre- and especially post-Mao China.

This dream theme is clear and to the forefront in paintings such as Liu Xiaodong’s 2007 Xiaomei and Zhang Xiaogang’s 2005-6 Untitled, but it grows strained when applied to, say, Liu Dafang’s urban photorealism. At times, it obfuscates the layers of a work, as when the complex mother-daughter vision of Yu Hong’s 2006 She — White Collar Worker is summarized with the quasifeminist remark that "women remain trapped in dreams of themselves." Regardless, "Half-Life" presents more than a few standout works: Gu Wenda’s hair-raising united nations — babel of the millennium (1999) and Sheng Qi’s autobiographical political memorial My Left Hand (2001) are especially formidable. Its dream analysis fits most snugly and dramatically around one of the most recent pieces — and the exhibition’s climax of sorts — Sui Jianguo’s The Sleep of Reason. There, an eternally resting Mao is surrounded by multicolored masses of toy dinosaurs.

Here’s a Mao, there’s a Mao, everywhere’s a papa-oom-Mao-Mao in the relatively playful "Mahjong," where Sun Guoqi’s 1973 Chairman Mao with the New National Emblems greets viewers with false cheer at the first of five floors (leaving aside the lower levels and snaky hallways, where some of the most provocative work resides). This traditional view of Mao is quickly punctured by Yu Youhan’s hilarious 2005 Warhol pun Untitled (Mao/Marilyn), the young androgyne Mao of Li Shan’s 1995 Rouge–Flower, the Nintendo Mao of Feng Mengbo’s 1994 Taxi Taxi, the decaying Mao of the Gao brothers’ acerbically watchful 2000 An Installation on Tiananmen, the art connoisseur Mao of Shi Xinning’s 2000-01 Duchamp Retrospective Exhibition in China, and the flirtatious Mao of the same artist’s 2001 Dialogue, to name but a handful.

Strong currents of irreverence surge throughout "Mahjong," thanks to children of Mao and Coca-Cola such as the Luo brothers, whose vulgar, comedic keepsakes of fast-food capitalism enliven "Dialogue China Part II," a group show at Elins/Eagles-Smith Gallery. (Also at Elins/Eagles-Smith, Xing Danwen’s urban fiction dioramas bring the post-human romance of Tsai Ming-liang’s 1994 Vive L’<0x2009>Amour to mind.) The exhibition’s sub-strands of subject matter include militarization and the "little emperors" and troubled girls of China’s one-child policy.

While mahjong might not be the deepest or most revelatory thematic motif for an exhibition devoted to a nation, it more than suits both BAM’s multitiered or tiled space and the rich varieties of the Sigg collection. "Mahjong" doesn’t have to beg for repeat viewings — the magnitude of the show and quirks of its arrangement demand it. In general, contemporary Chinese painters tend toward large-scale representation, perhaps most successfully when — as with Zhou Tiehai’s looks at Joe Camel — one gets the sense that the grand gesture itself is being mocked. But one of the exhibition’s best works is also its tiniest: Lu Hao’s A Grain of Sand (2003) is a 1/4-by-1/4-inch memorial to the individual, a figure perpetually under assault — whether by communism or hypercapitalism.

DIALOGUE CHINA PART II

Through Sept. 30

Elins/Eagles-Smith Gallery

49 Geary, Suite 520, SF

(415) 981-1080

www.eesgallery.com

HALF-LIFE OF A DREAM: CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART FROM THE LOGAN COLLECTION

Through Oct. 5

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org

MAHJONG: CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART FROM THE SIGG COLLECTION

Through Jan. 4, 2009

Berkeley Art Museum

2626 Bancroft, Berk.

(510) 642-0808

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

Lose yourself

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TY SEGALL

With Thee Oh Sees and Sic Alps

Thurs/11, call for time and price

Eagle Tavern

398 12th St., SF

(415) 626-0880

Also with Master/Slave and Girls

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

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

www.hemlocktavern.com

Girls, Girls, Girls

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

On Feb. 15, the auspicious day after Valentine’s, Café Du Nord hosted Girls’ debut — a perfect night to showcase their music, which is full of heartache and romantic longing. I witnessed the birth of a pop sensation that night. I’ve never seen San Francisco rock kids so unhinged for a band that had never previously played out — they sang, in a state of unrestrained fervor, along with songs only available online.

Those of us giddy in the crowd that night haven’t been alone in feeling it. In three months, the SF outfit sold out all 500 copies of their recently released single on True Panther. In fact, 200 of those records were sold on pre-order, and the group has received notice on Pitchfork and various blogs and in Spin magazine.

The rapid and rapturous reception would turn anyone’s head. But the boys of Girls — JR White on bass, Christopher Owens on guitar and vocals, and an otherwise rotating lineup — are wary of overly speedy success. When I sat down with White and Owens at the Ferry Building last week, I asked White why he thinks listeners respond so keenly to their songs. "I think they’re honest," he replied. "It’s the first thing I noticed, and it’s the first thing a lot of people say." Girls’ music, he added, "lacks the pretension in a lot of pop music."

Girls emerged from a living-room recording project that Owens brought White, a recording engineer. Excited by Owens’ music, White suggested they form a band. A musician since age 15, the bassist confesses that this is the first time he feels no ambivalence about playing in a group. According to White, the project evolved as if by "divine intervention — a gift from everything that’s happened in your life."

I possess a reflexive Gen X cynicism and would normally respond to such an avowal with skepticism. However, there’s nothing contrived about Girls’ sincerity. In fact, the similarly charming Owens owned that descriptor, claiming, "Essentially I am just really an earnest, sincere person.

"I came to the realization at the last show that we would probably be the easiest band to make fun of," he continued. "You could read the lyrics and just mock it. So I feel super-vulnerable. I don’t think we get up there and right away, people are saying, ‘Yeah, this is the best thing ever.’ We kind of have to win them over, but it’s kind of a cool thing to go through from the beginning of the show to the end of the show. Every show has kind of been excruciating to play. The end is great."

In any case, Girls’ lyrical earnestness was treated to a skilled studio work-over on their recordings — a full-length is due this fall on True Panther. The songs shine with brilliant arrangements that layer echoed vocals and reverbed guitars. The touchstones for such massive sound swirls are Spiritualized and various shoegazer outfits, but Girls can’t be pigeonholed as a strictly genre band. For one thing, White rarely buries the vocals at the back of the mix, so we hear Owens’ supple voice upfront, albeit through the pleasant gauze of lo-fi tape hiss. They also have written several dazzling three-minute-or-so pop songs, brightly realized with major chords and handclaps.

According to a commenter on Girls’ MySpace page, the band’s music smells like summer. Laugh or no, it’s true. Their sound resembles all the parts of the season: the bright happy mornings, the long gorgeous days, the nostalgic end-of. "Morning Light" evokes that perfect buzz after a great night out and the walk home on a summer dawn. "Hellhole Rat Race" resembles the summer waxing in September, dusty and wistful. "Lust for Life" gives off the whiff of a perfect pop song: you’re cruising in a car maybe to the beach, in search of beers for breakfast, and your friends are all around.

I don’t know why this music triggers synesthesia in me. I suspect it’s because these gorgeous numbers make my skin literally tingle. The tunes are so classic and pure, yet churn so massively, and the language is so full of want. It’s an imperfect world, and boys and girls do each other harm. But, hey, sometimes a song can be your salvation.

GIRLS

With Master/Slave and Ty Segall

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

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

www.hemlocktavern.com

Moaning for Mon Cousin Belge

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Dressy: A past Mon Cousin Belge performance

Mon Cousin Belge (with Girls, Bridez, and the Passionistas)
Aug. 28, Cafe du Nord

By Lauren Giniger

Man, that rare warm summer night we had last week really messed up my program. It took me forever to get out of the house, and it was all clothing-related indecision, and consequently I missed three groups of the fun four-band lineup at the world-famous-in-San Francisco performer Mon Cousin Belge’s record-release party.

Now it’s true, the hipsters left en masse (really, is there anything they don’t do en masse?) after Girls’ set, but that just left a very enthusiastic core of fans for Mon Cousin Belge’s turn. MCB, much like Obama, benefits from the “enthusiasm factor,” and MCB fans really, really, really love MCB. Emile is a compelling frontman, his theatrics propped on top of a set of powerful pipes, and the band’s music possesses a delicious, glammed-out sensibility.

MCB started their set with slow-burn cover of Roger Miller’s “The Crossing,” and reached a sort of rock fever pitch with “Ugly American” and “Tweaker Bitch.” Emile’s long-lost brother in botched plastic surgery sat in with some guest vocals, and both delivered drama of the hair-metal variety. So many of MCB songs are so great. They’re funny, edgy, and recognizable – who among us doesn’t know a tweaker bitch? While the guitar jangles and the keyboards hark to ’70s anthems, the drums carve out a stripped-down post-punk beat to counterpoint all that top-heavy glam.

Hipsters, next time stick around even if your friends don’t. San Francisco fags and those who love them elevate MCB to cult-band status. I don’t make history, but I dig it.

Vizzy with the possibilities

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KATIE KURTZ PICKS


•"The Wizard of Oz" Not much has changed since L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz debuted over a century ago and gave Americans something we still crave: escape to a fantastical land free of wicked witches. These days it’s not the Emerald City that Dorothys everywhere are tripping toward but a place called "hope." The works in this group show curated by Jens Hoffmann, including more than 20 artists (Clare Rojas, Raymond Pettibon, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, et al.), were made either in response to the classic tale or relate to the story’s many layered meanings.

Sept. 2–Dec. 13. Reception Sept. 2. CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, 1111 Eighth St., SF. (415) 551-9210, www.wattis.org

•"Vocabularies of Metaphor: More Stories" In this group show of works on paper highlighting deconstructed narratives, all but two of the 16 artists included are women — one of Henry Darger’s Vivian Girls drawings makes an appearance. "Vocabularies" is a chance to see how women are considering the figure — female, male, and animal — in a postnatural world, though this idea is not the exhibit’s emphasis. Of note are Rachelle Sumpter’s gauzy gouaches, Canadian Yuka Yamaguchi’s dismembered turtles, and Pakistani Shahzia Sikander’s nature-inspired pattern-making.

Sept. 6–Oct. 18. Reception Sept. 6. Hosfelt Gallery, 430 Clementina, SF. (415) 495-5454, www.hosfeltgallery.com

•California Academy of Sciences The mothership of scientific and sustainable nerdiness finally opens! This Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified facility includes a planetarium, swamp, rainforest, and a living roof. If you prefer your nature virtual, you can always hang out with the PenguinCam.

Big Bang opening gala Sept. 25; free to the public all day Sept. 27. 55 Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park, SF. (415) 379-8000, www.calacademy.org

•"Brought to Light: Photography and the Invisible, 1840-1900" Scientific photography of yesteryear is a healthy reminder of just how long we’ve been trying to discover everything that can possibly be discovered and recording it for posterity. More than 200 photographs, American and European, scientific and pseudoscientific.

Oct. 11–Jan. 4, 2009. SFMOMA, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org

•"The Gatherers: Greening Our Urban Spheres" Co-curated by Berin Golonu and independent curator Veronica Wiman of Sweden, this activist exhibition is intended to further the green dialogue through collaborations between artists and organizations, conversations with the public, and urban interventions.

Oct. 31–Jan. 11, 2009. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-ARTS, www.ybca.org

KIMBERLY CHUN PICKS


•"Barbara Holmes and Casey Logan" What a dump! The two artists’ four-month residency climaxes with 3-D work inspired by and composed of salvaged material. Sculptor Holmes worked with wooden lattice to create a series of kaleidoscopic forms in assorted states of weatheredness, while Logan morphed musical gear and other detritus into pieces that meld with his fascination with science and fiction.

Sept. 26–27. SF Recycling Art Studio, 503 Tunnel, SF. www.sfrecycling.com/AIR

•"Nikki McClure" The graphic rep of Olympia, Wash.’s riot grrrl scene is undoubtedly best known for her bold, iconic paper cuts revolving around nature, motherhood, activism, and community. Music cover-art, illustrations, and books have all found a place in a vision grounded in simple gestures, uncontrived pleasures, and everyday labors.

October–November. Needles and Pens, 3253 16th St. SF. (415) 255-1534, www.needles-pens.com

•"Outpost" Exploding the imaginary and futuristic dimensions of architecture, "Outpost" collects the apocalyptic planes and jagged rubble of Bay Area sculptor David Hamill and the dazzling grids and Spirograph-esque constructs of New York City artist Jeff Konigsberg.

Sept. 5–Oct. 18. Reception Sept. 5. Johansson Projects 2300 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 999-9140, johanssonprojects.net

•"Hilary Pecis" Folktronica, meet your maker: the SF artist creates her downright psychedelic panoramas by layering drawings with fragments sliced from glossy magazines. Pecis was also recently named as a recipient of the 2008 Murphy and Cadogan Fellowships in the Fine Arts and will be showcased at SF Arts Commission Gallery.

Sept. 6-26. Reception Sept. 6. Receiver Gallery, 1415 Valencia, SF. (415) 550-RCVR, receivergallery.com. Also "Immediate Future: the 2008 Murphy and Cadogan Fellowships in the Fine Arts," Sept. 6-Oct. 18. SFAC Gallery, 401 Van Ness, SF. (415) 554-6080, www.sfacgallery.org

•"Yves Saint Laurent" Viva le smoking! The beloved groundbreaker may be dead, but Yves Saint Laurent has never been hotter, judging from this autumn’s many attempts at rich-hippie/gypsy folklorico, highly sexed men’s wear for women, and silky Parisian-lady drag. This major retrospective’s single US turn showcases more than 120 accessorized ensembles in addition to drawings, photos, and videos.

Nov. 1–March 1, 2009. De Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, SF. (415) 750-3600, www.famsf.org/deyoung

JOHNNY RAY HUSTON PICKS


• "I Feel I Am Free But I Know I Am Not" See “Connect four,” this issue

Sept. 4–Nov. 1. SF Camerawork, 657 Mission, 2nd floor, SF. (415) 512-2020, www.sfcamerawork.org

• "Double Down: Two Visions of Vegas" Olivo Barbieri looks at Vegas as toy town.

Sept. 18–Jan. 4, 2009. SFMOMA, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org

•"Bayete Ross-Smith: Pomp & Circumstance" and "Jonathan Burstein: Visage" Ross-Smith’s prom portraits are fresh, and Burstein’s paintings of museum guards trampoline off the humor present in his handsome past portraits of himself.

Sept. 4–Oct.11. Patricia Sweetow Gallery, 77 Geary, mezzanine, SF. (415) 788-5126, www.patriciasweetwogallery.com

• "Lutz Bacher: ODO"

Oct. 31–Dec.31. Ratio 3, 1447 Stevenson, SF. (415) 821-3371, www.ratio3.org

• Open Studios A step outside the galleries, museums, and art fairs — for better, for worse, and for real.

Oct. 11–Nov. 2. Various locations, SF. (415) 861-9838, www.artpsan.org

• "Dustin Fosnot: Simmons Beautyrest" Fosnot’s comic inventiveness should be a relief.

Oct. 14–Nov. 15. Steven Wolf Fine Arts, 49 Geary, suite 411, SF. (415) 263-3677. www.stevenwolffinearts.com

• "LA Paint" A survey of 11 painters, sure to fan a variety of Bay-and-LA flames.

Oct. 4–March 8, 2009. Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak, Oakl. (510) 238-2200, www.museumca.org

• "These are the People in Your Neighborhood" Mr. Rogers is quoted for this 15th birthday celebration including work by Libby Black and Xylor Jane, among others.

Sept. 12–Oct. 17. Gallery 16, 501 Third, SF, www.gallery16.com

•"Artists Ball Seven: The New Party" Stanlee Gatti and Mos Def, together at last.

Oct. 3. YBCA, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-2700, www.ybca.org

•"Warhol’s Jews: Ten Portraits Reconsidered" A prelude to "Warhol Live," which hits the de Young next year.

Oct. 12–Jan. 25, 2009. Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission, SF. (415) 655-7800, www.thecjm.org

>>More Fall Arts Preview

“Riot on Sunset Strip” film series

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PREVIEW Break out your go-go boots for this four-day flashback to Los Angeles’ 1960s experience hosted by Dominic Priore, author of Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Last Stand in Hollywood and Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson’s Lost Masterpiece. It kicks off with the 1968 counterculture grab-bag You Are What You Eat, a freeform documentary encompassing both the LA and San Francisco hippie scenes, plus appearances by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, David Crosby, Tiny Tim, Paul Butterfield, the Hells Angels, the Greta Garbo Home for Wayward Boys and Girls Too (an actual place), and notorious (and soon to be killed) SF dealer Super Spade. Next up: Roger Corman’s ’67 chestnut The Trip, in which Peter Fonda takes a heavy ride through the windmills of his mind. That same year’s lesser-remembered Riot on Sunset Strip, produced by the inimitable Sam Katzman (1967’s Hot Rods to Hell, 1953’s Killer Ape), tells the shocking story of reckless youth Andy (Mimsy Farmer), looking for kicks you-know-where to escape her broken home. Bummers ensue, not helped by a surreptitious acid-dosing freakout and the fact that Andy’s dad is an LAPD chief! Two great garage bands, the Standells and the Chocolate Watchband, perform onscreen in this epic about those daring (as the advertising put it) "teenyboppers with their too-tight capris." Finally, Chris Hall’s 2006 Love Story documents the brief rise and long fall of Arthur Lee’s Love, the cult-adored psychedelic pop band.

"RIOT ON SUNSET STRIP" film series runs Thurs/28–Sun/31 at the Red Vic Movie House. See Rep Clock for showtimes.

“Japanese Wolf”

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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

The circle game

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Say "Kumbaya," somebody. Despite vast differences in sound, intent, and commercial appeal, a thin yet unseverable bloodline connects the big, bold, Brill Building, pop-factory-perfect songcraft of Carole King, last heard coursing off the AM radio, and the stripped-raw, close-to-bare-bones rasp and moan of Tiny Vipers’ Jesy Fortino, delivered to a small clutch of listeners at the Elbo Room last year. Eyes squeezed shut, plucking her acoustic guitar beside just one other guitarist, Ben Cissner, she was a small dark star, poured fully concentrated into the sparse minor key chords of "Swastika," and, as gutsy as the loudest reaches of the underground, she sang as if her life depended on it: "If I would let you into my heart / Would you thank the Lord / Would you tear it apart?"

Superficially, so far away — doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore? — from King’s monumental oeuvre, which seems almost incidental amid the gushy, gossipy tidbits propelling Sheila Weller’s bio, Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and the Journey of a Generation (Atria), concerning King’s beleaguered marriage to her first husband and songwriting partner, Gerry Goffin, with whom she wrote such songs as "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," among many other classic pop numbers, even after he fathered a child with one of the pair’s vocalists. Likewise Weller makes much of Mitchell’s out-of-wedlock daughter and penchant for using her songs to seduce paramours like Leonard Cohen, Graham Nash, and James Taylor — the last often credited with spurring the singer-songwriter movement and acting as a unifying thread between Mitchell, King, and Simon — and Simon’s uninhibited, proto-pro-sex feminist "eroticism"; read: sex in a cab was "no problem." Yet as remote as the early-’70s phenomenon of the singer-songwriter seems, the form appears to have returned: could this be the revival of core values of craft and voice, the intimacy and immediacy of a writer on a single instrument, during a tumultuous time for the music industry, post-Auto-Tuned disasters and Ashlee Simpson lip-synch blowouts — the adult flip-side to the bubblegum remnants of High School Musical, Miley Cyrus, and the Jonas Brothers?

The initial energy of so many turn-of-the-millennium garage rock bands may have petered and innumerable hip-hop artists may have turned toward dully materialistic navel-gazing, so hail the return of the soft-spoken singer-songwriter who can break down a tunes to its bare, unadorned components. The stars are aligned; the signs, apparent: from Outside Lands headliner Jack Johnson landing at the top of the Billboard 200 chart with his latest album, Sleeping Through the Static (Brushfire/Universal), earlier this year, to ex–Castro Theatre ticket-taker, proudly folkie Devendra Banhart being adopted by Parisian couturiers and glitterati, from the MySpace-inspired success of Colbie Caillat and Kate Nash to the iTunes-buttressed popularity of Eureka native Sara Bareilles — hell, not to mention everyone and their dog documenting their solo acoustic version of "Bubbly" and posting the video on YouTube. This quiet flurry of activity undoubtedly whetted someone’s appetite for all things unplugged.

Those with eyes trained on pop cycles might point to the rise of antiwar sentiments throughout the country, coupling it with the renewed attention given to the softer, sincere sounds of singer-songwriters — a worthy theory, though apart from the many unfortunate CD-Rs of anti-Bush agit-pop that crossed my desk during the last two presidential elections, the generally apolitical vibe of the music from this crop of singer-songwriters seems to belie that notion: championing green issues are as didactic as these writers get. Instead this current wave of earnest songsmiths has more to do with both a reaction against the insincere, canned, possibly un-nutritious mainstream boy-band and Britney-centric breed of pop from the recent past — the likes of which could only be enjoyed with a semi-size dose of irony — and a response to an easy access of technology, which allows just about anyone and their mutt to make their own music at home, bypassing Brill Building–style hit-factories.

This time, the slew of sensitive men — solo fliers ranging from Iron and Wine, Conor Oberst, and Adam Green to Josh Ritter, Jonathan Rice, and Ray LaMontagne — sequestered behind acoustic guitars or pianos, working freak-folk, soft-rock, commercial pop, and Grey’s Anatomy–friendly veins, are being almost eclipsed by the multitude of womanly singer-songwriters. Natural women all, including Feist, Kimya Dawson, JayMay, Brandi Shearer, Yael Naim, and Ingrid Michaelson, among others. As much as King, Mitchell, and Simon are considered mothers of these singer-songwriters — along with predecessors like Woodside resident Joan Baez and ’60s folk hit mistress Judy Collins and successors like the many estrogen-laden ladies of the ’90s Lilith Fair outings — so too are indie sisters Liz Phair, Sarah Dougher, and Cat Power, a holy trinity to homemade, once-bedroom-bound DIY divas who make their own clothes, hope to carve out their own path, and find their own vox.

Of course, one can’t discount the release of resurrections and reissues of neglected and forgotten femme singer-songwriters such as Vashti Bunyan and Ruthann Friedmann and late greats Judee Sill and Karen Dalton, whose latest private recordings were unearthed via Green Rocky Road (Delmore) in June. And Mitchell’s unique guitar tunings, experimental mindset, and maidenlike purity of sound has made her one of the most oft-referenced artists of the last few years, thanks to such explicit shout-outs as Wayfaring Strangers’ Ladies from the Canyon (Numero, 2006). But no less influential is Phair, whose classic Exile in Guyville (Matador) got the royal reissue treatment this summer: her pro-sex, third-wave feminist, Midwestern rejoinder to riot grrrl writ large, with a gatefold sleeve and a slip of naughty nipple peeking through. At the same time, Dougher — cover girl in Johnny Ray Huston’s take on the last, more-riot grrrl-centered singer-songwriter movement in the Guardian about a decade ago — took a more polemical tack on the Northwest coast with her K Records releases, while working tangibly for greater female rock visibility by organizing the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls and teaching courses on the history of women in rock at Portland State University.

But Chan Marshall, a.k.a. Cat Power, appears set to be the Joni Mitchell of this generation — even as Marshall has largely turned her back on originals with her latest Jukebox (Matador). The Seattle-based Fortino’s almost gothic melodrama seems to draw more than a little inspiration from Marshall’s What Would the Community Think (Matador, 1996), while San Francisco transplant Thao Nguyen of Thao and the Get Down Stay Down borrows Marshall’s clarion-call, half-sung, half-spoken phrasing for her far more fancy-free, loose-limbed, and shambling songs. Nguyen sounds positively, happily tipsy on the old-timey bounce, finger clicks, and sandpapery soft-shoe shuffle on We Brave Bee Stings and All (Kill Rock Stars).

Yet Marshall’s most indebted sib might be Emily Jane White, 27, whose Dark Undercoat (Double Negative) evokes the former’s haunted and haunting, hollowed-out sensuality as well as her songwriting savvy and way with a hook. "Everybody’s got a little hole in the middle / Everybody does a little dance with the devil," the Oakland singer-songwriter croons on her "Hole in the Middle," sliding around the curves of this verb or the other and letting her voice drift off into the meaningful silences between the words.

The surprise is that this intensely eerie, closely miked singer-songwriter also turns out to be one of the more deliberately political-minded. Of "Hole," she said recently while breaking from the recording her second album with Greg Ashley, "I originally wrote that in response to the war in Iraq when that first started. Yeah, it’s about American imperialism."

And perhaps that’s the key to why the music by this former member of an all-girl band, the Diamond Star Halos — much like those seemingly apolitical numbers by other singer-songwriters — has increasingly relevance today: White and other crooners are foregrounding the everyday loves as well as the overseas skirmishes in a way that transcends the desensitizing glut and so-called objectivity of news headlines, sound-bites, and bloggable blurbs — and acutely personalizes it all. Call it the resensitizing of pop.

"I’ve always believed that your personal experience is political," says White, echoing the first wave feminist tenets, "and everyone has a story to tell, about how they’ve lived their lives and what has happened to them, and the experiences they’ve gone through. Not that what I think I do is revolutionary or anything, but one positive thing about being a singer-songwriter is people have contacted me and said they’ve felt a strong sense of encouragement or inspiration, so I think putting myself out there says something."

Emily Jane White plays Aug. 22, 8 p.m., $8, at the Uptown, 1928 Telegraph, Oakl. www.uptownnightclub.com

Singing softly, carrying big ideas

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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

Cheap eights

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› le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com

CHEAP EATS On my way home one morning from another night of urban debauchery followed by very little and very disturbed sleep, I happened to glance at my little pickup truck’s odometer at the exact moment it turned to 88,088. You want to mark these moments, if you’re me, but of course you can’t. At 60 mph, you have, what, one minute to revel in the numerological significance of the big event?

Well, guess what? One minute is enough time to realize that, hey, the day was Friday, Aug. 8, or 8/8/08! Which I very quietly celebrated for 12 seconds (two-tenths of a mile) before going, Hey, I wonder what time it is? Because I left the city at 6:45 and I’m on Stony Point Road, approaching Pepper, so…. No way!

Yes way. It was 7:52, exactly, by my cell phone, which never has enough signal for meaningful conversation but always stays connected to the sun. Or however they do that.

So, to summarize, at eight minutes to 8 a.m. on 8/8/08, my car’s odometer read, 88,088, and just like that your chicken farmer truly had herself a new favorite number.

Yeah yeah yeah, but what did you eat that day? Well, since you asked, I ate oatmeal with blackberries for breakfast as soon as I got home and picked me some blackberries. Then I ate a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich with a pile of home fries for lunch. And then I ate some chicken soup with lots of hot sauce for dinner.

In-between meals I ate the first couple apples off my apple tree, and I ate some sunflower seeds, and popcorn of course, and a poached pear. Poached in the sense of I stole it off someone else’s tree. Oh, and I ate a cucumber salad. All these things I ate. Since you asked.

And notwithstanding all this eating and eight-ing, it was an unremarkable day. In fact, an unlucky one. I had planned to stay home all day to sign for my new laptop, which never came because FedEx couldn’t find my house. Which is what I get, I suppose, for living in a shack.

Come to think of it, eight was my first favorite number. Thanks to Ray Fosse, whom I was in love with. For no apparent reason. I remember that, thanks to Ray Fosse, eight was my first big-deal birthday. Which (for the record, by the way, so you know) I turned on May 21, 1971. Or: 5/21 (5+2+1), ’71 (7+1) … and … oh, I’m just fucking with you now.

I mean, it’s all true, and my math, I believe, is good. But I’m a reasonable chicken farmer. I have a level head and square shoulders and two flat feet on the ground — except, I guess, when I’m flying over fences with a hatchet in my hand, chasing deer. Which I do, if you believe everything you read in the paper.

Anyway, like I was saying, new laptop. As you know, I finally broke down and got an actual cell phone. Plus my first-ever iPod. I am totally geared and gadgetized now for a serious bid to re-enter the world as most people I know know it. My chickens shudder at the thought, but I am even looking to move back to civilization — not so FedEx can find me so much as that’s where I work now. In civilization. With people and everything! At least part-time, but I haven’t had me even a part-time job since the late ’80s. No lie.

I’ve been buttering my bread and bringing home the bacon as a musician and a writer, respectively. And all along, as you know (if you’ve been paying attention), my true ambition has been to work in the service industry.

Is feeding kids, changing diapers, and cooking dinner the service industry? If so, I am almost there! Last week I opened an actual savings account. And I know what you’re thinking, right now, if you like Cheap Eats and Eights. You’re thinking, "Don’t quit your day job."

I won’t.

—————————————-

My new favorite restaurant is King Sing Chinese Cuisine because its name is practically a song. At lunchtime on a Sunday there was nobody there, and the weirdest show ever on TV instead of the Olympics. Some kind of Chinese reality variety show with fire-jumping, sleight-of-handing, and iron-cheffing. Plus cute cute girls and hot hot guys. Both waiters were standing in front of the TV with their hands behind their backs, mesmerized. Wanted to ask for an explanation, but asked instead for the fish fillet with tender greens.

KING SING CHINESE CUISINE

Sun.–Tue. and Thu.–Sat.; 11 a.m.–9:30 p.m.

501 Balboa, SF

(415) 387-6038

Beer

MC/V

Sun protection failures

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› amanda@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Have you ever spent a day at the beach, dutifully slathering yourself with sunscreen — only to return home with the unmistakable prickle of a sunburn?

It’s probably because your sunscreen isn’t doing what it claims, according to a recent analysis conducted by the Washington, DC–based Environmental Working Group. The nonpartisan, nonprofit group known for watchdogging consumer products studied 952 sunscreens with a sun protection factor (SPF) of 15 or higher and discovered that 80 percent contain harmful chemicals and didn’t really protect skin from the most damaging rays of the sun.

And, the report charged, the three top selling sunscreen companies — Coppertone, Banana Boat, and Neutrogena — produce some of the most toxic and useless products. Even ones you might find on the shelves of your health food store, like Alba organic lavender sunscreen, contain oxybenzone, which allegedly disrupts hormones.

Although there is no definitive science on the effects of oxybenzone, studies have shown that "mothers with high levels of oxybenzone in their systems were more likely to have low birth weight baby girls," said Rebecca Sutton, a staff scientist with a PhD in environmental chemistry who works for the Oakland office of EWG.

Julie Lux, a spokesperson for Coppertone, said the company’s products are reviewed by independent scientists and dermatologists and said she’s "concerned that reports like the one released by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) will inappropriately discourage consumers from protecting themselves from the sun."

Ariel Kern, a spokesperson for Sun Pharmaceuticals, said the company "stands behind the safety and efficacy of Banana Boat products" and Iris Grossman, a spokesperson for Neutrogena, said that company’s products have been patented and tested.

A sunscreen’s SPF indicates protection from the short-wave UVB rays that cause sunburn, but it’s the long-wave ultraviolet radiation (UVA) that is more directly linked to cancer. Even so, protecting against UVA radiation isn’t currently required. Furthermore, nearly 50 percent of the products tested by EWG deteriorated in the sun, "raising questions about whether these products last as long as the label says," read the report.

The Food and Drug Administration has the authority to regulate sunscreens, but the agency’s standards have been a 30-year work in progress and are relatively limited. Despite a congressional mandate to update the regs by May 2006, the FDA is just now entering the latter stages of its rulemaking, spokesperson Rita Chappelle told us.

Currently the agency is proposing more thorough labeling protocols, including a new four-star system for UVA protection. Additionally, sunscreens manufacturers will not be allowed to say that their products are waterproof, and the upper threshold of SPF will rise from 30 to 50+.

In an attempt to light a fire under the FDA, Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) have introduced the Sunscreen Labeling Protection Act of 2008, which would require finalized sunscreen safety standards within 180 days.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal released a statement supporting the legislation. "The FDA has failed to implement proposed sunscreen labeling rules that would bar false claims about all-day protection, waterproof, broad spectrum UVA/UVB protection, and SPF over 50," he wrote.

Claims on the label are also a factor in the potential danger of sunscreens. "With claims like ‘all day protection’ people don’t reapply," Sutton said.

Though EWG’s analysis (which can be found at www.cosmeticdatabase.com was criticized as "junk science" by one doctor cited in a New York Times report, the group stands by its work. "We use industry standard methods, so it’s hard for criticism to stand," Sutton said.

EWG’s ratings were based on three factors: UVB protection, which SPF indicates; UVA protection, which blocks the more harmful rays; and overall stability of the ingredients. The group recommends that sunbathers search for products with zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, which are less readily absorbed by the skin and provide more of a physical barrier between users and the sun. While these minerals may be safe on your skin, they’re not so great in your lungs. So give the spray and powder versions a pass, and beware products that have been reduced to nanoparticle size.

And, of course, spend more time in the shade.

Those poor Romanians

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I’m surprised that this blogger is the only one who seems to have picked up on the NBC announcers’ astonishing comments that the Romanian gymnastics team would have been better off if the coach was still being mean and harsh to the girls.

In the days of Nadia Comaneci, “there would have been no hugs” for a performer who fell off the balance beam,” the sportscasters said after a disappointing performance.

That’s right: Beat and abuse the children, and they’ll do much better in prime time. Thanks, NBC.

Lollapalooza day three: Waiting for Barack, word to Kanye’s mom, Kid Sister’s pure gold

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kanye sml.jpg
West is the best? Photo by Angela Smith.

By K. Tighe

I arrived on the southern end of Grant Park just in time to catch Kid Sister on day three, Aug. 3, of Lollapalooza. The Chicago local has some major heat behind her – due in no small part to her recently garnered role as Kanye West’s protégé. With her mentor headlining on the same stage later tonight, it seemed likely that we’d get at least a cameo during “Pro Nails,” but no such luck. What we did get was a gaggle of bikini-laden ladies painted in gold, dancing around the stage.

“Give it up for the golden ladies! I call ’em the Golden Girls, we got them right off of Michigan Avenue, right from Old Navy,” said the cute-as-a-button MC.

Decked out in a pseudo-afro, purple dress and golden stilettos with a face full of jewels, Kid Sister looked every inch the superstar, despite her 12:15 p.m. time slot. For “Pro Nails,” West was a no-show (word from security is that he wouldn’t be arriving until just before his set), but Kid Sis had the audience eating out of her hands, singing along to the chorus, “Got my toes done up / and my fingernails matching,” while three funky spandexed dancers gave us a shoe on golden-painted chairs.

Optic nerve

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› johnny@sfbg.com

This is the second year that the Guardian has devoted an issue to local photographers. I’ll wait until it happens a third time before deeming the project an annual endeavor. It’s easy to believe in that possibility, because the range of photography in the Bay Area right now is exceptional. This great state of affairs is partly due to spaces and organizations such as SF Camerawork, RayKo Photo Center, and PhotoAlliance. It’s also due to more do-it-yourself street-level groups such as Hamburger Eyes and one of this issue’s 10 contributors, Cutter Photozine.

Last year’s photography issue focused on portraiture, but this year I’ve opted for a survey approach that allows for spontaneous connections. Jessica Rosen and Sean McFarland both utilize collage, but with vastly different results. Keba Konte’s collage aesthetic adds objects to imagery and links history to autobiography. Investigative work leads to political or societal exposure within Trevor Paglen’s and David Maisel’s photography. Adrianne Fernandez and Bayeté Ross-Smith focus on youth as they bring new twists to traditions such as the family album and the prom portrait. Dustin Aksland’s portraiture also includes teenagers, sometimes plopped onto or stopped within American landscapes, while Mimi Plumb likens rural landscapes to the backs of horses.

August may be when summer winds down and a portion of SF prepares to camp elsewhere, but it’s an important time for local photography. This issue coincides with PhotoAlliance’s and the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery’s annual exhibition of local photographers. Two of the 10 artists on the following pages are part of that show. American photography also will be playing a major role at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art next year, when that space presents an exhibition devoted to Robert Frank and his classic monograph The Americans (Steidl).

In honor of an old adage or clichéd truth, there aren’t a lot of words next to the pictures that follow. But the text does include Web site information. In most cases, these photographers’ sites function as another gallery of sorts, one that lacks the tactile nature and dimensions of an actual photograph but at least suggests the variety of a body of work to date. Scope them out, and scope out Pixel Vision, the Guardian‘s arts and culture blog, for interviews and other photography-related pieces this week. Last, before you look, some thanks are due to Glen Helfand, Chuck Mobley, and Mirissa Neff for their help in the selection process, and to Kat Renz for a last-minute idea.

Also in this issue:

>>Killer shots from the bowels of rock

>>Before stalkerazzi, there was Gary Lee Boas

>>Q&A with Heather Renee Russ of Cutter Photozine

>>Q&A with Jessica Rosen

>>Molly Decoudreaux looks beneath local nightlife
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NAME Adrianne Fernandez

TITLE Daddy Sends His Love

BACKGROUND In my "Alternative Album" project, the interplay of social and personal history is essential. It yields a complex tension between irony and nostalgia for the so-called family album.

SHOUT OUTS My influences include artists such as Larry Sultan and Elinor Carruci, who have worked with their prospective families to create intimate images that provide a compelling look into family dynamics.

SHOWS "Gender Agenda," through Sept. 14. The Gallery Project, Ann Arbor, Mich. www.thegalleryproject.com. Also "Not Your Mama’s World," Fri/8 through Sept. 9. Washington Gallery of Photography, Bethesda, Md. www.wsp-photo.com

WEB AlternativeAlbum@aol.com

———-

NAME Jessica Rosen

TITLE I Could See the Amazon from the 5th Floor of the Robert Fulton Projects
BACKGROUND This work is a large-scale photo collage installation made from cut-up, layered C-prints of my original photographs. It measures about 10 feet by 12 feet. Because this scale relates to human scale, it allows the viewer to experience the image as an environment rather than as an isolated image.

SHOUT OUTS My work stems from a fascination with people. Over the years my art practice has continually focused on portraiture. Although my newer collage works may seem quite fantastic, most are truly portraits in the traditional sense.

SHOW "Jessica Rosen," through Oct. 1. Open 24/7 (storefront window). Keys That Fit, 2312 Telegraph Ave, Oakl., http://www.xaul.com/KEYS/home.html

WEB www.jessicarosen.com

———-

NAME Cutter Photozine

TITLE Top to bottom, untitled photos by (1) Ethan Indorf; (2) Keith Aguiar; (3) Ace Morgan; (4) Darcy Sharpe

BACKGROUND Cutter is a San Francisco documentary photo magazine. Founded by Heather Renee Russ and Alison O’Connell, it has a DIY ethic and is eco-positive (it uses recycled paper and soy-based inks). Cole Blevins, Jesse Rose Roberts, Sara Seinberg, and Rachel Styer also worked to put out the first issue, which includes 20 photographers and spotlights Ace Morgan’s uncanny blend of rage, longing, joy, and punk rock.

SHOUT OUTS Cutter is dedicated to people telling their stories and documenting their existence. We seek to undo traditional voyeurism toward the "other" and place the power of sight in the focused home of the author.

SHOW The first issue can be purchased at local shops such as Needles & Pens. They’re currently accepting submissions for the second issue, due this fall. There will be a release party and photo show in late November.

WEB www.cutterphotozine.com

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NAME David Maisel

TITLE 1165 (from Library of Dust)

BACKGROUND The large-scale photographs of the "Library of Dust" series depict individual copper canisters, dating from 1913 to 1971, which contain unclaimed cremated remains of patients from Oregon’s state-run psychiatric hospital.

SHOUT OUTS Robert Smithson, NASA photographs, 19th-century exploratory landscape photographers (especially Timothy O’Sullivan), and the New Topographics photographers from the mid-1970s.

SHOW "David Maisel: Library of Dust," Sept. 4–Oct. 4. Tues.–Fri., 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.; Sat., 10:30 a.m.–5 p.m. Haines Gallery, 49 Geary (suite 540), SF. (415) 397-8114, www.hainesgallery.com. Library of Dust (Chronicle Books, 108 pages, $80) will be released in October.

WEB www.davidmaisel.com

———-

NAME Keba Konte

TITLE Detail from "888 Pieces of We"

BACKGROUND The eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year is approaching, and in alignment with this auspicious moment I have created this exhibition of 888 photographs printed on wood, copper, and vintage books. I’ve had to select from thousands of images spanning 42 years in order to choose 888 that reflect my journey: there are protests and portraits, street moments and political movements; freaks, friends, and family members. As a documentary and portrait photographer, one observes the beautiful strangers. However, looking at this large body of work, another story comes into focus: my own.

SHOUT OUTS Roy DeCarava, Gordon Parks, Sebastião Salgado, Ruth Bernhard, Kimara Dixon.

SHOW "888 Pieces of We: A Photo Memoir," Fri/8 through Sept. 8. Oakland Art Gallery, 199 Kahn’s Alley, Oakl. (510) 637-0395, www.oaklandartgallery.org

WEB www.kebakonte.com

———-

NAME Sean McFarland

TITLES Untitled (park)

BACKGROUND I work from an archive of photographs I’ve made, along with images gathered from print and other media. Through collage, new pictures are formed. Recently my work has focused on weather, nighttime, and the ocean.

SHOUT OUTS For now, two books: National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Weather, (Knopf, 1991), and Gerhard Richter’s Atlas (D.A.P., 2007). Also, students, friends, and just about any archive.

SHOWS "18 Months: Taking the Pulse of Bay Area Photography," through Sept. 17. Mon.–Fri., 8 a.m.–8 p.m. San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery at City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlet Place, SF. (415) 554-6080, www.sfacgallery.org. Upcoming: "Johanna St. Clare, Paul Wackers, Sean McFarland, Dan Carlson," October. Thurs.–Sat., 1–5 p.m. Eleanor Harwood Gallery, 1295 Alabama, SF.

WEB www.sean-mcfarland.com

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NAME Dustin Aksland

TITLE Paso Robles, CA (2005)

BACKGROUND This was shot during a trip to Paso Robles. My friend and I pulled off the highway to take the back roads into town. As soon as we pulled off, we passed this man sleeping in his car. We went about a half-mile and I made my friend turn around. We pulled up in front of the car and I shot two frames out of the passenger window.

INSPIRATION "Useful pictures don’t start from ideas, they start from seeing." — Robert Adams.

SHOWS "States of Mind," September. TH Inside, Brussels, Belgium. "States of Mind," November. TH Inside, Copenhagen, Denmark.

WEB www.dustinaksland.com

———-

NAME Bayeté Ross-Smith

TITLE Here Come the Girls

BACKGROUND This is part of a series that documents high school students in Berkeley, east Oakland, San Francisco, and Richmond as they mark their ascension from childhood to adulthood through the celebratory rite of passage known as prom. Taking a cue from traditional prom photos, the portraits allow for seriousness and playful flamboyance, depicting a vast array of budding identities.

SHOUT OUTS Walter Iooss, the Magnum photographers, and James Van Der Zee.

SHOW "Pomp and Circumstance: First Time to Be Adults," Sept. 4–Oct. 11. Tues.–Fri., 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.; Sat., 10:30 a.m.–5 p.m. Patricia Sweetow Gallery, 77 Geary (mezzanine), SF. (415) 788-5126, www.patriciasweetwogallery.com. Upcoming: "Off Color," Sept. 19–Nov. 1. RUSH Arts Gallery, New York.

WEB www.patriciasweetowgallery.com

———-

NAME Mimi Plumb

TITLE Harley

BACKGROUND These photos are part of an ongoing series that began about 10 years ago when I photographed a herd in the John Muir Wilderness of the Sierra Nevada. The horses in this new series live in Petaluma.

SHOUT OUTS Horses’ backs embody the landscape. They become the horizon and horizon line, at times transforming into the rolling hills of the California landscape where I grew up, before tract houses and strip malls became the norm.

SHOW "18 Months: Taking the Pulse of Bay Area Photography," through Sept. 17. Mon.–Fri., 8 a.m.–8 p.m. San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery at City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlet Place, SF. (415) 554-6080, www.sfacgallery.org

WEB www.mimiplumb.com

———-

NAME Trevor Paglen

TITLE KEYHOLE 12-3 (IMPROVED CRYSTAL) Near Scorpio (USA 129), 2007

BACKGROUND This is a photo of reconnaissance satellite, taken from the roof of my house in Berkeley. It’s part of a series of photos of American spy satellites.

SHOUT OUTS I got interested in photography because I was working on projects that were nonfiction allegories, projects that played with notions of truth and what we can and can’t see. To me, photography is the medium that does that best. It captures reality and at the same time doesn’t. I like that tension. I also became interested in photography post-9/11 because photography became an aggressive gesture in a way that it wasn’t before — people could be arrested for photographing the Brooklyn Bridge. The act of taking photographs outside became an exercise in civil rights.

SHOWS "The Other Night Sky," through Sept. 14. Wed.–Sun., 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft, Berk. (510) 642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. Upcoming: Taipei Biennial, Sept. 13–Jan. 11, 2009; Istanbul Biennial, 2009; "2008 SECA Art Award Winners," Feb.–May, 2009, SFMOMA.

WEB www.paglen.com

Baghead: There’s more to it than just mumbling

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By Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

It’s difficult to call most films independent nowadays. But the Duplass Brothers’ 2005 Sundance sleeper The Puffy Chair is as Indie as an American feature film can be. Made for $15,000, it brought the grit of John Cassavetes and the introspection of Richard Linklater to a whole new generation. Now considered to be part of the godfathers of “Mumblecore,” a genre defined by this generation’s talkative nature, the Duplass brothers have returned with their follow-up. Baghead is a hilarious and often unsettling stalker film that delves into the personal relationship minutia and woes of two guys and two girls who are trying to write a screenplay together in remote cabin.

baghead1.jpg
Um, Baghead

Both of the Duplass brothers, Mark and Jay, were recently in San Francisco for an interview on a windy summer afternoon.

Mark Duplass: There’s this book that someone sent to us once to maybe adapt into a movie about a couple who had a lot of trouble breaking up. They would break up, get back together, break up, and get back together. So they basically picked their 10 favorite things from the relationship that they loved to do, and they were gonna do all those things and then end the relationship after completing them. Great concept, but it ended up being really bad. I thought it would be great if, while they were trying to do those things, they came upon more obstacles. But the book ends with: since they can’t live with each other and they can’t live without each other, they do a double suicide in a poetic and oblique way.

SFBG: So you’d have to ruin the book if you adapted it into a film.

MD: Yeah, which we’ve done before.

Fishing for hooks

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Jackson, Miss., might not top everyone’s cities-to-see list, but Juan Velazquez of Chino band Abe Vigoda makes it sound like a damn fun place to play a show. "Everyone was really psyched, and there were a bunch of younger people there," raved Velazquez by phone while en route from Atlanta to Athens, Ga. "It was really, really fun." He and the rest of the band are pretty young themselves: they’re currently taking a break from their work and collegiate studies to tour across the states with their cloudy pop homies in No Age, fellow fixtures at the Smell in downtown Los Angeles.

Making time has allowed the four-year-old Abe Vigoda some taking of time, especially with the recording process. They just released their third full-length, Skeleton (PPM), which sharpens their tightly wound, clanging sensibilities into a set of songs more aggressively constructed than anything they’ve committed to tape before.

Various listeners and critics have been trumpeting Abe Vigoda’s racket as "tropical punk/pop," a label that the band sees little reason to complain about, even if it is arbitrary pigeonholing to a certain degree. "People like to make up genres for things, and I’m a little tired of it, especially because a lot of our new songs aren’t like that," Velazquez said. "But nobody’s calling it ‘shit punk’ or ‘shit rock,’ so it’s OK." Shit it is not. The record reveals itself to be a few shades darker than its murky production on repeat listens, but its enthusiasm and refined approach makes Skeleton Abe Vigoda’s first record that allows listeners to dig deeper. Songs like "Cranes" and "Hyacinth Girls" have an Afro-pop beat, care of drummer Reggie Guerrero and corroborated by David Reichart’s bass playing, and the zap-gun guitars of "Endless Sleeper" collide in rousing, unusually anthemic fashion.

To produce their wire-crossed jangle, Velazquez explains that the group’s other singer-guitarist Michael Vidal plays "thick-sounding and full" chords on his guitar in standard tuning, while Velazquez employs an alternate tuning that he’s been using since 2007’s Kid City (Olfactory) and a Ricky Wilson–esque employment of single, finger-picked notes. "It’s more jarring live because we’re playing very high frequencies that are off from each other — harsh, ringing, and kinda kraut rock–sounding."

Although the group has become more traditional in its song structure, it’s not really "pop" that they put together: their cataclysmic, yelping noise of yore has given way to a polyrhythmic pogo twist with opportunities aplenty for fist-shaking and epic metalhead finger-waving.

ABE VIGODA

With No Age and Mika Miko

Mon/28, 8 p.m., $13

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com

Also Club Sandwich’s second anniversary with No Age, Mika Miko, and KIT

Tues/29, 7 p.m., $8

Lobot Gallery

1800 Campbell, Oakl.

www.clubsandwichbayarea.com

For more on the show and No Age, see this week’s Sonic Reducer.

America, meet your new gay bachelor

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Yes, the meat is in! But first, let us pause for some sad news. Estelle Getty, beloved Golden Girl, has passed on to that pastel lanai in the sky. (queer tear.)

estelea.jpg

Yet we move on … to myPartner.com‘s crowning, last week, of America’s Most Eligible Gay Bachelor. It was inevitable, I guess, and my inbox has been absolutely flooded of late with what the more or less cynical among us would regard as desperate capitalization on the whole legal same-sex marriage thing. But I must admit that myPartner is a tad genius. It set itself up before the California Supreme Court ruling as a matchmaking site for gays looking for “long-lasting relationships” — kind of a Bizarro Manhunt, except that Manhunt’s recently evolved into the gay MySpace (it’s no longer crossing the line to know what your bff’s dick looks like, zomg). It all seemed a bit confusing initially, especially since the promotional materials featured hot shirtless guys rolling around in bed and promised the possibility of “making connections” on business trips out of town. Slutty! Hedging their bets! But when that ruling came down, myPartner was perfectly positioned to pimp its romantic fantasy wares, and boy did it jump on that shit with this nationwide Most Eligible Gay Bachelor contest. Good for them.

But enough of that — let’s get to the goods. Here he is ladies and gentlemens, after 35,000 big gay online votes (that’s 350,000 in heterosexual votes!) and a live runoff in San Diego during Pride Week, your new husband on the hoof (with foof) is …. Abel Lima, Mr. Rhode Island, who, oddly perhaps, resides right here in San Francisco!

abel2a.jpg
Just look at that smile! He won $25,000.
Photo by Tara Luz Stevens.

Abel was the winner, out of five finalists, based on high ratings in the category of “mind,” “body,” and “soul.” No word on how he did in the quantum mechanics portion of the contest. Coming in 2020: Most Eligible Gay Widower contest. It’s the Golden Girls all over again!

To scope the other contestants — rather handsome I must say, although I’m still into Polk Street hustlers badly in need of dentistry — click here.

Sneaky Creek

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TORSTEN KRETCHZMAR


What is it that makes Torsten Kretchzmar so different, so alluring? Perhaps it’s that he knows what girls like — as proven in the music video for "I Know What Girls Like," where the bespectacled German wins a barroom bro-down against a bunch of pool-playing dudes. Perhaps it’s because he’s the best Teutonic electropop icon since Klaus Nomi rocketed up to the sky. Or perhaps it’s because he’s — quite frankly — hot. Whatever the case, all will be screaming with Kretchzmarmaniac glee when he takes the stage. (Johnny Ray Huston) With Freddy McGuire, Justine Electra, and Katrina Lamb. July 16, 8 p.m., $5–$15 sliding scale. New Langton Arts, 1246 Folsom, (415) 626-5416

JEL


Oakland sound collagist Jeffrey Logan impressed the heck outta everyone and their brothers with his artful Soft Money (Anticon, 2006). Next up, a putf8um single, which will guarantee plastic surgery for his entire family. (Kimberly Chun) With the Sixteens, the Fucking Ocean, and NED. July 17, 9 p.m., $7. Eagle Tavern, 398 12th St., SF. (415) 626-0880

EXTRA ACTION MARCHING BAND VS. WHAT CHEER?


Can’t wait for the battle of the brass? The blood-spitting firestarters of the Bay’s EAMB kick off MCMF, and the 18-piece Providence, R.I., ensemble WC closes it with oodles of horn-dog action. (Chun) Extra Action Marching Band with Nurses, Fluff Girl, and Butt holes Urfers. July 18, 9 p.m., $8. Eagle Tavern, 398 12th St., SF. (415) 626-0880. What Cheer? with Tiger Honey Pot, MGM Grand, and Super Secreta Especiale July 20, 3:30 p.m. (all-ages show), $5. Million Fishes Gallery, 2501 Bryant, SF. www.millionfishes.com. What Cheer? with Super Secreta Especiale July 20, 8 p.m., $10. Amnesia Bar, 853 Valencia, SF. (415) 970-0012

ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFFITI


He’s baaack. (Chun) With Anavan, Late Young, Rainbow Arabia, and Hecuba. July 18, 9 p.m., $10-$15. Cellspace, 2050 Bryant, SF. (415) 648-7562

EARLIMART


There is life after Elliott Smith. The former Fresno-nauts have scored mucho acclaim for their layered, sonically enriched new album — pun alert — Hymn and Her (Majordomo). It’s the third most added college-radio album in the nation to boot. (Chun) With Built Like Alaska and the Parson Red Heads. July 19, 9:30 p.m., $14. Café Du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016

LADY GENIUS


Volunteer Pioneer is gone but not forgotten: this SF fivesome formed in the ashes of guitarist Jason Byers’ and vocalist-multi-instrumentalist Kyle Williams’ group, emphasizing the pop bliss of boy-girl harmonies. Wait for it, wait for it: their first EP on Gold Robot Records. (Chun) With Huff This, Gwendolyn, and the Parish. July 19, 9 p.m., $7. Hotel Utah, 500 Fourth St., SF. (415) 546-6300

Sonic Reducer Overage: Police cuff Elvis, Sun City Girls gather kudos, Flobots love those “Handlebars,’ and more

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The Sun City Girls also rise.

Too much time on your hands? Guitar Hero III and Gossip Girl not doing it for you? Have I got some high-quality musical fun for you.

Maria Taylor
The Omaha, Neb., songstress strips it all down for her latest release, the digital EP Savannah Drive, while teaming with Now It’s Overhead’s Andy LeMaster. Wed/9, 9 p.m., $12-$14. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455.

Sun City Girls and Charles Gocher Tribute
Alan and Richard Bishop keep picking up kudos for their acoustic performances – Will Oldham recently praised their recent Slim’s show. This time around they present a 40-minute film of Charles Gocher’s videos, The Handsome Stranger. Thurs/10, 9:30 p.m., $13-$15. Maxwell’s, 341 13th St., Oakl. www.maxwellslounge.com

Tilly and the Wall’s top picks for players

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Hey, Tilly, whatcha listening to? Oh, right, I mean, Neely Jenkins, one of Tilly and the Wall’s vocalists. What do the energizer kids of TATW listen to on their off-hours? Read the first part of Jenkins’ interview here.

FIVE IN TILLY AND THE WALL’S NEELY JENKINS’ CAR
• Sparks
• “A compilation my friend made of reggae music, which I didn’t used to be able to stand, but as of recently, I’m really starting to enjoy.”
• Sigur Rós
• Cyndi Lauper. “We played a festival in Japan, and she was playing the same stage. She brought me to tears with ‘Time after Time.’ It was so insanely good. During the last song she said, ‘I’m going to need some help from the ladies,’ and she pulled us onstage for ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun.’ I had tears of joy pouring down my face.”
• The Smiths. “That’s always a constant in my life. They always make me super-happy.”

Centiclubs

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER "It’s like an old ship. Things break, things fall apart, and you just keep bailing water and hope you hit land someday!"

That’s Guy Carson, Café Du Nord owner and ex-Hotel Utah booker, on owning a 100-year-old club. Yes, there are the inevitable aches and pains attendant with a structure erected just two years after the great ‘quake, as well as eerie little trap doors and escape hatches from the Prohibition era. But, oh, the stories the Du Nord, House of Shields, and Hotel Utah — a troika of oases overflowing with libation and live music that have all hit the century mark in the past year — could tell. ‘Member the time PJ Harvey played a not-so-secret show at the Utah, triggering round-the-block queues? Or the first San Francisco show by rock legends the Zombies at the Du Nord? Or the rumored gunfight played out by Comstock Lode robber baron William Sharon in front of his then-men’s social club, now known as the House of Shields?

‘Course you don’t. So much has been lost in the mists of Bay Area mythology and Barbary Coast conjecture. But there’s always word of mouth — in full effect at the shambling, loving June 19 celebration of the Utah’s centennial, as Birdman Records’ David Katznelson presented witnesses like owner Damian Samuel, a ukulele sing-along by music writer Sylvie Simmons and Bart Davenport, and tributes by artists who have stomped Utah’s boards, including Paula Frazer and Greg Ashley.

Since its days as Al’s Transbay Tavern (name-checked in 1971’s Dirty Harry) through the years owned by screenwriter Paul Gaer (who brought in Robin Williams and puppet shows), the venue has not only been instrumental in establishing a beachhead for local bands — Cake was considered a resident outfit in the 1990s and Counting Crows, Jewel, and Tarnation were onetime regulars ("For a while I used to say that the Hotel Utah was Geffen’s A&R department," recalls Carson). Its communities include "open mic–ers, the regulars, and the people who live in the building," Samuel offers. "It’s a live amoeba of sorts that has its own direction." He says the UK’s Noisettes now call the Utah its home base, and past staffers include ex-booker Mike Taylor (Court and Spark), Cory McAbee (Billy Nayer Show), and Shannon Walter (16 Bitch Pile-Up). One of Samuel’s fave tell-alls: in 1997 he had to walk future Guns N’ Roses guitarist Buckethead around the block so he could make a dramatic entrance onstage. "Here I am walking him around in SoMa, a chicken bucket on his head," Samuel recalls. "He kept saying, ‘I didn’t realize this block was so long.’<0x2009>"

Uptown, a century ago, the House of Shields also threw open its doors — in a much more hush-hush way: the venue began life as a men’s social club, and the only women permitted in until the ’70s were, says owner Alexis Filipello, "working girls." These days, the venue that got its name from its ’30s owner Eddie Shields is more likely to see indie artists like Sean Smith and Beam than highly establishment swells sneaking a stiff drink, but the crowd remains raucous, gathered around the elegant bar originally meant for the Pied Piper watering hole in the Palace Hotel across New Montgomery. When artist Maxfield Parrish made his Pied Piper of Hamelin mural (1909) far too long for the piece, the bar was sent over to Palace cobuilder William Sharon’s other nightspot. After Filipello bought the watering hole in 2003, she restored the natural wood, refurbished the moldings, reupholstered the booths, and jettisoned the "funky" taxidermy. "It was just such a beautiful old location, a piece of San Francisco’s history," she recalls. "We did a lot of work to get it back up to its beauty." No plans, however, for the firmly closed underground passage that links House of Shields to the Palace. Persistent rumors have it that in 1923, President Warren Harding died, not in the Palace as officially reported, but in the Shields’ speakeasy, and was transported through the tunnel back to his suite to avoid Prohibition-period scandal.

The ground is still shaking, happily, around Café Du Nord, which hit its 100th in October. In the next year Carson hopes to create a coffeehouse/art space upstairs next to the club, where performers can show their work, then play a show upstairs at the Swedish American Hall — which has hosted performers ranging from Cat Power to Michael Hurley — or downstairs at the Du Nord. He also plans to install an elevator where the Du Nord women’s room now sits, renovating the space so he can do the unique, one-off shows he prefers.

Carson is striving to continue nurturing the creative spirit of the Utah. "The difference between then and now is that everything costs so much. Our overhead here is so high, you can’t fail," he says. Back in ’90 when Gaer hired him at the Utah, he adds, "it wasn’t a big financial nut to crack, and we ran it like a living art experiment. I really miss those days. It was fun!"

QUESTION AUTHORITY?

MEGAFAUN


Backwoods Table of the Elements crustastic jams? The Durham, N.C., trio also joins Akron/Family at the High Sierra fest for a Mega-Akron set. Wed/2, 8:30 p.m., pay what you can. 21 Grand, 416 25th St., Oakl. www.21grand.org. Also Thurs/3, 9 p.m., $8. 12 Galaxies, 2565 Mission, SF. www.12galaxies.com. Fri/4–Sat/5, check Web site for times, $30–<\d>$168. High Sierra, Quincy; www.highsierramusic.com

BATTLEHOOCH


Kooky, crunchy spazz-tastic moves for kids? The SF band dons Baagersox guise for the first anniversary Lazerdance dance-off Thursday, then goes into seven-piece mode Saturday. Thurs/3, 10 p.m., $5. Knockout, 3223 Mission, SF. www.theknockoutsf.com. Also Sat/5, 9:30 p.m., $7. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

RETRIBUTION GOSPEL CHOIR


All-boy rock testimonials from Low’s Alan Sparhawk? Tues/8, 9 p.m., $10. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com

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