Jazz

Complexions Contemporary Ballet

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PREVIEW It’s about time. This Saturday, Complexions Contemporary Ballet is finally making its Bay Area debut. The company is 14 and travels all over the globe, from Israel to New Zealand. Founded by former members of Albert Ailey American Dance Theater Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, the company started out small, primarily with duets Rhoden created for himself and Richardson. In the Bay Area, Rhoden’s work has been seen most often during the Ailey company’s yearly gigs. In 2002, the Oakland Ballet (then under the leadership of Karen Brown) debuted his Glory Fugue to much acclaim. Meanwhile, Richardson, a principal guest artist of American Ballet Theater, is mesmerizing in whatever capacity he chooses to perform. In the Bay Area he is best known for the title role in San Francisco Ballet’s filming of Othello. Today, Rhoden is a hot item in musical theater, film, video, and jazz, as well as ballet and modern dance. Complexions’s 20-odd dancers continue to focus most of their endeavors on the prolific Rhoden’s choreography, which favors speed, angularity, and the kind of power attacks even a William Forsythe could admire. As performed by Complexions, the pieces showcase forceful dancers who draw their perspectives from a wide variety of backgrounds — both artistic and cultural. The program for this one-night stand includes a solo by Ailey dancer Abdur-Rahim Jackson; the rest of the program is entirely by Rhoden and features the recent Dear Frederic (2007), an homage to Chopin, and honors Marvin Gaye with the closer Chapters Suite (2007), which Rhoden peopled with a fabulously eclectic mix of street characters.

COMPLEXIONS CONTEMPORARY BALLET Sat/5, 8 p.m., $25–$40. Marin Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael. (415) 499-6800, www.marincenter.org

DJ Mitsu the Beats

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PREVIEW In the same manner that Japan has had a history of appreciation and innovation in jazz, the Land of the Rising Sun has become a rising star in the hip-hop diaspora. From DMC turntablist world champ DJ Kentaro through the enduring DJ Krush, our counterparts on the other side of the Pacific Rim have steadily been holding their own. DJ Mitsu the Beats continues the new tradition, with a flair for head-nodding hip-hop and the odd broken beat jam, always keeping things on a jazzy tip.

Growing up in the northern Japanese city of Sendai, where he still resides, Mitsu first got hooked on hip-hop via a TV show that presented breakdancing and guests like Heavy D. He showed obvious talent once he took to the turntables himself and soon ended up doing battle with DJ Kentaro before making the inevitable transition to production. His work caught the ear of Jazzy Sport, a Tokyo record store and label that has gone on to release works by the likes of SA-RA, and in 2003 Mitsu released an eponymous EP for sub-label Planetgroove. In what would become typical Mitsu style, the record included guest vocals from such guests as Philadelphia soul siren Lady Alma and fellow Japanese artist MC Hunger, with the producer subtly choosing loops and rhythms that best suited each style on the mic.

That record and others found many fans abroad, and Mitsu went on to provide dozens of remixes for labels like Italy’s Irma and Canada’s Do Right! He also teamed up with Hunger and DJ Mu-R to form Gagle, which released an album for Jazzy Sport in 2005 and another for Columbia last year. Mitsu has never strayed far from the beats-plus-samples framework that has driven hip-hop since its inception. But with deft production skills and an uncanny ear for hooks that stick in your mind, he’s given new life to the old chestnut that being good is different enough.

DJ MITSU THE BEATS Fri/4, 10 p.m., $10. Poleng Lounge, 1751 Fulton, SF. (415) 441-1751, www.polenglounge.com

Careers & Ed: Symphony of instruction

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› culture@sfbg.com

It may have been San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall, but at times it felt more like a Pentecostal revival meeting. Forget about rules or decorum: when the spirit moved them, this crowd let loose. Imaginary batons twirled. Heads tick-tocked. Feet tapped. Giggling and applause burst out at all the wrong times.

You haven’t really experienced the symphony until you’ve sat among 2,200 first and second graders at their first live orchestra performance, hundreds of them conducting the orchestra from their seats.

"Movement is exactly what we want," says Ronald Gallman, director of the San Francisco Symphony’s Education Programs, Youth Orchestra and Adventures in Music (AIM) program. "We wouldn’t be doing our jobs if they were sitting with their hands folded in their laps."

Not everyone acts like inspired little savages; others revel in acting like adults. One girl watched the performance through a pair of improvised opera classes — tiny binoculars she brought from an explorer’s kit at home.

It’s somewhat of a relief to learn that kids of the iPod generation can still appreciate classical music. It helps that musicians in the AIM program understand a few basic principles of child psychology: keep performances short, allow plenty of opportunities to shout out and move around, and throw in a fart joke or two for good measure (the tuba player who introduced his instrument with a flatulent blast got the biggest laughs of any joke in the performance).

Founded in 1988, the AIM program serves first through fifth graders at every public elementary school in San Francisco — an impressive 75 schools — as well as third through fifth graders in some private and parochial schools, totaling more than 22,000 children. Beyond the innovation, this is only possible because the AIM program is funded entirely by private donors, foundations, and events like the Black and White Ball — which means that it’s offered at no cost to the schools. According to Gallman, this level of commitment to building equitable access to music education in public schools makes the San Francisco Symphony stand apart as a national leader.

The symphony performance is just one piece of the larger AIM curriculum, which includes four ensemble shows per year at each school as well as comprehensive materials to help teachers build interdisciplinary lesson plans around the AIM performances. Each school is able to choose the ensembles it wants — with options including jazz and all varieties of world music — thus allowing for culturally appropriate programming at different schools.

At the Claire Lilienthal School in the Richmond District on a recent school day, the Drei Brass trio had been chosen to perform for a gymnasium full of first and second graders seated on the floor, each of whom had been given a brightly colored plastic kazoo.

"Our show today is about three brass instruments and vibration!" announced Alicia Telford, the Drei Brass french horn player, her eyes wide and one eyebrow arched. She showed the kids how to feel the vibration in their vocal chords when they sung by placing a hand on the front of their neck.

Each of the brass players introduced himself as "an ambassador of ppppfffft," demonstrating that the music coming out of their instruments begins with a simple pppfffft blown into the mouthpiece — the same ppppfffft sound that the kids blow into their kazoos.

They also peppered their classical performance with recognizable tunes that the kids could intuitively follow, like the finger-snapping Pink Panther theme.

Kazoo-induced hyperactivity aside, it seems that teachers by and large are nothing but grateful for the AIM programming in their schools.

"Music is a great way to keep some children engaged who might not be the best readers or [who are] a bit behind. It’s a great way to keep them in the school system through high school."

According to JR Jowkalsky, a reading teacher at Willie L. Brown Jr. elementary school in the Bayview, the number of students who pursue orchestra or band in middle school has "mushroomed" as a result of the AIM Program.

Keith Jones, who has been teaching for 20 years and currently runs the 40-piece band at Willie L. Brown, reports that about one-sixth of the potential band students participate in the music program. Anything over 10 or 15 percent participation is considered good.

"AIM has given me 10 violins, symphony tickets for the kids, concerts here at school," he said. "It provides things that I could never provide to my students."

While the AIM program alone cannot revive public-school music education in an era of restricted funding, it’s not a far stretch to say that exposing every single public school student by the end of fifth grade to five symphony visits and 20 ensemble performances must help pick up the slack.

Now, if only there was something AIM could do to preserve the sense of wonder and complete abandon with which these kids enjoyed the symphony for the first time, conducting wildly from their seats like no one is watching.

Switchboard Music Festival

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PREVIEW While something like the Treasure Island Music Festival can be summarized in a nutshell — a day of indie rock and a day of electronica — the annual Switchboard Music Festival defies classification. Traditionally, a lack of stylistic consistency is frowned upon in the music world — some artists spend years searching for their own reliable sound — Switchboard organizers say times have changed. With file-sharing and iTunes inundating fans with music, composers have the opportunity to go wild. On a song-by-song basis, good music is good music, regardless of who produced it or what genre it is.

Like many of the acts throughout the day, San Francisco’s Aaron Novik seems to put his eggs in more baskets than the Easter Bunny. Novik is a self-described "clarinetist, composer, bandleader" who clearly has a propensity toward variety, as his projects span anywhere from psychedelic jazz to metal. At the festival, Novik will lead his traditional Jewish folk band the Yidiots, which includes Guardian editorial intern Dina Maccabee on violin.

Fellow musical butterfly Amy X Neuberg, the festival’s headliner, will demonstrate her wide range of musical manifestations. Oakland composer Neuberg’s performance centers on creative uses of her own voice, including some over-the-top opera, soft jazz tones, and spoken word — all looped in real time through a sequencer to create harmonies. Genres will bend and tear within her set and those of others, only to shatter with the first note of the following act.

SWITCHBOARD MUSIC FESTIVAL With Christopher Adler, Dan Becker, Del Sol String Quartet, Edmund Wells, Erik Jekabson, Gamelan X, Ian Dicke, Ian Dickenson, Inner Ear Brigade, Jonathan Russel, Robin Estrada, Ryan Brown, and Slydini. Sun/30, 2–10 p.m., $5–$25. Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St., SF. (415) 826-4441, www.switchboardmusic.com

Fresh flowers, warm waters

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

When you talk about performers with unusual career arcs, Charles Lloyd is up there with the Scott Walkers and Alex Chiltons of the world. Lloyd experienced almost unheard-of commercial success for a jazz saxophonist during the late ’60s, only to practically disappear for the next two decades. Then in 1989, he reemerged on Germany’s ECM label and entered the steadiest, most productive phase of his career, a phase that is still in progress as he celebrates his 70th birthday this year.

Lloyd’s best-known album remains 1966’s Forest Flower: Live at Monterey (Atlantic), which sold over 1 million copies in its day, a now-inconceivable feat for any saxophonist who doesn’t play soft-porno-soundtrack ballads. Lloyd and his quartet, which included soon-to-be-stars Keith Jarrett on piano and Jack DeJohnette on drums, managed this crossover success without dumbing down their music or resorting to fusion — which, after all, didn’t really exist yet in 1966. Their music was basically a kinder, gentler version of John Coltrane’s classic quartet sound: searching, occasionally Eastern-tinged modal jazz with spiritual overtones. Where Coltrane’s playing tended to be harsh and severe, Lloyd’s approach was relaxed and unhurried, with a softer-edged, gently babbling delivery. During their brief but successful run, Lloyd’s group released albums with swirly psychedelic cover art and hippie-ish titles like Journey Within and Love-In (both Atlantic, 1967), connecting with diverse, rock-friendly audiences in the days when jazz’s market share was rapidly eroding.

And then? It’s hard to say exactly. Jarrett and DeJohnette went on to play with Miles Davis’s early ’70s electric bands before pursuing successful solo careers, while Lloyd took up residence in the proverbial "Where are they now?" file. Musically, the ’70s was mostly a lost decade for Lloyd: his albums from this era — all long out of print — are written off as new age–leaning mood music or, in the case of 1971’s Warm Waters (Kapp), ill-fated forays into pop and rock. During this era, Lloyd retreated to Big Sur and got into transcendental meditation, which fittingly coincided with involvement with Beach Boys — and fellow TM advocates Mike Love and Al Jardine. (Lloyd even lent his horn playing to the band’s 15 Big Ones and M.I.U. Album [both Brother/Reprise, 1976 and 1978], and several Beach Boys appeared on Warm Waters.) Whatever else might have happened during those dark, confusing times would surely make for interesting reading, but details — sordid or not — are scarce.

Since coming out of retirement in the late ’80s, Lloyd has undergone an unlikely transition from mystic and ’60s relic to upstanding jazz citizen and elder statesman of the tenor saxophone — though he also plays flute and tarogato. His post-comeback recordings have included younger stars such as pianists Geri Allen and Brad Mehldau as well as august veterans like bassist Dave Holland and drummers Billy Hart and Billy Higgins. Meanwhile, his tenure with ECM has yielded 13 albums during this time, ranging from small group recordings in the vein of his late ’60s music to more far-flung efforts such as 2006’s Sangam, a live trio recording with Indian percussionist Zakir Hussain and drummer Eric Harland. The latter full-length includes some of Lloyd’s most fiery playing in recent years, and indeed, if there is one complaint about any of Lloyd’s post-comeback material, it’s that it’s sometimes been a bit too mellow and placid.

His newest album, Rabo de Nube, is a live disc highlighting his current band with Harland on drums, Jason Moran on piano, and Reuben Rogers on bass, all who are roughly half Lloyd’s age. It’s a good combination, because these younger musicians push Lloyd, while at the same time his playing brings a stateliness and an overall presence that is hard to find among more youthful players, however skilled they might be. Lloyd has never been known as a technical virtuoso, but there is a hard-won emotional depth to his work. You hesitate to call any living, breathing musician part of a so-called dying breed — it’s just not a nice thing to say — but Lloyd is at least representative of a different era, and opportunities to experience that era are getting harder to come across these days.

CHARLES LLOYD NEW QUARTET

Fri/28, 8 p.m., $25–$70

Herbst Theatre

401 Van Ness, SF

(866) 920-JAZZ

www.sfjazz.org

Shitloads of Money

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› le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com

CHEAP EATS Stirring constantly … I’m a troublemaker. For complicated reasons, my old pals, um, Ronnie "Zack" Pottery and his wife, Mrs. "Zack" Pottery, were running from the law. Understand that these are two of the sweetest, law-abidingest people you will ever meet. They live very cleanly, simply, and musically in subrural, um, Idaho, pay taxes, stay sober, write, work, and record at home, go to the doctor, and consume more tea than anyone I know. Their idea of a wild time is to stay up late (as in, like, 11 p.m.) and render jazz standards on melodica and banjo. Sometimes they throw in a little slide whistle, or toy piano … the sick, twisted deviants! Their closest friends, I swear, are nuns.

Everybody sing: The hills are alive with the sound of music. No. It’s Idaho, but it ain’t like that. And I’m not sure I quite know what I mean, but I have a gut feeling it might be funny, in an over-my-own-head kind of way, so let’s stay with it. Just in case.

Everybody sing again: The hills are alive with the sound of music.

Sorry. The reason I’m stalling is because I want so very badly to explain why my two most clean-living friends ever, anywhere, were fugitives from (in)justice for a week. It’s so exciting and ridiculous. Surely it will make great copy. And yet, I have to be careful, don’t I?

Suffice it to say, as vaguely as possible, that people with shitloads of money can do basically whatever they want to people without squat, or very little, at any rate — like maybe some musical instruments and herbal tea. Everybody knows this, right?

But it’s even more twisted than that. Woohoo!

To make a long story short, as Ronnie "Zack" himself is fond of saying, someone with shitloads of money takes someone else with shitloads of money to court over, say, shitloads of money, or custody of kids, or it could be anything, really. The point is that clever, ruthless lawyers with shitloads of money start playing shitloads-of-money hardball with each other over shitloads of money, and the next thing you know, nun-hugging, starving-artistical innocents with a fear of flying are about to be subpoenaed to appear in a courtroom many states away to testify against a third person with shitloads of money who is not even materially involved in the case of Shitloads of Money vs. Shitloads of Money.

So let’s say that this third person with shitloads of money would prefer not to see Shitloads of Money winning shitloads of money off of Shitloads of Money, if only because in the process his own good name, Shitloads of Money, stands to be destroyed and he may, for example, lose the respect of loved ones who may or may not already have lost respect for him years ago. In any case, it’s too much to risk for someone with shitloads of money, so he generously suggests to said nun huggers that they must certainly be under stress and could use a vacation.

Oh, it’s so convoluted and other-worldly. It’s enough to boggle a little chicken farmer’s tiny brain. Which is partly my fault, because as soon as I saw Mr. and Mrs. "Zack" Pottery in their his-and-hers false mustaches at a discreet little hotel in My Hometown, California, I asked them please not to tell me too much about what was going on, so that I might write about it more accurately.

As a result, you probably know more about this case right now than I do. All I know is that Shitloads of Money vs. Shitloads of Money + Shitloads of Money – False Mustache–Sporting Nun Huggers = Fun for Chicken Farmers.

Breakfast was on them. Lunch was on them. Dinner was on them. Gas was on them. And as it gradually dawned on me that "on them" likely didn’t really mean on them so much as on them, I started suggesting fancier and fancier places. Places that chicken farmers and musicians don’t generally get to eat at.

And in this way, in my own imagination at least — which counts! — I had the small satisfaction of sticking it to Shitloads of Money.

———————————————————————————-

My new favorite restaurant is the Willow Wood Market up here in Graton. It’s the kind of place where I would never be able to afford to go, myself. It ain’t cheap eats: in other words, you’ll spend $15-$25 on a dinner entrée. But on special occasions, like your birthday or surprise out-of-town visitors wearing false mustaches and picking up checks…. It serves pretty basic, unpretentious, comfortable, and great food like risotto with scallops, rock shrimp with polenta, and grilled flat iron steak.

WILLOW WOOD MARKET & CAFE

9020 Graton Road, Graton

(707) 823-0233

Mon.–Sat., 8 a.m.–9:30 p.m.; Sun., 9 a.m.–3 p.m.

Beer and wine

MC/V

Big “Footprints”

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Since its inception in 2004, the SFJAZZ Collective has changed out six of its eight original members. But now in the midst of its fifth season, the band sounds and, more importantly, interacts more cohesively than ever.

"All the people we’ve had, have been very beneficial to the band," says pianist and original member Renee Rosnes, during a recent rehearsal at the Masonic Auditorium. "They just bring another color to the music." Veteran saxophonist Joe Lovano, who joined last summer and replaced Joshua Redman, now nominally serves as resident sage, the position formerly held by vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. Also last summer, youthful Stephon Harris took Hutcherson’s slot, and this spring trombonist Robin Eubanks was added for the San Francisco residency and both the national and European tours. Despite the shifts, the ensemble’s firepower hasn’t diminished and the members are especially eager to tackle Wayne Shorter’s quixotic music, which they’ll be playing along with their own.

Saxophonist Shorter’s career has evolved from writing and playing on the front line of hard-bop standard-bearing Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers to a similar position with Miles Davis’s great shape-shifting quintet of the early ’60s. While playing with Davis, Shorter compiled one of the most distinguished solo careers ever with an incomparable series of albums on Blue Note (1964’s JuJu and Night Dreamer and 1965’s The All Seeing Eye) that forever cemented his stature as a major composer. Subsequent turns as the cofounder of Weather Report and now the leader of an exquisite quartet have simply embellished Shorter’s reputation.

Rosnes considers her time playing with Shorter a revelation. "It was such an impactful experience," Rosnes explains. "The intensity and passion that he played with literally took my breath away."

On the brief 1988 tour that took the all-star band through the United States and Europe, Rosnes played a nightly duet with Shorter on his Brazilian ballad "Diana." "There was complete spontaneity from night to night. He cherishes a lot of freedom within the music, and that really opened up my mind," she says.

Since each Collective member arranges a tune from the season’s composer, Rosnes has written the chart for "Diana" as well as Shorter’s classic "Footprints." Other arrangements include "Armageddon" by saxophonist Miguel Zenón, "Aung San Suu Kyi" by trumpeter Dave Douglas, "El Gaucho" by bassist Matt Penman, "Yes or No" by drummer Eric Harland, and "Infant Eyes" by saxophonist Lovano. Rosnes says the arrangements give the band a more personal voice, which is appropriate when considering Shorter’s considerable body of work. "He plays life," Rosnes says, "through his horn."

SFJAZZ COLLECTIVE

Sat/15, 8 p.m., $34–<\d>$52

Zellerbach Hall

UC Berkeley, near Bancroft at Telegraph, Berk.

www.calperfs.berkeley.edu

What does Alpine jazz sound like? Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin comes to Yerba Buena

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nikb sml.bmp

By Erik Morse

What was Orson Welles’ scene stealing line in The Third Man? Oh yes, it goes like this: “In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed – they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” Never mind that the contraption in question was actually invented in the Black Forest of Baden-Württemberg or that Welles egregiously absented the Zurich-based dada movement from his glib verdict. But this bitch slap at the Swiss’ expense has now become an ecumenical platitude: nothing cool has ever come from the land of Helvetica.

Well, burn down the chalet and throw out the flugelhorn! Composer-pianist Nik Bärtsch and acoustic quintet Ronin have departed from the craggly bluffs of Switzerland and landed on the snobbish jazz shores of America. Despite establishing themselves in the ’90s, Bärtsch and Ronin only came to prominent attention in 2006 with Stoa, their first release for experimental jazz label ECM.

No doubt playing on the architectural definition of its title, Stoa was a magnificently open affair with tinkling melodies underpinned by floating, Can-style grooves and large swathes of quiet space. In order to christen Ronin’s new direction, Bärtsch dubbed his sound “zen-funk” with tongue most likely placed firmly in cheek. Reviews at the time compared Stoa’s compositional structures to those of Steve Reich and James Brown, and one critic noted it was “digital-age music performed with analog sensibility.” And, in fact, you can hear within the precise bass ostinatos and repetitive keyboard figures the postmodern electro-jazz of Jaga Jazzist or Squarepusher. No small feat for a cadre of musicians reigning from Alpine country.

“My Name is Albert Ayler”

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REVIEW My Name Is Albert Ayler offers a close reading of the titular musician, a saxophone colossus who pushed the emotional limits of free jazz, but it also tells a broader story about the strange currents of American avant-garde music. Interviews with Ayler’s churchgoing Ohio family, New York City compatriots, and Scandinavian admirers trace a particular, though by no means atypical, passage. The tenor saxophonist first achieved renown in Stockholm, Sweden, where he began to experiment with the wailing, explosive runs that would some years later turn even John Coltrane’s head. ‘Trane specifically asked for Ayler to play at his funeral, and the photographs and live sound from the memorial service included in the film are searing enough to make even the staunchest defender of melody reconsider. Rather than employing warts-and-all tactics, first-time Swedish director Kasper Collin keeps a respectful distance from Ayler’s mysteries, nowhere more hauntingly than in a few late sequences regarding the musician’s purported tendency to stare into the sun. There is so much we will never know about Ayler, Collin seems to tell us, but watching former collaborators listen to his music through cracked expressions of pain and amazement is revealing enough.

MY NAME IS ALBERT AYLER runs Sun/9–Tues/11 at the Red Vic Movie House. See Rep Clock for showtimes.

A band apart

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There’s never been any doubt pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba could play. The 44-year-old Cuban émigré has been a highly favored sideman to top-shelf jazz leaders since landing in the United States some 15 years ago. He’s also had a steady recording contract with Blue Note and leads his own trios, which he dominates with an imposing virtuosity, an exacting sense of Cuban musical history, and a tense, brooding personality.

Now Rubalcaba has an exciting new quintet with a striking potential for challenging even his outsize talent. Culled from New York City’s best young players, his combo could be one of those very special groups whose exceptional parts create an even greater whole. Together almost a year, they’ve just released their first record, Avatar (Blue Note) and are embarking on their first West Coast tour, playing at both Yoshi’s locations over the course of a week. Avatar includes three compositions by saxophonist Yosvany Terry, whom Rubalcaba knew from their youth in Havana, Cuba, and who brings a modern, angular urbanity to the jazz traditions they are both well acquainted with. Trumpeter Mike Rodriquez played with Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra and has become one of the most sought-after young players in jazz. Bassist Matt Brewer had been with saxophonist Greg Osby’s group and suggested the stunning drummer Marcus Gilmore. Brewer and Gilmore are still in their 20s and bring a vibrant, youthful energy to the group that complements Rubalcaba’s old-world, old-soul vibe. Avatar nods to Rubalcaba’s Latin-classical side, closing with his arrangement of Preludio Corto no. 2 for Piano by the Cuban composer Alejandro García Caturla, but the disc also showcases Terry’s funky "Hip Side," Brewer’s meditative "Aspiring to Normalcy," and Horace Silver’s enduring ballad "Peace."

It’s a riveting recording — and the combo’s live performances promise to be equally compelling. Of late, few major jazz ensembles stay together long enough to create really unique sounds and sensibilities. This particular quintet could have that kind of staying power.

GONZALO RUBALCABA

Mon/10–March 12, 8 and 10 p.m., $20–$24

Yoshi’s San Francisco

1330 Fillmore, SF

Also March 13–15, 8 and 10 p.m.; March 16, 7 and 9 p.m., $12–$22

Yoshi’s

510 Embarcadero West, Oakl.

(510) 238-9200, www.yoshis.com

Bellydance Superstars

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PREVIEW The Bellydance Superstars are back. The troupe came to prominence during the 2003 Lollapalooza tour and are an intriguing mix of Hollywood glitz and highly accomplished dancing — patrons of the DNA Lounge and Herbst Theatre may remember the ensemble’s shows in 2004 and 2005. While you may not see much of the covered-up tribal dancing that lies at the core of so much traditional belly dancing, these women are fabulous exponents of an art that embraces female sensuality perhaps like no other dance form. The new show — with a fresh crop of dancers, including "Colleen" from Marin — is called Babelesque because each of the 12 members of the multinational ensemble brings something of her own perspective on the ancient form. Expect elements of hip-hop, Latin, and jazz dance to slink their way into individual performances along with the traditional sword and peacock dances. The joyous abandon that these women bring to their art is infectious, reminiscent of the time when belly dancing was performed by women and for women. Producer Miles Copeland, who formerly ran I.R.S. Records and managed Sting for many years, comes with a show business background, so be prepared for an entertaining and gorgeously costumed evening of dance that has nothing to do with the hoochie koochie.

Bellydance Superstars Sat/1, 8 p.m. $20–$45. Marin Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael. (415) 499-6800, www.marincenter.org

Borts Minorts

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PREVIEW Leap year is here! Looking for a suitably unusual event to celebrate this once-every-four-years occurrence? I strongly suggest scampering over to the Hemlock Tavern for a Club Chuckles lineup that’s poised to scramble the brain of any comedy connoisseur. Headliners Borts Minorts defy simple description. See, there’s this guy in a hooded white unitard and a headset mic who sings and flails and contorts — he might be an alien or an android, but it’s doubtful anything but an actual human would be able to bring such pure and bizarre joy to the stage. Equally enthusiastic are the Borts backup dancers, who flaunt leotards and fishnets (and the occasional pair of lederhosen), and whose energetic choreography demonstrates limber limbs and an admirable appreciation of jazz hands. Borts’s music is similarly befuddling, in the best possible way — a combination of samples, keyboards, horns, drums, theremin, slide whistles, a single-stringed bass made out of a snow ski, and god knows what else, but I guarantee you’ll not see anything as sense-assaultingly entertaining this leap year, or any other year. Local duo Ramshackle Romeos render classics like "Feelings" with nearly as many instruments as a full orchestra (including a mean musical saw), and comedians Drennon Davis and Alex Koll rock the mic between musical numbers.

BORTS MINORTS With Drennon Davis, Alex Koll, and Ramshackle Romeos. Fri/29, 9:30 p.m., $8. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923, www.hemlocktavern.com

Holly Cole

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PREVIEW If voice has a color, Holly Cole’s gleams like rich, burnished copper. A jazzy postmodern chanteuse with a sensual, sultry bent, the Canadian performer stops into Yoshi’s San Francisco during her first United States tour in six years. Her current trio includes longtime pianist Aaron Davis, bassist Marc Rogers, and saxophonist John Johnson.

Cole has a stylish new self-titled album (Koch) in tow, recorded in New York with a nonet headed by bassist and coproducer Greg Cohen. Cohen plays music across the board, having toured with both Ornette Coleman’s free-jazz ensembles and Woody Allen’s New Orleans–style group, and he’s also worked with more eccentric pop songwriters like Tom Waits and Elvis Costello, both of whom Cole has favored on past releases like her 1995 Tom Waits tribute album, Temptation (Metro Blue/Blue Note). Gil Goldstein arranged 6 of the new recording’s 11 tunes, an eclectic bag of standards ranging from Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini’s "Charade" to Cole Porter’s "It’s All Right with Me." At times buoyant and swinging, the record also shows Cole at her most hauntingly intimate.

Although Cole has been making outstanding records for several years, Holly Cole is the first to be domestically distributed since 1997’s pop-slanted Dark Dear Heart (Metro Blue), which included two originals, the title tune by reclusive singer-songwriter Mary Margaret O’Hara, and songs by Joni Mitchell and Sheryl Crow, among others. Cole first made her mark with savvy versions of torchy jazz standards like "Don’t Smoke in Bed," but like all great vocalists, she inhabits everything she sings: from Brian Wilson’s "God Only Knows" (off Shade [Alert, 2003]) to Stephen Sondheim’s "Loving You" (from Romantically Helpless [EMI, 2000]). Her lush, purring tones, subtle phrasing, and soulful empathy always take the songs beyond simple interpretation. Much like a great actor, Cole never lets you see the craft but reveals the shadowy dimensions of character and the essential details of the story.

HOLLY COLE Tues/4, 8 and 10 p.m., $16–$20. Yoshi’s San Francisco, 1330 Fillmore, SF. (415) 655-5600, sf.yoshis.com

Elastic band

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After struggling to settle into a listening routine with Dig That Treasure (Asthmatic Kitty), the sprightly debut from Bay Area trio Cryptacize, I decided to take the recording for a walk. Buoyed by the sudden spring weather, I floated down Harrison to the candy-striped fuzz of "Heaven Is Human," and before long, found certain street noises complementarily weaving their way into the track. "Bells are ringing / Gates are singing," Nedelle Torrisi coos on "Cosmic Sing-A-Long," before bandmate Chris Cohen joins to harmonize on the gentle rallying cry, "Every note is an unfinished song."

Cryptacize’s numbers are arranged as twisty medleys, their frequent stops and starts redolent of the impressionistic fragrance of melody. Torrisi and Cohen previously explored similarly horizontal song structures together in the Curtains, but the addition of percussionist Michael Carreira — who plays drums as if he were painting — and proper duets lend Cryptacize a markedly easygoing, domestic air. Sharp melodic inversions and time changes are softened by Torrisi’s and Cohen’s disarmingly sweet voices and a general balancing of tunefulness with cacophony.

As with Cohen’s earlier band Deerhoof, Cryptacize strives for the development of a private musical language rather than the typical filtering of influences. "We never really jam," Cohen e-mails from his Oakland home, "but some songs are sections designated as free tempo so we [just have to] follow each other’s movements out of the corners of our eyes. There are also parts where we improvise on a specific theme or riff, but these moments are built into a song." This kind of programmed free association is especially evident on more mosaic pieces like "Heaven Is Human," but instead of resulting in free-jazz confusion or Deerhoof density, Cryptacize’s wide-eyed stitch often seems like the score to an imaginary musical.

Part of this stems from the album’s isoutf8g production, in which the multiplicity of the compositional elements plays against a sparing sound. The overdubs are few and far between, and the silences many. "Hearing parts separately was important to us for this album. We wanted the listener to have lots of empty space," writes Cohen. Even on thicker-sounding productions like "We’ll Never Dream Again," the two guitar tracks are panned to either side, emphasizing the song’s moving parts on headphones.

One can be forgiven for picturing a stage while listening to these wide expanses. It’s there in the plaintive opening of "The Shape Above," the pitched mood swings on "How Did the Actor Laugh?," contemplative confessionals like "Water Witching Wishes," and the outstretched verses of "Stop Watch." When I ask Cohen about it, he fills me in on his and Torrisi’s youthful exposure to musical theater and sings the praises of Leonard Bernstein. "Mike actually isn’t a big fan of show tunes, although we did turn him on to our favorite, West Side Story, when we were on tour in October," Cohen e-mails, before explaining the theatrical roots of the disc’s inviting title: his father, an aspiring collegiate composer, cowrote a musical review of the same name. He lent the title to Cryptacize "cautiously," Cohen continues, "warning us that his cowriters might sue us!"

Legal proceedings notwithstanding, Cryptacize has all the qualifications to reinvent the rock opera. In the meantime, the band is readying Dig That Treasure‘s prismatic pop for the road, angling for bewitchment. "Since we don’t exactly bombard the audience with volume," writes Cohen, "Nedelle has developed a set of hand movements to hypnotize them."

CRYPTACIZE

With Why? and Dose One

March 6, 9 p.m., $13

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

www.musichallsf.com

Gyan Riley

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REVIEW I first heard Gyan Riley on the spectacular, otherworldly The Book of Abbeyozzud (New Albion, 1999), by his father, minimalist maestro Terry Riley. The younger Riley’s playing on "Zamorra," a guitar duet with David Tanenbaum, reached new heights of raging classical guitar intimacy.

In 1999, Gyan Riley was the first guitarist to receive a full scholarship to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Since then, he’s been around: he’s had major commissions from the Carnegie Hall Corp. and the New York Guitar Festival, given performances worldwide, and held an artistic directorship with the San Francisco Classical Guitar Society and a teaching gig at Humboldt State University. So the stakes are high for his new full-length, Melismantra (Agyanamus Music). With an almost preternatural sense of musical presence, it doesn’t disappoint.

The four-part "Progression of the Ancestors" suite showcases the range of Riley’s complex sensitivity as a guitarist and composer. He never rushes the moment unless an overwhelming musical force takes control of the song on its own. Tabla giant Zakir Hussain’s elegant pops and rolls and Scott Amendola’s persuasive drumming add texture to the mix. Tracy Silverman’s electric violin playing — introduced prior to "Progression of the Ancestors" on the epic title track — touches on everything I love about not just violin but sound itself. Throughout the album Silverman leaps and bounds in world-turning harmony with Riley.

Melismantra‘s opening three-song cycle, "Mobettabutta," recalls the fusion jazz and somewhat self-interested tone poems of guitarists Larry Coryell and Pat Martino — especially the latter’s odd 1976 album Starbright (Warner Bros.). This doesn’t quite jibe with the rest of the recording, but in a way "Mobettabutta" opens your mind to the delightful guitar perversions of "Herbie Moonshine’s Last Dance." Riley might make thinking people’s music, but he knows how to party.

GYAN RILEY With Tracy Silverman and Scott Amendola. Thurs/21, 8 p.m., $19.50. Freight and Salvage Coffee House, 1111 Addison, Berk. (510) 548-1761, www.thefreight.org

Robert Moses Kin’ and Black Choreographers Festival

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PREVIEW In February, as the days start getting longer again, two things come to mind: Black History Month summons deep reflections, and all of that extra light brings the advent of fresh views. In the Bay Area no better example of clear-sighted perspectives can be found than in the work of the Robert Moses’ Kin company and from the codirectors of the fourth Black Choreographers Festival: Here and Now, Kendra Kimbrough Barnes and Laura Elaine Ellis. Moses starts his two-week season at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on Feb. 14, while the Barnes-Ellis team is entering its festival’s second half at Project Artaud Theater in San Francisco.

From Moses, be prepared for a smaller company of six dancers performing in a brand-new program that includes three world premieres and a revival of 2007’s Rose (set to Beethoven), which is new to San Francisco. In addition to choreographing, the prodigious Moses also created the score for one of the evening’s pieces, Reflections on an Approaching Thought. In step with the company’s tradition of addressing social issues, the program’s Consent delves into the ethics of medical experimentation on poor people.

The Black Choreographers Festival has scheduled three lineups spanning work representative of the African diaspora — jazz, African, Afro-Brazilian — as well as modern and dance theater. If you have never seen site-specific choreographer Joanna Haigood and her Zaccho Youth Group, from the Bayview neighborhood, don’t miss them on the afternoon of Feb. 17. They are exceptional young artists.

ROBERT MOSES’ KIN Thurs/14–Sat/16 and Feb. 20–23, 8 p.m.; Sun/17 and Feb. 24, 2 p.m.; $23–$26. Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, 3200 California, SF. (415) 292-1233, www.jccsf.org

BLACK CHOREOGRAPHERS FESTIVAL Fri/15–Sat/16, 8 p.m.; Sun/17, 3 and 7 p.m.; $10–$20. Project Artaud Theater, 450 Florida, SF. (415) 863-9834, (510) 801-4523, www.bcfhereandnow.com

Uri Caine and Friends

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PREVIEW The versatile jazz pianist Uri Caine has carved a niche for himself as a fearless interpreter of classical music. His discography includes idiosyncratic recordings of music by Mozart, Beethoven, J.S. Bach, Mahler, and Wagner. In 2006 he began to investigate Hungarian folk music at the source, delving into Béla Bartók’s original field recordings of village performances, documented on wax cylinders in the early 20th century. While Caine notes that some aspects of the music are tough to translate into Western terms, given the inflection and distinctly unsquare rhythms of traditional dances, the melodic material serves as an ideal springboard for his brand of agile improvisation. For his Feb. 16 performance, Caine and his ensemble visit Hungary’s distant musical territory with no pretension to exact authenticity. It’s a good hook, considering both Caine’s credentials and the local craze for Eastern European traditions, with Balkan brass bands and Roma-inspired DJs abounding. It will be exciting to hear Caine explore this expansive concept with artful and inspired clarinetist Chris Speed and respected long-time contributors to the adventurous downtown New York improvisational scene drummer Jim Black, violinist Joyce Hamman, and bassist John Hebert. Even if their distinctive flavors take a moment to blend, these are the ingredients for a good stew. Caine will round out his visit to the Bay Area with a solo piano performance and discussion at the Community Music Center in the Mission District, free of charge.

URI CAINE Fri/15, 6 p.m., free. Community Music Center, 544 Capp, SF. (415) 647-6015, www.sfcmc.org

URI CAINE AND FRIENDS Sat/16, 8 p.m., $27–$39. Herbst Theatre, War Memorial Veterans Bldg., 401 Van Ness, SF. (415) 392-2545, www.performances.org

Shocked, G?

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When I first heard Digital Underground in 1989, via "The Humpty Dance," little did I imagine it would someday fall to me to announce the group’s end. After a 20-year run — including five albums, one EP, one rarities disc, solo albums by Shock-G and Money B, and a helluva lot of touring — DU are calling it quits. Their Feb. 22 show at the Red Devil Lounge may be your last opportunity to see these putf8um Bay Area OGs. You’d be a fool to miss it: their shows are a cut above most live-rap, P-Funk-style fests, driven by Shock’s keyboards and an endless array of MCs, including, at one time, 2pac himself.

"Every group from [Public Enemy] to the Stones has experienced a hiatus, some straight-up fallouts," says Shock, a.k.a. Humpty Hump, on the phone from Los Angeles. "I think we hold the record for longest harmonious run without a breakup. I gave it a loyal 20 years — ya can’t be mad at that."

Despite the lack of internal beef, however, Shock’s decision to disband DU is both personal and artistic. Constant touring, for example, has taken its toll, particularly with the group’s partying reputation.

"The energy was gettin’ bad," Shock concedes. "Both the group and the audience were becoming a bunch of alcoholics. That means it’s time for a break.

"I did several sober shows over the past few years, like 1 in every 10. However, when I suggested this to the band, everyone looked at me like I’m crazy, as if I suggested doing the show naked!"

Even more pressing, however, is Shock’s desire to expand as an artist, musically and otherwise.

"I’ve always wanted to give serious musicianship a shot," he says, "to sit down at the piano like a jazz musician and do complicated arrangements and improvisations with other musicians. But it’s hard to be fully present anywhere when I’m outta town every weekend to do DU shows."

While Shock confirms he has about two albums’ worth of unreleased DU he’ll eventually drop and doesn’t rule out the possibility of a reunion — "Ask me in five years," he says — for now he wants to direct his energies in nonmusical directions.

"I wanna go down to Hollywood and see what it do: voice-overs, comedic acting, films, TV — stuff I never had time for from recording and touring. For the first time since 1987, I have time to commit to something else. I’m excited.

"I used to use George Clinton, Sting, and RZA as my models," he concludes. "Now I plan to be more Ice Cube, more Puffy, more Jamie Foxx, more wherever I wanna be."

DIGITAL UNDERGROUND

Feb. 22, 8 p.m., $20

Red Devil Lounge

1695 Polk, SF

1-866-468-3399

www.reddevillounge.com

DJ Cheb i Sabbah speaks his Worldly mind

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DJ Cheb i Sabbah speaks his Worldly mind

 

This Saturday night (2/9) at the Worldly party at Temple, Cheb i Sabbah — the Algerian-born, San Francisco-based DJ and producer extraordinaire — celebrates the release of Devotion, his seventh album on Six Degrees Records.

Recorded and produced entirely in Delhi, Devotion is Cheb i Sabbah’s trance/fusion inspired take on raga (Indian classical music) and the rich and diverse musical traditions Hinduism, Sikhism, and Sufi Islam.

What sets Cheb i Sabbah apart from other producers of so-called global electronica –and what must partly explain a worldwide popularity that far exceeds his local fan base — is his ability to add modern beats to classical music in a way that preserves the integrity of the original forms.

At age 60, Cheb i Sabbah’s life has been as much a kaleidoscope of social and artistic movements as his music is of musical and spiritual traditions. In the early 1960s, Cheb i Sabbah was one of many Jews who fled Algeria after its independence and headed to Paris, where he spent his teenage years.

 

Cheb i Sabbah has had what he describes as three distinct incarnations as a DJ. The first was in 1964, when he was a 17-year old on his own in Paris making a living spinning Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and Arethra Franklin. The second was in 1980, returning to Paris after over a decade of traveling, when he spun mainly Brazilian music. The final and most recent incarnation began in the early ’90s, when he started his “1002 Nights” weekly at Nickies in the Lower Haight, where he still spins North African, Middle Eastern, and South Asia beats every Tuesday.

The span of Cheb i Sabbah’s 40-year musical career was punctuated by involvement in two experimental theater groups — the Living Theater from the late-’60s through the ’70s, and the Tribal Warning Theater in the late ’80s — as well as a host of odd jobs, including work at Amoeba Records and Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco. His music was also greatly influenced by a long-time friendship and collaboration with jazz trumpeter Don Cherry, whose music Cheb i Sabbah remixed with that of Ornette Coleman and the poetry of Ira Cohen to create his debut album, The Majoon Traveler, in 1994.

With a thick French accent and extraordinary patience for helping navigate the dense weave of movements and traditions that compose his life story, Cheb i Sabbah talked to the SFBG about his most recent album, Devotion, as well as his long career in music and theater.

SFBG: You recorded all of the music for several of your albums, including Devotion, in India. What is it like working with highly trained classical musicians?

Cheb i Sabbah: What has always struck me about working with those musicians is how humble and really sincere they are. You are dealing with people who have done this all of their lives. When they meet me, they have no idea who I am. But throughout the session, this friendship develops. There are many cups of Chai in between. Later on, we keep contact.

The concept for my music is very simple: take classical music and add modern beats to open it up to more people. The fact that [the classically trained musicians] went along with it to me is still pretty amazing.

I feel that I am lucky because there is a sense that in the end I will be respectful to what they are doing. They do want to be involved with something that will reach a Western audience and something modern. But they are not always sure. Because take Bollywood music its remixes, for example: some are good, some are quite awful. That is the thing they are weary about a little bit—not to end up with something they hate.

Working on Devotion, the musicians actually liked what they heard because the raga was still there, in a way, untouched. What was added to it wasn’t too much in the sense of distorting their thing. I seem to have been lucky enough to find the balance between putting the electronics with their classical thing and make something that was pleasing to them.

SFBG: Who composes the music?

CIS: It’s not really a question of composing or not composing. It’s more like — for Devotion, when you come to an artist who does Kirtan, which is a call-and-response devotional music, I will say, “I would like to do a couple of Kirtans with you,” and then he just sings them. The composition comes after the singing. The singer will say, “Yeah, okay, I’ll do it, but write me a simple melody.” So what we do is a little thing on a keyboard, send the MP3, and then they have that for a couple of days and return to the studio with the melody.

SFBG: Are the other musicians improvising?

CIS: No, they score the songs. Some do improvise — I work with three percussionists who play every percussion you can imagine. They will score each song individually. When you ask a sarangi or sitar player, they listen to it once and say, “Ok, I got it.” And then they just play—nothing is written whatsoever. They just play by ear, tune to the particular raga, and go from there. After that, of course, comes the electronic part, which is editing what you got from them, and take the best parts and maybe repeat it or loop a little bit of this or sample that.

SFBG: You’ve had a very interesting past. What was it like moving from Algeria to Paris as a 13-year old in the ’60s?

CIS: Of course when you are dropped from North Africa into a big place like Paris, as you can imagine, there is so much going on. I didn’t want to go to school, so I started to work when I was 15, which was even more freedom, all the way through May ’68, when France stopped for a few months — there was a general strike basically. I was involved with the artistic part and also with the Living Theater — which was Julian Beck and Judith Malina. They happened to be in France because they had been in Europe for a few years in exile from America and from the IRS.

SFBG: What is the story of the Living Theater?

CIS: If you lived in Paris at that time, Julian Beck and Judith Malina had been part of the ’50s bohemia trip in New York with Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Alan Ginsberg, and all of that. The Living Theater went to Europe and had become a mythical kind of a group — just the way they looked, the way they acted, the kind of theater that they did. I was a DJ so I had free time. I was basically free from everything, just living on my own when I was 17-years old in a hotel room and being a DJ at night. When you went to see the Living Theater, it was just an amazing kind of experience — I had never seen that before.

In ’68, some of us took [over] the Odéon Theater, which was the bastion of French culture. We lived there for a while and had assemblies and reunions and all of that. Then, a few months later, in July, I went down to the south of France and stayed with the Living Theater for a couple of months while they were working on a play called Paradise Now. I wanted to join, but at that time, after May ’68, they decided to split into three groups. One went to India, one stayed in Europe, and the one with Judith and Julian went to Brazil, where eventually they got arrested, went to jail, some members were tortured, beaten up, and all of that. Eventually they came out in 1970, and that’s when I joined the Living Theater — in New York City. We used to have a house across the street from the Brooklyn Academy of Music. We rehearsed there everyday.

SFBG: What brought you to the States?

CIS: I found myself being taken to America by an American woman actually. She kidnapped me and took me first to New York and then to Berkeley. When I arrived in Berkeley, it was the whole thing about the People’s Park, and the Living Theater was touring the US. We met and reconnected with Living Theater in Berkeley. There was a memorable performance with Jim Morrison acting out during the play as an audience member but getting involved with Paradise Now, which was all about audience participation.

SFBG: How would you describe Berkeley and the Bay Area during that time?

CIS: It was the beginning of the end kind of thing. Compared to Paris, it was pretty lightweight. Because if you saw ten cops running, you saw hundreds of people running back, whereas in Paris it was a different thing in terms of the demonstrations.

SFBG: What was your role with the Living Theater?

CIS: My role was acting, but then I became Judith [Malina] and Julian [Beck’s] assistant. I was very fortunate because I had never taken an acting class — they just took me in. I would go on tour with them whenever they did lectures to raise money. They would go around East Coast campuses and give theater lectures, so I would always be with them taking care of little things, selling books. I have all that kind of training—a very close relationship with both of them. Then I became the money person. I would figure out the money with Julian and then pay the artists — which wasn’t very much money, but at least a weekly whatever, enough for subway and cigarettes maybe. Nobody got paid but we all lived, ate, and worked together.

SFBG: Was your involvement with the Living Theater through the ’70s?

CIS: Yes, from the late ’60s to the ’70s. We lived in Brooklyn, as I said before, and then we went back to Europe. I had residence in a few places in Italy. And then of course, we toured Europe—France, Germany, and everywhere. We were invited to Italy by the Communist Party. One thing about the Living Theater was that whenever we did a play in any country, we did it in the language of the country, even if some of us did not speak the language, we said our lines in the language of the country.

SFBG: What was your involvement with music during that period?

CIS: There was some but at that time I was just acting. It was when I left the Living Theater and came to San Francisco. Suzanne Thomas and I, we were a couple. We started a group called Tribal Warning Theater. It was very successful. We always played to packed sold-out audiences. But it was hard to keep it going, you know. Obviously, nobody involved got paid. Most people had jobs, so we rehearsed at night and on weekends—and we performed on weekends. We performed at The Lab. We used to open for Psychic TV. That was when I started to do soundtracks. At that time it was the height of the industrial music — you know, Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, and all of those groups that were doing industrial weird kind of music. I would do a multi-track collage of sound that we would use as a soundtrack along with our lines, but we had microphones and everything else. We had slide shows and videos—a multimedia kind of thing. Our soundtrack was as loud as Psychic TV live. When we came on, it was massive sound, besides the visuals and the actual acting.

SFBG: How did DJing grow out of your involvement in theater?

CIS: All those major kind of things I got involved in artistically — we’re not taking about the shit jobs in between—it was always kind of by chance. It was a simple thing: I was working at Rainbow Grocery on 15th and Mission. I was the buyer in charge of homeopathy and Chinese herbs. I worked in the vitamin department. Of course, I was still collecting music. I would make tapes for the customers. I had made a tape of Algerian raï music. This guy came in and the music caught his attention. He came to me and asked what kind of music. I said, “That’s considered Algerian raï rebel music.” He said, “That sounds pretty cool.” We started talking. He said, “You know, I run a place called Nickies in the Lower Haight. If you want to come and spin there, that would be cool.” So I showed up the next week at Nickies. This year is the 18th year spinning there.

SFBG: When did you start to perform with Don Cherry?

CIS: Right around that time too, because he had moved to San Francisco to work with the Hieroglyphic Ensemble. I had met him a few years before in Europe, while I was in the Living Theater. I would see him wherever he was—Vienna, Paris—I would go to his concerts or he would come to Living Theater shows. That is how I met him—he came to a Living Theater show in Torino, Italy. From that first night, I went back to his hotel room, we had this long—I guess—25-year friendship. When he came here, we met again, and then before I was a DJ, he actually performed with us as Tribal Warning Theater. Don Cherry always wanted to do theater but never had the patience to sit through rehearsals and all that. We did a few plays at the Victoria Theater.

SFBG: What was your introduction to India and Indian music?

CIS: The music was my first introduction to India. In the ’60s was yoga and everything—but I was never joining anything. That was another big thing with Don Cherry and I. If you look at the jazz musicians, most of them in the ’60s during all the Black Panthers and everything else, most African American jazz musicians went back to Africa and Islam, many of them changed their names. But Don Cherry, John Coltrane, Charles Lloyd—they didn’t go that route; they went to India, so did Alice Coltrane. They went to Indian spirituality. And that is an interesting kind of thing. Only a few did that. So Don Cherry and I had this other Indian music/spirituality and also Tibetan tantra.

SFBG: You have a large Western audience and are very popular in the Burning Man community. Do you ever feel that your Western fans exoticize Eastern and South Asian culture?

CIS: That’s a hard one. In the West, there is a lack of initiation ritual and other places because everything is such a mess. There is a lack of communion with the village. That is what class and race and all of that have become. If you take techno or trance music, which is really based on repetition, you can see how, in the right environment, it brings people together and gives a ritual of togetherness through vibration, which in the end, everything in the universe is about vibration. If you feel good or feel better after going to dance or listening to music, you are definitely more positive towards the universe. It is difficult to be positive these days. And music does have that power. It might be short-lived, but anything we can do or think that is positive is what is needed.

Cheb i Sabbah Devotion CD Release Party, February 9th, 10 p.m., Temple Bar, 540 Howard Street, $18.

They need more

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It’s probably not fair to expect that if your duo goes bass free, if its rock falls somewhere under the crude banner of garage, and if your early riff education occurred in Detroit, you won’t be assailed with comparisons to the White Stripes. It’s even less fair if the best song on your debut pulls off the protoblues swagger and gnarly scale work that once made Jack and Meg interesting. But as applied to Leopold and His Fiction — the pairing of Motor City expat and current Russian Hiller Daniel Toccalino and drummer Ben Cook, formerly of Kentucky — that match is a little too neat. As Toccalino dryly put it to me the other week, checking in from a tour stop at the Sundance Film Festival, "There are garages everywhere."

Indeed. Toccalino and Cook — who have been playing together for three years, releasing one self-titled LP along the way — have their reasons for limiting personnel to two. Cook’s training is in jazz, and as his frontman sees it, this has taught the percussionist to carry a heavier load — to artfully sub in where the bass is supposed to go. "He fills up a lot of the low end," Toccalino notes admiringly. This doesn’t always come up on the album, on which songs are colored in by other instruments. But it’s a central skill when it comes to Leopold’s two-person live show, and the studio session drops clear hints in this direction. "Promise to Reality," a Doors-ish epic late in the record, is heated by a boplike boil of toms and kick drums.

Still, this is a jazz tactic being used in the service of rock. It’s a way to launch a leaner attack without losing depth, which makes sense: Leopold’s overriding urge is toward the primitive. Spare blues structures, ragged guitar riffs, and spent vocals abound on the LP, the last given extra wear by Julian Casablancas levels of distortion. This skuzzy bent can go several different ways. The trashed-up "Gonna Be Your Boy" — as opposed to your dog? — is the Stooges with the blues kept more audible. Yet — almost as if to even things up with his Kentucky bandmate — Toccalino can also twang out his melodies and head up a country and Southern rock path, as on the wide and glowing "Miss Manipulation," which evokes My Morning Jacket. The group may be at its best when covering a few scenes at once: "Mother Natures Son" feels like Iggy Pop up front with an Exile on Main Street–era Keith Richards on guitar.

There can be an itch, in supposedly bearish times for back-to-blues rock, to fetishize a band like this — to get giddy about the so-called honesty of its raw sound. To Toccalino’s credit, he seems to have little interest in playing the ideologue or the prophet. He mostly just likes the rapport of playing with only one other dude, feeling that it accelerates the creative process. "In three years we’ve gotten as far as [other bands] get in 10," he told me.

Besides, austerity has its limits. Ticking off the changes we’ll find on the pair’s second full-length, already cut and set for a late-spring release, he could only come up with increases: "A little more country, way more Motown, more Stooges." More, it seems, of everything.

LEOPOLD AND HIS FICTION

With Candy Apple

Sun/10, 8 p.m., call for price

Parkside

1600 17th St., SF

(415) 252-1330

www.theeparkside.com

G-Spot: Valentine’s Day events

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PARTIES, EVENTS, AND BENEFITS

Amor del Mar Aquarium of the Bay, Pier 39, Embarcadero at Bay; 623-5326, www.aquariumofthebay.com. Feb 14, 6pm, $100. Celebrate San Francisco’s love affair with the bay and support the nonprofit Aquarium of the Bay Foundation at this gala celebration featuring global cuisine, decadent drinks, live music, and exhibitions.

Erotic Playground One Taste, 1074 Folsom; www.tantriccircus.com. Sat/9, 8pm; $30 single women, $50 single men, $60 couples. The Tantric Circus presents a sexy evening of burlesque, striptease, male lap dance, fruit feeding, DJs, and more.

Eternal Spring SomArts Bay Gallery, 934 Brannan; 1-888-989-8748, eternalspring08.com. Sat/9, 2-10pm, $7. Celebrate life, love, arts, and creativity at this all-day event including a fashion show, performances, free classes (hoop, poi, yoga, and more!), DJs, and shopping.

Heroes and Hearts Luncheon Union Square; 206-4478, www.sfghf.net. Feb 14, 11:30am, $300. Celebrate those who have helped the community and support the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation by attending this luncheon and auction of artist-created tabletop heart sculptures.

My Sucky Valentine XIII ARTworkSF Gallery, 49 Geary; 673-3080, www.artworksf.com. Feb 14, 8pm, $15-25. Listen to tales of tainted love and bad sex by good writers including Thomas Roche, Carol Queen, Michelle Tea, and mi blue, all to benefit the Women’s Community Clinic and the St. James Infirmary.

One Night Stand X ARTworkSF Gallery, 49 Geary; 673-3080, www.artworksf.com. Sat/9, 6-11pm, $15-25. Support the Center for Sex and Culture and the SF Artists Resource Center at this sexy multimedia event including live nude models, paint wrestling, erotic food feeding, and performances.

PINK’s 2nd Annual Valentine’s Day Party Look Out Bar, 3600 16th St; 703-9751, www.mypartner.com. Sat/9, 8pm-2am, $25. MyPartner.com cohosts this year’s party and benefit for the GLBT Historical Society. About 300 single gay guys are expected to enjoy an open Svedka vodka bar and hobnobbing with guests like Assemblymember Mark Leno and Sup. Bevan Dufty.

Poetry Battle of (All) the Sexes Beat Museum, 540 Broadway; 863-6306, www.poormagazine.org. Feb 14, 7:30pm; $20 to fight, $15 to watch. Challenge your partner (or future partner) to a battle of spoken word, hip-hop, poetry, or flowetry in the ring at this benefit for Poor magazine.

Prom Pete’s Tavern, 128 King; 817-5040, www.petestavernsf. Feb 14, 9pm, $10. What’s more romantic than prom? Prom in the ’80s! Enjoy music, decorations, mock gambling, and dancing, all to benefit Voices, a nonprofit that works with emancipated foster youths. Admission includes one drink, gambling chips, and a photo.

Queen of Arts: A Profane Valentine Coronation Sssshh…!, 535 Florida; www.anonsalon.com/feb08. Feb 15, 10pm, $10-20. The production team that brought us Sea of Dreams presents a sexy night of DJs, dancing, art, and performance, including Kitty-D from Glitch Mob, Mancub from SpaceCowboys, Fou Fou Ha!, and Merkley.

Queen of Hearts Ball Mighty, 119 Utah; 974-8985, www.goodvibes.com. Feb 14, 8pm, $25. Good Vibrations and Dr. Carol Queen host this decadent fairy-tale-themed costume party featuring MC Peaches Christ, circus performances by Vau de Vire Society, a fetish fashion show, and dancers from the Lusty Lady.

Romancing the Reptiles: Wild Love! Tree Frog Treks, 2112 Hayes; 876-3764, www.treefrogtreks.com. Sat/9, noon-2pm; $40 adults, $25 kids. Join animal care director Ross Beswick as you learn about how animals pick their mates and where baby animals come from.

Sensualité 111 Minna, 111 Minna; www.celesteanddanielle.com/party.html. Feb 15, 9pm; $15 advance, $20 at the door. Wear something sexy to this multimedia Valentine’s Day event featuring aphrodisiac appetizers, exotic rhythms, tarot readings, performances, a raffle, and a no-host bar.

Sweet Valentine’s Cruise Pier 431/2; 673-2900, www.redandwhite.com. Feb 14, 5pm; $48 adult, $34 youth. Join the Red and White Fleet for a romantic, fun, two-hour cruise of the San Francisco Bay, including a lavish appetizer buffet by Boudin and a complimentary beverage.

Transported SF Valentine’s Singles Party Pickup at Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom; transportedsf.com. Feb 14, 7:30pm, $21.49. Join DJs Ana Sia and Felina aboard the biodiesel Transported SF bus for sultry sounds, schmoozing with other singles, and stops at gorgeous outdoor dancing locales.

Woo at the Zoo San Francisco Zoo; Sloat at 47th St; 753-7236, www.sfzoo.org. Sat/9, Feb 13-15, 6pm; Sun/10, Feb 17, noon; $75. This multimedia event, conducted by Jane Tollini of the now-defunct Sex Tours, explores the sexual and mating behaviors of animals. Also featuring champagne and romantic refreshments.

BAY AREA

Flamenco, Candlelight and Roses Café de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 287-8700, www.cafedelapaz.net. Feb 14, 5:30, 6, 8, and 8:30pm; Feb 15-16, 6:30pm; $75-115. The nuevo Latino café celebrates the sweet side of love with three days of dinner plus a show, featuring the acclaimed Caminos Flamencos dance company.

Nest Firecracker Valentine Event Nest, 1019 Atlas Peak, Napa; (707) 255-7484. Sat/9-Sun/10, 10am-6pm, $5. Celebrate Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day together while shopping for unique gifts and making art projects with scrapbook artist Janine Beard, all to benefit the "Nest Egg" fund through the Arts Council of Napa.

Sweetheart Tea Yerba Buena Nursery, 19500 Skyline, Woodside; (650) 851-1668, www.yerbabuenanursery.com. Sat/9, noon, $25. Enjoy a traditional tea service with a special Valentine’s Day menu, followed by a stroll through the nursery’s gorgeous gardens.

Week of Valentines at Habitot Children’s Museum Habitot Children’s Museum, 2065 Kittredge, Berk; (510) 647-1111, www.habitot.org. Fri/8-Sat/9, 9:30am-4:30pm; Feb 12-14, 9:30am-1pm; $6 per child, $5 for accompanying adult. Contribute to a large heart sculpture and create handmade cards from recycled materials. Bring valentine-making supplies to receive a free adult admission pass.

FILM, MUSIC, AND PERFORMANCE

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 100 34th Ave; 1-866-912-6326, www.legionofhonor.org. Feb 14, 5:30pm, $10-20. The Cinema Supper Club at the Legion of Honor presents this film as part of "The Real Drama Queens" series, including a special exhibition opening at 5:30pm, dinner seating at 6pm (reservations made separately; call 750-7633), and film screening at 8pm.

BATS Improv Valentine’s Day Show Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, bldg B, Marina at Laguna; 474-6776, www.improv.org. Feb 14, 8pm; $10 advance, $15 at the door. Whether you’re flying solo, with friends, or on a date, this audience-participation show is the perfect place to enjoy the funny side of romance.

The Best American Erotica Modern Times Bookstore, 888 Valencia; 282-9246, www.moderntimesbookstore.com. Feb 13, 7:30pm, free. Celebrate the 15th anniversary of the series with this showcase of standout stories, including a hot and edgy piece from Susie Bright.

Boston Marriage Theatre Rhinoceros, 2926 16th St; 861-5079, www.therhino.org. Feb 7-March 2, call or see Web site for schedule, $15-35. Join Anna and Claire and their crazy maid for Theatre Rhinoceros’s version of David Mamet’s same-sex romp.

Brainpeople Zeum, 221 Fourth St; 749-2228, Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Feb 16. $20. American Conservatory Theater presents the world-premiere production of this newest work by José Rivera, screenwriter of The Motorcycle Diaries, about two women who reckon with their pasts in an apocalyptic future.

The Eyes of Love Mechanics’ Institute, 57 Post; 393-0100, www.milibrary.com. Feb 14, 7:30pm; $15 members, $25 public. Back by popular demand, chanteuse Helene Attia will select from her vast repertoire of love songs, classic and contemporary. Admission includes hors d’oeuvres, libations, and dessert.

Hope Briggs and Friends: A Musical Valentine Herbst Theatre, War Memorial Veterans Bldg, 401 Van Ness; 392-4400, www.cityboxoffice.com. Feb 17, 3pm, $25-50. Celebrated soprano Hope Briggs shares favorite opera arias alongside 15-year-old singing sensation Holly Stell and virtuoso violinist Dawn Harms.

How We First Met Herbst Theatre, War Memorial Veterans Bldg, 401 Van Ness; 392-4400, www.howwefirstmet.com. Feb 14, 8pm, $22-35. Real audience stories are spun into a comedy masterpiece in this one-of-a-kind hit show.

In Search of the Heart of Chocolate Delancey Street Foundation, 600 Embarcadero; 310-0290, www.chocumentary.com. Tues/12, 6:30 and 7:30pm, $10. Bay Area filmmaker Sarah Feinbloom screens her new chocumentary, about Noe Valley’s Chocolate Covered and its customers. Screenings followed by a chocolate reception featuring art and live music.

I Used to Be So Hot Intersection for the Arts, 446 Valencia; 626-2787, www.theintersection.org. Feb 14, 7 and 9pm; Feb 15-16, 8pm; $20. InnerRising Productions presents comedian Mimi Gonzalez, a Detroit native who’ll take you on a journey through sexual politics and queer discovery.

Lovers and Other Monsters Hypnodrome, 575 10th St; 377-4202, thrillpeddlers.com. Feb 12-16, 8pm; Feb 17, 7pm; $20-34.50. With a diabolical nod to Valentine’s (and Presidents’) Day, Thrillpeddlers presents a weeklong rotating lineup of live music, exquisite torture, and expert testimony, including Jill Tracy, Jello Biafra, and Creepshow Camp horror theater.

Miss Ann Peterson’s Broken Heart Red Poppy Art House, 2698 Folsom; 1-800-838-3006, www.tangolamelodia.com. Feb 13-16, 8pm, $15. See the premiere of Tango la Melodia’s new multimedia production, a three-night concert featuring original music, poetry, and performance set in the romantic, sexy Roaring ’20s.

Mortified: Doomed Valentine’s Show Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St; www.makeoutroom.com, www.getmortified.com. Fri/8, Mon/11, 8pm; $12 advance, $15 at the door. Share the pain, awkwardness, and bad poetry associated with love as performers read from their teen-angst artifacts. The creator of the nationwide and NPR phenomenon, David Nadleberg, will be in attendance in celebration of the release of Mortified: Love Is a Battlefield (Simon Spotlight).

Not Exactly Valentine’s Show Purple Onion, 140 Columbus; 567-7488, www.talkshowsf.com. Mon/11, 7pm, $18-20. Presented by Talk Show Live, Beth Lisick talks about her latest work and performs from her slam repertoire, chocolatier Chuck Siegel of Charles Chocolates gives an interview and tasting, Vicki Burns performs a program of "sort-of romantic standards," and Kurt Bodden reads a short story by James Thurber.

Philosophy/Art Salon: What is Erotic? Femina Potens Art Gallery, 2199 Market; 217-9340, www.feminapotens.com. Feb 16, 6:30-8:30pm, $10-25. Philosopher Rita Alfonso joins erotica writer Jennifer Cross and artist Dorian Katz for a brief show-and-tell followed by a Socratic dialogue on the question "What makes for erotic art?"

Romeo and Juliet: Gala 40th Anniversary Screening Castro Theatre, 429 Castro; 863-0611, www.thecastrotheatre.com. Feb 14, 7pm; $25 adult, $12.50 youth. Marc Huestis and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura present a 40th-anniversary screening of Franco Zeffirelli’s romantic classic, with star Olivia Hussey in attendance and a live musical performance.

Valentine’s Day Film Program: Labor of Love Exploratorium, 3601 Lyon, McBean Theater; www.exploratorium.edu. Sat/10, 2pm, free with museum admission ($9-14). In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, the Exploratorium presents a program of short, expressive films about people who love what they do.

BAY AREA

The Gin Game Pacheco Playhouse, 484 Ignacio Blvd, Novato; 883-4498, www.pachecoplayhouse.org. Feb 14, 8pm, $10 special Valentine’s Day price. Bay Area theater vets Norman A. Hall and Shirley Nilsen Hall star in D.L. Coburn’s production of the 1978 Pulitzer Prize-winning play in which two residents of an "aged home" find comfort and competition in the constant shuffling of cards and eventually unravel bits of their past they may rather fold than show.

Giselle Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, Lower Sproul Plaza (near Bancroft at Telegraph), Berk; (510) 642-9988. Feb 14-16, 8pm; Feb 17, 3pm; $34-90. Cal Performances presents Nina Ananiashvili and the State Ballet of Georgia performing the beloved ballet, accompanied by the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra.

Love Fest La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 849-2568, www.lapena.org. Feb 14, 7:30pm; $12 advance, $14 at the door. HBO Def Poet Aya de Leon hosts this alt-V Day evening of spoken word and music that focuses on love of self, spirit, community, family, peace, and democracy, including readings from her collection of "Grown-Ass-Woman" poems.

Songs of Love Two Bird Cafe, 625 Geronimo Valley, San Geronimo; 488-0105, mikelipskinjazz.com. Feb 14, 7-9pm, free. Jazz vocalist duo Mike and Dinah Lee present a Valentine’s Day concert at Two Bird, which will feature a special menu.

Viva la Musica! St. Mark’s Catholic Church, 325 Marine View, Belmont; (650) 281-9663, www.vivalamusica.org. Feb 14, 8-10pm, $15. Share a romantic musical evening with heart-melting chamber music, intimate solos, sassy choral numbers, and gifts of chocolate for audience members.

ART SHOWS

Flowers from a Nuclear Winter: A Live Art Installation by Rod Pujante Exploratorium, 3601 Lyon, Phyllis Wattis Webcast Studio; 561-0363, www.exploratorium.edu. Feb 16, 11am-4pm, free with museum admission ($9-14). Cosponsored by the Black Rock Arts Foundation and the Exploratorium, Burning Man artist Rod Pujante performs a live demonstration of transparent-flower making, converting waste into a dreamscape.

Modern Love Lost Art Salon, 245 S Van Ness; 861-1530, www.lostartsalon.com. Feb 14, 5:30-8:30pm, free. Celebrate Valentine’s Day at an opening reception for this show of work selected from Lost Art’s library of more than 3,000 pieces from the mid-20th century.

BAY AREA

Red Cake Gallery: February Open House Call for directions to private home; (510) 759-4516, www.redcakegallery.com. Feb 23, 6-10pm; Feb 24, March 1, 1-4pm; Feb 25-29, 6-8pm; free. Have your cake and eat it too at this post-Valentine showcase of work by Red Cake artists, to be held in a private San Francisco home.

CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS

Aphrodisiac Cooking Class Sur la Table, 77 Maiden; 732-7900, www.surlatable.com. Feb 15, 6:30pm, $170 per couple. Learn to make a delicious, sensual meal at this couples’ class hosted by chef Diane Brown, author of The Seduction Cookbook (Innova, 2005).

Chocolate, Strawberries and Lapdancing Center for Healing and Expression, 1749 O’Farrell; (510) 291-9779, www.slinkyproductions.com. Tues/12, 8pm; $110 per couple, $160 per threeple. Be the best seat in the house at the Slinky Productions lap dance class for couples, which includes chocolate, strawberries, and champagne.

Letterpress Valentines San Francisco Center for the Book, 300 De Haro; 565-0545, sfcb.org. Fri/8, 2-5pm, $65 (including materials). Experienced and novice printmakers alike can enjoy an afternoon making letterpress cards with Megan Adie.

Valentine Special: Xara Flower-Making Workshop Exploratorium, 3601 Lyon, Skylight Area. Feb 14 and 16, noon-2pm, free with museum admission ($9-14). Attorney and Burning Man artist Mark Hinkley teaches attendees how to make fake flowers from recycled bottles. All materials provided; ages 6 and up.

BAY AREA

Celebrating the Masculine and Feminine Odd Fellows Hall, 839 Main, Redwood City; (650) 780-0769. Feb 16, 10am-6pm, $150-175. Join Valerie Sher, Jackie Long, and Jim Benson on a journey toward wholeness as we explore who we are as men and women.

A Night of Bond, James Bond Bay Club of Marin, 330 Corte Madera, Corte Madera; 945-3000. Feb 14, 7pm, $35-45 (includes drinks and appetizers). Skip the prix fixe dinner and join certified matchmaker Joy Nordenstrom for a Bond-themed workshop about cultivating passionate relationships, including a contest for best male and female Bond-inspired costumes.

Thrower’s flames

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› johnny@sfbg.com

REVIEW You can judge a book by its cover when the cover is as scarily impressive as the one for Stephen Thrower’s Nightmare USA: The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents (Fab Press, 528 pages, $79.95). It’s a map of the United States, with each state composed of a fragment from a low-budget horror film. Blood drips from the edges of the South. The entire top of the Midwest is blocked by a large image of someone in an asbestos suit. He’s aiming a lively flamethrower directly at you and me.

Also sporting a pair of amazing inset spreads that showcase the title credits of 300 films, Thrower’s tome deserves a spot next to Carlos Clarens’s An Illustrated History of the Horror Film (Capricorn, 1967), Carol Clover’s Men, Women, and Chainsaws (Princeton University Press, 1992), Michael Weldon’s The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film (Ballantine, 1983), and Bill and Michelle Landis’s Sleazoid Express (Simon and Schuster, 2002) on a healthily horrific bookshelf. Its closest relative in terms of loose format and interview content might be Incredibly Strange Films (RE/Search, 1986), but Thrower casts aside V. Vale’s coolness for the passion found in Danny Peary’s series of Cult Movies books.

More pointedly, Thrower’s study of American exploitation film from the 1970s through the mid-’80s applies terribly to the current moment. For one thing, recent Hollywood torture porn owes a multimillion-dollar influential debt to the small-time labors of twisted love celebrated by Nightmare USA. For another, Thrower is flashing a spotlight — or beaming a flashlight — on the American death drive at a time when this country seems increasingly or wholly out of touch with, and idiotically clueless about, its violent id. It helps that this catalogue of what United Kingdom censors called video nasties proves as visually and verbally lively as the toothy title grubs in The Deadly Spawn (1982).

And for a book bathed in blood and drawn to depressing and despairing expressions of murder such as the infamous Maniac (1980), Nightmare USA is surprisingly and endearingly warmhearted. "Watching the materialistic beach babes and sexist volleyball hunks of Slumber Party Massacre 3 (Sally Mattison, 1990) driving down a coastal road in an open-topped car listening to awful AM pop-rock, I hug myself with excitement, treasuring my affection for these bubbleheads and jackasses," Thrower writes. "They are my friends and I can’t wait to see them die." Themes of friendship also emerge from the book’s profiles — along with some equally unexpected juxtapositions. Deadly Spawn director Douglas McKeown now runs a storytelling group at New York’s Gay and Lesbian Center. Frederick Freidel, the director of Axe (1974), says his assistant consulted with esteemed critic Manny Farber. Joseph Ellison, director of Don’t Go in the House (1979), discusses jazz and watching Federico Fellini films and shares a photo of his film’s producer with a beaming Frank Capra.

That photo couldn’t be stranger, considering that Ellison’s truly scarifying film provides Nightmare USA with the fire on its front cover. That man in the asbestos suit is grafted from an infamous scene, set in a steel room, that — after decades of deciding it was beyond my threshold of experience — I recently discovered (thanks in part to my brave cohort Cheryl Eddy) is both superior to and an obvious source for Eli Roth’s Hostel (2005). "Horror has always been sad to me," Ellison remarks with casual profundity to Thrower, who rightly states that Don’t Go in the House‘s scorching early centerpiece "takes the viewer through shock into a kind of stunned admiration." It’s up to you whether you go in the house, but I’ll be breaking the bank and getting ready for some heavy lifting when Thrower flames readers with volume two of Nightmare USA.

www.lastgasp.com”>wwww.lastgasp.com

Adrift and lovin’ it

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It couldn’t have happened any other way, really: Ray Raposa, the wise-beyond-his-years voice behind the Castanets moniker, is chatting with me by phone from a motel room. As a chronicler of the wandering spirit and a champion of the blue highways who has spent many of his days on the road — ever since completing high school at 15 in order to roam the country by bus — Raposa is entirely qualified to discuss his latest disc, In the Vines (Asthmatic Kitty), from such familiar turf. Inevitable, even, if we’re willing to talk about such heady fare as fate — a subject about which, judging from In the Vines, Raposa has more than a few ideas. The album was inspired in part by a Hindu fable about being the victim of an unavoidable destiny, and it’s a theme that drifts specterlike among the ripples of pedal steel and squalls of electronic treatments that hover at the edges of Raposa’s troubled rasp. Look no further than the slowly unsettling opener, "Rain Will Come": "So it’s going to be sad, and it’s going to be long / And we already know the end of this song," he portends with the gravest of emphasis over a mesmerizing blues-folk acoustic guitar line before, in confirmation of such claims, the song explodes in shrieking, devastating electronic white-noise chaos.

And the other inspiration for In the Vines? Wandering, of course, and so a motel room it must be, then — in Portland, Ore., specifically — while Raposa assembles a new backing band for his upcoming West Coast tour. "You know, one day I sat down and counted," the songwriter says, chuckling. "And the number of places I mention on that album runs in the double digits, easily."

It’s a telling comment, but not without its complications: much of the Castanets catalog feels like a tug-of-war between the lure of the road and the desire to put down roots and build a community. Take "Three Months Paid," an intimate confessional on which Raposa reveals, "I was ready to settle down" — and even lists a few possible locales — over a plodding drum track while synths whirr and bleep in hesitation at the mention of domesticity. Above it all, an aching pedal steel floats onward and upward, much like the song’s narrator, who, intriguingly, manages to sound both relieved and rueful about his decision to keep moving on. Or perhaps neither emotion is involved and the singer merely acknowledges his fate.

"It’s a tough one — I get more writing done when I’m at home than on the road, but I get so much inspiration from roaming," Raposa explains. Having recently given up his Brooklyn, NY, apartment to accommodate a rigorous touring schedule, the former San Diego resident — "I can’t survive too long without seeing the ocean," he jokes of his bicoastal tendencies — sounds energized by his newfound freedom. After all, so much of the Castanets journey has been guided by a spontaneous, largely improvisational attitude, which has ushered in an impressive cast of collaborators over the years — ranging from labelmate Sufjan Stevens to kindred spirit Matthew Houck of Phosphorescent — and encouraged a willingness to incorporate elements of electronic ambience, free jazz, and noise rock into the spooky-country framework.

Such fearlessness also extends to the Castanets live experience. "I can’t imagine doing the same thing every night," Raposa asserts in explanation of his largely unscripted approach to performance. "For me, to do so would mean there’d be no authenticity, no spontaneity. No, I’d rather just let things go where they may."

CASTANETS

With Sholi and El Olio Wolof

Mon/21, 9 p.m., $10

Cafe du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

Bye bye beautiful

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

There’s a wonderful moment during the performance of "Bye Bye Blackbird" that opens the 1964 Chet Baker set preserved on a recent Jazz Icons DVD (Chet Baker Live in ’64 and ’79 [Reelin in the Years]). In the midst of the squarish piano player’s solo, the star trumpeter shuffles into the medium close-up frame, shucking a cigarette from his accompanist’s pack. Chiseled even when sporting a stuffy sweater, Baker takes a long drag and glides back to his place on the stage. The pianist plays on, but the camera operator tracks Baker, plainly in the clutch of a lonely lothario.

The cigarette break is more revealing of Baker’s largesse — his ineffable cool and the desire it produced — than any of his softly sustaining trumpet solos for the television program are. It also sheds some light on the side-winding portraiture that marks Bruce Weber’s adoring documentary Let’s Get Lost, filmed during the last months of Baker’s life in 1987 and now playing in a restored print at the Castro Theatre.

The first interview in Let’s Get Lost is with photographer William Claxton, an early admirer of Baker’s who waxes poetic about the revelation of shooting such a naturally photogenic subject. Weber, known for innumerable sleek Calvin Klein and Abercrombie and Fitch spreads, riffles through these striking stills in contact-sheet form, a neat solution to the persistent documentary problem of how to make archival photographs move. Twenty minutes pass before we begin to explore Baker’s music, and there are another 20 minutes after that before we meet his Oklahoma mother, our first whiff of personal history. Backward, it might seem, except for Baker’s being a cipher of his own iconography.

"He was trouble and he was beautiful," an interviewee muses early in Let’s Get Lost, and it might as well be the film’s byline. He was beautiful, possessing a ravaged, introspective glamour attractive to both men and women: writing about Baker’s underfed croon in his excellent liner notes for The Best of Chet Baker Sings (Blue Note, 1953), Will Friedwald notes, "His moony voice twangs like an Oakie [sic]-cum-valley person at times, but more often he achieves geographic — not to mention sexual — ambivalence." Though less remembered today than James Dean or Jack Kerouac, Baker had a comparable rogue appeal, his missing front tooth suggestive of wounded sensitivity, his shoulders bent under the unknowable weight of being himself.

Weber’s velvety black-and-white cinematography has never met a silhouette it didn’t like, and indeed, his documentary is first and foremost a tribute to Baker’s arch stylishness. Insofar as Josef von Sternberg, Leni Riefenstahl, and Michelangelo Antonioni’s idolatrous visions are often said to anticipate modern fashion imagery, Weber must rightly be considered their direct descendent: a fashion photographer turned filmmaker unapologetically devoted to surfaces. He is equally attentive to the silvery bleach of Santa Monica, the inky black swallowing various stage spotlights, and the shadows of heroin abuse running across Baker’s unbearably gaunt 57-year-old face — all shot in an amorous chiaroscuro evocative of the trumpeter’s West Coast cool musical phrasings, his constant drug nod, and the late-night languidness of his smoking and speech.

But, of course, Baker was trouble too, and this is where Let’s Get Lost can feel strained. Though clearly a labor of love, the film shrugs off conclusiveness as casually as one of Baker’s shopworn melodies might. For one thing, Weber isn’t much of an interviewer, asking the musician’s mother, "Did he disappoint you as a son?" and directing one of Baker’s ex-wives to "tell me something romantic." Still, with the recent documentary explosion prizing kinetic revelations at all costs, Weber’s patient accumulation is a virtue in itself. We hear several versions of a story about Baker getting his teeth knocked out, and although none of them paints a convincingly specific picture, we do get the overarching thrust of a sad decline.

Originally released the same year as Gus Van Sant’s similarly loving debut, Mala Noche, Let’s Get Lost gives the lie to the notion that every gaze is created equal. Weber may wrap the disillusionment of Baker’s life in the romanticism of the latter’s demeanor, but the director also gives the spiraling musician space for self-expression (including a couple of lovely, understated full performances) and, in an empathetic final scene, offers to buy him a methadone fix. The film is as recklessly lyrical as Baker was himself, and it’s in this way that — in spite of its shortcomings as biography — Let’s Get Lost has the spiritual heft of an ample epigraph. The ragged icon mumbles about the film’s production being "a dream," and the inevitable fade to black and memorial that follows seem exactly the type of void he’d like to walk into. *

LET’S GET LOST

Opens Fri/18, $6–$9

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.castrotheatre.com

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