Fantasy Land was out in full force on the Herbst Theater stage this past weekend, for the 23rd annual Gay Asian Pacific Alliance (GAPA) Runway show and 2011 Mr. & Miss GAPA pageant. The contestants were dressed to impress and pulled out all the stops (and pulled off a few pairs of pants too), in hopes of winning over a panel of judges that included everyone from socialites like Holy McGrail and politician Fiona Ma. Everyone was bedazzled, especially by the host Tita Aida.
Working with a cold and a pesky iPad, Tita held the whole event together with elegance and poise, and enough inappropriate jokes to keep everyone laughing and wetting their panties for the entire four hours of the show. I hope to one day call Tita a BFF. Tita is my heroine, not only for her amazing style, but also for her never ending list of Daly City jokes.
And then there were all the sexy Gaysian fantasies on the runway, dressed in fairytales of Snow White and genies, who really gave their all. One of my personal favorites was an evocative and devastating performance by Jezebel Patel of the Dying Swan, feathers spewing in every direction after each perfectly performed pirouette. She was a runner up for Miss Gapa, but the gigantic trophies at the end of the night went to two wonderful talents, Lychee Minelli and Mike Nguyen, who stole the show with their school-girl good looks and baton twirling triumphs.
I’ve been to a pretty solid sampling of drag shows in my day, but I have to say, GAPA Runway was magical in so many ways and one that I hope to make a yearly tradition.
No one seemed to mind that it was a Sunday night and that we were probably all going to be up far past our bedtime on a work night. That’s because it’s worth staying up late to hear some darn good music, truly starting the week off right. Emily Wells and The Blank Tapes were at Cafe du Nord and they kept the tunes coming late into the evening.
I always love going to a show early to find out that the opening band is awesome. The Blank Tapes, hollering from the Bay Area, have this perfectly classic sound, bringing up scents of Cream and the Youngbloods. The quirky sailor outfit was also a plus and I loved the Renaissance-man band member who played everything from bongos and mouth harp, to ukulele and the Puerto Rican guiro. What can I say, I really liked their sound and I bet you would too.
Then Emily Wells took the stage, with about a zillion instruments and a web of electrical cords twisting around her feet. A one-women band, Wells loops her voice, hits away on the drums and evens add violins into the mix. Her voice, melancholy and smoky, made the front row dance in ecstasy (or, perhaps, on ecstasy … some of the moves were a little out there, but it could just have been pure-enthusiasm … who knows).
Wells and The Blank Tapes were definitely the prefect mix for the Sunday night blues, easing us all into the work week with a pitch-perfect concert.
After capping off a monstrous 20-plus song set yesterday, on Thursday, July 21, with the tortured grind of “Slaves & Bulldozers,” Soundgarden put an exclamation point on their performance with a six minute shake-the-building-foundations, horses-of-the-apocalypse audio assault.
Amid waves of controlled feedback and blaring Seattle Sonic resonance, I thought my dental fillings were shaking loose. I was worried the Civic Auditorium balcony would soon collapse. I suspected that teenagers might start exploding throughout the audience.
If there had remained any wayward ounce of Superunknown sentiment regarding Soundgarden’s return, it had been extinguished long before the encore. The ear-bleeding onslaught at the outro was entirely (and wonderfully) gratuitous, then. Apparently the band just wanted to ruin our hearing for the rest of the week to make their point.
Yes, Soundgarden was in prime fighting shape. If you hadn’t caught it at the 1996 show at Kaiser Auditorium (now featured on their Live On I-5 disc) or the Greek Theater during grunge’s high watermark or the Warfield in all of its youthful glory — well, you still got the real deal last night. Not only did the band deliver on its trademark heft, but the setlist was epic.
The group relied most heavily on material from Superunknown and Badmotorfinger, but dug deep into the vault at times, with the likes of “Ugly Truth”, “Loud Love,” and the early-as-it-gets “Nothing To Say.” Soundgarden also gave San Francisco first listen to some glorious obscurities that have yet to surface on their reunion tour, with an amped-up “Drawing Flies” and an entirely anthem-oriented “Head Down.”
All of the band’s radio hits were included, which at times this made for a somewhat disjointed iPod shuffle-style pacing to the night. But the slower, quietly textured numbers are all essential to Soundgarden’s identity — and say what you like, but “Black Hole Sun” might very well be its generation’s “Strawberry Fields.”
As the band wound down the main set with the juggernaut creep of “4th of July,” Soundgarden plunged deep into their element with “Beyond the Wheel,” from their first LP Ultramega OK. Chris Cornell stalked the stage belting out upper register falsettos for the better part of the track, while Kim Thayil let loose on high wire guitar solo wizardry.
There is a stunning weight to all of this, to Soundgarden’s music when it locks one member to another like that. In this sense, their current tour shouldn’t be viewed so much as a reunion, but a question as to why they were apart in the first place.
End notes:
– Talk about grunge. The Civic Auditorium is seriously grimey these days.
– Former San Francisco Giant and future hall-of-famer Randy Johnson is apparently Soundgarden’s tour photographer. He was seen early on in the photo pit at the start of the show and was photographing from the back of the stage during the show’s finale.
– Notorious for hissy fits prior to the band’s breakup, bassist Ben Shepherd was on good behavior throughout the night. Furthermore, the inclusion of one of his few authored tracks “Head Down” was one of the show’s highlights.
– Drummer Matt Cameron is really something to watch – his is sort of a precision bludgeoning — half barbarian, half perfectly calibrated robot. (Check him out on the Youtube clip)
– And…why aren’t these guys headlining Outside Lands?
Like “okra” or “golf,” the word “ballet” can elicit a very strong reaction. Either its two syllables make you giddy, the same way a perfectly sauteed pan of okra can make you salivate, or make you instantly nod off, like the thought of 18 holes of golf. (No offense to golf lovers … I personally just don’t really get it). Fortunately for everyone on both sides of the ballet divide, there’s Post:Ballet, a relatively young dance company that is breathing new life into the dance form — and which brings something that almost anyone will find quite likable indeed.
This coming Fri/15 and Sat/16, the company is performing at Herbst Theater, to present their new program titled “Seconds.” The show incorporates video projections with eerily beautiful music, along with the dancers’ fluid and graceful movements, to create an incredibly engaging and dramatic performance. The dance company definitely has strong roots in ballet, but it is able to meld tradition with fresh ideas, making for a ballet performance that everyone, including golf-loving okra freaks, won’t want to miss. I caught the company in rehearsals for its big show.
Post:Ballet, “Seconds” Fri/15 and Sat/16, 8pm. $20-$25 Herbst Theater 401 Van Ness, SF. www.postballet.org
He sat surrounded by dozens of instruments, all of which were lovingly named in the playbill for the show. As Eddie Vedder made his way through an extensive repertoire of new and old songs, a fresh ukulele or guitar was switched out with each piece, giving the whole evening an ever changing sound and flavor.
Vedder, whose latest album Ukulele Songs, came out earlier this year, has embraced the tiny Hawaiian contraption, mashing it up with his strong, experienced voice, to create something you might call “aloha with kick.” The audience was in complete awe throughout the whole performance, shrieking at unexpected moments and shouting out requests, which were often surprisingly obliged to, including when someone asked to be sung a special wedding song.
And then there were those guitars. Both Vedder and his opener, the talented Irishmen, Glen Hansard, had wild musical moments on stage, where their guitar and singing made it sound like they were playing with a whole band, drums and other singers included. I don’t really know how to explain it, but only that there was so much music coming out of them, that it seemed like the stage was jam packed with musicians, when in reality it was just some dudes with their guitars.
Pretty awesome. But then again, the whole show had a very intimate feeling, like were were all around a bonfire, on some beach in Hawaii, wasting away the evening to some beautifully poetic ukulele songs.
Call it soul music for soulless times: Gillian Welch and David Rawlings dazzled a devoted crowd on Thursday July 7 with a beautiful bluegrass showcase carried out with hefty Nashville flair. With songs of love and loss, murder and redemption, the duo created evocative atmosphere in the Warfield Theater despite their minimalist setup at center stage.
Playing two sets of about a dozen songs each, Welch and Rawlings made it through their entire new album, The Harrow & the Harvest. Yes, the songs from the duo’s 2001 album, Time (The Revelator) were all stellar, just as other crowd pleasers like “Miss Ohio” and “I’ll Fly Away” were well-received by the audience. But it was the new material that proved the most compelling and even claimed some of the biggest ovations of the night; mostly noticeably “Six White Horses,” for which Welch played percussion on her thigh and then performed a barn dance jig while Rawlings drove it all along on banjo and harmonica.
With their deft ability to conjure up heavy moods through their music, Welch and Rawlings took the atmosphere in the theater from the Southern glory of the Grand Ole Opry to the whiskey-fueled knife fights of a Barbary Coast saloon. It’s what the duo does best, shaking out a timeless sort of salt-of-the-earth Americana through their music – soulful harmonies matched by stirring melodies.
Having explored a wide range of their catalogue and worked through three encores, the duo sent the audience off with the heavy morphine drip waltz of The Harrow and the Harvest’s final track, singing – “that’s the way the corn bread crumbles/that’s the way the whole thing end.”
Ace Guardian shutterbug Charles Russo reveled in the otherworldly Miss Florence Welch at Berkeley’s al fresco amphitheatre last night. Sheathed in a drape-y chartreuse toga, the lead singer of Florence and the Machine filled the classic venue with her goddess light. For proof, check this slideshow.
Ace Guardian photographer Charlie Russo caught Bono & co. in all their arena glory last night as part of the massive 360 Tour. Click here to see larger versions of the pics.
Major props to any super-hot French pop star who starts her set wearing a full body mop. That’s just what Yelle‘s lead-singer, Julie Budet, did last night at the Regency Ballroom — but it was to be expected since the group is consistently donning edgy threads in their eccentric music videos.
Budet has true star energy which fires her fans into hours-long dance fests at her concerts, despite the fact that probably the majority of them have no idea what her French lyrics are on about.
But little matter — it’s not just about the music.
It’s also about the spunky ’80s dance moves and her too-cute white Keds. And I love the fact that even though Yelle has a very electro pop sound, the group is actually two band mates tinkering on the keyboard and drumming away on a kit, which infinitely surpasses hitting play on a Mac Book. The beats last night were infectious and gave off that essential French coolness that everyone was trying to absorb just a little bit of, even if they couldn’t quite sing along.
Playing small quarters for their immeasurably large sound, TV on the Radio enthralled a sold out Independent audience for the second of two nights on Tuesday, May 10. Hard to define and even harder to resist, the band dipped heavily into the material from their latest release Nine Types of Light, while also letting loose with stirring versions of old favorites such as “Satellite,” “The Wrong Way,” and “Staring at the Sun.”
It’s rare these days to go to a concert and feel like you really saw something truly wholesome. It’s more likely you leave smelling of booze, covered in dance-floor sweat, and with the beat of the drums still pounding in your ears. Luckily, there are still musicians like Kinna Grannis making beautiful, simple songs that can make an audience just sit in total silence as gentle guitar chords wave over them. Grannis is performing at the Swedish American Hall for two nights this week (last night and tonight, Weds/11).
The first of these gigs left people standing out in the horribly cold wind, staring at the sold-out sign plastered to the door. Grannis, who has become famous mostly through the powers of Youtube, shared the stage with her equally talented sisters, Misa and Emi. Lots of her songs have to do with love and happy moments, which will just make you smile, and on her Youtube channel she’s explored all sorts of covers, from Tracy Chapman to Britney, bringing a bit of her own folksy twist to all of them.
Imaginary Friend started out the evening with melancholy ballads, just the thing you’d want to play when you’re all alone with that special someone.
There was something so pleasantly innocent and precious about the whole night — maybe if you’re lucky enough to get a seat, tonight you can go experience that wholesomeness for yourself.
“Have you been to Eco-Opolis?” a woman asked me as I leaned in to look at a miniature green city complete with recycled soap bottle skyscrapers and strawberry basket fences. The set-up was part of a phalanx of carnival booths with very green themes — just one part of this year’s Earth Day Festival in Civic Center Plaza.
The amount of recycled art that peppered the grounds in front of San Francisco’s city hall was quite impressive, from ornate altars made of orange peels and bottle caps to adorable burlap fish friends. Beyond the art, there were booths galore with demos on solar power water heating, hip recycled glassware by Bottle Hood and to die for raw vegan chocolates by Sacred Chocolate.
And for those looking for something a little more experiential there was the sound therapy booth, where one could sit within a circle of gongs and feel the vibrations, or get one could get dirty and learn how to build using straw bales. I’ve got to give a shout-out to the two gals running the Teens Turning Green booth, who were working to educate their cohort on the dangers of toxins in so many products that teens love to use.
There was definitely a encouraging mood throughout the whole event, which made me feel positive that one day, we’ll all be able to live in Eco-Opolis.
Do you ever go to a concert and realize that the lead singer is your new style icon? From the peacock feather in her hair to the flamingo tee-shirt and chipped red nails, Liliana from Bomba Estéreo has got definite style chops. But the sold out audience at the Independent last night, April 19, wasn’t there just to see what hip threads Liliana might throw on. They were there to hear the band’s utterly unique music, a mix of electronica and traditional Colombian beats.
I grew up with a Puerto Rican dad, which meant that on Saturdays we’d be blasting classic salsa from the KPOO radio station. Those classic Latin rhythms just become a part of any Latino kid’s body, so I love that Bomba Estéreo has kept so much of their roots present in their music while at the same time venturing into the future by mixing in technology.
At one point in the show, someone yelled out “Psychedelic trip!” as a plethora of colors and images danced on the stage and the beat became almost trance-like and hypnotic. There was definitely some major heat and energy coming off the stage — luckily it didn’t become a full out fuego.
Every which way you turned, there was someone else you wanted to get your picture taken with, from the big wooly Totoro to people decked out in over-the-top anime costumes. The annual Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown was in full bloom this weekend, April 16-17, and everyone in town seemed to be there. The streets were packed with yummy eats, colorful clothing, and of course, lots of stands dedicated to raising money for Japan and their rescue relief efforts.
On Sunday, the morning started with the Grand Parade, which went from Civic Center to the heart of Japantown. For me, there was one main attraction: the anime costume contest. I’ll confess, I don’t know much about anime or what characters the contestant’s threads were representing. But I do know that they were all super-creative and I loved how much attitude everyone on stage had. In my mind, pyramid head, with his jumbo-sized bloody sword and yarn-ball-head sidekick, definitely should have won. They rocked.
PJ Harvey has taken the Warfield stage at numerous points and in many forms during her career over the past two decades – never predictable, always engaging. Her performance on Thursday night, a pre-Coachella warm-up gig, was the sort of wonderfully unexpected showing you’d come to expect from Polly Jean.
Dressed in a white robe and black-feathered Valkyrie-esque headdress, Harvey spent much of the night cradling her autoharp, looking like a dreamscape figment from one Neil Gaiman’s Sandman novels. It was appropriate attire for the set of music she delivered – both ethereal and sublime.
With the backing of her deft three piece band (featuring longtime collaborator John Parish) Harvey delved deeply into the new material from her latest album, Let England Shake. By her standards, it’s a quiet body of work (resonating with the atmosphere of 1998’s Is This Desire), reflecting on our modern era of warfare and human strife. The material is excellent, and Harvey delivers it with an affected certainty, as if the entire setlist was handed down to her on divine authority. This then, made for a night that was far less rock concert and more of an artistic exploration of sorts. With most artists, that may have made it tedious, but with Harvey it was spellbinding.
She delivered some big favorites, of course, including “Down by the Water,” “Big Exit,” and “The Sky Lit Up,” though she fit them into the evocative mood she had been developing all evening. The crowd didn’t seem to mind in the least, spending many of the down moments in between songs broadcasting their love and gratitude to Harvey and her music.
Never content to just tow the line of what has worked in the past, Polly’s past three albums (most notably the hallucinatory piano balladry of White Chalk) have been mature and outside-the-box efforts unlikely to win huge commercial appeal. But like this unique performance at the Warfield, it stands as evidence that the 50 Foot Queenie is poised to age gracefully.
I remember when I was a little girl, I used to live down at my Grandma Kay’s house in Belmont. She had a big living room, with floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the bay. I used to dance around on the wooden floors in my socks to her Peggy Lee and Patsy Cline cassettes, which I played over and over again. It was a strange time. Grandma Kay was sick with cancer and I was too young to totally understand what was going on.
Last night I went to watch FACT/SF at the Garage. The first piece was two people, sitting in metal folding chairs, a lit cigarette filling the room with sweet smoke. There was not an inch of movement, just the sound of Peggy Lee singing “Is That All There Is.” It was melancholy and brought me right back to that living room in Belmont, and I wondered how many other people in the audience had some strange connection to that song.
This is my third time seeing FACT/SF and every time I see them it’s emotional. Yes, there are perfect pirouettes and elegant extensions, but then there’s always something deep, slightly dark and always thought-provoking.
There’s a little bit of theater, at least a few wonderfully wacky costumes, and of course, there are the eyeballs. Choreographer Charles Slender has a serious thing about eyeballs and their ability to transform his dancers into more than just moving bodies. Whether the dancers are staring straight into your own eyes, or directly up at the ceiling, there’s an intensity about those eyeballs that brings so much to the performance.
The show, which has one more run tonight, is a collection of new and old works, including an excerpt from the evocative “The Consumption Series,” with it’s fluffy red tutus and bright orange tangerines. I know you haven’t made any plans for tonight, so now you’ve got some. Now then: let’s keep dancing. Let’s break out the booze and have a ball …
Racing up and down the pavement on Telegraph Avenue, the scalpers were grinding hard outside the Fox Theater on Monday night, perhaps with an inkling that the venue might not be standing by the time the Queens of the Stone Age left the stage in a few hours. True to form, Josh Homme and crew all but blew the Fox to pieces with a monstrous rendering of their debut album, as well as two hefty encores that showcased the stoner age rock royalty in all of their primal glory.
Winding down a ferocious “Walkin’ on the Sidewalks” behind their Mongol-on-a-warpath drummer Joey Castillo, keyboardist Dean Fertita (recently of Dead Weather fame) dialed up the intro for Homme to lay into the sleazy start-and-stop riff of “You Would Know.” They were barely a half dozen songs in, but it was apparent that the juggernaut assault of the Queens’ self-titled debut was offering the audience a glimpse into the band’s nerve center, to the raw and infectious source of one of the best rock outfits of the past decade.
Though his has been dubbed stoner rock, Homme seems to have delved deeply into his Southern California music environment, with traces of Jane’s Addiction-channeling-Zeppelin against Hollywood glam and a dark dose of Doors psychedelia. Songs like “Mexicola” and “You Can’t Quit Me Baby” matched live wire energy against stunning musicianship.
The following encores included a great cross section of the band’s more recent material, with radio hits “Little Sister” and “Go With the Flow” receiving the biggest ovations. But it was a pair of fan favorites – “Better Living Through Chemistry” and “Song for the Dead” – that capped off the performance with proper might, and caused you to wonder why so few live shows these days ever achieve such sonic magnitudes.
The crowd spilt out of the theater half dazed and nearly deaf, but mostly satisfied. Although this show at the Fox showcased the Queens at their beginning, it left you anxious for what they will do next.
To be honest, I could have cared less who the Cafe Du Nord headliners were that night. I was there for only one reason: to see the opener, Nashville-born singer Caitlin Rose.
I found Caitlin Rose’s music on one of those lucky Youtube click-happy sessions. You know what I’m talking about. Where you go from one “recommended” video to the next, until finally you land on something good. And that goodness was Caitlin Rose’s “Own Side,” a melancholy, sweet bluesy, twang-licious song. Oh yes, this was a very good recommendation. And as luck would have it, she was going to be coming to San Francisco in less than three weeks. Perfection.
At the show last night, Rose brought a beautiful set of songs to the stage about everything from sleeping around to pushing people into wells. Her voice has a bit of Iris Dement and Patsy Cline, mixed in with classic country chords, that rolled effortlessly off the lap steel guitar.
I’ll confess, I used to be a pretty big country music fan back in high school, but then when Bush took over the White House, I just couldn’t do it anymore. It just felt dirty and wrong. But I think Caitlin Rose has got me back into it, because her music is not about American pride or getting a new washing machine. Her songs are about teen pregnancy and the inevitable shotgun wedding, or about falling in love with a gorilla man. This is new country, that’s quirky, catchy, and it’s music that I would definitely recommend to you and yours.
And below — this is amazing. Best cover by a 5 years old ever:
You could hear the dancers before you could actually see them. The stage was dark, but there was a jingling of a hundred bells that encased the dancer’s ankles and jangled with each of their movements. When the lights went up, the audience came face to face with an array of brilliant colors as the dancers moved across the stage in dazzling Indian saris.
These performers have traveled all around the world to share dances that go back to dates that end in B.C. We’re talking ancient movements, ones that have been passed down for tens of generations. But what makes Nrityagram Dance Ensemble so unique is not the dances they perform, but the way in which they learn them.
The dancers live communally in India, in the Nrityagram dance village located on a rural farm. The dancers not only practice their performance pieces, but also yoga, meditation, and martial arts — to name just a few of their ongoing areas of study. The goal is not only to become great dancers but to become well-balanced human beings. Dance as a form of life. Ingenious, right?
The whole performance was strikingly beautiful, especially with the help of four live musicians, whose beats and rhythms could put anyone into a hypnotic trance. There were many movements that I’d seen in yoga class, from elegant hand mudras to precarious one-legged balancing acts. It was ancient and yet so modern — back in the B.C.’s, these kind of dance moves never would have made their mark on soil of San Francisco.
Everyone get ready for a blast from the past — and the sudden realization that maybe we’re getting old. That’s right, turning into real fogies. That’s how it goes down when you’re at the concert of a group you listened to when you were young and sprightly and they keep throwing words out like “time machine” and “1989” — it’s like, wow, I’m at a 20th anniversary reunion concert for a band I actually like. Weird.
Luckily, Naughty by Nature, the award-winning hip-hop trio from New Jersey, don’t look like they’ve aged a bit and they’ve definitely still got the same contagiously groovin’ energy that made us love them so much in the first place, way back when.
But I was there to take photos, which you can read as dancing like a fool while snapping pics — precarious, but how could I stop myself when NBN is singing “OPP” right in front of me? And they were truly giving their fans their all. There was major sweat dripping on stage only two songs in, proof of their unfaltering commitment to genuine hip-hop-hooray.
Time to go find my Walkman and mix tapes, pull on a pair of stirrup leggings and spend the rest of the day soaking up the nostalgia. Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!
Growing up, my best friend Suzy Q (then and now) used to raise bunny rabbits in her backyard in Pacifica. In the spring, there would sometimes be two or three new litters at the same time, and we would set up a tent on the lawn and let the dozens of fluff balls run around us in circles. Although many of the bunnies were sold once they got big enough, there were some extremely special ones, like Mr. Casey, who used to ride around on Suzy Q’s shoulder like a parrot and who I became the loving godmother of at a full-blown bunny baptism. So, you can imagine my tangle of emotions when I spent last Friday night at a pop-up rabbit tasting dinner at La Victoria Bakery, for a meal with the Whole Beast Supper Club.
The concept of this dining group is absolutely righteous. Eat the whole animal and also try out new parts of plants that you might not have thought of before as edible. The rabbits for the meal were provided by Devil’s Gulch Ranch in Nicasio. The farmer, Mark Pasternak, was also at the dinner to see for himself what an all rabbit meal would be like.
The evening started with a hearty offal stew, which contained livers, hearts, cheeks, etc, and heirloom beans, that was far from awful. It was delicious. Next came batter fried shoulders (read: southern fried chicken), topped with this amazing homemade pickled black mustard, which I could have eaten a vat of with just a spoon. Back in the kitchen, it was obvious that the chef, Kevin Bunnell, was totally enjoying himself. After chatting with him a bit, it’s clear that Bunnell is in the food business for the adventure aspect of it. One of their last dinners was all about pig, and Bunnell got the pig for the meal from a guy he knew that knew another guy who had a pig. It was dropped off at Bunnell’s house, on ice, still covered in hair, which meant Bunnell had to learn how to butcher a pig then and there. He loves getting creative with the different parts of meat and seems determined to really use the whole beast.
The rest of the dishes that evening included a delicious braised leg on a mound of fresh made pasta, topped with roasted baby artichokes, and then a seared loin on a bed of wild mushrooms. I loved Bunnell’s use of greens too, from delicate spring pea shoots to crisp fava leaves (who knew you could eat fava leaves? And they’re so yummy!). And to top it all off, there was a carrot sponge cake coated with a fluffy fennel-thyme bavarian cream custard that was over the top decadent and a delight to devour.
So, I made it through four courses of rabbit (and half a bottle of wine) and at the end of the night, I have to say I was pretty darn satisfied. Mr. Casey, you will always have a special place in my heart, but now, some of your peers have a special place on my palate, too.
Techno spaz dance-off. That’s how the evening started.
Fol Chen was on stage and one of their guitarists was doing some spaztastic moves, while his doppelganger in the front row played along. This went on for several of Fol Chen’s songs, the leg kicking, the head bopping. It was quite entertaining to watch. The rest of Fol Chen, wearing matching red band-camp uniforms, were equally enthusiastic on stage, while they belted out a song about a wedding cake.
Then it was the headliner’s, Fujiya and Miyagi, turn on stage. They did not rip out the cray-cray dance moves, but they did figure in some funky guitar riffs. This British band, with their whisper-sung lyrics and eery keyboard chords, create sounds that make you feel like you’re in a dark, dramatic film, speeding by on a subway, rain pouring down outside, and you have no idea where you’re even going. It’s music to get lost in, to daydream with, and hey, maybe even enjoy with your bowl of minestrone.
Got a late start and biked downtown in the Texas heat, straight to a loft party featuring Brasileira MC Zuzuka Poderosa. She was spitting out her Funk Carioca lyrics on top of beats being mastered by DJ Disco Tits while the small crowd danced up a storm.
After that it was time to jump into the fray of Austin’s Sixth Street, chock full of St. Paddy’s Day revelers. Tried to go to the NPR showcase but it had just finished, then tried to go see Big Freedia, the “Queen Diva” of Bounce. All we got was a taste from the fringes as the line wrapped around the venue. That’s the thing about SxSW, there so many hassles and best laid plans usually go to waste, but there are always transcendental moments to make up for the frustration.
Ran into SF local Meklit Hadero as she and her band were trying to find the venue where they were showcasing that eve. Then it was on to the Paste party to see Boston’s David Wax Museum at the Stage on 6th. Crossed paths with J Mascis on my way out.
Caught the tail end of Meklit’s show at Marco Werman’s “All Music is World Music” showcase. Then Abigail Washburn’s stellar bluegrass set.
Rode clear across town in the hopes of catching Devotchka at Lustre Pearl, but the line for headliner Cold War Kids nixed that plan. Came back to the warehouse district for the Atlantic Records showcase planning to check out Lupe Fiasco but B.O.B was playing in his place. Decided to forgo Janelle Monae’s show (she’d been subbed in for Cee-Lo) so I could get off my feet.
Check out the slideshow to see a glimpse of SFBG Contributing Photog Matt Reamer‘s adventures.
After making it to Dallas on the early flight from SFO we found gate A36 (connecting to Austin), a hipster ghetto in DFW’s sea of middle Americans. A friend spotted Toro y Moi in the crowd… and off we were to the live music capital of the world.
We got credentialed and then attempted to go to Fader Fort to check out Raphael Saadiq who was going on soon. But the line to get wristbands stretched literally as far as the eye could see, wrapping around a huge field. The best estimate I got for the wait was over 2 hours. Nevermind.
Back under the I35 to the Palm Door showcase on their deck over a creek… Anamanaguchi came on frenetically. According to their blog they make “hyper-active, hyper-positive, 8-bit jams” that center around a hacked Nintendo from 1985. It was pretty irresistible power pop.
Later that eve is was off to the Brooklyn Vegan showcase at Swan Dive. Olof Arnalds sweet Icelandic troubadour style won over the earnest crowd. And after filing into the hotel shuttle I heard an amazing version of “Benny and the Jets” filtering down the street. It was Brooklyn-based Marco Benevento showing the crowd (and those gathered on the street around the huge simulcast) his incredible piano chops.
SFBG Contributing Photographer Matt Reamer went off on his own adventure of a slightly heavier variety, check the slideshow for more on that.
It’s hard to avoid the constant feeling of missing out on something here… something that’s inherent to the SxSW experience. More to come…
