Live

On the Rise: Major Powers & the Lo-Fi Symphony

Steven T. Jones
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On the Rise: Major Powers & the Lo-Fi Symphony

Surefire way to stand out in the musical landscape right now: Have an obviously playful, self-aware, lyrical sense of humor about your music, and also be exceedingly good musicians, songwriters and entertaining live performers — i.e., take it seriously without taking it too seriously. It’s not easy to do, but man, do Major Powers & the Lo-Fi Symphony make it look fun.

Pianist Nick Powers and brothers Kevin and Dylan Gautschi, on guitar and drums respectively (they all sing), are from the North-East Bay towns of Crockett and Port Costa, where they all grew up playing in bands from a young age. But it wasn’t until the trio formed in 2011 that the Major Powers sound emerged, fully formed, ready to conquer the world — or, at least, the eardrums of anyone who assumed there’d never be an heir to Queen’s glam-rock throne. When pressed, Powers says the band’s genre could be described as “Adventure Rock™” or “Mary Poppins meets Weezer” or “Freddie Mercury and Tom Waits in a cliff-diving competition” or “Danny Elfman making out with Indiana Jones while they play Dungeons & Dragons.”

Throw in an educated series of jokes about Russian history, sweeping musical theater-style choruses, They Might Be Giants-esque verbal gymnastics, and serious piano chops, and you get a grin-inducing live show, to say the least. The band gained traction with a few singles and a 7-inch last year, but they’re currently in the studio, hammering away on a full-length that they hope to tour with by the end of 2014 (working title: Now This Is Happening). In the meantime, you should catch them on March 26 at Slim’s and/or at BottleRock Napa at the end of May.

Where does the name come from?

Nick: I woke up from sleeping on the couch one night after my wife kicked me out of bed for snoring too loud. And I sat up and said, “the Lo-Fi Symphony.” The band was tossing that one around along with some other options. Then a week or two later Dylan (the drummer’s) girlfriend Alana says, “name it Major Powers & The Lo-Fi Symphony.” I like to make it clear to people that I didn’t name the band after myself. I think I’m awesome, but not that awesome. But what am I supposed to do, turn down a band name with my last name in it?

Weirdest thing that’s happened at a show?

I have a half-sister who likes to come to shows sometimes and yell at me that I’m fatter than Zach Galifianakis in between songs. I love her dearly. Also when we did a release at Slim’s last year, and another one at Bottom of the Hill before that, the front 10 or 15 rows were singing along with every lyric. That’s fucking awesome as fuck, and super-duper surreal.

Everyone loves Queen. Why aren’t there more Queen-inspired bands right now?

I think every music epoch has a zeitgeist. Musicians see some A-wave band hitting it big, so it behooves them to emulate that band. It makes financial sense. Nirvana starts blowing up, and then bands all around the world start getting their grunge on…the Lumineers play the Grammys with a two-minute hey-ho bridgeless Nu-folk anthem, and then like 600,000 Nu-folk urban prairie bands start storming the scene. There’s certainly a ’70s-blues-rock-swamp revival going pretty strong right now that was spurred on by some popular A-wavers. Right?

I think it’s great. It’d be easy to lament some ostensible groupthink mentality, but I don’t…also, whatever kind of music a band is playing is just basically the kind of music they like the most. It moves them.

Part 2 of the answer: Theatrical-style stuff is a little more dorky than your average whatever. It’s not as sexy or cool as a lot of genres, and the road to Cleveland is littered with the bones of sexy, dangerous band corpses. Singing about dorky shit for five minutes with intricate Disney melodies isn’t really a recipe for getting laid (a lot).

www.lofisymphony.com

On the Rise: Rocky Rivera

Steven T. Jones
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0
On the Rise: Rocky Rivera

Take it from this one: Most music journalists are not secretly very talented musicians, toiling away in writers’ clothes. Most emcees, of course, are not Rocky Rivera — a San Francisco-born rapper whose love of hip-hop first took the form of a journalism career, including covering the Bay Area’s hip-hop scene for this very publication, Rolling Stone, and others.

In 2008, “trading her Moleskines for microphones,” as she puts it, she became Rocky Rivera, cribbing her stage name from a fellow Filipina-American heroine in the 1996 novel Gangster of Love, by SF author Jessica Hagedorn. The book now also shares a title with Rivera’s second full-length album, which dropped in October 2013.

It’s an album that commands hip-hop fans to sit up and take notice — sharp but not overproduced, lyrical and gutteral, with beats that both pay homage to the ’80s and ’90s (when Rivera was a teenager going to Balboa High School, then SFSU, listening to Queen Latifah, Salt n’ Pepa, and MC Lyte) and showcase the emcee’s lightning-quick tongue and take-no-BS feminist message. Her devotees range from hardcore rap fans across the country to the East Oakland kids who are part of the after-school programs she helps coordinate in, yes, her other other life as a teacher. Suffice it to say, she’s a busy woman.

What were your inspirations for this record?

The new album was inspired by all the happenings in the world since my first album in 2010. So much had transpired politically across the globe, from the Arab Spring, to Oscar Grant, Pussy Riot — all of that affected my need to write something as a soundtrack to an uprising. I also got a ton of inspiration from reading the Hunger Games trilogy, which made me want to create something that would be a drumbeat to political and social change and have the perfect amount of agitation and aggression.

I also have the fun songs in there. “Jockin’ Me” was one where I just told my best friends and bandmates, DJ Roza, and Irie Eyez, to drink a bunch of whiskey and hop in the booth and talk shit.

What are you most proud of so far as a musician?

Providing people an alternative to the kind of hip-hop music that is damaging to the human psyche. There is no more introspection or social analysis in music anymore, and every song I write is a personal way to connect to my fans. I found myself complaining about the lack of this and that and saw it was more constructive to create what I found missing in hip-hop, not just as a woman, but as a progressive person of color who is proud of her history and of growing up in San Francisco.

Weirdest thing that’s happened at a show?

Someone heckled me about Breaking Bad not being progressive or something. They obviously have no idea what the hell they’re talking about. I almost kicked her out for not respecting the legacy of Walter White.

Bay Area food item you couldn’t (metaphorically) live without?

Roxie’s sandwiches!

www.rockyrivera.com

On the Rise: Annie Girl & the Flight

Steven T. Jones
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On the Rise: Annie Girl & the Flight

The first time I saw Annie Girl & the Flight play, I started thinking about what it is, exactly, that makes a frontwoman: Annie Girl’s voice is a disaffected sing-song (Mazzy Star meets Kathleen Hanna?) that belies a dark, jagged well of feeling at the heart of the music; that’s surely front and center, layered over bandmate Josh Pollock’s slow-building wall of guitar. But it’s her absolute lack of showiness, her refusal to be anything other than exactly what she is, and her tendency to attract the entire room’s focus and energy not in spite of but because of that quality that makes her someone to watch: She has all the specific makings of a star who doesn’t seem to give a shit that she’s a star.

A Colorado native, Annie moved to the Bay Area three years ago, at age 17, on something of a whim: “I’d been attending community college, getting ready to transfer to the state school, when the dean accidentally gave me the wrong date for the application deadline,” she says. “I missed it by a day, took that as a sign, and bought a one-way ticket to San Francisco.”

Having grown up playing in Denver punk bands, she found that Northern California brought out a different sound in her songwriting — what she now calls the band’s mix of “super slow, hypnotic folk and loud, trance-inducing, art-rock.”

Add in supporting players who are veteran musicians — Pollock’s played with psych-rock giants like Gong as well as SF bands like Foxtails Brigade and the one and only Bobb Saggeth; bassist Joe Lewis is a regular on the local folk circuit (Rupa and the April Fishes, Kacey Johansing, Fpodbod), drummer Nick Ott also plays with Emily Jane White and Vanish — and the result is magnetic. Their recently released single “Betray the Sea” is the first off their new EP, Pilot Electric, which they’ll debut May 2 at The Chapel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJsZPwRfKx4

Best and worst thing about being a musician in the Bay Area?

Josh: The best thing is that it’s the Bay Area, which seems to be one of the better places to live on this Earth. Also, if you want to do something artistically, you can do just do it — you don’t need a Kickstarter campaign, or a board of directors, or investors, you can just do it. Maybe no one will care, but you don’t have to wait around for some higher power to give you the keys to the kingdom. The worst thing is that everyone knows this, so everyone wants to live here, so it’s laceratingly expensive.

Most underrated local act (other than you)?

Nick: Most underrated local act is probably Bronze. They are the best psychedelic art rock band since Silver Apples.

Annie: Ash Reiter, Everyone is Dirty, Li Xi, Yesway, FpodBpod, Lee Gallagher & The Hallelujah, Sugar Candy Mountain, Kelly McFarling, Michael Musika. The Bay Area is overflowing with incredible music, all you have to do is go out and find it.

First record you remember loving?

Annie: “Once In A Lifetime” by the Talking Heads. When I was a baby my parents discovered that playing the Talking Heads kept me from crying.

www.anniegirlmusic.com

 

On the Rise: Meklit Hadero

Steven T. Jones
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On the Rise: Meklit Hadero

How to describe a Meklit Hadero performance? Warm, bluesy upright bass; bright trumpet and saxophone. Elements of classic ’60s folk by way of acoustic guitar, a lean toward R&B and soul, lyrics that blend personal and political, the intimate and the universal. The unmistakable influence of the music of Ethiopia — the singer’s country of birth — shapes her music as it darts between genres. But what sucks you in, what keeps your eyes and ears locked on Meklit, what makes an unselfconscious Damn start to grow at the back of your mouth is her voice: Lilting, sensuous, capable of the leap from staccato jazz-cat to honeyed songbird, she conveys both fragility and great strength in a single line.

Meklit, who often goes by her first name, grew up in Washington DC, Iowa, Brooklyn, and Florida after her family moved to the US when she was just shy of two years old. Throughout the moves, she was always singing. “As a kid I saw two paths…[one] that led to a kind of cult of fame, which wasn’t really my thing. The second path was a more academic approach to music, which I also didn’t like,” she says. “I was interested in music that engaged with the world around it, and artists who were cultural voices that mattered.”

She didn’t begin making music professionally until moving to San Francisco, however, post-Yale, at age 24. Here, she found an artists’ community that was “still reeling from the first dot-com bust,” with “artists picking up the slack and making noise with all sorts of street-level organizing.” The Red Poppy Art House and the Mission Arts and Performance Project both served as launching pads for her live performances, which led to recording. Ten years later, she’s been a TED Global Fellow, served as an artist-in-residence at NYU, and completed musical commissions for the San Francisco Foundation and the Brava Theatre.

Meklit’s second full-length album, We Are Alive, has her backed by Darren Johnston on trumpet, Lorca Hart on drums, and Sam Bevan on bass. The record is currently garnering critical praise from NPR, USA Today, and other national media hot-shots, and the year is shaping up to be a busy one — in addition to touring North America and traveling to Rio for a TED conference, Meklit will be working on an arts installation with YBCA called “Home (Away From) Home” with Ethiopian and Eritrean artists based in the Bay Area. We in the Bay Area also get her record release show, at Great American Music Hall on April 2.

Influences: Caetano Veloso taught me that you could write a song about anything, Aster Aweke taught me that the human voice can express absolutely any emotion if you lead it the right way. Michael Jackson taught me that you can create an entire dance style all on your own. Nina Simone taught me that the raw moments are what stay with people once the song is done. Miles Davis taught me to never sit still and sit on a sound that is bring you success. Keep moving! John Coltrane taught me that you can hear when sound comes from intense inner searching. David Byrne taught me that a little humor and absurdity goes along way.

The first album I ever loved was Michael Jackson’s Thriller. I remember being four years old and dancing to it in the living room of our tiny Iowa apartment. I really wore the entire record out. I even wrote a fan letter to MJ when I was five. It took more than a year but his fan club wrote back.

Weirdest/coolest thing that’s happened at a show? In 2011, I went on a tour of Ethiopia with my band. We were performing at the foot of the ancient castles in Gondar, with electricity borrowed from the local Red Cross. It had been storming all day long and the power in the whole city suddenly went down. Folks started driving their cars with the headlights on to light the stage. The sense of possibility was palpable. My cousin, emcee Gabriel Teodros, climbed on top of another car and begin rapping to the crowd from there. Suddenly, the electricity was back, the crowd went wild, and the band continued to play. That was pretty epic.

www.meklitmusic.com

On the Rise

Steven T. Jones
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1
On the Rise

>> MEKLIT HADERO
>> CATHEDRALS
>> USELESS EATERS
>> ANNIE GIRL & THE FLIGHT
>> TONY MOLINA
>> NU DEKADES
>> ASTRONAUTS, ETC.
>> FRICTION QUARTET
>> MAJOR POWERS & THE LO-FI SYMPHONY
>> AVALON EMERSON
>> ROCKY RIVERA

Have you heard the news? Bohemia is dying. All the musicians are leaving San Francisco. Our favorite venues and dingy little clubs are all closing up shop, and being replaced by artisan cocktail bars filled with Google Glasses and reclaimed wood toilet seats.

OK, so some of that is true. The music scene is changing, to be sure; how could it not, with the influx of wealth over the past few years? Yes, we’re sad about Cafe du Nord. Yes, we’re worried about the Elbo Room.

What’s also true: We still have one of the richest musical histories anywhere in the world, and artists aren’t going to stop flocking here anytime soon. One glance at our listings section will tell you there’s live music to be found every single night of the week, and San Francisco’s small size relative to its population — a major factor in the current wave of gentrification and the state of the real estate market — also means that the vast array of genres here, and the communities that exist around different music scenes, all hum along pretty much on top of each other.

In one night, you could take in a jazz jam session in the Haight, a hardcore band in the outer Mission, an Irish folk quartet in North Beach, a synthwave producer in SoMa, a hip-hop show in the Western Addition, and, um, Macaulay Culkin’s pizza-themed Velvet Underground tribute band in the Richmond. (I’ve done all of these recently, and I only regret that last one.) That’s not even touching on the East Bay, which — despite being pronounced almost like an epithet in the city lately, as in “Everyone’s having to move to the East Bay” — is arguably fostering some of the most interesting, nascent micro-scenes in music right now.

With that in mind, we at the Guardian set out to pick 10 artists that we thought deserved our attention in the coming year. We couldn’t narrow it past 11. (Click that first photo up there for a slideshow.) This year’s On the Rise acts come from so many different worlds, have been inspired by so many different artists — Freddie Mercury, MC Lyte, and the 19th century composer Hector Berlioz all make appearances, to give you a taste — and, unsurprisingly, they all make incredibly different kinds of music. Some of these artists are Bay Area natives; some were born on other continents. What they have in common (aside from talent) is a love of this place, its people, its weirdness, and yes, its challenges.

We love them back. And we don’t plan on letting them go anywhere else anytime soon.

Cops on campus

Michael Redmond
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Cops on campus

Historic new protections are now in place for children facing police action in the San Francisco Unified School District.

Reforms include having a parent present when police question a child, tracking police presence in schools, and using a more lenient approach than simply dragging kids off to the police station or juvenile hall. All of these may be strengthened by a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the SFUSD and SFPD.

The MOU, passed by the Board of Education at its Feb. 25 meeting, places new restraints on police officers when they come into schools, with specific outlines for when schools should call police, board President Sandra Lee Fewer told the Guardian.

“It’s about changing student behavior, versus punishment,” she said. The agreement dovetails with the district’s new restorative practices initiative aimed to decrease reliance on suspensions to correct behavioral problems (see “Suspending judgment,” 12/3/13).

All sides say the MOU is strong, but one section was weakened shortly before it was voted on. In the final hour before the MOU was brought before the Board of Education, the police revised the language of the agreement.

One important word was changed in a section describing how police are to respond to student crime on school grounds: a “shall” became a “should.” Critics say that change transforms the contract from a legally binding agreement signed in goodwill to a mere suggestion of cooperation from the police.

“To a civilian, those are everyday words. To a police officer, they’re the difference between always and never,” Police Chief Greg Suhr told the Guardian.

At a Jan. 14 Board of Education meeting, members of Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth told the board that this contract was no mere suggestion: It is vital to the safety of children.

Kevine Boggess of Coleman Advocates worked on the agreement for over two years, explaining to the board why “shall” was so important: “We feel like this is something that’s necessary for this document to really stand true, to make sure students are treated with respect and not introduced to the criminal justice system.”

Boggess said cops need stringent rules. But to see why those rules are necessary, we need to revisit a dark day in San Francisco history, when police discretion turned a school brawl into a riot.

 

MELEE PROMPTS REFORMS

To those who remember, that day in 2002 is known as 10/11. Board of Education member Kim-Shree Maufus remembers that day well.

Maufus was sitting at work when her friend, a teacher, emailed her alarming news: Maufus’ daughter was in danger. She was a sophomore at Thurgood Marshall High School, and the entire school was under attack.

Barriers blockaded the streets around Thurgood Marshall and helicopters swarmed the skies. At least 100 armored officers stormed the school, weapons at the ready.

“They were beating them. When my daughter got on the phone, I couldn’t understand her. It wasn’t English. Later, I understood it was a nervous breakdown,” Maufus told the Guardian.

The book Lockdown High recounted the incident in which Maufus’ daughter and dozens of other students, as well as teacher Anthony Peebles, were batoned by police and injured.

The San Francisco Bay View’s article on the incident quoted a student who saw the violence escalate: “‘We were coming out of the office as the fight was going on, and an officer took his gun out at one of the students and told him, ‘Don’t make me use this,’ said Ely Guolio, a student. ‘I was shocked.'”

The police allege they responded to a riot, and although four students and a teacher were arrested, all charges were later dropped, according to a San Francisco Chronicle report from 2003.

In the incident’s wake, Coleman Advocates and other groups called for change. Proposition H was passed by San Francisco voters in 2003, reforming the Police Commission to provide better civilian oversight of the SFPD.

But negotiations around an MOU between the police and the school district stalled for years. The tensions between the two bodies were high.

“Police would come to schools and arrest students, saying the students were re-igniting incidents from Thurgood Marshall,” Maufus told us. “The Thurgood Marshall melee was absolutely the catalyst to get the conversation started on how to structure police on school property.”

In 2005, an MOU was crafted, but many viewed it as ineffectual. Although this new agreement between the SFPD and SFUSD has many strong new rules, one rule was weakened that pertains to the violence of 10/11.

The section in question reads: “Subject to the exception described below, when SFPD officers make a school based arrest they should (emphasis ours) use the graduated response system outlined below.”

The graduated response system sets rules for police officers when they enter a school to make arrests for low-level offenses. It’s a “three strikes” rule: the first offense warrants admonishment or counseling, the second offense asks for the same or a diversionary program, and the third recommends a juvenile be placed in probation or a community counseling program.

“It’s definitely less binding,” Fewer told the Guardian. “But the police chief would not sign it with more binding language.”

Suhr said he doesn’t want his officers restricted in an emergency. “You can’t take all discretion away from a police officer, and expect that officer to assume liability (for the situation),” Suhr said.

Some said the SFPD of today is easier on students than 12 years ago. Juvenile arrests are down, with just over 600 felony juvenile arrests in 2012 compared to 1,100 in 2003, according to SFUSD data.

 

COOPERATIVE APPROACH

Implementing a restorative justice model and new standards for police in the schools isn’t just a matter for the SFPD, but for individual school administrators as well, with Fewer noting that the SFUSD sometimes calls the police for routine disciplinary matters.

The Guardian profiled one such student in “Suspending Judgment,” telling the story of a school official who called on the police to discipline a kindergartner throwing a tantrum. Suhr agreed, “You can’t have police officers enforcing school discipline.”

The MOU now seeks to address that problem in a section directing school administrators to only call the police for public safety concerns and crimes. And though the MOU is not as ironclad as advocates may have wished, there are still many wins for reformers.

One of the authors of the agreement, Public Counsel’s Statewide Education Rights Director Laura Faer, said the new mandate for data collection is one of the key sections of this MOU. Now, the SFPD will report how many times officers have entered school grounds to arrest students.

“There will be a regular dialogue with the community about arrests,” she said. “It’s extraordinary.”

The agreement also has mandates for training with the SFPD on school policies. And, as Fewer reminded the Guardian, this is a living document. All parties now have new promises to live up to.

“This is the beginning,” Faer said, “this is not the end.”

Last chance for Marcus Books, part of SF’s black history

Michael Redmond
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OPINION

It’s taken decades, but the Mahattanization of San Francisco is nearly complete: The immigrants, artists, and natives who built the City and gave it its unique flavor can no longer afford to live here.

With San Francisco’s African American population largely banished to across the bay, along with the working and artists classes, the freethinking lifestyle that attracted so many people to the Bay Area in the first place has largely been and gone.

“What is crucial, is whether or not the country, the people of the country, the citizenry, is able to recognize that there is no moral distance between the facts of life in San Francisco, and the facts of life in Birmingham,” James Baldwin said on a fact-finding trip to San Francisco in 1963, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, a time at which he would have also visited Marcus Books.

If buildings could talk, the Marcus Books property on Fillmore Street, the onetime “Harlem of the West,” would tell a tale of two cities for over 50 years. Once the jazz club Bop City (where John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, and Billie Holiday performed), the purple Victorian is central to a neighborhood that survived the internment and return of its Japanese American residents, a botched “redevelopment” project that resulted in the permanent displacement of African Americans, and a blueprint for a “Jazz District” that failed to launch.

Now the neighborhood faces a final act as the oldest seller of books “by and about black people” attempts to uphold a part of the history and culture it had a hand in creating, while the City looks away and toward tech as its future.

Every black writer and intellectual in the US knows the store; celebrities, activists, athletes, and literary giants — including Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali, Walter Mosely, Alice Walker, Oprah Winfrey, and Toni Morrison — have all passed through the doors of the San Francisco or Oakland stores.

Founded by Julian and Raye Richardson in 1960, their store served as a sanctuary for thinkers, authors, and community members during watershed moments, from the Voting Rights Act through the Black Power Movement and historic SFSU student strike in 1968 (resulting in the establishment of multicultural study programs which flourish at universities today).

Many of San Francisco’s African American faith, civic, arts, and culture leaders were educated through the program at State, either by the Richardsons or the books they stocked at Marcus. The Richardson family continues that tradition today at the bookstore, engaging visitors in discussions on the journey from Jim Crow to the first black president .

Yet for the past year, Marcus Books has struggled to survive. Community activists, elected supervisors, and appointed commissioners helped attain landmark status for the historic building, while attorneys brokered a buyback after the property was sold at auction and a fundraising effort was launched in December (see “Marcus Books can stay if it can raise $1 million,” SFBG Politics blog, Dec. 5). To contribute, visit www.gofundme.com/6bvqlk.

Marcus is not the only community-serving bookseller forced into crowdfunding and community organizing, diverted from its core mission to enlighten and educate. If a city’s bookstores are any indication of its cultural diversity and intellectual health, San Francisco is on the critical list.

The City’s last gay bookstore, A Different Light, was laid to rest three years ago; while our most progressive political book outlet in the Mission District, Modern Times, is on the brink (see “A Modern tragedy,” Jan. 7). A similar fate for Marcus Books would mean the end to a longstanding black-owned business in the Fillmore.

It seems “The City That Knows How” has forgotten where it came from. Baldwin’s 1963 quote may’ve been specifically about racist ways and laws, but a blow to Marcus Books could mean his message remains the same: San Francisco’s reputation as a kindly city of love, tolerance, and diversity will be forever tarnished; in fact, it may have been false advertising all along.

Denise Sullivan is the author of Keep on Pushing: Black Power Music From Blues to Hip Hop.

How To Dress Well laughs his way into the sad songs at The Independent

Steven T. Jones
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How To Dress Well laughs his way into the sad songs at The Independent

By Ryland Walker Knight

Last night at The Independent, How To Dress Well kicked off a short tour (10 shows in this second half of March) with Forest Swords, playing new songs from a forthcoming album. On the heels of the release of “Words I Don’t Remember,” a new single, HTDW has assembled a more or less “real” band for these dates, with Tom Krell expanding his live act from a duet with Aaron Read (electronics, violin, guitar, bass) to quartet with Destroyer’s Larissa Loyva (keys/synths, backing vocals) and Broken Social Scene’s Justin Peroff (drums, laptop).

Krell’s previous visit was a spot supporting Sky Ferreira at the Rickshaw Stop, but he had no trouble selling out The Independent, its floor clogged with iPhone-ready and booze-addled fans eager to bathe Krell in coos, assuaging his anxieties about playing so many new songs. Throughout the night, Krell would banter about how this was the first time people were hearing these new tunes (eight of the 14 songs), but each was greeted with bumping, grinding adoration.

htdw

HTDW has always trafficked in “sad rave” vibes, but Krell made a point to joke that “I only write emo songs now” after introducing a new song called “What You Wanted” as “being really shitty about your desires, and incredibly basic; like being a teenager about your desires and always wanting something more and new.” It’s a fun song, actually, hitting that sweet spot of enough bounce to lift the moping and wailing Krell has become known for. He sings in a high falsetto not unlike everybody in R&B’s idol, Prince, but his music is more indebted to 1990s groups like Dru Hill, and everybody’s fallen star, Aaliyah. Or, that’s the vibe on the pop-ier songs, like the new jam “Very Best Friend.” But there remains a strain of unabashed sadness, too: Krell reminded the crowd that his first visit to San Francisco in 2010 was planned, under “less than ideal circumstances,” in order to record a song called “Suicide Dream 1” that he wrote to mourn a close friend. Nevertheless, he says it’s still his favorite song to sing.

Among the other new songs was one Krell described as “a sort of reggae, emo, early Animal Collective song,” drawing on pop-punk and Rich Homie Quan. Another was inspired by the idea that if you’ll do something once, you’ll probably do it twice (which may not necessarily be a good thing), that Krell hopes becomes a radio single after “Words” has its run. Details on the record are mum, however, as the first thing Krell told the crowd was: “I just got a text message from my manager and he’s like, whatever you do on stage, don’t say the name of your album or the release date of it.” He laughed his way into a terrifically sad opening number, but not before promising to have fun soon.

htdw

The night started with the likely final show of locals EN, the duo of multi-instrumentalists James Devane and Maxwell August Croy, who layered koto and other sine waves, all the sounds (pedaled or pure) processed by Devane over syncopated electronics for a beautiful 20-minute welcome, accented by visuals from another local, the visual artist Paul Clipson. I was told Krell has invited similar experimental audio-visual artists to open each show on each stop of this tour, one imagines to lend necessary contrast against the sad pop he sings and the dub-like moods Forest Swords conjur from a similar duet of live bass and an assortment of electronics. Forest Swords’ newest work was released by Tri Angle Records, but their songs have more traditional rhythms than many of that label’s “witch” music. In fact, I joked with my friend that the Forest Swords set sounded like the saddest sex you’ve ever had, while EN and Clipson made me wish I could walk around inside those tones with my own 16mm eyes ready to chop up the light of the world.

On the other hand, even without Krell’s formerly standard encore cover of “I Wish” by R. Kelly, which he says he can’t sing anymore out of political correctness (divorce the song from the man! keep the song the song!), How To Dress Well’s set made me happy he’s at the forefront of this new genre of white guys making R&B music — at least in part because he just seems so jazzed to play his songs, to be present in his life as an artist on a stage.

Setlist and other notes
“The Power”
“What You Wanted” — being really shitty about your desires, and incredibly basic, and being a teenager about your desires and always wanting something more and new
“Cold Nights” — as a ‘metal’ song, still not very metal
“Very Best Friend” — dancey, sisqo-y, love song
“No More Death” — ‘not fun, lets make it super dark for this one please’
“Facing Up” — i don’t know what’s best for me
“Suicide Dream 1” — first visited SF in 2010, recorded song with orchestra, to commemorate a friend who had just died — his favorite song to sing
“Chop and pick’m up” — reggae emo animal collective song
“” — Radio single — If you’ll do something once, you’ll probably do it twice
“Words I Don’t Remember”
“Set It Right”

— @ryknight

Ana Tijoux on motherhood, Breaking Bad, and un-learning colonialist history

Steven T. Jones
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Ana Tijoux on motherhood, Breaking Bad, and un-learning colonialist history

By Rebecca Huval

If you’re tired of mainstream Latin hip-hop — which, right now, is disproportionately made up of reggaeton beats, male MCs, and bitter lyrics — then Ana Tijoux is the lady rapper for you.

The French-Chilean artist upends the genre. Instead of bragging about her millions, she advocates for cultural pride. Instead of barking at her enemies, she weaves a soothing spool of words that remixes the Spanish language into silk. She has evolved from using samples to working with a live band in a textured, colorful sound all its own, incorporating brass, jazz inflections, and a smorgasbord of South American instruments such as Andean charangos and pan-flutes.

You might have heard Tijoux’s origin-story track, “1977,” on Breaking Bad, as Jesse and Mike make deliveries through a desolate Southwestern landscape. The song describes the year she was born in France to parents who were exiled during the military dictatorship in Chile. Her alternating flow and staccato make the mind-numbing road trip seem badass. Following that sophomore record, La Bala, Tijoux is releasing a mature album with lush orchestration March 18: Vengo. The following evening, Wed/19, she’ll hit The Independent.

Calling to mind Erykah Badu, Tijoux is a poet with a low, creamy voice and a call for algre rebelde, or joyful rebellion. Her lyrics will make you feel like the top of your head was taken off, to paraphrase Emily Dickinson. “I come as a child who sought entrance to his/ home, the entrance to his origin, the return to/ his crusade, I come seeking silenced history/ the history of a land pillaged/ I come with the world and I come with the birds,” Tijoux raps in the title track of Vengo. In the shadow of Pinochet’s Chile, Tijoux is rebuilding dignity in her heritage with thoughtful, joyous rap.

Ahead of her show Wednesday night, we caught up with her by phone to talk about why it’s better to protest with beauty, how it felt to move from France to Chile as a teenager, and what it was like to dance with a man in an octopus suit in a music video.

San Francisco Bay Guardian How did you start rapping, and what female rappers influenced you?

Ana Tijoux I think I began when I was 20, very naturally, out of necessity because I needed to communicate. The woman who inspired me first was Bahamadia. And then I began to rhyme and write, and then I began to learn about more female MCs: MC Lyte, and when I was younger, Queen Latifah.

SFBG I’ve read that you consider yourself to be shy. How do you find the strength to perform in front of so many audiences?

AT Because I’m an amazing actress. [Laughs] On stage, I’m singing, I’m communicating, so I forget about the audience. It’s energy, and you begin a dialogue with people. That’s one of the moments when I feel free. It doesn’t matter what happens, I just do it.

SFBG Why did you move to Chile in 1993?

AT Because my parents were exiled in France, and I’m from there, and when refugees could come back I came with my parents. It was hard, very hard. I was a teenager and you’re in the construction of a personality. You’re fighting between a child and an adult in one personality, and then to change continents was hard. It was also one of the most amazing moments in my life. And it was a moment of a lot of lessons, but I understood about them more later, not immediately. I understood about friends, and about how the North robs so many things from the South. It was a political education.

SFBG Your 2007 video for “Eres Para Mi” with Julieta Venegas is goofy and delightful. It looks like you had a lot of fun making it. What was it like dancing with a man in an octopus suit and a nun?

AT The most hilarious moment in my life. When she made the video she didn’t tell me an octopus would be there, so it was a surprise. And I’m shy, like I told you, so I tried to act the best that I could. I didn’t know I would have an octopus near to me.

SFBG How did you write an album with your young children around?

AT It was an amazing moment, but very hard with time. I learned so much, like trying to be a mother with the [artistic] creation and no sleeping. At the same time, it was amazing. I learned time is a precious treasure and so valuable. I can’t lose time anymore in stupidity. The time I have is for creation or friends and family. It was hard to be honest, but really amazing.

SFBG Why did you decide to work with a live band instead of using samples?

AT I work with the best musicians I could have imagined. The songs have different vision with drums because it can be longer, or if the bassist has a solo, each instrument sings and gives a different color. It feels so organic and every instrument can give one texture to a song, and different movement and weather in the songs.

SFBG In “Vengo,” you say “Without fear you and I decolonize/what we were taught.” How have you unlearned what you were taught about Chile’s history?

AT I feel like everything I learned in school was with a colonized vision. You become interested in your roots, you understand that how you learned history is so different than what happened. In Chile, we live in a country with people with brown and black hair, and in publicity they have women with blond hair. All this publicity is about who we should be, and I’m saying we should be proud of who we are as a society and a community.

In America, they say it’s been 500 years since they discovered the continent. They didn’t discover it, people were here before the colonizers arrived. We’re changing the vision and vocabulary.

SFBG I loved Somos Sur, and I think your lyric “alegre rebeldía” captures the spirit of your music. In your calls for social justice, I sense more beauty than anger. What inspires you to call for equality with your gorgeous lyrics instead of just shouting at a protest?

AT Protests in general are protests for life. When you see fights around the world, it’s a fight for life. To have a fair life, it’s about dignity. We’re so used to protests with anger. We want a better future for us our kids and community. So that’s what I’m saying, it’s a fight for happiness.

SFBG How did it feel to hear “1977” on Breaking Bad?

AT Funny. I’m glad. It’s an amazing series, and I’m glad that there is a mainstream series that’s taking a risk. It’s a good series with amazing characters.

SFBG In “1977,” you say “Caminas en crucijadas/ Cada cual es su morada” (“You walk in crossroads/ each one is your home”). Where do you consider your home now?

AT Chile, totally Chile. It’s where my family is, my parents, my kids, my garden, and my refugees.

SFBG What advice would you give to young female rappers out there?

AT Do not listen to advice at all. Everybody wants to give advice about how to make stuff. Don’t listen to advice. Try to make music and be free.

— @rhuval

Dispatches from SXSW: Painted Palms

Steven T. Jones
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After a long day of waiting in line in the sun, catching various 15-minute sets, and just being downright baffled by the enormity and complexity of SXSW (this is my first time), I lumbered my way to Maggie Mae to catch San Francisco’s psych band du jour, Painted Palms, at the Forcefield PR showcase (disclosure: I interned for Forcefield one summer a long time ago). The venue itself looked like Bottom of the Hill’s cousin but without the absurdly short ceilings and claustrophobia.

San Francisco power-punk act Tony Molina fronted by (you guessed it) Tony Molina packed a raucous and chaotic set into 20 minutes, which of course was too short, but then this is SXSW.

tony molina
Tony Molina

This was Painted Palms’ second show so far at SXSW. They are touring on debut LP Forever, which came out last January on Polyvinyl Records. The band is comprised of two cousins, Chris Prudhomme (vocals, guitar, hails from Bernal Heights), and Reese Donahue (electronics, hails from Western Addition).

Despite some minor technical difficulties, the psych-pop duo jammed out a sunny set full of spirited electronic sounds, a great soundtrack to lounge on for day-long retreat at Alamo Square or Dolores Park. Just minutes after the show, the  cousins joined me for a quick Q&A, where we discussed the origin of the name Painted Palms, whether or not they would ever cover The Talking Heads, and everyone’s favorite topic of conversation: the cost of living in San Francisco.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: Why are you called Painted Palms?
Prudhomme: I don’t know, people guess, and I think the best guess that someone has had so far is that William Randolph Hearst had a mansion and at the end of his life, he didn’t want to see death on his property. So whenever the palm trees died, he would have people paint the bark of the palms to keep it looking like they were still alive.

SFBG: This is your second show at your first-ever SXSW, how’s it going so far?
Prudhomme: We had some technical difficulties, but I think it’s something that with a full band is recoverable.
Donahue: I think [the show] was sketchy in the beginning…but it’s fine.

SFBG: So music journalists like myself often describe bands in a wrong manner. Tell me how do you describe yourselves?
Prudhomme: It’s psychedelic pop music.
Donahue: I think it focuses on pop structure, the structure of ’60s pop music. We have a fascination with ’90s electronic psychedelic stuff.

painted palms
Painted Palms

SFBG: Your influences?
Donahue: I’d say The Zombies, they’re just the coolest motherfuckers.
Prudhomme: Some of our influences also don’t have anything to do with the way our music sounds, a lot of it is just music personalities. I really like David Bowie a lot, but I don’t think our music sounds anything like David Bowie.

Donahue: My favorite band of all time is The Talking Heads, and I think the drummer was at our showcase earlier.

SFBG: The city is extremely expensive right now, which is especially tough on creative types such as musicians like yourselves. Has this impacted you? Is this a big worry for you?
Prudhomme: It hasn’t really impacted us that much because we’ve been doing the same kind of recording process for a really long time. We have a really cheap, raggeddy practice space in the Tenderloin.
Donahue: But we have to share it with five other bands to make the rent. I tried to move out and get my own place at one point but it didn’t work out. If I ever decide to leave San Francisco and live somewhere else, I don’t think I could come back. I do have rent control so it’s not something I’m worried about.
Prudhomme: I worry about it. I live in a big house with lots of tenants, which is the only way I can afford to live in SF. So whenever I have master tenants who are about to move out, I worry about my rent being jacked up.

SFBG: Is the East Bay an option?
Donahue: Oakland is fucking awesome…but I don’t know.

SFBG: Ever thought about covering a Talking Heads song?
Donahue: No, we’d never do that. I don’t think we could make those songs better.

Clean Up The Plaza run by political consultant with ties to developers

Sasha Cuttler
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Clean Up The Plaza run by political consultant with ties to developers

Neighborhood and progressive political activists have long been suspicious of the shadowy Clean Up The Plaza campaign and its possible connections to a massive housing development proposed for 16th and Mission streets — and the Guardian has now confirmed that developer-connected political consultant Jack Davis is playing a key role in that campaign.

Asked by the Guardian whether he is being paid by the developers — Maximus Real Estate Partners, which has submitted plans to build a 10-story, 351-unit housing complex overlooking the 16th Street BART plaza — Davis told the Guardian, “That’s between me and the IRS.”

Our exchange with Davis and Gil Chavez, a Davis roommate who runs the Clean Up The Plaza campaign, occurred yesterday outside the LGBT Center where they and three other campaign workers (who refused to speak to us) were promoting their cause and collecting signatures on petitions calling for crackdowns on the plaza before the debate inside between Assembly District 17 candidates David Chiu and David Campos.

Clean Up The Plaza has been refusing to return calls from the Guardian or other local journalists for months, and the group hasn’t filed any paperwork with the San Francisco Ethics Commission in association with its political fundraising or lobbying efforts.

Asked about the group’s relationship with the project developers, Chavez told us, “They’re in communication with us and we’re in communication with them, but they haven’t funded us.” Asked who paid for the group’s website, mailers, window signs, and other expenses, Chavez said it was him and other donors that he wouldn’t identify.

Davis has been the go-to political consultant on big campaigns backed by real estate interests in San Francisco, working on the successful mayoral campaigns of Frank Jordan, Willie Brown, and Gavin Newsom, as well as a number of high-profile development projects, including the 1996 ballot measure approving construction of AT&T Park.

He and Chavez say they live together in the neighborhood and their only motivation in running the group is improving public safety. “I’m happy to to talk about what Clean Up The Plaza is,” Davis told us. “I live at 17th and Mission and I’ve been mugged.”

But housing activist Sara Shortt of the Housing Rights Committee isn’t buying it, calling the group “a fake grassroots campaign that is misleading this community.”

“If you didn’t know Jack Davis’ history in politics in San Francisco, you might be able to take that at face value,” Shortt said of Davis’ claims to be simply a concerned citizen. “Given his ties to big developers, it’s not very believable.”

Willie Brown even heralded Davis’ return to political work two years ago in his San Francisco Chronicle column, entitled “Political consultant Jack Davis back on S.F. scene,” writing that he has returned to local political circles following a hiatus in Wales the previous few years.

“You political types, be warned. Jack Davis is back in town,” the column began, ending with, “I think that after watching from the sidelines for a while, he’s ready to return. Can’t wait to see whom he decides to work for. Stay tuned.”

Is Davis working on fake grassroots campaign designed to smooth the way for a massive gentrifying housing projects in one of the city’s last remaining neighborhoods that still welcomes poor people? Stay tuned.

San Francisco Ethics Commission Director John St. Croix told the Guardian that the group should be registered if it has raised more than $1,000 or if it is lobbying at City Hall — indeed, the group has boasted on its website of efforts to influence Campos and other city officials to increase police patrols and cleansing of the plaza — particularly if it is being paid by a third party to do so.

“If they’re lobbying, obviously we want to know,” St. Croix told us, saying that he planned to personally follow-up with the group on its activities.

Davis denies that the group is in violation of any disclosure laws, claiming it is simply a small neighborhood group, and he referred our inquiries to the group’s attorney, James Perrinello, a partner at the high-powered and politically connected law firm of Nielson Merksamer Parrinello Gross & Leoni, who hasn’t yet returned our calls.

For more on Clean Up The Plaza and other campaigns to “clean up” poor neighborhoods as a precursor to gentrification and market rate housing development — including the ongoing efforts to do so in the Tenderloin and Mid-Market areas — read next week’s Bay Guardian. 

[UPDATE 3/18: Former Guardian Editor/Publisher Tim Redmond’s 48 Hills site just posted a long report by reporter Julia Carrie Wong that includes an admission by Davis that he is indeed a paid consultant for Maximus, as well as interesting conflicting statements from Maximus and Chavez about a meeting they held. Check it out.] 

Music Listings: March 19-25, 2014

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WEDNESDAY 19
ROCK
Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. Yellow Ostrich, Pattern Is Movement, Paint the Trees White, 9pm, $12-$14.
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Thumpers, Solwave, 9pm, $10.
The Chapel: 777 Valencia, San Francisco. Sam Roberts Band, Kris Orlowski, 9pm, $15-$18.
Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Hellbeard, Serial Hawk, Sludgebucket, 8:30pm, $7.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. Terra Moans, The Krypters, My Name Is Joe, 9:30pm, $6.
Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. Me First & The Gimme Gimmes, La Plebe, The Joey Show, DJ Big Nate, 9pm, sold out.
Thee Parkside: 1600 17th St., San Francisco. Spirit Caravan, Pilgrim, Waxy, 8pm, $15.
DANCE
Beaux: 2344 Market, San Francisco. “BroMance: A Night Out for the Fellas,” 9pm, free.
The Cafe: 2369 Market, San Francisco. “Sticky Wednesdays,” w/ DJ Mark Andrus, 8pm, free.
Club X: 715 Harrison, San Francisco. “Electro Pop Rocks: EPR’s Spring Break,” 18+ dance night with Frank Nitty, D Menis, DJ Audio1, more, 9pm
DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. Go Chic, Blok, Violent Vickie, 9pm, $10-$12.
F8: 1192 Folsom, San Francisco. “Housepitality,” w/ Kenneth Scott, Max Gardner, Sean Murray, Tony Watson, 9pm, $5-$10.
Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “Indulgence,” 10pm
Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “What?,” w/ resident DJ Tisdale and guests, 7pm, free.
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Rock the Spot,” 9pm, free.
Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Burn Down the Disco,” w/ DJs 2shy-shy & Melt w/U, Third Wednesday of every month, 9pm, free.
MatrixFillmore: 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Reload,” w/ DJ Big Bad Bruce, 10pm, free.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Booty Call,” w/ Juanita More, Joshua J, guests, 9pm, $3.
Showdown: 10 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Nokturnal,” w/ DJs Coyle & Gonya, Third Wednesday of every month, 9pm, free.
HIP-HOP
Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement, San Francisco. “Over the Hump,” w/ Children of the Funk, 10pm, free.
Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Mixtape Wednesday,” w/ resident DJs Strategy, Junot, Herb Digs, & guests, 9pm, $5.
ACOUSTIC
Cafe Divine: 1600 Stockton, San Francisco. Craig Ventresco & Meredith Axelrod, 7pm, free.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Jeb Havens & Tawnee Kendall, Lee Aulson, 8pm, $10.
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Michael Mullen, 9pm
The Rite Spot Cafe: 2099 Folsom, San Francisco. Goh Nakamura, 9pm, free.
JAZZ
Balancoire: 2565 Mission, San Francisco. “Cat’s Corner,” 9pm, $10.
Burritt Room: 417 Stockton St., San Francisco. Terry Disley’s Rocking Jazz Trio, 6pm, free.
Cigar Bar & Grill: 850 Montgomery, San Francisco. Jack Mosbacher Duo, 8pm
Club Deluxe: 1511 Haight, San Francisco. Patrick Wolff Quartet, 9pm, free.
Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. The Cosmo Alleycats featuring Ms. Emily Wade Adams, 7pm, free.
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Fran Sholly, 8pm
Top of the Mark: One Nob Hill, 999 California, San Francisco. Ricardo Scales, Wednesdays, 6:30-11:30pm, $5.
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Four80East, Matt Marshak & Marcus Anderson, 8pm, $21.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Chris Duggan, 7:30pm, free.
INTERNATIONAL
Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Baobab!,” timba dance party with DJ WaltDigz, 10pm, $5.
Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. “Bachatalicious,” w/ DJs Good Sho & Rodney, 7pm, $5-$10.
The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. Ana Tijoux, Kumbia Queers, Como Asesinar a Felipe, 9pm, $15.
Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. Cafe Latino Americano, 8pm, $12.
BLUES
Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Tommy Odetto, 7:30 & 9:30pm, $15.
Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. Wendy DeWitt, 6pm, free.
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Craig Horton, 9:30pm
SOUL
Monarch: 101 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Color Me Badd,” coloring books and R&B jams with Matt Haze, DJ Alarm, Broke-Ass Stuart, guests, Wednesdays, 5:30-9:30pm, free.
The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Freddie Hughes & Chris Burns, 7:30pm, free.

THURSDAY 20
ROCK
Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. Lonesome Locomotive, Twin Engine, 9:30pm, $5-$7.
Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. Skaters, Team Spirit, Panic Is Perfect, 9pm, $10-$12.
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. CAAMFest Directions in Sound: Korean Showcase, w/ Love X Stereo, Rock n Roll Radio, Glen Check, No Brain, Kero One (host), DJ Relic, 9pm, $20.
DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. Truckfighters, Crobot, The Devil in California, Blackwülf, 8:30pm, $10-$12.
Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Nubs, Atlantic Thrills, Scraper, 8:30pm, $7.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. The English Language, The Lolos, 9pm, $8.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. Iron Chic, The Shell Corporation, Civil War Rust, 10pm, $8.
Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. Haight-Ashbury Street Fair Fundraiser: Battle of the Bands #1, w/ Kingsborough, Battery Powered Grandpa, High & Tight, Them Creatures, 9pm, $5.
Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. “Popscene,” w/ The Lonely Forest, Semi Precious Weapons, Breakdown Valentine, DJ Aaron Axelsen, 9:30pm, $10-$12.
S.F. Eagle: 398 12th St., San Francisco. The Whoa Nellies, Muñecas, Thith, 9pm, $5-$7.
Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. The Sword, Big Business, O’Brother, 8pm, $21.
The Stud: 399 Ninth St., San Francisco. Starbeast II, Grendel’s Claw, Kurly Something, 9pm, $5.
Thee Parkside: 1600 17th St., San Francisco. Disappearing People, Wreck & Reference, Hollow Sunshine, So Stressed, 9pm, $8.
DANCE
1015 Folsom: 1015 Folsom, San Francisco. Autojak’d Tour, w/ Autoérotique, Uberjak’d, Frank Nitty, Krishna Lee, DJ Audio1, 10pm, $10 advance.
Abbey Tavern: 4100 Geary, San Francisco. DJ Schrobi-Girl, 10pm, free.
Beaux: 2344 Market, San Francisco. “Men at Twerk,” 9pm, free.
The Cafe: 2369 Market, San Francisco. “¡Pan Dulce!,” 9pm, $5.
Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Class of 1984,” ’80s night with DJs Damon, Steve Washington, Dangerous Dan, and guests, 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm).
The Cellar: 685 Sutter, San Francisco. “XO,” w/ DJs Astro & Rose, 10pm, $5.
Club X: 715 Harrison, San Francisco. “The Crib,” 9:30pm, $10, 18+.
DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. Go Gold, Childhood cancer research benefit party with Lazy Rich, Paul Anthony, DJ Denise, Forest Green, Carlos Alfonzo, Ross.FM, John Beaver, Infected Frequencies, The Doctor, Arize, Adept, and more., 8pm, $15-$20.
Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Afrolicious,” w/ DJs Pleasuremaker, Señor Oz, and guests, 9:30pm, $5-$8.
F8: 1192 Folsom, San Francisco. “Beat Church,” w/ resident DJs Neptune & Kitty-D, Third Thursday of every month, 10pm, $10.
Harlot: 46 Minna, San Francisco. Bloody Mary & Jozif, 9pm, free.
The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. Break Science, ChrisB., 9pm, $15-$17.
Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “I Love Thursdays,” 10pm, $10.
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Night Fever,” 9pm, $5 after 10pm
Mezzanine: 444 Jessie, San Francisco. “House of Mezzanine,” w/ Marc “MK” Kinchen, Matrixxman, Epicsauce DJs, 9pm, $10.
Monarch: 101 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Hey Young World,” w/ Soul Clap & Nick Monaco, 9:30pm, $15 advance.
Public Works: 161 Erie, San Francisco. “Deep Blue,” w/ Marco Carola, Rooz, Bo, 9pm, $15-$25.
Raven: 1151 Folsom, San Francisco. “1999,” w/ VJ Mark Andrus, 8pm, free.
Ruby Skye: 420 Mason, San Francisco. “Awakening,” w/ GTA, What So Not, 9pm, $25-$35 advance.
Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Bubble,” 10pm, free.
Vessel: 85 Campton, San Francisco. “Base,” w/ H.O.S.H., 10pm, $5-$10.
HIP-HOP
Eastside West: 3154 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Throwback Thursdays,” w/ DJ Madison, 9pm, free.
Showdown: 10 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Tougher Than Ice,” w/ DJs Vin Sol, Ruby Red I, and Jeremy Castillo, Third Thursday of every month, 10pm
ACOUSTIC
Amoeba Music: 1855 Haight, San Francisco. Chuck Ragan, 6pm, free.
Atlas Cafe: 3049 20th St., San Francisco. Bermuda Grass, 8pm, free.
Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Acoustic Open Mic, 7pm
The Chapel: 777 Valencia, San Francisco. Bear’s Den, 9pm, $12-$15.
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. John Caufield, 9pm
The Rite Spot Cafe: 2099 Folsom, San Francisco. Devine’s Jug Band, 8pm, free.
JAZZ
Blush! Wine Bar: 476 Castro, San Francisco. Doug Martin’s Avatar Ensemble, 7:30pm, free.
Cafe Claude: 7 Claude, San Francisco. Nova Jazz, 7:30pm, free.
Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Eugene Pliner Quartet with Tod Dickow, First and Third Thursday of every month, 7:30pm, free.
Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. Steve Lucky & The Rhumba Bums, 7:30pm
The Lucky Horseshoe: 453 Cortland, San Francisco. Ralph Carney’s Serious Jass Project, 9pm
Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. Citizen’s Jazz, 7pm, free.
The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Charlie Siebert & Chris Siebert, 7:30pm, free.
Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. Savanna Jazz Jam with David Byrd, 7pm, $5.
Top of the Mark: One Nob Hill, 999 California, San Francisco. Stompy Jones, 7:30pm, $10.
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. NaJe, in Yoshi’s lounge, 6:30pm, free.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Barbara Ochoa, 7:30pm
INTERNATIONAL
Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Pa’Lante!,” w/ Juan G, El Kool Kyle, Mr. Lucky, 10pm, $5.
Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. VibraSÓN, El DJ X, 8pm, $12.
Cigar Bar & Grill: 850 Montgomery, San Francisco. Carlitos Medrano Quartet, 8pm
Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. “Jueves Flamencos,” 8pm, free.
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Gary Flores & Descarga Caliente, 8pm
Verdi Club: 2424 Mariposa, San Francisco. The Verdi Club Milonga, w/ Christy Coté, DJ Emilio Flores, guests, 9pm, $10-$15.
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Dudu Tassa & The Kuwaitis with Yair Dalal, 8pm, $30-$32.
REGGAE
Pissed Off Pete’s: 4528 Mission St., San Francisco. Reggae Thursdays, w/ resident DJ Jah Yzer, 9pm, free.
BLUES
50 Mason Social House: 50 Mason, San Francisco. Bill Phillippe, 5:30pm, free.
Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Bill Magee, 7:30 & 9:30pm, $20.
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Chris Ford, Third Thursday of every month, 4pm; Cathy Lemons, 9:30pm
COUNTRY
The Parlor: 2801 Leavenworth, San Francisco. “Twang Honky Tonk & Country Jamboree,” w/ DJ Little Red Rodeo, 7pm, free.
EXPERIMENTAL
The Luggage Store: 1007 Market, San Francisco. Gosling, Gestaltish, 8pm, $6-$10.
SOUL
Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Baby & The Luvies, The Ironsides with Gene Washington, 8pm, $7-$10.
Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Soul: It’s the Real Thing,” w/ The Selecter DJ Kirk & Jon Blunck, Third Thursday of every month, 10pm, free.

FRIDAY 21
ROCK
50 Mason Social House: 50 Mason, San Francisco. Spidermeow, Shot in the Dark, Gnarboots, Be Brave Bold Robot, The Bottle Kids, 8pm
Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. Guy Fox, Big Tree, The Districts, Young Moon, 8:30pm, $10-$12.
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. The Family Crest, Milagres, 9pm, $12-$14.
The Chapel: 777 Valencia, San Francisco. Bart Davenport, Danny James, Anna Hillburg, DJ Robert Spector, 9pm, $12-$15.
El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. Friday Live: The Ghost Ease, DJ Emotions, 10pm, free.
Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. The Asteroid No. 4, Joel Gion & The Primary Colors, Daydream Machine, DJ Jodie Artichoke, 9:30pm, $5-$8.
Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Rykarda Parasol, The Tunnel, So What?, 9pm, $8.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. JoyCut, Running in the Fog, Feral Fauna, 9pm, $10.
Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. The Belle Game, Ski Lodge, Lords of Sealand, 9pm, $8-$10.
Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement, San Francisco. Heavenly Beat, Seatraffic, Survival Guide, on the upstairs stage, 9pm, $10-$12.
Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. Perfect Pussy, Wild Moth, Happy Diving, 9pm, $10-$12.
The Riptide: 3639 Taraval, San Francisco. The Ray City Rollers, Powder, 8pm, free.
Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. Lacuna Coil, Kyng, Eve to Adam, Nothing More, 8pm, $21.
Sub-Mission Art Space (Balazo 18 Gallery): 2183 Mission, San Francisco. Safe & Sound, Singled Out, Eternal Sleep, Stay Scared, Dust Off, 7:30pm, $8.
Thee Parkside: 1600 17th St., San Francisco. Shake Before Us, The Arabs, Greg Hoy & The End, 9pm, $7.
DANCE
1015 Folsom: 1015 Folsom, San Francisco. “Witness 5.0,” w/ Juan Atkins, Kastle, Le Youth, Djemba Djemba, Sweater Beats, Touch Sensitive, Krampfhaft, Kit Clayton, J-Boogie, Mikos Da Gawd, MPHD, Chris Clouse, more, 10pm, $15-$25 advance.
Audio Discotech: 316 11th St., San Francisco. Uner, Shonky, Glade Luco, Marija Dunn, 9pm, $10 advance.
BeatBox: 314 11th St., San Francisco. “U-Haul: Bromance Edition,” w/ DJs China G & Ms. Jackson, 10pm, $5-$10.
Beaux: 2344 Market, San Francisco. “Manimal,” 9pm
Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Dancing Ghosts: 7-Year Anniversary,” w/ DJs Xander, Daniel Skellington, Melting Girl, and Owen, 9:30pm, $7 ($3 before 10pm).
DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “Band Saga,” w/ Metroid Metal, Rekcahdam, Anova, Kozilek, 8pm, $8-$13.
The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Trade,” 10pm, free before midnight.
Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “Flight Fridays,” 10pm, $20.
Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “HYSL: Handle Your Shit Lady,” 9pm, $3.
Mercer: 255 Rhode Island, San Francisco. “SoulHouse,” w/ Jeremiah Seraphim, Didje Kelli, Jaime James, Dylan Mahoney, 9pm, $10-$15.
Mezzanine: 444 Jessie, San Francisco. “Lights Down Low,” w/ Tensnake, Huxley, Cooper Saver, Brian Tarney, Split, 9pm, $20-$22.
Mighty: 119 Utah, San Francisco. “Set,” w/ John Digweed, Atish, Matt Hubert, 10pm, $35-$40 advance.
Public Works: 161 Erie, San Francisco. Crossfire: Synaptic Equinox, Flaming Lotus Girls benefit with DJs Aaron Pope, Billy Seal, Brad Robinson, Cosmic Selector, Darren Grayson, Drew Drop, Dulce Vita, J-Rod, Kapt’n Kirk, Layne Loomis, Matt Kramer, and Shissla., 9:30pm, $15-$20 advance.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Pump: Worq It Out Fridays,” w/ resident DJ Christopher B, 9pm, $3.
Ruby Skye: 420 Mason, San Francisco. Syn Cole, Human Life, DJ Vice, 9pm, $20 advance.
Supperclub San Francisco: 657 Harrison, San Francisco. “The Midas Touch,” w/ Gavin Hardkiss, Michael Anthony, The Golden Gate Dolls, more, 7pm
Temple: 540 Howard, San Francisco. “Resonance,” w/ Alex M.O.R.P.H., Mitka, Jake DeSilva, more, 10pm, $20.
Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Studio 3AM,” w/ Michael Perry, Darrell Tenaglia, Soft & Crispy, 10pm, free.
Vessel: 85 Campton, San Francisco. Kryder, 10pm
HIP-HOP
John Colins: 138 Minna, San Francisco. “Juicy,” w/ DJ Mark DiVita, 10pm
Showdown: 10 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Fresh to Def Fridays: A Tribute to Yo! MTV Raps,” w/ resident DJs Boom Bostic, Inkfat, and Hay Hay, Third Friday of every month, 10pm
ACOUSTIC
Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Emily Zisman & Marty Atkinson, 7pm
Dolores Park Cafe: 501 Dolores, San Francisco. Storm Florez, 7:30pm
Pa’ina: 1865 Post, San Francisco. Ben Ahn, 7pm, free.
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. “Bluegrass Bonanza,” w/ The Bearcat Stringband, 9pm, $6-$10.
JAZZ
Atlas Cafe: 3049 20th St., San Francisco. Jazz at the Atlas, 7:30pm, free.
Cafe Royale: 800 Post, San Francisco. Cyril Guiraud Trio, 9pm
The Palace Hotel: 2 New Montgomery, San Francisco. The Klipptones, 8pm, free.
Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. Bill Kwan, 7:30pm, $8.
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Steve Snelling Quartet, 9pm
INTERNATIONAL
Asiento: 2730 21st St., San Francisco. “Kulcha Latino,” w/ resident selectors Stepwise, Ras Rican, and El Kool Kyle, Third Friday of every month, 9pm, free.
Cafe Claude: 7 Claude, San Francisco. Trio Garufa, 7:30pm, free.
Cigar Bar & Grill: 850 Montgomery, San Francisco. Montuno Swing, 10pm
The Emerald Tablet: 80 Fresno, San Francisco. Flamenco del Oro, 8pm, $15 suggested donation.
Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. Cuban Night with Fito Reinoso, 7:30 & 9:15pm, $15-$18.
Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. Danilo y Universal, 8pm, free.
Slate Bar: 2925 16th St., San Francisco. “Chevere: 4-Year Anniversary,” w/ DJs WaltDigz, Epic, and Leydis, 9:30pm
REGGAE
Gestalt Haus: 3159 16th St., San Francisco. “Music Like Dirt,” 7:30pm, free.
The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. The Wailers, 9pm, sold out.
BLUES
Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Chris Cain, 7:30 & 10pm, $22.
Lou’s Fish Shack: 300 Jefferson, San Francisco. Robert “Hollywood” Jenkins, 6pm
The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Big Bones & Chris Siebert, 7:30pm, free.
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. West Coast Blues Revue, 4pm; Chris Cobb, 9:30pm
FUNK
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Sinbad with Memphis Red & The Stank Nasty Band, 8 & 10pm, $35.
SOUL
Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. The Nibblers, The Mark Sexton Band, DJ K-Os, 9:30pm, $10-$15.

SATURDAY 22
ROCK
Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. “Rajeev’s Big Night Out,” w/ We Will Be Lions, The Cuss, Rafa’s One Man Band, plus stand-up comedy, 9pm, $7-$10.
Bender’s: 806 S. Van Ness, San Francisco. Lecherous Gaze, Dirty Fences, Buffalo Tooth, 10pm, $5.
Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. DonCat, Split Screens, Scary Little Friends, 9:30pm, $10.
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Wakey!Wakey!, Jillette Johnson, 9pm, $12.
The Chapel: 777 Valencia, San Francisco. Lost in the Trees, Icy Demons, 9pm, $12-$15.
Connecticut Yankee: 100 Connecticut, San Francisco. The Wearies, The Sweet Bones, Modern Kicks, 10pm
El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. White Cloud, Talk of Shamans, DJ Awnode, 9pm, $2-$5.
Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Kids on a Crime Spree, Yea-Ming & The Rumours, Eternal Drag, 9pm, $6.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Abatis, The Straight Ups, Alabasta Jack, 9pm, $8.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. Fracas, VKTMS, RocketShip RocketShip, Kick Puppy, 4pm, $6.
Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. Keystone Revisited, Pam, Just Passing Through, 9pm, $10.
Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. Weekend, Cities Aviv, Surf Club, 9pm, $12-$14.
Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. INVSN, Wax Idols, 9pm, $13-$15.
Thee Parkside: 1600 17th St., San Francisco. Great Apes, Hard Girls, Canadian Rifle, Acid Fast, 9pm, $7.
DANCE
Audio Discotech: 316 11th St., San Francisco. Goldfish, 9pm, $20-$25.
BeatBox: 314 11th St., San Francisco. “Chaos,” w/ DJs Dan DeLeon & Erik Withakay, 9pm, $10-$20.
DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “Bootie S.F.,” w/ Pepperspray, A+D, Haute Mess, Marky Ray, Keith Kraft, Lucio K, more, 9pm, $10-$15.
The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. Shangri-La, Asian queer dance party., Fourth Saturday of every month, 10pm, $15-$20 (free before 11pm).
Harlot: 46 Minna, San Francisco. “Set,” w/ Hernan Cattaneo, Pedro Arbulu, Franccesco Cardenas, Zita Molnar, 9pm, $15-$25.
Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “Set,” Fourth Saturday of every month, 10pm, $20.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. “Galaxy Radio,” w/ PlaZa, Roche, Smac, Lel Ephant, Holly Bun, 10pm, free.
Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “Bounce!,” 9pm, $3.
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Blunted Funk,” w/ resident DJs Sneak-E Pete & Chilipino, Fourth Saturday of every other month, 9pm, $5 (free before 10pm).
Mighty: 119 Utah, San Francisco. Nightmares on Wax, Bläp Dëli, Mophono, 9pm, $15 advance.
Monarch: 101 Sixth St., San Francisco. Jimmy Edgar, Danny Daze, Papa Lu, 9:30pm, $25-$30.
Public Works: 161 Erie, San Francisco. “Dance Mania,” w/ Paul Johnson, Jammin Gerald, Parris Mitchell, more (in the main room), 9pm, $15 advance; “Mister Saturday Night,” w/ Eamon Harkin, Justin Carter, more (in the OddJob Loft), 9pm, $15 advance.
Ruby Skye: 420 Mason, San Francisco. Fedde Le Grand, Cazzette, Moguai, DJ Zya, 9pm, $50+ advance.
S.F. Eagle: 398 12th St., San Francisco. “Sadistic Saturday,” w/ Mystic Ray, 9pm
Slate Bar: 2925 16th St., San Francisco. “Electric WKND,” w/ The Certain People Crew, Fourth Saturday of every month, 10pm, $5.
The Stud: 399 Ninth St., San Francisco. “Planet Squrrrl,” w/ DJs Trevor Sigler, Joe Pickett, and Ben Holder, 9pm, $5.
Temple: 540 Howard, San Francisco. “Life,” w/ Feldy, Animal Control, Christophe, Jeff Morena, Glade Luco, more, 10pm, $20.
Vessel: 85 Campton, San Francisco. Scooter & Lavelle, 10pm, $10-$30.
W San Francisco: 181 Third St., San Francisco. “Spring: Celebrating the Persian New Year,” w/ DJ Aykut, Dr. T, Nitro, 9pm, $10-$25.
HIP-HOP
111 Minna Gallery: 111 Minna, San Francisco. CAAMFest Directions in Sound: Here Comes Treble, w/ Suboi, Rocky Rivera, Cynthia Lin & The Blue Moon All-Stars, DJ Umami, DJ ThatGirl, DJ Roza, 9:30pm, $20.
John Colins: 138 Minna, San Francisco. “Nice,” w/ DJ Apollo, Fourth Saturday of every month, 10pm, $5.
Showdown: 10 Sixth St., San Francisco. BYOB Live Beat Battle, w/ Ghettosocks & Timbuktu, 9pm, $7-$10.
ACOUSTIC
Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. “Sing Out of Darkness: The Return of the Bird,” American Foundation for Suicide Prevention benefit with Julie Mayhew and many musical guests, 10am-10pm
Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. Chris Mills & The Distant Stars, Chris von Sneidern, 7:30pm, $8.
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Savannah Blu, 9pm
The Riptide: 3639 Taraval, San Francisco. The Lady Crooners, 9:30pm, free.
Steven Wolf Fine Arts: 2747 19th St., San Francisco. A Record Is a Record: Bill Orcutt, 6pm, free.
JAZZ
Cafe Claude: 7 Claude, San Francisco. Terrence Brewer Trio, 7:30pm, free.
Peacock Lounge: 552 Haight, San Francisco. Leon Joyce Jr., 6pm, $15.
The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Steve Lucky & Carmen Getit, 7:30pm, free.
Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. David Byrd Ensemble, 7:30pm, $8.
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. The Robert Stewart Experience, 9pm
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Kurt Elling, 8 & 10pm, $24-$28.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Anya Malkiel, 8pm, free.
INTERNATIONAL
1015 Folsom: 1015 Folsom, San Francisco. “Pura,” 9pm, $20.
Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. Pacific Mambo Orchestra, 8pm, $15.
Cigar Bar & Grill: 850 Montgomery, San Francisco. Latin Rhythm Boys, 10pm
El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. “Mango,” Fourth Saturday of every month, 3pm, $8-$10.
OMG: 43 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Bollywood Blast,” Fourth Saturday of every month, 9pm, $5 (free before 10pm).
Roccapulco Supper Club: 3140 Mission, San Francisco. Hector Acosta, 8pm, $55.
Space 550: 550 Barneveld, San Francisco. “Club Fuego,” 9:30pm
St. Gregory’s Church: 500 De Haro, San Francisco. Veretski Pass, 8pm, $30.
REGGAE
The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. The Wailers, 9pm, sold out.
Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement, San Francisco. One Drop, Midnight Raid, Saane, on the upstairs stage, 9pm, $10-$12.
BLUES
Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Delta Wires, 7:30 & 10pm, $22.
Lou’s Fish Shack: 300 Jefferson, San Francisco. Willie G, 6pm
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Dave Workman, Fourth Saturday of every month, 4pm; Ron Hacker, 9:30pm
EXPERIMENTAL
Noisebridge: 2169 Mission, San Francisco. Godwaffle Noise Pancakes, noon.
FUNK
Mezzanine: 444 Jessie, San Francisco. Rebirth Brass Band, The Loyd Family Players, 9pm, $25.
Pa’ina: 1865 Post, San Francisco. Chocolate Rice, 7pm, free.
SOUL
Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. Wicked Mercies, DJ K-Os, 9:30pm, $10 advance.

SUNDAY 23
ROCK
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Future Twin, Daydream Machine, DJ Joel Gion, 8pm, $7-$10.
The Chapel: 777 Valencia, San Francisco. Death, Audacity, 8pm, $22-$25.
DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. Broken Hope, Oceano, Fallujah, Rivers of Nihil, Kublai Khan, 6pm, $13-$15.
El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. The Desert Line, The Night Falls, Phosphene, 8pm, $8.
Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Religious Phase, Cloud Becomes Your Hand, Jordan Glenn, 8:30pm, $6.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Andy Suzuki & The Method, The Weather Machine, 8pm, $10.
The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. Toadies, Supersuckers, Battleme, 8pm, $22.
Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. The Orwells, Twin Peaks, Criminal Hygiene, 8pm, $14-$16.
DANCE
Audio Discotech: 316 11th St., San Francisco. “London Calling: Chapter 3,” w/ D’Julz, Ben Annand, Bells & Whistles, Nikita, more, noon, $10 advance.
Beaux: 2344 Market, San Francisco. “Full of Grace: A Weekly House Music Playground,” 9pm, free.
The Chapel: 777 Valencia, San Francisco. “Sunday Mass,” 9pm
The Edge: 4149 18th St., San Francisco. “’80s at 8,” w/ DJ MC2, 8pm
Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Dub Mission,” w/ Jahdan Blakkamoore, Relic Secure, Deejay Theory, DJ Sep, 9pm, $11-$14.
F8: 1192 Folsom, San Francisco. “Stamina,” w/ Lukeino, Jamal, guests, 10pm, free.
MatrixFillmore: 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Bounce,” w/ DJ Just, 10pm
Otis: 25 Maiden, San Francisco. “What’s the Werd?,” w/ resident DJs Nick Williams, Kevin Knapp, Maxwell Dub, and guests, 9pm, $5 (free before 11pm).
The Parlor: 2801 Leavenworth, San Francisco. “Sunday Sessions,” w/ DJ Marc deVasconcelos, 9pm, free.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Gigante,” 8pm, free.
S.F. Eagle: 398 12th St., San Francisco. “1982,” w/ DJs Ben Holder & Chaka Quan, 7pm, $5.
The Stud: 399 Ninth St., San Francisco. “Cognitive Dissonance,” Fourth Sunday of every month, 6pm
Temple: 540 Howard, San Francisco. “Sunset Arcade,” 18+ dance party & game night, 9pm, $10.
Wish: 1539 Folsom, San Francisco. “Electric B.A.S.E.,” w/ Beau Kelly, Anya Timofeeva, Remy J, 7pm, free.
HIP-HOP
Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Return of the Cypher,” 9:30pm, free.
Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. K.Flay, Air Dubai, Itch, 9pm, $12-$14.
Mezzanine: 444 Jessie, San Francisco. Bun B & Kirko Bangz, 8pm, $22.
Thee Parkside: 1600 17th St., San Francisco. Astronautalis, Playdough, Transit, Low Country Kingdom, 8pm, $14.
ACOUSTIC
The Lucky Horseshoe: 453 Cortland, San Francisco. Bernal Mountain Bluegrass Jam, 4pm, free.
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Seisiún with Marla Fibish, Erin Shrader, and Richard Mandel, 9pm
JAZZ
Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. Jazz Revolution, 4pm, free/donation.
The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Lavay Smith & Chris Siebert, 7:30pm, free.
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Kurt Elling, 7 & 9pm, $24.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Hubert Emerson, 7:30pm, free.
INTERNATIONAL
Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Sol Tevél, 8pm
Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Brazil & Beyond,” 6:30pm, free.
Cana Cuban Parlor: 500 Florida St., San Francisco. “La Havana,” w/ resident DJs Mind Motion, WaltDigz, and I-Cue, Sundays, 4-9pm
El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. Salsa Sundays, Second and Fourth Sunday of every month, 3pm, $8-$10.
BLUES
Lou’s Fish Shack: 300 Jefferson, San Francisco. Sam Johnson, 4pm
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Blues Power, 4pm; The Door Slammers, Fourth Sunday of every month, 9:30pm
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Bohemian Knuckleboogie, 8pm

MONDAY 24
ROCK
The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. Japan Nite 2014: Happy, Zarigani$, Vampilla, Jungles from Red Bacteria Vacuum, 8pm, $15.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. Guantanamo Baywatch, Courtney & The Crushers, 10pm, $5.
DANCE
DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “DGXXI: Death Guild 21st Anniversary,” w/ DJ Decay, Melting Girl, Joe Radio, Sage, Lexor, Intoner, Identity Theft, Veil, RPTN, Daniel Skellington, 9pm, $5-$21.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Wanted,” w/ DJs Key&Kite and Richie Panic, 9pm, free.
Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Vienetta Discotheque,” w/ DJs Stanley Frank and Robert Jeffrey, 10pm, free.
ACOUSTIC
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Jeremy Messersmith, The Parmesans, 9pm, $10-$12.
Fiddler’s Green: 1333 Columbus, San Francisco. Terry Savastano, 9:30pm, free/donation.
Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Open Mic with Brendan Getzell, 8pm, free.
Osteria: 3277 Sacramento, San Francisco. “Acoustic Bistro,” 7pm, free.
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Peter Lindman, 4pm
JAZZ
Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Eugene Pliner Quartet with Tod Dickow, 7:30pm, free.
Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. Le Jazz Hot, 7pm, free.
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. City Jazz Instrumental Jam Session, 8pm
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Nora Maki, 7:30pm, free.
REGGAE
Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Raggada,” 9pm, $5.
Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Skylarking,” w/ I&I Vibration, 10pm, free.
BLUES
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. The Bachelors, 9:30pm
SOUL
Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “M.O.M. (Motown on Mondays),” w/ DJ Gordo Cabeza & Timoteo Gigante, 8pm, free.

TUESDAY 25
ROCK
Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Cellar Doors, Cool Ghouls, 9:15pm continues through, $7-$10.
Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. Sea Knight, Babes, Wag, 9pm, $8.
Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. High Cliffs, The Wave Commission, Yours, 8pm, $5-$8.
The Chapel: 777 Valencia, San Francisco. Daniel Rossen, 9pm, $20-$22.
El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. Hungry Skinny, Saturn Cats, The Impersonations, 7pm, $6.
The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. Musk, Freak Vibe, Burning Curtains, DJ Tosh, 9:30pm, $6.
Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. Small Black, Snowmine, Yalls, 8pm, $12-$14.
DANCE
1015 Folsom: 1015 Folsom, San Francisco. Annie Mac, Skream, Jacques Greene, 10pm, $12-$15 advance.
Aunt Charlie’s Lounge: 133 Turk, San Francisco. “High Fantasy,” w/ DJ Viv, Myles Cooper, & guests, 10pm, $2.
Monarch: 101 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Soundpieces,” 10pm, free-$10.
Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Switch,” w/ DJs Jenna Riot & Andre, 9pm, $3.
Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Shelter,” 10pm, free.
Wish: 1539 Folsom, San Francisco. “Tight,” w/ resident DJs Michael May & Lito, 8pm, free.
HIP-HOP
Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. Vokab Kompany, Tropo, 9:30pm, $7 advance.
Double Dutch: 3192 16th St., San Francisco. “Takin’ It Back Tuesdays,” w/ DJs Mr. Murdock & Roman Nunez, Fourth Tuesday of every month, 10pm, free.
ACOUSTIC
Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Songwriter in Residence: Lonnie Lazar, 7pm continues through.
Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Song session with Cormac Gannon, Last Tuesday of every month, 9pm
The Rite Spot Cafe: 2099 Folsom, San Francisco. Toshio Hirano, 8pm, free.
JAZZ
Beach Chalet Brewery & Restaurant: 1000 Great Highway, San Francisco. Gerry Grosz Jazz Jam, 7pm
Blush! Wine Bar: 476 Castro, San Francisco. Kally Price & Rob Reich, 7pm, free.
Burritt Room: 417 Stockton St., San Francisco. Terry Disley’s Rocking Jazz Trio, 6pm, free.
Cafe Divine: 1600 Stockton, San Francisco. Chris Amberger, 7pm
Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Clifford Lamb, Mel Butts, and Friends, 7:30pm, free.
Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, 7pm
Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. West Side Jazz Club, 5pm, free.
Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Michael Parsons, 8pm
Tupelo: 1337 Green, San Francisco. Mal Sharpe’s Big Money in Jazz Band, 6pm
Verdi Club: 2424 Mariposa, San Francisco. “Tuesday Night Jump,” w/ Stompy Jones, 9pm, $10-$12.
Wine Kitchen: 507 Divisadero St., San Francisco. Hot Club Pacific, 7:30pm
Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Roberta Gambarini, 8pm, $24-$29.
Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Brenda Reed, 7:30pm, free.
INTERNATIONAL
Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. Salsa Tuesday, w/ DJs Good Sho & El de la Clave, 8:30pm, $10.
The Cosmo Bar & Lounge: 440 Broadway, San Francisco. Conga Tuesdays, 8pm, $7-$10.
F8: 1192 Folsom, San Francisco. “Underground Nomads,” w/ rotating resident DJs Amar, Sep, and Dulce Vita, plus guests, 9pm, $5 (free before 9:30pm).
REGGAE
Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. “Bless Up,” w/ Jah Warrior Shelter Hi-Fi, 10pm
BLUES
Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Two-Tone Steiny & The Cadillacs, 7:30 & 9:30pm, $15.
The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Powell Street Blues Band, 9:30pm
EXPERIMENTAL
Center for New Music: 55 Taylor, San Francisco. sfSoundSalonSeries, w/ Benjamin Kreith & Travis Andrews Duo, Matt Ingalls, 7:49pm, $10-$15.
SOUL
Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Lost & Found,” w/ DJs Primo, Lucky, and guests, 9:30pm, free. 2

This Week’s Picks: March 12 -18, 2014

Michael Redmond
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WEDNESDAY 12

Freddie Rainbow Presents “Gender Night”

It’s no secret that comedy is a male-dominated business. For years, there’s been this stereotype that women aren’t funny. Honestly, how often do you see a comedy with a female lead? While movies like Bridesmaids and Ghost World are few and far between, over the past couple of years, women in entertainment have been speaking out against this double standard. “Gender Night” is the most recent development. Comedian and ardent supporter of gender equality Freddie Rainbow presents an encore presentation of comedy from California’s finest comediennes. Expect jokes about shopping and love as well as fart jokes. Girls fart too, get over it. “The only reason to miss this show is if you hate women,” says the comedy club website. “Please don’t hate women.” (Laura B. Childs)

8pm, $15

Punch Line Comedy Club

444 Battery, SF

(415) 397-7573

www.punchlinecomedyclub.com

 

THURSDAY 13

Shpongle

For more than 15 years, English DJ and producer Simon Posford and Australian flutist Raja Ram have collaborated to produce expansive, mind-bending, psychedelic music. Fans are still raving about how Shpongle rocked Oakland’s Fox Theatre just before Halloween 2011, when Posford and Ram played with a live band and an ensemble of colorful dancers. Posford, who takes to the decks for this show in support of the duo’s latest album Museum of Consciousness (Twisted Records), was a major contributor to the frenetic psy-trance scene that blossomed in Britain in the early ’90s. Those early musical influences shine through in the track “How the Jellyfish Jumped the Mountain,” an intricate, mid-tempo, 10-minute journey through filtered melodies, distorted vocal samples and catchy basslines. (Kevin Lee)

With Desert Dwellers, Vokab Kompany

8 pm, $27.50 presale, $30 at the door

The Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

(415) 673-5716

http://www.theregencyballroom.com

 

IDEO’s David Kelley

IDEO founder David Kelley and his brother Tom Kelley believe that we are watered-down versions of what we could be. On the heels of their bestselling The Art of Innovation, the businessmen brothers have written Creative Confidence, a book that challenges the idea that only some people are creative, suggesting that creativity is not innate but rather a skill. At this JCC event, the IDEO founder and Stanford University professor will speak about unlocking our creative potential; the night will also include a guest lecture by the pioneer for modern journalism and story-telling, Douglas McGray, editor-in-chief of Pop-Up Magazine and the brand new California Sunday Magazine. (Childs)

7pm, $25

Jewish Community Center of San Francisco

3200 California, SF

(415) 292-1200

www.jccsf.com

 

 

Little Minsky’s Burlesque Cabaret

Boasting what some have called both the best pizza and jazz in the city (can you really beat that combination?), Club Deluxe is bringing back Little Minsky’s Burlesque Cabaret every second Thursday of the month. If you like your cocktails stiff and your burlesque dancers flexible, this is the night for you. Take a trip back in time with a lovely lineup of vintage cabaret performers and Prohibition-era jazz musicians. The night is sure to get hot and heavy, but in the classiest of ways, of course. (Childs)

10pm, $5

Club Deluxe

1511 Haight, SF

(415) 552-6949

www.pizza-deluxe.com

 

FRIDAY 14

Screen Printing for Newbies – Late Night Edition

Remember the good old days, when your parents signed you up for various art classes or random activities just so they didn’t have to deal with you on the weekends or school breaks? Workshop SF is oddly reminiscent of summer camp. With Jameson lamps, metallic saws, and only the necessary amount of clutter, the NoPa studio offers awesome classes from Sewing 101 to Hair Bootcamp to Pickling 101. Tonight, they offer a special late night edition of “Screen Printing for Newbies.” Learn the basics of silkscreen printing with an hour-long, hands-on tutorial and two hours of time to print. Bring your own printing supplies or come empty-handed — either way you’ll walk out with some cool designs printed on paper, T-shirts, and even beer koozies. (Childs)

8pm, $42

Workshop

1789 McAllister, SF

(415) 874-9186

www.workshopsf.org

 

Stephen Petronio

It’s been a while since we have seen Stephen Petronio’s dancers fill a local stage with the interlocking complexities of choreography so fiercely layered — and performed at such speed — that the mind sometimes had difficulties in absorbing it all. Apparently, given the newest work’s name, we can expect some slower passages. In Like Lazarus Did, Petronio and his 10 dancers are dancing about death and resurrection, not exactly a hot topic on the traveling dance circuit. But perhaps the subject makes sense for a dancer-choreographer who is close to 60, who was the first male dancer with Trisha Brown — whose troupe is currently on life support — and whose own company is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. So happy birthday and many more to come. (Rita Felciano)

March 14-15, 7:30pm, $35-50

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

700 Howard St. SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

SATURDAY 15

Magic, Color, Flair: The World of Mary Blair

With a keenly creative outlook and modernist style mixed with bold, beautiful colors, artist Mary Blair helped inspire and design some of the most beloved films and attractions made by Walt Disney Studios during the 1940s and ’50s, including Peter Pan, Cinderella, and Alice In Wonderland. This new exhibit features 200 works that examine not only her seminal time and iconic output with Disney but also her early years, as well as her later work as an illustrator for advertising, theatrical sets, clothing, children’s books, and much more. (Sean McCourt)

Through Sept. 7, 2014

10am-6pm, Wed-Mon, $10 for Blair exhibit only, museum combo ticket $17-$25

The Walt Disney Family Museum

104 Montgomery, SF

www.waltdisney.org

 

 

Sureando: Rambling through the South

There is a difference between listening through your ears and listening through your heart. For the latter, there’s nothing better than the voice of Chilean cellist Mochi Parra. This performance will see Parra teaming up with Peruvian native bass virtuoso and Berkeley Jazz School teacher David Pinto to present a concert of South American musical jewels that will undoubtedly set a precedent for the possibilities of these two instruments. There’s nothing sparse about this: Pinto’s six-stringed bass seems to dialogue with Mochi commanding interpretations, and the duo’s original arrangements combine to create an exquisite orchestration right at the edges of the unpredictable nueva canción styles. (Fernando A. Torres)

7pm, $15

Red Poppy Art House

2698 Folsom, SF

(415) 826-2402

www.redpoppyarthouse.org

 

The San Francisco International Chocolate Salon

In the market for a sugar rush? Now in its 8th year, this annual smorgasbord of all things cocoa-based promises “55,000 square feet of chocolate,” in the form of tastings, demonstrations, new product launches, author talks, wine pairings, a “Chocolate Art Gallery,” and more. Artisan chocolatiers, confectioners, and self-proclaimed chocolate aficionados from all over the globe will converge at the Fort Mason Center to hear from locals like John Scharffenberger, chocolate maker at, yes, Scharffen Berger Chocolate, as well as chocolate-obsessed celebrities from the cooking show world. Let’s get real: It’s been a month since we had any heart-shaped truffles and there are still a few weeks to go until Cadbury Creme Eggs. Our sweet tooth needs this. (Emma Silvers)

10am, $20 -$30, discounts for kids

Fort Mason Center

2 Marina Blvd, SF

www.sfchocolatesalon.com

 

SUNDAY 16

Portland Cello Project

Compelling mysteries arise whenever the Portland Cello Project is slated to perform. What sort of ensemble will participate? Will they go all cellists, or will they incorporate some combination of vocals, horns, winds, and percussion? Moreover, what sort of music will they play? Known as an “indie music orchestra,” PCP (an affectionate nickname from fans) unabashedly reappropriates rap, rock, and pop artists, from Kanye West’s upbeat “All of the Lights” to Radiohead’s melancholic “Karma Police,” into provocative covers that defy easy genre classification. The Project’s most stirring renditions seem to come from slowing down a track and teaming up with a powerful voice, which seems to naturally emphasize the emotional power of the cello. Accompanied by vocalist Chanticleer Tru, the Project’s take on Beck’s “Don’t Act Like Your Heart Isn’t Hard” is a particularly devastating, soul-laden heartbreaker. (Lee)

8pm, $22 presale, $26 at the door

Yoshi’s San Francisco

1330 Fillmore, SF

(415) 655-5600

www.yoshis.com

 

Sunday Sampler at the Berkeley Rep School of Theatre

If you’ve spent more time practicing your Oscar acceptance speech than you’d perhaps like to admit, come out of hiding: Three times a year, the professional thespians at the Berkeley Repertory’s School of Theatre hold an afternoon of free acting workshops that are entirely open to the public, to serve as a preview of the school’s upcoming programming. Classes for youth, teens, and adults are available, from Beginning Acting and Musical Theatre to Playwriting and “Acting Violence” — aka how to stage a swordfight without actually injuring your coworkers or yourself. Even if you never go pro, you never know when that last one could come in handy. (Silvers)

1pm, free

Berkeley Repertory School of Theatre

2071 Addison, Berkeley

(510) 647–2972

www.berkeleyrep.org


MONDAY 17

Crossroads Irish-American Festival with Katherine Hastings

For those whose ideal St. Patrick’s Day celebration is a little more literary, a little less passing-out-in-your-own-green-puke, this evening honoring the legacy of Irish-American poetry, featuring Sonoma County Poet Laureate Katherine Hastings, should be just the ticket. With her recently published Nighthawks, Hastings has established herself as a poet unafraid to tackle controversial current events in her work, but there’s a constant undercurrent of appreciation for nature — she previously edited What Redwoods Know: Poems from California State Parks as a benefit for the struggling California State Parks Foundation. And because poets do know how to have fun: Irish soda bread and other Irish treats will be served. (Silvers)

7pm, free

BookShop West Portal

80 West Portal, SF

www.irishamericancrossroads.org

 

TUESDAY 18

Free to Play advance screening

This feature-length documentary, produced by video game developer Valve, takes viewers inside the world of competitive gaming — sorry, e-sports — as three professional gamers travel the world, competing for a $1 million prize in the first Dota 2 International Tournament. What was once considered a niche interest is now serious business, with trading and politics that mirror professional sports; Dota 2, a five-person team sport, is especially big in China, where one wealthy man recently bought an entire team for $6 million. This premiere will feature a live Q&A with the film’s creators and other special guests. (Silvers)

8pm, $25

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.castrotheatre.com

 

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Theater Listings: March 12 – 18, 2014

Michael Redmond
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

Bauer San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. Previews March 18-21, 8pm. Opens March 22, 8pm. Runs Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm); March 23 and April 13, 2pm. Through April 19. San Francisco Playhouse presents the world premiere of Lauren Gunderson’s drama about artist Rudolf Bauer.

Twisted Fairy Tales Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.leftcoasttheatreco.org. $15-25. Opens Fri/14, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through April 5. Left Coast Theatre Co. performs the world premiere of seven one-act LGBT-themed plays based on classic children’s stories.

Wrestling Jerusalem Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission, SF; www.theintersection.org. $20-30. Previews Wed/12-Fri/14, 7:30pm. Opens Sat/15, 7:30pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2pm. Intersection for the Arts presents Aaron Davidman in his multicharacter solo performance piece about Israel and Palestine.

BAY AREA

Arms and the Man Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.rossvalleyplayers.com. $13-26. Previews Thu/13, 7:30pm. Opens Fri/14, 8pm. Runs Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm (no show Sun/16). Through April 13. Ross Valley Players perform George Bernard Shaw’s romantic comedy.

ONGOING

Children Are Forever (All Sales are Final!) Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $15. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through March 22. Writer-performer and comedian Julia Jackson’s well acted and consistently funny autobiographical solo show details her and her female partner’s attempt to adopt a newborn girl from a young African American mother in Florida. Along the way, Jackson’s smart script details the trials, red tape, and unexpected market incentives in the field of adoption for a same-sex, interracial couple. If the generally involving story nevertheless attenuates a little across its two-act structure, Coke Nakamoto’s precise direction (which builds on original direction by W. Kamau Bell) offers a lively framework for Jackson’s excellent characterizations as well as her frank and interesting commentary on the social, political messiness of certain natural urges. (Avila)

Crystal Springs Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.crystalspringstheplay.com. $20-65. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through March 23. Eureka Theatre presents Kathy Rucker’s world-premiere drama about parenting in the digital age.

Feisty Old Jew Marsh San Francisco Main Stage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-100. Sat/15, 8pm; Sun/16, 7pm. Charlie Varon performs his latest solo show, a fictional comedy about “a 20th century man living in a 21st century city.”

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $32-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

Hundred Days Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. $10-100. Wed and Sun, 7pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through April 6. Married musical duo the Bengsons (Abigail and Shaun) provide the real-life inspiration and guiding rock ‘n’ roll heart for this uneven but at times genuinely rousing indie musical drama, a self-referential meta-theater piece relating the story of a young couple in 1940s America who fall madly in love only to discover one of them is terminally ill. As an exploration of love, mortality, and the nature of time, the story of Sarah and Will (doubled by the Bengsons and, in movement sequences and more dramatically detailed scenes, by chorus members Amy Lizardo and Reggie D. White) draws force from the potent musical performances and songwriting of composer-creators Abigail and Shaun Bengson (augmented here by the appealing acting-singing chorus and backup band that also feature El Beh, Melissa Kaitlyn Carter, Geneva Harrison, Kate Kilbane, Jo Lampert, Delane Mason, Joshua Pollock). Playwright Kate E. Ryan’s book, however, proves too straightforward, implausible, and sentimental to feel like an adequate vessel for the music’s exuberant, urgent emotion and lilting, longing introspection. Other trappings of director Anne Kauffman’s elaborate production (including an inspired set design by Kris Stone that echoes the raw industrial shell of the theater; and less-than-inspired choreography by the otherwise endlessly inventive Joe Goode) can add texture at times but also prove either neutral figures or distracting minuses in conveying what truth and heft there is in the material. Ultimately, this still evolving world premiere has a strong musical beat at its core, which has a palpable force of its own, even if it’s yet to settle into the right combination of story and staging. (Avila)

Lovebirds Marsh San Francisco Studio, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu/13-Fri/14, 8pm; Sat/15, 8:30pm. Theater artist and comedian Marga Gomez presents the world premiere of her 10th solo show, described as “a rollicking tale of incurable romantics.”

Mommy Queerest Exit Studio, 156 Eddy, SF; www.divafest.info. $15-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through March 29. Sex scenes in solo shows might sound a little onanistic, but in the right circumstances a door jam or a love seat can serve as a fine co-star. Stand-up comic and actor Kat Evasco demonstrates as much in this raunchy and high-spirited story of her sexual awakening as a lesbian-identifying bisexual, coming out in a household dominated by her closeted mother, a Filipina American drama queen with a long-term female companion she insists is the “gay” one. Presented by Guerrilla Rep and the Exit Theatre’s DIVAfest, and directed by Guerrilla Rep’s John Caldon (who co-wrote the play with Evasco), the story follows a familiar and predictable arc in some ways — familial hypocrisy giving way to inspirational cross-generational understanding — and the characterizations and set-ups (including a family feud on Jerry Springer) come with not always inspired choices. Moreover not all the jokes land where they should in a performance that starts as stand-up but immediately shifts into the style of a solo-play confessional. (A more thoroughgoing subversion of the stand-up format might have produced more complex, less foreseeable results.) At the same time, there’s no denying Evasco’s charm and energy, or her buoyant comedic talent, which makes it easier to forgive the play’s structural shortcomings. (Avila)

“Risk Is This … The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival” Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. Free ($20 donation for reserved seating). Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through March 29. Five new works in staged readings, including two from Cutting Ball resident playwright Andrew Saito.

The Scion Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-60. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 18. In his latest solo show, Brian Copeland (Not a Genuine Black Man; The Waiting Period) explores an infamous crime in his hometown of San Leandro: the 2000 murder of three government meat inspectors by Stuart Alexander, owner of the Santos Linguisa Factory. The story is personal history for Copeland, at least indirectly, as the successful comedian and TV host recounts growing up nearby under the common stricture that “rules are rules,” despite evidence all around that equity, fairness, and justice are in fact deeply skewed by privilege. Developed with director David Ford, the multiple-character monologue (delivered with fitful humor on a bare-bones stage with supportive sound design by David Hines) contrasts Copeland’s own youthful experiences as a target of racial profiling with the way wealthy and white neighbor Stuart Alexander, a serial bully and thug, consistently evaded punishment and even police attention along his path to becoming the “Sausage King,” a mayoral candidate, and a multiple murderer (Alexander died in 2005 at San Quentin). The story takes some meandering turns in making its points, and not all of Copeland’s characterizations are equally compelling. The subject matter is timely enough, however, though ironically it is government that seems to set itself further than ever above the law as much as wealthy individuals or the bogus “legal persons” of the corporate world. The results of such concentrated power are indeed unhealthy, and literally so — Copeland’s grandmother (one of his more persuasive characterizations) harbors a deep distrust of processed food that is nothing if not prescient —but The Scion’s tale of two San Leandrans leaves one hungry for more complexity. (Avila)

Shit & Champagne Rebel, 1772 Market, SF; shitandchampagne.eventbrite.com. $25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. D’Arcy Drollinger is Champagne White, bodacious blond innocent with a wicked left hook in this cross-dressing ’70s-style white-sploitation flick, played out live on Rebel’s intimate but action-packed barroom stage. Written by Drollinger and co-directed with Laurie Bushman (with high-flying choreography by John Paolillo, Drollinger, and Matthew Martin), this high-octane camp send-up of a favored formula comes dependably stocked with stock characters and delightfully protracted by a convoluted plot (involving, among other things, a certain street drug that’s triggered an epidemic of poopy pants) — all of it played to the hilt by an excellent cast that includes Martin as Dixie Stampede, an evil corporate dominatrix at the head of some sinister front for world domination called Mal*Wart; Alex Brown as Detective Jack Hammer, rough-hewn cop on the case and ambivalent love interest; Rotimi Agbabiaka as Sergio, gay Puerto Rican impresario and confidante; Steven Lemay as Brandy, high-end calf model and Champagne’s (much) beloved roommate; and Nancy French as Rod, Champagne’s doomed fiancé. Sprawling often literally across two buxom acts, the show maintains admirable consistency: The energy never flags and the brow stays decidedly low. (Avila)

The Speakeasy Undisclosed location (ticket buyers receive a text with directions), SF; www.thespeakeasysf.com. $70 (gambling chips, $5-10 extra; after-hours admission, $10). Thu-Sat, 7:40, 7:50, and 8pm admittance times. Extended through May 24. Boxcar Theater’s most ambitious project to date is also one of the more involved and impressively orchestrated theatrical experiences on any Bay Area stage just now. An immersive time-tripping environmental work, The Speakeasy takes place in an “undisclosed location” (in fact, a wonderfully redesigned version of the company’s Hyde Street theater complex) amid a period-specific cocktail lounge, cabaret, and gambling den inhabited by dozens of Prohibition-era characters and scenarios that unfold around an audience ultimately invited to wander around at will. At one level, this is an invitation to pure dress-up social entertainment. But there are artistic aims here too. Intentionally designed (by co-director and creator Nick A. Olivero with co-director Peter Ruocco) as a fractured super-narrative — in which audiences perceive snatches of overheard stories rather than complete arcs, and can follow those of their own choosing — there’s a way the piece becomes specifically and ever more subtly about time itself. This is most pointedly demonstrated in the opening vignettes in the cocktail lounge, where even the ticking of Joe’s Clock Shop (the “cover” storefront for the illicit 1920s den inside) can be heard underscoring conversations (deeply ironic in historical hindsight) about war, loss, and regained hope for the future. For a San Francisco currently gripped by a kind of historical double-recurrence of the roaring Twenties and dire Thirties at once, The Speakeasy is not a bad place to sit and ponder the simulacra of our elusive moment. (Avila)

Tipped & Tipsy Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 5pm; Sun, 7pm. Through April 6. Solo performer Jill Vice performs her Fringe Festival hit.

The World of Paradox Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.paradoxmagic.com. $12-15. Mon, 8pm. Through April 7. Footloose presents David Facer in his solo show, a mix of magic and theater.

Yellow New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through March 23. Playwright Del Shores (Sordid Lives, Southern Baptist Sissies) returns to his native South — while detouring from previous camp-comedy treatments — with this affirming family drama set in Vicksburg, Miss., about a progressive white couple whose marriage and family are rocked in the wake of their son’s illness. Kate (Dana Zook) and Bobby (Andrew Nance) are celebrating 19 years together. Their oldest son, Dayne (Damion Matthews), is a handsome high school senior and football star; their daughter, Gracie (Ali Haas), is his high-strung younger sister, a drama devotee in more ways than one with plans to be the next Meryl Streep. Gracie’s best friend, Kendall (Maurice André San-Chez), is an effeminate young man with a golden singing voice but a strict fundamentalist mother (Linsay Rousseau) from whom he must hide his plan to join Gracie in the school’s production of Oklahoma. Kendall’s fractured family encourages his tight orbit around Gracie’s — including Dayne, on whom Kendall has an impossible-to-disguise crush — all of whom accept the closeted, innocent youth unequivocally. But when Dayne comes down with a rare liver disease (the title has nothing to do with race, which is not explored here, but references, at a literal level, the sickly color that overcomes Dayne at one point), the seemingly ideal family itself fractures along lines of a deeply buried secret regarding his paternity. Amid their worry for Dayne’s future, and the painful dynamic opened between Kate and Bobby, Kendall’s mother moves in with proselyting zeal, alienating her son to the point of total rejection, but also adding to an already volatile tension between his adoptive parents. Helmed by New Conservatory Theatre Center’s founding artistic director, Ed Decker, the production achieves (after some initial warming up) decent performances across the cast, which, along with Shores’ careful plotting and consistent humor, helps keep this sentimental, somewhat too neat story involving until the end. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Accidental Death of an Anarchist Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-99. Opens Wed/12, 8pm. Runs Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show April 18; additional 2pm shows March 20 and April 17; also Sat, 2pm, but no matinee March 22); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through April 20. Berkeley Rep presents comic actor Steven Epp in Dario Fo’s explosive political farce, directed by Christopher Bayes,

Bread and Circuses La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $20-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through April 6. Impact Theatre performs “a cavalcade of brutal and bloody new short plays” by various contemporary playwrights.

Geezer Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 26. Geoff Hoyle moves his hit comedy about aging to the East Bay.

The House That Will Not Stand Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-59. Wed/12, 7pm; Thu/13-Sat/15, 8pm (also Thu/13 and Sat/15, 2pm); Sun/16, 2 and 7pm. July 4, 1836: As a white New Orleans patriarch (Ray Reinhardt) passes from the scene, under somewhat mysterious circumstances, his longtime mistress, Beartrice (an imposing, memorable Lizan Mitchell), and their daughters (the charmingly varied trio of Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Flor De Liz Perez, and Tiffany Rachelle Stewart) — all free women of color — vie for dominance while trying to secure their respective futures in Berkeley Rep’s sumptuous and beautifully acted world premiere. Nationally acclaimed playwright and Oakland native Marcus Gardley (And Jesus Moonwalked the Mississippi; This World in a Woman’s Hands) brews up a historically rich and revealing, as well as witty and fiery tale here, based on the practice of plaçage (common-law marriages between white men and black Creole women), grounding it in the large personalities of his predominately female characters — who include a nosy and angling intruder (played with subtlety by Petronia Paley) — and lacing it all with a delirious dose of magical realism via the voodoo charms of Beartrice’s slave, Makeda (Harriett D. Foy, who with Keith Townsend Obadike also contributes lush, atmospheric compositions to the proceedings). Gardley delves productively into the history overall, although he sometimes indulges it too much in awkward and ultimately unnecessary expository dialogue. When he allows his characters full scope for expression of their personalities and relationships, however, the dialogue sails by with brio and punch —something the powerhouse cast, shrewdly directed by Patricia McGregor, makes the most of throughout. (Avila)

Lasso of Truth Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $37-58. Wed/12, 7:30pm;Thu/13-Sat/15, 8pm (also Sat/15, 2pm); Sun/16, 2 and 7pm. Marin Theatre Company performs Carson Kreitzer’s new play about the history of Wonder Woman.

The Lion and the Fox Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through March 30. Central Works performs a prequel to its 2009 hit, Machiavelli’s The Prince, which depicts a face-off between Niccolo Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia.

The Music Man Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-60. Fri and March 20, 7pm; Sat, 1 and 6pm; Sun, noon and 5pm. Through March 23. There’s trouble in River City! See it unfold amid all those trombones at Berkeley Playhouse.

Once On This Island Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19-73. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through March 30. TheatreWorks performs the Tony-nominated musical about a star-crossed love affair in the tropics, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sun/16, March 22, 30, April 6, 12, 19, and 30, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

Companhia Urbana de Dança Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Thu/13-Sat/15, 8pm. $25-35. Brazilian dance troupe under the direction of Sonia Destri Lie.

“Dream Queens Revue” Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; www.dreamqueensrevue.com. Wed/12, 9:30pm. Free. Drag with Collette LeGrande, Ruby Slippers, Sophilya Leggz, Bobby Ashton, and more.

Feinstein’s at the Nikko Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. This week: Cheyenne Jackson with musical director Ben Toth, Fri/14, 8pm; Sat/15-Sun/16, 7pm, $60-75.

Greg Fitzsimmons Punch Line Comedy Club, 444 Battery, SF; www.punchlinecomedyclub.com. Thu/13, 8pm; Fri/14, 8 and 10pm; Sat/15, 7:30 and 9:30pm. $23.50. The comedian performs.

“The Garden Party” Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; www.overcasttheatre.com. Fri/14-Sat/15 and March 19-22, 8pm; Sun/16, 5pm. $11-13. Overcast Theatre performs Václav Havel’s 1963 comedy.

“LEVYdance Presents: The Salon” LEVYstudio, 19 Heron, SF; www.levydance.org. Sat/15, 8:30pm. $10. Performing arts showcase featuring 10 local artists of various disciplines.

“LOL Mondays at OMG” OMG, 43 Sixth St, SF; www.clubomgsf.com. Mon/17, 7pm. Free. Comedy show hosted by Valerie Branch, with featured performers Imran G., Samantha Gilweit, and Barry Fischer, plus an open mic.

“Magic at the Rex” Hotel Rex, 562 Sutter, SF; www.magicattherex.com. Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $25. Magic and mystery with Adam Sachs and mentalist Sebastian Boswell III.

“The Naked Stage” Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. Sat, 8pm. Through March 29. $20. BATS Improv performs a completely improvised play.

“New Winter: Winter Choreographers Showcase” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/14-Sat/15, 8pm. $14. Works by Tika Morgan’s Reggaeton Fusion Performance Workshop, Allan Frias’ Hip-Hop Performance Workshop, Maurice Stokes, Natasha Carlitz Dance Ensemble, and more.

“Paper Wing” NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.theatreofyugen.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through March 22. $15-35. Sculptural costume artist Sha Sha Higby presents a new solo performance.

“Point Break Live!” DNA Lounge, 373 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. April 4, 7:30 and 11pm. $25-50. Dude, Point Break Live! is like dropping into a monster wave, or holding up a bank, like, just a pure adrenaline rush, man. Ahem. Sorry, but I really can’t help but channel Keanu Reeves and his Johnny Utah character when thinking about the awesomely bad 1991 movie Point Break or its equally yummily cheesy stage adaptation. And if you do an even better Keanu impression than me — the trick is in the vacant stare and stoner drawl — then you can play his starring role amid a cast of solid actors, reading from cue cards from a hilarious production assistant in order to more closely approximate Keanu’s acting ability. This play is just so much fun, even better now at DNA Lounge than it was a couple years ago at CELLspace. But definitely buy the poncho pack and wear it, because the blood, spit, and surf spray really do make this a fully immersive experience. (Steven T. Jones)

“Shotz: Featuring a Strong Female Lead” Tides Theatre, 533 Sutter, SF; www.amiosnyc.com. Tue/18, 8pm. $10. Seven plays, five minutes each, created in less than a month, and united under the theme “Featuring a Strong Female Lead.”

“Silenced” and “The CONTACT Project” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri-Sat and March 20, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through March 23. Performance works by Charya Burt and Krista DeNio.

“Sorya! 2014: We Are Still At It” NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF: www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat-Sun, 2pm; Mon, 7pm. Through March 24. Theatre of Yugen presents its 35th anniversary season with a performance by founder Yuriko Doi in the kyogen play Kawakami.

SOULSKIN Dance Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama, SF; soulskindance.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/14-Sat/15, 8pm. $20. A multimedia pop culture journey directed by Adrianna Thompson.

“Speechless” Public Works SF, 161 Erie, SF; www.speechlesslive.com. Wed/12, 7:30pm. $20. One-year anniversary special of the PowerPoint-based comedy show.

Stephen Petronio Company Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.sfperformances.org. Fri/14-Sat/15, 7:30pm. $35-50. The company performs the West Coast premiere of Like Lazarus Did.

BAY AREA

“An Evening of Relentless Humor in Multiple Formats from SOB” 142 Throckmorton Theatre, 142 Throckmorton, Mill Valley; www.142throckmorton.com. Sat/15, 8pm. $25-35. Sketch and improv comedy.

Savion Glover Marin Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael; www.marincenter.org. Fri/14, 8pm. $20-60. The tap dancer performs his new work, StePz.

“The Ironbound” Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. Mon/17, 7pm. Free. Staged reading of a new play by Martyna Majok.

“MarshJam Improv Comedy Show” Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. Fri, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Improv comedy with local legends and drop-in guests.

“Mortified: March Madness” Uptown, 1928 Telegraph, Oakl; www.getmortified.com. Thu/13, 7:30pm. $20. Also Fri/14, 7:30pm, $21. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF. Fearless storytellers share their most adorably embarrassing childhood writings.

Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir’s Annual Spring Musical First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison, Oakl; www.oigc.org. Sat/15, 7:30pm. Free. OIGC performs spiritual and gospel music under the direction of Terrance Kelly, with special guest Calvin B. Rhone.

“Poetry Express” Himalayan Flavors, 1585 University, Berk; poetryexpressberkeley.blogspot.com. Mon, 7pm. Free. Ongoing. This week: Richard Silberg, plus open mic. Next week: Ambrose Mohler, plus open mic.

“Some Girl(s)” Dragon Theatre, 2120 Broadway, Redwood City; www.dragonproductions.net. Fri/14-Sat/15, 8pm (also Sat/15, 2pm); Sun/16, 2pm. $15. Dragon Theater’s 2nd Stages Program kicks off with this production of Neil LaBute’s dark comedy. *

 

Telling tales

Michael Redmond
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0
Telling tales

cheryl@sfbg.com

CAAMFEST The feel-good movie of last year’s Center for Asian American Media film festival was The Cheer Ambassadors, a documentary charting the high-flying accomplishments of Bangkok University’s cheerleading team. This year’s The Road to Fame taps the same performance theme, but there’s an undercurrent of melancholy that tugs at each of its peppy subjects. The setting is Beijing’s Central Academy of Drama, where young adults envision careers like those of celebrity alums Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi. The reality, of course, is that the majority of them will struggle to get any job after graduation, much less realize their show-biz fantasies.

Added pressure is applied by the kids’ parents. Though Chinese youth may have adopted Western-style dreams of the spotlight, many in the older generation were denied the chance to go to college or experience any freedom of occupational choice. All of The Road to Fame‘s featured subjects are in the 19-to-21 age range, born in the era of China’s one-child policy, so the incentive to succeed is particularly urgent, for both financial and emotional reasons. With two parents and four grandparents looking on, “There are six pairs of eyes on only one child,” points out drama teacher Liu Hongmei, whose own martial-arts movie career was supplanted by her desire to work with students.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzaI2IW0hLk

Given all of these factors, the choice of musical Fame — about a performing-arts school teeming with wannabe stars — as the kids’ final showcase is wonderfully apt. As a bonus, American teachers with Broadway bona fides (the lead has a hint of Corky St. Clair flair) have come to China to work with the students, including standouts like charismatic Chen Lei, who comes from “a simple family” that expects her to take care of them, frustrating her desires to work abroad; and Wu Heng, a talented singer with luxuriant pop-star hair whose parents joke (or are they joking?) about him supporting them. Tension arises during casting, and the expected backstage drama ensues as “A” and “B” casts are chosen and the kids — already fearing the uncertainty of life post-graduation — start to get a sense of how difficult making it will be. On a side note, The Road to Fame is the latest from Chinese-born, US-educated blogger and filmmaker (2005’s Beijing or Bust) Hao Wu, who was detained by Chinese authorities in 2006 while filming a documentary on Christian Chinese house churches. (Presumably, the government viewed musical theater as a more “appropriate” topic.)

Along with The Road to Fame, CAAMFest’s documentary competition is composed almost entirely of urgently contemporary tales. In American Arab, Iraqi American filmmaker Usama Alshaibi takes a deeply personal look at what it’s like to live in the US — specifically, small-town Iowa — post-9/11 with the first name “Usama.” (The results are not entirely surprising.) More compelling is Dianne Fukami and Eli Olson’s Stories From Tohoku, a sensitive study of Japanese still struggling to rebuild after the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Interviews with survivors, as well as Japanese Americans (including Kristi Yamaguchi, who visits the region to lend support), illuminate the incredible resilience of people whose communities were completely flattened.

“My history has disappeared, so at this point, all I can do is enjoy my life,” says one woman as she points out where her house used to stand. Though not everyone reacted with such calmness — a chef who volunteered at a relief center recalls becoming resentful amid increasing demand for his services — there’s an overall sense that the culture’s embrace of what Zen Buddhism terms “Gaman,” or “enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity,” helps Japanese recoup from tragedy, be it war, internment camps (in the case of Japanese Americans), or natural disaster.

Less elegantly crafted but no less searing is Duc Nguyen’s Stateless, about the handful of Vietnamese people still holding out hope for resettlement after years or even decades of living as illegal aliens in the Philippines. Aided by a determined lawyer whose practice seems to be their only source of advice and hope, the refugees — unable to return home and live under a post-war regime that’s marked them as troublemakers — struggle to get by, with the golden promise of asylum in the US shimmering just out of reach. It’s a moving tale, but it’s compressed into a 55-minute film that sometimes comes up short on context.

The sole film with experimental leanings in the documentary competition is Lordville, a quiet exploration of the nearly abandoned town of Lordville, NY. Though a few determined eccentrics have kept the population of the oft-flooded burg from dipping to zero, it’s the past that filmmaker Rea Tajiri, a Lordville resident, is most interested in, thanks to her ownership of a home owned by one of the town’s founders. Native American history, misty roads, broken-down houses, ever-present flowing water, and the musings of neighbors, a genealogist, and an environmental scientist fill in this portrait of a place where natural and human history are often at odds, and yet are inextricably bound.

The remaining films in the doc competition: Tenzin Tsetan Choklay’s Bringing Tibet Home, about a Tibetan artist who smuggles soil out of his embattled homeland for an installation in India; Masahiro Sugano’s Cambodian Son, about Cambodian American poet and activist Kosal Khiev; and Esy Casey’s Jeepney, about the Philippines’ iconic public-transport buses. *

CAAMFEST

March 13-23, most shows $12

Various SF and East Bay venues

www.caamedia.org

 

All disquiet

Michael Redmond
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1
All disquiet

marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO “There is no previous book to this book. There is no Selected Ambient Works Volume I book, just as there is no record by the musician Aphex Twin bearing the title Selected Ambient Works Volume I. There is, however, a Selected Ambient Works Volume II album, released by the British record label Warp in 1994, and this is a book about that album.”

So begins the latest entry in the great, ongoing 33 1/3 book series from Bloomsbury Press, which unleashes one notable writer on one seminal album and prints the often-poetic results. In this case, the “extravagantly opaque, willfully vaporous” chillout room masterpieces of electronic composer Richard D. James, aka Aphex Twin — basically what everyone in the 1990s listened to as they swept up/came down after the rave — get the business from incisive SF writer and archivist Marc Weidenbaum. And really, the pairing couldn’t be any more delicious.

Since 1996, Weidenbaum’s been quietly documenting from the Richmond District all manner of experimental and electronic sounds on his incredible Disquiet.com site. (Some have referenced the site as one of the earliest blogs.) It’s one of our great sonic secrets: Pretty much once a day for the past 18 years he’s been opening ears to everything from random satellite-based sound sculptures and square wave coding antics to looped Sumerian myths and compressed Fugazi-discography experiments.

ego1Named after mysterious early 20th century Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa’s “factless autobiography” The Book of Disquiet, Disquiet.com itself had a disquieting beginning. “When I founded Disquiet, I had quit a job I’d had for seven years,” Weidenbaum told me by email. He’d started at Tower Record’s Pulse! Magazine as an editor, then went on to launch its classical magazine and found its first digital publication. “I’d joined Tower because I wanted to work for a magazine that covered all music, which back then was quite an unusual thing. But in time I realized that my seemingly disparate listening had a core thread: that which I first thought of as electronically mediated sound, but eventually I recognized as ‘technologically’ mediated sound.

“Aphex Twin was part of a new generation of musicians who helped focus my ears. Wagon Christ. Shinjuku Thief. DJ Krush. Skylab. Oval. Spring Heel Jack. DJ Olive. Grassy Knoll. They were layered on top of the earlier generations of electronic experimenters, who I was already fond of: Brian Eno, Gavin Bryars, Pauline Oliveros, Laurie Anderson, Robert Fripp, Nicolas Collins, Ikue Mori…. Recognizing that technological focus gave me the comfort to move on.”

And now he’s written a book channeling his feelings for the technological mediation that Aphex Twin brought to the fore. The tricky thing, of course, is that Aphex Twin — who’s recently reemerged to perform with and produce insane South African zef-rave act Die Antwoord — is known not just for ethereal, era-framing atmospheric ambience, but satanic electronic audiovisual combustions like “Windowlicker” and “Come to Daddy” as well.

“It’s difficult to name direct descendents of Aphex Twins’ work, because his is a difficult template to fill: that mix of conflicting sounds, both unnerving and soothing; a steady retreat from the public eye, despite obvious extrovert tendencies; moving from a hidden subculture to broad awareness. It’s hard to figure out what past figure he was himself a contemporary version of. But so many musicians bridge the worlds of club and art music these days” — Weidenbaum mentions SF-founded duo Matmos and local composer Mason Bates — “and part of the reason is because of the ground that Aphex Twin broke.”

Fitting therefore, that the release party at City Lights bookstore on March 20 will also be a showcase of contemporary electronic music. “I’ve run an online music-making group since the start of 2012, called the Disquiet Junto, and that’s put me in touch with a lot of musicians,” Weidenbaum said. “So I’ve been inviting musicians, many though not all from that association, to perform new, original works informed by the Aphex Twin record, and by my book’s take on the record. Specifically, they’ll be doing electronic work derived from the wind chime, which I single out as an early ‘generative’ instrument. I’ll read from my book, and they’ll play live. At City Lights it will be the incredibly talented Marielle Jakobsons, Jared Smith, and subnaught, all of whom live in the Bay Area.”

EXPLORING THEMES FROM APHEX TWIN WITH MARC WEIDENBAUM AND FRIENDS

Thursday, March 20, 7pm, free

City Lights

261 Columbus, SF.

www.citylights.com

 

SHADOW CHILD

Some smooth house from this UK rising star — his cute remix of AlunaGeorge’s “Best Be Believing” got him places — and a nice Thursday knees up with the Lights Down Low crew.

Thu/13, 10pm, free with some YPlan app download business. Mezzanine, 444 jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

 

GUI BORRATO

Revered Sao Paulo techno playboy is back to support protégé act Wish, shooting some sunny vibes all over our last winter weekend.

Fri/14, 9pm, $20. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

 

MARTYN

Ethereal UK bass master Martyn joins house hottie Midland and an insane home team lineup including Ghosts on Tape, Bells & Whistles, Kenneth Scott, and the whole As You Like It crew for a top-notch overload.

Fri/14, 9pm-4:30am, $20. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

 

OSUNLADE

One of my favorite not-so-secret pleasures, Yoruban mystic DJ Osunlade takes listeners on a journey deeper than deep. Straight-up spiritual vibes — and he’s playing with deep LA genius Marques Wyatt, too.

Fri/14, 9:30-3:30am, $15–$20. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com

 

MODULAR ANNIVERSARY

The seriously good Modular deep house crew has been throwing its ace parties for a year now, filling some conspicuous holes in the scene — bu mostly making us dance the right way. This party showcases theGerman Stil Vor Talent label, with founder Oliver Koletzki, Sascha Braemer, and Nicone.

Sat/15, 10pm, $10-$20. Harlot, 46 Minna, SF. www.modularnights.com

 

PORTABLE AKA BODYCODE

Fantastic, complex-yet-totally-jackable electronic music a la mode from this UK underground favorite, who’ll be bringing his live show to the latest Honey Soundsystem shebang.

Sat/15, 9pm-4am, $10–$20. F8, 1192 Folsom, SF. www.feightsf.com

 

RITA MORENO

The first gay-themed movie I saw was 1976’s infamous The Ritz starring the unconquerable Rita Moreno as “Googie” — I grew up thinking all gay men hung out in kooky bathhouses making hilarious jokes and having hilarious sex. Thank goddess! Moreno’s in town for a special Castro showing of the camp milestone with towel-clad go-go dancers and a tap-dance tribute.

Sat/15, doors 7:15, show at 8pm, $38. Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF. www.tinyurl.com/RitaRitz

 

MIGHTY REAL

The fantastic deep house monthly showcases essential Bay Area label Moulton Music, with classic NYC DJ Mr. V and our own gorgeous David Harness moving the crowd into the light.

Sat/15, 10pm-late, $10–$20. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

 

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