Music

Nuclear fusings

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Jazz has always been about fusing rather than fusion. But there’s a new generation of improvisational players from around the world who are effortlessly blending wide-ranging cultural and generational ideas in their music. These artists are equally conversant in Ben Webster, Kanye West, and Fela Kuti. They might cover Coltrane and Radiohead, but using contemporary Western instruments. It’s jazz with a global scope, modern sensibility, and an intimate, personal feel.

One musician who is naturally engaging a world of influences in his music is Puerto Rico–born saxophonist David Sanchez. When he brings his new sextet to the Herbst Theatre June 13 to debut music from his just-released album, Cultural Survival (Concord), Sanchez will cap an expansive run of so-called multilingual jazz artists coming through the Bay Area. Preceding Sanchez at venues across the region are saxophonist Charles Lloyd, pianist Marc Cary, bassist Esperanza Spalding, and pianist Edward Simon, who are all bringing variations on the theme of modern jazz as a genre informed by worldwide cultures.

It all starts next week with SFJAZZ’s "Miles from India" concert at the Palace of Fine Arts, a live presentation of the recent Four Quarters album of the same name. Producer Bob Belden and Indian keyboardist and co-arranger Louiz Banks reworked the music of Miles Davis and recorded it with such Davis alumni as bassists Ron Carter, Michael Henderson, and Marcus Miller; keyboardists Chick Corea, Adam Holzman, and Robert Irving III; drummers Jimmy Cobb and Lenny White; and such Indian musicians as Ravi Chari on sitar, Vikku Vinayakram on ghatam, and V. Selvaganesh on khanjira. The composer himself used sitar and tabla on numerous sessions throughout the 1970s, when he began making funkier and more layered, open-ended music.

Davis and numerous jazz musicians before him — from Duke Ellington and Yusef Lateef to Randy Weston and John Handy — integrated musical elements from non-Western cultures into their work. So it’s not surprising that a younger player like Sanchez, who is equally at home improvising with Latin jazz piano legend Eddie Palmieri as he is touring with guitarist Pat Metheny, would meld ethnic nuances of his Caribbean heritage with a postmodern jazz sensibility.

SONG CYCLES


Sanchez’s Cultural Survival is a cycle of seven original songs and one Thelonious Monk ballad. The disc culminates in the 20-minute "La Leyenda del Canaveral," inspired by a poem written by Sanchez’s sister Margarita about African and Caribbean sugar cane plantation workers. It’s a relatively new and spare, though lyrically rhythmic, sound for Sanchez, forged during a three-year immersion in African folkloric recordings from Tanzania, Cameroon, and the Congo, and his impromptu tour with Metheny. "Doing the tour with Pat was really a confirmation for me that there are different sounds out there," Sanchez said from his Atlanta home. The saxophonist has mainly played with a pianist but now works with guitarist Lage Lund in his band.

"In some ways there is more space for me there," he added.

Also exploring new concepts is veteran saxophonist Lloyd, who performs at the Healdsburg Jazz Festival May 31 with his Indian-music–inspired Sangam Trio, which includes percussionist Zakir Hussain and drummer Eric Harland. The band uses its ethnic edges as stepping stones. "It’s really what propels the music," Harland said of the intuitively improvisational trio during an SFJAZZ rehearsal in the city.

Venezuelan pianist Edward Simon also mixes new and old approaches: he studied classical piano at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and jazz at the Manhattan School of Music before joining trumpeter Terence Blanchard’s band. His new Ensemble Venezuela, which plays the Herbst Theatre June 8, is a sterling gathering of major young players including Mark Turner on saxophone, Marco Granados on flute, Aquiles Báez on cuatro, Ben Street on bass, and Adam Cruz on drums. Báez will also perform with his own band while the local VNote Ensemble (formerly the Snake Trio) offers its take on jazz and Venezuelan traditional sounds.

FRESH FLAVORS


Such explorations vary conventional presentations and inject unexpected aural flavors. "Jazz is one of the most immediately gratifying art forms there is because it’s spontaneous development," pianist Marc Cary explained from New York. "It documents a moment, and that’s the moment you want people to hear."

Cary’s Focus Trio performs in Healdsburg June 5. His partners onstage are Bay Area musicians Sameer Gupta on drums and tablas and David Ewell on bass. "Sameer is from India and David is from China," said Cary. "I didn’t pick them because of that. I play with them because they’re good, but they’re bringing that too." On his 2006 album Focus (Motema), Cary wanted to get out of the standard chorus-solo-chorus cycle that has sometimes straitjacketed jazz. "I like continuous movement, a straight line, and I like to color that line," Cary mused. Gupta cowrote one song with Cary and contributed the reflective ballad "Taiwa," and his tablas close out the last three Cary originals with a distinctive flourish.

Cary played behind the übervocalist and band leader Betty Carter and has toured with hip-hop vocalist Erykah Badu, whose influences find their way into his work. "If you’re really going to play this music in today’s times, you have to bring in elements of the past, the present, and what you consider to be the future," Cary said.

That future is now with 23-year-old bassist Esperanza Spalding. The Portland, Ore., native, who graduated from and now teaches at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, recorded her 2006 full-length Junjo (Ayva) with two Cuba-born colleagues from the school: pianist Aruán Ortiz and drummer Francisco Mela. Their rhythmic approaches subtly imbue the recording’s sound as Spalding sings wordless, hornlike runs in a bright, fluttery alto. Her latest album, Esperanza (Heads Up), includes flamenco guitar virtuoso Niño Josele, drummer Horacio "El Negro" Hernández, and saxophonist Donald Harrison. She brings her new band to Yoshi’s in Oakland June 12.

Why have all these players connected with sounds so far afield? The world has not gotten smaller — it’s just better connected. Through technology even the most obscure genres find new and far-flung listeners. The communal spirit informing jazz performance and appreciation also transcends differences: jazz musicians have to be open; otherwise they can’t play the music. "At the end of the day, jazz is about how you relate to things happening at the moment," Sanchez said. He heard a reality in the African tribal drumming music he listened to and wanted to bring it to his own playing. "You have this feeling when you hear it that the music is like water or air for them."

"MILES FROM INDIA"

Sat/31, 8 p.m., $25–$56

Palace of Fine Arts Theatre

3301 Lyon, SF

www.sfjazz.org

CHARLES LLOYD QUARTET AND LLOYD’S SANGAM TRIO

Sat/31, 7:30 p.m., $45–<\d>$70

Jackson Theater

Sonoma Country Day School, Santa Rosa

www.healdsburgjazzfestival.org

MARC CARY’S FOCUS TRIO

June 5, 7 and 9 p.m., $26

Barndiva

231 Center, Healdsburg

www.healdsburgjazzfestival.org

EDWARD SIMON AND THE ENSEMBLE VENEZUELA

With Aquiles Báez Ensemble and VNote Ensemble

June 8, 7 p.m., $25–$56

Herbst Theatre

401 Van Ness, SF

www.sfjazz.org

ESPERANZA SPALDING

June 12, 8 and 10 p.m., $10–$16

Yoshi’s

510 Embarcadero West, Oakl

www.yoshis.com

DAVID SANCHEZ SEXTET

June 13, 8 p.m., $25–$56

Herbst Theatre

401 Van Ness, SF

www.sfjazz.org

Rich and useless

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Some kinds of artistic ostentation possess a breadth of scale and insularity of purpose that have everything to do with privilege. Matthew Barney is responsible for some enormously pretentious cinematic objects, but even he hasn’t dreamt as self-indulgently big as the mono-monikered Tarsem (birth name: Tarsem Singh) does with The Fall. Shot in 20 countries — from Chile to Fiji to Namibia to Romania to all over his native India, plus plain old Hollywood — it’s perhaps the ultimate "Why? Because I can" movie, sumptuous and useless to equal degrees.

The film’s story (inspired by an obscure 1981 Bulgarian children’s film called Yo ho ho, something the filmmakers haven’t gone out of their way to acknowledge) is a haphazard clothesline on which to hang two hours of pictures. Collected in a coffee-table book, these images might suggest that The Fall is the greatest surreal epic ever — an update of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1973 magnum opus The Holy Mountain.

Actually watching the thing, however, is a different experience.

You might remember — or might still be trying to forget — Tarsem as the director of 2000’s J-Lo vehicle The Cell, an odious serial killer tale tricked out in the biggest wholesale cribbing of Art History 101 imagery since the more enjoyable Altered States (1980). He also directed numerous TV commercials and music videos (most notably REM’s 1991 "Losing My Religion"), two forms of media that suit his empty pictorial flash. The Fall is like an endless high-concept shoot of extravagant fashions no one could ever really wear, presented against backdrops few could ever visit — unless, like this movie’s director, they’re the kind of global citizen who (according to biographical notes) "lives in London, Italy, Los Angeles, and India."

If The Fall‘s exotica had something, anything — a heart, a point, some philosophical intent — behind it, Tarsem’s movie wouldn’t end up seeming like such monumental upscale baloney. But this director has no feel for pacing, actors, or tone; he wobbles from labored whimsy to maudlin realms before abruptly opting for nasty violence.

Just who is The Fall‘s cold pageant-cum-travelogue for? People who wish they had Tarsem’s life, I guess. Perhaps this is his way of sharing it with the proles. Isn’t that generous.

THE FALL

Opens Fri/30 at Bay Area theaters

www.thefallthemovie.com

Ultrabananas

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› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Springtime in Clubland’s looking gorgeous so far: it could totally move covers and dominate the next cycle. A special double pinkies up to all the fab promoters throwing AIDS ride-run-walk-collapse fundraisers and shining limelight on the No on Prop. 98 campaign. I’d air-kiss you to death, but it would crust my Cover Girl Hipster Neutral No. 140 Lipslicks Lipgloss. Ack.

On to biz: yep, the hardcore electro banger sound — think ELO meets Spank Rock, filtered through acid house and bare-bones punk — has set my fuchsia radar to stunned, even though it’s already glitzed up most of the city’s edgier dance floors. It certainly makes me question the meaning of “underground” in the MySpace age. And despite the scene’s sometimes perilous “Girls Gone Wild” flirtations, it’s total ferosh to see so many banger women bringing real DJ and promoter power: Emily Betty, Queen Meleksah, Parker Day, Nastique, Kelly Kate …

Stuttery vocals, ripped-needle basslines, Justice influence, and hands-in-the-air breakdowns are the genre’s sonic commonalities, but the sound’s a mutt, streamlining electroclash and iDJ kitsch into a neon ball-slap to the brainiac minimal techno boyzone. That means it’s stylistically elastic, and two of my favorite San Francisco DJs — and people — from other scenes have vaulted to the banger forefront. Richie Panic (www.myspace.com/richiepanicisagenius) got big spinning mod classics and electroclash before teaming up with DJ Jeffrey Paradise, the banger godfather, to rock the new sound. He fronts an all-out ultrabananas punk energy — Gorilla Biscuits trumps Hot Chip — and his unerring ear blows dragon smoke from my broken lightbulb. Check out Mr. Panic’s top bangers here.

Vin Sol (www.myspace.com/vinsol), on the smoother hand, is a hometown hip-hop hero who tells me he found rap crowds too resistant to experimentation; electro has freed him to splash freestyle classics like Debbie Deb’s "When I Hear Music" over the lowdown banger sheen, and startle laptop lovers with dazzling vinyl pyrotechnics.

Newbies? "Ableton’s my homeboy," 22-year-old PUBLIC (www.myspace.com/publicworld), a.k.a. Nick Marsh, recently said to me with a laugh. He’s been blowing banger minds with his live shows at parties like Blow Up (www.myspace.com/blow_up_415) and software edits of the Cardigans, ELO (yes!), even When in Rome’s melancholic 1988 dance jam "The Promise." And his hypnotic new tune "Colorful" is a hit. "I played in a hardcore band, then went through an acoustic Postal Service phase," said the longtime record collector and musician. "So harder but really melodic stuff is natural to me. I think one way to get everyone on the floor is to take softer songs and make them more aggressive, so there’s a broader energy." He’s sliced and diced Metallica too.

Also fresh is 23-year-old LXNDR (www.myspace.com/djlxndr), who used to spin at raves and dreamt of being Armand Van Helden (!) before gravitating to Felix da Housecat and Richie Hawtin. He describes his sound as POPalicious — heavy beats over classic trax, but tasteful and widely appealing — and presides over the No More Conversations (www.myspace.com/nomoreconversationssf) weekly and wild Youngbloodz monthly (First Fridays at Milk, www.milksf.com). "I like to turn heads with my mixes and really make people notice that I put a lot of thought into how I drop a track. That’s what I always liked about the older dudes when I was coming up," he told me. Aw, sweet. Look for his seven-song EP — on which he plays guitar, bass, and synths — to hit this summer and munch up the younger clubbables.

RIP Utah Phillips

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This in from Red House Records:

“It is with great regret that Red House Records mourns the loss of our friend Bruce ‘Utah’ Phillips who passed away Friday, May 23, at his home in Nevada City, Calif. In a time when words like ‘icon’ and ‘legend’ are bandied
about too freely, Utah was the real deal: a consummate songwriter, labor historian, humorist and towering figure in American folk music. A true original, we will not see his like again and it was our great privilege to have been able to partner with him on a number of record releases. Our deepest condolences go out to Utah’s family and many
friends and the countless fans who will profoundly feel his absence. His family requests memorial donations to Hospitality House, P.O. Box 3223, Grass Valley, CA 95945; (530) 271-7144; www.hospitalityhouseshelter.org.

“Born Bruce Duncan Phillips on May 15, 1935, in Cleveland, Ohio, he was the son of labor organizers. Whether through this early influence or an early life that was not always tranquil or easy, by his twenties Phillips demonstrated a lifelong concern with the living conditions of working people. He was a proud member of the Industrial Workers of the World, popularly known as “the Wobblies,” an organizational artifact of early 20th century labor struggles that has seen renewed interest and growth in membership in the last decade, not in small part due to his efforts to popularize it. Phillips served as an Army private during the Korean War, an experience he would later refer to as the turning point of his life. Deeply affected by the devastation and human misery he had witnessed, upon his return to the United States he began drifting, riding freight trains around the country.

“His struggle would be familiar today, when the difficulties of returning combat veterans are more widely understood, but in the late ’50s Phillips was left to work them out for himself. Destitute and drinking, Phillips got off a freight train in Salt Lake City and wound up at the Joe Hill House, a homeless shelter operated by the anarchist Ammon Hennacy, a member of the Catholic Worker movement and associate of Dorothy Day. Phillips credited Hennacy and other social reformers he referred to as his ‘elders’ with having provided a philosophical framework around which he later constructed songs and stories he intended as a template his audiences could employ to understand their own political and working lives. They were often hilarious, sometimes sad, but never shallow. ‘He made me understand that music must be more than cotton candy for the ears,’ said John McCutcheon, a nationally known folksinger and close friend.

DEMF: Girl Talk bumrush, Mr. De’s sexy beach, gettin’ Yeke

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Marke “too many pills, you’re not 17 anymore” B is at Movement ’08: Detroit’s Electronic Music Festival. Read part one here, and part two here. Apples! Apples everywhere! Downtown Detroit is a laptop orchard. “Mac should really sponsor these things,” said Hunky Beau, freshly arrived on the scene to improve my picture quality. But the answer is that Mac doesn’t have to — those glowing, half-eaten little beauties speak from the booths themselves. girltalka.jpg Oh, that Girl Talk. All pics by David Schnur DEMF’s day 2 was so pleasant it hurt, and the crowd was full of neon-festooned hipsters (they have them here too!) eagerly passing time before new old-school rap duo Cool Kids and sample-happy girly boy Girl Talk hit the the Red Bull stage, which overlooked the Detroit River. We passed the time in the sunny company of the great Mr. De’ featuring Greg C. Johnson, whose “Sex on the Beach” from back in the day is a protobooty classic. The crowd was going nuts — Mr. De’ schooled the “ghetto tech” kids on some real sensuality. mrde2a.jpg Mr. De’ sexing the keyboard mrdea.jpg Greg C. Johnson, pleased Cool Kids gave a predictably stunner set — even calling out to Detroit and pumping some rhymes over ancient electro — and then Girl Talk came on and the crowd went bananas. I’ve never really warmed to the Girl Talk phenomenon. We have great mashup artists in SF, and dropping some Public Enemy over a Toto sample is sooo 2005. Still, the man’s a genius when it comes to party music and self-promotion: who knew all you had to do was post several YouTube vids of kids stage diving off your laptop platform and you could be famous? Well, maybe everybody knows that now, but Girl Talk knew it first. And who am I to argue, even when he dropped his pants and mooned the crowd in his boxers for half his set while he leaned over his equipment. But this year is indubitably Richie Hawtin’s year — despite other hometown giants Kevin Saunderson, Carl Craig, Stacey Pullen, and Alton Miller on the roster — so after a few Girl Talk singalongs (oh yes, there was stage-diving) we went over to the Beatport tent to catch the Windsor homeboy in a harder mood tan the previous night, at least until he dropped Mory Kante’s “Yeke Yeke” and the dance floor exploded. richieha.jpg Richie Hawtin: Gettin’ Yeke

DEMF: Moby’s Go-go, Hawtin clogs, DBX shocks ’em, and too high to skate

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Detroit native gadabout Marke B. hits Movement ’08: Detroit’s Electronic Music Festival with a handbag full of what-what. Read part one here. The Techno Gods surely had a little laugh on the first (graciously sunny) day of the DEMF. Even though downtown’s sprawling, reinvigorated Hart Plaza on the waterfront – nestled in the shadows of the new casinos pumping serious cash into bigshot pockets and directly opposite the infamous “fist” statue that socks across-the-river Windsor, CA, in the kisser – was brimming with suburban kids and roaming tribes of fun-furred and mohawked candy ravers (love those kids!), and even though Moby (!) headlined, and started his closing DJ set by playing one of his own songs (albeit a remix of his classic “Go”), the old soul of the Detroit underground shone through in quite a few places. (Clarification: Oops my E must have kicked in then. See comment below.) demfdbxa.jpg Waiting for Moby Underground, quite literally. This year, promoter Paxahau Events has reopened the huge concrete-walled basement of the plaza, and has installed the soulful house DJs there, rather than the traditional hardcore noise experimentalists. By two o’clock, heavily muscled dance crews had stripped off their shirts and were throwing down – headspins included – to the sounds of Detroit classicists like Reggie “Hotmix” Harrell and Minx. (That night, freaky Terrence “The Phone Man” Parker and tribal-soulist Stacey Pullen would turn the underground area into a sweaty mass of writhing gay and straight bodies.) upsydaisy.jpg Upside-down to the morning beat demfsteven2a.jpg Terrence Parker hits So much for the house – and notably missing so far this year have been the little independent DJ setups sprouting about the plaza like tiny laptop-vinyl mushrooms – what about the four other stages? What about the techno? The main, video-projected-upon VitaminWater stage, where Moby would later thrash about like a puggle to his electroclash-tinged pop-techno throwbacks, got a slowish start with way-cerebral live sub-dub fractal burbles from local DJ-band hybrid trio nospectacle, which included Jennifer A. Paull, one of the few female knob-twiddlers at the fest. (I went with my fabulous mom, who seemed to be briefly into it.) The stage didn’t really seem to catch fire, though, until Canadian techno purist DBX aka Dan Bell hit the stage in the penultimate slot at 9pm. What Detroit techno used to look like: DBX’s “Electric Shock” from a TV dance show (I think “The Scene” in the late ’80s)

DEMF: Cold techno feet as big fest heats up

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Native Detroit gadabout Marke B. hits Movement: The Detroit Electronic Music Festival That thing where you return to your hometown and immediately, or at least on the ride home from the ex-urb airport, begin to feel your former soul flood back into you – old or familiar buildings take on some weightier significance in the fading evening light, new buildings even more. And then you’re hooking up with old friends downtown, smoking a bowl or two, generally reminiscing and catching up, and driving around looking for a party, although you wouldn’t mind if you just stayed in the minivan bopping to 20-year-old Balearic beats and laughing your ass off with your BFFs. train.jpg The grand, abandoned Michigan Central Train Station, two blocks from my Corktown residence in tha D. (Don’t try to throw a party here, you’ll get srsly busted.) All of which is a belabored way of saying that I didn’t get much afterhours in here in Detroit last night, the “official” pre-party night of Movement: The Detroit Electronic Music Festival, now going on nine years. Sure there were big bonanza advertised shindigs – this festival attracts tens of thousands of globe-hopping techno-lovers to the bowels of the Motor City, no mean feat, that – but for me and my SF fairy-dusted baggage none of them grabbed on all night long. That’s OK: where else in the world but here would you find yourself on a dance floor with legendary DJs Juan Atkins and Eddie “Flashin’” Fowlkes — and 20 other people? Their party “The Fuzion of Science & Techno” had moved from the Detroit Science Center to the grand Majestic Theatre at the last minute, due to what I judge to be poor pre-sales. At first that was cause for a little alarm – the Science Center party is a bit of a tradition, and with a line-up that included Theo Parrish, Mike Clark, Kenny Dixon, Jr, and Alton Miller, the lack of draw was a shocker. Plus, the usual tiny panic hits: is techno really dead? Have the “neo-electro faddists,” as Detroit music journalist Hobey Echlin calls them, taken over and relegated soulful tech-house to another early grave? Aw, hell no, it was just midnight on a Friday in downtown Detroit. We were probably way too early, wot.

No rest for the ‘No Wave’: author Marc Masters chats up his tome

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What’s the story behind the music movement that cried, “No”? I recently caught up with No Wave author Marc Masters via e-mail, as he prepared for a series of Bay Area appearances: Saturday, May 24, at Amoeba Music in SF and 21 Grand in Oakland and Sunday, May 25, at Artists’ Television Access in SF.

SFBG: How did the book project come about?

Marc Masters: Black Dog approached me about writing a book about another subject, but for various reasons that fell through. They mentioned they had been considering doing a no wave book for a while. I¹d always liked no wave and wanted to delve further into it, since there have been lots of theories about it when it happened, which bands were part of it, and so on. So I was really excited to get that chance. I was intimated, too – so I contacted Weasel Walter for advice, since he¹s been researching and collecting this stuff forever. When he agreed to help with material and proofreading (and eventually write the foreword), I felt a lot less daunted.

Sonic Reducer Overage 2: block partay, Nothing People and Pets rage through Sunday

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Heavy Mochipettin’.

Why not take on two more for the raucous road leading into Memorial Day weekend? Sunday will be hopping…


Mighty Underdogs at Bonneroo 2007.


LIVE ON THE LANE
Expect to get on up to get down when eight bands and artists converge on Maiden Lane for music, live art by Vulcan, food, and bevvies. Performers include the Mighty Underdogs collective with Gift of Gab (Blackalicious), Lateef the Truthspeaker (Latyrx), and Headnodic (Crown City Rockers) (7:30-8:15 p.m.), Bayonics (6:30-7:15 p.m.), Mophono (5:45-6:15 p.m.), Mochipet (8:25-9 p.m.), Ghosts on Tape (9:10-9:45 p.m.),
Maus Haus (5-5:30 p.m.), Ryan Greene (3:30-4 p.m.), and Egadz (4:20-4:40 p.m.). Proceeds benefit the music program at George Washington Carver Elementary in SF. Sun/25, 4-10 p.m., $12 basic entry; $35 all-you-can-eat-and-drink. Maiden Lane between Kearny and Grant, SF. going.com/liveonthelane

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NOTHING PEOPLE AND THE PETS
Hypnotic drone-rockers Nothing People find something to celebrate at a free record-release party. Oakland outfit the Pets also tear it up in honor of their own punky release. Sun/25, 5-7 p.m., free. Lucky 13, 2140 Market, SF. (415) 487-1313.

Andrés Subercaseaux’s sublime dispatches: from ‘Aqui’ to eternity

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ANDRES SUBERCASEAUX
Aqui
(Triple Down)

By Todd Lavoie

What a journey. Chilean post-rock/post-electronica composer Andrés Subercaseaux has just released the mind-warping sonic travelogue, Aqui (Triple Down), and I must say, this is one of the more filmic pieces of music I’ve heard in a while.

I realize that the “soundtrack for a nonexistent film” device has blown up into its own genre by this point, but Subercaseaux deserves to be added to the list. By turns funky and uplifting, nervy, and unsettling – and occasionally poignant and quietly evocative – Aqui doesn’t so much create a single “here,” as the title suggests, but rather an entire topography of different “here”‘s. The range here is quite impressive, employing everything from jittery electronica to languid post-rock to freewheeling Tropicalia excursions, and our man handled most of the instrumental responsibilities himself. Anyone who can reference artists as diverse as Tortoise, Stereolab, Os Mutantes, and Brian Eno without resorting to mere pastiche gets big thumbs-up from me.

Aqui starts off with the bubbling, squeaking mood piece “Amazonas,” a soothing instrumental that wouldn’t feel entirely out of place on Brian Eno’s 1975 ambient-pop masterpiece Another Green World (EG/Astralwerks/Virgin). The insertion of what sounds like thumb pianos plucking away in romping loops gives the opener a more playful edge over anything on the Eno album, however. Poke your ears between the track’s bird squawks and the cricket chirps, and the soft glow of single, sustained keyboard notes hovers mid-air.

Cluster klatch: Krautrock poobah Hans-Joachum Roedelius gives it up

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By Matt Sussman

Kosmiche godfathers Cluster have been back from the future for more than three decades now, with the core duo of Hans-Joachum Roedelius and Dieter Moebius having offered a rich and varied body of studio albums and collaborations – most notably with Brian Eno – as well as live documentation and solo outings. Through the analog mists and drum machine clicks of their ‘70s albums one can discern many of the splinter groups, such as ambient and synth-pop, which electronic music would break apart into in the ensuing decades.

I engaged in a quickie Q&A session with Roedelius over e-mail, prior to the duo taking the stage at New York’s annual noise jamboree No Fun Fest. (Ed: For more on Cluster, see Matt Sussman’s “Cluster luck: Krautrock’s darkest stars reappear in our firmament.”)

SFBG: Since 2007, you and Moebius have been engaged in a second reunion of sorts, following a ten-year hiatus. Do you find it challenging to work together again, especially in a live setting, after such a long break?

Live the Dream with Dystopic Housing Realty

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By Justin Juul

Freelancing comes with a shitload of perks – autonomy, loving your work, self-scheduling, etc. — but it’s not all great. The common myth is that freelancers live in heaven; that they just hang around their spacious lofts all day drinking beer, napping in the afternoon, and writing or painting whenever their bank accounts get low. Well, take it from me; freelancing may be better than office work, but it comes with a lot of bullshit too. For starters, there’s the money issue. Unless you’ve been doing it for over five years, the odds of making rent with your freelance income alone are extremely slim, which means a shitty side-job is a necessity. That basically means you never get a day off. Ever. Another drawback to this line of work is loneliness. Chilling out at home all day may sound nice, but it turns into a soul-crushing nightmare after about a month.

Still, for all the discipline, suffering, and sacrifice freelancing requires, it beats working for the man any day. At least, that’s what I thought before the city started building a goddamn school (or something) right across the street from my apartment. Now, not only am I lonely, distracted, and riddled with anxiety about meeting my deadlines, but I have to pump out journalistic brilliance with a chorus of drilling, welding, cement-mixing, and shouting right outside my window. Which hasn’t been working out so well. The construction site has been so loud lately that I’ve had to move my little operation down to the closest hipster café. Which also sucks because the music is loud, I can’t wear my jammies, and everyone talks constantly.

It’s been bugging me so much lately that I actually started looking into renting a “creative space,” which I knew would probably be impossible, given my financial situation. But, lo and behold, I found a company that offers exactly what I need. Dystopic Horizon Realty specializes in “near loft-like artist housing designed to cultivate creative thinking for those with exceptional lifestyles.” Each of DHR’s highly-affordable units is “hand-crafted and capable of magnificent views.” They’re well-ventilated, customizable, and built by a group of “unreal estate unprofessionals with over 40 years of experience.” Plus, they’re green!

Goodbye trendy café and hot noisy room. Hello good livin’.

Jello turns 50 with toasts from the Melvins, Triclops! and others

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This just in from Alternative Tentacles: honcho Jello Biafra will be celebrating the big five-oh with two nights of shows including the Melvins, Jelvins, Triclops!, Drunk Injuns, and a new (unnamed as of yet) Biafra project.

“Legendary singer of the Dead Kennedys and head honcho of the highly influentual punk label Alternative Tentacles, Jello Biafra, has no plans on fading away soon. The outspoken, controversial Biafra has been active as a spoken word artist for quite some time and also performing as Jello Biafra and The Melvins, or just Jelvins. On his 50th, Alternative Tentacles celebrates with a show showcasing Jello’s new band, reunited skate-punk legends Drunk Injuns, and latest crop of exciting bands such as Akimbo, and Triclops!.

“The newly hatched Biafra band (as yet unnamed) is Ralph Spight (Victims Family, Freak Accident, Hellworms, etc.) on guitar, Billy Gould (Faith No More, Cool Arrow Records, etc.) on bass, and Jon Weiss (Sharkbait, Horsey, Tonnage, etc.) on drums. Coady and Jared of the Melvins are recording the new Big Business album in June, so the Jelvins bassist this round will be Andy Coronado (Wrangler Brutes, White Shit, Skull Kontrol). The emphasis will be on new music, with the occasional nod to the past evil doing. To open the shows, the Melvins reach back to their original ’83 hardcore days with King Buzzo on guitar, original drummer Mike Dillard and Dale Crover manning the bass.”

“BIAFRA FIVE – O”
June 16-17; 8 p.m.; $22 per nigh, $40 both nights
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell, SF
(415) 885-0750

Fly boys

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER I never swooned over Jemaine Clement when his clueless geek-goon was busily copping quasi-Street Fighter moves in 2007’s Eagle vs. Shark, and I never noticed the spacey Middle Earthly beauty of Bret McKenzie when he was striking sultry elfin poses in The Lord of the Rings. But somehow, two discs of season one of HBO’s Flight of the Conchords and a couple jillion listens to the duo’s new self-titled Sub Pop album later, I’m hooked. I woke up this morning with the cyborg-gut-busting "Robot" roving through my head ("The humans are dead / We used poisonous gases / And we poisoned their asses…. It had to be done / So that we can have fun"), and I silently sang the lusty-nerd verses of "The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room)" ("You could be a part-time model / But you’d probably have to keep your normal job") to myself for the rest of the morning. Apart from those lyrics, I’m at a loss for words — for a change. All I can say, doltishly, is "uhhh, they funny." Otherwise I’m considering a leg transplant and dye job so I can become the "Leggy Blonde" of FOC dreams — or at least a Rhys Darby tat.

What have they done to deserve such gushery? The way they sweetly snark at my rock, garbed in the amiable skin of a fumbling indie-rock-folk duo. The manner in which they poke at pop clichés, letting them fly well above the heads of those who don’t grasp the Shabba Ranks and Marvin Gaye references — and somehow those unfortunates still crush out on FOC. The botched trysts and fumbled musical careers of the pair, played by the half-Maori Clement and the sometime reggae musician McKenzie, which make all and sundry adore them that much more. Their humanizing humor, which stems primarily from FOC’s New Zealanders-straight-outta-Middle Earth naïveté.

Much has been made of the rise of so-called indie rock comedians like David Cross and Eugene Mirman — who both, coincidentally or no, are FOC labelmates — but lo, Clement and McKenzie are the real thing. They have the facial hair. They swill water. They hail from the land of the Clean and Tall Dwarfs. They combine pop-savvy wit and wiseacre lyrics, while sending up genres ranging from between-the-sheets R&B swoons ("Business Time") to backpacker hip-hop ("Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" with Clement trotting out a ringer imitation of Del tha Funkee Homosapien) to art-rock nipple-antenna anthems ("Bowie"). A good deal of FOC’s appeal hinges on the fact that pop is so utterly ripe for lampooning — after all, doesn’t the title of E=MC2 (Island) sound like Mariah Carey is attempting a self-conscious, FOC-style jab at her own intellectual prowess?

It also helps that FOC come so often with the hooks: I can’t stop replaying "Inner City Pressure" — and reveling in its low-budg, pseudo-seedy Pet Shop Boys video tropes — repeatedly in my skull. My only critique of their recently released full-length might be that the songs cry out for a DVD clip or eight: while some tracks sport lyrics with built-in yuks that allow the songs to hold their own, still others like the puzzling opener, "Foux du Fafa," completely lose the original, necessary context — FOC was hitting on patisserie workers while frolicking through a color-coded Scopitone-esque Gallic pop reverie — that justifies, for instance, its litany of French baked goods. Some numbers such as "A Kiss Is Not a Contract" are sweet and strong enough to include on the CD, though you miss the series’ accompanying Serge Gainsbourg video parody even if the tune itself bears little musical resemblance to Sir Serge’s oeuvre. Still, most of FOC’s soaring sonic moves don’t fall too far from the tree shaken during the more larky outings of producer Mickey Petralia’s other client, Beck. And who knows, this high-school-friendship-turned-comedy-act could be the start of a beautiful musical career, considering that the other would-be beautiful "Loser" kicked off his illustrious catalog with what many considered a joke song as well: there have been stranger flights of fantasy. *

FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS

Tues/27, 8 p.m., $32.50

Masonic Auditorium

1111 California, SF

Also May 29, 8 p.m., $32.50

Davies Hall

201 Van Ness, SF

www.ticketmaster.com

OUT THERE

DESTROYER AND DEVON WILLIAMS


Dan Bejar pulls Destroyer out of the garage, while intriguingly minimal nouveau-’80s-popper Devon Williams unleashes Carefree (Ba Da Bing). Wed/21, 8 p.m., $15. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

MATES OF STATE


Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel polish their indie-pop to a bright sheen on Re-Arrange Us (Barsuk). Thurs/22, 9 p.m., $17–$19. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com

DEAD MEADOW AND DAME SATAN


Yes, we’re weirded out that Jimmy McNulty’s spawn dug Dead Meadow on The Wire. The Bay’s Dame Satan cast a spell with the new Beaches and Bridges (Ghost Mansion). Sat/24, 9 p.m., $15. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com

NO WAVE EVENTS


The definitive book on awesome atonal negheadedness is fêted by author Marc Masters and no wave authority Weasel Walter. Sat/24, 2 p.m., free. Amoeba Music, 1855 Haight, SF. www.amoeba.com; Sat/24, 9 p.m., pay what you can. 21 Grand, 416 25th St., Oakl., www.21grand.org; Sun/25, 5 p.m., $6. Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia, SF. www.atasite.org

WHITE RABBITS


The NYC nibblers have been ruling the boroughs since the announcement that they were joining Radiohead on ATO subsidiary TBD. Tues/27, 9 p.m., $12. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com

Motor psyched

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

Born too late, on the wrong side of the country, with the wrong rodents hanging from your tail? Considering my abiding love of Elvis Presley, Al Green, Big Star, Shangri-La Records, and Memphis barbecue, I should have perhaps switched lives with Snake Flower 2 vocalist-guitarist Matthew Melton.

The Bay Area transplant from Bluff City still retains the courtly, sweet-tea manners of a Southern gentle-rocker, despite the trouble he’s seen in the name of scorching biker psych, tambourine-bashing vixens named Bunny, and dustups with such garage-rock kin as the Black Lips. When I tell him I have the hots for his native Memphis, Melton’s instantaneous happiness and hometown pride blasts right through the phone line.

"Thank you so much!" he exclaims. "I love Memphis too." He should: Melton’s love of raging garage-rock was honed playing in the city alongside the Memphis Break-Ups and the River City Tanlines, as well as the Lost Sounds’ Jay Reatard and Alicia Trout, whom he performed with in the Bare Wires. No wonder Snake Flower 2’s first full-length, Renegade Daydream (Tic Tac Totally), is so utterly bitchin’: it’s overdriven, romping-in-the-red hot-rod rawk for kids whose minds were forever fractured by dog-eared, rifled copies of Nuggets LPs, Steppenwolf’s gnarlsome guitar tone, Roger Corman cinematic cheapie sleazies, and the Standells’ heightened snot levels. Renegade Daydreams‘ supercharged, fuzz-doused frenzies are the choicest tidbits plucked from, Melton says, "the first batch of songs I wrote after I escaped from the South."

He didn’t intend to end up in Oakland, a town he lovingly describes as comparable to Memphis in its desolation and "blankness." Two years ago, Melton was stranded in San Francisco by his original Snake Flower bandmates, including an ex called Bunny, who, he says, "ended up leaving me for an art school professor who looked like John Lennon. We were touring across country in this Volvo, and by the time we got here, we were at each other’s throats."

After attempting to follow his erstwhile Snake Flowers back to Los Angeles via Greyhound, making it only as far as Santa Cruz, and hitchhiking back to the Bay, Melton decided to simply add "2" to his band name and sally forth, hooking up with and firing various rhythm sections (Paula Frazer filled in as a touring drummer in one early incarnation) until settling on bassist Carlos Bermudez and drummer Johnny Axe.

The supremely "dirty and blown out" sound of the disc, as Melton describes it, comes courtesy of mastering by Weasel Walter and all-analog tracking by Jay Bronzini (the Cuts, the Time Flys) on a Tascam 38. "You get a lo-fi sound that barely meets fidelity standards," says Melton happily. "I’m right there on the cusp. When it sounds too clean, you lose some of the soul and feel of it." In the meantime, Melton is already prepared to make his next long-player, which he’ll record himself on his own Tascam 38 while refining that biker psych tag ("It’s a combination of ’60s garage rock and ’70s motorcycle anthems — like Mad Max meets Alice in Wonderland") that a friend laid on him. He’s even penned a song titled "Biker Psych" for Snake Flower 2’s next seven-inch on German label Red Lounge.

Melton also seems to be finally relaxing into the Bay Area music scene, playing in Photobooth and reforming Bare Wires with the Time Flys’ Erin Emslie. "It took me a long time to assimilate here," he confesses. "Being from the South, I’m very open. Here I feel like I gotta keep my guard up. But I’ve met so many great musicians. I’m not going anywhere." *

SNAKE FLOWER 2

Fri/23, call for time and price

Annie’s Social Club

917 Folsom, SF

(415) 974-1585

www.anniessocialclub.com

Weekend warrior

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Phil Spector may or may not have been the first to use layers of overdubs to convey the widescreen-aspect ratio of teenage emotion. Nonetheless, he certainly carved a niche. Adolescent euphoria be thy name: Brian Wilson, "Baba O’Riley," Bradford Cox, and now Anthony Gonzalez on his new M83 album, Saturdays=Youth (Mute).

"I have such good memories of my teenage years," Gonzalez confesses over the phone from his native Antibes, France. Saturdays=Youth wraps wasted youth in nostalgia for 1980s pop, and it’s a dangerously fun tonic. "John Hughes was my main influence on this album," Gonzalez said, and the proof’s in the overheated lyrics, the sun-struck portraits, and the quick changes between subgenres, which resemble so many high school cliques. Saturdays=Youth is no less ambient than Brian Eno’s chilliest scores, but instead of Music for Airports, it’s Gonzalez’s "Music for a Molly Ringwald Movie."

When Gonzalez first emerged with his massive, bright synth rainbows on earlier M83 albums like M83 (Mute, 2001) and Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts (Mute, 2003), he came off as a post-shoegaze Enya. The crucial change on Saturdays=Youth is first apparent after the marching chorus opening "Kim and Jessie" drops out, leaving space for Gonzalez’s verse. Instead of coasting on an endless climax-loop, the song makes effective use of a traditional pop structure — choruses, bridge, and masterfully diffused outro — to convey the simple exuberance of two teenage girls sneaking liquor in a patch of woods. Gonzalez downplays revisionist favorites like My Bloody Valentine and the Jesus and Mary Chain here in favor of shinier surfaces descending from groups like Simple Minds and Tears for Fears.

M83’s dips into catchy new wave ("Graveyard Girl"), Hot Topic goth ("Skin of the Night") and electro-gospel ("We Own the Sky") are smoothed by the album’s high definition gloss. After only working with sound engineers in the past, Gonzalez opted to collaborate with two different producers on Saturdays=Youth. Ken Thomas’ long résumé makes the album one degree removed from Gonzalez favorites Cocteau Twins, while Ewan Pearson is known for his sleek dance tracks. "The combination of these two producers brings something interesting," Gonzalez muses, and the songs do seem to sway between velvet reverie and intense ear candy.

"My older brother used to lend me his VHS, so I used to watch with my friends," Gonzalez said. "A lot of horror movies and a lot of the teen movies. When I was watching the John Hughes movies, I was 13 or 14. I felt really close to the characters." At its best, Saturdays=Youth slows these generational markings into a ritualized ghost dance. The album is certainly a simpler, less troubled nostalgia piece than something like Donnie Darko (2001). What of the fact that this heavily marketed teenage paradise was borne of American conservatism? Gonzalez doesn’t have the answers, but his transporting music makes you feel silly for asking too many questions.

M83

With Berg Sans Nipple

Wed/21, 9 p.m., $16

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

www.musichallsf.com

Human beat, motorik city

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There is probably no more stellar act of connect-four in popular music than Michael Rother’s Flammende Herzen (Radar/Water, 1977), Sterntaler (Skyclad/Water, 1978), Katzenmusik (Skyclad/Water, 1979), and Fernwärme (Polydor/Water, 1982). After a childhood that was equal parts Chopin, Pakistan, and stints as a member of Kraftwerk, Neu!, and — along with Cluster’s Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius — Harmonia, Rother knew how fly solo from the get-go, reaching the realm of the sublime every time.

In the liner notes for Water’s recent reissue of Flammende Herzen, Sam Grawe of San Francisco instrumentalists Hatchback and Windsurf deems the album a "motorik All Things Must Pass," a wise music lover’s comparison that touches on the recording’s status as a glorious debut venture and its all-too-rare (in popular music, at least) quality of blessed warmth. In interviews, Rother has viewed solo music as an isolated creative endeavor along the lines of writing or sculpting, while claiming group efforts involve members collaborating to help one another overcome individual artistic obstacles. But on Flammende Herzen‘s title track, he required help from producer Conny Plank to realize his ideas about the values of simplicity and repetition and turn his love of silence into music. From there, their glorious course was set.

Rother devotees have their favorites among his first four efforts. Mine is Sterntaler, where his love of Jimi Hendrix’s "Star Spangled Banner" might be most apparent. Like a German Hendrix, Rother mines purity from guitar distortion, though in place of Hendrix’s mangled American blues, his guitar forges onward and skyward through introspective yet anthemic tunes such as equally epic "Stromlinieun" and the title track. Others prefer the quieter friend-of-felines touch of Katzenmusik, which pairs a gorgeous Rother cover photo of a plane’s vapor trail with a dozen morphing variations of a melodic theme. The black sheep might be Fernwärme, which finds Rother venturing away from Plank’s production and Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit’s more mathematical and truly motorik take on Neu!’s propulsive heartbeats into darker, lonelier realms not far from the forlorn new world occupied by Joe Meek’s Globbots.

Outside his role in Neu!, many people have primarily known Rother as the guy who, according to legend, turned down an offer from David Bowie to contribute to Bowie’s Heroes (Rykodisc, 1977). (Rother has suggested that Bowie’s management and record label prevented the pairing.) But thanks to Water’s re-releases, the Russian label Lilith’s recent reissues of Harmonia’s fresh and clean Musik von Harmonia (Brain, 1974) and golden-honeyed Deluxe (Brain, 1975) — and Kompakt artist Justus Köhncke’s ambitious all-electronic cover of Flammende Herzen‘s "Feuerland" — Rother’s music is reaching new ears. It sounds as modern now as it did when it was created. Blue rains, flaming hearts, sun wheels, streamlines, and silver linings are timeless.

Cluster luck

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Lünenburg Heath is a vast, moorland-like tract in northwest Germany, between Hamburg, Hanover, and Bremen. Its low-growing vegetation, gnarled shrubs, and dry soil form the scar tissue left by medieval deforestation. SS leader Heinrich Himmler was secretly buried there. And despite its springtime swatches of wildflowers and family-friendly theme parks, it is a landscape whose beauty stems from its air of desolation.

"Don’t get lost on Lünenburg Heath," intones Brian Eno in a nursery rhyme monotone atop a cortège of synth chords. They are the only words sung on Tracks and Traces, a 1997 Rykodisc reissue of a 1976 collaborative recording session between Eno and Harmonia, the veritable ’70s German supergroup composed of Neu! guitarist Michael Rother and kosmiche godfathers Cluster.

I have always pinned Cluster as the dark stars in the krautrock universe, based on the drifting, feverish, synthesizer-rich improvisations of core duo Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius. So I can easily imagine their protean music whistling across Lünenburg at dusk, haunting the ears of daytrippers — a strange and seductive admixture of sprightly pop and forlorn ambient improv reflecting the landscape’s more recent transformations and less-than-sunny history.

Having regrouped in 1997 after a decade-long hiatus from working together, Moebius and Roedelius are once again touching down for a rare series of US dates, including a May 23 trancefest at Henry Miller Library in Big Sur and a May 25 show at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. And despite Eno’s cryptic warning, it’s hard not to lose one’s way amid the hazy vistas and plaintive melodies of Cluster’s music.

Their expansive discography — which includes a recombinant cast of regular, notable collaborators such as Eno, Can bassist Holgar Czukay, and überproducer Conny Plank — provides a few signposts. Roedelius and Moebius initially teamed up with fellow electronic musician Conrad Schnitzler in 1969 as Kluster, releasing three explosive documents of improvisation that rapaciously incorporated elements of 20th-century classical music, jazz, and rock. Important Records’ recent release, Vulcano: Live in Wuppertal 1971, paints a vivid picture of this early period.

Schnitzler left the group in ’71, taking the hard "k" with him. From then on, Cluster recalibrated its keyboards toward a more subdued and, at times, even pretty and poppy aesthetic. Improvisational jams gave way to shorter songs, and the lurking menace of 1972’s Cluster 2 (Brain/Water) was followed by the double about-face of drum machine confections on Zuckerzeit (Brain/Lilith, 1975) and the pastoral miniatures of Soweisoso (Sky/Captain Trip, 1976).

Still, dark patches are a consistent hallmark of Cluster’s terrain, even when they choose to let the sun shine through. The superficial pleasantness of their two collaborations with Eno released at the time, 1977’s Cluster & Eno (Sky/Water) and 1978’s After the Heat (Gyroscope), belies the affective force — what could be described as a low-simmering melancholy — of certain songs. The slow progression of blue notes that form the woozy melody of "Für Luise," from Cluster & Eno, linger long after they have decayed into the Gershwin-like piano of "Mit Simaen." Cluster & Eno‘s cover photo returns us to a field — though not Lünenburg. A lone microphone stands at attention against a faint mother-of-pearl sky, which ends at the smudge of shadowy foliage at the bottom of the frame. It’s near twilight. Cryptic and evocative, meditative and inexplicably sad, the image provides a visual analog to Cluster’s chimerical output. The visual is also suggestive of Moebius and Roedelius’ openness to the chance encounters and unforeseen possibilities that arise from improvisation, as if to say: if you find yourself lost in a dark wood, just stop and listen. *

CLUSTER

With Wooden Shjips and Arp

Fri/23, 7:30 p.m., $22

Henry Miller Library

Highway 1, Big Sur

(831) 667-2574

www.henrymiller.org

Also with Tussle and White Rainbow

Sun/25, 8 p.m., $19–$22

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com

Dionysian Festival

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PREVIEW Mary Sano may have a small performance space, but she sure packs them in. The Tokyo-born Sano is a disciple — so to speak— of Isadora Duncan, one of the most influential yet most underperformed women dance pioneers from the dawn of modern dance. Sano regularly puts on mixed programs in which she and her dancers bring to life Duncan’s repertoire. The 11th Dionysian Festival presents Sano and her five dancers — one flying in from Tokyo — in selections from Duncan’s Brahms Waltzes, Op.39 (1905). Sano also premieres Spring, a tribute to her teacher Mignon, a protégé of Anna and Irma Duncan, who were themselves protégés of the free-spirited choreographer. (Duncan dancers trace their lineage like British aristocracy). Mignon, born a century ago, originally began — but did not complete — this piece set to Franz Schubert’s charming Rosamunde incidental music. Sano finished it in what she hopes would be her mentor’s spirit. An unnamed dance drama in collaboration with koto player Shoko Hikage highlights Sano in her experimental mode. Also performing are G. Hoffman Soto’s improvisational dance group, SotoMotion; two Bharata Natyam dancers, Priya Ravindhran and Rebecca Whittington; and on Saturday only, avant-garde Peruvian violinist Pauchi Sasaki with bamboo flutist Hideo Sekino.

11TH DIONYSIAN FESTIVAL Sat/24, 8 p.m. Sun/25, 5 p.m. Mary Sano Studio of Duncan Dancing, 245 Fifth St., SF. $15–$17. (415) 357-1817

Crudo

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PREVIEW The first time I saw Mike Patton I was 10. It was a sticky July afternoon and here’s this long-haired guy on MTV gesticuutf8g and rapping to distorted guitars. It freaked me out — not the lightning-shooting eyeball embedded in his hand or that flopping fish inciting the ire of PETA activists — but the man himself. He inspired a major uh-oh feeling, and my understanding of the universe was eternally compromised.

But that was 1989. Since those early, badly dressed years with forever-fighting Faith No More, Patton has spearheaded many beloved projects on the noisy melodic fringe, from the haunting Fantômas to his recent pop-wannabe project Peeping Tom. Now with Crudo, he’s teamed up with Dan the Automator, a.k.a. Daniel Nakamura, the Bay Area producer on the forefront of groundbreaking hip-hop, including Gorillaz’s eponymous putf8um-selling debut album (Virgin, 2001) and the Handsome Boy Modeling School with De la Soul’s Prince Paul.

"Crudo" may be Italian for raw, but this isn’t the dynamic duo’s freshest collaboration — in 2001 Patton and Nakumura worked together on Lovage: Songs to Make Love to Your Old Lady By (NicheMusic.com Inc), a fun if challenging listen. Crudo’s MySpace page gives a single one minute, fifty-six second glimpse called "Let’s Go," a poppy tease that makes me dance, but not much else. There’s no official word on a new album release date, but rumor in the blogosphere is 2009.

To bide time, Patton and DTA fans won’t want to miss Crudo’s debut appearance at Great American Music Hall, a practice run for Washington State’s Sasquatch Festival two days later. Fulfill your Crudosity. Personally, I need to see if Patton still creeps me out. I hope so.

CRUDO With San Quinn. Thurs/22, 8 p.m., $21. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750, www.gamh.com

Sonic Reducer Overage: Ladytron, Last of the Blacksmiths, and more

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Give Ladytron a little sugar.

As usual, SF, you’re far too much for one music fan or one paper to handle. Here are more worthy picks that didn’t quite make it to print. Knock yourselves out.

Cave Singers
There is life after post-punk. Pretty Girls Make Graves, Hint Hint, and Cobra High seem far away for the Matador art-folkies. With Botticellis and Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death. Thurs/22, 8 p.m., $12. Independent, 628 Divisadero, S.F. (415) 771-1422.

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Last of the Blacksmiths
The SF ensemble may be last, but they’re not to be forgotten, as they whoop it up moodily on the occasion of their spanking fresh album, **Young Family Song** (Vanguard Squad), alongside Black Fiction writer Tim Cohen’s the Fresh and Only’s. With El Capitan. Sat/24, 9 p.m., $10. Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016.

Rats
The misunderstood NYC critters promise to rip you a new one. With Some Days. Sat/24, 6 p.m., $5. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923.

Ladytron
They only want you when you’re 17 — when you’re 21 you’re no fun. But if you’re the UK combo you have considerably longer shelf life: fans are chomping at the bit for Ladytron’s forthcoming fourth album, **Velocifero,** for their new imprint, Nettwerk. Tues/27, 8 p.m., $27.50. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 346-6000.

Do you know the way to Jose James?

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The Dreamer by Jose James is one of those rare debut recordings that is going to grow in popularity due to people’s genuine love for it rather than paid-for hype about James being a major talent. No doubt about it, James is talented, and in a manner not so common these days. James isn’t getting a Clive Davis kind of hype; his album’s on Gilles Peterson’s label Brownswood. Those trappings hint at a type of acid-jazz shallowness that the instrumentation sometimes skates near but generally averts. As for James, he’s a vocalist who loves the music of Pharoah Sanders. There should be more singers like him.

The video for James’s version of Freestyle Fellowship’s “Park Bench People” is an unaffected extension of the track’s lyric. This version of the track is abbreviated, and the song itself doesn’t vie for my favorite moment on The Dreamer. The two songs I keep returning to are the title track and “Winter Wind,” where James’s tenor reaches its highest (almost young Jimmy Scott-like) androgynous realms and also the moments when his phrasing is most reflective and measured. Both of those ballads are lovely, suggestive of a 21st century Gil Scott-Heron (though James has yet to touch Scott-Heron’s political profundity) or at least the spirit of Jeff Buckley. Calling all bookers: I don’t see San Francisco or Oakland on James’s list of upcoming tour dates.


Jose James, “Park Bench People”

Clubs: ‘Dons of Deeper Dubstep’ Quest and Silkie land in the Bay

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By Tomas Palermo

North London producers Quest and Silkie are being billed as the “Dons of Deeper Dubstep” for their appearance Thursday, May 22, at 1015 Folsom. The tag is a notice to hardcore Bay Area dubstep supporters: don’t expect grumbling, wobbly sub-bass music all night.

Instead, these cats will drop melodic, techy, and all-around intricate tunes that represent dubstep’s sonic diversity. Just as producer LTJ Bukem and his Good Looking label crew found success via blessed-out drum ‘n’ bass, Quest and Silkie also explore lush and languid grooves.

That’s not to say the dancefloor will be sedate – as sets on UK pirate station React FM prove, the duo knows how to kick solid beats for dancers and dreamers alike. Representing the Anti Social Entertainment DJ crew, who spin all over the UK and Europe, Quest and Silkie have a released a handful of languid, reggae-inspired releases, including the Deep Medi label’s “Deep Inside”/”The Seafront” single, a standard among discerning dubstep DJs. Working a musical vein similar to Tempa Records producer D1’s blissful garage sounds, Quest and Silkie bring a sexy edge to UK bass music. Expect DJ support from Djunya (Narco.Hz /Mode), Kozee (BrapDem/RedLine), and Emcee Child (Grime City /SureFire).

QUEST AND SILKIE
Thurs/22, 10 p.m.-2 a.m., $5-$10
1015 Folsom
1015 Folsom, SF
(415) 431-1200
Go to www.going.com/antisocial for more details.

Flying Luttenbachers sax on auction block

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Care to grab a slice of experimental rock/no-wave history? Flying Luttenbachers impressario, XBXRX player, and no wave authority Weasel Walter is putting his Conn C-Melody saxophone up on the eBay action block here. The Bay Area musician and fire-starter says he played the instrument on such recordings as the Flying Luttenbachers’ Revenge and Gods of Chaos as well as To Live and Shave in L.A. 2’s The 300 Dollar Silk Shirt.

Says WW: “I got this horn in 1988 and played it (terribly) on a lot of my high school 4-track recordings (the best of those were released on CD by Savage Land Records in 2006). After I moved to Chicago I got the beast fixed up and repadded and played it a lot more. This is a working instrument, and you can basically take it out of the box and play it. Basically bills must be paid and I really don’t pursue playing saxophone at all anymore – let’s leave it to the pros! – so I’m selling it off.

“To some elite weirdos i suppose it’s a small piece of history. Let the bidding begin.”

(You can also catch Weasel Walter at events for the book **No Wave,** alongside author Marc Masters. Those happen Sat/24, 2 p.m., free. Amoeba Music, 1855 Haight, SF. With Death Sentence: Panda and Ettrick. Sat/24, 9 p.m., pay what you can. 21 Grand, 416 25th St., Oakl. Sun/25, 5 p.m., $6. Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia, SF.)

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