Music

TUESDAY

-
0

March 20

EVENT

“Four Years Later: American Soldiers Share Their Stories on the Anniversary of the War”

Once a skilled firefighter, National Guard Sgt. Brett Miller was unable to dial a phone number after a roadside blast in Iraq left him with a brain injury. But Miller is one of the lucky ones. After four years of war in Iraq, more than 3,000 soldiers have died and countless others been permanently disabled. Miller and fellow veterans Army Sgt. Camille Evans and Infantry Officer Paul Reickhoff will mark this grave anniversary trading traumatic war tales at InForum’s “Four Years Later.” (Joshua Rotter)

6:30 p.m., $7-$20
Commonwealth Club of California
595 Market, second floor, SF
(415) 597-6705
www.commonwealthclub.org

MUSIC

Two Sheds

There are clips floating around YouTube of Two Sheds performing in a San Diego television studio. The cameras track across the soundstage and dissolve between Unplugged-style close-ups of fret boards and musicians, who look perfect under the parcan lighting. Though they clearly nail renditions of “Perfect” and “For Theresa,” the sterile TV-land setting seems an unbefitting package for Two Sheds, whose charm lies in the direct, personal effect of singer Caitlin Gutenberger’s lyrical inventions. (Nathan Baker)

9 p.m., $7
Make-Out Room
3225 22nd St., SF
(415) 647-2888
www.makeoutroom.com

SUNDAY

-
0

March 18

FILM

Avenue Montaigne

The essayist Phillip Lopate once noted the “genius for formalizing the unformal” that is particular to the French. Danièle Thompson’s Avenue Montaigne – an airy comedy played in a round – offers one such example. English-language critics can be expected to run through their French dessert vocabulary describing its confection. It goes down easy enough, and its interlocking story scheme prefers the farce of La Ronde to the hardcore histrionics of another exercise in simultaneity (Babel). And with theaters filled with that kind of feel-bad windbag, one can be forgiven for seeking out the occasional bonbon. (Max Goldberg)

In San Francisco theaters
See Movie Clock at www.sfbg.com

MUSIC

Pink Clouds and Psycrons

Gnarly SF psych-rockers caterwaul alongside paisley-drenched Kyoto kids — all hail garage skronk,
mademoiselle. (Kimberly Chun)

With Vomica and Mothballs
8 p.m., $10-$12
Bottom of the Hill
1233 17th St., SF
(415) 621-4455.

SATURDAY

-
0

March 17

VISUAL ART

Jim Campbell, “Home Movies”

When I think about SF artist Jim Campbell, I also think about the Icelandic musician Jóhann Jóhannson and his recent album IBM 1401, a User’s Manual (4AD). In particular I think of the final song, “The Sun’s Gone Dim and the Sky’s Turned Black,” in which Jóhannson creates a final aria for the extinct computer for which his father once served as chief maintenance engineer. The uncanny mix of emotion and inhuman chill in that composition takes on more effective forms in some of Campbell’s pieces. In fact, a few of his early works perform similar variations on paternal and maternal ties manifested through technology. (Johnny Ray Huston)

Through April 28
4-6 p.m. reception, free
Hosfelt Gallery
430 Clementina, SF
(415) 495-5454
www.hosfeltgallery.com

MUSIC

G3

On the shoulder of every guitar player, there resides a small elf who whispers into the guitarist’s ear, “Shred! Shred as hard and as fast as you can every second of every day until the combination of your fingers and a fret board results in an explosion of rock so epic and grandiose that it would wake Jimi Hendrix from his heavenly slumber.” Most guitarists ignore the elf and end up writing songs about their feelings. Not the gentlemen of G3 (Joe Satriani, John Petrucci, and Paul Gilbert), a rotating tour of guys whose elves were so big that the rockers strapped sequined white leather saddles on them and rode off into the sunset. (Aaron Sankin)

8 p.m.
$45-$85
Berkeley Community Theatre
1900 Allston Way, Berk.
(510) 664-8593
www.satriani.com/G3

FRIDAY

-
0

March 16

MUSIC

Fukwerk Fridays with DJ Limacon

If you’re like most office workers, you’re already working for the weekend as soon as your alarm unleashes its first thumpings Monday morning. Then why not get the weekend started early at Fukwerk Fridays, the Bay Area Beatdrop-run happy hour dance party featuring local DJs who share an affinity for minimal Berlin techno? This week’s guest, DJ Limacon, a.k.a. Santa Cruz’s Christopher T. Lee, has released synth-heavy, tech funk discs Muster Funk (Intrinsic Design, 2006), which are great late-night grooves. (Joshua Rotter)

5 p.m., free
111 Minna Gallery
111 Minna Street, SF
(415) 974-1719
www.babd.org

MUSIC/EVENT

Hotel Utah 30th Anniversary Weekend with the Culver City Dub Collective

It’s hard to believe but true: that venerable venue of low-key, low-cost live music, the Hotel Utah, hits the big 3-0 just in time for St. Patrick’s Day weekend. Don’t expect any jigs or reels, though, as the Culver City Dub Collective take the stage – their mellow beats are tinged with the tonal colors of old Jamaica rather than the cool green of the Emerald Isle. (Nicole Gluckstern)

With Pollo del Mar, White Thighs,
and Thao Nguyen
Also Sat/17 with the Mumlers
8:30 p.m., $10
Hotel Utah
500 Fourth St., SF
(415) 546-6300
www.thehotelutahsaloon.com

THURSDAY

-
0

March 15

THEATER

H 3-D: The True Tale of the Haddonfield Babysitter Murderer

Film critics always get asked to name their favorite movie. My twisted, popcorn-flavored heart belongs to Halloween, John Carpenter’s 1978 horror masterpiece. Gods of gore be blessed, the Primitive Screwheads are mounting H 3-D: The True Tale of the Haddonfield Babysitter Murderer. It’s being presented in something they’re calling Screw-U-Vision, with special specs provided. With the Screwheads in the house, audience members will be hosed with stage blood every time a certain trick-or-treater draws his butcher knife. Mixed holiday alert: on St. Patty’s, the blood’ll be green as a whistle. (Cheryl Eddy)

Through March 24
Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m., $20-$25
Xenodrome Theater
1320 Potrero, SF
www.primitivescrewheads.com

MUSIC

Dr. Dog

“We All Belong” (Park the Van) finds the Philly psych-swamp canines breaking out some toothsome
songcraft. (Kimberly Chun)

9 p.m., $10-$12
Cafe du Nord
2170 Market, SF
(415) 861-5016

WEDNESDAY

-
0

March 14

EVENT

Pi Day

How hot is math right now? Hot enough for me to date a geek just so I can leave him and upgrade once he becomes a billionaire. Right now I’m breaking out my high school textbooks in preparation for Pi Day at the Exploratorium on March 14 (a.k.a. 3.14). And it’s also Albert Einstein’s birthday! The museum will celebrate with a gathering around the pi shrine at 1:59 p.m. to sing Pi Day songs and make a beaded pi string. (Elaine Santore)

1:59 p.m., $8-$13
Exploratorium
Palace of Fine Arts
3601 Lyon, SF
(415) 561-0360
www.exploratorium.edu

MUSIC

Dead Science

After signing to Berkeley’s Absolutely Kosher Records, Seattle’s the Dead Science are running as pop weirdos, though the band’s sometimes silky, sometimes scuzzy jazz rock dynamism reminds me more of groups such as the Dirty Three and Tin Hat Trio. Whatever its correct classification might be, the trio cooks up the kind of dense, dreamy sound that could score a nightclub scene in a David Lynch movie. (Max Goldberg)

With Parenthetical Girls
8 p.m., $7
21 Grand
416 25th St., Oakl.
(510) 444-7263
www.21grand.org

People’s choice

-
0

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

"We ram dancehall and cork party / Papa Jammy in your area."

Johnny Osbourne

The 1980s was a turbulent decade in Jamaica. Government control had shifted from Michael Manley’s socialist-leaning People’s National Party to Edward Seaga’s free market–oriented Jamaican Labour Party. As Prime Minister Seaga tilted the country’s foreign policy to the right, American political and economic meddling in the region, combined with the nascent drug trade from Colombia to Miami via Jamaica, threw the island into flux.

Against this backdrop, in the Kingston ghetto enclave of Waterhouse, record producer and engineer Lloyd "King Jammy" James embraced the emerging digital reggae era and became its king. E-mailing from his office in London, reggae historian and author David Katz asserts that it was James who revolutionized Jamaican music overnight in 1985 with the release of Wayne Smith’s "Under Mi Sleng Teng," precipitating the shift from analog to digital. None of the precious few digital rhythms that came before "Sleng Teng" had its tremendous impact; Katz notes, "Jammy was the one who embraced the use of technology in its totality, in such a way as to be far in front of his rivals."

James honed his talents in the 1970s, working alongside another major production figure, Osbourne Ruddock, otherwise known as King Tubby. While assisting Tubby, James moonlighted and recorded albums for Black Uhuru and Johnny Osbourne. By the mid-’80s, James was ready to strike out on his own, and he recruited several impressive vocalists and toasters from his neighborhood.

Indeed, James is revered as much for his ability to discover raw talent as for his innate mixing skills. You’ll find visual evidence of the latter in several recently posted YouTube videos that show James executing dub versions of songs by Smith, Johnny Clarke, and others. Seeing James use all 10 fingers on the faders certainly authenticates his mastery. Now VP Records has released another document that reveals James’s genius.

The New York label has amassed a four-double-disc collection of King Jammy 12-inch single releases, circa 1985 to 1988. Selector’s Choice organizes each batch of recordings by "riddim," or common backing instrumental, which enables club and radio DJs to easily play several different artists with the same musical arrangement consecutively. For instance, disc one features the Tempo riddim with individual songs by Nitty Gritty, Pad Anthony, and Tonto Irie, and also the Stalag riddim with work by Smith, Osbourne, and Dean Frasier. The collection is a DJ’s nirvana.

Other chapters in Selector’s Choice show the evolution of Jammy’s roster from a primarily vocalist-focused endeavor — composed of reggae legends Nitty Gritty, Little John, and Tenor Saw — to a toaster-oriented team with key artists such as Ninjaman, Admiral Bailey, Major Worries, and Shabba Ranks. On the phone from his still-Kingston-based studio, James explains that back in the day, aspiring artists lined up down the block, drawn to his yard by the amount of good riddims the studio produced. "We never kept anybody out," he says. "We invited everybody to come in."

Katz notes that the toasters James attracted added value to his stable. "[Toasters such as] Josie Wales were very influential," Katz says of the Wild West–inspired micsmith. "Josie had style, verve, wit, and longevity, and he spoke of reality but was also humorous." Wales inspired fellow toaster Admiral Bailey, who became tremendously popular in dancehall with his rapid rhymes, producing hits for Jammy such as "Big Belly Man," "Jump Up," and "No Way Better Than Yard," all included on Selector’s Choice. Bailey in turn shaped James’s biggest find, Shabba Ranks, who later went on to greater popularity and a Grammy award on the Digital B label, with Jammy’s apprentice Bobby "Digital" Dixon at the helm.

But as Selector’s Choice deftly proves, James was the dominant hitmaker between 1985 and 1989, a reign born partially out of a love for his profession. James describes producing music during the mid-’80s as a joyful experience, one that saw him craft hits almost daily. "It was a very good [studio] environment," James says. "All the artists, producers, everybody used to live close, like a family. We used to cook and eat [together], go in the studio, and work hard."

A hard workday typically entailed building two or three new riddims with musicians Wycliffe "Steelie" Johnson and Cleveland "Clevie" Brownie or with Smith, and then voicing artists into the night. James kept his personal living quarters in the same building as his studio, so at the end of the session he could just walk a few meters to the bedroom and catch some z’s. Music journalist Rob Kenner relays personal details such as these — and the backstory of each song — in Selector’s Choice‘s liner notes. Kenner’s revelations about the dual meanings of tracks such as Nitty Gritty’s "Hog in a Minty" and Major Worries’ "Babylon Boops" add another layer to the greatness of James’s productions.

Many label compendiums try to account for every session, take, and rough draft a producer laid hands on. Selector’s Choice instead packs its eight 20-song discs with true dancehall smashes, records that bear the unmistakable stamp and production ethic James uses to this day. He summed up his creative philosophy this way: "I’d rather do original music than covers, because I learned that you own that stuff and it lasts longer." *

www.vprecords.com

On white planes

-
0

By Johnny Ray Huston


› johnny@sfbg.com

Life on tour isn’t just about partying. It’s partly about crafty use of time and space. In that sense, the German electronic duo Booka Shade are expert pragmatists. Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier don’t just attempt to write songs while they’re on planes or in hotel rooms — they’ll record them as well. "In a traditional studio you always have the same atmosphere. Day and night changes, of course, yet it’s basically the same," Kammermeier explains over the phone from Berlin. "But if you travel and have a laptop with you, you can look out the window and see a new, completely different thing while recording."

Such flexibility is at the core of Booka Shade’s second album, on their self-run label, Get Physical. Its very title, Movements, reflects a recording process propelled by the touring connected with flagship club hits such as "Body Language" and the irresistible dance floor stormer "Mandarine Girl," which boasts a melody that sounds like it was made with a gargantuan electronic woodwind. "We had a good time meeting people internationally, and all that energy went into Movements," Kammermeier says, discussing the record, which like most of the group’s releases sports Hannah Hoch–like cut-with-a-kitchen-knife body parts on its sleeve art. "That’s probably why it’s a lot less dark than Memento [the duo’s 2004 debut] and has more drive."

It would be hard for Movements to be darker than Memento, considering Booka Shade’s first album, complete with a name that might have been borrowed from Christopher Nolan, repeatedly digs into the realm of film ("16MM") and especially film noir ("Vertigo"). "It’s not like we have a library of 10,000 DVDs, but we like the combination of pictures and music," says Kammermeier, who also scores commercials with Merziger. "One thing we did for [Memento] was put a film on with the sound off and watch the pictures while we were working — that atmosphere gave us a lot of inspiration."

GET A REP


Booka Shade’s inspiration and reputation stem from their label as much as their music. In recent years Get Physical has garnered a critical rep that calls to mind canonical imprints such as Warp and the still thriving house-inflected Kompakt. This praise is due to Booka Shade’s constant collaborations with mix-oriented labelmates such as DJ T and M.A.N.D.Y. and to their production work on tracks such as a pair of classic early singles by Chelonis R. Jones, "One and One" and "I Don’t Know?" Those tracks are peerless in both a pop and a club sense, with "I Don’t Know?" suggesting what would happen if a male diva from the heyday of Chicago house who possessed encyclopedic brilliance hooked up with "Blue Monday"–era New Order. "The chorus of ‘One and One’ wasn’t originally a chorus as Chelonis had sung it," Kammermeier says while discussing the collaborations. "We placed it there, like part of a puzzle."

Working with a talent as singular as Jones is a far cry from the duo’s early days in the music business, when they created Europop for Spice Girls–esque major-label prefab acts such as No Angels, a girl group for whom they designed a cover of Alison Moyet’s "All Cried Out." The dead-end results of those efforts and of Merziger and Kammermeier’s first venture as a group, called Planet Claire, led them to start Get Physical. That, and a desire to broaden the formulaic boundaries of techno in particular and electronic music in general — a desire further sparked on hearing well-arranged ’70s- and ’80s-tinged tracks by the likes of Metro Area.

"Walter and I were both kids of the ’80s," says Kammermeier, who grew up with a jazz musician father and guitar- and piano-playing siblings, while Merziger was raised by a Richard Wagner–loving father. "Anything that came out of England — Soft Cell, the Smiths, Depeche Mode — was very influential to us." Last year the duo’s ’80s influences came full circle when Booka Shade remixed and shared concert bills with the last group. And it turns out Kammermeier is listening to Soft Cell again, having recently downloaded both their underrated aggro 1984 finale, This Last Night in Sodom, which includes early studio work by the influential producer Flood, and their 1983 sophomore effort, The Art of Falling Apart. "I just listened to [Art] again," Kammermeier admits. "There’s so much frustration and darkness in those songs."

THE ART OF COMING TOGETHER


There’s so much frustration that it might seep into Booka Shade’s sound, if song titles are worthwhile clues. One single from The Art of Falling Apart was the club ho litany "Numbers," and it turns out the first single from Booka Shade’s next full-length recording will bear the same name. "We want to introduce a vocal side on the next album," Kammermeier says when describing "Numbers" and some of the group’s other songs, including a track created by Merziger in a Rio hotel room. "We’ll introduce it in a different way — not verse-chorus vocal but little parts that we perform. We’re not great fans of these ‘featured artist’ albums, where people just get a handful of star vocalists to perform on different tracks. Also, we can’t bring a bunch of vocalists or a session vocalist on the road."

That said, Booka Shade do aim to put their show on the road in the old-school sense — an ambitious plan at a time when many of the best electronic music makers are still better off DJing than pulling rock star poses on a stage. "People always ask what instrument I play, and I say, ‘I’m one of those guys who hangs out with musicians — I’m a drummer,’ " Kammermeier jokes. He’ll have to put that joke into practice as he and Merziger embark on their second US tour — and maybe he’ll write and record some songs while in flight as well. *

BOOKA SHADE

With Future Force and Hours of Worship

March 23, 9 p.m., $14 advance

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.getphysical.com

For a top 10 list from Booka Shade’s Get Physical labelmate Chelonis R. Jones, go to www.sfbg.com/blogs/music.

Purple reign

-
0

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

I first heard the Delinquents in 1999, when "That Man!" was in heavy rotation on KMEL. Its subject matter — caring for the kids while the wifey’s out cheating — was unique in gangsta rap. "We came from the left with that," G-Stack says, yet the freshness of the concept, combined with a funky Mike D beat and memorable Harm hook, made it an instant classic. By then their 1999 album, Bosses Will Be Bosses (Dank or Die) was six months old, and they already had a storied past.

Part of the Bay’s early ’90s independent scene, building a buzz from the ground up, G-Stack and V-White dropped their debut, the cassette-only Insane, circa 1993, on their label, Dank or Die. After a pair of 1995 EPs — The Alleyway and Outta Control (both Dank or Die) — the Delinquents signed to Priority at the same time the imprint inked its distribution deal with Master P’s then-Richmond-based No Limit Records. Yet during the promotional campaign for the 1997 full-length Big Moves, the duo learned the difference between being on Priority and being a priority.

"This was when ‘I’m ’bout It, ’bout It’ blew up for Master P," a relaxed Stack recalls at the East Oakland studio where he’s completing G-Stack Presents: Welcome 2 Purple City (4TheStreets), due March 27. "We promoting our album down south, West Coast, Midwest. Down south everything halted. We going into stores, they got huge Master P displays, and they didn’t even know we was coming out." The effect of this tepid label support, moreover, was compounded by backlash from their home audience, who equated independence with authenticity.

"At that time," Stack explains, "if you signed to a big label, people thought you weren’t real anymore. That affected our underground fan base. Then Priority didn’t support us. So we went back independent with Bosses, and our fans started messing with us again."

"Now we got a record buzzin’ on the streets. And radio wouldn’t support us, so a lot of local rappers started meeting, and everybody went up to KMEL. Nobody had a record at the time, and ours was doing good, so everybody pushed our record." He reviews the memory with satisfaction. "We kinda forced them to play it."

While the success of "That Man!" helped move 65,000 copies of Bosses, radio play was short-lived, because Clear Channel–owned KMEL had stopped playing local music. Yet even during the Bay’s leanest hip-hop years from 2000 to ’03, the Delinquents maintained a loyal following, selling out shows, moving units, and putting new talent on, as well as throwing the free Lake Berryessa Bash — think of a sideshow on Jet Skis — for thousands of fans every couple years. "They were the crazy glue of the town," says Dotrix 4000, who, as half of Tha Mekanix, produced several hot tracks on Purple City. "They held the scene together when it could’ve fell apart."

While the Delinquents have never lost their iconic status in the Bay — witness Stack’s representation of East Oakland on Mistah FAB’s geographical hit "N.E.W. Oakland" — they have strikingly chosen to pursue solo careers right as the region’s commercial fortunes are on the rise. Both rappers insist the decision has nothing to do with aesthetics or personal differences, and this is apparent from the warm vibe when V-White arrives for the photo shoot. Promoting his just-released Perfect Timin’ (V-White Ent./SMC), V explains the move as a way to stay original in what they see as an increasingly contentless hyphy movement.

"Chuck E. Cheese music," V says. "When I came up, the Bay was about game-spitters, cats with swagger. Now it’s, like, make up a word — do something stupid. That ain’t where I’m coming from. I’m with the reality rap, from them days when you rapped about what you was going through."

Stack is similarly defiant: "Our machine wasn’t built on what radio did for us. Now it’s hella different. If you independent, people think you’re weak. You need the radio to support you. I don’t like how it is now — I don’t kiss ass."

"I don’t have to make music the radio gotta play," V concludes. "I’m making music from my heart." Judging from Timin’ — a 27-track opus largely produced by protégé Big Zeke, spiked with hitworthy tracks by E-A-SKI and an intriguingly nonhyphy Traxamillion — V has a big heart, punctuating his tales of street crime with more personal memories, such as his daughter catching her first fish.

Stack meanwhile is using Purple City to introduce his own young crew, the Heem Team, as well as his alter ego, Purple Mane, who’s something like a dope-slinging superhero. A warm-up for Purple Hood, Stack’s proper solo debut, slated for July, Purple City began as a mixtape but morphed into a formidable album, including all-original beats by the likes of Tone Capone, FAB associate Rob-E, and Stack’s in-house team Sir Rich and Q. (For the record, the Delinquents were on the purple aesthetic — stemming from a variety of weed popular in Oakland — by the time of their 2003 mixtape, The Purple Project, a year before Big Boi and Dipset adopted it.)

The solo careers of V and Stack raise the question of what will happen to the Delinquents as a group. Both confirm a new album is on the table — most likely the final Delinquents project.

"We’ve been rapping since ’93," V says. "If I’m doing the same thing I was doing in ’93, that means I ain’t grew none. We’re just getting older."

"I feel very comfortable doing the last Delinquents album," Stack adds. "I can actually feel like I’ve completed it." *

Antiwar protest events

-
0

PROTEST EVENTS

FRIDAY, MARCH 16

Remembering Rachel Corrie


At this third annual memorial, celebrate the life of Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old International Solidarity Movement volunteer who was killed by an Israeli soldier while nonviolently resisting the demolition of a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip.

7 p.m., $10–$20 suggested donation

Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts

1428 Alice, Oakl.

www.norcalism.org/events.htm

SATURDAY, MARCH 17

Starve War, Feed Peace


Participate in a march and rally sponsored by the Mt. Diablo Peace and Justice Center. The march goes through downtown Walnut Creek, and continues to Civic Park for a rally at noon with speakers and music.

11 a.m.

Walnut Creek BART station

200 Ygnacio Blvd., Walnut Creek

Civic Park

1375 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek

www.mtdpc.org

SUNDAY, MARCH 18

March and rally in San Francisco


Marchers will assemble at Justin Herman Plaza and go to the Civic Center.

Noon

Justin Herman Plaza

One Market, SF

(415) 821-6545, answer@actionsf.org, www.actionsf.org/#local4

MONDAY, MARCH 19

Protest, rally, and nonviolent direct action at Chevron headquarters


End Chevron’s oil crimes from Richmond to Iraq. It’s a short ride to the Chevron headquarters from the Walnut Creek BART station; take County Connection shuttle 121. Vans will be shuttling protesters too.

7–11 a.m.

Chevron headquarters

6001 Bollinger Canyon, San Ramon

www.MySpace.com/ProtestChevron

Stop Funding the War


Join us at Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco district office to urge her and her fellow representatives to deny the White House its war funding requests and to support HR 508, the Bring Our Troops Home and Sovereignty of Iraq Restoration Act.

Noon

San Francisco Federal Bldg.

450 Golden Gate, SF

www.stopfundingthewar.com/home

Die-in on Market Street


The protest is a die-in designed to highlight the war’s death toll by showing what the heart of San Francisco would look like strewn with dead bodies.

Noon

Meet-up points:

Spear and Market, SF

Montgomery and Market, SF

Powell and Market, SF

Market and Seventh St., SF

www.dieinmarch19.org, www.ActAgainstTorture.org *

NOISE: Blonde Redhead to die for?

-
0

New York City trio BLONDE REDHEAD is excited to announce their upcoming
appearance at SXSW and plans to tour in April on the heels of the April 10th
release of their new album, titled “23”.

SXSW:
BLONDE REDHEAD
Wednesday 3/14 – 12:45am @ Emo’s (4AD Showcase)
Thursday 3/15 – 4:15 pm @ Antone’s (Spaceland and LiveDaily SXSW party)

TO DOWNLOAD THE ALBUM:

Link: http://promo.beggars.com/us
Username: blonderedhead
Unique code: 2355HO2T7D

Let me know if you need me to burn you a cd r

To get a taste, listen to the title track “23” now (FEEL FREE TO POST)

Best,
~Catherine

“23” was produced by the band and recorded by Chris Coady (TV On The Radio,
Yeah Yeah Yeah’s) and co-mixed by Rich Costey (Mars Volta, Franz Ferdinand)
& Alan Moulder (Secret Machines, Smashing Pumpkins, NIN). Recorded in New
York at Magic Shop Studios, it is a truly confident and powerful follow-up
to their sixth record, 2003’s ” Misery Is A Butterfly”, which was hailed as
one of the band’s best albums to date, and was their first for 4AD.

Continually making innovative music since the early 90s, the trio of Amedeo
Pace (voice, words, guitar, baritone guitar), his twin brother Simone Pace
(drums, percussion, machines) along with Kazu Makino (voice, words,
clavinet, guitar) are a band whose music has been growing stronger and more
distinctive with each release. “23” is no exception.

TRACK LISTING:
1) 23
2) Dr. Strangeluv
3) The Dress
4) SW
5) Spring And By Summer Fall
6) Silently
7) Publisher
8) Heroine
9) Top Ranking
10) My Impure Hair
TOUR DATES:
April 13 Detroit, MI Magic Stick
April 14 Chicago, IL Metro
April 15 Minneapolis, MN First Avenue
April 19 Portland, OR Wonder Ballroom
April 20 Vancouver, BC Commodore Ballroom
April 21 Seattle, WA Show Box
April 23 San Francisco, CA Bimbo’s
April 24 San Francisco, CA Bimbo’s
April 25 Pomona, CA Glasshouse
April 27 San Diego, CA Belly Up Tavern
May 1 Dallas, TX Granada
May 2 Austin, TX Stubb’s
May 4 Atlanta, GA Variety Playhouse
May 5 Chapel Hill, NC Cat’s Cradle
May 6 Washington, D.C. 9:30 Club
May 8 New York, NY Webster Hall
May 9 Boston, MA Paradise
May 11 Toronto, ON The Opera House
May 12 Montreal, QC Club Soda

The Beggars Group
XL Recordings*4AD*too pure*Playlouderecordings*
Matador Records*Beggars Banquet*

www.beggars.com/us

NOISE: Burned out in Oakland

-
0

Guardian intern Sam Devine weighs in on this weekend’s Dustfish Burning Man camp benefit:

The Oakland Police Department busted the Dustfish Burning Man camp benefit party Sunday, March 11, early in the morning. It was a massive party of 3,000 in a warehouse on Mandela Parkway. The building was so huge that a charter bus company, seemingly indifferent to the bash, was coming and going from another part of the warehouse.

Thelony on Rye opened, playing strange, noisy bebop. Then came Dr. Abacus, playing a similar but grooving jazz that had the room jitterbugging and hopping around. In a side area, DJs spun drum and bass and industrial garage while people banged on a steel statue of a stick figure with large metal bolts.

Fuzzy hats were all around. A boat, converted to a hot tub, was filled with naked partygoers. Spiky, steel columns were licked with fire on one side of the main floor. Colossal metal statues of men and women decorated the space. There was a small wine bar inside a miners shack. Strange. It was Burning Man-ed out.

Shortly after Dr. Abacus finished, the police moved in for the first time. The East Bay Rats, security for the night, supposedly couldn’t do much to stop them. There were reports of 10 police cars. The music stopped, and the lights came on. But the party continued.

I smoked a spliff and drank a Tecate while talking with a man named Mathew T. Whatley, esq. He claimed to operate a legal establishment, having attended Golden Gate University and a handful of other schools, one in Hong Kong. He said, while in China, he would regularly go about with a foreign ambassador, abusing diplomatic privilege to score free lunches. Fantastic.

The police finally came in at about 4 a.m. (or really 3 a.m. because of daylight savings time). They walked around, taking pictures. Seemingly cool with everything, they talked with a few people.

The room cleared out. The party was over.

TUESDAY

-
0

March 13

MUSIC/DANCE

Queen Anne’s Revenge and Black Cactus Choir

Since pirates are all the rage, you may have already guessed that local trio Queen Anne’s Revenge is named for Blackbeard’s notorious frigate, surely the setting for many a bloody and brutal act. However, these guys keep the peg leg count on the low end, favoring instead a garage-pop sensibility heightened with curious synth glissandi and warm vocals floating somewhere between Love and Rockets and Zombies territory. Also performing is the Black Cactus Choir, an experimental dance troupe pushing the boundaries of physical expression with brain wave–nourishing choreography. (Todd Lavoie)

With Brittany Shane
9 p.m., $7
Hotel Utah Saloon
500 Fourth St., SF
(415) 385-2100
www.thehotelutahsaloon.com

VISUAL ART

“Moby Dick: Chapter 44 or 78,744 times”

Justin Quinn is transcribing Herman Melville’s Moby Dick into the letter e. So obsessive-compulsive they might wear out that nautical chart maker Captain Ahab, Quinn’s graphite drawings and prints have graduated from boxlike and crosslike maze formations to large and elaborate jellyfish shapes? The e in Quinn’s SF show “Moby Dick: Chapter 44 or 78,744 times” could stand for exile. Quinn tries to turn it into poetry. (Johnny Ray Huston)

Through April 12
MMGalleries
101 Townsend, suite 207, SF
(415) 543-1550
www.mmgalleries.com

MONDAY

-
0

March 12

MUSIC

Youth Group

It’s no small feat that Aussie gossamer popsters Youth Group were able to rescue Alphaville’s overwrought new wave flashback-grenade “Forever Young” and miraculously twirl it around into a glistening, gently unfolding four-minute pageant. Better yet, their latest release, Casino Twilight Dogs (Anti-), gushes with 11 other exquisitely crafted charmers destined to draw inevitable, but understandable, Shins comparisons, while elements of that glorious synergy achieved by English pop-anthem geniuses James with producer extraordinaire Brian Eno bubble up. (Todd Lavoie)

8:30 p.m., $13
Slim’s
333 11th St., SF
(415) 255-0333
www.slims-sf.com

VISUAL ART

“Seeing Memory”

If we live in an age of cynicism, one in which an existential leap of faith, to borrow from Søren Kierkegaard, is necessary to imbue with meaning this unbright rock we call earth, then Creativity Explored is a safe house in our land of dread. This inspirational Mission gallery and studio provides a venue for people with disabilities, many of whom are nonverbal, to create and express themselves. “Seeing Memory” — curated by Larry Rinder, California College of the Arts dean — is an exhibit of recent work by member artists exploring the images and mechanisms of memory. (Nathan Baker)

Through April 6, free.
Creativity Explored Gallery
3245 16th St., SF
(415) 863-2108
www.creativityexplored.org

SUNDAY

-
0

March 11

EVENT

Dr. Sketchy’s Anti Art School

Luckily for artistically challenged people like me, Dr. Sketchy’s Anti Art School encourages such behavior. I’m sure my figures won’t look much better while I’m listening to the event’s promised “slutty jazz music” and participating in drinking and drawing contests, but who cares? (Elaine Santore)
4–7 p.m., $10
Stud
399 Ninth St., SF
(415) 637-8657
www.skidroche.com

MUSIC

SFJAZZ Collective

Listening to SFJAZZ Collective’s suave Live 2006: 3rd Annual Concert Tour: Original Compositions and Works by Herbie Hancock (SFJAZZ), you’ll know that this “Monk and Beyond” performance, launching SFJAZZ’s spring season, is gonna be a hot one. New trumpeter Dave Douglas joins SFJAZZ artistic director and tenor and soprano sax machine Joshua Redman for a deep look at the wonderfully madcap music culled from the brilliant corners of Thelonious Monk’s mind. (Kimberly Chun)

3 and 7 p.m., $20–$65
Herbst Theatre
401 Van Ness, SF
1-800-225-2277
www.sfjazz.org

SATURDAY

-
0

March 10

MUSIC

Chanticleer

If you’re not a fan of contemporary choral ensembles, then you’ve probably never heard of Chanticleer, but scrupulous classical music fans know that this San Francisco choir operate at the pinnacle of their trade. Next month they will premiere And on Earth, Peace: A Chanticleer Mass (Warner Classics) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Here’s your chance to catch them on the home field. (Nathan Baker)

8 p.m., $25–$44
Also Sun/11, 7 p.m.
First Unitarian Church
1187 Franklin, SF
(415) 392-4400
www.cityboxoffice.com

MUSIC

Qui

Since the mighty Jesus Lizard had a brief flirtation with overproduced nu metal and broke up, live music has been missing a certain je ne sais quoi, to the tune of a whiskey-drunk Texan in shitkicker cowboy boots with his balls in his hand by the name of David Yow. While they might not be Jesus Lizard Mach 2, Yow’s new band, Qui, have that stripped-down, broken-glass noise rock edge that’s guaranteed to scare the kids. (Duncan Scott Davidson)

With Replicator
10 p.m., $7
Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
(415) 923-0923
www.hemlocktavern.com

FRIDAY

-
0

March 9

MUSIC

“Video Games Live”

To gamers, there is no touching longtime Nintendo composer Koji Kondo. Kondo, a classically trained musician, scored such games as Super Mario Bros. and the Legend of Zelda, which some might say are more culturally relevant, in this digital age, than Beethoven’s Fifth. Hear for yourself when Kondo takes the stage at “Video Games Live,” an interactive multimedia concert featuring orchestral and choral renditions of popular video games, from Mario to Final Fantasy, synched to cutting-<\h>edge visuals. (Joshua Rotter)

8 p.m., $38.50–$65
Nob Hill Masonic Center
1111 California, SF
(415) 776-4702
www.videogameslive.com

MUSIC

George Michalski and Friends

My résumé has nothing on George Michalski’s. He’s recorded with Blue Cheer, performed at Whiskey a Go Go with the first white band signed to Motown (Foxtrot), and played the role of Barbra Streisand’s favorite pianist. Disco lovers should recognize that it’s Michalski who scored the dramatic soundtrack for the couture slasher The Eyes of Laura Mars. I’m not even going to get into Michalski’s connections to Don Johnson or Shields and Yarnell. I’ll just say he’s recently been working with Eddie Fisher, he has a new album called San Francisco that’s devoted to the city, and he’s celebrating the 50th anniversary of his first piano recital with this show. (Johnny Ray Huston)

8 p.m., $18
Larkspur Cafe Theatre
500 Magnolia, Larkspur
(415) 924-6107
www.georgemichalski.com

THURSDAY

-
0

March 8

MUSIC

Hiss Golden Messenger

The most remarkable thing about Hiss Golden Messenger is not its personnel — members of the Court and Spark, Oranger, and the Mother Hips — but that the sum of its parts sounds much different than one might imagine given their respective histories, none of which hint at the reverbed, spliff-friendly jams born of this incarnation. While it’s true that, between them, these guys have played every gin joint from Willits to Escondido, this is just their second show together. (Nathan Baker)

With Citay
9 p.m., $7
Make-Out Room
3225 22nd St., SF
(415) 647-2888
www.makeoutroom.com

FILM

Night of the Lepus

If the words “giant killer rabbits” aren’t enough to convince you to travel to the East Bay to see a movie, then you are truly beyond hope. Night of the Lepus, perhaps the glorious nadir of all monster movies, has bunnies in spades. An experiment in bunny population control in the Southwest goes horribly awry, resulting in a radiated breed of hopping Godzillas that terrorize model train sets and devour poorly blue-screened actors. (Matt Sussman)

9:15 p.m., $8
Parkway Speakeasy Theater
1834 Park, Oakl.
(510) 814-2400
www.parkway-speakeasy.com

MUSIC

Born/Dead

There is an old adage: if you can talk, you can sing; if you can walk, you can dance. Add that if you have an ax to grind, you can wield a guitar. It’s a philosophy, and Oakland anarcho-punks Born/Dead are its champions. Don’t look to them for brainless entertainment. Born/Dead have a message to their madness: no one gets out alive. They’ll be challenging the status quo with Pittsburgh, Pa.’s Behind Enemy Lines, among others. (Nicole Gluckstern)

With Behind Enemy Lines, Peligro Social, Nightstick Justice, and War Trash
7 p.m., $6
Balazo18 Art Gallery
2183 Mission, SF
(415) 255-7227
www.balazogallery.com

WEDNESDAY

-
0

March 7

FILM

Altman Tribute: McCabe and Mrs. Miller and 3 Women

This installment of the Castro Theatre’s Robert Altman tribute features two epics centering on the feminine mystique. McCabe and Mrs. Miller, from 1971, is a messy, unmelodramatic revision of the western. Similarly fixated on abstractions and identity, 1977’s 3 Women is dreamlike and hard to hold, with its title characters reutf8g in ineffable and sometimes mythic emotional situations. (Sara Schieron)

McCabe and Mrs. Miller, 2:15 and 7 p.m.
3 Women, 4:35 and 9:20 p.m.
$9 for double feature
Castro Theatre
429 Castro, SF
(415) 621-5288
www.castrotheatre.com

EVENT

Ellen Forney

Gritty, hilarious, incisive as the business end of a rapidograph, Ellen Forney makes cartooning seem as gloriously easy and fun as, well, scribbling in the margins of your college-ruled notebook during a heinously boring high school lecture. Whether she’s teaming with Dan Savage or simply waxing poetic — riotously — on the perfect music to die by in her new comics anthology, I Love Led Zeppelin, Forney is always beautifully perceptive about the pop-rockin’ alterna-culture she bolts from. I’m sure she’ll spring a few life lessons when she gives a multimedia performance promoting the volume. (Kimberly Chun)

7 p.m., free
Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688
www.booksmith.com

God chillin’

-
0

› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER O brother, where art thou, blog-worthy, buzz-besieged bands? Whither the classes of 2004 and ’05? As memory fades and fads pass, the Klaxons and Beirut had best look to the respective fates of Arcade Fire and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, both of which have spawned second albums at a time when Britney Spears’s postpartum-postbreakup cue-ball cutes (uh, was she actually a musician, mommy?) score almost twice as many hits as Beyoncé or any ole artist who has actually issued fresh tracks in the last four years. How has blogosphere-borne hypey held up? Can the viral gospel survive, with or without fast-buck comps with the word "Hitz" in their titles? (Was I dozing through Now That’s What I Call Indie! Vol. 23?) Was there any substance to the sound of the mid-’00s when it comes to Arcade Fire and CYHSY — two indie taste sensations that musically mimed Talking Heads and, in their number, resembled villages more than singular villains? Can they bring sexy back sonically, even though they never bumped billiard balls with the naked-noggined queen of pop?

From the sound of the last CYHSY show I caught at the Warfield, the Philly–New York sprawl seemed well on its way to sell-out-by staleness. Out were the frothy, Afropop-derived David Byrne–ing campfire rhythms. Enter monotonous, monochromatic indie rock.

Yet although CYHSY’s new (and still bravely self-released) ‘un, Some Loud Thunder, peters to a dull roar by the time "Five Easy Pieces" rolls around, the full-length still impresses with its sense of aural experimentation. Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann throws fuzz, shmutz, and the noise equivalent of cat fur and tumbleweed over the proceedings, futzing the opening, title track into a cunning combo of foregrounded murk and tambourine-shimmy clarity. CYHSY cut through the fog of pop with the dissonance-laced sweetness of a cockeyed, choral "Emily Jean Stock" and the Dylanishly titilutf8g manifesto tease of "Mama, Won’t You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning?" Some Loud Thunder is a freakin’ busy record — with the emphasis happily on the freak — and it’s almost as if CYHSY were trying to reach beyond the easy, cumbersome cool of their name (always suspected to be a major part of their appeal) and toward, hoo-boy, depth. Too bad the lyrics aren’t often up to the musical intrigue on such songs as "Satan Said Dance" and "Goodbye to Mother and the Cove," making CYHSY sound like the E.E. Cummingses of indie, for whatever that’s worth. "Gravity’s one thing and / Gravity’s something but / How about coming down …," Alec Ounsworth whinnies. "Weird but you’re back talking." Wonderfully weird, yes, though is it unfair to ask if you have anything to say?

Back also, in priestly black, are Arcade Fire, who have plenty to tell in the three years since Funeral was unveiled. Amid the majestic choral sheen, synth pop flock, and Tijuana brass of their new album, Neon Bible (Merge), Win Butler and party have unearthed and dusted off the lost threads of connection between the teary tough-guy sentimentality of Gene Pitney and Roy Orbison, the jittery junked-up teardrops of "Little Johnny Jewel" and Suicide, and the quavering, coaguutf8g pop syrup of the Cure and OMD. Arcade Fire have crawled through a creaky, darkened looking glass and found a lost, perhaps losing world populated with forlorn soldiers, urban paranoiacs, rough water, guiding lights, lions and lambs, and idling vehicles.

Cloaked in increasingly trad folk and ’80s pop-song structures, engineering by Markus Dravs (Björk) and Scott Colburn (Sun City Girls), and contributions by members of Calexico, Wolf Parade, and Final Fantasy, Arcade Fire thankfully put lyrical clichés to work during Neon Bible‘s clamorous service, to the end of genuine storytelling. They’re preaching the gospel of transcendence through music and art — something that now seems unique to rock, in contrast to rap — questioning a holy war in "Intervention" ("Working for the church while my family died / Your little sister is going to lose her mind / Every spark of friendship and love will die without a home / Hear the soldier groan / He’ll go it alone") and the god-fearing hysteria of "(Antichrist Television Blues)" ("Don’t want to work in a building downtown / I don’t know what I’m going to do / Because the planes keep crashing, two by two"). Arcade Fire are far from the first to fire artful shots in response to wartime, but Neon Bible — as bold and beautiful, as hysterical and hopeful, as corny and acute as a rockin’ soap opera or Jesus Christ Superstar — feels like the best album of 2007 so far. *

ARCADE FIRE

June 1–2, 8 p.m., $31.50

Greek Theatre

UC Berkeley, Gayley Road, Berk.

www.ticketmaster.com

GET OUT

NICE BOYS


The Portland, Ore., upstarts with mighty fine shaggy rooster cuts step up with ’70s-style glitter pop. With Time Flys and Apache. Wed/7, 9:30 p.m., $7. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

OLD TIME RELIJUN


K Records’ wrecking crew just might find a deity at the bottom of a beer stein. With Tussle and the Weasel Walter Quartet. Wed/7, 10 p.m., $5. Knockout, 3223 Mission, SF. (415) 550-6994

BUNNY RABBIT


CocoRosie’s girly rapper protégé freestyles with a thumb-sucking bounce. Is her Lovers and Crypts (Voodoo-Eros) for reals? With Tha Pumpsta and Bruno and the Dreamies. Thurs/8, 8 p.m., $6. 21 Grand, 416 25th St., Oakl. (510) 444-7263. Tues/13, 9:30 p.m., $7. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

EMPTY ROOMS


A new self-titled EP finds the Bay Area moodniks waxing gothily. With Worship of Silence and This Isn’t It. Sun/11, 9 p.m., $6. Hotel Utah, 500 Fourth St., SF. (415) 546-6300

Axis power

-
0

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

It has been noted in the mostly laudatory press surrounding their collection of 10-inch EPs, Transparent Things (Tirk/Word and Sound), that Fujiya & Miyagi aren’t Japanese. Nor are they a duo. They are in fact three white friends from Brighton, England, whose openly acknowledged obsession with Neu’s motornik pulse and Can’s subdued funk has resulted in some very infectious, kraut-tinged electronic pop songs as well as gentle speculation about whether Fujiya & Miyagi are simply derivative or being cheekily open about their influences.

Anticipating their critics, the band even declare at one point as a chorus, "We’re only pretending to be Japanese!" But Fujiya & Miyagi seem too polite to be doing all this as a piss-take, yet too self-conscious to claim sui generis innocence by way of a strange musical synchronicity. After all, I don’t think I am the only person who thought they were Japanese when I first heard them.

To some extent, all bands wear their record collections on their sleeves early on. Some simply loathe admitting it. Initial Stereolab singles were basically remakes of Neu’s "Hallo Gallo" (although so were Neu’s subsequent albums) with vocal window dressing snatched from ’60s French yé-yé pop. It was the unexpected synthesis of the two that made them sound so fresh. By now Fujiya & Miyagi’s warm-cold instrumentation — guitars compressed into brittle chirps, warm analog synth washes, percoutf8g drum machines — is a familiar palette (again, think Stereolab or some DFA productions), but David Best’s vocal style fogs up the transparency of the homage.

Best’s clipped, affectless approach works well to underscore his distanced lyrics, whether he’s detachedly recounting the scuffs incurred while falling in and out of love ("Collarbone" and "Sucking Punch," respectively) or cataloging the commodities around him ("Transparent Things"). His rolled r‘s and staccato delivery also uncannily invoke the quieter Damo Suzuki of Can’s 1972 album, Ege Bamyasi, or the 1973 disc Future Days (both Mute).

Granted, James Murphy stands accused of swagger-jacking Mark E. Smith’s extra syllables (Smith, appropriately enough, donned Suzuki vocal drag for the Fall’s "I Am Damo Suzuki" — perhaps Fujiya & Miyagi’s chief precedent). And Beck’s skinny-white-boy take on Prince circa Midnite Vultures (Interscope, 1999) is no more or less suspect than Justin Timberlake’s Off the Wall falsetto.

Appropriation is an old and often circular debate in music, one inflected by racial politics as much as the vagaries and entitlements enabled by whatever strength so-called postmodernism still holds as a position. The earnest love of kraut Fujiya & Miyagi see reflected in their music may come off as a studied imitation to some, but when "Collarbone" hits its breakdown, and Best breathily beatboxes the old "knee bone connected to the shin bone" nursery rhyme like he wants to rock your body, Fujiya & Miyagi momentarily sidestep the anxiety of influence and become simply a great pop group. *

Pop goes Panther

-
0

Prince may have his devoted popites canonizing those purple-clad jewels once again after his recent Super Bowl halftime performance, but in Portland, Ore., there’s an equally crude one-man dance-aster who could soon take the crown from His Royal Badass. This beat blaster and master, however, comes in the form of a scrawny gyrator whose elasticlike body rapidly contorts, recoils, and slams against walls during his pop-flushed freak-outs.

Since 2002, Panther, a.k.a. Charlie Salas-Humara, has administered a hip-spasming dose of what his press literature describes as "damaged soul," fusing pulsating drum machines and bassy hooks with disheveled synths and glass-cracking falsettos. MTV2 has even taken a liking to the 32-year-old, nominating "You Don’t Want Your Nails Done," the single from his debut, Secret Lawns (Fryk Beat), for Video of the Year. During the video a brown-suited Salas-Humara rocks the microphone in a room cluttered with cardboard furniture, cell phones, and iPods. The fidgety performer busts into the Robot like a Tourette’s-afflicted Michael Jackson and beatboxes, "When you’re making these fists / You don’t want your hair / When you’re making these fists / You don’t want your nails done." Watching the video makes you want to grab the sweat-drenched vocalist by his shoulders and yell, "Go, white boy, go!"

But according to Salas-Humara, Panther’s intoxicating bite hasn’t taken that much effort. "It’s a great project because I don’t have to think about it, and there’s no concept besides whatever shit I pull together in my basement," he says on the phone from Portland. "It’s just me, and I don’t have to be a Gang of Four cover band or try and be some pop thing."

And Salas-Humara doesn’t always sound like he’s in pursuit of pop. Songs such as "Rely on Scent" and "Take Us Out" evoke a free jazz and R&B artiness and rely heavily on organ to keep them afloat. Others, such as "How Does It Feel?" and "Tennis Lesson," recall the mechanized keyboard bluster of early-’80s Herbie Hancock and the Art of Noise while integrating densely arranged hip-hop beats as their driving force.

Born in Florida but raised in Chicago’s suburbs, Salas-Humara moved to Portland in 1995 with his band, the Planet The. The trio stuck it out for 11 years, though Panther had already sprung to life before the group’s demise.

"I started doing Panther because somebody asked me to do one of those solo performance nights where people from different bands get together and play acoustic songs," he says with a laugh. "I thought it would be funny to terrorize it with prerecorded drum machines."

Salas-Humara claims that he thought he would never perform as Panther again, but he continued producing new music because his friends kept egging him on.

"It was really fun to try and fill up a lot of space on a stage with one person, so I started experimenting with dancing and doing different things with the stuff I would choreograph," Salas-Humara explains. "Basically, I just get weird."

In addition to the MTV2 nomination, 2006 saw Panther embark on tours with the Gossip and Ratatat, and Fryk Beat released the lauded 12-inch Yourself.

Gearing up for his first national tour, Salas-Humara confirms he’s a bit nervous about the jaunt.

"You never really know where your fans are," he says. "I’m sure it’ll be pretty awesome in some places and dismal in others. I guess that’s the way that it goes." (Chris Sabbath)

PANTHER

With Yip Yip, Lemonade, and Like Nurse

Thurs/8, 9:30 p.m., $7

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

>

Super Modelo

-
0

› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO The sun-bleached suede pump lay abandoned in a tattered jumble of grasses, beneath a grove of swaying palms, next to a ruined hacienda. Vermillion nasturtiums burst through the hacienda’s broken crimson bricks. Embossed on the pump’s inner sole, one word: predictions. Suddenly, a pair of untethered horses flashed into view — one black, the other sweet caramel, weaving their way to a freshwater lagoon at the tip of the white sand beach just beyond us. The grove lit up like a David Lynch interior. Both horses froze to inspect me and Hunky Beau, their glittering eyes four obsidian orbs, the clang-clanging cowbells roped to their well-muscled necks all echoing ancient disco and shit.

Ah, Mexico. Pass the lip balm.

Fearful of my sustained pallor — nightclub, laptop, nightclub, laptop, head shave, rehab — Hunky Beau had whisked me away for a week on the beaches of sunny Baja, to the tiny Pacific outpost of Pescadero, brimming with surfers who’d congregated for wave season. (Two words: Mexican surfers. Delicioso.) "But you’ll miss the season premiere of America’s Next Top Model! Church of Tyra! Church of Tyra!" a tiny voice in the back of my head had protested, the one I call Tiki La Shot. "Big whup, lady," said another, the one I call Mann Coulter. "You’re also missing the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. Wanna cry about it?"

Turns out I had the dates wrong for both. Then Anna Nicole collapsed. Predictions!

Despite my extended geography of lovers, I still can’t speak a lick of española — which of course only adds to my mysterious attractiveness. The language of sexy is silence. So the only information I could glean from the gorgeous local populace for you is this: if you ever find yourself in an old-fashioned paleteria in the dusty, delightful village of Todos Santos, don’t ask them to scoop your purplicious uva ice cream into a sugar conio.

Also, horrid faggot fashions have truly gone global. While the nuevo dinero flowing in from all the unfortunate American second-home development has triggered a growth market in mid-’90s gangsta baggies among the more macho Baja-anians, abruptly blooming on the street corners are packs of mincing teen Mexican queens with tie-dyed mullets, pink cell phones, and embroidered denim flares. Flacas, please.

Toward the end of our sojourn, we avoided the awful, gringo-polluted Disneyland of Cabo San Lucas and took off to the raucous Carnaval parade and festival in the state capital, La Paz. (Will someone please, please solve the riddle of Middle American female hair? Why are white ladies in Cabo still working the frizzy bob thing, squished into yellow Dress Barn stretchiness, and screaming for "peena coladas"? Tufted bangs, even! I almost had to love it.)

There we swooned over the hundreds of handsome caballeros who’d descended from their mountainside ranchos in impeccably spotless Stetsons, Wranglers, and mustaches to hoof it to banda sinaloense, the breathtaking polka-style Mexican dance music. There were so many tuba, trombone, and accordion ensembles oompa-pahing away mere inches from one another I thought I was being squeezed through an awesome Lawrence Welk mashup tube.

As the gangs of muy guapo musicians waltzed the night away and the blanket sellers hawked their tiger-striped and Virgin of Guadalupe–decorated wares, the pink sliver of the moon dipped below La Paz Bay. I turned to Hunky Beau and sighed. Fuck the fruitless Carnaval cruising, I thought. I’m the real princess here.

Funny how sometimes the hardest nightlife things to find are the ones right under the mirror beneath your nose. So I get back and want to hear some banda on the home team dance floor, right? But … where? Seems any night of the week I can get freaky to Southeast Asian, Brazilian, Moroccan, and Afro-Caribbean beats, but, despite the recent explosion of norteño music (the "gangsta rap of banda"), an early ’00s club interest in electronic-tinged banda by groups such as Nortec Collective, and our own estimable population of Mexican folk, the only reliable finds on my banda radar are occasional events at clubs such as El Rincon, Cancun, the Make-Out Room, and, of course, that reina wonderland, Esta Noche.

In this way, banda is like hyphy: everywhere in the media and streets but rarely on the dance floor. I’m the first to admit that I’m a mite too white sometimes. Just because I don’t know about it doesn’t mean it’s not banging. Therefore, I vow to go immediately to the Discolandia and Ritmo Latino record stores in the Mission and follow the plethora of flyers for live banda to Latinate bliss. Meanwhile, hey, all you worldly and alternative DJs: how about slipping some slices from Banda el Recodo de Cruz Lizarrága in your mix? Huh? *

Cake to audience: Eat me (then buy my record)

-
0

I had honestly forgotten how much I like Cake. Years of too much radio play hardened me to those catchy tunes like Never There and The Distance, making me forget all about the beats so steeped in funk you can’t help but move your hips, the spot-on transitions that would make any music major proud, the deep melodic sarcasm of John McCrea’s voice, and the plain old virtuosity of these people as musicians. What I hadn’t forgotten was McCrea’s attitude: bitter, jaded, and a bit antagonistic to his audience. 466193460_l.jpg

In fact, when I last saw Cake in Portland almost a decade ago, McCrea went so far as to insult the crowd for only showing up to hear the radio single I Will Survive, asking if anyone even knew their other songs. (Would it have killed him to thank them for padding his paycheck, however they found him?…) My embarrassment at being associated with one of the mindless minions (though I was a true Cake fan at the time, and didn’t even like I Will Survive that much), and my anger at McCrea for making me feel embarrassed about it, might have been part of the reason I’ve hardly listened to the Sacramento songsters since then.

Until the last night of Noise Pop, when it all came rushing back. The band took the stage at Bimbo’s in front of a packed crowd of mostly 30-somethings, all die-hard fans who sang along with nearly every song. And as that twangy guitar intros started and McCrea banged the vibraslap and they launched into some of my old favorites – You Part the Waters and Is This Love? – I remembered: This is is a great fucking band.

And then as McCrea yelled at people in the front row for taking pictures, and responded to audience requests by saying, “Thanks for the input, but we don’t want to feel like a jukebox. So what do we want to play?”, and as he launched into a tirade against the music industry, I also remembered that McCrea is still an asshole (or in need of a really big hug). A hilarious, sarcastic, droll, witty, talented asshole, but an asshole all the same.

Of course, that’s part of what gives Cake character. And if being an asshole isn’t enough to make me not date you (you know who you are…), then it sure isn’t enough to make me stop buying your records.

Since the band is on an anti-corporate (and anti-publicity) kick, the chances of them playing anywhere near here anytime soon is pretty slim. But you can get their self-released CD “B-Sides and Rarities,” with its scratch and sniff cover art, here. As for me? I’m getting another copy of Motorcade of Generosity. I suddenly have a craving to hear about birds falling from window ledges like small loaves of bread…(Molly Freedenberg)

1...253254255...279Page 254 of 279

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org