Music

WOW now

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Every January the Women on the Way Festival throws a spotlight on the performing arts as practiced by the female of the species. Not that producer Mary Alice Fry has to dig very deep in the field of dance, which is still heavily dominated by women. (For the moment we have to leave the reasons to sociologists — or perhaps psychiatrists.)

If this year’s second of three programs is any indication, the festival’s move from a tiny space on Ninth Street to Dance Mission Theater a couple years ago has blunted its funky edge. Understandably, some of the informal give-and-take that comes when artists perform practically on top of their audiences cannot be reproduced in a larger venue. But more seriously missing were a sense of discovery, the daring of something new in the making, and the need to put big ideas into a tiny space. Given more time and a larger space, artists will fill both — and not always with the best results. Maybe that’s why so much of this WOW program, which was built around dance-music collaborations, felt so drawn out, despite the enthusiasm and real competence of its dancers.

Standing high above the fray were Molissa Fenley’s two solos: Dreaming Awake, set to Philip Glass; and Four Lines, to Jon Gibson. A veteran of more than 20 years of solo dancing — though a serious injury and recent residencies at Mills College have prompted more ensemble work — Fenley is a master at saying much with little. Unadorned, almost emaciatedly spare, her movements spun long phrases that trailed and curled but were never anything but crystal clear in their trajectories. Every stretched leg and turned arm transformed space into something thinner and more transparent yet completely owned.

Fenley’s ability to make us hear the music remains a wonder. She inhabited it completely; her choreography, though meticulously crafted, seemed to flow spontaneously out of the music. Glass is not always an easy composer to listen to, but Fenley makes him so with Dreaming Awake, set to his eponymous piano piece. She roamed inside this score as if it were a home, picking up a rhythmic pattern here and anticipating a phrase there. The conversation between dance and music never stopped, and it was fascinating throughout.

Four Lines, set to Gibson’s soprano saxophone, was just as rigorously playful. Each of the four sections seemed to ride a different type of breath; in one of them Fenley found herself close to the ground. By the end of the piece, one had the sense that Gibson (performing on tape) was actually responding to the dancer — no mean trick for a choreographer to accomplish.

The rest of the WOW program also offered work that stood out, although for different reasons. Take Goat Hall Productions’ Cats, Dogs, and Divas, with libretto and direction by Harriet March Page, music by Mark Alburger, and movement direction by Fry: for some inexplicable reason this mono-opera was performed by six aspiring sopranos, most of them singing more or less on the same pitch. They were quite a sight to behold and to listen to. The subject matter of this very long, very bedraggled affair was the suggestion of father-daughter incest, apparently originally inspired by the Teutonic gods’ rather complicated family relationships. It’s good for the artists to try a humorous approach to a taboo, but this piece needs lots of therapy. Still, cheers to Fry for taking a chance on it.

The festival also offered an always-welcome opportunity to see Printz Dance Project. The company has performed full-evening concerts of Stacey Printz’s choreography for several years. Skirting the edge of jazz, hip-hop, and show dancing and driven by a strong beat, Printz has developed her own following. A beautiful performer, with one of the most eloquent backs around, she can be at once lyrical and aggressive. What Printz lacks at this point is the ability to choreograph organically so that connections grow beyond one section simply following another. Finding the Morning, inspired by a personal injury, was the strongest piece, with a solo Printz searching for a place for herself. Carlos Aguirre’s live beatboxing immensely enlivened Beat Sequitur, performed by Printz’s beautifully trained, energetic ensemble of six.

Raisa Punkki’s red Xing, set to a score by Albert Mathias, remained incomprehensible. Inspired by an E.E. Cummings poem, it rambled endlessly; Punkki and dancer Kakuti Davis Lin traded off solos that were punctuated periodically with duets in which they exchanged mysterious smiles. The poem, however, was lovely. *

WOMEN ON THE WAY PROGRAM 3

Thurs/25–Sun/28, 8 p.m., $15–$20

Dance Mission Theater

3316 24th St., SF

(415) 289-2000

www.ftloose.org

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NOISE: Mano y Germano

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The cultie fervor surrounding ex-John Mellencamp fiddle player Lisa Germano at South By Southwest last year was a thing to behold. Toss those Mellencamp associations aside – her songs were lovely that night. And it’s gravy that she has such a deliciously gruesome/goth sensibility as well – check out the cover art for her most recent album, In the Maybe World (Young God), below.

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germanoalbum.jpg

She opens for soundtrack composer Michael Brook (whose last CD she performed on; she plays in his group tonight, too) Friday, Jan. 26, at Great American Music Hall. Caw, caw.

Bus lust

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER What’s 40 feet long and 13 feet, 9 inches tall and fun all over? Sounding like a potentially lame "you’ve gotta be kidding me" joke and accelerating in Bay Area underground rockers’ imagination as a real alternative to your average bad show experience, John Benson’s converted Muni veggie-biodiesel bus is the latest in a bohemian nation’s short parade of party starters on wheels — driven by motorvators like the Merry Pranksters and Friends Forever in order to cavort, make art and sometimes community, and blow minds. Le difference is that this art ‘n’ good times vehicle is huge — able to fit an audience of 50 — and despite its whitewashed exterior, green.

Just join the scattered, happy misfits and in-the-knowsters wandering in from off the street on this particularly deserted stretch of the Mission-Potrero area Jan. 21. The bus is peacefully parked and perfectly inaudible beneath a pretzel of elevated freeway off-ramps, like the sweet overgrown offspring of Miss Open Road USA. Take a look under the hood as Benson — once in A Minor Forest and Hale Zukas and now with Evil Wikkid Warrior — opens up the works in the butt end of the bus with the cool little lookout tower on top. Two tanks hold the vegetable oil that primarily propels the bus and the diesel or biodiesel fuel that heats the radiator fluid, which keeps the vegetable oil liquid enough to course through the pipes. With a lot of help from friends, Benson spent only $300 to veggify the bus. And the beautiful part — especially to those in perpetually touring poverty-stricken bands who know what it’s like to spend all the money from a show on gas — is that he gets his fuel free from the pits of used grease behind truck stops and fast-food joints, which ordinarily pay people to take it away.

This is just the latest in a handful of vehicles Benson has vegged out (give or take a few fires caused to keep the vegetable oil flowing), including a Twin Towers dust–saturated ambulance retired after 9/11 service. In 2005, Hale Zukas ended up touring the country in the EMT vehicle alongside the mobile Friends Forever. "I really liked the whole paradigm shift of everything. People didn’t know what to expect," Benson recalls fondly. "We’d come in an ambulance, and everyone would say, ‘Someone got hurt!’ I was excited by the whole chaos and confusion and trickery, and you don’t have to rely on clubs or booking agents or soundmen." And of course there was that added sense of poetic justice, he adds, "driving it around on vegetable oil, the whole statement against the war for oil going on."

Inside the bus, far from maddened neighbors, the music goes on. Slight, skinny-mustached Carlos of Hepatitis C — in town from Bloomington, Ind., where Benson drove him around on his world-record bid to play the most shows in one day — is throwing the party. Living Hell, Ex-Pets, He-War, Noozzz, Erin Allen, and Russian Tsarlag are on the free-to-all, free-for-all bill, and Carlos runs down the street to the opposite street corner — the unofficial green room, where the bands and friends are milling — to tell them the first artist is starting. Backed by crunchy minimal beats, Sewn Leather is flailing around the small stage inside the bus, shouting, "Noise is dying, punk’s been dead, the only rock ‘n’ roll is in your head!" through a PA fed by a battery fueled by the bus’s solar panels. At one of Benson’s biggest events, which included Warhammer and Rubber-O-Cement among 13 bands, the overflow turned into a double Dutch jump-rope contest in the middle of the street. The vibe resembles a kid’s clubhouse taken to the next level — on the road and relatively off the grid.

"Another great thing about the bus is that during all that downtime usually spent staring out the window driving through Nebraska, you can actually plug in instruments. A full band can be playing in back like it’s a practice space," Benson says earlier over the phone of the bus that shall remain nameless (he likes the anonymity).

The all-ages club on wheels simply just "fell into my lap," he continued. "A retired Oakland cop was selling it, and I just saw it going by one day. It was a monstrosity."

The Oaktown police department had torn it up to convert it into a mobile police unit, he was told, and its last owner was going to remake it as a family RV. That intrepid soul was "so hilarious," Benson raves. "I was sold on it because of his personality. He was this 6-foot-7, really huge black guy with these huge hands — such a can-do person. He was sooo the antithesis of Burning Man, because my first reaction was ‘Oh, no, this is some big, gross Burning Man art-car thing.’ Being a retired cop, he said, ‘From driver’s seat back, it’s perfectly legal to rock out with your cock out’ — his exact words. ‘You can drink a fifth of JD and whatever,’ and he then did this funny little dance."

"It’s a surprising tidbit," Benson says. "You don’t have to have seat belts and can have open containers. And you can have a regular driver’s license. If the bus was any longer, you’d need a commercial license. It’s kind of shocking."

Shocking, especially when shortly after he finished converting the bus to use vegetable oil last summer, Benson took it on the road with a bunch of bands to the Freedom From Festival in Minneapolis, where they played before the Boredoms. Because of the bus’s height, they got stuck in an underpass in Chicago’s Wicker Park district. They also couldn’t get it into the Pennsylvania Turnpike and instead were forced to drive through the Poconos. "I got lost in a white-picket-fence neighborhood and was forced to turn around in this poor lady’s yard," Benson recollects. "She and her neighbors came running out, and she was, like, ‘What are you?!’ I was so busy trying to do a 20-point turn I could only yell, ‘We’re a bus!’ ‘What kind of bus are you?’ she yelled. And then someone in the bus jumped out and gave her a hug and said, ‘We’re a magic bus.’ "

You’ve gotta admit there’s a bit of magic going on when Sewn Leather finishes his riveting songs on dead lice, bad pickups, and the end of music genres and the kids pile out, over the oriental carpet cushioning on the floor, and share cookies and other comestibles outside. The cars rumble overhead, oblivious to this DIY snatch of culture-making quietly going about its beeswax. *

BUS SHOW

With the Fucking Ocean and other bands

Feb. 3, 8 p.m., free

Highway 24 overpass Shattuck and 55th St., Oakl.

followthatparade@yahoo.com

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Stand in the place where you live

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› duncan@sfbg.com

I guess I’m a snob. It’s not easy to admit, since I like to fancy myself a salt of the earth type, but there it is. I’d just assumed that after making two albums for Fat Possum, 2005’s Stairs and Elevators and last year’s amazing All This Time; opening shows for the Drive-By Truckers and Lucinda Williams; and touring clubs relentlessly in the headlining spot, the next logical step for Cincinnati’s Heartless Bastards would be a change of geography.

I’ve never been to Cincinnati. My only experience with Ohio — besides the Neil Young song — was driving through the opposite end of the state on the I-80. What’s "hi" in the middle and round on both ends? Not Ohio — seemed to me it was flat all the way across. And humid. But what do I know? The only time I stopped was to gas up and indulge in an ill-advised all-you-can-eat steak (i.e., sinew and cartilage) special at a Truckstops of America. What I am familiar with is the great rock ‘n’ roll migration tale, featuring groups such as the Dead Boys moving from Cleveland to New York, which probably had more to do with the ready availability of smack than it did with making it. The West Coast version plays itself out as a southerly flight to the home of clapped-out hair bands and cheap tacos: Los Angeles. Even our beloved Melvins, who wended their way down from Aberdeen, Wash., and lodged in San Francisco for a magic period, ended up there, chasing the dragon of rock success.

So it’s ironic that after years of thinking it was lame when bands left the Bay for a chance at the big time I’d ask Erika Wennerstrom — the vocalist, guitarist, and principle songwriter for the Heartless Bastards — if the trio were thinking of moving away from their place in the heartland. I’ve bought into the stereotype that the edges are where it happens and that the center — with the exception of Chi-town — is a cultural vacuum.

"No, not really," Wennerstrom says over the phone. "I like Ohio." If I didn’t know where she was from — Dayton, originally — I’d be baffled by her accent. There’s a lilt, a slight twang, and a flatness to it, all at once — high in the middle and round on both ends, a hominess that’s entirely absent in her soulful, from-the-gut singing voice. Isn’t it just like a snobby SF bastard to find it quaint?

"I just think if we tour enough," she continues, "we’re eventually going through enough cities anyway. Plus, sometimes you end up being part of the whole rat race. I hate to use that word," she adds hastily. "There’s lots of big cities I enjoy, but I don’t know if it’s worth having to juggle three jobs."

They may not be juggling, but the HB’s are no strangers to work: drummer Kevin Vaughn works at an incense factory in nearby Oxford, while bassist Mike Lamping works for his family business, Superior Janitor Supply, which receives a shout-out in the "Very Special Thanks" section of the new album. After the last trip around the country in a van, Wennerstrom finally felt that she’d made enough to cut back on bartending and focus on songwriting.

And maybe that’s where my whole "why don’t you move" thing comes from. Listen to Wennerstrom’s dreamy ooh-wooh-hoos over the violin and viola on "I Swallowed a Dragonfly" — "in hopes that it would help me fly" — and you’ll hear a magic that transcends punching clocks and pulling beers. All This Time is so good, it gives me this "go tell it on the mountain" feeling, which, in turn, leads to a mild bitterness: Why aren’t the Heartless Bastards famous yet? Why are they opening for Lucinda Williams, great as she is, at the Fillmore and not headlining the Fillmore? How can they win Best Rock Group and Best Album of the Year two years in a row at the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards and still be featured in Tom Moon’s "The ‘Overlooked 11’ of 2006" on NPR? Moon has the right idea, and I know I put them on my top 10 list, so who dropped the fucking ball here? And so, somewhat subliminally, my mind starts thinking that maybe it’s Ohio that’s holding them back.

But would they be as good, would the songs sound as sweetly powerful, if there was nothing quotidian to transcend? If they were ensconced in a Hollywood bubble of yes-men attesting to the brilliance of every note? I mean, Jesus, someone in Los Angeles convinced A Simple Plan that they don’t suck. Band members could get lazy if they didn’t have to make an honest living, though I’d have to add that’s what’s so damned appealing about the Heartless Bastards: there’s something honest and unassuming, something unpremeditated about their songs. Despite their name, their music clearly comes from the heart. More precisely, it comes from the hearts of working-class Ohio musicians who haven’t been feted by the same painfully out-of-touch A&R assholes who learned nothing from Nirvana’s momentary pimp-slap of the artistically bankrupt LA record industry: you can’t fabricate honesty.

"I really don’t need a lot," Wennerstrom sings on "Blue Day." "Just trying to hold on to what I got." *

HEARTLESS BASTARDS

With Beaten Awake and Ride the Blinds

Fri/26, 9 p.m., $10

12 Galaxies

2565 Mission, SF

(415) 970-9777

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Follow that bird

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By Max Goldberg


› a&eletters@sfbg.com

With so many duos still adhering to the muddied-guitar-and-drums style years after the White Stripes broke, it’s refreshing to see local twosome the Finches reaching back to an earlier, folksier model wherein melody and songwriting win out over bombast and swagger.

"We actually tried to have our friend Justin play drums at the practice space with us once, and none of us really knew what we wanted at that point," guitarist-vocalist Aaron Morgan muses over tea at a noisy café a few blocks west of the UC Berkeley campus. "And it was Justin himself who told us, ‘You know, you guys don’t really need a drummer.’ "

When the boy-girl duo of Morgan and vocalist-guitarist Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs perform, their plain-harmony vocals and soft-spoken stage patter make it a little difficult not to think of A Mighty Wind, but the earnestness is clearly paying off. I’ve seen the group play several times over the last year, and it’s hard to miss all the kids drifting by the merch table to pick up the group’s self-released EP, Six Songs, an endearing batch of tunes topped with a tender Pennypacker Riggs print showing a girl with a finch, riding off into a dreamscape of mountains and night.

That merch table will be a little busier soon with the release of the Finches’ debut, Human Like a House. The full-length feels very much like a natural growth from Six Songs, and while fans will certainly be pleased to hear more of a good thing, there are subtle surprises here too. For starters, the Pennypacker Riggs album art that so catches the eye has expanded to an accompanying book, How I Was Carried Away.

"I like to conflate the visual and the aural," she explains. "They’re kind of the same stories."

For now the duo seem grateful for the support they’ve received on their own merits and are thrilled that they’ve been added to the Revolver Distribution and the Dulc-I-Tone label rosters. "I think the word will spread about them to people who really get it," Matt Lammikins at Revolver says, "and that’s how they have gotten a weird following all over the country [the world, really] that has no rhyme or reason, and my friends still don’t know who they are…. It’s just good honest songwriting." The confidence all this has inspired shows on Human Like a House, especially in Pennypacker Riggs’s increasingly varied singing range. There are several songs here — "Last Favor" and the title track — that elaborate on the Six Songs formula: song-pirouettes in which melodies circle one another, matching up with Pennypacker Riggs’s forlorn lyrics. This balancing tends to work best when the tunes are kept short. In "June Carter Cash," for example, we get a clear-eyed snapshot of love and loss in a few rounds of the stately chord progression. The song is about the way we express our own feelings and experiences in other people’s voices and music. Hence the heartbreaking lyric "June Carter and John have flown / Now I’m ready to let you let me go."

"My favorite songs were the last we wrote," Pennypacker Riggs confesses. It shows: "Step Outside" is ebullient, the sound of the Finches falling in love, singing, "When we stop / It feels as though / We’re rolling backwards" over descending chords. Elsewhere the band leavens its duets with drums, pedal steel, and cello. The last is provided by Vetiver’s Alissa Anderson on the shimmering "Two Ghosts," a song in which Anderson’s drones seem to reel in Pennypacker Riggs’s and Morgan’s conversing guitar lines like something caught at sea.

Guest shots aside, Human Like a House is a homespun affair. The pedal steel is provided by Morgan’s father, David, who also engineered much of the recording in the family’s San Diego garage. "My dad’s just beginning to learn how to engineer recordings," Morgan explains. "This was his learning experience, which, I have to say, I think he did a nice job on." Indeed, the guitars sound a little brighter than on Six Songs, the harmonies delivered with a newfound warmth and clarity. Finishing touches were added in Pennypacker Riggs’s family garage in El Cerrito, with the vocalist’s mother contributing a recorder overdub before the duo closed the book on Human Like a House.

These production choices seem appropriate given the ground the duo treads on this album. "Owning a home [in the Bay Area] is pretty much a fantasy, a domestic fantasy," Pennypacker Riggs says when I ask her about recurrent images of homemaking. "I love this area, but I won’t be able to afford to stay here forever, which bums me out."

It’s a rootlessness all too familiar to many of us and one that Pennypacker Riggs rubs up against on Human Like a House. The album’s centerpiece, "The House under the Hill," crescendos with a chorus fleshed out with vocals by Morgan’s parents in a swelling show of support. But then, moments later, it’s just the guitars and Pennypacker Riggs’s voice again: "Alone I am nameless / And fearless and faceless." Bob Dylan might ask her, "How does it feel?" but by the end of Human Like a House, we have a pretty good idea. *

FINCHES

Sat/27, 2 p.m., free

Amoeba Music

1855 Haight, SF

(415) 831-1200

Also Wed/31, 9 p.m., $8

Cafe du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

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Czar of noir

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

One doesn’t feel far from the dark, stylized universe of classic film noir in Tosca, a long, obliquely angled bar in North Beach. It is where I am to meet Eddie Muller, the man behind San Francisco’s Noir City festival and corresponding Film Noir Foundation, a self-described "writer and cultural archaeologist" with several spry volumes of film history to his credit — alluring, fanatic titles such as Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir, Dark City Dames, and Grindhouse: The Forbidden World of "Adults Only" Cinema.

"There seems to be an almost Freudian attachment to water. The empty noir streets are almost always glistening with fresh evening rain … even in Los Angeles," writer-director Paul Schrader writes in his seminal essay "Notes on Film Noir." Now, as the afternoon darkens, the Columbus Avenue strip is dry, but the Lusty Lady’s neon glows while I wait for the bar to open. Noir’s trademark deep focus would lend itself well to the space inside, filled with the stale smoke of yesterday’s cigarettes and deep red and mahogany: it’s a romantic kind of place, a remembrance of things past. One of the many dizzying plot twists in Jacques Tourneur’s 1947 Out of the Past — perhaps the most knotty and melancholy of the noirs, a preeminent example of the genus — has Robert Mitchum’s heavy chasing after a double-cross in a North Beach bar. I think about this as Muller strides in with an easy gait. We settle in to talk, and the jukebox turns to smoky jazz: "Mood music," he says and then laughs.

Setting the mood is something Muller is exceedingly good at. The first time I met him was at the press conference for last year’s Noir City, staged at the York Hotel’s appropriately named Empire Plush Room — deep red, again, with little flutes of champagne. The nightclub decor of last year’s festival may have been sucked up by the cavernous dimensions of the Palace of Fine Arts, but the attempt to establish a kind of interstitial lobby space was a nice gesture, especially since these films are, if nothing else, about atmosphere.

After two years away, this coming installment of Noir City, the fifth, will be held at the Castro Theatre. Muller’s decision to return to the Castro — made difficult by the theater’s firing of programmer and chief Noir City collaborator Anita Monga — speaks to the emphasis he places on the moviegoing experience, as well as his deep respect for Bay Area audiences. "We struggle to get 200 people to the theater in LA," Muller muses before adding excitedly, "I mean, we get five times that many people out here. The studios can’t believe it…. I always have to be careful when I talk about the numbers." He laughs. "You want it to be great, but you don’t want it to be so great that they’re thinking, ‘Wait a second, why are we giving these guys a break on these old films?’ "

It’s no wonder that studios take note of Muller’s successes. Hollywood’s big players trot out old movies on DVD not so much from altruistic preservation impulses as from an urge to fatten the bottom line, the sense that there’s an extra buck to be made from some old holdings. The studios have a long history of neglecting their archives, but when hundreds of people come out and pay their money for Raw Deal (a tough little 1948 Anthony Mann picture opening this year’s festival), heads turn.

Muller is modest when discussing some of the DVD sets he has helped spark, but this propriety does nothing to disguise his missionary zeal. When he describes a preservation victory, such as an upcoming John Garfield DVD set, he beams. But as he mulls over decaying prints, his countenance turns worried. (Though gussied-up imprints like the Criterion Collection give the sense that the classics are safe, the films they release represent only a small fraction of what’s in the vaults.) Muller details his maneuverings for Joan Crawford films ("She is the force behind these films…. She is the auteur as much as John Waters is an auteur") and how he ended up trading 1952’s This Woman Is Dangerous for 1950’s The Damned Don’t Cry for this year’s fest. The urgency in his voice is from more than just trying to score an outrageous Crawford vehicle. "In these last five or six years," he says, "I’ve learned the possibility is very real that American culture can just decay and slip away."

Muller’s experience runs deep enough that it’s easy to forget Noir City is such a babe. A spree through three venues in five years (the festival has also run at the Balboa Theater) has a way of making a festival grow up fast, though the major renovation to Noir City has taken place behind the scenes. Formed in the autumn of 2005, the Film Noir Foundation was originally conceived of as a means to land the best available prints of rare films, something very much on Muller’s mind after his experience booking Edgar G. Ulmer’s gonzo 1945 B-movie Detour for the second Noir City.

"What I came to realize was that there are prints that are circuutf8g prints and there are prints that are archival prints," Muller says. "When we had [Detour ‘s] Ann Savage as a guest that second year, the only print in circulation of Detour was junk. I knew that the Cinémathèque Française had a print that was good, but they would never ship it to the Castro [a for-profit theater]. So that’s where the San Francisco Film Society stepped in, and they said they’d book it for us…. Altruism wasn’t my initial motivation for doing this. It was about getting the good prints."

In the time since, the Film Noir Foundation has blossomed into a vital preservation group. "It achieved a life of its own," Muller explains, "because it became a viable way to create an entity that presents a united front to the studios to show that there was a reason and a value in saving these films. In the case of The Window [a 1949 film that anticipates Hitchcock’s Rear Window] and Nobody Lives Forever [from 1946, a taut con man picture with a typically strong John Garfield performance], we’ve done the restoration and put them back in circulation, and they show at other festivals, and the film carries the Film Noir Foundation logo. It’s a way of saying [to the studios], ‘Look, if we do this, you’re going to get more bookings out of the film.’ We’re almost like a lobbying group for film noir."

For every victory like those films’ restoration — or, for that matter, bringing celebrity writers such as Denis Lehane and James Ellroy on to the foundation’s board — there are many grueling and perhaps futile battles. The foundation, for example, has located the elements and "contacted the people we need to contact," Muller says, to restore 1951’s The Prowler, an edgy feature about a sociopathic cop. The film might be a key noir, but the Film Noir Foundation hasn’t been able to fund the process (which Muller quotes at $40,000). The ultimate trick would be to get the studios to realize the potential and take on these costs themselves, and that is happening but not necessarily fast enough to keep many prints from disappearing. "Even films by major filmmakers," Muller adds. "There are Billy Wilder ones that are questionable…. [1942’s] The Major and the Minor — is anyone preserving that film?"

Muller relishes talking shop about forgotten films (this year 12 of 20 films in the Noir City program guide are marked, in red type, "RARITY!!! Never on VHS or DVD!" with one, 1949’s Abandoned, emphasized as being "RARE AS THEY COME!!!"). But it’s important to note that his programming is also deeply inclusive. Noir, like any singular, involved body of work, has its cult, but Muller’s aims are broad enough to keep the festival from feeling too much like a Trekkie convention. More important to him than his specific love of noir is his audience’s moviegoing experience.

"This is something that Anita really taught me," Muller explains. "When I was first programming, I’d try to load the program with all these rare, obscure things, and she said, ‘No, what you have to understand is that you appeal to people who get it, but they want to bring their friends and say, ‘You gotta see this! " He continues, "She was absolutely right. Show the traditional thing but book it with something obscure. Right out of the gate … [Noir City] showed The Lady from Shanghai with [the 1950 Ann Sheridan vehicle] Woman on the Run, and Woman on the Run was the rarest of the rare. No one had seen that. We filled the Castro that night, and people went nuts for that film, and that’s still the greatest moment we’ve had doing the festival."

Given Noir City’s emphasis on the big-screen experience, it might be surprising to learn that Muller himself first experienced many of the classic film noirs on late-night television. "I saw Detour for the first time at 3 a.m. on Movies ‘ Til Dawn," he reminisces. "You’re hallucinating these films. It’s great…. To have that be your first experience of Ann Savage: 3 a.m. when you’re 14 years old. You’re, like, ‘Who is this woman? ‘ "

It didn’t take long for Muller to graduate to the burgeoning rep scene in ’70s San Francisco, an era he reflects on in an aching piece ("Noir City, Our City") for Julie Lindow and R.A. McBride’s upcoming essay and photo collection about San Francisco’s dwindling movie theaters, Left in the Dark. "Theaters, as much as movies themselves, were landmarks of my early life," his contribution begins. "Films offered wishes and warnings about the life I could lead, the person I could be, but it was the movie houses that guided me through the streets and neighborhoods of San Francisco, introducing me to every nook and cranny of my 49-square-mile hometown."

It was noir that gave shape to Muller’s passion, and he’s hardly alone in this. I’ve often thought that the way the classic femme fatale seduces her doomed prey is the onscreen equivalent of the way films draw in — and obsess — their audiences. A great many movies are stylish and smart to the point of irresistibility; how many times has the promise of hard shadows and unrepentant fatalism at the theater won out over a sunny afternoon in the real world?

Famous for being vaguely defined as a species — as with folk music or modernism, there are common landmarks, but everyone seems to have their own criteria — the dark crime dramas of the ’40s were first christened film noir by French critics when the films flooded Paris en masse following the close of World War II. This was 1946 and, as it turns out, only the beginning. The grittiest, most whacked-out instances of noir, startling films such as D.O.A. and Gun Crazy (both released in 1950), Pickup on South Street (1953), and Kiss Me Deadly (1955), arrived as Americans wrestled postwar demons and Hollywood entered an identity crisis that hinged on both Communism and television.

Most experts close noir’s door at the end of the ’50s, classifying related films following 1958’s Touch of Evil as neonoir (e.g., Chinatown, Mullholland Drive). A college professor of mine considered noir less a genre than a virus: a stylish, fatalistic streak infecting normal melodramas, gangster pictures, and even westerns and comedies. This jibes with the different ways noir announces itself: sometimes in the overall tone of a film, other times in a single character or lighting setup. Definitions aside, one emergent truth is a high benchmark of quality for films under the rubric. This film species has survived the decades better than most, especially those born of Hollywood. Schrader put it this way: "Picked at random, a film noir is likely to be a better-made film than a randomly selected silent comedy, musical, western, and so on."

Schrader follows this with the observation that "film noir seemed to bring out the best in everyone: directors, cameramen, screenwriters, actors." In other words, film noirs are creditable examples of what the esteemed critic André Bazin referred to as the "genius of the system," that strange mix of artistry, economics, and streamlined collaboration that helped to define the studio era. It’s a point not lost on Muller. "There are business factors as well as artistic factors that are brought to bear," he says. "You can’t look at one without the other." During our conversation an implicit criticism of auteurism (the mode of movie critique that is interested in films in terms of their directors) begins to emerge.

Muller has his favorite directors, of course, but he’s more interested in untangling a film’s production history — the messy business of sorting out who did what — than in pontificating about why one director’s style is better than another’s. (Indeed, auteurist debates often have the quality of those childhood arguments over whether Superman would beat Batman in a fight.) There are, of course, those directors who really did shape their own work, exerting an unusual degree of control, but far more typical is someone like Robert Wise, a by-assignment director who turned in salty noirs such as 1947’s Born to Kill and 1949’s The Set-Up (a superior boxing picture that runs circles around Raging Bull ) in addition to better-known schlock like The Sound of Music.

Considering the fact that so many of noir’s characters are fallen (the forgotten man and the spurned woman), it seems all too appropriate that the achievements of many of the form’s major contributors remain unsung. To take a sterling example, cinematographer John Alton is as responsible for the noir look as any director, doing for the city landscape what John Ford did for the open West. "We always have a John Alton night [at Noir City]," Muller says. "The guy is the uncredited director of some of those pictures…. Every director’s best film is with John Alton." Accordingly, this year’s Noir City will double-feature a pair of Alton-shot films, Joseph Lewis’s top-notch late noir The Big Combo (1955) and a new 35mm print of The Spiritualist (1948).

With Noir City showing additional programs spotlighting other little-known noir luminaries such as screenwriter William Bowers (1951’s Cry Danger and 1949’s Abandoned ) and actor Charles McGraw (1949’s The Threat and 1951’s Roadblock), as well as beefcake-era Burt Lancaster (1948’s I Walk Alone and, from the same year and costarring Joan Fontaine, Kiss the Blood off My Hands), it’s clear that Muller’s emphasis on a broadened sense of film production isn’t an abstract philosophy. It’s about recognizing real people and contributions, something crystallized by the fest’s guest appearances. Actress Marsha Hunt (Raw Deal) and actor Richard Erdman (Cry Danger) will appear this year, and past festivals have featured actors Farley Granger, Sean Penn, Coleen Grey (Nightmare Alley), and, of course, Detour‘s amazing Savage.

"The greatest thing to me about having done these festivals with the original people is that it gives audiences a view of noir that is very blue-collar, on the ground," Muller muses. "They never attached the name ‘film noir’ to it, but [it’s important] to talk with the actresses and to hear firsthand what they thought they were doing, and to get the writers’ point of view, which was by and large more politicized … much more so than the directors or the producers, who are a riot because they always say, ‘We shot it that way because we didn’t have a cent.’ "

When I ask Muller how the old-school talent responds to all this attention decades after the fact, he says plainly, "I can tell you in Ann’s case, it was the greatest night of her life. I mean, she has not stopped talking about it since. In some cases, it’s almost overwhelming." Such events are increasingly a challenge to put together; 60 years outside noir’s prime, it’s not getting any easier to find the genre’s original contributors. Robert Altman, who directed one of the first key neonoirs (1976’s The Long Goodbye), died the day before my meeting with Muller. If he’s gone, one wonders, how many of the original lot can be left?

The talent, of course, isn’t the only thing disappearing. DVDs are a wonderful auxiliary format for digesting cinema, but in the case of studio films from the classical era, it seems silly to contend that something isn’t lost without the full theatrical experience. A couple of weeks ago I went to the Castro to see Casablanca, a classical classic, not an extraordinary one like, say, Citizen Kane. I’d seen the film several times but never on a screen like the Castro’s. The moments when I felt its size most acutely were the most intimate ones: those interminable close-ups on Ingrid Bergman that so revel in the star’s introspective glamour. One cannot really grasp what these close-ups were designed to do without experiencing them on this scale. Everything comes into sharper relief in the theater: the close-ups are more wrenching, the dialogue funnier, the fantasy more complete.

Toward the end of his "Noir City, Our City" essay, Muller reflects on programming Noir City: "We tried to connect the audience, in a sort of cinematic séance, with 1940s era filmmakers and filmgoers," he writes. "San Francisco theaters appropriate to such a concept comprised a short list: the Castro and Balboa were the only ones still standing with even a trace of the old-style panache that once was commonplace." According to Muller, we ought to count ourselves lucky for those two. "It doesn’t really happen anyplace else," he says, referring to the electricity of a capacity crowd at the Castro. "New York has nothing like this. The best they can do is the Film Forum…. The Film Forum fills a need, but New York does not have a venue like the Castro. It does not have audiences like this, honestly."

And so, in the end, it’s about sitting alone together in the dark. Noir films possess the dream logic and stylization that make the theater necessary and, as an added bonus, a cynical sting that disintegrates any of the sloppy moralism or cheesy gentility that might otherwise taint our experience of classical Hollywood cinema (Schrader again: they are "an uneasy, exhilarating combination of realism and expressionism"). The work Muller does with Noir City strives toward many ends, but its most important function is also its most basic — strange and seductive, the films of Noir City often remind us why we fell for the movies in the first place. *

NOIR CITY 5

Jan. 26–Feb. 4, $10 per show, $35 for opening night program and reception, $100 for full series passport

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.eddiemuller.com

www.noircity.com

The video guy

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

PREVIEW The public furor set off last November by the imminent publication of onetime football star and Avis flunky O.J. Simpson’s now-quashed book, If I Did It, on the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Simpson, and Ron Goldman, demonstrates how pivotal the 1995 Simpson trial was to so many, just as Newsweek‘s recent publication of details from a key chapter shows how much it continues to compel — and how tender the wounds remain on this country’s notions of race, justice, media, and celebrity. To many TV viewers overseas, the trial might have merely summed up the insanity of stateside news priorities when the World Cup telecast was interrupted for the Simpson Bronco chase, but for Kota Ezawa, who had just transferred from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf to the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) at the time of the trial, it was ripe, rich stuff.

The televised Simpson verdict announcement — documented in the snippet Ezawa reworked for his brilliant 2002 short animation The Simpson Verdict, now showing at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City — "was really a shock to everybody, but a very different kind of shock," Ezawa said. "It was a real kind of shock and a very strange shock because it wasn’t a bomb hitting the ground! It was just a court official saying two words, ‘Not guilty,’ and it was enough to send really huge seismic waves through the entire nation. That I find interesting — that it was so psychological, a psychological event."

Sitting at a work table scattered with paper collage scraps of fallen soldiers intended for his 2006 "The History of Photography Remix" project in a spare, white one-room studio at the corner of 16th and Mission streets, the soft-spoken, even-tempered Cologne, Germany, native in a brown hoodie seems like the last person who’d gravitate toward incendiary subject matter such as the Simpson trial. Or the assassinations of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, which are paired in his 2005 animated short The Unbearable Lightness of Being. From the aforementioned pieces to 2003’s Who’s Afraid of Black, White and Grey, Ezawa’s work boils history-making spectacle down to ultraflat pop shapes and hues — adding another layer of commentary to the race cards dealt in The Simpson Verdict. Though Ezawa’s works mimic the primitive, jerky moves of South Park, they rarely make light of history’s dark corners — rather they are minimalist meditations on memorable images, sampling, quoting, recropping, and editing visual pop ephemera and masterworks culled from our collective memory’s moving-image files.

And Ezawa’s reenvisionings, or remixes, have found a growing audience, eliciting an enthusiastic review in the New York Times for his current exhibition at Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Conn. SF Cameraworks recently feted the new Nazraeli Press volume compiling Ezawa’s "The History of Photography Remix" works, and this week the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art includes the artist in its biannual Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art (SECA) Art Award Exhibition.

"We were all enormously impressed by his practice — its clarity and range, the distinctness of his vision," SFMOMA painting and sculpture curator Janet Bishop wrote in an e-mail. "He was a top contender from the start of the award process." As a SECA award recipient, Ezawa will show parts of "The History of Photography Remix" as well as a two-screen animation, Stereo Stolen Honeymoon, which he described as a trailer for a longer adaptation of the purloined Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee wedding and honeymoon video, which the Guggenheim Museum is in talks to show.

"The Anderson-Lee tape is really most striking for how mundane it is," Bishop continued. "It has only become iconic because of our cultural response to it. Ezawa’s piece holds a mirror to our collective obsession with every tedious detail of celebrities’ lives."

A yearlong project featuring Ezawa’s idiosyncratic, hand-drawn computer animation and aided by assistant Ryan Thayer, voice actors, and assorted interns, the Anderson-Lee piece is also one of the artist’s most overtly comic pieces: the tabloid twosome’s cartoonish lifestyle slips seamlessly into Ezawa’s format as they exchange aggro vows, stroke tats, and chat up their pooch.

"I feel that I’m in the business of making moving paintings more than I’m in the business of making videos with a beginning and an end and a kind of dramatic curve," the 37-year-old self-described "video guy" confessed across his work table. "It’s a different kind of attention that people bring to a gallery or to a museum, and in that way, it almost has to work like a painting, meaning some people will watch it for 10 seconds, some people will watch it for a minute, but it really depends on how they will get grasped or not grasped by the image."

PRIMAL SCENE


The half-Japanese, half-German artist traces his own initial attempts at image-making to ancestors. "If you ask any artist, if they’re really honest, there will be something way, way, way back — even sometimes before you were born," he said with a small grin. The drawings of his great-grandfather Hans Gelderblom, an architect, made an impact, as did his Japanese forbears’ silk paintings and bronze vases.

As a child in rural southern Germany, Ezawa etched his own path with cartoon flip books and hand-cranked panorama boxes resembling TVs. "I think there’s one thing about the countryside that informed or really influenced me and why I am how I am now," he explained. "In the city I think even as a teenager there’s already these peer groups — sometimes it’s ethnic, the Latino kids or the Asian kids, some listen to punk music or some are really good at school or math. In the countryside it doesn’t really work like that — you’re just stuck with your age group, so one of your friends is a fantastic athlete and a piano genius, and your other friend is a borderline alcoholic heavy metal fan, and you all just converge and hang out. And so I think even today … I sometimes think I don’t have any taste, you know?"

That ability to switch from high to low, between mediums and messages, fed his work at the Düsseldorf art academy, where he tried his hand at photography and performance art before scoring an opportunity to study with Fluxus video art innovator Nam June Paik. "He wasn’t there a lot, but to me, he was a really big inspiration," recalled Ezawa, who made his first video in order to be in Paik’s class.

At first he put together "still videos that didn’t move at all": one of his first, I Want to Buy the Empire State Building, was made when the structure was actually for sale. Working pre-Photoshop, Ezawa used a graphic machine to print the title sentence along with his phone number, reproducing the words on a C-print before hanging it on the wall and videotaping it. Paik had the piece, along with other student works, shown at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City. "What’s similar to the videos I make today was I didn’t think of video as this entertainment format," Ezawa said. "I thought of video more as a light box. It was really just like this illuminated image coming out of the TV."

TAKING OFF ON HISTORY


Ezawa’s light-box reworking of Yves Klein’s Leap into the Void — part of "The History of Photography Remix" — looked down from an otherwise pristine wall above us. After finishing his BFA at the SFAI and his MFA at Stanford, Ezawa began teaching at California College of the Arts. While poring through the school’s slide library for a presentation on the history of photography for an introductory media arts course, he found himself thrilled: "I thought it was almost like DJing. ‘Oh yeah, this one will be really good. Maybe I’ll play this one after this one.’ " He took the Klein image home, scanned it into his computer, made a graphic sketch over the original, and kicked off his own "History," a compendium of transparencies, slides, collages, and intaglio etchings drawing on images as disparate as Ansel Adams landscapes and the surveillance shot of Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army at the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco. "That kind of became the idea for the work, to make this fake history slide show," he said.

Ezawa’s strategy stirs up the familiar cauldron of copyright issues in this age of digital reproduction. "You could call it visual hip-hop," he quipped. "But you can also call it somehow ripping off." He’s had only a few "sensitive reactions" from the creators of the original images. "I had long discussions, and it all got resolved," Ezawa said. "But with the book it was like, ‘OK, if you’re making this book and you’re ripping off tens and tens of photographs, you don’t want to have 30 angry photographers sending nasty e-mails." So in an effort to avoid a Simpson-like "legal nightmare," he contacted every shooter he sampled, and "the reaction was 95 percent very positive."

The SF artist has understandably mixed, and remixed, feelings about copyright, which he describes as being "really used to protect the interests of Walt Disney [Company] as opposed to actual artists. But then I feel like events like YouTube really help everybody and also the emergence of China as an economic player in the world, where they have Dior handbags that might say ‘Djor.’ I do think copyright might not exist much longer, though maybe long enough to ruin all of our lives."

He gave a compact chuckle. But then, the artist who once sang and played keyboards along with his wife, Karla Milosevich, in the Helen Lundy Trio seems to have his own quirky handle on the problem. "You know, like any hip-hop artist or DJ, I find my ways to manage this." *

SECA ART AWARD EXHIBITION

Jan. 27–April 22; call for additional programs; $7–$12.50 (free first Tues.; half price Thurs., 6–8:45 p.m.)

Mon.–Tues. and Fri.–Sun., 11 a.m.–5:45 p.m.; Thurs., 11 a.m.–8:45 p.m.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org

>

NOISE: Bhangra for cause, just ’cause…

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No bucks but eager to get it on, bhangra stylee? BBC Radio 1’s Bobby Friction is bringing the Project Ahimsa British Invasion tour to 111 Minna Gallery, SF, on Feb. 2.

bobbyfricsml.jpg
The face of Bobby Friction

The rarely seen-stateside DJ – known as the “Casey Kasem of the global bhangra scene” – is passing through NYC and LA as well – all in the name of charity. (He hosts Bobby & Nihal Radio Show on BBC Radio 1 as well as BBC Radio 1 Sirius Satellite Channel.) Consider the fact that when Friction appears he’ll likely be bringing music that rarely gets heard around these parts, apart from his own Net stream.

Also all funds go to SF’s Project Ahimsa, one of the first desi-founded US youth-music education charities. The group, known for its “Tablas + Turntables” program, provides instruments and teacher salaries to help disadvantaged youth in the US and the developing world. Behold the current TV video on the T+T project.

The kicker: the event is free to the first 500 who sign up here.

Now you have no excuses. Go bhangra.

NOISE: Symphony for you little devils

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I know there are oodles of deeply closeted classical freeeaaaks out there, who are far too shy to venture toward the mink stole and helmet hair cabal at Davies Hall. Good news is that the San Francisco Symphony’s Friday 6.5 Series now offers an earlier program at 6:30 p.m. than the usual 8 p.m. performance and features an intro by the conductor for the evening, accompanied by music generated by the fine members of the pit.

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SFS music director Michael Tilson Thomas leads the pack.

I think we can all agree that it’ll be nice to eat earlier than later for a change. San Francisco Symphony’s Friday 6.5 Series continues on Friday nights at 6:30 p.m. at Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF, with Lawrence Foster conductor, and Radu Lupu, piano, on Jan. 26. Coming up: Feb. 9: MTT and Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano; March 16: James Gaffigan, conductor, and Yundi Li, piano; May 4: Hans Graf, conductor, and Alexander Barantschik, violin.

TUESDAY

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JAN. 23

MUSIC

Black Lips

Atlanta quartet the Black Lips proffer reverb-y, jangly
rock that’s coated in contemporary sleaze; if you ask
’em, they’ll call it “flower punk.” The overall effect
is snotty voiced, overtly psychedelic, and straight
outta the garage — if that garage were located on The
Twilight Zone’s monster-infested Maple Street. (Cheryl
Eddy)

With the Gris Gris and Hank IV
9 p.m., $10
12 Galaxies
2565 Mission, SF
(415) 970-9777
www.12galaxies.com

MUSIC

Beth Custer

Beth Custer is all over the place. One day she’s
leading a classical string quartet in a song cycle
about Bernal Heights, the next she’s playing jazz funk
clarinet with members of the Roots, and on other days
she’s providing live musical accompaniment to
Soviet-era Georgian silent films. For this show she’ll
join a talented ensemble on an improv-heavy tour of
jazz, blues, funk, folk, and world music. (Aaron
Sankin)

With Corbi Wright, Sharon van Etten, and Coconut
9:30 p.m., $6
Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
(415) 923-0923
www.hemlocktavern.com

MONDAY

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JAN. 22

MUSIC

Tall Firs

Quiet is the new loud — all the cool kids are saying
so! Take New York’s Tall Firs. Evoking visions of
Sonic Youth road-tripping through the most sorrowful
of rustic landscapes, this three-piece fashions a
narcotic folk blues out of dazzlingly haunting
twin-guitar interplay and broodingly languid vocals.
(Todd Lavoie)

With Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton
8 p.m., $18
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell, SF
(415) 885-0750
www.gamh.com

EVENT

Roe v. Wade anniversary party

Celebrate with Planned Parenthood the 34th anniversary
of Roe v. Wade with a discussion on the status of
reproductive rights in the United States,
multigenerational and multicultural reports on
abortion experiences, and performances by local
artists. (Deborah Giattina)

7 p.m., $10 El Rio
3158 Mission, SF
(415) 282-3325
www.elriosf.com

SUNDAY

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JAN. 21

MUSIC

Entrance

When I was young, white guys playing the blues made my
bowels angry. Mercifully, my gastrointestinal health
was restored by Led Zeppelin, and eventually a diet of
the Gun Club, Nick Cave, and then the White Stripes
kept me in the clear. Now I feed myself great big gobs
of Entrance. Mastermind Guy Blakeslee’s ominous fever
dreams are a vein-melting rendition of the blues
inspired just as much by punk nihilism as the demons
of the Mississippi Delta. (Todd Lavoie)

With White White Quilt and the Dryspells
9 p.m., $8
12 Galaxies
2565 Mission, SF
(415) 970-9777
www.12galaxies.com

EVENT

Return to the Caffe Cino

Off-Broadway, let alone off-off-Broadway, wouldn’t
exist without the great Caffe Cino, the ill-fated Joe
Cino’s pre-Factory underground mecca. This week brings
Return to the Caffe Cino, a near-encyclopedic tome
featuring play excerpts, photos, and memoirs, with an
intro by Edward Albee. Join editors Steve Susoyev and
George Birmisa at a book-launch bash that’s the
literary equivalent of the premiere of The Cockettes.
(Johnny Ray Huston)

Sun/21, 2–4 p.m., free
San Francisco Main Library, Koret Auditorium
100 Larkin, SF
www.movingfingerpress.com

SATURDAY

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JAN. 20

FILM

Ocean Film Festival

You can keep your March of the Penguins — I’m more a
march-of-the-creepy-crawlies gal, so I’ll be happy as
a clam at the San Francisco Ocean Film Festival when I
check out The World of the Gastropods, by Danny van
Belle, a slow-motion video on the deep-sea environment
of the nudibranch and the sea snail. The second
ocean-related film festival in the world, this series
of seven programs of short films ranges in topic from
life in an Australian whaling village to a slumside
surfing school in Rio de Janeiro. (Nicole Gluckstern)

Also Sun/21; see Web site for times
$10 individual programs; $60 festival pass
Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center
Marina at Laguna, SF
(415) 561-6251
www.oceanfilmfest.org

MUSIC

Rhett Miller

Rhett Miller is probably as well known for his great
contributions to alt-country as he is for being an
indie heartthrob. The singer and principal songwriter
for the rock-laced country quartet the Old 97’s wrote
the melodic title track on his recent solo release,
The Believer (Verve Forecast, 2006), as a reaction to
the tragic suicide of his friend, musician Elliott
Smith. Don’t worry: the album has a lighter side. The
rest of The Believer, according to Miller, was
inspired by “sex, war, love, and death … but mostly
sex.” (Hayley Elisabeth Kaufman)

With Gran Bel Fisher
7:30 p.m., $25
Swedish Music Hall
2170 Market, SF
(415) 861-5016
www.cafedunord.com

FRIDAY

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JAN. 19

MUSIC

Experimental Audio Research

Experimental Audio Research sounds more like something
that would happen in a top-secret section of Lawrence
Berkeley National Lab, not at a rock show. E.A.R. is
the project of avant-rock eccentric Sonic Boom, whose
bombastic pseudonym conveys his distortion-heavy
musical niche. Boom, one of the founding members of
the now defunct Spaceman 3, brings together science
and rock ’n’ roll, dissonance and structured harmony,
and premeditation and improvisation to fuel the
creative process. (Hayley Elisabeth Kaufman)

With LSD and the Search for God and Fuxa
9:30 p.m., $10 Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
(415) 923-9023
www.hemlocktavern.com

FILM

Tales of the San Joaquin and Affluenza

Liberals and conservatives may clash on politics, but
both extremes love hot, sweaty guilt. So when
proactive media comes along to help the wayward masses
channel guilt into action, it’s worth driving past 85
McDonald’s to find out how you too can save our
dissolving, decomposing, and devolving nation.
Humanist Hall’s double feature of Tales of the San
Joaquin (about river pollution) and the snarkily
titled Affluenza (about the sickness of American
consumerism) should help ease the self-reproach. (Sara
Schieron)

7:30 pm, $5
Humanist Hall
390 27th St., Oakl.
(510) 451-5818
www.humanisthall.net

THURSDAY

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JAN. 18

MUSIC

Piers Faccini

Could there be a more unlikely combination of
characters than an introspective, globe-trotting
European (Piers Faccini) who creates delicate
dreamscapes as both a songwriter and a painter; a
multicultural DJ (DJ Felina) with a tropical vibe; and
a couple of brash local indie bands (Boy in the
Bubble, Sir Salvatore) all sharing one bill? It’s fun
for the whole family — those over 21, that is. (Nicole
Gluckstern)

9 p.m., $7
Hotel Utah
500 Fourth St., SF
(415) 546-6300
www.thehotelutahsaloon.com

VISUAL ART

“Henry Wessel: Photographs” and “R. Crumb: Drawings”

Just one look is all it takes to become smitten with
the 65-year-old photographer’s singular, sardonic
perspective on subjects such as real estate and
settings such as San Francisco. Henry Wessel’s images
of California in the ’70s are as laconically sharp and
languidly iconic as David Hockney’s poolside paintings
from the same area and era. This gallery show of
selected early work — paired with café placemat
drawings by R. Crumb — is a fine appetizer for an
upcoming Wessel exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. (Johnny Ray Huston)

Through Feb. 24, 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m., free
Rena Bransten Gallery
77 Geary, SF
(415) 982-3292
www.renabranstengallery.com

Idol musings

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Is there any escape from the tractor beam–pull influence of American Idol? Can someone do me a favor and put a plug in Paula Abdul’s histrionics, leash the dawgs of Randy Jackson, douse the frat-boy smirk on Ryan Seacrest’s mug, or, reluctantly, hold back the refreshing wave of honest harshitude rolling off Simon Cowell? And while you’re up, get me a High Life, hand me the channel changer, and take a socket wrench to that persistent leak of CDs by Idol alums. Winners and also-rans are far too prevalent on the charts — they’re essentially ruining my poppy good times, apart from the odd Kelly Clarkson guilty pleasure. The past few months saw the release of a second album of almost too stolidly respectful R&B by Ruben Studdard, The Return (J); an already gold-certified, lustily voiced and eclectic but undistinguished pop-rock self-titled debut by Taylor Hicks (Arista); and my star-studded fave, Fantasia, by Fantasia Barrino, who put together a contempo, Kelis-like, pop Afro-futurist collection with input from OutKast’s Big Boi, Gnarls Barkley’s Cee-Lo, Missy Elliott, and Swizz Beats. If I hadda listen idol-ly to someone, I guess I’d pop the baby mama on — you’ll be thinking you’re dreaming, girl, when you realize Fantasia actually sounds better than B’Day.

Adore it or abhor it, the phenom starts all over again Jan. 16, playing to our fondness for rags-to-riches stories and let’s-put-on-a-show moxie, our identification with those kids belting their hearts out in gladiatorial thumbs-up-thumbs-down cutthroat competition, our cynical identification with the judges’ stringent assessments, and our resurgent belief in a seemingly democratic process (know anyone who has ever voted?). Despite the scrappy likability and self-conscious modernity of Barrino’s second disc, it’s not to Idol fans’ tastes, methinks, judging from the supposed 230,000 or so CDs sold, in contrast with the 5-mil-plus number Clarkson is bringing down. Yippee, it’s the return of the blockbuster-minded music industry! So, barring catfights and embarrassing "hee-haw at Hung" moments, I think I’ll pass on season six, despite the benediction of approval bestowed by artists such as Prince and Mary J. Blige in season five.

Why? Maybe I like my idols weaned on something more original and less cliché than the Motown and Beatles songbooks. Maybe idols shouldn’t be quite so predigested and programmatic — so that contestants like Tamyra Gray won’t be dropped from their labels when they demand to write their albums.

There’s a place for pop, perhaps — this is a popularity contest, after all — and the fact that the show includes a songwriting competition this season should throw a new wrinkle into the mix of predictable boomer standards. Well, hell, why not ask aspirants to write their own songs? At the risk of turning this into a teary-eyed singer-songwriter showdown, I’d venture that approach would weed out a slew of vacuous, empty-vessel warblers.

Anyway, singing for your supper or at least your next career change seems pro forma. The game-ification of the pop cult draws amateur hopefuls and sporting observers alike, and the Recording Academy’s entry into the ring with its "My Grammy Moment" campaign, in which a dozen finalists vie to play beta pup to Justin Timberlake’s alpha dog at the 49th annual Grammy Awards, seems to bear me out. Watchers can log on to Yahoo! Music and view the audition videos of prospective sexy backups and vote online or via text message for the top five finalists, who will be announced Jan. 17. Voting continues, sports fans, till the lot are winnowed down to the top three on Super Bowl weekend, with the winner announced live at the Grammys on Feb. 11 before his or her live moment with Timby (who seems to be surfing the trend of recent celeb breakups right into In-N-Out).

Among the oodles of original video submissions are entries from Bay Area–esque finalists Jayne Rio of Vallejo, Mandy Ventrice of Pittsburg, and Philip Ray, formerly of Oakland. I asked the 28-year-old Ray, a graphic designer now living in Los Angeles, last week about his simultaneously unusual and mundane clip, in which he fluidly multitasks behind the wheel, driving through a medley of Whitney Houston and other Grammy-winning songs (the branding never sleeps). "It was a time thing," he ‘fessed. "I knew a deadline was approaching, and I have a tiny camera. I was on the way to El Pollo Loco, and I thought it would be a different way to approach it. That was my effort to make me stand out — most people sing in cars, so I thought … people would relate to it."

The son of Rev. Dr. CJ Anderson, who Ray says staged numerous musical events to raise money for the needy in the Bay Area, the contestant recalled catching benefit concerts at Pete Escovedo’s club until he moved south in 1996. Nowadays he writes songs and dreams of developing community centers that will cultivate unsigned vocalists and musicians. Praising Timberlake for the "way he navigated his career" and citing "Losing My Way" as his favorite JT song, the earnest Ray isn’t petrified by the possibility of working his wiles on a Grammy mob of pros. "It’s my ultimate dream. Aside from just being hungry for the opportunity, I think I’m going to try to use any opportunity to carve out a career as successful as Justin Timberlake’s."

Maybe I listened to too much punk as a tot, but as amiable as Ray is, that sort of bald careerism — as much a part of American Idol as actual performance — gives my perhaps rockist-tinged heart pause. I know pop has other uses beyond validating my romantic notion of self-sabotaging, autodestructing, doo-doo-dappling antistars, and American Idol and "My Grammy Moment" may be opening the playing field to new voices, but how fresh can it all be, given the validating arena they’re competing in? When I see, for instance, Big Boi, Elliott, Devendra Banhart, Prince, Thurston Moore, the Wu-Tang Clan, and Radiohead fill the judges’ shoes full-time, I’ll climb back on the couch. *

music.yahoo.com

Open mind music

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Do you ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated? Not to misinterpret the question asked by a sneering Johnny Lydon of a San Francisco crowd as his band was self-destructing onstage at the now-defunct Winterland Ballroom almost 30 years ago, but seriously, folks, life seems unfair sometimes. In other words, here’s a sensible afterthought for your musical mind: there are simply too many damn bands at our fingertips, and sometimes we’re only lucky enough to encounter a handful of the really good ones. You might find yourself uttering regrets like "Fuck! I missed them play at that dingy hole-in-the-wall last year," and unfortunately you now have to settle for the mega-rock-star treatment as the same group works its charms on an enraptured crowd arena-style. So the story goes — rock ‘n’ roll can be a bitch.

The Curtains’ Chris Cohen is more optimistic, however.

"I try to let chance determine what I get to hear now because there’s so much music to choose from," the vocalist and guitarist of the Oakland trio confesses over coffee at Atlas Cafe in the Mission District. And though Cohen is reluctant to put his finger on any particular band that might get his musical juices pumping, he does divulge that most of the combos he encounters nowadays are his friends’ groups or supporting ensembles on tour.

"I really like when you don’t have any prior knowledge of the band, because then you can go at it with an open mind," he adds.

Such was my experience with Cohen’s project. My first exposure to the Curtains was on a chilly November night last year when I roamed over to Oakland to catch Mount Eerie’s performance at a packed 21 Grand. With no particular expectations, I leaned against a wall and watched the threesome set up their instruments. But as the band greeted the crowd with chiming keyboards and palm-muted guitar strums, my semi-inebriated attention was held and then kicked into deep interest.

Onstage, Cohen — along with guitarist-percussionist-vocalist Nedelle Torrisi and keyboardist-percussionist-vocalist Annie Lewandowski — exchanged smiles and jammed on quiet, twee pop–imbued ditties. The band’s lighthearted enthusiasm mirrored Beat Happening, while their cheerful harmonies and bubblegum-savvy melodies channeled the Softies and the Vaselines. The mood was buoyant and comfortable as the members sat in place and toyed with electric guitars, a single drum, and a wood block on one song after another.

CALAMITY TAMED


The aural beauty that floats from stereo speakers on the Curtains’ fourth album, Calamity (Asthmatic Kitty), tells a different story. Performed and recorded almost entirely by Cohen during December 2005, the album is drenched with sunny, ’60s-style psych pop and art rock experimentalism. Calamity at times evokes Smile-era Brian Wilson and early T. Rex with songs such as "Green Water" and "Invisible String," while treading into cozier-sounding territory on the opener, "Go Lucky." As intimate piano strides and acoustic guitar glide forth, Cohen’s Neil Young–ish chirp complements the melody: "Go, go, go you lucky one / You, you, you stop anywhere that someone sets you down / No, no, no spots anywhere / You, you, you will just spin me around."

But to Cohen, the Curtains aren’t trapped in a musical time warp. It’s all about what’s accessible to him at the moment.

"For that album I made a conscious decision to make something that wasn’t too fancy as far as the sound goes," he explains. "I wanted to use the sounds that were most easily available to me, which are guitar, bass, and my dad’s piano."

"I wanted it to sound very warm and personal," Cohen continues. "However, the sound of it wasn’t something so much that I had in mind but the effect that I wanted it to have on people, which was to be uplifting and make the listener feel happy. The music I value the most is the kind that takes me out of my life and makes me feel hopeful."

NEW STAGES


Since 2000, Cohen has had the Curtains in his crosshairs. Cofounded by Cohen and Trevor Shimizu, the group went through a couple of incarnations, occasionally including Andrew Maxwell, Satomi Matsuzaki, and Greg Saunier. After releasing three full-lengths, Cohen put the Curtains on hiatus in 2003 so he could join Matsuzaki and Saunier in Deerhoof. After several albums with that band, Cohen left last year to focus on his own projects.

"The Curtains before was something we would do in really brief spurts," Cohen says. "We would have a show, do a tour, and then rehearse for two weeks. I didn’t want to do it like that anymore. I wanted to make it a regular thing."

According to Deerhoof drummer and ex-Curtains member Saunier, Cohen had recorded 99 percent of Calamity before he revealed that he wanted to leave Deerhoof. "We listened to it in the car on tour, and I was stunned. It was like a garden of ideas and melodies — no two alike — everything asymmetrical and ravishingly beautiful," Saunier writes in an e-mail. "Every night I’d go to sleep fantasizing about how great the next Deerhoof record was going to be with all these hits on there. Then Chris shattered my dreams. But it’s OK, the Curtains deserve an album this beautiful in their catalog…. The Curtains are like the Jean-Luc Godard of the SF music scene, everything is so human and exposed, which, of course, takes way more nerve than any hipster’s posturing. The Curtains know no rule book for how you write songs — they write their own rule book from the spasms of the imagination. They have my undying admiration."

Cohen admits that while recording the album, he wasn’t sure whether to stamp the Curtains’ name on it, because his approach to the recording was so different from his past endeavors.

"Everything with the Curtains has always been done out of necessity," he says, going on to explain that he only had a limited amount of time to work on the music, so he played all the instruments himself.

Though Calamity includes guest vocals by Torrisi and Yasi Perera as well as musical contributions from Half-Handed Cloud leader and Sufjan Stevens chum John Ringhofer, Cohen had to rethink the album in terms of its live re-creation. "When I was making it, I wasn’t thinking of anybody else performing the music, which has made it difficult to now perform it as a band," he says. "I didn’t think anyone else would be interested, and then Nedelle was, like, ‘I want to play in a band again. Can I play in your band?’ "

After Torrisi and Lewandowski joined the Curtains, Cohen says he became "excited about playing new music again in a band with new people."

"Something that’s been really fun now is that everybody has been singing and working on harmonies," Cohen says, "and that’s something no other version of the band has done." The band doesn’t have a big repertoire, he adds, so the trio keep throwing out the songs that don’t work.

Cohen also admits that the idea of even having vocals in his band is relatively new. "I really wasn’t interested in vocals for a long time. I felt like I just wanted to make music that was really abstract, and I just didn’t have anything I wanted to sing about."

But Cohen’s vision seems to have changed with the addition of Torrisi and Lewandowski. In essence, the Curtains are starting over from scratch and fashioning Calamity‘s catchy pop into their own.

"To me, the Curtains has always been a pop band," Cohen explains. "I want it to be music that anyone can understand and enjoy. It fits into the limited amount of time that pop music seems to inhabit people’s lives." *

CURTAINS

With Sic Alps and Okay

Fri/19, 10 p.m., $7

Knockout

3223 Mission, SF

(415) 550-6994

www.theknockoutsf.com

>

Dine Listings

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Welcome to our dining listings, a detailed guide by neighborhood of some great places to grab a bite, hang out with friends, or impress the ones you love with thorough knowledge of this delectable city. Restaurants are reviewed by Paul Reidinger (PR) or staff. All area codes are 415, and all restaurants are wheelchair accessible, except where noted.

B Breakfast

BR Saturday and/or Sunday brunch

L Lunch

D Dinner

AE American Express

DC Diners Club

DISC Discover

MC MasterCard

V Visa

¢ less than $7 per entrée

$ $7–$12

$$ $13–$20

$$$ more than $20

DOWNTOWN/EMBARCADERO

Acme Chophouse brings Traci des Jardins’s high-end meat-and-potatoes menu right into the confines of Pac Bell Park. Good enough to be a destination, though stranguutf8g traffic is an issue on game days. (Staff) 24 Willie Mays Plaza, SF. 644-0240. American, L/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.

Café Claude is a hidden treasure of the city center. There is an excellent menu of traditional, discreetly citified French dishes, a youthful energy, and a romantic setting on a narrow, car-free lane reminiscent of the Marais. (PR, 10/06) 7 Claude Lane, SF. 392-3515. French, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Fleur de Lys gives its haute French cuisine a certain California whimsy in a setting that could be the world’s most luxurious tent. There is a vegetarian tasting menu and an extensive, remarkably pricey wine list. (PR, 2/05) 777 Sutter, SF. 673-7779. French, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Mandarin, though a Gen Xer by birth and a longtime resident of touristy Ghirardelli Square, still offers a matchlessly elegant experience in Chinese fine dining: a surprising number of genuinely spicy dishes, superior service, and wine emphasized over beer. (PR, 9/04) 900 North Point (in Ghirardelli Square), SF. Chinese, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

*Mijita shows that Traci des Jardins can go down-market with the best of them. The Mexican street food is convincingly lusty, but in keeping with the Ferry Building setting, it’s also made mostly with organic, high-quality ingredients. (PR, 4/05) 1 Ferry Bldg, Suite 44, SF. 399-0814. Mexican, B/L/D, ¢, AE/MC/V.

Tlaloc rises like a multistory loft on its Financial District lane, the better to accommodate the hordes of suits crowding in for a noontime burrito-and-salsa fix. They serve a mean pipián burrito and decent fish tacos. (Staff) 525 Commercial, SF. 981-7800. Mexican, L/D, ¢, AE/MC/V.

Tommy Toy’s Haute Cuisine Chinois is a cross between a steak house and The Last Emperor. The food is rich and fatty and only occasionally good. (Staff) 655 Montgomery, SF. 397-4888. Chinese, L/D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

NORTH BEACH/CHINATOWN

Gondola captures the varied flavors of Venice and the Veneto in charmingly low-key style. The main theme is the classic one of simplicity, while service strikes just the right balance between efficiency and warmth. (Staff) 15 Columbus, SF. 956-5528. Italian, L/D, $, MC/V.

House of Nanking never fails to garner raves from restaurant reviewers and Guardian readers alike. Chinatown ambience, great food, good prices. (Best Ofs, 1994) 919 Kearny, SF. 421-1429. Chinese, L/D, ¢.

Maykadeh Persian Cuisine is a great date restaurant, classy but not too pricey, and there are lots of veggie options both for appetizers and entrées. Khoresht bademjan was a delectable, deep red stew of tomato and eggplant with a rich, sweet, almost chocolatey undertone. (Staff) 470 Green, SF. 362-8286. Persian, L/D, $, MC/V.

Moose’s is famous for the Mooseburger, but the rest of the menu is comfortably sophisticated. The crowd is moneyed but not showy and definitely not nouveau. (Staff) 1652 Stockton, SF. 989-7800. American, BR/L/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.

Rose Pistola cooks it up in the style of Liguria, and that means lots of seafood, olive oil, and lemons — along with a wealth of first-rate flat breads (pizzas, focaccias, farinatas) baked in the wood-burning oven. (PR, 7/05) 532 Columbus, SF. 399-0499. Italian, L/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.

Washington Square Bar and Grill offers stylish Cal-Ital food at reasonable prices in a storied setting. (Staff) 1707 Powell, SF. 982-8123. Italian, $$, L/D, MC/V.

SOMA

Hawthorne Lane remains at the top of the city’s restaurant heap after more than a decade. Bridget Batson’s modern California cuisine is first-rate, the ambience a perfection of understated elegance, and the service knowledgeable, friendly, and smooth. It is not possible to ask more from any restaurant. (PR, 9/06) 22 Hawthorne, SF. 777-9779. California, L/D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Julie’s Supper Club and Lounge II preserves the name of a longtime SoMa institution while bringing a new fusion menu to the table. The food at its best is innovative — a sushi-like presentation of somen noodles, an asparagus version of pigs in a blanket — but prices are a little high for what you get. Excellent atmospherics. (PR, 11/06) 1123 Folsom, SF. 864-1222. Fusion/eclectic, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Koh Samui and the Monkey joins a high-value Thai menu with a spare, hip SoMa warehouse look. The sweet-hot food tends more toward the former than the latter but is excellent nonetheless. As for heat, check out the youngish crowd in their crest-of-1999, dot-com finery. (PR, 1/07) 415 Brannan, SF. 369-0007. Thai, L/D, $, MC/V.

Oola gives Ola Fendert his own platform at last, and the result is a modern, golden SoMa restaurant with a menu that mixes playful opulence with local standards. (PR, 10/04) 860 Folsom, SF. 995-2061. California, D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Roy’s Restaurant promises "Hawaiian fusion" cuisine, but while there are island touches (macadamia nuts turn up in various guises), the place seems right at home on Mission Street. The cooking, once noted for a certain overwroughtness, has become elegantly restrained, and a three-course $35 prix fixe dinner is one of the better deals of its kind around town. (PR, 12/06) 575 Mission, SF. 777-0277. Hawaiian/fusion, L/D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Salt House offers a nice Ludwig Mies van der Rohe-tours-a-19th-century-factory look and utterly up-to-date California pub food, an entertaining hodgepodge that ranges from a crock of house-picked vegetables to panko-crusted mackerel to an oozingly moist chocolate Bundt cake, still warm from the oven, plus interesting proprietary-blend wines. (PR, 12/06) 545 Mission, SF. 543-8900. California/pub, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

NOB HILL/RUSSIAN HILL

Ah Lin offers Mandarin-style Chinese cooking in an easy-to-take storefront setting on Cathedral Hill. The dishes are well behaved and tasty, with only an occasional flare-up of chile heat. The roast duck is one of the best deals in town. (PR, 10/06) 1634 Bush, SF. 922-5279. Chinese, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Alborz looks more like a hotel restaurant than a den of Persian cuisine, but there are flavors here — of barberry and dried lime, among others — you won’t easily find elsewhere. (Staff) 1245 Van Ness, SF. 440-4321. Persian, L/D, $, MC/V.

East Coast West Delicatessen doesn’t look like a New York deli (too much space, air, light), but the huge, fattily satisfying Reubens, platters of meat loaf, black-and-white cookies, and all the other standards compare commendably to their East Coast cousins. (Staff) 1725 Polk, SF. 563-3542. Deli, BR/L/D, $, MC/V.

La Folie could be a neighborhood spot or a destination or both, but either way or both ways it is sensational: an exercise in haute cuisine leavened with a West Coast sense of informality and playfulness. There is a full vegetarian menu and an ample selection of wines by the half bottle. (PR, 2/06) 2316 Polk, SF. 776-5577. French, D, $$$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

O’Reilly’s Holy Grail, a redo of the old Maye’s Oyster House that strikes harmonious notes of chapel and lounge, serves a sophisticated and contemporary Cal-Irish menu. (PR, 10/05) 1233 Polk, SF. 928-1233. California/Irish, BR/L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

CIVIC CENTER/TENDERLOIN

Ananda Fuara serves a distinctly Indian-influenced vegetarian menu in the sort of calm surroundings that are increasingly the exception to the rule. (Staff) 1298 Market, SF. 621-1994. Vegetarian, L/D, ¢, cash only.

*Bodega Bistro has a certain colonial formality — much of the menu is given in French — and it does attract a tony expat crowd. The food is elegant but not fancy (lobster, rack of lamb, both simply presented); if even those are too much, look to the "Hanoi Street Cuisine" items. (PR, 11/05) 607 Larkin, SF. 921-1218. Vietnamese, L/D, $$, DC/DISC/MC/V.

Mangosteen radiates lime green good cheer from its corner perch in the Tenderloin. Inexpensive Vietnamese standards are rendered with thoughtful little touches and an emphasis on the freshest ingredients. (PR, 11/05) 601 Larkin, SF. 776-3999. Vietnamese, L/D, $, cash only.

*Saha serves "Arabic fusion cuisine" — a blend of the Middle East and California — in a cool, spare setting behind the concierge’s desk at the Hotel Carlton. One senses the imminence of young rock stars, drawn perhaps by the lovely chocolate fondue. (PR, 9/04) 1075 Sutter, SF. 345-9547. Arabic/fusion, B/BR/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

HAYES VALLEY

Arlequin offers light Provençal and Mediterranean food for takeout, but the best place to take your stuff is to the sunny, tranquil garden in the rear. (Staff) 384B Hayes, SF. 863-0926. Mediterranean, B/L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Canto do Brasil The draw here is lusty yeoman cooking, Brazilian style, at beguilingly low prices. The tropically cerulean interior design enhances the illusion of sitting at a beach café. (Staff) 41 Franklin, SF. 626-8727. Brazilian, L/D, $, MC/V.

Destino reweaves traditional Peruvian flavors into a tapestry of extraordinary vividness and style, and the storefront interior has been given a golden glow that would have satisfied the most restless conquistador. (Staff) 1815 Market, SF. 552-4451. Peruvian, D, $$, MC/V.

Hayes Street Grill started more than a quarter century ago as an emulation of the city’s old seafood houses, and now it’s an institution itself. The original formula — immaculate seafood simply prepared, with choice of sauce and French fries — still beats vibrantly at the heart of the menu. Service is impeccable, the setting one of relaxed grace. (PR, 7/06) 816 Folsom, SF. 863-5545. Seafood, L/D, $$$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

Sauce enjoys the services of chef Ben Paula, whose uninhibited California cooking is as easy to like as a good pop song. (PR, 5/05) 131 Gough, SF. 252-1369. California, D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

CASTRO/NOE VALLEY/GLEN PARK

Ararat Mediterranean Tapas affords the view-minded a good setting from which to scope the foot traffic at 18th Street and Castro, along with a Turkish-scented Mediterranean menu rich in small plates and some bigger ones too. The menu’s smash hits include coins of lavash-wrapped beef (a kind of Middle Eastern beef Wellington), an enslavingly good shrimp casserole, and a coil of baklava with lavender honey. (PR, 8/06) 4072 18th St, SF. 252-9325. Mediterranean/Turkish, BR/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Eureka Restaurant and Lounge combines, in the old Neon Chicken space, a classic Castro sensibility (mirrors everywhere, fancy sparkling water) with a stylish all-American menu that reflects Boulevard and Chenery Park bloodlines. Prices are high. (PR, 12/06) 4063 18th St. SF. 431-6000. American, D, $$$, AE/MC/V.

*Firefly remains an exemplar of the neighborhood restaurant in San Francisco: it is homey and classy, hip and friendly, serving an American menu — deftly inflected with ethnic and vegetarian touches — that’s the match of any in the city. (PR, 9/04) 4288 24th St, SF. 821-7652. American, D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Toast welcomes families with little children — pancakes from dawn to dusk! — as well as monied young adults, who tend to gather for weekend brunch. The deli-ish menu emphasizes sandwiches, but care is taken in the details, from a bewitching bit of paprika in the lentil soup to generous parmesan shavings and fresh croutons on the Caesar salad. (PR, 1/07) 1748 Church, SF. 282-4328. American, B/BR/L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

2223 could easily be a happening queer bar, what with all that male energy. But the American menu joins familiarity with high style, and the ambience is that of a great party where you’re bound to meet somebody hot. (Staff) 2223 Market, SF. 431-0692. American, BR/D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.

HAIGHT/COLE VALLEY/WESTERN ADDITION

*Frankie’s Bohemian Cafe has Pilsner Urquell, a Bohemian beer, on tap for a touch of Czech authenticity, but the crowd is young, exuberant, Pacific Heights, het. Follow the crowd and stick with the burgers. (PR, 2/05) 1682 Divisadero, SF. 921-4725. Czech/American, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Grandeho’s Kamekyo Sushi Bar Always packed, Grandeho serves up excellent sushi along with a full Japanese menu. (Staff) 943 Cole, SF. 759-5693. Japanese, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Hukilau brings a dash of Big Island conviviality — and Big Island (i.e., big) portions — to a wind- and traffic-swept corner of the big city. Spam too, if you want it. (Staff) 5 Masonic, SF. 921-6242. Hawaiian/American, BR/L/D, $, MC/V.

Kate’s Kitchen dishes up the best scallion-cheese biscuits out west. The lines on the weekends can be long. (Staff) 471 Haight, SF. 626-3984. American, B/L, ¢.

Metro Cafe brings the earthy chic of Paris’s 11th arrondissement to the Lower Haight, prix fixe and all. (Staff) 311 Divisadero, SF. 552-0903. French, B/BR/L/D, $, MC/V.

New Ganges Restaurant is short on style — it is as if the upmarket revolution in vegetarian restaurants never happened — but there is a homemade freshness to the food you won’t find at many other places. (Staff) 775 Frederick, SF. 681-4355. Vegetarian/Indian, L/D, $, MC/V.

Tsunami Sushi and Sake Bar brings hip Japanese-style seafood to the already hip Café Abir complex. Skull-capped sushi chefs, hefty and innovative rolls. (Staff) 1306 Fulton, SF. 567-7664. Japanese/sushi, D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Zoya takes some finding — it is in the little turret of the Days Inn Motor Lodge at Grove and Gough — but the view over the street’s treetops is bucolic, and the cooking is simple, seasonal, direct, and ingredient driven. (PR, 12/05) 465 Grove, SF. 626-9692. California, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

MISSION/BERNAL HEIGHTS/POTRERO HILL

Aslam’s Rasoi reinvents a gently fading curry house as a high-powered rival to Dosa, in the next block. The food is fiery and elegant, and the menu strikes a fine balance between fleshly and fleshless choices. Desserts are not bad, particularly kulfi, a house-made cardamom ice cream presented like a frozen sliced banana. (PR, 8/06) 1037 Valencia, SF. 695-0599. Indian/Pakistani, D, $$, MC/V.

Baobab Bar and Grill serves great-tasting West African specialties like couscous, fried plantains, and savory rice dishes for a reasonable price. (Staff) 3388 19th St, SF. 643-3558. African, BR/D, ¢.

Baraka takes the French-Spanish tapas concept, gives it a beguiling Moroccan accent — harissa, preserved lemons, merguez sausage — and the result is astonishingly good food. (Staff) 288 Connecticut, SF. 255-0370. Moroccan/Mediterranean, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Blue Plate has a diner aura — bustle, clatter — but the Mediterranean food is stylishly flavorful. A great value. (Staff) 3218 Mission, SF. 282-6777. Mediterranean, D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Bombay Ice Cream and Chaat Stop in for some Indian chaat — cheap, delicious fast food such as samosas and curries. (Staff) 552 Valencia, SF. 431-1103. Indian takeout, L/D, ¢.

Caffe d’Melanio is the place to go if you want your pound of coffee beans roasted while you enjoy an Argentine-Italian dinner of pasta, milanesa, and chimichurri sauce. During the day the café offers a more typically Cal-American menu of better-than-average quality. First-rate coffee beans. (PR, 10/04) 1314 Ocean, SF. 333-3665. Italian/Argentine, B/L/D, $, MC/V.

Chez Papa Bistro sits like a beret atop Potrero Hill. The food is good, the staff’s French accents authentic, the crowd a lively cross section, but the place needs a few more scuffs and quirks before it can start feeling real. (Staff) 1401 18th St, SF. 824-8210. French, BR/L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

*Delfina has grown from a neighborhood restaurant to an event, but an expanded dining room has brought the noise under control, and as always, the food — intense variations on a theme of Tuscany — could not be better. (PR, 2/04) 3621 18th St, SF. 552-4055. California, D, $$, MC/V.

Dosa serves dosas, the south Indian crepes, along with a wealth of other, and generally quite spicy, dishes from the south of the subcontinent. The cooking tends toward a natural meatlessness; the crowds are intense, like hordes of passengers inquiring about a delayed international flight. (PR, 1/06) 995 Valencia, SF. 642-3672. South Indian, BR/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Front Porch mixes a cheerfully homey setting (with a front porch of sorts), a hipster crowd, and a Caribbean-inflected comfort menu into a distinctive urban cocktail. The best dishes, such as a white polenta porridge with crab, are Range-worthy, and nothing on the menu is much more than $10. (PR, 10/06) 65A 29th St, SF. 695-7800. American/Caribbean, BR/D, $, MC/V.

*Little Nepal assembles a wealth of sensory cues (sauna-style blond wood, brass table services) and an Indian-influenced Himalayan cuisine into a singular experience that appeals to all of Bernal Heights and beyond, including tots in their strollers. (Staff) 925 Cortland, SF. 643-3881. Nepalese, L/D, $$, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Lombardo’s Fine Foods is the little café that could, in Mission Terrace. The menu is heavy on pastas and casseroles, many made from owner-chef John Lombardo’s family recipes. The orzo salad is particularly good. (PR, 9/06) 1818 San Jose, SF. 337-9741. Italian/American, BR/L/D, $, MC/V

Maharaja offers romantically half-lit pastels and great spicy food, including a fine chicken tikka masala and a dish of lamb chunks in dal. Lunch forswears the usual steam-table buffet in favor of set specials, as in a Chinese place. (Staff) 525 Valencia, SF. 552-7901. Indian, L/D, $, MC/V.

Maverick holds several winning cards, including a menu of first-rate New American food, a clutch of interesting wines by the glass and half glass, and a handsome, spare Mission District setting discreetly cushioned for sound control. (PR, 9/05) 3316 17th St, SF. 863-3061. American, L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

Medjool doesn’t offer much by way of its namesake date, food of the ancient pharaohs, but the pan-Mediterranean menu (which emphasizes small plates) is mostly tasty, and the setting is appealingly layered, from a sidewalk terrace to a moody dining room behind a set of big carved-wood doors. (PR, 11/04) 2522 Mission, SF. 550-9055. Mediterranean, B/L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

Mi Lindo Yucatán looks a bit tatty inside, but the regional Mexican cooking is cheap and full of pleasant surprises. (PR, 3/04) 401 Valencia, SF. 861-4935. Mexican, L/D, ¢, cash only.

Moki’s Sushi and Pacific Grill serves imaginative specialty makis along with items from a pan-Asian grill in a small, bustling neighborhood spot. (Staff) 615 Cortland, SF. 970-9336. Japanese, D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.

Pakwan has a little secret: a secluded garden out back. It’s the perfect place to enjoy the fiery foods of India and Pakistan. (Staff) 3180 16th St, SF. 255-2440. Indian/Pakistani, L/D, ¢, cash only.

Papalote Mexican Grill relieves our Mexican favorites of much of their fat and calories without sacrificing flavor. Surprisingly excellent soyrizo and aguas frescas; sexily varied crowd. (Staff) 3409 24th St, SF. 970-8815. Mexican, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Regalito Rosticeria offers spanking-fresh versions of Mexico City street-cart food in a warm setting of glossy wood, stainless steel, and glass. The long counter, backed by a busy exhibition kitchen, is epic. (PR, 12/06) 3481 18th St., SF. 503-0650. Mexican, L/D, $, AE/DISC/MC/V.

MARINA/PACIFIC HEIGHTS/LAUREL HEIGHTS

L’Amour dans le Four gives a nice local boho twist to classic French bistro style. Many dishes from the oven. Tiny, noisy, intimate. (Staff) 1602 Lombard, SF. 775-2134. French, D, $, AE/MC/V.

Betelnut Peiju Wu is a pan-Asian version of a tapas bar, drawing a sleek postcollegiate crowd with its wide assortment of dumplings, noodles, soups, and snacks. (Staff) 2030 Union, SF. 929-8855. Asian, L/D, $$, MC/V.

Dragon Well looks like an annex of the cavernous Pottery Barn down the street, but its traditional Chinese menu is radiant with fresh ingredients and careful preparation. Prices are modest, the service swift and professional. (Staff) 2142 Chestnut, SF. 474-6888. Chinese, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Rigolo combines the best of Pascal Rigo’s boulangeries — including the spectacular breads — with some of the simpler elements (such as roast chicken) of his higher-end places. The result is excellent value in a bustling setting. (PR, 1/05) 3465 California, SF. 876-7777. California/Mediterranean, B/L/D, $, MC/V.

Sushi Groove is easily as cool as its name. Behind wasabi green velvet curtains, salads can be inconsistent, but the sushi is impeccable, especially the silky salmon and special white tuna nigiri. (Staff) 1916 Hyde, SF. 440-1905. Japanese, D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Taste of the Himalayas is primarily Nepalese, but the Indian influences on the food are many, and there are a few Tibetan items. Spicing is vivid, value excellent. (PR, 10/04) 2420 Lombard, SF. 674-9898. Nepalese/Tibetan, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

Tortilla Heights brings the Pac Heights, blond-het-frat vibe into the Western Addition and nourishes it with surprisingly good Mexican food. The menu is familiar, but the dishes are executed with care and panache, and there are some regional specialties. Open late. (PR, 9/06) 1750 Divisadero, SF. 346-4531. Mexican, L/D, $, AE/DC/DISC/MC/V.

SUNSET

Bullshead Restaurant offers buffalo burgers in various guises, and they are worth the price of the ticket (about a dollar more). The West Portal location is a slice of Route 66 Americana, while the newer Castro operation has an upstairs-downstairs, creaky-Victorian-staircase aura. The menu boasts good fries and a surprisingly convincing vegetarian burger. (PR, 11/06) 840 Ulloa, SF. 665-4350; 4230 18th St., SF. 431-4201. American/burgers, L/D, $, MC/V.

Le Charm might be in San Francisco, but it has a bistro authenticity even Parisians could love, from a wealth of golden wood trim to an enduring loyalty au prix fixe. The chicken liver salad is matchless, the succinct wine list distinctly Californian. Ponder it in the idyllic, trellised garden. (PR, 9/06) 315 Fifth St, SF. 546-6128. French, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

*Dragonfly serves the best contemporary Vietnamese food in town, in a calmer environment and at a fraction of the cost of better-known places. (PR, 8/05) 420 Judah, SF. 661-7755. Vietnamese, L/D, $$, AE/MC/V.

KL Restaurant is a Hong Kong-style seafood house that presents its wide array of creatures from the deep in an equally wide array of guises. Particularly good: the sampan-style dishes. If you’re not in an oceanic mood, the land-based stuff is good too. (PR/ 11/06) 4401 Balboa, SF. 666-9928. Chinese/seafood, L/D, $$, MC/V.

Pisces California Cuisine brings a touch of SoMa sophistication to an Outer Sunset neighborhood in need of paint. (You can’t miss the restaurant’s black facade.) The kitchen turns out a variety of seafood preparations — the clam chowder is terrific — and offers an appealing prix fixe option at both lunch and dinner. (PR, 8/06) 3414-3416 Judah, SF. 564-2233. Seafood, L/D, $$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

So Restaurant brings the heat, in the form of huge soup and noodle — and soupy noodle — dishes, many of them liberally laced with hot peppers and chiles. The pot stickers are homemade and exceptional, the crowd young and noisy. Cheap. (PR, 10/06) 2240 Irving, SF. 731-3143. Chinese/noodles, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

RICHMOND

*Aziza shimmers with Moroccan grace, from the pewter ewer and basin that circulate for the washing of hands to the profusion of preserved Meyer lemons in the splendid cooking. (Staff) 5800 Geary, SF. 752-2222. Moroccan, D, $$, AE/MC/V.

Be My Guest Thai Bistro offers tasty vegetarian-friendly food in a campy-hip setting reminiscent of an old Woody Allen movie. Tofu larb is surprisingly successful. (PR, 9/06) 951 Clement, SF. 386-1942. Thai, L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

*Chapeau! serves some of the best food in the city — at shockingly reasonable prices. The French cooking reflects as much style and imagination as any California menu. (Staff) 1408 Clement, SF. 750-9787. French, D, $$, AE/DC/MC/V.

Spices! has an exclamation point for a reason: its Chinese food, mainly Szechuan and Taiwanese, with an oasis of Shanghai-style dishes, is fabulously hot. Big young crowds, pulsing house music, a shocking orange and yellow paint scheme. Go prepared, leave happy. (Staff) 294 Eighth Ave, SF. 752-8884. Szechuan/Chinese, L/D, $, MC/V.

Sutro’s at Cliff House has a Miami-to-Malibu feel and offers a "California coastal" menu that appeals to tourists and locals alike. You can get everything from gumbo to seafood red curry to falafel while resting assured that the kitchen is honoring the local-seasonal-sustainable imperative. The setting — a glass house perched at the foamy edge of the Pacific — is timelessly spectacular. (PR, 7/06) 1090 Point Lobos, SF. 386-3330. Eclectic, L/D, $$$, AE/DISC/MC/V.

BAYVIEW/HUNTERS POINT/SOUTH

Cliff’s Bar-B-Q and Seafood Some things Cliff’s got going for him: excellent mustard greens, just drenched in flavorfulness, and barbecued you name it. Brisket. Rib tips. Hot links. Pork ribs. Beef ribs. Baby backs. And then there are fried chickens and, by way of health food, fried fishes. (Staff) 2177 Bayshore, SF. 330-0736. Barbecue, L/D, ¢, AE/DC/MC/V.

Old Clam House really is old — it’s been in the same location since the Civil War — but the seafood preparations are fresh, in an old-fashioned way. Matchless cioppino. Sports types cluster at the bar, under the shadow of a halved, mounted Jaguar E-type. (Staff) 299 Bayshore, SF. 826-4880. Seafood, L/D, $$, MC/V.

Taqueria el Potrillo serves one of the best chicken burritos in town, if not the best. You can get your bird grilled or barbecued or have steak instead or tacos. Excellent salsas and aguas frescas, and warmer weather than practically anywhere else in town. (Staff) 300A Bayshore Blvd, SF. 642-1612. Mexican, B/L/D, ¢, cash only.

BERKELEY/EMERYVILLE/NORTH

Breads of India and Gourmet Curries The menu changes every day, so nothing is refrigerated overnight, and the curries benefit from obvious loving care. (Staff) 2448 Sacramento, Berk. (510) 848-7684. Indian, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Café de la Paz Specialties include African-Brazilian "xim xim" curries, Venezuelan corn pancakes, and heavenly blackened seacakes served with orange-onion yogurt. (Staff) 1600 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 843-0662. Latin American, BR/L/D, $, AE/MC/V.

Locanda Olmo Fine versions of risotto, gnocchi, and soft polenta pie, terrific thin-crust pizzas, and good traditional desserts have made Locanda Olmo a reliable anchor in the burgeoning Elmwood neighborhood. (Staff) 2985 College, Berk. (510) 848-5544. Italian, D, $, MC/V.

OAKLAND/ALAMEDA

Le Cheval Shrimp rolls and peanut sauce, the fried Dungeness crab, the marinated "orange flavor" beef, the buttery lemongrass prawns — it’s all fabulous. (Staff) 1007 Clay, Oakl. (510) 763-8495. Vietnamese, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Connie’s Cantina fashions unique variations on standard Mexican fare — enchiladas, tamales, fajitas, rellenos. (Staff) 3340 Grand, Oakl. (510) 839-4986. Mexican, L/D, ¢, MC/V.

Rockridge Café offers bountiful breakfasts, a savory meat-loaf special, and hearty cassoulet. But the burgers, wide-cut fries, and straw-clogging milkshakes remain the cornerstones of the menu. (Staff) 5492 College, Oakl. (510) 653-1567. American, B/L/D, $, MC/V. *

Venue list

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0

AMNESIA


853 Valencia

(415) 970-0012

ANNIE’S SOCIAL CLUB


917 Folsom

(415) 974-1585

ARGUS LOUNGE


3187 Mission

(415) 824-1447

ARROW


10 Sixth St

(415) 255-7920

ASIASF


201 Ninth St

(415) 255-2742

ATLAS CAFE


3049 20th St

(415) 648-1047

BALAZO18


2183 Mission

(415) 255-7227

BAMBUDDHA LOUNGE


601 Eddy

(415) 885-5088

BAOBAB


3388 19th St

(415) 643-3558

BAZAAR CAFE


5927 California

(415) 831-5620

BEAUTY BAR


2299 Mission

(415) 285-0323

BIMBO’S 365 CLUB


1025 Columbus

(415) 474-0365

BISCUITS AND BLUES


401 Mason

(415) 292-2583

BOHEMIA LOUNGE


1624 California

(415) 474-6968

BOOM BOOM ROOM


1601 Fillmore

(415) 673-8000

BOTTOM OF THE HILL


1233 17th St

(415) 621-4455

BROADWAY STUDIOS


435 Broadway

(415) 291-0333

BRUNO’S


2389 Mission

(415) 648-7701

BUBBLE LOUNGE


714 Montgomery

(415) 434-4204

BUTTER


354 11th St

(415) 863-5964

BUZZ 9


139 Eighth St

(415) 255-8783

CAFÉ CLAUDE


7 Claude

(415) 392-3515

CAFE COCOMO


650 Indiana

(415) 824-6910

CAFE DU NORD


2170 Market

(415) 861-5016

CAFE INTERNATIONAL


508 Haight

(415) 665-9915

CANVAS GALLERY


1200 Ninth Ave

(415) 504-0060

CASANOVA LOUNGE


527 Valencia

(415) 863-9328

CATALYST COCKTAILS


312 Harriet

(415) 621-1722

CAT CLUB


1190 Folsom

(415) 431-3332

CITY NIGHTS


715 Harrison

(415) 546-7938

CLUB CALIENTE


298 11th St

(415) 255-2232

CLUB DELUXE


1509 Haight

(415) 552-6949

CLUB NV


525 Howard

(415) 339-8686

CLUB SIX


60 Sixth St

(415) 863-1221

CONNECTICUT YANKEE


100 Connecticut

(415) 552-4440

CRASH


34 Mason

1-877-342-7274

DALVA


3121 16th St

(415) 252-7740

DANNY COYLE’S


668 Haight

(415) 431-4724

DELIRIUM


3139 16th St

(415) 552-5525

DNA LOUNGE


375 11th St

(415) 626-1409

DOLCE


440 Broadway

(415) 989-3434

DOLORES PARK CAFE


501 Dolores

(414) 621-2936

DOUBLE DUTCH


3192 16th St

(415) 503-1670

DUPLEX


1525 Mission

(415) 355-1525

EAGLE TAVERN


398 12th St

(415) 626-0880

EDINBURGH CASTLE PUB


950 Geary

(415) 885-4074

EIGHT


1151 Folsom

(415) 431-1151

ELBO ROOM


647 Valencia

(415) 552-7788.

ELEMENT LOUNGE


1028 Geary

(415) 571-1362

ELIXIR


3200 16th St

(415) 552-1633

ENDUP


401 Sixth St

(415) 357-0827

FILLMORE


1805 Geary

(415) 346-6000

540 CLUB


540 Clement

(415) 752-7276

FLUID ULTRA LOUNGE


662 Mission

(415) 615-6888

FUSE


493 Broadway

(415) 788-2706

GLAS KAT


520 Fourth St

(415) 495-6626

GRAND


1300 Van Ness

(415) 673-5716

GRANT AND GREEN


1371 Grant

(415) 693-9565

GREAT AMERICAN MUSIC HALL


859 O’Farrell

(415) 885-0750

HARRY DENTON’S STARLIGHT ROOM


Sir Francis Drake Hotel

450 Powell

(415) 395-8595

HEMLOCK TAVERN


1131 Polk

(415) 923-0923

HIFI


2125 Lombard

(415) 345-TONE

HOMESTEAD


2301 Folsom

(415) 282-4663

HOTEL UTAH SALOON


500 Fourth St

(415) 546-6300

HOUSE OF SHIELDS


39 New Montgomery

(415) 495-5436

ICON ULTRA LOUNGE


1192 Folsom

(415) 626-4800

INDEPENDENT


628 Divisadero

(415) 771-1421

IRELAND’S 32


3920 Geary

(415) 386-6173

JACK’S CLUB


2545 24th St

(415) 641-5371

JAZZ AT PEARL’S


256 Columbus

(415) 291-8255

JELLY’S


295 Terry Francois

(415) 495-3099

JOHNNY FOLEY’S


243 O’Farrell

(415) 954-0777

KATE O’BRIENS


579 Howard

(415) 882-7240

KELLY’S MISSION ROCK


817 Terry Francois

(415) 626-5355

KIMO’S


1351 Polk

(415) 885-4535

KNOCKOUT


3223 Mission

(415) 550-6994

LASZLO


2534 Mission

(415) 401-0810

LEVENDE LOUNGE


1710 Mission

(415) 864-5585

LEXINGTON CLUB


3464 19th St

(415) 863-2052

LINGBA LOUNGE


1469 18th St

(415) 355-0001

LI PO LOUNGE


916 Grant

(415) 982-0072

LOFT 11


316 11th St

(415) 701-8111

LOU’S PIER


300 Jefferson

(415) 771-5687

LUCID BAR


580 Sutter

(415) 398-0195

MAD DOG IN THE FOG


530 Haight

(415) 626-7279

MADRONE LOUNGE


500 Divisadero

(415) 241-0202

MAKE-OUT ROOM


3225 22nd St

(415) 647-2888

METRONOME DANCE CENTER


1830 17th St

(415) 252-9000

MEZZANINE


444 Jessie

(415) 625-8880

MIGHTY


119 Utah

(415) 626-7001

MILK


1840 Haight

(415) 387-6455

MOOSE’S


1652 Stockton

(415) 989-7800

NICKIE’S BBQ


460 Haight

(415) 621-6508

OLD FIRST CHURCH


1751 Sacramento

(415) 474-1608

111 MINNA GALLERY


111 Minna

(415) 974-1719

PARK


747 Third St

(415) 974-1925

PARKSIDE


1600 17th St

(415) 503-0393

PIER 23


Pier 23

(415) 362-5125

PINK


2925 16th St

(415) 431-8889

PLOUGH AND STARS


116 Clement

(415) 751-1122

PLUSH ROOM


York Hotel

940 Sutter

(415) 885-2800

POLENG LOUNGE


1751 Fulton

(415) 441-1710

PUBLIC


1489 Folsom

(415) 552-3065

PURPLE ONION


140 Columbus

(415) 217-8400

RAMP


855 China Basin

(415) 621-2378

RASSELAS JAZZ


1534 Fillmore

(415) 346-8696

RED DEVIL LOUNGE


1695 Polk

(415) 921-1695

RED POPPY ART HOUSE


2698 Folsom

(415) 826-2402

REDWOOD ROOM


Clift Hotel

495 Geary

(415) 775-4700

RETOX


628 20th St

(415) 626-7386

RICKSHAW STOP


155 Fell

(415) 861-2011

EL RINCON


2700 16th St

(415) 437-9240

EL RIO


3158 Mission

(415) 282-3325

RIPTIDE BAR


3639 Taraval

(415) 240-8360

RITE SPOT


2099 Folsom

(415) 552-6066

ROCCAPULCO SUPPER CLUB


3140 Mission

(415) 648-6611

ROCK-IT ROOM


406 Clement

(415) 387-6343

ROHAN LOUNGE


3809 Geary

(415) 221-5095

ROYALE


1326 Grant

(415) 433-4247

RUBY SKYE


420 Mason

(415) 693-0777

SAVANNA JAZZ


2937 Mission

(415) 285-3369

SHANGHAI 1930


133 Steuart

(415) 896-5600

SHINE DANCE LOUNGE


1337 Mission

(415) 421-1916

SKYLARK


3089 16th St

(415) 621-9294

SLIDE


430 Mason

(415) 421-1916

SLIM’S


333 11th St

(415) 255-0333

SOLUNA CAFE AND LOUNGE


272 McAllister

(415) 621-2200

SPACE 550


550 Barneveld

(415) 550-8286

STUD


399 Ninth St

(415) 252-7883

STUDIO Z


314 11th St

(415) 252-7100

SUEDE


383 Bay

(415) 399-9555

SUGAR LOUNGE


377 Hayes

(415) 255-7144

SUITE ONE8ONE


181 Eddy

(415) 345-9900

SUPPERCLUB


657 Harrison

(415) 348-0900

1015 FOLSOM


1015 Folsom

(415) 431-1200

330 RITCH


330 Ritch

(415) 541-9574

TOP OF THE MARK


Mark Hopkins Intercontinental Hotel

One Nob Hill

(415) 616-6916

TUNNEL TOP


601 Bush

(415) 986-8900

12 GALAXIES


2565 Mission

(415) 970-9777

26 MIX


3024 Mission

(415) 826-7378

UNDERGROUND SF


424 Haight

(415) 864-7386

VELVET LOUNGE


443 Broadway

(415) 788-0228

VODA


56 Belden

(415) 677-9242

WARFIELD


982 Market

(415) 775-7722

WISH


1539 Folsom

(415) 431-1661

BAY AREA

ALBATROSS PUB


1822 San Pablo, Berk

(510) 843-2473

ANNA’S JAZZ ISLAND


2120 Allston Way, Berk

(510) 841-JAZZ

ASHKENAZ


1317 San Pablo, Berk

(510) 525-5054

BECKETT’S


2271 Shattuck, Berk

(510) 647-1790

BLAKES


2367 Telegraph, Berk

(510) 848-0886

CAFE VAN KLEEF


1621 Telegraph, Oakl

(510) 763-7711

DOWNTOWN


2102 Shattuck, Berk

(510) 649-3810

FOURTH STREET TAVERN


711 Fourth St, San Rafael

(415) 454-4044

FREIGHT AND SALVAGE COFFEE HOUSE


1111 Addison, Berk

(510) 548-1761

JAZZSCHOOL


2087 Addison, Berk

(510) 845-5373

JUPITER


2181 Shattuck, Berk

(510) THE-ROCK

KINGMAN’S LUCKY LOUNGE


3332 Grand, Oakl

(510) 465-KING

MAMA BUZZ CAFE


2318 Telegraph, Oakl

(510) 465-4073

19 BROADWAY


19 Broadway, Fairfax

(415) 459-1091

924 GILMAN


924 Gilman, Berk

(510) 525-9926

NOMAD CAFÉ


6500 Shattuck, Oakl

(510) 595-5344.

PARAMOUNT THEATRE


2025 Broadway, Oakl

(510) 465-6400

RUBY ROOM


132 14th St, Oakl

(510) 444-7224

SHATTUCK DOWN LOW


2284 Shattuck, Berk

(510) 548-1159

STARRY PLOUGH


3101 Shattuck, Berk

(510) 841-2082

STORK CLUB


2330 Telegraph, Oakl

(510) 444-6174

SWEETWATER


153 Throckmorton, Mill Valley

(415) 388-2820

TIME OUT BAR AND PATIO


1822 Grant, Concord

(925) 798-1811

21 GRAND


416 25th St, Oakl

(510) 444-7263

UPTOWN


1928 Telegraph, Oakl

(510) 451-8100

WHITE HORSE


6551 Telegraph, Oakl

(510) 652-3820

YOSHI’S


510 Embarcadero West

Jack London Square, Oakl

(510) 238-9200 *

NOISE: Daze of Caroliner and Smiths tribs

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Boy, a busy weekend is upon us – and how! First up Saturday is Caroliner’s rare performance, after a reception for the ensemble’s CCA’s Playspace Gallery show, “Twenty-three Years of Hernia Milk and Ergot Dreams: A Retrospective of Caroliner.” The reception runs 6-8 p.m. Jan. 13.; the music/noise begins at 8 p.m. at the Graduate Center on Hooper Street, SF. The exhibition continues through Jan. 19.

caroliner.jpg
Local color Caroliner-style. Courtesy of cakeandpolka.blogspot.com.

But if deeply weird noise and mind-blowing visuals aren’t your bag o’ tea, there’s also Sweet and Tender Hooligans, a tribute to Morrissey and the Smiths, on Jan. 13 at Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. The Curse, a Cure trib combo, opens, maintaining a way ’80s vibe. Word has it that the longtime LA Smiths lovers of SATH apparently slay Moz-insane weepers and screamers everywhere. No shirts – ever!

sweetsml.jpg

NOISE: Britney in bikini shape? And K-Fed 2.0?

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1

Whoa, the juicy Brit Spears “gossip” of the day is pictured on TMZ, you non-TMZ junkies. Check the new Britney consort. Who is the mystery dude? He’s more muscular than the ex, yet still somewhat K-Fed-esque, and for all we know, he hasn’t recorded any “music” yet! Always a plus. Now about that bandana…

britanddude.jpg
Ahoy, baby weight! Courtesy of www.tmz.com.

Time-traveling flirtation of the day, week, month…

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Lucio Battisti circa 1970 and 1971, I have a big crush on you. When time travel goes into effect, please meet me and some friends within the fucking great and gorgeous music of your Amore E Non Amore and Umanamente Uomo: Il Sogno.

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TUESDAY

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Jan. 16

MUSIC

Rob Curto’s Forró for All

The official party soundtrack of northeastern Brazil, forró welds European polkas and mazurkas with Afro-Brazilian rhythms, and the result lands itself somewhere between zydeco and samba. As America’s finest purveyors of the forró sound, New York funksters Rob Curto’s Forró for All combine a wildly imaginative jazz sensibility with their obvious reverence for traditional Brazilian get-down sounds, and the fusion is exhilarating. (Todd Lavoie)

With Nobody from Ipanema and DJ Felina
9 p.m., $10
Elbo Room
647 Valencia, SF
(415) 552-7788
www.elbo.com

VISUAL ART

“Saints and Sinners”

In their new exhibit, “Saints and Sinners,” Bay Area artists Kelly Tunstall and Ferris Plock explore the various permutations of good and evil. Plock references Dante’s account of the seven deadly sins, while Tunstall evokes different forms of femininity to inform her ethereal paintings of factual and fictional saints. Saints and sinners finally converge in the form of a collaborative painting by the two artists titled Original Sin, a meeting of Plock’s ghoulish monsters and Tunstall’s heavenly paper dolls in the Garden of Eden. (Hayley Elisabeth Kaufman)

Through Jan. 27. Tues.-Wed., noon-10 p.m.; Thurs.-Fri., noon-2 a.m.; Sat., 9 p.m.-2 a.m.
Free except during event and club nights.
111 Minna Gallery
Dragonfly Lounge, 111 Minna, SF
(415) 974-1719
www.111minnagallery.com

SUNDAY

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Jan. 14

MUSIC

Emily Jane White

At last humanity gave the finger to the dreadfully polite platitude-plopping coffeehouse strummers of the world and pulled up a chair for the folkies with songwriting worthy of our time. Good-bye to the contrived sensitivity of the ’90s, hello “I had a dream last night. There were ravens above my bed. And they took my newlywed.” So sings Emily Jane White, local ambassador of dusky ruminations and deliverer of mighty ass-kicks to the legacy of Jewel. (Todd Lavoie)

With Blushin’ Roulettes and Pete Bernhard
9 p.m., $6
Make-Out Room
3225 22nd St., SF
(415) 647-2888
www.makeoutroom.com

EVENT

Ferry worker rally

March to the Alcatraz Ferry dock at Pier 31 with union members, who are rallying to return to their jobs running boats to the island. (Deborah Giattina)

11 a.m.-3 p.m.
Hornblower’s Headquarters
Pier 3, Embarcadero and Market, SF
www.alcatrazunion.com

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