Preview

King Khan and the Shrines

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PREVIEW Local booty-shakers are hip to the musical ruler known as King Khan: when the two-member King Khan and BBQ Show played 12 Galaxies in December 2007, the joint was packed to the sweaty rafters. A bigger band calls for a bigger venue, so when the Montreal native returns to the Bay Area with his other project, King Khan and the Shrines, the faithful will no doubt follow him to the Great American Music Hall. His just-released latest, The Supreme Genius of King Khan and the Shrines (Vice), is a compilation of sorts, including an array of songs from earlier, difficult-to-track-down King Khan and the Shrines discs. "I love playing with BBQ as much as playing with the Shrines," he told me by e-mail — a necessary interview tactic due to his cell phone–deprived status in deepest Europe. "In the Shrines, we play bad-ass, ball-crushing R&B. The influences are pretty much the same, though the Shrines are more inspired by New Orleans 1960s funk and Sun Ra."

Although both of Khan’s bands are retro-influenced, he doesn’t feel stuck in the past. "I believe this music is an everlasting tradition that must be preserved and carried on," he wrote. "I don’t think we are that retro since we mix everything from free jazz to hardcore. Music is my religion, and I wanna preach the words of the masters to the masses and throw some of my own words in there too."

Khan fans may recall that his last trip to San Francisco wasn’t all rock ‘n’ roll romance, since one of his favorite guitars was lifted by some scumbag. "I am sad I lost it because it was really a Frankenstein guitar from the 1960s made by Harvey Thomas," he wrote. "I have put a hex on whoever stole it, and if you see a one-eyed man with a piece of spaghetti for a penis dangling between his legs, then ask him where my guitar is and punch him in the face."

Fortunately, he doesn’t hold it against the rest of us: "I love SF! I love America, and am so happy to bring my soul band back to where soul was born."

KING KHAN AND THE SHRINES With Jacuzzi Boys. Fri/11, 9 p.m., $13. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750, www.gamh.com

Scott Wells and Dancers

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PREVIEW Watching dancers launch themselves into space is every bit as exciting as the sparks and explosions that fill traditional July 4 celebrations. Take, for example, the frequently airborne Scott Wells and Dancers. The company’s Last Call show will be every bit as full of surprises as a fireworks display, only more environmentally friendly and weather independent. If you’re not familiar with this masterful artist, Wells is a super free spirit who has been setting up frameworks for contact improvisation pieces for the past 16 years. Many choreographers create works that use contact improvisation as a starting point for generating ideas that then get formalized. But Wells offers the real thing: the experience that there is only one moment, and it’s now. He also chooses music wisely and uses it beautifully. Two things strike you when you watch these dancers/athletes tumble, fly, and roll: the trust is absolute, and so is the fun. For Last Call, the company is bringing back — for the last time, Wells says — Home Again, the riotous 1991 encounter of man-meets-furniture. I am no great sports fan, but when Wells mounts Gym Mystics, his 2007 take on gymnastics, I’ll join the club. Also on the schedule is the world premiere of West Side Story, staged for 11 performers to Leonard Bernstein’s legendary score. Independence Day festivities include a 5 p.m. party prior to the performance with food, drinks, movies, and a guest artist.

SCOTT WELLS AND DANCERS Fri/4, 7 p.m. (party, 5 p.m.); Sat/ 5 and July 10–12, 8 p.m. Project Artaud Theater, 450 Florida, SF. $18–$22. (415) 863-9834, www.artaud.org

Fillmore Jazz Festival

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PREVIEW Known during the ’40s and ’50s as the "Harlem of the West," the Fillmore District once housed a spirited enclave of West Coast jazz culture. Over time the district has endured periods of struggle. The recently installed Fillmore branch of Yoshi’s symbolizes the district’s fight to respect its past while staying in step with the present.

The Fillmore Jazz Festival began after much of the current "urban renewal" (i.e., the construction of large apartment buildings) took hold. Now in its 24th year, the popular two-day festival draws nearly 100,000 people as a strong reminder of jazz’s prominence in the Fillmore. The musical slate holds many established local performers, including Fillmore veteran Kim Nalley, local favorites Jazz on Mondays, and world-influenced Sila and the Afrofunk experience.

Bruce Forman is one of the prime-time headliners. The longtime guitarist began the JazzMasters Workshop in 2001, a nonprofit focused on giving free jazz lessons to kids. In 2006 he became an artist in residence at University of Southern California’s studio/jazz guitar department. With Western-influenced band Cow Bop, Forman recently completed his own Route 66 Challenge, which consisted of Forman and company touring along the length of the famous highway, with the proceeds going toward the JazzMasters Workshop.

FILLMORE JAZZ FESTIVAL With Bruce Forman, Barton Tyler Group, Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, Jazz on Mondays, Randy Vincent Quartet, Sila and the Afrofunk Experience, Kim Nalley, Vinyl, and more. Sat/5–Sun/6, 10 a.m.– 6 p.m. Fillmore between Eddy and Jackson, SF. Free. 1-800-310-6563, www.fillmorejazzfestival.com

Mr. V

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PREVIEW Anybody out there miss hip-house? I do, although I often blush at its bare innocence — coming at a time before the separatism of gangsta rap and corporate rave, when 1980s MCs like Fast Eddie, Kool Rock Steady, Merlin, or the Wee Papa Girls could preen over a jazzy or acid-inflected groove and it felt like underground worlds colliding brilliantly.

Nuyorican house DJ, producer, and rapper Mr. V isn’t exactly the reincarnation of that much-maligned genre, although 2005’s "V Gets Jazzy" (Vega) with Louie Vega is a fierce update of KC Flightt’s 1987 hip-house classic "Let’s Get Jazzy" (TMT). Mr. V’s not even a rapper, per se — he’s more into gently exhorting the crowd to "Put Your Drink Down," do "Da Bump," and "Jus’ Dance," because he’s giving you "Somethin’ With Jazz." Those four spoken-vocal jams have been lodged in club speakers worldwide for the past three years, and the 34-year-old Mr. V’s instantly recognizable voice, combined with spooky-stunning mixes from Masters at Work and Quentin Harris, has injected some of the old hip-house glow and energy into house’s ever-looming loungeteria doldrums. When Mr. V sexily growls, "Bring some baby powder to the dance floor," boards from Brooklyn to Jo’burg get liberally sprinkled.

V’ll be spinning an old-school eclectic set — and hopefully taking the mic — at Mighty on Saturday, July 5 as part of the "For the Love of House" party, a title that somewhat confusingly refers to yet another nuevo hip-house hit, 2005’s "4 the Love" by DJ Karizma, who’ll be appearing July 13 at the Super Soul Sundayz weekly in the Temple catacombs (www.myspace.com/supersoulsundayz). A mini hip-house revival? Break out the talcum. (Marke B.)

"FOR THE LOVE OF HOUSE" With Mr. V, John Cutler, Michael Tello, and others. Sat/5, 10 p.m., $10 advance. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. (415) 626-7001, www.mighty119.com

“The Monkey and the Devil”

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PREVIEW Sometimes history has a peculiar way of bringing us full circle. Charles Trapolin’s family owned slaves on their plantation in South Carolina. Joanna Haigood’s family were slaves in the vicinity. The commonality and difference between those two families led to The Monkey and the Devil, a collaboration between Trapolin, the former ODC dancer turned visual artist, and dancer/choreographer Haigood. Taking its title from racial slurs, the world premiere examines a festering wound in the social fabric that has not healed nearly as well as many of us would like to pretend. Haigood started the piece long before Barack Obama’s candidacy but, she points out, it certainly has acquired an unexpected urgency. "Racism," she says, "hurts everybody. It’s a social ill that we need to address and realize that it is connected to economy and class." Formally, the piece is an installation, continuing Haigood’s long-time interest in working with picture frames. It’s a visual motif that works well with Trapolin’s idea to create a house split in two. On the set, two couples — one white, one black — take turns assuming roles. Audiences are invited to stay as long as they like during this four-hour performance. Though she’ll have a collection box, the show is free because Haigood really wants all of us to come see it.

THE MONKEY AND THE DEVIL Fri/28 and Sat/29, 1–5 p.m. Free. Zaccho Dance Studio, 777 Yosemite, studio 330, SF. (415) 822-7644, www.zaccho.org

Asunder

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PREVIEW Listening to Asunder is freaking me out. It’s the middle of the night, the moon is full, and I was barely paying attention to the plodding funereal doom. That is, until I glimpsed a foreign movement from the corner of my eye and, sensing a phantasmic force, my heart plummeted into my guts. If John Gossard’s eerie chants, likely effective at summoning Lucifer from the bowels of a very cold hell, didn’t raise ghosts previously unheard from in my creaky Victorian, what did?

It’s no secret if you’re even passingly attuned to local music happenings — or ever pick up this paper — that the doom-death community on both sides of the Bay is close-knit and as prolific as a war graveyard at the height of collateral damage. But Asunder just might be the darkest, dreariest, and most melodically melancholy of them all. But it’s too simple to relegate their metal dirges to the staid realm of the glacial and miserable; Asunder begs the question, "Can doom be dynamic?" and answers in the affirmative. Patience and subtlety, reverence and yes, the spiritual, are conjured in equal parts by down-tuned strings and minor keys. When their sophomore release, 2006’s Works Will Come Undone (Profound Lore Records) — produced by the East Bay’s esteemed Billy Anderson (High on Fire, Saros) — filled 72 minutes and 45 seconds with two epic tracks, it was risky but the foursome added enough slow complexity to make it work. Let their chilling arrangements and a newly upgraded sound system tempt your ghosts at the Oakland Metro Opera’s grand reopening.

ASUNDER With Trees, Necrite, Skin Horse, and DJ Bad Jew. Fri/27, 8 p.m., $8. Oakland Metro Opera House, 630 Third St., Oakl. (510) 763-1146, www.oaklandmetro.org


Asunder with Trouble and Mammatus. Wed/9, 8pm, $16-$18, Slim’s, www.slims-sf.com

Marc Bamuthi Joseph

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PREVIEW Marc Bamuthi Joseph is an artist who makes you want to bow down in admiration or curse the gods for bestowing him with so many talents. He’s a poet. He’s a singer. A dancer. An actor. An activist. And good-looking, to boot. It doesn’t seem fair that one human being should possess so many gifts, even when he uses them for the benefit of others by revealing truths about environmental destruction, human devastation, and the experience of fatherhood. Joseph draws connections between the global and the personal to express the idea that all politics is local. Although his reputation primarily is based on his solo choreo-poems — most prominently Word Becomes Flesh (2003) — with his 2005 hip-hop Scourge, he stepped outside his comfort zone into the arena of ensemble work. For that collage-meditation on being an American of Haitian descent, he brought in a combination of actors and dancers. Now with the break/s: a mixtape for stage, he returns to the solo form. Taking Jeff Chang’s tome Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-hop Generation (Macmillan, 2005) as a starting point, Joseph puts his own perspective on the phenomenon. He has called the work "a travel diary recorded as dream. It’s Lewis and Clark at hip-hop’s Mason-Dixon line. It’s one last look at Africa."

MARC BAMUTHI JOSEPH Thurs/19–Sat/21, 8 p.m. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, San Francisco. $23–$30. (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org

“Punball: Only One Earth”

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"Punball: Only One Earth"

PREVIEW From large-scale printmaking to the small masking-tape sculpture Pillow Talk (2002), William T. Wiley’s anti-genre-fication catalog reaches a grinning pinnacle in the 65 works from the past eight years on display at the "Punball: Only One Earth" exhibit at Electric Works. Wiley’s piece, Punball: Only One Earth (2007) is a completely remade (and playable) version of Gottlieb’s 1964 "North Star" pinball game, which celebrated the nuclear-powered USS Nautilus‘ North Pole undersea crossing. With saturated colors, globes drunk on their own worldliness, and puns on our heated global situation, Wiley’s game is an ironic distillation of his acutely history-conscious world. It’s as if a marketing agent had bought the rights to his signature characters and symbols — Mr. Unnatural, wick-like ampersands, angelic hourglasses — and produced a Wiley-model game that the artist then carefully sabotaged late at night while sporting one of his own dunce-cap sculptures, just before its release.

The game is the product of more than a year’s collaboration: the original machine came from Electric Works supporter Joe Sweeney. "In my age bracket, pinball machines were everywhere," Wiley said by phone from his west Marin residence. "You were often eating hamburgers to the sound of ding, ding<0x2009>!" Working on this project, he found "a whole culture of pinball people…. It’s an actual folk art form: insider, outsider. It touches lots of different things."

When I ask about what the younger generation, with our poor grasp of history, might be missing in Wiley’s work, he laughs and brings the discussion back to the importance of using "humor and absurdity" to critique the present. For Wiley, humor has an element of chance. He found the school desk for the sculpture and print Deskerado/Child’s Play Print (2007) during a walk to the post office. A random crack in the wood became a red, white, and blue equatorial line on the white-on-black print. "No Child Left A-head," the print declares, mourning, above all else, our loss of imagination.

PUNBALL: ONLY ONE EARTH Through July 28. Mon.–Fri., 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; Sat., 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m. Electric Works, 130 Eighth St., SF. Free. (415) 626-5496, www.sfelectricworks.com

San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival

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PREVIEW World premieres are not what you expect in traditional, culturally specific dance. But the myth of the unyielding art form passed from generation to generation dies hard, perhaps because there is comfort in believing that "some things don’t change." Sorry, but the village square has gone the way of stoop sitting. So-called ethnic dance started to change the minute it moved from the grange to the stage. What’s great about the enduring appeal of World Art West’s San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival — celebrating 30 years this year — is that its producers encourage rethinking traditional forms so that they honor the past while embracing the future. It’s the only way an art can survive. To put more than moral support toward that effort, SF EDF gave out four 30th-anniversary commissions this year. Ensambles Ballet Folklorico de San Francisco presents its commission, Las Cortes Mayas, a celebration of Mexico’s regal past, this weekend. Another highlight is the first appearance of one of India’s classical dance genres, Kuchipudi, which is related to but faster-paced and more feathery than Bharatanatyam. Sindhu Ravuri’s solo is inspired by Indian temple sculptures. Hailing from Oakland is hip-hop/modern dance troupe Imani’s Dream in a premiere that reflects the youth group’s everyday reality. What else can you expect on this second of four weekends of cultural dance offerings? Afro-Peruvian footwork, Middle Eastern belly, Korean memorializing, Chinese court, Caribbean-flavored flamenco, and Scottish ritual dance. You’ll also hear a lot of live music: these days, EDF is almost as much a world music as a dance festival. And if that’s not enough to lure you in, throughout the month of June, World Arts West is offering a series of low-cost participatory workshops that welcomes all comers.

SAN FRANCISCO ETHNIC DANCE FESTIVAL June 1–29. This week: Sat/14–Sun/15, 2 p.m. (also Sat, 8 p.m.). $22–$44. Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF. (415) 392-4400, www.worldartswest.org

Daughters

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PREVIEW "I’ve been called a sinner, wrong-doer, evildoer, worker of iniquity, transgressor, bad example, scoundrel, villian, knave, miscreant, viper, wretch, the devil incarnate" — make no mistake, it’s a warning from Daughters vocalist Alexis Marshall, delivered via the apparent thesaurus in his head and the intentions of bad behavior in his heart. Whether you call it noise, mathcore, grindcore, chaos-core, or noisegrind, the sound of Providence, R.I.’s Daughters resembles absolutely nothing that will put you gently to sleep at night (John Mayer fans, run away as fast as you can). Chuckle if you must at their me-so-clever song titles ("And Then the C.H.U.D.S. Came," "A Room Full of Hard-Ons and Nowhere to Sit Down," "The Fuck Whisperer"), but the Daughters are no joke. Loud, aggressive, caucophonous, spazzy (yet technically accomplished), and with interludes that occasionally resemble the sound of nails on a blackboard, this is the kind of band that makes people ask, "Uh, what are you listening to?" when what they really mean is, "Sweet Jebus, what is that godforsaken racket?" Not for nothing was Daughters’ last studio release dubbed Hell Songs (Hydra Head, 2006). If your ears can take it, you won’t want to miss their set opening for Chicago’s Russian Circles, whose epic instrumentals should provide a reasonable amount of balm for any lingering, teeth-rattling reverberations.

DAUGHTERS With Russian Circles and Young Widows. Thurs/12, 9 p.m. Slim’s, 333 11th St, SF. $13. (415) 255-0333. www.slims-sf.com

Valet

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PREVIEW I admit I was a little skeptical on first receiving Valet’s Naked Acid (Kranky) in the mail. I was burned out on Terry Riley–inspired meditation music even before seeing the garishly New Age "vibe painting" gracing the sleeve. It took a couple of weeks for me to get around to actually listening to the thing, and I’m glad I waited: the album begins with bell chimes, distant drums, and a what sounds like a thumb-piano loop, but what follows is hardly Tubular Bells, part two. Naked Acid is a drone album, but an incredibly brave one in which emotions are laid bare and a surprising range of musical textures flow from a minimalist sonic palette. Take three tracks in their chronological order: "Drum Movie"’s milky growl sounds fit for a David Lynch movie. "Keehar"’s reverb-licked guitar plays like celestial rock. "Fuck It"’s scraping drawl evokes Patti Smith played at half-speed or a duskier Mazzy Star.

Though Valet springs from the same Portland, Ore., DIY scene as White Rainbow, guiding light Honey Owens’ musical family tree includes Austin, Texas’ Jana Hunter, Finland’s Lau Nau, and fellow Portlander Grouper. All these women are pushing the female singer-songwriter format into new atmospheric, painterly territory, taking advantage of loop pedals and thick layers of reverb to collapse the distance between performance and production. Naked Acid‘s constant dissolve hovers uneasily between Karen Dalton remove and electronic opacity. After 40 minutes of enclosed drifting, Owens finally bobs to the surface on "Streets," turning a few pirouettes over a bustling programmed beat before clipping it off in noisy heat.

When Owens opened for Atlas Sound here last March, she was plagued by sound problems and seemed lost in the gestalt of her multiplanar drones. This time she plays at two smaller venues — Hemlock Tavern and a Mission District underground space — better suited to her diffuse blues, though it may take something else for her to shake something indelible from what, for now, remains ineffable.

VALET With Galactic Core, Kawabata Makoto, and Numinous Eye. June 18, 9 p.m., $7. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923, www.hemlocktavern.com

A space colony in Wisconsin

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› annalee@techsploitation.com

TECHSPLOITATION Every year in late May, several thousand people descend on Madison, Wis., to create an alternate universe. Some want to build a galaxy-size civilization packed with humans and aliens who build massive halo worlds orbiting stars. Others are obsessed with what they’ll do when what remains of humanity is left to survive in the barren landscape left after Earth has been destroyed by nukes, pollution, epidemics, nanotech wipeouts, or some combination of all four. Still others live parts of their lives as if there were a special world for wizards hidden in the folds of our own reality.

They come to Madison for WisCon, a science-fiction convention unlike most I’ve ever attended. Sure, the participants are all interested in the same alien worlds as the thronging crowds that go to the popular Atlanta event Dragon*Con or the media circus known as Comic-Con. But they rarely carry light sabers or argue about continuity errors in Babylon 5. Instead, they carry armloads of books and want to talk politics.

WisCon is the United States’ only feminist sci-fi convention, but since it was founded more than two decades ago, the event has grown to be much more than that. Feminism is still a strong component of the con, and many panels are devoted to the work of women writers or issues like sexism in comic books. But the con is also devoted to progressive politics, antiracism, and the ways speculative literature can change the future. This year there was a terrific panel about the fake multiculturalism of Star Trek and Heroes, as well as a discussion about geopolitical themes in experimental writer Timmel Duchamp’s five-novel, near-future Marq’ssan series.

While most science fiction cons feature things like sneak-preview footage of the next special effects blockbuster or appearances by the cast of Joss "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Whedon’s new series Dollhouse, WisCon’s highlights run toward the bookish. We all crammed inside one of the hotel meeting rooms to be part of a tea party thrown by the critically-acclaimed indie SF Web zine Strange Horizons (strangehorizons.com), then later we listened to several lightning readings at a stately beer bash thrown by old school SF book publisher Tor.

One of the highlights of the con was a chance to drink absinthe in a strangely windowless suite with the editors of alternative publisher Small Beer Press, whose authors include the award-winning Kelly Link and Carol Emschwiller. You genuinely imagine yourself on a spaceship in that windowless room — or maybe in some subterranean demon realm — with everybody talking about alternate realities, AIs gone wild, and why Iron Maiden is the best band ever. (What? You don’t think there will be 1980s metal in the demon realm?)

Jim Munroe, Canadian master of DIY publishing and filmmaking, was at WisCon talking about literary zombies and ways that anarchists can learn to organize their time better, while guest of honor Maureen McHugh gave a speech about how interactive online storytelling represents the future of science fiction — and fiction in general. Science fiction erotica writer/publisher Cecilia Tan told everybody about her latest passion: writing Harry Potter fan fiction about the forbidden love between Draco and Snape. Many of today’s most popular writers, like bestseller Naomi Novik, got their start writing fan fiction. Some continue to do it under fake names because they just can’t give it up.

Perhaps the best part of WisCon is getting a chance to hang out with thousands of people who believe that writing and reading books can change the world for the better. Luckily, nobody there is humorless enough to forget that sometimes escapist fantasy is just an escape. WisCon attendees simply haven’t given up hope that tomorrow might be radically better than today. They are passionate about the idea that science fiction and fantasy are the imaginative wing of progressive politics. In Madison, among groups of dreamers, I was forcefully reminded that before we remake the world, we must first model it in our own minds.

Annalee Newitz (annalee@techsploitation.com) is a surly media nerd who bought way too many books at WisCon and can’t wait to read them all.

Stephen Pelton Dance Theater

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PREVIEW Stephen Pelton’s full-bodied and thoughtfully structured choreography fits his dancers like second skins. It’s one of the most appealing aspects of the work from this longtime San Francisco artist who now spends half of his time in London. Another of his gifts is choosing music — whether it’s Radiohead, Schubert, or Edith Piaf — that supports his purposes ever so smoothly. Often drawing inspiration from literary sources, Pelton is a storyteller in the manner of poets who suggest, evoke, and analogize — but don’t spell out. The results are dances that resonate like a Zen bell. He may be best remembered for The Hurdy-Gurdy Man (1998), that strangely haunting solo drawn from documentation of Hitler’s body language. He also has created such epics as The American Song Book (1997), which uses popular American music to evoke three different periods in US history. But Pelton’s choreography is most at home in intimacy, full of contradictory impulses in which violence looks lyrical and tenderness totters at the edge of the abyss. A note of melancholy and resignation permeates much of it; perhaps this is not unexpected from an artist who came of age during the worst days of the AIDS crisis. Pelton describes and a white light in the back of my mind to guide me, this season’s premiere, as a meditation on aging. Performed solo and as an ensemble, the piece grew out of a World War II poem by Anglo-Irish poet Louis MacNeice. The work’s accompanying music is from the English composer Gavin Bryars. This program includes a preview of next year’s Citizen Hill, last season’s Tuesday, Not Here (created for the remarkable Nol Simonse in 2003), and Christy Funsch in her reworked 2007 Solo for Somebody.

STEPHEN PELTON DANCE THEATER Thurs/5–Sat/7, 8 p.m., Sun/8, 7 p.m. Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St., SF. $20–$25. (415) 273-4633, (415) 826-4441, www.dancemission.com

Live 105’s BFD

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PREVIEW Rock may be dead, but before it kicked it shot enough seed into the musical milieu that today its numberless bastard sons and daughters testify that Rock isn’t what you are, it’s what you do: namely, rock the fuck out. Hosting obvious punk and indie-rock progeny Anti-Flag and Alkaline Trio, as well as hip-hop and electronic-influenced distant relatives Lyrics Born and MSTRKRFT, Live 105’s BFD 2008 brings rock’s diverse diaspora together for a three-stage, all-day family affair.

Proof that Rock slept around? Listen to the accents of the vocalists — Cypress Hill, the chart-topping Latino hip-hop group, spits Spanish-spiced rhymes; punk rockers Pennywise, despite their hard-driving style, still speak the slow, stretched-out vowel sounds of SoCal; and Flogging Molly, when the lyrics don’t slur with Guinness, boast an Irish brogue.

Assorted accents aside, the bands themselves follow in their father’s footsteps, drawing from genres as varied as reggae and house. Take Moby: the face of techno for many, he fuses punk rhythms and distorted guitars with disco beats and the airbrushed production techniques of pop music. Or the Flobots, who note the Roots and Tool as influences, and feature multiple MCs as well as a full band — trumpet and viola included.

Despite siring more spawn than Genghis Khan, no one ever said Rock was easy — promiscuous, yes, but success in the industry evades all but a few. Enter the Soundcheck Local Music stage which works like rock nepotism: the notoriety of big brothers lends a hand to little brothers’ first steps toward aural apotheosis.

LIVE 105’S BFD Sat/7, noon–11 p.m. Shoreline Amphitheatre, 1 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View. $10.53. (415) 421-TIXS, www.live105.com

Art Street Theatre

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PREVIEW The places we long to be often have the greatest hold on our imaginations. In Chekhov’s The Three Sisters, Olga, Masha, and Irina dream of returning to Moscow, believing it’s the only place they can be truly happy. Of course, in Chekhov’s version, they never do manage to reach the Promised Land. Their dreams unfulfilled, the sisters eventually must resign themselves to their respective quiet desperations. Mark Jackson’s Yes, Yes to Moscow, which makes its North American premiere at Dance Mission Theatre for the San Francisco International Arts Festival, imagines the long-awaited arrival of the sisters to Moscow and the pitfalls of getting what you wish for.

Jackson, whose focus on the physical has long been a hallmark of his work, collaborates with Berlin-based choreographer Sommer Ulrickson, American actor Beth Wilmurt, and German performance artist Tilla Kratochwil to create a multidisciplinary, multilingual, multifaceted production. A smash hit at the Deutsches Theater a continent away (leading to a commission for Jackson and Ulrickson to collaborate again in 2009), Moscow‘s San Francisco debut fits in well with SFIAF’s theme: the truth in knowing/now. Forced by an unsympathetic and foreign reality to reexamine their assumptions about home, Moscow, and familiarity, the sisters must confront the not-knowing within their now, and rediscover truth as best they can.

Art Street Theatre Fri/30, 9:30 p.m.; Sat/31, 4:30 p.m.; Sun/1, 7 p.m. Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St., San Francisco. $20. 1-800-838-3006, www.sfiaf.org.

The Long Blondes

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PREVIEW When the Long Blondes arrived in November 2006 in fits of preening twirls and smoldering pouts with the decadent disco/new wave revamps of Someone to Drive You Home (Rough Trade), we’d at last found worthy successors to Pulp’s lip-gloss-and-sweat–smeared velvet crown. Fronted by the risky, romantic Kate Jackson, the Sheffield, England, quintet proved to be just as adept at intertwining the tawdry with the chic as their hometown forerunners, delivering laser-precise details of the dating scene while making the blood rush with every dirty dalliance and morning-after sound. Amid the snappy glam guitars, ice-sparkling synths, and jitter-pop rhythms, Jackson peered into the dance floors and singles bars and narrated back with a furious mix of exhilaration, lasciviousness, and cool detachment. Love’s a dangerous game with the Long Blondes, but pity the poor fool who doesn’t join in the frantic romp. When they sang promises of "Giddy Stratospheres" on the disc’s unstoppable Blondie-esque highlight, who could deny themselves such steamy, limb-tingling rapture?

Having recently re-emerged with the darker, rougher-edged Couples (Rough Trade), the Long Blondes remain just as committed to the hot-‘n’-flustered/couldn’t-be-bothered dynamic as they were before, and the Pulp/Blondie parallels hold true as well. On this go-round, however, there’s more menace to their nightclub trawling. Tracks such as "Round The Hairpin" skulk and creep with post-punk hypnotics recalling the likes of the Au Pairs, while the skeletal throb of "Too Clever By Half" offers spooky minimalist-disco deserving of the Italians Do It Better label. But for all their newfound experimentalism, the group has kept its flair for penning liberating live-wire pop anthems firmly tucked in its front pockets. "Falling in love is hard," Jackson reveals on "The Couples." "Writing a love song is even harder." Perhaps, but the Long Blondes have the lust-song thing down.

THE LONG BLONDES With Social Studies. Mon/2, 8 p.m., $15. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750, www.gamh.com

The Cool Kids

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PREVIEW With the success of their BMX ode "Black Mags" ghost-riding beyond the Internet echo chamber, the Cool Kids are on a roll. After one single for Nick Catchdubs and A-Trak’s Fool’s Gold imprint and a year spent performing live, including 30 dates with M.I.A., the 10-cut Bake Sale EP comes courtesy of C.A.K.E. Recordings/Chocolate Industries, home or former home to such acts as Prefuse 73 and Lady Sovereign. It’s slated to be followed by a proper album, When Fish Ride Bicycles, but right now the Cool Kids are back onstage, peddling — or pedaling? — their own blend of stripped-down hip-hop.

Though many latch onto the Chicago duo’s 1980s fixation and look no further, the carefully casual drawl of 19-year-old Antoine Reed (Mikey Rocks) and the spare, angular beats of 23-year-old Evan Ingersoll (Chuck Inglish) owe as much to Spank Rock or the Neptunes as the Beastie Boys and Run-DMC. With its brassy, clanging drums and tightly reverbed vocals, it’s no surprise that "88" has been snatched up by both HBO and NBA Live 08. If it’s possible to be aggressively nerdy, this pair, who first met on MySpace, are doing it. On "What Up Man," lanky Mikey Rocks raps, "I can build a sandcastle without bringing a pail / And go catfish fishing and come up with a whale," while the rhythm track, built from Inglish’s processed ticks, claps, and basses, chugs greasily along. From the uptempo, hi-trilling "Bassment Party" to the lethargic one-in-four boom of "Jingling" — an off-the-cuff riff on the sound of keys in your pocket — the Cool Kids make hip-hop akin to busting a wheelie. It looks pretty simple, but it’s damned hard to do.

THE COOL KIDS Tues/3, 9 p.m., $18. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. (415) 771-1422 www.theindependentsf.com

“Tree Show IV”

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PREVIEW In Shel Silverstein’s 1964 classic book, The Giving Tree (HarperCollins), a self-sacrificing tree hands itself off to a boy — surrendering its shade and its lumber — until it ultimately ends up just a stump for the now-old man to sit on and die. You don’t have to be a tree hugger to know that everything from the air we breathe to the paper we print on wouldn’t exist without them.

For the fourth consecutive year, the San Francisco branch of Giant Robot presents "Tree Show," a fundraising exhibition with a portion of the sales benefiting Friends of the Urban Forest. It includes mostly two-dimensional pieces by more than 40 artists who work mainly in the street-art and comic-book graphic style GR is known for supporting. Check out Deth P Sun’s painting with his trademark Orphan Annie–eyed warrior kitty in a grim, gray forest, and collage artist Alexis Mackenzie’s vintage-lady-as-lupine-shrub, embellished with butterfly blooms. François Vigneault contributes an ink-and-watercolor image of a huge tree getting a scooter ride in the rain, and Cupco makes three nasty forest lumberjack elves ("Cut! Kill! Burn!") out of stuffed felt.

GR founder Erik Nakamura writes in an e-mail that the gallery-store came up with the show concept years before eco-movement causes became so ubiquitous. "We like trees, and we felt, just for a second, it would be great to turn people onto trees," he explains. That second has obviously been extended, since Nakamura has noticed that many of the participating artists continue to paint tree images even after the exhibitions. And why not? "It’s a big part of their art supplies!" he adds. So pick out an affordable work of art for your home and help plant more trees in San Francisco — a happier dynamic for artists and arbors alike.

TREE SHOW IV Through June 18. Mon.–Fri., 11:30 a.m.–8 p.m.; Sat. 11 a.m.–8 p.m.; Sun., noon–7 p.m. Giant Robot SF, 618 Shrader, SF. Free. (415) 876-4773, www.gr-sf.com

Putting the “Van” in “Van Morrison”

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By Phil Eil

I was walking down Mission Street the other night, just South of Cesar Chavez, when I saw something that made my heart skip. No, it wasn’t another ex-girlfriend lookalike (they’re everywhere, I swear), it was a 1991 white Toyota Previa — a doppelganger of my first car — parked in front of The Knockout.

The Previa, if you don’t know, was a Toyota minivan produced from 1991 to 1997 (their popularity followed roughly the same arc as Soundgarden’s). With a name derived from the Italian word “to preview” or “to look ahead,” Previa enthusiasts, past and present, agree — the Previa was a visionary feat of engineering.

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Dionysian Festival

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

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

Crudo

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

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

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

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

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

Sun City Girls still shine

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PREVIEW When Sun City Girls drummer Charles Gocher died of cancer last year, it was a shock to fans of the long-running band. The group hadn’t publicized his illness, and they seemed to be as active as ever during the few years prior to this sad, surprising news. Following Gocher’s death, the remaining members — brothers Alan and Rick Bishop — immediately disbanded the group, which had the same three-piece lineup since 1981. Along with their current nationwide tour, Alan and Richard Bishop’s The Brothers Unconnected: A Tribute to Charles Gocher and Sun City Girls (Abduction) is meant to close the book on this influential, inspiring, and sometimes maddening ensemble.

No one will ever accuse the Sun City Girls of being predictable or easily accessible. They were probably best known for their various fusions of psych-rock with influences from the Middle East (the Bishops are half-Lebanese), India, and Southeast Asia. But part of their charm was their willingness to do anything they felt like: a movie soundtrack, a radio play, or an album of trashy 1970s rock covers. With all that in mind, the tour-only The Brothers Unconnected is the most concise, approachable summary of the vast SCG catalog you’re likely to find. It showcases the Bishops together on acoustic guitar and vocals, live in the studio, doing renditions of some of their "hits." There is plenty of black humor, with Rick doing his best Gocher impression on the ornery "Ballad of (D)anger," and Alan hilariously handling "Six Kids of Mine," a song about strangling a gaggle of crying children in order to get some sleep. There are also moments of unadorned beauty on par with anything they’ve done: the mysterious, gently flowing "Cruel and Thin" and a handful of tunes from 1990’s Torch of the Mystics (Majora), including dramatic spaghetti-western anthem, "The Shining Path," and the sunny, raga-like "Space Prophet Dogon." If this disc is any indication of what their upcoming show at Slim’s will sound like, then it’s a must-see for anyone interested in this legendary group.

ALAN BISHOP AND RICHARD BISHOP PRESENT "THE BROTHERS UNCONNECTED" With Neung Phak. Wed/21, 8 p.m., $16–$18. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. (415) 522-0333, www.slims-sf.com

Focus on the future

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PREVIEW San Francisco Ballet just finished its 75th season with a buzz-creating festival of world premieres. But SFB hasn’t gone dormant. This week the focus shifts to the next generation of dancers: San Francisco Ballet School students who hope to take on the daunting task of defying gravity and having their bodies express the contents of their souls.

At the SFB School’s Student Showcase at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the audience can experience the stages of a dancer’s progress. From the smallest kids doing their precisely placed tendus and still-stiff port de bras to the graduates, seven years later, who are ready to compete with professionals, you can see dancers blossom and begin to be themselves. You’ll also notice that boys tend to develop later and that girls still dominate the field. The program features the American premiere of John Neumeier’s 1986 Yondering, danced to Stephen C. Foster songs. The advanced students perform Helgi Tomasson’s 1996 Simple Symphony, which he specifically choreographed for the SFB School.

But SFB isn’t the only school holding its end-of-the-year recital. The School of the Arts, a magnet school of the San Francisco Unified School District, presents its budding young dancers in Unfolding Light, which introduces dances by student and professional choreographers, including Brittany Brown Ceres, Juan Pazmino, Gregory Dawson, and Enrico Labayen. A few of these teenage artists wowed the audience when they performed during the Izzies dance awards at the end of April.

SAN FRANCISCO BALLET SCHOOL STUDENT SHOWCASE Wed/14, 8 p.m.; Thurs/15–Fri/16, 7:30 p.m. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF. $32. (415) 865-2000, www.ybca.org

SCHOOL OF THE ARTS’ UNFOLDING LIGHT Fri/16–Sat/17, 8 p.m.; Sun/18, 2 p.m. Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina and Buchanan, SF. $18–$20. (415) 345-7575

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