Punk

Sex-children of the Throb

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By Marke B.

Throbbing Gristle, “Discipline” live at Kezar, 1981

“Like always I persuaaa-aade you.” My audiophile pals have been burbling for weeks about Throbbing Gristle’s return to the Bay Area — an event of enormous sonic-historical magnitude that both Brandon Bussolini and Nicole Gluckstern write about in this week’s issue. And they’ve mostly been taken by the series of vids recorded at Kezar Stadium (“the stadium of dead souls”) in 1981 that documents the raw, uninhibited mind-warp of the group at the time — a perfect tonic for our still-obsessed post-punk indie-bop era. It’s pretty amazing, and I’m loving the obvs tripped-out audience. Also, it looks to have much more in common with composer John Adams‘ Berkeley music-concrete happenings than the overloaded, multimedia Wax Trax spectaculars that industrial would soon veer into, livewise.

The above extended cataclysm, plus this one below by Germany’s Liaisons Dangereuses from 1982, tells a seedy, sweaty, and dirty-sexy industrial story, with a space for women even (“are you ready boys, are you ready girls?”), that I wish had been pin-patched and bedazzled onto Haight Street kids’ jackets rather than the hypersteroidal/paranoid-pop Skinny Puppy-Nitzer Ebb-Ministry one (and hey, doesn’t Depeche Mode have a new album out?)

Liaisons Dangereuses, “Los Niños Del Parque”

It’s a wonder to me how all those macho mid-80s big-time industrial acts could simultaneously be so testosteronal and yet so castrated. Maybe it was all the trying too hard (and it kind of happened again in the 90s with, ew, rap-rock). But, you know, I shaved off my devil lock and fled the industrial dance floor once KMFDM’s “Control” became inescapable. Now that was torture, even though now I find them quite adorable. It’ll be very interesting to see what kind of crowd shows up at the TG show on Thursday, to say the least, and whether they’ll have the spikes to ride the experimental thrust into polysexual purgatory, industrial’s true Valhalla (not hell at all), with barest, brief release.

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From the LA Times Coachella blog: “I think I’ve had three orgasms already,” Genesis P-Orridge said after the first song of Throbbing Gristle’s set. All right, so we know it was good for the fair-haired, transgendered leader of the British industrial act, but how was it for us?

The Bay’s Grass Widow sounds out mesmerizing shapes

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By Michael Harkin

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Grass Widow‘s harmonious post-punk tension is fostered below SF street level, in a former meat locker containing, among other things, a very charming quilt with the band’s name patched into it. In anticipation of an impending record release — the band plays Thursday at ATA — I met there with bass player Hannah Lew and drummer Lillian Maring (guitarist and trumpet player Raven Mahon was overseas), who, although living far apart — Maring is on the East Coast at present — were clearly very happy to be together.

"It’s not like there are any dispensable characters," explains Lew. After the dissolution of Shitstorm, Lew’s former band with Mahon, the two started playing together in 2007 with Maring, who was in the city for the summer from Washington state. Though Maring went back up north for a bit, she says she quickly returned and the trio "got really serious" — serious enough to tour the U.S. the following summer after cranking out a wonderful demo CD-R/ cassette that makes up most of their upcoming self-titled 12-inch on the local Make a Mess label.

First Person Magazine benefit party featuring Gudrun Gut

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PREVIEW Now two years old, I Put A Record On (Monika Enterprise, 2007) is a record worth lingering over. In addition to being the first solo release from Berlin-based musical gadabout Gudrun Gut, it’s remarkable for how unhurried Gut was in getting around to it: she’s been appearing on recordings and taking part in bands, including a very early incarnation of industrial pioneers Einstürzende Neubauten, for more than 25 years. Her intervening projects give her the aura of a post-punk Zelig: the all-female punk band Malaria! formed in 1981, toured with the Birthday Party, put out records on Belgian boutique label Les Disques du Crepuscule, and performed with Nina Hagen at Studio 54. That the group’s "Kaltes Klares Wasser" would later be covered by Chicks on Speed was a foregone conclusion.

The synthy Matador followed Malaria!’s collapse, but Gut’s ear eventually led her, like any good punk, to techno. With typical great timing too: Berlin had just undergone a techno surge, spearheaded by local duo and label Basic Channel. Abandoning the constraints of playing in a rock-derived idiom in favor of more uncharted territory, Gut also had the good fortune to run across Thomas Fehlmann, a producer with post-punk roots who had recently collaborated with Alex Paterson’s downtempo pace-setters the Orb. The two founded Ocean Club, producing a weekly genre-stomping radio show as well as parties that paired up the likes of experimental techno producer Thomas Brinkmann and splay-shirted southern gothic aficionado Nick Cave.

None of this is new information, yet all of it is useful in figuring out how something like I Put A Record On came to be. It’s beguiling, though free of big emotions — a left-field album that functions as an homage to the hypnotic state that arrives when you’re sucked into your favorite records. The best indication of its intentions is provided by the sole cover, of Smog’s "Rock Bottom Riser." Gut’s multitracked delivery, over a pistoning and downtrodden bass drum, is affectless enough to make Bill Callahan’s stoic delivery on the original seem fraught. But by the end, she’s wracked by giggles, as flecks of color appear like dried spittle around the monochrome production’s edges. Gut is not an innovator: both she and Callahan are committed to the old, inexhaustible pleasure of listening, regardless of genre. And this is exactly what allows them to give back to their respective genres, if we care to name them, some missing essence.

FIRST PERSON MAGAZINE BENEFIT PARTY FEATURING GUDRUN GUT with Thomas Fehlmann, Grecco Guggenheit, and Nate Boyce. Fri/24, 10 p.m., $10-$15. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 625-8880. www.firstpersonmag.com/events.htm

NorCal nuggets

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Now playing: Locals Only II (see part one here). You can’t stop it from happening, even if you crumble to the ground like Keanu, fire your pistol in the air, and scream, "Nooo!" NorCal bands gotta make some noise, Bay-bies.

Hey, what gives? The Fresh and Onlys promised to release their self-titled Castle Face debut in May, yet last week I spied the CD, prominently displayed, twinkling brightly on an Amoeba Music endcap. Could it be an inside job, being that Fresh and Onlys Tim Cohen and Shayde Sartin have passed through the store’s payroll? Whatev, Kev, be happy it’s there, polishing off rough gems like "Endless Love": "Why don’t we live forever /inside this little mirror /so that your eyes and my nose /and your ears and my mouth /and your chin and my beard /they all fit together? / Na-na-na-na-na-na-na!"

Just as you turn to dismiss "Endless Love" as another joke song — albeit one tuned to a staticky channel of surf and ’60s-style garage rock by way of Flying Nun novitiates and Jonathan Richman’s post-punk pop naifs — the group unleashes a mini-nugget of "A Man Needs a Maid" wisdom: "Don’t you know you gotta give yourself / to get somebody else." Happily tucked into an echo chamber of passion-first rock ‘n’ roll, and armed against the apocalypse with a here-to-help sincerity that could stand the test of time ("The Mind Is Happy." "Feelings in My Heart"), the Fresh and Onlys pull off the seemingly impossible: discovering a clunky sweetness and lo-fi grace in a very singular rock primitivo.

"Snap back like a bungee chord — Lord!" Watch yourself, Raw Deluxe. The Bay Area group’s flow is as satisfyingly smooth and substantive as classic Del tha Funkee Homosapien times three on "Can You Spend It," off its new Raw Communication (Reel Deal). MCs Lexxx Luthor and Mic Blake of Alphabet Soup and Soulati of Felonious are unstoppable and at the top of a mix that showcases the sheer delight of word-slingers riding the exact same wavelength. There’s nothing particularly uncooked about the smokily intoxicating old-school jazz-funk gumbo on Raw Deluxe’s third long-player: keyboardist Matt Fleming, saxophonist Tony Jurado, bassist Christ Arenas, and drummer Chris Spano are on point on "Something to Build Upon" — a celebration of the band’s actual music-making process — which would chart in a better world and provide the foundation for a more maximalist hip-hop.

On the post-rock-cum-math side of the spectrum is the far-too-scarce From Monuments to Masses, now SF-NYC bicoastal and back with a new mostly instrumental full-length, On Little Known Frequencies (Dim Mak), possibly the most powerful recording yet by Francis Choung, Matthew Solberg, and Sergio Robledo-Maderazo. Mars Volta and Minus the Bear — MTB keyboardist Matt Bayles coproduced, engineered, and mixed the disc — are obvious referents. though neither band finds its voice via fragments of sampled dialogue like FMTM does, as if tapping directly into the culture’s transmissions. Almost monochromatic in its clear-eyed devotion to alt-rock propulsion, FMTM’s music has the closed-circle urgency and internal fury of a sonic dialectic. Are these frequencies to be plumbed with increased frequency?

THE FRESH AND ONLYS

Thurs/23, 10 p.m., $5

Knockout

3223 Mission, SF

www.theknockoutsf.com

RAW DELUXE

Fri/24, 10 p.m., $10

Club Six

60 Sixth St., SF

www.clubsix1.com

————
UPCOMING:

FLIPPER

The punk legends are turning over a new leaf in honor of their new 4 Men With Beards vinyl reissues, including 1982’s Generic Flipper. The battle continues with Flipper’s new Love/Fight albums on May 19. Fri/24, 6 p.m., free. Amoeba, 2455 Telegraph, Berkeley. www.amoeba.com. Also Sat/25, 9 pm $10. El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. www.elriosf.com

AUTOLUX

The L.A. combo veers toward the dark, detuned, and deliciously distorted, judging from the music released from its long-awaited, forthcoming second disc, Transit Transit. With Odawas and Mini Mansions. Sat/25, 9 p.m., $18. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. www.gamh.com

THE GROUCH AND ELIGH

Is three the magic number for the West Coast indie MCs? Check for lofty concepts on the new Say G&E (Legendary). With Exile and DJ Day and Afro Classics. Sat/25, 9 p.m., $18. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com. Also Mon/27, 6 p.m., free. Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF. www.amoeba.com

Grass Widow

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PREVIEW Grass Widow’s harmonious post-punk tension is fostered below SF street level, in a former meat locker containing, among other things, a very charming quilt with the band’s name patched into it. In anticipation of an impending record release, I met there with bass player Hannah Lew and drummer Lillian Maring (guitarist and trumpet player Raven Mahon was overseas), who, although living far apart — Maring is on the East Coast at present — were clearly very happy to be together.

"It’s not like there are any dispensable characters," explains Lew. After the dissolution of Shitstorm, Lew’s former band with Mahon, the two started playing together in 2007 with Maring, who was in the city for the summer from Washington state. Though Maring went back up north for a bit, she says she quickly returned and the trio "got really serious" — serious enough to tour the U.S. the following summer after cranking out a wonderful demo CD-R/ cassette that makes up most of their upcoming self-titled 12-inch on the local Make a Mess label.

Grass Widow artfully molds anxiety, love, and sturdy musicianship into a mesmerizing shape — a sound in which haunted beauty is tempered alternately by pain and, as Lew puts it, "the cathartic experience of playing the song itself." The group’s three-part harmonies are intricate, with an incidental, spoken quality. Imagine a darker shade of the Raincoats, with minimal, vocal harmony-centric arrangements — really terrific stuff.

A seven-inch EP is projected for summer release through Cape Shok, and Grass Widow has been making short films, some of which will be screened at the record release show. "So much of it is about survival and friendship that we’re not gonna quit," Maring said. "It’s a reason to live."

GRASS WIDOW With Ty Segall. Thurs/23, 8 p.m., $5. Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia, SF. (415) 864-3890. www.atasite.org>.

Mini-Japanther: a quick, claws-out Q&A with Ian Vanek

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Kristy Geschwandtner caught up with the pun-happy, former-Brooklyn, art-punk duo Japanther‘s Ian Vanek after their show at the Hemlock on 4/13.

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SFBG: When will Japanther perform “Dump That Body in Rikki Lake” in San Francisco?
Ian Vanek: We are keen to do JAPANTHER performance pieces the world over. DTBIRL was a giant puppet rock opera we did on 06, if you didn’t know. The puppets are in art storage so anything is possible. Know any investors?

SFBG: Did Japanther really relocate to Southern California?
Vanek: Yes, we spent the winter in sunny LA and the greater west coast. Now that the spring is here it’s back to work! Basically we went homeless to tour in 09. Paying rent in a recession is so 1990s.

SFBG: Where is your favorite place to play?
Vanek: SF is up there for sure (and the whole Bay). We also love Australia, Montreal, Toronto, Juarez and of course our hometown, BROOKLYN.

SFBG: Did you ever make it to Russia to play?
Vanek: Not yet but we got as far as the official invites… We will make there in the next year for sure!

Fiends, eyepatches, and femmes fatales

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The cause of showing neglected old films on 35 mm — that vanishing format — is one recently taken up by a number of local presenters, including the Film on Film Foundation and Midnites for Maniacs. We’re not alone in that pursuit, with one notable purveyor of vintage esoteria on celluloid being Austin, Texas’ Alamo Drafthouse. Its Cinemapocalypse programmers are currently on an "Invasion U.S.A." tour bringing disreputable shlock to big screens along the West Coast.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ double bill on Saturday spans the Atlantic with gratuitous violence and toplessness. Fernando Di Leo’s 1976 Mister Scarface is a lively example of the crime thrillers Italy churned out back then for the international grindhouse circuit. Italian-looking German and Fassbinder regular Harry Baer and German-looking Egyptian Fulci/Franco regular Al Cliver play cocky play dudes out to shake down Jack Palance’s titular mob boss. As their flamboyant older sidekick Vittorio Caprioli opines, "That’s a-Scarface. He’s-a bad news, I tell ya. Just-a looking at him and my asshole a-twitches."

Its marginally less obscure co-feature is Paul Nicholas’ incredibly tawdry 1983 Chained Heat, considered by many the greatest of all W.I.P. (Women in Prison) flicks. The cast alone clinches it: Linda Blair, Sybil Danning, Tamara (1973’s Cleopatra Jones) Dobson, Stella Stevens, Edy Williams — you get the idea.

Midnites for Maniacs gets into the Texas action with a "Fighting Back in the ’80s" quartet at the Castro Theatre on Sunday. Escape from New York (1981) you’ve seen, and 1983’s Vigilante, a.k.a. Street Gang (Fred Williamson and Robert Forster go Death Wish on the usual cackling punk-scum "animals"), is no rarity. But curious minds really want to know about 1982’s kitchen-sink exploitation blowout (cannibal monks! T&A! Kung fu! Cameron Mitchell!) Raw Force. And you haven’t lived till you’ve seen Lady Terminator, a 1988 Indonesian whatsit about an ancient nymphomaniac water goddess who towels off to wreak havoc on the police force and civilian penises of modern Jakarta. It’s vagina dentaterrific. (Dennis Harvey)

SAT/18, MISTER SCARFACE (7 P.M.) AND CHAINED HEAT (8:45 P.M.)

$8-$10

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

www.ybca.org

SUN/19, VIGILANTE (2 P.M.); RAW FORCE (4 P.M.); ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (6 P.M.); LADY TERMINATOR (8 P.M.)

$10

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.castrotheatre.com

Cohen koan

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER What becomes a pop legend? Mink, knighthood, screaming nubiles, Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame induction, or the Companionship of the Order of Canada? Nay, Lancelot Bass, to a biz looking for its next buck, it’s chart success at the beyond-ripe age of 74.

The curious case of Leonard Cohen: more than 40 years after his classic-crammed debut, Songs of Leonard Cohen (Columbia, 1967), this songwriting genius saw the rocket-boost of mainstream pop acceptance last year, as Jeff Buckley’s version of Cohen’s "Hallelujah" shot to the top of the iTunes charts after Jason Castro interpreted it on American Idol. One Tree Hill starlet Kate Voegele took another stab at the tune — already a TV and film staple covered by everyone from John Cale and Rufus Wainwright to Sheryl Crow and Willie Nelson. The final shoe dropped last December, when a rendition by Alexandra Burke, winner of UK TV’s X Factor, occupied the top of the UK singles charts, with Buckley’s take at #2, and Cohen’s original at #36. Cohen’s current North American tour — his first in 15 years — seems like a natural next step, especially since even the supremely gifted need to eat. (His ex-manager Kelley Lynch misappropriated millions while he was secluded as a Zen Buddhist monk in the late 1990s.)

While it’s no surprise that a relatively recent Cohen creation such as 1984’s "Hallelujah" should become a contemporary standard, working its way into Shrek (2001) and the ambivalent superhero sex scene in Watchmen, the song is still an unlikely commercial success, given its spiritual yearning and hard-boiled smarts. As Bryan Appleyard wrote in the U.K.’s Sunday Times in 2005, "it sounds like a pop song, but it isn’t …. It is a tuneful but ironic mask worn to conceal bitter atonal failure." Cohen’s "Hallelujah" is a gently meta-maniacal song rumination on songwriting and faith, clad in biblical allusions, that finds hope in submission to an uncaring muse.

However hard to picture, there are through lines between Cohen’s original, synth-driven "Hallelujah" and what some call his worst LP, Death of a Ladies’ Man (Columbia, 1977), an overwhelmingly orchestrated collaboration with Phil Spector that imploded as the producer barred Cohen from the final mix, allegedly threatening him with a crossbow.

"I’ve put my trust/And all my faith to see … /Her naked body! Oooh-oooh, oh my baby, can you see her naked body?"

Cohen never sounds as unbridled as he does on Death‘s "Memories," as youthful trysts take the fall with this mocking jack-off, the album’s centerpiece. I like to imagine his vocals were loosey-goosey placeholders. Anyone with a well-blackened punk sense of humor can appreciate the larky, screw-you ethos of this overwrought artifact, decorated with an image of the songwriter flanked by his morose then-wife Suzanne Elrod. Was this Cohen’s jokey fare-thee-well to horndog profligacy?

A cranky attack on youth and "Sound of Young America" pop, "Memories" is also the sound of Spector doffing his aviator shades and jabbing at his own mirrored eyeball and "Be My Baby" legacy. This Sha Nyah Nyah take on the same intermingling of faith and sexuality that underlies "Hallelujah" is constructed as a wall of soup, ready to splash down on Cohen’s fragile voice, sometimes subsumed by an ever-present anima: his female backup vocalists, a beloved counterpart to Spector’s highly controlled girl groups.

But "Memories" should perhaps remain in the past. For a strong hit of current Cohen go to the new Live in London DVD, which is infinitely preferable to 2005’s name-checking doc Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. Released along with a CD set, this straightforward, two-hour-plus document of a June 2008 arena show in London beats all that grainy Glastonbury footage on YouTube with its graceful shots of Cohen lost in the center of "Everybody Knows," eyes squeezed closed and mic cord clenched in a fist.

The greatest pleasures come from hearing later Cohen recordings reworked by a full band and witnessing the warmth and graciousness of a songwriter humbled by his audience. "It’s wonderful to be gathered here on just the other side of intimacy," he says wryly at one point, soon segueing seamlessly into the chorus of "Anthem": "Ring the bells that still can ring /Forget your perfect offering /There is a crack in everything /That’s how the light gets in." And perhaps that’s how — and why — Cohen has gone from haunting the rooms of heartsick "Memories" to becoming the go-to guy for a shot of lyrical intelligence: he recognizes our battered souls and sings those elegant, oft-unspoken truths still lingering in the sad café of the pop unconscious.

LEONARD COHEN

Mon/13-April 15, 8 p.m., $69.50–$251

Paramount Theatre

2025 Broadway, Oakl.

www.goldenvoice.com

———–

DANCE ME TO THE END OF THE WEEK:

RICHARD SWIFT

Shades of Harry Nilsson: the tunesmith makes artful inroads with his soulful new The Atlantic Ocean (Secretly Canadian). With Vetiver and Adam Stephens. Wed/8, 9 p.m., $16. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. www.gamh.com

CHANGO SPASIUK

Astor Piazzolla is grinning somewhere when this Argentinean accordion master blends the blues, fado, and chamame. Thurs/9, 8 p.m., $18. Yoshi’s, 1330 Fillmore, SF. www.yoshis.com

BEAUSOLEIL

Cajun music would be swallowed up by the swamp if not for the sprightly efforts of Michael Doucet and crew. With David Lindley. Fri/10, 8 p.m., $25. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. www.gamh.com

FRIENDLY FIRES, WHITE LIES, AND SOFT PACK

The moody, broody U.K. dance-pop rockers match beats alongside the spunky post-punk San Diegans. Sat/11, 9 p.m., $15. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com

Sonic Reducer Overage: Snoop Dogg, Eugene Mirman, Jeremy Jay, Skin Horse, and so much more

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San Francisco just can’t, just won’t stop. More musical – and comedic – worthies than one can jam into print.

The Get Up Kids
These lesser-known monsters of emo, progenitors of punk-pop, are back. With Approach. Thurs/2, 8 p.m., $26-$29. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750.

Snap Sounds: The Juan MacLean — ‘The Future Will Come’

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By Brandon Bussolini

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THE JUAN MACLEAN
The Future Will Come
(DFA)

Whether or not you were up enough on your rock genealogies to make the connection between John MacLean, guitar scraper for synth-punks Six Finger Satellite, and The Juan MacLean, the latter unit’s 2005 debut Less Than Human (DFA) probably took you by surprise. Like LCD Soundsystem, TJM looked towards history to fashion its electro-futurism, but while LCD appealed to rock kids with nods to the Fall, Can, and Daft Punk, TJM’s necro fantasies tended towards marrying Chrome’s glimpse of future-shock with Cybotron’s sleek, muscular productions. On The Future Will Come, the results remain strangely successful, all the more remarkable given techno’s way of sloughing off its skin every two years.

The Juan Maclean, “One Day”

Last year’s Happy House EP displayed just enough refinement and innovation to make up for the group’s three year silence: the 12-minute main track is a mainline rush of looped house piano figures and Nancy Whang’s mantra-like vocals. Of course, it’s not as hard to eliminate the extraneous moments on an EP. Part of what makes this new full-length recording durable is that it moves confidently away from the digressive, instrumental style of the first album towards a minimal, vocal-heavy style that makes its point more effectively, in less time.

I had to make an exception, at first, for MacLean’s singing style. Less chanty and easily endured than on Less Than Human’s “Give Me Every Little Thing,” it remains stiff. With added Brian Eno-like modulations, it resolves less quickly than the album’s other pleasures. Whang’s increased presence in particular is welcome: it allows her monotone to reveal subtle emotional inflections. The assertive vocal cadences of the incredible “One Day” split the difference between disco and hi-NRG, for example, before the chorus melts them down into a strange, bliss-inducing alloy. It’s tempting to see The Juan MacLean as a kind of genre-supercollider: they work in a tradition too perverse to accurately be called either techno or rock or even fit under the umbrella of a catch-all like “electro.” More likely, and less common, TJM is making it up as they go along, which must be where some of that joy they’re singing about comes from.

Music pick: Pier Paolo — uberexperimental post-cultural pan-Euro Situational demigods one-upped indie before indie was all uptight about it

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They thought through it first, then

By Max Goldberg

PREVIEW Though not as well known as contemporaneous post-punk politicos Gang of Four and Scritti Politti, Milanese quintet Pier Paolo produced a trio of wildly experimental EPs in the late 1970s that refuse to assimilate to faddish rock historiographies. Avanti (Rabbit’s Moon, 1978) and Naked City (Dérive, 1978) shadow Gramsci-inspired lyrical denouements with febrile musical leitmotifs that seem to dissolve as soon as they are discerned. Putting to shame Factory Records’ later situationist-ripping tactic of sheathing 12-inch singles in sandpaper, they even released one single as a 78 rpm wrapped in pages from Cuir magazine. Pier Paolo has long known how to cultivate an enigmatic image, right down to posing for their own photos. The group’s central innovation — a split-screen approach to rhythm and textural ambience, set astride by Gérard Lebovici’s dry production — may not sound like much on paper, but the double-drummer chaos suggests what would have happened if the Talking Heads and Brian Eno had pushed past bourgeois niceties. The band’s unmatched achievement is Abjection (NoNo, 1979), a mutant mix of millennial dub, soft-hewn minimalism, and verses cribbed from The Society of the Spectacle. Thirty years later, Pier Paolo is making its first stateside appearances, and the shows promise to be a bold redress of the usual reunion tactics.

PIER PAOLO with Conrad’s Bane. Wed/1, 8 p.m., $20. Direland, 401 Paril Loofs, SF. (555) TEO-REMA, www.fakebands.com

Kayhan Kalhor

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PREVIEW Kayhan Kalhor’s splendid vehicle is the kamanche, a bowed string instrument often rendered in English as a "spike fiddle." Don’t be fooled by that bit of orientalism. Neither folksy nor punk, in Kalhor’s hands, the kamanche sings an eloquent and breathless tune, as assured and unfaltering as an operatic coloratura. Partnered with the rich and flawlessly clear string-tugging of the charismatic Brooklyn Rider string quartet, Kalhor’s vocabulary of Persian classical music and Kurdish folk melody soars, now with the rush of a high speed chase, now with wrenching pathos that would move a heart of stone. Presenter SFJazz has dubbed the genre "world chill," and I would urge you to ignore it. What is world? What is chill? Both the youthful Brooklyn Rider and the seasoned Kalhoun perform in fiery earnest, with scarcely a glance at any East-meets-West gimmickry. Still, without burdening these fine players with the shlockiness of a term like "world chill" or "crossover classical," it’s fair to say this pairing builds shrewdly on the success of projects like Yo-Yo Ma’s intercultural Silk Road Ensemble and Kronos Quartet’s record Caravan, (Nonesuch, 2000) which featured Kalhor’s grandly titled composition Gallop of a Thousand Horses. As that name suggests, when alumni of the European symphonic tradition and virtuosos like Kalhor jam out, there’s no fear of the epic. Watching this group feels like surrendering to the pleasures of a sweeping cinematic journey. And I watched it on YouTube — the Palace of Fine Arts will be the silver screen.

KAYHAN KALHOR With Brooklyn Rider. Sun/5, 7 p.m., $20–$55. Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF. 1-866-920-JAZZ, www.sfjazz.org

Don’t fear Bonnie “Prince” Billy – ‘Beware’ marks his most accessible effort to date

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BONNIE “PRINCE” BILLY
Beware
(Drag City)

After multiple career tangents, name changes, and rambles hither and yon, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, ne Will Oldham, appears to have finally arrived. The accolades are pouring in from NPR to small-town daily newspapers — a marvel when one considers the fact that the Louisville, Ky., post-punk scene that Oldham sprang from was so roundly ignored during its most vital years in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, when Squirrel Bait, Slint, and later Oldham and brothers Ned and Paul performed as Palace (Brothers/Songs/Music).

The most accessible, clean, and least eccentric recording to date from Oldham, Beware might be considered the recording in which the songwriter assumes his rightful place in the current rock canon as the music-maker who prefigured the so-called freak/out-folk scene and the enabler and encourager of such talents as Joanna Newsom and Dawn McCarthy.

This time, his roving sensibility finds its soothingly smooth fit with help from Josh Abrams of Town and Country, Emmett Kelly of Cairo Gang, Akita Youssefi, Jon Langford of the Mekons, Rob Mazurek of Isotope 217, and renowned pedal steel session player Greg Leisz, among others – likely his most accomplished set of contributors to date. Still, despite Beware’s full-bodied, country-soul sound, I feel almost nostalgic for the humanizing glitchy folk Palace and early Bonnie “Prince” Billy was known for – perhaps that’s just my indie rock values rearing their scruffy heads.

Sonic Reducer: Lil Wayne, the Mae Shi, Starfucker, and more this weekend

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Pros to go: “A song by the Mae Shi celebrating the life and work of Xtian Bale.”

You have until Monday to find your place in the sun – or in the shadows. More fun musical offerings than we could fit into print – as usual in super-sweet SF.

Lil Wayne
The Nawlins rapper is said to pumped a good deal of performance-enhancement production values into his stage show – courtesy of a full band, a smoke machine, pillars of fire, and a set of backup dancers. But will Wayne deliver the goods? Or at least appear on time? With T-Pain, Gym Class Heroes, and Keri Hilson. Fri/27, 7 p.m., $42.50-=$147.75. HP Pavilion, 525 W. Santa Clara, San Jose. www.livenation.com

The Mae Shi, Pre, and Past Lives
Hey, it’s all good here. Well, I’ve never seen Pre but the Mae Shi are monsters (gag songs or no) and Past Lives – a band of ex-Blood Brothers – impressed at South by Southwest. Seems to me, though, that Skin Graft’s Pre combines squealing girly vocals with propulsive, clanging post-punk in a way that I’m sure SF kids can get with. Fri/27, 9:30 p.m., $8. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923.

Starfucker
Don’t hold the fucked-up name against them – the Portland, Ore., combo could be the next Glass Candy, with a newly amplified sense of humor. With Grand Lake and Guidance Counselor. Sat/28, 9:30 p.m., $8. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923.



Bonfire Madigan
Sometime SF dweller Madigan Shive whoops it up for her blessed b-day – and for the release of her new EP. With Excuses for Skipping. Sun/29, 8 p.m., $12. Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016.

White Magic
The Brooklyn psych-folk spell-casters send us spiralling. With Avocet. Sun/29, 5 p.m., $10. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923.

Alloy trio

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It’s another typical afternoon at Zeitgeist: mid-’80s punk rock roaring from the jukebox, the constant clang of beer bottles, the pervasive smell of burgers. "I like these industrial dudes over here," says Brian Hock, the drummer of SF three-piece Bronze. He looks at a gloomily outfitted bunch a few tables away in the gravel pit. "They’re fucking rocking it hard style."

On hearing Hock’s keen observation, I confess to his bandmate Joe Oberjat that when I arrived to meet Bronze on this semi-overcast Saturday afternoon, I initially mistook him for someone at that picnic table — a surly-looking, gothed-out version of Mickey Rourke sandwiched in the middle of the pack.

"Which one? The industrial dude?" Oberjat asks.

"He looks a little pissed off," says vocalist Rob Spector. "But he’s about to pound a double shot of whiskey."

While this is my initial in-person meeting with the band, I first caught Bronze last summer, when they gave an unprecedented performance at a July 4 CELLspace event, cleverly titled "Born on the Fourth of Julive." That day, the trio was an unknown element of an awesome bill that included the likes of Death Sentence: Panda!, No Boss, Sic Alps, and Tussle.

Bronze’s set commenced with Hock, Oberjat, and Spector garbed in matching military suits and sitting side-by-side with their heads tilted downward. Three friends then sheared the trio’s locks while a patriotic number spouted over the speakers. After what seemed like nearly 15 minutes of clipping and cutting, the band members finally rose to their feet and played a knockout batch of tunes. The sound: seriously blissed psych drone-scapes and kraut goodness, à la Can and Harmonia, with smatterings of Flowers of Romance-era P.i.L.

"July 4 was definitely a very strategic-type thing," Spector says, laughing. "The haircuts took a really long time — I knew [they] were going to take longer then we expected."

"It was also our drunkest show," Oberjat adds.

Drunk or not, the band — which formed from the remnants of groups like Fuckwolf, the Vanishing, and Night After Night — has a knack for performances that please the eyes as well as the ear. It’s possible to get a sense of this by checking out some of the YouTube videos on Bronze’s MySpace page (www.myspace.com/copperclub). During one clip, shot in Big Sur, Spector teeters back and forth in a crazed manner, his Dave Thomas-tuned warble getting locked in a groove between Hock’s kinetic beats and Oberjat’s jacked-up, skittering synth sounds. A flood of bright colors spills over the group as Oberjat lurches about in the forefront, toying with his signature custom-made boxed-shaped instrument while swooping down occasionally to joust with a heap of floor pedals.

"We enjoy being a bit theatrical sometimes," Hock explains. "We’ll always [do] slight things that maybe no one will notice, but once in a while we ham it up a little bit. If we play, we want to put on a show in some fashion."

Though Bronze has yet to put out an official release, that’ll change in 2009. Queen’s Nails is set to drop the band’s 10-inch self-titled debut, and Hex will issue a 7-inch single. The band is also deep into recording a full-length for Tigerbeat6, which they hope to have ready before heading out for a European tour in the fall.

BRONZE

with T.I.T.S.

April 1, 9 p.m., $5

The Stud

399 Harrison, SF

(415) 863-6623

www.studbar.com

SXSW: Explosions as Sahm, Floyd are toasted, the Bronx pounds, Tara Jane O’Neil tears it, Explode into Colors does just that

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Back to the basics: The Bronx whip it out March 18. All photos by Kimberly Chun.

Get away from the grip-and-grin events and rambles through parties that offer free drinks and barbecue (though Jackpine Social Club’s Nick Tangborn supposedly threw an ace bash yesterday for ex-Parkside honcho Sean’s Batter Blaster pancake spray product) – there’s music out there if you seek it out. The corporate sponsors may be relatively absent, but there’s still plenty of intrigue, sonically, if you seek it out: PJ Harvey and John Parish, J. Tillman of Fleet Foxes going solo, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Blk Jck, We Have Band, et al.

One great budding band of women: Portland, Ore., trio Explode Into Colors. An all-power two-drum approach draws from the Slits and Gang of Four to fashion impassioned, sinewy primal punk. Fully formed and in full possession of their own voice. The group played March 18’s Finally Punk-curated all-ages music-made-by-women show at Ms. Bea’s, which also included Pocahaunted, Yellow Fever, Micachu, and the East Bay’s Splinters.

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Boy meets girls: Explode Into Colors.

More meaner, more cleaner

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"We’re not elitists," asserts Nick Catchdubs, co-founder of Brooklyn dance label Fool’s Gold. In a conference call with business partner A-Trak, he describes Fool’s Gold fans as a sea of hip-hop dudes, skinny-jeans-electro kids, super DJ nerds and Urban Outfitters girls. "The tempos and the beats-per-minute are the only governing factor," adds A-Trak.

You could say that Fool’s Gold is fomenting a cultural moment. After years of dismissing it as cheesy and "gay," rap fans have finally, tentatively, learned to accept dance music. Kanye West landed a number one hit with "Stronger" by remixing Daft Punk’s 2001 "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger." A-Trak, the other co-founder of Fool’s Gold, is Kanye’s tour DJ. And Washington, DC rapper Wale drove the Internet nuts with his remix of Justice’s "D.A.N.C.E." Catchdubs mixed 100 Miles and Running, the Wale mixtape which featured that viral hit.

Fool’s Gold works with many of the era’s players: Kid Sister, who scored the label’s first successes with clever pop-raps "Damn Girl" and "Pro Nails" (and is A-Trak’s girlfriend); Trackademicks, the Yay Area electro-funk producer-rapper who celebrated the release of the single "Enjoy What You Do" at SF nightspot Vessel last month; and Treasure Fingers, the Atlanta DJ who scored a disco-house smash last year with "Cross The Dancefloor." Its biggest hit to date, though, has been Kid Cudi’s "Day ‘N’ Nite," a lonely-stoner gem that mixes Cudi’s off-key harmonizing against winsome electro melancholy. A-Trak doesn’t have exact figures, but he places digital sales at around 100,000, which he rightly describes as "cool for an indie like us."

Kid Cudi was the first Fool’s Gold artist to win over difficult-to-please hip-hop blogs, which sometimes ridiculed Kid Sister as too fluffy and trendy (perhaps in part because she’s a woman). During Kid Sister’s run of singles in 2007, which eventually landed her a major label deal with Downtown Records, skeptics didn’t know what to make of her or Fool’s Gold — was she some kind of hipster rapper, and was Fool’s Gold just a goofy imprint for fashion-challenged scenesters?

"When we first started the label, we would do all these weird interviews, like, ‘Talk about the hipster rap movement.’ Just bizarre interviews where people would talk about your jeans and sneakers and shit," says A-Trak. "One year later, we hardly ever get those questions. It takes a minute for stuff to assimilate. I think people know that some stuff is trendy and is going to float away like all trends do. But a lot of times it’s just culture at work: ideas coming out and getting assimilated, and then people move on to the next shit."

Fool’s Gold’s greatest ambassador may be A-Trak. A DJ star since the age of 15, when he shocked the then-thriving turntablist world by winning the 1997 DMC World Championships, A-Trak has grown into an influential artist. In the next two months he’ll release DJ mixes for two reputed dance labels, Thrive (Infinity +1, due March 31) and Fabric (Fabriclive.31, set for May 5). His transition from scratch-happy hip-hop head to genre-blurring tastemaker is one that Fool’s Gold might follow.

"The whole aesthetic of Fool’s Gold is based on what Nick and I play in our DJ sets," says A-Trak. "What we put out is really varied, but it all kind of makes sense."

A-TRAK

with Trackademics, Vin Sol

Sat/21, 9pm, $13

Paradise Lounge

1501 Folsom St, SF

www.paradisesf.com

West ghost

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› johnny@sfbg.com

This land isn’t your land, or my land, and it wasn’t made for you and me — such is the insightful and incite-full impression one gets from California Company Town, Lee Anne Schmitt’s beautifully photographed, concisely narrated, and ominously structured look at the Golden State and the state of capitalism. Sneak previewing at Other Cinema for one night before it screens in full 16mm glory at the upcoming San Francisco International Film Festival, Schmitt’s labor of love, shot between 2003 and 2008, is a provocative piece of American history. On a semi-buried level, it’s also an extraordinary act of personal filmmaking that subverts various stereotypes of first-person storytelling by women while simultaneously learning from and breaking away from some esteemed directors of the essay film.

Categorically speaking, Schmitt’s left-leaning survey of the American landscape belongs next to recent cinematic people’s histories such as Travis Wilkerson’s An Injury to One (2002) and John Gianvito’s Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (2007). Her dedicated photographer’s eye for still-life truths of American sightseeing is influenced by Cal Arts filmmaking elder James Benning, while her carefully selective use of archival audio — in particular, radio — makes California Company Town an understated female answer to the gay reading of homophobia in Ohio within William E. Jones’s too-obscure classic of new queer cinema, Massillon (1991).

One by one, California Company Town investigates this state’s ghost towns — doom-laden boomtowns of the past where today, at best, bedazzled modern day cowboys and cowgirls reside and line dance for tourists. Surveying forgotten landscapes that verge on post-human, Schmitt has an eye for signs of the times, whether they be literal ("USA WILL PREVAIL" on a theater’s marquee in Westwood; "Stay out" spray-painted over a "Prayer Changes Things" billboard in Trona) or figurative: spider webs of broken glass; a tree falling through the roof of a house; punk rock kids skateboarding near factory ruins. She pairs these sights with the sounds of speeches by FDR, Eldridge Cleaver, Cesar Chavez, Ronald Reagan, radio testimonials, and — most contentiously — her deceptively flat voice-over, which renders each titular site as a place that looks like a dead end yet has roiling life beneath its stingy, abandoned surface.

California Company Town is a one-woman road movie. A lonely film, but also an act of strong resolve built to last — and, in its original filmic form, slowly decay. Over and over, from Chester to Scotia through to McCloud and even Richmond, Schmitt traces the varied yet similar ways in which private interests crush community and exploit natural resources. In the process, she reveals the ultimate forfeiting of American pride of ownership. Grim stuff, yet presented in a manner that ultimately flouts the dry speechifying of academia, doctrinaire ideologues, and public television pablum-pushers. Schmitt concludes her film with a mute final gesture designed to start arguments.

CALIFORNIA COMPANY TOWN

Sat/21, 8:30 p.m.; $6

Other Cinema at Artists’ Television Access

992 Valencia, SF

(415) 824-3890

www.othercinema.com

CALIFORNIA COMPANY TOWN is also screening April 30, May 2, and May 4 at various venues as part of the Golden Gate Awards Competition in the 52nd San Francisco International Film Festival. www.sffs.org>.

Say you, say me

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SUPER EGO Adult contemporary is alive and well and thriving in Southeast Asia. I just touched down from a refreshing jaunt to that worldly hot spot: Cambodia a capitalist riot of beauty and pollution, untamed Laos a communist stoner’s wet dream. Everyone Hunky Beau and I met was gorgeous, despite the odd backpacker overload, which occasioned a few frightful spottings of crocadreadles — northern Europeans sporting poorly waxed dreadlocks, jingle pants, and stomach-churning Crocs.

Memo to the Danes: please stop.

Still, even that led to some perfect Putamayo moments, as when a lovely Jewish-Korean singer at Dead Fish Tower guesthouse in Siem Reap launched into her acoustic version of Daft Punk’s "One More Time." Many of the citizens themselves, however, seemed happily obsessed with Lionel Richie, Westlife, Yanni (it lives!), and Thailand’s answer to Nickelback, Big Ass. The gay clubs were pumping the usual homo-panglobal Kylie Minoguerrhea, sigh, yet the drag was way brill. But alternative DJ and dance music culture — and even the hip-hop aspirations my Amerocentric, quasi-Orientalist mind expected to sense in the region’s rapidly developing economic climate — seemed banished to the land of wind and ghosts.

I’d say I felt a little sorry for the baby-boom youth there, but who am I to make value judgments? Value judgments give me acne, Jessica Simpson — and a few weeks probably aren’t enough time to properly shake out an underground. Besides, here on the other side of the rim our dance charts are clogged with Lady GaGa blah-blah-blah, zombie Prodigy retreads, and something called "Total Dance 2009." Goddess help us all. If ever there was a moment to hit the reboot on Western mainstream dance music — hell, even drag to trash and go running with the night — this may be it.

THE ID LIST

MIKE SLOTT AND KOTCHY


"If you’re tired of all the retro shit, holla," woozes New York City’s Kotchy on one of his typical genre-fuck tracks, blending ambient squelches with trippy bloops from inner space. "Our culture must be in a coma, and I’m not a doctor." Glasgow-based future bass collective LuckyMe brings twilit melodies, brogue-inflected park bench rhymes, and wry Scots humor to the burgeoning genre. Both Kotchy and LuckyMe’s Mike Slott will bruise the speakers with live performances, while graffiti artists sear your sinuses, at this month’s installment of Bass Camp.

Thu/19, 9 p.m., $10–$15. 111 Minna, SF. www.111minnagallery.com, www.myspace.com/basscampsf

DAVIES AFTER HOURS


Do the words "electric strings" excite you as much as they do me? Yeah, that’s right, I’m a geek. The San Francisco Symphony, following in the frisky footsteps of other wildly successful nightlife-aware arts institutions, is launching a monthly post-performance shindig composed of cutting-edge styles. Cellist Alex Kelly’s avant-jazz combo kicks off this month, with electric strings and rock from NTL in April and the massive DJ Masonic with Mercury Lounge in May.

Fri/20, April 24, and May 22, after 8 p.m. concert, free with purchase of symphony performance ticket. Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF. www.sfsymphony.org

WORLD OF DRUM ‘N BASS


The name may sound like a trade show — and I’m here to tell you that drum ‘n bass fans make pretty great trade — but this huge affair brings serious low-end to Temple’s multiple floors, and a boffo chance to reconnect with, and lose your droopy drawers to, the fractured sound of yore. Chase and Status, Radioactive, 2 Cents, A.I., Havoc, and more break it up. Let’s get ready to rumble.

Fri/20, 10 p.m., $20. Temple, 540 Howard, www.templesf.com

DJ SNEAK


Ah, Sneak, how you play with our heart-shaped equalizers. One minute you’re banging chunky techno tunes, the next you’re upping the bongos for some well-earned soul release — and then you drop some serious freaking Chicago house gangster shit on us and we can’t stop screaming. Through it all you keep a shroom-happy smile on our faces and work the soles off our Keds. Here’s to another 15 years of squeaking the woodwork, and your choo-choo new contribution to the Back in the Box series. With Hector Moralez and Oscar Mirada.

Fri/20, 9 p.m., $10–$20. Six, 66 Sixth St., SF. www.clubsix1.com

CLIVE HENRY


Anyone who caught house legend Francois K.’s head-scratching but still rewarding set at Vessel on March 12 may have taken away the same thought I did — the sparkling Balearic revival of the past few years has now congealed into a full-on non-ironic Ibiza attack. That’s kind of scary, but maybe the crappy-champagne-and-carnival-siren sound is an interesting comment on now. Prolific DJ and producer Clive Henry, of the glittery Circo Loco party based at Ibiza’s humongous DC10, may be the best person to help you rethink the microgenre at EndUp. Whether or not he’ll be sponsored by Got 2 B Magnetik hair gel with pheromones, like most Ibiza denizens, remains to be seen.

Sat/21, 10 p.m., $10–$20. EndUp, 401 Sixth St., SF. www.theendup.com, www.sensesf.com

BOOKA SHADE


The moody duo is still touring — and bridging the gap between thoughtful Berlin minimal and the more laconic side of electro. Yet why would Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier ever stop accumuutf8g bonus miles as one of the most acclaimed live acts in dance music, especially with their Get Physical label still scoring kudos and their hoards of ready and willing fans? You may have seen it all before, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the tits.

Sun/22, 8:30 p.m., $22 advance. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

Jewish Music Festival

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PREVIEW Oh man, do we live in troubled times. If you possess a certain fundamentalist biblical streak, you might be forgiven for falling prey to thoughts of doom and damnation. For a proven antidote, try gospel music — certain postracial/maxicultural sectors of society are pushing back against the end times with joyous, fervent determination. Exhibit one: the "kosher gospel" of Joshua Nelson, a black Jew from New Jersey born to African American parents, who traces his religion to several generations of West African Senegalese Jews.

Nelson lived in Israel for two years and is fluent in Hebrew, and his music is as interesting as his lineage and biography. He draws from Jewish liturgy to rework a traditionally Christian genre of music, imbuing it with resonant Jewish themes — the despair of being lost, the longing for freedom. Despite his inventiveness with the form, his music retains gospel’s recognizably uplifting, stirring, soulful core. Nelson has performed before Yitzhak Rabin and Barack Obama, and Oprah Winfrey has championed and befriended him. At the Jewish Music Festival’s opening event (Sat/21, at First Congregational Church of Oakland), you’ll find out why his singing voice has been compared to Mahalia Jackson’s. For one night, at least, let the "Prince of Kosher Gospel" soothe your weary brow. He’s Oprah approved!

Another good Jewish Music Festival pick is a March 26 performance at the Rickshaw Stop by Daniel Kahn & the Painted Bird, who are on tour in support of their second CD, Partisans & Parasites (Oriente). Kahn is often called the Tom Waits of Berlin — his band mixes punk with political cabaret. If you’re looking for more of a raucous dance party, this is your night.

JEWISH MUSIC FESTIVAL Sat/21 through April 2. Various prices and venues. (510) 848-0237. www.jewishmusicfestival.org.

Six-leafed clover for St. Patty’s

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Besides following your priorities and getting green drunk (even ecologically drunk) tomorrow night, here’s six four-star musical events totally worth tottering off your pub stool toward. But don’t mistake that leprechaun for your designated driver! Call a cab, Molly O’Shaumessy!

St. Patty’s Day Punk Bash
With La Plebe, Ribzy, Get Dead, Abrupt, Dope Charge, and Excuse the Blood.
Tue/17, 6pm, $8
Elbo Room
647 Valencia, SF
(415) 552-7788
www.elbo.com

Culann’s Hounds, Hooks, Gasmen
Part of the San Francisco Irish Music Festival
Tue/17, 8pm, $20
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell, SF
(415) 885-0750
www.gamh.com

A Very Special St. Patrick’s Day 45 Club
The funky side of soul on 45 rpm with dX the Funky Grandpaw, Dirty Dishes, and English Steve.
Tue/17, 9pm, $2.
Knockout
3223 Mission, SF
(415) 550-6994
www.theknockoutsf.com

Farley’s Coffee 20th Anniversary and St. Patrick’s Day Celebration
Bagpipes and Irish music from 9am-noon; 8pm music and dancing, with a performance from local faves Soul Delights.
Tue/17, 9am-10pm, free
Farley’s coffeehouse
1315 18th St, SF
(415) 648-1545
www.farleyscoffee.com

Food Stamp Tuesdays
This new monthly (second Tuesdays) kicks off with a cheap drink Patty’s Day special at the usually pretty pricey Vessel. With disco soul glammers from DJs Miss Juanita More, Initials P.B. and Pete Notori
Tue/17, 5pm-midnight, free
Vessel
85 Campton Place, SF
(415) 433-8585
www.vesselsf.com

Get Wild St. Patty’s
New crazy-boots band The Primitivas, featuring members of the La-Teenos and the Guardian’s own Dulcinea Gonzalez will funk up Aunt Charlies, with DJ Alexis and hostesses Hunx and Liza Thorn.
Tue/17, 10pm, cheap
Aunt Charlie’s Lounge
133 Turk, SF
www.auntcharlieslounge.com

Legs that just won’t quit

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Long Legged Woman seemed to come out of left field when it performed at the Eagle Tavern a few months back. The group had the feel of a touring band: freakish energy, precision, and a name I hadn’t heard before. And the self-proclaimed ‘Tardcore trio turned out to be a terrifically raucous opening act for some of San Francisco’s most favored indie bands.

As drummer Justin Flowers informed me months later, Long Legged Woman may be new to SF, but its members certainly aren’t new to the game. In fact, they’re more south field than left field.

The three-year-old, once-Athens, Ga.-based thrash-rock combo was just "ready to get the fuck out of Georgia," Flowers told me as he sucked down Marlboros at a coffee shop. The outfit — which will import a fourth member from Georgia soon — has been reaping the benefits of its integration into the San Francisco underground ever since its move. An upcoming tour with Dark Meat to South by Southwest, accompanied by a 7-inch split, are just some of the big plans Long Legged Woman is optimistically pursuing.

One of the best things about music coming out of the past decade has been the birth of the most killer subgenres in the world. Psych-rock, surf punk, and deathcore — to name a few — are the direct results of the filtered interests of versatile musicians fitting all their favorite filthy influences into one song. Long Legged Woman is one of the finest examples of this. You must see them and own the record to get your fill.

Live, you will get a taste of Mayyors-esque thrash in terms of the vocals, while Nobody Knows This Is Nowhere (Pollen Season, 2008), which was recorded on a 4-track, offers a more psychedelic, garage-pop feeling and an eclectic batch of tunes. "We all write songs for the band," says Flowers with a slight Southern twang. "So they’re always different."

Long Legged Woman finds its own sound by rotating members Gabe Vodicka, Alex Cargile, and Jeff Rahuba on bass, guitar, and vocals. The result is a ratatouille of Neil Young-meets-Death-in-an-opium-bar: it makes you want to light your flannel on fire and throw it onstage. (Jen Snyder)

LONG LEGGED WOMAN

With the Hospitals and Eat Skull

Sat/14, 8 p.m., call for price

Li Po Lounge

916 Grant, SF

(415) 982-0072

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