Stage

Duke’s gonna get ’em: High Decibels’ main man turns that shit into gold

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By Billy Jam

Shit happens. We all know that. But it’s what we do with that shit in life that is the important part. In the case of East Oaklander Duke, ne D’Andre Johnson, of new Oakland rap group with a blues twist, the High Decibels, the MC/poet has managed to take the negatives dealt him in life and spin them into something a lot more positive.

In fact if weren’t for one of his earliest humiliations as an artist – being booed offstage at a talent showcase at his Oakland high school – that he wouldn’t be doing what he is doing right now. “I went to Skyline High School, and at that school, they have a really good performing arts program, and they do this thing called “Showtime at the Line,” like at the Apollo with the Sandman and all,” he recently recalled of the night that he and his brother entered the contest. They were confident that their rap performance would win over the audience.

Not so. “The theater holds like five thousand people and it was packed. So we started out our song, and the music started skipping. And I was first. I just started busting a cappella. The music came back on and I was off beat. And we got booed off the stage,” said Duke of the incident that happened about eight years ago when he was 14. “And for the next year I would be walking down the hallway and one person would start booing, and before I would get to the end of the hallway, the whole hallway was booing.”

That Dude

Genghis Tron: electrogrindcore of the gods

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By Michelle Broder Van Dyke

Imagine Zeus and Ares, up on Mount Olympus sipping cocktails when suddenly they start arguing about Ares’ old-news fling with Aphrodite. What ensues is more then expected, with lightning bolts flying into trees, morphing them into vertical charcoal, and spears being sent high into the sky as vultures descend upon the slain. The members of Genghis Tron brought a little of that mythical drama when they took the stage at Bottom of the Hill on Oct. 6. The band churns out cacophonous metal that waxes and wanes between caliginous grindcore and mellow yet still moody electronica.

Openers Religious Girls from the East Bay stepped in for Yip-Yip, which couldn’t perform due to a member’s illness. The group mirrors the point in which Zeus and Ares are still just sipping cocktails: it’s a good moment because you’re drinking, but it’s not unusual enough to order anything less original then a gin and tonic. They played with passion, pounding beats ferociously on multiple drums, with war chants and shrieks that sounded somewhere along the lines of Animal Collective’s “Native Belle” and “The Purple Bottle.” Not to say that I don’t love Animal Collective, but Religious Girls’ sound didn’t come off as entirely original.

Clipd Beaks, the onetime Oakland combo, was the lull while you’re trying to get the attention of the bartender to order another drink – hopefully the one that’ll push you from tipsy to drunk. Their sound was simple and synthy. Nic Barbein vocals were filtered with noise as he sang undecipherable lyrics into two mics, once even sticking one into his mouth. Overall, it was like being ignored by the bartender for more than 15 minutes because that more aggressive patron distracts him or her and takes all the attention.

Endorsements 2008: National and state races

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NATIONAL RACES

President

BARACK OBAMA


This is the most important presidential election of our lives.

The nation is in a state of political and financial meltdown. The war in Iraq drags on, sucking money out of the US Treasury and costing more and more lives. The gap between the rich and the poor has risen to unsustainable levels, global warming threatens to permanently alter the ecology of the globe … and all the Republican candidate offers is more of the same. It’s scary.

The Democrat we proudly endorsed in the California primary isn’t the exact same candidate who’s trying to get elected president today. Barack Obama, like just about all Democrats at this stage of a campaign, has moved a bit to the right. He supported the $700 million Wall Street bailout that’s essentially a huge giveaway to the same people who caused the problem. He talks about promoting "safe nuclear energy" and "clean coal" — oxymora if there ever were any.

Back in February, we noted that "our biggest problem with Obama is that he talks as if all the nation needs to do is come together in some sort of grand coalition of Democrats and Republicans, of ‘blue states and red states.’ But some of us have no interest in making common cause with the religious right or Dick Cheney or Halliburton or Don Fisher. There are forces and interests in the United States that need to be opposed, defeated, consigned to the dustbin of history, and for all of Obama’s talk of unity, we worry that he lacks the interest in or ability to take on a tough, bloody fight against an entrenched political foe."

But Obama remains one of the most inspirational candidates for high office we’ve ever seen. He’s energized a generation of young voters, he’s electrified communities of color, and he’s given millions of Americans a chance to hope that Washington can once again be a friend, not an enemy, to progressive values at home and abroad.

His tax proposals are pretty good. He’s always been against the war. His health care plan isn’t perfect, but it’s at least a step toward universal coverage.

And frankly, the nation can’t afford another four years of Bush-style policies.

The election is a turning point for the United States. It’s about a movement that can change the direction of the country; it’s about mobilizing people in large numbers to reject the failed right-wing policies of Bush and the Republican Party. We’re pleased to endorse Barack Obama as the standard-bearer of that movement.

Congress, District 6

LYNN WOOLSEY


Lynn Woolsey comes from the more moderate suburbs, and she’s far better than Nancy Pelosi, who represents liberal San Francisco. Just look at the bailout: Pelosi wants to prop up the Wall Street banks, and Woolsey wanted to fund any bailout with a modest tax on risky financial instruments. Woolsey richly deserves reelection.

Congress, District 7

GEORGE MILLER


George Miller, who has represented this East Bay district since 1974, is an effective legislator and strong environmentalist. Sometimes he’s too willing to compromise — he worked with the George W. Bush administration on No Child Left Behind, a disaster of an education bill — but he’s a solid opponent of the war, and we’ll endorse him for another term.

Congress District 8

CINDY SHEEHAN


The antiwar leader and Gold Star mom who put George Bush on the defensive is at best a long shot to unseat the Speaker of the House. Cindy Sheehan has only recently moved to the district, has no local political experience, and is taking on one of the most powerful politicians in the United States.

But we can’t endorse Nancy Pelosi, who has consistently supported funding the war (and has refused to meet with antiwar protesters camped out in front of her house). Pelosi pushed the Wall Street bailout and privatized the Presidio.

Sheehan wants a fast withdrawal from Iraq, opposes any bailout for the big financial institutions, and is a voice against business as usual in Congress. This is a protest vote, but a valid one.

Congress, District 13

PETE STARK


After 32 years, Pete Stark has become in some ways the most radical member of the Bay Area congressional delegation. He’s furious with the war and shows no patience for the Bush administration’s nonsense. He is the only member of Congress who admits he’s an atheist. We just hope he doesn’t decide to retire any time soon.

NONPARTISAN OFFICES

Superior Court, Seat 12

GERARDO SANDOVAL


It’s unusual to see contested races for judge in San Francisco. Most of the time, incumbents retire midterm to allow the governor to appoint a replacement, and almost nobody ever challenges a sitting judge. So the San Francisco bench has been shaped more by Republican governors than by the overwhelmingly Democratic electorate.

So we were pleased to see Gerardo Sandoval, a termed-out supervisor and former public defender, file to run against Judge Thomas Mellon. A conservative Republican appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson in 1994, Mellon has a lackluster record, at best. California Courts and Judges, a legal journal, calls him unreasonable and cantankerous. In 2000, the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office sought to have him removed from all criminal cases because of his anti-defendant bias. He needed a challenge, and he’s got one: in the June primary, Sandoval came in well ahead, but because there were three candidates, this contest has gone to a November runoff.

Sandoval has been a generally progressive member of the Board of Supervisors, although we were critical of some of his votes. But he would bring the perspective of a public defender to a bench dominated by former prosecutors and big-firm civil lawyers. Vote for Sandoval.

STATE RACES

State Senate, District 3

MARK LENO


The drama in this race took place back in June, when Leno beat incumbent Carole Migden and former Marin Assemblymember Joe Nation in the Democratic primary. Like most Bay Area Democrats, he’s a shoo-in for the general election. But it’s worth noting that Leno has an extensive record in the Assembly and has demonstrated an ability to get things done. Long before the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage the law of the state, Leno got both houses of the Legislature to approve marriage equality bills (which the governor then vetoed). He got the Ellis Act, that terrible law that allows landlords to evict all their tenants and sell their buildings as condos, amended to protect seniors and disabled people. And while we were worried in the spring that Leno might be too close to Mayor Newsom when it came to local endorsements, he’s shown both independence and progressive leanings. He has been a strong, visible and effective backer of Prop. H, the Clean Energy Act and has endorsed Mark Sanchez for supervisor in District 9, breaking with Newsom (and the moderates) who backed Eva Royale. We expect Leno will go on to a stellar record in the state Senate and we’re happy to endorse him.

State Senate, District 9

LONI HANCOCK


A part of Berkeley politics since she first ran successfully for city council in 1971, Lori Hancock has spent the past six years in the State Assembly. She defeated Wilma Chan in a heated primary for this State Senate seat and faces little opposition in November. She’s one of the most experienced progressives in California and has a solid grip on the state’s budget issues. We wish she wasn’t so willing to back more moderate candidates for local office, but we’re happy to see her move up to the senate.

State Assembly, District 12

FIONA MA


Fiona Ma has been a pleasant surprise. We didn’t support her for this post two years ago, but she’s become a leading advocate of high-speed rail, a foe of plans to privatize the Cow Palace, and a visible, out-front backer of the Clean Energy Act. We hope she continues to evolve into a progressive leader in Sacramento.

State Assembly, District 13

TOM AMMIANO


The only problem with Tom Ammiano moving up to Sacramento is that we’ll miss his presence at City Hall. Ammiano’s record is stellar — although he was once nearly a lone voice for progressives on the Board of Supervisors, he’s become one of its most effective members, with a long list of groundbreaking legislation. Ammiano authored the city’s domestic partners law. He created Healthy San Francisco, the universal health care program. He sponsored the 2001 and 2002 public power measures. He created the Children’s Fund and the Rainy Day Fund, which is now saving programs in the public schools.

He’s also responsible — as much as any one person ever can be — for dramatically changing the climate of San Francisco politics. Ammiano’s 1999 mayoral challenge to incumbent Willie Brown brought the progressives together in ways we hadn’t seen in years, and the district-elections measure Ammiano authored brought a completely new Board of Supervisors into office a year later.

We’re happy to see Ammiano move on to Sacramento.

State Assembly, District 14

NANCY SKINNER


Nancy Skinner won the June primary for this seat, and while we supported her opponent, Kriss Worthington, we acknowledged that she would make an excellent assembly member. Skinner has plenty of experience: she was on the Berkeley City Council from 1984 to 1992 and has founded and run a nonprofit that helps cities establish sustainable environmental policies. She understands state budget issues, is a strong advocate for education, and will hit the ground running.

>>More Guardian Endorsements 2008

Let them eat rock

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REVIEW The prologue and opening salvo in playwright-director Steve Morgan Haskell’s spirited, fitfully inspired rock parable All You Can Eat — an offbeat, down-tempo call to arms — has a French accent, wielded by a woman named Camille de Tocqueville (a coolly assured Michelle Haner). A writer on a Jean Baudrillard–like quest for the quintessence of America — America the dream, the disease, the drug, the doom — Camille needed, she tells us, to get herself an American rock star, the cowboy icon of this decadent age of imperial decline. And she found one in Alexander Vanderbilt (a languidly potent Brian Livingston), an evocatively named, Jim Morrison–esque lead vocalist of the long-defunct band All You Can Eat, whose four members are about to reunite for a comeback tour after seven years apart. The math eventually becomes significant, too, since 2008 minus seven leaves us hovering around the smoldering fall of ’01.

Now, the idea of being criticized by a French person is supposed to be inherently provocative to great swaths of freedom-fry–loving Americans — if maybe not so many Bay Area denizens. But having the great-great-great-grandniece of Alexis de Tocqueville firing both barrels at us — a live babe clutched, with European nonchalance, to her breast — sets up a particularly intriguing series of associations that go well beyond mere cheek or caricature. The group’s name, after all, employs durable pop irony to flag a consumerist ethos that, in this context, functions as a latter-day democratic equivalent of Marie Antoinette’s dictum by inadvertently helping to kick off an apocalypse with the Dubya-like injunction to shop and devour your way to freedom and security. Revolution, it seems, is English for la plus ça change.

Collaborating productively with the sharp physical theater style of San Francisco’s foolsFURY, Haskell unfurls the combo’s story obliquely, in some shimmering dialogue and a music- and movement-fueled patchwork of disjointed, time-tripping scenes, prodded and punctuated by guitarist Tracy Walsh, stage left. The paint-dribbled set proffers three large semi-abstract canvases by artist Matt Sesow — crazed portraiture for an age inclined less to the revolutionary romanticism of a Delacroix than the bastard offspring of Francis Bacon and Ralph Steadman.

In their personal foibles, triumphs, and entanglements; their outsize ambitions; their seemingly omnipotent but ultimately caged energies; Vanderbilt and colleagues Gregory Ford (Ryan O’Donnell) and Banafrit Nut (Nora El Samahy), together with their manager (Deborah Eliezer) and one fiery and ominous groupie (Csilla Horvath), become the prism for a larger social crisis. Although the play’s expression may lack the dramatic girth Haskell sets out for, its dimensions are often smartly suggested. Moreover, All You Can Eat‘s significance won’t be lost on anyone in this crystalline moment of truth between Wall Street, Washington, DC, and the abused inheritors of democracy in America. *

ALL YOU CAN EAT

Through Sat/11

Thurs.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; $15–$30

Traveling Jewish Theatre

470 Florida, SF

www.foolsfury.org

My, my, My Bloody Valentine at the Concourse

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As the last hiss, groan, and shred of so many guitars in maximum overdrive faded into the comforting murmur of C&W at the Concourse – and the buzzing began in earnest in my earholes – I had to admit, those My Bloody Valentines are still fricking bloody amazing.

I remember ’em way back when, among all those hazy watercolor memories of the ’90s, at the Kennel Club, now the Independent. And back then, around the release of Loveless, I remember thinking, they’re good but they’re no Sonic Youth. No mistake, I still love me some SY. But after the last multitextured blasts of “You Made Me Realise” surged first one, then twice with delicious rock ‘n’ roll drama, inspiring a small sea of fists to shoot up at the front of the stage, I had to admit this band has been bloody well missed.

There were a lot of confused looks last night, Sept. 30, at the shed-like venue – right there on the faces of casual listeners and maybe a few older fans who viewed Loveless as the most daring entry in their CD library. Live, the band has lost none of their fury – or volume. The 20-minute-long noise finale – which kept me riveted with its groans, shrieks, and force-of-nature undulations and seismic shifts – doubtless disturbed. Still, the courage and audacity of MBV came through – even to someone who has attended her share of noise shows. Their organic suture of, er, noise aesthetics to pop song structure heaved up a strangely benevolent, animal-like sort of sound – nonhuman, rather than inhuman. Against that wall of distortion, it was nice to see the little bodies lying on the floor, cradling themselves, holding fingers to ears, and studying the stage from across the football-field-sized room, basking in radiating sound and taking in the aural waves coming off Expo Center Beach.

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Free for all — and freewheelin’

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Hardly Strictly Bluegrass has never been about full-tilt traditionalism and musical purity, though real-deal legends like Ralph Stanley and Earl Scruggs, plus true believers such as the Del McCoury Band and the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers, have always graced its stages. Here are a few new, yet somehow familiar, and irreverent faces to the Golden Gate Park bash. (Kimberly Chun)

BONNIE "PRINCE" BILLY


Don’t get Will Oldham started on these whippersnapper actors today. When the subject of promising thespians came up during our recent interview, I suggested Shia LaBeouf. "I heard going into [Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull] that he was good, but it was awful and he was awful," said the Matewan child star, who saw it in Corte Madera during his recent Headlands Center for the Arts residency. "It was awful in the same way the first new Star Wars was awful — it seemed like it was designed to create the video games that were accompanying it."

Sun/5, 1 p.m., Rooster Stage

LOS CENZONTLES WITH SANTIAGO JIMENEZ


The Chicano band’s moniker may translate as the Mockingbirds, but there’s no mocking these activists’ grasp of Mexican roots sounds, including Tejano and Son Jarocho. Traditional folk instruments like the uke-like jarana will mingle with Jimenez’s Tex-Mex squeezebox stylings.

Sat/4, 11 a.m., Arrow Stage

HEAVY TRASH


Tube amps burst, echo machines eke out, and rockabilly kittens swoon when groovy-hate-fuck cats Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray bend those badass notes.

Sun/5, 5:45 p.m., Star Stage

THE INFAMOUS STRINGDUSTERS


Three prizes at last year’s International Bluegrass Music Association Awards went to the combo.

Sun/5, 2:10 p.m., Arrow Stage

IRON AND WINE


A long-tressed Sam Beam and his Wine-ers broke onto Letterman with The Shepherd’s Dog (Sub Pop, 2007). So what’s next?

Sun/5, 3:25 p.m., Rooster Stage.

MARK OLSON AND GARY LOURIS


Two forces in the criminally unrecognized Jayhawks reunite — long after vocalist Mark Olson moved to the Joshua Tree area to be with now-ex Victoria Williams. Coming on the heels of Louris’ Vagabonds (Rykodisc) is their new Chris Robinson–produced collabo, Ready for the Flood (Hacktone).

Sat/4, 1:30 p.m., Rooster Stage

ROBERT PLANT AND ALISON KRAUSS


The warmth and intimacy of this simpatico musical coupling was enough to ward off the chill at this summer’s foggy show at the Greek Theatre as the lion-maned duo tamed the Zep-happy mob with hushed versions of "Black Dog" and "The Battle of Evermore."

Fri/3, 5:15 p.m., Banjo Stage

WACO BROTHERS


OK, these yobs are far from unknown: Jon Langford and Steve Goulding can be sighted among the many Mekons, and Alan Doughty survived Jesus Jones. Good-timers like "Drinkin’ Cheatin’ Death" show why this band drives its hometown Chicago crowds nutty.

Sat/4, 12:05 p.m., Star Stage

PEGI YOUNG


Neil Young spotters will hope he’ll sit in, but give the woman who masterminded the Bridge Benefit her due. Pegi’s self-titled debut (Warner Bros., 2007) found her stirring from the support role, wrapping sugar-dusted, languorous tones around slow-dances à la "When the Wildlife Betrays Me."

Sun/5, 4:30 p.m., Arrow Stage

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 8 runs from Fri/3-Sun/5, in Speedway Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF. Free. www.strictlybluegrass.com.

Please, Hammer, don’t hurt my bluegrass

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It’s a combination that raised more than a few eyebrows: MC Hammer performing at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 8. We have it in our hearts to get country, but is this show for real? As it turns out, the connection is a fairly straightforward one. "I thought it was a very good idea since I’ve always been a very positive artist and always embraced the kids," Hammer, born Stanley Burrell, explained when I spoke to him by phone recently.

Hammer became involved with Hardly Strictly when a mutual acquaintance introduced him to festival benefactor Warren Hellman. He performs Oct. 3 during an educational program for children that is part of Daniel Pearl World Music Days. Founded in 2002 by the Daniel Pearl Foundation, Hammer is enthusiastic about his involvement in celebrating the memory of Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter killed in 2002 in Pakistan. "It is an honor to participate in anything that uplifts [Pearl’s] sacrifice and his commitment," he said. Add Hammer’s interest in community programs for children — he has sponsored Little League teams for more than a decade — and his appearance at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass becomes too legit for him to quit.

Just in case you think this is the extent of Hammer’s forays into the entertainment industry, think again. While the rest of us were building pages on Geocities.com, the artist formerly seen with resplendently large trousers was amassing an arsenal of tech knowledge. "Very quietly I got involved with tech all the way back in 1994," he said. "I was trying to figure out how to get my videos on the Internet." He visited firms like Silicon Graphics and Apple Computer, keeping an eye on QuickTime and similar applications, and now feels that video is finally ready to take center stage, describing it as "the main component of Web 2.0."

Thus the man who tried to teach Arsenio Hall to do the Chinese Typewriter is no longer simply a hip-hop artist: he has fashioned himself into an entrepreneur in high demand. Hammer has delivered a keynote speech at an Intel CEO summit, appeared on one expert panel at the TechCrunch20 Conference and yet another at the AlwaysOn and STVP conference at Stanford University — this one in the company of Chamillionaire and Mistah FAB. His connection to TechCrunch is notable, since its founder, Michael Arrington, has invested in Hammer’s company, DanceJam, an online community based around all types of dance. Users can upload videos of themselves to participate in battles, learn new dances using tutorials, or browse performances uploaded by users. "The ideas that I’ve had the chance to crystallize, and come up with content for and build communities around, those are the things that people are looking to do today," Hammer opined.

Considering Hammer’s deep immersion in the possibilities of contemporary pop culture and modern music, you might think the hip-hop artist’s appearance at a bluegrass festival would faze him. He laughed. "That’s why it’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass," he said. "I’ve got a song called ‘Help the Children.’ This is not new territory for me."

MC Hammer performs Fri/3, 11:30 a.m., for local students and the public on the Star Stage.

Raging hormones

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REVIEW Romeo and Juliet — the ballet, not the play — is not exactly known for its wit. Prokofiev’s heavy-handed use of thematic material at times makes Wagner sound frivolous. But leave it to Mark Morris to turn ballet’s most beloved 20th-century tragedy into a fairy tale whose comedic overtones are difficult to miss. Does the piece — which was given its West Coast premiere by Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall Sept. 25 — work? Up to a point it does, because Morris set clearly defined parameters and shaped his take accordingly. At the end, however, the choreographer falls flat on his face.

Morris’ Romeo and Juliet, on Motifs of Shakespeare is the result of musicologist Simon Morrison’s discovery of the composer’s original manuscript in Russia. It doesn’t include a balcony scene, nor do the lovers die. The most welcome revelation is that the music was not designed to hit you over the head. The orchestration is thinner, shading its colors instead of splashing them on.

When tackling the largely unchanged libretto, Morris decided to keep the story at arm’s length. His characters are not quite flesh-and-blood people. The dancers inhabit their roles against the backdrop of a story we already know well. And they do it superbly. In many ways, Morris is playing a game with us. It’s witty, fun, and distanced.

The minute the work opens and we see the good citizens with their wooden swords, you know that this is make-believe. There is no conflict between these families: everybody, including the parents, is immature. Hormones rage. Stuff happens. The whole society is kept together by Escalus (a fabulously effective Joe Bowie) who prowls the town like a playground supervisor.

Morris’ handling of the crowd scenes works. He treats them like accidental encounters, akin to neighborhood gossip that swells then recedes. It’s one way of dealing with Prokofiev’s propensity for repetition. The ballroom scene’s formality resembles early Martha Graham with Romeo posturing like a pouting teenager. In a nod to the famous pillow dance, Morris includes a parlor game involving a cushion.

He explores a similar thematic development in the market scenes. A hop and turn motive spools the citizens on stage as if they were coming off a conveyor belt. As for the love story, Morris makes it into a puppy love that unexpectedly grows into something the kids can no longer handle. Noah Vinson’s Romeo is splendid, tender and ready to jump out of his skin from sheer happiness. Maile Okamura’s Juliet evolves nicely into take-charge maturity.

In the end, Morris’ Romeo falls apart. The divertissements in the bedroom look like caricatures, as do Romeo’s and the Friar’s ex machina appearances. Morris’ imagination fails him badly as he transports the lovers into a literally star-crossed universe. The choreographer prides himself on using every note of a composer’s music, but perhaps that’s not always such a hot idea.

Do look back

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REVIEW By now, the Italian American mean streets of New York — that colorful bustle of energies shadowed so enticingly by the wickedly romantic lives of entrepreneurial mafiosi — are an immovable fixture on the post-Scorsese, post-Sopranos landscape of cultural memory. So much so that, in its more run-of-the-mill versions, this world strikes the outsider as virtual at best: no more than a manufactured dreamscape. But authenticity is hard to fake. And with Chazz Palminteri, you can’t help feeling one degree from the real thing.

This sensation is all the more impressive given that the actor-playwright’s semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story has a highly cinematic flavor and arc that on reflection seems maybe a bit too picaresque and neat, pitching his boyhood self between two competing father figures and two intimately entwined but distinct paths. Not to mention that it comes projected from a big Broadway-style stage, amid a set that looks like its serviceable sections. The head-on slice of a two-story apartment building and the street lamp announcing the intersection of 187th Street and Belmont Avenue might all have been borrowed from a backlot in Burbank, suggesting something like Sesame Street for wise guys.

But if these sound like reservations, they’re not. The revival tour of Palminteri’s A Bronx Tale, courtesy of Best of Broadway, is a vital and greatly entertaining piece of work, driven by a tour-de-force solo performance that must be every bit as deft as it was nearly 20 years ago off-Broadway, before it was transposed to the screen, with Palminteri starring opposite Robert De Niro. In fine trim, the now-50-something Palminteri holds Golden Gate Theatre’s ample stage effortlessly for the 90 riveting minutes of director Jerry Zaks’ razor-sharp production. Moreover, Palminteri’s playful, inextinguishable exuberance throughout suggests this is no mere attempt to cash in on an old hit, but rather a deep-seated desire to consider afresh a treasured patch of hallowed ground.

That patch — 187th and Belmont in the Bronx of the 1960s — comes initially bounded by the actor-memoirist’s nine-year-old stoop-bound world of baseball, pasta sauce, and corner doo-wop crooning. Until one day, that is, when little Cologio Palminteri’s refusal to rat out the perpetrator of a murder that unfolds a few steps from his house brings him under the paternal wing of the neighborhood’s rising mob boss, Sonny — setting up a conflict internal and external between Sonny and the boy’s upright bus driver father, Lorenzo. After leaping ahead to his 17th year, the focus shifts somewhat to a budding interracial romance between Cologio and a neighborhood girl, as well as a test of trust between the young man and his adopted gangster father figure. But the pace never flags.

In Palminteri’s expert quick-change characterizations, the story brims with an assortment of suitably outsize personalities carefully, lovingly etched by human idiosyncrasies, foibles, doubts, and contradictions. No doubt one sees here the hand of devilishly charming storytelling, but beneath the theatrical/cinematic veneer is an authenticity of place and passion that reaches to the bone.

A BRONX TALE

Through Oct 19

Tues.–Sat., 8 p.m. (also Wed. and Sat., 2 p.m.); Sun., 2 p.m., $40–$85

Golden Gate Theatre

1 Taylor, SF

www.shnsf.com

Wanderlustful

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Sweet home Europa — be it central, eastern, or so southerly that you’re smack in the Amazon, shooting the rapids like Aguirre and grabbing inspiration from the jaguar guts of the jungle. Call the recent Balkan music invasion on virginal indie hearts and minds the stealth revenge of new, weird Old World sounds on arrogant Amerindie rockism — just listen to the brainy, brassy blast of Beirut or the fiddle-borne shakedowns of A Hawk and a Hacksaw or the gypsy, or Romany, mess-arounds of Brass Menazeri — I dare you not to jig. Yet the rip-roaring, marrow-slurping, living end of all fiddlin’-round roma punks are the longtime "Think Locally, Fuck Globally" champeens Gogol Bordello.

Larger-than-life Gogol vocalist Eugene Hütz adores the fact that Romany sounds are finding new audiences — "It clicked for me one day," he says from New Orleans, "that gypsy music is going through exactly the revolution that reggae went through, from being a regional phenomenon to being a much larger music section in the store — much bigger visibility because if you’re not visible, you’re fucked." But trust the man to set me straight on sloppy assumptions regarding that same music, especially regarding Gogol Bordello’s next album, which was influenced by Hütz’s move this year to Rio de Janeiro. Will the recording — about which, Hütz promises, "people are going to shit in their pants when they hear it, because we’re already shitting in our pants" — give off a heady, flowery whiff of tropicália, and sound like the Pogues and Os Mutantes in steel-cage match?

"Forget that!" he retorts. "It’s like being in Spain and saying there’s only flamenco, or there’s nothing in Eastern Europe except polka. It’s what every tourist knows." Hütz was initially lured to Brazil by a lady, but he says, "the next thing I knew there was a huge gypsy community to discover. Next thing I knew I was traveling through Brazil with Manu Chao and seeing the other side of it, and the next thing I knew I was calling my mom to send all my shit over.

"I love New York City and I always will," Hütz continues. "It gave me everything, gave me understanding and initial recognition. But I feel like the road is still calling me. It ain’t no time to settle."

The allure of unexplored vistas could go a little way in explaining the appeal of Gogol and its brethren to New Worlders like ourselves. What fan girl or boy isn’t tempted to have their blasé, boring butt kicked by the very unironic, passionate Gogol Bordello — not for nothing is the band’s 2002 album titled Multi Kontra Culti vs. Irony (Rubric) — which takes nothing for granted, and while it’s at it, takes no prisoners.

PLASTIC FANTASTIC Czech Republic underground OGs Plastic People of the Universe, who perform with promising Budapest band Little Cow this week in San Francisco at Slim’s, are all too familiar with incarceration. The group will also make a Q&A stop at the American Conservatory Theatre production of Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll, a semi-bon mot to the band who were forbidden to perform, whose fans were beaten, and members were eventually imprisoned by the Czech government in the ’70s for their dark, "antisocial," Velvet Underground- and Frank Zappa–inspired art-rock psychedelia.

Guitarist Joe Karafiát tells me by cellie, as the many in the seven-piece snoozed their way to Burlington, Vt., that Plastic People of the Universe didn’t set out to be activists or the initial inspiration for the human rights petition Charter 77 (which landed Václav Havel in jail) — much like they didn’t set out to be such diehard Zappa or Velvets heads. "If we didn’t understand what [those bands] were saying," Karafiát says, "we kind of felt what those guys were talking about."

PPU’s untamed shenanigans led to, for example, the jailing of freejazz sax player Vratislav Brabenec for a year. As he states via translator by e-mail, "Most of our adventures were crazy, as you can imagine. After the arrests in 1977, most of our concerts were suicidal. We didn’t know if the secret police would come and kill us or put us back in jail. But we had a lot of support from [future President] Havel and the underground culture. Trying to record albums in Havel’s barn under our situation — no real power source, police lurking around — it was all an adventure." Eventually, Brabenec was forced to flee to Canada.

It’s remarkable to think that PPU and their compelling skronk still persists, years after the Czechoslovakian government tried to grind them down and despite their continued underground status in their homeland. "We are on the edge," says the guitarist with a chortle. "Most Czechs are consumers. They consume TV, McDonald’s, and there’s just small group of people looking for something different." Those unusual suspects could find it at the slew of PPU sets before and after Rock ‘n’ Roll performances in the Czech Republic.

But perhaps that’s another reason we’re feeling that Old World sound: maybe we’re looking for the type of resilience integral to powerful, affecting art forged during tough times. With those survival skills, slipping onto the bill of bluegrass and country at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 8 is a cinch. "Speed metal bills, jazz bills, traditional Egyptian music bills," Hütz says. "We’re entirely inappropriate everywhere!"

GOGOL BORDELLO

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

Sun/5, 4:15 p.m., free

Star Stage, Speedway Meadow

Golden Gate Park, SF

www.strictlybluegrass.com

Also benefit for Muttville

Sun/5, 9 p.m., $30

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

www.slims-sf.com

PLASTIC PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE

Reception and CD signing Oct. 9, 7 p.m., free admission for Slim’s ticket holders and past and future holders of Rock ‘n’ Roll tickets

American Conservatory Theater

405 Geary, SF

www.act-sf.org

Performance Oct. 9, 9 p.m., $15–$20, Slim’s

No Seth Rogen

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REVIEW Two young family-hungry couples, one unassuming victim of the staff Christmas party, and a lonely alky wife and mom-bonking boy-next-door all find themselves variously knocked up, around, and for a loop by the reproductive process in Imaginative Productions’ stage adaptation of its 2006 independent film, "conceived" and directed by Tonya Foster. And reproduction really is a process containing as much social baggage as genetic code in these predicaments which, while ranging from the urban banal to the tragically suburban, are all pretty much as thematically familiar as familial.

Unfortunately, the relatively slim potential in this otherwise pregnant theme is rarely pursued with much vigor or insight, as the multicharacter storyline meanders away from its subjects in seeming perplexity as to what to do with them. Further muting things is a muffled soundscape that sounds like unintended lobby noise. The more workable areas of drama and comedy, meanwhile, suffer from uneven performances and static direction — although, ironically, a visit by single preggy waitress Anna (a relatively strong and sympathetic Quinne Brown) to an actors workshop-cum-support group — led by a deeply histrionic drama instructor (a vibrant Erin Coker) — arrives as one of the more unexpected and apt scenes.

KNOCKED UP Through Oct. 18. Thurs.–Sat., 8 p.m., $23–$25. Studio 300 Theatre, 442 Post, SF. 1-888-410-8355, www.imaginativeproductions.com

David Banner

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PREVIEW There has never been a more fitting musical stage name than the one chosen by Lavell Crump. Crump’s pseudonym of choice, David Banner, perfectly sums up his style and his struggle: he, like the protagonist of The Incredible Hulk, is a man of stark contrasts.

The MC and musician is unafraid to voice his progressive social beliefs, and is a dedicated humanitarian who raised more than $500,000 for Hurricane Katrina relief in Louisiana and his home state of Mississippi. He weaves engrossing tales about the struggle and strife that surrounded him growing up in a destitute section of a racially divided Jackson. All his albums contain touching tales of Americans fighting to survive in one of the most maligned and ignored areas in the country. On his latest, The Greatest Story Ever Told (Universal), Banner respectfully acknowledges his state’s blessings and problems on the swirling salute to the past, "Cadillac on 22’s Part II": "Mississippi is the place where your boy came from / But so many people are still afraid to come / But, I’m gon’ tell the truth / It’s just real good food / And real strong people / Who still refuse to move."

Of course, like the fictional scientist Dr. David Banner, the performer has an alter ego. Though all Banner’s recordings include sobering, powerful tracks, they all also contain formulaic "booty jams" like his biggest hit — and possibly worst song — 2005’s "Play." They tend to come off as scurrilous and awkward instead of titilutf8g. Myopic critics often focus on these missteps, and Banner gets the unfair reputation of being another derivative, chauvinistic rapper. Story is a perfect example of the duality that both gives Banner life and holds him back. The disc’s versatility keeps it interesting, as he coolly shifts from pensive, engrossing numbers ("Hold On") to real heaters that showcase the rapper’s signature flow ("So Long"). But he falls into the same pitfalls of his earlier albums with the sleazy "A Girl." Expect all sides of Banner to be in full force when he performs live, backed by the Rhythm Roots All-Stars.

DAVID BANNER With Talib Kweli and Little Brother. Thurs/2, 7 p.m., $32. The Grand Ballroom at the Regency Center, 1300 Van Ness, SF. (415) 673-5716, www.goldenvoice.com

Nefertiti Jones back from the Slow Club!

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

I was elbowing my way past the bar last night at a Guardian party at the Elbo Room. Suddenly, an apparition suddenly appeared out of the crowd and declared loudly:

“Why haven’t you put my picture on the front page of the Guardian?”

She was a striking woman, flailing her arms, and it took me a moment to figure out who it was.

She was Nefertiti Jones, the female singer and banjo player I had wrangled with many years ago at the Slow Club on Hampshire Street.

Nefertiti was a waitress and a singer in those days when we had our offices at 520 Hampshire Street. My office was right above the bar of the Slow Club and, when the club had entertainment, I got the full blast upstairs.

In fact, when I was on the phone, people remarked that I must be in a cabaret somewhere.

Finally, I got annoyed and complained to the owner of the club. In no time, the apparition that was Nefertiti came charging into my office, demanding to know why I was trying to shut down her singing career and demanding that I stop making complaints about her.

I took one look at Nefertiti and decided I didn’t want to wrangle with her. But I told her I would stop complaining on one condition: that she would let me know when she was on stage so I could go down and listen to her like a normal Slow Club gentleman. I did, we became good friends, and I was sad when she went off to New York one day.

Well, she was back, in full plumage, bristling with stories about her success as a singer and entrepreneur in New York. And she said she was performing later in the evening at the Hotel Utah.

So I asked Mary Samson, a friend of hers from Slow Club days, to catch the show and write up a review.

NefJones.jpg

Nefertiti Jones Back from the Slow Club!

The very talented Nefertiti Jones was in town last night for a short set at Hotel Utah. An iconic San Francisco pop songstress who worked below the old Bay Guardian building at the Slow Club as a waitress, Nef, as she is known to her fans, frequently played Café DuNord and the Elbo Room.

She was an opening act at the Fillmore before returning back to her hometown of New York City over seven years ago. Nef is in town for a few days and graced the stage at Hotel Utah last night where she brought down the house with familiar songs from her San Francisco days as well as new ones from her recent album. With a raw acoustic version of her regular band, last night’s set featured two guitars and a drummer on Hotel Utah’s intimate stage. Fans went down memory lane when Nef opened her set with “Got my Gun” an older original tune that had fans singing along with every word. She had the audience on its feet with ”Blink”; a beautiful rock song off her album “Life is Perfect” .

Nef had a huge fan base last night, including a crowd of X- Slow Club staff, and many others who have followed her career throughout the years. Someone even shouted to her between songs “MOVE BACK !” Nef currently plays with Jimi Bones, her husband of two years and you can hear her music and read more about her at: http://www.myspace.com/jonesbonesband

Viva Nef-Star!

Besides Nefertiti’s music career, she and her husband Jimi own Jonesbones Productions, a full service music studio and production company. Nef and Jimi have written and recorded songs for many emerging young artists as well as their own album “Life is Perfect”. They are at work on their second album to be released fall of 2008.

Nefertiti is currently creating a music program at the Founding Center, (NYC’s largest and most respected social service agencies) in conjuction with Gibson Guitars. Nef has freelanced as a casting director of the past 5 years in New York and specializes in “real people casting” ; she is gifted at finding the right people in the clubs and on the streets of New York.

Nefertiti also works as an actor and has been featured in five national television commercials.

http://www.jonesbonesproductions.com

ATP NY Day Two: Les Savy Fav, Shellac, Fuck Buttons, Harmonia, Om, and – what? – more

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Prickly, angular goodness: Shellac at ATP NY. All photos by Jessica Reeves.

By Todd Lavoie

Ah, the weekend was in need of a good easing-in period – nothing too strenuous, see, considering the epic scale of the Saturday night to come. So, on Sept. 20, we settled into our day by catching a couple of films at the Criterion Screening Room: Albert and David Maysles’ Gimme Shelter and David Markey’s 1991: The Year Punk Broke. The former – a chronicle of how it all went wrong at the infamous 1969 Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway, was absolutely riveting – while the latter was a bit more hit-or-miss, thanks to a nerve-grating focus on Thurston Moore as the documentary’s free-styling, wisecracking prankster. Having thoroughly relished the considerably mellower, less chatty Moore of the night before, I couldn’t cotton to the younger, ever-vibrating version I was witnessing onscreen. Still, the Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and Dinosaur Jr. performances in the film made it all worthwhile.

Next it was rush, rush, rush to the main stage: Fuck Buttons were about to bring the noise! We arrived just in time, and the Bristol, England, duo had just finished sound-check. Focusing largely on their March-released slab of epic gorgeousness, Street Horrrsing (ATP), the set was flush with all of the touchstones of the Fuck Buttons sound: steady electro-drone, pulsating sheets-of-static majesty, and floor-thumping noise-house.

A glistening sheen seemed to have been applied to the entire proceedings, thanks to scatters of night sky-seeking synth sparkles. Dance, drone out, raise arms to the heavens – the choice was ours, and the crowd was evenly split between the three activities.

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Go directly to jail: Les Savy Fav vocalist Tim Harrington in prisoner getup.

‘Star Wars: The Force Unleashed”s Haden Blackman untethered

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forceimage.jpg

By Ben Richardson

While attending the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed launch event at the Harrison Street Best Buy on Sept. 15, I got a chance to part the ranks of cosplayers in Storm Trooper armor and ask project lead Haden Blackman a few questions about his game.

He provided interesting insights into the process of game design and all its challenges, joys, and complications, especially those peculiar to a studio like Lucasarts that is just one branch of the Star Wars entertainment empire. Though he was unwilling to admit that the game’s shoddy force grip targeting was a problem for all gamers, not just the “hardcore” among us (I complained about it in my review), he spoke convincingly about his desire to make the game accessible to players of all demographics and inclinations.

SFBG: In the speech you gave earlier up on the stage, you made it sound like this was an idea that you’ve had for a long, long time. When a game first comes together, when it first germinates, is it a story idea that leads a game to be constructed around it, or are there game elements or things you want to do that in turn birth a story?

Treasure Island: No shutter shades!

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By Marke B.

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The upside of the Treasure Island Music Fest Ferris wheel.
All photos by David Schnur.

Well, I was kind of wrong, despite doth protesting too much. There was not one single neon louvered spectacle at the Treasure Island Music Festival on Saturday, for a lineup that was topped with rockin’ French duo Justice. And I’m pretty sure it’s not because everyone reads my bitchy repartee in the Guardian. It’s because San Franciscans are so way ahead of those tired Hipster Runoff hater trends!

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Ravin’ with a barnacle to pop-hop DJ Mike Relm

And yes, Justice was fab — the sustained set of dance beats after a day of stage hopping dance-floor blue balls was like a huge release, although I must admit that Hunky Beau and I dashed in the middle of their glowing-cross set to beat the bus rush. (Maybe for a whole day of “dance acts” there should also be a nearby tent of continuous local DJs so people can bounce their rocks off once in a while, uninterrupted by stage patter or slow songs?). In fact the whole day, though some folks’ hands turned purple with early autumnal chill, was amazingly lovely, if the energy was a bit scattered.

treasure08amon.jpg
Amon Tobin blows the crowd (and almost himself) away

There was a broad spectrum of dance music available, from sexy Aesop Rock’s intel-hop, to Goldfrapp’s Kate Bush/Cocteau Twins revival act to Foals’s frantic indie guitar-and-sequencer patterns (unfortunately the solar-panelled sound system crapped out on them for a spell). For every other kind of dance music except house, Latin legend Amon Tobin happily filled in the windy gaps, with an inner-ear/inner-thought blowing set that nodded not only to his super-brainy brand of ambient sway, but also lazer bass, break beats, reggae, and dub step. This was the first time I saw him using a laptop for his sets along with turntables — and, natch, he was a natural.

Man, oh, man: Menomena at the Independent

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The men o’ Menomena. Photo by Alicia J. Rose.

Menomena
Sept. 20, Independent

By Michelle Broder Van Dyke

Menomena’s music is a serene reverie of looped and layered guitars, capricious drumming, intrusive saxophone sounds, and slightly offbeat lyrics contributed by all three members: Brent Knopf, Justin Harris, and Danny Seim. Tracks spiral out from their introductory piano chords and buoyant drum beats, creating increasingly complex rhythms only to switch erratically and fork off into an entirely different direction. Some tracks capture this effect more successfully than others, dragging the listener along with the 90-degree turns, yet somehow Menomena’s melodious and moody sound works on both their albums – they have three long-players to date – and in concert.

On stage, the band inevitably transforms the recorded songs, loosing some of the complicated and complex layers while still maintaining a playful energy with clapping and tambourines.

In the studio, the outfit’s musical process begins with a computer program designed by Knopf called Deeler, which is short for Digital Looping Recorder. Drummer-vocalist Danny Seim creates the initial beat by playing a drum track. The three members take turns listening to the tempo and meter, improvising more patterns and melodies, and passing the microphone, while recording everything they play. Using the files like a jigsaw puzzle, they fit them together – duplicating some, rearranging the order, trimming pieces, layering parts, and creating an overall song structure. For the final recording, the music morphs again, as Menomena capture the magic created in the Deeler sessions but then performs the parts again, live.

4OneFunk take scratch music to the Monterey Jazz Festival

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By Billy Jam

Initially disdained and dismissed by most as just mere noise, not music, the hip-hop-originated practice of scratching, that originated in a Bronx bedroom in the 1970s when Grand Wizzard Theodore accidentally stumbled upon the then new sound, sure has come a long way in a few short decades. Now elevated to the recognized artform commonly known as turntablism, scratch music has even become a course at the Berklee School of Music, “Turntable Technique.”

And at this year’s Monterey Jazz Festival (Sept. 19-21) the festival’s curators are unveiling a new stage, added specifically for DJs and turntablists who incorporate traditional jazz instrumentation into their sound. This new stage’s main act will be San Francisco turntablist group 4OneFunk, who are scheduled to perform, in an extended lineup, each day of the festival.

The 4OneFunk Band‘s festival lineup will include Colin Brown on live synths and Austin Bohlman and Patrick Korty aka Pdub on drums, Teeko on Controller One Turntable and MPC, Max Kane on Controller One Turntable and Vocoder, Ian McDonald on guitar, and Alphabet Soup’s Kenny Brooks on sax. The ensemble will heavily utilize the newly created Vestax turntable model Controller One, which group member DJ Teeko, along with DJs D-Styles and Ricci Rucker, among others, designed for the Japanese turntable manufacturer. Both 4OneFunk’s Teeko and DJ Max Kane will be rocking this new turntable, which Teeko says is taking turntablism into, “a new phase of melodics and control.”

Channel surfers

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Tunde Adebimpe sounds like he’s in good spirits. Four years ago, when the lead vocalist of TV on the Radio was in his first brush with fame, he would snap at false critical judgments — from comparisons of his voice to "Games Without Frontiers"-era Peter Gabriel to race-oriented articles focused on the group’s unusual makeup of Adebimpe, guitarist Kyp Malone, and keyboardist/producer David Sitek — two black men and a white man.

Today, though, as he walks out of his apartment into the streets of Brooklyn, Adebimpe speckles his conversation with chuckles. He jokes about the Gabriel comparisons, noting, "He has a better tailor than I do." And he shrugs off TV on the Radio’s galvanizing success. "It’s encouraging, because we don’t make the most conventional stuff," he says. "We’re not rich off making records."

Though it’s not necessarily an Obama-size achievement, Greg Tate from the Black Rock Coalition probably didn’t imagine a mostly black rock band would become the darlings of the gentrified indie-rock establishment a mere 20 years after he protested racism in rock in the 1980s. But after two albums — 2004’s breakthrough Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes (Touch and Go) and 2006’s follow-up, Return to Cookie Mountain (Interscope/4AD) — of brilliant, brashly intellectual and brazenly avant-garde music (three if you count its 2002 self-released debut, OK Calculator), TV on the Radio’s artistic achievement has eclipsed "black rocker" stereotypes.

By now, TV on the Radio’s amalgamations are well-cataloged: a little bit of doo-wop, a lot of Fugazi, and sprinkled with gospel-like choral rhapsodies. Despite or because of its alchemical properties — Adebimpe claims, "We’ve never written an original note in our lives" — a TV on the Radio album sounds wholly different from anything else. Sitek’s heavy-mental production techniques isolate Jaleel Bunton’s drums and Gerard Smith’s bass into echoing timbres. Adebimpe and Malone’s wavering voices tremble as if they were trying to find rays of hope amid the mud and asphalt of everyday troubles. A TV on the Radio recording is full of hardy optimism; it sounds like a triumphant battle for the human soul.

"I think that there has to be something outside of our reality. I genuinely hope and find that it is, because if it’s not … " says Adebimpe, his voice trailing off. Then he adds, "Our reality is pretty good. It’s got its perks. But hopefully there’s more to it. Whether that’s inside of a person or outside of a person, I have no idea. But there’s got to be something that’s less flawed, and sometimes boring and sometimes repetitive, than just us."

Set for release Sept. 23, TV on the Radio’s third full-length, Dear Science (Interscope/4AD), radiates with newfound confidence. Songs like "Red Dress" and "Golden Age," the latter on which Malone sings "Clap your hands / If you think your soul is free," positively bop with funk. Then, on the slightly kooky "Dancing Science," Adebimpe raps in a stutter-step pace about the information age overload. The effect isn’t as laughable as you’d think.

Dear Science‘s playful observations sound like a miracle after the earthwork obduracy of Cookie Mountain (which sold 188,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan). Universally hailed as a watermark on its release, Cookie Mountain refines Desperate Youth‘s ambient guitar lines and protean libido into granite walls of distortion, drums, and lust. On Desperate Youth‘s "Staring at the Sun," Adebimpe sings, "You’re staring at the sun / You’re standing in the sea / Your body’s over me," squeezing his lover in a viselike grip as if to protect the paramour from a world teetering on collapse. Compare that song with Cookie Mountain‘s "Wolf Like Me," where he doesn’t want to smother you, but devour you. The band attacks with ferocity as Adebimpe seduces his Little Red Riding Hood: "You’ll never know / Unless we go / So let me show you."

For all its enigmatic power, Cookie Mountain quavers with tension. Shocked at its success — "I feel like, after Desperate Youth, we were definitely astonished we were allowed to make another record," Adebimpe says— TV on the Radio initially struggled to devise a follow-up. "We were suddenly questioning ourselves about others’ opinion, which is always death," he observes. "But you always get to a point where you shrug it off and you say, I have no idea what anyone else is going to think. I can only do what I’m going to do…. The last record was intense periods of absolutely no fun followed by two months of the best time recording."

If Cookie Mountain closed a chapter for TV on the Radio’s alabaster soul, then Dear Science signifies a new direction. Adebimpe calls it "brighter and cleaner," shorn of the dense layers of distortion of the past. The music is wide open. The future is wide open.

TV on the Radio play at 7:25 p.m., Sat/20, on the Bridge Stage at Treasure Island Music Festival.


>>More Treasure Island Music Fest

No castaways here

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We drool over these Treasure Island jewels

CSS


Woman, oh, woman. We’re so not tired of these fiery São Paulo popettes’ brand of sexy. CSS rarely disappoint live — Spandex bodysuits, pop hooks courtesy of their latest album, Donkey (Sub Pop), and all. (Kimberly Chun)

8:25 p.m. Sat/20, Tunnel Stage

DR. DOG


Dusting the crust off Southern rock grooves and biting into the apple of the tenderest harmonies, these unsung sons of the Liberty Bell, the Band, and ELO might be considered the Yankee brethren to My Morning Jacket. (Chun)

6:40 p.m. Sun/21, Tunnel Stage

DODOS


Is anyone doing anything quite like what spunky San Francisco indie duo Dodos do? (Chun)

5:15 p.m. Sun/21, Tunnel Stage

FLEET FOXES


Back in the ’90s, we used to be able to tell the indie rock from the rock proper by the singing: untrained, off-key, and adenoidal. This Seattle quintet are leading the charge to make the voice the center of indie rock-dom. On their self-titled debut and its forerunner, the Sun Giant EP (both Sub Pop), the band brings serious pipes and gorgeous multi-part harmonies like they were trying out for spots in CSNY or "Black Water"–era Doobie Brothers. (Brandon Bussolini)

3:50 p.m. Sun/21, Tunnel Stage

FOALS


The brainy Oxford quintet has been tagged with both the "math rock" and "Afrobeat appropriationist" labels — both true, and gloriously so. Add in a heap o’ (not tired) post-punk reference and some boppy Cure-like atmospherics, and Foals bring dancefloor introspection to new heights. They’ve also gained a rep for missing festivals, so dedicated fans have their horseteeth on edge. (Marke B.)

3:45 p.m. Sat/20 Tunnel Stage

LOQUAT


Comforting and disquieting in equal measure, the Bay Area group’s knowing, ambivalent electro-pop will sound even better if the weather is gloomy and if you are in a ’90s mood. Playing music together for more than a decade and only on the cusp of releasing their second album, Loquat selects subject matter that rarely strays from post-collegiate romantic malaise. The combo’s tasteful, restrained playing and vocalist Kylee Swenson’s honeyed tone signals a perfectionism that sometimes gets the best of them: a song’s meticulousness can turn suffocating without warning, then just as suddenly return to a melody that almost justifies the occasional preciousness. (Bussolini)

12:45 p.m. Sat/20, Tunnel Stage

NORTEC COLLECTIVE: BOSTICH & FUSSIBLE


As anyone who has spent a little time in his or her local Guitar Center knows, "fusion" is a deeply tainted word. The bastard genre — typically evoked when a performer sounds like other fusion artists — has untapped potential to refer to music outside the wanky Weather Report–aping scene. If you are not the type to go in for seven-string fretless bass guitars and deeply contrived chords, this Tijuana quartet’s music might help you imagine a future for the term. Synthesizing traditional norteño music with techno might sound like a dicey proposition, but the group’s crisp, tuneful productions make for an easily graspable mellow. (Bussolini)

3:50 p.m. Sat/20 Tunnel Stage

PORT O’BRIEN


In taking a wisp of personal narrative — songwriter Van Pierzalowski spends his summers helping his dad, a commercial fisherman, on Alaska’s Kodiak Island — as their starting point and main inspiration, this Oakland fivepiece compares with this year’s other rustic isolationist, Bon Iver. Sonically, the outfit’s blood runs a little hotter: they are at their best when confident enough to let their rickety songs — like their gold standard, the loose-limbed "I Woke Up Today" — get away from them. (Bussolini)

1:25 p.m. Sun/21 Tunnel Stage

RACONTEURS


Steady, as they go. The rock ‘n’ roll tricksters tried to dodge critical bullets — and blossoms — when they released Consolers of the Lonely (Warner Bros.). Whatever for, one wonders? The combo’s increasingly massive sound successfully invokes the Who and Britannia’s other ’60s and ’70s rock powerhouses, with an intentional whiff of the good times long gone. (Chun)

9:05 p.m. Sun/21, Bridge Stage

MIKE RELM


This guy makes A/V geeks look good. With Reservoir Dogs–like skinny-tie suavitude and fleet fingers on his editing gear, the SF mix-maestro mashes up songs and sights with the smarts of a pop-cultie compulsive. Can we expect more of the same Clown Alley–style burger-‘n’-vino fun with Spectacle, his studio debut on his own Radio Fryer label? (Chun)

6:45 p.m. Sat/20, Tunnel Stage

SPIRITUALIZED


Beware: Jason Spaceman is more than capable of moving an audience to tears with his live, full-tilt psych-gospel orchestrations. (Chun)

4:30 p.m. Sun/21, Bridge Stage

TEGAN AND SARA


Twins do it better, if by better you mean attract insatiable hordes of fabulous haircuts with wistful tunes that lodge firmly in your earworm. Plus, they’re Canadian — something we all may wish we were soon. Yet the fabulous Quin sisters aren’t just standard keyboard-and-guitar hum-along-tos. They’ve got some curious curveball chops, as last year’s The Con (Sire) showed. (Marke B.)

7:25 p.m. Sun/21, Bridge Stage

Hot Chip, ahoy

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Think of a silkily sexy, deliriously polyrhythmic Hot Chip track as the rippling, bell-shaking musical incarnation of a Persian rug: beautifully detailed; seamlessly groovy; a sensuous, hip-twisting pleasure to dance to or on; and intentionally flawed.

"We hope that maybe the music ends up sounding more refined than polished — there are things we manufacture into the sound that deliberately sound like mistakes," says multi-instrumentalist Al Doyle. "We don’t want to end up sounding like Hall and Oates or something like that. That’s not the kind of sound we kind of go for, totally smoothed out."

Doyle is in a high-flying mood, strolling the streets of Camden in London with what he describes as "a bag full of fancy dress clothes. Quite strange." Hot Chip is set to play a festival on an island off the south coast of England, though, he adds merrily, "we never dress up for anything. We thought we’d do it this time. Make us feel better."

Eight years along after its origins in the hands of ex-schoolmates Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard, the band should be feeling just fine — even if they choose not to don pirate gear for the Treasure Island Music Festival. Hot Chip’s latest, excellent album, Made in the Dark (Astralwerks), sounds like the dance-pop disc that New Order never made. Of that recording, Doyle allows, "We’ve got generally favorable reviews on Metacritics. A lot of people really liked it, and some people were confused about it initially. It’s quite an odd record, I’d say, a little bit all over the place in terms of very quite slow songs and big, loud, fast songs. Quite an experimental moment, with a few big pop hits. But we never thought it was odd. It was just the music we made."

The tracks emerged from everyday highs, like, ahem, Salvia divinorum — the inspiration for the swaying, elastic "Shake a Fist" — and were recorded by the full five-piece. "It was a transition record to a more band-oriented project," says Doyle, who happened to attend Cambridge the same time as Taylor and occasionally moonlights live with LCD Soundsystem. "It’s much more about the groove, and it’s very loud as well," Doyle says of the latter band. "It’s like a fucking bomb going off with LCD. Lasting damage!"

Hot Chip prefers to do benevolent damage to their own tunes live. "It’s much more easygoing and there’s a lot more improvisation. It’s a dance party — the audience goes nuts," he explains. The addition of a new drummer, Leo Taylor, should really make all and sundry go off, so much so that the hard-working Doyle is looking forward to the end. After tours of the United States, United Kingdom, and Mexico, "we finish at the end of the year. The holy grail that we’re all looking forward to."

Hot Chip appears at 4:25 p.m., Sat/20, on the Bridge Stage at Treasure Island Music Festival.

Does Vampire Weekend suck?

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In terms of the Internet music hype cycle, seven months is an eternity. So while last winter the controversy surrounding Vampire Weekend — four mild Columbia alums who make a crowd-pleasing brand of Afro-pop punk — threatened to hold the Web hostage, more recently the discussions of privilege and charges of cultural appropriation that marked the backlash have all but disappeared. The quartet of Ezra Koenig, Chris Baio, Rostam Batmanglij, and Christopher Tomson had managed, albeit briefly and in coded terms, to get indie rockers talking about two subjects they, and Americans in general, tend to talk around: race and class. In anticipation of the group’s performance at Treasure Island, we wanted to recap some critics’ takes on the band’s approach, to get people thinking about the cultural roots of the recent Docksider resurgence.

"BLOOD SUCKING GEEKS" BY ROBERT CHRISTGAU IN ARTICLES BLOG

www.najp.org/articles/2008/02/blood-sucking-geeks

AFRO-POP CO-OPTERS? The dean of American rock critics — Xgau to you — is unusually crotchety here, drawing on his extensive knowledge of African music to take down every style writers link the band to.

IVY LEAGUERS? Xgau acknowledges it, sure, but he’s got a lot of misconceptions about Afro-pop to correct. He does, however, anticipate the "psychological mechanism" that underpins the whole backlash. Despite everything, Afro-pop sounds happy, and the young are predisposed against upbeat music for its perceived shallowness, whether it comes from the global south or is an effect of Ivy League privilege.

GRACELAND COMPARISON? He drops the G-bomb only to note its ubiquity, then goes on to point out that the South African mbaqanga the Paul Simon album draws on is "much heavier than anything in Vampire Weekend unless you count their punky stuff, which isn’t African at all."

THE JAMS? The piece is really more of a rockcrit corrective than a consideration of VW’s music itself — here and in his later Consumer Guide review of the combo’s debut, he lets Pitchfork‘s Scott Plagenhof fill us in: "off-kilter, upbeat guitar pop," with "not just the touches of African pop but the willingness to use space and let the songs breathe a bit" and "detail-heavy, expressive" lyrics.

"PLEASE IGNORE THIS BAND" BY JULIANNE SHEPHERD IN VILLAGE VOICE, JAN. 22

www.villagevoice.com/2008-01-22/music/please-ignore-this-band

AFRO-POP CO-OPTERS? J-Shep recognizes that the conventional critic’s wisdom on the band "focuses on blind Afro-pop jacking and sartorial missteps," but sees the band’s real fault as a kind of essential anal attention to detail, making their songs feel "claustrophobically ordered."

GRACELAND COMPARISON? Namedrops in passing "Graceland rhythms" when describing VW’s blog-breakthrough single, "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" — for Shepherd this affiliation is only slightly more consequential than their strong preference for Oxford shirts.

THE JAMS? The band so repeatedly work over their influences and presentation that eventually there’s "nothing left but space and simplicity and precious little conflict."

VAMPIRE WEEKEND REVIEW BY NITSUH ABEBE FOR PITCHFORK

www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/48053-vampire-weekend-vampire-weekend

AFRO-POP CO-OPTERS? Abebe sets us up with a series of African reference points: "Mansard Roof" ‘s keyboard tone recalls "old West-African pop," Koenig’s guitar has a "clean, natural tone you’d get on a record from Senegal or South Africa." He goes on to implicitly dismiss the idea of appropriation — the outfit plays those suggestive sounds "like indie kids on a college lawn, because they’re not hung up on Africa in the least."

IVY LEAGUERS? "Ivy League" makes a single appearance in the text, evoked as an easy target for haters, but considerations of VW’s education leave a stamp on Abebe’s thinking here: Abebe claims Koenig’s background allows him the insight to "summon up the atmosphere of kids whose parents use "summer" as a verb.

GRACELAND COMPARISON? According to Abebe, Simon "never sounded this exuberant."

THE JAMS? Despite listeners bringing their baggage to the band, it returns "nothing but warm, airy, low-gimmick pop, peppy, clever, and yes, unpretentious."

"VAMPIRE WEEKEND ‘CAPE COD KWASSA KWASSA’ " BY ERIC HARVEY IN HIS BLOG, MARATHONPACKS

www.marathonpacks.com/2007/11/vampire-weekend-cape-cod-kwassa-kwassa

AFRO-POP CO-OPTERS? This is Harvey’s focus, and he kills it with a supersophisticated reading that manages to reference the classic ethnographic text "The Masai on the Lawn." Ultimately, Harvey’s less worried about VW’s so-called "indie-style colonialism" — from his perspective, the band knows exactly what they’re doing by playing with such charged ideas — than he is about how intentional the provocation is.

IVY LEAGUERS? The blog post — dated a month after the release of the band’s debut single, "Mansard Roof" — makes one mention of this, a good indication of the extent to which the unit’s bio had saturated the blogosphere. Harvey, a graduate student, has the most nuanced understanding of how VW’s privilege inflects their coy performance of "clueless bougie cosmopolitanism."

GRACELAND COMPARISON? Harvey suggests that VW is canny enough not to make "sappy pap that’s impossible to fuck to in your parents’ beach house."

THE JAMS? Harvey’s approach implicitly rejects the blogospheric pressure to confuse what the music means socially with its sonic qualities.

Vampire Weekend plays 5:55 p.m., Sun/21, on the Bridge Stage at the Treasure Island Festival.

Class revolting

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Americans are allowed to talk about class on the condition that we say we are all middle class — never mind if your ‘rents pay for an out-of-state, private college without financial aid, or if you’re a single mom struggling to pay Bay Area rents on service industry wages. Regardless of our assets, we’re all the same if we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, right? So despite capitalism’s emphasis on abstract equivalence, class is at least one area where the bourgies insist on qualities over quantities: "You can have my Horatio Alger narrative when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!"

Thus, comparing Harvard-educated pop duo Chester French to Vampire Weekend because their members seem to have leapt from the same L.L. Bean catalog misses what is genuinely questionable about their act. While neither band ever talks about what their parents do for a living, they both make playing with old-money signifiers a big part of their repertoire. But while Vampire Weekend’s self-described "Upper West Side Soweto" juxtaposes citations of third world pop with symbols of upper-class belonging, that superficial move is at least designed to give the listener pause. The unsubtle doofuses of Chester French mangle their subject matter, driving every obvious detail into the ground. The Zombies-biting power pop of "She Loves Everybody," for example, opens with a shuddering, prim string trio before ditching the classical instruments for well-tempered synths, clean-cut tremolo guitars, and a by-the-books jaded-romance narrative so obvious it’s vaguely insulting to the listener’s intelligence.

Even worse, these bros’ steez stumbles over itself to incorporate high-end, contemporary pop culture, from which VW’s music tends to hold itself aloof. Not that being slightly out of date is inherently superior to being current, but the latter group is at least smart enough to drop its Lil Jon reference four years after "Yeah!" Chester French’s best song — which is still terrible — is the pinched, flimsy "The Jimmy Choo’s" [sic], whose fratboy-with-a-Bret-Easton-Ellis-fetish lyrics clumsily and successfully attempt to pander to the Sex and the City (or is it Gossip Girl?) demographic. Don’t be fooled, though: it’s not class evocation — though they’re pretty bad at making that angle interesting — that makes them especially tiresome. It’s that the Chester French marketing bundle is so clearly designed to float bankrupt songwriting on a pseudo-provocative presentation.

Their ruthlessly calculated niche-marketing conjures up secret pact scenarios with the Wesleyan-affiliated, improbably popular MGMT — "OK, so you guys go for the humanities majors, and we’ll get the sociology/business dudes." The bad news is that it worked: these guys came out of a bidding war with a Star Trak deal and MGMT scored a Columbia contract. Maybe we should make a pact of our own: let’s not talk about class using the terms they’re feeding to us. Who cares about the Ralph Lauren sweater? We want to know what your parents do for a living.

Chester French performs at 1:25 p.m., Sat/20, on the Tunnel Stage at Treasure Island Music Festival. Vampire Weekend plays 5:55 p.m., Sun/21, on the Bridge Stage at the Treasure Island Festival.

“Seventh” heaven

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

If you loose your tethers to terra firma and let yourself drift with the hallucinatory swirl of fireside Anglo folk, violin-swept electronic beats, and the dulcet sighs on Goldfrapp’s fourth album, Seventh Tree (Mute), you won’t be surprised to learn that vocalist Alison Goldfrapp plucked the disc’s name from a dream. "I can’t argue with that, I thought when I woke up," Goldfrapp says from London during a brief break from the group’s current tour. And the dream itself? "It was a beautiful tree," she recalls. "It all felt amazing and wonderful, and it had a ‘seven’ on it, and then I was in a women’s spa, a Roman bath, and it was very steamy. I was asking people about the title and giving them all the titles I had, and they were going, ‘No, no, that’s wrong. You’ve got to call it Seventh Tree.’<0x2009>"

Sounds like the kind of certainty that you should never buck, and you can practically hear Goldfrapp nodding over the line "You know, when they come and advise … " before she breaks the oracular mood with a dose of levity. "I had too much curry that evening — that’s what I put that down to."

Picturing the ethereal blond in the throes of Indian grub-powered inspiration puts an entirely new wrinkle in Goldfrapp’s intense, synthetic dreamscapes. "Folktronica" isn’t quite the term for what the startlingly grounded singer and collaborator Will Gregory conjure with Seventh Tree: a recording that elegantly marries the groovy Serge Gainsbourg–ian Euro-funk ("Little Bird") with sometimes stonily spare ("Eat Yourself") and occasionally majestic John Barry–imbued orchestrations ("Road to Somewhere") — the latter a combination that might occur within a single song ("Clowns"). The album marked a dramatic shift from the duo’s last full-length, Supernature (Mute, 2005), but then, Goldfrapp never promised you the certainty of a glittering disco ball spinning round. For this record, the pair began to write songs for the first time solely on guitar, and Goldfrapp found inspiration in the quality of light and lyrical fatalism of 1970s road-trip films like Badlands, in addition to popular reference point Wickerman. "I thought about American films — the hazy sunshine, kind of Californian," she muses. "The road trip is significant as a kind of rite of passage, and it feels opportunistic, but there’s always a sense of doom as well."

Writing music for film is one opportunity Goldfrapp would love to grasp, but she also wants to compose for a choir. "Making music is an endless world of possibility," she says. "The future is unknown." But for now, all too soon, it’ll be back to that eternal road, which Goldfrapp will undertake without Gregory. "Will doesn’t tour — he can’t fit in the bunk beds, and I’m not crazy about it either!" she exclaims while simultaneously bemoaning the current drizzly gray of London. "I love playing, but touring is exhausting. I wish I could transport myself from place to place." At least she’ll be trailing that California sunlight soon.

Goldfrapp performs at 5:50 p.m., Sat/20, on the Bridge Stage at Treasure Island Music Festival.

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