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Stage listings

David Talbot
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

Christian Cagigal’s Obscura: A Magic Show EXIT Cafe, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-25. Opens Thurs/7, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 18. Magician Christian Cagigal presents a mix of magic, fairy tales, and dark fables.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; 255-8207, www.42ndstmoon.org. Previews Wed/6, 7pm; Thurs/7-Fri/8, 8pm. Opens Sat/9, 6pm. Runs Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm; Sun, 3pm (also Oct 16, 1pm). Through Oct 24. 42nd Street Moon presents the Sondheim musical farce, starring Megan Cavanagh.

Love Song Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Opens Fri/8, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 3 and 8pm. Through Oct 23. An offbeat comedy by John Kolvenbach, directed by Loretta Janca.

Zombie Town Stage Werx Theatre, 533 Sutter; www.stagewerx.org. $24. (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. Opens Thurs/7, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Oct 31, 5pm). Through Oct 31. Catharsis Theatre Collective presents a documentary play about zombie attacks in Texas.

BAY AREA

Mary Stuart The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $15-30. Previews Wed/6-Thurs/7, 8pm. Opens Fri/8, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. (also Oct 20, Oct 27, Nov 3; 7pm). Through Nov 7. Shotgun Players presents Friedrich Schiller’s historical drama, directed by Mark Jackson.

Superior Donuts TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-67. Previews Wed/6-Fri/8, 8pm. Opens Sat/9, 8pm. Runs Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. TheatreWorks presents Tracy Letts’ tale of friendship and redemption in a Chicago donut dispensary.


ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Phoenix Theatre, Stage 2, 414 Mason; 433-1235, www.absolutelysanfrancisco.com. $20-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 23. A one-woman musical starring Karen Hirst, with book and music by Anne Doherty.

Aida War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, 864-1330, www.sfopera.com. $25-320. Wed/6, 7:30pm. San Francisco Opera presents Verdi’s classic, a co-production with English National Opera and Houston Grand Opera.

And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. Call for reservations. Mon-Thurs, 10 and 11:45am.; Sun, 2pm. Through Sun/10. YouthAware Educational Theatre presents a multimedia play by James Still, directed by Sara Staley.

Anita Bryant Died For Your Sins New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $24-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Oct 24. New Conservatory Theatre Center presents a show by Brian Christopher Williams.

*The Brothers Size Magic Theatre, Bldg D, Fort Mason Center; 441-8822, www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Dates and times vary. Through Oct 17. Magic Theatre presents the West Coast premiere of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play, directed by Octavio Solis.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Actors Theatre, 855 Bush; 345-1287, www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 22. Actors Theatre presents Tennessee Williams’ sultry, sweltering tale of a Mississippi family, directed by Keith Phillips.

Disoriented Off-Market Theater, 960 Mission; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Sun/10 and Oct 17, 7pm (also Wed/6 at CounterPULSE). Through Oct 17. A trio of solo performances by Asian-American women.

*Faux Real Climate Theater at TJT, 470 Florida; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-20. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/9, 10pm). Through Sat/9. A drag queen stripped bare? Not on your life. But in baring some soul and some truth ("two lies" per), Fauxnique (aka Monique Jenkinson; aka a woman as a man as a woman&ldots;) does some productive and fascinating (re)working of this sly semi-confessional form. In a show that begins by asking, via David Bowie, "whatchya gonna say to the real me?", Fauxnique undresses drag by singing (very ably) as often as syncing and otherwise playing knowingly with the "reveals" inherent in the drag tradition, taking audiences back with her to high school in Denver in the 1980s for a herstory lesson like few others. Questions about identity and art mingle with hip, hilarious, wonderfully "haute," and seriously hardworking solo cabaret (assisted by transgresser-dresser and prop boy Kegan Marling). Originally unveiled in 2009, and fresh from a London debut, Faux Real returns for an extended but still too-brief run courtesy of the mighty little Climate Theater, currently ensconced in the Jewish Theatre’s luxurious little space. (Avila)

Futurestyle ’79 Off-Market Theater, Studio 250, 965 Mission; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-20. Wed, 8pm. Through Oct 27. A fully improvised episodic comedy played against the backdrop of SF in 1979.

Hamlet Alcatraz Island; 547-0189, www.weplayers.org. By donation. Sat-Sun, times vary. Through Nov 21. As part of an artistic residency, We Players presents an island-wide interactive performance of the Shakespeare play.

IPH… Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, 647-2822, www.brava.org. $15-35. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Oct 16. Brava Theatre and African-American Shakespeare Company present the US premiere of an adaptation of Iphigenia at Aulis.

*Jerry Springer the Opera Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th; www.jerrysf.com. $20-36. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 16. Highbrow meets low in one big, boisterous mono-brow middle as one of the baser of daytime talk-show hosts meets his audience and maker—or anyway Jesus and Satan—in a TV show purgatory that really is purgatory. The form is operatic, the subject matter the stuff of soap, and the resulting tawdry spectacle all but irresistible in Ray of Light Theatre’s production of the 2003 British musical by Richard Thomas (music, book and lyrics) and Stewart Lee (book and lyrics). If the conceit feels a bit one-note, it’s a note taken very cleverly and ably for all its worth. A smart, smarmy and dyspeptic Patrick Michael Dukeman excels in the title role, as the chorus, meanwhile, comprised of Jerry’s rabid studio audience, puts the unbridled hooligan glee in glee club, lending Wagnerian weight to such key phrases as "step-dad" or "chick with a dick." The grand and just slightly sleazy Victoria Theatre makes the perfect venue for this fine irreverence, filling it charmingly with rafter-shaking vulgarity and mayhem.

Kiss of Blood Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-35. Thurs-Fri, 8pm. Through Nov 19. Thrillpeddlers presents its signature Halloween show, with three one-act Grand Guignol terror plays.

Last Days of Judas Iscariot Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough; (510) 207-5774, www.CustomMade.org. $10-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Oct 30. Custom Made Theatre presents Stephen Adly Guirgis’ meditation on the meaning of forgiveness.

Olive Kitteridge Z Space at Theater Artaud, 450 Florida; (800) 838-3006, www.zspace.org. $20-40. Wed-Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Sun/10. Page-to-stage company Word for Word takes on two chapters’ worth of Elizabeth Strout’s celebrated 2008 novel, comprised of a loosely connected set of stories surrounding the title character (played with cunning subtlety by Patricia Silver) and her immediate circle in a coastal town in Maine. In "Tulips," we find the thorny but shrewd Olive, a former math teacher, and her patient husband Henry (Paul Finocchiaro), the town’s longtime pharmacist, transitioning not so smoothly into their retirement years. Olive—itchy, cantankerous and vaguely at a loss despite her sharp wit—resents her grown son’s (Patrick Alparone) happily distant life in New York and battles with the neighbors until her husband’s stroke leaves her at sea, unexpectedly vulnerable and open to the kindness of neighbors and strangers alike (played by an ensemble that includes Jeri Lynn Cohen, Nancy Shelby, and Michelle Belaver). In "River," Olive, now a widow, begins a gradual, unlikely and bumpy romance with a recently widowed former academic (Warren David Keith). Director Joel Mullennix grabs hold of colorful details along the way—like the summer influx of rollerbladers and bicyclists—to further enliven the verbatim staging of these stories, but the effort can feel a little forced at times, as if betraying a sense that these well-acted, gently poetical and thoughtful stories and their complex protagonist do not always make for the most stimulating drama. (Avila)

A Picasso Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa; (866) 811-4111, www.apicassoonstage.com. $12-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/9. Expression Productions presents Jeffery Hatcher’s drama about the authenticity of three Picasso paintings.

Pinocchio Young Performers Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg C, Third Floor, Room 300; 346-5550, www.ypt.org. $7-10. Sat-Sun, 1 and 3:30pm. Through Sun/10. Young Performers Theatre presents a new production of Carlo Collodi’s puppet tale.

*The Real Americans The Marsh MainStage, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Wed-Fri, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 6. The fifth extension of Dan Hoyle’s acclaimed show, directed by Charlie Varon.

*Scapin American Conservatory Theatre, 415 Geary; 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10-90. Tues-Sun, times vary. Through Oct 23. Bill Irwin, the innovative former Pickle Family clown and neo-vaudevillian turned Broadway star, makes a San Francisco return at the helm—and in the title role—of American Conservatory Theater’s production of Moliere’s classic farce. It’s an excuse for some arch meta-theatrical high jinx as well as expert clowning, a love fest really, with many fine moments amid a general font of fun whose heady purity seems like it should fall under some FDA regulation or other—clearly, somebody has paid someone to look the other way, and for once the corruption is unreservedly welcome. Joining the fun is Irwin’s old comrade-in-arms and, here, sacks, Geoff Hoyle, as miserly and dyspeptic daddy Geronte. Other ACT regulars and veterans flesh out a winning cast, among them the ever versatile and inimitable Gregory Wallace as Octave, a flouncing Steven Anthony Jones as put-out patriarch Argante, René Augesen as boisterously unlikely "virgin" Zerbinette, and a wonderfully adept and scene-stealing Judd Williford in the role of Scapin sidekick Sylvestre. As for Irwin, his comedic sensibility shows itself scrupulously apt and timeless at once, and his sure, lithesome performance intoxicating and age-defying. As a director, moreover, he gives as generously to each of his fellow performers as he does to his adoring, lovingly tousled audience. (Avila)

The Secretaries Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma; 255-7846, www.crowdedfire.org. $15-25 (pay what you can previews). Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/9. Crowded Fire revives the 1994 black comedy by New York’s Five Lesbian Brothers, a gleefully inappropriate bit of feminist satire that feels like the love child of John Waters and Valerie Solanas. Set in the front offices of the Cooney Lumber Mill in Big Bone, Oregon (delightfully rendered in Nick A. Olivero’s scenic design with New Yorker-like illustrations of the surrounding environs), the story follows narrator Patty (Elissa Beth Stebbins) as she recounts her initiation into a snappy coven of office ladies who not-so-secretly fell (rather than fall for) the town’s lumberjacks as if they were so much old growth forest. The mayhem and humor amuse, but probably seemed a lot fresher 16 years ago, making the simple plot seem thinly stretched. Nevertheless, the play’s details are nicely taken care of in artistic director Marissa Wolf’s fluid staging, featuring lots of play with fluids and a robust ensemble. In addition to Stebbins’s well-wrought and raunchy innocent, Leticia Duarte rocks her power-suit commandingly as no-nonsense supervisor and pack/pact-leader Susan; Eleanor Mason Reinholdt proves scarily endearing as the deceptively mincing, food-obsessed Peaches; Khamara Pettus has Norma Desmond eyes as Susan’s jealous onetime favorite Ashley; and Marilee Talkington approaches comic perfection in lovingly crafted twin roles: the boundingly predatory butch Dawn; and Patty’s hetero love interest and sexual-harassment-workshop–graduate, Buzz. (Avila)

The Shining: Live The Dark Room, 2263 Mission; 401-77891, www.darkroomsf.com. $7-10. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 23. The Dark Room becomes the Overlook Hotel in this stage production of the horror classic.

BAY AREA

Angels in America, Part One Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; (650) 254-1148, www.thepear.org. $15-30. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Oct 16. Pear Avenue Theatre kicks off its fall "Americana" program with the Tony Kushner play.

*Compulsion Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-85. Dates and times vary. Through Oct 31. Director Oscar Eustis of New York’s Public Theater marks a Bay Area return with an imaginatively layered staging of Rinne Groff’s stimulating new play. Compulsion locates the momentous yet dauntingly complex cultural-political outcomes of the Holocaust in the career of a provocative Jewish American character, Sid Silver, driven by real horror, sometimes-specious paranoia, and unbounded ego in his battle for control over the staging of Anne Frank’s Diary. A commandingly intense and fascinatingly nuanced Mandy Patinkin plays the brash, litigious Silver, based on real-life writer Meyer Levin, a best-selling author who obsessively pursued rights to stage his own version of Anne Frank’s story. The forces competing for ownership of, and identification with, Anne Frank and her hugely influential diary extend far beyond her father Otto, Silver, or the diary’s publishers at Doubleday (represented here by a smooth Matte Osian in a variety of parts; and a vital Hannah Cabell, who doubles as Silver’s increasingly alarmed and alienated French wife). But the power of Groff’s play lies in grounding the deeply convoluted and compromised history of that text and, by extension, the memory and meanings of the Holocaust itself, in a small set of forceful characters—augmented by astute use of marionettes (designed by Matt Acheson) and the words of Anne Frank herself (partially projected in Jeff Sugg’s impressive video design). The productive dramatic tension doesn’t let up, even after the seeming grace of the last-line, which relieves Silver of worldly burdens but leaves us brooding on their shifting meanings and ends. (Avila)

*East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Dates and times vary. Through Nov 21. Don Reed’s solo play, making its Oakland debut after an acclaimed New York run, is truly a welcome homecoming twice over. (Avila)

In the Red and Brown Water Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; 388-5208, www.marintheatre.org. $32-53. Tues, 8pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Wed, 7:30pm, Sun, 7pm. Through Oct 10. Marin Theatre Company presents the West Coast premiere of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play.

*Loveland The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-50. Fri, 7pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Nov 13. Ann Randolph’s acclaimed one-woman comic show about grief returns for its sixth sold-out extension.

She Loves Me Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek; (825) 943-7469, www.CenterREP.org. $36-45. Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2:30 and 8pm; Sun, 2:30pm. Through Sun/10. Center REPertory company presents a musical choreographed and directed by Robert Barry fleming.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Bijou Martuni’s, 4 Valencia; 241-0205, www.dragatmartunis.com. $5. Sun/10, 7pm. The live cabaret showcase celebrates Oktoberfest.

"Blue Room Comedy" Club 93, 93 9th St; 264-5489. Free. Tues/12, 10pm. A weekly series that takes comedy to new lows.

Dancing on Glass CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission. 626-2060, www.counterpulse.org. $20-25. Fri/8-Sat/9, 8pm; Sun/10, 7pm. A dark comedy about outsourcing, by Ram Ganesh Kamathan.

Drag Queens of Comedy Castro Theatre, 429 Castro. 254-3362, www.comedyinthecastro.com. $35-45. Sat/9, 10:30pm. A riotous extravaganza with performances by Miss Coco Peru, Jackie Beat, Lady Bunny, Heklina, and others.

Echo: A Poetic Journey Into Justice City of Refuge United Church of Christ, 1025 Howard; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15. Sat/9, 7pm (also Oct 16, 7pm). Progeny Theater Project presents a drama about sex trafficking by Regina Y. Evans.

Fifi and Fanny Live at the Texas Whorehouse The Garage, 975 Howard; 518-1517, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-20. Fri/8-Sat/9, 8pm. Fifi and Fanny take on the queers of Texas with music and comedy.

Filipino Comedy Improv The Garage, 975 Howard; 518-1517, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10. Wed/6, 8pm. The Garage and Bindlestiff Studio present sketch comedy.

A Funny Night for Comedy Actors Theatre, 855 Bush; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10. Sun/10, 7pm. Natasha Muse and Ryan Cronin host a standup program with interviews.

How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere? Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission; 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $25-30. Thurs/7-Sat/9, 8pm. A new interdisciplinary performance work by Ralph Lemon.

Margaret Jenkins Dance Comedy Kanbar Hall, Jewish Community Center, 3200 California; 292-1233, www.jccsf.org. $18-26. Thurs/7, 8pm. The company celebrates its 37th anniversary with a preview of its latest work.

Standup Comedy Cafe Royale, 800 Post; 641-6033, www.caferoyale-sf.com. Free. Mon/11, 7pm. Cara Tramontano hosts a night of comedy.

Zaccho Dance Theatre Market Street (between Powell and First); 252-4638, www.sfartscommission.org. Free. Thurs/7-Sun/10, 1-5pm. The company presents a site-specific performance devoted to African-American contributions to SF.

BAY AREA

Circus Oz Zellerbach Hall, UC campus; (510) 642-9988, www.calperformances.com. $22-52. Thurs/7-Fri/8, 8pm; Sat/9, 2 and 8pm; Sun/10, 3pm. A new production by the Aussie steampunk group.

Drumline Live Marin Center, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael; www.marincenter.org. $25-45. Fri/8, 8pm. A 40-member stage performance created by the team behind the movie of the same name.

Freeland Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Stage, Berk; (510) 601-0182, www.speakoutnow.org. Call for price. Fri/8, 8pm. A hip-hop journey from the streets of Oakland to the wild west, written and performed by Ariel Luckey and directed by Margo Hall.

Pilobolus Dance Company Marin Center, 10 Avenue of the flags, San Rafael; www.marincenter.org. $20-75. Sat/9, 8pm. A performance by the 40-year-old dance and performance company.

The strangest election ever

Zelda Bronstein
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The strangest election ever

It’s getting really wierd out there. There’s a campaign video featuring the white face of a dark-haired politician emerging from an all-black background and proclaiming:


“I am not a witch.”


And she’s a serious (more or less) candidate for the United States Senate. Check out the strangest campaign ad of the year after the jump.Huffington Post interviewed a Wiccan, who complained about the demonizing of witches; Wicca is an ancient religion that, typically, doesn’t involve blood sacrifices on altars.


But I have to say, Christine O’Donnell’s plea reminds me of the last time I remember someone saying “I’m not a witch.”


 


 


Save Day of the Dead!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Another wonderful local cultural event, Día de los Muertos, is falling prey to the city’s War on Fun — watch the video, and donate here to help reach the $6k goal. (via SFist, Mission Local)

Our queer children are killing themselves: You can help UPDATED

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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35
Our queer children are killing themselves: You can help UPDATED

Update: According to LGBTpov.com, Gov. Schwarzenegger yesterday “signed the Mental Health Services for At-Risk Youth Act (SB 543), which will expand access to essential mental health services for youth ages 12-17. The bill, authored by openly gay State Sen. Mark Leno and sponsored by Equality California, allows teens to obtain counseling without parental consent.” Unfortunately,  “Friday morning, Charles Robbins, Executive Director of The Trevor Project reported a fifth suicide — Raymond Chase, 19, a sophomore at Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island took his own life on Wednesday.” Hopefully kids in California will at least have expanded access to mental health counseling services. Original post is below.

For the fourth time this month, a kid who was harassed by anti-gay bullies has taken his own life. Seth Walsh, an out gay 13-year-old in Tehachapi, in central California, had been transferred from middle school to an independent study program, reportedly because he had been teased relentlessly about his orientation. Ten days ago he was found unconscious at the base of a tree in his backyard, apparently after he had attempted to hang himself. His parents took him off life support yesterday in Bakersfield.   

Even though other kids admitted to harassing Seth — police reported that some of them “broke down in tears” because “they had never seen this outcome,” and wished they hadn’t participated in the bullying — no charges will be pressed against them: their actions do not constitute a crime. 

Horribly, this was no isolated incident.  

According to lgbtqnation.com:

 “On September 9, 15-year-old Billy Lucas of Greensburg, IN, hanged himself at his grandmother’s home. Friends of Lucas said that he had been tormented for years based on his perceived sexual orientation.

On September 23, 13-year old Asher Brown, a gay teen in Houston, TX, came home from school while his parents were at work. He shot himself in the head after enduring what his mother and stepfather say was constant harassment and bullying.“

(Also, teen freshman Tyler Clementi at Rutgers University leaped off the George Washington bridge last Wednesday, after his roommate used a web cam to secretly and maliciously stream him “sharing a gay embrace.”) 

This month, as well, saw the acclaimed launch of queer advice columnist and activist Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” campaign (in direct response to Billy Lucas’ death, as a commenter below points out). It invites LGBTQ people to record videos addressed to queer young ‘uns that tell their stories of surviving school bullies and leading full lives after they graduated. I’m not sure I agree that people need to just wait to get out of school in order to survive — many don’t exactly find gay adult life a catered picnic, either, and why can’t we elders make an effort to help change the world for children in school now? — but I definitely agree that reaching out to isolated young people and letting them know there’s an entire community on their side is absolutely essential. 

It’s infuriatingly sad that these instances seem to be on the rise, right when the country is making progress on most gay activists’ bigtime agendas: repealing DADT and legalizing same-sex marriage. Who cares about those things when our young people are in so much pain that they’re taking their own lives? Yes, ending all discrimination will help people envision a brighter future — let’s just not put all our eggs in one or two baskets, and forget entire segments of our community. 

And while making an “It Gets Better” video is great, there are many fantastic community organizations in San Francisco serving the immediate counseling and housing needs of queer kids, many of whom have run away to avoid anti-gay bullying. Ignoring them only perpetuates the suffering. In a time of reduced aid, these organizations could really use your donations or time. Here are a few standouts:

Larkin Street Youth Services

Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center (LYRIC)

San Francisco LGBT Community Center 

Tenderloin Health

And if you know a queer or questioning young person who is dealing with depression, or seeks counseling, direct them (and donate!) to the great Trevor Project suicide prevention hotline: 1-866-488-7386

California is one of a handful of states that specifically protects kids against anti-gay harassment, but cases are still hard to prove — if you see someone being harassed or know of someone who is being bullied, encourage them to report it to their parents, school counselor, or other professional so that it will be documented. 

*ANOTHER DEATH: Commenter Aaron Baldwin below points to the recent suicide of 15-year-old Justin Aaberg in Minnesota, who was apparently a victim of anti-gay bullying, although I haven’t been able to find out much more than what’s in this Queerty story.

**ANOTHER RESOURCE: Commenter Liz below reminds me about SMAAC, serving queer and questioning youth in Oakland and the East Bay. Her comment raises several great points as well about helping youth now. 

Getting our rocks off: a historical perspective

Andrew Lam
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Getting our rocks off: a historical perspective

San Francisco is waiting for its Boogie Nights. Unbeknownst to Hollywood, our fair berg was the infant creche of hardcore pornography, spawning a subculture of porn theaters that thrived despite police harassment and political pressure.

We were number one! Luckily, a few brave men are resurrecting our porn golden age money shot – read on for a first look at documentary The Smut Capital of America and an interview with the director himself, Michael Stabile.


Smut Capital is by no means Stabile’s first porn rodeo. The co-editor of Gay Porn Blog, he and Smut Capital editor-cinematographer Ben Leon are both mainstays in the SF gay porn scene. The two were researching their upcoming doc on the life of gay smut powerhouse Falcon Studios founder Chuck Holmes when Stabile came across a New York Times article that inspired the title of their new project, which is a work in progress for which the team is fundraising in order to release the finished film in 2011.

“Until then I’d always thought of it as an industry that emerged from LA, but San Francisco was actually the city that birthed the porno theater. It was the beginning of the sexual revolution, and in a lot of ways these directors were documenting this newly found freedoms.” Stabile attributes the renaissance to hippie women “with really no hangups,” a progressive zeitgeist that had seized the city in the late sixties and early seventies, and film processing studios that were willing to develop sexually explicit material. By the era’s zenith in 1972, there were porno film theaters in neighborhoods across the city.

Not that everyone was down to get all that action on screen. Dianne Feinstein, first in her post as the city’s first female president of the Board of Supervisors and then as SF’s first female mayor, led a crusade focused on cleaning up the Tenderloin, which incidentally included sweeping the neighborhood free of its supply of adult movie houses. What ensued was an orchestrated harassment policy that different porn theaters dealt with in different ways.

Established theaters, Stabile says, actually benefited from the police and media persecution. “They’d come in with cameras, it’d be on the five o clock news and it would be great for them,” he says. “Advertising was very limited at the Chronicle. Feinstein would come in with her troops and would detail everything that was going on. Suddenly there was a way to talk about it, so people would flood into the theaters.” The Mitchell Brothers grew so adept at playing the cat and mouse game, he says, that they would post Feinstein’s office number on their marquee under the words “call for a good time.”

But not everyone prospered. Smaller theaters that depended on a few workers to operate, like Alex DeRenzy’s Screening Room, suffered when police would take key staffers on pointeless joyrides around town before booking them on charges of vice crime. Eventually factors like these, and more importantly the advent of video porn in the 1980s pulled the adult film business down to Los Angeles.

The move shifted the purpose of sex films away from their original role in the Sexual Revolution. Says Stabile “People were doing it here because they enjoyed it, because they wanted their own sexualities represented. It’s not like that in LA for the most part, where even a lot of the gay studios are owned by straight men looking to turn a profit.”

But don’t worry, the party’s not over. One of Stabile’s main goals with the film is not just to highlight good sex gone by, but that which cums and goes even today. When asked whether SF is still a presence in the world of porn, he had no equivocation. “Its one of the great untold stories in the local media – San Francisco has a huge porn presence. Raging Stallion, Falcon, Hot House – seven of the top ten gay porn studios are located up here, there’s Kink.com, porn writers like Violet Blue,” he says.

It appears that the tech savvy and sexual freedom that led to our capital crowning are still alive and well on these city streets. Phew! Now you may now go back to your regularly scheduled local porn browsing.

SKI-thal weapon

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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4
SKI-thal weapon

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC E-A-SKI has been in the game nearly 20 years, producing tracks with then-partner CMT for Spice 1’s eponymous 1992 debut on Jive Records and subsequently working with the likes of Master P, Ice Cube, and even Dr. Dre. He’s also maintained a career as a rapper. Yet despite several local radio hits and four major-label deals — Priority, Relativity, Dreamworks, Columbia — he’s never released an album. The deals have always soured, yet the astute businessman has always made money on them, as his professional-grade studio in the middle of a huge house hidden beyond the Oakland Hills attests.

I’ve come by for a private screening of SKI’s new video, "No Problems," the first single from The Fifth of Skithoven, an album he plans to release next year through his own label, IMGMI. If "private screening" sounds highfalutin’, "No Problems" is no ordinary clip. It’s a six-minute film, directed by Wayans Brothers associate Michael Tiddes, that recently won an award for best music video at the 13th Okanagan International Film Festival in Kelowna, British Columbia.

"I didn’t just want to keep putting videos out there," SKI explains. "I wanted to do something more cinematic to express the music."

A John Woo-like allegory of rap integrity, "No Problems" finds SKI battling to reclaim his soul from the Devil, wagering the contents of a mysterious Pulp Fictionesque briefcase that he can do it. The "x-factor," as SKI puts it, is the actor playing the gravel-voiced, gangsta Devil: Danny Glover. After meeting years ago in activist circles — SKI frequently mentors inner-city youth — the two recently reconnected when they found themselves members of the same gym. Despite the demands of Glover’s schedule (seven films currently in post-production, according to imdb.com), the Lethal Weapon star made time for the shoot.

"I did it ’cause SKI kept bugging me," Glover laughs during a quick phone call. "No, seriously. I respect what he does with Oakland and the community, and I thought it’d be fun." Judging by his over-the-top supervillain meltdown as SKI emerges triumphant, Glover had plenty of fun with the role.

"It was an honor for him to even want to be in a hip-hop project," SKI says. "I did my first line with him and just froze, like, ‘This is Danny Glover!’ I ain’t gonna lie, I got star-struck! And I’ve done a lot of stuff."

It’s hard to imagine a tongue-tied E-A-SKI, but then again, even Frank Sinatra looks intimidated alongside Marlon Brando in Guys and Dolls (1955). Getting Glover in his video is exactly the type of rabbit SKI consistently pulls out of his hat to keep himself relevant in a genre in which artists usually have short self-lives. Even on his own independent label, SKI routinely places videos on MTV, most recently 2009’s "Rare Form" by IMGMI-signee and Frontline-member Locksmith. Although there’s a trailer for "No Problems" on MTV’s movie blog, and SKI plans more film festival screenings, the video remains unreleased.

"I want to make its debut a big thing," SKI says. "Like MTV showing the trailer, having a build up, then boom! — a Jam of the Week. We have a relationship, so they’re open to it. But it’s still in the works because I’m trying to see what’s best for my album."

Like a rap Paul Masson, SKI will serve no wine before its time, and Skithoven is no exception, though he’s already lined up tracks with the likes of Tech 9ine, Freeway, and Ice Cube (whose upcoming I Am the West [Lench Mob] includes a bonus track produced by SKI). "It’s like a puzzle," he says. "I like to get the pieces and now I’m structuring it." But will we finally see an album from the man known as "The Bay’s Dre," or will there be more of the Detox-like delays that have led him to shelve previous discs like Earthquake and Apply Pressure? SKI’s patience is unwavering.

"I never let people dictate to me," he says. "I’m gonna do what I wanna do. I’ve always been a firm believer in, if I can’t do what I want to do at that time and then too much time goes by, it’s time to reinvent."

www.myspace.com/mreaski

Rep Clock

David Talbot
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Schedules are for Wed/29–Tues/5 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6. Out of Our Minds (Stone and Auf der Mar, 2009), Sat, 4:30. “Other Cinema:” Mellodrama: The Mellotron Movie (Dilworth, 2010), Sat, 8:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. Metropolis: The Complete Restoration (Lang, 1927), Wed, 2, 5, 8. “Grace Kelly: Grace and Style:” •To Catch a Thief (Hitchcock, 1955), Thurs, 2:40, 7, and High Society (Walters, 1956), Thurs, 4:40, 9; •Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954), Fri, 2:45, 7, and Dial M For Murder (Hitchcock, 1954), Fri, 4:50, 9:15.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. Howl (Epstein and Friedman, 2010), call for dates and times. Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary (Ferrari, 2009), Thurs, 7. Fresh (Joanes, 2010), Oct 1-6, call for times. Film Portraits By Christopher Felver: Ferlinghetti (Felver, 2009), Sun, 6:30.

EMBARCADERO One Embarcadero Center, promenade level, SF; www.sffs.org. $12.50. Earth Made of Glass (Scranton, 2010), Thurs, 7. Screening followed by a panel discussion about documentary film as a form of investigative journalism.

HERBST THEATRE 401 Van Ness, SF; (415) 392-4400, www.lunafest.org. $10-75. “Lunafest,” short films by, for, and about women, Thurs, 7:30. Benefits the Breast Cancer Fund.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100 (reservations required). $10. “CinemaLit: Apocalypse Noir:” The Innocents (Clayton, 1961), Fri, 6.

ODDBALL FILMS 275 Capp, SF; (415) 558-8117, info@oddballfilm.com. $10 (RSVP required as seating is limited). “The Lit Show: Rare Cinema + Live Literary Song,” with Suzy Williams and Brad Kay, Sun, 8.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area:” “1946-53,” short films, Wed, 7:30. “Shakespeare on Screen:” Angelic Conversations (Jarman, 1985), Thurs, 7. “Days of Glory: Revisiting Italian Neorealism:” La Terra Trema (Visconti, 1948), Fri, 7; Teresa Venerdi (De Sica, 1941), Sat, 6:30; Paisan (Rossellini, 1946), Sun, 4.”Drawn From Life: Comic Books and Graphic Novels Adapted:” American Splendor (Berman and Pulcini, 2003), Sat, 8:30. “Elegant Perversions: The Cinema of João César Monteiro:” The Last Dive (1992), Sun, 6:30.

PRESIDIO Moraga at Arguello, SF; www.sffs.org. Free. “Film in the Fog:” The Incredible Shrinking Man (Arnold, 1957) with “The Skeleton Dance” (Disney, 1929), Sat, 5.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. I Am Love (Guadagnino, 2009), Wed, 2, 7, 9:30. Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo (Beesley, 2010), Thurs, 7:15, 9:30. Fresh (Joanes, 2010), Oct 1-7, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sat-Sun, 2, 4; Wed, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector (Jayanti, 2008), Wed-Thurs, 7. Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 9. “McSweeney’s Presents:” “Wholphin Issue 12 Release Party,” Wed, 7; “I’m Here,” short films by Spike Jonze and more, Thurs, 7:30. Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?) (Scheinfeld, 2010), Oct 1-7, call for times.

SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART 151 Third St, SF; www.sfmoma.org. $5. “Paul Clipson presents the Elements,” films by Clipson with music by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and Portraits, Thurs, 7.

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. Free. “Amandla! South Africa During and After Apartheid:” District 9 (Blomkamp, 2009), Thurs, noon.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.vizcinema.com. $10-15. Sayonara Itsuka — Goodbye, Someday (Lee, 2010), Oct 1-7, check website for times.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Others/Ourselves: The Cinema of Robert Gardner:” Forest of Bliss (1986), Thurs, 7:30. “Sesame Street: A Celebration:” “Sesame Street at 40: Milestones on the Street,” best-of compilation, Fri, 7:30; Sat, 2. “San Francisco Jewish Film Festival Presents: Tough Guys: Images of Jewish Gangsters in Film:” Eight Men Out (Sayles, 1988), Sun, 2.

Stage listings

David Talbot
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

Hamlet Alcatraz Island; 547-0189, www.weplayers.org. By donation. Opens Sat/2, call for time. Runs Sat-Sun, times vary. Through Nov 21. As part of an artistic residency, We Players presents an island-wide interactive performance of the Shakespeare play.

Kiss of Blood Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-35. Opens Thurs/30, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Fri, 8pm. Through Nov 19. Thrillpeddlers presents its signature Halloween show, with three one-act Grand Guignol terror plays.

The Shining: Live The Dark Room, 2263 Mission; 401-77891, www.darkroomsf.com. $7-10. Opens Fr/1, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 23. The Dark Room becomes the Overlook Hotel in this stage production of the horror classic.

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Phoenix Theatre, Stage 2, 414 Mason; 433-1235, www.absolutelysanfrancisco.com. $20-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 23. A one-woman musical starring Karen Hirst, with book and music by Anne Doherty.

Aida War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, 864-1330, www.sfopera.com. $25-320. Wed/29, 7:30pm; Sat/2, 8pm; Oct 6, 7:30pm. San Francisco Opera presents Verdi’s classic, a co-production with English National Opera and Houston Grand Opera.

And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. Call for reservations. Mon-Thurs, 10 and 11:45am. Through Oct 10. YouthAware Educational Theatre presents a multimedia play by James Still, directed by Sara Staley.

Anita Bryant Died For Your Sins New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $24-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Oct 24. New Conservatory Theatre Center presents a show by Brian Christopher Williams.

The Brothers Size Magic Theatre, Bldg D, Fort Mason Center; 441-8822, www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Dates and times vary. Through Oct 17. Magic Theatre presents the West Coast premiere of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play, directed by Octavio Solis.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Actors Theatre, 855 Bush; 345-1287, www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 22. Actors Theatre presents Tennessee Williams’ sultry, sweltering tale of a Mississippi family, directed by Keith Phillips.

*Etiquette Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission; 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $8-10. Thurs-Sat, noon, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, 6pm, 7pm, 8pm; Sun, noon, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, 6pm. Through Sun/3. Rotozaza presents a participatory performance piece for two people.

*Faux Real Climate Theater at TJT, 470 Florida; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-20. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/9, 10pm). Through Oct 9. A drag queen stripped bare? Not on your life. But in baring some soul and some truth (“two lies” per), Fauxnique (aka Monique Jenkinson; aka a woman as a man as a woman&ldots;) does some productive and fascinating (re)working of this sly semi-confessional form. In a show that begins by asking, via David Bowie, “whatchya gonna say to the real me?”, Fauxnique undresses drag by singing (very ably) as often as syncing and otherwise playing knowingly with the “reveals” inherent in the drag tradition, taking audiences back with her to high school in Denver in the 1980s for a herstory lesson like few others. Questions about identity and art mingle with hip, hilarious, wonderfully “haute,” and seriously hardworking solo cabaret (assisted by transgresser-dresser and prop boy Kegan Marling). Originally unveiled in 2009, and fresh from a London debut, Faux Real returns for an extended but still too-brief run courtesy of the mighty little Climate Theater, currently ensconced in the Jewish Theatre’s luxurious little space. (Avila)

Futurestyle ’79 Off-Market Theater, Studio 250, 965 Mission; (8008) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-20. Wed, 8pm. Through Oct 27. A fully improvised episodic comedy played against the backdrop of SF in 1979.

IPH… Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, 647-2822, www.brava.org. $15-35. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm (also Mon/4, 8pm). Through Oct 16. Brava Theatre and African-American Shakespeare Company present the US premiere of an adaptation of Iphigenia at Aulis.

Jerry Springer the Opera Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th; www.jerrysf.com. $20-36. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 16. Ray of Light Theatre presents the West Coast premiere of the operatic farce by Stewart Lee and Richard Thomas.

KML Holds the Mayo Zeum Theater, 221 4th St; www.killingmylobster.com. $10-20. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 7 and 10pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Sun/3. Killing My Lobster presents its fall comedy show, directed by co-founder Paul Charney.

Last Days of Judas Iscariot Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough; (510) 207-5774, www.CustomMade.org. $10-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Oct 30. Custom Made Theatre presents Stephen Adly Guirgis’ meditation on the meaning of forgiveness.

Olive Kitteridge Z Space at Theater Artaud, 450 Florida; (800) 838-3006, www.zspace.org. $20-40. Wed-Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Oct 10. Page-to-stage company Word for Word takes on two chapters’ worth of Elizabeth Strout’s celebrated 2008 novel, comprised of a loosely connected set of stories surrounding the title character (played with cunning subtlety by Patricia Silver) and her immediate circle in a coastal town in Maine. In “Tulips,” we find the thorny but shrewd Olive, a former math teacher, and her patient husband Henry (Paul Finocchiaro), the town’s longtime pharmacist, transitioning not so smoothly into their retirement years. Olive—itchy, cantankerous and vaguely at a loss despite her sharp wit—resents her grown son’s (Patrick Alparone) happily distant life in New York and battles with the neighbors until her husband’s stroke leaves her at sea, unexpectedly vulnerable and open to the kindness of neighbors and strangers alike (played by an ensemble that includes Jeri Lynn Cohen, Nancy Shelby, and Michelle Belaver). In “River,” Olive, now a widow, begins a gradual, unlikely and bumpy romance with a recently widowed former academic (Warren David Keith). Director Joel Mullennix grabs hold of colorful details along the way—like the summer influx of rollerbladers and bicyclists—to further enliven the verbatim staging of these stories, but the effort can feel a little forced at times, as if betraying a sense that these well-acted, gently poetical and thoughtful stories and their complex protagonist do not always make for the most stimulating drama. (Avila)

A Picasso Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa; (866) 811-4111, www.apicassoonstage.com. $12-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 9. Expression Productions presents Jeffery Hatcher’s drama about the authenticity of three Picasso paintings.

Pinocchio Young Performers Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg C, Third Floor, Room 300; 346-5550, www.ypt.org. $7-10. Sat-Sun, 1 and 3:30pm. Through Oct 10. Young Performers Theatre presents a new production of Carlo Collodi’s puppet tale.

*The Real Americans The Marsh MainStage, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Wed-Fri, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 6. The fifth extension of Dan Hoyle’s acclaimed show, directed by Charlie Varon.

*Scapin American Conservatory Theatre, 415 Geary; 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10-90. Tues-Sun, times vary. Through Oct 23. Bill Irwin, the innovative former Pickle Family clown and neo-vaudevillian turned Broadway star, makes a San Francisco return at the helm—and in the title role—of American Conservatory Theater’s production of Moliere’s classic farce. It’s an excuse for some arch meta-theatrical high jinx as well as expert clowning, a love fest really, with many fine moments amid a general font of fun whose heady purity seems like it should fall under some FDA regulation or other—clearly, somebody has paid someone to look the other way, and for once the corruption is unreservedly welcome. Joining the fun is Irwin’s old comrade-in-arms and, here, sacks, Geoff Hoyle, as miserly and dyspeptic daddy Geronte. Other ACT regulars and veterans flesh out a winning cast, among them the ever versatile and inimitable Gregory Wallace as Octave, a flouncing Steven Anthony Jones as put-out patriarch Argante, René Augesen as boisterously unlikely “virgin” Zerbinette, and a wonderfully adept and scene-stealing Jud Williford in the role of Scapin sidekick Sylvestre. As for Irwin, his comedic sensibility shows itself scrupulously apt and timeless at once, and his sure, lithesome performance intoxicating and age-defying. As a director, moreover, he gives as generously to each of his fellow performers as he does to his adoring, lovingly tousled audience. (Avila)

The Secretaries Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma; 255-7846, www.crowdedfire.org. $15-25 (pay what you can previews). Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 9. Crowded Fire revives the 1994 black comedy by New York’s Five Lesbian Brothers, a gleefully inappropriate bit of feminist satire that feels like the love child of John Waters and Valerie Solanas. Set in the front offices of the Cooney Lumber Mill in Big Bone, Oregon (delightfully rendered in Nick A. Olivero’s scenic design with New Yorker-like illustrations of the surrounding environs), the story follows narrator Patty (Elissa Beth Stebbins) as she recounts her initiation into a snappy coven of office ladies who not-so-secretly fell (rather than fall for) the town’s lumberjacks as if they were so much old growth forest. The mayhem and humor amuse, but probably seemed a lot fresher 16 years ago, making the simple plot seem thinly stretched. Nevertheless, the play’s details are nicely taken care of in artistic director Marissa Wolf’s fluid staging, featuring lots of play with fluids and a robust ensemble. In addition to Stebbins’s well-wrought and raunchy innocent, Leticia Duarte rocks her power-suit commandingly as no-nonsense supervisor and pack/pact-leader Susan; Eleanor Mason Reinholdt proves scarily endearing as the deceptively mincing, food-obsessed Peaches; Khamara Pettus has Norma Desmond eyes as Susan’s jealous onetime favorite Ashley; and Marilee Talkington approaches comic perfection in lovingly crafted twin roles: the boundingly predatory butch Dawn; and Patty’s hetero love interest and sexual-harassment-workshop–graduate, Buzz. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Angels in America, Part One Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; (650) 254-1148, www.thepear.org. $15-30. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Oct 16. Pear Avenue Theatre kicks off its fall “Americana” program with the Tony Kushner play.

Bleacher Bums Contra Costa Civic Theatre, 951 Pomona, El Cerrito; (510) 524-9132, www.ccct.org. $18. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sun/3. A sports comedy conceived by Joe Mantegna, directed by Joel Roster.

La Cage Aux Folles San Mateo Performing Arts Center, 600 N. Delaware; (650) 579-5565, www.broadwaybythebay.org. $20-48. Dates and times vary. Through Sun/3. Broadway By the Bay presents the gay musical based on the play of the same title.

*Compulsion Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-85. Dates and times vary. Through Oct 31. Director Oscar Eustis of New York’s Public Theater marks a Bay Area return with an imaginatively layered staging of Rinne Groff’s stimulating new play. Compulsion locates the momentous yet dauntingly complex cultural-political outcomes of the Holocaust in the career of a provocative Jewish American character, Sid Silver, driven by real horror, sometimes-specious paranoia, and unbounded ego in his battle for control over the staging of Anne Frank’s Diary. A commandingly intense and fascinatingly nuanced Mandy Patinkin plays the brash, litigious Silver, based on real-life writer Meyer Levin, a best-selling author who obsessively pursued rights to stage his own version of Anne Frank’s story. The forces competing for ownership of, and identification with, Anne Frank and her hugely influential diary extend far beyond her father Otto, Silver, or the diary’s publishers at Doubleday (represented here by a smooth Matte Osian in a variety of parts; and a vital Hannah Cabell, who doubles as Silver’s increasingly alarmed and alienated French wife). But the power of Groff’s play lies in grounding the deeply convoluted and compromised history of that text and, by extension, the memory and meanings of the Holocaust itself, in a small set of forceful characters—augmented by astute use of marionettes (designed by Matt Acheson) and the words of Anne Frank herself (partially projected in Jeff Sugg’s impressive video design). The productive dramatic tension doesn’t let up, even after the seeming grace of the last-line, which relieves Silver of worldly burdens but leaves us brooding on their shifting meanings and ends. (Avila)

*East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Dates and times vary. Through Nov 21. Don Reed’s solo play, making its Oakland debut after an acclaimed New York run, is truly a welcome homecoming twice over. (Avila)

In the Red and Brown Water Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; 388-5208, www.marintheatre.org. $32-53. Tues, 8pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Wed, 7:30pm, Sun, 7pm (also Sat/2, 2pm). Through Oct 10. Marin Theatre Company presents the West Coast premiere of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play.

In the Wound John Hinkel Park, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $10 (no one turned away). Sat-Sun, 3pm. Through Sun/3. Shotgun Players’ annual free performance in Berkeley’s John Hinkel Park is this year an impressively staged large-cast reworking of the Illiad from playwright-director Jon Tracy. In the Wound is actually the first of two new and related works from Tracy collectively known as the Salt Plays (the second of which, Of the Earth will open at Shotgun’s Ashby stage in December). Its distinctly contemporary slant on the Trojan War includes re-imagining the epic’s Greek commanders as figures we’ve come to know and loath here in the belly of a beast once know by the quaint-sounding phrase, “military-industrial complex.” Hence, Odysseus (Daniel Bruno) as a devoted family man in a business suit with a briefcase full of bloody contradictions emanating from his 9-to-5 as a “social architect” for the empire; or Agamemnon (an irresistibly Patton-esque Michael Torres) as the ridiculously macho, creatively foul-mouthed redneck American four-star commander-clown ordering others into battle. While the alternately humorous and overly meaningful American inflections can feel too obvious and dramatically limiting, they’re delivered with panache, amid the not unmoving spectacle of the production’s energetic, drum-driven choreography and cleverly integrated mise-en-scène. (Avila)

*Loveland The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-50. Fri, 7pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Nov 13. Ann Randolph’s acclaimed one-woman comic show about grief returns for its sixth sold-out extension.

MilkMilkLemonade La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/2. Impact Theatre presents Joshua Conkel’s off off Broadway play about a lonely gay man trapped in a chicken farm.

She Loves Me Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek; (825) 943-7469, www.CenterREP.org. $36-45. Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2:30 and 8pm; Sun, 2:30pm. Through Oct 10. Center REPertory company presents a musical choreographed and directed by Robert Barry fleming.

Trouble in Mind Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $10-55. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm; Tues, 7pm. Through Sun/3. It’s old enough be considered a period piece, but at no time does Aurora Theatre’s production of Alice Childress’ 1955 comic drama Trouble in Mind feel dated. Set backstage on Broadway, Trouble depicts the rehearsals of a play entitled Chaos in Belleville—an anti-lynching melodrama penned by a white author. The often hilariously manic director, Al Manners (Tim Kniffin) alternately patronizes, bullies, and flatters the predominantly black cast into portraying the basest plantation stereotypes—right down to the names “Petunia” and “Ruby”—all the while touting the work as an important statement about race relations. But the real lessons in race relations and breaking through the color barriers occur as the rehearsals progress and the cast, middle-aged “character actress” Wiletta Mayer (Margo Hall) in particular, begin to question the veracity of the script and the directorial instincts of Manners. Trouble’s exceptional cast keeps the dialogue crackling and the pace urgent, save for a heart-breakingly deliberate reminiscence powerfully delivered by Rhonnie Washington. As for the timeliness of a piece which highlights among other things the dearth of strong theatrical roles for African-Americans, it’s interesting to note that actors Elizabeth Carter, Jon Joseph Gentry, Margo Hall, and Rhonnie Washington are all making their Aurora Theatre debut with this particular play. (Nicole Gluckstern)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

 

“Best of the Fringe Encore Performances” EXIT Theatre, 156 Eddy; 673-3847, www.sffringe.org. Fri/1-Sat/2, 7 and 8:30pm; $20. Four highlights from this year’s SF Fringe Festival get repeat performances.

“Blue Room Comedy” Club 93, 93 9th St; 264-5489. Free. Tues/5, 10pm. A weekly series that takes comedy to new lows.

“Body and Sound Arts Festival Concert” Kunst-Stoff Arts, 929 Market; www.dancemonks.com. Fri/1, 7pm; $15-30. An interdisciplinary arts festival dedicated to improvisation.

“Clown Cabaret at the Climate” The Jewish Theater, 470 Florida; 704-3260, www.climatetheater.com. Mon/4, 7 and 9pm; $10-15. Rising star clowns and seasoned pro clowns perform.

“The Ethel Merman Experience” Martuni’s, 4 Valencia; 241-0205, www.dragatmartunis.com. Sun/3, 7pm; $5. Rock gets the brassy Merman treatment.

“Free Night of Theatre” Union Square; www.tixbayarea.com. Wed/29, 10-am-4pm and 6pm; free. A sixth anniversary kick-off performance celebration in which free theater tickets are distributed.

“Funny Girlz” Brava Theater, 2781 24th St; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. Wed/29, 8pm; $25. Kung Pao Kosher Comedy presents a smorgasboard of female comedians.

Insides Out!/Indecision Collision Stage Werx, 533 Sutter; (800) 838-3006, wwwbrownpapertickets.com. Thurs-Fri, 8pm (Insides Out!); Sat, 8pm (Indecision Collision); $12-20. A pair of solo performances by Katie O’Brien.

“ODC/Dance: Architecture of Light” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St; www.odctheater.org. Thurs/30-Sat/2, 8pm; $20-500. ODC celebrates the opening of its new building with performances.

“Qcomedy Showcase” Martuni’s, 4 Valencia; www.Qcomedy.com. Mon/4, 8pm; $5-16. Karen Ripley, Zoe Dunning, Pippi Lovestocking, and others perform.

Lizz Roman and Dancers Danzhaus, 1275 Connecticut; 970-0222, wwwlizzromandancers.com. Thurs/30-Sat/2 (also Oct 7-9), 8pm; $20. A new performance by the local company, with lighting by Jenny B.

“The Romane Event” Make Out room, 3225 22nd; 647-2888, www.pacoromane.com.Wed/29, 7:30pm; $7. Paco Romane hosts Tim Lee, Harmon Leon, and others.

“Rotunda Dance Series” San Francisco City Hall; www.dancersgroup.org. Fri/1, noon; free. Performances by Joanna Haigood/ZACCHO Dance Theatre.

Smuin Ballet Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon; (415) 978-2787, www.smuinballet.org. Fri/1 (through Oct 9), 8pm; call for prices. The company kicks off a new season with two premieres by Trey McIntyre.

“Swan Lake: Ballet for the People By the People” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/1-Sat/2, 8pm; $10-15. ArtFace Performance Group presents an unconventional take on a classic.

“Trine” The Garage, 975 Howard; 518-1517, www.975howard.com. Fri/1-Sat/2, 8pm; $10-20. RAW presents work by Paco Gomes and Dancers and Damage Control Dance Theater.

BAY AREA

Bay Area Playback Theatre Belrose Theatre, 1415 5th Ave, San Rafael; 499-8528, www.BayAreaPlayback.com. Sat/2, 7:30pm; $18. Stories told by audience members are turned into imrpov theater by a troupe.

“The Funniest Bubble Show on Earth” The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. Sun/3, 11am (through Nov 21); $8-11. The Amazing Bubble Man (aka Louis Pearl) returns with his show.

Mark Morris Dance Group Zellerbach Hall, UC campus, Berk; (510) 642-9988, www.calperfs.berkeley.edu. Thurs/20-Sat/2, 8pm; Sun/3, 3pm; $34-72. The acclimaed dance company returns with a triple-bill of premieres.

Hot sluts!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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59
Hot sluts!

culture@sfbg.com

SEX ISSUE Forget those uptight pricks: sluts are awesome. There’s no shame in harboring a voracious appetite for sexiness in all its myriad expressions. Combined with a well-developed ethical stance and safe practices, it’s one of the joys of being human. In honor of the enormous, charitable Folsom Street leather and fetish fair (Sun/26, 11 a.m.–6 p.m., donations requested. www.folsomstreetfair.org), we wanted to honor some of our favorite local sluts with the pervy attention they want and deserve. 

>>CLICK HERE FOR PICS OF OUR FAVORITE HOT SLUTS!

SLUTTIEST CELLULOID

You’ve always wanted to watch your neighbors bang, right? Well moan enthusiastically in honor of the Good Vibrations Indie Erotic Film Festival, which every year puts the call out for the cream of the amateur blue filmmaker crop, then assembles the spunkiest for your viewing pleasure at the Castro Theatre. You too can be in the audience, which will ooh and aah its approval to choose the sexiest, steamiest home-screw, the lucky winner receiving a $1,500 money shot. So how does SF get it on? This year’s 12 finalists include preggo smut (Jeannie Roshar’s “Bun in the Oven”), good old-fashioned wordplay like Benjamin Williams’ “The Filth Element,” and sci-fi sexin’ (“Orgasm Raygun” by Martin Gooch). The fest precedes a range of specialty nights around town coordinated by Good Vibes, including Lebso Retro: A Dyke Porn Retrospective (Wed/22 at the Women’s Building). It’s gonna be a hot ticket, so grab a seat, relax your rear, and revel in the sight of sexy San Francisco.

Thurs/23 pre party: 7 p.m., $10; screening: 8 p.m., $10. Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF. (415) 621-6120, www.gv-ixff.org

 

SLUTTIEST QUEEN

“I’m so honored to be named Sluttiest Queen,” inimitable alternative drag goddess Suppositori Spelling tells us. “It’s nice to see that my work hasn’t gone unnoticed. I have so many performances that require nudity that when I drop my skirt lately it’s often met with a wave of yawns from my audience. I think they’re more shocked by the presence of panties nowadays.” (Her audience, found at her raucous weekly drag show Cocktailgate — Sundays, 9 p.m., $5. Truck, 1900 Folsom St., SF. www.trucksf.com — sheds a few panties themselves when she’s on stage.) “I could tell you stories so dirty hot that this paper would burn like a Koran in Florida” she continues, “but I’m so shy and reserved. I will say this, though: as far as the queer sex scene in San Francisco goes, we seem to be in the flush of a renaissance. I keep stumbling upon things that even make me blush — like the gentleman who preferred a visible handjob on public transportation during rush hour as foreplay. But I encourage whatever floats your boat or creams your Twinkie. I just want to clarify, however, that “ouch” is not a safe word!”

Suppositori emcees the Seventh Street stage at Folsom Street Fair from 11 a.m.–2 p.m., followed by a special performance at 2:30 p.m., and then a “hanky code” themed Cocktailgate at its regular time.

 

SLUTTIEST BOYS

Dan and JD, a.k.a. Two Knotty Boys, are no strangers to the twists and loops of BDSM performance. Native San Franciscans both, they not only create mesmerizing stage shows in which they bind nubile flesh to their will, but also produce end results so visionary that you’d be excused for leaving off the “fetish” and dubbing it merely “fashion.” A ever-so-tightly cinched halter top of gleaming white cord, a barely there cobweb bikini that requires an expert hand to remove, overlays of skirts and dresses that hobble the wearer seductively and at the same time, show off the contours of the female body. It’s neat, it’s adjustable, it’s sexily professional work. It’s easy to see why the duo has filmed more than 100 video tutorials and taught countless workshops in the Bay and beyond for their eager fans: the Boys have tied up hundreds of women but, unlike some humiliation artists, they have never tied down their subjects’ beauty and comfort.

www.twoknottyboys.com

 

SLUTTIEST PARTIERS

Was it written on the rock hard abs of some San Franciscan sex god that all coital gatherings in this city have to be stark and stoic? Thankfully, the colorful gang over at Kinky Salon never got that memo. Creators Polly and Scott have created a swinger’s playland party in the pink and purple rooms of Mission Control whose focus is flair: playful costume themes have focused on everything from kitty cats (the upcoming Pussyfest) to undersea adventure and fairy tale characters. You’ve never lived, it would seem, until your Snow White costume has been peeled off on the couch in the Harem Room by Tinkerbell and Captain Hook. More recently, the team has created a new magazine to celebrate the vast array of sexualities that their partygoers lay claim to: San Fran Sexy. The rag includes erotic history lessons from sexologist Dr. Carol Queen, memoir pieces from Bawdy Storytelling’s Dixie De La Tour, photos from recent Kinky Salon soirees, and news of sensual events to come.

www.kinkysalon.com

 

SLUTTIEST ROCKERS

“If the Meat Sluts were a Pink Lady, we’d be Rizzo! We ain’t no prudes like Sandy!” says BB Rumproast of rockin’ band the Meat Sluts (www.myspace.com/themeatsluts). In a world of vegan dogs, her XXX-chromosomed trash rock-punk explosion is an all-beef foot long. The four women are cookin’ on stage — literally. In addition to the occasional back up steak dancing alongside their guitar licks and growls, the Meat Sluts have shared space at shows with a live hot dog-maker and a meat grinder flinging sausage and baloney onto hungry fans. It’s messy, carnivorous fun — the perfect expression of the group’s embrace of hedonistic appetite that could care less about what’s considered “ladylike” at the table of the musical establishment. “We are loose and crazy and not ashamed of it! We love man meat! We love weenies! Beef baloney, Slim Jims, T-bones, bring it ON!” says Rumproast. To quote the Sluts’ rager rally cry “Johnny Con Carne,” that’s what we call makin’ bacon.

The Meat Sluts play Dodgyfest 3, Oct 2, 7 p.m., $10. Thee Parkside, 1600 17th St., SF. www.theeparkside.com

 

SLUTTIEST BLOGGER

Fleur De Lis SF has a bone to pick with the way hot and horny females are portrayed. “Women are just as sexual as men and they should own it,” the blogger tells us. Need proof? Check out the blog she started this summer — just make sure your hands are free and you’ve got a little privacy while you do so. Her posts are missives from a professional woman’s enthusiastic exploration of sensual subcultures in “one of the sexiest cities in the world.” Though her identity is clad in secrecy, Fleur De Lis SF’s escapades with Craig’s List Casual Encounters, BDSM clubs, and randy run-ins at the grocery store will leave you slicker than a Slip ‘N Slide in 90 percent humidity. Erotic inspiration notwithstanding, what we love about this new It slut is her candor and assertiveness. “Mainly, I want to educate people to embrace sex and sexuality,” she says. “I want people to accept who they are, and who are we are sexually is a huge part of who we are as people.”

fleurdelissf.wordpress.com

 

SLUTTIEST MAN ACTION

For the past few years, hunky leatherman cruisers have been blessed with the return of a SoMa bar crawl, which, while hardly rivaling the infamous Miracle Mile of the 1970s and ’80s, at least offers hide-lusting bar-hoppers an array of options. Truck, Hole in the Wall, Powerhouse, the Eagle, Lone Star — all make for a daisy chain of fellow cock-seekers. But the piece de resistance is surely Chaps II, which gives itself wholly over to man-action bliss. The original Chaps, owned by Chuck Slaton and Ron Morrison, was notorious for its Crisco-minded shenanigans, and Chaps II, opened in 2008 by David Morgan, continues the proudly perverse tradition, with parties devoted to rope play, piss play, fisting, and sports gear aficionados, as well as regular nights simply dedicated to the Holy Grail of slutty manhood: cheap ass. (For those unfamiliar — cheap ass tastes like chicken parmesan.) Kudos to you, Chaps II, for keeping the BDSM spirit alive — and serving a healthy round of Jäger shots to boot.

1225 Folsom, SF. (415) 255-2427, www.chapsbarsanfrancisco.com

 

SLUTTIEST ROBOTS

Drilldo, Intruder MK II, the Satisfyher, Scorpion, the Little Guy, Annihilator, the Octapussy — these are some of the friendly, dripping sex robots you’ll meet at FuckingMachines.com, part of the Kink.com kingdom. The machines put a bevy of heaving beauties through the motions with their dildo-studded fingers and pulsating hacksaw thrusts. Designed by lucky site users, who submit their moving-parts fantasies, and the fiendishly clever sex-elves at the Fucking Machines workshop (with many of the machines fabricated on site at Kink’s HQ in the Mission Armory), these fascinating thingamabobs range from devilishly dirty to actually kind of cute. There’s even one modeled on Johnny 5 from Short Circuit, albeit renamed Fuckzilla and outfitted with a huge silicone phallus. The whole shebang is overseen by the enthusiastic Tomcat, who drives the point home that, yes, a chainsaw outfitted with 20 fake tongues “challenges the whole idea that women need someone to buy them dinner to get pleasure.” Fucking machines themselves have been around since the 1960s, he notes, “but when we started in 2001, we wanted to capitalize on the tech wave, while approaching the machine construction like sculpture.” Good thing the Fucking Machine bubble didn’t burst.

 

SLUTTIEST SLÜT

Burlesque heroine Baroness Eva Von Slüt knows what she’s got, and she’s happy to show it to you. The inked, buxom platinum blonde dove into burlesque in 2002, but she’s never been afraid of flaunting her dangerous curves onstage. “Whatever the thing is that women have that they hate their bodies, I just don’t have it. I don’t compare myself to other people because I know I look good.” Von Slüt produces her own burlesque shows, plays party-jumping jams with partner DJ Mod Days, and heads up the vocals for no less than two sexy bands — Thee Merry Widows, an all-girl psychobilly explosion of fishnets, red lipstick, and leather dresses, at whose shows Von Slüt will bust out in pasties and sequined panties, and the White Barons, a stripped down, hard-edged punk outfit in which Von Slüt lets her rebel growl loose. So what gets this freight train whistling? Purrs the lady, “Self-confidence and kindness. Also, I am a bit of a cougar, so gentlemen 10 years younger. I’m not opposed to men my age or older, but gosh they’re just so sweet when they’re young!”

Catch Von Slüt’s DJ session on Wednesday, Oct. 13 at Butter, 354 11th St., SF. www.myspace.com/missevavonslut

 

SLUTTIEST FREE-FOR-ALL

There are a lot of gay musclemen at the Folsom Street Fair, and there are a lot of steamy, shirtless gay man-parties surrounding the event (causing quite a few Monday morning tragedies). But what about everyone else? “I was talking to my friends at Kink,” says Folsom organizer Demetri Moshoyannis, “and they said that once the fair ended, all the leathermen had a place to go, but everyone at the Kink booth just had to go home. So this year we teamed up with them to change that.” The result? A glorious-sounding omnisexual dance party called Deviants that’s open to everyone. The acknowledgment that gay muscle men aren’t the only ones who can get down and dirty into the wee hours is refreshing. But so is the musical lineup — the Juan Maclean, Zach Moore from Space Cowboys, Australia’s Stereogamous — which offers something beyond the carnival circuit-music at many of the other parties. Musclemen are welcome, too, of course, as long as they’re willing to shake their chains on the dance floor.

Sun/26, 6 p.m.–2 a.m., $30 advance. 525 Harrison, SF. www.folsomstreetfair.org/deviants

 

SLUTTIEST PIE

It’s not too many harems that offer you 40 different ways to satisfy your cravings. But hot, lip-smacking loving can be yours — in three different locations or for delivery, no less! — whenever that urge to do something naughty hits, whether you like it on your lunch hour or for a post-bar dirty stopover. Oh, Pizza Orgasmica, you sure do know what gets us going. The local chain has umpteen big, salacious pies with nookie-themed names for your perusing. And although the Ménage à Trois, with it’s cuddle puddle of five salty cheeses, will leave you panting, and the Latin Lover’s barbeque sauce, chicken, zucchini, onions, and cilantro make for a meaty, spicy affair, the sluttiest pie award has got to go to the Farmer’s Daughter. She looks like a demure little milkmaid (after all, you can find her on the vegetarian menu) — but once her drizzles of creamy bianca cheese hit your tongue, and her fresh corn and broccoli fill your mouth … it’s a tumble in the hay you won’t soon forget. Old MacDonald would be scandalized.

Various locations, www.pizzaorgasmica.com

 

SLUTTIEST CLOWN

When it comes gender-bending sexual escapades, we landlubbing bipeds tend to give short shrift to our finned, feathered, and multi-legged Earthmates. That’s why we’re giving a hearty bottoms up to the California Academy of Science’s Amphiprion ocellaris. The showy orange and white striped fish, whose common name is clownfish, is best known as the aquatic brat in Finding Nemo. But we don’t care about Nemo’s celebrity — or his billions. We salute him for his ability to shift from male to female when needed, giving her access to the entire spectrum of fishy sexuality. One of the planet’s rare sequential hermaphrodites, all clownfish are born male (protandrous hermaphrodites) but become female when the female in a breeding pair dies. You may never look at a clownfish the same way again — and you should certainly go and look at them at the Cal Academy aquarium (www.calacademy.org), where the San Franciscan clownfish ride tiny fixies, design websites, and sip Blue Bottle. Kidding! But maybe we should rethink always calling them “Nemo.” How about Nema for a change? Or Nemo-ma. Or, oh goddess of LGBT fish love, Nemaphrodite.

 

SLUTTIEST BUFFET

It’s lunchtime Friday and you need a juicy thigh in your mouth: Gold Club is there. And no, we’re not talking about the lovely ladies popping, dropping, and locking it all over the SoMa strip club’s pleasure poles. Carnal urges take on new meaning when it comes to the joint’s $5 all you can eat Friday buffet, an omnivorous affair stuffed with roast beef, lasagna, fresh veggies, hummus, brownies, and their signature breasts (or as one Yelper so memorably dubbed them, “fried chicken tit-tays!”) The spread attracts a diverse crowd of office workers and lap-dance connoisseurs of all genders, endowed with an appetite for crispy skin and jiggling glutei maximi alike. So pair your plate with a $4 happy hour cocktail — available until 7 p.m. — and don’t forget to share your savings with the working women up front.

Gold Club’s all you can eat buffet Fridays 11 a.m.– 2 p.m., $5. 650 Howard, SF. (415) 536-0300, www.goldclubsf.com

Slutty profiles written by Marke B., Caitlin Donohue, Johnny Ray Huston, and Diane Sussman.

After dubstep

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
After dubstep

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC Dom Maker and Kai Campos met a few years ago at university in South London, where they bonded over the emerging wobble of what would become the biggest underground music of the decade: dubstep. Campos introduced Maker to some tracks he was producing on his computer, and in a year’s time they both started making music together. These were the early years, before the duo became Mount Kimbie and would advance dubstep beyond its typically rigid hopscotch game between ferocious bass and synth rattle. Mount Kimbie got down on simple software, played around with some loops, sang a bit, and ventured out of their bedrooms to suck the life of countryside and alleyway sounds into hungry recording devices.

“I started using the computer because it was the only way I could record my music on my own,” Maker tells me during an e-mail correspondence. “I tried numerous times to start a band, but nothing came about. I thought I would try it myself, and I was surprised that some of the material came out sounding so electronic.”

That desire for a band’s musicality transferred over to Mount Kimbie’s unique approach to make songs that reside on the fence — surely now a sad, rotting wooden fence — separating dance hits and pastoral folk. The duo passed a demo of original beats around and caught the attention of Paul Rose, a.k.a. Scuba, head of the independent British label Hotflush Recordings, who signed them even though they don’t produce the sort of face-melting dubstep that incites one-hand-in-the-air frenzies. You can absorb Maker and Campos’ sounds while swinging in a deserted beachside playground. I’d say that it’s music for trains and spaceships, grottos or mountaintops. But hey, that’s just me.

Last year Mount Kimbie dropped the EPs Maybes and Sketch on Glass, both on Hotflush, two stunning odysseys into the future of digital sound. Maker’ and Campos’ efforts have culminated with this summer’s excellent full-length debut, Crooks and Lovers (also on Hotflush), an electronic soundscape prone to the sort of expansive emotional wandering that you typically hear only in dusty blues records.

“As we have progressed as Mount Kimbie, both of us have become more interested in looking at [different] ways of recording and creating sound than just through the use of software synths,” Maker says. “The album is very sample-based, along with a lot of our own field recordings and recorded guitar and vocals.” This amalgamation of live and digital sound taps into electricity of a listener’s nerve endings. Finally, some of the nebulous forms of technological feeling whirling with me — cultivated by years of video game playing and Internet surfing and everyday 21st century living — are affirmed, even vindicated. I’m one step closer to naming them.

There’s something urgent about Crooks and Lovers: It navigates a nebulous emotional tension so present in this age as we use gadgetry to bridge our loneliness and exuberance. “Tunnelvision” opens the record with a foreboding ambient noise. As if to spirit us away to the other side of that warp hole, the humming bass empties into a floral guitar riff marked by layers of scrambled vocals and softly burping electronics.

“[“Tunnelvison” is] made up almost entirely of material that we field recorded in a wind tunnel in the small village that I live in by the sea in Brighton,” Maker says. “It is interesting to work with sounds that have more feeling of place.” This sort of topography of emotion carries over throughout Crooks and Lovers. In “Before I Move Off,” a collage of bleeping keys washes over heavy percussion and a dreamy string melody. The songs continually build in a repetitive momentum toward release. Tension expands, contracts, and lets go, rotating in a feverish order.

Some songs linger within introspection. Round synthesized cords and off-kilter drum patterns enclose “Ruby” and “Carbonated” into an abyss that feels more like a great open sky than a frighteningly deep hole in Guatemalan soil. These cuts are matched by outward expressions of joy: “Mayor,” maybe the only banger on the record, lets the sub-bass erupt in helicopter jolts of energy over whirling keys that burst in gasps of smoke. But dubstep’s integral wobble is toned down here, a softer and less obnoxious gyration of energy that fits into the song’s methodical momentum. And always the fissured vocal cuts emerge from the shadows, coded and manipulated and barely recognizable, but striking — a reflection of our own inchoate inner gurgles of sound-patterns unable to organize themselves into the right words or shapes to let us express what we feel.

None of Mount Kimbie’s singles on Crooks and Lovers stand out with the same level of warmth and power as say “William” or “Serged” on their previous EPs. But the record is cohesive, meant to rise and fall in a full listening experience. It’s the sort of record that connects with common personal experiences, and then stretches them outward. After listening to it a few times — and it is a record that has immense replay value — I understand a bit more where Mount Kimbie is coming from and how they fit into today’s electronic music landscape.

If Burial is the fettered graveyard of the dubstep alter-verse, then Mount Kimbie is the haunted hillside where spectral ghosts, fleshed robots, and strange wisps of ephemeral life make their retreat during an indigo dusk that could just as easily be dawn. There’s something utterly enchanting there. Field recordings of everyday noise and mechanical grind weave slinky shapes around digital drum patterns that limp and leap and do windmills around sampled chirps and spherical bleeps. It’s a soundtrack for dissolution: the rigid lines between human and computer, sentience and thingness, city and nature, all melt away into the gushing blood that pumps through the sewer arteries beneath Mount Kimbie.

If my rampant speculations offend, then let me add that the loose framework of their resonant topography is very open to interpretation. “Mount Kimbie is a fictional creation that is just made up from two different names, both are part of the track name of a song by another band,” says Maker and Campos. “It is quite nice to be under a name that has no meaning and suggests nothing. We are not fans of being blatant with meanings.” And so the sun sets over the old town of dubstep. What’s next?

MOUNT KIMBIE

With Dntel, Asura, Mary Ann Hobbes and DJG

Sat/25, 9 p.m., $10

Mount Kimbie with Dntel, Asura, Mary Ann Hobbes, and DJG

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

(415) 932-0955

www.inticketing.com

Benefits: Sept. 22-Sept 28

David Talbot
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0
Benefits: Sept. 22-Sept 28

Ways to have fun while giving back this week


Friday, Sept. 24

Art for AIDS
Attend this charity art auction featuring paintings, sculpture, photography, and jewelry along with food and drink from Bay Area restaurants, caterers, wineries, and breweries. There will also be live music and an auction for travel and adventure prizes. Proceeds to benefit the UCSF AIDS Health Project.
5:30 p.m., $100
The Galleria
101 Henry Adams, SF
www.artforaids.org

Bollywood Disco Ball
If you need an excuse to wear a flashy disco outfit, head to this fundraiser featuring a night of Bollywood disco music video mash ups, live performances, live art, Indian food, and more. Proceeds to benefit Project Ahimsa, a global effort to empower youth through music that distributes music education grants in 14 countries, including programs in the Bay Area.
9 p.m., $125
111 Minna Gallery
111 Minna, SF
www.projectahimsa.org

Concert for Pakistan
Join classical music lovers and others interested in helping victims of this summer’s flood in Pakistan for a night of classical chamber music performed by the San Francisco Academy Orchestra, the Calvary Presbyterian Church chior, and other Bay Area musicans. All donations given during the concert will go to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance: Pakistan.
8 p.m., donations encouraged
Calvary Presbyterian Church
2515 Fillmore, SF
(415) 346-3832

Sunday, Sept. 26

Race for the Cure
The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure® Series is one of the largest 5K run and fitness walk in the world, raising funds and awareness for the fight against breast cancer, celebrating breast cancer survivors, and honoring those who have lost their battle with the disease. Participate by running, walking, or just donating and help provide breast health research, diagnostics, screening, treatment, services and education for uninsured or underinsured women
9 a.m., $10+
Start and finish at Ferry Building
Embarcadero at Market, SF
www.komensf.org

Support the Red Vic
Join Surfpulse.com for a benefit for the Red Vic, a worker owned and operated movie house since 1980, featuring free food, surf films, DVDs for sale, and a $5 raffle for a Las Olas surfboard and other prizes. $1 from all Sierra Nevada beer sales and a portion of the bar and tips will all be donated to the Red Vic.
6 p.m., free
Joxer Daly’s Irish Pub
46 West Portal, SF
www.surfpulse.com

Rep Clock

David Talbot
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0

Schedules are for Wed/22–Tues/28 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-10. "What is Life Without the Living?", experimental queer works by Luther Price and David Scheid, Thurs, 8. "Electronic Cinema," sound artists perform scores for films by experimental filmmakers, Fri, 8. "Other Cinema: The Land of the Rising Fastball," films about Japanese baseball, Sat, 8:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. "Janus Films Presents: Charlie Chaplin:" •Limelight (1952) with "Shoulder Arms" (1918), Wed, 1:30, 4:45, 8. "Good Vibrations Fifth Annual Indie Erotic Film Festival," film competition hosted by Peaches Christ and Dr. Carol Queen, Thurs, 8 (pre-party, 7). For additional info, visit www.gv-ixff.org. "Gavyn Awards," also known as "the Oscars of gay adult entertainment," Fri, 7. For tickets, visit www.gayvnawards.com. Metropolis: The Complete Restoration (Lang, 1927), Sat, 1:30; Sun-Tues and Sept 29, 8 (also Sept 29, 2, 5). "The Twilight Saga Marathon": •Twilight (Hardwicke, 2008), Sat, 5; New Moon (Weitz, 2009), Sat, 7:20; and Eclipse (Slade, 2010), Sat, 9:45. "The Mighty Uke Roadshow:" Mighty Uke (Coleman, 2010), Sun, 3. Also featuring a live ukelele concert (this event, $12).

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector (Jayanti, 2009), call for dates and times. Cairo Time (Nadda, 2009), call for dates and times. The Girl Who Played With Fire (Alfredson, 2009), call for dates and times. The Sicilian Girl (Amenta, 2008), call for dates and times. Howl (Epstein and Friedman, 2010), Sept 24-30, call for times. "The Films of My Life:" Stranger Than Paradise (Jarmusch, 1984), Thurs, 7. Presented by musician Jerry Harrison.

EMBARCADERO One Embarcadero Center, promenade level, SF; www.sffs.org. $8-20. "NY/SF International Children’s Film Festival," films for kids ages 3-18 and their families, Fri-Sun.

"FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK" This week: Creek Park, 451 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo; (415) 272- 2756, www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. Wall-E (Stanton, 2008), Fri, 8. Dolores Park, Dolores at 19th St, SF; same contact and price info. The Big Lebowski (Coen, 1998), Sat, 8.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. Six Degrees Could Change the World, Wed, 7:30.

JACK LONDON SQUARE East lawn, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. "Waterfront Flicks:" Land of the Lost (Silberling, 2009), Thurs, 7:30.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100 (reservations required). $10. "CinemaLit: Loves Labours: Leo McCarey Revisited:" Going My Way (McCarey, 1944), Fri, 6.

"OAKLAND UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL" Various venues, Oakl; www.oakuff.org. $10. Independent and DIY films, video, and video art made in Oakland. Thurs-Fri, 5; Sat, 10am.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. "Alternative Visions:" L’Age d’or (Buñuel, 1930) with "Un Chant d’amour" (Genet, 1950), Wed, 7:30. "Behind the Scenes: The Art and Craft of Cinema:" Akeelah and the Bee (Atchison, 2006), Thurs, 7:30; Hud (Ritt, 1963). With special guests in person discussing the making of each film. "Elegant Perversions: The Cinema of João César Monteiro:" Trails (1978), Fri, 7; God’s Comedy (1995), Sat, 8. "Drawn From Life: Comic Books and Graphic Novels Adapted:" Tank Girl (Talalay, 1995), Fri, 9:15; Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Zemeckis, 1988), Sun, 6:45. "Swoon: Great Leading Men in Gorgeous 35mm Prints:" Jubal (Daves, 1956), Sat, 6.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. "Isle of Wight 40th Anniversary Film Festival: Shot and Directed By Murray Lerner:" Leonard Cohen (1970), Wed, 2, 7:15; Listening to You: The Who at the Isle of Wight (1970), Wed, 9:15; Jethro Tull: Nothing Is Easy: Live at the Isle of Wight (1970), Thurs, 7:15; The Moody Blues (1970), Thurs, 9:15; Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue (1970), Fri, 7; Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival (1970), Fri, 9:35 and Sat, 2, 7; Jimi Hendrix (1970), Sat, 4:30, 9:35. The Room (Wiseau, 2003), Sat, midnight. 8 1/2 (Fellini, 1963), Sun, 2, 5, 8; Mon, 7:30. I Am Love (Guadagnino, 2009), Sept 28-29, 7, 9:30 (also Sept 29, 2).

ROGUE ALES PUBLIC HOUSE 673 Union, SF; www.rogue.com. Free. "Barbary Coast Film Festival," original films under 15 minutes, Sun, 7:30.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector (Jayanti, 2008), Wed-Thurs, Wed, 7; Thurs, 7:45. Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 9 (also Thurs, 7). •The Long Goodbye (Altman, 1972), Wed, 7; Thieves Like Us (Altman, 1974), Wed, 9. "SF Irish Film Festival," Thurs-Sat. For program info, visit www.sfirishfilm.com. "PFFR September Sexclusive," Sun, 7. •Surviving Desire (Hartley, 1991), Mon-Tues, 7, 9:40, and Book of Life (Hartley, 1998), Mon-Tues, 8:15.

"SAN FRANCISCO LATINO FILM FESTIVAL" University of San Francisco, 130 Fulton, SF; (415) 826-7057, www.sflatinofilmfestival.org. $8-10. Lula, Son of Brazil, Sat, 7. Ichthus Gallery, 1769 15th St, SF. Same contact info and price. "Shorts Program," Sun, 6.

SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART 151 Third St, SF; www.sfmoma.org. $10. "Return to Canyon," presented by San Francisco Cinematheque in association with the Pacific Film Archive, Thurs, 7.

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. Free. "Amandla! South Africa During and After Apartheid:" Invictus (Eastwood, 2009), Thurs, noon.
VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.vizcinema.com. $10-15. Detroit Metal City (Lee, 2008), Wed-Tues, 7:15 (also Wed-Fri and Mon-Tues, 5).
YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. "Others/Ourselves: The Cinema of Robert Gardner:" Dead Birds (1964), Thurs, 7:30; Rivers of Sand (1974), Sun, 2. "Totally Ridiculous: The Lost Films of Charles Ludlam:" The Sorrows of Dolores (Ludlam, late 70s-1987) with "Museum of Wax," Fri-Sat, 7:30; The Imposters (Rappaport, 1980), Sun, 4:30.

Music listings

David Talbot
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0

Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 22

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Blue October, Parlotones Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $32.

"Chinese White Bicycles" Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café Du Nord). 8pm, $25.

Rick Estrin and the Nightcats Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $18.

Golden Gate, Genne and Jesse, Talmaya Hotel Utah. 8pm, $6.

Local Natives, Love Language Fillmore. 8pm, $20.

Murkins, No Captains, Dead Westerns Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Ninth Moon Black, Rye Wolves, Burial Tide, DJ Rob Metal Kimo’s. 9pm, $7.

Julie Plug, Skyflakes, Sugarspun Milk Bar. 9pm, $8.

Silent Comedy, Bears! Bears! Bears!, Shauna Regan Knockout. 9pm, $6.

Tank Attack, Zig Zags, Arms N Legs Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

*Rupa and the April Fishes, MWE, Brass Menazeri Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $12-20.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Club Shutter Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Goth with DJs Nako, Omar, and Justin.

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Jam Fresh Wednesdays Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9:30pm, free. With DJs Slick D, Chris Clouse, Rich Era, Don Lynch, and more spinning top40, mashups, hip hop, and remixes.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

THURSDAY 23

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Atriarch, Alaric, Worm Ourboboros Knockout. 9:30pm, $6.

Badmammal, Good Luck at the Gunfight, Bonsoir George El Rio. 8pm, $3-5.

*Big Boi Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $35.

Jason Falkner Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF; www.amoeba.com. 6pm, free.

Jason Falkner, 88, Ferocious Few Slim’s. 8pm, $13.

Alan Iglesias Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $16. Stevie Ray Vaughn tribute.

Kelly Mcfarling, Sioux City Kid and the Revolutionary Ramblers, Arann Harris and the

Kina Grannis, Ry Cuming, Imaginary Friend Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $17.

Greenstring Farm Band Café Du Nord. 8pm, $12.

*Midnight Bombers, Get Dead, Psychology of Genocide, New Hope for the Dead Thee Parkside. 9pm, $6.

Mighty Slim Pickins, Clair, Sit Kitty Sit Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Tamika Nicole Coda. 9pm, $10.

Sasha and the Shamrocks, Spidermeow, Rabbles Hotel Utah. 9pm, $7.

UB40 Fillmore. 8pm, $49.50.

Water Boarders, Bestial Mouths, Group Rhoda Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

"Full Moon Concert Series: Harvest Moon" Luggage Store Gallery, 1007 Market, SF; www.luggagestoregallery.org. 8pm, $6-10. With Dan Plonsey, Steve Horowitz, and more.

Sam Grobe-Heinze and Tomoko Funaki Trio Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.

McCoy Tyner All-Stars Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $25-35.

Swing With Stan Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Kardash Enrico, 504 Broadway, SF; (415) 982-6223. 7:30pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $10. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Dirty Dishes The LookOut, 3600 16th St., SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. With food carts and DJs B-Haul, Gordon Gartrell, and guests spinning indie electro, dirty house, and future bass.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

Full Moon Contest The Edge, 4149 18th St., SF; (415) 863-4027. 8pm, $8. A PBR benefit beer bust.

Gigantic Beauty Bar. 9pm, free. With DJs Eli Glad, Greg J, and White Mike spinning indie, rock, disco, and soul.

Good Foot Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. With DJs spinning R&B, Hip hop, classics, and soul.

Gymnasium Matador, 10 Sixth St, SF; (415) 863-4629. 9pm, free. With DJ Violent Vickie and guests spinning electro, hip hop, and disco.

Jivin’ Dirty Disco Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 8pm, free. With DJs spinning disco, funk, and classics.

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

Meat DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $2-5. Industrial with BaconMonkey, Netik, Mitch, and Ritter Gluck.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.

Solid Thursdays Club Six. 9pm, free. With DJs Daddy Rolo and Tesfa spinning roots, reggae, dancehall, soca, and mashups.

FRIDAY 24

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Agent Orange, Daikdaiju, Deadbeats Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $10.

Bacon, Howdy! Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut, SF; www.theyankee.com. 10pm, $5.

Beautiful Girls, Giant Panda Guerrilla Dub Squad, Kinetix Independent. 9pm, $15.

Big Tree, Brass Bed, Idle Cedars, Grand Lake Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Black Milk, Elzhi, DJ House Shoes, Gary Copp Mighty. 10pm.

Damage Inc, Paradise City, Powerage, Strangers in the Night Slim’s. 9pm, $13.

Shane Dwight Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

JJ Grey and Mofro Fillmore. 8:30pm, $25.

Katatonia, Swallow the Sun, Orphaned Land Thee Parkside. 9pm, $18-45.

Tommy Keene, Bye Bye Blackbirds, Paul and John Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $10.

Lee Vilenski Trio Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.

New Moon, Rajiv Parikh, Tracorum Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $20.

"The Other Side of the Sidewalk: Concert Tribute to the Songs of Shel Silverstein" Make-Out Room. 7pm, $7. With Misisipi Mike Wolf and friends.

*Rykarda Parasol, Mister Loveless, Spyrals Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Pro Leisure, Lowfat Handshake, Hoovers Café Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Rayband Orchestra Coda. 10pm, $10.

Sick of Sarah, City Light, Here Come the Saviours Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Chris Braun and Group Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.

Kinhoua and Eneidi-Golia Quartet Community Music Center, 544 Capp, SF; www.sfcmc.org. 8pm, $12.

McCoy Tyner All-Stars Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $30-40.

Olodum Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $25-65.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Meredith Axelrod and Craig Ventresco Amnesia. 6-9pm.

Baxtalo Drom Amnesia. 9pm, $10.

Sharon Hazel Township Dolores Park Café. 7pm, $5.

DANCE CLUBS

*Albino!, J. Boogie Elbo Room. 10pm, $10.

Club Dragon Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. A gay Asian paradise. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.

*Duniya Dancehall Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; (415) 920-0577. 10pm, $10. With live performances by Duniya Drum and Dance Co. and DJs dub Snakr and Juan Data spinning bhangra, bollywood, dancehall, African, and more.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs B-Cause, Vinnie Esparza, Mr. Robinson, Toph One, and Slopoke.

Flying Lotus, Caspa Mezzanine. 9pm, $20.

Fubar Fridays Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5. With DJs spinning retro mashup remixes.

Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.

House of Voodoo Medici Lounge, 299 9th St., SF; (415) 863-6334. 9pm. With DJs voodoo and Purgatory spinning goth, industrial, deathrock, eighties, and more.

Psychedelic Radio Club Six. 9pm, $7. With DJs Kial, Tom No Thing, Megalodon, and Zapruderpedro spinning dubstep, reggae, and electro.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa "Samoa Boy" spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

Some Thing The Stud. 10pm, $7. VivvyAnne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ Down-E give you fierce drag shows and afterhours dancing.

Teenage Dance Craze Party Knockout. 10pm, $3. Twist, surf, and garage with DJs Sergio Iglesias, Russell Quann, and dX the Funky Gran Paw.

Trannyshack Lady Gaga Tribute DNA Lounge. 10pm, $15. Don’t forget your disco stick!

SATURDAY 25

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Barney Cauldron, Grains, Midnite Snackers Li Po Lounge, 916 Grant, SF; (415) 982-0072. 9pm, $5.

Christmas, MOR, Pandiscordion Necrogenesis, Statutory Apes Amnesia. 9pm, $5.

Covered in Butter, Treehouse, Expostwave, Tremor Low El Rioncon. 9pm, $5.

Dirty Projectors Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

Disastroid, Tender, Lost Puppy Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Freezepop, Ming and Ping, Aerodrone Elbo Room. 10pm, $13.

Kyro, Kate Burkart, Melissa Phillips Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Monophonics, Grillade Independent. 9pm, $14.

Mucca Pazza, Rube Waddell Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Paul Collins’ Beat, Pleasure Kills, Sharp Objects Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $10.

*"Polk Street Blues Festival" Polk between Pacific and Union, SF; www.sresproductions.com. 10am-6pm, free.

Roy G. Biv and the Mneumonic Devices, Katie Garibaldi, Karney, Amanda Abizaid Union Room at Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $10.

Earl Thomas and the Blues Ambassadors Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

"West Coast Zoner Jam IV" Jerry Garcia Amphitheater, McLaren Park, 45 Shelley, SF; www.zonerjam.com. Noonn-6pm, free. With Lost Ticket, Left Coasting, Dedicated Maniacs, and more.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Chris Potter Underground Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $30-50.

Giovenco Project Coda. 7 and 10pm, $7-10.

"Infrasound 25" Southern Exposure, 3030 20th St, SF; www.soex.org. 7:30pm, free. With Scott Arford, Randy Yau, and Michael Gendreau.

McCoy Tyner All-Stars Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $40.

Karen Segal and Group Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $8.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Barbary Ghosts, Salty Walt and the Rattlin’ Ratlines On the ship Balcutha, Hyde Street Pier, Hyde at Jefferson, SF; (415) 447-5000. 8pm, $14.

*Toshio Hirano Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.

Orquesta America The Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; (415) 621-2378. 5:15pm, $5.

Teslim Seventh Avenue Performances, 1329 7th Ave., SF; (415) 664-2543. 7:30pm, $20. Turkish and Sephardic music.

Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrod Atlas Café. 4pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

AIDS Emergency Fund Benefit DNA Lounge. 12:30-6pm, $10. Dance to house music, mingle with Folsom friends, and donate to a good cause at this annual event.

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Nuxx.

Barracuda 111 Minna. 9pm, $10. Eclectic 80s music with DJs Damon and Phillie Ocean plus 80s cult video projections, a laser light show, prom balloons, and 80s inspired fashion.

Bay Area All Star Series Club Six. 9pm, $5. With live performances by Hav Knots, Micah Tron, Kaveman, The Freshmen, and Z-Man.

Blowoff Slim’s. 10pm, $15. With DJs Bob Mould and Rich Morel.

Bootie DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Bootie Berlin’s resident DJ, Mashup-Germany, guests with residents Adrian and Mysterious D.

Cockblock Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $5-7. Queer dance party with DJ Nuxx and friends.

Go Bang! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; (415) 346 – 2025. 9pm, $5. Recreating the diversity and freedom of the 70’s/ 80’s disco nightlife with DJs Adrian Santos, Steve Fabus, Tres Lingerie, Sergio, and more.

HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.

Marcus Schossow, Second Sun 1015 Folsom. 10pm, $15.

Reggae Gold Club Six. 9pm, $15. With DJs Daddy Rolo, Polo Mo’qz, and Veyn spinning dancehall, reggae, and soca.

Roc Raida Tribute Som. 10pm, $5. With MCs Rakaa and DJs Rob Swift, Platurn, Blaqwest, Mr. E, and Umami spinning hip hop.

Rock City Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5 after 10pm. With DJs spinning party rock.

*Ships in the Night and Sissy Strut Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Two queer dance parties come together to raise money for Teachers for Social Justice with DJs Black, Durt, and guests spinning soul, motown, R&B, doo wop, hip hop, and booty jams.

Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.

Temptation Cat Club. 9:30pm, $7. A femme fatales night with DJs Melting Girl, Daniel Skellington, Skip, Dangerous Dan, and more spinning new wave, goth, electro, and more in preparation for the Folsom Street Fair.

SUNDAY 26

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bone Cootes, Two Sheds Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.

Corruptors, Mensclub, Hot Fog, Sassy!!! Bottom of the Hill. 3pm, $8.

Trevor Garrod Café Du Nord. 8pm, $12.

*Git Some, Pins of Light, Hazzard’s Cure Knockout. 7:30pm, $6.

Nevermore, Warbringer, Mutiny Within, Hatesphere Slim’s. 8pm, $23.

*"Polk Street Blues Festival" Polk between Pacific and Union, SF; www.sresproductions.com. 10am-6pm, free.

Riot Before, Young Livers, Big Kids, Tigon Thee Parkside. 8pm, $7.

Social Studies, Jared Mees and the Grown Children, Monarques Hemlock Tavern. 8pm, $8.

Y La Bamba, Typhoon, Kacey Johansing Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

John Calloway and Diaspora Coda. 7pm, $10.

Famous Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

Forro Brazuca The Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; (415) 621-2378. 5:15pm, $5.

Andre Thierry and Zydeco Magic Knockout. 2-6pm, $10.

DANCE CLUBS

DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. DJ Sep, Vinnie Esparza, and Lud Dub spin dub, roots, and classic dancehall.

Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. "Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers." Got that?

Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.

Lowbrow Sunday Delirium. 1pm, free. DJ Roost Uno and guests spinning club hip hop, indie, and top 40s.

Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.

Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.

Superbad Sundays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With DJs Slopoke, Booker D, and guests spinning blues, oldies, southern soul, and funky 45s.

Swing Out Sundays Rock-It Room. 7pm, free (dance lessons $15). DJ BeBop Burnie spins 20s through 50s swing, jive, and more.

MONDAY 27

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Lotus Moons, These Hills of Gold, Skystone Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Orchestra Antlers, Threadspinner, Westwood and Willow Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

Perfume Genius, Winfred E. Eye, Mist and Mast Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Natalia Lafourcade Slim’s. 8pm, $21.

DANCE CLUBS

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Decay, Joe Radio, and Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJs Ant-1, $ir-Tipp, Ruby Red I, Lo, and Gelo spinning hip hop.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.

Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.

Musik for Your Teeth Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Soul cookin’ happy hour tunes with DJ Antonino Musco.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs.

TUESDAY 28

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Fat Tuesday Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

*Fennesz, Odd Nosdam Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café Du Nord). 8pm, $20.

Sarah Harmer, Bahamas Independent. 8pm, $20.

Hold Me Luke Allen, AJ Rivlin El Rio. 9pm, free.

Like, Hounds Below, Myonics Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Ryat, Dominique Leone, Religious Girls Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.

Semi Precious Weapons, DJ Lady Starlight Slim’s. 8:30pm, $18.

DANCE CLUBS

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.

Rusko, Michipet, Neptune Mezzanine. 9pm, $18.

Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.

Stump the Wizard Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. Punk, hardcore, metal, country, and more with DJ What’s His Fuck and DJ the Wizard.

Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

Trash war hits Chamber of Commerce lunch

Mary Magee
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Trash war hits Chamber of Commerce lunch

The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce is hosting a lunch with Recology today in an apparent effort to push a garbage transportation/disposal contract that the Board of Supervisors hasn’t yet approved.

The Guardian wrote about this ongoing landfill disposal contract dispute between Recology and Waste Management earlier this year, and to date, the Board has not voted on the matter.

But judging from the tone of the following press release, the Chamber, whose incoming chair elect is Recology Vice President John Legnitto, has already made its decision:

“Please join us for a lunch with Recology to learn about the San Francisco’s garbage by Green Rail to Ostrom Road project,” the Chamber states, noting that until the city’s goal of zero waste is reached, “some material will still need to be sent to landfill.”
“A panel of city officials from San Francisco and Oakland chose Recology Ostrom Road Landfill to receive garbage from San Francisco after the city’s current landfill agreement ends in 2015,” the Chamber continues, without bothering to note that this plan involves hauling the city’s waste all the way to Yuba County, which is three times further away than San Francisco’s current waste disposal contract with Waste Management at the Altamont Landfill, near Livermore.

“Officials say the plan to ship San Francisco’s garbage by Green Rail to Ostrom Road is the most cost-effective and environmental option for transporting waste,” the Chamber continues.  “Rail haul is at least three times more efficient than trucking, takes trucks off the road, and cuts fuel consumption and air emissions.” And it encourages folks to learn more about the plan to ship the city’s garbage to Ostrom Road, by visiting Recology’s Ostrom Road site:

Not to be outdone, Waste Management, Inc.has put together a video clip that features on-the-street interviews in downtown San Francisco with local residents–including an amazing “Statue Man” in Justin Herman Plaza– about its competing plan to convert San Francisco’s garbage into liquid natural gas that would then fuels its garbage trucks.

Meanwhile, the Sierra Club has asked the Board of Supervisors to schedule a public hearing. In a September 17 email, sent to Board President David Chiu and the rest of the Board, Rebecca Evans, chair of the Sierra Club’s San Francisco Group, requested that the Board hold a public information hearing on the current status of the City’s contract for landfill operations, starting in 2015.  

“Some months ago, the Department of the Environment ‘selected’ Recology’s proposal to transport San Francisco’s waste to Yuba County,” Evans notes. “A contract was to be released in June 2010.  We understand the confidential nature of contract negotiations but it is September and no further information has been made public.”

“To be clear, the San Francisco Bay Chapter has no policy position on the plan to move landfill operations from the current Waste Management Alameda County Altamont site to Recology’s Ostrom Road destination,” Evans clarifies. “However our chapter and the Club’s Mother Lode Chapter have strong interests in the proposal and how it might be carried out. We ask you to hold a hearing in the near future so that the public can have a fuller understanding of this important issue.”

 

 

The Asylum: an appreciation

Sue Vaughan
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The Asylum: an appreciation

By Landon Moblad

The fine art of creating shitty movies can be divided into two camps — intentional and unintentional. And while I have to admit, I’m much more a fan of the latter (Troll 2, The Room and the Blair Witch sequel all come to mind), I really love what the folks at the Asylum are up to. Any film studio with the balls to release a movie called Titanic II (“Looks like history is repeating itself”) is just fine in my book.

Based out of Burbank, CA, the Asylum produces truly awful rip-offs of major Hollywood blockbusters, which they’ve dubbed “mockbusters.” These straight-to-video travesties are hastily thrown together (the studio makes a movie a month) with a mix of embarrassing CGI, surreal casting decisions (Debbie Gibson, the scientist!) and insulting plots. They’re then promptly thrown into stores to coincide with the theatrical releases of the films they’re capitalizing on. Transformers becomes Transmorphers. I Am Legend turns into I Am Omega. And Snakes on a Plane is now Snakes on a Train (a spoof of a spoof — so meta!) But here’s the thing. These films are supposed to be bad and the guys calling the shots wouldn’t have it any other way. In fact, they think it’s hilarious.

“There’s a part of me that thinks that anyone who walks into a store, sees Transmorphers on the shelf and thinks that it’s the Michael Bay film on the same day that it’s entered into the theater, to a certain extent deserves to be fooled,” said Asylum partner, Paul Bales during this YouTube interview.

The self-awareness the studio employs in making these films and the fact that a lot of the audience is in on the joke leads to some opportunities to push the limits of what defines a bad movie. Sure, a lot of films have wooden acting, grade-school level writing and hilarious plot holes. But do they have a giant shark leaping out of the water and attacking a plane at full elevation, like in Mega-Shark vs. Giant Octopus? Nope. They don’t.

I also love how much the Asylum seems to revel in its shamelessness. You called your movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Well, ours is called Allan Quatermain and the Temple of Skulls. Deal with it.

Really though, there’s something wonderful about consciously creating trash. Especially in the world of film, where we’ve grown accustomed to movies being synonymous with insane budgets, top-notch special effects, and elaborate scores. To turn that all on its head and make something terrible in the interest of just allowing people to laugh and be entertained is pretty awesome.

And to the sourpusses who find this all to be offensive or harmful to the Hollywood system, Asylum partner David Rimawi has offered up this advice: “If you want this to stop, you’ve gotta stop watching these movies.” Love ‘em or hate ‘em, that’s going to be easier said than done.

The news that didn’t make the news in SF

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Every year, the Guardian features the Top 10 Project Censored stories presented by the Sonoma State University project that spends all year analyzing which stories the mainstream media missed. But which stories did not find their way into the mainstream press here in the San Francisco Bay Area?

News outlets other than the Guardian typically ignore Project Censored (unless you count SF Weekly’s snark), so you might say that even Censored tends to be censored. Other than that, we note that issues not hand-delivered via press release or PR campaign might receive less attention than those obvious stories. Using a rather unscientific process of surfing alternative news sites online to find out which stories didn’t get a lot of play in the mainstream, we’ve come up with an assortment of Local Censored stories – though this is by no means a comprehensive list. What other news didn’t make the news?

Local Censored stories:

* What we didn’t hear about when PG&E was pushing Prop 16

Speaking at an informational hearing in Sacramento in February 2010 about Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s ballot initiative, Proposition 16, former California Energy Commissioner John Geesman noted that the state’s most powerful utility company was using customer money to finance a bid to change the state constitution for its own purposes. Prop 16, which earned a thumbs-down from voters in the June election, would have created a two-thirds majority vote requirement before municipalities could set up electricity services separate from PG&E. While there was no shortage of reporting about the astounding sums of cash that PG&E sank into Prop. 16, hardly anyone aside from Geesman picked up on the more salient point of what PG&E was not spending its money on.

“California’s investor-owned utilities face a Himalayan task in modernizing our electricity system and building the infrastructure necessary to serve a growing economy,” Geesman wrote on his blog, titled PG&E Ballot Initiative Fact Sheet. “They ought to focus on that, rather than manipulating the electorate to kneecap their few competitors.” It is now abundantly clear that PG&E’s aging gas pipelines in San Bruno were badly in need of replacement – and the utility’s neglect opened the door the catastrophic explosion that occurred Sept. 9, resulting in tragic loss of life and destroying homes. “The current leadership at PG&E has lost its way. Nobody is minding the ship,” senator Mark Leno told the Guardian shortly after the blast. “Enough with the self-initiated, self-serving political campaigns. … How about focusing on the current mission — to provide gas and electricity safely, without death and destruction?”

PG&E Ballot Initiative Fact Sheet: http://pgandeballotinitiativefactsheet.blogspot.com/
Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-pelosi/deadly-priorities-why-did_b_713800.html

* What you might not have read about Johannes Mehserle’s murder trial
 
If you looked to Colorlines.com, Blockreportradio.com, the San Francisco Bay View, or Indybay.org for coverage of Johannes Meherle’s murder trial for the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant, then you got a different picture from the one offered by mainstream Bay Area news outlets. There may well be plenty of details about the trial that didn’t make the cut for mainstream news, but one particular point caught our eye as something that should’ve warranted more prominent coverage, or at very least sparked deeper questions from mainstream press. According to the witness testimony of Jackie Bryson, who was with Grant on the train platform the night of the shooting, Grant’s friends immediately urged BART police to call an ambulance after Grant had been shot, but police didn’t do it right away.

Here’s the report from Block Report Radio: “Jack Bryson said he yelled at Oscar after he was shot to stay awake and to the police to call the ambulance. The unidentified officer who was on Bryson declared, ‘We’ll call the ambulance when you shut the fuck up!’ Bryson went on to say that he was never searched on the Fruitvale platform or at the Lake Merritt BART police station, which seems ridiculous if you consider the earlier testimony of former BART police officers Dominici and Pirone, who were involved in the murder and who testified last week that they had felt threatened by Oscar Grant and his friends.” So, if it’s true that Grant’s friends were told to “shut the fuck up” when they were urging BART cops to call an ambulance, and that the supposedly threatening parties weren’t ever searched, why didn’t these points receive as much attention in the media as, say, the claim that years earlier, Grant may have resisted arrest? After witnessing the death of his friend, Bryson said in his testimony, he was detained for hours while wearing handcuffs pulled so tight that his wrists hurt, only to be told afterward that since he had not been read his Miranda rights, he was not under arrest. To be fair, the detail about calling the ambulance did make it into the Chronicle, near the bottom of a blog post, under the subhead, “Friend’s claim.”

Block Report Radio: http://www.blockreportradio.com/news-mainmenu-26/894-jack-bryson-hits-the-stand.html
Colorlines: http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/06/defense_opens_with_gripping_testimony.html

* Homelessness on the rise in San Francisco

The controversy surrounding Prop L, a proposed ordinance to ban sitting and lying down on the sidewalk, has been widely reported on — but there’s a more pressing issue related to homelessness that hasn’t gotten nearly as much ink. An article in New America Media, “Shelters predict homeless count to skyrocket,” highlighted a perceived surge in San Francisco’s homeless population, evidenced by overwhelmed service providers who can hardly keep up with demand. “We’re serving 200,000 more meals per year than two years ago, but we haven’t had the capacity to add staff,” the chief executive officer of the Glide Foundation noted in the article. The drop-in center, she added, no longer had enough seats to accommodate those in need. According to a fact sheet issued by the Coalition on Homelessness in July of 2009, 45 percent of respondents to a COH survey were experiencing homelessness for the first time. The overwhelming majority of respondents, 78 percent, became homeless while living in San Francisco.

New America Media: http://newamericamedia.org/2010/04/shelters-predict-homeless-count-to-skyrocket.php
Coalition on Homelessness: http://www.cohsf.org/en/

* The long wait for Section 8

It isn’t easy for a tenant with a Section 8 voucher to find housing in the San Francisco Bay Area. In San Francisco, there’s a barrier to getting the voucher in the first place, since the waitlist is currently closed. Those who have vouchers are often passed over by landlords, and the string of denials can drive people to unstable housing situations such as extended hotel stays. An article in POOR Magazine features the story of Linda William, a woman who left a San Francisco public housing project with a Section 8 voucher in hand only to embark on a wild goose chase, ultimately winding up in a low-end motel outside Vallejo. “Well whaddya know,” William told the POOR magazine reporter, “I found closed wait lists on almost all the low-income housing units in all of those places and all the rest of the landlords wouldn’t even return my calls when I told them I had section 8.” An article by Dean Preston of Tenants Together that appeared in BeyondChron, meanwhile, spotlights the issue of landlord discrimination against Section 8 tenants.  “In the Section 8 voucher program, participating tenants pay 30 percent of their rent and the Housing Authority pays the balance to the landlord,” Preston writes. “It takes years for eligible tenants to be able to participate in the program. Once tenants get off the wait list, the landlord must sign a payment contract with the housing authority in order to receive the portion of the rent paid by the government. By refusing to sign onto the program, some landlords seek to force rent controlled tenants into situations where they cannot pay their rent.”
POOR Magazine: http://www.poormagazine.org/node/3277
BeyondChron: http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=8012

* San Francisco’s trashy secret

Despite being thought of as a beacon of sustainability, San Francisco’s not-so-green waste stream is something that didn’t make the front page of many papers – except, of course, this one. Sarah Phelan’s “Tale of Two Landfills,” a Guardian cover story this past June, examined San Francisco’s decidedly unenlightened policy of transporting waste far outside of the city despite a goal of reducing waste to zero in the next 10 years. Here’s an excerpt: “It’s a reminder of a fact most San Franciscans don’t think much about: The city exports mountains of garbage into somebody else’s backyard. While residents have gone a long way to reduce the waste stream as city officials pursue an ambitious strategy of zero waste by 2020, we’re still trucking 1,800 tons of garbage out of San Francisco every day. And now we’re preparing to triple the distance that trash travels. ‘The mayor of San Francisco is encouraging us to be a green city by growing veggies, raising wonderful urban gardens, composting green waste and food and restaurant scraps,’ Irene Creps, a San Franciscan who owns a ranch in Wheatland, told us. ‘So why is he trying to dump San Francisco’s trash in a beautiful rural area?’”

SFBG: http://www.sfbg.com/2010/06/15/tale-two-landfills

* The real unemployment rate

The Bureau of Labor Statistics makes a distinction between so-called “discouraged workers” who have stopped looking for jobs, and the jobless who are actively seeking employment, so the official unemployment rate (9.7 percent in San Francisco, according to the most recent data) may be much lower than the actual unemployment rate.

We haven’t seen any brilliant local reporting on this issue, but the problem is summed up nicely in this YouTube video produced by a personal finance software firm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulu3SCAmeBA&feature=player_embedded

Rep Clock

David Talbot
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Schedules are for Wed/15–Tues/21 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $5-10. "OpenScreening," Thurs, 8. For participation info, contact ataopenscreening@atasite.org. "Other Cinema:" "Blows Against BP!", works by Rick Prelinger and others, Sat, 8. "3rd I’s Green Eye: The Anatomy of a Carbon Footprint:" Climate of Change (Hill, 2007) Sun, 3:30; "Around the World Without Flying: A Year of Carbon Footprints, Cargo Ships, and Climate Uprisings," multimedia presentation, Sun, 5:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. The Bridge on the River Kwai (Lean, 1957), Wed-Thurs, 7:30 (also Wed, 1, 4:15). "Midnites for Maniacs: Reinventing Prom:" •Peggy Sue Got Married (Coppola, 1986), Fri, 7:30; Back to the Future (Zemeckis, 1985), Fri, 9:45; and Zapped! (Rosenthal, 1982), Fri, 11:59. "Janus Films Presents: Charlie Chaplin:" •The Circus (1931) and The Idle Class (1921) with "A Day’s Pleasure" (1919), Sat, 2, 4:30, 7, 9:20; •City Lights (1931), A Dog’s Life (1981), and Sunnyside (1919), Sun, 2, 5, 8; •Modern Times (1936) with "Payday" (1922), Mon, 2:30, 4:45, 7, 9:15; •The Great Dictator (1940), Tues, 3:30, 7, and The Kid (1921), Tues, 5:50, 9:20.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-10.25. The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector (Jayanti, 2009), call for dates and times. Cairo Time (Nadda, 2009), call for dates and times. The Girl Who Played With Fire (Alfredson, 2009), call for dates and times. The Sicilian Girl (Amenta, 2008), Sept 17-23, call for times.

FORBIDDEN ISLAND TIKI LOUNGE 1304 Lincoln, Alameda; www.forbiddenislandalameda.com. Free. "Forbidden Thrills: Incredibly Strange and Strangely Incredible Films:" •The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (Steckler, 1964), and Spider Baby (Hill, 1965), Mon, 7:30.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. Crude Impact (Wood, 2006), Wed, 7:30.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100 (reservations required). $10. "CinemaLit: Loves Labours: Leo McCarey Revisited:" Love Affair (McCarey, 1939), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. "Unseen Cinema:" "The Amateur as Auteur," Wed, 7:30. "Drawn From Life: Comic Books and Graphic Novels Adapted:" Popeye (Altman, 1980), Thurs, 7; Sin City (Miller and Rodriguez, 2005), Sat, 8:50. "Swoon: Great Leading Men in Gorgeous 35mm Prints:" Breathless (Godard, 1959), Fri, 7. "Shakespeare on Film:" A Midsummer Night’s Film (Dieterle and Reinhardt, 1935), Sun, 4; King Lear (Godard, 1987), Fri, 9. "Elegant Perversions: The Cinema of João César Monteiro:" Recollections of a Yellow House (1989), Sat, 6:30; Silvestre (1981), Sun, 4. "Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area:" "Landscape as Expression," Sun, 6:30.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994. $6-10. Cyrus (Duplass and Duplass, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 7:15, 9:15 (also Wed, 2). The Room (Wiseau, 2003), Fri-Sat, 8 and midnight. Director and star Tommy Wiseau in person at all shows. The 400 Blows (Truffaut, 1959), Sun-Mon, 7:15, 9:25 (also Sun, 2). "Good Vibrations Fifth Annual Independent Erotic Film Festival: Hot Euro Porn Night," short films, Tues, 8. Visit www.events.goodvibes.com for complete schedule.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector (Jayanti, 2008), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9:15. Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010), Wed, 7, 9:15. The Two Escobars (Zimbalist and Zimbalist, 2010), Wed, 7, 9:15. "San Francisco Latino Film Festival," Thurs-Sun. Check www.sflatinofilmfestival.com for program information. "Robert Altman vs…:" "Robert Altman vs. Teenagers!: •Brewster McCloud (1972), Mon, 7, and O.C. and Stiggs (1984), Mon, 9; "Robert Altman vs. Friendship!: •California Split (1974), Tues, 7, and 3 Women (1977), Tues, 9.

SAN FRANCISCO ART INSTITUTE 800 Chestnut, SF; www.iranianfilmfestival.org. $10. "Third Annual Iranian Film Festival," independent feature and short films made by or about Iranians, Sat-Sun, 11am.

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. Free. "Amandla! South Africa During and After Apartheid:" Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony (Hirsch, 2003), Thurs, noon.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.vizcinema.com. $10-15. Detroit Metal City (Lee, 2008), Sept 18-30, check website for times.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. A Brighter Summer Day (Yang, 1991), Thurs, 7; Sun, 2.

CityPlace, USA — and why Newsom wants developers involved in district elections

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Speaking at the San Francisco Mariott Hotel today, Sept. 14, to a room packed full of developers, land-use attorneys, building owners and managers, members of the San Francisco Convention & Visitor’s Bureau, and others who had gathered for a San Francisco Business Times event, Mayor Gavin Newsom championed a retail development project proposed for San Francisco’s mid-Market area that is being opposed by Livable Cities and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. The project will come under consideration at today’s Board of Supervisors meeting.

“CityPlace will be an anchor of revitalization” in mid-Market between Fifth and Sixth streets, Newsom said. Members of the Board of Supervisors may try to block it, he added, but “we can’t afford to let that happen. It’s a quarter of a million square feet, and it connects right up from Nordstrom’s.”
“CityPlace is critical,” he added. Marcia Smolens of public relations firm HMS Associates is representing Urban Realty, the developer of CityPlace, according to a file included in the Board of Supervisors meeting packet. Smolens contributed $2,500 to Newsom’s run for Lieutenant Governor. An architect with a partnering firm on the project, Gensler, plunked down $1,000 for Newsom’s campaign.

The mid-Market area has long faced issues of blight and crime. Newsom put forth a vision for its revitalized future that would include “more cops” (the development would connect with a police officers’ substation planned near Sixth and Market streets, Newsom noted), a creative bent thanks to partnerships with artists, and an area “a little less crowded with folks panhandling.”

The proposed development is essentially a large glass box with a shopping mall inside. According to the project website, Urban Realty has not yet engaged potential tenants, but appears geared toward attracting low-end retail chains. “We intend to bring affordable, value-based retail tenants to the area and expand the shopping choices available to make this section of Market Street a shopping destination that truly caters to San Francisco’s diverse demographic,” the website notes. Our guess is that they aren’t talking about unique, independently owned thrift stores that offer affordable used items and encourage shoppers to support small business, but something more along the lines of TJ Maxx.

The project would also include 188 parking spaces in an underground garage. In contrast, the Westfield mall near Fourth and Market streets was built with no new parking.

Livable Cities has filed an appeal of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for CityPlace on the grounds that transportation issues weren’t adequately dealt with, and the board will vote on the appeal today after opening the item up for public comment. Livable Cities executive director Tom Radulovich noted that the project would demolish the St. Francis Theater, a 1910 building that some had envisioned as a structure that could be rehabbed as part of a revived theater district in that area. He also felt the development was out of character for the neighborhood. “They’ve been given a lot of bonuses, like surplus parking and an excess floor,” Radulovich noted. “We feel like the Planning Department gave them a lot more value — millions of dollars worth. The public should get something out of it.” Partly out of a desire to improve the area, he said, mid-Market amounted to a sort of “Wild West in terms of planning. That’s been the story is that the only way to move forward is to throw away our rules.”

The developer estimates that the project would create up to 250 union jobs during construction, and 760 new permanent retail positions (that is, non-union, low-wage jobs with high rates of turnover — but at least it’s something). This could present a quandary for supervisors who might otherwise hold their nose at the idea of approving a big-box mall in the heart of San Francisco. Construction workers are in dire straits right now, and unemployment in the city is nearing 10 percent — and even higher in communities of color such as the Bayview.

Meanwhile, Newsom urged the crowd of downtown real-estate big shots to get involved in disctrict elections for the Board of Supervisors, lest “you wake up and things get worse quickly.”

The mayor issued a strong warning that “ideology is too strong in this town,” and then referenced the Guardian, speaking to some dangerous influence wielded by “these people who write these blogs.”

“You are the only thing standing between a dramatic shift off course in this town,” he told the crowd. “But our opportunities are limitless as long as we have stable leadership. Please take the time to learn about these candidates. Get involved – even in the districts you don’t reside in.”

At the end of Newsom’s speech, everyone applauded and then turned their attention to a short, flashy video about America’s Cup.

Golden age remix: Bay graff gets its props

Andrew Lam
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Nate1’s business card is totally dope. It’s front depicts a Kry-lon paint can, the brand most used  for graffiti in the days he was coming up as a street writer in 1980s San Francisco. “Back then we used to have to make art with automotive paint,” he tells me at 1AM gallery, where his new show on the golden age of Bay tagging, “The Classics” opens today (Fri/10). “We’re talking about paint to paint red wagons and doors,” he remembers, smiling like a man that didn’t mind too much.

The card is striking because it evokes the sentiment behind this artist and the show he’s thrown up. “The Classics” is about those icons of SF’s early days on the graffiti scene, back before anyone with a few bucks could buy specialized Mammoth paint from 1AM’s retail section, cans specially designed for low pressure artistic liberty – but it’s also about where that art form stands today. 

1AM owner Anna says that before he came up with the inkling for this particular showing, Nate1 would bring around scrapbooks to street art openings, forcing heads to remember the days when. Finally, they hit upon the idea to base a show on these old masterpieces. On the gallery’s walls are seldom-seen photographs of the “Psycho City” wall in SoMa, the only place where young taggers could work on their art in public, in peace from police presence and neighborhood complaint. UB40’s ubiquitous-at-the-time scrawl is present, as is shots of trains painted by King 157, and Rigel’s game-changing robot piece. 

But the show’s no time capsule. What Nate1 wanted to do was pull these works into the present, juxtapose San Francisco relatively (to New York’s) unsung heroes with the realities of today. The artists are adults now, grown community members – Nate1, an original member of the graf crew Masterpiece Creators, has two kids, teaches graffiti art history at 1AM, and owns a clothing company – but they’ve still got skills. Most of the pieces at his show are not classics at all, but mature artists’ reimaginings of the culturally mega works they sprayed onto the sides of buildings and MUNI buses when they were in their teens. The show’s a celebration of where the art form’s been, but also how far it’s come.

“This show was put together by a writer, for a writer.” Nate1 is now addressing a crowd who has assembled the night for a sneak peek tour through the artwork that through months of searching and finding, he has deemed “The Classics.” In the audience are no small amount of writers from the ’80s scene: Rise is here, and Mike Bam. They’re among the artists Nate1 called on to create new pieces for the show. Throughout his tour, they pick up on Nate1’s more obscure points and chime in with clarifications, added bits of information.

“So dope!” Nate1 gets stoked on an original piece at his show “The Classics”

Some of the artists on display, like Rigel with his robot, re-imagined classic works from days of old and put them on canvass to grand affect. Others expanded on long dormant skills with new technology. Nate1 stops in front of a piece by Vogue entitled “Teenage Love.” It’s a painted closeup of Kry-lon cans, the glint of the metal popping in the bright, happy colors of everybody’s youth. “He did that with spray paint,” Nate1 announces to the assembled crowd, staggering backwards as if blown away by the technical mastery involved in this act. “Jesus!”

Still others made pieces of art that reflect the change in their lives, in everybody’s lives since those days of fat laces and “bus hopping” (which Nate1, in his best art history professor’s voice helpfully defines as when a graf artist boards a bus solo or en masse and “you take a tool of your choice to mark the surface”). Rise is called to the front when the corner that houses his work is introduced. A father himself, he has struggled with the “spiritual blackout” of alcoholism, only to finally see the light in a world with strange issues that dwarf running from the cops and fingers covered in aerosol paint. His intricate painting “Heaven Only Knows” shows a rising figure in Masonic imagery, surrounded by social ills, the seven deadly sins inscribed on paint cans, labyrinthine, interlocking words describing the scene, all of it framed by his son’s small hands on a video game controller. He talks about seeing names of military consultants in the credits of his offspring’s game manuals, explaining to his sons that though the games are fun to play, they’re still a tool of social conditioning. “Something that frustrates me is the condition of how things are going,” says Rise, a self-identified conspiracy theory enthusiast.

What may draw street art aficionados to “The Classics” is the promise of a look at the old school “OGs,” as Nate1 puts it. And that’s here: James Prigoff’s vast compendium of snapshots from 1980s taggers and their art has been selectively drawn from by Nate1. There’s a classic framed photo that shows a group of kids falling out the windows of a bus, adrenaline pumping in the aftermath of a writer’s party at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in honor of the first San Francisco book of street art. The shots serve as a tangible reminder of a time that wasn’t captured in graff mags, not endlessly cataloged on the Internet.

But what one walks away from “The Classics” with is the postmodern riffing images created for the show. It’s the fact that our local street art scene has become a school worthy of imitation, analysis, and homage that impresses. ’80s street artists – those night-crawling, fence-jumping, anti-social social crusaders, have finally and fully been embraced into the world of “art.” And they’ve got the business cards to prove it.

 

“The Classics”

Through Oct. 16

1AM gallery

1000 Howard, SF

(415) 861-5089

www.1amsf.com

Our Weekly Picks: September 8-14, 2010

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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WEDNESDAY 8

DANCE

Project Thrust

Many might think the bigger the bust, the better. But when it comes to the female body, shit gets complicated. Tits are either too big, too small, too this, too that. “How, when, and why are women aware and unaware of their feminine features? When do women hide curves and when do they flaunt them? Is it difficult to sustain sexiness?” These are some of the crucial questions choreographer and dancer Malinda LaVelle — who has danced with the Foundry and is now an artist in residence at the Garage — explores with her dance company Project Thrust and its newest work, Project Bust. Whether you love or hate the twins, LaVelle’s bold and funny choreography will leave you with a profound new respect for the female form. (Katie Gaydos)

Through Thurs/9

8 p.m., $15

Garage

975 Howard, SF

(415) 518-1517

www.projectthrust.org

 

THURSDAY 9

THEATER

Jerry Springer the Opera

Time for a big, dramatic, Jerry Springer Show-style revelation: I’m the father of your baby! Uh, just kidding. Actually, I was going to say that I had to ask the Googles if The Jerry Springer Show is still on TV. And indeed, 19 seasons along, it is. Even if its zeitgeist was a few years ago, and the most scandalous stuff on the idiot box now comes courtesy of Real Housewives, there’s no excuse for any self-respecting Springer fan (oxymoron?) to miss Jerry Springer the Opera, which promises “strippers and rednecks, incest and coprophilia, Jesus, Satan, and the Virgin Mary, the Ku Klux Klan, and a lesbian dwarf.” Adventurous local company Ray of Light Theatre ushers in its 10th anniversary season with this lurid, award-winning spectacular. (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Oct. 16

Wed.–Sat., 8 p.m., $20–$36

Victoria Theatre

2961 16th St, SF

www.jerrysf.com

 

MUSIC

Apocalyptica

Thanks to Judgement Day, Grayceon, and Giant Squid, San Francisco concert-goers are familiar with the peculiar potency of heavy metal cello. Unlike those bands, however, Finland’s Apocalyptica consists entirely of cellists. Since its beginnings in 1993 (sawing out Metallica covers), the quintet (four cellos, drums) has built up a cult following and turned its talents toward writing original songs. A new album, 7th Symphony, was released Aug. 20, featuring collaborations with Dave Lombardo (strong) and Gavin Rossdale (weak). Apocalyptica’s live show, nevertheless, is not to be missed. If you’re never seen someone play a cello while standing up and headbanging — well, what’s taken you so long? (Ben Richardson)

with Dir En Grey, Evaline

8 p.m., $28

Regency Ballroom

1290 Sutter, SF

1-866-448-7849

www.theregencyballroom.com

 

FILM

“Infinite City: Cinema City”

Writer Rebecca Solnit’s “Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas” mapmaking project has investigated butterflies, queer history, hippies, and the SF vs. L.A. rivalry. Now, and perhaps inevitably, Solnit and her collaborators turn their attention to local cinema. Tonight’s work-in-progress screening, “Housing Shadows and Projecting Fog,” includes films on film (and fog) by Andy Black and Sam Green, and Christian Bruno. Saturday’s sprawling “cinema crawl” invites the movie-minder to various theaters. Two highlights: the Roxie spreads sparkle with Pickup’s Tricks, Gregory Pickup’s 1973 profile of founding Cockette Hibiscus; and the obligatory Vertigo screening (1958) at the Vogue. (Eddy)

7 p.m., free with museum admission ($9–$18)

(Sat/11, “A Few Dream Palaces of San Francisco” cinema crawl, various venues and times)

Phyllis Wattis Theater

SF Museum of Modern Art

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org

 

MUSIC

Coliseum

Having stormed out of Kentucky onto the national scene with 2007’s No Salvation LP, Coliseum took an abrupt left turn when it came time to write this year’s follow-up, House With A Curse. Throttling back the incendiary crust-punk crossover of their previous albums, the trio debuted a new drummer and a stately post-punk sound — its tempos, at least when compared to precedent, sound almost meditative. Despite the switch, the songwriting remains stellar, and mastermind Ryan Patterson’s throaty yowl is wielded with mastery. Joined by local troublemakers Walken on Potrero Hill’s lowest stage, the band will deploy its new bread and circuses. (Richardson)

With Burning Love, Walken, Buried at Birth

9 p.m., $8

Thee Parkside

1600 17th St., SF

(415) 252-1330

www.theeparkside.com

 

MUSIC

The Gories

Looking for some good clean fun? This ain’t the show for you. As their name suggests, garage-rock vets the Gories play dirty, sinister blues with vocals that wail about feral girlfriends, explosive girlfriends, and motorcycle heroes, intercut with harmonica blasts and impassioned, slightly insane woo-hoo!s. Formed in Detroit circa 1986 — when squares were jamming to Whitney Houston and “Addicted to Love” — the band’s sound suggests nothing about the ’80s; it’s more like the tunes you’d want to hear while drag-racing to a midnight rager in a cemetery. Singer Mick Collins went on to form the Dirtbombs, a band that’s commanded its own rightful following, and this Gories reunion gig is a rare affair indeed. Turn up early for Haunted George, a kindred lo-fi cat whose discography includes an album titled Pile O’ Meat. Have mercy! (Eddy)

With Haunted George and Nice Smile

8 p.m., $20

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 

FRIDAY 10

 

DANCE

Paul Laurey and Christine Bonasea

Paul Laurey grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of West Virginia; he was training to be a scientist when the desire to dance hit him. Christine Bonasea was born in France and also tried academia and dance. Dance won out for her as well. Now courtesy of Joe Landini’s RAW — or resident artist workshop, which offers no money but free rehearsal space — they are sharing an evening of independent choreography. Both work with excellent, equally committed fellow performers: Laurey in Pull, Push and Things that Matter with Christine Cali and Sonsheree Giles; Bonasea in the matter of things with Rosemary Hannon, Jorge Rodolfo de Hoyos, and Kira Kirsh. The thrill comes from watching good dancers taking new risks and committing themselves to new contexts. (Rita Felciano)

Through Sat/11

8 p.m., $15

Garage

975 Howard, SF

www.975howard.com

 

FILM

“Drawn From Life: Comic Books and Graphic Novels Adapted”

When it comes to adapting a work for film, some preexisting properties have proven more successful than others. Video games: bad; Jane Austen novels: better; comic books: blockbusters, even when the movie ends up sucking. There’s yet to be a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar doled out for a graphic novel or comic adaptation, but can such a breakthrough be far off? Missing from the Pacific Film Archive’s lineup are Ghost World (2001) and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (still in theaters), but as graphic novel geeks the world over await/assault news regarding the Y: The Last Man movie, there’s plenty of tiding-over afoot. Campy delight Flash Gordon (1980) kicks off the series, with Hellboy (2004), Popeye (1980), American Splendor (2003), and Wes Craven’s oft-overlooked 1982 Swamp Thing among future selections. (Eddy)

“Drawn From Life: Comic Books and Graphic Novels Adapted”

Through Oct 31, $5.50–$9.50

Pacific Film Archive

2575 Bancroft, Berk.

(510) 642-5249

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

 

SATURDAY 11

COMEDY

Craig Ferguson

In the supposedly madcap, late-night TV landscape (see: 1996’s The Late Shift), it’s surprising that Craig Ferguson has ultimately emerged as the least traditional of them all. The Scottish comedian — accent and all — makes up jokes on the fly, curses like a sailor, and often references his past as an alcoholic, a bartender, and a punk band drummer, every night on The Late Late Show. But in sticking to his guns, Ferguson comes off as a real talent rather than a manufactured experience, and the program’s unpredictable nature is the real reason to tune in — who cares about the guests anymore? You don’t have to visit the L.A. studio to see the man work; this week he brings his wanton charm to Davies Symphony Hall. (Peter Galvin)

8 p.m., $45–$55

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness, SF

1-866-448-7849

www.ticketmaster.com

 

VISUAL ART

“Castration Myth”

So there was this artist named Rudolf Schwarzkogler who was affiliated with Viennese Actionism — a 1960s art movement that used the body as canvas and violence as paint — and in 1965 he scared the art world and discredited the avant-garde by cutting off his penis. Or so people thought; turns out it was just a friend and a filleted fish. Fast-forward 36 years to 9/11 and we have the whole world scared, the term post-avant, and not one, but two dismembered phalluses — this time for real. Is there another fish myth at stake? Seeing this exhibit of Rudolph’s “Aktion” performance photographs is one way to find out. (Spencer Young)

Through Oct. 9

6–8 p.m., free

Steven Wolf Fine Arts

2747 19th St, SF

(415) 263 3677

www.stevenwolffinearts.com

 

COMEDY

Dylan Moran

Perhaps best known to American audiences for his appearances in Shaun of the Dead and Run, Fatboy, Run, Irish comedian Dylan Moran is a huge hit in his native U.K., notably for his brilliant role as a cantankerous and drunk yet lovable book shop owner in the tragically short-lived BBC series Black Books. His live stand-up is where he’s really made his name though; biting, sarcastic, and side-splittingly hilarious observations of a variety of topics we all encounter in our day-to-day lives — along with ones that most of us presumably don’t, such as having a weekend tryst with a Smurf. (Sean McCourt)

8 p.m., $36

Marines Memorial Theatre

609 Sutter, 2nd floor, SF

(415) 771-6900

www.marinesmemorialtheatre.com

 

TUESDAY 14

 

MUSIC

Suckers

Taking equal parts David Bowie-fetishism, avant-garde pop, and the sort of world eclecticism pioneered by Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel — and recently invigorated by Yeasayer and Vampire Weekend — this Brooklyn band hits just the right measures of each to create its signature Suckers sound. While that description might lead you to believe the foursome’s sound might be aloof or reserved, its debut Wild Smile is surprisingly sunny, like a collection of the slowest dance songs. Forget the name, a sucker is the last thing you’d be for getting a ticket to this one. (Galvin)

With Menomena and Tu Fawning

Through Sun/15

8 p.m., $18

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com 


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Transfigurations

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Transfigurations

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC/THE NEW SHOEGAZE The Waves. The title of the first album by Tamaryn is big and elemental. It’s also dramatic and literary, invoking the writing and the death of Virginia Woolf and evoking the ocean’s fatal pull in a classic Romantic sense. Tamaryn’s music is all of these things.

The vast, vague, cacophonous yet harmonic sound that Melody Maker deemed shoegaze back in the late 1980s has made a strong return in recent years, but Tamaryn — comprised of Tamaryn and producer-instrumentalist Rex John Shelverton — distinguishes itself from the pack through epic scope and high fidelity of production, and most of all, through sheer force of presence. Shoegaze so often buried rock’s persona in noise’s capacity for jouissance that the sound became (and remains) a too-easy way to mask a lack of musicality and personality. Not so on The Waves. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more confidently unique rock album this year. On “Haze Interior” and “Dawning,” the result is literally awesome.

Tamaryn lives in the Bay Area, but I have to go through a publicity company to arrange an interview, and our conversation takes place over the phone, on a hot afternoon, after she’s found a place to park her car in the East Bay. This roundabout route to getting in touch with the lady herself is fitting, since much of The Waves‘ tension generates from the mysterious way in which Tamaryn moves through the huge and dense sounds that Shelverton generates. “To go into something that loud and overwhelming and do something completely restrained — that was the real challenge,” she says, after sizing up my own voice as that of a young person. “You play music like that in a practice space and you as a singer don’t hear a note coming from your voice. You have to go from muscle memory. It’s about finding your place in the sound.”

It’s easy to connect with Tamaryn on the subject of music, because her appreciation of it is as immense and intense as the album she’s made. When I mention that aspects of The Waves remind me in a flattering way of the ’90s group Curve, she’s appreciative. “The British [shoegaze] bands were all so specific and very restrained,” she says. “Bands like Curve were more in your face. Curve is what Garbage wanted to be — you can see the direct line.”

Tamaryn’s lyrics, guiding the listener through deep oceanic contours, ranging from choral winters to coral flowers, possess a strong sensory quality. She agrees. “Sensory is a perfect way to describe it,” she says. I wrote the lyrics in response to my experience of the music — my experience of being part of the song. There are performers that realize they are not playing an instrument — it’s almost like they are a participant, a part of the audience that is moved by the music to respond and perform. Ian Svenonius of the Make-Up had another band where he’d walk onstage and go, ‘I like this music,’ and start to be inspired. I always thought that was really cool.”

Without a doubt, The Waves is a San Francisco album, with lyrics written at Fort Funston, and music by a surfer — Shelverton — from Half Moon Bay. The album’s final track, “Mild Confusion,” draws from notes on a psychiatric patient that Tamaryn came across during a day job, and it brings the more classical doom-laden aspects of the opening title track to a specific, realistic modern realm. “It’s very extreme here, with water on three sides, and it can be totally inspiring,” Tamaryn says, amid talk of the Golden Gate Bridge’s beauty and tragic lure. “If you come to San Francisco with plans to destroy yourself, it will let you. But if you come self-contained, with a strong personal or creative identity, you can use the energy of the city to inspire you.”

At the moment, one of Tamaryn’s chief sources of inspiration is fellow singer and recent Guardian cover star Alexis Penney. The night of our interview, she assists Penney onstage during a Some Thing drag performance at the Stud that concludes with Penney being pelted with long-stemmed roses. Penney is also the nude star of the video for Tamaryn’s “Love Fade,” which uses Derek Jarman’s films for the Smiths as a touchstone. “Alexis is like everybody’s muse,” Tamaryn says. “He’s amazing.” The friendship makes perfect sense, because Tamaryn is no slouch when it comes to iconic and androgynous imagery: she looked to the rare monograph Trans-figurations, Holger Truzsch’s photo collaboration with Veruschka, when putting together band portraits for The Waves.

A few nights later at Honey Soundsystem’s BUTT Bias mixtape listening party, and then later by text, Penney is more than happy to repay the compliment. “I remember the first time I saw Tamaryn,” Penney writes. “She is so striking and startlingly beautiful, with a piercing gaze, and you can tell she knows exactly what she wants. She’s definitely lived a life and is full of stories, but also retains that same real-life mystery that pervades her music. Her music is so her in essence, almost as if she was even singing the guitars and drums. Composed, but very raw and real and spontaneous, with a voice that is so powerful. Which is funny, because when she’s speaking she’s so girlish, but when she sings she’s definitely channeling spirits — there’s primal earthy old magic in her voice, even when she’s whispering.”

The Waves is an album of staying power and growing rewards because of the subtle and understated way Tamaryn adds human emotion to the Slowdive-like dinosaur yawns and Loveless-era My Bloody Valentine blur of Shelverton’s guitar. Tamaryn makes no bones about the fact that she has set out to create an album that can stand alongside those bands’ best recordings, and the work of Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis, who she simply refers to as “my heart.”

“The kinds of things I write are always bittersweet,” Tamaryn says, as our conversation falls again into the subject of favorite music. “It’s my experience of life and that’s the music that makes me feel better. I feel that music is so liberating and it has the biggest impact on you because it captures how you feel about yourself. I’ve given up on my dream of having a fulfilling personal life — I’m more interested in making sacrifices in order to make the music I want to make. Being able to make a record I’m proud of is more fulfilling than some day-to-day activity.”

TAMARYN

with Weekend; DJ sets by oOoOOO, and Nako and Omar

Sept. 15, 9pm, $8

Elbo Room

647 Valencia, SF

(415) 552-7788

www.elbo.com

Music listings

David Talbot
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0

Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 8

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Chris Kid Anderson Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Beak> Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF; www.amoebamusic.com. 6pm, free.

Crooked Fingers, Mynabirds Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Alberta Cross, Dead Confederate, J. Roddy Walston and the Business Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $15.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., Taxes, Oona Milk. 8pm.

Damn Handsome and the Birthday Suits, Generals, Scarlet Stoic Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Deadstring Brothers, Careless Hearts Thee Parkside. 8pm, $7.

Deep Teens, Sleepwalkers, Quiet Coyote, Homewreckers El Rio. 8pm, $3-5.

Good Luck at the Gunfight, DJ Eli Glad Elbo Room. 8:30pm, $8.

Hello Evening, Brendan Getzell, JJ Schultz, Wolf Larsen Hotel Utah. 8pm, $7.

Night Beats, Terry Malts, Larry and the Angriest Generation Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Joel Streeter, Brad Brooks, Megan Slankard Band Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Titus Andronicus, Free Energy Independent. 8pm, $15.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Jam Fresh Wednesdays Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9:30pm, free. With DJs Slick D, Chris Clouse, Rich Era, Don Lynch, and more spinning top40, mashups, hip hop, and remixes.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

Open Mic Night 330 Ritch. 9pm, $7.

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

THURSDAY 9

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Apocalyptica, Dir En Grey, Evaline Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $28.

Brilliant Colors, Milk Music, White Boss Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

*Coliseum, Burning Love, Walken, Buried at Birth Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Forrest Day, Shotgun Wedding Quintet, Fishbear, Soulaki Slim’s. 8pm, $15.

George Lacson Project Coda. 10pm, $7.

*Gories, Haunted George, Nice Smile Independent. 8pm, $20.

Little Wings, Michael Musika, Honeycomb Café Du Nord. 9pm, $12.

Mosquitos in Yo’ Grill, Buxter Hoot’n, Emily Bonn and the Vivants, BrownChicken BrownCow Stringband, Kamp Camille Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

John Nemeth Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $18.

Trey Songz, Monica Warfield. 8pm, $45-75.

Sundowner, Hanalei, Jaake Margo Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Young and Tender, dot punto., Brown Dwarf, Upsets Hemlock Tavern. 8pm, $7.

Nick Zinner, Zachary Lipez, Stacy Wakefield Hemlock Tavern. 6pm, free. Book release party for Please Take Me Off the Guest List, created by the three artists on the bill.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Music and Poetry Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 433-1226. 8pm, $2-$20. Poet Timothy Trygg with muscial acts Copus, Jason Marble, Dionne Pickard and Nathan Choo, and Blvd Park.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $10. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz, plus guest J Boogie’s Dubtronic Science, spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

CakeMIX SF Wish, 1539 Folsom, SF; www.wishsf.com. 10pm, free. DJ Carey Kopp spinning funk, soul, and hip hop.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

Good Foot Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. With DJs spinning R&B, Hip hop, classics, and soul.

Gymnasium Matador, 10 Sixth St, SF; (415) 863-4629. 9pm, free. With DJ Violent Vickie and guests spinning electro, hip hop, and disco.

Jivin’ Dirty Disco Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 8pm, free. With DJs spinning disco, funk, and classics.

Kissing Booth Make-Out Room. 9pm, free. DJs Jory, Commodore 69, and more spinning indie dance, disco, 80’s, and electro.

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

Motion Sickness Vertigo, 1160 Polk, SF; (415) 674-1278. 10pm, free. Genre-bending dance party with DJs Sneaky P, Public Frenemy, and D_Ro Cyclist.

Nacht Musik Knockout. 10:30pm, $4. Dark, minimal, and electronic with Omar, Josh, and Justin.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.

Solid Thursdays Club Six. 9pm, free. With DJs Daddy Rolo and Tesfa spinning roots, reggae, dancehall, soca, and mashups.

FRIDAY 10

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

"Battle of the Bands" DNA Lounge. 5:30pm, $12. With Six Weeks Sober, Gladiators of Rock, Ten Days New, and more.

Clientele, Lay Low, Northern Key Independent. 9pm, $15.

La Corde, Procedure Club, Burning Yellows, Ggreen Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Dirt Nasty, Andre Lagacy, Beardo Slim’s. 9pm, $16.

Felonious Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Michael Franti and Spearhead Fillmore. 8pm, $27.50. "Power to the Peaceful Pre-Party/CARE Forum."

Gentlemen, Stomacher, Oh Darling Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

Guttermouth, Penny Dreadfuls, Friends With the Enemy Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

Crystall Monee Hall Coda. 9pm, $10.

Hold Outs, Beautiful Losers, Essence, Billy Schafer Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.

Mason Jennings Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $25.

Justin Nozuka Band, Ry Cuming Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $21.

Mark Kozelek Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.gamh.com. 8pm, $30-50.

Jake Mann, Bye Bye Blackbirds, Horns of Happiness, Spires Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Kevin Russell Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Blue Tango Community Music Center, 544 Capp, SF; (415) 647-6015. 8pm, $15. With Maria Volonte and Kevin Footer.

Rumba Sin Fronteras Sub-Mission Art Space, 2183 Mission, SF; (415) 431-4210. 8pm, $7-$20. With Grupo Candelaria, Santero, Power Struggle, De Rompe y Raja, Turbo Mex, and DJs Roger Mas and Mixtek.

DANCE CLUBS

Benny Benassi Bike Tour Ruby Skye. 9pm, $45.

Club Dragon Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. A gay Asian paradise. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.

Data, DJ Nisus, DJ Sleazemore Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10. Disco funk.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs B-Cause, Vinnie Esparza, Mr. Robinson, Toph One, and Slopoke.

Fo’ Sho! Fridays Madrone Art Bar. 10pm, $5. DJs Kung Fu Chris and Makossa spin rare grooves, soul, funk, and hip-hop classics.

Fubar Fridays Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5. With DJs spinning retro mashup remixes.

Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Tim Green, Catz N Dogz, Martin Brothers Mighty. 9pm, $20. With special guests.

Heartical Roots Bollywood Café. 9pm, $5. Recession friendly reggae.

Heavy Rotation El Rio. 9pm. Outsider’s dance club with Palo Verde.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.

Mandala Presents: Let’s A Go-Go! Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF; www.amoebamusic.com. 6pm, free. World psych with Special Lord B and DJ Sid Presley.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa "Samoa Boy" spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

Some Thing The Stud. 10pm, $7. VivvyAnne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ Down-E give you fierce drag shows and afterhours dancing.

Strictly Video 111 Minna. 9pm, $10. With VDJs Shortkut, Swift Rock, GoldenChyld, and Satva spinning rap, 80s, R&B, and Dancehall.

Treat Em Right Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Hip-hop, funk, and reggae with DJs B. Cause and Vinnie Esparza.

SATURDAY 11

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

*AC/DShe, Upper Crust Slim’s. 9pm, $15.

Curtis Bumpy Coda. 10pm, $10.

Business, Hollowpoints, Hounds and Harlots, Box Squad Thee Parkside. 9pm, $13-15.

StormMiguel Florez, Shawna Virago El Rio. 3pm, $6-10.

Michael Franti and Spearhead Fillmore. 9pm, $35. "Power to the Peaceful Rocking Heads After Party."

Grass Widow Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF; www.amoebamusic.com. 2pm, free.

Mason Jennings Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $25.

Stephen Kellogg and the Sixert, Audra Mae, Roy Jay Independent. 9pm, $17.

"Mix Tape Show" Thee Parkside. 3pm, $8.

Charlie Musselwhite Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $35.

*"Power to the Peaceful Festival" Speedway Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.powertothepeaceful.org. 9am-5pm. With Michael Franti and Spearhead, Rebelution, Rupa and the April Fishes, and more.

Dax Riggs, Lloyd’s Garage Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $15.

"Rotfest II" Hemlock Tavern. 5:30pm, $7. With 3 Stoned Men, Smile God Loves You, Vanilla Whores, Count Dante, and more.

Southern Culture on the Skids, Aloha Screwdriver Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $16.

We Barbarians, Magic Bullets, Superhumanoids Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Orquesta Bakan The Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; (415) 621-2378. 5:15pm, $7.

Tempo Icthus Gallery, 1769 15th St., SF; (415) 359-7500. 7:30pm, $20. Brazilian music with Joseh Garcia, Bryan Olson, Chi Chen, and Felix Macnee.

Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrod Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Nuxx.

Blow Up Kelly’s Mission Rock, 817 Terry Francois, SF; (415) 252-5017. 9pm, $20. Presented by Jeffrey Paradise and Ava Berlin with the Tenderloins, Udachi, and Sticky K.

Bootie DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Mash-ups with Tripp doing an iPad DJ set and residents Adrian and Mysterious D.

Club Gossip Cat Club, 1190 Folsom, SF; (415) 703-8964. 9pm, $8. With DJs and VJs spinning a tribute to Erasure.

Cockblock Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $5-7. Queer dance party with DJ Nuxx and friends.

DJ Ayres, Eric Sharp, Shane King Som. 10pm. Spinning house, electro, nu-disco, Baltimore club tracks, and dubstep.

Electricity Knockout. 10pm, $4. A decade of 80s with Deadbeat, Yule Be Sorry, and Cat Fancy.

Frolic Stud. 9pm, $3-7. DJs Dragn’Fly, NeonBunny, and Ikkuma spin at this celebration of anthropomorphic costume and dance. Animal outfits encouraged.

HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.

*Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Tour Mighty. 9pm; free, RSVP is required and does not guarantee admission: www.trueskool.com. With Mixmaster Mike, a live performance by Del the Funky Homosapien, and DJs Sake One, Teeko, Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist, and Justin Johnson.

Rock City Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5 after 10pm. With DJs spinning party rock.

Same Sex Salsa and Swing Magnet, 4122 18th St, SF; (415) 305-8242. 7pm, free.

Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.

Spotlight Siberia, 314 11th St, SF; (415) 552-2100. 10pm. With DJs Slowpoke, Double Impact, and Moe1.

Tight Pants Edinburgh Castle Pub. 10pm, free. With DJs Peter Noble, Jules, and Kvon spinning indie and electro.

Tormenta Tropical Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-10. Electro cumbia with DJs Rampage, Disco Shawn, and Oro 11.

Tristes Tropiques Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 9pm, free. With Robotsinheat and Bookworms spinning afro cosmic, italo disco, and kraut jams.

SUNDAY 12

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Attaloss, Lucy Schwartz, Henry Wagons Solo Hotel Utah. 8pm, $8.

"Battle of the Bands" DNA Lounge. 5:30pm, $12. With Soothing Sound of Flight, I Broke the Sky, Handshake, and more.

Tracy Bonham, Kaisercartel Café Du Nord. 8pm, $12.

Karina Denike, Upstairs Downstairs Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.

Destroy Nate Allen Hemlock Tavern. 5pm, $5.

Deviated Instinct, Lecherous Gaze, Vastum Kimo’s. 5:30pm, $8.

Michael Franti and Spearhead Fillmore. 10:30am, 1:30pm, 4pm. $20-30. "Power to the Peaceful Yoga and Brazilian Dance Workshop" (earlier shows); "Power to the Peaceful Family Matinee" (later show).

Shonen Knife, Go-Going-Gone Girls, T and A Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $14.

*Sleep, Thrones Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $25.

Thrift Store Cowboys, Warren Jackson Hearne, Slow Poisoner Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $7.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Cecilio and Kapono Yoshi’s San Francisco. 7 and 9pm, $40.

Forro Brazuca The Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; (415) 621-2378. 5:15pm, $7.

Going Away Party Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Decay, Joe Radio, and Melting Girl.

DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. DJ Sep, Maneesh the Twister, and guest DJ Chicus spin dub, roots, and classic dancehall.

Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. "Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers." Got that?

Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.

Lowbrow Sunday Delirium. 1pm, free. DJ Roost Uno and guests spinning club hip hop, indie, and top 40s.

Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.

Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.

Swing Out Sundays Rock-It Room. 7pm, free (dance lessons $15). DJ BeBop Burnie spins 20s through 50s swing, jive, and more.

MONDAY 13

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Sam Amidon, Chloe Makes Music Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Federale, 1776, Hawkeye, Fresh Prairie Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $12.

Ed Jones Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 8pm, free.

Radio Moscow, Dzjenghis Khan, Sandwitches Elbo Room. 9pm, $8.

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Le Butcherettes Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $21.

*Sleep, Saviours, Black Cobra Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $25.

Tallest Man on Earth Fillmore. 8pm, $18.50.

Vibrators, Poison Control Hemlock. 7pm, $8.

DANCE CLUBS

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Decay, Joe Radio, and Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJs Ant-1, $ir-Tipp, Ruby Red I, Lo, and Gelo spinning hip hop.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.

Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.

Musik for Your Teeth Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Soul cookin’ happy hour tunes with DJ Antonino Musco.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

Punk Rock Sideshow Hemlock Tavern. 10pm, free. With DJ Tragic and Duchess of Hazard.

Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs.

TUESDAY 14

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bird Call, il gato, We Is Shore Dedicated Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Jrod Indigo Coda. 9pm, $7.

Eilen Jewell, Shants Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Menomena, Suckers, Tu Fawning Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16-18.

Rockin’ Jake Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Richie Spice, Snaccha Independent. 9pm, $25.

Damon Suomi and the Minor Prophets, Bird By Bird Thee Parkside. 8pm, $7.

*Terrible Twos, Midnight Snaxx, Uzi Rash Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

DANCE CLUBS

Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJ Puta Madre and DJ Johnny Repo.

Fromagique Elbo Room. 9pm, $10. Live music and burlesque with Bombshell Betty.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.

Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.

Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

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