YBCA

Music listings

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 26

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Tia Carroll Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Carta, Shuteye Unison, Form and Fate Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Casy and Brian, Bad Friends, Dadfag, Ornithology Thee Parkside. 8pm, $7.

David Thorton Blues Band Rasselas Jazz. 8pm, free.

Dodos, Spencey Dude and the Doodles Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10.

Dredg, RX Bandits, As Tall As Lions Fillmore. 7:30pm, $20.

Funeral Pyre, Early Graves, Elitist, Cestus, DJ Rob Metal Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $7.

Middle Distance Runner, Aushua Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Goh Nakamura, Tomo Nakayama, Odessa Chen Café du Nord. 8pm, $10.

100 Suns, Circle of Eyes Tyrant Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Phenomenal Handclap Band, Bart Davenport, Tempo No Temp Knockout. 9pm, $7.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

Cat’s Corner Savanna Jazz. 7pm, $5-10.

"Marcus Shelby Jazz Jam" Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Les Nubians Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $26.

Odes Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 8:30pm, free.

Tin Cup Serenade Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; (415) 931-3600. 7pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Jon Bennett Simple Pleasures, 3434 Balboa, SF; (415) 387-4022. 8pm, free.

Gaucho, Michael Abraham Jazz Session Amnesia. 8pm, free.

Leigh Gregory Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

Jam Wednesday Infusion Lounge. 10pm, free. DJ Slick Dee.

Qoöl 111 Minna Gallery. 5-10pm, $5. Pan-techno lounge with DJs Spesh, Gil, Hyper D, and Jondi.

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

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Lonestar Sound, Young Fyah, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

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

THURSDAY 27

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Akron/Family, Howlin’ Rain Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10.

Shane Dwight Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Fresh and Onlys, Box Elders Knockout. 10pm.

Goddamn Gallows, Frankenstein L.I.V.S., Mutilators, Horror X Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $7.

Have Heart, Ceremony, Cruel Hand, Shipwreck, Bitter End Thee Parkside. 8:30pm, $12.

20 Minute Loop, Famous, Billy and Dolly Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Rats, Back CCs, Pipsqueak Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Sex Type Thing Red Devil Lounge. 9pm, $10.

"Weezer Tribute Show" Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10. With Trophy Fire, Judgement Day, Matches, and Silian Rail.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Al Coster Trio and jam Savanna Jazz. 8pm, $5.

Beep! Trio Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $10-15.

Nathan Clevanger Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 7:30pm, free.

Lloyd Gregory Shanghai 1930. 7pm.

Michael Gold Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

Paul Kimura Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 8:30pm, free.

Marlina Teich Trio Brickhouse, 426 Brannan, SF; (415) 820-1595. 7-10pm, free.

"New Frequencies @ YBCA: Musicians Respond to Wallworks" Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. 6pm, free with gallery admission ($5-7). With Chris Brown/Mason Bates and David Arend Duo.

Les Nubians Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $26.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

Tri-Cornered Tent Show, AnyWhen Ensemble Luggage Store Gallery, 1007 Market, SF; www.luggagestoregallery.org. 8pm.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bluegrass and Old Time Jam Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Dunes El Rio. 9:45pm, $5. A North African Dance Band.

Flamenco Thursday Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8pm, 9:30; $12. With Carola Zertuche and Company.

"Roots and Ruckus" Hotel Utah. 8pm, $6. With Chloe Makes Music, Samuel Doores, Alynda Lee, Feral Foster, Willy Gantrim.

Tipsy House Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

Trainwreck Riders, Kerosene Kondors, Autumn Sky Amnesia. 9pm, $8.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-6. DJs Pleasuremaker, Señor Oz, J Elrod, and B Lee spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Bingotopia Knockout. 7:30-9:30pm, free. Play for drinks, dignity, and dorky prizes with host Lady Stacy Pants.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St; 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.

Funky Rewind Skylark. 9pm, free. DJ Kung Fu Chris, MAKossa, and rotating guest DJs spin heavy funk breaks, early hip-hop, boogie, and classic Jamaican riddims.

Heat Icon Ultra Lounge. 10pm, free. Hip-hop, R&B, reggae, and soul.

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

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary; 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.

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

Toppa Top Thursdays Club Six. 9pm, $5. Jah Warrior, Jah Yzer, I-Vier, and Irie Dole spin the reggae jams for your maximum irie-ness.

FRIDAY 28

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

ALO, Counter Clarkwise, Newfangled Wasteland Mezzanine. 10pm, $20.

Five Eyed Hand Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut, SF; www.theyankee.com. 10pm, $10.

Good Enough for Good Times Boom Boom Room. 10pm, $15.

*Hammers of Misfortune, Ludicra, Amber Asylum, DJ Rob Metal Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $14.

Insomniacs Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

DJ Lebowitz Madrone. 6-9pm, free.

Limbeck, Stitch Up, Mini Mansions Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

LuckyIAm and Scarub with Conscious Souls, Xienhow, Enzyme Dynamite, Tantrum vs. Fredo Elbo Room. 10pm, $15.

Marilyn Manson Warfield. 9pm, $51.50-71.50.

Mayyors, Lamps, Christmas Island, Wounded Lion Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

"Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival" Golden Gate Park, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. 1pm, $95-595. With Pearl Jam, Incubus, Thievery Corporation, Tom Jones, and more.

Joe Pernice, John Cunningham Café du Nord. 7:30pm, $15.

*Personal and the Pizzas, No Bunny, Ultra Twist, Pipsqueak Annie’s Social Club. 10pm, $7.

Street Sweeper Social Club Independent. 10pm, $25.

2Me Ireland’s 32. 10pm, $5.

Velvet Teen, Ghost, Drowning With Our Anchors, For.The.Win. Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

Yellow Dress, Foxtails Brigade Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. 8pm, $6.

Wave Array, Goodbye Nautilus Café du Nord. 10pm, $10.

BAY AREA

R. Kelly, Keyshia Cole, Plies, New Boyz, Dorrough Music Oracle Arena, 7000 Coliseum Wy, Oakl; www.ticketmaster.com. 7:30pm.

Turbonegra, Death Valley High, Distance From Shelter, Loudness of the Brethren Uptown. 9pm, $8.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

Equinox Trio Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 8:30pm, free.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Mint Condition Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $35.

Susanna Smith and band Savanna Jazz. 8pm, $8.

Terry Disley Experience Shanghai 1930. 7:30pm.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Seth Augustus Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Cuban Nights Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8pm, 9:30; $15. With Fito Reinoso, and Eddie and Gabriel Navia, and utf8 dancing Buena Vista style.

Culann’s Hounds Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Rob Reich and Craig Ventresco Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Tippy Canoe SoCha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Zax, Zhaldee, and Nuxx.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island; (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 Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.

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

Go Bang! Deco SF, 510 Larkin St; (415) 346-2025. 10pm, $5. Recreating the diversity and freedom of the 70’s/ 80’s disco nightlife with DJs Eddy Bauer, Flight, Nicky B., Sergio and more.

High Times in Low Places Slim’s. 9pm, $20. With Opio and Pep Love, Aesop and Bicasso, DJ Fresh Cambo, Understudies, JB Nimble, Venture Capitalists, Poe Jangles and Ro Knew Influence, and DJ Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist.

Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.

Loose Stud. 10pm-3am, $5. DJs Domino and Six spin electro and indie, with vintage porn visual projections to get you in the mood.

Lucky Road Amnesia. 9pm, $6-10. Balkan, Bangra, Latin, and Gypsy party with DJ Sister Kate.

M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.

Mob Life Rock-It Room. 10pm, $15. With Yukmouth, Gr and Phee and Rhyson Hall, Hugh E MC, and more.

Punk Rock and Shlock Karaoke Annie’s Social Club. 9pm-2am, $5. Eileen and Jody bring you songs from multiple genres to butcher: punk, new wave, alternative, classic rock, and more.

Suite Jesus 111 Minna. 9pm, $20. Beats, dancehall, reggae and local art.

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

SATURDAY 29

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

GG Amos and the GG3 Riptide. 9pm, free.

Blue Sky Black Death, Boy Eats Drum Machine, Boy in Static Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

*Boxcar Saints, Kira Lynn Cain Make-Out Room. 7:30pm, $7.

*Calexico, Sergio Mendoza y La Orkesta Independent. 10pm, $25.

*Clipse Mighty. 8pm.

Quinn Deveaux Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Dirtbombs, Sermon, Ty Segall Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $10.

Eric Friedmann and the Lucky Rubes, Highway Robbers, Small Change Romeos Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Good Enough for Good Times Boom Boom Room. 10pm, $15.

Heavy Hindenberg, Mongoloid, Sex Presleys El Rio. 10pm, $7.

John Lee Hooker, Jr. Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Monsters of Accordion feat. Jason Webley, Stevhen Iancu, Mark Growden, Geoff Berner,

Eric Stern Slim’s. 8pm, $13.

Mt. Vicious, Ifihadahifi, Pegataur Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band Mezzanine. 10pm, $25.

Olehole, Anchor, Atom Age Thee Parkside. 9pm, $6.

"Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival" Golden Gate Park, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. Noon, $95-595. With Dave Matthews Band, Black Eyed Peas, Mars Volta, Jason Mraz, and more.

Rancho Deluxe, Cowlicks, 49 Special Café du Nord. 8pm, $15.

SF Blaze Crew Paradise Lounge. 10pm, $10-12.

Short Fuse, Deadringers, Tyrannosaurus Christ Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Slender, Trevor Childs and the Beholders, Corruptors Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, $7.

2Me Ireland’s 32. 10pm, $5.

BAY AREA

*Death Angel, Skinlab, Kaos Uptown. 9pm, $15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Big B. and His Snakeoil Survivors Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF; www.tuesdaynightjump.com. 8:30pm, $10.

"Bird and Beckett Bash" Miraloma Clubhouse, 350 O’Shaughnessy, SF; (415) 586-3733. 1pm, $10. With Jimmy Ryan Trio, 77 El Deora, Woe Legion, Chuck Peterson Quintet, Jonathan Richman, and more.

Pascal Bokar and band Savanna Jazz. 8pm, $5.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Jessica Johnson Shanghai 1930. 7:30pm.

Mint Condition Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $35.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Candela Ramp Restaurant, 855 Terry Francois, SF; (415) 621-2378. 5pm.

Carnaval Del Sur Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8pm, $12.

Jordan Carp Caffe Trieste, 1667 Market, SF; (415) 551-1000. 7:30pm, $10.

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

Erston Pearcy Simple Pleasures, 3434 Balboa, SF; (415) 387-4022. 8pm, free.

Ashley Rains Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Sean Smith Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

Wholphin DVD Release Party Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10. With live music performances by Jeff Manson and the Lonesome Heroes, and Wholphin DVD magazine screening.

DANCE CLUBS

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Niuxx. Colombia y Panama Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Cumbia and Latin with DJs Beto, Vinnie Esparza, and Vanka.

Debaser Knockout. 9pm-2am, $5. Hip-hop from the 90s with DJs Jamie Jams, Emdee, and Stab Master Arson.

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.

Keys N Krates Club Six. 9pm, $10. With DJs Franchise, Sake1, and Double A spinning hip hop.

Knocked Up Knockout. 6-9pm, free. With DJ Touchy Feely.

Minimal Dose Jelly’s at Pier 50, 295 Francois, SF; (650) 533-9048. 10pm, $20. With a live performance by Seuil and DJs Alland Byallo, Clint Stewart, and J. Philip spinning techno and house.

TekAndHaus Anu, 43 6th St., SF; (415) 543-3505. 10pm, $5. With DJ Zenith and special guest Brett Johnson spinning house and techno.

Villainy DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10. DJs Party Ben, Tomas Diablo, Dangerous Dan, and Donimo spinning electro, dance, new wave, and indie.

SUNDAY 30

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

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

Alyse Black, Aly Tadros Retox Lounge. 8pm.

George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $42.50.

Cuban Cowboys, Cordero, Carne Cruda Café du Nord. 7:30pm, $12.

Dungen, Woods, Kurt Vile Bottom of the Hill. 8pm, $14.

Gang Gang Dance, Ariel Pink, Amanda Blank Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10.

*"Grind for the Green" Yerba Buena Gardens, Fourth St at Mission; www.grindforthegreen.com. Noon-4pm, free. With Dead Prez, Mistah F.A.B., Fiyawata, and more.

"Indie Abundance Tour" El Rio. 1pm. With Chantelle Tibbs, Deborah Crooks, and Emily Bonn.

Mike Dillon’s GoGo Jungle Boom Boom Room. 10pm, $10.

Minus Five, Baseball Project and Steve Wynn IV Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16.

*Os Mutantes, Extra Golden Independent. 9pm, $25.

"Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival" Golden Gate Park, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. Noon, $95-595. With Tenacious D, M.I.A., Ween, Modest Mouse, and more.

Space Waves, Dreamtiger, Heavy Water Experiments Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Lucid Lovers Harris’ Restaurant, 2100 Van Ness, SF; (415) 673-1888. 6:30pm.

Mint Condition Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $35.

Savanna Jazz Trio and jam Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Fiesta Andina! Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 7pm, $12. With Eddy Navia and Sukay.

Forro Brazuca Ramp Restaurant, 855 Terry Francois, SF; (415) 621-2378. 5pm.

Jack Gilder, Kevin Bemhagen, Richard Mandel, and friends Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

Salsa Sunday El Rio. 4:15pm, $8. With Mazacote.

Uptones, Coup De Ska Amnesia. 8pm, $7-10.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJs Sep and guests Maga Bo and DJ Chicus.

45Club the Funky Side of Soul Knockout. 10pm, free. With dX the Funky Granpaw, Dirty Dishes, and English Steve.

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

Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th; 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.

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.

MONDAY 31

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Quinn Deveaux and the Blut Beat Review, Con Brio, Dirty Boots El Rio. 8pm, $5.

Indianna Hale, Old Believers, Red River Hemlock Tavern. 7pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Lavay Smith Trio Enrico’s, 504 Broadway, SF; www.enricossf.com. 7pm, free.

Quartet San Francisco Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $14.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Gino Napoli Simple Pleasures, 3434 Balboa, SF; (415) 387-4022. 8pm, free.

Paulo Presotto and the Ziriguidum Orkestra, Tribaletricos Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Going Steady Dalva. 10pm, free. DJs Amy and Troy spinning 60’s girl groups, soul, garage, and more.

King of Beats Tunnel Top. 10pm. DJs J-Roca and Kool Karlo spinning reggae, electro, boogie, funk, 90’s hip hop, and more.

Krazy for Karaoke Happy Hour Goes All Night Knockout. 7pm-2am, free. With host Deadbeat.

Mainroom Mondays Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, free. Live the dream: karaoke on Annie’s stage and pretend you’re Jello Biafra.

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

Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl; 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.

Spliff Sessions Tunnel Top. 10pm, free. DJs MAKossa, Kung Fu Chris, and C. Moore spin funk, soul, reggae, hip-hop, and psychedelia on vinyl.

TUESDAY 1

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bridge, Allofasudden Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $8.

Casualties, Krum Bums, Mouth Sewn Shut, Static Thought Thee Parkside. 8pm, $12.

DeatHat, Peculiar Pretzelmen, Corpus Callosum Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Tim Easton, Brandi Shearer Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

*MDC, Poison Control, Bum City Saints Knockout. 10pm, free.

Duke Robillard Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Smile Brigade, Bunny Numpkins and the Kill Blow Up Reaction Kimo’s. 9pm.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Dave Parker Quintet Rasselas Jazz. 8pm.

Everest Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $14.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 6:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Mucho Axe, Fogo Na Roupa Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

DANCE CLUBS

Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJ What’s His Fuck, Taypoleon, and D-Runk.

Drunken Monkey Annie’s Social Club. 9pm-2am, free. Rock ‘n’ roll for inebriated primates like you.

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.

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

Music listings

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 19

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Crocodiles, Pens, Graffiti Island Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Forget About Boston, Flamingo Gunfight, A Victory Nonetheless Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.

Freekbass Boom Boom Room. 9:45pm, $10.

Have Nots, Stigma 13, Flatout Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $5.

Horror X, Boats!, Spurts, Pranks Thee Parkside. 8pm, $6.

Mother Mother, HIJK Café du Nord. 8:30pm, $10.

Partyline, Hawnay Troof, Shebeast, Schwule El Rio. 8pm, $8.

Prids, Swann Danger, Butterfly Bones Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Freddy Roulette Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Stone Foxes, Lonely H, Buxter Hoot’n Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

BAY AREA

Jackson Browne Paramount Theatre. 8pm, $39.50-59.50.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

"B3 Wednesdays feat. Patrick Greene Organ Combo" Coda. 9pm, $7.

Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

Cat’s Corner Savanna Jazz. 7pm, $5-10.

"Marcus Shelby Jazz Jam" Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Jonathan Poretz Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $16.

Tin Cup Serenade Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; (415) 931-3600. 7pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Gaucho, Michael Abraham Jazz Session Amnesia. 8pm, free.

Steve Taylor-Ramírez Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Fame Bar on Church. 9pm. With rotating DJs.

Jam Wednesday Infusion Lounge. 10pm, free. DJ Slick Dee.

Qoöl 111 Minna Gallery. 5-10pm, $5. Pan-techno lounge with DJs Spesh, Gil, Hyper D, and Jondi.

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

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Lonestar Sound, Young Fyah, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

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

THURSDAY 20

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bare Wires, Fergus and Geronimo, Teenage Cool Kids, Vows Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

*Blowfly, Blag Dahlia Rock Legend, Mad Macka Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

Calmodee Coda. 9pm, $7.

Daughtry Fillmore. 8pm, $20.

Eyedea and Abilities, Kristoff Krane, Justus Bends Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Bill Magee Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Jason Movrich SNOB, 1327 Polk, SF; (415) 440-7662. 8pm, free.

San Kazakgascar, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Scranton, Luvhed, Ol’ Cheeky Bastards Grant and Green. 9pm, free.

Strip Mall Architecture, Love X Nowhere, Silian Rail Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Toy Soldiers, Battlehooch, Horde and the Harem, Buttercream Gang Slim’s. 8pm, $13.

BAY AREA

"Vans Warped Tour" Shoreline Amphitheater, One Amphitheater Pkwy, Mtn View; www.livenation.com. 11am, $26.75. With NOFX, 3oh!3, Less Than Jake, Underoath, Devil Wears Prada, Chiodos, Thrice, Silverstein, and (seriously) over 40 more.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Al Coster Trio and Jam Savanna Jazz. 8pm, $5.

"Brass, Bows, and Beats: A Hip Hop Symphony by Adam Theis and the Jazz Mafia Symphony" Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10:30pm, $24.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 7:30pm, free.

Kelly Park Trio Shanghai 1930. 7pm, free.

Marlina Teich Trio Brickhouse, 426 Brannan, SF; (415) 820-1595. 7-10pm, free.

"New Frequencies @ YBCA: Musicians Respond to Wallworks" Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. 6pm, free with gallery admission ($5-7). With Jackeline Rago and Steve Hogan Duo/Kev Choice and Jennifer Johns Duo.

Jesse Scheinin Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

Sony Holland Duo Café Divine, 1600 Stockton, SF; (415) 986-3414. 7pm, free.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Flamenco Thursday Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8pm, 9:30; $12. With Carola Zertuche and Company.

Four Inch Pony Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Hillstomp, Slowfinger, Brothers Comatose Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $8.

Mission Three Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Jason Movrich Blarney Stone, 5625 Geary, SF; (415) 386-9914. 9pm, free.

Saddlecats Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Tipsy House Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-6. DJs Pleasuremaker, Señor Oz, J Elrod, and B Lee spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

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

Club Jammies Edinburgh Castle. 10pm, free. DJs EBERrad and White Mice spinning reggae, punk, dub, and post punk.

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

Funky Rewind Skylark. 9pm, free. DJ Kung Fu Chris, MAKossa, and rotating guest DJs spin heavy funk breaks, early hip-hop, boogie, and classic Jamaican riddims.

Heat Icon Ultra Lounge. 10pm, free. Hip-hop, R&B, reggae, and soul.

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

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary; 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.

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

Rock Candy Stud. 9pm-2am, $5. Luscious Lucy Lipps hosts this electro-punk-pop party with music by ReXick.

Ships in the Night Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Queer dance party with DJs Durt, Black, and Jean Jamz.

Toppa Top Thursdays Club Six. 9pm, $5. Jah Warrior, Jah Yzer, I-Vier, and Irie Dole spin the reggae jams for your maximum irie-ness.

FRIDAY 21

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Attitude Adjustment, Beowulf, Deface, Killing California, Superbuick Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson Independent. 9pm, $25.

Tracy Chapman Fillmore. 9pm, $50.

Christmas Island, Mantels, Jonesin’, Splinters Amnesia. 9pm, $8.

Cuban Nights Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8:30pm, $15. Latin dancing Buena Vista style with Fito Reinoso, and Eddy and Gabriel Navia.

Diego’s Umbrella Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Excuse the Blood, Hudson Criminal, Cycloptopus, No Need Retox Lounge. 8pm, $5.

*"House of Voodoo 10th Anniversary" Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, $5-7. With Awakening, Saints of Ruin, and DJs spinning goth and industrial.

New Up, Company Car, Run Run Run Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $12.

EC Scott Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Set Your Goals, Four Year Strong, Polar Bear Club, Fireworks Slim’s. 8pm, $15.

*Tussle, Grass Widow, Psychic Reality, Royalchord Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Brian Belknap Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

"Brass, Bows, and Beats: A Hip Hop Symphony by Adam Theis and the Jazz Mafia Symphony" Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10:30pm, $26.

Duo Gadjo Shanghai 1930. 7:30pm, free.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Jim Butler Quartet Savanna Jazz. 8pm, $5.

Natasha Miller Coda. 10pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Aphrodesia, Bayonics, DJ Jeremiah Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $16.

Bluegrass Bonanza Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Jessica Fichot Red Poppy Art House. 8:30pm, $10-12 suggested donation.

Devon McClive Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

"A Moment in Time" Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $30. With Beres Hammond with the Harmony House Singers and Musicans, and Culture.

Rob Reich and Craig Ventresco Amnesia. 7pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.

Alcoholocaust Presents Riptide Tavern. 9pm, free. DJ What’s His Fuck spins old-school punk rock and other gems.

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Zax, Zhaldee, and Nuxx.

Deep Fried Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. DJs jaybee, David Justin, and Dean Manning spinning indie, dance rock, electronica, funk, hip hop, and more.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island; (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 Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.

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

Go Bang! Deco SF, 510 Larkin St; (415) 346-2025. 10pm, $5. Recreating the diversity and freedom of the 70’s/ 80’s disco nightlife with DJs Eddy Bauer, Flight, Nicky B., Sergio and more.

Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.

Loose Stud. 10pm-3am, $5. DJs Domino and Six spin electro and indie, with vintage porn visual projections to get you in the mood.

M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.

Punk Rock and Shlock Karaoke Annie’s Social Club. 9pm-2am, $5. Eileen and Jody bring you songs from multiple genres to butcher: punk, new wave, alternative, classic rock, and more.

Voodoo Ballroom Annies Social Club. 9pm, $7. With live performances by Awakening and Saints of Ruin and DJs voodoo, Purgatory Mischief, and more spinning goth, deathrock, glam, and darkwave industrial.

SATURDAY 22

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Tracy Chapman Fillmore. 9pm, $50.

Ex-Boyfriends, My First Earthquake, Vitamin Party Thee Parkside. 9pm, $7.

*Flipper, Triclops!, Turks, Alaric Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, $10.

*Forbidden, Kehoe Nation featuring Gene Hoglan, Death Pilot Slim’s. 9pm, $20.

Jedi Mind Tricks, MC Esoteric, Reef the Lost Cauze, Bound by Honor Independent. 9pm, $17.

Kev Choice Ensemble Elbo Room. 10pm.

Lady Bianca Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Low Red Land, Appomattox Hemlock Tavern. 6pm, $5.

Matches Fillmore. 9pm, $20.

No Hope for the Dead, Overdrive AD, Hot Heresy Thee Parkside. 2pm, free.

La Plebe, Pop Bottle Bombers, Master Volume, DJ Alberto Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

TITS, Plastic Crimewave and the Wicked Wicked Ways Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Valerie Orth Band, Rachel Efron Ensemble, Mia and Jonah Café du Nord. 9pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Pascal Boker and Band Savanna Jazz. 8pm, $5.

"Brass, Bows, and Beats: A Hip Hop Symphony by Adam Theis and the Jazz Mafia Symphony" Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10:30pm, $26.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

"New Frequencies @ YBCA: Next Wave of Global Landscape" Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. 8pm, $25. With Juana Molina/Amy X. Neuburg and the Cello ChiXtet.

Proteges of Hyler Jones Shanghai 1930. 7:30pm, free.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers Coda. 10pm, $12.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Absynth Quintet Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Julio Bravo y Orquesta Salsabor Ramp Restaurant, 855 Terry Francois, SF; (415) 621-2378. 5pm, free.

Cabinet of Curiosities, Toby Dick, Hyperpotamus Amnesia. 8pm, $7. Fundraiser for SF Zine Fest.

Carnaval Del Sur Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8pm, $12.

Ricardo Lemvo and Miakina Loca, DJ Emmanuel Nado Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $20.

JL Stiles Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Thick Soup Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Barracuda 111 Minna. 9pm, $5-10. Eclectic 80s music with Djs Damon, Phillie Ocean, and Mod Dave, plus free 80s hair and make-up by professional stylists.

DatA Mezzanine. 9pm, $10. With DJs Sleazemore, Sick Face, Alexander Frederick, and Eli Glad spinning futuro-disco and space electro.

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.

Shine the Light Shine. 10pm, $10. With DJs Cheb I Sabbah, Mighty Dub Killaz, Janaka Selekta, and El Diablo spinning global electronic.

SUNDAY 23

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Arnocorps, A Band of Orcs, Untapped Fury, Dagobah Thee Parkside. 8pm, $8.

Cult Warfield. 8pm, $38.50-100.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Hank IV Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $15.

Maggie Morris, Ghosties Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $5.

Chuck Prophet and friends Knockout. 8pm, $10.

Six Organs of Admittance, Master Musicians of Bukkake Independent. 8pm, $12.

J Tillman, Moore Brothers, Pearly Gate Music Café du Nord. 8pm, $13.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Lucid Lovers Harris’ Restaurant, 2100 Van Ness, SF; (415) 673-1888. 6:30pm.

Zachary Richard Yoshi’s San Francisco. 7 and 9pm, $20.

Stanley Coda. 9pm, $7.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Fiesta Andina! Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 7pm, $12. With Eddy Navia and Sukay.

Sacred Profanities Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Salsa Sundays El Rio. 4:15pm, $8. With Orquesta D’Soul.

John Sherry, Kyle Thayer and friends Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

Tippy Canoe, Five Cent Coffee, Mikie Lee Prasad Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJs Sep, Maneesh the Twister, and guests Roy Two Thousand and DJ Quest.

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

Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th; 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.

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.

BAY AREA

Culture Club Oasis, 135 12th, Oak; (510) 763-0404. 10pm, free. Funky, deep, soulful, tech, house music with DJs Kincaid, Nesto and more.

MONDAY 24

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Jeff the Brotherhood Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $15.

Pins of Light, Libyans Hemlock Tavern. 7pm, $5.

Chelsea Wolfe, Helene Renaut, J. Irvin Dally Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Pete Yorn Fillmore. 9pm.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Lavay Smith Trio Enrico’s, 504 Broadway, SF; www.enricossf.com. 7pm, free.

Mitch Marcus Quintet Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $10-12.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Barefoot Nellies Amnesia. 8:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Going Steady Dalva. 10pm, free. DJs Amy and Troy spinning 60’s girl groups, soul, garage, and more.

King of Beats Tunnel Top. 10pm. DJs J-Roca and Kool Karlo spinning reggae, electro, boogie, funk, 90’s hip hop, and more.

Mainroom Mondays Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, free. Live the dream: karaoke on Annie’s stage and pretend you’re Jello Biafra.

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

Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.

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

Spliff Sessions Tunnel Top. 10pm, free. DJs MAKossa, Kung Fu Chris, and C. Moore spin funk, soul, reggae, hip-hop, and psychedelia on vinyl.

TUESDAY 25

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Box Elders Hemlock Tavern. 6pm, $5.

Catholic Comb, Downer Party, Scott Allbright Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Fruit Bats, Death Vessel Independent. 8pm, $14.

Pharmakon, R. Jencks, Orhima Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $5.

Spoon + 10, Shark Speed El Rio. 8pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Dave Parker Quintet Rasselas Jazz. 8pm.

Dogman Joe Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $12.

Euliptian Quartet Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

For Corners Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 8:30pm, free.

"Jazz Mafia Tuesdays" Coda. 9pm, $7. With Felonious.

RJ Ross Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 6:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Song Session Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Drunken Monkey Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, free. With DJ Voodoo.<\!s>*

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.

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

*

Music listings

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. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 12

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Barcelona, Meese, Seabird, Last Ambassadors Slim’s. 8pm, $13.

Better Than Ezra, 16 Frames Independent. 8pm, $25.

Honey Knockout. 9pm.

Illness, My Revolver, Dammit! El Rio. 8pm, $5.

Kegels, Party Fouls, Jokes For Feelings Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Lions, Black Robot, Flexx Bronco Thee Parkside. 8pm, $7.

OG Rhythm and Blues Band Rasselas Jazz. 8pm, free.

Kevin Russell Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $10.

BAY AREA

Depeche Mode, Peter, Bjorn and John Shoreline Amphitheater, One Amphitheater Pkwy, Mtn View; www.livenation.com. 7:30pm, $35.50-99.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

"B3 Wednesdays feat. Amendola vs. Blades" Coda. 9pm, $7.

Diana Krall Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. 8pm, $79.50-125.

Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

"Marcus Shelby Jazz Jam" Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Tin Cup Serenade Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; (415) 931-3600. 7pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

*"All-Star Tribute to the King of Bakersfield: Buck Owens Birthday Bash" Elbo Room. 8pm, $10. With members of Red Meat, 77 El Deora, B Stars plus Mississipi Mike Wolf, Doug Blumer, and more.

Gaucho, Michael Abraham Jazz Session Amnesia. 8pm, free.

Dan Reed, Manda Mosher Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $15.

Carlos Reyes Rrazz Room, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; 1-866-468-3399. 8pm, $30.

Unwed Fathers Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Fame Bar on Church. 9pm. With rotating DJs.

Fringe Madrone Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJs subOctave and Blondie K spinning indie rock and new wave music videos.

Jam Wednesday Infusion Lounge. 10pm, free. DJ Slick Dee.

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

Qoöl 111 Minna Gallery. 5-10pm, $5. Pan-techno lounge with DJs Spesh, Gil, Hyper D, and Jondi.

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

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Lonestar Sound, Young Fyah, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

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

THURSDAY 13

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Buttercream Gang, Raised By Robots, M. Bison Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Commisure, Room for a Ghost, An Isotope Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $6.

Dramarama Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $20.

Tinsley Ellis Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $18.

Glenn Labs, Greening, Johnny Walnut Grant and Green. 9pm, free.

Photons, X-Ray Press, Huff This!, Chasing Shapes Kimo’s. 9pm.

Skin Like Iron, Young Offenders, Never Healed, Airfix Kits, Dirty Cupcakes Knockout. 9:30pm, $5.

Slowfinger, Orchid, Nylon Heart Attack Slim’s. 9pm, $13.

Society of Rockets, Dominique Leone, Reptiel Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Solillaquists of Sound, 40Love, Zutra Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Trainwreck Riders, Fucking Buckaroos, Pretty Boy Thorson and Fallen Angels Thee Parkside. 9pm, $5.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Kenny Brooks Coda. 9pm, $7.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 7:30pm, free.

Marlina Teich Trio Brickhouse, 426 Brannan, SF; (415) 820-1595. 7-10pm, free.

"New Frequencies @ YBCA: Musicians Respond to Wallworks" Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. 6pm, free with gallery admission ($5-7). With Lisa Mezzacappa and Nightshade/Shimomitsu.

Karen Segal Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Brazil Vox Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Jesse DeNatale, Indiana Hale, Petracovich Amnesia. 9pm, $8.

Flamenco Thursday Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8pm, 9:30; $12. With Carola Zertuche and Company.

High Country Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Gregory Isaacs, Native Elements Independent. 9pm, $28.

Shannon Céilí Band Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

Summer in the City: Meet MoAD Museum of African Diaspora, 685 Mission, SF; (415) 358-7200. 6pm, $10. Featuring live Cuban music and dancing.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-6. DJs Pleasuremaker, Señor Oz, J Elrod, and B Lee spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

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

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

DJ John Lynch Infusion Lounge. 9pm, free.

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

Funky Rewind Skylark. 9pm, free. DJ Kung Fu Chris, MAKossa, and rotating guest DJs spin heavy funk breaks, early hip-hop, boogie, and classic Jamaican riddims.

Heat Icon Ultra Lounge. 10pm, free. Hip-hop, R&B, reggae, and soul.

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

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

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

Toppa Top Thursdays Club Six. 9pm, $5. Jah Warrior, Jah Yzer, I-Vier, and Irie Dole spin the reggae jams for your maximum irie-ness.

FRIDAY 14

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bad Friends, Complaints, Keeners Annie’s Social Club. 5pm, $5.

"Bowie Ball: Celebrating All Things Bowie!" Great American Music Hall. 8:30pm, $20. With Barry Syska’s Fantasy Orchestra, 5 Cent Coffee, and DJs MzSamantha and Skip.

Burnt, Simpkin Project Grant and Green. 9pm, free.

Conquest for Death, N.N., Acephalix, Ruidos Thee Parkside. 9pm, $5.

*Down, Melvins, Danava, Weedeater Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $30.

Fling, Moller, Nightgowns, Facts on File Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Gomorran Social Aid and Pleasure Club, Khi Darag!, Brian Kenney Fresno, DJ K-Tel Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10. With Last Night’s Fling All-Star Burlesque.

Inspired Flight Otis Lounge, 25 Maiden Lane, SF; (415) 298-4826. 9pm, free.

Larry McCray Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

*New Thrill Parade, Al Qaeda, Dalmacio Von Diamond and the Enochian Keys, Droughter Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

Quantic and His Combo Barbaro Slim’s. 9pm, $20.

Jonahs Reinhardt, Tussle, Windsurf Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10. With Okay-Hole on the records.

BAY AREA

Vienna Teng TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. 8pm, $35.

Wendy Darling, Pinstripe Rebellion, Refunds, Loudmouth Yank Fox Theater. 7pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

Larry Carlton Rrazz Room, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.therrazzroom.com. 8pm, $47.50.

8 Legged Monster Coda. 10pm, $10.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Jack Jones Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $35.

Tin Cup Serenade Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Cuban Nights Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8:30pm, $15. Latin dancing Buena Vista style with Fito Reinoso, and Eddy and Gabriel Navia.

Georges Lammam Ensemble Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 10:30pm, $15.

JimBo Trout and the Fishpeople, Misisipi Rider Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Sekouba Bambino Diabate Independent. 9pm, $25.

Sila and the Afro Funk Experience Fillmore Center, Fillmore at O’Farrell, SF; (415) 921-1969. 6pm, free.

Spring Creek Noe Valley Ministry, 1021 Sanchez, SF; (415) 545-5238. 8pm, $15-17.

Zej Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Zax, Zhaldee, and Nuxx.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island; (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 Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.

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

Free Funk Friday Elbo Room. 10pm, free. With DJs Vinnie Esparza, B-Cause, and guest Asti Spumanti.

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

Go Bang! Deco SF, 510 Larkin St; (415) 346-2025. 10pm, $5. Recreating the diversity and freedom of the 70’s/ 80’s disco nightlife with DJs Eddy Bauer, Flight, Nicky B., Sergio and more.

Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.

Lovebuzz Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, $5. Rock, classic punk, and 90s with DJs Jawa and Melanie Nelson.

M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.

Punk Rock and Shlock Karaoke Annie’s Social Club. 9pm-2am, $5. Eileen and Jody bring you songs from multiple genres to butcher: punk, new wave, alternative, classic rock, and more.

VSL Friday Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9pm. With DJ Eve Salvail.

SATURDAY 15

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $16.

Elin Jr, Minks, Claire El Rio. 4pm, $10-15.

50 Million, Shellshag, Screaming Females, Kreamy Lectric Santa, Reaction Thee Parkside. 9pm, $5.

Fighting Supaks, Paleface, Ledbetter and His Best Bet, Justin Gordon and the Wrecking Ball Café du Nord. 8:30pm, $12.

Git Some, Secret Wars, Olehole Bender’s Bar, 800 S. Van Ness, SF; www.bendersbar.com. 10pm, $5.

Havespecialpower, Midnight Strangers, Girl With the Violent Arts Li Po Lounge. 8:30pm, $7.

Iron Maidens, Oreo, Sticks and Stones Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $15.

Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk, Eric Krasno and Chapter 2 Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

Leopold and His Fiction, Spyrals, Candy Apple Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

N.A.S.A. Independent. 9pm, $18.

Octopus Project, Birds and Batteries, Don’ts Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

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

Wild Child Slim’s. 9pm, $20.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Alphabet Soup Coda. 10pm, $10.

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Larry Carlton Rrazz Room, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.therrazzroom.com. 7 and 9:30pm, $47.50.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Jack Jones Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $35.

"New Frequencies @ YBCA: Next Wave of Global Landscape" Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. 8pm, $25. With Tanya Tagaq/KIHNOUA.

Mary Redente Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Ember Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Evening with Accordions Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 441-4099. 8pm, free. Featuring Rob Reich and Marie Abe.

Here Comes a Big Black Cloud, Fast Love Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Lucas Revolution Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Matt Morris Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Orquesta Rumba Café The Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; (415) 621-2378. 5pm, free.

Tanya Tagaq with Kihnoua Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787. 8pm, $25.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Booty Bassment Knockout. 10pm, $5. Booty-shaking hip-hop with DJs Ryan Poulsen and Dimitri Dickenson.

Cock Fight Underground SF. 9pm, $6. Locker room antics galore with electro-spinning DJ Earworm and hostess Felicia Fellatio.

Fred Everything and Olivier Desmet Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; (415) 433-8585. 10pm, $10.

Fire Corner Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary; 885-4788. 9:30pm, free. Rare and outrageous ska, rocksteady, and reggae vinyl with Revival Sound System and guests.

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.

Industry Mighty. 10pm, $25. With DJs Jamie J Sanchez, James Torres, Russ Rich, and more.

Saturday Night Live Fat City, 314 11th St; selfmade2c@yahoo.com. 10:30pm.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. With DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul.

SUNDAY 16

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Half Handed Cloud, Red Pony Clock, Boat Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Loop! Station, Jill Tracy, Nicki Jaine Café du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Love is Chemicals, Aim Low Kid, Solar Powered People Bottom of the Hill. 8pm, $8.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Larry Carlton Rrazz Room, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.therrazzroom.com. 7pm, $47.50.

Lucid Lovers Harris’ Restaurant, 2100 Van Ness, SF; (415) 673-1888. 6:30pm.

Stanley Coda. 9pm, $7.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Emily Anne, Devine;s Jug Band, East River String Band Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10.

Mindia Devi Klein St. John Coltrane Church, 1286 Fillmore, SF; (415) 673-7144. 7pm, $10-25.

Marla Fibish, Erin Shrader, Richard Mandel and friends Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

Fiesta Andina! Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 7pm, $12. With Eddy Navia and Sukay.

Grooming the Crow, Lariats of Fire Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

Rolando Morales Quintet The Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; (415) 621-2378. 5pm, free.

Salsa Sundays El Rio. 4:15pm, $8. With Julio Bravo.

BAY AREA

Toby Keith, Trace Adkins Shoreline Amphitheater, One Amphitheater Pkwy, Mtn View; www.livenation.com. 7:30pm, $20-74.

DANCE CLUBS

August T-Dance Ruby Skye. 5pm, $25. With the Perry Twins.

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

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, Ludachris, and guest Ross Hogg.

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

Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th; 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.

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.

MONDAY 17

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Can’t Find a Villain, King Robot, Construct Existence Crew, Paulie Rhyme, Beta Central, Monica Ramos Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.

Dicky Betts and Great Southern Slim’s. 8pm, $30.

Stereo Freakout, Drunken Hu?, Serenity Now! Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

BAY AREA

Third Eye Blind Fox Theater. 8pm, $29.50.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Lavay Smith Trio Enrico’s, 504 Broadway, SF; www.enricossf.com. 7pm, free.

Yellowjackets with Mike Stern Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $20-26.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Free Bluegrass Monday Amnesia. 6:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Arcade Lookout SF, 2600 16th St., SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 8pm, free. With DJs Jory and Johnny B spinning alt. 80’s and new wave.

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

Going Steady Dalva. 10pm, free. DJs Amy and Troy spinning 60’s girl groups, soul, garage, and more.

King of Beats Tunnel Top. 10pm. DJs J-Roca and Kool Karlo spinning reggae, electro, boogie, funk, 90’s hip hop, and more.

Mainroom Mondays Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, free. Live the dream: karaoke on Annie’s stage and pretend you’re Jello Biafra.

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

Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.

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

Spliff Sessions Tunnel Top. 10pm, free. DJs MAKossa, Kung Fu Chris, and C. Moore spin funk, soul, reggae, hip-hop, and psychedelia on vinyl.

TUESDAY 18

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Antioquia, Sex With No Hands Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

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

Pissed Jeans, Mi Ami, How to Make Swords Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Scrabbel, Pregnant, Imra Hemlock Tavern. 8pm, $6.

Emiliana Torrini, Anya Marina Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $20.

Max Tundra Café du Nord. 8:30pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Dave Parker Quintet Rasselas Jazz. 8pm.

Euliptian Quartet Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

"Jazz Mafia Tuesdays" Coda. 9pm, $7. With Shotgun Wedding Quintet.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 6:30pm, $5.

Yellowjackets with Mike Stern Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $20-26.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Misterioso Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Slow Session with Vince Keehan and friends Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Drunken Monkey Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, free. With DJ Blackstone.

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.

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

*

“Beyond ESPN: An Offbeat Look at the Sports Film”

0

PREVIEW Co-curated by Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ Joel Shepard and the Guardian‘s Johnny Ray Huston, "Beyond ESPN" also goes beyond cinematic convention, offering up a scorecard of (mostly) uncommon picks cleverly corralled under the banner of sports films. In other words, there’s no Rudy (1993) here. The series kicks off Thursday, Aug. 6 with "Rare Films from the Baseball Hall of Fame" (including commercials featuring a pre-scandal but ever-cheeky Pete Rose) and continues throughout August with takes on professional cycling (1976 doc A Sunday in Hell); tennis (1982’s The French, a behind-the-scenes look at the 1981 French Open); and swimming (2006’s Agua). Plus: Visions of Eight (1973), a study of the tragic 1972 Munich Olympics by eight different directors (including Milos Forman, Arthur Penn, and John Schlesinger); and 1971’s Football as Never Before, an intimate, on-the-pitch portrait of luxuriously-maned soccer great George Best. Also included is Clair Denis’ 2005 Towards Mathilde, about contemporary choreographer Mathilde Monnier, and a trio of good-time flicks dubbed "Winning Isn’t Everything: A Tribute to the 1970s Sports Film" from Midnites for Maniacs programmer Jesse Hawthorne Ficks: Ice Castles (1978), The Bad News Bears (1976), and The Cheerleaders (1973). Go team!

BEYOND ESPN: AN OFFBEAT LOOK AT THE SPORTS FILM. Aug 6–30, $8. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org

‘Graphic Sexual Horror’

0

By Kevin Langson

429-filmbox.jpg

The prurient pleasure film Graphic Sexual Horror cannot be accused of failing to live up to its title. In fact, it’s safe to say that discussion or protestations (and anyone who’s not catatonic is bound to have something to say) that follow this solid porn-ocumentary will be related to the rather contentious content. This fair-minded glimpse into the pain-glorious performances and behind-the-scenes procedures of the now defunct hardest of the hardcore bondage Web sites is simultaneously titillating and reflective, admiring and critical.

Insex.com founder Brent Scott, in explaining the academic ostracism at Carnegie Mellon that led to his new career as a high priest of porn, says this: "If they don’t let me teach their kids, I’ll corrupt them," which seems an apt encapsulation of his renegade artistic arrogance. This account is assuredly enriched by his candidness and self-criticism. He praises, sometimes adores, his female models and expresses sincere regret when his neglect leads to a malfunctioning water tank that could have inflicted injury. At the same time, however, he is chauvinistically demanding and insensitive to his model’s vulnerabilities. Essentially, he represents the ambivalence of extreme bondage — the murky convergence of liberated consensual sex and exploitation.

Clips of artistically presented live feed performances featuring such intrigues as blue-purple strangulated breasts and hot pepper being applied to genitalia, are intercut with interviews to give a sense of the models’ experiences. For bondage enthusiasts and the morbidly curious, there are visuals to gawk or gasp at throughout, but the tone becomes more conflicted as the film addresses the dilemmas of Insex models, as illustrated by the young woman who whimpers incredulously as her face is slapped. Face-slapping was her one hard limit (defined as activity forbidden by a model), but she struggles to play along because of the shame and lost fortunes a refusal begets.

GRAPHIC SEXUAL HORROR Thurs/16–Fri/17, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, www.ybca.orgClick here for showtimes and more details

The deep end

0

Lucrecia Martel’s three mischievous films scramble normal narrative hierarchies, privileging sensation to exposition, desire to explanation, and intuition to realism. Thunder-clapped fairy tales of unknowing, they have an adolescent’s sensitivity to the strangeness of the adult world. Outside of Tsai Ming-liang, it’s difficult to think of another working director with such a productive obsession with water. Martel is attracted to locations where her characters can sink, like pools and beds, and she arranges her multiplanar compositions so that these figures appear as floating heads and torsos.

The apprehensive tilt of Martel’s stories is left undefined, just on the cusp of horror, but the director’s formal coordination of sound and image is anything but imprecise. Her humid aesthetic popped out fully formed in the opening minutes of 2001’s La Ciénaga ("The Swamp"), in which the sloshing reds of blood and wine, a padded sound design, and viscous handheld camera movements conduct an atrophying bourgeois scene with the heavy-lidded amplitude of a Caravaggio. The Holy Girl (2004) further demonstrated Martel’s skill at playing for senses other than reason. Her new work, The Headless Woman, is her most expressly psychological yet, and thus entails a newly concentrated application of her unusual narration style — a kind of intimate, hooded third person in which neurosis and desire register as phenomenology.

The woman of the title (which doesn’t translate literally) is another of Martel’s dislodged bourgeoisie women. Driving home from a gabby gathering, she runs over something while absentmindedly reaching for her cell phone; after this, her mind absents her. Perhaps amnesiac, but at the least traumatized, Veronica (Maria Onetto) reenters her everyday life in a fog. Her weak smiles and mute replies will irritate some viewers, especially those who reflexively despise the withholding ambiguity of Antonioni films like 1964’s Red Desert (Martel’s characters, like Antonioni’s, often put on sunglasses at odd moments, as if to shield their wanting souls). What’s remarkable about The Headless Woman in comparison to so many art house pretenders, however, is that Martel is able to maintain this high level of uncertainty without letting the story go slack. As much as Veronica seems to drift, the film’s carefully calibrated ruptures make it so she cannot keep the world at bay.

HOLY GIRLS AND HEADLESS WOMEN: THE FILMS OF LUCRECIA MARTEL

July 14–15 and 23, 7:30 p.m. (Martel in person July 14–15), $8

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org

Cold, cold hearts

0

cheryl@sfbg.com

Metalheads: before you gang up on Until the Light Takes Us — a new documentary by Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell, who dare to admit they weren’t really into metal before starting their film — consider the sinister fact that there’s now an imdb entry for the 2010 release of Lords of Chaos. This narrative take on Michael Moynihan and Didrik Sonderlind’s 1998 book (subtitled The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground) casts Twilight vamp Jackson Rathbone as scene boogeyman Varg Vikernes.

Remember, also, the cursory attention afforded Scandinavian black metal in the sprawling doc Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey (2005). You may not recall that same year’s Metal Storm: The Scandinavian Black Metal Wars — an interesting if technically rough look at the subject — because it screened locally just once, as part of a Yerba Buena Center for the Arts series on heavy metal cinema. Metal Storm featured interviews with a young (circa 2000) Vikernes. The erstwhile Count Grishnackh, late of Burzum, returns in Until the Light Takes Us, which hits YBCA for a three-night stand.

Locked up in 1993 for murdering Mayhem’s Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth, Vikernes was very recently paroled. But he was still incarcerated in Until the Light Takes Us, and he doesn’t seem terribly put out, likening his time behind bars to "a stay in a monastery." He’s articulate, intelligent, and unrepentant, reflecting on his various deeds. He claims he provided the shotgun ammo used by another Mayhem member, Per Yngve Ohlin (a.k.a. "Dead"), to committ suicide. (Of course, after Euronymous discovered Dead’s body, he took a photo that was later used as Mayhem cover art. Seriously, these were spooky dudes.)

Vikernes may be a fascinating fellow — a worst-case scenario for anyone eager to believe that heavy metal is a recruitment tool for Satan worshippers — but Until the Light Takes Us isn’t centered on him. This is not a true-crime tale (though it does offer some striking footage of Norwegian churches set ablaze during black metal’s criminal zenith). Nor is it trying to teach Metal 101 (though it does touch on black metal’s eerie, atmospheric sound, pagan themes, and deliberately lo-fi production). Instead, Until the Light Takes Us attempts to show what happens when a very specific, proudly isolationist art movement becomes commercialized — to the chagrin of founding members like Gylve "Fenriz" Nagell, memorable for his demon-like appearance in full corpsepaint on the cover of his band Darkthrone’s 1994 release, Transilvanian Hunger (Peaceville Records).

"I don’t want to be blamed for black metal becoming a trend," Fenriz says, some 16 years after an article in the U.K. magazine Kerrang! introduced black metal to the mainstream. Though the film interviews other players like Mayhem drummer Jan Axel "Hellhammer" Blomberg and former Emperor drummer Bård "Faust" Eithun (himself a convicted murderer who appears as a voice-altered silhouette), Fenriz is Aites and Ewell’s focus, drifting around icy Oslo, working on current music projects, and ruefully reminiscing about the movement he helped create: "I guess the sale of black lipstick went through the roof."

Rather than focusing on copycat bands, Until the Light Takes Us explores black metal’s influence on artists like Bjarne Melgaard, whose "Sons of Odin" installation earns smirks from Fenriz, and Harmony Korine, who earns smirks from the filmmakers. Not mentioned in the film: the Vice-produced 2007 internet videos series and Peter Beste’s subsequent book of photographs, True Norwegian Black Metal. Of course, Until the Light Takes Us — full of artful shots of Norway’s stark, gorgeous countryside and cityscapes, which go a long way toward illustrating what inspired the black metal guys in the first place — is also opening up the scene for curious outsiders.

"It’s out of our hands now," Fenriz shrugs. He’s bitter, but he’s got a point. Murders and mayhem and Mayhem aside, once pop culture snatches up your subculture — see: Guitar Hero‘s black-metal character, Lars Ümlaüt, or the aforementioned Lords of Chaos flick — there’s no stealing it back.

UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US

Thurs–Sat, 7:30 p.m.

(also Fri–Sat, 9:30 p.m.), $8

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org

Intelligent design

0

a&eletters@sfbg.com

The first world is so jammed with manufactured stuff we can’t perceive most of it — even the stuff we buy rapidly and take for granted, to be replaced by each next-model thingy. This process is now our economy’s bedrock, as was underlined when the government’s first order of business after 9/11 was to encourage partying like it’s $19.99 via those "America: Open for Business" signs with Old Glory as shopping bag. Yet the economy and consumerism’s ever-more-tangible impact on our planet seem to scream, "Shop less!"

Durability vs. disposability and perennial style vs. trendiness are conflicting impulses on both sides of the buyer/seller equation. In theory we might all agree everything we buy should be functional, sturdy, and attractive enough to keep until it gives out. But this flies in the face of nearly all marketplace logic, and purchaser desire. The whole idea is to generate decisions made on what you want, not what you need. Better still if that line blurs.

The New York Times’ "Consumed" columnist Rob Walker describes this drive as one for "the ‘New Now,’ a ‘New Next’" in Objectified, the latest documentary by Gary Hustwit. Like his Helvetica (2007), which looked at the stealthily enormous role of typeface in our lives, Objectified is more an appreciation than a critique of something utterly ubiquitous in this case product design — and a few stellar personalities behind it.

Hustwit isn’t interested in history or the full range of design as much as celebrating those idiosyncratic individuals whose design imprint falls within the ongoing tradition of 20th-century modernism, with its clean lines, minimal detailing, and whiff of yesteryear’s sci-fi future. "Good design is as little design as possible" insists retired innovator Dieter Rams of German home appliance giant Braun. Many of the film’s interviewees — mostly designers well-known within the industry by name or firm (IDEO, Smart) — muse on products rooted in the post-analog "connected world." With an item’s inner workings now reduced to the microchip’s all-powerful DNA, there’s little need for form to resemble function anymore; practically everything can be some sort of smooth, small, amorphous blob or plane.

Still, as Objectified emphasizes in Helvetica‘s same alert, amused, admiring way, the best designers don’t aim for depersonalizing aesthetic perfection (let alone garish flamboyance). Instead, their goal is honing every manufactured object we require or enjoy so it makes the world a mite more user-friendly. There’s an ingratiating segment here observing just how much thought goes into Smart’s creating garden-shear handles even an arthritic could love. Elsewhere, one colorful industry type rails that there’s simply no excuse for bad design anymore. Yet another GPS no one can figure out should occasion "riots in the streets," he says.

Objectified‘s primary images of rhyming-row merch in consumerist temples (IKEA, Target, etc.) are "globalization" personified. Yet as one person mercifully mentions here, that neverending parade of stuff only reaches a lucky 10 percent or so. Since the other 90 percent aspire toward disposable income and luxury goods, our insatiable minority now ponders how to tell them it’s all been a horrible mistake.

The designers here are aware of, yet somewhat flummoxed by, that crisis: It’s the very nature of their jobs that "most of what you design ends up in a landfill." It will fall to a different documentary to chronicle how product design adopts new agendas of quasi-permanence, successive useage, and biodegradability. When and if that truly happens, Objectified might turn into beautiful detritus, an artifact from a vanished age of elegant waste.

OBJECTIFIED

Wed/24-Sun/28, 1, 3, 5 p.m.

(also Wed/24-Sat/27, 7 and 9 p.m. ), $8–$10

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-ARTS, www.ybca.org

Domestic disturbance

0

a&eletters@sfbg.com

Equal parts Antonio Gramsci and Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Dillinger is Dead (1969) is cultural critique masquerading as a one-man show. Michel Piccoli plays Glauco, with his forehead mostly: the fleeting pleasures of food and gadgetry are registered in satisfied wrinkles, though the slack glaze of boredom is never far off. The film opens with Glauco touring a factory using a gas mask of his design. In case we somehow miss this as a marker of alienation, the factory guide waxes Society of the Spectacle: "The introjections of these obsessive, hallucinatory needs do not produce an adaptation to reality, but mimesis, standardization: the cancellation of individuality."

Subtly may not be Italian auteur Marco Ferreri’s strong suit, but he achieves a weirdly frantic stasis once Dillinger settles in to Glauco’s chintzy bourgeois palace, a masterpiece of set design. Glauco tucks in his lolling girlfriend (Rolling Stones ingénue Anita Pallenberg, mostly naked here), snivels at the meal she’s left him and gets to cooking. Looking for something in the closet, he finds an old gun wrapped in a newspaper covering John Dillinger’s death. The film’s unforthcoming slowness reaches its apotheosis as he painstakingly cleans the revolver, keeping a close eye on the sauce.

Not satiated by his feast for one (Ferreri would later direct 1973’s La Grande Bouffe, a film about four men eating themselves to death), Glauco licks honey off the maid’s bare back, gives his firearm a Pop Art makeover, and finally endeavors to see if it still goes bang. Ferreri’s listless deadpan can’t help but pale after countless Coen brothers knockoffs, but Dillinger is saved from obsolescence by its prescient observations of technology’s ascendance in the domestic sphere. Glauco is ever fiddling with a machine, at one point documenting his sleeping wife with a tape recorder (this guy would be a nightmare with an iPhone).

All this mechanical action has a masturbatory quality to it, especially when Glauco watches his Super 8 home movies. He greedily reaches out for the breasts of a woman he’s filmed and tries to swim in a projection of the sea (a significant image given the film’s nautical conclusion). When a halved watermelon broaches sex, viewers may wonder if Tsai Ming-Liang knew of Dillinger before making The Wayward Cloud (2005). This fleshy interlude is the closest thing to life in Ferreri’s film; even murder, it seems, cannot bring these people back from the dead.

DILLINGER IS DEAD

Thurs/11–Sat/13, 7:30 p.m.; Sun/14, 2 p.m., $8–$10

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org

Bull feathers

0

superego@sfbg.com

SUPEREGO I recently found myself in Navajo Nation, munching on frybread at Kate’s diner in Tuba City with Hunky Beau after rocking out to, I shit you not, tech-navajo on the local FM station in the rental. I looked fantastic. We’d just witnessed a fierce two-spirit working the sandwich counter at the Bashas’ supermarket down the street. She/he looked fantastic. Back here in the city, on the nightlife scene, things weren’t so fantastic — another big underground party got busted, Pink Saturday ran into permit snafus, and neighborhood complaints mooted even more regular shindigs. And has anyone else noticed the skyrocketing price of a drink in this town? I’m not saying you need a buzz to bust out (alcohol sales are banned on the rez, so I’m grateful for the option), but dropping a Hamilton for a weak well screwdriver certainly has me rethinking my hollow leg. Still, as immortal shamans ABBA sang, "I can fly like an eagle, I can learn to spread my wings". Spread ’em, children, toss your hair, and let’s keep flying high.

ROLLER DISCO!

The only party in the city where I’m never alone falling on my luscious ass returns — skate rental provided, balance and expertise optional. I can’t lie, I have a total blast at this gig, even if the tunes are fun-yet-familiar and there’s always that one amazingly cute girl whose backspins and pirouettes make me bite my knuckles and wish I were a lot gayer. Like, Brian Boitano gayer.

Thu/4, 9 p.m., $5. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

"25 YEARS OF HOUSE MUSIC"

Dates and times, dates and times — why quibble? Most approaches to the evolution of house are more organic than any "x" on a calendar. But if a quarter-century celebration, complete with art exhibition, of the underground global movement that foretold the Internet’s interconnectivity is a big enough excuse to get Chicago genius Jesse Saunders behind the decks at Club Six, I’m way down.

Fri/5, 9 p.m.–3 a.m., $15. Club Six, 60 Sixth St., SF. www.clubsix1.com

ZOMBIE BEACH PARTY

"Guaranteed to put the laughter in slaughter" is a tagline that’ll get me every time. And so will any appearance by the Living Dead Girlz, those jaw-dropping undead dancer with a taste for semi-clothed flesh. They’ll be waving, not drowning, from the stage at this tongueless-in-cheek beach blanket bingo bacchanal, along with Sparkly Devil, Honey Lawless, and a mass grave of others. Plus: an undead beachwear costume contest. Paging Annette Funicello …

Fri/5, 9 p.m.– late, $10 street clothes/$7 surfer zombies. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. www.dnalounge.com

BIG IDEA: RITUAL AND REDEMPTION

Oh, crap. Is it really Pride month again? Time to haul that sequined rainbow thong from out the mothballs and try to get married or whatever. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is going homo-humongous for its latest, starlet-studded Big Idea party — rounding up the city’s fiercest alternaqueers with its golden lasso, including fab drag disasters Anna Conda and Monistat, DJ Dirty Knees, Pansy Division, Honey Soundsystem, Ex-Boyfriends, and the ever-present, never-sleeping Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The Fellini-inspired spectacle also promises free tattoos, after-hours dancing, a taco truck, and "Project Nunway," heh. Best of all, the whole shebang is free — and not sponsored by Miller Lite, Altoids, 2Xist, Olivia Cruises, or Tylenol PM.

Sat/6, 9 p.m.–3 a.m., free. YBCA, 701 Mission, SF. www.ybca.org

WIGHNOMY BROTHERS

Monthly throwdown Kontrol at EndUp breeds absolutely bonkers dancefloor results that are far less fussy than its minimal techno focus, meticulous taste in talent, and somewhat daunting prevalence of miniscule eyewear would suggest. For the party’s fourth anniversary, it’s bringing in Germany’s superstar Wighnomy Brothers, two proudly unkempt vodka-swillers whose Seth Rogen-like public image belies a sizzling bromance with the more lovable, devil-may-care side of dance. The tipsy pair of teddy bears with a penchant for unpronounceable titles (recent release: Metawuffmischfelge) refused to visit the U.S. during that whole Bush thing. Laudable, but we could have used their balls-to-the-wall wig-outs to help us through such foulest ick. Good thing we’ve still got problems!

Sat/6, 10 p.m.–6 a.m., $20. EndUp, 401 Sixth St., SF. www.kontrolsf.com

O.G. sleaze

0

a&eletters@sfbg.com

A full range of involuntary facial-muscle responses have already been triggered by the trailer to Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, which premieres at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. First 2008’s Valkyrie, now this: Brad Pitt’s Tennessee-hills-bred Lt. Aldo Raine twangily informing his Jewish-American Secret Service unit, "Each man under my command owes me ONE HUNNERD NAAATSEE SCALPS!" while Hostel auteur-turned-actor Eli Roth smirks in approval.

Will the whole turn out righteous, raucous, controversial, or just juvenile? We proles will have to wait until the film’s August theatrical release to decide for ourselves. Meanwhile, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is letting inquiring minds do their advance homework by reviving Enzo G. Castellari’s less orthographically challenged Inglorious Bastards, the 1978 Italian action movie Tarantino’s latest pays tribute to — though his isn’t a remake but a separate, newly crassed-up riff on The Dirty Dozen (1967).

That latter all-star World War II caper spawned umpteen "Europudding" imitations, including the QT-beloved Bastards, showing this week in a new 35mm print. A sort of Filthy Five to the original Dozen — budget reduced accordingly, with sharp eyes ID’ing the same extras experiencing different death throes in scene after scene — it centers on a quintet of U.S. Army grunts in 1944 France.

There’s Bo Svenson (who’d become a sorta-star by replacing the suspiciously car-crash-slain Buford Pusser in 1975’s Walking Tall Part II) as swaggering Lt. Yeager; Fred Williamson’s Pvt. Canfield, an incongruous 1940s fount of ’70s Black Power ‘tude; smirking wiseass, murderer, and racist Tony (Peter Hooten), who calls Canfield "Bongo;" Nick (Michael Pergolani), a long-haired hipster aping Donald Sutherland’s similar character in 1970’s hit Dirty rip Hell’s Heroes; and Jackie Basehart as fraidycat youth Berle.

After being sent to the brig for various misdeeds, they escape their captors, intending to flee to neutral Switzerland. En route they pick up a nice Nazi (Raimund Harmstorf, horny hero of 1971’s The Long Swift Sword of Siegfried) and bare collective musculature to some bathing Rhine maidens. But mostly they machine-gun everyone in sight, unfortunately including Yankee spies disguised in Third Reich uniforms.

Penitent, our protagonists vow to take over their late comrades’ dangerous mission. This culminates in an exploded train, and an SS commander foaming "All Americans are mongrels! Negro, Jew, Polish, Italian, Irish — every possible race! And your vimmen are whores! Coca-Cola! Hollyvood! Chewing gum! Stupid cowardly bastards!" just before his ass is whupped by Canfield. Musta been that soda remark.

Inglorious begins with psychedelic-silhouette images underlining two key things about Castellari: 1) he honed his energetic macho action style in spaghetti westerns; and 2) he isn’t considered "the poor man’s Peckinpah" for nothing, being absolutely addicted to balletic slow-mo violence. About a bazillion Germans here do the spastic dance of death, riddled by bullets or leaping from yet another explosion.

Yet the film’s tone is larky, at times even goofy. Hardly a neglected masterpiece, or a campy delight like some of Tarantino’s other retro faves, it’s a good example of another era’s disposable entertainment. Unlike the grim check-cashing air emitted by many similar Europudding exercises, here you can sense the fun that went into making it.

His big-screen career of Westerns, policiers, Mad Max and Escape from New York clones eventually tapped out, Castellari moved on to TV work. But at age 70, Castellari is still capable of rising to the exploitable moment. Currently being hawked at Cannes — alongside the considerably more hyped you-know-what — is his Caribbean Basterds, which appears to cobble together nods to Tarantino, contemporary sea piracy, Point Break (1991), and A Clockwork Orange (1971).

INGLORIOUS BASTARDS

Fri/29, 7:30 p.m.; Sun/31, 2 p.m., $8

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org

Well-suited

0

a&eletters@sfbg.com

AFRO-SURREAL Why would you commission a choreographer for a work featuring performers stuck into costumes that hide their bodies? This anomaly didn’t deter the 69 dancers who, in late April, auditioned at ODC Commons for a world premiere by Ronald K. Brown. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts wanted a site-specific piece to go with its current exhibition of Nick Cave’s wearable sculptures, "Meet Me at the Center of the Earth" — and Bay Area dancers jumped at the chance to work with one of today’s most thoughtfully intriguing choreographers.

Brown, who initially had wanted to become a journalist, found his way into dance almost serendipitously. Though he’d been fascinated with researching and writing articles on the way people lived their lives, dance allowed him to do that more indirectly, and also more deeply. He called his company Evidence because of his belief that we are products of the things that have shaped us — our culture, our roots, our families. The dry legal term "evidence" poorly suggests the physically and emotionally rich dances that have earned such a wide following for this modern dance artist, whose choreography is influenced by West African cultures. (Brown brings his company to YBCA Feb. 18-21, 2010)

Amara Tabor-Smith, a former 10-year member of Urban Bush Women, will perform in the Cave project. She doesn’t think of Brown as a fusion artist. "The way I see him is that he modernized West African dance," she explained a few days after the tryouts. But her depth of admiration comes from a recognition that Brown’s work is "infused with spirit." She made it as one of 13 dancers although she auditioned primarily to "soak up his energy and give energy in return."

Brown, who knew and admired Cave’s evocative sculptures from afar, became interested in this project partly because of an experience at the Seattle Art Museum, where he encountered a diorama of African costumes and masks displayed on life-size figures.

"I would talk to the person with me, then slightly turn my head, and there were [the figures]. After a while I almost couldn’t tell who was who," he explained. Being aware of a mask’s mysterious power to hide as well as to reveal, he nonetheless also told the dancers he wasn’t going to turn them into witch doctors or shamans because "we live in America, in a contemporary society."

Brown also insists he did not want to "collaborate" with Cave but wanted to have "his own dream." Since the suits in the actual exhibit are too delicate for performance, he chose a set made from raffia, the natural fiber prevalent in West African dance. Though visually different, they also allow one to sense rather than see the body. Being quite heavy, they may restrict a dancer’s movement. During the audition, the choreographer worked with shuffling steps and close-to-the-body arms. He also worked on phrases from Orisha dances and Sabar steps from Senegal ("a kind of social street dance," according to Tabor-Smith.) There may be little or no music, perhaps only the sound of the dancers’ feet and the whoosh-whoosh of raffia.

Speaking from Ireland last week, where he was setting work, Brown wouldn’t commit himself to the length of the piece but revealed that, though it was originally planned for the galleries only, it would encompass YBCA’s lobby area as well. "There will be a guide to take the dancers and the audience on a journey, so that whatever feelings we have, you also have — or it hasn’t happened."

RONALD K. BROWN/NICK CAVE

May 28, 7 p.m.; May 30–31, 3 p.m.,

free with gallery admission ($5–$7)

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

Pics: Lines Ballet tingles, lights up YBCA

1

Text and Photos by Ariel Soto

lines_6.jpg

lines_5.jpg

Evocative African beats and spine-tingling motion are filling up Novellus Theater at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts all this week as the local dance company Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet takes the stage. The company, which has been in San Francisco since 1982, breaks away from traditional, stuffy ballet by adding modern movements and contemporary music, with each dance creating a story about the struggles and reality of everyday modern life. It is obvious why they are called Lines Ballet — the dancers’ bodies seem to stretch across every inch of the stage, constantly in fluid movements, keeping the audience’s eyes glued to the tip of their toes and the ends of their fingers and making them come back for more, year after year.

lines_3.jpg

lines_4.jpg

lines_2.jpg

Fiends, eyepatches, and femmes fatales

0

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

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

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

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

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

$8-$10

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

www.ybca.org

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

$10

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.castrotheatre.com

The Sisters explode!

0

By Cheryl Eddy

289-event.jpg

It’s Easter time, which means drugstore aisles are bloomin’ with Peeps, bonnets are being bedecked, and aspiring Hunky Jesuses (the Biblical kind, not the Madonna-datin’ kind) are frantically doing ab exercises prior to the annual Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence celebration in Dolores Park. This year, the annual bash is extra-special, marking 30 years of good works (and fabulous accessorizing) by the organization, which has gone global — the theme is "Nun World Order" and some 150 national and international Sisters will be in attendance. Can’t get enough Sisterhood? Make sure you check out "Under a Full Moon: 30 Years of Perpetual Indulgence," on view at the San Francisco Library and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Featured are archival materials chronicling the group’s three decades of colorfully-dressed, white-faced, charity-supporting, queer- and sex-positive, Pope-exorcising, boundary-pushing history.

UNDER A FULL MOON: 30 YEARS OF PERPETUAL INDULGENCE Opening party Fri/10, 8 p.m., free. Installation on view Tues–Wed and Fri–Sun, noon–5 p.m.; Thurs, noon–8 p.m., $5–$7. Through June 28. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Also: through May 7. Sun, noon–5 p.m.; Mon and Sat, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; Tues–Thurs, 9 a.m.–8 p.m.; Fri, noon–6 p.m., free. San Francisco Main Library, third floor, James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center, 100 Larkin, SF; (415) 557-4499.

NUN WORLD ORDER: THE SISTERS’ 30TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION. Sun/12, 11 a.m., free
Dolores Park, 19th St at Dolores, SF (after-party, 6 p.m., free, Noe at Market, SF); www.thesisters.org

The new razzle dazzle

0

a&eletters@sfbg.com

More on SFBG:

>>Q&A with artist Nick Cave

>>A guide to artists with famous namesakes

289-cover3.jpg

Where is the center of the Earth? According to artist Nick Cave, it lies somewhere between a night out at Taboo with Leigh Bowery and a Brazilian Carnaval parade. It can be found in Liberace’s glittering stage getups and Yoruba ceremonial hunting dress. Other possible coordinates include Yinka Shonibare’s Africanized rococo costumes, Cockney pearly suits, the hautest of haute couture, and the fun fur tribes of Black Rock City.

289-cover2.jpg

Thankfully, for us, Cave’s crocheted, sequined, bedazzled, embroidered, dyed, and encrusted vision of the heart of the world can be found locally. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ "Meet Me At the Center of the Earth" presents the largest exhibit to date of the Chicago artist’s work, which straddles the realms of sculpture, high fashion, body art, and dance with a visual ferocity and level of workmanship that is alternately stunning and inspiring.

Cave’s art practically dares you to play chicken with your thesaurus. One would have to borrow a page (or several) from the descriptive reveries of Thomas de Quincey or Ronald Firbank to fully convey the cluster fuck of beading, psychedelic hair furs, plastic tchotchkes, yarn, tin toys, buttons, second hand sweaters, and enough sequins to cover a thousand ’80s cocktail dresses that he has quixotically and painstakingly pieced together.

289-cover5.jpg

The centerpieces of "Meet Me at the Center of the Earth" are undoubtedly Cave’s Soundsuits — wearable sculptures that take their name from the sounds created by their movement. They fill YBCA’s largest gallery like some other-wordly pantheon of gods and monsters. Arranged in an X-shaped configuration with paths running down the center of each axis, the suits form a giant visual nod to the exhibit’s title. X, of course, marks the spot, and hanging above the room’s center is the Earth itself, swathed in several shades of inky sequins. On the adjacent walls hang two huge and possibly glitzier tondi — the Italian Renaissance term Cave uses for these round hangings — which serve as flattened counterparts to the globe.

289-cover1.jpg

The display lets you explore the Soundsuits from every angle. Designed to cover the entire body, the suits hide any individual traces of the wearer by creating a second skin, and then some. The suits with towering, festooned cage structures — which bring to mind both Balinese funeral pyres and Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers — still have a vaguely human outline at their core, whereas the suits patterned in all sort of brilliantly colored fur-like human hair could very well be studies from an unrealized Jim Henson project. This lycanthropic aspect of the Soundsuits is explored most humorously in Cave’s more recent pieces, which take the reverse tactic of fashioning knitwear pelts for taxidermy models of bears and beavers.

While much of Cave’s work, to quote New York Times critic Roberta Smith, "fall[s] squarely under the heading of Must Be Seen to Be Believed," it also begs to be heard. It is unfortunate that YBCA wasn’t able to more fully integrate the sounds of the suits into their display. Although there is an adjacent gallery that shows several videos of the Soundsuits in action — including great footage of Cave and a posse of pom-pom covered lion dancer-clown hybrids inciting massive dance parties in public — the suits themselves stand silent. The audio/visual divide enforced by the two-gallery layout seems to point to the larger issue of static mannequins being the curatorial norm for costume and textile-related exhibits. I guess we’ll have to wait until May, when choreographer Ronald K. Brown stages his Soundsuit performances, to see Cave’s creations in action.

289-cover4.jpg

Cave writes in an artist’s statement for the show that he hopes "we will dream together" One would have to have a heart of stone not to take up the challenge and the invitation delivered by Cave’s art — and implicit in the exhibit’s title — to create another scene, to go beyond what’s familiar, and to transform oneself. I left YBCA dreaming of raiding craft stores, thrift shops, and fabric outlets. I dreamed of painting the town red, cerulean, silver, magenta, and neon green with sequins and glitter. I dreamed of dancing. I’ll see you at the center of the Earth. I’m halfway there.

NICK CAVE: MEET ME AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH

Through July 5, $3–$6 (free first Tues.)

Tues.–Wed., Fri.–Sun., noon–5 p.m.; Thurs., noon–8 p.m.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org


All photos by Jim Prinz

John Jasperse Company

0

PREVIEW When New York choreographer John Jasperse presented his company in its local debut in 2004, the severe and pared-down choreography of his multimedia piece California looked more New England Puritanism than California hedonism. Good for him, I remember thinking, for not having bought into popular stereotypes. Still the omnipresent leaf blower and the dancers’ self-involvement needled me. No such hint of a cultural disconnect is likely to trouble his Misuse liable to prosecution, which takes its name from the milk crates we use to store and move our belongings. The work includes a live score by Mills College composer Zeena Parkins and a found-objects design for which YBCA has sent out a call for plastic coat hangers. One wonders: when Jasperse, who has been choreographing for more than 20 years, created Misuse in 2007 and set a zero budget for design, did he have an inkling for the rough waters the country was about to enter? In retrospect, the decision has proven visionary. Misuse‘s original impetus came from a desire to hold up a mirror to a society in which Judge Judy makes more money than all nine of the Supreme Court justices combined, or in which the war in Iraq costs more than four times per day than the annual budget for the National Endowment for the Arts. No doubt, if Jasperse made Misuse today, he could come with other horror figures picked straight from the headlines. But ultimately more important than the topical resonance of this work is the integrity and refinement of Jasperse’s choreography — which is his own, yet made for us.

JOHN JASPERSE COMPANY. Thurs/2–Sat/4, 8 p.m., $25–$30. Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF. (415) 978-2787. www.ybca.org

Cat’s cradle

0

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

Independent, slyly defiant, and given to zigzags, the cat is the spirit animal for a certain breed of cinematic gleaners. The films of Warren Sonbert and Chris Marker are packed with the feline kind. A kitty or two shows through the lucid abstractions of Nathaniel Dorsky’s recent work, and Agnès Varda’s La Pointe-Courte (1954) uses the animal as a structural device. Accordingly, Ben Rivers’ This is My Land (2006) opens with a lithe creature snapping its head to face the camera. There are several other such mysterious cameos across the 14-minute film, one of several bricolage studies Rivers has composed of off-the-grid settlers who are themselves catlike in both appearance (the whiskers and quick smile) and manner (gentle wildness).

Rivers must appreciate the cat’s association with the gothic, given his propensity to label his shorts as either horrors or portraits. The London-based filmmaker and programmer comes to town this week for two rare programs split along these lines, though it isn’t as stark a divide as it might first sound. The films are all exquisite documents of overgrown spaces, the kind in which the past is made palimpsest, audible in the creak of floorboards and everywhere apparent in the makeshift and ajar.

There are traces of Murnau, Dreyer, and Herzog in Rivers’ work; the films are welcome demonstrations that Expressionism is nothing so much as a feeling for how the physical world relates to the spiritual one, though musical references are equally revealing. The beards, spirits, and foliage evoke the deep English folk of the Incredible String Band and Roy Harper. In addition, the field recording quilt-work done by Lucky Dragons and the Books provides a useful analogue to Rivers non-sync style. Shot with a wind-up Bolex, Rivers processes the film stock himself, leaving grain and light flecks unpolished, with sound and image each representing an autonomous, well-portioned montage. The films open the same rich interstices of avant-garde, documentary, and ethnography as Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s work, but with an intense intimacy that makes them seem like home movies of the highest order.

The old dark house imagery of Rivers’ gothic curios strike a particularly English chord, but the back-to-the-land portraiture has a special resonance in California. We too know these beards, this tumble of wilderness, this particular migration. If these figures seem to age differently, it’s because their living choices represent a decisive approach to both space and time, something Rivers represents with great cinematic adroitness. The specter of global warming and natural disaster thickens these reclusive reliefs. Rivers has admitted his fondness for ’70s postapocalypse moves, a ripe genre rearticulated in the lunar landscapes and scrapyard play of Ah, Liberty! (2008). Horror, in this context, is a kind of awe. It is inseparable from nature — it is, in fact, nature reclaiming civilization.

"[There are] all kind of wild animals [here], and it’s only because I let it get wild. And that’s my point, but nobody will get it," the central figure of Astrika (2006) explains. Rivers, of course, does get it. The homesteaders’ scattered debris suggests Rivers’ own secondhand materials, improvised objects like a birdfeeder made from a milk container reflect his films construction, and the ethos of self-sufficiency is admired and enacted. The human warmth of his filmmaking emanates from these affinities, which go beyond sympathy to touch the elusive nerve of experience. Rivers’ wind-up camera means that no single shot can exceed 30 seconds. But when the pitter-patter of his images settles on something strange and moving, like a distant view of a horse rolling in the snow, it reminds us that beauty is often a humbling drama of the glimpse.

"THE POETIC HORROR OF BEN RIVERS"

Sat/28, 8:30 p.m., $6

Other Cinema at Artists’ Television Access

992 Valencia, SF

(415) 824-3890, www.atasite.org

"THIS IS MY LAND: BEN RIVERS’ PORTRAITS AND LANDSCAPES"

Sun/29, 7:30 p.m., $10

San Francisco Cinematheque at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org

“Meet Me at the Center of the Earth”

0

PREVIEW This collection of "soundsuits" by Nick Cave (the Chicago artist, not the Australian musician) is the most anticipated show of the season. If, as this paper’s D. Scot Miller has observed, Afro-surrealism is in the air, then Cave’s art — a fusion of fashion, body art, and sculpture so imaginative that it might possess transformational qualities — is a prime example. His wearable constructions are eye-boggling counterparts to the Afro-surreal music of figures both present (Chelonis R. Jones) and newly revived-from-the past (Wicked Witch). Cave’s art also possesses aural qualities that won’t be evident until the show opens. A former dancer with Alvin Ailey and the current chair of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s fashion program, he’s also collaborating with choreographer Ronald K. Brown on some performances in May.

Cave’s soundsuits arrive in the Bay Area as a ceremonial contemporary extension from the fabulous but nostalgic European fashion on display in the de Young Museum’s Yves Saint Laurent show. In fact, the most bizarre and audacious of that exhibition’s pieces — a 1965 bridal gown that resembles an intricate cocoon or sock — might as well be an old colonial relative of Cave’s wearable works, which are constructed from a wide variety of natural and artificial material. These acid-trip Bigfoot creatures and dancing rainbow phallus totems are fun, but they kick. Cave made his first soundsuit in response to the Simi Valley aesthetics of the Rodney King verdict, and in an older project he rescued racist lawn jockeys, turning them into figures of promise and potential.

MEET ME AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH Sat/28 through July 5, $3-$6 (free first Tues). Opening reception Fri/27, 8-11 p.m., $12-$15. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-ARTS. www.ybca.org

“transPOP: Korea Vietnam Remix”

0

REVIEW Spam, napalm, and derivative pop songs weren’t quite the only legacy of U.S. military sojourns through Asia — and specifically Korea and Vietnam — as Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ "transPOP: Korea Vietnam Remix" exhibit demonstrates. The artists gathered by curators Viet Le and Yong Soon Min are the children of Andy Warhol and Coca-Cola.

Credit goes to the organizers for pointing to the connections between Vietnam and Korea, which are seldom at the foreground stateside: both shared a history of rapid modernization facilitated by U.S. wartime adventures, and Korea benefited economically for their hand in the Vietnam War, as the second largest foreign military and economic presence. Trade in pop culture — film, music, TV, fashion — has evidently continued between the two countries. But despite the presence of a book and zine reading room filled with Korean, Vietnamese, and American transplants’ ballads, bubblegum, rockers, and protest music, this grab bag of an exhibition manifests little of the fizzy wit and energy implied in its title. Instead it assumes a primarily somber, somewhat cryptic tone — more wall text would have helped. This solemn quality is most forthrightly and movingly manifested in Dinh Q. Lê’s video triptych, The Farmers and the Helicopters (2007).

The exceptions make their mélange of pop and politics simultaneously pointed and explicit: examples include Tiffany Chung’s video works, Lam Truong (2007) and the scooter-guys (2007), which juxtapose the frenetic movements of Viet boy bands with bands of working delivery boys; and Min Hwa Choi Chul-Hwan’s 2006 To the Rockers paintings of lost-looking urban youth, paired with Twentieth Century — 1972.6 III (2006), his blown-up deconstruction of AP photographer Nick Ut’s 1972 image of a naked Vietnamese girl burnt by napalm running toward the viewer. Would Warhol have approved? And do any works make as much of a stealth impact as Oh Yongseok’s video montages Drama No. 3 and Drama No. 5 (both 2004-2005)? Cornered by these pieced-together panoramas, which appropriate snippets of Asian films and TV, one is confronted by both the Korean tradition of landscape painting and small, startling moments of violence and disquiet that rupture the stillness at the edges of the frame.

TRANSPOP: KOREA VIETNAM REMIX Through Sun/15. Tues.–Wed., Fri.–Sun., noon–5 p.m.; Thurs., noon–8 p.m. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. $6; $3 seniors, students, and youth; free for members (free first Tues.). (415) 978-ARTS, www.ybca.org

Jerome Bel’s “Pichet Klunchun and Myself”

0

PREVIEW In Europe, French dancer-choreographer Jerome Bel’s work has earned him the nickname of the "pope of anti-dance." While it’s true that Bel has a tendency toward pontificating on contemporary performance theories, and his work — minimalist in terms of movement, maximalist in terms of embracing the ordinary human body — stays far outside the parameters of what dance audiences might expect, he is anything but anti-dance.

He lives and breathes dance — the relationship between performer and choreographer, the persona and the person, the meaning and the content, the concepts of absence and presence. This type of theory-driven work has gained him ardent admirers as well as virulent detractors all over Europe.

To some American observers, his approach recalls the coolness of the Judson Church dancers of the early 1960s. But Bel is much more a creature of the theater than the Judson people ever were — or pretended to be. Communication with an audience is a key motivating factor of his practice. With Pichet Klunchun and Myself, Bel has succeeded in reaching his viewers more than he ever thought he might: the work has been a hit ever since that first, almost accidental encounter between Thai dancer Pichet Klunchun and Bel during the 2005 Bangkok Fringe Festival. Some super-savvy presenter hooked them up for an interview onstage in which the two artists were supposed to question each other about their respective disciplines. What has evolved from this meeting is an evening of wide-ranging conversation and dance demonstration by two artists whose lives literally evolved worlds apart but who found themselves connected and separated in ways neither could have dreamed of.

JEROME BEL’S PICHET KLUNCHUN AND MYSELF Tues/3, 8 p.m., $15–$20 (ticket buyers receive 50 percent off to David Rousseve’s Saudade March 5–7). Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF. (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org

Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes

0

PREVIEW What lengths will you go to for your art? If you’re a castrato it’s probably a sore point. For Mexico’s internationally renowned experimental theater company, Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes (Certain Inhabitants Theatre), it’s the beginning of a lush and lively investigation into the complexities and contradictions of cultural power and refinement. Drawing from a variety of theatrical styles and incorporating multidisciplinary performers, director Claudio Valdés Kuri and writer Jorge Kuri have crafted a time-tripping escapade across three centuries of culture and cruelty.

Siamese twins — a surgeon and opera columnist in a single ungainly suit and two Louis XIV wigs — lead a journey that begins in the decadent 18th century court society of the Old World, in the throes of a circle that fed ravenously on the castrated children of the poor and elevated them to superstardom by the preservation and cultivation of their fine prepubescent sopranos. With Monsters and Prodigies: A History of the Castrati, Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes the company makes its long-overdue Bay Area premiere, courtesy of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, in what promises to be a resonant, dramatic outing whose operatic airs — in Spanish and Italian with English supertitles — hit an unfaltering high C for cutting, carnivalesque satire.

TEATRO DE CIERTOS HABITANTES Thurs/5–Sat/7, 8 p.m., $25–$30. Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF. (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org

Super Ego: Let’s pARTy

0

By Marke B.

2k9’s gallery party season is heating up — last Saturday, I jetted from the art-fag-elite-packed Jonathan Solo opening at Catherine Clark Gallery to the huge “What’s the Big Idea?” shindig at YBCA, just in time to see thousands of expressive-oriented types raise their hands and clap along with the NonStop Bhangra troupe as they showed them how to punch the the air, Punjabi-style.

Next up on the big calendar is this Friday eve’s “Parlor Games” at the de Young, celebrating that museum’s ongoing Yves St. Laurent exhibit, hosted by one of the SF underground’s most scintillating performers/choreographers, Fauxnique.

fauxniquedeyoung.jpg
Fauxnique and friend — arty, non?

Fauxnique was one of Trannyshack’s darlings (her revival of her Elton John “Butterfly” tribute number, complete with full ballet corps and huge outspread wings, brought the house down at last year’s Trannyshack Kiss-Off party. She’s the top female drag queen in town — not drag king, but drag queen, as in faux queen. Yes, it’s confusing.) From 7:15-7:45 in the Piazzoni Murals Room, there’ll be charades, musical chairs and a “Proust Questionnaire,” and Fauxnique and some ultra-chic friends will perform numbers meant to invoke both the asthmatic Parisian author/drama queen’s social demimonde and Laurent’s delicate and lovely designs.

“Japan Dance Now”

0

PREVIEW What does avant-garde Japanese dance look like? Butoh is 40 years old. Eiko and Koma have been working their version of slow dancing for three decades. What about dancers who have grown up in a high-tech, high-velocity, video-drenched urban environment? We at least get glimpses of the movies, comics, and pop music that are part of their lives. Once in a while, a company like the Condors will come through town on their way to somewhere else. But for the most part, our exposure to that type of edgy new dance — highly influenced by electronic media and sophisticated in its use of those elements — remains nil.

Now Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is making an attempt to open minds and ears to new moves from Japan. Next month they bring back Papa Taruhamara, and this weekend they present three companies in a performance titled "Japan Dance Now" on their first stop of a three-city tour of the states. Baby-Q, a multimedia company that includes a robotics specialist, is directed by choreographer Yoko Higashino. The group stages her solo E/G-Ego Geometria. Nibroll’s seven athlete-dancer-comedians are taking on the everyday in their excerpt of Coffee. Sennichimae Blue Sky Dance Club is an all-female ensemble with serious hair. The company describes The End of Water as an exploration of aspects of femininity from a pop butoh perspective.

JAPAN DANCE NOW Thurs/29–Sat/31, 8 p.m., $25–$30 (On Sat/31 audience members receive special entrance to the post-performance "Big Idea" party, 9 p.m.-midnight, in the Grand Lobby and Galleries). Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org