Music Blogger

Between Oakland soul and the ‘Black Sea’: A top 10 from Jeff Ray of Mission Creek Music Festival

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Itchy and scratchy: Tomutonttu’s Ultra Eczema art.

‘Tis the season – here’s another in a series of top 10s from Bay Area musicians, writers, and scenesters.

JEFF RAY’S TOP 10

– Favorite album: Fennesz, Black Sea (Touch)
Should be renamed Endless Winter. So incredibly lush and can warm up any long Ukrainian winter night.
– Favorite band: MGMT
Fun, danceable, catchy but not stupid.
– Favorite music series, “Relay” at the Lab, Oct. 22–Nov. 15
Great experimental music series hosted by the Lab. Folks from Finland and Fonal Records, Tomutonttu, Thuja, and Loren Chasse all performed, along with others. The sonic works were inspiring to listen to and watch. The Lab is awesome: www.thelab.org.

Jews rock out for Hanukkah as if the Spanish Inquisition never happened

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Old-school musical mash-ups – hold the torture: DeLeon.

By Michelle Broder Van Dyke

Eight days of fun packed into one night: two bands, DJs, latkes, He’Brew beer tastings, halvah, Hanukkah survival kits, and a menorah-lighting ceremony – this surely surpasses any party Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder, and Blitzen are planning to throw this holiday season.

New York band DeLeon reinterprets pre-Spanish Inquisition Sephardic folk melodies sung in Ladino (a Judeo-Spanish language), Hebrew, and English into postmodern rock compositions. Fusing Spanish and Middle Eastern percussion and electronic rhythms along with a mixture of each aforementioned language, DeLeon’s songs commandeer an array of emotions, ranging from lovelorn and woeful to lighthearted and gleeful, while reclaiming an ancient folk tradition for a modern audience.

Sonic Reducer Overage: High on Fire, Fall Out Boy, Black Fag, and so much more

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Hang time: High on Fire’s “Hung, Drawn, and Quartered.”

Cool, ain’t it? The fun just keeps coming in chilly-chilly-chill SF. Here are a few more musical note-worthies.



BART DAVENPORT
Soulful and sweet as it comes – thanks to the Oakland singer-songwriter. With Brian Glaze and the Night Shift, the Dry Spells, and DJ Lithuanian Prince. Thurs/18, 9 p.m., $8. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455.


HIGH ON FIRE
Get an earful of this week’s “Year in Music” cover dude Matt Pike and his Bay power trio, High on Fire, a band that has gone far beyond being, as Guardian contributor Mike McGuirk put it, an “outlet for aggression/Yeti poems Pike uses in place of his defunct first band, Sleep, San Jose’s most seminal export.” With Drunk Horse. Thurs/18, 9 p.m., $16. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750.

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HIGHTOWER
The SF thrashers throw a benefit for Bordertown-Oakland Skate Park. With the Ferocious Few. Thurs/18, 9 p.m., $5. Thee Parkside, 1600 17th St., SF. (415) 503-0393.

SFJAZZ announces the lineup of its 10th Anniversary Spring Season

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This in from SFJAZZ’s people (a total aside: I’m looking forward to Brad Mehldau, Jenny Scheinman, pictured below, as well as Seun Kuti, pictured above. And you know Allen Toussaint and Tinariwen are going to be awesome):

“Randall Kline, the Executive Artistic Director of SFJAZZ – the leading non-profit jazz organization on the West Coast and the presenter of the San Francisco Jazz Festival today announced the complete artist lineup for the 10th Anniversary SFJAZZ Spring Season. The unique and spectacular four-month-long concert series begins on March 6 and continues through June 21. The season will present some of the most illustrious names in jazz, world, and related music including McCoy Tyner, Branford Marsalis, Madeleine Peyroux, Bill Frisell’s Disfarmer Project, Ahmad Jamal, Jenny Scheinman, John Scofield and the Piety Street Band, Kayhan Kalhor and Brooklyn Rider, Tinariwen, Chris Potter Underground, Will Bernard, Mariza, CéU, Mingus Dynasty with John Handy, Allen Toussaint, Karrin Allyson, Idan Raichel, Michael Feinstein: the Sinatra Project, Brad Mehldau, Richard Bona and Lionel Loueke, Roy Hargrove, James Carter, Kenny Burrell, Michael Wolff, Hiromi’s Sonicbloom, and many others.

“’For 26 years, SFJAZZ has been guided by a simple principle: we absolutely love music—and we want to present it in the best possible context for all those who share our passion,’ said Kline. ‘In 2000, we took a huge step forward in that mission by launching the SFJAZZ Spring Season, marking our expansion into a year-round concert presenting organization. Over the last 10 years, the Spring Season has grown exponentially. This year we will present nearly 40 concerts over four months, purposefully matching each artist with the ideal venue for a high-quality listening experience. Our aim is to reflect the tighter, more culturally close-knit nature of today’s world, and the positively open-minded, “multi-culti” city that we call home – San Francisco.’

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Wilderness on fire at Bottom of the Hill

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Ponderosa stomp: James Johnson of Wilderness. All photos by Lisa Weiss.

By Michelle Broder Van Dyke

Up above the still of a serene California night, a dry thunderstorm is brewing. Like the tom-heavy drum patterns of Wilderness’ William Goode and the angular guitar lines of Colin McCann, the dry lightning splits from the sky striking down on Earth, igniting wildfires. The blaze destroys in a gradual and shapeless but fierce trail that builds as James Johnson’s howls brew from the bottom of his belly, filling his throat before rising and bursting forth like a clairvoyant issuing forth the voices of the dead, while Brian Gossman sustains the flames with long-held bass notes.

Or at least that’s what I imagined as I watched Wilderness perform at Bottom of the Hill on Thursday, Dec. 11. Their distinct post-punk sound builds on echoes that resound throughout the space, stirring the vibrations until trance-like they seep into your pores and take over, completely hypnotizing you. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the audience began speaking in tongues.

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Lady Sovereign gives up a new song via her MySpace

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News from the Lady Sovereign camp:

“Lady Sovereign is back and got her own label through EMI and has a new record for April. She has just put up a new song on her MySpace for fans to download.

“Midget Records is her label that has a global partnership with EMI. Her upcoming record is called Jigsaw and will be out April 7, 2009.”

The song is “I Got You Dancing” and it’s a free download on the performer’s Web site as well. The lady calls it “an early Christmas gift” and goes on to write: “Hey, hey! Just to let you now I’m alive!… I just finished writing the new album in London… The album is the next chapter. It’s a massive leap forward for mankind!!! Love, Sov.”

Global obscuro-a-go-go: Club Internationale goes off tonight

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This in from Special Lord B – and hurry it’s tonight:

“CLUB INTERNATIONALE!!! Thursday, Dec. 11.

“Hear obscure pop, psych, disco, and funk from Turkey, Italy, Thailand, India, Japan, Germany, France Africa, and more!

“Guest DJ LOACHFILET, aka, Bobby Adams (Mummers, Caroliner, Honeywell)

Pop-up stores: Storeroom and Gimme Shoes/AB Fits

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Temp space, the final frontier: Storeroom.

A brainwave from Shopping Spy, who is still kicking herself for neglecting that Comme des Garcons Guerilla Store in Reykjavik a few years back: temporary storefronts are just the ticket for the new bad economy. A low commitment way to instill a sense of urgency in shoppers. I stumbled across two fly-by-night goodies recently: Storeroom, a “pop-up department store for the holidays” at 2226 Bush, and the Gimme Shoes/AB Fits close-out store in the onetime Stitch Lounge space at 182 Gough.

The latter – a union of the the separately owned, once-neighboring AB Fits and Gimme Shoes – boasts a sign reading “80-90% off.” Deals can definitely be had: last week one could score $10 Edun T’s, lots of men’s jeans and kicks (a pal got two for $30-something), and some adorable women’s shoes by makers like Dries Van Noten, Repetto, and Belle by Sigerson Morrison. But move fast – the shop is only there through Dec. 14.

Sonic Reducer Overage: Mudhoney, Too $hort, Not So Silent Night, the Bug, and more

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Jump in: Too $hort’s “I’m a Player.”

Party-hopping, penny-pinching, craft-making and cookie-baking, and singing for your supper – the holiday activities never let up – and the city responds in kind…with more, more, more shows. Here’s what you might be missing…


All righty: Cold War Kids’ “Something Is Not Right with Me.”

VAMPIRE WEEKEND AND COLD WAR KIDS
“Golden Gate Jumpers” alert. The combos warm up Not So Silent Night with this toasty pre-show. Wed/10, 8 p.m., $25. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 625-8880.

Tartufi signs to Southern, closes out 2008 at the Eagle

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This in from the good folks of Bay Area band Tartufi:

“Tartufi signs to Southern Records!!!!

“After months of searching for just the right home for their new album, Lynne and Brian a saw a light on in the far off cabin at Southern Records. A kind maiden at Southern welcomed them in, sat them beside the hearth, and fed them delicious English soup and beer. Well worn from their travels the two musicians listened intently as the label maiden told them tales of battles fought, won, and lost in the kingdom of Indierocklandia. Her eyes were true and her words sure. Their amulet – the one the wizard of the glenn gave them to reveil trickery – confirmed that she was pure of heart. She invited them to stay. They accepted, and and together Lynne and Brian placed the only copy of Nests of Waves and Wire on the great oak table. This is where our story begins…

Hear ye: Global Headphone Fest happens Saturday

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A very-last-minute dispatch from the deletist, “deleting elitists since 2003”:

San Francisco’s Fourth Annual Global Headphone Festival
Sat/6, 4 p.m.- 4 a.m., free and all ages and BYOH (bring your own headphones) and 1/4-inch headphone adapters will be available for a small returnable deposit
5lowershop
992 Peralta, SF
(415) 762-3616
More info and live stream at www.deletist.info/plug4.html

Performances by
MICHAEL MANTRA [dronecore]
STRANGELET [noise/improv/buffonery]
MOSB [square recovery]
SONDERKOMMANDO [glitchy industrial noise]
ROGER MILLS [trumpet drones : streaming from AUSTRALIA]
FILTHMILK [cavernous electronics]
SABRETEETH [tesla death ray]
CORVETTE SUMMER [antidoom]
MNEMOTH [deconstructivism]
SKULLCASTER [blackened folk]
MR. CLUCK [circuit bent toys]
SHARKIFACE [hex breaker]
CATSYNTH [ambient]
RUIDOBELLO [processed field recordings]
VSLS [antisonique]
CONFIGURATION AND FUNDAMENTAL GROWTH [experimental]
OZMADAWN [noise and drones]
DANCIN BABY [soundtrack from hell]
MIXILE [ambient/field recordings : streaming from IRELAND]
MOISTURE [electronics]
DESPICABLE ALIEN [electroacoustic duo]
DUBTAIL [electronics]
WELTSCHMERZ [cellos of doom]
JOHN M. BENNETT [sound poetry : streaming from FRANCE]
FOREST ZOMBIE [textured computer noise]
PEREID [electro carnage]
NICOLAS CARRAS [sound art/concret music : streaming from FRANCE]
DELETIST [cover songs gone wrong]
CEREBRAL ROIL [industrial grindcore]
DARPH/NADER [villainy]
A FASHIONABLE DISEASE [noise ass jazz glitch fuck metal]
MOISTURE FARMER [sitar fx]
HORAFLORA [psychoacoustics]
DJ CRACKHOUSE [noisehop]
HEARTWORM [mechanically separated]

Oasis in Oakland: “Need a little time to wake up”

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The story: Oasis play “Morning Glory” at Oracle Arena, Oakland.

As I enjoyed the tasteful production design of Oasis’ Dec. 3 show and wondered just how many trucks they had parked in the lot, Prof. Fluffy turned to me and yelled, “I’m scared of the singer. He looks like he wants to jump off the stage and poke someone in the eye.”

Perhaps it was the way the black-shirted Liam Gallagher was holding his tambourine at the opening of their not-quite-sold-out Oracle Arena show – posing like a statue at the front of the stage with the offending instrument between his teeth. He resembled a skinhead terrier.

He had a right to be proud: solid playing from the band – though they seemed a mite disengaged, likely, due to the audience, who were subdued next to their European fans. The majority of the football-like chanting came from the English- and Irish-accented crew behind me. They marveled that they were able to get such good seats so close to the date of the show.

Odetta, RIP

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So sad – and the folksinger legend was just in SF for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass! Here’s a link to the Associated Press announcement.

Double take: Raconteurs, Ricky Skaggs, and Ashley Monroe collabo on video

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By Kimberly Chun

Jack White and company push forward with their passion for American roots music with this video collaboration – a rework of the Raconteurs’ single, “Old Enough,” shot by rock photographer Autumn de Wilde – alongside longtime bluegrass revivalist Ricky Skaggs and country vocalist Ashley Monroe.

Britpop Faves: Pulp pulverized

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By Daniel N. Alvarez

Part of a continuing series: Britpop Faves.

When Pulp, the perpetual Britpop outsiders, went into the studio to follow up their first taste of commercial success, the Gold-certified His ‘n’ Hers (Island, 1994), few would have guessed the unassuming quintet would craft a groundbreaking album that would transcend the Britpop scene, while also creating a recording that was quintessentially British.



While Different Class (PolyGram/Island, 1995) contains the same new wave/glam hybrid of His ‘n’ Hers, it surpasses their previous effort due to frontperson Jarvis Cocker’s development into the most compelling, perceptive figure in rock music at the time. The full-length sees Cocker, a cross between Robert Smith and Morrissey with a keen understanding of sociology, come into his own as a songwriter, weaving tales of sex, drugs, and the rigid, enduring class system that has afflicted England for centuries. Though many UK bands played with the class system (the Verve, the Happy Mondays), none of them investigated it – and rallied against it – like Cocker.



For the love of…: Pulp’s “Common People.”

Sonic Reducer Overage: Mixmaster Mike, Los Amigos Invisibles, Wu-Tang Clan, Morning Benders, and more

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Say hello to my little invisible friend: Los Amigos Invisibles’ “Cuchi Cuchi.”

Ask and the city provides – good times and solid sounds for all. Here’s the good schtuff that didn’t make it to print.

WU-TANG CLAN
The Wu is with you – though RZA and Ghostface Killah were MIA when the group last played Ess Ef. Wed/3, 8 p.m., $45. Grand Ballroom at Regency Center, Van Ness and Sutter, SF. (415) 421-8497.

LOS AMIGOS INVISIBLES
This year the Venezuela group impressed at Outside Lands and threw out its first live DVD – and a new studio album is said to be in post-production. With Funky-C and DJ Felina. Thurs/4, 9 p.m., $22. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. (415) 771-1421.

Wild Beasts roar amid a tempestuous rush of ideas

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WILD BEASTS
Limbo, Panto
(Domino)

By Todd Lavoie

I find myself flirting with hyperbole when I ponder the preening, careening chaos that is Limbo, Panto, the debut from Leeds, England’s elegantly lurid Wild Beasts – and I fear I may give in.

Hearing the disc for the first time was a bit of a blindsiding experience, and successive listens have confirmed for me what I’d felt on that initial spin: these guys are clearly out on their own, hurling every idea in their lusty little hearts up against the wall, eager to see which ones stick. Mercifully, nearly every one of the quartet’s fits of whimsy does stick – many of them, in fact, do so with spectacular results.

Kosher salami: Mickey Avalon at Slim’s

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By Chloe Schildhause

So many things in this world are disgusting yet delightful at the same time. For some that may be sniffing the smell of gasoline, hearing the sound of a squeaky chair, or watching someone undergo intensive surgery. Such is the case with rap artist Mickey Avalon, whose creepy look – which combines Marilyn Manson, Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, and a character from a John Waters film – is simultaneously repellent and adorable.

I caught Avalon’s Nov. 20 show at Slim’s, the second show of a two-night stand, and got a taste of his lyrical genius as well as his performance style. The stage was set up to look like a sketchy dark alley with a wire fence, parking meters, a trash receptacle, and a bench tagged with the words “Mickey Avalon” and fit well with Avalon’s rhymes about friends who’ve died from lead poisoning and how the performer himself must “spend another day waiting to die.”

Matt Pond PA unleashes ‘The Freeep” – and plenty of thoughts to boot

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Matt Pond PA has a new free EP available for download. From the band’s peeps and site:

“We took ourselves captive, and became our own producers, manufacturers, and distributors. It was a deferential revolt against inertia, a clearing of the throat to answer the quiet. Or maybe it was an inevitable reaction to seeing Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

Sonic Reducer Overage: Lyrics Born, M83, Herbaliser, and more

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Change Nation: Lyrics Born’s “I Changed My Mind.”

You’re gonna be stuffed, you’re going to be stressed, you’re going to be tired of watching football… Then, you’ll want to go out – and be among kindred spirits fleeing family and taking refuge in solid sounds.

LYRICS BORN
You like him, you love him. The Bay MC ushers in the holidaze. With Raashan Ahmad and Mavrik. Wed/26, 9 p.m., $25. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. (415) 771-1422.

SISTERS OF MERCY
The band that launched a jillion black dye jobs hasn’t released new material since 1993. Wed/26, 8 p.m., $35. Warfield, 982 Market, SF. (415) 421-8497.

Minus the Bear’s masterful musicianship, angular riffs impress

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By Daniel N. Alvarez

It’s ironic that an old jazz club is one of the best places to hear rock in San Francisco. The first time that I saw a show at Bimbo’s 365 Club, I wasn’t sure I was in the right place. The venue’s plush furnishings, swanky tables, and clean, classy vibe didn’t seem to mesh well with the youngish, generally scruffy jackanapes who seemed belong at the slightly dingier confines of Thee Parkside or Annie’s Social Club.

Then Jens Lekman took the stage, and it all made sense. Bimbo’s is a great rock club, because the sound is absolutely excellent. For that reason, I was over the moon to learn that indie rock’s most fun, musically progressive band, Minus the Bear, would be gracing the stage. When a band has as many intersecting, versatile melodies as they do, sound quality is paramount.

Getting into Tune-yards at Amnesia

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Put up your ukes: Tune-yards. All photos by Jen Snyder.

By Jen Snyder

The only thing I really knew about music from Vermont before Saturday was Phish, which naturally threw a big, damp drug rug over my entire interest in seeking out and discovering new jams from the state. But about a month ago, I found out that Citay (the Guardian’s triumphant Goldie winner) was going to be playing at Amnesia with a band called Tune-yards, hailing from Vermont. A Citay band member promised, “No joke at all – this is the best music I’ve heard and seen in years and years. I shit you not.”

I was somewhat conflicted at first, but a post-election, Obama-esque change-is–possible wave swept over me and I decided to not judge a state I had never been to, and to check it out.

Tune-yards, which had never previously played in San Francisco, did not disappoint. The project, which consists solely of Merril Garbus and her excellent digital voice recorder, was consistently intriguing. Garbus is very self-sufficient: she loops her own vocals, drums, and chanting over what looked like a cross between a children’s fake guitar and a ukulele.

Sounding out on the Silent Comedy’s backwoods indie rock

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By Todd Lavoie

Bowler hats, banjos, backwoods hollers, and burlesque hawkers – sounds like old-timey goodness to me. San Diego’s mountain music-loving vaudeville-revivalists the Silent Comedy will be dishing out sepia-toned balladry and carny-shouted hootenannies to the Café du Nord crowd Friday, Nov. 21.

It should be one hell of a rompin’-stompin’, suspender-slappin’ shindig. Whether or not the band will share their homebrewed bathtub-gin onstage remains to be seen, but they’re certain to be generous with everything else you might need for a round or two of Prohibition-era revelry. OK, the bathtub-gin thing is pure speculation on my part; what else could possibly be fueling their deliciously unbridled rip-ups?

The quintet, formed in 2005 by brothers J. John and J. Benjamin from the remnants of their San Diego post-punk band Dehra Dun, is rooted in acoustic-based roots music – banjo, mandolin, and violin figure prominently – but indie rock has clearly played a significant role in shaping how they approach country and folk idioms.

Neon circus: Randy Colosky’s day-glo animal kingdom

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By Brandon Bussolini

Neon colors and animal themes are on a short list of art/design memes just past their prime, waiting for eager replacements. Randy Colosky’s new show at Adobe Books, “The Circus (in My Mind) Is in Town,” trades heavily on both of these tropes: lean rectangles of dayglo construction paper form the backdrop, and occasionally weave in and out of collaged Hubble telescope photos, a smudged stampede of grizzlies, and an artfully draped, scratchily rendered snake.

In other pieces, pagodas poke out of tiny, puffy clouds like soft teeth, or those same clouds drop down golden entrails like a skyborne Portuguese Man o’ War. There’s a seriality at work across these images that doesn’t attempt to amount to a narrative, however elliptical. Instead, there’s a building up and stripping down of materials – the busiest pieces and the most spare, such as Post Tool Similization 2, meet up in a kind of post-human serenity.

Although sublimated, Fort Thunder – the Providence, RI, warehouse space that gave birth to Lightning Bolt, Mindflayer, Forcefield, and their eye-poppingly busy, extensively neon brand of art – is one of Colosky’s inspirations here, along with Chinese scroll painting. (Colosky maintained scene continuity by inviting former Providence resident and current SF dweller John Dwyer’s Oh Sees to play the opening tonight, Wed/19.)

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