8 Days a Week

June 11-18, 2003

BLIXA BARGELD MAY be gone, but it's safe – or wonderfully unsafe – to say Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds will still be incredible live. Wicked ole Nick always brings something transcendent to the stage, as he did last year at the Warfield, sitting down at the grand for a sardonic and reverent "God Is in the House," crooning both his own and PJ Harvey's parts on "Henry Lee," and grabbing someone's appendage and hanging on longer than anyone was comfortable with during "Red Right Hand." It's enough to make jaded rock snobs (yours truly) whoop and bellow up front. Enough to make bubblegum pop fiends (a friend) admit the error of their ways. Enough to make a pretty girl loose her bowels (and be taken away by an ambulance). Cave does something ugly, beautiful, and even otherworldly live – regardless of how you might feel about his latest, more subdued, strangely suave album, Nocturama (Anti/Mute). The kicker: the opening act is the equally amazing and altogether different, cracked country duo Freakwater, who have been too long from San Francisco. The inimitable Catherine Irwin and Janet Beveridge Bean plan to start working on their seventh studio album, and first since 1999's End Time (Thrill Jockey), with J.D. Foster (Dwight Yoakam) after these few shows with Cave. The final straw: Saints leader Chris Bailey, who will no doubt re-create his duet with Cave on Nocturama's "Bring It On." Mon/16-Tues/17, 8 p.m., Warfield, 982 Market, S.F. $25-$35. (415) 421-TIXS or (415) 775-7722. (Kimberly Chun)

June 11

Wednesday

Pacific prehistory Long before our landscape became cluttered with Jamba Juice outlets, cell phone service kiosks, spray-on tanning salons, elevated freeways, and Gap Kids stores – long before – the West Coast lifestyle revolved more around fishing, acorn gathering, and rock art. Noted archaeological author Brian Fagan (The Little Ice Age) delves into the lives of native Californians in the pre-European-settlers era in his latest book, Before California: An Archaeologist Looks at Our Earliest Inhabitants. And though Fagan's a professor of anthropology at UC Santa Barbara, he writes in an accessible, no-Ph.D.-required style, so anyone with an interest in our state's history can dive right in. 7 p.m., Officers' Club, 50 Moraga, Presidio, S.F. Free. (415) 561-5500. (Cheryl Eddy)

June 12

Thursday

Bright spot Living in San Francisco definitely helps a person appreciate murals: they transform blank walls into works of art, liven up depressed areas, and oftentimes represent a collaborative effort by a committed group of artists. In the case of Break the Silence – a group of Jewish American women who, for the past 14 years, have traveled to the Middle East to make murals with Palestinian youths and artists – this collaborative spirit is especially strong. A recent project in a refugee camp yielded a giant, four-stories-high work detailing Palestine's past, present, and hopes for a peaceful future. Learn more about BTS's mission at Rock for Palestine, a fundraiser to help send artists to the West Bank and Gaza Strip this summer. Local rockers the Quails, Veronica Lipgloss and the Evil Eyes, Children in Heat, and Dear Nora take the stage, plus there will be a mural slide show and speakers from BTS and the International Solidarity Movement. 9 p.m., Eagle Tavern, 398 12th St., S.F. $5-$25 sliding scale. (415) 824-3119, (415) 436-9889. (Eddy)

Picky, picky Five cousins, two pairs of brothers, and not a Smith among them. Springfield, Mo., quintet Big Smith may have picked the wrong moniker, but that doesn't mean they're untutored. Mark and Jody Bilyeu, Jay and Mike Williamson, and Rik Thomas have been known to pass around as many as 20 instruments at their shows, taking turns on slide guitar, dulcimer, tin whistle, accordion, trumpet, sousaphone, mouth bow, spoons and bones, and trombone. The first disc of their two-CD set, Gig (May Apple), backs up the praise the group has received in their native Ozarks, as well as in the South and Midwest, with hillbilly standards like "Old Joe Clark" and "Hot Corn, Cold Corn." And they may be the real thing, but they're not purists; there's Western swing, gospel, and rock alongside the bluegrass. Now they take a real swing out West – this is their first West Coast tour. Red Meat also perform 10 p.m., Thee Parkside, 1600 17th St., S.F. $10. (415) 503-0393. (Also Fri/13, 10 p.m., Ivy Room, 858 San Pablo, Albany. $7. 510-524-9299. Also Big Smith play with Smelley Kelley's Plain High Drifters and Scott Young, Mon/16, 8:30 p.m., Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St., S.F. $6. 415-647-2888.) (Chun)

First look Perhaps more than any other art form, the theater gives you a chance to say, "I knew them before they were famous." You can enjoy this rare pleasure seven times over, at the 'Best of PlayGround: Seventh Annual Emerging Playwrights Festival,' showcasing seven original short plays from this year's bumper crop of dramatists. Plays include I'd Like to Buy a Vowel, Cass Brayton's paean to love, drama, and drag; The Vigil, by Michael Lütz, in which a man in a bar ponders the death of his mother and the life of his fish; and Cold Calls, a look at telemarketing by Martha Soukup, this year's recipient of the June Anne Baker Prize for a female playwright. Short of adopting a writer, attending this fest is the best way to nurture and celebrate new theater. Through June 29. Opens tonight, 8 p.m. Runs Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 and 7 p.m., A Traveling Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida, S.F. $12.50-$35 (Thurs., pay what you can). (415) 987-2787, www.playground-sf.org. (Amir Baghdachi)

Oakland strokes For those of you who, like me, find the electronic dance music scene to be more than a little bit arid, so to speak; who think that some folks wouldn't know funk if it fell on them from a 12-story window; who believe, in fact, that funk is the most misused term in music and that the rigid, unbending, Aryan excuse for grooves is about as funky as your local yacht club – there is Blaktroniks. Think of this duo – Badi and Edd Dee Pee – as the missing link between techno and hip-hop, or better yet, don't even worry about where they fit in, just listen and dance. On this occasion you'll get a chance to listen to the follow-up to Blaktroniks' outstanding full-length Seductions, which is an EP called This Is Your Drug on Brains. DJ Jonah Sharp opens. 10 p.m.-2 a.m., The Top, Haight St., 424 Haight, S.F. $5 (415) 864-7386 (J.H. Tompkins)

June 13

Friday

Well-blended German producers Michael Fakesch and Chris De Luca, better known as Funkstörung, beat their way into town, wielding their razor-sharp blend of Cuisinart-ed hip-hop breaks and glitchy, experimental electronics. With a bevy of releases on boundary-pushing labels like Bunker, Compost, and Chocolate Industries, full-length albums on !K7 Records, and remixes for artists as disparate as Björk and the Wu Tang Clan, Funkstörung have influenced many of the current crop of slice-and-dice beatmakers. The pair promise a 90-minute live laptop duel sure to test bass bins and b-boys alike. 9 p.m., Club Galia, 2565 Mission, S.F. $10. (415) 970-9777. (Peter Nicholson)

And justice for all So what if it's Friday the 13th? Get your ass out of the house and head to Get Punk'd in la Mission, which is sure to provide you with your daily dose of vitamin rawk while at the same time raising funds for the deserving folks at People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Justice. The bill includes Charmin, who bang out melodic punk tunes in both English and Tagalog; Vallejo-based Pinay punkers Eskapo; and local Chicano ska band La Plebe, plus DJ La Viuda Negra spinning rock-en-español. PODER, a multicultural Mission youth organization, focuses on local issues of environmental and economic justice. 8:30 p.m., Balazo/Mission Badlands Gallery, 2811 Mission, S.F. $6-$10 sliding scale. (415) 550-1108. (Eddy)

June 14

Saturday

Blond ambition There is a single, dominating force in the lives of many young girls (and boys) that shapes their ideas about beauty, romance, and style: she is Barbie. And she is back. But this time, something's just not the same. Experience Barbie anew at 'Altered Barbi' (the spelling is altered in order to minimize the risk of litigation by Mattel), a show at Chatter Box Gallery, with renderings ranging from the politically informed Burka Barbie to the skewered Bar-Be-Q. Using materials such as paint, clay, wood, photographs, fabric, toilet paper, and pearls, more than 45 artists have created more than 60 dolls decked out in ways you'd never have imagined when you were five. Through June 30. Reception today, 3-7 p.m.; gallery open Tues.-Fri., 11:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m.; Sat., noon-6 p.m.; Sun., noon-5 p.m., Chatter Box Gallery, 1185 Church, S.F. Free. (415) 647-0900, www.chatterboxsf.com. (Kerry Rodgers)

To remember The official start of summer is but a week away, which means street fairs are nearly thicker than the fog in these parts. The San Francisco Juneteenth Festival busts out the usual suspects – food and informational booths, live music, arts and crafts, etc. – but the holiday it honors is quite singular: though the Emancipation Proclamation officially ended slavery January 1, 1863, news did not reach Texas until June 19, 1865. Drawing on the social and emotional impact of that fateful day, contemporary Juneteenth events celebrate African American freedom as well as tolerance and acceptance of all cultures. The weekend-long party kicks off with a parade featuring the Northern California Black Cowboys Association; the fest's impressive musical lineup includes Goapele, Ledisi, Emmit Powell and the Gospel Elites, and Ricardo Scales. Through Sun/15. 11 a.m.-7 p.m., Fillmore between Geary and Turk, S.F. Free. (415) 931-2729. (Eddy)

June 15

Sunday

Well-versed The artists of San Francisco's poetry slam scene, fabled for their verve, attack, and brilliance, bow to the poets of no city, except maybe Berkeley. The artists of Berkeley's poetry slam scene, feared for their ingenuity and their fulminating presence, recognize equals in no city, except maybe San Francisco. Now these partners in verse are burying their ancient enmities and forming the San Francisco-Berkeley Unified Slam Team for a single purpose: to go to the National Poetry Slam in Chicago and seize the number-one title. But first, they've got to find the perfect team. Tonight, eight semifinalists take the mic in furious, sweaty battle for the four spots on the national team, and the chance to go to the Windy City and show the hog butchers of the world what the salad spinners of the world can do. 8 p.m., StudioZ, 314 11th St., S.F. $12. (415) 252-7666. (Baghdachi)

June 16

Monday

Auteur, auteur Performance and visual artist Michael Sakamoto lives and works in Los Angeles. So it's not surprising that he stepped into the world of film to find inspiration for his Glorious Day for an Unknown Woman, presented this week as part of Theatre of Yugen's monthly Butoh Dance Theater series. The work's hero is a benshi, an artist who in Japanese cinema acted out and narrated silent films. And much like Sakamoto's movie idols Charlie Chaplin, Abel Gance, and Eric von Stroheim, his character (an idealist, a searcher, a dreamer) is engaged in the eternal pursuit of the ideal (woman, beauty, love). Glorious Day is the third part of Sakamoto's "Cinema Trilogy," in which he examines the societal effects of film in Japan, France, and the United States. Through Tues/17. 8 p.m., Noh Space, 2840 Mariposa, S.F. $10-$15. (415) 621-7978. (Rita Felciano)

June 17

Tuesday

What's the score? So Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie brought us bebop, Miles Davis brought us cool jazz, and John Coltrane and Sun Ra brought free jazz. In the tradition of these genre starters, though with less of a chance of being featured on a Columbia box set (at least any time soon), comes the Cinematic Orchestra with, um, "soundtrack jazz?" The U.K.-based electro-jazz group take the stage at Bimbo's with their new project, Man with a Movie Camera, originally commissioned for the Porto Film Festival. The group has written and arranged a soundtrack to Dziga Vertov's 1929 silent film of the same name. An LP, CD, and DVD – which includes the scored movie – are available on Ninjatune records. If cool, modern sounding grooves are your thing, along with obscure Soviet cinema, make sure you get to the show. 9 p.m., Bimbo's 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, S.F. $15. (415) 474-0365. (Adam Martin)

June 18

Wednesday

Diamond dog Thanks to the Internet, the furry, freakish canine/space alien/clotheshorse known as Mr. Winkle rose to unprecedented heights of international adoration. Several calendars, photo books, plush likenesses, mouse pads, mugs, and cries of "Ain't no way that thing is real!" later, the tenacious pup continues his quest for world domination with A Winkle in Time, created with his human companion (noted documentary photographer Lara Jo Regan, who rescued the future Sex and the City guest star after finding him sick and homeless) to honor "the underdogs of history." Anyone who's seen the work of Anne Geddes or William Wegman will recognize the theme here – cute, easily manipulated creature posed in unlikely environments – but even the hardest of hearts will have trouble resisting Mr. Winkle in his various incarnations: clad in shirt and tie, hunched over a tape recorder, channeling Alan Lomax; manning the factory line in red head-scarf as Rosie the Riveter. We may never know the true nature of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, but the reality of Winkle – who does look exactly like a stuffed toy in 2-D – will presumably be ascertainable at tonight's "pawtograph" session. 7 p.m., Borders Books, 400 Post, S.F. Free. (415) 399-1633, www.mrwinkle.com. (Eddy)