8 Days a Week

March 24-31, 2004

LAST WEEKEND YOU marched for justice and change – maybe you waved a banner or shouted on a bullhorn. But that's not the only way to get your voice heard. Alli Starr of Cultural Links and Rebel Girl Productions has been putting art into action since 1989. Together with Darryl Smith of the Luggage Store Gallery, she produces the Radical Performance Fest, two days of spoken word, dance, theater, circus acts, and music. The event, now in its 10th year, promotes social justice while it raises funds for the Art in Action camp, a 10-day program for low-income, urban youth held in the arts- and activism-conducive environs of Santa Cruz and Albuquerque, N.M. Among the socially conscious performers Starr recruited for this year's festival (who are donating 100 percent of their time, mind you) are San Francisco poet laureate devorah major, spoken word artist Uchechi Kalu, Krissy Keefer and Nina Ficheter's all-female Dance Brigade, the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company, Brava's hip-hop theater group, Colored Ink, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, multidisciplinary performance group DREAM (Destiny Re-defining Education through Art and Movement), guerrilla theater group headRush, all-female a cappella group Samsara, Youth Speaks, and many more. Fri/26-Sat/27, 8 p.m., SomArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan, S.F. $10-$20 sliding scale. (415) 285-9734. (Deborah Giattina)

March 24

Wednesday

Keys to your heart Never mind p:ano's suspiciously high school, e.e. cummings-style lowercase tendencies and their creative use of innocent colons. Their second album, The Den (Zum), is meant for dreaming; the four-year-old Vancouver foursome designed the release for maximum beauty and slow-fi languor. The vocals by longtime musical collaborators Nick Krgovich and Larissa Loyva are almost unnervingly intimate: their creamy tones resemble Belle and Sebastian's, their tempos are as sweet and lowdown as Low's, and their sometimes easygoing, sometimes outright celestial harmonies belie song titles such as "Fucking Ugly Bouffant." Australia's Architecture in Helsinki and the Bay Area's very own Casiotone for the Painfully Alone also play. 8:30 p.m., Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St., S.F. $6. (415) 647-2888. (Kimberly Chun)

Dutch treat Among the most prominent of the European companies, Nederlands Dans Theater I is making up for lost time stateside. When the company performed here in 2001, it was at first greeted by empty chairs. Toward the end of its run, the buzz finally picked up – and fortunately it didn't wait long to return, with plenty of new work in tow. With the exception of the masterful Symphony of Psalms, set to Stravinsky, company founder Jirí Kylián (along with Johan Inger, whose Walking Mad is the only non-Kylián piece) choreographed everything appearing in the current pair of programs within the last three years. Always conscious of the blurred border between dance and theater, Kylián moves toward the latter in these latest pieces. Claude Pascal and 27'52 use text; Last Touch is set in a Victorian living room. Program A (Claude Pascal, Last Touch, 27'52): tonight and Thurs/25, 8 p.m.; Program B (Symphony of Psalms, Click-Pause-Silence, Walking Mad): Sat/27, 8 p.m.; Sun/28, 3 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph, Berk. $38-$64. (510) 642-9988, www.calperfs.berkeley.edu. (Rita Felciano)

March 25

Thursday

Good timing Prewar San Francisco comes to life onstage when American Conservatory Theater presents the Steppenwolf Theatre Company production of The Time of Your Life. Set on a single October day in 1939, William Saroyan's atmospheric drama immerses itself in an Embarcadero saloon, following the lives of those who pass through, including a young couple helped along to happiness by a mysterious, champagne-swilling bar patron (played by James Cagney in the 1948 film version). This production, first launched in 2002 by Chicago-based Steppenwolf, retains acclaimed director Tina Landau; the cast includes original ensemble members as well as local actors. Don't miss the chance to see what's sure to be an exceptional theater event. Random added bonus: keep an eye on the work-in-progress mural in the set's background – over the course of the play's run, the canvas will be added to until the painting is completed by final curtain. Through April 25. Previews tonight-Sat/27, 8 p.m. (also Sat/27, 2 p.m.). Opens Sun/28, 7 p.m. Runs March 30-April 3, April 7-10, 13-17, and 20-24, 8 p.m. (also April 3, 7, 10, 17, 21, and 24, 2 p.m.); April 4, 11, 18, and 25, 2 p.m.; April 4 and 6, 7 p.m., Geary Theater, 415 Geary, S.F. $16-$73. (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. (Cheryl Eddy)

March 26

Friday

Zen bud-ism Ninja Tune was one of the labels that got tarred with the trip-hop tag, but unlike others such as the erstwhile esteemed Mo' Wax, Ninja is still alive and kicking out the jams. With the recent release of an almost ridiculously massive pair of retrospective compilations, Zen RMX and Zen CD, plus a DVD of two hours of its videos, this close-knit U.K. label puts the icing on its own cake with a super-show, ZENtertainment Tour USA, featuring Amon Tobin, Bonobo, and Kid Koala, plus newer signees Blockhead and Diplo. There's gotta be something at this show you can get down to. 10 p.m.-4 a.m., Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, S.F. (415) 820-9669. $20. (Peter Nicholson)

Fight to the finish Dismiss the gossip and scandal you've heard about the Von Bondies. Yeah, Jack White did kick Von Bondies singer-guitarist Jason Stollsteimer's ass in a lame bar fight in December, but guess what: the Von Bondies demolish the White Stripes musically, and that's where it really counts. The band recently released their major-label debut, Pawn Shoppe Heart (Sire/Warner Bros.), an album full of fuzzy, crunchy guitars, catchy hooks, and a raw garage rock- and blues-inspired sound. Sing-along choruses with male-female vocal interchanges, soulful playing, and an overall feeling of honest intensity give the music an undeniable edge – which beats anything that guy in red and white and his catatonic-looking ex-wife drummer have ever put to acetate. Vue and the Cuts open. 9 p.m., Great American Music Hall, 859 O'Farrell, S.F. $13. (415) 885-0750. (Sean McCourt)

March 27

Saturday

Way of the warrior Rain, coffee, and ... broken beats? Eclectic styles of nu-jazz may not be the first thing that springs to mind when contemplating Seattle, the damp city formerly home to flannel and a certain whiny junkie, but the Sun-Tzu Soundsystem are on a mission to change all that. Bouncing up and down the West Coast playing guest spots or at home hosting their weekly Future Soul parties, AC Lewis and J-Justice strike a cool balance between out-there joints sure to wreck your head and party-rockin' crowd pleasers. Mikebee and the Safe residents also perform. 10 p.m.-2 a.m., Top, 424 Haight, S.F. $5. (415) 864-7386. (Nicholson)

It's about time The August Engine, the long-awaited second album by local metal maestros Hammers of Misfortune, is finally out after a two-year wait. It seems the big underground metal labels are more concerned with churning out new releases by generic death metal clones or lame fantasy-metal bands with names like Wolfcry than they are with actual good music. So after a frustrating search, the Hammers are back with tiny local label tUMULt, which also released their debut album, The Bastard. Unlike the latter, the new record is not a concept album and doesn't contain lyrics about tree spirits or blood axes. Musically, though, it picks up where The Bastard left off, combining the heaviest aspects of Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy, and Queen with a punk-bred attitude and the unusual co-lead vocals of baritone crooner Mike Scalzi and Janis Tanaka (who has since left the band to play with Pink). Hammers leader John Cobbett has since replaced the multitalented Tanaka with two new members, so come check out the lineup and help them celebrate their not-so-new album. I Am Spoonbender headline, and the Phantom Limbs open. 9 p.m., Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, S.F. $10. (415) 552-7788. (Will York)

Innovation in action Presented by Kularts, the sixth annual Post Modern American Pilipino Performance Project, or POMO, aims to bring forth cutting-edge dance, music, theater, and spoken word by leading Pilipino American artists. No ho-hum cultural demonstration this: the lineup includes such diverse performers as dancer-choreographer-tae kwon do black belt Michelle Bolong, who premieres her latest piece, Awakening the Womb; San Francisco State University's inventive Ating Tao Drum Circle, which melds indigenous, traditional music from the Phillipines with contemporary rhythms; spoken word artists Jeremiah Tait Carreon, Malaya Timawa Dimaapi, and others; and Los Angeles-based improv troupe Room to Improv. Tonight, 8 p.m.; Sun/28, 3 p.m., Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, S.F. $13-$15. (415) 239-0249, www.kularts.org. (Eddy)

March 28

Sunday

Short-attention-span theater Amped on free ice cream, the rowdy crowd at Kid's Classic Cinema Sunday Matinee may not even remember to turn their toy cell phones off, but no one much cares at the Hyena Theater, where they're reinventing the notion of "family movies." In this episode underground filmmaker Danny Plotnick digs through his basement collection for rare G finds you won't be seeing at the multiplex anytime soon: 1950s music shorts by Burl Ives, Les Paul and Mary Ford, and the Allen Sisters; the film "Monkey-Go-Round," in which primates drive around in cars (we're glad they don't make 'em like that anymore); 1930s TerryToon cartoon "Holland Days"; plus the pièce de résistance, clips from 1974's Free to Be ... You and Me, including an amazing duet, Plotnick says, between Michael Jackson and Roberta Flack. 4 p.m., Hyena Theater, 2390 Mission, Ste. 304, S.F. $3-$5. (415) 821-3444, kids@hyenacomedy.org. (Susan Gerhard)

March 29

Monday

Curtain up Two big reasons to support the Exit Theatre by attending its "Night among the Stars" benefit: the San Francisco Fringe Festival and DIVAfest, a pair of Exit-produced events beloved far and wide by open-minded audiences. The four-stage "theaterplex" is also an active volcano for San Francisco's alternative performance scene, hosting performances by smaller companies like Cutting Ball Theater, Kaliyuga Arts, Teatro Shalom, Crowded Fire, UnScripted Theatre Co., and a wide array of others. Thank gawd this is one venue in San Francisco's ever changing landscape that's on firm, firm footing. Turn out tonight to make sure it stays that way! MC Sean Owens tour-guides through festivities such as an auction (prizes include "dream dates with the future stars of independent theater," restaurant meals, and theater tickets), entertainment (a performance by Beth Wilmurt of Cabaret Rebel fame, Prince covers and other tunes by the Dave Malloy Orchestra, and sneak previews of upcoming Exit shows), and more. 7 p.m., Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, S.F. $20. (415) 673-3487, www.sffringe.org. (Eddy)

March 30

Tuesday

Revisited roads The eclectic, off-kilter sound of the Red House Painters in the early '90s foreshadowed the recent fringe-folk onset in San Francisco; even today, singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek's blend of pensive, haunting effects and pretty tones and layers feels mistakenly familiar. Kozelek's latest project, Sun Kil Moon, sets in just the same way. Not straying far from his past efforts, 2003's Ghosts of the Great Highway (Jetset) is similarly nostalgic and beautiful, with poignant lyrics and more focused, intricate arrangements. Kozelek is joined by a full backing band on this tour. Rosie Thomas opens tonight; Damien Jurado opens March 31. Tonight and March 31, 8 p.m., Great American Music Hall, 859 O'Farrell, S.F. $18. (Ethan Goldwater)

Scatter-Schott What I love about Berkeley-based composer-guitarist John Schott is that he not only lists disparate recordings by Bukka White, Pierre Boulez, Derek Bailey, and Clarence Carter on his roster of desert-island discs, but also that he actually means it. An educated eclecticism has driven his musical output – from the critically acclaimed T.J. Kirk project (which reinterpreted the music of Thelonious Monk, James Brown, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk) and his recordings for the Radical Jewish Music series on John Zorn's label, Tzadik, to experiments in electronic music at the Center for New Music and Audio Technology in Berkeley. His current project, the Typical Orchestra, is no exception. The ensemble gathers some of the area's leading musicians – bassist Devin Hoff, drummer Ches Smith, vocalist Loren Benedict, and percussionist Scott Amendola – for a full-throttle romp through the Mississippi Delta, Tin Pan Alley, and, um, Bulgaria, all served up on a bed of Bay Area avant-jazz. 10 p.m., Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, S.F. $6. (415) 923-0923. (Bruce Wallace)

Not forgotten The irreplaceable Sarah Jacobson, one-woman punk-rock-and-beyond-movie-making movement, passed away in February, but she left behind a body of work so full of moxie and charm it's hard not to believe she's not still walking among us, flyers in hand. As a last testament to her unstoppable energy and perseverance, she helped curate a program for a New York City show before she died, and her friends Craig Baldwin, Sam Green, Danny Plotnick, and Molli Simon have brought the collection to San Francisco. It includes her feature, Mary Jane's Not a Virgin Anymore, as well as her shorts, starting with the precocious "I Was a Teenage Serial Killer" and including a revisit of secondary-school horrors ("High School Reunion") as well as a day spent shopping for intimate apparel with Mom ("Bra Shopping") and the doc "The Fabulous Stains: Behind the Movie." Between the 7 p.m. shorts show and the 9 p.m. showing of Mary Jane, friends will get a chance to talk to the audience about Sarah; Sarah's sister, Lee, her boyfriend, Aaron, and her former San Francisco Art Institute professor George Kuchar are all expected to attend. 7 p.m., Artists' Television Access, 992 Valencia, S.F. $5. (415) 824-3890. (Gerhard)

March 31

Wednesday

Right-hand man Acoustic guitarist Willy Porter is known for having one of the fiercest right hands in the business – his virtuosity borders on the sublime. Fortunately for audiences, the seasoned singer-songwriter realized early in his career that he preferred the path of honing his craft over rock-star posturing. High Wire Live, Porter's most recent release on Six Degrees Records, showcases him in his prime, captivating listeners with a deceptively simple mix of fiery dexterity and modest lyrics steeped in life experience. Despite a rigorous gig schedule, Porter doesn't often make tour stops in San Francisco – so tonight's show is not to be missed. 9 p.m., 12 Galaxies, 2565 Mission, S.F. $12. (415) 309-9240. (Mirissa Neff)