COULD IT BE time to finally kick back and relax? Three years after the 9/11 attacks, pecking away at my keyboard, I wonder – all due respect to 75 Degrees and J Boogie's Dubtronic Science – is Sept. 11 now safe, or at least fair game, for the "Biggest Hot Tub Party Ever"? Sounds decadent, though common sense has it that even a child's wading pool upstairs at the Elbo Room is probably a no-go. It's been so freaking hot that a cool tub sounds like a better idea.

But though these lazy San Francisco Indian summer days tend to inspire lethargy – and runs to the Santa Cruz boardwalk for deep-fried Twinkies – folks are still fired up about the presidential election. Thank Allah, because according to two polls conducted by Time and Newsweek last week, Duh-bya holds a solid lead over Kerry.

Can we all make the universal sign of "gag me with a spoon" now and then move on to more important business: proving those numbers wrong.

Anti-Flag drummer Pat Thetic, whose band joins the Rock Against Bush swing-states tour (with a stop in S.F. Sept. 21), believes the polls are skewed. "We're going to bring out – specifically Punk Voter, but other youth voter organizations as well – a lot of people who have never voted before. Those people aren't being counted at this point," he says on the phone from the East Coast. Still, he adds, it's "scary as shit! It just makes us realize that our job is that much more important and we need to make sure that we do everything in our power." That means encouraging registered voters to actually get to the polls Nov. 2. "Even if we're preaching to the converted, we have to inspire them to get off their butt on that day," he adds.

My own informal polling, which undoubtedly has a much greater margin of error, seems to indicate that folks are still stinking mad about the current regime in D.C. Chatting with self-described blues "guitar player with a big mouth" Popa Chubby, who performs at Biscuits and Blues Oct. 1, I got a little taste of the reason some call him the Michael Moore of modern electric blues.

"If you're an American citizen and you grow up poor, you have bad experiences at the hands of the administration, because the system isn't geared for us," he gripes on the phone from New York City. "I grew up working poor. I grew up in an extended household where everybody worked because that was the only way the household could survive. My grandfather worked two jobs, my grandmother worked two jobs, and they didn't work two jobs because they liked to work – they had to work 60 hours a week to make ends meet. There's no thought for the quality of life for the common man in America, basic human rights."

This spring's Peace, Love, and Respect (Blind Pig), which includes the 9/11-inspired "Somebody Let the Devil Out," is his most politicized volley into the cultural arena yet. But 44-year-old Ted Horowitz still feels a bit ignored, though he's a star in Europe, where he's jetting off to the day we talk. "Here, even when people have a political view, it's second to, like, American Idol and Iron Chef," he says.

But how to explain the fact that orgs like Rock the Vote are making forays into, for instance, Sephora, which will blend Stila makeovers with voter registration Sept. 18? Music somehow always seems like the conduit of choice when it comes to reaching young voters. That same day, jam band-backed voter-reg nonprofit HeadCount will make a stand in Oakland, as part of a national registration effort based in 24 inner-city neighborhoods.

In the past, says cofounder and Disco Biscuits bassist Marc Brownstein, the purely volunteer-operated group (whose board of directors includes the Dead's Bob Weir, moe.'s Al Schnier, Jambase's Andy Gadiel, High Sierra Music Festival's Dave Margulies, and other jam heavyweights) has focused on registering more than 35,000 jam band fans at concerts – and producing get-out-the-vote TV spots, thanks to 1,800 volunteers and about $130,000 in donations from the Dead, the Dave Matthews Band, and several monied "gentlemen." Even so, Brownstein, 31, says, "The idea was this shouldn't cost a lot of money. We can do this the way things get done in the jam band world, which is basically grassroots."

"I think there'll be a large turnout this year," he guesstimates. "I've had a lot of kids come up to me and say, 'Thank you so much for doing this. I wouldn't have thought to vote or wouldn't have thought it was as important as I do now.' It's hard to ignore the Dead, Phish, the Dave Matthews Band, and Santana when they're all telling you the same thing."

Popa Chubby plays Oct. 1, 8:30 and 10:30 p.m., Biscuits and Blues, 401 Mason, S.F. $15. (415) 292-2583. 'Rock Against Bush,' with Anti-Flag, Midtown, the Nightwatchman, Strike Anywhere, the Epoxies, and Mike Park, takes place Tues/21, 6 p.m., Fillmore, 1805 Geary, S.F. $15. (415) 346-6000.

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Contact Kimberly Chun at kimberly@sfbg.com.