A plunderful world

LAST WEEK AT press time, it was clear that the Big Easy had it hard. The National Guard had moved in to stop looters in the city where jazz began, while troopers were simply tossing rations to survivors and flying off – all while corpses lay abandoned and assaults and rapes allegedly continued.

Yet as always in his strange, charmed life, onetime SF-based, now New Orleans-quartered singer-songwriter Biff Rose turned out to be one of the lucky ones. The certified songmaking genius – who's still fielding royalty checks for his "Fill Your Heart," which David Bowie covered on Hunky Dory – embarked on tour a week before Katrina stormed through his town.

Still, luck – and the truth – can smart, even as it's taking you out of harm's way. "Oh, you're hurting me. I'm watching it die, I'm watching it die," Rose wailed last week, on the phone from Kansas City, at the mention of New Orleans's disaster. "I can make jokes about it. I pretty much have to. I don't know what to do. I feel like a butterfly and I've emerged from a cocoon, and I make jokes like, 'I got a helicopter to fly me in and lower me onto my roof.' "

Alas, Rose lives a thousand yards from a levee, and he hasn't been able to get through to anyone, though he took comfort in a Kansas City friend's assurance that his pals were resourceful. "All I have are scumbag friends, hookers and dope heads," the nonstop entertainer declared. "San Francisco and New Orleans – it's the Sale of Two Titties, I say, because they're both feminine cities. San Francisco is the boomtown princess – everyone's rich. New Orleans is the old dowager queen. No matter her poverty, she still wants her daughter to be the queen of Mardi Gras."

I first heard of the long-lost obscuratron Rose around this time last year from Thom Moore of the Moore Brothers and singer-songwriter Nedelle Torrisi, back from a cross-country tour and full of tales and video of Rose banging the keys of an old piano and singing weird, wonderful song after song. We sat in Torrisi's sunny white Castro bedroom, gazing with wonder at the fellow. He was far from politically correct, longtime fan Moore said (which explains the title of Rose's latest, 2004 recording, The Knight Wigguh and the Nippie Higger). Nonetheless he was undeniably brilliant, tunes sprialing out of him like air – and bad jokes. "He was on Johnny Carson maybe 10 times in the '60s," Moore explained. "He put out an album in maybe 1968 that was called The Thorn in Mrs. Rose's Side [Tetragrammaton] and he put out maybe 12 albums since then, very obscure. And I'd seen on the Internet that he was doing face-painting in New Orleans, and so when we drove into New Orleans, I was kind of like, 'Nedelle, we need to keep an eye out for Biff Rose, just in case, we need to meet him.' And we happened to be at a Xiu Xiu concert – "

"And Biff Rose was in the audience, and I recognized him!" cried Torrisi. "He said I was the first person to ever recognize him because he's pretty obscure these days."

Just checking out those Fabulous Muscles, eh? But it turned out that the now-reclusive Rose was dragged to the show by a friend, who spotted him the $10 cover.

"He never comes out, we're never in New Orleans, and we meet!" Torrisi raved. He invited them over for a home concert. "It was really amazing. It was, as he says, 'cosmic.' "

So after Carson and Bowie, why did Rose sink into the swamps of Nawlins? "Because he doesn't make any compromises," Moore said blissfully. "He's a true artist."

Moore added that he wanted to bring Rose here for a show, and now finally the 67-year-old Rose has risen, returning to SF for the first time in an age. And the time is right for Rose: Moore is writing the liner notes for local label Runt's reissue of Rose's first two LPs, 1968's glorious Thorn and 1969's Children of Light, and UK imprint RPM is said to be assembling a comp.

Rose's future and former refuge, San Francisco, has its own language, says Rose, who lived here around 1965 and then from 1980 to '82, when he dwelled in a van across from the Rose Tattoo Café and Doggy Diner in North Beach. He rolled out the groovy rhyme of the day just to prove it: "I eat at Sam Wo's. I drink at Li Po's and have Irish Coffee at Vesuvio." Let's just say, "We're on the edge and I'm the edge-ucator."

Why get back on the road now? Well, to get the music out – as folks like Kansas City's Wascal's Wecords and Stuff do, selling CD-Rs of Rose's out-of-print discs. "The guy likes Elmer Fudd. It's the white thing to do," Rose riffs (or, wather, whiffs). "White people are uptight. Society is constipated, and I am Public Enema Number One."

Also don't forget, "Everyone else is dead," adds Rose. Bowie? "He is my child. He imitates me." His peers are "Lenny Bruce and Lord Buckley – just the way of expressing freely on stage and inventing. I was at the Hungry I in August 1965, and there was so much action because acid was just kicking in. David Geffen was my agent, just brand-new out of the mailroom at William Morris, and I'd let him stay at my place on Stanyan Street. He said, 'Biff, teach me to smoke weed!' And I said, 'Suck, David, suck, suck.' And he really did! He did a great job. He waited till the early '90s to come out. True story. San Francisco's claim to glory."

Oranger you glad? I don't care what you say about urban musical sprawl – Bay Area band Oranger made one of the best double albums of 2003 with Shutdown the Sun/From the Ashes of Electric Elves (Jackpine Social Club). Those 40-plus tracks gave you plenty of pop for your buck. So us elves have been sitting and spinning and waiting for the follow-up, which finally cometh Sept. 20: New Comes and Goes (Eenie Meenie). "The woman who runs Eenie Meenie is a big fan of ours, and she convinced us to switch teams," says vocalist-guitarist Mike Draker, formerly of Overwhelming Colorfast, in the dead of a recent night. "It's pretty good, because she's on our ass every day. We're pretty lazy, so we won't do stuff if we didn't have someone totally nagging us." Dormancy is an issue – Oranger's first label, Scott Kanenberg's Amazing Grease, which Draker helps run, is also lightly napping in "subsistence mode." Kanenberg, he says, went back to school in the Northwest, where he said he wanted to study golf-course design.

The design of New Comes and Goes came swiftly. "We focused on getting stuff to rock live and knocked it out superquick. "Everyone in the band has a lot of musical ideas, and if we let these things fester too long, our brains can do some damage," he says. "You could think the life out of a record so easily." After their Sept. 7 show at Slim's, they're going on tour with the Posies for a bit and then taking a break before going out again. "Taking a bit of a break – sounds geriatric," he jokes. "We'll go into rehab and then back on the road." Biff Rose performs with Moore Brothers and MC Rocky Sun/11, 4-8 p.m., Ivy Room, 858 San Pablo, Albany. Free (and free barbecue). (510) 524-9220. Oranger play with the Posies Wed/7, 8 p.m., Slim's, 333 11th St., SF. $12-$14. (415) 522-0333. To help with Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, visit www.redcross.org and check out Alerts, in News & Culture, for other resources. Isn't it a relief? E-mail kimberly@sfbg.com.

Forget you not

Jack Rose Is the guitar recluse a relation to Biff? Wed/7, 9:30 p.m., Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. $6. (415) 923-0923.

Tralala "Fashion rock" with nyah-nyah girl-group vocals. Wed/7, 7 p.m., Bimbo's 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF. $14. (415) 474-0365. Also Sat/10, Amoeba Music, 1855 Haight, SF. Call for time. Free. (415) 831-1200. Also Sat/10, 9:30 p.m., Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. $7. (415) 923-0923.

The Planet The Do the math, Portland, Ore. And do a little punky prog wave too, as you filter You Absorb My Vision (5RC). Thurs/8, 9:30 p.m., Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. $6. (415) 923-0923.

Michael Penn Take him to Walter Reed tonight, so he says on the loping Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947 (Mimeograph). Fri/9-Sat/10, Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. Call for time and price. (415) 861-5016.

Son Volt No Depression true believers will be in high spirits over the new songs and doc off Okemah and the Melody of Riot (Legacy). Fri/9, 9 p.m. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. $22. (415) 421-TIXS or (415) 346-6000.

Bebel Gilberto Make out DJ Spinna, Nuspirit Helsinki, and Thievery Corporation through the haze of Bebel Gilberto Remixed (Six Degrees). Sun/11, Bimbo's 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF. Call for time and price. (415) 474-0365.

Oasis, Jet, and Kasabian Britpop past, present, and Oz-based. Sun/11, 7 p.m., Shoreline Amphitheatre, 1 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View. $24-$45.50. (650) 541-0800.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Ex-Bay Area band stop gazing at their boots and instead run into new sounds and textures on Howl (RCA). Mon/12, Great American Music Hall, 859 O'Farrell, SF. Call for time and price. (415) 885-0750.

Amadou et Mariam The best-kept secret in Malian music breaks out with the sparkling, Manu Chao-produced Dimanche a Bamako (Nonesuch). Tues/13, Great American Music Hall, 859 O'Farrell, SF. Call for time and price. (415) 885-0750.

Contact Kimberly Chun at kimberly@sfbg.com.