Skygreen Leopards

Great American Music Hall, Sept. 8

THOSE WHO TAKE things lightly handle being dumped with almost-scripted resolve and console themselves by staying in and watching reruns of Laguna Beach. But for a soul with a heavy heart, there's nothing more soothing than psychedelic folk-pop in the belly of the hip pirate's galleon known as the Great American Music Hall. As the ship lilted on lazy seas and a storm went off inside my head, the Skygreen Leopards played along with droning guitars, pinched and breathy vocals, and a knowing rhythm section just along for the ride. Whether practiced or improvised, the sudden pauses and truncated builds of the songs untied my tightly knotted heartstrings by uncovering the elegance of the unexpected. The first time all the instruments cut out, leaving only vocalist-guitarist Donovan Quinn's acoustic picking, the quivering of the music was almost tangible.

The Leopards are not a rock band: They are unthreatening and charmingly shy. A surefire way to draw an audience into a performance is to project a personality that inspires envious fantasies in the listeners, but that night I was grateful that the Leopards came across as simply earnest musicians with some wisdom to impart. Recovering from a recent de-spousing, I was comforted that I didn't feel the need to be like the Leopards in order to get my true love back, and that I wasn't worried someone like them was going to snatch her up in my absence. The group's arresting quality lies in their ability to lift you above the weight of desire, however briefly, instead of indulgently fulfilling escapist yearnings.

Escapism or no, from the band's first strums, the pirate ship scene was quickly replaced by rolling hills and sleepy countryside. Wearing plaid flannel and the kind of hat that goes with galoshes, vocalist Glenn Donaldson cut a large figure for one possessing a voice so thin and vulnerable. Ubiquitous in the Leopards' folk scene, the cofounder of the Jewelled Antler Collective counts Thuja, Blithe Sons, Franciscan Hobbies, Birdtree, and Ivytree among his stable of projects. The reverb on his ruby electric 12-string painted the tall grass meadows that the rest of the instruments played in. He seemed to focus intently on the electric, while later on he sassily swung his acoustic guitar around. Quinn, Donaldson's vocal counterpart, subtly called the shots by leading the way through dramatic pauses. He chimed in on the first half of the set with a 12-string acoustic and then on a lived-in looking Tele.

Bassist Shayde Sartin hung out in the back of the stage by the drums with his flower power-era Vox. Generating a modest bottom-end murmur, his understated presence supplemented the intimacy of the performance. Drummer Christine Boepple, a petite siren in a black vest and long black hair, delivered a delicate smattering of brushes on the kit. She reminded me of an oil painting that you get sucked into if you stare at it too long.

People generally associate psychedelic or folky music with an attempt to relive or invoke the simplicity or energy of previous eras, but the Leopards' songs flow from a strange and moving shade of the present. Theirs is music that could only grow out of today, and it seems to hold secrets to finding serene landscapes among the jarring angles of isolation and uncertainty all too common in city life.

The crowd looked like I probably did, a little ragged but attentive and appreciative nonetheless. They seemed like the type of listeners who might regularly stir up the sediment of honesty that tends to sink to the bottom of San Francisco's creative cauldron. Toward the middle of the set, the room started to fill up and a low roar of voices grew in the back, but the 30 or 40 people up front were hooked.

I don't know if the Leopards are a relief from this town or from heartbreak, or if those are even two different things. But their at once timely and timeless poetry, squeezed through contemplative harmonies, may be just enough to sweep the toilet paper and needles from the street and sprinkle a little change in every panhandler's cup. May be enough to say we're sorry and start over. And may be enough to turn this ship around and head for shore.

Who knows if that's what the Leopards were singing about, but that's what they made me think about, and maybe there's no difference. Skygreen Leopards play with Whysp and the Bunwinkies Sept. 22, Hotel Utah Saloon, SF. (415) 546-6300. (Keith Axline)