No free launch

By Kimberly Chun

› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER

America doesn't want to face the ugly truth, but Failure to Launch was tops at the box office this past weekend. Not a surprise, since nearly every film on the weekend's roster looks like it sucked Shaggy Dog hindquarters. Also not a shock because, despite all the lip service given to the American dream, we've been in the throes of a major crisis of confidence for a while now. The tech bomb, Sept. 11, act-of-God weather, wartime soul-searching, music industry foundering, the early-'90s recessionary revival — cumulatively, it adds up to dour predictions, sour grapes, and bummer moments. All I know is that my zeitgeist sniffer is overriding my analytical critic's mind, and I have an overwhelming urge to watch McConaughey aping a thirtysomething nest returnee who lives with his parents. Why? Could it be because I still live with my parents and need pointers on writing my own screenplay and, eek, moving out?

Actually, I don't live with my parents — mainly because they wouldn't be able to cope with my failure-to-bourg standard of living. Yet somehow Lost speaks to us all, and pop kings without crowns who regularly fall back on easy everybody-say-amen-or-yeah rule the school (or plunge into homemade groupie porn à la Scott Stapp). Dare I posit that we're a country of losers? The Winter Olympics bear me out. And I do know that staring at Fall Out Boy emo codger Pete Wentz's alleged full frontal, ugly tat, and grody "hey, baby" expression makes me feel like I'm scraping, say, smegma from the bottom of someone's barrel. (Peruse www.thesuperficial.com/archives/2006/03/08/pete_wentz_nude_cell_phone_pic.html for icky-wicky images.)

Back to those bummer moments At the top of the bad-news charts last week was the recent shuttering of Future Primitive Sound's gallery and shop in the Lower Haight. The head of the collective and label, Mark Herlihy, pointed to a set of sickening circumstances that led him to close the doors: The store lost one of its main suppliers of spray paints and art supplies, the lifeblood of the enterprise, and Herlihy's investor withdrew from a second round of funding. Now, with so-called Bay Area hyphy perched on the verge, Herlihy, one of the pioneers in the hip-hop DJ party scene, is reconsidering all his options.

"I've been fighting for so long — I'm starting to think I'll do something different," he said last week over the phone while on the road. "I'm hitting that point where — I've been putting in 150 percent since I was 17 years old. But the long and short of it is it takes money to make money, and in this case, I was trying to see a vision through, and I was real close to it."

Why does this event rate so high on the bummer-o-meter? The Future Primitive storefront was the center of a certain unique breed of Bay Area underground hip-hop. Not only did Future Primitive put out solid and influential discs like Romanowski's recent Steady Rocking and Z-Trip and Radar's 1999 rap-and-rock mixdown, Live at the Future Primitive Soundsession, Vol. 2, but Herlihy has also been instrumental in fostering turntable-shaking collaborations such as Cut Chemist and DJ Shadow's 7-inch showdown (which led to their Brainfreeze disc). Furthermore, he created his own distinctive synthesis when he invited graf artists like Doze to perform alongside DJs and later exhibited visual artists like Brian Barneclo and Mike Giant alongside those mix CDs and hoodies.

While friends have offered to pitch in for a benefit, that won't necessarily help with consistent funding, he adds, joking, "There's no shortage of broke-ass artists out there!" When it came down to it, "all I was trying to do was give an outlet to a lot of my friends, and this new movement of art that I was seeing and believed in." As for the gallery and store, Herlihy says, "I don't want to put a Band-Aid on a big wound — either do it right or not do it at all. I know what the store needs in order to become successful. It's a matter of whether I can find somebody to make that happen."

Second on the bad-news countdown Right up there with the imminent May 1 closure of the Music Loft (a.k.a., the Practice Pad) in Oakland, a verbal and physical shitstorm apparently broke out March 10 at the belowground East Bay show space Grandma's House when someone called the cops during a So So Many White White Tigers, Grey Daturas, and Die Die Die show. The events remain unclear, but heavy tagging in the bathrooms and on common spaces in the upstairs venue, Muscle Beach; broken property; fisticuffs; and a seething volley of listserv e-mails have led to the cessation of all shows at the sleepless Grandma's.

As ill timing would have it, I was trading e-mails with local noise artist Sixes, who was putting together a Helios Creed show featuring the original members of Chrome at Grandma's, when what someone described as "the Woodstock '99 of Oakland" came down like caca. Scrambling to relocate the performance before he left for NYC's No Fun Fest, Sixes may have succeeded in placing the show at WC/Creamery or the California College of the Arts. But where does that leave poor Grandma and Grandpa and their trashed house? For her part, Liza Thorne of SSMWWT told me she's flabbergasted about some of the message-board accusations concerning her group: "My band has never destroyed anything. I don't vandalize people's homes. I'm not some crazy two-headed monster that people want me to be." In the end, kids gotta behave — for the sake of their own music scene. *

SUBMIT TO THEM

On the brighter side, Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival is still accepting submissions from prospective artists for its 10th-anniversary event, May 16 through 22. This year's plans include label showcases by imprints such as Tiger Beat 6 and a sister fest in Iowa City, Iowa, March 29 through April 1. Proceeds from this year's SF MCMAF will go toward helping children in southern Malawi. To submit demos, go to www.mcmf.org.

SOUNDING YOU OUT

WHYSALL LANE Just try to talk about foreign film and porn names with Lost Weekend movie buffs Richard Baluyut and Adam Pfahler. With the release of their excellent self-titled Blackball debut, they bring the "goods" — and their badasses — to the Asian American Film Festival. Fri/17, 9 p.m., Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. $10. (415) 861-5016.

HARD-FI Clad in black, cashing in on a number-one UK full-length, Stars of CCTV (Atlantic), and as hard as my heart. Fri/17, 7:30 p.m., Amoeba Music, 1855 Haight, SF. Free. (415) 831-1200. Also with the Rakes, April 28, 9 p.m., Slim's, 333 11th St., SF. $15. (415) 522-0333.

HOWLING HEX Neil Michael Hagerty still kicks droney blues-punk ass on All-Night Fox (Drag City). Howl — you'll like it! Sat/18, 10 p.m., Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. $10. (415) 474-0365.

FIELD MUSIC XTC meets Brian Wilson in eclectic chamber-pop bliss, thanks to this UK sleeper trio. Sun/19, 9 p.m., Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. $8–$10. (415) 474-0365.

BIRDY NAM NAM The killer French DJ foursome — 2002 DMC World Team champeens — sticks those damn accordions in your ear. Tues/21, 9 p.m., Boca, 414 Jessie, SF. $7–$10. www.blasthaus.com.