By Kimberly Chun

You want to wipe away the gloom with some swoony, loony sounds, you know you do. More music than we could cram into ye olde newsprint.

Alternative Tentacles 30th Anniversary Incest-a-Thon
The proceedings kick off with Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine -- and it's going to be raging and ornery from the sound of the outfit's new The Audacity of Hype (Alternative Tentacles). The fun continues with Citizen Fish, Star Fucking Hipsters, and MIA (the hardcore band not the lady) opening tonight; Ludicra, Munly and the Lupercalians, and Knights of the New Crusade Friday, and Alice Donut, Victims Family, and Burning Image Saturday. Sounds like a good, loudly irreverent time for all. Thurs/5-Sat/7, 8 p.m., $20-$22 ($50 three-day pass). Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750.

Hank IV and Celine Dion
Hank Sr. gets a hard twirl in his grave, as the Bay Area troublemakers’ hearts go on. With Blues Control. Thurs/5, 9 p.m., $7. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk St., SF. (415) 923-0923.

Dawes
The early-20-something LA foursome have been listening closely to The Big Pink -- namely the Band, not the UK 4AD duo. With Langhorne Slim and Austin Lucas. Fri/6, Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. (415) 771-1422.

Continue reading "Sonic Reducer Overage: Alternative Tentacles, Pixies, Paramore, Finches, R. Kelly, and more" »

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Posted by Kimberly Chun at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)

By Kimberly Chun

Ty Segall

It’s easy to imagine a battered and bruised zombie surfer hanging 10 to “Standing at the Station” off Ty Segall's Lemons, or the album's shaking version of Captain Beefheart’s “Drop Out Boogie.” Picture drag racing along to Segall's “In Your Car” and “Cents,” with the finish line at a fuzzed-out, frenzied Point Panic party. Deep-in-the-red ragers like “Johnny” take on hardcore’s crash-and-burn strategy -- tearing around on the edges of distortion on just two wheels -- while “Rusted Dust” strips it all down to Segall’s mournful falsetto and a single, evocatively ungainly electric guitar.

Lemons brought Segall together with the gloriously gritty Goner Records. “I actually just asked them if they wanted to put out my record,” he explains. “I didn’t think it was going to happen because I’ve been a huge fan for a long time. And they were, like, ‘Yeah!’

“I was super-psyched. I’m extremely lucky because they’re an amazing label.”

Ty Segall, "Lovely One"

It’s been a major evolution, going from Laguna Beach to Memphis. Segall first relocated North to attend USF, where he bonded with the rest of the Traditional Fools, bassist-vocalist Andrew Luttrell and guitarist-drummer-vocalist David Fox, who grew up in nearby coastal hamlets in Southern Orange County. “When we’re back at home, it’s like we’re all living in the same city," Segall muses. The Trad Fools didn’t know each other very well back home, but together, in the Bay Area, they started hanging out and jamming and, in early 2006, morphed into a legendary party band.

Continue reading "Goldies Extra -- Ty Segall works out the kinks" »

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Posted by SFBG at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)

By Ben Richardson

Saviours. Photo by Magda Wosinka

Scott Batiste of Saviours is in a unique position regarding the band's transforming sound. Unusually for a drummer, he is also the band's primary songwriter, hammering out riffs despite his limited chops with a pick. Though previous albums were crafted on a bass, this year's Accelerated Living (Kemado) was written on guitar. “I got a shitty Flying-V copy and it just became my muse," he says. "I was playing guitar so much, just unemployed, sitting at home and playing guitar all day. Everything just came out faster, and tougher.”

Saviours, "Livin' in the Void"

Once the rough riffs are completed, guitarist Austin Barber takes over, acting as a sort of musical translator. The close understanding between the two is palpable in person, but bears its ripest fruit in the practice space. As Batiste admits, “A lot of the guitar playing I do isn't really decipherable [to the rest of the band].”

Continue reading "Goldies Extra: Saviours' Flying-V sign" »

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Posted by SFBG at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)

By Garrett Caples

D-Lo

“Once I heard myself on the song,” D’Angelo Porter says about his studio efforts one night two years ago, “I was like, ok, that’s me right there.” He was right: thanks to “No Hoe,” the man known as D-Lo soon found himself a full-blown celebrity in various ‘hoods.

“In Oakland, I might hear whispers,” he says, “like, ‘There go D-Lo.’ But out of town, like Fremont or Sac, they be chasin’ me down.” One excited fan, encountering him at a gas station in Pittsburg, asked him for a hug, only to promptly “pee on herself” after receiving it. This ghetto Beatlemania hasn’t gone to D-Lo’s head, however, but only inspired him to grind harder.

Thanks to “No Hoe”’s popularity, KMEL found itself getting tons of requests for a song they couldn’t play on the radio. “They was telling me it was too vulgar,” he recalls, “too much cussin’ and all that.”

D-Lo, "No Hoe"

Continue reading "Goldies Extra: D-Lo makes it hot...and wet" »

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Posted by SFBG at 06:39 PM | Comments (0)

By Caitlin Donohue

Apparently, perusing the “Lullabies of Armenia” Wikipedia entry did not leave me skilled in that particular musical school. No matter how many times I explained that oror means “rock,” to my boyfriend (making repeating the word crucial to any decent sleep-inducing ditty done in grand Armenian style), he was still loath to let me whisper it in his ear ad infinitum. Oror oror oror oror…

There is no accounting for taste. I am willing to allow, however, that there may have been an issue with my tone. Which is exactly why I need Hasmik Harutyunyan’s Armenian lullaby class, which will be held Saturday in Oakland as an opener to an evening of music as soothing as a mother’s womb.

“When I sing, my dreams take wing,” says Harutyunyan of her haunting melodies

Her performances, reinvigorations of the rich Armenian tradition of lullaby, have taken her all over the world. Harutyunyan has staged concerts with Yo Yo Ma and more recently, Kitka, a Bay Area women’s vocal ensemble who will play a concert after her attempts at teaching us mere mortals the skills we need to lull our partners to sleep after long days of Bay Area rat race.

In Armenia, the songs people sing to soothe their children to sleep speak volumes of their life during the day. They’re narratives, expressions of daily goals and traditional folklore. I am told that one well known theme is that of giving one’s child over to suckle at the teat of a mother deer, which I have no grounds for understanding but trust that the message has something to do with earth and nurture.

The recorded versions of the songs are simple and rich affairs with soft accompaniment by wind instruments or strings, whose strums pack even more vibration into the undulating, soaring tones of the singer. Packaged in an language unknown to most of us, this is the perfect slide into dream world.

“I learn what I can, and I remember when I sing.” Harutyunyan seems to have a grasp of one of humankind’s elemental needs; comfort. Good on us, Bay Area, that she’s giving us a chance to share in what she’s learned.

Armenian Lullabies Workshop
Sat/7, 4 p.m. (Kitka concert to follow at 8 p.m.), $15-$25
St. Vartan’s Armenian Apostolic Church
650 Spruce, Oakland
(510) 444-0323 www.kitka.org

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Posted by SFBG at 12:22 PM | Comments (0)

BELLINI
The Precious Prize of Gravity
(Temporary Residence)

SLEEPER
Behind Every Mask
(Mush)

The return of David Yow and Jesus Lizard couldn't be better timed, judging from releases like Bellini's The Precious Prize of Gravity and Sleeper's Behind Every Mask: there's life in that post-punk corpse yet.

Working with old cohort Steve Albini, the Sicily-NYC-Texas-based Bellini growls like the dread ghost of Live Skull, with all the elastic power of Midwestern maulers like Jesus Lizard and Shellac. Vocalist Giovanna Cacciola croons and barks as if she's had one champagne cocktail too many -- in the bowels of hell.

Sleeper is more insinuating and less definable. These dusky ambient instrumentals seem to be fashioned with an ear toward both post-punk anxiety and brooding horror scores. Carlos Ransom puts his homemade instruments to good use, good enough to make me pick this up long after it's release earlier this year. Play "Witch Hunt" in the darkest corner of your Blair Witch basement tonight for All Hallow's.

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Posted by Kimberly Chun at 12:40 PM | Comments (0)

FELA KUTI
The Best of the Black President - Deluxe Edition
(Kalakuta Sunrise/Knitting Factory)

By Kimberly Chun

Ripe for revival and just in time for FELA!, the Broadway musical, as well as the real-life black president, Fela Kuti was a legend in his own time -- the fact that he passed more than a dozen years ago seems surreal. Watch him today on YouTube (below) or on the Slice of Fela DVD that accompanies the new Best of the Black President (Kalakuta Sunrise/Knitting Factory) and includes excerpts from the film Music Is the Weapon and a Berlin Jazz Festival performance. You'll get a glimpse of the visonary's shamanistic sonic power.

No need to rely on the visuals though - just let Black President's two discs' full of hypnotic grooves wash over you. "Army Arrangement," "Roforofo Fight," "Lady," "Water Get No Enemy" -- the first in Knitting Factory Records' remastered reissue series of 45 Kuti titles shines a light on his '60s band Koola Lobitos and takes you higher. Guarans. It's the first time all 45 albums will released on vinyl in North America -- something to look forward to in the next 18 months.

Here's a taste of latter-day Fela with Afrika 70, shot by Ginger Baker (not included on the DVD):

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Posted by Kimberly Chun at 10:27 PM | Comments (0)

By Kimberly Chun

Halloween and NYE -- yes, it’s amateur hour once again for non-locals, gawkers, and ‘burb brats. Still, ya gotta fill the void -- here are a few more ways that didn’t make print.

Art Brut
Are the Anglo-Teutonic arty farties the next best thing to poppers like Fountains of Wayne? With Princeton Fri/30, 7:30 and 10:30 p.m., $16. Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016.

No Age
The LA twosome skipped the Grammys for the road (“Best Recording Package?”). With Residual Echoes and Magic Bullets. Fri/30, 9 p.m., $16. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750.

Continue reading "Sonic Reducer Overage: No Age, Soapbox, Emerald Triangle, Kawabata, and more" »

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Posted by Kimberly Chun at 02:43 PM | Comments (0)

Text and photos by Lisa Weiss

Photos from the 40th anniversary Woodstock celebration at Speedway meadow:

“This is righteous! It’s a part of history!” Terry Kennedy makes up the seriously daunting security behind the scenes at this year’s West Fest. He, along with many of his fellow security handlers and 2B1 record employees, lent a hand to the celebrations to commemorate the majestic memories from Summer of Love and Woodstock.

More pix after the jump

Continue reading "West Fest: The fun and the photos" »

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Posted by Tim Redmond at 09:09 PM | Comments (0)

LITTLE DRAGON
Machine Dreams
(Peacefrog)

By Kimberly Chun

“A New,” for sure. Dripping with mellotron sounds and windswept synths, Gothenburg, Sweden’s Little Dragon declares itself definitely, though far from overbearingly, with the opening track of Machine Dreams. Coming on the clicking, clamoring heels of its 2007 self-titled debut, this second full-length is an intoxicating sauce of synthpop bounce, faraway steel drum plonk, percolating bass lines, and Yukimi’s winsome, subtly soulful vocals. You know you’re in good hands when the ever-so-gently sharp synth stabs of “My Step” kick in. This is about machines blissfully dreaming of electric sheep, digital damsels, and Unix unicorns -- all bathed in enticing sweetness and light.

LITTLE DRAGON
With Nite Jewel
Nov. 4, 9 p.m., $20
Independent
628 Divisadero, SF
(415) 771-1421

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Posted by Kimberly Chun at 08:36 PM | Comments (0)