Love that wiggly Rick Astley video that the faux new-Radiohead-album site redirected to last week! You've been "Rick Roll"-ed, indeed.

In any case, Radiohead's HQ/publicists announced today that the label-less group's new album, In Rainbows, is forthcoming digitally on Oct. 10 (a special double-vinyl/CD "Discbox" of extra songs, special art and photos, etc. is expected to ship on or before Dec. 3 for a mere 40 pounds; the regular, vanilla, humdrum CD is expected next year). And the band swears they had nothing to do with the Astley vid prank.

It all sounds like an experiment in self-releasing - check it out but prepare for lots of slow traffic. And you know if Radiohead and Prince can manage it...

By Todd Lavoie

Looks like Patrick Watson's ridin' the champagne wave. The California-born Montrealer was just awarded Canada's esteemed Polaris Music Prize for Best Canadian Album of 2007, beating out stiff competition from nominees Feist, the Arcade Fire, and the Besnard Lakes, among others. (What, no Rush? Avril Lavigne? The indignity of it all!) Sure, the prestige has gotta feel good, and the extra publicity must be nice, but how's this for a cherry on top: the Polaris is a $20,000 cash prize. Not a bad way to offset some of those pesky touring costs. Watson and his identically named quartet are spending the next couple of months charming audiences across Europe and Canada. (Sadly, no American dates at this point, but fingers crossed. Perhaps all this added exposure will inspire a stateside itinerary as well.)

Enter the familiar refrain: "But who is this Patrick Watson guy?" A fair question, considering thus far he's flown pretty deep under the radar of the music press. Mention the name, and chances are you'll either get a shrug and a stare or the foot-stompalicious chorus from "The Magic Position." (That's Patrick Wolf, pumpkin.) His sophomore album, Close to Paradise (Secret City), has been given heaps of praise - when it's been reviewed, that is. Up till now, it's been a hidden little gem, buried away under the sheer crushing power of so much great music coming out this year.

No wonder, then, that it was such a major upset - especially if you were a betting fool with all your chips firmly placed upon The Neon Bible (Merge) - when the relatively obscure singer-songwriter swooped in from the shadows to collect his 20,000 Loonies. Hell, even the almighty tastemakers at pitchfork.com - ever so proud of their ability to remain several points ahead of the curve - found themselves staring down a mighty slab of humble pie upon finding out that the winner of a big-deal music prize was a guy to whom they'd devoted absolutely no coverage whatsoever. I could take advantage of the situation and snark on Pitchfork, but certainly I've heard a thing or two about stones and glass houses. Besides, how about focusing on the upside: there's just so much wonderful stuff out there that it's impossible to catch it all.

Earthless - who dat? The San Diego-dwelling Tee Pee artists play lengthy instrumentals, part free form, part planned - it's improv rock 'n' roll for those hankering for more of the acid-rockin' goodness that Blue Cheer, Hawkwind, Cream, Zep, Acid Mothers Temple, and so many other heads have explored, emerging with wild red-veined eyes. Expect much loudness when ex-Rocket from the Crypt/Hot Snakes/Clikatat Ilkatowi/Black Heart Procession drummer and record store operator Mario Rubalcaba (also a former member of Tony Alva's skateboarding posse) gets together with bassist Mike Eginton and guitarist Isaiah Mitchell.

Oh, and get there early for the Cuts-related Apache and Parchman Farm vocalist Eric Shea's new combo, Hot Lunch, on Saturday, Oct. 6, 9:30 p.m., at Hemlock Tavern.

We've been compiling a little archive of local movers and shakers' favorite super-gay videos, either in context, influence, or just plain awesome swishiness. (Check out Part 1 here.) It's an webxperiment! Many of the participants appeared in our Gayest. Music. Ever. cover story from last week.

This week, local queer rock impressario Bill Picture of monthly punkrock live-act throwdown Trans Am (happening this Saturday at Club Eight and featuring The Passionistas) chimes in with a few limp-wristed doozies. Check it!

Bill peeks slyly from behind his partner, DJ Dirty Knees

For me, "gay" is more than just a more-palatable alternative to "poo-stabber." I also use it to describe things that I think are totally hot, really silly shit, and stuff that's totally lame. Check out my favorite "totally gay" videos, and you'll see what I mean:

David Bowie featuring Klaus Nomi, "The Man Who Sold The World"
Then-fence-sitting David Bowie performing "The Man Who Sold the World" with tranny-from-another-planet Klaus Nomi and future-drag-cabaret-superstar Joey Arias singing background. This "gay" falls under the "totally hot" heading. I was seven years old and fascinated by these gender-fluid freaks...

Toilet Boys, "You Got It"
Tranny-fronted headbangers Toilet Boys' "You Got It." Again, "totally hot." The first time I saw the guitarist Sean, who happens to be straight, I thought, "God, I wish I was a guitar so Sean would rub his sweaty business against me every night."

After the jump: Debbie Harry meets the Muppets, and Madonna gets exxxed

and they heart me too, cause they're playing this weekend's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival!

Our coverage of the festival here.

Heartless Bastards here:

"Since you took my breath again, would you share your oxygen?"

And live:

By Ben Richardson

In 1994, as most of the musical world mourned the death of Kurt Cobain, a humble band from Gothenburg, Sweden, released an album called Lunar Strain, which would go on to help situate the sleepy Scandinavian university town at the center of a swirling metal maelstrom. The band was In Flames, and their incendiary interpretation of the nascent death metal genre would go on to spawn a legion of imitators on both sides of the Atlantic.

The fulcrum of the In Flames sound was a keen ear for neoclassical melody, which they fused seamlessly with the groovy thrash 'n' roll that defined the Swedish Death scene at the time. This penchant for soaring arpeggios and Iron Maiden-style close-harmony leads made their music accessible, adaptable, and widely popular. Subsequent LP's The Jester Race and Whoracle won critical and fan acclaim.

Six years and five albums later, the fire had begun to dwindle. The band had undergone numerous lineup changes, and a seismic sonic shift had been set in motion. By the release of 2000's Clayman, In Flames was experimenting with slower tempos and crunchier, dumbed-down riffs, while retaining enough soaring leads and double-bass gallop to keep their fanbase placated. 2002's Reroute to Remain was a different story, a galling stumble into gussied-up nü-metal pablum that introduced triggered trip-hop drumbeats and vocalist Anders Friden's ghastly embrace of both clean singing and dreadlocks

Come sea about me: Sea Wolf in performance elsewhere. Photo by Alex Brown Church

By Chris Lotto

Sea Wolf is Alex Brown Church, the band's frontperson and only standing member. The rest of his pack are drawn on a rotating basis from a conglomerate of LA musicians known as the Ship Collective. It's unclear whether this tour will produce a more permanent membership. On Wednesday, Oct. 3, at the Independent, he was backed by drums, bass, cello, a drowned-out lead guitar, and an extremely sexy keyboardist doing this lazybop back-and-forth shoulder maneuver the whole night. I think I may have seen a ring on her finger. No matter. That's not the sort of band review we're after here.

Invoking the spirit of Jack London's 1904 work, Sea Wolf plays to life's awareness of death. The songs intimate a fondness for bluegrass, moving in time with Church's favorite apprehension: the decay of the natural world. The first five numbers could have easily featured Church alone with zero accompaniment. Like I said, Sea Wolf is Alex Brown Church. It's not that the show was any less enjoyable because of all the other noise - only that a brooding cello line layered over a skip-slowly backbeat didn't add much in the way of color, depth, or interest to Church's own brooding melodies and skip-slowly acoustic.

Nor is this meant to discount Church's - and the band's - effectiveness in conveying a sense of well-traveled melancholia. He's got a storyteller's voice that leaves a near sad impression, yet it remains a voice that aims to please - Church has a gift for creating contented hymns of worry. Plenty of heads were bobbing inside the Independent, and Church's reminiscences definitely had a couple thirtysomething couples giving each other the old "yeah, he's got it" nod of approval. The lyrics are plenty evocative, happy to be doing a eulogist's work, but much of the instrumentation is redundant, wasted on Church's singer-songwriting.

Sea Wolf did get the place going with one you may have heard on the radio, "You're a Wolf," a tame little rock-out that, along with a second one just like it - punchy, highly civilized - made a little room for meaningful collaboration. And though it was a short set composed of short songs that all ended abruptly, it seemed that everybody in attendance, myself included, appreciated Church's thoughtfulness, even more his easy, plangent grace.

Is singer/songwriter a genre of music? Is it merely a description? Is it shorthand for “folkie with guitar” or “soloist who’s still looking for a drummer”? Does calling someone a singer/songwriter really tell you anything at all?

This question came up last night, when some friends and I went to Amnesia to see New York-based artist Ana Egge (who sings, yes, and writes songs, yes) and special guest AJ Roach. At the door, we overheard someone ask the bouncer what was going on inside. “Singer songwriters,” he said.

Photo by B. Gootkind
"Singer songwriter" -- aka badass musician -- Ana Egge.

By Anna Mantzaris

Teddy Thompson (that’s Thompson as in spawn of Richard and Linda) may be an English boy by birth, but the 31-year-old's rock-folk-country sound will make you think he’s spent years fine-tuning his sound deep in the land of the American south.

Taking on the greats - Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, George Jones - Thompson’s latest CD, Up Front and Down Low(Verve Forecast), is a thoughtful collection of interpretations of C&W classics and not-so-well-known gems, with dad Richard and pal Rufus Wainwright lending their talents. A New Yorker by residence, Thompson takes his show on the road opening for Suzanne Vega; he appears Monday, Nov. 12, at the Fillmore.

Bay Guardian: How did Up Front and Down Low come about? Why an album of covers?

Teddy Thompson: I came home after touring after the last record for a year. I didn’t have a lot to do. I started just recording some songs for fun, but I liked the way it came out and I thought maybe it would make a good side-project album.

I fruitlessly spent Saturday night looking for the party. Trans Am was fab as always, but after the Passionistas played, no one was dancing. Playboy was cute and had the goofy bearish boys of gay clubstravaganza Horse Meat Disco spinning around on the dance floor (they'll be laying down queeny tracks at an underground loft party this weekend), but all my shots were wearing off. I hit up d'n'b legends LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad at Temple and Detroit/Windsor techno god DJ Dan Bell at Kontrol – I even popped in on a shirtless circuity nightmare, Adonis at Space 550. Oy!

But it was one of those nights – either the music was great but the crowd was awful or immobile, or the other way around (Adonis qualified as awful on both counts). I never landed when the time was right. This was discouraging!

Fortunately, I didn’t let my disappointment keep me at home on Sunday night. Sure I wanted to chill with some Indian takeout and new Simpsons episodes, but somewhere, however faintly, a dancefloor was calling. It was Super Soul Sundayz’s second anniversary at the EndUp, and resident DJ/promoter David Harness had flown in legendary DJ Spinna from Brooklyn to tear shit up.

He took me up, he turned me out, he ... Spinna

Spinna came on after an awesome deep electrofied soul set from David, plugged in his laptop and let rip. He’s mostly a hip-hop DJ (he’s known for his work with J Dilla), but his house style is pretty unique – he likes to play two or three records at a time to get a specific groove going (one record will be totally deep and tracky in a Chicago acid way, another will be a back-in-the-day soul selection) and then he’ll use the laptop to overlay another track, maybe with some vocals or an instrumental solo, fading it in and out as he changes the records underneath. It’s a thumpy tapestry! His de-reconstruction of “I Feel Love” was out of the park, and I’ve heard folks pulling that record apart for 20 years now (I still think Derrick May does it best but, hey, he invented Techno, so … ). Anyway, I was drenched with soul and sweat 'til 4am.

DJ David Harness warms my heart, and feet

Super Soul Sundayz is every Sunday night at the EndUp. Next week’s guest is Latin sensation Mr. V. Check out some of Spinna’s music here.

After the jump -- video samples of this crazy, aurally mixed-up weekend.

By Todd Lavoie

A couple of weeks back on Noise, I was carping and crowing away about all those amazing import-only discs that demand a small fortune out of us till a domestic release finally sees the light of day - assuming that moment ever comes, that is. In some cases, it looks likely that American labels will continue passing up wonderful talents such as Candie Payne and Husky Rescue out of curious misperceptions about “the American market” - whatever that means - and we’ll be left with no choice but $20-and-then-some price tags. Yeah, I know - quite the tale of woe and all, this record-shopping dilemma of mine, but sometimes a dork’s just gotta shake his skinny little fists in protest at this great big spinning orb of injustice and say, “Enough is enough!” Feel me?

But fair is fair, they say, and so I should try to balance out that bitch fest with a bit of the ole happy. How about a small victory? And for Detroit, no less! I’ve heard they could use a few victories, so let’s trumpet this one up. See, up till very recently, one of the 313’s finest, cosmic-soul pioneer Amp Fiddler, was without an American record deal for a spell, thus making his latest release a challenge to track down in all but the most obsessively thorough of record stores.

In fact, Afro Strut has been available in Britain on the Genuine label for practically a year, while in his home country it was nearly absent from the racks! Talk about a cryin’ shame. Mercifully, this sad state of affairs has changed, now that Play It Again Sam US/Wall of Sound has issued a domestic version of Mister Fiddler’s sophomore release. Better still: they went and improved upon the original! Rather than simply re-issuing it as is, Amp - or, Joseph at the supper table - took the British edition of Afro Strut and did some, er, fiddling with it. (Yeah, a pun. Shoot me.)

People always ask me why I love horror movies so much. That, I can't answer ... though probably for some dark, disturbing psychological reason we needn't speculate upon here. More concrete is when I started getting into horror movies. There was the first time I saw Poltergeist (at a slumber party in fifth grade; a year later, at the sixth-grade slumber party for my own birthday, I gleefully played host to a roomful of terrified classmates as we huddled in my basement, watching Psycho). Recently, I unearthed a junior-high creative-writing exercise entitled "How to Watch a Scary Movie Alone in the Dark." I must have been around 13 when I wrote that. But I think the horror-movie thing goes even further back. In fact, I blame Walt Disney, from whose Haunted Mansion-spawning mind sprung this impression-maker:

Whose light is on up there??

Are you bored with the series yet? Well don’t be, because we plan to drive this sucker right into the shiny, dripping dance floor. (Click here for part 1 and here for part 2)

For those just catching up, we’re asking the City’s most prominent fairies for their favorite “gay” videos, which is a bit of a takeoff on the “Gayest. Music. Ever.” cover story we ran a few weeks ago. This week, we’ve asked writer, DJ, and all around bon vivant Matt Sussman, aka Missy Hot Pants, for some of his faves. Let’s get gay on the giga!

“Oooh, blog-opportunity!” quoth Sussman, when we told him we’d pay him ten dollars to sit still long enough to contribute. “What can I get for ten dolla? Not "anything you want," just these gay-ass clips.
xo,
Missy

Samwell, "What What In the Butt"

The Village People, "Sex Over the Phone"
Ed Note: Warning! For some reason, I shit you not, Prince and the NPG are removing all clips of this at a furious pace. Therefore, after the jump, we present a really gay French parody video, in case this one gets “Princed” …

After the jump: Mae West raps! Eartha Kitt prowls! “Hairdresser”!

Sitting pretty: Sally Timms and the rest of the Mekons sing out another San Francisco Saturday night. All photos by Ashleigh Reddy.

By Ben Sinclair

This year is the Mekons’ 30th anniversary, and it's been a particularly fruitful year. It's odd to imagine this Leeds group had once been an edgy punk outfit and then a trad-rock and country combo, slipping into new wave songs now and then. This weekend, they were a folk band.

And a very smart folk band, at that. After the Oct. 6 show at the merch booth, drummer Steve Goulding wouldn’t let me get away with passing off my last $12 for a $15 disc. Perhaps this is an attitude that has helped keep the band alive for so long. I promptly retrieved another $3 from the folks I came with and returned for a limited-edition copy of Dance on the Volcano, the new album by Tom Greenhalgh’s other band King Tommy’s Velvet Runway. A good decision. We all missed Greenhalgh’s voice that night, as he couldn’t make it for this leg of the tour, but the band rocked the hell out of “Hard to be Human Again” anyway.

Otherwise the classic lineup was present, and the banter between members felt warm and, at times, invigorating. I sat - and stomped and clapped - through the entire set with a happy-go-lucky grin on my face. “Give Me Wine or Money” was the night’s opener, further permeating the “fair trade” section of my mind. “Yeessss…,” I heard myself thinking, “Stop downloading this band from now on.” Later, casting like a smoky, pagan warlock, founder Jon Langford recommended the whole audience not hesitate to spend a bit in the back - after all, Greenhalgh now needs all the money he can get. He and his wife are having their third child.

By Ben Richardson

Thirteen years have passed since Oakland metal stalwarts Machine Head promised to “let freedom ring with a shotgun blast” on their album Burn My Eyes, and it now appears that frontperson Robb Flynn and company should consider cramming new casings into the figurative chamber. The band’s ongoing Black Tyranny tour - which stops at the Warfield on Friday, Oct. 12 - has been marred by a pair of bizarre last-minute venue changes, both prompted by the inscrutable and unexpected objections of international media conglomerate the Walt Disney Company.

Disney owns the land under the Anaheim and Orlando branches of the House of Blues chain, venues that were slated to host Machine Head and support acts Arch Enemy, Throwdown, and Sanctity during stops on September’s national tour. Two days before the long-since-booked concert in Anaheim, the show was abruptly moved to a different venue by concert promoter and House of Blues parent company LiveNation, which cited pressure from the landowning behemoth as the reason for the switch.

Machine Head claimed on their Web site that Disney objected to the “violent imagery, undesirable fans, and inflammatory lyrics” associated with the band. According to an interview conducted with the Los Angeles Times, Flynn also suspects that the group’s “anti-war and anti-administration lyrics” had an effect on Disney’s decision.

Machine Head's Robb Flynn blogs in response to his Oakland band's canceled dates at House of Blues venues:

In the six years since the attacks of Sept. 11, the United States has become a better place in a number of ways. As a country, we have implemented a few common sense security procedures and protective measures that have made the nation little more secure; as a people, we are a little more conscious of our surroundings and what we can do to increase our safety; and, as a society, we are (to some degree) a little more aware of our effect on the rest of the world, both positive and negative. On the night of Sept. 11, when I asked the crowd in Tucson, Arizona, to please give 15 seconds of silence to pay respect to those whose lives were lost on that tragic day, for that one brief moment, we all felt like one. These are good things.

However, in those same six years, the United States has also managed to deteriorate into a place much worse than it was on Sept. 10, 2001. Since that infamous day, many ugly truths have surfaced, many of the liberties we once took for granted – freedoms we once thought invincible – have been quietly erased by men that have taken it upon themselves to ignore the Constitution and write their own rules. These are the same men that fed the world lies in order to justify a war that it wouldn’t agree to, men who value power and control over human life and exercise it with an unprecedented audacity and disdain for the law. And these are very bad things.

But worse than any of that, in my opinion, is the fact that, for the most part, we are allowing it. We, the people, are sitting idly by while all of this is happening, watching it slowly unravel in front of our very eyes. The scale of it all so large, the stage so vast that it’s impossible not to feel helpless and detached in the shadow of everything that’s happening — that is, until the same kinda s–t happens to you, on a much smaller scale. You tend to turn a blind eye, until you see the same tyrannical attitudes and repressive tactics trickle down into your daily life, absorbed by corporate America and dictated to you as “the way it needs to be."

The Internet’s all abuzz (OK, the part of the Internet flooded by celebrity-obsessed housewives and former jazz dancers) about Britney Spears’ just-released music video for her single “Gimme More.” So what are you missing by watching mayoral debates or clipping your cuticles instead of cruising YouTube for mentally challenged bubblegum pop stars?

This:

Or I can just summarize it for you: Britney dances around a pole. Britney dances around a pole. Some other girls dance with Britney around a pole. Britney dances around a pole. Girls smile. The end. (Did I mention Britney dances around a pole?)

Though the video isn’t as dismal as her performance of the song at the VMAs – she actually looks awake in the video – it’s still pretty uninspired and uninspiring, especially for an artist who’s as much about performance as she is about actual music. Take away the seizure-worthy camera angle changes and it’s just, well, boring.

What’s less so? The Sex Pistols. So to add a bit of punk to your pop diet, read about Johnny Rotten calling Green Day “old gorgonzola cheese in old boots” and Britney’s VMA performance “like a school play by 11-year-olds” during an interview about the Sex Pistols reunion tour.

Yep, it's that time of year again - time to break out the old headphones and plug into some experimento sounds at [:]PLUG3[:], San Francisco's third annual Global Headphone Festival. Expect the transmission of 48 live local performances, in conjunction with the tenth annual International Headphone Festival, Le Placard X, a self-organized, nonstop streaming, migrating "interaural" experiment.

Organizers advise you to BYOH or bring your own headphones to the event running Sat., Oct. 13, to Sun., Oct. 14, 1 p.m.-1 a.m. both days., at the Lab, 2948 16th St., SF. $5 sliding scale. (415) 864-8855.

Performers include:
100S OF DISMEMBERED HANDBAGS
666GANGSTAZ
ANTHONY MARIN
BEATLE
BEYTAH
BLUE VITRIOL
BLOODY SNOWMAN
CATSYNTH
CONRAD LEWBEL
CYPOD
DELETIST
DOUBLE VISION
DUD
FILTHMILK
FORMS OF THINGS UNKNOWN
GATHER THE BONES (trance viola drone)
HALCYON HIGH
HEADBOGGLE
HEARTWORM
HORAFLORA
JUSTINO
LANCE GRABMILLER
LES TROIS FEUILLES / 3 LEAFS
LNA
LX RUDIS
MAGNANIMOUS
MATT DAVIGNON
MNEMOTH (black noise)
MOISTURE
MY HELICAL ELK
NOMMO OGO
NO NO SPOT
OZMADAWN (sci-fi noise drone)
PAGAN/PRESLEY (electronic improvisation)
PATRICE SCANLON
PISTOLS WILL AIR
PU22L3
RASTER ROOBIT (strings & pedals)
RESPECTABLE CITIZEN
SAKANA
SLITHER SYNDICATE
SOUNDTRACK FOR A MOVIE ABOUT A DREAM ABOUT NOTHING
TROY BYKER (ambient/experimental)
TELEPATHIK FRIEND
TULLAN VELTE
WELDSCHMERTZ (dual cello drones by members of FILTHMILK + DELETIST)
WESTERN ADDITION
ZENTROPIA

By Todd Lavoie

"A lot of cats knew how to funk - that part was easy. But very few knew how to put that special vibe on their music. That's what I knew best."

Oh, I think I smell a Pulitzer! Rick James gives it to us straight - and beamed down from that great big coke-and-bondage romp in the sky, apparently, considering that ole Kinks himself passed away three years ago - in his recently released tell-all The Confessions of Rick James: Memoirs of a Super Freak (Colossus), and I'll be damned if it's not the juiciest pile of pages I've seen in a while.

But let's be frank, people: a literary triumph it ain't. So, when I say that he's "giving it to us straight," what I really mean is: "scribbling down the memories as soon as they wobble out of the freebase fog, without a moment's thought to word choice or sentence structure." Trust me, there's not a thesaurus or an editor in sight. We're talking direct brain-to-page transmission here, which sometimes makes for wincingly fascinating results. But hey, I guess we can't always put a "special vibe" on everything we do?

By Erik Morse

With the 30th anniversary of punk rock’s safety-pin Gotterdammerung now in full swing, the eponymous social reject-turned-successful-milquetoast might be goaded to drop a small fortune on all the era’s memorabilia and accoutrements in a moment of DIY nostalgia. Merchandise is teeming on record store shelves and label Web sites like the fungus and crabs that once multiplied in the putrid Chelsea Hotel. There’s the umpteenth Rough Trade reissue of the Fall, the “fully re-expanded” four disc set of London Calling with the unreleased "kazoo sessions," those Johnny Rotten commemorative plates, some "organic" matter lifted from the rotting corpse of Johnny Thunders that’s currently reaching three figures on eBay.

In retrospect, though the truth may be as hard to swallow as a knuckle sandwich at the Manchester Trade Hall, punk was, in its 1977 genesis, a completely corporate invention – from its entrepreneurs to its major label financing to its rather swift absorption into the more consumer-friendly genre, new-wave. Yes, the corrective prologue from Simon Reynolds' Rip It Up and Start Again will not be soon forgotten by punk scribes or post-rock revisionists. Such a realization makes it all the more shameful that, as 2007 rapidly comes to a close, there has been little mention of another insurgent masterpiece that appeared on the shelves of Rough Trade Records, Chiswick, and Forced Exposure at nearly the same time as Never Mind the Bollocks but without all the slack-jawed fanfare. Unfortunately, the band in question did not hail from Brixton or the Bowery, and the LP did not sound like scorched-earth punk rock in the least. In fact, the album was over four years old before it ever found a label, and the band had since dispersed to the four corners of Memphis to do solo recordings. Of course, the group was Big Star – and the recording, simply called Third or Sister Lovers or Beale St. Green or all three in any order.

By Sean McCourt

As singer, songwriter, and frontperson for Nirvana, Kurt Cobain helped lead a musical revolution in the early 1990s whose effects on popular music and culture are still felt today. Yet after his death in 1994 at the age of 27, he continues to remain a figure somewhat shrouded in mystery. The new film Kurt Cobain: About a Son aims to show a more personal side of the gifted musician, told in his own words.

Director A.J. Schnack has taken interview tapes of Cobain done with music journalist Michael Azerrad for his 1993 book, Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana - considered by many to be the definitive biography of the band - and filmed scenes of the places that played an important role in Cobain’s life, including his hometown of Aberdeen, Wash., along with Seattle and Olympia, to accompany the introspective and revealing words of the late musical icon.

Michael Azerrad.

The project came to fruition when Schnack was working on a documentary about They Might Be Giants, Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns, and he included an appearance from Azerrad, who in addition to the Come As You Are has written hundreds of articles about music, along with the excellent tome Our Band Could Be Your Life, a look at some of the most influential underground music artists of the 1980s and early 1990s.

By Duncan Scott Davidson

If they could bottle the Woggles, the world wouldn’t need anti-depressants.

The wriggly Woggles

I arrived at 12 Galaxies not exactly depressed, but just having one of those decidedly non rock and roll, rapidly-approaching-middle-age moments: fuck, it’s late. I’m tired. Maybe I should’ve stayed home, went to bed early. The place was more than half empty, which burned me a bit, as it’s the fucking Woggles here, people. From Hot-lanta, G-A? You may have heard of them? The Guardian’s own Cheryl Eddy wrote a pick about them last week, I guess that wasn’t enough. The next time they’re in town, I’m making damned sure the mayor is sober enough to declare it “San Francisco Woggles Day” or some such shit. I mean, I overcame my “adult moment” to get my ass to the club…what’s your excuse?

Opening act Top Ten, featuring the always entertaining Tina Lucchesi (Bobbyteens, Trashwomen, Deadly Weapons, et al) on vocals, was onstage, so that was a plus. The guitar player, or should I say bad-azz axewoman, Erin McDermott, had on this most awesome denim vest that looked heisted from Neil Young’s closet circa ’73, but like tailored to be sexy and not Canadian. I just checked their Myspace, and her favorite band is Cheap Trick, so, you know, that cements my marriage proposal right there. I missed openers Les Hormones, who I heard were fab, which is good, since they’re fighting an uphill battle with the French appellation. French Appalachian? Now, that’s another story. That shit would be hot.

But really, it was all about the reigning kings of the garage, the Woggles, and once again, they didn’t disappoint. Thankfully, the club was more crowded by the time they came on. The Woggles are the type of band that are so cool, they make you think shit like “I can totally rock a three-tiered, blood red, silk ruffle shirt with matching ruffle cuffs. Chicks will totally dig me in that.” And the next thing you know, you’re wondering what the fuck this thing is doing in your closet.

One of my favorite parties of the year, Bibi, is having an encore this Saturday -- a sultry, kitschy, haremesque masquerade! Bibi is a raucous party for gay Southwest Asian and North Africans (SWANAs) -- not just those of Arabian persuasion, of course -- and their friends (my Jewish bf had a blast -- unity on the dance floor!). The last one was out of control -- the promoters only expected a few people, and yet hundreds crammed their beautiful, hipshaking female, male, and other asses into Club Eight for a pre-Pride Arab hoedown. Alalalalalalala-y!

DJs BaBa Q., Bahman, and Emancipacion take you to funky motherland with a fusion of Middle-Eastern North African & International Beats, and, yes, there'll be wild bellydancing sendups by drag queens SooozhyQ & Freyja. Nazli Hanem & Femme Fuego host, and Rostam and J. Maximillian put it all together. Plus it's a masquerade -- so wear something extra fab. I'm telling you it'll be hot -- and not just cuz I'm a naughty Lebanese homo. Here's a little taste of the tunes:

Bibi
Sat, Oct. 20, 9pm - 2am, $15
Club Eight
1151 Folsom, SF.
www.myspace.com/bibisf

By Todd Lavoie

I suppose it all stems from my childhood fascination with Yoda, but older-than-the-hills voices seem to sucker me in without fail. It's especially intriguing when those sounds come from folks whose faces look far too young to creak out such ancient wisdom, such heaving doses of world-weariness.

Sure, I've tended to hang on every word during listens of late-period releases from elder statesmen like Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen, but I love the head-scratching incongruity of silver-haired croaks and warbles drifting forth from the pipes of youngish guys and gals. Singers like Will Oldham, Vic Chesnutt, David Eugene Edwards (16 Horsepower/Woven Hand) - how do they do it? Here I am, knee-deep and beyond into my 30s, and yet I still seem to carry as much bass in my register as a 16-year-old girl. Sagely advice, from these lips? Don't count on it, love. This little voice of mine carries about as much gravitas as it did in high school. Needless to say, I stay clear of any serious oratory action.

And yet there goes Oldham, a.k.a., Bonnie Prince Bill, carrying the weight of the world atop that stiff upper lip, sounding old enough to regale us with tales of what it was like in the days before dirt. Oh, did I mention he was born in 1970?! Wow, what a fossil. Chesnutt and Edwards - same deal. Both are only around 40 years of age, but their voices have always inhabited the earth, if their records are any indication.

Looking for another name to add to the list? Then a trek down to Amnesia this coming Monday, Oct. 22, is in order, friends: local singer-songwriter A.J. Roach will be throwing a record-release party to celebrate the arrival of his latest collection of mountain music missives, Revelation (Waterbug). Trust me, the disc's a stunner - I've nearly memorized the damn thing already, I've played it so much! If you too find yourself giddily a-fluster at the thought of bourbon-soaked backwoods folk with the jagged edges left firmly in place, then Monday's hootenanny ain't one to be missed. Oh, and did I mention that admission is free?

Passing out lane: Birthday Suits at Cake Shop. All photos by Michael Harkin.

By Michael Harkin

It's been in the high 60s and low 70s out here in New York City, and while that is set to change pretty soon - the rain was set to start Thursday, the day I write this - the indie-rock sun shan't set till early Sunday morning! A lot of shows went off Wednesday, Oct. 17 (Tuesday was a bit more low-key) - here are a few that I checked out and enjoyed:

Celebration - good times.

CELEBRATION AT PIANO'S (BROOKLYNVEGAN SHOWCASE)

I was lucky enough to catch a set by Celebration, a Baltimore band whose organ-heavy psychedelic shoegaze-beat was a real treat to take in. Vocalist Katrina Ford explained that, because they were playing in New York, the group was larger than usual, boasting an additional fellow on the congas and a stellar saxophonist who added an element of voodoo jazz freakout to the occasion. Their material had a real infectious, danceable pulse and channeled the space-rock catharsis of Spiritualized on more than one occasion. I'd advise checking them out when they play at the Independent in San Francisco on Nov. 11.

Cool Kids go bump in the night.

FOOL'S GOLD SHOWCASE AT HIRO BALLROOM

A-Trak, Montreal DJ and head of the new Fool's Gold label, spun a closing with DJ Mehdi of the Paris's Ed Banger Records, bringing about clever collisions between electro, old-school booty rap and French filter disco. Kavinsky, also associated with Ed Banger, was slated to "perform," but primarily appeared to be standing around looking cool alongside the aforementioned DJs as they played a few of his 12-inch singles. He couldn't do it himself?!

The Cool Kids were the flat-out business, man: old-school, oft-808-based breaks and rhymes about gold, pagers, cell phones, and being off the wall like the logo on Vans - you know, the skater kicks? Visuals scrolled behind them of BMX jumping, breakdancing footage, and lotsa Michael Jordan dunks. It was 1993 all over again! Their DJ was called DJ V.I.P.J. - pretty cool. The Fool's Gold Showcase comes to the Mezzanine Saturday, Oct. 20.

Steamy Birthday Suits.

BIRTHDAY SUITS AT CAKE SHOP

This Minneapolis two-piece was super-thrashy and catchy, pushing miniature, manic bits of punk spazzcore into the basement space of the Cake Shop on the Lower East Side. Guitarist Hideo rolled about on the floor for a bit, while Matthew - who drummed and sang with Hideo - was a whirring thunder behind the kit. Pretty neat-o stuff, and a blinding reminder that rock really ought to be a lot noisier than it often is.

Whoa, there's a lot going this weekend, as usual in the fairest of 'Friscos. Let's take a tip from our sponsor and take it a one day at a time this weekend.

First, the Fiery Furnaces are up tonight, Oct. 19, with Pit er Pat at Independent - and dang, their new album, Widow City (Thrill Jockey), rocks it old-school. As in feathered hair, air-brushed vans, and double gatefold vinyl, which by chance, Widow City is available on. Hey, it's a great time to be a widow! (Cue video "Ex-Guru.")

Next up on Saturday, Oct. 20, you got a hoedown to throw down: the Fool's Gold Showcase at Mezzanine with A-Trak and DJ Mehdi, Kid Sister, Kavinsky, Nick Catchdubs, and Trackademicks. Let's hope Kavinsky actually does something (check Michael Harkin's CMJ blog) - but whatev, Chicago's Kid Sister will make it all happen - here at SXSW.

Meanwhile on Sunday, Oct. 21, SF singer-songwriter extradordinaire Chuck Prophet is going to be toasting his new acclaimed CD, Soap and Water (Yep Roc) - with tacos, natch.

Dude has hired a truck to treat the fans on Sunday at the Make-Out Room. Of the aforementioned grinds, Prophet said, "Yes, you heard right. Free tacos for all my friends! The taco truck will be courtesy of El Tonayense. I'm a carne asada man myself, but I hear they do a killer al pastor." (Dig it - after paying the $10 cover.) Prophet also performs free at Amoeba on Oct. 21, 2 p.m. - so now you've no excuse to miss him! (You can also hear the album online here.)

The Go! Team are all about the highly intense positivity. so it's a little strange to find producer-songwriter-mastermind Ian Parton, 33, so somber and sober, speaking from the UK on the brink of their SF show tonight, Oct 19, at Mezzanine. Oh well, the fun is all over the new record, Proof of Youth (Sub Pop) - and that's what counts. Here's a bit more from our talk.

Bay Guardian: Did you have anything that you really wanted to accomplish with this new album?

Ian Parton: I wanted it to be noisier, more kind of ballsier, just a bit more wangy, a bit more kick ass, and a bit more live sounding. I always loved weird tunings and white noise and feedback and more aggressiveness. A bit more Public Enemy and more sing-along.

BG: Speaking of Public Enemy, how did you get Chuck D to perform on the album?

IP: Oh yeah, I never really thought it would happen. I still never believed it up till that very moment. It was six months in the making after the first e-mail was shot off - to nowhere, not knowing if we had the right address and wondering if it was really Chuck that replied or someone fucking around with us.

By Chris DeMento

If I had been liquored up, like good and wedding-reception drunk, the Go! Team, who appeared Oct. 19 at Mezzanine, would have doubtless been an even more enjoyable show. They crammed their set full of frenetic, fizzpop, indie-hop dance numbers, deviating only twice to play something softer, slower, more coquettish. The better part of it was all getaway cars, poprocks, and coke.

The old stuff - like "Panther Dash" and "Lady Flash" - is written with a recipe that calls for one part rock 'n' roll posturing, one part disco synthfunk, and one part hip-hop brio. Mix in a simplistic glockenspiel, substitute semi-inspired harmonica lines, tinker about on toy instruments - and smile pretty and laugh and keep it genki! And throw your hands up in the air and jump and yell, "Yay!" and "Go!" and "Whoo!" a whole bunch of times. The stuff they played off the new album bears a listening, if only for the sake of close comparison to the old. The crazydancy rock-hop formula still works.

The Go! Team should be noted for doing what so many UK bands before them have also succeeded in accomplishing - that is, for putting fundamentally American tropes to colorful, original use. Not to call them Lennons
- far from it. But it's undeniable that the warm reception they received from their 35-and-younger Mezzanine audience had much to do with their manipulation of popular American forms, specifically hip-hop. Their approach presents itself just clearly enough, without overpowering the other ideas in the music - a convenient influence that remains almost topical so as not to scare off the alt-indie-dance-pop rockers. For the Go! Team, hip-hop works best as a component, a third of their sum polyphony, and in this way, lead vocalist Ninja provides a more rhetorical, rhythmically additive element than any real semantic purpose or tonal value - perfect for white folks who don't own any Nas records but fondly recall the Rob Bass days. (And this is all right crafty on the part of the band, if you ask me.)

Digging this hot vid dashing past the usual car worship culture with some pretty fly wheels (and considering that Cool Kid producer Chuck came from near Detroit -- big ups Mount Clemens -- that's saying something):

Cool Kids, "Black Mags"

Another fave from a wee l'il bit ago, wherein the bikes clearly beat down the cars (and hey, also from tha D!):

DJ Rolando aka Aztec Mystic, "Knights of the Jaguar"

Siouxsie Sioux, right, accepting a Peta
humanitarian award at a 2006 ceremony.
Courtesy of www.peta.org.uk.

By Todd Lavoie

Oh, 50 - it ain't no thing. Just ask Siouxsie Sioux, the reigning queen of ice-water stares and sublimely detached vamping just hit the half-century mark this May, though you'd never guess it. Fifty, schmifty! I just read a recent interview with the punk/goth/you-name-it icon, and the former Susan Dallion listed off three biggies for keeping the ole middle-age uglies at bay: plenty of water, lots of fresh produce, and a pure blistering hatred of air-conditioning.

She's lived in the South of France for years and years now - universes apart from the suburban drab-drab of her Bromley, England, upbringing - and she attributes the change of locale to her apparent eternal youthfulness. Proof? Ah, well, peep away at the artwork for Siouxsie's first-name-only-darling solo debut, Mantaray (Universal), and tell me that's not one of the most stunning fifth-decade women you've ever seen! So what if she's beddin' down with beetles, bees, and butterflies? I'm dazzled!

And do I spot the cracks of a smile on that face, eyes peering upwards and outwards into some warm light beaming down upon her? "Nah, can't be," you say? Go on, look again. Call me crazy, but that looks like optimism to me - oh, the Goths will be so disappointed.

By Duncan Scott Davidson

Dethklok, “the most brutal band in the world” and stars of Adult Swim’s juggernaut of animated murder, Metalocalypse, are on a nationwide tour in support of their recently released Dethalbum (Williams Street), which peaked at number three on the Billboard Hard Rock Album charts and reached number 21 on the Billboard 200, making it the best-selling death metal album of all time. The fact that a cartoon band bested Slayer’s Reign In Blood (Def Jam, 1986) might bum out old tyme metalists, but facts have to be faced here: not even Slayer are more brutal than the almighty ‘Klok.

Fear them. No, seriously.

Even when tackling stand-up comedy or band therapy, Dethklok are unquestionably dark and unrelenting (and hilarious). As stated by an anonymous fan on metalsucks.com: “I’d pay money to see Dethklok. I’d leave after they were done. Lyrically and musically, they are better than any death metal or metal core band out.” Unfortunately, the band is slated to open for indie rock icons …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, who, despite their metal-sounding name, are destined to be decapitated by Dethklok, only to have their headless corpses eaten by ravenous hell bats.

Recently, I called Metalocalypse creator Brendon Small to discuss the carnage.

Mighty Reatard-ed. All photos by Michael Harkin.

By Michael Harkin

There had been murmurs all week among college radio music-director types that this year’s CMJ line-up wasn’t as cool as in years past, and this seems correct to a certain degree. For one thing, there should have been more hip-hop and electronic showcases than there were, even if only to break up the obvious indie-rock bent of the overall conference. That said, the showcases that did go down often felt pretty representative of the best in the various represented genres: this week saw Mariee Sioux, Erol Alkan, Mika Miko, Earthless, and the Dirtbombs pass through the city limits and give it a go amid the abundant crowds of music industry hawks.

It was a week of late nights, little sleep, and perhaps one Belgian fry too many, but there was a lot of music to be taken in each day from 1 p.m. onward, one had to arise by 11 a.m. if he/she wanted a chance at sighting the next big thing. Here are some highlights from the last three days of the NYC festival:

THURSDAY

Memphis's Jay Reatard is still pretty young, but he's already got a certain mythological status among garage-punk mavens: as a former member of the Lost Sounds and the Reatards, and now with his solo career, he's had a King Midas touch of tunefulness that's ramped up lately. The dude's on a roll in the studio, having cranked out the spotless Blood Visions LP last year, as well as some brilliant slabs of vinyl on the side, like the glorious "I Know a Place" single, whose B-side is a stunning acoustic cover of the Go-Betweens' "Don't Let Him Come Back." Tonight at a crowded Cake Shop, he greeted the crowd with "Hey douchebags!" and proceeded to play most of Blood Visions at triple speed, finishing his set in less than 20 minutes. Every song was introduced with the song title and a "LET'S GO" - superb punk from a fiery, poofy-haired, tough-looking group of dudes. Jay will be rolling through the Bay Area in November (12 Galaxies and the Stork Club), and he remarked in a conversation after the show that there are a series of singles coming next year, so look out for that!

Double Dagger take a stab.

Following Mr. Reatard, Double Dagger brought punk of a different flavor: a more sinister, Fugazi-like intensity characterized their set, as vocalist Nolen Strals hap'ly danced about the stage in his blue, black, and white
camo tee. They didn't face quite as thick a crowd as the preceding set did, but those that stayed paid witness to a spastic stomp-along series of howls and tight bass grooves. These guys channel the nerdy anger of Shellac and the slanted guitar riffs of Swell Maps in a convincing way, and form yet another piece of evidence that the Baltimore music scene is blooming.

I have a new obsession: www.jewsrock.org. I found the site while researching an old obsession, NOFX’s “The Brews” (I was trying to prove to a friend that it wasn’t a cover of another song, and that, in fact, the song she thought was the original was actually Manic Hispanic’s cover of “The Brews,” called “Cruise”), and nearly fell off my chair. The only thing I love more than punning and pro-Jewish jokes is rock music. And combining all three? Holy chutzpah, I’m a happy little semi-Semite. Check out the site to find for a guide to who’s who in Jewish rock (The Challah Fame), Q&As with famous Heebs (The Four Questions), features on musical icons like David Lee Roth (“And the Dreidl will Rock”), and essays on music and Jewishness (“Heavy Shtetl”). Even more perfect? Cruise the site while listening to Oakland’s parody of racist punk band Screwdriver, called (of course) Jewdriver. Just make sure you visit before Friday at sundown, because we sure as shit don’t rock on Shomer fucking Shabbos.

Photo courtesy of Roberta Bayley.
Who knew? Joey Ramone (a.k.a. Jeffrey Hyman) is one of the Chosen. But I wish the goyim could keep Kenny G.

Over the course of the next week I'll be posting Q&As with all of the music-makers featured in this week's "From Norway to our Bay" cover story. What better person to kick things off with than Hans-Peter Lindstrøm, the Oslo maestro behind many great tracks and the man behind Feedelity Recordings? This interview actually dates back to earlier this year, and thus provides an introduction of sorts for other conversations – with Lindstrom’s cohort Prins Thomas, and with SF’s Sorcerer, Hatchback, Arp, and Dominique Leone – soon to come.

Guardian: What are you up to today?
Hans-Peter Lindstrøm: I’ve been working on a remix. I’ve got a deadline tomorrow.

G: One of my favorite remixes of yours is of “Call Me Mr. Telephone,” by Answering Service [for the comp Confuzed Disco]. I love how dramatic the buildup is before the vocal -- the keyboards remind me a bit of John Carpenter.
L: I did that one with [Prins] Thomas, but I have an unfinished version that I did alone that sounded very disco. I was banging my head against the wall, so I asked Thomas if he wanted to jam. We went to the studio and usually he picks up the bass and drums and I play the keyboards.
We decided to change the chords and the structure of the song, starting it without vocals. I’m really happy with that mix because it’s not the traditional way of doing a remix.

You may not love to listen to Beethoven like Annie Lennox's fabulously unravelling housewife ....

But would you listen to him if the conductor looked like this?

Does sex sell classical? Sure!

I know I would. And I will, as young Swiss conductor Philippe Jourdan leads the San Francisco Symphony (and renowned French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard) in Beethoven's lovely, sweeping, and somewhat hot-blooded Piano Concerto #3 -- as well as Ludwig van's Egmont Overture and Richard Strauss's An Alpine Symphony, October 26-27 at Davies Symphony Hall (and Thursday the 25th in Cupertino). Come for the cutie, stay for the music -- that's what I always slur ....

This Friday and Saturday evening. Click here for more dishy info.

By Todd Lavoie

“New Who What Huh?!” All right, maybe the name doesn’t exactly flow from the tongue in gently rolling syllables on the first go-round, but try it with me now, slowly, steadily: New Young Pony Club. Ah, there you are. Very nice. Again. New Young Pony Club. Great. Quick - now three times fast. Now you’re in fine shape for this coming Monday. Why, you ask? That’s when London indie disco-new wave revivalists New Young Pony Club storm the Mezzanine stage, silly.

The five-piece of hip young things and fashion-forward synth lovers insist on their Web site that New Young Pony Club isn’t just a mere dance band, but that they have a mission, a manifesto, even. A subtle manifesto, they add, but a manifesto nonetheless. Since they seem to keep their MO shrouded in mystery - unless, of course, my days of staying two steps ahead are sadly behind me and I just straight up missed the deeper gist of the sloganeering, a serious possibility I must grant as I catch another wisp of gray in my sideburns - I’m going to hazard some crazy-ass guesswork here and offer a theory to NYPC’s driving force. Ready?

Party hard. Oh, and look great doing it.

Sorry, the above should say Hallo-winners, not Hallo-weiners -- but I'm hella-halla hungover, and that's why this posting is, well, late. BUT! There so much devilishly great stuff happening this Halloweekend and beyond that I'm running out of annoying puns -- a thankful first! I want to go to every party, and I probably will, but below are some that I've highlighted because if I don't, the drag queens involved in several of them will poke a stiletto through my third eye. And isn't that what drag queens are for, to kill you? They're like Gattaca. But with robots. I think.

SATURDAY

Surya Dub Halloween Mashdown

For some reason Halloween always reminds me of Indian food. You too? Weird! Get down to the devilish dubstep and Southeast Asian sounds (no drag queens involved -- but maybe) at Surya Dub's Halloween mashdown, with DJ Maneesh the Twista and a freakin' pumpkinload of international guests -- this is the place to be on Saturday latenight, right dem?

Club Six
60 Sixth St., SF; 863-122.
10pm-3am. $10.
Tons more info: www.suryadub.com

---------------------------------------------------------------

Dial "X" For Murder

The best annual lesbian costume party ever. DJs Campbell and Roccoh add to the devil may care atmosphere. (One of my friends just phoned to tell me she was going to cut eye holes out of a flannel shirt and go as a lesbian ghost! Awesome!)

Lexington Club
3464 19th St., SF
863-2052, www.lexingtonclub.com. 8pm, Free.

Yeah, this week’s cover story on Oslo-San Francisco beyond-disco connections is pretty damn long. But there wasn’t enough room to note all of Dominique Leone’s activities. In addition to his November EP on Lindstrom’s Feedelity label, Leone is also readying an LP for release next year. He has another project, Paul and Diane, which pairs him with MaryClare Brzytwa. He’s also working with Katie Vida – the Local Artist featured in this week’s issue – on a dream world installation for Maybeck House in Berkeley.

Guardian: How did you and Lindstrom get in contact with one another?
Dominique Leone: We first communicated around a year and a half ago. I wanted him to a remix of one of my tunes, so I just wrote [to] him. He asked me to send some music, so I sent him a few songs. When he came back to me he was really positive. He’d sent one email that I never got, and then wrote me again weeks later to ask if I’d received what he’d written.

Daniel Judd of Sorcerer likes racquet sports, so I found it hard to talk about music when I interviewed him. But I like Sorcerer's White Magic so much -- in fact, as I post this interview, I'm listening to it -- that for once I was able to shut up about tennis. It was even US Open season, and yet, I was able to exercise restraint when it came to my Dolores Park backhand battles, my friends' favorite obscure places to play in San Francisco, and my fandom for current players like Rafael Nadal and obscure new players like Agnes Szavay. (See? I can't shut up.) One insightful aspect of the interview below that I wasn't able to fit into this week's cover story is Judd's discussion of DVDs and the craft of making music and movies. Dive a little deeper, to the bottom of this Q&A's oceanic floor, and you'll find some funny banter about fish in tanks and fish on plates.

Guardian: I just read an interview with your where you mentioned ping-pong. Are you going to see Balls of Fury?
Daniel Judd: I saw a preview for that the other day. There’s this Japanese movie I’ve been trying to hunt down called Ping Pong. It came out a few years ago and I don’t know if it even came out on DVD, but it’s been compared to Rushmore and Wes Anderson.

G: I noticed you’ve listed tennis as one of your interests. You know that really I just want to interview you about racquet sports.
DJ: Some friends and I had a tennis group of various levels that we called the Tennis Jihad.

G: I’ll start out by asking about some of my favorite tracks on White Magic: “Divers Do it Deeper,” “Blind Yachtsman” and “Airbrush Dragon.” Can you tell me about those?
DJ: On “Divers Do it Deeper” I was trying to do underwater, aquatic disco. I was looking at pictures of deep sea diving and I found this funny old bumper sticker that said 'Divers Do it Deeper.'

By Ben Richardson

Esteemed Guardian staffer Cheryl Eddy was kind enough to sacrifice a sentence of her Behemoth preview this Wednesday, Oct. 24, on the altar of French metal masterminds Gojira. Though the adjective she picked to describe them - “brutal” - is certainly apt, I wanted to delve a little deeper into the band’s Gallic brutality.

Gojira is the brainchild of two brothers from Bayonne: Joe and Mario Duplantier, a guitarist and a drummer who honed their formidable instrumental skills as children before recruiting a bassist and second guitarist to round out their band. Initially calling themselves Godzilla, they soon paid the inevitable price of, well, not coming up with a better band name, and switched over to the Japanese translation.

Describing Gojira’s music is tricky. The music definitely draws on the bludgeoning power of down-tuned death metal riffs, and it harnesses the speed of thrash metal picking, but it’s nigh impossible to call it “death” or “thrash” in good conscience. There’s also the complication of the band’s heavy prog influence, which manifests itself in Gojira’s off-kilter, abruptly curtailed riffs, strange time signatures, and majestic, epic interludes.

Don't try to front like you never liked Motley Crue. You know you shouted at the devil. You know you tapped out the poignant opening bars of "Home Sweet Home" on your big sister's Casio keyboard. And you know you turn up the iPod when shuffle kicks you into "Dr. Feelgood."

Girl, don't go away mad.

Ok, maybe all of the above -- that's just me (I also own Motley Crue: Behind the Music on DVD, and have routinely claimed band auto-bio The Dirt to be my favorite book of all time). But if you don't like the Crue, what's wrong with ... uh .. yue?

Founding Motley member Nikki Sixx don't need no Rock of Love, sex-tape scandal, nor Surreal Life stint to retain his coolness. And I say this because, well, he was always my favorite. (Love you too, Mick Mars.) Now the Sixx-pack's got a new side-project band (Sixx: AM -- get it??), who've just put out a soundtrack of sorts to Sixx's new memoir, The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star (Pocket Books, 2007).

Learn it. Love it.

Head over to Barnes and Noble in San Mateo to pick up a copy and get it signed by Sixx hisself -- in person this weekend. Partial proceeds from book sales go to Sixx's Running Wild in the Night, a fundraising initiative that helps runaway, abandoned, and abused youth via Covenant House California. Here's the deets:

Sun/28, 2 p.m.
Barnes and Noble
11 West Hillsdale Blvd., Hillsdale Shopping Center
San Mateo, CA
(650) 341-5560

The book, which is designed to look like a diary and is packed with ghoulish, red-white-and-black illustrations, contains some pretty amazing rock 'n' roll nightmare-isms:

"April 4, 1987
Van Nuys, 2:30 a.m.

I think things are looking up. Pete and me have now got porn stars doing our drug runs for us."

"August 28, 1987
Capital Center, Landover, MD
Backstage, 11:55 p.m.

I just got a blow job from a girl who started crying and thanked me after. What the fuck?"

"November 21, 1987
Backstage, Chattanooga, 6:40 p.m.

Fuck, I feel like dog shit."

(Author's note: this was my Halloween costume costume more than once.)

By Todd Lavoie

Comeback of the year? Edwyn Collins, definitely. Back in February 2005, Collins - the former leader of jaunty Scottish post-punk charmers Orange Juice and a solo artist best known for the 1994 vibraphone-peppered finger-snapper "A Girl Like You" - suffered two cerebral hemorrhages that left him hospitalized for months. After undergoing extensive operations, he was unable to speak, and with the workings of the brain remaining a bit of mystery despite all of our progress in medicine, doctors were uncertain as to when he would regain his voice, if at all. Mercifully, Collins's rigorous neurological rehabilitation program was enormously successful, and the whip-smart crooner got his velvet-and-stinging-nettles baritone back. A gradual process, obviously, but his recovery was coming along at such a steady clip that earlier this year he decided to work on the material he'd recorded prior to his near-fatal attacks. Apparently the road to wellness has been rather smooth for Collins. Here we are, only a few months later, and Home Again (Heavenly/EMI) is already out. And it's fantastic.

From what I've gathered from recent interviews, nearly all of the music on Home Again was recorded before the hemorrhages, which meant the only work that remained to be done was the mixing. However, that's a mighty big "only" when you consider that Collins's recovery was a two-step process: first he had to re-acquire the faculties to make words and sentences, and then he had to re-familiarize himself with the sound of his own voice. For a singer - whose sense of identity is so deeply, fundamentally tied to having an intuitive understanding of the voice - such a setback must be daunting beyond belief.

In one interview, Collins revealed that when he was first recovering in the hospital, all he wanted was silence. Gradually, that position changed and all he wanted was his guitar, but it would take months before he was able to indulge that desire. Re-acquiring his voice meant much more than being to able to produce sound with his lips and tongue. It also meant a great deal of (self-)exploration, learning how to use the voice more effectively for conveying emotion. Listening to the tapes in his home studio initially was much like getting to know a stranger, he described in another interview. Chalk it up to a crack team of physical rehabbers and some seriously scrappy fortitude, I suppose, because Home Again is a clear sign that Collins possesses total control of his instrument. If the pre-illness Collins was indeed a stranger upon re-introduction, it mustn't have taken long before the barriers were broken down and a deeper understanding was achieved.

Though undeniably accurate, "The Bridge School Benefit" is the worst name for a rock concert ever. The only sexy thing about it (besides giving publicity to the school, which deserves it), is that it sounds a lot better to skip out on helping a friend move or having dinner with your S.O.'s parents to attend a "benefit" than it does to admit you're going to smoke doobies and listen to the devil's music.

But for all its bad name-iness, and the fact that I hate the Shoreline Ampitheater (Am I too old to appreciate massive venues? Or have I been spoiled by intimate shows in good-music towns?), the 21st Annual Bridge School Benefit last Saturday was actually quite good.

It may seem like no surprise, given that Tom Waits was on the bill. But with great expectations comes the possibility for great disappointment, and I’m happy to report that Mr. Waits did not disappoint.

Good old Tom when he was, well, less old.

By Chris DeMento

Saturday night, Oct. 27, and I'm at the Independent to see Two Gallants. Opening acts Songs for Moms and Blitzen Trapper did well to set the stage for odes. Soft white lights blanched soft white faces, making ghosts of East Coast transplants dressed like goons dressed like Double Dare buffoons. Meanwhile young city-bankers in serial-killer costumes put on cats' ears for listening. Still a half week shy of Halloween, and it seemed the lot of us, near and far, came quite prepared to be forgetting who we are.

I love rock 'n' roll when it smashes lullabies, even as it oozes sap. Two Gallants has me stalking my neighbor a day after the show so he can retell to me events I missed because I was sort of given over, maybe half transfixed.

The duo must have been tired when they hit the stage, road weary, but they hid it well, used it even. It's not easy to play with lots of energy after a whirlwind two-and-half weeks across the country, unless it's for a homecoming, which this was, and unless you know how to make it work for you, which they do. I wondered at their transitions - a reggae skeeze, a waltz, then back to indie peristalsis - felt them in my head and in my loins. I don't know their songs so well but I got lost in them for a while at least.

Johnny Ace: a blues icon turns into one of rock's first casualties.

By Erik Morse

With Halloween soon approaching, all the party mixtapes and Goth soundtracks will inevitably be programmed with the scary and spectral. It only seems appropriate, then, to take a look at a history of some of these ghostly recordings, albeit of a slightly different kind.

Twentieth century music must have been possessed from the moment it became electrified, a seemingly endless séance of dead voices stripped of a bodily source and projected into the ether, replayed endlessly through phonographs, radios, tape-players, and iPods. And like other technologized art forms, popular music created a simultaneous narrative stream of folk tales and urban legends that emanated from fan to fan and fed back into the collective experience of "hearing" like the vibrations of an E string squealing against a Vox amplifier. More than a 100 years since Edison recorded the sounds of a nursery rhyme (extra credit if you know which one) in his Menlo Park laboratory, the most famous moments in popular "sound" have played loudly alongside a haunted loop of forgotten breakthroughs and discarded reels remanded to the archives of the preening critic and obsessive fanatic. These ghostly recordings and events may have been buried for ages so there’s no better time than Halloween to go digging them up again.

Never mind Brian Wilson’s infamous Smile, Bob Dylan’s electric turn at Newport ‘65 or Prince’s Black Album, these 12 notorious sonic “events” constitute a spectral and alternative history in recorded music’s century long canon. The more cryptic, the more incredible, and the more emphatic the anecdote, the scarier the sounds. Try playing some of these at your next Halloween party and see just how spooked your guests will get.

By Chris DeMento

The Pipettes are a UK trio with a Supremes-meets-indie-rock popgirl sexgimmick on a North American tour come two years too late. They wear polka-dot skirts. They are hot. They dance about. They are very sexy. They sing about boys in school uniforms and dance about. They are female vocalists. Let us coordinate our dance in the old-new popstyles and dance the old-new popstyles about very much: www.thepipettes.co.uk, read the "about" page.

On paper, Bimbo's 365 Club and the Pipettes (Oct. 29) are a decent match. One would think the girls' bubbly, decadent act should awaken the joint's muffy ballroom character, bring it out in (retro)fits. Dances with schizoid eyes and dated names, long cigarettes, alcoholism - I saw none of this stuff. What I did see was a priced-to-move vortex of !Fun Brand! unfun that looked like a lot of hard work and sounded mediocre at best, an embarrassing pratfall of a noisewelter. All they wanted to do between numbers was bitch at the soundperson, which only served to draw attention to the unfortunate thin of their overproduced sound. If you want to be heard, just sing louder, ladies.

There is room for escapism in popular music. People need to be moved, taken for the proverbial ride out and away from themselves, given over to suspension of disbelief, even. But at a certain point one needs to separate meaningful escapist art from driveling, crackerjack ridicule and shameless branding, especially when the latter start taking themselves too seriously. "We are the Pipettes" was one of the songs they did - it's also an album title. The Monkeys, hey, hey, people said they monkeyed around. People also said they sucked ass. People don't want to be goofy surf-movie extras. Not the smart ones, anyway, not anymore. Sorry to be a killjoy.

By Benedict Sinclair

It’s always nice to get a warm feeling from a show, regardless of the sonic or literal violence you might undergo during it. The bartender at Café Du Nord on Thursday, Oct. 25, was kind enough to hand me my drink with an unusually welcoming smile. Suddenly I overheard a discussion about how beautiful a certain country highway was - the one I’d just happened to grow up on. Ah, home. I’m never sure why, but I get the same feeling from listening to albums that include guitarists Nels Cline (of the Geraldine Fibbers, the Nels Cline Singers, and nowadays Wilco) and Jeff Parker (Tortoise and Isotope 217).

The narrative arc of a Nels Cline solo once seemed to me a bit like a rollercoaster, but considering the sudden, indescribable variations on delay and distortion he tosses around, the amount of 13th chords he employs, and, really, just a plain old spooky control over chaos, I’m more inclined to recall the image of a flickering candle. I’m thinking specifically of the one placed in the center of my table at Café Du Nord, where the Nels Cline Singers played two sets: one as a trio and the other with Parker. I sat, I stared, I heard.

I mean, bassist Devin Hoff and drummer Scott Amendola certainly held their shit down, punctuating Cline’s soaring presence with equal vigor. But I can’t get away from that flame metaphor, the way a practically invisible center produces that glow, refracting in all directions through a bubble glass lamp. It was as if Nels and his sparking fingers lighted the café themselves, that red hue cast over everything perhaps strictly a product of the heat scattering out as this guy poured his soul into unpredictable jazz shredding. Yet the band also fostered many moments where the flickering meant a slight cooling. They’d play pretty, sweet melodies together and still burn it up. The second set was the less out there of the two.

Pussy Galore - and scares galore.

By Erik Morse

Let's pick up where the first installment of "Spooked sounds" left off: here are a few more notorious sonic “events,” which constitute a spectral and alternative history in recorded music’s century long canon. The more cryptic, the more incredible and the more emphatic the anecdote, the scarier the sounds. Try playing some of these at your next Halloween party and see just how spooked your guests will get.

PART TWO: THE LATER YEARS (1967-PRESENT)

Unit Delta Plus and the Beatles - Million Volt Light and Sound Rave, London, 1967

Founded as a cooperative of sorts by electronic musicians Delia Derbyshire, Brian Hodgson, and Peter Zinovieff as early as 1965, Unit Delta Plus was an experimental adjunct to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop during the height of "swinging" London’s musical and multimedia explorations.

Using their knowledge and gear from the BBC days and marrying it to a more edgy, psychedelic sensibility, Unit Delta Plus hoped to accomplish an aesthetic saturation of sight and sound not unlike that being similarly developed at New York’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable or San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium. With Zinovieff’s Putney townhouse as their headquarters, the members of UDP began experimenting with complex tape music and primitive EMS synthesizers. By ’66 they held a music festival in Berkshire, reputedly the first ever dedicated solely to electronic music. Although the crowd was composed mainly of academics and musicologists, the festival was a major success and catapulted Unit Delta Plus into the center of the London underground.

OMFG -- you knew it would happen. Girly bear rap-rock AT LAST hits the viral mainstream. And yes, it's pretty terrifying. Even more terrifying -- why is SFBG becoming a clearinghouse for bear musical releases? Because I loves me some scary, furry goodness, that's why.

JFYI -- if you wanna check out some serious bear hip hop -- ON THE FUR REALS -- check out my sexy homie Bigg Nugg below

An incredible argument against America’s tragic downsizing of school music programs? Why sure! What do you get when you create a national system of youth musical education that reaches 250,000 kids, spawns 120 orchestras, and offers even the poorest kids in the country an opportunity to express themselves and plug into global culture? Well, El Sistema, as the huge and tuneful operation in Venezuela is known, is one. Complete and utter musical bliss in the form of the globe-trotting Simon Bolivar National Youth Orchestra, under the direction of world hotshot 26-year-old conductor Gustavo Dudamel, is another. Check it:

(and before all you neo-cons jump all over the whole national program thing with your musty Soviet-socialist rhetoric, that’s the delightfully heretical Shostakovich they’re playing to cleverly diffuse you, dudes). The Youth Orchestra, which will be playing ol’ Shosty’s 10th Symphony, Bernstein’s West Side Story and some fiesty Latin American selections at Davies Symphony Hall this Sunday Nov 4, get pretty festive too:

Of course, there’s a temptation to romanticize these talented kids as geniuses of the barrios – but in many cases that’s indeed what they are. Come out this Sunday and see where a little inspiration and support can lead ….

Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra
Sunday, Nov 4, 7pm, $25-$81
Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Avenue, SF
(415) 864-6000
www.sfsymphony.org