By Todd Lavoie

Marty Willson-Piper, "Questions Without Answers" (1989)

What a treat! Singer/songwriter/founding member of Aussie atmosphere-masters The Church, Marty Willson-Piper, is doing a special solo-spotlight show--- backed by the alluringly-named Mood Maidens--- at the Great American Music Hall on Sunday, May 4th. As far as I remember, the last time he played here in the city was back in the summer of '06, with The Church, at the same venue. Ah, what a show that was--- ever-genteel bandmate Steve Kilbey joked about spearheading an "Elizabethan Rock" movement, and Willson-Piper obliged by bringing delicate, graceful guitar-dexterity to Church slow-burners and ambience-anthems such as "Under The Milky Way", "Chromium", and "Metropolis". No word yet about whether Elizabethan Rock is still on the front burner for the band, but the charming, quick-quipping guitarist/big-hit-with-the-ladies does have a new album out--- entitled Nightjar (Heyday Records), it's a gorgeous collection of warm-textured folk-rock pushed along by some of the most delicious six string jangles since, well, the last Church album, really.

Is an introduction to The Church necessary? Probably not, so how about a reminder, then: ever since releasing their debut Of Skins and Heart (Arista/EMI) back in 1981, the band has released well over a dozen albums and EP's matching (frequently) melancholy neo-psychedelic atmospherics with mystical subject matter, and Willson-Piper has, along with lead singer Kilbey, been a constant in their two-decades-deep career. Much of their success should be attributed to his ability to float just the right color of aura to their formidable mood-making; it's tough to imagine the smoldering majesty of Church classics like 1985's "Myrrh", 1988's "Antenna", or 2003's "Sealine" without Marty's sublime textures. Then, of course, there's the perennial crowd-fave of "Spark"--- the taut, sneering Mod stomper from 1988's Starfish (Arista) gave the band's usual backing-vocalist a truly inspired turn at the lead mic. Two particularly fascinating recent-additions to the band's catalogue--- 2004's El Momento Descuidado and 2007's El Momento Siguiente (both Liberation Music)--- both offer exquisite "unplugged" revisits to career-highlights, and here, free of feedback and pedal effects, one can gain a whole new appreciation for his intricate guitar-work. Perhaps they also had an effect on the recording of Nightjar, as this new solo jaunt seems to share a kinship with the lush folk ambience of both albums. Granted, the disc does indeed have its electric moments--- it even occasionally rocks out in that slow purposeful grind associated with latter-day Church recordings--- but it's easy to imagine Nightjar as a younger, rougher-around-the-edges sibling to the Momento twins.

In which the breathless writer of this week's Super Ego column in the paper, laying out the deets on the emerging lazer bass sound, cuts deeper with bass-bangin' SF duo Lazer Sword (and gets a li'l spankin' for slapping the "lazer bass" genre header over their sick-ass beats.) Stick it to me! Below is my e-mail interview with swordsters Lando Kal and LL ...

The dynamic duo
Photo by Jordan Fraker

SFBG: So what’s the Lazer Sword backstory?
LL: I'm 26 years old and originally from Portland, OR, back when the Trailblazers were hot, but have been in SF for nearly 5 years now. Before I made the move I was heavily into making hip-hop beats in a rap group called Evil Hands, and when we started getting some shows around town I had no choice but to be the DJ (the guy who mans the CD player and does little scratches over the hook) so I was kind of forced to get used to standing on stage and learn to actually spin records a bit since I wasn't one of the rappers.

After landing in SF I continued to work on music and started playing around with more instrumental type of shit since I had no homies who rapped in the immediate area. Lando and I had crossed paths a few times in the city before we actually got together on some music, but after an official introduction from our mutual hombre Keenan (2005?) we found many similarities in what each other were doing in our respective studios and how we were both trying to do some new experimental shit as well. For a couple months we dabbled around and got a feel for where things were going, but after some people heard what we were doing there was a bit of force put on coming up with a way to hit the streets, so insert a few more months of hard work and eventually we had a live show.

Lazer Sword rip up Rickshaw Stop, May 2007

LANDO: Well I'm 24 and though born in San Francisco, I grew up in Sacramento. I've been back for about 6 years now and still enjoy every bit of it. I've been producing/ DJing for about 8 years now, messing around with various styles throughout the years. I met Bryant about 4 years ago here in San Francisco and we've been labcolabin' ever since. We met through mutual friends and through passing at Amoeba records (where I worked at the time), trading thoughts on good records for sample material and what not, and began visiting each others' respective home studios to jam the fuck out. Noticing we had very similar tastes in music and production styles, we naturally began throwing our ideas together, creating boosty tunes and realizing it all worked well together. We've been performing for a little over a year now and the sets have changed quite a bit since the first show. I think we can read each other a bit more.

SFBG: What's going on up there on stage and how do you work together to produce your sound? Especially, how do you produce your lazer bass sound?

By Todd Lavoie

Neon Neon, “I Lust U (featuring Cate Le Bon)”

As far as concept albums go, it couldn’t get much odder: Neon Neon’s Stainless Style (Lex Records) -- the new collaboration between Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys and underground electro/hip hop producer Boom Bip -- takes a body-rockin’ trundle on the time-machine back to the heady life and times of John DeLorean, and mercifully, it works and works and works. It could’ve been so completely naff -- concept albums often are, frequently falling prey to their own ambition and overly-serious dedication to the subject matter concerned -- but the impish Welsh singer/songwriter and L.A. beatmaster handle the conceit with humor, reverence, and more than a little insight as well. Better yet, the album just as successfully when considered merely as a collection of songs, no more, no less. Isolate any of these synth-wigglers from the concept album construct, and you’ll still end up with a solid stand-alone track worthy of your hips and ears.

A neon yellow DeLorean: ready

Stainless Style is steeped a-plenty deep in the Back to The Future era. Much like the infamous DeLorean vehicle itself, the album is slick and sleek, squeaking from a hard polish that lands midway between glitzy and tacky beyond belief -- in the best possible way, mind you. Any recording which intends to faithfully, convincingly pay tribute to the 80s must speak with a fluency in the rhythmic- and synth-cheeses of the times, and Neon Neon apparently has taken a full-immersion course in the language.

Hell yeah we're still hungover and sunburnt. That's why this is a week late. Fab photog Tommy Brockert captured the sites and moods of Coachella 2008. This is part one. Rawk.

Burning Man fave Big Rig Jig centered the fest

The boys of Chromeo slice the backhand

Oakland/Sacramento natives Wallpaper made their own lineup in the parking lot

By Todd Lavoie

Vieux Farka Touré, "Bullet the Blue Sky"

Oh, U2 -- they might not have changed the world as much as they’d hoped (or, not yet, anyway), but at least they’ve made it a warmer, more hopeful place, yes? Hard to fathom a band more deserving of the tag “global phenomenon,” but there it is, slapped upon every stirring chorus and grand sweeping gesture from Bono’s anointed fingers -- the sheer enormousness of it all would be mighty hard to take if the guys didn’t have the goods to back it up. But they do, and what’s more, they’ve kept the flow for longer than some listeners have even been alive -- to whom else on the international airwaves could we ever say such a thing? Michael Jackson? Once upon a time, sure, but not anymore. Mariah Carey? Please. And you’d best bite that lip before suggesting Britney! But honestly: has anyone else in modern-day rock/pop ubiquity had the same level of social impact as U2? For all of the mumbles and grumbles about Bono’s perceived messiah-complex, it’s worth remembering that he and his mates have pushed far beyond the familiar celebrity-pose of half-hearted idealism in favor of honest-to-goodness optimism, championing countless causes with honest-to-goodness conviction. Take that, Ms Spears.

Further testimony can be found on the recently-released In The Name Of Love: Africa Celebrates U2 (Shout! Factory). An intriguing collection of interpretations from U2’s catalogue by some of the continent’s most notable musicians, the disc serves as more than just a reminder of the band’s utmost uber-importance -- this tribute also offers fresh insight into their unimpeachable songwriting skills. Language barriers? Pshaw! How nineteenth century!

OK, yeah, I realize that after a 15 year absence or whatever, every one of chthonic "shoegaze" (ugh) legends My Bloody Valentine's fans are supposedly middle-aged Google coders now (or parking Daddy's Pagani Zonda C12S outside Popscene on Thursdays). But $47.50 plus "handling" for their hopefully triumphant and thalassically massive comeback appearance at the Concourse on September 30? What am I, Jarvis Cocker?

Rollin' and gazin'

Still, when I saw them in '89 (?) they ripped my world apart. And the ceiling of the club actually rained down plaster from their ampage. I'm gladly going to fund Kevin Shields's apparently still raging extasy habit. Fuck my dreams of front-row Cher in Vegas -- bring on the luxury Googe!

Obligatory vid of "Soon" by MBV here:

The storied Metro Bar in the Castro moved down the street to Church and Market a while ago (the old space became the suspiciously Metro-alike Lookout) -- and people worried for its future. Luckily, the minds behind the Metro are sharp enough to know they need a draw, and the new Metro has already become a premiere trash-drag venue (multiple Joan Crawford tribute nights aside.)

It's even managed to lure one of San Francisco's bloody, beloved drag traditions, The Cookie Dough Monster Show, run by Cookie Dough herself (with her cute DJ partner MC2), from its pleasant perch at Harvey's.

The biweekly Saturday night drag-stravaganza may be big on low-budget thrills, but its offal-covered heart is always in the right place. This Saturday, May 10, features the freakishly unexplainable House of Salad, whom I adore. These underaged children will grow up to be starz someday, I tell you -- starz.

By Joshua Rotter

Call me overly-dramatic but Duran Duran have and will forever be my favorite band. They have been since I was five. That's probably why one of my greatest regrets is opting for a Nintendo console over tickets to the "Arena" tour -- what was to be the band's final outing (with all five founding members) -- for my sixth birthday back in 1984.

While seeing reformed lineups both onstage and at record signings in the 90's, and even encountering John Taylor one fateful morning at the Noah's Bagels that I worked at in 1997, offered some consolation, nothing would come close to seeing the Fab Five together again on their 2008 reunion tour.

All pics by Quartknee Kwatek

While guitarist Andy Taylor's recent departure from the group may have sprinkled on my parade, I can't say that their Bay Area Red Carpet Massacre tour stop at Sleep Train Amphitheatre in Concord May 2 suffered for it.

The three-act show, which debuted in late 2007 on Broadway, was highly-theatrical, incorporating all the necessary show-stopping elements.

There was unique staging in the band's utilization of a simple skyscraper background and a variety of light sources -- from stage lights to bulbs -- to evoke a variety of moods instead of traditional video screens.

The musical numbers -- from the darker tracks off their Timba-Lake-produced "Red Carpet Massacre" (2007) like bass-heavy opener "The Valley", beat-driven "Night-Runner" and hip pop number "Skin Diver" complete with Timbaland rapping loop to rearrangements of the band's lighter classics such as "Hungry Like the Wolf", "The Reflex" and "Rio" -- were mixed gorgeously.

The mid-section of the show was run entirely on synthesizers and drum machines, so
tracks like "Last Chance on the Stairway" "All She Wants Is" and "I Don't Want Your Love" became even more electro-shocked, blending seamlessly with the band's cover of The Normal's "Warm Leatherette".

Josh and the boys

Fab photog Tommy Brockert's Coachella photos keep streaming in ...

The light side of the pig -- from Roger Waters' Pink Floyd flashback set

Future indie addicts

London DJ Erol Alkan's first West Coast appearance blew the crowd away

The lights at night

By Todd Lavoie

Supergrass, “Diamond Hoo Ha Man”

Perhaps it’s perfectly fitting that the lads in Supergrass -- cheeky as they’ve always been -- are the ones in the much-ballyhooed Britpop pack having the last laugh after all. Chalk it up to their boyish exuberance, I suppose, or maybe to their steadfast refusal to take themselves too seriously, but the Oxford stompers are now deep into the double-digit years of their career, and still sounding remarkably fresh with each release, while so many of those acts once mentioned in the same breath have either broken up or lost their relevance.

The once-ubiquitous movement, which the British music press essentially heralded as something akin to the second coming of Christ, complete with its share of messianic drama and seething rivalries, had a great run for a while there, beginning around the mid-‘90s and lasting through the turn of the century. Blur, Oasis, Pulp, Suede, Elastica, Sleeper -- they were some of the big-hitters at the center of it all, unapologetically celebrating Britishness, flag-drapery and all, through a spirited revisit of ‘60s Mod culture, punk/post-punk jitters, and New Wave electro-romanticism.

When Supergrass showed up, still in their teens and hardly concealing it, the bright-eyed scruffs seemed like the younger, sillier siblings to the art-school grads of Blur and Pulp. I imagine many folks would’ve never guessed at the time of their breakthrough 1995 single “Alright” (yep, as in “We are young/ we run green/ keep our teeth nice and clean/ see our friends, see the sights/ feel alright” -- recently snagged by Walt Disney world for their feel-good commercials) that the band would still be going strong thirteen years later. Nothing against them, of course, it’s just that bands sticking together for more than a decade are a bit of a rarity.

But here they are, and their recently Brit-released sixth album, Diamond Hoo Ha (Parlophone/EMI) – to be released here 6/10 on Astralwerks -- is a winner. With the demise of Pulp and Elastica and Sleeper and Suede fading further by the day, and in view of Blur’s highly unlikely on-again/off-again reformation rumors and Oasis’s having long since lost the plot, it looks like Supergrass might strike the double-bonus of longevity and sustained relevance. Hmmm, feel alright, indeed.

By Vanessa Carr

Jef Stott has been a producer and remixer on San Francisco's global electronica scene for over a decade. But this Saturday night (5/10) at Bollyhood in the Mission, Stott celebrates the release of his first full-length album – Saracen – on Six Degrees .

Stott fuses Arabic and Turkish rhythms with both electronic and acoustic beats and textures. What sets him apart from many of his world music peers is that – rather than merely sampling – Stott is a multi-instrumentalist who plays a wide range of instruments. On Saracen, he plays oud (Arabic lutes), saza and cumbus (Turkish lutes), the Persian santur, bass, and percussion. He also invites a number of guest musicians, including well-known Tunisian vocalist MC RAI.

Drawing early inspiration from art rockers lke Glenn Branca, Brian Eno, and Peter Gabriel, Stott got his musical start playing guitar in rock and metal bands is his hometown of Los Angeles in the 1980s. Stott went on to form the band Stellamara, whose blend of Middle Eastern and Balkan sounds and ambient rock awakened his interest in the devotional aspects of music beyond its entertainment value and led him to intensively study the oud under internationally known musicians Hamza El Din and Omar Faruk Tekbilek.

What is especially remarkable about Stott is his humility, reverence for his teachers and peers, and willingness to talk and think deeply about issues of cultural appropriation in world music.

SFBG: You have a background in heavy metal and art rock. When did you get interested in playing Middle Eastern music?

Jef Stott: [Playing in Stellamara] is when I made the big switch. That is when I picked up the oud, sold all my electric guitar equipment, and really got deeply interested in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish music. I almost abandoned everything I had done up to that point and started on a whole new path.

BORKO
Celebrating Life
(Morr Music)

By Erik Morse

Bjorn Kristiansson, a.k.a., Borko, is not only a chronic day-dreamer but a procrastinator as well. A music teacher and film composer living in Reykjavik, Borko has finally assembled an album, Celebrating Life, to follow his 2001 debut EP, Trees and Limbo (Resonant). The result - a collection of varying electronic and folktronic experiments that reaches back to 2002 - is a pleasing if dilettantish grab bag of bright charmers and absurd homages to the tundra. Kristiansson’s inspirations suggest an ambitious musical mind that seeks grand scope rather than minute detail.

The album’s opener, the appropriately titled “Continental Love,” is a wonderful introduction to Kristiansson’s musical topology, using synthesized horns and sampled vocal beats to simulate the expansive void of the Great North - a space more than a place - and, left largely to the romantic imagination, the perfect wintry allegory for longing. The next track, “Spoonstabber,” abandons these mammoth instrumentals for the doe-eyed vocals and electro-acoustic soundscapes of Amnesiac-era Radiohead, revealing Borko’s m.o. to be one less of tonal focus than generic catch and release. Lest we forget, this is pop and not process music.

Despite the childish titles, “Shoo Ba Ba," “Sushi Stakeout,” and “Ding Dong Kingdom” dovetail into melodrama, using heavily processed keyboards, plangent electric guitars, and hypnotic coos and chimes - not unlike fellow Icelanders múm or Air in its lush soundtracking for The Virgin Suicides. Throughout, the playful melancholia of Borko evokes the cinematic regionalism of Guy Maddin or Dagur Kári, whose works similarly equate romance not with equatorial heat but with arctic hibernation. And Celebrating Life is filled with the kind of hit-and-miss magic that comes when an imagination overburdened with the possibilities of music seeks to create not only a new genre but a whole new continent of sound.

ABDEL HADI HALO AND THE EL GUSTO ORCHESTRA OF ALGIERS
Abdel Hadi Halo and the El Gusto Orchestra of Algiers
(Honest Jon’s)

By Erik Morse

The style and history of chaabi may be recognizable to few if any Westerners. But the examples performed on Abdel Hadi Halo and the El Gusto Orchestra of Algiers represent a unique and fascinating exchange between French, Spanish, and Algerian musical identity as well as the miscegenation of Jewish, Berber, and Arabic street culture in the heart of North Africa.

Translated from Arabic as “popular," chaabi – originating in the Casbah as part of a Moorish/Andalusian tradition that stretched back to the 15th century – reached its height during the 1950s. Primarily performed in bars and clubs where many French expats, American GIs, Sephardic Jews, and Algerian Muslims congregated and swapped native instruments and scales, the cosmopolitan interplay of chaabi marked a complex colonial parity comparable to American Delta blues. With Algeria’s independence from France in 1962, over 100,000 pied-noirs (mostly Jews and European colonials) fled north from their homes fearing reprisal from the Muslim sanctioned government. And with them went much of the cross-cultural popularity of chaabi.

Although it lost much of its mystique among younger musicians, the forefathers of chaabi played on. Some, like El Hajj Muhammad El Anka, referred to as the “father of chaabi,” continued to teach and spread the genre’s musical heritage throughout Algeria until his death in 1978.

In this week's Super Ego clubs column, I finally take on the banger scene's hardcore electro glitz riot on the city's dance floors. The sound and style originated in France, mostly, and is helping to resuscitate the much-maligned term "euro" -- commonly associated with over-caffeinated, hyper-sugary tunes that fitted really awful embroidered jeans and Gucci knockoff sunglasses on a couple generations of appletini swillers.

I'm much more into the new euro, needless to say, and in Paris at least, bangers are associated with a dance craze, tecktonik (also spelled tektonik). Here's what it looks like, to the wonderfully banged-up tune of fabulous French rapstress-chanteuse Yelle's "A Cause de Garcons." (Her show here at the Independent last month was off the hook, btw, and she featured a sequined pink Stephen Sprouse-like dress reading "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Fierceness!)

Goofy, but sweetly energetic. The dance in fact originally started in the early-mid 2000s, in Parisian megaclub Metropolis, where it was performed to a much harder sound, a direct descendant of rave music: much more trancey and happy hardcore. (It's said the term "tecktonik" actually refers to the clash of hardcore dance styles coming in from Belgium and the Netherlands then, crashing into each other like techtonic plates.)

The two somewhat over-it-looking white dancers in the Yelle video above are famous lookalike tektoniquistes VaVan and TreAxy -- household names in France. Here's a video of them performing an early version of the dance, called "jumpstyle" (some still prefer to call it that, others use the name to refer to the music) and done to a "more traditional" musical style -- you can really see the liquid rave-dance origins here, and yeah, it looks more than a tad ridiculous, but why not?

There's a reason for the term "jumpstyle." Also happening at the time -- around 2005ish, as with all underground phenomena the timing is fuzzy -- and in the same clubs, but to more amped-up happy hardcore, was a revival of the Melbourne Shuffle, an old rave dance from the early '90s that really only looks good when you do it in extraordinarily baggy pants. The "shufflers" often squared off with, or at least disassociated themselves from, the tight-pantsed "jumpers." (In my head, they're like the Jets and the Sharks.) Also, despite its name, "jumping" is much more about the upper body and random skips, whereas "shuffling" is all about lower glide. Here's the Melbourne Shuffle:

So, OK, what does any of this have to do with Justice, and the Ed Banger Records scene and sound?

'Member when you first heard Nirvana's Bleach (1989)? 'Member when you first spun 1986's Sub Pop 100? Yeah, it was the '80s, and college-alternative-indie-whatever-rock was a piping hot, tumescent, rich vein, ready to bedazzle. Still, the lil' label from the Northwest, Sub Pop, stood out from the slew of worthies with its prescient picks from a roused, riled, and increasingly loud underground, a wise-acre attitude, and a forward-facing outlook on the state of the rock.

So gather round as the Seattle imprint celebrates its 20th anniversary - yeesh, it's been that long - with a fine comp, Happy Birthday to Me: Terminal Sales Vol. 3 (including tunes by Mudhoney, Foals, Wolf Parade, No Age, Kelley Stoltz, Flight of the Conchords, and the Helio Sequence); a series of reissues begining with Mudhoney's Superfuzz Bigmuff: Deluxe Edition (coming May 20); a limited relaunch of the lauded Sub Pop Singles Club; a July 11 comedy show with Eugene Mirman and Patton Oswalt; and a benefit fest, which runs July 12-13 at Marymoor Park outside Seattle in Redmond, Wash.

The Bay will be represented by Comets on Fire on a bill that includes Flight of the Conchords, Foals, Iron and Wine, Low, Pissed Jeans, Wolf Parade, and Ruby Suns. And those who remember the '80s (and early '90s) will be psyched to hear that such reunited grunge-meisters and rock hurlers as the Fluid, Green River, Beachwood Sparks, and Red Red Meat will also put in a few appearances. Yes, there will be a half-pipe.

For a $35 single-day or $60 two-day pass to the fest or a $20 ticket to the comedy calvacade, call (206) 628-0888 or go to the Ticketmaster site.

Good to know Joey Ramone Day marches on - just as it was fun to hear, at last night's Eric Lyle reading/event at CounterPULSE for his new book, On the Lower Frequencies: A Secret History of the City, the Guardian contributor talk about his own personal observance of Joey Ramone Day - playing Ramones songs on a boombox through the streets, meditating on the frontman.

Well, it happens on every coast. This just in - the details for this year's Joey Ramone Birthday Bash on May 19 in NYC:

"Celebrating what would have been the 57th birthday of punk-icon Joey Ramone, the annual Joey Ramone Birthday Bash will take place Monday, May 19, at the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza. Mickey Leigh, event organizer and brother of Joey Ramone, has announced that, as part of the eighth annual Bash, fans will be treated to a special reunion appearance from Manitoba's Wild Kingdom featuring Handsome Dick Manitoba, Andy Shernoff, Ross the Boss, and JP Thunderbolt.

Girls make us dance - whether we want to or not. Photo by Jen Synder.

By Jen Snyder

I know that there's a big battle going on about whether or not the Internet is evil - and whether or not technology is making people super-mean. But you've got to admit that while some things may be getting a more impersonal, others are getting a lot cooler. Like bands.

Has anyone noticed that there are a million groups out there that are actually really good? That is so weird. Remember when you used to go to the Warehouse with your dad and every other CD was completely horrible? Now I walk around a music store so bewildered by all the pretty album covers that I get an intimidation contact high and end up leaving with my 19th Leonard Cohen album. Geez. I blame the Internet and its infallible ability to get awesome stuff to anyone, even if you don't live in a cultural hub like San Francisco.

So the next time you're stumbling around Amoeba, wondering which disc has the sweet song your coworker played for you, just go to the G section and go pick out anything by Girls. Actually, they don't have an official album out, but I do know that they have some great songs on their MySpace page, including a particular favorite of mine, "Hellhole Ratrace." Their songs evoke the pleasantly masochistic feelings you get from listening to something like Nirvana Unplugged. And in an era where one can describe the '80s and even the '90s as vintage, Girls has this "yesterday" feel to them that makes you yearn for those years when you were sadder and more creative.

By Vanessa Carr

If the last Gemini Disco Paradise party was any indication (18-piece disco band Escort, performances at midnight and 3 a.m., packed crowd, go-go dancers, balloon drop, cabaret-style performances), the second Paradise this Saturday night (5/17) should deliver on its promise to be a debaucherous, all-night disco dance party channelling the spirit of Studio 54 or Paradise Garage, the infamous gay NYC nightclub from the '80s.

Christopher McVick's Paradise Disco Trailer

Mezzanine and Gemini Disco are bringing the original disco divas from the '70s Sister Sledge ("We Are Family" and "He's the Greatest Dancer"), as well as DFA's disco-revivalists Holy Ghost! (DJ set), with local supporting DJs Derrek Love and Nicky B (Gemini), BT Magnum and Black Shag (Beat Electric), and Honey Soundsystem. Christopher McVick and his entourage help ignite the disco fever with their outlandish circus/disco/cabaret antics, including theatrical choreography, stick ponies, and glitzy drag performances.

Sister Sledge perform "He's the Greatest Dancer"

Paradise All-Night Disco Party
May 17th, 10 pm to dawn, $15 advance
Mezzanine, 444 Jessie Street, 415-625-8880
www.mezzaninesf.com

I meant to have posted this banger love letter yesterday, but I got caught up in gay marriage drama (did anyone else think the music at the Castro celebration party last was a bit dark for the occasion? Celebrate equal rights with psytrance! I kinda had to love it ... )

So I've jabbered on and on about the banger scene, and about the tecktonik dance that goes with it (in Europe, at least) -- but what about the music and the clubs, eh? Yeah, we'll get to that, but first here's the vid for the new N.E.R.D. song that's everywhere -- it's pretty much an acoustic banger, heh -- and the electro remixes are already flowin' in. It's a scandalously dead-on look at the scene, and I guess when I said that goofy over-accessorizing was out I misspoke, but I still can't find any irony.

And now, click here for this bangin' mix from one of my favorite people right now -- and a damn good DJ -- Richie Panic, called "An Amazingly Lifelike Companion." listen especially for the "Bonus Track" -- kiddie mosh-pit indeed. And an excellent example of the punk roots, or at least aspirations, of the scene.

And then check out 22-year-old local banger Public's jaw-dropping mixtape of his own edits (Metallica! ELO! The Cardigans! "The Promise"?!) -- I figure we'll be hearing a lot more from this one.

As for clubs, kind-of weekly Blow Up at Rickshaw Stop is the epicenter right now, with its sister club Frisco Disco right behind (although Frisco Disco keeps it a little more old-school neon indie, with more actual guitar-driven songs from the past and even a little melancholy.) Here's a couple vids from Blow Up -- there's a hot one tonite if you can make it -- shot by Blow Up's videographer Peter Noble, because no club would be anything without impeccable digital documentation. Noble's editing technique is pretty rad, though.

Care to grab a slice of experimental rock/no-wave history? Flying Luttenbachers impressario, XBXRX player, and no wave authority Weasel Walter is putting his Conn C-Melody saxophone up on the eBay action block here. The Bay Area musician and fire-starter says he played the instrument on such recordings as the Flying Luttenbachers' Revenge and Gods of Chaos as well as To Live and Shave in L.A. 2's The 300 Dollar Silk Shirt.

Says WW: "I got this horn in 1988 and played it (terribly) on a lot of my high school 4-track recordings (the best of those were released on CD by Savage Land Records in 2006). After I moved to Chicago I got the beast fixed up and repadded and played it a lot more. This is a working instrument, and you can basically take it out of the box and play it. Basically bills must be paid and I really don't pursue playing saxophone at all anymore - let's leave it to the pros! - so I'm selling it off.

"To some elite weirdos i suppose it's a small piece of history. Let the bidding begin."

(You can also catch Weasel Walter at events for the book **No Wave,** alongside author Marc Masters. Those happen Sat/24, 2 p.m., free. Amoeba Music, 1855 Haight, SF. With Death Sentence: Panda and Ettrick. Sat/24, 9 p.m., pay what you can. 21 Grand, 416 25th St., Oakl. Sun/25, 5 p.m., $6. Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia, SF.)

FOALS
Antidotes
(Sub Pop)

By Marke B.

Oxford art school dropouts all, this lovable Brit quintet of post-punk math rockers aspires, perhaps a bit disappointingly, to revive Steve Reich-like minimalist grooves on the dance floor while spicing up the mirror ball Borg a la Battles (insect guitars, claustrophobic shouts, high hat onslaughts, post-techno vibe).

We've heard all this before. But on their four-star debut, with shimmering production by TV on the Radio's David Sitek and afrobeat band Antibalas' horn section, Foals escape the twilight of dance rock and end up left of the Cure in a boppy zone of their own. Sprightly vocalist Yannis Philippakis tends to bark militaristically over the band's rapid machinations (toe-tappers “Cassius” and “Electric Bloom” and first single “Balloons”). But when he drops the Rapture act and hoarsely croons his twisted metaphors - as in the heart-rending “Olympic Airways,” in which he's “building an aviary for today” over shattered fiddles - or when the group's disparate intentions fall grandly into place (“Two Steps Twice,” sly, penultimate track “Tron”), Foals outpace their sum of parts.

FOALS
Thurs/22, 10 p.m., $5-$8
popscene
330 Ritch
(415) 541-9574

There aren't any official videos for songs from El Guincho's splendid Alegranza (Discoteca Oceano), but a wonderful windsurfing fan video has appeared. Matching edits to antic beats, its no-budget creativity suits the spirit of a musical project that first generated word of mouth as a CD-R.

This wavy spray will have to sate us West Coast admirers of Pablo Diaz-Reixa until he makes his first visit to Californian stages:

By Tomas Palermo

North London producers Quest and Silkie are being billed as the "Dons of Deeper Dubstep" for their appearance Thursday, May 22, at 1015 Folsom. The tag is a notice to hardcore Bay Area dubstep supporters: don't expect grumbling, wobbly sub-bass music all night.

Instead, these cats will drop melodic, techy, and all-around intricate tunes that represent dubstep's sonic diversity. Just as producer LTJ Bukem and his Good Looking label crew found success via blessed-out drum 'n' bass, Quest and Silkie also explore lush and languid grooves.

That's not to say the dancefloor will be sedate - as sets on UK pirate station React FM prove, the duo knows how to kick solid beats for dancers and dreamers alike. Representing the Anti Social Entertainment DJ crew, who spin all over the UK and Europe, Quest and Silkie have a released a handful of languid, reggae-inspired releases, including the Deep Medi label's "Deep Inside"/"The Seafront" single, a standard among discerning dubstep DJs. Working a musical vein similar to Tempa Records producer D1's blissful garage sounds, Quest and Silkie bring a sexy edge to UK bass music. Expect DJ support from Djunya (Narco.Hz /Mode), Kozee (BrapDem/RedLine), and Emcee Child (Grime City /SureFire).

QUEST AND SILKIE
Thurs/22, 10 p.m.-2 a.m., $5-$10
1015 Folsom
1015 Folsom, SF
(415) 431-1200
Go to www.going.com/antisocial for more details.

The Dreamer by Jose James is one of those rare debut recordings that is going to grow in popularity due to people's genuine love for it rather than paid-for hype about James being a major talent. No doubt about it, James is talented, and in a manner not so common these days. James isn't getting a Clive Davis kind of hype; his album's on Gilles Peterson's label Brownswood. Those trappings hint at a type of acid-jazz shallowness that the instrumentation sometimes skates near but generally averts. As for James, he's a vocalist who loves the music of Pharoah Sanders. There should be more singers like him.

The video for James's version of Freestyle Fellowship's "Park Bench People" is an unaffected extension of the track's lyric. This version of the track is abbreviated, and the song itself doesn't vie for my favorite moment on The Dreamer. The two songs I keep returning to are the title track and "Winter Wind," where James's tenor reaches its highest (almost young Jimmy Scott-like) androgynous realms and also the moments when his phrasing is most reflective and measured. Both of those ballads are lovely, suggestive of a 21st century Gil Scott-Heron (though James has yet to touch Scott-Heron's political profundity) or at least the spirit of Jeff Buckley. Calling all bookers: I don't see San Francisco or Oakland on James's list of upcoming tour dates.

Jose James, "Park Bench People"

Give Ladytron a little sugar.

As usual, SF, you're far too much for one music fan or one paper to handle. Here are more worthy picks that didn't quite make it to print. Knock yourselves out.

Cave Singers
There is life after post-punk. Pretty Girls Make Graves, Hint Hint, and Cobra High seem far away for the Matador art-folkies. With Botticellis and Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death. Thurs/22, 8 p.m., $12. Independent, 628 Divisadero, S.F. (415) 771-1422.

Last of the Blacksmiths
The SF ensemble may be last, but they’re not to be forgotten, as they whoop it up moodily on the occasion of their spanking fresh album, **Young Family Song** (Vanguard Squad), alongside Black Fiction writer Tim Cohen’s the Fresh and Only’s. With El Capitan. Sat/24, 9 p.m., $10. Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016.

Rats
The misunderstood NYC critters promise to rip you a new one. With Some Days. Sat/24, 6 p.m., $5. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923.

Ladytron
They only want you when you’re 17 -- when you’re 21 you’re no fun. But if you’re the UK combo you have considerably longer shelf life: fans are chomping at the bit for Ladytron’s forthcoming fourth album, **Velocifero,** for their new imprint, Nettwerk. Tues/27, 8 p.m., $27.50. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 346-6000.

This just in from Alternative Tentacles: honcho Jello Biafra will be celebrating the big five-oh with two nights of shows including the Melvins, Jelvins, Triclops!, Drunk Injuns, and a new (unnamed as of yet) Biafra project.

"Legendary singer of the Dead Kennedys and head honcho of the highly influentual punk label Alternative Tentacles, Jello Biafra, has no plans on fading away soon. The outspoken, controversial Biafra has been active as a spoken word artist for quite some time and also performing as Jello Biafra and The Melvins, or just Jelvins. On his 50th, Alternative Tentacles celebrates with a show showcasing Jello's new band, reunited skate-punk legends Drunk Injuns, and latest crop of exciting bands such as Akimbo, and Triclops!.

"The newly hatched Biafra band (as yet unnamed) is Ralph Spight (Victims Family, Freak Accident, Hellworms, etc.) on guitar, Billy Gould (Faith No More, Cool Arrow Records, etc.) on bass, and Jon Weiss (Sharkbait, Horsey, Tonnage, etc.) on drums. Coady and Jared of the Melvins are recording the new Big Business album in June, so the Jelvins bassist this round will be Andy Coronado (Wrangler Brutes, White Shit, Skull Kontrol). The emphasis will be on new music, with the occasional nod to the past evil doing. To open the shows, the Melvins reach back to their original '83 hardcore days with King Buzzo on guitar, original drummer Mike Dillard and Dale Crover manning the bass."

"BIAFRA FIVE - O"
June 16-17; 8 p.m.; $22 per nigh, $40 both nights
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell, SF
(415) 885-0750

By Matt Sussman

Kosmiche godfathers Cluster have been back from the future for more than three decades now, with the core duo of Hans-Joachum Roedelius and Dieter Moebius having offered a rich and varied body of studio albums and collaborations - most notably with Brian Eno - as well as live documentation and solo outings. Through the analog mists and drum machine clicks of their ‘70s albums one can discern many of the splinter groups, such as ambient and synth-pop, which electronic music would break apart into in the ensuing decades.

I engaged in a quickie Q&A session with Roedelius over e-mail, prior to the duo taking the stage at New York’s annual noise jamboree No Fun Fest. (Ed: For more on Cluster, see Matt Sussman's "Cluster luck: Krautrock's darkest stars reappear in our firmament.")

SFBG: Since 2007, you and Moebius have been engaged in a second reunion of sorts, following a ten-year hiatus. Do you find it challenging to work together again, especially in a live setting, after such a long break?

High drama with Dresden Dolls' Amanda Palmer at the Fillmore on May 18. All photos by Neil Motteram.

Contributing photographer Neil Motteram checked out the Dresden Dolls show at the Fillmore on May 18. Here's what he shot.

East Bay Ray gives the Dolls a hand with a cover of "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)."

ANDRES SUBERCASEAUX
Aqui
(Triple Down)

By Todd Lavoie

What a journey. Chilean post-rock/post-electronica composer Andrés Subercaseaux has just released the mind-warping sonic travelogue, Aqui (Triple Down), and I must say, this is one of the more filmic pieces of music I've heard in a while.

I realize that the "soundtrack for a nonexistent film" device has blown up into its own genre by this point, but Subercaseaux deserves to be added to the list. By turns funky and uplifting, nervy, and unsettling - and occasionally poignant and quietly evocative - Aqui doesn't so much create a single "here," as the title suggests, but rather an entire topography of different "here"'s. The range here is quite impressive, employing everything from jittery electronica to languid post-rock to freewheeling Tropicalia excursions, and our man handled most of the instrumental responsibilities himself. Anyone who can reference artists as diverse as Tortoise, Stereolab, Os Mutantes, and Brian Eno without resorting to mere pastiche gets big thumbs-up from me.

Aqui starts off with the bubbling, squeaking mood piece "Amazonas," a soothing instrumental that wouldn't feel entirely out of place on Brian Eno's 1975 ambient-pop masterpiece Another Green World (EG/Astralwerks/Virgin). The insertion of what sounds like thumb pianos plucking away in romping loops gives the opener a more playful edge over anything on the Eno album, however. Poke your ears between the track's bird squawks and the cricket chirps, and the soft glow of single, sustained keyboard notes hovers mid-air.

Heavy Mochipettin'.

Why not take on two more for the raucous road leading into Memorial Day weekend? Sunday will be hopping...

Mighty Underdogs at Bonneroo 2007.

LIVE ON THE LANE
Expect to get on up to get down when eight bands and artists converge on Maiden Lane for music, live art by Vulcan, food, and bevvies. Performers include the Mighty Underdogs collective with Gift of Gab (Blackalicious), Lateef the Truthspeaker (Latyrx), and Headnodic (Crown City Rockers) (7:30-8:15 p.m.), Bayonics (6:30-7:15 p.m.), Mophono (5:45-6:15 p.m.), Mochipet (8:25-9 p.m.), Ghosts on Tape (9:10-9:45 p.m.),
Maus Haus (5-5:30 p.m.), Ryan Greene (3:30-4 p.m.), and Egadz (4:20-4:40 p.m.). Proceeds benefit the music program at George Washington Carver Elementary in SF. Sun/25, 4-10 p.m., $12 basic entry; $35 all-you-can-eat-and-drink. Maiden Lane between Kearny and Grant, SF. going.com/liveonthelane

NOTHING PEOPLE AND THE PETS
Hypnotic drone-rockers Nothing People find something to celebrate at a free record-release party. Oakland outfit the Pets also tear it up in honor of their own punky release. Sun/25, 5-7 p.m., free. Lucky 13, 2140 Market, SF. (415) 487-1313.

What's the story behind the music movement that cried, "No"? I recently caught up with No Wave author Marc Masters via e-mail, as he prepared for a series of Bay Area appearances: Saturday, May 24, at Amoeba Music in SF and 21 Grand in Oakland and Sunday, May 25, at Artists' Television Access in SF.

SFBG: How did the book project come about?

Marc Masters: Black Dog approached me about writing a book about another subject, but for various reasons that fell through. They mentioned they had been considering doing a no wave book for a while. I¹d always liked no wave and wanted to delve further into it, since there have been lots of theories about it when it happened, which bands were part of it, and so on. So I was really excited to get that chance. I was intimated, too - so I contacted Weasel Walter for advice, since he¹s been researching and collecting this stuff forever. When he agreed to help with material and proofreading (and eventually write the foreword), I felt a lot less daunted.

Native Detroit gadabout Marke B. hits Movement: The Detroit Electronic Music Festival

That thing where you return to your hometown and immediately, or at least on the ride home from the ex-urb airport, begin to feel your former soul flood back into you – old or familiar buildings take on some weightier significance in the fading evening light, new buildings even more. And then you're hooking up with old friends downtown, smoking a bowl or two, generally reminiscing and catching up, and driving around looking for a party, although you wouldn't mind if you just stayed in the minivan bopping to 20-year-old Balearic beats and laughing your ass off with your BFFs.

The grand, abandoned Michigan Central Train Station, two blocks from my Corktown residence in tha D. (Don't try to throw a party here, you'll get srsly busted.)

All of which is a belabored way of saying that I didn't get much afterhours in here in Detroit last night, the “official” pre-party night of Movement: The Detroit Electronic Music Festival, now going on nine years. Sure there were big bonanza advertised shindigs – this festival attracts tens of thousands of globe-hopping techno-lovers to the bowels of the Motor City, no mean feat, that – but for me and my SF fairy-dusted baggage none of them grabbed on all night long. That's OK: where else in the world but here would you find yourself on a dance floor with legendary DJs Juan Atkins and Eddie “Flashin'” Fowlkes -- and 20 other people?

Their party “The Fuzion of Science & Techno” had moved from the Detroit Science Center to the grand Majestic Theatre at the last minute, due to what I judge to be poor pre-sales. At first that was cause for a little alarm – the Science Center party is a bit of a tradition, and with a line-up that included Theo Parrish, Mike Clark, Kenny Dixon, Jr, and Alton Miller, the lack of draw was a shocker. Plus, the usual tiny panic hits: is techno really dead? Have the “neo-electro faddists,” as Detroit music journalist Hobey Echlin calls them, taken over and relegated soulful tech-house to another early grave?

Aw, hell no, it was just midnight on a Friday in downtown Detroit. We were probably way too early, wot.

Detroit native gadabout Marke B. hits Movement '08: Detroit's Electronic Music Festival with a handbag full of what-what. Read part one here.

The Techno Gods surely had a little laugh on the first (graciously sunny) day of the DEMF. Even though downtown's sprawling, reinvigorated Hart Plaza on the waterfront – nestled in the shadows of the new casinos pumping serious cash into bigshot pockets and directly opposite the infamous “fist” statue that socks across-the-river Windsor, CA, in the kisser – was brimming with suburban kids and roaming tribes of fun-furred and mohawked candy ravers (love those kids!), and even though Moby (!) headlined, and started his closing DJ set by playing one of his own songs (albeit a remix of his classic “Go”), the old soul of the Detroit underground shone through in quite a few places. (Clarification: Oops my E must have kicked in then. See comment below.)

Waiting for Moby

Underground, quite literally. This year, promoter Paxahau Events has reopened the huge concrete-walled basement of the plaza, and has installed the soulful house DJs there, rather than the traditional hardcore noise experimentalists. By two o'clock, heavily muscled dance crews had stripped off their shirts and were throwing down – headspins included – to the sounds of Detroit classicists like Reggie “Hotmix” Harrell and Minx. (That night, freaky Terrence “The Phone Man” Parker and tribal-soulist Stacey Pullen would turn the underground area into a sweaty mass of writhing gay and straight bodies.)

Upside-down to the morning beat

Terrence Parker hits

So much for the house – and notably missing so far this year have been the little independent DJ setups sprouting about the plaza like tiny laptop-vinyl mushrooms – what about the four other stages? What about the techno? The main, video-projected-upon VitaminWater stage, where Moby would later thrash about like a puggle to his electroclash-tinged pop-techno throwbacks, got a slowish start with way-cerebral live sub-dub fractal burbles from local DJ-band hybrid trio nospectacle, which included Jennifer A. Paull, one of the few female knob-twiddlers at the fest. (I went with my fabulous mom, who seemed to be briefly into it.) The stage didn't really seem to catch fire, though, until Canadian techno purist DBX aka Dan Bell hit the stage in the penultimate slot at 9pm.

What Detroit techno used to look like: DBX's “Electric Shock” from a TV dance show (I think “The Scene” in the late '80s)

Marke "too many pills, you're not 17 anymore" B is at Movement '08: Detroit's Electronic Music Festival. Read part one here, and part two here.

Apples! Apples everywhere! Downtown Detroit is a laptop orchard. "Mac should really sponsor these things," said Hunky Beau, freshly arrived on the scene to improve my picture quality. But the answer is that Mac doesn't have to -- those glowing, half-eaten little beauties speak from the booths themselves.

Oh, that Girl Talk. All pics by David Schnur

DEMF's day 2 was so pleasant it hurt, and the crowd was full of neon-festooned hipsters (they have them here too!) eagerly passing time before new old-school rap duo Cool Kids and sample-happy girly boy Girl Talk hit the the Red Bull stage, which overlooked the Detroit River. We passed the time in the sunny company of the great Mr. De' featuring Greg C. Johnson, whose "Sex on the Beach" from back in the day is a protobooty classic. The crowd was going nuts -- Mr. De' schooled the "ghetto tech" kids on some real sensuality.

Mr. De' sexing the keyboard

Greg C. Johnson, pleased

Cool Kids gave a predictably stunner set -- even calling out to Detroit and pumping some rhymes over ancient electro -- and then Girl Talk came on and the crowd went bananas. I've never really warmed to the Girl Talk phenomenon. We have great mashup artists in SF, and dropping some Public Enemy over a Toto sample is sooo 2005. Still, the man's a genius when it comes to party music and self-promotion: who knew all you had to do was post several YouTube vids of kids stage diving off your laptop platform and you could be famous? Well, maybe everybody knows that now, but Girl Talk knew it first. And who am I to argue, even when he dropped his pants and mooned the crowd in his boxers for half his set while he leaned over his equipment.

But this year is indubitably Richie Hawtin's year -- despite other hometown giants Kevin Saunderson, Carl Craig, Stacey Pullen, and Alton Miller on the roster -- so after a few Girl Talk singalongs (oh yes, there was stage-diving) we went over to the Beatport tent to catch the Windsor homeboy in a harder mood tan the previous night, at least until he dropped Mory Kante's "Yeke Yeke" and the dance floor exploded.

Richie Hawtin: Gettin' Yeke

A.A. BONDY
American Hearts
(Fat Possum)

By Todd Lavoie

Fans of the Birmingham, Ala., grunge-rocking outfit Verbena will likely be mightily surprised by the latest move from former lead howler Scott Bondy: the vocalist, having re-named himself A.A. Bondy in the process, swapped the band’s familiar flannel-isms for moody Delta folk-blues on his solo debut, American Hearts, and the results are a hugely successful re-invention for the artist.

Recorded in a converted barn in the quiet Catskills hamlet of Palenville, N.Y. - most famous for its role as an epicenter of the Hudson River school of romantic landscape painting - the album plays intriguing games with concepts of time and place, making over Bondy’s idyllic new home as a Civil War battleground while offering torrents of hellfire-burning Biblical imagery as well. As it turns out, Southern Gothic knows no boundaries.

Bondy’s husky, weather-beaten rasp proves to be an enormously versatile instrument amid the stark atmospherics of this largely acoustic affair, bristling with end-is-nigh menace on the knife-wielding blues of “How You Will Meet Your End,” but still capable of generating ravishingly woozy gospel fervor on the shuffling “Rapture (Sweet Rapture)." The full-length’s complicated balance of despair and spirituality comes to a head on “Vice Rag," a Jesus-come-hither Delta hoedown punctuated by conflicting pleas of “sweet, sweet cocaine / won’t you all be mine.” American Hearts’s true highlight, however, is the title track: a protest anthem in which Bondy’s Jesus steers clear of the disc’s ever-looming violence and instead fights for peace: “If your God makes war, then he’s no God I know, ‘cause Christ would not send boys to die.”

This in from Red House Records:

"It is with great regret that Red House Records mourns the loss of our friend Bruce 'Utah' Phillips who passed away Friday, May 23, at his home in Nevada City, Calif. In a time when words like 'icon' and 'legend' are bandied
about too freely, Utah was the real deal: a consummate songwriter, labor historian, humorist and towering figure in American folk music. A true original, we will not see his like again and it was our great privilege to have been able to partner with him on a number of record releases. Our deepest condolences go out to Utah’s family and many
friends and the countless fans who will profoundly feel his absence. His family requests memorial donations to Hospitality House, P.O. Box 3223, Grass Valley, CA 95945; (530) 271-7144; www.hospitalityhouseshelter.org.

"Born Bruce Duncan Phillips on May 15, 1935, in Cleveland, Ohio, he was the son of labor organizers. Whether through this early influence or an early life that was not always tranquil or easy, by his twenties Phillips demonstrated a lifelong concern with the living conditions of working people. He was a proud member of the Industrial Workers of the World, popularly known as "the Wobblies," an organizational artifact of early 20th century labor struggles that has seen renewed interest and growth in membership in the last decade, not in small part due to his efforts to popularize it. Phillips served as an Army private during the Korean War, an experience he would later refer to as the turning point of his life. Deeply affected by the devastation and human misery he had witnessed, upon his return to the United States he began drifting, riding freight trains around the country.

"His struggle would be familiar today, when the difficulties of returning combat veterans are more widely understood, but in the late '50s Phillips was left to work them out for himself. Destitute and drinking, Phillips got off a freight train in Salt Lake City and wound up at the Joe Hill House, a homeless shelter operated by the anarchist Ammon Hennacy, a member of the Catholic Worker movement and associate of Dorothy Day. Phillips credited Hennacy and other social reformers he referred to as his 'elders' with having provided a philosophical framework around which he later constructed songs and stories he intended as a template his audiences could employ to understand their own political and working lives. They were often hilarious, sometimes sad, but never shallow. 'He made me understand that music must be more than cotton candy for the ears,' said John McCutcheon, a nationally known folksinger and close friend.

Bobby and Blumm
Everybody Loves
(Morr Music)

By Max Goldberg

Over the last decade, Berlin label Morr Music has carved its niche as a purveyor of delicate down-tempo pop. Bobby and Blumm’s debut, Everybody Loves, is as winsome as it gets, though W.S. Blumm’s electric hollowbody guitar imbues the sweet-nothing melodies with an autumnal glow.

Blumm, a classically trained musician, has himself released three fine solo albums of Burt Bacharach-inspired electro-pop on Morr, but Everybody Loves resulted from his joining up with Swedish vocalist Ella “Bobby Baby” Blixt. The chamber-folk compositions and subdued vocal melodies make Bobby and Blumm seem like the European answer to Massachusetts stalwarts Damon and Naomi.

Blumm’s ultra low-key electronic crackles and Blixt’s confounding English lyrics (“I’m super real / I’m a future present / in the future present”) give Everybody Loves a tentative, dissipating quality, though it’s a beautiful fog while it lasts.

By Kat Renz

These may be the enlightened days of reinvigorated heavy metal madness, but San Francisco hasn’t hosted a lineup of melodic death metal bands this hefty in a long time. On Thursday, May 29, at Slim’s, Sweden’s ever-fierce Arch Enemy leads the charge of sweeping arpeggios and throaty declarations on the second-to-last stop on their brief North American “Tyranny and Bloodshed" tour. Joining the brutal quintet are three Century Media label mates – compatriots Dark Tranquility, Divine Heresy, and Greece’s death metal offering Firewind. Insert a proper horned salute to Slim’s here for carrying the torch of loud, heavy music of late (Death Angel, Exodus, Slough Feg, and on Friday, May 30, Candlemass and Soilent Green).

Though hardly a household name, Arch Enemy has caught on with metal listeners. Their seventh full-length studio recording, Rise of the Tyrant (Century Media, 2007), debuted last September at no. 84 on the Billboard charts. It could have been higher had the genre’s fans not spent their audio allowance on another new release: Dethklok’s epic cartoon metal album, The Dethalbum, which clocked in at 34,000 copies during its first week out, making it purportedly the best-selling death-metal album to date.

Assembled in 1996 by former Carcass guitarist Michael Amott and ex-Carnage bandmate John Liiva, Arch Enemy’s infant days were especially notable for the technically devastating dual guitar work of brothers Michael and Christopher Amott. In 2001, the group replaced Liiva with a new vocalist, Angela Gossow. Arch Enemy’s since become lazily tagged as that band with the hot blonde Valkyrie who can growl as gutturally as any angry and seasoned death metal dude. Regardless Gossow holds her own in very male-dominated, aggression-fueled scene. (Fellow journalists with metal ambitions take note, there is hope: writing for a German metal mag at the time, Gossow landed the Arch Enemy gig after giving a demo tape to Christopher Amott during an interview.)

Mitch Marcus in repose.

By Dina Maccabee

The Mitch Marcus Quintet sounds so confident, so full of easy attitude and laid-back strut on the group’s latest release, The Special, (Jazzcubed, 2007), you could almost mistake this mile-a-minute jazz record for an easy ride.

Each track unfolds with a bounty of melodic and structural invention, though the mix of influences - from Eric Dolphy to the Meters - is practically seamless. With saxophonists Mitch Marcus and Sylvain Carton up front flying in tight formation through some impressive mid-air turns, it’s the quintet’s simmering rhythm section that’s responsible for continuously building, tearing down, and rebuilding The Special’s beat-driven foundations. As drummer Ches Smith and bassist George Ban-Weiss man all the bases from swaggering swing to idiosyncratic odd meters and loping six-eight time, guitarist Mike Abraham romps out in left field, lobbing passages of inspired insanity, such as his distorted surf-raga shred-a-thon on “Inditranego,” psychedelically into play.

Like those groundbreaking records by Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman that still shine as irresistible beacons for straight-ahead boppers and free-jazzers alike, The Special has the potential to appeal to both lovers and haters of the jam paradigm. While nearly every tune follows a tightly orchestrated opening with an expansive field of spontaneous solo and ensemble exploration, the improvising feels so honest and un-forced, the vibe so rooted and right, there’s not a self-indulgent note to be heard.

Mitch Marcus Quintet
June 9, 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., $6-$12
Yoshi’s
510 Embarcadero W., Oakl.
(510) 238-9200

Play us out already: The original O'Reilly footage of the man flipping out.

By Laura Mojonnier

By now, you have undoubtedly had the pleasure of seeing Bill O'Reilly go ballistic on an old Inside Edition outtake that resurfaced online earlier this month. The clip spread like only viral videos can, and within days, O'Reilly himself addressed the mini-controversy on his show, joking that the taped meltdown was only the tip of the iceberg. "By contractual obligation, I have to create a few dramas every year for the amusement of my coworkers," he said smiling, exuding an alarming degree of humility, perspective, and self-control that certainly did not win him his contract at Fox.

Inside the back pedal.

O'Reilly's attempt to put the matter to rest was futile, however. The footage is just too damn good. I've already incorporated his best outbursts into my everyday conversation ("Fuck it! Do it live!" and "Fucking! Thing! Sucks!" are my favorites). The clip is the first video that pops up when you search his name on YouTube, and as of press time, it has garnered more than 1.3 million views. I am clearly not alone.

O'Reilly meltdown: the dance remix

But the real story here, I think, is not the meltdown itself - everyone knows that O'Reilly is a barking, chauvinistic blowhard - but rather the dance remix. Nothing hits the spot quite like watching O'Reilly on loop, rapping, "I don't know / I don't know / I don't know / Fuck!" to the sweet techno beat. I can basically recite the entire song by heart. And in light of the remix, the original footage seems a hollow shell of its former self. It no longer possesses the same power to shock and titillate. Why not? The dance remix, in all its repetitive hilarity, shows O'Reilly's freak-out for what it actually is: a sadly predictable confirmation that his television personality is not an act.

Matthew Friedberger of Fiery Furnaces is a pistol, punctuating his thoughts with chuckles, and backing up and turning around his statements continually. For the first part of this interview, go to this week's Sonic Reducer. Otherwise read on.

SFBG: So you describe Remember as long and people can use it as they will. It’s not designed to be an “album album”?

Matthew Friedberger: Well, not to compare this to a masterpiece like the Clash’s Sandanista, which is one of my favorite records, but I never listen to that all at once. I think of that as one record, even if it’s a three-record record, and it’s longer, I think, than this one. But totally different, totally different. Like I say, I don’t mean to compare [Remember] to a record like that. But, um, I do think of it as a record, if you want to think about it - not that you think about it - but if somebody wanted to think about it…you’d think about it together.

VLADISLAV DELAY
Anima
(Huume)

By Erik Morse

With the re-release of Vladislav Delay’s 2001 electro-acoustic epic Anima, we are granted a peek back at the high-modernist experimentation of European electronics in the late '90s and early '00s – the boon of the so-called post-rock era. Finnish DJ and programmer Delay, a.k.a, Sasu Ripatti, once recorded for Achim Szepanski’s underground/post-rave label Mille Plateaux - a titular reference to French post-idealogues Deleuze and Guattari of Anti-Oedipus fame - and he fit easily alongside glitch/IDM labelmates Oval, Cristian Vogel and Thomas Koener and the seminal Clicks and Cuts Series.

While Anima, a 60-plus-minute track of organic synth minimalism, uses little of the computer-generated glitching that became Mille Plateaux’s trademark production, its voluminous and spare abstractions – in rhythms, instrumentation, and tonal palette – was indicative of the “prog” methodology then popular among post-rave artists.

As rave historian Simon Reynolds once described it, the world of underground electronica following the acid house explosion was not that much different than that of rock in the the early 1970s, when increasingly “intellectualized” musicians had to reconsider their goal in the wake of the Summer of Love. According to Ripatti the title of Anima reflects a psychological component to the music, "an inner feminine part of the male personality." Questions about the veracity of this assertion aside, the dip into musical psychologisms evidences a post-'60s Jungian turn - a popular citation among progressive musicians.

By Kat Renz

Unbanged head hanging low from missing Wednesday’s Iron Maiden show down in Concord? Fear not, for a second chance to hear “Powerslave” live on stage awaits tonight, May 31. Sort of. High priestess of tribute bands Lynda Mortensen promises a night of metal mayhem with Children of the Damned; Damage, Inc.; Hail Satan; and Electric Funeral playing your favorite anthems by Iron Maiden, old-school Metallica, Mercyful Fate/King Diamond, and Black Sabbath, respectively, at the Red Devil Lounge.

Are you rolling your eyes or already making them up in King Diamond face paint? I know - I’m torn, too. Tribute bands are simultaneously shamelessly exciting and totally depressing. Ubiquitous and popular, it seems every famous band now has its tribute counterpart. (AC/DC may claim the most: a glaringly incomplete Google search found 20 AC/DC tribute bands from around the world, including British Columbia’s BC/DC and ThundHerStruck, yet another all-women one from LA.) The appeal is obvious. Performers get to embody their most-beloved rock star, and the audience gets to see a sincere counterfeit of their favorite over-dosed, broken-up, or not-touring band.

With this glut of impersonators, parameters by which to judge are essential. First there's the sound. While it’s vital to cut the lead vocalist some slack - ever try to match Bruce Dickinson’s vocal theatrics, much less in front of people? - if the vocals don’t make the cut, it’s over. No magic, no tribute, and no closing your eyes and forgetting.

Mumblecore before mumblecore was cool: Eighties-era REM.

REM guitarist Peter Buck may be well settled into his current role as a 50-year-old Seattle dad, but he hasn't really slowed down - nor has his band, judging from their latest full-length, Accelerate (Warner Bros.). The group performs tonight, May 31, and tomorrow, June 1, at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. The first tidbit gleaned from this brief talk showed up in this week's Sonic Reducer - here's the rest:

SFBG: So what do you think about the response to Accelerate?

Peter Buck: Pretty positive - I mean, I don’t really read the reviews. But I guess it's sort of floating in the air that it’s a good record. I feel pretty positive myself.

SFBG: What brought on the more rockin' approach?

PB: It seems like we were going down the path of making longer, quieter records. And it just seemed like the time for a change.