Facts and fog: Pete Colclasure. Courtesy of Facts about Funerals' MySpace site.

FACTS ABOUT FUNERALS
Love Songs & Funeral Homes
(Evangeline)

By Todd Lavoie

Just on the off-chance the band name didn't point you in the direction of the emotional terrain Seattle sextet Facts About Funerals are aiming to mine, the title of their recently released disc should help you out: Love Songs & Funeral Homes. See where we're going?

The title, in fact, was borrowed from the Daniel Johnston documentary The Devil & Daniel Johnston - asked what his songs were about, those words were the singer's reply. Evocative and eyebrow-raising, to be sure, but do they apply to Facts About Funerals as well?

Yes and no - death does cast a considerable shadow over the proceedings, but it doesn't completely consume the album, either. And as for the love songs - well, singer-songwriter Rob Sharp tends to speak more to the uneasy feelings associated with love (obsession, loss, regret, heartache) than the wide-eyed bliss of romance.

Commando chic: Ratatat blows 'em up real good with "Mirando."

More music than one gal can handle - o, frisky Frisco, you never disappoint! Behold the great stuff that didn't make print - but really should have...

Finer Things for Leyna Noel. Photo by Alissa Anderson.

LEYNA NOEL AND THE FINER THINGS
Could this be “tea metal” from the Mirah collaborator and Erase Errata drummer. With Clipd Beaks and Past Lives. Thurs/4, 9 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923.

LEBOWSKI FEST SAN FRANCISCO
The dude abides by Extra Action Marching Band, the Dead Hensons, and Meshugga Beach Party. Fri/5, 8 p.m. doors, $20 advance. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 820-9669.

Dressy: A past Mon Cousin Belge performance

Mon Cousin Belge (with Girls, Bridez, and the Passionistas)
Aug. 28, Cafe du Nord

By Lauren Giniger

Man, that rare warm summer night we had last week really messed up my program. It took me forever to get out of the house, and it was all clothing-related indecision, and consequently I missed three groups of the fun four-band lineup at the world-famous-in-San Francisco performer Mon Cousin Belge's record-release party.

Now it's true, the hipsters left en masse (really, is there anything they don't do en masse?) after Girls' set, but that just left a very enthusiastic core of fans for Mon Cousin Belge's turn. MCB, much like Obama, benefits from the "enthusiasm factor," and MCB fans really, really, really love MCB. Emile is a compelling frontman, his theatrics propped on top of a set of powerful pipes, and the band's music possesses a delicious, glammed-out sensibility.

MCB started their set with slow-burn cover of Roger Miller's "The Crossing," and reached a sort of rock fever pitch with "Ugly American" and "Tweaker Bitch." Emile's long-lost brother in botched plastic surgery sat in with some guest vocals, and both delivered drama of the hair-metal variety. So many of MCB songs are so great. They're funny, edgy, and recognizable - who among us doesn't know a tweaker bitch? While the guitar jangles and the keyboards hark to '70s anthems, the drums carve out a stripped-down post-punk beat to counterpoint all that top-heavy glam.

Hipsters, next time stick around even if your friends don't. San Francisco fags and those who love them elevate MCB to cult-band status. I don't make history, but I dig it.

DAMIEN JURADO
Caught in the Trees
(Secretly Canadian)

By Todd Lavoie

If Damien Jurado ever decided to take a break from music and funnel his creative juices elsewhere - not that I'm encouraging him to - I reckon fiction-writing would be his new calling. The Seattle singer-songwriter has long been a recipient of Raymond Carver comparisons, having built a decade-plus career upon crafting taut, literate tales of quiet alienation and shattering despair that share the same spirit with that of the piercing-stared short-story master.

Having largely foregone the confessional fess-ups of, say, Elliott Smith, Cat Power, or Mark Kozelek, Jurado's indie folk-rock (and occasionally just full-on, unhyphenated rock) tends to stick with character studies and immersions into the emotional lives of others rather than directing the pen towards the ins and outs of his own heart. Or, so I have gleaned from reading interviews with the man, anyway - ultimately, whatever ratio of storytelling-vs.-autobiography offered up in an artist's body of work is known to him and him only. In any case, these portraits-in-miniature have not only made for gripping listening over the years - credit duly given to Jurado's wounded, earhole-snuggling hushes - but they've given a solid argument for daydreaming about the possibilities of a literary career for the singer.

Jurado's latest, Caught in the Trees, probably won't shoo away any such reveries, either - the disc continues what is now a longstanding tradition of engrossing first-person-narrated fiction set to equally absorbing melodies. According to the press kit, it also took longer to make than any other in his catalog - one that is now nearly double-digits-deep with releases. Whether this was due to outside circumstances or the nature of the songs contained within, I am not sure, but the album does offer plenty of that trademark Jurado intensity.

HILDE MARIE KJERSEM
A Killer for That Ache
(Rune Grammofon)

By Erik Morse

Two things for which I am always a sucker – Norway’s cutting-edge Rune Grammofon label and any musician professedly indebted to David Lynch’s ambient craft. While Norwegian chanteuse Hilde Marie Kjersem has both claims to her credit, her debut, A Killer for That Ache, is a quizzical derivation of either the Rune or the Lynch sound. Far from the whizzing and sputtering grandeur of Skyphone’s recent Avellaneda (Rune Grammofon) or the soporific noir of the Lynch-produced Floating into the Night (Warner Bros., 1989), Kjersem’s debut is a mishmash of folky lullabies and thin rockers with little ambience.

Sung entirely in English with a slightly overpronounced tip of the hat to the American standard, Killer includes only a modicum of the Scandanavian mystery that has endeared US indie audiences to artists like Kim Hiorthøy and Lars Horntveth. Despite some hints of a conceptual linkage throughout Killer, any sense of sonic uniformity is absent.

The result is a long divagation into genre picking with varying degrees of success. “Mary Full of Grace” and “Midwest Country” portray an earthy blend of Joni Mitchell, Elliot Smith, and Norah Jones, while tracks like “London Bridge” and “Fantasy” attempt to resurrect the sugary dreampop of the early '90s. “It is Easy” could very well be an Ani Difranco soapboxer were it not for the calliope and processed clarinet swarming underneath. There are moments of beauty to be found here, but the potential of a Lynchian soundalike in Kjersem’s work are only future-based.

In and out: Hilde Marie Kjersem's "Fantasy."

Various artists
Hallam Foe: Original Soundtrack
(Domino)

By Todd Lavoie

Some things take a mighty long time to wash up on American shores from abroad. Take Hallam Foe - the British independent film was released last year overseas, but is only now beginning to hit stateside screens, thanks to a distribution deal with Magnolia Pictures. (For whatever reason, the delightfully odd little gem has been re-titled Mister Foe for the American market.)

Trust me: this film's worth the wait. Charming but occasionally unsettling, whimsical but rippling with currents of darkness, it's engrossing as hell, and Jamie Bell (Billy Elliott) is riveting as the troubled young man in the title role. In any case, I'm here to focus on the music - and the soundtrack is a wonderful, headphone-hugging treat. Keeping the original title of the film despite the name change on the marquee, the disc works flawlessly as the score to such a curious mix of sweetness and foreboding. Even without the accompanying visuals, these 16 songs link together to sustain a devilishly peculiar mood over the course of an hour. A fine tribute, then, to a film which whirls love into death, innocence into obsession, cuteness into the grotesque.

Hallam Foe takes place mainly in two locations: the rolling hills and ice-cold lochs of the Scottish countryside, and the rooftops and lookout spots above Edinburgh. The soundtrack does an impressive job of conveying both landscapes, sliding skillfully from agrarian folk to pavement-hitting electronics and lurching big-city rock 'n' roll. Maybe "sliding" isn't the right term - "gliding" might be more appropriate, given the film's focus on Hallam wanting to be above it all, looking down from great heights. Many of the songs contained here are buoyed along by a sense of weightlessness: rhythms wash in and wash out, synth blips and bleeps soar in the highest registers, and occasionally disembodied voices hover and hum somewhere in the vague distance.

All hail, Hank IV. Vocalist Bob McDonald completed successful knee surgery earlier this year on a torn ACL from a Bottom of the Hill show: Bandmate Anthony Bedard tells me, “On surgeon’s orders, he’s had to alter his ‘Robbie the Robot meets Ian Curtis’ style of dancing” in favor of a more stand-and-deliver strategy.

The SF combo will also see their new Siltbreeze album, Refuge in Genre, recorded with Tim Green earlier this summer, come out in October -- and then there's Hank IV's latest mission: opening for Mission of Burma (playing Signals, Calls, and Marches and Vs. start to finish) throughout Cali, including Sept. 26 and 27 at the Independent.

HANK IV
With Mission of Burma
Sept. 26 (Signals, Calls, and Marches) and Sept. 27 (Vs.), 9 p.m. $20-$35
Independent
628 Divisadero, SF
(415) 771-1421

Snared: Bad Plus smell like teen spirit in Argentina.

Yep, the fact that Sept. 11 landed on a Tuesday didn't deter many a musical artist from dropping their latest - so don't let it make you stay home. And now for a few more intriguing shows, all happening this week...

BAD PLUS
Sound familiar? Sound like "Teen Spirit" or "Tom Sawyer"? The trio feels the tuck o' the past. Wed/10, 8 and 10 p.m., $10-$16. Yoshi's SF, 1330 Fillmore, SF. (415) 655-5600.

GENERALISSIMO
The Oakland army leads a "Reeducation Demonstration" with what they describe as "high concept, high modernist broken rock," and compare to both Queens of the Stone Age and North Korea's Mass Games. Yet mommy just called it "acid rock." With Mariana Trench and Pegataur. Wed/10, 9 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk St., SF. (415) 923-0923.

Ah, my anarchic, incorrect geighs -- I haven't checked in with them in a while, and I'm sure they've been up to alot! Besides Q-Tipping playa dust out of their cracks. So here's a fun threesome of upcoming things from the homo-club-intelligentsia to enjoy. And by "enjoy" I mean "masturbate." And by "masturbate" I mean "enjoy." It's an antimetabole!

----------

Bitch

"Bitch" has become such a fraught word in this election. So let's add flaming to the fire and go to a club called Bitch on 9/11! Right on. (Hey we've already had 9/11 in July...) Mistress Monistat is throwing another of her fabulous straight-bar takeover shindigs at Vertigo this Thursday to wipe away your Al-Quesadilla Al-Qaeda blues. Mona's been a little stingy on the DJ info, just like she is with the baggie, but I do know that the inimitable Anna Conda of Charlie Horse (pictured on the flyer below) will be there, doing something, with something. But cocktails! Disaster!

Bitch
Thu/11, 9pm-2am, free
Vertigo
1160 Polk (at Sutter), SF.
(415) 674-1278

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Chicken

Cluck, cluck, goosed -- The ever-gooful Miss Juanita More is hosting another of her infamous Funky Chicken Brunches on Sun/14 afternoon at Mars Bar -- and all the cool kids will have their napkins out for her delicious fried chicken and heavenly home-baked (just like her!) carrot cake. The chicken's good -- and so's the chicken!

ARKONA
Ot Serdca K Nebu
(Napalm)

By Kat Renz

The tumultuous first 60 seconds of “Pokrovy Nebesnogo Startsa," the second track off Arkona’s fourth studio full-length, Ot Serdca K Nebu, make me proud to be Russian. Is it the war-like chants, the growling Masha “Scream” or the traditional Slavic “Volynka” bagpipes? Maybe it’s the violently pitch-shifted guitars and rapid-fire drums, followed by the sweet cacophony of Eastern European folk instruments lilting through the fusillade?

Then I remember I’m totally not Russian and feel a tad weirdly nationalistic. But for ethnomusicologists with an open mind toward the heavy or headbangers into Viking metal like Tyr, Arkona’s epic tribute to Russian ecology and pre-Christian battle gods tempers the uber-patriotic ideology of the Slavic world’s most well-known “Rodnovery” (“native faith”) metal band.

The Clinton dynasty: George Clinton plays the Warfield on New Year's Eve.

Welcome the new in - and usher the old out. George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic will ring in 2009 on New Year's Eve at the Warfield, and Les Claypool will tackle Zappa at the War Memorial Opera House, courtesy of Goldenvoice/AEG Live - this I learned while taking a quick tour of the revamped Warfield late last week with Dave Lefkowitz, VP of booking, and Joan Rosenberg, director of marketing.

Crews were still scrambling to complete renovations in time for this past weekend's performances with George Lopez. But the top-o'-the-line, new sound system from Meyer Sound was in place, as was a lighting trellis that will allow touring bands to get creative and bring in their own setups. Nifty new switcheroos include the departure of the mixing board from the balcony, down to the first floor, and the addition of a bank of 30 new primo-viewing seats upstairs, and the savvy move of shifting two bars on the first floor in the main room - one away from an emergency exit. The inclusion of six speakers mid-house, downstairs, should definitely improve the sound for the attendees in the back and in the VIP boxes.

Photos of past shows from Wolfgang's Vault and other sources lined the walls along with official and underground posters of past Warfield shows: Rosenberg said the walls will showcase a rotating display of the venue's history. New carpets lined the floors throughout the space, and upstairs, the renovation crew uncovered two old telephone booths from the early part of the 20th century.

Hola. My name is Marke B. I write a sort-of biweekly clubs column for the SF Bay Guardian called Super Ego. Sometimes I write about electro. This is not my party.

In June 2007, the same folks threw this party I think at Etiquette. I wrote to them! They wrote back! It was informative!

"The way you fierced Middle-America with your thong-and-boots model stomp into that truckstop Diary Queen will be a moment I'll never forget ... "

An amazingly sad evening, as news that The Steve Lady, stunning drag queen, winner of the first Miss Trannyshack, and, really, just a fierce human, a paragon of class and sexiness, with always a hilariously kind and sisterly word for me, has passed on. I use the word legendary a lot, but The Steve Lady really was it.

Tribute to the Steve Lady

From Juanita More's Web site:

Dear Friends,

The Steve Lady passed away peacefully at home with her partner and father at her side. Over the past couple of weeks the notes that you left for her were shared with The Lady at her bedside. She was floored by your messages of love.

There will be a celebration of his life in San Francisco, date and time to come.

Love, Juanita

Read the many messages of love. You can help with donations, etc here.

The Steve Lady will be incredibly, sorely missed.

The Steve Lady and Juanita More perform "The Funky Watusi" at Trannyshack's inflammatory "Wetback night" in '99 ...

Shadow shag: My Morning Jacket's "One Big Holiday."

Feeling frisky, SF? There's plenty to do besides Treasure Island Music Festival this week - more than we could fit betwixt our hot pages.

THESE ARMS ARE SNAKES
Prog, math, post-punk - whatev, dude. The Seattle collection of players from Botch, Kill Sadie, and Nineironspitfire is just as aggro as it's ever been, from the sound of the upcoming CD, Tail Swallower & Dove (Suicide Squeeze). Wed/17, 9 p.m., $10. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455.

HIEROGLYPHICS
Photons, gather round. The onetime Bay Area party-starters return to the scene of some many rhymes. Thurs/18, 8 p.m., $26.50. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 421-TIXS.

By Billy Jam

Initially disdained and dismissed by most as just mere noise, not music, the hip-hop-originated practice of scratching, that originated in a Bronx bedroom in the 1970s when Grand Wizzard Theodore accidentally stumbled upon the then new sound, sure has come a long way in a few short decades. Now elevated to the recognized artform commonly known as turntablism, scratch music has even become a course at the Berklee School of Music, "Turntable Technique."

And at this year's Monterey Jazz Festival (Sept. 19-21) the festival's curators are unveiling a new stage, added specifically for DJs and turntablists who incorporate traditional jazz instrumentation into their sound. This new stage's main act will be San Francisco turntablist group 4OneFunk, who are scheduled to perform, in an extended lineup, each day of the festival.

The 4OneFunk Band's festival lineup will include Colin Brown on live synths and Austin Bohlman and Patrick Korty aka Pdub on drums, Teeko on Controller One Turntable and MPC, Max Kane on Controller One Turntable and Vocoder, Ian McDonald on guitar, and Alphabet Soup's Kenny Brooks on sax. The ensemble will heavily utilize the newly created Vestax turntable model Controller One, which group member DJ Teeko, along with DJs D-Styles and Ricci Rucker, among others, designed for the Japanese turntable manufacturer. Both 4OneFunk's Teeko and DJ Max Kane will be rocking this new turntable, which Teeko says is taking turntablism into, "a new phase of melodics and control."

By Jen Snyder

Thank Lucifer that people are still putting their bodies out on stages and their egos on the line for reasons that make them seem as masochistic as they are talented. Here in San Francisco, we're lucky to have a multifaceted creative milieu that, more often than not and sometimes unintentionally, works independently of the mainstream.

As an avid indie-show-goer, I've had the pleasure of seeing many of the same faces swapped in and out of bands and projects. What’s interesting to me, however, is not just the underappreciated indie scene, but also lesser-known rock 'n' roll communities. Today, I wanna talk about independent metal, and the journey of Animosity, one of SF’s finest and most distinctive metal bands.

I sat down with Leo Miller at the headquarters for Man Alive, the label that Miller and Ryan Brewster pioneered here in the city. Miller, 22, is the vocalist for Animosity, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it from the way he looks. He’s wearing a “Don’t ask me for shit” T-shirt and looks like a fairly clean-cut guy, not someone who screams verbal blood into a microphone in front of a crowd of people angrily pumping the goat horn hand gesture.

By Marke B.

Justice, "DVNO"

Bonjour, Fifi! In this week's Guardian I go after French hardcore electro sensation Justice (Kim Chun wonderfully defends them), and share a few personal thoughts on the explosively glitzy banger scene that's grown up around their sound. Some people have written me to call me "old" and "a scold" -- that rhymes! Others have lauded me as an "old-school defender" and for "finally taking a hard look at today's materialistic youth."

I don't know about all that. I am old-school -- I've been around a while -- but that doesn't mean I want to divide stuff up and take sides. Move on dot org!

I can see good things and bad things about most kinds of nightlife. And I surely feel a positive energy and musical innovation at certain banger clubs like Blow Up, even as I worry over some of the materialistic and surface aspects of the hardcore electro scene. Nightlife is an art, and like any art critic, I retain a moralistic vision -- but I know that the wonderful purpose of art is to blow up (get it?) any moralistic vision to smithereens and go beyond mere words. But I'll always totally be down with, as fabulous DJ Richie Panic says below, "going out at night, doing drugs, having sex in bathrooms, and listening to DANCE music."

It's difficult to try to objectively critique an underground scene I love and support! BUT at least it's not this, roight:

Rockstar SF @ Roe/Prive

And here, for comparison's sake, is Blow Up:

Besides the hipster quotient and economic differences (the banger audience is def not $200 bottle service -- yet speaks better french!), and also A LOT more comfort with the gays and female empowerment, plus far less douchebags in dimestore cornrows laughing about rape -- HAHAHA -- I think I root the difference mostly in the music. I get chills when the change comes in on the lovely Empire of the Sun track above. (With mashups of "Obsession" .... not so much.) And that's a fundamental of underground nightlife right there -- better music and hair than the douchebags. See? We're still all one.

Anyway, back to Justice. They're weird! they can fill giant venues, which kind of forfeits underground cred, yet they still somehow retain underground cred. For illumination, I turn to Richie Panic, one of my favorite DJs, the king of the Cali banger scene, and a real sweetheart. Plus a genius. Oh, and he'll be playing a monster show at Mezzanine with Too Many DJs and Soulwax on Oct. 30 -- so catch that! His take below:

By Michelle Broder Van Dyke

If you want to see naked ladies and full-tilt dick, then Gravy Train!!! - one exclamation point for each member of the band - has the show for you. Members of the Oakland fourpiece almost always get outta-hand and nude onstage while serving up their saucy sounds. Chunx, Hunx, Junx, and Funx take turns on guitar, bass, keyboard, and vocals, and usually prance onstage wearing neon-pink spandex, fishnets, or feather boas. If all goes well, they’ll be wearing less than that by the end of their set.

Electropop is the name of Gravy Train!!!!'s game, and while not brilliant, their catchy sound sports lyrics that run the gamut, from advocating boning high school boys to the frustrations of men with petite wieners. Their raps are particularly impressive, and include such clever rhymes as “I had some 40z on my mind when I woke up this mornin' / I was sick of fancy drinks from the bitches I’d been bonin’ / Wanted to get trashed, lay down and drink my stash / Get up and make a quick dash then bat my fuckin' eyelash / At the big nasty bottle of the shit I drink / You may call me a ghetto freak but I won't even blink / Don't even try to contain the 40z that I drain / I leave a malt liquor stain like a fucking freight train” ("Sippin 40z").

The men o' Menomena. Photo by Alicia J. Rose.

Menomena
Sept. 20, Independent

By Michelle Broder Van Dyke

Menomena’s music is a serene reverie of looped and layered guitars, capricious drumming, intrusive saxophone sounds, and slightly offbeat lyrics contributed by all three members: Brent Knopf, Justin Harris, and Danny Seim. Tracks spiral out from their introductory piano chords and buoyant drum beats, creating increasingly complex rhythms only to switch erratically and fork off into an entirely different direction. Some tracks capture this effect more successfully than others, dragging the listener along with the 90-degree turns, yet somehow Menomena’s melodious and moody sound works on both their albums - they have three long-players to date - and in concert.

On stage, the band inevitably transforms the recorded songs, loosing some of the complicated and complex layers while still maintaining a playful energy with clapping and tambourines.

In the studio, the outfit's musical process begins with a computer program designed by Knopf called Deeler, which is short for Digital Looping Recorder. Drummer-vocalist Danny Seim creates the initial beat by playing a drum track. The three members take turns listening to the tempo and meter, improvising more patterns and melodies, and passing the microphone, while recording everything they play. Using the files like a jigsaw puzzle, they fit them together - duplicating some, rearranging the order, trimming pieces, layering parts, and creating an overall song structure. For the final recording, the music morphs again, as Menomena capture the magic created in the Deeler sessions but then performs the parts again, live.

THE VERVE
Forth
(On Your Own/MRI/Megaforce/RED)

By Todd Lavoie

Deep down, I'd always suspected the Verve might come back. There was something so brashly epic, so cockily magisterial about their brawls-and-all band-breaker-upper Urban Hymns (Virgin), that when the Wigan, England, space-rock poppers self-detonated upon the album's release in 1997, it was tough to fathom such a towering force receding from view, never to be seen or heard again.

Even now, more than a full decade later, Urban Hymns gives the same skin-prickling goodness in each and every one of my digits as it did on the day I brought it home from the record store - and I doubt I'm alone in that assertion, based on how deeply the recording seemed to resonate in the psyches of listeners on both sides of the Atlantic. Hit albums and singles - as ubiquitous as they feel at the time of their success - come and go, often drifting out of the public consciousness only months after striking it big. Urban Hymns was much more than a mere hit. Rather, it was a proclamation of importance, a manifesto mighty enough for instant mythology.

Lest you've forgotten the sheer humbling grandiosity of this thing, go fetch your copy - and trust me, if you ever drew solace and hope from music back in the '90s, you surely have one sitting in your stacks - and let the disc's opening string-streaked fanfare of the zeitgeist-defining "Bitter Sweet Symphony" whisk you back to the exact moment you first stopped dead in your tracks and thought, "I can't believe how good this is."

By Marke B.

The upside of the Treasure Island Music Fest Ferris wheel.
All photos by David Schnur.

Well, I was kind of wrong, despite doth protesting too much. There was not one single neon louvered spectacle at the Treasure Island Music Festival on Saturday, for a lineup that was topped with rockin' French duo Justice. And I'm pretty sure it's not because everyone reads my bitchy repartee in the Guardian. It's because San Franciscans are so way ahead of those tired Hipster Runoff hater trends!

Ravin' with a barnacle to pop-hop DJ Mike Relm

And yes, Justice was fab -- the sustained set of dance beats after a day of stage hopping dance-floor blue balls was like a huge release, although I must admit that Hunky Beau and I dashed in the middle of their glowing-cross set to beat the bus rush. (Maybe for a whole day of "dance acts" there should also be a nearby tent of continuous local DJs so people can bounce their rocks off once in a while, uninterrupted by stage patter or slow songs?). In fact the whole day, though some folks' hands turned purple with early autumnal chill, was amazingly lovely, if the energy was a bit scattered.

Amon Tobin blows the crowd (and almost himself) away

There was a broad spectrum of dance music available, from sexy Aesop Rock's intel-hop, to Goldfrapp's Kate Bush/Cocteau Twins revival act to Foals's frantic indie guitar-and-sequencer patterns (unfortunately the solar-panelled sound system crapped out on them for a spell). For every other kind of dance music except house, Latin legend Amon Tobin happily filled in the windy gaps, with an inner-ear/inner-thought blowing set that nodded not only to his super-brainy brand of ambient sway, but also lazer bass, break beats, reggae, and dub step. This was the first time I saw him using a laptop for his sets along with turntables -- and, natch, he was a natural.

Photo by Jordan Fraker

First the good news: Lazer Sword, the local loco duo of robo-crunk remix actionists that blow out my speakers rightly, have just released the mixtape of the year, in my book. It's called Blap to the Future. Check it out and gleam dizzy (download). Srsly, my laptop is xplodin' with this shit. Listen and believe. You can find out more about the mix on the Lazer Sword MySpace blog.

Now the bad news (read the fine print):

From Lazer Sword: SO YES FRIENDS IT'S TRUE. LANDO KAL, 1/2 OF LAZER SWORD, GOT HIS APPLE MACBOOK PRO LAPTOP STOLEN OUT OF HIS HANDS AT GUNPOINT IN FRONT OF A CLUB BEFORE A LS SET WEDNESDAY, 8/27/08.

Mum's the word on which club -- but look, we're gonna have a party and reimburse the shit. Hit up fancy Ambassador this Thursday for an all-star lineup of glitch-hop, electro disco, and other adventurous heads, in conjunction with promoters Hoodies and Heels, for a mind-bending night that gives back.

Lazer Sword Benefit
Thurs/25, 10pm-2am, Free but donate at the door
Ambassador
673 Geary Street
More info here

PS -- oh hey, speaking of White Girl Lust, there's a ripping disco-dive brand new mix up on xlr8r that features their new label Solid Bump.

By Daniel N. Alvarez

Part of a continuing series: Britpop Faves

The Stereophonics burst onto the Britpop scene with their critically acclaimed 1997 debut, Word Gets Around (V2), and their hard indie-rock sound was a breath of fresh air in a time when Britpop groups like the Verve and Oasis were scaling back the rawness of their early albums and heading for more refined pastures. The Welsh threepiece had found their niche as the un-ironic, ballsy foil to a scene that had been castrated by string arrangements and power ballads.

The band followed it up with Performance and Cocktails (V2, 1999), which shot to no. 1 on the UK charts. However, for their third album, the Phonics took a brave step forward with the bluesy, toned-down Just Enough Education to Perform (V2, 2001). They mostly shunned the rollicking hard-rock sounds of their first two releases, while incorporating an alt-country, rootsy American vibe. The British press, unsurprisingly, crucified them for this stunning show of insubordination.

JEEP, as it's called by fans, opens with a salute to the past. The upbeat “Vegas Two Times” would seamlessly fit beside either of the Stereophonics' two previous full-lengths, but this would be the only song could.

SW a-swirl: Calexico's "Crystal Frontier."

San Francisco can't stop, won't stop - as usual there's far too much to do, see, and hear. Here are a few worthies to check out.

THE GIRLS
Yeah, you heard me right: the Girls, man, the Girls. Meaning, the Seattle garage-wave combo whose perky song stylings have caught Spin's ear (much like SF's Girls, sans "the"). Wed/24, 9 p.m., $8. Uptown Night Club, 1948 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 451-8100.

JOSE GONZALEZ
His handsome Veneer and haunting songs - we're smitten. Wed/24, 8 and 10 p.m., $25. Yoshi's, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakl. (510) 238-9200.

Oh, how we love our very own famed gay bathhouse disco revivalist DJ Bus Station John and his decidedly hot man-centric cruisefest parties, thrown in the steamy-smoky spirit of the early-mid '70s and slightly beyond. (Read my 2005 interview with him here.) So how delightful that the anniversary of MANQUAKE!, his "sordidly savory SF mix of trickin' chicken, tourist meat, & sexy senior citizens" soiree would fall on Folsom Street Fair eve!

Spirits of the disco: "Karl" and "Phillip" at MANQUAKE

Spirit of the Piers: "Bruce" at MANQUAKE
All masks loving crafted by Bus Station John

Return to the tender coal mining days of gay yore at the Gangway this Saturday night, randy boys and men, and feast your eyes upon the fair bounty lining the Gangway's man-mask-bedecked walls and X-traordinary vintage visuals curated by der Blaue Reiter -- and your ears on the impeccable vinyl selection of Bus Station John featuring "'70s/'80s lost disco, funk, and r&b classics & rarities from the glory days of pre-digital dance music. Festive attire or clothing optional? YOU decide!" Plus: a mystery go-go boy! See your loins a-plenty there.

MANQUAKE! 1-Year Anniversary