Blogs

Q: when is a puppet show not just a puppet show?
A: When the puppets referred to are the Puppet Folk Revival Band.

On July 31st, CellSpace hosts the West Coast concert debut of Rockin' Puppet Mayhem: the Puppet Folk Revival Band. Described in their PR as "an unholy blend of the puppetcraft of The Muppets performing a morphed version of faded and jaded rock survivors like Metallica and Spinal Tap--all sprinkled with the very blue banter of Red Orbach, an English-speaking Israeli version of South Park's Cartman."

Alrighty-then.

The spectacle of five life-sized puppets who appear to play their own instruments while performing satirical, Tom Lehrer-on-opiates originals (often ad-libbed) and pop culture covers has already been a huge hit in Israel, where PFRB originates from. But not only will PFRB's performance be something special (especially strange, at the least), it also marks the first musical concert ever presented by the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Watch a video of PFRB performing Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" here, Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" here, and David Bowie's "Space Oddity" here.  For more info, click here.

Michael Jackson R.I.Parties (All Weekend)
We'll be adding parties to our list as we hear about them (be sure to post your recommendations below). For now, we suggest fueling your King of Pop nostalgia at one of these places: on Friday, Milk's "Culture Clash" DJ party with Dr. Mr. E and Dave Paul already focuses on "all the great '80s singalong classics we all love," including hip-hop, pop, new wave, and the like. Bonus: Dave Paul is one of the masterminds behind the legendary Prince vs. Michael Jackson parties ($5 before 11 p.m...$10 after. Get on the guestlist by emailing milkbarsf@gmail.com). [UPDATE**: Eric Arnold reports that Ankh Marketing is also sponsoring a Michael Jackson tribute this Saturday at 330 Ritch with DJs Mr. E, Ant One, and De. RSVP to ankhmarketingevents@gmail.com for free admittance before 10 p.m. ($5 until 11 p.m.)] And then there's always the karaoke bars (the Mint, Encore) where you can bet your karaoke jockey's tip jar that folks are gonna be hollering "Man in the Mirror" well through last call.

Treasure Island Drive-In With 'Top Gun' (Friday)
Drive-In movies are the best--especially when they screen films you actually could've seen from your car back in the day. The mobile guerrilla drive-in group Mobmov hosts Top Gun out on Treasure Island tonight at 9 p.m. Stay up on their traveling flicks through the Mobmov Twitter. (9 p.m., free)

La Haine (Friday)
Alliance Française is hosting "20 Films in Paris" over the next two months, and tonight's flick is a real treat. La Haine (Hate) is a 1995 film about life in a French ghetto, complete with a killer French hip-hop soundtrack and a young Vincent Cassel in a lead role. Get outta work early for this one: the film screens at 5 p.m. and admission is free.

Heroic Trio: Jack White, Jimmy Page, and the Edge

I had a chance to see a sneak preview of the documentary It Might Get Loud yesterday. First impressions? Best. Rock. Movie. Ever. The film, scheduled to open in Bay Area theaters August 28, takes three guitar gods from different eras--Led Zeppelin legend Jimmy Page (who receives associate producer credits), U2 sonic architect the Edge, and new-school throwback Jack White, of the White Stripes. Built around a jam session featuring all three guitarists on a Hollywood soundstage, It Might Get Loud detours into historical and cultural anecdotes, perhaps none more ironically cool than watching a white-haired Page play air guitar--you read that correctly--to Link Wray's seminal instrumental "Rumble."

What makes this film so good is that it doesn't necessarily worship at the altar of rock stardom, but instead becomes a treatise on the musicians' muses--what inspires them, including their instruments and various influences, from skiffle to punk to Son House blues. In doing so, it examines the role the electric guitar plays in pop culture in a way that's part The Song Remains the Same, part Behind the Music, and 100% awesome. For more info, click here

Evan James

Former Miss Trannyshack Raya Light picking up garbage.

33rd Frameline Film Festival: Opening Night
Thursday, June 18th, 2009
The Castro Theatre and Terra Gallery
Review and Photos by Evan James
Better than: Perishing in obscurity in the south of France.

Reeling from the shock of being asked well in advance to write about the Opening Night Gala of the 33rd San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival--alias: Frameline-- I suffered a complete collapse brought about by occupational stress, and had to spend almost an entire year soothing my nerves in the French resort town of Cap d'Antibes. I vowed never to write again, and spent my days gazing upon the placid waters of the Côte d'Azur, drooling out of the side of my mouth, weeping out of the sides of my eyes, and bartering with the local fishmongers; I even attended their fishmonger galas. While little is more pleasurable than going down to the Garoupe to see the lights of a summer evening, before long I began to pine for the galas and opening nights of America-- this great country of ours where all people are entitled to the pursuit of a room filled with strangers fighting to get to the open bar for a free plastic cup of Skyy Vodka.

Flush with party-hearty patriotism, I beat a hasty return to San Francisco on my private jet. On the way, I rang up my editor on my private telephone. "You want a gay omelette?" I said. "Well then, let's break a few gay eggs."

Evan James

Scene from the gala.

Now, I love the movies, especially the "talkies," so I was willing to suffer the slings and errors of press check-in at the Castro Theatre in order to see An Englishman in New York, the Opening Night film about gay writer, bon vivant, and general gadabout Quentin Crisp. After a routine retinal scan and some quick blood work, I was shown to my seat on the balcony. From my privileged perch in the loge I watched the preliminary parade of Frameline mandarins march upon the stage-- a Board of Directors bored of directing and hungry for applause. I lapsed into a kind of clapping frenzy, appreciating every volunteer, executive director, and handmaiden with all the strength of the two hands God gave me. Finally, I finished giving the entire administrative staff of the festival their quarterly review, and the movie began.

EKAphotography

In the Cypher: Fiyawata

Attention underground hip-hop heads and freestyle feminists: If you're in the downtown Berkeley area tomorrow evening, roll through the Berkeley City College Auditorium for the DVD release party of "Bay Area Cypher," a new documentary combining live performance and freestyle clips with interviews.

Here's a PR blurb about the film, which portrays: "the unique creativity of Hip Hop in the San Francisco Bay Area. Through the Hip Hop elements of rhyme and dance this documentary highlights the spiritual and communal aspects of Hip Hop culture, showing how improvisational freestyle is key to manifesting a higher energetic vibration." Directed by Idris Hassan, the film screening will be followed by a panel discussion, and a performance by green hip-hop duo Fiyawata. More info is here,  and you can watch a trailer here.

Thomas Blake Jr.

Point Break Live!
Cellspace
April 10, 2009
Better than: Plays that don't require protective clothing.

Inflating the sheer absurdity of the 1991 Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze bank - robbing - surfer - action - homoerotic - extreme - sports - thriller - American classic Point Break seems like an impossible task. You might as well try to make tomatoes taste more like tomatoes. How does one make a parody of something that is already such a perfect parody of itself? Why would you even try? Maybe it's because you knew the result would be Point Break Live!, brainchild of Jamie Keeling.

Upon entering the theater, every attendee of PBL! is supplied with a plastic baggy that contains a cheap plastic poncho and some fake dollar bills. The poncho is provided to protect audience members from what promises to be a very wet show. The rain garments all have little pointed plastic hoods, which had the strange effect of making attendees look like tiny, outdoors oriented members of the KKK. The sound of beers being cracked open and excited murmuring was accompanied by the white noise of plastic crinkling. The stage was decorated with nothing but a poorly constructed island sprouting an inflatable palm tree. More promising sets have been produced at Summer Camps. But you don't go to PBL! for the frills.

 

Gay Rock Icon: Jon Ginoli

Ever wonder what it's like to be a gay rock star? Jon Ginoli lived that life, as the lead singer and guitarist for Pansy Division, SF's pioneering queer punx, who rose to infamy after opening for Green Day on the "Dookie" tour. Now Ginoli has written a book about his experiences--the groupies! The spandex! The matching drapes on the tour bus!--entitled "Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division."

Ginoli has launched a 60-city book tour, which coincides with the release of PD's eighth album, That's So Gay, and will include live performances and screenings of a PD documentary. Ginoli appears tonight at Books, Inc, tomorrow at Artists' Television Access, Saturday at the Book Zoo in Oakland, and Sunday at Book Passage in Corte Madera.

I'm Neil Young, biatch!

10. His middle name is Percival. (This actually explains his often anguished, tortured voice).

9. Before joining Buffalo Springfield, Young was in the Mynah Birds, a band fronted by future funkster Rick James. It's unclear whether he ever told James, "I'm Neil Young, biatch!"

8. His pre-fame pals included Joni Mitchell and Randy Bachman of BTO.

7. He has several aliases, including Bernard Shakey, director of "Journey Through the Past," "Rust Never Sleeps," and the upcoming "Linc/ Volt."

6. Young, who lives on a ranch in La Honda, California, has never renounced his Canadian citizenship.

5. After releasing two solo albums, Neil Young and Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, he joined electric-folk-pop hippies Crosby, Stills, and Nash, becoming the "Y" in CSNY.

4. Young's song "Southern Man" was dissed by Lynyrd Skynyrd on "Sweet Home Alabama."

3. Director Martin Scorsese reportedly delayed release of the 1976 concert film "the Last Waltz" in order to edit out a chunk of cocaine hanging, lugey-style, from Young's nose during his performance of "Helpless."

2. Kurt Cobain is said to have quoted Young's line "it's better to burn out than fade away" on his suicide note.

1. In addition to finishing a new album, Fork in the Road, Young has announced that he's finished his conversion of a 1959 Lincoln Continental to run on alternative energy. The car is featured prominently in Young's new video "Johnny Magic." See it here.

Boy in da Corner: Tupac

Yesterday, the Hollywood Reporter announced the latest development in the ongoing fight over the rights to a major motion picture biography of the late Tupac Shakur: Amaru Entertainment and Shakur's mom Afeni Shakur are suing Morgan Hill entertainment for what basically amounts to player hating. Details are here .

Earlier, Morgan Hill had sued Amaru, claiming breach of contract--a move industry analysts said may have been in retaliation for Amaru refusing to sign an agreement with the production company, while negotiating with other interested parties.

Speculation has centered around the falling out as coming after the less-than-robust opening weekend of the Biggie Smalls biopic "Notorious," which may have spurred Morgan Hill to downgrade their offer to Amaru for the rights to the Tupac story. Afeni Shakur's complaint, meanwhile, contends that there was no signed agreement between Amaru and Morgan Hill, and that such details as executive producer credits and a percentage of profits hadn't been fully resolved. We're wondering what 'Pac would have thought of all of this. Chances are, it can't be printed in a family newspaper, or even an alt-weekly blog.

EKAphotography

Daly City Electronica: Mochipet

Some of the most interesting music being made these days is coming out of the Asian American underground, who put a whole new spin on the phrase "Asian Fusion." Inspired by urban life in America as well as cultural influences from all over the East, today's Asian-American artists are putting their own touches on hip-hop, reggae, bhangra, broken beat, and future disco, not to mention inventing their own microgenres.

If you want to hear tomorrow's music right now, the SF International Asian American Film Festival is sponsoring a phat party at 111 Minna this Friday featuring a bento box-worth of mostly local Asian-American musicians, producers, and DJs, including hip-hop producer Trackademicks, LA electronica whiz Nosaj Thing, Surya Dub mainstay Kush Aurora, Daly City Records' honcho Mochipet, Bay Area Sistah Sound founder DJ Zita, SF disco revivalist DJ Pickpocket, nu-jazzster Tokyo Component, and downtempo rocker Citizen Ten. For more info, click here.