We really hope it doesn't rain on Thao with the Get Down Stay Down this weekend

​If you couldn't get into last weekend's Thao/Thermals show, or, if you did go and just couldn't get enough of these bands, they play together again this Friday at UC Berekley's Sproul Plaza, thanks to KALX. This little indie pop valentine mixes the Thermal's spasic-estatic rock with Thao's talent of turning a mess of a breakup into a remarkably upbeat album. The college station hosts the two bands starting at 5 p.m., and the gig is, of course, free.

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From this week's issue of SF Weekly:

The sunny, halcyon days of the 1960s have been shoved down our collective throats with every Woodstock anniversary and baby boomer film reveling in the music of the times. In the handwritten notes by California musician Bobby BeauSoleil that accompany Adventures in Experimental Electronic Orchestra from the San Francisco Psychedelic Underground, a hefty gatefold double LP released this month from BeauSoleil's first group, the Orkustra, we read part of his tale. While his story starts out as innocently and starry-eyed as any of the hippie generation, it winds up entangled with the Manson Family by decade's end. BeauSoleil's trajectory veers into the sordid, shadowy realm that parallels that same conflicted era.

Born Robert Kenneth BeauSoleil in Santa Barbara, BeauSoleil packed his bags in 1965 for San Francisco and found himself at the intersection of Haight and Ashbury. He was just down the street from where the Grateful Dead were holed up, loosening the knots on folk and blues and letting in more expansive jazzy improvisations. BeauSoleil performed a similar act with his own muse, moving beyond rock into weirder fields of play, drawing on Indian classical music, the works of John Coltrane, and avant-garde electronic fare. Trawling the basement of a music shop, BeauSoleil unearthed instruments like the Greek bouzouki and set about amplifying it onstage. A few like-minded travelers joined him, and while his original vision was for an "electric chamber orchestra," the group soon pared down to five members and the unmodified name of the Orkustra. They began to share stages with the Grateful Dead, the Charlatans, and Big Brother and the Holding Company.

This two-album set culls its music from rehearsal tapes and concerts performed during the Orkustra's brief existence. While the distance of four decades casts a murkiness over the proceedings, the interplay among its participants still entrances.

Read the full story about BeauSoleil's music, Manson connection, and the murder he committed here. 

Slumberland's Mike Schulman

​A couple years ago, it seemed Oakland label Slumberland was having a resurgence as fans of twee, dream pop, and shoegaze started paying attention to Mike Schulman's roster, which he'd began building up back in 1989. Well a couple big buzz band hits later with Crystal Stilts, Cause Co-Motion!, and The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, and the label is ready to throw some big, celebratory parties in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Slumberland curated a 20-year birthday bash in Brooklyn and D.C. last fall, and next month the anniversary shows travel to this coast. On Saturday, March 27, Rickshaw Stop will host a 10-band soiree for the label with Henry's Dress, The How, Go Sailor, Brown Recluse, Summer Cats, Pants Yell!, Devon Williams, Neverever, Brilliant Colors, and Boyracer. The following night, Slumberland will host a second extended lineup at the Echo in L.A.

As everyone bitches about the decline of the recording industry, it's important to find the indies who continue to stick it out--especially in our backyard--making it work, as they've always done, by supporting the artists they're most passionate about. Although, it doesn't hurt, of course, when your artists become the taste of blogtown.

Kip Winger showed some tongue at 2008's Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy Camp

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I've made no secret of my love for hair metal, and, more specifically, my love for Winger. When it comes to the Spandex Sound, the wussier the better in my book. I loved all the sappy, saccharine ballads by Winger, Slaughter, Giuffria, Tesla...bring it on. So when my boss dropped today's Datebook on my desk, with a front page piece on how Winger's headed for a Swan Lake heartbreak, I felt giddy as a Pitchfork scribe hearing a fresh Deerhunter fart. 

It seems Winger's namesake, Kip Winger, is premiering "his first symphonic piece with the San Francisco Ballet." That music, titled "Ghosts," will hit the opera house starting Tuesday. It will apparently display the brainer side this Kip has been cultivating since grunge killed all that Aqua Net rock in the '90s. I knew he was into the high-brow arts from being a starstruck fan doing serious reporting at the Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy Camp in 2008, but in those hotel rooms I only heard snippets of his instrumental work. Time to hit up this new "Ghosts" show.

And since I'm already traveling down memory lane here, I have a bonus bit for you, just in time for Valentine's Day: Hair Metal's Sweetest Nothings.

Winger "Headed for a Heartbreak" (acoustic)

Giuffria (don't tell me you've never heard of them) "Call to the Heart"

Slaughter's "Fly to the Angels" (acoustic)

Tesla's "Love Song" (still remember a certain long-haired boyfriend playing this on his guitar)

You're welcome.

​From this week's issue of SF Weekly:

Some San Franciscans make a Mission burrito run as soon as they return to town. Rapper and producer Richie Cunning just takes a deep breath and says, "Oh, thank God." He loves the city's air enough to give it a shout-out on his debut LP, Night Train, a record with a Blue Note look and a Golden Age hip-hop feel. "There's definitely a different smell in different parts of town, but there is always the air," he explains. "In a literal sense, it's not so much the smell as the texture, the moistness of it."

There was plenty of moisture -- buckets of it -- in the air the day I met Cunning at the High Tide, a cozy Tenderloin dive bar his father used to own. "When I was a wee lad, I used to come here with my dad [while he did] the books on Saturdays and Sundays," he recalls. "I'd just drink 7-Up and grenadine [and play] Pac-Man."

Richie Cunning was born Richard Lipton; he remembers the day, 15 years back, when he swapped one name for the other. He was lugging a stack of LPs from Amoeba Music to the Sunset District, mulling over rap names. "Richie Cunningham [from Happy Days] just came to mind," he says. "I was like, 'That would be cool, without the ham on it.' I always thought of it like I sampled the name -- I only use the part that I want."

Read more about Richie Cunning, including his beliefs about Muni-as-muse, here.

​A million bullshit punks get hooked on blow and live, while one insanely talented dude gets coked up and dies. Sad news from the Jay Reatard camp this morning. Stereogum reports that Reatard died last month of ""cocaine toxicity, and that alcohol was a contributing factor in his death." While that's hardly a shocker, it makes me wonder how far people get--especially in the punk/garage/etc. community, where there's plenty of substances being passed around--before someone throws an intervention into their party. I recently chatted with a local musician who played Gonerfest, and who said his band members openly remarked that something bad was going to happen to Reatard. According to this guy, Reatard took the stage and poured bags of coke up his nose.

At this point, no one needs a lecture on all the ways dipping into the booger sugar is bad for you, but hopefully this prominent death--and especially one that affected many local musicians here--will spark a little conversation about watching closely over musicians who seemed to have pushed past the line. MusiCares has a program specifically to help musicians with substance abuse problems, if anyone knows someone who could use a little help.

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Simon Reynolds, often credited with coining the term postrock, defined it as "using rock instrumentation for nonrock purposes." Following suit, the preponderance of postrockers focus on "guitar texture," "percussive moodscapes," and other such sonic intangibles. Then there's Do Make Say Think.

While this Toronto-based demicollective definitely leans toward the cinematic, mood-heavy droning that defines much of the genre, the band is equally adept at applying a near-literal role reversal to its music. The band plies what might reasonably be called "pre-rock," using nonrock instrumentation for rock purposes. So while guitars are relegated to nuance and drums to ebb and swell, clarinets are repurposed to voice power chords, and stabs of orchestral arrangements serve both as percussion and as riffs worthy of any classic guitar album.

Do Make Say Think plays tonight at Great American Music Hall. (8 p.m., $16)

These drizzly, wet, cold February nights are tailor-made for watching movies. Local rock historian Richie Unterberger offers a side of music education with his film screenings, pairing rare clips of interviews, concerts, and television appearances on a select theme during his regular, monthly-ish nights at the Park Branch of the San Francisco Library (1833 Page St., in the Upper Haight). 

Tomorrow night, Feb. 3, he focuses on female rock and soul performers from the '50s to the '80s. That list will include bits on Wanda Jackson, Brenda Lee, Francoise Hardy, the Ronettes, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Barbara Lynn, Dusty Springfield, Lulu, Janis Joplin, Grace  Slick with the Jefferson Airplane, Nancy Sinatra, Joni Mitchell, Nico, Patti Smith, Shonen Knife, and others.

There's no charge for Richie's screenings, but definitely get there long before the 7 p.m. start time or you'll have only your natural padding to comfort you against the hard basement floor.

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Mike Patton has sparked a million crazy music projects over the decades, not to mention an uncompromisingly eclectic record label, but he'll perhaps always have his biggest following in fans of Faith No More, the San Francisco hard-rock-and-then-some act he became the frontman for in the late '80s.

By the time of FNM's breakthrough album, 1989's The Real Thing, the group had cycled through many singers--including, reportedly, Courtney Love. But Patton helped the group turn "Epic" into a slam dunk hit.

Patton will be part of the FNM lineup that's pushing forward after a decade apart. The band reunited last year for a European tour, and will now play the Warfield on April 14, presumably a warm up show for the group's Coachella date. The news was broken by keyboardist Roddy Bottum, who tweeted today: "San Francisco... At last we announce... FNM special show at the Warfield Theatre/April 14!!! Tickets on sale Sunday 2/07." Bottum and Patton will be joined by original FNM'ers Mike Bordin, Bill Gould, and Jon Hudson.

This gig is just one of many treats we get from being so close to Coachella. If you don't feel like making the big desert festival haul, many of those artists book shows in San Francisco around the middle of April as well.

​So we wrote that the metal titans tour involving Slayer, Megadeth, and Testament was thrown off course after Slayer bassist/vocalist Tom Araya threw out his back in a serious-headbanging-injury sorta way. Well, although that Jan. 21 show didn't happen, the tour will indeed kick start anew after Araya's able to shred like a healthy man again. The American Carnage tour will hit the Cow Palace at the other end of 2010, with the bands playing there August 31st. 

​Matching the multidimensional scope of the best prog rock, local troupe Citay remains woodsy and cosmic on its new Dream Get Together. It's a natural step up from 2007's Little Kingdom, though still marked by tireless, largely instrumental jams. When vocals do emerge, they're both male and female and exude sighed harmonies, as on a cover of Galaxie 500's "Tugboat" and the Tune-Yards-featuring "Mirror Kisses." Completing the equation is producer and onetime member Tim Green, who elevates the band's rainbowlike twin guitar leads, layered acoustic jangle, and siren synths all the more.

The band plays tomorrow night at Slim's, opening for Fruit Bats.

Joseph Schell

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Crowd members who caught last night's Horse Feathers show at the Bottom of the Hill know they got lucky, seeing such a talented group play at such a small venue for such a reasonable price. It was pretty much impossible not to be moved by the intensity of the performance as the Portland-based quartet launched into songs from its two albums, House With No Home and Words are Dead.

Joseph Schell

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The majority of the crowd simply stood there through the set, swaying, open-mouthed and smiling, as front man Justin Ringle sang with lips pressed against the mic and eyes closed. He kept the volume of his falsetto artfully tuned to fit the dips and crescendos of each melody.

The band's live sound doesn't stray far from its studio sound, the careful composition of instrumentals and harmonies almost as poetic as the lyrics themselves. Combined with Ringle's acoustic guitar, the cello, violin, banjo, and saw help provide a fitting soundtrack
to a dark and surreal dreamscape of dramatic images (which we imagine involve blood and body parts and broken bones).

Joseph Schell

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It's the kind of music that deserves the acoustics of a venue like the Masonic Center -- and considering the awestruck facial expression's of last night's crowd, it's possibly Horse Feathers could be playing there soon enough.

It's a weird, abrasive world out there, and Big City Orchestra has been supplying the soundtrack to the madness for three decades now. Last year the amorphous collective--whose base is here in the Bay Area--celebrated its 30th year of arty experimentation with a tour of Europe and the UK. Now it's bringing the noise back home with a one-time-only gig at Café Du Nord on Sunday, Jan. 31. The show will feature more than 20 past and present members of BCO, including some from as far away as Missouri and Germany.

"This show is logistically much too crazy to attempt more than once," says engineer, producer, and original member dAS. "The basic concept is that we are reenacting many of BCO's settings and moods. For once the theme of the show is BCO itself--some of it electronic, some classical instrumentation, a few puppets, video, and overhead projectors, and a master of ceremonies [comic-book artist Mike Dringenberg] who is one of the finest artists in the country, just drunk enough to spin some great lies and rumors." Make sure to get to the church of caterwaul on time, since the show starts right at 9 p.m.

Also on the group's schedule is a live performance on Saturday (Jan. 30) on 89.7 FM KFJC from 6-9 p.m. "We will see about 15 BCO members rolling through portions of what they will be doing at Café Du Nord," says dAS. "Others will be reenacting themes we have performed on KFJC through the years, going back to an all-fire performance from 1984. And best yet, there are some artists reuniting that haven't seen each other in 10 or more years."

Alyssa Robb

Lemonade: more NY, less hair

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It was just about two years ago when a young San Francisco trio by the name of Lemonade wrote and recorded its debut self-titled album for Brooklyn-based label True Panther Sounds (also responsible for releasing music by Girls, Glasser, and Ty Segall). The band's record caught the attention of fans throughout the country, and garnered Lemonade high-ranking reviews on prestigious music websites (Pitchfork gave it an 8.3). After situating into a new Brooklyn home, Lemonade has prepared the follow-up to that debut--a five-song EP cleverly titled Pure Moods.

Sonically, the differences between Lemonade's first effort and its new release are vast. The trio dove deep into the tropical inclinations only hinted at the first time around. The EP contains larger elements of calypso, dub, and international beats alongside previous obsessions with straightforward dance music.

Calling Pure Moods an EP is almost misleading. While the release's tracklist does fit within the standards of an EP, its run-time is over 30 minutes long--making for more of a mini-album than the usual short sampler. Hear for yourself when Pure Moods comes out March 9 on True Panther Sounds.

Karin Dreijer Andersson is known for being a bit ... odd. And as the vocalist/frontwoman for Swedish electronic acts The Knife and Fever Ray, she's maintained an aura of anonymity via masquerade stage shows, theatrical makeup effects, and/or actor stand-ins during the bands' music videos. But this acceptance "speech" (if you can call it that) on a recent Swedish awards show is certainly one of her weirdest appearances to date: It's like Lady Gaga, only transported into the beauty-is-ugliness alternate universe imagined by the classic Twilight Zone episode "The Eye of the Beholder." Freaky. If you want more arresting visuals spawned from Andersson's otherworldly music, peep the videos for The Knife's "Silent Shout" or the Fever Ray cover of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds' "Stranger Than Kindness."

S.F.'s Ghosts on Tape makes Bleep.com's Top 100 of 2009 list

​If there's one thing the music world loves to do, it's make lists. Best ofs, worst ofs, personal faves, and what-have-you rundowns catch the public eye and add a little personality to whichever publication puts them together. One such list was curated by online electronic music retailer Bleep.com, which made its tastemaking Top 100 Tracks of 2009 available as a huge download for a very limited time--basically through the end of the day.

Bleep's critical track list isn't just a mecca for club DJs and electronic music nerds. The UK-based thinktank peppered its year-end roundup with loads of music for at-home and earphone listening. Among the choice titles for adventurous audio aficionados are Dam-Funk, Flying Lotus, Animal Collective, DOOM, San Francisco-based Ghosts on Tape, Mum, Nosaj Thing, Dirty Projectors, Untold, Glass Candy, and Hudson Mohawke.

Bleep's Top 100 takes last year's greatest songs and turns them into a potential gateway for listeners to discover artists that could otherwise fall under the radar. And at 30 pounds--or about $48--that's not a bad price to pay to stay on top of breaking electronic acts.

Phoenix: would probably prefer you weren't greedy about their tickets

​For those of you who bought your tickets to see Phoenix tonight at the Fillmore, how badly do you actually want to see the band? A quick scan of Craigslist shows just how badly the ticketless want their "Lisztomania;" and the myriad ways those with tickets are willing to bilk them for cash.  

The tickets,  which sold out quickly at $32.50, are now being unloaded for up to ten times that amount. Some people are asking $350 for a pair, others want $300 for a show that will be "the shit."

Scroll down into the $100 to $200 range, and you get pleas from Phoenix fans attempting their bargaining online. "I love this band and I want to take this beautiful girl with me ! please help me out ! These $150 tickets are insane," writes one poster. "I can scrape together $180 for a pair!"

Down in the under $100, we have a Phoenix fan who has to DANCE and is "moving out of the country next month, this may be my only chance!" The post continues,  "I am irrevocably possessed by Phoenix and need to see them live before I leave. Please help one fan dance to freedom." Although, this traveler refuses to pay the big bills. "If you are interested in tripling the price," they continue, "don't contact me and may god have mercy on your soul."

Punishment was indeed a popular topic as well. Some preferred to use the ticket forum to give a little lesson on scalper's greed. Under a listing for "WANTED- 1 Phoenix tix for tonight (willing to pay $500)," someone wrote: "'Greed' (definition) - An inordinate desire to acquire or possess more than one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth."

The prize, however, goes to this poster, who had to go bring morality and stuff into the discussion. 

Perhaps some of us were not as quick as you to scoop up as many tickets as possible upon their release. Then again, some of us work hard jobs and have morals, and we don't believe at making money at the expense of others. Preach about capitalism, doing whatever you can in this economy, etc., but we all know you're parasites, sucking money out of starry-eyed fans, not to mention the artistic talent of the musical acts. It'd be one thing if your profit margin somehow went toward the band, who except in rare circumstances is grinding hard to make a living, but you're essentially sucking their livelihood for your own financial gain. I will not support you, and I hope that others follow suit, so that you're left with tickets burning a hole in your pocket, only able to unload them at face value. I know California has lenient standards for your kind. I just hope the public doesn't.

​We've just confirmed with Another Planet that Pavement is indeed taking its reunion to the Bay Area, a couple months after the band plays Coachella. On June 25th the band will play the Greek Theatre. The supporting act is yet to be announced, and tickets--which we imagine will disappear real quick, given how fast the New York shows sold out--are $39.50. 

John Benson

The Bus

​San Francisco is bursting at the seams with live music nearly every night of the week. There are shows at slimy bars and at major music venues across town, concerts with fees through Ticketmaster and ones with wristbands presented at the door. And while that is all fine and good, the city also boasts a plethora of unique under the radar venues, places where one might never think to seek out live music. More adventurous types can catch bands in a beach cave, a bookshop, a community art gallery, or a functional bus that crisscrosses through town.

The best of these venues are fêted here, for your reading pleasure.

Of course, some music fiends worth their weight in vinyl will contest this list for being too on-the-radar. But fellow audiophiles, please keep in mind that this rundown is meant for the diverse general listening public. And in our sundry metropolis crammed with wide-eyed youth, not everyone knows what you know. Also, feel free to add any spaces we may have missed in the comments section below.

1. John Benson's Big White Bus (various locations)
Technically, the current roving party band bus is called "Larry Bus," not "The Big White Bus." But both are owned by John Benson and both are big and white.

John Benson

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In 2006, Benson purchased a former Oakland transit bus, a 1979 Canadian Flyer ("It was honestly the ugliest thing I've seen and everyone was against it," he recalls) and has proceeded to host 167 shows over the past four years. That original vehicle recently broke down outside of Detroit and is on the mend. Benson has since purchased "Larry Bus" (same make and model) and hosted 38 shows in it. While he often stops his buses by local parks so bands can play outdoors, he says his new favorite thing is grabbing a group of curious bystanders and driving them around during performances. The best way to hear about The Bus shows is through Twitter (@busshow) - though Benson claims no responsibility for the account. Next up, Shunga, Race the Devil, and Magnanimous, and possibly Sodomy Wizard will blast out beats inside the van on Jan. 28. Location is as yet unknown.

2. The LAB (16th and Mission)
The Lab is no spring chicken--it recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. But the art space has recently begun increasing its live music nights - additional cause for celebration. And the nonprofit, which can comfortably hold 200 attendees, started working with music promoters focused on setting up all-ages shows. The decision to host more bands goes back to the LAB's original mission to support artists from all disciplines. "Stepping up our efforts to reach out to the music community was a conscious decision," says executive director Eilish Cullen. In this month alone, The Lab has played host to roving noise music showcase Noise Pancakes and to a smattering of popular local acts like Boyz IV Men for the Dar Dar Dar anniversary show. Next up is Sudden Infant on Jan. 31.

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With a down-home sound and a good-time attitude, the Devil Makes Three feels like the buddies you drink with deep into the night, only to pick up where you left off the next afternoon until you're all face-down in the gutter again. It's dirty business, but as the trio puts it on the title track of last year's third studio album, Do Wrong Right, "If you're gonna do wrong, buddy, do wrong right."

Fans of such debauchery flock to Devil Makes Three shows like flies to last night's vomit. In this way, the group is kindred to psychobilly freakmaster Reverend Horton Heat and punk-country rock stars the Supersuckers. The Santa Cruz band is less ferocious than its moshpit cousins, though. A mostly acoustic string combo, steeped in the American roots tradition popularized a decade ago on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, they're hillbilly beach bums, equal parts juke-joint blues and Appalachian bluegrass with an overdose of rock 'n' roll hedonism.

Funny thing is, the members of the Devil Makes Three ain't as stoopid-wild as you might expect. While the music is fairly simple, with often the same three or four chords played repeatedly, the arrangements are well-balanced. Songs interweave finger-picking and hard-strumming styles, break up the tempos to build energy, vary the instrumental timbre, and fuel audience sing-alongs with catchy choruses, three-way harmonies, and round-robin phrasing. Lyrically, main songwriter Pete Bernhard strives for storytelling folksiness and street-poet punch. He blends archetypal and contemporary imagery to mark his tunes with authenticity and originality.

The Devil Makes Three play the Independent tonight and tomorrow night at 9 p.m. ($15-$17).

Click here to read the rest of the profile on the group.

Edan Portnoy and Ricky Powell

​Producer, MC, and DJ Edan Portnoy and vaunted old-school photographer Ricky Powell represent the weird side of hip-hop craft. That makes them a perfect pairing for this multimedia restart of San Francisco's Change the Beat club night at SOM.

Kicking it off is Tom Fitzgerald's video-collage interpretation of Echo Party. Portnoy provides the soundtrack, a maxi-mixtape of obscure tracks from the vaults of New York's legendary Traffic Entertainment label, layered with his own subtly psychedelic sounds. Powell will follow that by narrating a slideshow overview of his New York street photography career, which began soon after he hooked up with the ascendant Beastie Boys in 1985. Portnoy closes the night with a rare DJ set.

Change the Beat kicks off tonight at 9 p.m., $10.

Chris Stevens

Al Queda

​It a rare occasion that you get to see live music at Murio's--the best dive in the Haight. Tonight they're hosting four acts for free starting at 10 p.m. The lineup includes Al Qaeda, who Emily Savage profiled for us back in December (the skinny on these guys: "Repetitive, haunting guitar riffs are backed by entrancing, pulsating manipulated sounds" and they've attracted guest work by Mike Watt, Rob Crow of Pinback, and Gabe Serbian of the Locust). Also on the bill: He Can Jog, Andy and Bruce (carrion/mx80), and Brendan Landis.

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Last month Def Leppard, arguably the biggest band in the world (in the summer of 1988), made an announcement which set the mind reeling. They're developing a cartoon that will depict the pop metal band in "a fictional, adventurous setting."

Why now? Well, they're belatedly following the lead of their female counterparts in Jem, of course. We're so behind this venture that we've decided to pitch a few premises of our own to the band.

"Pyromaniacs"

Def Leppard live in the iPod-shuffle of a man who, in 1985, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on a charge of manslaughter. He has recently been granted parole and the band help him readjust to the world -- get a job and buy a shirt with sleeves.

"Wankers"

A stop-motion series about a family of mullet-headed rodents who live in the archives of Circus magazine. They subsist on check stubs carrying fad-chasing editor Gerald Rothberg's residuals and speak entirely in complaints about the rise of grunge.

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​Jay Reatard has plenty of fans and friends in the Bay Area, and after yesterday's news of his death, people are already working out tributes. Tonight, booking agent Annie Southworth hosts an evening of Jay's music at the Casanova. She'll be spinning his records between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m., and at midnight she'll spin Blood Visions in its entirety.

Teddy Pendergrass

​The superstition is that deaths come in threes, and one day after Jay Reatard, two more musicians made the news this morning, one of them in the Bay Area. Philly soulman Teddy Pendergrass died at age 59 last night of complications related to colon cancer. And Spinner.com reports that 24-year old Dewey Tucker, was shot and killed Tuesday night on I-80 near Crockett as he drove to band rehearsal in Oakland. Tucker was a respected bassist who played with Lauryn Hill, Kev Choice Ensemble, and the Coup. Very sad news.  


 

Association for Cultural Equity

Ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax in 1938.

​Fresh from today's Weekly music section:

Katy St. Clair gets tagged a lesbian, hits the Lexington [Bouncer]

A different angle on news from Haiti: Alan Lomax's early recordings collected in beautiful new box set, produced locally [New Alan Lomax Box Set...]

People are dancing (as in, like choreographed moves) to Odessa Chen at Yerba Buena [Odessa Chen...Open to Interpretation]

Owen Pallat's Final Fantasy was to create great orchestral pop music [Owen Pallett]

Jennifer Maerz

R.I.P. Jay Reatard

​It's one of those stories you hope is just a rumor, but the New York Times just reported that garage rocker Jay Reatard died in his sleep last night. I'm totally shocked. He lived a lifestyle that from all accounts pushed things to the brink, but no one expected news like this (he was only 29). The Times quotes from Goner, the label and record store in Reatard's Memphis hometown, which issued the following statement.

R.I.P. JAY REATARD It is with great sadness that we report the passing of our good friend Jay Reatard. Jay died in his sleep last night. We will pass along information about funeral arrangements when they are made public

I always feel strange writing about the death of someone I never knew,  but I'll say that as a big Jay Reatard fan, I'm really bummed to hear he died. He was a great songwriter, and his show at the Hemlock a couple years back on my birthday was one of the best shows I've seen at that club, period.

He had a huge following in San Francisco, touring and playing shows with many of our locals. I'm sure he'll be greatly missed here.

If you have any good Jay Reatard memories, please share them below.

My favorite memory, from that same Hemlock gig, was of him breaking the bar's clock on his face to signal the end of the show.

Oh, and one other: My sister and I took a road trip through Memphis last year, a trip I started in Memphis because I knew Jay lived there so there had to be some good, fucked up garage punk culture--not to mention Goner being an institution. We even went to the main punk club in town, only half expecting Jay would be there. Turned out there he was, hanging out outside the place as some shitty metal band played inside. I didn't talk to the guy, but it cemented him as the patron saint of Memphis in my mind, kinda like my punk Elvis.

While Thee Oh Sees spent much of 2009 playing what felt like a show a week there for a while, the band has yet to perform in 2010. What's going on, guys?

John Dwyer and Co. will rectify that absence from the live scene with a show on Thursday night at the Eagle (which SFist reported earlier this week is being sold to new owners). Also on the bill that night: Mayyors, Ty Segall, and Ganglians. 

A group of rockers...
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is quite different than a circle of rockers...

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