...nwood...

Photo by ChasingFun

Gimmie some risk takers. Gimmie Torquil Campbell. Take those pop song formulas and turn them on their ear. Belt it out like an unabashed balladeer at and then turn around and channel psycho killer-era-David Byrne.

I caught Stars on the second of two sold-out performances at Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco. From first thumping notes of In the Beginning After the End, which prefaced the band's entrance on a darkened stage,

The Bigfoot Lodge on Polk Street, San Francisco, CA

The Loose Salute on MySpace

Purchase album with no DRM

Maybe these notes will be turned into a real posting later:

LIKES
(Artist, Song)
Jim Bianco, Hansome Devil. Tom Waits. Accordian, castenets, trombone (trumpet?). Parisian cafe. Beautiful female vocal interlude.

Spigga, Human. What is not to like? (Except, perhaps, their band name...) Rap en espanol yet way retro funky. Stripped down Ozomatli...

Scott Amendola, Oladipo. Berkeley in da house. Just a clip...boo. Sounds promising. Lilting funk that doesn't hit you over the head. I want hear more.

I'm moved to report on what I've been up to: I met a large number of friends and acquaintances at the Toronado this evening. I'd compare this revered site (blocks from my freshman SF apartment) to the Oracle at Delphi, only all the seers there suffer from micro brew-induced myopia. The future can always be forecast - it is always the same.

After two (three?) pints of Pliny the Elder [1] on top of an empty stomach and no sleep last night, I found myself outside The Filmore paying $55 for a (face value $40) ticket to see My Morning Jacket on the second sold-out night of their three-evening New Years stand. Now, I know this band somewhat - at least their albums "It Still Moves" and "Z". I respect their recorded efforts...but as I watched them work the crowd with the predictable tactics, I thought to myself..."would this have stood up at the Cotton Club [2] in the 30's?...at Minton's [3] in the 50's?" Well I can't say of course because I wasn't there (or those past lives are too frustratingly vague)...but I will say that these dudes whipping their long hair over their Gibson Les Paul's and Flying V's...although entertaining, even exciting at frenzied moments...hide behind saccharine artifice. (Oh, what fun it is to be a snobbish bastard and bash things.)

I try not to post too much by the same artist, but it would be wrong not to make some mention of Sufjan Steven's performance at Zellerbach last night. The quantity of artistic expression was daunting. Sufjan was joined by members of the Pacific Mozart Ensemble which included 6-8 strings, a five piece brass section and a twenty voice chorus. There were somewhere around 36 people on stage for two solid hours of music. This show resembled more a symphonic pastiche of overtures and laments than a rock concert. Adding to the theatrics, the instrumentalists all paraded on stage wearing hybrid bird-butterfly costumes. Sufjan looked mystical and angelic as he rocked back and forth while playing guitar - wings flapping behind him in slow motion. In another pensive moment at the piano with bowed head, his wings folded forward suggesting...bear with me...reverse metamorphosis to traumatic experiences of a larval childhood.