Star Fucking Hipsters @ Thee Parkside (Fri.)
N.Y.C-based punk act Star Fucking Hipsters is
not a side project band. It is, however, made up of musicians mostly
known for their other influential punk and ska bands -- they've done
double duty in acts including Leftover Crack,
Choking Victim and The Slackers -- all legendary in their own right.
Appropriately, the band is on that Bay Area bastion of punk history,
Alternative Tentacles. Star Fucking Hipsters play Thee Parkside with Static Thought and Civil War Rust. ($8, 9 p.m.)
"An Island" @ Artists Television Access (Fri.)
An experimental band, a large assemblage of additional local musicians,
and a small island off the Danish coast; this is the unique setting for
"An Island" a film by Vincent Moon of eight-piece act Efterklang.
As you might have guessed, Efterklang is the experimental band in
question and those other musicians are a 200-strong group of kids and
adults who like to play. Together the band and crowd created new pieces
of sound over four days and Moon filmed the whole experiment. The
result: "An Island." ($6-$10, 8 p.m.)
Wild Thing @ Hemlock Tavern (Fri.)
Keeping in line with its bratty name, Wild Thing
is the kind of flipped bird snot-nosed punk teenagers love to throw in
their parents' faces. Which means they likely are a fun band to see
live. With songs like "You're a Punk" and "Age Difference," the San
Francisco bands carries on a long tradition of local spazzy punk, which
is much appreciated.
($7, 9:30 p.m.)
Ana Tijoux @ Elbo Room (Fri.)
Hip-hop monolinguists take note: The revolution may not be translated,
but it will be amplified this weekend when the French-Chilean rapper Ana Tijoux brings
her combination of dusty grooves and percussive rhymes to two Bay Area
venues. The Grammy-nominated, NPR-hyped, Thom Yorke-approved Tijoux raps
in rapid but intelligible and intelligent Spanish (and occasionally
French) with an urgent, husky flow that belies her pixieish appearance.
On her latest album, 1977 -- her fifth, but the first to see stateside
release -- she keeps it conscious, personally and politically, over a
range of appealing beats that hit most of the genre's major stylistic
points since, well, 1977. ($8-$10, 10 p.m.) -- Daniel Levin Becker
Chinese New Year Parade @ Chinatown (Sat.)
The Chinese New Year is a
San Francisco institution. It's been around since the Gold Rush. That's
pre-major earthquake number one (1906) and two (1989), pre-Newsom
high-gloss sheen. It's a revered tradition, loud and colorful, parading
down the streets of Chinatown, full of revelry. More than 100 different
organizations and companies will participate this year -- meaning many a
float, and copious hand waving. Plus firecrackers, Miss Chinatown
U.S.A and, of course, the 250-foot golden dragon. (Free, 5:15 p.m.)
Clorax Girls @ Hemlock Tavern (Sat.)
Clorax Girls play that fun
style of surf punk that show-goers tend to crave. It's not enough to be
merely talented in this highly competitive day and age, you need to
perform with gusto. Note: there are no actual females in Clorax Girls.
The Oakland act has that down pat. Clorax Girls plays Hemlock Tavern
this Saturday with Midnite Snaxxx, Cigarette Burns, Mermaid Bones ($7, 9
p.m.)
Lecture and Performance: Jazz in the Gallery @ Museum of the African Diaspora (Sun.)
You've heard of "the flow." Optimal production process. Truckin'. It
happens when your skill, your creativity, and your environment align,
allowing you to work hard and joyously. Drummer Jaz Sawyer
seems to be permanently in the flow zone when he plays; he's the right
person doing the exact right thin. At today's Lecture and Performance:
Jazz in the Gallery, Sawyer covers the waterfront of New Orleans, the
birthplace of jazz; he tells the history and demonstrates the different
styles that led to and resulted from that birth. That's a lot to cover,
including the famous NOLA funeral march, brass-band, gospel, folk, and
other styles plus the new-world musical structures of call and response,
improvisation, and syncopation, among many more. (Free with museum
admission, 2 p.m.) -- Hiya Swanhuyser
SF Mixtape Society: Guilty Pleasures @ The Make-Out Room (Sun.)
With the recent revelation that cars will no longer be manufactured with tape decks,
the legacy of the mixtape is even more in peril. Whole factions of
zit-faced teens will miss out on this junky, shoddily constructed right
of passage. Luckily, there's a collective, a society that understands
the importance of the waning art form, and have the smarts to include
the future of the concept: San Francisco Mixtape Society.
Any one can show up with mix in hand (be in tape, CD or USB stick) and
exchange at the society's monthly events. This installment, the point is
to go for the cheesiest, most cringeworthy, and therefore awesome
tracks of your youth. The ultimate guilty pleasures. (Free, 4-6 p.m.)
Hunter Valentine @ Milk (Sun.)
Hunter Valentine is an
all-girl alternative act from Toronto, not a heartthrob crooner like the
name might suggest. The band actually created the name as a fictional
character, which explains the confusion. The trio's poppy rock sound is
decidedly '90s, a special time in the world of music when girl-fronted
acts thrived (Elastic, Hole, The Muffs, etc). Perhaps Hunter Valentine
signals a return to such splendor. ($7, 8 p.m.)
