Is it election time at last? I guess these events may be
celebratory or commiseration central, depending on how the election goes -- and
how you want it to go.
Wednesday
You think the Bushes have a hold on dynasties? Toumani
Diabaté is 54th in a line of master kora players. The Malian musician -- who
won a Grammy in 2006 for his collaboration with now-deceased guitarist Ali
Farka Touré, and who has performed with Björk, Blur's Damon Albarn, and
bluesman Taj Mahal -- makes the 21-string West African harp-lute like no one
else. This is a rare chance to see Diabaté in the states, and even more rarely
he'll be performing solo -- offering both trance-inducing numbers from his
recent The Mandé Variations album and other works dating back to the 15th
century.
Genres seem to get played out so quickly these days. The
dancey rock thing is in, then it's out; the new electro thing is here and then
it's gone. Now, when a band like Starfucker comes along, it feels like we're
being nostalgic for 2005, as well as 1982. No matter, I guess, when the tunes
are this fun. The Portland trio
works the dual drummer, multiple synth thing for all it's worth on their
eponymous debut (out on SF label Badman), coming off like lazy, sunny version of hey willpower or a happy, lo-fi take on Suicide. Live,
supposedly, the threesome is bonkers -- wearing matching dresses or old-school
rap duds and whipping the dancers into a frenzy.
Starfucker @ the Eagle on Thursday with VNC, Everyone;
doors 9 p.m.9:30
p.m., tickets $7. Also @ the Hemlock on
Friday with Master/Slave, Man/Miracle; doors
Saturday
These days, Los Angeles
seems to emit cool electro bedroom producers faster than it does emaciated
teenage starlets. Flying Lotus -- aka Steven Ellison -- is the latest big deal,
a San Fernando Valley dude with a new album (the aptly
titled Los Angeles) on Warp that's
something like if Madlib had grown up on trip-hop and U.K.
dub instead of hip-hop. Bassy, fluidly languid, and smoked out, Lotus' beats
should turn 103 Harriet into hookah heaven. Named after Ellison's digital
label, the Brainfeeder Festival also features like-minded producers like
Gaslamp Killer, Ras G, and Samiyam.
King Khan scored a shitload of attention this past year,
mostly for his work with his soul outfit the Shrines. The King Khan & BBQ
Show is more of a stripped-down dealio, mostly because it's only two guys: Khan
and Mark Sultan, who used to play together in Montreal's
Spaceshits. The duo plays pretty standard '60s garage-rock, made more
entertaining by Khan's outrageously outsized personality (he wears
way-too-tight dresses, he tosses bananas, he does obscene things to photos of
Duffy) and Sultan's sweet, nostalgic doo-woppy vocals.
The King Khan & BBQ Show, The Dutchess & the Duke,
Buzzer @ Great American Music Hall; doors 7 p.m.,
tickets $13 adv/$15 doors.
Monday
If you feel like doing some time-traveling to Scandinavia
in the '70s, you couldn't do better than checking out Dungen. The Swedish
outfit's latest disc, 4, flits about the Me Decade, moving from lounge-y,
piano-based soft-core soundtracks to anarchic guitar-led noise freak-outs to melancholy
psychedelic folk-rock. Listening to the disc is like hearing the Nordic version
of AM radio, where we finally find out what their versions of Stu Phillips, Blue
Cheer, and Harry Nilsson sounded like.
Dungen, Women, Social Studies @ Bottom of the Hill; doors
8:30 p.m., tickets $14.
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