Sunday, October 21, 2012

tofu and whiskey: savanna jazz, hardly strictly bluegrass for san francisco bay guardian



Raise your skinny fists 

Savanna Jazz struggles to keep its building, Clarion Alley Block Party is coming, Dirty Three and Saint Vitus hit SF, Godspeed releases its first album in a decade

TOFU AND WHISKEY Sitting on a pilled blanket out in Golden Gate Park, watching Australia's folk-noise instrumental outfit Dirty Three tear shit up on violin, petting my SPCA-adopted chug and sipping my homemade beer, I thought, "this is magic." And then, "I'm pretty drunk." And finally, out loud, "I'm a cliché right now."

No mind. This is San Francisco. We all fall prey to a rainbow of snarky categories. And this was the breezy, free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. Gooey, grey-streaked hippies were dancing all around me. So I'm a cliché and late feminist punk icon Poly Styrene's magnificent screeching vocals ring through my ears every time the thought returns: "I'm a cliché/I'm a cliche," (off Germ-Free Adolescents).
Just a few ticks after the 1977 punk era that spawned Styrene, an LA doom metal band called Saint Vitus arose in '78. Last Tuesday, a configuration of that heavy, Black Sabbath-loving, long-haired freak band played the Independent, much to my delight [...]


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