Concerts! Shows! Performances! And this week in the Bay Area, they’re extra-beardy!
Friday, April 12
• 2013-04-12 Brian Posehn at Cobb’s Comedy Club, San Francisco, 8:00pm
• 2013-04-12 Brian Posehn at Cobb’s Comedy Club, San Francisco, 10:15pm
• 2013-04-13 Brian Posehn at Cobb’s Comedy Club, San Francisco, 7:30pm
• 2013-04-13 Brian Posehn at Cobb’s Comedy Club, San Francisco, 9:45pm
The metal-loving big ol’ teddy bear of a comedy guy brings his beard into San Francisco for a weekend set at Cobb’s. Expect tons of excellently curated t-shirts in the crowd (as well as on-stage), and lots of self-directed laughter. Remember, Posehn is 6’6″… the height of the beeeeast. Yay, metal! (Chris Rogers)
• 2013-04-12 Mudhoney, Hot Lunch at Slim’s, San Francisco, 8:00pm/9:00pm
Mudhoney have been riding the wave of “Touch Me I’m Sick” since 1988. Labeling attempts aside, they’ve still got that big fuzzy half-smiling guitar sound. Imagine Fozzie Bear careening around onstage wielding a borrowed Fender Strat and you’re part of the way there. Has it really been that long since the soundtrack to the movie Singles was released? It has. (CR)
• 2013-04-12 Dinosaur Jr, The Shrine, The Curly Wolf at Old Redwood Barn at Gundlach Bundschu Winery, Sonoma, 7:00pm/8:00pm
“I feel the [Pinot] of everyone / then I feel nothinnnn’.” The obvious joke aside, the fact that Dino Jr are still on the road and still making records with Lou Barlow (of SeBADoh) on bass feels nothing less than an unrealistic long-term bet that somehow paid off. Huge half-lidded riffs, now-grey hair, and chord progressions as warm and gentle as an old hoodie sweater. We all know that hoodies pair well with everything. (CR)
Saturday, April 13
• 2013-04-13 Marc Maron at Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, 6:00pm/7:00pm
Maron’s incisive podcast, WTF, about and relating to his circles of relationships to/with comedy blew him up in ways that he could never have expected three years ago. The jittery semi-post-self-destructive stand-up comic suddenly has an entirely new way to talk through/about his withering view of the world, as well as his overarching love for his cats. This year he’ll have a TV series on IFC and a book coming out as well. (Yeah. Four hyphens in one word. How’d you like that, Molly?) (CR)
• 2013-04-13 Mt. Eerie at The Chapel, San Francisco, 8:00pm/9:00pm
Mt. Eerie is Phil Elverum, who by any name, makes soundscapes of and about the Pacific Northwest. This is what Donny Darko might have listened to if he’d lived just outside Seattle, and was, y’know, real and all. (CR)
Sunday, April 14
• 2013-04-14 Local H, Picture Atlantic at the Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, 8:30pm/9:00pm
Local H just keep doing what they aren’t supposed to do. Can’t have a two-person band. Can’t play a guitar with both regular and bass pickups. Can’t make a song that people like with that kind of racket. But Local H keep soldiering onward. (CR)
• 2013-04-14 Beardyman at the Independent, San Francisco, 8:00pm
Make the music with your mouth, Beardyman. Brit beatboxer extraordinaire can amaze sans equipment. And then add active improvisational looping. Brilliant. (CR)
• 2013-04-14 Toad The Wet Sprocket, Jessie Payo at the Mystic Theater, Petaluma, 8:00pm
Toad The Wet Sprocket were the first band I ever heard described as “alternative rock music.” Yup. (CR)
Monday, April 15
• 2013-04-15 Dead Can Dance at Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco 7:30pm
Original mash-up artists from Australia. Synthesizers. The word “poly-rhythmic.” People who read music columns. (CR)
Tuesday, April 16
• 2013-04-16 Green Day, Best Coast at the Greek Theater, Berkeley, 6:30pm
Green Day today are somewhat akin to South Park today. They burst onto the scene, were expected to peter out eventually since they seemed at the outset to be a one-trick pony, yet they just kept pushing forward. Then they made a musical. Hmm. (CR)
• 2013-04-16 Beach House, Holy Sh*t at The Fillmore, San Francisco, 7:00pm/8:00pm
Beach House create sparkling impossible paradises by methodically cross-hatching aggressively synthetic harmonies together. These harmonies are keen enough to fell a palm tree on a Caribbean islet in slow motion. This is music with melodies so weaponized as to bring a big anime tear to the eye of (music’s) Brian Wilson. The fact that Beach House come from Baltimore almost seems a violent joke. (Thanks, Gary.) (CR)
• 2013-04-16 Japandroids, Cloud Nothings at the New Parish 8:00pm/9:00pm
• 2013-04-17 Cloud Nothings, Japandroids at the New Parish 8:00pm/9:00pm
For those of you still alive, Japandroids are for you. Spinning Platters’ favorite album of 2012 came from Japandroids, and if you like to dance, you should go see Japandroids. (Thanks, Charles. You were right, of course.) (CR)
Wednesday, April 17
• 2013-04-17 Vampire Weekend, Tanlines at The Fox Theater, 8:00pm
I liked Vampire Weekend the first time I heard them, when they were called Paul Simon’s “Graceland” album. Everybody put on your polo shirts and flounce, flounce, flounce. You can call me Al. Call me Al. (CR)
• 2013-04-16 Sigur Ros at The Fox Theater, Oakland, 8:00pm
• 2013-04-17 Sigur Ros at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, San Francisco, 7:30pm
Austere rock landscapes spoken of in a previously non-existent tongue. No, I won’t make an elliptical Tolkien reference to describe them. Nor a Björk reference for that matter. Sigur Ros are their own thing. Further, Sigur Ros do what many bands dream of doing — leave behind gorgeous new maps of previously unseen territories. Tolkien loved maps too, because smart people do. (CR)
• 2013-04-17 Bad Religion, Against Me!, Polar Bear Club at the Regency Ballroom, 7:00pm/8:00pm
Bad Religion defined punk rock in Southern California for years. They’ve always been young men waiting to be old men, and now they’re old men and it looks fine on them. Strident finger-pointing shout-alongs for the thinking person who likes strident two-guitar rock. Careful in the pit now, there will be some elder punks in there. (CR)
• 2013-04-17 Beach House at the Henry Miller Memorial Library, Big Sur, 6:00pm/7:30pm
Aforementioned glorious impossible pop sounds under redwoods. This show is sold out. The Henry Miller Memorial Library‘s guardian Theo will be in attendance. (CR)
NEXT WEEK: How To Destroy Angels and Metric. Get well eventually, (baseball’s) Brian Wilson.
