Monday, July 9, 2018

The Bleeding Edge: 7/9/2018

Things are coming back up to speed with what feels like a “harmonic convergence” of many of the “usual suspects” venues that readers expect to encounter when they read these articles. This week there are two events at the Center for New Music (on Wednesday and Sunday), one at the Red Poppy Art House (on Friday), and one at The Lab (on Saturday) that have already been announced. Remaining events for the week (beginning tonight) are as follows:

Monday, July 9, 7 p.m., Adobe Books: Last month I suggested that Adobe Books was “back in the groove of offering one concert per month.” Ironically, this week there will be two concerts at that venue. Once again, relatively little information is offered beyond the names of the groups for the three sets and some hyperlinks. Two of the groups seem to be visiting from Portland (Oregon): Sea Moss, which describes itself as “Extreme Synth Punk,” and The Social Stomach, which presents “Electromental Spoken Word.” The remaining set will be taken by IDHAZ.

Adobe Books is located at 3130 24th Street in the Mission between South Van Ness Avenue and Folsom Street. The gig is free. However, donations will go directly to the performing artists and are strongly encouraged. At past events Adobe has provided free refreshments to those who make a book purchase of $6 or more, and it is likely that the managers of the book store will maintain this effort to encourage reading their offerings.

Wednesday, July 11, 7:30 p.m., Canessa Gallery: Once again the Composers in Performance Series curated by the Meridian Gallery will present a four-set program that has as much to do with physical invention as with imaginative approaches to performance. Bill Brovold, who makes his own instruments and is unabashedly genre-eclectic, will be visiting from the Hudson Valley in New York. He will be leading a trio whose other members are both longtime collaborators, violinist Kurt Zimmerman and Mark Ormerod on both guitar and electronics. Closer to home will be the set taken by the Thingamajigs Performance Group, which describes itself as “a sound-based ensemble working co-creatively in a variety of mediums.” The performers for this set will be Dylan Bolles, Keith Evans, Suki O'Kane and Edward Schocker. foreignfire is the duo of David Katz and Sam Genovese, which takes adventurous approaches to vocal genres. The remaining set will be taken by another instrument builder, Peter Whitehead.

The Canessa Gallery is located at 708 Montgomery Street, right on the “border” between the Financial District and North Beach; admission is usually between $5 and $20, payable at the door and/or collected between sets.

Thursday, July 12, 8:15 p.m., Luggage Store Gallery (LSG): This week’s installment in the LSG Creative Music Series will present three sets of improvisations. The evening will begin with a solo set taken by Josh Martin on electric bass. He will be followed by Faults, which is the trio of Jaroba (reeds and electronics), Jorge Bachmann (electronics), and Kevin Corcoran (percussion and electronics). The final set will be taken by the “experimental homebrew sound art” of Tambalaya (Tammy Duplantis).

LSG is located at 1007 Market Street, across from the corner of Golden Gate Avenue and Taylor Street; and admission is on a sliding scale between $8 and $15.

Friday, July 13, and Saturday, July 14, 9 p.m., The Chapel: Composer John Zorn and bassist Bill Laswell will be performing together for the first time in San Francisco. They will present two benefit performances of a full-evening composition, Konx Om Pax. Each of these three words is a translation of “peace” into a different language: Assyrian, Sanskrit, and Latin. Aleister Crowley combined them as the title of a collection, which he subtitled “Essays in Light;” and that source seems to have inspired Laswell, who first cited it in the booklet for his Hallucination Engine CD. (For the record, “Konx-Om-Pax” is also the name of a work for very large orchestra composed by Giacinto Scelsi between 1968 and 1969, about 25 years before Hallucination Engine was released.) The beneficiary of the proceeds will be Keep Families Together, which transfers the money it raises to over half a dozen different charities supporting institutions on both sides of our country’s southern border.

The Chapel is located in the Mission at 777 Valencia Street. Tickets for both performances will be $65 at the door. However, there is a reduced price of $60 for advance purchase; and there are separate event pages for Friday and Saturday, which are currently processing orders. Doors will open at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, July 14, 7 p.m., Adobe Books: The second Adobe gig of the week will present two sets of improvisations given, respectively, by Swimming in Bengal and Invasive Species.

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