Dr. John
Blues and R&B pianist. “A formidable boogie and blues pianist with a lovable growl of a voice, his most enduring achievements have fused New Orleans R&B, rock, and Mardi Gras craziness to come up with his own brand of “voodoo” music.”
9/13 Fillmore
9 p.m. $36.50

The Rocket Summer
Anti-emo pop-punk outfit. Big on God. Big on joy. Very bubbly, compellingly so.
9/14 Fillmore
7 p.m. $18.50

Margaret Cho
Comedian of strong political and social commentary. SF local. International acclaim.
9/13 Wells Fargo Center
8 p.m. $15 – $65

Native Salvias with Native Plant Partners
“Join Betsy Clebsch, nationally recognized salvia expert, for a special one-day gardening workshop. Autumn is the ideal time for getting plants settled into a new spot and native salvias make a wonderful addition to Bay Area gardens.” To say nothing of psychedelics.
9/13 SF Botanical Garden
10am – noon, $25

String Band Contest
Central event of the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention. “Warm-ups continuous from dawn! Limited to 20 bands! Free to enter! Youth category!”
9/13 Civic Center Park (Berk)
11 a.m. – 3 p.m. free

Great American Blues and BBQ Fest
“Performances of local and national blues artists will be featured on the main stage, including Austin de Lone Band, Bobby Young Project, and Blues Power. Food concessions will focus on the great American original, Barbeque, in all its varied glory. Over ten BBQ vendors will all compete for the “King of the Que Awards”.”
9/13 Fourth Street San Rafael
11 a.m. – 6 p.m. free

Sam Bush (with Bill Evans Soulgrass)
He’s one of the best bluegrass mandolin players out there. “Sam Bush extended the musical capabilities of the mandolin and the fiddle to incorporate a seamless blend of bluegrass, rock, jazz, and reggae. As the founder and leader of the New Grass Revival, Bush pioneered and guided the evolution of modern hill country music. Together with the bluegrass supergroup Strength in Numbers, he pushed the traditions even further.”
9/4 Slims
8 p.m., $30

Sharon Jones & the Dapp Kings
“Few singers as skilled as Sharon Jones at stuffing notes with ache and meaning might be willing to invest in a sound so fully occupied by the likes of Bettye LaVette and Tina Turner in the Ike years, too.” The Dapp Kings are the soul band for that gritty Nina Simone meets Arethra Franklin soul sound…they’re the band that Amy Winehouse brings to the studio. Dave Matthews Band is also on the ticket.
9/5 – 9/7 Greek
7 p.m., $65

Brian Wilson
9/5 Paramount (Oak)
8 p.m., $45.50 – $85
Crazy, drug-sedated Beach Boy genius responsible for all the group’s best songs.

Sarah Silverman
Gorgeous, gutter mouthed and minded comedian; wife of Jimmy Kimmel; has her own show.
9/7 Masonic
7:30 p.m., $45 – $59.50

Ratatat
Indie-rock meets electronica (which is in my estimation the only place for indie rock to go), this New-York duo’s sophomore album hit #30 on Billboards Top Heatseekers chart.
9/8 Fillmore
8 p.m., $25

The Bad Plus
9/9 Yoshis SF
8 p.m. $16; 10 p.m. $10
Unbelievable contemporary jazz piano trio. “The Los Angeles Times ranked the trio “among the leaders of what might be called the Nu Jazz movement.” Newsweek declared their 2005 release Suspicious Activity? to be “among the freshest sounding albums of the year.” And according to Rolling Stone, “By any standard, jazz or otherwise, this is mighty, moving music … hot players with hard-rock hearts.”’

South Asia seems to have the spiritual guidance market cornered: the Dalai Lama, Amma the hugging saint, and the turbaned mountaintop guru all shepherd wayward, ethereal souls. Dr. Vandana Shiva, however, reaches into far more substantial ground: the Earth. Shiva was shaping the environmental awareness debate long before Green was the new black. As an author, physicist, environmental activist, and academic she has advised grassroots and governments, championed the alter-globalization and women’s development movements, and accepted the Right Livelihood Award (second only to the Nobel Prize). While her compatriots work for salvation of the soul, Shiva commits herself to the preservation of the planet—now South Asia has the market cornered.

Dr. Vandana Shiva “Soil Not Oil—Securing Our Food in Times of Climate Change”

7:30 p.m., $15

First Congregation Church (Berk)

2345 Channing Way

415-561-7650

www.ifg.org

ART & SOUL OAKLAND

Oakland is one of the 50 most populous and ethnically diverse cities in the United States. No surprise then that the Eighth Annual Art and Soul Fest hosts a boundary-breaking buffet of music, dance and art—no matter your taste, this festival will satisfy. The festival boasts six stages, each devoted to a particular music or dance style—rock, jazz, latin, blues, world dance, hip-hop dance, R&B, gospel, classical—Amazon has less selection.

World-class jazz vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson competes for concertgoers attention at Saturday’s 4:30 slot; thankfully, the dance performance he trumps (for me at least)—a tribute to popular music videos with Bay Area hip-hop dance companies featuring as-seen-on-TV dancers from “So You Think You Can Dance” and “America’s Best Dance Crew”—runs all weekend. Headliners Indigo Girls, The Matches, and Stephanie Mills will no doubt draw a crowd, but so too will the smaller acts like Oakland’s own rhythm and rhyme royalty Hieroglyphics (Sunday, 1:35).

As for art: The market presents pieces to purchase from a variety of artisans. If you find your wallet unexpectedly empty, create your own art: grab a brush and join your neighborhood Monet on the community mural project.

While Hip-Hop dance and music mingle cross-culturally on stages throughout the pavilion, the style’s graphic incarnation, Graffiti, tags Japanese calligraphy on Minette Mangahas and Cody Kennedy’s umbrella wall hangings. With Wutang citing Japanese influences (particularly old kung fu flicks) and Hip-Hop outselling J-pop in Japan, the two styles are increasingly indebted to one another—a harmony apparent in this stunning streetwise collaboration.

Art and Soul Festival

Noon – 6 p.m., $10 ($5 13–18 & Senior 65+; 12 and under Free)

City Center (Oak)

Entrances at:
14th Street & Broadway
11th Street & Jefferson
16th Street & San Pablo Avenue

Promenade beside City Center West Garage

www.artandsouloakland.com

]]> http://asunnierfog.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/picks-10/feed/ 0 asunnierfog http://asunnierfog.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/listings-827-92/ http://asunnierfog.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/listings-827-92/#comments Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:14:11 +0000 asunnierfog http://asunnierfog.wordpress.com/?p=190 ]]> Vandana Shiva
First Congregational Church (Berk)
9/2, 7:30 p.m.
$12 – $15
Renowned environmental activist, physicist and author, Vandana Shiva, joins the International Forum on Globalization, Navdanya (an Indian-based non-governmental organization which promotes biodiversity conservation, organic farming, the rights of farmers, and the process of seed saving), and KPFA Radio for a talk entitled “Soil not Oil: Securing Food in Times of Climate Change.” Shiva is a big deal in progressive academic circles. She “will offer her energetic and insightful solutions for solving the global problems of climate change and food insecurity through the localization of food production.”

Art and Soul Oakland
Downtown Oakland (adjacent to the 12th Street/City Center BART station)
8/30 – 9/1, noon – 6pm
$10 (12 and under free)
An art festival with art to purchase, create (“An eight-year Art & Soul tradition continues as budding artists are invited to grab a brush and participate in the community mural project guided by Oakland artist Fred Alvarado.”), and view as well as 6 concert stages featuring 60 bands. The headliners are: Indigo Girls, Stephanie Mills (played Dorothy in the award-winning Broadway musical, The Wiz, and then went on to record a successful R&B career), The Matches (local pop-punk outfit), Bobby Hutcherson (easily one of jazz’s greatest vibraphonists), Rose Royce (R&B), Walter Hawkins (Gospel)

Slow Food Nation ’08
8/29 – 9/1,
Civic Center Plaza

Taste Pavilion: Saturday, August 30; 11am – 3pm; 5pm – 9pm | Sunday, August 31; 11am – 3pm; 5pm – 9pm | Cost: $45 – $65: “The Taste Pavilions present an unprecedented opportunity to sample the regional foods of America, with products from every state hand-picked by ‘curators’ who are nationally recognized experts in a particular type of food. This bounty will be organized into 15 distinct pavilions within the 50,000 square foot pier at Fort Mason. Each pavilion will offer two types of food plates, flights and snacks, and connect visitors with the artisans’ process via unique displays and demonstrations.”

Marketplace: “Community and cuisine come together in the marketplace, where a farmers’ market and urban garden set the stage for discussion about food.”

Food for Thought Speaker Series: Friday, August 29, 9am – 4:30pm | Saturday, August 30, 12:00pm – 10:00pm | Herbst Theater and Milton Marks Auditorium: “Learn about good food citizenship at Food for Thought. This speaker series features leading thinkers, community organizers, journalists and activists in conversation about current food issues, from policy and planning to education and climate change. Please note, panelists are subject to change.”

Victory Garden: “Inspired by the self-sufficiency efforts of World War II America, the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden in Civic Center will be a vibrant testament to the power of a strong community to feed and support itself.”

Slow Food Rocks: Saturday, August 30, 11am – 7pm | Sunday, August 31, 11am – 5:30pm | Great Meadow at Fort Mason Center | Venue opens at 10:30am: Advanced Tickers: $59 ; tickets at door: $79: two-day outdoor music festival featuring Gnarls Barkley, Ozomatli, The New Pornographers, Medeski Martin and Wood, Phil Lesh and Friends, G Love and Special Sauce, and John Butler Trio.

Jane Monheit
Yoshi’s SF
8/20, 8 & 10 p.m.
$20
Yoshis writes that “Monheit is a stunning, raven-haired beauty. As the ten standards that filled the impressive disc made immediately obvious, Monheit, with her crystalline voice and buttery phrasing, was (and remains) impossible to pigeonhole, simultaneously suggesting the smarts of a seasoned jazz artist and the cunning storytelling skills of the finest cabaret performers…Two of her recordings have received Grammy nominations, and she has known the sweet satisfaction of chart-topping success (several of her discs have debuted at number one).”

D.L. Hughley
Cobb’s
8/28: 8 p.m., $30.50
8/29 – 8/30: 8 & 10:15 p.m., $35.50
8/31: 7 p.m., $32.50
One of the original Kings of Comedy (troupe with Cedric the Entertainer, Steve Harvey, and Bernie Mac), he had his own show, The Hughleys, on ABC from 1998 to 2002, and has also done some acting. He currently stars in his own one-hour special for HBO, “Unapologetic.”

Brazilian Percussion Celebration
Yerba Buena Gardens Esplanade
8/31, 1 p.m.
Free
“Experience a wild ride through the diverse world of Brazilian percussion. Carnaval styles feature large drum-based ensembles such as samba-batucada and samba-enredo from Rio de Janeiro, maracatu and coco from the Northeastern state of Pernambuco, and samba-reggae from Salvador, Bahia. Smaller ensembles include samba de mesa/pagode from Rio de Janeiro and the traditional samba de roda from Bahia. The stage will also be graced by the sacred rhythms from Candomblé de Ketu, an Afro-Brazilian religion that cultivates Yoruba deities, the Orixás. To round out the afternoon of drumming, there will be an exhilarating demonstration of the Afro-Brazilian martial arts dance, capoeira.”

Sausalito Art Festival
Bay Model Visitor Center
Friday August 29th · 6:00pm · Gala Premiere
Saturday August 30th · 9:00am – 6:00pm
Sunday August 31st · 9:00am – 6:00pm
Monday September 1st · 9:00am – 5:00pm
$20
“Over one million visitors from throughout the world have experienced the Sausalito Art Festival since its inaugural event in 1952. The best local, American, and International Artists bring their combined perspectives, virtuoso skills, and more than 20,000 original works of art — including paintings, sculpture, ceramics, jewelry, fiber art, fine glass, woodwork, mixed media, and photography. Enjoy nonstop entertainment on three stages or gourmet delights with champagne and fine wines.”

James Blunt
Fillmore
8/27, 9 p.m.
$39.50
Soft rocker James Blunt had a hit single with “You’re Beautiful” in 2005, and then again with the single “1973” from his sophomore album in 2007. He was nominated for 5 Grammys in 2006.

Bobi Cespedes
Yoshis Oak
8/29 – 8/31, 8 & 10 p.m.
$22
“Gladys “Bobi” Cespedes is an acclaimed folkloric singer, dancer and percussionist. She makes and plays a variety of authentic folkloric percussion instruments, including the Chekere, a beautiful beaded calabash gourd. As a storyteller, she weaves the tales of the Orisas – deities of the Yoruba pantheon – in fluid word and gesture and illustrates the poetic, reverent vision of God and nature that is her ancestral heritage. As a dancer, she gives color, form and exuberant life to the intricate, polyrhythmic music of the Caribbean.”

SMV: The Thunder! (Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller, & Victor Wooten)
8/26, 8 p.m., $39.50
Regency Center
1290 Sutter Street (SF)
415-421-8497
www.goldenvoice.com

20th Annual Fiddle Summit at the Downtown Berkeley Music Fest
How can you tell a fiddle from a violin?—No one cries when they spill beer on a fiddle. From Ireland to Scotland to Appalachia, the hardy fiddle followed common folk wherever they settled. In pubs and on back porches, fiddle tunes trickled down the generations, learned by ear from fathers or friends. Styles evolved within the regional confines of community, variously emphasizing and echoing chosen parts of the homeland’s repertoire.
The 20th Annual Fiddle Summit reunites three fiddle masters from different styles under one roof: Alasdair Fraser, a Scottish fiddler, his bow heavy, his sound thick and peaty as his brogue; Martin Hayes, an Irish fiddler, with a high-lonesome, lilting style, his tempo wistfully stretched, yearning; Bruce Molsky, an Appalachian fiddler, his sound percussively bright and bouncing, his melodies drawn chordally across multiple strings. Though each will showcase his own style for a set, the three end the show together; embracing the commonalities of their instrument and the debt each style owes to its heritage in the others.
As the opening night act for the Downtown Berkeley Music Festival, the Fiddle Summit is but one course among a brilliant banquet of sound. That morning, organist Will Blades and drummer Scott Amendola’s dueling solos will offer a gratis gun-sling at high noon on the Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza. On Sunday, Chad Manning plays what the fiddle summit forgot: a set of bluegrass, Texas-style, and swing fiddling at Jupiter Brewpub, where you can try and tell for yourself a fiddle from a violin.

20th Annual Fiddle Summit at the Downtown Berkeley Music Fest
8/21, 8 p.m., $22.50
Roda Theatre (Berk)
2015 Addison Street
510-548-1761
www.downtownberkeleymusicfest.org

When four artists of the cutting edge’s sharpest steel collaborate, the propeller they together create—bassist Larry Grenadier, drummer Jeff Ballard, and tenor saxophonists Mark Turner and Joshua Redman each forming a blade—lifts jazz above and beyond the horizon, so light, fast, and star-bound that the chordal support of a grand piano lay abandoned on the tarmac below. All familiar with the pianoless format, Grenadier, Ballard and Turner comprise the trio Fly, the sax and bass alternating harmonic and melodic assignment; Redman alloys an extended-technical ability to the effort, breaking his instrument’s range through falsetto heights and guttural lows for a groove inflected sound sans piano.

Fly with Joshua Redman

8 p.m., $40

Cambpell Recital Hall

541 Lasuen Mall (Palo Alto)

650-725-2787

www.stanfordjazz.com

.

ROBIN THICKE (8/12)

Raised by a father ranked #37 on TV Guide’s list of the “50 Greatest TV Dad’s of All Time,” an award won for the role he played as Jason Seaver, the father on Growing Pains, soul singer Robin Thicke proves his parental upbringing strong. Growing Pains aside, Thicke senior also composed the original score to Wheel of Fortune, The Facts of Life, and Different Strokes—this bloodline seems most apparent in Thicke junior who began his career composing hits for such artists as Christina Aguilera, Mya, Brandy, Marc Anthony and Jordan Knight. Shortly thereafter, this sapphire-eyed stud’s own album The Evolution of Robin Thick topped Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop chart.

Robin Thicke

7 p.m., $45

Mezzanine

444 Jessie St. (SF)

415-625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

.

BILL MAHER (8/8 )

There are holes in the American worldview. As comedic political commentator Bill Maher sarcastically quips, “Maybe every other American movie shouldn’t be based on a comic book. Other countries will think Americans live in an infantile fantasy land where reality is whatever we say it is and every problem can be solved with violence.” With surgically scalpeled speech he sets about excising the tumors, ulcers and other ills of the American psyche. His fiery tongue sets ears aflame and boils tempers to melt away facades and fakery on the aptly named Real Time with Bill Maher. Expect an evening of honest hilarity.

Bill Maher

8 p.m., $39.50 – $65.50

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness Ave. (SF)

415-621-6600

www.apeconcerts.com

Dusty Rhodes and the River Band
Independent
8/6, 8pm
$14
Rollicking. Probably the best word to describe this country rock outfit that reaches into gospel and 70s soft rock, and even a little gypsyish fiddling. Guitar, Accordion, Mandolin, Fiddle, Bass, Drums, Organ, Horns…I don’t even know how many sounds I’m hearing…more than they list on MySpace as playing.

Squirrel Nut Zippers
Independent
8/12, 8pm
$24
Part of the Big Band Swing revival of the 90s, SNZ pissed off a lot of jazz purists (they’re not technically virtuosic) but introduced a younger generation to swing music and especially swing dancing (I’d like to see if they get that going at the Independent…SF used to host a number of Swing dances (my second cousing met her fiance at one), but not so much anymore). The album Hot hit number one on Billboard’s Heetseakers chart and the single “Hell” made it to slot 13 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart.

Robin Thicke
Mezzanine
8/12, 7 pm
$45
His 2006 release The Evolution of Robin Thicke hit the number 1 slot on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, the single from the album “Lost Without U” earned a #1 slotting as well. He sounds like Marvin Gaye with a little bit of boy band spice and a sense of phrasing akin to D’Angelo’s. Allmusic writes that he “was one of the few to define the new millennium’s blue-eyed soul movement.”

Mike Stern (with the Yellowjackets)
Yoshis SF
8/6, 8 & 10 pm
$24
The Yellowjackets (an esteemed jazzquartet playing the R&J (rhythm and jazz—bluesy, groovy) style) and Mike Stern (excellent jazz guitarist who played with Miles Davis during Davis’ fusion years in the early 80s before touring with bassist Jaco Pastorius) released a collab album Lifecycle. “The first Yellowjackets recording in 15 years to feature a guitar player.”

The Eddie Gale Band
Yoshis Oak
8/11
$18, 8pm
$10, 10pm
Trumpeter Eddie Gale “returns to Yoshi’s Oakland with a truly unique lineup;
from New Orleans, Saxophonist, Kidd Jordan (Ornette Coleman, Cannonball Adderley among many others), another Arkestra alum Trombonist, Dick Griffin, fellow Bay Area child, bassist and composer, Marcus Shelby [(my reason for pitching…bassist extraordinaire)], New York bassist and leader of the experimental jazz scene, William Parker (Cecil Taylor, David S. Ware and Matthew Shipp) and holding down the rhythm section on drums Joe Hodge (Maynard Ferguson, Babatunde Olatunji). Catch Gale and his band August 11th at Yoshi’s Oakland.” (yoshis.com)

There are so many excellent acts playing this week at the Stanford Jazz Festival, that I’m going to have to blitz pitch ‘em.

Barry Harris
Dinkelspiel Auditorium
8/4, 8pm
$32
He’s one of the greatest bebop blues pianists alive or dead. He can handle ballads as well as blues stomps, sometimes psychophrenically shifting into the bebop style he knows so well.

Larry Grenadier
Dinkelspiel Auditorium
8/5, 8pm
$32
Grenadier will play bass for pianist Jason Moran’s (fearlessly experimental pianist) treatment of Andrew Hill’s (fearlessly experimental pianist) still avant-garde, mind blowing 1963 release Smokestack.

SJW All-Star Jam Session
Dinkelspiel Auditorium
8/8, 8pm
$34
This is going to be shit your pants great. Joshua Redman (tenor sax), Barry Harris (piano), Larry Grenadier (bass) and all the other faculty of the Stanford Jazz workshop say “to hell with concert hall performances, let’s jam.” This is what jazz is.

Fly +1 with Joshua Redman
Campbell Recital Hall
8/9, 9pm
$40
“Drummer Jeff Ballard, bassist Larry Grenadier, and saxophonist Mark Turner eschew the traditional roles of their instruments and bring a fresh approach to the trio format, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Although each is a star in his own right, the three musicians emphasize the collective sound rather than the individual, and the result is an unpredictable and exciting symbiosis. Add to this mixture Joshua Redman, one of the most charismatic and lyrical soloists” (SFJ brochure). Joshua Redman, for the past few years the director of SFJazz, is easily my favorite jazz saxophonist…sorry Charlie.

End SFJ Pitches

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
Three Parkside (San Francisco’s Premier Dive Venue)
8/9, 8 pm
$15
“Punk’s premier cover artists, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes are a conglomerate of some of the most recognizable faces in new-school punk. Drawn together by a mutual love of ’60s and ’70s music, the Gimme Gimmes work exclusively as a cover band. Their repertoire include songs from such acts as Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, and John Denver.” (allmusic.com).

Bill Maher
Davies
8/8, 8pm
$39.50 – $65.50
Comedian Bill Maher of “Real Time with Bill Maher. Decidedly more somber than Politically Incorrect, Real Time features prominent politicians put in the hot seat in a no-holds-barred atmosphere complete with Maher’s dry sense of humor.” (allmusic.com)

A standard electric guitar has six strings, twenty-four frets for potentially endless combination. And still Larry Coryell wants more—pedals, dials, digital signal processing machines—a Jackson Pollock guitarist, the guitar simply his brush, his ears ceaselessly searching for colors, consistencies and varied canvases: a music striking before the eye. Widely recognized as the pioneer of guitar jazz-rock fusion, Coryell cut his teeth with legendary rockers Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana and Eric Clapton before leaving the gritty, earthbound plane of rock for an ethereal, cosmic style. Half laser beam electric scream, half articulate bebop virtuosity, ever inflected with rock roots, his sound continues to imbue an otherworldly sensitivity to the scene.

Larry Coryell at The Django Festival

Thurs 8pm $22 & 10pm $14
Fri 8pm $26 & 10pm $18
Sat both shows $26
Sun 7pm $26 & 9pm $16

Yoshi’s

510 Embarcadero West (Oak)

www.yoshis.com
510-238-9200

Buddy Guy
Marin Veterans Memorial (San Rafael)
7/30, 8pm
$39-75
“He’s a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a chief guitar influence to rock titans like Hendrix, Clapton, Beck and Vaughan, a pioneer of Chicago’s fabled West Side sound, and a living link to that city’s halcyon days of electric blues.” He’s one of Rolling Stone’s greatest guitarists ever.

Bloc Party with Does It Offend You, yeah?
Fillmore
7/30, 9pm
$27.50
“Equally inspired by Sonic Youth, Joy Division, Gang of Four, and the Cure, East London art-punkers Bloc Party mix angular sonics with pop structures.” They’ve had a presence on the charts since 2005. 2007’s album “A Weekend In The City” earned them the #1 spot on Billboard’s Top Independent Albums.

The Dan Band
Fillmore
8/2, 9pm
$25.00
“A group that specializes in medleys of ’80s classics like “Gloria” by Laura Branigan and Toni Basil’s “Mickey” who began playing “diva” classics to small clubs with a four-piece band. As word of mouth spread, the Dan Band began attracting numerous celebrities to their shows, resulting in the group being cast in the popular comedy Old School, where they unleashed an expletive-heavy rendition of Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”’ (which is an excellent cover of the song and should show up in more karaoke bars).

The Faint
Fillmore
8/4, 9pm
$25.00
Along with Bright Eyes and Cursive, “the band was one of the seeds that spawned the explosive Omaha scene as well as a flagship act for the highly regarded Saddle Creek Records.”
focuses “on danceable beats, catchy keyboards, and an ’80s-influenced sound”
The band’s “material, along with a seizure-inducing D.I.Y. live light show and incorrigible on-stage energy, created a major buzz”

Tech N9ne
Grand Ballroom @ Regency
8/2,
$27.50
“Like many underground rappers in the Midwest, Tech N9ne specialized in bizarre hardcore rap and stood as one of the few recognized rappers based in Kansas City when he debuted in the late ’90s.” His latest album, “Misery Loves Kompany” is excellent (and not only I think so: 49 on the Billborad 200, 3 on Top Independent Albums, 23 on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums…that’s a strong showing for an underground independent).

Mark Hummel
Biscuits and Blues
8/2, 8 & 10 p.m.
$20
One of my favorite blues harmonica players, he’s “a practitioner of the West Coast blues style, which typically includes elements of jazz and swing.” However, because harmonica’s are diatonic (limited to one key), he can’t fall too far into the academic side of jazz; he’s first and foremost a blues player who fits in jazz riffs where he can. Doesn’t hurt that he’s playing at America’s #1 blues nightclub as voted by the Blues Foundation.

Dolly Parton
Greek Theatre (Berk)
8/5, 8 p.m.
$39.50 – $125
“Though her savvy marketing, image manipulation — her big, dumb blond stage persona is an act — extracurricular forays into film, and her flirtations with country-pop have occasionally overshadowed her music, at her core Parton is a country gal and a tremendously gifted singer/songwriter.” 40 years on the Billboard charts (’68 – ’08). Five Grammy’s.

John Mellencamp
Greek Theatre (Berk)
8/2, 8 p.m.
$39.50 – 99.50
“distinctive, developing into a Stonesy blend of hard rock and folk-rock”
“Mellencamp has created his own variation of the heartland rock of Springsteen, Tom Petty, and Bob Seger.” Billboard presence from ‘80 – ’07. Grammy in ’82.

Lyle Lovett
Wells Fargo Center
7/30, 7 p.m.
$15 –85
My parents only listened to about a dozen artists while I was growing up, so he’s especially significant for my personal musical taste and thinking. “Ranging from fervent country swing through gospel blues, Lovett seems to be in a decidedly introspective mood as he celebrates his 50th year.” He’s a bulldog looking fellow who bagged Julia Roberts—something’s working. Performance hypes his newly released, first in four years album “It’s Not Big It’s Large.”

Larry Coryell at the Django Festival
Yoshis (Oak)
Jul 31, 2008 – Aug 3, 2008
Thurs 8pm $22 & 10pm $14
Fri 8pm $26 & 10pm $18
Sat both shows $26
Sun 7pm $26 & 9pm $16
“Launched in 2000 in New York, the Django Reinhardt Festival was the first-ever festival of Django’s music in America. Now it returns to Yoshi’s, where it enjoyed great success several years ago.” Gyspsy guitarists. And Coryell, who isn’t a gypsy guitarist, but is one of the pioneers of jazz-rock, a knob-turning sound painter who happens to use a guitar for a brush. “He brought what amounted to a nearly alien sensibility to jazz electric guitar playing in the 1960s, a hard-edged, cutting tone, phrasing and note-bending that owed as much to blues, rock and even country as it did to earlier, smoother bop influences.”

German Festival: Biergarten 2008
Oakland Nature Friends (Oak)
8/3, 1 pm
$10
“Fans of German food, beer, music and dance, European expatriates and everyone interested in a great mid-summer festival with terrific live music and German folk dance performances are invited to our annual fun-filled Biergartenfest at Oakland Nature Friends. The setting is a large property in Oakland Hills with a large outdoor dance floor and seating areas.”

Special thanks for these event descriptions goes to , a good plan B when deadlines constrain the preferred approach of writing the descriptions myself.