Dancefloor jazz shows and glorious post-punk revelry from the Bay, a celebratory 20th anniversary MF DOOM classic, and rare hard-to-find vinyl of the Japanese funk-folk genre.
Under The Stars is here to let it rip.
MARK DE CLIVE-LOWE, SF JAZZ JOE HENDERSON LAB, SAT/9
Mark de Clive-Lowe, is such a dynamo. This genre-breaking, one-of-a-kind, Japanese New Zealander, certified modern jazz musician wears more hats than he has foreheads; it’s his expertise. Dudes prolific. That ability to be a one-man unit, doing the work of a full band, keeps his ever-lively e-mail newsletter resembling some type of vigorous ‘zoomer’. Thats the heat rollin’ off of it. But he’s 50, moving at the speed of traversable wormholes and quantum tunneling, which you can also use to explain his music. This producer, in-demand performer, pianist, beatmaker, live remixer, DJ, and composer based out of Los Angeles has residencies around the globe, non-stop upcoming shows, new projects, white label releases on Bandcamp, and YouTube clips—he can’t stop.
In some respects, it almost feels like he’s just now approaching the right gear.
Choose any number of access points: the recent Soul Bank release, Freedom: Celebrating the Music of Pharoah Sanders, or the go-for-broke, let’s-get-in-between-all-the-genres, build-’em-up, break-’em-down Hotel San Claudio project from 2023 featuring the standout talents of Detroit drummer-producer-DJ Shigeto and Verve Records’ Melanie Charles—or reach back into his extensive broken beat era where he found space to explore left-field downtempo, jazz, soul, and hip-hop. He’s a legend who will make you sweat on a Saturday night. Hearing him play that extensive Joe Henderson Lab at SF Jazz is the proper space to revel in this one-of-a-kind talent.
Grab tickets to both shows here.
YOSHIKO SAI, MANGEKYOU (WEWANTSOUNDS)
There is something so foreign and yet so familiar about the arrangements billowing in Yoshiko Sai’s cult classic record Mangekyou from 1975. This Laurel Canyon-esque funk-folk breezeway with singer-songwriter Yoshiko Sai, doing this Minnie Ripperton patch–haunting vocals sung in Japanese, pushing on into the void type of approach. Producer and master musician Yuji Ohno brings acid-tinged blues rock guitar moments in, supporting that bleeding post-hippy, late ’70s American briskness.
Yoshiko Sai’s clear vocal transparency lords over these tracks, giving foundation to this country-rock vibe with a funky exactness placed in the grit and glide. Incorporating elements found in Japanese traditional music, such as the Shakuhachi, a bamboo flute; Tsuzumi, a hand drum; and Biwa, a wooden lute; We got a Kill Bill, the early days, type spirit wandering in the sagebrush. As always, the Parisian WEWANTSOUNDS imprint, keeps making the right choices in their left-field selections, archiving the correct projects.
Order it here.
NAKED ROOMMATE, PASS THE LOOFAH (TROUBLE IN MIND RECORDS)
I want to see Naked Roommate booked on every bill for those corporately produced concerts in Golden Gate Park, whatever designated entertainment zone function happening in downtown San Francisco, any electronic music fest at the Hibernia Bank, or rave out at the Cow Palace.
The Oakland-Berkeley music collective, on their comedic, dancey, and lightly political release Pass The Loofah, reminds everyone in Cloud City how difficult it is to pay rent and be an artist in a metropolis filled to the brim with vacant buildings all over Fi-Di.
It’s not by mistake this band pulls on the coattails of Liquid Liquid, ESG, Kid Creole & The Coconuts, Lizzy Mercier Descloux (all the good post-punk stuff people), and keeps a sneaky underlying middle finger squarely aimed at the tech-bro bullshit that’s taken over our beloved Bay Area.
Instead of putting the revolution down by shoegaze guitar, empathy comes through a prism of synths that entice, funky-bizarre horn lines, and silly arrangements that let you know they know shit is kinda fucked, but we gon’ dance through it all.
Some folk used to call it community.
Pick it up here.
In a post on their Instagram, Fake Fruit encouraged their fans to purchase their sophomore album, Mucho Mistrust, on vinyl: “Just watch it spin around your turntable and hypnotize yourself into doing the dishes.” On Friday, November 22, at The Chapel, fans can celebrate at the band’s record release show. And they should—coming up with a follow-up LP that’s just as voicy, serious, take no shit, and all-out post-punk nervy badass as the searing first one? And featured in The New Yorker, too?
Deserves a hometown party on the Friday before Thanksgiving.
Grab tix here.
MF DOOM, MM..FOOD 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION (RHYMESAYERS ENTERTAINMENT)
The range—longevity, micro versus macro production, genius real slick inspiration, and the overall badassness of the stage name MF Doom, or simply put, Doom, gets deeper as his productions age with proper reflection. I was first familiar with Doom via the track “Peachfuzz” during the early days under a different edition and name, as a member of the trio KMD at the time. Doomheads know the history, so I will move past the tragedy and get to the resurrection. Following hardships, the Emcee, formally known as Zev Love X, born Daniel Dumile, re-emerged at the end of the ’90s with a persona inspired by the Marvel Comics supervillain Dr. Doom.
His unfuckwithable gift, sorry for the cursing, lies in his ability to not just punch through a stacked hip-hop era—2Pac, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Biggie, and DMX—with corporate money backing them all, but to create an indie lane that garnered him worldwide praise due to his quintessential bars, truly non-traditional themes and ideas, and the production savvy to create beats, that banged hard, from encyclopedic choices and hiding in plain sight records.
He made music out of any old thing. It’s called talent. (You can celebrate it Fri/8 at Green Apple Books on the Park, when 48 Hills’ Music Book Club host Tamara Palmer interviews The Chronicles of DOOM: Unraveling Rap’s Masked Iconoclast author S.H. Fernando Jr, aka SKIZ.)
So as MF DOOM’s 2004 classic, MM..FOOD is praised, rightfully so, for its non-stop barrage of things—food, humor, wit, and social commentary—pre-Anthony Bourdain mind you—turns 20, you can look at the tracks “Hoe Cakes,” which brings Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love” into the Doom multiverse of beats—everybody’s parents had that record—-and “One Beer,” which put 1975’s “Huit Octobre 1971” by the French jazz-funk band Cortex, they just played in The Bay just this past autumn, into the must-have list of beat junkies all over the world.
2004’s MM..FOOD, just like it’s creator, remains undefeated.
Pre-order the classic here.
