By the time this paper hits the streets tonight there are two fun events you’ll definintely have time to take in if you plan it right. The first is a fancy and fabulous art opening at 111 Minna Gallery at 7pm till late. The featured artist is San Francisco’s very own foremost mosaic expert and celebrity portraitist Jason Mecier and tonight he is unveiling the fruits of his latest project Celebrity Junk Drawer. For this group of portraits he has asked a variety of celebrities to surrender to him the contents of their own junk drawers and with these objects he has created portraits. Included participants range from cult and indie film darlings to former playboy bunnies, celebrated funny ladies, pop music stars, info-tainment talking heads, celebrity talk show hosts and more. One thing that has always impressed me about Jason is how incredibly prolific he is. What seems like hundreds of his original bean and noodle portraits have been floating around for more than a decade, gracing galleries, magazine covers, concert posters and friend’s walls everywhere, sometimes the large sizes and fastidious placement of macaroni alphabet backgrounds and other extremely detailed aspects of his work is just mind-boggling to me. This kind of commitment and development of his medium brings to mind the endo-mosaic window that dominates the entrance foyer of The Masonic Temple on Nob Hill created by noted California artist Emile Norman who used thousands of bits of metal, parchment, felt, linen, silk, natural foliage, thinly sliced vegetable matter, shells and sea life, plus 180 colors of stained glass, not to mention actual gravels and soils of the 58 counties of California and the Islands of Hawaii. One day Mecier and his incredible artistic talent and vision will be as highly regarded and celebrated as Emile Norman. This exhibit will be up through the month of July and the opening reception will feature the DJ genius of Robbie Daniels aka Jer Ber Jones. Also for a fantastic look into the world of Jason Mecier visit his incredible website at http://www.jasonmecier.com. I’ve seldom seen such an amusing and colorful online representation of an artist. Jason Mecier is truly a San Francisco treasure.
Next up on this nights agenda is an event I’m very very excited about and that is this Thursdays live music night at the Eagle Tavern which will be featuring three bands, Three Weeks Clean, Die Sister Die and finally an all-star all-girl Turbonegro tribute band called Turbonegra. For those unfamiliar, Turbonegro are from Norway and are definitely one of the greatest rock and roll bands in the entire world. They just rock harder and live as legends, creating some of the heaviest riff-happy Satan-inspired “faux-mo-erotic” lyrics and attitude ever. “Most rock ‘n’ roll bands start as a riot, but end up as a parody,” remarks Happy-Tom, the bassist and mastermind behind the dark power that is Turbonegro. “We started as a parody, but ended up as a revolution.” This nicely sums up the Turbonegro experience but for further reading on the subject you can refer to http://sfbaytimes.com/index.php?sec=article&article_id=4240 for a live review from 2005. I should also mention that the band has one of the most committed and identified fan bases in all of rock and roll, calling themselves Turbo Jugend which translates to Turbo Youth and has separate chapters all over the world from Okinawa to Fresno and the San Francisco chapter has a definite affiliation with the Eagle Tavern. In fact, I’m a bit unsure of the precise details but I believe there is some form of initiation rite involving the surrendering of their underwear to a certain bartender named Matty who in turn hangs them from the ceiling above the side bar. I believe Matty will be anticipating several new pairs to add to the collection tonight. This evening also stands as pre-release listening party for Turbonegro’s latest longplayer Re-Tox. It’s going to be a thoroughly Turbonegro night if you know what I mean, and I haven’t even got to the Turbonegra part!
Turbonegra are an all-girl tribute band to the awesomest band alive!!! Comprised of Shelley from Bimbo Toolshed (a great band I haven’t heard from in about 8 years), Sally from Fabulous Disaster (one of the truly talented ass-kickingest drummers around) Tish from Van Gogh’s Daughter, Erica from MDC and Rina from Psychadelic Wedding, these 5 hot rockin babes will kick you in the teeth and throw your ass in the pit, so check ’em out. I can’t fucking wait to see what utter and complete rock and roll havoc this night is going to stir up. Expect lots of denim and sailor and leather fashion and some serious hardcore sing-alongs and a fair amount of eye-make-up as well when this furious pack of awesome musicians pays tribute to the Norwegian Rock and Roll Icons, er…GODZ. This event rates a gigantic hands down don’t miss it. As Turbonegro suggests, “fix your hair and sell your body to the night.”
The very next night Friday the 13th marks the opening preview night of Kiki and Herb: Alive From Broadway. Be sure and get your tickets for another brilliant show of shows from San Francisco’s finest internationally acclaimed export. And don’t forget to catch their only nightclub appearance at the second installment of Glitter-box on the third Friday of this month at Cats on Folsom Street.