Slim's presents Songhoy Blues, with Jjuujjuu
2016-04-02
Slim's
333 11th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-4313
9:00 PM, Saturday, April 2, 2016

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2016 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2016 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

[9:31 PM lights down, band out]

1. [9:33 PM] (unidentified tune #1)
2. [9:37 PM] (unidentified tune #2)
3. [9:43 PM] (unidentified tune #3)
   [set ends 9:52 PM]

Jjuujjuu

• Jeffertitti Moon: drums;
• Phil Pirrone: guitar, vox;
• Mason Rothschild: bass.

[10:30 PM lights down, announcements]

1. [10:30 PM] (unidentified tune #1)
2. [10:36 PM] (unidentified tune #2)
3. [10:42 PM] (unidentified tune #3) “jaka fem”
4. [10:46 PM] (unidentified tune #4)
5. [10:53 PM] (unidentified tune #5 – a slow blues)
6. [10:57 PM] (unidentified tune #6)
7. [11:03 PM] Ya Watani
8. [11:08 PM] (unidentified tune #7) “milvaba”
9. [11:13 PM] Al Hassidi Terei
   [set ends 11:18 PM]
    
   Encore
10. [11:20 PM] Soubour
    [show ends 11:28 PM]

Songhoy Blues

• Nathanael Dembele: calabash, drums, percussion;
• Aliou Touré: vox;
• Garba Touré: guitar;
• Oumar Touré: guitar, bass.

I had been kinda lazy about getting to the box office to buy tickets for this event, so when they sent an email offering free tickets, I jumped on it right away! Happily they responded affirmatively, so like that, I was in for the ride. Yeah! I'm grateful to the folks at Slim's box office for throwing bones my way!

Saturday comes round and we're super busy, like usual. Up in the morning, get a pour over dripping, make toaster waffles with peanut butter and banana (yum!).

Rally Ting, then head down to Alameda for a session of Small Circle Jujitsu with sensei Peterson and the rest of the Saturday psychos. Grab egg sandwiches and a caffeine drink of choice for lunch afterwards while enjoying the shade outside awhile. Walk back to the car… parked in the sun, it's full of superheated air, blasting us at furnace strength when we open the doors. I try to keep my hands off the steering wheel as we head home… it's just too damn hot to touch. Miraculously, we get home safely!

Got an hour to chill out. Yay! Time enough to pull some weeds from the shade along the road in front of the house: better to get that done before things go to seed!

Soon it's time to get dressed up and head down to Rockridge to pick up our friend Paola, then slog through Saturday traffic to get to a winetasting party in Portola Valley. As hinted at, traffic is a bear until we reach Highway 92 and leave the beastly East Bay behind. In fact, the primary obstacle to fast progress as we head west is that giant orb in the sky – the glare is strong, and far too many drivers seem to respond to the issue by lining up next to one another in impassable bunches. I believe David Lindley coined the epithet “Blood clots” in reference to these obstacles. Fortunately, their density decreases as we head west, and by the time we hit Foster City, it's clear sailing.

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” I hear you thinking. “What's this got to do with Songhoy Blues?”

Not much, of course. I'm just on a logorheic ramble.

So where was I? Oh yeah, Portola Valley.

Deep afternoon when we arrive. The sun has ducked behind the foothills in the west, and the weather is just exactly perfect for lounging on the patio deck with a group of friends and a glass of vino. Our hosts, Suzanne and Chris, have laid out an amazing buffet in the kitchen: antipasto, veggies, shrimp, and so on, and latecomers bring more: a giant bowl of poke? Why thank you Mr. Menke, ahi'd be pleased to add a few bites to my plate! The conversations spin slowly around the usual topics: catching up with friends from my college days and later. Nowadays I tend to see them once or twice a year, so there's almost always some kind of news to share. All too soon we need to go. 8 PM and getting dark! We make the rounds for handshakes, hugs and kisses, then hustle on up the peninsula for our destination in downtown SF. By contrast to 580, traffic on highway 280 is amazing light until we reach the split for 19th Avenue in Daly City. 'Tis but a trifle when you're ahead of schedule.

An unexpected road closure on Larkin at Civic Center is slightly more vexing, but we are able to drop Paola off at the BART entrance for her journey home, and shortly thereafter, we've secured a parking place outside Costco, just over a block from Slim's. Between my lead foot and the light traffic, we've arrived a bit early: 8:40 PM for a nominally advertised 9 PM show, but this proves to be a blessing in disguise.

As we turn the corner onto 11th, I pat my pocket: uh-oh! No wallet! We walk back to the car. I check the door pockets: nope. I check my shoulder bag: nope. I check the trunk: nope! No wallet = no ID; no ID = no entry; no entry = no fun. The situation looks grim.

We decide to try and bluff our way in. No line at the box office (it's early, right!), we give my name, and Ting proffers her ID. The guy fumbles a bit, but eventually turns up the right list.

“Sandy, right?” He asks.

Ting nods. He hands her a pair of tickets. In like Flynn, yeah! Got it made now, just gotta wait. A quick check with the staffer at the back stage entrance reveals we're WAY early: opening band at 9:30, Songhoy Blues at 10:30.

No money = no beer, sigh.

Time passes slowly for the next near-hour. The house shows weird videos while blasting unrelated tunes on the PA. Works for me except when the videos are of live music.

The opening band, Jjuujjuu, practices a sort of droning spacey rock. Loud (of course), and the subwoofers apply terrific impact to our chest with every thump or thwack from the kick drum. Whoa! The guitarist is also the lead singer, but his vocals seem buried in a murky mix underneath the fuzzed out guitar. The words are unintelligible even when I move nearer to the PA. Must not be too important to hear! The bass player, Mason, is playing deft, burbling lines that split the difference between a walking blues line and an afropop-style lead bass. Works for me! The crowd is strangely hesitant to come close. Ting and I are the only ones at the stage lip, everyone else is at least 10 feet away. Maybe afraid of the hairy-scary hippie band? Just being shy? Hoping to save their ears for the main event? Hard to know – I didn't ask any of them. After barely twenty minutes, Jjuujjuu wraps up their set and says goodnight, the video screen drops, and the space in front empties even more. Ting says it's because I'm extra smelly tonight. Harrumph! After the openers get their gear packed away, they come out to sell merch and schmooze, and it seems to me that a healthy number of folks present are friends of the band. Nice of them to show up; wonder why they were being so shy!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

[yeah, never got around to writing anything about Songhoy Blues … bummer eh?]

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2016 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2016 event list! ☸ On to the next event!