The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • A26

NIGHTLIFE THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2009 PA 2Q FOR BREAKING ENTERTAINMENT NEWS, VISIT SFEXAMINER.COM THE LIST Ruby Throat reveals KatieJane's softer side Top pick Dan Hicks By Tom Lanham Special to The Examiner 8 p.m. Saturday. $30. The longtime Bay Area favorite and his band, the Hot Licks, perform tunes from the new album "Tangled Tales," featuring Hicks' clever, chaotic blend of cowboy folk, country-swing, bluegrass, pop and gypsy music. Among the guests on the recording are mandolin great David Grisman (who joins Hicks on tour), bluesman Charlie Musselwhite and slide-guitarist Roy Rogers.

Yoshi's, 1330 Fillmore S.F, (415) 655-5600, www.yoshis.com was the singer's salvation. While U.K. music tabloids speculated on her fate, she rented a room with an eccentric old Russian woman whom locals had dubbed a witch. While her landlady watched art films in bed all day and ate boiled potatoes, Garside says, "I had an idyllic work-in-progress. I just walked up mountains and screamed until I found the edges of my voice.

And yelling into the wind really helped me re-gather everything that I'd lost." Once Garside returned home, she began experimenting with drawing, film, photography and calligraphy. She staged several exhibits, like her recent "Darling, They've Found the Body," and even buried the Chainsaw hatchet via Queen Adreena, a spinoff combo she formed with Daisy ax-man Crispin Gray that has a seventh album in the works. But for now, she's concentrating on her whispery new persona in Ruby Throat named, incidentally, for a slashed-open jugular, not the hummingbird. The perpetual couch surfer, who these days has no home, says she Today "I Feel Insane" was a signature punk piledriver, along with the single "Love Your Money," from Daisy Chain-saw's 1992 debut "Eleventeen." But the eerily prophetic words were lost on her at the time, recalls the band's frontwoman KatieJane Garside, who now believes the experience toyed with her sanity. By 1993, she'd shaved off her trademark blond tresses and was taking power drills to dolls' heads in concert.

A year later, she left the group, then disappeared from the London rock scene. The burden of stardom, she says, "was just too much for me to carry. It really disturbed my nervous system, when I was, uh, very fit for disturbance. I sort of had a preset for it." Now Garside, 40, has returned with Ruby Throat, her quiet-is-the-new-loud acoustic duo with multi-instrumentalist Chris Whittingham. They play the Independent tonight, opening for Rasputina.

With Daisy Chainsaw, she says, "I'd never intended that band to work. It was just something for musician, pushes the boundaries of rock 'n' roll, rhythm and blues, and gospel and soul. Great American Music Hall, 859 OFarrell S.F, (415) 885-0750, www.gamh.com Saturday Monotonix 9 p.m. S10.50-S12. The Israeli trio pulls its sound from the raw energy of classic rock, vintage pop and indie rock.

The Elbo Room, 647 Valencia S.F, (415) 552-7788, www.elbo.com Tombs 9 p.m. $16. The sludge metal trio performs with Pelican and Wolves in the Throne Room. Slim's, 333 11th S.F, (415) 255-0333, www.slims-sf.com wishes she could see her music as catharsis, like most artists. "I'm not getting something out of it," she says.

"Not even in my early days. It's more like I'm leaving bloody footprints on the ground, just to see where I've been." imm me to do to get myself through the night. And suddenly, I was doing my work-in-progress in public, basically, and I was in no way prepared to be the figurehead. So I did dismantle it, and I dismantled myself. I destroyed it all and went to the mountains in the middle of England's Lake District." Going AWOL for six months Los Lobos 8 p.m.

The three-time Grammy Award winning group headlines Blue Bear Live IV: Music for Youth Benefit, with proceeds going to music education programs. Bimbo's, 1025 Columbus S.F.,(415) 673-3600, www.bluebearmusic.org Bob Weir 8 p.m. $35. One of the founding members of the Grateful Dead hits the stage with Rob Wasserman and Jay Lane; their act is Scaring the Children. The Fillmore, 1805 Geary S.F.

(415) 346-6000, www.thefillmore.com Rasputina 8 p.m. $15. The female cello-driven act introduces male cellist Daniel De Jesus. The Independent, 628 Divisadero S.F. (415) 771-1421, www.theindependentsf.com Tricky 8 p.m.

$28.50. The musician is noted for a dark, rich and layered sound and a whispering sprechgesang lyrical style. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie S.F, (415) 625-8880, www.mezzaninesf.com Friday Steve Kimock 9 p.m. Friday-Saturday. $26.

"Crazy Engine," the newest work from the Sunday Bonfire Madigan 8 p.m. $12. The baroque-folk punk musician and activist celebrates her birthday and the release of the new EP "Lady Saves." Cafe Du Nord, 2170 Market S.F, (415) 861-5016, www.cafedunord.com Quiet mood: KatieJane Garside, formerly of Daisy Chainsaw, has a new project called Ruby Throat. IF YOU GO Ruby Throat Where: The Independent, 628 Divisadero S.F. When: 8 p.m.

today Tickets: $15 Contact: (415) 771-1421; www.ticketweb.com For more OF THE BEST PHOTOS, LOCAL NEWS, OPINIONS AND SPORTS, CLICK ON sfexaminer.com The Bronx takes a journey from punk to mariachi mi inspiration. Plus, his son Vince is the extra member in El Bronx he plays the gitaron, the big Spanish bass guitar. So the album is also inspired by L.A., and how we grew up influenced by Hispanic culture and music. Do you have matching mariachi suits, too? Oh yeah. The outfits are black with white trim, and were custom-made by this guy in town named Elias.

A lot of people don't realize what this band is capable of once we set our minds on something. So this is no joke record, or a punk version of mariachi it's traditional, original music that we wrote from scratch. And when people hear it, they've been blown away. Tom Lanham New sounds: The Los Angeles band The Bronx, which is known for its raw rock, is now playing acoustic music under the name Mariachi el Bronx. All three of their garage-punk albums are self-titled.

But that's the only predictable thing about Matt Caughthran's Los Angeles combo The Bronx. The band played Black Flag in the movie "What We Do Is Secret, about fellow punk band the Germs. Its latest surprise project, "El Bronx," is a south-of-the-border-styled set performed as its acoustic alter ego, Mariachi el Bronx. The band comes to the Rickshaw Stop on Sunday. How did this El Bronx mariachi thing start? Matt Caughthran: It started as just a thing for Fuel TV a couple of years ago.

We got offered an on-air acoustic performance, and in typical Bronx fashion, we didn't want to do the singer-songwriter shuffle. So we put together a mariachi version of a Bronx song, and in doing that it opened up a really cool door to learning a different style of music. For some reason, we just clicked on it, and lyrics and melodies started coming. Did you take up any new instruments for this? I'm trying to learn the accordion right now. We had David Hidalgo from Los Lobos play accordion on the record, and some guitar stuff, as well.

So I'm trying to learn the parts he did so I can play them live. But I didn't sing in Spanish, because I didn't want to fake anything. How difficult is mariachi to play? The most daunting thing is getting the rhythms right. So it's very much a labor of love from us we had to do research, to make sure that we didn't do bad things to great music. Did you listen to certain CDs for research? Well, Los Lobos was a huge influence.

I grew up with David Hidalgo's two kids, and that band has always been a giant source of IF YOU GO I The Bronx 1 Where: The Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell San Francisco When: 7:30 p.m. Sunday Tickets: $12 to $14 Contact: (415) 861-2011; www.apeconcerts.com ALL: COURTESY PHOTOS.