Best show of January: Silian Rail, Japandi, Lanterns, Planets @ The Bike Kitchen 1/11

Live-music fiends typically wouldn't expect much from a show housed in a grimy, makeshift bicycle repair shop. But San Francisco's The Bike Kitchen, a firmly underground venue tucked covertly in an alley off of Mission Street that's more a pisser's paradise than indie rock hangout, put on the best concert of January. The somewhat disturbing sight of two guys cloaked in form-fitting white suits, complete with Mexican wrestler masks veiling their faces, launched a night that bursted with quality noise and tight, rhythmic rock complexity. The mysterious bass/drums duo Planets' visual spectacle straddled the border of artistic and silly - a projector transmitted random images and color patterns onto both a wall and the guys themselves, while corny jokes tendered amusing between-song banter. Bulletproof song execution became the evening standard. Headlining San Francisco two-piece Silian Rail created a whole lotta ruckus with minimal instrumentation in taut and thoughtful arrangements; and San Diego aggressive-progressive instrumentalists Japandi, whose drummer almost killed himself during the penultimate song by playing the drums really, really, really hard, flaunted impressive technical skill. But the standout performance came from San Diego's Lanterns, four guys just out of high school who play really catchy shoegaze-noise rock ala Sonic Youth. Lanterns are the goofball garage band who endearingly have no clue how amazing they sound. While the rhythm guitarist and the bassist trade off on vocals - kind of shouted like the old (good) Modest Mouse - and the drummer holds the fort with dynamic rhythms or circus beats, a second guitarist supplies an ethereal wall of noise to round out the wholly original, but melodious, racket. With the oldest member barely 21, the band is still very green and a bit sloppy, but their strong songwriting chops and youthful energy evokes a feeling that's downright magical. My new favorite band had me at hello. Christmas lights adorning amps and bicycles looming over the "stage," which swayed threateningly when bumped by thrashing members of the crowd, complemented The Bike Kitchen's ambiance. "I love that a surprise member of the audience gets up to play in the next band," a friend whispered in my ear before the show ended. Despite preconceptions of cliquish hipster snobs, the underground music community actually fosters an equality lacking in more mainstream circles. Where else can you party among your 50 best friends with the most exciting music around as your soundtrack? Check out some raw video of Lanterns playing "Sweet Weapons" in a 2007 set at San Diego's Che Cafe:

Stealing, err, checking out music has never been easier, and you can thank your Uncle Sam

With file sharing turning college students into criminals these days, who would have guessed that the biggest culprit of distributing musique gratis is actually bankrolled by the government? Listeners, listen up: The best source of free music - and I'm talking about albums in their entirety - is your local library. Now, sure, you'll find deaf, 19th century German composers or field recordings from remote Chinese villages. But many library music collections today also feature a surprisingly hip assortment of modern bands in my favorite genre, indie rock. Library: 1; you: 0. Digging through shelves of CDs and spotting obscure '80s art punks Mission of Burma and U.K. shoegazers Jesu feels like finding buried treasure; Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Rogue Wave, every Tom Waits album ever made. WTF?!? All for free!* Faced with so many enticing choices, I've become quite the library connoisseur, mostly shopping San Mateo County but also browsing Palo Alto, San Francisco and San Jose branches. Here's a roundup of a few worthy of frequenting:

• Millbrae: Best selection of new indie on the Peninsula. Last visit, my hands were full by the time I got to "D": Animal Collective, Bat for Lashes, Beirut, Blonde Redhead, Boris, Castanets, Comets on Fire, Cursive, Datarock, Destroyer. I'll be back.

• Pacifica - Sanchez: This library is tiny, but it stocks hard-to-find CDs that other branches never seem to carry. The location itself is hard to find, though, so print out thorough directions before you decide to wing this trip.

• South San Francisco - Main: Decent collection from many genres, though generally you'll come across more classic rock than modern rock. One caveat? Some CDs are misfiled, so locating works purportedly in stock could be difficult; I found Pink Floyd both in the "P" and "F" sections, and "The Very Best of Aerosmith" in the "V" section. Not that Aerosmith would ever creep onto my check-out receipt.

• San Francisco - Main: Due to its size and prominence, it's obvious you'd find an obscene selection here. However, you are frustratingly restricted to checking out only six CDs at a time (others have more generous limits), so you'll always be planning a return trip. A bonus: They stock multiple copies of some CDs, thus making it possible for you and five of your weirdo friends to play Deerhoof's "The Runners Four" in one big simultaneous cacophony.

• Other Bay Area branches that appear to have strong collections: Foster City, Menlo Park, San Carlos and San Jose - Evergreen.

To locate particular artists or albums, peruse your new BFF, the online catalog, which tells you where to find specific CDS, if it's already checked out, and also allow you to place a hold on the item so that you're the first in line when it's returned.

If you're spoiled and will only borrow the very freshest in library stock, subscribe to Wowbrary and get weekly e-mails listing your local branch's newest acquisitions. Watch those due dates, though, or you, might end up paying for that music after all.

* Note to the PC enforcement police: I still buy music and support artists. But I'd rather spend the $15 I save from buying crap CDs on something a little more worthwhile, like buying sweaters for stray dogs. Plus library services are partially funded by my tax dollars anyway. So there.

Coachella '08 lineup announcement sparks riot in San Francisco

OK, so no animals were harmed in the making of this announcement, but music fans around the world yelped a collective 'huh?' upon first glimpse of this year's Coachella lineup. Just a hunch, but I think it has something to do with Jack Johnson headlining night one. Blah. The big whoa of Coachella '08 is undoubtedly Portishead rocking the main stage on night two. Unmissable stuff, this Portishead group is. Can't say the same for fellow night two performer Dwight Yoakam, who I heard made a certain transaction with a certain sneaky red horned Angel of Darkness in order for his inclusion to come to fruition. How's about a last minute bump of our old pal Yoaky for some Hank III. Let's take a vote. But coolness: The Verve, Raconteurs and Spank Rock add some spice to Friday's headlining blah while Kraftwerk, M.I.A. and the Cold War Kids give us three more reasons to spend three months of babysitting money on a three-day pass. Overall, Sunday's looking like the best bang for your dollar, err, 90 dollars: Roger Waters playing "Dark Side," Spiritualized, Love and Rockets, Autolux, Man Man, Les Savy Fav, Justice, Gogol Bordello, Holy Fuck. Mmmmmmm. In the grand Coachella tradition of lineups becoming more attractive as it gets closer to showtime, I must admit that my initial deeming of the performer list as lackluster will have no effect on the ace chance I'll attend all three days. It's Coachella - how can I not go?

Rant: 311's "Beautiful Disaster," the lyrical equivalent of a sweaty sock

A mentally disturbed cretin appears to be stalking me. For the past few days, the moment I jump in my car I notice this yahoo following me, tormenting me with the most foolish words I've ever heard. This omnipresent plague of humanity is none other than the 311 song "Beautiful Disaster." In an age when people can use their thoughts to change a TV channel and french fry oil can power a car, I don't understand how human intelligence could rubberstamp a song with lyrics as inane as 311's "Beautiful Disaster" for airplay. San Francisco modern rock station Live 105 plays it at least 105 times a day, seemingly every time I'm tuned in. It was originally released a decade ago. Hasn't enough music, good music, been released in the last 10 years to prevent this drivel from creeping onto the airwaves? Now, I acknowledge that much of what's on the radio is crap; but this song is pure scum, startling enough to merit an entire blog posting. While most of the lyrics are pukeworthy, a few phrases especially make me want to stab my eyes out with hot pokers, both because of their content and their delivery. For example: "I try to be not like that/but some people really suck." First of all, "I try to be not like that" doesn't make any sense. It's a gross defection from grammar and the English language, and isn't sung in a cool enough way to justify its glaring heresy. And please -the artistic freedom defense doesn't hold up here. I don't think "some people really suck," will ever masquerade within the realm of lyrical poetry. Check out what pops up in the final verse: "I try to be not like this/but i thought I'd make a good song." Brotha, whatchu doin'?!? You don't reference your thought process on songwriting within the song itself. Save it for another platform, buddy. But besides the asinine lyrics, lead singer Nick Hexum, who wrote this abomination, stretches out the last syllable in each line of verse to fit the music: "I might do that stuff if/it didn't make me feel like shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit." It's maddening! Just as he strains to sing the damn song, we the listeners must also strain to not stick aforementioned hot pokers into our ears as well. Answer me this: How did these lyrics sneak past so many checks and balances - other band members, producers, radio station personnel - and be deemed fit enough for mass consumption? Granted, I don't expect much from either 311 or FM radio. But how long must we put up with this garbage? What is it still doing on the radio today? Devolution is alive and kicking in '08.

List: Best get out of my dreams, get into my car, albums

Driving from San Francisco to L.A. down I-5 would be a whole lot shittier without a copious supply of top-notch music. Seriously - who wants to drown in a friend's blathering or choke on silence for the duration of that ride? To that end, I've discovered that certain bands sound even better when I'm enclosed in a mobile, speeding cage of metal. It could be strong memories or just a reflection of my insanity behind the wheel, but these works manage to shine through cruddy car speakers:

• Trans Am "The Surveillance" - Watch out when I'm on the road with Trans Am on full-blast. This electro post-rock magnum opus, with its pulsing beats and thrilling pace, beckons my pedal to the metal. Upon first blip, I mutate into an annoying, suicidal/homicidal racer who constantly weaves in and out of lanes. Bring on the Autobahn.

• Modest Mouse "Dashboard" - Though their latest record is a stinkbomb and this track blatantly screams "car song," optimistic lyrics ("Well, it would've been, could've been worse than you would ever know/Oh, the dashboard melted, but we still have the radio") and a bustling rhythm make this the perfect jam for a carefree outing. Those Modest Mousers sure know their geography pretty damn well. The 1996 release "This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About," 1997's "The Lonesome Crowded West" and 2000's "The Moon & Antarctica" also make for fine traveling companions.

• The Libertines "Up the Bracket" - What this Brit-punk classic lacks in length it makes up for in attitude. Hearing this gem, hammered with swagger, is kind of like driving drunk - minus the alcohol, jail sentence and $3,000 fine.

• Led Zeppelin "II" - Cars are hard, sexy and dangerous. So is Zeppelin. It's a match made in heaven, car commercials be damned. Their undeniably cool and timeless rock 'n' roll brilliance offers the perfect distraction to dismal stints in traffic, long red lights and women drivers (just a joke, kids). Listening to "II" transforms my blue '97 Corolla into a black '67 Mustang. Honorable mention: Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Show Your Bones."

• Spank Rock "YoYoYoYoYo" - Bump this album loud and feel like you're always on your way to a party. Along the same lines: LCD Soundsystem's self-titled, with star track "Daft Punk is Playing at My House," is electronica royalty.

• The Dandy Warhols "The Dandy Warhols Come Down" - When it's just you and I-5, the Dandy's pop tendencies will keep your brain wired while lush, whispery vocals trick your mind into beautifying the barren scenery. Splashes of country twang also complement the smell of the shitshacks, er, cattle ranches.

Just no Sublime, please.

Radiohead and the singing ghost

"Scotch mist - You thought that you saw something; you didn't; it was a track of the light, a phantasm, a spectre." Radiohead left their breakdancing backup dancers and sequined costumes stashed in the closet on New Year's Eve with an offering of "In Rainbows" tracks in their purest form, live from their Oxford studio. One of the highlights was getting to see Jonny Greenwood play the rare ondes Martenot close-up on "Jigsaw Falling Into Place." It's a fascinating device, electronic, invented in 1928 by French musician Maurice Martenot (ondes Martenot translates to "Martenot's waves"). It was inspired by its instrumental brother, the theremin (I saw this played at a rock show the other day). The ondes sounds like a singing ghost, or an angel. Get educated: Greenwood also plays the ondes on "How to Disappear Completely" and "Pyramid Song."

Show review: Form and Fate @ El Rio 1/5/08

A spell of wicked winter let up just as San Francisco's Form and Fate took to the stage of the Mission dive paradise El Rio on Jan. 5. As the city lay strewn in mangled fences and shredded trees following a Friday tempest, the five-piece bass/three guitars/drums combo proved a mighty force of their own as they crafted a brief but compelling set of all-instrumental post-rock. The genre has always had close ties to nature and weather - both build slowly and organically progress into an affecting and powerful climax - and Form and Fate brought the same unignorable presence of a storm into their loud but lush epic-length songs. Their music, still fresh to my ears besides a few MySpace samples, conjured a meatier Mogwai, metal heavy but also evoking the same dreamy and dramatic splendor. Touches of psychedelia and the avant-garde - guitarist Adam Myatt wielded a theremin during the first song which mimicked the shrill wail of a banshee - crept into the mix, coalescing into a colorful prism and alleviating black-and-white predictability. The band seemed to focus on rocking out rather than note-perfect technicality (they overtly faltered during a melody change on one song). But with their palpably intense energy, the end result was a shockingly impressive set by five talented Bay Area musicians. To check out: their latest EP "Recirc" and 2007 full-length "The Form and Fate of Lakes."

7 stunning concerts of '07

Wolf Parade @ Great American Music Hall 9/12 Tool, Trans Am @ Bill Graham Civic Auditorium 12/12 Isis @ Bimbos 4/6 TV on the Radio @ Fillmore 3/29 Man Man, The Sleeping States @ Slim's 10/25 Worker Bee, Silian Rail @ Gingerbread House, San Jose 11/9 Arcade Fire @ Greek Theatre, Berkeley 6/2