Night + Day

Wednesday
April 15
Woo Woo! In honor of the Rolling Stones and British rock's talent for spectacle, "Popscene" and "Lush" co-present "Symphonies for the Devil: A Rock & Roll Circus '98." It's a musical evening of all things British, right down to drag queens Jordan L'Moore and Portia 666 doing Elastica covers. Mover (who evoke early Stones as funneled through the Black Crowes) play live, along with the Tina Keyes Experience and Madison's Katy Arnovick; Miss Cherry Jubilee does a burlesque and Siamese-twin act Hatcha & Datcha (they're not actual Siamese twins) produce an eerie glow with their flaming fingernails and a City of Lost Children-inspired bit involving light bulbs in the mouth. Britpop lovers will naturally gravitate toward the mod groove of the Magnetic, whose side projects must have had a certain influence: Singer Andrew Ableson runs "Lush" Saturdays at the CoCo Club and his bandmate, bassist Omar Perez, handles "Popscene" Thursdays at 330 Ritch. The show begins at 8 p.m. at the Red Devil Lounge, 1695 Polk (at Clay), S.F. Admission is $5; call 267-3999.

Dan, Dan, He's Our Man The SF Weekly page folks turn to first, people tell me again and again, is the one featuring Savage Love, the nationally syndicated sex-advice column by Seattle writer Dan Savage. His refreshingly blunt advice jives with common sense, and his wit is barbed, but some readers weren't laughing initially when Savage encouraged his readers to preface their letters with the salutation "Hey, Faggot." Experimental performance series "downhear" gives Savage a live forum to wax philosophical about life, love, sex, the column, and whatever's left, followed by questions from the audience. Performance band AWD close out the show, which begins at 7:30 p.m. at Cafe Du Nord, 2170 Market (at Sanchez), S.F. Admission is $10; call 861-5016.

Thursday
April 16
The House of Escher Haven't seen an Escher since you left the dorms? Now's your chance: The Vorpal Gallery celebrates the late Dutch printmaker M.C. Escher's 100th birthday with an expansive collection of his drawings, woodcuts, and lithographs. Most people remember the white-shirt- and suit-coat-wearing hands drawing one another against white paper, or the dizzying cascade of staircases, but they tend to overlook the fact that Escher drafted his mathematically precise repetitive images and perception-warping landscapes before the advent of computers and the glut of computer-generated art that followed. Get lost in Escher's graphic world at this show, which opens with a reception at 5:30 p.m. (and is up through June 27) at the Vorpal Gallery, 393 Grove (at Gough), S.F. Admission is free; call 397-9200.

Friday
April 17
Comeback Kid Former Kipper Kid Brian Routh briefly revisits his old performance persona in Psychic Attack, a piece employing elements of comedy, music, dance, and improv to riff on the search for spirituality in the era of information overload. As satiric duo the Kipper Kids, Routh and partner Martin von Haselberg appealed to New York's Kitchen crowd and that ilk with similarly vaudevillian performance. In this piece, Routh adopts a variety of guises to reflect on the Bible, Jung, and puppets and their relationships to the New Age movement, conspiracy theories, aliens, and other systems of belief to which people attach themselves. The show begins at 8 p.m. in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum, 701 Mission (at Third Street), S.F. Admission is $10; call 978-ARTS.

They Put a Spell on You The dancers of Omulu Capoeira and Afro-Brazilian dance troupe Fogo Na Roupa (translation: "Clothes on Fire") plan to do more than just show audiences a good time at Tropical Tax Evasion. The samba, merengue, and acrobatic martial arts of the performances are expected to spill over into salsa and hip hop on the dance floor at a post-show dance party, and proceeds from the event benefit the Community Action Project, a nonprofit group that teaches the dance and martial arts of capoeira to low-income kids. The show begins at 7 p.m. at Brady Street Dance Center, 60 Brady (at Mission), S.F. Admission is $10-12; call 285-6689. Meanwhile, some of the city's better modern companies, including Robert Moses' Kin and Scott Wells & Dancers, stage two evenings of imaginative, theatrical, high-flying dance to benefit online dance resource DanceNet; the show begins at 8 p.m. (also Saturday) at ODC Theater, 3153 17th St. (at Shotwell), S.F. Admission is $15-25; call 863-9834.

Spring, Rolls and Otherwise There are so many tasty things to eat at Japanese spring celebration the Cherry Blossom Festival -- spring rolls with sweet-and-sour sauce, bento and sushi, plates of savory pad thai noodles, green tea ice cream -- that you could momentarily forget (although you shouldn't) other attractions like Japanese dance, calligraphy, and ikebana (flower-arranging) demonstrations, martial arts, and taiko drumming. The festival begins at 11 a.m. (also Sunday, plus April 24-26) in Japantown, Post & Buchanan, S.F. Admission is free; call 563-2313. The same is true of SpringFest, part of the events scheduled for UC Berkeley's Cal Day, where barbecue tables and veggie treats threaten to eclipse the arts and crafts tables and performances by the Marin Chinese Lion Dancers, the Harmonics Caribbean Steel Band, and various other international groups. It begins at 11 a.m. at the International House, 2299 Piedmont (at Bancroft), Berkeley. Admission is free-$3; call (510) 642-9460.