Hear This

Joe Niem

Details

With the Weegs

Saturday, July 12, at 10 p.m.

Tickets are $6

923-0923

w ww.hemlocktavern.com

Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk (at Post), S.F.

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More About

• Jason Fish
• Scott Blonde
• Lisa Light
• Human League
• Depeche Mode

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Oakland's the Lovemakers (Scott Blonde, Lisa Light, and Jason Fish) definitely do not intend their name to be ironic. Blonde and Light, who are a mighty good-looking couple, have been known to strip down to their skivvies and make out onstage in between joining the laptop-operating Fish to deliver chunky, jitterbugging bass lines and vocal harmonies worthy of their patron saints, Human League and Depeche Mode. On their self-titled debut, recently released on Weird Eye Records, the band executes an intimate instrumental duet between guitar and vibrator (only in the Bay Area), and sings about such local concerns as virtual love interfering with the real thing ("Internet Girlfriend") and sexual repression ("We Should Be Taking Our Clothes Off"). Hell, they'd all probably dry-hump Fish's synthesizers if the machines had a, er, pulse. As bawdy as all the subject matter may be, it is validated by the trio's technical chops: Light's body-rocking electric violin, Blonde's juicy-tight guitar work, and Fish's seductive rhythms. While dozens of bands nationwide have played out the '80s electro nostalgia thing to absolute maggot-ridden death, the Lovemakers avoid art-school pretension and instead focus their attention on sculpting memorable songs, not hairdos. Though they're definitely hot, there's nothing sexier than actual talent.