Making Waves

Pirate Cat Radio must be the most visible underground radio station in the country. Transmitting unlicensed from its bright, shiny corner cafe in the Mission, the studio is observable to all who pass by, and cheeky DJs entice their audiences to come down and join the live studio landscape. In October, Pirate Cat decided to occupy a neighborhood nightclub each month for a live showcase culled from DJ Fog’s Thursday night show, Baghdad by the Bay. Like Herb Caen’s 1949 collection of essays of the same name, Baghdad by the Bay probes and exalts the multiplicity and miscellany of San Francisco. This month’s installment, a fund-raiser for Pirate Cat, includes the plagiarhythms of audio pioneers Evolution Control Committee, the dreamy harmonic convergence of sibling folkies Beatbeat Whisper, the zombie-punk of Vitamin Party, and the eclectic art-rock fumigations of Raised by Robots. If somehow you’ve missed Evolution Control Committee’s “Wheel of Mashup,” which TradeMark G and assistant Frillypants debuted during “Bootie” a couple years ago, arrive early and prepare to exhibit game-show enthusiasm. A spin of two concentric colored wheels offers musical possibilities such as Bow Wow Wow, Skee-lo, Human League, and Pharcyde, which TradeMark G then melds before your ears into something fresh and slightly mindfucky.
Tue., Dec. 2, 8 p.m., 2008