SAT 3/22
Have you ever played the game “Would You Rather”? You try and make your friends choose between two disparately disgusting options, the object being to catch your opponents between a revolting rock and a hideous hard place. In some of the narrower arteries of the American heartland, you can bet your front teeth that choosing between watching a porn flick and listening to improvised music would bring a spirited round of “Would You Rather” to a stuttering halt.Thankfully, we live in the East Bay. Let the Midwest call us fruits and nuts — we’ll be at 21 Grand (449B 23rd St., Oakland) Saturday and Sunday night, watching pornographic films and listening to extemporaneous accompaniment by some of the country’s finest musical ad-libbers. Scoring the dirty movies before our very ears will be acts such as Ernesto Diaz-Infante and Marjorie Sturm, Lance Grabmiller, Liz Albee, Triple D, and the PornOrchestra (conducted by Bob Marsh Saturday, Myles Boisen Sunday, and comprising Phil Gelb, Moe! Staiano, and many more). None of the players will be privy to the film choices until that very moment, so the sounds will be as spontaneous as the sex isn’t. Tickets are $6-10 (sliding scale). Call 510-444-7263 or check out www.pornorchestra.com for further details. — Stefanie Kalem
TUE 3/25
On a Limb
Improv music goes green
“Oh, to be the breeze/In the top of the trees,” sings Quix*o*tic Mira Billotte on 2002’s Mortal Mirror, and Cheryl E. Leonard must feel the same way. As part of a larger piece Leonard is developing for a New York residency, she’s created “The Fusang Tree,” a semi-improvisational work to be performed on pinecones, leaves, bark, sticks, needles, twigs, lichen, and an upside-down string quartet. Check out her arboreal musings Tuesday evening at the Black Box (1928 Telegraph Ave., Oakland), with Infrasound, a “spatial acoustic concert series” by Scott Arford & Randy H.Y. Yau, and the Armageddon String Quartet, a Bay Area ensemble that processes its traditional Western strings through noncomputerized filters, opening the show at 8 p.m. Cover charge for this 21-and-up event is $6. Call 510-451-1932. — Stefanie Kalem
