Went to see Deerhoof play play the soundstrack to films by Harry Smith at the Castro on Thursday night.

I hadn't known anything about Harry Smith, but he seems to have been quite a fixture of the conterculture/avant garde in the Bay Area in 60s. The feature presentation, Heaven and Earth Magic, is black and white stop-motion animation using photographic cutouts. It's a bit like the animated segments on Monty Python, but about 100x stranger.

I'm not quite sure what the movie was about. There seemed to be a narrative thread in there somewhere, but I couldn't quite tease it out. I'm not sure you're supposed to, though.

It was pretty amazing. You just don't see stuff like this anymore, never mind with a live soundtrack by an amazing band. Deerhoof added some sections of retro-electronic chirps (it often looked and sounded like Donkey Kong on acid) as well as some hits from their records. Good good.

The tragic accident on Castro had occurred just a few hours before. After the movie, we emerged onto the street to see burned-out husks of cars and motorcycles and cracked and singed storefronts.

A Deerhoof is a hovercraft that wrenches and lurches down the road with blown gasksets and thrown rods and no problem because it's being driven by transdimensional elves. Last night, I finally saw it drive through the Great American after 2+ years of their-CDs-are-amazing-and-I-am-meaning-to-go-see-them lameness.

I was not disappointed; it truly was the most amazing show I've seen in years.

I think I'm getting old. More and more, I just don't understand the music the kids are listening to these days. But occasionally some kind soul reminds me that I'm probably not supposed to understand it:

Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” is one of the most baffling pieces of music of the modern age. It’s got something to do with cheerleaders—that much is clear...[more]

Not quite a fountain of youth, but I'll take it.