Hiatus Picks the Week’s Best Bets

“Sicko”
Che Cafe / Oct. 23 / 7 p.m. / FREE

Bitch all you want about Michael Moore being a propagandist,
but if you disregard his worth as a filmmaker, please check your artistic coat
at the Dick Cheney booth for the sterile and emotionless. Moore’s done his
share of muckraking (notably an unwise interview with Charlton Heston), but if
that’s all you know of him, you apparently haven’t seen “Sicko,” Moore’s 2007
survey of the American Health Care system. Funny, moving, and surprisingly
uplifting despite minor factual flaws, his treatise on the health care failure
in the U.S. works its way into more of a study on what democracy entails for
it’s people. Che Cafe hosts this free
screening, preceded by a $4 dinner starting at 5 p.m. (CM)

The Black Lips
The Casbah / Oct. 18 / 8:30 p.m. / $10

The four greasy, sloppy boys of the Black Lips — grunged-up
as their cheap crop of teenage punk may be — wear a Southern folk sensibility
far beyond their years. For every fuzzy, lo-fi guitar screech and muddled
wisecrack there is an earth-etched melody and a buried tale of working-man
strife. After three furious studio albums and two balls-out live discs, new
flower-punk full-length Good Bad Not Evil seems a little less embarrassed about
its roots, clearing the brambles of distortion for a (still stubbornly
youthful) take on country-western blues. But come this evening, spilling over
the creaky Casbah stage, fuck that — you can shove your damned croak-folk right
up your music-snob asshole. (SW)

Age, Hellshock, Mala Sangre & Young Favorites
Che Cafe / Oct. 18 / 7 p.m. / $8

Stop by the Che tonight for a mosh-worthy lineup that’ll get
all your leftover teenage angst out on the dance floor. Punk rockers Age,
Hellshock, Mala Sangre and Young Favorites make noise, not music — assaulting
us with jerky riffs and shaky audio feedback. Expect apocalyptic sets and metal
riff sampling from Hellshock, while Mala Sangre punctuates the lulls with
thrashing percussion. Newbies Age and California-based Young Favorites open and
close the show with hyped tension and a quicker rhythmic pace. (JG)

Native Root
Porter’s Pub
Oct. 19, 12 p.m.
FREE

Music from the Crooked Road
Mandeville Auditorium
Oct. 19, 8 p.m
$15
Violation, Dynasty & More
Che Cafe
Oct. 19, 7 p.m.
$6
“Live Free or die hard”
Price Center Theater
Oct. 20, 6 & 9 p.m.
$3
Roma Nights: Cory French
Espresso Roma
Oct. 22, 8 p.m.
FREE

Poetry SLAMM feat. Kenton
UCSD Bookstore
Oct. 23, 6 p.m.
FREE
Han Han Cho
Mandeville Recital Hall
Oct. 24, 8 p.m.
FREE

7 generations, Die Young & Shallow Breathing
Che Cafe
Oct. 2, 9 p.m.
$5