It’s hard, fast-moving and you stick it between your legs. No… Not that. Get your mind out of the gutter. We’re talking about bicycles here, you perv.

Well, actually… considering that we’re talking about Bici Noir, a screening of two bicycle films—one of which is a collection of cycling-themed erotica shorts, entitled Bike Smut 8 – Come Again—I guess it is kinda like that.

The other film is a documentary titled Aftermass: Bicycling in a Post-Critical Mass Portland, which traces the history of how the Oregon city came to be known as the nations most bike friendly city.

Aftermass will be shown at 4pm and Bike Smut will be screened at 6pm, Oct. 11 at Back Bar, located at 21 N. 3rdSt. in San Jose.

Check out the totally safe-for-work preview for Aftermass below and go here to check out NSFW trailer for Bike Smut.

Aftermass: Bicycling in a Post-Critical Mass Portland from Microcosm Publishing on Vimeo.

A white pickup pulls up to the Back Bar on South Market Street in downtown San Jose. A couple men hop out, pull a ladder from the truck bed and prop it up outside the storefront. They proceed to take down a black-and-white sign bearing the bar’s name. Minutes later, they hoist it into the vehicle, casually get back in the cab and drive off.

This was the shot across the bow in San Jose’s live music venue fight.

The sign’s logo—though not the sign itself—re-appeared a couple weeks ago over the back entrance of Freddie J’s, a bar on Third Street, to the confusion of a host of show-goers. The mix-up has extended online to Facebook and Yelp, where rival pages with variations on the Back Bar name show up. A new placard with a similar monochromatic scheme recently took its place at the original Back Bar, this one with geographic designation: “Back Bar SoFA.”

While there are two Back Bars for the time being, they co-exist but do not cooperate. Both clubs claim the same handle, have the same red-and-black decor and share an ambition to host the best live music in downtown. Pierre Kouchekey, a corpulent straight-talker who has a reputation for being a bit brash, owns the SoFA joint. Dave Nevin, a rail-thin upstart, is the impresario of San Jose Rock Shop.

For the last two months, the men have been jockeying for a share of the same rock enthusiast demographic while rolling out feisty marketing campaigns. Kouchekey’s bar has been advertising its battle of the bands shows, while Nevin placed a cheeky ad in Metro last week that warned readers, “Don’t be fooled, we have moved!”

“I was here first,” Kouchekey says flatly, defending his claim that the Back Bar title belongs to him and him alone. “No question. Here since 1986. Same bar. Same name. We are the original Back Bar.”

The naming rights fight has created no small amount of confusion in the local music scene.

“I don’t think there’s any point in making this negative,” says Nevin, who was one of the two individuals to remove the SoFA Back Bar sign mentioned above. “It’s just that the concept moved. We took it somewhere else and [Kouchekey] tried to sustain it.”

Silicon Valley’s housing costs and the mostly overblown perception of danger in downtown San Jose have long been at odds with a thriving music scene. The lack of venues has made it especially difficult for musicians to carve out a living. Complaints of rowdy crowds and violence in recent years led to police and code enforcement crackdowns. And in downtown, dense development means event producers like Nevin have to obey noise curfews out of courtesy for high-rise-dwelling neighbors.

“There’s a lot you’re up against if you’re trying to cultivate music here,” he says.

Kouchekey argues that he’s responsible for sustaining the city’s rock heritage, which pre-dates his ownership of the venue. His Back Bar occupies a corner of what used to be The Cactus Club, where the stage was once graced by the likes of Nirvana, Flock of Seagulls, Suicidal Tendencies and Pearl Jam before they vaulted into the national consciousness. When vice cops and the city closed down Cactus Club a dozen years ago, the city lost its revered all-ages venue.

“It was legendary,” Kouchekey says. “But the city was having trouble with clubs all over—the fights and other problems, not just here but from everywhere in downtown. And once the city’s not on your side, it’s over.”

The Cactus shuttered in 2002 over a technicality. Its liquor license required it to cook 15 pizzas a night to keep its status as a restaurant that can serve booze while admitting an all-ages crowd. Those simple terms weren’t met and Cactus Club morphed into a de facto club, giving authorities grounds to shut it down.

Kouchekey, who ran a nightclub in Fremont, stepped in a couple years later. He renovated the building, which had taken an impressive thrashing after 14 years as an unruly rock venue, and divvied it up into a few separate clubs—Beso’s in the front, Miami Beach Club in the middle and the Back Bar on the Market Street side. The focus shifted from live rock shows to house and Latin music. Eventually, Back Bar lapsed into underuse, opening for dance parties just two to three nights a week.

Last fall, Nevin approached Kouchekey about reviving the Back Bar as a live music stage. Since opening in 2008, the Rock Shop has become a successful all-ages platform for rock shows. But it lacks a liquor license, which means the live-show experience is a strictly sober affair.

“They weren’t doing much with it at the time,” Nevin says of Kouchekey’s back-of-the-club bar. “They weren’t even open most of the time.”

Nevin’s vision for the place was well received by Kouchekey.

“He said he’d bring in his own guys to work the bar, he’d bring the audience and the talent,” Kouchekey says. “I said, ‘OK, I give you the place and we can work together on this.’”

The newly envisioned Back Bar celebrated a packed re-opening in November, the day before Thanksgiving. The event doubled as a homecoming show for self-described “comedic goon-core shit punk” band Trashkannon. People knocked back beers and shots, perused an accompanying art show and listened to a few favorite local bands. At the time Nevin talked about how excited he was to add another venue to the mix, especially in the SoFA district, which he considered in dire need of an artistic revival.

But it didn’t take long for him and Kouchekey’s partnership to fall apart. Accusations flew and their vision for the place never took off.

“It was like mixing oil and water,” Nevin says.

In February, Nevin surprised Kouchekey by setting up shop behind Freddie J’s with the same name: Back Bar. The upside was location, even if the new bar lacked a stage and license to host plugged-in rock shows. Nevin’s Back Bar is straight across the street from the Rock Shop, which gives his attendees a place to grab a drink and maybe catch an acoustic set before heading across Third Street for the main act.

The Rock Shop ambitiously plans to host a summer-long music festival starting May 1. “Ninety Days of Summer” will feature 270 bands—three a night, every night, for three months—at the Sperry Station stage. Nevin says he will charge $5 at the door to pay the bands and give the city something to do every single night for three straight months.

“We got our stage all set up, a whole wall full of amps all ready to go,” Nevin says. “Our thinking was, we got this stage looking real nice, now let’s go break it. Let’s give them a show, so people can’t say there’s nothing to do in San Jose.”

Meanwhile, Kouchekey’s Back Bar is currently in the middle of a weeks-long “Rock the Block” battle of the bands. Winner takes $2,000. On the poster advertising the event, Kouchekey slapped on the old Cactus logo in an attempt, he says, to appeal to musicians’ sense of nostalgia about the place.

“I’m just trying to do my own thing and not worry about someone else,” Kouchekey says. “We have a long history here.”

To Nevin there’s no contest. “We have bigger battles to fight,” he says.

While there’s no doubt the feud rubs both men the wrong way, they agree that downtown San Jose needs more live music. If parting ways is the only way to do that, Nevin says he’s fine with that. “San Jose can use all the venues it can get,” he says.

On last year’s Long Live the Jazz, South London DJ and producer Swindle seemed to aim for the same lofty goal Daft Punk attempted with their Grammy-winning album Random Access Memories: instilling humanity in computer-driven music.

Jazz, Swindle’s full-length debut on celebrated electronic label Deep Medi, carries a pulse that leaves no doubt there’s a heart beating behind the thoughtful instrumentation and propulsive rhythms blasting from your speakers. Whether it’s the sentimental strings of “Start Me Up,” the sunny synths of album highlight “Ignition” or the fascinating build that drives closer “Do the Jazz,” it’s clear he and his unique brand of dubstep live for more than just the drop.

Swindle arrives at Back Bar Friday night supported by a host of local DJs with an ear toward the same sound, among them W1sh One, Monique Coquilla, Quixslvr and MarkPLSTK.

“Everything that album does is something I’ve been trying to say for ages, but I couldn’t find the right way to say it,” he told Australian site The Ripe. With a plethora of influences on display, the album presents an artist who aims for the future without dismissing the sounds of yesteryear.

Though first inspired by West Coast hip-hop, he admits in an interview with On the Buttons that his father led him to the funk and jazz samples that inspired the ’90s G-Funk sound. From there, he fell in love with the work of Herbie Hancock, Roy Ayers and, in particular, George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic.

Swindle’s tracks look to merge today’s EDM sonics with the undeniable funk bounce that still gets crowds to their feet. Sabotage Times may have described his sound perfectly when they proclaimed he is “taking what artists like George Clinton did in the past and re-appropriating it for the 21st century.”

In an age when DJs and producers continue to be dismissed by some simply as button pushers, Swindle’s musicality shines through. While dubstep may now be a punchline for some, his work on Long Live the Jazz shows there’s still inspiration to be found in the genre.

Fri, Mar 28, 9pm-2am
Swindle w/ W1sh One, Monique Coquilla, Quixslvr, MarkPLSTK
Back Bar
418 S. Market St, San Jose
$10

For more than two decades, rap duo Blackalicious has been synonymous with Northern California underground hip-hop. Alongside DJ Shadow, Lyrics Born and Lateef the Truthspeaker, the duo is part of the Quannum Projects collective and label (one of the most successful indie hip-hop labels to ever come out of the Bay Area).

The emcees and DJs on Quannum all have their own voice, but share a vibrant, intellectual vibe—and a strong tip of the hat to the forebearers of hip-hop.

Blackalicious’s 1999 landmark debut LP Nia was a critical and financial indie success story. It hit at the at right moment, when the audience for non-mainstream rap had grown significantly, but the Internet had not yet filled the market with a million emcee wannabes and free downloads.

But it wasn’t just a one album thing. Blackalicious, who prepare for the release of its fourth LP, Emoni this July, have that rare commodity in hip-hop: longevity.

“You have other artists that put out big records, but they’re gone in five years,” says Gift of Gab, the vocal half of Blackalicious who performs Saturday in San Jose at Back Bar. “Not to toot our own horn, but we’ve been putting out records for 20 years. There are artists that make hits, and that’s good, but then you have other artists that have to do it, who literally breathe it. These are the artists with long careers. It comes down to passion.”

Throughout Blackalicious’s run, Gift of Gab has also maintained a successful solo career, releasing albums and touring intermittently. While Blackalicious is defined by a meticulous, old-school, soul-tinged sound, Gift of Gab’s solo albums tend to go into somewhat more unusual directions, like 2004’s 4th Dimensional Rocketships Going Up, which centers around an elaborate sci-fi theme.

“Blackalicious is more like me and Xcel have a chemistry, like we kind of think the same,” Gift of Gab says. “He thinks musically like I think lyrically. It’s more of a natural chemistry whereas with other producers I have to kind of feel their vibe and feel what they’re doing beat-wise—but it’s still a chemistry.”

The new Blackalicious album is a long time coming for fans—almost a decade since the duo’s last release, 2005’s Epitaph release The Craft. They’ve never been ones to spit out half thought out albums. They’ve spent the better part of the last two years working on Emoni, even as Gift of Gab’s been busy releasing his own records. According to Gift of Gab, Emoni will feature guest verses by Lifesavas, Latyrx and will combine a sound that is soulful and epic.

“It’s hip-hop, from hardcore beats to soulful laid-back beats—and it’s definitely lyricism,” Gift of Gab says. “Art is about exploration. It’s always about creating something that hasn’t been created and going somewhere that hasn’t been gone. At the same time, it’s the Blackalicious sound.”

Gift of Gab, regardless of project, is known for his technically complex tongue-twister rhymes. His solo albums have a more varied sound because he works with different producers on songs, as opposed to Blackalicious where it’s him and Xcel. He goes where the beats take him and keeps his rhymes fluid within that.

“I try to approach it like a musician,” Gift of Gab says. “I want it to fit the mode or the energy of the beat of the horns, of the bass line. I pay attention to everything that’s going on. And for me it’s all about finding pockets to where, when you hear it, the lyrics blend in, but they almost blend in like another instrument.”

Part of what made Blackalicious resonate with people back in the 90s, with the duo’s debut EP Melodica and later with Nia, was by that point, mainstream rap had become about excess and the bling—a big departure from its raw, modest roots. Hip-hop heads gravitated to Blackalicious because it harkened back to the traditions of the genre while still pushing forward. In 2014, mainstream rap is even further from its roots than it was back in 1999.

“What we do is a different genre than most of the stuff you hear on mainstream radio,” Gift of Gab says. “I don’t listen to the radio and say, ‘I’m going to make something to counter this.’ I’m not against mainstream artists. As fans of hip-hop, we just make the kind of music we want to hear for whatever time period we’re in.”

Sat 22
Gift of Gab
Back Bar Sofa, San Jose
Sat, 9pm, $10

For more than 15 years, Orange County ska band Suburban Legends have choreographed energetic, dance-filled shows in any location imaginable, from bars to punk festivals. Tonight they stop in San Jose at the Back Bar along with pop-punk band, The Maxies.

In October, Suburban Legends released their Disney cover EP Dreams Aren’t Real, But These Songs Are. With the success of their last two Disney covers, “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” and “Under The Sea,” the band tried releasing more covers, which ended up fitting surprisingly well with their energetic, playful style.

Suburban Legends’ first few albums were focused on ska but they moved to incorporate pop punk, especially criticized by fans on their 2009 album Infectious. Though many of the songs were catchy, the album didn’t gain much support from the band’s fanbase. The move away from ska toward pop-punk seemed to have thrown fans a curve ball, which made the band realize that a pop punk sound, while it is an extra element, shouldn’t be their main focus.

“We’ve been through all those growing pains and changes and stuff over the years,” says lead singer Vince Walker. “We’re going back to what we think we did best which is just ska music the way we do it.”

Even though they’ve refocused back on their ska sound, traces of pop still linger in their songs, especially so in the Disney covers, except now newer releases seem to resonate better with both fans and the band. Using popular Disney tunes that the band and their fanbase could identify their childhood with, from a fist-pumping chant on “DuckTales” to a slightly chilly beginning retake on “Colors of the Wind,” ended up being the throwback fusion that worked in their favor.

Click here to view the embedded video.