SFBG Blogs

Reilly: The PG&E of Newspapers

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What if one corporation controls every daily newspaper in Northern
California?


By Clint Reilly

Clint Reilly, a former campaign manager who operates as a media activist and columnist, twice sued in federal court to stop the Hearst moves to newspaper monopoly in San Francisco and with Singleton in the East Bay.
As a result of a court settlement in his latest case, he writes a column that appears in Singleton papers but not in the Hearst/Chronicle. Here’s his latest column:

One utility company dominates Northern California. But what if one corporation controlled every daily newspaper?

Newspaper firms argue that monopolies – which streamline production and editorial costs – are the only way for financially beleaguered metropolitan dailies to survive.

The California Public Utilities Commission regulates PG&E for consumers. But who regulates a monopoly newspaper?

If large media conglomerates – unfettered by anti-trust laws – are given a blank check to re-engineer news-gathering in the absence of competition, the results could be grave.

Pics: Cherry Blossom Parade brings warmth and beauty

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Photos and text by Ariel Soto

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Protected from the extreme heat beneath their colorful rice paper umbrellas, Japanese beauty queens (and a few drag queens too) made their way through downtown for the Cherry Blossom Festival Grand Parade this Sunday, April 19th. Although a large highlight of the parade were the Japanese beauties, there was also a posse of anime fans and a boat filled with children waving colorful handkerchiefs while dancing to Abba. And of course the parade included several groups of highly energized taiko drummers who kept the parade going all the way to Japantown.

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Good Vibes goes green … and free!

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By Molly Freedenberg

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Fling, a G-spotter made from sustainable harvested exotic wood by Nob Essence.

Think environmentalism is sexy? Does Earth Day rev your biodiesel-fueled engine? Well, both just got a whole lot steamier, thanks to Good Vibrations.

Everyone’s favorite sex resource and retailer has just launched a new Ecorotic collection, featuring toys made for more sustainable sex. (Wonder how, exactly, sex could not be sustainable? Check out our Green City column and this blog post on the topic.) The legendary company’s new line offers all-natural and organic products (sans phthalates), durable toys that will stay out of the landfill longer, and recharcheable vibrators. And even better? For some of you, they’ll all be free.

Street Threads: Look of the Day

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SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.

Today’s Look: Tinker Bell, Market and Noe

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Tell us about your look: “Wear whatever you want. I like vintage, but I also really love high fashion. I just try to build it all together.”

Nite Trax: Pangaea

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By Marke B.

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Pangaea, younger than the Pleistocene

I’ve already freaked out to the atmospheric dubstep track “Maybes” by Mount Kimbie, and now comes along this just as lovely underground hit by London’s Pangaea, “Memories” — as remixed by Aaron Jerome, via Shook:

Sampling Gladys Knight, of course, is one of the easier ways for an earworm to burrow into my frozen heart.

Alas, though it’s on every respecting dubstep DJs playlist, “Memories” probably won’t be released singularly — groove to it, and his too brief mix for Mary Anne Hobbs’ Experimental Showcase at his MySpace.

I think that along with “Tea Leaf Dancers” by Flying Lotus — was anyone else at his amazing show at Mighty last weekend? I told you FlyLo was the smilingest DJ ever — well, we’ve got the beginnings of a lovely ambient dubstep mixtape on our hands ….

Super Ego: Fun with electro-kuduro

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By Marke B.

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Burakin’

That unflappably chipper “progressive kuduro” Portuguese foursome, Buraka Som Sistema — who I write about in my latest Super Ego clubs column — may have been joking when they said they based their truly wonderful smash “Kalemba (Wegue-Wegue)” track on a misheard lyric from an old house mix of More Kante’s late 1987 classic “Yeke Yeke.” Just for fun, here’s “Kalemba,” then the Afro Acid mix of “Yeke Yeke” (whose stock has risen enormously since techno god Richie Hawtin has claimed it as a signature tune to close out his sets), and afterwards some genuine Angolan kuduro from rapper Puto Lilas.

You can see in the Puto Lilas that the original kuduro form recounts sprawling tales of street life, something Buraka truncates to focus on a more danceable takeaway. (Incidentally, Buraka’s name comes from a misspelling of Buraca — a suburb, or frequesia, of Lisbon. And “som sistema” is also a mishearing, a bastardization, this time of “soundsystem.” Buraka’s global-minded dance floor antics really are subtexted by a kind of “map of mishearing.”)

PS: If you dig the Afro Acid, the man behind it, basically the originator of acid house, DJ Pierre, will be at Vessel on Thu/23 with his Acid Afro project, 22 years after the “Yeke Yeke” mix came out, yikey yikes!

Anyway, here we go:

Buraka Som Sistema, “Kalemba (Wegue-Wegue)”

Sonic Reducer Overage: Silversun Pickups, Bloc Party, Atmosphere, Kylesa, free shows, and so much more

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Manic panic: Silversun Pickups’ “Panic Switch.”

Lucky you, you aren’t broiling in the desert at Coachella – you’re keeping your cool in SF, and boy, you’ve got a lot to keep your bad self outta trouble. So partake in the Coachella spillover – and then some…

Intelligence
“Icky Baby” is in the eye of the beholder – and the mind of the Intelligence, those hard-driving, gristly lo-fi smarty-pants. With Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall. Fri/17, 9 p.m., $8. Annie’s Social Club, 917 Folsom, SF. (415) 974-1585.

Loop!Station
Loops, vocals, and cello are Robin Coomer’s and Sam Bass’ tools, arriving now with a new CD.
Fri/17, 8 and 10 p.m., $10. Yoshi’s, 1330 Fillmore, SF. (415) 655-5600.

Mini-Japanther: a quick, claws-out Q&A with Ian Vanek

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Kristy Geschwandtner caught up with the pun-happy, former-Brooklyn, art-punk duo Japanther‘s Ian Vanek after their show at the Hemlock on 4/13.

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SFBG: When will Japanther perform “Dump That Body in Rikki Lake” in San Francisco?
Ian Vanek: We are keen to do JAPANTHER performance pieces the world over. DTBIRL was a giant puppet rock opera we did on 06, if you didn’t know. The puppets are in art storage so anything is possible. Know any investors?

SFBG: Did Japanther really relocate to Southern California?
Vanek: Yes, we spent the winter in sunny LA and the greater west coast. Now that the spring is here it’s back to work! Basically we went homeless to tour in 09. Paying rent in a recession is so 1990s.

SFBG: Where is your favorite place to play?
Vanek: SF is up there for sure (and the whole Bay). We also love Australia, Montreal, Toronto, Juarez and of course our hometown, BROOKLYN.

SFBG: Did you ever make it to Russia to play?
Vanek: Not yet but we got as far as the official invites… We will make there in the next year for sure!

Should the state bar investigate torture lawyer Yoo?

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By Tim Redmond

Protests are going to continue at UC Berkeley over John Yoo, the lawyer who wrote memos authorizing CIA torture. I’m generally an academic-freedom purist, and I hate to suggest that anyone be fired from a university position because of his or her political statements.

On the other hand, the California bar does have rules of professional conduct, and one of them goes like this:

Rule 3-210. Advising the Violation of Law

A member shall not advise the violation of any law, rule, or ruling of a tribunal unless the member believes in good faith that such law, rule, or ruling is invalid

Would that include international law? Would that include advocating torture? I’m not a lawyer or an expert on legal ethics, but perhaps the state bar ought to look into this.

‘Domestic Vacations’: Artist Julie Blackmon gets trippy

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By Ari Messer

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Snow Day, 2008

One of my most uninteresting college professors used to insist that negatives only exist in language, but couldn’t explain what this meant. That’s funny, I thought, because I can physically feel a complete lack of interest in your class. In fact, I think you can feel it too; it’s contagious. Nonetheless, I was never bored as a child, and I’m still never bored. The boring and the uninteresting are different concepts. Julie Blackmon’s lucid, staged photographs of childhood fantasy worlds in the twilight of America are stunning for a ton of reasons, but first and foremost they get their signature bite and sting by recognizing that everyone in each scene is interested in different things. There is no sincere panorama. From the modern intrusions into Blackmon’s protoclassical, Dutch-inspired scenes — a miniature FedEx truck, Netflix mail — to trippy little things such as the almost lurid dog eyes and discarded gloves in Snow Day (2008), every person, place, and thing appears distracted by an otherworldly mission.

Adding to this sense of confused biography, Blackmon, the oldest of nine kids and now a mother of three, uses people and things from her life in her work like a novelist trussing out character relations pictorially. She reminds me of some essays by Orhan Pamuk about his daughter, Rüya. It’s not the stories themselves that are so thrilling, but the palpable feeling of love in their narrative arcs, plus the vectors they send out into Pamuk’s novels, where characters seem to have little aspects or shimmers of Rüya (even if she wasn’t born when the story was written): her young mind, her toys and delusions, the way she gazes out the window and finds it startlingly new every day.

JULIE BLACKMON: DOMESTIC VACATIONS Through May 23. Tues.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. SF Camerawork, 657 Mission, second floor, SF. (415) 512-2020. www.sfcamerawork.org

Street Threads: Look of the Day

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SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.

Today’s Look: Tim, Market and Castro

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Tell us about your look: “Cowboy drag”

What’s in a Mayor’s Office merger? Pots of money it seems

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You can’t blame folks for being confused about and/or suspicious of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s attempted merger of the Mayor’s Office of Community Investment and the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, or whatever they are calling themselves these days.

(When you call folks in the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, some identify themselves on their voice mail like so: “This is so-and-so with the Mayor’s Office.” I won’t name names, but you know who you are. And besides, this seems like an accurate description of where people feel OEWD stands in Newsom’s pantheon, no matter what the department is called.)

Following the Boards’ April 15 Budget committee hearing, it became clear for the first time since Newsom announced the merger in December, that the resulting shift in funding and staff is not a done deal, since it needs Board approval, per the city charter.

As a result of yesterday’s legislative revelations, the Board budget committee has convened a task force to examine Newsom’s proposal, which apparently, is part of his 2009-10 budget submission, which is due in June. The Board then has 30 days to decide, on the basis of these recommendations and its own impressions, whether to approve or disapprove of the merger.

Judging from the reactions and comments of Budget Chair Sup. John Avalos and Sups. David Campos, Carmen Chu, Bevan Dufty, Eric Mar and Ross Mirkarimi, approval seems far from automatic, with many folks worried that the merger is really about raiding the community development cookie jar in a time of ballooning deficits.

At yesterday hearing, OEWD deputy director Jennifer Entine Matz clarified that OEWD has not been part of the Mayor’s Office for years.

Sunday Streets corporate sponsorships, writ small

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By Steven T. Jones

Responding to criticism of the corporate sponsorships of this year’s Sunday Streets events, which begin April 26, organizers say it was a necessary evil that will barely be noticeable to attendees of the six street closure events.

“It will be the same exact Sunday Streets that you saw last year,” Wade Crowfoot, who is coordinating the event for the Mayor’s Office, told us, promising that corporate signage and promotion would be minimal. “The average person will not be aware that there’s private entities funding the direct costs.”

Crowfoot headed up fundraising for the events, tapping many of the same entities that have funded Mayor Gavin Newsom’s political ambitions, including Lennar, PG&E, WebCor Builders, Clear Channel, and Warren Hellman. But with six events costing up to $300,000, he said the grassroots help from Livable City, San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, Walk SF and other progressive groups is more important that ever.

Members of those groups love the Sunday Streets concept and recognize the city’s fiscal realities, but say this isn’t ideal. “I would have loved to have a city-sponsored event,” Livable City director Tom Radulovich told us. “It ought to be the city’s responsibility to create safe recreational spaces for people.”

It’s raining cats and dogs

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By Johnny Ray Huston

Call me corny, call me crazy, call me Anne Heche, but it’s true: it’s raining cats and dogs. There’s an influx of cat- and dog-related art and events happening in the Bay Area.

Yesterday brought “Walk the Dog Electric,” a walking event at Heaven’s Dog restaurant with dog portraits by Judy North, who currently has a show of non-canine work up at Electric Works. I like what little I’ve seen of North’s dog portraits, and hope she puts on a show of them sometime.

Judy North, Benni, 60 inches by 40 inches, watercolor
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Next week, Visual Aid gets into the act with an April 25 gallery walk that includes “Purrrrseus,” Charles Bierwirth‘s exhibition of feline oil paintings that use vintage studio portraits as source material.

Charles Bierwirth, Purrrrseus #2, 56 inches by 72 inches, oil painting
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Lastly (unless someone mentions soemthing I’ve missed), this weekend brings DogFest 2009.

A DogFest 2008 participant makes his/her voice heard. Photo by Kira Stackhouse-Fetch Photo and Aaron Anderson
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Do you look like your dog?
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On the subject of DogFest, here’s what Guardian contributor Michelle Broder Van Dyke has to say in this week’s issue:

“There should be a lot of ass-sniffing at DogFest 2009. Other things to expect: dogs howling or singing, a giant bouncy castle shaped like a doggie, dogs dressed up to look like carrots and batteries, people dressed as dogs, and of course, people who simply look like their dogs (or vice-versa). All of you who’ve spent hours patrolling the Internet studying dog and owner look-alike photos — I recommend doyoulooklikeyourdog.com — will be relieved to know that a recent study from Bath Spa University has confirmed that the lady in heels is more likely to have a poodle and the big burly man does in fact own a pit bull. Instead of checking them out on the online, encounter them in real life at this benefit for SFUSD McKinley Elementary School.”

DOGFEST 2009
Sat/19, 11 a.m.–3 p.m., free ($20 for contestants)
Duboce Park
Duboce and Noe, SF
(415) 241-6300
www.mckinleyschool.org/dogfest

Snap Sounds: Dawn of the Dead

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By Johnny Ray Huston

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Various artists
Unreleased Soundtrack Music from George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead
(Trunk, 2009)

I’ll put forth a declaration. Two of the biggest influences on neo-prog, contemporary post-rock, and 21st century cosmic disco — in other words, a lot of vital music today — are a pair of film directors: John Carpenter and Dario Argento.

Carpenter’s influence is as a musician. His thrifty yet supreme scores for Halloween (1978), Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), and others have been a major inspiration for a group such as Pittsburgh’s duo Zombi, whose new album Spirit Animal again is packed with ’70s horror keyboard sounds.

Trailer for Zombi: Dawn of the Dead (feel free to add to the comments!)

Argento’s influence is as a musical curator. And the Zombi reference extends to him, since the word zombi kicks off the full title of his Italian re-cut of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, a version that has its own auteur charms. Major among those charms is Argento’s monumental crate-digging. According to Jonny Trunk, he “added over sixty tracks to the score utilizing not only [Music] De Wolfe’s extensive library but also its subsidiary labels Rouge and Hudson.” In the process, long before reissue and archival mania, he brings viewers and listeners loony waltz music (“The Gonk”), dissonant orchestration (“Cosmogony Part 1”; “Sinistre”), dorkily polite cock-of-the-walk rock (“Cause I’m a Man,” by Peter Reno), scary transmissions from the outer space of early electronics (“Figment’s Park”), marching band mayhem (“Ragtime Razzamatazz”), Bernard Hermmann string tension (“Barrage”), and plaintive Lucio Battisti-like Italian prog instrumental interludes. Dude. No Goblin, though.

San Francisco’s 103rd Big One Commemoration

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Lee Houskeeper, press agent extraordinaire and worthy keeper of the flame for the l906 great earthquake and fire, flashes the word on this year’s celebration at 5:ll am., Saturday (April l8th), at Lotta’s Fountain Tree. See you there. B3

105 YEAR OLD ROSE CLIVER TO ATTEND 103rd ANNIVERSARY OF 1906 GREAT EARTHQUAKE & FIRE SATURDAY, APRIL 18TH

Five Public Events Will Mark San Francisco’s 103rd BIG ONE Commemoration

5:11 AM, APRIL 18th AT LOTTA’S FOUNTAIN free
6:00 AM AT THE FIRE HYDRANT THAT SAVED THE MISSION CHURCHES free
7:00 AM LEFTY O’DOUL’S SURVIVOR BREAKFAST open to the public
9:00 AM SCREENING OF “1906 ” FILM & BREAKFAST-WESTON ST. FRANCIS free
11:00 AM JOHN’s GRILL ANNUAL SURVIVOR LUNCH open to the public

5:11 AM Will Mark Exact Moment of 1906 Quake

‘Small Dances about Big Ideas’ with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange

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By Rita Felciano

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Liz Lerman is one gutsy woman. Early in her career she decided that there is more to dance than working with highly trained performers for an audience that wants to be entertained. "There was a time when people danced and the crops grew," she told a conference of arts presenters 15 years ago. "They danced, and that’s how they healed their children." For Lerman, the primary function of dance is to heal and create communities. Not only has she taken her Dance Exchange company to parks, schools, and nursing homes, she has included so-called non-dancers in her performances.

Today such efforts have become fairly commonplace, except they are usually considered ancillary outreach activities. For Lerman, making "dance of, by, and for the people" — as it has been called — is the foundation of her work. She often weaves spontaneous audience suggestions into her pieces. Older dancers (i.e., over 60) and dancers with disabilities are part of her company. And she doesn’t shrink away from big topics. In 2006 she brought Ferocious Beauty: Genome to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. A hugely ambitious collaboration between artists, scholars, and scientists, this multimedia work explored the forces that had been unleashed with the mapping of the human genome. This weekend she is returning with an equally far-reaching project. Small Dances About Big Ideas was commissioned by Harvard Law School for the 60th anniversary of the Nuremberg trials. It looks at atrocities, the law’s ability to address genocide, and our capacity to be either "bystanders" or "up-standers."

LIZ LERMAN DANCE EXCHANGE Sat/18-Sun/19, 8 p.m., $28-$36. Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, 3200 California, SF. (415) 292-1233, www.jccsf.org/arts

Snap Sounds: Don Cherry with Latif Khan

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By Johnny Ray Huston

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Don Cherry with Latif Khan

Don Cherry/Latif Khan

(Heavenly Sweetness, 2009)

Who cares about cherries in the snow — Cherry is in the air. I’m talking Don Cherry, whose spirit is casting new spells via mysterious vinyl reissues, renewed interest in Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1973 Holy Mountain — check Matt Borruso’s new art show at [2nd floor projects] — and this proto-world music collabo, a reissue from 1982 taken from a one-day recording session in 1978, with tablas great Khan.

Don Cherry in Bombay

Street Threads: Look of the Day

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SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.

Today’s Look: Liz, 18th Street and Noe

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Tell us about your look: “My style is independent. There are certain colors and shapes I really like, so then I use them and dress accordingly.”

A Hip Girl’s Guide to UTIs

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By Juliette “TMI?” Tang

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Cranberry prevention?

I am a chronic sufferer of urinary tract infections. Luckily I have a great doctor who has my local Walgreens on speed dial for the days when I call her crying into the phone for Cipro, otherwise I’d still be wailing on the floor at the moment, rather than spreading the good word on how you can avoid my predicament.

It helps knowing, in a sick way, that no matter how much pain I’m in, I’m not alone. For women, there’s no way around it: more than 50% of us will suffer the agony of a urinary tract infection at some point. And most of the time, this loathsome incursion burrows its way up our urethrae and into our lives, without warning, when we are sexually active. Urinary tract infections are the bane of an active sex life. They are the second most common type of infection in the body, and account for 10 million hospital visits each year (plus 1.5 hospitalizations, and $1 billion in health care costs). Along with unplanned pregnancy, STDs, and shameful flashbacks to what happened last Saturday at the Knock Out, UTIs are another way the universe has of zapping some of the fun out of sex. Luckily, unlike children or other STDs (and it is questionable whether a UTI even counts as an STD), a UTI doesn’t last forever — though when confronted with what feels like someone taking broken glass to the inside of your hoo-ha, forever will feel like a relative term.

Bailey murder linked to Bey IV

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The Chauncey Bailey project and the Chronicle have major breaking news on the Chauncey Bailey front. Here’s the Project’s story from this morning:

By Thomas Peele, Bob Butler and Mary Fricker, The Chauncey Bailey Project

OAKLAND — Murder charges are imminent against former Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV and another man in the August 2007 killing of journalist Chauncey Bailey under a plea deal reached with the only person arrested in the case, law enforcement and other sources said Wednesday night.

Devaughndre Broussard, who confessed to killing Bailey and later recanted, has signed an agreement to testify that Bey IV ordered the hit to silence the journalist and that Antoine Mackey, another of Bey IV followers, helped carry it out. Bey IV and Mackey would face murder charges if indicted by a grand jury.

Charges in two other killings in July 2007 that police long have suspected bakery members committed also

are likely. Broussard will admit to killing Odell Roberson and testify that Mackey shot and killed another man, Michael Wills. Both Roberson and Wills were slain in July of 2007 near San Pablo Avenue in North Oakland.

Grand jury testimony is scheduled for next week, followed by indictments of Bey and Mackey.

In exchange for testimony, Broussard would plead guilty to two counts of voluntary manslaughter and receive a set sentence of between 20 and 30 years, officials said.

Broussard would also admit to killing Roberson at Bey IV’s order. Roberson was the uncle of Alonza Phillips, who was convicted of killing Bey IV’s older brother, Antar Bey, in 2005.

Bey IV is jailed without bail on a host of unrelated charges, including kidnapping and torture. Mackey, who San Francisco police suspect was involved in multiple unsolved gang killings, is serving an unrelated burglary charge in state prison and could be released within a year.

Deputy District Attorney Christopher Lamiero said he could not confirm any details Wednesday night.

“We are very close to a point where we are going to be able to hold accountable all of those responsible for Bailey’s murder,” he said. He declined to say anything further.

Golden Animals at Thee Parkside Thursday night

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By L.C. Mason

The garage scene may be in vogue, but Golden Animals have delved even further into rock music’s roots: they’ve taken their sound back to the sun-soaked porch, giving their tunes the dreamy warmth of a wild afternoon breeze and a woolly charm as endless as the sky.

Golden Animals, captured on film by Victoria Smith
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This Salton Sea-dwelling duo has fashioned Californian blues themes of freewheeling cumulo-surrealism with just a drumset and an electric guitar, and vocalist Tommy Eisner’s uncanny Doors-ian croon is the silver lining — imagine if Jim Morrison hadn’t gotten so obsessed with the idea of Paris and had wandered into the desert like we always thought he would.

Golden Animals, “Big Red Rose”

Golden Animals, “The Steady Roller”

GOLDEN ANIMALS
with Zodiac Death Valley, the Broads
8 p.m., $6
Thee Parkside
1600 17th St., SF
(415) 252-1330
www.theeparkside.com

Dot dash — Norman McLaren and Junior Boys

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By Johnny Ray Huston

In this week’s Guardian I make reference to the influence of animator Norman McLaren on Junior Boys’ new album Begone Dull Care (Domino). The song collection takes its name from a 1949 film by McLaren, but his influence saturates the album, from its lyrical references to “Parallel Lines” to more overt aspects such as the simply handsome color chart qualities of the CD’s booklet, on through to a song titled “The Animator.” “I could draw a line without it falling off the page,” singer-lyricist Jeremy Greenspan intones wishfully there, before glowing instrumental elements build up to a swoon. Canadian pride and gay affinity live within singer-songwriter Greenspan’s tribute to the late McLaren, who drew directly onto film to create many of his best works. But could the Junior Boys’ version of Begone Dull Care use a little of McLaren’s splashy energy and humor? Though he also dipped into jazz, the music for many of his shorts has a Perrey and Kingsley quality. Here’s a sample to enjoy:

Norman McLaren, Dots

Norman McLaren, Begone Dull Care

After the jump — more McLaren films: