Aha! Steve Rhodes happened upon our Best of the Bay Local Hero “Diamond” Dave Whitaker last night, riding home on the Muni with a BOB in his lap. Precious.
Thanks for sending it our way, Steve! See more of his snaps here.
SFBG Blogs
The unabridged Santino
As promised in this week’s gargantuan Best of the Bay issue, here’s a longer Q&A with Santino Rice, who will be at the Castro Theatre this Friday. Illustrations to come tomorrow!
GUARDIAN: You once judged the Miss Universe pageant. What was that like?
SANTINO RICE: Parts of the experience – being that close to the stage, to the beautiful women and the gowns – were great. As a young boy I watched pageants, but I’m far from obsessed with them. I came in trying to be objective and pick the woman that evening that really exemplified beauty and personified what Miss Universe should be. But the year that I judged it, it seemed like more of the judges on the panel were voting for a country, not a woman. It was as if people were cheering for a soccer team. Miss Puerto Rico won, and I really felt like Miss Japan should have won.
San Francisco midnight movie memories (Extended mix)
We recently put together a cover package on midnight movies. The midnight movie scene is thriving right now, but it also has a long history — in fact some credit SF as a, if not the, birthplace of the phenom. Below you’ll find a mix of direct quotes from local cinema lovers and excerpts from books that outlines what has happened when the clock strikes twelve in the Bay Area. Go ahead and add your stories and sources to this account!
GARY MEYER The Pagoda Palace, known as the Milano in the 30s and early 40s showed Italian movies at midnight prior to World War II.
CHRISTIAN BRUNO In the mid-’60s the Presidio hosted Underground Cinema 12, a package of late-night movies that might incorporate a little [George] Kuchar, a little Busby Berkeley, and a lot of porn posing as art. It was a traveling package of films that was curated by Mike Getz out of LA, but the Presidio put its own SF (which usually meant gay) stamp on things.
GEORGE KUCHAR I remember one midnight show at a theater on upper Fillmore St. It started about 2 hours late because of projection problems. The audience didn’t seem to care and the 16mm feature didn’t care about cohesiveness of plot or theme, so it was a fun, flabby twilight zone of black & white sequences of an occult nature that suited the creatures of the night. The darkness inside and outside the theater was unable to still their noisy appreciation to the avalanche of imagery that descended from the screen like a caffeinated surge of STARBUCK sludge. The movie kept everyone awake so I guess you can consider it a HIT for that un-Godly hour and a half!
All you need is…less diapers, more navel-gazing ‘60s nostalgia
By Sean Manning
In a move that’s sure to send the diaper industry to its knees – and the general public into an era of unabashed pants-pooping – an announcement will be made at the Musicians for Peace stage at this year’s Monterey Summer of Love Festival to protest Proctor and Gamble’s use of the Beatles “All You Need Is Love” in a TV ad. Get it? Like, “Luvs.” Why? ‘Cause that’s, like, our anthem, man. Get yer stinking hands off my anthem.
What’s most surprising is that the folks at Luvs even went for a Beatles song in the first place. Those rights must’ve been expensive, right? Besides, hippie children don’t even wear diapers. They squat and bury. You know, to be closer to the earth and stuff. Why not drop a fraction of the cash and get Wayne Coyne to write a little ditty specifically for these ads? It’d probably be a real toe-tapper, and he’d name it something catchy, too, like “Overflowing Bladder Vs. the Bear Hug Stretch Diaper of Olympus Mons (Interstellar Leaky Bottom) Pt. 1.”
Oh, well. You live – you learn. You get Luvs.
The Chris Daly show
By Tim Redmond
Oh, it’s so easy to make fun of Chris Daly. You can even make fun of his beard.
Or you can watch his much-derided speech at the Board of Supervisors, and recognize that: 1. He’s not a crazed nut; his points are cogent, well argued and entirely credible, and; 2. He’s right.
Daly is right: We should spend more money on affordable housing than on new roads. We should delay hiring more cops so we can save public health nurses. (Actually, we should raise taxes hire both cops and nurses, but that’s not in the cards right now.) The fact it, the mayor’s budget priorities are all screwed up.
Yes, budgets are always a compromise, and this district-elected board has done better, consistently, than any at-large board at keeping the mayor’s budgets relatively humane. I agree that Daly does himself no favors — and more than that, I fear that he does some harm to the cause of district elections. He says he cares nothing about his own political career, that he’s not a politician (which is one of the most charming and wonderful things about him), but he’s also part of a movement, and district elections is absolutely, utterly critical to the future of progressive politics in this city, and his fits of temper make the whole board look bad, and that helps the mayor’s candidates for supervisor and the people who would like to get rid of district elections altogether.
I think Daly needs to stop giving his enemies so much ammunition. There’s a lot more at stake here than one budget or one person’s future.
Still, I keep watching that speech, and I keep saying:
Shit, on the issues, the guy is right.
New redevelopment chief
By Tim Redmond
Lots of talk about who the new SF Redevelopment Agency chief will be after Marcia Rosen announced (in terse terms) her resignation, which sounds awfully suspect. (Whenever you hear “resigned to pursue new opportunities” think: Canned for political reasons.)
One persistent rumor is that Mayor Newsom wants an African American to head Redevelopment, at a time when the agency is under fire in Bayview- Hunters Point. Some folks on the Wall suggest Sophie Maxwell, but please: Running an agency isn’t her thing.
We shall see.
Farewell, precious angel
You were just too … something … to keep out of heaven…..
Guess Who has Ed Jew’s Number(s)…?
By Sarah Phelan
…mayoral candidate Grasshopper Alec Kaplan, that’s who!
Grasshopper pictured, playing guitar atop his taxi cab, which is wheelchair accessible, just in case you’re wondering.
Just when you think things couldn’t get worse for beleaguered “District 4” supervisor Ed Jew, someone goes and unscrews the numbers from his house at 2450 28th Avenue.
That screwdriver-wielding someone is mayoral candidate and taxi driver Grasshopper Alec Kaplan, who told us he removed the numbers at 6:30 AM, July 23, “after ringing the doorbell on three separate occasions at the house where Jew doesn’t live.”
“I wanted to talk to Jew about whether he’d let me live in the house,” said Kaplan, explaining that he’s homeless and asked three longtime neighbors of 2450 28th Avenue if they’d seen Jew.
“None of them ever had, except for one who said, he’d only seen him once in the last few weeks,” says Kaplan, who sleeps in his taxi, which is painted purple with green grasshoppers, and is running for mayor, so he, “can have a place to live.”
Noting that in addition to a house in the Sunset District, Jew also has a taxi medallion, Kaplan asks “Do you know anyone who has ever been transported in Ed Jew’s cab?” As it happens, the medallion in question belongs to Ed Jew’s family, and the Taxi Commission is already reviewing the matter of medallion ownership, in general, rather than yet another Jew-centric investigation.
TerrorBird getdown
Hey Everyone, sorry.. I copy and pasted the info from email i sent diane. but all the show info is still good. hope to see you nex week. hope life is amazin! david
Update!!!
– Boombip Band Live!
– Live Apparence from Casual (Hieroglyphics Oakland)
– Daddy Kev (Alphapup’s President)
– CD Giveaways
– Free Air!!
July 28th, 2007 – San Francisco CA
@ Minna Gallery – 111 Minna St.
$10, 21+
TERRORBIRD ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY BLOW OUT &
DALY CITY RECORDS THRIPLE Ds RECORD RELEASE PARTY
SPONSORED BY XLR8R
*2 Rooms of Madness *
Boom Bip (Lex), Mochipet (Daly City) + Mike Boo (Alpha Pup) + Mike Reed
Daedelus (Ninja Tune), Jel (Anticon), The Bad Hand (Daly City)
Book Rate DJs: Tin Cup & Lazy Brow (Terrorbird), Panther (Fryk Beat),
Dopestyles123 (Daly City) + Yoko Solo (Quake Trap), Human Beings
Copy (Audio Dregs), Meanest Man Contest (Sneakmove)
Bloodysnowman (Daly City), Puzzle (Daly City), Build128 (Girlfight)
+ Very Special Guests…
Flyers:
http://www.dalycityrecords.com/myspace/dalycity_terrorbird_back.jpg
http://www.dalycityrecords.com/myspace/dalycity_terrorbird_front.jpg
Presale Tix:
http://www.dalycityrecords.com
—
David Wang
Mochipet
http://www.mochipet.com
Daly City Records
http://www.dalycityrecords.com
Portland’s got yer Dirty Mittens…
Set off the Portland twee indie explosion with Dirty Mittens, Bustling Townships, and Eskimo and Sons. The Portlanders head into town whispery song stylings, the fairy-tale folk, and the shambolic sing-alongs respectively.
Have signage, will tour: Dirty Mittens challenge you to a staring contest.
The crafty Northwesterners settle down at the Red Vic series on Wednesday, July 25, 7 p.m. at the Red Victorian Peace Cafe, 1665 Haight, SF. And dang, it’s free, y’all.
BoBs over Bay-ghdad: Best of the Boy… I mean, bands
By Robert Bergin
Ghost Boobs, kids love ’em! Gravy Train!!!! strikes a munchy pose. Courtesy of nyc.metblogs.com.
Perhaps you’ve noticed a lot more bated breath among your neighbors. More expectant glances at calendars and watches, perhaps. Well, there’s a logical explanation for all that anticipation. The Guardian‘s “Best of the Bay” issue drops next week.
But you can’t wait! You’ve gotta have those value judgments! In your hands! In your computer’s hands! In your brain! Now!
Enter the RIPs (Rejected Intern Pitches). I’d say something like, “Consider this an appetizer to next Wednesday’s main course,” but I think you and I both know this is just a silly blog post filled with random stuff. So on with the awards!
Best Band of All Fucking Time: Fall Out Boy, no duh. Or should I say…Fall Out BAY. Oooohhhh.
Best Shamelessly Hip Music Video that You Are Watching While Living in the Bay:
Best Initiation into Gravy Train!!!! culture:
I think I’m a little too much of a corn-fed heteronormative frat boy to truly appreciate this band. Not that I actively dislike them or anything: hypersex just isn’t really my thing. Still, even though I went to their Bottom of the Hill show a couple weeks ago mostly to check out the opener, Experimental Dental School, I thought it’d be interesting to bring along a companion that didn’t know anything about the headliner.
So I sent an e-mail to my fraternity’s listserve saying I had an extra ticket, and I get a response from a friend we’ll call Biff. Biff, in addition to having a heart of gold, fulfills a few of the requisite external qualities of your prototypical frat boy: sandals, muscles, a strong affinity for Sublime, et cetera. I told him it’d be fun and internally prepared myself for a night of awkward vibes and incredulously raised eyebrows.
Of course, we weren’t even there five minutes before I came back from the bathroom to find Biff slovenly making out with some girl in a velvet dress in the middle of an already sexed-up crowd. (I’m not sure what was better or worse, the instance itself or his shrugging explanation, “She didn’t even give me her name. She just said ‘I’m from LA.’”). Sleazy? Yeah, but what’s the point in turning your nose up at smutty thrillseekers? Fiery loins…just another thing Gravy Train!!!! and my fraternity have in common.
(Ed.: And if you’re curious about that sexy GT, check out the cute animated video for “Burger Baby.”
Electro-fied
By Molly Freedenberg
Blame it on my newish obsession with Chromeo, but this punk and rock diehard is suddenly getting all excited about electropop. I suppose it was really only a matter of time, considering I grew up doing kick-ball-changes to Marky Mark (and his Funky Bunch), and have been indoctrinated into the world of house and breaks by six years of Burning Man – and what is electropop if not the marriage of those two danceable genres? Either way, after weeks of devotion to Black Tuesdays (Cutiepie DJ Lance spinning Minor Threat and Joy Divison at Delirium), suddenly the following events are what have my motor running (or my turntable spinning?) this week:
Ratatat and Devlin&Darko
Leave it to the culturally savvy folks at Flavorpill to get some badass acts for their anniversary party. Tonight’s shindig at Mighty features Brooklyn duo Ratatat, who have been opening for Daft Punk in Europe, and Devlin&Darko, who have somehow managed to make Paul Simon’s 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover a dance anthem.
Pitchfork Music Festival Day 3: Just try keeping the Lidell on De La Soul
By K. Tighe
Jamie Lidell rocks the synthetics. All photos by K. Tighe.
Sunlight danced off of Jamie Lidell’s Mylar-embellished headpiece as the Cambridge-born genre-bender yucked it up like only a Brit can. When not encased within his make-shift mechanical perch, Lidell contorted around the stage in a gold-embossed smoking jacket, giving the impression that this fringe-hugging impresario was something of an electro-soul shaman. An old hand at manipulating peripheral noise elements, Lidell pulls from an arsenal that includes a Theremin. He loops and layers. There was even a brief cameo by a handheld gong, though the fire power to reckon with is an achingly soulful, and relentlessly funk-filled croon.
Lidell was proof positive that the solo performers at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival lineup intended to shake things up. Still, no one was more vulnerable on stage than Stephen Malkmus. The former Pavement frontperson didn’t have any equipment to hide behind. His was a simple equation: a man, a guitar, the masses. It was a throwback to what festivals used to mean, back in the hippie days when an acoustic guitar could hit harder than a backline full of Marshall stacks. Malkmus delivered a stunning, if sparse, performance that included several Pavement songs. At the end of his set, he was even joined on drums by former Pavement drummer Bob Nastanovich.
Dressed for indie success: Kevin Barnes of Of Montreal.
It’s not a stretch to assume that Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes whiled away many childhood hours playing dress up and performing in front of a mirror. The anti-glam Abba-fetishists served up gimmick after sparkling gimmick, and the crowd ate it all up. A guitarist molting hot-pink wings, an acrobatic ninja flipping around the stage, and the trademark stilts that have brought many an Of Montreal up to the – ahem – next level filled out a disco-perverted performance. Barnes’s frequent costume changes culminated in a risqué ensemble of black-leather corsetry that elicited an expected chorus of whistles and shrieks from a starry-eyed audience. The whimsical Georgia group finished with a flourish: an encore of the Kinks “All Day and All of the Night” that sent the crowd into the requisite hysterics.
“Think pink!” think Of Montreal.
Across the park, the New Pornographers closed out the Connector Stage with their token take on power-pop. Ingratiating themselves to longtime fans by throwing in plenty of tracks from their upcoming album, Challenger (due in August on Matador), the Pornographers did not disappoint.
When the sun started to go down, the vendors were busy packing up, the crew was beginning to strike equipment, and the toilet paper that had been conspicuously absent from the port-a-johns revealed to have been strewn about the now-empty lawns in front of the Connector and Balance stages, I began to wonder how the hell the Pitchfork peeps think they can wrap this thing up. Seventeen thousand people who have just had the shit rocked out of them are clustered around the Aluminum Stage – the gigantic AV screens are all running the same anticipatory feed, and the act to close this fest better damn well live up to the hype.
The Pitchfork crowd was utterly smitten with De La Soul.
Enter De La Soul. Wait, sorry, enter De La Fucking Soul! This comes as a booking no-brainer in hindsight. How do you impress hoards of elitist music-enthusiasts when you’ve spent three days hiking up the precedent? By booking a band that doesn’t care if it impresses anyone. By booking De La Fucking Soul to get on stage, have a good time, and remind everyone about what sparked that passion for music in the first place. The set largely consisted of well-worn tracks from 1989’s 3 Feet High and Rising, and the minute that DJ Maseo started bouncing around stage, all arms were in the air bouncing along with him. With Posdnuos and Trugoy egging everyone on from behind their self-inverted mics, no one stood a chance.
The boys starting chiding each other – quipping about their ages between songs, throwing out sarcastic jabs at A Tribe Called Quest – and it was clear that there was no agenda afoot, save rocking the fuck out of everyone in earshot. The sound-related shortcomings that had been plaguing every stage all weekend must have sparked some kind of karmic fury, because De La Soul was working at volumes that hadn’t been present all weekend.
Lo, De La.
When DJ Maseo stopped scratching and announced that, because of his age, he could no longer hold his bladder and had to take a bathroom break, the crowd didn’t seem to get the joke. Then Maseo announced that he had a replacement in mind and brought out Prince Paul – iconic hip-hop legend and producer of 3 Feet High and Rising – and the audience went positively ape. Paul’s appearance prompted dozen of normally cooler-than-thou VIP laminate holders to jump the fence into the All Access area and shake it with the stagehands.
During all the commotion, Trugoy came to the side of the stage to ask the hundreds of press, agents, publicists, and artists, “What are you guys supposed to be?” With the over-eager shout of “VIP” he got in response, he laughed into his mic, and repeated it to thousands in front of the stage, which was, of course, answered by a chorus of boos and hisses. “We’re just gonna call you guys special fans over here. Now, we know you’re the movers and shakers of the industry – but these…,” he said, gesturing to the masses, “…these are the hip-hop people.” For a brief moment, that old rock ‘n’ roll adage – you know, we’ve got the amps; you’ve got the numbers – took over, as the general admission audience screamed their heads off.
Tweet! Makin’ out the Bird and the Bee
By Todd Lavoie
Hey, swingers! Dolls! Diggin’ those retro-futuristic sounds again, aren’t you? I know, I know: ain’t nothin’ better for sipping Mai Tais on the patio, daddy-o, than a few shakes and shimmies of an electro-samba graced by a cool, cool kitten cooing from the soft belly of outer space, is there? Now that I’ve bent your ear, how about throwing in a little Frenchified pop and maybe a sprinkle of Martin Denny exotica, while we’re at it? Sounds like a classy joint, doesn’t it?
Well, good news, space age bachelors and bachelorettes: on Thursday, July 19, at the Independent, you can indulge all of your tiki bar dreams and bossa nova fantasies, thanks to the smooth stylings of LA’s finest ambassadors of pop sophistication, the Bird and the Bee. Singer-songwriter Inara George (daughter of the late, great Little Feat funkster Lowell George) and multi-instrumentalist wizard Greg Kurstin – the respective winged creatures in question, I’d reckon – whip up a potent cocktail of late ’50s/early ’60s poolside elegance, Left Bank yeh-yeh girl intemperance, and Tropicalia free-wheeling, all served up in a postmodern update of that era’s kooky visions of a 21st century, which seemed so far away at the time.
Best of all, the duo doesn’t drown it all in irony, either! Sure, the lyrics contain a few knowing winks, but amongst the snarky irreverence – look to their bouncy bout of whimsy entitled “Fucking Boyfriend” for proof – are moments of homage so sincere that I can’t help but imagine the pair lounging around in their Ray & Charles Eames furniture, feet up, drink in hand.
Ed Jew and the never-ending residency saga
By Sarah Phelan
Contrary to appearances, Ed Jew is not the supervisor for Chinatown/Burlingame.
Another missive from Ed Jew’s attorney, Steven F. Gruel.
This time following his July 16 arraignment in San Francisco Superior court on the District Attorney’s charges. And this time insisting that, contrary to City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s “speculation and argument that the criminal proceedings will be protracted, Supervisor Jew did NOT waive his rights to a speedy trial.”
Hey, with Gruel anticipating a trial before mid-October, maybe Jew will inspire a whole new category of Halloween costumes. Like a cardboard cutout of Jew standing outside his D4 house.
Seeing Red
By Sarah Phelan
Red is for children: a color coded map shows where most kids (the red patches) now live in the City,
For all the crowing about the passage of Newsom’s budget (we’ll get to that soon), the progressive majority remains in the driving seat when it comes to setting priorities and making decisions at City Hall.
Consider two key votes that the progressives won at yesterday’s Board of Supervisors’ meeting.
First, Sups. Aaron Peskin, Chris Daly, Tom Ammiano, Jake McGoldrick, Ross Mirkarimi and Geraldo Sandoval voted for a charter amendment that will require the mayor to show up for monthly policy discussions at the Board. Their vote gives San Francisco residents the opportunity to clarify whether they really want to require that a monthly mayoral appearance be mandatory for anyone and everyone who holds the Mayor’s job.
In case you thought you’d already voted for this requirement last fall, the answer is, yes and no.
In 2006, 56.36 percent of San Francisco voters approved Measure I. But this was only a policy statement that asked, but did not demand, that the Mayor attend. And shortly after Prop. I passed, and with the progressives on the Board driving the policy on all the important issues of the day, like more foot patrol, more access to health care and a ban on plastic bag, Newsom sidestepped the will of the people, by declaring that he’d hold townhall meetings, instead.
Lest you are thinking, well, couldn’t the Board simply show up to these town halls and discuss policy there, the answer is, No, actually, they can’t. At least not without being guilty of massive violations of the Brown Act.
We got the (electro)funk: Talking with Chromeo’s Dave-1
By Molly Freedenberg
You’d think a writer living in Tech Central and a musician who works almost exclusively with electronics would be able to figure out how to have an international conversation. But somehow, Chromeo’s Dave-1 (who was in London at the time) and I couldn’t get that archaic piece of equipment (you know, the telephone) to work for us. So we turned to ye olde computer. Below is the transcript of our email interview, emoticons and all (who knew Dave-1 uses smilies?). I’ll let y’all know if we actually talk face to face after their show at Mezzanine on Monday. 
San Francisco Bay Guardian: So first of all, I love the new album. How was making this one different from making the first?
Dave Macklovitch: Well we took a while because we really wanted to come up with the catchiest songs. We took our time. We wanted this to be a more sophisticated record. We polished the arrangements, the mix too. We got Philippe Zdar to mix it, actually. And then it was also really important for us to put the emphasis on the lyrics this time around. So you know, that explains everything from “Bonafied” to “Momma’s Boy”…
SFBG:I know you didn’t know much about electronic music when you formed Chromeo. Is that still true? Either way, who’s been influencing you (or who have you been excited about listening to) in the past few years?
DM: I mean, now we’re up on all that stuff. All the Parisian stuff, London cats like Switch and Sinden, German cats like Digitalism and Boys Noize, we like all that. But we don’t come from that world. We discovered this through Chromeo and everyone who’s supported us over the years…
Pitchfork Music Festival Day 2: Life-changing moments with Yoko Ono, Cat Power, Dan Deacon, Battles, Girl Talk…
By K. Tighe
The power of Cat Power. All photos by K. Tighe.
To kick-off the Pitchfork festivities on Saturday, July 14, I decided to check in with some Bay Area denizens.
I’d been hearing excited murmurings about cheap subscriptions to Ready Made magazine, so I headed over to see how the Berkeley publication was faring in the Chicago heat. The corner booth was swarmed with people eager for a turn at custom-designing their own organic T-shirts. Mike Senese, the magazine’s product and online manager, made the trip out from California to organize a crew of local volunteers. This was Ready Made‘s second year at Pitchfork, and Senese explained that they’ve decided to offer festival-goers the chance to get a year’s subscription for only $5. It’s a huge hit. According to Senese, the booth has been constantly busy between the T-shirt making and subscription-peddling — he’s barely had time to see any of the bands.
Ready Made’s Mike Senese spreads the T-shirt-making word.
Next I checked in with Cory Brown, founder of Emeryville’s Absolutely Kosher Records. Brown and his two little nephews were busy doling out T-shirts and albums to ecstatic festival-goers, but he managed to find a few minutes to tell me that all of the AK bands — across the board — are selling really well. At the fest for a third year, the AK was now joined by hoards of other small imprints from coast to coast in the WLUW Record Fair tent.
Absolutely Kosher honcho Cory Brown chillin’ with chillen.
Later I headed over to the FlatStock Poster Convention on the other side of the park to check in with Terrance Ryan, a.k.a., Lil Tuffy, San Francisco’s premier rock poster artist. Tuffy told me he was doing well, selling many posters, and having fun. A quick look around at the other vendors — who are all extraordinary — solidifies in my mind that SF does it better: Lil Tuffy’s prints were one of the highpoints of the convention for me.
Lil Tuffy peddles his posters.
Finally it’s time to take in some music. I head over to the Aluminum Stage, where Grizzly Bear is about 10 minutes into their set. Having been underwhelmed by the band in the past, I wasn’t really expecting much from their mid-afternoon slot. With a sweeping, ethereal momentum that seemed to sprout out of some deep flirtation with rock opera, the Brooklyn quartet positively thrived in the festival environment. The drummer seemed to be working on about 13 internal metronomes, anchoring a set list largely pulled from their 2006 album, Yellow House. A flourish of delicate melodies were layered over the driving rhythm, and the whole thing sounded like an experiment in wrangling chaos. The end result was so charged, I’m surprised the band didn’t collapse after the final song. I suspect they at least had to go bury their feet in the earth of Union Park to ground themselves after such a stellar showing.
The sassy genre-spanning spastics Battles christened the cooling weather with an unabashedly raucous shit storm. Pulsing with hipster smugness, the New York prog-electro-funk-metal-kitchen-sink group pounded through an unsurprisingly mind-melting set to an audience that just couldn’t get enough. Sewn into the fabric of Battles’ success is their ability to produce sound that seems to shed irony. Indeed, the festival crowd was coated with a heavy gloss of the stuff, igniting a theme of “Fuck being cool — let’s just dance!” for the duration of the evening.
Why public broadband works
By Tim Redmond
I just came across this wonderful report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance called “Localizing the Internet: Five ways Public Ownership Solves the Local Broadband Problem.” The folks at the Institute, which does great work, argue (as we have) that broadband is essential municipal infrastructure. They also say locally owned broadband is good for the economy. All the supervisors should read this before they vote to give it all away to Earthlink.
Earthquakes and nukes
By Tim Redmond
Back in the early 1980s, San Francisco’s Public Media Center did a campaign against PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear plant with a slogan that read:
“A nuclear plant on an earthquake fault? PG&E is making the mistake of our lives.”
You see, Diablo’s built right smack atop the active Hosgri Fault.
PG&E has always insisted that there’s no problem, that the plant is perfectly safe, that even a severe quake wouldn’t cause any problems.
I’m sure the folks at Tokyo Electric Power said the same thing.
Except that their nuke just spilled some radioactive shit into the ocean, had to be shut down and is sparking calls for better nuclear safety. In fact, Japan, which has invested heavily in nukes, is starting to have some second thoughts.
I wonder what all the pro-nukers will be saying after the inevitable big quake hits San Luis Obispo and Diablo becomes a massive safety hazard. Maybe they’ll realize they made the mistake of our lives.
Some impertinent questions for Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein
By Bruce B. Brugmann
Chronicle Editor Phil Bronstein says the hope to save the Chronicle from its staggering weekly losses is more local news.
So, after the Chronicle once again blacked out coverage of the “Free Carolyn Knee” ethics case,
I sent over some impertinent questions to him (with copies to the Chronicle reporters and editors who ought to be allowed the cover the story).
Why did the Chronicle not cover the Carolyn Knee/Ethics Commission story and why does the Chronicle not cover the regular doings of the
Sunshine Task Force and the Ethics Commission? I am also curious why the Chronicle still does not cover the PG&E/City Hall/Raker Act scandal story and all of its ramifications, including the Carolyn Knee story as to what happened to the treasurer of the public power campaign against PG&E. Why hasn’t the Chronicle followed up the excellent stories that Susan Sward and Chuck Finnie did on the PG&E scandal only a few years ago.
No answer at blogtime. The point for Phil and the Chronicle: you can’t trumpet local news when you can’t cover the angles of the biggest urban scandal in U.S. history. Much more to come, B3
Harry Potter and the Just How Deathly Are We Talking?
By Gazelle Emami
While it’s the most highly anticipated event of the summer, the release of the seventh and final installment in the Harry Potter series on July 21 is hardly just another summer spectacle. Twelve years ago, J.K. Rowling was scribbling away in cafes, creating one of the most widely beloved characters of all time. Now, about a decade since Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone’s release, we’ve finally hit the end of this larger-than-life reading marathon. And Harry deserves a little glory to usher in his final stand. 
With the build-up reaching its final, condensed moments, the Bay Area is swarming with Harry Potter release parties the night before—because trying to sleep on the eve of a Harry Potter release is worse than Christmas Eve when you’re five. Fortunately, Harry Potter is better than Santa and can be in our hands at the stroke of midnight. What follows is a list of many midnight parties around the Bay Area. It is at these parties that readers will devotedly sport colors that pledge their allegiance to Gryffindor or Slytherin, boast their knowledge in trivia games, and raise their glasses of Butterbeer in support of our favorite hero, all just hours before the gratifying sound of ripping cardboard signals the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I wouldn’t be surprised if the world just implodes in anticipation. Do I sound a little like a crazed fan? Maybe because I am.
Are Migden’s billboards illegal?
(Graphic from Calitics)
By Tim Redmond
Lawyers hired by the state Senate campaign of Assembly member Mark Leno have concluded that those big, colorful billboards promoting Carole Migden all over town are in fact an illegal campaign contribution from Clear Channel Corp. That was based in part on my blog of a few days ago, quoting Migden as saying that Clear Channel paid for the billboards but that her campaign had paid for the printing.
Check out the memo here.
Well, the plot thickens: I just talked to Richie Ross, Migden’s campaign manager, who says the senator was wrong: The Migden campaign never paid for printing anything related to the billboards. The boards, he insisted, were and are an independent issue-advocacy expenditure on the part of Clear Channel.
Well: My understanding is that independent means no co-ordination with the campaign in question, and it appears there was at least some connection here. Ross says he knew the billboards were going to go up, and that he talked to Colbruno prior to the launch. “I called him and said, ‘Michael, walk me through the law [on independent expenditures and issue-advocacy ads].’ He explained it, and I said okay.”
Ross acknowledged that the billboards use the images and graphics from Migden’s web site, but insisted that the material “was all publicly available.”
No question: The graphics on the boards and on Migden’s website are almost identical.
Now: I’m not a techie by any stretch, but I do have some modest experience in print and web media, and I can say that I think it would be pretty hard to download a four-inch graphic from a website and blow it up to the size of a giant billboard without some nasty issues of resolution. If I were going to print the big ol’ plastic sheets that got glued to these billboards, I would have sought an original, high-res copy of the graphics, which could only have come from the Migden campaign.
But at this point, we don’t know what really happened, since there is no written disclosure anywhere. And that’s not good.
That’s Pitchfork Music Festival you’re soaking in!
By K. Tighe
The sweet Chicago sky. All photos by K. Tighe.
When the folks at Pitchfork decided to add an extra day to this year’s festivities, I doubt anyone suspected this. As the lineup for the July 13 kick-off evening was announced, jaws across the blogosphere dropped. In collaboration with All Tomorrow’s Parties/Don’t Look Back, Pitchfork Music Festival was packed with ringers: Slint, GZA, and Sonic Youth all performing their most important albums in their entirety on the same soil, in Chicago’s beautiful Union Park.
As I walked through the press gate of the festival an hour before the first band was set to begin, a lingering air of “Holy shit, are we really going to see this tonight?” hovered above the crowd. The lawn in front of the Connector Stage was full with people chomping at the bit to see Slint open the event. Across the park, the Sears Tower loomed large behind the Aluminum Stage, where crowds were already busy defending prime spots for later performances from GZA and Sonic Youth.
Knowing it would be awhile before any rock began to ensue, I decided to explore the community that had sprouted for the weekend.
‘Nuff said.
It seems that the only presidential candidate with guts enough to rock the vote — or should we say Barack the vote? — was Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Sure, there might be a little hometown heroism explaining his booth, located directly across from a satellite Whole Foods Market doling out bento boxes to hungry, hungry hipsters. Volunteers were busy spreading the Obama love, signing people up to vote, and selling some kick-ass Obama ’08 merchandise.
A conversation about Barack always makes me feel warm and fuzzy — as does shopping for records, so I high-tailed it over to the WLUW Record Fair. A bit overwhelming, the record fair is one of the largest structures on the grounds. It’s no Amoeba, but the fair does offer a pretty good selection of new and used vinyl, and a great way to kill time between sets. Adjacent to the vinyl-junkie fix, is the Department Clothing and Crafts fair. A bunch of Chicago crafters set up booths selling various handmade wares. Festival-goers were snatching up jewelry, iPod-holders, and obligatory mini-buttons. I noticed that someone had figured out how to make fruit bowls out of melted records, which left me pretty hot and bothered for a second.
Next, it was time to head over to the Connector Stage to hear Slint play their 1991 album **Spiderland** live. Slint seems like an unusual choice to kick off such a festival: the minimalist Louisville rock band packs a lot of punch, but it’s the low-key kind. No danger of the Kool-Aid man bursting through a wall at any point during their set. In addition, the idea of hearing the highly influential **Spiderland** in stark daylight is a bit confusing. Most people in the crowd are probably accustomed to crouching in the fetal position in the corner of a dark room, breaking the pose only to flip the record. When singer-guitarist Brian McMahan took the stage in wraparound sunglasses, some preconceptions were shattered. When the band played the Great American Music Hall last year, they set a pretty high precedent for themselves.
Slint glints like crazy, opening the Pitchfork fest.
As they took the stage on July 13, people cheered like crazy, and the guy in front of me almost had a heart attack. The set was very casual, and the crowd went into hysterics during every break between songs. By the time McMahan began howling, “I miss you,” at the end of “Good Morning Captain,” it became clear why **Spiderland** has remained a critic’s darling for so many years — a powerful, beautiful album that hasn’t lost one iota of its luster. Today, it positively glimmered under the Chicago sun.