By Tim Redmond
What happens when the people who run the SF Weekly take over a paper in Seattle? It’s not pretty. No more endorsements, no more politics, half the staff flees … Too bad for Seattle.
SFBG Blogs
Fashion Week for the fierce, pt I: Yao-za!
Fab intern K. Tighe went to Thursday’s Fashion Week emerging designers extravaganza, here’s the take:
What to wear? The big question. When I decided to attend the 3rd Annual San Francisco Fashion Week, I didn’t really think it through. You see, I’m not what one might call a “fashionable” person. Oh, I’ve got style for miles and miles — but trendy I am not. I’ve been wearing a uniform of jeans, cowboy boots and free band swag t-shirts for years — and the thought of dressing up for such an event frankly turns my stomach a little. So I did what any self-respecting journalist does in dicey situations such as these — I put on a sweater. I figure at the very least I can start a trend — the “dude ranch rocker on the slopes” look is gonna be all over the Milan runways next year, you watch.
Makeup!!!
I head to the Galleria — roughly 15th & Kansas, that highly fashionable district located just between the Mission and Potrero Hill — hoping the walk will open my mind a little. SF’s Fashion Week is not modeled after the stuff of New York and Paris events — tonight will focus on emerging local designers, and that is a cause I can get behind. I hope.
Eureka! There’s more Eurekaism!
What happens to the news when the conglomerati corner the Bay Area newspaper market
By Bruce B. Brugmann (B3)
As you will remember from my last blog, I unveiled the term Eurekaism to replace the term Afghanistanism for the bad habit of many daily papers to cover stories in Eureka, but not the local big scandal or embarrassing stories in their hometowns.
Well, as I was pedaling away this morning on my cardio machine at the World Gym,
I turned as usual in the Hearst-owned Chronicle to find the day’s real Eureka style news: the second page of the business section under the Daily Digest section. Today, surprise, surprise, the Eureka story was below the fold with a nicely disguised head that read: “State won’t challenge newspaper sale.”
Eureka! There was a rummy little five paragraph story that announced a major new development in the major running story of the emerging new regional media megaconglomerate (Hearst/MediaNews Group/Singleton/Gannett/Stephens/McClatchy). The development: Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer announced that his office will not take antitrust action over the McClatchy sale of the San Jose Mercury-News and Contra Costa Times to Singleton, but that he would investigate a three-way transaction between the companies and Hearst. The story quoted Lockyer as saying without blushing in his standard line to remove-all-pebbles-from-any-impending consolidation: “It does not appear that these transactions will result in a substantial reduction in competition,” though most everyone in the Bay Area knows otherwise. It is a major story that ought to be regularly covered on the front pages of all the papers, with context, perspective, outside expert opinion, mainstreet commentary, and some tough questions of Lockyer. But the megaconglomerate is either censoring, trivializing or burying the story with axe and shovel.
For example, the Chronicle story was not a Chronicle story, but a Reuters wire service story datelined New York (we pulled down the Reuters story from the Reuters website.) The difference between the Reuters and Chronicle stories was telling: Reuters had a better head, “California Oks McClatchy-MediaNews paper sale,” while the Chronicle left out the local Hearst angle. The Chronicle also cut out five key paragraphs from the Reuters story, notably three that made some embarrassing points:
“The move would result in MediaNews owning most of the largest dailies in the area, including the Oakland Tribune. Hearst owns the San Francisco Chronicle.
“San Francisco-based real estate investor Clint Reilly had filed an injunction to halt McClatchy’s sale of San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times and Monterey Herald.
“He argued the sale would put all three California in a partnership controlled by MediaNews and including Gannett Co. Inc. and privately held Stephens Media Group, therefore reducing competition and harm (sic) advertisers and readers…”
Meanwhile, on the Contra Costa Times, George Avalos wrote a misleading three paragraph story that the “state decision clears away the final regulatory impediment to the MediaNews purchase of the Bay Area papers.” No mention of the continuing Hearst/Singleton investigation nor the
Reilly suit.
Down at the Mercury-News, an unbylined story buried the AG’s statement in the last two paragraphs of a five paragraph story trumpeting the new four man team that will run the nation’s “4th biggest newspaper chain.” No mention of the Reilly suit nor the continuing Hearst investigation.
And what happens on a paper not owned by any of the conglomerati? The headline on the East Bay Business Times got it right: “Attorney General continues to look at Hearst deal.”
I repeat: show me a paper owned by any of the Hearst/MediaNews/Singleton/Gannett/Stephens/McClatchy papers that is really covering the story. Alas, the links below indicate the pattern of how badly they are covering the story. (At the time of this writing, we couldn’t find the Hearst story on the Chronicle website.)
Coming next: Let’s play Eureka!! B3
Doggie do
Bring your favorite pooch (even if he regularly snacks on your US Weekly — dude, a tooth mark right through Jennifer Aniston’s face!) to Dolores Park tomorrow for SF Dog‘s “Dog Days of August” event.
According to the event website, there’ll be “dog arts and crafts” (presumably, made by humans with dog motifs, not actual arts and crafts made by dogs), a doggie fashion show (so Project Runway!), and a screening of Best in Show hosted by the canine-friendly San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation.
UPDATE! Pics from the event after the jump.
Democratic madness
By Tim Redmond
The Democratic County Central Committee can sometimes be a zoo, but it’s no joke: The endorsement of the panel gives tremendous credibility to local candidates and issues, since it represents the official position of the San Francisco Democratic Party. The Aug. 21st meeting was particularly crazy; Zak Szymanski has a good report in the BAR on the committee’s almost non-endorsement of Community College Board member Lawrence Wong, who got blasted for appearing at a hotel that was under union boycott. That’s a problem for any politician — and although Wong apologized over and over again, the labor follks on the committee were having none of it.
In the end, Wong squeaked to an endorsement, which is wrong: There’s a long list of reasons not to support Wong (starting with his support for the smelly deal that shifted bond money from a performing arts center to a new gym that will be used in part by a private school nearby).
And it was wrong — and a kind of sorry statement about the local party — that the DCCC refused to oppose Prop. 83, a tough-on-crime initiative that’s aimed at sexual predators — but has all kinds of problems, the way these things often do. San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennesey is against it, saying it will cost a fortune for new jails; so is Assembly Member Mark Leno, who says it will drive ex-cons into rural areas, away from services — making them more likely to get into further trouble.
The problem is that the state Democratic Party has endorsed it, fearing that the measure will be a wedge issue in swing districts, where moderate Democrats are facing Republicans — and where Phil Angellides needs to be able to beat Arnold. Some local DCCC members were wary of bucking the state party.
That’s embarassing: San Francisco isn’t Stockton, and our local Democrats should be able to stand up to these dumb crime bills. The DCCC ducked, but thanks to Robert Haaland, the committee will vote again in September.
And check this out: The DCCC refused to back longtime incumbent School Board member Dan Kelly. Labor opposed him, and he lost. The unions are pissed about contract problems with the teachers and staff; I’m pissed at Kelly for his unwavering support of former Supt. Arlene Ackerman. Either way, it’s pretty dramatic for the DCCC to snub an incumbent Democrat like that.
Television: the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems
Holy crap, dude. I think my eyeballs are bleeding.
For the full selection of Dancing with the Stars contestants, including Tucker Carlson (sans bowtie — hey, how’s his head stayin’ on?), go to ohnotheydidnt via the glorious Dlisted. Be warned: the new season starts Sept 12. Cha-cha-cha!
Eureka! Here comes Eurekaism!
Why is it news when Dean Singleton competes in Eureka, but not news when he works to destroy daily newspaper competition in the Bay Area?
By Bruce B. Brugmann (B3)
In my first journalism class at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln in the fall of l953, Professor Nathan Blumberg laid out the useful concept of Afghanistanism. This means, he said with gusto, that the press covers the big story in Afghanistan (obviously, times have changed) instead of covering the big local scandal in their own city (obviously, as I am reporting, times have not changed on this score). He spent the rest of the semester outlining local scandals that the local press in many cities was censoring or trivializing. He ended the semester with a rousing rendition of Upton Sinclair’s “The Brass Check,” his bible of the pattern of Afghanistanism in many American newspapers.
To bring the concept up to date, let us take the Sunday Aug. l3 story in the Sunday Magazine of the San Francisco Chronicle click here. It was a long, detailed, colorful story with lots of photos titled “RUMBLE IN THE REDWOODS, What happens when two daily newspapers duke it out in a market known more for its weed than its writing?” It details, way way up in the redwoods, out there by the ocean, up by the Oregon border, a long long way north of San Francisco, that rare example of head-to-head daily newspaper competition. A Dean Singleton/MediaNews group daily (the Eureka Times-Standard) is being forced to compete ferociously with a new upstart daily (the Eureka Reporter) founded by a local financier/tax attorney/banker called Robin P. Arkley II The lead sums up the point of the story: “It is the unlikeliest retail war in the unlikeliest market, a high-stakes game of chicken in a place so offbeat, it is now the setting for a new Sci-Fi Channel show.”
Just as in the old days when there was real daily competition in San Francisco, the publishers and editors and staff take public shots at each other. Arkley is quoted as saying that “I get tired of the Times-Standard saying ‘Rob is trying to put us out of business.’ I mean (the Times Standard and parent Media News) are a monopoly in every market they are in, whining like a bunch of babies…The first lick of competition they get they scream like they are getting (screwed)…They are not having any fun.”
Arkley says he launched the Reporter out of a desire for more local news. “I noticed over the generations the Times-Standard to the ‘Sub-Standard’ to the ‘Daily Disappointment.’ It was not publishing local news…Part of the challenge for local communities today is to keep our local identities. And one of the easiest and most direct ways to do that is with our local newspapers. I felt we needed a local paper again.”
Arkley says he no longer reads the Times-Standard but Singleton says he reads the Reporter, which he derisively calls “a shopper” because it is delivered free to people’s homes. “I watch (the Reporter carefully,” Singleton says in his Rocky Mountain twang (his company is based in Denver). “But when you get right down to it, it is not really a quality newspaper…I think it makes (Arkley) think he is a big man in town. I am not sure buying a printing press and throwing papers around makes you a big man in town, but he thinks it does.”
In short, Joel Davis, a former Times-Standard entertainment and news editor from l988 to l995 and now a Sacramento journalist and college journalism instructor, wrote a nice yarn that inadvertently made a most telling point on the state of journalism in California and the country today.
For Hearst in San Francisco, which finally got what it always wanted in San Francisco (a virtual morning daily monopoly), and for Singleton, who hates competition with a passion and now is moving lockstep with Hearst toward regional monopoly, old-fashioned daily newspaper competition is a slam bang big story—but only if it is up in Eureka. The real story, how Hearst and Singleton are destroying daily competition and imposing even more conservative monopoly journalism on one of the most liberal and civilized regions of the world, is not much of a story at all. It is only a story to be minimized, marginalized, censored, covered in fragments, and buried deep in the business section (See our coverage and our blogs)
The latest example: in Tuesday’s Chronicle, buried on page 2 of the business section, was a “Daily Digest” short under a wimpy little head titled “Foundation among MediaNews backers.” It was an Associated Press story out of Seattle which provided a nugget of new information from an Aug. 8th Securities and Exchange filing. The nugget: that the Bill @ Melinda Gates Foundation had invested an unspecified amount of money in the megaconglomerate deal.
The news was three weeks old. It was published a week after the Contra Costa times ran it. I did a blog on it a week ago. It was written by the Associated Press out of Seattle, not a Chronicle cityside reporter or one of the legion of Chronicle business reporters. The four paragraph story once again amounted to only a fragment of an item that begged for a real comprehensive story. Not once has the Chronicle or any of the papers involved in the deal (Hearst/Singleton/Gannett/Stephens/McClatchy) done the kind of full and complete story, on this unprecedented major local story, and its adverse consequences to their local communities, that they would have done on anybody else. Not once to my knowledge have any of the monopoly publishers or their editors or columnists had a cross word to say publicly about the others or about the march to regional monopoly.
Why?
Eureka! Here comes Eurekaism! B3
P.S.: One thing I like about Dean Singleton is that, when a reporter calls him for a quote, he is not afraid to give him some juicy ones.
P.S. l: Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps one of the megaconglomerators has done a real story on the real consequences of such consolidation and regional monopoly on their staffs, the health and welfare of their communities, and the competing voices concept underlying the First Amendment and all good journalism. So I will be announcing a blog game: LET’S PLAY EUREKA! And I will ask people to send me any articles or editorials or columns in any of the megaconglomerate papers that they think laid out the real story. B3
NOISE: In praise of Live Music Archive…
Guardian intern Joseph DeFranceschi holds forth on his favorite music download site, Live Music Archive, and offers sundry tips:
If you’re reading this blog, you’ll probably be interested in the online musical goldmine known as the Live Music Archive.
Wilco — just one of those stellar bands you find on Live Music Archive. Courtesy of www.nonesuch.com.
In the constant search for free music downloads, it is rare to stumble upon some that are high quality, easily accessible, and don’t require neglecting everything experts warn of regarding viruses and spyware. Remember when Kazaa’s coolest finds were those MP3s of outtakes or live records of crappy, scratchy sound quality? This database features complete concerts, entire album outtakes, and full radio performances, all in usually fantastic sound quality. You won’t find the hit singles here, but you can download rare live concert recordings that cannot be found in stores.
Most artists — ranging from indie acts like Wilco and jam bands such as Grateful Dead to jazz players like Pat Metheny and bluegrass pickers such as Tony Rice – permit taping, and as a result there are more than 2,000 bands on LMA.
Check out live recordings of Pat Metheny on LMA, why don’t you? Courtesy of www.patmethenygroup.com.
While this short article will only introduce you to downloading shows in MP3 form, there is a huge community of live music traders and numerous sources that offer free music downloads. The self-proclaimed “leader in lossless digital audio distribution on the Internet” is etree.org. Check out their website (www.etree.org) for tons of good information, software downloads, and links.
As for LMA: the easiest way to access the archive is by downloading one of their many shows in MP3 form. Although they sound fine to most people (including an audiophile like me) never burn these to CD and, should you get into trading these shows, which is perfectly legal, never trade anything from an MP3 source. Without such a rule, the quality will get worse as people repeatedly transfer the music from CD to MP3 and back again. That’s why those Kazaa tracks sounded so shitty.
Visit www.archive.org/audiowww.archive.org/audio. Some things you might consider are the source (soundboard recordings (SBD) are usually crystal clear with little annoying crowd noise), user ratings and reviews, venue (smaller venues usually make for better sound and radio studio performances are even better), and set list.
Note that not all shows on LMA are available in VBR MP3s. Some are kept as loss-less Flac and Shorten files. See wiki.etree.org for instructions on how to deal with these and the free program you’ll need to change them to CD form.
Here are some other online resources to check out:
— Music.ibilio.org. Get shows by the Meters, Ben Folds, Radiohead, and others. They come in Shorten and Flac file forms so read about how to convert these to CD form on wiki.etree.org.
— Bluegrassbox.com. Sign up for an FTP login and password for tons of free acoustic music from 1954 to the present.
— bt.etree.org. This etree.org site has almost 3,500 shows for download in bit torrent form.
Pandora boxing
OK OK yes I should be getting back to work, but hey — I’m the clubs columnist, it’s my job to be braindead on Mondays. So I’m about to slip into the wormhole of Pandora.com, which got a few good mentions on NPR (I heard this from friends — I can’t get NPR where I live). It’s part of the Music Genome Project, which aims to categorize music by subjects other than “scene” or “genre.” Basically, you type in a song or artist you like, and a virtual panel of distinguished musicologists creates a radio station of songs that share basic affinities to your choice — I’m imagining things like “melancholy” and “string section” and “Peruvian by way of Iceland” to be examples of the qualifying characteristics that link all the songs together. Or maybe it’s colors and flavors — like “Since U Been Gone” is brunette cheesecake and “Hollaback Girl” is purple baking powder. Or maybe it’s like computer dating, MP3-style. But who knows? I’m always game to learn more about myself from computers, and lord knows with all the wealth of music out there in Webland I’m totally eager to have someone pick out my jams for me. — Marke B
Crawling for a cause
So bar crawls for me are usually literally that — I’ve worn out the knees on so many jumpsuits dragging my ass amongst watering holes that I might as well be a member of the orphan chorus in Annie. Hard knocks, more shots, wrecked stockings. And by any indication, I should probably invest in a pair of those hunky PG&E repair guy knee pads for Thursday the 24th’s BAR AIDS event, during which 15 or so bars will be donating a percentage of bar sales to local anti-HIV and STD warriors StopAIDS.
The fun goes on all evening, all over the city, and it may be the first time you can honestly puke for a good cause. See you in my beer goggles! (You can get more BAR AIDS info here.)
To the Moondog, Ma!
Lately, I can’t stop listening to Moondog. Louis Thomas Hardin was often-to-always homeless, which is another way of saying the world belonged to him.
Blinded by a dynamite cap at the age of 16, Moondog traveled between the sounds of different countries and discovered some imaginary ones of his own — the type of exotic places where Jack Smith probably wished he could escort Maria Montez.
Death + metal
Maybe the best eulogy ever written (and certainly the first I’ve ever read to contain the phrase “Luciferian Fire”) is this one for Jon Nödtveidt, singer of the recently split Swedish band Dissection. He was also, uh, a convicted murderer.
From the band’s official website, via ohnotheydidnt:
“As rumours have started to spread we feel obliged to confirm Jon Nödtveidt’s death. Jon Nödtveidt was a man who lived his life according to his convictions and True Will. A couple of days ago he chose to end his life by his own hands. As a true Satanist he led his life in the way he wanted and ended it when he felt that he had fulfilled his self-created destiny. Not everyone will have understanding or acceptance for his personal path in this life and beyond, but all must respect his choice.
Those of us who have met him in his last days can assure that he was more focussed, happier and stronger than ever. It is our full conviction that he left this world of lies with a scornful laughter, knowing that he had fulfilled everything that he had set up for himself to accomplish. The empty space that he leaves behind will be filled with the dark essence that he manifested through his life and black-magical work. His legacy and Luciferian Fire will live on through those few who truly knew him and appreciated his work for what it really was and still is. As our brother’s goal in life and death never was to “Rest in Peace”, we will instead wish him victories in all battles to come, until the Acosmic Destiny has been fulfilled.
For the glory of the Dark Gods and the Wrathful Chaos!
218″
Benefit for a journalist in jail (Josh Wolf)
Benefit for a journalist in jail (Josh Wolf)
By Bruce B. Brugmann (B3)
The item below was sent out by Riley Manlapaz, the Guardian’s ace promotions manager, to our email action list for a Saturday night benefit for Josh Wolf, who was jailed on Aug. l for refusing to honor a federal grand jury subpoena for the “out-takes” of his filming of an anarchist rally against the G-8 Summit Bush Administration economic and foreign policies.
I think Wolf’s arrest is a direct strike by Bush and the Attorney General against the City and County of San Francisco, the nation’s leading center of dissent and reportage critical of Bush and the Iraq war. The federal threat to jail the Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, for their superb reporting in the Balco/Bonds case, only makes this point even stronger and more ominous.
If Bush can get away with putting reporters in jail in San Francisco, he can do it anywhere he wants with impunity and he can impose a chilling effect all across the land. His new weapon: claiming federal jurisdiction in a local case involving local law enforcement on the dangerous basis that a police car that was burned during the demonstration was paid for in federal money. (Actually, as the police report shows, only a rear tail light on the police car was damaged.) But the point is that, with federal money pouring into local communities all over the country, from Homeland Security money up and down, the feds can consider almost anything is under federal jurisdiction and they can move against reporters (and protesters) with federal muscle and jail power. From Hearst/Chronicle reporters to a 24-year-old freelance filmmaker, nobody in the media is safe for the duration, inside or outside San Francisco.
Go to the website of the California First Amendment Coalition (CFAC.org) for its resolution condemning the federal contempt sanctions against the reporters and for the full text of an amicus brief making the First Amendment arguments but also making a new and persuasive legal basis for a reporter’s privilege. See Sarah Phelan’s entry at the politics blog and our ongoing coverage. And much, much more!!! B3
JOSH WOLF BENEFIT
Join musicians and activists to raise money for the legal fees of Josh Wolf, the journalist incarcerated for contempt of court for his refusal to hand over unedited video “out-takes” he shot of a anti-G-8 rally held in the Mission on July 8, 2005. Spoken word artist Diamond Dave Whitaker of Enemy Combatant Radio, Oregon-based musician John Staedler, and DJ Chuck Gonzalez perform. Admission is free but donations will be greatly appreciated. Speakers on Wolf’s behalf include Liz Wolf-Spada, his mother; Krissy Keefer, the Green party congressional candidate in the Eighth District; and Harland Harrison, the Libertarian congressional candidate in San Mateo. 7pm-9:30pm. Can’t attend? Please consider donating online at http://joshwolf.net/grandjury/donate.html
August 19 @ Dance Mission, 3316 24th St
http://www.joshwolf.net/blog
Daly hit piece
By Steven T. Jones
We knew that SFSOS and other front groups that shill for downtown and right-wing interests would go hard after Sup. Chris Daly, but even we were surprised at the shrill and misleading hit piece “The Case Against Daly,” penned by Ryan Chamberlin, a former Republican political operative from the Midwest who did dirty tricks work for the Newsom campaign before becoming the errand boy and protege for SFSOS head Wade Randlett. And it was carried by the San Francisco Sentinel’s Pat Murphy, who is unapologetic about aggressively trying to oust Daly, although he claims it’s some kind of principled stand against incivility instead of the fact that downtown front groups make up the lion’s share of his advertising (and therefore get full access to publish their screeds without abiding those pesky journalistic standards like fairness and accuracy — such as the recent Committee on Jobs anti-government screed).
According to Chamberlin, Daly is bad because he is too hard on developers and because they’re supporting him, he isn’t nice enough to his political enemies, there are supposedly too many potholes in Dist. 6, he supports housing for the rich and the poor but not the middle class (despite Daly strengthening the inclusionary housing ordinance, which creates housing specifically for median income families), and that “he is manipulative and domineering.”
And Chamberlin ought to know a little something about being manipulative, seeming to have no sense of either fair political play, logical arguments, or the campaign finance laws that govern producing documents like this.
“Any reasonable citizen reading this collection should find that each of its contents truly stands on its own merits,” Chamberlin wrote. And on this point we agreed. This piece of garbage truly stands on its merits, or lack thereof. I don’t want to get into a point-by-point refutation of this thing, but if you read it and see any points that seem irrefutable to you, drop me and e-mail (steve@sfbg.com) and I’ll address them.
Is Josh Wolf in jail because of federal laziness?
By Sarah Phelan
An amicus brief filed this week in support of jailed freelance reporter Josh Wolf argues that federal common law already recognizes a reporter’s privilege, that it should be applied to Wolf’s grand jury case, and that before a journalist be compelled to divulge unpublished material in response to a subpoena, the requesting party must demonstrate “a sufficiently compelling need for the journalist’s materials to overcome the privilege.”
‘At a minimum, that requires a showing that the information sought is not obstainbable form another source,” argues the brief, which points out that , “it appears that the US Attorney has not even attempted to make a showing that alternative sources have even been consulted, let alone exhausted, or that Mr. Wolf’s videotape is unique. As the district court repeatedly pointed out, the events Mr. Wolf filmed took place on a public street and the published portions of his video show numerous participants and onlookers, (some with cameras) and dozens of police officers.”
Observing that, ” the record reveals a veritable treasure trove of alternative sources, including possible eye witnesses from law enforcement,” the brief concludes that, “The government seems to want Mr. Wolf’s video not because it is the only source of information about what happened to the police car, but because it speculates that it might be the best and most convenient source of information.”
The full text of the amicus brief which was filed by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the national Society for Professional Journalists, the WIW Freedom to Write Fund, and the California First Amendment Coalition can be viewed at http://www.cfac.org
P.S.! A fund-raiser for Josh Wolf happens this Saturday, Aug. 19, 7 to 9:30 p.m., at Dance Mission, 3316 24th st., San Francisco. Free Admission, donations appreciated. Entertainers include Diamond Dave Whitaker of Enemy
Combatant Radio and musician John Staedler. Chuck Gonzalez is the DJ.
Speakers include Josh’s mother, Elizabeth Wolf-Spada; Wolf’s uncle Harland Harrison, Libertarian candidate for Congress from San Mateo County;Krissy Keefer, Green Party candidate for Congress from San Francisco’s east side, and Rick Knee of the National Writers Union. Or consider donating online at http://joshwolf.net/grandjury/donate.html
“That’s GOOD news? Snakes on crack?”
On the occasion of the first San Francisco screening of the most ridiculously hyped movie of 2006 (and, quite possibly, of all time — sorry, George Lucas)…
NOISE: Skating along the Bleeding Edge
You ran into the most intriguing pairings – and people – at the Bleeding Edge Festival Sunday, Aug. 13: what other event would find SF duo Matmos and a handful of other familiar SF rock folk down amid the leafy, upper-crusty environs of Saratoga (inspiring the question: just how many McMansions and outright mansions can one small town include?). I can’t help but compare the event to last year’s ArthurFest in LA – it was a similar wide-ranging if somewhat smaller gathering of intriguing artists in an unlikely, grassy, very non-clubby space. And as with Yoko Ono at that 2005 event, you could catch one-time events like this collabo between Matmos and Zeena Parkins below.
Zeena Parkins beats long-stemmed red roses and Matmos takes a stab at the duo’s recent “Roses and Teeth Ludwig Wittgenstein.” All images by Kimberly Chun.
But unlike ArthurFest, the selections seemed a wee bit random: I still don’t quite get the connection between the fine but not quite as experimental Yo La Tengo and, say, sound artist William Basinski, who impressed many in the Carriage House theater and also installed a site-specific tape loop piece, in collaboration with James Elaine, in the Main Hall.
Considering the long haul from other parts of the Bay Area to the site (the location makes it superconvenient for San Jose fans and Zero One attendees but necessitated carpools for Oaklanders), I’d say that if the organizers wanted to make draw listeners to this event they should have charged $10 or $15 for the fest rather than $50. The prohibitive ticket price didn’t help the shockingly sparse audience in the Garden amphitheater for lesser-known bands like Flying.
Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan hunkers down with a cozy, lengthy jam on “Autumn Sweater.”
Also admirable, with mixed results, was the juried competition winner showcase. Pardon my igornace but when did this competition occur? Who was invited to compete? Questions, questions – the mind is a-whirl. In any case, the best of the bunch was Canned Corpus Callosum, here shown below, cranking out the rickety-rock Tom-Waits-and-Dresden Dolls-like sounds.
Canned Corpus Callosum peel open their roots-industrial-noise-classical songbook.
In the end however despite power problems for Black Dice, who played for three seconds then blew out for about an hour (heard they were incredible, if reminiscent of their last Great American Music Hall show), the event was a pleasure – set in startlingly beautiful environs. You could take a nature walk and check out Jeff Cain’s Dead Air sound installation along a hill trail that had recently boasted mountain lion sightings. Toothy! Essentially for your average experimental music-noise connoisseur who wanted to spend a Sunday with mom amid pink lilies and sound art – this was the place to be.
Club kids make good
… club sandwiches. BUT formerly local club kids Justin Bond and Kenny Mellman — aka KIKI and HERB — have really made good. They’re currently alive on Broadway at the (dear lord) Helen Hayes Theatre in “Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway,” and they’re garnering effusive raves, like this one in today’s NYTimes.
Way back when I was but a wee thing doing loads of drugs in the light booth at Josie’s Cabaret & Juice Joint, I totally used to groove to them, back when they were locals (they’re bigtime newyawkaws now) — and back when their combo of post-kitsch musical cabaret mentality and slyly sincere emotional buffeting was totally radical. Turns out it still is, as anyone who went to K&H’s New Year’s Eve show this year at Herbst Theater can attest. Go Justin! Go Kenny! See? Club Trash can be artistically relevant. Just like maybe murdered beauty pageant tots. Now all we need is a Jason Mecier retrospective at the Smithsonian and Ggreg Taylor on Oprah.
Politics in moderation
G.W. Schulz
The state Dems staged a media event yesterday as part of their ongoing attempts to link incumbent Schwarzenegger to the Bush White House. A commentator from CSU Sacramento called it a flawed strategy, and he’s right to the extent that campaigns shouldn’t be filled with everything but healthy political discourse.
Asking for a clean fight, however, is a bunch of wide-eyed, quixotic bullshit.
City Attorney sues major San Francisco landlord
The City Attorney’s Office announced today that it’s suing one of San Francisco’s biggest landlords, Skyline Realty, aka CitiApartments.
Some of you may remember our three-part series on the company, published in March, in which current and former rent-controlled tenants claimed either in lawsuits or during interviews that they were victims of a patterned attempt to oust them from their apartments.
NOISE: Sleater-Kinney’s last stand
Guardian music intern Michael Harkin made the trip up to Portland, Ore., for the last Sleater-Kinney show at the Crystal Ballroom on Aug. 12. Here’s his review:
A warm Saturday evening in Portland set the scene as Sleater-Kinney laid their axes down. The three of them – drummer Janet Weiss and singer-guitarists Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein – have an iconic status that’s duly earned and responsible for some of the best rock records in recent memory.
It all went down in the Crystal Ballroom, where the Thermals, terse garage-poppers and fellow Portland residents, opened the show. Next Eddie Vedder made a brief, flashbulb-bathed appearance onstage, playing a surprisingly well-received two-song set that included an acoustic, Dylan-esque political tune as well as a song sung with Janet Weiss as he played ukulele.
Other than the thank-yous and song dedications, the show didn’t have the resonance of a last hurrah: the heaviness normally characterizing their shows was sustained over more than 25 songs and two hours, filmed and recorded for later release on a DVD or live album.
Both at this show and on record, they never seemed like a band that had run out of ideas. Last year’s The Woods (Sub Pop), from which the set drew pretty heavily, was so damn good – it somehow proved refreshing even as it came from a band whose work never became tired or contrived. Opening banger “The Fox,” as well as the singles, “Entertain” and “Jumpers,” were among the most raucous that night, carrying the kind of stomp value rarely seen outside of Led Zeppelin’s discography.
Brownstein had the most rock-star demeanor of any up there, adding arm-swing flourishes to her guitar-playing, while Tucker would lift her right arm like a choir leader at a song’s chorus, subtly imploring the sing-alongs already requisite for a crowd at a band’s final show. They traversed their back catalog in properly comprehensive fashion, where “Oh!” and “You’re No Rock ‘n’ Roll Fun” sat alongside “Words and Guitar” and the incendiary “Dig Me Out,” all prompting floor fluctuations that bordered on the unnerving. Weiss’s cool, adroit intensity behind the kit left one relieved that her other band, Quasi, doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.
Your humble writer may have been hoping for a “Get Up,” but there was really nothing else to ask from the women, who totally killed throughout. It’s sad to see one of the Pacific Northwest’s greatest assets have to go, but records as awesome as The Hot Rock (Kill Rock Stars) should inspire many bands for years to come.
The slither king: the complete interview
This is not a story about the feverish hype swirling around Snakes on a Plane. It’s not a review of the film, because Snakes on a Plane is so critic-proof that snotty journalists like me don’t get to see it before it opens. And it’s not yet another piece in praise of Snakes star Samuel L. Jackson’s inherent awesomeness (not that I’m denying it, of course). What follows is an interview with the individual who just may be the coolest cat in America right now — snake handler Jules Sylvester, the guy responsible for charming winning performances out of Jackson’s forked-tongued co-stars. Sylvester, a Hollywood veteran who’s wrangled critters on everything from Men in Black (thousands of cockroaches) to Out of Africa (lions, dogs, owls) to Arachnophobia (duh), is bar none the jolliest person I’ve ever talked to at 8:30 in the morning on the subject of killer snakes.
Image of Albino Monocled Cobra from Chameleon Counters.
[Note: this is the complete transcript of the interview that appears, in edited form, in this week’s Guardian print version.]
May the “Force” be with you?
Somewhere between our best intentions (to rent The Constant Gardener, no less) and the new-release wall at Lost Weekend, we plunged into the vortex of Edison Force. The pull of Justin Timberlake’s movie-star debut — sundry cameos don’t count, including that worth-reconsidering turn as a flaming make-up artist in the will-Lance-Bass-get-the-girl comedy On the Line — was stronger than the Death Star’s tractor beam. Despite debuting at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, and boasting a somewhat prestigious cast (besides JT, you get Morgan Freeman, LL Cool J, Dylan McDermott, Cary Elwes, Piper Perabo, and an oddly coiffed Kevin Spacey), Edison Force went straight to video. And oh, we were ever about to find out why.
