From sand tapestries to cupcake cars, soap-making to 70-foot sculptures of spinning stone and steel, Make Magazine’s Maker Faire proves that people can make some cra-zay shit when they’re given the proper encouragement and place to show it off (and warehouse space). The event has gained a reputation for being like Burning Man — only with less dust and fun fur. This year, it featured the work of more than 600 makers, rendering the San Mateo County Event Center into a hand-woven, hydraulic-powered, homegrown healthy bacteria-sprouting maze of maker magic. The fair was also celebrating its fifth year in action (the East Bay edition of the fair takes place Oct. 16 in Oakland), having already turned on thousands to the joys of tinkering.
Burning Man
Frustrations rise with skyrocketing prices for scalped Burning Man tickets
In the wake of yesterday’s announcement that Burning Man tickets have sold out for the first time, scalpers have been offering tickets online for several times their face values – some for as much as $5,000 each – frustrating burners and raising difficult questions about what the laws of supply and demand are doing to a community that eschews “commodification” as one of its core principles.
Members of Black Rock City LLC have been worried about this problem since back in January when tickets first started selling briskly. When I asked BRC board members Larry Harvey and Marian Goodell about the possibility of its selling out early, they each asked me not to publicize that possibility because they were worried about scalpers making runs on tickets.
A few months ago, they announced that tickets wouldn’t be available at the gate, and they began to put out word through registered theme camps and occasional notices in the Jack Rabbit Speaks newsletter that selling out was a possibility and that those planning to attend should buy their tickets now.
“I feel bad if anyone was caught unaware, but they should have known,” Goodell told me yesterday.
But if the high prices being asked for Burning Man tickets on sites like eBay and StubHub are any indication, it seems that those looking to profit off the event were just waiting for the announcement that tickets had sold out. High ticket prices are also likely to add incentive to the regular ticket scams that occur, resulting in the likelihood of people getting stuck outside the gate at this far-flung locale.
BRC spokesperson Will Chase addressed that possibility in a post on the Burning Blog yesterday: “For those considering venturing out to Black Rock City without a ticket to ‘try your luck’ purchasing one at or near the entrance to Burning Man, we ask that you do NOT do so, for your own safety and the well-being of the surrounding communities. The Black Rock Desert is an extremely remote, inhospitable environment with limited resources, minimal facilities, and few camping opportunities in the vicinity.”
Longtime burner Chicken John Rinaldi, who has turned into a staunch critic of the way BRC is governed in recent years, said burners who don’t have much money will be tempted to sell their tickets if they really start going for thousands of dollars and he said BRC should have consulted the larger community about the issue.
“They don’t have a plan. They knew it was going to sell out and they didn’t have a plan,” said Rinaldi, who has also been critical of BRC’s plans for converting to a nonprofit with little input from the community about process or potential new governance models. “It was another missed opportunity for Larry to engage with his community…This is going to be a fucking disaster.”
As for what steps BRC is taking to discourage price gouging by scalpers, whether they are beefing up security to better fight off gate-crashers, and responses to criticisms rippling through online discussions among burners about “gentrification” of the event and related concerns, we’re still waiting for responses from BRC members who we expect to interview over the coming days.
So check back for updates on this blog and in next week’s special Guardian issue on Burning Man, which celebrates its silver anniversary this year.
Best of the Bay 2011 Editors Picks: Arts and Entertainment
Best of the Bay 2011 Editors Picks
Arts and Entertainment
It is safe to say that Scott Weaver loves San Francisco. Leaving aside that Weaver’s family has called the City by the Bay home for three generations, the man has spent the majority of his life recreating the city’s charms with 100,000 toothpicks in an almost masochistically intricate behemoth he’s titled “Rolling Through the Bay.” The sculpture — which includes two tracks that vault rolling ping pong balls past landmarks like the 1929 Cliff House, Fleischhacker Pool, and Humphrey the whale — had its Exploratorium debut this year, stunning audiences with Weaver’s commitment to his craft. His regard for the skinny sticks is for real: the guy even had friends and family chucking ‘picks at his wedding. That’s love!
BEST HIGHBROW WITH YOUR HIGHBALL
Though we appreciate the legions of pubs that rely on still shots and a good jukebox to entertain, we sometimes feel the need to broaden our drunken horizons with a good dose of drama. For those times, San Francisco Theater Pub is just the ticket. Chummily convened in the TenderNob’s low-key Café Royale, San Francisco Theater Pub has performed new translations of classic Greek dramas and staged adaptations of Lovecraft, Whitman, Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, Evgeny Shvart’s The Dragon, and Vlacav Havel’s The Audience, as well as a series of San Francisco-themed shorts and a 75-minute version of Shakespeare’s Henry the IV and V — all against a backdrop of barstools, beer mugs, and bad lighting. Best of all, admission is free, so you can spend more on beer. Ah, the sweet, sweet hangover of dramaturgy.
At Café Royale, 800 Post, SF. (415) 441-4099, sftheaterpub.wordpress.com
BEST TITILLATING T.M.I.
Try as we might to hold to prudish societal lines, there’s simply nothing like telling a Really. Dirty. Story. (To a receptive group of friends.) Rejoice in your sluttiness, people! That’s the franchise line that Bawdy Storytelling creator Dixie De La Tour touts. Started as a recurring post-swinger’s night “kaffeeklatcsh for pervs,” around her kitchen table, De La Tour has grown Bawdy into a public, monthly, multicity storytelling event for kinksters and exhibitionists. Each edition has its own theme (polygamy, public sex, and SF-specific tales have all had their moments of glory); a cast of performers ranging from writers to pro pussy-petters; an occasional Grope-A-Clown box for intermission entertainment; and always, Dixie — to shout encouraging innuendos when the occasion arises.
BEST PROGRESSIVE CLUBHOUSE
Since early January, when Chris Daly stepped down from the Board of Supervisors and took ownership of the Buck Tavern, a political realignment has made City Hall a far less welcoming place for progressives. So they’ve followed Daly over to his new digs (nicknamed Daly’s Dive) instantly transforming the Mid-Market bar into the seat of power for the progressive local government-in-exile: a place where revolutions are plotted and frustrations are soothed with strong drinks and juicy burgers. With SFGTV on the tube, Daly slinging classic cocktails and brewskis, and malcontents lining the bar, the Buck has become a refuge for leftist political junkies. And for those looking for shockingly clean bar bathrooms.
1655 Market, SF.(415) 874-9183
BEST LORD OF METAL
You can’t put Slough Feg’s Mike Scalzi in a tidy box. As front man of the cult local metal band — its most recent album, 2010’s The Animal Spirits, earned critical raves — he prowls the stage with a vaudevillian flair while performing blistering, melodious tunes (sample titles: “Trick the Vicar,” “Ask the Casket". Plus: he’s a sci-fi fan; he teaches philosophy at Diablo Valley College; and he occasionally pens highly articulate, commenter-rattling columns for respected metal blog Invisible Oranges. Slough Feg will play a rare show Aug. 17 at the Elbo Room, opening for New Wave of British heavy metal legends Diamond Head. Voices will soar; faces will melt.
BEST PLACE TO MEET YOUR MAKER
If you ever need reminding that nerd is still the new black, TechShop is at the ready. Inside this SoMa “open access public workshop” you’ll find a veritable wonderland of high-tech tools for metal- and wood-working, machining, fabric crafts, electronics, and robotics — with classes on how to use it all. Offerings range from entry-level courses on basic skills like soldering, laser-cutting, silk-screening, milling, and injection-molding, to pro-pushing seminars on the latest precision machining tools and high-tech design software. Individual memberships are a pricey, $100–$125 per month (less for students), but hey — at least you won’t have to buy your own 3-D scanner! Whether you have a skill you’re itching to hone, an invention you’d like to prototype, or a project you’re hoping to finalize, this shop’s capable crew will help you see it through.
926 Howard, SF. (415) 263-9161, www.techshop.ws/tssf
BEST AEROSOL ROOTS
It’s easy to forget, with the advent of sleekly produced, four-story street art extravaganzas, that graffiti used to be the strictly illegal pursuit of brave-crazy iconoclasts hustling around with backpacks full of signed FedEx stickers and cans of Krylon. But thanks to the self-described “lizard people” behind Endless Canvas, the art of the throw up is still being honored. The Bay Area street-art blog is updated daily with the kinds of pieces that’ll never star in a Warholian post — from ground tags to the bubble letters of WIRE, to the small wheat paste gems of Bella Ciao’s roses and Esu’s proud female faces. The site’s documentation dedication is testament to the real glory of street art: reasserting our right to be seen in a world that prefers blank walls.
BEST UN-EGGS-PECTED PUPPET SHOW
The goofy brainchild of professional juggler Thomas John, “The Lady on the Wall” turns the dry bones, childhood mystery of the fall of Humpty Dumpty into a convincingly hard-boiled puppet noir, where all the puppets are eggs and almost all of them come to a rotten end. John’s deadpan, pun-filled narration and his deft physical manipulation of the principal players make “Lady” the best-laid plot starring a farm-fresh, extra-large dozen in the Bay.
Performance runs are sporadic but well worth the watching and waiting. You can also catch John performing his combination clowning-and-juggling shows on the Center Stage at Fisherman’s Wharf, and root for him as a final contestant on America’s Got Talent. Plus he plays the glockenspiel? Pretty crackin’, if you ask us.
BEST ROMP WITH YOUR INNER PSYCHOPATH
“Do you want to play?” challenges Nathaniel Justiniano, the artistic director of Naked Empire Bouffon Company, who invites performing artists and activists of all disciplines to explore their loonier selves during his hardcore Bouffon Intensive weekend workshops. Participants learn to tap into their physical and emotional “asymmetry” and exaggerate it, excavating the bouffon within and applying their inside-out personas to any performance situation. The resultant characters — bundles of twisted, giggling, homicidal urges who have an uncomfortable talent for honing in on the weaknesses of others — are, well, insanely entertaining. Justiniano, who trained in bouffonnerie at the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre, believes these “groveling goblin prophets” are harbingers of essential truths whose very grotesqueness compels people to pay them heed.
BEST SING-ALONG FOR WANNABE SEA DOGS
Admit it. You’ve always wanted to run away to sea. But landlubbin’ reality just keeps on getting in the way. Still, those Captain Kidd fantasies won’t go gently, so isn’t it great that there’s a safe space to live out your water-logged fantasies in real swashbuckling style? On the first Saturday of the month, at the very end of Hyde Street Pier (a National Park Service sanctuary for historic boats) a diverse crowd of young buffs and old salts gather together for a spirited sing-along, the Sea Chantey Sing. The atmosphere is pretty wholesome overall, but still a convivial anarchy reigns supreme. Want to lead a chantey? Go ahead. Want to improvise a harmony line during the chorus? Do it. Want to take a break and tool around the meticulously-restored tall boat Balclutha where the sing is held, cup of hot cider in hand? Totally encouraged! It’s free. It’s fantastically fun. And this October it’ll be a tradition 30 years young.
First Saturdays of the month, 8 p.m., free, reservations required. The Balclutha, Hyde Street Pier, 2905 Hyde, SF. (415) 561-7171, www.nps.gov/safr/historyculture/chantey-sing
BEST SITE-SPECIFIC CLASSICISTS
This year marks the end of We Players’ three-year collaboration with the National Parks Service on Alcatraz Island. The project showcased the island’s scenic isolation in a number of artistic and community-building endeavors. The stage company’s 2010 marathon production of Hamlet was a tour de force of site-specificity, taking actors and audiences all over the island, including areas normally off-limits to the public. In their imaginative stagings of Macbeth, Hamlet, and Iphigenia, as well as their ongoing art exhibitions for, by, and about incarcerated juveniles and adults, the Players highlight themes of isolation, incarceration, justice, and redemption. They wield their art as a catalyst rather than as nostalgic revival. Their Alcatraz residency ends in the fall. In 2012, it partners with the California Parks Service to stage The Odyssey on Angel Island.
BEST FRISCO FUSION
If San Francisco was one big dance floor, Bayonics would be its house band. Mission born-and-bred members Pedro Gomez and Jairo Vargas met through the salsa scene and the youth arts organization Loco Bloco (drummer Gomez, who joined the group when he was 12, is now its music director). The band incorporated the other sounds of the city: reggaeton, funk, old school Frisco hip-hop, reggae irie. Now with horns, timbales, and three emcees, it packs sweaty venues (and stages) with a diverse sound that could have only come from the Bay. A big band in the era of the iPhone DJ? With a new album, Mission Statement, dropping this summer, we bet there’s enough Bayonics love in this city to keep the party going.
BEST BARGAIN BEBOP TUTELAGE
What kind of music do young ‘uns listen to nowadays? Cheesy Disney tweens? Justin Bieber? Kidz Bop? Start the culture-makers of tomorrow on the road to good taste today by taking them to venerable jazz club Yoshi’s — either the Oakland or San Francisco outpost — for the Yoshi’s Children’s Matinee. Certain Sunday early-evening shows offer a special admission rate of five bucks for kids, with a discount, usually $15–$18, for accompanying adults. And while the idea of children learning the finer points of free jazz and bebop makes sense — kids love to improvise — Yoshi’s calendar actually factors in just about every genre other than heavy metal (start your tyke down that road with a copy of Black Sabbath). Recent $5 matinees have featured Hawaiian guitarist Willie K., flamenco guitarist Ottmar Liebert, and vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater’s tribute to Billie Holiday.
1330 Fillmore, SF. (415) 655-5600 and 510 Embarcadero West, Oakl. (510)238-9200, www.yoshis.com
BEST HOMEBOY SCRIBE
Awash as it is in traffic-stopping murals and radical neighborhood galleries, the Mission hasn’t produced a lot of novels recently from its native sons and daughters. So when born-and-bred Missionite and City College literature professor Benjamin Bac Sierra‘s debut effort Barrio Bushido turned out to be a magical realistic, drug-and-violence-driven, sophisticated lyrical achievement, the ‘hood rejoiced in its son. Bac Sierra’s readings at Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts turned out a capacity crowd, and a retinue of candy-painted, hydraulic-powered low-riders lined the curb outside. With Bac Sierra as a role model, maybe the barrio won’t have to wait long for another of its own to follow suit and publish something great.
BEST KARAOKE PROUSTIAN
The continued karaoke tyranny of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” induces revulsion on the order of Barney’s theme song. Now one fine man, maverick karaoke DJ Roger Niner, has taken a stand for all of us against the song’s monopoly. The wildly costumed, wildly fun Niner levies a $5 tax for its use, and uses the extra cash to buy more songs for his collection. Niner can usually be found at the Parlor near Fisherman’s Wharf on Wednesdays, San Mateo’s Swingin’ Door on Thursdays and Fridays, and SoMa’s Butter on Sundays. Ever the intellect, his website quotes Marcel Proust: “Detest bad music but do not despise it. As it is played, and especially sung, much more passionately than good music, it has much more than the latter been impregnated, little by little, with man’s tears.”
BEST “HOME IS WHERE THE ART IS”
In 2010, Bay Area performance artist and provocateur Philip Huang bucked the notion of institutionalized artistic legitimacy and challenged his friends to stage performances in their own homes. “We can legitimize ourselves,” his manifesto promised, calling the welfare state of professional arts organizations a “crock of shit.” One year later, the all-volunteer, thoroughly-DIY Home Theatre Festival spanned the globe, with scheduled performances on four continents. The premise is simple: without paying hundreds of dollars to a venue for overhead expenses, artists can charge $8 at the door and still walk away with some profit, while audiences get to experience an intimately staged performance without an institutional filter. Whether home theater can or should replace all professional art space is up for debate, but it’s nice to be reminded that ultimately the art, not the venue, matters most.
philiphuangpresents.blogspot.com
BEST DOOR GUY IN A LOIN CLOTH
Bouncer-for-hire Isaac is a towering figure in San Francisco, standing sentry at all of the top cultural happenings and cool club events. Simultaneously a welcoming presence and one who is not to be trifled with, he can be as cuddly as a teddy bear and as imposing as a grizzly. (Although he artfully and subtly conveys his grizzliness without feeling a need to menace or provoke.) Simply by being who he is — a big bearded guy in a loincloth who seems to know everyone — his presence validates the cultural cred of any event, and ensures you’ll find the entertainment you’re looking for therein. As a veteran performer with Fireside Storytelling, he may even provide some of it.
BEST SPIRIT-RAISING TWIRL
Imagine yourself traipsing through Golden Gate Park one sunny afternoon when the sound of the great Sylvester’s “Can’t Stop Dancing” tugs you by the ear toward the AIDS Memorial Grove. There you spy dozens of human butterflies, fluttering and whirling in the breeze as a DJ turns them out. Drawn by your fascination, you enter the fray, pick up a couple of psychedelic-patterned pieces of fabric, and begin to twirl with abandon. You’re floating with Flagging in the Park, the charitable monthly afternoon flood of queer love, put on by personal trainer Xavier Caylor and friends. Like fan-dancing, flagging (dancing with weighted pieces of fabric) is a decades-old gay dance floor tradition that has taken on a spiritual edge, calling up the memories of those affected by AIDS and drawing the blessing of our own spiritual godmothers, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. It’s also simply fabulous.
Sat/30 and monthly, 1 p.m.–4 p.m., free (donation requested), AIDS Memorial Grove, Golden Gate Park, SF. Facebook: Flagging in the Park
BEST SHOEGAZERS ON THE BLOCK
The distortion burns. The reverb uncoils in snakey moans. And the rubbery bass and authoritative tom push forward, ever forward, in the hands of vocalist-bassist Shaun Durkan, guitarist Kevin Johnson, and drummer Abe Pedroza of Weekend. Formed just a year after the shoegaze pioneers of My Bloody Valentine made their way to San Francisco once more to play the hulking and reverberant Concourse, Weekend’s three unassuming childhood friends have managed to reform that cavernous shoegaze sound into something closely held and intimate, yet sweeping in its reach and tremulous with contemporary possibilities. The threesome’s first full-length album Sports (Slumberland, 2010), droned like 1990s post-punk yesterday once more — careening like a loud, unforgettable dream. End times have rarely sounded so breezy, so good.
BEST WORD OF LAW
Gone are the days when poetry readings were confined to the dimly lit coffee shops, public libraries and beat bars of urbania. San Francisco being one of the world’s meccas for all things literary, we word-worshipping denizens hardly bat an eyelash when we hear of something like the regular poetry readings at Tony Serra’s law offices on Pier Five. Serra, who has made a career defending and championing society’s outcasts by expressing “the poetry of the law,” has been holding such events for three years, usually with a theme attached and a lively crowd attending. This year included poetry events celebrating Native American culture and the great, lost deserts of America.
506 Broadway, SF. (415) 986-5591, www.pier5law.com/j-tony-serra
BEST READY-MADE ROCK BAND
The Byrds drawled it best: So you wanna be a rock ‘n’ roll star? Then listen now, to what I say. Thanks Jim McGuinn, we’ll take it from here. Or rather, Blue Bear School of Music’s band workshops will. The school sets groups of about seven beginner-level musicians to practice cover songs (genres range from rock to country) for three months with a very patient teacher before they perform at Café Du Nord or Bottom of the Hill. Just don’t let it go to your head. Back to McGuinn: the money, the fame, and the public acclaim. Don’t forget what you are, you’re a star.
Building D, Fort Mason Center, SF. (415) 673-3600, www.bluebearmusic.org
BEST SIXTH STREET SENSE
Does growing up in San Francisco make you an insider in its art scene? Definitely not — but it can be fertile ground for creating a scene of one’s own. Sixth Street resident and Filipino immigrant Reynaldo Cayetano Jr.’s passion for film photography led him to convene Inks of Truth, an art collective of young City College students and SF natives. The group has thrown packed multimedia art openings with live local hip-hop soundtracks all along Sixth Street — Rancho Parnassus, the House Kombucha factory, and Bayanihan Community Center. This year, group members got the keys to DA Arts, the one-time SF district attorney’s office, whose walls they have lined with stunning black and white photography of life on Sixth Street.
DA Arts, 135 Sixth St., SF. www.wix.com/purposebeyondreach/inksoftruth
BEST DARKWAVE EMBRACE
“Dark is the new light!” raves one online fan of San Francisco bleak-star rockers the Soft Moon. Outfit leader Luis Vasquez does double duty on conga and synth in Oakland-SF band, the Lumerians, weaving a sparkling, seething thread of exotica into that combo’s tropi-psych mind-meld. But the Soft Moon is where Vasquez chooses to tread darkly, venturing into an extremely chilled, vaguely menacing, yet exquisitely goth-derived and highly synthesized future. Rest assured, the way comes black-iced with ’80s-era shivers and intimations of Krautrock. Armed live with driving beats, bat cave echoes, and stabbing black-and-white visuals, Vasquez and Co. are the Bay’s prime entries in the “darkwave” wave that’s been sweeping underground dance floors. The Soft Moon released its self-titled debut on Captured Tracks in 2010. Next stop — your shattered earbuds.
BEST ALL PEDAL EVERYTHING
This year, in the interest of a more sustainable diet, Mark Zuckerberg started only eating animals he personally killed. Sure, Zuck can afford to slay a steer or 20, but he raises interesting questions about our individual consumption patterns. The expanding Bicycle Music Festival has been experimenting in this very concept as it relates to the live music fest. This year a free all-day, all-night outdoors affair featuring more than 12 bands and performing groups took place in two different city locations — with a three-piece band and opera singers performing while the entire festival biked from one site to the other. Powered by volunteers on generator-bikes — which occasionally lost their charge — attendees learned a lot about party-time energy costs.
BEST SCARY CLOWN TOWN
This could also be titled “worst place to go after you ingest hallucinogens,” but hell, don’t blame Playland-Not-At-The-Beach for its slightly creepy-carny vibe. Blame the former first lady of San Francisco’s seaside: Laughing Sal, the legendary Playland attraction with the unforgettable ghoulish guffaw. A version of Sal keeps her eye on the joint, which is tucked into an unassuming El Cerrito building concealing a stuffed-to-the-gills treasure trove of Playland history. Other attractions include side show and circus artwork, modern pinball machines, and some incredibly elaborate dioramas — everything from a frosty, candy-laden “Santa’s Village” to the awesome “Dark Mystery,” featuring a zombie scene and a cows ‘n’ aliens vignette.
10979 San Pablo, El Cerrito. (510) 592-3002, www.playland-not-at-the-beach.org
BEST MAKE-SHIFT TO DIY CULTURE
From sand tapestries to cupcake cars, soap-making to 70-foot sculptures of spinning stone and steel, Make Magazine’s Maker Faire proves that people can make some cra-zay shit when they’re given the proper encouragement and place to show it off (and warehouse space). The event has gained a reputation for being like Burning Man — only with less dust and fun fur. This year, it featured the work of more than 600 makers, rendering the San Mateo County Event Center into a hand-woven, hydraulic-powered, homegrown healthy bacteria-sprouting maze of maker magic. The fair was also celebrating its fifth year in action (the East Bay edition of the fair takes place Oct. 16 in Oakland), having already turned on thousands to the joys of tinkering.
BEST SINGLE-FILE STYLE
If bikes are ever going to live up to their potential as game-changers in the world’s consumption of fossil fuels, their proponents are gonna need smarts, heart, and damn if they’re not gonna need style as well. Luckily, Tyrone “Baybe Champ” Stevenson Jr. has all three covered. The Oakland cyclist started decorating his two-wheelers with flashy strips of foil, elaborate sound systems, and kitschy corporate logos, sparking a movement that now claims a hip-hop video with more than 3 million hits on YouTube, a dedicated East Bay youth massive, and a world of imitators. The Original Scraper Bike Team holds head-turning single-file group rides through its neighborhoods and has become a bike advocate on par with few. Broke environmentalists everywhere can jam with OSBT anthem: “My bike rides/<0x2009>Don’t need no car.”
originalscraperbikes.blogspot.com
BEST (SWAG) TWITTER (SWAG) RAPPER (SWAG SWAG)
Hey Lil B, we don’t get you — which is crazy because you’re blowing up our Twitter feeds, clogging YouTube with your endless mixtapes and party tracks, and inspiring kitchen dances and gratuitous catchphrases (#swag, #based, #rare) — or rather, repetitious outbursts you insert into your hooks and tag all over aforementioned feeds like there’s no tomorrow. You’d think we’d all have the material necessary to formulate a theory, or something. But then we listen to your 2010 album Rain in England, whose songs lay your spoken word ruminations on dreams and feminine beauty over soothing ambient aural waves. Don’t even get us started with this year’s I’m Gay album-brouhaha. And you’re from Berkeley? #Complex.
BEST HOW SOON IS WOW
Smiths-mania is an admirable torment that afflicts any teen worth her salt who craves morosely literate lyrics paired with driving, jangly melodies. It can continue to affect its victims well into adulthood, too — from nostalgic Gen-Xers who slip on Meat is Murder when the sky is gray and the black dog is growling softly, to folks like author Simon Goddard, whose Mozipedia meticulously breaks down the particulars of every song the 1980s British group recorded. Another work of genius that a feverish Smiths obsession has engendered? Janice Whaley’s The Smiths Project. The Bay Area singer produced a six-CD, 71-song a cappella recreation of the melancholic Mancunians’ entire catalog — in one year. The ingeniously layered beauty of Whaley’s voice fills in all the parts of classics like “How Soon is Now” and “The Queen is Dead.” But all the ache of the originals remains.
BEST PUBLIC WORK (DANCE VERSION)
San Francisco is a global center of house and techno, and despite lacking the vibrantly extra-legal underground scene of other cities like Berlin, Philadelphia, or (closer to home) Oakland, it has always retained a handful of winning clubs that could host a killer party or two. But in the past five years, there’s been an explosion of dance music output — and dance music interest. Today there are just as many in-demand DJs as there are touring indie bands. For a while it seemed as if San Francisco wouldn’t be able to handle the flood, providing the required sound quality (expensive) at the right door price (affordable), while shunning annoying VIP vibes. So when a number of longtime nightlife freaks got together and opened a space last year with the right raw feel, kickass sound system (state-of-the-art Funktion One), and dedication to the funds-challenged community, San Franciscans breathed easy and got sweaty. The consistently stellar lineups and innovative charitable programming at Public Works has polished our little stop on the worldwide party train. Toot toot!
161 Erie, SF. (415) 932-0955, www.publicsf.com
BEST ATLAS OF OURSELVES
We couldn’t pass it around fast enough. Rebecca Solnit’s Infinities Cities, the SF intellectual’s cartographic wonderpiece of Bay Area history and emotion, swept a large part of the Guardian staff off our feet, so pleased were we by its 22 out-of-the-box renderings of the hills and valleys we work and play on. Sites of gay struggle superimposed with the natural habitats of butterflies; a comparison of how identities shift (in this case, Solnit’s and Mission District performance artist Guillermo Gomez Peña’s) between neighborhoods like Pac Heights and the Sunset — a city can’t be defined by Muni maps alone. Solnit’s book, which features deeply researched essays to accompany each map, showed us new roads toward understanding the Bay Area.
BEST OF THE BAY 2011
Welcome to the Guardian’s Best of the Bay 2011! This is our 37th annual celebration of the people, places, and things that make living here such a great experience — from Best Burrito and Best Local Band to Best Strip Club, Best Shoe Store, Best Drag Queen, and beyond.
More than 15,000 of our readers voted in our 2011 Best of the Bay Readers Poll for their favorites in more than 200 categories. You’ll find the results inside — as well as 150 Editors Picks that highlight some Guardian favorites, old and new, that we think deserve special recognition for lighting up our lives this year.
Our theme for 2011 is “Beautiful Rebels” — and inside this year’s Best of the Bay, we’ve highlighted eight of our favorite “beautiful rebels” who we think are helping change the Bay Area for the better. Throughout its history, the Bay Area has attracted wave upon wave of people looking to create something unique. From Barbary Coast explorers to Belle Epoque, Jazz Age, and Beatnik free spirits, from hippies and queer and civil rights pioneers to tattooed 1990s swing kids and Burning Man visionaries, to today’s global tech innovators and their DIY, local, organic, small-batch counterparts.
We seem to be living in a time when a certain conservatism and conformity reigns, when speaking out gets you pilloried in the comments section and big-box consumerism squeezes out charming idiosyncrasies. That’s why we wanted to take this Best of the Bay opportunity to celebrate the Bay Area’s proud perseverance in remaining the weirdest, oddest, most interesting and rewarding place in the world, somewhere where “freak” is a compliment and “out there” equals “gorgeous.”
In 1974, Esquire magazine asked us for ideas for its Best of the USA issue, which led to us publish the original Best of the Bay. Made by the people of the Bay Area for the people of the Bay Area, it’s our annual opportunity to celebrate the people and places that make this city great. We were the first weekly paper to publish a regular “best of” issue. Thirty-seven years on — and 45 years after we opened our doors — we’re still going strong.
Editing this year’s installment was a hoot. I shower grateful smooches on all my collaborators, especially my right-hand amiga Caitlin Donohue, creative wiz Mirissa Neff, amazing illustrator Renee Castro, photographer Ben Hopfer, the Guardian staff, and the ever-supportive Hunky Beau, my own personal Best of the Bay.
But most of all I thank you, dear reader, for your generous participation, for making the Bay Area such an astounding place to live, and for turning us on to some great new things this year.
Marke B.,
Best of the Bay 2011 co-editor
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Like the Guardian, Renee “Lady Reni” Castro is native to the Bay Area — really. Born in Oakland, Castro’s heritage stems from the Ohlone Native American tribe. (You can’t get more local than that.) Her background serves as inspiration for much of her art, especially her subjects’ clothing and their deeply-rooted connections to the natural world. Her other influences for her illustrations in this year’s “Beautiful Rebels”-themed Best of the Bay include Mexican and Spanish folklore, broken-hearted femmes fatales, disheveled muses, and erotic heroines. Castro’s current projects include commissions for SF companies the Loin and Peasants and Travelers, shows in local galleries, plus an apprenticeship at Amor Eterno Tattoo in Oakland, where you’re welcome to drop by and see her.
BEST OF THE BAY STAFF
BEST OF THE BAY EDITORS
Marke B., Caitlin Donohue
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Mirissa Neff
ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR
Ben Hopfer
ILLUSTRATOR
Renee Castro
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Jackie Andrews, Emily Appelbaum, Rebecca Bowe, Richard Boyce, Kimberly Chun, Angelina Kravich, Cheryl Eddy, Nicole Gluckstern, Sean Hurd, Steven T. Jones, Heather Mack, Virginia Miller, Carly Nairn, Sarah Phelan, Julie Potter, Tim Redmond, Paul Reidinger, Kat Renz, Charles Russo, Amber Schadewald, Ariel Soto-Suver, Diane Sussman, Hannah Tepper, Christopher Trenchard
BEST OF THE BAY PHOTOGRAPHY
Francesca Balaguer, Stephen Heraldo, Ben Hopfer, Eric Lynch, Virginia Miller, Ariel Soto-Suver, Erik Anderson
COPY EDITORS
Emily Appelbaum, Diane Sussman
Burning Man tickets sell out for the first time
For the first time in the event’s 25-year history, tickets to Burning Man have sold out. With more than a month left to go before the gates to Black Rock City open at midnight on Aug. 28, burners have already started a mad scramble for spare tickets through various message boards and online networks.
Shortly after tickets started selling at the fastest pace ever on Jan. 20, officials with Black Rock City LLC, the SF-based company that staged Burning Man in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, privately warned that they may sell out this year. The event, which last year peaked at almost 52,000 attendees, is limited by its permits with the US Bureau of Land Management and BRC’s own desire to control its ever-growing size.
A couple months ago, the company announced that tickets would not be available at the gate (which had happened only once before, in 2008) and urged burners to get their tickets because it could sell out. Then, over the weekend, that’s what happened. “This is new territory,” BRC board member Marian Goodell told the Guardian, noting that its BLM permit (which is up for renegotiation after this year’s event) calls for capping the population at last year’s level. “If we didn’t have the BLM permit restrictions, we could manage an increased population.”
BRC, nicknamed the Borg, had privately been trying to dampen public speculation that the event would sell out, worried that scalpers would make a run on tickets. It’s illegal in California to sell tickets for more than their face value, and it has traditionally been a strong part of the burner ethos not to profit off reselling of the tiered-pricing tickets (which ranged from $210-360 this year). But that will be tested this year by the laws of supply and demand. There have also been counterfeit ticket scams exposed recently, and that will be an even greater concern now that legitimate ticket outlets are no longer an option, although the Burning Man website lists ways to check whether a ticket is legitimate.
Meanwhile, BRC has been settling into its new headquarters in Mid-Market Street area, and it has recently announced an Aug. 5 launch date for The Burning Man Project, the new nonprofit organization that will slowly began taking over control of the event over the next several years, with a kickoff party in United Nations Plaza starting at 5 pm.
For more on Burning Man during this important transitional year, look for the Guardian’s special Playa Prep issue hitting the streets on Aug. 3; grab a copy of my new book, The Tribes of Burning Man; or attend one of my upcoming book-related events. And, if you can manage to get a ticket, I’ll see you on the playa.
On the Cheap Listings
On the Cheap listings are compiled by Jackie Andrews. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.
WEDNESDAY 13
How to be a podcaster Bazaar Cafe, 5927 California, SF; www.howtonight.com, www.sparkminute.com. 7pm, free with food or drink purchase. Have something to say, but don’t have the resources to buy a radio transmitter à la Christian Slater in Pump up the Volume? Luckily for you it’s the 21st century, and you can record digital files and distribute them via the Internet as podcasts. Davis Spark – journalist, producer, and founder of Spark Media Solutions – will show you the ropes of creating your own unique podcast series, and even making a buck or two in the process.
THURSDAY 14
Not your average poetry reading Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, SF; (415) CAR-TOON, www.cartoonart.org. 7-10pm, $5-10. Part of the Cartoon Art Museum’s “Art of Howl” exhibition, local celebrities – including Dean Disaster, Dam Dyke, Supervisor Eric Mar, and Sunny Angulo – read selections from Allen Ginsberg’s groundbreaking poem Howl. Local artists Justin Hall and Jon Macy also appear, and the evening is hosted by the always fabulous Anna Conda.
FRIDAY 15
Roller disco party Cellspace, 2050 Bryant, SF; www.cellspace.org. 9pm-2am, $5-$10. Celebrate the 32nd anniversary of the Golden Gate Park Skate Patrol, which grew out of the explosive popularity of outdoor roller skating in Golden Gate Park in 1979 when 20,000 plus funky roller disco enthusiasts started skating through the park every Sunday. Hardcore roller disco junkies can check out either the 7pm or 9pm viewing of Skate Town USA at the Roxie Theater (3117 16th St., SF.) – bring your ticket stub for discounted admission to the roller disco party – and then boogie-oogie to the funkiest jams and relive the good ‘ol days of roller disco.
“When We Were Kids” opening reception 1:AM Gallery, 1000 Howard, SF; (415) 861-5089, www.1amsf.com. 6:30-9:30pm, free. View the art work of Minette Mangahas, Christopher deLeon, and James Garcia at this 21 plus-only art exhibition inspired by the summertime nostalgia of being a kid – whether it be backyard BBQs or learning the hardships of life and struggle. View the primary-colored drama while sipping free-flowing wine and PBR to the beats of DJ Don Kainoa on the wheels of steel.
SUNDAY 17
Daytime Realness El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; Facebook: Daytime Realness. 3-8pm, $8. Drag has officially stepped into the light – the daylight that is. This 1970s-themed daytime drag party – think summertime BBQ at a cross-dressing trailer park circa 1976 – debuts as part of El Rio’s new Sunday schedule of patio parties. Every third Sunday from here on out, hosts Heklina (Trannyshack) and DJ Carnitas (Hard French) along with DJ Stanley Frank (Chilidog) will get you cutting the shag rug as they showcase San Francisco’s finest queens. On this month’s bill are performances by Gina La Divina, Ambrosia Salad, Miss Rahni, Rotisserie Ethnicity Jackson Houston Ross, and more.
Candlestick Park Antique Faire Candlestick Park, Hunter’s Point Expressway at Jamestown, SF; (650) 242-1294, www.candlestickantiques.com. 6am-3pm, $5-$10. Calling all thrifters, hoarders, or just regular folks looking for cool stuff at bargain prices: soak up the summer sun with hundreds of interesting vendors and booths filled with antique and collectible treasures for sale all day long. You will find one-of-a-kind vintage clothes, jewelry, furniture, plus gourmet food trucks (no soggy hot dogs here) and free parking all day long.
AIDS Walk after-party Club Six, 60 Sixth St., SF; (650) 242-1294, www.clubsix1.com, www.brownpapertickets.com. 9pm, $5. Since 1987, AIDS Walk San Francisco has raised nearly $74 million for HIV research programs in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tonight, make musical history while serving a good cause at the 25th anniversary bash for the AIDS walk, called “Hip-Hop, Hope, and Harmony.” Help raise money and awareness for next year’s walk through music – this party will feature performances by BPos, Z’Amico, Simian Scribes, and many others.
Prepare for the playa Café Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF; (650) 242-1294, www.preparefortheplaya.com. 12-7pm, free. Attend this huge street festival and stock up on everything you need for a great burn at Nevada’s Black Rock Desert – tribal, furry, steampunk, and goth fashions, dust goggles and masks, funky costumes, accessories and more will be showcased to get you hyped for Burning Man. There will also be art installations aplenty, and Playa U will teach you survival tactics at various how-to clinics.
Upcoming summer festivals
July 14-24
Midsummer Mozart Festival Various Bay Area venues. (415) 627-9141, www.midsummermozart.org . Prices vary. You won’t be hearing any Beethoven or Schubert at this midsummer series — the name of the day is Mr. Mozart alone.
July 16-17
Connoisseur’s Marketplace Santa Cruz between Camino and Johnson, Menlo Park. (650) 325-2818, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. Let the artisans do what they do best — you’ll polish off the fruits of their labor at this outdoor expo of artisan food, wine, and craft.
July 21-Aug 8
SF Jewish Film Festival Various Bay Area venues. www.sfjff.org. Times and prices vary. A three week smorgasbord of world premiere Jewish films at theaters in SF, Berkeley, the Peninsula, and Marin County.
July 22-Aug 13
Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival Menlo School, 50 Valparaiso, Atherton. (650) 330-2030, www.musicatmenlo.org. Classical chamber music at its best: this year’s theme “Through Brahms,” will take you on a journey through Johannes’ most notable works.
July 23-Sept 25
SF Shakespeare Festival Various Bay Area venues. www.sfshakes.org. Various times, free. Picnic with Princess Innogen and her crew with dropping a dime at this year’s production of Cymbeline. It’s by that playwriter guy… what’s his name again?
July 30
Oakland A’s Beer Festival Eastside Club at the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum, 7000 Coliseum Way, Oakl. www.oakland.athletics.mlb.com. 4:05-6:05pm, free with game ticket. Booze your way through the Oakland A’s vs. Minnesota Twins game while the coliseum is filled with brewskies from over 30 microbreweries, there for the chugging in your souvenir A’s beer mug.
July 30-31
Berkeley Kite Festival Cesar Chavez Park, 11 Spinnaker, Berk. www.highlinekites.com. 10am-5pm, free. A joyous selection of Berkeley’s coolest kites, all in one easy location.
July 31
Up Your Alley Dore between Folsom and Howard, SF. www.folsomstreetfair.com. 11am-6pm, $7-10 suggested donation. Whether you are into BDSM, leather, paddles, nipple clamps, hardcore — or don’t know what any of the above means, this Dore Alley stroll is surprisingly friendly and cute once you get past all the whips!
Aug 1-7
SF Chefs Various venues, SF. www.sfchefs2011.com. Times and prices vary. Those that love to taste test will rejoice during this foodie’s paradise of culinary stars sharing their latest bites. Best of all, the goal for 2011’s event is tons of taste with zero waste.
Aug 7
SF Theater Festival Fort Mason Center. Buchanan and Marina, SF. www.sftheaterfestival.org. 11am-5pm, free. Think you can face about 100 live theater acts in one day? Set a personal record at this indoor and outdoor celebration of thespians.
Aug 13
San Rafael Food and Wine Festival Falkirk Cultural Center, 1408 Mission, San Rafael. 1-800-310-6563, www.sresproductions.com. Noon-6pm, $25 food and wine tasting, $15 food tasting only. A sampler’s paradise, this festival features an array of tastes from the Bay’s best wineries and restaurants.
Aug 13-14
* Nihonmachi Street Fair Post and Webster, SF. www.nihonmachistreetfair.org. 11am-6pm, free. Founded by Asian Pacific American youths, this Japantown tradition is a yearly tribute to the difficult history and prevailing spirit of Asian American culture in this SF neighborhood.
Aug 20-21
Oakland Art and Soul Festival Entrances at 14th St. and Broadway, 16th St. and San Pablo, Oakl. (510) 444-CITY, www.artandsouloakland.com. $15. A musical entertainment tribute to downtown Oakland’s art and soul, this festival features nationally-known R&B, jazz, gospel, and rock artists.
Aug 20-22
* SF Street Food Festival Folsom St from Twenty Sixth to Twenty Second, SF. www.sfstreetfoodfest.com. 11am-7pm, free. All of the city’s best food, available without having to go indoors — or sit down. 2011 brings a bigger and better Street Food Fest, perfect for SF’s burgeoning addiction to pavement meals.
Aug 29-Sept 5
Burning Man Black Rock City, Nev. (415) TO-FLAME, www.burningman.com. $320. This year’s theme, “Rites of Passage,” is set to explore transitional spaces and feelings. Gather with the best of the burned-out at one of the world’s weirdest, most renowned parties.
Sep 10-11
* Autumn Moon Festival Street Fair Grant between California and Broadway, SF. (415) 982-6306, www.moonfestival.org. 11am-6pm, free. A time to celebrate the summer harvest and the end of summer full-moon, rejoice in bounty with the moon goddess.
Sept 17-18
SF International Dragon Boat Festival California and Avenue D, Treasure Island. www.sfdragonboat.com. 10am-5pm, free. The country’s largest dragon boat festival sees beautiful man-powered boats take to the water in 300 and 500 meter competitive races.
Sept 23-25
SF Greek Food Festival Annunciation Cathedral. 245 Valencia, SF. www.sfgreekfoodfestival.org. Fri.-Sat., 11am-10pm; Sun., noon-9pm, free with advance ticket. Get your baba ghanoush on during this late summer festival, complete with traditional Greek dancing, music, and wine.
Sept 25
Folsom Street Fair Folsom between 7th and 12th St., SF. www.folsomstreetfair.org . 11am-6pm, free. The urban Burning Man equivalent for leather enthusiasts, going to this expansive SoMa celebration of kink and fetish culture is the surest way to see a penis in public (you dirty dog!).
Sept 30-Oct 2
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Speedway Meadows, Golden Gate Park, SF. www.strictlybluegrass.com. 11am-7pm, free. Pack some whiskey and shoulder your banjo: this free three day festival draws record-breaking crowds — and top names in a variety of twangy genres — each year.
Items with asterisks note family-fun activities.
Ritual Coffee puts a bird on it (UPDATED)
San Francisco blogosphere has found a fun new obsession: the removal of an artist’s work from Ritual Roasters because it dealt with “real stuff.” It has all the elements of 2010s Mission District drama: dispute over the bounds of creativity, third wave coffee, and Chicken John Rinaldi, whose name people really enjoy typing, over and over again.
So let’s type it again! The Guardian spoke on the phone with Rinaldi – whose partner Eileen Hassi owns Ritual — this morning after rumors that he had been behind the early removal of Varese Layzer’s “Making Room” photography exhibition, and had engineered the space’s replacement. On the phone, he said he’d never met Layzer, but that “we were promised work and she gave us different work. No one’s writing about that, or that she yelled at the baristas.”
Here’s what happened, in a nutshell: a photography exhibit was removed from Ritual Roasters. Hassi sent an email telling artist Layzer her art was “too serious,” but that hey, she’s got some gallerist friends, here’s their phone numbers. Chicken John announced on Facebook that the subsequent replacement of the work with friend Julian Cash’s Burning Man photography was “just that simple.” We are intrigued.
“Someone is using this for publicity – and I kind of admire them for it,” Chicken said, referring to his own penchant to play with the press for fun and profit.
“I don’t really see the need to go into this anymore. We’re too busy, we’re too smart, we’re too good looking. I’m having a nice day, I hope you are too.”
Not very surprisingly Layzer, who discovered her artist statement missing from the wall of Ritual on Sunday before the whole shebang came tumbling down, says she doesn’t understand why the art was removed. “I suspect the owner didn’t like a statement being on the wall and it made her dislike me,” the artist wrote in an email to the Guardian. Layzer tells us that she expressly asked permission to post a statement and that the coffeeshop told her “’It’s your show. Go for it.’”
The art in question was photo documentation of Layzer’s deceased parents’ rent-controlled apartment before it was “bought and demolished,” according to the offensively depressing artist’s statement that was putting people off their americanos. Though she was “devastated. I screamed and wept,” when she heard the work had been de-walled, Layzer says “it means a lot to me that they were public in a physical form, however briefly.”
The photos now on the wall are from Julian Cash’s book The People of Burning Man. They’re not exactly the “pictures of telephone poles, birds sitting on the wires, tapestries of heavy metal lyrics,” that Hassi wrote to Layzer as being more appropriate to decorate a cafe – though they certainly qualify as her other descriptor: “whimsical stuff.”
His are portraits from the playa of freaky, body-painted and well-adorned Burners. Cash sets up an improbably-white studio at Black Rock City and encourages subjects to express themselves as they see fit. Ironically, some of the expressions that made their way to Ritual touch upon strife in the Middle East, a man literally drowning in his suit-bound life, a man protesting credit card debt by faux-inserting them into his bald scalp, faux (?) blood dripping everywhere.
In a recent statement published on his website, Cash seems happy that his newly-released book has been thrust into the spotlight. “I am almost delighted to be told that my work is “fluffy” but I’m uncertain as to why. I think I have a reputation as someone who is respectful to his subjects and thrives on collaboration. I certainly believe in the value of fun, and that if you live a life where you are not regularly feeling joy, you are doing it wrong.” (You can read Cash’s complete take on the matter here)
So maybe Layzer was just a jerk to someone’s employees, and maybe she switched up the content of her show and exacerbated relationships. Maybe the folks at Ritual Roasters just wanted another artist. The event as a sign that Valencia Street continues to be Valencia-ized – well that’s too obvious to write a blog post about these days. Maybe it’s indicative of the hippie-punk back and forth that seems to drive this city culturally.
Or maybe we just need to grab our coffee and head outside. Look, sunshine!
Update: In response to the yelling allegations, Varese had this to say:
No way! It’s very possible that some loyal friends of mine came in and yelled at the baristas. People were very upset for me. But I bet I wasn’t even in SF when this yelling of mine occurred. The last time I talked to a barista at Ritual I had work on the walls and were asking if my business cards were still on the counter or some such relatively unimportant matter – and also I asked did anyone know where the statement had gone. Then I stormed out, phoning the curator on the way and crying on the phone. I guess the whole story is about an artist and a cafe hating each other? I’d be sorry to see that but I suppose it doesn’t really matter.
Okay, now weekend.
Burner artists go bigger and wider
I’ve been covering Burning Man for many years, both for the Guardian and my book, so it’s easy to feel a little jaded about another year of preparing for that annual pilgrimage to the playa. But then I plug into the innovative projects that people are pursuing – as I did last week for the annual Desert Arts Preview – and I find myself as amazed and wide-eyed as a Burning Man virgin.
And when the weekend came, I watched my old camps go bigger than ever – with Opulent Temple throwing a rocking Rites of Massive six-stage dance party on Treasure Island, and the Flux Foundation lighting up the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas with its newest installation, BrollyFlock – demonstrating the ambitious scale at which veteran burners are now operating.
Increasingly, burners are putting their energies into real world projects not bound for Burning Man, often with the help of Black Rock Arts Foundation, the nonprofit spinoff of Black Rock City LLC that funds and facilitates public art projects. BRAF’s latest, a project that is also receiving a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, is The Bike Bridge, which pairs noted burner artist Michael Christian with 12 young women from Oakland to turn old bicycles and bike parts into sculptures that will be built at The Crucible and placed throughout Oakland.
“The Bike Bridge is the next evolution of our community-focused public art projects,” BRAF Executive Director Tomas McCabe said in a June 23 press release. “This educational and creative project is designed specifically to engage Oakland’s youth.”
Later that evening, McCabe and other burners gathered on the waterfront in Kelly’s Mission Cafe for the Desert Arts Preview, where he ticked off a long list of projects that BRAF was working on around the world, from the conversion of a bridge in Portland, Ore. into an elaborate artwork to a sculpture made of sails for next year’s Figment festival in New York City to a bus opera (written about bus culture and performed aboard buses) in Santa Fe to a cool interactive floating eyeball artwork that will tour Paris, London, Barcelona, and San Francisco to the BOOM Parade (combining bicycles and boom boxes) that will roll through Bayview Hunters Point in October.
But the most ambitious artworks are still being planned for that limitless canvas of the Black Rock Desert, where Burning Man will be staged in late August. This year’s temple, The Temple of Transition, is being built out of Reno by a huge international crew from 20 countries headed by a pair of artists known simply by their nationalities, Irish and Kiwi, who built Megatropolis at last year’s event.
“We built a city block of buildings and burned it to the ground,” Kiwi told the gathering, noting how impressed he’s been by a number of recent projects he’s watched. “When you start doing that, you feel challenged and wonder what you can do next.”
Irish said they were particularly inspired by watching the Temple of Flux go up last year, a project involving more than 200 volunteers that I worked on and chronicled for the Guardian, and said it made them want to bid to build this year’s temple. “That’s what inspired us,” Irish said.
The project includes a series of towers and altars, the tallest one in the center reaching about 120-feet into the air, a phenomenal height against the vast flatness of the playa. They said volunteers have been plentiful and the city of Reno has actively facilitated their work, “but our main concern is having enough finances,” Kiwi said.
The project got a grant from the company that stages Burning Man, Black Rock City LLC, which gave almost $500,000 to 44 different projects this year, but most didn’t come anywhere close to covering the full project costs. The Temple of Transition bridged its gap by raising almost $25,000 in a campaign on Kickstarter, which many projects are now using.
“It’s a great way to cut out the middle man. You guys are funding art directly,” longtime artist Jon Sarriugarte, who got a BRC art grant this year to build the Serpent Twins (with his partner, Kyrsten Mate), said of Kickstarter, where he was about three-quarters of the way to meeting his goal of the $10,000 he needs to cover his remaining project costs.
Serpent Twins is a pair of Nordic serpents crafted from a train of 55-gallon containers and illuminated with fire and LED effects that will snake their way around the playa this year, one of many mobile artworks that have been getting ever more ambitious each year.
“I love the playa. It’s a beautiful canvas, but it’s also a beautiful road,” Sarriugarte told the group, conveying his excitement at driving his art into groups of desert wanderers: “I can’t wait to split the crowds and then contain them.”
Another cool project that is in the final days of a much-needed Kickstarter campaign is Otic Oasis, whose artists (including longtime Burning Man attorney Lightning Clearwater) brought a scale model to the event. It’s a slotted wood structure made up of comfy lounging pods stacked into a 35-foot pyramid design that will be placed in the quietest corner of the playa: deep in the walk-in camping area, inaccessible to art cars and other distractions.
That and other projects that are doing Kickstarter campaign are listed on the Burning Man website, where visitors can get a nice overview of what’s in store.
One project that didn’t meet its ambitious Kickstarter goal was Truth & Beauty, artist Marco Cochrane’s follow-up to last year’s amazing Blissdance, a 40-sculpture of a dancing nude woman that has temporarily been placed on Treasure Island. But the crew has already made significant progress on the new project, a 55-foot sculpture of the same model in a different pose (stretching her arms skyward), and Cochrane told me they will be bringing a section of her from her knees to shoulders as a climbable artwork.
The Flux crew has been working for months on BrollyFrock, a renegade flock of flaming, illuminated, and shade-producing umbrellas that was commissioned by Imsomniac for its Nocturnal and Electric Daily Carnival music festivals, and it was placed at the latter festival near Wish, large dandelions that were built near the Temple of Flux at Burning Man last year, as well as new artworks by Michael Christian. Flux’s Jessica Hobbs said burners artists have become much sought-after by the large festivals that have begun to proliferate.
“I really think a lot of these music festivals are looking at how our pieces make an experience,” Hobbs said, citing both the spectacularity and interactivity that are the hallmarks of Burning Man artworks of the modern era. The Flux crew was pushed to meet a tight deadline for the project, preventing them from doing a big project for Burning Man this year, but that’s just part of the diversification being experienced by burner artists these days. “We challenged ourselves and we came away with another great project.”
On the hook
rebeccab@sfbg.com
Unique Roberts squared back her shoulders and recalled what it was like when she first moved to San Francisco from East Oakland more than a decade ago. A tall, 33-year-old African American transgender woman with piercing eyes and a charming smile despite gaps of missing teeth, Roberts said she performed as a showgirl at clubs like Harvey’s and the Pendulum in the Castro. In those exciting days, “I fell in love with this boy, and he was an addict,” she explained. “I thought that if I did it, it would keep our relationship together.”
She recalled how awful her boyfriend felt when he found out she was using, telling her, “You don’t know what you’re doing to yourself.” He departed for Texas several years later, but addiction stuck with her as a way of life.
She says she’s tried to kick the habit, but it’s wrapped up in a battle against depression stemming from the loss of loved ones. Roberts was wearing one of the bright orange sweatshirts issued to inmates at San Francisco County Jail. She landed there after being arrested in April for allegedly selling a tiny rock of crack, weighing just 9/100s of a gram, to an undercover narcotics officer. According to the police report, the cop offered her $20 for it — but based on National Drug Intelligence Center street-value estimates, that amount is only worth about $2.50.
Roberts may go by the first name Unique, but her lawyer Tal Klement, who works for the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, is fond of saying her case is hardly unique at all. She was one of several people arrested in the Tenderloin that day after interacting with the same plainclothes officer.
It was part of a coordinated sweep known as a buy-bust, a common practice under which an officer may pose as a homeless person, a clueless outsider, or a dope-sick fiend to lure people into selling crack, pills, meth, heroin, or marijuana. Once a transaction is made, a team of officers awaiting the signal immediately closes in and arrests the seller.
As of June 20, there were at least 109 open buy-bust cases in San Francisco. Based on defendants’ rap sheets, 92 percent had prior drug-use histories, according to a tally conducted by the Public Defender’s Office.
The officers posing as buyers — who often earn overtime — use street lingo, know which drugs can be obtained at which intersections, and sometimes offer higher prices than the accepted street value. Attorney Anne Irwin, also a public defender, is critical of the practice, saying it’s an expensive tactic that’s makes for easy arrests — because the money is irresistible to addicts who think they’re getting an opportunity to convert a personal stash into more drugs.
In a lean budget year, “they’re cutting social services left and right, and these are the very services that could help the addicts get off the street,” Irwin noted. She’s skeptical that the strategy stems the flow of substantial quantities of drugs.
Police Chief Greg Suhr, who said he participated in buy-busts for years as a narcotics officer, credits the tactic for helping to eradicate a rampant open-air drug market on Third Street in the Bayview, and says it can help prevent drug-related violence.
Klement, however, condemns it as a “war on crumbs,” saying it ensnares far more addicts than serious dealers and often ends up unnecessarily pinning felony convictions onto low-level offenders.
NUMBERS GAME
Buy-busts usually involve around eight officers, according to an average calculated by the Public Defender’s Office based on open cases, but have involved as many as 14 and as few as three. There’s the decoy buyer, who sometimes dresses in grimy sweatpants, goes without shaving, or dirties his face to look like a street addict in desperate need of a fix. There’s a “close cover” officer who follows the decoy, plus an arrest team that is also sometimes in plainclothes. Beforehand, officers will photocopy cash — usually $20 bills — to document the serial numbers so that the same marked city funds can be used as evidence once recovered from arrestees. Busts can happen within minutes of one another, and a single shift may net five or six arrests.
Irwin says the people snared aren’t typical drug dealers — certainly not big-time players. But they’re charged as dealers — and in many cases wind up branded as felons, with severe legal penalties such as multiyear prison sentences.
While the police department is able to show on paper that it’s brought hundreds of drug dealers into custody — and the district attorney can point to a boost in the conviction rate thanks to the program’s efficiency — Irwin says the amounts being peddled are tiny.
“In traditional narcotics operations, they cultivated snitches, used surveillance, and obtained search warrants” to go after major dealers, Irwin said. With buy-busts, “It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Everyone agrees that we need cops on the streets to help keep us safe … But do we want to be paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for this?”
Sharon Woo, chief assistant of operations for the San Francisco District Attorney, told the Guardian that “we charge based on the conduct of the individual.” Woo went on to say that the DA tried to “exercise appropriate discretion” on a case-by-case basis when individuals are selling to support an addiction or due to being in dire financial straits.
Sometimes individuals are ushered into alternative programs such as drug court or a Back on Track program for first-time offenders, Woo said. And while the DA typically includes charges that make defendants ineligible for probation under state law if they have prior convictions for selling crack-cocaine — a discretionary practice that has drawn criticism from public defenders — Woo observed that “it doesn’t mean that’s how cases resolve.”
Police forces in nearly every major metropolitan area practice buy-busts, said Frank Zimring, a law professor at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law specializing in criminal justice issues. Yet he described the practice as costly and noted that paying overtime for it “makes what would ordinarily be a very expensive operation into a more expensive operation.”
Cost estimates for the entire program are tough to pin down. It costs $130 per day to house each prisoner in the county jail, amounting to more than $14,000 per day if all of the defendants with pending cases are in custody. If an average of eight officers per bust were paid $60 an hour each to spend six hours conducting a buy-bust, the current caseload represents more than $300,000 in officer pay — a conservative estimate — and that’s before lawyers in the offices of the public defender and district attorney are paid to prosecute and defend the suspects in court.
But no matter how you add it up, it’s a lot of money.
Suhr told the Guardian that apprehending street-level offenders occasionally leads officers to bigger fish. “Sometimes you get a low-level person, or a buyer if you will … if that same person would say, ‘But I know this guy and he has guns and he’s a big dealer and whatever.’ That is a good way to get to those bigger people.”
“We’ve never seen that happen in practice,” Klement countered.
One of Irwin’s clients, a homeless man, was charged with selling narcotics after he scraped out the contents of his pipe to sell 1/1,000th of a gram of crack to an undercover officer for $20. In a rare twist, the case was ultimately settled on a misdemeanor possession of narcotics.
Inspector Robert Doss, who served as the decoy in that case, has earned substantial amounts of overtime while going undercover to buy drugs, according to a court transcript. In 2009 Doss earned $35,488 in combined overtime and “other pay,” which includes time spent testifying in court, according to a San Francisco Chronicle database of municipal salaries.
ON THE STREET, OFF THE STREET
The Tenderloin is frequently targeted for buy-busts, with 65 percent of open cases as of June 13 having taken place in that neighborhood. The Haight ranked second, with nearly 12 percent of cases, and the Mission followed with 10 percent. Shortly after District Attorney George Gascón was sworn into his prior post as police chief in 2009, he announced a concerted effort to clean up the Tenderloin, and Klement maintains he’s seen a surge in cases stemming from buy-busts there ever since.
Drug dealing in the Tenderloin often makes the news as a source of frustration to merchants and residents. “You try and explain to the people of San Francisco that it’s okay for people to have open-air drug markets right in front of their stores,” Suhr said.
Yet Klement maintains that what is essentially a quality-of-life crime should not be treated as a felony. “There’s a lot of pressure from people who are invested in businesses [in the Tenderloin] who would love to see that neighborhood become the next Hayes Valley,” he said. “But what they don’t realize is that people are paying with prison for that agenda.”
Once someone has been labeled a drug dealer in the eyes of the law, he said, it becomes more difficult for them to access drug treatment — not to mention get a job, qualify for a student loan, or find housing.
Roberts’ case nearly went to trial. If convicted, she could have been sent to prison for a minimum of three and a maximum of 17 years due to extra penalties from prior convictions. On the eve of the trial, however, the case was settled on a possession charge for a year in jail, a rare outcome. Klement was hoping to have her placed in a treatment program.
Asked if she knew of others swept up in undercover operations, Roberts gave a wry chuckle and gestured to the jail corridor behind her, indicating that nearly everyone there had been taken down in similar fashion. Klement noted that the targets of the buy-busts are almost exclusively people of color, saying, “You walk into the holding cell and you think you’re in Alabama or Mississippi, not San Francisco.”
In an editorial on the subject that he wrote a couple years ago, Klement noted that by contrast, predominantly white middle class people with a fondness for illegal drugs are rarely targeted because they aren’t the ones selling drugs on the street. “The hard truth is that the police ignore most of the middle class drug use and dealing occurring out of private homes in every neighborhood or other public venues in the city — bars, nightclubs, concert halls. More drugs are being transported to Burning Man as we speak than will probably be seized during Gascón’s entire crackdown.”
For Klement, it’s just another symptom of a broken system. “A lot of these people are repeat players because we don’t have the right interventions at the right time,” he said. “We don’t understand addiction.”
Our Weekly Picks: June 22-28, 2011
WEDNESDAY 22
DANCE
Hard Core: Getting Raw
Finding your identity is tough unless you are a vegetable. Asserting your identity — going against mom and dad — can be tough. However, if who you are and who you want to be goes against societal norms, be prepared to fight for your life. People have died doing it. It’s what the Queer Arts Festival is all about: paying tribute to and celebrating being “out there.” It’s most appropriate that hip-hop — street-born, street-nourished — is part of this yearly event. Hard Core: Getting Raw is a multimedia show put together by Josh Klipp and members of the Freeplay Dance Crew in which each artist (Klipp, Liz Angoff, Kevan Arrington, Hana Azman, and Molly Tsongas) tells a story about a journey undertaken. (Rita Felciano)
Wed/22–Thurs/23, 8 p.m., $15
Garage
975 Howard, SF
(415) 518-1517
THURSDAY 23
EVENT
Manic D Press showcase
In concert with this month’s Pride festivities, the recently relocated Modern Times Bookstore hosts a reading to spotlight luminaries from the queer independent scene. Many affiliated artists stop by, none of whom are exclusively tied to the literary scene but many of whom are pursuing a more experimental approach instead The night features poet Daphne Gottlieb (author of nine books), zinester Larry-Bob Roberts (he’s been called “the Stephen Colbert of queer culture”), badass trans musician-performer Lynn Breedlove, and performance artist extraordinaire Alvin Orloff. With such an eclectic collection of artists of the queer community gathered in one space, the night looks to be a classy, entertaining classy bookend to the flashier parties and parades to come. (David Getman)
7 p.m., free
Modern Times Bookstore
2919 24th St., SF
(415) 282-9246
EVENT
Mara Hvistendahl
On glimpsing the title of Science magazine correspondent Mara Hvistendahl’s new book Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, I immediately thought what any reasonable boy-crazy person would: yeeeeesssss! Because in the meat-marketplace of a society burdened by a capitalistic priapism, the more infinite the choices, the better. But as usual, first impressions are incomplete. Join Hvistendahl as she explains the repercussions of selective sex abortion and the resulting 160 million women missing from Asia. How is this imbalance tweaking entire nations, and what does the West have to do with it (aside from having invented the ultrasound)? Can I get some ladies here? (Kat Renz)
6 p.m., $5–$15
World Affairs Council Auditorium
312 Sutter, Suite 200, SF
(415) 293-4600
FRIDAY 24
PERFORMANCE
I Love Being Me, Don’t You?
A cherished comedian, singer, actress, gay deity, and recent Sarah Palin pummeler, Sandra Bernhard comes to town with a new show and new songs from a new album (both show and album are called I Love Being Me, Don’t You?) as well as dependably cutting observations about the world as such — all in time for Pride. Judging by reports from New York City’s sold-out Town Hall appearance, Bernhard — also working on a new musical with Justin Vivian Bond titled Arts and Crafts — flourishes trademark comedic and vocal chops while keeping outspoken, outrageous, and just plain out. (Robert Avila)
Fri/24–Sat/25, 7 p.m., $45–$75
Marines’ Memorial Theatre
609 Sutter, Second Floor., SF
(415) 771-6900
www.marinesmemorialtheatre.com
MUSIC
Brainfeeder Records Showcase
Started in 2008, the Brainfeeder label has essentially the same musical genetics as its founder, Flying Lotus: bass, hip-hop, electronic, things that go bleep-bloop, and jazz (all with a distinctively experimental bent). Following performances in New York City and L.A., Flying Lotus and a collection of labelmates will be bringing a showcase to 103 Harriet. Of particular interest will be 20-year-old Austin Peralta, a composer and jazz keyboardist who has drawn comparisons to McCoy Tyner and Chick Corea. His album, Endless Planets, has a sense of continuity with the forward elements of the genre (that seemed in part to stall outside of Japan in the ’70s) modernized for the 21st century. (Ryan Prendiville)
With Flying Lotus, Thundercat, Austin Peralta, Teebs, and Strangeloop
9 p.m., $22.50
103 Harriet, SF.
(415) 431-1200
EVENT
“World’s Ugliest Dog Contest”
Festival season has arrived, and if the tie-dye at the Haight Ashbury Street Fair and the impending smolder of the Queer Tango Fest (June 29-July 3) hasn’t yet reminded you of the all-consuming special-ness of the Bay Area, I hereby announce the entrance of the ugly dogs. Yes, the Sonoma-Marin Fair was the birthplace of the snaggle-toothed, wonky-tailed trend of funky puppy adulation that has since made its way from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno show to Europe and back again. The day culminates in the crowning of another freaky furry friend (the 23rd annual!), but get to the fair early to enjoy dog training lessons, treat demonstrations, and, oh yes, the rest of the pig-and-pie county fair action. (Caitlin Donohue)
6 p.m. (fair hours, noon–midnight), $8–$15
Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds
175 Fairgrounds, Petaluma
FILM
San Francisco United Film Festival
As per its mission statement, the San Francisco United Film Festival draws from an impressively varied pool of films for its third year in the city. From Bhopali, a somber look at the 1984 Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India, to The Dead Inside, a zombie-centric musical (the first?), there are strong indicators that the oft-used mantra “something for everyone” is apropos. Documentaries are the meat of this year’s selection and provide some of the more outstanding picks. Eat the Sun examines the practice of sun-gazing, or staring directly into the sun for prolonged periods of time in the belief that this will provide miraculous sustenance, and Superheroes dives mask-first into the world of real-life costumed vigilantes. Superheroes particularly holds promise as a crowd favorite as director Michael Barnett follows avengers Mr. Extreme on patrol and in their daily lives. Super! (Cooper Berkmoyer)
June 24–30, $10.75 (all-film pass, $25–$50)
Roxie Theater
3117 16th St., SF
(415) 863-1087
www.theunitedfest.com/sanfrancisco
SATURDAY 25
MUSIC
San Francisco Free Folk Festival
What better place than a middle school to host a wholesome folk festival? San Francisco’s 35th annual Free Folk Festival features music, dance, and art performances, workshops, and jam sessions for toddlers, teens, 20-somethings, and tried and true folks of any age. The festival provides a great opportunity to fine-tune your Gypsy jazz guitar, pennywhistle, left-handed mandolin, and countless other highly specialized instruments in hour-long workshops throughout the day. If listening and dancing are more your thing, there’ll be storytelling, Moroccan dance, jug band swing, and Bohemian national polka sessions galore. It seems no pocket of culture around the world will go untapped. On the off chance that you think something’s been overlooked, there’s a plain old open mic, too. (Getman)
Sat/25–Sun/26, noon–10 p.m., free
Presidio Middle School
450 30th Ave., SF
MUSIC
“Rites of Massive”
Opulent Temple, the SF-based Burning Man camp that has been rocking the playa since 2003, is going big again on Treasure Island, drawing in a wide variety of Burning Man DJs, sculptures, performers, art cars, and music lovers. After filling Building 180 two years ago for its Massive Cox party featuring DJ Carl Cox, OT is moving to the larger Hangar 3 space for Rites of Massive (playing off this year’s Burning Man art theme “Rites of Passage”). Internationally acclaimed headliners DJ Dan, Christopher Lawrence, and Elite Force join notable local DJs on six stages, with burner sound collectives Distrikt, Symbiosis, and others joining the Opulent Temple hosts. Get ready to go big. (Steven T. Jones)
9 p.m.–4 a.m., $30–$50
Hangar 3, 600 California
Treasure Island, SF
MUSIC
Cibo Matto
They’ve become hyperactive again. Prior to Cibo Matto’s split in 2001, the duo of instrumentalist Yuka Honda and singer Miho Hatori were responsible for some of the most infectious and bizarre sweet, sweet music of the 1990s. Based in New York City, Cibo Matto had a tendency to be mistaken for a J-Pop band at first listen, in part because of a consistent, aforementioned energy level, but in truth it skipped across the musical spectrum with a complete disregard for genres. The trip-hopping of “Sugar Water.” The ray-gun blap rap of “Working for Vacation.” The tropicalia version of “About a Girl.” Reunited for a Japanese benefit and now a small tour, the band is reportedly working on a new album. (Prendiville) With Chain Gang of 1974
9 p.m., $25
1025 Columbus, SF
(415) 474-0365
SUNDAY 26
FILM
“Sand Up Your Vortex”
Since beach dreams rarely come true ’round these foggy, windy parts, why not ditch the S.P.F. and stuff your wild bikini at the Vortex Room instead? Tonight’s quadruple feature kicks off with Roger Corman’s 1957 Attack of the Crab Monsters (nukes made ’em giant; human flesh makes ’em hungry); Jack Curtis’ 1964 The Flesh Eaters (contains Nazis, beatniks, and — again — gruesomely gourmet human flesh); Monster from the Surf (1965), perhaps best explained by its alternate title, The Beach Girls and the Monster; and Nate Watt’s 1961 The Fiend of Dope Island (“He took everything and everyone he wanted!”), which is firmly ensconced on my list (along with 1976’s Shriek of the Mutilated and 1981’s Make Them Die Slowly) of all-time best movie titles. (Cheryl Eddy)
7 p.m., $5
Vortex Room
1082 Howard, SF
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Tribes author burrows into the Big Apple
Thanks to the help of burners from at least five different tribes that I’ve covered or camped with at Burning Man, my New York City book tour was a successful adventure in art and community, from the Figment festival on scenic Governors Island to exotic eating and drinking in the East Village and Queens to a great underground party at an old Catholic school in Brooklyn to getting canonized by Rev. Billy and his 25-person choir into the Church of Earthalujah along with SF-based performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña.
The June 7-13 trip was in support of The Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the New American Counterculture, my book chronicling how an event born in San Francisco has spawned a vast, well-developed culture and ethos that is affecting life in cities around the world, even seemingly impervious megalopolises like the Big Apple.
I arrived on the red eye Wednesday morning just as a heat wave was peaking in New York, showing up mid-morning at the Upper East Side apartment of Jax, a recent transplant from SF who I worked with on last year’s Temple of Flux project. Her air conditioner hadn’t arrived yet, so I sweated through a needed nap before surrendering myself to exploring the city.
That night was my Tribes launch party in a great spot called Casa Mezcal on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side. Fellow Shadyvil campmate Wylie Stecklow had not only arranged the venue, which is owned by one of his law clients, but he moved the weekly Big Apple Burners happy hour and the final planning meeting for Figment (an event he co-founded four years ago) to the venue, giving me a built-in audience of interested burners who seemed to really appreciate my reading and discussion.
Also joining the party were two NYC figures who appear in my book: Not That Dave, Burning Man’s NYC regional contact and a Figment director, and Billy Talen, the former San Francisco performance artist who transformed himself into NYC’s Reverend Billy, pastor of the Church of Stop Shopping, which evolved into the Church of Life After Shopping before becoming the Church of Earthalujah to reflect a mission that expanded from economic justice and anti-consumerism to environmentalism and a holistic way of looking at the perils of our economic system.
As I’ve been doing at some of my Bay Area book events, I read chapters that introduced them and then let them speak, and they each had lively, weird, heart-warming things to say. Several other New Yorkers who I know through Burning Man showed up at the event to join the discussion, wish me well, and buy books. The most surprising guest was Mike Farrah, former Mayor Gavin Newsom’s old right-hand man who did more to facilitate the temporary placement of burner artworks in SF than anyone in City Hall. He now lives in NYC and showed up late, so after talking SF politics and BRC art over beers, we wandered past some of the oldest tenement buildings in the city together as we headed toward the subway.
The city was sweltering the next day (although Jax’s air conditioner had blessedly arrived), so I spent over three hours in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which makes SF’s museums seem like mere gallery spaces. I walked through Central Park between the reservoir and the Great Lawn, which was being set up for that evening’s Black Eyed Peas concert, all the way to the Upper East Side and my reading at the Columbia University Bookstore (which nobody showed up for, a combination of school being out, the heat, and a freak thunderstorm that was just rolling in as my event began – my first flop after more than a dozen bookstore events).
But New York is a city for nightowls, as I was just beginning to appreciate, particularly after I made my way down to the East Village that night to meet a Garage Mahal campmate who I’ve known for years simply as Manhattan. He’s been living in his apartment for 15 years and the city for 25, developing a detailed knowledge of the best places to eat, drink, and otherwise indulge.
Manhattan won’t go to the Upper East Side, preferring to remain in “civilization,” as he calls the East Village, which earned its storied reputation as the center of the nightlife universe. We ate Japanese curry at Curry Ya, drank hard-to-find German Kolsch beer at Wechsler’s Currywurst, danced with saucy Armenian women on Avenue C, drank cold sake underground at Decibel, indulged in the most decadent fried pork sandwiches at Porchetta, mingled with beautiful young people in the Penny Farthing, and then drank cocktails on his stoop until dawn, the streets never going to sleep in this lively neighborhood.
On Friday in the early afternoon, I met Wylie at The Cube, a public art piece near the 8th Street subway stop, and we hopped a train down to the southern tip of Manhattan to catch the free ferry to Governors Island for the opening day of Figment, an art festival started there by burners in 2007 that has since expanded to Detroit, Boston, and Jackson.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials have embraced and facilitated the popular three-day event, which now includes art projects such as a treehouse built of old doors, massive steel sculptures, and an elaborate miniature golf course that will remain on the island through the summer. Most of the projects featured the interactivity that is the hallmark of burner art, such as a sound project in an enclosed courtyard in which passerby had to figure out how they were controlling the sounds they heard.
Wylie and I pedaled on borrowed rental bikes to cover all the projects on a large island that is a decommissioned military base with gorgeous views of the Manhattan and New Jersey skylines. Out on the Picnic Point lawn, with the Statue of Liberty looking on from the bay, the venerable NYC-based Burning Man sound camp Disorient hosted a rocking set of DJs under a massive wooden sculpture that they built for Figment and the playa this year.
Unfortunately, Figment is permitted only as a daytime event that ends at 6 pm, because the energy of the 100-plus organizers and volunteers could have driven this party well into the wee hours. Instead, they all gathered after the event at the 340-year-old White Horse Tavern to discuss the day, celebrate, and share endless ideas for new art projects and ways of measuring and directing all the creative energy that flows through their event and city.
After partying until dawn again, Manhattan and I climbed into his car (yes, a car, in Manhattan, the better to cover more ground, he says) Saturday mid-afternoon, picked up a friend near Wall Street, and crossed the Brooklyn Bridge headed toward Astoria, Queens. There, we drank pitchers of rich Czech beer at the 100-year-old Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden, run by the nonprofit Bohemian Citizens’ Benevolent Society, a fraternal order open only to those with Czech blood. With an outdoor capacity of almost 1,000 people, this place was like my beloved Zeitgeist on steroids.
On the way back to the East Village that night, Manhattan did a sudden U-turn and parked in a bus zone in front of a crowded outdoor eatery called Tavern Kyclades, muttering something about needing octopus and telling us he’d just be a minute. The wait for tables at this amazing Greek seafood spot was 90 minutes, but after less than 10 he was back with a to-go container with three long octopus legs, grilled, tender, and just insanely good.
That night, the plan was to hit an underground party in Brooklyn, thrown in a former Catholic school by Rubulad, a venerable party crew. It was after 1 am when we finally left Manhattan’s apartment for the party, catching the subway at Union Square and arriving to find the party in full swing, with more than a dozen rooms with different offerings: DJ dance parties, avante garde films, a piano bar, live music from a trio that had the beautiful crowd dancing hard and smiling. As the party wound down, I headed to Queens with a new friend and we watched a new day dawn on the Empire State building standing tall in the distance.
Sunday might be a day of rest for some, but not for me, not with the kind of roll I was on. So I caught the last ferry to Governors Island at 3 pm and spent the afternoon at Figment with some other burner friends, Shanthi and Patty, who came back to the East Village with me afterward for my third and final Tribes event: being canonized by Reverend Billy during the Church of Earthalujah’s regular Sunday evening performance at Theatre 80 on St. Marks Place.
I’ve been covering Billy and his crew for years, from their performances in San Francisco’s Castro Theater and other local venues to their film “What Would Jesus Buy?” to their work at Burning Man, including their touching sendoff of burner work crews to the Gulf Coast in 2005 to do cleanup and rebuilding work after Hurricane Katrina, an effort that became Burners Without Borders.
As I write in my book, Billy and his choir of several dozen were transformed by Burning Man, and they have returned that embrace of a culture that magnifies and perpetuates their values. And after being called from the audience and walking toward the stage during a rousing rendition of the “When the Saints Go Marching In,” I was warmly embraced by the entire 25-member chorus – actually, it was probably closer to a group grope – and I became Saint Scribe.
And after that, it’s all a bit of a blur, and a vibrant, decadent, Big Apple blur. Thanks, everyone, for a truly memorable trip.
Wild is the wind
marke@sfbg.com
SUPER EGO “I remember the last time I saw Nina Simone, it was just after the Bush-Gore election fiasco. She was maaad,” graciously loquacious jazz chanteuse Kim Nalley told me over the phone when I asked her about the High Priestess of Soul’s relevance today. “Here was this woman who had been there through so many stages of the civil rights struggle, fought for voting rights in Mississippi, been there through all of that — and then to hear about black communities, Jewish communities, where the votes just disappeared …
“Well, she wasn’t having any of that. She told us we had to always keep up the fight, keep the fire going, and never let go. What was gained in one generation could be completely wiped out in the next. And all the while she was playing the most spellbinding music. I think that’s her angle on now”
Golden-voiced and full of fierceness, Ms. Nalley, a longtime (but not too long) Bay Area phenom and former owner of Jazz at Pearl’s in North Beach, intends to keep that message alive for five straight weeks at the Rrazz Room — and sing the sugar out of a Nina Simone set list that runs to 44 songs, augmented with tales of the activist diva’s life and accomplishments. If just thinking about doing all that makes you draw a breath, add in that Nalley is finishing up her Ph.D. in history at UC Berkeley, teaching jazz to grade school kids, and preparing to embark on a string of international tours and recording projects. Plus she’s catching up on all four seasons of Mad Men. Did I mention she’s gorgeous and actually exists?
She’s also well aware of the hold almighty Nina still exerts on the dancefloor imagination — from the famous, or infamous, Verve Remixed series of the early ’00s, to more recent sample-based efforts like those of Massive Attack, Gui Boratto, Ark, and this spring’s rather unfortunate minimal-tech hit “Sinnerman 2011” by Sean Miller and Daniel Dubb, which apparently took two people to make. (Civilization has so far escaped an Auto-Tuned strip-rap version of “See-Line Woman” or Deadmau5’s “Young Gifted and Black” but I could easily see Nicki Minaj as all “Four Women” at once.)
“You hear these newer versions of her, but some can sound so dated so quickly,” Kim said. “The originals never stop being fresh, alive. There’s nothing wrong with introducing her to new audiences in different ways. But Nina has always been with us, right there, so go out and hear her actual music, already.” *
SHE PUT A SPELL ON ME: THE MUSIC OF NINA SIMONE
Through July 17, Wed.–Sat., 8 p.m.,
Sundays, 7 p.m., $30–$37.50
Rrazz Room at Hotel Nikko
222 Mason, SF
TRANNYSHACK: HEKLINA’S BIRTHDAY
The highest hog in dragland turns 103, and this night of greatest hits command performances will be an over-the-top trashtacular. Plus: Justin V. Bond from New York City, and probably some light rimming.
Fri/17, 9:30 p.m.–-3 a.m., $12–>$15. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. www.trannyshack.com
PRECOMPRESSION
It’s that time, again — time for the Burning Man gear-up and things that sound like this: “We invite you to live out this year’s theme in ways that manifest your personal journey.” I’m gonna be a pizza! Put it on the pizza! Put it on the pizza! It’s all good. With a holy helluva lot of DJs, theme installations, and fun-fur coughs.
Sat/18, 8 p.m.–4 a.m., $15 in “Playa finery,” $20 without. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com
FLYING SAUCER BEACH PARTY
What do you get when you mix big-headed invaders, a slew of hot bodies, a ton of zombie-Martian makeup, and the “Hand Jive”? No, not Weinergate II: Night of the Living Tweets. Culturally invaluable burlesque crew Hubba Hubba Revue and a slew of groovy ghoulies play beach blanket bingo — but with laser guns! — at this ginchy all-day dress-up-and-rock-out bash.
Sun/16, 2 p.m.-8 p.m., $10 before 3 p.m., $12 after. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. www.hubbahubbarevue.com
Music Listings
Music listings are compiled by Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.
WEDNESDAY 15
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Chris Kid Anderson Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.
Apollo Run, Morning Commute, Red Weather Hotel Utah. 8pm, $8.
Bell’s Roar, Double Dutchess El Rio. 9pm, $5.
Blasted Canyons, Boom Bang, Fine Steps Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.
Crystal Antlers, Audacity, Tijuana Panthers, Devon Williams Thee Parkside. 8pm, $10.
Deep Teens, Moira Scar, Primary Colors, DJ Necromos Spiritus Submission, 2183 Mission, SF; www.sf-submission.com. 9pm, $5.
Mötley Crüe, Poison, New York Dolls Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, 99 Grove, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. 7pm, $69.
Oh Boy!, Abatis, Over the Falls Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.
Part Time, Weapons of the Future, Pow!, Party Owl Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.
Slapstick, MU 330, Chinkees Slim’s. 8pm, $20. Asian Man Records 15th anniversary celebration.
Two Gay Lads, Vows, Return to Earth, DJ Mick Tashjian Knockout. 9pm, $8.
Von Ehrics Grant and Green. 9pm.
X, Devil’s Brigade Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $31.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Cat’s Corner with Nathan Dias and Christine Savanna Jazz. 9pm, $10.
Cosmo Alleycats Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo, SF; www.lecolonialsf.com. 7pm.
Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Michael Abraham Amnesia. 7pm, free.
Jazz organ party with Graham Connah Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.
“Kim Nalley Sings Nina Simone” Rrazz Room. 7pm.
Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.
Michael Parsons Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.
Soraya Trio Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Maraca’s Salsa and Latin Jazz Band Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $18-25.
Stephen Marley Fillmore. 8pm, $26.
Tom Sway and Fanfare Zambaleta Stage Werx, 533 Sutter, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. 8pm. Part of the “Underground Sound” series.
DANCE CLUBS
Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.
Buena Onda Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, free. Funk, swing, rare grooves, and more with Dr. Musco and guests.
No Room For Squares Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 6-10pm, free. DJ Afrodite Shake spins jazz for happy hour.
Third Wednesdays Underground SF. 10pm-2am, $3. With Ms. Jackson, DJ Loryn, and Becky Knox spinning electro, tech, house, and breaks.
THURSDAY 16
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Alkaline Trio, Hot Toddies, Kepi Ghoulie, Atom Age Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $20.
Blue Order Knockout. 9:30pm, $7.
Emily Bonn and the Vivants, Wild Reeds Amnesia. 9pm, $7.
Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $45.
Johannes Linstead Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $30.
Ida Maria Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $12. Plus Popscene DJs.
Sioux City Kid, Con Brio, Uncle Rebel Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $13.
Slow Gherkin, Buck-O-Nine, Unsteady, Monkey Thee Parkside. 8pm, $15.
TITS, Kill Moi, Glass Trains El Rio. 8pm, $5.
Victory and Associates, Poison Control Center, Genius and the Thieves Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Dave Parker Quartet Purple Onion, 140 Columbus, SF; (415) 956-1653. 7:30-10:30pm, free.
Dime Store Dandy Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.
“Kim Nalley Sings Nina Simone” Rrazz Room. 7pm.
Organsm featuring Jim Gunderson and “Tender” Tim Shea Bollyhood Café. 6:30-9pm, free.
Savanna Jazz Jam Session Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.
Soul jazz party with Chris Siebert Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.
Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Maraca’s Salsa and Latin Jazz Band Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $18-25.
“Twang! Honky Tonk” Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm.
DANCE CLUBS
Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.
Culture Corner Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; www.kokococktails.com. 10pm, free. Roots reggae, dub, rocksteady, and classic dancehall with DJ Tomas, Yusuke, Vinnie Esparza, and Basshaka and ILWF.
80s Night Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). Two dance floors bumpin’ with the best of 80s mainstream and underground with Dangerous Dan, Skip, Low Life, and guests.
Guilty Pleasures Gestalt, 3159 16th St, SF; (415) 560-0137. 9:30pm, free. DJ TophZilla, Rob Metal, DJ Stef, and Disco-D spin punk, metal, electro-funk, and 80s.
1984 Mighty. 9pm, $2. The long-running New Wave and 80s party features video DJs Mark Andrus, Don Lynch, and celebrity guests.
Thursday Special Tralala Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Downtempo, hip-hop, and freestyle beats by Dr. Musco and Unbroken Circle MCs.
Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, and more with DJs Don Bustamante, Apocolypto, Sr. Saen, Santero, and Mr. E.
Luke Vibert, Little John, Mozaic, AntAcid, Ghosts on Tape Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 9pm.
FRIDAY 17
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Blind Willies, Danny Cohen Amnesia. 7pm, $7.
Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $50.
Dandelion War, Caught In Motion, One F El Rio. 9pm, $5.
Derde Verde, Casey Wickstrom, Aotearoa Brainwash Café, 1122 Folsom, SF; www.brainwash.com. 8pm.
Emergency Room, Dan Potthast, Ratasucia, Bagheera Thee Parkside. 9pm, $15.
Horrid Red, Burial Hex, Brute Heart Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Maria Taylor, Doc Dailey Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16.
Meat Puppets, Flamingo, Bad Weather California Independent. 9pm, $16.
Prince Paul and Grand Wizard Theodore 330 Ritch. 10pm, $15.
Shpongle Fillmore. 9pm, $35.
Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.
Van Ghost Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut, SF; www.theyankee.com. 10pm.
John Vanderslice, Magik*Magik Orchestra Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. 8pm, $20-55.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.
Emily Anne’s Delights Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 9pm, free.
Jazz organ party with Graham Connah Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.
“Kim Nalley Sings Nina Simone” Rrazz Room. 7pm.
Søren Kjærgaard Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell, SF; www.meridiangallery.org. 7:30pm, $5-10.
Michael McIntosh Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.
Susamma Smith with Mike Price Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $10.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Forro Brazuca, DJ Alfie!Bateria Elbo Room. 10pm, $10.
HenHouse Prowlers, Nettle Honey Plough and Stars. 9:30pm, $8-10.
Maraca’s Salsa and Latin Jazz Band Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $25.
Texas Tornados, Red Meat Slim’s. 9pm, $25.
DANCE CLUBS
Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.
DJ What’s His Fuck Riptide Tavern. 9pm, free. Spinning old-school punk rock and other gems.
Mark Farina, Kevin Saunderson, Paul Devro, Christian Martin Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 9pm.
Gramatik, Low Limit, Siren, Bogl, DJ Whores Mighty. 9pm, $5.
Oldies Night Knockout. 9pm, $2-4. Doo wop, sou, and more with DJs Primo, Daniel, and Lost Cat.
AC Slater, Ultraviolet, Go Off!, Matthew Grand Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $16.
Trannyshack: Heklina’s Birthday DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $15. Special guest Justin Bond, plus Ejijah Minnelli, Exhibit Q, Kiddie, and other Trannyshack stars help Heklina celebrate another glamorous year.
Vintage Orson, 508 Fourth St, SF; (415) 777-1508. 5:30-11pm, free. DJ TophOne and guest spin jazzy beats for cocktalians.
SATURDAY 18
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Ringo Deathstarr, Follow That Bird Slim’s. 9pm, $20.
“Asian Man Records Afternoon BBQ” Thee Parkside. 2:30pm, free.
Blackbird Blackbird, Phantom Kicks, Old Arc, Yalls El Rio. 3pm, $8.
Bobbie Blue Bland Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $40.
Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $50.
Bill Callahan, Michael Chapman Independent. 9pm, $20.
Current Swell Riptide Tavern. 9pm, free.
Janiva Magness Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.
North Fork, Virgin Islands, Peace Creep Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.
Steve Poltz, Peter Case Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $18.
Queers, Classics of Love, Apers, Max Levine Ensemble, Gnarboots Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $15.
Rayos X, TV Evangelists, Poliskitzo Bender’s, 800 S. Van Ness, SF; www.bendersbar.com. 9:30pm, $5.
Pete Rock Yoshi’s San Francisco. 10:30pm, $25.
Sundowner, Brendan Kelly, Mike Hale, I Sing the Body Electric, Grant Olney Thee Parkside. 8pm, $15.
Van Ghost Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut, SF; www.theyankee.com. 10pm.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Bernal Hill Players Community Music Center, 544 Capp, SF; www.bernalhillplayers.com. 8pm, free. Performing “San Francisco: In and About the City.”
Pascal Boker and Mike Price Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $10.
“Kim Nalley Sings Nina Simone” Rrazz Room. 7pm.
Prasant Radhakrishnan’s Vidya Red Poppy Art House. 9pm, $15.
Soul jazz party with Jules Broussard and Chris Siebert Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.
Nikki Yanofsky Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $25-60.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Patrick Landeza and Waipuna Yoshi’s San Francisco. 7 and 9pm, $20.
Octomutt, Scott Young Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.
“Saturday Night Salsa” Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; www.facebook.com/TheRampSF. 5:30-8:30pm, $10.
DANCE CLUBS
Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.
Bootie SF: The Monster Show DNA Lounge. 9pm, $8-15. Pre-Pride mash-up party with Cookie Dough, DJ MC2, and more.
Booty Bassment Knockout. 9pm, $5. Booty-shaking hip-hop with DJs Ryan Poulsen and Dimitri Dickenson.
Fringe Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5. Indie music video dance party with DJ Blondie K and subOctave.
Haçeteria Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; www.decosf.com. 10pm, free. Dance music with guest Conor.
NonStop Bhangra Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $20. Presented by Dhol Rhythms.
“Pink Mammoth Official Camp Fundraiser” Mighty. 9pm, $10. Burning Man fundraiser.
Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. With DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul.
Silvermouse Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 8pm, $20.
Sunugal.CA Bollyhood Café. 9pm, $7-10. Celebrate West Africa and the African Diaspora with VJ-DJ Sabar and DJ Migane, plus host VJ Oumar.
SUNDAY 19
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Bomb the Music Industry!, Hard Girls, Laura Stevenson and the Cans, Mikey Erg, Mike Park Thee Parkside. 7pm, $15.
Marc Broussard, Matt Hires, Chic Gamine Independent. 8pm, $20.
Civil Wars, James Vincent McMorrow Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $16.
Elle Nino, Spacehunter, Fa Fa Fa Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.
Ron Hacker Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Ben l’Oncle Soul Sigmund Stern Grove, 19th Ave at Sloat, SF; www.sterngrove.org. 2pm, free.
Kid Cudi, Chip Tha Ripper Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, 99 Grove, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. 8pm, $42.50.
Stripmall Architecture, Northern Key, Slow Skate Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.
Symbolick Jews, Tremulants, Suggies, Narooma Kimo’s. 9pm, $6.
Tech N9ne, Jay Rock, Krizz Kaliko, Kutt Calhoon Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $32. With Big Scoob, Mayday, Steve Stone, and Kung Fu Vampires.
Vancougar, Greg Ashley Band, Shrouds Knockout. 9pm, $5.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
“Colette and Friends presents the Great American Songbook: A Tribute to the Nisei Generation” Yoshi’s San Francisco. 3pm, $25. Benefits the Northern Japan Earthquake Relief Fund.
Roy Hargrove and Cedar Walton Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7pm, $25-65.
“Kim Nalley Sings Nina Simone” Rrazz Room. 7pm.
Savanna Jazz Jam Session Savanna Jazz. 7pm, $5.
Sunday jazz organ party with Lavay Smith and Chris Siebert Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.
Tom Lander Duo Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 6-9pm, free.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Locura, Beso Negro Amnesia. 9pm, $7.
“Salsa Sundays” El Rio. 4pm, $8-10.
DANCE CLUBS
Batcave Cat Club. 10pm, $5. Death rock, goth, and post-punk with Steeplerot Necromos and c_death.
Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with Vinnie Esparza and Maneesh the Twister.
Hubba Hubba Revue: Flying Saucer Beach Party DNA Lounge. 2-8pm, $10-12. Burlesque and barbecue with Balrok and the Cavegirls, Rosie 151, Lola Martinet, and more.
La Pachanga Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.
MONDAY 20
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Mountain Goats Fillmore. 9pm, $22.50.
Pacific Nomadic, Narooma, Arms N’ Legs El Rio. 7pm, $3.
Sea Lions, Horse Marriage, Uranium Orchard Hemlock Tavern. 6pm, $6.
Terry Malts, Devon Williams, Bleaches, Superstitions Knockout. 9pm, $6.
Tiger Honey Pot, Sweet Bones, Bite, Tarantula Tango Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.
DANCE CLUBS
Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.
M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. DJs Timoteo Gigante, Gordo Cabeza, and Chris Phlek playing all Motown every Monday.
Sausage Party Rosamunde Sausage Grill, 2832 Mission, SF; (415) 970-9015. 6:30-9:30pm, free. DJ Dandy Dixon spins vintage rock, R&B, global beats, funk, and disco at this happy hour sausage-shack gig.
TUESDAY 21
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
((Ayahuasca Travellers)), Macrocosm, Ironwitch Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.
Bell X1, Jarrod Gorbel Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16.
Terry Evans Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.
Keren Ann Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $15.
Lucy the Last Lucid Lion, Reverend Johnny Blind El Rio. 7pm, free.
Sean McCann, Brandon Nickell, Medroxy Progesterone Acetate, AC Way Amnesia. 9pm, $6.
No Statik, Martyrdod, Yadokai, DJ Ken Prank Knockout. 9:30pm, $7.
Origin, Hate Eternal, Vital Remains, Abysmal Dawn Slim’s. 8pm, $19.
Religious Girls, Metal Mother Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.
DANCE CLUBS
Brazilian Wax Elbo Room. 9pm, $7. Forro and samba with DJs Carioca and P-Shot, plust special live guest.
Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.
Roccopura is back and wild as ever
I’ve been covering San Francisco’s indie circus scene for years, first for a Guardian cover story and then for my book The Tribes of Burning Man, and I’ve always loved the colorful chaos it injects into the city’s nightlife scene. And if you really want to see these creative and talented characters at their very best, in a show that brings all its myriad parts and beautiful pieces together into a big messy money shot, check out Roccopura tonight (Thu/2) or later this month at DNA Lounge.
Written by Gooferman frontman Boenobo the Klown, the creative force behind Bohemian Carnival and Burning Man’s Rednose District, Roccopura is a circus-inspired rock opera that spills from a stage packed with various indie circus troupes right out into the audience, which it jostles, gooses, and brings into the entire performance.
When I caught the show’s premiere on April 1, it was controlled chaos at its finest, a wild ride that had me alternatively laughing, dancing, mesmerized, and cheering throughout the show. And afterward, I felt like I’d been traveling right along with protagonist Sancho Panza during his bullfight, brawls, ocean voyage, mushroom trip, romance, and his other misadventures.
“We’ve spent the past few weeks honing stuff and doing fixes from the last show. It’s much improved now,” Boenobo told me by phone as he worked on final preparations, but I’m not sure that I believed him. Surely, it was a chaotic experience, but I’m not sure how they could improve it, although I’ll take this veteran showman’s word for it and happily pay them another visit.
In addition to a live soundtrack and other performances by Gooferman, the show features the Vau de Vire Society, Sisters of Honk, and the Burley Sisters, all of them bringing sex appeal, acrobatic talents, and a wild sartorial style to the show. Check it out.
Bliss Dance grooves on Treasure Island
Dancing against the San Francisco skyline, perhaps looking even more vibrant and beautiful that she did at Burning Man last year, Bliss Dance – a 40-foot steel sculpture by Marco Cochrane and company of a nude woman feeling her musical bliss – was feted by city leaders and residents during a reception at its temporary new home on Treasure Island last night.
Mayor Ed Lee thanked the Black Rock Arts Foundation, a nonprofit offshoot of Burning Man that helps place art in San Francisco and other cities, for its work on this and other local projects. “You’re really helping us revitalize so many areas,” Lee said, adding, “I know there will be many more sculptures on this island.”
Lee pledged to extend the six-month temporary placement, telling the crowd of hundreds, “It will go beyond October out here,” And he even expressed an interest in visiting Black Rock City when he said, “Perhaps I will join you one day at Burning Man.”
Cochrane and his crew built Bliss Dance for Burning Man right there in a Treasure Island warehouse, where an increasing number of projects for the event have been built in recent years. His latest piece, Truth and Beauty, is now under construction on the island, as is artist Peter Hudson’s latest work, Charon, and many others.
After being introduced by Lee, Cochrane said he appreciated being raised in California by hippie parents who encouraged his “puppy-like optimism…And I was fortunate enough to be able to keep it.” They encouraged him to “follow your bliss to the fullest” and “to believe that you have an inherent nature and to believe that it’s good.”
Cochrane was drawn to express his artistic vision by conveying the mysterious beauty and fire of women because “their energy is difficult to quantify in this world.” It is also difficult to explain the impact this sculpture has on those who see it, particularly during an event like last night’s when it spectacular lighting effects were on full display, a vivid and inspiring image when set against our scenic city.
“Follow your bliss and it will open doors where you didn’t know doors existed,” Cochrane told the crowd before restarting the dance party with a musical performance by Deja Solis, the model for both Bliss Dance and Cochrane’s latest work, Truth and Beauty, in which the nude woman will be stretching her arms to the sky, 55-feet into the air.
Summer fairs and festivals
ONGOING
Young At Art Festival de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, SF. (415) 695-2441, www.youngatartsf.com. Through May 22, free. The creative achievements of our city’s youth are celebrated in this eight day event curated and hosted by the de Young Museum.
* Oakland Asian Cultural Center Asian Pacific Heritage Festival Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 Ninth St., Oakl. (510) 637-0462, www.oacc.cc. Through May 26. Times and prices vary. Music, lectures, performances, family-friendly events in honor of Asian and Pacific American culture and traditions.
DIVAfest Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF. (415) 931-2699, www.theexit.org. Through May 28. Times and prices vary. Bastion of the alternative, EXIT Theatre showcases its 10th annual buffet of fierce women writers, performers, and directors. This year features two plays, beat poetry, musical exploration, and more.
* Yerba Buena Gardens Festival Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission and Third St., SF. (415) 543-1718, www.ybgf.org. Through Oct. 31. Times vary, free. A series of cultural events, performances, activities, music, and children and family programs to highlight the green goodness of SoMa’s landscaped oasis.
May 18-June 5
San Francisco International Arts Festival Various venues. (415) 399-9554, www.sfiaf.org. Times and prices vary. Celebrate the arts through with this mish-mash of artistic collaborations dedicated to increasing human awareness. Artists included hail from around the world and right here in the Bay Area.
May 21
* A La Carte & Art Castro St. between Church and Evelyn, Mountain View. (650) 964-3395, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. With vendors selling handmade crafts, microbrewed beers, fresh foods, a farmers market, and even a fun zone for kids, there’s little you won’t find at this all-in-one fun fair.• Asian Heritage Street Celebration Larkin and McAllister, SF. www.asianfairsf.com. 11am-6pm, free. This year’s at the country’s largest gathering of APA’s promises a Muay Thai kickboxing ring, DJs, and the latest in Asian pop culture fanfare — as well as tasty bites to keep your strength up.
Freestone Fermentation Festival Salmon Creek School, 1935 Bohemian Hwy, Sonoma. (707) 479-3557, www.freestonefermentationfestival.com. Noon-5pm, $12. Learn about the magical wonders of fermentation with hands-on and mouth-on demonstrations, exhibits, and tasty live food nibbles.
Uncorked! San Francisco Wine Festival Ghirardelli Square, SF. (415) 775-5500, www.ghirardellisq.com. 1-6pm, $45-50 for tasting tickets, free for other activities. Uncorked! brings you the real California wine experience with tastings, cooking demonstrations, and even a wine 101 class for those who are feeling not quite wine-refined.
May 20-29
SF Sex Worker Film and Art Festival Various venues, SF. (415) 751-1659, www.sexworkerfest.com. Times and prices vary. Webcam workshops, empowering film screenings, shared dialogues on plant healing to sex work in the age of HIV: this fest has everything to offer sex workers and the people who love ’em.
May 22
Lagunitas Beer Circus Lagunitas Brewing Co., 1280 N McDowell, Petaluma. (303) 447-0816, www.craftbeer.com. Noon-6pm, $40. All the wonders of a live circus — snake charmers, plate spinners, and sword swallowers — doing their thing inside of a brewery!
May 21-22
* Maker Faire San Mateo County Event Center, 2495 South Delaware, San Mateo. www.makerfaire.com. Sat, 10am- 8pm; Sun, 10am-6pm, $5-25. Make Magazine’s annual showcase of all things DIY is a tribute to human craftiness. This is where the making minds meet.• Castroville Artichoke Festival Castroville, Calif. (831) 633-0485, www.artichokefestival.org. Sat., 10am- 6pm; Sun., 11 am- 4:30 p.m., free. Pay homage to the only vegetable with a heart: the artichoke. This fest does just that, with music, parades, and camping.
May 28-29
San Francisco Carnaval Harrison between 16th and 22nd St., SF. 10am-6pm, free. The theme of this year’s showcase of Latin and Caribbean culture is “Live Your Fantasy” — bound to bring dreams alive on the streets of the Mission.
June 3-12
Healdsburg Jazz Festival Various venues, Healdsburg. (707) 433-463, www.healdsburgjazzfestival.org. Times and prices vary. Bask in the lounge-lit glow of all things jazz-related at this celebration in Sonoma’s wine county.
June 3-July 3
SF Ethnic Dance Festival Zellerbach Hall, Berk. and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF. www.worldartswest.org. Times and prices vary. A powerful display of world dance and music taking to the stage over the course of five weekends.
June 4
* Berkeley World Music Festival Telegraph, Berk. www.berkeleyworldmusicfestival.org. Noon-9pm, free. Fourteen world music artists serenade the streets and stores of Telegraph Avenue and al fresco admirers in People’s Park.
Huicha Music Festival Gundlach Bundschu Winery, 2000 Denmark St., Sonoma. (707) 938-5277, www.gunbun.com/hmfevent. 2-11pm, $55. Indie music in the fields of a wine country: Fruit Bats, J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr, Sonny and the Sunsets, and more.
June 4-5
Union Street Eco-Urban Festival Union from Gough to Steiner and parts of Octavia, SF. (800) 310-6563, www.unionstreetfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. Festival goers will have traffic-free access to Cow Hollow merchants and restaurant booths. The eco-urban theme highlights progressive, green-minded advocates and products.
The Great San Francisco Crystal Fair Fort Mason Center, Building A., SF. (415) 383-7837, home.earthlink.net/~sfxtl/index.html. Sat., 10am-6pm; Sun., 10am-4pm, $6. Gems and all they have to offer: beauty, fashion, and mysterious healing powers.
June 5
* Israel in the Gardens Yerba Buena Gardens, SF. (415) 512-6420, www.sfjcf.org. 11am-5pm, free. One full day of food, music, film, family activities, and ceremonies celebrating the Bay Area’s Jewish community and Israel’s 63rd birthday.
June 10-12
Harmony Festival Sonoma County Fairgrounds, 1350 Bennett Valley, Santa Rosa. www.harmonyfestival.com. 10am-10pm, $45 one day, $120 for three day passes. This is where your love for tea, The Flaming Lips, goddess culture, techno, eco-living, spirituality, and getting drunk with your fellow hippies come together in one wild weekend.
Queer Women of Color Film Festival Brava Theater. 2789 24th St., SF. (415) 752-0868, www.qwocmap.org. Times vary, free. A panel discussion called “Thinkers and Trouble Makers,” bisects three days of screenings from up-and-coming filmmakers with stories all their own.
June 11-12
* Live Oak Park Fair 1301 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 227-7110, www.liveoakparkfair.com. 10am-6pm, free. This festival’s 41st year brings the latest handmade treasures from Berkeley’s vibrant arts and crafts community. With food, face-paint, and entertainment, this fair is perfect for a weekend activity with the family.
June 11-19
San Mateo County Fair San Mateo County Fairgrounds. 2495 S. Delaware, San Mateo. www.sanmateocountyfair.com. June 11, 14, 18, and 19, 11am-10pm; all other days, noon-10pm, $10 for adults. It features competitive exhibits from farmers, foodies, and even technological developers — but let’s face it, we’re going to see the pig races.
June 12
* Haight Ashbury Street Fair Haight between Stanyan and Ashbury, SF. www.haightashburystreetfair.org. 11am-5:30pm, free. Make your way down to the grooviest corner in history and celebrate the long-standing diversity and color of the Haight Ashbury neighborhood, featuring the annual battle of the bands.
June 16-26
Frameline Film Festival Various venues, SF. www.frameline.org. Times and prices vary. This unique LGBT film festival comes back for its 35th year showcasing queer documentaries, shorts, and features.
June 17-19 Sierra Nevada World Music Festival Mendocino County Fairgrounds. 14400 CA-128, Boonville. (916) 777-5550, www.snwmf.com. Fri, 6pm-midnight; Sat, 11am-midnight; Sun, 11am-10pm, $60 for Friday and Sunday day pass; $70 for Saturday day pass, $150 three day pass. Featuring Rebulution, Toots and the Maytals, and Jah Love Sound System, this fest comes with a message of peace, unity, and love through music.
June 18
Summer SAILstice Encinal Yacht Club, 1251 Pacific Marina, Alameda. (415) 412-6961, www.summersailstice.com. 8am-8pm, free. Boat building, sailboat rides, sailing seminars, informational booths, music, a kid zone, and of course, wind, sun, and water.
Pinot Days Festival Pavilion, Fort Mason Center, SF. (415) 382-8663, www.pinotdays.com. 1-5pm, $50. Break out your corkscrews and head over to this unique event. With 220 artisan winemakers pouring up tastes of their one-of-a-kind vino, you better make sure you’ve got a DD for the ride home.
June 18-19
North Beach Festival Washington Square Park, SF. (800) 310-6563, www.northbeachchamber.com. Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-6pm, free. Make your way down to the spaghetti capital of SF and enjoy food, music, arts and crafts booths, and the traditional blessing of the animals.
Marin Art Festival Marin Civic Center, San Rafael. (415) 388-0151, www.marinartfestival.com. 10am-6pm, $10. A city center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright plays host to this idyllic art festival. Strolling through pavilions, sampling wines, eating grilled oysters, and viewing the work of hundreds of creative types.
June 20-Aug 21
Stern Grove Music Festival Stern Grove. Sloat and 19th Ave., SF. (415) 252-6252, www.sterngrove.org. Sundays 2pm, free. This free outdoor concert series is a must-do for San Francisco summers. This year’s lineup includes Neko Case, the SF Symphony, Sharon Jones, and much more.
June 25-26
San Francisco Pride Celebration Civic Center Plaza, SF; Parade starts at Market and Beale. (415) 864-FREE, www.sfpride.org. Parade starts at 10:30am, free. Gays, trannies, queers, and the rest of the rainbow waits all year for this grand-scale celebration of diversity, love, and being fabulous.• San Francisco Free Folk Festival Presidio Middle School. 450 30th Ave., SF. (415) 661-2217, www.sffolkfest.org. Noon-10pm, free. Folk-y times for the whole family — not just music but crafts, dance workshops, crafts, and food vendors too.
June 29-July 3
International Queer Tango Festival La Pista. 768 Brannan, SF. www.queertango.freehosting.net. Times vary, $10-35. Spice up your Pride (and Frameline film fest) week with some queer positive tango lessons in culturally diverse, welcoming groups of same sex couples.
June 30-July 3
High Sierra Music Festival Plumas-Sierra Fairgrounds, Quincy. www.highsierramusic.com. Gates open at 8am Thursday. $205 weekend pass, $90 parking fee. Yonder Mountain String Band, My Morning Jacket, and most importantly, Ween. Bring out your sleeping bags for this four day mountaintop grassroots festival.
July 2
Vans Warped Tour Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View. www.vanswarpedtour.com. 11am, $46-72. Skating, pop punk, hardcore, screamo, and a whole lot of emo fun.
July 2-3
Fillmore Jazz Festival Fillmore between Jackson and Eddy, SF, 1-800-310-6563, www.fillmorejazzfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free. Thousands of people get jazzed-up every year for this musical feast in a historically soulful neighborhood.
July 4
City of San Francisco Fourth of July waterfront celebration Pier 39, Embarcadero and Beach, SF. (415) 709-5500, www.pier39.com. Noon-9:30pm, free. Ring in the USA’s birthday on the water, with a day full of music and end up at in the city’s front row when the fireworks take to the sky.
July 9-10
Renegade Craft Fair Fort Mason Festival Pavilion. Buchanan and Marina, SF. (312) 496-3215, www.renegadecraft.com. 11am-7pm, free. Put a bird on it at this craft fair for the particularly indie at heart.
July 14-24
Midsummer Mozart Festival Various Bay Area venues. (415) 627-9141, www.midsummermozart.org. Prices vary. You won’t be hearing any Beethoven or Schubert at this midsummer series — the name of the day is Mr. Mozart alone.
July 16-17
Connoisseur’s Marketplace Santa Cruz between Camino and Johnson, Menlo Park. (650) 325-2818, www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm, free. Let the artisans do what they do best — you’ll polish off the fruits of their labor at this outdoor expo of artisan food, wine, and craft.
July 21-Aug 8
SF Jewish Film Festival Various Bay Area venues. www.sfjff.org. Times and prices vary. A three week smorgasbord of world premiere Jewish films at theaters in SF, Berkeley, the Peninsula, and Marin County.
July 22-Aug 13
Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival Menlo School, 50 Valparaiso, Atherton. (650) 330-2030, www.musicatmenlo.org. Classical chamber music at its best: this year’s theme “Through Brahms,” will take you on a journey through Johannes’ most notable works.
July 23-Sept 25
SF Shakespeare Festival Various Bay Area venues. www.sfshakes.org. Various times, free. Picnic with Princess Innogen and her crew with dropping a dime at this year’s production of Cymbeline. It’s by that playwriter guy… what’s his name again?
July 30
Oakland A’s Beer Festival Eastside Club at the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum, 7000 Coliseum Way, Oakl. www.oakland.athletics.mlb.com. 4:05-6:05pm, free with game ticket. Booze your way through the Oakland A’s vs. Minnesota Twins game while the coliseum is filled with brewskies from over 30 microbreweries, there for the chugging in your souvenir A’s beer mug.
July 30-31
Berkeley Kite Festival Cesar Chavez Park, 11 Spinnaker, Berk. www.highlinekites.com. 10am-5pm, free. A joyous selection of Berkeley’s coolest kites, all in one easy location.
July 31
Up Your Alley Dore between Folsom and Howard, SF. www.folsomstreetfair.com. 11am-6pm, $7-10 suggested donation. Whether you are into BDSM, leather, paddles, nipple clamps, hardcore — or don’t know what any of the above means, this Dore Alley stroll is surprisingly friendly and cute once you get past all the whips!
Aug 1-7
SF Chefs Various venues, SF. www.sfchefs2011.com. Times and prices vary. Those that love to taste test will rejoice during this foodie’s paradise of culinary stars sharing their latest bites. Best of all, the goal for 2011’s event is tons of taste with zero waste.
Aug 7
SF Theater Festival Fort Mason Center. Buchanan and Marina, SF. www.sftheaterfestival.org. 11am-5pm, free. Think you can face about 100 live theater acts in one day? Set a personal record at this indoor and outdoor celebration of thespians.
Aug 13
San Rafael Food and Wine Festival Falkirk Cultural Center, 1408 Mission, San Rafael. 1-800-310-6563, www.sresproductions.com. Noon-6pm, $25 food and wine tasting, $15 food tasting only. A sampler’s paradise, this festival features an array of tastes from the Bay’s best wineries and restaurants.
Aug 13-14
* Nihonmachi Street Fair Post and Webster, SF. www.nihonmachistreetfair.org. 11am-6pm, free. Founded by Asian Pacific American youths, this Japantown tradition is a yearly tribute to the difficult history and prevailing spirit of Asian American culture in this SF neighborhood.
Aug 20-21
Oakland Art and Soul Festival Entrances at 14th St. and Broadway, 16th St. and San Pablo, Oakl. (510) 444-CITY, www.artandsouloakland.com. $15. A musical entertainment tribute to downtown Oakland’s art and soul, this festival features nationally-known R&B, jazz, gospel, and rock artists.
Aug 20-22
* SF Street Food Festival Folsom St from Twenty Sixth to Twenty Second, SF. www.sfstreetfoodfest.com. 11am-7pm, free. All of the city’s best food, available without having to go indoors — or sit down. 2011 brings a bigger and better Street Food Fest, perfect for SF’s burgeoning addiction to pavement meals.
Aug 29-Sept 5
Burning Man Black Rock City, Nev. (415) TO-FLAME, www.burningman.com. $320. This year’s theme, “Rites of Passage,” is set to explore transitional spaces and feelings. Gather with the best of the burned-out at one of the world’s weirdest, most renowned parties.
Sep 10-11
* Autumn Moon Festival Street Fair Grant between California and Broadway, SF. (415) 982-6306, www.moonfestival.org. 11am-6pm, free. A time to celebrate the summer harvest and the end of summer full-moon, rejoice in bounty with the moon goddess.
Sept 17-18
SF International Dragon Boat Festival California and Avenue D, Treasure Island. www.sfdragonboat.com. 10am-5pm, free. The country’s largest dragon boat festival sees beautiful man-powered boats take to the water in 300 and 500 meter competitive races.
Sept 23-25
SF Greek Food Festival Annunciation Cathedral. 245 Valencia, SF. www.sfgreekfoodfestival.org. Fri.-Sat., 11am-10pm; Sun., noon-9pm, free with advance ticket. Get your baba ghanoush on during this late summer festival, complete with traditional Greek dancing, music, and wine.
Sept 25
Folsom Street Fair Folsom between 7th and 12th St., SF. www.folsomstreetfair.org. 11am-6pm, free. The urban Burning Man equivalent for leather enthusiasts, going to this expansive SoMa celebration of kink and fetish culture is the surest way to see a penis in public (you dirty dog!).
Sept 30-Oct 2
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Speedway Meadows, Golden Gate Park, SF. www.strictlybluegrass.com. 11am-7pm, free. Pack some whiskey and shoulder your banjo: this free three day festival draws record-breaking crowds — and top names in a variety of twangy genres — each year.
Items with asterisks note family-fun activities.
Music Listings
Music listings are compiled by Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.
WEDNESDAY 18
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
CunninLynguists, Homeboy Sandman, Tonedeff, Blue Sky Black Death Slim’s. 9pm, $16.
Fiery Furnaces Café Du Nord. 8pm, $20.
Houses, One AM Radio Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.
Inquisition, Necrite, Vastum Elbo Room. 9pm, $13.
Light Asylum Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 9pm, $10. With Water Borders, Boys IV Men, and DJs Whitch, Nako, and Richie Panic.
Picixki, Patton, Talking Book, Bill Gould and Gigante Sound Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $21.
Preston Shannon Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.
This Will Destroy You, Pure X, Sleep Over Independent. 8pm, $12.
X-Ray Eyeballs, King Lollipop, Burnt Ones Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Meredith Axelrod, Steve Coyle 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm.
Cat’s Corner Swing Party Savanna Jazz. 9pm, $10.
Cosmo Alleycats Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo, SF; www.lecolonialsf.com. 7pm.
Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Michael Abraham Amnesia. 7pm, free.
Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.
Omar Sosa Quintet with John Santos Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $25. Part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival.
DANCE CLUBS
Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.
Buena Onda Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, free. Funk, swing, rare grooves, and more with Dr. Musco and guests.
No Room For Squares Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 6-10pm, free. DJ Afrodite Shake spins jazz for happy hour.
Third Wednesdays Underground SF. 10pm-2am, $3. With Ms. Jackson, DJ Loryn, and Becky Knox spinning electro, tech, house, and breaks.
THURSDAY 19
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Blackmahal, Eoin Harrington, Coverflow Band, Open Source Band DNA Lounge. 8pm, $40.
“Bob Dylan Birthday Tribute” Red Devil Lounge. 7pm, $10. With Norman Famous and the Backorders, Marc Digiacomi, Joe Rut and the Fish Jugglers, and more.
Echo and the Bunnymen, Kelley Stoltz Warfield. 8pm, $35-45.
Fleeting Trance, Tiny Little Blackouts, JJ Schultz, Lauren Crow Café Du Nord. 8pm, $12.
Forgotten Passage 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm.
Glass Trains, George Glass, Trevor Childs and the Beholders Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.
Good Knives, Static Thought, Wolves and Thieves, Lemon Party Thee Parkside. 9pm, $7.
“Haight-Ashbury Street Fair Battle of the Bands” Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 8pm, $10. With Strange Tribe, Nosebleed Academy, Freight Train, and Gozzard.
Alan Iglesias Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $16.
Knitters, Kacey Anderson Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $26.
Shawn Mullins, Callaghan Slim’s. 8pm, $22.
Music for Animals, French Horn Rebellion Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10-12.
Paranoids, Tokyo Raid, Cellar Doors Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.
Weekend, Clipd Beaks, Jealousy Independent. 8pm, $12.
Whiskey Richards, Betsy and Beau Amnesia. 9pm, $7.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Cosmo Alleycats Blondie’s, 540 Valencia, SF; (415) 864-2419. 9pm, free.
Dave Parker Quartet Purple Onion, 140 Columbus, SF; (415) 956-1653. 8:30-11pm, free.
Jimmy Ryan Balboa Bebop Band Balboa Theater, 3630 Balboa, SF; (415) 307-3051. 7pm, $10. With a screening of Jazz on a Summer’s Day (1959).
Les Nubians Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $30.
Organsm featuring Jim Gunderson and “Tender” Tim Shea Bollyhood Café. 6:30-9pm, free.
Savanna Jazz Jam and SFSU Jazz Jam Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.
Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Dark Hollow Band Atlas Café. 8-10pm, free.
Laura Rebelloso Red Poppy Art House. 7pm, $15-20.
Ravi Shankar and Anoushka Shankar Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7:30pm, $30-95.
“Twang! Honky Tonk” Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm.
Yelle, French Horn Rebellion Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $25.
DANCE CLUBS
Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz, plus guest DJ Hiromi, spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.
Culture Corner Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; www.kokococktails.com. 10pm, free. Roots reggae, dub, rocksteady, and classic dancehall with DJ Tomas, Yusuke, Vinnie Esparza, and Basshaka and ILWF.
80s Night Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). Two dance floors bumpin’ with the best of 80s mainstream and underground with Dangerous Dan, Skip, Low Life, and guests.
Guilty Pleasures Gestalt, 3159 16th St, SF; (415) 560-0137. 9:30pm, free. DJ TophZilla, Rob Metal, DJ Stef, and Disco-D spin punk, metal, electro-funk, and 80s.
Danny Krivit Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 10pm, $15.
1984 Mighty. 9pm, $2. The long-running New Wave and 80s party features video DJs Mark Andrus, Don Lynch, and celebrity guests.
Thursday Special Tralala Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Downtempo, hip-hop, and freestyle beats by Dr. Musco and Unbroken Circle MCs.
Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, and more with DJs Don Bustamante, Apocolypto, Sr. Saen, Santero, and Mr. E.
FRIDAY 20
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
A Frames, Cheveu, Hank IV, Charles Albright, DJ Mitch Cardwell Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $15.
AllofaSudden, Walking Spanish Café Du Nord. 9pm, $12.
Garrin Benfield, Heather Combs Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café Du Nord). 8pm, $12.
Blisses B., Jared Mees and the Grown Children Amnesia. 7pm, $7.
Dadfag, Total Slacker, Psychic, Future Twin, Will Ivy Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.
Funky Meters, DJ Harry Duncan Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $75-150. Proceeds support Blue Bear School of Music.
Derek Hughes Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.
Poor Man’s Whiskey, Dead Winter Carpenters Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $20.
Swindlefish 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm.
This Charming Band, For the Masses, Sing Blue Silver Slim’s. 9pm, $15.
Trampled By Turtles, Brothers Comatose Independent. 9pm, $15.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Amendola vs. Blades Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $12-20.
Benn Bascot Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $8.
Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.
Lionel Loueke Trio Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $30-50.
Les Nubians Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $30.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
“Bluegrass Bonanza” Plough and Stars. 9:30pm, $6-10. With the Down Beets and Going Away Party.
DANCE CLUBS
Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.
Bi-Winning Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10-13. Flaunt your tiger blood with Pance Party, S-T3rra, K-Theory, Sex Pixels, and more.
DJ What’s His Fuck Riptide Tavern. 9pm, free. Old-school punk rock and other gems.
Dustfish Retox Lounge. 9pm, $10. With Kap’n Kirk, Naughty Finger Band, and more; Burning Man camp fundraiser.
Hubba Hubba Revue: Wild Animals DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10-15. Burlesque.
SCB vs. Scuba Light Asylum Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 9pm, $20. Post-dubstep.
The Social Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. With 40Love, Le Vice, A1, and DJ Whooligan.
Vintage Orson, 508 Fourth St, SF; (415) 777-1508. 5:30-11pm, free. DJ TophOne and guest spin jazzy beats for cocktalians.
SATURDAY 21
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Citizen Fish, Krum Bums, Apathy Cycle Thee Parkside. 9pm, $12.
“Exposure Music Festival” DNA Lounge. 11am-7pm, $15.
Feedtime, Lamps, Nothing People, Wounded Lion, DJ Ryan Wells Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $20.
Female Trouble, Two Against One Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.
Ferocious Few, Charles Gonzalez and the Stereo Glitter, Magic Leaves Slim’s. 9pm, $13.
Love Ink, Here Come the Saviours, Spiro Agnew Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.
Kylie Minogue, DJ Grind Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, 99 Grove, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. 7:30pm, $65-125.
Moostache, Real Numbers, Wires in the Walls, Genius and the Thieves Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.
Sassy!!!, Carmichael and the the Frijolitas Bottom of the Hill. 1-4pm, $2-10. Benefit for Daniel Webster Elementary.
EC Scott Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.
Shark Alley Hobos 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm.
Unsane, Black Cobra, Pins of Light El Rio. 10pm, $10.
“Wanderlust” Fillmore. 8pm, $25. With Mickey Hart, Sub Swara, and more.
Whiskey Pills Fiasco, Damn Handsome and the Birthday Suits, Everwise, Robert Kelly Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Dirty Dozen Brass Band Independent. 9pm, $22.
Elaine Elias Trio Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $30-50.
Marcus Shelby Trio Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 11am, $10-15.
Poncho Sanchez Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $25.
Nate Wong and the Jazz Tellers Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $8.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Ricardo Peixoto and Carlos Oliveira Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $20.
“Saturday Night Salsa” Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; www.facebook.com/TheRampSF. 5:30-8:30pm, $10.
DANCE CLUBS
Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.
Bootie SF: Hubba Hubba Revue DNA Lounge. 9pm, $8-15. Burlesque and mash-ups.
Camouflage NYC Club Six. 9pm, $5-15. New York’s legendary party visits SF with drum and bass with Christian Bruna, Raw Q, 9X, Tommy Etzi, and more.
Ceremony Factory, 525 Harrison, SF; (415) 546-7938. 10pm, $40. With DJ Ana Paula.
Figure Mighty. 9pm, $10. Drumstep.
Fringe Madrine Art Bar. 9pm, $5. Indie music video dance party with DJs Blondie K and subOctave.
Haceteria Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; www.decosf.com. 10pm. With Robot Hustle plus residents Tristes Tropiques and Nihar.
Non Stop Bhangra Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $20. Bollywood beats with DJs and Dholrhythms Dance Company.
Pos Tapes Vol. II Record Release Party John Colins, 138 Minna, SF; www.johncolins.com. 9pm, $10. With Bpos, Akil, Otayo Dubb, and Tahaj.
Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. With DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul.
SUNDAY 22
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
“Exposure Music Festival” DNA Lounge. 11am-11pm, $15.
“Japan Roxx!!” Independent. 8pm, $15. Fundraiser for Red Cross Japan with Tidelands, Bernadette, Dogman Joe, and more.
Little Brown Brother Blues Jam Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.
Mantles, Nar, Lens, 3 Toed Sloth Hemlock Tavern. 6pm, $8.
Slow Motion Cowboys, Human Condition, Pocket Full of Rye Café Du Nord. 8pm, $10.
Randy Stephens Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.
Street Eaters, Blockshot, Sweet Nothing Knockout. 3-6pm, $6.
Tedeschi Trucks Band Warfield. 8pm, $39.50-67.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Ambrose Akinmusire Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $20-35.
Jeff Oster, Larry Vuckovich, and Michael Zisman Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St, SF; www.blissbarsf.com. 4:30-7:30pm, $10.
Poncho Sanchez Yoshi’s San Francisco. 5 and 7pm, $5-25.
“Sunday Sessions” Madrone Art Bar. 9pm. With Wil Blades.
Tom Lander Duo Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 6-9pm, free.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Golddiggers, Careless Hearts, Rich McCulley Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.
Greenstone Quarry, Bacon, Howdy! Milk Bar. 3-9pm, free.
Nick Jaina, Kasey Anderson, Ron Franklin Amnesia. 9pm, $7.
“Sunday Night Latin Sounds” Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; www.facebook.com/TheRampSF. 5:30-8:30pm, $7.
DANCE CLUBS
Batcave Cat Club. 10pm, $5. Death rock, goth, and post-punk with Steeplerot Necromos and c_death.
Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep and J Boogie.
La Pachanga Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.
MONDAY 23
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Sam Bradley, Holly Conlan Café Du Nord. 9pm, $12.
Crawler, Tunnel, Black Caucus Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.
Twice and Good Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.
DANCE CLUBS
Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.
M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. DJs Timoteo Gigante, Gordo Cabeza, and Chris Phlek playing all Motown every Monday.
Sausage Party Rosamunde Sausage Grill, 2832 Mission, SF; (415) 970-9015. 6:30-9:30pm, free. DJ Dandy Dixon spins vintage rock, R&B, global beats, funk, and disco at this happy hour sausage-shack gig.
TUESDAY 24
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
S. Carey, Other Lives Café Du Nord. 9pm, $14.
Sugar Pie DeSanto Yoshi San Francisco. 8pm, $20.
Ettrick, Tiger Hatchery, Tastyville, No Babies Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.
Gyptian, Etana, DJ Funklor Independent. 9pm, $25.
Hiwatters John Colins, 138 Minna, SF; www.johncolins.com. 9pm, free.
John Nemeth Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.
Panic is Perfect, Dina Maccabee, Indianna Hale, Ava Mendoza Amnesia. 9:30pm.
Rival Schools, Jonah Matranga, Suedehead Slim’s. 8pm, $16.
Society of Rockets, Conspiracy of Beards, Cyclub Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.
Steppin’ Madrone Art Bar. 9:30pm, $2.
Twilight Singers, Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s Fillmore. 8pm, $22.50.
The fun side of bikes
steve@sfbg.com
Paul Freedman, a.k.a. the Fossil Fool, is a singer-songwriter and builder of elaborate art bikes who lives in San Francisco’s Mission District. Since 2001, when he decided to apply his Harvard University education to building custom bikes, accessories, pedal-powered products, and mobile sound systems, Freedman created Fossil Fool and Rock the Bike to sell his creations and provide a platform for his performances and alternative transportation advocacy work.
But anyone who’s watched Freedman build and ride his creations — such as his latest, El Arbol, a 14-foot fiberglass tree built around a double-decker tall bike with elaborate generator, sound, and lighting systems and innovative landing gears — knows this is a serious labor of love by an individual at the forefront of Bay Area bike culture. We caught up with him recently to discuss his work and vision.
SFBG How did Rock the Bike start?
FOSSIL FUEL I was working at a shop in Berkeley and I decided to make my first bike music system, which I called Soul Cycles. So I had that other job at a bicycle nonprofit, which is cool, and that was the first impetus. I did two innovative things with my first bike music system: I put the controls on the handlebars, which I’d never seen anyone do, and I put speaker back-lighting to make the speakers look nice at night. I used a really nice CFL fluorescent lamp, and I started playing around with those and it looked great, so that was our first product for those first three or four years.
SFBG What was going on in the larger culture at the time that led you to believe your interest in bikes and technology was going to be fruitful or make an interesting statement?
FF I care deeply about biking and a lot of the people I was with did too, but I felt like the bicycle advocacy scene was not very effective when it came to actual outreach. I felt like the thing that had been really formative for me was this person-to-person interaction, in my case by hanging out with the guys who started Xtracycle, and going on quests to get ingredients for dinner and riding late at night with the music systems on the tour. I felt like those experiences were what made bicycling appealing, but the bike advocacy scene was using guilt trips and telling people you should ride a bike because you’re too fat and you should ride a bike because there’s too much traffic. And I felt like we needed to shift that mindset and really start focusing on the fun aspects of biking and the social aspects to grow the scene.
SFBG Do you feel like it has, and what effect do you think it had on those who weren’t already riding bikes?
FF I think it’s moving that direction. Even within traditional bike advocacy groups, those people are starting to really focus on their events and creating community, in a good way, and challenging themselves with doing so. And I think that’s really positive.
SFBG Your timing also dovetailed with heightened green awareness — with a push for renewable energy, concerns over peak oil, and things like that.
FF Yeah, I feel that transportation choices are the main thing people need to examine about their lives with respect to their impact on global warming. And that’s not just a feeling, that’s the consensus of the Union of Concerned Scientists. They say that if you want to have an impact on the planet, positive or negative, the first thing you should consider is your transportation habits. So that means flying, it means driving, and everything else. I don’t think it’s really beneficial to focus on what people need to do with a car, like they need to drop their kids off. It’s more important how people do the optional things with cars like the trips to Tahoe, and the flights to Mexico. It’s those optional things I want to focus on, which is why I’m so interested in Sunday Streets, which is like the antidote. It’s this thing you can do here, that you can walk and bike to, that’s as fun as driving to Tahoe.
SFBG Through your technology and design work, it also seems like you’re showing a broad range of what people can do on a bike, with lots of cargo or a whole performance stage setup. Do you think design is convincing people that bikes are more versatile that they thought they were?
FF Oh yeah, I think that would be a really beneficial outcome of this work. By riding through town with our music gear, of course people are going to look at that and think, oh yeah, I could probably go to Rainbow Grocery and buy a bunch of food for my household on a bike. So it would be a great outcome if people would make that connection.
SFBG Is there anything about San Francisco that makes people here more receptive to your message?
FF San Francisco is a very tight city geographically. It’s not like Phoenix. The blocks are pretty short here and the distances are pretty short here, and you can ride year-round here, which is not true in Boston where I grew up.
SFBG The focus on technology and design here also probably helps, right?
FF Oh, for sure. This is an awesome place to be prototyping and doing funky mechanical, electrical art. There’s a lot of support for it. There are places like Tap Plastics for learning about fiberglass. There are lots of electronics stores that serve the Silicon Valley tech developer communities. You can buy stuff there that’s helpful. You can learn about Arduino [an open source microprocessor] at Noisebridge. There are a lot of resources for doing interactive art here or for doing bicycle-related projects. There are a lot of welders here.
SFBG Where do you think we are on the arch with this stuff — the beginning, the middle? — in terms of gaining wider acceptance of biking as an imperative and an option for anyone?
FF I think there’s an important generational shift underway, and I don’t know whether it’s my focus on bikes that leads me to meet all these kinds of people, but it feels like I’m meeting more people these days that are going to pick their next city or their next neighborhood based on how it is to bike there. They’re bringing it up in conversation, it’s not me. So it seems like people are really considering what their daily life is going to be like and how the community feels, and biking is one of the symbols of a whole swath of other beneficial things. They know that if they see a bunch of bikes when they visit a place, then there’s probably a lot of other cool stuff like music, arts, farmers markets. Those kinds of things are sort of linked together, and the bike is the key indicator. So there’s been this generational change of thought. The idea that having a bigger, faster car is better, I just don’t think that’s popular with these people. They no longer believe it.
SFBG It’s having cooler bike.
FF It’s having cooler bike and being able to use it and not have to step into the stress of car culture if you can avoid it.
SFBG What’s your next step?
FF One of the really positive things for me has been the Rock the Bike community, with its roadies, performers, musicians — all types of people who are on our e-mail list. So I can just say, I need three roadies for a three-hour performance slot and there’s going to be a jam at the end, so bring your instruments. That’s an awesome thing and it’s just going to improve, so I think the community will grow as we continue do gigs where we have fun and the people have fun.
In terms of my own art, this tree [gesturing to his El Arbol bike] has been my focus for the last year or two, and it’s not done yet. It has to look undeniably like a tree. It looks like a tree, but with a light green bark that you really don’t see in nature, so that has to change. I want it to have brown bark, but I still want it to do beautiful things at night with translucency. And I want it to have a true canopy of leaves, so that when you’re far away from it at Sunday Streets and you’re wondering whether to go over there, you’ll see a tree. Not just a representation of a tree, but I want them to be like, how the hell did he ride a tree over here?
SFBG Why a tree?
FF I don’t know. You get these ideas, and you start drawing them and can’t shake them. There are all sorts of reasons why trees are interesting. They are gathering points.
SFBG And you’re doing some very innovative design work on this bike, such as the landing gear.
FF The roots. Yeah, that’s never been done before. Through the course of doing the project, people would send me tips and interesting things, and one guy sent me a link to a photo of tall bikes being used in Chicago in the early 1900s as gas lamp lighting tools, and they were very tall. I’d say 10 to 12 feet tall, and they were tandems, so there was a guy on top and a stoker on the bottom providing extra power, and they didn’t have landing gears. So they would ride from one lamp to another and hold the lamp as they refilled it. And I just love that story because if you were growing up in Chicago, and you saw these gas lamp people coming by in the early evening to turn the lights on, and if you were a little kid trying to fall asleep or whatever, that would have an indelible mark on your childhood, and that whimsical quality is what I’m going for. That should be part of what it’s like to grow up in the Mission District in 2011.
SFBG How does that fit into the other cultural stuff that you’re also bringing to the bike movement, the music you’re writing, design work, the style, and the events that you’re creating?
FF Sometimes I wish it wasn’t so multipronged. I would clearly be a better performer and musician if it was the only thing I did, so I apologize to all my fans for not putting 100 percent into the music. But I put 100 percent into the whole thing, including creating bikes and running Rock the Bike, which is a business.
SFBG But are you doing all these things because you find a synergy among them?
FF It’s the fullest expression of who I am.
SFBG Where do you see this headed? What will Rock the Bike be like five years from now?
FF I would like to see the quality of our entertainment offerings steadily improve to the point where people genuinely look forward to it, and not just to the gee-whiz aspect of look what they’re doing, but just for the feeling of being there. So I’d like to challenge ourselves with the quality of the music, how it is to be engaged in the setup process — because I think the setup is cool, with biking to the event and engaging in the transition to a spectacle, where every step along the way is part of the show. I like that idea. I’d like to challenge ourselves to be a carbon-free Cirque du Soleil, a show that is slamming entertainment and they bike there and pedal-power everything: the lighting, the sound, the transportation. And I want the performers to be just as good.
SFBG Are there people in other cities doing similar things?
FF The Bicycle Music Festival is spreading to other cities, which is cool. I think there are going to be over a dozen bicycle music festivals this summer. In terms of people doing really inspiring work with bike culture or this kind of mobile art, you definitely see some amazing things at Burning Man. That’s probably one of the best venues for this type of art. But I can’t think of another city where people are doing all of this. I’m part of a group on Flickr called Bicycle and Skater Sound Systems, and there’s nothing on that whole group that I see as being on this level. I don’t know why.
SFBG When you ride a cool custom bike down the street, the reactions it elicits from passersby is just so strong and happy. What is that about?
FF It’s a reaction to an expression of personal freedom. People light up when they see you expressing yourself, and a part of them thinks, oh yeah, that would be fun, I’d like to express myself. And there are just so many ways to express yourself and be human — and that’s something that we need to remind ourselves because, in many ways, our personal freedoms are declining and there’s more surveillance.
SFBG And people might take that spark and do any number of things with it.
FF One of the very cool things about bicycle art is that it’s mobile. So you ride your bike and you might turn heads a couple dozen times a day. I ride this tree, and if it’s in the full mode where it’s 14-feet tall and there’s music on, and I’m going from here to Golden Gate Park, I’d estimate that 500 people see it. There’s probably no other art form you can do that with. I can’t think of any other that’s like that. So it’s a really cool art form. Those people aren’t paying you, but you shared art with them, and it’s a good way to get exposure. It’s a great way for a lot of people to see your art.
SFBG With your mobile, pedal-powered stages, you’re also demonstrating green ways of powering even stationary art.
FF It is an interesting time for pedal power. I feel like there’s a turning point that’s maybe beginning in the field of events with how they’re powered. I think there are going to be a lot more people who are going to festivals in the coming years who are looking at the diesel generators and saying, ‘My summertime festival experience is being powered by diesel.’ And I think there are going to be a lot of people seeing that and wanting to do something else.
SFBG Have the technologies for how much juice you’re able to get out of pedal power been advancing since you’ve been working on it?
FF Yes, it’s truly impressive right now, particularly if you’re putting that juice into music because we have very efficient generators where there’s no friction interface anymore, nothing rolling on the tire, it’s all just ball bearings rolling on the hub. Then we put that power into these new modified amps, and they have a DC power supply now, as opposed to an AC power supply, so we don’t have to put the power into an inverter. So the net sum of that is one person can pedal-power dance music for 200 people, which is pretty amazing and inspiring.
SFBG And the battery technology is also improving, right?
FF Yeah, the batteries are what you use for the mobile rides, and that’s getting better. If you’ve been to a bike party, it’s just incredible how many good, loud sound systems there are right now. It’s a very kinetic art form, although I wish people would focus more on the visual aspects of their system, because I feel like there’s a trend to get big and loud fast. But I wish there were more people doing the work that Jay Brummel is doing, where he doesn’t just want to ride on a bicycle, so he turned his bike into a deer and he steers by holding the antlers.
SFBG But there has been some push-back from the police. Have you gotten many tickets?
FF Well, I got tickets for riding up high on this quadracycle. There is a law against riding tall bikes in California. It says you shouldn’t ride a bicycle in such as manner as to not be able to stop safely and put your foot down. Obviously you can’t put your foot down on a tall bike.
SFBG The fact that you have landing gears on your bike didn’t make a difference?
FF Well the officer didn’t take it seriously, but the court sided in my favor. The judge was flipping through photos of the landing gear the entire trial — he couldn’t stop flipping through them. And he asked, ‘How do you get on? Where do you step?’ So I was like, ‘Well, you step here, you step there, and you swing.’ It was pretty fun.
BICYCLE MUSIC FESTIVAL
Saturday, June 18
11 a.m.–10 p.m., free
Various locations, SF
TED taps Flux to talk about building community through art
In the wake of its artistic and community-building success building the Temple of Flux at Burning Man last year, which I profiled in “Burners in Flux” following a five-month immersion journalism project, the nonprofit Flux Foundation has been selected as finalists to address TED2012: Full Spectrum. TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, has become the country’s premier cutting edge speakers forum.
Principal artists Rebecca Anders, Jessica Hobbs, Catie Magee, and Peter Kimelman will travel to New York City to do a live presentation with three other Flux crew members to the TED selection panel on May 24. The opportunity was opened up by a great video the team produced, which accentuated the transcendent nature of this collaborative art project, closing with the line, “We built community through art and we’d like to show you how.”
That idea – big art as a catalyst to creating community – was a major theme in my article, as well as the conclusion of my book, The Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the New American Counterculture, which focused the Temple of Flux. And it’s something the Flux crew is continuing to do out in its American Steel workspace in West Oakland, where they are working on another ambitious new installation art piece.
Brollyflock, “a renegade flock of umbrellas,” was commissioned by event producer Insomniac for the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas and Noctural in San Bernardino, and which the crew hopes to display at TED2012. But to realize its ambitious goals, Flux Foundation has started a Kickstarter campaign with a $2,000 goal, so kick in if you want to see this homegrown success story continue to ascend.
Music Listings
Music listings are compiled by Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.
WEDNESDAY 11
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Bare Wires, Wrong Words, Tropical Sleep Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.
Capt. Ahab, Bitches, Heavy Petting Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.
Crown Point, Festizio, Hello Monster Hotel Utah. 9pm, $6.
Kills, Cold Cave, Entrance Band Fillmore. 8pm, $25.
Low Anthem, Daniel Lefkowitz Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16.
Mummyshots, Burnt House, Rough Mix Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.
Oh Sh**! Madrone Art Bar. 9:30pm, $5.
Pinback, Kenseth Thibideau Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $25.
*Sepultura, Belphegor, Hate, Keep of Kalessian, Neuraxis, Bonded By Blood Regency Ballroom. 7pm, $27.
Tommy and the High Pilots, Bird By Bird, Beta State Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.
Uni and Her Ukelele 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm.
Wammo vs. Forsythe Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $10.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Cosmo Alleycats Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo, SF; www.lecolonialsf.com. 7pm.
Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Michael Abraham Amnesia. 7pm, free.
Hobo Paradise Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.
Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.
“Ondes: Water Songs” Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell, SF; www.meridiangallery.org. 7:30pm, $5-10. With Anne Bourne.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Asleep at the Wheel Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $38.
Federico Aubele Independent. 9pm, $16.
DANCE CLUBS
Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.
Cannonball Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. Rock, indie, and nu-disco with DJ White Mike.
Jam Fresh Wednesdays Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9:30pm, free. With DJs Slick D, Chris Clouse, Rich Era, Don Lynch, and more spinning top 40, mash-ups, hip-hop, and remixes.
Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.
No Room For Squares Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 6-10pm, free. DJ Afrodite Shake spins jazz for happy hour.
Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash-ups.
Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.
THURSDAY 12
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Cassian, DJ Aaron Axelsen, Miles the DJ Rickshaw Stop. 10pm.
Chuck Alvarez Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.
Citizen Cope Independent. 8pm, $25.
Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers Slim’s. 8pm, $16.
Ezra Furman and the Harpoons, Tristen, Apache Relay Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.
Hooks, Theo Logian Explosion, Angel and Robot Show Thee Parkside. 9pm, $6.
Joan of Arc, Air Waves Café Du Nord. 8pm, $14.
My Parade, Yes Gos, Lydia and Projects Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.
Nazi Dust, Futur Skullz, Cardboard Funeral, Opt Out El Rio. 9pm, $7.
Rhymin’ and Stealin’, DJ Jamie Jams Knockout. 9:30pm, $8.
Young Dubliners Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $20.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Cosmo Alleycats Blondie’s, 540 Valencia, SF; (415) 864-2419. 9pm, free.
Dave Parker Quartet Purple Onion, 140 Columbus, SF; (415) 956-1653. 8:30-11pm, free.
Organsm featuring Jim Gunderson and “Tender” Tim Shea Bollyhood Café. 6:30-9pm, free.
SF Jazz Hotplate Series Amnesia. 9pm.
Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Savannah Blu Atlas Café. 8-10pm, free.
Sister Exister Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 641-6033. 8pm, free.
“Twang! Honky Tonk” Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm.
DANCE CLUBS
Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz, plus guest Black Mahal, spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.
Bike From Work Party DNA Lounge. 6-9pm, $5-10. Pedal over for DJs, a fashion show, and more with the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.
CakeMIX SF Wish, 1539 Folsom, SF; www.wishsf.com. 10pm, free. DJ Carey Kopp spinning funk, soul, and hip-hop.
Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaeton, and more.
Culture Corner Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; www.kokococktails.com. 10pm, free. Roots reggae, dub, rocksteady, and classic dancehall with DJ Tomas, Yusuke, Vinnie Esparza, and Basshaka and ILWF.
Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.
El Elle, LleGGs, Kit Clayton Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 9pm, $7.
Guilty Pleasures Gestalt, 3159 16th St, SF; (415) 560-0137. 9:30pm, free. DJ TophZilla, Rob Metal, DJ Stef, and Disco-D spin punk, metal, electro-funk, and 80s.
David J Cat Club. 9pm, $3-7. The Bauhaus-Love and Rockets veteran spins goth and more.
Jivin’ Dirty Disco Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 8pm, free. With DJs spinning disco, funk, and classics.
Kissing Booth Make-Out Room. 9pm, free. DJs Jory, Commodore 69, and more spinning indie dance, disco, 80’s, and electro.
Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.
Motion Sickness Vertigo, 1160 Polk, SF; (415) 674-1278. 10pm, free. Genre-bending dance party with DJs Sneaky P, Public Frenemy, and D_Ro Cyclist.
1984 Mighty. 9pm, $2. The long-running New Wave and 80s party has a new venue, featuring video DJs Mark Andrus, Don Lynch, and celebrity guests.
Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip-hop.
Thursday Special Tralala Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Downtempo, hip-hop, and freestyle beats by Dr. Musco and Unbroken Circle MCs.
Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, and more with DJs Don Bustamante, Apocolypto, Sr. Saen, Santero, and Mr. E.
FRIDAY 13
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Black Angels, Sleepy Sun Slim’s. 9pm, $19.
Crown City Rockers Yoshi’s San Francisco. 10:30pm, $20.
Diesto, Prizehog, Attitude Problem Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.
Dramarama, Interchangeable Hearts, Fort Wilson Riot Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $18.
Aaron Glass and friends Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $10.
Hi-Rhythm Hustlers Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF; www.oldtimey.net. 10pm, $10.
Maus Haus, Bronze, Pow! Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $10.
Charlie Musselwhite Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $35.
Of Montreal, Painted Palms, Hunx and His Punx Fillmore. 9pm, $25.
Peter Bjorn and John, Bachelorette Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $26.
Roy Rogers and the Delta Rhythm Kings with Carlos Reyes Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $24.
Sheer Terror, Old Firm Casuals, Knife Fight, Massacre Time Thee Parkside. 9pm, $15.
Universal Thump, Rebecca Gates Amnesia. 7pm.
Emily Zuzik, Go South Make-Out Room. 7:30pm, $8.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.
MegaFlame Big Band and the Bond Girls Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $13.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Antoine Dufour, Gareth Pearson, Ewan Dobson, Craig D’Andrea Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café Du Nord). 8pm, $15.
Fell in a Well 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm.
Femi Kuti and the Positive Force, DJ Harry Duncan Bimbo’s 365 Club. 9pm, $30.
DANCE CLUBS
Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.
Blow Up DNA Lounge. 10pm-2am, $20. Electro with Jeffrey Paradise, Tek Threat, and guests.
DJ Markangelo Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 10:30pm, $10.
Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.
Fubar Fridays Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5. With DJs spinning retro mashup remixes.
Go Go Mania Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10. Burlesque with the Devil-Ettes and others, plus live music by Deke Dickerson and the All Star Frat Band, Los Shimmy Shakers, Royal Deuces, DJ Howie Pyle, and MC Johnny “Chuckles” Bartlett.
Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip-hop, mash-ups, and top 40.
Heartical Roots Bollywood Café. 9pm, $5. Recession friendly reggae.
Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.
Indy Slash Amnesia. 10pm. With DJ Danny White.
M.O.M. Weekend Edition Madrone Art Bar. 10pm, $5. DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests spin and remix Motown.
Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa “Samoa Boy” spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.
Roller Disco Mighty. 9pm, $10. Tal M. Klein, Anthony Mansfield, and Carey Kopp spin at this four-wheeled disco party; skate rentals $5.
Some Thing Stud. 10pm, $7. VivvyAnne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ Down-E give you fierce drag shows and afterhours dancing.
Vintage Orson, 508 Fourth St, SF; (415) 777-1508. 5:30-11pm, free. DJ TophOne and guest spin jazzy beats for cocktalians.
SATURDAY 14
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Beso Negro 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm.
Hayes Carll, Romany Rye Slim’s. 9pm, $19.
Fingerpuppets O’Neill’s, 747 Third St, SF; www.fingerpuppetsrock.com. 10:30pm, free.
Greenhornes, Jeff the Brotherhood Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.
High Tension Wires, Sharp Objects, Nix, Neighborhood Brats Rock-It Room. 9:30pm, $10.
John Lee Hooker Jr. Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.
Stephen Kellogg, Tift Merritt Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café Du Nord). 9:30pm, $12.
Live Evil Riptide Tavern. 9:45pm, free.
Magic! Magic Roses Amnesia. 7pm.
Man Man, Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers Bimbo’s 365 Club. 9pm, $18.
“San Francisco OysterFest” Great Meadow, Fort Mason Center, Bay at Laguna, SF; www.sfoysterfest.com. 11am-7pm, $35-75. With Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Guster, Pepper, Tea Leaf Green, and more.
Shannon and the Clams, Apache, Uzi Rash Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.
Soulive, Lettuce Fillmore. 9pm, $25.
Stripmall Architecture, Tremor Low, Excuses for Skipping Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.
Thingers, Roabbles, Soft Bombs Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Freda Payne Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $30.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Ostad Nejad and Shirzad Sharif Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $10-15.
“Saturday Night Salsa” Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; www.facebook.com/TheRampSF. 5:30-8:30pm, $10.
DANCE CLUBS
Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.
Bootie SF: DJs from Mars Tribute DNA Lounge. 9pm, $8-15. Mash-ups with Adrian and Mysterious D, plus guests.
Cockblock Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $5-8. Queer dance party for dykes, lezzies, trannies, homos, and friends with DJs Natalie Nuxx and guests.
DJ Qbert Yoshi’s San Francisco. 10:30pm, $24. Champion turntablist.
Fire Ball: Nexus Burning Man Fundraiser 550 Barneveld, SF; www.nexusfireball.eventbrite.com. 9pm, $20. With Radio Hiro, Comma, R-Kidz of the Lawgiverz, Mancub, and more.
Fly Me to the Moon Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 9:30pm. Sixties soul and girl groups with DJ Amy A and DJ the DJ.
Go Bang! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; (415) 346 – 2025. 9pm, $5. Recreating the diversity and freedom of the 70’s/ 80’s disco nightlife with DJs Steve Fabus, Tres Lingerie, Sergio, and more.
Hot Flash Ruby Skye. 5-9pm, $15. With DJ Dirty Kurty.
HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip-hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip-hop and hyphy.
Rock City Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5 after 10pm. With DJs spinning party rock.
Same Sex Salsa and Swing Magnet, 4122 18th St, SF; (415) 305-8242. 7pm, free.
Smithsfits Friend Club Knockout. 9:30pm, $4. Smiths and Misfits with DJs Josh Ghoul and Jay Howell.
Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.
Spotlight Siberia, 314 11th St, SF; (415) 552-2100. 10pm. With DJs Slowpoke, Double Impact, and Moe1.
Synergy Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 10:30pm, $20.
Tormenta Tropical Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-10. Electro cumbia with DJs Shawn Reynaldo and Oro 11.
Wolf + Lamb vs SoulClap Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 10pm, $20.
SUNDAY 15
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
“Battle of the Bands” DNA Lounge. 5:30pm, $12. With LuciGraw, Dawn Is Our Enemy, and others.
Beehavers, C-Horse, Waiting Room Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.
Kim Boekbinder, Corpus Callosum Amnesia. 9pm, $7.
R. Stevie Moore, Tropical Ooze, Wet Illustrated Café Du Nord. 9pm, $12.
Lucky Peterson Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.
San Francisco State University Gospel Choir Yoshi’s San Francisco. 7 and 9pm, $20.
Coty Simpson and Greyson Chance, Shane Harper, Camryn Great American Music Hall. 7pm, $18.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Kurt Ribak, Sheilani Alix, and Tim Fox Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St, SF; www.blissbarsf.com. 4:30-7:30pm, $10.
“Strength for Japan” Cole Valley Fitness, 957 Cole, SF; (415) 665-3330. 4pm, free. Donations accepted to raise money for the Japan NGO Earthquake Relief and Recovery Fund; performers include Noertker’s Moxie with special guest Motoko Honda.
“Sunday Sessions” Madrone Art Bar. 9pm. With Wil Blades.
Tom Lander Duo Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 6-9pm, free.
FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY
Bay Area Youth Harp Ensemble, Triskela St. Mary’s Cathedral, 1111 Gough, SF; www.multiculturalmusicfellowship.org. 3:30pm, $10-20.
Meredith Monk and Kitka Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, Kanbar Hall, 3200 California, SF; (415) 292-1233. 7pm, $32-41.
Sea Dramas Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.
“Sunday Night Latin Sounds” Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; www.facebook.com/TheRampSF. 5:30-8:30pm, $7.
Vieux Farka Toure, Bhi Bhiman Independent. 8pm, $15.
“A Very Folky SeaweedSway Showcase” Make-Out Room. 7:30pm, $7. With Winnie Byrd, Lindsay Clark, Ed Masuga, and more.
DANCE CLUBS
Batcave Cat Club. 10pm, $5. Death rock, goth, and post-punk with Steeplerot Necromos and c_death.
Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $10. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with Poirier and DJ Sep.
Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.
Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. “Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers.” Got that?
La Pachanga Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.
MONDAY 16
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Death Set, Win Win Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.
Eisley, Narrative, Christie Dupree Slim’s. 8pm, $16.
Eric Himan, Namoli Brennet El Rio. 7pm, $5.
Melvins Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $22.50.
*Midnight, Saviours, Lightning Swords of Death, Archons Elbo Room. 9pm, $10.
Lucky Peterson Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.
DANCE CLUBS
Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.
Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJs Ant-1, $ir-Tipp, Ruby Red I, Lo, and Gelo spinning hip-hop.
M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. DJs Timoteo Gigante, Gordo Cabeza, and Chris Phlek playing all Motown every Monday.
Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.
Sausage Party Rosamunde Sausage Grill, 2832 Mission, SF; (415) 970-9015. 6:30-9:30pm, free. DJ Dandy Dixon spins vintage rock, R&B, global beats, funk, and disco at this happy hour sausage-shack gig.
Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs.
TUESDAY 17
ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP
Awolnation, Epilogues, Afghan Raiders, Finish Ticket, DJ Aaron Axelsen Rickshaw Stop. 7:30pm, $10.53.
Bestial Mouths, Ssleeping Desiress, Ezra Buchla, John Mannion Amnesia. 9:30pm, $6.
Buffalo Tom, Heavenly States Slim’s. 8pm, $21.
Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit Independent. 8pm, $15.
Knickerbocker Blues Band 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm.
Liquid Indian, Ava Mendoza, Gruesome Energy Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.
Melvins Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $22.50.
Joe Pug, Strand of Oaks, Garrett Pierce Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.
Quartet Rouge, Jesse Brewster, Rich Armstrong John Colins, 138 Minna, SF; www.johncolins.com. 9pm, free.
Steppin’ Madrone Art Bar. 9:30pm, $2.
JL Stiles, Paper Dolls, Meredith Axelrod Café Du Nord. 8pm, $10.
JAZZ/NEW MUSIC
Herb Alpert and Lani Hall Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. 8pm, $57.50.
Bill Charlap Trio Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $25.
DANCE CLUBS
Brazilian Wax Elbo Room. 9pm, $7. DJs Carioca and P-Shot spin samba.
Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip-hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.
Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.
5 Things: May 5, 2011
>>FINELY BREWED PROSE Though his boozy empire is no longer based in the Bay Area of his youth, we still have a soft spot in our hardened alcoholic hearts (or is that livers) for Jeremy Cowan. The founder of Shmaltz Brewing, Cowan has brought corny Jewish wit into the world of craft beers — see the label for his nut brown Messiah Bold: “the beer you’ve been waiting for” — and done so at a time when we all still considered Sam Adams a microbrew. He’s written a memoir about his rise to beer lord, which he’ll be back in the Bay promoting this week. Check out his signing at Omnivore Books on Sat/7, and tell him l’chaim for us.
>>A WEDNESDAY KNIGHT Sharon Funchess contributed vocals to a standout track on Teengirl Fantasy’s album 7AM, but her main musical project is Light Asylum, with Bruno Coviello. “Knights and Week Ends,” one of four songs on the recent tour EP In Tension, exemplifies the duo’s melding of powerfully dramatic ’80s diva vocalization and cold metallic beats. The Brooklyn-based Funchess and Coviello have an album due next year on Mexican Summer, and they return to SF for a show this month.
Light Asylum, “Dark Allies”:
>>PREPARE TO STOP The clusterfuck of a new-bike-lane-meets-intersection that is Fell and Scott streets is being revamped in an effort to un-fuck and un-cluster the mess. The center of-the-street bike lane—a recent addition to assist cyclists turning left from Route 47 on Scott to Route 30 on Fell—has proved perilous to pedestrians crossing east and west due to hordes of cyclists who don’t stop for them, and to drivers turning left from Fell onto Scott who have had to swerve to avoid oncoming cyclists in their lane. This week the city installed two more signals, which have yet to be turned on but will likely be dedicated left-turn lights for bikes and cars. Now, if the city can only do something about doofuses turning right onto Fell -– right into three lanes of oncoming traffic…like maybe a “No right turn” sign?
Signs of a pedestrian, cyclist, and driver intersection.
>>CINCO DE DRINKO? On the hunt for the best deal on a bucket of Pacifico bottles, we ran across Colorlines’ timely reflection on the de-politification of Cinco de Mayo. Kinda crazy how all immigrant commmunity celebrations become occasions for the country to get shit-faced (see: St. Patrick’s Day).
>>REINSTALLATION Bliss Dance, a 40-foot sculpture of a dancing nude woman, was one of the best art projects at Burning Man last year. And this week, artist Marco Cochrane and his talented and hard-working crew have been installing the piece on Treasure Island, where she’ll be dancing for city residents until at least October. The build, sponsored in part by the Black Rock Arts Foundation, should be finished by the weekend. An opening reception is set for May 26.
Bliss Dance giving the hand on the playa in 2010. Photo by DJ Guacamole/Guacarazzi Photography
2011 Small Business Awards
Everyone loves to talk about the value of small business. There’s a National Small Business Week, proclaimed by the president, and San Francisco Small Business Week, proclaimed by the mayor. There are conferences and speakers and programs. Even the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce — the mouthpiece for giant corporations in town — periodically hails the value of the little entrepreneur.
But when you get right down to it, small businesses don’t have it easy in this town. Under siege from big chains (who often get their way at City Hall), faced with unfair tax burdens (the little operators pay the same rate as the biggest companies), struggling to find support from banks (many of which don’t make many small business loans), the companies that create most of the new jobs in the city and preserve the lively character of the neighborhoods ultimately get little respect.
Check it out: if Twitter — worth billions — wants a tax break, City Hall leaps to the rescue. Yet a proposal that would have made the business tax burden more fair for small companies died last year without a vote.
Once a year we celebrate the people who hang in there, often against the odds, and not only survive but thrive. People who build small businesses that build cool neighborhoods and hire local workers and keep the San Francisco economy moving.
This year we’ve combined our editors’ picks with readers’ choices — and we’ve asked our winners who they would have picked as the best small businesses of the year. It’s a wonderful lineup that looks, and feels, like San Francisco. (Tim Redmond)
ARTHUR JACKSON DIVERSITY IN SMALL BUSINESS AWARD
LA COCINA
Believe it or not, there was a time in this city when Le Truc did not park its chicken parmigianas in front of the Conservatory of Flowers and street food did not inspire a weekly mob scene at Off The Grid’s mobile market. Back then, a lot of the people who sold food on the street were immigrant women.
“Their commonality is this incredible entrepreneurial spirit,” says Caleb Zigas of La Cocina, a food business incubator created to give street food vendors the tools they need to take their business into the next realm of profitability.
Its program has proven highly successful. After taste tests of applicants’ proposed cuisine (“They wouldn’t be here if their product wasn’t good,” Zigas says. La Cocina participants are counseled on brand development and distribution. In the organization’s gleaming commercial kitchen in the Mission District, eight businesses can simultaneously work at one time. On a typical morning, it’s used to prepare hummus, huaraches, and traditional Yucatecan-Mayan food for a day of sales.
Some graduates, like Clairessquares — a chocolate-shortbread-caramel treat company started by the eponymous Irish immigrant — are local grocery store constants now. Some businesses have used the program to go from selling at farmers markets to owning a restaurant of their own — Veronica Salazar of El Huarache Loco will be the first La Cocina grad with a brick and mortar location, opening in Larkspur this year. Two years ago, La Cocina started the Street Food Festival, an event that consistently packs the streets where it occurs and this year plans to expand to nine blocks of vendors.
Entrepreneurs from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Japan, El Salvador, and Mexico have passed through the La Cocina program. Everyone on staff speaks English and Spanish (the languages the organization offers counseling in). Outreach is done through partnerships with other groups like the Women’s Initiative and the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center.
Though the center now fields applications from all socioeconomic levels as street food becomes chic food, its original purpose remains: to provide a foot up to the women who are pushing to make life work in a new country with their families. “It’s important for us to remember that our mission is to provide an entry into business,” Zigas says.
La Cocina’s small business award pick: As the diplomatic Zigas says: “The consumers who purchase from small business owners.” (Caitlin Donohue)
2948 Folsom, SF. (415) 824-2729, www.lacocinasf.org
GOLDEN SURVIVOR AWARD
HANS ART AUTOMOTIVE
The repair folks: Sophia Chicas, Norbert Alvarenga, Luis Frias, Joao Santos, Ricky Saavedra, Henry Wong, and Hans Art. Photo by Ben Hopfer
Hans Art got his start in business in 1970, when one of his Noe Valley roommates couldn’t get his car started — and was therefore unable to get to his job delivering erotic ice cream concoctions to stoners and musicians at midnight for the legendary restaurateur Magnolia Thunderpussy.
“I was your classic hippie mechanic,” Art recalled. “I came out there with my screwdriver, adjusted the points, and the guy was on his way. And it occurred to me that this might not be a bad way to make a living.”
His business plan: An index card with his phone number on the wall in Bud’s Ice Cream. His goal: Flexible hours, plenty of time off and “a great way to have an alternative lifestyle.” That didn’t last long: “Pretty soon I was the hardest working hippie in San Francisco.”
More than 40 years later, Hans Art Automotive is one of the city’s most beloved car repair shops, a successful small business that still has a bit of the old hippie ethic.
“I have lots of customers with very moderate incomes,” Art said. “I tell them what’s needed now, what can wait four months … I pare it down so the service is affordable. We’re very non-pushy.”
It’s certainly working: more than 95 percent of his customers are regulars. “We want you to have a regular mechanic, the way you have a dentist,” he said. “Our advertising is mostly word of mouth.”
These days Art works from a cramped office above the shop floor, supervising around 10 employees who take extraordinary care in their work. “There are 800 opportunities for us to screw up every day,” Art noted. “If we avoid 799 of them, a lot of people would think that’s great — unless your car is the one we missed.”
He’s up against much bigger outfits in a business with low margins and constant changes in technology that require expensive investments — and that easy lifestyle is still elusive — but Art is a survivor. “I think I’ve made payroll more than 3,000 times,” he said. “For a small business, that’s quite an accomplishment.”
Hans Art’s small business award pick: He couldn’t pick just one — Art went with Michael Bruno Luggage, Noe Valley Bakery, and Tuggy’s Hardware.(Redmond)
3121 17th St., SF. (415) 621-6400, www.hansartautomotive.com
WOMEN IN BUSINESS AWARD
KATE SOFIS
Kate Sofis. Photo by Ben Hopfer
Kate Sofis is quick to tell you that she only held “one nonprofit job” prior to her work with SFMade, San Francisco’s local manufacturers association. The real root of Sofis’ passion lies with the manufacturing world. It’s not surprising — she’s seen the sector shape communities.
Raised in 1970s Buffalo, N.Y., where manufacturing was seriously struggling, Sofis later found herself drawn to studying Japanese quality practices in college. After graduation, she ran production lines for high tech companies. “I worked with Apple during the first iMac production runs on Folsom,” she says. She was also there for Apple’s first outsource.
Later she worked with a small South San Francisco furniture manufacturer (“back when we were still making furniture in this country.”) that eventually folded. Sofis realized that although she wanted to work in manufacturing, she wanted even more for there to be a manufacturing sector to work for.
“There were no programs set up,” she says, sitting in SFMade’s office space within the TechShop building on Howard Street. “You couldn’t get a bank loan because no one believed it was possible to actually make money in small manufacturing.” Sofis knew that manufacturing created decently-paying, high-skilled jobs with good benefits. At the same time, she understood that it needed to define its identity in 21st century America — and stand up for its sector’s health.
Today, the year-and-a-half-old SFMade has grown to include 150 San Francisco manufacturers — from Anchor Brewing to mid-Market garment shops, to Home Kombucha and Rickshaw Bags. May 21-27, it will sponsor SFMade Week, chockfull of local shopping events and “open factories” tours of members’ production areas.
The group advocates for ways to make its members’ economic contribution tenable in one of the most expensive cities in America. Sofis and other staff work to establish lines of communication to City Hall around issues like improved public transportation in areas where a lot of manufacturing gets done. “If the mattress coil spring guy is late, guess what? Mattresses don’t get made,” she say. But equally salient is its work on raising awareness among consumers and policymakers that San Francisco manufacturing still exists — and in the age of artisanal products, has the capacity to grow.
Her small business award pick: Greg Markoulis, manager of the American Industrial Center. “Twenty-five percent of our companies are located there, and they’re there for the long haul. Without that asset. San Francisco wouldn’t have half the manufacturing it does.” (Donohue)
SFMade, 926 Howard, SF. www.sfmade.org
SPIRIT OF THE STREETS AWARD
THE TAMALE LADY
Virginia “The Tamale Lady” Ramos. Photo by Ben Hopfer
Virginia “The Tamale Lady” Ramos has been selling her own homemade tamales since 1993, when she started her business to make enough money to send her daughters to school. She didn’t expect to become a local legend. Selling bar-to-bar to hungry boozehounds ever since, she’s made a name for herself as one of the city’s most celebrated street food vendors.
Hungry? Current tamale varieties include chicken, pork, chile cheese, sweet potato black bean, and mixed vegetable. Although Ramos’ prices have gone up since the early 1990s, they’re still a bargain — $4 for a hefty handful of home-cooked masa and filling, delivered right to your bar stool.
There’s no disputing that the Tamale Lady has achieved T(amale)-list celebrity, but her work is far from done. With the help of her family, Ramos’ treats land in rates of about 100 per day in the stomachs of soused locals in bars across the Mission, Tenderloin, and Lower Haight.
She imports her cornmeal and husks straight from Mexico. Every tamale is made by hand in her kitchen — a process that can be witnessed by watching the 2004 Cecil B. Feeder rockumentary on her life, which features a slew of original songs in homage to her work. It’s physically demanding, but Ramos bears the honor of being the city’s tamale angel with pride.
“I had an unpleasant life growing up [in Mexico]. I’ve been here for 25 years, and San Francisco gave me something I never had before: it brought me my independence. SF people came into my life as angels, they gave me the opportunity to feel like I can do my thing and nobody can mess with me.”
The Tamale Lady’s small business award pick: “The independent flower girls who go around selling flowers in restaurants, bars, and shops around the Mission.” (Hannah Tepper)
EMPLOYEE-OWNED BUSINESS AWARD
ARIZMENDI BAKERY
Arizmendi employee-owners, fresh from the ovens: (from left) Yeni Solis, Leidy Fernandez, Juan Clavel, Yelena Khlystova, Isaac Hee, Erica Harris, Celia Sagastume, Troy Vadakan, Sandy Guevara, Liz Fitzgerald, Nicki Green, Madeleine Van Engel, and Jenny Espinoza. Photo by Pat Mazzera
For the worker-owners at Arizmendi Bakery, cooperation is more than just a nice idea — it’s their business model. “I’ve worked in everyplace from Safeway to a bakery that was owned by one person,” says Arizmendi worker-owner Heather Coppersmith. “Arizmendi is different because we have to worry about our own finances, cost of sales, and income. We all get a sound understanding of what it takes to run a business, but responsibilities are spread out so that no one person is bearing the full brunt.”
So how does the egalitarian model function so well? “All of the work is shared,” says Coppersmith. “We create an environment that makes everyone feel valuable and train everyone in all aspects of the bakery, so there is no need for management.”
Arizmendi’s first sister location, the Cheeseboard, opened in the mid-1990s on Lakeshore Boulevard in Oakland. The concept of a bakery that was entirely worker-owned was dreamed up by Berkeley professor Jaques Kaswan and his partner Tim Huet. The idea was a winner: today there are five bakeries in the Arizmendi family across the Bay Area. When a new Arizmendi is started, newly hired worker-owners intern and train at other locations, learning all they need to know to operate their own bakery before opening for delicious, fluffy, crusty business.
The model has worked so well that Arizmendi was one of only nine food businesses in San Francisco to be awarded a perfect worker treatment score by its employees in community group Young Workers United’s yearly restaurant guide. It received high marks in wages, job mobility, health and safety, and job security — not surprising since worker-owners have the final say on workplace issues at Arizmendi.
But let’s not forget — how could we, really? — that Arizmendi doesn’t just produce happy and fulfilled worker-owners. The bakeries are best known for their more public offerings: delicious brioches, organic breads, and vegetarian pizzas with seasonal toppings that change daily. Cooperation never tasted so good.
Arizmendi’s small business award pick: “Underdog on Irving street. It’s a family-run hotdog and sausage place that has some great vegan options. They are very conscious of the food they prepare and where they are getting it from — and they are really nice.” (Tepper)
Various Bay Area locations. www.arizmendibakery.org, valencia.arizmendi.coop, lakeshore.arizmendi.coop
CHAIN ALTERNATIVE AWARD
DISCOUNT BUILDERS SUPPLY
Shannon Brundiek of Discount Builders Supply. Photo by Ben Hopfer
Going up against big businesses like Lowe’s and Home Depot doesn’t mean Discount Builders Supply needs to pull any fancy gimmicks to get customers. Indeed, some clients have been returning to the 50-year-old SoMa spot since manager Shannon Brundiek started working there two decades ago.
“A lot of big-box stores have popped up in that time,” Brundiek says. “We don’t handle business in the same way, or stock the same products, but they’re definitely our competition. They spend a lot of money competing for the same market share.”
Money national chains spend on advertising, owner Charles Goodman channels into things like employee benefit programs. The result? A business you can go to even if you’re not quite sure what it is that you need. Discount Builders Supply banks on the fact that its employees know how to help whoever walks in the door.
“What stands out most to our customers is the service,” says Brundiek. “Because we pay benefits, our employees work full time, and we strive to keep our employees long-term. It’s a career for them — it’s what they do and they love it.”
All that added experience makes a difference to devoted customers who count on DBS employees to know the difference between cinder blocks and coffin locks, cable clamps and sodium lamps.
Brundiek is adamant that the store he works at is simply a good old-fashioned hardware shop — “We don’t sell TVs or dog toys,” he says. But the business does offer free design services for kitchen and bath and specializes in SF-specific fixtures, plumbing, and moldings common in Victorians. Plus, it caters to a huge Burning Man rush every summer. Now that’s giving customers what they want.
Discount Builders Supply’s small business award pick: Brundiek acknowledges that San Francisco is home to a “great group of small hardware stores that all work together.” How’s that for lending a helping hand? (Emily Appelbaum)
1695 Mission St., SF. (415) 621-8511, www.discountbuilderssupplysf.com
GOOD NEIGHBOR AWARD
GOOD LIFE GROCERY
Kayren Hudibergh of Good Life Grocery. Photo by Ben Hopfer
It’s not often that San Franciscans take to the streets to protest the closing of a grocery story. But when the Good Life Grocery on Potrero Hill faced a 1,000 percent rent increase in 1985, neighborhood activists marched, shouted, hung banners, and dragged then California Assemblymember Art Agnos into the fray. The uproar allowed the owners, Kayren Hudiburg and Lester Zeidman, to find a new location nearby.
The Good Life has been part of the hill’s DNA since the early 1970s, when it started as one of a handful of community food stores. “We live down the block,” Hudibergh said. “Customers come in day in and day out. We’re a part of the neighborhood.”
Hudiberg, who also has a store on Cortland Avenue in Bernal Heights, makes a point of hiring local residents first. “We pay good wages, have a good health plan, and after two-and-a-half years, employees become part-owners,” she explained.
It’s not easy running an independent food store, particularly when you’re under attack by the giant Whole Foods chain. “When they moved in eight blocks away, people said we’d never survive,” Hudibergh said. “Whole Foods has more money than God, they can buy up a whole farmer’s crop.” But after taking a “big hit,” the Good Life is doing fine. “It takes a lot of hard work — I’m the owner, the produce buyer, the accounts payable clerk, the payroll clerk — it never ends,” Hudiberg said. “But we have a great, dedicated staff and we offer exceptional customer service.”
She’s also an exceptional San Franciscan. When the Board of Supervisors was moving to offer Twitter a big tax break, she took time off to trek down to City Hall and give the supes a bit of perspective. “I was just outraged,” she recalled. “Here a multibillion-dollar company is asking for a tax cut. I have 65 employees; I pay my taxes and I’m proud to do it — the city needs the money.”
“If my small business can pay, why can’t Twitter?”
We quite agree.
Good Life Grocery’s small business award pick: Goat Hill Pizza. Hudiberg says not only are its pies “wonderful,” but the restaurant donates food to neighborhood events and political affairs, and meeting space to community groups. “They support everything worthwhile and are a true neighborhood institution.” (Redmond)
448 Cortland, SF. (415) 648-3221
READER’S POLL WINNERS
For the first time, we asked Guardian winners to weigh in with their own small business awards. Who was the shining local business star in their neighborhood? Here are the winners of the most online votes.
FAVORITE RETAIL
THE MISSION STATEMENT
Design team: Estrella Tadeo and Jessica Bovert. Photo by Ben Hopfer
“I have always worked better when I work as part of a team,” says Estrella Tadeo, owner of the Mission Statement, who runs the Mission clothing boutique with the help of six other designers. “Working as a collective helps me stay sane.” All seven sell their work and work shifts on the retail floor every week, making it highly likely that if you have a question on the jungle-toned, one-shouldered flowing top you’re fingering, the person that created it is only a few feet away.
“Our goal with our customers is that they identify with our work and with us. It’s so much more interesting when we know the history behind something,” Tadeo says.
That’s likely the secret to the shop’s popularity with our readers. Since Mission Statement designers swap goods through a fruitful bartering system, they’re the experts — they wear a lot of the designs themselves.
The shop’s hands-on approach also means that if you don’t see the perfect Vanessa Gage architectural necklace or Bedouin princess skirt from oda, those designers will take custom orders or do alterations to create it for you. “It’s the way of slow fashion,” Tadeo says of this more personal, connective way of shopping. “We want to develop a relationship with our customers so that they can feel special, look special, and covet all that they purchase.”
It would appear that the collective has achieved this goal. Even so, Tadeo admits that running a specialized boutique in a recession can be a challenge. But, she adds, “It’s about staying positive and being the best we can be as business owners and people. We all want to get a good exchange of energy, and the best way to get it is to give it.”
The Mission Statement’s small business award pick: “Two definitely stand out,” Tadeo says. “Wonderland/Chillin’ Productions and Rag Co-op. Both stores have great concepts, amazing owners, and contribute so much to the local design community. Our three stores are different, but I feel they mutually enhance each other.” (Donohue)
3458 18th St., SF. (415) 255-7457, www.missionstatementsf.com
FAVORITE RESTAURANT
GIALINA
Sharon Ardiana of Gialina. Photo by Ben Hopfer
“First and foremost, I always wanted Gialina to be a place that everyone — young, old, families, singles, gays, straights — would want to come,” says Sharon Ardiana, chef and owner of the Glen Park Italian restaurant. Judging from the response of our readers, she’s achieved her goal — Gialina got top marks for its neighborhood-focused dining room.
The first to own a business in her family, Ardiana spent 20 years in the restaurant industry until she says she “kind of got to a point where I realized that I needed to drive the bus, so to speak.” Although she says she finds laying down the chef’s hat to run the business to be the hardest part of her job, she’s blessed with “an amazing staff in the front and back of the restaurant.” Five employees have been there for Gialina’s entire four years of operation, and Ardiana says the rest of the staff averages three years in the crew.
Such was the fervor over food like Gialina’s Atomica pizza — a simple, flavorful pie with mushrooms, chilies, and red onions added to the tomato sauce-mozzarella base — that Ardiana recently opened Ragazza, another small Italian eatery that, in the words of a recent Guardian review, “brings haute pizza culture to a vortex of the Haights (lower and upper) and Nopa.”
But for Ardiana’s “fantastically loyal clientele” in Glen Park, a neighborhood that has managed to remain free from Starbucks and Denny’s, it will always be about kid-friendly Gialina. “I want people to see the huge family photos on the wall and to connect with them and remember their own family members,” Ardiana says. “I want everyone to walk out that door feeling like they just had a really great meal and that they want to come back again.”
Gialina’s small business award pick: “I would say my friends Kris Hoggerhyde and Anne Walker at Bi-Rite Creamery,” Ardiana says. “I have just been blown away by the response of their customers. They work tremendously hard to make really great, delicious products.” (Donohue)
2842 Diamond, SF. (415) 239-8500, www.gialina.com
FAVORITE BUSINESS THAT CONTRIBUTES TO THE COMMUNITY
CHLOE’S CLOSET
Staffers at Chloe’s Closet: Molly Tyson, Andrea Mejia, Keyko Ruiz, Zulekha Azam, Jane McIntyre. Photo by Ben Hopfer
“One of the things I always noticed was that second-hand kids’ clothes were a little expensive,” says Molly Coogan Tyson, owner of Chloe’s Closet in Bernal Heights. Tyson opened the in 2003 when her two kids were four months and two years old.
Opening her store was a response to feeling cooped up at home and a desire to fill the need for a no-frills used children’s clothing store. “I really didn’t want Chloe’s Closet to be picky about what clothes we would buy and sell. I just wanted to facilitate the trade of goods for people who have young children because I know that kids’ sizes and interests change quickly.”
Her shop’s original location has been open for eight years and continues to grow steadily — there’s also a Chloe’s No. 2 in the Sunset. All Tyson’s stores sell clothes on consignment. When clothes are purchased, the original seller receives 50 percent of the sale price, a generous cut.
But giving back is the main goal, Tyson says. “My husband has suggested that I take up a nonprofit status,” she says, referring to the minuscule profit margins that a community-oriented store like hers must sacrifice in exchange for giving young parents a break on clothing prices.
Chloe’s donates all overflow clothes that can’t fit on racks to churches that serve low-income families and other organizations that can sell the clothing at fundraisers. She even makes HR decisions based on her community’s needs.
“I was approached by mom of four who, due to religious beliefs, wears a full burka. She really wanted to work, and she said no one else would hire her. We didn’t really need extra help, but I hired her because I was touched by her story.”
Chloe’s Closet’s small business awards pick: “I would want to recognize Heartfelt gift shop. They have a rotating stock of interesting gifts and the owner is Darcy Lee of the Bernal Business Alliance. She does a lot for the neighborhood.” (Tepper)
451 Cortland, SF. (415) 642-3300; 616 Irving, SF. (415) 664-4611. www.chloesclosetsf.com
Wicked, man
marke@sfbg.com
RAVE CULTURE Here’s a classic San Francisco rave story for you. First the official legend: “In the spring of 1991, a small, brave crew of acid house seekers set sail from southeast England in search of adventure. San Francisco was the destination. They made their mark under the Golden Gate Bridge at Baker Beach with the first in a six-year run of wild and lawless Full Moon parties.” And now the party reality: the crew set up during heavy fog after touching down from Britain — and at least two of Wicked’s four members, Garth and Jenö, had absolutely no freaking clue that they were beneath the Golden Gate Bridge.
“We Brits were virgins to that beach,” Garth told me. “We were all enjoying a psychedelic dance when the sun started to come up, and the fog peeled back to reveal the bridge above our heads, lit up like a spaceship! We were hooked from that moment on. The decks were set up on a blanket on the sand. No table. Walkman speakers made makeshift monitors. One well-prepared gay friend improvised a cardboard dancefloor for himself and went about his vogueing like he was back at the Endup or Paradise Garage.”
The Wicked Brit saucer, launched from the illustrious Tonka Sound System renegade rave base, touched down on our shores at a moment when the Bay Area psychedelic sound and spirit was flagging. The West Coast underground party scene was being commercialized into the kind of slick, infantile, overproduced spectacles that unfortunately came to define rave in many ’90s people’s minds. And the music was veering from true basement soul to Big Bird carnival woo-woo — not that there was anything too awful about that, at the time it was fresh. But a pagan squadron of prog-rocky, deep acid house and baggy beats lovers setting up on a beach was a blast of fresh air.
Update on the Wicked crew: Almost all have benefited from our wonderful current dance music moment that values historical broad-mindedness over genre lockstep. (Really, the era-roving Wicked DJs have never sounded better than right now). Garth now lives in Los Angeles and has been releasing a steady stream of re-edits and remixes on his two labels, and through his King & Hound project with beloved local disco archivist James Glass. Former punk protestor and anarchist bookstore haunter Jenö plays live acid house every first Saturday at 222 Hyde, broadcasts the weekly “Noise from the Void” radio show (Tuesdays at 9 p.m. at www.90hz.org), and is codirecting a documentary on the social implications of San Francisco’s early rave scene, due out this summer. Thomas is in New York City as one-half of the awesome Rub N Tug production team and owns Whatever We Want Records. And Markie? The dude is and always will be Markie, party legend.
On the eve of the full moon Wicked: 20 Years of Disco Glory reunion party (the name is a cheeky play on one of Garth’s already cheeky dance floor hits), I talked to Garth, Jenö, and Thomas over e-mail.
SFBG It seems like a boatload of Brits emigrated here in the ’90s and had a huge impact on the party scene — in fact, they’re still coming. Is there something special about San Francisco that draws you guys?
Garth I think a lot of Brits followed us here after they heard what was going on in the Bay Area, the freedom. The U.K. party scene was outlawed by Thatcher’s conservative government when it passed the criminal justice bill, which made it illegal for groups of more than 10 people to congregate while listening to repetitive beats. So there was a kind of party exodus: trance heads went to India (specifically Goa), other Brits went to Thailand, Australia, and Spain in search of a more fun life. San Francisco is particularly appealing to Brits because the climate suits us. It’s never too hot or too cold, and there’s a good dose of fog. It’s very liberal, the architecture is Victorian, it’s by the ocean with hills and those trams — plus great food and a strong, self-sustaining music scene.
Thomas It’s poetic, cosmopolitan, and charming without being European: we like that.
SFBG You definitely did bring a pagan spirit with you — not just with the full moon and witchy Wicked angles, but also in the sense of reinfusing the local music scene with a particularly enchanting Northern California-British psychedelic rock sensibility. Is that spirit still alive? After seeing how the West Coast techno scene has progressed in the past 20 years, do you have any thoughts or gripes?
Garth Life’s too short for gripes. And I don’t consider it a “West Coast techno scene,” really. It’s all just music. We’ve always played the best in disco, acid house, psych rock, and all points in between. It’s the tempo that keeps things moving, and move it always will.
Jenö I wouldn’t consider Wicked as even being a part of the techno scene. Our music was a lot broader than that, dominated more by psychedelic house and soulful disco grooves. But we definitely influenced the West Coast music scene, and that influence can still felt today in the style and sounds of the current crop of local DJ crews, from the Sunset parties to the hipster clubs currently delving into obscure house and disco-driven sounds.
Thomas I’ll tell you this: I live in New York, and there’s too much disco.
SFBG Any good stories from the early days of Burning Man?
Garth We were the first and only sound system there in 1995, and of the 5,000 or so people out on the playa, we had a few thousand of them all grooving out under the open skies: no marquees, no lightshow, just a kick ass 15K Turbosound system, right out of the box. During the height of my five-hour set on Saturday night, one naked freak (they never seem to be clothed) ran up and flipped the tables on top of me. There was thunder and lightning and a mad electrical hum until we got the gear up and running again. The crowd went apeshit — it’s still the highlight of my DJ career!
Jenö I didn’t make it the Wicked BM camps back then. But I did attend the last-ever Stonehenge Free Festival in the U.K. during summer solstice in 1984, which was the epiphany that drove me to want to create my own anarchic and free-spirited musical gatherings. Very similar to BM in style and substance — art and music-driven with countercultural ideals, but without the dust and ridiculously expensive admission of Black Rock City.
Thomas I didn’t go because I didn’t think I’d get served a proper cocktail. A foolish mistake on many levels.
SFBG Top five quintessential Wicked records?
Wicked DJ Garth & Eti, “20 Minutes of Disco Glory” — all the boys did excellent remixes of this seminal West Coast classic.
!!!, “Hello Is This Thing On? (Rub N Tug Remix)” — this incredible remix really sums up the Wicked sound, and they recorded it on a full moon!
Colm III, “High as a Mountain” — the title of this 1988 release says it all. Jenö brought it with him from England and played it at the first SF Full Moon party.
Marshall Jefferson, “Open Your Eyes” — deep vibes from the master of early Chicago house. More than just good music, it’s a spiritual journey.
The Man Collective, “No Hassle From the Man” — anthem. It’s rock and rave and soul and psych and passion. That’s maybe what we’re all about.
WICKED: 20 YEARS OF DISCO GLORY
Sat/23, 10 p.m.–7 a.m., $20 advance
Mighty
119 Utah, SF
Facebook: Wicked Disco Glory