Nightlife

Meet the lovely ladies of Carrots

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SFBG’s Justin Juul continues his fashionable Meet Your Neighbors series with an somewhat-organic boutique makeover

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Carrots is one of those fancy boutiques you pass on your way to work and think Jesus, who the hell can afford this stuff? At least, that’s what I was thinking as I peered into the store’s window and saw a mannequin wearing a wool sweater and a button-up shirt with a $280 price tag. Beyond that was a palace filled with bearskin rugs, rusted machinery, and high-end apparel. On a normal shopping day I would have scoffed and taken my business elsewhere. But today was not a normal day. I had been sent to Carrots by the editor of a culture-and-nightlife magazine to check out the boutique’s new promotion: styling appointments for men who love beer. That’s how I met the first heiresses I will probably ever know, the proud owners of Carrots, Catie and Melissa Grimm of Grimmway Farms. They bought me beer, dressed me up in some swanky stuff, and even consented to this no-holds-barred interview about what its like to run a fashion emporium and live on karat juice.

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Ooh la la!

SFBG: How did you guys get into the fashion thing?
Melissa Grimm: We’re sisters and when we were growing up we always talked about owning a business together. When we moved here three years ago we just fell in love with the city, but after about six months we realized that something like this was missing; you know, a store that combines men’s and women’s fashion. We wanted to create an environment you could just walk into and not feel intimidated, just a really comfortable space with a nice selection of hard to find things. We have handmade belts from Geoffrey Young, for example. Almost no one else has those.

SFBG: Yeah, you have a lot of stuff I’ve never seen, that’s for sure. Cool stuff. Did you go to fashion or design school or anything?
Melissa: No, but we know a lot about fashion and we try to pride ourselves on things that are hard to find. It comes from living a life of travel, growing up with a mother who’s very elegant and stylish. She sort of instilled that in both of us.

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The sisters, anything but Grimm

SFBG: Yeah, my dad was a Marine so…

Catie Grimm: Um, yeah. Also, we both love to travel. It’s our favorite thing to do. And we love fashion. So we try to incorporate those two passions in everything we do.

SFBG: So you carry designers from all over the world then?

Clubs: Diamond Daggers — disco turkey basters

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By Marke B.

It occurs to me — your nightlife numbskull, your good-times guide — that my Super Ego column this week and its bloggy follow-up, which focussed on some of my fave queer clubs, was a tad phallocentric. Dykes are HOTTT! Including the invisible ones. Here’s an especially lovely lesbian hoedown coming up, with more dyke nightlife delights to come.

Diamond Daggers Disco Thanksgiving

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The enormously talented and flexible all-queer-women burlesque troop Diamond Daggers blew naughty minds at the Castro Street Fair and have been perfoming monthly at Fat City lately. Who can deny their death-defying feats of daring dykeness? Not me. This time around, on Sat Nov. 22, they’re presenting a “Disco Thanksgiving” for all you polyester turkeys stuffed with shards of mirror ball and platform giblets.

Oh yes, there’s an especially all-star lineup for this one as well: dark god Vinsantos, “princess of pork” drag superstar Glamamore, fabulously nimble SF Boylesque troupe, local cabaret starlet and “Oakland’s Chocolate Kisses of Burlesque” Alotta Boutte, drag king singer Leigh Crow aka Elvis Herselvis, and many, many more than listable in this infinite webspace. The disco part will be provided by girl-about-town DJ Campbell and the mysterious C’est Jille. C’est chic! Let’s freak!

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Diamond Daggers Disco Thanksgiving
Sat/22, doors 9pm, show 10:30pm
$12-$20 sliding scale
Fat City
314 11th St., SF.
www.myspace.com/DiamondDaggersBurlesque

Anniversary Issue: Culture isn’t convenient

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› molly@sfbg.com

San Francisco is the playpen of countercultures.

— R.Z. Sheppard, Time (1986)

I live near Church and Market streets, which means I’m stumbling distance from an organic grocery store, my favorite bar, several Muni stops, and a 24-hour diner. It also means the street outside my apartment is usually loud, the gutters are disgusting, there are rarely parking spots, and transients sleep, smoke, panhandle, and play really bad music near my front doorstep.

Actually, until recently, they did a lot of this on my front doorstep. Then the landlords — without asking us first — installed a gate. And I hate it. Yes, my stairs are cleaner. I suppose my stuff is safer. But I’m no longer as connected to my community. I’m separated from the life that’s happening on the street — the very reason I moved to this neighborhood in the first place. I fear I’ve lost more than I’ve gained.

Lately our city’s approach to entertainment and nightlife has been like that fence. While protecting people from noise, mess, and potential safety concerns, we’re threatening the very things we love about this city. Thanks to dwindling city budgets and increasingly vocal NIMBYs, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to manage nightclubs, plan street fairs, and organize outdoor festivals. And as we continue to build million-dollar condos at a brisk place, the city is filling up with affluent residents who may not appreciate the inherent messiness of city living. We’re at risk of locking away (and therefore losing) the events that make this a vibrant place where we want to live.

The recent history of this issue can be traced to the 1990s, when dot-com gold brought live/work lofts to otherwise non-residential neighborhoods — and plenty of new residents to live in them. Those newcomers, perhaps used to the peace and quiet of the suburbs, or maybe expecting more comfort in exchange for their exorbitant monthly rent checks, didn’t want to hear the End Up’s late-night set or deal with riffraff from Folsom Street Fair peeing in their driveways. Conflicts escalated. The Police Department station in SoMa, responsible for issuing venue permits and for enforcing their conditions, embarked on a plan to shut down half the area’s nightclubs. Luckily, city government and citizens agreed to save the threatened venues and the police captain responsible for the proposal was transferred to the airport, the San Francisco equivalent of political exile. In 2003, the Entertainment Commission was formed, in part to take over the role of granting venue and event permits.

But as Guardian readers know, the problem was not solved. As we’ve covered in several stories ["The death of fun" (05/23/06), "Death of fun, the sequel," (04/25/07), "Fighting for the right to party" (07/02/08)], beloved events and venues are still at risk. How Weird Street Fair was forced to change locations. Halloween in the Castro District was cancelled altogether. Alcohol was banned at the Haight Ashbury Street Fair and restricted at the North Beach Jazz Festival. Fees are still increasing. Rules are getting more stringent. As we predicted, it’s getting harder and harder to have fun in San Francisco. And while it’s the job of the Entertainment Commission to prevent problems while protecting our right to party, it has never been given enough funding, staff or authority to properly do its job.

So why should we care? Our legendary nightlife, festivals, and parades bring international tourists to our city — where they stay in hotels, eat at restaurants, shop at stores, and otherwise pump money into our economy. Street fairs give us ways to connect to our neighbors and our neighborhoods. Free events (which, if permit fees increase and alcohol sales are prohibited, will be a thing of the past) give equal access to fun and frivolity to people in all income brackets — and most raise money for charities and nonprofits. Particular venues and happenings provide an important way for those in the counterculture — whether that’s LGBT youth or progressive artists — to meet, mingle, and support each other. And none of that captures the intangible quality of living in a city where freedom, tolerance, and the pursuit of a good time are supported. And all this is one of the reasons many of us moved here, where we pay taxes (and parking tickets), open businesses, start organizations, and contribute to our already diverse and vibrant population.

But if we don’t establish a way to protect our culture, personally and legally, we may lose it. Instead, we need an overarching policy that establishes our values as well as the legal ways we can go about supporting them. The Music and Culture Charter Amendment, in the works for more than three years and currently sitting before the Board of Supervisors, aims to do exactly this.

The most important part of the amendment, created by a coalition of artists, musicians, event planners, club owners, and concerned citizens who call themselves Save SF Culture, would be to revise San Francisco’s General Plan to include an entertainment and nightlife element, just as the current plan contains an entire section devoted to the protection of (presumably mainstream) dance, theater, music, and art, calling them "central to the essence and character of the city." Not only would this amendment mandate that future lawmakers try to preserve events and venues, it would give a roadmap on how to do this effectively — most notably by creating a streamlined, transparent, online permitting process for special events.

Yet even if this important amendment passes and wins the mayor’s signature (which is hardly a sure thing), that’s just the beginning of a process of figuring out how to sustain San Francisco’s culture in the face of potentially threatening socioeconomic changes. At the very least, the next step will be giving the Entertainment Commission the full funding and staff (it currently operates with five of the eight staffers required). And once our beloved clubs and events are out of immediate danger, it will be time to form a coalition of citizens, government officials, and city planners to decide how and where culture in our city should grow, asking questions like whether or not we want a large-scale amphitheater or if we need to designate an area as an entertainment district. Most important, the city needs to develop a framework for resolving the inevitable conflicts with NIMBYs in a way that promotes a vibrant culture.

Yet there’s also a role in this process for each citizen of San Francisco. We need to remind ourselves and our neighbors that tolerance is one of our core civic values, tolerance for different races, classes, genders, sexual identities, and for the potentially noisy, messy, chaotic ways our culture supports those differences. If we erect a gate — physical or metaphorical — every time we’re uncomfortable or inconvenienced, we’ll turn San Francisco into the sanitized, homogenous, boring suburbs that I moved to Church and Market to escape. *

Sustainable San Francisco

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In honor of our 42nd year printing the news and raising hell, the Guardian imagines a sustainable future for San Francisco, with visions for energy, land use, food, transportation, culture, and the economy.

A city transformed: Fighting the power structure, and building a sustainable community, for 42 amazing years

People’s power: A sustainable energy system is well within San Francisco’s reach

First, do no harm: A sustainable land use plan is about what we don’t allow as well as what we do

Beyond the automobile: The road to sustainability has lanes for more than just cars

Just Food Nation: Transforming how we eat will address poverty, public health, and environmental sustainability

Culture isn’t convenient: Sustaining entertainment and nightlife in San Francisco requires awareness and a policy shift

The money at home: A sustainable local economy starts with small business – and the public sector

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: For 42 years, the Guardian has been writing about environmental issues, land-use issues, energy issues economic issues … and when you read back issues, you can see the outlines of what we now call a platform for a sustainable city. We’ve gone back through the archives and pulled out some of our anniversary issues that fit into that theme. You can see the covers and read the main pieces here (all files PDFs):

Oct 6- 13, 1982
16th anniversary issue

Oct 12- 19, 1983
17th anniversary issue

Oct 10- 17, 1984
18th anniversary issue

Oct 23- 30, 1985
19th anniversary issue

Oct 22- 29, 1986
A Bay Guardian study showing that as highrises have gone up, downtown SF has lost jobs.

Oct 7- 13, 1998
33rd anniversary issue

Oct 10- 16, 2001
35th anniversary issue

Oct 16- 22, 2002
36th anniversary issue

Oct 22- 28, 2003
37th anniversary issue

Magical madness

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He’s bald, his house beats bounce like no others, and he’s blue — at least in the cartoons. British underground producer Mike Monday is taking aim at something more than niche success with his recent signing to San Francisco label Om, but his new album, Songs Without Words, is hardly mainstream house fare. From titles that reference Spongebob Squarepants to track styles that veer from dubstep to 2-step to banging house and back again, Monday keeps listeners off-balance in the best way.

Monday — born Michael Mukhopadhyay — did time at Oxford studying music before heading into the nightlife wilds, as well as playing sax in 1990s live electronic outfit Beat Foundation (his partner Andy Cato went on to form Groove Armada). But Monday is best known for his work on 12-inch singles and songs like "Bhaloboshi," which M.A.N.D.Y. included on its Fabric mix, and "I Dream of Ducks," from his first album, Smorgasboard, released two years ago on the producer’s Playtime imprint. His thick slabs of synths, sparkling production, and springy beats have found homes in both minimal and electro camps with DJs like Claude Von Stroke and Tiefschwarz championing his tunes.

Songs Without Words, however, is not about tools for Technics, even if Monday admits his DJ background influenced not only the song order but the songs themselves. Over the phone from his London home studio — built in a garage in his garden — Monday confides that he tweaked tracks so they worked together, even changing the key to achieve the proper fit. "You can call it an album and have all different sorts of music," he says. "What matters is the pacing and the flow and how it listens from beginning to end. I almost spent as much time wrestling with the [song] order as I did with the music itself."

Despite initial doubts about signing his album to a more commercial label — and a Yankee one at that — Monday overcame his hesitations due to his affection for the people behind Om and his respect for their attempts to release electronic music in more than one genre, an openness that seemed to mirror Songs Without Words‘ breadth. And having more resources behind him has allowed for amusing excursions — such as animated cartoons showcasing flying key-tars, pink cats, and a blue Mike Monday. Produced by Drunk Park, the cartoons are as weird and wacky as Monday’s music. "I really like the idea of not using dour, cool artwork for electronic music," he explains. "Because to be honest, that’s not the type of person I am." (Peter Nicholson)

MIKE MONDAY

Sat/4, 10 p.m., $15

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

Clubs: Seeking Justice with DJ Richie Panic

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By Marke B.

Justice, “DVNO”

Bonjour, Fifi! In this week’s Guardian I go after French hardcore electro sensation Justice (Kim Chun wonderfully defends them), and share a few personal thoughts on the explosively glitzy banger scene that’s grown up around their sound. Some people have written me to call me “old” and “a scold” — that rhymes! Others have lauded me as an “old-school defender” and for “finally taking a hard look at today’s materialistic youth.”

I don’t know about all that. I am old-school — I’ve been around a while — but that doesn’t mean I want to divide stuff up and take sides. Move on dot org!

I can see good things and bad things about most kinds of nightlife. And I surely feel a positive energy and musical innovation at certain banger clubs like Blow Up, even as I worry over some of the materialistic and surface aspects of the hardcore electro scene. Nightlife is an art, and like any art critic, I retain a moralistic vision — but I know that the wonderful purpose of art is to blow up (get it?) any moralistic vision to smithereens and go beyond mere words. But I’ll always totally be down with, as fabulous DJ Richie Panic says below, “going out at night, doing drugs, having sex in bathrooms, and listening to DANCE music.”

It’s difficult to try to objectively critique an underground scene I love and support! BUT at least it’s not this, roight:

Rockstar SF @ Roe/Prive

And here, for comparison’s sake, is Blow Up:

Besides the hipster quotient and economic differences (the banger audience is def not $200 bottle service — yet speaks better french!), and also A LOT more comfort with the gays and female empowerment, plus far less douchebags in dimestore cornrows laughing about rape — HAHAHA — I think I root the difference mostly in the music. I get chills when the change comes in on the lovely Empire of the Sun track above. (With mashups of “Obsession” …. not so much.) And that’s a fundamental of underground nightlife right there — better music and hair than the douchebags. See? We’re still all one.

Anyway, back to Justice. They’re weird! they can fill giant venues, which kind of forfeits underground cred, yet they still somehow retain underground cred. For illumination, I turn to Richie Panic, one of my favorite DJs, the king of the Cali banger scene, and a real sweetheart. Plus a genius. Oh, and he’ll be playing a monster show at Mezzanine with Too Many DJs and Soulwax on Oct. 30 — so catch that! His take below:

Too hot

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Turn down the grill, puleeze — last week felt like a little time-traveling trip to Nellyville (Universal), a throwback to ’02, as in "I’m getting too hot / I wanna take my clothes off." That snatch of "Hot in Herre," Country Grammar king Nelly’s collabo with the Neptunes, could have been the recurring refrain throughout the 80-degree-plus Indian summer sizzle engulfing San Francisky. And frankly I prefer Nelly’s get-nekkid vision of toasty times to the heat that seems to be driving the kids on my street to shoot each other up. Nightlife shouldn’t mean a fight for your life, and who can blame the Mission District teens who want to get out of their suffocating family apartments? Still, you wonder drowsily, when roused at 4:45 a.m. to the sound of five gunshots and some murder-minded creep speeding off: why do the shooters have such ready access to firearms?

I say, let’s cut the vengeance-minded, pistol-packing heat and up the glammed-up, sexy swelter instead. We can use a little more ye olde "Hot in Herre" and less hot-under-the-collar shoot-’em-ups. So the timing was perfect to check in with Nelly, a.k.a. Cornell Haynes Jr., about his latest album, Brass Knuckles (Derrty/Universal), on the verge of an intimate national tour alongside his chums St. Lunatics.

The finished product took a great deal of tweaking — hence the multiple delays, says the soft-spoken rapper, fashion impresario, and collaborator with everyone from T.I. (Creatively, "he’s a beast," swears Nelly) to Tim McGraw. Though Nelly’s intent on trying out new sounds, fans seem to prefer the rapper’s smoother R&B side, as exhibited by the popularity of his Suit disc over his hip-hoppier Sweat full-length (both Derrty/Universal, 2004). And the third single off Brass Knuckles, "Body on Me," which brings the St. Louis rapper together with Akon and rumored squeeze Ashanti, has done considerably better than his fun-loving, shout-along foray betwixt crunk and hyphy, "Stepped on My J’z" ("My ode to the joy of the sneaker," he says).

But all that doesn’t mean the Charlotte Bobcats co-owner wants to skew toward safe choices amid industry uncertainty and his own tussles with Universal ("Definitely I was unhappy with the situation," Nelly says of the negotiations that led him to make the 2007 throwaway "Wadsyaname" single. "Sometimes I think the only leverage that entertainers have is the music."): after all, he did try to assemble a vocal threesome with Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson for Brass Knuckles as well as a bro-down with Bruce Springsteen.

"Don’t be afraid of change," he tells me over the phone. "I think that’s the thing that scares people the most. You can’t tell fans what they should buy. You can’t tell fans what they should like. It looks funny! ‘Yo, don’t buy that — buy this. You’re wrong!’<0x2009>" The still-budding thespian within — Nelly will appear in the CSI: NY season opener — rears its head as the rapper imagines a bullied fan. "’But, but, it’s my money!’

"That’s something you don’t want to get into," he continues, reassuming his proper role. "You’re always a student."

This time around, Nelly says, "I wanted to do things a little differently — bring an energy to the album that I maybe haven’t in a while as far as tempos and selection of people that I used." To support that he wants to spend this tour "just explaining the songs and explaining what went into the album."

Apparently there’s more than a little of the down-home Midwesterner in the rapper, who continues to reside in his hometown of St. Louis. There, keeping it real — and cool — means knowing when to lay low. Having finally finished the album a week and a half ago, he’s now in the middle of promotions, marketing, and tour preparations, and his typical day can mean doing interviews at four New York City radio stations in one fell swoop, or "a good nap all day because I’m exhausted," he sighs. "Because I’ve probably been up for four or five days in a row. No exaggeration. It’s something that stays on you." *

NELLY

With St. Lunatics and Avery Storm

Sat/13, 9 p.m. doors, $40–$55

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 820-9669

www.mezzaninesf.com

COME OUT SWINGING

BEATEN BY THEM

The native Australians — and onetime San Franciscans — hammered out a fascinating Signs of Life (Logicpole/Thrill Jockey, 2007) at Tiny Telephone studio. With one f and the Healing Curse. Wed/10, 9 p.m., $6. Hotel Utah, 500 Fourth St., SF. www.hotelutah.com

FLOATING CORPSES, HUNX AND HIS PUNX, AND YOUNGER LOVERS

Wreak havoc with Roxy Monoxide alongside Gravy Train!!!!’s punk poobah and Brontez’s ever-lovin’ latest. With No Gos and Bridez. Sat/13, 8 p.m., $5–$7. 924 Gilman Street Project, Berk. www.924gilman.org

MARY HALVORSON AND JESSICA PAVONE

The Brooklyn chamber-folk experimentalists are on critics’ short lists for On and Off (Skirl). With Xiu Xiu, Evangelista, and Prurient. Sat/13, 9 p.m., $12–$14. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com

JANET JACKSON

Jacko may have snubbed his sis at her BMI lifetime achievement ceremony, but she continues to "Rock Witchu" despite turmoil with Island Def Jam. Sat/13, 7:30 p.m., $37.50–$123.25. Oracle Arena, 7000 Coliseum, Oakl. www.livenation.com

TRICKY

The trip-hoppin’ hip-hopper delves into his tough council estate upbringing with Knowle West Boy. (Domino). With Sonny. Sun/14, 9 p.m., $30. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com

Buddha system

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› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Gadzooks! I’m lunching with Sen-Sei at Prana, the nifty Thai resto attached to zentastic club Temple, Sen-Sei’s hazel eyes reflecting the brilliant curlicues of my ginger-garlic prawns. No, I’m not assuming the lotus position. Not in these heels, Dharma.

Scenesters know Sen-Sei as the classically trained pianist who’s been plugging his keys into mixers and tapping out sen-seitional "live house" since the early ’90s. But his day job is Marketing Genius for Temple — or, more accurately, for Zen Compound, the new downtown Buddha-themed complex with more business arms than a wriggly Vishnu — and he’s giving me the downward-dog scoop.

Besides luscious Prana, the compound houses a production studio for the Temple Music Group label, a soon-to-be-opened school for yoga, tai chi, and more (wait for it: "The Zenter"), and an Irrawaddy Delta’s worth of antique Buddhist artifacts — srsly, it’s like Raiders of the Lama Ark up in there. Plus, of course, the zenterpiece: Temple nightclub, a spiffy, vast space that includes the generous first-floor Shrine Room, and, beneath that, the blinding white Destiny Lounge and cozy Catacombs. The joint also admirably touts its commitment to sustainability — it’ll be rocking a gonzo solar-paneled float at LoveFest on Oct. 4 — but much of the green’s attached to grants and guidance from PG&E, so, environy.

Listen, huge clubs scare me. They do! You know that clubber nightmare where you’re busting fierce moves to some comfy old-school funk — when suddenly you look up to find yourself on the floor of the Republican National Convention, surrounded by rickety ‘nillas awkwardly "getting down"? Then you vomit fluorescent begonias? Gurl, I’ve been there — mostly at some megaclub megacatastrophe. When you have to fill a couple acre’s worth of dance floor every night to break even, drink and cover prices usually soar while crowd quality plummets. B&T + LCD = nightlife tragedy.

Temple isn’t that — Sen-Sei tags it as not a megaclub, but an, er, "ultraclub" — and although it can get crowded with far-Bay playa-wannabes puking on their knockoff Jimmy Choos, the stellar talent booked is often off-the-karma-chain, and there’s always a core of dedicated dance fans near the speakers. This can lead to some real Siddharthan surrealness — like the night me and 20 others were losing our mandalas over breakbeat gods LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad in the Shrine, while below us 200 cologniacs ground out tired threeways to Jeezy in the Catacombs.

"We’re trying to achieve a balance," Sen-Sei says, appropriately, "between staying afloat and still appealing to an open-minded crowd willing to be musically educated. But I swear to you, we’ll never be Ruby Skye."

And I believe him. For one thing, the whole ball of bodhi-wax is owned by DJ Paul Hemming, a bass-heavy synth-techno nut who takes to the decks most Saturdays. For another, almost everyone I met on the business end of the club had already made legendary names for themselves as DJs or promoters — it was like the ’90s all over again! The good part, not the black tar.

For a third, despite its slightly belabored Orientalism, Temple does follow an enlightened philosophy: "Fuck all that same-sounding superstar DJ Paul Van Dykenfold-Tiësto bullshit," Sen-Sei advised. "’Oh, look at me, I can beat-match in a stadium.’ Big deal. We just want to bring back the love, build a dance floor family, and take it into the future. Is that so impossible now?"

TEMPLE

540 Howard, SF

www.templesf.com

Smoking ban could hurt nightlife

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By Steven T. Jones and Meghann Myers

San Francisco’s bars and clubs often live in a delicate balance with their neighbors, who can be quick to complain about noise and other nuisances. Bar managers and event promoters say that balance could either be upset or strengthened by legislation coming before the Board of Supervisors in coming weeks.

Groups such as the Entertainment Commission and Outdoor Events Coalition are working on legislation to write the right to party into the city charter (a previous plan to take it to the ballot has been jettisoned in favor of doing it legislatively later this month). But club owner and Entertainment Commission member Terrance Alan is equally worried about another well-intended measure that he fears could have disastrous impacts on nightlife.

The Board of Supervisors will tomorrow consider amending San Francisco’s health code to further restrict smoking in public. If passed, the law would ban smoking in owner-operated bars and restaurants, prohibit smoking within 20 feet of entrances of commercial buildings, and prohibit patrons from smoking on outdoor patios of bars and restaurants.

The result, Alan tells us, could be to send chit-chatting smokers further from the clubs and closer to neighbors who already have the police on speed dial, just waiting for another reason to file complaints.

Clubs: Sweet majik tunes for summer’s end

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By Marke B.

But first, a bonus! — the ecstatical, fantastical, local maniac DJ Richie Panic at Dance, LA last week — good lord, did half of hipster-perf SF go down there for this? Hilarious moment @ 2:47 = dancefloor opera, go Richie!

CLUB DANCE (RICHIE PANIC)

And now the meat. In this week’s Fall Arts Preview, I thumb out a gaggle of rad parties happening in the near future, and sound off about a few of the lovely club jams I’d like to see hit the floor for fall. Here’s some extra-poppy ones I bounce to right now that have interesting video accompaniment: for the ipod of your mind. Nothing too edgy or new — we’ll all fall softly and boppily into autumn’s orange arms

Plug: Look out for our next stylish Scene nightlife and glamour supplement to drop on Sept. 17 for more club goodies.

I said you’d be “so over” this next track by last Wednesday — but I was K.I.D.D.I.N.G. I love Cazwell, the gay rap dream from NYC, and in this one LA megafag Jonny Makeup, gives us the hooks and cell phone heebie-jeebies. It’s 1989 in clubland and all’s well again.

Cazwell w/ Johnny Makeup, “I Seen Beyonce at Burger King” (click here for hi-q)

Photo Issue: Molly Decoudreaux looks beneath the nightlife

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Photo by Molly Decoudreaux

It’s hopeless to ignore the incredible explosion of nightlife photography that’s happened on the Web and in art schools these past few years. And what better time than now, with our Photography Issue on the stands, to examine it a little?

For those of us who clung desperately in our ’80s Midwestern teens to every month’s Details (back when it was a nightlife zine and Michael Musto didn’t pee on celebrity legs) or took i-D as our lifeline to street fashion and personality-inversion in the outer world, the big bang’s been both exciting and a bit disconcerting. On the one hand, there’s incredible creativity being documented instantaneously and available to all — even in Djibouti, fantastic weirdos need never feel alone. On the other, there’s the sense that mere dressing up for the ever-present cameras has replaced actual self-expression. Misshapes! Cobra Snakes! Blue States Lose! And then there’s just the pure horrificality of sites like this one, which are about boobs. Par-T&A!

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The upside: Club kids from the ’80s

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The downside: Hoochies from last week

And yet, and yet. The dancefloor snappers here in SF are giving the nightlife bulbs a spin of their own, by focusing on the more artistic aspects of Clubland’s odd-wonderful players — and taking off in thoughtful directions, not restricting themselves to mere sublebrity paparazzi.

Case in point — the fab Molly Decoudreaux, a well-known nightlife gadabout who’s just published a fine new book, Here and There: Portraits.

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The Oakland native got her start snapping pics of her hot dyke and faggot friends in blackout res, and has worked on projects for the Lexington Club, Big Top, and Lusty Lady.

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Along the way, she’s developed a fierce photographic aesthetic that positions Clubland’s outsized personalities into a meditation of place. Her photos take in these club kids with admiring eyes, yet also deepen their glorious showboating with examinations of their daytime surroundings and situations. “My primary interest is portraiture,” she told me last week by phone. “Also gender representation and presentation — I started college as a gender and queer studies major — but captured in a way that looks at the layers through which we reveal or transform ourselves. Little cracks can show a lot.”

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We be clubbin’? Just barely

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

One night around 11 this spring, I stepped out of a cab at Sixth and Mission streets, only to enter a chaotic scene. Enhancing the block’s usual charms — destitute dudes in wheelchairs, crack enthusiasts, an old man in a denim skirt clutching a baguette — was a row of police cruisers parked in the street. Officers roamed the block, herding people around.

Had I stumbled onto a grim tragedy? Nope. I was just trying to catch a hip-hop show. Like the other 150 people waiting outside Club Six, I was hoping to get into KUSH, a party hosted by the Demolition Men. My chances seemed slim. I was on the guest list, but the list was "closed." So I stood in the long but well-behaved line. Security yelled at us to keep on the sidewalk, though the sidewalk ended well before the line did. Finally a guard bellowed at us to leave.

Half the line drifted away. The rest remained, texting friends inside the club and trying to devise a way in. Soon, with a combination of threats and cajolery, police and security began clearing the sidewalk around the club. A short, powerfully built man pleaded with stragglers, the way tough guys plead with you not to force them to kick your ass. Someone addressed him. He was Angel Cruz, Club Six’s owner, whom I’d interviewed for this story by phone. I introduced myself. He signaled a guard, and suddenly I was inside.

If this was New York City or Los Angeles, I might have felt the smugness engendered by such special treatment. But this was San Francisco, and all I felt was weariness. The club had devoted two rooms to the party, yet only one was full. Still, the vibe was friendly, and Jacka tore it up with his radio smash, "All Over Me." Although I heard some dudes got salty over the guest list, there were no arrests.

Sadly, such scenes are typical. Actually, we were lucky: I’ve seen cops shut down shows entirely over trifling incidents, usually ones occurring outside the club. This state of affairs affects more than the club-goers. Owners make less at the bar, promoters make less at the gate, and performers have fewer places to perform. Hip-hop, in its myriad forms, is one of the most popular genres on earth, and San Francisco is a world-class city. Yet this town seems hostile toward this musical nightlife with such revenue-generating potential. Why?

Naturally there’s no simple answer, and even investigating is difficult. Owners don’t want to alienate the police, promoters don’t want to alienate owners, and the San Francisco Entertainment Commission wants cooperation among all concerned. Few people I interviewed would name names or particular events, and some would only speak off the record, due to the delicate web of professional relationships involved. Even so, common issues emerge.

"Hip-hop is synonymous with fights and shootings, to authority figures," said Desi Danganan, whose Poleng Lounge is one of the few venues committed to the music. "The police are very hesitant about any club that plays hip-hop. That was one of the first things that came up, ‘Are you playing hip-hop?’<0x2009>"

The association between hip-hop and violence is nothing new: violence is the theme of many raps. Yet this is hardly the case with all hip-hop. The Bay Area in particular has produced an abundance of progressive, nonviolent lyricists, from veterans Hieroglyphics to up-and-comer Trackademicks. Yet the distinction is lost on the city and the police, according to Fat City general manager Hiroshi Naruta. "They don’t know the difference between hyphy and backpacker," he said.

Unlike the Panhandle-based Polang, Fat City is in the SoMa District, a longtime site of contention between police and clubs. As a result, the venue is shying away from booking hip-hop. "I want to," Naruta said. "But I don’t want pressure from the city or SFPD."

"Pressure," of course, is a nebulous concept and hard to substantiate, but according to John Wood, political director of the SF Late Night Coalition, there are typical tactics. "If the police feel your venue is creating a nuisance, they show up every night, check your permits, walking into your venue, upsetting your customers," he said. "They do frequent inspections with the fire department and the building department, and get you for every little violation. Short of suspending permits and filing lawsuits, there’s lots of ways city bureaucracy can make it difficult to do business."

But just how much of a "nuisance" do hip-hop shows create? Are they really that violent? No more than other genres, according to Robert Kowal, whose Sunset Promotions has brought everyone from Grandmaster Flash to Jurassic 5 to SF. "The city has safety as its primary concern," he acknowledged. "Occasionally some shows have problems the police have to deal with. Almost without exception that label gets thrown at hip-hop, when most events, including hip-hop, are very cool."

"Right now there’s a gun problem in SF," Kowal continued. "Instead of addressing that, the city wants to blame entertainment and specifically hip-hop. But violence is rare inside the venue itself."

Wood concurred with this assessment. "There have been incidents where there were shootings," he said, "not in the clubs, but a block away, that may have possibly involved people who were at the club. Frequently police will blame the club for incidents in the neighborhood."

An SFPD spokesman, Sgt. Steven Mannina, wouldn’t respond to this contention. It’s worth noting that much of SoMa can get rough, even during the day. To the contrary, Kowal believes venues like Club Six have improved the tone of the neighborhood: "Angel Cruz deserves a lot of credit. That Club Six is open four nights a week has enabled other bars and restaurants to open around it. That area has been somewhat revitalized."

Wood suggests an influx of new neighbors may, in fact, be the main issue. "The city’s changing," he explained. "It’s older demographically, wealthier, more harried, and professional. Aside from hip-hop and violence, people are less tolerant about noise young people create." Yet that lack of tolerance among the condo crowd may also be rooted in fear. "Neighbors sometimes freak out when a club is bringing large groups of minorities into the neighborhood," Wood added, "whether they’re behaving or not."

That assessment was echoed, mostly off the record, by many I interviewed. But veteran hip-hop commentator Davey D didn’t pull punches. "They just don’t want black people there," he said. "For a city that prides itself on being progressive, when it comes to nightlife, it has the most reactionary policies that seem based around race, using words like ‘urban’ as cover."

Regardless of hip-hop’s alleged role in violence, this spring the city attempted to deal with the issue via two pieces of legislation: one required a hefty $400 permit per show, and the other was an anti-loitering law, empowering police to clear the area around a club. Both proposals were bad ideas: the former threatened to stifle local entertainment, and in an era of eroding civil liberties, the latter promised to give police discretion to arrest people just for being in the club’s vicinity. Even more disturbing is Sgt. Mannina’s assertion in April that "this is an enforcement strategy around clubs that field operations have already launched." How can this be, if it was not yet a law? "I thought it was already in place," he said.

Clearly the police act as though it is, given what I witnessed outside Club Six. In the meantime, it’s tough to understand why SF hip-hop fans must, for instance, travel to Petaluma to see local acts like Andre Nickatina. "You want to know the solution?" a club owner asked, off the record and out of frustration. "There is no solution."

Optic nerve

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› johnny@sfbg.com

This is the second year that the Guardian has devoted an issue to local photographers. I’ll wait until it happens a third time before deeming the project an annual endeavor. It’s easy to believe in that possibility, because the range of photography in the Bay Area right now is exceptional. This great state of affairs is partly due to spaces and organizations such as SF Camerawork, RayKo Photo Center, and PhotoAlliance. It’s also due to more do-it-yourself street-level groups such as Hamburger Eyes and one of this issue’s 10 contributors, Cutter Photozine.

Last year’s photography issue focused on portraiture, but this year I’ve opted for a survey approach that allows for spontaneous connections. Jessica Rosen and Sean McFarland both utilize collage, but with vastly different results. Keba Konte’s collage aesthetic adds objects to imagery and links history to autobiography. Investigative work leads to political or societal exposure within Trevor Paglen’s and David Maisel’s photography. Adrianne Fernandez and Bayeté Ross-Smith focus on youth as they bring new twists to traditions such as the family album and the prom portrait. Dustin Aksland’s portraiture also includes teenagers, sometimes plopped onto or stopped within American landscapes, while Mimi Plumb likens rural landscapes to the backs of horses.

August may be when summer winds down and a portion of SF prepares to camp elsewhere, but it’s an important time for local photography. This issue coincides with PhotoAlliance’s and the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery’s annual exhibition of local photographers. Two of the 10 artists on the following pages are part of that show. American photography also will be playing a major role at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art next year, when that space presents an exhibition devoted to Robert Frank and his classic monograph The Americans (Steidl).

In honor of an old adage or clichéd truth, there aren’t a lot of words next to the pictures that follow. But the text does include Web site information. In most cases, these photographers’ sites function as another gallery of sorts, one that lacks the tactile nature and dimensions of an actual photograph but at least suggests the variety of a body of work to date. Scope them out, and scope out Pixel Vision, the Guardian‘s arts and culture blog, for interviews and other photography-related pieces this week. Last, before you look, some thanks are due to Glen Helfand, Chuck Mobley, and Mirissa Neff for their help in the selection process, and to Kat Renz for a last-minute idea.

Also in this issue:

>>Killer shots from the bowels of rock

>>Before stalkerazzi, there was Gary Lee Boas

>>Q&A with Heather Renee Russ of Cutter Photozine

>>Q&A with Jessica Rosen

>>Molly Decoudreaux looks beneath local nightlife
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NAME Adrianne Fernandez

TITLE Daddy Sends His Love

BACKGROUND In my "Alternative Album" project, the interplay of social and personal history is essential. It yields a complex tension between irony and nostalgia for the so-called family album.

SHOUT OUTS My influences include artists such as Larry Sultan and Elinor Carruci, who have worked with their prospective families to create intimate images that provide a compelling look into family dynamics.

SHOWS "Gender Agenda," through Sept. 14. The Gallery Project, Ann Arbor, Mich. www.thegalleryproject.com. Also "Not Your Mama’s World," Fri/8 through Sept. 9. Washington Gallery of Photography, Bethesda, Md. www.wsp-photo.com

WEB AlternativeAlbum@aol.com

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NAME Jessica Rosen

TITLE I Could See the Amazon from the 5th Floor of the Robert Fulton Projects
BACKGROUND This work is a large-scale photo collage installation made from cut-up, layered C-prints of my original photographs. It measures about 10 feet by 12 feet. Because this scale relates to human scale, it allows the viewer to experience the image as an environment rather than as an isolated image.

SHOUT OUTS My work stems from a fascination with people. Over the years my art practice has continually focused on portraiture. Although my newer collage works may seem quite fantastic, most are truly portraits in the traditional sense.

SHOW "Jessica Rosen," through Oct. 1. Open 24/7 (storefront window). Keys That Fit, 2312 Telegraph Ave, Oakl., http://www.xaul.com/KEYS/home.html

WEB www.jessicarosen.com

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NAME Cutter Photozine

TITLE Top to bottom, untitled photos by (1) Ethan Indorf; (2) Keith Aguiar; (3) Ace Morgan; (4) Darcy Sharpe

BACKGROUND Cutter is a San Francisco documentary photo magazine. Founded by Heather Renee Russ and Alison O’Connell, it has a DIY ethic and is eco-positive (it uses recycled paper and soy-based inks). Cole Blevins, Jesse Rose Roberts, Sara Seinberg, and Rachel Styer also worked to put out the first issue, which includes 20 photographers and spotlights Ace Morgan’s uncanny blend of rage, longing, joy, and punk rock.

SHOUT OUTS Cutter is dedicated to people telling their stories and documenting their existence. We seek to undo traditional voyeurism toward the "other" and place the power of sight in the focused home of the author.

SHOW The first issue can be purchased at local shops such as Needles & Pens. They’re currently accepting submissions for the second issue, due this fall. There will be a release party and photo show in late November.

WEB www.cutterphotozine.com

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NAME David Maisel

TITLE 1165 (from Library of Dust)

BACKGROUND The large-scale photographs of the "Library of Dust" series depict individual copper canisters, dating from 1913 to 1971, which contain unclaimed cremated remains of patients from Oregon’s state-run psychiatric hospital.

SHOUT OUTS Robert Smithson, NASA photographs, 19th-century exploratory landscape photographers (especially Timothy O’Sullivan), and the New Topographics photographers from the mid-1970s.

SHOW "David Maisel: Library of Dust," Sept. 4–Oct. 4. Tues.–Fri., 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.; Sat., 10:30 a.m.–5 p.m. Haines Gallery, 49 Geary (suite 540), SF. (415) 397-8114, www.hainesgallery.com. Library of Dust (Chronicle Books, 108 pages, $80) will be released in October.

WEB www.davidmaisel.com

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NAME Keba Konte

TITLE Detail from "888 Pieces of We"

BACKGROUND The eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year is approaching, and in alignment with this auspicious moment I have created this exhibition of 888 photographs printed on wood, copper, and vintage books. I’ve had to select from thousands of images spanning 42 years in order to choose 888 that reflect my journey: there are protests and portraits, street moments and political movements; freaks, friends, and family members. As a documentary and portrait photographer, one observes the beautiful strangers. However, looking at this large body of work, another story comes into focus: my own.

SHOUT OUTS Roy DeCarava, Gordon Parks, Sebastião Salgado, Ruth Bernhard, Kimara Dixon.

SHOW "888 Pieces of We: A Photo Memoir," Fri/8 through Sept. 8. Oakland Art Gallery, 199 Kahn’s Alley, Oakl. (510) 637-0395, www.oaklandartgallery.org

WEB www.kebakonte.com

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NAME Sean McFarland

TITLES Untitled (park)

BACKGROUND I work from an archive of photographs I’ve made, along with images gathered from print and other media. Through collage, new pictures are formed. Recently my work has focused on weather, nighttime, and the ocean.

SHOUT OUTS For now, two books: National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Weather, (Knopf, 1991), and Gerhard Richter’s Atlas (D.A.P., 2007). Also, students, friends, and just about any archive.

SHOWS "18 Months: Taking the Pulse of Bay Area Photography," through Sept. 17. Mon.–Fri., 8 a.m.–8 p.m. San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery at City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlet Place, SF. (415) 554-6080, www.sfacgallery.org. Upcoming: "Johanna St. Clare, Paul Wackers, Sean McFarland, Dan Carlson," October. Thurs.–Sat., 1–5 p.m. Eleanor Harwood Gallery, 1295 Alabama, SF.

WEB www.sean-mcfarland.com

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NAME Dustin Aksland

TITLE Paso Robles, CA (2005)

BACKGROUND This was shot during a trip to Paso Robles. My friend and I pulled off the highway to take the back roads into town. As soon as we pulled off, we passed this man sleeping in his car. We went about a half-mile and I made my friend turn around. We pulled up in front of the car and I shot two frames out of the passenger window.

INSPIRATION "Useful pictures don’t start from ideas, they start from seeing." — Robert Adams.

SHOWS "States of Mind," September. TH Inside, Brussels, Belgium. "States of Mind," November. TH Inside, Copenhagen, Denmark.

WEB www.dustinaksland.com

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NAME Bayeté Ross-Smith

TITLE Here Come the Girls

BACKGROUND This is part of a series that documents high school students in Berkeley, east Oakland, San Francisco, and Richmond as they mark their ascension from childhood to adulthood through the celebratory rite of passage known as prom. Taking a cue from traditional prom photos, the portraits allow for seriousness and playful flamboyance, depicting a vast array of budding identities.

SHOUT OUTS Walter Iooss, the Magnum photographers, and James Van Der Zee.

SHOW "Pomp and Circumstance: First Time to Be Adults," Sept. 4–Oct. 11. Tues.–Fri., 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.; Sat., 10:30 a.m.–5 p.m. Patricia Sweetow Gallery, 77 Geary (mezzanine), SF. (415) 788-5126, www.patriciasweetwogallery.com. Upcoming: "Off Color," Sept. 19–Nov. 1. RUSH Arts Gallery, New York.

WEB www.patriciasweetowgallery.com

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NAME Mimi Plumb

TITLE Harley

BACKGROUND These photos are part of an ongoing series that began about 10 years ago when I photographed a herd in the John Muir Wilderness of the Sierra Nevada. The horses in this new series live in Petaluma.

SHOUT OUTS Horses’ backs embody the landscape. They become the horizon and horizon line, at times transforming into the rolling hills of the California landscape where I grew up, before tract houses and strip malls became the norm.

SHOW "18 Months: Taking the Pulse of Bay Area Photography," through Sept. 17. Mon.–Fri., 8 a.m.–8 p.m. San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery at City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlet Place, SF. (415) 554-6080, www.sfacgallery.org

WEB www.mimiplumb.com

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NAME Trevor Paglen

TITLE KEYHOLE 12-3 (IMPROVED CRYSTAL) Near Scorpio (USA 129), 2007

BACKGROUND This is a photo of reconnaissance satellite, taken from the roof of my house in Berkeley. It’s part of a series of photos of American spy satellites.

SHOUT OUTS I got interested in photography because I was working on projects that were nonfiction allegories, projects that played with notions of truth and what we can and can’t see. To me, photography is the medium that does that best. It captures reality and at the same time doesn’t. I like that tension. I also became interested in photography post-9/11 because photography became an aggressive gesture in a way that it wasn’t before — people could be arrested for photographing the Brooklyn Bridge. The act of taking photographs outside became an exercise in civil rights.

SHOWS "The Other Night Sky," through Sept. 14. Wed.–Sun., 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft, Berk. (510) 642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. Upcoming: Taipei Biennial, Sept. 13–Jan. 11, 2009; Istanbul Biennial, 2009; "2008 SECA Art Award Winners," Feb.–May, 2009, SFMOMA.

WEB www.paglen.com

Best of the Bay runners up!

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Due to technical difficulties, aka my five-day celebratory bender, we’ve been unable to present the runners up in hotly contested Best of the Bay Food and Drink, Nightlife and Entertainment, and Shopping categories. Until now! Check ’em out!

cat

“Getting in on the Ground Floor and Staying There”

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PREVIEW I read those articles in Vanity Fair blathering on about a woman’s ability to be funny. First, Christopher Hitchens says women can be witty, but since they issue children, ours is a dignified, cerebral kind of humor. Unless we’re fat or gay. Then along comes Alessandra Stanley’s article, which fixates on how all the new funny ladies are smokin’ hot, and if you’re not, you won’t ever get on MTV, or something. Well, long before those stories, I saw Carole and Mitzi, a local female comedy duo who combine a powerful sexual magnetism with down-in-the-dirt, clit-tickling humor. So I find it shocking that the pair — who are hotsy-totsy (especially when naked), kinda gay, and possibly pregnant — still haven’t managed to get their big break on cable — not even local access, really. They are, of course, the alter egos of Beth Lisick and Tara Jepsen, two bizarrely funny bosom buds whose kindred spirit–ship dates back to their days on the 1999 Sister Spit tour, when their imaginations gave birth to the failed child pop stars Miriam and Helen. On her own, Lisick has penned a number of semi-autobiographical novels — among them Everyone into the Pool (William Morrow, 2005) — spent eight years keeping a weekly nightlife column for the Chronicle called "Buzz Town," formed the sketch comedy group White Noise Radio Theatre, actually had a kid … with her husband … and started the popular Porchlight Storytelling series. Meanwhile Jepsen organized the long-running queer spoken word night, K’vetch, and teamed up with Jenny Hoysten of Erase Errata to form the issues-centric rock band, Lesbians. I know, it still hasn’t really quite sunk in how women can be funny, gorgeous, and not on TV. Go figure. And go see the show. (Deborah Giattina)

GETTING IN ON THE GROUND FLOOR AND STAYING THERE Center for Sex and Culture, 1519 Mission, SF. Thurs/31–Sat/2, 8pm. $12–$14. (415) 255-1155, www.centerforsexandculture.org, www.brownpapertickets.com

Click-click, bag-bag: Procrastinate with style

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By Dona Bridges

freestylebloga.jpg
Everyday fashion via sfstyle.blogspot.com

Rejoice, voyeurs and procrastinators! I have found a new timesuck for you. My longtime perusal of Jezebel, Fashionista.com, and Facehunter led me to the truly amazing wastes of time that are personal and street fashion/style blogs. I gobble them up like candy, and during some of my over-consumption sessions I’ve managed to find a few that deal with Bay Area fashion specifically:

rumitoastdonaa.jpg
Rumi mugs on fashiontoast.com

Coquetteis a general fashion and style blog by SF writer Natalie Zee Drieu, with some coverage of local designers and stores.

SF Indie Fashion concentrates on local independent designers, stores and events.

SFBayStyle is a local fashion e-zine/blog with multiple contributors, many of whom are based in the Peninsula; it has a slightly more mainstream focus.

Fashiontoast is the personal style page of SF girl Rumi, with lots of pretty pictures of her in Kate Moss-ish getups, along with links and reviews relating to fashion.

SFStyle does street fashion ala Facehunter, except with tons of hilarious analysis and commentary.

Streetfancy is another street fashion blog, very heavy on nightlife coverage and very recognizable locals like Merkley. Sadly, it hasn’t been updated in almost six months.

You didn’t expect to actually get any work done today, did you? You’re welcome.

Lit: Commie Girl rips OC, invades SF

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By Kat Renz

commiegirla.jpg

Commie Girl on the OC: “It took Senor Schwarzenegger’s propositions, overwhelmingly denied through the rest of the state and overwhelmingly approved here, to make me see just how willingly I’d blinded myself. It’s not the conservatism that bothers me: it’s the nastiness. The nattering classes I’d thought were fringey were in fact the decision makers.”

First off, what a great word: nattering. Second, really? I couldn’t believe Commie Girl — a.k.a. Rebecca Schoenkopf, a.k.a. “the black widow/queen bee of alternative journalism”(Orange Country Register) — claimed forced ignorance for nine years. “ ‘That’s a bad rap’,”she told me, describing her excuses over the phone from the porch of her new-as-of-eight-days home in LA. “ ‘We have a lot of Republicans, but we’re electing Democrats in central county and blah blah blah.’ But no, I was wrong. I was totally, totally wrong.”

It seems perfect timing: Schoenkopf’s inaugural book — Commie Girl in the OC (Verso Press, 2008), a compilation of scathing tales of Orange County high and low culture written under her leftie-chick moniker – was published just as she’s moved out of the OC. When I spoke with Commie Girl, she’d just finished whirlwindedly unpacking her boxes among the blue-violet jacaranda trees and 1930’s Spanish bungalows of Los Angeles’s Wilshire ‘hood. Her relocation effectively wrapped up a 12-year tenure at the Orange County Weekly and ushered in a new one as editor of Los Angeles City Beat.

But rewind a decade, when Commie Girl was born after taking over an OC Weekly nightlife column. Schoenkopf insisted her commentary be told through her unique filters: a 25-yr-old socialist, Catholic-Jewish, educated, single mother. About five years later, a little partied-out, her column evolved into pure politics.

Fighting for the right to party

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› steve@sfbg.com

It’s become increasingly difficult and expensive to stage street fairs, concerts, or other parties in San Francisco, a trend chronicled by the Guardian over the past two years (see "Death of fun," 05/23/06 and "Death of fun, the sequel," 04/25/07). But event and nightlife promoters have responded with a proposed ballot measure that would write the right to party into the city’s charter.

The "Promoting and Sustaining Music and Culture in San Francisco" charter amendment would acknowledge the importance of special events to the city’s character, streamline the process for obtaining city permits, and require the nine-plus city departments that promoters must deal with to submit reports outlining how their policies and fee structures will need to be altered to comply with the new mandate for fun.

The measure was developed by the Save SF Culture Coalition, whose members include the Entertainment Commission, Black Rock City LLC (which stages Burning Man as well as events here in town), the Late Night Coalition, and the Outdoor Events Coalition (a group formed last year to counter city policies and neighbor complaints that threatened to scuttle the North Beach Jazz Festival, How Weird Street Faire, concerts in Golden Gate Park, and other events). The measure is sponsored by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi and has picked up four other supervisors as cosponsors, so it needs just one more vote for the Board of Supervisors to place it on the November ballot.

"It was long overdue that the city produce a master plan and vision that promotes a sustainable environment for music, culture, and entertainment throughout the city," Mirkarimi said.

In fact, event promoters say they’ve been hit by a quadruple whammy that threatens their livelihoods and the vibrant nature of the city: rising fees charged by city departments looking to close budget gaps, increased concern over alcohol consumption and other liability issues, more conflicts over noise in increasingly dense neighborhoods such as SoMa, and the ability of a handful of complaining neighbors to create event-killing permit conditions. And those last two problems are only likely to get worse as the city grows.

"We want the city to create a sustainability policy that will save our outdoor events in the face of all the development that is going on," said John Wood, a member of the Late Night Coalition and a promoter who also serves on the San Francisco Love Fest board of directors. "We need to be able to say, ‘This is city policy and you’re not following it.’"

Promoter and club owner Terrance Alan was an original member of the Entertainment Commission, which was formed in 2003 in part to resolve complaints over noise and manage relations between nightclubs and their neighbors. But he said the agency has little staff and no leverage over other city departments involved in permitting, which includes the Planning, Building, Port, Police, Fire, Health, and Recreation and Park commissions and departments, as well as the Municipal Transportation Authority and Interdepartmental Staff Committee on Traffic and Transportation (ISCOTT), the body that approves street-closure permits.

"We have been completely unsuccessful at getting their attention," Alan said. But this new measure, he said, would "set the stage for ongoing discussions that need to be happening."

Or as Wood put it, "It would give us ammunition in the future battles we’re going to have. It’s not going to make those battles go away."

Recreation and Park Department spokesperson Rose Dennis said her agency must deal with many competing concerns, ranging from budgetary issues to being responsive to complaints raised by citizens. "We understand that it might feel heavy-handed, but we have a duty to do so because we have to balance a number of concerns," Dennis said. "[Event promoters] have a bottom line, and we have a bottom line. We have a lot of people to serve."

Yet she said the department will comply with the measure and adjust its policies, fees, and procedures as needed if the measure is approved by voters.

At a June 27 Board of Supervisors Rules Committee hearing, there was lots of support for the measure and no real opposition. "We’re concerned about the future of arts and culture in San Francisco," Steven Raspa, who does special events for Black Rock City, said at the hearing.

All three committee members voiced support for the measure, but because it needed some minor changes, a final vote was pushed back to July 9. Proponents characterize the measure as trying to bring some balance to a situation in which the loudest wheels — those of NIMBYs complaining about noise or party detritus — keep getting greased.

"The bureaucracy is hearing from these neighborhood groups all the time," Wood said. "We feel that we are the majority and we need to demonstrate that politically."

Amanda Witherell contributed to this report.

To read the measure or learn more, visit www.savesfculture.com

The Hot Pink List 2008

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>>ALLAN AND LEO HERRERA



Yes, they’re gay brothers, which is, like, totally hot. But even if they weren’t related, their individual artistic creations would have us on the hook. Heads of HomoChic (www.homochic.com), the new gay mafia collective that combines gallery shows, fashion design, and nightlife craziness into mind boggling events, they’re inspiring the latest generation to revel in its scandalous past. Leo’s photography mixes porn with historical reference to dizzying, stimuutf8g effect. Allan’s costuming and styling brings bathhouse and backroom gay culture to light. Currently the Chihuahua, Mexico-born siblings have pieces in the queer Latino "Maria" show at Galería De La Raza. Leo features pants-raising boy-pics and a video installation centered on Harvey Milk. Allan, whose Money Shots underwear line graces many an alternaqueer’s backside, displays a chandelier made of 2,000 pink condoms.

MARIA

Through July 4

Galería De La Raza

2857 24th St., SF

(415) 827-8009

www.galeriadelaraza.org


>>ANNIE DANGER



Who’s the superbusy M-to-F artist and activist stirring up trouble with the mighty force of a Dirt Devil — the one they call Annie Danger? She’s sketched flora and fauna for environmental manifesto Dam Nation (Soft Skull Press, 2007), appeared as a blackjack-playing nymph in a shit-stirring Greywater Guerillas performance, dressed like a wizard at a recent Gender Pirates party, and just played Pony Boy in a queered-up "Outsiders." Right now at Femina Potens gallery (www.feminapotens.org), you can see her as Sister Wendy, the wimpled PBS art nun, in her video for "Untold Stories: Visual and Performative Expressions of Transwomen." In a rare occurrence, you can meet Annie Danger as herself at the National Queer Arts Festival’s edgy "TransForming Community" spoken word event. Who she’ll be when she MCs Friday’s thrilling Trans March (www.transmarch.org) is anyone’s delightful guess.

TRANSFORMING COMMUNITY

Thurs/26, 7:30 p.m., $8–$15

LGBT Community Center

1800 Market, SF

(415) 865-5555

www.queerculturalcenter.org


>>DEXTER SIMMONS



"I worry not just for fashion, but for the future of television," this multitalented fashion designer, stylist, hair and makeup artist, model, and Oakland native told us with a laugh backstage at the Vans Warped Tour, where he was frantically preparing bands for the stage. "There’s a cheesy aspect creeping in right now because of fashion reality TV that scares me. It looks too easy, and creates too many followers. Wise people want one-of-a-kind, personalized looks. That’s why I love San Francisco," he adds. "It’s small but big — global even — and it likes to take risks." Dexter’s company, FLOC (www.teamflocouture), formed with his best amigo Lauren Rassel, has been taking local runways and nightclubs by fierce, feathery storm since it was formed two years ago, and local rockers like Von Iva and Svelt Street swear by FLOC’s Warriors-inspired designs. Now working as a stylist for SF-based online retail giant Tobi.com, Dexter seems destined for the big time — his designs are penetrating the world and making heads turn a wee bit sharper.


>>CHELSEA STARR



She’s too-too much, this Miss Starr. A genre-straddling DJ and ubiquitous promoter celebrated for her many regular parties (including new weekly Buffet at Pink, a fabulously popular all-female DJ weekly shindig, and Hot Pants, a queer biweekly that draws out the crème de la crème of the city’s thigh-baring night owls), as well as a groundbreaking writer who just toured the country as part of the Sister Spit all-girl spoken word road show, and a fashion designer with her very own eponymous line of eminently wearables — there are just so many ways to love her. This week she’ll find time to spin at umpteen Pride parties, as well as at her very own special Pride edition of Hot Pants. "I’m also a twin, a Gemini, and a cookie monster," Chelsea tells us with a wink.

HOT PANTS

Fri/27, 10 p.m., $5

Cat Club

1190 Folsom, SF

(415) 703-8964

www.myspace.com/hotpantsclub


>>JOSH CHEON



We can’t fib — smarties turn us on. So when we heard that cutie DJ Josh Cheon, host of West ADD Radio’s thuper-queerific "Slave to the Rhythm" program (www.westaddradio.com/slavetotherhythm) held advanced degrees in cell biology, neuroscience, and psychology, we suddenly had to hide our pointiness. An integral member of San Francisco’s gay vinyl-fetishist collective Honey Soundsystem (www.honeysoundsystem.com), Cheon just got back from rocking London’s premiere alternaqueer club, Horsemeat Disco. While his radio show’s name pays homage to Grace Jones, his eclectic sets encompass Candi Staton classics and Detroit Rock City jams. As a featured disc-meister at Bibi, San Francisco’s glorious, charitable party for Middle Eastern and North African queers, he taps his Lebanese roots with Arabian and Persian pop and disco favorites like Fairuz, Googoosh, and Dalida — and some surprise grin-givers from the likes of Boney M.

BIBI

Fri/27, 9 p.m., $20

Pork Store Café

3122 16th St., SF

(415) 626-5523

www.myspace.com/BibiSF


>>MONISTAT



She’s everywhere, lately, this feisty mistress of the night. Trash drag fanatics, glamorous electro freaks, after-hours hipster hot tub revelers — she’s a muse to many, with a sharp tongue and handmade Technicolor outfit for all. Plus, just in general: hot Asian tranny fierceness. "I’m thoroughly inspired by the pigeons in the Civic Center," she tells us. "Also, parties full of beautiful people worshipping me." She’ll be hosting the Asian and Pacific Islander stage at this year’s Pride festivities. But first this plus-size supermodel, trainwrecking DJ, oft-blacklisted performer, and dangerous skateboarder will be throwing a sleazoid party called Body Rock on gay-historic Polk Street "for the musically impaired and fans of a man in a dress, which would be me. I’ve walked through the fire and come out blazing!"

BODY ROCK

Thu/26, 10 p.m., free

Vertigo

1160 Polk, SF

(415) 674-1278

www.myspace.com/monistat7


>>CHRIS PEREZ



Which highly influential SF gallery owner brought John Waters, Todd Oldham, the mayor, and hundreds of sweaty kids together (with a couple kegs) under one roof this spring for photographer Ryan McGinley’s West Coast solo debut? Chris Perez of Ratio 3, whose shows also helped artists score Artforum covers and big time awards. Perez pairs an intuitive talent for identifying a popular hit with innovative curatorial decisions. But his space is no mere white box in the gourmet ghetto: "You’re never just walking down Stevenson," explains this escapee from Catholic school and former San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts volunteer. "Unless you’re hooking up or getting cracked out." Or peeping great art. On Friday, Ratio 3 dresses up as ’90s queer-radical gallery Kiki, for "Kiki: The Proof is in the Pudding," a group tribute to late curator-activist Rick Jacobsen.

KIKI: THE PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING

Fri/27, reception 6–8 p.m., free

Ratio 3

1447 Stevenson, SF

(415) 821-3371

www.ratio3.org


>>HUNTER HARGRAVES



If you think constant AIDS activism is exhausting, try doing it in drag. Stanford grad Hunter heads up StopAIDS (www.stopaids.org) community initiatives by day, and is a board member of diversity-seeking And Castro For All (www.andcastroforall.org), through which fellowships in his name are awarded to young queer activists every year. By night and early morning he becomes Felicia Fellatio, a precariously-heeled tranny who’s single-handedly hauling grunge back onto drag stages — a recent flannel-drenched lipsync of Pearl Jam’s "Jeremy" teared up many a jaded eye — and he DJs queer punk parties like Trans Am (www.myspace.com/transamtheclub) and Revolution, the hot monthly tea dance for HIV-positive men at Club Eight (www.positiveforce-sf.com). Felicia also auditioned for America’s Next Top Model (seriously) but was eliminated when her man hands slapped someone prettier. You can catch Hunter and Felicia, although probably only half of each, at the StopAIDS booth at this year’s Pride celebration.


>>ALICIA MCCARTHY



Hipsters sporting $80 faux-penciled rainbow patterns and glossy-mag ads with jagged color intersections are fronting a style artist Alicia McCarthy helped originate — but she does it a hundred times better. Her current show at Jack Hanley takes off in a dozen different directions from her signature shapes and spectrums in a manner that reflects an honestly fractured identity. Coiled thought forms, a wooden chair facing the backside of a scruffy penguin flying toward a wall of mirrors, and a show-within-the-show by friend Stormy Knight that includes sketches by a parrot named The National Anthem and sculpture by Redbone the dog. McCarthy’s latest exhibition also displays more than a few small works subtly placed where a wall meets the floor, which goes to show that she’s still making some art that only people who pay attention will discover.

ALICIA MCCARTHY

Through Sat/28, free

Jack Hanley Gallery

395 Valencia, SF

(415) 522-1623

www.jackhanley.com


>>MON COUSIN BELGE



Half-naked, goo-spitting art rock in a sling never got so deliciously tawdry. When this San Francisco quartet of self-professed "bunch of fags with vision and bacon cheeseburgers" takes the stage and launches into "Tweaker Bitch" or "Pigdog" off their new album Quelle Horreur (World Famous in SF Records), anything involving titilutf8g revulsion can happen and usually does. Fronted by enigmatic singer Emile, a Belgian addicted to plastic surgery — 39 procedures to date — and leather thongs, Mon Cousin Belge (www.moncousinbelge.com) updates queercore for the ambivalent masses with "deep faggotry jams" and knickers-wetting live performances. Bring a towel to their launch party at Thee Parkside bar in Potrero Hill. You’ll definitely need it — the crowd of cute intel-queers they draw is over-the-top steamy.

QUELLE HORREUR LAUNCH PARTY

Sat/28, 10pm, $6

Parkside

1600 17th St., SF

(415) 503-0393

www.theeparkside.com

The Guardian Queer Issue 2008

Beyonce dancers destroy all nightlife as we know it

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I can’t look away! Beyonce forgive me!

The following gems are from the new “Nightclub Dance Series” of DVDs — and these are just the ones for women, I’m far too scared of the ones for men — in which former backup dancers for Miss B’Day teach you “all the moves to get attention in the club.” The poor too-many-Kools-voiced hostess sounds like her spandex thong’s in wedgie mode, but I adore her (unlike L’Oreal). Bonus: Special Fat Burner DVD combining all the moves at once. Order now,as I just did, or you’ll never “groovewalk” your way past the velvet ropes, Joey.

The Groovewalk

The Sit & Roll (her “go to” move — and OK, I’ve used this to catch an eye or two)

I’m so sorry! One for the douche men. “Lead with your head.”

PS — there’s actually a treasure trove of invigoratingly horrid nightclub dance how-tos online. Someday I’ll do a rundown of my fleece-in-the-asscrack favorites.

Future blaps

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› superego@sfbg.com

>>Lazer Sword sizzles — read the interview

>>Lazer bass-ics: view the vids

SUPER EGO The Millennials have landed on the dance floors, and they come bearing lazers. Electro bangers are raving tecknotik. The blipswitch just got flicked. Hard is the new soft is the new pink is the new blog.

Stay with me, I got breakfast.

The past few years have seen the largest graduating classes in US history, and fresh, fizzy kids are flooding Clubland. They’re cranking full-tilt volume and lobe-throbbing loops, tinged with aggressive glamour. Good for them. A little hyperactive angst to soundtrack that stunned gazelle look so in vogue these days seems perfect for the new electorate. The next few Super Ego columns are gonna get wonky on the youthful nightlife sounds and styles already exploding for summer, so push up your super-flat Takahashi Murakami bifocals, slip on a virtual mindpod, and let’s get kinetic. I’m a hype machine!

First up: Canada. No shit. The Great no-longer-so-White North’s on fire right now, following its recent indie rock onslaught with a tide of dance music innovation. Somehow, dubstep’s abstract rhythmic dynamics, the paranoid wooze of crunk, and the ghosts of the unjustly smacked-down ’90s glitch and IDM scenes have outsourced to Montreal, spawning a kickass, woofer-blowing bbbrrraaa-aaappp!

That’s the sound of Turbo Crunk, the MTL’s superinfluential monthly party and underground movement, which filters hip-hop thumpers through a fuzzy pair of Korgs to spit out jittery ragga and zipper-ripping beats. Last month, New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones dubbed the cataclysmic sound "lazer bass," which fits, since the prolongated sizzle of the low-end slices through your innards like a subsonic chainsaw. Live performers and remixers Megasoid, Blingmod, and Mofomatronix are a few of the Turbo Crunk prime movers, but they took their cue from the genre-bending Bounce Le Gros party thrown by totally crushable speaker-wobbler Ghislain Poirier from 2005-07. Poirier, who blew through San Francisco on tour last September and scorched many a virgin ear, records for Ninja Tune and does to dancehall riddim what labelmate Amon Tobin did to Brazilian samba more than a decade ago — chomp and warp it inside out — and there’s your Turbo family tree.

Lazer bass has originators in the states, too, especially on the West Coast. L.A. is repped by protean producer Daddy Kev, cosmic dubster Flying Lotus, and poster-boy hip-choppers Glitch Mob, a quartet of DJs and knob-fiddlers — comprising Ooah, ediT, Boreta, and Kraddy — that’s managed to appeal to both the gangsta rap and Burning Man crowds. So yeah, the apocalypse is upon us. Grab a fruity cocktail.

The Bay seems exceptionally lazerable, even though there’s no regular party yet to slice up the glow. Glitch came of age here — howdy, Kid606 — and Club Six’s sprawling techno-ragga club Surya Dub has become the epicenter for the kind of dread bass antics that lazer bass takes to a gut level. Montreal is Canada’s Silicon Valley, so the demographics of pan-global, tech-savvy immigrants and natives matches up. And despite its mechanical logistics, the lazer bass sound has a certain grinning innocence to it. These are kids whose dads turned them on to Star Wars, probably. The low-tech skronks and squelches riding high atop that neato bass blare — and those pixellated CMYK Space Invaders graphics — aren’t ironic comments, they’re a great space coaster to the electronic womb. The recent bathhouse hi-NRG, Italo disco, and minimal techno revivals shared a similar ga-ga exploration of the synth-driven mysteries of the cosmic past.

Local duo Lazer Sword, a.k.a. LL and Lando Kal, are our gunners for the scene. (Ethereal wunderboy Ghosts on Tape and trancey duo Hours of Worship deserve mention as well). LL describes what he and Lando do when they’re bent backbreakingly low over their displays as "future-blaps." Yep. The two hit hard on the hip-hop side: their bastard detonation of 50 Cent’s "I Get Money" and live robo-raze of Lil Wayne and Birdman’s "Stuntin’ Like My Daddy" torch floors, while their own stuttery blowout "Gucci Sweatshirt" (from Oakland label Pish Posh’s 2007 comp Got Howls) is a c-c-cult classic. Lazer Sword’s got an EP dropping on the B.E.A.R. label this spring, they just headlined Turbo Crunk April 26, and you can catch them twice in May. Who’s up for sonic bikini waxes?

LAZER SWORD

With XO Skeletons and VC4

Fri/2, 9 p.m., call for price

Balazo 18

2811 Mission, SF

(415) 255-7227

www.myspace.com/lazersword

GLITCH MOB

With Lazer Sword and Flying Lotus

May 9, 9 p.m.–3 a.m., $20

Mighty

119 Utah, SF

(415) 762-0151

CO2 stew

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER It’s not easy being green, music lover. Because I’ve tried to shove my big fat cultural consumption hoof into a smaller carbon footprint, but I can’t dance around the numbers.

I’ve ponied up the green stuff for nonprofits, come correct at the composting and recycling bins, and threatened to finally get the crusty Schwinn into shape despite the near-death horror stories from bike messenger chums back in the day. But what can a music-gobbling gal do when faced with the hard if rough facts spat out by, for instance, the free online Carbon Footprint Calculator? After selecting "I often go out to places like movies, bars, and restaurants," I watched my print soar to Bigfoot proportions — thanks to my nightlife habit I supposedly generate around the US average of 11 tons of CO2 per person — rather than the mere 8.5 tons if I indulged in only "zero carbon activities, e.g. walk and cycle." Even if this out-late culcha vulcha flies on zero-emission wings to each show, I’m still feeding a machine that will prove the undoing of the planet, since the Calculator estimates that hard-partying humanoids need to reduce their CO2 production to 2 tons to combat climate change. We won’t even get into the acres of paper, publications, and CDs surrounding this red-faced, would-be greenster. I’m downloading as fast as I can, but I wonder whether my hard drive can keep up: hells, even MP3s — and the studios and servers that eke them out — add to my huge, honking footprint. Must I resign myself to daytime acoustic throw-downs within a walkable radius from my berth? Can I get a hand-crank laptop? Just how green can my music get?

Well, it does my eco good to know that a local venue like the Greek Theatre has gone green all year round: Another Planet has offset an entire season’s 113 tons of CO2 emissions; composted over two tons of cups, plates, and utensils; used recycled paper and soy-based ink on all their printed materials; and offered a $1 opt-in to ticket-buyers to offset their environmental impact. I can feel my tonnage shrinking just staring at the numbers. And while gatherings such as last year’s Treasure Island Music Festival sported zero-emission shuttles and biodiesel generators and this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival will team with Amtrak to provide a free train that will move campers from Los Angeles’ Union Station to Empire Polo Field sans smog-spewing traffic jams, artists like José González have embarked on green tours, adding 50 cents to tickets to support nonprofits. Yet such efforts might prove more consciousness-raising than anything else, González concedes: "For me, playing mostly solo and touring with a small crew, I feel like the actual cut down on emissions is marginal comparing it to major artists, so it’s more about the symbolic value of it, and the ripple effect it might bring."

Still, CO2 spendthrifts like me need a swift kick in our waste-line. Lining up to deliver are such music-fueled events as the free South Lake Tahoe Earth Day Festival April 19 and the Digital Be-In 16 April 25 at Temple nightclub, organized by the Cyberset label with an "ecocity" theme aimed at sustainable communities. Green practices, Be-In founder Michael Gosney says, "may not be huge in of themselves, but they set an example for communities to take these practices back into their own lives." One such community-oriented musician is String Cheese Incident mandolin player Michael Kang, who’ll perform at the Digital Be-In and appear with Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks at the free Green Apple Festival concert April 20 in Golden Gate Park.

Organizing seven other free outdoor Earth Day shows throughout the country on April 20 as well as assorted San Francisco shows that weekend, the Green Apple Festival is going further to educate artists and venues — the usual suspects that inspire me to make my carbon footprint that much bigger — by distributing to participating performers and clubs helpful Music Matters artist and venue riders: the former encourages artists to make composting, recycling, and offsets a requirement of performances; the latter suggesting that nightspots consider reusable stainless-steel bottles of water and donating organic, local, fair-trade and/or in-season food leftovers to local food banks or shelters.

But how green are the sounds? Musicians like Brett Dennen, who also performs at SF’s Green Apple event, may have grown up recycling and composting, but he confesses that environmentalism has never spurred him to craft a tune: "Things as big as global warming have never moved me to write about it, even though I’m doing what I can." And Rilo Kiley’s Blake Sennett, who plays April 17 at the Design Center Concourse, may describe himself as a "recycling animal — I love it! I go through trash at other people’s houses!", yet even he was unable to push the rest of the his group to make their latest CD, Under the Blacklight (Warner Bros., 2007) carbon neutral.

So maybe it comes down to supporting those leafy green rooms, forests, and grasslands we otherwise take for granted. Parks are the spark for ex–Rum Diary member Jon Fee’s Parks and Records green label in Fairfax, which wears its love of albums on its hand-printed, all-recycled-content sleeves and plans to donate a percentage of all its low-priced CD sales to arboreal-minded groups like Friends of the Urban Forest. Fee and his spouse Mimi aren’t claiming to have all the answers in terms of running a low-carbon-footprint imprint, but they are pragmatic ("In order to support bands, labels need to give them something they can sell to get gas money," Fee says) and know their love of the outdoors segues with many musicians. "You develop that camping mentality from touring," he offers. "You’re not showering, and you’re hanging out for long periods of time. Everyone loves to be outside." That’s the notion even those too cheap to buy offsets can connect with — until the weird weather is at their doorstep.

Metamorphenomenal

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› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Positivity — can we get some, please? Sure. Zing! Spring’s come bounding from its musty, dusty closet like a newly out Floridian, little rainbow fanny pack ablaze, itchy pink nipple rings jingling. Poor green thing! Isn’t it up to us to lead her, tripping and grinning, into the limelight fantastica? Aren’t we already there? Change, unlike Aqua Net and Paco Rabanne, is in the air. The clubs, they’ve gone azalea-crazy, bursting with neon irises and tuneful fuchsia streaks. Cocktails mysteriously grow stronger in our hands. And parties, parties everywhere — there’s far too much to do right now. Hell, my nightlife Blackberry just exploded all over my fresh electric Onitsuka Tiger shoes.

Anybody here got a Wet Ones?

"We’re spinning in the pyramid of life / As day turns to night," goes a latest wriggly dance-floor burner. "I wish the stars could shine now / For they are closer / They are near," goes another. "Let’s make out!" goes a third. Sex, stars, spinning, and you — sounds like a few times I’d love to have. How ’bout we do the bunny hop and rock our burgundy hair at the following affairs? Oh, and bring that spring girl, too. There’s always room for one more in the back.

WELCOME TO PARADISE


What do you do when you get too famous? Besides wipe up dog shit with your borrowed Chanel? How ’bout change your name and make a record? I sincerely hope you’ve made it at least once to two of the most regularly orgiastic parties in the city: Frisco Disco and Blow Up. If you have, then you’re intimately familiar with the semi-nude gymnastics, lubed-up disco-house-electro jams, and jailbait fanbase of one DJ Jefrodesiac, our fair burg’s current reigning turntable sex god.

I may just win that tiara back, though, because Jefrodesiac is dead. Metaphorically. Witness the birth of Jeffrey Paradise, his latest incarnation, who’s about to release a new EP on PrinceHouse Records and make us all update our contacts. He’ll be debuting this next evolution at Blow Up on Friday, April 11, which is also, somewhat confusingly, his birthday bash. Because one personality is never enough!

WILL THEY SERVE COSMOS?


I’m not sure how I feel about the space program, but hey, if the nearby NASA Ames Research Center and something rather ominously called the Space Generation Advisory Council want to cohost a big rave at Moffett Field, presenting forward-minded DJs like Amon Tobin, John Tejada, Dr. Toast, and Tycho, well, beam me up (snort). I’m talking about Yuri’s Night, an astro-fantastical, techno-futuristical anniversary celebration of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s historic first flight into space in 1961. Yuri’s Night, Saturday, April 12, is being feted this year with 153 parties in 46 countries on goddess-knows-how-many giant-screen satellite feeds, so make sure your outfit is tight. Also on the blast-off tap: a huge technology fair with zippy visual installations and electronic doodad demonstrations galore. Pack your sonic screwdriver.

BIGGER BOOTY


Srsly, I wept when longtime San Francisco mainstay Fag Fridays ended in February — and not just because my Moisture Wear wasn’t quite so hypoallergenic after all. The gay and their ilk really lost something when the party shut down after 12 years, not least of all a soulful house crashpad in the weekend’s early afterhours.

No more tears, though. "Girl, we couldn’t wait to have a Friday off!" David Peterson, one half of Fag promoters Big Booty, exuberantly told me. Big Booty’s certainly taking advantage of its free time. Peterson’s Booty partner, Jose Mineros, just launched a bouncy house Saturday weekly, Collide, at the fab Club 222 (www.myspace.com/222hyde). Fag Fridays will make a special return at Mighty for Pride. And biggest of all, Big Booty just launched a new dance-music label, Thread Recordings. They’ll be toasting Thread’s first release, "The Rhythm" by DJ David Harness, with a deep and thrilling party at luminous megaclub Temple, featuring Harness and legendary NYC DJ Tedd Patterson. Boys keep swinging.

BLOW UP

With Jeffrey Paradise

Fri/11, 10 p.m.–2 a.m., $10

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

www.myspace.com/blow_up_415

YURI’S NIGHT

Sat/12, 2 p.m.–2 a.m., $40–$50

NASA Ames Research Center

Moffett Field, Mountain View

www.ynba.org

THREAD RECORD RELEASE PARTY

With Tedd Patterson and David Harness

April 19, 10 p.m.–4 a.m., $20

Temple

540 Howard, SF

(415) 572-1466

www.templesf.com

Raise your voice for nightlife!

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There’s some heinous new legislation targeted at pretty much killing independent nightlife in the city coming up, folks. Mayor Gavin Newsom and Supe Sophie Maxwell think it’ll curb violence happening outside some of the bigger clubs, but the proposals — requiring even the smallest promoters to apply for permits and show proof of $1 million in liability insurance, as well as citing anyone who stands outside a club for more than three minutes unless smoking or hailing a cab — would wipe out a ton of vital little parties and charitable events after dark. Read more about it here. (And look for our editorial on the subject in Wednesday’s Guardian.)

nightlife.jpg
Nightlife: Even Swedish kids like it!

Here’s your chance to speak up about this to the Entertainment Commision! Info courtesy of the fab DJ Raverpup, who’s spearheading the resistance.

Hi everyone,

Just a reminder that tomorrow, Tuesday, April 1, the Entertainment Commission meeting will have the new promoter permits on the agenda, and the floor will be open for members of the public to make comments for up to three minutes. We need to get a good turnout of independent promoters (and party people) to comment on this and make it apparent how this new legislation will affect us and San Francisco nightlife. The meeting will be at 4PM at City Hall; follow the link below for more information.

http://www.sfgov.org/site/entertainment_page.asp?id=78062

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