Oakland

The shaman, the oracle, and the engineer

Michael Redmond
-
0
The shaman, the oracle, and the engineer

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC Two bra-clad figures peek through a shroud of fog onstage that’s every bit as thick as the shrieking white noise at Oakland’s Night Light. The sound is a perfect accompaniment for the sadomasochistic display before the audience. One woman’s lips press against another’s flesh, but if you lower your glance, you’ll notice among the chaos that one is slicing a blade across the other’s stomach like a ritualistic-looking sacrifice. Blood is drawn, even though they seem to be intimately embraced.

This was how Replicant, the live music/performance/visual art series with a penchant for the weird, chose to kick off the new year at their January showcase; Bad News, an industrial duo consisting of Sarah Bernat and Alex Lukas from Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively, headlined. On this night, they had also invited experimental conspirators Greer McGettrick (formerly of The Mallard) and Shannon Madden (Chasms) to join them during the performance. Madden said just a day before this gig that her relationship with Bernat had ended.

So was this arousal, anguish, or both? The audience, mostly in frozen silence by this point, was left to their own devices and had to interpret the definitive sensory overload for themselves. “We were bouncing a lot of ideas off each other, like ‘What can you do besides karaoke to your own music; make it transformative?'” said Madden, referring to conversations with Bernat, during a recent interview.

Bernat writes lyrics and plays guitar in her band and is usually tethered by her instrument, but she seemed possessed enough to become unleashed during this set. Somehow she maintained a straight-faced gaze throughout the cutting, even if she trembled a bit.

“It was totally emotional. We both knew that the only way to say goodbye was to do it on stage. I think there’s a reason why Chasms and Bad News are connected and I think it has something to do with suffering.”

pMadden said this was her last real interaction with her ex, but the two bands (who are on the same labels) will share a bill May 10 at Thee Parkside when Sleep Genius, the independent record label “born of the San Francisco fog” throws a showcase of its acts: Five mostly-local bands will give their own intimate and brooding examples of how new music is emerging from the underground — and what they’re doing to manifest a new direction.

There was nothing subtle about the bodies on stage that night in Oakland, nor the heavily-processed sound that came with it. Along with her collaborator, Jess Labrador, Chasms has a new LP, Subtle Bodies, due this June. Their live show is taking on a slightly different direction, sounding more blown-out and less concerned with pop-song sensibility time constraints. They’ve upped the ante on noise elements and are beefing up on drone.

“I’m using Alex [Lukas]’s gear. There’s a reason,” Madden said. “Alex is my shaman, oracle, and engineer.” She explained that the pedals she’s been using are not meant for her bass guitar. “It’s the first time Jess has ever kept a live take of mine and not edited it.” Labrador is the songwriter, vocalist, guitarist, and sometime drum programmer in this dark duo. “I could never do any of that without experiencing Alex or Sarah.”

Alongside a DX7ii synthesizer and other assorted gear, we’re huddled — Lukas, Madden, and I — inside his tidy Bayview District trailer. Other like-minded artists reside on the property, but his studio hasn’t been completely set up since he was priced out of his old 18th and Mission space, after his landlord raised the rent by 40 percent.

“The cost of living here is so high. People funnel so much of their money into rent,” he said. Having weathered two tech booms as an artist in the Bay Area — he’s been here since 1998 — Lukas knows what it’s like to sell CDs at Amoeba for “a brick of cheese.”

His dwelling is, nevertheless, a cozy hideaway, well-stocked with cassettes and a pretty chill black cat. We chat about how his ties with Madden run deeper than just his influence over how she plays. For one, they spent much of 2013 together at the helm of The Lab, a long-standing visual and performance art space near 16th & Mission that has seen many incarnations over the years.

“There aren’t a lot of spaces like [The Lab] in San Francisco anymore. When Sarah and then [Shannon] kept it active with shows and performances, it sort of compromised The Lab’s role as a venue for visual art, but made it more important than ever as a performance space,” he said.

Under their collective watch, The Lab hosted a variety of underground or emerging acts, like Wreck & Reference, Some Ember, Austin Cesear, Marshstepper, Disappearing People, and Dorian Wood.

Madden claimed the types of shows she was booking weren’t “artsy enough” for a visual arts space to be left alone by the city’s Entertainment Commission. Finding a platform for these types of acts is, she says, the bigger concern in the current “cultural economy” in San Francisco.

“People work high-paying jobs that require their brain. When they get off work, they wanna get shitfaced and hear Toro Y Moi. They don’t wanna go deep in some experimental avant, industrial shit. They want their brains to be massaged and they want to go to sleep, wake up, do it again and eat some fuckin’ food-truck food.”

She notes Oakland is sustaining as an impressive platform for the underbelly of electronic music. “They have a fortified interest in outsider stuff.” She hopes the culture in San Francisco shifts underground again, but in the meantime is happy to book at more traditional venues including Brick & Mortar, The Night Light and Elbo Room.

“It’s not about the space, even as intimate as it was. I want to give the local bands the best deal that I can and not risk it getting broken up. Lots of rad shit’s going to have to happen in a bar space.”

Sleep Genius Presents: Ringo Deathstarr with Sleep Genius artists Bad News, Chasms, Never Knows, and Cry

May 10, 9pm, $10-12

Thee Parkside

1600 17th St, SF

www.theeparkside.com

A musician grows on Market Street

Steven T. Jones
-
0
A musician grows on Market Street

esilvers@sfbg.com

If you’ve spent time in downtown San Francisco, chances are you’ve seen him: thin as a rail but dressed to kill, light on his feet in squeaky-clean dress shoes amidst the grey monotone of Market Street, he takes a deep breath in — and when he breathes out, into the mouthpiece of his trumpet, the sound is pure confidence, come to sonic life.

Then he starts tap-dancing while he plays, using the staccato clack of his feet as a rhythm section, swinging his trumpet like a baton every now and then just for show. Depending on the day, he might stop after a few songs and take out a microphone and, armed with the backing tracks of some current Top 40 favorites, belt out a tune or two, all while dancing, grooving, jumping; it’s a rarity to catch him being still. Busy businessmen stop and stare and listen despite themselves. He winks at women and they get the giggles.

Gabriel Angelo is the ultimate entertainer, and he is 14 years old. Known as “the Trumpet Kid,” Angelo, an Oakland native, been playing trumpet and dancing since he was six, at a level that earned him an appearance on the Ellen Degeneres show in 2012, among other publicity, as well as the adoration of one of the toughest audiences in the city: harried FiDi pedestrians.

In honor of our “streets” issue, on a recent Thursday afternoon, I caught up with Angelo when he was playing on the traffic island outside the Ferry Building, serenading appreciative tourists and farmer’s market-goers. His voice has changed. There’s a whiff of cologne about him. Look out, San Francisco, the Trumpet Kid is growin’ up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3trqITIf

San Francisco Bay Guardian How did you get your start in music?

Gabriel Angelo My mom sent me to take piano lessons when I was six years old, but when I set foot in the music room, a few feet away from me there was this shiny brass trumpet. And I reached out and grabbed it and it was love at first sight.

Since I was really young, I always wanted to be an entertainer — my family watched a lot of old movies, like with Fred Astaire, and they inspired me a lot. My two older sisters were also very musical — they sang, danced, played the cello, piano, and violin. Our church was very heavy on the arts.

SFBG How often are you out here? Are you in school? 

GA I’m out here most Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, more if my schedule allows it. I try to get at least four hours of practice a day, usually more like six or eight. I’ve been home-schooled my whole life, and I actually already completed high school. Now I’m working on degrees in music and business through a program called CollegePlus.

SFBG What do you think you’ve gained from performing on the street from such a young age opposed to going the academic route with studying music?

GA This is my stage. There are so many people here, and I get to practice my stage and speaking skills, make connections, meet awesome people. I’ve learned a lot by talking to the homeless people in San Francisco, especially — they tell me their stories and experiences and that’s given me a whole new understanding. And I like feeling like I can help people with music. I’ve had people come up to me and say ‘Oh, I just had a person close to me die, and you put a smile on my face.’ With singing, my goal is just to inspire people. And also to make women feel beautiful.

SFBG To make women feel beautiful?

GA Yeah, because a lot of people don’t have fathers to tell them that, parents who make them feel good, and that one little thing affects their whole life. I know I wouldn’t have achieved anything without my mother’s support, without mentors in my life. And life comes from women.

SFBG Amen. Are you tight with other street musicians downtown? Are there turf wars?

GA No, we all have a lot of respect for each other. It’s whoever gets there first. But if someone ever really wanted me to move, that wouldn’t be [a big deal].

SFBG How much do you make on a given day?

GA It really depends. Anywhere from a penny to $100. It’s all going to help fund my career: paying for costumes, music videos, etc.

SFBG Any big projects coming up?

GA Well, I’m excited that I just signed with Journey’s manager. And I’m going to be playing the 2015 Super Bowl halftime show in Arizona. And I met someone who wants to make a movie about me, called “Swaggy.” (I’m Swaggy.) So yeah, it should be a fun year.

Watching the police

Michael Redmond
-
2
Watching the police

rebecca@sfbg.com

Nearly two years ago, on July 18, 2012, on-duty San Francisco police officer Mary Godfrey fired her weapon twice, killing 32-year-old Oakland resident Pralith Pralourng in an encounter at Washington and Davis streets.

Following the incident, police said Pralourng was mentally ill and had lunged at Godfrey with a box cutter, prompting her to fire in defense of her own life. Just before it happened, Pralourng had slashed his coworker at Tcho chocolate factory and fled.

Last September, the San Francisco Police Department honored Godfrey with a silver medal of valor for her conduct in that incident. The second-highest possible honor, silver medals are awarded in cases where an officer exhibits “outstanding bravery in the performance of duty,” according to a definition on the SFPD website, and “risks his or her life with full and unquestionable knowledge of the danger involved.”

However, an internal affairs investigation into the officer-involved shooting remained open at the time that the medal was awarded. In fact, in a May 5 voicemail, police spokesperson Albie Esparza confirmed to the Bay Guardian: “That case is still open, so there is no more information that we are going to release at this time.”

More than eight months have passed since Godfrey was honored — and yet the shooting is still under investigation.

The San Francisco Police Commission voted to approve Godfrey’s silver medal, along with a list of other medal of valor recipients, at its June 26, 2013 meeting. But it was Commissioner Angela Chan, who was recently denied reappointment to her post in a 7-4 vote by the Board of Supervisors, who cast the lone dissenting vote (See “SFBG Wrap” in this issue).

Chan was later quoted in press reports as saying she believed that awarding Godfrey with a medal of valor before the formal investigative process had concluded seemed to undermine that process. Internal affairs investigations are part of the city’s formal process to ensure police accountability. San Francisco also has an independent city department, the Office of Citizen Complaints, which provides civilian oversight by making determinations about citizen complaints alleging officer misconduct.

Chan’s dissenting vote prompted a backlash from the San Francisco Police Officers Association. In a blistering letter dated September 11, 2013, President Martin Halloran informed police commissioners of the POA’s “extreme disappointment” in the dissenting vote, also sending a copy of the letter to Mayor Ed Lee.

“Officer Godfrey was extremely upset when I met with her and immediately voiced her regret at having to take the life of another human being,” Halloran wrote. “It is every officer’s worst nightmare. The emotional and psychological trauma following an officer involved shooting can be severe, and it is absolutely essential that officers involved in these types of incidents receive positive reinforcement, as well as counseling, to reassure them that they did nothing wrong.”

Counseling seems appropriate, but Halloran’s blanket statement that officers involved in deadly use of force incidents should be reassured that “they did nothing wrong” seems to discount the city’s process for determining whether or not an officer’s action was justified.

The SFPOA president went on to note that his organization has long complained that “officers are left hanging for months, and in some cases years, before being recognized for their heroic acts, sometimes making them feel more insecure and raising more self-doubts about their actions.”

The SFPOA’s overt condemnation of Chan for her dissent suggests that the police commissioner faced strong opposition from a politically powerful entity when she came up for reappointment.

More importantly, it suggests that the SFPOA won’t hesitate to exert pressure on police commissioners who question the department’s actions — and raises questions about why top brass would ignore an open investigation that had yet to establish whether Godfrey “did nothing wrong.”

Internal affairs investigators weren’t the only ones looking into this fatal shooting of Pralourng. The OCC, the civilian police oversight board, was also investigating the incident when Godfrey was honored. Almost two years after the fact, the OCC investigation also remains open.

The OCC’s annual report, released March 12, was slated for presentation at the Police Commission on May 7. The 179-page report shines a light on the allegations filed against police officers, the process by which these complaints are investigated and addressed, and the rate at which complaints are sustained and followed up with disciplinary action.

Being a police officer isn’t easy, and can be very dangerous — even costing officers their lives in extreme circumstances. The OCC report notes that 75 percent of San Francisco police officers did not have any complaints filed against them in 2013. But of the remaining 25 percent, the report noted that 131 officers had been named in two or more complaints, while another 405 officers had each been flagged in a single complaint.

If the OCC determines that a complaint about officer misconduct is valid, then it is counted as “sustained.”

In 2013, according to the report, the OCC received 727 complaints, and closed 722 complaints. Of the 722 that were closed, 43 — or about 6 percent — were sustained. Of those sustained cases, 91 percent resulted in corrective or disciplinary action by the SFPD, the report noted, ranging from a verbal admonishment to a suspension.

Of the 43 cases that were sustained, 56 percent were for “neglect of duty,” the majority of which was issued for failure to collect traffic stop data. That was followed by “unwarranted action” at 24 percent, “conduct reflecting discredit represented” at 10 percent, “unnecessary force” at 7 percent, and “discourtesy” at 3 percent.

A synopsis of the “unnecessary force” findings provides examples, such as an incident in which “a sergeant and officers used unnecessary force when without cause, they entered a residence, grabbed, detained, arrested and removed an occupant from the residence, and took him to the ground.”

But according to the report, “By far the most frequent finding in all allegations was ‘not sustained,'” reflecting the outcome of 61 percent of allegations in OCC complaints.

The determination “not sustained” isn’t the same as finding that an officer acted appropriately, nor does it mean a complainant made false allegations. Instead, the finding is issued when “there is not a preponderance of evidence to prove or disprove,” the allegation, OCC Executive Director Joyce Hicks told us.

Put more simply: An officer responds to a complainant with a contradictory account, and since there isn’t enough evidence to prove otherwise, the case is closed.

“Officers were found to have engaged in proper conduct in 25 percent of the allegations,” the breakdown continued. “Complainants’ allegations were ‘unfounded,’ or not true, in 2 percent of the allegations.”

A chart of “findings closed” in 2013 (a separate measure from complaints) showed that out of 2,183 findings, just 72 — or 3 percent — were sustained. The vast majority, 1,337 were “not sustained.”

A breakdown showing the nature of complaints filed reveals that five allegations of unnecessary use of force were sustained in 2013, while 167 were not sustained, out of a total of 208 complaints alleging unnecessary use of force.

At the end of 2013, according to the OCC report, the civilian oversight board “continued to investigate three officer-involved shootings. Two of these shootings resulted in the death of the suspect. In 2013, the OCC closed two 2011 officer involved shooting cases with no sustained findings.”

Hicks noted that she faces budgetary constraints that have prevented her from hiring more investigators, an ongoing problem at the OCC. “We still don’t have the best practices number of cases,” she said, noting that the City Controller had issued a 2007 audit stating that investigators should be handling no more than 16 cases at once, while “my investigators’ caseloads have never fallen below 21.”

Aside from its investigations into citizen complaints, the OCC also makes policy recommendations. Following a number of officer-involved shootings in 2012 involving mentally ill individuals, the OCC issued a set of recommendations on handling responses to individuals experiencing mental crisis — the exact sort of situation that led to Pralourng’s death in 2012.

Samara Marion, an attorney with the OCC, noted that one recommendation pertains to how the Firearm Discharge Review Board, which evaluates whether a shooting was justified, performs its analysis. Rather than merely relying on the internal affairs and homicide reports, Marion said, the OCC recommendation is to “have the training division do an analysis that’s point by point,” so that the determination is made taking into account “all of the decision-making and tactical steps leading up to the officer-involved shooting.”

That work is expected to continue, but as far as the Police Commission is concerned, it will have to go forward without input from Chan, who had planned to take a close look at officer-involved shootings in her next term.

“It was shameful and outrageous what happened, because I was targeted for doing what I believe in,” Chan said later. But she said political pressures has thwarted that goal.

“What happened was not really about me,” she continued. “It was about whether something as important as a civilian police oversight body should be politicized.”

A tUnE-yArDs phone date from the road

Steven T. Jones
-
0

Being weird in a good way seems like a more difficult status for artists to attain than it used to be. We can tell when you’re trying too hard — the Gaga meat dress, the Miley tongue-wags felt ’round the world — and it’s straight-up unappealing. Thanks to Ye Olde Internet, we’re also genuinely harder to shock than we used to be. At the same time, the acceptable box that artists seem to need to fit into to be marketable, to achieve anything like mainstream success, feels smaller all the time.

Enter tUnE-yArDs: Even if you count yourself in the camp of people who “just don’t get” the music, there’s no denying that the delightful weirdness that spews forth from the brain of Oakland’s Merrill Garbus has never felt anything but authentic. On her new album, Nikki Nack — out today on 4AD — she seems more than ever like she’s receiving musical cues from sort of secret invisible wood nymph from the future, and also that wood nymph has been listening to a lot of drumming and hand-clapping videos and maybe some Janet Jackson lately. She (Garbus) keeps you guessing, and you get the sense that that’s due, in part, to keeping herself guessing. All of this is good. It’s good for music.

Garbus debuted some new songs last month at The Chapel, then hit the road for a national tour, including several dates opening for the Arcade Fire. She won’t be back in the Bay until two Fillmore shows (June 6 and 7, with Sylvan Esso and The Seshen opening, respectively), but she gave us a call from the road to chat about the new record’s Haitian influences, how tour is going so far, and The Arcade Fire’s culinary prowess.

San Francisco Bay Guardian Thanks for talking! Where are you right now?

Merrill Garbus I’m in a hotel room in Nashville, Tennessee. We just drove all the way from Columbus and now we have a night off, which is nice. But I’ll probably spend most of it on the phone, doing interviews.

SFBG I’m so sorry.

MG No, it’s great! It’s your job! (laughs) I’m excited that people want to talk about the record.

SFBG I do love the new record. Can you talk a little about how heavy it is on the drums, and some of its Haitian influences? I know you traveled to Haiti not too long ago.

MG Thanks so much. As far as the Haitian influences, I would say it was less about the trip than a community I got involved with at home, at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts in downtown Oakland, which is a center for African arts, and the culture of Africa and the diaspora. It’s an incredible place. So for about a year I was studying with Portsha Jefferson, who is an amazing American woman who has devoted much of her life to studying Haitian folklore and dance, and Daniel Brevil, a Haitian-born drummer who teaches drum classes. This company they’ve created in Oakland is a community of people who are studying and immersed in Haitian culture, to see how it’s affected people around the world, especially as the first independent black republic that’s been an inspiration for generations of people. 

For me it was, oh my gosh, music and revolution and cultural history, and folk music versus pop music, all of those [topics] were really present in studying with these two people. And it was important to me that I wasn’t just going “Oh, that sounds cool, give me that cool rhythm” — I was a student of those drums. And there are definitely through lines of Haitian drumming in a lot of the songs that, lyrically, deal with the relationship between the quote-unquote developed world and the developing.

SFBG Your last album, 2011’s w h o k i l l, brought you to such a bigger platform (the national stage, really) than your first one had. Did you feel pressure with this album to follow that up with something even bigger, or to try to reach the people who still don’t “get” you?

MG I really do everything I can to not think about what how other people are going to receivewhat I’m making while I’m making it, because it just kills it right away. It’s something I have to practice, just like I have to practice singing or practice things with music, I have to practice not considering what other people think. Especially when you feel like you’re failing, because there are always moments when you’re making something going ‘This is not good.’ Or ‘people are not gonna like it.’

It’s the same thing with reading reviews or interviews — unless someone tells me “Oh, I think this one would actually really be helpful for you to read.” Otherwise it’s kind of poison, regardless of it’s good or bad. Because there’s a sense of being outside of yourself, and I always want to get really inside myself. I kinda shut down on the social media.

SFBG How’s Oakland treating you these days? Have you reached the point where you feel like a a kind of famous person, or is life pretty much business as usual?

MG You know, people say hi at the farmer’s market, but no one really cares. Which is great. Oakland’s been really good for my head, and I feel like there are a number of factors that keep me grounded. My relationship, the ways I’ve started to ground myself. It helps to remember that it’s all a mirage — I mean, if I give [press and publicity] any more weight than that, it’s kind of entering into the fictional world.

SFBG How’s tour been going so far? What’s it like opening for the Arcade Fire?

MG It’s awesome. One of them the other day was like, “If you want to sit in on anything, let us know,” and I was just like — I don’t even know what that would be, or mean (laughs). They’ve been so nice to us. I knew some of these guys from Montreal, and what they want to do is nerd out about music. Which is exactly what I want it to be about. They’re crazy, too; they play for two hours.

Tour in general — I love seeing new places around the world. Driving from Denver to Nashville is such a cool way to see this country, and we got to go to Australia this year, Europe several times. I do have to navigate my extreme fear of getting ill on the road, and it’s not so emotionally easy to be with seven people riding in a van for so long, but that’s why I feel so lucky that all the people with me are really dedicated to the project — Nate [Brenner] and I wrote a lot of this music together and then asked these people to play it with us for the next few months of their lives, and there’s no way I could do it without them. I’m also really excited that we sold out the Fillmore.

SFBG Best thing you’ve eaten on this tour?

MG When we were in Kansas City, the Arcade Fire guys got these huge things of barbecue backstage, and they knew what they were doing. Let me think…yeah, definitely that.

Live review: Mastodon at the Fox Theater

Sue Vaughan
-
0
Live review: Mastodon at the Fox Theater

They still exist: big metal bands that go on old-fashioned tours, rather than exclusively playing festivals or headlining package tours (aka shows that start at 4pm and are comprised of two bands you actually want to see and five others the label shoehorns in because that’s the only way they’ll get exposure). Also still in existence: a band that will tour between albums, in fact hitting the road less than two months before a new album drops, and play a set that contains two new songs (to give fans a taste of what’s to come), but is mostly composed of familiar back-catalogue tunes. 

Not, however, still around: actual Mastodons.

No worries, dudes — Mastodon the band shows no sign of going anywhere, and based on what drummer Brann Dailor said at the end of last night’s show at Oakland’s Fox Theater, they’ll soon be back in the Bay Area, pumping their sixth studio release, Once More ‘Round the Sun, which arrives in late June. Based on the two new songs heard last night (“Chimes at Midnight” and “High Road;” stream the latter via the band’s Soundcloud page, or check out the “Audio Visualizer” below the jump), your sludgy summer soundtrack awaits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4PztrhXkXo

This between-albums tour was slightly more stripped-down than, say, shows supporting 2009’s Crack the Skye, which boasted a hypnotic visual component built heavily around the album’s astral-projection-meets-Rasputin-themes (in other words, it went well with the funny-smelling smoke that tends to waft around during Mastodon shows). Here, we just got a backdrop of a pair of psychedelic eyes, plus a light show with occasional Laser Floyd flourishes. But Mastodon is not a band that needs bells and whistles to enhance its crushing riffs. Nor does it spend a lot of time chatting up the crowd between songs, though it’s clear this is a band that appreciates its fans, evidenced by the huge array of t-shirt designs and other merch available in the Fox lobby. (Personal favorites: a shirt inspired by the “Come and play with us, Danny!” scene from The Shining, and a pair of gym shorts with “Asstodon” emblazoned on the booty. Perfect attire for the Bay Area’s recent heat wave, no?)

Opening the show for the Atlanta, Ga. foursome were a pair of heavy-hitting European imports: Kvelertak — a personal favorite of the Prince of Norway — and Gojira (“We are Gojira from France!”, as the Bayonne-based band is fond of saying). The latter summed up the feeling of the crowd with its enthusiastic performance, and singer-guitarist Joe Duplantier’s frequent declarations of how fuckin’ stoked he was to be on tour with the mighty Mastodon. Us too, bro. Us too.  

Happy May Day, San Francisco

Sasha Cuttler
-
53
Happy May Day, San Francisco

Happy May Day, comrades, and what a fine May day it is even if the urgent mayday spirit on this International Workers Day doesn’t seem as strong as some recent years past in the Bay Area.

While Russia seems to be rediscovering its previous practice of massive May Day marches marked by anti-Western propaganda, spurred on by renewed nationalism from the standoff in Ukraine, May Day has never been very big in the US.

The holiday celebrated throughout the world with workers showing their strength and demanding their fair share of our collective wealth marks the anniversary of a labor demonstration that turned violent and triggered a harsh crackdown in Chicago in 1886. While the socialists of the Second International adopted the May Day holiday in 1889, the American holiday of Labor Day was adopted as a bland alternative meant to take the radical edge off of workers movements.

But many leftists in the US retained an affinity for May Day, and it was infused with a renewed spirit and radical energy by supporters of immigration reform and an end to deportations that divide up families, with massive marches in major US cities in 2006 catching the media and political establishment off-guard.

 Then, two years ago, fresh off of the Occupy Wall Street (and Occupy San Francisco, Occupy Oakland, etc.), some young anarchists rampaged through the Mission District, breaking windows, spray painting luxury cars, attacking a police station, and generally targeting what they saw as the forces of wealth and gentrification, albeit in a misguided and widely condemned way.

Today’s big May Day march in San Francisco starts at the 24th Street BART Plaza, again strongly emphasizing the need for immigration reform, but also marrying that cause with the anti-displacement and anti-eviction activism that are roiling San Francisco these days. [The poster for the event even features a photo of a recent Google bus blockade CORRECTION: The photo is actually of immigration activists blocking a deportation bus.]

Meanwhile, in the East Bay, the main May Day march begins at 3:30pm at the Fruitvale BART Street, also with a focus on social justice and immigration reform. So get on out there, comrades, you have nothing to lose but your chains.  

This Week’s Picks: April 30 – May 6, 2014

Michael Redmond
-
0

May the fourth be with you

THURSDAY 1

 

Carletta Sue Kay

Randy Walker has been active in the San Francisco music scene for over 15 years, singing in various bands and working at our beloved Amoeba records, but it was only when he adopted the female persona befitting of his songwriting that he began gaining recognition. For his alter ego, Walker adopted the name of his cousin, an ex-con who served time for domestic terrorism and threatening to blow up her boyfriend with a pipe bomb. As Carletta Sue Kay, Walker is a sight to behold, wig askew, makeup smeared, and dress disheveled. But what comes out of Carletta’s mouth is anything but messy. Ranging from torch songs to pure rock and roll, Walker’s voice soars clearly and beautifully, singing of love and heartbreak in a truly touching way. (Haley Zaremba)

With the Young Lovers, Moon Honey, Queen Crescent

8pm, $10

The Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

 

Astonishing Animation

If you have yet to experience the mystical and beautiful worlds built by Hayao Miyazaki, your inner child is missing out. From the lush countryside where a magical Totoro roams, to an ethereal castle that floats high in the clouds, to a bustling bathhouse filled with both good and bad spirits, Miyazaki’s films bring together stunning animation and sublime storytelling that’s entertaining for both children and adults. This week, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts begins its monthlong tribute to Japanese animation with a retrospective of the most influential films by Studio Ghibli and its founder. After 50 years in animation — and a well-deserved Oscar — the Japanese animator and director announced his retirement (for the third time) last month on the eve of the US release of his The Wind Rises. While the films are crucial to Japanese culture, with countless references to Japanese mythology, they also serve as social commentary on the environment, technology, and gender roles. Explore the astonishing realms and characters that have captivated audiences for centuries, beginning with Miyazaki’s debut film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. (Laura B. Childs)

7:30pm, $10

Check YBCA’s website for additional showtimes

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978 2787

www.ybca.org

 

 

 

San Francisco Ballet

This is San Francisco Ballet’s last program of the season, and one that illustrates why some of us still love ballet the way we do. The intellectual rigor and deep musicality of George Balanchine’s Agon remains as breathtaking as it was when premiered in 1957. In 1983, Jerome Robbins — who has been called the greatest American-born choreographer — also took the music of his time and made it his own. In Glass Pieces, named after its composer but perhaps also for its luminous transparency, you see the music come to life by giving it a swing that is quintessentially Robbins. In between the two, Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson programmed Mr. B’s Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet. The work is musically intriguing, and gorgeously choreographed. You need first-class dancers to make it work. SFB has them. (Rita Felciano)

May 1, 3, 6, 9, 8pm; May 3 and 11, 2pm; May 7, 7:30pm; $15-$340

War Memorial Opera House, SF

(415) 865-2000

www.sfballet.org

 

FRIDAY 2

 

Marcus Shelby: The Legacy of Duke Ellington: 50 Years of Swing!

Put up your dukes: Shakespeare’s got them, and so does jazz. They come together in this glorious tribute to Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington by Marcus Shelby and his 16-piece jazz orchestra. The two-part program begins with selections from the incomparable composer’s full half-century of music making, featuring guest appearances by singer Faye Carol and violinist Mathew Szemela. Then, in the second half,Shelby and his orchestra join forces with members of the California Shakespeare Theater, performing Such Sweet Thunder, Ellington and celebrated collaborator Billy Strayhorn’s 12-part musical suite inspired by the woks of the Bard. (Robert Avila)

May 2, 8pm, $22 and up

Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley

(510) 642-9988

www.calperformances.org

 

SATURDAY 3


Cinco de Mayo Block Party

It’s that time of year again when the United States celebrates a Mexican holiday that Mexico doesn’t celebrate. Where Americans see the date as a sort of Mexican Fourth of July, Mexican-Americans observe Cinco de Mayo to honor their heritage. In their 152 years, the Cinco de Mayo festivities have continuously brought together Americans and Mexicans from a variety of communities and backgrounds. This year’s celebration will take place in the heart of the Mission District on Valencia Street between 21st and 24th streets. The block party will include yummy Latino foods, exotic music and dance as well as colorful artistry for purchase. Enjoy the sunny Sunday with this vibrant community that has shaped our city’s culture. (Childs)

10am-6pm, free

Valencia between 21st and 24th streets, SF

(415) 206-7752

www.sfcincodemayo.com

 

Trainwreck Cabaret

One part comedy show, one part burlesque night, one part off-color magic showcase, Trainwreck Cabaret bills itself as “San Francisco’s most unusual variety show,” a wild, woolly mashup of singers, dancers, and all kinds of other performers from the city’s creative underground; the idea is to take the vibe of old vaudeville and give it a dark (darker?) modern twist. Hire a babysitter, grab an early drink nearby, and enter the charmingly divey Dark Room Theater with zero expectations — this monthly showcase is the place to be for a good, weird time. Who says the Mission’s all yuppies these days? (Emma Silvers)

10pm, $20

Dark Room Theater

2263 Mission, SF

www.darkroomsf.com

 

SUNDAY 4

 

Yerba Buena Gardens Festival

If you tire of the Powell and Market street performers — no disrespect, that dude on the buckets is no joke — ’tis the season to wiggle over a few blocks and check out the impressive talent on display at this year’s Yerba Buena Gardens festival. Today’s kick-off concert features a 10-time Grammy winner, Latin jazz pianist Eddie Palmieri, and his Salsa Orchestra; Palmieri is 77 years young and has been putting out records since 1962. The rest of the fest, which runs through Oct. 26, includes a wide array of performers, with the next few weeks bringing San Jose Taiko, Pacific Mambo Orchestra, Ensemble Mik Nawooj, André Thieffy and Zydeco Magic, John Santos Sextet, and more to the stage. Pack a lunch and soak up the sounds. (Cheryl Eddy)

1pm, free

Yerba Buena Gardens

760 Howard, SF

www.ybgfestival.org

 

 

 

Urban Air Market

Hayes Valley welcomes the Urban Air Market for the first time this year. Explore over 100 booths selling sustainable men’s, women’s, and children’s apparel, eco-friendly art and home decor, and organic beauty and health products. What’s more, in celebration of its 10th anniversary, the sustainable marketplace will have live music and creative performances, DIY demos and “re-fashion” workshops. Whether you’re on the hunt for a special Mother’s Day gift, looking for a unique gift for yourself, or just in need of an outdoor stroll, this urban block party is the perfect lazy Sunday afternoon affair. (Childs)

11am-6pm, free

Octavia at Hayes, SF

www.urbanairmarket.com

 

 

 

How Weird Street Faire

This street fair, an electronic music dance party that has long been one of our favorite events in San Francisco, returns for its 15th annual incarnation, bigger and better than ever. With a tip of its space helmet to the date it landed on this year — “May the Fourth be with you,” the unofficial Star Wars Day — the theme for this year is How Weird in Outer Space. So come as your favorite alien or space cadet, or come in good old-fashioned raver ware, but just come — because this is a seven-stage dance party not to be missed. (Steven T. Jones)

Noon-8pm, $10 requested donation (gets you a Magic Sticker good for reduced-price drinks)

Howard at 2nd St, SF

www.howweird.org

 

MONDAY 5

 

Ingrid Michaelson

Picking up the piano at age four and attending private music schools throughout her upbringing, Ingrid Michaelson’s entire life has revolved around music. Now, at 34, it shows. Michaelson has perfected the art of the pop hook and disarming lyricism. After she worked tirelessly to self-record, self-promote, and even co-release all her own work, Michaelson’s DIY ethic finally got her noticed on the Internet in 2006. Thanks to her insanely catchy and cleverly tender “The Way I Am,” Michaelson found her way to the spotlight and continues to churn out charming sing-alongs that are impossible to dislike. Her songs have been featured in virtually every popular TV show, and you may be surprised at just how many of her songs you’re familiar with. Her charged, confident live act is not to be missed. (Zaremba)

With Storyman, The Alternate Routes

7:30pm, $29.50

Fox Theater

1807 Telegraph, Oakland

(510) 302-2250

www.thefoxoakland.com

 

TUESDAY 6


The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

With a name like The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, it’s difficult not to regress into your angsty 16-year-old self. The band was born in the time of MySpace, putting out songs with longer titles than length, making them relatable and, better yet, quotable — perfect for scribbling in notebook margins or typing into AIM away messages. The Pains have grown from an awkward trio playing drum beats on an iPod into a solid indie foursome since Kip Berman and Alex Naidus formed the band based on a mutual reverence for Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana. Fun fact: Keyboard and backup vocalist Peggy Wang doubles as one of the pioneering editors at BuzzFeed. The indie band veers into shoegaze with its lulling boy-girl vocals. The Pains are playing at the Independent just a week before the release of Days of Abandon, so expect several songs from the band’s upcoming third album. (Childs)

8pm, $15

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 


Atomic Bomb! The Music of William Onyeabor with David Byrne

Having recently been re-issued via Luaka Bop, featured from NPR to Vice, and championed by Damon Albarn, now is the opportune time for Nigerian musician William Onyeabor to rise from (near hoax-like) obscurity and revel in belated fame. [See: Rodriguez.] Just one problem: a born-again Christian, Onyeabor has cast out and disowned the synthesizer-driven (and occasionally politically minded) Afro-funk dance tracks he created in the ’70s and ’80s. But to celebrate the music, a cover band featuring David Byrne, Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke, and LCD Soundsystem drummer Pat Mahoney should do it justice. (Ryan Prendiville)

With The Lijadu Sisters, Joshua Redman, Sinkane, Money Mark, and more

8pm, $32.50-45

The Warfield

982 Market, SF

(415) 345-0900

www.thewarfieldtheatre.com

 

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian, 225 Bush, 17th Flr., SF, CA 94105; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Stalin: Darkness Visible

Michael Redmond
-
0
Stalin: Darkness Visible

arts@sfbg.com

I remember the day I met J.Stalin, 10 years ago. He bounced into the Mekanix’s East Oakland studio, walked up to me, and shook my hand.

“I’m J.Stalin. I write and record two songs a day,” he said proudly. Rail-thin, barely 5 feet tall, he looked like a middle-schooler. While he’s thickened somewhat in adulthood, the pint-size rapper retains an air of adolescence that’s one of the keys to his enduring success. Kids in the hood love Stalin because he seems like them and his music speaks to them. He looks like what he once was, a d-boy on the corner slanging rocks. Yet his music is versatile, with a profound undercurrent of melancholy to his storytelling and a huge streak of ’80s R&B in his sound, both of which appeal to adults. Even without radio support, this potent combination has made him one of the most popular rappers not simply in Oakland but in the Bay Area, period, and when I hear a car roll up playing a local artist, more often than not these days, that artist is J.Stalin.

“Make sure you put that in,” Stalin says. “I’m the most played person on the streets in cars.”

It reminds me of our first meeting — but only a little, for, despite his youthful appearance, it’s hard to discern the eager youngster of a decade ago in the somber adult he’s become in his late 20s.

We’re sitting poolside in a middle-of-nowhere suburb where J’s tucked himself away with his girlfriend and 2-month-old son. I couldn’t imagine living out here, but it’s the perfect retreat for a rapper, away from the distractions of the hood. Coming from the cramped public housing of West Oakland’s Cypress Village, Stalin can appreciate the surrounding blandness in ways I can’t. And, of course, he’s on the road frequently, fresh from a sold-out West Coast tour with Husalah and Roach Gigz and about to embark on a series of appearances for his new album, S.I.D. (Shining In Darkness) (Livewire/Fontana), which will take him as far afield as Ohio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ETUKFgYaEw

Named for his cousin, Sidney Malone, who died in 2008 at age 25 after suffering cardiac arrest during pacemaker surgery, S.I.D. showcases a different side of Stalin’s music than previous releases, even as it leans heavily on production from his longtime producers, the Mekanix, in addition to tracks by Mob Figaz maestro Roblo and HBK member P-Lo.

“With this record, I wanted to get back to making fun music,” he says. “When you come from the streets, and done been through hella shit, sometimes that’s all you want to talk about. It ain’t even like you rappin’. You just expressing your emotions. I love making street music, but my own music be depressing to me sometimes. I’m always going to give you that classic Stalin, but that’s the difference between this album and the last album: I wanted more uptempo tracks you can dance to.”

“I didn’t want to just name it, ‘In Memory of Sid,’ so I came up with Shining In Darkness, because that’s where the Bay at,” he continues. “We shining over here but the industry don’t put a spotlight on it. It’s just a darkness to the rest of the country. The more I started recording on it the more the meaning unfolded to me. Like when you hear it, you’re like, ‘Why don’t the world know about this nigga?’ But at the same time I just wanted to keep Sid’s memory alive; that was my biggest fan.”

In another departure, S.I.D. is Stalin’s first disc since July of last year, when he released his DJ Fresh-produced double-disc Miracle & Nightmare on 10th Street (Livewire/World’s Freshest), his first project to crack the Billboard rap charts, at #60.

“It’ll be like nine months since I dropped a project,” he says. “I’ve been focusing on putting out dope albums instead of flooding the music with quick mixtapes and shit.”

It’s a sign of how much rap has changed since the analog era, when E-40’s innovation as an independent artist was to drop an album “like a pregnant beeyatch, every 8 or 9 months,” compared with the lethargic, every year or two pace of major-label acts. Raised in the generation of the laptop studio, Stalin was among the innovators delivering a constant stream of music to his fans in the form of mixtapes, collaborations, and side projects in between proper solo albums. Waiting nine months between projects is almost unheard of for J, who has something like 30 discs to his credit at this point.

“I’ve been trying to work more strategically,” he says. “Work smarter, not harder. I’ve been doing more of the clothing line, selling Livewire Clothing at all my shows. Been doing a lot of pop-up stores in stores selling them, plus we got the online store. I popped off my website; I be giving away free music on there. My new artists Lil June and L’Jay, you can download they albums on my website.”

This is another key to Stalin’s success: He’s always thought of himself not simply as an artist, but as the CEO of Livewire Records, a company he has conjured into existence through sheer force of will, his own talent, and an uncanny ability to form alliances and develop artists. Even the short list of Livewire artists — Shady Nate, Philthy Rich, Stevie Joe, Lil Blood — is impressive, and Stalin is constantly building the roster. He still talks to major labels from time to time, but the decline of their business model, coupled with his success going through Universal’s independent distribution channel, Fontana, there’s not much the majors can offer him these days.

“Really, if ain’t nobody trying to give me money to put out multiple artists and projects, there’s not really no point. We at the position now where all the things that the label is talking about, we damn near can do ourselves,” he concludes. “Unless they giving out some millions — not one million, millions.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e78hZlPwks

Events: April 30 – May 6, 2014

Michael Redmond
-
0

Listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Selector.

WEDNESDAY 30

“Saving the California Condor” Zimmer Auditorium, Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Rd, Oakl; www.oaklandzoo.org. 6:30-9:30pm, $12-20. Oakland Zoo’s Conservation Speaker Series presents biologist Joe Burnett of the Ventana Wildlife Society and Oakland Zoo veterinarian Dr. Andrea Goodnight.

THURSDAY 1

“Eating Cultures” SOMArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan, SF; www.aawaa.net. Opening reception, 6-9pm. Free. Exhibit runs Tue-Fri, noon-7pm; Sat, noon-5pm. Through May 30. As part of the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center’s United States of Asian America Festival, the Asian American Women Artists Association presents a juried art exhibition featuring work inspired by food and food traditions.

“Jackpot NightLife” California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse, SF; www.calacademy.org. 6-10pm, $12. 21 and over. NightLife studies the statistics of luck, with visual FX wizards from Tippett Studio (Cosmos), Rat Pack-era tunes by DJ Tanoa, casino games, and more.

Ben Ross Green Arcade, 1680 Market, SF; www.thegreenarcade.com. 7pm, free. The author discusses Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism.

FRIDAY 2

“Artwear” de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden, SF; www.famsf.org. 9:30am-8:30pm. Also Sat/3, 9:30am-4:30pm. Free. Shop wearable art by 16 local textile and jewelry artisans and designers.

Jo Becker Book Passage, 1 Ferry Building, SF; www.bookpassage.com. 12:30pm, free. The Pulitzer-winning journalist reads from Forcing the Spring: Inside the Fight for Marriage Equality.

SATURDAY 3

“Bikes to Books Rides Again!” Meet at Jack London Alley, near South Park and Second St, SF; www.burritojustice.com. 12:45pm, free. Burrito Justice and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition host this seven-mile bike tour celebrating the literary history of San Francisco. Tips from the organizers: “Bring bikes with gears, snacks, and enthusiasm.”

“California Bookstore Day” Various locations; www.cabookstoreday.com. Nearly 100 bookstores across the state participate in this celebration with parties, author readings, in-store events, and exclusive day-of merch. Check website for local events.

“A La Carte and Art” Castro between Church and Evelyn, Mtn View; www.miramarevents.com. 10am-6pm. Free. Through Sun/4. This two-day festival features live music, a juried arts and crafts show, a classic car show, a farmers market, and more.

“Pegapalooza” Pegasus Downtown, 2349 Shattuck, Berk; Pegasus Oakland, 5560 College, Oakl; and Pegasus on Solano, 1855 Solano, Berk; www.pegasusbookstore.com. May 3-10. The bookstore marks its 45th anniversary with a full slate of festivities; tonight’s kick-off, in honor of California Bookstore Day, is a conversation between Dave Eggers and Malcolm Margolin at the Shattuck location (7:30pm, free).

Jenni Pulos Book Passage, 1 Ferry Building, SF; www.bookpassage.com. 11am, free. The Bravo star (Flipping Out) reads from her new memoir-advice tome, Grin and Bear It.

Shipyard Artists Spring Open Studios Hunters Point Shipyard, Innes at Donahue, SF; Islais Creek Studios, 1 Rankin, SF; www.shipyardartists.com/sos. 11am-6pm. Also Sat/4. Free. More than 125 artists participate in this 25th anniversary open studios event.

SUNDAY 4

“Poetry Unbound #4” Art House Gallery, 2905 Shattuck, Berk; berkeleyarthouse.wordpress.com. 5:15pm, $5. Readings by Deborah Fruchey, Blanca Torres, and Carol Hogan, followed by an open mic.

Urban Air Market Hayes Valley Octavia and Hayes, SF; www.urbanairmarket.com. 11am-6pm, free. Sustainable shopping (clothing, jewelry, home décor, body products, etc.) covers Hayes Valley at this open-air event.

MONDAY 5

“Cinco de Mayo at Habitot Children’s Museum” Habitot Children’s Museum, 2065 Kittredge, Berk; www.habitot.org. 9:30am-12:30pm, $8-10. Celebrate Mexican culture with special craft projects.

“The Cosmic Cocktail: Three Parts Dark Matter” Morrison Planetarium, California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse, SF; www.calacademy.org. 7:30pm, $8-12. University of Michigan physics professor Katherine Freese discusses the hunt for dark matter.

“Reclaiming Cinco de Mayo” San Francisco Living Wage Coalition, 2940 16th St, SF; www.livingwage-sf.org. 6-10pm, $5-25. Independent art and literature gala benefiting the SF Living Wage Coalition and its sister organization, Las Hormigas, in Ciudad Juarez.

TUESDAY 6

“An Evening with Benjamin Jealous and Belva Davis” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. 7pm, $20-25. The former NAACP president and the pioneering journalist meet for an onstage conversation.

“Israel’s 66th Independence Day” Justin Herman Plaza, Embarcadero at Market, SF; www.sfjcsf.org. Noon-1:30pm, free. With live Israeli music, falafel vendors, community leaders, and more. *

 

Guardian endorsements

Michael Redmond
-
139
Guardian endorsements

OUR CLEAN SLATE VOTERS GUIDE TO TAKE TO THE POLLS IS HERE.

 

Editor’s Note: Election endorsements have been a long and proud part of the Guardian’s 48-year history of covering politics in San Francisco, the greater Bay Area, and at the state level. In low-turnout elections like the one we’re expecting in June, your vote counts more than usual, and we hope our endorsements and explanations help you make the best decisions.

 

GOVERNOR: JERRY BROWN

There is much for progressives to criticize in Jerry Brown’s latest stint as governor of California. He has stubbornly resisted complying with federal court orders to substantially reduce the state’s prison population, as well as shielding the system from needed journalistic scrutiny and reforms of solitary confinement policies that amount to torture. Brown has also refused to ban or limit fracking in California, despite the danger it poses to groundwater and climate change, irritating environmentalists and fellow Democrats. Even Brown’s great accomplishment of winning passage for the Prop. 30 tax package, which eased the state back from financial collapse, sunsets too early and shouldn’t have included a regressive sales tax increase. Much more needs to be done to address growing wealth disparities and restore economic and educational opportunity for all Californians.

For these reasons and others, it’s tempting to endorse one of Brown’s progressive challenges: Green Party candidate Luis Rodriguez or Peace and Freedom Party candidate Cindy Sheehan (see “Left out,” April 23). We were particularly impressed by Rodriguez, an inspiring leader who is seeking to bring more Latinos and other marginalized constituencies into the progressive fold, a goal we share and want to support however we can.

But on balance, we decided to give Brown our endorsement in recognition of his role in quickly turning around this troubled state after the disastrous administration of Arnold Schwarzenegger — and in the hope that his strong leadership will lead to even greater improvement over his next term. While we don’t agree with all of his stands, we admire the courage, independence, and vision that Brown brings to this important office. Whether he is supporting the California High-Speed Rail Project against various attacks, calling for state residents to live in greater harmony with the natural world during the current drought, or refusing to shrink from the challenges posed by global warming, Jerry Brown is the leader that California needs at this critical time.

 

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: GAVIN NEWSOM

Gavin Newsom was mayor of San Francisco before he ascended to the position of Lieutenant Governor, and we at the Bay Guardian had a strained relationship with his administration, to put it mildly. We disagreed with his fiscally conservative policies and tendency to align himself with corporate power brokers over neighborhood coalitions. As lieutenant governor, Newsom is tasked with little — besides stepping into the role of governor, should he be called upon to do so — but has nevertheless made some worthwhile contributions.

Consider his stance on drug policy reform: “Once and for all, it’s time we realize that the war on drugs is nothing more than a war on communities of color and on the poor,” he recently told a crowd at the Democratic Party convention in Los Angeles. “It is fundamentally time for drug policies that recognize and respect the full dignity of human beings. We can’t wait.” In his capacity as a member of the UC Board of Regents, Newsom recently voted against a higher executive compensation package for a top-level administrator, breaking from the pack to align with financially pinched university students. In Sacramento, Newsom seems to come off as more “San Francisco” than in his mayoral days, and we’re endorsing him against a weak field of challengers.

 

SECRETARY OF STATE: DEREK CRESSMAN

Although the latest Field Poll shows that he has only single-digit support and is unlikely to make the November runoff, we’re endorsing Derek Cressman for Secretary of State. As a longtime advocate for removing the corrupting influence of money from politics through his work with Common Cause, Cressman has identified campaign finance reform as the important first step toward making the political system more responsive to people’s needs. As Secretary of State, Cressman would be in a position to ensure greater transparency in our political system.

We also like Alex Padilla, a liberal Democrat who has been an effective member of the California Senate. We’ll be happy to endorse Padilla in November if he ends up in a runoff with Republican Pete Peterson, as the current polling seems to indicate is likely. But for now, we’re endorsing Cressman — and the idea that campaign finance reform needs to be a top issue in a state and country that are letting wealthy individuals and corporations have disproportionate influence over what is supposed to be a democracy.

 

CONTROLLER: BETTY YEE

The pay-to-play politics of Leland Yee and two other California Democrats has smeared the Assembly. Amid the growls of impropriety, a report by the Center for Investigative Reporting has painted Speaker of the Assembly John Perez, a leading candidate for Controller, with a similar brush. CIR revealed Perez raised money from special interest groups to charities his lover favored, a lover later sued for racketeering and fraud.

Betty Yee represents an opportunity for a fresh start. On the state’s Board of Equalization she turned down campaign donations from tobacco interests, a possible conflict of interest. She also fought for tax equity between same-sex couples. The Controller is tasked with keeping watch on and disbursing state funds, a position we trust much more to Yee’s careful approach than Perez’s questionable history. Vote for Yee.

 

TREASURER: JOHN CHIANG

While serving as California’s elected Controller, John Chiang displayed his courage and independence by refusing to sign off on budgetary tricks used by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and some legislative leaders, insisting on a level of honesty that protected current and future Californians. During those difficult years — as California teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, paralyzed by partisan brinksmanship each budget season, written off as a failed state by the national media — Chiang and retiring Treasurer Bill Lockyer were somehow able to keep the state functioning and paying its bills.

While many politicians claim they’ll help balance the budget by identifying waste and corruption, Chiang actually did so, identifying $6 billion by his estimate that was made available for more productive purposes. Now, Chiang wants to continue bringing fiscal stability to this volatile state and he has our support.

 

ATTORNEY GENERAL: KAMALA HARRIS

Kamala Harris has kept the promise she made four years ago to bring San Francisco values into the Attorney General’s Office, focusing on the interests of everyday Californians over powerful vested interests. That includes strengthening consumer and privacy protections, pushing social programs to reduce criminal recidivism rather than the tough-on-crime approach that has ballooned our prison population, reaching an $18 billion settlement with the big banks and mortgage lenders to help keep people in their homes, and helping to implement the Affordable Care Act and the legalization of same-sex marriage in the state.

Harris has maintained her opposition to the death penalty even though that has hurt her in the statewide race, and she brings to the office an important perspective as the first woman and first African American ever to serve as the state’s top law enforcement officer. While there is much more work to be done in countering the power of wealthy individuals and corporations and giving the average Californian a stronger voice in our legal system, Harris has our support.

 

INSURANCE COMMISSIONER: DAVE JONES

We’ve been following Dave Jones’s legislative career since his days on the Sacramento City Council and through his terms in the California Legislature, and we’ve always appreciated his autonomy and progressive values. He launched into his role as Insurance Commissioner four years ago with an emergency regulation requiring health insurance companies to use no more than 20 percent of premiums on profits and administrative costs, and he has continued to do what he can to hold down health insurance rates, including implementing the various components of the Affordable Care Act.

More recently, Jones held hearings looking at whether Uber, Lyft, and other transportation network companies are adequately insured to protect both their drivers and the general public, concluding that these companies need to self-insure or otherwise expand the coverage over their business. It was a bold and important move to regulate a wealthy and prosperous new industry. Jones deserves credit for taking on the issue and he has earned our endorsement.

 

SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS: TOM TORLAKSON

This race is a critical one, as incumbent Tom Torlakson faces a strong challenge from the charter school cheerleader Marshall Tuck. An investment banker and Harvard alum, Tuck is backed by well-heeled business and technology interests pushing for the privatization of our schools. Tech and entertainment companies are pushing charter schools heavily as they wait in the wings for lucrative education supply contracts, for which charter schools may open the doors. And don’t let Waiting for Superman fool you, charter schools’ successful test score numbers are often achieved by pushing out underperforming special needs and economically disadvantaged students.

As national education advocate Diane Ravitch wrote in her blog, “If Tuck wins, the privatization movement will gain a major stronghold.” California ranks 48th in the nation in education spending, a situation we can thank Prop. 13 for. We’d like to see Torlakson advocate for more K-12 school dollars, but for now, he’s the best choice.

 

BOARD OF EQUALIZATION: FIONA MA

Fiona Ma was never our favorite member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and in the California Legislature, she has seemed more interested in party politics and leadership than moving legislation that is important to San Francisco. There are a few exceptions, such as her attempts last year to require more employers to offer paid sick days and to limit prescription drug co-payments. But she also notoriously tried to ban raves at public venues in 2010, a reactionary bill that was rejected as overly broad.

But the California Board of Equalization might just be a better fit for Ma than the Legislature. She’s a certified public accountant and would bring that financial expertise to the state’s main taxing body, and we hope she continues in the tradition of her BOE predecessor Betty Yee in ensuring the state remains fair but tough in how it collects taxes.

 

ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 17: DAVID CAMPOS

The race to replace progressive hero Tom Ammiano in the California Assembly is helping to define this important political moment in San Francisco. It’s a contest between the pragmatic neoliberal politics of Board of Supervisors President David Chiu and the populist progressive politics of Sup. David Campos, whom Ammiano endorsed to succeed him.

It’s a fight for the soul of San Francisco, a struggle to define the values we want to project into the world, and, for us at the Bay Guardian, the choice is clear. David Campos is the candidate that we trust to uphold San Francisco’s progressive values in a state that desperately needs that principled influence.

Chiu emphasizes how the two candidates have agreed on about 98 percent of their votes, and he argues that his effectiveness at moving big legislation and forging compromises makes him the most qualified to represent us in Sacramento. Indeed, Chiu is a skilled legislator with a sharp mind, and if “getting things done” — the prime directive espoused by both Chiu and Mayor Ed Lee — was our main criterion, he would probably get our endorsement.

But when you look at the agenda that Chiu and his allies at City Hall have pursued since he came to power — elected as a progressive before pivoting to become a pro-business moderate — we wish that he had been a little less effective. The landlords, tech titans, Realtors, and Chamber of Commerce have been calling the shots in this city, overheating the local economy in a way that has caused rapid displacement and gentrification.

“Effective for whom? That’s what’s important,” Campos told us during his endorsement interview, noting that, “Most people in San Francisco have been left behind and out of that prosperity.”

Campos has been a clear and consistent supporter of tenants, workers, immigrants, small businesses, environmentalists — the vast majority of San Franciscans, despite their lack of power in City Hall. Chiu will sometimes do right by these groups, but usually only after being pushed to do so by grassroots organizing and lobbying efforts.

Campos correctly points out that such lobbying is more difficult in Sacramento, with its higher stakes and wider range of competing interests, than it is on the local level. Chiu’s focus on always trying to find a compromise often plays into the hands of wealthy interests, who sometimes just need to be fought and stopped.

We have faith in Campos and his progressive values, and we believe he will skillfully carry on the work of Ammiano — who is both an uncompromising progressive and an effective legislator — in representing San Francisco’s values in Sacramento.

 

ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 19: PHIL TING

Incumbent Phil Ting doesn’t have any challengers in this election, but he probably would have won our support anyway. After proving himself as San Francisco’s Assessor, taking a strong stance against corporate landowners and even the Catholic Church on property assessments, Ting won a tough race against conservative businessman Michael Breyer to win his Assembly seat.

Since then, he’s been a reliable vote for legislation supported by most San Franciscans, and he’s sponsoring some good bills that break new ground, including his current AB 1193, which would make it easier to build cycletracks, or bike lanes physically separated from cars, all over the state. He also called a much-needed Assembly committee hearing in November calling out BART for its lax safety culture, and we hope he continues to push for reforms at that agency.

 

PROPOSITION 41: YES

Over a decade ago, Californians voted to use hundreds of millions of our dollars to create the CalVet Home and Farm Loan Program to help veterans purchase housing. But a reduction in federal home loan dollars, the housing crisis, and a plummeting economy hurt the program.

Prop. 41 would repurpose $600 million of those bond funds and raise new money to create affordable housing rental units for some of California’s 15,000 homeless veterans. This would cost Californians $50 million a year, which, as proponents remind us, is one-tenth of 1 percent of the state budget. Why let hundreds of millions of dollars languish unused? We need to reprioritize this money to make good on our unfulfilled promises to homeless veterans.

 

PROPOSITION 42: YES

This one’s important. Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown sought to gut the California Public Records Act by making it optional for government agencies to comply with many of the requirements built into this important transparency law. The CPRA and the Ralph M. Brown Act require government agencies to make records of their activities available for public scrutiny, and to provide for adequate notice of public meetings. Had the bill weakening these laws not been defeated, it would have removed an important defense against shadowy government dealings, leaving ordinary citizens and journalists in the dark.

Prop. 42 is a bid to eliminate any future threats against California’s important government transparency laws, by expressly requiring local government agencies — including cities, counties, and school districts — to comply with all aspects of the CPRA and the Brown Act. It also seeks to prevent local agencies from denying public records requests based on cost, by eliminating the state’s responsibility to reimburse local agencies for cost compliance (the state has repeatedly failed to do so, and local bureaucracies have used this as an excuse not to comply).

 

SF’S PROPOSITION A: YES

Prop. A is a $400 million general obligation bond measure that would cover seismic retrofits and improvements to the city’s emergency infrastructure, including upgrades to the city’s Emergency Firefighting Water System, neighborhood police and fire stations, a new facility for the Medical Examiner, and seismically secure new structures to house the police crime lab and motorcycle unit.

The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to place Prop. A on the ballot, and a two-thirds majority vote is needed for it to pass. Given that San Franciscans can expect to be hit by a major earthquake in the years to come, upgrading emergency infrastructure, especially the high-pressure water system that will aid the Fire Department in the event of a major blaze, is a high priority.

 

SF’S PROPOSITION B: YES

As we report in this issue (see “Two views of the waterfront”), San Francisco’s waterfront is a valuable place targeted by some ambitious development schemes. That’s a good thing, particularly given the need that the Port of San Francisco has for money to renovate or remove crumbling piers, but it needs to be carefully regulated to maximize public benefits and minimize private profit-taking.

Unfortunately, the Mayor’s Office and its appointees at the Port of San Francisco have proven themselves unwilling to be tough negotiators on behalf of the people. That has caused deep-pocketed, politically connected developers to ignore the Waterfront Land Use Plan and propose projects that are out-of-scale for the waterfront, property that San Francisco is entrusted to manage for the benefit of all Californians.

All Prop. B does is require voter approval when projects exceed existing height limits. It doesn’t kill those projects, it just forces developers to justify new towers on the waterfront by providing ample public benefits, restoring a balance that has been lost. San Francisco’s waterfront is prime real estate, and there are only a few big parcels left that can be leveraged to meet the needs of the Port and the city. Requiring the biggest ones to be approved by voters is the best way to ensure the city — all its residents, not just the politicians and power brokers — is getting the best deals possible.

 

SF SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE: DANIEL FLORES

Daniel Flores has an impressive list of endorsers, including the Democratic, Republican, and Green parties of San Francisco — a rare trifecta of political party support. But don’t hold the GOP nod against Flores, who was raised in the Excelsior by parents who immigrated from El Salvador and who interned with La Raza Centro Legal while going to McGeorge School of Law. And he did serve in the Marines for six years, which could explain the broad range of support for him.

Flores is a courtroom litigator with experience in big firms and his own practice, representing clients ranging from business people to tenants fighting against their landlords. Flores told us that he wants to ensure those without much money are treated fairly in court, an important goal we support. We also liked Kimberly Williams and hope she ends up on the bench someday, but in this race, Flores is the clear choice.

 

CONGRESS, DISTRICT 12: NANCY PELOSI

This was a hard decision for us this year. Everyone knows that Pelosi will win this race handily, but in past races we’ve endorsed third party challengers or even refused to endorse anyone more often than we’ve given Pelosi our support. While Pelosi gets vilified by conservatives as the quintessential San Francisco liberal, she’s actually way too moderate for our tastes.

Over her 21 years in Congress, she has presided over economic policies that have consolidated wealth in ever fewer hands and dismantled the social safety net, environmental policies that have ignored global warming and fed our over-reliance on the private automobile, and military policies that expanded the war machine and overreaching surveillance state, despite her insider’s role on the House Intelligence Committee.

Three of her opponents — Democrat David Peterson, Green Barry Hermanson, and fiery local progressive activist Frank Lara of the Peace and Freedom Party — are all much better on the issues that we care about, and we urge our readers to consider voting for one of them if they just can’t stomach casting a ballot for Pelosi. In particular, Hermanson has raised important criticisms of just how out of whack our federal budget priorities are. We also respect the work Lara has done on antiwar and transit justice issues in San Francisco, and we think he could have a bright political future.

But we’ve decided to endorse Pelosi in this election for one main reason: We want the Democrats to retake the House of Representatives this year and for Pelosi to once again become Speaker of the House. The Republican Party in this country, particularly the Tea Party loyalists in the House, is practicing a dangerous and disgusting brand of political extremism that needs to be stopped and repudiated. They would rather shut the government down or keep it hopelessly hobbled by low tax rates than help it become an effective tool for helping us address the urgent problems that our country faces. Pelosi and the Democrats aren’t perfect, but at least they’re reasonable grown-ups and we’d love to see what they’d do if they were returned to power. So Nancy Pelosi has our support in 2014.

 

CONGRESS, DISTRICT 13: BARBARA LEE

Barbara Lee has been one of our heroes since 2001, when she was the only member of Congress to vote against the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Terrorists, braving the flag-waving nationalism that followed the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon to warn that such an overly broad declaration of war was dangerous to our national interests. She endured death threats and harsh condemnation for that principled stand, but she was both courageous and correct, with our military overreach still causing problems for this country, both practical and moral.

Lee has been a clear and consistent voice for progressive values in the Congress for 16 years, chairing both the Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Progressive Caucus, taking stands against capital punishment and the Iraq War, supporting access to abortions and tougher regulation of Wall Street, and generally representing Oakland and the greater Bay Area well in Washington DC. She has our enthusiastic support.

 

CONGRESS, DISTRICT 14: JACKIE SPEIER

Jackie Speier has given her life to public service — almost literally in 1978 when she was an aide to then-Rep. Leo Ryan and survived the airstrip shootings that triggered the massacre at Jonestown — and she has earned our ongoing support. Speier has continued the consumer protection work she started in the California Legislature, sponsoring bills in Congress aimed at protecting online privacy. She has also been a strong advocate for increasing federal funding to public transit in the Bay Area, particularly to Muni and for the electricification of Caltrain, an important prelude to the California High-Speed Rail Project. In the wake of the deadly natural gas explosion in San Bruno, Speier has pushed for tough penalties on Pacific Gas & Electric and expanded pipeline safety programs. She has been a strong advocate of women’s issues, including highlighting the epidemic of sexual assault on college campuses and in the military, seeking greater protections, institutional accountability, and recourse for victims. More recently, Speier has become a key ally in the fight to save City College of San Francisco, taking on the federal accreditation process and seeking reforms. Speier is a courageous public servant who deserves your vote.

Listen: Yesway’s “Howlin’ Face”

Steven T. Jones
-
0
Listen: Yesway’s “Howlin’ Face”

Emily Ritz and Kacey Johansing aren’t exactly strangers to the Bay’s indie-folk scene — Johansing’s second solo LP, 2013’s Ghosts, has spread like lush acoustic pop wildfire around the city since its release, while Ritz is part of the Oakland-based experimental “noir pop” outfit DRMS, which put out the ambitious American 707 earlier this year, a hypnotically weird and weirdly delightful short film and accompanying soundtrack.

But together, they make something else entirely: Dreamy harmonies layered with guitar are shaped by odd time signatures, beats that sound like they’ve stopped by to visit from the electronic/chillwave world, and vibraphone apperances (they’re often accompanied by Andrew Maguire, who also backs Thao Nguyen); it’s music for the last hazy hour of a party, when the stragglers decide to watch the sunrise, or a long slightly stoned solo walk with a lot of things to think about, maybe, or if you have the technology to listen to music underwater, it’s also be great for a swim. The duo’s debut album’s not out until June 3, but this single should tide you over.

Check Yesway online here.

Bill would tax companies with wide CEO-worker pay disparities

Erica Hanna
-
60
Bill would tax companies with wide CEO-worker pay disparities

California companies pouring big cash on their CEOs may be forced to tighten the spigot under a new bill that seeks to limit CEOs paid excessively at the expense of their workers.

Senate Bill 1372, authored by state Sens. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) and Loni Hancock (D-Oakland), would increase taxes on companies with wide disparities between CEO and worker pay, and give a tax break to companies with a low ratio between CEO and worker pay.

“History has taught us that the gross disparity between CEO and worker pay is a direct threat to American democracy,” DeSaulnier said in a press statement. “It is unsustainable and a danger to our society. We must focus on restoring the middle class and stop fueling excessive income inequality.”

The pay-disparity bill cleared the Senate and Governance Finance Committee last Friday, and is headed to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Local tech companies have much reason to fear the bill. Larry Ellison, CEO of the Redwood City-based Oracle, was paid 1,287 times the median salary of an Oracle employee in 2012, according to a Bloomberg study. Ellison pulled in $96.2 million in 2012, and the median employee working for his company brought in $74,693.

That’s less pay gap, more pay canyon. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, a professor at UC Berkeley and a supporter of the pay-disparity bill, connected CEO pay with our troubled economy.

“This growing divergence between CEO pay and that of the typical American worker isn’t just wildly unfair. It’s also bad for the economy,” Reich wrote on his website last week. “It means most workers these days lack the purchasing power to buy what the economy is capable of producing — contributing to the slowest recovery on record. Meanwhile, CEOs and other top executives use their fortunes to fuel speculative booms followed by busts.”

The pay-disparity bill would lower taxes on companies with CEOs making less than 100 times more than its median employee. The tax rate for the company would be metered on a scale of CEO-to-worker pay ratio, with the highest penalties for companies paying their CEOs more than 400 times their median employee pay.

The bill also targets non-salaried independent contractors, a significant portion of the state’s workers.

Many local companies have wide pay gaps between CEOs and workers. In 2012, Apple had a CEO:worker pay ratio of 192:1, Wells Fargo had a ratio of 186:1, and Intel squeaked by with a ratio of 99:1, according to PayScale.com.

The PayScale.com study only looked at non-stock compensation. CEOs are often paid in stock and other bonuses, a significant part of their earnings. In lieu of this, recently many CEOs jumped on the $1 salary bandwagon, including Google CEO Larry Page. Ellison took home a single dollar for his salary in 2013, according to CNN Money.

This seemingly forward-thinking gesture is a good PR move, but in reality CEOs still take home millions of dollars in stocks, options, and bonuses. Page owned more than 24 million shares in Google as of 2013, for instance. Ellison took in $92.2 million in stocks, options, and other pay in 2013.

Luckily, that’s a loophole that DeSaulnier and Hancock considered when crafting the bill.

The bill would calculate executive compensation based on the Summary Compensation Table the company in question reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission. That includes salary, bonus, grants of stock options and stock appreciation rights, long-term incentive plan awards, pension plans, and employment contracts and related arrangements.

In 2012, the average CEO pay in California was $5,054,959, according to a statement from DeSaulnier, while the median worker pay in California was $48,029.

Below is a series of graphs detailing local Bay Area CEO and worker pay disparities, as of 2012.

Love rumbles

Michael Redmond
-
0
Love rumbles

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC Like some bastard love child of Link Wray and Johnny Thunders, Berlin-by-way-of-Israel rock ‘n’ roller Charlie Megira has mastered the art of blending 1950s-style rock guitar and spooky, blood-curdling howls. In his newest incarnation (though not as new as it may seem, but we’ll get to that later), the Bet She’an Valley Hillbillies, he takes those building blocks and adds a vroom-vroom rockabilly twang.

It’s a sound he describes in a typically poetic — and esoteric — word dump: “The beginning of the end of music…dealing with the local in an exotic manner. It don’t mean a thang if it ain’t got that twang…Rings of Fire that burn like love.” Got it.

Bigger news: After a long battle to obtain the proper visa, Megira will head to the United States for his first ever stateside tour, beginning Mon/28 at Vacation SF, then Tue/29 at the Nightlight in Oakland. In a travel loop, he’ll stop by the Austin Psych Festival in Texas and head back to the Bay for a pop in at the Makeout Room on May 14. During the tour, Megira and the Bet She’an Valley Hillbillies will be selling a cassette called The End of Teenage (Guitars and Bongos), a mix of original rockabilly and surf.

That Bet She’an Valley Hillbillies name is a nod to his childhood. He was born and raised in the northern Bet She’an region of Israel, obsessed with Algerian and Moroccan music like Salim Halali and Joe Amar. There was also the excellent record collection of his father, who once upon a time was a musician as well. “They told me that my father used to have a trumpet when he was a kid. I guess he didn’t stick with it,” says Megira. “But he used to play a number on family occasions like weddings. It was great.” Through his father’s vinyl stash, Megira absorbed the likes of Elvis, James Brown, Santana, and 1960s Israeli folk-pop star Esther Ofarim.

Later, a cousin introduced him to “popular music like Rod Stewart,” and hair metal legends White Snake.

“I used to ask him while watching the [White Snake] videos, ‘why are they wearing ripped clothes and torn jeans?’ I thought that they were poor or something,” he says.

He began a succession of his own bands, including perhaps the most well known, at least in Israel: The Modern Dance Club. Before MDC there was the Schneck, Naarey Hahefker, Oley Hagardom, Los Tigres, The Wall of Death, No Hay Banda, The Tralalala Boys; the list goes on.

I first caught on to the Modern Dance Club through its cheeky, perfectly ’60s-aping beach-blanket-bingo encapsulated video for “Dynamite Rock,” off second full-length Rock-n-Roll Fragments. (It was originally released in 2002 and rereleased on Birdman Records in 2009.) The song sounds like a fuzzier, Israeli “Teenager in Love.” It was hard to believe Megira was a modern-day musician, as the Modern Dance Club name hinted at and a quick Google search confirmed. He looked and sounded of another era, a toothy, pompadoured rocker with western motif style and hip-shaking guitar lines. Rock-n-Roll Fragments also contains a song called “Bet She’an Valley Hillbillies,” which informed his next act.

Years later, I learned of Modern Dance Club’s connection to Bay Area-based record label, Guitars and Bongos (Greg Ashley, Dancer), which released its double LP Love Police. It was the small Oakland label’s very first release after forming in 2011. More recently Guitars and Bongos released that tour tape, The End of Teenage.

“I read about [Megira] in an Israeli newspaper and heard him on Israeli radio,” says Guitars and Bongos co-founder Eran Yarkon, who lived in Israel for a year before moving to Oakland. “I never thought I would have a label. But of course I was a big fan, and so is my friend Julie Cohen, so we thought of ways to put out Charlie’s music in the US on vinyl. Julie came out with the name of the label, which is based on a Lou Christie song.”

Others might have found Megira through Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman’s follow-up to his wildly popular (and Oscar-nominated) film Waltz with Bashir (2008). The film, sci-fi epic The Congress (2013), included music by Megira and also an animated version of the rocker. “It was great seeing my cartoon character alongside Elvis and Yoko Ono.”

Folman had heard Love Police and tracked Megira down to be in his film. In it, Megira’s cartoon performs his own original song — haunting, slow-burning “Tomorrow’s Gone,” off an early release — and also plays guitar on covers of Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” and Leonard Cohen’s “If It Be Your Will,” sung by actress Robin Wright in the film.

Appearing in Folman’s film was a coup, no doubt, but the move from Israel to Berlin with his wife and young son a few years back was an even bigger milestone, an epic journey north leading to a prime creativity peak. “It all felt a bit like The Flight Into Egypt theme you find in Gothic paintings. Germany is now our Egypt.”

In Berlin, he revived a sound he first visited in his Rock-n-Roll Fragments days and formed a band by the same name as that aforementioned track: Bet She’an Valley Hillbillies, with a bassist who goes by the Dead Girl (also a member of the Modern Dance Club) and bongo player named Corso, whom Megira met while doing integration classes at a college in Berlin.

For the Bet She’an Valley Hillbillies US tour, however, Michael Beach (Electric Jellyfish, Michael Beach, Shovels) and Alexa Pantalone (Pang, Penny Machine) will back Megira. No matter, he’s long been the songwriter and main driving force behind his bands, fronting with cool abandonment and a sweltering connection to vintage rockers of yore.

Like his sonic ancestors, moody rockers with greasy pomps and snarling attitude, he seems to be on the rebellious, rock ‘n’ roll trip — roaring with fuzzed-out ’50s riffs that still pummel like Link Wray, growling like Johnny Thunders — yet bound to family, home life, and even self-improvement.

However serious, Megira claims, “I want to finally learn how to sing and dance like a serious entertainer and to communicate with people like a normal person. Maybe I should take some courses or something.” But then he’d be a so-called normal person, and what fun is that?

Charlie Megira

With Dancer

Mon/28, 9pm, free

Vacation

651 Larkin, SF

www.vacation-sf.com


With Andy Human, Dancer, Big Tits

Tue/29, 9pm, $7

Night Light

311 Broadway, Oakl

www.thenightlightoakland.com

Events: April 23 – 29, 2014

Michael Redmond
-
0

Listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Selector.

WEDNESDAY 23

Susie Hara Green Arcade, 1680 Market, SF; www.thegreenarcade.com. 7pm, free. The author launches her new noir, Finder of Lost Objects.

“101 Vagina” Goforaloop Gallery, 1458 San Bruno, SF; www.101vagina.com. Noon-8pm. Free. Through Sun/27. Exhibit of 101 photographs (by artist Philip Werner) and 101 accompanying stories (by each photo’s subject) celebrating the female body.

Gertrude Stein centennial SF Public Library, Main Branch, 100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. 6-7pm, free. Celebrate the author’s Tender Buttons with editor Seth Perlow and guests Michelle Tea, Juliana Spahr, and Renate Stendahl.

“Word Performances” Lost Church, 65 Capp, SF; www.wordperformances.com. 8pm, $14. Poetry, prose, comedy, fiction, and memoir reading with Tina D’Elia, John Panzer, Ginger Murray, Tomas Moniz, and others, plus music by the Mark Growden Trio.

THURSDAY 24

Nitza Agam BookShop West Portal, 80 West Portal, SF; (415) 564-8080. 7pm, free. The author discusses her memoir Scent of Jasmine.

Andrew Demcak Books Inc., 2275 Market, SF; (415) 864-6777. 7:30pm, free. The poet and writer shares his latest, Ghost Songs.

Andrew Sean Greer Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF; www.booksmith.com. 7:30pm, free. The novelist reads from his latest work, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells.

“Poems Under the Dome” City Hall, North Light Court, 1 Carlton B. Goodlett Place, SF; www.poemdome.net. 5:30-8pm, free. Ninth annual celebration of National Poetry Month, with readings by SF poet laureate Alejandro Murguía and others.

Tony Serra City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus, SF; www.citylights.com. 7pm, free. The veteran attorney celebrates the release of Tony Serra: The Green, Yellow and Purple Years in the Life of a Radical Lawyer.

FRIDAY 25

Anne Carson San Francisco State University, Humanities Building, Rm 133, 1600 Holloway, SF; moderngreekstudies.sfsu.edu. 7pm, free. The MacArthur-winning scholar, poet, and translator reads from her latest work.

Omnidawn Book Party Pegasus Downtown, 2349 Shattuck, Berk; www.omnidawn.com. 7pm, free. Celebrate National Poetry Month with readings by Robin Caton, Maxine Chernoff, Gillian Conoley, and others.

SATURDAY 26

“Bug Day!” Randall Museum, 199 Museum Wy, SF; www.randallmuseum.org. 10am-2pm, $3. Family fun day all about bugs, with an “Insect Olympics,” honeybee hives, bug-related crafts, edible bugs, and more.

“Make It Reign 2014” Runway Style House Boutique, 1635 Broadway, Oakl; oaklandfashion.wordpress.com. 8pm, $5. Fashion show highlighting 18 Oakland and Bay Area indie designers.

Treasure Island Flea Great Lawn, Treasure Island; www.treasureislandflea.com. 10am-4pm, $3. Through Sun/27. It’s wine month at Treasure Island Flea — because nothing makes shopping more fun than a wine-tasting break. Also new: a produce part, a new section for DIY workshops, and more.

“Wrong’s What I Do Best” Walter and McBean Galleries, San Francisco Art Institute, 800 Chestnut, SF; sfai.edu/walter-and-mcbean-galleries. 7-10pm, free. Exhibit through July 26. Group show examining “the self-searing impulses of artists playing the role of one’s self as someone else.”

SUNDAY 27

Northern California Book Awards SF Public Library, Main Branch, 100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. 1-4pm, free. This year’s award-winning authors read, discuss, and sign their works.

Pacific Coast Dream Machines Show Half Moon Bay Airport, 9850 N. Cabrillo Hwy, Half Moon Bay; www.miramarevents.com. 10am-4pm, $5-20. Showcase of more than 2,000 antique, classic, custom, and exotic motorized marvels, plus boats, aircraft, live music, a “kidzone,” and more.

SF Native Plant Garden Tour Various locations, SF; www.sfnativegardentour.org. 11am-3pm, free. Check the website for the self-guided tour route, which offers a chance to see San Francisco-specific and Bay Area-native plants in gardens both wild and carefully tended.

MONDAY 28

Tess Taylor and D.A. Powell City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus, SF; www.citylights.com. 7pm, free. The poets read from their works, including Taylor’s new collection The Forage House.

TUESDAY 29

“Customs and Traditions of Ohlone Natives in the Bay Area” St. Philip’s Catholic Church, 725 Diamond, SF; www.sanfranciscohistory.org. 7:30pm, $5. SF History Association presents this talk by Ruth Orta and her daughter, Ramona Garibay, descendents of the Ohlone/Bay Miwok native people of the Bay Area.

Pamela Turner Saylor’s Restaurant (upstairs room), 2009 Bridgeway, Sausalito; www.acs-sfbay.org. 7-9pm, $5. The science writer, author of The Dolphins of Shark Bay, discusses bottlenose dolphins. *

 

Record Store Day: Where to get your (musical) high tomorrow

Steven T. Jones
-
0
Record Store Day: Where to get your (musical) high tomorrow

You did it! It’s Friday!

This weekend will see a convergence of two holidays that, come to think of it, overlap rather nicely given their impact on chocolate sales. Whether you’re celebrating the resurrection of Christ by donning an elaborate hat for church or the recent renewal of your medical marijuana card by finding new and creative ways to mainline THC (word to the wise: be careful in public this year), Sunday, April 20 is shaping up to be a fine day for people-watching in this city.

But hey, fellow music nerds: We all know both of those pale in comparison to what’s going down on Saturday. Yes, like the first esoteric, vinyl-collection obsessed, possibly slightly-condescending-at-times robin of Spring, Record Store Day is upon us once again. Tomorrow, Sat/19, will be a pretty good day to visit just about any (actual, brick-and-mortar, non-Internet-based) record store in the Bay Area. Now in its seventh year, the holiday — which, its website notes, was kicked off in 2008 at San Francisco’s Rasputin, by none other than the boys from Metallica — is celebrated at stores on every continent except Antarctica.

No need to pack your bags though: Here’s what’s going down at a few Bay Area establishments that sell music in all its excellent tangible, physical forms.

From the Mission’s Aquarius Records, owner (and Minor Forest drummer) Andee Connors wrote us the following when we asked what he was stoked on this year:

1. A Minor Forest, Flemish Altruism / Inindependence, 4 LP reissue on Thrill Jockey, both albums from this nineties math/post/noise rock band [acknowledgement of personal bias here]

1. The Ghostbusters‘ glow-in-the dark 10″

3. Ron Jeremy, Understanding and Appreciating Classical Music With Ron Jeremy, 7″ (only a 7″??)

4. Cardinal 2/t LP, vinyl reissue of this seminal baroque indie-pop classic

5. Scharpling & Wurster, Rock, Rot & Rule LP, vinyl reissue of maybe the funniest record ever, especially for music nerds

I think our customers are probably excited for those, but they’re / we’re also looking forward to the Heatmiser (Elliott Smith’s old band) LP reissues, the four soundtrack LPs on Death Waltz, Pussy Galore reissue, Rodion G.A. reissue, the Space Project compilation…also, we have a new release from local band Twin Trilogy, featuring Sean Smith, the first in a series, ONLY available at aQ on RSD, and on Sunday, Twin Trilogy will be playing a special in-store at aQ. Record store day part 2!!! [Ed. note: Should pair well with your other Sunday celebrations].

ron

Across the Bay at Oakland’s 1-2-3-4 Go!, a full-day party will kick off when the store opens at 8am. “Last year people started lining up around 4:30am, to give you a heads-up if you plan on coming for the opening,” advised owner Steve Stevenson, adding that they’ll have coffee from SubRosa and donuts from Pepples (while supplies last) for those of you who line up early.

Giveaway: A test pressing of the Green Day Demolicious 2xLP, autographed by Berkeley boy Billie Joe Armstrong. The first 100 people in line will get a raffle ticket; once the 100th person has handed in their ticket, the drawing will commence.

James Williamson of The Stooges will be doing a signing and chatting with fans from 10am to 11ish. (Ed. note: !!!!)

Hella Vegan Eats will be on hand making breakfast and lunch throughout the day. “Not free, but well worth it even if you’re not vegan,” says Steve. They’ll also have a couple of kegs from Linden Street Brewery for over-21 folks, for free, after noon.

Bands: Ghoul will be playing a very special “surf” set from their RSD Hang Ten 10″ out on Tank Crimes at 3pm, with Occultist opening. 

gd

An entirely non-comprehensive list of what’s happening at other stores:

Amoeba Berkeley — In-store DJ sets from Jonah Nice and DJ Inti; 20 percent off all turntables, posters, and some other accessories; giveaways TBA.

Amoeba SF — Same sales as above, plus live silk-screening from 11am to 2pm with special RSD 2014 designs, one by Zach of Saintseneca; t-shirts and totes available for purchase, with all proceeds going to the San Francisco Rock Project. Plus a full day of guest DJs, including folks like Andy Cabic of Vetiver and Ezana Edwards and Ryan Grubbs from Blood Sister.

Rasputin Berkeley: Free acoustic show by Phillip Phillips.

Groove Merchant Records (Haight): Cool Chris’ hand-picked “batch of 300+ Rock, Soul, Jazz, Italo Disco, and Post-Punk records (LP’s, 12”s, & 7”s),” selected especially for RSD.

And now a word from your Record Store Day 2014 ambassador, Public Enemy’s Chuck D, whose duties coincide with an RSD reissue of a very fine 1988 album. Happy crate-digging!

Happy hump day music news!

Steven T. Jones
-
0
Happy hump day music news!

Hiatus, schmiatus: Thee Oh Sees have been added to an already-dreamy Burger Boogaloo lineup. Catch ’em alongside OFF!, Shannon and the Clams, Nobunny, Terry Malts, and of course the inimitable Miss Ronnie Spector herself, July 5-6 at Mosswood Park in Oakland.

Who needs Coachella anyway? In between their two weekend stints at that shitshow of a music festival down south, Waxahatchee is playing a free show at UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza today at 5pm. Are you in Berkeley? It’s goddamn beautiful out. You should go.

Start your itinerizing: Outsidelands just announced each day’s lineup and put single-day tickets on sale. Are you in more of a Kanye-Disclosure-Warpaint-Mikal Cronin kind of mood? Or a Tom Petty-Tycho-Big Freedia head space? These are the tough questions.

Cocktails grow up: Don’t worry, one of SF’s favorite fuzz-power-pop bands hasn’t gone and gotten lame, though. This new track, “Tough Love,” off Adult Life, suggests the five-piece has gotten a little tighter and just a little slicker, in a good way. That record won’t be out until June 17, but you can probably hear a lot of it at the Rickshaw Stop this Fri/18, when they open at the EP release party for The She’s.

“My brain is a little addled in terms of my long-term memory.” That’s Courtney Love, in an excellent oral history of Hole’s Live Through This, in honor of the album’s 20th anniversary. No matter what you think of her or her Dave Grohl reconciliation or her mediocre missing airplane-finding skills, this album is still gorgeous and important and yes I will fight you about that.

Also, this interview.

This Week’s Picks: April 16 – 22, 2014

Michael Redmond
-
0

 

 

WEDNESDAY 16

Fourth Annual Spring Book Sale

Got a spare couple of bucks? Stock up on a year’s worth of reading! Fort Mason Center and Friends of the San Francisco Public Library are hosting one of the city’s largest book sales this week. Some 250,000 books ranging from classic prose to contemporary reads can be purchased for just a few bucks: $3 hard-covers, $2 paperbacks, and $1 DVDs, CDs, and books on tape. Dig through thousands of new and used books and you’ll find some truly awesome treasures. Imagine the wise words of Tolstoy, poignant social commentary of Austen, and lively stories by Twain, all under one roof. Surely you can scavenge for a copy of the Twilight series too, if that’s your thing. (Laura B. Childs)

Through April 20, 10am-6pm, free

Fort Mason Center, Festival Pavilion

2 Marina Blvd., SF

(415) 345 7500

www.friendssfpl.org

 

THURSDAY 17

The 1975

It’s not often that high school bands make it much further than senior prom, but the four members of The 1975 met when they were just hitting puberty. Ten years later, the British foursome released its self-titled album that debuted at the top of the UK Albums Chart — ahead of Nine Inch Nails’ comeback album nonetheless. The band struggled for years to find a label that understood its unique sound and identity. Self-proclaimed fans of ’80s pop and experimental music, The 1975 combines musical influences spanning several generations, resulting in an alternative rock sound with honeyed vocals, synth-pop beats, and gritty lyrics about modern youth. (Childs)

8pm, $25

The Fillmore

1805 Geary Blvd., SF

(415) 346 6000

www.thefillmore.com

 

‘Sorcerer’

William Friedkin’s thriller Sorcerer (1977) is a classic example of a movie that was sneered at upon its release — it had a troubled production with a runaway budget, and the bad fortune to open opposite eternal crowd-pleaser Star Wars — but is now considered a bona fide cult classic. This Georges Arnaud adaptation (previously tapped by Henri-Georges Clouzot for 1953’s The Wages of Fear) follows a group of reckless ne’er-do-wells (including 1970s icon Roy Scheider) as they truck nitroglycerine across perilous South American backroads. Here’s your chance to catch it on the Castro’s huge screen in digitally-remastered form — and yep, that includes Tangerine Dream’s memorable score. (Cheryl Eddy)

7pm, $11

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.castrotheatre.com

 

 

Queens of the Stone Age

This isn’t exactly a great moment for straight-up hard rock, so it’s a particularly good time for a fresh flurry of activity from Palm Desert’s finest. Like Clockwork, QOTSA’s first new disc since 2007 — a period marked by one former member’s death and leader Josh Homme’s near-miss after a botched operation, among other things — has been considered one of their best, coming complete with contributions from frequent collaborators Dave Grohl and Mark Lanegan, as well as guests including Trent Reznor and the unlikely Elton John. Who knows who might show up for this latest tour, which features yet another new incarnation of the core band lineup. For stylistic and gender contrast, trance-ier LA psych-rock quartet Warpaint open. (Dennis Harvey)

7:30pm, $45

Bill Graham Civic Auditorium

99 Grove, SF

(415) 974-4060

www.billgrahamcivicauditorium.com

 

FRIDAY 18


An Evening With Bob Saget

Alamo Square’s famous Painted Ladies may be the most well-known Full House relic San Francisco has to offer, but for one magical evening, they might just be upstaged — by the unpredictable, sleazy, somehow both repellent and strangely alluring comedic stylings of Danny Tanner himself, aka Bob Saget. It’s been years since the comedian shed his family-friendly veneer, so if you haven’t seen him since he was narrating stupid pet tricks on America’s Funniest Home Videos, don’t expect too many heartwarming, PG-rated anecdotes — a point he apparently delights in driving home: The book he’s promoting on this tour is called Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian. Nothing like adults-only night at the JCC. (Emma Silvers)

7pm, $25-$35

JCC of San Francisco

3200 California St, SF

www.jccsf.org

 

 

Tankcrimes Brainsqueeze

How’s your head, hesher? Finally recovered from October 2010 and the first Tankcrimes Brainsqueeze? Get ready to sacrifice your skull yet again, for Oakland’s Tankcrimes Records is back with another round of mind-melting (the press release actually says “face-raping”) music. And since this weekend includes the High Holy Day of 4/20, anything can and will happen — and you won’t remember any of it. Tonight and tomorrow at the Oakland Metro, bands include Ghoul, Cannabis Corpse, and Final Conflict (Fri/18), and Municipal Waste, Negative Approach, and Fucked Up (Sat/19). Sun/20, head to Eli’s Mile High Club for a show headlined by the almighty Brainoil. Nice knowing ya! (Cheryl Eddy)

7pm, $24

Oakland Metro

630 Third St, Oakl.

www.tankcrimes.com

 

SATURDAY 19

 

UnderCover Presents: Graceland

Nearly three decades after its release, there’s no denying the influence of Paul Simon’s most widely-loved album, a work that brought the sounds of South Africa to audiences around the world — and influence is what UnderCover is all about. For the past five years, the collective has been curating ambitious shows in which local musicians celebrate a classic album by re-interpreting, arranging, and performing it live — one song per artist — in a showcase of some of the Bay Area’s best talent. This rendition, featuring a diverse lineup of John Vanderslice, Diana Gameros, Afrofunk Experience, DRMS, Bill Baird, the Pacific Boychoir, and many others, got Paul Simon fans almost too excited: Its debut weekend, at the JCC, sold out, so organizers added tonight’s East Bay encore. Lucky for you. (Emma Silvers)

7pm, $26

Freight & Salvage

2020 Addison St, Berk.

(510) 644-2020

www.thefreight.org

 

 

RAWdance

You lose some, you gain some. With RAWdance relocating the 15th incarnation of their Concept series, the dancers don’t have to worry about hitting their head on the ceiling, or knocking over a viewer in a misjudged stride. Audience members, for their part, may no longer have to move the chairs for different seating arrangements but then with RAWdance you never know. The change to Joe Goode’s Annex allows for aerial dancing, a popular discipline in these parts, and you may even find a parking space. Performing this time will be Flyaway Productions, Christian Burns, Risa Jaroslow & Dancers, Erik Wagner / Crawl Space, Lindsey Renee Derry / L I n s d a n s, and RAWdance. Most importantly, the free popcorn will still be on the menu. (Rita Felciano)

April 18, 8pm; April 19, 3pm and 8pm, pay what you can

Joe Goode Annex

401 Alabama St, SF

(415) 686-0728

www.rawdance.org

 

SUNDAY 20

 

Liberating Legacies

Pillars of the queer community Celeste Chan and KB Boyce bring their latest Queer Rebels production, Liberating Legacies, to a free, all ages platform. It’s easy to praise popular media for its increase in queer representation, but queer and trans people of color are still often absent from the arts and entertainment that is most accessible. As ever, Queer Rebels are striving to shine the spotlight on those underrepresented artists and stories. Liberating Legacies will feature performers young and old, locally and internationally known, with a variety of talents including music, poetry, film and more. From globally known blues singer Earl Thomas, to Bay Area favorites and Queer Rebels alumni Jezebel Delilah X, Joshua Merchant, and Star Amerasu, Liberating Legacies stands to be a powerful gathering of talent. (Kirstie Haruta)

2pm, free

San Francisco Public Library, Koret Auditorium

100 Larkin, SF

(415) 581-3500

www.queerrebels.com

 

Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics 40th Anniversary Party

Forty years ago, two poets founded The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics as part of Chögyam Tungpa Ribpoche’s 100-year experiment. Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman envisioned a school dedicated to cultivating an innovative and contemplative approach to literary writing. The Jack Kerouac School is part of the Buddhist-inspired Naropa University, nestled deep in the Rocky Mountains, and the school’s name and curriculum pay tribute to the iconic novelist and poet best known as the face of the Beat Generation. So of course City Lights is throwing a party for the experimental college’s 40th birthday! The independent bookstore will host an evening of readings by JKS faculty and other special guests.

5pm, free

City Lights Bookstore

261 Columbus, SF

(415) 362 8193

www.citylights.com

 

MONDAY 21

David Crosby

If you missed rock icon David Crosby’s February shows at Great American Music Hall, don’t worry — he did too. Touring in support of Croz, his first solo album in more than 20 years, Crosby suffered tour-interruptus: emergency cardiac catheterization on Feb. 14. Crosby’s bona fides include founding membership in the Byrds and, of course, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, both gigs earned him entry to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. His medical resume is also packed: liver transplant (1994, paid for by Phil Collins), alcohol and drug addictions, and type 2 diabetes, in addition to his recent “life-saving” heart procedures. But the legendary 72-year-old singer seems to have more lives than an alley full of cats. Back on the road, Crosby has said, “It seems I am once again a very lucky man.” (Kyle Patrick O’Brien)

8pm, $60

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell St, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com

 

The Men

Calling all people who read Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 and loved it: The Men are coming to San Francisco. Playing alongside ’80s SST worshippers Gun Outfit and sludgy rockers CCR Headcleaner, the band is unquestionably influenced by the likes of Meat Puppets and Husker Du at times. But as The Men have progressed more in recent years, they have become a quintessential rock band, taking nods to Neil Young and Big Star (the cover of their latest album, Tomorrow’s Hits, even appears to be an homage to Alex Chilton’s most widely known band). That said, if you would like to see if the spirit of aggressive indie rock is alive and well — this is the event for you. (Erin Dage)

With Gun Outfit, CCR Headcleaner

8pm, $12 Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com


The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian, 225 Bush, 17th Flr., SF, CA 94105; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Events: April 16 – 22, 2014

Michael Redmond
-
0

Listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Selector.

WEDNESDAY 16

“Globular Clusters of the Milky Way” Randall Museum, 199 Museum Way, SF; www.randallmuseum.org. 7:30pm, free. Calling all Cosmos fans: UC Santa Cruz Professor of Astronomy Graeme Smith delivers this talk as part of the San Francisco Amateur Astronomers’ 2014 lecture series.

Myra McPherson Green Arcade, 1680 Market, SF; www.thegreenarcade.com. 7pm, free. The author discusses The Scarlet Sisters: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in the Gilded Age.

Elizabeth Scarboro and Louise Aronson Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF; www.booksmith.com. 7:30pm, free. The authors read from My Foreign Cities and A History of the Present Illness, respectively.

“Smack Dab” Magnet, 4122 18th St, SF; www.magnetsf.org. 8pm, free. Open mic for writers and musicians, with featured performer Blair Hansen.

Kevin Young City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus, SF; www.citylights.com. 7pm, free. The poet reads from his new collection, Book of Hours.

THURSDAY 17

Kaya Press 20th Anniversary City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus, SF; www.citylights.com. 7pm, free. With Sesshu Foster, Gene Oishi, Amamath Rawa, and Shailja Patel.

“The Natural and Cultural History of Yerba Buena Island” Randall Museum, 199 Museum Wy, SF; www.randallmuseum.org. 7:30pm, free. The 2014 SF Natural History Lecture Series continues with this talk about Yerba Buena Island’s ecological secrets by Ruth Gravanis.

FRIDAY 18

“Birding the Hill” Corona Heights Park, behind Randall Museum, 199 Museum Way, SF; www.randallmuseum.org. 8am, free. Beginning birders are welcome to this 2.5 hour walk scouting the park’s avian inhabitants.

SATURDAY 19

Emil DeAndreis Green Apple Books, 506 Clement, SF; www.greenapplebooks.com. 6pm, free. The author reads from Beyond Folly.

Earth Day Bay Area Discovery Museum, Fort Baker, 447 McReynolds, Sausalito; www.baykidsmuseum.org. 9am-5pm, $11. Live music, hands-on craft projects using recycled materials, storytelling, and more for kids and their families.

Earth Day SF UN Plaza, Civic Center, SF; www.earthdaysf.org. 10am-6pm, free. This year’s theme is “A Call to Action,” so look for speakers and booths addressing climate change, green activism, and other social-justice topics. Of course, there will also be plenty of music (by headliners New Monsoon and the Earth Day All Star Band, among others), dance performances, an eco fashion show, a sustainable chef showcase, and more.

“Earth Day on the Bay” Marine Science Institute, 500 Discovery Pkwy, Redwood City; www.sfbaymsi.org. 10am-5pm, free. The Institute opens to the public just once a year, and today’s the day. Families are invited for hands-on science fun (touch a shark!).

“Eggstravaganza 2014” Sharon Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.sfrecpark.org. 11am-3pm, $8. Egg hunts, carnival rides, games, live entertainment, and a barbecue competition between city agencies highlight this family-friendly Easter event.

“Great Egg Hunt” Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate, 2960 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakl; www.dunsmuir-hellman.com. Noon-3pm, $3-5. Oakland’s largest egg hunt (also on tap: a petting zoo, face painting, crafts, and more) covers the grounds of the 1899 mansion.

Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival Japantown, SF; www.sfcherryblossom.org. Times and prices vary. Through Sun/20. Celebrate Japanese culture and the Japanese American community at this 47th annual street fair, boasting food booths, live music, martial arts demonstrations, and more.

“Party for the Planet” Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Rd, Oakl; www.oaklandzoo.org. 10am-3pm, $11.75-15.75. 50 local environmental organizations participate in this zoo bash, which will feature over 50 “interactive Earth Stations” throughout the facility. Plus: live animal presentations, live music, and more.

“SuperAwesome: Art and Giant Robot” and “Vinyl: The Sound and Culture of Records” Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak, Oakl; www.museumca.org. 11am-5pm, $6-20. Through July 27. Two new exhibits open today at OMCA: the first highlighting 15 artists associated with Asian and Asian American pop culture-focused magazine Giant Robot, and the second exploring “the social and cultural phenomenon of listening to, collecting, and sharing records.”

SUNDAY 20

“Easter in Golden Gate Park” Hellman Hollow, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.thesisters.org. Children’s Easter, 10am; main event, noon. Free. Hunky Jesus has risen! And this year, he’s got Foxy Mary with him! It’s the 35th year for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s flamboyant Easter festivities. Crucial info: the theme is “The Emerald Jubilee, A ‘Trip” to Oz;” and since Dolores Park is temporarily closed, it all goes down in Golden Gate Park.

Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics 40th Anniversary Party City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus, SF; www.citylights.com. 5pm, free. Andrea Rexillus hosts readings by Robert Gluck, Juliana Spahr, Cedar Sigo, Eric Baus, Michelle Naka Pierce, and Chris Pusateri.

“The Szyk Haggadah” Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission, SF; www.thecjm.org. 1-2pm, free with museum admission ($10-12). Also April 27, 3-4pm. The Arthur Szyk scholar discusses the artist’s masterwork in this gallery talk.

Union Street Easter Parade and Spring Celebration Union between Gough and Fillmore, SF; www.sresproductions.com. 10am-5pm, free. A parade, an Easter bonnet contest, live entertainment, and lots of kid-friendly fun highlight this 23rd annual event.

TUESDAY 22

Doug Fine Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF; www.booksmith.com. 7:30pm, free. Celebrate Earth Day with this reading by the author of Hemp Bound: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Next Agricultural Revolution.

Sixteen Rivers Press reading City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus, SF; www.citylights.com. 7pm. With poetry readings by Beverly Burch and Murray Silverstein. *

 

East Bay Beats

Steven T. Jones
-
0
East Bay Beats

esilvers@sfbg.com

LEFT OF THE DIAL Dayvid Michael, a West Oakland native and member of the CaliMade hip-hop crew, clearly has some mixed feelings about his debut record, Frienemy.

“I mean, I wrote those songs when I was 18,” says the rapper, drinking boba milk tea during an interview in downtown Oakland. “I’m still proud of them, but I’ve learned so much since then.”

That album dropped the last week of December 2012 — which means Michael’s reminiscing at the ripe old age of 21. But, to be fair, the past couple years have been big ones for someone who calls himself a “reluctant rapper” (until about age 17, he mostly wanted to sing and play guitar).

With CaliMade, a loose collective of Oakland-born guys who’ve been friends from elementary school, as well as other young DJs and producers, he performed at Hiero Day, steps away from Bay Area hip-hop legends. He’s guested on a few songs by Iamsu, a rapper whom, Michael rightly notes, you will hear if you put on 106.1 KMEL for more than 15 minutes right now; CaliMade is now working closely with the (slightly) elder rapper’s own crew, the HBK Gang. And 2014’s shaping up to be a big one: He just got done recording a new project with Azure, an Oakland rapper poised for big things in his own right as well as being Iamsu’s DJ, and Clyde Shankle, another member of CaliMade. Michael’s also working on his sophomore solo album, which will be out by the end of the year.

In other words, he’s an Oakland kid to keep your eye on — which makes him a perfect selection for Oakland Drops Beats, a new free, all-ages, quarterly music festival that features some 30-plus East Bay artists, spread out over 10 different stages and venues in downtown Oakland; the kickoff festival is April 19.

Its lineup is, in and of itself, a testament to the range of music coming out of Oakland right now: From the jazz-hip-hop blend of the Kev Choice Ensemble to the underrated indie rock of Oakland mainstays B. Hamilton to the funk-soul dance party music of Sal’s Greenhouse — not to mention a distinctly family-friendly vibe courtesy of Bay Area Girls Rock Camp and the presence of Youth Radio — the music “crawl,” as organizers are billing it, aims to serve as both a celebration of the city’s established artists and a new platform through which up-and-coming musicians can get some stage time.

Inspired by the Venice Music Crawl in LA, musician-organizer-founder Angelica Tavella first began reaching out to Oakland event producers over the summer, with the idea in mind that there are lots of community organizers and promoters “already doing cool stuff in other parts of Oakland, but really doing their own thing,” she says.

“This was, here’s a space where we could all do that together, for a couple hours, on this one day. And I really had in mind that it should be downtown Oakland — specifically not in Uptown, which already has the Art Murmur…there are a lot of great small shop owners, a lot of great energy, and cool new things going on downtown. But there aren’t a lot of venues for something like a public music performance to happen.”

Tavella was quickly overwhelmed by the level of interest and enthusiasm from business owners and event producers — especially considering that the festival is all volunteer-run for now (including pro bono performances by musicians). The goal for the next one, which will take place in the last week of July or the first week of August, is to fundraise enough to pay musicians for their performances, while keeping admission free to the public.

Eventually, Tavella hopes to have the free daytime performances segue into a nighttime music crawl that would bring business to the venues in downtown Oakland. And with more and more musicians and artists getting priced out of San Francisco and heading East, organizers shouldn’t have too hard a time finding fresh talent to fill a bill every three months.

Dayvid Michael will be performing in the afternoon with the CaliMade crew at Le Qui Vive, a gallery at 15th and Webster. He feels at home there — it’s one of the first venues where CaliMade began performing a few years ago, and he says the folks behind it are part of the community that makes him feel so lucky to be calling Oakland home.

“When people from outside the Bay Area think about the Bay Area, they think of two things — we’re hyphy, we know how to have fun; and also the diversity of the city,” says Michael, who also does graphics work for Youth Radio (he basically “hung around” until they let him). “I feel like as representatives, the HBK Gang and Cali Made can fulfill both of those perceptions. And my personal goal is to show the world that we’re more than just party music. We can do that too — but we want to offer more than that.”

“This place is so rich in culture, intelligence, legacy. I love it here,” he says, and thinks for a minute. “If Oakland had waterfalls, I would never go anywhere else.” Fair enough.

Oakland Drops Beats
Sat/19, 2pm (all day), free
10 venues between Broadway and Harrison/14th and 19th St, Oak.
www.oaklanddropsbeats.com  

ONLY YOU CAN SAVE COLLEGE RADIO

 Talk about “left of the dial.” If you’ve only been in the city a couple years, you might not be aware that there was a time when KUSF — that’s the student-run radio station of the University of San Francisco — wasn’t in exile. It’s been over three years since the university sold the station (which had been broadcasting since 1963 at 90.3 FM) without public input or comment, for $3.75 million, to the Classical Public Radio Network, aka CPRN, via a complex three-way deal between the University of Southern California, that station, and the corporate broadcasting giant Entercom.

Since that time, KUSF DJs and friends of the station have been operating the station online, 24 hours a day, from the Lightrail Studios, growing a registered nonprofit arm with a new name: San Francisco Community Radio. All the while, those who love the station have been embroiled in — to use the technical legal terminology — a bureaucratic shitshow, as they try to prove that the sale was illegal. They’ve had some small successes in proving certain aspects of the transaction were unlawful, and currently have an appeal before the FCC.

Then, at the end of 2013, the FCC began issuing low-power FM licenses for the first time in about a decade. KUSF-In-Exile has an application in for 102.5 — but they’re up against at least seven other groups, including, as KUSF members understand it, a mega-church. The central goal, say organizers, is simply to get back on the (non-internet based) airwaves, one way or another. But “It’s a lot of hurry up and wait,” says SFCR board member and treasurer Damin Esper of the situation. “Which, obviously, isn’t very satisfying to us or to our supporters.”

In the meantime, the station has been throwing fundraiser shows to help pay for ongoing legal fees, and the one this April 20, naturally, is the third incarnation of their annual stoner-rama affair. Oakland punks Violence Creeps, who’ll be opening for the current incarnation of Black Flag at Brick & Mortar in May, will be headlining, alongside psych-rockers Mondo Drag and plenty of other wild, weird, woolly favorites; visuals, should you happen to have ingested anything that would make you want to look at cool visuals, will be provided by veteran stock-footage auteurs Oddball Films. All of the funds raised will go to SFCR’s legal fight; there will also be members on hand to talk volunteer opportunities — college radio-loving grantwriters, are you out there?

When it comes to the original sale, Esper says, “It’s clear that laws were broken. It could be found to be illegal in court…but one of the reasons the big guys always win in situations like this is it’s hard to keep people engaged, reminded of the situation. This is bigger than just KUSF. This is happening all over the country. College radio is under attack.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0MiS923Jfo

SFCR’s Blown-Out, Blowout Benefit III
Sun/20, 8pm, $7
Thee Parkside 1600 17th St, SF
www.theeparkside.com

Oh, one last thing: There’s also a little event called Record Store Day coming up, so get out that piggy bank — this is what people mean when they talk about having an “emergency fund,” right? Anyway: So much going on, so little space. Check the Bay Guardian’s Noise blog this week for special in-store events and one-day-only releases.

SEIU-backed initiatives seek to cap healthcare costs and executive pay

Sasha Cuttler
-
7
SEIU-backed initiatives seek to cap healthcare costs and executive pay

Health care costs are skyrocketing across the country, but two proposed ballot initiatives in California are aiming to rein in health care spending, which the Centers for Disease Control estimates at $2.6 trillion annually nationwide. Both measures are currently gathering signatures to be placed on the November ballot.  

Service Employees International Union authored the Charitable Hospital Compensation Act (CHCA) and the Fair Healthcare Pricing Act (FHPA), which are designed to directly deal with the high costs at nonprofit hospitals. CHCA seeks to cap the salary for executives at  nonprofit hospitals at $450,000 a year, the same salary as the President of the United States. FHPA would limit the amount charged for services to 25 percent above the estimated costs of providing care.

“Health care costs have been out of control for years. These initiatives are two modest things we can do to rein that in. We can make sure that hospitals don’t take ridiculous profits on the materials and services they provide and we can hold pay for executives to a reasonable level” says Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), who endorsed both initiatives, “When so many people are struggling to pay for health care, it’s the least we can do.”

Executive pay at nonprofit hospitals is out of control. Former CEO of San Francisco-based Blue Shield of America Bruce Bodaken earned $4.6 million in 2010. Former CEO of Oakland-based Kaiser Permanente George Halvorso  earned $6.7 million in the same year.

“Compensation” is strictly defined by the measure, including compensation in the form of bonuses, forgiven loans, and even access to a company car.  

“There is some symbolic value to that… people say that running a hospital is like running a hospital is like running a city,” said Dave Regan, president of SEIU-UHW. “You will not find a mayor in America that makes anywhere close to $450,000 a year, let alone $1.5 million. In fact, the person in charge of leading America makes $450,000 a year. We think that [executive] compensation has gotten out of whack.”

The actual costs for services in US hospitals is also out of whack. According to the World Bank, the US spends 17.9 percent of its Gross Domestic Product on healthcare, the most of any country on earth. But, according to the World Health Organization, the US ranks a dismal 37th in quality of healthcare.

US hospitals have grown infamous for overcharging for services and things like aspirin and ibuprofen. On average in California, charging from 325-800 percent above the actual cost for those services and supplies. FHPA is aimed to help  the US residents pay less for health care. Its goal is to lower the costs of services at non-profit hospitals by capping the amount charged for services to 25 percent above the estimated costs of providing care.

“Cost includes the salary of doctors, nurses and other caregiver… supplies, all of that… You take those costs and add 25 percent. That seems to us, a very healthy and large operating margin,” Regan said. “This will prevent the worst abuses by the most aggressive hospital providers in the state. Everyone knows hospital care costs too much, nobody knows what they’re going to get charged before they see bills… We believe this [FHPA] will reduce what patients are paying… and the hospital industry will be perfectly healthy.”

Both initiatives are also designed to increase transparency by forcing nonprofit hospitals to disclose their 10 highest paid executives and five ex-executives with the highest paid severance package, along with a detailed breakdown of the compensation or severance package, on a yearly bases.

They also have  teeth. Penalties for violating any of conditions set forth in the initiatives can trigger fines of up to $100,000. Even with these blaring facts, the hospital industry is expected to fight the health care measures to the bitter end.  SEIU has already fired shot by releasing an ad. But the hospital industry is predicted to dump millions into this battle to keep the status quo.

Both the California Hospital Association and the Hospital Council of Northern and Central California declined to comment on the initiatives. But a public relations officer from CHA  told the Guardian that the hospital industry and SEIU are looking for a “non-initiative solution.”

However, critics of the initiatives have banded together to fight the pair of healthcare reforms. A CHA-funded group call itself Californians Against Initiative Abuse released an ad accusing the initiatives of being a ploy to increase SEIU’s power . Calling the initiates, “deceptive, dangerous and dishonest.”

Literature on the group’s website spells out healthcare domesday if the initiatives are approved in November, including layoffs, reduced services, and hospital closures — and a decrease of hundreds of millions of dollars in Medi-Cal funding, handing back what it claims is $1 billion in funds to the federal government.

Whatever the outcome of the November ballot, the consequences of keeping the current trend of health care costs are catastrophic.

“Without reasonable health care reform, there are estimates that the health care costs can reach 30 percent of GDP in the future.” California Sen. Mark Leno told the Guardian, “This is not sustainable.  We have to get a handle on this.”

Both Kaiser and Blue Shield declined to comment.

 

1...678...115Page 7 of 115

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org