SF Archives — Page 285 of 427 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

LSD as gateway drug

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August 18, 2009

OPINION I took my first acid trip in 1965 at Tim Leary’s LSD research center in Millbrook, N.Y. He was supposed to be my guide, but he had gone off to India. Ram Dass (then Richard Alpert) was supposed to take his place, but he was involved in preparing to open at the Village Vanguard as a psychedelic comedian-philosopher. So my guide was Michael Hollingshead, the British rascal who had originally turned Leary on.

When I told my mother about taking LSD, she was quite concerned.

"It could lead to marijuana," she warned.

Meanwhile, a whole new generation of pioneers was traveling westward, without killing a single Indian along the way. San Francisco became the focus of this pilgrimage. On Haight Street, runaway youngsters — refugees from their own families — stood outside a special tour bus — guided by a driver "trained in sociological significance."

On the day that LSD became illegal — Oct. 6, 1966 — at precisely two o’clock in the afternoon, a cross-fertilization of mass protest and tribal celebration took place, as several hundred explorers of inner space simultaneously swallowed tabs of acid while the police stood by helplessly. Internal possession wasn’t against the law.

On another occasion, folks from all over the Bay Area were ingesting LSD in preparation for the Acid Test at Longshoreman’s Hall, organized by Ken Kesey and his Band of Merry Pranksters. The ballroom was seething with celebration, thousands of bodies stoned out of their minds, unduutf8g to rock bands amid balloons and streamers and beads, with a thunder machine and strobe lights flashing, so that even the Pinkerton guards were high by contact. Kesey asked me to take the microphone and contribute a running commentary on the scene.

"All I know," I began, "is that if I were a cop and I came in here, I wouldn’t know where to begin…."

My next stop was determined by a press release from the campaign headquarters of Robert Scheer, a Democrat who was running for Congress in Oakland: "Usually informed sources reported today that an outlawed left-wing psychedelic splinter within the Scheer campaign will caucus with Paul Krassner at 2 a.m. Saturday night, at the Jabberwock. These authoritative sources reported that Krassner, who has just returned from Washington, will deliver a preview of the State of the Union Message for 1966."

Although decriminalization of marijuana was one of Scheer’s platform planks, he admitted to the audience that he wouldn’t smoke pot himself as long as it was illegal. I in turn announced that I wouldn’t stop smoking pot until it was legal. The previous year, before I emceed a teach-in at the Berkeley campus, Stew Albert of the Vietnam Day Committee had introduced me to Thai stick, and I became a dedicated toker.

"Now I know why there’s a war going on in Southeast Asia," I observed. "To protect the crops."

That simple quote was enough to land my picture on the cover of the Berkeley Barb, smoking a joint. But my mother was right. LSD did lead to marijuana. *

Paul Krassner was the founder of The Realist (an alternative press prototype), is the author of Who’s to Say What’s Obscene: Politics, Culture and Comedy in America Today and In Praise of Indecency: Dispatches From the Valley of Porn, and is a monthly columnist for SF Carnal Nation (sf.carnalnation.com)

SF hotel workers rally against corporate cutbacks

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August 18, 2009

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By Cecile Lepage and Megan Rawlins

“What do we want? Contract!
When do we want it? Now!”

It was to the beat of this straightforward chant that close to 1,700 hotel workers marched through downtown San Francisco on Friday, Aug. 14, the day their union contract officially expired. “Today, I’m here to fight for a fair new contract, said Elita Judge, a 10-year housekeeper at the Hotel Vitale. “We want to maintain the high quality health care that we’re enjoying right now.”

Friday’s parade was organized to send a message to the hotel management companies: Unite Here Local 2 union members – who make up 90 percent of the industry employees – are determined to uphold their living standards as negotiations for a new contract are launched.

SF Street Art: Buh-bye…

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August 14, 2009

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By Kimberly Chun

An artifact from another age … well, from late ’08. Spotted at around Divisadero and Bush (near the corner where some wag reworked the “Bush” street sign to read “Puppet”).

Hotel workers strife returns to SF

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August 13, 2009

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By Steven T. Jones

Image from SF Chronicle

San Francisco hotel workers plan to demonstrate in the streets tomorrow afternoon, the day that UNITE-HERE Local 2’s contracts with the major San Francisco hotels expire, launching what could well be another pitched labor battle with larger political implications.

In 2004, shortly after Gavin Newsom became mayor, a standoff between the union and the coalition of corporations that own the city’s biggest hotels resulted in strikes and lockouts that were San Francisco’s most significant labor fights of the new century. Newsom tried to mediate the conflict and when the hotels (which had back him for mayor) defied his demand to end the lockout, he walked the picket line with workers.

That moment and Newsom’s decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples that same year were arguably the high water marks for his standing with progressives. After that, he checked out, moved to the right, and began to pursue celebrity and the governor’s office.

Now, with hotels apparently using the economic downturn as an excuse to cut their workers’ numbers and benefits, the union gearing up for the fight of its life, and Newsom more focused on running for office than city business, this one might just get ugly. The fun begins at 4 p.m., near the Four Seasons Hotel, Market between 3rd and 4th streets.

Bombshell Betty TV?

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August 13, 2009

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By Molly Freedenberg

She’s been happily teaching regular ol’ women how to be pretty, pouty pin-ups in her adorable SoMa studio for years – but now Bombshell Betty wants to take her talents to television. Take a look at promo videos Miss B. hopes will get cable TV’s attention below and here. If you like what you see, leave a comment. Who knows? Our girl could be the biggest busty Betty on TV since Ms. Boop.

Bombshell Betty’s
715 Bryant, SF
(415) 574-8785
www.bombshellbetty.net

Hot sex events this week: August 12-18

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August 13, 2009

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Compiled by Molly Freedenberg

Trace Kitten on the Keys’ figure with your fingertips … on the page, of course … at Dr. Sketchy’s on Monday.

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>> Asking for What You Want in the Bedroom and Beyond
Marcia Baczynski leads this workshop on speaking up about what turns you on. Learn to be assertive, yet sensitive and generous.

Thurs/13, 7-9pm. $12-$20.
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF
www.sexandculture.org

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>> Ask Our Doctors: Anal Sex
Celebrate anal Sex Month by learning what you need to know to have hot, fun, safe anal play! Join Dr. Carol Queen as she explains the ins and outs of anal sex in a comfortable, conversational context.

Thurs/13, 5:30pm. Free.
Good Vibrations Berkeley
2504 San Pablo Ave, Berk.
events.goodvibes.com

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>> Where the Girls Are!
Erotica extraordinarie D.L. King makes an SF stop on her west coast reading tour, featuring Girl Crazy, Lesbian Cowboys, and the tour’s namesake novel, Where the Girls Are!

Fri/14, 7:30-9:30pm. By donation.
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF
www.sexandculture.org

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>> Lick It
What do you have a taste for? Find out with host Lance Holman, lickable gogo dancers, and decadent raffles.

Fri/14, 10pm-1am. $5.
Powerhouse
1347 Folsom, SF
www.powerhouse-sf.com

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Sonic Reducer Overage: Lil Wayne, Green Day, Down, and more

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August 13, 2009

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Kimberly Chun

Les Paul, Rashied Ali – Big Daddy Death keeps claiming another one. Goddamnit. You can find me at the bar, buried in vodka tonics, till you finally find the strength to perk up, listen to Interstellar Space again, stroke your koa-wood SG, and contemplate all the live music, still kicking all around you.

Society of Rockets and Dominique Leone
The SF psychedelicists bang noggins with the congenial local, NorCal synthesist. Thurs/13, 9 p.m., $10. Café du Nord, 2170 Market, S.F. (415) 861-5016.

Solillquists of Sound
Me likee the bubbling, robo-futuristic beats of the Orlando, Fla., quartet’s new No More Heroes – and the live act is supposed to be pretty awesome, too. With 40Love and Zutra. Thurs/13, 9 p.m., $10. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455.

Moving backward

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August 12, 2009

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rebeccab@sfbg.com

San Francisco’s city budget was signed into law Aug. 4, but a group of city workers is pushing the Board of Supervisors to reverse a cut that they say reflects a giant step backward for progressive San Francisco values.

Service Employees International Union Local 1021, about 18,000 strong in San Francisco, has launched a campaign to restore pay cuts to certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and unit clerks who staff the city’s medical facilities, arguing that the demotions reverse a decades-old commitment pay equity between men and women.

Proposition H, approved by voters in November 1986, enshrined the principle of comparable worth in San Francisco. It required the city to ensure that municipal jobs dominated primarily by women provided wages on par with male-dominated jobs that have similar qualifications.

Jobs held by mostly female employees also tend be staffed by people of color, so the move to create equity in pay was meant to address systemic sexism and racial discrimination. Unit clerks and CNAs seem to fit the bill, and their salaries were gradually increased after 1986.

As part of the midyear budget cuts, 88 CNAs who work at SF General Hospital were laid off and simultaneously rehired as patient care assistants, a job with similar responsibilities but only 79 percent of the salary (from an average annual salary of $56,589 down to $45,032). Another group of CNAs is scheduled for similar demotions in November. Cuts to clerical workers’ wages are also pending and most will be reclassified with 15 percent less pay (from $52,845 to $45,266).

"It wipes out the advantage that they had," says Local 1021 health care industry chair Ed Kinchley. "Group by group, they’re wiping out the pay differential."

"This is the first wave of an overall effort to undermine comparable worth," union organizer Robert Haaland charged in a letter to the Board of Supervisors. "We ask you to join with progressives to defend the principle of equal pay for women and minorities."

SEIU held an Aug. 7 forum to discuss the cuts at SF General, with Sups. John Avalos, David Campos, Eric Mar, and Ross Mirkarimi in attendance. CNAs and unit clerks packed the audience — a crowd that was indeed made up of many women of color.

One was Theresa Rutherford, a CNA at Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center. "We’re the first ones to note when a patient is not doing well," Rutherford explained to the supervisors. "It’s a job that requires a lot of commitment." She described the long hours and the bonds that develop with patients, saying CNAs are counted on by "the person who has no family members left — so you become the family member."

"Best-quality care costs," Rutherford added. "It’s not cheap."

Avalos, who chairs the Budget and Finance Committee, said he was infuriated by the pay cuts. He spoke about a possible supplemental appropriation to address the issue. "We have to find the revenue for that to happen," he said. "Push as hard as you can on City Hall, and I’ll fight as well."

Tom Jackson, there representing Sup. Chris Daly, also urged the workers to apply pressure. "As far as labor practices go, this is a test," he said. "You’ve been fighting for decades [for pay equity] … and they’re ready to wipe it away because we have a bad economy."

Department of Public Health Chief Financial Officer Gregg Sass responded to SEIU’s charges by telling the Guardian: "We disagree with the SEIU comparable worth argument. Further, SEIU was not able to get member approval of a tentative agreement that might have prevented layoffs and position conversions during last fiscal year."

Supervisors added $500,000 back into the final budget to stave off some conversions. SEIU members contend that the add-back was supposed to retroactively restore cuts to the 88 CNAs, but Sass told us, "I am not aware of any action at the [Board of Supervisors] to that effect."

A memo that DPH Director Mitch Katz sent to Board President David Chiu noted that "difficult decisions had to be made to reach the financial target," and said the CNA conversions were made "following discussions with the city’s Department of Human Resources and SEIU."

At the forum, Halaand pointed to a report from the Controller’s Office revealing a 20 percent growth in management positions under Mayor Gavin Newsom’s administration. "There’s a lot of padding of their wallets at the top. At the bottom, they’re devaluing," he told the workers. "There seems to be money out there, but it’s just not for us."

Campos told us he plans to request a hearing to examine managerial promotions as well as the ethnic and gender makeup of the city’s highest-ranking positions. As for whether some of these cuts might be restored, he told us, "I think that’s a real possibility. I am hopeful it will happen."

A study released this year by San Francisco’s Department on the Status of Women compares women’s median salaries to average men’s earnings. According to the report, the median annual wage for Latina women is 52 percent of men’s earnings; African American women earn 58 percent; Asian women 63 percent; and white women 88 percent.

Another round of pink slips go out Sept. 16, so SEIU is planning a rally at City Hall that day to demand that the city uphold comparable worth.

Worth it

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August 12, 2009

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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS He signs his e-mails Romeo. I sign mine Juliet. It’s cute, but you try not to think about how that one ends.

You know … well, you probably don’t know, so I’ll tell ya: if you’re a trans woman dating men, you can spend years and years and years trying to find one who doesn’t either cream his pants or throw up as soon as you take your clothes off. And then, by some miracle of shifting continents and a spectacularly rare alignment of stars, planets, and good hair days, you do! You find, in fact, the one. Now, like everybody else in love, you have to kinda wait. And see. What happens.

There are questions. There is distance. There are Capulets and Montagues, jobs, exes, currents. There are riptides and undertows, sharks, lions and tigers and bears … and there are days when you feel like you are on Cloud 10. I like those days. They’re way better than the other ones, where you feel like you are hacking your way through a jungle of impossibility with a plastic butter knife and without mosquito repellent.

Yo, Shakey, is this what love is supposed to feel like? A million mosquito bites? Probably not, but I’ll take it. I’ll take it because it’s perfect. It’s perfect! It really is — give or take 5,822 miles and a logistical conundrum that would make Alfred North Whitehead reach for his binkie — perfect.

My head hurts. Again. (And again and again.) The last time I remember feeling really physically good, let’s see, I was sitting in my new favorite restaurant with my soccery girlfriends, eating grilled meatball and green apple spring rolls dipped in this insanely delicious orange pork sauce.

And if you think that sounds slightly odd, the next item on the menu is a grilled shrimp Popsicle on sugar cane.

No, it’s not some kind of funky fusion foofoo place, it’s Pot de Pho, Geary and Parker streets, and I love it. Yeah, it’s a little pricier than most Vietnamese restaurants, but worth it because it’s worth it, and fun. They don’t overly worry about authenticity. I like that. It’s like, let’s do Vietnamese food with all the best ingredients possible, well-researched recipes, and a sense of fun.

Our waiterguyperson, like the menu, was full of enthusiasm. He told us he was starting a new happy hour thing, making cocktails and punch and stuff using just wine and sake by way of alcohol.

The pho was good, I didn’t order it, of course, because I’d eaten noodle soup for lunch and dinner the day before, and still had a big pot of it at home in my fridge. But I did taste.

It’s $10 for a large bowl, $8.75 for a medium, and $5 child size. And, although they do offer a chicken pho, a vegan pho, and even (for a couple bucks more) an ahi tuna pho, they don’t offer tendon and tripe as options for their beef pho.

That’s the kind of thing I might have made fun of them for a few years ago — even though I would have been snickering over a bowl with just rare steak, every time.

Oy.

Bean sprouts are in the soup, not on the side. Wide rice noodles instead of vermicelli. They have a Vietnamese sandwich, but in a green onion crepe instead of a crusty French roll … The authenticity snobs will complain. But you know what? The older I get, the more I couldn’t care less about words like authentic and traditional, and grammar in general.

If it wasn’t for inauthenticity and maltradition somewhere down the line, we’d all be having bananas and bugs for lunch. Thank you, I’ll try the green apple spring rolls and green onion crepes.

Speaking of crepes, I’m pretty sure the French gave pho to the Vietnamese, not to mention French bread.

That’s why Pot de Pho is my new favorite restaurant, for giving us grilled shrimp Popsicles. And because the teacups are a pretty shade of green, and the chairs there are cushy and comfortable. I need that right now. Pretty shades of green and a soft, comfy chair.

POT DE PHO

Tues.-Thurs., Sun.: 11 a.m.-10 p.m.

Fri.-Sat.: 11 a.m.-11 p.m.; closed Mon.

3300 Geary, SF

(415) 668-0826

Wine, beer

MC,V

L.E. Leone’s new book is Big Bend (Sparkle Street Books), a collection of short fiction.

Teh ghey

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August 12, 2009

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SUPER EGO It’s been a coon’s age (is that racist?) since I lifted the bloody glitter-crusted rock of alternaqueer nightlife and peeped with prickled horror at the writhing wigged creatures of darkness beneath. There’s a lot going on this month, so buckle up your birdseed boobs and ride, baby, ride. But first, I’ve got to give a special screechy shout-out to Faux King Awesome and his filthy-excellent trash-club blog, www.dragslag.org. Check it, chicas, that child never sleeps.

HOMO A GO GO FESTIVAL

As Zombie Cher would say, "A-woooaaaah!" And then, "Brains." Four nights of edgy queer music, fashion, film, art, activism, and, yes, parties with more than 50 performers spread out across the city. Italo disco darlings Glass Candy swoop in to join noise-makers like Erase Errata, Katastrophe, Younger Lovers, Hunx and his Punx, Honey Soundsystem, Chelsea Starr, Girl in a Coma, and a spectacular buttload of others. Plus: old-school zine exhibitions, activist workshops, and plenty of classic homopunk/queercore/riot grrrl spirit in the air — so strap on your 16-holes and let’s get mish-moshed.

Thur/13-Sun/16, various times and locations, www.homoagogo.com

THE ROD

"Wet jock strap contest" — are any four words in the English language more titilutf8g besides "five-second rule, bitches"? Almost five years ago, DJ Bus Station John launched his bathhouse disco-drenched tribute to teasingly moistened fabric, bringing many a screw-worthy type through Deco’s doors to compete for $100. (Full dis-clothes-ure: I host the contest when I can remember what’s happening, and Hunky Beau recruits contestants with his "special talent.") All good things must come to a tight little hairy ass end, however, and with this final installment The Rod promises to go out with a sopping bang.

Fri/14, 10 p.m., $5. Deco, 510 Larkin, SF. www.decosf.com

SF GRAND VOGUE BALL

Chop, mop, fierce, and shade, Miss Realness. People have forever been talking about holding a grand vogue ball in San Francisco. Finally the money’s where the mouth is and the chin is on the floor, dropping for you as local houses compete each Friday until the final battle royale Sept. 11. Categories include: Face, Drama, Butch Boyz in Pumps, Look in the Book, Butch Queen Femme, and Old Way/New Way. Walk, work, walk — are there any more?

Fridays through Sept. 11, 8 p.m., free. Yerba Buena Center, 700 Howard, SF. groups.google.com/group/sfgrandvogueball

14TH SAN FRANCISCO DRAG KING CONTEST

It’s big time, y’all, for the sexy kings to come tearing out of the closet in their testosterone Testarossas — and my stubble is itching with adrenaline. For 14 years, Fudgie Frottage and company have brought out the munchable machos to stomp the boards in a quest for the spiky Mr. San Francisco Drag King crown. The talent numbers are uproarious, the crowd bursts with rare hotties, and all involved have a sweaty ball. The whole thing benefits P.A.W.S., so you know you’ll be riding that mustache for a very good cause besides your own.

Sat/15, 8 p.m., $15–$35. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. www.sfdragkingcontest.com

HERR-A-CHICK

This raucous biweekly Wednesday rock ‘n’ roll lady night at the Eagle just got a reboot of sorts: felch whore Renttecca has climbed aboard Anna Conda’s wig and Juanita Fajita’s taco truck to join them in hosting live bands, drag disasters, and the occasional poetry interlude(!).

Wed/19 and every first and third Wednesday, 9 p.m., $5 (free in drag). Eagle Tavern, 398 12th St., www.sfeagle.com

BJÖRK NIGHT

Oh, how I wish this event were called Björk Wars, and tranny Megabots had to trudge their four-story iridium stilettos across the frozen tundra, transforming with groans into stupendous radioactive igloos housing prancing bands of radical faeries and elfin gals fashioning their own soy jerky shoes. Well, instead we get Trannyshack arising from the grave to pay tribute to the Voltaic princess with stunning low-cost effects and volcanic performances. OK, then.

Fri/28, 10 p.m., $12. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF.www.trannyshack.com

Time travelers

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August 12, 2009

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"I thought it would be funny to do a total stereo split, as if the past and the present were trying to have a conversation with each other," says Scott Ryser, describing "East West," a track on the compilation History of the Units: The Early Years, 1977-1983 (Community Library). "I like the idea that these radically different sounds can share a ‘present’ time together."

That idea is the motivation behind this article’s collection of short profiles. Recently singled out for a rave by Pitchfork, Ryser’s synth-punk group the Units is one of four innovative or fierce Bay Area musical forces currently experiencing a contemporary renaissance. Sugar Pie DeSanto’s soul, the Pyramids’ free jazz, and San Francisco Express’s fusion have also inspired reissues or archival compilations. The message is loud and clear: old is new and radical in this era of free-floating sound. (Johnny Ray Huston)

SUGAR PIE DESANTO It’s no surprise that New Yorkers called Sugar Pie DeSanto the female James Brown. Like a woman possessed, she pantomimed her petite frame across the stage almost comedically, gyrating to the doo-wop, soul, and R&B that dominated Chicago’s famed Chess record label. In fact, De Santo sang with Soul Brother No. 1 in the early 1960s, and her presence made a competitive impression upon the hardest-working man in showbiz. "James was cool with Sugar," De Santo says over the phone, her voice husky and distinctive. "He was a fanatic about his music."

Now in her 70s, the San Francisco-born Oakland resident has seen much during her 57 years in the music industry. DeSanto’s list of contemporaries includes Tina Turner, Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson, Jackie Wilson, and Etta James. She may not perform live quite as often as she once did, but she’s as risqué now as ever. The new compilation Go Go Power: The Complete Chess Singles 1961-1966 (Ace/Kent) is a great starting point if you aren’t familiar with her work. The package includes a dynamic photo of her scissor-locking an unassuming Londoner with her thighs during a performance. Lyrically, "Use What You Got" deals with notions of natural beauty, superficiality and what it was like to grow up African American and Filipino in SF’s Fillmore District. "There was a lot of jealousy," DeSanto remembers. "I had long Filipino hair. It [being multi-racial] wasn’t as common or as easy as it is today. Girls would talk crap in the neighborhood."

With 100 original songs under her belt, DeSanto still receives residuals for compositions penned for Fontella Bass and Minnie Ripperton. A producer at Chess heard a similarity between DeSanto and James, and a few of their subsequent duets are included on Go Go Power. "We recorded in the studio together [in Chicago]," says DeSanto. "We didn’t go on the road together." Today, the Queen of the West Coast Blues likes to ride her bike. She’s looking forward to performing at Oakland’s Jack London Square on September 12th. (Andre Torrez)

THE PYRAMIDS Bad seeds can accidentally generate something good — you can thank an exploitative imposter for contributing to a new surge of interest in the free jazz of the Pyramids. According to the group’s Idris Ackamoor, "someone masquerading as a Pyramid" gave the blessing for the respected Japanese label EM to reissue the group’s 1976 album Birth Speed Merging on CD. Shortly after Ackamoor discovered this ruse, EM embarked on a more expansive — and legit — collection of his music, Music of Idris Ackamoor, 1971-2004. Now, Birth Speed Merging and two earlier Pyramids albums — 1973’s Lalibela and 1974’s King of Kings — are alive again on vinyl, thanks in part to Dawson Prater’s Ikef label.

"I’ve lost a lot of things in my life, but for all these years, I’ve managed to hold on to all of the masters of the Pyramids," says Ackamoor, who is busier than ever today due to Cultural Odyssey, his multi-faceted collaboration with Rhodessa Jones. (Before a new set of Bay Area performances next year, a trip to Russia is on the horizon.) Ackamoor was right to hold on to his barely-tapped treasure trove of Pyramids material, because the group’s music is built to last. Birth Speed Merging scorches ears with proto-noise. Accompanied by Ted Joans’ written ideas about Afro-Surrealism, King of Kings astounds (the bass runs of "Nsorama") and hypnotizes ("Queen of the Spirits"), in turn.

Such sounds will be a revelation to young listeners, even — or perhaps especially — those whose sensibilities have been shaped by the journeying spirit of the late Alice Coltrane. To paraphrase a credo, the Pyramids played music to make fire and make souls burst out from bodies. "They’ve tried to snuff out that avant-garde energy," Ackamoor notes, when discussing then and now. "This music wasn’t meant to sell drinks. When I listen to it, it even inspires me. I listen to how I sounded, and the freedom with which I played when I was so young — 19, 20, 21. The intensity is so refreshing. I didn’t realize I could play so long." (Huston)

SAN FRANCISCO EXPRESS In the 1970s, San Francisco churned out quality music like nobody’s business. But many of those recordings — despite their innovation or solidity — never saw the light of the day. And so today preservationists abound, seeking to revive the lost treasures discarded in the wake of this music renaissance. Recently, the one and only effort of jazz-funk outfit San Francisco Express, Getting It Together (Reynolds/ Family Groove, 1979), hit the shelves for a new generation. The album embodies the lush cosmic spirit of free form jazz grounded seamlessly in deep pocket funk.

Little is known about Getting It Together. Daniel Borine, Family Groove label owner and source of the reissue, says that the set was recorded circa 1975 at Dr. Patrick Gleeson’s infamous Different Fur studios in SF’s Mission District. Gleeson, who played Moog synthesizer for the arrangement, doesn’t remember the album by name. But oddly enough, Getting It Together recalls Gleeson’s monumental direction for Herbie Hancock on the visionary, electrified jazz of Crossings (Warner, 1971) and Sextant (Sony, 1972) as well as Charles Earland’s epic odyssey, Leaving This Planet (Prestige, 1973). Even though Getting It Together was recorded just after these groundbreaking works, the small independent label Reynolds postponed its release until ’79, possibly due to in-house quarrels. The original pressing provided no substantive information on the recording. And, seemingly outdated amid the burgeoning new sounds of modern soul and disco, it quickly faded into dusty record bins across the country.

Despite Getting It Together‘s unfortunate reception, few jazz-funk records of the mid-1970s sound as cohesive. The sonic landscape shifts effortlessly between conventional melodies and spacey grooves without losing a consistent magnetism. Virtuoso trumpeter Woody Shaw carries the powerhouse horn section, bursting with psychedelic warmth over heavy hitting drum breaks courtesy of Afro-inspired drummer E.W. Wainwright. Gleeson’s keys evoke a sensual intelligence and informed taste for adventure. A remarkable synthesis of the lively experimental jazz era, Getting It Together still feels as inspired and fresh as ever. (Michael Krimper)

THE UNITS Fate and a bond with the musician Bill Nelson once led them to share three squares a day with Robert Plant, but the Units were a punk or post-punk band. And like any great punk or post-punk band, they lived for confrontation. They played in JC Penney storefront windows and even performed the national anthem at a boxing match.

Still, when the Units invoked the smashing of guitars, they did so as a gesture of contempt towards that six-string signifier of readymade rebellion as much as a protest against traditional authority. Whether singing about burritos and how "the Mission is bitchin’" or adapting Gregory Corso’s poetry to song, the Units, you see, wielded keyboards as sonic weapons.

The group’s Scott Ryser has some primarily fond and often very specific memories of the keyboards in question. The Arps, the Octigans, the Roland Junos, and various Korgs and Casios. The Sequential Circuits 800 Sequencer, "without question the most promising and at the same time most belligerent" of the group’s many "unruly kids." And his "sweetheart," the Minimoog, an invention "better than the automobile and the electric dildo combined." For Ryser, "the Minimoog sounds like god and the devil singing in harmony."

God and the devil sing in harmony throughout History of the Units: The Early Years, 1977-1983 (Community Library) — that is, when they aren’t breaking down gloriously. Or colliding against the live drumming that distinguishes the Units from just about any other synth group. ("I just don’t see how a synth band can kick ass without real drums," opines Ryser.) Nervy narratives like "Bugboy" and "High Pressure Days" reflect Ryser’s background writing stories and novels, while the sprawling, gorgeous instrumental "Zombo," inspired by Walter/Wendy Carlos, sounds contemporary today. Unlike many retrospective collections, History of the Units avoids nostalgia — in fact, Ryser adds a blitz of contemporary images to the sleeve art. "To me, the best thing about our band was just the idea of it," he says. Maybe so, but the reality of the Units will trigger more fine ideas. (Huston)

The ring

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August 12, 2009

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

COVER STORY Going to the DNA Lounge during the middle of the day is a strange proposition. But on a Saturday afternoon in late June, the San Francisco bar is filled with a hundred or so people, including, strangely enough, Kris Kristofferson, whose son Jody is trying out a different kind of public career. There’s a smattering of people hanging out on the balcony level, but most of us are pressed against metal guard rails that surround a ring set up in the center of the dance floor. Professional wrestling has, ahem, put a stranglehold on venue, and it’s the middle of the show.

A newcomer with a spiny bi-hawk and spiked shoulder pad named Nate Graves — a muscle-bound cross between a Mad Max 2: Road Warrior extra and the guy from Prodigy — is set to fight "the Mexican Werewolf," El Chupacabra, a local favorite who wrestles in multicolored face paint and prosthetic fangs. Even when entering the ring, both wrestlers’ movements tell a story; the newcomer is stiff and deliberate, a menacing behemoth, while the significantly smaller El Chupacabra darts around in unpredictable bursts.

The bell rings, and the two exchange some preliminary holds and throws before drubbing one another with loud, theatrical strikes. I’m sandwiched between a stylish young woman in her early 20s, noticeably buzzed, and an average looking dude in a Giants shirt. They spend most of the fight leaning over me to hassle each other. The young woman really has it out for Chupy. As the newcomer hoists our protagonist into the air, she screams for the larger man to "drop him on his fucking head."

Wrestling’s harshest critics tend to view it as a theater of violent, regressive, antisocial posturing. But a decidedly gleeful atmosphere permeates the venue. El Chupacabra wriggles out of the precarious position, and the two adversaries call for an impromptu toast in the spirit of the nameless unifying energy that takes hold during a wrestling event.

FOUND IN THE FOG

Fog City Wrestling is a year-old promotion based out of San Francisco. Relatively unknown in the grand scheme of indie wrestling — most of the larger promotions are based on the East Coast — FCW has nevertheless carved out a comfortable niche in the Bay Area, already home to several smaller federations. The promotion may be relatively new, but professional wrestling in San Francisco has a lengthy — if often ignored — history. Fans who grew up in the era of WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) CEO Vince McMahon Jr.’s homogenized "sports entertainment" empire may be surprised to learn that Northern California as a whole was once home to one of the hottest wrestling promotions in the country.

Throughout the pre-WWE (then the World Wide Wrestling Federation) 1960s and 1970s, promoter Roy Shire’s Big Time Wrestling, a Bay Area extension of the once powerful National Wrestling Alliance, regularly showcased some of wrestling’s big-name stars and future legends, such as local hero Pat Patterson, Superstar Billy Graham, and Rocky Johnson, whose son Dwayne briefly dabbled in the sport of kings as The Rock. Though Shire’s mini-empire extended all the way to Sacramento, the Bay Area was the promotion’s home base. Selling out the Cow Palace on a regular basis, Big Time Wrestling exemplified a halcyon period when pro wrestling was vibrant, gritty, and regional.

Big Time Wrestling owed part of its success to the territorial wrestling industry it existed in, a system where local feds dominated the markets of their particular region. In contrast to the major performers of today, most wrestlers weren’t beholden to a specific promoter, leaving them free to travel the country. But Shire’s own ingenuity was key to his fed’s notoriety.

According to long-time wrestling photographer, columnist, and all-around avid fan Mike Lano, the promoter — a former wrestler — was regarded by his wrestling business contemporaries as a promotional genius. For Shire, personality and a dynamic, athletic wrestling style were paramount. "[He] demanded excellence from his wrestlers," Lano says. "Matches had to be excellent or he would yell and chew the guys out." This democratic booking philosophy, which favored talent and originality over marketability, is closer to the indie wrestling scene of today than to the monolithic WWE.

The Bay Area’s diversity played a major role in Shire’s booking strategy. He promoted wrestlers of color as some of Big Time Wrestling’s top stars, a savvy move that allowed the multifaceted Bay Area to see itself represented heroically in the ring. Afa Anoa’i Sr., better known to wrestling fans as Afa the Wild Samoan, followed in the footsteps of his legendary uncle, "High Chief" Peter Maivia (Rocky Johnson’s father-In-law), who commanded a massive Pacific Islander fan base. Though he was a journeyman by nature, returning to the Bay to wrestle for Shire’s promotion was always a special experience for the Wild Samoan. "Because we [had] a lot of my Samoan population there, sometime[s] [the] fans [would] get out of control and a riot [would] break out in the crowd," he remembers via e-mail. "But it was all good."

This story demonstrates a common truth in wrestling: when the drama in the ring speaks to one’s own experiences and sensibilities, the event as a whole is that much more fun and engaging.

THE POLITICS OF WRESTLING

Fog City Wrestling promoter/cofounder Dominick Jerry started out as a Humboldt County concert promoter before relocating to San Francisco with his wife in 2003. Booking FCW’s matches and storylines, he tells me, gives him the opportunity to play around with the politics of mainstream wrestling, a compelling provisional touch I suspect won’t be on WWE’s agenda any time soon.

Mainstream wrestling is often criticized for its socially conservative slant, a turn-off for many fans whose personal beliefs are less "kill the evil foreigner." But Jerry feels that in a town as singular as San Francisco, a promotion needs to cater to local sensibilities to survive. He cites, among other regional overtures, a handful of appearances by Differ’nt Strokes star Todd Bridges (no doubt drawing from his experiences battling the Gooch) as an appeal to ’80s nostalgia.

Jerry is also interested in the reinvention of character types that a small SF-based promotion would allow for, and quite possibly necessitate. "Wrestling is not a sport that’s very sensitive to race," he tells me over the phone. "But at the same time, it plays on race and it knows it. I see that I have a chance to change things and do things a little different."

He expresses pride in a recent storyline that saw a Middle Eastern wrestler named Sheik Khan Abadi become the promotion’s most popular wrestler, genie pants and all. (Abadi recently relocated to Florida. When I interviewed the East Bay-born wrestler, he fondly recalled his experience wrestling in SF: "They cheered me ’cause they thought I wrestled well and [because] I was wrestling for them. That was one of the greatest feelings ever — to be respected for what I do, and not just typecast for being Middle Eastern.")

The opening match on Fog City Wrestling’s Saturday afternoon card sees your standard square-jawed tough guy face up against longtime California indie star Angel the Hardcore Homo. On the one hand, the persona borders on minstrelsy — it’s a sort of hybrid between the implicit button-pushing of Gorgeous George and lucha libre’s rodeo clown-like "exotico" type. But the match itself tells a less straightforward story. Angel is clearly the hero in the contest, reconfiguring some of the mainstream’s predictable gay panic tropes into a slapstick offensive that plays off his opponent’s increasingly comical discomfort. Toward the end of the match, two teenage-looking guys standing across from me start an "Angel" chant.

On the surface, San Francisco doesn’t seem like the kind of community that goes in for (nonironic) professional wrestling. But scanning the crowd, I notice a sizeable number of bohemian types — an Unknown Pleasures shirt even made an appearance a few shows back. Outside the venue, would they readily admit to their fandom, or at least to their interest in wrestling? Perhaps this insecurity is on its way out.

For a true believer, self-consciousness isn’t a problem. Fog City Wrestling’s Jerry doesn’t see indie wrestling strictly as a subculture. "Everybody knows pro wrestling," he gushes. "Everybody might not admit they like pro wrestling, but everybody does. If it’s on TV, as opposed to Regis and Kelly, you’ll probably put on pro wrestling."

WE NOW RETURN TO THE EVENT, ALREADY IN PROGRESS

When I ask wrestleophile Mike Lano what the Bay Area has to offer that is missing from mainstream wrestling today, he responds with a common sentiment. "They [pro wrestling territories] were all unique. The television was unique, the talent was unique. Guys were not reading promos off a teleprompter or being told what to say by script writers." Fans today may not be getting an entirely comparable experience to the glory days — the DNA Lounge is a long way from the Cow Palace, for one thing. But the spirit of originality Lano remembers from the Shire days has carried over, bringing with it the simple pleasure of watching two colorful characters go at it on a Saturday afternoon.

The main event of Fog City Wrestling’s Saturday bill is a slice of unadulterated pro wrestling traditionalism. Dylan Drake is one of FCW’s marquee stars. He’s a dapper-looking guy with floppy brown hair of a non-threatening length. His name is an alliteration, like Clark Kent. His hirsute opponent has the biblically sinister moniker Malachai, and sports an enormous beard — wrestling shorthand for pure evil.

During a main event bout, there’s a feeling of conclusiveness to everything, like the ghost of Howard Cosell is narrating the action in the crowd’s collective mind. Each punch or hold becomes an ultimate moment that all preceding punches and holds of the show have foreshadowed. This is one of the last vestiges of Big Fight atmosphere, the Ali-and-Frazier effect, or, in keeping with the wrestling aesthetic, Rocky Balboa and Thunderlips. Sure enough, ironic detachment and snarky asides die an undistinguished death amidst the consecrated buzz.

Whether or not the majority of the audience are wrestling diehards, prodigal childhood fans, or just looking for an excuse to drink during the middle of the day, some dormant instinct takes hold as the fight commences. In true wrestling fashion, the match ends in a massive donnybrook of interference and conveniently bad refereeing, postponing the inevitable denouement for another month or two. This is pro wrestling, after all. We head home to a Sunday morning coming down.

Dead heat

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August 11, 2009

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

TREND Summer’s not over, but it might not be too soon to identify Michael Jackson’s passing as the touchstone cultural event of season. Icons and paradigms have been crumbling at a remarkable clip: California narrowly avoided a financial abyss, stalwart businesses folded, major pop and art figures died. New Langton Arts, a venerable San Francisco alternative gallery, may not survive the season.

Art museums are inherently rigid institutions. As much as they’ve been loosening up with livelier programs, they exist to present, collect, and protect the ever-fracturing canon. It’s difficult not to survey San Francisco’s big-ticket summer shows without considering recessionary measures. As endowments shrank, it was widely reported that museums would be tightening their belts by concentrating on their collections rather than on creating expensive new shows, and by presenting exhibitions for longer stretches of time. These shifts seem more like retrenchment than exciting revisions.

The de Young Museum’s current "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" exhibition is perhaps more interesting as a barometer than as a well-designed (albeit to resemble a deluxe burial chamber) state-of-the-art showcase of ancient artifacts. It is, first and foremost, a return to proven formulas. Tut was the subject of the first museum blockbuster, and it worked like gangbusters for the de Young in 1979. Back then the boy king seemed to compete with a vibrant Farrah Fawcett for poster space on teen walls, but currently, evidence of him outside of banners on SF light poles seems scant. The pharaoh’s not the media darling he once was, but apparently the Fine Arts Museums, of which the de Young is a part, is banking on him. (Ironically, Tut is organized by a subsidiary of AEG Live, which also produced the ill-fated Michael Jackson tour.)

Tut is firmly placed as a multiseason blockbuster, a cash cow to be milked into spring. He’ll be followed by an Impressionism show, another safe bet the de Young has made before. The Legion of Honor’s print retrospective devoted to John Baldessari — an uncharacteristically contemporary artist for the space — will be followed in December by a Cartier jewelry show.

The Tut exhibition’s press preview was bolstered by official optimism and ample refreshments. There was a spread of Middle Eastern nibbles and pyramid-shaped servings of custard, and media reps left with gift bags containing a catalog and chocolates. It seemed like the old days, before endowments took their Madoff hits. There was a panel of speakers in the theater. Fundraiser socialite Dede Wilsey said she wished her sons were as successful as the king. Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, spoke of Tut discoveries with entertaining bluster. Gavin Newsom worked the civic booster angle, touting a power trio of summer museum shows: "Georgia O’Keefe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities" at SFMOMA ("Richard Avedon: Photographs 1946-2004" had yet to open), "Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater, 1919-1949" at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, and Tut at the de Young. Although each of these exhibitions puts forth a specific viewpoint on its subject — the Chagall show is driven by the fascinating sweep of political and theatrical history while "Natural Affinities" probes an artistic dialog — the list of names sounded emphatically conservative, even for summer blockbuster season. There’s not a living artist in the bunch.

This isn’t so strange — after all, big institutions follow Hollywood models by packing the houses with mainstream fare and saving the more thoughtful offerings for fall. Both SFMOMA and the de Young exceeded audience expectations last summer with their Frida Kahlo and Dale Chihuly shows, respectively. The de Young take was reportedly bumped up by brisk sales of pricey pint-size Chihuly sculptures. And due to the practice of sometimes booking shows years in advance, these offerings were in place before the downturn. How are they faring?

The de Young won’t release attendance figures until a show has closed — in the case of Tut, that means after March 28, 2010. A museum publicist could offer a cagey comment that "response from visitors has been phenomenal." (This despite the steep nonmember ticket price of $27.50.) SFMOMA is more forthcoming. It unofficially stated that Adams/O’Keefe held steady but admissions spiked when Avedon opened, almost recalling Kahlo crowds. (These exhibitions have a $5 surcharge.)

The Avedon show is handsome, with images of the famous in crisp black and white. So many of the subjects, though, are emphatically of another era — iconic celebrities and political figures who have passed. Janis Joplin, Marilyn Monroe, César Chávez, and various Kennedys, among others, are figures that continue to embody their cultural power in Avedon’s pictures. And Tut more than maintains his royal allure — gold holds its value. But finance gurus also tout making more unusual investments in times like these, and one hopes that our institutions will use this moment to engage in some portfolio diversification. *

CHAGALL AND THE ARTISTS OF THE RUSSIAN JEWISH THEATER, 1919-1949

Through Sept. 7

Contemporary jewish Museum

www.thecjm.org

GEORGIA O’KEEFE AND ANSEL ADAMS: NATURAL AFFINITIES

Through Sept. 7

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

www.sfmoma.org

TUTANKHAMUN AND THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE PHAROAHS

Through March 28, 2010

De Young Museum

www.famsf.org

New Tsing Tao

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August 11, 2009

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paulr@sfbg.com

The shock of the new can involve dazzlement, yes, but that’s not inevitable. Sometimes the new doesn’t seem all that different from the old, and the shock mainly has to do with how little things have actually changed. In our hyperaccelerated culture of progress, new means better, so the word gets deployed a lot, like bait on a fisherman’s hook, without necessarily signifying much. I never saw an old Tsing Tao restaurant and don’t even know if there was one, but the four-year-old New Tsing Tao in West Portal has the lived-in look of one’s favorite pair of weekend shoes — old Wallabies, maybe, or maybe duck boots, since West Portal can be damp, drizzly, and drippy, and certainly has been this summer.

New Tsing Tao does have its newish qualities, mostly the line of bulbous, science-fiction-red halogen lamps that dangle on long cords from the ceiling. Their racy glow suggests a bordello, starship, or hipster club. Pretty much everything else suggests a friendly neighborhood Chinese restaurant, including the rather worn-looking burgundy-colored carpeting on the floor and a long mural depicting (presumably Chinese) mountains in winter along one of the walls. Carpeting isn’t much favored these days by edgy restaurant designers, who seem to have given their love to various hard and glossy surfaces, but it remains useful as a damper of noise. You can hear yourself think inside New Tsing Tao, and you can hear what the person across the table is saying, too. Maybe ordering another Tsing Tao.

The food is rather classic San Francisco neighborhood Chinese food, the kind we tend to take for granted unless something goes wrong: a delivery gets messed up or the place goes out of business. Servings are large, prices are modest, and service is well-practiced and cheery in its way. The location — on a bendy stretch of Ulloa Street off the main drag — also offers a subtle charm; it’s a village within a village, without the drama of streetcars pacing back and forth like caged animals.

If drama you nonetheless must have, you might like the sizzling rice soup ($5.95 for the smallest size), which features a brick of toasted rice that resembles a Rice Krispie bar and hisses and sizzles fabulously when tossed into the broth. The rice is a diva, simultaneously giving value for money (including entertainment value) while overwhelming the rest of the soup’s players, a troupe of worthy character actors including chicken, prawns, peas, water chestnuts, and straw mushrooms.

The menu includes many standards, including potstickers ($5.95 for a clutch) — they are chubby — and mu-shi pork ($8.50), bits of meat and shredded napa cabbage ready to be spooned into rice pancakes with some hoisin sauce. If I’ve ever had bad versions of either of these dishes, I can’t remember them, and New Tsing Tao’s are just what one expects. In restaurants, we tend to like what we expect. The menu is vegetarian-friendly; the potstickers can be had in meatless guise, as can hot and sour soup ($5.50), which is rich in tofu splinters to make up the flesh deficit. (The meat version costs a little more, $5.95.)

Twice-cooked pork ($6.75 at lunch), although alluringly described as "hot," did leave me slightly disappointed. The meat was a little tough, the sauce tasted mostly of soy, and the promised heat was little in evidence. Some of the better stir-fry dishes are to be found under the aegis of "chef’s specialties." These include a preparation called Phoenix Dragon ($10.50), an everything-under-the-sun cornucopia of shrimp and shredded chicken breast tossed with snow peas, baby corn, straw mushrooms, and water chestnuts. If you could only have one dish from the menu, you would probably be pleased with this one.

I also admired the orange beef ($8.95), in part because it was spicy enough to satisfy the menu card’s "hot" claim, and — more important — because the meat was not crisp-fried or deep-fried, just quickly turned in a hot wok so that it remained supple and juicy. Deep-frying has its charms, crispiness being one of them, but it can seem perversely out of place in Chinese cooking, which places so much emphasis on gently handled vegetables. Fresh vegetables are crisp the way nature intended.

The main dishes are generally served with a sizable ration of white rice. You are asked if you want it, which means it’s possible in theory to opt out, but it has a tendency to turn up anyway, and accumulates like piles of snow left by plows, massive and indistinct. The casual wastefulness of this bothers me — not at New Tsing Tao in particular but as a wider phenomenon in Chinese restaurants. In a straitened era when even the flow of junk mail has diminished, this might be a moment to revisit the white rice glut in Chinese restaurants — a time (as Lincoln put it in quite a different context) to think anew. *

NEW TSING TAO

Sun.–Mon, Wed.–Thurs., 11 a.m.–9:30 p.m.;

Fri.–Sat., 11 a.m.–10 p.m.

811 Ulloa, SF

(415) 566-9559

www.newtsingtaorestaurant.com

Beer and wine

AE/DS/MC/V

Not noisy

Wheelchair accessible

Bowie Ball

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August 11, 2009

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PREVIEW Not much can stop Swing Goth. Not the misperception that the biweekly dance class and party is strictly swing or goth (it’s all types of partner dancing, to all types of post-punk music). Not a cross-town venue change earlier this year (from Fat City to El Rio). Nothing, it seems, except a big ass flippin’ fire. In June, Swing Goth was all set to host the Bowie Ball, its biggest event yet, when an explosion in a man hole (remember that one?) shut down the Great American Music Hall. But even fire could only delay SG founder Brian Gardner for so long. Now, the Bowie Ball is back, and promising to be even better than the planned original. Five Cent Coffee (neo-skiffle junkyard blues) and Barry Syska’s Fantasy Orchestra (what would happen if Tom Waits did swing) joins DJ Skip of New Wave City, DJ MzSamantha of Clockwork, and MC Psychokitty for a celebration of Bowie’s many faces, styles, and sounds. The event will start, of course, with lessons in swing, waltz, and blues dance and culminate in a full night of cutting a rug (OK, a gorgeous hardwood floor) to everything from Joy Division to Nirvana.

BOWIE BALL Fri/14, 8 p.m. $15–$20. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750, www.swinggoth.com/bowieball09

“San Francisco’s Doomed”

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August 11, 2009

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PREVIEW Fred Schrunk sips his coffee as he mans the counter on a recent afternoon at Thrillhouse, the nonprofit punk record store he oversees on Mission Street, and discusses the genesis of this week’s San Francisco’s Doomed Fest. It’s a series of shows benefiting two causes dear to him and the local music community: the all-ages venue project for San Francisco that he and several forward-thinking locals are spearheading, as well as Maximum Rock’n’Roll, the long-running, SF-based punk monthly fanzine that, like many print publications today, is struggling to meet operation costs.

"Seeing [MRR] struggle for a little while made me really concerned," explains Schrunk, who is involved with the zine and its radio show. "It’s fucking scary seeing them in a compromising situation." The staff of MRR, likewise a nonprofit, consists of volunteer "shitworkers," and the zine’s content is reader-contributed, inspiring and informing both bands and enthusiasts worldwide since its inception in 1982.

"I think there’s a place for what we do," says MRR content coordinator Layla Gibbon over the phone from the zine’s office. "It’s just a difficult time." About four months ago, Schrunk and MRR‘s coordinators decided to put together a fundraiser for both the debt-burdened magazine and Thrillhouse’s goal of opening an all-ages venue in the city.

This venue project stems from San Francisco’s lack of a dedicated all-ages show space — a lamentable situation that leaves local youngsters with few options for seeing and performing live music. The success of the project’s small fundraising shows so far, as well as that of last year’s Thrillhouse-sanctioned Thrillfest, paved the way for this new, ramped-up effort to raise funds for opening a space. Where Thrillfest was structured around touring bands, Doomed features mostly local acts, all of whom have an obvious stake in seeing these two scene-uniting efforts succeed.

The event’s name comes from Crime, SF’s self-proclaimed "first and only rock ‘n’ roll band," which formed in 1976, cranking out early punk classics such as 1977’s "Hot Wire My Heart" and "Frustration." They’ll be headlining the festival, where the lineup ranges from the heavy, stoned sounds of Flood to the Messthetics-style post-punk of Rank/Xerox. More established local acts like good-times popsters Nodzzz and renowned Sacramento garage-rockers the Bananas are also on hand. As Gibbon exclaims, the fest not only benefits good causes, it also promises to be "a representation of what punk is … the sense of possibility!"

SAN FRANCISCO’S DOOMED Wed/12 through Sun/16, various venues. www.myspace.com/sanfranciscosdoomed, www.maximumrocknroll.com

“Good Boys and True”

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August 11, 2009

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PREVIEW According to St. Joseph’s, an all-boys prep school, its students are expected "to be good boys and true. To strive towards competence, courage, and compassion always." Well — easier said than done, right? In Good Boys and True, scandal erupts at the Washington, D.C. prep school when a violent sex tape is discovered circuutf8g campus grounds. When Brandon, captain of the football team, is accused of being the faceless figure in the tape, his life and the lives of those closest to him are changed forever. Taking place in 1988 (long before sex vids became commonplace), the rumors of Brandon’s crime spread like wildfire and send ripples throughout the very rich, very white, and very proper community.

Written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, a writer for HBO’s Big Love, the play explores the themes of wealth, privilege, and power. It follows the relationship between Brandon and his mother as she tries to reconcile with the heinous crime her son is accused of, as well as Brandon’s relationship with his best friend Justin, which is more than just platonic. What will become of the Dartmouth-bound football all-star as his life spirals out of control? What dirty secrets will be revealed about those around him? Good Boys and True makes its West Coast debut at the New Conservatory Theatre Center, where it is one in a collection of LGBT-themed plays featured during NCTC’s Pride season.

GOOD BOYS AND TRUE Aug. 14–Sept. 20. Wed.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m., $18–$40. New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF. (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org

Music listings

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August 11, 2009

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Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 12

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Barcelona, Meese, Seabird, Last Ambassadors Slim’s. 8pm, $13.

Better Than Ezra, 16 Frames Independent. 8pm, $25.

Honey Knockout. 9pm.

Illness, My Revolver, Dammit! El Rio. 8pm, $5.

Kegels, Party Fouls, Jokes For Feelings Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Lions, Black Robot, Flexx Bronco Thee Parkside. 8pm, $7.

OG Rhythm and Blues Band Rasselas Jazz. 8pm, free.

Kevin Russell Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $10.

BAY AREA

Depeche Mode, Peter, Bjorn and John Shoreline Amphitheater, One Amphitheater Pkwy, Mtn View; www.livenation.com. 7:30pm, $35.50-99.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

"B3 Wednesdays feat. Amendola vs. Blades" Coda. 9pm, $7.

Diana Krall Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. 8pm, $79.50-125.

Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

"Marcus Shelby Jazz Jam" Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Tin Cup Serenade Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; (415) 931-3600. 7pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

*"All-Star Tribute to the King of Bakersfield: Buck Owens Birthday Bash" Elbo Room. 8pm, $10. With members of Red Meat, 77 El Deora, B Stars plus Mississipi Mike Wolf, Doug Blumer, and more.

Gaucho, Michael Abraham Jazz Session Amnesia. 8pm, free.

Dan Reed, Manda Mosher Café du Nord. 9:30pm, $15.

Carlos Reyes Rrazz Room, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; 1-866-468-3399. 8pm, $30.

Unwed Fathers Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Fame Bar on Church. 9pm. With rotating DJs.

Fringe Madrone Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJs subOctave and Blondie K spinning indie rock and new wave music videos.

Jam Wednesday Infusion Lounge. 10pm, free. DJ Slick Dee.

Open Mic Night 330 Ritch. 9pm, $7.

Qoöl 111 Minna Gallery. 5-10pm, $5. Pan-techno lounge with DJs Spesh, Gil, Hyper D, and Jondi.

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Lonestar Sound, Young Fyah, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St.; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

THURSDAY 13

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Buttercream Gang, Raised By Robots, M. Bison Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Commisure, Room for a Ghost, An Isotope Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $6.

Dramarama Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $20.

Tinsley Ellis Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $18.

Glenn Labs, Greening, Johnny Walnut Grant and Green. 9pm, free.

Photons, X-Ray Press, Huff This!, Chasing Shapes Kimo’s. 9pm.

Skin Like Iron, Young Offenders, Never Healed, Airfix Kits, Dirty Cupcakes Knockout. 9:30pm, $5.

Slowfinger, Orchid, Nylon Heart Attack Slim’s. 9pm, $13.

Society of Rockets, Dominique Leone, Reptiel Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Solillaquists of Sound, 40Love, Zutra Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Trainwreck Riders, Fucking Buckaroos, Pretty Boy Thorson and Fallen Angels Thee Parkside. 9pm, $5.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Kenny Brooks Coda. 9pm, $7.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 7:30pm, free.

Marlina Teich Trio Brickhouse, 426 Brannan, SF; (415) 820-1595. 7-10pm, free.

"New Frequencies @ YBCA: Musicians Respond to Wallworks" Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. 6pm, free with gallery admission ($5-7). With Lisa Mezzacappa and Nightshade/Shimomitsu.

Karen Segal Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Brazil Vox Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Jesse DeNatale, Indiana Hale, Petracovich Amnesia. 9pm, $8.

Flamenco Thursday Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8pm, 9:30; $12. With Carola Zertuche and Company.

High Country Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

Gregory Isaacs, Native Elements Independent. 9pm, $28.

Shannon Céilí Band Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

Summer in the City: Meet MoAD Museum of African Diaspora, 685 Mission, SF; (415) 358-7200. 6pm, $10. Featuring live Cuban music and dancing.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5-6. DJs Pleasuremaker, Señor Oz, J Elrod, and B Lee spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

CakeMIX SF Wish, 1539 Folsom, SF. 10pm, free. DJ Carey Kopp spinning funk, soul, and hip hop.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St; 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

DJ John Lynch Infusion Lounge. 9pm, free.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

Funky Rewind Skylark. 9pm, free. DJ Kung Fu Chris, MAKossa, and rotating guest DJs spin heavy funk breaks, early hip-hop, boogie, and classic Jamaican riddims.

Heat Icon Ultra Lounge. 10pm, free. Hip-hop, R&B, reggae, and soul.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Jorge Terez.

Kissing Booth Make Out Room. 9pm, free. DJs Jory, Commodore 69, and more spinning indie dance, disco, 80’s, and electro.

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary; 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St., SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

Motion Sickness Vertigo, 1160 Polk; (415) 674-1278. 10pm, free. Genre-bending dance party with DJs Sneaky P, Public Frenemy, and D_Ro Cyclist.

Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.

Toppa Top Thursdays Club Six. 9pm, $5. Jah Warrior, Jah Yzer, I-Vier, and Irie Dole spin the reggae jams for your maximum irie-ness.

FRIDAY 14

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bad Friends, Complaints, Keeners Annie’s Social Club. 5pm, $5.

"Bowie Ball: Celebrating All Things Bowie!" Great American Music Hall. 8:30pm, $20. With Barry Syska’s Fantasy Orchestra, 5 Cent Coffee, and DJs MzSamantha and Skip.

Burnt, Simpkin Project Grant and Green. 9pm, free.

Conquest for Death, N.N., Acephalix, Ruidos Thee Parkside. 9pm, $5.

*Down, Melvins, Danava, Weedeater Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $30.

Fling, Moller, Nightgowns, Facts on File Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Gomorran Social Aid and Pleasure Club, Khi Darag!, Brian Kenney Fresno, DJ K-Tel Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10. With Last Night’s Fling All-Star Burlesque.

Inspired Flight Otis Lounge, 25 Maiden Lane, SF; (415) 298-4826. 9pm, free.

Larry McCray Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

*New Thrill Parade, Al Qaeda, Dalmacio Von Diamond and the Enochian Keys, Droughter Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

Quantic and His Combo Barbaro Slim’s. 9pm, $20.

Jonahs Reinhardt, Tussle, Windsurf Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10. With Okay-Hole on the records.

BAY AREA

Vienna Teng TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. 8pm, $35.

Wendy Darling, Pinstripe Rebellion, Refunds, Loudmouth Yank Fox Theater. 7pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

Larry Carlton Rrazz Room, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.therrazzroom.com. 8pm, $47.50.

8 Legged Monster Coda. 10pm, $10.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Jack Jones Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $35.

Tin Cup Serenade Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Cuban Nights Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 8:30pm, $15. Latin dancing Buena Vista style with Fito Reinoso, and Eddy and Gabriel Navia.

Georges Lammam Ensemble Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 10:30pm, $15.

JimBo Trout and the Fishpeople, Misisipi Rider Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Sekouba Bambino Diabate Independent. 9pm, $25.

Sila and the Afro Funk Experience Fillmore Center, Fillmore at O’Farrell, SF; (415) 921-1969. 6pm, free.

Spring Creek Noe Valley Ministry, 1021 Sanchez, SF; (415) 545-5238. 8pm, $15-17.

Zej Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Zax, Zhaldee, and Nuxx.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.

Fo’ Sho! Fridays Madrone. 10pm, $5. DJs Kung Fu Chris, Makossa, and Quickie Mart spin rare grooves, soul, funk, and hip-hop classics.

Free Funk Friday Elbo Room. 10pm, free. With DJs Vinnie Esparza, B-Cause, and guest Asti Spumanti.

Gay Asian Paradise Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.

Go Bang! Deco SF, 510 Larkin St; (415) 346-2025. 10pm, $5. Recreating the diversity and freedom of the 70’s/ 80’s disco nightlife with DJs Eddy Bauer, Flight, Nicky B., Sergio and more.

Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.

Lovebuzz Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, $5. Rock, classic punk, and 90s with DJs Jawa and Melanie Nelson.

M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.

Punk Rock and Shlock Karaoke Annie’s Social Club. 9pm-2am, $5. Eileen and Jody bring you songs from multiple genres to butcher: punk, new wave, alternative, classic rock, and more.

VSL Friday Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9pm. With DJ Eve Salvail.

SATURDAY 15

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $16.

Elin Jr, Minks, Claire El Rio. 4pm, $10-15.

50 Million, Shellshag, Screaming Females, Kreamy Lectric Santa, Reaction Thee Parkside. 9pm, $5.

Fighting Supaks, Paleface, Ledbetter and His Best Bet, Justin Gordon and the Wrecking Ball Café du Nord. 8:30pm, $12.

Git Some, Secret Wars, Olehole Bender’s Bar, 800 S. Van Ness, SF; www.bendersbar.com. 10pm, $5.

Havespecialpower, Midnight Strangers, Girl With the Violent Arts Li Po Lounge. 8:30pm, $7.

Iron Maidens, Oreo, Sticks and Stones Annie’s Social Club. 8pm, $15.

Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk, Eric Krasno and Chapter 2 Fillmore. 9pm, $25.

Leopold and His Fiction, Spyrals, Candy Apple Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

N.A.S.A. Independent. 9pm, $18.

Octopus Project, Birds and Batteries, Don’ts Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Earl Thomas Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Wild Child Slim’s. 9pm, $20.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Alphabet Soup Coda. 10pm, $10.

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Larry Carlton Rrazz Room, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.therrazzroom.com. 7 and 9:30pm, $47.50.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Jack Jones Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $35.

"New Frequencies @ YBCA: Next Wave of Global Landscape" Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. 8pm, $25. With Tanya Tagaq/KIHNOUA.

Mary Redente Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Ember Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Evening with Accordions Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 441-4099. 8pm, free. Featuring Rob Reich and Marie Abe.

Here Comes a Big Black Cloud, Fast Love Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Lucas Revolution Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Matt Morris Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Orquesta Rumba Café The Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; (415) 621-2378. 5pm, free.

Tanya Tagaq with Kihnoua Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787. 8pm, $25.

DANCE CLUBS

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Niuxx.

Booty Bassment Knockout. 10pm, $5. Booty-shaking hip-hop with DJs Ryan Poulsen and Dimitri Dickenson.

Cock Fight Underground SF. 9pm, $6. Locker room antics galore with electro-spinning DJ Earworm and hostess Felicia Fellatio.

Fred Everything and Olivier Desmet Vessel, 85 Campton Place, SF; (415) 433-8585. 10pm, $10.

Fire Corner Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary; 885-4788. 9:30pm, free. Rare and outrageous ska, rocksteady, and reggae vinyl with Revival Sound System and guests.

HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.

Industry Mighty. 10pm, $25. With DJs Jamie J Sanchez, James Torres, Russ Rich, and more.

Saturday Night Live Fat City, 314 11th St; selfmade2c@yahoo.com. 10:30pm.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. With DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul.

SUNDAY 16

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Half Handed Cloud, Red Pony Clock, Boat Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Loop! Station, Jill Tracy, Nicki Jaine Café du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Love is Chemicals, Aim Low Kid, Solar Powered People Bottom of the Hill. 8pm, $8.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Larry Carlton Rrazz Room, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.therrazzroom.com. 7pm, $47.50.

Lucid Lovers Harris’ Restaurant, 2100 Van Ness, SF; (415) 673-1888. 6:30pm.

Stanley Coda. 9pm, $7.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Emily Anne, Devine;s Jug Band, East River String Band Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10.

Mindia Devi Klein St. John Coltrane Church, 1286 Fillmore, SF; (415) 673-7144. 7pm, $10-25.

Marla Fibish, Erin Shrader, Richard Mandel and friends Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

Fiesta Andina! Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; (415) 646-0018. 7pm, $12. With Eddy Navia and Sukay.

Grooming the Crow, Lariats of Fire Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

Rolando Morales Quintet The Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; (415) 621-2378. 5pm, free.

Salsa Sundays El Rio. 4:15pm, $8. With Julio Bravo.

BAY AREA

Toby Keith, Trace Adkins Shoreline Amphitheater, One Amphitheater Pkwy, Mtn View; www.livenation.com. 7:30pm, $20-74.

DANCE CLUBS

August T-Dance Ruby Skye. 5pm, $25. With the Perry Twins.

DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, Ludachris, and guest Ross Hogg.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. "Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers." Got that?

Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th; 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.

Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.

Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.

MONDAY 17

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Can’t Find a Villain, King Robot, Construct Existence Crew, Paulie Rhyme, Beta Central, Monica Ramos Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.

Dicky Betts and Great Southern Slim’s. 8pm, $30.

Stereo Freakout, Drunken Hu?, Serenity Now! Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

BAY AREA

Third Eye Blind Fox Theater. 8pm, $29.50.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Lavay Smith Trio Enrico’s, 504 Broadway, SF; www.enricossf.com. 7pm, free.

Yellowjackets with Mike Stern Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $20-26.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Free Bluegrass Monday Amnesia. 6:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Arcade Lookout SF, 2600 16th St., SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 8pm, free. With DJs Jory and Johnny B spinning alt. 80’s and new wave.

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary; 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!

Going Steady Dalva. 10pm, free. DJs Amy and Troy spinning 60’s girl groups, soul, garage, and more.

King of Beats Tunnel Top. 10pm. DJs J-Roca and Kool Karlo spinning reggae, electro, boogie, funk, 90’s hip hop, and more.

Mainroom Mondays Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, free. Live the dream: karaoke on Annie’s stage and pretend you’re Jello Biafra.

Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.

Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

Spliff Sessions Tunnel Top. 10pm, free. DJs MAKossa, Kung Fu Chris, and C. Moore spin funk, soul, reggae, hip-hop, and psychedelia on vinyl.

TUESDAY 18

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Antioquia, Sex With No Hands Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

Fat Tuesday Band Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Pissed Jeans, Mi Ami, How to Make Swords Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Scrabbel, Pregnant, Imra Hemlock Tavern. 8pm, $6.

Emiliana Torrini, Anya Marina Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $20.

Max Tundra Café du Nord. 8:30pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Dave Parker Quintet Rasselas Jazz. 8pm.

Euliptian Quartet Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

"Jazz Mafia Tuesdays" Coda. 9pm, $7. With Shotgun Wedding Quintet.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark. 6:30pm, $5.

Yellowjackets with Mike Stern Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $20-26.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Misterioso Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Slow Session with Vince Keehan and friends Plough and Stars. 9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Drunken Monkey Annie’s Social Club. 9pm, free. With DJ Blackstone.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.

Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

*

Appetite: 50-cent oysters, cocktail dinners, and a Coda

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August 11, 2009

0

Every week, Virginia Miller of personalized itinerary service and monthly food, drink, and travel newsletter, www.theperfectspotsf.com, shares foodie news, events, and deals. View the last installment here.

DEALS
50-cent oysters at Zuppa’s happy hour
Now here’s an oyster deal: 50 cents per bivalve every weekday during Zuppa’s happy hour, when most consider $1 a discount. Here you can nurse $4 beers and wines and eat $3 flat bread or marinated olives or $5 arancini with your oysters. At that price, you can order more.
Mon-Fri, 5-7pm
564 4th Street
415-777-5900
www.zuppa-sf.com

————

OPENINGS
A little night music at Coda: the Mission’s new jazz supperclub
Levende Lounge has transformed into Coda, a supper club/live jazz venue, utilizing the striking lofty, brick-walled space with tables set up in full view of the stage. Wine on tap and cocktails flow as you watch national and local acts like Jazz Mafia (Tuesdays) and Lavay Smith, almost all under $12. Paired with six nights a week of jazz (an option we don’t have enough of in SF), is a menu rife with tempting eats: coffee-crusted pork loin with Jameson cream sauce, creamy polenta topped with mascarpone, mustard-crusted lamb loin with salsa verde, or pecan pie tarts with Jack Daniel’s caramel sauce. A sexy evening for the senses.
1710 Mission Street
415-551-2362
www.codalive.com

————–

EVENTS

Monthly cocktail dinners at Beretta
Beretta has become such a fixture in our local food scene that the pairing of thin-crust pizzas with artisan cocktails seems a given. With Dinner and Cocktails series, which began Monday, they explore other culinary realms paired with exquisite cocktails and spirits in their basement, limited to 30 people so it feels more like a private dinner with friends. Sign up on their Web site’s email list to get notifications of future dinners – this one features tequila and Mexican food – hosted by Beretta’s bartenders and industry guests. With tequila tastings, cocktails, appetizers to start, then a family-style feast, it’s a dream dinner party where you don’t have do any of the work.
8/10 – 6:30pm
$60 all-inclusive (food, drink, tax, tip)
1199 Valencia Street
415-695-1199
www.berettasf.com

SF protest against illegal Honduran regime

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August 11, 2009

14

By Steven T. Jones

People are understandably still outraged by the coup d’etat in Honduras, which will be the subject of a 5 p.m. rally today outside that country’s consulate in San Francisco, located at 870 Market Street near Powell.

“Tuesday will culminate a week-long march against the illegal coup in Honduras by hundreds of Hondurans nonviolently calling for the immediate and unconditional restitution of elected president Mel Zelaya,” announced organizers that include the ANSWER Coalition, School of the Americas Watch, Barrio Unido, and many others.

The group is certainly correct that US-trained members of the Honduran military have kept the illegal regime in power and silenced critics for almost two months, and even the Associated Press and New York Times have written about the class conflict at the heart of the coup.

Street Threads: Look of the Day

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August 11, 2009

1

SFBG photog Ariel Soto scoops SF street fashion. See the previous Look of the Day here.

Today’s Look: Barbara, Union and Gough

Tell us about your look: “I got these boots in Mexico, where I live, for $6.”

Sonic Reducer Overage: Los Amigos Invisibles, Caroline Weeks, the Frustrations, and more

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August 8, 2009

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By Kimberly Chun

Wow, it’s far from freezing but way too foggy at the beach – so dry off, stop gawking at the sea lion near the Sutro Baths, and check the head at these worthy musical happenings. Black Francis’ acoustic show may be sold out at Hotel Utah tonight, but there’s still too much going on for you to get your grump on.

Concrete Jungle Meets the SF Classic
Yeah, I can tell by your itchy mod finger that you’re just dying to check out the scooter rally afterparty. DJs Selecter Kirk and Prince Omar take the pulse of the mob with two-tone, ska, rocksteady, and more. Sat/8, 9 p.m., $5. Knockout, 3223 Mission, SF. (415) 550-6994.

Frustrations
Wah-wah-wow. The Detroit-based slaves to the skronkadelic grind it up something fierce. With the Mindless Things. Sat/8, 6 p.m., $5. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923.

On location

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August 5, 2009

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a&eletters@sfbg.com

PHOTO ISSUE The ghost of Cindy Sherman is everywhere these days. In Untitled Film Stills (1977 onward), Sherman pictured archetypal B-movie versions of herself in emotionally-charged fake film stills. The project remains a salient commentary on self-imagining and imposed, gendered narratives. Yet Sherman’s influence can be seen most dramatically these days in photos where people are simply afterthoughts, either insulated or not present at all. Accessible digital video technologies have partially relieved photographs of the burden of "truth." Built and destructed environments are revealed as character actors and elegiac voyeurs.

This is felt even at current exhibitions of work from past decades, pictures that used to mean something quite different. Jerry Burchard’s nocturnal shots have long offered commentary on the medium’s innate capacity for revelation. But seeing them alongside Debbie Fleming Caffery’s knowing depictions of Mexican prostitutes and Linda Foard Roberts’s oval photos of almost-knowable materials at Robert Koch Gallery, they abandon a previous film-narrative sensibility (the blurry shots akin to 1970s horror film aesthetics, the celestial long exposures like being at the drive-in) and move closer to the subjects themselves: the game-like design of a park in Morocco, the cleavage of skeletal trees. What was caricatured emotionality for Sherman is silent theatricality for Burchard, the black-box-theatre intimacy of it all. His Casablanca, Morocco (1973-76) doesn’t demand that you want to know what it’s portraying. I initially saw the white streak as a mattress, something angelic and domestic that would be at home in a Tony Kushner play, but I was ultimately content with the mystery.

Nearby at Rena Bransten Gallery, photographs in the group show "Decline and Fall" move the empty stage further into ghostliness. Doug Hall’s Helena, Wife of Constantine, Museo Capitalino, Rome (1996/97) reads like Thomas Struth having an exorcism. Light speaks first, statues second. Light holds court. The oval molding appears flattened, invoking airport baggage carts. Next to Hall’s in-transit humans, Candida Höfer’s 2004 depiction of frozen palatial elegance and Martin Klimas’ 2003 picture of shattering ceramics against a white background appear increasingly compassionate.

For the San Francisco Arts Commission and PhotoAlliance’s "10 x 10 x 10" at City Hall, 10 local curators invited 10 photographers to submit 10 works each. Stacen Berg chose John Harding for his careful compositions of people who are "entirely distanced from their public environment." In one hallway, Harding’s analog captures of San Francisco street scenes face off with the late Ken Botto’s urban shots, constructed from miniatures and morphs. It’s as if the buildings and slabs, not the people, are shooting the movies of our lives. Heather Snider chose Solstice Fires, Lucy Goodhart’s "reverential but not sentimental" pictures of last summer’s Big Sur fires. In dialogue with Jesse Schlesinger’s varied but participatory outdoor exposures, picked by Joyce Grimm, and Chris McCaw’s stunning paper negatives, chosen by Linda Connor, Goodhart’s photographs speak to a world that is listening even when no one is there. *

10 X 10 X 10

Through Sept. 18

San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery at City Hall

1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, SF

(415) 554-6080

www.sfacgallery.org

DECLINE AND FALL

Through Sat/8

Rena Bransten Gallery

77 Geary, SF

(415) 982-3292

www.renabranstengallery.com

JERRY BURCHARD, DEBBIE FLEMING CAFFERY, AND LINDA FOARD ROBERTS
Through Aug. 22

Robert Koch Gallery

49 Geary, fifth floor, SF

(415) 421-0122

www.kochgallery.com

Hex appeal

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August 5, 2009

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CULT MOVIES ONLINE I remember sitting on the floor of a scrappy Las Vegas hotel room, my five-year-old eyes glued to the television. A fuzzy film played from a far-gone era, filled with uncensored violence, sex, and drugged out debauchery. I was horrified, but possessed euphorically by that horror, unable to turn away from the moving screen. To this day I am still looking for that movie’s title. And nearly every film freak who shares a similar story of initiation still seeks out some unknown title. But lucky for us weirdos, the San Francisco collective Cosmic Hex is committed to finding, archiving, and digitally preserving just those forgotten treasures of underground exploitation film.

"We just have fun with the whole underground, sort of lost exploitation movie scene," says Dan Simpson, head organizer of the Cosmic Hex Internet archive. Together with fellow aficionados Scott Moffett and Serge Vladimiroff, Simpson started the digital archive six years ago initially as a way to show the collective’s giant stockpile of 16mm and 35mm films. But the costs of such a feat grew exponentially, and so the project veered instead to the whimsical. "We got to the point where we pay the bills and we do whatever we want. I get to explore my id and go down whatever avenues open up to me that week," Simpson explains. His id currently spirals him into ’70s made-for-television bizarrities like the Western/satanic cult mashup, Black Noon (1971). But Simpson also enjoys fulfilling requests, no matter their obscurity. A film with a single VHS release that died with the mom and pop stores? Only eight copies in the world? The Citizen Kane of "asteroid possessed bulldozer films," Killdozer (1974)? Simpson is game for the challenge.

Besides building their growing digital archive of nearly 300 films, Cosmic Hex also screens some select 16mm choices in its clubhouse speakeasy, the Vortex Room (1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom). The terrestrial SoMa location transports visitors into a whole ‘nother world of the weird, showcasing some of the finest trash and psychedelic madness ever captured on reel. August’s calendar totes the classic psycho-thriller Race With The Devil (1975) and the enigmatic Divine Emanuelle Love Cult (1983) among many other juicy titles. "Somebody has to take charge and make this stuff available, or it never will," Simpson says. "And it will end up burning in some vault at some point and never be seen again." But these films do not engage strictly on an ironic or nostalgic level. Many of them genuinely hold up as quality pieces of work. "I end up finding more genius in some of these films that people would write off without even watching the first 10 minutes," Simpson insists. "The trashier, the weirder, the better it is." (Michael Krimper)
www.cosmichex.com