Sunshine

Chiu and Herrera roll up their sleeves for spring cleaning in City Hall

For some time now, oft-labeled “power brokers” with undue influence in San Francisco city government have taken heat for failing to register as lobbyists. At the same time, politically connected insiders are often criticized for manipulating the permitting process for major real estate developments far outside the public gaze.

It’s said that sunshine is the best disinfectant. Yesterday, City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Board of Supervisors President David Chiu introduced a package of reforms designed to shed more light on lobbyists’ practices.

The new set of rules would tighten up lobbying regulations, create new disclosure rules for developers and their lobbyists, create more oversight around city contracting and grant-making, and require the publication of a guide for campaign donors spelling out Ethics laws regarding campaign contributions.

“We’re not demanding of anybody else anything different than we would demand of ourselves,” Herrera said, adding that he and Chiu had been working on drafting the proposal for months.

Chiu and Herrera both vied for the city’s highest office in competition with Mayor Ed Lee in 2011. Since beginning his term as mayor, Lee has drawn sharp criticism for his cozy relationships with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, Chinatown consultant Rose Pak and a handful of others who are not registered as lobbyists.

Without mentioning anyone by name, Chiu noted, “I do think there are individuals who have not registered as lobbyists who probably should.”

The proposed rules would broaden the definition of “lobbyist” under the city’s Ethics regulations. The new definition would include “any individual who makes contact with” an elected official on behalf of an employer or anyone else paying them “for lobbyist services.” If someone makes $1,000 or more per month for lobbying, that person would be considered a lobbyist under the law.

The new legislation would also create new disclosure requirements for “permit expediters,” who work on behalf of developers to hasten the permitting process for major real estate construction. They would have to register with the city’s Ethics Commission and file regular reports about their contacts with city officials. Developers with major planning projects in the pipeline would also have to disclose donations of $5,000 or more to city-based nonprofits.

Chiu noted that he and Herrera had consulted with Friends of Ethics, a group of government accountability advocates that’s been pushing for Ethics reform, for help drafting the proposal.

Chiu and Herrera also acknowledged that better enforcement of existing laws was needed in addition to the proposed legislative reforms. “Our city could be more proactive in enforcing our Ethics laws to the fullest,” Chiu said. “Not just the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law.”

Emotions in motion

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arts@sfbg.com

FILM Imagine being trapped, No Exit–style, on a city bus — let’s say Muni’s dreaded “Double Deuce” Fillmore for the sake of creative visualization — in the midst of a dozen or so out-of-control teenagers hell-bent on humiliating and terrorizing their peers and, if you have an obvious human frailty, you as well. Sound like fun? Well, Michel Gondry’s The We and the I puts you there (dramatically speaking, at least) and is often surprisingly just that. To paraphrase Sartre, “Hell is other people … on the bus,” but thankfully we get to take the trip from the safety of cushy theater seats and comfy couches.

Arguably minor Gondry (unlike 2011’s abominable The Green Hornet, whose failure can only be described as major), it’s a nice little palate cleanser in anticipation of his upcoming, much-publicized “return to form,” the Audrey Tautou–starring Mood Indigo, a film that looks to be as visually lush and romantic as The We and the I is stripped down.

Almost all of the film takes place on the aforementioned city bus as it crawls around the mean streets of New York City’s Bronx borough, ostensibly to take home kids (all played by nonprofessional actors, all minorities) after their last day of school. One or two of them do disembark early, but most seem stuck on a fossil-fueled existential journey of the damned. At about the 70-minute mark it’s hard not to wonder if the disgruntled bus driver isn’t just tooling around in circles past the same storefronts à la Joel Barish’s mind trips in Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) — just exactly how big is the Bronx anyway? “Drop out, get your GED, join the army. I don’t give a fuck,” the driver tells a confused girl. It’s clear that the kids suffer from this kind of general adult apathy, but most bear it with a hard-edged bravado that belies their vulnerability.

That particularly applies to the trio of bullies at the back of the bus, who treat both the kids and the adults with equal-opportunity disdain. They smash an arty boy’s acoustic guitar, hurl insults while sneaking smokes, and even shame a middle-aged guy with a cleft palette. But most of their ire is saved for Teresa (Teresa Lynn), a slightly chubby, obviously troubled girl who shows up wearing a laughably bad blonde wig after being MIA from school for weeks. Teresa becomes the emotional heart of the story after it’s revealed her relationships with several kids on the bus are more complicated than initially thought.

Those kids include a drama-queen sexpot with apparent self-harming issues, a refreshingly upfront couple of gay teens, and a gaggle of giggling girls who toss around a water bra like a football. (The girls, tellingly, are just as aggressive as the boys.) Geek and bully alike connect regularly through the preferred teen method of communication: social media, specifically in the form of a YouTube video of a local doofus named Elijah repeatedly falling on his ass. Some joys are universal.

Visually, The We and the I marks a departure for Gondry. While his films always have a low-fi, arts-and-crafts vibe full of DIY quirk, this one generally eschews his love of handmade ephemera. (A major exception is the boom box rejiggered to resemble a tiny bus, which tools around to Young MC’s “Bust A Move” during the opening credits.) There is a touch of fast-motion and papier-mâché goofiness, but mostly the whole thing is done in a straightforward, verité style.

The tone, however, is pure Gondry: dopey-funny and sophisticatedly unsophisticated. You get the sense that, unlike his tony New York–loving counterparts Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach, Gondry is a true populist. The We and the I is certainly nothing if not populist. But it’s also about the individual — specifically who we are inside and outside of an often-grueling social system. Despite some hiccups, like an unnecessarily dark third-act revelation, it’s more or less successful in illuminating the joys, cruelties, and uncertainties of life, which remain viscerally real after the sun sets and we finally get off the bus, vulnerable as ever in our solitude. 

THE WE AND THE I opens Fri/22 in Bay Area theaters.

The devil’s business

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cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM Ten years after its release (and more than 15 years since Jim Van Bebber started working on it), the legendary cult film The Manson Family returns for special theatrical screenings in conjunction with a remastered Blu-ray release. Also on the bill: short film Gator Green, Van Bebber’s most recent project.

Personal circumstances have the Ohio native living in Florida these days. “I’m like, goddammit, I’m down here — I gotta make a movie! So that’s what I’m up to with Gator Green,” he drawls over the phone. “It’s about a Vietnam veteran who swindles his way into this alligator farm from the Seminole Indians in 1973, and abuses every right. It’s the worst portrait of America I can think of.”

Strong words coming from the guy who made The Manson Family, maybe the most gruesomely realistic study of the hippie cult, crafted with an eye for detail that speaks to true-crime scholarship of the highest order. His fascination with Charles Manson is a long-standing one, having begun in the late 1970s when the Helter Skelter miniseries aired.

“It was a big fuckin’ deal,” he remembers. He was still in elementary school at the time. “This is back in the day when you only had three channels. I was not allowed to watch the film, so I had to ask my friends on the playground, ‘What was that about?’ It kind of haunted me.”

Unlike Helter Skelter, which is based on the best-seller written by Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, Van Bebber’s film focuses on the months of drug-fueled delirium (“a crazy, psychotic rush to absolute zero”) prior to the Family’s crime spree.

“How can you touch Helter Skelter, which is basically a great depiction of the trial? I decided to do everything leading up to that. If you watched them together, it would be a great double feature — Manson 101.”

He began The Manson Family after finding underground success with 1988’s Deadbeat at Dawn, which he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in. (He has a similar stack of credits on Manson, too.) At the time, he’d recently seen Geraldo Rivera’s infamous jailhouse interview with a ranting, tongue-twisting Manson.

“I flipped out,” he chuckles. “I mean, are you kidding me?” Conveniently, he already had a friend who resembled Manson; the rest of the cast — many of whom appear fully nude and/or screaming, covered in blood, etc. — came from the theater department at Wright State University, where he was a student.

“I was very up-front with everybody. I was like, this is gonna be freaky,” he says. “We dove into it without the entire budget in place, and it became this ongoing thing. Thankfully we wrapped the photography within, like, four years. But then it was an eternal struggle to see it fully realized. I got plenty of offers, ‘Ok, let’s just slam this into the DVD market. But first, we gotta cut out this one scene …'”

Determined to stay true to his vision — dark and nightmarish though it was — Van Bebber held out until he met producers David Gregory and Carl Daft. “They got it done the right way. They’re warriors. And I’m pleased that it’s finding its Blu-ray home.”

Looking ahead, he hopes to expand Gator Green into a feature. “I’m just gonna keep going. I was born to make films, and that’s just what I do. Sometimes it takes me a long time, but it’s always worth it.”

 

PERMANENT VACATION

Another sordid tale from the Sunshine State beckons in Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers. The idea of enfant terrible emeritus Korine — 1997’s Gummo, 2007’s Mister Lonely, 2009’s Trash Humpers — directing something so utterly common as a spring break movie is head-scratching enough, even more so compounded by the casting of teen dreams Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, and Ashley Benson as bikini-clad girls gone wild. James Franco co-stars as drug dealer Alien, all platinum teeth and cornrows and shitty tattoos, who befriends the lasses after they’re busted by the fun police.

“Are you being serious?” Gomez’s character asks Alien, soon after meeting him. “What do you think?” he grins back. Unschooled filmgoers who stumble into the theater to see their favorite starlets might be shocked by Breakers‘ hard-R hijinks. But Korine fans will understand that this neon-lit, Skrillex-scored tale of debauchery and dirty menace is not to be taken at face value. The subject matter, the casting, the Britney Spears songs, the deliberately lurid camerawork — all are carefully-constructed elements in a film that takes not-taking-itself-seriously, very seriously indeed. Korine has said he prefers his films to make “perfect nonsense” instead of perfect sense. Spring Breakers makes perfect nonsense, and it also makes nonsense perfect.

After a slo-mo opening sequence of generic partying stuffed with the three Bs (boobs, beer, beach), Spring Breakers shifts to a crummy town in Southern Nowheresville, home to bored college students Brit (Benson), Candy (Hudgens), Cotty (Rachel Korine, wife of the director), and Faith (Gomez). (Can you guess which one is the Christian?) The friends moan about the spring break they’re being denied due to lack of funds, until a plan to rob a fast-food restaurant emerges, and Spring Breakers’ prevailing visual motif — ski mask-wearing hot chicks with guns — is born. It’s one of the film’s many “jokes without a punch line” (another favorite Korine pursuit) that the girls’ college life already resembles one big party — they’re already kinda living spraaaannng braaakkke forevaa, as Alien is fond of saying.

That’s important, because there’s a reason spring break is typically just a one-week affair. For most, full-tilt crazy is only a safe state of being when there’s a clearly-defined endpoint. School begins again; as your liver starts to repair itself, you’re left with a peeling sunburn, stories to tell, maybe a questionable new tattoo. For these girls, spring break is elevated into a chance to “find ourselves, to find out who we are,” according to one of Faith’s dreamy voice-overs. For certain among the group, it’s a quest that leads to some very dark places. Is that a good idea? What do you think? But don’t think too hard, now: to quote Alien again, “Bikinis and big booties, y’all … that’s what life is about.”

THE MANSON FAMILY

Fri/22-Sat/23, midnight, $9-10

Clay Theater

2261 Fillmore, SF

www.landmarktheatres.com

SPRING BREAKERS opens Fri/22 in Bay Area theaters.

#OpenData just got a teeny bit more open

We were disheartened when, after submitting some fairly innocuous questions to the Mayor’s Chief Innovation Officer, Jay Nath, we received zero answers. By the time the Guardian’s annual Freedom of Information issue hit stands yesterday, we were still out in the cold. (Shameless plug: Pick up a print edition of this week’s paper for our flow chart on how to file Sunshine requests, designed by our illustrious Art Director Brooke Robertson.)

Nath, who helped start the city’s Open Data program, responded to our emails and tweets (apologetically) by saying he was awaiting the green light from the Mayor’s Office of Communications. Which begs the question: In a city so outwardly committed to transparency, why can’t the Mayor’s Office of Communications entrust a program expert to share information about information-sharing software?

Anyway, the day after we ran our story, Nath did respond in an email. The first objective of Open Data is to “increase transparency,” he told us.

Other goals are to “drive economic development” and “foster the creation of new services and analysis by our community.” The inspiration behind it came from President Barack Obama, who on his first day in office “issued a memo on open government that heralded their open data program Data.gov,” Nath explained. “With this precedent, the city recognized an opportunity to share local data with the public.” 

Head over to the city’s Open Data Portal and you can poke around for info on everything from real-estate development, to restaurant health inspection scores, to city salary ranges by job classification.

As Nath pointed out, there are also over 30 datasets around campaign finance. That’s a good thing – but there’s still room for improvement. Last year, after attending a city hackathon where transparency advocates hoped to spur creation of an app to track lobbying, campaign contributions and real-estate development, Adriel Hampton of the San Francisco Technology Democrats noted that this was impossible due to a lack of information. “Despite millions in spending on … online transparency measures, access to data in these areas is woefully lacking,” Hampton wrote.

Nath said the annual cost is $40,000 per year for software. He also shared his vision for future expansion. “In terms of new services, I see applications that mash up data from multiple public and private sources to create a seamless experience,” he said. “For example, imagine a tourism app that helps you navigate the city via public transit, taxis, car / bike sharing, biking, walking, etc.”

So how does Open Data affect public records requests under the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance? “Government can use open data to reduce costs by pro-actively providing information that is often requested through FOIA,” Nath told us, referring to the Freedom of Information Act. “For example, by releasing real-time transit data, transit riders have dozens of ways to know when their next bus is coming. This new and immediate access to information has resulted in 21.7% fewer SF 311 calls – and at $2 per call – that yielded a savings of over $1 million a year.”

An interesting thing about data is that it can be totally neutral until it’s harnessed for a particular purpose, with clever visualization and presentation. Just ask the producer of this video on wealth distribution, which has been making the rounds.

Sunshine superheroes

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From the nation’s Capitol to local city halls, requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and local public records laws tend to be stymied by bureaucracy. Protecting the public’s right to know requires fierce dedication, and for 28 years, the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) has honored journalists, lawyers, citizens and others who have successfully used public records to hold government accountable. In an era of steep budget cuts and assaults on transparency laws, these first amendment champions deserve serious cred.

On March 12, during national Sunshine Week, the winners of the annual James Madison Freedom of Information Awards will be honored at a banquet hosted by SPJ’s local Freedom of Information Committee. Here are a few of the first amendment champions who will be honored for their work.

UP AGAINST THE FBI

Before embarking down the path of a FOIA request, it’s worth considering what sort of rabbit hole you might find yourself down. When then-undergraduate Seth Rosenfeld began investigating FBI activities on UC Berkeley’s campus for his senior journalism project, he started with a mere nine thousand pages of FBI files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by his university’s newspaper, The Daily Californian. Thirty-one years and five lawsuits later, he ended up with a total of more than 300,000.

Rosenfeld, who has worked as an investigative reporter for the San Francisco Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle, enlisted a team of pro-bono lawyers to pursue his case. The FBI resisted, claiming that the records were of little public interest and demanding that Rosenfeld pay thousands of dollars in processing fees, then by heavily excising any documents they were forced to release. The agency, which spent more than $1 million trying to withhold the information from Rosenfeld, argued that redactions were necessary to protect law enforcement operations, national security and the privacy of people named in the records. On one document, Rosenfeld found scrawled by former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover himself: “I sense utter fright as to the Freedom of Information Act. It doesn’t open up the flood gates to every ‘kook,’ ‘jackal’ and ‘coyote’ to all our publications, files & records.”

Rosenfeld’s research led him to publish Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals and Reagan’s Rise to Power, which details how the FBI, under Hoover, used Cold War-era tactics to target political dissent on the UC campus. The book reveals Hoover’s close relationship with Ronald Reagan and a plot—ultimately successful—to fire then-UC president Clark Kerr. Rosenfeld is this year’s winner of the Norwin S. Yoffie Career Achievement Award. (Dylan Tokar)

OUTING CONFLICTED JUDGES

Using information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Jennifer Gollan and Shane Shifflett of the Center for Investigative Reporting examined conflicts of interest in California’s federal judiciary. Using financial disclosures, court records and judicial budgets, Gollan and Shifflett cross-referenced the financial investments of federal judges with cases in which they filed rulings.

They discovered that, since 2006, judges had entered more than two dozen rulings in cases involving companies in which they owned stock — a violation of federal law and the Judicial Code of Conduct. Their investigation revealed flaws in the system that should prevent conflicts of interest. In California, Gollan and Shifflett found, judges are allowed autonomy in deciding who and how their financial interests are monitored.

Their story also demonstrated that FOIA doesn’t always function the way it should. According to the reporters, the federal government inhibits public access to what is supposed to be public information, by collecting fees from the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) valued at nearly five times the cost of running the system. The federal judiciary also refused to cooperate with the investigation. Fee waivers for PACER records were refused, judges were notified of requests for financial disclosures, and financial figures regarding PACER fees were withheld. (Tokar)

REALLY, BERKELEY? AN ARMORED VEHICLE?

Copwatch is a Berkeley-based advocacy organization dedicated to monitoring police action and opposing police brutality. Last May, Copwatch filed a FOIA request and received documents revealing that the Berkeley Police Department had requested a $170,000 armored vehicle from the Department of Homeland Security. The vehicle — a Lenco BearCat G3 — resembles a military-style armored truck and was intended to assist the Berkeley, University of California and Albany police in suppressing civilian protests and potential civil unrest. Thanks to the vigilance of Copwatch, the local community mobilized to oppose the introduction of the BearCat and convinced Berkley lawmakers to withdraw the request for funding. (Avi Asher-Schapiro)

For a full list of winners, visit tinyurl.com/sunshine13. The James Madison Freedom of Information Awards Banquet will be held at 5:30pm, Tues/12. To purchase tickets, visit tinyurl.com/2013spjFOI.

Punting for Peru

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le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS First time she touched a football it was a wonky, bouncing punt, and she plucked it up and ran it back 180 yards to the five-yard line. I say 180 yards because there was a lot of zigging and zagging involved. Coach’s grillfriend Zeezee is a professional surfer, and ever since that punt return (October), I have had newfound respect for the athleticism of professional surfers. Not to mention which, a bouncing punt is the hardest kind of football to pick up cleanly.

So . . . nice hands!

Her dad down San Diego way teaches surfing, as far as I know, and music. He made a cajon, which is that Peruvian box drum that you sit on while you play. I’ve seen Zeezee play the cajon, and she played the kaboodle out of it. In fact, ever since then I have had a newfound respect for punt returners. As musicians, I mean.

Anyway, Zeezee lives in S.F. now, so we get to have her for a full season this Spring, so long as she doesn’t get a job. That’s right: If you are looking for a rad-ass surfing teacher with great hands and cajones, look away. Please. We need her. Sunday mornings, at least.

For Hedgehog’s birthday I bought a cajon from Zeezee’s dad. It’s beautiful enough to be furniture, and Hedgehog has been spending a lot of time on it. She uses her hands, uses brushes, wears her washboard . . . Somehow I knew she would know what to do with a beautiful box.

But there is something about February makes me mad. Maybe because you never really quite get your money’s worth, rentwise. I don’t know. Or Valentine’s Day, which bugged me this year very literally. One of my cute little charges got sent home from school on account of lice, and me and her mom had to pick through her and her sister’s hair looking for and yanking out nits.

Then their mom went through my hair and found one there, too, so I had to sit on the edge of the tub just like them and get sprayed and combed and just all around humiliated. All on account of one lousy nit, yuk yuk.

And also, yuck.

So that was how I spent my Valentine’s evening: at the laundromat, washing our clothes and towels and bedding and everything, while the lovers passed two-by-two on their way to Delfina.

My own lover was in New Orleans, out with her single work friends. I called her, I was so depressed, and she sang “You Are My Sunshine” to me — wisely leaving out the verses. The day before she had sent me flowers with the sweetest little note attached. I forget what it said, but I read it again that night once everything was finally folded and put away, and I went to bed.

Her birthday is the real holiday, and she was back for that, like I said, slapping out straightforward 4/4 rhythms, as she ain’t Peruvian. She’s rock’n’roll. But for dinner we went to her favorite restaurant (and mine), Limon Rotisserie — not even thinking that it completed the Peruvian circle.

Next morning I woke up a little later than usual, threw on some clothes, sprayed my hair down with tea tree oil, and risked life and limb and driving record only to get to work two hours early. I had forgot (as usual) to look at my work calendar.

And this is where Olivia’s comes in. Olivia’s Brunch and Fine Dining. In Bernal Heights, down from Holly Park on Mission. Instead of driving all the way back home, during rush hour no less, I decided to kill two hours with two eggs.

Huevos Rancheros!

Good ones! With pinto beans, avocado slices, ranchero sauce, a corn tortilla underneath, and a whole damn quesadilla on top. Note: That’s two meals in one. Yeppers, Olivia puts the unch back in brunch. Which wasn’t exactly what I needed, since it was still pre-9am. But it did help kill the time.

There was no one else in the place to talk to. Just Mona Lisa, a painting of a mounted deer head, a charging elephant, and a very crooked picture of our lord and savior Jesus Christ pulling some crazed dude out of a pretty turbulent sea. Either that or pushing him back in. No no, he’s got him by the arm. See? They don’t call Him lord and savior for nothing.

Nice place. Good food for under 10 bucks. Boom, back to work.

OLIVIA’S

Mon-Sat 8am-2pm, 5-9pm; Sun 8am-3pm

3771 Mission St., SF

(415) 970-0375

AE/D/MC/V

Beer & wine

 

Our Weekly Picks: February 27- March 5, 2013

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WEDNESDAY 27

Lisa Fagan and Alison Williams

At the Garage, you get to see a lot of choreography in progress, which is a pleasure in itself because you can imagine what the final product might be like. Not this time. Lisa Fagan and Alison Williams — friends and colleagues, who first met during that hotbed of incubation, ODC’s Pilot Programs — are offering finished work. The evening, about an hour of choreography, comes with a bonus. Fagan calls her trio, Full Grown Baby Lemon, “a dance work of fiction,” and it has a definitely odd set of characters. Williams’ Edit promises to be rollicking duet between pop and geology. That’s where the bonus comes in. Her music will be live and includes an after-performance dance party where you can dive into dubstep. (Rita Felciano)

8pm, $10–$20

Garage

715 Bryant, SF

www.brownpapertickets.com

 

Fresh and Onlys

Noise Pop borrows its name from a mid-1980s genre that merges contradictions. Noise is edgy and gritty; pop is sunny and easily digestible. The Fresh and Onlys, a San Francisco band that has taken off since its ’08 formation, represents a ’13 incarnation of these oppositions. In “20 Days and 20 Nights,” the opener of last fall’s Long Slow Dance, “I cry” repeats over and over against bright harmonies and an upbeat piano hook, leaving the listener to bop along to the singer’s misery. It is an intriguing sensation caused by the balanced mix of grit and sunshine that continues throughout the vibrant album. The band invites you to bop along to its Noise Pop contradictions at Bottom of the Hill. (Laura Kerry)

With R. Stevie Moore, Plateaus, Burnt Ones

8pm, $14

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

Ceremony

Through the progression of its three studio albums, Rohnert Park’s Ceremony has evolved from unbridled, no-nonsense bursts of hardcore punk to a more slow-burning and equally devastating aggression. While it’s certainly not unusual for punk bands to shine on stage rather than on recordings, Ceremony’s live show takes the cake. Vocalist Ross Farrar is reminiscent of Ian Curtis as he lurches, jerks, and occasionally collapses across the stage, moaning, howling, and screeching as guitarist Anthony Anzaldo and bassist Andy Nelson leap and high-kick around him. The result is a cacophonous and tightly-coiled energy that is deliciously cathartic and at times transcendent in the pissed-off way only a punk band from the suburbs can produce. (Haley Zaremba)

With Terry Malts, Comadre, Perfect Ruin, Synthetic ID

8pm, $12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com


THURSDAY 28

Other Minds 18

Noise Pop isn’t the only contemporary music and art festival rolling into town this week. Other Minds, an annual event that invites composers and artists to share their avant-garde work, launches its 18th year on Thursday with performances of music from far-away places such as Denmark and India. Each of the three nights includes a panel discussion and a performance to fully engage the world of music outside the mainstream. Don’t come to Other Minds expecting the same finger-snapping tunes as the other festival in town; do come to hear some innovative music and to learn something along the way. (Kerry)

Through Sat/2, 7pm, $30-$115 (festival pass)

Jewish Community Center

3200 California, SF

(415) 292-1200

www.otherminds.org

 

Punk in Africa

How much do you know about origins of global underground punk scenes? Beyond the live shows, Noise Pop always shows a handful of creative takes on the usual music doc; Punk in Africa is no exception. It explores a too-infrequently examined continent’s aggressive punk roots, from “the underground rock music of early 1970s Johannesburg, the first multi-racial punk bands formed in the wake of the Soweto Uprising and the militant anti-apartheid hardcore and post-punk bands of the ’80s to the rise of celebratory African-inspired ska bands, which sprang up from Cape Town to Maputo in the democratic era of the ’90s.” It also spotlights current acts battling political bombs with explosive lyrics and pounding drumbeats in Zimbabwe and South Africa. (Emily Savage)

7pm, $10

Artists’ Television Access

992 Valencia, SF

(415) 824-3890

www.atasite.org


FRIDAY 1

Peter

Following last November’s potent For the Love of Emptiness (danced by Jorge De Hoyos), San Francisco-based choreographer Sara Shelton Mann presents the second solo in her fascinating “Eye of Leo Series.” Peter reteams the long esteemed, ever-searching Mann with video-light designer David Slaza, joined by composer Robbie Beahrs and performer Jesse Hewit. In these highly dynamic collaborations, Mann is wont to hover on the fringes, interacting variously with the performance space. “I open the ground and track it as a guide and follow the progress of the terrain chosen by the individual,” explains Mann. “Some chose the difficult path, some chose the surreal dream of extinction, some the practice of perfection. . . . I have chosen and I do not choose. People find me. I have become a hermit in a cage and those who find me have to find the key to the door.” (Robert Avila)

Through Sat/2, 8pm, $15

Joe Goode Annex

499 Alabama, SF

www.brownpapertickets.com

www.sarasheltonmann.org

 

Shih Chieh Huang: Synthetic Seduction

If a work of art had a spirit soundtrack, what would it be? Considering the use of industrial materials such as plastic bags, electrical sensors, and colored lights, one would expect Shih Chieh Huang’s installations to play to the the robotic pop of Daft Punk. Past pieces, though, including one at the National Museum of Natural History, achieve an organic quality that recalls the sound of being submerged in water. Continuing to explore the creation of technological landscapes while engaging in the theme of psychedelia, the artist’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts installation conjures the image of a Jimi Hendrix solo played backwards over a heart monitor. Huang’s art certainly dances to the beat of its own drummer. (Kerry)

Through June 30 Noon, $10

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

(415) 978-2700

www.ybca.org


SATURDAY 2

“Voices of Afghanistan”

Ustad Farida Mahwash and Homayoun Sakhi — both legends in their own right — will return to Cal Performances tonight (for the first time in two years) for a pleasant and educational evening of live traditional and contemporary Afghan music. Mahwash, a popular vocalist in her home country known as “the voice of Afghanistan,” will sing over rubâb virtuoso Sakhi and his ensemble in Wheeler Auditorium. The Sakhi Ensemble is a quartet employing instruments such as the harmonium, tula, doyra, tabla, and Sakhi’s rubâb — a lute-like instrument played with a bow that’s one of Afghanistan’s national instruments; it’s likely the sound you imagine when you think of mesmerizing Middle Eastern music. (Savage)

8pm, $36

Wheeler Auditorium, UC Berkeley Campus

Bancroft Way at Telegraph, Berk.

(510) 642-9988

www.calperformances.org

 

Sonny and the Sunsets

San Francisco’s Sonny Smith has already done more in the past few years than most of us will accomplish in our lifetime. The singer-songwriter-illustrator-playwright has more side projects than Jack White and a seemingly bottomless reserve of creative energy. In 2010, Smith released 200 songs at once that he had recorded for his 100 Records exhibition, and instead of swearing off music for a period like an exhausted person might, he soon began writing the next Sunsets album, worked on 100 Records: Vol. 3 (released this January) and began planning another exhibition, basing songs off protest signs. This project, tentatively titled “Protest Factory,” is still gestating, but last year saw the release of the Sunsets’ third full-length album, which carried on Smith’s tradition of engaging narrative lyrics, though with a surprisingly fantastic country twist. (Zaremba)

With Magic Trick, Cool Ghouls, Dune Rats

Bottom of the Hill

9pm, $12

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com


SUNDAY 3

“Balboa Birthday Bash”

San Francisco is all about celebrating the newest, hottest place — that pizza restaurant where you wait a full hour for a gourmet pie; that bar where each drink is hand-crafted using 11 exotic ingredients. So why not tip your top hat to an 87-year-old veteran: the Balboa Theatre, keeping the avenues cinematically rockin’ since Feb. 7, 1926? The party gets started at 4pm today with a 35mm screening of the 1924 silent version of Peter Pan, featuring live accompaniment by Frederick Hodges; come to the evening show for a repeat screening, plus a live vaudeville show, birthday prizes, and treats. Roaring Twenties attire encouraged! (Cheryl Eddy)

4 and 7pm, $10

Balboa Theatre

3630 Balboa, SF

www.cinemasf.com

 

“Tom Fest” Benefit for Tom Mallon

While he may not be a household name, Tom Mallon had a huge influence and impact on the San Francisco music scene, beginning the mid-1970s. As a musician, Mallon has performed with American Music Club and Toiling Midgets among others, and as a producer and engineer, he provided acts with low-cost studio time and guidance that helped document the work of countless artists. A host of musicians he has worked with over the years are performing tonight at “TomFest,” a special tribute and benefit concert for Mallon and his family (along with the SF Brain Tumor Support Group at UCSF), including Chuck Prophet, Toiling Midgets, Fright Wig, Penelope Houston, Ugly Stick, Peter Case, members of American Music Club, and many more. (Sean McCourt)

7:30pm, $25

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com

Girl Scouts versus Scott Weiner versus Naked Sword: Here’s your week in sexy events

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There are few things that San Franciscans love more than Thin Mints, and local Girl Scouts found out what those were on Sunday when a troop conviniently posted up in front of the deceased Diesel store at Castro and Market. The whippersnappers paid witness not only to another nude-y demonstration against the city’s new ban on public nudity, but also to said demonstration’s infiltration by dapper members (ahem) of local porn outfit Naked Sword [as Castro Biscuit reported.] They’re making a send-up of the nudity ban starring an ambitious politician, surname: Cox. Wink.

The flick will star Guardian cover boy Leo Forte, Dale Cooper as Cox, Christian Wilde as Officer Dick — who, we will note, was the only “cop” making arrests at the porn shoot-protest. Though there were six members of SFPD there by Castro Biscuit’s count and many exposed sets of genitalia, not a single arrest was made. If you’re going to have a nudity ban, might as well be a selectively-enforced one — all the better for climate-of-fear creating, amiright?

Adult Entertainment Virtual Convention 

Perhaps you were unable to attend the AVN porn awards in Vegas this year, or last weekend’s transgender version, the Tranny Awards in Los Angeles. How will you supplant the opportunities you forewent to rub elbows with your favorite adult stars in a vast, drafty hotel conference room? Might we recommend this peculiar, multi-day event hosted by porn critics Xbiz and sex-only Second Life-esque world Red Light Social Center. Now in its second year, you can prowl the halls of the convention avatar-like, taking in a Q&A with James Deen (Sat/23, 10am), daily industry networking hours, and expert panels on social media and branding for adult brands (Wed/27, 2pm) and online possibilities for sex work (Fri/22, 2pm).

Wed/20-Sat/23, free with online registration. www.adultvirtualconvention.com

Bawdy Storytelling: “One Night Stand” slam

It’s another edition of this XXX storytelling series’ amateur hour — not in a bad way! We’re just trying to say the field is open to all comers. Come at 7:30pm to sign up for a five-minute slot, all for you to lay bare your tale of one-off sexual shenanigans. The winner gets to compete in an upcoming championship round of some sort. Good luck, truth teller. 

Thu/21, 8pm, $10. Cafe Royale, 800 Post, SF. www.bawdystorytelling.com

Antique vibrator talk with Rachel Maines

Rachel Maines was actually researching a different kind of poke entirely when she came across the world of vibrator history — the scholar, who is currently a visiting scientist at Cornell University’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, first saw mention of old school vibes in antique needlepoint magazines. Her interest piqued, Maines embarked on a study of the vibrator’s origins in private homes and as a tool used by doctors to treat “hysteria” among the female population. Today, she gives a talk surrounded by Good Vibrations founder Jodi Blanks’ formidable collection of vibrators throughout history — and of course, alongside some modern-day versions you can buy for your newly-educated self. 

Fri/22, 6:30pm, free. Good Vibrations, 1620 Polk, SF. www.goodvibes.com

Sex Worker Outreach Project meeting

Current and former sex workers are invited over to talk justice at SWOP’s regular meeting of the minds. The national organization fights for social justice for sex workers, working particularly on anti-violence issues. SWOP was behind a failed bid to decriminalize prostitution in 2004, and every year leads the way with the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers — check it out. 

Feb. 28, 6pm, free. Harm Reduction Coalition, 1440 Broadway, Suite 510, Oakl. www.swopbay.org

“Hard Day at the Office: Sex Workers on the Job”

… Speaking of SWOP, if you didn’t make it to that meeting — or aren’t a current or former sex worker, but still want to support the group’s work — or just like lit, get over to this evening of spoken word performances about the world’s oldest profession. Contributing to the program: Apaulo Hart, Carol Queen, Chad Litz, Cho Whoreingsly Prancypants, Daphne Gottlieb, Jacques LeFemme, Janetta Johnson, Miss Lola Sunshine, and Shelley “Muffie” Mays. 

Sat/23, 8pm, $10-20 sliding scale. Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org

Sundance 2013: love and confusion

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I only got to experience half of this year’s US Dramatic Competition films (unfortunately, missing David Lowery’s buzzed-about Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, which shared the Best Cinematography Award with Andrew Dosunmu’s breathtaking Mother of George).

Still, among the films I saw, I was pleasantly surprised by James Ponsoldt’s brutally poignant coming-of-age drama The Spectacular Now. With a straight-ahead script that avoids clichés, the film benefits greatly from a pair of standout performances by its young stars. Miles Teller, from John Cameron Mitchell’s Rabbit Hole (2010) and Craig Brewer’s underrated remake of Footloose (2011), perfectly embodies a high-school asshole, while Shailene Woodley (so good in Alexander Payne’s 2011 The Descendants) is spot-on as the class loner.

The Spectacular Now offers a reminder that high school sucks just as much as it did when you were a teenager. Along with last year’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, it’s John Hughes, 21st-century style.

Elsewhere, Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color (following his much-praised, much-debated 2004 Primer) put me into an Inception-like trance, to the point of me probably needing to see it again before I can speak logically about it. Jill Soloway’s Afternoon Delight won the Best Directing award and featured noteworthy performances by Kathryn Hahn and Juno Temple, but its bafflingly regressive conclusion has left me wondering if a studio forced the director to change it at the last minute. (That said, I enjoyed it immensely.)

Lynn Shelton’s latest entry Touchy Feely was only superficially engaging; it seemed to lack the bold direction and poignancy of Humpday (2009) and Your Sister’s Sister (2011). Jordon Vogt-Roberts’ Toy’s House sent the audience into hysterical laughter (supposedly at every screening) due to a memorable performance by Disney Channel star Moises Arias as the creepy third wheel in what’s more or less a suburban Lord of the Flies. (Fans of NBC’s Parks and Rec won’t want to miss Nick Offerman in this, either.) Could Toy’s House be this year’s Little Miss Sunshine?

Our Weekly Picks: January 30-February 5

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WEDNESDAY 30

Testament

Bay Area thrash metal legend Testament has been unleashing its sonic assault, and inspiring untold legions of fans, for nearly 30 years now. Propelled by the powerful lead single “Native Blood,” which draws from singer Chuck Billy’s Native American roots and experiences, the band’s newest album, Dark Roots of Earth (Nuclear Blast) was released last summer, and features the band’s signature frenzied formula for pit-inducing anthems. With longtime members Eric Peterson, Greg Christian, and Alex Skolnick joined by former Death drummer Gene Hoglan, don’t miss the band as it kicks off a new titanic tour right here in the city. (Sean McCourt)

With Overkill, 4Arm, the Butlers

6:45pm, $32.50

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

 

Local Natives

Local Natives stole our collective hearts in 2009 with their self-funded debut Gorilla Manor, an irresistible slice of unearthly folk rock, before cruelly fading into the background. Finally, four years later, they’ve resurfaced with a sophomore effort, Hummingbird. Though the Orange Country-bred group recorded the album in Brooklyn, the California sunshine still shines through its meandering, ethereal soundscapes. The band’s songs draw heavily from indie peers Grizzly Bear and Fleet Foxes, but manage to add a refreshing, summery glow to the reverb-heavy pop murk. The album, which was produced by Aaron Dessner of the National, promises to translate well to a live format, keeping the band’s trademarked harmonies in place while also allowing vocalist Kelcey Ayer’s dreamy falsetto to soar. (Haley Zaremba)

With Superhumanoids

8pm, $25

Fox Theater

1807 Telegraph, Oakland

(510) 302-2250

www.thefoxoakland.com


THURSDAY 31

“The Eyes: San Francisco Beat Film” If you’ve already read Dharma Bums, had a drink at Vesuvio’s, or paid homage to Beat culture in the number of other ways available in San Francisco, here’s something different. Beat artists such as Bruce Conner, Wallace Berman, and ruth weiss made movies that captured the living, breathing world of their generation. Complementing the Jay DeFeo retrospective (on view until February 2), the five short films that SFMOMA will screen tonight are intriguing not only as historical documents, but also as an expansion of the artistic vocabulary of dislocation and spontaneity that contribute to the Beat Generation’s continuing allure. (Laura Kerry)

7pm, $10

SFMOMA, Phyllis Wattis Theater

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org

 

Geographer

As a fiercely dedicated San Franciscan, I often feel obligated to rep local acts and tout their worth over artists from, say, Los Angeles. Out of all our hometown heroes, however, few deserve my praise as much as the wonderfully spaced-out indie outfit Geographer. The trio combines digital, analog, and a bit of experimentation to create gorgeous, lush pop songs that break the mold while still managing to stick in your head. Though Geographer has racked up a fair amount of buzz both locally and nationally over five years, it somehow continues to be one of the Bay Area’s best-kept secrets. So throw on your Niners jersey, pedal your fixie to the Fillmore, and show your SF pride by shoegazing your heart out. (Zaremba)

With Midi Matilda, ON AN ON

8pm, $20

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com


FRIDAY 1

“Ice Cream Girl”

It’ll be like a Lisa Frank trapper-keeper, come to life. Paint Pens in Purses, an all-female urban art collective, will present its newest collection this weekend: “Ice Cream Girl” — a blend of “urban, contemporary, and low-brow artwork” created by lady-artists from across the country. There will be Lauren Max’s photography, works by Tofusquirrel, who brings vibrant, cartoonish ice cream critters (with cheeky names like Mr. Pattymint Cone, and Sherby Sprinkles); and colorful drawings by curator Shayna Yasuhara, among works by other artists. Oh, and Paint Pens in Purses will raffle off four of Dayna Gilbert and Yasuhara’s two-foot-tall ice cream buddies. Plush! Plus, this thing has free drinks. (Emily Savage)

8pm, free

D-Structure

520 Haight, SF

www.paintpensinpurses.com

 

Killers

Don’t go to see Killers if you want a smoothly polished performance. Do go to observe two deeply-thinking artists, Jesse Hewit and Laura Arrington, work on finding a vehicle to tackle questions as fundamental as living and dying. The performance is likely to be rough, messy, and fierce. Don’t be surprised if some of it also looks fragile, that’s the nature of living — and performing. Hewit and Arrington —calling themselves Jarry for this project — have worked alongside one another, but separately for several years. Now their energies are flowing together for what at this point is a two-act creation: first a funeral, than a killing. Originally, they had called the project Adult — perhaps not very sexy, but accurately describing the two of them and what they do. (Rita Felciano)

Through Sun/3, 8pm

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission St., SF

$10-30

www.counterpulse.org

 

Life and Death Label Showcase

I spent a couple weeks of the new year coveting Mexico’s BPM festival; not just the beaches of Playa del Carmen, but some talent-packed, label-centric showcases. Particularly the one from Italy’s Life and Death, an upstart label that’s forging a deep-dug sound somewhere between the soulful, well-paced grooves of NYC’s Wolf+Lamb collective, and the smart, deep tech of Germany’s Kompakt. Luckily, label founder DJ Tennis is taking a scenic trip back to Rome, stopping in town for a stacked lineup that includes ever-playful Thugfucker, Berlin’s rising duo Tale of Us, and SF’s own PillowTalk. With each act individually known for putting its own spin on the party, expectations here are high. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Jimmy Edgar, Adnan Sharif

9pm, $15

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

 

w00tstock

Geeks were picked on for generations. With the advent of the 21st century computer age and mainstream successes of all manner of tech-related products, and even the acceptance of watching sci-fi and reading comic books, we can now proudly come together for a celebration of our collective nerdiness! Join Adam Savage from Mythbusters, Wil Wheaton from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and singers Paul and Storm for a night of comedy, music, readings, and much more — all embracing geek pride. Be sure to think of clever cover band names and prepare for double-entendre sing-alongs about sailors, because when it comes to being one of the funniest groups of geeks around, they sure ARRGHH! (McCourt)

7pm, $35.

Marines Memorial Theatre

609 Sutter, Second Floor, SF

www.sfsketchfest.com


SATURDAY 2

Driss Ouadah

In Fences IV, Algerian artist Driss Ouadahi depicts a hazy sky with pink-tinted clouds behind the delicate geometry of a fence. Sounds picturesque, right? But the chain-links expand to the borders of the canvas, trapping and disorienting the viewer. In “Trans-Location,” the artist’s latest show largely comprised of cityscape paintings, Ouadahi builds on this tension between promise and enclosure. The gridded and abstracted architectural spaces invite the viewer in but ultimately fail to allow them passage or clarity. Viewable from the comparatively accessible architectural space of Hosfelt Gallery, the works enacts an elegant commentary on modernity’s failure to deliver its political and social promises. And the paintings look cool too. (Kerry)

Through Mar. 23

Reception 4-6pm, free

Hosfelt Gallery

260 Utah, SF

(415) 495-5454

www.hosfeltgallery.com

 

Adam Green and Binki Shapiro

Opposites do attract. Adam Green is a so-called “anti-folk” Manhattanite with an extensive catalog of foul-mouthed, tongue-in-cheek ballads and admirably humble beginnings as Kimya Dawson’s counterpart in the Moldy Peaches. Binki Shapiro hails from LA, is a retro fashion icon and former member of Brazilian-American supergroup Little Joy, along with her ex-boyfriend and Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti. The duo’s vastly different backgrounds and musical leanings don’t seem compatible at first glance, but in practice they blend beautifully. During the writing of the record, both Green and Shapiro were going through romantic rough patches, which ultimately pushed the musicians to help write each other’s breakup albums, creating a finished product rife with earnestness and vulnerability. (Zaremba)

With the Range of Light Wilderness

9pm, $18

The Chapel

777 Valencia, SF

(415) 551-5157

www.thechapelsf.com


SUNDAY 3

Vieux Farka Toure

It should be enough to say that Vieux Farka Touré follows the footsteps of his father, the late, Grammy-winning Ali, or that he’s known as “the Hendrix of the Sahara.” But not quite. In “Gido (featuring John Scofield)” — yes, of jazz-rock fame — an acoustic guitar expertly noodles in a Malian scale, a bend on an electric cues bass and drums, then the two guitars continue to converse. It’s tempting to fashion this into some metaphor about the melding of African music and Western rock, and though this wouldn’t be misplaced, the main takeaway from “Gido” and the whole album, The Secret (2011), is that it sounds great. As Yoshi’s will prove, Touré creates his own breed of music, and he does it well. (Kerry)

With Markus James

7pm, $25

Yoshi’s

1330 Fillmore, SF

(415) 655-5600

www.yoshis.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.

Heads Up: 7 must-see concerts this week

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This week holds big, anticipated-return shows like Local Natives at the Fox and Cody ChesnuTT at the Independent, new pairings like Adam Green and Binki Shapiro at the Chapel, an anniversary celebration at BAGel Radio’s locally curated Bottom of the Hill night with Mister Loveless and CHURCHES, legendary Malian offspring Vieux Farka Touré at Yoshi’s, and a possible faux listing (Jackie-O Motherfucker is supposedly playing Casa Sanchez).

Only time will tell. Go out, Bay Area music lovers, into the chilly night, and report back to us.

Here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end:

Cody ChesnuTT
The soul troubadour returns. Aside from his debut double-album, The Headphone Masterpiece (Ready Set Go), Roots collaboration, and brief 2010 EP Black Skin No Value (Vibration Vineyard), singer-songwriter Cody ChesnuTT just hasn’t been on the radar enough, given his powerful pipes. He brought it all back in late 2012, releasing socially-conscious soul gem, Landing on a Hundred (Redeye Label), which he’s touring on now.
Tue/29, 8pm, $15
Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF
www.theindependentsf.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAlAmbewaZo

Local Natives
“Local Natives stole our collective hearts in 2009 with their self-funded debut Gorilla Manor, an irresistible slice of unearthly folk rock, before cruelly fading into the background. Finally, four years later, they’ve resurfaced with a sophomore effort, Hummingbird. Though the Orange Country-bred group recorded the album in Brooklyn, the California sunshine still shines through its meandering, ethereal soundscapes. The band’s songs draw heavily from indie peers Grizzly Bear and Fleet Foxes, but manage to add a refreshing, summery glow to the reverb-heavy pop murk. The album, which was produced by Aaron Dessner of the National, promises to translate well to a live format, keeping the band’s trademarked harmonies in place while also allowing vocalist Kelcey Ayer’s dreamy falsetto to soar.” — Haley Zaremba
With Superhumanoids
Wed/30, 8pm, $25
Fox Theater
1807 Telegraph, Oakland
(510) 302-2250
www.thefoxoakland.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1dFjloBZYo

Jackie-O Motherfucker
[Disclaimer: I’ve found this show on two different punk listservs, yet nowhere else thus far. Got a call in to the shop.] Experimental, ’90s-born Portland act Jackie-O Motherfucker live at Mexican restaurant, Casa Sanchez, where I can also eat chips and salsa during the set? That’ll do just fine, thank you.
With You Nori, Cuttle Buttle, Baus.
Thu/31, 7:30pm, free
Casa Sanchez
2778 24 St, SF.
www.casasanchezfood.com

Brass Menažeri
The 12-year-old Balkan dance party band bids farewell at this final concert, with two live sets. Check this week’s issue (Wed/30) for more on the group’s demise.
Fri/1, 9pm, $15
New Parish
579 18th St., Oakl.
www.thenewparish.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twGgff89eno

BAGel Radio Anniversary Show

Ted Leibowitz has been doing Internet radio far longer than the majority of your favorite podcast hosts. His indie rock-oriented Internet radio station, BAGel Radio, is turning 10 this year. So the station founder-music director is throwing this show with local rock bands including Pixies-honoring Mister Loveless, angsty Churches, tender Birdmonster. A lineup worth showing up early for.
Fri/1, 9:30pm, $12
Bottom of the Hill,
1233 17th St., SF
www.bottomofthehill.com.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n990CcF_uuA

Adam Green and Binki Shapiro
“Opposites do attract. Adam Green is a so-called “anti-folk” Manhattanite with an extensive catalog of foul-mouthed, tongue-in-cheek ballads and admirably humble beginnings as Kimya Dawson’s counterpart in the Moldy Peaches. Binki Shapiro hails from LA, is a retro fashion icon and former member of Brazilian-American supergroup Little Joy, along with her ex-boyfriend and Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti. The duo’s vastly different backgrounds and musical leanings don’t seem compatible at first glance, but in practice they blend beautifully. During the writing of the record, both Green and Shapiro were going through romantic rough patches, which ultimately pushed the musicians to help write each other’s breakup albums, creating a finished product rife with earnestness and vulnerability.” — Haley Zaremba
With the Range of Light Wilderness
Sat/2, 9pm, $18
The Chapel
777 Valencia, SF
(415) 551-5157
www.thechapelsf.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrbeDDiU92g

Vieux Farka Touré
“It should be enough to say that Vieux Farka Touré follows the footsteps of his father, the late, Grammy-winning Ali, or that he’s known as “the Hendrix of the Sahara.” But not quite. In “Gido (featuring John Scofield)” — yes, of jazz-rock fame — an acoustic guitar expertly noodles in a Malian scale, a bend on an electric cues bass and drums, then the two guitars continue to converse. It’s tempting to fashion this into some metaphor about the melding of African music and Western rock, and though this wouldn’t be misplaced, the main takeaway from “Gido” and the whole album, The Secret (2011), is that it sounds great. As Yoshi’s will prove, Touré creates his own breed of music, and he does it well.” — Laura Kerry
With Markus James
Sun/3, 7pm, $25
Yoshi’s
1330 Fillmore, SF
(415) 655-5600
www.yoshis.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMI46WhdjRE

Do brew: Coffee class with the author of ‘Left Coast Roast’

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Hanna Neuschwander loves coffee. She adores it so much, that she’s written a whole book about coffee roasters called Left Coast Roast. On a chilly evening this week, she had a small crowd of equally excited coffee aficionados join her for a home brew coffee class at 18 Reasons in the Mission.

The class started with a brain-teasing aroma sensory test that included sniffing little jars of unknown aromatics. The ones I felt were most difficult to identify, oddly enough, turned out to be the most straight-forward flavors, like apple and vanilla. Once the test was over, our senses were ready to take on the even more complex scent of coffee. We tasted coffee from Guatemala and Kenya and then learned the proper way to make coffee at home using a French press, the pour-over method, and the trendy AeroPress — which supposedly has quite a following, but requires brewing hot coffee in plastic. Hmmm.

It was impressive to hear Hanna’s daily coffee routine (which usually starts at 5am before work). She measures, in grams, coffee beans on a kitchen scale, grinds them in a burr grinder — which usually produces a more even grind than your normal blade grinder — brings her water up to 195 to 205 degrees Farenheit, and then slowly and methodically pours the water over her grounds to make the perfect cup.

That is some serious coffee making, not to mention attention to detail in the weeeee hours of the morning! What I found most interesting about the class was learning about the two methods for cleaning the cherry fruit off the coffee bean, called wet and dry processing. Wet means taking the cherry off first using a machine, then waiting a few days for the mucilage around the coffee bean to loosen, before rushing water over it to clean the bean. It sounded rather water-intensive and wasteful. Dry process means letting the fruit dry in the sun, sometimes on raised netted beds, which seemed much more environmentally friendly, and also gives the beans more of a chance to develop and absorb more sugars from the fruit, while they bask in the sunshine.

Apparently, many coffee shops consider the dry-processed beans dirty because of the possibility for fermentation and mold to occur while the coffee cherries dry, favoring the “cleaner” taste of wet-processed beans. Just another factor to consider the next time you’re out for a new bag of beans.

While some elected to spit, I finished all my coffee, and left the class at 9pm, walking home with a happy coffee buzz while I hoped fervently I would be able to get some sleep.

Spies on the corner

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rebecca@sfbg.com

In the Netherlands city of Eindhoven, the streetlights lining a central commercial strip will glow red if a storm is coming. It’s a subtle cue that harkens back to an old phrase about a red sky warning mariners that bad weather is on the way. The automated color change is possible because satellite weather data flows over a network to tiny processors installed inside the lampposts, which are linked by an integrated wireless system.

Lighting hues reflecting atmospheric changes are only the beginning of myriad functions these so-called “smart streetlights” can perform. Each light has something akin to a smartphone embedded inside of it, and the interconnected network of lights can be controlled by a central command center.

Since they have built-in flexibility for multiple adaptations, the systems can be programmed to serve a wide variety of purposes. Aside from merely illuminating public space, possible uses could include street surveillance with tiny cameras, monitoring pedestrian or vehicle traffic, or issuing emergency broadcasts via internal speaker systems.

The smart streetlights aren’t just streetlights — they’re data collection devices that have the potential to track anything from pedestrian movements to vehicle license plate numbers. And, through a curious process distinctly lacking in transparency, these spylights are on their way to San Francisco.

BIG PLANS

On Minna between Fourth and Sixth streets in downtown San Francisco, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has installed a pilot project to test 14 streetlights that are connected by a wireless control system. The city agency plans to gauge how well this system can remotely read city-owned electric meters, wirelessly transmit data from tiny traffic cameras owned by the Municipal Transportation Agency, and transmit data from traffic signals.

The pilot grew out of San Francisco’s participation in an international program called the Living Labs Global Award, an annual contest that pairs technology vendors with officials representing 22 cities from around the world. At a May 2012 LLGA awards summit in Rio de Janeiro, far outside the scope of the city’s normal bidding processes, a Swiss company called Paradox Engineering won the right to start testing the high-tech lights in San Francisco. Within six months, Paradox Engineering and the SFPUC had the Minna streetlights test up and running.

Meanwhile, the city has issued a separate Request for Proposals for a similar pilot, which will test out “adaptive lighting” that can be dimmed or brightened in response to sensors that register pedestrian activity or traffic volume. The city is negotiating contracts with five firms that will test out this technology in three different locations, according to Mary Tienken, Project Manager for LED Streetlight Conversion Project for the SFPUC.

Under the program, five vendors will be chosen to demonstrate their wireless streetlights on 18 city-owned lights at three test sites: Washington Street between Lyon and Maple streets; Irving Street between 9th and 19th avenues; and Pine Street between Front and Stockton streets.

LED streetlights are energy-efficient and could yield big savings — but the lights do far more than shine. The RFP indicates that “future needs for the secure wireless transmission of data throughout the city” could include traffic monitoring, street surveillance, gunshot monitoring and street parking monitoring devices.

So far, the implications of using this technology for such wide-ranging objectives have barely been explored. “San Francisco thought they were upgrading their 18,000 lamps with LEDs and a wireless control system, when they realized that they were in fact laying the groundwork for the future intelligent public space,” LLGA cofounder Sascha Haselmeyer stated in an interview with Open Source Cities. “Eindhoven is pioneering this with … completely new, intelligent lighting concepts that adapt to the citizen not just as a utility, but a cultural and ambient experience. So many questions remain,” he added, and offered a key starting point: “Who owns all that data?”

LUMINARIES IN LIGHTING

Phillips Lighting, which was involved in installing the Eindhoven smart streetlights system, played a role in launching the San Francisco pilot. Paradox Engineering recently opened a local office. Oracle, a Silicon Valley tech giant, is also involved — even though it’s not a lighting company.

“Oracle, of course, manages data,” Haselmeyer explained to the Guardian when reached by phone in his Barcelona office. “They were the first to say, ‘We need to understand how data collected from lampposts will be controlled in the city.'”

According to a press release issued by Paradox Engineering, “Oracle will help managing and analyzing data coming from this ground-breaking system.” Oracle is also a corporate sponsor of the LLGA program. It has been tangentially involved in the pilot project “because of a longstanding relationship we had with the city of San Francisco,” Oracle spokesperson Scott Frendt told us.

Paradox was selected as the winner for San Francisco’s “sustainability challenge” through LLGA, which is now housed under CityMart.com, “a technology start-up offering a professional networking and market exchange platform,” according to the company website.

In May of 2012, the SFPUC sent one of its top-ranking officials, Assistant General Manager Barbara Hale, to Rio for the LLGA awards summit. There, technology vendors of all stripes showcased their products and mingled with local officials from Barcelona, Cape Town, Glasgow, Fukuoka and other international cities. San Francisco was the only US city in attendance. San Francisco will even host the next summit this coming May at Fort Mason.

In Rio, Paradox was lauded as the winning vendor for San Francisco’s LLGA streetlights “challenge.” It didn’t take long for the company to hit the ground running. “Soon after the Rio Summit on Service Innovation in Cities, where we were announced winners for San Francisco, we started discussing with the SFPUC the objectives and features of the pilot project,” Paradox announced on the LLGA website. “Working closely with the SFPUC, we also had the opportunity to build solid partnerships with notable industry players such as Philips Lighting and Oracle.”

WINNERS’ CIRCLE

On Nov. 15, Paradox hosted an invite-only “networking gala” titled “Smart Cities: The Making Of.” The event brought together representatives from Oracle, the SFPUC, Phillips, LLGA, and the Mayor’s Office of Civic Innovation, “to learn about the challenges of urban sustainability in the Internet of Things era,” according to an event announcement.

“The project we’re piloting with the SFPUC is highly innovative since it puts into practice the new paradigm of the ‘Internet of Things,’ where any object can be associated with an IP address and integrated into a wider network to transmit and receive relevant information,” Gianni Minetti, president and CEO at Paradox, stated in a press release.

The event was also meant to celebrate Paradox’s expansion into the North American urban lighting space, a feat that was greatly helped along by the LLGA endeavor. But how did a Swiss company manage to hook up with a San Francisco city agency in the first place — and win a deal without ever going through the normal procurement process?

San Francisco’s involvement in LLGA began with Chris Vein, who served as the city’s Chief Technology Officer under former Mayor Gavin Newsom. (Vein has since ascended to the federal government to serve as Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer for Government Innovation for President Barack Obama.)

To find the right fit for San Francisco’s wireless LED streetlights “challenge” under the LLGA program, a judging panel was convened to score more than 50 applicant submissions received through the program framework. Judges were selected “based upon knowledge and contacts of people in the SFPUC Power Enterprise,” Tienken explained. The scoring system, Haselmeyer said, measures sustainability under a rubric developed by the United Nations.

Jurists for San Francisco’s streetlight program were handpicked from the SFPUC, the San Francisco Department of Technology, Phillips, and several other organizations. An international jurist is designated by LLGA for each city’s panel of jurists, Haselmeyer said, “so as to avoid any kind of local stitch-up.”

He stressed that “the city is explicitly not committing to any procurement.” Instead, vendors agree to test out their technology in exchange for cities’ dedication of public space and other resources. Tienken, who manages the city’s LED Streetlight Conversion Project, noted that “Paradox Engineering is not supposed to make a profit” under the LLGA program guidelines. “We’ll pay them a $15,000 stipend,” she said, the same amount that will be awarded to the firms that are now in negotiation for pilot projects of their own.

“San Francisco is using this to learn about the solution,” Haselmeyer added. “This company will not have any advantage,” when it comes time to tap a vendor for the agency’s long-term goal of upgrading 18,500 of its existing streetlights with energy-saving LED lamps and installing a $2 million control system.

At the same time, the program clearly creates an inside track — and past LLGA participants have landed lucrative city contracts. Socrata, a Seattle-based company, was selected as a LLGA winner in 2011 and invited to run a pilot project before being tapped to power data.SFgov.org, the “next-generation, cloud-based San Francisco Open Data site” unveiled by Mayor Ed Lee’s office in March of 2012.

The mayor’s press release, which claimed that the system “underscores the Mayor’s commitment to providing state of the art access to information,” made no mention of LLGA.

PRIVACY AND PUBLIC SPACE

Throughout this process of attending an international summit in Rio, studying applications from more than 50 vendors, selecting Paradox as a winner, and later issuing an RFP, a very basic question has apparently gone unaddressed. Is a system of lighting fixtures that persistently collects data and beams it across invisible networks something San Franciscans really want to be installed in public space?

And, if these systems are ultimately used for street surveillance or traffic monitoring and constantly collecting data, who will have access to that information, and what will it be used for? Haselmeyer acknowledged that the implementation of such a system should move forward with transparency and a sensitivity to privacy implications.

“Many cities are deploying sensors that detect the Bluetooth signal of your mobile phone. So, they can basically track movements through the city,” Haselmeyer explained. “Like anything with technology, there’s a huge amount of opportunity and also a number of questions. … You have movement sensors, traffic sensors, or the color [of a light] might change” based on a behavior or condition. “There’s an issue about who can opt in, or opt out, of what.”

Tienken and Sheehan downplayed the RFP’s reference to “street surveillance” as a potential use of the wireless LED systems, and stressed that the pilot projects are only being used to study a narrow list of features. “The PUC’s interest is in creating an infrastructure that can be used by multiple agencies or entities … having a single system rather than have each department install its own system,” Tienken said. The SFPUC is getting the word out about the next batch of pilots by reaching out to police precinct captains and asking them to announce it in their newsletters, since “streetlighting is a public safety issue,” as Tienken put it.

Haselmeyer acknowledged that public input in such a program is important: “It’s very important to do these pilot projects, because it allows those community voices to be heard. In the end, the city has to say, look — is it really worth all of this, or do we just want to turn our lights on and off?”

LIGHTS, BUT NO SUNSHINE

One company that is particularly interested in San Francisco pilot is IntelliStreets, a Michigan firm that specializes in smart streetlights. IntelliStreets CEO Ron Harwood told the Guardian that his company was a contender for the pilot through LLGA; he even traveled to Rio and delivered a panel talk on urban lighting systems alongside Hale and a representative from Oracle.

A quick Google search for IntelliStreets shows that the company has attracted the attention of activists who are worried that these lighting products represent a kind of spy tool, and a spooky public monitoring system that would strip citizens of their right to privacy and bolster law enforcement activities.

“It’s not a listening device,” Harwood told the Guardian, when asked about speakers that would let operators communicate with pedestrians, and vice-versa. “So you can forget about the Fourth Amendment” issues.

Harwood seemed less concerned about the activists who’ve decried his product as a modern day manifestation of Big Brother, and more worried about why his company was not chosen to provide wireless LED streetlights in San Francisco. After being passed over in the LLGA process, Harwood said IntelliStreets responded to the RFP issued in the weeks following the Rio summit. Once again, Harwood’s firm didn’t make the cut.

Since his company provides very similar services to those described in the RFP, Harwood said he was “confused” by the outcome of the selection process. IntelliStreets’ Chief Administration Officer Michael Tardif was more direct. “Clearly we think this was an inside deal,” Tardif told the Guardian. Tienken, for her part, declined to discuss why San Francisco had rejected IntelliStreets’ application.

And when a public records request was submitted to the agency last August for details on San Francisco’s participation in LLGA, the response was opaque at best. “After a duly diligent search we find that there are no documents responsive to your request,” an SFPUC public records coordinator responded via email. “The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is not a participant, nor is involved with Living Labs Global Award. Please know that we take our obligations under the Sunshine Ordinance very seriously.” That was just an honest mistake, Sheehan tells the Guardian now by way of explanation. In the public records division, “Clearly, nobody had any familiarity with LLGA.”

Golden doodles

4

cheryl@sfbg.com

Yeah, the presidential election happened months ago. But the most intense campaign season is just beginning, as multiple ceremonies ramp up to Hollywood’s ultimate night of self-congratulation (and occasionally questionable fashion): the Academy Awards. The nominations will be announced Jan. 10; the ceremony, hosted by first-timer Seth MacFarlane — of Family Guy and talking teddy bear fame — is Feb. 24. Predictions are based on Golden Globe nominations, Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, Independent Spirit Award nominations, random news and gossip reports, and my own loudmouthed opinion.

Best Actor This one’s already in the bag, or more accurately, tucked under the stovepipe hat: Daniel Day-Lewis is the closest thing 2013 has to a lock, for Lincoln. The only strike against the two-time winner is that his last trophy came pretty recently, for 2007’s There Will Be Blood. Though it’s unlikely any of the other nominees have a chance, best guesses for also-rans are Hugh Jackman for Les Misérables (he sings!); John Hawkes for The Sessions (he’s paralyzed!); and Denzel Washington for Flight (he drinks!) The fifth slot could go to Silver Linings Playbook‘s Bradley Cooper, The Master‘s Joaquin Phoenix (my pick), or dark horse Jack Black, for Bernie.

Best Actress Two women enter, one woman leaves … with a little gold man in tow. Best Actress looks to be a battle between Zero Dark Thirty‘s Jessica Chastain and Silver Linings Playbook‘s Jennifer Lawrence. Both have been nominated before, though Chastain might have an edge here: Zero is a serious action-drama that’s been hyped more than Playbook, and Chastain — last year’s “Where did she come from and why is she in every movie?” surprise — has settled down from overexposed newcomer to reliable talent. Lawrence, also the lead in the mega-popular Hunger Games series, is just 22 years old, and though her sophisticated work in Playbook belies her relative youth, she may be passed over with the understanding that she’ll soon be nominated again.

Other names that will likely appear on the ballot: Marion Cotillard, a past winner, for playing a woman who loses her legs in Rust and Bone; and Naomi Watts, a past nominee who should probably have gotten a statuette by now, for playing the matriarch of a tsunami-ravaged family in The Impossible. The last slot could go to Academy fave Helen Mirren (for the so-so Hitchcock); another past winner, Rachel Weisz, for her raw turn in The Deep Blue Sea; Emmanuelle Riva, winner of the San Francisco Film Critic Circle’s Best Actress award for her work as a dying woman in Amour; or grade-school discovery Quevenzhané Wallis, for her tough-sprite turn in Beasts of the Southern Wild.

Best Supporting Actor After I saw Argo, I was certain that Alan Arkin (who won in this category for 2006’s Little Miss Sunshine) would repeat. Then I saw Lincoln, and decided Tommy Lee Jones was the clear favorite. Then I saw Django Unchained, and Samuel L. Jackson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Christoph Waltz lurched forth. I suspect all of Django‘s supporting cast won’t actually be nominated (my favorite of the trio: Jackson), and The Master’s Philip Seymour Hoffman and Silver Linings Playbook‘s Robert De Niro are likely contenders. Matthew McConaughey could also slither in, for the crowd-pleasing Magic Mike. But right now, I’m leaning toward the hilariously world-weary Jones for the win. “It opens!”

Best Supporting Actress It’s going to be Sally Field, the nutty-yet-sympathetic Mary Todd in Lincoln, versus Anne Hathaway, the weepy, shorn Fantine in Les Misérables. I am not a Hathaway fan, but if the Academy — who are not immune to being emotionally manipulated by director Tom Hooper (2010’s Best Picture The King’s Speech) — wants to award someone from Les Mis, she’s more likely to squeak in than Jackman. Plus, she hosted the Oscars a few years ago. That’s got to count for something, right?

Other nominees: I’m hoping both Amy Adams (spooky in The Master) and Nicole Kidman (daffy in the Paperboy) get nods, but any slots left over will probably be filled by The Sessions’ Helen Hunt or Maggie “Dowager Countess 4-Lyfe” Smith, for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Best Screenplay (Original and Adapted) The Golden Globes, the Oscars’ boozier little bro, doesn’t differentiate between original or adapted, but its lumped-together nominees contain the likely winners in each category: Mark Boal for Zero Dark Thirty (original), and Tony Kushner for Lincoln (adapted). Other original nominees could include Django Unchained, The Master, Amour, and Looper; other adapted nominees will be sure-things Argo and Silver Linings Playbook, with The Sessions and Beasts of the Southern Wild possibly filling out the category.

Best Documentary The 15-film short list was released in early December, so there’s a bit of navigational help with this one. I have seen most (but not all) of the films on the list; with that disclaimer, my predictions for the final five are: The House I Live In, The Imposter, Searching for Sugar Man, This Is Not a Film, and the SFFCC’s top doc, locally-made hospital drama The Waiting Room. I’m still awaiting the chance to check out Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, a highly-praised look at clerical sex abuse from oft-nominated (and once-rewarded, for 2007’s Taxi to the Dark Side) director Alex Gibney.

Best Foreign Language Film Since only one film per country can be submitted, and The Intouchables snagged France’s spot, my favorite movie of the year (Holy Motors) isn’t even eligible. But that doesn’t matter, really — Intouchables will likely get a nod, but this race is for the critically-beloved Amour (from Austrian director Michael Haneke, whose The White Ribbon was nominated in 2010) to lose. Other short listers (there are a total of nine) include Canada’s War Witch, Chile’s No, Denmark’s A Royal Affair, Romania’s Beyond the Hills, and Switzerland’s Sister.

Best Director/Best Picture As Steven Spielberg surely recalls, just because you win Best Director (for 1998’s Saving Private Ryan) doesn’t mean Shakespeare in Love won’t swoop in and steal your Best Picture prize. Oscar can tap between five and ten nominees for Best Picture, so the categories won’t necessarily line up — but this year, they just might. Look for the top contenders to be Kathryn Bigelow-Zero Dark Thirty (see my review elsewhere in this issue; it’s also my pick to win), and Spielberg-Lincoln. Other likely nominees: Paul Thomas Anderson-The Master; Ben Affleck-Argo; Tom Hooper-Les Misérables; David O. Russell-Silver Linings Playbook; and Michael Haneke-Amour.

 

The next board president

9

EDITORIAL The president of the Board of Supervisors does more than bang the gavel at meetings, tell people to put their clothes back on, and run for higher office. It’s a powerful position largely because the president makes appointments — to the Planning Commission, the Police Commission — and unilaterally decides who serves on which board committees.

Two years ago, Sup. David Chiu, who won the top post in 2009 with progressive support, wanted re-election, and the left wasn’t siding with him anymore. So he cut a deal with the conservative members, appointing the right-wing of the board to plum committee posts — and making life harder for progressives who wanted to pass Legislation or prevent bad developments from happening.

He clearly likes the job and would love to hold it for a third term. But that won’t be easy — Sup. Scott Wiener, who is to the right of Chiu on many issues, is also interested, as is Sup. Jane Kim, who has always been close to Chiu, and Sup. David Campos, who is one of the leading progressives. None of the candidates can count to six right now, so somebody’s going to have to back down or make a deal.

And before that happens, the candidates ought to tell us something about what they plan to do.

Chiu’s 2011 committee appointments were a bit of a shocker, although, in retrospect, the horse trading shouldn’t have surprised anyone. In fact, after he made his decisions, and put Carmen Chu, one of the most conservative supervisors, in charge of the Budget and Finance Committee and put the conservative Scott Wiener and the moderate Malia Cohen on Land Use and Economic Development, and put conservative Sean Elsbernd in charge of two committees, he told us that he felt he had no choice. If the progressives had voted for him, he wouldn’t have had to reward the conservatives.

This time around, with two new supervisors taking office (a more centrist Norman Yee replacing Elsbernd and a more moderate London Breed replacing Christina Olague) everything is up in the air. The progressives still have a solid three votes, and can sometimes count on Jane Kim and Chiu. That’s not enough to elect a president, but it’s coming pretty close.

Based on experience, skills, and temperament, our first choice for board president is Campos, who would be fair to everyone, approachable, and a voice for open government and community participation. But if Campos can’t get six votes, he and his progressive colleagues should ask anyone who want their support to be open about what he or she plans to do.

Who will be on the budget committee? Rules? Land Use? Where will he or she look for candidates for commissions? We know it would look unsightly if, say, Chiu named in advance his preferences for key committees — and then those people voted for him. But the reality is, those discussions are happening anyway, those deals being cut — and it’s happening behind closed doors, where the public (and the other supervisors) can’t watch.

Let’s bring all of the discussions into the sunshine, and have an open debate about the next board president.

 

Our Weekly Picks

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WEDNESDAY 26

San Francisco Kwanzaa Celebration

The celebration of Nguzo Saba (“The Seven Principles”) was created by Dr. Maulana Karenga in 1966 as a way for the African American community to reaffirm its values. Accordingly, concepts that we all should live by are the focus of each day’s worth of Kwanzaa events at City Hall this year. Today’s candle-lighting, feast, and live entertainment pay homage to unity — in the days following, self determination, collective responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith will be the program’s focus. (Caitlin Donohue)

Events through Jan. 1

Unity celebration: noon, free

City Hall

1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, SF

www.kwanzaasanfrancisco.com

 

THURSDAY 27

Sepalcure

In 2011, producers Machinedrum (a.k.a. Travis Stewart) and Braille (a.k.a. Praveen Sharma) teamed up for the self-titled Sepalcure, a genre cross-stepping album that brought together past and present sounds of house, garage, and dubstep. Take standout track “Pencil Pimp,” where solemn keys progress with gospel moans that share space against hyped “heys” and light, energizing percussive beats. It’s an evocative emotional balance that puts them in league with contemporaries Tomas Barfod and Shlohmo — the latter providing support for this show, which will feature live visuals created by designer Sougwen Chung (a.k.a. Sharma’s girlfriend) for the 2011 MUTEK festival in Mexico City. (Ryan Prendiville)

9pm, $25 Independent 628 Divisadero, SF (415) 771-1421 www.theindependentsf.com

 

FRIDAY 28

We are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists

When Israel threatened to shut down all Internet communication into and out of Gaza, Anonymous responded by taking down Israeli sites and providing instructional “care packages” for the case of outages. When Westboro Baptist Church announced plans to protest Connecticut’s legalization of gay marriage at vigils for the Sandy Hook Elementary School victims, Anonymous responded by shutting down the church’s site, godhatesfags.com, and the releasing names and information of church leaders. The group is relatively new but has had a huge impact with over a hundred raids in the last few years. This is the Story of the Hacktivists. The film’s director, Brian Knappenberger, interviews members of the online community in order to spark conversations about tactics, motives, and whether these illegal activities are the work of vigilantes, power-trippers, or just what we needed. (Molly Champlin)

7pm, $10

Roxie

3117 16th St., SF

(415) 863-1087

www.roxie.com

 

Cherub

Do we need another electro-pop, falsetto-laden act to follow the likes of Passion Pit and MGMT? Listening to Cherub, the answer is a resounding, “absolutely.” For one thing, this band is a bit sexier than the others (aspiring towards that pan-sexual prowess of Prince.) The duo — made up of Jason Huber and Jordan Kelley — is from Nashville, Tenn., but a respect for mac’n’cheese as a vegetable is about as far as their Southern roots extend. There’s no twang found here. Huber and Kelley’s layered, upbeat guitar, vocals, and synth meld in an energetic show that will demand you dance. (Champlin)

With Battlehooch and Rappers

9:30pm, $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF (415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

 

X

Legendary Los Angeles punk act X has always distinguished itself from other bands of its time and genre, with the rock solid drumming of DJ Bonebrake, the guitar virtuosity of Billy Zoom, and the poetic lyrics and intimate vocal interplay of John Doe and Exene Cervenka. Currently celebrating its 35th anniversary — which is hard to believe, considering X’s material sounds as fresh as ever, and it sounds better than ever live — the iconic group is traveling up the West Coast on a mini “X-mas 2012” tour where fans are sure to hear all of their favorite tunes, as well as a couple of revved-up holiday favorites thrown in for good measure. (Sean McCourt)

Also Sat/29, 9pm, $32

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slimspresents.com

 

Wintersalt 2012

It took us a few head-scratching minutes to get the pun on sommersault (I think we get it?), but the two-night Wintersalt festival is sure to bring a little tumble of sunshine into our nightlives. Headliners include that tropical beat-appropriating genius, Diplo; our own atmospheric vinyl cut-up legend DJ Shadow, fresh from infamously getting booted off the decks at Miami douche palace the Mansion for being “too future”; a wee hip-hop rainbow of local adored MCs — Lyrics Born and Lateef, K.Flay, and Goldenchyld. Oh yes, there will also be EDM of the pop monster kind from Zedd and Dillon Francis — ensuring that at least the first night of this 18+ event will be flooded with fun-loving, neon-Raybanned, un-shirted younger brothers and sisters. Travis Barker and Mixmaster Mike will also be there, pumping the retro-’90s live drum-turntable alchemy they’re experts at. (Marke B.)

Also Sat/29

7pm-2am, $50-$160

Fort Mason Festival Pavillion

Marina Blvd, SF

www.wintersaltsf.com

 

SATURDAY 29

Lee Burridge

On “Lost in a Moment,” the 2012 track by Matthew Dekay and Lee Burridge, a snake-charming synth befitting of Vangelis winds around a hazy, beguiling vocalist who seems thoroughly entranced by the beat. The result is hypnotically effective and typical of Burridge, a much loved globe-trotting DJ who has created a dedicated following by transforming sets into moments to remember. Just Youtube his rapturous sunrise performances atop Robot Heart, or ask anyone who caught the last time he came through Public Works, and reportedly kept things going until 5am. (Prendiville)

With Rooz, Bo, Ben Seagren, Atish, and Brian Bejarano

9:30pm, $18–$25

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

(415) 932-0955

www.publicsf.com

 

SUNDAY 30

PRIMUS

Got plans for New Year’s Eve? Want to go Sailing The Seas Of Cheese? Do you plan on serving up some Frizzle Fry? Imbibing some Pork Soda? Any way you look at it, the two club shows this week by musical boundary-busting Bay Area rock favorites Primus are a rare treat for local fans to see the band up close and personal. You can party with Les Claypool and company on Sunday night, or ring in the New Year with them on Monday, either way, you’re guaranteed quite a night as these special “Frankenstein’s Masquerade” shows are part of Primus’ new 3D Tour, complete with stereoscopic visuals and quad surround sound. (McCourt)

Also Mon/31, 9pm, $47.50–$75

Warfield

982 Market St., SF

www.thewarfieldtheater.com

 

MONDAY 31

Sea of Dreams NYE 2013: LunaSea

The biggest pain about NYE is coordinating all your friends, not to mention their inseparable dates. The annual SOD event is a big tent experience, with wide-ranging musical choices and live, body-warping spectacles to please just about everyone. (Okay, maybe not your roommate’s boyfriend — he should just stay home.) Best of all, it’s broken up into distinct areas to prevent the oppressing, cramped feel of a “massive.” Check out the headliners, with the added bonus of having both Opulent Temple and Dirtybird DJs under one roof. (Prendiville)

With Gogol Bordello, Shpongle’s Quixotic Masquerade, The Glitch Mob (DJ set), Trentemoller (DJ Set), Diego’s Umbrella, Pumpkin, Robert Delong, and more 8pm-4am, $79–$145 SF Concourse Exhibition Center 635 8th St., SF www.seaofdreamsnye.com

 

Remones

Dec. 31 generally cost a lot of money. It’s just this weird, ingrained fact of the day that with the slow, chilly shifting of years comes the jacking up of prices. Hey, here’s an additional $20–$40 tacked on for a glass of bubbly! Sure, some of those crazy pricey shows are probably worth it — the big-name bands, the packed lineups with sparklers, dancers, and holiday accoutrement. But if you’re just in it for the basic, primal fun of fun, here’s a show that’s totally free: the Remones, a Ramones cover band (duh) playing the Riptide. Because really, all you want to do on NYE is gather with friends in a warm, Bay Area environment, drink copious amounts of liquor, and watch live, sing-along punk songs. Hey ho, let’s go. (Emily Savage)

9:30pm, free

Riptide

3639 Taraval, SF (415) 681-8433

www.riptidesf.com

 

 

The New Parish: The People NYE Ball

The People Party was started in 2007 by a group of artists who thought that the East Bay was being overlooked by Bay Area taste-makers (wow, how time flies). Though Oakland has been saturated in attention in the last few years, the event still stands out in the area’s nightlife scene. The multidimensional dance party attracts a creative group of people. It’s a chance for local artists to show their work in a fun environment, and from samples of organic tea to dripping, bright acrylic paint, there is plenty to see. Headlining to celebrate the end of the year will be poet, DJ, and producer, Rich Medina, livening up the evening with his unique connections between spoken word, hip-hop, afrobeat, and jazz. (Champlin)

New Parish

9pm, $20

579 18th St., Oakl.

(510) 444-7474

www.thenewparish.com

 

TUESDAY 1

 

No Way Back New Years Day Disco

There’s a few places to head if you went all night long and want to keep going all day strong. But to start the year off with a certain fresh feeling (and avoid an entire crowd of socket-eyed, gurning zombies), head over to Monarch. With No Ways Back’s reputation of infallible parties and quality music — in this case including Brooklyn’s Justin Vandervolgen (responsible for a double set on Beats in Space earlier this year) and local disco veteran James Glass — there are likely to be a fair number of people skipping the night altogether, and setting their clocks and krups for this one. (Prendiville) With Justin Vandervolgen, Sunny Side Up, Solar, Conor, 40 Thieves, and James Glass 6am, $15–$20 Monarch 101 Sixth St., SF (415) 284-9774 www.monarchsf.com

 

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