Marke B. Archives — Page 41 of 55 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Cork that krunk juice, Lil Jon

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April 4, 2008

By Justin Juul

Call me crazy, but I’m a beer man. Liquor’s okay too, but wine? Wine has got to go. I absolutely cannot stand the stuff. In fact, there’s only one thing I hate more than wine and that’s wine snobs. Now, this may sound funny coming from a man who serves expensive wine every night at a fancy boutique in North Beach, but come on! Get over it rich dudes. Wine is rotten grape juice and that’s it. There are no hints of currant or raspberry in there. There is no bouquet. Oh, sir, you want me to tell you what the Captain’s Reserve 02 Pinot tastes like? It fucking tastes like wine! And it smells like wine. From Two-Buck Chuck to the fanciest merlot, wine is sour, bitter, and fucking stupid. It’s certainly no match for a nice pint of Hoegarden or even a Beam&Coke, for that matter. But there’s a new wine coming out this week that has me rethinking my stance on the matter. Are you ready for this?!

Crunk (or krunk, or qronk?) purveying rapper Lil Jon just went public with his own wine label. Hu-What?! Hu-What?!! Yeeeeeeaaaaahhhh!!!

I can’t freakin’ wait to describe “Little Jonathan Cabernet, ’06” to a table of over-privileged yupsters. “Well, you see, sirs,” I’ll say. “This particular vintage features a very special blend of petit syrah, cab, and malbec grapes – which are originally from Argentina, but are now being grown in Napa as well. It’s earthy, toasty, and a bit jammy for a California blend and if you just let it linger on your tongue long enough, you’ll be able to taste THE SWEAT FROM MY BALLZ, BITCHES! SKEET SKEET SKEET!”

Or maybe I’ll just describe the wine in Lil Jon’s own words. Here’s how he responded to a journalist who asked him about his wine:

“This is not no ghetto Boone’s Farm; this is some real wine.” To which he added, “I’m not like an expert, so don’t ask me no questions.”

Lil Jon, you are my hero.

Clubs: You still hold me, Devotion

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April 3, 2008

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Before he jetted off to be all jetset in Miami at the WMC, SF-native DJ Ruben Mancias jammed EndUp last Saturday night for the Devotion 7-Year Reunion party. Oh yes, I’m one o’ them dancing hands-up fools in this clip:

Ruben and his partner Eric left to find fortune and fame in NYC a few years ago, taking their regular EndUp Sunday night party Devotion with them. It was great to have it (and them) back for one night only — if only to get that ol’ EndUp Saturday at 5 in the morning bangin’ house feeling back (one day I’ll write about all the crazy amazing — cramazing! — night people you encounter on the dancefloor at that time.)

Ruben — who I’ve known since we used to run with legendary SF house maestro Aaron O (RIP, croissant goddess) back in the early ’90s — really turned it out, playing some of my favorite tracks, like Teddy Douglas’s “Whatcha Gonna Do,” and classics like the ’88 Ralphi Rosario barnstormer above. The mood was electric-atmospheric with a bouncy bass undertow and more than a little nostalgia. The crowd was mixed and ready. Work.

PS — Devotion may be ovah, and somewhat similar-tracked Fag Fridays long gone, but you can still get a taste of the above with DJ David Harness, another well-known Aaron O acolyte, when he returns from the WMC to play new goodies all night long at Super Soul Sundayz this coming Sunday, 4/6 10pm-4am at the EndUp. See you (sweaty) there.

Indie silkscreen revelations

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April 2, 2008

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By Vanessa Carr

Independent music and DIY culture can come like flashes of hope through the dark days of teenage dorkdom. For me, it was Bikini Kill’s first album on tape.

The revelation: something better is out there. And better yet, one can actually have a role in creating it.

Once a small-town kid growing up in Neenah, Wisconsin, graphic designer and poster artist Jason Munn tapped into a similar sense of inspired possibility. As a skateboarder with a crew of like-minded friends, he was influenced early on by skateboard graphics and the album art of bands like the Promise Ring and Boys Life.

Munn, 32, now lives in Oakland, where he has been running The Small Stakes design studio since 2003. He continues to draw stylistic and psychic inspiration from punk’s handmade aesthetic and DIY ethos.

Munn’s stunningly precise silkscreen show posters for artists, ranging from Battles and LCD Soundsystem to Sufjan Stevens and Modest Mouse, have made him a minor celebrity among design nerds and indie rockers alike. Not that you’d ever know it: in person he is soft-spoken and humble, certainly not the kind of guy who goes around telling people, for instance, that his work is part of the San Francisco MoMA’s permanent collection, or that it’s regularly featured in PRINT Magazine and Communication Arts.

This Friday night (4/4), Munn will be selling limited edition art prints and gig posters at Bloom Screen Printing in Oakland. Munn’s prints will be on sale for $5-$25. Bloom Screen Printing posters will also be for sale.

SFBG: When did you start making music-related posters?

Jason Munn: I started in [art] school. A lot of my projects were music-related even when they weren’t supposed to be, because that was what I was interested in. I was working in another design studio at the time – after school – and at night a lot I was doing these kind of things just to do what I wanted to do and also to build up a portfolio of the kind of work that I really wanted to show people, which was not necessarily the stuff I was doing at my day job.

I moved out here in 2002, again with no plans at all. About a month after I moved out here, two people I met were booking shows in Berkeley at a place they called the Ramp. It was in the basement of this church in Berkeley, and they were doing one show a month – really great shows, a lot of local bands, and a lot of bands that will play the Fillmore when they come through now: Animal Collective, Deerhoof, Why? – a lot of local things, but also touring acts. But again, it was only one show a month, and it was only open for a year. It was essentially when I started doing posters. They asked me to do a poster for each show. I wanted to silkscreen, but I didn’t know how. I had done a little bit of silkscreening in school, so I had a real basic knowledge of it. The first job I had out here I was actually temping at a silkscreen shop – I printed the t-shirts. So basically they would burn the screens for me and I would print from home. I made a huge mess and it was a huge learning process.

I probably did six or seven posters, and then I met a guy in Oakland who was printing another job for me that I did the design work for. His name is Nat and he runs a screenprinting shop in Oakland called Bloom Screen Printing. It’s a small shop, and he basically taught me a ton about printing. I started printing my stuff there, and he was showing me lots of tricks, random things that I was having trouble with. He was looking at the stuff I was doing at home and was like, “This is what you’re doing wrong.” It was really cool. I still print there – he also prints larger jobs for me, although he is a pretty in-demand printer.

SFBG: How do you make it work financially?

METAL: Throw them horns!

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April 2, 2008

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By G.W. Schulz
Photos by Mirissa Neff

METAL HANDS: A GESTURAL GLOSSARY

Every metal show contains plenty of dudes who merely headbang softly to themselves with their hands stuffed into the pockets of their tight black hoodies. A sea of empty faces they are. What fun is that? In honor of our metal issue this week, here are a few ways you can cheerlead the next time you’re at a metal show.

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Classic horns A staid gesture to be sure — but fairly reliable. You know the drill here. Turn it to the side and pump it like a fist for added pleasure.

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The Claw When deploying just one hand to exhibit the claw, as opposed to the invisible orbs, bring it close to your face and pull downward for a melodramatic affect. Growl a little, too, like it just can’t get any more metal … when deep down you know it really can.

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Land ho There’s really never been a sufficient name for outright pumping your fist or fists at a show, but some folks around here are calling it "land ho." It’s better off with no distinct title. Fist pumping during violent blastbeats or a huge, doomy breakdown is raw and organic, like the beginning of time. It needs no name. And it spans genres. We advise, however, that you reserve dual fists for truly metal moments. The members of Portland, Ore.’s Tragedy have been known to throw out a fist or two while playing, but this is extremely dangerous and should be done by professionals only.

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Invisible orbs This is a variation of the Claw, except that you do it with both hands and hold them out in front of you rather than near your face, as if you’re holding two invisible orbs. We contend that the invisible orbs should be savored while you’re listening to Scandinavian metal or anything heavily influenced by it. If you scan the artwork on old black metal records, the bands are often posing with some version of the orbs, gritting their teeth and trying to look as menacing as possible.

SPORTS: Fantasy baseball’s dark side

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March 31, 2008

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By A.J. Hayes

My name is Tony H. and I’m a fantasy baseball player.

There I said it.

Actually I haven’t been an active participant in fantasy ball in more than a decade, but sometimes the urge to seek out “post-hype sleepers” and under-the-radar bargains in fantasy publications is so strong that I have to leave Barnes & Nobles immediately

Apparently, I will be a fantasy baseball player for life.

Evil?

It all started innocently enough back in 1993, when a co-worker introduced me to his in-house league. Figuring it was another way to put my absorption of all things baseball to use and earn some pocket cash at the same time, I showed up at the “draft” – held in a clandestine conference room on the Saturday morning before the start of the baseball season – with a rough idea of what I wanted my team to look like and three crisp twenties from the ATM.

I felt like a real big-league general manager at the draft, and the blueberry bagels weren’t so bad either.

Being a Giants fan, my goal was to select as many San Francisco players as reasonably possible and then flesh out the rest of the squad with pre-inter-league play American Leaguers. That way, there would be no conflict of interest with my team and my team.

That first season I managed to land Barry Bonds to play the outfield and selected fellow -Giants Robby Thompson and Royce Clayton as my keystone combo. The rest of the squad was filled out with the likes of Joe Carter, Mo Vaughn, Lance Johnson and Paul O’Neill. I made one or two exceptions to my rule, selecting National League players such as catcher Joe Oliver, outfielder Bernard Gilkey and a couple of senior circuit pitchers including a youngish Curt Schilling and Steve Avery of the Braves.

When the season began I became ensconced in baseball like never before – raising in the early – pre-internet — hours to scour the morning boxes and tabulate “my guys” total bases, their RBI output and stolen bases.

It made going to work a bit more fun, especially when I would pass one of my fellow fantasy players in the hall after Chuck Finley threw one of his league leading 13 complete games that season – that’s a lot of extra points – or Tom Henke racked up another save.

But by mid-season, the fun turned into serious business. I blew a gasket when Felix Jose failed to live up to the hype with another 0-for-5 game and when Ben McDonald hit the skids after I inserted him back into my starting lineup.

The real life Giants meanwhile were having an amazing campaign in ’93.

Muxtape love

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March 31, 2008

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I never saw Say Anything or read High Fidelity (for me, mopey indie straight dudes are cute in theory — just not as John Cusack). But I am a nerd, and subject to all the emotional turmoil and reward a good mixtape can heap upon the recipient and maker. Yeah, I mean mixtape as in “fire up the ol’ press play-and-record and unleash your TDK, baby” — not the semi-underground hiphop cds that the big record companies have unsuccessfully hijacked of late.

Trouble is, the tiny plastic or chrome (eek, remember those being eaten every third play?) reel-to-reels have bit the dust, CDs are so un-green it hurts, and MP3 shareware is too complex for me and probably good ol’ High Fidelious Jack Black.

Enter, then, Muxtape, this neato site with a very indie bent that launched a little bit ago. You can upload up to 10 MBs of MP3s to a handy little link and email it to your friends. They then can click on individual tracks and listen. Also: it’s free. And: anyone in the world can click on your muxtape and hear what your thing is. You can RSS your favorite Muxtapers, even.

Pretty nifty — although I still miss the lovely rickety squeaks and hisses of cassettes. Anyone got a good app on hand to insert them? TapeSqueal? Memorexia?

Tip o’ the nib to my pal Steven Reaume for turning me on to this. Check out his Detroit classics muxtape (including lost early house tune “Liferaft” by Juicy Fruit) here.

Raise your voice for nightlife!

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March 31, 2008

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

Nightlife: Even Swedish kids like it!

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

Hi everyone,

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

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

Guardian Eye: Mission melee

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March 28, 2008

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We’ve invited fab local photog Darwin Bell to share some of his photos with us throughout the next month, and tell us what the heck he was thinking when he took them.

Fighting With Each Other

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Darwin Bell: “This was taken in The Mission and it is really just a picture of blockage sawhorse with a warning light on it in front of a dumpster. But the colors were so contrasting that it caught my eye — all I had to do was compose it to make it look more graphic.”

Rhymin’ Riot XX-style at Yerba Buena

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March 28, 2008

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By Vanessa Carr

Julie Atlas Muz (photo: Karl Giant)

Opening tonight, Fr/28, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is The Way That We Rhyme a multimedia group show featuring work by a heavy-hitting line up of contemporary female artists that emphasizes performance and interaction.

Aptly titled, The Way That We Rhyme references a lyric from Le Tigre’s “Hot Topic,” a lengthy shout out to the feminist foremothers and heroines – from Angela Davis and Gertrude Stein to Kara Walker and Yoko Ono – who have shaped and inspired the current generation. Fittingly, Le Tigre’s homage includes Vaginal Davis and Tammy Rae Carland, two artists featured in the Yerba Buena show.

Le Tigre performs “Hot Topic”

Tonight’s opening party features San Francisco punk outfit Brilliant Colors and folk-bluesy rockers The Sarees, a DJ set by Erase Errata’s Jenny Hoyston, and performances by feminist performance and video art collective Toxic Titties and crazy comedienne extraordinaire Dynasty Handbag, as well as a film screening and interactive projects by a number of the participating artists.

Dynasty Handbag – “The Quiet Storm” By Jibz Cameron, Hedia Maron 2007

But it seems that Saturday – with its full schedule of interactive programs – is the day not to be missed.

Clubs: Lady Tigra’s a switchblade uzi

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March 28, 2008

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Amazing and vivacious electro-kitty Lady Tigra takes over Cafe Du Nord tonite. Look out! She’s “always got her foot firmly planted up asses”: (Watch those little spoons, kids)

Lady Tigra, “Bass on the Bottom”

I’ve been cel-chasing her all over town for an interview, following her lady tracks, but all I have to offer you is the video below and sweet memories of her purr on my voice mail. Here’s the decades-old hit you may know her flirty chirp from (hello, Avenue D, Fannypak, etc!) From 1988, boy-eee:

L’Trimm, “The Cars That Go Boom”

“When lo and behold there appeared a mirage, he was hooking up his speakers in his daddy’s garage.” See you there.

LADY TIGRA
Fri/28, 8:30 p.m., $15
Cafe Du Nord
2170 Market, SF
(415) 861-5016
www.cafedunord.com, www.myspace.com/theladytigra <

Tingly for techno: DEMF lineup announced

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March 27, 2008

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First off: How old does it make me feel that some kid at UPenn is writing his dissertation on the techno parties I threw in Detroit in the early ’90s? *Ancient sigh*. Second off: the nine-year-old Detroit Electronic Music Festival, sometimes known as Movement for legal reasons but basically Mecca for tech-heads, has announced its initial lineup for May 24-26 (Memorial Day weekend). The big news is not that it’s sponsored by Big Boy this year (eek!) but that fest originator and knob-twiddling god Carl Craig is returning to perform. Carl Craig: BACK Carl bought my video camera in 1994 so I’d have money for Amtrak to move to SF (sweetheart!) so blame him for my presence here. Also performing will be a number of other wicked-wonderful characters from back-in-tha-D days, like my spiritual twin brother Alton Miller, who will be a highlite of the more complex, jazzy house side of the fest. Alton Miller: You should see him dance, really Other NAMES on the pretty soulful hitlist: Speedy J, Buzz Goree, Terrance Parker, Girl Talk, Moby, Mike Grant, Alex Under, Konrad Black, and for some hip-hop new old-schoolness Cool Kids. More lineup and info here. I’ll be there covering every backstage minute for SFBG. Put your hands up for Detroit. (That’s not me in the vid, it’s my cuz. I’m in no way responsible for his dancing or this entire music video.)

Clubs: Acieeed on Sfire

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March 26, 2008

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Gurl, I was brought to. The inimitable DJ Jeffrey Sfire from NYC (2 cute!)

blasted classic Bam Bam acid house track “Give It To Me” from 1988 at Sunday’s Honey Soundsystem Dancer From the Dance party at 103 Harriet — underneath 1015 Folsom, and the new party hotspot — and the roof burnt down. Yes, I’m ancient/legendary enough to have been there when this was originally tearing up the floors (at London’s Second Summer of Love, no less), but the kids went wild last weekend as well. Time for another acid revival? (DJs Derek B and Silence Fiction tried this a few years back with their Jack the Club night in 2005, and it was awesome, bring it back). No real vid, but song below:

Sfire, who also specializes in gritty Italo Disco and slinky rare Euro tracks, will be on local-hottie DJ Josh Cheon‘s West ADD Slave to the Rhythm show tonite 9pm-11pm, www.westaddradio.com and then live tonite at Booty Call, an actually pretty great party at Bar on Castro (I know, gag, but go! Juanita More hosts!)

PS Rumor has it Sfire will also be making many guest appearances throughout the weekend at select Portland underground venues …

Patty meltdown

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March 25, 2008

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› superego@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO Clear the runway! Clear the runway! She’s got a Target elastic waistband and too many Walgreens L’Oreal home highlights in her shag — and she’s about to crash-land drunk off her Lucite Shoe Pavillion fuck-me pumps and into my $30 Blue Lotus powertini, with guarana extract, caffeine, taurine, and B vitamins 3, 5, 6, and 12. Somebody call Grey’s Anatomy on her jiggly, glitter-thonged ass, stat. Save me, Dr. McCreamy! Save my exorbitant cocktail!

Nightlife 911!!!

Hi. I’m writing to you from the bowels of underground club connoisseur hell, a.k.a. a gay bar in Las Vegas on St. Patrick’s Day during spring break. Try not to imagine it. On the giant video screen: a 2005 frat-boy rave remix of the Cranberries’ "Zombie." In the glass tanks lining the dance floor: live piranhas. Streaming through the door: distressed embroidered jeans and bleached-out cocka’dos. Kill me.

"What did you expect?" Hunky Beau reminds me not-so-gently. "This city has the freakin’ Liberace Museum. Drop the snob act." So I take some heart in the equality of it all. The Vegas homo-horror crowd out by the airport’s no different from the straight-when-sober one thronging the Strip, except the lesbians are real and the other women aren’t. Or rather, they’re 50 percent less real. Surgery is confusing! It’s like silicone algebra. And don’t let’s even glance at Vegas menswear, ‘k? When did Affliction team up with Hurley and Crocs to make Jams?

Other than the occasional squawk of stale reggaetón emanating from pastel Hummers on West Tropicana — not to mention a slew of rowdies screeching "The Star-Spangled Banner" throughout New York New York (never forget!) — the charge-card cocktails, Timba-hop tunes, and space-age bachelor ultralounge aesthetic of omnisexual fantasyland are bottle-serviced with a splash of Burner du Soleil myshtique. In Las Vegas, the apex of a corker evening is a Coyote Ugly boobarella with red contact lenses and vampire fangs writhing on a dry-iced bar to DJ Tiësto. The only thing missing, really, is a topless raver girl revue with dildo glowsticks and peekaboo JNCO jeans. I’m copyrighting this idea immediately.

Everything’s slathered in pimps-and-ho cheese and infernal strobing ultraviolet beams, grinding my delicate complexion into hamburger. Is this what you want, America? Awful-looking skin?

Like Manhattan and Miami — where three-quarters of San Francisco’s dance music movers-and-shakers are currently scratching their bikini waxes at the bubbly-drenched, forever-2001 Winter Music Conference — Vegas has now officially Disneyfied the salacious grit from my fond partial-memories of nightlife there, on and off the Strip. Bring on the recession, darlings! I’m all for having wild fun — this, after all, is how a majority of Midwesterners will be introduced to club culture — and I realize that a vibrant and shocking underground depends on a slick surface limelight to tunnel beneath. But please: what happens in Las Vegas, stay there.

Lady Go Boom Enough grumpy, let’s party! You may remember the excitably gorgeous Lady Tigra as one half of ’80s Miami Bass female electro-rap phenom L’Trimm, whose sub-woofin’ 1988 hymn to cracked windshields, "Cars That Go Boom" (Hot Productions), raised the fluorescent-suspendered rafters of club kids nationwide at the time. I was there, and Tigra was fierce. Now she’s back — grrrl! — with a slinky-nasty new album, Please Mr. Boombox (High Score), and a savvy plan to retake the alternative nightlife spotlight by teaming up with the cheekiest promoters on the West Coast. Fresh from her balls-out show at Los Angeles’s latest actually great party, Mustache Mondays, she’ll sink her claws into your dancey-pants with gender-bending vocalist and performance artiste extraordinaire Jer Ber Jones and the ever-beaky DJ Chicken at Cafe Du Nord on March 28. Her warped OMD-sampling jam "A Moon Song," especially, has been freaking the red zones in my headphones lately. And please note that I have not made a single tragic Tatiana the Tiger joke in this catty plug, mostly because I wish I’d mauled that hot dead Indian boy first and I’m still bitter. So there.

LADY TIGRA

Fri/28, 8:30 p.m., $15

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com, www.myspace.com/theladytigra

Swordfish, styrofoam, and sprouting growth

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March 25, 2008

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By Vanessa Carr

“Bloods & Crypts” (detail) by Kiersten Essenpreis

At the Johansson Projects gallery in Oakland, the natural and man-made, the real and the imagined collide in a group show that gallery owner Kimberly Johansson says is about consumption and sprouting growth.

“Moon Set” by Tadashi Moriyama

Gangs of children fight with swordfish in a snowy wood. The moon pours like effluent into an urban lake. Folded paper and Styrofoam pieces flock overhead. Bag-eyed girls spill fish from their mouths.

“Girls Make the World” by Alexis Amann

Opened March 20, “Propagations” features works by Tadashi Moriyama, Paul Hayes, Kiersten Essenpreis, Rebecca Whipple, and Alexis Amann.

Guardian Eye: Downtown squiggle

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March 24, 2008

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We’ve invited fab local photog Darwin Bell to share some of his photos with us throughout the next month, and tell us what the heck he was thinking when he took them.

Study in Curves

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Darwin Bell: “This is probably my favorite building in San Francisco, located at First and Market. The curves and lines are just amazing and so fascinating to photograph. “

SPORTS: Real March Madne$$

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March 24, 2008

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Everyone’s getting rich off the NCAAs — except the players

By A.J. Hayes

Played, not paid

Last week, Boston Red Sox players staged what had to be the most ludicrous wildcat strike in the history of labor relations. The entire Bosox team(sters) threatened not to board a plane bound for Japan for a series of games vs. the Oakland A’s, unless club management, or major league baseball, or anyone else but the players themselves, forked over some serious cash.

Painting themselves as championing of the little guy, the Boston players said the trip was off unless each of the team’s coaches, trainers and clubhouse personnel received the same $40,000 bonus that each of the players was to pocket for enduring the hardship of an all-expenses paid, first-class jaunt to Japan.

And they say politicians are out of touch with the average American wage earner.

To drive home their point, the players refused to take their positions for an exhibition game against the Toronto Blue Jays until the matter was settled, making paying fans sit on their hands for 90 minutes at Ft. Myers, Florida.

The world champs finally decided to play ball when MLB and the club agreed to split the cost of paying the support staff. Considering that the bloated Red Sox staff contained nearly 30 coaches, trainers and others last season, that figure came in somewhere in excess of $1 million.

Meanwhile, most sports fans across the nation – even those who know the clubs are traveling to Japan – could hardly give a damn about a few early season baseball games in Tokyo. When Boston and Oakland are done, they’ll still have 160 more games to go.

Most sports fans across the nation are glued to their televisions watching athletes pour out their hearts and sweat in another sport – and receive not a penny. In fact, the players will be lucky to come away with a free t-shirt. It’ll probably be a 50/50 blend too.

In case you don’t own a television or haven’t picked up a newspaper in the past couple of weeks, we’re were in the midst of the NCAA basketball tournament, aka March Madness, aka the Big Cash Cow in Tube socks.

Every one remotely tied to the NCAAs, from the universities to CBS to the sports bars and the zillions of amateur bettors toting their cherished “brackets” will be racking in the dough this month.

Everyone is getting rich except for the one making it all possible – the players.

Loving Flying Lotus

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March 20, 2008

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Winnetka? Why-not-ka? Apologies to lovely Del Tha’s underground East Bay, but if there’s gotta be a new epicenter of nouveau-Cali alternative hip-hop (cue the searing lazer bass and sympho-poetic glitches) then you could do no better than the Outer-LA hometown of mixmaster amazo Flying Lotus, who’s currently stealing hearts and heartbeats on his WARP Records tour. And yeah, he’s this cute:

If you’re in the mood for some woozy bottom-blasting with a high-hat twinkle, Lotus will be numbing Dr. Scholl’s at dread bass mecca night Surya Dub at Club Six this Saturday night, March 22. Lotus’s own releases get us where DJ Shadow hurts, and his remix of Mia Doi Todd’s 2006 soulful torcher “My Room Is White” has brightened our rhythmic footfalls to work for the past month. So yeah, come get zigzagged in a headtrip melancholy way this weekend …

Flying Lotus, “Tea Leaf Dancers”

Flying Lotus
at Surya Dub
Sat/22, 10pm-4am, $10
Club Six
60 Sixth St, SF
www.suryadub.com
www.clubsix1.com

Everlasting fantastical: Mike Davis’s twisted dreamworlds

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March 20, 2008

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By Vanessa Carr

“Egg”

If you’ve ever seen the strange monsters and fantasies of the bizarre 16th Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch and thought, “Man! I wish that guy could have given me a tattoo” — well, you might still have your chance with San Francisco tattoo artist and painter Mike Davis.

In addition to owning San Francisco’s Everlasting Tattoo, Davis is a self-taught painter whose oil painting seem plucked from another time. The inhabitants of the fantastical world he’s created are insects, crustaceans, snakes, birds, scorpions, eggs, fruit-bearing trees, trumpets, birdhouses on fire, the classic dripping ear, and draped figures.

“We show Mike not only because he is a phenomenal painter, but because no one else is doing what he is doing,” says White Walls Gallery owner Justin Giarla.

Davis’ first solo show, “Solo Flight,” opened this past weekend runs through April 12 at the White Walls Gallery, featuring 24 paintings and drawings from his upcoming book, Blind Man’s Journey.

White Walls Gallery, 835 Larkin, SF. 415-931-1500, www.whitewallssf.com

Mmm … bacon lollipops

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March 20, 2008

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By Justin Juul

You never know what kind of crazy shit your brain’s going to tell you to do when Saturn comes back into the picture and starts demanding attention. Some of us start thinking about babies and tract homes while others spin off in the opposite direction and become workaholics or barflys.

My friend, Jason Lewis of Lollyphile, did something even stranger. On the dawn of his 29th year, he suddenly decided to become a confectioner. He spent hours and days mixing flavors in his basement and self-promoting on the Internet until finally, success! His first run of Absinthe flavored lollipops was met with critical acclaim, eventually reaching full-blown awesomeness when the people over at Penthouse Magazine decided to run a review. A less ambitious man may have stopped there, but my friend is “very special” so he immediately started planning a slow takeover of the gourmet candy industry. He’s gonna be the next Willy Wonka. I can feel it.

I tried to get Lewis on the phone to discuss his outlook on candy, life, and world affairs, but he was too busy boiling lard or something. I did manage to squeeze this little e-interview out of him though. Enjoy.

SFBG: What’s your stance on candy from Japan? How can you ever hope to compete with brands like Pocky, Black Black, and Cubyrop?
My bacon lollipops are actually considered to be “sent from god” by a number of people. This wasn’t my fault; a FedEx plane accidentally dropped a few cases on a small Pacific Island, and the natives of that island, upon experiencing their first meat-based sugar-high, started sacrificing various animals (note to PETA: I totally didn’t sanction this) in an attempt to get their gods to ship more lollipops. Sadly, international shipping rates can’t be paid for with any amount of boar’s blood (believe me I’ve tried).

So, while Japan’s candies have awesome names, brand recognition, and the loyalty of several billion people, I’ve got deity cred.

SFBG: What do you do when you’re not turning meat and controlled substances into candy?
Lewis: I reverse the process. Candy into meat and liquor. I transubstantiate stuff all the time.

“Bacon lollipops? Why not!”

Brides of March attack!

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March 19, 2008

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Photojournalists Lisa Pickoff-White and Rhyen Coombs put together this nifty little vid for us of last weekend’s 10th annual wild Brides of March downtown invasion:

Brand spankin’

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March 12, 2008

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› superego@sfbg.com

Ah, spring. Strange birds are chirping, cherry trees are blossoming, pretty but misguided girls are puking on their Luichiny strappies outside North Beach bars, and adorable elderly gentlemen are grabbing my unmentionables on the Muni. Time for a couple of pomegranate liqueur shots and some neon butterfly nail decals. Or fuck it, just hand me the Chivas and let’s go dancing. Party time.

In my fondest dreams, the floors always hop, the clubbers look fierce, the jams never stop, and last call’s just past dawn. (Also: butch unicorns.) But dreams are for sleepers, gorgeous, and who would ever admit to being one of those? It’s almost worse than saying you’re tired and want to go home. Quel tragique. If you want it, you’ve got to stay up for it, we say, and for a year now, Scene has been toasting the amazing people, places, and parties that give their very all to make those dreams a reality, however creatively (wink).

Cosmic local nightlife, cocktails, fashion, music, art, expression — not necessarily in that order, and preferably all at once with a little kiss-kiss afterward — that’s what spurred us to launch this thing. And sometimes we put down our caipirinha glasses and stop twirling long enough to actually put out another issue. Thus, welcome to the spring 2008 Scene! From fresh drinks to fab threads to hot freaks, it’s positively aching with enjoyment. Much like spring itself.

Refill!

Marke B.

Girls Rocked!

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March 11, 2008

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By Justin Juul

What? You haven’t seen “Girls Rock! The Movie” yet? It’s a documentary about a rock n’ roll camp in Portland Oregon that teaches young girls how to overcome oppression, fight off attackers, and most importantly how to rock! I recently attended the film’s East Bay premier at The Shattuck Cinema in Berkeley with my girlfriend, Heather Duthie, who has been working with the film’s co-directors Arnie Johnson (a frequent Guardian contributor) and Shane King for the past six months. So there’s your full disclosure of my interest in the movie. But really: I never knew girls could be so awesome!

Two different bands played to a sold-out theater full of prepubescent girls and their super hip mothers or fathers. The girls entered the theater timid and meek, but after hearing The Kitties play a punk version of “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” and watching Girls Rock! star, Palace, scream obscenities and punch people in the face, they were able to bang their heads and throw up the horns without a touch of bashfulness. Let’s hope and pray they stay the course. The last thing we need is another Britney, however punk rock she has become.

Here’s where to see it.

And here’s some pics from the event

Kewl Tun3: Santogold gets LES Artistic

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March 11, 2008

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I’ve made no secret of my audiolust for Brooklyn grime-pop chanteuse (and former punk band Stiffed frontwoman) Santogold, but the new vid for her “LES Artistes,” directed by Nima Nourizadeh, is blowing me away:

Santogold’s heavily related to the stripper-loving Spank Rock scene, sharing some producers, remixers, track appearances, and party bills, although on a much higher intel tip (everyone kind of over “bitches and ho’s” DJ Assault circa 2002 ripoffs say “He-eyyy!”) — and look for many, many tired comparisons to MIA to follow in the wake of the release of her self-titled album Santogold (Downtown), which drops on April 22, and her performance at Coachella this year — because, you know, freaky women artists of color sure are similar. Still, her already-legendary bass-heavy ragga crawler club jam “Creator” has swept people onto the same global-hop dancehall dancefloors as Ms. MIA, and the more like that (and the above) the merrier, say I …

And this quote from a recent NYT article on her is priceless: “You get these images of women in sexy clothes, walking around in, like, panties,” she said. “Even Beyoncé — that’s what it is to be a woman and make music. But now there are all these other women doing cool, interesting things, wearing styles they came up with, and it’s not about being naked.”

Santogold, “Creator” (live at Fader 51 party)

Dolores Park drunkard makes fools of us all

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March 11, 2008

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By Justin Juul

Remember when the sun finally came out after a long harsh winter and you met up with all your friends in the park? Oh it was awesome! Sure you drank a little too much, but that only made your boisterous and entertaining side shine through. You were the life of the party, dude! Everyone loved you. Even those poor young girls you flashed and that group of five-year olds you made cry. They thought you were hilarious.

Thanks random drunk kid. You make bloggin’ easy!

Ed note: Er, I’d chalk this one up to another OD of GHB, ol’ chap.