SFScene

Event Review: Dore Alley Fair

2011-08-02T21:56:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago Baltimore's Dan Rodricks interviewed Elijah Anderson about his new book The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life on local NPR affiliate WYPR. The main thesis of Anderson's book is that it is the cosmopolitan canopy, those spaces where all races and classes of a city mix, and agree to act civil toward one another, that provide the true social fabric of a city. As I listened to this interview, and the attempts by Rodricks and callers to name such spaces in Baltimore, I thought, well, in San Francisco, we call them street fairs. From How Weird to the Castro Street Fair, each provides an opportunity for a neighborhood to invite the rest of the city to have a visit, socialize, have some food and drink, and maybe dance a little while soaking in some of the unique "atmosphere" of the neighborhood. As I walked around Dore Alley Street Fair this past Sunday, I realized that I could not find a better example of how the cosmopolitan canopy of the street fair brings all of San Francisco together in a way that only this city really can.

Let's be honest: Dore Alley is FREAKY, and there are things both wonderful and terrible to be seen. But I think it's a mark of being a San Franciscan that one can wander into that scene, with perhaps only the slightest notion of what a "fetish fair" might be, and think, oh, there are some naked guys, and over there someone is pretending to a dog, and, wow, the sound of that whip is really loud, and it's all just another day in the city. There are many people who would take that as the very mark of how deviant and decadent Sodom by the Bay has become, but for me, it's a mark of what is truly special about "San Francisco Values:" we judge people not by how weird or freaky they are, but by things that really count, like the strength of you character. So you like to spend some time running around on all fours and barking, yeah, whatever -- are you someone I can count on when I really need you? As a city, we also have a vast tolerance for difference, because we're almost all people who have come here because we were so very, very different in the places we lived before. Dore Alley Fair is an event where people from all over the city come together, and whatever our differences in race, gender, class, ethnicity, etc., we can be civil to one another because we don't just tolerate difference, we encourage it in full display.

For me, Dore Alley was also a deeply personal reminder of why I came back to San Francisco. I went down there with no particular plans, no crew, and spent the afternoon wandering around, running into friends, hanging out for while, running off again, finding more friends, repeat repeat repeat. It was the best experience of "community" I've had in a really long time, because I could feel how I connected, in so many different ways, to this gathering of people. In some ways the big party aspect of Dore Alley Fair was far less important to me than this ability to just have a spontaneous, serendipitous experience of being part of something much larger than myself.

Event Review: Comfort and Joy's "Active Touch," July 29, 2011

2011-07-30T15:31:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I read a post on Facebook in which someone was responding to the closing of The Eagle by complaining that the gay bar/club scene "just wasn't the same anymore," how it had become boring and predictable, homogeneous, lost its cruise/sleaze factor, etc. While in my original post about the closing of the Eagle I pointed out that things change, and perhaps it was time to think about a "new gay" as opposed to waxing nostalgic about the "old gay," events like Comfort and Joy's "Active Touch" demonstrate quite well that there is a thriving, exciting, gay scene alive and well in San Francisco, with all the sleaze and craziness you could want, if you just take the time to go looking for it.

This is, to the best of my hazy recollection, the fourth or fifth year that Comfort and Joy has been throwing the Touch parties, usually in conjunction with a major holiday or event, in this case, Dore Alley. While the parties serve on the practical level as fundraisers for Comfort and Joy's annual excursions onto the playa, they also provide a glimpse into a "new gay" underground scene. Inspired in large part originally by John Cameron Mitchell's film "Short Bus," Comfort and Joy events evoke the vibe of the 70s bath-house, where you can cruise, dance, see some inspired performances, and connect with a community that is truly creating something new, rather than trying to hold onto the past. Comfort and Joy parties have provided a platform for musicians, DJs, drag divas, and visual artists like Honey Sound System, the House of Herrera, the House of Salad, III, and many others, and serve as a nexus for queers of all shapes, sizes, and varieties to cum, er, come together.

I must admit that, for this particular event, I didn't really have the energy to devote to a full-scale party. I went primarily to connect with friends and a community that I haven't been part of in a while, and in that regard, it was a blowout - I heard the words "welcome home" so many times that it convinced me that I really was "home." If I'd had a bit more spunk in my junk I could have certainly found any number of amusing divertisements to keep me occupied until the closing bell at 4AM, since there was a dancefloor (though, admittedly, I am not that great a fan of Bus Station John's retro disco sound), a "gentleman's boudoir," a tiki lounge, and any number of small niches where one could locate oneself for conversation or other social interactions. It was enough for me, though, to just feel like I had found myself back among a community that, like a family, has its fractious and dysfunctional aspects, but are the still people with whom feels that special, intimate connection. I'll take that over being groped at The Powerhouse any day.

Event Review: Honey Soundsystem 4 Year Anniversary at Holy Cow

2011-07-30T13:50:00.000-07:00

I signed a lease on a shared space in the Castro last Saturday, and ever since then it's been a whirlwind of moving, cleaning, setting up, and dreaming of the future. There have also been some moments of pure anxiety, as I contemplate the ratio of expenses to savings and how long the latter will last without a job to replenish it. It's a good thing, then, that the Honey Soundsystem 4 Year Anniversary party at Holy Cow came around at just the right moment to remind me of why I moved back to San Francisco.

Honey Soundsystem first came to my attention by way of Marke B. of the Bay Guardian's Super Ego column. We had been having an email exchange about techno in the SF music scene, and he told me I should check out this DJ PeePlay and his comrade-in-arms Jason Kendig. And then, just about the same time, Kitten Calfee of Comfort and Joy told me he'd been contacted by this group calling themselves Honey Soundsystem about playing at an Afterglow party. Did I know anything about them, and could I recommend them? And that, as they say, is how history is made.

Checking out the posters for past Honey events at the party reminded me of what I have always appreciated about them: they focus on the music and creating a big open vibe for everyone, rather than playing to the typical marketing ploys, usually based on identity stereotypes, of other club promoters. Honey Soundsystem has never put a guy on their flyers, never proclaimed that their parties are for this type, or that one, but for everyone. You could see the effect of this at the party - there were club kids and "mature elders" like me, bears and twinks, Asians and Latins, women and drag queens, all there because they wanted to go out and have a good time on the dancefloor with each other. Which brings me around to the music: while I have not always grooved on every musical orientation of Honey Soundsystem, these are guys who always care deeply about the music they play, and who go out of their way to use the music to create something that is a true expression of their ethos. You can go to any bar or club in the Castro and consume pre-digested pop dance pablum, but Honey Soundsystem will always feed your ears and your soul with something substantial and carefully cultivated.

On this particular night, the sound had a distinct acid/retro house feel, and as I danced for the first time in months, on a dance floor full of shiny happy people, I had a flashback to some of the great Sunday night parties of the past, like Pleasuredome at King Street Garage, or the tea dance at The End Up. Sunday night is always a special time in clubland, a time when those who have a different relation to the workweek come out and party, but it's also a night when you're not necessarily looking for the peak experience of a Friday or Saturday. In this case, Honey hit that sweet spot (oh man, I can't believe I wrote that), between uplifting and groovy that, for me, has always defined the essence of a good Sunday night out. I shook it loose for about two hours, had a nice conversation about the Hawaiian lifestyle with a couple of very friendly guys on the back porch, and re-connected with some old friends before I finally gave in to exhaustion and headed out the door around 12.30. At that point, the club was packed and there was a line that looked like something out of Satyricon stretching down the sidewalk, so I'm sure the festivities kept up well until last call.

Honey Sundays at Holy Cow is going onto my list of San Francisco Essentials, things you must do when you're in the city. And to PeePlay, Kendig, Robot Hustle, and Ken Vulsion, my thanks for reminding me of what makes this a great city, and why it's worth whatever it takes to be here. Long Live Honey!

Check out the weekly Honey Potcast for a taste of Honey and special guests.

Hey Bitches, I'm Back!

2011-07-25T23:13:00.000-07:00

Hello San Francisco, good to see you, it's been too long.

I've been back in The City for about a week now, and walking around, not much seems to have changed in the two years I've been gone. Checking out club posters in the Castro yesterday I saw many of the same names, and same concepts, that were on those posters when I left, and my traditional watering holes had many of the same faces on both sides of the bar. But if not much has changed in the material world of gay SF during my exile years (putting aside the frankly confusing demise of The Eagle), I've been making the effort over the past few days to adjust my perceptual apparatus, to calibrate it back to that state when I first came to San Francisco in 1999, and perhaps see the same things differently. When I first came to San Francisco, fresh out of grad school and as desperately glad to be out of Atlanta as I am to be out of Baltimore now, there was a glamor that radiated from everyone and everything, and cast a spell of enchantment over me. For a while I was able to give up on being the skeptical, cynical East Coast intellectual and simply be enthralled by the spirit of the City, to find it all quite marvelous and fascinating. Over time, of course, those perceptions changed, and it was difficult, particularly by the time I left, to not find the rot at the center of the bloom.

Whether or not I can find a way to throw wide the doors of perception again, returning to a place should not also automatically entail a return to the same modes of being, falling back into the same comfortable attitudes and ideas. There are some mistakes I think I made during my last residence in SF, and some things I've had ample opportunity to ruminate upon during cold, dark nights in the Baltimore winter. I came back to San Francisco not necessarily to pick up where I left off, but to try and strike out in a way that's substantially new. I haven't really decided what to do with this blog yet, whether the way it focuses my attention, and upon what, is something that that will ultimately help or hinder my efforts in trying to find this new direction, but, for a little while at least, it continues to give me a good excuse for going out and seeing what there is to see.

Event Review: Rich Morel's Hot Sauce at Grand Central (Baltimore)

2011-06-26T07:30:00.000-07:00

Rich Morel, of Blow Off fame, brought Hot Sauce to Grand Central in Baltimore last night, and I had one of my best nights on the dance floor in a very long while, with swollen knees to attest to that fact this morning. Morel played a high-energy set of electro-inflected dance music that included some great sing-along opportunities with remixes of tracks like Oasis' "Wonder Wall" and Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus," along with plenty of the typical four-on-the-floor tracks you'd hear at any good dance party. At one point I found myself thinking back to my first gay clubbing experiences in the mid-80s at places like the now-defunct Traxx in DC, where synth pop met Hi-NRG and there were always plenty of hands in the air. That was the case at Hot Sauce as well, by 11.30 the dancefloor was jumpin' and jivin,' and when I left a little after 1AM there was still enough of a crowd to ensure it would keep going until last call.

Given that the logo for the Hot Sauce party is a cowboy riding a bucking bear, you might have some idea of what to expect from the crowd, and sure enough, it was predominately older, large of size, and ample of body and facial hair. By midnight there was some greater diversity to the crowd, and I even ran into a lesbian of my acquaintance, Pam, who, like me, was looking more for an opportunity to dance on a Saturday night than anything else. Still, as a guy who would have been considered a twink until I started going gray and blind, and remains pretty small and possessed of about the same amount of body hair as I had when I was 16, I had a hard time figuring out how to relate to this scene. I certainly enjoyed Morel's set, but for all the other considerations of why I might go out to a gay dance night, I might as well have been invisible. I even had a slight moment of hesitation when I took off my shirt on the dancefloor; plenty of other guys had already done it, and there was a lot of tactile admiration of Buddha bellies and pelts going on as a result, but I actually had a moment of wondering "Is this okay?" I have, in the past, heard some rather unkind remarks about twinks issuing from the muzzles of bears, and I wondered whether taking my shirt off in this club, with this crowd, would be taken as provocation, or, even worse, would mark me out as a target for scorn because I don't fit into this particular scene's image of masculinity. I thought about this for a second and then decided well, if anybody has a problem with it, fuck them, I came to dance, and I would hope that my obvious enthusiasm for the music and the energy of the party would be of greater importance than the accidents of genetics that made me the way I am.

I admit that I continue to struggle with the whole idea of a "bear movement" and with bears as a separate subculture of the gay scene. I understand where that subculture comes from, and I'm generally sympathetic to attempts to create alternatives to hegemonic mainstream culture of any type, gay or straight. I also cannot fault anyone for their attractions, and if bears aren't attracted to me, that's okay, because I'm not particularly attracted to them (though I have noticed that it has become increasingly "incorrect" in larger gay culture to admit that you're attracted to twinks, or nelly guys, or anything that isn't in keeping with a fairly conservative notion of masculinity). But it does bug me that, like so much of mainsteam straight culture, gay culture forms itself around body types, and those body types are taken to be the signifiers of a shared set of values. This, in the end, can make the most revolutionary movement just another exercise in conformity, and enforces separatism at the level of phenotype when the real shared values exist at a much deeper level. I have always believed that the dance scene has the ability to bring people together through a shared physical and emotional experience, and that a good DJ, like Rich Morel, knows how to create that experience. I was happy last night to share the dancefloor with big guys bumpin' bellies, two geeky Asian boys dancing together, a very drunk Latino exotic dancer, at least one drag queen, and my lesbian friend Pam. I can only wish that that the intention had been to create that shared experience for the diversity of people I saw there, rather than one exclusive group.

The Endangered Eagle

2011-04-11T17:24:00.001-07:00

Word has reached me via Facebook about the threatened closing of the San Francisco Eagle, and over at Joe.My.God there is an unsourced rendering of what is planned for the future. Aesthetically and culturally pleasing it is not. I have written before about what a great institution the beer bust is, and on many a dull Sunday afternoon in Baltimore I have had wistful thoughts of drinkings and doings on the Eagle patio, and looked forward to experiencing it again upon my return. I hope that a plan of action to save it will come out of tonight's meeting, whether through having it designated a historic landmark (one can only imagine the plaque for that), it being purchased, or a a bunch of rowdy queers chaining themselves to the toilets like in the good old days to defy the wrecking ball. However, I think a larger lesson that must be taken from this is that the SF gay community has to learn to adapt to a changing world in order to survive.

Many have bemoaned the passing of the leather bars and bathhouses that lined Folsom some thirty years ago, but what made all that possible was that SoMa was a marginal zone of low property values. As many have pointed out, the new boom and the coming of companies like Twitter and Zynga have brought up property values in SoMa, and for whoever owns the land on which the Eagle sits, I'm sure there are much more lucrative opportunities than leasing to a gay bar. This gentrification, if you will, of SoMa, is a ruthless, uncaring process driven by pure capitalism, and no one will be happy to see what it does to the treasured institutions and watering holes of the past (see, for example, my post about the controversy over the re-location of The Hole in the Wall). By enlisting the aid of the city it might be possible to win some battles, but the overall trend of the war is clear, and if the gay community is going to survive, it must learn how to adapt to the new conditions it faces, rather than mourn its losses.

I've seen many comments on this situation that take a very traditionalist stance; this is what was, this is what must be, and development must be opposed at all costs. As a Southerner, and someone who has lived in many places where the populace has linked arms against any change or development in the name of the past, I can tell you that what this ultimately brings is economic ruin. You cannot keep the San Francisco of the 1970s or 1980s; however golden those years might have been in some ways, they were also very lean years, when San Francisco had serious economic problems. That's what made it cheap to live there, that's what makes it cheap to live in Baltimore, but I don't think many San Franciscans want to live in a city where block after block of downtown is boarded up and abandoned, as SoMa was during this time and as Baltimore is now. The economic boom of the 90s revitalized San Francisco in as many ways as it created new problems, as in the case of The Eagle. I'm coming back to San Francisco because of the energy of the city, the opportunity it presents, and the kind of people who live there, so I want to see it grow and prosper. But I also want to see it keep the character of what makes it San Francisco, and for that to happen, there must be adaptation. So SoMa is not what it was in the 1970s -- find the new marginal space, work with the city to keep gentrification from encroaching upon it, and create the new SoMa. Instead of trying to hold back the tide and crying over what was lost, look ahead and create the new. If the The Eagle is sold, find a new space, because what makes The Eagle isn't the building, it's the people who come and create the space of a community.

UPDATE: Courtesy of SFWeekly, a report on last night's rally at The Eagle, which fills in this unpleasant detail:

But before that deal could go through, the owner of the property decided he wanted to start a bar there himself, and wouldn't allow the current owners to transfer the lease.

"He saw an opportunity to start his own business here," Thirkield said. "He blew up that entire deal."

Now, the Eagle has been given notice to shut down by the owner, reportedly a thirtysomething resident of Santa Rosa who inherited the property from family.

So what truly sucks about this is that someone from outside the city, who seems to have no experience with a bar, and likely has no understanding of the cultural landscape, is going to try and start a straight bar in a spot that has no foot traffic, and is well away from other bars or businesses that will support it. This means that it, like The Eagle, must be a destination bar. But note that the Skylark, which is owned by the person the property owner intends to turn the location over to, which is on the heavily trafficked 16th Street, was empty on a Monday night when the protesters showed up. Put all this together, and I can almost guarantee that whatever they put in there will fail within a year, especially given the certain negative publicity the bar will receive. So, some dunderhead is going to rip out a chunk of the gay cultural landscape of San Francisco for what will likely wind up being a failed business folly - somehow it would be better if The Eagle was going to razed for condos rather than subjected to this indignity.

Event Review: Proper at Dionysus (Baltimore)

2011-03-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

Last night was the first taste of Spring we've had in Baltimore after a looooong, cold winter, and there was a clearly festive spirit in the air as I wandered around Mt. Vernon. After seeing Jacques Tatti's The Illusionist at The Charles (a film very much in the spirit of Jean Renoir), I ambled over to Dionysus to have a beer and discovered that a DJ night, Proper, was shortly getting underway in the upstairs bar. I had a couple beers downstairs while things warmed up, and then proceeded through the secret door to discover a very "proper" house night indeed, one that had a very lively, and friendly, underground vibe.

When I first sat down at the bar there was a conversation underway about the origins of rap, sparked by the passing of Nate Dogg earlier this week, that was straight out of High Fidelity. I wound up talking with the bartender for a bit, as well as the fellow sitting next to me who told me his girl had just left him, and that he once had been addicted to crack, but now had cleaned things up and owned two restaurants. A tattoo of barbed wire strands wrapped around his left forearm, and I think (I can't be sure because it was dark and the brim of a cap was pulled down low on his forehead) he was wearing something sparkly at the corners of his eyes. I turned him on to Strongbow Cider and we commiserated about broken hearts and making music. Clearly, Proper attracts an interesting crowd, and I saw everything from blissed out hipster kids to girls in cocktail dresses. While standing on the edge of the dancefloor a guy asked me "what do you think of this?" and I said "It's great, no douchebags." Really, what more do I need to say?

The tunes were on the pop side early in the evening, when I heard the likes of Michael Jackson and Radiohead remixes, before it settled into nice smooth flow of house (of course, it helps to keep the flanger on in smoothing out those mixes) that was moving people out onto the dancefloor. I left around midnight, as I'd had my fill of beer and was looking forward to other weekend activities, but I will definitely be back to check this scene out properly.

The Early Days of Baltimore Club

2011-03-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

On WYPR's "Maryland Morning" show this past Wednesday there was an interview with one of the early Baltimore Club DJs, DJ Equalizer, about the scene back in the early to mid-90s, when it seem that things were really hopping. What I found most interesting was Equalizer's statement that, when he left the city for about five years, starting in 1995, and came back, everything was gone. I've heard this from a lot of people I've talked to about the dance scene in Bmore, that through the mid-to-late 90s there was a very strong house/club music presence, but then it all suddenly dried up. I've not heard a good explanation of why this happened, though I suspect it may have something to do with how much population this city has lost since the mid-90s, as well as shifting demographics and population centers within the city. I've also yet to hear any "Baltimore Club" in a club, mostly it's the same dance pop I'd hear anywhere else, but maybe I'm just not going to the right places or nights.

Underground SF for Sale!

2011-03-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

Oh, the times I had in this place when it was home to Drunk and Horny; Lord Kook and I, along with DJ6 and Candy of Get Lucky, even tried to start up a happy hour party there. Now it looks like it, and the rest of the building, are for sale. Since I also know the people who live in the apartments above, who were affiliated with the owner, I'm curious what's up, but here's the link to the article in Haighternation with details. Given that price, which includes the liquor license, I'm tempted by this deal myself . . . .

Bar Review: Dionysus (Baltimore)

2011-03-08T17:55:00.000-08:00

Dionysus, on Preston Street just off Charles in Baltimore, is hands-down my favorite Baltimore bar. Situated three blocks from my apartment, I stroll down there once a week or so to hang out and have a beer, sometimes have some dinner or a snack from their terrific and ever-changing menu, and to have some social time in a space that's full of lively people but is still laid back enough that it's easy to have conversation with the bartenders, other patrons, or whoever has joined me out for that evening.

In my neighborhood, Mt. Vernon, there are four main options for beer and food: the Mt. Vernon stable, which has the standard fare of ribs and deep-fryer food; City Cafe, which caters to the upscale dress-in-black crowd and charges a dollar more per drink than anyplace else in the neighborhood; Brewer's Art, which has good food and their own Belgian-style ales, and is, on Sundays, a veritable Bear den; and Dionysus. What sets Dionysus above all these establishments, including the more "upscale" Brewer's Art and City Cafe, is a great craft beer selection, both draft and bottle, and a cajun-influenced menu of substantial food like a cajun pork chop with greens and cheesy grits, all of which can be had for substantially less than what you'd pay at their competitors. A beer and an entree: twenty bucks. At Brewer's Art or City Cafe, you'd pay about ten dollars more for food and beverage of exactly the same quality, and you'd have to put up with a lot more noise, crowd, and attitude as well. And then there's the reverse happy hour at 10PM. (If you don't trust me on the food, the Baltimore Sun recently gave "Chef" one of the best reviews I've read for a downtown Baltimore restaurant in a while).

I've always had interesting and entertaining experiences at Dionysus. The music ranges from The Doors to the Pogues, and is loud enough where you can sing along if you feel so inclined and not embarrass yourself, but is still kept in that range where you can sit at the bar and have a conversation in normal tones. At that bar I've had conversations with the bartender Gina, who addresses her customers as "Love," and local "characters" like the very garralous technical director of a local theater company (who I couldn't tell if he was hitting on me or not). In summer, there's an interesting mix of hipsters/artists/street corner philosophers at the outdoor tables. The crowd is younger, and I suspect that some of them are students of Peabody and MICA who don't feel like making the trek to the Mt. Royal Tavern. I also like that it's a space that's well-lit enough that you can sit at the bar and read or write, but atmospheric enough that, after a couple beers, you might think you look more attractive in the mirror behind the bar than you really are.

For a while I was very into the dark, beer kellner space of Brewer's Art, but eventually I felt that, unless you went there with somebody, it's kind of boring because you can't read or write, and the crowd is not particularly social. Dionysus feels more like the neighborhood pub where they really care about food and drink, where you can go to contemplate, and where you can often find yourself in the midst of an unexpected but pleasant interaction with the other patrons. Go check it out for yourself; it's not posh, it's not particularly hip, but it satisfies everything I want from my local pub, and does it in a way that means I leave with more of a smile than I entered with.

The End of International Bear Rendezvous?

2011-03-01T16:46:00.000-08:00

A friend in SF mentioned in passing recently that this year is the last for the International Bear Rendezvous, and this copy is on the front page of the website: "It is with great regret that we bring this successful bear run event to a conclusion." I thought this was a wildly successful event, anybody got the scoop on why it's ending?

More on Burning Man Moving to the Mid-Market Neighborhood

2011-02-25T07:13:00.001-08:00

According to this post from the SF Bay Guardian Politics Blog, the deal to move Burning Man HQ into the Warfield building at Market and 6th has fallen through, but Larry Harvey, BM head honcho, says "We are determined to move into the mid-Market area . . . The city has been telling us and proving it with their actions that they really want us down there." Let's hope it works out; as I said in my previous post on the matter, having BMHQ in the heart of the city would be both an acknowledgment of the role that BM has played in shaping The City's culture, as well as making a difference in a part of The City that really needs it. As Harvey is quoted as saying in the blog post, "If we can get a foothold down there, those are the values [self-expression, community collaboration, and a decommodified gift economy] that we would demonstrate. We're nobody's window dressing and we never will be,” Harvey said. “We want to find common cause with the resident population. We know what it's like to break into a community and win people's trust.”

Save the Rave Hearing on March 22

2011-02-24T13:51:00.001-08:00

Once again, electronic dance music is under pressure from the authorities, and once again folks are stepping up to the mike to make their voices heard. On March 22 the SF City Government will have a special hearing on Electronic Dance Music Events - go with your two minute speech about why electronic dance music is important to you!

http://www.savetherave.org/

Changes Afoot at Pirate Cat Radio

2011-02-20T07:29:00.000-08:00

From Mission Local comes news of changes afoot at San Francisco's favorite scrappy, underground pirate radio station, Pirate Cat. It's unclear exactly what's up, but it seems that the founder, Daniel Roberts, has turned his attention to a low-wattage radio station he's "acquired," sort of, in Pescadero, leaving it up to the current PCR crew to reform the radio station along more collective lines. A quick check just now confirmed that their iTunes stream is down, and since I'm not in the city I can't tune in to see if they're broadcasting at 89.7, but here's hoping that the Pirate Cat will soon be back on the air.

Upcoming Event: Honey Sound System "SPKR" Benefit, March 12

2011-02-17T18:20:00.000-08:00

My friend DJ Mermaid, Queen of Disco, claims Bobby Viteritti as her all-time favorite classic disco DJ, so, thanks to the boys of Honey Sound System, you can go kick it old school and contribute to the worthy project of the LGBT Historical Society at the same time.

Honey Soundsystem, in association with San Francisco’s GLBT Historical Society, present:

SPEAKER
An amplified history of San Francisco’s queer dance floors
Saturday March 12, 2011
Public Works
Music by Honey Sound System, Steve Fabu, and Bobby Viteritti
$50 VIP Catered Reception // 8pm - 10pm
Public Event & Gallery Show Opening // 10pm - 3am
Tickets Available Here

Upcoming Event: Trentemoller at Mezzanine, April 16

2011-02-12T07:17:00.000-08:00

You want to know why I'm moving back to San Francisco? Shows like this are why I'm moving back to San Francisco: Trentemoller at Mezzanine on April 16. The Trentemoller Chronicles on vinyl and The Polar Mix on CD travel with me everywhere I go, and if I was in The City I would look forward to this as one of the events of the year. It will be epic, go and give praise that you live in a city that brings you the chance to experience nights like this.

Another One Bites the Dust: Bar on Church and The Edge

2011-02-09T15:36:00.001-08:00

The Scene is admittedly a bit slow in keeping up with the current SF club industry news, what with being on the East Coast and all, but word has finally reached us, via Grubstreet, that the Bar on Church and Castro stalwart The Edge are shutting down and changing hands. The end of BOC comes as no surprise, since, when I reviewed it shortly after its opening in 2009, I asked why, though it was a nice bar, anybody would want to go there when it was offering everything that could be found more conveniently in the Castro. The end of the Edge is a little more surprising, though I suppose there can only be so many Daddy bars in the Castro, and this one always seemed a bit more grim in vibe and clientele than the others.

On Laptop DJs

2011-02-09T14:20:00.000-08:00

This past week I had one of those unfortunate moments when my cranky Lester Bangs side got the better of me, leading to a deep insertion of foot into mouth. A guy contacted me from one of "those" websites, and his profile pic was of him, shirtless, DJing at a party. "Whoa," I thought, "now this looks interesting, what can I say to impress this guy?" At first glance it looked like he was playing on turntables with mixer, so I shot back "hey, I like that you're spinning vinyl, I find laptop DJs kinda annoying." I hit "send," and then, oh only then, did I look closer and realize that he was using CD players and, yes, a laptop. Oops. An exchange of emails ensued in which I tried to extricate said foot from said mouth, but, as of this writing, they have come to an end on his side, and I seem to have lost a shot at a bootie call.

Aside from the obvious lesson that I should not listen to Lester when he whispers things in my ear (I've come to think of Lester and Michael Musto as the scene devil and scene angel, respectively, sitting on my shoulders as I write), this incident also provided a moment to reflect on my opinions about laptop DJing, opinions that, I have to admit, are in no way informed by having actually tried to DJ on a laptop, but are largely the result of my resistance, as someone who really fell in love with DJing on vinyl, to the very idea.

I must first admit that everything my respondent in this exchange brought up about laptop DJing is absolutely true: working in Traktor, or Ableton, gives you an infinite amount of greater control over the tracks that you're playing, and opens up creative possibilities for live remixing and layering that were nearly impossible (unless you were Carl Craig or a super turntablist) in the era of vinyl. Things like beatmatching can be largely handed over to the software, leaving the DJ able to focus on other manipulations, and being able to watch the waveform, set cue points, and loop multiple sections let the DJ create not just seamless mixes, but entirely new mixes on the fly. From a rational standpoint, where the laptop helps you overcome all the technical issues associated with DJing on vinyl and CDs, from hauling around a lot of equipment to making sure it all works together, laptop DJing makes infinite sense. And, from the standpoint of "DJ as manipulator," it is a creative tool without compare.

However, I also think that as we go from vinyl, to CDs, to laptops, it changes DJing and the kind of mixes that DJs produce. I've heard a tendency of laptop DJs to "slam" tracks together without much in the way of real mixing, what I've come to think of as the laptop DJ equivalent of the "train wreck" in other media; in both cases, things are being put together that sound terrible in the mix, but the trainwreck, with its battling beats, is more obviously a "mistake" than the "slam." In any medium, there are good and bad mixes, so I don't think there is a way to qualitatively rank vinyl against laptops in that regard. What interests me more is whether, because of the way in which one interfaces with the music, there is also a change in what we think of as "DJing," as well as what kind of mixes that person produces.

When I learned to DJ on vinyl, I saw it as a challenge. One of the first recorded mixes that really impressed me was Sasha and Digweed's Northern Exposure: Expeditions, and around the time I heard it I read, in an article about Digweed, that he was known for his "long mixes," in which he could hold two tracks together "for two minutes or more." That became my goal; to produce a smooth, seamless mix that would be experienced as one continuous track, and which would be the result of my being able to execute long mixes. I spent hours practicing mixes, figuring out which tracks went together, which didn't, honing my sense of structure and my ability to hear the effect of my EQ and fader manipulations. When I was able to produce a recording of a mix that contained no mistakes, no wrecks, no serious distortions as a I trimmed up a beatmatch on the fly, I felt it was a serious accomplishment (some of those mixes can still be found on my WaxDJ site).

Given my own understanding of the limitations of turntables and mixers, I was all the more impressed by those DJs I saw performing live who could accomplish things that were well beyond my capabilities. This became part of my appreciation of their performances - they were like virtuoso violin players who had mastered the most complex passages of Paganinni. I knew that I would never be the amazing mix master, but I could still aspire to be the smooth trance DJ, and enjoy some sense of accomplishment as such.

Laptop DJing, it seems to me, has rendered moot much of what I felt to be the physical virtuousity that I admired and aspired to on vinyl, and this seems to be the real source of my resistance to it. What I learned, and practiced, and put so much time into, now seems to have been outmoded by the machine. It also seems that the style of DJing I was into, one that was shaped by the limitations and challenges of playing music based in a physical medium, is also obsolete; what's so great about the long smooth mix when you can do so much more?

As I sit in my living room and look at my shelves of records and contemplate moving, and as I look at my roadcases of gear and think about how it could all be replaced with Traktor, I see the rationality of making that replacement. I can even understand how making the move to the laptop could open up new creative possibilities for me. But it will also be hard to not experience it as a kind of concession, and a loss.

Event Review: Elektroschock at Grand Central (Baltimore)

2011-01-30T15:38:00.000-08:00

This was one of those weekends when none of my social plans managed to come together; my Friday night bootie call got sick, and I wasn't able to get in touch with the guys who I wanted to have over for a movie night on Saturday evening until Sunday afternoon. So, faced with the prospect of another night holed up in the apartment playing video games (Fallout: New Vegas, if you really want to know), I decided to check out Elektroschock, a goth/industrial night at Grand Central, the "disco" that's about a half block from my apartment in Baltimore. It was fun to get in touch with my industrial roots once again, and the $2.50 Jack and cokes until 11 AM put me in a convivial mood, but, like many nights out I've had in Baltimore, Elektroschock felt more like I was sneaking into someone's private party, full of their friends, than going out to a club.

The disco at Grand Central is a good space, with a horseshoe-shaped main bar, and a spacious dancefloor with another bar in the back (though for this party it remained unstaffed). The intelligent lighting system threw biohazard symbols around on the floor and walls, but the overall space was suitably dark - it would have been nice to have had some visuals on the flatscreen that hovered above the back of the main bar, but this crowd was more interested in socializing than watching a TV, something that should commend the night as already being an improvement over the typical sports-on-TV experience of most Baltimore bars. I can't quite figure out how Grand Central competes against "the" Baltimore gay dance space, The Hippo, which is on the opposite corner of Charles Street, but I think it's because it presents a more intimate, and honestly comfortable, space than the Hippo, despite the latter's far more elaborate sound and light system. There's no sitting at the bar in the Hippo dance space, and a crowd this size, probably no more than a hundred or so at the peak, would seem rather sparse in the Hippo. Overall Grand Central presents a much better space for a small crowd, most of whom seemed to already be on a first-name basis with each other, to just hang out and make an occasional move toward the dancefloor.

It's been a long time, probably a decade, since I've been to an industrial night, though I was seriously involved with that scene in Atlanta in the 90s. I was so involved, in fact, that I got a bit tired of the scene, and what seemed like an endless rehash of the same tracks over and over again. One of the best things about Elektroschock was that I couldn't name a single track that played in the two hours or so that I was there. The DJ was taking requests, which resulted in some odd juxtapositions, and it was easy enough to recognize the genre markers in various tracks - heavy stomp beats perfect for clomping around the dancefloor in combat boots, wistful lyrics sung in German backed by shimmering synth pop for twirling around in a skirt - but what really struck me was the was the heavy influence of trance, from the tempo of the tracks to swirling arpeggation to lyrics like "A-B-C, D-M-T, M-D-A." It made for a much more European sound than what I had expected, having always associated industrial with guitar-driven bands like Ministry and even KMFDM. Clearly the current crop of industrial producers have been spending some time listening, and probably dancing, to influences from other electronic genres. In talking to one local industrial kid this past week I was surprised to hear him name Juno Reactor as a band he was really into, so now my curiousity is piqued to hear more of what's being produced in the industrial scene these days. (You can check out setlists from previous nights by hitting the link above.)

When I used to go out a-gothing in Atlanta, it was to a club night, Pandora's Box, where I knew the promoter and almost everyone else who showed up. It was small, tight (some might say incestuous) scene, and it was more like our weekly social get together than a club night. Much the same vibe prevailed at Elektroschock; I briefly talked with a guy who had just moved here from Philadelphia who wanted to know about other nights, so I steered him toward The Depot, but, so far as I know, Elektroschock is the only regular goth/industrial night in Baltimore, and I got the sense that the folks who showed up are much like that group I knew in Atlanta - there were lots of excited greetings as people made their way into the club, and lots of clustering in groups around the bar and to the side of the dancefloor. Everyone seemed friendly enough, and if I had been feeling more outgoing I might have made some further conversation, but, like most of my experiences in going out in Baltimore, I couldn't get over the feeling that I was crashing someone's private party full of their friends. I did enjoy the many variations in industrial fashion and watching the dancefloor, and even found myself nodding along to the beat, though I never felt it really move down into my feet. I don't stomp so much as shuffle these days, to be honest.

Elektroschock happens on the first, third, and fifth Saturdays of the month at Grand Central, and, at $6, the cover seems a little heavy to me, but between 9 and 11PM all drinks are $2.50. If you're into dressing in black and raging against the machine every now and then, then it's a great Saturday night destination.

Burning Man on Market Street?

2011-01-29T07:33:00.000-08:00

From Hank Drew at the San Francisco Public Press comes word that the Burning Man Arts Organization is considering a move from its HQ in China Basin to the Warfield Theater building at 6th and Market:

The group that builds a temporary city of more than 40,000 creative vagabonds at the end of each summer is in talks to move into the nine-story early 20th century Warfield Building, at Market Street where Taylor and Sixth streets converge

As I've said many times in the past, Burning Man, as both an organization and event, contributes more to the life of The City than most people realize. If you've ever been involved with a camp, large or small, you know how that kind of cooperative undertaking brings together a very diverse group of people, and creates a bond between them, and other participants, that goes well beyond those few days in August. Bringing the organization to mid-Market would not only provide some potential relief for the blight in that area, but would also make a statement about the values and ideas that are at the literal heart of San Francisco's civic life, and would be an acknowledgment of Burning Man's role in promoting them.

Hey Bitches, I'm Back!

2011-01-28T10:22:00.000-08:00

Okay, well, I'm not back *in* San Francisco just yet, but yeah, this summer, look for the return of the Jaded Gay DJ and SFScene. After a year and a half in Baltimore, and lots of personal upheaval (for example, the Boyfriend is now the Ex), I've decided to make the "bold" (as one of my colleagues put, it though "foolish" might be the better adjective) move of resigning a tenure-track job to come back to Sodom by the Bay for - well, I'm not sure yet, but I'm looking forward to the chance to find out.

Why, you might ask, would I do such a thing? Because on New Year's Day in San Francisco, in the middle of the dancefloor at Cafe Cocomo for the Stompy/Sunset party, dancing for the first time in months, hanging out with my friends, I realized that San Francisco is home, and no job, no matter how long one has worked to obtain it, is worth it if it takes you to place where all you feel when you're not working is boredom and loneliness. There are people who really dig Baltimore, and some who I expect thrive here, but it's not for me - weighed against the sensibility of staying in a stable job where, in three years, I'll have tenure, there is the fact that this is the first place I've ever lived where I considered going on anti-depressants. I can see the path before me in Baltimore pretty well, and I've seen where it's lead some of my colleagues, which is into a secure, stable, isolated, bitter existence. It's also clear to me that if I ever want a real opportunity to fall in love again, rather than just hoping that some accident of fate will bring it my way by means of Manhunt, I need to be in a place where I can meet and get to know the kinds of guys I want to have a relationship with.

There is plan, which brings me to San Francisco in July, and a place to stay for a couple months while I get on my feet, and for income there are some ideas but nothing dependable yet. SFScene will definitely be back, and I'm hoping it will appear under a sponsorship that will not ony increase the readership, but maybe pay for some nights out as well. I'm also hoping to channel a little more Michael Musto and a bit less Lester Bangs in my reportage. Meanwhile, keep watching this space for reports on the Baltimore scene (such as it is), and continuing episodes in The Return of the Jaded Gay DJ.

A Blast from the Past

2009-12-29T19:43:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone, been a while (like, a year) since I last really posted. It's been a hurly-burly time, what with the moving and the teaching and all that, and while I'd like to say it's been a great adventure, so far it's mostly been a great trial. I could tell you all about it, but there's no fun in that, and of course no place is going to ever compare to SF, especially in terms of people and community.

Anyway, while cleaning out a storage unit I came across a box marked "rave flyers and stuff," which, among other treasures, contained Jul:Aug 2001 issue of Urb magazine, the cover of which is scanned in below. I've had a wistful few moments thumbing through it, thinking of this moment in time and how, just a month later, everything would change completely. As the decade draws to an end I find myself thinking about dance culture then and now as well. When I first went to the Love Parade in 1995 I found myself drawn to a a culture that was expressing genuine utopian desires, and when Amp was on MTV, and I first started really getting into the scene a few years later, I really believed that a cultural revolution was taking place alongside the technological one. In hindsight, I was pretty naive, but it was a nice dream while it lasted.

Hello, hello, is this thing on?

2009-12-25T14:11:00.001-08:00

Hey, it's hard to see all the way to San Francisco from Baltimore, anybody out there?

Event Review: Junior Boys at Bimbo's

2009-04-19T10:34:00.000-07:00

There was a moment at the Junior Boys show at Bimbo's on Thursday when I thought I had stepped into the filming of a John Hughes movie prom scene: there was the name of the band in neon-like EL wire at the back of the stage, the diffused red spotlight playing over the stage, the smoke machines, the OMD-like tunes, the stone-faced technician working the electronic controls, the lead singer crooning a gentle paean to young love, the swaying bodies of the audience. And, just as in a movie, the performance of the band seemed completely scripted, leading me, Kitty, and the boyfriend wondering what exactly was the point of seeing this band live.

In our household the Junior Boys often get played after a long night, when we're wanting some easy electronics to lull our senses and ease the transition from our evening's activities into sleep. I've never thought of them as particularly rocking, but I hoped that, in a live performance, I'd hear some new aspect of the music. I did, in fact, realize how closely related their sound is to the New Wave ballad, but this isn't exactly what I had hoped for. Like Royksopp, who we also heard at Bimbo's, they played straight-up album versions of every song, though the inclusion of a live drummer was a nice touch (except for those moments when the afore-mentioned technician and the drummer got slightly out of synch with each other).

The workman-like approach to the music might have been made up for in actual performance, but the stage set-up was more reminiscent of a studio layout than an attempt to present the band as living, breathing, emotive human beings. Center stage was a table of electronics and gear, with Johnny Dark working the controls. During the entire show he did not look up, dance to the music, or show any expression beyond focused attention. Jeremy Greenspan, meanwhile, was relegated to a side of the stage, where he spent half the time in shadow as he sang and played guitar. Greenspan has a wonderful voice in the tradition of so many smooth, R&B-influenced crooners, but for the majority of the time his attention was focused on addressing the microphone rather than the audience. There was no chat or banter, just efficient movement from one song to the another, wrapping up in a tidy hour. If I had seen a video of them recording a track, I'm sure it would have looked much like this performance.

The Junior Boys make some of the best shoegazer electro-pop around, but their show at Bimbo's was another lesson in how fantastic studio bands are often challenged by taking their music into a live performance setting. If a band like this is going to take their sound on the road, then there should be something about the live experience that brings something new to hearing the music; otherwise, hearing them from my own stereo is just as satisfying, and far less expensive.

Event Review: Gui Boratto at Paradise Lounge

2009-04-13T16:49:00.000-07:00

For me, Gui Boratto is the guy who brought joy back to techno music. As sophisticated, cool, and deep as techno can be, it never lifted me up the way that progressive trance once did, at least not until I heard Chromophobia. With tracks like "Annunciation" and "Beautiful Life," and Superpitcher's remix of "Like You," Boratto was able to re-inject a note of happy positivity in a scene that is often focused primarily on the heady when it's not on the sexual.

Boratto played to a packed, almost too full house at Paradise Lounge on Friday, bringing in a crowd not just of techno heads, but a number of folks who probably spend most of their clubbing time at Ruby Skye or in the Marina - more than any other techno show I've attended recently, this one showed the ability of an accessible artist like Boratto to attract folks who still think that "techo" is interchangeable with "house" or "trance." Watching from the mezzanine around the dance floor, the crowd was clearly moved when Boratto (who smoked like a fiend behind the decks) dropped his biggest and most expansive tracks, but what he played between his big hits often came off as monotonous and not nearly as inspirational. The boyfriend noted that his tracks mostly use the same drum kit, and many structures, such as a snare hit on the three count, were commonly shared. This made for some extremely smooth mixing and transitions (Boratto was working primarly from a set-up of his own gear, including a Lemur), but after hearing a soaring anthem like "Beautiful Life," what followed often seemed more like a DJ tool to get to the next track. As thrilling as some moments of Boratto's performance was, I left thinking that, as a live performer, he needs to put more into the pacing and structure of the experience.

Local Hatchback opened for Boratto, and the very end of his set was among the best stuff I've heard from a San Francisco producer in a long while, with elements of space disco, classic synth pop, and the balearic anthem combining into a "naturally epic" sound, as he describes it on his myspace page. I'll certainly be keeping an eye peeled to catch more performances from Hatchback.

I still believe that Paradise Lounge is one of the best venues in the city, but this show made me think they're starting to have growing pains. Blasthaus sent out an email on Friday saying there would be an open bar from 10 - 11 PM, but when we arrived at 10.20, the doors were open only for those paying cash; those of us in the will-call line weren't allowed until after 10.30. Then, as we ordered drinks at the upstairs bar, we were told that the free drinks were downstairs only. We also discovered that neither of the upstairs bars had limes for drinks, and for the rest of the night we were served vodka and soda every time we ordered vodka tonics. If I'm going to pay $7 for a drink, then I want the right drink with the right garnish, please. We also inadvertantly stumbled into the "private bottle service" area when we went looking for the smoking room; believe me when I say that a velvet rope on a catwalk in a dark club, without anyone there for security, is going to get walked over. We were nice, though, and didn't take any of the booze we found back there, just smoked and left. By the way, at $200 for a bottle of Skye, and $250 for a bottle of Grey Goose, I'll take the Grey Goose, but I wonder why anybody would pay ten times the wholesale price for a bottle of booze and get stuck back in a room where you can't even watch the dancefloor.

A Brief Update

2009-04-02T13:46:00.000-07:00

It's been over a month since my last post, a period that's been, honestly, a bit depressing. Since being laid off I've spent a lot of time job hunting, creating the syllabi for my classes I'll be teaching in the Fall, and trying to work out the logistics of a cross-country move (cats, I should tell you, make everything more complicated). Although I have free time in abundance (a bit too much, honestly), I have not been taking too much advantage of my ability to stay up late and sleep in later, at least not in regard to going out. Since it's looking increasingly likely that I'll have to stretch the few funds I've accumulated and my unemployment checks until we leave in August, frugality has been my watchword, and it's hard to justify spending money on tickets, cover charges, and overpriced cocktails.

The boyfriend and I did catch Tipper at 1015 a few weeks ago (Tipper was great, the dubstep DJs who proceeded him not so much), and have plans for Gui Boratto at Paradise Lounge, Junior Boys at Bimbo's, and then back to Paradise Lounge for Superpitcher. Overall, though, it seems like there's not that much going on that makes me feel compelled to drop the bucks associated with a night out. Some of this can certainly be attributed to my need to detach myself a bit from the scene, but conversations here and there have made me think that I'm not the only person who finds the scene just a bit deflated right now.

When I went through 54 weeks of unemployment starting in the Summer of 2003 the situation was a bit easier to deal with, as I was spending a lot of time insinuating myself into the life of The City; if I didn't have work, I still had plenty to explore, people to meet, opportunities for hanging out. Now, though, as I'm in the process of disengaging, being unemployed is a pretty big bummer. Along with the usual depressive effects of being laid off and unable to find work, the drop-off in social engagement has begun to make me feel as if I've already left San Francisco, that I'm daily fading away as a presence in my social milieu.

I know that the street faire season kicks off soon, and I'm sure that clever Friscans will soon start coming up with recession-appropriate activities, all of which should provide me with an opportunity to beat my unemployment blues but, for the first time since moving here, I've begun to feel beaten down by The City.

Upcoming Event: Pulse at Paradise Lounge, Friday February 27

2009-02-27T10:47:00.000-08:00

We had a great time at this last month, sorry for the late notice but it's well worth checking out!

Pulse
Downstairs:
Dory (Listed / Pacifictime / Dialogue, LA)
Forest Green (ForestGreen.org / Cute Fang Recordings)
Mozaic (Nexus / Raindance)
Eric Sharp (Rock It Science / Flavor Group)
+ Pulse Resident's Dhamma (Pulse) and Alixr (Pulse / FnF / rEvolution)

Upstairs:
M.O.D. (Evil Breaks | Strategik)
Dulce Vita (Opulent Temple | TheFreakShow)
and Melyss (Opel | Sister SF)

All proceeds benefit Kids for the Bay

Paradise Lounge, 1501 Folsom Street (11th x Folsom)
9PM - 4AM
$10 before 11, $15 after

Big News from the Jaded Gay DJ

2009-02-26T11:06:00.000-08:00

It's been pretty quiet here at the scene since I got laid off - that happened on a Wednesday, I spent a couple days "in my cups," as they say, and then, the next Monday, just as I was getting ready for a Tahoe trip, I got the metaphorical life-saving phone call from the Governor - I was offered, and accepted, a tenure-track position as an Assistant Professor of English and New Media Studies with a university in Baltimore, Maryland. I left for a couple days, got a horrible cold, came back, and have been trying to regain my mental balance ever since. Hence, the silence that has descended over the blog; it's taken until today for me to figure out what to write about, since so much has been going on.

If the teaching job seems completely random, it's actually something I've been pursuing since October. Most folks who know me personally also know that I have a PhD, in comparative literature, and that I've taught at a big-name public university (as a Visiting Assistant Professor) and have published a few academic articles as well (mostly on Thomas Pynchon, and, in the theory realm, on systems theory and online communities). Since a friend of mine from grad school was on the search committee, and I had a good on-campus interview visit, I felt pretty confident of getting the job, it was just a matter of waiting for the committee to make the offer.

Given the layoff on Wednesday, Monday's news was good, though it raised a big question: what to do for the next five months before the boyfriend and I move? I had been banking (literally) on coasting through my old job until it was time to hit the road. Now my only option for making money was through contract or temporary work, and given the current state of the economy, and the paucity of jobs being posted on Dice and Monster, the situation was looking dire enough to require one of those dreaded phone calls to Mom. However, yesterday I got a call from a staffing agency about a three-month contract job, and now things are definitely looking better. If I had sat down to write this post yesterday, as I briefly considered doing, it would have been distinctly bleaker in tone.

And what about the blog? I plan on keeping it going until I leave, though it's probably going to get less of my attention between now and then. I'll continue to post about upcoming stuff that I think is interesting, and to write reviews, but mostly I'll be using it as a channel to reflect upon my San Francisco experience - I've now lived here longer than anywhere else in my adult life, and I think it's fair to say that San Francisco has shaped who I am to a large degree. I should be quick to add, however, that one of the reasons I sought out this job in Baltimore is that I, and the boyfriend, have been ready for a change in our lives for a while, and if I have learned anything living here, it's how hard this city can be despite the happy face it shows the world.

Upcoming Event: All Vinyl All Night Techno Party, Friday February 13

2009-02-12T15:47:00.000-08:00

Greg Bird's Official Birthday Celebration

with
Sammy Dee
Marc Schneider
Nikola Baytala
Clint Stewart

Underground Location
$20 RSVP ONLY at nothingbutvinyl@gmail.com

Upcoming Event: Juan Atkins at Paradise Lounge, Saturday February 14

2009-02-12T15:41:00.000-08:00

Continuing with their stellar programming, Paradise Lounge and Donuts presents techno legend Juan Atkins for your Valentine's Day date! With DJ Support from Pickpocket, BT Magnum and Kelley B, and live performances from Dam Funk and Hot Tub.

$12
10PM - 4AM
Paradise Lounge, 1501 Folsom

Layoff Blues, Part II

2009-02-11T14:29:00.000-08:00

Well, it's happened again, and this time within 10 months of the last time - I got laid off. I hope to have some mitigating news in a week or so, but, in the meantime, if you all know anyone who needs a (technical) writer for a project, pass the word.

Soundworks Closes

2009-02-11T10:25:00.001-08:00

Walking down Valencia Street a week or so ago I noticed that yet another of my old record shop haunts, Soundworks, has closed. Owned by Sam LaBelle, Soundworks was known for its record pool, and when I went in there on Sunday afternoons I could always count on seeing some of the better-known gay DJs in there, trading gossip with Sam and picking up their pool records. Much of what was in their bins was older stuff, but it was a great place to pick up old acid tracks, or crazy late 90s trance. Their techno selection was okay, but it always seemed to veer a bit too much into the harder Belgian/Dutch stuff for me.

The closing of Soundworks means that, in the six years since I've moved back to San Francisco, every record shop that I used to frequent, with the exception of Tweakin' Records, has gone out of business. That roll call includes:

Housewares
Zen City Records
Soundworks
F-8 (and Reverb Records)
BPM Records
Open Mind

Say so long to the independent DJ vinyl store, it was really nice knowing you. Here's what an afternoon of record shopping was like back two years ago when I started this blog.

Event Review: Pulse at Paradise Lounge

2009-02-06T15:37:00.000-08:00

"It's like we're at a rave," the boyfriend said to me as we sat with our friend Toka in the smoking area at Paradise Lounge last Friday during Pulse. It was easy to see what gave him that impression: a large, very diverse crowd of friendly people; two rooms of music, breakbeat up and techno down; visuals that were oh-so-early 2Ks; and an overall vibe of "yeah, let's party till dawn!"

There aren't many events that I can recommend without qualifications, but this one is definitely among them. I found myself thinking back to the Thump Radio parties that used to happen at 550 Barneveld, which were a big part of my intro to San Francisco rave culture, mainly because, like those parties, there was a diversity of music and people and physical space that always provided fresh stimulation. When Alland Byallo's set at Pulse got a little abstract and inaccessible for me (one track sounded like listening to a drunk horn section on K), we just went upstairs and danced away to some breakbeat. When we got tired of that, we could go into the bar lounge area and just chat, or into the smoking area and strike up a conversation with someone (in fact, one woman we met in the smoking area became very, um, attached to us on the dancefloor later).

The other thing that impressed me about this event was its spirit. First, the proceeds from the event all went to a non-profit, and each month it looks like a different organization will benefit from our good time. Second, no one "owns" this event, but, rather, the organizers' intent seems to be to present, every month, a new selection of local DJs within the major genres. This month it was Alland Byallo, Christian Martin, Solar, and Galen, among others, certainly a stellar line-up. Next month it will be Forest Green, Mozaic, and Eric Sharp, among others. There are resident Pulse DJs, but overall this feels more like the kind of thing Lord Kook and I tried to pull off with FSLD, where we wanted the event to be about the community of DJs we knew and thought should have more exposure.

Finally, I really liked all the music I heard, from the neo-psytrance sounds of Kirrill to the tech-infused house of Solar and Galen to the breakbeat I heard upstairs - in fact, we danced more at Pulse than I have since the Sunset party on New Year's Day. Perhaps it's just because I'm not that connected to these people, but this felt much less like a "scene" to me than a group of people coming together because they like to play music, dance, and party. After all, that's all raves were in the first place, and I for one would love to see that very basic spirit re-awaken through events like Pulse.

Bar Review: The Bar on Church

2009-02-06T15:15:00.001-08:00

Those of you who've been reading this blog for a while probably already know what my opinion of The Transfer was, but for those don't, I regarded it as very possibly one of the worst places to hear DJ music in the entire city. It was laid out poorly, with half the patrons huddled over a bar on one side, and the other half trying to find some flow between the pool table, bench seating, and standing tables on the other. The sound was horrible, and way too loud to boot, and there was no place to just hang out and have a drink and a conversation. I stopped going to events there because, if they were good and crowded, you spent the whole night with a drink in your hand, constantly moving around to find a resting place, and if the night didn't go off, it felt like the shitty little dive that it was.

The Bar on Church, Greg Bronstein's replacement for The Bar on Castro, is a one hundred percent improvement over The Transfer, with great red lighting (very reminiscent of BOC), comfy padded banquette seating (ditto), and a layout of the bar along the long back wall instead of off to one side. The space feels balanced, comfortable and chic.

However, in continuing with the traditions of the Bar on Castro, the music is wholely mediocre. The boyfriend and I stopped in last Friday around nine as we were headed down to Pulse at Paradise Lounge, and after hearing the TingTings' "Great DJ (Calvin Harris Mix)" we thought, oh yeah, this could be good, only to bear witness to the playing of two Prince tracks within the span of 10 minutes, an electro mix of a Coldplay track, and a remix of "Circus" by Brittney Spears.

For a typical Castro bar, this is the kind of thing I'd expect, and at least there was a little innovation in the tracks we heard, but adhering to the usual formulas of lowest-common denominator dance music, a la 92.7, is not going to work for a bar that's off the beaten path. In the Bar on Castro you could get away with this sort of thing (and worse) because people weren't coming there for the music, they were coming there because of the location. With The Bar on Church, though, it's a destination, a place you have to go to on purpose, and you need something to draw people in there that's not just a replication of what they can more conveniently obtain at (shudder) Qbar, Badlands, The Cafe, or even Jet. The Transfer, though it was a dumpy hole, at least held out the promise of presenting innovative club nights, from Frisco Disco to Bender, where you could hear good music and dance. If the Bar on Church is going to be anything more than an out-of-the-way version of a Castro experience, it needs to return to the kind of innovative programming that The Transfer was developing a reputation for.

Friday and Saturday Guide for January 30 and January 31, 2009

2009-01-29T22:41:00.000-08:00

It was a quiet weekend for yours truly last weekend (the boyfriend was off at event that, as of last year, I can never attend again, so I indulged in having the flat to myself), but there's lots of fun stuff coming up for this weekend. Unfortunately, I have to catch a flight to the East Coast on Sunday, so my hi-jinx will be somewhat curtailed, but there's no reason why you all have to be in bed early, is there?

Friday, January 30

Pulse at Paradise Lounge
The debut of a new techno night in a swell space, and all proceeds are donated to charity. Downstairs with: Christian Martin, Alland Byallo, Galen, Solar, Kirill. Upstairs with: Aaron Jae, Bam, Tamo, j9.
$10 before 11 PM
9PM - 3AM

Saturday, January 31

Suppervision at Supper Club
iii presents another night of performances, music, and revelry at Supperclub. Lord Kook will spinning from 9-11 in the side room, while Honey Sound System will play the main floor apres performances. Partial proceeds to benefit Comfort and Joy.
$12 in PJs, costume, or instant make-over, $20 in street clothes
9PM - 3AM

Lindstrom at Paradise Lounge
The master of space disco live, that's all that needs to be said. With Beat Broker, Conor, and TK Disco.
$15
10PM - 4AM

Upcoming Event: Moldover and Komega Present LoveTech, Saturday January 24

2009-01-20T21:33:00.000-08:00

My friend Mitch (of TV-B-Gone and BrainMachine fame) recently introduced the boyfriend and I to Moldover, a controllerist who makes really cool music, and really cool electronics for making music (he's also very cute in that geeky alternaboy, brainy musician sort of way that makes me positively weak). Moldover has recently located to the Bay area, and this saturday will be putting on his first event, which includes a workshop in the early evening, live electronic dance music fun for the rest of the night, AND the premiere of Moldover's album, which has been three years in the making. Deets and his own description are below, but I can't think of anything else for this weekend that promises to be as much of an "event" as this.

Komega & Moldover present
LoveTech
Live : AssShakin : Electronic : PartyRockin' : Music : Community

PRESHISH MOMENTS
COLFAX
KOMEGA
MOLDOVER

Saturday, January 24th
9pm-2am
The Ranch
$7
All Ages, BYOB

Early evening workshop with TIMO
Roominant Installation by KOMEGA
TIme Machine by Rich DDT

SF and NYC are coming together to create a Community for Music and Technology, that Transcends the Technical Hurdles of Pure Geekery to Achieve a Higher State of Musical Understanding. Bringing together the elements of Science and Booty Shakin', Komega and Moldover endeavor to conjure an event of unrivaled innovation. We LOVE Technology: as a people, as a culture, and as individuals. We LOVE Music: especially music that blows our minds. We all see the fusion, now we want to show you the people who make it happen WHILE YOU WATCH.

Event Review: Space Cowboys at The EndUp

2009-01-19T17:23:00.000-08:00

Saturday night the boyfriend and I assembled a small crew to check out The Space Cowboys putting on this month’s The Show at The Endup. We were fairly excited at the prospect of a night with a Burner vibe and some kick-ass breaks, but by the time the breaks actually got going, we’d had enough of the electrohouse mush that proceeded it, along with a vibe that was more like a frat party (albeit a very cool one), that we decided to cut out before we spent any more money on The Endup’s now astronomically expensive drinks.

In my experience, there are two sides to the Space Cowboys. On the one side you’ve got, next to Evil Breaks, one of the very best crews for putting out, and popularizing, kick-ass breaks to the general party populace. And then, on the other side, there’s this tendency to take it all down to the lowest common denominator of all-out booty. In this case, booty definitely won out. At first it was nice to arrive and hear some pretty easy-going dance music that was a bit out of the normal vibe of ubiquitous EndUp house, but after going back and forth from Latin club to a Daft Punk remix to something that made me think I was back at a mid-90s acid house party, it was becoming more and more difficult to find any consistent vibe to hang onto. There were plenty of folks shaking it on the dancefloor, and I’m sure many of the girls who showed up in their playawear got freaky with it later, but I’d come wanting to hear breaks, not the kitchen sink of electronic dance music. This was what put me in mind of a frat party; lots of people out to get fucked up and freaky, with the DJ going for the easiest party pleasers in his bag.

Since the DJ who took over at 1 finally started playing breaks, and the party itself had several more hours of life left in it, I might have been willing to stay a little longer, but the prospect of spending any more money on drinks was starting to make my wallet hurt. When I ordered my first vodka tonic, it came back as costing $7.50. Well or call seemed to make no difference, the bartender always charged me $7.50. Drop another dollar for tip, and figure on 4 or 5 drinks over the course of the night (not that crazy if you show up early, as we usually do, and then even switch over to water when the bar closes), and suddenly you’ve dropped a huge wad of money.

This has become something of a problem with almost every time I go to The EndUp. Everybody knows that the place really gets going after 2AM, and so the whole night becomes back-loaded. It seems like every time I go there, mostly for Kontrol, I spend the first couple hours waiting for them to get around to the music I came to hear, and wind up spending too much money on drinks, so that by the time things really get going, it’s getting to be later than I want to be out without the substantial chemical assistance that will keep my fellow clubbers going until 6AM and later. Of course you can come later, but then you get to pay $15 - $20 on top of what you’ll spend for booze. The EndUp is a classic spot, with much going for it from ambience to soundsystem, but if I’m going to go there and spend the kind of money that a night out there seems to require, then I want the first couple hours I’m there to be just as intense, and interesting, as the early morning ones.

Event Review: Aural Therapy at Paradise Lounge

2009-01-19T16:35:00.000-08:00

Friday night the boyfriend and I took a walk down to Paradise Lounge to check out Auralism’s third-Friday party, Aural Therapy, which, for this installment, featured Berlin’s Franklin De Costa behind the decks.

This was the first time I’ve gotten to check out the entire Paradise Lounge space, and we were both impressed with the upstairs bar and second room with its near-perfect sound isolation. Right out of the gate Paradise is booking some very interesting nights, from the retro-bath house Honey Sound System Sundays to an upcoming show with Lindstrom, and at least two regular techno events, including the premiere of Pulse on January 30th. With a license to stay open until 4AM, I think Paradise is about to give Mighty a real run for their money with a better space, better sound, and much more innovative bookings.

When we first arrived the techno was a bit on the mushy side – a generally okay sound, but nothing solid enough to make us want to get on the dancefloor, so we wandered down to The Cat Club to check out a new party that PeePlay of Honey Sound System is involved with, Black Friday. We ran into DJs 6 and Donimo of Lucky Pierre and a couple other friends, and then left just after we heard the trifecta of music you never need to hear again, “YMCA” followed on by “I Will Survive” and then “The Hustle.” Much to his credit PeePlay jumped onto the decks after this, and without even letting “The Hustle” play out completely he had dropped us back into much snappier contemporary territory. I would have liked to have stayed and heard the rest of his set, but it was approaching midnight at that point and we knew Franklin De Costa would be starting soon.

We made it back to Paradise Lounge just before De Costa started playing and had a chance to scope out the crowd. Though the dancefloor was packed, it was a very cool crowd, lots of real obvious techno heads, and still plenty of room of dancing. De Costa played a very minimal, abstract set, but the energy was absolutely banging. The boyfriend and I danced for over an hour straight, something that rarely happens these days. I would describe De Costa’s style as being what I think of as “real German techno,” lots of abstract loops that, when you mix them together, have their own emergent structure and dynamic. There were times when I could recognize the structure of individual tracks, but overall the impression was of sections phasing in and out of one another, a steady drive with moments of auditory surprise that would then make your body shift in another direction. The nice bit, though, was his selection of tracks with warm, more organic, almost house sounds that made it easy to engage with the music at the same time that the rhythm drove you relentlessly forward.

This was only the third time Aural Therapy has been held at Paradise Lounge, but I’d say it was an experience that certainly bears repeating. A more intimate and varied space than The Endup, and without that club’s seeming need to cater to the more general expectations of SF clubbers (how many times will I go to Kontrol and hear generic house for the first two hours?), Paradise Lounge and Aural Therapy have the potential to become a major monthly destination for the SF techno scene.

Some Recommendations for Saturday, January 17 2008

2009-01-16T14:15:00.000-08:00

Oy, I've been really bad about keeping up with ye olde Events Calendar, but really, it's getting harder and harder to find things I would list there anyway. And has anybody else noticed how flyers have now completely disappeared from The Castro, thanks to the poster nazis known as the Castro Beautification District? Glad I'm not trying to promote a club right now, as I don't know how we'd get the word out.

Anyway, a couple things coming up this Saturday you might wanna check out:

Chrome with Husband
Chrome is the ongoing queer rock social at the Gangway, where you can go and hear your favorite rock/metal/indie etc. tunes and hang out with the TL hipster boys. This installment's DJ is Husband, aka Marc Kate of local techno outfit Silencefiction, who promises a night of goth/metal/punk tunes.

The Show with The Space Cowboys at The Endup
Now this sounds like fun, and I'm sure the place will be packed. My likely destination for the night. Be sure to use the link to get on the $10 guest list.

Eggs at Paradise Lounge
Safety Scissors brings back Eggs, a showcase of quirky, fun, and danceable techno. With locals Eats Tapes, Safety Scissors, Alland Byallo, and Frivolous from Berlin.

Superego at DNA Lounge
Oh, and good thing I have people to remind me of these things. For your "culture blender" choice this evening, how about SuperEgo: Music/Dance/Glam with electro, techno, indie remixes, crunk, disco, and glam. Featuring The Tenderloins, Shaun Slaughter, Sarah Delush, and DJs Kid Hack and Mario Muse.

And the Bar on Castro Will Now be Known As . . .

2009-01-16T11:25:00.001-08:00

Qbar. Yes, Qbar. That's what it says on the sign for application of change of ownership.

Qbar. I keep trying to figure out the conversation that must have taken place between the new owners as they were coming up with that.

"What are we gonna call it?"
"I dunno, The Bar always sounded really good."
"Yeah, but we can't call it that. We need something new, something different, you know?"
"Something that says 'this is it, this is THE gay bar on Castro'".
"Hey, I know," one of them says, his eyes lighting up. "Let's call it QBar - you know, like Queer Bar!"
"Yeah, I like that, you know, it's still got the Bar part in it, and it says just what kind of bar it is!"
"Yeah, it's like The Bar, but more! QBar!"
"That's it baby, file the papers!"

Adbusters Busts Up the Hipster

2009-01-15T12:33:00.000-08:00

Maybe the best thing I've read about "hipsterdom" ever; it very nicely sums up the feelings I had while watching a hipster fashion show at The Knockout recently. When all you do is live for the cameras, be prepared to become as flat as the image you desire to be.

Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization

oh, and a great companion piece from Time Out New York:

Why the Hipster Must Die

My favorite quote:

If they can vanquish the Sweet, the path for the Vicious is less obvious. A good first step might entail purging the lawyers and bankers lurking in their company. But on the other hand, those guys are good at footing the bill. Another tactic would require the conversion of snark to self-criticism, and that would necessarily involve ignoring no-talent celebrities, and mean an end to playing it safe. The safest game in town—in fashion and music especially—is retro, and if there is no Ezra Pound in corduroys out there to say, “Make it new,” let me be the one to say, “Stop making it old.”

Can we get a little dose of that self-criticism around here, you think?

The BAR Gives the Scoop on the Bars

2009-01-14T10:48:00.000-08:00

A great article by Matthew S. Bajko in the online version of the Bay Area Reporter sums up all the changes going on in the Castro bar scene. Just keep in mind that you read most of it here first.

Event Review: Mass at 1015

2009-01-13T16:25:00.000-08:00

And now, a guest review from SFScene pal and special field correspondant Kitty:

Let's just get one thing out of the way. How long has 1015 had the monopoly on big club parties in SF? Quite a few years now. So why is it that 1015 acts like they just opened last week?

Why am I there (even though I do now and always have hated this particular club)? Because it's New Year's day and DJ Phil B is having Mass for the first time in years. Back at the cusp of the new millennium (when we still had some hope for the future), Mass was the Sunday evening t-dance that provided the perfect progressive house ending to a weekend of big gay parties. Big music. Big lights. Big fun.

This party at this place has special meaning for me. It's the scene of one of my few transcendent experiences in the gay party scene. Those moments of joy and connection when the people/place/music burn themselves into your brain. You know... that Zen singularity that we all spend our time, money and brain cells trying (and often failing) to achieve.

I've grown up enough to know that I can't get that experience back again. But I'll definitely pay $20 for the chance at getting groovy on New Year's Day. And I was willing to bet that there were plenty of other guys thinking the same thing.

Ticket in hand, I arrived at 1015 at 6:30 pm. That's when the complete ineptitude of the club's door personnel smacked me in the face. There were two lines to get in, but the majority of patrons were forced to wait in a line that snaked around three sides of the building. Why? The second line was only for those possessing a shiny, Wonka-like golden VIP ticket.

Needless to say, those of us who had purchased regular tickets before the party were pissed about standing in the wet cold for up to 20 minutes or more. My only source of amusement during that wait was watching other partygoers arrive and scramble dejectedly for a place in the ever-increasing line. Sometimes schadenfreude is my only joy.

Poor planning created the misery of a line, but douche-baggery was salt-in-the-wound. The lone security dude checking IDs insisted on asking each guest how their evening was going. He would not be satisfied by a tepid "fine" or "good" from cold, trembling patrons in tight t-shirts. In fact, if such bland vocabulary was used, he pulled the yearning patron out of line until they could come up with something more creative. I pitied those frozen souls with poor verbal education.

When my time came, I held back the scathing reply that had been boiling inside of me for the past 10 minutes. It had accumulated variously heated particles of speech over that time until becoming a mass of molten anger. And I really did want to say it to him. Oh how I yearned for it. But my voice of reason firmly insisted this would not be the way to gain quick entry to the club. So I piped out a half-hearted "fan-fucking-tastic" and was on my way.

Next step in the process is checking my coat. In other words, waiting in another pointlessly long line. But I did have the opportunity to observe a scene that made my night. A loud, braying queen standing behind me called out to his fag-hag that "there are children!" Sure enough, a shockingly respectable family was coming out of the downstairs bar.

After he made a spectacle of himself trashing the harmless straights, the family picked their way up the crowded staircase led by a darkly handsome guy, his arms protectively draped around two young girls. As they passed the shade-throwing sister, a voice called from the crowd, "Gus! I didn't know you had kids!?"

The man with the girls (now revealed to be Gus of Guspresents, the promoter of this party) shouted back, "Ha! These are my nieces. Today was my birthday!"

As a loud mouthed fag who regularly puts his foot in it, I felt really bad for that big-mouthed queen in line behind me. (But maybe not that badly.)

The party itself got off to a fun, energetic, and friendly start. The Gus's nieces danced and got onstage with the flaggers. Every gay man that they passed was smitten with them.

After a few drinks I was in a good mood and dancing on the edges of a packed floor. Even at that distance, the heat of the shirtless, sweating crowd made my skin flush and tingle. Phil B began his 6-hour set with some standard gay house shakers. Good stuff, but not particularly inspiring. Particularly the full-on diva house cover of Pink's "Better Get This Party Started."

But with each song, Phil B brought up the tempo. And as the beats picked up, the songs got harder. Somewhere about halfway through the evening, he's spinning progressive house so powerful it's bordering on Trance. Just what I like.

After another hour or so of moving on the floor, around the floor and through the floor I just couldn't move any more. The club was now completely filled with boys and girls, men and women having a great time. I love that feeling of euphoria that comes from almost everyone I pass. Bit I am also very tired of tripping over and stepping on people.

Billed as a "Reunion" dance, strangely I did not see anyone I had known from those days of going to Mass. But I did have a good time without having it torpedoed by the neurotic hang-ups that haunted my back then. Maybe not "fan-fucking-tastic," but still a good time.

Stonehenge: Paleolithic Trance Venue

2009-01-12T16:47:00.000-08:00

As reported in Discovery Online, a British acoustics expert, Rupert Till, has been looking at Stonehenge and has "discovered that Stonehenge's megaliths reflect sound perfectly, making the stone circle an ideal setting for listening to repetitive trance rhythms." The article goes on:

Till speculated that most likely Stonehenge's music consisted of a simple rhythm played in time to the echoes in the space, at the same tempo as the echo, or at a multiple of it.

"This would be at a tempo of about 160 beats per minute, a fast tempo. It is interesting that this is the tempo of fast trance music, of samba...It is at the top of the range of musical tempos. It is also at the top end of the range of the human heartbeat, the same as the heart might beat if you were doing really vigorous exercise, or dancing really energetically," Till said.

Dancing outdoors at night sure makes me feel like a pagan, but 120-130 bpm works just fine for me,that gabba stuff just wears me out too fast.

Event Review: Dirtybird 4th Anniversary Party at Mezzanine

2009-01-11T15:44:00.000-08:00

After going to see The Unborn on Friday night (surely one of the most ridiculous movies in recent memory - the boyfriend has agreed that I get to pick the next couple movies after he suggested The Unborn and Lifeforce in the same weekend), the boyfriend and I walked two blocks over to Mezzanine, where the Dirty Bird 4th Year Anniversary party was getting underway. It was 100% improvement over last year's anniversary bash, simply because it was in a larger space with a much better (meaning, not deafening) sound system and I didn't have to endure Khia's "My Neck, My Back."

My general take on the Dirty Bird sound is that it has become more assured and less dependent on some of the more gimmicky elements of their early releases. You can still hear the ghetto-tech influences, and there are occasional cartoonish moments when it sounds like the carnival coming into town, but I was impressed with the overall deeper vibe of the tracks. The boyfriend pointed out that they still seem to depend on a tribal 1-5 beat, and all the rhythm action happens in the bass, but in the two sets we heard (the Martin brothers, I believe), there were some really great grooves that kept me on the dancefloor for a long while.

The crowd was good - we ran into a couple gay boys of our acquaintance, and my gaydar registered some hits on the dancefloor, but this party was much more about the Dirty Bird loyalists and hipsters who have been following them since their first parties in Golden Gate Park. Unlike last year's party at Mighty there were far fewer cocktail dresses and guys wearing bad cologne, and no fights! It was a huge turnout by the time we left at 1.30 (I was feeling poorly and woke up on Saturday with a 103.5 degree fever), and I was really thrilled to see the Dirtybird kids enjoying their well-deserved success as one of San Francisco's most interesting and exciting new labels.

Hunter S.Thompson, Motivational Coach

2009-01-07T18:46:00.000-08:00

From the sloshspot drinking blog (I love that idea, btw), comes a series of motivational posters featuring Hunter S. Thompson. My favorite is below, but these all deserve to be framed in your particular workspace to inspire you and your colleagues.

Upcoming Event: Dirty Bird 4 Year at Mezzanine, Friday January 9

2009-01-07T16:42:00.000-08:00

Four years of success for one of San Francisco's most-recognized techno/tech-house/ghetto-tech labels, and I'm glad to see that they took my suggestion from last year's anniversary party (ha!) to move to Mezzanine, a much better space all around than Mighty.

Upcoming Event: Reflective Records Underground with Move D, Saturday January 10

2009-01-07T11:05:00.001-08:00

"The irrefutable king of the deep house revival" as he's billed on the site, Move D from Heidelberg is making his first SF appearance since 1994 this Saturday at an underground warehouse location in SoMa. Click the link for more details. Support from Mike B, Jonah Sharp, JOHNJOHN, DJ Timmiii, and Velocette (live).

Donovan Who?

2009-01-06T17:03:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday I happened upon an SFGate Sunday Style piece that should go down as one of the worst pieces of nightlife-related journalism I've ever read: a profile of Donovan, "one of San Francisco's busiest nightclub DJs," who is trying to start an upscale clothing and jewelry line.

Now, apart from the fact that he has no background whatsoever in the fashion industry, jewelry, or design, the thing that came up in my mind as I read this article was: Who? Funny, if he was "one of San Francisco's busiest nightclub DJs," you'd think I'd have heard of him, seen his name on a flyer somewhere, maybe even danced to one of his sets? I had to go many, many (too many, in fact) column inches into this article to find out where he even played. Let's see, he once played the basement room at 1015 (after a friend lied to the promoter about who he was), and he's played parties at (can you believe it) The Fairmont Hotel, Top of the Mark at The Mark Hopkins, and Slide off Union Square. Oh, the fame!

Putting aside the fact that this guy comes off as someone who caters to overdressed douchebags, I have to ask this: aren't there plenty of other DJs in this city, real, major DJs, with interesting lives and aspirations and projects, who would be better served by being profiled than this guy? And what editor let this writer get away with breathless assertions in the lede like "one of San Francisco's busiest nightclub DJs" without actually backing it up with facts before you get twenty paragraphs into the article?

This is the kind of writing that drives me crazy, perpetrated as it is by someone who obviously has no knowledge of the scene they're writing about, and gives both DJs, and the nightclub scene, a bad rep by making it look like it's all about money. It's groups like the Space Cowboys, Comfort and Joy, Honey Sound System, and all the other crews in the city who give our scene vitality, out of love for the scene and music, and they're the ones who deserve to have their efforts rewarded with the attention of our local press, not this guy. Maybe some day the mainstream press will wake up to the real stuff that's going on around us, rather than pimping for a guy who's all about the bling.

DJ Donovan sporting his solid gold logo necklace and diamond-studded ring at his fourth-floor SoMa loft condo.

RIP Ron Asheton

2009-01-06T10:53:00.000-08:00

According to the AP, Ron Asheton, guitarist for The Stooges, was found dead in his home today. Way back when The Stooges were just starting out my cousin's wife dated Ron Asheton (and had a brief dalliance with Iggy too), and inheriting their two original albums from her was a big moment in my introduction to punk rock and all that has come since then.

Club News: The End of Pink, Bar on Castro = Bar on Church

2009-01-06T10:13:00.000-08:00

According to the SFWeekly All Shook Down blog, Pink closed its doors this past Saturday, putting an end to the last club dedicated to House music in the city. That's kind of a sad thing; House was once the dominant form of dance music in this city, and there have been times when I, even as a dedicated techno and trance guy, have missed its presence. House is great when you want some easy-going 'choons to get you through the night, or through you hangover, and it's great music for socializing on the dancefloor. But Pink, as a club, is not something I'll really miss. It had a weird layout that made it uncomfortable when it got crowded, and, as numerous Yelp reviews attest, it had a pretty high douchebag factor, and was always trying to be more upscale than seemed warrented. I remember when that space was Liquid, and it hosted awesome nights full of people who wanted to go out and party and dance; when it turned into Pink, it seemed to be more about handbags and bottle service, and now that times are tight, I guess people are looking for a different kind of club experience, one that's less pretentious and more focused on the basics of music and fun.

Walking past The Bar on Castro this morning I noticed a sign for the inaugeral launch of The Bar on Church on January 20th. I believe this was formerly known as The Transfer. Having looked into that space recently, it's undergoing some tremendous renovation, but it remains to be seen whether it will be able to attract the same crowd as is former location. I suspect, though, that Bronstein's real efforts will be focused on Jet, with the BOC serving more as a secondary player in his club lineup. There's an article about it over at gay.com, with information about the (yawn) weekly line-up. Nothing to get excited about here, folks.

More on the Broken Taxi System

2009-01-05T16:26:00.000-08:00

Long-time readers know I have a serious beef with the San Francisco taxi industry, and the New Year's holiday has only added fuel to the fire.

To drive a cab in San Francisco, you have to have a taxi medallion. These are in limited supply, and so, a situation has developed in which holding a medallion, and renting it to others, can become a more profitable enterprise than actually driving a cab. In fact, one of the arguments you constantly hear against medallion reform is that medallion-holders depend on renting out their medallions as a way of having retirement income. Meanwhile, those who do hold this precious commodity fight tooth and nail against issuing any more medallions, using the specious argument that more drivers mean fewer fares for individual cabbies. However, no one has actually looked at what the real market for taxi services is in this city, so no one really knows what the optimal ratio of taxis to population should be.

New Year's Eve and New Year's Day provided an excellent example of how broken this system is. I watched, amazed, as people almost literally fought for cabs at 3.30AM outside SomArts and the Sea of Dreams party. Thousands of people in a two block area, all looking for a way home, and the taxi industry doesn't think it would be worthwhile to put more drivers on the street, and let those guys earn a good night's money (to say nothing of improving public safety by making sure fewer fucked up people were on the streets)? Then, at Cafe Cocomo the next evening, again, no cabs, and no sign that any were going to show up. So, when a black car gypsy cab pulled up and offered to give three of us a ride for $25, do you think I refused? Taxi industry flacks would have us believe that these gypsy cabs are stealing their fares, but where was the taxi I could have taken instead? They also make noise about these gypsy cabs being unlicensed, you don't know who you're getting in the car with, etc., but I've had plenty of taxi rides with obviously intoxicated cabbies driving wrecked-up vehicles. And when I want to go home at the end of the night, I want to go home, period. If an enterprising guy with a car wants to give me a lift, then you better believe that I'm going to do it. If a taxi wants my fare, then they need to be there to earn it, it's that simple.

I wrote a couple months ago about the Taxi Commission being brought under the Transit Authority, which I applaud as a good move. Taxi service needs to be treated as an arm of public transportation, rather than as a protectionist racket that serves only the interest of medallion holders instead of the public at large.

Event Review: Stompy New Year's Day at Cafe Cocomo

2009-01-05T10:54:00.000-08:00

Whatever I felt was lacking in terms of grown-up style and sophistication at Subeterra was well accounted for at the utterly superior Stompy New Year's Day party at Cafe Cocomo. After breakfast at 2 in the afternoon, the boyfriend and I headed over to Cafe Cocomo with our friend Toka, and there met up with some friends from Comfort and Joy. By that point, around 4PM, the party was already very lively, populated by many people who, like myself, had probably not gone to bed yet. Despite whatever was razzing our nervous systems along, the crowd was friendly and smiling - I even had a random guy buy me a drink and a shot when I pulled up next to him at the bar. "I've got the credit card out," he said "seems a shame to buy only one drink with it."

The dancefloor was full the entire time we were there, and I re-developed an appreciation for well-mixed, and well-selected, progressive house. The system was perfectly tuned for the space; we were standing right by the left corner stacks and could hear everything perfectly, but still have conversation while we were dancing. Stompy delivered everything I had wanted from Subterra the previous night, with good uplifting music that wasn't intended to overpower the senses, a happy crowd of party professionals, and a great space to chill and dance with my friends after a loooooong night into the New Year.

Event Review: Subterra NYE 2009 at SomArts

2009-01-05T10:20:00.000-08:00

As I wrote a couple weeks ago in the New Year's Eve Guide, there wasn't a lot in the way of parties that felt really compelling to me this New Year's Eve. After some hemming and hawing, the boyfriend and I, at rather the last minute, decided to attend Subterra at SomArts with a couple of our friends. It wasn't the coolest party I'd heard of, nor the biggest, but was the one where we were most likely to run into other random friends, which is what we were looking for on this occasion.

We arrived around 11 and spent the time leading up to midnight mostly standing around outside in the smoking area. We checked out the three rooms of music, but nothing really grabbed us - psytrance is psytrance, the "techno" room was sounding pretty trancey itself, and the middle room, which was dubstep at the time, seemed to be the place where the kids were going to get their freak on. Eventually we did get some dancing on in the techno room, but that was well after midnight, at the point where I began to wonder what we had paid $40 for.

It was a well-attended party, with a vibe that was overall very ravey. This has its good and bad points; on the one side, ravey is fun, on the other, it's pretty adolescent in its energy. We saw a lot of kids who were obviously feeling their rolls, and at one point we watched as a half-naked couple was getting it on in the chill tent. As two Guido guys walked by the couple the boy, who was on the bottom, did a devil's horn salute to them, and they gave him a thumb's up back. Though I think it's great that there are opportunities for the 18+ set to go out and party, I find myself looking for a different kind of energy these days, one that is maybe a bit more sophisticated. This was the thing with much of the music we heard as well - very well suited for folks looking for a driving, freaky, go-for-broke beat, not so well suited for deep grooving. Though we were able to find a less aggro vibe in the techno room, the sound system there also seemed that it had been tuned for size over subtlety, with the bass swamping out everything in the mid-range and making normally crisp minimal techno sound soft and spongey.

We split around 3.30, though the party had gotten its second wind. After a lot of standing around, we were all ready for some sitting and tripping out on our own beats. It was a decent way to bring in the New Year, and we enjoyed running into random friends and acquaintances while we were there, but for next year I think we may need to check out a party that's a bit more suited for grown-ups.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-02T12:40:00.000-08:00

Here's hoping everyone's New Year's festivities included a few sugarplums dancing in your heads.

Event Review: Comfort and Joy Solstice Celebration "Brighter Days Ahead"

2008-12-22T10:59:00.001-08:00

I must admit that I approached the Comfort and Joy Solstice party at Workspace Limited with a small degree of trepidation; it was cold out, there had been drama in the preceding weeks around exactly what was going on when and who was doing it, and I was tired and not looking forward to a ten hour event. But with Kitty DJing the silent art auction in the afternoon, Lord Kook playing the dance portion of the evening, and having personally volunteered to work a door shift from 7-9, there was nothing to do but put on some warm clothes and soldier on. As it turned out, "Brighter Days Ahead" turned into one of the very best little dance parties I've attended in a long time.

The thing I was most uncertain about was how everything that was planned for this event - a silent art auction, the screening of a silent film, performances from drag and "other" artists (more on that in a second), a feast, and a dance party - were going to come together, and in the weeks leading up to the event I was privy to several folks' concerns about whether or not, for example, the dance party would wind up being all of two hours at the end of the evening when all the faeries had already left for the annual faerie Solstice sex party. However, thanks to the agency of Digger the stage manager, Ginga Snapp as hostess and MC (who is very cute in boy drag, btw), and Space the music/DJ coordinator, everything went off amazingly well. The dance music actually got started around 9PM with a set from Space, and the performances were broken up into fifteen or twenty minute interludes between other sets. The only time I was feeling a mite testy about the interplay between performances and the dance music was when a band took to the stage for three dirges. I think the idea was to channel something akin to Diamanda Galas, or, in a more generous mood, The Swans, but not only did they seem musically inappropriate for a party that was supposed to be about joy and celebration, their whole affect was much too reminiscent of art school kids trying way, way too hard to seem avant-garde for me to take them seriously. It's also generally rude to be tuning up and practicing, loudly, through your own PA, against the music that the DJ is playing. They did have a couple Mission hipster kid fans who gyrated around like Dervishes at the front of the stage during their mercifully short set, but I think the consensus was that everyone was much more inclined to dancing along with Lord Kook and KJ.

And dance they did, with a full and happy dancefloor of queer kids and their friends getting down all the way to closing time at 2AM. It was an event refreshingly free of scene baggage, and restored a bit of my faith that you can still bring all kinds of people together to have fun and enjoy one another's company without having to negotiate the endless, tedious politics of the gay club scene. More than just paying lip service to the idea of creating queer community, Comfort and Joy does manage, despite all the drama and complications that arise whenever you get a group of gay men together to do something, to actually pull it off.

Lord Kook playing to an admiring audience

No Afterglow this Year

2008-12-17T22:11:00.001-08:00

Since I see folks coming in on search terms like "Afterglow New Year's Eve 2008," I should probably go ahead and let you all know that Comfort and Joy will NOT be having an Afterglow party for New Year's Eve this year (2008-2009). Yeah yeah, I know, what's a gay boy to do on New Year's Eve this year?

Upcoming Event: Afrotek Festival at Club 6, Saturday December 20

2008-12-17T18:53:00.000-08:00

The boyfriend brought this to my attention, and it looks pretty interesting; at the very least, it should provide a perspective on San Francisco techno and electro that doesn't rely on the usual suspects and what we've come to expect from them.

In The Dark Room at Club 6
Voltage Music Presents:
The First Annual Afrotek Festival
Celebrating The Bay's Best Live Soulful Electronic Music
Brokenbeat | Techno | Futurefunk | Electro | Drum & Bass

Performing Live:
Blaktroniks
Jaswho?
Replife
Douglas Pagan

On The Decks:
Leathal DJs Paul And Christopher Leath

Price $5 before 11pm
Time 9pm-2am
Club 6, 60 6th Street

SF Scene New Year's Eve 2008-2009 Guide

2008-12-17T14:43:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's just because I've been in a somewhat dismal mood lately, but this year's New Year's Eve offerings just don't seem that compelling. I'm also feeling a lot more parsimonious, and parties that cost anywhere from $40 to $125 a head aren't attractive. So far my plans for the amateur's party holiday are still up in the air, but I have a feeling that I'm more likely to wind up at a friend's house than I am at a really big shindig. However, if I change my mind, these are the things I would consider:

Subterra at SoMarts
A good space with four rooms of music, including a techno room with the likes of Worthy, Justin Martin, Christian Martin, and Forest Green. This is where you're likely to get more of an underground vibe, though events here recently have seemed on the underpopulated side. Also, good luck getting home if you're dependent on taxis or MUNI - one of the worst NYE experiences I've ever had was having to walk home from this place.
9PM - 8AM
18+
$40
SoMarts Cultura Center, 934 Brannan

Blasthaus and Anon Salon Present Sea of Dreams with Thievery Corporation
This is gonna be the big hoopla party for the Burner set, and it's a pretty impressive musical lineup, including Thievery Corporation, Bassnectar, and god knows who else. Of course, it comes with a hefty price tag, and you'll be partying with several thousand people.
9PM - 4AM
18+
$79 online general admission, $129 VIP
The Concourse Exhibtion Center, 635 8th Street

Revolution at 1015 with Diplo
Dubstep headliners + 1015 = not my scene, but then there's also a pretty amazing who's who of local DJs, including several from Kontrol. Slightly cheaper than Sea of Dreams, and goes longer.
9PM - 9AM
21+
$55 online general admission, $75 VIP
1015 Folsom

Love Unlimited All Night Disco Party at Paradise Lounge
It's inexpensive, it's pretty gay, it goes all night, but then - well, it's disco. And they really mean disco. This is a collaboration between Honey Sound System and other local retro afficiandos in a cool space, so you can expect hipster club kids, both gay and straight.
9PM - 6AM
21+
$15 advance, $20 day of the event, $30 at the door
Paradise Lounge, 1501Folsom

And if you're still rarin' to party come New Year's Day, there's always:

Space Cowboys Present Breakfast of Champions at Whisper
As they say, only the strong survive, but some hot breaks and strong drinks will probably be just the thing to help you make it through until you just can't go any longer.
6AM - "until you cry uncle"
21+
$10
Club Whisper, 535 Florida between 17th and Mariposa

Upcoming Event: Comfort and Joy Solstice, "Brighter Days Ahead", Saturday December 20

2008-12-17T14:32:00.001-08:00

Following last year's wildly successful event, Comfort and Joy presents another Solstice event to benefit Radical Faerie communities in Wolf Creek, Oregon and Raven's Crossing, California. Things kick off at 4PM with a silent art auction, bar, and downtempo music from Neco D, then a feast from 7-9, performances (including aerialists) from 9-11, and then dancing until 2AM with Space, Lord Kook, and Keshav.

Comfort and Joy Solstice, "Brighter Days Ahead"
Workspace Limited, 2150 Folsom (btwn 17th and 18th)
$10 - $20 sliding scale (no one turned away for lack of funds)

Bar Review: The Attic

2008-12-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

In these days of economic uncertainty and financial instability a shabby chic neighborhood bar is a solid alternative to other locales that charge you at the door and gouge you at the bar for the privilege of being part of their scene. This past Saturday the boyfriend and I were both feeling a tight pinch in the wallet area, and yet we still wanted something to do that made us feel part of the world without having to put up too much of a front. We set out after dinner and Scrabble to walk Kitty home through Noe Valley and wound up going down 24th Street to The Attic. It's not the most amazing bar in the world, but it is certainly a comforting hole in the wall.

Sitting in a back booth I said "you know, I'd hate to see what this place looks like in natural light." The interior is black walls and red lighting, with visual variety provided by years of silver marker graffiti and punk band stickers. The tables and chairs look like they were bought individually at garage sales, and I was loathe to examine the condition of the vinyl in our booth too closely. In one corner hangs a painting that appears to be a Venetian canal with the head of a Conquistador hovering over the horizon. Altogether the decor makes me think of a subterranean den of ill repute with a dash of art student whimsy.

I liked the music better the last time we were there - on this visit we we were, as now seems to be the fashion for bars and clubs across the San Francisco scene, transported back to the 70s, though this time it was more the realm of AC/DC than Sylvester, and I swear the DJ was Napolean Dynamite. I had a hard time figuring out if I was supposed to be enjoying this set of Monster Rock of the 70s un-ironically, or ironically, or un-ironically ironically, but after the second drink I gave up trying to decide and just sang along with the ones I knew as the mood struck me.

The absolute best thing about The Attic after walking past the douche bars of Noe Valley was not having to put up with drunk yuppies, who would have only made me feel even more destitute, in a bar so crowded I wouldn't even have been able to sit down, much less have a conversation. The Attic is definitely a mid-Mission hipster haunt of choice, and I saw a crowd composed of gay boys, unfortunate mustaches, girls in horn-rimmed glasses, and all the other sorts of people who, like us, were looking for a cheap sociability on a Saturday night. It wasn't the biggest scene, or the most cutting-edge, but I liked it well enough on a second trip to think it might become more of a destination in the future.

Upcoming Event: Prismatics presents Tonal: Grinch Green Underground, Saturday December 13

2008-12-08T12:06:00.000-08:00

A breaks underground with a theme to fit the holiday season!

With: DJ Fluid, Anthony Mansfield, Mozaic, Laird, Homero Espinoso, The Fingermonsters, Bassic Instinct, Jimmy B, Bam, Izzy, Ivan Ruiz, Mario Dubbz, Fluke, Redstickman, Faye Valentine, Holt Sorenson

East Bay Location
TBA Day Of at www.prismatics.com or call 888-482-9281

10PM - Late
$10 before 11, $15 before 1, $20 after
21+, bring ID
No bottles, cans, markers
Visuals by Heroic Robot
Free mix CD for dressing up in Grinch Green
For special discount + info text "prismatic" to 67463

Upcoming Event: Donuts Presents LegoWelt, Saturday December 20

2008-12-05T15:56:00.000-08:00

It's unfortunately up against the Comfort and Joy Solstice party (more details as soon as I get them), but passing the longest night of the year with LegoWelt should be fun.

PICKPOCKET & PALERMO BIRTHDAY PARTY!
with LEGOWELT live!
DJs TLR/MR.CLAVIO
BEAT BROKER
HORSEMEAT DISCO!!!
JEFFREY SFIRE

Paradise
9pm-4am
$10 after 11pm
1501 Folsom Street

Upcoming Event: Honey Sound System Hard Energy and New Year's Eve

2008-12-05T15:49:00.000-08:00

The Honey Sound System boys are holding down Sunday nights at Paradise Lounge with some cool stuff lined up for the rest of this month, plus an All Night Disco Party for New Year's Eve!

dec 7 Honey Sundays w/ Residents FREE w/ Drink Special at Paradise Lounge (loft upstairs)

dec 14 Honey Sundays + Chilidog Present Horsemeat Disco at Paradise Lounge (loft upstairs)

dec 21 Honey Sundays w/ Jeffrey Sfire (Ghostly International)

dec 28 Honey Sundays w/ DJ SPUN (rong music)

NEW YEARS EVE:

"LOVE UNLIMITED"
ALL NITE DISCO PARTY

DJ Spun (Rong Music/ NYC)
Cosmo Vitelli (I'm A Cliche/ Paris)
Conor (Ferrari)
The Honey Soundsystem DJs
Derek Love (Gemini Disco)
BT Magnum (Beat Electric)
Primo (Ferrari)
Pickpocket (Donuts Disco)
Bus Station John (Tubesteak Connection)
Jon Blunck + Guillermo (Sweater Funk)

Visuals by AC
Hosted by Christopher McVick

Paradise Lounge
1501 Folsom
415.252.5018
paradisesf.com

9:00 PM - 9:00 AM

$15 Limited Advance Tickets
$20 Tickets after 12/15/08
$30 Day of Show

Complimentary Champagne Toast at Midnight
Party Favors
4 AM Breakfast

Bottle Service Packages Available

Upcoming Event: Molekule at Julie's Supper Club, Friday December 5

2008-12-05T12:14:00.001-08:00

It's back! And now there's a website for Molekule. Go check it out and support our grassroots techno scene!

Molekule

BANGING:
ALIXR: FnF, Pulse[ SF ]
ROBOTHEAD: Faktion|Heroic Robot [ SF ]
KIRILL: Moleküle|Key9sound [ SF ]

CHILLING:
MARCO: miss gawker [ SF ]
DISCONNECT: DEF|Moleküle [ SF ]
DJ HEROIC: Faktion|Heroic Robot [ SF ]

Julie’s Supperclub
1123 Folsom Street @ 7th, San Francisco, CA
9 PM to 2 AM 21+
Cost: $5 after 10pm

Introducing Untitled and After, a New San Francisco Techno Label

2008-12-05T11:13:00.000-08:00

In an encouraging sign that the techno scene here is still on the rise, today marks the debut of two promo tracks from Untitled and After, a new San Francisco techno label. Label head Marc Kate sent me links to his promo tracks earlier this week (thanks Jacob!), and I really liked what I heard - moody but groovy tracks built on a minimal foundation with progressive propulsion and lots of atmospheric and melodic flourishes. You can check them out for yourself here:

Untitled and After promo tracks: La Villa Strangiato and Because You Weren't There from Land Sound (mastered by John Tejeda, no less!)

Here's what Marc, who performs as Silencefiction and is half of Land Sound, wrote about the label:

Untitled & After is a new digital music label run and curated by Marc Kate aka Silencefiction.

U & A is a Techno label that explores post-Minimal sounds.

U & A exists in this tension between the focused precision of minimalism and the grand gestures of dense and deep programming and performing.

U & A’s sound is defined, not so much in terms of genre, but in terms of mood. Though U & A's roots are in Techno, the music is made by artists with a mind for texture and atmosphere, moodiness and introspection.

U & A explores the difference between tracks for the dancefloor and those for headphones. Headphone music can be epic. Dancefloor tracks can be cerebral.

U & A considers its spiritual ancestors to be My Bloody Valentine for density (audacity?) and Joy Division for minimal sounds as maximum atmospheres.

When U & A grows up, it wants to be the 4AD of techno.

http://untitledandafter.com
http://www.myspace.com/untitledandafter

Marc says he's planning some Untitled and After events for 2009, so be on the lookout here and elsewhere for more great San Francisco techno sounds from this promising label.

The Bar on Castro Closing

2008-12-03T11:52:00.000-08:00

Picked this up from the Socketsite real estate blog this morning:

Speaking of high rents in Castro... a very reliable source told me that a very profitable and VERY well known bar on Castro will be closing shop come January '09 due to the lease coming up and the increase in rent being INSANE. You know things are bad when one of (if not the most patronized) bar(s) are closing up shop... Scary.

I replied that the only two bars I could think of were The Bar on Castro and Daddy's/440 Castro, and after initially being told "think BIGGER" by the original poster (I think in response to mentioning 440 Castro), he came back with "you're headed in the right direction." Could it be that The Bar is closing? Any scoops out there?

UPDATE: I did a little digging and came up with this nugget of a blog post that seems to confirm that it is, indeed The Bar on Castro.

Event Review: An Intimate Evening with Dame Edna

2008-11-26T15:06:00.000-08:00

Sometimes being a blogger does have benefits, as was demonstrated last week when Kitty and I got free seats (and good ones too, right down in front) for a performance of Dame Edna's "Live and Intimate First Last Tour" at the Post Street Theater. At first I almost passed on the offer, since drag comediennes aren't really my thing, but then I figured, hey, it's free, and once Kitty signed on to accompany me, I actually looked forward to it.

Dame Edna's schtick is that she's really a horrible person, but one who knows how to be horrible in that polite, British way. So, she can affectionately refer to the audience members as "possums" at the same time that she can say "oh, what's the word I'd use to describe that dress? I know, home made!" She was like the genteel version of drag queen Charlie Brown, who used to headline the cabaret at Backstreets in Atlanta and would come onstage with the call "I smell straaaaaaaaaight pussy," then proceed to "read" everyone in the audience. Her humor is largely built on the tension of her mannered meanness, and when the evening is "intimate" and she's directly interacting with the audience, there's a kind of dread that accompanies everything. Having read a review of the show in the Chronicle I had an idea of what to expect (and which ruined a few of the jokes for me, so I won't give away any spoilers here) and really, really hoped that other people would fill in the seats next to me so as to help protect me from the roving eye of the Dame.

Kitty and I had a great time, though we left at the intermission - two hours, plus intermission, was a bit more of Dame Edna than either of us could take, and since the seats were free, it wasn't like we were losing anything. The thing I noticed, though, was that we were among the youngest people at the show - given that prices for seats ran $58, $68, and $100 a piece I think I understand why. If you are a fan of Dame Edna I'm sure that this is a reasonable price to see such a glamorous star, but it seemed a bit steep to me. Still, if you're looking for something special to do over the holidays, Dame Edna is sure to be an experience you'll never forget.

MTA to Regulate Taxi Industry

2008-11-26T10:30:00.000-08:00

I've long complained about the sorry state of the taxi system here in San Francisco, having spent several Friday and Saturday nights having to walk to or from my destination because there were no cabs. According to this article in the examiner, the Board of Supervisors has voted to put the taxi industry under the supervision of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and I say it's about damned time. While the MTA doesn't have the best track record in general, it's at least a recognition that taxis are part of the public transportation infrastructure, and need to be regulated as such.

My main hope is that they will finally bring some quantitative data to the decision-making process for putting more cabs on the street. Medallion holders have long resisted this because medallions have become a commodity resource that they control, and can profit from, but they have always held that more cabs mean less money for working cabbies. However, no one really knows what the size of the market is for taxi services, and we've relied for far too long on anecdotal information from people who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. My guess is that a study of the market would show that it's much, much larger than previously described, and more cabs won't mean fewer fares for those driving them.

Mix Download: Alland Byallo on Process

2008-11-24T16:59:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I gave a shout out to the excellent Modyifier blog from local designer and techno aficionado Rayna Di Nord. More than just another music blogger, Rayna is interested in the creative process that people bring to producing music and DJing, and each Process mix is also a reflection by the artist on that process. Through personal solicitation and referrals from other artists Rayna has amassed 107 mixes from locals like yours truly, Lord Kook (as Glowfish), C.L.A.W.S,, and Mochipet, as well as international names like popnoname, Scratch Massive, Pharrel, and more. There's hours of music here, and lots to read and think about. A highly recommended way to spend some time at work.

The most recent Process mix: Alland Byallo of Kontrol.

Event Review: Daniel Bell Underground at The Compound

2008-11-24T16:26:00.000-08:00

Friday night the boyfriend and I fired up the Element and went adventuring into the wastelands of Bayview in search of a dirt road with a gate at the end, and beyond that gate, the promise of a very groovy night with legend Daniel Bell providing an eight-hour soundtrack. What we eventually found was not only a great night of truly deep techno with a Detroit master, but one of those legendary underground spaces that are fast disappearing from the San Francisco scene.

The party, produced by Kontrol, was at The Compound, a space perhaps best known among techno scenesters for its 16-speaker surround system. When you read that you probably think, “oh, yeah, big deal, sounds like a gimmick,” but once you’ve heard what music sounds like on that system, it makes you realize just how shitty every other club in this city is. It’s a small space that felt crowded with a hundred black-clad techno kids bobbing around in it, but as it filled up, the sound never seemed to get louder, even though every element, from the lowest bass to the highest treble, sounded absolutely clear and distinct. After going to clubs like Mighty, where the sonic philosophy is founded on pure brute force that leaves you feeling dazed and deafened, it was a relief to hear techno on a system that was designed for sonic subtlety and nuance. Bell was set up in the middle of the geodesic dome-like space, and one thing that I noticed almost immediately was that he didn’t have any monitors. Looking up we saw two monitors that were flown from the ceiling, and that’s all he needed, even with a crowd around him. The sound was so perfectly tailored to the space, it didn’t matter where you stood, and I had a hallucinatory moment when I thought that the music and the space were simultaneously giving shape to each other.

The same care and subtlety that went into the sound design of The Compound could also be found in Bell’s set. It’s been a while since I’ve been to a party where the DJ had enough time in their set to develop a true progression of mood. When we first arrived around 11 there weren’t that many other people in the space, and Bell was playing some fairly easy-going deep techno that was flavored with a little house, just the thing to help you unwind a bit. By the time we left around 2.30 he was eliciting whoops, but it wasn’t like he’d switched over to bangers; instead he had lifted the energy of the room subtlely, still playing minimal and deep sounds, and still making smooth mixes with little in the way of knob-twisting theatrics. It was one of the most mature, confident sets of techno I’ve heard in a long time, where the most minimal DJ intervention could have maximal effect.

Of course, one of the best things about underground parties is the crowd; it takes real connection to the scene, and often some degree of effort, to find yourself at one of these events, so there’s a pretty strong process of selection at work before anybody even shows up. The only folks the boyfriend and I knew were Monica and Tom Kat, but that didn’t stop us from having conversations with the guy who helped us park (who thought the boyfriend looked like “a wise guy” in his black hat, black sport coat, and white hoodie), one of the sound guys, and even two guys who disagreed with us over whether or not playing a snippet of the Booka Shade remix of Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman” was trite (we didn’t think it was). It was kind of a strange moment, which, literally disagreeable as it was, still meant we were among people who took the music, the DJing, and the whole vibe seriously. Given that most of my party experience in the recent past has been more about the scene than the music, it was nice to be among fellow heads for a while. It was, in fact, enough to make me wish I’d had the stamina, or at least the stimulants, to get me through the entirety of the night.

The Compound’s days are numbered; it’s in Added Area B, Parcel 1 of the Bayview Re-development plan that was passed back in June, so its likely fate is at the hands of a bulldozer driver. Losing that space will be yet another significant set-back in the development of our nascent techno scene, so let’s enjoy it, and the ideas and connections it fosters, while we can.

Drag Queen Collapses at Charlie Horse

2008-11-24T14:52:00.001-08:00

SFist reports that drag performer Anna Warhola collapsed on the stage at Charlie Horse this past Friday at the end of the performance, was taken to the hospital, and is now in a coma. Wow. Comments seem to indicate that, at first, no one realized that it wasn't part of the routine, and then the paramedics showed up and did intensive CPR, having to revive her several times. Cause of collapse is unknown, but SFist reports that the diagnosis was "cardiac and respiratory arrest." If anyone knows how to contact Anna/Paul Brinegar's family they should get in touch with Anna Conda (charliehorsecinch[at]yahoo.com) or The Cinch (415-776-4162).

Download: Interview with Dustin Lance Black, Screenwriter of "Milk," on Fresh Air

2008-11-20T19:20:00.000-08:00

Dustin Lance Black, screenwriter and executive producer of "Milk," photo by Kevin Winter

An interesting interview with Dustin Lance Black, screenwriter and executive producer of "Milk," on Fresh Air with Terry Gross. I know that Harvey Milk and his story have recently served as an inspiration and a departure point for local San Francisco queer culture, particularly Leo Herrera of HomoChic, but I'm curious what effect the nationwide release of this film will have on our culture at large (I'm sure that's what Gus Van Sant had in mind in the first place). It seems that everyone is looking at the current financial melt-down, and the election of Barack Obama, as an opportunity for their own version of "the New Deal" to blossom, and I wonder what role the controversy over Prop 8, the screening of "Milk" across the country, and the the struggle within the Republican party to define itself, will play in shaping queer culture, identity, and rights over the course of the next administration.

Upcoming Event: Roam Music Underground with Mathew Jonson, Saturday November 22

2008-11-19T13:33:00.000-08:00

Roam Music presents the second installment in their underground series, Jade, featuring Vancouver's Mathew Jonson (Sub Static, Minus, Perlon, Kompakt, Itiswhatitis, Arbutus) live, with support from John Wander, Nikola Baytala, Droog, and Lee Foss on the Funktion-One sound system.

10PM - "after hours"
Location and ticket info at www.roam-music.com

Streetlight Records in Noe Valley and Open Mind in the Castro Shutting Their Doors

2008-11-17T17:17:00.000-08:00

Walking past Open Mind Music on Market Street recently I noticed a "shop closing" notice in the window, and now, courtesy of the All Shook Down blog on SFWeekly, comes notice that Streetlight Records is closing its flagship store in Noe Valley.

I've been chronicling the demise of record shops in San Francisco ever since I started this blog, and it seems that the trend will only continue. Having shopped in both Streetlight and Open Mind, I get the sense that what did them in was having a breadth of stock that required a large space, but that didn't, in the end, generate enough throughput to keep up the rent. I think that, for record stores to survive, they're going to have become small, niche-focused businesses that don't keep a lot of outdated stock on hand (there were several dozen square feet of Open Mind dedicated to old dance vinyl that, even at 99 cents each, nobody would really find that interesting). There will always be audiophiles who want their favorite Pink Floyd albums on high-quality vinyl, but fewer and fewer people are going to want to pick up The Wall on vinyl that's over twenty years old when you can get the same album on CD for pretty cheap (or just download it from eMule). I think that we have also entered into an era in which consumers are less interested in albums and are more likely to just buy individual tracks that they like; buying a whole album of stuff when you only really want one or two tracks seems to make about as much sense to a modern consumer as buying 8-track tapes that you can't rewind.

Upcoming Event: Motherbird Monthly at Temple, November 19 2008

2008-11-17T15:53:00.001-08:00

Claude von Stroke and Christian Martin are teaming up to present Motherbird, a new monthly combining the talents of the Mothership and Dirtybird labels, at Temple's catacombs. It's on the 3rd Wednesday of the month, with the next one coming up this Wednesday, which means it's going to be a scene of dedicated tech heads, but it's yet another techno night we should all be happy to see. Full details on the SFScene Events calendar.

New Live Mixes from Javaight

2008-11-13T15:09:00.000-08:00

DJ Javaight, one of the impressarios behind Staple and the Killswitch happy hour, just released two new live mixes, one from the aforementioned Killswitch, and another from a set at The EnUp. In his words

Although there are a few similar tracks in both mixes, the Killswitch mix is a bit dark, trippy and groovin, while the Endup mix is definitely more "peak hour" and jackin.

"Jackin'" indeed. Check 'em out for yourself:

1. Javaight Live @ Killswitch
2. Javaight Live @ The Endup

2008 Deep End Burning Man Sets Now Available Online

2008-11-13T15:06:00.000-08:00

For all those who were there, and those who weren't but wish they could have been, all the Deep End sets from Burning Man 2008 are now online:

http://www.thedeependcamp.com/music/line_up_2008.htm

(well, not all, I notice that Worthy's set, which carried me through Friday morning from a looooong Thursday into Friday, isn't up, unfortunately).

Event Review: Honey Soundsystem Presents Hard Energy at Paradise Lounge

2008-11-11T19:21:00.000-08:00

Honey Soundsystem has taken on the rather considerable challenge of presenting a new weekly, on a Sunday, in a new space, but from what I saw this past Sunday, they're as able to meet the challenge as anyone.

The boyfriend and I showed up with our friend Toka just as they opened the doors at 8PM and stayed for a three-drink conversation. Kendig was first up on the decks, and though his set was way too retro disco for my taste (especially after he teased us with some very cool contemporary tech at the beginning and middle of his set), he gave the space a comfortable Sunday evening t-dance vibe. I was more into the set PeePlay laid out after him, since he mixed in more contemporary sounds and made me feel like I was out for a night of grooving and dancing rather than an episode of the gay music history channel. He came on just as the crowd began to arrive around 10PM, and I saw several dancers enthusiastically take to the floor during his set, with the promise of more to come.

Paradise Lounge just recently re-opened, and PeePlay told me that they had originally planned on using the upstairs, rather than downstairs, space. I personally couldn't see anything at all wrong with what they had on the opening night since there was a good-sized dance floor, a cozy space off the dancefloor with banquette seating where you could chill and have a conversation, and lots of little tables and stools in the bar and dance areas where you could perch or have more intimate interactions. Nonetheless, PeePlay assured me that the upstairs space would be even cooler, and I know I'll go back again to check it out. There's not been much to do on Sunday evenings for a while, at least nothing that has the kind of cool alternative flair that Honey Soundsystem brings, so I hope the boys will be able to build Hard Energy into a Sunday evening destination.

Event Review: Molekule at Julie's Supper Club

2008-11-11T19:05:00.000-08:00

The boyfriend and I made a quick stop into Molekule at Julie's Supper Club this past Friday and found a very cool space with even cooler techno. A collaboration between various grassroots technophiles like Faktion, Thirst, and Def, among others, this has real potential to blossom into another regularly occurring, local-talent-nurturing, head-centric techno party of the sort that this city needs.

Julie's, as we saw it set up, is a three-room space with a very comfortable bar area, a main dancefloor with classic black-and-white linoleum tile, and a smaller chill room (which could be made much better use of than as a place to store tables and chairs moved from the main room). Visuals were provided by Heroic Robot, who made great use of the big bare walls to present lessons in molekular and vektor geometry. We hung out and caught a bit of Tom Kat's very viberrific chill set, and then headed into the main room to hear some tracks from Amber (Thirsty | SisterSF),who gave us lots of fun snap-and-shuffle techno from the likes of Alex Under.

The hope seems to be that Molekule will mature into a monthly event, so let's keep our fingers crossed for more Molekule in the future.

The X-Men Meet Gus Presents

2008-11-10T12:06:00.000-08:00

Some of you may know that the X-Men have relocated to San Francisco, and, in the latest issue, they make their way around the City trying to find ways to cheer up their buddy Colossus, including, it seems, finding their way to a Gus Presents event that shares his name (thanks to Kitty for spotting this):

On the Passing of Proposition 8

2008-11-08T11:12:00.000-08:00

I promise that soon, soon, I'll get back to writing about music and parties and all that fun stuff, but my mind has been more occupied with the events of the past week, both uplifting and depressing, than it has been with thoughts of where I might be able to have a good time. While the election of Obama has certainly cheered me, the passing of Proposition 8 has really made me wonder about the way in which the mass can be moved by fear and thinly disguised hate to deprive other human beings of their essential humanity through legislative means.

Part of my personal reaction to this has been to think that I can never trust the African-American or Latino communities again, and to be just a tad disgusted that those communities, which should understand something about legislative discrimination, could be moved in such numbers to undertake that kind of discrimination against another group. I heard an African-American pastor who was a leader of the Yes on 8 Movement say that he thought it was absurd to compare gay civil rights wth the black civil rights movement, because "nobody was being chased down by dogs or beaten by police." And yet, it's only been recently that Mathew Shepard was left to die on a barbed wire fence, and every day gays and lesbians face harassment, both physical and mental, and some pay for their sexual orientation with their lives. The only difference was that, until now, there was no institutional, legalized discrimination against them; with the passing of Proposition 8, we now see how that process begins. This is how the Nazis also began their persecution of Jews through the Nuremberg laws that set prohibitions on their ability to marry non-Jews, and, as a Southerner, I also remember miscegenation laws that prohibited interracial marriage (and which legislators also tried to insert into the US Constitution). Slaves, of course, were not allowed to marry because that would have meant soiling a sacred sacrament. Funny, isn't it, how the once-oppressed so eagerly adopt the ideas and methods of their former oppressors.

What bothers me the most about this, however, is that people who have no relation to me, my life, or the lives of my friends, seem to feel that its their place to dictate how I should live, and what I should or should not be allowed to do, based on religious beliefs that I don't share. Do we really want to live in a world where religious belief and practice is dictated by majority rule?

As CW Nevius writes in today's Chronicle, the supporters of Proposition 8 seem surprised by the anger directed toward them. As I commented on that article, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." If your actions are motivated by loathing of other people, don't be surprised if that loathing is returned. For now, I hope that the legal challenges to Proposition 8 will move forward, because it is a dangerous thing to enshrine in law the denial of rights to other human beings based on religious belief. That is the path that leads to the ovens.

From Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court Decision that overturned anti-miscegenation laws throughout the US:

Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not to marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

The Long Knives are Being Sharpened . . .

2008-11-06T20:30:00.001-08:00

First on the butcher block, Sarah Palin. The coming weeks are going to be interesting, folks, better start keeping score now, even Fox News is in the process of re-aligning itself.

New Stuff on the SFScene Events Calendar!

2008-11-06T18:51:00.000-08:00

A big update today kids, here are the highlights with all the details on the calendar itself:

Friday November 7, 2008:

Molekule at Julie's Supper Club - a new weekly techno party from several local underground collectives, hooray!

Donutheat Presents Daniel Wang at The Elbo Room - with Robot Hustle of Honey Soundsystem and more!

Sunday November 9, 2008:

Honey Soundsystem Premieres Hard Energy at Paradise Lounge - a lovely way to spend a Sunday evening, especially if you have Monday off!

Friday November 14, 2008:

Opulent Temple and The Deep End Present Music is Art at Kelly's Mission Rock - All night Burnerrific fun!

Saturday November 15, 2008:

Strictly for the Love Underground - strictly for the love of house music UG with David Harness headlining and an early BBQ (I bet I know where this is, and I bet it's across the bridge)!

Upcoming Event: Molekule at Julie's Supper Club

2008-11-06T12:05:00.001-08:00

Another Friday night techno party kicks off this Friday at Julie's Supper Club!
With DJs:

Main Room:
FARZANA: Classy Concepts|3 Merry Men Be We
AMBER: Thirsty|SisterSF
KENNETH SCOTT: Auralism|Nightlight|Binary

Chill Area:
STML 10-11.30
TOMKAT (special dub techno and tracked out house set) 11.30-1
SAIMAN 1-2

$5 after 10PM
9PM - 2AM
Julies's Supper Club, 1123 Folsom Street

The Best Part About President-Elect Obama . . .

2008-11-04T22:22:00.000-08:00

is that his middle name is Hussein. Awesome.

Changes Afoot at The Transfer

2008-11-04T10:09:00.000-08:00

All you scenesters have probably noticed that changes are afoot at The Transfer - Frisco Disco got booted, Sno-Drift has moved to UndergroundSF, and Joshua J ended Big Top there when he started M4M at UndergroundSF. In addition, I've heard that general manager Yasser was fired a few weeks ago. So, you might be wondering what's up over at that grubby little dive of a club?

According to a source within the industry familiar with The Transfer and owner Greg Bronstein, the closing of Jet to expand it into the next door space on Market has caused Bronstein to turn his attention to his other properties (he also owns The Bar on Castro and Lime), and he wasn't too happy with what he saw at The Transfer. Apparently his intention is to make it "more gay," and to try and bring its cash flow up to the same level as The Bar on Castro (which reportedly brings in multiple thousands of dollars a day gross). Given that The Transfer has a crappy sound system, and is a tiny, uncomfortable dive bar in a bad location, I wonder how it will ever meet the same standards as The Bar, but then it's not my business, either.

One of the more interesting manifestations of Bronstein's attempts to remake The Transfer can be seen in a recent ad for the bar in Gloss, which goes like this:

NEWS FLASH
Being Laid Off Doesn't Mean You Can't Get Laid At The Transfer
"I didn't know you could check out cute bartenders, dance to hip hop, and drink $1 drinks all at the same bar," says Bon Qui Qui

So, in an attempt to revitalize The Transfer as a gay bar, Bronstein is reaching out to cheap, unemployed fags who are into hip-hop, and has chosen someone whose name translates to something like "good who who" as a spokesperson? Yep, works for me.

Adventures in DJing: Bloodpact at SoMarts

2008-11-02T18:16:00.001-08:00

Of the many things you think might go wrong with a gig - bad CDs, forgetting your headphones, generally stinking up the place - probably the last thing on the list, if it appeared at all, would be having your knee pop out in the middle of your set, having to put it back in place yourself, and then finishing your gig. And yet, as improbable as it may sound, that's exactly what happened to Lord Kook during his set at Bloodpact, winning him the SuperTrooper award for his ability to solider on under circumstances of extreme physical distress.

The first indication I had that something was wrong came when I heard that horrible whipwhipwhip sound of a CD being put on pause. I turned around and someone, who was definitely not Lord Kook, was up at the mixer, and I couldn't see him anywhere. I ran up to the DJ stand and saw LK on the floor, holding his knee and sorta rolling in pain. "What happened?" I asked, and he said "My knee popped out!" There were several frantic seconds of trying to figure out what to do, a medic arrived but said he couldn't put the knee back in place, that we'd have to call an ambulance, meanwhile the kid who had leaped into the lurch when LK went down was trying to figure out what was going on with the CD players. "It's back in, it's back in!" LK shouted at me, and a second later he was back on the decks, completely drenched with shock sweat, to one of the biggest rounds of applause I've heard for a DJ in a while. A chair was found for him, he finished out his set, the medic came back with an ice pack and some analgesics, and then it was all sitting on the patio, having a cigarette and a drink and looking very much like a dashing wounded war hero (it probably helped that he was wearing a pirate costume).

The worst part of the whole incident, aside from the pain of course, was that Lord Kook was right in the middle of one of his most amazing sets ever. He'd been working on a plan all week and went off to Bloodpact with a sheet of notes, and in the execution his mixing was absolutely flawless. The duo of Digital Paradigm whipped up the kids with some serious bloggo bangin' before LK went on, but he brought the funky groove, with lots of bodies writhing up against each other on the dance risers. I knew the second that he got his knee to track back into place that he would want to finish, because he had too much invested in putting this set together, and was getting too much out of playing it, to let something as trivial as a dislocated knee get in the way.

We didn't really get to experience much of the rest of the party; after the requisite post-set drink, smoke, and basking in the glory of having just scored serious cred, we headed back to the apartment where LK could put up his leg. It was early, only about 1.45, and the party looked like it was gaining some substantial momentum to carry though until 5 AM, but, what the hell, we'd already had our major experience to remember this Halloween, the one where Lord Kook went up a level.

Decemberween Electrohouse 2008 (01:31:24) <--------------- cliiiiiiiick

01. Headman - Moisture (Headman Club Mix)
02. Funky Transport and Jonee Q - Mixed Up (Style of Eye Remix)
03. Young Rebels and Francisco Diaz - Human Animal (John Dahlback Remix)
04. DJ Fist - Lemme See You Work (Milton Channels Remix)
05. Simon S. - Music Machine (Rhythm Code Remix)
06. Wolfgang Carter - Sour Candy (Original Mix)
07. Chocolate Puma and Bingo Players - Touch Me (Bart B More Remix)
08. Wax Poetic - Swing Swing (Tyrell Remix)
09. NuBreed - NuFunk (Deadmau5 Remix)
10. Office Gossip - Time Against Me (Original Mix)
11. Camille Jones - Difficult Guys (Extended)
12. Chris Lake - Shake (Original Mix)
13. Hatiras & MC Flipside - Autograph (Original Dirty Mix)
14. Switch - A Bit Patchy (Eric Prydz Remix)
15. Matthew Dear - Neighborhoods (Original Mix)
16. Mason - The Ride (Oliver Klein and Peter Juergen Mix)
17. Copyright - In Da Club (Shake Shit Up) (Original Mix)
18. Roby C - Disco Robot (Riva Starr Remix)
19. Prax Paris - Running Up That Hill (Maria Ochoa Remix)

Halloween Weekend Party Tips

2008-10-29T21:13:00.000-07:00

I made the mistake of going shopping for Halloween gear in the Haight tonight; from now until next weekend I propose we ban the phrase "sexy (noun)," as I heard "sexy nurse," "sexy convict" and similar constructions falling from far too many lips. I managed to come away with gear for my friend Kitty, but my own costume will likely be brilliantly ad-hoc.

If you're smart, you're prepared to take off work, or work from home, or something, on Monday, cuz this is the kind of weekend that tests a (wo)man's mettle. Here's the jaded gay DJ's guide to the Halloween party gauntlet.

FRIDAY, October 31

For the gay boys
Blood Pact at SoMarts (8th and Brannan), 10PM - 5AM, $15
Okay, for starters, this is an 18+ event, and my boy Lord Kook is DJing on the main floor from 11.30 - 1.00. Then there's the Honey SoundSystem DJs v. A Club Called Rhonda (LA), Richard Oh?! tag-teaming with Sleazemore (3-5AM), Liam Shy and Digitial Paradigm kicking out some electro house, and performances by Ambrosia Salad, Chris McVick (my favorite straight disco boy), and Monistat. Oh, and there's an outdoor area too. Just go, okay?

For the crazy kids
Night of the Living Bass at Mighty (Utah x 15th), 10PM - 4AM, $15 presales at opelproductions.com
You've got DJs from Opel, Space Cowboys, Evil Breaks, and The Deep End, all of which adds up to hot breaks and deep house, costumes fresh off the playa, and lots of that special Burning Man party madness.

Saturday, Day of the Dead, November 1st

Ghost Ship on Treasure Island (10PM - 4AM), $20 presales, $20 at the door in costume, $30 without
It's a 25,000 square foot airplane hanger with three bars, art cars and installations, and more fucking DJ's than I can count. And I have it on good authority that Comfort and Joy will be hosting a queer-friendly chill room too. Biodiesel shuttle from the corner of Larkin and Grove from 10.30PM - 4.30AM, or you can ferry/bus to the party. Whatever it takes, you should motivate yourself to go.
UPDATE: As of Thursday night my sources tell me that 600 of the 1000 tickets had gone out as pre-sales, so you maybe better not count on being able to get tix at the door. Hit the link to go to the Space Cowboys website and get 'em while you can.

Sunday, Day of the Deadly Hangover, November 2nd

Country Club Pool and Pavilion Party at the Cathedral Hill Hotel (1101 Van Ness x Geary, 4th Floor), 12.30 PM - 8PM, $5 pre-sales, $8 before 2PM, $12 after
Maybe you need a little chill after all that partying; maybe you haven't even gone to bed yet. Whatever your particular physical or psychic state, imagine how much improved it will be after an afternoon pool party (with croquet, badminton, and bocce ball!) featuring a passel of blog house, electro, and techy DJs like Richie Panic, Jeffrey Paradise, Solar, Nikola, Anthony Mansfield, Sleazemore, and Richard Oh?!.

City Enacts New Noise Control Ordinance

2008-10-24T13:59:00.000-07:00

According to this article in the SFGate, The City has enacted a new noise control ordinance for the first time since 1973. The interesting part is down toward the bottom of the article:

Noise violations would become infractions instead of misdemeanor offenses, which officials believe will make enforcement easier. The city's Entertainment Commission would for the first time have authority to regulate low-frequency bass and drum noise.

The EC has been complaining for a while now that they don't have any real enforcement tools, but I wonder exactly how this is going to play out. I think this does not bode well, for example, for Club 6, and gives any neighbor a way to harass other clubs out of existence.

Event Review: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival

2008-10-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know, it's a little late but, hey, this is what happens when you're busy.

For the second year in a row the boyfriend was one of the onstage recording engineers for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and on Sunday he had the good luck to be working the stage with Ben Kweller, Elvis Costello, and Gogol Bordello, among others. I hauled myself down there in time to catch the end of Kweller's set, all of Costello's, and the very beginning of Gogol Bordello, and I have to say that, after some of the wretched excess of the LoveFest, it was a veritable balm for the soul.

Now, let's be straight and say that there were just as many people getting their party on at HSB as at Lovefest, but since they were dispersed over a very large section of Golden Gate Park, you didn't have the same sensation of being in the middle of a Bosch painting. Though no alcohol is sold at the event (certainly a good thing), plenty of people had bottles and cans in hand, and the fragrant scent of the chronic hung over the crowd. I saw several small groups of what I think of as hippie geek kids hanging out together, and I have no doubt that I had looked closely, I would have seen some mighty big eyeballs. What was different from LoveFest, though, was how quaint, almost traditional, this particular party scene was; after all, songs about drinking are a huge part of the blugrass/country repetoire, and we all know what jam band concerts are like. Perhaps it was because, at LoveFest, there is such a connection between sex and partying, and partying till you can't party no more, while Hardly Strictly Bluegrass seems to be more about the great enthusiasm one has for both the state of intoxication and the hangover that follows.

That enthusiastic embrace of even the most downbeat, bluesy aspect of life was what came across for me in Ben Kweller's performance. Wearing a red and black shirt lumberjack shirt with a denim vest and rockstar-tight jeans, with long curly hair, Kweller seemed like one of the many alterancountry hippy boys in the audience, the one who learned guitar and started writing songs and was as surprised as any of them would be to find himself up on the stage. He pretty much charmed the socks off me.

Elvis Costello, on the other hand, was the consummate, veteran performer who knew all the moves but came across as slightly empty. On one of the hottest days in San Francisco this year Costello came onstage wearing a hat, a scarf, a vest over a shirt, and a long coat. Though one person commented to me that he looked like The Penguin, I eventually came to think of his outfit as both costume and armor, something he put on to project a persona but was, in the end, something that kept you from seeing what was underneath. He opened up with "Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes" to remind everybody who he was, went through the routine of getting people to clap and sing along with his songs, but then, as he was switching guitars halfway through, he popped off at one of the monitor engineers - it was really quick, only four words said off to the side of the stage, and had I not been standing where I was and able to see the expression on his face, I might not have even noticed it, but it was an instant when I could see past the showman who had named his kids Dexter and Frank so they could be a Vaudeville Act to a rather dyspeptic curmudgeon underneath all those layers.

I got tired of standing and walked behind the stage to sit in the meadow as the sun set. There was a completely naked and unselfconscious boy of about three running around and playing with another boy his age, dogs hunting gophers, groups of hippy kids sitting together and climbing trees, an older couple sharing a pipe sitting in front of me, all bathed in a faintly hazy, enchanting light. I sat there and just mediated on the things in front of me, one of the most relaxing, idyllic scenes I had seen in quite a while.

The boyfriend got his lunch break after Gogol Bordello came on, so we wandered off in search of food. On the way out I came across buskers playing "Dirty Old Town" by The Pogues, and a two-piece band on the Rooster Stage playing a particularly poignant version of The Replacements' "Can't Hardly Wait" on guitar and mandolin. Both were unexpected delights, which pretty accurately sums up my entire experience of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.

Bar Review: The Knockout and El Rio

2008-10-20T15:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a bit of miscommunication this past Saturday the boyfriend and I, along with a couple other friends, wound up going to both The Knockout and El Rio waaaaay down on Mission Street. The occasion was another friend’s birthday, which was originally supposed to be at The Knockout, but an $8 cover for some benefit, along with a couple really loud bands, convinced them to move things to El Rio. Unfortunately, nobody sent us a text or called us before we wound up paying cover and witnessing a truly hideous fashion show.

The Knockout could most succinctly be described as a hipster dive bar, decorated with mug shots and a patina of grime. There is a long bar as you enter, and another bar-like area with a drinks shelf and a brass foot rail where you can stand and look into the adjoining room, which features a stage. Live shows are apparently one of the big attractions here, though we caught only the end of somebody doing some decent beat-boxing before we were treated to a “fashion show.” When Richard Hell and the Voidoids “Blank Generation” started up over the PA I really had to laugh – it’s hard to think of a single song that could be so self-congratulatory and so amazingly cliché at the same time. The fashion, for the women at least, consisted of variations of black-on-blue plaid, but one of my companions put it best: “all these outfits seem designed to make the women look terrific, and the guys look like assholes.” About that time we got a text that we should rendezvous with the rest of our pack up the street, just in time to save us from any more hipster silliness, but before I got to try out the signature root beer float cocktail.

El Rio had a pretty high hipster quotient as well, but was definitely higher up on the bar evolutionary ladder. It also has a stage area, but additionally boasts one of the nicest patios I’ve seen in San Francisco, and when a band did take the stage, you could still hang out in the bar and have a conversation. I liked the warm lighting and the overall vibe of the bar, but was disappointed that they didn’t seem to have any cocktail specials of the sort found at The Knockout.

Since El Rio is only a few blocks from Kitty’s place I think it may become a destination for when I’m down at that end of the Mission; any place where I can sit outside and have a drink and a smoke is a winner in my book.

Last Minute Going-Away Party for Lemonade Tonight, Friday October 17

2008-10-17T16:02:00.000-07:00

It's on the new SFScene calendar too, but here are the details of a going-away party for Tigerbeat recording artists Lemonade tonight:

Lemonade Going-Away Party
103 Harriet Street (1015 Folsom)
FREE
10PM to "late"
with music and DJ sets from Lemonade, Lazer Sword, CLAWS, Ghosts on Tape, Safety Scissors , Saputotime and mor.

Introducing the SFScene Events Calendar!

2008-10-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

Okay kids, as you may have noticed, I've recently been having trouble keeping up with the Friday and Saturday Night Guide posts. Thing is, life's busy, and soemtimes it's been difficult for me to find the time to get those out in timely manner. Plus, I've not been as good at keeping up with the one-offs and such because I lost my great Outlook calendar system when I got my new job (Zimbra, btw, is teh suxxors as far as I'm concerned for ease-of-use).

The solution: the new SFScene Events Calendar on Google! It will live in it's own little bloggy post and get regular updates when I add to it in Google, and if you want to check out a full-size version you just need to click on the link over there in the little calendar box. This way I can also start putting up info about some of the mid-week and Sunday events that have otherwise escaped promotion while also saving myself some weekly effort. As always, I'll be sticking to listing events that I personally would recommend (for the most part, at least). Links to reviews, when I've written them, will be in the event descriptions, as will links to the event websites themselves. I'll be adding more events to the calendar over the next few days, and by the end of the next week you should be able to check it out for all kinds of fun things happening between now and the end of November. Enjoy!

The SFScene Events Calendar

2008-10-15T13:23:00.001-07:00

Upcoming Event: Bloodpact at SoMarts, Halloween Friday October 31

2008-10-09T09:44:00.000-07:00

Just got this from Lord Kook for all you homos looking for something to do on Halloween . . . a superfun looking all-ages (18+) gay party at SoMarts!

super excited about this one, folks! it's gonna be pretty rad... the HSS kids are holding it down with their sister club from LA, along with some (the kind where the walls start to breathe after a while) with some crazy electro / tech-house / kitchen-sink-shit from me, Liam Shy, Digital Paradigm, and Richard Oh?!. this is a homo-friendly party (duh), it's 18+ (bring yer little brother!), there's a full bar for those of us old enough to swerve legally, and the whole thing goes till 5am! it's almost enough to make me forget about what a mess the city made of halloween!

no, wait, it totally is.

more info as it comes...

Event Review: LoveFest 2008

2008-10-06T11:42:00.000-07:00

“Messy;” that’s the one-word answer I’ve been giving to the question “How was LoveFest?” Sure, it was a beautiful day, I had fun and even danced to some good techno, but my overall impression of the event was that it almost exceeded FurCon in terms of kids going well beyond what they could, or should, handle.

The first sign of messiness came as I was standing behind the Tantra float with Kitty shortly after arriving. We were chatting with Saturnia when a man came over and asked us if he knew where to find a medical team, as he had just found a group of really "messed up" kids in need of some assistance; a few minutes later I noticed a kid stumble headlong into a trashcan and then just stand there, leaning forward against it, his eyes rolling up into his head. We moved on before I could see the outcome of this particular bad trip, but shortly afterwards, standing against a barricade and watching the crowd in front of the Kontrol/Auralism Records float, I had a more personal encounter with wretched excess. A very suburban-looking blonde girl, wearing the faerie wings and tiara that seemed to be the LoveFest fashion statement for girls this year, stumbled over and began rubbing herself up against me. More amused than shocked I said “Hey, having fun?” “Yeah,” she slurred, and proceeded to ask about my favorite color before her friend pulled her, loose-limbed and barely standing, back into the crowd. Shortly thereafter, on my way to get a drink, I saw an otherwise very attractive blond boy puking right in the middle of Larkin street, and then, coming back from getting that drink, a girl who was being led through the crowd by two friends went rag-doll limp and collapsed right in front of me.

Kitty later commented that, when he first got down there around 2PM, he was surprised by just how fucked-up everybody already seemed to be. Now, far be it for me to cast aspersions on people for losing their faces in whatever manner they chose in public, but c’mon kids, you need to learn how to maintain. When I was dancing to Alland Byallo’s set at the Kontrol float later, I took a moment to really look at the crowd around me. In front of me were five gay guys dancing shirtless and passing around a bottle of jungle juice; to my right was a group of younger kids, probably in their early twenties, including a very pretty thin, smooth, boy with shaggy blonde and red-streaked hair wearing aviators and with one cuff of a pair of fur-lined handcuffs locked around his right wrist; while to my left was a gentleman wearing a straw homburg, a button-up shirt with a vest, and aviators looking quite dandy and handsome, and all around a crowd of generally attractive, young people sucking on lollipops. It was obvious to me, being well-versed in such things, that everybody was pretty high, but there were no signs of the simply gross behavior I had seen earlier. This, I thought, is part of what makes the techno scene attractive to me, that it’s a scene where people like to party, but are a little more mature in the way they go about it. Walking around later it seemed to me that there was a direct correlation between the level of sophistication in the music and the overall vibe of the crowd, where the dumber the music got, the sloppier the crowd.

Kitty and I left LoveFest around 5.00; with the size of the crowd increasing, along with the lines for the portapotties and beverages, we didn’t really see much promise of the party getting any less sloppy, and, beyond Kontrol, there wasn’t much musically that caught my interest (I do have to give the HomoChic kids a shout-out for their “Death of Shade” float, which I thought best captured the renegade spirit that should be a major part of the LoveFest experience, but they suffered from poor placement between Tantra and Tweekin’ Records, whose sound systems simply overpowered HomoChic’s to such a degree that I couldn’t even hear them when I moved back a few feet from the speakers). I’m glad that San Francisco does LoveFest, and I’m even kind of glad that these kids, sloppy as they may be, have a chance to experience it, but, as another veteran partier of my acquaintance recently put it, I don’t really want to hang out around them while they go through their learning experiences.

Adventures in DJing: Drop the Pressure at UndergroundSF

2008-10-03T14:03:00.000-07:00

Last night I learned a very important lesson about DJing with burned CDs: don't burn your precious tracks to cheap CDs, because some CD players won't read them.

I was leading off for the premiere of Drop the Pressure at UndergroundSF last night, and I had it all figured out ahead of time; a little Heiko Voss to start off, then into some fun, loopy techno from the likes of DiFi and Thomas Brinkmann. The Voss track, "I Think About You," was on vinyl, so as the needle moved across the record I slotted my next track in to the CD player - and nothing came up on the display. I hit eject, blew on the recorded surface, and slotted it back in. This time it came up, but showed the track as being 1.59m long. I hit play, and there was nothing in the headphones. Uttering a long chain of expletives I tried another CD, same problem. Now the needle was fast approaching the dead zone just before it would start scraping against the label. I reached into my record bag, pulled out another vinyl, not even caring what it was at this point, got it cued and started it up just as the other track was ending but not, unfortunately, before everything went to dead air.

Now that's a way to start the first set of the first night of your weekly. I put the same CDs into the other CD player, and all was well. Suspecting that the first CD player, an older, probably first generation CDJ-800, didn't like MP3 CDs, I ran a test with another MP3 CD supplied by DJ Candy. All was fine. Conclusion: the CD player was being finicky about the cheap, generic brand CDs I was trying to feed it.

I made it through an hour since I had, fortunately, brought records with me, but I had planned on using those just here and there instead of as the backbone of my set. I went for the stuff that was pretty mellow and with long, easy intros, like Luciano and Melchior's "Father" and a Pig and Dan remix of Underworld's "Play Pig" (I love that spoken word opening), and in between I was able to use the one CDJ that would accept my CDs to play some of the stuff I had originally intended, but overall it was a pretty disconnected mess, made more so by my own anxiety-induced slop mixes.

Fortunately the rest of the night went really, really well, and everyone else turned in great sets - we even had a dancefloor going at the end of the night, something I wouldn't have believed possible on a Thursday night in the Lower Haight. And now, before next week, I guess I'll have to spend some time re-burning all those CDs.

Here's the Drop the Pressure myspace if you'd like to come by and be our friend, or have a drink with us one Thursday night.

Your LoveFest Saturday Guide for October 4, 2008

2008-10-03T10:08:00.000-07:00

Well, if the past couple weeks have seen some pretty sucky Saturdays, this one should make up for it. Techno! Disco! Breaks! We got yer dance musics right here, baby! Plus I'm sure that there will be some underground party flyers to be had at the actual event, lots and lots to do!

Weeklies and Bar Nights

Bistrotheque with Ken Vulsion at Cafe Flore
I've been remiss in not previously mentioning Ken Vulsion of Honey Sound System's Bistrotheque at Cafe Flore on Satuday evenings. A great place to go have a bite, warm up with a couple drinks, and groove along with Ken.
8PM - 2AM
NO COVER
Cafe Flore, 2298 Market Street x Noe

Bearracuda at Deco Lounge
For bears and those who love them. With DJ Rotten Robbie. This week: "underbear" party.
9PM - 3AM
$6
Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin x Turk

Monthlies and One Offs

Kontrol at the End Up
With special guests Josh Wink(!), Speedy J, and Drumcell, plus the Kontrol residents. Check out my recent review of Kontrol.
10PM - 6AM
FREE before 11, $20 after
The End Up, 6th x Harrison

Trans Am at Club Eight
Rock/punk/indie music from resident Dirty Knees, usually with a band performing as well. Check out my review of Trans Am.
10PM - 2AM
$5
Club Eight, 1151 Folsom x Eighth.

Gemini Disco at UndergroundSF
As Cip, the owner of UndergroundSF said to me last night, "at last, a real disco music night!" DJs Derrick Love and Nicky B, visuals by That Mold Science,
10PM - 2AM
$3 (the best bargain of the night!)
UndergroundSF, 424 Haight x Webster

Seismic Presents After the Love at Mighty
The best in San Francisco breaks with DJs from Seismic, Space Cowboys, and more.
9PM - 5AM
$20 before midnight
MIghty, 119 Utah Street x 15th

Kontrol and Auralism Need Our Help!

2008-10-03T09:51:00.000-07:00

Looks like the tough times are hitting everybody, and the kids who have been truly responsible for bringing techno to San Francisco need some help to keep on doing it, or, at least, to bring it to the LoveFest. I've chipped in because I think it's important to support the people who are really doing something to bring interesting, diverse, and fun music to the San Francisco cultural scene. If you can only help out with ten or twenty bucks, think of it as the cover not just for a night, but to keep a whole scene going.

********************

Dear friends and supporters of techno in the SF Bay and around the world,

We've been incredibly busy in the last few weeks, and trust us, we know you're busy too. But if you would please just take one minute out of your day to read this, it would really mean the world to us.

Times are tough, and many of us working in the trenches of the music industry are scrapping by week to week, just like many of you are. It is for this reason that today we are humbly calling on you, and requesting your assistance so that we can collectively create an incredible experience that everyone can enjoy and remember forever. That experience is being able to put on a float representing the music we love in this year's LoveFest.

As most of you are surely aware, pulling this kind of thing off isn't cheap. Just registering to be included in the parade alone costs $1500. Then there are expenses like renting a semi truck and driver for two days, renting a high-end Meyer soundsystem (which we spent TWICE as much on this year) plus people to run it, equipment rentals, decorations, drinks, and a ton of other expenses. All together, creating this float will cost us in excess of $4000. It's a lot of money and a lot of work, but we do this, as they say, "for the love". We want to make Saturday another unforgettable day, and share that day with our friends, our supporters, and with the world.

But the unfortunate truth of the matter is, we can't do it alone.

Last year we were lucky enough to be able to throw an underground after party where nearly all the artists donated their time and talents, and were ultimately able to recoup most of the float expenses. This year, LoveFest lands on the same night as Kontrol. Thus, no opportunity to recoup anything, as any profits gained from this years afterhours are going to, well, The Endup. Thus far, we've thrown two fundraising parties, and with the help from friends and supporters were able to raise around $700. So, you do the math. Float costs = $4000. Funds raised so far = $700.

Unfortunately, none of us in Kontrol or Auralism are rich. No trust-fund babies here, although that would certainly make things simpler. So, bottom line, if we can't raise another $3300, the remainder is shouldered entirely by us. What that means is, in addition to putting in all the work and effort to bring this great music and amazing time to the people, we all end up shelling out literally hundreds of dollars each (that we really can't afford) out of pocket.

So, we humbly call upon you to help us make this happen. If you've enjoyed having great techno events to go to over the last few years, if you know you're going to have another blast at this incredible FREE event, if you want to see this kind of music continue to grow and prosper in Bay, my friends, it's time to pony up.
_______________________________________

To add a bit of incentive, we're giving away a handful of prizes to the most generous donors, and here they are:

The TOP 5 donors will get a GUARANTEED SPOT ON THE FLOAT DURING THE PARADE .

Space on the float is this year is really, really limited. Sadly, even most of our friends will not be able to fit on. If you're amongst the top 5 donors though, we'd love for you to join us on the float as our way of saying thanks. You don't have to "know anyone", don't have to do anything. Just take some pics, dance your ass off, and have the time of your life!

And the big daddy:

The #1 TOP DONOR will receive FREE ADMISSION to ALL [KONTROL] and AURALISM EVENTS for ONE YEAR!!!

At $15/month that's worth almost $200 for the [KONTROL] Endup parties alone. But it's also all the one-offs, all the undergrounds, EVERYTHING. And of course, all the Auralism parties too.
_______________________________________

We love throwing these events and wish to thank each and every one of you who have supported over the last 3 years and helped us to bring the music we live for to the city we so dearly love. We have no intention of slowing down, and promise to continue to give 100% to making sure that the SF scene can hang up there with the big boys. We would deeply appreciate any financial support you can spare. Even a few bucks helps.

Donations can be sent via PayPal (www.paypal.com) to sf.techno.float.08@gmail.com

You don't even need a PayPal account, a simple debit card will do.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ANY AND ALL SUPPORT.

We LOVE all of you, and we LOVE SF!

Before we sign off, check out this awesome video that Auralism resident Clint Stewart put together of last year's float.

If this doesn't make you smile, I don't know what will.

http://www.youtube.com/v/GzJJjNwVRYQ

Or, download the whole thing in full size here: (85MB)
www.auralismrecords.com/CLINT/LF_Fundraiser_Vid.mp4

This year's theme is BLACK & WHITE
plus the "special" color... RED!

Thanks again, and we hope to see you out Saturday!

~ Greg Bird (on behalf of the [KONTROL] and Auralism crews)