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2007 Best of the Bay: Tuning In |
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| lllustration by Mie Hommura |
After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
-Aldous Huxley
A precociously cynical child, I rejected God after s/he failed to whisk me off to Yavin IV to become a Jedi Knight, my fondest desire and fervent prayer. To this day, the idea of surrendering my destiny to a "higher power" makes me cringe. Still, stick me in a choir robe for the "Hallelujah Chorus" (apologies to my Heeb heritage), and I'll be the first to admit to a surfeit of spiritual uplift. I also get that soulful lovin' feeling crushed in the pit at Bottom of the Hill, shaking my bom-bom at Little Baobab, and courting whiplash at DNA Lounge. Music leads me beyond experience and touches my wordless, vibrating core. Dance is my holy communion - flesh and blood - through which I reach an elevated state of connectivity I've only rarely achieved by other means.
This hedonistic calculus is hardly unique. Every known civilization has contributed devotees to the First Church of the Last Dance. Even for those a little less emotionally invested in music's infinite variety than I, its importance as a cultural signifier can't be underestimated. Who knows what the daily motivators were for lovelorn peasants in 16th-century England, but we can surely feel the reel and sting when Sweet Kate gives one of them the boot in Robert Jones's Elizabethan madrigal. The defiant glory of gospel rose up from the chains of multicontinental bondage. Bohemian colonialism heaved the ecstatic accordions of musica norteno to arms. Suburban oppression set Jerry Lee Lewis loose on the squares, inducing the bourgeoisie to shake off its bad case of affluenza.
Cue the '60s: everybody's favorite era to unctuously wax nostalgic about - whether they played a part in it or not. A prevalence of tunes urged quixotic values such as peace, love, psychedelic consciousness, what have you. Born six years after the Summer of Love myself, I've no rightful claim on reminiscence, but it does sometimes give me pause to consider that the mantra "All you need is love" was once the anthem of a generation whose pampered progeny in turn chose as theirs "Here we are now, entertain us." I hate to have to ask it, but really, what the fuck happened?
Well, I may be a bit of a crank and an iconoclast, but I have an optimistic streak too. "What are the kids listening to these days?" was the refrain in Renaissance composer Thomas Morley's time, and I'll be damned if I succumb to any crypto-conservative knee-jerk response to the necessary evolution of genre. 'Scuse me while I crank the stereo of now up to 11. Can you feel that? A timeless timpani transporting you far from banal paeans to bitches and hos. Nervous strings shiver down the spine; an achromatic croon slips sweetly through the circulatory system. There's no ground so uncommon that it can't be leveled with a 6/8 time signature and a limber lumbar region. DJ Shadow, Victor Sila, the Stooges, the Muppets - access the ecstatic state via your choice of euphony. Best of all (and really, this is key), you don't have to spend a dime or parrot some popular party line to get into it.
In San Francisco the '60s mythology staggers on, its soft sensibilities hard-coded into our civic pride. There's a public place for every predilection: street fairs, block parties, LoveFest, Critical Mass, outdoor movie nights, backstreet sideshows, art car parades, soapbox derbies, kite festivals, the Mission Village Market, the Really Really Free Market, Shakespeare in the Park, Mime Troupe in the park, Clarion Alley, Up Your Alley, the Alemany Farm ... And despite the ongoing onslaught of consumerist ideology - foisted on us by today's so-called entertainment industry - San Franciscans have retained an uncanny ability to make merry without monetary consideration. Is that the sound of freestyle funk bumping down the bike lane? Why, it's the good folks of Rock the Bike showing off their Soul Cycles - custom-built cruisers with built-in sound systems. Grab your wheels and go along for the ride. And since you're already on your bike, what about cycling over to Stern Grove to see what's shaking? There's always room for one more under the eucalyptus trees when the Non-Stop Bhangra Collective or Os Mutantes take the stage. Sound a little tame for your wild-child tastes? How about dropping in on the Tidal Wave Festival in McLaren Park instead? Two full days of furious, flesh-eating heavy metal - and it's all for free.
Maybe later that evening, staggering home sunburned and stupefied, you'll come across Rube Waddell serenading the hobo train outside Anna's Linens, or the Gomorran Social Aid and Pleasure Club marching merrily around the Mission. Is there any cultural divide so wide that it can't be traversed with the judicious addition of a sousaphone? That lanky guy in Docs doing the chicken dance next to you might be a dishwasher for all you know, or an emergency-room nurse or a biochemical engineer. That fey, tattooed beauty in the leather mini may spend her days walled up inside a particle-board cube or trimming hedges outdoors. And the unexpected bonds forged in the shadowy confines of a nightclub or via the undulating energy of an outdoor rave could well be the strongest (if sometimes the strangest) we'll ever experience.
Like any zealot, I probably sound a little obsessed, but I'm fairly certain I'm not alone. When my quest for sonic salvation takes me down South of Market way or hauling ass up the Haight Street hill, I see you there too - and you, and you, and you. Hemmed in at the Hemlock, rocking out at the Rickshaw Stop. Tanking up on Tuesday, tearing up a Thursday. Creating communities in common time, stage diving for your sins, dissonantly liturgizing in the Locrian mode. The endless options for aural rapture equal eternal glory. Can I get an amen? Can I get another beer?
Editor's Picks
BEST PLACE TO SHAKE YOUR GRASS SKIRT
Most people know Alameda as the island that time forgot, but it soon may be known as "the forbidden island" as well. Efforts to hold a Spring Schwing (think the Exotic Erotic Ball, but on an abandoned aircraft carrier) got canned earlier this year when the Alameda City Council got wind that near-naked bodies might be gripping and whipping each other en masse on a decommissioned military base. And then there's the Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge. Located in Alameda's historic Bay Station district, Forbidden Island was built from the wreckage of the HMS Spindrift (at least according to the glossy beverage brochure, which is best read when you're thoroughly soused). Filled with bamboo and thatch, carved idols and puffer fish, waterfalls and waiters serving weird bubbling bowls of grog, the lounge features cocktails with names like Painkiller, Headhunter, Suffering Bastard, and Scorpion Bowl. You'll be lucky if you can find your way back to the mainland after you've knocked back a couple of these pineapple- and papaya-infused puppies.
1304 Lincoln, Alameda. (510) 749-0332, www.forbiddenislandalameda.com
In a time when record labels both large and small are dropping like flies, it's a pleasure to mark the 12th anniversary of San Francisco's independent OM Records, the DJ-friendly imprint whose tag is "the United Nations of Future Music." Not only surviving but thriving in the MySpace Music era, OM continues to passionately support and release quality, beat-driven music by Bay Area artists. Witness the recently released On the Rise, by power Bay Area DJ-MC team Zeph and Azeem, a globally acclaimed debut by the Strange Fruit Project, and the recent collection OM Hip Hop Volume One - all of which add to an already vast catalog from this highly prolific label. OM's miles-long list of impressives also includes a jaw-dropping, beats-popping wealth of DJ mixes and compilations like the Deep Concentration series and collections by such turntable luminaries as Mark Farina and Miguel Migs.
The scrappy Tenderloin neighborhood has long been a mecca for trans folk; a 1966 riot at Compton's Cafeteria, then a gathering place for t-girls and street hustlers, was the first known instance of collective queer resistance to antitrans oppression. Fast-forward 40 years, walk a few blocks from where Compton's once stood, and you'll find a bevy of gorgeous transgender ladies carving out a space for themselves at Divas Nightclub and Bar. And this time you're invited - provided you tip well. The sassy t-girls at this three-story club will beckon you to the bar, sweet-talk you for a drink, and lead you to the dance floor in record time. Come for the gorgeous bartenders in skintight sequined cat suits, the "naughty schoolgirl" pole dancers on the mirrored second floor, and the exotic sight of baseball cap-wearing tranny chasers from the burbs.
1081 Post, SF. (415) 474-3482, www.divassf.com
BEST INTERGALACTIC ROCKABILLY EXPERIENCE
Imagine that Bill Haley and His Comets had been abducted by aliens from a '50s sci-fi flick and came back to play a show with all the intensity of a Funkadelic concert. Oh yeah, and now they're the crew of an intergalactic spacecraft, singing about robotic guitarists, giant asteroids, and the space race. Meet the Phenomenauts, hailing from Earth's capital (Oakland, of course) and saving the world in the name of science and honor with their patented brand of commando-style "rocket roll." Their live shows are full-blown invasions complete with crowd-enveloping fog, giant balloons decorated like the earth, and the Streamerator 2000 (a leaf blower modified to shoot streams of cosmic Cottonelle into the crowd), and their brand of psychobilly new wave will have your creepers launching into hyperdrive. If you're lucky, you may even catch them trekking around the Bay in their "ship," the Phenomabomber (the love child of an old van and the Millennium Falcon), or hanging around their space station, the top secret Command Center.
North Oaklander Jamon Dru is on the crest of the wave of young and talented producers who've emerged from the streets in the wake of hyphy. Hailing from the 50s blocks west of MLK, the 21-year-old phenom began working with rappers B-Rich and Ronald Mack as Ticket Face, only to be discovered circa 2005 by rising star Beeda Weeda, who welcomed Dru into his already producer-heavy Pushing the Beat crew. Dru stepped up accordingly, with five beats on the Homework mixtape (PTB, 2006). Among the standouts were the atmospheric organ-driven title track and the uberhyphy "Wassup"; Dru even provided the beat for Beeda's East Oakland neighborhood anthem "Rollin Murder Twomps." Since then Dru's become a rising star; alongside his many affiliations, he's formed a production team with DJ Fresh and others called the Whole Shabang, trading in a studio in his grandma's garage (where not even the most badass MCs were allowed to toke) for swanker digs in the Hieroglyphics compound. Look for tracks by Dru in the near future on releases by NEW Oakland and J-Stalin's Livewire crew.
It isn't the only bar in the city that sports a cool vintage neon sign and an address in a sketchy section of town. What makes the Ha-Ra Club the watering hole of choice for local noir fans and the unofficial bar of the annual Noir City film festival (besides its shadow-filled interior decor, unchanged since 1952) is inimitable regular bartender Carl. A gruff, raffish shot slinger of the old school, Carl is a connoisseur of the hard-boiled detective novel who's always willing and more than able to debate the finer points of the genre. If you can tell J.D. MacDonald from J.R. MacDonald and make comments like "But Matt Scudder was so much more fun before he stopped drinking," you're destined for an evening out of the pages of Craig Rice - and a morning after out of David Goodis. The fedora-to-fishnet ratio here may be a little high, but there's a good chance your femme fatale may stroll in out of the fog at any moment, looking for a stiff drink and a little scandal.
875 Geary, SF. (415) 673-3148
BEST SONGBIRDS BITTERSWEET AND BRIGHT
How can something so winsome deliver such a wallop? We ponder the power of Finches vocalist Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs's high and lonesome, effortless soprano; her voice breezes by like a gentle June gust, caressing your cheek before wending onward, tugging you toward glowing fields and a dusty open road. The seeds of some ineffably homespun yet spring-fresh element are embedded in the songs of Pennypacker Riggs and guitarist-vocalist Aaron Victor Morgan, and they're scattered all over the duo's first album, Human like a Horse (Dulc-I-Tone). Could it be the Finches' easy, instantly lovable classicism that has us pressing Repeat? Tracks like "Last Favor" dig into our noggins with an almost Shins-like one-two poke, smoothing together bittersweet melancholy and brightly pop melodicism: "Once I saw you on some corner. I tried to say hello. Hello, hello, hello. It's been an awful long time and now it shows." Say hello, then, to the Finches.
BEST POST-MOHAWK THREE-CHORD THROWDOWN
While the rest of the city lies comatose after a weekend of partying, Monday nights thrash and shout at the Hemlock Tavern, where the cream of the punk scene packs the joint for the Punk Rock Sideshow. DJs Tragic and the Duchess of Hazard spin slabs of outrage louder, shorter, and faster for an enthusiastic, heavily tattooed crowd that tosses back pints of PBR in less time than it takes the Circle Jerks to get through "Red Tape." Throw in grainy skate and rock videos projected on the Hemlock's walls, a bevy of legendary musical rebels from San Francisco's past, and the occasional band kicking off festivities with an earsplitting three-chord set in the back room, and you have the best way to start the week since the bastards knocked down that legendary ruckus room the I-Beam.
1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923, www.myspace.com/punkrocksideshow
You've heard their infectious rhythms at Carnaval or danced a wild samba with them at the San Francisco Pride Parade. Perhaps you've admired their dazzlingly loose-limbed, festively costumed talents at any one of a number of annual San Francisco events and fundraisers. Since 1994 the participants of the community-based youth development cultural program Loco Bloco have been entertaining crowds with vibrant ethnic dance and music performances. Started by artists and activists of color and spearheaded by executive director Aleks Zavaleta, Loco Bloco aims to reintroduce the young people of the Mission to their African, Latin, and indigenous cultural roots and has provided thousands of low-income kids with free dance, music, and theater instruction. These multiethnic young people then get to show off their new skills at local fairs and festivals and on stages around the world. With programs in 20 schools serving more than 3,000 students, Loco Bloco's building an army of vital talent and empowering youths to take it to the streets in a positive way.
Some ships know how to glide in and commandeer a music fest. Exhibit A: Wooden Shjips at this year's South by Southwest, blowing minds and getting Rolling Stone worked up into a frantic, photo-snapping lather with raging psych-fugues and a perpetual guitar boogie machine. Led by guitarist Ripley Johnson, these fellas (along with local sensation Comets on Fire) are bringing sexy guitar solos back, big-time, for listeners who have long eschewed Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. Theirs aren't quite the unquestioned, inevitable jams of yore. Like others of their earache generation, Wooden Shjips were touched by the sharp, urban clamor of first-wave punk and hardcore; indoctrinated in the junkie garage toolshed of Velvet Underground and Nuggets; and then bruised in the mosh pit of Dead Moon and Mudhoney. Solos are undertaken less for posturing effect than to create a space for shrooming experimentation. Hey, that's just the way we like it - and we're not alone, judging from the cult of popularity that's bloomed around the group. Shjips, ahoy.
Is it too early to submit Kid 606, a.k.a. Miguel Depedro, for Living National Treasure status - or at the very least an Only in Oakland laurel? The top headline on the Web site of his Tigerbeat6 label reads, "Summer of haterZ," but you won't find any loathing here - just the utmost respect for the unassuming yet internationally revered fire starter, whose point of origin is Caracas, Venezuela. He slips quietly through local scenester crowds despite the fact that he's played an instrumental role in hammering out a new genre via hard drive. More often than not, there are no bandmates for this glitch rocker to hide behind - simply the sheer shit-stirring will to trouble technocrats, upset metalists, pique punkers, irk IDM-ites, and blast open the digitized reaches of noise. An impassioned supporter of sonic mayhem makers the world over, Depedro need only point to his imprint's edge-skating lineup - which includes DAT Politics, Drop the Lime, DJ /rupture, the Soft Pink Truth, Indian Jewelry, Clipd Beaks, and Eats Tapes - to send us hurtling toward electronic music's future. Laptop apocalypse - now!
BEST FEATHER-HEAVY FEMME FOLKIE
Nurtured 'neath the wing of Brightblack Morning Light and brought along by Nevada City's Grass Roots Record Co., singer-songwriter Mariee Sioux has sparked more than her share of excited talk and outright raves - extraordinary for such a shy and retiring creature with nary an album to her name. But mesmerizing numbers such as "Buried in Teeth," off her first self-released EP, A Bundled Bundle of Bundles, were enough to convince connoisseurs of softly layered dulcet vocals, the sort of intimate lyrics that one usually sings only to oneself, and lightly droning acoustic fingerpicking. Despite her coy protests, Sioux is no shrinking violet of a girl singer, cowering beneath her feather. As the vogue for American Indian iconography continues, we're relieved to find sincere emotions - and a blood-deep connection - behind Sioux's support of Native flute player and drummer Gentle Thunder, who appears on her full-length debut, Faces in the Rocks (Grass Roots Record). Expect it as summer ripens into fall.
BEST INSTRUMENTS OF TOTAL CONSTRUCTION
The Due Capi - a horn of angular chrome microwave pipes fitted onto a solid black column, its convolutions ending in two saxophone mouthpieces - looks like it should be played by aliens. The symmetrical hanging glass rods, gleaming wood, and huge scale of the Crystal Harp were obviously designed with angels in mind. The minimalist, triangular, stringed Crawdad could perhaps start playing itself at any moment. Oliver DiCicco has called his work "homemade instruments constructed from what's been discarded from industry," which doesn't begin to describe their beautifully finished, sculptural quality - or their inspired weirdness. These aren't just art pieces; a Grammy-nominated sound engineer, DiCicco designs each instrument to be played. And they're not just theoretical: DiCicco's performance group, Mobius Operandi, plays the art gallery circuit, weaving its clanks, boings, shrieks, droning rhythms, and complex harmonics into songs with a pop-folk sensibility and a sense of mystery.
www.mobiusmusic.com/instruments.html
Classic films and parties in parks: they're a two-for-one summer fun combo as perfectly matched as Pepsi and popcorn, Rasinettes and root beer. Several regular outdoor movie nights have sprung up recently, keeping San Francisco's not-so-balmy evenings crackling and popping with the echoing sounds of adventure and the communal gasps of silver-screened awe that only these kinds of events can inspire. Alamo Square, Duboce Park, South Beach, North Beach, and many green spots in between all have charming open-air celluloid to-dos, but our hearts belong to the biggest and best: Dolores Park Movie Night. We love sitting with our pooches and several hundred wisecracking hipsters on the dusky grass, letting the bright lights of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or Dial M for Murder wash over us, and sharing a blanket and bottle of wine with our fellow spellbound. Chief organizer Robert Sean Doyle and his crew have built this event into a community ritual - perhaps one even bigger than they bargained for, as the large crowds in attendance so far this summer attest. So please follow their advice and don't spill the beans about this magical event. It'll just be our little secret, 'kay?
BEST POETRY SLAM PLUS PIG HEARTS
A few months back, Tourettes Without Regrets host Jamie DeWolf Kennedy went AWOL. Rumor was he'd gotten in a fight with a pig heart vendor, who didn't appreciate Kennedy throwing his wares at the Tourettes crowd. Kennedy volleyed back a few choice words, things escalated, and he landed in lockup. Kennedy was really at a poetry slam across town, but the truth and the rumor made equal sense. Part poetry slam, part freestyle battle, part variety show (comedy, music, acrobatics, and punk rock antics), Tourettes Without Regrets - which takes place every first Thursday of the month, usually at the Oakland Metro - is the kind of performance night at which a lucky audience member might receive a roll of quarters and be encouraged to try to "fill up a shot glass" at a nearby peep show. Yet beyond such somewhat-sophomoric stunts, the stunning technique of the spoken word poets who take the stage somehow rises to the top, pig hearts or no.
www.myspace.com/touretteswithoutregrets
One of the sweetest venues at the annual San Francisco Pride Celebration is the country-western dance stage. It's always packed with boys and girls of all shapes and colors getting their big ol' gay two-step on in hot, hot fitted Wranglers and exotic Tony Lamas. That scene might strike some as intimidating, but even if you aren't fluent in the language of line dancing, you don't have to settle for standing on the sidelines, daydreaming of grabbing one of those gorgeous broncos by the belt buckle and taking a twirl on the dance floor. For a mere $5, you can join queers of all sexual preferences, including (gasp!) straight ones, in learning and practicing some fancy footwork at the Sundance Saloon. Just mosey on down to 550 Barneveld any Sunday or Thursday evening for two floors of foot-stomping music and whooping yee-haws. Arrive early for beginners' lessons, which cover enough of the basics to stop you from treading on your partners' snakeskin toes.
BEST CANDY-COLORED AFTER-HOURS
By day it's an innocuous industrial gallery-slash-studio space. But on the occasional evening, Gingerbread Warehouse turns into the best-kept (until now) after-hours secret in the city - an all-night thumping house party. When the rest of the city grinds to a slow, creaking halt around 1:45 a.m. but you've still got energy to burn, hop in a cab and hightail it to this underground fave rave (also known as Danzhaus), where the bash often rages till daybreak. Inside, orange-hued walls meet smooth hardwood floors dotted with roomy red leather booths, creating a look reminiscent of Barbarella. Forget the sleek, overdone glamour of Ruby Skye and 1015 and check your fashionista 'tude at the door - no Motorola-pimping rope thugs or vapid VIP guest lists regulate the late-night get-downs here. We wish we could tell you more, but you'll just have to keep your ear to the ground for the scoop.
1275 Connecticut, SF. www.danzhaus.com
BEST QUEER HARRY POTTER DRAG SHOW
You know you're not the only one to have breathlessly read each of J.K. Rowling's seven best-sellers all the while casting some chosen hoyden as the lead in your head - perhaps a hot bespectacled drag king, backed by a rawkus group of wizardly-accoutred and equally gender-bending sorts? Well, we lived the dream when we witnessed Hogwarts Express: The Musical!, a singin', dancin' Harry Potter tribute show put on by the Transformers, a heavenly queer performance troupe. There was much more than mere hocus-pocus being cast from the wand of this campy musical, lip-synched to a scandalously hyperpop repertoire of Liz Phair, Bette Midler, and Olivia Newton-John songs. The plot: students at Hogwarts are spotted astride Quidditch brooms with classmates of the same sex. Soon a Gay-Straight Alliance is formed in the halls of academe, and the freshly out Potter must learn valuable lessons about love, life, and lust-filled legerdemain. Miss its two-night stint in the LGBT Center's Rainbow Room and wonder if another run of Hogwarts Express will choo-choo into town? It will, but you have to believe in magic.
www.myspace.com/hogwartsexpressdrag
BEST VENUE FOR ONE-HIT WONDERS
What does Vanilla Ice do when the bat mitzvah gigs aren't rolling in? He gets himself booked at the Red Devil Lounge on Polk Street, which has cornered the market on bands you think you might have seen on SNL that one time when you were 14. In the course of a single month this summer, Red Devil featured the aforementioned hero-not-zero, goof rapper Biz Markie, and Darren Hayes of Aussie "chic-a-cherry-cola" act Savage Garden (you haven't heard him till you've heard his solo work, apparently). It's tough to tell whether all this is for novelty's sake or due to some promoter's exquisitely weird taste. But decade-old Red Devil is actually an appealing space for a show, with a red and black gothic decor lit by filigreed chandeliers. If, that is, you're up for another go-round of "Rapper's Delight." Sugarhill Gang's coming in September - mark those calendars.
1695 Polk, SF. (415) 921-1695, www.reddevillounge.com
BEST TOUGH LOVE FROM THE TALK-BACK MIC
Often called cable jockies, knob twiddlers, and the ever-popular "Hey, could I get more bass in my monitor?" sound technicians are the frequently neglected yet in-demand powerhouses of San Francisco's music scene. We all owe a debt of gratitude to the first ones in and last ones out, and choosing the best would be impossible - but choosing the toughest is another matter entirely. Though she's toured with LCD Soundsystem, the Dresden Dolls, the Cramps, Arab Strap, and even Nada Surf, she earned her nickname for her no-nonsense approach to getting bands on- and offstage at local clubs. From the Bottom of the Hill to the Great American Music Hall, Kim "Tough Love" Griess doesn't mess around. When she's behind the front-of-house console, you know it's gonna sound right, and when she drives the monitors, you know the band is going to be well equipped to bring the rock.
Technically, you can squeeze your way into the Black Horse London Pub, but it will help if the folks inside skipped lunch. The Brit-styled flyspeck of a watering hole has turned slenderness into a design scheme and a PR coup, spinning its grand total of about six seats as a way to get people talking. (Yep, we fell for it.) If the pub were even two seats bigger, it would be annoyingly small, but with its comical dimensions it can only charm. Amiable regular barkeep Chris spots any newbies and asks for introductions, which are then made around the room. The brew-versed peeps inside are usually as interested in your taste in beer as they are in your life story (though don't expect the former to matter much: the bar's list hovers around a carefully edited five, including one cask ale). Odds are you'll get stuck in at least one annoying conversation, but there's an equal chance you'll be bailed out by one of your new mates.
1514 Union, SF. (415) 928-2414, www.sfblackhorsepub.com
To call something perfect is to give it an impossible stigma. To call San Francisco's multiple Grammy Award-winning men's chorus Chanticleer anything less is insanity. The constantly touring group, celebrating its 30th anniversary next year, has a repertoire that spans 10 centuries, more than 20 recordings to its credit, and one hell of an agenda when it comes to music education. Chanticleer's 12 members dedicate their time and talents to educational residencies, composer competitions, and an annual youth choral festival, and they even founded a music outreach program for Bay Area kids. Guiding the best voices in the world requires a considerable measure of fearlessness, and indeed, the innovative and iconic musical director, Joseph Jennings (who also directs the Golden Gate Men's Chorus, phew!), is up for any challenge. Though Chanticleer is one of the few ensembles in the world capable of performing so-called early music, this is no stuffy church choir. From jazz performances to a multimedia piece in a SoMa gallery, they stretch their limits as far as their larynxes.
Disparage the gaudy, reflective edifice of the downtown Marriott all you want. Call it the giant jukebox, the mighty Wurlitzer, the Flashy Gordon. You may well change your tune when you exit the elevator on the 39th floor and catch a glimpse of San Francisco through the curvilinear bow of the great arched windows whose very ostentatiousness has perhaps caused many a pained wince as you've passed below. From this upper vantage point, however - safely ensconced in the appropriately named View Lounge, with the city unfurling before you like the magic carpet of possibility it is - you'll wince no more. The windows are a full three stories of cathedral grace, the views (almost 360 degrees' worth) are grand in scope, and unlike at other rooftop bars in San Francisco, there's no cover charge. For cheapskates like us, that means moola for one more delectably poured martini, plus complementary vertigo and delusions of high-flying grandeur.
55 Fourth St., SF. (415) 896-1600, www.marriott.com
BEST BREWS, FOOS, AND VINDALOOS
There's so much going on at Kennedy's Irish Pub and Curry House that it's crazy - not crazy like Britney crazy, but crazy in a way we love. The theme of this strange hodgepodge of an establishment exists somewhere at the intersection of Blarney Stone brew pub, college dorm rec center, abandoned mail room, and Indian-Pakistani restaurant - a place where truth may be stranger than fiction. At least until you down your second $7 pitcher of Pabst and tuck into a heaping helping of aloo tikka. Then the swirling elements around you begin to make delicious sense - the defunct post office boxes lining the walls, the shrine to Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia, and Hunter S. Thompson near the foosball table, the patrons smoking hookahs on the patio, the stuffed Cat in the Hat doll hanging next to the Seattle Seahawks helmet. If only the whole world could, like a glass of cold Kriek Lambic and plate of spicy baigan bharatha at Kennedy's, get along so well.
1040 Columbus, SF. (415) 441-8855, www.kennedyscurry.com
Does the idea of grasping the hot-blooded object of your lust by the waist, pulling him or her to your chest with uncontrollable passion, then dramatically dipping him or her to the ground in front of rabid shoppers, silver-painted performance artists, and the Levi's building raise your temperature? Then head to Union Square the first Sunday of every month in summer to do a little dance and make a little love. There the Bay Area Argentine Tango Association offers free lessons in the sizzling Argentine art of sex on heels. Presented by the "Jewel of the Square" series, BAATA's free event offers instruction in milonga, tango, and vals, a.k.a. the tango waltz. After the instructional portion, the event enticingly includes "boombox milonga and DJ dancing until the batteries run out." Budding tangueros may also want to become members of BAATA and take more advanced classes to heat up cold winter nights. The association's Web site will keep you up on the hip-swirling local haps all year long.
BEST SURROUND-SOUND ELECTRONICA FIX
As many electronic and experimental musicians will attest, a bar is often a shitty venue to play in if you aren't in a rock band (the particularly awkward blind date of laptop-noise musician Pita and a Mezzanine crowd comes to mind), while typically cavernous warehouse spaces often lack a proper PA. Asphodel Records impresario Naut Human clearly understands this, having moved his former Hunters Point studio-performance space the Compound to a deluxe SoMa spread in 2003. As its name hints, Recombinant Media Labs is a flexible black-box environment that houses a high-definition multichannel audiovisual system, which is known as Surround Traffic Control. The 360-degree surround environment (with speakers embedded in the floor) has been put to dramatic use by artists as diverse as Finnish brut techno duo Pan Sonic, sine-wave bender and zeros-and-ones fetishist Ryoji Ikeda, and the godfather of cocktail hour musique concrète himself, Jean-Jacques Perrey.
763 Brannan, SF. (650) 255-8947, www.recombinantmedia.net
BEST N-CHA, N-CHA, N-CHA, N-CHA
Following the lead of Berlin's massive technobeats extravaganza the Love Parade, the electronic music promoters and DJs of San Francisco in 2005 organized their own version of the event, and it became an instant hit, drawing tens of thousands of nouveau ravers into the streets for a wacky DIY parade followed by an enormous, hazy-fantayzie dance party. The original Love Parade took back the name (but not its support) the next year, and the local event danced on to even greater acclaim as SF LoveFest, filling Civic Center Plaza with shroomy-energetic thumps and Red Bull-stained permasmiles. The superballyhooed, multistage outdoor rave will return Sept. 29 to the same Civic Center headquarters, spawning dozens of auxiliary parties and mucho underground mayhem and featuring some of the world's biggest names in electronic music. If the "... n-cha, n-cha, n-cha, n-cha ..." is your bag or you just like to watch hot dancers in fun fur and kinky boots let it all hang out, thrown on your baggiest pants and a whistle or three and head down.
The ukulele has cast its slightly ominous spell over many a non-Hawaiian performer. Marilyn Monroe and Shirley Temple were accomplished players. Jon Brion has been known to perform a ukulele version of Thin Lizzy's anthemic "The Boys Are Back in Town." And who could forget Tiny Tim? Not us. So it was no surprise that local punk rockers the Doormats came back from a holiday in Hawaii with a burning desire for all things uke. After stumbling on some sheet music, the band found that much of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon sounded absolutely killer when played on the little stringed gizmo. Following in the footsteps of fabulous local tribute act the Ukulele Apocalypse ("Purple Rain: When Ukes Cry" and "Uke-y Stardust"), the freshly remonikered Tatamimats debuted Dark Side of the Uke this year onstage at the Knockout, replete with myriad ukuleles of various size and pitch, a RISA electronic soprano uke (no doubt to amplify the sonic psychedelia), and a drum, bass, and lap-steel rhythm section. The boys really went the distance, even incorporating fog machines and a light show. Uke on, you crazy diamonds.
He single-handedly launched the current vogue of retro underground bathhouse disco. He just celebrated 11 years of leading the raucous Mikes on Bikes contingent in the SF Pride Parade. He brought an odd combination of '70s homoerotic sleaze and pop-and-lock, early '80s Manhattan dance floor moves to the clubs with his wildly popular Rod and Double Dutch Disco parties. And now ... he's homeless. Well, not quite: after his house burned down earlier this year, a series of benefits hosted by grateful and sympathetic well-wishers has helped put up DJ Bus Station John in several sublets and motels while he continues to dazzle us with his aural antics. Luckily, the fire only damaged part of his vintage record collection, and thanks to community support, he's building back his vinyl powerhouse. This long-whiskered, oft-curmudgeonly, nostalgia-drenched character may have a hide of Teflon, but nothing can quench the fire in his disco-driven soul.
BEST PLACE TO PARTY WITH A BIG HAIRY GUY WHO WON'T ASK FOR YOUR NUMBER
Don't get us wrong; Sasquatch is one sexy beast - a tall, dark, chiseled misanthrope who's eluded our advances for decades. And you know what they say about big feet. Big socks. But sometimes you just want to wash down $3 whiskeys with $2 Pabsts at a log cabin-inspired bar without being hassled for your digits. The Bigfoot Lodge offers more than just the thrill of being in the presence of a mute 10-foot statue of its namesake; it presents patrons with extremely cheap drink specials, custom cutesy cocktails like the Dudley Do-Right (Canadian Club, Amaretto, and cranberry juice) and the Toasted Marshmallow (vanilla vodka, butterscotch liqueur, Frangelico, and Bailey's Irish Cream), various faux stuffed animal heads mounted on the wall (including that other elusive creature the jackalope), and what's known as the iPod Challenge. Every Wednesday hopefuls plug their iPods into the sound system. If their musical tastes appease the masses for 20 minutes, they win a free drink. Easier said than done, fuzzy friends.
1750 Polk, SF. (415) 440-2355, www.bigfootlodge.com
