Moanalani Jeffrey

Janelle Monae with the San Francisco Symphony last night. All photos © Moanalani Jeffrey.

Janelle Monáe and her Androids with the San Francisco Symphony
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Louise M. Davies Hall

Better than: Monáe's last wonderful performance in SF at the 2012 Black and White Ball

Last night at Davies Hall, Janelle Monáe pretty much wore the same thing she always wears on stage. Fortunately, Monáe always wears a black or white suit and tie -- a uniform in tribute to her parents' jobs as janitor and garbage collector -- and this time she was resplendent in a black tux. (So were many of the men in the hall, in deference to the "creative black tie" dress code of the San Francisco Symphony's Spring Gala.) Her patented pompadour hairstyle was given an elegant, sideswept remix, and her eyes sparkled like the diamonds in her ears.

Ushered up by the San Francisco Symphony performing John Barry's "Black Hole Theme," she used her microphone stand as a baton and gun to emphasize the points in the song "Sincerely, Jane," topping off the track with a little moonwalk. She then started singing a languid version of Charlie Chaplin's "Smile." Since this melancholy tune is long known to have been Michael Jackson's favorite, there was a sense that she was building up a tribute to the Gloved One. But it still took everyone by surprise when she asked, "Now are you guys really ready to jam?" -- and began a huge rendition of the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back."

See Also:
* All Shook Down: Janelle Monáe

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"I've had my moments where I've left my phone in a cab. But I could care less about that," says a distraught San Francisco record collector. A bag of rare old Jamaican 45s, though? Those he wants back -- and he's willing to pay dearly for them.

We learned of the man, whom we'll call "Desmond," through an ad he placed in this and other papers last week, offering a no-questions-asked $1,000 reward for the return of his record bag. It holds rare, late-'60s singles performed and/or produced by Derrick Harriott, Keith and Tex, The Gay Lads, or Coxsone Dodd -- singles Desmond had just come from spinning on Radio Valencia when he left the bag in a cab.

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Dear Phil Anselmo,

Why must you persist with trying to make music? Let's just get one thing straight before we get to talking about your new single, "Usurper's Bastard Rant" (actual title) -- Pantera was awesome. Pantera is awesome. Pantera makes us want to get up out of our seats and head bang like it's still 1992.


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Wendy Goodfriend/KQED

Lyrics Born (right) makes a toast on Check, Please!

Rapper Lyrics Born is one of the amateur restaurant reviewers on the latest episode of KQED's Check, Please! The station's food blog Bay Area Bites reports that Lyrics Born (aka Tom Shimura) and two other local residents discuss Chinese spot Hunan Home's Restaurant, the locally sourced food at Radius, and Berkeley pop-up haven Guerilla Cafe. Each guest visited all three restaurants and will present their honest opinions. No word on whether Lyrics Born will offer his in rhyme form.

See Also:
* My Tunes: Lyrics Born

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Dirtybird plays at Mezzanine on Friday.

There's a certain euphoria that comes with Thursday morning. It's all about anticipation: with the bulk of the week lalready handled, the mind begins to wander towards the leisure potential of Friday and Saturday. Trust us when we say, we know that feeling. So to assist you in your workday daydreaming, we assembled this handy list of parties (with, wouldn't you know it, a Thursday night event). So, read on -- your weekend awaits.

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With the late great DJ Roc Raida as his mentor, it's no wonder Harlem-based DJ Boogie Blind is known around the world for his exceptional scratching, beat-juggling, and DJ battle skills. After winning the 2001 Vestax battle, he was asked to join legendary DJ collective The X-ecutioners on the road, taking on many roles, including soundman and manager. Six years later, he officially became a member. These days, he acts as DJ for Lord Finesse and Pharoahe Monch, and tours around the world showcasing his talents on the turntable. We recently spoke with Boogie Blind about his time with The X-ectuioners and how to measure DJ skills today. He headlines 45 Sessions this Friday at the Legionnaire Saloon in Oakland.

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Now Chipotle's throwing a music festival.

Well, it's not a music festival, exactly; more like one an awkward mix of a music/food/drinking/corporate indoctrination event. Seriously, they're calling it a "food, ideas, and music festival." (Notice "music" in last place there.) So the primary goal of the event, coming to Golden Gate Park on June 8, is to get you to try new Chipotle dishes and feel good about this restaurant you (or, okay, us) eat at way too often. To make this proposition more attractive, the company has booked musicians like Mayer Hawthorne and the Walkmen to play live. They'll doubtless be giving impassioned, singular performances, since everyone at a Chipotle festival will care deeply about them, and will be paying extremely close attention.

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Meet Justin Loans -- known to his mother as Justin Flores, and to the Internet as one-half of smooth-rapping Oakland goofballs RnB Millionaires. The Millionaires churned out a handful of tracks from their West Oakland lab in recent years, but nothing with any serious shelf life. They've been working hard, though; Justin Loans' first solo effort, the How To Fake It In America EP, is out today.

This marks the first official release from the flock of professional roving partiers known as Trill Team 6 -- if you've "expressed yourself" in the warehouses of West Oakland or haunted some of SOMA's underground rap clubs, you might have heard of 'em. The loosely associated group of DJs and their cohorts (which includes Oakland hip-hop mainstay Willie Maze) has contentedly spent the last few years throwing parties like Sick Sad World and rallying friends and family to get fucked up together. Flores' work takes this ethos and runs in a whole new direction.

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Tomorrow, Wednesday, May 15, Google's annual I/O conference kicks off at the Moscone Center here in San Francisco. And according to tech site the Verge, the Internet giant will use the occasion to announce a new streaming music service designed to compete with Spotify and Rdio.

Why a music subscription service? Because Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody, Pandora, and whatever Beats/MOG is working on apparently aren't enough. Hey, Apple is developing one, too. It's the fashion these days.

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Ava Mendoza demonstrates the all-important whammy bar.

How do electric guitars work, anyway? Why do they all look and sound so different? What do those switches and knobs even do?

If you've ever wondered about these and other mysteries regarding the electric guitar, a new video from the Exploratorium has you covered. This latest installment of the newly relocated museum's Science in the City series gets local axe-wielders Ava Mendoza, Henry Kaiser, and legendary guitar shop owner Fat Dog to investigate -- and demonstrate -- the many different factors that go into electric guitars sounding like they do. And what a fun investigation it is. Even if you understand how the instruments work (hint: it's pretty simple), there are enough killer licks in this clip to make it well worth watching. Check it out:

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