San Francisco Music Blog

San Francisco is a town of celebrations. On any given night, people will be out regaling someone's first day at a job, last day at a job, engagement, breakup, birthday or even San Franniversary. This city just lends itself well to fêtes. And next week, it will be a stop on a multi-city birthday tour led by Mindshare's Doug Campbell and The Cosmopolitan's Sloane Berrent.

Photo via bunchofpants

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​One of the greatest things about San Francisco is its thriving independent music scene. Catching a concert at small, intimate venues such as Café du Nord or Bottom of the Hill is the best way to spend $10 to pair your Poppy Jasper (the tastiest Amber around) with great music. And with discovery tools like San Francisco-based Pandora or Last.fm, it's getting harder to keep track of when all of your favorites are coming to town.

Enter Sonicliving, and it instantly becomes a snap.

Other tools have tried - think iLike local concert listings or even Ticketmaster artist alerts - but none have succeeded to create a seamless, simple interface that alerts you when your favorite bands come to play.  Except for Sonicliving, that is, a self-deemed free "concert discovery" service that connects communities of music fans both online and in-person at shows. Simply create your Wishlist - you can have the system scan your iTunes and choose which bands you'd like to stay informed about - and next time a concert is announced, you'll get an email notifying you of the show, usually BEFORE tickets go on sale.  Once they're on sale, you can buy them directly from a link on the site. And as your music tastes evolve, the system can automatically add those bands that you're listening to by linking to your Last.fm account.

​SF-based startup Twitter is the breakout web service of the past few years. And people everywhere - from celebs to us common folk - are jumping on this bandwagon, not only using the service but also creating apps that take advantage of their platform. Many apps utilize iPhones and Blackberries to help people stay in touch on the go; others are either web-based or desktop clients that can run in the background so you can get your Twitter fix when you've got a few minutes in between meetings. Yet of the hundreds (thousands?) that exist, one notable newcomer is the web-based Twitter application, Brizzly.

Founded by Jason Shellen, who also worked with Twitter founders Ev Williams and Biz Stone while at Google on Blogger, the team has done their homework to create a smart, nimble, and FAST web-based app that's been deemed all the rage by its beta testers (myself included.) Why did I make the switch, and why should you? Namely, its features, many of which are unparalleled in the space. Some of  these include:

• Expanded links: No longer do you need to click on that unknown bit.ly link to find out that you're being Rickrolled (or whatever annoying meme has now replaced it.) Brizzly will show you the actual URL so you can decide whether to click or end up with a roomful of your coworkers calling you 'that guy'. Again.
• Inline pictures, videos & maps: Another feature ​helping transparency within Twitter, photos linked from Twitpic, Flickr and yFrog are displayed inline. Similar for Vimeo and YouTube videos, and you can even play them direct from the interface. Google Maps also display in-line, which makes your decision on whether to attend that happy hour or not a breeze. For once, your laziness is rewarded.
• Trends and News: My favorite of the features, there is a small box in the right corner that explains why a topic is trending. And if there isn't an explanation, you can even submit one...don't worry, they're edited by the Brizzly team but are still cheekily irreverent at times. The best one I've seen so far was for Taylor Swift. The explanation? "Kanye West doesn't like her." Brilliant.
• Muting: Annoyed at your friend's play-by-play of the latest conference or overzealous love for the Patriots? Simply mute them. They'll never know - you're still following them - but their Tweets are removed from your stream in Brizzly. You can always re-enable them when they get some self-awareness and root for a less obnoxious football team.

Other features include an easy direct messaging system that works similar to IMs, the ability to create groups, and you can even upload photos directly and link from Brizzly. Oh, and if Japanese is more your language, you can easily say "Konnichiwa" since besides English, they also support French, Japanese, German and Brazilian Portugese.

This is arguably - or if you read recent press on Brizzly, not-so-arguably - the best web-based Twitter application out there. And until Twitter launches some of these user-requested features, it's worth making the switch.

But don't let me have all the fun; I'm putting my money where my mouth is. The first fifty of you to click this link will get to try out Brizzly yourselves. We'd love to hear what you think.

Satanic Killer? Syko Sam aka LilDemonDog

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New revelations have come to light in the case of "Skyo Sam" McCroskey, the 20 year-old Castro Valley wanna-be rapper, graphic designer, and alleged Santanic cultist, accused of murdering four people in Virginia last week, including his girlfriend, her best friend and her parents, a professor and a priest.

Virginia law enforcement authorities have determined the four were killed by blunt force trauma. News reports have also described McCrosky's seemingly calm behavior in the immediate aftermath of the murders; despite encountering law enforcement officers on two occasions, once at the victim's house, and once while driving a car belonging to one of the victims, McCroskey was not arrested until after the bodies were discovered, a day later.

A truck driver who gave McCroskey a ride and made small talk with him after the murders described the youth as having an odor consistent with rotting flesh. "He stunk like the devil," the driver told the Associated Press.

Despite reports that he was bullied, McCroskey's sister has described him as "a quiet kid who got along with everybody." Before deciding to become a horrorcore rapper a few months ago, McCroskey apparently spent large amounts of time in his room, playing violent video games and listing to heavy metal and horrorcore music. His alter-ego, Syko Sam, made numerous references in his music to "evil" voices in his head advising him to "murder continuously" and "take lives on a killing spree." A YouTube video shows McCroskey bragging about defiling graves.

But those aren't the most disturbing details to emerge in this macabre case. According to Paul Calcagno, McCroskey was part of a Satanic cult who engaged in ritual music videos and idolized David Berkowitz, the 1970s NYC serial killer who called himself "the Son of Sam." Calcagno is the author of a blog in which he describes meeting Syko Sam in 2006: "As a result of my personal experience with Sam and his affiliated "Horror Core" rap artists, I believe that New Mexico Rap Label "Serial Killing Records" is behind the grisly mass murder. Basically, I was an actor in one of their music videos. In the video they killed a priest, a Rabbi, a Muslim Cleric, and the Pope. Sam McCrosky killed a PASTOR IN REAL LIFE (Virginia pastor, Mark Niederbrock. )"

Via Wikimedia Commons

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The premise is simple and frankly - at least to me - unsightly. Brand advertisers pay celebrities (and I use that word VERY lightly, given Ad.ly's current lineup of "publishers") with a lot of Twitter followers to Tweet about their product. Ad.ly serves as the conduit between the two, providing a system where they can contact the celebrities and submit a bid for the Tweets and if approved, the celebrity is  compensated nicely. VERY nicely...reports say that users with over one million followers receive payments in the five figures. TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS to say you like a Double-Double? Thanks, Internets, for taking us to a new low.

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Whose idea was the Social Blade Show? How did that get started? (And for the digg n00bs in the house, where did the name come from?)

JD: Patrick Parise wanted to do a show. We talked about it and decided that the best niche for our "skills and opinions" was social media. Patricks' a killer Digg user three times over and I dangle my own wares on Digg, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon - basically anywhere that people listen (or at least pretend to listen) to what we have to offer.

The name was one that Urgo and I came up with almost two years ago. The idea is that the site "slices through" the data flowing through the front pages of social news sites. Digg is the primary (well, only) site that it focuses on for now, but I'm sure it will eventually cover every social media site in existence. There's three or four, last time I checked.

Is the show too inside-baseball? Will a regular Joe who diggs or stumbles the occasional story and uses facebook now and then feel lost watching it?
 
JD: The show definitely caters to the heavy users of social media, but the topics can have a general appeal. Viewers who know nothing about social media other than "I've heard of that tweeter and facespace thing, but I don't know much about them" will still be able to benefit from the "insider knowledge" they can gain. We don't discuss advanced strategies or topics, as those discussions are saved for those of us in the "Evil Social Media Power User Fraternity." I can't say much beyond that until the FBI investigation is concluded.

On Sunday morning, film director Rob Luketic (The Ugly Truth, 21, Legally Blonde, etc) posted this tweet:

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Comic-Con is over and while some of us are content to weep silently into our Twilight Watchmen pillows, still others look back over the past weekend and think to themselves, "If only I could re-live the beauty and majesty of Comic-Con by reading some sort of interview with DC wunderkind/Blackest Night author Geoff Johns. IF ONLY."

Ta da! Your wish is granted, my geeky, melancholy, lemons-into-lemonade friends. A little over a week ago, SF Weekly had the supreme pleasure of meeting, interviewing, and touching Geoff Johns - and not just in a creepy way. Isotope Comics (326 Fell St San Francisco, CA 94102), James Sime's sweet comic shop in Hayes Valley, hosted a Blackest Night signing party on July 18th complete with Black Lantern Corps rings, specialty Green Lantern themed cocktails, and Geoff Johns himself. Oh, and about 300 of the nicest comic nerds ever. Prior to kicking off the signing, we sat down with Johns and asked him many, many questions about the DC universe, the Green Lantern series, and his feelings about fanboys. Enjoy this interview and never let it be said the SF Weekly doesn't care about you. In fact, consider this a nerdhug from the interwebz. You're welcome.

San Diego's Comic-Con has easily become the pop culture lodestar of this generation and 2009's panel line up will not disappoint the nerd pilgrims who've made the long journey to Southern California's geek mecca.

Below you'll find our list of 10 panels that should not be missed by any self-respecting  Comic-Con attendee. And no, Jerky McJerkpants, "self respecting Comic Con attendee" is not an oxymoron.