by Joseph Geha

Hundreds of people, mostly young Asian women, are lining the sidewalks of Market Street, forming small clusters that weave along the uneven bricks starting in front of the Warfield, and ending at infinity.

They are sitting on unfolded newspapers and chatting with friends, some sipping coffee and tea, others munching on food from boxes on the ground with plastic forks. Others are half asleep, especially those toward the front of the line -- and justifiably so, as they have been there since 7:30 this morning.

Why, you ask?

B.A.P.

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Joe Claussell.

He's one-third of influential New York DJ trio Body & SOUL, he used to own New York's Dancetracks record store, he's one of the most intense DJs to ever stand behind the turntables, and he's a nice guy to boot -- these are just a few of the things you can say about Joaquin "Joe" Claussell. For the past 20 years he's been a constant fixture in the New York underground, working as a kind of mutli-faceted steward for this niche music. And today he does much the same, with a prolific and wide-ranging production output released mostly via his own Sacred Rhythm imprint. We recently caught up with him in anticipation of last week's headlining appearance at Mighty on Friday.

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Ken Taylor

Hosting the bounce of UK bass and the grit of contemporary techno, Icee Hot is one of a handful of parties on the forward edge of San Francisco nightlife. It's been that way since it first started as a project of XLR8R editor Shawn Reynaldo, producer Ghosts on Tape (a.k.a. Ryan Merry), DJ Rollie Fingers (a.k.a. Will Fewell), and Lazer Sword member Low Limit (a.k.a. Bryant Rutledge). Always one step ahead, the party celebrates its third anniversary this weekend and next with a two-part party at Public Works that features Martyn and Jacques Greene on Saturday, Jan. 19, and Basic Soul Unit and Space Dimension Controller on Saturday, Jan. 26. We caught up with the boys behind the party and asked them a few questions in anticipation of their big week ahead.

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Considerations of more a more noble nature aside, it may be that this coming weekend, you'll simply be looking for a little culture in the wake of Halloween (or post-World Series) debauchery. Whatever the case, you'll find it at Davies Symphony Hall on Saturday, where the San Francisco Symphony will host its fifth annual Dia de los Muertos Community Concert.

Yeah, sure, it's "family friendly." Yeah, sure, it takes place during the daytime. But unlike other celebrations of this morbidly joyous Mexican/Catholic holiday, the Symphony offers a concert program of real breadth, featuring collaborations with performing arts institutions from across the Bay Area.

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All pictures by Matt Saincome

A$AP Rocky

A$AP Rocky
Schoolboy Q
Danny Brown
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Fox Theater, Oakland
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Announced this week by SFJAZZ, the lineup for the 30th Anniversary San Francisco Jazz Festival sounds ringingly similar to the lineups of previous San Francisco Jazz Festivals: a combination of jazz legends (Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman), younger innovators (Don Byron, Jacky Terrasson), vocalists (Dianne Reeves, Eliane Elias), and leading exponents of Latin jazz (Arturo Sandoval, Septeto Nacional). It's a stunning group of artists -- one that any jazz organization would be proud to attract, and one that almost any jazz fan would want to see and hear. Yet there are two nagging problems with this lineup. One is the familiarity of the above-described annual formula. The other is that, despite culling admirably from the global spectrum of jazz, the festival devotes hardly any programming to the Bay Area's own vibrant jazz history and current pool of talent.

Outside of Lavay Smith and Mary Stallings (as well as two performances by high school students), there isn't a single artist booked for this year's festival who has a Bay Area association. Where are Wil Blades, Taylor Eigsti, or Denny Zeitlin? All are accomplished musicians with international reputations. All hail from the Bay Area. And those are just a handful of the great keyboard players we have around here.

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Chris Victorio

By Christopher Victorio and Ben Westhoff
We love you, Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas. In fact, here are five reasons why you rule the roost. But my oh my you dance funky. We're not saying we're any better; truth is, we're utterly captivated by you and your awkward ways. Were God to create a third left foot, we know you would utilize it. Here, then, are the top ten awkward EDC Las Vegas dance move GIFs.

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Khalil Shaheed had unflagging dedication as a trumpet player, composer, and jazz educator. I knew him in all three roles. His death on March 23, at age 63, followed a long battle against lung cancer. His absence leaves a hollow space in the Bay Area's jazz scene, and particularly in the world of jazz education.

Originally from Chicago, the forty-plus years Khalil lived in the Bay Area produced a career in which he recorded with Jimi Hendrix and Babatunde Lea, and toured with Buddy Miles and Taj Majal. He founded Oaktown Jazz Workshops in 1994, and worked as an educator for the San Jose Jazz Society and other organizations. Through all of this work, Khalil's aim was to extend the legacy of jazz, draw connections between its disparate styles, and to invest his students with a sense of its history.

When I worked at the San Jose Jazz Society from 1999 to 2005, Khalil was one of many Bay Area musicians who served as a performer, teacher, and clinician for the organization's jazz education programs. These consisted primarily of appearances at schools, a student jazz competition, and a multi-week summer jazz camp. Khalil not only participated, but helped shape the curriculum. Far from being a mere hired hand, he was a committed partner in the organization's programs.

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ESG in its current incarnation

It's 2006, electroclash is on its last legs, and Mezzanine is just three years settled into its locale on Jessie street. The buzzword on everyone's lips is no wave, a rediscovered genre of art music from '80s New York that plays with the form and structure of punk, disco, and hip-hop. Looking to capitalize, Mezzanine books seminal Bronx no wave group Emerald, Sapphire, and Gold (a.k.a. ESG) for its debut San Francisco tour date. One crazy evening later, the venue was set to become the hotspot that we've all grown to know and like. It seems the stuff of fantasy and broad generalization -- and granted, that story was absorbed on a bar stool -- but look back and you'll see that ESG has a certain finesse when it comes to clubs. And now, after 34 years, ESG is calling it quits on a farewell tour that will roll through Mezzanine this Saturday, March 3, its only West Coast stop.

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In visual art, it's called a triptych -- a piece divided into three connected sections or panels. The individual panels could, in theory, stand on their own, but each adds meaning and significance to the other two, creating a single work that is more than the sum of its parts.

We don't have a name for this concept in music, but we should, especially in the new digital landscape, dominated as it is by singles rather than albums. Three songs is the smallest unit of musical arc, of emotional progression, the midpoint between the song and the album. Two songs only creates a straight line from point A to point B; three allows for a curve, for a complete musical thought.

With that said, here are five great rock triptychs. If we missed your favorite, leave it in the comments.

The Beatles: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "With a Little Help From My Friends," and "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)

If you had listened to this for the first time in 1967 (and maybe you did), the crowd noise in the opening seconds of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" would have tipped you off that the Beatles were up to something new, something bold. As the song nears its end and Sir Paul introduces Billy Shears (a.k.a. Ringo), something funny happens -- "With a Little Help from My Friends" emerges not from the customary silence between tracks, but in one fluid motion from the song before it.

Although this technique may be common now, at the time it was essentially revolutionary -- multiple songs could really be part of one larger thought, despite being listed separately. Conceptually, this was a leap.

Moving forward, the Beatles lead us on a continuous journey, rather than hopping from track to track. In "With a Little Help from My Friends," for example, the line "I get high with a little help from my friends" seems a bit odd in what is otherwise a sugar-sweet song, but it works as foreshadowing for the alternate universe ahead in "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."

When "Lucy" ends, we find ourselves firmly entrenched in the Beatles' dream world, which is the profound achievement of this triptych -- it begins by asking us to suspend our disbelief and enjoy a fictional band and ends with us down Sgt. Pepper's rabbit hole.

(Listen here.)

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