San Francisco Music Blog

While the rest of the country attended your run of the mill night clubs and house parties, S.F. did what it does best this weekend, taking a walk on the weird side.

Between the Insane Clown Posse and punk legend Diamond Dave's birthday party on Friday to a "Hat Flash Mob" in Union Square and Dead Prez at the Green Festival After-party on Sunday (with a pitstop in DoLo Park on Saturday) there was so much going on it was hard to put it all together until about our third Bloody Mary this morning.

Well, we've finally sobered up and got it all together, for your reading pleasure.

Hanna Quevedo

Revelers at Diamond Dave's, face-paint optional.

​View more pics in "Party @ Diamond Dave's" by Hanna Quevedo.

Richard Haick

ICP is still going, um, strong

​Read more in "Friday Night: Insane Clown Posse at the Warfield", by Andrew Vontz.

Alexia Tsotsis

Girls and their eye-bling, in Dolores Park

​Click through for the scene in "Magic Hour @ Dolores Park."

One of my favorite KUSF DJs, Irwin Swirnoff (Friday morning's "Sleeves on Hearts" show) has directed a video for one of my favorite Wooden Shjips songs, "Motorbike." The look is hazy, vintage San Francisco, with cool, washed out colors and shots of motorcycle rides around the city.

Death Star Over San Francisco from Mike Horn on Vimeo.

Mike Horn's fantasy of Regan's "Star Wars Strategic Defense Initiative" come to life is beautiful in its simplicity. Iconic space ships and mechanical transport from George Lucas' sci fi classic come to life, hovering over equally iconic San Francisco scenes. They fly over/storm across the bay, Coit Tower, Baker Beach, and our cute little parrots, with only minimal background noise behind them.

Themselves - "Oversleeping" in Utah from anticon. on Vimeo.

Jel and Doseone hit the scenic expanses of Utah for a live Themselves performance--before rolling fields of grain--of their song "Oversleeping."  The song is from the duo's third album, CrownsDown, and features Themselves' signature glitchy hiphop and blink-and-you'll-miss-the-meaning rapid flow of Doseone. The rapper slows just a bit in the chorus, just long enough to impart to fans that's he's stolen his way to the top of the indie heap. 

Beware, San Francisco. The VIP dwelling, bottle service-ordering, loud cell phone-talking douchebags of the world are organizing. They demand a new, politically correct respect from all you snide hipsters out there. And they've made a video (posted on Laughing Squid earlier in the week) to prove it.

San Francisco psych-popsters Sleepy Sun get extra cosmic on their new video, "New Age," a red- and droopy-eyed ballad that opens up into some seriously stony guitar solos. We would expect nothing less from a band that got its original musical and spiritual guidance down in Santa Cruz. 

Funny little spoof on Where the Wild Things Are, stupid vests, vegans, being over it, Los Angeles hipster bars, smoking American Spirits, music snobbery, and much more...

I quote the woman filming this little kid when I ask, "What the hell?" This half-naked tot (hitting the kitchen table to GS Boyz' "Stanky Leg") is a better dancer than most folks you see out at the clubs.

Yes, He Can: Estria

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The fascinating subcultural (and frequently subterranean) world of graffiti art surfaces this week, as the third annual Estria Invitational Battle, organized by Bay Area spraycan art legend Estria (in conjunction with Marc Bamuthi Joseph's Living Word Festival), gets underway. The festivities begin tomorrow with the Can Film Festival, a free event at the 1:AM SF Gallery featuring screenings of the films "Style Wars" and "Bomb It," and an illustrious panel including moderator Jeff Chang, Estria, Suzie Lundy and Kevin Epps. On Friday, Pecha Kucha Night at East Side Arts Alliance in Oakland presents "Don't Sweat the Technique," an exhibition/discussion featuring 10 graffiti artists showing 20 slides, promoting social change. On Saturday, Oakland's deFremery park becomes ground zero for the culminating event, the Estria Invitational Graffiti Battle, bringing together 16 of the nation's top graffiti artists, as well as workshops and a black book battle.

Baller Status: The Jacka

​How dope is Pittsburg rap sensation The Jacka ? His latest album Tear Gas continues to build a ferocious buzz after entering the Billboard Hot 200 at #93. According to his publicist Portia Jackson, the video for his single "Glamorous Lifestyles" (featuring Andre Nickatina) amassed over one million views on worldhiphopstar.com the day of its release (August 21). While the title might conjure visions of opulence and indicate baller-status level mansions, stretch limos, and upscale model chicks, the video is actually somewhat down to earth, with Jacka riding around the streets in a flossy BMW, puffing huge clouds of smoke, wearing a t-shirt (whose inscription reads "kiss my hustlin' ass!") and hollarin' at hoodrats (okay, well-groomed hoodrats). Jacka's sing-songy flow is like candy, and to his credit, he doesn't overpower the song with his vocals -- he whispers more than yells -- allowing his cadence to dominate the proceedings. Watch "Glamorous Lifestyles" in HD on YouTube here.

I've long considered YouTube to be the bargain basement of the social web - a repository for funny kitten videos, egregious spelling errors and hilariously profane insults. Recently, however, I've found myself nervously hovering around the edges of a kind of underground sub-culture found only on the YouTubes - the beauty tutorial culture.
 
Women of all ages are "how to" vlogging (curse that word!) the art of makeup and hair. Some seem to be doing it for fun or as a kind of therapy, others appear to be sponsored (Pursebuzz is linked to BeautyChoice.com) and still others are hawking products in a brave new marketing strategy. (Image Via.)

Image via Tweetcraft

So you've recently defeated a horde of Orcs in the Outland but before catching the next Zeppelin back to Azeroth you'd like to tweet about your battle. Prior to yesterday, your victory tweet would've had to wait until you logged out of World of Warcraft and onto Twitter, thus leaving your elf mage (or whatever) vulnerable to attack.

Lucky for you (nerd) Tweetcraft, a new in-game Twitter client for WoW, is here to help you out in your time of need.

According to the Tweetcraft website, you'll be able to:

* Send/receive Tweets in-game (Immediate sending reloads your UI)
* Queue Tweets to send when it's more convenient for you
* Upload in-game screenshots using TwitPic
* AutoTweet when you log in, enter an instance or get an achievement
* Extensible so that Add On authors can register messages or events to AutoTweet

Imagine the possibilities! No, seriously, you nerds go ahead and imagine the possibilities. I'll be busy, oh I don't know, not living in my mom's basement and not having a virtual relationship with a warrior dwarf healer wizard thing.

Preview video of Tweetcraft behind the cut:

Post-makeover: Netta Brielle

Berkeley's Netta Brielle -- aka MC Netta B -- announced she liked graffiti-writing, skateboarding types on her last video, the Traxamillion-produced "Dirty Boyz."

On her new video, "Inseparable," she flips the script 180 degrees -- donning a black cocktail dress, and delivering a romantic ballad over a sparse piano background. Clearly, Brielle is much more versatile and way more talented than anyone expected. Peep the video here.

 

Video Vanquisher: Azeem

A little while back, I blogged about Oakland MC Azeem's hecka fresh new video, "Latin Revenge." Well, as it turns out, our local hero has another new video, titled "Open 'Em Up," and this one is kinda stupid dope. In fact, it's currently (as of this writing) holding down the top slot at BET.com's Ya Heard, a YouTUBE-like showcase for independent music videos - many of which are way tighter than the crappy ultra-commercial stuff BET airs on its cable TV network.

The competition pits Azeem up against other aspiring emcees Hydro, K-Banger, Lunch (whose video features sex tape and reality TV star Ray-J), and Theory. Online viewers can help maintain the Bay Area's hip-hop supremacy by watching and voting here. or here.

Funkin for free: Del

Taking a cue from President Obama, our own beloved Hiero hero Del the Funky Homosapien  has recorded his own stimulus address. "As we all know, funk is depleting rapidly in America," he says, describing the current musical and cultural crisis affecting this country. "There's a lot of people out here who want to take your funk and use it for their own evil means. For all of you who have been waiting, listening to hip-hop, and been frustrated because of its lack of funk, I'm here to bring the funk back to you." He then outlines a 13-point stimulus plan "guaranteed to restore funk to our government."

Del's stimulus plan, as it turns out, is an upcoming album called Funk Man available for free download on April 9 (at this link). "Keep your money, and come get you some funk for free," Del urges. In other Del-related news, he's been collaborating with Carlos Santana's son Salvador Santana for Santana's second album, available this fall and also featuring Money Mark, and GZA. Del is also embarking on a 31-date spring tour, which will take him all across America, beginning April 8th.

Azeem

For years, we've been following the career of local wordsmith Azeem with interest--and occasional awe. Dude has been killing it for a while with his spoken word-influenced rap style, not to mention his collaborations with DJ Zeph, Wide Hive collective Variable Unit, and his one man theater piece, "Rude Boy."  At this point, Azeem's got to be among the top conscious hip-hop lyricists in the entire Bay Area, if not the entire country.

With the recent release of Azeem's new video, "Latin Revenge," there is no longer any reason to sleep on this talented emcee. Directed by Ben Stokes, the video was created with thousands of still shots and later animated with editing program After Effects. Set in SF's Mission District, the plot goes a little something like this: "Azeem gains popularity as he peruses the streets. Meanwhile a host of local neighborhood characters take notice. The police are enablers and cheerleaders. While physically growing in size, Azeem starts becoming a menace." Along the way, there are also talking tiki heads, cops with beatboxes (even a breakdancing Heather Fong!), mural-painting graffiti-ists, and a homage to "King Kong." Sounds cool, but seeing is believing, right?

EKAphotography

Raashan Ahmad performing with Crown City Rockers

If you've been wondering what the hell happened to real hip-hop, you obviously haven't been listening to Raashan Ahmad. The Crown City Rockers' nimble-tongued frontman's debut solo album, The Push, was one of the best recent examples of contemporary true school hip-hop to come out of the Bay (or anywhere, for that matter) in 2008. Raashan's flow is impeccable, and his topics avoid all the clichéd gangsta posturing and trendy commercialism which has turned the art of storytelling into the business of hustlenomics.

Raashan continues to make a name for himself as a poetic b-boy with a keen sense of history with the "Give Thanks" video. Released just in time for Black History Month, Raa's second vid off The Push (directed by Byron Chan of Beyond Cinema) bigs up "Malcolm [X] and Harriet [Tubman]" as the MC appears in various local locations spouting off on all the reasons he has to be thankful. The backing track's decidedly old-school feel (it's more than a bit reminiscent of something Poor Righteous Teachers could have made) goes well with Raa's suede Pumas and buttery lines like "finding lessons and directions as I step to the streets." Peep the visuals here.

This was the song that was stuck in my head the entire time I waited in line at my polling place, accepted my ballot, and connected the little arrows. At one point I may have started singing out loud a little. It's good to know that from this day forward, every time I hear this song I will think back on what may be the most momentous voting occasion of my lifetime. --Andy Wright

YouTube is an amazing site where you can view some of the most talented creative minds of our time, as well as laugh at the buffoonery of dickheads and morons. The folks at the ultra-popular video sharing community want to translate that experience into a live event aptly titled YouTube LIVE! that features appearances from all your favorite video celebrities like Akon, Soulja Boy, the Mythbusters, Tay Zonday, and a slew of others. This Nov. 22 event is so top-secret you can only get in via invitation at an undisclosed location. More info at YouTube.com. --Oscar Pascual

Hip-Hop Live Tour
Featuring Talib Kweli, David Banner and Little Brother
The Grand Ballroom at the Regency Center
October 2, 2008
Words by Tamara Palmer; Photos by Dmitri Ponce and Tamara Palmer

Better than:The sad display that is offered at the average rap show
Download: Many days in the life of David Banner on Kyte

The Hip-Hop Live Tour achieved a memorable presentation for its second year with Little Brother, David Banner and Talib Kweli as the featured artists. The concept is simple: Find a tight band to back rap headliners more accustomed to having only a DJ on stage. Rhythm Roots All-Stars, a dynamic 10-piece band from Los Angeles, was once again selected for the task, and proved more than worthy for the challenge.

What sweet, old-timey videos California popsters Port O'Brien have made for their songs. "Stuck in a Boat" is shot super-8 style, and features the band jamming in an old house, walking through the woods, and, well, sitting in a boat. "In Vino Veritas" also takes you back to another era (of film, fashion, and aesthetics) with a silent-film style video awash in beautiful colors. Check out both of these new clips below. -- Jennifer Maerz

Y'know, judging from the genre's mainstream appeal today (translation: emo), you'd think that morose, anti-social, poetry-scribbling post-punk artists were the popularity kings of the 1980s. Lies, I say! Damn lies! However, there's one nice thing to be said for nostalgic revisionism: we get events like tonight's "Mad for Manchester," at which the San Francisco Film Society screens two films about Ian Curtis & Joy Division — Grant Gee's eponymous documentary about the band (at 7:30 p.m.) and Anton Corbijn's black-and-white biopic Control (at 10 p.m.) — with a DJ set by Aaron Axelsen between showings.

While there you'll surely be able to witness another odd social development, a cliquey group that I can only refer to as "gothic hipsters," which is something like a Popscene Auxiliary Squad that skews to darker clothes and the occasional melancholy swoon. Now that the words "gothic" and "hipsters" have been juxtaposed without the world exploding, you can go to the SFFS website to RSVP for $8 entry to the event; otherwise you'll have to fork over $12 at the Mezzanine doors when they open at 7 p.m. — J. Graham

P.S.: Anyone else think they should rename the venue the "Mozz"-anine just for tonight in honor of the Manchester theme?

After seven years of annual parties in Louisville, KY — with other events in select cities such as L.A. and New York — Lebowski Fest is finally coming to San Francisco. What is Lebowski Fest? In theory, it’s a festival honoring the Coen brothers’ cult film The Big Lebowski. But it's really more about celebrating the quirky, laid-back, and just-plain-lazy lifestyle of “The Dude,” inspired by real-life layabout Jeff Dowd and portrayed by Jeff Bridges in the film. As such, Lebowski Fest is a weekend spent in the thrall of White Russian beverages, worn old bathrobes, and wacky bowling escapades, bumming around with other people who elevate slacking to a higher level (and can quote The Big Lebowski better than some preachers quote the Bible). The opening-night party happens at the Mezzanine on Friday, Sept. 5; tix are $20 and include a performance by the Extra Action Marching Band as well as a screening of the movie. Saturday features bowling in Daly City, costume & trivia contests, 10th Anniversary Big Lebowski DVD giveaways, and more. Click here for more info. — J. Graham

As promised, here's footage Alex Koll a.k.a. Shred Begley Jr., the big winner of last night's Air Guitar regional competition at the Independent. Get ready for big hair, leg warmers and shades he swears aren't sponsored by Gatorade. --Janine Kahn

Here's that clip, as promised. --Janine Kahn

More "Punk Family Values" footage here for your viewing pleasure: one vintage Crime show, a couple features by Lou Lou and George Rosenthal, and Carola Anderson's fantastic design work.

Crime performance at San Quentin State Prison