Vic Chesnutt and Elf Power play Dark Developments

A hushed and attentive crowd saw Vic Chesnutt ("the guy in Sling Blade that Dwight Yoakam manhandles") and his Athens, GA cohorts Elf Power grace the Bottom of the Hill this Tuesday night to play their new album Dark Developments in its entirety. Vic invented the character Joe the Plumber for this new record about a year ago, only to have him co-opted by the McCain campaign in such vulgar fashion. Vic followed that up with two unaccompanied encores from his massive song catalog, New Town and a tune whose name I'm not sure of.

Right click below to save or left click to play:
128 kbps, 65.9 MB, 1:12

Sling Blade
Written and directed by Billy Bob Thorton
1996
Starring
Billy Bob Thorton, Dwight Yoakam, J.T. Walsh, John Ritter, Robert Duval

Feeling the Love

I heard about Lovefest, the electronica parade that started in 1989 in Berlin, on Friday night from a fellow smoker at the Boom Boom Room. I'd say it was very San Francisco but apparently it was very Berlin and very fun.

from Wikipedia

Love Parade International

There are similar festivals in other cities like Zürich's Street Parade, Rotterdam's FFFW Dance Parade and Love Parades in Vienna. In 1997 a Love Parade was held in Sydney, Australia. Unlike its overseas counterparts, however, it was a smaller "rave party" version of the festival, held at the infamous Graffiti Hall of Fame in Redfern. In 2000 a Love Parade was held in Roundhay Park, Leeds, United Kingdom sponsored by BBC Radio 1. In 2001, the official UK parade had moved to Newcastle upon Tyne but was cancelled after the police refused a license: BBC Radio 1 still hosted a more contained event, however. Since then no Love Parade had occurred in the United Kingdom.After being held in the North-American Continent for the first time in Mexico (2002), in the fall of 2004, the Love Parade was held in San Francisco. They had held their inaugural Parade in September 2004 with 37,000 attending. The parade was held again in San Francisco in September 2005 as a rousing success drawing over 50-60,000 people. In 2006, the parade was held on September 23 and was renamed Love Fest because the Loveparade Berlin organization did not renew any of their worldwide licenses not already under contract so they could focus on their own event. The first Love Parade in Santiago was held in 2005 and gathered over 100,000 people; the 2006 version gathered over 200,000 people. The first Love Parade in Caracas was held in June 2007 and gathered over 25,000 people.

A. Burr on the delights of the Crescent City

I was not prepared for the delights of the Crescent City. In fact, had I not been driven to do memorable things, forced always to move in a whirlwind, I would have been perfectly happy to settle down then and there, and the live the rest of my life in some comfortable galleried house in the Vieux Carre, surrounded by the most attractive women in America as well as by a Creole society which I took to immediately- and I think they were attracted to me. After all, I was one of the few Americans who could speak intelligible French.

Gore Vidal, Burr

Photo Credit

Outside Lands was a Qualified Success

I went to the final day of the inaugural Outside Lands music festival with low-ish expectations. The prices were high, the weather uncertain (cold and foggy?), the crowd vibe unknown.

My little universe inside the big Outside Lands experience: I caught the end of Santa Cruz's Sila and the Afrofunk experience, walked over to Toots and his Maytalls- so good!- walked all the way back, trees- sun- light fog rolling above me - past the windmill installation to the Twin Peaks stage by the entrance- for Andrew Bird. I wish I'd gotten closer, but really isn't Andrew Bird an indoor venue kind of show? Down to Lindley Meadow for Grace Potter- and just because every frat boy looking dude says it doesn't mean it's not true- she's very very sexy- belting it out more on the piano-organ than the guitar and hit a lot of perfect notes, westerly sun shining on her beautiful, mini skirted thighs- "well there ain't no time," turn around, walk across Lindley Meadow and the sun is starting to go down over the Sutro Tower stage for Panic- rowdy fans aside I found the best spot I could be in and adopted someone's blanket and again, the quality of the light coming through those trees, and yes, I renewed my faith in the six headed beast. It was my highlight. They brought out a fiddle player at the end and all I can say is Surprise Valley and Ain't Life Grand!

After that I lingered for the porta potty, the light, and Jack Johnson's mellow sounds coming from the main stage (not being enticed by Mike Gordon) and made my way out (walking a long way the wrong way before heading in the right direction for my bike). It was just about all down hill on my ride through the dark Panhandle to Oak to Filmore to Church to 18th to 19th to Taqueria Cancun to home sweet home.

What is the final assessment? Well, when you can have all the variety of a festival like this in the unique wonderland of golden gate park, but for FREE, as was put on a month or so later with the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, it makes one pause and reconsider those sky high prices for everything ($90 for a 1 day pass? $8 beers?) Other than lining the pockets of Berkeley based Superfly and the city of San Francisco, I suppose all that money paid the artists both musical and visual that made the day so compelling. I don't take offense to having to pay decent money to see something like this, but a lot of folks do, and some of them were circling the gate, hearing the same music we were.

Photo Credit 1
Photo Credit 2

Boom Boom Room Edition: Papa Grows Funk[y] Meters Tribute!

They interspersed Dr. John, The Beatles, Allen Touisant, and others among the Meters classics, including my favorite, "They all asked for you." Also notable was that it was one of the door guy's last night, and they were such a fabulous duo.

Morphing guitarist June Yamagishi is an original member of Japan's first blues combo, The West Road Blues Band and has inspired two documentaries entitled "June Yamagishi in New Orleans" from his native Japan.

Set One
160 kbps, 80:50

Set Two
128 kbps, 78:52

Encore
128 kbps, 6:54

Kate Chase Edition

"She was about eighteen years old, tall and slender and exceedingly well formed. . . . Her little nose, somewhat audaciously tipped up, could perhaps not have passed muster with a severe critic, but it fitted pleasingly into her face with its large, languid, but at the same time vivacious hazel eyes, shaded by long dark lashes and arched over by proud eyebrows. The fine forehead was framed in waving, gold-brown hair. She had something imperial in the pose of the head, and all her movements possessed an equisite natural charm. No wonder that she came to be admired as a great beauty and broke many hearts. After the usual commonplaces, the conversation at the breakfast table, in which Miss Kate took a lively and remarkably intelligent part, soon turned itself upon politics."
"No Queen has ever reigned under the Stars and Stripes, but this remarkable woman came closer to being Queen than any American woman has."

Two Entries into the Outside Lands Music Festival Design Contest

Golden Gate Park historically was called "outside lands."

Number Two

George W. Bush Memorial Sewage Plant?

I'm happy to report that I've been lending a small hand to the folks behind the November ballot initiative to rename San Francisco's sewage plant after still President Bush, the brainchild of what must have been a particularly zealous happy hour.

Check out the story at presidentialmemorial.org.

I've been laying pretty low the past few months but have gotten out the past couple weekends to see Topaz with Mudphonic, Big Sam's Funky Nation, and some local Carnivale bands- all excellent, small shows of the brass-funk variety.

We also saw She and Him at the inappropriately titled OysterFest. There was only one kind of oyster, and they were $2 just like anywhere else, and kind of warm. The Irish promoter/mc/announcer got on stage in a flight suit to hype up M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel, but fairly quickly descended into awkward pauses and such and then basically incited everyone to be impatient for them to come on. ("Where is she, folks? You're going to have to really scream to get her out. I don't know....") He made it seem like a long time by standing up there. After a solid if clipped set, "She and Him" bowed and exited simultaneously. The Irish flight suit guy came back up to the stage with his dog and begged her to come back out for an encore. His dog howled. The fog had blown in pretty hard and the crowd had dispersed, and Deschanel didn't reward those who'd stayed. "It's not gonna happen," he despaired in his Irish accent, "unbelievable."

Movie stars.


I have a new lens (Tokina 11-16 f/2.8) on backorder that will let me shoot in low-light properly and when it comes I'll start posting shots again. I still haven't tried all the small venues around town, somehow always ending up at the Boom Boom Room.

Toubab Krewe at the Mystic

Download (160 kbps mp3, app. 93 mins.)

Hipster Credibility

In his New York Magazine review of Lush Life entitled "Stalking the Gramno," (Great American Novel) Sam Anderson uses corresponding literary Price-type characters to narrate a near unequivocal rave of the new novel.

He does note “'Three things, couple small, one big,'” that might withhold a designation of THE Gramno as opposed to a very Gramno. The big one?

And third, well—I mean, we all hate hipsters, right? Even hipsters hate hipsters. But Jesus, man—Richard Price? Guy straight-out, fucking, detests, hipsters. Can work up a decent lather of sympathy for any subculture in the underworld: Junkies, drunks, liars, cops, murderers, thieves, real-estate kingpins—all human, complicated, explainable, damaged, worthy of respect. But hipsters? No. Makes for the only dishonest writing in the book: twenty intolerable pages of a bullshit hipster memorial service that comes off as pure cartoon satire—allegory of the infestation of the once-noble LES. I mean, I know hipsters aren’t exactly an oppressed class or anything, but still. Feels unfair. Kind of invalidates some of what he’s doing here.”

Price's response to the review in the 4-7-08 issue's letters?

"Thanks for the funny flattering take-off, but I don't hate hipsters. I am a hipster. My grandfather was a hipster. My kids are hipsters, my kids' kids will be hipsters."

I don't have a Gramno radar. If I did, it wouldn't have gone off had I picked up Lush Life tabula rasa. Nevertheless, I'm enjoying it enough to delve into some of his others after I finish and potentially come to the epiphany that the main character is New York itself. But I'll probably miss that one too.