Honey Soundsystem, that handsome group of techno and disco rarety-loving DJs and purveyors of one of the best weekly parties in SF (Sundays at Holy Cow), has gone through a few changes this year, parting ways with a couple members -- perhaps temporarily -- to side projects and expanding their reach greatly with several international appearances.

But the honeycomb hasn't stopped pumping out great tunes, and it looks like Honey's latest record label, HNYTRX, has launched with an expansive, uplifting new house tune, "Face Love Anew" by Australian favorites Stereogamous featuring singer Shaun J. Wright, formerly of Hercules and Love Affair. It's a keeper.

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"Hunee is a good eater," begins Berlin-based DJ Hunee's official biography. "Good" here surely means voracious -- Hunee may be well-known for his deep disco sets (sometimes running to seven hours in length, especially at his great Hunchin All Night parties) and deep-grooved house productions, but his omnivorous ear takes in everyone from Eric Dolphy and Sergiu Celibidache to N.W.A and Madlib. He creates lovely worlds from these disparate interests, and his generous, off-handedly ironic manner spreads a layer of laidback jazzy soul over the sonic smorgasbord. 

On Sun/30, Honey Soundsystem celebrates six years of putting on one of the best weekly parties in San Francisco (it's honeycomb hexagonal!), Honey Sundays (9pm, $5. Holy Cow, 1535 Folsom, SF.) And to celebrate, the boys flew in this beloved underground soul traveller for an exclusive three-hour set. I caught him over email for a few questions.

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You can't talk contemporary American bass music without starting right off at Kingdom, a.k.a. LA's Ezra Rubin. (He appears here Sat/22 at the Lights Down Low party at Public Works, in a bananas lineup that includes Kim Ann Foxman, Miracles Club, jozif, and MikeQ.)

Two years ago, his bounce-rave masterpiece "Mindreader" and the low-creeping, R&Bleepy That Mystic EP popped the top of critics' lists and club faves, and injected some mad energy into the scene on these shores. That was followed by last year's acclaimed Dreama EP, which blueprinted some interesting bass possibilities, swinging from cinematic vogue-warps to post-grime gamer spaciness.

Kingdom also provided a crucial link between London's fantastic label-club Night Slugs scene, in which he came up in the late '00s, and the somewhat scattered US bass scene that operated outside the Diploshere. His Fade to Mind touring collective and label, launched with Prince William, became a focal point for underground American fractal-bass musicmakers like Nguzunguzu and Total Freedom who could hype a club through their disparate styles, but didn't mind getting a little arty about it.

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In this week's Super Ego column, I wrote of my deep, abiding love of bass music (and revealed my secret source of UK bass knowledge). As low-low luck would have it, 222 Hyde will be woofed and tweeted this Saturday by Body High, a label out of LA whose roster is comprised of several Cali bass stars: Samo Soundboy, LOL Boys, Floyd Campbell. Plus you get DJ Dodger Stadium! (requisite half-hearted boo from Giants fans, and then indulgent smile.) Here's a few sounds you can expect to be rumbled by:

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I hung out yesterday evening with the new occupants of the Eagle Tavern (now known as the SF Eagle, apparently) at a celebration of the lease-signing at the Lone Star Saloon. Alex Montiel and Mike Leon seem perfect to replace the former Eagle operators Joe and John: Tough-looking and leather-bearish, a tad gruff at first but friendly once they warm to you, and a wee bit shy of the press right now.

They'll be releasing their full plans for the storied queer bar in a couple weeks, but I did manage to squeeze some juicy info out of Alex. They hope to open the bar in time for Halloween, the liquor license has indeed been secured (in fact, they have two!), and they'll be doing their best to return some of the Eagle's ambiance to the now-pretty-much-gutted space, with a few slight modifications to the bar layout for code and traffic flow reasons.   

It's certainly been a long, winding, super-convoluted road to get to this point!

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... and apparently I am hosting them with Anna Conda on Thursday, May 31. What the heck are the 2012 San Francisco Nightlife Awards? No worries, they are magical, and you should totally go because it's gonna be a fun party that supports the future of San Francisco nightlife. But let's back up a minute.

A few weeks ago, my Nightlife Bat Phone started ringing off the Nightlife Bat Hook. "We were just nominated for a 2012 San Francisco Nightlife Award!" or "Why weren't we nominated for a 2012 San Francisco Nightlife Award?" or "What the heck are the San 2012 Francisco Nightlife Awards?" said the chorus of voices into my Nightlife Bat Voicemail, because my Nightlife Bat Ringer broke when I dropped it in a vat of fake blood while vampire-wrestling for charity (gay).

It seemed like the awards had come out of nowhere. But I will reveal all! Or rather, Nathan Allbee of the California Music and Culture Association, which is putting on this year's awards, will reveal all via my short interview (along with a complete list of nominees) below.

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Hyperproductive fashion designer and revered fantasy engineer Jean Paul Gaultier was in town last week for the opening of a (very cool) retrospective of his work at the de Young. His nightlife stops included the Some Thing drag show at the Stud on Friday, a cruisy interlude at the Powerhouse on Saturday -- and of course a lavish opening gala celebration at the de Young itself on Friday evening.

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"The best form of government ... is no government at all!" announced singer Meredith Monk in the second program of the SF Symphony's rollicking American Mavericks festival at Davies Hall on Sat., March 10, her trademark braided pigtails and Shuffling Elf gait in full effect. And while I could hear the pleated pants of several libertarians around me surely being wetted (and a few liberal feathers ruffling in the back), this was no mere Ron Paul back-pat, though it was delivered with all the empty bluster we've come to expect from the current campaign season. 

We were in the midst of an astonishing presentation of John Cage's epic, random Song Books from 1970, after all -- revered experimental vocalist Joan La Barbara had delivered a beribboned gift of apples or cranberries to an arbitrary audience member, magnificent diva Jessye Norman (in a stunning Issey Miyake gown) had joined in a boisterous card game and typed a letter on a mic'd typewriter, and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas had chopped up various fruits and veggies and Cuisinarted them into an orange-y beverage for the pianist. Cage, our 20th Century channeler of chance, would never allow such an inflexible utterance to stand unchallenged.

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"I have been around the bhangra block," says DJ Rekha, NYC's ambassador for the highly danceable contemporary Punjabi (by way of London) sound, and founder of the popular, long-running Basement Bhangra party. "The biggest gig was definitely the White House. I have played all over the US and in Brazil, Sweden, New Zealand. I've done a bunch of music festivals and performed at cultural spaces including the Kennedy Center in DC."

Talk about "world music" (even if that term has fallen from fashion). Rekha brings her Basement Bhangra spin -- which includes a good bit of hip-hop and global bass influence -- to our own beloved Non Stop Bhangra this Sat/11, joining the monthly party's dholrhythms dance crew and DJ Jimmy Love for its reboot at Public Works, as I detailed in this week's Super Ego nightlife column. In an email interview, Rekha wrote about bhangra's changing scene, her favorite moments from the past 15 years at her club (Padma Lakshmi, anyone?), and her favorite bhangra bangers of the moment. 

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