San Francisco Bay Guardian - Essential Bay Area News, Politics, Arts, and Culture

Sanctioned for sound violations, club owner fires ethics charge back at Entertainment Commission

steven — Thu, 23 May 2013 01:25:10 +0000

Brick & Mortar, located at Mission and Duboce, has a problem with some of its neighbors on Woodward.

The San Francisco Entertainment Commission last night voted to restrict the hours, sound limits, and other operating conditions for Brick & Mortar Music Hall -- the Mission Street live music venue that has received a series of noise complaints from its neighbors on Woodward Street -- until it completes soundproofing work to deal with the problem.

While acknowledging the sound problem and pledging to address it, club co-owner Jason Perkins responded to the action today with a written complaint that makes a serious allegation: that Entertainment Commission inspector Vajra Granelli last year recommended Brick & Mortar hire an overly expensive security company he founded, Yojimbo Protective Services, and that would solve the problems it was having with the commission, Perkins wrote, “an obvious conflict that a person who is regulating us is also trying to get us to use his company.”

There is no proof that Granelli actually made the extortionary suggestion or that it was connected to the club’s current problems with its neighbors, who seem to have legitimate issues with noise. “They have a sound problem and they have to deal with it,” Entertainment Commission Executive Director Jocelyn Kane told us, calling the allegation against Granelli a diversionary tactic that has nothing to do with the case. “The neighbors are being reasonable, they just want them to fix the sound.”

Yet it does appear that Granelli is still involved with Yojimbo Protective Services, which he co-founded in 2003 to do security for entertainment venues, and that may violate city conflict-of-interest rules against outside employment in an industry that he regulates. Kane said Granelli was out-of-town and that she would get him a message about addressing the issue, but we never heard from him.

When we called Yojimbo for Granelli, someone who identified himself as Ed the CEO (presumably co-founder Edward Cissel) said, “I can take a message for him. He’s not usually here at the office.” And when I identified myself as a reporter for the Guardian, Ed said of Granelli, “He has little or nothing to do with the daily interactions of this company.”

Yet Granelli (who was profiled by the Examiner last year) remains the agent of service on the company’s business permits. Kane said she was aware of Granelli’s connnection to Yojimbo, but that, “When he took this job, he divested himself.” Indeed, on the Form 700 Statement of Economic Interests that city employees are required to complete, which Granelli renewed last month, he claims to have no reportable outside economic interests. A link to a list of clients and description of its focus on entertainment venues on the Yojimbo website has recently been removed.

Later, when we noted that Granelli still appears to be involved with the company, Kane wrote, “It remains my understanding that Vaj Granelli sits on the Board of Yojimbo but derives no financial benefit from the company, nor is responsible for any day to day operations.”

Perkins alleges that last summer, “I was told I had a security problem by Vaj Granelli,” who recommended he hire Yojimbo shortly after the club received its first of seven noise violation citations, which Granelli issued. Perkins said that when Granelli made the suggestion again following another noise complaint in October -- by which time Perkins said he had learned of Granelli’s connection to the company -- “I blew up and told him to fuck off, and immediately we start getting hammered by complaints.”

During the hearing last night, the commission had little patience or sympathy for Perkins, accusing him of misrepresenting his neighborhood outreach efforts and creating problems in the neighborhood by refusing the spend the necessary money on soundproofing the club, a perspective supported by several Woodward neighbors who testified they could hear music in their living rooms and that Perkins has resisted their entreaties to fix the problem.

“Rather than doing it, I believe you’ve used delay tactics,” Commission President Audrey Joseph told him, urging him to instead, “Be a big boy and just deal with the problem, which is what you need to do.”

The commission then voted unanimously to recondition the club’s entertainment permit to require it to close at 11:30pm on weeknights and 12:30am on weekends, cap its allowed outside sound at 80 decibels, provide a direct phone number to neighbors with complaints, and complete necessary soundproofing work by next month.

“We got sucker-punched last night, it’s so unfair,” Perkins told us, noting that the new sound limit will essentially prevent them from hosting live music. He claims that he was only recently made aware of some of the noise citations and they have repeatedly upgraded their soundproofing.

Kane denies that Brick & Mortar has been treated unfairly, and she said that it’s a popular music venue that everyone involved wants to see continue operating. As for Granelli’s connection to Yojimbo Protective Services, she told us, “I’m not suggesting he’s not affiliated, I’m just saying it’s not relevant.”

Activists’ zine documents violent arrests at SF State

rebecca — Wed, 22 May 2013 23:21:17 +0000

According to a handwritten account in the activists' zine, Carlos Cruz had "bruises on elbows, knees, legs [and] throat."

Emotions ran high at San Francisco State University on May 21, where a group of activists held a rally decrying police officers’ excessive use of force in an incident that occurred last Thursday, May 16. Five arrests were made that night outside a student dormitory. YouTube videos showing police officers tackling the arrestees to the ground, as onlookers cry out in dismay, have drawn thousands of hits.

The five young people were arraigned May 21 and face charges of misdemeanor trespassing, with some facing additional charges of resisting and obstructing an officer. Resham MacFarlane, a friend of the arrestees who accompanied them to the university, said they had all been on campus as guests of SF State students who reside in the dorm.

Officially, the arrests were made by San Francisco State University Police Department. However, individuals who were at the scene told the Bay Guardian that SFPD officers were responsible for injuring several arrestees to the point of requiring them to be transported off the scene by ambulance. According news reports, a campus police officer also sustained minor injuries.

At the rally yesterday, supporters of the five arrestees distributed a zine they’d created to document the events, including detailed descriptions of the injuries sustained. Melissa Nahlen, 25, reportedly wound up with “cuts near her eyes, a bruised and swollen lip, a swollen left hand … and cannot bend her neck downward due to being stomped on by the police.” Since she cannot afford to hire an attorney, Nahlen is being represented by the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office.

Another arrestee, Carlos Cruz, was transported from the scene in an ambulance and brought to a hospital before being taken to jail at 850 Bryant. Cruz was reportedly released yesterday, May 21. During the arraignment hearing, the court appointed defense attorney Stuart Hanlon to represent him, since he was unable to afford an attorney, and the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office cannot legally represent multiple co-defendants.

“Carlos almost immediately received a blow to the head after being told he was trespassing,” according to activists’ written account. He was “Hit on head multiple times … Large bruise on shoulder, swollen wrists, loss of feeling in his thumb and forefinger in his right hand, bruises all over shins and knees, laceration on ear.” MacFarlane, a friend of Cruz’s, said that when she visited him in jail “he had a bruise on his sternum.”

Reached by phone, SFPD spokesperson Albie Esparza said he could not offer detailed comment on the incident because it was under SF State’s jurisdiction. “It’s not our investigation,” Esparza said. “We made no arrests. It would be inappropriate to comment on someone else’s jurisdiction.” SFPD only responded at the behest of SF State, he said, and were called in because “it was a chaotic scene.”

Nan Broadman, a spokesperson at SF State, said campus police initially reported to the dorm because “an unidentified caller said a drunk male was harassing passersby” outsidethe building. A friend of the arrestees noted that they had been drinking earlier on that night. Broadman said a police report for the incident was not publicly available, and did not know whether a formal investigation of officer misconduct was underway.

MacFarlane and another friend of the arrestees, who gave her name as Natasha Noel, both said the trouble started when Cruz and a friend went outside to smoke a cigarrette and encountered police, who immediately pursued them upstairs into the dormitory. The physical clash between officers and arrestees is reflected in the YouTube videos, which Natasha recorded with her cell phone. Someone pulled the fire alarm during the incident, and the building was evacuated.

A day earlier, on May 15, SFPD’s tactical unit conducted an early morning raid at an abandoned building at 200 Broad Street, where some 30 people had been living for months. Esparza said the building’s owner initally contacted police for assistance with removing the squatters. Because the abandoned building had been occupied for so long, police sought guidance from the San Francisco City Attorney’s office as to whether they should proceed, since it was unclear whether the squatters’ presence constituted a civil, or criminal matter. The City Attorney ultimately determined that because it wasn’t a residential property, they could be removed on criminal trespassing charges rather than evicted in a civil proceeding.

A handful of those squatters, including Cruz, MacFarlane, Nahlen and some others, wound up making their way to friends’ dorm rooms at SF State. The arrests occurred just hours after their arrival on campus, according to MacFarlane.

A detailed narrative included as part of the zine notes that the squatted building was known as “the SF Commune, a community center and social space for organizers in the Ocean View district of the city.” According to this account, squatters took over the property, which had been abandoned for several years, in April of 2012. “The building was filled with needles, broken glass, and buckets of human feces. The group worked for weeks cleaning up the building, moving out all the hazardous materials and disposing of them properly, and turning the building into a livable home and organizing space.”

MacFarlane said she had been staying at the squat. “I had another place to stay, but I chose to stay at the commune,” she explained, adding that she found it to be a positive and constructive atmosphere. “There was lots of music and art every day.”

For No God's Sake

JohnnyW — Wed, 22 May 2013 22:28:12 +0000

Wolf Blitzer in Oklahoma

atheist2.com

The nightmarish aftermath of the Moore, Oklahoma EF-5 tornado is in rebuilding and rebounding mode. People are digging out of the mess. Survivors located. Businesses re-opening.

And the stories emanating from the Prairie are running the gamut. From heart warming to predictably dire. The human spirit seems both undaunted and inexplicable.

But because the world we live in now has around the clock news cycles and a plethora of channels devoted to same, sometimes the mavens of media reveal themselves to be a sorry lot. So was the case of Wolf Blitzer--a CNN talking head of much experience--and his interview with a local named Rebecca Vitsmun whose response to a question posed by Blitzer threw him.

Blitzer asked Vitsmun if she thanked the Lord for presumably sparing her life and that of her baby. She replied (nervously) that she didn't as she was an atheist, quickly adding that she didn't blame people that did.

It was quick and she was good humored about it. But there's something really rancid about Blitzer's question. The subtext isn't theological or even sociological. It's bigotry--Oklahoma is a deeply religious state with an enormous Evangelical community, so Blitzer assumed without asking that this woman must be one of those people.

This is no different than asking someone with an Irish surname what beer they drink, or a Mexican their favorite recipe for salsa or any number of stereotypes. The presumption that this woman is religious without asking (did the same question arise in New Jersey after Sandy?) pigeonholes Oklahomans as one-dimensional fanatics.

If you are a person over a certain age (40 say), ask yourself if newsmen asked these questions in our long gone youths. They didn't. It would have been seen as trivial, leading and out of place. But because our culture has been "Tebowed" to death by loud public declarations of fealty to the Lord, this kind of piffle is not only manistream, it's encouraged.

The moment passed, but it seems to have ignited the standard back and forth over the existance of a God or not. Not the issue (although asking someone whose home was razed if they thank the presumable force behind the razing does seem a little absurd). Religion is a matter of faith, conjecture and wishful thinking/culture. The news is supposed to be facts. I know that Blitzer has to filibuster to fill space, but c'mon, man--everything has its place.

Week One

JohnnyW — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:43:28 +0000

The author

johnnyangelwendell.bandcamp.com

I took this gig a week ago---multiple posts a week, basically a news-based version of what I did for the SFBG in the 90's. It's already kicking my ass, as the old "PISSED" columns were once a week and based in music. This is way tougher and way more gratifying. Thanks.

But I have to admit that, as much as I love doing this gig, the last 7 days have brought back to me one of the most vexing and confounding quandaries I have ever pondered, one that's baffled me for the last 30 years or so. One that is as bizarre as any aspect of human nature or psychology is anywhere, one that makes less sense than a Soundgarden lyric: Why on God's green earth do people with barely a pot to piss in go to war with the same ferocity as the Navy Seals went after Bin Laden on behalf of their actual enemies, the wealthy?

In every blog post, be they Redmond's, mine, Steve's--whomever's--the valiant members of the 82nd Chairborne Divison swing into battle on behalf of San Francisco's--or the world's--landed gentry. And always up against (and with corresponding vitriol) people that are pretty much exactly like them. The dispossessed are generally screwed by the powerful. Their allegiance should be to Occupy or even to moderate mainstream pols, but instead goes to the folks whose machinations lead to tax breaks and bailouts and favors for "the private sector" or directly fuck them over even worse by pricing them out of SF's whopping 49 square miles and leading to exhorbitant rents or mortgages and as such, exodus to the wilds of Stockton, Modesto or Lodi.

You'd think that something as benign as rent control would have the full thumbs up from people who really don't want to have to pull up stakes when their neighborhoods become the Pacific's Manhattan. Or that the idea that the City make deals with the Facebook/Twitters of the world that means that the city's tax base is strained rather than expanded would enrage them. But a cursory scan of these pages reveal that the commenter's target for ire isn't that whose boot is aimed straight at their asses, but at the handful of people bucking a trend that began in the early 80's--people that point out (and mildly at that) that quality of living in SF is endangered when the City devolves into a playpen for rich software developers that don't want to pay for the City's perks. Actually, the inchoate rage is aimed at anyone that suggests that "all it takes is pulling oneself up by the bootstraps/poor people are lazy" is one of the most painfully naive worldviews in history.

Even more incredible is the reflexive defense of the non-renewable energy industry and their toxic twin (sorry Steve/Joe), the insurance business. As if by divine right and a Mt. Sinai-esque proclamation from Jehovah himself, these allegedly private (but completely government dependent entities) businesses may as well graze on the banks of the Ganges according to the website's keyboard commandos, because these people "create wealth" and "give people good jobs". Neither of those are true--the plutocrats of today remove wealth and as far as a job being a gift, if the gift in question tends to be a mind numbing, stress laden drag, where's the return window? Wealth creation comes from "velocity of money" and a job is a contract fulfillment by a party that agrees to do something for money that the money bearer doesn't wanna do.

But anything--anything that remotely resembles a rebuke aimed at today's version of Jay Gould--gets an immediate slapdown from people whose endless online activity suggest marginal employment at best and a free ride from family or government at worst. The sheer silliness of this can never be understated, much like a wage earner hating a labor union and siding with the same boss that keeps their pay low, hours long and blood pressure astronomical from fear--but as anyone with a grasp of history recognizes, the terrified serf or Tory is always easy prey from a feudal lord or aristocrat. The demon you know beats the one you don't. And so it goes.

My boss ain't my friend. He or she is my boss. Kissing up to them isn't gonna pry love, respect or (most importantly) cash out of them--me defending their avarice or skeeviness isn't gonna make them regard me as an ally, but as a sucker. Doesn't seem right that all that affection that you bestow upon them is never reciprocated, but as the great poet D Byrne said in 1980, "same as it ever was".

Love, Johnny.

PG&E can't survive solar energy

tim — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:20:30 +0000

SF Newspaper Company file photo

Years ago, in the middle of the boom in nuclear power plants, we used to say, only half in jest, the private utilities would never accept solar energy because you can't put a meter on the sun. Turns out that's pretty close to true.

A new report by The Energy Collective argues that Pacific Gas and Electric Company may be the first utility in the country to go under -- because of competition with cheap solar in sunny California. Once solar becomes competitive with PG&E, more and more customers will install panels, forcing PG&E to raise rates on the remaining customers, who will then have even more reason to go solar. The groundwork is already there:

PG&E's marginal prices cannot compete with solar. Large residential customers pay 31¢-35¢/kWh [kilowatt-hour], the same prices that cause the solar revolutions in Hawaii and Australia. Even worse, according to PG&E, "By 2022, PG&E's top residential rate could reach 54 cents." Residential customers represent about 40 percent of PG&E's retail electric revenue. Commercial customers experience high rates, too. Unlike residential customers, who need a commercial third party to own the solar panels to take advantage of the accelerated depreciation, commercial customers can keep that advantage for themselves, making solar more financially attractive. Commercial customers represent about 46 percent of PG&E's retail electric revenue.

If it happens soon, it will happen here:

"There is nowhere else in the U.S. with the same confluence of events," says Short: "High and rising marginal prices, good sunshine, and inability to respond to changed competitive circumstances. If ever an electric utility was set up to fall to solar, it is PG&E."

This is a great argument for promoting CleanPowerSF (and a good explanation for why PG&E wants to kill it), and shows the need for an eventual municipal takeover of the grid, because even with widespread solar, there's going to be a need to power to move around between generators and users at different times of the day. And if PG&E is headed for collapse, the city ought to be able to get the infrastructure cheap.

The Performant: Dare to DIVA

caitlin — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:54:02 +0000

Check out 'The Helen Project' at this year's DIVAfest.

PHOTO BY AMY CLARE TASKER

A yearly performance fest supports XX creatives

Spring is in the air, and so is DIVAfest, the EXIT Theatre’s annual celebration of female artists and theater-makers. Founded in 2002 by Christina Augello to give female creators a secure space to showcase their craft, DIVAfest has hosted an estimated 500 participants have come through in the last 11 years, from visual artists (Sophie Kadow, Kathy Jo Lafreniere, Michelle Talgarow) to playwrights (Kerry Reid, Lee Kiszonas, Margery Fairchild) to music-makers (Beth Wilmurt, Shannon Day, Carrie Baum Love), to burlesque dancers (Odessa Lil, Red Velvet, If-N-Whendy). This year, the fest hits the stage May 9-June 2.

If the idea of having such a space sounds redundant or unnecessary to you, I refer you to Valerie Weak’s excellent piece at Theatre Bay Area on gender parity which breaks down, in unambiguously hard numbers, exactly how wide the underrepresentation gap is between male and female theater artists in the Bay Area of the moment. Or consider this recent observation made by Lindy West in an open letter to white male comedians: “women are 50 percent of the population, yet when it comes to our interests and grievances, we’re treated like a niche group.” Sound familiar? If you’re a woman in the arts, or practically anywhere else in the public sphere, then it probably does.

So it’s heartening to see DIVAfest not just thriving, but expanding its scope and mission. Now in its 11th year, DIVAfest has morphed into its own stand-alone, non-profit organization, in the process of developing a year-round season and artist incubation opportunities in addition to producing the annual festival, which Augello envisions as having the potential to someday go national.

“Festivals are great because … there is power in numbers to create more work and draw more audience,” she muses over email. “New companies have been born out of coming together, (and) networking and artistic collaboration also thrive.” Those would be staple side effects of the now-venerable San Francisco Fringe Festival, also co-founded by Augello, in 1992.

This year’s festival, which runs through June 2, presents as broad a spectrum of works as ever, including a new play, You’re Going to Bleed, by Melissa Fall, a staged workshop of an interconnected “modular” play The Helen Project, by Megan Cohen and Amy Clare Tasker, a storytelling-short works showcase and a performance art one, curated respectively by Catherine DeBon and Erica Blue, a songwriter evening hosted by Melissa Lyn, and a burlesque cabaret, Rebel Without a Bra, directed by Amanda Ortmayer.

Education and outreach being very much a part of the DIVA experience, theater-goers and makers will also have the opportunity to dialogue with each other and a panel of Bay Area creators including Valerie Weak, Fontana Butterfield Guzmán, and Susannah Martin at the “Yeah, I said Feminist” symposium on Saturday, May 25, from 3pm to 6pm.

And what exactly is a DIVA, apart from its original descriptor of a celebrated opera singer, or a slang term for an impossible pop star? Augello, who expresses a fondness for all of her fellow DIVAs, past and present, has a definition at the ready, which can be applied to pretty much every artist who has passed under the festival’s auspices over the years.

“A DIVA is a self-realized artist … committed to creativity, with a passion that endures the successes and failures and learns from them to become a better artist and human being.” Long may they thrive!

DIVAfest

Through June 2

Various times and prices

EXIT Theatre

156 Eddy, SF

www.divafest.info

Tour of duty

caitlin — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:20:07 +0000

Black Watch shows, tells about young men drawn to war

The Scottish play: 'Black Watch'

PHOTO BY SCOTT SUCHMAN

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER Audience members entering the drill court of the Mission Armory and climbing the bleachers to their seats do so amid the buzzing drone of Highland music and an eager swarm of searchlights, all of it punctuated by booming pre-show announcements over the PA. When silence falls at last, a solitary man in jeans and leather jacket emerges a bit sheepishly from a doorway at the far end of the stage. Appearing small and inconsequential against the stadium-like surroundings and the preceding pomp and circumstance, he stutters a few opening lines before returning to his element — the local pub in Scotland's Fife. There he assumes wholly different proportions, as he and his friends relay their own perspectives on the spectacle of war.

In Black Watch, the touring revival of a site-specific 2006 production by the National Theatre of Scotland (currently being presented by American Conservatory Theater), writer Gregory Burke and director John Tiffany set out to present a spectacle grounded in real lives. To that end, they blend fictionalized scenes with the accounts of young Fife veterans who served in Iraq as part of Scotland's famed 300-year-old Black Watch regiment.

Meanwhile, the show employs a hybrid theatrical form that draws equally on the conventions of the music hall, the docudrama, and physical theater. The stage is a wide and busy corridor running between two tall banks of seats, with scaffolding on either end where actors also play, video monitors flicker, and large video projections are sometimes cast.

This is the production's fourth international tour, remarkably. But despite its continued popularity abroad, little in it seems especially surprising or penetrating. There's a lot of brash dialogue (hyper-macho, casually chauvinistic, expletive-laden soldierly banter in slightly toned-down Scottish brogues); some muscular dance routines (with the martial drills the most interesting); a sometimes affecting, sometimes overbearing musical score; and a few flashy staging ideas (including an eerily unexpected entrance in the barroom).

But whether the play is offering gritty realism or stylized interpretation, the message is generally and familiarly on-the-nose: war seems glamorous to the young man back home, and hell to the soldier in the field; soldiers are sold out by politicians; and soldiers don't fight for their country or some high ideal, but for less abstract ties and especially for their fellow soldiers. The lies, illegality, and massive unpopularity surrounding the Iraq War is also hardly new ground in itself — though one line rings with unintended irony in the Armory setting (where Kink.com has been in residence since 2007) when a Scottish officer (Stephen McCole) jokingly admits the war is being waged for "petrol and porn."

The narrative toggles between the aforementioned pub — where Cammy (Stuart Martin) and his fellow vets somewhat grudgingly and aggressively divulge their experiences to a timid middle-class Writer (Robert Jack) — and a flashback to the daily drudgery and danger of Iraq in 2004, where the company's assignment in support of devastating American military assault on Fallujah leads to the death of three Scottish soldiers in a suicide car bombing. There's also a segue into a somewhat silly if historically relevant recruitment scene at the outset of World War I, which further convolutes a narrative already burdened with details about political machinations at home and distress over "amalgamation" (the British government's ill-timed decision to dissolve the Black Watch and fold it into a single, cheaper Royal Scottish Regiment).

The play never represents Iraqi lives or perspectives, nor is there more than passing sympathy for them among the characters; this is instead a work focused squarely on the Scottish soldier's experience and, most significantly, the molding of that experience by a state reliant on a voluntary military. In a world of limited and dispiriting options, the military opportunistically and very successfully offers young men a seeming basis for pride in themselves and in an inflated (or degraded) masculine ideal. Black Watch is itself successful in those rare moments where sentimental spectacle gives way to images that register the profound, uneasy, and complex implications of this fact.

BLACK WATCH
Through June 16

Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm, $100

Drill Court, Armory Community Center

333 14th St, SF

www.act-sf.org

Talkin' loud

caitlin — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:15:39 +0000

BBC radio personality Gilles Peterson champions rare gems of acid jazz, dance music, and beyond

Gilles Peterson's biggest vice is vinyl (along with smoking and drinking).

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC "Tastemaker" is a word that gets thrown around enough to be meaningless. Anyone can share a track on Facebook or attempt social apotheosis via Twitter, most likely to find that Pitchfork reposts get drowned in the echo chamber and Do415 accounts are D.O.A. Not everyone can be Gilles Peterson, a DJ in every sense. Whether in a club, as a compiler of obscurities, or as a pirate radio turned BBC radio personality and interviewer, when Peterson plays a song, people actually listen.

"It's been to my benefit, but I just find that many radio DJs are so conservative about programming." Peterson combines a continental eclecticism picked up from French radio, the underground approach of '80s UK pirate stations, and "a kind of British pop, feeling-part-of-a-movement way of playing records." As a result, as a DJ on BBC's Radio 1 for more than a decade and now on BBC Radio Six Music, he's frequently been at the head of the movement, with a reputation for playing artists before they were "famous."

"Whether it's James Blake, or Amy Winehouse, or the Roots — such incredible music — people weren't playing it because they weren't being told it was good. For me it all landed on my plate, so I was like, yeah man, I'll play that, this is real good."

Still, Peterson is quick to recognize where something slipped through his filter, telling me "Burial is a good example of an artist I never played, until a long way down the line. It was a little bit too avant garde for a lot of people, and it was the media, the journalists who really broke that, and then a lot of DJs, myself included, reacted to being tipped off."

With more conventional radio jocks — tasked with chasing trends and setting up artists owned by a subsidiary of their parent company — it could be too late by that point, on to the next flavor of the week. But Peterson selects tracks with an exceptional disregard for genre or era. Soul and acid jazz may be his standards, but a given playlist goes well beyond, drawing connections in natural but not obvious ways. A recent episode of the syndicated Gilles Peterson Worldwide, a tribute to late great soul jazz trumpeter Donald Byrd, included a slick remix of the easy to Google Glaswegian electro pop Chvrches, a rare Prince related cut, and a bit of Johnny Hammond, for starters.

The next big thing is great, but Gilles is as much on the lookout for rare grooves. "I still go around to people's houses and do crazy swaps, or spend 200 pounds on a rare seven-inch. That's probably my biggest vice, apart from smoking and drinking and everything else that I do." Frequently re-releasing these finds on compilations on labels including his own Brownswood Recording, the effect can be huge for the original artist, as it did for an obscure Bay Area soul singer a few years back. "I bought Darondo's 'Didn't I' as a rare record and started playing it. It was kind of like an Al Green track, but not by Al Green," Gilles recounted. "I had quite a good connection with Andrew Jervis who was working at Luv 'N Haight/Ubiquity at the time. He picked up on the fact that I was playing it, and then he went out and obviously found out Darondo was living in San Francisco, and it was great to see he got rediscovered." As a result, more material from Darondo was released, and seeing the singer at a show at the Rickshaw Stop in '07, I couldn't help but feel it wouldn't have happened without Peterson's influence.

A club DJ, Peterson has overseen wave after wave of dance music trends, counting himself among a certain class of pre-1988 DJs — the year of the acid house explosion in the UK. As he puts it, he was "one of those guys who was spinning in 1981 on pirate radio stations and playing six nights a week in 1985 at every club in London." Today that seniority (and no shortage of opportunities to be heard on radio or online) comes with an ability to be more selective of the venues and appearances he makes outside Europe, generally sticking to New York and L.A. "It's not just about turning up and playing randomly for money. I've been doing this for more than 30 years now so the pleasure for me is more the social interaction and the fun. I hate when it becomes a chore or its just kind of forced."

Given the years since his last SF appearance, I was curious how he viewed recent trends, namely the monolithic rise of EDM in the US. "For the first time in America, after many many years seems, it's made it properly nationwide, a mainstream part of music. Whereas before, dance music in whatever form was always very fringe, it was always very gay or very specialist."

A self-described contradiction, with an ear for both the mainstream and the underground, Peterson is most "fascinated by seeing, especially at the moment, this new generation of British producers, predominately what you'd call the bass music scene, people like James Blake, Mount Kimbie, and Mala," all artists he supported early on, when they were emerging beat makers. "To see them now becoming hugely important in not just underground music but contemporary music makes me very proud," Gilles said. "The more high quality people working at the high end level, the more exciting that is. For every David Guetta you have a Hudson Mohawke. Basically, that's dance music."

GILLES PETERSON "BAY AREA EDITION"

With Jeremy Sole, Wiseacre, Jonathan Rudnick, Sweater Funk DJs

Fri/24, 9pm-3am, $20-25

Public Works

161 Erie St., SF

(415) 932-0955

www.publicsf.com

Björkphilia

caitlin — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:11:25 +0000

The avant-pop star talks new projects, music education, punk teendom, and tour snacks

Björk holds the weight of the world.

PHOTO BY INEZ VAN LAMSWEERDE AND VINOODH MATADIN

MUSIC Can you even recall your first run-in with the mythic, boundary-less creature that is Björk? Perhaps it was bounding through the neon blue forest with tiny crystals underneath her eyes as a giant paper-mache bear chased her through Michel Gondry's video for "Human Behaviour," off 1993 solo album Debut. Or maybe it was poised for the tabloids in an elegant swan dress, holding a large egg purse and preening for the worst dressed lists at the '01 Academy Awards after her devastating performance in Dancer in the Dark (2000). Those long obsessed will likely point to first hearing '88's "Birthday" by the Sugarcubes, her early Icelandic act (post teenage punk bands), on international radio.

Whenever — and however — it went down, it left a lasting impression, the stunning shock of that otherworldly voice tends to permeate memories. Solo, Bjork has long coupled that voice with innovation, always grasping at new objects and sounds, or as she described it to me in conversation, she's "like a kid in a toy shop."

Her latest triumph was Biophilia, the '11 album that paired science, nature, iPads, Tesla coils, and tinkling church bells. Since its release, she's hopped the planet with her sonic education in tow, spreading pixie dust and learning tools at schools and museums along the way. Next up, she'll play a trio of shows at the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond (Wed/22, Sat/25, and Tue/28). Also during that time, her Biophilia Education Program comes to the Exploratorium, which means interactive workshops exploring connections between music and technology, Wed/22 through Tue/28.

In her unassuming but confident way — with the most endearing accent I've ever heard — the avant-pop megastar opened up to the SF Bay Guardian about her song writing process (yes, there's a new project in the works), early punk career, natural musicology, and how to keep it all DIY:

SF Bay Guardian How did you initially come up with idea to include apps for every song on Biophillia?

Björk It started in 2008. I wanted to use touch screens...though the iPads weren't out 'till 2010 or something. But I'd been using touch screens on my Volta tour, but more just to perform on stage. When I started doing Biophillia, I was very determined that I wanted to write with [touch screens], not just perform. That's when I started to map out, to visualize. I had to decide, what did I want to hear on the touch screen when I'm writing this song. That sent me back to my own music education as a child, when I felt the way they explained scales and rhythms and those basic musicology themes, was way too academic. It was like reading a book to learn to dance.

Music is something that doesn't work that well in the written word, you know? Especially not explaining to kids. So I started making my own map...this is how I would I like to have scales and this is how I would like to have chords and this is how I would like to have arpeggios and this is how I would like to have counterpoint, and so on. This project became naturally educational. I was kind of like, repairing my own education. I was trying to cover what I thought was lacking when I was in music school. In that way, I was able to share it.

We [created] a different program for each song. For example, one song would feature arpeggios, and then I would pick an actual element that would be the simplest way for a kid to understand what an arpeggio is, to visualize it. So we took a pendulum to explain counterpoint, a little bit like how church bells swing back and forth, and that's like a bass line that swings.

I wrote 10 songs and we did different programs for each song, and it came together using natural elements. For example, one song is called is called "Crystalline" and there are crystals kind of growing as the song changes.

In 2010, when we were programming this and were kind of almost done, the iPad arrived, so we were like, 'wow!' It'd be silly just to record these songs and put them on a CD because we'd already written all these programs, we might as well share the programs, and put them with some more poetic, natural things — the moons, the tides, things like this. It was a very gradual thing.

SFBG And now it's been brought in to educate children at schools throughout Iceland, but also there are related events where you're touring, as well?

Björk It differs from city to city. So far it's been in Manchester, Iceland, New York, Buenos Aires, and Paris, and now it's going to be in California. Some places, like for example, New York Library and the Children's Museum of Manhattan, took on the curriculum for a few months, and the middle school of Reykjavik, the 10 to 12-year-olds, they have it now in their curriculum for the next three years. It's looking like it's going to go to more countries. It sort of keeps growing.

SFBG It seems like you've long been ahead of the curve, as far as creating music with new technology, is that something you grew up with as well?

Björk I'm actually really bad with technology. I think that's why I'm so excited about, for example, the touch screen, because it's like I waited until technology caught up with me, for it to be simple enough. You have your imagination, and whatever helps you express yourself, I'm all for it, if it's the violin or piano or singing. Or what has been really helpful for me, since I started doing my own solo albums, the computer has made me a lot more self-sufficient. I guess that comes from being in bands for 10 years, where things are more democratic. It was always drums and bass and keyboards and guitars in every single song [laughs], which is great. But then when I started doing my own album, I was like a kid in a toy shop, I wanted to have every single noise. And this is great, using the computers to do this yourself. It's quite empowering, especially for a girl. You don't have to go through this whole hierarchy of whatever, you can just be self-sufficient.

SFBG Some of your early groups were punk bands [Tappi Tíkarrass, and KUKL, which toured with Crass], I was wondering how you discovered punk as a teen, and ended up working with Crass?

Björk I was hanging out with kids that were older than me, like the other guy who used to sing in the Sugarcubes and another guy who was friends with Crass. They played our country, and then we would go and visit them at their farm [Dial House in Essex], and for me what was most important was that one of the bands that was on Crass' label, a band called Flux of Pink Indians, had a bass player called Derek Birkett and he helped the Sugarcubes release their first album, just from his bedroom. And he's my manager still today. So I've worked with him for like, 30 years now.

It's pretty much DIY, especially now when the labels are not really functional like they used to be. It's pretty much just three of us that do most of my stuff.

SFBG Do you have any other long-term goals with Biophillia, or are you working on your next project?

Björk I think I will be doing that on the side, but when it comes to writing my own stuff, I always like the first couple of years to be kind of mysterious. It's important to play around in the dark, blind-folded, not really knowing what you're doing. Biophillia was very much like that the first two years, it was very intuitive and impulsive and having no idea what would come out of it. And I'm at that stage with my next album. I really enjoy that. As much as it's rewarding when [an album] first sees the daylight, I think I even enjoy more the first half of the process, when it's all still a mystery.

SFBG Were you living in New York during the early playing stage of Biophillia? It seems to have a real connection to natural elements, and science, so I assumed you were in Iceland?

Björk I've been living half the year in New York and half in Iceland. I think Biophillia addresses my life in Iceland and the financial crises in a direct way because it's sort of very DIY. And one of my first dreams was that Biophillia would be a music house and each room would be a song — eventually these rooms became the apps. But it might be that we would be able to go back and make a musical house in Iceland that would serves also as a children's' museum and we would use one of the buildings that got kind of half-built in the financial crises and create jobs that way.

But also Biophillia is also about urban areas, because you could stay connected with the moon through your iPad, or to nature and natural structures with your phone.

SFBG My time is almost up but may I ask a few of your favorite things? Like your favorite songs currently, or music that's helping inspire you creatively now?

Björk At the moment I've been listening to the new James Blake album a lot. These things change all the time!

SFBG Favorite mythological story or creature?

Björk I like Icelandic mythology, there's a lot of amazing tales there.

SFBG And a favorite tour snack?

Björk Um, I like berries.

SFBG Any kind in particular?

Björk Mmmm, no, I like all of them.

BJÖRK

Wed/22, Sat/25, Tue/28, 8:30pm, $75

Craneway Pavilion

1414 Harbour Way, Richmond

www.craneway.com

Friendly spirits

caitlin — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:04:36 +0000

Carry a small snake to Southside Spirits House

Not bad dietary advice at Southside Spirits House.

GUARDIAN PHOTO BY CRYSTAL SYKES

culture@sfbg.com

COCKTAILS In San Francisco, there's a bar for practically every situation. Feeling high-class yet mysterious? Bourbon and Branch is right up your alley. Colorful and trendy? Go to Trick Dog. If you need to drown your sorrows in the dark, there are plenty of dive bars ready to pour you a heavy-handed drink.

But if you're just looking for a well-made cocktail in friendly spot after work, let me introduce you to Southside Spirit House, the newest bar to hit SoMa.

Greeted by a chalkboard sign declaring "Whiskey. It's what's for dinner," I walked into the then-week-old spot with no expectations. Despite working in the neighborhood, I don't really frequent many SoMa bars for some reason. And I'd never been to nightclub Eve Lounge, which closed down earlier this year when the owners decided to transform the space as a casual, happy hour bar with an emphasis on solid cocktails.

I was instantly at ease with the space. The wooden floors, tables and walls would send chills down any rustic atmosphere-lover's spine, and the three or four TVs lining the walls ensure sports fans won't miss key plays. Most important, one look at the robustly stocked bar told me I could feel confident knowing the bartenders could make any drink I desired. I mixed into the crowd of 20- and 30-somethings — all pretty much dressed like they walked right in after work, like myself — and made my way to the bar for a cocktail.

I ordered a Torero en Llamas ($11), a Corralejo Blanco tequila drink with a float of absinthe. The bartender described it as a deconstructed margarita. As I took photos of the bartender at work preparing it (and waved off others at the bar asking if I worked for 7x7), the bartender quickly said "No, wait. Wait for this."

He then lit a match and set my drink on fire.

Now I know this is a common trick used in dive bars practically everywhere. But we're not talking about a shot of 151 here. This drink was in a coup glass for Christ's sake. As I sat there, with the lime in my glass set aflame, I almost didn't want to blow it out in order to take a sip. When I finally tried the drink, the bartender was right. It tasted like a margarita without the overt salty, beachy flavor.

Then my friend Tim showed up. Being new to the old-fashionedy artisan cocktail scene (his usual drink is Liquid Cocaine), I advised him to try an ever-trusty Old Fashioned ($11), here made beautifully. We grabbed our cocktails from the bar and easily found two stools in a sweet little corner below some Transformer-eque art work.

While Time was telling me stories about bong hits, his new jeans, and Japanese card games, I kept eyeing the small dishes circling the bar — tiny sets of sliders that made me regret having a big lunch. Tim nursed his Old Fashioned, clearly not used to such a strong classic, while I tried not to gulp down the remainder of my own drink.

Next up: I ordered the Maiden Lane while, to my disappointment, Tim declined a second round for himself. (I haven't given up on converting him to the artisan trend.) While we continued chatting about work and love, the attentive staff routinely checked back with us until my drink arrived.

Served in a mason jar, The Maiden Lane — Bulleit bourbon, strawberries, housemade ginger syrup, agave, lemon juice — is perfect for a sunny day, but probably not for drinkers like myself who aren't huge fans of ginger beer. I quickly drank that cocktail, seeing that even though I was with company, I was drinking alone.

After paying our tab and taking a closer look at the beautiful art on the walls, we were bid farewell at the door by a quote from W.C. Fields:

"Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite. And furthermore, always carry a small snake."

Cheers to that.

575 Howard, SF. (415) 543-5874, www.facebook.com/SouthsideSF

Let's dance

caitlin — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:55:36 +0000

Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha believes in modern love

My girl: Frances (Greta Gerwig) battles her BFF (Mickey Summer).

PHOTO COPYWRIGHT PINE DISTRICT, LLC.

cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM Noah Baumbach isn't exactly known for romance and bright-eyed optimism. Co-writing 2009's Fantastic Mr. Fox with director Wes Anderson is maybe the closest to "whimsy" as he's ever come; his own features (2010's Greenberg, 2007's Margot at the Wedding, 2005's The Squid and the Whale, 1997's Mr. Jealousy, and 1995's Kicking and Screaming) tend to veer into grumpier, more intellectual realms. You might say his films are an acquired taste. Actual declaration overheard at this year's San Francisco International Film Festival: "Am I going to see Frances Ha? Ugh, no. I can't stand Noah Baumbach."

Haters beware. Frances Ha — the black-and-white tale of a New York City hipster (Baumbach's real-life squeeze, Greta Gerwig) blundering her way into adulthood — is probably the least Baumbach-ian Baumbach movie ever. Owing stylistic debts to both vintage Woody Allen and the French New Wave, Frances Ha relies heavily on Gerwig's adorable-disaster title character to propel its plot, which is little more than a timeline of Frances' neverending micro-adventures: pursuing her nascent modern-dance career, bouncing from address to address, taking an impromptu trip to Paris, visiting her parents (portrayed by the Sacramento-raised Gerwig's real-life parents), "breaking up" with her best friend. It's charming, poignant, it's quotable ("Don't treat me like a three-hour brunch friend!"), and even those who claim to be allergic to Baumbach just might find themselves succumbing to it.

Frances Ha marks the second film to feature a dance subplot for Gerwig, after Whit Stillman's 2011 Damsels in Distress. (She also appeared in Greenberg but is probably best-known for her mumblecore oeuvre: 2008's Baghead; 2007's Hannah Takes the Stairs.)

"I love dancing," she admitted on a SFIFF-timed visit to San Francisco. "I was never a professional, but I danced a lot growing up and I still go to dance class whenever I can. I don't think there's enough dancing in movies."

Like Frances, she studied modern dance in college. "I did this kind of modern dance called release technique. A big component of it is learning how to fall. It's connected to bouncing back from the ground, or giving into the ground — letting everything flow. It's a beautiful way to dance, and the dance company that [Frances] wants to be a part of, that's the kind of dance that they do," she said. "I also thought it was this incredible metaphor for life: learning how to fall, because you're going to. At first, as you're learning how to do it, you get terribly banged up — and then at some point you just are falling and it's not hurting you anymore."

Though much of Frances Ha, which was co-scripted by Baumbach and Gerwig, is about its protagonist's various relationship struggles, there's another less-expected theme: class warfare (a mild version of it, anyway). Frances scrambles to pay her $1200 rent — previously, she's seen paying $950 a month to sleep on a couch — while her housemate, who comes from a wealthy family and spends his days noodling on spec scripts, casually mentions the necessity of hiring a maid service. You know, for, "like, 400 bucks a month."

"We didn't set out to make a movie about class, specifically," Gerwig noted. "But I think typically Americans have a lot of trouble talking about class, or even acknowledging that it exists. It operates on a really subtle level. You get out of college and you suddenly realize that some people are paying off loans, and some people aren't. It can be hard to talk about. I'm very inspired by Mike Leigh's movies, where it's always there in the background. I felt like I wanted to have it in the movie, and Noah felt the same way, too."

Later that day, Baumbach elaborated on the same thought. "Economics were really going to influence a lot of what Frances does, because the movie was structured by finding a home, lack of a home, constant movement," he said. "Her economic reality had to be a huge component of her story."

Frances Ha captures twentysomething ennui with the same honesty Baumbach deployed in Kicking and Screaming, though there are some key differences: the Kicking and Screaming guys were mere months post-graduation, while Frances, who is 27, is more removed from college — whether she wants to admit it or not. "It didn't feel like the exact same territory, but I was aware that it was kind of addressing some of the stuff that I was addressing back then," Baumbach said. (Not coincidental, one presumes, is the cameo in Frances Ha by Kicking and Screaming star Josh Hamilton.)

Though he won't cop to naming his main character after, um, France, Baumbach does admit that the country's films (he points specifically to works by Truffaut, Rohmer, and Carax) have had a strong influence on him as a director, and on Frances Ha in particular.

"I think [for these filmmakers], the joy of making the movie is somehow evident in the movie itself," he said. "Sometimes, that can be annoying! But the rush you get from it, you can just feel, like, the pleasure of movies. With Frances Ha, I wanted to push that, and do things like have her run down the street [while David Bowie's 'Modern Love' plays on the soundtrack]. Just go for it, because the movie really could hold it. I think a lot of [the films that inspired me] have that. And because a lot of the music is borrowed from those movies, it feels even more like a clear connection."

FRANCES HA opens Fri/24 in Bay Area theaters

MEM.DAY

caitlin — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:44:22 +0000

Fag Fridays, Steffi, Magic Mountain High, Azari & III, Osunlade, Twilight Circus Dub Sound System -- where to erase your memory over the long weekend

Quentin Harris houses Fag Fridays

marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO What good is freedom if we don't toss a wig on it?

FAG FRIDAYS

The incredibly fun, superfriendly gay party is back, now monthly at DNA Lounge — bigger diggs, hotter hotness, giant bass, and, best of all, more fags. Also: Prince of NYC house Quentin Harris (my favorite producer of the '00s) and DJ David Harness to set the spirits of the dancefloor aflame.

Fri/24, 10pm-very late, $10 before midnight. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. www.dnalounge.com

FREAKY-DEAKY

"Put on the weirdest shit you can find in your costume box. Regardless, come dance your ass off!" says party host Broke-Ass Stuart. Free Ike's sandwiches and Hey Cookie! cookies, too.

Fri/24, 10pm-2am, $5. Showdown, 10 Sixth St., SF. www.brokeassstuart.com

AZARI & III

Canadian duo Azari & III are acid sex. LA hottie Lee Foss is tech house bliss. Legendary Todd Terry is king of cuts. They will all be there at the Lights Down Low seventh anniversary bash. CAN U PARTY?

Sat/25, 9pm-3am, $22. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

OSUNLADE

The deep house sage from Greece is doing some serious shit on a spiritual level.

Sat/25, 10pm-4am, $20. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

DJ DEEP

A super-rare appearance by the revered Paris groovemaster at the untouchable Stompy + Sunset all-day patio party tradition. He's backed up by Detroit boy wonder Kyle Hall, who'll take us somewhere real.

Sun/26, 2pm-2am, $10 before 5pm, $20 after. Cafe Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF. www.pacificsound.net

MAGIC MOUNTAIN HIGH

One of my favorite deep techno DJs, Move D of Germany, has teamed up with Juju and Jordash, wonderfully oddball Israeli improvisational jazz-house duo, to form this live act. I have a feeling with this much smarts in the room, it's gonna be amazing. With the As You Like It party crew.

Sun/26, 9pm-4am, $15 before 10pm, $20 after. Monarch, 101 Sixth St., SF. www.monarchsf.com

SIXXTEEN

Annual rock 'n' roll fantasy-insanity at Cat Club with bad-ass characters in torn fishnets galore: DJs Jenny and Omar, Lady Bear, Jackie Sugarlumps, Princess Pandora, Carnita, Galene Modmoiselle, Creepy B, Union Jackoff, and a motley crew more.

Sun/26,10pm-3am, $10. 1190 Folsom, SF. www.sfcatclub.com

STEFFI

Treats! The fantastic Panorama Bar resident comes at us with the full force of her gorgeous, hypnotically muscular sound at Honey Soundsystem. Then at 2am, Honey moves down the street to Beatbox, driving into dawn with special secret guests for five dollars.

Sun/26, 10pm, $10. Holy Cow, 1535 Folsom, SF. www.honeysoundsystem.com

TWILIGHT CIRCUS DUB SOUND SYSTEM

For 25 years, dub wizard Ryan Moore of the Netherlands (psychedelic heads know him from Legendary Pink Dots) has blown minds with his reverberating soundscapes, pumping up classic ragga sound with sly wit and smokin' updates. This is top sound, folks.

Sun/26, 9pm-2am, $7–$10. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.dubmission.com

Vanishing city

caitlin — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:34:36 +0000

Up against intense market pressure, longtime residents and community projects fade from SF

Esperanza gardeners (left to right): Gabriel Fraley, Maria Fernanda Valecillos, Alana Corpuz, Veronica Ramirez, Jonathan Youtt

rebecca@sfbg.com

On a recent Tuesday night, some of the city's most influential developers, architects, and land-use lawyers gathered in a conference room at the ritzy W Hotel for a panel discussion, titled, "San Francisco's Housing Crisis: Can the Tech Boom Help Us?"

It was a provocative question by any measure, but equally intriguing was the lack of even a hint of objection to the dead-serious framing of increasing unaffordability as a "crisis."

Even among well-heeled property brokers at the event, which was hosted by San Francisco Magazine and the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition, there appears to be universal acceptance that the city stands at a crossroads.

"The question asks itself: Who gets to live in San Francisco?" Tim Colen, HAC's executive director, stated by way of introduction.

To break it down into extremely simplified terms: High-salaried professionals easily make the cut, while tenants of modest means who lack stable rent control are more hard-pressed to find housing they can afford. Opinions on how to approach this problem differ sharply.

Colen and other panelists posited that the solution is to build as the city has never built before, aiming for the construction of 100,000 units in the next two decades. But panelist Peter Cohen of the San Francisco Council of Community Housing Organizations countered that today's development projects aren't being constructed for people who actually live in the city, 61 percent of whom make less than 120 percent of the Area Median Income.

The city's real-estate market is invariably described by those who closely track it as "hot," or "bubbly," bringing to mind a cappuccino, perhaps, that induces a jittery feeling. Speculation abounds.

The ripple effect extends beyond residential units. All across the seven-by-seven peninsula that once represented a haven for misfits and iconoclasts, stories abound of arts organizations, nonprofits, and community gathering spaces getting priced out, pressured to move, or otherwise swept away due to economic circumstances beyond their control.

From 2009 to 2013, UC Berkeley economist Enrico Moretti noted, explosive job growth coincided with San Francisco bearing the third-largest spike in rental prices on average, nationwide. In 2011, San Francisco rents were 34 percent higher than they had been 2003; by 2012, they had jumped to 53 percent higher, according to a market analysis prepared by The Concord Group. According to San Francisco Rent Board data, 1,757 eviction notices were filed from March of 2012 to February of 2013, reflecting a 12-year high.

"The problem has serious social consequences," Moretti said at the event, sounding for an instant like a tenant advocate. "There is a serious amount of displacement."

Every upheaval is messy, every tenant-landlord rift is complicated, and circumstances vary case by case. But taking a broad view, the overwhelming consequence of San Francisco's gale-force property market pressure is a cultural shift; the fabric of a longstanding community is unraveling. Below are a few stories of the people and projects that are finding they won't be able to stay in the San Francisco spaces they occupy for much longer.

THE CORNER OF HAIGHT AND RESENTMENT

Jon Zuckman, better known as Jon Sugar, showed up for a May 15 court appearance on his pending eviction proceeding with an entourage in tow. He was flanked by LGBT housing activist Tommi Mecca, perennial political candidate and sex worker Starchild, and radical activist Jerry the Faerie, among others, all longtime characters of the city's lefty, radical LGBT scene.

Judge James Robertson, citing a letter he'd received from Zuckman's doctor, agreed to grant a 60-day continuance, "for the purpose of allowing the defendant to try and locate alternative housing."

A former KPFA radio personality, comic, writer, and DJ, Zuckman moved to San Francisco in his early 20s and lived in the Haight for 40 years. He's now 63. He played in a band, ran an underground sex venue called the Mini Adult Theater, helped organize against a Republican-led 1978 proposal to ban gay teachers from California schools, supported AIDS benefits and battered-women support groups, and founded GAWK, the Gay Artists and Writers Kollective. He's getting evicted from the Stanyan Street apartment building he's lived in for 25 years, and has no idea where he'll go after that.

Officially, he's being evicted for violating the terms of a legal stipulation hashed out with landlord Al DeLorenzi pertaining to a bedbug infestation treatment. Zuckman claims he notified his landlord about the pest problem two years ago and no action was taken until he phoned the Department of Public Health.

DeLorenzi told the Bay Guardian that Zuckman is to blame for the bugs and that he's just trying to keep the infestation in check. "There is no comment, he can say what he wants to say about this and that," DeLorenzi said when reached by phone.

Complaints filed with the city's Department of Public Health reveal a host of issues associated with the property over the years, from mice to broken light fixtures to a malfunctioning door buzzer.

Zuckman lives with a roommate in a rent-controlled unit, paying considerably less than tenants who pay market rate to live in the building. "I live," he tells people, "on the corner of Haight and resentment."

Zuckman is disabled, and says he's undergone seven surgeries on his foot, plus a knee replacement. Asked if he's on a fixed income, he responds, "It's broken. I am on disability. It's $869 a month. My rent is $600. My phone and Internet is like $55 to $60. And the rest is like, party, party, party."

Tony Robles, of the elder advocacy organization Senior Disability Action, submitted a letter to the court in support of Zuckman. Robles said his office has experienced a spike in demand for services lately. "We've been having a large increase in calls, and people walking in and wanting to know if there's available housing," he says, adding that most clients are seniors grappling with eviction. "A lot of these folks, they're scared."

For his part, Jon Sugar is trying to maintain his sense of humor. "If I curl into a ball and let out with great heaving sobs, it's not going to help," he says. He doesn't know of any good answers for stemming the tide of evictions currently sweeping San Francisco. "There's got to be other ways than throwing crippled old DJs out into the street," he says. Then he lets out a laugh. "I crack me up."

URBAN FARMS AND CIRCUS ARTS: MAKE WAY FOR DEVELOPMENT

On a recent Saturday, the collective that started Esperanza Gardens hosted an event at its tiny fenced-in San Francisco garden plot, billed as a "be-in." Ukulele music floated in the air as several people painted sweeping brushstrokes onto a mural. Volunte ers dished up organic pizza with donated ingredients, cooked in a handcrafted cob oven. A dreadlocked gardener named Ryan Rising was preparing to host a permaculture workshop. The sun was hot, and flowers bloomed in vibrant hues.

Esparanza Gardens was started four years earlier, and the suntanned gardeners gathered under the shade of a 20-foot high cypress that had been a wee sapling when they first started out. But the afternoon gathering was bittersweet; this was a farewell ceremony.

They'd always known the project would be temporary. "We definitely understood what we were getting into," explained Jonathan Youtt, an urban farmer clad in purple overalls and a straw hat, who's recently been devoting more time to an urban farming project in Oakland.

The landlord, Lloyd Klein, had granted rent-free use of the space to the underfunded farmers with the stipulation that they'd have to clear out when the time came. He's since secured entitlements for an ultra-green, four-unit building for that lot and told the Guardian he hopes to break ground by July, if he can secure building permits in time. "We're trying to accomplish a net-zero energy usage building," Klein told the Guardian in a telephone interview. "It will create its own energy from solar."

None of the gardeners seemed to harbor bitter feelings toward Klein, who sanctioned their all-volunteer effort, but all those interviewed expressed concern that the loss of Esperanza coincides with the loss of two other urban farming plots in San Francisco. This was a space where they'd raised bees, harvested produce together, and led workshops with groups of at-risk youth from the surrounding area.

"The loss of space to teach farming is what the issue is," Youtt says. "Without that, we're going to have a void. It's tragic in light of what's happening simultaneously."

The Hayes Valley Farm, at Fell and Octavia streets, is also on its way to being cleared to make way for housing, an outcome that was anticipated from the start of the project. Another urban agriculture project on Gough and Eddy, called the Free Farm, also has to vacate by the end of the year, when a development project goes up on that lot.

For years, the produce grown at Esperanza and Free Farm has supplied the nutritious bounty that is freely distributed every Sunday at a Mission intersection via the Free Farm Stand. An urban farmer, who goes simply by Tree, spearheaded the all-volunteer project in 2008. "We wanted to make sure that low-income people have access to fresh, locally grown produce," Tree explained when reached by phone. "Everywhere I look in the Mission, there's new restaurants. But wherever there's affluence, there's always people thrown in the cracks."

The loss of a sliver of urban farms is just one change that could dramatically transform that Mission District parcel, located on Bryant between 18th and 19th streets. The Esperanza garden plot is sandwiched up against an arts venue called Inner Mission, which has been hosting events like circus and burlesque shows and aerial arts performances in its recently renovated space since January. Inner Mission is located in the same building that previously housed CELLspace ("CELL" stood for Collective Exploratory Learning Lab), a famed underground San Francisco arts collective launched in the 1990s.

An online "obituary" penned for CELLspace by caretaker Devin Holt offered a glimpse into what it was like in the early days: "It was 1996 in San Francisco. A time when you could still find a room in the Mission for $300, and the dotcom boom hadn't turned empty warehouses into prime real estate. When the screen printing business moved out, the dreamers moved in. ... The early years at Cell were marked by chaos and construction. Dave X was known to test his flamethrowers behind the building on Florida St., Jojo La Plume created an open craft loft in the homemade mezzanine, and the Sisterz of the Underground offered free break dancing lessons for aspiring b-girls on the main space floor."

On March 14, the Nick Podell Company, a development firm, submitted a project review application to the San Francisco Planning Department, city records show. The developer has initiated talks about a proposal to raze the warehouse where Inner Mission operates and erect a six-story, 166-unit apartment complex in its place, with parking for 141 vehicles. The company is under contract to purchase the property, according to company representative Linsey Perlov, but it has not yet changed hands. Klein declined to discuss the sale or development proposal at this stage, saying, "I'm not at liberty to speak about it."

A statement distributed at the "be-in" noted that a group called Mission of the Commons envisions a crowd-funding project that would raise enough funds to purchase the warehouse, though details are sketchy on how exactly this would be accomplished. "Selling off this block to a developer will deeply disable our community, displace many," the notice reads, "and perpetuate these very issues [of gentrification] we seek to mitigate and stop."

MISSION BUILDING IS NO PLACE FOR RADICAL ACTIVISTS

The thwack of a stick against a Google-bus piñata at the 16th Street BART station attracted considerable attention on Twitter a few weeks ago during a May 5 event billed as a Mission Anti-Gentrification Block Party. It was organized in part because a 5,200-square feet collective space run by a group of activists is facing eviction from 3265 17th Street. Sometimes called the 17 Reasons building, the property houses Thrift Town, Discount Fabrics and several other businesses at Mission and 17th streets.

The activists signed a four-year commercial lease on the space in August of 2011. Since then, they've been using it as a Food Not Bombs cookhouse, where volunteers prepare giant vats of food for the homeless using donated ingredients, and serve it up weekly at the 16th and Mission BART station. The Food Not Bombs collective and two other collective groups, known as In the Works and Rincon, have used the space to host political events, fix bicycles, and provide a place where penniless activists can get projects off the ground.

"The whole point was to make an accessible space," explained Chema Hernandez Gil, who is involved with the In the Works collective. "We don't have that in the Mission anymore."

Now, their idealistic endeavor is quickly spiraling toward a messy legal clash. This past April, Rick Holman, a managing partner at Asher Insights Inc. whose background is in investment banking and corporate finance, purchased the property. On April 10, leaseholders received a three-day notice to quit, the first step in an eviction, charging they'd subletted the space in violation of their lease terms.

In the Works collective members told the Guardian that the building's locks were changed and they still haven't been issued new keys, although they are able to gain access using a keypad. They've hired an attorney and are exploring their legal options. They view their plight as part of a wider trend of Mission gentrification.

"Every legitimate tenant who was asked has been issued keys," Holman said when reached by phone. He declined to answer questions about the eviction, saying, "I'm respectful of these people and their privacy."

TIME'S ALMOST UP FOR BOOKSTORE OF 41 YEARS

On May 8, Modern Times Bookstore Collective sent out an email blast inviting supporters to a town hall meeting to address the loaded question of what their future holds.

"For 41 years, Modern Times has had its doors open to activists, educators, rabble-rousers, queers, and scholars of all stripes," the collective members of the bookstore wrote. "We've maintained our position as a progressive resource, stocking thousands of titles and collections that you'd be hard-pressed to find at most bookstores: queer theory, sex/uality, disability justice, well-curated and left-leaning section of libros en espanol, critical race studies, anarchy, radical retellings of US history, political economy, socialism, Raza studies, African American and Asian American history and analysis, criticisms of the Prison Industrial Complex, and global activism (just to name a few)."

There are myriad reasons why the bookstore is facing challenges, one being the declining market for print books. But there's also been an erosion of the store's membership and customer base; so many of the former shoppers have been priced out.

Collective member Lex Non Scritta described the collective's community as "politically radical, rabble-rousing activists, artists, and a variety of just total weirdos." But a lot of them "just can't afford to be in San Francisco anymore," she went on, singing a familiar tune. "There's just been a huge shift over to the East Bay."

On May 16, the bookstore held a town hall meeting with supporters to hash out possible future scenarios. "We don't want to close. We're all very attached to it," she says. But at the same time, "we want a more sustainable model, and it's hard to figure out what it looks like for books."

The future of Modern Times remains unclear, and Non Scritta chalked it up to this: "Capitalism and community don't really mix well."

Growth potential

caitlin — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:25:29 +0000

Imaginative dance takes shape at Kunst-Stoff Arts and the Garage

Other Space

PHOTO BY PAK HAN

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE For all of the hype about the communicative power of social media, the energy that flows from one body to another has yet to be beat. Dancers know that. That's why they keep searching for new ways to make this silent language speak.

The Garage on Folsom is one place where they do it; the studio is run on a first-come, first-served basis with a compulsory performance component, so a lot of what you will see there is unfinished. Yet the other night, two Finnish-born choreographers presented pieces as refined and polished as anything shown in bigger venues.

Another venue that fosters innovation is Yannis Adoniou's Kunst-Stoff Arts, above a Burger King across from the San Francisco Main Library. It takes a more focused approach by inviting similarly-minded artists (who don't care about the occasional whiff of fried food making its way upstairs). The recent opening of Kunst-Stoff Arts Fest 2013 showcased three choreographers who pushed the dancing body to the edge of what seems humanly possible.

But first, back to the Garage — where Raisa Punkki's punkkiCo world premiere, Other Space, took command. Some lengths could be edited to keep the trajectory better on track. Also, the image of a dancer emerging from a kind of subterranean existence in the shape of a raincoat didn't ring true. But overall, this quartet (for three women and one man) was finely crafted dance making that explored states of being with a rich, multi-faceted vocabulary and formal controls that allowed for flux and even spontaneity.

Other is designed along the concept of making connections that could be in unison pirouettes or jumbled limbs of labyrinthine complexity. Densely layered encounters gave way to stillness or something as simple as a walk or sitting quietly. The spatial thinking pulsated against the stage's perimeter, enlarged in a couple of places by mirrors. For the most part the dancing was fierce and full out, yet still had room for small gestures: hands that turned into claws, fists that pushed the dancers into relevé and down again. The idea of balance — and lack thereof — lay below much of Other, sharply brought to life by Jennifer Meek, Sarah Keeney, Meegan Hertensteiner, and Derek Harris.

The Bay Area premiere of Alpo Aaltokoski's 2004 astounding Deep showed a dancer who seemed to exist simultaneously inside and outside his body. Gaunt with a shaven head, he whipped himself into a tornado, engaged in turns that layered his body horizontally, and stretched his frame beyond his height only to squat again and again. Crawling, he looked pre-human; howling, he became Everyman. At one point, he was on all fours and sucked in his spine to turn his shoulder blades into wings. Yet none of these physical feats were self-serving; there were stories aplenty in them. Mila Moilnan's subsequent video, based on Deep, felt like an afterthought.

First-week performances at the Kunst-Stoff Arts Fest included three works, two of them in progress, and clearly presented as such. What I saw made me want to follow them because both choreographers seemed to think intriguingly about time.

Christina Bonansea's Floaters #2, set on identical twin dancers Michaela and Liane Burns with excellent live music by Zachary Watkins, started as an installation in the basement. At first resembling statues of saints, the silver-gowned women came to life, slithering and scraping. Upstairs, they ripped into waves of frenzy that threatened to tear them inside out.

For Portraiture, the forbiddingly prodigious Lindsey Renee Derry, as much a gymnast as a dancer, assembled a linear structure from thematically distinct solos that ranged from lyrical to ferocious. In the future, she wants to extend this trajectory by inviting other choreographers, perhaps to evoke something like Andy Goldsworthy's Wood Line installation in the Presidio.

Adoniou and the gorgeous Constantine Baecher, a former Royal Danish Ballet dancer, paired up for The Excruciating Death of St. Sebastian. One is dark and older, the other blond and tall, so the tracing of their relationship started on a note of difference. Their give and take began intertwined, as if they were asleep, and grew into teasing and tenderness, shot through with exploration and exuberance. Finally, with the help of a cane, the piece moved into darker territory. My tolerance for watching pain — real or pretend, received or given — is just about zero. Still, this was fine work.

KUNST-STOFF ARTS FEST 2013

Through June 7, most events $10-$15

Kunst-Stoff Arts

One Grove, SF

www.kunst-stoff.org

NATIONAL QUEER ARTS FESTIVAL

May 31-July 3 (various curated events)

Garage

715 Bryant, SF

www.715bryant.org

Visit queerculturalcenter.org/NQAF for NQAF events at different venues.

Urbicide

caitlin — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:14:32 +0000

Take a look at the map on the front page and you get the point: Thousands of San Franciscans are getting thrown out of town

Every point on the map (click here for the detailed, interactive version) is a building where the landlord has used the state's Ellis Act to evict all the tenants. (The points typically involve multi-unit buildings, so the number of tenants displaced is even worst than it looks). Some tenants have been here for decades, living in rent-controlled apartments, contributing to the community. And when the eviction notice arrives, they have nowhere else to go.

>>TO SEE A PROPERTY-BY-PROPERTY SPREADSHEET TRANSLATING OUR COVER'S EVICTION MAP -- THAT INCLUDES LANDLORD NAMES --CLICK HERE

It feels as if all of crazy, radical, artistic, and unconventional San Francisco is under attack, as if a city that once welcomed waves of weirdos and malcontents — who, in turn, gave the city its attractive reputation and flavor — is changing forever. It's as if there's no longer any room for the working class — the people who, for example, keep the city's number one industry (that's hospitality and tourism, not tech) functioning.

It's terrifying. Neighborhood after neighborhood is losing affordable rental housing as landlords cash in on soaring prices. And there's a huge human cost.

In the end, if trends continue, this will soon be a very different city. We all know that change is part of life (and certainly part of hyper-capitalism) but the notion that there's a value to a city culture that needs low rent housing and cheap commercial space has been all-but abandoned by the administration of Ed Lee, which wants high-paying jobs at all costs.

And it's hard to imagine how the best of San Francisco — the city whose culture and sense of madness attracted all these creative folks in the first place — will ever survive. Call it Urbicide — because as Rebecca Bowe reports here, it goes way beyond residential evictions.

San Francisco Bay Guardian - Essential Bay Area News, Politics, Arts, and Culture

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Activists’ zine documents violent arrests at SF State

For No God's Sake

Week One

PG&E can't survive solar energy

The Performant: Dare to DIVA

Tour of duty

BLACK WATCH Through June 16 Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm, $100 Drill Court, Armory Community Center 333 14th St, SF www.act-sf.org

Talkin' loud

GILLES PETERSON "BAY AREA EDITION"

Björkphilia

BJÖRK

Friendly spirits

Let's dance

FRANCES HA opens Fri/24 in Bay Area theaters

MEM.DAY

FAG FRIDAYS

FREAKY-DEAKY

AZARI & III

OSUNLADE

DJ DEEP

MAGIC MOUNTAIN HIGH

SIXXTEEN

STEFFI

TWILIGHT CIRCUS DUB SOUND SYSTEM

Vanishing city

THE CORNER OF HAIGHT AND RESENTMENT

URBAN FARMS AND CIRCUS ARTS: MAKE WAY FOR DEVELOPMENT

TIME'S ALMOST UP FOR BOOKSTORE OF 41 YEARS

Growth potential

KUNST-STOFF ARTS FEST 2013

NATIONAL QUEER ARTS FESTIVAL

Urbicide

BLACK WATCH
Through June 16

Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm, $100

Drill Court, Armory Community Center

333 14th St, SF

www.act-sf.org