Friday, September 30, 2011
We Recommend: Odd Future Tonight at the Warfield
Just-Announced Shows Rachel Swan — Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 10:20 AM
Everything you know about Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All is wrapped into a two minute and thirty-one second music video, described in minute, pungent detail by writer Kelefah Sanneh, who profiled the group for The New Yorker. A group of Los Angeles teens pours random, noxious ingredients into a blender — prescription pills, dirt, cough syrup, weed, malt liquor — liquefies the admixture, and distributes it in red plastic cups. Once they've drunk everything, the kids go outside with their skateboards and proceed to wreck themselves, spewing blood, teeth, saliva, fingernails, and other bodily excretions. Warning: It's not for the feint of heart.
Weekender: The Top Things to Do Over the Next Three Days in the East Bay
Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 7:35 AM
Sure, you could go to Hardly Strictly, but there's also plenty of stuff going on this side of the Bay:
Oaktoberfest in the Dimond
Under ordinary circumstances, strolling down the street with an open beer in hand is considered illegal. But at Oaktoberfest — the fourth annual craft-beer festival that will spill across four blocks in Oakland's Dimond District (MacArthur Boulevard and Fruitvale Avenue) on Saturday, October 1 — stein-wielding beer drinkers can imbibe outdoor brews to their liver's content, consuming offerings from more than twenty Bay Area breweries including Oakland's own Pacific Coast Brewing Co., Linden Street Brewery, and the Oakland Brewing Company. 11 a.m.-6 p.m., free.
S. Clay Wilson Benefit
In 1968, R. Crumb teamed up with S. Clay Wilson and others to create Snatch Comics, whose three issues form only one small part of the body of work that makes Wilson an underground comics and graphic arts legend. On Saturday, Oct. 1, Spain Rodriguez (Zodiac Mindwarp, Zap Comix) and author/historian Dan Fogel sign copies of the newly issued Snatch Comics Treasury at Escapist Comics (3090 Claremont Ave, Berkeley); there will also be a special live auction to benefit Wilson, who, due to a 2008 traumatic brain injury, requires 24-hour care. 8-10 p.m., free. 510-652-6642or EscapistComics.com. — Stefanie Kalem
Monday, September 26, 2011
Watch: tUnE-yArDs' New Video, "Gangsta"
Ellen Cushing — Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 3:52 PM
Three minutes and 56 seconds of delightfully weird, seemingly random clips arrayed stream-of-consciousness-style, and directed by frontwoman Merrill Garbus herself:
Friday, September 23, 2011
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Schedule is Up
Just-Announced Shows Rachel Swan — Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 4:04 PM
And, just like last year, it includes a lot of really cool overlapping headliners (Gillian Welch, Irma Thomas, Broken Social Science, A.A. Bondy, and the Punch Brothers all play at around the same time on Saturday, for instance) which means you'll set yourself up for failure if you try to see everything. But by all means, try! With six stages and a totally star-studded line-up (that's no overstatement!) the festival is aiming to outdo itself once again. Given that last year's event drew in about 800 thousand people over the course of three days, we'll see how it fares this time.
Weekender: Top Things to Do Over the Next Three Days in the East Bay
Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 8:35 AM
Ahoy, mateys. Here's what you're doing this weekend:
Oakland Underground Film Festival
Now in its third year, the Oakland Underground Film Festival features three days of indie films, food, live music, and after-parties. The fest kicked off at the Grand Lake Theater last night but moves to NIMBY (8410 Amelia St., Oakland) on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 23-24, where moviegoers can devour food-truck fare and watch movies, documentaries, and shorts. Must-sees: Komaneko, a sickeningly cute Japanese short, and the international hip-hop documentary The Furious Force of Rhymes. $10-$15 per feature film. 510-295 3259 or OakUFF.org— Cassie Harwood
The first Eat Real Festival, in 2009, sweated under the glare of an Oakland wave, and while there were fearsome lines and food shortages over its three days, it was a success. Some 70,000 people showed up, in no small part to check out the Bay Area's young street-food scene, then on its first legs. This year's fest is later than in previous years — September 23-25, in Jack London Square — but promises to be no less sweaty. Again, organizers — who inaugurated an LA version of Eat Real earlier this summer — are tweaking the format. They've invited fewer food trucks this year (sixty, compared to ninety in 2010), apparently to limit the mass of queued-up food seekers from choking the central promenade. Also new this year: a Craft Food Market, made up of nearly three dozen food artisans hawking a range of things, from coffee and jams to pasta and pickles. And — are you excited yet? — get ready for Eat Real's Jam Bar, which sounds like some sort of hip-hop poetry slam from the Nineties performed behind a counter, but I bet is going to be, well — a jam bar. Eat Real standbys are back again this year, though, including the butchery competition, various food demos, a multi-tap beer garden, music, and a literary festival. It's always been a bit hard to nail down Eat Real's exact rationale (apart from a being a sprawling, end-of-summer outdoor festival in Oakland, a food-focused bookend to Art & Soul). Neither purely a street-food festival nor a pickle-forward maker fair, Eat Real describes itself as "part state fair, street-food festival, and block party created to celebrate and showcase good food," according to a press release. Maybe that's rationale enough. Free, various times. See EatRealFest.com for details and full schedule. — John Birdsall
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Watch: DMX on Lil B's "I'm Gay"
Bay Area Bands Ellen Cushing — Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 2:53 PM
So a XXL reporter asked DMX what he thinks about Lil B titling his album I'm Gay. Turns out — and this probably won't come as a galloping shock to anyone! — the Ruff Ryder is not so down with the former Brandon McCartney's act of blatant media-baiting gimmickry courage and tolerance. Watch here:
Also worth noting: DMX is apparently the last human being in the entire universe to have heard of LIl B — which Bossip astutely attributes to his recent stint in jail, but still!
Monday, September 19, 2011
Run, Run, Run to Catch Brad Pitt at the Paramount
People Rachel Swan — Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 4:22 PM
You have a little less than 40 minutes to stop whatever you're doing and high-tail it down to Oakland's Paramount Theatre, where famed actors Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill will host tonight's benefit screening of Moneyball, the new Columbia Pictures film about Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's scheme to draft a winning team. Based on a wildly popular book of the same name, the film — slated for September 23 release — also stars Robin Wright, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Chris Pratt, and Casey Bond. Tonight's screening is closed to the public, but if you get their fast, you might catch a glimpse of these stars on the red carpet. So, run.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Weekender: Top Things to Do Over the Next Three Days in the East Bay
Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 6:00 AM
At press posting (!?) time, you have 259,200 seconds between now and Monday morning. Here's how to use 'em wisely:
PARK(ing) Day
Looking for parking can be stressful, but looking for parks will be a breeze during worldwide PARK(ing) Day on Friday, Sept. 16, when various metered parking spaces will be transformed into public "parklets" that offer a bit of greenery while challenging conceptions of urban space. Businesses and organizations across the East Bay will take part throughout the day and entire weekend. Actual Cafe (6334 San Pablo Ave., Oakland), which opened a now-defunct parklet in May, will host a new park with a DJ and happy hour, and Oaklandish (1444 Broadway, Oakland) will roll out a park in front of its downtown Oakland storefront. Times vary by location, free. Click here for full participant list. — Cassie Harwood
Project Bandaloop: Boundless
Site-specific and aerial dance are all the rage these days, and Project Bandaloop still leads the charge after two decades of dancing on skyscraper walls, across the face of El Capitan in Yosemite, and (every so often) in theaters. On Thursday through Saturday, September 15-17, Bandaloop celebrates its twentieth anniversary with premiere performances of Bound(less), a large-scale, multimedia vertical dance performed on (and between) buildings at the Great Wall of Oakland (Grand Ave. and Broadway). Electro-jazz musician and composer Dana Leong and his band accompany the supremely acrobatic, and evidently fearless dancers as they fly through the air, bending minds and altering perspectives. Arrive as early as 6 p.m. to secure your view, and bring a folding chair or blanket for a comfortable seat. 8:30 p.m., free (limited reserved seating available for $35 for Saturday night's show). 415-421-5667 or ProjectBandaloop.org. — Claudia Bauer
Thursday, September 15, 2011
PopLyfe Comes Up Short in America's Got Talent Finale
Bay Area Bands Rachel Swan — Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 9:59 AM
So much for the timeworn strategy of posting plaintive, beseeching flyers on East Bay Express news racks:
Oakland teen band PopLyfe — whose members are scions of Tony Toni Toné singer D'Wayne Wiggins and jazz drummer Ranzel Merritt, and students at Oakland School of the Arts — feel just short of the $1 million grand prize on NBC's nationally televised song-and-dance competition, America's Got Talent. Instead, the prize went to West Virginia-born singer Landau Eugene Murphy, Jr., whose hard-luck biography probably elicited as many votes as his growly, endearing rendition of "Under My Skin." (He apparently spent several years washing cars at a West Virginia dealership before perfecting the American Songbook.)
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Kreayshawn Tries to Squash Beef with Rick Ross
Bay Area Bands Rachel Swan — Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 4:45 PM
