Autumn shows
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Hey Everyone! Summer is over and Autumn is upon us. For Halloween, the weather here in San Francisco was just beautiful—warm, sunny and mild by day, and absolute perfection by night. I’m sad to turn the clocks back and let the darkness creep up on us every evening, but it’s that time of year now.
On Friday Oct. 28, I checked out Club ID at the Rickshaw Stop. I’ve been to this club a few times, and what I love about it is that I don’t know a soul there most of the time; the regulars are young and stylish; and they have 2 bands perform, but it’s really a dance club with fun new wave and electro music. The vibe is really fun, and I always enjoy myself even though I don’t know anyone. This night was their Midnight Cabaret Halloween Ball with bands Madelia and The Holy Kiss. I hate to bash bands, but these were two of the most un-listen-able, painful bands that I’ve seen this year! Despite my distaste for the bands, I had a blast and really enjoyed the dance party that was going on the rest of the time.
On Sat. Oct. 29, I went to the El Rio to see The Demonics perform. This band is such a blast and they hardly ever play live anymore. They put on a fun, high energy set, and everyone had a great time. Supporting them were Thee Merry Widows and Flexx Bronco, who are both great local bands. I’ve written about these bands before, and I’m a fan of both of them. This was a fun night with a lot of great costumes. I think Flexx Bronco are super-talented. In a way that I can’t put my finger on exactly, they remind me of one of my all time favorite bands, The New Bomb Turks. This, coming from me, is a very high compliment.
The following day, Sunday Oct 30, was the Annual Soap Box Derby Races. This was a lot of fun. Everyone shows up at the top of this hill in Bernal Heights, where there is a windy road that is closed to traffic, and there is a gorgeous view of the city surrounding you. People build amazing soapbox derby cars using all sorts of random pieces of junk, as well as building traditional aerodynamic wooden cars. My favorite one this year was made of 3 empty beer kegs! It was so genius and hilarious. My second favorite was a platform with a 1970’s velvet throne-like chair, and the guy driving it had a giant 70’s-style mustache! It was really funny to watch. The weather was sunny and beautiful and the view was amazing. It was the perfect end of our summer season. I found a great website with lots of photos of this event, so check it out. There is even a slide show.
The weekend before, on Fri. Oct. 21, I went to see 2 amazing punk bands, The Briefs and The Spits at Bottom of the Hill. Local band, Radio Reelers opened up, and they were really awesome too. All 3 bands are loud, fast, tongue-in-cheek, punk rock-n-roll. The whole show had great energy and crowd response, and I am glad I went even though I had a pretty bad cold. It was definitely worth the effort, as these bands never disappoint an audience. This was a great show other than the fact that this club is too small to house the crowd. Click here for my mini-rant about Bottom of the Hill.
On Thursday Oct. 20th, I went to one of my favorite annual parties: The SF Weekly Awards. This event is thrown every year by the SF Weekly newspaper to honor local musical acts and invite the bands, their managers, publicists, advertisers, and various others involved in the local music community. I have gone to the event for about 4 or 5 years, and each year it is completely different, but you can always expect great free food and open bar! This year, highlights of the show were a local hip hop band, The Heiroglyphics, who put on a really awesome show; and a young urban dance troupe, The Animaniakz, who were so much fun to watch.
Another cool thing this year that I enjoyed, were the 2 edible chocolate waterfalls that were on display! One was regular chocolate, and one white chocolate, and there were various things you could dip into the multi-tiered waterfalls. It was a total chocolate-lovers fantasy! In fact, even though there is always a big buffet of amazing food, I ignored everything and stuck to the chocolate waterfall dinner diet! After the party, I went to the after party at Suite 181 for an hour or so, and no one was there! A friend and I danced like fools on the empty dance floor and I had a blast anyway.
On Sat Oct 15th, I went to the Rumblers annual Car Club event at Thee Parkside to see Hammerlock. I started out my evening at The Beauty Bar for cocktails with a friend, where DJ Heiko (from the band One Man Army) was DJing a fun mix of disco & 80’s randomness. He played that song “Everything She Wants,” by Wham, which I had totally forgotten about, and I love it! As I left the bar, he was playing Hall and Oates! I headed to Thee Parkside at 9pm, which I consider pretty early, and I arrived to find that I had missed Hammerlock and the show had begun at 5pm! Oh well, I had a lot of fun anyway, and CH 3 headlined the show.
CH 3 put on a great set; but the dumb doorman stopped letting anyone in, even though more than half the crowd had already left the premises permanently, so CH 3 played to a half-empty club. Meanwhile, a whole bunch of people paid for cabs to get to the club, only to be turned away. This BS is not only bad for the bands, but it’s bad business and bad for the club. They could have made a few hundred more dollars by letting more people in, and the club could have stayed full all night without any chance of being overcrowded. I have to give a big ‘thumbs down’ to the doorman’s decision at this show!
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The previous night, Friday Oct 14th, I went to see another DJ set of Miss Kittin, a French Electro DJ, at Mezzanine. I don’t have any friends who are into this stuff (except a bartender who always works weekends), so I went to this club all by myself and paid a (whopping) $22 cover charge! (I couldn’t keep myself from bitching about it to the gay doorman, only to receive ZERO sympathy and to be told, “You think that’s expensive? You should move to New York! This is Cheap!”)
It’s a good thing that when I am determined to have a good time, that is exactly what I’m going to do (damnit!)! I went in there dressed like serious Euro trash, and instantly met 3 Danish fellows from Copenhagen. European guys are a lot of fun, and I ended up hanging out with them all night drinking and dancing. I saw no need to meet anyone else, as I had 3 hot, stylish, interesting European men to party with… what else could I possibly want? (Okay, to look like a supermodel would be nice, as well as being rich like one… that’s what else I could possibly want.) I loved Miss Kittin’s DJ set, and I could have danced all night!
October 6-10 was one of my favorite annual events in the city: Fleet Week! Every October, the Blue Angels descend on our city by the bay, and their loud planes scare the hell out of us! These planes are loud enough to give someone a heart attack! The reason I love Fleet Week though, is that these pilots put on such an impressive synchronized air show; it is breathtakingly spectacular. Saturday at the air show was a gorgeous sunny day, with lovely views, boats on the water, cold beer, and a killer show up above. It was a great weekend, one that made me for the millionth time, feel so blessed to live in San Francisco.
Sunday Oct 9th was the Italian Heritage Parade in North Beach (which is San Francisco’s “little Italy”), which I heard about on the Fleet Week website. I went to North Beach to have brunch with friends and see what this parade consisted of. I didn’t see anything of note, though, so I must have missed the good part! After brunch, my friends and I went to Washington Square Park to lie around in the sun and drink Champagne. There was a Ferrari car club show parked in the park, which consisted of about 50 beautiful Ferrari’s, both new and vintage. It was cool to happen upon this, since I am a major car lover. More friends showed up and we ended up accidentally drinking all day in a sleek, small bar that is new to me, called Magnet, on Green Street. I then had a lovely dinner with a guy I’d just met at Michelangelo’s, also in the quaint North Beach area. It was a perfect San Francisco day. Just thinking about it makes me want to re-live it!
After my lovely day, I headed over to the Red Devil Lounge to see the English Beat. Ranking Roger is not in the band anymore, but Dave Wakeling has such an amazing voice, and a great band, so I was really glad I went to this show. It was just awesome to hear songs I love like “Mirror in the Bathroom,” “Tears of a Clown,” and favorites by General Public (the band he and Ranking Roger formed after the English Beat), like “Tenderness.” The English Beat is coming back to the Red Devil Lounge on December 15th, but it’s already sold out! Maybe they will add a second show.
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The first weekend in October, was the Burlesque Festival, Teasorama. I ended up scoring a wristband to get in free on the second night, and it was really fun. I met a charming Spaniard, a professor at Stanford, who kept me in Champagne for the night and distracted me from most of the show! Those Burlesque performers are awesome though. There is no way I could describe the many intricate routines, but if you are a fan of burlesque, this is THE convention to check out next year.
Sat Sept 24th, I went to the Jimi Hendrix photo exhibit that I mentioned in my last update, ‘Jimi Hendrix- Can you see me?’ at the San Francisco Art Exchange (www.sfae.com). It was even better than I could have anticipated. Not only was there open bar and really amazing art, but many of the original photographers were milling about the opening, and were down-to-earth enough to talk with me (a nobody!) about what it was like to photograph Hendrix. Bravo Television was there filming the event and they asked me to talk to one of the photographers on camera. Unfortunately, the filmed conversation was the least exiting conversation I had all night, but I might end up on Bravo! (The week before, I was on the local news bitching about how my health club went bankrupt and ripped all of it’s members off, so now I guess I’m a TV regular! That’s pretty exciting for “a nobody!”) The art show was a lot of fun, not only for the work on display, but also for the many conversations I had with strangers and new friends. I hope to go to the next opening event the gallery has. I even got my boots shined by a shoe shine man outside on my way out!
Also on Sat. Sept 24th, was the Annual Love Parade. This is an event that began in Berlin, Germany, and just started in San Francisco last year. This was my first time attending. It is an electronic music outdoor festival, with loud electronic dance music blasting from everywhere you turn, and obnoxious floats with people dancing on them. It starts at the Embarcadero (waterfront) and ends at City Hall. The setup is the same as Gay Pride. I went to wander around and check it out for a while. It was a lovely warm San Francisco summer day, and there were tons of interesting people. I had to get my photo taken with the most outlandish character I could find!
On Sun. Sept 25th, Billy Idol was supposed to perform at an outdoor concert at Golden Gate Park called the ‘Now and Zen Festival.’ I was so irritated that I got up early on a Sunday, drove around looking for parking, walked a mile, and arrived to find out that he cancelled due to a “family emergency.” I think the emergency was that his son, Wilhelm would disown him if he actually played a show with Maroon 5 and Natasha Betenfield! (Someone else lame was also on the bill but I forgot who.)
I also didn’t end up going to meet Richard Hell for his recent book promotional tour because I had strep throat. I would have liked to meet him, but it wasn’t meant to happen this time.
Well that should catch you all up on what I’ve been up to in this amazing city. As usual, there will be much more to come next update.
Until Next time,
XXOO, Alisha Amnesia
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