Leaving the house now and then.
I have been out eating and drinking entirely too much lately, and it is beginning to show in the way my pants (fail to) fit. I would whine and carry on about how cruel life is... but good food is not exactly a curse, so it's not like I will earn your sympathy.*
My efforts to reclaim my nightlife have been reasonably successful, especially with regard to live music. The first week of July I was able to enjoy the Charlie Hunter Trio (www.charliehunter.com) at the Great American Music Hall (gamh.com). It has been a few years since I've been able to see CH, and his show was excellent. I was wary at the beginning of the first set for no particular reason, but as the set became more intense, I remembered how fabulous a musician he is...
The first set, strangely enough, featured an arrangement of Blondie's Heart of Glass, which was done so cleverly that it took a while to identify itself, since it came through as pure jazz... And the second set was even better than the first.
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The following week was the stellar Black Francis show, which I wrote about previously.
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This past week brought me back to the Rickshaw Stop for The Definite Articles (who have a new song!), the Brass Liberation Orchestra (who gave themselves a longer-than-scheduled set, from what I understand), and Mucca Pazza (mucca-pazza.org), who were fun fun fun fun fun. 
Who can I compare Mucca Pazza to? ("Your band is like a summer's day...") They are like... The Extra Action Marching Band, except they all keep their clothes on!
They are like... The Infernal Noise Brigade, except they are still together and they wear mismatched costumes!
They are like... people I might have hung out with in school, if I had actually signed up for band/orchestra, which I did not, but those of you who were in band/orchestra who I do hang out with could have turned out to be these people if you had been... significantly less sedate and more inclined to grow facial hair?? Maybe?
MP is extremely fun. Talented musicians! Energetic peformers! They dominated the Rickshaw Stop. The show was enthralling, and audience bounced out merrily into the streets at the end of the encore.
Little did I know that I would be able to enjoy Mucca Pazza live TWICE in the same week, for they were also the headliners at the Tour de Fat (followyourfolly.com). The Tour de Fat is New Belgium Brewing's fabulous summer festival series dedicated to raising money for biking and open-space causes in the localities where they put up their tents. Which means that people can come out for a day of free entertainment, show off their fancy custom bikes, and buy delicious, 16 ounce New Beligum beers with all of the proceeds going to organizations I love dearly, especially the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.The weather was terrible for an outdoor festival, but the festival was a blast, and I was there from 8:30 until it shut down.
Have I mentioned that I love bike people? I love bike people.
Visit the bands' websites to hear their great stuff.
Labels: festivals, fog, I heart bikes, I heart San Francisco, music
posted by Arlene (Beth)9:37 PM
I have been tired most of this week, and the best thing that made me tired was seeing Black Francis at the Uptown Nightclub in Oakland on Wednesday night through Thursday morning. The Uptown is a great little club near 19th Street BART station in Oakland, with a divided layout so that the bar is separate from the main performance space. The stage was projected onto a fabric screen over the bar near the front entrance, so you could keep track of what was happening while getting an iced drink. (The club also has immaculate bathrooms and good service at the bar.)
I'd had a long, overheated work day before the show, a mediocre dinner at a Cambodian place I had once loved, and a difficult time finding a place I could feel comfortable waiting for the club to open; I was somewhat discouraged that I had no friends who were also late-night fans who could attend the show with me; and by the time I returned to Oakland from a cafe in Berkeley, I had feared that I wouldn't be able to stay awake. But I liked the club, and wound up initiating friendly conversation with other fans around me, who were quite pleasant, and provided commentary while we watched the roadies frown. As soon as Frank's set started, I was internally electrified. I left the show completed elated at about 1:40 a.m. (only the slightest bit disappointed at the lack of encores), and thus barely missed the hourly All-Nighter AC Transit 800 bus that was going to take me back into SF for a mere $3.50. 
I'd posted one of my invitations to see The Definite Articles (myspace.com/thedefinitearticles) at their CD release party in San Francisco this past week. The cellist and main force behind the band is an especially clever office colleague of mine, and I was very excited for him when he announced his intention to take a sabbatical to record a CD and polish the band's performance. His sabbatical will be ending next month, now that he has made remarkable progress in his planned projects.