*UPDATE* Congrats to commenters suki and Brandy for winning a pair of passes. See you at THREAD show tomorrow!
I discovered THREAD Show two years ago through my friend, Mika, and have returned ever since to check out the wares from dozens of local artists. This Saturday (6/19), to kick off San Francisco Design Week, THREAD will showcase over 100 independent designers at The Concourse Exhibition Center while offering up complimentary music, art, food and entertainment. Tickets are $10 at the door/$8 in advance but I have two pairs of tickets to give away to my readers. Click “Continue Reading” to find out how to win…
Samovar's peppermint ryokucha tea was a perfect complement to dessert.
I can’t remember exactly how I was introduced to Samovar Tea Lounge, but I was so impressed by the selection and quality of both their tea and food on my initial visit, not to mention the ambience, that I have returned to the Yerba Buena Gardens location numerous times. I’ve brought my Mother to Samovar for Mother’s Day since she adores tea service and recently attended an informational fundraiser for 300 Acres.
Three beers purchased at Whole Foods. From the left, an amber ale. In the middle, a tangy light, white Japanese ale. Finally, Orval trappist ale.
So, when I initially spotted the one on the left, Wilco Tango Foxtrot, I immediately thought of (IMHO) Wilco’s best album, 2002′s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. What’s even more interesting, at least from my perspective, is that the album was completed in 2001 but Reprise Records, who I interned for a year prior, had shelved the release.
The band successfully (hence miraculously) bought back the rights for $80,000 (I believe the Wikipedia citation might be inconsistent with the info presented in their documentary film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart) and then sold it to Nonesuch Records, a subsidiary independent label also under the Warner Music umbrella, for around $240,000 (or three times as much). Way to go corporate execs and a huge win for Wilco.
I’d also like to point out the fact that I love SF just because between City Beer Store and the wealth of other outlets, you can find (pretty much) anything in the world at a reasonable price. There are always exceptions.
The bar is the first thing that greets patrons of Globe.
When I first moved to SF, I didn’t know too many people. Luckily enough, my first job here put me in contact with some pretty amazing, in-the-know people whom I still consider close friends to this very day. One night, after an advertising industry mixer, my friend, Kevin, suggested we stop into Globe for late night eats. Located in North Beach, it was clearly out of the way from our current location and, naturally, we all protested. However, Kevin quickly sold us with the line “all the best chefs in San Francisco dine at this establishment.”
It’s truly a pity that James Murphy, the man behind LCD Soundsystem and the legendary DFA record label, which has released all of the band’s material including their 2002 hit breakthrough single, “Losing My Edge,” has decided to pull the plug on what is inarguably one of the coolest, most transcendent musical outfits to emerge in the past decade. The rest of the live review can be found at Spinning Platters.
The full set of photos can be found on my Flickr here.
This was one of the best shows I’ve been to in awhile. Photos can be found here. Review at Spinning Platters has now been posted:
“High Violet, the fifth full-length album from Cincinnati-bred, Brooklyn-based band The National, has defied the Law of Diminishing Returns for me: each and every subsequent listen of an individual track increases my level of aural pleasure not to mention obsession with dissecting every lyric, note, and hidden meaning behind the combination of both.”
There have been many takes on the infamous television show, Iron Chef, which requires acclaimed chefs to square off and use their ingenuity to create a unique dish with a theme ingredient.
This past holiday season, I was treated to “Iron Liver” at my friend Dave’s house where secret ingredients including thyme and cranberry sauce were skillfully combined with a variety of hard liquors and assorted mixers to (mostly) palatable results. Now, there’s Iron Cupcake – a monthly event I recently discovered thanks to Leland Tea Company. This wonderful gem of a place deserves its own blog post so I won’t elaborate much about the venue beyond this point.
The League of S.T.E.A.M. or (Supernatural and Troublesome Ectoplasmic Apparition Management)
This past weekend, Maker Faire descended upon the Bay Area (specifically the San Mateo Fairgrounds) for the fifth year in a row. With over 600 exhibitors, performers, and makers, in general, the festival, created by MAKE Magazine to “celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset,” attracted thousands of attendees of all ages and did not disappoint.
San Francisco's first installment of Music Hackday took place on May 15th & 16th at Pier 38.
San Francisco’s first installment of Music Hackday, a global event that attracts some of the best and brightest minds in the music and technology space, was, as one of the organizer’s put it, “the most productive hack day yet” with 35 new creations or “hacks” materializing over the course of 2 days at Automattic‘s headquarters.
One thing my review is missing is another cool invention that came out of the brainstorming sessions this past weekend – a steel drum (iSteelPan) created for the iPad. The video below demonstrates how it works while this article shows you how to make drumsticks that can be used on any touch device. Whether you like it or not, the iPad is going to play a significant role in how people create new music in the years to come. Click here to read my recap of the event on Spinning Platters.
Michael Tilson Thomas is currently the music director of the San Francisco Symphony.
One of the greatest things about living in San Francisco is the access you have to pretty much anyone and everyone. What exactly do I mean by this? I worked in the music industry for years during and a few years after I graduated from college in Los Angeles and felt that many of the big names were elusive. There’s no way I would have ever mustered up the courage to approach the president of Warner Bros. Records when I was an intern even though his office was right down the hall from where I sat.
However, over the past few years, I’ve had the great fortune of meeting some of the brightest minds that are setting the standards and shaping the future of the music industry including but not limited to Ty Roberts, Ian Rogers, Tim Westergren, Corey Denis, Lee Martin – and SF MusicTech Summit was the forum that made all of these connections possible.
