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So, last night, I saw Ingrid Michaelson play a show at Slim’s… She originally was playing at Cafe du Nord, which would have been awesome since it’s such a small venue, but apparently her tickets sold out so quickly that they upgraded her to Slim’s — last night was apparently the biggest show that she’s played to date. Anyway, her show was awesome.. her personality shines throughout the whole show, as she intertwines funny stories with her sweet, sometimes melancholy songs. Excited to visit San Francisco, since she wanted to see the Full House house, she was disappointed when she only ended up visiting the Painted Ladies, which were the houses shown in the opening credits (so close! only 1.1 miles away!)…

She played only 1 encore song — I absolutely LOVE short encores. I find it kind of annoying when bands leave their best songs out of their set, and then play essentially a second set for their encore. Ingrid did a delicately sweet rendition of “Can’t Help Falling In Love” as her encore.. so good.

Anyway… if you haven’t seen it, here’s her video for “The Way I Am.” Good stuffs.

woot.

at the genentech concert a few weeks ago…

My good friend Shooey has invited me to spin at her regular party at Anu tonight.. So, I’m dusting off my records and I’m gonna go spin tonight! It’s been awhile since I’ve played out, so I’m super excited to be playing.. It’s been on my list to get out there and start promoting myself to get more gigs and such, so maybe tonight will give me the necessary kick in arse to get that whole ball rolling…

I’m on at 10pm, so swing by and say hi, I’ll buy you a drink.

Here are the details:

7/27 Thursday
Cheeky @ Anu
43 Sixth Street b/t Mission & Market St
10:00pm-2:00am
NO cover!

Cheeky Productions newest residents DJs Scottino and shOOey (aka ScottOOey) are back to bring you an evening of booty shakin’ beats. We’re excited to once again share the spotlight with one of our favorite DJ’s you’ve never heard of! This week, Sinned will start our evening off with his ice breaking breaks sound that will surely heat up the dance floor! Come drink a drink and dance a dance with us!

:: Lineup ::
1000 - Sinned (MSG)
1115 - shOOey (In Deep / Cheeky)
1230 - Scottino (FiX / Cheeky)

Last night Chromeo rocked the house Mighty — the show was originally intended as the grand opening party of the new Poleng Lounge, but due to some delays with permitting or something, the party had to be moved to Mighty, which was too bad since it would have been awesome at Poleng. That said, Mighty is a fantastic venue with a badass soundsystem, so all was fine…

Best known for their songs Rage and Needy Girl (which has an awesome video that was shown at ResFest a few years back) Dave One and Pee Thugg played an awesome set, energetic and engaging.. Pee Thugg is such a master of the talkbox, so it was pretty cool to see it live.. Chromeo actually brought along a drummer, who apparently didn’t come with a drumkit, so I had to bring up Kane’s drumkit which he’s had since like high school.. haha..

Bfamilysoundsystem played an awesome set to open, and it apparently was Joe Encarnacion’s final SF set before he moves to NYC.. Alan Keller spun in between the live sets..

Anyway, I was still in my cast, but I managed to dance one-legged just fine, although since I figured I wouldn’t be dancin’ crazy, I brought along my camera and took a ton of pics (man, i love that 50mm f/1.4 lens)… I go and see the doctor next week, so hopefully I get my cast off soon, it’s been 6 weeks already..

It’s been a crazy month.. The Indians made a valiant effort for a playoff berth, but alas, getting swept by the White Sox in the last pivotal games of the season didn’t help out the situation at all. Ack.. it’s so sad to see them miss the playoffs, they had a fantastic amount of momentum these past few weeks, that fizzled just shy of the wild card spot. Grr.

Anyway, the torrent of amazing live shows continues this week… M83 played at Mezzanine on Thursday.. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from a live show. After seeing Royksopp fiddling with computers for an entire gig, I was pleasantly suprised to see that M83 actually plays live instruments.. The show was barely attended, I guess the promoters didn’t really get the word out enough.. That said, it was really cool to see M83 with a small, mellow crowd, since their music isn’t really that dancey anyway..

Saturday started off with Sigur Ros in Oakland.. Again, I had no idea what to expect, since Sigur Ros is really electronic-y sounding and a bit eccentric (they made up their own language for a lot of their songs.. and the other ones are in Icelandic, which sounds made up anyway). Sigur Ros was the first “rock” show that I’ve been to where everyone sat quietly in their seats. Kottke had a similar experience, but yah — they did a song where there was 30 seconds of silence in the middle, and it was dead quiet.. It was an amazing show, although admittedly I was quite relaxed, and I’m not sure at what degree of consciousness I was in throughout the show (ie.. I think I might have dozed off). But, as Andy rightly explained, Sigur Ros has some wonderfully relaxing tunes, which are quite appropriate as falling asleep music, so… if you’re conditioned to hear Sigur Ros before you fall alseep….. Pavolvian instincts kick in. But, yah.. Sigur Ros is awesome — I just got their new Album, Takk, and it’s solid..

After Sigur Ros, we hightailed it back across the bridge to Mezzanine for the Z-Trip show.. Z-Trip is on the complete opposite end of the energy spectrum of Sigur Ros.. He was just here back in August, but the last show was at the Regency, which is a cavernous ballroom.. Mezzanine is a smaller club, so the overall vibe was much better than the last show. We got there early enough to see Goldenchyld, Dj Zeph open, and they both rocked as well. Z-Trip is soooo good, I can’t recommend him enough — his show at DNA lounge two years ago, and last night’s show rank as two of the best shows that I have ever been to ever… He’s definitely one of the most talented turntablists out there, and to this tour, he’s added dvd decks and live drumming to his set. If anyone has a live recording of last night’s show.. please let me know… And, if you want to check out some of Z-Trip’s stuff, download them here (this link is from Z-Trip’s site, so it’s cool.. he encourages the sharing of his music.. which is quite enlightened of him, imho).

This week brings the American Express Golf Championships to Harding Park — I’ve got tickets all week, so I’m looking forward to seeing Tiger and Phil tear up the local course..

Ahh.. I do love living in San Francisco.. It’s been a fun filled few weeks.. Royksopp last week, Her Space Holiday and Stellastarr* this week (and all of those shows were during the week!).

Then, came the weekend.. Every year, the last weekend of September brings gorgeous summer-like weather and a fun-filled weekend of nonstop parties with the arrival of Love Parade and the Folsom Street Fair. It’s the second year of Love Parade in San Francisco, and this year’s route took the party right down Market street, ending up at the Civic Center (conveniently three blocks from my house). Hmm.. I find it a little odd that news.com covered it, but hey, that’s cool, I guess.

Anyway, it was awesome to be at a party in the middle of the day in the shadow of City Hall. Supperclub had a magnificent float decorated much like the Salle Neige, in all white, with two big beds on either end.. The Space Cowboys brought the Unimog as usual, and the good folks at Massive Selector put together a kickass float with Club Six. I spent most of the time with the Cowboys, who were playing sweet, funky breaks.. Crystal Method played on the supperclub float, which was incredible, so I was glad I got to see them..

Whoooo.. This week brings M83 at Mezzanine on Thursday and then Sigur Ros on Saturday in Oakland.. and then Z-Trip later that night at Mezzanine.. need.. more.. red bull… AND the new season of LOST has started.. so much to do!

All of my pics from loveparade are here.

Royksopp came into town last night, and played a show at Mezzanine.. Mezzanine was a fantastic venue for the show — I’ve only seen dj’s there, and the place sets up quite nicely for live acts.. The sound system was fantastic, so the rumbling bass that accompanies most Royksopp tracks was dutifully served — for most of the songs, I could feel my insides reverberating to the beat.. crazy. Annie opened for Royksopp — though she has a few great songs, the crowd didn’t really seem that into her, and for some reason, her sound was much more treble-y, and didn’t seem to work with the system there..

Mezannine has a few great shows lined up for the next few weeks — M83 on September 29th, then Z-TRIP is coming back to SF on October 1st.. .Z-TRIP’s last show was rockin, despite being at a crappy venue (the Regency).. I’m also seeing Sigur Ros on the 1st in Oakland, so that should be quite the busy night… The reviews of the Sigur Ros shows have been phenomenal, so I’m quite looking forward to that…

So much music.. so little time..

Last week Dana scored us some free tickets to the Snoop Dogg show down in San Jose. Turns out that our pal Murphstar was also opening for Snoop that night, so it was one of those small world things.. I’m not exactly sure how Murph got the opening gig, but from what I understand, Snoop is tight with Moby, and Murph played Moby’s New Year’s Eve party last year and rocked the house (as he usually does) so Moby recommended that Snoop give Murph a call.. Now Murph usually spins breaks, but he was all happy to pull out some hip hop for the San Jose kids.. Except.. Snoop was late.. and instead of an hour set, Murph had to spin for like 3 hours… which meant that some breaks records came out.. I mean, we were perfectly happy to dance to the breaks records down in San Jose, but man, those San Jose kids sure didn’t like them.. Granted, they were all impatiently waiting for Snoop to arrive and all, but still.. Booing? That kinda sucked, and by the end Murph did not look very happy.

Snoop finally did arrive, like 2 hours late. He said something like “Yah.. some people are telling me that I’m late… That’s not possible cuz I’m always right on time..” or something to that affect… Ahh.. that’s Snoop for you. He took the stage with his diamond encrusted microphone and everyone in San Jose was happy. From what I hear he was late because he had to coach his son’s soccer team. Man, can you imagine Snoop as your kid’s soccer coach? it’s notizzle if you winizzle or loseizzle, it’s howizzle you play the gameizzle.. Ice Creamizzle for everyoneizzle!!

So one really neat/geeky thing we saw in San Jose was this vending machine.. We parked in this hotel parking lot near the SJ civic center, and were stopped in our tracks when we saw this vending machine…

Yup.. You can buy an ipod shuffle or mini right from the vending machine.. right along side other hotel staples like condoms and toothpaste. Rockin!! Man, everything you need for a crazy party right there in the hotel!! Well, maybe not everything.. oh wait, there was one of those Sharper Image sound machines… that IS everything… Kickass!

The only thing is.. can you imagine if you bought the shuffle and it got stuck in the machine? Man, I’d be pissed…. Trying to rock the machine to get your stinkin’ shuffle… And then the next dude who came along would get the vending machine 2-for-1 deal of a lifetime..

I saw Her Space Holiday, Bright Eyes and The Faint last night here in San Francisco.. The show was at the Concourse at SF Design Center, which is this HUGE warehouse-like building.. It’s a magnificent space — for a convention or something.. NOT for a show. When you walk in, it feels like you’re in a huge airplane hangar or something. The acoustics were awful, the sightlines were atrocious, and oddly enough, for such a huge space, it was incredibly hot. The only good thing was that it was really easy to get a drink, albeit you had to stay in the “beer garden” areas off to the side of the stage. No drinks on the main floor, cuz that’s where all of the teenagers were hanging out, I suppose.

I really wanted to see HSH, but Phil (who had my ticket) arrived a little late, so I listened from outside whilst watching the ticket arbitrageurs (er.. scalpers) work in the rain. The show wasn’t sold out, so there were tons of people trying to sell their tickets.

The Faint put on a really good show — they play video behind them while they perform, and the video is sync’ed exactly to the songs they play.. it’s pretty cool. The Faint’s music is much more energetic than Bright Eyes, so when Bright Eyes came on, it was comparitively much more mellow.. And, Bright Eyes didn’t have as cool as videos as The Faint.. I mean, the bands share like half the members anyway.. that way, they’d build the energy up until the end…