Music listings in the bay area

This is Steve Koepke's famous list of more or less punk-oriented events in the bay area, automatically repackaged as a web site by KZSU, sometimes with some additions by the KZSU staff:

KZSU's Concert Calendar (The List, re-packaged)

http://kzsu.stanford.edu/~calendar/calendar.html

The Sfraves crew maintains a listing of things rave-like:

Sfraves home page

http://www.sfraves.org/

sfraves events listing

http://www.hyperreal.org/raves/sf/calendar2/events/

Space Cowboys

http://www.spacecowboys.org/

One of the hot things happening in the Bay Area is the improvised music field (sometimes "jazz", though quite often not at all like "jazz"). I saw a reference in the New York Press to the "burgeoning bay area improv scene" which I thought was cool (I've always felt that the scene here is burgeoning, but that could've just been local prejudice):

The Bay Improvisers Network Calendar

http://www.bayimproviser.com/calendar.asp

Everything in the Bay Area

There are a number of free weekly publications that cover the Bay Area. In my opinion, the Bay Guardian is best of them, especially since some years back the SF Weekly got bought up by a national chain. The Guardian is so resolutely left-wing that it's painful sometimes, but at least they've got a consistent world view that comes from the heart. The Weekly looks really calculated in comparison, like a politician that's been in office too long. (Honorable mentions go to the East Bay Express, which I might prefer if I were an East Bay person, and the Metro, which valiantly covers the often rather bleak South Bay scene). But anyway, one of the cool things about the Guardian is that it has a very complete on-line edition, which you can often peruse on Tuesday, a day before the locals get to see the printed version:

Bay Guardian, a guide to SF events, restaurants, politics, and culture in general (new issues around Tuesday or Wednesday)

http://www.sfbg.com/

Your resource for the south bay scene, such as it is:

South Bay's Metro

http://www.metroactive.com/index.html

Gothic clubs in the Bay Area

A good, frequently updated listing. Seems like a lot of the action is out of town these days (Sacramento, South Bay)... the undead scene may be in need of another resurrection. In any case, "Death Guild" and "Bondage-a-go-go" are still going strong. Oh, careful about the weekend weeklies, unless you're really into 80s-nostalgia. Some of the monthlies are cool (e.g the fetish-oriented "Sin").

The standard Bay Area Goth and Industrial club guide

http://www.sfgoth.com/clubs/

The leading (and longest running) goth event in the Bay Area. Monday nights are for

Death Guild

http://www.deathguild.com/

The Wednesday night fetish event:

Bondage-a-go-go

http://www.bondage-a-go-go.com/

"Dark Electro o Industrial o New Wave o Goth":

Strangelove

http://www.tomasdiablo.com/strangelove.html

First fridays of the month at the Cat Club on Folsom St.

Venues: Music and Art

I was trying to separate Music and Art for awhile, but that's another one of those pointless distinctions... It's a trend for the some of the more interesting/intellectual music to gravitate toward art venues, because strangely enough they're not so good at upping the take from the bar. (Maybe I should organize this section according to brow-height...)

The DNA Lounge website comes complete with audio archives of nearly all their events so you can "try before you buy". Seems like they've been having a lot more live bands, lately.

DNA Lounge

http://www.dnalounge.com/

Superbly ornate, decadent interior, with some respectable food on the menu (but order before the kitchen closes at 10pm or so). The booking has been a mixed-bag in the past, but of late they've had some really good events here. One of the best of the venues that's escaped the "Clear Channel" borg.

Great American Music Hall

http://www.musichallsf.com

A great gallery/performance space/dance venue in the Mission at 2050 Bryant Street between 17th St and 18th St. Has a converted-warehouse, volunteer-run vibe that's getting all too rare these days in SF:

Cell Space

http://www.cellspace.org/

Funky rock-n-roll bar, with a nice vibe and decent food.

The Hotel Utah

http://www.thehotelutahsaloon.com/

Located in Soma, on the corner of 4th Street and Bryant

One of the latest-running (and longest surviving) dance places in SF. It's decadent reputation is greatly exaggerated (it would have to be).

The End Up

http://www.theendup.com/

And art Gallery that often hosts interesting improv/new music events, now in a new location on 535 Powell Street, just north of the godawful retail hell zone of Union Square:

Meridian Gallery

http://www.meridiangallery.org/

Medium-size bar/performance space on 22nd Street, between Valencia and Mission

The Make Out Room

http://www.makeoutroom.com/

Greg Bronstein has messed with The Transfer, so the booking manager Shawn Vergara has walked (I'm not sure to where, though "The Knockout" has been rumored):

The Transfer transfered

http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/pixel_vision/2007/01/transfer_over.html

Down south in the Mission, across Chavez Street, Mission Street veers off to the right, and Valencia Street crashes into it. Across from the point of collison, you will find "The Knockout" at 3223 Mission Street. A bar with live music on many a night:

Yelp on The Knockout

http://www.yelp.com/biz/knockout-san-francisco

(I guess real bars don't have functioning web sites)

Large, ravey dance club in Soma

1015 Folsom

http://www.1015.com/_index.html

The classic 60s place, re-opened. Pretty big place. The space upstairs has got oodles of 60s nostalgia up on the walls, if that sort of thing turns you on. Unfortunately, they've been bought up by Clear Channel, so they're often (a) expensive, and (b) boring. I mention it only because you get acts like Patti Smith coming through on tour here. Just across Geary from Japantown, which is a good place to do a late-lunch, early-dinner beforehand.

The Fillmore

http://www.thefillmore.com/

Beanbenders was once my favorite venue in the buzzing Bay Area improvised music scene. Unfortunately, it's no longer a regular series, but this web site remains one of the best introduction to the complex phenomena that most often goes by the inadequate name of "the Bay Area improv scene":

Beanbenders

http://www.plonsey.com/beanbenders/beanbenders.html

Perhaps the inheritor of the Beanbenders throne...

21 Grand

http://www.21grand.org/

City Nights, 715 Harrison at 3rd St. in Soma. 18 and over dancing.

City Nights

http://sfclubs.com/calendar-cn-sat.html

A listing of some places with short descriptions. Not bad, though not entirely up to date ("Trocadero"?).

Dance club venues in SF

http://www.well.com/user/frankw/sfdance/html/places.html

The mysterious 509 Cultural Center (509 Ellis between Hyde and Levanworth) once a year puts on the...

In The Street Festival

http://www.zeitgeist.net/wfca/its.htm

Nice little gallery, in a location on the second floor on Market St right at 6th Street, which puts it in the heart of the intersection of the Tenderloin and downtown. Right around the corner from Tu Lanh's a well-regarded hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese Restaurant.

Luggage Store Gallery

http://www.luggagestoregallery.org/

On Thursday nights, the luggage store gallery hosts one of San Francisco's:

longest running series of Interesting Music (improv/new/downtown west, whatever)

http://www.bayimproviser.com/venuedetail.asp?venue_id=7

Out in the South-East corner of Soma (Brannan between 8th and 9th St) is the large, cavernous...

Somarts Cultural Center

http://www.somarts.org/

http://newlangtonarts.org/

In Soma, at 1246 Folsom Street, between 8th and 9th Street

The Lab

http://www.thelab.org/

Gallery/performance space

In the Mission, on 16th Street at Capp (between Valencia and Mission).

Intersection for the arts

http://www.theintersection.org/

In the Mission, on Valencia Street, between 16th and 15th.

"San Francisco's oldest alternative art space (est. 1965) and has a long history of presenting new and experimental work in the fields of literature, theater, music, dance, and the visual arts..."

The Mission Cultural Center: a latino oriented place in the Mission, imagine that.

The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts

http://www.missionculturalcenter.org/

On Mission Street, between 25th and 24th.

ODC Theater

http://www.odctheater.org/

Contemporary Dance and New Music (The sfSound group performs here a lot).

There's no toe like --

Project Artaud Theater

http://www.artaud.org/theater/

Dance/Theater space in The Mission, near 17th Street, over on the east side.

Theatrical Venues

A long-standing, off-off-off Geary Theater Venue:

The Marsh

http://www.themarsh.org/

The American Conservatory Theater is my personal favorite among the big above-ground theaters in San Fracisco. Nice old building, with sharply rising tiers of seats: no bad seats (though leg-room is a little tight up in the tiers).

ACT

http://www.act-sf.org/calendar/index.html

Repertory Movies

The Castro theater, in the heart of the Castro neighborhood:

The Castro Theater website (but this never works)

http://www.thecastro.com

The Roxie, on 16th, a Mission district institution

The Roxie

http://www.roxie.com/

The Red Vic movie house (no longer associated with the b&b), Classic little Haight Street theater. Hardly ever out-of-focus these days. A worker owned co-op.

Red Vic

http://www.redvicmoviehouse.com/

Artist Television Access - a small, seriously funky place on Valencia Street in the Mission. Very interesting film and video programs, occasionally with live music. They usually have the image in focus these days.

ATA

http://www.atasite.org/

Four Star - independant movie house, often (though not always) with an emphasis on Hong Kong cinema. Way out on Clement Street, near 23rd Ave. Run down side of funky, but we love it anyway.

4 Star

http://www.hkinsf.com/

Castro area stuff

A really good gay-oriented bookstore:

A Different Light

http://www.adlbooks.com

The self-described pillar of the San Francisco community, and renown super-hero:

The infamous Dildo Man

http://www.sausagefactory.com/dildoman/

The Castro neighborhood has a web guide of it's own:

Web Castro

http://www.webcastro.com/home.htm

Some other recommended San Francisco guides

Toilets of SF

http://www.milkycat.com/toiletree.htm

Perhaps the definitive guide to bookstores in SF (at least I hope that it is, I contributed a lot of the reviews):

Bookstores in San Francisco - The rec.arts.books FAQ, maintained by Evelyn Leeper

http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper/na-bay-s.htm

A guide to the bay area put together by various net.heads. I haven't looked at this much but I like the look (PRE web Courier rocks, even if they did use the now-standard blinding white background):

Internet San Francisco/Bay Area Guide

http://www.travel-library.com/north_america/usa/california/san_francisco_guide.html

One block off the high end of the upper haight, you'll find an excellent, relaxed "neigborhood" coffee house:

Cole Valley Cafe

http://www.colevalleycafe.com/

24 hour guides

A Bay Guardian guide to late-night restaurants.

Superlist no. 778: San Francisco's 24-hour restaurants

http://www.sfbg.com/37/30/cover_sl_778.html

Brief and to the point: The posthoc guide to after-hours grub

http://www.posthoc.com/24hours.htm

A short list, but it's up to date (includes the latest "Naan and Curry" on O'Farrell): 24 hour diners of San Francisco

http://gridskipper.com/62413/24-hour-diners-of-san-francisco

Net access

Ah yes, it's come to this. The last 24 hour net access is now to be found only at... Kinko's:

Kinkos.

http://www.kinkos.com

naughty supplies

Sex toys, bondage gear, books and videos in a very low-sleaze environment. Quintessentially San Francisco. Once a worker-owned cooperative, though they just went corporate in 2006 (and I have no clue what the hell that was about, they appeared to be doing fine as a co-op). Hours: 11am to 7pm, seven days a week.

Good Vibrations

http://www.goodvibes.com/

Beautiful, custom made corsets. 321 Linden, between Octavia and Gough. Linden is a small street, parallel to (and between) Hayes and Fell.

Dark Garden

http://www.darkgarden.com

Very nice place to shop for leather/fetish stuff. Not cheap, but not as expensive as the custom made Dark Gardens stuff either. Howard Street between 7th and 8th.

Stormy Leather

http://www.stormyleather.com/

Leather, sex toys, bondage gear, with a gay male emphasis:

Mr. S. Leather

http://www.mr-s-leather.com/

Companion store to Mr. S, originally with empahsis on latex outfits for women (now I gather they do more sex toys):

http://www.madame-s.com/

Small store with a large collection of men's boots both fetish and practical (if there's a difference):

Stompers Boots

http://www.stompersboots.com/

The naughty spectacle

The infamous Mitchell Brother's places:

O'Farrell Theater

http://www.ofarrell.com

Try this for basic information:

California Strip Clubs Lists Mitchell Brother's O'Farrel Theater

http://www.lapdance.com/California_Strip_Clubs_Lists_Mitchell_Brother's_O'Farrel_Theater.cfm

The often discussed "The Lusty Lady": Before 2003 the place was already unique as perhaps the world's only unionized strip club, now it's become a worker-owned cooperative...

Lusty Lady SF

http://www.lustyladysf.com

Documentary about the labor dispute: Live Nude Girls Unite!

http://www.livenudegirlsunite.com/

This is just totally brilliant. A photography student who worked at the Lusty Lady asked the customers if she could photograph them:

The Lusty Lady Series - Cammie Toloui Photography

http://cammiet.com/port3/lustyintro.html

General naughtiness

Last of the (above ground) sex clubs:

Power Exchange

http://www.powerexchange.com

Review of Power Exchange

http://brianx.com/powerexchange.html

Oh no. Has perversion become too normal? (If only a year in San Francisco can make you this jaded, where do you go next?)

The McDonaldization of Fetish by TJ Eckleburg

http://www.sf2night.com/articles/fetish.html

More links:

sexuality.org listings for SF

http://www.sexuality.org/sanfrancisco.html

Beatitude in SF

A very San Francisco-centric view of the Beat literary movement (originally this was an SF Weekly article) which I like a lot because it names names and places and I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff...

How Beat Happened - Steve Silverman

http://ezone.org/ez/e2/articles/digaman.html

The other holy bean

Locally owned chocolate place in North Beath, at 754 Columbus Ave, (415) 421-4814:

Truffles Inc

http://www.xoxtruffles.com

Traditional California chocolate chain. Here's a complete list of Northern California locations:

Sees

http://www.sees.com/seeshtm/shops_nocal.htm

Museums

Have I mentioned the Exploratorium? You should know about it:

Exploratorium

http://www.exploratorium.edu/

Don't believe me about the boat harbor jetty being made from recycled graveyard material? This is my reference on that:

Wave Organ project

http://www.exploratorium.edu/visit/wave_organ.html

Art museums in SF certainly don't suck these days:

SFMOMA

http://www.sfmoma.org/

On 3rd Street in Soma, near the corner of Mission.

Yerba Buena Arts

http://www.yerbabuenaarts.org/

Across the street from SFMOMA.

Asian Art Museum

http://www.asianart.org/

But I recommend the Oakland Museum of California a little more highly to visitors. They're trying to be a museum of California, rather than just imitating an east coast museum. I've seen some great stuff here: exhibits of "recycled" art, bicycles both historical and newer art designs, some nifty "Day of the Dead" tie-ins, and so on. Worth a look, especially if you're staying over in the east bay anyway:

Oakland Museum of California

http://www.museumca.org/

The Cartoon Art Museum certainly has some geek appeal. Displays of original cartoon/comic book artwork. A relatively small place, but if you're in the neighborhood already anyway, you might want to stop by (this is around the corner from SFMOMA sown in Soma, at 655 Mission Street, near 3rd):

Cartoon Art Museum info

http://www.cartoonart.org/

I cringe to mention this, but there's at least one net.goth that inquired about this: the Wax Museum at 145 Jefferson, near Fisherman's Wharf. Closes around 11pm, or at midnight on Friday and Saturday. Some more info is available here:

SF Wax Museum Home Page

http://www.waxmuseum.com/

The Musée Mécanique is also currently located at the Wharf, and it's a much easier for me to recommend:

Musée Mécanique

http://www.museemechanique.org/

We can hope that The Musée Mécanique will only be located there temporarily. The historical location:

San Francisco Memories, The Musee Mechanique

http://www.sanfranciscomemories.com/musee/mechanique.html

Gallery space for work by artists with developmental disabilities. Some very cool stuff:

Creativity Explored

http://www.creativityexplored.org/

(Take that, Ayn Rand. "Stoddard's School for Sub-Normal Children", indeed.)

One of San Francisco's most brilliant mural artists, with an interesting New Urbanist spin on some of her work...

http://www.monacaron.com/

Books, Records, and like that

Green Apple Books (and records) is a (as of this writing) a set of three stores all on the North side of Clement St, in the low avenues (around 6th, as I remember it). New and used, both books and other media (CDs, etc):

Green Apple Books

http://www.greenapplebooks.com/

Used books (plus records) in the neighborhood of Glenn Park (which is a bit far flung, but does have it's own BART station). At the new location (653 Chenery) they've been hosting some live jazz performances:

Bird and Beckett

http://www.bird-beckett.com/

A great, medium-sized book store, with emphasis on poetry, in particular the Beat beat:

City Lights

http://www.citylights.com/

Yet another great, medium-sized book store, though this one places the emphasis on political current events:

Modern Times

http://www.mtbs.com/

The sole remaining libertarian bookstore in SF, now that "Freedoms Forum" was disappeared due to the vagaries of SF's real estate market (oh stop it, irony is not polite).

Laissez Faire Books

http://laissezfairebooks.com

A really good, independant record store... their web site has (incredibly verbose) reviews and recommendations of incoming new music, along with online sound samples:

Aquarius Records

http://www.aquariusrecords.org

Aquarius is the SF analog of NY's "Other Music" (though SF got there first in this case), but with much less avant jazz and a lot more metal.

Another cool little record store, now relocated on Market Street, a little above Church Street.

This web site was an "under construction" sign (from the over-priced Network Solutions, no less), but I'm sure they'll get their act together any day now.

Open Minds Music

http://www.openmindmusic.net/

Club (rave) music for DJs, on the north end of Valencia (at Clinton Park):

Soundworks

http://www.soundworks-sf.com/

The excellent Amoeba Records -- quite possibly the best anywhere -- has two Bay Area locations, one in the Upper Haight in SF and one on Telegraph in Berkeley. The website has gotten less useless in recent years though they remain brick-and-mortar oriented:

Amoeba Records

http://www.amoebarecords.com

Keep an eye out for their free in-store performances, they book some really good acts:

calendars

A San Francisco Bay Guardian listing of record stores that actually sell records

Superlist no. 790 - Music stores with vinyl listening stations

http://www.sfbg.com/38/27/cover_superlist_record_stores.html

Restaurants

Strangely excellent extreme vegetarian restaurant

Cafe Gratitude

http://www.cafegratitude.com/

Out in Oakland

A huge new outdoor mall (complex? shopping center? subsidized psuedo-neighborhood?) that Oakland thought was worth big bucks to revitalize the city. What do you think? (Personally, I only go to Yoshi's).

Jack London Square

http://www.jacklondonsq.com/attractions.html

Other Guides to SF that are recommended

A few recent picks from alt.gothic...

Haunted San Francisco

http://www.sfheart.com/Haunted_San_Francisco.html

Brevity can certainly be a virtue. Maybe I should try it some time...

The San Francisco Gothic Scene

http://www.sf-lilith.com/sf.html

Guides to SF which are not at all recommended

Mother's, don't let your babies grow up to be tourons...

San Francisco - The Poet (??)

http://edge.edge.net/~dphillip/SanFran.html

Places in Berkeley

Dark Carnival Bookstore. A medium sized, packed to the gills science fiction and fantasy and whatever bookstore. 3086 Claremont, between Ashby and College. Check their web site for a map (incidentally, don't confuse this URL with the hyphenated "www.dark-carnival.com", which is some metal band in Nevada):

Dark Carnival

http://www.darkcarnival.com/

Transit info

Note: The current state of on-line transit information for the Bay Area... could be worse, I suppose. Traditionally, they change their minds about what to name things every six months, so you should expect to find broken links below.