Jack Conte, Dubious Ranger, All My Pretty Ones @ Elbo Room, SF, Monday 3/16
by The Scene on March 16th, 2009
Although it’s been a helluva weekend, and we’re all feeling mighty rocked by all sorts of awful parties and hangovers– not to mention this town has to prep itself for true St Paddy’s Day on Tuesday– we’re still feeling good enough to go to this show. Hell, since Dubious Ranger and The Scene share quite a bit of staff, we kind of have to.
But we don’t really *have* to go… We GET to go to this show. This is because Jack Conte is one awesome dude. This wunderkind has been rolling around the country with a one-man performance rig that at times approaches Rube Goldberg if he was into MIDI, and now we hear he’s got an entire band, which should be nothing short of delightful. Oh, and did we mention this? Go watch it. Oh and this too. He’s a bit of a youtube hero, and definitely a friend of the Scene.
It all goes down at 9pm, Monday 3/16 at Elbo Room in the Mission on Valencia between 16th and 17th. Bring your fixie and your hip snobbery. PBRs are $2, of course, because it’s hipster-town. The Scene says go.
Show of the weekend: DNA Lounge Sunday Feb 22
by The Scene on February 22nd, 2009
Some people don’t find the Oscars entertaining. Hugh Jackman may be a song and dance man, and Mickey Rourke may be the ugliest Cinderella story of the year, but every year people seem to forget that those Oscars are pure milquetoast.
So what’s your alternative remedy? The Scene has many friends playing tonight at the DNA Lounge in SOMA, San Fran. The show is, unfortunately, a Battle of the Bands, however that fact is balanced by the goodi-ness of many of the bands involved. We’ve got the following SF indie bands playing from 6pm-11pm…
DUBIOUS RANGER
ROBERT GASTELUM
FEAR THE FIASCO
OF THIS CITY
THE SCARLET PIMPERNELS
THE PUNDITS
STEREO FREAKOUT
JHANA
WILD SIDE
Buy tickets this way: https://cart.dnalounge.com/order/?item=50879
Get there this way: 375 11th St. @ Harrison, right near Slims
Oh and Nate Silver already predicted the Oscar winners if you’re really a sucker for suspense: http://nymag.com/movies/features/54335/
An Open Letter to Gov. Rod Blagojevich
by The Scene on January 9th, 2009
Dear Rod,
When Patrick Fitzgerald first released his report on all your horribly corrupt activities we, quite naturally, assumed your problem was simply that you were dumb. It’s okay, we thought, sometimes being dumb and getting in over your head happens to the best of us. Once, when we were kids, we thought it would be a good idea to stand behind some bushes on the side of the road, throw rocks at cars, and then have the drivers give us reward money when we told them that the rock throwers were those no-good Johnson kids who lived down the street. See, everyone does something dumb some time or another. We figured that you just wanted to be a bad-ass, corrupt politician like all the cool kids up in Chicago but were too dumb to do it properly. Your attempted fire-sale of the Barry’s vacated senate seat was so cartoonishly inept in its villainous buffoonery that we couldn’t help but feel bad for you. It was like that scene near the end of Boogie Nights when Marky Mark and John C. Riley are about to try to rob the drug dealers. You know its a bad idea; they know its a bad idea; everyone knows its a bad idea - but there’s nothing anyone can do about it because everyone’s involved is too dumb and coked out to know any better.
That was all before we saw your press conference today. Now, we have to come to the conclusion that you are not dumb. Appointing Mr. Burris to fill the seat was not the work of a dumb person, nor was claiming that the reason the Illinois state senate impeached you was because you worked too hard to protect poor minorities. Also, quoting Tennyson. These are not the actions of a dumb person, these are the actions of a crazy person.
So, we guess, what we’re trying to say is…our nephew is having a birthday party and the clown magician that we hired got hit by a car so last week so he had to cancel. If you could come and entertain the kids that would be super awesome. You’re going to have to bring your own costume (clown, pirate, guinea pig ninja) and we can’t pay you, but you can eat all the cake you want (its princess cake) and we’d be more than happy if you wanted to use us as a reference for future jobs. If you’re interested, please let us know ASAP. Thanks.
Sincerely,
F. Jameson Turquoise
Tresure Island Contest Deadline
by The Scene on September 4th, 2008
The deadline for submitting haikus to win tickets to the Tresure Island Festival is next Wednesday (9/10) and the winner will be announced the following Friday.
So get to it!
The Best Job on Earth
by The Scene on August 29th, 2008
Is THIS.
(Apologies from The Scene, as the above link now seems broken. For those interested though, it led to a Craigslist post from some guys in Chicago who were willing to pay a dude to dress like a clown and drink with them all night. No jokes, no tricks, just dress like a clown and get shit-faced.)
Rules For The HIllary Clinton Speech Drinking Game
by The Scene on August 26th, 2008
Drink every time Hillary:
- Says "historic"
- Gives Obama a backhanded compliment
- Makes a subtle reference to the obligation the Democratic rank-and-file have to keep giving her money so she can pay down her campaign debt.
- Calls Barack her "friend" but obviously doesn’t mean it.
- Says "we put 16 million cracks in it"
- Makes you think about how awesome it is that Mark Penn and Howard Wolfson aren’t planning the convention.
- Takes a shot of whiskey
Drink every time a commentator:
- Says something nice about Hillary without also mentioning that they worked in the Clinton Administration
- Says "newness" when what they really mean is "black"
- Insists that everything that happens is good for John McCain
- Is clearly drunk
Twelve Things We Learned At Outside Lands
by The Scene on August 26th, 2008
1. If you put on a festival for 60,000 people, it is totally fine not to
offer a single parking space. Not one.
2. OMFG, Radiohead!
3. There is a fairly decent chance that watching Bon Iver will make you cry. Don’t fell bad, there’s nothing you can do about it.
4. Nels Kline is such an amazing guitarist that he makes everyone he’s
on stage with at any given moment look like a rank amateur. This is
all the more impressive given that the people he is on stage with are the rest of Wilco.
5. Regina Spector has a new song about how her favorite thing about
being an adult is that you can just pick cool looking things off the
street while you’re walking by yourself and no one can get you in
trouble for getting your hands dirty. This was easily the most honest
statement we heard all weekend.
6. Primus still sucks.
7. The lead singer of the Drive-By Truckers got blackout drunk the
night before he played the festival and wanted to thank anyone that
gave him booze or drugs the previous day, he can’t remember specifics.
8. Given a long enough timeline, everyone eventually becomes okay with paying $6 for a Churro.
9. Every large public event from now on should have valet bike
parking. No exceptions.
10. Radiohead was selling t-shirts made out of recycled plastic
bottles. Each shirt was a special unique print different from every
other one made. They were selling them for $35. This is how
Radiohead wins.
11. The Microsoft "Crowdfire" tent was the most depressing thing ever.
No matter how "Xtreme" they try to make it, we’re still going to pass
on Windows Vista.
12. We’re pretty sure that limbo is just a Tom Petty concert that never ends. It’s not bad, but it’s not all that great either. Although the constant crying of millions of unbaptised babies would probably get pretty unbearable.
You Heard It Here First
by The Scene on August 21st, 2008
Obama picks his vice president!
Everything That Happens
by The Scene on August 19th, 2008
The Byrne/Eno Collabo 2.0, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, is now streaming live here. We’re still in the process of digesting it but it’s abundantly clear that this is easily one of the best things we’ve heard all year.
This is our way of saying that, at this very moment, there is nothing more urgent for you to do than to listen to this album, end to end, right now.
Treasure Island
by The Scene on May 21st, 2008
Ok, picture this: it’s August 25th, the day after the Outside Lands Music Festival in Golden Gate Park just rocked your socks off and you’re dutifully combing the Northern California countryside looking for them and you suddenly think to yourself, "I hope I don’t have to wait more than month before I get to go to another huge music festival." Don’t worry, APE is way ahead of you, which is why the second annual Treasure Island Music Festival is happening on September 20th and 21st. Justice and the Raconteurs are headlining with TV On The Radio, Hot Chip, Aesop Rock, Tegan and Sara, Vampire Weekend (!), Spiritualized, The Dodos (!!), Fleet Foxes, John Vanderslice (!!!) and more.
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