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Monday, February 10, 2025

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A project almost nobody wants is going forward in the Mission, thanks to Yimbys

60 low-tenants displaced by fire (one dead); now landlord gets to build luxury condos—only because of Wiener and his allies in Sacramento.

Full board will hear Lurie’s attempt to fire pro-reform police commissioner

Mandelman calls for Committee of the Whole to consider whether to allow the mayor to oust Max Carter Oberstone

Drama Masks: Voices of incarcerated women take center stage at YBCA

Art exhibit 'The Only Door I Can Open' and Flyaway Productions' 'I Give You My Sorrows' speak out for prisoners' rights.

Inside the pervasive news media bias in the Berkeley mayoral election

Missing context, misleading stories helped boost longshot Adena Ishii into the city's top office.

As SF posts up for NBA All-Star Weekend, brush up on classic Bay Area ballers

Remembering the 'East Bay Funk Dunk,' Rick Barry's 1967 MVP, booing Chris Cohan, more iconic moments.

Why is SF’s NBA All-Star Weekend musical lineup so meh?

Flo Rida and The Chainsmokers? Give us E-40, give us Kehlani, give us Larry June—not this random mash-up.

ODC School dance classes are for everybody!

Choose from an electrifying range of classes from the Best of the Bay winner—your first class is only $12!

Win tickets to Indiefest closing night film ‘Timestalker’

We've got 10 pairs of tickets to Brit comic Alice Lowe's hilarious time-traveling romp. Here's how to enter

Arts Forecast: New folk opera swoops in on tale of Fruitvale falcons

Flight Lessons' scores a peregrine pair. Plus: Dilla Day, M Lamar, Marc-Andre Hamelin, Poolside, Bedouin, more to do

Two housing measures would give massive breaks to private developers

Plus: How is Mayor Lurie going to fund Muni? That's The Agenda for Feb. 9-16

Inside the pervasive news media bias in the Berkeley mayoral election

Missing context, misleading stories helped boost longshot Adena Ishii into the city's top office.

As SF posts up for NBA All-Star Weekend, brush up on classic Bay Area ballers

Remembering the 'East Bay Funk Dunk,' Rick Barry's 1967 MVP, booing Chris Cohan, more iconic moments.

News

Arts

Full board will hear Lurie’s attempt to fire pro-reform police commissioner

Mandelman calls for Committee of the Whole to consider whether to allow the mayor to oust Max Carter Oberstone

Drama Masks: Voices of incarcerated women take center stage at YBCA

Art exhibit 'The Only Door I Can Open' and Flyaway Productions' 'I Give You My Sorrows' speak out for prisoners' rights.

Inside the pervasive news media bias in the Berkeley mayoral election

Missing context, misleading stories helped boost longshot Adena Ishii into the city's top office.

As SF posts up for NBA All-Star Weekend, brush up on classic Bay Area ballers

Remembering the 'East Bay Funk Dunk,' Rick Barry's 1967 MVP, booing Chris Cohan, more iconic moments.

Why is SF’s NBA All-Star Weekend musical lineup so meh?

Flo Rida and The Chainsmokers? Give us E-40, give us Kehlani, give us Larry June—not this random mash-up.

ODC School dance classes are for everybody!

Choose from an electrifying range of classes from the Best of the Bay winner—your first class is only $12!

Category

Two housing measures would give massive breaks to private developers

Plus: How is Mayor Lurie going to fund Muni? That's The Agenda for Feb. 9-16

Trump’s attacks on trans people and public health escalate into a war on reality itself

Administration moves to purge scientific facts, stifle essential research, and erase entire populations.

Juanita More’s Loads of Love party is a Valentine for heavy times

The drag goddess's huge, free V-Day affair shows off the talents of 'our big, amazing, talented, beautiful, powerful family.'

Category

Two housing measures would give massive breaks to private developers

Plus: How is Mayor Lurie going to fund Muni? That's The Agenda for Feb. 9-16

Trump’s attacks on trans people and public health escalate into a war on reality itself

Administration moves to purge scientific facts, stifle essential research, and erase entire populations.

Juanita More’s Loads of Love party is a Valentine for heavy times

The drag goddess's huge, free V-Day affair shows off the talents of 'our big, amazing, talented, beautiful, powerful family.'

Category

Two housing measures would give massive breaks to private developers

Plus: How is Mayor Lurie going to fund Muni? That's The Agenda for Feb. 9-16

Trump’s attacks on trans people and public health escalate into a war on reality itself

Administration moves to purge scientific facts, stifle essential research, and erase entire populations.

Juanita More’s Loads of Love party is a Valentine for heavy times

The drag goddess's huge, free V-Day affair shows off the talents of 'our big, amazing, talented, beautiful, powerful family.'

Category

Two housing measures would give massive breaks to private developers

Plus: How is Mayor Lurie going to fund Muni? That's The Agenda for Feb. 9-16

Trump’s attacks on trans people and public health escalate into a war on reality itself

Administration moves to purge scientific facts, stifle essential research, and erase entire populations.

Juanita More’s Loads of Love party is a Valentine for heavy times

The drag goddess's huge, free V-Day affair shows off the talents of 'our big, amazing, talented, beautiful, powerful family.'

Category

Two housing measures would give massive breaks to private developers

Plus: How is Mayor Lurie going to fund Muni? That's The Agenda for Feb. 9-16

Trump’s attacks on trans people and public health escalate into a war on reality itself

Administration moves to purge scientific facts, stifle essential research, and erase entire populations.

Juanita More’s Loads of Love party is a Valentine for heavy times

The drag goddess's huge, free V-Day affair shows off the talents of 'our big, amazing, talented, beautiful, powerful family.'
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Opinion

All the worst people in the world

How we survived the stifling political atmosphere of the 1980s, and what it means as we enter another dark age.

Letters to the editor: What is the city getting by allowing housing demolitions?

Project by project, existing housing is destroyed for new high-priced units. Is this the way to solve the housing crisis?

Trump’s absurdist ‘Pere Ubu’ moment

Playwright Alfred Jarry's indelible 1896 theatrical tyrant pointed the way to our felon president—and his load of 'merdre.'

Malibu, fires, and the mandate for endless growth

In a climate crisis, is it really a good idea to build more and denser housing in high-severity fire zones?

OPINION: An open letter to three new supervisors with a few questions

Can a concerned resident pin down Sherrill, Mahmood, and Sauter on some issues they haven't talked much about?

Dear Elon: Maybe you need a new place when Trump and Congress are done with you

Is there a ceiling on Trump's debt to you? You could always open a store in Union Square.

Opinion: The Cuban healthcare system and its lessons for the US

Single payer, medical missions, and the US campaign of disinformation
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Arts + CultureMusicNew Music: 3 terrific local acts to support directly

New Music: 3 terrific local acts to support directly

Sci-fi vibes from Salami Rose Joe Louis, uneasy computer nostalgia from Neutrals, and Scatter Swept's wiry grooves

Music platform Bandcamp has become a connective tissue here in San Francisco. 

When Covid-19 hit, Bandcamp announced it would waive its usual 15% fee for one day in order to support artists affected by the shutdown of live music. Since then fans have bought more than $75 million worth of music and merchandise directly from artists and labels, and to date, fans have paid artists over half a billion dollars on Bandcamp. That’s leadership in action.

Since the pandemic is far from over, we’ll continue to select artists, labels, and bands-from everywhere-for you to check out and support. Bandcamp Fridays, the first Friday of every month—meaning Friday, December 4—will be fully supported here at 48hills. Feel free to support these artists even when it isn’t Bandcamp Day!

SALAMI ROSE JOE LOUIS, “PECULIAR MACHINE (GEORGIA ANNE MULDROW REMIX)” FROM CHAPTERS OF ZDENKA (BRAINFEEDER)

So I confess. Salami Rose Joe Louis is the artist I always say, “when this shit-burger of a year settles down, I’ll carve out some time to get into.” I can’t front. I have her Zdenka 2080, which Bandcamp described last year as “a sweet journey into a world of pure imagination,” stacked on my mental nite stand next to the Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina Book by Chris Frantz of Talking Heads, that I still have to finish.

Rose, who roundly gives praise to being inspired by the work of Black sci-fi pioneer Octavia E. Butler, seems to make music that may take work—but the kind I wanna do—in order to get her bag. She’s also named as influences Shuggie Otis and Herbie Hancock, and composer, bandleader, and all-round visionary Raymond Scott, plus the likes of Stereolab and Flying Lotus as influences. I’m down. 

But this cocoa butter smooth remix of “Peculiar Machine,” from Queen Georgia Anne Muldrow on the knobs? Whew. Rose gets that mellow Parliament-Funkadelic polish. You know. That quiet, real sneaky, aquatic type fonk. Like Eddie Hazel and Bernie Worrel are just vibing. No George, just the two masters chilling. That type of frequency, that version of genius where it feels easy, but it’s not. Yeah, it’s really just like that.

No big brain needed. Salami Rose Joe Louis is the project of Lindsay Olsen, who, until a few years ago, was focused on a career in climate science. The Bay-Area resident will release Chapters of Zdenka—an offshoot collection of music from her 2019 Brainfeeder debut December 11th on digital platforms and cassette. (You can pre-order now.)

NEUTRALS, “PERSONAL COMPUTING/IN THE FUTURE” (SLUMBERLAND)

I like the economical raw nature of power trios. It’s difficult to hide the message (rage, for that matter) in a three-person outfit. With the skeletal nature of sound—exposed, bare nekkid, with a demo-type of frank attitude—the vocals and lyrics become very hard to sidestep in the mix. The roustabout Chicago trio DEHD achieved that type of skin and bone wonderland on 2019’s Water and post-punk LA trio Automatic delivered a rapturous doom cold groove on their debut Signal from last year.

But somehow I missed the locals. Neutrals. 

Speaking into existence a better day than today, “In The Future,” a bare-bones, three-minute communique by the Oakland punk band delivers compact terms that register suppressed malaise. With Allan McNaughton on guitar and vocals, Philip Benson on bass, and vocals with Phillip Lantz on drums, the outfit makes simple arrangements seem purposely rigid, fraught with disillusionment.

The Neutrals’ debut album Kebab Disco came out in 2019 on Emotional Response Records and garnered acclaim as “an excellent collection of terse melodies, unique storytelling, and scraping pop,” according to AllMusic. The band followed up with an excellent five-song EP earlier this year on Domestic Departure.

The “Personal Computing” video, directed by Jenn Dorn Heard, takes a performance of the trio-shot by a cell phone—sliced with commercials and videos from ’80s computer commercials and documentaries, infusing elements of the 7-inch cover art into the visual. “The song’s lyrics steered me towards footage of men and women gazing excitedly into computer monitors” said Heard who’s produced visuals for Sea Blite and Younger Lovers. “Luckily the band’s handsomely-designed album art inspired the color finish.”

As for the other song on the single: “Essentially, ‘In the Future’ is a silly pop song about an imagined space-age future of robots and geodesic domes,” said the band, who recorded it just before COVID lockdown. “But on a deeper level, it reflects our retro-futurist nostalgia for the techno-utopia the masses were sold as the first industrialization and then technology took over our lives in the West.” 

I hear Ya brudder. Yes, those fonts, the image on the cover of this single, transmit Cold War evil Reagan vibes all day, but the fear of technology killing us all, instead of helping the human race, is a local reality. With Zuckerburg owning property right across the street from Dolores Park, the fear resides in the neighborhood. 

You can’t even outrun it when you walk your dog to go poop.

SCATTER SWEPT, UNFOLDING (BROKEN CLOVER)

I’m always unsure how to describe or categorize twangy rock that has flickering aspirations towards jazz. I do know that I enjoy my psyche grooves chewy, guitar atmospherics crunchy, and instrumental mathy rock to be different. If you can’t dance to it, at least reap different textures or something else from it.

Scatter Swept can cover those bases. The Oakland band expertly sculpts their instruments as voices to deliver various temperaments and agitations throughout their eight-song release. Unfolding, out December 17 (pre-order available now) on the San Francisco imprint Broken Clover Records, is a droney, head-nod, twang-wirey time.

Advance preview song “Wired Weird” gives a good measure of the “post-rock” quartet’s skills (three of them switch among guitar, bass, and drums duties, while the fourth handles the woodwinds.) Give Unfolding a shot when it drops.

John-Paul Shiver
John-Paul Shiverhttps://www.clippings.me/channelsubtext
John-Paul Shiver has been contributing to 48 Hills since 2019. His work as an experienced music journalist and pop culture commentator has appeared in the Wire, Resident Advisor, SF Weekly, Bandcamp Daily, PulpLab, AFROPUNK, and Drowned In Sound.

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