Welcome to our calendar feature BIG WEEK, wherein our expert Arts & Culture writers recommend the best things do. This week we are puzzled (and sad) over the sale of CCA to Vanderbilt University, mourning the passing of Bob Weir, and looking forward to getting our newly released Noise Pop tickets. Oh, and going out and supporting local arts while remembering Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
GENERAL ARTS
Marke B. is in the arts hot seat.
THU/15-FEBRUARY 1: SF SKETCHFEST What a comedy (and music, and art, and performance) bonanza! Everyone from “The Ladies of Saturday Night Live” to “Kids in the Hall” is on the slate, with events all over the city, including on a BART train. Yes, there will be a Pun-Off. More info here.
FRI/16-JANUARY 24: ELECTRIC CIRCUS Club Fugazi’s fabulous show “Dear San Francisco” is taking a break, so they’re filling up the calendar with a “January Jamboree” of terrific and eclectic events. Starting with this one: Hosted by one of our favorite performers, Rotimi Agbabiaka, it’s a whang-dang-doodle of “music, circus, drag, and clowning to wow” for audiences of all ages. Club Fugazi, SF. More info here.
SAT/17-JANUARY 25: SF ART WEEK “Celebrate the local art scene while it’s still here!”—is something I would type if I were a more cynical type, in this day and age. But I actually think we still have one of the most lively, smart, and mind-blowing visual art scenes in the country. This annual festival joins together art museums, galleries, non-profit organizations and creative spaces to really polish our shine, with an enormous amount of great stuff going on. More info here.
SAT/17-JANUARY 31: LUNAR NEW YEAR LION DANCING AT 16 SF LIBRARIES Ring in the Lunar New Year early (it’s officially on February 17) with colorful lion-dancing at the city’s fabulous libraries. The Jing Mo Athletic Association will be touring the city’s bookish institutions throughout the rest of the month to delight and educate about Chinese cultural traditions. More info here.
SAT/18: CLAUDE FOREVER: A CELEBRATION OF LIFE SF’s beloved albino alligator passed away last year just after his 30th birthday. Cal Academy will honor his memory with a special live-streamed and in-person celebration featuring a second-line brass band, Claude costume contest, and a storybook reading of Claude: The True Story of a White Alligator. 11am-1pm, Golden Gate Bandshell, SF. More info here.
MON/19: MoAD’S FREE COMMUNITY DAY TO CELEBRATE MLK The Museum of the African Diaspora is back and celebrating 20 years, and this annual family-friendly celebration is always wonderful. The Glide Ensemble, Prescott Circus and choreographer-musician-author Māhealani Uchiyama perform, activities abound, and attendees can see shows UNBOUND: Art, Blackness & the Universe and Continuum: MoAD Over Time for free. 11am-5pm, MoAD, SF. More info here.
MON/19: 2026 MLK MUSIC FESTIVAL Celebrate MLK’s legacy in Yerba Buena Gardens, with a full day of free music and performance, featuring Gerry Dove, Darnel Alexander, Ariel Marin, Morris LeGrande, and CJ Flash. This one’s specially dedicated to long-time Yerba Buena Gardens Festival producer (and personal friend), Marcelo Aviles, who sadly passed away January 9. 1pm-3:30pm, Yerba Buena Gardens, SF. More info here.
MUSIC
Hit up John-Paul Shiver’s Under the Stars column for great tunes and shows every week.
THURS/15: KRISTINA MARINOVA PLAYS MUSIC OF THE GRATEFUL DEAD (BOB WEIR TRIBUTE) gets the opportunity to give solace to local Deadheads at the venue where Bob Weir played with somewhat regularity. How do I know this? From writing these blubs. Time after time, I would see Weir listed at Sweetwater Music Hall and think to myself, “He’s getting up there,” but I never made the decision. Now, several days after the American musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Grateful Dead passed away at the age of 78, Marinova will play a seated show and board the psychedelic bus with her classically trained cinematic solo-piano performance, giving local Deadheads one last trip. 7pm, Sweetwater Music Hall, Marin. More info here.
FRI/16: ANALOG DOG makes music that gives the sensation of weightlessness. The band calls their sound “genre fluid,” drawing on influences from the band members’ tastes—psychedelic riffs of the 1960s, disco grooves from the ’70s, and modern indie pop techniques in contemporary arrangements. It’s innovative. Their new record, It’s Not The Money We’ll Remember, drops this Friday, and they’ve officially invited you to take part in the celebration by hitting their album release show at The Chapel, before they have to hit the road once again. Clothing is optional (just kidding), and dancing is free. 7pm, The Chapel, SF. More info here.
SAT/17: LIVING JAZZ PRESENTS IN THE NAME OF LOVE is a concert held at the Paramount Theater featuring Kev Choice, Martin Luther McCoy, and an assortment of artists who will make you rejoice and reflect on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—and this year also acknowledging the groundbreaking Sly & The Family Stone, who broke barriers as one of the first integrated bands to achieve international success. On top of that achievement, Stone himself was Grace Slick’s first producer, assisting on Slick’s first version of “Someone to Love” with Great Society (before it was re-recorded with Jefferson Airplane), providing the band with suggestions on how to improve the track. Sly also helped in production for a pre-fame version of the Grateful Dead, back when they were known as the Warlocks in the early 1960s. That greatness indeed is worthy of the Bay Area-rooted lineup on the bill. 6pm, Paramounth Theatre, Oakland. More info here.
FOOD & DRINK
Tamara Palmer’s weekly Good Taste column tells you where to stick your fork. Sign up for the new Good Taste newsletter here.
WED/14: CASA DE KEI POP-UP AT MILLAY Chef Keisuke Akabori frequently brings beautiful à la carte seafood-forward dinner menus to Millay. On Wednesday, he’s featuring a taste of the new Dungeness crab season with a local Dungeness chirashi with braised baby shiitake, daikon, tsukemono, and sujiko salmon ikura over rice, which I want RIGHTNOW, sorry to shout. All dishes are priced between $15-25. 5pm-9pm, Millay, 691 14th Street, SF. millaysf.com
THURS THROUGH SUN WEEKLY: TACOS OSCAR IN SF: It was a wonderful surprise to learn that Oakland’s Tacos Oscar is now in residence in San Francisco as well! Check out the dinner menu ($5-12) and listen to your friend who tells you to order the charred broccoli taco; I know, but just do it! Thursday through Sunday, 5pm-9pm-ish at Woods Beer & Wine Co. 530 Haight Street, SF. woodsbeer.com
FILM
Dennis Harvey’s long-running Screen Grabs has tons more flicks to recommend.
FRI/16 THROUGH JANUARY 25: NOIR CITY This year’s festival of classic and stylish flicks has as its theme “Face the Music!” Meaning that the 24 features being shown over that 10-day span all lean heavily on the melodic arts, whether featuring real-life star players, casting actors as musician protagonists, or being set primarily in your classic smoky nightclubs. As usual, there will be some titles familiar to even the most casual noir aficionado, like Howard Hawks’ 1944 To Have and Have Not, which introduced Lauren Bacall as the chanteuse who teaches Humphrey Bogart how to whistle, or Charles Vidor’s 1946 Gilda, with Rita Hayworth at her apex as another singing siren who wraps multiple men around her little finger. Lesser-known jewels include the 1941 Blues in the Night, chronicling a fictive jazz ensemble’s turbulent history, and 1962’s British All Night Long, a modern club-scene version of Othello featuring jazz superstars Dave Brubeck and Charles Mingus. Paramount Theater, Oakland. More info here.
OPENING FRI/16: MAGELLAN The latest from Filipino director Lav Diaz (his first not in Tagalog) is nearly three hours long. Even so, it’s one of the shorter features by an epic “slow cinema” minimalist whose prior works have stretched up to nine hours. It portrays the last decade in the life of the famed Portuguese explorer, played by Gael Garcia Bernal. He’s introduced participating in the 1511 conquest of Malacca, where he acquires a Malayan slave he dubs Enrique (Armando Arjay Babon). After recovering from a wound and marrying the Spanish Beatrix (Angela Azevedo), Ferdinand Magellan eventually commenced a “Voyage of Circumnavigation” intended to reach the Spice Islands by a western route, purportedly to spread Christianity (and undercut Muslim trade) in addition to further enriching the colonialist crown. That quest would end badly for him in the Philippines of 1521. Roxie, SF. More info here.
NIGHTLIFE
Marke B. usually knows what’s up
SAT/17: FELIX DA HOUSECAT The Chicago DJ occupies a truly unique spot in dance music history, well-rooted in his hometown’s house scene, but with so much future energy and love of edgy sounds that he belongs more to electroclash, a genre he helped inaugurate, in the history books. In the decades since that phenomenon, he’s forged a sonic lane all his own, with skronchy sounds mixing into smooth classics. Frenchy Le Freak, a wonderful DJ whose name I have not seen in a minute, opens up. 10pm, Audio, SF. More info here.
SUN/18: MIGHTY REAL MLK WEEKEND Soulful house bash Mighty Real pays tribute to MLK by bringing everyone to the dance floor in the spirit of peace and unity, with the excellent sounds DJ David Harness, Charles Hawthorne, and CoFlo. 3pm-8pm, Audio, SF. More info here.
SUN/18: DISCO DADDY MLK SUNDAY The roots of disco are Black and queer, and when DJ Bus Station John takes everyone back to that at the Eagle for a full 7-hour set—well, it’s not to be missed. It’s also BSJ’s return to the decks after a terrible mishap—and plus it’s his birthday. So much! Too much? Never! 7pm-2am, SF Eagle. More info here.
