BEST DROP DOWNTOWN CONT>>
taking place in the Town. www.oaklanddropsbeats.com
BEST GAMEBOY TUNESMITH Jack-of-all-trades musician, artist, dramatic yo-yoist, and video game designer-wizard Doctor Popular is one of those people you’ll inevitably run into if you’re out and about in the Mission, which makes us wonder when he has the time to do all that
time waiting in a two-hour brunch line just to Instagram their eggs Benedict (#SundayFunday!), those in the know hitch on their high-kickers and head to the cool yet still satisfying sanctuary of Thee Parkside’s Original Famous Twang Sundays. It’s all ages, always free, and sports a different food special from the kitchen every week. Putting the tang in your twang: different cowboy-boot-sportin’ crooners on the stage (Smooth Hound Smith, Thirteen Button Trousers, Sour Mash Hug Band) ever so gently kick-
he does — which includes but is by no means limited to creating catchy, infectious music using old-school video game consoles, and editing his music videos on his phone. Is it weird? Sure, it’s weird. It’s also way better than it has any right to be: Just ask any of the folks who contributed to his Kickstarter, which raised $11,000 to help produce an all 8-bit album. www.docpop.org
BEST SUNDAY TWANGDAY While two-thirds of the city is killing
PRESENTS
LEST WE FORGET
best dancing in the dark: lights down low ing your hangover to the curb. Sundays, 2pm, free. 1600 17th St., SF. (415) 252-1330, www.theeparkside.com
BEST UNDERGROUND VENUE, NOW REVEALED
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PHOTOS (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT): THE FALL OF THE I-HOTEL, THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK, ALCATRAZ IS NOT AN ISLAND, HARDCORE HOME MOVIE, WE WERE HERE, TAKE THIS HAMMER, CHAN IS MISSING
In the current state of profound transition in San Francisco, it’s more important than ever to remember the City’s radical history and hard-fought battles for social change. How we live today is a direct result of these actions of the past.
OCT 2–26, 2014 • SCREENING ROOM YBCA.ORG/LEST-WE-FORGET YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS • YBCA.ORG • 415.978.ARTS 68 SAN FrANcIScO bAY GUArDIAN
beSt OF tHe bAY
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Oh, Viracocha. We’ve loved you from the beginning — for your overflowing bins of records, your antique mannequins and birdcages, your shelves upon shelves of jewelry and soaps and albums made by local dreamers and artists of all kinds, and of course for your truly beautiful bathroom. Not to mention the basement listening room, which has had some of the best live sound in the city for the past five years, and played host to some of the most fun shows, parties, and readings we’ve ever been to. But due to zoning restrictions, the downstairs venue was limited in its outreach — until now. Owner Jonathan Siegel deserves a medal for jumping through the city’s hoops to reconstruct the space and obtain a legitimate entertainment permit (an alcohol license is next). But he’d probably be happy with a nap instead. 998 Valencia, SF. (415) 374-7048, www.viracochasf.com
BEST DANCING IN THE DARK One of the fierce pleasures of local nightlife is watching little parties grow up into big parties — and then watching those big parties start to rule the world. Lights Down Low started several years as a stylish, ragtag affair in the Tenderloin when people were still using MySpace to find out about good dancing. Well, you can’t keep a great party secret — especially one with a fanbase as devoted as this one. Soon the techno, house, tHe SeLectOr
and electro headliners were getting more adventurous, more tricky, more famous, more insane. Giant smiley-faces and acid-trippy visuals splashed across the LDL scene. Hundreds of late-night party people flocked to hear what promoter Corey Sleazemore, soon joined by infamous party animal DJ Richie Panic, had up his sleeve. Add a recent roster of resident party DJs (MPHD, Dials), a residency at the huge Mezzanine club, and a Los Angeles franchise (which may or may not have been raided by anti-rave cops) — you’ll want to keep your party finger on that dimmer switch, dear. www.facebook.com/LightsDownLowCA
BEST UP AND OUT FOR ART With so many gallery closures this past year, and commercial real estate only getting more cost prohibitive, artists and curators have had to get more creative about how to show work. Choosing one of the most common of public architectural structures as its starting point, curatorial collective Stairwell’s has taken art outside of the proverbial white cube, staging installations and interventions with accompanying publications and tours (called “field trips” in Stairwell’s speak) in diverse sites around the Bay Area. Whether they entail climbing underneath the inter-gallery staircase at YBCA or ascending the Metreon’s escalators, the tours that Stairwell’s runs are playful and thoughtfully insistent on reframing the structures around us as sites for aesthetic inquiry and reflection. Kudos to it for showing that space is not really an issue when there’s vision to spare. www.stairwells.org
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