Cake to play Outside Lands on Saturday

Cake has been added to the Saturday (Aug. 23) line-up at the massive Outside Lands Festival in Golden Gate Park on Friday-Sunday, Aug. 22-24. Sacramento's most original rock (and then some) export will be fourth on the bill (of two dozen acts just on Saturday) below Primus, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals and the headliners, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Cake comes right after Steve Winwood and on a bill that also includes the amazingly funky Galactic, the exquisite Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet featuring Bela Fleck, who we saw at High Sierra and was just remarkable.



(That's cool, I prefer live videos, always. But the promo clip is great, too.)

But Friday night is my dream: Radiohead. And Beck as the warm-up (along with 11 other acts). Seriously, Radiohead is THE modern band to see in this decade of great bands to see, and they'll be the first band ever to play Golden Gate Park at night. I saw Zeppelin there in 1973, outside in Kezar, and the park TOTALLY cooperated. This one is really worth the trip.



and one from the old days...(1994)

Weekend in brief

Shows in a nutshell:

Fairy Tale Town tonight at 6 - Sal Valentino with Kate Gaffney Band opening.

Friday night's free concert in the park stars local bands Diciembre Gris, Pets, We Prick You and The Generals.

Saturday and Sunday local jazz guitarist and composer Ross Hammond launches his In the Flow Festival, which will feature 15 jazz/rock/experimental bands including the Vinny Golia Trio, the Harley White Jazz Orchestra and the Lovely Builders with Hammond and ace drummer Scott Amendola. That's noon-six at the True Love Coffeehouse on K Street Saturday and Sunday.

Big name shows this week in Sactown: Dolly Parton at Arco Arena on Monday, and
CrueFest - with Motley Crue, Buckcherry, Papa Roach - at Sleep Train Amphitheatre on Tuesday.

Tickets go on sale Saturday for So You Think You can Dance Tour at Arco on Oct. 2.

Saturday out of town is GOOD (always): Steely Dan at Harvey's Outdoor Amphitheatre at South Lake Tahoe, John Mellencamp and Lucinda Williams at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, and Chris Isaak and Boz Scaggs at Ironstone Winery near Murphy's. All three shows Saturday.

Back in Sac

OK, Mr. Self-Described Grid finally spent a weekend in Sacramento. I'm not exactly sure, but I do believe it was my first full weekend here since early June - nice town, I must say.

But pretty quiet! Honestly, downtown Sacramento on the weekend, during a hot summer, is a ghost town, at least during the day. But I'm told the French Film Festival drew good crowds. Still, the Concert in the Park - my first of the summer, I am shocked to say - wasn't exactly hoppin', and I can't say that the bands were much to speak of. I did like Red Host, though...an arch sort of grungy post-pop that was ear-catching.




And I went to the premier of the new B Street show, "Jack Goes Boating," which was fun.

Otherwise, it was hanging around Land Park, at a party and under the GF's orange tree. Extremely lazy, and extremely rewarding. Ah, the simple things. Nice to know there are things to do when the money runs low.



I took photos of this building at 14th and R, which I've been riding past on my way to Naked Lounge on occasion, and have meant to blog about - always "meaning" to blog - so I took some pictures. But what is the plan for this? I'm hearing "retail," but that hardly narrows it down. What's going in here, anyone? They're doing a beautiful job, and more traffic, foot and otherwise, will be nice in the still-lonely R Street Corridor.

So, what's the word on this place?

My bad: The delayed weekend update!

OK, I'm a lazy blogger. But here's the scoop on the weekend:

Tonight, John Mayer at Sleep Train with Colbie Caillat and Brett Dennen opening. A song by Mayer just came up on my iPod shuffle when I was raking the yard last night: "Stop This Train," a really great song about the passing of time and wanting to get off - standout lines:

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game
To find a way to say that life has just begun

Here he is playing it on, well YouTube:



But there's a TON of other stuff, most of it out of town (natch'), but worth the trip. Or, now that you can breathe here again, perhaps stay? If you stay in town, here's what's up:

James McMurtry, Larry's son, is on my all-time list simply for the song "Candyland," which I can't find on line. But here's his song "We Can't Make It Here," which gives you an idea of the type of stuff he'll be playing when he plays the Palms Playhouse in Winters on Saturday night.



Meanwhile, a few local acts of note, especially Early Times playing TONIGHT with Lee Bootz and his band, Southside Shuffle, at the Blue Lamp. Mike Farrell and Early Times on twin leads is pretty amazing (saw them a couple of months ago at Blue Cue...worth seeing). That's tonight!

And Saturday is Marilyn's on K's 10 anniversary party, which is FREE and features a number of the people who've played there over recent years, including Richard March, Adam Donald, Hans Eberbach and others.

Elsewhere, Steely Dan begins its series of three Saturday shows in our area tonight at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, with shows NEXT Saturday at the Harveys Outdoor Amphitheatre, and then at Ironstone Amphitheatre in Murphy's the Saturday after that. (This Sunday, George Thorogood and Buddy Guy play Ironstone, while Toby Keith plays Harveys, also Sunday.)

The big shows in the Bay area are Coldplay at Oracle Arena in Oakland tonight, and Stone Temple Pilots reunion tour at the Greek in Berkeley tonight.

James Taylor plays Saturday at Harveys Outdoor Amphitheatre tomorrow night.

And Marcus Crowder at The Bee raved about the theatre's production of Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd," which plays through Sunday.

Barton out!

Here comes the weekend...

OK, so what's up? Well, tonight is the big Police/Elvis Costello concert at Sleep Train, which I'll be missing. The weird thing is, I'm just FINE with that. Two of the most important acts of the last 40 years, and I'm fine to be skipping it. Not sure why, exactly. I've seen Elvis many times, and probably will again, but he's not my idea of an opening act. And the Police? Well...I'm happy just to watch this video from their first time together, announcing the tour last year...



Tickets are still available.

Me, I'll be at another music festival, California WorldFest in Grass Valley, starting tonight. The cool thing about festivals is that it's a total experience, and much less of a JOB...there's no one I like at this festival as much as I like the Police OR Elvis, but I feel much more like...well, like the old days, when it was fun, not business.

Who's playing? Oh, Ozomatli, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Strunz and Farah, David Bromberg, Mariee Sioux, David Lindley...a good lineup of good musicians. Mostly, though, it'll just be three days in a gorgeous setting with kids and musicians and sleeping in the woods. There are still tickets available here. Here's Big Bad Voodoo Daddy...



And if you haven't heard Mariee Sioux, here SHE is...



What else? Well, the SAMMIES concert is tonight, and I'm sorry to miss it. You gotta see Ricky Berger, and Th' Losin' Streaks and Butterscotch, at the very least. And you can catch 'em all at the Crest tonight. Here's Butterscotch...



There's also Izabella at Friday's free Concert in the Park, at 5:30 at 9th and J. And Midnight Star at McClatchy Park in Oak Park on Saturday afternoon. That's about it for this weekend.

Whiskey Wild ends

Well, one door closes, and another opens. In this case, the door that closed is my gig at Whiskey Wild, which never drew enough people to justify the expense. I just wish they'd given me more than half an hour's notice!

But I've landed a paying gig that will allow me to continue to do all of this fun but not exactly high-paying stuff I've been doing. Thanks to Ralph for hooking me up, the keystone is in place. Onward to more INTERESTING stuff!

opening the windows...

I just got home from Old Ironsides, where I went to say hi to my friend and successor Chris Macias, pop music critic at The Bee, and watch him do his Sunday Single Showcase at the club, featuring a couple of bands, including local kids The Evening Episode. He interviews the band, they play. It was OK, though honestly, I wasn't crazy about the band and the interview was hard to hear over the people in the bar, who talked through a lot of it. (Among those at the bar: former city council candidate Shawn Eldridge and developer Richard Rich.)

But there was this news: Chris told me he's moving on from pop music critic, moving over to write about food and wine alongside Mike Dunne. The change has already started, with Rachel Leibrock, another good writer with a different range of tastes is taking over. Not sure what that means for her media beat, or Coming Distractions, the column I launched and she so ably took over. The changes in that place are dizzying.

Chris is a good guy, a good writer, and most importantly, he knows music as both a player, a DJ and a listener. And he's got pretty good taste, which is to say, it matches mine on occasion. I'm sorry he's leaving the beat, though I totally get why.

Chris also encouraged me to blog more, which I appreciate, since I recently took at shot at The Bee (not him, technically) for not covering Plant and Krauss at Tahoe. He says just write. It's so weird, because it's like going back 30 years in some ways, and relearning the media. But I told him I would, so here's my entry.

By the way, on the way home, the air was so nice I opened my car windows without even thinking about it, something I've not done for a few days. And I turned on the whole house fan when I got home, and I can't smell any smoke coming in. The air's certainly not healthy, but AC only does it for so long, and I need fresh air.

So, I'm heading to LA tomorrow to see friends - and to enjoy the cleaner air of the Los Angeles basin. The world is upside down.

Grey patches...

Am I the only one who finds it weird, and a bit dumb, that city workers tend to patch concrete sidewalks with whatever spare asphalt they happen to find?

It's a small thing, for sure, but if you're going to be out in the sun and heat patching sidewalks anyway, working with the idea that people will find them easier to walk and ride on, why use asphalt? It's consistency is very different from concrete, and the rocks that compose it tend to break lose over time - or from the start - and leave a patch I can only describe as dumb.

It's like mending a silk dress with denim.

Perhaps it's a budget thing. Mostly, it just seems kinda inexplicable.

Grey days...

Well, this is pretty bad, isn't it? On the other hand, at least we don't live in Beijing...






Went down to Capitol Mall to get the scale of this, because it's hard to photograph - it's so...encompassing, ubiquitous, but so hard to see right in front of your face. Nevertheless, feeling closer than ever before.



Bad freakin' air. BAD. Which it is all the time - we're in the Top 10 worst in the country, in the WORST air basin this side of Mexico City - but it's never THIS bad.





















While I was driving down the mall (get out of the car, you kidding?), I shot the new skyscraper that's going up at 500 N Street, with its bookend "peak" to match the US Bank building. The blue just added to the - what, granite? - panels on the side give it a vaguely Southwestern feel I'm not sure I like, but the building looks interesting, at least. Kinda. I will miss all the white lights on it during construction, though...















I've got a couple of other recent shots to show you: one is of the now-scraped-clean SW corner of 20th and Capitol, where once stood Rex Cycles and that body shop I can't remember the name of. Originally, it was an old livery, more than 100 years old. Not pretty, but still a livery of sorts - for mechanical horses.

But now it's gone. Mike Heller's development company bought the block, or a portion thereof, and scraped the sucker out of history. Bye-bye. Heller's MARRS Building across the street has been a great success, with six or seven terrific new businesses in it, including NewsBeat and great burritos and pizza and Peet's and Solomon Dubnick. And more of the same is FINE with me. But I do wish that old building could have been...acknowledged somehow. So, I will: Here it is, before and after...

Here comes the weekend...

Big shows this week:

Tonight, American Idols 2008 tour comes to Arco Arena with David and David et al...me, I never caught the fever.

The big show for the old(er) folks is Lynyrd Skynyrd at Raley Field on Friday. I haven't seen this band since their debut tour opening for The Who at the Cow Palace in 1973 - that's 35 years ago, children - but damn, they were good then. They've been to hell and back since, losing several members in a plane crash, but the survivors have kept the band as the bearers of the flag of redneck Southern rock for years.

The FREE show is at Cesar Chavez, as always, and this one's exceptional: Headliner Richard Marsh is an authoritative old school country singer with a rippin' band, Kate Gaffney is a charming young singer songwriter who will appeal to Bonnie Raitt fans, indie pop duo Agent Ribbons, and the Juggs, an all female jug band with a wry sense of humor. Starts at 5:30 Friday afternoon at 9th and J downtown Sacramento. Pray for clear air and lower temperatures. (BTW, the Mumbo Gumbo gig that the band cancelled a couple of weeks back because of smoke has been rescheduled for Aug. 22.)

The big show for the youngsters is the Rockstar (the caffeine drink) Energy Mayhem Tour, hits Sleeptrain Amphitheatre on Friday. This younger sibling of Ozzfest features such head-banging favorites as Slipknot, Disturbed, Mastodon, and a half dozen other acts your mom and I have never heard of. Which is, of course, why you like them. Partly.

Here's Slipknot on Letterman - they make the pancaked KISS look positively quaint:




Tesla doing a DVD release party at the Hard Rock Cafe at 7th and K Street Mall...wondering how they're going to get all those people in there... DVD is called "Comin' Atcha Live," and will be released next Tuesday. But you can get a preview when the band screens the DVD at 7 p.m., followed by band members autographing copies.



Big bummer: The entire Yes 40th anniversary tour has been canceled, due to singer Jon Anderson's acute resperatory failure, requiring him to rest for six months. I saw these "dinosaurs" a couple of years ago at Concord, and they blew me away. Unfairly maligned for decades, they remain one of the originals in rock. Pity we won't be able to see them this time.

In the meantime, here's a jazzed-up version of the old chestnut "Roundabout" from TV during that tour...



Speaking of anniversaries, who'da thunk that original LA post-punks X would make three decades, and then some? But they have, and tickets go on sale this Saturday for X at Harlow's...the original lineup of Exene, John Doe, DJ Bonebreak, and Billy Zoom - for a Sept. 18 show. To get you revved...



If you can't get to the Sept. 26 Sleep Train show featuring Journey, Heart and Cheap Trick, the same bill will be at the Harvey's Amphitheatre at South Lake Tahoe. We saw Plant and Krauss there, and it's a decent little amphitheatre.

Finally, it is once again Second Saturday this week, and our pal Rick Kushman wrote a fine piece on the subject in today's Scene. He is apparently doing a column I suggested to the powers that Bee a couple of years ago, to no avail. But now THOSE powers have all been fired, demoted or humiliated (sniff), the column's a go! Go for it, Kush!

The Sound of Music is still running at Music Circus, and earned a great review from The Bee's Marcus Crowder, who knows what he's talking about.

Ooops..a simpler way to High Sierra..

From Sacramento, take 80 to Truckee, then go north on 89...all the way to Quincy!!

See you there!

Fourth of July weekend ideas...

Well, for me it's all about High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy - Bob Weir and RatDog, Charlie Hunter, James Hunter, etc - see the last couple of posts. But if you're not ready to make such a commitment, or you've gotta work or otherwise stay in town, there are other options. There isn't even a free concert in the park this Friday...and even Old Ironsides is closed on Friday.

The best area show is still a bit of a drive: The Tubes are still asking "What do you want from life?" and will repeat the question at Cache Creek Casino out west this Saturday. Tickets are only $20. Can't vouch for the show personally, but a friend saw them last year, and said they were great. And I saw them New Year's Eve at Winterland in 1976, and they were phenomenal.

But Monday, Old I has the Red Elvises, who describe themselves as "kickass rock 'n' roll from Siberia" who sound more loungy than anything. Check them out here.

But Music Circus opens this Saturday with the Sound of Music. 'Nuff said.

We Are Scientists, a Brooklyn duo who play a pretty cool sorta alt.rock (with titles like "Chick Lit"), and will be playing the Blue Lamp on Saturday. Check out their myspace page.

And then there's this FOAM party, with black lights, at Country Club Lanes. I went to a foam party during my wild years, and I can tell you...well, just watch out for those soap rashes! Go here to check it out.

Tickets went on sale while I was away last week for the Counting Crows/Maroon 5 tour stops at Shoreline and the Sleep Train Amphitheatre in Concord, aka the Concord Pavilion. I am LOVING the new Crows CD, Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings, it's really quite smokin', hearkening back to their terrific second album, Recovering the Satellites. Tickets are on sale.
Also on sale are tickets to the Flashback Friday show featuring Naughty By Nature, Slick Rick and others at the Memorial Auditorium on August 2, moved from June 27.

High Sierra update, etc...

Getting to High Sierra Music Festival's going to be a bit more complicated this year, due to the fires, which have shut Highway 70. Here are the directions:

From Highway 70 in Oroville, take Exit 46 (Oro-Dam Blvd), head east. Go 1.7 miles - Turn right on Olive Highway (note -
last chance for gas until Quincy.) Go 56 miles to stop sign, turn right onto Bucks Lake
Rd. Go 8.7 miles to stop sign - go straight (turns into
Main St. in Quincy.) The road is curvy, smooth surfaced with many turn-outs.
Some uphill and downhill grades from 9% to 15%.Matchbook Romance..

Otherwise, it all looks good, though the air may be a bit smoky. But you're used to that, right?