Sizzle & Fizzle: Highs and Lows from the Last Week in S.F. Music

Comments (0) By SF Weekly Staff Wednesday, May 4 2011

Sizzle

Romana Machado

Mudhoney deafened the New Parish.

Fabrizio Rainone

R.I.P. Poly Styrene, punk goddess.

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• Friday night at Bottom of the Hill, Mike Watt reminded us what a natural talent he is on the bass. Between bringing up a former member of the Stooges onstage and reprising some material from his years with the Minutemen, a grizzled Watt played the punk-rock elder we love.

• The Stern Grove Festival announced a summer calendar that includes Sunday afternoon shows by Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Neko Case, the Dodos, the S.F. Symphony, and many more. All of them are outside, and all of them are free. Don't you love S.F.?

• Throw this in the category of collaborations we'd never expect: S.F. Balkan jazz outfit Brass Menazeri and Boston rapper Mr. Lif. And guess what? It actually works. They're asking for donations on Kickstarter if you want more of this craziness.

Fizzle

• Punk rocker and feminist legend Poly Styrene, singer of U.K. outfit X-Ray Spex, passed away last week at 53. She had been preparing to restart her solo career with a new album that was released only in March. Oh cancer, up yours.

• Right now it costs about $2,000 to get a permit to host live music in San Francisco — the same amount for a small cafe as for a big venue like the Warfield. The city's supervisors are considering changing this with a new kind of permit that would make it easier for small spaces to host live acoustic music. We think it's high time they did.

• In the department of stupid famous people, Mark Wahlberg compared Justin Bieber to Tupac — which is like calling Lady Gaga a white Aretha Franklin — and we can think of at least six musicians who'd make a better president than Donald Trump. Hey, Will Smith can get shit done, and you know Ozzy is death-proof.