Mission Mission

This week, Mission Mission brings you a recap of the top 5 posts of 2010. Can you guess the number one post of the year?

Hey, I already told you it’s not BART Boner. Is it Details on the American Apparel Hearing (NSFW)? Almost. That was the number one post in terms of traffic. But dude, that is so 2009. American Apparel was already chased out of the Mission by an angry mob who was probably wearing their stuff the whole time. Not that you care, the real reason you looked at that post was the hot pixxx of Sasha Grey when it popped up in Google. That’s ok, we wont tell.

3. San Francisco Has Banksy Fever!

Right before Banksy’s first film “Exit Through the Gift Shop”  premiered across the US, all sorts of Banksyesque street art started popping up in all the major cities including NYC, Detroit, and San Francisco. The Mission was hit a couple of times during this promotional surge at Mission and Sycamore (see above) and Valencia between 19th and 20th above Amnesia.

Initially, there was doubt about whether or not the pieces were authentic. Commenters battled it out while other pieces popped up in Chinatown, North Beach, SoMa, and even Alcatraz. Everyone suddenly thought graffiti was just swell. Camera clutching tourists loitered in the middle of Valencia street. Reports came in that he had a private shopping session Self Edge and had stayed in the Mission for 4 days. So apparently Banksy likes Mexican food, gentrification, and really expensive uncomfortable jeans that you’re not supposed to wash for a year.

Inevitably, the works were augmented, defaced, and mocked by other local street artists. Local business owners saw the tourist potential of keeping the pieces pristine and inadvertently got themselves in the art restoration field. This brought up the tired debate as to what constitutes legitimate street art and petty vandalism. Meanwhile, Banksy watched it all go down from his luxury secret lair and LOL’ed.

Banksy’s film is now on Netflix, by the way, and he insists it’s not a prank.

2. Lady Gaga Causing a Scene at Rosamunde

We’ve had our share of celebrity sightings in the Mission this year. To name a few: Glee lady, Molly Ringwald, Margaret Cho, Dave Chappelle, and Steve Jobs.

The one that topped our charts was Lady Gaga’s unexpected appearance at the new Rosamunde location in the Mission. It started as a rumor, but was pretty much confirmed when pictures and first hand accounts came in. She was allegedly in search of an authentic Mission burrito, but got sidetracked when she saw a sign advertising “sausage”. This amused her enough to stop in, confirming that the pop star is, in fact, a 12 year old boy.

L. Gaga ordered white wine and did not actually stuff a sausage in her mouth. She bullshitted with the staff and admired homemade jewelry for over two hours while being reminded by her bodyguards about her dinner reservation at somewhere fancy. The Rosamunde staff urged her to check out El Farolito for that burrito she craved. With that she left. Perhaps to go to El Farolito where, if it’s anything like Flour and Water, she was told wait in line like everyone else.

Previously:

Top 5 of ’10: #5: Livin’ La Bebida Loca; #4 KKKontroversy

First Coda, now SoCha.

SoCha Cafe on Mission and Valencia is switching ownership and starting Jan 1st will not continue to host free nightly live music. The spot was owned by the same guy who owns Revolution Cafe, and for a long time they shared calendars and performers. I don’t blame them, the music part never quite took off and it always seemed like more of a sleepy study cafe rather than a live music venue. Most people didn’t even seem aware that this place even had live music.

If you haven’t been to a show there, tonight Classical Revolution is having their last weekly residency there. They have been holding down the gig for about 3 years. It’s an open classical chamber music jam. That’s right, classical music folks “jam” too!

If you were in high school band, you know that a “Coda” refers to the musical passage that brings a song to it’s conclusion. Now it looks like the Mission jazz venue Coda Supper Club will come to it’s own conclusion on January 1st, unless they get some miraculous financial help.

There were some truly epic moments there, including the night Stevie Wonder sat in with the band in September of last year and the Nico tribute show, featuring Liz Phair. One thing about Coda that I appreciated over Yoshi’s (which receives city tax subsidies to stay afloat, by the way) is that they predominantly featured local musicians.

Local venue closings are always a bummer. Drop them a line if you’re an angel investor willing to help, or stop by in the next couple of weeks to enjoy the club before it’s gone.

More cutting edge hipster humor! A bunch of SF stand-up comics made this swell parody of Gaston’s song from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Filmed largely in, you guessed it, the Mission. Thank goodness, because musical theater is so underrepresented here.

If you like it, you can vote it up at funny or die.

[thanks Nicole C.]

First Leonard Cohen, now this?? The ’80s are BACK, people!

Reader Margaret noticed the following mobile pic on Leonard’s tour diary, dated about 10 days ago:

I wonder where he was headed. Anybody spot him?

Apparently, yes. Get thee to the Elbo Room, people.

[Thanks, DH!]

First: one of the baddest (in a good way) guitarists around Michael Abraham is leading a tribute to legendary jazz bassist/pianist Charles Mingus tonight at Amnesia as part of the SF Jazz Hotplate Series. The band features a sick (again, in good way) lineup of local musicians: Dayna Stephens, Erik Jekabson, Sylvain Carton, George Ban-Weiss, and Eric Garland. 8-11pm. Mike also leads the Wednesday night Jazz Jam Session at Amnesia.

Secondly, on another side of the musical spectrum: STRING METAL band Judgement Day will be performing an intimate little show at the Porto Franco Art Parlor tonight at 7:30pm. Anton Patzner is basically this sicko genius who runs his violin through a Marshall stack. His bro shreds out power chords on the cello and they are joined by a drummer. You will head bang. Hard. The Art Parlor is at 953 Valencia the show costs $15.

In case you missed soon-to-be Orange County punk legends Cat Party a few weeks ago at Bender’s, Andy Miller (who last brought us the supremely metaphysical “Women on the Women’s Building“) has you covered here with a quick and dirty interview interwoven with some of their best tunes.  Singer and guitarist Ryan Nichols has a lot to say about everything from San Francisco vs. Orange County to fast vs. slow songs.

If you like what you see, they’re playing again on New Year’s Eve Eve (December 30th) at the Hemlock along with the frenetic Face the Rail and (once again) my band, La Corde.  Stick that in your planner!

Bummer, songkick did an analysis of rock shows per capita (that means per-person, you know) and San Francisco isn’t even on the chart. What’s the problem? This is a major city that is full of awesome bands.

I can tell just from observation that there is not as much as a music-going culture here. I can throw out a couple of my theories:

1. New venues being shut down by neighbors before they have a chance
2. A lack of all-ages underground shows
3. Poor accessibility
4. People aren’t bored enough

What’s your theory?

[via Dangerous Minds]