Mission Mission

Corner of 24th and Treat! And apparently Hollywood superstar Eric Stoltz was hanging out there!

(Thanks, Cynthia!)

Haçeteria’s been on hiatus for most of 2015, but they’re back this Saturday night, and it’s gonna be a big one:

After a bit of a haçiatus, the crew returns with an old friend and former guest, the one and only Bobby B. Now residing in New York, Bobby’s got a new bag of tricks he’ll bring to the stage for a very special live performance of new jams and classic Bobby bouncers. Continuing the lineage of Haç homies such as Roche with “A Night at the Haç,” Bobby B’s latest 100% Silk release nods back to the days of classic clubbing with his new single “Manchester.”

Underground SF
424 Haight St
San Francisco, CA

Hac Residents
Nihar B
Smac
Tristes T
Jason P

$5 before 11
$8 after 11
10 p.m. – 2 a.m.

Sounds
https://soundcloud.com/iceehot/bobby-b-so-true-john-talabots-espiral-mix
https://soundcloud.com/100percentsilk/a2-manchester
https://soundcloud.com/bobbybrowser707

Oh man, so nice to see that signature Haç poster art back in action again too! Let’s fuckin DANCE!

RSVP and invite your frenz!

We missed Theatre Rhinoceros’ production of Breaking the Code: The Alan Turing Story the first time around, so when it returned this month for a short engagement after great reviews for the first run we thought we have to check it out. So off we went for a night of Drama Talk & Drinks in FiDi.

Brittany: If you saw the movie “The Imitation Game”, which is also based on the life of Alan Turing, I think you’ll be surprised because this is nothing like the movie. I’m sure it’s a matter of Hollywood making something more dramatic than it actually was, but the story in the movie was much more exciting. Maybe this is more realistic, but it’s not as entertaining.

Katie: I haven’t seen the movie, but the show was slow. When I was studying to be a director I was told to not direct a show you are staring in. As much as I love John Fisher, I feel like this show proved why. When you are both the star and the director it’s hard for you to see when pacing is off. There was no momentum, so despite some talented actors and a few lovely moments it just didn’t keep me engaged.

B: Yeah, the pacing was slow; made worse by wonky scene transitions, costume issues and the fact that the actors were struggling with their British accents. I’m a bit of a stickler for dialect so if it’s off it super bugs me. Also it drives me crazy when there are set pieces the actors make no reference to. There were chalk boards with all these equations on them and they were never used. Random theatre pet peeves of mine, but still they frustrated me.

The Verdict: Have you seen “The Imitation Game”? Did you enjoy it? Yes, then this play may be a bit dry for you. Are you an Alan Turing history buff who cares more about the real-life struggles of the man than Hollywood drama? You may enjoy it, but don’t come tired, we saw a few fellow (albeit older) audience members who may fit this description sneaking naps during the show.

The Drama Talk: We really love John Fisher’s (the Executive Director of Theatre Rhinoceros) work and thought he would play a great Alan Turing. After seeing the play, we weren’t surprised to find out that we were right, John Fisher is impressive, but we were surprised to have to ask “So, why did they do this play again?” Though we think that directing a show you also star in is usually not a smart move, this play’s story is so disjointed we are not sure if even a devoted director could have saved it. The combination of a poorly written script and some technical and pacing issues made an extraordinary man’s life not very engaging.

The Drinks: We went from one piece of history to another. One block from the Eureka Theatre is the oldest bar in San Francisco (it’s true, here is a list to prove it) called The Old Ship Saloon. It’s relatively updated at this point but still feels like a relaxed dive bar. Especially since late-night options are few and far between in this neighborhood it’s a great place to go to debrief after the show.

Breaking the Code: The Alan Turing Story runs through August 29th at the Eureka Theatre. Tickets are available on the Theatre Rhinoceros website through Brown Paper Tickets for $25-$30.

Happy birthday, Four Barrel! Here’s the official word:

• $1 drinks. Yep: All drinks are $1. In the past we’ve given them away for free, but this year we decided to do some good, and so we’ll be donating the money from the $1 drink “sales” to our friends at the Robot Mata coffee cooperative in Ethiopia. The money raised will go toward school supplies, chairs, facility expansion and renovation, etc. Think of it as a forced donation to a rad cause.
• Free Photo Booth. Glass Coat Photo Booth will be setting up their annual free photo booth from 12pm-4pm so that people can remember this day always and forever.
• We’re serving free Tartine cake promptly at 12pm. (It doesn’t last long)
• For the smaller kids, we’ll have a mobile petting zoo set up in one of our parklet corrals from 12pm–3pm, courtesy of Little Explorers Mobile Petting Zoo.
• Skylite Snowballs (fancy Baltimore sno-cones with hot marshmallow topping) will set up out front from 12pm-4pm.
• Free ice cream scoops while they last, courtesy of our buddies at Humphry Slocombe.
• For the bigger kids: free Street Fighter II and Big Buck Hunter arcade games all day.

[File photo of Primo outside Four Barrel via an old post about Primo's art]

The great debate!

[via nofriendo]

Join us every Tuesday of the month and test your wits at Pops trivia night “POP’s Quiz” where your brain may get stump on categories such as Pop’s culture, Sports, Movies, Music and more, with little snippets of audio and visual effects too! It starts at 7:00pm ends at 10:00pm. So come on in for some good ole fashion competition and a night of drinking with the crew! It is a 2 dollar cover and winner gets the pot!! So tell friends and family because the more peeps, the steeper the cash prize is!!

Here’s a taste:

What is SF’s steepest street?

*Scroll to the bottom to see if you are right*

Check out the rest of this week’s entertainment line up at Pops Bar:

8/17/15 MONDAY

MOM at POPS:

Motown on Mondays

It’s only Monday if you treat it like one.

M.O.M

9PM START, 1:30AM end

Hey!

Check out my

M.O.M.

Mondays at Pops

DJ BLUZ, ALARM & GUESTS

PLAYS ORIGINALS, EXCLUSIVE REMIXES

AND CLOSE RELATIVES OF YOUR FAVORITE

MOTOWN SONGS…

8/18/15 TUESDAY

Trivia Tuesdays

Pops Quiz

$2 to play

7-10PM

Join us every Tuesday of the month and test your wits at Pops trivia night “POP’s Quiz” where your brain may get stump on categories such as Pop’s culture, Sports, Movies, Music and more, with little snippets of audio and visual effects too! It starts at 7:00pm ends at 10:00pm. So come on in for some good ole fashion competition and a night of drinking with the crew! It is a 2 dollar cover and winner gets the pot!! so tell friends and family because the more peeps the steeper the cash prize is!!

MUSIC THERAPY

Electro-Cumbia Breaks, Hip Hop, Nu Latin Beats

10PM-1:30am

No Cover

21 UP

8/19/15 WEDNESDAY

Spike’s Live Piano Karaoke

Every 3rd Wednesday 7-10pm with Karl on the Keys

Whatever Wednesdays

Whatever Wednesday is YOUR PARTY, literally. You got DJ skills? Have you been itching to show ALL your friends? Its your turn to take over the night and mix it up. Send us your request, your best mix and we’ll see what we can do to get you your turn.

Email: tom@popssf.com

No Cover

21 UP

8/20/15 THURSDAY

BFF.FM Night

9PM-1:30AM

Rotating DJs from local BFF.fm radio! This week: Cult of Riffs

Come support local community radio.

No Cover

8/21/15 FRIDAY

MUSIC THERAPY

Electro-Cumbia Breaks, Hip Hop, Nu Latin Beats

6PM-9PM

Cult of Choice

9PM-2AM

A night dedicated to those of us who turn the music up unreasonably loud in our own living rooms just to feel the vibration, who stand feet from the stage attempting to understand how the guitar player gets that sound, who travel to places around the world because of the music that was born there, who connect with music as their own unique form of worship.

We have many a musical cult to choose from, and every 3rd Friday, we do our best to honor them all. From T.Rex to Tinariwen, John Holt to Howlin’ Wolf, Baris Manco to Merle Haggard, Ann Peebles to Arthur Russell, Rza to Ranking Dread, Fania to Fela.

Cult of Choice is hosted by a ragtag group of record collectors and music appreciators with the sole intention of sharing music with you. So come listen, dance, and even talk to us! We’d love to tell you all about who you’re listening to.

This Week

Record Selections by LP, Lord Cromwell, & casias

Live hiphop performance by Brothers Amor & Karen Less

No Cover

21 UP

8/22/15 SATURDAY

Patch & Rita

Happy Hour Entertainment 6-9PM

Who could resist this dynamic duo, with their sonorous adventures into the deserts of early 20th century songwriting? If you’ve got a hankerin’ for some rootsy boot-stompin’ tunes about whiskey and cheatin’ women, then this is your place. Patch & Rita throw down some tunes like this coast has never seen, and you’ll leave stomping your feet, we promise.

Candy Rain

The Gawds of mediocre rap MP3s played too loudly out of a subpar house party sound system are back! Throwback 90s, early 2000s hip hop and R&B.

9PM-1:30AM

No Cover

8/23/15 SUNDAY

DOUBLE FEATURE SUNDAYS

Watch your favorite movies and series at Pops!

9PM

No Cover

Email movie suggestions to tom@popssf.com

POPS BAR

2800 24th Street @ York

San Francisco, CA 94110

www.popssf.com

*Lombard Street gets all the love, but Filbert St. between Hyde and Leavenworth Streets is the steepest—31.5 degrees!*

From a Dusted Magazine top-10 list by musician Leyna Noel Tilbor:

This one time at Jack’s was the best show any of us had been to in a Very Long Time. Jack’s is a neighborhood place, not too on the scene, and you can tell because moms are there, and gangster looking tough guys, and hipsters, and fun people in general. It’s two dollar buds so that might have to do with the fact that its is popping off. I’ve seen broken glass, broken mirrors, and douche bags walking on tables. If it were a house party, the cops’d come. But Thursdays belong to DJ Purple, his incredible Karaoke with a capital K, and his deep purple velvet (velour?) blazer. There is not a proper stage, just an area by the door crammed with screens and fluorescent-fur-covered wireless mics. DJ Purple is damn unfuckwithable; you have to literally run up to catch your song as it’s starting because Purple doesn’t pause or call roll. He DJs the karaoke songs so they run right into one another. Really embodying the music major grad years later, DJ Purple rocks a saxophone, playing leads on every song and adds pitch-perfect vocal harmonies, unsolicited. This one particular Thursday, I’m rolling in a crowd three-deep — myself, my man Daniel, and his housemate Neale — and we’re enjoying the mayhem. Neale only does songs that have key changes (usually ends up with Neil Diamond). Yours truly sang NIN’s “Closer” with a perfect stranger/gothy lady who seemed timid about the chorus. A duo of Latin dudes did “California Love” and the WHOLE PLACE IS DANCING, I mean getting down. They’re getting in everyone’s faces and it looks just like MTV. A tall kid in skinny jeans just channelled Bowie with “Heroes” and it’s truly epic. Feeling so ebullient. To intensify the vibe further “Bohemian Rhapsody” comes on, and it’s a ridiculous, the tender togetherness in this bar. Swaying and singing loud, as if we were in a pub. Then, the song crescendoes just before the Wayne’s World freakout part and a mosh pit erupts. Neale, who is from Baltimore and hell-bent on being “rowdy” grabs me and throws me into the pit. Though in sneakers, I get caught terribly underfoot in the pit, and there’s a sudden alien pop in my right foot. Hop out of the pit stunned, alas, the problem in my foot is real and we aim for the ER. I’m mostly super-bummed to leave the dance floor. Hours and X-rays and Vicotins later the three of us consummate the bizarre awesome journey of the night with 5am peanut butter shakes at Sparky’s.

Read the rest of the list here.

[via DJ Purple on Twitter] [File photo by Vic Wong maybe?]

Sure, I can get my karaoke kicks elsewhere. And KJ Paul will find a new home for his KJ-ing. But there was something truly special about Wednesday nights at El Rio with KJ Paul. He brought every type of person into one room mid-week to belt their hearts out. There were no barriers, no stage – just a space and a microphone and everyone crowded around you.

I didn’t do karaoke before I found KJ Paul. I thought it was stupid. I thought it was scary. Then one night in 2011 I found myself in El Rio with a bunch of new friends, and I found a new confidence along with a home where we would all come together every week and not give a shit. There were also always the fixtures, who I think of as KJ Paul All-Stars. These people are pictured below and are just a few of the characters that made this night so special, whether it was with their impressive chops, their erratic dance moves, or just their natural charisma. El Rio on Wednesdays was a community of friends and strangers who all found their happy place singing along with KJ Paul, and it will be missed by many.

A couple weeks ago we declared this place “the best restaurant in the Mission.” Go see for yourself.

RSVP and invite your friends!

Capp Street Crap has the scoop:

Missing their old haunt, two devotees of the shuttered Lexington Club are putting on the first of what they hope will be a monthly queer night at the Uptown bar. Uptown Homos, “a dyke, lesbian, unicorn, trans queer night of flirtation,” takes place tonight, from 6 to 11 p.m.

Kelly Robbie Hansen and partner Tanya Wischerath worked with Uptown to put together the event which will feature $5 Jameson and tequila drink specials. Wischerath, a former Lexington Club bartender also known as “Hot Tanya,” will be helping out behind the bar.

Read on for more quotes and origin story.