Mission Mission

Tonight (11/12/11, a regular ol’ numbered date) at Needles and Pens, local band Woodsboro will be playing their new album, “Pocket Comb”. All 100 copies of the album will be on sale for $25, the sleeves all being unique works of art by all kinds of local artists. Seriously, like, hundreds of them, with names like:

Audra Knutson, Ed Jurken, Sara Thurston, Laurence Wilson, Scott Falkowski, Inbar Kishoni, Sharon Gatliffe, Grant Lavalley, Serena Mitnik-Miller, David Kasprzak, Greer McGettrick, Andrew Connors, Kirsten Knick, Natalie Lunney, Primo Pitmo, Michael McConnell, Sidnea D’amico, Johnny Abrahams, Doug Spencer, Paul Garcia, Jacqueline Pachak, Eric Corrigan, Meghan Meehan, Ellen McCoy, Alex Wilson, Dave Gardner, Odessa Fryxell, Jon Calvert, Anna Carpenter, Tara Barnes, Chrys Nodal, Lizzy McGinn, Alfonso Kellenberger, Erin Hurley, Jennifer Melcon, Wymond Miles, Jaime Jennings, Matthew Brown, Seble Bissrat, Jacqui Ko, Kim Kelly, Will Ivy, Zoe Mogannam, Katie Davis, Olive Mogannam, Aaron Rodriguez, Alex DeWall, Vanessa Gonzales, Em Gift, Imin Yeh, Hayden Elizabeth Shieble, Chili Montes, Andrew Martin Scott, Alison Davis, Lauren Klein, Cody Frost, Karoline Hatch, Moses Montalvo, etc.

Facebook invite here.

Pricey, sure, but a portion of the ticket price is tax deductible since The Roxie is a nonprofit! Here’s the deal:

Miss Sedaris will be on hand to discuss her 2010 book, Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People. She’ll participate in a question-and-answer session with the audience, sign books & posters, make some crafts, and generally conduct herself in as charming and effervescent a manner as you might expect.

More info and tickets here.

This weekend is the annual SF Bike Expo at the Cow Palace, for all things bike. Watch some crazy BMX and fixed gear demos, see local designers (such as the gang from Nooworks) showcase their newest products at the Pedal Savvy fashion show.  For the first time, the Expo is going to be two days instead of one, so you have more time to check out the giant swap hall or learn to go build your own bike.

You can buy tickets at Pushbike, or check out the SF Bike Expo website for tickets and more details. If you want to ride down there (which you should!), there will be a group ride leaving from Mission Bicycle both mornings. The shindig starts at 10am both days.

At last night’s free Ty Segall show presented by Drambuie at Brick and Mortar Music Hall, nobody seemed very pumped about Drambuie. As with the free Oh Sees show presented by Drambuie a few weeks back, guests were given three drink tickets upon entering, all good for a Drambuie drink of their choice. Pretty nice of Drambuie, right? Free show, three free drinks — at a nice club with a kickass soundsystem and clean bathrooms.

But when Ty asked the crowd, “How’s the Drambuie?” the whole crowd booed. And then some dick emerged from backstage and wrote “IS GROSS” under the Drambuie logo on Drambuie’s big “Drambuie Presents SF Live” banner behind the stage. And the whole crowd cheered. Louder than they cheered for Ty all night.

Drambuie must’ve been bummed.

His band is called B. Hamilton and The Bay Bridged yesterday hipped us to the fact that their debut album is available as a free download here.

It’s a big rock ‘n’ roll album (with big rock ‘n’ roll cover art) by a big rock ‘n’ roll band. They sound like they could easily headline a big summer festival. Here’s hoping they do someday.

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For more classic R.C. Parks mayhem, visit the following related posts:

The Phenomenauts are a space-themed rock and roll band from Earth’s capital: Oakland, CA.

When I teen, I played in a local touring ska band. One night we pulled up to some random shithole–I don’t know, the Tiki Wagon Tavern in Willits, or something. As I tried to process the fact that a total of seven people were likely to show up, our drummer glanced at the flyer and squealed, “Oh my God, we’re playing with THE PHENOMENAUTS tonight! They are AWESOME.”

Since then, I have probably seen the Phenomenauts more than any other band, partly because I ended up living with a couple of them for a few years. Their live show has to be seen to be believed. Try to imagine 3 guys and a robot in starship uniforms playing loud, catchy rock and roll while bombarding you with a toilet paper gun and simulated rocket exhaust.

Anyways, their act is clearly prime material for a comic book, so they went ahead and made one and paired it with a brand new EP. There is a launch party at Mission Comics and Art this Saturday from 5-7pm. You can grab the book, and catch the a stripped-down lounge version of the band. After that, be sure to catch their full-on live show at El Rio at 9pm.

Not only did this fellow manage to park on the corner, but he also found a way to block a fire hydrant as well.

Kudos, sir.

One of the squeaky-clean kids over at Mission Loc@l dressed up in his Sunday best and showed up filming of Kink.com’s “Public Disgrace”, a groundbreaking independent web video series.

Here’s a snippet:

“Let’s review the rules,” she says into a bullhorn from the center of the circle.

In more explicit language, she says that if you plan to participate, please wash your hands.

“The bathroom is over there,” she adds.

She looks back down at her list of rules.

“That’s it.”

The crowd laughs. I gulp.

Eventually, he caught on:

I’m getting it now: Kink.com is filming a porno/sex party, and we are the extras. I knew from the release form that there would be cameras at the event, but I now understand that this is really part of an adult video shoot, and the guests are the public part of the “public disgrace.”

How precious.

Read on, and if you watch the episode later, keep your eye out for a dude in a wool suit holding a notepad.

[photo, story via Mission Loc@l]

As most of you know, BART busker Jesse Morris tragically passed away on Sunday. To help his family with the cost of his memorial, Different Fur Studios is releasing never-before-heard sessions of an unfinished country album Jesse began recording in 2008. The compilation, entitled “I Wanna Take It All Back,” is available for download with a suggested donation of $5.

Nic Pope, an engineer at Different Fur and a friend of Jesse’s, wrote in to share the following anecdote:

I met Jesse in the Montgomery St. Bart Station where I heard him doing his Johnny Cash covers and we got to talking. The first project we worked on together was for his punk band U.S. Kings and “I Wanna Take It All Back” was the second which we never finished. The frank and simple way Jesse could describe your darkest feelings is what drew me to his music originally. From the title track, “I look around and see the wreckage of my past, its bad enough sometimes I wanna douse myself in gas,” is one line of his that helped me grow up a bit in the last couple of years.

Preview the album here, and please consider making a donation.

UPDATE: Plus, there’s a benefit show tonight in Oakland!

There’s that perch at Bender’s where if you’re sitting in a chair facing the wall, behind you are a couple of steps down to the main floor — meaning if you scoot backward, you will fall backward. Caryn did just that last night, but like a champ she popped right back up, unscathed.

A Bender’s employee came over and applauded her aplomb, and said that Caryn was the first person in five years to take that tumble. But I’m not sure I buy it. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen others do it too, but I never really trust my memory when it comes to Whiskey Wednesday.

In this pic you can see the leg of Caryn’s chair pointing ceilingward, and Caryn’s head (I think) upright like it weren’t no thang: