By Andrew Gilbert Would you like a little grease with your pizza? When the swaggering tenor saxophonist Nancy Wright is slinging the funk, of course you do. A Cheese Board regular, Wright performs at the Gourmet Ghetto institution on Friday 11:45 am to 2:45 pm with her organ trio, blowing delectable blues, ballads and soul […]
Music
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On a stage near you: Cal Performance’s new season
John Malkovitch will star in Cal Performances' "The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer" in October [Update, 04.27,11: Watch a video of director Peter Sellars talking about “the Desdemona Project”, the upcoming theatrical event he is producing for Cal Performances.] Cal Performances knows how to serve up a star-studded arts menu. Names such as […]
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Berkeley picks from 54th San Francisco Int’l Film Festival
Yugoslav film takes center stage in "Cinema Komunisto" The 1950s may be known as ‘The Golden Age of Television’, but my personal golden age of boob tubery came a little bit later. At the age of eight I was transported from a country with three television channels (all of which seemed to spend as much […]
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Out in Berkeley: Soulful crooner Kenny Washington
Kenny Washington: a soaring tenor who can evoke Stevie Wonder By Andrew Gilbert The Bay Area is blessed with an exceptionally deep pool of jazz vocal talent, but, even among the dozen or so singers who tour and perform nationally and abroad, Kenny Washington stands out as an extraordinary talent. A soulful crooner whose soaring […]
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Singing about war and recovery: Country Joe goes to jail
By Judith Coburn Country Joe McDonald played San Bruno jail last Friday “Cleared for the F— cheer!” trumpeted an email the night before Country Joe McDonald was to go to jail. He’d already been convicted of lewd and lascivious behavior for leading a crowd in the fuck cheer in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1965. But now […]
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Amoeba named the best record store in the country
Marc Weinstein of Amoeba Music, named top record store in the country. Photo: Vinyl Hounds So sooner had the ink dried on our story about Amoeba celebrating National Record Store Day tomorrow with, among other things, an appearance by The Lonely Island Berkeley boys, than the news crosses our transom that Rolling Stone has named Amoeba […]
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The boys are back in town: Lonely Island trio hit Berkeley
Jorma Taccone, Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer: visiting their Berkeley hometown Update, 7:30pm: Exciting news: Dina, one of the managers of Amoeba, writes in to say that this event is NOT sold out as of 5 o’clock 4.14.11. “There are still wristbands available for those who pre-order the new album. Thanks! Peace” Thanks Dina. The […]
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If you needed a reason to hear Mahler 6 this afternoon…
Friday morning, Berkeleyside previewed the weekend residency by the Vienna Philharmonic in Berkeley. You can see and hear a glimpse of Friday morning’s rehearsal in the video above, which shows the orchestra rehearsing Gustav Mahler’s Sixth Symphony. The performance is this afternoon at 3 p.m. and there are still a few tickets left. It’s your […]
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Feast of concerts, classes during Vienna Phil residency
Vienna Philharmonic in concert. Photo: Terry Linke. A little over 133 years ago, Han Richter conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in the first performance of Johannes Brahms’ Second Symphony. Tomorrow night, the Vienna Phil conducted by Seymon Bychkov will play the same Brahms symphony in Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. The Vienna Philharmonic, one of the world’s greatest […]
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Berkeley indie band Roosevelt Radio ‘had a blast’
We recently reported on Berkeley indie band Roosevelt Radio and their bid to win the chance to work with legendary producer Don Was. The five members of the band went to Los Angeles to compete in the Gimme The Gig competition on February 17. Berkeleyside reader Scott Empringham was there and reported that “These guys […]
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Indie band competes for top recording contract
Tonight, a young Berkeley band will compete in Hollywood in a competition called “Gimme the Gig”, and, if they win, they’ll get the chance to work with legendary producer Don Was (think Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop and almost any other big name in popular music, and Was has worked with them). But Roosevelt […]
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‘This was my company’: Rapper Yelawolf revisits Berkeley
There isn’t much rapper Yelawolf hasn’t seen or experienced. As his online biography notes, this “badass Alabaman” was born Michael Wayne Atha to an absentee father and a bartender mother, he attended over 15 schools while “soaking up slang and spiritualism in Baton Rouge, Antioch, Tennessee, and Atlanta”. He worked as a commercial fisherman in […]