San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival recently announced single-day tickets are now available. This is great news if you’re tight on cash and can’t afford the $225 plus fees for the 3-day pass. General admission 1-day tickets cost $85 and a percentage of this will go towards SF Parks and local chartiable organizations. Now the hardest part - picking a day. Radiohead will headline Friday August 22nd, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers on Saturday and Jack Johnson on Sunday. Other artists recently added include: The Coup, Lupe Fiasco, Steel Pulse and ALO. For the full line-up & any new artists added to it check: http://www.sfoutsidelands.com/artists/.

Personally, Spoon has never really done it for me. But any band with a former member of the Get Up Kids (in Spoon’s case, bassist Rob Pope ) is a band I will support. And besides, Spoon stacks cred like Visa. Here’s the release:

Following on a standing-room-only U.S. tour that culminated in the Don’t You Evah EP entering Billboard’s singles sales chart at #1, Britt Daniel, Jim Eno, Eric Harvey and Rob Pope-collectively known as Spoon-have confirmed their final live engagements of 2008.
This last run of Spoon shows will be preceded by a May 3 Britt Daniel solo performance at the Belly Up in Solana Beach CA. From there, the full band will be headlining the KNRK Pet Aid Benefit in Troutdale OR, playing their biggest ever New York show July 15 at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, appearing at the Mile High and Pitchfork festivals, making their debut at the Hollywood Bowl September 20 supporting Beck, and concluding with a three-night residency at the Fillmore Theater in San Francisco-the last dates of the tour and first Spoon SF headline engagement since the July 2007 release of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Tickets for the Fillmore shows go on sale to the general public May 11. These dates will mark the close of more than a year’s worth of touring in support of Spoon’s sixth full-length studio album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, which was Spoon’s first Top 10 album and most acclaimed release of their career.

Tour dates after the fold BAATCH

(more…)

In order to help paint her opponent Barack Obama as the “elitist” candidate, on the heels of his recent remarks in San Francisco that small town Midwesterners “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” Hillary Clinton took shots of Crown Royal and ate a slice of pizza with Indiana supporters on Saturday. Hopefully this marks a new turn in the contest for the Democratic nomination, in which Clinton and Obama see who can party hardest. Maybe Obama will start doing cocaine again. But that might be a little too “elitist.” He should probably switch to Meth, and really get after that small town vote!

The Olympic torch relay is at present, struggling it’s way down an alternate route in Downtown San Francisco after protesters scared organizers away from the original planned route:

The procession of the Olympic torch through San Francisco descended into farce today when the flame-holders ran only a few yards before disappearing into a warehouse, then re-emerging on a bus.

After furious clashes throughout the morning between ‘Free Tibet’ protestors and pro-China demonstrators, the authorities seemed to panic, and by 1.20pm, local time - 20 minutes after the published start time - even the TV news helicopters were confused. Then, for a few seconds, the runners were glimpsed, but within seconds they had disappeared from the starting point at McCovey Cove and disappeared into a nearby Pier 48 warehouse. Finally, there were reports of the procession leaving the warehouse on a bus.

However, the protesters are starting to catch up. Keep up with the latest news in pissed hippies and even more pissed cops and Chinese government officials on SFGate’s Torch Page.

As the Olympic Torch is scheduled to make its way through San Francisco on Wednesday, protestors are already gearing up for their message of peace and freedom for Tibet. Today, three people scaled the suspension cords of the Golden Gate bridge with huge banners that read, “One World. One Dream. Free Tibet.” Four others were arrested. Protestors in Paris caused such a disruption that they had to cancel part of the torch’s route. More are expected in the coming days as it passes through SF.

“We want it to be peaceful. But it will be large,” said Dasang, 22, during a phone interview in which he said he was near the bridge. “I heard from Tibetans that now live all over the U.S. and even abroad who are coming here.”

Be careful out there, brave protestors.

A few short weeks ago VideoMatt and I drove down to San Francisco to interview and film Welsh experimental rock outfit the Super Furry Animals. And while the live video shoot was kinda a bust (our pre-planned three camera shoot last-minute reduced to one camera) we did end up chatting with SFA singer Gruff Rhys for a long time. Here’s the fruits of our labors. Their latest album, Hey Venus! is available now.