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Feature

The Bayview Battler

More than ready to take on politicians and redevelopers, Willie Ratcliff is in the most important fight of his life.

By Eliza Strickland

Published: July 5, 2006

Willie Ratcliff can rev up from mild-mannered to full-blown outrage in two minutes flat. Or less. At the May 9th Board of Supervisors meeting, he took to the podium looking owlish with his shiny...

Matt Smith

Hard to Be Really Green

Let's scrap the city's weak, pale-green environmental standards and actually take the total environment into account

By Matt Smith

Published: July 5, 2006

Now that S.F. media impresario Al Gore has burned a tanker's load of jet fuel toting his PowerPoint presentation around the globe, and compelled a million or so moviegoers to drive to...

The Apologist

Malleable

With a new owner opening a mega-mall down the street, the future of the Metreon is uncertain. Will you miss it? Find out where you stand!

By Matt Palmquist

Published: July 5, 2006

Changes are afoot at the Metreon, the much-maligned shopping center at Mission and Fourth streets opened by Sony in 1999. Envisioned as a groundbreaking combination of movies, shopping, dining,...

Sucka Free City

Sign Here, Please

By Martin Kuz

Published: July 5, 2006

When the taxi heading south on Third Street slows down outside AT&T; Park, the autograph hounds pick up the scent of potential prey. Some two dozen men, most in their teens and 20s, have gathered by...

Sucka Free City

Get Way Down

By Meredith Brody

Published: July 5, 2006

It was a textbook-perfect San Francisco spring Saturday, sunny and warm, so it seemed unlikely that toddlers and their parents would forgo outdoor afternoon delights to spend several hours inside...

Sucka Free City

Communism Lives

By Ryan Blitstein

Published: July 5, 2006

San Francisco and its surrounds have a long history of intentional communities, from the Haight-Ashbury's Kerista, the free-love commune that became Northern California's largest Apple computer...

Letters

Letters to the Editor

July 5, 2006

Published: July 5, 2006

Art vs. Money No sympathy for the artist: I have to say that the tone of A.C. Thompson's "Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man" [June 21] was a little overboard in its sympathies. As an...

Music

Satan's Pilgrims

Oakland's Saviours shepherd hell-bent thrash into a new era

By Dave Pehling

Published: July 5, 2006

Much as the continuing freak-folk explosion draws heavily on the patchouli-soaked sounds of the Summer of Love, a growing movement of retrofitted hard-rock and metal bands has emerged, lording over...

Music

Noise Sorcery

Magik Markers' potent potions

By Justin F. Farrar

Published: July 5, 2006

"You were right to give the record a shitty review," Magik Markers' Elisa Ambrogio says via cell. She's referring to my scathing write-up (appearing last summer in this very paper) of the Markers'...

Music

Misc. Reviews

Next on deck: Get ready for dubstep

By Darren Keast

Published: July 5, 2006

In 1982, Afrika Bambaataa uncannily summarized the next two decades of DJ/producer struggle with his track "Looking for the Perfect Beat." Whenever it seems we've finally arrived at that ultimate...

Music

Mixtape Shmixtape

Wherein we review Yay Area mixtapes of the day

By Tamara Palmer

Published: July 5, 2006

Despite the "for promotional use only" stickers marking their packaging, there's a whole cottage industry of Web sites, retail outlets, and manufacturers supported by the cash hip-hop mixtapes...

Let's Get Killed

Going fishing for inspiration

By Jennifer Maerz

Published: July 5, 2006

Writer's block's a bitch. But the effect is twice as evil if you do most of your work alone (solo artists, graphic designers, freelance writers; we've all felt it). When the pool of ideas is...

Reviewed

Peaches

(XL/Beggars)

By Jennifer Maerz

Published: July 5, 2006

Peaches Impeach My Bush Six years after leading a charge for sex-positive electro punks to "fuck the pain away," Peaches has been slowly slumping into a one -shtick pony. Her 2000 debut,...

Reviewed

Jesse DeNatale

Soul Parade

By Jonathan Zwickel

Published: July 5, 2006

Most guys with the age and experience of Jesse DeNatale would have a hard time finding the romance of days gone by. But in all the well-worn nostalgia and twilight storytelling of his second album,...

Reviewed

Halou

Wholeness and Separation

By Mosi Reeves

Published: July 5, 2006

On its third album Wholeness and Separation , S.F. trio Halou finds strength in surface and texture. Ethereal sounds unfurl like gossamer, and Rebecca Coseboom sings on "Tubefed," "We appeal to...

Reviewed

Vodka Soap

Un Chand Pyramdelier

By Justin F. Farrar

Published: July 5, 2006

No Bay Area outfit is more mind-fuck cozmic than the duo of Spencer Clark and James Ferraro, the Skaters. But regardless of just how out there among the stars and nebulae — or in here (as...

Reviewed

Crooked Jades

World's on Fire

By Hiya Swanhuyser

Published: July 5, 2006

Even with an entirely new lineup — only founding member Jeff Kazor remains — the Crooked Jades' latest release, World's on Fire , is embarrassingly addictive. Traditionalists may...

Bouncer

War of the words

By Katy St. Clair

Published: July 5, 2006

In everyone's life a little Floyd must amble. Floyd is my friend. He is stout with a baby face and a trilly laugh, not unlike a schoolgirl's. Sometimes the laugh is accompanied by a squawk of...

Hear This

Flowing bodily fluids and a surreal sort of evil

By Jennifer Maerz, Sam Prestianni, Dan Strachota

Published: July 5, 2006

Vancouver’s metal czar 3 Inches of Blood employs two vocalists for double the theatrical impact. Cam Pipes goes for the operatic histrionics, allowing his voice to alternately soar to the Rob...

BeatBox

'70s by the poolside

By Brock Keeling, Tamara Palmer

Published: July 5, 2006

Simply Jeff is one of the country’s leading breakbeat DJs in the clubs as well as on XM Satellite Radio and iTunes Radio. Owner of DJ Culture, a record shop in Huntington Beach, Jeff has his pick...