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Feature

Richard Thalheimer, Founder of Sharper Image, Talks for the First Time About His Ouster

By Ron Russell

Published: October 24, 2007

Throughout Richard Thalheimer's sprawling Pacific Heights home are quirky artifacts from happier days when he still ran The Sharper Image. There's Alfred the Butler, once a popular catalog...

Sucka Free City

Halloween in the Castro: Where Will Everyone Pee?

By Joe Eskenazi

Published: October 24, 2007

It's the final week before Halloween, so be sure to stock up on dry ice, tiny candies, and, for you Castro residents, a pair of urine-proof galoshes. This year's nonevent in the Castro will...

News

Judge Lets Guardian 's Loony Lawsuit Go to Trial

By Andy Van De Voorde

Published: October 24, 2007

A Superior Court judge ruled Thursday that the Bay Guardian 's predatory pricing lawsuit against SF Weekly and its parent company can go to trial. After hearing arguments on SF Weekly 's...

Sucka Free City

Chauncey Bailey Project Unites Local Media -- Except the Chronicle and the Express

By Will Harper

Published: October 24, 2007

The Chauncey Bailey Project has been billed as a rare show of professional solidarity in response to the death of a journalist in the line of duty. The project, named for the Oakland Post editor...

Sucka Free City

Lotus Vodka Filled with Life-Giving Vitamins ... and Cirrhosis-Causing Alcohol!

By Tiffany Martini

Published: October 24, 2007

You know what totally sucks about getting wasted? The dry mouth, spinning room, endless headaches, and digestive problems you endure the next day. If only there were a healthy vodka, one I could...

Letters

Letters for the week of October 24-30, 2007

Published: October 24, 2007

Hotel (Northern) California A lovely place: The front page cartoon for the "Vice Hotel" article [Oct. 10] is a cruel and bitter irony, for the cartoon appears to depict affluent dotcom...

Music

Shape-Shifter

Ornette Coleman sculpts free jazz from the genre's elevated fringes

By Sam Prestianni

Published: October 24, 2007

Almost 50 years ago, Ornette Coleman recorded his major-label debut, The Shape of Jazz to Come , which came on the heels of two fine, though relatively obscure, independent releases. The...

Reviewed

Thurston Moore

Trees Outside the Academy (Ecstatic Peace!)

By Andy Beta

Published: October 24, 2007

It's too bad that the position of "America's Oldest Teenager" is already occupied by Dick Clark, as Thurston Moore could give him a serious run at the throne. Granted, Moore's band Sonic Youth has...

Music

Jersey Boys

Bruce Springsteen and Danzig battle for Garden State supremacy

By Tony Ware

Published: October 24, 2007

Like oil and pharmaceutical tankers in the New Jersey night, two of the Garden State's other greatest exports are passing one another on Bay Area tours in the next couple weeks. Bruce...

Reviewed

Kelly Willis

Translated from Love (Ryko)

By Mark Keresman

Published: October 24, 2007

Kelly Willis started out singing rockabilly at age 16, and despite growing into a Texas-style honky-tonk sound, she retains the feisty twang of that initial genre. But even with the strong...

Music

Almost Gold

The Jesus and Mary Chain: From required records to artificial rip-offs

By Dan Strachota

Published: October 24, 2007

When the Jesus and Mary Chain played its first show in London in 1984, the band wasn't exactly proficient. Douglas Hart had to remove two strings of his bass so he could actually play his...

Reviewed

Jennifer Johns

Painting on Wax (Nayo Movement Music/Hiero Imperium)

By Jesse Ducker

Published: October 24, 2007

Oakland-born singer Jennifer Johns has a penchant for funneling myriad influences into her music. Her sophomore album, Painting on Wax , is an ambitious stab at soul, hip-hop, dancehall, calypso,...

Music

Brain-Teasing

Caribou twists your melon with intelligent psych-pop

By Tony Ware

Published: October 24, 2007

It's rare to find musicians who don't claim to put blood, sweat, and tears into their craft. Dan Snaith, however, is offering to bring something a bit more extreme to the table. "Do you know...

Let's Get Killed

Let's Get Killed

Oakland's Story Club hosts Budget Rock. Awesome ridiculous!

By Jennifer Maerz

Published: October 24, 2007

There's so much to love in the perpetual teenage gusto of garage rock. Whether its purveyors are suited up in cheap costumes, tossing off pseudo-snottiness, or springing into crowds as though...

Hear This

Hear This

By Jonah Flicker, Ernest Barteldes, Frances Reade, Mark Keresman, Toph One

Published: October 24, 2007

On its 2005 debut for Jagjaguwar, Canadian collective Black Mountain brewed up an intoxicating batch of homegrown rock. Stephen McBean's soulful voice and hypnotic song-visions create a...

BeatBox

Beat Box

By Tamara Palmer, Michael Alan Goldberg, Evan James

Published: October 24, 2007

There are few DJ-related DVDs worth plunking down that hard-earned cash for, but the new History of DJ Krush is a compelling compendium. It chronicles in audio and documentary form the...

Eat

Welcome Back, Kaddo

The city's favorite Afghan restaurant reopens

By Robert Lauriston

Published: October 24, 2007

On February 27, a 75-foot-wide chunk of Telegraph Hill crumbled, releasing several hundred cubic yards of rocks and boulders to smash into the back of buildings at the corner of Broadway and...

Fresh Eats

New Restaurants

Published: October 24, 2007

A weekly listing of new restaurants around town. To recommend a spot, e-mail fresheats . Avedano's Holly Park Market: 235 Cortland (at Bonview), 285-MEAT, www.avedanos.com . Bernal...

Film

Unknown Pleasures

Joy Division portrait proves the exception to the rock biopic drool

By Tim Grierson

Published: October 24, 2007

Rock films come in two forms. The first is the concert/documentary variety, the best of which dynamically pinpoint a band's musical moment within the context of its era: the Maysles Brothers and...

Film

Dan in Reel Life

Cobbled together from better movies, Steve Carell's latest is strike two

By Robert Wilonsky

Published: October 24, 2007

Dan in Real Life has this much going for it: It is not the worst Steve Carell film of 2007. That honor, of course, goes to Evan Almighty , which even the Lord walked out of during the second...