7/18 O Scene Weekend

Friday, July 18

Jazz @ Q’s ft. Wesley Thomas

The latest installment of Jazz @ Q’s brings Bay Area based guitarist/vocalist Wesley Thomas through for 2 special sets. Influenced by sounds as diverse as the jazz licks from his hometown of Louisville to the pre-techno clubs in Germany to the live music scene in Atlanta and the psychedelic soul sound of the Bay, Wes blends a full range of style and musical influences and tonight he’s joined by local favorites Bill Norwood, Maya K, Michael James and Tony Saunders to perform originals songs from his latest album Come Groove With Me.

Wesley Thomas and Friends
$10
8&10pm
Q’s Lounge
126 Broadway, Oakland
http://www.eandjbbq.com/calendarhome.html

Eric Swinderman ft. Joyce Grant

True to their band name-In Pursuit of The Sound-tonight’s show will be a walk through 100 years of American music as guitarist Eric Swinderman swings through the work of masters including Scott Joplin, Bessie Smith, Lady Day & Ella Firtgerald. Swinderman is accompanied by the vocal stylings of Joyce Grant, Marty Williams on piano, Ruth Davies on bass,Rhoyal Baibe on drums and Dave Ellis on sax.

Eric Swinderman ft. Joyce Grant
Call for prices
8pm
Anna’s Jazz Island
2120 Allston Way, Berkeley
510-841-5299
www.AnnasJazzIsland.com

Lorca Summer Festival

This past June would have marked the 100 birthday of Federico García Lorca, the famed Spanish poet, playwright and artist. Lorca wrote some of the most beautiful and politically charged work in Spain’s history, relying heavily on the concept of duende-the idea that to create truly great art, the artist must live as close to death as possible. Many believe it was this no holds barred approach to life that led to his assasination at 38. Throughout the rest of the month, San Francisco based theater troupe Pangs Theater Ensemble performs three of Lorca’s best known tragedies - Blood Wedding, Yerma, and The House of Bernarda Alba - written only a few years before their author’s untimely death.

Lorca Summer Festival
$12 - 25 sliding scale
July 18 - Aug 2
8pm
Intersection for the Arts
446 Valencia St, San Francisco
415.626.2787
www.theintersection.org

7/16-19 On Your Mark, Get Set, Compete!!!

If you’re just bursting at the seams to see some top notch athleticism and can’t wait ’til this Summer’s Olympics, or if you’ve just got a gaggle of kids running around with nothing to do over the next 4 days, then the 42nd Annual US Youth Games have the cure for what ails ya.

From now through Saturday, hundreds of the country’s best young athletes will be descending on the city for a full palate of muscle stretching, brain bending competition. Teens ranging from 13-15 will be participating, Olympic style, in tons of competitions including Basketball, Volleyball, Soccer, Swimming, Track and Field, Bowling, Golf, Double Dutch Jump Rope, Chess and Academics. The games also feature alternative Boating and Table Tennis exhibitions for the kiddies.

Things kick off tonight with the Opening Ceremonies over at Woodminster Amphitheater and continue at various locals around the city starting tomorrow.  Get the full schedule over at the event website, then get out and support the next generation of US Olympians.-kwan

7/16 African Culture Day-All Week Long

So if you believe what scientists say and not the holy word from those kinda creepy creationists, all human life originated in Africa. So by grand extension that means we’re all African, right? So with this little nugget of cultural origin tucked under your arm, everyone should celebrate their heritage at Oakland’s official African Diaspora Arts and Culture Day. Started last year by local arts organization Caribelinq and officially sanctioned by da Dellums for July 17, the celebration actually runs for the next 3 days, cuz let’s be honest, Africa has a lot of culture.

Things kick off tonight at Air Lounge with a special poetry and spoken word extravaganza featuring poets from Hot Water Cornbread, music by Hairdoo and a dance performances by Traci Bartlow & The Beautiful One. Tomorrow afternoon there’s a free artist reception and shindig hosted by da Dellums down in Frank Ogawa Plaza featuring culinary and cultural presentations from throughout the African diaspora. Then Friday’s big finale is a free screening of the bad ass concert doc “Wattstax” down at the Black New World, hosted by Oakland Film Society’s David Roach and Caribelinq’s Theo Williams. That’s 3 chances to get in touch with your inner African. Don’t miss out-Kwan

7/11 O Scene Weekend

Summer Solos 2008

ProArt’s latest exhibit features three projects exploring the topics of race, identity, and cultural hybridity. Summer solos features installations by Ken Lo, Ala Ebtekar, and CalliGRAFFitti, a collaboration between calligraphy artist Minette Lee Mangahas and three generations of graffiti writers. Ken Lo’s video and sculpture installation focuses on the intersections between the perception of Chinese culture and the self aggrandizement of American Basketball. Berkeley born artist Ala Ebtekar fuses traditional Iranian imagery with American hip-hop iconography. CalliGRAFFitti focuses on the synergies between East Asian calligraphy and urban American graffiti word art forms with pieces by calligraphic painter Minette Lee Mangahas and nine graffiti writers from seven cities around the country.

ProArts Gallery
Free
6-8pm
ProArts Gallery
550 Second St., Oakland
www.proartsgallery.org

6/27 O Scene Weekend

Featured Event: Soulstice Swap

I got a call a few weeks back from the moms. She’d found a box of my old clothes and wanted to know if should she keep them or sacrifice them to the gods of Goodwill. When she started describing the threads it instantly took me back the early ’90’s, what’s referred to in hip hop as the Golden Age, when the usic was pure and the clothes were super huge and super bright-I’m talking purple jeans, orange and purple Nikes, multicolored Cross Colours button ups with the fitted baseball caps and jackets that matched the rest of the outfit way, way too much. And these were the stepping out clothes. We must have looked like a gang of hood peacocks. Needless to say the box got the donation treatment real quick.
If you’re in possession of such a box of unmentionables, or just have a closet full of last year’s designs you’re itching to get rid of, the homeys from Homeygrown have to solution: bring everything down to Soundwave Studios this Saturday for the Soulstice Swap, a knock down drag out free for all clothing and stuff swapathon. Just show up with your own bag of clothes, movies, books, music or nonperishables and dive right into the mountains of free schwag.
Homeygrown is a local arts and design collective with the mission to “provide a support system for striving artists by offering outlets for exposure.” In the past they’ve sponsored fashion shows, screen printed T-shirts, pushed artist created merch at local street fairs and thrown kick ass parties on both sides of the bay.
Saturday’s event should be another good time. And with the promise all you can drink beer and Sangria for 5 bucks, you just might find yourself coming home with a few questionable items, but hell, just toss them in the closet till next Summer. Unless you find a pair of Orange and Purple Nikes. I might want to get those from you.-kwan

Soulstice Swap
$5
3pm
Soundwave Studios
2200 Wood St,
www.homeygrown.org

There’s art around town, even though it’s not First Friday…

For all you art lovers out there, the galleries are staying busy…

What: Lirielle, an art and jewelry gallery, is hosting a wine & cheese reception for Brenda Reinertson’s abstract painting.

When: June 27th, 5.30 pm to 8.30 pm

Where: 3980 Piedmont Avenue

Susan Tuttle’s Sea-Spray at Float

What: See the art at FLOAT. You’ll find paintings, sculpture, photography and mixed media by Keiko Nelson, Bill Stoneham, Elizabeth Tennant and Susan Tuttle. You can always jump into the floatation tank if the art watching tires you out.

When: Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am to 10 pm. The show isn’t on for much longer – It closes with a party on July 12th, 6 pm to 9 pm.

Where: FLOAT, 1091 Calcot Place #116 in the Cotton Mill Studios. (510) 535-1702
For more information: thefloatcenter.com

And there’s more. Esteban Sabar gallery, usually the hub of the art walk, is hosting artists from his native land, the Philippines.

WHAT: In their honor, there’s an artists reception, where you can meet
Raul Roco Jr., Norlito Meimban, Jose Evangeslista, Grandier Gil Bella and Cesar Montano.

WHEN: Friday, June 27, 5 pm to 10 pm

.WHERE: ESTEBAN SABAR gallery, 480 23rd Street.

6/13/08 O-Scene Weekend

Featured Event: Emily King and Anthony David

A guitar, a mic and a head full of songs combined with a few beers and a reasonably attentive audience-it’s such a simple formula really, and that’s what makes it so damned hard to pull off.
Before the digitization of all things melodic turned everyone and their momma’s into laptop producers, the easiest way to jump into the industry was as a singer/songwriter: get a halfway decent guitar, a few heartfelt lyrics and a couple of people to listen to you and boom-you’re a musician.
But while a hand full of newbies have successfully pulled off the Joni Mitchell/Traci Chapman steez, the road to Bob Dylanhood is littered with discarded guitar cases, cried in beers and song lyrics scribbled on barroom napkins. But for singer/songwriters Emily King and Anthony David, playing tonight at Q’s lounge in Jack London Square, the road has put them on the highway to success and a possible place among the coffeeshop greats.
22 year old Emily King is a bit of a musical prodigy. After leaving school at 16 because classes were moving too slowly, the ambitious New Yorker got her GED and set out to start her own musical movement that so far has led to international acclaim and a 2007 Grammy nomination for her debut album “East Side Story”. From the beginning, King’s music-nimble guitar playing under soul, jazz and pop melodies that lives somewhere between Corinne Bailey Rae, Norah Jones and Mary J Blige, has been drawn from her life story, independent ideology and desire to make a difference in the world. “I think music is such a revolutionary thing” she says “and that’s what it should be.”
Atlanta’s Anthony David isn’t necessarily out to start a revolution, he just wants to make some good music. “Sometimes (my music) is escapism, sometimes it’s sympathy or emotion,” he explains. “Sometimes it’s grounded in the present and some times it’s taking you away from it.” The modern day troubadour calls his style “Millennium Blues” because of the way it “all goes back to the blues. The lyrics, the music, my using everything from acoustic to hip-hop, the story telling…all of it connects through the blues like a bridge.”
A product of Atlanta’s singer songwriter and spoken word scenes, David is signed to close friend India.Arie’s Soulbird Music label and has worked with some of the ATL’s most prolific performers. When he straps on his guitar southern influences drip from his music like molasses. His guitar playing on his new album “Acey Ducey” has a relaxed, “on the front porch” ease to it, and his lyrical honesty paints a picture of a man who’s comfortable in his skin and with what he has to offer.
David’s songs are impressive without trying to impress. From the duet “Words,” that reveals his musical relationship with Arie, to the “Red Clay Chronicles,” a candid depiction of hustling and city life to “Smoke One,” an ode to kicking back with friends-David says this relaxed, no frills approach to music is the only way he’d ever think of creating.When the young revolutionary from back east meets the laid back southern crooner tonight over dueling guitars, it should be a great meeting of the musical minds as well as an instructional session on how to make this deceptively simple style sound as sweet as we all know it can.-kwan

Emily King and Anthony David
$35
Doors at 6, Show at 8pm
Q’s Lounge
126 Broadway, Oakland, CA
www.eandjbbq.com

East Bay Open Studios

Image courtesy of Russ Osterweil

Creativity’s all over the place this weekend as artists throughout the region open their doors for the East Bay Open Studios. With over 400 artists to choose from, it can be a little difficult to decide where to go. Well in our *ahem* completely unbiased opinion, a couple of spots not to miss include our friends over in the Jingletown arts district and the continuing exhibition over at Swarm Gallery.

The Jingletown district is presenting over 20 artists, repping everything from photography to mosaics, including work from Oakbook photo contest finalist Russ Osterweil), while Swarm’s current installations, “Improvised Territory” and “Picket Fencing” both offer a slightly skewed look at homescapes, unknown territories and suburbia. Oooh, suburban art in Oakland.-Kwan

Jeff Eisenberg, Relay Solution, from “Improvised Territory”

6/6 O-Scene Weekend

Image Courtesy of Traci Bartlow

Featured Event: Oakland Art
Y’know that often repeated “fact” that Oakland has the most artists per capita of any city in the country? While I like the idea, I’ve always met the statement with just a slightly snarky hint of “Oh, really? Is that a fact?”
It’s not that I don’t love the Town’s art scene-I really, really do-it’s just that I’ve always found the statement a little hard to swallow. Well this weekend I’m eating crow, big brightly colored bowls of artistically arranged crow. As the sunshine from the first weekend of June beams down on the timely convergence of Art Murmur and East Bay Open Studios, there’s truly a ridiculous amount of art happenings happening-from photography to fresco, installations to open studios. It’s enough to turn even a skeptic like me into an ardent Oakland Art Cheerleader.
Tonight kick things off on 14th and Broadway at Joyce Gordon Gallery’s annual “Insight” emerging photographers exhibit. The six Bay Area and two London based photographers, including Traci Bartlow, Rameen Gasey and Judy Seidel vary in styles from black and white photojournalism to abstract imagery but all eight have proven that they have bright futures behind the lens.
Afterwards head next door to Awaken Cafe for “Superimpositions,” Julie Oppermann’s exhibit of small watercolors and large mounted canvases centered around the idea of layering, collaging, and juxtaposing patterns, shapes, lines and colors.
Next there’s “Myths and Dreams,” showing at the Front Gallery on Grand Ave., featuring frescos, video and prints by Calixto Robles, Alexandra Blum and Ana Hurk respectively. Each artist uses the various mediums to explore ideas “inspired from memories, images, fables and myths that bridges concerns of the modern world and that of the traditions of ancient Meso-America.”
After a bit of Meso art head over to 21 Grand for their 8th annual Benefit Art Sale, featuring the work of over 70 local artists, all priced to make sure you leave the spot with your own personal masterpiece tucked neatly under your arm…
As you make your way up to Well Boutique, one of the newer Murmur additions, located on Telegraph and 43rd. Shop owner Riquelle Small is on a mission to create a little spiritual oasis in the Temescal with her combination of healing products, local art designs and jewelry in addition to the art openings she hosts in the back room. Illustrator Johnny Siu’s work fits right into the aesthetic, with colored pencil sketches of wide eyed little girls and fantasy figures.
Then if you’re still thirsty for art but want something a bit less “artsy,” make the trek over to Compound Gallery on San Pablo for “Water, Oxygen, Light” a collaboration between Emery Secondary School Biology Instructor Cassandra Neaves and Kala Arts Instructor Eric Sanchez that explores the process of seed germination and vegetative rooting. Science and art all in one place? Hmm, (slow, thoughtful chin stroking) very fascinating…
And this is all just tonight! We haven’t even begun to talk about the weekend’s East Bay Open Studios or Oakbook’s resident art critic Theo Konrad Auer’s handpicked faves. I mean, not to get all zealot on you dudes but I’m just saying: Oakland is where all the real artists kick it. And that’s a stone cold fact.

Insight
7-10pm
Joyce Gordon Photography Gallery
406 14th St, Oakland
510.465.8928
www.joycegordonphotographygallery.com

Superimpositions

5-8 pm

Awaken Cafe
414 14th St., Oakland

510-836-2058
www.awakencafe.com

Myths and Dreams
7-10pm

Front Gallery
35 Grand Ave, Oakland

510.444.1900

www.frontgalleryoakland.com

Benefit Art Sale
7-10pm
21 Grand
416 25th St., Oakland
510.444.7263
www.21grand.org

New work by Johnny Siu
7pm -10pm
WELL
4233 Telegraph Ave, Oakland
510.653.4308
www.wellspacegallery.com

“Water, Oxygen, Light”
7-10pm
Compound Gallery
6604 San Pablo Ave
Oakland, CA 94608
510-665-9019
www.thecompoundgallery.com

6/1: Soul Sauce-Jazz-n-Funk-Fusion ft/Tarika Lewis

If funky jazz with a hint of poetry sound like the ideal way to spend a Sunday afternoon, then you can’t do much better than the Backstreet Sunday Jazz Series, going down today at the Oakland Public Conservatory in downtown Oakland.

The once a month series has been serving up sets by some Bay Area jazz and blues heavyweights since it’s creation earlier this year and today’s performance with electric violin player J. Tarika Lewis promises to bring a bit of genre hopping to the normally cool series. Lewis, a respected live performer and studio musician, has been mixing musical styles for over two decades-from the post Bop and jazz standards of 1989’s “Class”, recorded with John Handy, to her recent spiritual sets with Destiny “The Harpist from the Hood” and the blues, rock and R&B inspired collabs with The Bobby Young Project. Today Lewis is joined today by Lynn Bryant on keyboards, David Daniel playing bass. And be sure to check out the vintage jazz films screenings during intermission and after the show.-kwan