Hot List Blog

Hayley's Bastille Day Playlist

Hayley Kaufman — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:10:24 GMT

Hayleys Bastille Day Playlist

Due to copyright issues some songs on this playlist may be reduced to 30-second samples. For the full-length tracks check out our 7x7 imeem page.

Sonic Futurism: Download Festival Ticket Giveaway

Hayley Kaufman — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:44:53 GMT

courtesy of the Jesus and Mary Chain

What to you get when you mix cutting-edge technology and solid tunes courtesy of the latest and greatest in the world of music? No, not Mac World: The Musical, it’s the Download Festival, where music and tech innovation collide to create a day of sonic discovery—just think of it like the live music equivalent of downloading MP3s, only better. If the tech-meets-music angle alone doesn’t make you want to spend a day on the luxurious lawn of the Shoreline Amphitheatre or perusing the numerous tech purveyors, then the old faithful vs new favorites lineup—much like a kickass playlist—is sure to please. With shoegaze legends the Jesus and Mary Chain and post-punk titans Gang of Four headlining, and future heavyweights like Yeasayer, Mutemath, M83 and Datarock rounding out the bill, this all-day fest is a sure bet. Satisfy your craving for all things technological and your drive for musical excavation at the Download Festival on Saturday, July 19 at the Shoreline Amphitheatre.

Want to win tickets to this show? Simply leave a comment below and the Hot List will randomly select a winner on Thursday, July 17. Good luck!

7x7’s Guide to Bastille Day

Hayley Kaufman — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:49:42 GMT

One thing’s for sure—the French certainly know how to celebrate. Whether you’re looking to satisfy that craving for Chateaubriand or twirl your tail off to DJ Frenchy le Freak, this city’s got you covered. Join the French in festivities commemorating the birth of democracy on Bastille Day.

Here are our top 7 picks for celebrating Bastille Day.

1. Pool Party and Barbecue
What could be more appropriate than a pre-Bastille Day celebration at Sofitel, the five-star hotel chain with a charming French touch? On Saturday, July 12 from 4 – 10 p.m., beat the heat and lounge poolside as you sample French wines and seafood crepes. After the sun sets, turn your attention to the DJs and dance the night away.

2. French Cooking Demonstration
Vive la France! Impress friends with your mastery of French cooking after watching demonstrations by expert chefs at COPIA’s all-day French fest on July 13. Sip pastis while noshing on French favorites, all the while enjoying live music and entertainment. It’s a day in Paris right here in Napa Valley.

3. Bastille Day Ball
If you haven’t already attended a party by French Tuesdays, now’s your chance to see what you’ve been missing. Don your snazziest red, white and blue get up, and get down to DJs Frenchy le Freak and Pheeko Dubfunk late night at Ruby Skye on July 14.

4. Belden Place Festivities
Crowded and crazy it may be, but Belden Place is where it’s at on Bastille Day. Home to San Francisco’s “French Quarter,” this alley is lined with bistros and cafés offering plenty of sidewalk seating for an oh-so-European vibe. Join the throngs of Frenchies, tourists and locals on Monday, July 14 for a street party reminiscent of Mardi Gras mayhem.

5. Dinner at Chez Panisse
Savor a fine bottle of wine while sampling a special Bastille Day menu at Chez Panisse on Monday, July 14. Coinciding with the annual garlic harvest this year, your meal is sure to be quite the flavorful feast.

6. French Cabaret
For a night of sophisticated revelry, head to the Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley on July 14 and ring in Bastille Day with a little French Cabaret. Sit back and let yourself be enchanted by the sounds of Edith Piaf, Mistenguette, Maurice Chevalier, Jacques Brel and more.

7. Family Fun
Don’t forget the kiddies—entertain your family with a good dose of culture on Monday, July 14 at the Habitot Children’s Museum. Make your own French beret using recycled paper bags and fun fabrics, put on a chef’s hat, read from a French menu and purchase croissants, cheese and baguettes from the museum café.

Unsettled Business

Matt Knudsen — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:38:07 GMT

Here at 7x7, we like to break some news every now and again. Which is why we seized the chance to talk to filmmaker Adam Hootnick while he was in town to host this week’s private screening of his acclaimed documentary Unsettled. We wanted to get a behind-the-scenes on the former MTV producer’s film: an incisive cinematic look at Israel’s 2005 withdrawl from the Gaza strip via six compelling young people who lived it. We thought, “Hey, our readers might want to hear his take on NYC and SF and they’ll want to get the scoop on whether they’ll have another chance to see his documentary screen on the big screen” (that is, if you haven’t already snatched it up on DVD at unsettledmovie.com). But we also had a hunch the onetime SF resident was here on other business. (And by hunch, we mean he told us he was here to put plans in motion for a new venture with the SF Arts Fund called Storyboard.) Read on to get the backstory on Hootnick’s film and a sneak peek at his mixing-business-with-greatness new venture.

You worked in the documentary department at MTV. Did you go straight from there to working on Unsettled?
I worked as a producer in the News & Docs department at MTV, [working on] stories involving people in the MTV demographic facing life moments of particular significance. It was slightly less entertainment-focused and a little more in the direction of “What’s it like to be an eighteen-year-old kid trying to figure out who to vote for in your first primary?”, “What’s it like to be a sixteen-year-old kid helping to clean up a fishing village in India after the tsunami?”, “What’s it like to be a gay kid in Texas after the Supreme Court has overturned a sodomy law that says for the first time it’s no longer illegal for you to have sex with your partner?”—things like that.

So did you consider working within the MTV framework for Unsettled?
I would have loved to have MTV Films say, “We really want to do a movie about this particular time and place,” but that’s a big ship to turn. I sort of made the leap to do this film independently. As much as I love MTV—and I do— I didn’t want anyone telling me, “Well, okay here’s how you have to do it.”

Have you seen the film, Reality Bites?
I have seen Reality Bites.

You know when Winona Ryder’s character makes her documentary and then the “MTV-types” hack it up to make it appealing to their audience? Was that part of the reason you wanted to go it alone?
I think you’re always concerned. Um, particularly with a subject matter like this where it’s such a hot button politically. The reason I really wanted to tell this story was particularly, precisely, because it’s inconclusive. And because it’s a story that doesn’t lend itself to being tied up in any little package. And that’s not what the American movie-going audience always wants and it’s certainly not what always sells the best and so I was absolutely concerned about all the cooks who might want to jump into the kitchen. And again, I think that is the case for a lot of indie filmmakers.

So how did you pick your six subjects? And were you thinking, “It has to be six. It can’t be seven because then it’ll be like The Real World?”
You know, I never wanted six. Six is a lot of people. The advantage The Real World has is they have a whole season worth of time to introduce you to people and I have an hour and a half. Six happened because I came across six amazing people who, each of whom, I think, brought a different perspective and shed light from a different angle on what it was like to be a young person in that situation, in that moment. I set out hoping to look at a situation that was almost impossible for everyone facing it, and look at a society trying to reconcile religion and democracy. I think in this situation you look at a country or a group of people or whatever and you assume everyone has the same perspective. And that’s never true. And so I really wanted to find a group of people who helped show what those tensions look like, but at the same time, find a group of people who were normal and regular and were not ideologues and were not spokespeople trying to prove anything, but regular people living their life the way they’d always lived it, but for whom, some really life-changing stuff was going to happen. So, it, it would’ve been great if that were three or four people, but it ended up being six.

Was there anyone that you followed that you ended up cutting out of the film?
There was one more soldier. And I just I didn’t feel I had the same kind of material with him [as the others]. And again, six people is a lot for a film and so if I could avoid going to seven then, then that was be great. Plus, then, nobody would think it was The Real World.

Good point. When I read the set up of the reviews for your film I couldn’t help but hear that intro voiceover, like, “Six people … picked to live in Israel ... forced to withdraw from the Gaza Strip… find out what happens when people stop being nice, and start getting real…”
Yeah, believe me it’s not coincidental that the marketing and positioning of the film feels that way. I think it’s a real challenge to get an audience that’s not connected to that part of the world, or to these issues at all, to understand that this is a really compelling story that isn’t just about the Mideast conflict, at all. It’s about young people and what it means to lose your home. And how societies figure out how we all coexist when we have religions that sometimes cause different things.

Were you concerned for you own safety at any point?
I knew I was putting myself in a situation where there are more sources of potential risk than day-to-day walking around San Francisco, but I was comfortable with the level of risk I was taking on relative to how important this story was. You’re not going to see me running off to go hang out in the Green Zone in Baghdad or outside the Green Zone in Baghdad because I’m looking for the next sort of adrenaline kick. A lot of people ask why the film doesn’t have the Palestinian experience in it as well. I really wanted to tell the story about the dynamics within a group where everyone’s supposed to be on the same side so I didn’t want to do another movie about, you know; black against white, Arab against Jew— it’s been done.

You’ve screened in New York and in Los Angeles, and the DVD is available on your website. You’re in town for a private screening of the film, but any chance of any more opportunities for the public to see the film on the big screen in San Francisco?
[This week’s screening] is to sort of launch Storyboard—which is all about storytelling—with an example of my storytelling and the pinnacle of what I’ve been able to do so far in terms of taking a story or concept and making it relevant to an audience. But hopefully we’ll have some people in the audience who are in the community and will be able to help facilitate some further screenings within the community. I would love to do that. The Bay Area’s a huge and important group of lovers of independent film so I’m dying to make that happen more.

What can you tell us about this Storyboard?
I can tell you it’s called Storyboard.

That’s a good start. We know it’s a collaboration with SF Arts Fund. What else?
One of the things that I learned a lot about in the festival circuit and in the course of trying to get this film out into the world is how many other great people there are out there, not that I’m necessarily great, but there are lots of people who are.

Supposing you were great.
I might be semi-great. But there are lots of people who have great ideas out there and not necessarily great ways for them to find an audience and to get their message out in the world and get paid for what they’re doing. At the same time, there’s an explosion of outlets for content and there are a ton of brands looking for ways to engage people, not just through commercials and not just through brand messaging, but through affiliating themselves with some of the great creative stuff that’s happening. So, Storyboard is an opportunity to bridge both worlds. It’s going to be a solution to help bringing those two groups of people together. And where exactly it’s going to live and what it’s going to look are all the things we’re sort of still tweaking.

And is it going to be based in San Francisco?
Yeah. I love New York, but I think in San Francisco there’s a real dedication to innovation and trying out new ideas. And working with indie filmmakers is not the type of business you usually hear a lot of venture or private equity groups getting involved in and I think there’s something about this city and there’s a reason there’s a big indie film community here. There’s a real focus on getting into businesses that are good businesses financially but also bring something to people in a cultural and creative sense, that I really believe is a priority here in a way you don’t see everywhere.

Yeah, we’re inclined to agree with you there.

Top 7 A + E Picks

Hayley Kaufman — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:28:03 GMT

photography by Blossom Berkofsky; courtesy of Tilly and the Wall

Here’s 7 not-to-miss A+E happenings this week.

1. Tilly and the Wall
Catch this whimsical Omaha-based outfit when they bring their unique brand of indie pop to the Great American Music Hall on Tuesday, July 8. Tutus and tap shoes optional.

2. "Half-Life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art From the Logan Collection"
Experience art that walks the line between waking life and the dream world at this arresting SFMOMA exhibit, which showcases a diverse array of contemporary Chinese art. Opens Thursday, July 10.

3. CineKink at the YBCA
Explore the sexier side of cinema at the CineKink Festival—which features documentaries, shorts and even porn guaranteed to titillate. The festival begins Thursday, 10 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

4. Kira Lynn Cain
Local songbird Kira Lynn Cain—whose dreamy-meets-macabre songs are fit for a David Lynch film—will perform tracks off of her latest effort The Ideal Hunter at Café Du Nord on Thursday, July 11. This is also her album release party, so if you like what you hear there will be copies available for purchase.

5. Egyptian Lover
Get down old school style when legendary hip-hop and electro master Egyptian Lover brings his slinky, bass-heavy jams to Mezzanine on Friday, July 11.

6. San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Celebrate the magic and allure of early cinema at this spectacular weekend-long film festival, which begins Friday, July 11 at the Castro Theatre.

7. Renegade Craft Fair
This ain’t your grandma’s craft fair: With DIY everything at your disposal—from knit goods to one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces—this shopping event has something for pretty much everyone. Get crafty at the Fort Mason Pavilion on Saturday, July 12 through Sunday, July 13.

This Month In Music

Hayley Kaufman — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:01:06 GMT

Photography by Matt Barnes; courtesy of Chromeo

Here’s our ultimate live music guide for July. Tune in each month to get the scoop of the Hot List’s picks of the hottest tickets in town.

We Are Scientists at the Independent on Sunday, July 7

Allen Toussaint at the Stern Grove Festival on Sunday, July 7

Tilly and the Wall at the Great American Music Hall on Tuesday, July 8

Ratatat at Slim’s on Thursday, July 10

Royal Crown Revue at Yoshi’s on Thursday, July 10

King Khan and the Shrines at the Great American Music Hall on Friday, July 11

Matmos at the Great American Music Hall on Saturday, July 12

Darker My Love at Popscene on Thursday, July 17

Wolf Parade at the Fillmore on Thursday, July 17

Jimmy Eat World at the Fillmore on Friday, July 18

The Melvins at Slim’s on Friday, July 18

Earlimart at Café Du Nord on Saturday, July 19

Mover at the Great American Music Hall on Saturday, July 19

The Zombies at the Grand Ballroom on Sunday, July 20

Dizzee Rascal at Mezzanine on Friday, July 25

The Black Ghosts at Mighty on Friday, July 25

Emmylou Harris at the Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium on Saturday, July 26

North Beach Jazz Festival on Sunday, July 27

Pat Benatar at the Fillmore on Sunday, July 27

The Watson Twins at Bottom of the Hill on Monday, July 28

The Virgins at Café Du Nord on Monday, July 28

Tussle at the Independent on Monday, July 28

The Hold Steady at Mezzanine on Tuesday, July 29

Chromeo at the Fillmore on Tuesday, July 29

Bloc Party at the Fillmore on Wednesday, July 30

Top 7 A + E Picks

Hayley Kaufman — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:30:00 GMT

"Women with Fire Masks" by Lee Miller; courtesy of SFMOMA

Here’s 7 not-to-miss A+E happenings this week.

1. Vogue model turned surrealist photographer Lee Miller is the subject of a retrospective opening at SFMOMA this Tuesday, July 1.

2. It doesn’t get much more American than an American Idol concert on the Fourth of July. See the aspiring pop stars live and in person when Idols in Concert comes to the Rrrazz Room. Through August 30.

3. Featured in this year’s Best Of issue, the DJs behind Tormenta Tropical—Disco Shawn and Oro 11—welcome special guests such as Latin-hyphy purveyors Los Rakas for this week’s installment of the dance party at the Rickshaw Stop on Saturday, July 5.

4. Local art darling Chris Duncan curates an exhibition at Gregory Lind gallery featuring the work of Ernesto Burgos, Kyle Random and Derrick Snodgrass. Stop in for the opening as part of this week’s First Thursday festivities at 49 Geary on July 3.

5. Catch the Giants facing off against the Dodgers at AT&T Park on Friday, July 4.

6. A pair of down-on-their-luck Easter bunnies are at the heart of the film Hank and Mike, a quirky Canadian comedy that screens at Sundance Kabuki on Friday, July 4 at 8pm.

7. The street festival season continues with this weekend’s Fillmore Street Jazz Festival on Saturday, July 5 and Sunday, July 6.

Hayley's Dance Magic Playlist

Hayley Kaufman — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:30:00 GMT

courtesy of LA Riots

Hayleys Dance Magic Playlist
Due to copyright issues some songs on this playlist may be reduced to 30-second samples. For the full-length tracks check out our 7x7 imeem page.

Top 7 A + E Picks

Hayley Kaufman — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:14:50 GMT

courtesy of Alexandra Lipsitz

Here’s 7 not-to-miss A+E happenings this week.

1. Blasted at Mosser Hotel
Having played to raves in the UK, British theatre company 19;29’s production of Sarah Kane's socio-political war critique Blasted, receives a transatlantic makeover for a run at the Mosser hotel through June 25.

2. Us Air Guitar Championships
Throw on a bandana, acid-washed jeans and your best “party in the back” hairstyle for the annual US Air Guitar Championships at the Independent on Wednesday, June 25. Root for your favorite performer among a rowdy crowd of air guitar enthusiasts at this not-to-miss event.

3. Crookers at Vessel
This Italian production/remix duo Crookers definitely live up to their name—this twosome rip-off crunchy beats, thumping bass and glitchy noise and combine it all to make a racket that is best described at house-y crunklectro. Catch these kids live when they hit the decks at Vessel on Wednesday, June 25.

4. Billy Idol at the Fillmore
“White Wedding,” “Dancing with Myself,” “Rebel Yell”: need we say more? Billy Idol returns to SF for a two-night engagement at the Fillmore on June 26 and 27.

5. 38th Annual SF Pride Celebration on Saturday, June 28 at the Civic Center
If you are going to celebrate LGBT Pride weekend, then SF is the place to do it. With a wide variety of entertainment—ranging from a tribute to Harvey Milk to Charo to Cyndi Lauper—there is fun to get into at every rainbow-hued turn.

6. San Francisco Symphony at Stern Grove
Get your classical fix and some sun when SF Symphony plays Stern Grove this Sunday, June 29.

7. LGBT Film Festival Closing Night Screening and Party
Catch the final night of the LGBT Film Fest with a great screening of Canadian film
Breakfast with on Scot, in addition to a closing soiree at the Castro Theatre on Sunday, June 29.

Melissa's "I Dig Older Men" Playlist

Andres Barreto — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:56:22 GMT

Due to copyright issues some songs on this playlist may be reduced to 30-second samples. For the full-length tracks check out our 7x7 imeem page.