Location: Entertainment
April 11, 2005
Ashby Arts District
There is a fabulous movement afoot in South Berkeley!
It's called The Ashby Arts District, and its a cooperative effort spearheaded by Epic Arts (which serves as its fulcrum). The partnership includes La Peña Cultural Center, The Shotgun Players, Epic Arts Studios, The Black Repertory Group, Nomad Café, Northern California Land Trust and the Triptych Gallery. This district is unique in that it has been organized by artists and arts organizations from the grassroots up, and is now supported by the local business community, neighborhood associations, and was officially recognized by the Berkeley Mayor's office in the summer of 2003.
The recent emergence of this affiliation of arts venues in the South Berkeley/North Oakland neighborhoods surrounding Ashby BART station has finally given a name to an area long known for its proliferation of artists, writers, musicians, dancers, actors and other performers, as well as residents who appreciate community-based arts.
Through collaborative events and programs, the District’s members are working to bridge gaps between neighboring organizations, increase public awareness of the arts, and unify the communities they serve. Undertakings include:
* Publishing a monthly arts calendar that reflects events and performances throughout the Ashby Arts District
* Compiling and sharing a database of nearly one thousand local artists, musicians and other performers in order to allow broad saturation of favorite acts within the district
* Working with city officials to move new arts organizations into the area.
* Planning our first annual street festival for the summer of 2005, during which a section of the Arts District will be shut down to celebrate the 30th anniversary of La Peña and the Northern California Land Trust.
* Partnering with local businesses, organizations, and community groups to expand the reach of and base of support for the arts as an integrated part of community
* Continuing to develop public art projects such as the 2003 Ashby/MLK mural project that involve local residents as designers and architects of thier own creative environment.
The main goal is the continued development of the Ashby Arts District and the creation of a better world through art, one thriving community at a time.
February 23, 2005
A return to the Supper Club
What could be more fun than an evening out- seeing fabulous performers in all genres while enjoying a gourmet meal?
The Ghetto Gourmet does just that, several times a month in various locations.
Check them out to make a reservation!
December 16, 2004
Berkeley Poetry Slam
Never been to a slam?
Slam is a strange hybrid of literary arts, theatrical performance, and competitive sport that is a force to be reckoned with all over the globe. It's a compelling night out, a cheap date, and a thinking person's form of entertainment.
The Berkeley Poetry Slam happens EVERY wednesday at The Starry Plough in Berkeley (3101 Shattuck Ave).
Admission is $7 or $5 with student ID.
Top 3 winning slammers of the night take home cash prizes, and audience giveaways are also common!
October 11, 2004
Fun Night of Spoken Word for a good cause!
Jesse Townley for Berkeley City Council and daniland productions presents...
A Spoken Word Benefit for Jesse's Campaign Featuring:
Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys, Alternative Tentacles records)
Daphne Gottlieb (Award Winning Poet)
Meliza Bañales (Award Winning Poet)
many other speakers!
Friday, October 15th, 9:30 PM
$10, 21 and over
Starry Plough- 3101 Shattuck (@ Prince), Berkeley
Jesse Townley is a community-minded musician, KALX DJ, activist and volunteer running for Berkeley City Council (District 5).
Endorsed by progressive politicians, parties, & people, (Dona Spring: Berkeley City Councilmember, Matt Gonzalez: President, San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Paul Hogarth: Vice Chair, Berkeley Rent Board, John Selawsky: President, Berkeley School Board, Bands Against Bush, Bay Area, Do-It-Yourself Politics, Green Party of Alameda County are a few), Jesse needs your support in order to win! He does not have the deep pockets that other candidates do.
This great night of spoken word is a benefit for his campaign.
Jello Biafra: is former fronman for The Dead Kennedys, a former candidate for President of the United States, current head-man for Alternative Tentacles Records, and spoken word artist.
Daphne Gottlieb:This San Francisco-based Performance Poet stitches together the ivory tower and the gutter just using her tongue. She is the author of Final Girl , Why Things Burn, and Pelt. Why Things Burn was the winner of a 2001 Firecracker Alternative Book Award (Special Recognition - Spoken Word) and was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for 2001. Recent press has praised her work as "fierce," "unapologetic," "scorching" and "deliriously gutsy." She has been widely published in journals and anthologies including nerve.com, Exquisite Corpse and the forthcoming Short Fuse: A Contemporary Anthology of Global Performance Poetry. She is the poetry editor of the online queer literary magazine Lodestar Quarterly , as well as Other Magazine and is a co-organizer of the all-girl spoken word festival debuting in September 2002, ForWord Girls.
Meliza Bañales: has been called, "The girl with the sense of humor of a jackknife." She originally hails from Los Angeles and is the youngest of four kids from working-poor parents. The first Latina to ever win a Bay Area slam championship, she has been a fixture in the poetry slam community for the past six years. She has performed in just about everywhere--parks, bars, street corners, universities, restaurants, cross-country, internationally-- and with just about everyone from school children to Alice Walker, June Jordan, and Ana Castillo. Her work can be found in numerous anthologies and magazines, including Revolutionary Voices, Lodestar Quarterly, and Laundry Pen, and through her own publications, published on both Chula and Monkey Press. Her work has often been called "edgy", "political", and "muy caliente". Always looking to fight the good fight, Meliza's work uses humor and personal stories to display larger truths and oppressions. Her first collection of poems, Say It With Your Whole Mouth, will be out in June, 2003 on Monkey Press. Her core belief, "The people are what make change. Look to each other, always, and you will have the power to change the world." --Dolores Huerta.
Jesse Townley's campaign written up in the East Bay Express!
April 19, 2004
a little background
When I lived in Oakland as a young adult I thought the Bay Area was as big as it got. I never even left California until I was 27, and that was for my honeymoon (divorced now, and swell friends with my ex, photographer Carl Posey, who is Berkeley High class of ‘83). I was at Cal for a while, then freelanced at The East Bay Express, the Bay Guardian, and was music editor at SF Weekly. It all seems a very long time ago. I used to party at Geoffrey’s in Jack London Square. I favored LaVal's pizza over Blondie's. Ate often at Lois'. I dealt with the gruff staff at Flint’s for the tangy barbeque ribs and bright yellow potato salad. Had brunch (when I had some money) at Rick & Ann’s up by the Claremont Hotel. I used to live at the Vulcan Foundry Studios at San Leandro Boulevard and High Street), and bought dollar burritos from the catering trucks over near there. I hung out at Yogurt Park in Berkeley. I worked at Saks Fifth Avenue for years (and was a good saleschick, too!). I used to go to Slim's in San Francisco, and to the DNA Lounge and to the Kennel Club (it’s no longer there? Or is it?) for hip hop shows. I listened to KALX as well as KMEL (which I know has changed a lot). Screamed through Cal basketball games when Kevin Johnson was at guard. I swore by Peet's (and still do). They serve it at a place here in Brooklyn called Boerum Hill Food Company, and please believe I go there often. I started writing for NY magazines like Spin and Rolling Stone (I still write for them sometimes). And finally ended up at Billboard, then at Vibe, then at Time Inc. Wrote More Like Wrestling while on a journalism fellowship at Northwestern University. Got some good reviews here and here and here, as well as a bad one (you thought I’d post it?!? Not). Started teaching at places like NYC’s Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center and The New School University and St. Mary’s College of California. As of today I haven’t had a day job in almost three years, and I like it. I write as much as I can, mostly fiction, and after fourteen years in journalism (Deadline! Deadline! Deadline), sometimes I feel like I’m not writing enough. It’s funny how life works out. I’m going back to school in the fall (after dropping out of Cal a thousand years ago) for my MFA (ask me how, with my no-BA-having self; it’s a good story).
More later.
October 08, 2003
The Berkeley Slam!
EVERY Wednesday: The Berkeley Slam!
8:30 pm, $7/$5 with student ID, (poet sign up @ 7:30)
Starry Plough- 3101 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley
If you think you hate poetry, you haven't been to a slam!
Performance poetry is hybrid art form, half literary writing and half mixture of theatre, stand-up comedy, and dramatic monologue. is a poetry competition (gasp!) that brings out some of the finest performance poets in the nation today.
Every week, we host internationally renown performance poets, an improvisational house band or DJ, and more! The Berkeley Slam is arguably the West Coast's best attended & beloved : we host 100-300 audience members every week at The Starry Plough! Find out why!
Watch as the finest performance poets and spoken word artists compete for cash, audience love, and a slot on Team Berkeley 2004- the top 4 poets of the season get a free trip to St. Louis for the annual national competition.
Top winners of each weekly Slam accrue points and cash for their efforts. All poets are judged by 5 (random, lottery-picked) members of the audience! Anyone can sign up for a chance to read! (Poet sign ups are at 7:30, and slots fill up fast. Don't be late!)
The Berkeley Slam was voted Best of the East Bay!
"moving verse"- New York Times 3/3/03
features calendar:
October 15: Corbett Dean (AZ), The 's 5th birthday! Come celebrate!
October 22: TBA
October 29: Three Guys from Albany
November 5: The Berkeley presents... Chicken Grease!
A hip-hop hosted by Nazelah Jamison (ex-Spearhead), Karen Ladson, & DJ Tek Neek. featuring: Nercity Blues
November 12: Blair from Detroit
November 19: Team Monterey 2003
November 26: TBA
December 3: The Berkeley presents... Chicken Grease!
A hip-hop hosted by Nazelah Jamison (ex-Spearhead), Karen Ladson, & DJ Tek Neek. featuring: TBA
December 10: Sini Anderson (founder, Sister Spit)
December 17: TBA
December 24: an open mic (no ) hosted by Charles Ellik
December 31: no Berkeley !
Tourettes Without Regrets
Tourettes Without Regrets
Thursday Oct 9th, 8:30 PM,
Thursday, November 6th, 8:30 PM,
Thursday December 4th, 8:30 PM
$6-$10 sliding scale (please support the arts!), all ages
Oakland Metro- 201 Broadway (@ 2nd street, Jack London Square, Oakland)
Tourettes is a "psychotic vaudeville" hosted by Jamie Kennedy & Geoff Trenchard that regularly features The Suicide Kings, freestyle battles, freakshow performers, filmed pranks, and more!
Tourettes is a notorious variety show run by Slam champions/HBO Def Poetry Jam poets Jamie Kennedy & Geoff Trenchard. Included in every variety show are a freestyle battle, spoken word, music, & freakshow features, stand-up comedy, and the most outrageous antics you'll ever see. Kennedy's brand of spoken word is "a mutated hybrid of hip-hop, stand-up blitzkreig comedy, performance art, and fucked up theater." Tourettes Without Regrets is "sex, drugs, and spoken word. It's like a party for poets, sort of a debaucherous celebration if id." (quotes from The East Bay Express)
Tourettes Without Regrets: voted "Best of the Bay 2003" by The SF Bay Guardian!
Jamie Kennedy voted "Class Clown" (along with John Geek of The Fleshies) by East Bay Express!
Full length feature on Jamie & Tourettes from The East Bay Express
Billy Nayer Show & Ralph Carney & friends!
The Billy Nayer Show, Ralph Carney & friends!
Saturday, October 25th, 9:30 PM, $10, 21+
Oakland Metro- 201 Broadway (@ 2nd street, Jack London Square, Oakland)
The Billy Nayer Show: dani sez: Personally, I cannot say enough glowing things about this unique, strange, and always entertaining hybrid of music, art, film, performance art, spoken word, storytelling, and cult of personality. If you have never seen The Billy Nayer Show, you MUST go to this show. Here are some press highlights for you to mull over:
"A singer and filmmaker, Nayer's acquired an insistent cult reputation in San Francisco. This multimedia cabaret (live music plus films) was the best kept secret of the Sundance Film Festival last winter." -The Village Voice
"Hard to describe- but much loved among its giddy cult of followers." -San Francisco Chronicle
"Strange and popular... frightening yet endearing." -The New Yorker
"I don't know what the fuck to call it. Just go see them." -Chart Magazine, Canada
"It's no simple task to sum up the Billy Nayer Show. This virtuostic foursome, headed by the dapper, verging on psychotic Cory McAbee, presents not mere songs but dark and fascinating narratives." -SF Bay Guardian / Critic's Choice
"A live set by [The Billy Nayer Show] is a much more theatrical and disturbing event than it sounds on paper. Lead singer and songwriter Cory McAbee commands the stage, bellowing pronouncements about bunny kings and romantic travails with a voice somewhere between suave assurance and cracked desperation." -New York Magazine
Ralph Carney: dani sez: What an amazing & quirky musician! I first discovered Ralph while he was playing with The Oranj Mancinis/Symphonette (a band covering Mancini is their own unique way). Everything I have seen him do since is equally as brilliant. Together, this is a great bill!
"Ralph's great... He's guided by some other source of information. He's like a broken toy that works better than before it was broken." -Tom Waits
"In some circles, notably those occupied by fans of Tom Waits, Carney's brand of wacky is a prized assortment of sounds gleaned from saxophones, clarinets, and the odd banjo, trumpet, panpipe, or exotic horn. It perfectly complemented the comically dark, lurching vision that Waits realized on his albums from Frank's Wild Years through The Black Rider; it dominates the sound track Waits fashioned for Night On Earth in 1992." -Derk Richardson, SF Bay Guardian
"He remains a naturally imaginative improviser, with a real lyrical sense, and one whose humor permeates his work... I especially dig him on alto..." -Harvey Pekar
This show is the only Bay Area Billy Nayer Show appearance for months! Catch them in this rare, more intimate setting!
Live music, spoken word, and multi-media taped in front of a live audience!
i have an agency of spoken word artists & musicians, and we are doing two live DVD tapings this month at the Oakland Metro! These are incredible bills, and have never been seen before quite like this! Come & be a part of the audience, support Bay Area artists, and get quite an entertaining show to boot!
Live DVD taping for daniland talent artists!
Thursday, October 16th, 8:30 PM, $6-10 sliding scale (please support the arts!), 21+
Oakland Metro- 201 Broadway (@ 2nd street, Jack London Square, Oakland)
This is a rare showcase of spoken word, multi-media, music and more!
Michelle Tea: co-founder of Sister Spit, author of Valencia and The Chelsea Whistle.
Sini Anderson: co-founder of Sister Spit, currently doing a multi-media show called "opening band" with video and music by members of bands like The Need and Le Tigre.
The Suicide Kings: a unique, "sucker-punch spoken word trio" with a punk-rock feel. Has opened for The Dwarves as well its members appearing on HBO's "Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry".
Bitesize: gender queer pop anthems for the masses! loud, reckless noisy pop for freaks, geeks, and outcasts!
Aya de León: former member of the Hip-Hop Theater All-Stars, published in Essence and by Doubleday.
Carlos Mena: This hip-hop and spoken word artist is just back from his tour with Arrested Development!
Jamie Kennedy: National Champ, star of HBO's "Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry".
Rupert Estanislao: National Champ, star of HBO's "Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry".
Geoff Trenchard: National Champ, star of HBO's "Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry".
Matthue Roth: the original "unorthodox Jew"! Matthue is also a star of HBO's "Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry".
This is a live DVD taping! Be a part of the audience for posterity!
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Another Live DVD taping for daniland talent artists!
Thursday, October 23th, 8:30 PM, $6-10 sliding scale (please support the arts!), 21+
Oakland Metro- 201 Broadway (@ 2nd street, Jack London Square, Oakland)
This is a rare showcase of spoken word, hip-hop, music and more!
Rosin Coven: This Bay Area ensemble has appeared on NPR's Morning Edition and has toured the world with their unique blend of Balkan folk, swing, tango, cha-cha, opera, big-band, lounge, cabaret, and klezmer that they call "pagan lounge" music.
Katastrophe: this gender-messin FTM hip-hop emcee is part of the burgeoning homo-hop movement.
Meliza Bañales: champ, published author, and Bay Area favorite.
Nazelah Jamison: former member of Spearhead, champ
Sonia Whittle: champ, host of Oakland's poetry
Charles Ellik: champ, host of Berkeley's poetry .
Jason Bayani: champ, also a member of the API spoken word ensemble, Proletariat Bronze.
Mack Dennis: Bay Area and New orleans champ and brilliant storyteller.
Julia Serano: alesbian transexual breaking onto the national genderqueer stage! featured artist at this year's Dyke March & Camp Trans stages.
Daled: Bay Area champ and hip-hop emcee.
Karen Ladson: champ and youth mentor!
Tara Betts:coming al the way from Chicago, sharing her afro-centric feminist vision of the world!
This is a live DVD taping! Be a part of the audience for posterity!
July 13, 2003
It's Your Move Games
I read on OgreCave that there was a collectible card game based on the excellent "Game of Thrones" series of books by George RR Martin. Not only that, but the game won the Origin award for best CCG of the year. So I set about calling game stores in my area to find a starter card deck so I could give it a whirl. I called from San Rafael to Palo Alto, with Berkeley and Oakland in between, to no avail. The Ogre Cave editors, kind fellows and East Bay residents themselves, recommended I look for "It's Your Move," a game store that just opened up in June, at Telegraph and 51st street in Oakland. I couldn't find them searching the web.
The Ogre Cavers lead me to visit "It's Your Move" in person - next to the Temescal Cafe, I found a very pleasant young games store, with eager, knowledgable proprietors. Their most popular items are the German board games (like Settlers or Puerto Rico), but they also stock role-playing games, collectible card games, dice, minatures, the Wiz-Kid adventure figurines. Geek heaven. And they run open role-playing sessions a few nights a week, so you can drop on and get your geek fix.
They had my cards, I was happy. But they still don't turn up in Google, so I'm going to link to their web page here, and hope that future game store hunters in the East Bay can find this useful outpost: http://www.itsyourmovegames.com/
May 30, 2003
Music tonight at the Tea House
There is Celtic music tonight at the 1923 Tea House at 1923 Ashby Avenue starting at 8.30.
This is from Kris:
Please join me and my Australian friend David Hyams for an evening of celtic and celtic inspried music. We are performing at the 1923 Tea House at 1923 Ashby Avenue (directly across from Berkeley BART) on Friday May 30. Doors at 8, show at 8:30. $10 donation at the door helps us to pay the house fee for using the space and supports the work of the Epic Arts Foundation. Jam session afterwards. Bring a friend (or two or three!!!!), bring an instrument.
WHO ARE WE??
David Hyams is a producer, composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist from Fremantle in Western Australia. He plays acoustic and electric guitars, bass, mandolin, bouzouki, harmonica, and dobro in various musical styles. This concert will feature his beautiful finger-style guitar playing.
David has a long history in the Australian Music scene where he has fronted several bands including Rhode Island Red and the Appliances. His recent recording "MILES TO GO" has been pleasing celtic music fans with it¹s fresh approach to this traditional style of acoustic music.
Joining him on flute, vocals, and percussion will be local musician Kristan Willits. She has led sessions in the bay area for the past several years and heads a musical fusion project known as Mashuq. She is known for her emotive and inventive renditions of traditional celtic songs, and for lovely original tunes. She has recently returned from a tour to Australia where she performed with pianist Jo Cresswell.