Interview: Jeff Chang
Sometimes you hear stories that make you wish that you were 19 and car-less and carefree all over again. Also, that bands were as amazing now as they were when you were young. Jeff Chang is one of those amazing people whose every utterance seems so now and so hip that, well, you just hope that some of that true coolness could rub off on you. In addition to being true old school bay area (not that we really want to get into a debate about what constitutes old school), Jeff has recently created a guide for the rest of us: Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. Buy this book now, read it often, show it to your friends. Trust us, you'll feel cooler in a few simple mouse clicks. Get some exra tips from someone who knows the area well by checking out Jeff's interview below.
Tell us all about your new book
It's a 500+ page love letter to hip-hop and an alternative cultural and political history of the last three decades. Um, it's actually a lot more interesting than it sounds.
SFist loves your website. What are the best and worst things about running
it?
Actually, my brilliant web designers Eugene Kuo of 226 Design and Shinji Kuwayama of Kuwayama Design made it so easy for a ham-handed knucklehead like me to update it that I never have a problem with it at all. The only thing I'm still trying to figure out is those stupid little photo insert thingys. What's a pixel again?
Name
Jeff Chang
Introduce yourself in one sentence
I sucked at community organizing, public interest lobbying, running a business, being a professor, and generally having a career, but I've been lucky enough to have family and friends that knew when to kick me in the ass and towards in the right direction, and even luckier to be able to know how to sometimes write interesting run-on sentences that are almost grammatically correct.
Age and Occupation:
37, Aries baby! Currently occupied with collecting vitamins for the road trip.
Hometown:
Me Ke Aloha Ku'u Home O Honolulu
How long have you lived in the Bay Area and where:
I've been in the Yay for the better part of the last 20 years. Representing South Berkeley because it's the right combo of progressive and street.
Favorite website:
Can I list a handful?
Pop and Politics
DJ O-dub's Blog
Hiphopmusic.com
Daveyd.com
Solesides.com
Favorite local business:
The Giant Peach! The Groove Merchant!
What I'm currently reading:
Oo. This is also a long list:
Peter Shapiro, Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco
Tara Bray Smith, West of Then
Donnell Alexander, Ghetto Celebrity
Adisa Banjoko, Lyrical Swords
Mike Davis, Planet of slums
John Leland, Hip: A History
Because I'm non-linear, I usually work on 10 books at once.
Best Deal in San Francisco:
Rosamunde Sausage Grill, also on Haight. Perfect after hours of record shopping.
Favorite mode of transportation:
My Toyota Siena family van
Best Band or Musician to come out of the Bay Area:
The Quannum Crew, who else? But yeah, also, Sly Stone, E-Fizzle and the Coup.
Favorite local hangout:
Wherever my son is playing his Little League baseball game
SF has the BEST:
Bloggers. LOL.
You've never lived in SF until:
You've tagged a Muni.
Best view in the area:
Coit Tower and the Lawrence Hall of Science
Favorite walk or hike:
Muir Woods, hands down.
Favorite Bay Area politician of past or present:
John Vasconcellos and Harvey Milk never sold out.
You can tell someone is a local here if:
They have more bumper stickers on the back of their car than kids in it. Best bumper sticker, by the way: Fermez La Bush!
SF would be soooo much better if only:
Real people could afford the rent; it were really as racially desegregated as it claims to be; it were closer to Mavericks.
Best Burrito:
Pancho Villa's
Best Restaurant:
Kam's and Thanh Long in the Aves. There isn't a single bad breakfast spot in South Berkeley.
Best movie scene filmed in or about SF:
Kevin Epps' Straight Outta Hunters Point and Spencer Nakasako's AKA
Don Bonus
Favorite artist to come out of the Bay Area:
Mike Stern. Twist. Jay DeFeo.
Favorite author to come out of the Bay Area:
Greil Marcus.
Place you always tell visitors to check out:
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Youth Speaks poetry slams
Favorite bridge in the area:
Bay Bridge!
You have two hours and $15 bucks to kill in SF, what are you going to
do?
Go to Amoeba and blow it all plus $150 more from my own wallet.
I have found/sold/bought the following on Craig's List:
Tickets to Prince. Bought em on Ebay instead, though. Sorry.
I want all the SFists out there to know:
It's true that I was student body president at UC Berkeley, but it's not true that I made Japanese curry required dinner in all the D.C.s. It's true that I once got arrested for sitting in in the political science department chair's office, but it's not true that I spray-painted "You and Reagan Suck Apples" on his oak desk. Please don't tell my kids any of this.
Tell us a San Francisco story:
OK, this story, like most that I tell, has no point, but you asked so here it is. When I first came to Cal, I was so hyped about going to see actual bands I'd heard about that I'd go everywhere by myself. There's nothing like being 18 and loose in the city, taking all manner of public transportation to get halfway where you need to go, and then wandering for miles on foot until you find the venue (no Mapquest back then, Shorty), whether it be the Stone, the I-Beam, Komotion, or the Farm. I'd start from Berkeley in the early evening and usually arrive back at my dorm at like 3-4 in the morning via the Transbay bus and old sneakers, completely exhausted but thrilled out of my skull. Steel Pulse and Living Colour. Husker Du. The Replacements. Fishbone. Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. Fela. De La Soul back when they didn't know how to do a live show yet. The other thing I used to do was put off studying for the Monday midterm by working all Saturday day to get the rabbit ears on my JVC stereo correct so that I could listen to Marcus Clemons all Saturday night on KPOO. Then waking up Sunday morning and blowing off studying by making a huge greasy breakfast and enjoying Natty Prep on KALX just like everyone else in South Berkeley, and around the Bay. Shorty, you just don't know (he says in Grampa Simpson voice).
Question you'd ask if you were doing this interview:
So just who was this Mac J. Mill character?