Results tagged “beautybar”

We love Gridskipper's edge as of late. Take, for example, today's revealing top 8 San Francisco bars with the "crappiest crowds." Rankings 8, 7, 6, and 5 are Beauty Bar, Medjool, Swig, and R Bar, respectively. In all fairness, you need to visit good ol' Gridie to find out just who made the top four. (Also, regarding the number-one spot, we've never visited the sorta chic spot but have heard mixed reviews. Is it...

We don't say this lightly, because there are really a lot of great artists coming out of the Bay Area, but we do have a current favorite: Birds & Batteries. We've been telling you about this co-ed quartet for a little while now, and our expectations for their new record were really high. Thankfully it's good news: we love I'll Never Sleep Again. It's still the B&B we met on their last release, but this time the woeful steel guitar and Mike Sempert's deep drawl are buffered by better production, including warm bursts of synth so thick you could hold them in your hand. The record starts out by making the simple, straightforward Neil Young classic "Heart of Gold" into an existential epic, and we love the song "Starclusters" so much that it's secured a solid entry in our top 10 tracks of the year. One lucky winner will get a Birds & Batteries prize pack, including two tickets to the CD release party on Wednesday night at Cafe Du Nord, a limited edition copy of the CD with silk screened artwork, plus a poster from the show. Enter to win (contest ends 6/25; winner will be notified via email).

It’s like someone threw a net over the Mission District circa 1972 and moved it south a couple miles. An overly simplistic description of this block at the heart of the Excelsior? Perhaps. But it’s more accurate than you might think. Didn’t some leisure suit-clad wiseguy in a Corvair convertible blaring an 8-track of Cosmo’s Factory just turn right onto Ocean Ave.? Or did we imagine that? The no-nonsense block of Mission St. between Brazil and Persia Sts. coldly swaps out the Beauty Bar for a dimly lit tavern called Pass Time, and Medjool for four austere Chinese joints and a closet-sized Filipino place specializing in palabok. Awnings could use an update. Shop fronts are less than shiny. There is no valet in sight. This utilitarian swath of businesses and budget eateries may not take home the crown if pitted in a glamour pageant against its celebrated rival up the way, but it stands a good chance to win the boxing match in a 15-round TKO.

Call it the calm before the storm, or a brief respite from the dudely bravado of the District 6 and other election campaigning, but we are thrilled that we have multiple women's literature events to attend tonight:

It all started on Thursday night when Andy Smith, celebrating his birthday at the Beauty Bar and wearing a bathrobe, asked if we were going to BarCamp. "Uh, sure," was the reply, not really knowing what we were signing up for. By Friday afternoon we had completely forgotten about it when we got an IM from Min Jung Kim telling us to get ready, as she was leaving for Palo Alto in an hour. So we checked out the Wiki, grabbed our tent, and prepared ourselves for, you know, whatever. Heck, it's not every day you get to pitch a tent in downtown Palo Alto.

Wednesday nights at the Beauty Bar features Hip-hop and Dancehall at "Flavor in Ya Ear." Come for the music, stay for the $2 Cuervo shots and $3 rum-and-cokes, and leave nauseous.