The SF Jazz fest is in full swing (sorry, we couldn't help the pun). Thursday and Friday the Herbst Theater will hose the world premiere of Anomaly, a new piece by Glenn Kotche which was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet by the Angel Stoyanof Commission Fund. Although Kotche may be most familiar as the drummer for Wilco, his percussion career has more breadth and depth than most other rock drummers. Kotche answered questions about the piece, and its connection the Bay Area for us below. SFist also has one pair of tickets to give away to each night’s show. Enter by 8 pm Wed. night. Winners will be notified via email and can pick tickets up the night of the show

What inspired Anomaly?
Several things - initially just watching Kronos perform and getting ideas on how to expand upon the overlooked similarities between a string quartet and the drum set. Then the passing of my closest uncle inspired some improvised vibraphone lines that ended up supplying many of the melodic motifs of the piece. Also, learning about the man in whose honor it was commissioned - Angel Stoyanof. Meeting and getting to know his family and his life a bit. All of these things played key roles in the way I approached the piece and how it all came together.

Photo by Richie Wireman

Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week!

Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers market challenge. Wilco also played Millennium Park under a picture perfect late-summer evening. The one-year anniversary of Macy's taking over and re-naming Marshall Field's was marked by protests outside the store. They also took a look at the rotten egg the Bears laid in San Diego. Finally, the story of a Loop panhandler whose dog was stolen was enough to sheath the claws of even the site's most negative readers, if only for a few moments.

Londonist delved into past, present and future. They went back 300 years as they explored the dingy cellars of royal wine merchant Berry Bros and Rudd, then welcomed aged rockers Led Zeppelin and Brian Wilson to town. In the present, they attended a talk by Naomi Klein, author of controversial exposé The Shock Doctrine, and lamented the fact that London is now the most expensive city in the world for eating out. Looking to the future, a team of scientists recommends banning all cars from central London by 2030.

LAist must be doing something right if the Beverly Hills Police Department is serving them with a search warrant after a controversial bicycle post. Even later that week, Denis Leary and Jay Leno went off on how they hate the bicycles on the road (but love motorbikes). Other celeb news included a visit to the red carpet of MTV's VMA Awards, an interview with Carol Channing and the audio of Kathy Griffin telling Jesus to suck it. In non-celebrity news, but equally as important, they caught up with artist Florencia Pita of the Southern California Institute of Architecture and took photos of a girl being hung by hooks in her skin.