Sometimes It Pays To Live In The Bay Area

I spent 3+ hours driving back to Millbrae from Sacramento yesterday afternoon. Left my folks place in Sac around 1:45pm hit University Ave. in Berkeley around 3:17pm and sat in traffic all the way across the bridge. The estimated time from Berkeley to SFO Airport was 85 minutes according to one of those new weird LCD arrival time signs hanging out on the freeways around the Bay Area. Got home and rushed through a shower, changed and headed back into the city to pick up my pal Erik as we'd made plans to go to my electronic music teacher's concert. He plays with a group called Som'ma - they blend traditional Persian music played live with electronics and they have a dancer who performs with them.

Sometimes it pays to live in the Bay Area .... only in a densely populated urban area could you roll up into a show like this on a Saturday night. It took place at an art/performance space in Sausalito called Cobalt Sun. The interior of the space was incredible - it was set up for direct visual projections on two walls and from the ceiling around the periphery of the space hung beautiful sheer fabrics serving as ancillary projection surfaces creating a 3 dimensional effect.

The music was incredible - I'll let it speak for itself - here are some audio clips and the dancing was inspirational!

And speaking of dancing - went out Thursday night and hit Louder Than Bombs at StudioZ. It was a night of Brit Pop featuring The Smiths and Morrisey. The floor at StudioZ just like Johnny Marr's guitar playing is *made* for dancing. Visuals by DJ Golden were a gas - there was footage from Smith's concerts, "vintage" MTV with Downtown Julie Brown hosting interspersed with James Dean movies. Too much fun!