Ian Birnam/Staff

If you would like to see live performances and interviews of the three bands down below, please check out our multimedia page.

Now in its sixth year, the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival is once again about to take over San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Much like you don’t need to be reminded about the fog that will roll in around late afternoon, you don’t need a preview guide telling you about how rad Vampire Weekend is or how amazing it is that you have the chance to see Paul McCartney. Rather, this brief preview is meant to bring some smaller bands to your attention, three of which hail from the Bay Area. Try to catch these bands in between chowing down on pastrami cheese fries and dancing to the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The Soft White Sixties

When you hear the term “Working Class Soul,” what do you think of? Perhaps the funk and jive of soul mixed in with some old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll? This combination in conjunction with a dose of pop sensibility gives an idea of what The Soft White Sixties bring to the table. The San Francisco five-piece have been playing numerous stints, including this year’s SXSW festival, where they’ve been performing tracks from Get Right., their upcoming LP. Album opener “City Lights” melds fuzzy keyboard riffs and guitar licks reminiscent of the Black Keys as vocalist Octavio Genera melts through the wall of sound. If the keys and six-strings make up the wall, though, then Ryan Noble’s bodacious bass is the foundation, fortified by the catchy drum beats from Joey Bustos. Those in need of some gritty pop tunes can catch The Soft White Sixties opening up the Lands End stage on Saturday.

Midi Matilda

If anyone has told you the spirit of the ’80s is dead, tell him or her to listen to the dance-inducing rhythms of Midi Matilda. With a nostalgic flair and silky, smooth beats, the duo of Skyler Kilborn and Logan Grime have formed a partnership made in electro-pop heaven. After they both graduated from Ex’pression College for Digital Arts in Emeryville, Kilborn and Grime released their EP, The Red Light District, and are planning on releasing a debut album in the near future. Tracks like “Ottawa” combine melodious synth riffs with harmonious “ooohs” as Kilborn’s vocals swim gracefully alongside them. Others consist of falsetto swoons and blaring horns mixed with soothing keyboard swells, such as on “Day Dreams.” If you’re an early riser and manage to get to the festival when it begins, the groovy duo will be opening up the Twin Peaks stage this Friday.

The Mother Hips

It is truly a rarity for a band to say they’ve been around for 10 years. It’s even more surprising to hear a band has stayed together for more than 20, such a statement that Bay Area folk-rock band The Mother Hips can confirm with pride. The band released their eighth record, Behind Beyond, this year, continuing their venture through the dusty trails of bluesy California twang. Not all tracks shine bright through the Bay fog, though. “Song For JB” serves as a memorial to friends of the band who have passed away in recent years, including Wilco member Jay Bennett, whom the song is named after. Other tracks have a much lighter tone, such as the hip-swaying narration of “Toughie.” Fans old and new of these veterans of rock can watch them take over the Panhandle stage at 6:05 p.m. this Saturday.

Atlas Genius

Other than porting over the delectable chocolate Tim Tam cookies to the United States. via Pepperidge Farm, Australia has also been successful in popularizing its rock bands in the States. Almost everyone has heard of Jet — you know you remember “Are You Gonna Be My Girl?” — and Powderfinger had their time here as well. However, the latest band to make it from down under are the brothers Keith and Michael Jeffery, better known as Atlas Genius. The duo first hit it big in this hemisphere with the swirling string plucks of “Trojans” but have become increasingly popular this year with their debut album, When It Was Now. Other tracks to watch out for this weekend include the lofty guitar strums and bass-toned synth of “Symptoms” and the blaring high-energy velocity of “Electric.” Sway away with the Aussie duo and their tourmates at the Twin Peaks stage at 2:10 p.m. this Saturday.

Ian Birnam covers music. Contact him at ibirnam@dailycal.org.

The post Outside Lands Preview appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Sophia Elia/Staff

Public transportation officials plan to boost services within and to San Francisco this weekend to accommodate the more than a million people estimated to head into the city for a myriad of events.

MUNI and BART will both increase hours and train capacity starting Friday to account for events including the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, Litquake, Giants playoff games and the Castro Street Fair.

“BART is significantly boosting its passenger carrying capacity for what promises to be an epic Bay Area weekend of events,” states a press release issued by BART spokesperson Jim Allison.

Continuing throughout the weekend, BART will add “up to a dozen special event trains and longer trains all day long each day,” the release states.

Paul Rose, a spokesman for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, said it is taking similar steps to expand service, adding metro service and shuttles going straight to the Embarcadero for the Giants games and having 100 additional taxicabs on the streets.

Rose said travelers need to be aware of transit options this weekend in particular due to traffic concerns.

“Have a plan in place, and ultimately leave your cars at home,” Rose said. “If more people can use public transport, walk, ride a bike or take a taxi, then there will be more room on the roads, and you will decrease the chance of long delays.”

This weekend is expected to max out the city’s capacity of 33,000 hotel rooms — with some of the overflow expected to spill over into the East Bay, South Bay and the Peninsula.

At a City Hall event on Tuesday, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee called this weekend “a chance to show off our city,” and city officials expect the weekend events to bring hundreds of millions of dollars to the city.

UC Berkeley freshman Avery Hellman is performing at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park with her band, “The Go to Hell Man Clan,” and said the city congestion meant she would have to leave campus early, around 9 a.m., to ensure that she gets to the festival on time.

“I need to make sure there is space on the bus to get me from BART to the festival,” Hellman said.

She also said that, even though transportation to the event may be difficult, there will be more of an issue for people getting home since many of this weekend’s events have different starting times but end around the same point.

The festival holds special significance for Hellman, whose grandfather actually established the event in 2001.

“It’s going to be a madly awesome weekend,” Hellman said.

Contact Shannon Carroll at scarroll@dailycal.org.

The post BART, MUNI brace themselves for hectic weekend appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Aleli Balaguer/Senior Staff

So you made it into Berkeley, and here you are, ready to begin a brand new chapter of your life in a place you may know nothing about. And my advice to you? Leave.

Let me elaborate: there’s no reason to limit yourself to campus, no matter how much fun you find beer pong. If you want to be a worldly sort of person, then you can’t let yourself be sucked into the “college bubble” so deep that when you emerge from its depths you’re shocked to learn that most people don’t eat Chipotle three times a week.

To help you get out there, we’ve thrown together a couple of destinations to visit in San Francisco.

To get to San Francisco via public transportation, take a southbound BART train — by far the quickest route — or hop onto the AC Transit F bus, which is free with your Class Pass. For more directions, go to 511.org.

North Beach

Home to San Francisco’s Little Italy,  North Beach was the epicenter of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. It’s also a red light district, home to America’s first topless bar and the world’s only worker cooperative strip club. Check out beatnik Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Bookstore, on Columbus Avenue by Broadway Street.

How to get there: Get off at Embarcadero BART station and catch the northbound Muni bus route 41.

Coit Tower

A logical next step from North Beach is Coit Tower. Built in 1933, the tower is named after Lillie Hitchcock Coit, who had a special affinity to firefighters, cigars and dressing like a man in order to gain entrance to the gambling salons that dotted North Beach.
The top of Coit Tower has a view of your new home, plus Alcatraz Island. Entrance fee costs $7 for adults. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily in the summer, and 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the winter.

How to get there: From North Beach, head north on Kearny Street and walk up Telegraph Hill.

Golden Gate Park

Of the many hidden treasures in Golden Gate Park, two highlights are the California Academy of Sciences — a museum of natural history featuring a green roof and an albino alligator named Claude — and the de Young, a museum of fine arts.
Both museums are free the first Tuesday of the month.

How to get there: Take Muni rail route N-Judah from Embarcadero, off board at Irving Street and 9th and walk one block north on 9th to reach the park.

The Mission

Many have wasted years in search of the Bay Area’s best burrito, but you don’t have to. Head to the Mission, the city’s Latino district. The place is La Taquería on Mission Street by 25th, and the secret is no rice. Try the carnitas.
To polish that off, head down 24th to Harrison Street, where you’ll find Humphry Slocombe, an ice cream shop with a flavor made from bourbon and corn flakes. No fake ID necessary.

The Mission is also the city’s hipster haven. Head over to Dolores Park on a sunny weekend to mingle with the crowds of people drinking Tecate out of paper bags.

How to get there: Exit at 16th St or 24th St Mission BART stop.

The post The City for Beginners appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The 5th Annual Outside Lands Festival in Golden Gate Park was held this weekend. Dozens of bands played each day. The festival takes place at the Polo Fields, Speedway Meadow, and Lindley Meadow and consists of four stages: Sutro Stage, Twin Peaks Stage, Panhandle Stage, and the Main Polo Field Stage. There is also The Barbary which is a decorated tent where comedy acts take place. The festival was sold out this year.

The post Photo Gallery: Outside Lands 2012 appeared first on The Daily Californian.

But as I sat on the fields of Golden Gate Park, an Outside Lands brochure in one hand and a pen in the other, something about this particular choice puzzled me more than usual. Crowds were already starting to swarm the stages, so I merely shrugged off my confusion and opted to bask in the blinding strobe lights of Girl Talk rather than fight it out in a crowd of Muse addicts. Come Sunday, however, I was stuck with a similar predicament — Arcade Fire vs. Deadmau5. And as I, again, found myself in a tightly packed mass of wriggling bodies as pounding bass attacked us from all directions, I wondered when electronic music struck such a chord in listeners and whether it has reached its peak.

House, dubstep, electropop — to some people, it all sounds the same, while others will probably rip you apart for throwing Kaskade and Magnetic Man into the same genre. Whatever your drug of choice, everything strips down to a machine that happens to have some nifty features. If you have the money to splurge on a fancy mixer and (advanced) programs, technology will do all the work for you. Start with a basic beat, mix in some drops, loop a bit of instrumentals and voila — foolproof formula for a surefire hit.

At least, this seems to be the case with most artists these days. With everyone from LMFAO to J.Lo dropping house beats behind their Top 40 hits, it’s easy to cast the electronic genre off as just another fad. Because c’mon, if even Britney can quickly pick up dubstep (or at least, she tries to), how much skill does it actually take?

Despite the banality of these homogeneous-sounding radio hits, there is still much to be appreciated when listening to the great masters. These true proponents of the genre have been around long before the craze picked up speed and have been honing their tunes for years. Sure, pumping Afrojack and Dada Life livens the mood at any party. But others such as Brazilian duo The Twelves can do wonders with their remixes, and industrial rockers The Glitch Mob have perfected a sound that is innovative yet instantly enjoyable.

Ravers and DJs, rejoice, for this is your time. “Womp womps” and four-to-the-floor beats are reaching the height of their popularity, and eager fans are eating up any and every semblance of these fast-paced numbers. Not only have electronic artists been quickly popping up at major festivals both national and international, but they also cater to the immense demand as they draw in some of the biggest crowds.

Giving in to the temptation of seizure-inducing light shows and shaking bass? The Bay Area fosters this desire, and the next semester looks especially promising. To kick off the season, the first annual IDentity festival at Mountain View’s Shoreline Theater on Labor Day weekend features acts such as Kaskade, Pretty Lights, Nero and Datsik. San Francisco’s premier dance party extravaganza, LovEvolution, returns on Sept. 24, boasting headliners such as Pendulum, The Glitch Mob and Moby. DJ extraordinaires Skrillex and Deadmau5 will be stopping by the area on Oct. 28 at the Warfield and Oct. 29 at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, respectively. And if you’re looking for lighter, more poppy beats, Treasure Island Day One has invited Empire of the Sun and Cut Copy to delight audiences with their spectacular displays. So pick a concert — or maybe just crash all of them — and bask in the glorious reign of the electronic.

The post Music festivals have a bigger electronic emphasis appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Simone Anne Lang/Staff

The crowds were massive, the breeze off the bay was brisk and the music, of course, was aplenty when thousands of people from the Bay Area and beyond flocked to the annual Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival this weekend.

Located on the expansive grounds of Golden Gate Park, the festival kicked off Friday and featured an array of artists throughout its three-day duration, from popular bands Phish, Muse (above) and MGMT to rising stars Ellie Goulding and Foster the People, as well as local favorites such as The Limousines.

Concluding the festival Sunday evening were competing performances from the one-man electronic producer Deadmau5 and indie rock sensation Arcade Fire.

But music was not the festival’s only attraction. Over 100 different wines and 50 local restaurants were also featured, giving festival-goers a diverse selection of food and drink choices.

For those commuting to the festival, reaching the destination proved to be a challenge in some cases, as bus after bus drove past scheduled stops during peak hours, too full to absorb any additional passengers.

One option to avoid clogged public transportation was the Esurance Shuttle, which delivered people from the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium — located in the city near BART, MUNI and Caltrain — to the park. A three-day shuttle pass was priced at $29.50, whereas a three-day parking pass for those who came to the festival via car cost $140.

Still, cold weather and transportation difficulties did little to deter the swarms of ticketed masses from making their way to the park in time to catch one performance or another.

Even food trucks were out in full force.

JD Morris is an assistant news editor.

The post Festival in the starlight appeared first on The Daily Californian.