Monday Monday…
Monthly Archives: October 2010
Weekend Fun ~ 3rd Annual Oaktoberfest!!
Tomorrow my new neighborhood of Dimond is hosting their third annual Oaktoberfest (note spelling) to celebrate the district’s German heritage with good ol’ fashioned beer drinking. Yay!
The East Bay Express has a nice write-up in A Shining Dimond District by Ellen Cushing so I’m not going to repeat it all here. But in a bottle cap, the central Dimond District was dense with a number of popular German-styled beer gardens from the 1890’s through the early 20th century, until Prohibition effectively shut them all down. The most famous was Charlie Tepper’s Hotel which featured music and dancing every Sunday and was located on Hopkins Street (now MacArthur Blvd) just west of Fruitvale Avenue. [photos below] The building still stands today at 2030-C MacArthur Blvd.
photo courtesy Oakland Tribune
The sign in front that read “Take Diamond Cars” referred to the old streetcar line that used to run from downtown Oakland (13th and Washington) up to Fruitvale and MacArthur. Oh how I long for that streetcar now…
photo courtesy DimondOakland
Other establishments included the Hermitage (actually French), Neckhaus, and Bauerhofer’s. These family friendly destinations attracted not only local residents – apparently Dimond has a high concentration of German descendants – but also vacationers from San Francisco, Marin County, San Jose, and as far as Sacramento. See Dimond’s Beer Gardens for more info and great historical photos.
Come check out Dimond Oaktoberfest tomorrow. Festivities run from 11am to 6pm, centered around the Fruitvale and MacArthur intersection. There’ll be something for everyone… music, art, food, and of course, beer.
Temescal, Telegraph & Traffic Boxes
I don’t know who did these… the interweb has nothing for me. Perhaps my search terms are flawed… These were done by students at Peralta Elementary, which is situated just off the corner of Telegraph and Altatraz. (Thanks to Fragmentary Evidence for this info).
I’m assuming they were, at the very least, orchestrated by the Temescal Telegraph Business Improvement District, whose mission is to make the Temescal Telegraph commercial corridor a better place to live, work and shop. They were installed at least a year ago, along with large flower filled planters that also run the length of Telegraph in Temescal.
Likely modeled after Emeryville’s Signs of the Times public art project (which I truly love… you can read more about it on my post Words By Roads ~ part III), these images certainly add a shiny happy people feeling to the corridor.
I’m interested to know who produced the artwork. Studio One? CCA? A local school? If anyone has info, please send in a comment.
A more recent project by City Canvas has been installed in the Uptown District, also on traffic signal boxes… (another post)
Music music music…
No Art Murmur this past Friday for me… we had tickets to The Flaming Lips at the Fox and wanted to check out the opening bands, which were actually pretty fantastic. First up was Thee Oh Sees with a blend of rock-a-billy garage pop that at times reminded me of punk bluegrass… They totally rocked, and their drummer actually performed a pretty sweet drum solo, which I can safely say, in the hundreds of shows I’ve seen over the years, I have never seen an opening band do. Very cool.
Next up was Ariel Pink‘s Haunted Graffiti. Known for his impressive soprano, this guy (dressed extremely androgynously) could shriek an 80’s metal vocal like I’ve never seen. This band rocked. Period. As my partner in crime suggested… Frank Zappa, but gay. And I mean that in the best way possible. It was awesome!
Of course The Flaming Lips never disappoint. Their shows are more performance art than concerts and though their bag of tricks is heavily recycled, it somehow never gets old. I think I’ve seen this band about 5 times and I’m always surprised how they come out full throttle for the first song of the evening, giant balloons, confetti sprayed to the rafters, costumed dancers on stage, Wayne in his space bubble surfing the crowd… you have to wonder where they’ll take it from there (did they just blow their whole wad on the first song?!?) But somehow they manage to sustain and surpass, every time. Highlight for me was the nearly 3000 audience members all singing Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1 at the top of their lungs. Pure magic.
Sunday we caught Arcade Fire with opening band Calexico at the Greek Theater in Berkeley… these guys are the real deal. And though I’ve seen Calexico before and always enjoyed their shows immensely (I just love the harmonic horns in their Tex-Mex styled tunes), this show was all about Arcade Fire for me. You sort of wonder how they’re going to pull off the complexity of their studio albums live, but incredibly they do, not to mention the fact that nearly every member of the band plays like three different instruments, amazingly. It was a fantastic show.
More reading…
The Flaming Lips @ The Fox Theater, Oakland, CA 10-01-2010 (examiner)
Saturday Night: The Flaming Lips Play Laser Tag at the Fox Theater (sfweekly)
History of Fox Theater on Oaktown Art
Arcade Fire with Calexico at The Greek Theater in Berkeley. 10/2/2010
Oaktown Art | Oakland Art, Public Art, Murals, Graffiti, Culture, Oakland 