scene profiles

By Elise Malmberg

Part Two: Bands, Burritos, and More

It's hard to say which is more essential to some San Franciscans: music or burritos. Fortunately, there's plenty of both here. San Francisco has a thriving indie music scene, with great record shops and music stores, and bands playing live most nights at multiple venues (see Indie San Francisco, Part One: Venues). The annual Noise Pop festival features some of the best indie artists from the Bay Area and beyond, while the Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival brings together great music, visual art, and literary events. Meanwhile, the city's Mission District is home to some of the best burritos you'll find anywhere.

ELISE NORDLING'S SF BANDS TO WATCH

San Francisco Band CDs
	Birdmonster, No Midnight
	Boyskout, School of Etiquette
	Film School, Film School
	Heavenly States, Black Comet
	The Herms, Record Machine
	Loquat, It's Yours to Keep
	The Lovemakers, Times of Romance
	Oranger, New Comes and Goes
	Rogue Wave, Descended Like Vultures
	Kelley Stoltz, Below the Branches

RECORD STORES

A great record store is more than just a place to buy CDs or vinyl — even in the age of mp3s, it's a musical mecca where your future memories wait for you to discover them. Here are a few of San Francisco's best:

photo by Elise Nordling

With stores in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Hollywood, Amoeba is the largest independent record store in the country. Live bands appear regularly at the San Francisco location, and the store has one of the biggest inventories you'll find anywhere. Amoeba is a crowd-pleaser, and a great place to take out-of-town visitors.

photo by Elise Nordling

Long the mainstay of indie aficionados, Aquarius Records has a reputation for always having the latest and best music. In contrast with many local record stores, Aquarius has built a strong online presence, with detailed and entertaining descriptions of their favorite new releases.

Streetlight Records
3979 24th Street (x Noe Street)
San Francisco, CA 94114
Tel 888.682.3550

2350 Market Street (x Castro Street)
San Francisco, CA 94114
Tel 888.396.2350
http://www.streetlightrecords.com

In addition to its two San Francisco locations, in the Noe Valley and Castro neighborhoods, Streetlight also has stores in nearby San Jose and Santa Cruz. They have lots of used CDs and vinyl, a relaxed vibe, and a very eclectic selection.

MUSIC STORES

Sure, there's a Guitar Center at Mission and 9th Street. But if your taste in gear tends toward the cool and unusual, you might want to check out these fine merchants:

Sam Adato's is packed with enough gorgeous vintage drums to make even non-drummers drool. They sell everything from heads to complete kits, with an emphasis on older and used gear. This is also the place to go if you need small parts or repairs. Serious buyers are welcome to set up right in the shop and try out the merchandise.

The place for those who love weird instruments, especially unusual percussion. Chinatown's Clarion Music Center is crowded with huge drums on carved wooden stands, bizarre woodwinds and stringed instruments, and enough gongs and cymbals to wake up any audience. Their collection of Chinese musical instruments is especially fine. Clarion also does mail-order online.

Haight Ashbury Music Center
1540 Haight Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
Tel 415.863.7327
http://www.haight-ashbury-music.com

Haight Ashbury Music Center carries a little bit of everything, from pro audio gear to wind instruments to guitar effects, all at decent prices for a non-chain store. They have an especially nice assortment of percussion and accessories, and also do repairs and rentals.

Need a new alpenhorn for tonight's gig? Head for Lark in the Morning, where you'll also find everything from Brazilian berimbaus to miniature bugles. They sell literally thousands of different instruments and musical accessories, many of which you've probably never heard of. It's the ultimate "look at this thing!" candy-shop experience for musicians. They also do mail order, and sell one-of-a-kind and antique instruments via a separate website.

Real Guitars
15 Lafayette Street (off Mission between 11th Street and Van Ness Avenue)
San Francisco, CA
Tel 415.552.3310
http://www.realguitars.com

You'll always find something interesting at Real Guitars. It's a great vintage shop with knowledgeable staff and a constantly evolving stock of lustworthy guitars, amps, and other must-haves. The shop sells some amazing instruments and gear on commission. For masterful repairs and spare parts, call Gary Brawer (415.621.3904), whose string instrument repair service is based at Real Guitars.

BURRITOS

If burritos be the food of musicians, you must be in San Francisco. So beloved are this city's burritos that entire websites have been devoted to them — witness burritoeater.com and burritophile.com.

The beauty of the burrito is simple, yet multifaceted. For $5 to $9 you can buy an efficiently packaged, delicious food log that sustains the average human for a full day. These torpedoes of goodness offer a rare neutral dining ground for carnivores, vegans, and everybody in between: Since each burrito is custom-built before your eyes, you can load it with your choice of meat, grilled vegetables, fish, or even tofu. You can nix the dairy products, fine-tune the temperature of the salsa, and choose from a dizzying array of bean permutations. Few other foodstuffs offer so many possibilities for customization.

Here's a fistful of notable taquerias (that's Spanish for "burrito palace"), most of them in San Francisco's Mission district:

A taqueria in a car wash? Just off a freeway exit? No, we're not insane. El Balazo may not be the most elegant dining experience, but they pack a mean burrito. Get it to go if you're concerned about getting soap in your beans.

La Cumbre
515 Valencia Street (x 16th Street)
San Francisco, CA 94110
Tel 415. 863.8205

Sadly, La Cumbre is now only an empty tamale husk of its former self. In the 1980s and 1990s it was neck-and-neck with Pancho Villa in popularity, with celebrity fans like Joey Ramone — but it's hard to find anyone today who still calls it their favorite.

photo by Elise Nordling

Pancho Villa
3071 16th Street (x Valencia Street)
San Francisco, CA 94103
Tel 415.864.8840
http://panchovillasf.com

The grandest and busiest of all San Francisco taquerias, Pancho Villa operates on a vast yet efficient scale. It offers seemingly endless ingredient options to burrito lovers, including plenty of vegetarian and vegan selections. The challenge: figuring out what you want before it's your turn to order!

photo by Elise Nordling

A different style of burrito: smaller than some, with no rice, just beans, meat, tomatoes, onions, and salsa. Some purists insist this is how it was intended to be, while others wonder what happened to the rest of their burrito.

El Toro
598 Valencia Street (x 17th Street)
San Francisco, CA 94110
Tel 415.431.3351

Operated by the same people as Pancho Villa, El Toro is perhaps 1/3 the size but offers just as many food choices as its sister taqueria. The horchata (a cold, sweetened vanilla-cinnamon beverage made from rice) is especially good here.

Part One: Indie Venues in San Francisco

–Elise Nordling

Posted July 2006

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