A street in San Francisco. Image licensed CC0 1.0 Universal.
I went to San Francisco this Summer. We were there for a week and spent most of our time at Fisherman’s Wharf, but we did explore other areas too.
Friday
We arrived at night, late, and made our way to a Victorian Queen Anne style Airbnb apartment with two cats, Charlotte and Hazel. We hadn’t eaten yet and were extremely exhausted. We didn’t get to bed until 3 or 4 a.m. Pacific Time.
Saturday
We allowed ourselves to sleep in, but ended up waking up around 8 a.m. Me and a couple members of my party decided to mosey down to one of the coffeeshops nearby for some breakfast and coffee. We found one called CoffeeShop about a block away from our apartment. Most of us got coffee or tea of some sort and we got four pastries to take home and share. We got a ham and cheese croissant, a charcoal salmon and cream cheese croissant, a pan au chocolate, and an amaretto apricot cruffin (croissant muffin). My personal favorites were the salmon croissant and the cruffin, both of which we would order again later in the week.
Next, we decided we needed to go grocery shopping for the week so we took public transportation to the Safeway down the road. On the way there, we saw several driverless vehicles. After a quick google search, we decided it would be a fun idea to take one back to the apartment with all our groceries. I downloaded the “Waymo” app and ordered a car. Shortly after, a white Jaguar SUV with a huge camera on the roof pulled up with my initials. I used the app to unlock the car and pop the trunk and upon entering the vehicle, was greeting my name. The car drove very well and very confidently around other cars. The car even was able to identify someone on a skateboard indicating which direction they were headed.
Once we unloaded our groceries, we set out to visit China Beach. Out there, we were supposed to have an amazing view of the Golden Gate Bridge but there was so much fog all we could see was one of the supports.
After hanging out by the beach and the rocks for a bit, we started hiking across Presidio, observing the birds and interesting plant life. While the walk was a little long, it was worth it as we got to walk under the Golden Gate Bridge and see the historical Fort Point.
From there, we were tired and ready for dinner. We had heard a fair amount about the Mission Burrito, a style of burrito from the Mission District of San Francisco. We stopped at one of the many restaurants in the district and got our food to go and it did not disappoint.
After dinner, some of my party members and I decided to check out the nightlife and went to Raven Bar. The club itself wasn’t unreasonable price wise and the music choices were advertised to be that of the 90s and 00s. They did in fact play 90s and 00s but it was realistically just what would be played now and the choices were pretty basic. They had very little room for dancing but they had an upstairs. In order to get upstairs, you had to get a number and wait in line or pay to jump the line which didn’t seem worth it.
Sunday
On Sunday morning, we wanted to go to the Alemany Flea Market. There were so many vendors there, selling both antique and valuable items and cheap, mass produced items. Almost everyone walked out of there with something. I left with an old dragonfly wall figurine.
We started getting hungry so we made our way to Fisherman’s Wharf to check out the Boudin Bakery, the oldest continuous restaurant in San Francisco and best known for their sourdough. The restaurant has an upstairs and a downstairs, each with a different menu. We decided to try the upstairs bistro and got to pick from a more formal menu. The item that stood out most to me was the French onion soup. The soup was one of the best I think I have ever had. It was hot, well seasoned, topped with emmental cheese and house made sourdough croutons.
After this sumptuous meal, we hopped over across the street to IT’SUGAR, one of the largest candy stores in the world. We ran around and grabbed a couple things here and there including some Nerds branded sleep shorts.
After this, we moseyed our way over to the Ghirardelli Square, where a gift shop and ice cream restaurant for Ghirardelli were located, alongside some other businesses. My party and I enjoyed some ice cream sundaes in a mock cable car seating area. While the ice cream was lovely, the square itself seems overhyped.
Somewhere along the way, a couple of us were pushed into donating to a future American Idol contestant and we caved, or rather I caved.
Monday
On Monday, we hightailed it over to Fisherman’s Wharf to check out the Cartoon Museum. It wasn’t as much as I was expecting but there was a whole reading library and an area to watch classic Looney Tunes episodes.
Boudin’s was so good the day before that we came back and tried the sandwich shop in the downstairs area. We all split a couple sandwiches on sourdough and they really were delicious.
We booked ourselves onto a boat tour, specifically the Two Bridges Boat Tour which would allow us to see all of the San Francisco side of the bay, the Oakland side of the bay, Alcatraz, and both the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge. While it was rather windy and a little hard to hear the guide, I found the experience to be well worth the money and a much better experience than I imagine the actual tour of Alcatraz would have been.
Once we returned, we made a point to check out Pier 39 and all the sea lions. We spent a while watching 85% of the sea lions snooze and the rest fight for a space on an already empty barge.
Sea lions on Pier 39
Tuesday
On Tuesday, we decided to go back to the CoffeeShop and we ate there this time. Our itinerary had us visiting the shopping district in Union Square, where we went into fancy stores and pretended we could afford anything there.
Next, we moseyed over to the Cable Car Museum where we got to see all the inner workings of the cars. This was one of the favorites of the trip.
We then actually took a cable car over to Lombard Street, the iconic curvy steep street. We walked down it and stopped for lunch at Cioppino’s at the Wharf.
Before moving on, we had to stop by the sea lions and say hi to them, of course.
Next we went to Coit Tower, named after Lillie Hitchcock Coit, eccentric socialite and fire fighter.
The next thing on our list was China Town. Half of my party had never had Peking duck and half of us had had it in China. We decided the best place to try it in the United States would be China Town in San Francisco. I have to say it was pretty good but not what I was expecting. Following that, we got an order of dan dan noodles. They were delicious. They were spicy in a completely different way than I have ever experienced. They were tangy and made still water feel carbonated.
Old Beijing almond curd, a sweet treat from the Chinese restaurant. Image by Sophia Dutton-Rodkin
Wednesday
Wednesday was the day I was most excited for and honestly my favorite day of the week. We started the day at the Aquarium and we were lucky enough to see enrichment and treat time for the otters. After staying longer than most probably would and resisting the urge to buy the giant, larger than me stuffed shark plush, we stopped for lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.
Following this, we went to Ripley’s Believe It or Not! and the Mirror Maze. I was impressed with Ripley’s and truthfully was reluctant to try the Mirror Maze, due to some comments I found online about it being overrated and meant for children. The maze was definitely underrated and actually a lot of fun.
Next, we went back to Pier 39 to grab a snack. Some of us got an overpriced hotdog from a hotdog hut and some of us got a coffee from the Biscoff popup. While we enjoyed our little treats, we went back to the sea lions one last time.
Lastly, we went to the Museum of Illusions and got to take all kinds of fun pictures doing odd things.
Thursday
On Thursday, we chose to go to the Golden Gate Park and explore there. We took a look around the Conservatory of Flowers, where we got to see all kinds of different plant life in different habitats.
Following this, we went to the Japanese Tea Garden. First we stopped at the tea house and each got a little something. Someone got Iced Green Tea, someone got a pot of hojicha, someone got jasmine, and someone got a hot chocolate. The teas were lovely and mild in flavor. We then walked around the garden and took loads of pictures on the bridges and near the statues.
After the garden, we made our way over to the De Young modern art museum. We walked around the whole museum where different styles and media were displayed. Unfortunately, there was a separate temporary exhibit on Paul McCartney and we would have had to pay significantly more to see that. We chose not to and went home.
After dinner, some of my party members and I decided to go to some of the local bars near the apartment. We started at a place called Asiento. This place was beautiful with a huge mural all the way up and around the building. We just so happened to come when the bar was booked up for a wedding reception but were still allowed to order drinks and sit outside or go upstairs to the after hours boutique. We chose to do the latter. We climbed the stairs with our drinks and opened the door only to find a room filled with glorious pieces of clothing from almost any style and ages. This boutique, Viva Boutique, is run by a lovely person named Liv who honestly was one of the coolest people we met the whole time. They gave us recommendations on bars and music venues and nightlife the entire time we were up there. I would have bought something from the boutique if I wasn’t already pushing the limits of my suitcase.
After the boutique, we went over to a bar called Trick Dog, recommended to us by Liv. There was quite a crowd there but we pushed our way through to a spot by the wall and examined the very interesting menu layout. There were several different menus, one resembling a Chinese takeout menu. The one we ended up ordering from was astrology themed. We ordered our drinks and mine came in a porcelain astronaut cup with a chicharrón on top. Once a spot at the bar opened up, we migrated. Up there, I saw pop rocks and strawberry popping boba and I asked one of the bartenders what I needed to order to get the popping boba. I didn’t end up ordering it but the next thing I knew, the bartender came over with a spoon full of them just for me.
Ultimately, we left around midnight and went to bed in order to wake up in two hours for our very early morning flights back home.
Friday
We departed Friday morning with flights between 5 and 6 a.m. There wasn’t much to say about the morning other than we did not want to be in that Uber at 3:30 in the morning.
Earl Sweatshirt is one of a kind in the hip-hop/rap space as an artist who mixes poetic lyricism with impeccable production into a cocktail of vibes.
On his 2023 project “VOIR DIRE”, he works with legendary producer The Alchemist on 11 songs that culminate in a euphoric 26 minutes of listening potential. Standouts from this project include: “Vin Skully”, “Mancala”(feat. Vince Staples), and “Sirius Blac”. The way that the tracks all melt together on “VOIR DIRE” creates a menagerie of sound that feels both experimental and effortless.
With Hopscotch Festival right around the corner, I wanted to take some time to write about one of the bands headlining Moore Square on September 5th. That band goes by the unforgettable name of Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
Emerging in 1994 from the ever so fertile underground scene in Montreal, GY!BE has carved their own path when it comes to a defining genre. Personally, I would say they’re a mix of post-rock, noise-rock, and drone. Their music while being instrumental (with an occasional audio sample), is so powerful that it defies what you’d expect from protest music, which to me is fast, loud, explicit, etc. instead you get these bleak, ambient, honestly haunting melodies that sound like the entire world is coming to an abrupt fiery end.
Recording-studio control-room.jpg by David A. Balch, licensed via CC 3.0 Share-Alike License
Finding a strict definition for the job title “producer” was much harder than I expected. Producers perform so many important and creatively complex tasks that it’s difficult to define what they do. So much of it depends on the producer and the genre. The role of a producer can be logistic and look a lot like management in terms of renting out a recording space and hiring outside musicians for projects. If a band requires a specific piece of music and they don’t already have someone who can play that instrument, it is typically up to the producer to find someone who can. The producer may even decide what instruments best fit the song in the first place.
The role of the producer is also a visionary one. Producers collaborate with artists to help them achieve their creative goals by arranging music and helping mix and master the final project.
A good producer can make or break an album or song. Producers are the music makers of music. That sentence sounds redundant, but it’s the simplest way I could think to put it. Producers work closely with, and sometimes even are, software and sound engineers that make an artist’s track come to life. While many artists may know how to use musical instruments they may not know how to use the production software involved in mixing and mastering tracks. They work closely with artists to ensure their creative vision for a work is followed.
The role of the producer is going to vary artist to artist and genre to genre. In pop music, the producer is someone who is primarily in charge of logistical tasks or final mastering, on the other hand a hip-hop producer may give the mental association of the person who makes the beats, while the artist is the one rapping. Producers regardless of genre fall on a spectrum between managerial and creative decisions. The strict definition of what a producer is can be nebulous, and the amount of roles they might fill seems like more than one job.
To give some specific examples, Dr. Dre, Brian Eno and Linda Perry all fit within this definition of producer as a logistical overseer who also helps to construct the music. The music industry is full of diverse positions with unique points of entry. Producers come from all walks of life and each have their own personal definition and opinion on the role of a producer.
Without producers, most artists would be lacking parts of their sound that their audience considers distinctive. Although artists are still responsible for the creative drive behind their music, creative projects can take many hands on deck.
