Music and the Street

As SF's Noise Pop moves into its second week, the festival's soundscape has moved far beyond the twangy indy bands that were once the core draw. Hardcore shows stuff the Great American Music Hall with moshers, Gray Area and 1015 Folsom revel in electronic music, and hip hop and post-pop abound.

I have come to love covering electronic and hardcore music more than all others because of the crowds, the people moving to the music, the oneness of it all. At Noise Pop this year, electronic features prominently and I have committed my body and my health to bring you into the fold. Read on to experience a dash of the collective moment that foamed the other night up for Parra for Cuva — your new favorite DJ.

But first – Lost on San Francisco Streets

Walking along Market Street is always an adventure, one some never return from.

Hopping between Geographer at August Hall just off Union Square and Parra for Cuva at Gray Area on 23rd and Mission, I realized I had enough time to walk and still catch the 11pm set time. Ah, electronic music's obsession with the dead of night. [See link at the end of this newsletter for an article on the touring morning dance music party, Daybreaker.]

I've lived in the Tenderloin, and with my love of theater and underground music, not to mention a fascination with the kink scene SF is famous for, I find myself in this area quite a lot. It has never been pretty, yet it has always been marvelous in its own way.

People on the edge do not fuck around. They realize how close they are to being broken. Along Market you see the broken, near the BART, the horrific block of 6th Street, bent bodies, contorted by fentanyl. If you are unfamiliar, know that different drugs express damage in distinct ways. Crack makes one edgy on the lookout for any opportunity to score, meth melts teeth from chewing mouths, heroin covers the body in sores.

In recent years I started noticing humans along Market and elsewhere stooped over, unmoving. Whether hunched over on a bench or standing in the middle of sidewalks, these people's lost ability to be straight has taken their mobility, their ability to interact, to look another person in the eye. Fentanyl doesn't just kill — as happened to at least two teenagers in my North Bay community over the same weekend as this story — it breaks bodies.

So those who still hope to survive living on the streets of San Francisco band together, find ways to open to help, to have a conversation. Sure, most people cross the street or step over them, wrinkle noses at the pee smell. In my home town I get stares of disgust just for squatting next to someone living on the street to ask a few questions. But they are people and with limited resources available to them, those not yet broken work together.

I had in my pocket some stomach medicine, omeprazole [Prilosec], which I needed on hand for the long nights and coffee mornings this week. A box of three bottles but I only needed one. So I put these in my pocket for the walk to pass along on the street to the needy the way I would with an extra joint.

With my messenger bag extra bulky with the tools of the journalist (basically various notebooks and over-ear headphones), a crisp, new black hoodie pulled up over my head, and a determined gate to make the trek in under an hour, it occurred to me that I might be giving off Luigi vibes.

The pills rattled in their plastic bottle as I approached a cop car. There was a good candidate ahead, lying on the ground, just beyond the lights of the roller, someone I am sure would have benefited from the week's worth of medicine. But did I go to them, help them? In front of cops?

This is my problem with government that utilizes the threat of violence for control. I didn't go to the person. What would happen if, in front of cops, I kneeled down, told the person how to use the over-the-counter medicine and passed a sealed bottle to them? In that moment I believed the chance of cops intervening was too high. Despite my habit of walking into homeless camps for a good story, my risk profile is pretty low. And after all, I was looking all Luigi and literally carrying anarchist literature in my bag.

People are starting to be real careful of the government here in America so when I pulled out my credit card at Bound Together bookstore in the Haight earlier in the day for a copy of 19th century scientist Peter Kropotkin's anarchist thesis, The Conquest of Bread, the clerk said, "Sure, roll the dice," and we laughed.

So because of the risk of being less-lethal-weaponed by two men in body armor with absolute authority, I walked away from this fellow human in need. I determined he needed help and how, from my limited resources, I could provide for a need. (Drug abuse and a street diet tear up the stomach, so a medicine like Prilosec is of great value and can even be traded.) Not only is the state not helping these people, under threat of violence it blocks assistance being given. Mutual Aid now!

I did however find a home for the spare bottles, one to a dude with a dog who was very familiar with with the medicine, and one to a lady in a wheelchair somewhere in the Mission. She was in a pod of unsheltered folk, gathered on the main street for the night, safety in numbers, a black woman possibly older than me, who looked in me in the eye and listened intently to the usage instructions. We smiled and I limped off for the last quarter mile of my journey to Gray Area, these knees flaring up again.

All of which is a way of saying, when you have the chance to revel, take it.

Parra for Cuva at Gray Area

Gray Area is a creative hub focused on uplifting artists through education and exhibition, which also happens to be a damn good music venue.

The newest evolution of Mission Street's Grand Theater, the space's morphology has remained the same while the spirit of the offering has expanded. The wide orientation of the space lends itself well to music performances often featuring a digital component. Off to the side, an exhibition space displays video art. In this case, a playable computer game inspired by my favorite theme, the mundane.

I asked Gray Area's associate director, Nadav Hochman, about the importance of Noise Pop. "We’re excited to be part of Noise Pop again," he said. "Festivals like this help keep SF’s culture alive, and we’re always looking for new ways to support and expand that energy."

Art — especially that which gets people out and in a space together — brings a multitude of benefits, many of them economic. According to Hochman, in 2024 Gray Area's activities generated 175 full-time jobs and created $4.4 million in household income to put more than two million dollars directly into the often lean pockets of artists.

Lest we be constrained by business-think, Hochman emphasized an even more important point: "Beyond the numbers, keeping spaces like ours thriving means keeping culture alive in San Francisco."

I can assure you, through careful observation and very up-close interaction, the culture was thriving in the hearts and bodies of the gelatinous mass of a crowd for Parra for Cuva's set last week.

I think of his music as within the domain of progressive house, but in my studies, I've discovered that the music I used to club with my lady to back in '00s, although billed as progressive locally was different that what you'll find on any progressive house complication. Still, for me the tag held, especially because of the great memories of little parties scattered throughout SF back then. This set not only sounded like that, it felt like that, a mass of eyes and hips swinging into fellow dancers. [Do check out Parra for Cuva on your streamer now, thank me later.]

Plenty of sweaty satisfaction under the smooth bass and din of global instrumentation played gleefully by electronic's own Kurt Wagner. For you X-Men agnostics, Kurt Wagner, otherwise known as Nightcrawler is a blue, furry teleporter with an irrestistable charm. Not smarmy charm, not even rizz, but that of an infectious smile; both German, both charming. Parra (aka, Nicolas Demuth) is a happy ass, thrilled to be weaving beats and clangs for any crowd ready to bounce.

Just watching him perform, I couldn't love him more. Neither could the audience.

I hung to the side making notes until I got swept up in the collective. Near me was a group of maybe 10 couples hugging, dancing and occasionally laughing at me trying to scribble in the dark. When I couldn't resist anymore, I joined them. We danced, bumped, communed in a space designed to bring people together to co-create bliss. On stage, gleefully, was Parra for Cuva conducting it all.

Read up on Daybreaker in my article in the East Bay Express