After a decade of delivering world-beat Afro-Brazilian grooves, Santa Cruz’s SambaDa realized it was time to up the musical ante and create a sound that truly defined the collective as whole. The septet, which was formed by native Brazilian Papiba Godinho, had conquered the club and festival circuit with its wildly explosive Carnaval-like performances but had yet to carve a sound for itself that didn’t say, well, cover band.
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Once every so often, a band releases a record that is so radically different from its previous efforts that comparison is unavoidable. "A Weekend in the City," last month’s sophomore release from London rockers Bloc Party, is unmistakably such a record.Fueled by the powerfully pleading vocals of singer/guitarist Kele Okereke, "Weekend in the City" combines the driving momentum of the band’s debut, "Silent Alarm," with an assault of computer-generated sounds, resulting in an album infinitely richer in atmospheric and emotional depth than its predecessor.
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Rarely has an American filmmaker recounted the horrors of war from the perspective of a onetime enemy, but here is Clint Eastwood’s "Letters From Iwo Jima," the stirring companion-piece to "Flags of Our Fathers," re-imagining one of World War II’s most harrowing campaigns from the standpoint of the Japanese.
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Strains of chamber music from hidden speakers guide customers from a parking lot to peaceful little Kaygetsu. Though one would not expect to find a Japanese restaurant that specializes in $95 kaiseki meals next to Safeway and Long's Drugs, Kaygetsu is positioned in a small enclave of Asian shops on the perimeter of the Sharon Heights Shopping Center. Once inside, a different sensibility takes over. Kaygetsu's esthetic closes off the outside and focuses attention inward, on the poetry of a ritualized meal.
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Each week The Examiner pairs dinner at a San Francisco restaurant with a movie that complements it perfectly — right in the same neighborhood. (Occasionally the "neighborhood" may be your living room and we'll suggest fabulous take-out food to go with and afavorite DVD.) For the week of Thursday, March 8 through Wednesday March 16, 2007, we recommend ...
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The rift between Tori Spelling and her mother, Candy, was widened by the death of her father, Aaron Spelling — but now the birth of her son may reunite them. Tori gave birth to Liam Aaron McDermott at a Los Angeles hospital yesterday.As Tori prepared for the delivery of her first child with husband Dean McDermott, she reportedly had been making overtures toward her estranged mama.
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If one harp is good, three harps will send you right to Tir na nOg! (For non-Irish, that’s the mythical Irish land of eternal youth.) Harp Trio Trillium, joined by fiddler Sue Draheim, appears this week in a special St. Patrick’s Day show presented by Seventh Avenue Performances. The ladies bring together expertise from many traditions: Maureen Brennan’s Irish roots and early classical offerings, Patrice Haan’s jazz sensibilities and Diana Rowan’s Balkan/Middle Eastern and Western classical influences. The concert promises to showcase harp and Irish music in a whole new way.
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As an awkward New Jersey youth, Gerard Way tried to fit in, to no avail. When his peers were collecting baseball cards, he collected them, too. "But I hated it, I wasn’t into it, and I didn’t really care," he reflects, sighing with relief. "I didn’t really watch sports, so I had no idea what I was talking about. But I knew a lot about the X-Men, Spider-Man and Batman."
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On the radio, at least, it will be a treat and no tricks on April Fool’s Day when San Francisco Opera audiences here and around the world welcome the return of a 75-year-old tradition. On April 1, after a hiatus of a quarter century, the opera will resume regular radio broadcasts — locally on KDFC-FM, nationally on the WFMT Network, and on the Internet. Full information will be posted soon at www.sfopera.com/broadcasts.
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The union of Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony has always been something of a mystery. Since quietly marrying in 2004, they’ve largely kept mum about their relationship. Now comes a report in the New York Post that cracks may have begun to appear in the surface of their domestic bliss.One source claims to have witnessed the couple fighting on New Year’s Eve, while another told the paper of a spat on Super Bowl Sunday — and a painful incident at a recent Miami album listening party.
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