Lots of good hip-hop flavored shows over the next few days in San Francisco including DJ, producer and musician RJD2 at the Independent on Divisidaro tomorrow night (Thursday, April 10) on a bill with Dalek and Happy Chichester - 9PM showtime. Also tomorrow is the Audiopharmacy Spring Harvest Tour with performances from the seven piece Audiopharmacy collective, the ten-piece Bayonics, the Duniya Dance Company, plus DJ sets from Ren the Vinyl Archeologist, DJ Coop D'ville, plus lots more. Showtime 9PM - 3AM at SF club Mighty on Utah. More details here. 

And this weekend at Amoeba Music on Haight Street, San Francisco there will be a free instore when DJ Sake1 Presents Fania on Saturday afternoon (April 12) at Amoeba SF. Note the early showtime of 2PM. Read details on Sake1 (pic left) on Amoeba.Com.

On TV an Interesting looking documentary airs tonight about the so-called "hate edge" offshoot group of the straight edge movement - the hardcore punk based anti drink, drugs, & sex movement inadvertently started by Ian MacKaye when he and Minor Threat recorded the song "Straight Edge" back in the early eighties. Inspired by MacKaye's beliefs, since then a whole hardcore punk-loving and clean living youth movement sprung up, calling itself "straight edge." But in recent years this well-meaning movement has reportedly bred some members who have remained clean but taken to vigilante violence against drug dealers and other (as they see it) bad apples in society. 

After receiving about four emails and two phone calls since Tuesday asking me "Did you hear? Did you hear.that Ian MacKaye was killed?"  which HE WAS NOT despite that this erroneous fact was posted on several websites including MySpace and Wikipedia I decided I should post an AMOEBLOG to set the record straight in case anyone else out there was still under the wrong impression that the Minor Threat/Fugazi/Dischord mainman was indeed killed in a car crash Monday night. He wasn't as outlined in the reprinted story from the Baltimore Sun that appeared online Weds morning under the heading "Ian MacKaye: I'm not dead".  And if you scroll down below that I have posted one of the erroneous "news" reports that was making the rounds online. It is written in such a news-like fashion that you can see why someone reading it would tend to take it at face value.

But again this is another prime example of just how quickly misinformation can get around in this cyber/digital age and how it is important to always question what you read and to be aware of its news or fact checking source - if any.

:

STORY BELOW IS REPRINTED FROM BALTIMORE SUN


A phone rings at 6:08 p.m. in Arlington, Va. A 45-year-old man picks up. The
caller doesn't even have the chance to offer a greeting.

"I am still alive," reports Ian MacKaye, the frontman of such punk acts as
Minor Threat and Fugazi, and the founder of Washington's Dischord Records.

This would not be news except that The Sun and apparently many other
organizations had been told that MacKaye was, in fact, dead. We were told that
he died Monday night at Baltimore's St. Agnes Hospital. A call to the hospital
found no evidence of such a patient. We followed up with calls to Dischord
(left a message) and to MacKaye's home.