le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS It's like a rubber band. It breaks.

CHEAP MUSIC

by Hedgehog

Happy Current Year from the not-too-distant past! We celebrated New Years Eve at the Manse de la Cooter with good luck sausages, kale, and (for some of us) perhaps a little too much vino.

Oddly, it wasn't Chicken Farmer who over-indulged, though I expected her to drown her sorrows in the grape since earlier that day her knee doctor broke the news. Or rather, he tore the news: ACL.

"In the wind," as McNulty would say. Only permanently. Like, Chris escorted her left knee's ACL into a "vacant," and Snoop followed behind with a bucket of quick lime and a powder-actuated nail gun, you feel me?

But, in spite of her bad case of S.A.D. (Sad ACL Discovery) the farmer stoicly sang and storied the Chunks de la Cooter to sleep, and soberly designated drivered me home, where we've been burying our heads ever since, recording Sister Exister music.

And so, in deference to my honey's questionable sports future and entirely unsporty present, I'm going to focus my portion of the column on the thing I now know more about than I did last week: music in San Francisco.

What's that? The BG already has music writers? So? They already have a food writer, too. My new twist is: Us! That's right, it's 2013 and Sister Exister (sisterexister.bandcamp.com) is primed for world domination. We are everywhere. We tweet, tumble, face the book, kick the songs, camp the band, and cloud the sounds with our patented brand of "What the hell was that? Are they serious?"

And it is thanks to my self-appointed role as the band's link to all things digital that I've discovered — gasp — we are not the only band in San Francisco. This epiphany was mostly Soundcloud's doing, since we never go outside, let alone to bars, let alone to bars playing loud, live, amplified music.

But maybe in 2013 we should because . . . The High Witness Co. (www.soundcloud.com/highwitness)? Digging the "Leonard Cohen and Calexico in a blender" vibe of "Borrowed Time." And the Street Eaters (www.soundcloud.com/streeteaters)? Fuck yeah! And not just because of their name, either.

Chick drummer, fella plucking the bass, and that's it. And they sound like a full orchestra! OK not really but dang, only two people? Yowza. Check out their track "Blades" and forget what I said about there being only two people in the band. And then be amazed when I say again: all that energy is coming out of only two people!

This, and then all the bands we already know with all the people we already know in them, like the Verms, Yard Sale, the Low Rollers, 17 Reasons . . . In fact, everybody in the greater Bay Area is in a band! If this isn't true, if you in fact are not in a band then guess what? You, like us, have got a lot of audiencing to catch up on!

CHEAP EATS continued

Yeah but now I can't go out because I look like Rocky Balboa. I lasted just one round with the bathroom floor yesterday morning and now I have a broken nose, a black eye, and a swollen eyebrow full of dried blood, in addition to my depressing ACLessness. So I can't even dance, let alone be seen.

For now.

Go on ahead without me, Hedgehog.

I'll be here on the toilet, where I've spent most of 2013, when I wasn't Hillary Clintoning off of it.

She found me, dear reader, in a puddle of blood. Not Hillary — Hedgehog. And that awesome moment was the highlight of my year this year so far.

Oh. This morning I ate a half of a bagel with jam on it, and I held it down!

Or up, as it were. Other than that it's been white rice and dry toast on my menu. But you don't want to hear about this! Go give a listen to happier times, courtesy of Hedgehog . . .