E. Doctor Smith's Blog

The West Coast’s largest free jazz festival returns this summer with a weekend of live music, gourmet food and local arts and crafts.  On Saturday and Sunday, July 7 & 8, the 28th Annual Fillmore Jazz Festival, on Fillmore Street between Jackson and Eddy, will showcase the Bay Area’s most talented musicians across the full spectrum of jazz music accompanied by a festival infused with the local flavors and culture of San Francisco’s historic Fillmore District. This year’s festival will feature more than two dozen bands performing on three different stages, including a heartfelt tribute to Etta James performed each afternoon on the California Street Stage by Kim Nalley, one of the Bay Area’s most acclaimed jazz and blues vocalists. Other performers on the California Street Stage include Radio Jazz, Foxtails Brigade, the Mark Rapp Group, the Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, Venissa Santi, and the Michael Orenstein Group presented by The Jazzschool. The Sutter Street – Beyond Stage wil...

John Moremen is almost impossible to explain. A session-man, side-man, band leader and collaborator extraordinaire, the San Francisco musician has recorded with experimentalists Half Japanese and MX-80, backed legendary Flamin' Groovies front man Roy Loney, written with The Minus Five's Scott McCaughey and fronted his own bands. And that's alongside over a decade as a member of Bay Area popsters, The Orange Peels, first as their drummer and now as their lead guitarist. Yet none of that explains what he does on "Flotation Device," where he navigates surf, NRBQ-esque roots rock and Monk-like bop with a deft hand. In the spring of 2011, Moremen started working on some instrumentals for fun, but over the course of a few months found himself completing over 20 songs. After each one was finished, Moremen would post them online as a work in progress. "I was kind of going back to something I did when I was in my teens, where I would come up with these instrumentals a...

After trading wins and tying Challenger Boris Gelfand of Israel at 6 games apiece to force a four game playoff, Viswanathan Anand of India was victorious in the second rapid playoff game and retained his World Chess Championship crown. After drawing the first game, Anand won game two and kept the lead by drawing in the final two games. The victory won Anand $1.5 million, and Gelfand took home $1 million. Anand had last successfully defended his title in 2010 against Bulgarian challenger Veselin Topalov. Anand praised Gelfand for a tense match and said he felt more "relieved" than happy because he wasn't sure of his win until the very end. "In all fairness, this match simply could have gone either way." “Yes, of course the tie-break was incredibly tense", says Anand. "When I woke up this morning I had this feeling that one way or the other the match would finish today. I simply didn’t know how it was going to be. The match was so even that I had no sens...

The 2012 World Chess Championship is still tied with 2 games remaining in this best of 12 match between the current champion, Viswanathan Anand of India and the challenger, Boris Gelfand of Israel. Similar to the fifth game, Anand started the tenth game with 1.e4. The opponents once again played the Sicilian Defence, but on the third move the world champion veered away from the Sveshnikov variation, choosing 3.Bb5. Just two moves later Gelfand showed a new plan – 5…e5, which resulted in an interesting position with mutual chances. Judging by how quickly the moves were made, the Israeli grandmaster had analysed this variation very deeply. Soon the queens were exchanged, the position simplified considerably, but, according to many experts, all three results of the game were still possible. Black’s position was weakened by doubled pawns on the queenside, but he had the two-bishop advantage. New exchanges followed, and the position simplified even further. On move 25 the opponen...

I still have fond memories of growing up in DC,  and part of the music scene that made us groove was our very own, unmistakable "Go Go" beat. Everyone was diggin' it; from the kids drumming on their 5 gallon, plastic buckets at Dupont Circle, to the latinos jamming in the parks of Mount Pleasant, Go-Go was everywhere. During my halcyon days back in '99 as a volunteer and webmaster at DC Vote, (a non-profit dedicated to educating the public about DC's lack of real congressional representation), we often needed to put on events to heighten the public's awareness. There was only one man whose music we knew would inspire any DC crowd; the "Godfather of Go-Go", the one and only Chuck Brown. Chuck was a huge advocate for DC's voting rights and would go on to perform many concerts for our organization over the next few years. Last year, I happened to be back in DC on U Street, when suddenly, my friend and I spotted the legendary Chuck Brown on our way o...

The 2012 U.S. Men's and Women's Chess Championships kicked off this week in St. Louis, featuring an elite field of just 12 players and a guaranteed prize fund of at least $160,000. There would have been a shot at the “$64,000 Fischer Prize,” to be awarded to anyone that scores a perfect 11-0 in the U.S. Championship, in honor of Bobby Fischer’s result at the 1963-64 U.S. Championship, however the draws in the first and second rounds have made that feat impossible this year. Leading the pack after 3 rounds are top rated and current champ Gata Kamsky, and one of  America's best players and 2-time champion, Hikaru Nakamura with 2.5 points each in this 11 round affair. On the Women's side, the undefeated and current champ Anna Zatonskih and the number 2 seed, Irina Krush are in the lead. There have been some decisive games and fireworks early on, with Nakamura defeating Ray Robson's Sicilian Dragon variation yesterday to share the lead with Kamsky. Kamsky's post mat...

Director Joss Whedon is no stranger to the comic book, sci-fi genre. His best known works, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and the cult series "Firefly/Serenity" were television masterpieces. Whedon's latest turn with Marvel's iconic comic book heroes "The Avengers", is another jewel in his crown; a guaranteed box office blockbuster that will no doubt thrill audiences and comic book fans alike. The Avengers are Marvel's latest entry into the world of film, (following the Hulk, Spiderman, Captain America, The X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, the Fantastic Four and Daredevil), yet I am always curious see how these classic stories from the 1960's translate to today's world of 2012. Whedon does a good job with what he had to work with, however I'd love to see someone make one of these films set in the decade they were created. If they can do it with shows like "Madmen" and the BBC's "Call the Midwife", surely they can do it wit...