There may be some sort of cheeky subtext to that subject line.
It's not impossible to find jungle or drum 'n' bass in San Francisco, but too often it's relegated to smaller venues and random evenings. So it was nice to find out that Goldie and other members of the Metalheadz crew were playing at Fabric, of FabricLive mix series fame.
They rocked the basement to great acclaim, but it became time to trudge upstairs to the headliner. I became ready to dismiss DJ Yoda as some subpar Kid Koala when he started with a Star Wars title crawl, but tried to keep an open mind.
My skepticism waned a bit when the man married the bassline to Stevie's "Superstitious" and put it on top of "My Adidas", a combination that fits together like Thom Yorke and plaintive moaning. Yoda busted a nice cross-Atlantic segue, underlining a British MC first with Roots Manuva's massive "Witness" and then enlisting Mobb Deep's classic "Shook Ones" beat. The only real time I was tempted to cough up some hater phlegm was a played out drop of "Smells like Teen Spirit", which Z-Trip should patent as some sort of theoretically shocking hip-hop DJ manoeuvre.
Yoda had some nice use of visuals, though it was light years behind someone like (SF native!) Mike Relm who plays DVD turntables like Jazzy Jeff busting his first transformer scratch. Still, anyone who can work MC Paul Barman into a crowd friendly, UK leaning hip-hop set gets my respect.
More musings after the break:

• DJ Yoda was hyping his new release "The Amazing Adventures Tour". He played a Biz Markie track off it that was kinda nice.


• Fabric had a vending machine with releases from their FabricLive series. A bit of a rip-off at 10 pounds an album, but they did have that Diplo mix I've been unable to track down.


• Tried to squeeze in Keb Darge's night of funk at Madam JoJo's before Fabric. Could have been massive; the crowd was filling up even at 10:30, and the understudy was playing some nice dusty crate soul, even if she managed to train wreck between every track.


• Apparently dressing in a low-key SF hipster uniform (that's button-up short sleeve silk shirt, mesh cabbie hat, and nearly indie rock thick Converse glasses) will get people asking you for pills nonstop. I thought it might have been the column in Fabric I was leaning against, but kept getting queries after moving. Some lass informed me half the club was dealing, and the other half was looking so I shouldn't be offended. I wasn't.


• The Arctic Monkeys have some recurring presence in politics. The country was agog when potential successor to Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, tried to gain some street cred by announcing his preference for the lads from Sheffields. In his most recent speech, Brown maintained he was more interested in the "Arctic circle" than the Arctic Monkeys. British political snaps!