Social media enthusiasts from around the city gathered Tuesday night at The Urban Hive for the Sacramento Social Media Club Relationships and Social Media presentation. With Valentine's Day just behind us and the ever-increasing role of social networking in our day-to-day lives, relationships via the online frontier was a timely topic for discussion. Four speakers headlined the evening, and the audience was filled with some of Sacramento's most active facebookers and tweeps. Up first at the podium was independent marketing consultant Paul Ardoin, who discussed facebook privacy settings and how to manage them. "facebook is a for-profit entity; every decision facebook makes on your privacy

For some time now, K Street has been wavering between its past life as a Sacramento hot spot and its future as a wilting has-been. The busy street is clearly an institution from 9 to 5, but despite the Crest and the constant stream of events, city planners have been struggling to pull in a real evening crowd. The news is out that a team of fairytale Bay Area developers has joined forces and created Dive Bar, Pizza Rock and District 30. This nightclub-pizza-bar trio hopes to entice the masses for some good old K Street entertainment and after-hours. But is this Bay Area vibe a bit of a stretch in grabbing the attention of the average Midtown resident? Even worse is the grueling task of con

“Tony Silva rides the bus to see the punk rock bands    He rides out from BFN and no one understands   He doesn’t have a car and he’s not old enough to drive    But seeing punk rock concerts is what keeps Tony alive.” --“Tony Silva Rides the Bus”, by The Secretions   Despite a bad economy and multiple venue closures this year, punk rock is alive and well among the under-18 crowd. “There will be times when things get closed down, and it’ll affect the scene negatively, but in the long run, there’s a resilience in Sacramento,” said Craig Usher, who has been going to punk shows since his freshman year of high school. Usher, now 42 with children, runs a Facebook page cataloguing shows. He sa

There are not many restaurants in Sacramento where bicycle wheels spin above the bartenders and the menus are printed on the back of old record covers. Spin Burger offers this and more at its new location at K and 16th streets. Replacing Bistro 33, Spin Burger has been open since Nov. 26, and General Manager Brian Spence said business is doing well. “Lunch is picking up, which is what we wanted, and the night life is about the same,” he said. The menu features customizable hamburgers as well as garden, buffalo, ostrich or poultry burgers. Other options include such items as shrimp cocktail, Caesar salad, chili, fries and macaroni and cheese. For dessert, there is a Nutella milkshake, r

The key to successful and safe hip hop events in Sacramento is to focus on the music, an expert panel said Tuesday. Sacramento needs club owners and promoters to give hip hop artists doing good music a chance – working together rationally to overcome stereotypes or solve problems. What the city doesn't need is people who bring turf wars or personal drama into clubs, said hip hop artists, promoters and a historian gathered at the Crest Theatre. One panelist, rapper B-Smoove, acknowledged that problems can arise if gang enemies who normally don't cross paths suddenly wind up at the same club. He’s established a reputation for hosting problem-free hip hop nights by reminding his audiences t

Nightclub safety will be discussed at upcoming workshops offered by local business organizations. The Downtown Sacramento Partnership, Midtown Business Association and Old Sacramento Business Association are hosting two sessions this month.They are part of a series aimed at educating bar and restaurant owners and staff about their responsibilities, as well as state laws and city regulations. The free workshops are open to businesses, DJs and club promoters in Old Sacramento, downtown and Midtown. Rapper B-Smoove and other experts in Sacramento's hip hop scene recently agreed to lead a panel on managing hip hop nights so that they stay free from the violence that shut down clubs like Ele

Here are some of the concerts and music events happening this weekend and next week in the Sacramento area. For more detailed information on these events and many more go to the www.eMusiConnect.com homepage. Get out and enjoy!! Concerts & Music Events This Week: Through SUN 1/3: St Rose of Lima Park Holiday Carnival includes daily carnival games, rides, food, and live music & entertainment. Admission is $7Gen/$6 Under12. More information on www.Downtownsac.org/carnival. FRI & SAT Sacramento Gay Men’s Chorus presents Alleluia at All Saints Episcopal Church on 2076 Sutterville Road in Sacramento. Concert at 8PM $12ADV/$15Door FRI: Sacramento Philharmonic presents A Soldier’s Tale at Gui

The other day I was talking with some friends who were concerned about new nightclubs being planned in Sacramento. One of us remarked that we may crossed a line with too many "top 40 playing" nightclubs and not enough patrons. Many current restaurant and nightclub owners are already concerned that we have reached our limit. On The Sacramento Press there has been plenty of discussion about nightlife in the central city: here, here, and here. Many local residents in conversations on the site point out that diversity is the real problem. Nightlife should not mean the same club, the same music, more and more alcohol. Perhaps we have reached the limit for one kind of nightlife but not anothe

Talking to people who grew up in Sacramento in the 1930s-1950s exposed me to an aspect of Sacramento that I never expected. Despite its reputation as a place without much nightlife, Sacramento has a long history as a town that stayed open late, played as hard as it worked, and was seldom short of musical entertainment. At some point Sacramento got a reputation for being stodgy and unexciting, and most of us who grew up here assumed that was the case, but the historical evidence simply doesn’t back that up. The best description of Sacramento night life in its early days comes from Mark Twain: Territorial Enterprise, February 1866 LETTER FROM SACRAMENTO [dated February 25, 1866] ”I arrived