From Pinole to stages all over the country, P-Lo has spent years carrying the sound and spirit of the Bay with him. Producer, rapper, sports guy, certified function-starter — his picks lean toward the kinds of venues where Bay Area music culture gets built in real time: loud crowds, local legends, and nights that turn into stories later.
Ben Fong-Torres once spent a decade at Rolling Stone, survived being fictionalized in Almost Famous, and somehow never left San Francisco. His picks drift through the city the way his stories do: part music history, part neighborhood lore, part excuse to get out of the house.
Melissa King built a career around precision, but her picks are less about perfection than atmosphere. Long before Top Chef made her one of the country’s most recognizable chefs, she was moving through the Bay Area’s worlds of restaurants, live music, late-night meals, and gathering places that still know how to create a little magic.
Jeremy Dan Fish was born in Albany, New York in 1974 and relocated to San Francisco in 1994 to attend the prestigious San Francisco Art Institute (RIP), and eventually work in the skateboard industry. Finding a balance between exhibiting his work across the US, and internationally in galleries and museums, while producing commercial illustration projects for a wide range of corporate and independent clients all around the world. Fish was the first ever San Francisco Arts Commission artist in residency at SF City Hall in 2015 to celebrate the 100th birthday of the building. He was also the first artist in residency at Coit Tower in San Francisco in the summer of 2017. Mr Fish created the Haight Street Bronze Bunny statue in 2016, located at the Haight Street Art Center, that is the largest crowd funded public bronze statue in California. In April of 2023 Fish completed the largest mural in the world’s largest mural district, in Wynwood Miami Florida. His artwork is a blend of all things cute vs. creepy, and plays off the tension between these two groups of imagery. In 2015 Mayor Ed Lee officially declared that November 19th is “Jeremy Fish Day” in the city of San Francisco.
San Francisco’s own Karl the Fog curates the city’s moods with effortless style, wrapping the skyline in ethereal beauty and lending every event a touch of intrigue. From sunrise to nightfall, Karl transforms familiar streets and venues into magical, atmospheric experiences — proving that sometimes, the most unforgettable presence is the one you can’t quite see.
