The Do List: Listen to Our Weekend Picks for July 19–21

It’s time for the weekend!

Looking for things to do? Listen to KQED Arts’ Gabe Meline and Sarah Hotchkiss discuss their critic’s picks for this weekend at the audio link above, or read about each event below.

BBQ’in While Black: The huge celebration at Lake Merritt returns on Sunday, July 21, even bigger than ever to reclaim black space along the shoreline. (Read KQED columnist Pendarvis Harshaw on last year’s celebration.) Details here.

The San Francisco Art Book Fair: Three days, over 100 exhibitors, and thousands upon thousands of art books, zines, periodicals, monographs—it’s nuts. Friday–Sunday, July 19–21, at Minnesota Street Project in San Francsico. Details here.

‘Rates of Disappearance’: Artist Marshall Elliott’s sculpture about radioactivity, international signal codes, measurement and submarines at an apartment gallery in Vallejo is our small, out-of-the-way pick for the week. Opening reception is Saturday, July 20, at Brittany Gallery. Details here.

Hellman Summer Stomp: A fun, anything-goes band dedicated to the life and music of Warren Hellman, who made a pile of money in finance and used it to found the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco—a free, non-corporate event for the people. Expect plenty of pickin’ and grinnin’ on Sunday, July 21, at the Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley. Details here.

‘Haunted: Gothic Tales by Women’: SFMOMA’s Modern Cinema series returns with a slate of films based on gothic stories by women. Our recommendation is Interview With the Vampire, which screens on Saturday, July 20, and stars the holy trinity of ’90s idols: Christian Slater, Tom Cruise, and Brad Pitt. Details here.

40th Street Block Party: Who are The Coverups, you ask? The headlining band at this Oakland block party in Temescal is a kinda-secret side project of Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day, playing classic punk and rock songs—the Replacements, the Misfits, David Bowie and many, many others. After a string of shows at tiny, sweaty bars, this is their first big outdoor show. That’s Saturday, July 20, in Oakland. Details here.