Spinning Platters Interview: Kathy Valentine of The Go-Go’s and The Bluebonnets

Photo by Ruby Matheu

There aren’t many artists out there that can stake the claim that they are having a “big” 2020. However, Kathy Valentine of the Go-Go’s is having one of the biggest years of her career! Earlier this spring she released her first book, an autobiography of her early years, leading up to the Go-Go’s mid-’90s reunion, All I Ever Wanted. In addition to the book, she released a solo record to accompany the book, also called All I Ever Wanted, providing a soundtrack to that book. This Friday, July 31st brings us the first new single by the Go-Go’s since 2001, “Club Zero.” Once you have given the new single a few dozen spins, that very same night brings us the premiere of the Go-Go’s on Showtime, a documentary film about the life and times of the most successful all female rock band of all time at 9/8c! 

Spinning Platters had the opportunity to chat on the phone with Kathy Valentine, and in between a few fanboy moments of excitement, I managed to ask a few questions.  Continue reading “Spinning Platters Interview: Kathy Valentine of The Go-Go’s and The Bluebonnets”

Show Review: Industrial Accident: The Story of Wax Trax! Records, Ministry, Cold Cave at The Teragram Ballroom 04/22/2019

I have to confess, I was completely in the dark about Wax Trax! Records, which seems criminal to me now considering my music tastes. So, what better way to learn the whole story than a documentary screening followed by a concert?

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Film Review: Under the Electric Sky

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Want to know what it’s like to stand here?

The first time you see the Electric Daisy Carnival at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway is jawdropping. You walk out to the top of the grandstands, and you look out over a sea of lights and motion that’s larger than you could have possibly imagined. The new film, Under the Electric Sky, captures this moment and many others, as it does a terrific job of showing the size and scale of the largest EDM festival going. This is what this movie is here for: it’s a 90-minute propaganda film that serves as a perfect advertisement for Insomniac Entertainment. It’ll definitely make you want to go. Continue reading “Film Review: Under the Electric Sky”

Spinning Platters Interview: Patty Schemel on “Hit So Hard”

It’s been twenty years since Patty Schemel became the drummer for Hole at the age of 25 in 1992. At the time, the band consisted entirely of co-founders Courtney Love and Eric Erlandson. The bassist and drummer with whom they’d recorded their grinding debut album, Pretty on the Inside, had moved on; Patty was recommended to Courtney by Kurt Cobain, who initially wanted Patty for Nirvana before settling on Dave Grohl. Patty had been a fixture in the Pacific Northwest indie-punk scene since the mid-’80s, but little about those experiences could have prepared her for the mind-melting, generation-defining roller coaster ride through heaven and hell on which she was about to have a front-car seat. Those explosive years, the drug-addled abyss that followed, and her hard-fought redemption are chronicled in shockingly intimate detail in a new documentary called Hit So Hard.

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Film Review — The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights

Following the release of their 2007 album, Icky Thump, Jack and Meg White prepared for two simultaneous landmarks in their storied career: their tenth anniversary as a band, and their first extensive promotional tour of Canada’s many provinces and territories. They invited acclaimed music video director Emmett Malloy to accompany them on this excursion, capturing every moment along the way. The ensuing hybrid of aww-shucks Canadian culture shocks and feverish self-aggrandizement comprises The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights.

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