Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 2017-06-13 – 2017-06-18

The Great Falls of the Missouri River in 1880
The Great Falls of the Missouri River, 1880.

Do you know what today is? It’s June 13, yes – and that means today is the anniversary of the day that Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition caught sight of the Great Falls of the Missouri River for the first time. Bet that made for a pretty good day.

Speaking of finding things, let’s talk about this week’s concerts. Here’s what we’ve got coming up this week in the Bay Area: low people, electric people, minimal people, and a trivia night hosted by the people in Spinning Platters. It’s looking pretty good out there!

So, let’s preview. Preview time. Preview time is go. Previews are starting now and we are going to start the previews now. Previews go!

Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 2017-06-13 — 2017-06-18”

Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 2016-03-17 – 2016-03-23

Conan, by Frazetta
Appearing Monday, March 21 at The Metro in Oakland
St. Patrick’s Day. Irishness! Excellent.

To go with this week in the Bay Area we also have metal, self-described “country-fed punkabilly,” and the Melvins. Also! Bilingual punk rock with horns as well as bilingual Rickenbacker-wielding one-woman guitar rock. And Conan. Conan!

Let’s preview. Faugh A Ballagh! Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 2016-03-17 — 2016-03-23”

Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 6/12/14-6/18/14

Something you will not be seeing at Hemlock this Friday...
Something you will not be seeing at Hemlock this Friday…

Thursday, June 12th Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 6/12/14-6/18/14”

San Francisco’s Outside Lands Festival 2010: Day 1

This probably looked this empty for about 5 minutes.
This probably looked this empty for about 5 minutes. (photo by Atom Ess: http://www.flickr.com/photos/atom_ess/2791709290/)

The official lineup for San Francisco’s third annual Outside Lands Festival caused some waves of bewilderment when it was first announced. Considering the lineups that had dominated Lollapalooza and Coachella this year, it was surprising that Outside Lands didn’t seem to step up to the same plate, while still remaining within the ballpark. Despite this, and the unusual inclusion of San Francisco regulars Furthur (featuring Phil Lesh and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead) as headliners opposite acts such as The Strokes and Kings Of Leon, a handful of excellent acts did make their way into the roster, attracting yet another slew of thousands of avid concertgoers to the first day of the festival.

Continue reading “San Francisco’s Outside Lands Festival 2010: Day 1”

Show Review: Electric Six, The Gay Blades & Millions of Brazilians at The Independent, 11/12/09

You must obey him.
You must obey him.

The Electric Six burst onto the scene in 2003 with my personal favorite album of the year, Fire. I wrote back then:

Here it is, the greatest walking album ever created, and it is a concept album. The concept is dancing while on fire. It equates dancing with war, nuclear war in fact. The orders are given by a dance commander in the song of the same title that contains the lyric “It would be awesome if we could dance-uh.” Every song on here is incredibly fun and silly and danceable and singable and just downright brilliant. This is just quality disco rock and roll, and well … it is without precedent. I have never heard an album quite like this, and hope I don’t ever hear another like it. I don’t want this band to try and do this concept again. It would be like The Who doing Tommy 2.

Six years later, without anything remotely resembling follow-up success (even though their album I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being the Master has one of the all-time great titles), the band is still filling up the Independent on a Thursday night with their brand of cocky dance rock. Continue reading “Show Review: Electric Six, The Gay Blades & Millions of Brazilians at The Independent, 11/12/09”