Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 1/23/14-1/29/14

Wake up and go to shows this week! So many shows...
Wake up and go to shows this week! So many shows…

The thirteenth annual SF Sketchfest is upon us, littering San Francisco with night after night of too many good things at once.

To help with these sorts of problems, please consult “A Nerd’s Guide To Sketchfest 2014.” Yes, Dakin’s full-on once-over of this year’s fest is just the right guide to help you make those wrenching nerd decisions about which one-of-a-kind Sketchfest show to choose from on each jam-packed night. Too much good stuff is a good/ANNOYING problem to have. You are fortunate. We are fortunate.

This week! We have Canadiens! Sleepwalkers! Metal! Tim! Punk rock benefit shows! And science! O you lucky person, you — to have all of these awesome things to choose from.

Here’s what’s coming up this week.

Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 1/23/14-1/29/14”

Sketchfest Review: The Groundlings “The Black Version” (1/22/2012)

The Black Version by Tommy Lau
by Tommy Lau

Fact: The Eureka Theater hosts some of the best comedy in the in the world. Fact: The Groundlings are a legendary Los Angeles improv company with alumni including Will Ferrell, Kristen Wigg and more. Fact: “The Black Version” is not a racially specific interpretation of Beverly Winwood Presents: The Actor’s Showcase. Fact: San Francisco’s black population was 6.1% in 2010. Fact: The black population of The Black Version’s cast was 100%. Fact: Comedy is proven to be simultaneously colorful and colorblind. Continue reading “Sketchfest Review: The Groundlings “The Black Version” (1/22/2012)”

Sketchfest Review: Beverly Winwood’s “The Actors Showcase” 1/22/2012

Jen Coolidge by Jakub Mosur
"Mrs. Fern Magnin" by Jakub Mosur

Dripping late from a brisk sprint through San Francisco’s saturated cloudiness, I stepped into an alternate reality. Everything looked copasetic: the expansive and brimming Eureka Theater with Phil LaMarr and Jordan Black beginning a scene. Not quite, the truth: the expansive and brimming Eureka Theater with Lewis J. Poole and Danger beginning a scene.

Polle and Danger are two African American actors separated by age but bonded by prior convictions and thespian rehabilitation. They were bad, objectively horrible, nightmarishly stiff and unflinchingly unaware. It was brilliant. Continue reading “Sketchfest Review: Beverly Winwood’s “The Actors Showcase” 1/22/2012″