The Dillinger Escape Plan – Spinning Platters

Show Review: The Black Queen with Telefon Tel Aviv and Vogel at Rickshaw Stop, 12/28/2016

Dark industrialists stun with spectacular visuals and dizzying energy

It was a dark night at the Rickshaw Stop on 12/28. Droves of music fans, clad in black, funneled in throughout the evening to enjoy the darker side of synth music, and while some folks are near impossible to please, it was pretty obvious that this was one of those nights that would be remembered. It’s not often that an electronic music show is perfectly curated, but clearly The Black Queen was not screwing around when they booked their tour mates.

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Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 7/18/13-7/24/13

Playing 924 Gilman on Sunday. Plus, you will get a penny back.

The middle of Summer means a surprisingly eclectic week with a bunch of bands you never thought you’d see live again!

Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 7/18/13-7/24/13”

Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 5/16/13-5/22/13

Appearing with the San Francisco Symphony

Sometimes I get exhausted just putting this list together, let alone trying to figure out how I can be in 20 places at once…

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Show Review: Mastodon with The Dillinger Escape Plan and Red Fang at The Warfield, 11/3/2011

With a musical movement like metal, being significant, staying relevant, and still having room to experiment while perfecting your craft is always a difficult combination of skills to possess. The genre calls for solid commitment to unyielding volume, viciously downtuned notes and hellish distortion, with vocals that span from the powerful to the deranged, and lyrics that cross a general spectrum of darkness, mayhem, and more-than-mild discontent. To introduce any additional elements into this equation makes a solution extremely difficult to arrive at, but for the Atlanta metal masterminds of Mastodon, experimentation is simply the bolt of lightning that breathes life into their compositions, which have not at all dwindled in their ferocity from album to album.

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Show Review: The Dillinger Escape Plan in Yerba Buena Gardens at GDC, 3/2/2011

Original Dillinger member Ben Weinman exhorts the crowd onward. Guitar above head in the middle of a song? Yes.

“Sometimes words just can’t express exactly how we feel. The deep complexity of our emotions is something I’ve always felt was better conveyed in song. Sometimes we are put into a situation that we don’t always know how to deal with quite right. Here’s my attempt at letting you know how I feel. All I can offer is my deepest thanks to everyone who sent a card, everyone who wrote about the situation in a zine, did a show, donated money at a show, or offered their sympathy to what amounts to be a stranger. You always put a smile on this cynical asshole’s face and helped me get through the hardest year of my life. I hope I’ll be seeing all of you soon.”

– From the liner notes of the Dillinger Escape Plan’s album Calculating Infinity by former bassist Adam Doll.

As Doll said, some emotions can’t be summed up neat and tidy through words. Sometimes what we feel can only be expressed through sound.

This is where the Dillinger Escape Plan excels. Continue reading “Show Review: The Dillinger Escape Plan in Yerba Buena Gardens at GDC, 3/2/2011”