Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 5/13/10-5/19/10

Hello loyal readers… Lotsa good stuff this week… Not a lot of creative thinking on my part, though… So just enjoy the list!

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Show Review: Fucked Up, Hank IV, Hollerado at The Rickshaw Stop, 5/9/10

Fucked Up

WARNING:

The following review may contain the following:

*Explicit Language

*Violence

*Male Nudity

*Intelligent Discussion

Please proceed with caution. If your boss, or the coworker you have a crush on is looking over your shoulder, please point your browser elsewhere immediately.  Continue reading “Show Review: Fucked Up, Hank IV, Hollerado at The Rickshaw Stop, 5/9/10”

Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 5/5/10-5/11/10

So, he hangs out with Murder City Devils, and gives giant eggs to chickens... I think you need to keep your children away from this guy!

Feliz Cinco de Mayo de SpinningPlatters.com. He aquí una lista de formas divertidas y fabulosas para pasar sus vacaciones, así como la semana siguiente. Si me ves en cualquiera de estos programas, por favor, gracias a mi me entregando una margarita o tamal!

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Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 4/28/10-5/4/10

Hello, I'm opening up for Lupe Fiasco. How are you?

Thank, Jason LeRoy, for stepping in last week with the list. I hope you all were kept entertained. As for this week, well, here’s what I want you to do: Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 4/28/10-5/4/10”

Theatre Review: Girlfriend at Berkeley Rep, 4/24/10

I hear you need somebody, I hear your looking for someone to love...
I hear you need somebody, I hear you're looking for someone to love...

In the last decade or so, the musical theater world has been inundated with shows that use pre-existing popular music instead of original works. Well many of these have been very successful, such as Mamma Mia!, Jersey Boys and the recent American Idiot, others have been critical and commercial failures, like Footloose and a proposed Radiohead musical.

While the success rate may vary on these, the one thing that they all have in common is the fact that every one of these shows uses music that the masses are very familiar with. There is a built-in audience for the show because of the fans. This show is a little bit different, though. It shows that the good people at Berkeley Rep are willing to take a risk. They are brave enough to chance a musical based on a relatively obscure power-pop record from the early ’90s, Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend.

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Show Review: Sublime with Rome, Dirty Heads at The Fox Theater – Oakland, 4/23/10

As most everyone knows, Bradley Nowell passed away in 1996, months before the release of their self-titled record that ended up taking the world by storm. Very few people actually saw Sublime live because of this. Which may have been to the benefit of the band, because Sublime were a terrible live band. Nowell was wasted about 90% of the time, and rarely was able finish a song. The vast majority of the people that are offended by this reformation of the band aren’t aware of this.  This version of Sublime is more than just a chance for the original rhythm section to hit the road again, this is a shot a redeeming Brad Nowell’s memory

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Show Review: Norah Jones, Sasha Dobson at The Fillmore, 4/21/10

It's the Norah Jones Hoedown!

With this review, I hope to dispel a few stereotypes that people have about Ms Norah Jones. I feel that people have, rather inappropriately decided that she makes dull background music, and that she isn’t a very good live performer. I will agree that in her earlier days, she was a very shy performer. She rarely looked at the crowd, and usually hid behind her piano. I also feel that her debut record, Come Away With Me, the 2002 release that went on to sell 22 million records, is more of a mood piece than a work of active listening. But, in the 8 years since that release, Ms Jones has pushed her sound in many new and interesting directions, including a few very surprising collaborations and a really bizarre interpretation of punk rock.

So, how did her first show at The Fillmore since 2002 (opening for the great Willie Nelson) fare? Read on…

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Show Review: Foxy Shazam, The Young Veins, Bad Rabbits at Bottom Of The Hill, 4/18/10

Thanks to seperate16 for providing the photo most characteristic of the band
Thanks to seperate16 for providing the photo most characteristic of the band

I often times enjoy a mellow a Sunday evening spent enjoying the soothing sounds of traveling minstrels with the company of fellow locals. I opted to spend this past Sunday eve at a popular Portrero Hill tavern to enjoy the song stylings Foxy Shazam. The show filled me with great joy, despite the fact that I’m unsure as to whether or not everyone managed to survive.

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A Music Nerd’s Guide To The San Francisco International Film Festival

As a world class city, we get some pretty impressive events. Often times, these events tend to pile on top of each other, such as Fauxchella overlapping with the San Francisco International Film Festival. Of course, piling into clubs night after night can seriously wear on even the most enthused music fan, and sometimes it’s pleasant to sit in a seat in an air conditioned theater. That’s where we can serve you. There are plenty of ways to enjoy your time as a music nerd at the SF International Film Festival, and this is your guide. Ticket information can be found here.

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Album Review: Jakob Dylan – Women + Country

In 2007, a strange and unexpected musical collaboration was released. It was the brain child of legendary producer T-Bone Burnett who decided that a full album collaboration between Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and modern day bluegrass icon Alison Krauss would be a brilliant idea. The album, Raising Sand,  came out, and it was a moody collection of covers and originals that was both a critical and commercial success. It was a rare album that nearly everyone enjoyed, and was also the first album released on a independent label to win the Grammy for Album of the Year.

Fast forward three years, and a rather suspicious record gets released. Jakob Dylan, son of Bob and vocalist of 90’s buzz bin two-hit wonder act The Wallflowers, releases a record called Women + Country, featuring production by T-Bone Burnett and vocals by Alt.Country Super Heroine Neko Case. It all feels, I don’t know, impure? I was curious about this record, but also a bit skeptical.  So, when I got an offer to review the record for this site, I decided to take it upon myself.

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