I am going to let you in on a little secret- I have never heard Yo La Tengo before. I love the indie rock, and I have even worked at a record store (or 5). I understand who they are, and I understand the effect they have had on society. I know that every new record store employee will file them in the Spanish-language section. (Once I had a fellow employee bring me the Yo La Tengo section from rock and let me know that somebody was misfiling them) They are a band that has been through a lot, even overcoming this great tragedy!
So, yesterday was 9/9/09, the day of the Beatle. While everyone was at home listening to the newly remastered stereo and mono boxsets or playing the make believe Beatles video game, I opted to attend a performance by a slightly younger band that may only be as big as the Pope, not Jesus. (Now, if anyone at Harmonix or EMI is reading this, and would like me to review either Beatles Rock Band or the new remasters, feel free to send them my way: email me at dakin@spinningplatters.com and I will give you my mailing address)
I’m not really sure why I volunteered to cover John Legend at the Greek. My feelings of him have always been pretty negative. I used to call him things such as “the music John Tesh uses to fall asleep” and “Soul Music’s answer to Yanni.” So, I wasn’t expecting much. I thought I was going to enjoy India.Arie, and then I would sneak out after a few songs, just enough to be able to fake a review… Continue reading “Show Review: John Legend, India.Arie, Vaughn Anthony at The Greek Theater in Berkeley, 9/6/09”
Opening for Flogging Molly at The Fox on Friday Night!
Now that Labor Day has come & gone, and the bridge is fully functioning again, here’s another guide to a week’s worth of rock & roll that you might enjoy:
Millions Of Darling Cats will be playing at The Knockout tonight!
As we recover from our wonderful weekend in Golden Gate Park, dealing with our sunburns (Friday & Saturday) and our hypothermia (Sunday), here’s a few more shows to keep you going. All of them good, or at least have the potential for good.
On a side note: the Bay Bridge is closed this weekend, but BART will be running all night, so if you wanted to get wasted on the other side of the Bay on which you reside, this is the weekend to do it!
Today I attended the show as a volunteer. It’s a good deal, you help out with some element if the show in the morning, and by late afternoon, you are free to enjoy the rest of the show. If you work at night, you get to see an entire different day. It’s a pretty decent deal, and if they do it next year, I recommend it. Just check out the official site next year, and you will find the instructions on how to sign up.
Here’s my Outside Lands story. You may already be asking yourself why I am starting on Day 2. The answer is simple. I did not attend the first day. I went last year on Friday, and was so annoyed by the set up of the festival, that I did not attend again, and I was considering not doing it at all this year. I felt that security was far too sparse throughout the inside of the venue, and I also felt that they layout of the stages made it difficult to navigate through the venue. The biggest issue from 2008 was placing Radiohead on the main stage immediately after Beck played a side stage, which was about 15 minutes away by foot on a normal day, but they also made the walkway between the two stages about 2 people wide. To make matters worse, the audio kept cutting out during Radiohead’s set.
The happy couple before Ryan Reynolds tore them apart...
Last year, Scarlett Johansson released a record called Anywhere I Lay My Head, a moody collection of Tom Waits songs arranged by David Sitek. He put together a band consisting of members of TV On The Radio, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, and the Celebration. Reviews were very mixed, but I enjoyed the record a great deal. The record has its fans, but in the end was a bit of a flop. I don’t think anybody expected her to put something out again, especially so quickly.
If anybody thinks bats are ugly, make them look at this picture. And go see one of their two shows Tuesday night.
Outside Lands Festival is this weekend, which has booked nearly every touring act hitting the west coast in late summer, making it a tough to find something else to do… But, I’ve compiled the list for all of the people that aren’t willing to pay $100 a day to hike through Golden Gate Park.
If you insist on supporting the big mega-festival, here’s the schedule by day and by night. And if you have a spare 3-day pass that you just feel like giving to a sad blogger that can’t afford one, e-mail me at dakin@spinningplatters.com, or you can join me at one of these shows:
(Note: You can also e-mail if you think your show is deserving of being on my list… Just link me to sound samples, and e-mail me by Friday the week prior to the show. As you can see, I do my list Tuesday-Monday.)
The last time I saw Third Eye Blind was in 1996. They opened for Oasis at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. They didn’t have a record deal, and nobody who purchased tickets purchased tickets to see them because, well, they were never advertised. I thought that they were catchy, but didn’t really think much of them. One year later, they released the record that was impossible to hide from. Cut to 1999, they release a second record, called Blue. Didn’t have any hits, and the band seemed to fall off of everyone’s radar. In 2003, they released a third record, which featured production by Andrew WK and vocals from Kimya Dawson of The Moldy Peaches and Kim Shattuck of The Muffs. It sold about 500,000 copies, which is a dramatic drop off from the six million of the first record. It was also the record that taught me to like the band. They were much more aggressive and passionate then they ever had been, which of course meant they were dropped from their major label deal.
Fast forward to 2009. They release their first record on an independent label. Bands such as Fall Out Boy and Taking Back Sunday rise to prominence, borrowing a few strategies from the 3EB playbook, especially the fusion of power pop with elements of grunge. They think it’s time for a comeback. It’s time for the rest of the world to figure it out, too. Continue reading “Third Eye Blind, The Upwelling at The Fox Oakland, 8/17/09”
