Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
What you might be thinking is, “why does he get to write all of his Noise Pop comments in one post when everyone else did full reviews of each night they went?” From an excuse standpoint, I’ll just say that I’ve been so busy editing posts, resizing & captioning photos, and redesigning the website, I decided to give myself a little slack. (Editor’s privilege?) But really, this all started because of Wednesday night.
I make no secret of the fact that A Thousand Suns was my favorite album of 2010. I’ve been jeered by other music nerds many times for this. Then, when hanging out near the box office trying to buy a decent ticket to last night’s show, one woman said “It’s not completely sold out, I guess. Because the new album’s no good.” Now this may be the conventional wisdom of a lot of Linkin Park fans, including many in attendance at the HP Pavilion last night, but they’re wrong. It’s a great album that’s pushed the band and their live show about a thousand times forward. Continue reading “Show Review: Linkin Park with Prodigy at HP Pavilion, 2/22/2011”
Next week is Noise Pop! If you’re not excited about Noise Pop for some reason, get excited about it! Look left, right now, see the pretty advertisement for the festival, click on it, and buy some tickets to something. But if you’re some sort of meany who hates Noise Pop and everything they stand for, there’s still plenty of shows for the likes of you. We don’t support the skipping of Noise Pop, but we do appreciate the variety of shows available this coming week. You can dance, wear purple, or be a black emperor. It’s a doozy!
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 2/17/11 — 2/23/11”
The closing night of the 10th San Francisco Sketchfest kicked off with a screening of the David Byrne directed True Stories, now celebrating its 25th year of existence. Because the founders of Sketchfest met at a screening of the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense, also at the Castro Theater in 1998, this event was special to the Sketchfest crew. Along for the ride was author Paul Myers, who took on the moderator duties, and the director himself. Much like the movie itself, the Q&A afterward was a minor failure, with interesting bits. Continue reading “Sketchfest Review: True Stories 25th Anniversary w/David Byrne Q&A”
Someone was tweeting something about cover songs, and I immediately went to work on twittering away the rules of cover songs. I got to rule #3, remembered that I’m the editor of a music blog, and went to work writing the other rules down. And now, I present to you, everything you need to know about cover songs. Is there anything I left out? Let me know below. But first, we’ll start with rule #1: Continue reading “The 7 Rules of the Best and Worst Cover Songs”
At Cobb’s on Friday night was a show called Maximum Volume!, a definite misnomer. For while the volume was never turned up — the electric guitar and amplifier sat on the stage like a tease — the one thing turned to the maximum was the length of the show. This was definitely the longest comedy show I’ve ever been to, and in comedy, like a lot of things, longer isn’t necessarily better. Lots of people, myself included, surely came expecting something similar to last year’s Bring the Rock! show, and got something completely different. So how did it all go? Continue reading “Sketchfest Review: Maximum Volume! with Greg Behrendt and Matt Nathanson at Cobb’s, 1/21/2011”
After fighting over voting on our site’s top albums, I gave everyone the opportunity to send in an individual list of their favorite records without rules as to how many albums could be on there. While the initial turnout was poor, I know that posting this will have our writers turning up in droves to add their list. And through the power of the Internet, I can add those lists! But without further rambling, let’s go to our first list, from Dakin Hardwick. Continue reading “Spinning Platters Staff’s Individual Picks: The Best Albums of 2010”
When I thought about what to expect out of a Bell Biv Devoe show at a jazz club in 2010, I thought this: a 12-minute version of “Poison,” a 10-minute version of “Do Me!”, an instrumental jam by the band and a medley of everything else. “What about New Edition? I bet they do a lot of that,” remarked one friend. What about them? What does a Bell Biv Devoe show look like in 2010? The short answer: it looks like MTV in 1990. The long answer? Continue reading “Show Review: Bell Biv Devoe at Yoshi’s SF, 12/23/2010”
by The Spinning Platters Staff
Unlike last year, we spent more than a month at the Spinning Platters offices (our homes) passing albums around to try to determine a staff list of the Top abums of 2010. We were going for “Top 10 and ties,” and that ended up at exactly 10. There was a nomination step, a finalist selection step, a final voting step, and then we had a list. No list is perfect, but ours is not only pretty darned good, it also manages to represent the wide variety of musical tastes among our team here (i.e. some of us hate some of these albums). Now, read and enjoy our Top 10 for 2010. Continue reading “Spinning Platters Presents the Official List of the Top 10 Albums of 2010”
At Slim’s Saturday night was the San Francisco stop of the 5th Annual Monsters of Accordion tour. For me, it was my first annual. For although I’ve never been to one of these shows before, I am absolutely sure to go again. This was a fun night with a lively crowd, and something I intend to repeat soon. Very soon, in fact, for there is a secret additional Monsters of Accordion show this Tuesday night in Oakland. Want to know where? Better read on … Continue reading “Show Review: Monsters of Accordion Featuring Jason Webley at Slim’s, 12/18/2010”