Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
Spinning Platters album reviews category. Click here to see all album reviews from the Bay Area Music Nerds.
By The Spinning Platters Editorial Staff
It’s that time of year again… That time when you’ve read every other music site’s Album of The Year list, and have hated all of them because you haven’t seen the best one yet! We have an incredibly diverse group of records… Some you’ve seen on other lists, some you haven’t, and some you’ve likely never heard of before clicking on this post!
So, without further adieu, on with our list:
John Grant, the individual, is remarkable; he began his musical training at age four, and, prior to becoming a working indie rock star, with his band The Czars, had worked as Russian-English medical translator. He speaks four languages, and spent his childhood in Colorado, where he grew up in a religious family, and came out as gay in his twenties. He has struggled with addiction, and continues to struggle with severe anxiety. He is intense, wry, smart, and neurotic, and these traits inform his music. Continue reading “Album review: John Grant’s Love is Magic“
Laura Veirs hasn’t enjoyed the widespread popularity or been welcomed to the radio waves like her other Portland musician colleagues and frequent collaborators have, like The Decemberists and Sufjan Stevens. “Not a household name / but she’s been in your head all day / It would be so cool to be like Carol, Carol Kaye.” These lyrics from “Carol Kaye” off of Veirs’s 2010 incredible LP offering July Flame, just about sums it up. It’s unfortunate that Veirs isn’t the household name her music has well-earned the distinction of becoming. Alas, two more LPs and a collaboration album with Neko Case and k.d. lang (Case/Lang/Veirs) later, and Veirs is still delivering radio-worthy tunes that are as catchy as they are folksy and heartfelt. Continue reading “Album Review: Laura Veirs — The Lookout“
By The Spinning Platters Staff
2017 may go down as one of the worst years in recorded history. In fact, I’m almost 100% certain of that. However, the best art is created out of strife, and 2017 yielded an especially passionate crop of records. So, without further adieu, here is Spinning Platters’ Top 10 records of 2017, as selected and voted on by our entire team:
Probably one of the best things to happen from Donald Trump becoming the—and I shudder as I type this—President is the anticipation of all the amazing politically-charged punk rock that will invariably come back into the public consciousness. This is not to say that it wasn’t always there—it was and always will be—but humanity is a fickle species and without something to kick its ass into gear occasionally, it relegates the plaintive cries of the marginalized into the background. That’s where punk rock comes in to kick everyone in the face and scream “LISTEN UP!”
What happens when four musicians record an album in three days? Well, as luck would have it, something amazing happens. At least, that’s the case for the debut release of Big Walnuts Yonder. Though they prefer to consider themselves an anti-supergroup—in that they consciously rebel against the cliche of bringing their known sounds to the group—when your band consists of Mike Watt (Minutemen, The Stooges), Nels Cline (Wilco, Nels Cline Singers), Greg Saunier (Deerhoof) and Nick Reinhart (Tera Melos), it is hard to resist slapping the “supergroup” label on them, but be warned, because this band is no mere supergroup, and they are full of surprises.
Continue reading “Album Review: Big Walnuts Yonder: Big Walnuts Yonder“
While I’m familiar with most of the seminal works of Sonic Youth, the band members’ solo projects before and after the split were never very big blips on my music radar. I vaguely remember seeing a poster for one of Thurston Moore’s mid-2000s solo tours when I was in college, but not having the time—or the money being a working college student—to go to the show. So out slipped Moore from my consciousness, and thus the boomerang effect brings him back to me.
Continue reading “Album Review: Thurston Moore: Rock ‘N Roll Consciousness“
If you were a frequent client of Green Apple Books in the Inner Richmond, and especially if you attended their live music series, then perhaps you’re already familiar with singer/songwriter Ronnie Carrier. Though she moved to Portland last year, her guitar twangin’, foot stompin’ music, filled with literary depths, can now flood your home/phone/computer speakers via her full-length album debut, Lost In The Eclectic, which comes out Friday, April 7th (with an upcoming SF show on 4/14). I had the fantastic opportunity to ask her a few questions after listening to the new album:
First of all, it’s so great to see (and hear) your first full length album, “Lost In The Eclectic”, come to fruition. How do you feel now that it’s completed?
Thank you! The first word that comes to mind is “relieved”, but also there’s a side of nervous excitement. I’m very proud of this album – now that I’m presenting it, I get to find out how the story translates to the people who listen to my music. I’m excited to hear what listeners get out of this, and I hope it is something worthwhile.
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Interview: Ronnie Carrier, “Lost In The Eclectic””
Any band that can keep it going for longer than 20 years deserves a place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The relentless love and pursuit of enjoyment through music is no easy feat, and many bands live a flash-in-the-pan life for the most part. The bands that endure not only have to find ways to be fresh with changing trends, but also have be 100% true to themselves, which, in many cases, will alienate or polarize fans. Wire has now hit the 40 year mark since they first hit the English punk rock scene in 1977 with Pink Flag. Despite their aggressive beginnings, they shifted to a more atmospheric post rock genre, while still occasionally playing with punk staples, and their upcoming release Silver/Lead continues in this fashion.
If 2015 and 2016 were any indication, 2017 has certainly shows that supergroups are coming back to the forefront in a big way. While this is nothing new in the music scene, it has become more apparent, recently, that supergroups pose a necessity for most musicians, to escape redundancy and to experiment with new sounds. In the early 2000s, many big collaborative albums were produced, but were always under the guise of guest vocalist and musicians. It left a manufactured tone about the record, one that felt as though the labels were just trying to squeeze dime after dime out of shifting paradigms in musical taste. A true supergroup combines all the best attributes and skills of the players to create something fresh and exciting, for fans and musicians alike. It doesn’t always work, of course; Giraffe Tongue Orchestra is an excellent example of an extremely talented group of musicians whose full length album left far too much to be desired. The Dead Weather, on the other hand (featuring Jack White, Allison Mossheart [The Kills], Dan Fertita [Queens of the Stone Age], and Jack Lawrence [City and Colour, The Raconteurs]) have made a number of albums that continue to grab people in one direction or another. So when it was announced that King Buzzo and Dale Crover (Melvins), Teri Gender Bender (Le Butcherettes), and Omar Rodríguez-López (Mars Volta, At The Drive-In) were joining forces to create Crystal Fairy, the prospect was definitely a positive attention grabber.
Continue reading “Album Review: Crystal Fairy: Crystal Fairy“