Features – Page 27 – Spinning Platters

The Insiders’ Guide to the Treasure Island Music Festival (Updated for 2012)

2809279939_5cac7840a1_z — The view from the ferris wheel, courtesy Flikr user tumburre.

(This post is actually from 2009. Our esteemed Editor In Chief, Gordon Elgart, wrote it. But he’s lame and not coming out this year. So I, Dakin Hardwick, have made a few tweaks for this year’s festival guide. Not many, however, because when you put on the best music festival in California, you don’t need to make too many changes every year.)

This weekend’s Treasure Island Music Festival has quickly become my favorite musical event of the year. There are no conflicting set times, so you can see everyone on the bill. The size of the festival is fairly small, so it’s easy to get around. The setting in the middle of San Francisco Bay is absolutely stunning. And something about all of these combine to keep the people going in a relaxed, pleasant mood that makes being there all the more enjoyable. Set times are up, but, seriously, you should just expect to be there from morning til night, because it would be foolish not to.

Now, you might think going to this festival is as easy as hopping in your car and going to the festival to enjoy some music, but you’d be wrong. Read on, and I’ll teach you how to avoid rookie mistakes.

Continue reading “The Insiders’ Guide to the Treasure Island Music Festival (Updated for 2012)”

Outside Lands Diary, Sunday, August 12th, 2012: Jack in the Woods

My baby was stolen. Like the Lindbergh baby in the night* my beautiful 15 year old silver Honda CRV was removed from her place on the streets by some unnamed hooligan. We had many memories, me and that car. I learned to drive with her, I took up her up and down the coast of California, and I’m pretty sure I lost my virginity in that car (sorry Mom and Dad! Teenagers ya know?) (Also lets just gloss over the “pretty sure” portion of that sentence). So when I discovered on Sunday she was gone, it was with great sadness that I started my last day of Outside Lands. And then! If that wasn’t enough I was forced to take the N all the way from the Mission to Golden Gate Park! Yuck! (No seriously, yuck, I was so close to people that I almost lost my Muni virginity. Ya know what I’m saying!? Ok.) Silver beauty, it goes without saying, I miss you desperately.

I wandered around the park grumpy, glaring at every faux Ray-Ban, neon wearing fiend. “You don’t know my pain, neon wearing fiend!” I was secretly yelling. I was nobody’s friend.

Continue reading “Outside Lands Diary, Sunday, August 12th, 2012: Jack in the Woods”

Our Guide to the 2012 Outside Lands Music Festival

segwaypolo — Poor guys… Gonna have to find someplace else to play Polo next weekend.

Every year, every festival in America claims to have the “best line up ever!” Well, San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music Festival has made to its 5th year, and they really are going to have a seriously difficult time topping this year’s event. Of course, this means that there are conflicts galore! You’ve got six stages of entertainment to try to decide between at any time of day.

The schedule can be awfully intimidating. Which is why I’m here to help guide you through the complex maze that is the Outside Lands schedule. Without further ado, here is SpinningPlatters’ Official Guide to Outside Lands 2012.

Continue reading “Our Guide to the 2012 Outside Lands Music Festival”

Amanda Palmer Has Enough Money: Here’s 5 Music Kickstarters to Support Now

Everyone loves a big success story, and I’m included. Look, we’re huge fans of Amanda Palmer here at Spinning Platters, and we’re all very happy that she’s made over a million dollars on her Kickstarter page. That’s fantastic; I hope she spends it wisely.

But enough is enough. There are many other artists looking for money to help with their musical aspirations, and they’re not going to get there without a little boost. So please, stop giving your money to Amanda Palmer, and start giving it to these talented folks. Continue reading “Amanda Palmer Has Enough Money: Here’s 5 Music Kickstarters to Support Now”

The Spinning Platters Guide to the San Francisco International Film Festival 2012

This year’s edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival will transpire in theaters around the city from April 19 to May 3. Last year’s SFIFF marked the Bay Area premieres of such critically acclaimed hits as Beginners, Another Earth, and The Future. This year’s reliably diverse lineup looks just as promising, featuring new work from actors like Shirley MacLaine, Jack Black, Diane Kruger, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Greta Gerwig, John Krasinski, Freida Pinto, Emily Blunt, Val Kilmer, Lili Taylor, James Franco, Susan Sarandon, and Common, filmmakers like Richard Linklater, Michael Winterbottom, Lynn Shelton, Andrea Arnold, Lena Dunham, and little-known local winemaker Francis Ford Coppola, and documentaries on subjects ranging from Diana Vreeland and Marina Abramovic to ACT UP and the epidemic of sexual violence against women in the military. The festival will also feature several events, notably tributes to Kenneth Branagh and Judy Davis (both of whom will attend), a Midnight Mass tribute to the late Ken Russell featuring a Peaches Christ-hosted screening of Tommy, and perhaps most awesomely, a program of Buster Keaton short films with live musical accompaniment by Merrill Garbus and her tUnE-yArDs crew.

After the jump, we break down the 20 films we’re most excited to see this year into three categories: World Cinema, New Directors, and Documentaries. All film descriptions are courtesy of the San Francisco Film Society.

Continue reading “The Spinning Platters Guide to the San Francisco International Film Festival 2012”

Noise Pop Show Review: The Fresh & Onlys, Disappears, Talkdemonic at Bottom of the Hill, 2/22/12

the-fresh-onlys-promo — The Fresh & Onlys gaze on...

The Bottom of the Hill is one of those venues where amazing things can happen. Its intimate space creates a setting where bands, their friends, and patrons can all rub elbows without the pretense of Rock Stardom bogging down a conversation. Many a band right on the verge of blowing up have graced the stage fully aware of their sparkling future and have played to it, creating an “I was there” situation where one constantly reminds his or her friends (or just about anyone who happens to be around) of the night they saw so-and-so play Bottom of the Hill. I’ve been known to drop an “I was there” once or twice myself (cough Arcade Fire cough).

Continue reading “Noise Pop Show Review: The Fresh & Onlys, Disappears, Talkdemonic at Bottom of the Hill, 2/22/12”

Spinning Platters Guide To Noise Pop 2012

For the last 20 years, the good folks of Noise Pop have turned a single show at Kennel Club (now known as The Independent) into a huge, weeklong festival that causes Bay Area music nerds to clear their calendar every year. In recent years, the fest has expanded beyond music- we have movies, craft fairs, and literary events in addition to one of the best programmed music fests you will ever go to. Go to 2012.noisepop.com for a full listing, but if you want to know what I think you should go to, follow the jump!

Continue reading “Spinning Platters Guide To Noise Pop 2012”

Spinning Platters Predicts the 2012 Oscar Nominations: What Should — and Will — Be Nominated

051311bridesmaids_t607 — Ellie Kemper, Oscar hopeful Melissa McCarthy, and Wendi McLendon-Covey in BRIDESMAIDS

The Academy Awards are commonly referred to as the gay Super Bowl, and for good reason: they each represent the culmination of months of grueling, bone-crunching competition, tend to feature misguided musical numbers, and are ultimately about impossibly wealthy people fighting over trophies while the rest of us cheer from the breadlines. In short: it’s the best thing that happens all year. My post-Oscar depression is far more devastating than even the worst case of post-Christmas blues. Such emptiness. The nominations for this year’s 84th Academy Awards will be announced in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, January 24. After the jump, check out my picks for what should be nominated and what we’re likely to read about on Tuesday.

Continue reading “Spinning Platters Predicts the 2012 Oscar Nominations: What Should — and Will — Be Nominated”

Stop SOPA/PIPA – 4 Ways You Can Help

Today some of the largest entities on the Internet including Wikipedia, Reddit, and MoveOn.org will go completely dark, for 24 hours, to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA – fun fact: “Sopa” means “trash” in Swedish) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). These two bills, introduced to the House and Senate back in October, respectively, would allow the U.S. Department of Justice and copyright holders to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. I should mention that action can be taken without due process. So, for example, if I posted a YouTube video on Spinning Platters, the copyright holder could have this site (and even YouTube, itself) shut down without any notice. Continue reading “Stop SOPA/PIPA — 4 Ways You Can Help”

Why you should attend SF MusicTech Summit, Music Hack Day, and Music Startup Academy

This February, make something happen with all the right resources.

“We should start our own group; I’m not sure what the title would be but it has to encompass the fact that we are some of the few, the brave, that have attended every single SF MusicTech Summit in existence.” That’s basically what my friends, Scott Schiller, Jordan Harband, and I were joking about as we basked in the sun flooding Japantown’s mall courtyard during lunch break at the last event in September. Continue reading “Why you should attend SF MusicTech Summit, Music Hack Day, and Music Startup Academy”