I haven’t seen E.T. in twenty years, but by the time the credits rolled I had teary eyes and the theme song wonderfully repeating itself in my head. My girlfriend sitting next to me exclaimed, “my track record of crying every time I see E.T. is still intact”. That’s the power of Steven Spielberg’s 1982 classic E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, and there really was no better way to watch the film than with live orchestral accompaniment at the San Francisco Symphony.
Canadian queen of Celtic melodies returns to San Francisco for an austere and intimate performance
Loreena McKennitt
“Surreal” is probably the most appropriate word to describe how the evening felt this past Saturday night, when Loreena McKennitt returned to the Bay Area for the first time in nearly 10 years and treated a sold-out crowd at The Masonic to a gorgeous performance that stretched on for nearly three hours. There were no opening acts to speak of; there was only one encore (albeit with two songs), one intermission, and three musicians onstage for most of the concert. At the center of it all was a fantastic performer who, now in her 31st year of performing, sounds just as powerful and mystifying as she did on her albums from decades gone by, both in voice and in instrumentation. It was quite the sight to behold, made more intense by the unwavering concentration and respect of the audience; aside from when the musicians bowed at the end of the show, not a single conversation was to be heard, nor a phone held aloft to document the moment — an extreme rarity in today’s live music scene.
Hiatus. hi·a·tus. noun. A pause or gap in a sequence, series, or process.
Staind, The Gaslight Anthem, The Academy Is…, A Static Lullaby, Armor For Sleep, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, System of a Down, Underoath… just a few examples of bands that are on a hiatus, have taken one, or broke up and then reformed (kind of the same thing as a hiatus). After a 4-year hiatus, in which all 4 of its members worked on other musical projects, Disturbed is back.
It’s a little jarring when your relationship with a band isn’t reflected by the show you see them put on. I’ve had this happen before; when I saw Marina and the Diamonds the first time, I was surprised to see a woman playing an intimate set at a piano. I was confused; where was the pop dance sarcastic and snarky dance diva I’d fallen for? I learned to love this other aspect of her, however, because being a fan means being open to compromise and loving new angles on bands you like. Metric has flirted with so many genres and sounds over their long career that I didn’t know what to expect from their show. I had no doubt that they would deliver a hell of a performance, and looked forward to watching them put their raw emotion and technical versatility on display.
The Indigo Girls were hugely important to me as an adolescent, when I was all “fuck the patriarchy,” looking at my baby boomer parents and teachers and seeing a lot of what I didn’t want, but couldn’t figure out what to do instead. They were queer and progressive and unpretentious and pensive and courageous, yet even they have complained about the dismissive labeling they’ve received from the press – “bleeding heart lesbian folk duo”. They’ve been totally cast off as wholesome and safe, banal music for lesbians. When I told my friends I was going to see them, they kidded with me. “Are you sure you aren’t gay, Becka? You have flannel shirts and you listen to The Indigo Girls and Neko Case and you have very, very aggressive looking glasses.” Long ago, prior to my current Age of Zero Fucks, I felt self conscious about my adoration for them, and then I realized that I, too, was falling for a common sexist musical trap.
2015 was an interesting year for Carly Rae Jepsen. Tasked with the impossible feat of following up “Call Me Maybe” — likely to be remembered as the greatest pop song of the decade — Jepsen managed to do something that very few people in the pop world have done: release a follow-up that became one of the most critically lauded records of the year. Very few performers do well with their sophomore record, but Jepsen’s release hit #3 on The Village Voice‘s Pazz & Jop Poll, sharing space not with fellow popsters, but with folks like Kendrick Lamar and Courtney Barnett. This, plus a slot on the indie-centric Noise Pop Festival, prove that Jepsen has attained something that very few Top 40 artists have: respect from critics, along with acceptance by the very picky indie rock community. In fact, despite the presence of such long defunct acts as Drive Like Jehu, Her Space Holiday, and American Football at this year’s Noise Pop, Jepsen’s was the most anticipated set of the festival. Continue reading “Noise Pop Show Review: Carly Rae Jepsen, Cardiknox, Monika at The Warfield, 2/27/16”
San Francisco’s Noise Pop Festival has been well known for packing hordes of genres and artists into their lineup, but rarely have they picked a collection of artists that are so solidly categorized as jazz musicians before anything else. True to the latter half of its name, the festival tends to want to pick acts that have those hooks and rhythms which you want to sing or dance along to with a common familiarity, or even are comfortable with hearing on the radio. There are, of course, certain acts (like seminal hardcore favorites Drive Like Jehu this year, or Yoko Ono a few years back) that defy such conventions, but you can generally bet on finding the bands to be less on the blatantly esoteric side of things. Thus, it was a bit of a risk throwing some jazz artists into the mix; however, it absolutely paid off, as all four shows (spread across two nights, two artists, and two venues) sold out, weeks in advance, and the two performers — elecronic-wizard-plus-jazz-quartet Kneedelus, and newly-Grammy’d tenor sax master Kamasi Washington — definitely did not disappoint.
A record like Dookie, the magnum opus from the Bay Area’s arguably-most-popular punk band, Green Day, was not so much another album in the shop as it was a sonic bombshell going off, whose waves were felt in scenes across the Earth. The raw energy and youthful vigor had rarely been presented in so straightforward and familiar a manner, especially in a format and at a time that it was almost universally accessible to everyone looking for something refreshing and powerful in the current world. Dookie, by scene purists, may be remembered as the record that shoved one of the loudest, wildest dimensions of the music world into the spotlight, and while they may revile this fact, Dookie’s influence and impact on all music that came after it is undeniable. It still stands tall as one of the greatest records of its age, and one of the most famous to come from the East Bay of Northern California. It was fitting, therefore, that the Bay Area collective UnderCover culled together a collection of local players, all passionate fans of the effect this record had on them in their younger years, to kick off this year’s UnderCover Presents series with a 15-band tribute to one of the seminal works of 90s punk rock.
With so much to cover, I’ll be doing this in the style of the show: 15 mini-reviews of all of the songs, with photos for each, and a wrap-up at the end. Read on!
Josh Ritter is as gifted a storyteller as any other in today’s music scene, drawing from notes the likes of Springsteen, Cash, Dylan, and Tom Petty to create pictures of today’s America. If you’re under 45 and liberal, it’s likely you’ve felt frustrated by the lack of opportunity, by the creeping religious hypocrisy that poisons the political landscape, and the dreadful knowledge that the American dream was stolen from you before you and your peers could even walk. Ritter has his pulse on the angst and struggles of his generation, tackling themes of loneliness, disappointment, and isolation with humor and curiosity, always driving you forward to the next adventure.
Puscifer (Mat Mitchell, Paul Barker, Jeff Friedl, Carina Round, and Maynard James Keenan)
Let’s get one thing out of the way before this review starts: Puscifer is not a side project. It’s a sprawling, multifaceted, genre-defying, borderline-synaesthetic outlet of artistic expression, the brainchild of Tool vocalist/winemaker Maynard James Keenan and musical mastermind Mat Mitchell — and at this point, they’ve been grinding the axe for nigh unto a decade (closer to twenty years, if you count their brief appearance on Mr. Show way back when), and it absolutely shows. The collective has been refining the elements of what their sound, their mission, and their performance entails, for that entire span of time and 2015’s Money Shot — the album, the tour, the experience — is the next step along the journey within the minds of this collective of visionaries. As with everything released during their career thus far, don’t let the smirk-inspiring record title (nor its positively comedic artwork) lead you into dismissing them outright. If anything, it’s a bit of a relief to know that the men and women of Puscifer have a sense of humor to match the seriousness with which they take their production, both for the live show and the music itself.
