Spinning Platters Interview: Dave Hill

Photo by Michelle Crow

Dave Hill is one of the most prolific performers you’ve probably never heard of. He plays guitar for the bands Valley Lodge (who do the theme to Last Week Tonight with John Oliver), Diamondsnake (a metal band with Moby), and his black metal band Witch Taint, which he’s bringing to Sketchfest this year as part of a larger schedule. He also hosts “The Goddamn Dave Hill Show” on WFMU radio, and a podcast called “Dave Hill’s Podcasting Incident.” Not good enough? He’s also an accomplished writer and stand-up comic. Spinning Platters pulled Hill away from his busy schedule to speak to us. Here’s how it went!

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A Nerd’s Guide To Sketchfest 2018

It’s that time of year when the best possible three weeks of comedy programing take over Bay Area theaters, art spaces, and nightclubs: SF Sketchfest! There is so much good stuff happening that it’s impossible to make heads or tails of where to go when. Well, I’ve been studying the schedule in great detail for the last several weeks, and since I am of impeccable taste, I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt what the best things are to do each day of the event. Continue reading “A Nerd’s Guide To Sketchfest 2018”

Spinning Platters Recommends: Josh Ritter and the Royal City Band, January 19/20 at the Fillmore

Show date: January 19/20, 2018, 7:00 pm

Venue: The Fillmore

City: San Francisco

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Film Feature: Carrie’s Top 10 Films of 2017

If you didn’t get out to the movies as much as you’d hoped in 2017, it’s not too late to catch up on these worthy titles!

Spinning Platters Film Editor Carrie Kahn shares her ten favorite films of 2017, presented in descending rank order. You can also check out her list from last year here. 

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Spinning Platters’ Top 10 Albums of 2017

A look back at the records that got us through the dumpster fire that was 2017…

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:

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Film Review: All the Money in the World

All the money can’t buy happiness in Scott’s tense new thriller

Gail (Michelle Williams) waits to speak with her ex-father-in-law.

There’s no such thing as bad publicity, the saying goes, and so director Ridley Scott’s new film All the Money in the World had already captivated the public interest months before its release today. As most readers are probably aware, the bad publicity here was the revelation back in October that the film’s original lead, Kevin Spacey, had sexually harassed actor Anthony Rapp when he was 14. Spacey controversially apologized, but the damage was done; in early November, Scott and the film’s production team made the extraordinary decision to reshoot all Spacey’s scenes with a new actor, just three weeks before the film’s scheduled opening.
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Film Review: The Post

Spielberg brilliantly brings First Amendment showdown to life 

Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) and publisher Kay Graham (Meryl Streep) weigh big decisions for their paper.

“We can’t have the administration dictate our coverage just because they don’t like what we printed about them in the newspaper,” Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) tells Post owner and publisher Kay Graham (Meryl Streep) in director Steven Spielberg’s fine new film The Post. A paean to journalism that is still exceedingly relevant today, Spielberg’s story of the Post’s battle to publish the confidential Pentagon Papers in the early 1970s succeeds on a number of levels, making it one of the best pictures of the year, and giving it a rightful place in the canon of great journalism movies.

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Film Review: Downsizing

Having your tiny cake and eating it, too

Matt Damon (l.) plays Paul Safranek and Jason Sudeikis plays Dave Johnson in Downsizing from Paramount Pictures.

“Going small” is not a goal often associated with the dreams of mainstream America, but what if going small meant maintaining a lavish, upper middle-class, suburban lifestyle with all the trimmings? This deceptively simple idea underlies Downsizing, Alexander Payne’s newest film, starring Matt Damon, Hong Chau, and Christoph Waltz. The film presents enough imagination and asks enough questions to launch a series, but it never figures out what it’s trying to say.

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Show Review: OCS aka Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Shannon Lay at The Chapel, 12/18/17

John Dwyer & Ty Segall have been doing their holiday benefit for the SF Coalition on Homelessness for quite a few years now. They have been doing it for so many years that it’s become an established Bay Area Holiday Tradition. However, Thee Oh Sees and Ty both have played the Bay Area twice already this year, which, at first, made me question whether or not this was going to happen this year. Happily, the gigs still happened. And, instead of playing it straight, we got two very, very surprising sets by two of the most prolific acts in modern music. Continue reading “Show Review: OCS aka Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Shannon Lay at The Chapel, 12/18/17”

Film Review: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Ninth installment sticks to the script

A rebel X-Wing doesn't know when to call it a day
A rebel X-Wing doesn’t know when to call it a day.

“Every once in awhile I have what I think of as an out-of-the-body experience at a movie,” wrote a rapturous Roger Ebert in the summer of 1977 of Star Wars. Later that year a more skeptical Pauline Kael, writing about the same film, said, “the loudness, the smash-and-grab editing, the relentless pacing drive every idea from your head.” Never could the duality of responses to the Star Wars series of films be better predicted. They are either the greatest experiences in a movie theater since L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat, or the biggest waste of time since Birdemic: Shock and Terror. Continue reading “Film Review: Star Wars: The Last Jedi“