Show Review: GIVERS with White Arrows at Slim’s, 4/15/12

Photos by Marie Carney

April’s live musical options in the bay area are huge. Due to the sheer numbers of acts coming to town, mostly due to bands coming through because of Coachella. It means that you can be in twenty places at once in any given night this month. On the evening that I opted to see GIVERS, I decided based on putting five different gigs in a hat, and picking one at random. This brought me to Slim’s on a spring Sunday evening, and it very well could have been my best decision.

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Film Review: “The Lucky One”

Taylor Schilling and Zac Efron in THE LUCKY ONE

starring: Zac Efron, Taylor Schilling, Blythe Danner, Riley Thomas Stewart, Jay R. Ferguson

screenplay by: Will Fetters

directed by: Scott Hicks

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for some sexuality and violence

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Show Review: Refused with The Hives and The Bronx at The Warfield, 4/18/2012

Punk crusade throughout the land
Punk crusade throughout the land

At the end of the day, what truly compels someone to come to a concert is their love of the music that their favorite band plays — and the sheer energy with which they present it to their fans. Take away the light shows, the falling props, the dancing backdrops, and the larger-than-life haircuts, and what brings people to a concert, what REALLY sells out a club and packs its patrons in tighter than sardines in a tin can, is the overwhelming desire to watch an artist deliver their heart and soul onstage, in the form of bellowing voices, howling guitars, and an onstage presence that drains the viewer just by beholding it. Irrespective of genre, of geographical location, and even of time period, it is truly the mindbendingly ecstatic bands that pulls in all comers — even well-known and loved artists of other musical worlds. Thus, it was little surprise that members of bands such as Rise Against, Metallica, Faith No More, AFI, As I Lay Dying, Death Angel, and Sevendust were on hand to experience one of the most incredible performances of 2012, when newly-reunited Swedish hardcore juggernauts Refused took the stage at the Warfield Theatre in San Francisco and delivered a set that was paralyzing and stunning in its intensity.

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Show Review: Justice with The Rapture at The Fox Oakland, 4/17/2012

The massive stage rig for Justice's set
The massive stage rig for Justice's set

2012 has already begun as the Year of the Dance Music Show, with electronic acts dominating some of the most popular venues worldwide and music festivals across the country. The Ultra Music Festival brought in 60,000 attendees per day this year; I Love This City, coming Memorial Day Weekend, plans to overflow AT&T Park with fans and over 40 huge acts of the dance music world. It’s no surprise, therefore, that the hot ticket to catch is on the club circuit: any highly-successful electronic act that packs their titanic stage show into an under-5000-people theater to shake the walls with earth-shattering bass and wild dancing. Though you’d normally be hard-pressed to find anything that isn’t pulsing house or swaying dubstep to pack a venue with concertgoers aplenty, the Fox Theater played their cards right in welcoming French dancemasters Justice to Oakland between their Coachella weekend visits, and the duo delivered brilliantly with precision, style, and a dizzying array of lights and sound.

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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.

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Show Review: Chilly Gonzales: “The Piano Talk Show” at Hotel Utah Saloon, 4/7/12

Chilly Gonzales is not a household name in the USA, yet he is a very accomplished and successful musician. In America, his two most famous pieces of work are connected to Apple commercials, where his identity is entirely concealed. It puts him in a interesting place where he essentially has the freedom to do as he wishes, while still making a living as a musician. Thus bringing him to the tiny SOMA bar, Hotel Utah Saloon, doing a one man show on a Saturday night.

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Show Review: Sleigh Bells with Javelin and Elite Gymnastics at The Warfield, 4/5/12

Photos By Homirah Amiri

The life span of a band under the current hype machine can be rather short. Often times, the hype is so intense that people are sick of you before your first single is released. By the time the second record comes out, all of the ironically facial haired masses will have you filed away under Friendster. The only option a band has if they want to stay alive is to introduce themselves to a whole new audience. Sleigh Bells are at that place. The cool kids that embraced them in the beginning have totally rejected them, and it’s time for genuine music fans to take them in.

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Show Review: Rodrigo y Gabriela and C.U.B.A. at The Fox Oakland, 4/5/2012

An acoustic/electric faceoff with Rodrigo y Gabriela
An acoustic/electric faceoff with Rodrigo y Gabriela

Transitioning from being a solo artist (or in this case, a minimalistic acoustic duo) to having a full band behind you is a great risk, no matter what type of musician chooses to take it. Your songs transform, in scope and shape, in feel and form, and the result can either pull in a larger audience than ever before, or cause even the most adoring critics to suddenly turn their noses up at you. Such a dramatic shift in the mood and presentation of your art requires a great deal of work and dedication to perfecting your craft, and it may even require you to explore new methods of songwriting and arrangement that you had never approached within your career. When Mexican thrash-flamenco maestros Rodrigo y Gabriela traveled to Havana and recorded their new album, Area 52, with a host of 13 Cuban musicians (tonight appearing in the form of musical ensemble C.U.B.A.), fans and critics alike paled at the thought of the super-concentrated thrill of the pair’s frenetic guitar mastery drowning in a sea of lush but overwhelming sound. On their 2012 tour, the two have set out to prove that none of the magic that they’ve amazed audiences the world over with has disappeared; indeed, new life has been breathed into it, as it scales into a higher, deeper, and even more magnificent form.

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