Show Review: Coldplay with The Pierces and Metronomy at HP Pavilion, 4/28/2012

Jonny Buckland and Chris Martin (with Guy Berryman in background)

To most of the fans in attendance at HP Pavilion this past Saturday night, I might have seemed crazy… or at least like I’ve been living under a rock since 2000. That’s not to say that I’ve never heard of Coldplay, or don’t enjoy the singles I’ve been hearing over the years, or that I dislike them. I just never caught the fever. Much like U2, Coldplay was always a band I liked, but had never gotten rabid about like their hardcore fans. In my experience, when I feel that ambivalent about a band, I often think that most of their songs sound the same. I remember when “Yellow” came out: I was 21, and I loved it. And after that, for some reason, I never paid much attention. But here I am, 12 years later, and the opportunity to see (and review) them falls into my lap – do I go? Hell yes! I couldn’t pass up a chance to see what all the fuss was about, and I knew I’d leave the show with a forever “meh” attitude about them, or come home having caught the fever…

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Spinning Platters Interview: Patty Schemel on “Hit So Hard”

It’s been twenty years since Patty Schemel became the drummer for Hole at the age of 25 in 1992. At the time, the band consisted entirely of co-founders Courtney Love and Eric Erlandson. The bassist and drummer with whom they’d recorded their grinding debut album, Pretty on the Inside, had moved on; Patty was recommended to Courtney by Kurt Cobain, who initially wanted Patty for Nirvana before settling on Dave Grohl. Patty had been a fixture in the Pacific Northwest indie-punk scene since the mid-’80s, but little about those experiences could have prepared her for the mind-melting, generation-defining roller coaster ride through heaven and hell on which she was about to have a front-car seat. Those explosive years, the drug-addled abyss that followed, and her hard-fought redemption are chronicled in shockingly intimate detail in a new documentary called Hit So Hard.

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Show Review: Ingrid Michaelson with Harper Blynn at The Fillmore, 4/25/2012

Ingrid Michaelson and her uke

Prior to this week, I couldn’t have picked Ingrid Michaelson out of a police line-up. I had more than a good handful of her songs on my iPod, and had seen her on at least one TV appearance and multiple album covers, but she appears to be somewhat chameleonic if you judge by those: from the girl with the ponytail and the face paint on the cover of Be OK to the girl-next-door blonde on Everybody to the bundled-up brunette in hipster glasses in last year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, I really didn’t know who she was, other than a girl with a voice I really liked. Thankfully, last Wednesday night at the Fillmore, I had the opportunity to find out for myself just what Ingrid Michaelson is all about.

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Film Review: “The Five-Year Engagement”

Emily Blunt and Jason Segel on what looks suspiciously like the roof-top patio at 2 Folsom in THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT

starring: Jason Segel, Emily Blunt, Chris Pratt, Alison Brie, Jacki Weaver, Chris Parnell, Rhys Ifans, Brian Posehn, Mindy Kaling, Mimi Kennedy, David Paymer, Dakota Johnson

written by: Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller

directed by: Nicholas Stoller

MPAA: Rated R for sexual content, and language throughout

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SFIFF Review: Merrill Garbus and Ava Mendoza present Buster Keaton Shorts at The Castro Theater, 4/23/12

Photo by Pamela Gentile, courtesy of San Francisco Film Society

One of the great traditions of the San Francisco International Film Festival has been pairing up an indie rock band with a classic silent film. In past years these have always been classier films, such as 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea or A Page Of Madness. It seemed to be a risky move to do something as populist as the slapstick comedy of Buster Keaton. Of course, in a genius move, they called upon Merrill Garbus, the mastermind behind Oakland’s experimental pop outfit tUnE-yArDs to compose and perform an all new score for four classic Buster Keaton short films. Garbus called up local avant garde guitarist Ava Mendoza to help compose the score, which they also performed live, alongside Nate Brenner on bass, and a horns section made up of Noah Bernstein and Matt Nelson.

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Film Review: “The Raven”

John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe in THE RAVEN

starring: John Cusack, Luke Evans, Alice Eve, Brendan Gleeson, Kevin McNally

screenplay by: Ben Livingston and Hannah Shakespeare

directed by: James McTeigue

MPAA: Rated R for bloody violence and grisly images

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Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 4/26/12-5/2/12

Playing Thursday Night at The Regency Ballroom

We’ve got another full week of shows, and this one is chock full of some truly interesting and experimental music. Open your mind and your ears and go out this week!

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Show Review: St. Vincent and tUnE-yArDs with Kapowski at The Fox Oakland, 4/24/2012

The leading ladies of the evening
The leading ladies of the evening

If you asked someone what their favorite record by a female singer in 2011 was, odds are you would have gotten a reply that fit one of two options: 21 by Adele, or Ceremonials by Florence and the Machine. Both topped charts, and the former swept the Grammys, taking home the coveted Album Of The Year award, among others. Sadly, out of the spotlight (and off the radar for many a casual music fan) were a pair of records that rounded out Spinning Platters’ 2nd and 3rd place winners for our Album Picks of 2011, both by extraordinary women who have been captivating audiences all over the country, perhaps even the world, with their otherworldly but gorgeously eclectic brand of experimental indie rock. To pair the two together is a feat in and of itself, as the two have very different backgrounds — both in their own respective songwriting and in their own performing history — but it was, no doubt, an effective combination, as evidenced by the near sold-out crowd that arrived at Oakland’s Fox Theater on Tuesday night. The pair had skipped briefly across the country, even between two weekends at Coachella, and now were coming to the end of their trip: the Oklahoma-born, Manhattan-based Annie Clark, better known by her stage name St. Vincent, and Oakland’s own Merrill Garbus, more well known under the zanily-punctuated pseudonym of tUnE-yArDs.

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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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