Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
Guess what?!? This is the first time I’ve ever recorded an interview with the intent of the video being seen and not heard. And it was with the incredibly talented and friendly Izzy Bizu! Her most recent EP is a horn-laden bit of R&B confection called Flower Power and can be enjoyed RIGHT NOW from your favorite streaming service here!
I also took some photos with her from the Outside Lands Press Tent:
Continue reading “Outside Lands 2023: 22 Instant Set Reviews”
Anyone following Steven Wilson’s career, either via his work with Porcupine Tree or solo, has at least a tertiary understanding of his work as a remixer. He has done remixes of back catalogs for absolute legends like King Crimson, YES, XTC, ELP, and Jethro Tull, not to mention one-offs of bands like Black Sabbath, Opeth, Caravan, Chicago; the list goes on. He has spoken in interviews stressing the difference between a remix and a remaster and how much more work goes into remixing. Surround sound is nothing exactly new in this day and age. Still, technology has advanced over the years since 5.1 gave way to 7.1, which gave way to Dolby Atmos – the current standard for theatrical surround sound – allowing for all sorts of experimentation as home sound systems have been catching up.
Continue reading “Album Review: Steven Wilson — The Harmony Codex”
I know, it’s the first day of Outside Lands, and, sadly, the first year in a while without an Outside Lambs area, so, of course, I have to pick a “McLamb” for Single Of The Week. Well, the pun is unintentional. The song? Purely intentional. A warm and hooky song about the lengths people go to in order to become an idealized sexual partner? Well, that ticks all the boxes for me. I love the song, and I’m ready to dig further into McLamb’s catalog.
Eliza McLamb has recently signed with Royal Mountain Records, so expect more to come. Until then, you can enjoy “Mythologize Me” in all the usual places, and check out her podcast, Binchtopia, here!
Lily Gladstone first garnered attention for her quietly affecting breakout role in Kelly Reichardt’s 2016 indie award winner Certain Women. She’s been back in the spotlight recently, thanks to Martin Scorsese, who cast her as Mollie, wife to Leonardo DiCaprio’s Ernest, in Scorsese’s highly anticipated upcoming adaptation of Killers of the Flower Moon. In between, Gladstone worked on several other projects (First Cow; Walking Out) and finally landed her first leading role in The Unknown Country, a beautiful, meditative film worthy of her talents.
There are two pieces of classic literature to which I’m happily devoted in the case of any film adaptation, re-imagining, modern take, or spin-off: Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I’ll save any further reading into my personal attachment to these two stories for therapy, because right now the latter intellectual property has a new entry in a long lineage of film adaptations, The Last Voyage of the Demeter. Based on a short but haunting chapter from the original Dracula text, The Last Voyage of the Demeter continues director André Øvredal’s impressive filmmaking streak, but too many imbalanced components can’t keep this Demeter afloat.
Continue reading “Film Review: “The Last Voyage of the Demeter””
It’s been a long and difficult saga for Brendon Small, but with the upcoming release Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar, we will finally have a conclusion to the story of the “greatest band on earth,” Dethklok. Despite the more obvious humor of Metalocalypse, there has always been a love and adoration for heavy music, from the overarching score, guitar squealing censor blips, and the four absolute crushers of albums.
Buddy Guy is a legend! The last time I saw Buddy Guy perform was a tribute to his late friend Jr. Wells. Almost a century later, he is better than ever and a little spicy while roasting the Grove audience. Buddy is known for helping younger artists achieve success. Opener Eric Gales may be young in comparison; yet, was epic on his own. Continue reading “Show Review: Buddy Guy and Eric Gales Bring the Blues to Stern Grove”
Every great once in a while, an artist comes along that is impossible to shake. I found Blondshell in the most old school of manners- a late-night TV performance. Since then, her self-titled debut record has been in perpetual rotation. Bright Eyes was first introduced to me as the sound of someone inserting their hand into their chest, ripping out their heart, and handing it to you. Blondshell, on record, essentially does just that. I’ve been aching to experience this live show for months at this point.
Continue reading “Show Review: Blondshell with Hello Mary at Cafe du Nord, 8/4/23”
It’s been about six years since the last Corinne Bailey Rae single. And I’ve always known that Rae has been unafraid to showcase a wide variety of influences, but I never would’ve expected a super sweaty, 1:57 driving rocker to come from her. It’s so fast you could miss the song, but if you jump in before it gets away from you, you get a concise story and a solid HIIT workout all at once.
“New York Transit Queen” is the first single from Black Rainbows, a multi-media project that Rae has been working on for the past six years, inspired by Theaster Gates’ collection at Stony Island Arts Bank. The audio portion can be pre-ordered here and will be out on September 15th.
