Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
Last night was freezing, and the hot toddies at Café du Nord hit the sweet spot. The waft of warm whiskey, lemon and clove set a tone for the evening filled with intoxicating songs, indie style. Continue reading “Noise Pop Show Review: Versus with Telekinesis, The Love Language and The Burnt Ones at Cafe Du Nord, 2/23/2011”
At least for a couple hours, it’s Dan Deacon’s show and we just live in it. You know it right from the beginning; from before the show even, considering his reputation. The acts before him were pretty straightforward players (save for Ed Schrader’s Music Beat but more on that soon) but Deacon breaks it from the get-go: starts a piece that gets the crowd all riled up, plays just a few seconds and then abruptly stops “Okay that works,” he says. What a tease. Continue reading “Noise Pop Show Review: Dan Deacon with Altars, Oona and Ed Schrader’s Music Beat at The Independent, 2/22/2011”
I make no secret of the fact that A Thousand Suns was my favorite album of 2010. I’ve been jeered by other music nerds many times for this. Then, when hanging out near the box office trying to buy a decent ticket to last night’s show, one woman said “It’s not completely sold out, I guess. Because the new album’s no good.” Now this may be the conventional wisdom of a lot of Linkin Park fans, including many in attendance at the HP Pavilion last night, but they’re wrong. It’s a great album that’s pushed the band and their live show about a thousand times forward. Continue reading “Show Review: Linkin Park with Prodigy at HP Pavilion, 2/22/2011”
Nearly a year ago to the day, the Fox Theater played host to the first big act of the 2010 Noise Pop Festival, which arrived in the form of Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band. The group’s first arrival to the Bay Area was met with wild enthusiasm, and the set itself was a scene of sonic mass hysteria, with the warbles and shrieks of Yoko accompanying the wild swing and over-the-top rock of her backing band. It seems only fitting, therefore, that the following year needed to be kicked off in a similar manner — a night of balls-out rock, groovy jams, and snarling static chaos — which is probably the main reason why the New Jersey indie rock trio Yo La Tengo was invited to the Fox Theater for the first night of the 2011 Noise Pop Festival.
Continue reading “Noise Pop Show Review: Yo La Tengo with The Urinals at The Fox Oakland, 2/22/2011”
The weather on Saturday night in San Francisco was leaning on the side of foreboding by the late afternoon hours, with dark clouds ahead, scattered moments of showers and mist, and a vastly cold wind that was a stark contrast to the bright crispy winter days that the Bay Area had seen recently. By the time the sun dipped beneath the horizon on Saturday night, the cold and wet had amplified themselves and were coming to rest on a long line of people huddled together outside of the Warfield Theater. A large group of these people would brave the dry yet even colder evenings that followed at the Great American Music Hall. The weather was most appropriate for the mood and occasion, and for the band that was finally returning to San Francisco for the first time in over seven years: the Canadian post-rock octet known as Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Here were not the sunny glories of Sigur Rós, nor the numbing white noise of Mogwai; this was an experience that foretold the end of the world, the beginning of life, and everything in between, with eight musicians sounding like a symphony from worlds beyond.
Continue reading “Show Review: Three Nights with Godspeed You! Black Emperor”
As we all know, tackling a festival like Noise Pop can be tough… There’s a lot if different things to do, and you know that they are all awesome, but how do we know which events are most awesomest of all? Well, since I am of great personal taste, you should simply obey my guidelines, and then you can do no wrong.
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Guide To Noise Pop 2011”
Earlier that day, not knowing who Nicole Atkins was, I listened to two songs on YouTube. On record, she has a strong, beautiful, and towering voice. I would probably like it to Stacy Dupree, the lead singer of Eisley, every bit as pretty and powerful, but just a tad lower and a little more soulful. It was enough for me to decide to check out the show that night. I walked in expecting a well-defined showcase for that wonderful voice and a fairly relaxed atmosphere. I’m not sure I received any of it, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
There’s always a war within a smaller venue show for an artist with a great voice. Do you soften up everything else and let the voice shine, or do you just say forget it, and rock out? I’ve seen both sides of the equation many times and have been disappointed by both. Most often, I tend to side with the showcase of the voice. When a voice is gorgeous, it almost feels like a waste for it to be muddled by guitar, bass, and drums that are turned up too loud. But tonight was a night for rocking, and that is, exactly what happened.
Continue reading “Show Review: Nicole Atkins, Cotton Jones, That Ghost at Cafe du Nord, 2/16/11”
starring: Liam Neeson, January Jones, Diane Kruger, Aidan Quinn, Bruno Ganz, Frank Langella
directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of violence and action, and brief sexual content.
For most of the ’90s, the name “Gregg Araki” was synonymous with edgy underground movies about armageddon and alienation, with bursts of disturbing violence and, most importantly for those of us who were going through puberty at the time, lots of graphic pansexual coupling. Emerging from the New Queer Cinema scene with films like The Living End and Totally Fucked Up, Araki earned his place in the cult-movie pantheon with his sex-and-apocalypse masterworks The Doom Generation and Nowhere.
Then, after 1999’s comparatively tame romantic comedy Splendor, Araki stunned fans and critics alike with the devastating drama Mysterious Skin, which starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a revelatory, career-best performance as a furious hustler living in the aftermath of the molestation he suffered as a young boy. Araki followed this with a much lighter offering, the delightful Anna Faris stoner comedy Smiley Face.
But for those of us who’ve always had a soft (or hard) spot for his ’90s heyday, there’s good news: the old Araki is back in business with Kaboom, which out-sexes and over-apocalypses even his most delirious big-screen moments. Araki recently sat down with Spinning Platters to discuss creative freedom, talking to Republicans about gay sex, and the Doom Generation commentary track we’ve all been waiting for.
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Interview: Gregg Araki on “Kaboom””