In less than a week, the seventh installment of the biggest and best day-long music technology conference to ever grace the Bay Area will take place on Monday, December 6th at Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco’s Japantown district. If you’re an artist, music journalist, or involved in any facet of the industry, then you certainly don’t want to miss out on the sessions or, quite frankly, the abundance of opportunities to network and learn from some of the leaders and innovators in this space. After the jump, find out more about the event and how you can save money simply by being a reader of Spinning Platters…
No, it's not Easter, but we've got a Zombie Jesus band playing, so I thought that I'd run with this.
Happy Black Friday, ladies & gentlemen! I was very busy yesterday, and fell alseep while trying to compile this list for Thursday, so I apologize if my lack of guidance made Thanksgiving horrible. Please enjoy these tips, instead, and we will be back next week on schedule!
Mary Timony, Janet Weiss, and Carrie Brownstein of Wild Flag. All photos by Christopher Rogers.
WOW.
Wild Flag, the much-buzzed new supergroup featuring Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney, Mary Timony of Helium, Janet Weiss of S-K and Quasi, and Rebecca Cole of The Minders, made their Bay Area debut last night. And what a debut it was.
As massive undertakings go, a tour focused around three-show residencies, full-album sets, and no-opener-just-what-you-paid-to-see performances is pretty high up on the list. The ante is upped even further when the third night of said shows is focused on an album entirely comprised of cover songs — most of which, according to the band tonight, had never been played live before. The thousand-plus fans that showed up to witness A Perfect Circle perform these songs at the final night of their Fillmore residency reacted to such a statement with awe and applause — while all good things must, eventually, come to an end, the precision and care that the band emphasized in tonight’s show helped their stay come to a brilliant conclusion, and the crowd was all the more excited to witness it.
Noomi Rapace, err, Carrie Browstein and Janet Weiss with their new supergroup, WILD FLAG, at the Doug Fir Lounge in Portland earlier this week. Photo by Inger Klekacz.
Check out the concerts around the Bay Area this week — after the jump.
The average passerby outside The Fillmore this evening might have been puzzled at the sight that met their eyes. Several hundred people — maybe around a thousand at the most — all lined up next to the post office? There’s no big tour bus, no semi full of stage gear, parked out in front of the famous club. The more keen-eyed observers — specifically, those who might have happened by this location yesterday — might also have spotted a great deal of people from the night before this one. What would possibly draw so many people back again? It’s still two hours before the doors open, but the devoted fans of A Perfect Circle don’t mind the wait; tonight marks the second of the band’s 3-night album-performance residency at the Fillmore, with their sophomore effort Thirteenth Step taking center stage for the evening that was to follow.
As singer Maynard James Keenan would say later on that night, the message of excitement that ran through the crowd was a simple one: “Welcome to Night Two.”
Delta Spirit, one of my personal favorite bands, is coming to the Bay Area in December. Their breakthrough album Ode to Sunshine was packed with such raw, personable authenticity that it was shocking to find out they had emerged from my hometown of San Diego (land of the cultural brain fart). This band came together organically. Through the music you can hear the enjoyment of their jamming together and the shit-talking session that ensues, which is at the core of what makes it work. Their music is intimate, free and unapologetic like a good drunken conversation. I can’t wait to hear what they’ve come out the recording cabin with this time. They have a steady track record of releasing an album every two years and then touring like, well, like dedicated musicians. Continue reading “Spinning Platters Interview: Brandon Young of Delta Spirit”
