Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
Of the 25 albums I checked out this week I’m most looking forward to Scanners and Pokey LaFarge & the South City Three making their rounds in The Bay. Continue reading “New Release Round Up 2/16/10 — 25 Instant Album Reviews”
Spinning Platters gets asked to review a lot of albums. And the ones I’ve been hearing lately? Awful. (Yes, I’m looking at you Nick Jonas. Why couldn’t your solo album sound like this!?!). So when I got an email last week from our managing editor Dakin asking me to review Meaghan Smith’s first album The Cricket’s Orchestra I was unsure to say the least. But Dakin told me “She’s a Canadian singer/songwriter who is influenced by music from the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. If you don’t like it, no one will and it would deserve a bad review.” And I’m sure he’s right. Continue reading “Album Review: Meaghan Smith — The Cricket’s Orchestra”
On the newest episode of the Spinning Platters Podcast, we welcome Dawson Ludwig from Noise Pop to talk about the upcoming 2010 Noise Pop Festival. Join us as we discuss our highlights of the festival, wonder about the history of the festival, talk about what we’ve been listening to, and go off in a million different directions. You can subscribe by clicking the giant button to the left, or listen below. Continue reading “Spinning Platters Podcast — Episode 17: Noise Pop 2010”
As we warm up to the upcoming Noise Pop Festival, here’s a few shows to let you warm up your earplugs with.
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 2/17/10-2/23/10”
Sure, you can reload Consequence of Sound three hundred times and find out the lineup for the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. Then you could pay hundreds of dollars for a ticket, drive down there, find a hotel, deal with traffic, the heat, and worst off, end up wearing an umbrella hat.
You could also enjoy Fauxchella. What’s that? Continue reading “2010 Fauxchella Lineup Announced!”
There’s something unmistakably unique about the music created by San Diego-based multi-instrumentalist Jimmy LaValle. It penetrates your soul and lingers long after you’ve stopped listening to the electronically-tinged indie rock melodies that reel you in with inviting, ambient choruses. I got hooked after discovering “The Light” on The Hype Machine from their 2006 breakthrough masterpiece, Into the Blue, a year back. Continue reading “Show Review: The Album Leaf at Great American Music Hall, 2/12/10”
You could go to SXSW and see lots of indie buzz bands from Brooklyn. If that’s your thing, great! As for me, I’ll be running around Austin chasing down the chance to see bands from other countries visit our shores, sometimes for the first time, sometimes for the only time. (I even have a tradition of seeing a band I’ve never heard of, from a country I’ve never been to. Give this one a shot.)
So if you go to Austin, and want to hear the best of pop music from the Old World, make sure to check out these six bands.
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Picks Six: European Pop Acts You Should Go See at SXSW 2010”
Gil Scott-Heron’s new album I’m New Here is a look back at his life and the lives of the people in his life. On I’m New Here, Scott-Heron starts off with a tribute to the person he considers his mother, grandmother Lily Scott. The majority of the album deals with death, responsibility, and socio-economic issues. Continue reading “Album Review: Gil Scott-Heron — I’m New Here”
There was nothing conventionally romantic about soul legend/civil rights icon Mavis Staples’ Valentine’s Day weekend shows at Yoshi’s Oakland. But while the fleeting whimsies of romance may have been absent, they were replaced by something much more substantive: the fiercely passionate love, devotion, and commitment with which Ms. Staples, 70, has tackled her stirring, liberating material ever since she first began recording with her family band, The Staples Singers, sixty years ago.
Continue reading “Show Review: Mavis Staples at Yoshi’s Oakland, 2/13/10”
This week at Spinning Platters, we reviewed a few new albums, saw a few shows, and told you what shows to see. Although this post is meant to tell you the busiest new posts of the week, I’d like to mention that we had a strange boost of traffic on an old review of a show by Rooney and Tally Hall. It got mentioned on a Rooney message board, and Rooney fans are spectacularly loyal. Welcome, fans of Rooney! I hope you’re still reading. As for our top five new posts? Continue reading “Week in Review: Top 5 Posts from 2/5/10 — 2/11/10”