Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
Now that Labor Day has come & gone, and the bridge is fully functioning again, here’s another guide to a week’s worth of rock & roll that you might enjoy:
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide To Bay Area Concerts: September 8th-14th”
You may not realize you know Ingrid Michaelson, but you do. Back in 2007 her album Girls and Boys launched her into the stratosphere of VH1’s artists “you oughta know” fueled by the ubiquitous “The Way I Am.” You’ve also not realized you were listening to her while you watched such quality television shows as Grey’s Anatomy, One Tree Hill and Scrubs. An album a year later, her newest release Everybody arrived last week on August 25th. Will it also be something you constantly hear in the background of your favourite tv shows or will this be the album that brings Ingrid Michaelson to the forefront? Continue reading “Album Review: Ingrid Michaelson — Everybody”
As we recover from our wonderful weekend in Golden Gate Park, dealing with our sunburns (Friday & Saturday) and our hypothermia (Sunday), here’s a few more shows to keep you going. All of them good, or at least have the potential for good.
On a side note: the Bay Bridge is closed this weekend, but BART will be running all night, so if you wanted to get wasted on the other side of the Bay on which you reside, this is the weekend to do it!
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide To Bay Area Concerts: September 1st-7th”
In the world of hyper-literate esoterock fathered by Collin Meloy and nursed by Joanna Newsom came the Wild Beasts to remind us it should never be taken seriously. Their debut album Limbo, Panto along with their first five singles took the train The Decemberists made out of antique English imagery and lyrical grandiloquence and drove it off cliff, which is, frankly, where it belonged in the first place. Continue reading “Album Review: Wild Beasts — Two Dancers”
Australia’s Jet is back with Shaka Rock, its follow up to 2006’s Shine On. Can these Aussie rockers bring the goods again, or have they moved on or changed their sound? Let’s see. Continue reading “Album Review: Jet — Shaka Rock”
Today I attended the show as a volunteer. It’s a good deal, you help out with some element if the show in the morning, and by late afternoon, you are free to enjoy the rest of the show. If you work at night, you get to see an entire different day. It’s a pretty decent deal, and if they do it next year, I recommend it. Just check out the official site next year, and you will find the instructions on how to sign up.
Continue reading “Outside Lands Festival Journal: Log 2, Day 3”
Today was mainly a working day for me. I needed to be at the info booth by 4:00, and I wasn’t going to get to the park until almost 2:00, so what would I be seeing? The short answer? Not much. The long answer? A lot of really cold people, a few minutes of a few bands, one entire set, and a lot sad people. Continue reading “Outside Lands Festival Diary: Part 4 — Sunday, 8/30/09”
Here’s my Outside Lands story. You may already be asking yourself why I am starting on Day 2. The answer is simple. I did not attend the first day. I went last year on Friday, and was so annoyed by the set up of the festival, that I did not attend again, and I was considering not doing it at all this year. I felt that security was far too sparse throughout the inside of the venue, and I also felt that they layout of the stages made it difficult to navigate through the venue. The biggest issue from 2008 was placing Radiohead on the main stage immediately after Beck played a side stage, which was about 15 minutes away by foot on a normal day, but they also made the walkway between the two stages about 2 people wide. To make matters worse, the audio kept cutting out during Radiohead’s set.
Continue reading “Outside Lands Festival Journal: Log 1, Day 2”
Running as fast as I could from the Studio on the Tenth Floor on New Montgomery, after the newest Spinning Platters podcast recording (cough), I made it to the bus stop only to find myself hoping I wouldn’t miss Emiliana Torrini’s first song. Long story short, I gave in, hopped a cab, and made it just into the middle of song two (sorry, I know I know, Blur pun….I couldn’t help myself). Continue reading “Emiliana Torrini at the Great American Hall, 8/18/09”
I was excited to wake up and find my cold had subsided, and off I went back to Golden Gate Park for an early afternoon of volunteering and listening to bands chosen especially for me based on their proximity to my volunteering site. My exciting adventures for today included potentially getting food poisoning, a random passerby saying some really strange stuff to me, and almost getting into a fight. Join me on Saturday at Outside Lands. Continue reading “Outside Lands Festival Diary: Part 3 — Saturday, 8/29/08”