Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
This week is the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in Golden Gate Park. It’s the best thing that ever happens in this town. You will go to this, but there are a few things going on at night that are pretty good, too. Check them out:
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide To Bay Area Concerts: September 29th-October 5th”
Una de las mejores cosas sobre viviendo en los Estados Unidos es el hecho que todos quieren ser el crossover aquí. Esto significa que conseguimos a las estrellas arena-clasificadas de los países extranjeros que aquí tocan pequeños lugares a las pequeñas audiencias. Incluso si usted no conoce el trabajo del artista, todavía recomiendo enteramente ver uno de estos conciertos. Es una experiencia bastante asombrosa para conseguir un espectáculo grande en un pequeño lugar.
One of the greatest things about living in America is the fact that everyone wants to crossover here. This means that we often get arena-sized stars from foreign countries playing small venues to small audiences here. Even if you are unfamiliar with the artist’s work, I still wholly recommend seeing one of these shows. It’s a pretty amazing experience to get a big spectacle in a small place.
Continue reading “Reseñar de concierto: Paulina Rubio en teatro de Fox — Oakland, 9/26/09”
This week at Spinning Platters, we reviewed lots of shows, plenty of albums, and made some lists. For our new week in review feature, I’ll let you in on what our Top 5 most trafficked new posts were, and invite you to check them out if you haven’t already. Come back this weekend for review of Living Colour with Fishbone, and follow us at @SpinnPlatt for plenty of giddy drunken remarks live from The Zoopy Show. Now, click through to see our busiest posts of the week. Continue reading “Week in Review: Top 5 Posts for Sept 18-24”
I’m wholly unqualified to a review a Manic Street Preachers show. This is because I’m an American. The Manics (as I’ll refer to them for the rest of our time together) never did have any hits stateside. They were always a cult band here, and I was never part of that cult. If I were to make a ranked list of all the Britpop bands that I like (as opposed to ones I’m either ambivalent about or dislike), the Manics would be at the bottom of that list. They’d make the list, for sure, but they’d be right below Ash, and apologies to Kula Shaker. That said, I’m going to review it anyway. Continue reading “Show Review: Manic Street Preachers and Nico Vega at The Fillmore, 9/24/09”
When Pouria started writing this weekly column, he said there might be weeks where he was too busy to listen to 30-or-so albums. I said, “no problem, we can get a guest columnist on those weeks.” So when he told me this week that he was too busy doing stuff like seeing Bon Iver to write this week’s column, I said “wait, you were serious about that?” Since I hadn’t arranged a guest, I’m doing it myself. Let’s just say that doing this is a lot harder than Pouria makes it look. Now, on to the mini-reviews. Continue reading “New Release Round Up 9/22/09 — 29 Instant Album Reviews”
Pet Shop Boys concerts exist in their own universe. A universe of abstract expressionism, interpretative dance, avant-garde fashion, modular sets and (for this tour anyway) Adidas sports wear. They are such elaborate productions that the Pet Shop Boys themselves are almost accessories in their own shows. But that’s how it should be. From the very beginning they knew their minimalistic style couldn’t carry an entire concert. So they hired world class dancers and set designers to produce dazzling abstract synthpoperas. Continue reading “Show Review: Pet Shop Boys at The Warfield, 9/23/09”
What I learned last night: when going to a live Bon Iver show, it’s best to not have any expectations.
What I saw at the Fillmore last night went far beyond anything I imagined. It’s not that he had some stage act or any gimmicks; the tracks you love will be drastically different, but in an amazing way.
Bon Iver made a point to smash my expectation of a purely acoustic set, into a mixture of sounds and methods. Distortion, thumping bass, electric-slide guitars, ROCKING, respect-gathering falsettos, crowd participation, and delicate acoustic sets were what he served me up. I ate it up and was left wanting more. Continue reading “Show Review: Bon Iver at The Fillmore, 9/22/09”
Episode 5 of the Spinning Platters podcast features guest Caroline Hernandez of Spinning Platters joining us to discuss the upcoming Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. As always, we go off on our crazy tangents, and we invite you to listen to the crazy digital-delay blooper all the way at the end of the podcast.
We also discuss the following: Continue reading “Spinning Platters Podcast: Episode 5 — Digital Delay”
[Editor’s Note: Spinning Platters does not actually encourage the murder of pop stars.]
I really can’t stand Kanye West. The character that he has created, the socially awkward egotist, comes off unnatural and a bit bothersome. He has become an icon that is bigger than the music he creates, which is generally a bit boring. His emotional outbursts in the beginning were funny, but now are just embarrassing. I agree that George W. Bush may not care about black people, but I don’t think Kanye was looking to make a statement, he was looking for a soundbite.
I should not be so judgmental. He may even be a nice guy! So, I will do the Christian thing and compile a list of six things that Kanye West has done that I believe are good things.
Thus begins my six reasons not to kill Kanye West:
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Picks Six: Reasons Not To Kill Kanye West”
Fall has begun, which means lots of shows that aren’t big festivals… Get back to the clubs and help those kids make some money!!!
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide To Bay Area Concerts: September 22nd-28th”