Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
Fun Fact: Bob Motherbaugh has a daughter in a punk band that doesn’t sound anything like Devo. Vaquita’s chops are closer to the classic pop-punk sound but aren’t afraid to toy with the listener’s emotions a bit and give a few surprise tempo changes. This leads to an awkward mosh but an enjoyable listen.
“On Her Side” is the first single off Vaquita’s latest record, Secrets, on Real Gone Music today.
There is nothing I love more than music that doesn’t fit into a tidy little box. And on this late fall Tuesday Night, August Hall presented two very different performers: Nilüfer Yanya and Angélica Garcia, two artists whose only thing they have in common is that I have to look up how to type diacritics to write their names. Oh, and their 2024 albums, My Method Actor and Gemelo, respectively, are works of genius likely to end up on everyone’s EOY lists. And when they came together at August Hall, they presented a thing of beauty.
Continue reading “Show Review: Nilüfer Yanya with Angélica Garcia at August Hall, 10/22/24”
Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF
As with every four-year election cycle, this 2024 United States presidential election season has been equally as boring as it is annoying, with the 24/7 news coverage and the debates and the spam texts and emails and the constant ads on the social feeds as well as in the physical mailbox.
Thankfully, the greatest live band in the universe, Antarctica’s very own GWAR, has once again stepped up to help out the American public… by executing all of the presidential candidates, present and past.
Spinning Platters is never one to avoid a good ole bloody mess, and with the expensive camera equipment properly covered, GWAR marched onto the stage and wasted no time in chopping off heads, hands, arms, and anything else available to spew their fluids onto all of those awaiting their bloody destiny.
Continue reading “Show Review: GWAR at The Regency Ballroom, 10/20/2024”
I’ve never been to the Moroccan Lounge in DTLA adjacent to Little Tokyo –the heritage center is right across Vignes Street–, but its homey charm immediately won me over. Most of the venues I cover have been on the larger size so it is always refreshing to be somewhere closer to the tiny clubs of my youth. If that sentence sounds familiar, it’s because that’s my nostalgia. It was also quite fitting that our proximity would be so close to the Japanese heart of Los Angeles since we were about to get our faces rocked off by a Japanese band, but first…
Continue reading “Show Review: TsuShiMaMiRe with skapeche mode at The Moroccan (DTLA)”
Review and All Photos by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF
For decades, Europe has led the way in the heavy metal and loud rock music festival space. Monsters of Rock (the originator, which started in 1980!), Wacken Open Air, Dynamo Open Air, Hellfest, Graspop, Copenhell, Rock am Ring, Rock im Park, Summer Breeze, Sweden Rock Fest and Download have always dominated the landscape with their amazing lineups year after year.
United States was never close in offering an equivalent heavy metal experience. Sure, there was Ozzfest and Mayhem Festival, but those have been gone since 2017 and 2015 and Americans have always leaned more towards indie rock music festivals like Lollapalooza, Coachella, Bonaroo, and Outside Lands anyway.
For the last twelve or so years, Danny Wimmer Presents (DWP) has been chipping away at the supremacy of the European heavy metal festivals, with Welcome To Rockville, Louder Than Life, Sonic Temple, Inkcarceration, Rock on the Range, Rocklahoma, Carolina Rebellion, and Northern California’s very own Aftershock Festival. With the best lineup it has ever had, West Coast’s Biggest Rock Festival definitely lived up to its name in 2024!
Continue reading “Show Review: The. Best. Aftershock. Ever.”
QWERTY II by Saya Gray is one of my favorite releases of 2024. It’s a sonic adventure that takes more twists and turns than expected in a single EP. But her psych prog soul jazz pop mega opus didn’t prepare me for “SHELL (OF A MAN).” All those elements are in play in this song, but if Gray landed in Nashville in 1976 and recorded the song with session players on Music Row. In a decade, Gray will be making music that strengthens your eardrums.
“SHELL (OF A MAN)” is the first single of Gray’s first full-length, SAYA, coming your way on February 21st. Pre-order / pre-save here!
Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF
In 1994, a simple blue cover adorned the release of the debut album of the then relatively unknown band Weezer. Three decades later, the Blue Album, as it has long been commonly known, was the central theme of their Voyage to the Blue Planet tour, which was to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
Continue reading “Show Review: Weezer + The Flaming Lips @ Chase Center, 10/09/2024”
As much as I’ve LOVED Hinds since they were called Deers, I feel like I’ve lost track of them. I missed their 2020 release, The Prettiest Curse, and haven’t seen them live since their 2016 appearance at the penultimate Treasure Island Music Festival. I kinda forgot about them, but their infectious single, “Boom Boom Back,” came up as a suggestion by the algorithm, and it hooked me in. Viva Hinds, their 4th full-length album (and first as a duo), is their most accessible record, and it’s fantastic. I made sure to clear my schedule to see them make their triumphant return to the USA. Continue reading “Show Review: Hinds, The Happy Return at The Chapel, 10/15/24”
Somewhere between the time-jumping emotional cuteness of About Time and the grounded indieness of Like Crazy lives the new romantic drama We Live in Time from director John Crowley (Brooklyn). Many of the films within this genre tend to live or die according to the chemistry between their two leads. Whereas everything around the two leads – the jokes, the sub-plots, the meet-cute setups, the best friends – are truly secondary, unable to sway whether a film is considered effective. The chemistry between Florence Pugh (Little Women) and Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) in We Live in Time is the movie’s biggest strength, and raises the film’s level of emotional effectiveness. However, the secondary factors fail by comparison, leaving the film fizzling in its search for more laughs and more profound meaning within its vignette structure. Continue reading “Film Review: “We Live in Time””
dear francis is the nom de plume of Jennifer Clavin, my personal favorite songwriter, possibly ever? She spent her teens and 20s co-fronting the legendary Mika Miko, then she broke off and put together the power-pop tinged Bleached, and now she’s gifted us with the third release as a solo artist, and it’s bloody intense. Produced by No Age’s Randy Randall, this song is about losing a dear friend to addiction and the complexities of the emotions involved. If you’ve been through this, the song will feel like a warm hug. If you haven’t, this track will get you a little closer to understanding someone who has.
There’s exciting stuff on the horizon with dear francis. New tracks can be found here as they arrive, and for those in LA, she’s debuting this project live ON MY BIRTHDAY (10/27) and Heavy Manners Library! (I’m on the Bay Area and can’t make it, but you should!)
