Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
(Photo of Thank You Come Again by Marc Fong)
It’s not even Halloween yet, but it’s time to start getting ready for next Winter’s festivals! Noise Pop decided to extend to 11 whole days for next year, which is BONKERS! So it’s time to clear your calendar and stock up on hangover remedies so you can destroy your eardrums from February 22nd – March 3rd.
Early Bird badges are SOLD OUT, but watch this page for the next release. It’s certainly going to be worth the money.
Discovery Park in Sacramento was once again the site for Danny Wimmer Presents annual Aftershock Festival, a four-day rock and metal music festival featuring four stages of many of today’s bona fide headliners as well as plenty of promising new blood. It is also a bit of an endurance test. There are the crazy fans who run in as soon as the gates open and stand at the barricade for basically 11 hours, with no food or even the means to leave to find a restroom (because they’ll never get their spot back). Security did hand out plenty of water up there though so that nobody passed out in the mid-90° heat! There are others who try to take in as much as possible by going from stage to stage to stage all day long to see as many bands as they can. Many just get drunk and sit around on their picnic blanket or at the VIP section tables, while others take it all in stride and hit up the myriad of food trucks, beer tents, alcohol and cannabis vendors… all while everyone is dealing with a heat wave that much of Northern California happened to fall victim to over this very weekend.
Continue reading “Show Review: Aftershock 2023… West Coast’s Biggest Rock Festival!”
When I was nineteen, my friends and I had been known to crash a Hollywood party or two. At one party in particular, there was a beautiful young woman who looked about our age. She had spiky, cool hair dyed a shocking pink, oozed sexy confidence, and could sing like nobody’s business. I became a fan instantly. In the twenty-five years since, my love for Pink has only grown exponentially, not just because I think she has the best voice in the business, but because who she is as a person is someone I truly admire. Suffice it to say, I do everything I can not to miss her when she comes to town. This past weekend, that meant getting myself to Chase Center on Saturday night to catch her Trustfall tour. Continue reading “Show Review: P!nk with Grouplove and KidCutUp at Chase Center, 10/14/2023”
Chicago’s poet/singer/rapper Jamila Woods is very quickly becoming one of those rare artists that I’d buy anything from blind. Her latest record, Water Made Us, keeps dropping great singles. “Practice” is a sexy, romantic, and genuinely happy track. It’s such a nice relief from the exceptionally stressful news week we’ve had to listen to a song that’s such a joy. It’s also a rare video where every single person is naked, yet it’s somehow not NSFW?
Water Made Us is available to stream wherever you pay your monthly streaming dues to. The physical version of the record is coming October 24th, just a few days before my birthday, so if you feel like buying me this on vinyl, I’ll gladly accept it! Woods is also touring, and I’m pretty excited to see this show live. Tickets went on sale today! Continue reading “Single of the Week: “Practice” by Jamila Woods featuring Saba”
Despite what most of my articles may have you believe, I don’t solely listen to Metal and Punk music. I know, I know, illusion shattered, but I like to believe that despite my inkling towards heavy music, I still have a fairly eclectic taste. The commonality is probably in the thematic songwriting, which almost always leans a bit toward the darker side of things. What I’m trying to say is that I’m a pretty damn big fan of Ladytron, and I have been since my high school days. So of course, I jumped at the chance to catch them at The Belasco Theatre, a venue which is fast becoming my home away from home, in DTLA.
Continue reading “Show Review: Ladytron w/Danz CM @ The Belasco 09-22-23”
Twenty-one years ago, writer/director Rebecca Miller won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for her drama Personal Velocity. Other well-received films followed, including her last film, Arthur Miller: Writer, a 2017 HBO documentary about her famous father. She returns now with She Came to Me, her first narrative feature since 2015’s terrific Maggie’s Plan, and, given her past successes, the results are disappointing.
I guess we are getting a raunchy, musical adult update on The Parent Trap. And it’s called Dicks and it stars Nathan Lane, Megan Mullaly, and Megan Thee Stallion, and it seems pretty absurd. What isn’t absurd is how I’ve spent most of 2023 learning that Megan Thee Stallion is really, really talented. This piece is just chock-full of witty braggadocio, and I’m sure within the context of the film, it’s even wittier, but she is just a beast on the microphone.
Dicks is in theaters on October 20th, and the soundtrack is out NOW!
The 46th Mill Valley Film Festival is now underway! For a full view of special awards, spotlights, and centerpiece films, check out the complete festival guide. Tickets can be purchased here.
Below is our third preview of the Festival, featuring brief looks at four more films (If you missed our other preview posts, you can find them here and here):
Continue reading “Film Feature: Preview #3 of the 46th Mill Valley Film Festival”
Our coverage of the 46th Mill Valley Film Festival, which starts tomorrow, Thursday Oct. 5th, and runs through Sunday, Oct. 15th, continues below. We take a look at four titles worthy of your attention: two documentaries and two narrative features. You can browse the full program here, and read our first preview post here. Be sure to bookmark Spinning Platters to check back for more film snapshots during the Fest! And special note: although the Festival’s in person screenings end on the 15th, several films will be available for streaming after the Fest closes.
Continue reading “Film Feature: Preview #2 of the 46th Mill Valley Film Festival”
Good news! The *actual* greatest rock band in America has gifted us a new single, “Hell,” and it’s a cathartic piece of anxious psychedelic darkness. This is probably the biggest song to come from Sleater-Kinney- in a short 3:22, we are taken on a cinematic roller coaster that builds and releases and contracts and I haven’t even started on the video. Miranda July is making her third appearance in a Sleater-Kinney video, and, really, she is so good at expressing a wide array of emotions with just her eyes. Brilliant.
2024 marks the 30th Anniversary of the band’s first release, “You Ain’t It.” To mark this momentous occasion, they are releasing their 11th studio album, Little Rope, on January 19th. And, of course, they are going on a Spring North American tour! Dates are here, and tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. local time on October 6th!
