Show Review: Perfume Genius, Madame Gandhi at Stern Grove, 06/27/21

The Shy Reverence of Being Back Together Again…

Towering silver eucalyptus and cascading gold nasturtium cradled the colorful crowd on Pride Sunday. This was the first live music many of the Stern Grove goers had attended since the pandemic. The vibe was a mellow picnic; towels, shawls, and blankets quilted the ground, families and friends gathered carefully upon them. We aren’t quite back to normal yet, but it seems promising. Continue reading “Show Review: Perfume Genius, Madame Gandhi at Stern Grove, 06/27/21”

Film Review: “The Summer of Soul”

The revolution is finally televised

Gladys Knight and the Pips at the Harlem Cultural Festival
Gladys Knight and the Pips at the Harlem Cultural Festival

The scene: Thousands of music lovers packed around a stage. Guitars, drums, keys, horns, harmonicas all playing together, and together getting heads to bob and bodies to sway. It’s the summer of ‘69, and this isn’t Woodstock. Continue reading “Film Review: “The Summer of Soul””

Single Of The Week: “I Confuse Us” by Caitlin Cobb-Vialet

“I Confuse Us” is a song that feels equally warm and uncomfortable. It’s the rare genius composition that incorporates unusual rhythms and the occasional off-key note not because the performer made a mistake but because the performer wants you to feel the song’s awkwardness. Not since the early works of Regina Spektor have, I heard someone reinvent the simple sound of voice and piano in such a glorious way. 

Oakland’s Caitlin Cobb-Vialet will be releasing her debut EP in October. For now, you can enjoy and follow Cobb-Vialet’s work in all of the usual places. 

Show Review: Teenage Bottlerocket, Skatepark of Tampa, 6/26/2021

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF

Over the past month or so, there has been a huge increase in the amount of indoor tours being announced nationwide.  Despite the grand reopening of America, COVID-19 policies still exist and are different for every venue and every city and every state.  Some are still intensely enforced, while others are not and were put in place just to comply with local statutes.

In early May, shortly after Laramie, Wyoming’s Teenage Bottlerocket announced a 12-date tour, their St. Petersburg (Florida) tour date garnered headlines when the local promoter Leadfoot Promotions announced, for the safety of everyone in attendance, that they will be charging $999.99 per ticket (up to four total) or a discounted price of $18 for those who could prove that they are fully-vaccinated.  By the end of the month, the venue in St. Petersburg got cold feet, the show was moved to Skatepark of Tampa, and this story hit the national news circuit on CNN, even as all 250 discounted tickets to the show had already sold-out.  

Although San Francisco, the international headquarters of Spinning Platters, is slowly reopening from its now 16-month COVID lockdown, our rock photographer is still in Florida.  Since the promoter relied on a crew of volunteers to make the show happen, fully-vaccinated Spinning Platters volunteered to help out, and in the process, was able to photograph and attend Teenage Bottlerocket!

Continue reading “Show Review: Teenage Bottlerocket, Skatepark of Tampa, 6/26/2021”

Show Review: Thao Nguyen at The Chapel, 06/24/21

I’ve seen Thao perform in a lot of non-traditional spaces and situations. I’ve probably seen her perform more non-traditional sets than traditional sets at this point… I’ve seen her do a high concept stand-up and music variety show, I’ve seen her as the special guest of a fake talk show where Moby taught her how to play “Purple Rain,” I’ve seen her absolutely kill “Push It” by Salt-n-Pepa while being backed by Fred Armisen & Carrie Brownstein, and I’ve even seen her create a live score to a series of classic film shorts! And that’s just what I’ve written about… So it seems appropriate that Thao is my first “COVID-Safe” show. 

Continue reading “Show Review: Thao Nguyen at The Chapel, 06/24/21”

Single Of The Week: “I Wanna Be a Dog” by Colleen Green

Colleen Green has been putting out amazing lofi power-pop for about a decade now. And I ADORE HER! It pains me that we’ve somehow never written about her on this site. That changes RIGHT NOW! Because her latest single “I Wanna Be a Dog” is a stunning, fuzz-filled song that I’m sure most of the world can relate to. 

“I Wanna Be a Dog” is off Green’s upcoming full-length record, Cool, out September 10th! Preorders are available right now, and if you act quickly you can get it on “cool cloudy smoke” colored vinyl! 

“This Is Pop” Ranked: From Fascinating to Boring, The 8 Episodes of the Netflix Music Documentary Series

T-Pain and his wife Amber open up about how criticism of Auto-Tune affected them, in This Is Pop’s best episode.

Netflix is premiering the Banger Films documentary series This Is Pop for most of the world. It promises to go into detail on 8 different subjects surrounding the world of pop music. I was able to watch the entire series, and while it’s an uneven affair, there are some episodes that really stand out as being both well researched and well written with something valuable to say about the topic. Then there are others that stand out by not using quality archival footage and having interview subjects that won’t get in the weeds on things. Use my episode guide below to make a viewing order so that you know your time will be well spent:

Continue reading ““This Is Pop” Ranked: From Fascinating to Boring, The 8 Episodes of the Netflix Music Documentary Series”

Single Of The Week: “Chaise Longue” by Wet Leg

Live from the Isle of Wight comes, um, not The Who. Instead, we have the debut single from recent Domino Records signees Wet Leg. The song is called “Chaise Longue” and it’s a riff-heavy dance/rock number that is going to fill you with immense joy. Well, it will if you like dry, witty lyrics combined with an infectious groove that makes you long for the days of dancing in a sweaty club together. (SO SOON!!) Imagine the colorful witticisms and guitar mastery of Courtney Barnett combined with the elegant smuttiness of Jarvis Cocker and blasting at Popscene circa 2003. 

“Chaise Longue” is streaming in all of the usual places. Will we hear more from them? I sure as hell hope so. They are also touring the UK this fall, and I hope a trip across the pond will be happening sooner than later. 

Show Review: Styx at St. Augustine Amphitheatre, St. Augustine, FL, 6/16/2021

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF

Spinning Platters’ home of San Francisco has officially reopened from its 15-month Covid-19 lockdown, yet many of its concert venues are taking a cautiously optimistic approach and waiting until August or September to resume operations. In recent months, we grew tired of the waiting and decided to look far and wide to other places in pursuit of a Real. Live. Show.  

Our rock & metal photographer has been riding out the latter part of this pandemic in Florida, and noticed that a small amount of shows never really stopped happening there.  Lately, as the rest of the country reopens and more nationwide tours are being announced, Spinning Platters got invited to photograph and review a couple of these shows, including rock legends Foreigner (in Clearwater) and Sammy Hagar (in Orlando).

Tommy Shaw, Chuck Panozzo, James ‘J.Y.’ Young, Ricky Phillips, Lawrence Gowan, and Todd Sucherman, otherwise known as rock icons Styx, returned to St. Augustine for the first show of their 2021 summer tour and for their first time performing since March 2020, and Spinning Platters was there! 

Continue reading “Show Review: Styx at St. Augustine Amphitheatre, St. Augustine, FL, 6/16/2021”

Spinning Platters presents “How Did I Get Here?” Season 2, Episode 6 with Chris Appelgren

 

In this episode I got to talk with Bay Area music legend Chris Appelgren. We talked about many of his bands, including Bumblescrump (sadly not getting into exactly what this word means), The Potatomen, and The Peechees. We also discussed his rising through the ranks at Lookout Records, and even talked about its inevitable decline. And, of course, we talked about his time at Noise Pop, Bold Italic, and Ticketfly, as well as his return to the record business by helping Once And Future Band release their 2020 album Deleted Scenes.

Listen Here:

Listen to the music mentioned here: