Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
This week’s single of the week comes from Oakland based duo Parentz. This song feels like a groovy, chillwave-inspired bit of modern R&B. The lyrics, however, run from full on hysterical to a deep analysis of the current state of the economy. The song is also hooky as hell, and is the perfect soundtrack for spending time with abandon storefronts.
Dead Mall can be streamed in all the usual places! Including right after the jump!
Let’s face it, we all want another Pulp Fiction. We all remember, either on opening night (me!), a bit later, or maybe way later through a TV the way we felt during, and right after, living through that unique moment in American cinema. How did Quentin Tarantino get away with gangsters talking about the Royale with cheese? Is that really John Travolta? Can we like him again? Did we just see Christopher Walken pop off a two-minute monologue about hiding family heirlooms in anal cavities? And wait, how could the middle of the story happen at the end of the film? Yep, we all remember, and let’s also face it that we’ve been waiting, WANTING another Pulp Fiction ever since. We should just stop with all that, because Tarantino’s ninth film, the excellent Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood proves, finally and triumphantly, that all the peculiar elements of his films can come together gracefully to create a dissimilar but still profoundly satisfying cinematic experience.
Continue reading “Film Review: Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood“
This year has shaped up to be one of the strongest years on record for pop music, with brilliant records coming out from the likes of Lizzo, Billie Eilish, and Carly Rae Jepsen to name a few. The singles that have drifted out from Charli XCX’s upcoming Charli have showed that pop music is going to keep getting better as the year goes on. This track is propulsive and intense, and is destined to be a classic. It will help make both Charli XCX and Christine & The Queens the household names they deserve to be.
Charli is due out September 13th and can be preordered here. She’s also hitting the road soon, and tickets & tour dates can be found here. Christine & The Queens put on an amazing live show themselves, and if you make your way to Europe, you can catch the tale end of their tour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvrp6puFsuk
I was at the Manchester International Festival earlier this week when DJ Yoda played a headlining set in the Festival Square. There were people of all ages at the festival dancing along to mixes of classics of all types: rock, northern soul, hip-hop, Britpop, television themes, you name it. But nothing got the crowd going more than when he kicked into a remix of “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton. I was nearly bowled over by a guy wearing a denim jacket featuring a giant Dead Kennedys patch. He was belting out the words like they were the most meaningful thing he had ever heard.
All this to say, millenial soft rock is here and it’s ready to take over the dance floors at festivals all over the world. What’s the biggest millenial soft rock song of all? Honestly, probably “My Heart Will Go On,” but surely the one that’s taken the most derision over the years has been “Crash Into Me” by former Nickelback titleholder Dave Matthews Band. Here, Steve Aoki and Darren Criss reclaim the tune as the floor filling banger it was always meant to be. It’s fun, easy to sing along to, and a harbinger of a future where we’re all wearing punk rock gear singing Vanessa Carlton at the top of our lungs.
Featuring three possible fathers and a collection of ABBA hits, Mamma Mia! tells the story of mother-daughter Donna and Sophie as they navigate love, loss, and self-discovery. Widely staged throughout the world, SJSC’s production brings a level of intimacy to the story. Due to the space and set design (Michael Palumbo), the show feels a bit like the movie starring Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried where the focus becomes less about theatrics and more on the interactions between cast members. Songs include big hits such as Dancing Queen, Voulez-Vous, Lay All Your Love on Me, and the musical’s namesake, Mamma Mia. Continue reading “Theater Review: Last Weekend to Catch San Jose Stage Company’s Production of Mamma Mia!“
So, officially the single off the new compilation of songs Prince wrote for other performers, Originals, is his original demo “Manic Monday.” I admit it was kind of a trip to hear Prince sing about “kissing Valentino by a crystal blue Italian stream,” but the song that I was most fascinated with on this record was “Jungle Love.” For those who don’t know the context, “Jungle Love” was both written for Morris Day & The Time, and was making fun of Morris Day. Prince always thought that Day was a little bit vain, so who wrote a song poking fun of that, and now we get to hear the original snark on full display!
The rest of Originals is streaming everywhere, and is coming out in the physical world on July 19th. You can preorder this here!
It’s July, and another successful SF Pride Parade is in the books… or so I hear. I personally missed it, sadly, but I did so for good reason. Obviously, we live in one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world, and while it would have been fun to come out to share the celebration (not to mention the spectacle) that is Pride in the Bay Area, I chose instead to celebrate with the LGBTQ+ youth of Salt Lake City.
Utah is, of course, fairly synonymous with Mormonism. Imagine growing up LGBTQ+ and having to consider whether to stay closeted, or to come out and risk being shunned, rejected, or excommunicated not only from your entire church, but your community and likely your whole family, too. It’s not hard to see why the LGBTQ+ youth in the LDS church have an incredibly high suicide rate. Enter one of the most famous Mormons this side of Donny & Marie: Imagine Dragons’ frontman, Dan Reynolds. Reynolds founded the LoveLoud Foundation, which puts on an annual festival in the Salt Lake City area every June to allow a safe place to celebrate Pride while raising money for local and national LGBTQ+ charities.
Continue reading “Festival Review: LoveLoud 2019 at USANA Amphitheatre, 6/29/19”
We all look to the light for safety, for warmth, for life. Filmmakers use light to communicate safety or victory, and definitely health. In almost every hospital scene, convalescing characters lie in a bed, tucked safely in sheets, looking out to friends and family, as if to say, “whew … I made it. I’m alive. I’m here,” Hospital sets usually include rejuvenating daytime light cascading in from expansive windows.
All the more impressive, then, that Ari Aster’s ambitious, perplexing, unrelenting film Midsommar uses, abuses, and undermines light, to prove that dread can build in any season, horror respects no clock, and terror can strike on the brightest of sunshiny days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xrSuIqrhRU
I woke up this morning to the saddest music news… Sleater-Kinney‘s powerhouse drummer, Janet Weiss, has officially left the band, citing that “the band has moved in a different direction, and it’s time for me to move on.” The news makes her recent performance with Sleater-Kinney on The Tonight Show the final public performance of the classic line-up of this band, which feels as good a time as any to look back on 22 years of some of the most impressive drumming in rock ‘n’ roll music. I’m sad to see her go, but excited to see what both Weiss and the rest of the greatest power trio in rock do from here on out.
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Picks Six: Greatest Janet Weiss Moments in Sleater-Kinney”
The “alternate fiction” genre has grown in popularity in recent years, with books, movies, and TV shows positing questions like, “What if Hitler had never been born?” or “What if JFK hadn’t been shot?” as starting points for fresh and creative stories. Director Danny Boyle and screenwriters Jack Barth and Richard Curtis throw their hat into the ring with Yesterday, a movie that asks, “What if only one person on earth knew who the Beatles were?” The filmmakers have great fun answering the question, but, make no mistake: this is no sci-fi film. What Boyle has given us here is an old-fashioned romantic comedy — and an exceptionally charming one at that — just wrapped in a unique narrative package.
