This week’s Single Of The Week comes from Putin’s least favorite band, Pussy Riot! HANGERZ is one of the best songs to come out of Pussy Riot yet! It’s a heavy, industrial rap song about abortion. Bold, direct, honest, and you can definitely mosh to it. Bonus verses from Vic Mensa and Thunderpussy hit the message even harder.
Pussy Riot are embarking on a rare full North American Tour in 2020, with a portion of the ticket proceeds going to Planned Parenthood. They are encouraging patrons to “come to the performances with posters and banners, and with your face covered – masks, balaclavas, scarfs, anything. Let’s riot!” Tickets can be purchased here!
Look! Up in the air! It’s a benignly entertaining ballooning movie!
Aeronauts James (Eddie Redmayne) and Amelia (Felicity Jones) try to break the world’s height record for a gas-powered balloon.
As far as family-friendly holiday movies go, you could do worse than British writer/director Tom Harper’s The Aeronauts. An old-fashioned Victorian costume drama, it’s thrilling without being scary, has no sex, swearing, or violence, and extolls the virtues of science, adventure, and reaching for the stars, as it were. And sure, you may forget about it as soon as you walk out of the theater, but you’ll have a pleasant enough time watching its story unfold.
I expect not many people in the Bay Area have heard of Merthyr Tydfil, a small post-industrial coal town in South Wales in the United Kingdom (pronounced Merther Tidvil).
Merthyr has had a bad rap since the mines closed down in the early 1980’s. It was inevitably seen by the media as an unemployment blackspot, a metaphor or even metonym for decades of economic privation, recession and post-industrial abandonment. Of course, proud local communities are complex and rich, and often subvert the media representations.
The point being that Merthyr and towns like it have a thriving music and arts scene. It’s produced a new generation of talented semi-pro and pro musicians, who I’ve had the pleasure to get to know a little through their various bands and musical projects, like the wonderfully named The Algal Bloom.
A couple of weeks ago, I went to see this informal collective’s latest offering, a tribute to The Band’s farewell concert The Last Waltz, released on vinyl in 1978. Called The Band and All the Fellas, the members are in their twenties, so weren’t even a twinkle in their parent’s eyes in ‘78. I was intrigued to see what they’d make of an album that’s firmly located and lauded in the rock and roll firmament.
Owain Hughes is the band’s leader and had the idea of getting 12 or so musicians together to reinterpret some of the songs. Owain is what you’d call a prodigy, a Merthyr Mozart if you will (though he comes from Aberfan, nearby). I first saw him at a local gig in Cardiff, to mark David Bowie’s death. He plays guitar and keyboards with a level of skill, energy and maturity that belie his youthful looks. His influences range from Frank Zappa to Rory Gallagher.
The show (selected highlights)
Up On Cripple Creek: one of The Band’s most famous foot-stompers, and a great opener. I was a tad worried about how anyone could do justice to the Arkansas drawl that was unique to Levon Helm’s lead vocals. I needn’t have been. Vocalist Mitchell Minney took the song by the scruff of the neck and made it his own, using a half-Merthyr, half-Blues Delta style, complete with yodelling, and supplemented by the invisible vibes of a cowboy hat. The band were solid, loud with two keyboard players adding depth, and some nice nods to Garth Hudson’s organ sound. Good start, boys.
Who Do You Love?: how does anyone try to reproduce Ronnie Hawkins’ rumbling, screaming performance of this Bo Diddley-beat classic? You get a slightly bonkers Phil Harrington to do his own barnstorming, lung-bursting and very funny version. Lovely tight back-up from the band, too. That warmed up the audience nicely.
Such a Night: this is where things began to get really interesting. It would have been easier and safer to give Dr John’s classic song and vocal role to a bear-like geezer from downtown Barry Island. Instead, it was offered to be-hatted Bella Collins, a great local blues chanteuse. It was an enchanting performance, subverting the somewhat unreconstructed gender politics of the lyrics. The introduction of a horn section, complete with tootling clarinet, trombone wah-wahs and Voodoo piano playing making it a moment to remember.
Bella Collins singing Such A Night
Caravan: Van Morrison’s intricate and vocally complex musical gem is one hell of a challenge for any singer to emulate. It was handed to Leila Dee to take on, and she won it in spades. Aretha Franklin is her hero, and it shows. A tremendous, gutsy performance that thrilled, and again put some beautiful vocals centre stage.
Baby Don’t You Do It: a glorious horn section, stabbing; a rock solid rhythm section, in the pocket with the bass growling; backing vocalists, singing and laughing; the lead singer, gesticulating and conducting; a sax player, blowing. A tight ending. Robbie and Levon would have been proud.
You probably won’t ever get to see this band, or hear them, although they are set to tour The First Waltz in Wales. But for me, that doesn’t really matter. I wanted to review this show to put on record a tiny but joyfully significant moment in the musical cosmos. It’s why live music matters, and why old music can jump generations and still thrill and be meaningful. A moment worth marking, and I can’t wait to see them again.
The Mahabharata is an ancient Indian epic written in Sanskrit, the longest piece of prose ever written, which would take 12 days to perform if spoken non-stop. Playwright Geetha Reddy took on the challenge of dismantling this story into an hour and a half solo performance. And J Jha, with direction from Ubuntu Theater company founder Michael Socrates Moran, took on the task of recreating this piece.Continue reading “Theater Review: J Jha shines in Geetha Reddy’s retelling of Mahabharata at Ubuntu Theater in Oakland”
These two shows at The Fox Theater in Oakland marked what was basically the last night on the road for what may have been the most challenging tour in Sleater-Kinney’s 25 years on this Earth. Not only were they out to support the single most-divisive record in their catalog, but their long-time drummer, Janet Weiss, abruptly quit the band in the middle of rehearsals.
A lot of hardcore fans felt betrayed. People were demanding refunds because they bought tickets under the impression that they were getting the core trio of Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss and Carrie Brownstein. All of this meant that, instead of hitting the road in celebration of their career, Sleater-Kinney have to prove themselves all over again. They couldn’t rest on their reputation of being the fiercest live band around.
Hanks and Rhys make Heller’s neighborhood worth visiting
Mr. Rogers (Tom Hanks, l.) is delighted to meet skeptical journalist Lloyd (Matthew Rhys).
I know a lot of folks who rolled their eyes when they heard that Tom Hanks was going to star as the beloved children’s show host Mr. Rogers. “Can’t this man ever play a serial killer?” they grumbled. While it’s true that in the new film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood Hanks adds yet another saintly character to his resume of real-life hero portrayals (see: Sully, Captain Phillips, Saving Mr. Banks, and Bridge of Spies, to name a few), cynics should unroll their eyes into a forward-facing position long enough to go see this film. First, Hanks actually isn’t even the lead here; Matthew Rhys (The Americans), as a skeptical and unhappy journalist, is. Secondly, and perhaps most critically, Hanks gives a complex and genuinely moving performance.
Bridal Veil are a band out of Portland, Oregon, and they recently put out their first EP, Morpho. We’ve selected their track, “Feast,” as our single of the week! The track opens with some swirling recorder, only to take you into some of the best dream pop I’ve heard since 4AD’s heyday! Lead singer Emily Overstreet’s voice weaves in and out of swirling guitars in a way that feels perfectly calculated for maximum serotonin release of the brain.
Morpho can be purchase on Bandcamp, or streamed in all of the usual places!
Damon, Bale come out winners in Mangold’s ’60s racing tale
Race car driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale, l.) and car designer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) discuss the possibility of building a car for Ford that could beat Ferrari at the famed Le Mans race.
Let me start this review by telling you that I know squat about car racing. Indy, NASCAR, road racing — they’re all the same to me. But what I do know is quality film, and Ford v Ferrari definitely comes out a winner in that regard. Director James Mangold’s dramatization of the battle between auto titans Ford and Ferrari for dominance at the 1966 Le Mans race is one of the most adrenaline-filled, rousing good times you’ll have at the theater this year.
Habibi is an Arabic word meaning “my beloved.” And, from the moment I first heard them listening to Pandora at work six years ago, I was immediately in love with their mix of garage punk, classic Arabic music, and Motown girl group. I also genuinely thought they had called it quits after their first, self-titled record. Then, late last year, an EP came out called Cardamom Garden, where they toned down the punk and turned up the psych. It only left me wanting MORE HABIBI! Well, you’re in luck! Er, I’M IN LUCK! This week’s Single Of The Week is the lead single from Habibi’s upcoming second full length, Anywhere But Here. It’s a track called “Come My Habibi,” and it’s a lofi, bilingual, psychedelic masterwork.
This record is destined to be one of the best reviewed albums of 2020. You can preorder the physical record here, or preorder a virtual copy here!
Also, don’t forget to see them at Bottom Of The Hill on February 29th as part of the Noise Pop Festival! (Tix on sale now!) And, Noise Pop also dropped a killer second wave of acts, including Spinning Platters’ favorites Best Coast, Destroy Boys, Clit Kat, Mannequin Pussy, and many more! Tix for those shows can be found here!
One year, I was working at the box office at a music festival in Florida. It was on the beach, and it was a pretty pleasant working experience. One little bit of inside knowledge- the “number” printed on the RFID wristband you get when going to a big festival? That’s called a “UID.” Whenever I’m stressed or tired, I find that I will reverse letters or words. This meant that I spent most of the weekend asking people for their “IUD” and not their “UID.” People kind of rolled with the mistake, although one colleague kept laughing hysterically. By the end of the fest, she told me what I was doing wrong, and what that word meant.
Lisa Prank’s latest record is called Perfect Love Song and features the single “IUD.” Now that I know what that is, I can safely make it our single of the week. You can listen to or buy the record in all the usual places!
The Mahabharata
