Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
Preview time, guys. This week in the Bay Area, we have natural events, nouns, piercings, and a tradition that Louis Pasteur likely might not have smiled upon. But you never know.
And so we preview. Preview time. Let’s preview. Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 2016-04-15 — 2016-04-20”
Post-Election Day we have a panoply of excellent concerts coming to The Bay Area this week. Shows of all kinds. We have shows that are avenging! And dance-y! Secretive! And lemony! Metal! And even including the magic of public transportation.
It’s wonderful that there are so many kinds of shows ’round here and so many buses to take you to them.
Here’s what’s coming up this week. Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 11/6/14-11/12/14”
Okay, I’ll be the first to admit my folly: I was tardy to the Gavin DeGraw party. I mean really tardy. It’s not that I’d never heard of him or didn’t enjoy his music. It’s just that, for some reason, while my friends were all obsessing over him back in 2004 when he first came on the scene, I resisted several opportunities to join them. It wasn’t until I got a chance to fall for his charming personality in 2012 on Dancing with the Stars that I finally saw the error of my ways and drank the Kool-Aid. Since then, though, I’ve been making up for lost time. Now a genuine, bona fide giant Gavin fan in my own right, I recently had my first chance to finally catch him live this past April in Napa, promoting his newest album, Make a Move. You might think that having just seen him two months ago would make me less likely to rush myself to see him again at my alma mater UC Berkeley’s Greek Theatre last Friday night when he co-headlined with the phenomenal local boy Matt Nathanson, but well… you’d be wrong. Dead wrong. Continue reading “Show Review: Matt Nathanson & Gavin DeGraw with Mary Lambert at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre, 6/20/2014”
Is it me, or is the music your parents listened to when you were growing up really polarizing? I either love it or I hate it! Thankfully, when it comes to the tunes of Creedence Clearwater Revival, my dad and I never disagree. In fact, the first time he showed me the photo of lead singer John Fogerty and the crowd from inside his vinyl copy of CCR’s Pendulum album, it took me less than thirty seconds to find his face near the front of the crowd. Naturally, when I heard that Fogerty was playing all his best at UC Berkeley’s Greek Theatre, I could think of no one I’d enjoy the evening with more than my dad. And tonight, that’s exactly what we did. Continue reading “Show Review: John Fogerty at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre, 10/12/2013”
Fiona Apple isn’t interested in how anyone thinks she looks. I know because when I found myself back on my alma mater’s campus at Zellerbach Hall earlier this evening, she said she was on “the tip of ‘don’t fuck with people for how they look.'” Whether this is because she recently asked security to remove an audience member in Portland for heckling her appearance, or because she’s heard controversy over her waif-like physique since her “Criminal” video circa 1996, I don’t know. What I do know, though, is that none of that matters much to me. I didn’t go out this evening to gawk at a skinny woman, nor to speculate on why she’s thin. I went to hear her sing, because she’s a strange, dark little songbird that sings a haunted melody, and I wanted to experience it live. I didn’t know of Blake Mills, with whom Apple shared the stage, but I liked that they chose to call this tour “Anything We Want” after her song of the same name, and I went ready to see just what it was they wanted. Continue reading “Show Review: Fiona Apple and Blake Mills at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, 10/8/2013”
October is nearly here. Match pre-Halloween candy sales with some concert-going and that’s a recipe for general happiness.
Here’s what’s coming up this week.
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 9/26/13-10/2/13”
Eli Conley suggests I order the breakfast burrito. With a wide grin, he tells me that it’s a great vegan dish. The Virginia native, now an East Bay resident, has a lot to smile about. He’s finished his first full-length album, At the Seams, to be released on September 28th. He’s setting west coast tour dates for the fall and lovin’ life at the moment. At our small table at Herbivore, I could easily tell that Eli, the queer folk singer-songwriter with a powerful passion for music and an equally powerful voice, was anxious to unleash his music unto the world…
Your album, At the Seams, is done and about to be released. How do you feel?
I’m super excited. I actually got the physical CDs two months ago. I know many musicians who had to rush at the end, not having time to master it or not having them in time for a CD release show. So I’m like, ok, I’m recording in April and I should have them in hand by June so I have time to send them out to press. Then I was thinking when to release it in September, and just figured ‘why not just do it on my birthday!?’
The first CD that I ever bought with my own money was August and Everything After, Counting Crows’ debut album. I listened to it to death, and still love it. So, I was pretty giddy when I scored the opportunity to interview their frontman Adam Duritz ahead of their upcoming tour with The Wallflowers. The band is playing two shows in the Bay Area this summer: Wente Vineyards in Livermore on July 17th (Tix Here!) and America’s Cup Pavilion in San Francisco on July 18th (Tix Here!). Plus, if you buy tickets on line in advance, you get a free download of their latest live record, Echoes Of The Outlaw Roadshow!
SP: You used BitTorrent to help promote Underwater Sunshine. Why did you decide to pick such a controversial method to promote the record?
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Interview: Adam Duritz of Counting Crows”
Concerts! Shows! Performances! And this week in the Bay Area, they’re extra-beardy!
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 4/11/13-4/17/13”
As a human being, expanded your horizons is vital to ones’ own well being. Sometimes you need to jump into something completely blind. Sometimes, you just need to experience music that’s outside of your comfort zone. These experiences are vital to human life. That need is what brought me to La Peña Cultural Center on this drizzly November Thanksgiving Eve. I went into this show knowing one thing: Ana Tijoux is a Chilean born rapper that had a song in an episode of Breaking Bad. And that’s all I needed to know.
Continue reading “Show Review: An Evening With Ana Tijoux at La Peña Cultural Center, 11/21/12”