Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
Winter Music Fest. It’s a thing, and it’s happening right now. If Noise Pop is the Oscars, then perhaps Winter Music Fest is the Golden Globes. Last night four bands of varying talent took turns taking the stage at Bottom of the Hill, and the result was a cornucopia of cacophony. Sure. Continue reading “Show Review: The Downer Party, The Hot Toddies, Tempo No Tempo and Fighting the Villain at Bottom of the Hill, 2/3/10”
I like going to see hockey. I’m always telling people that they can’t appreciate hockey unless they see it live. You can’t see the speed, the positioning, or really feel the hits unless you’re in the arena. But what about Hockey, the band? Do you need to see them live to truly appreciate them? Do they bring something to the table live that you just can’t hear on their excellent record, Mind Chaos? Continue reading “Show Review: Hockey with Asa Ransom and fakeyourowndeath at Bottom of the Hill, 1/15/10”
Growing up, I always heard that the night before Thanksgiving was a big night out. Supposedly, everyone was visiting and would go party together. Now that I’m older, I know that this is untrue, because I went to see Deastro and Max Tundra at Bottom of the Hill. The fifty-or-so people who were there with me were the lucky ones; the ones playing Apples to Apples with family really missed out. Continue reading “Show Review: Deastro and Max Tundra at Bottom of the Hill, 11/25/09”
A noise-rock show is a different sort of animal than most musical performances that one usually attends: it’s mostly improvisational, there usually isn’t a wild light show, the performers hardly ever (if ever) look at the audience, and it’s about ten times louder than the last Muse concert you went to, even when you stood next to the P.A. and forgot your earplugs. It’s also likely that you will not be able to predict the level of fanaticism that will be inspired by even the slightest change in the steamroller of sound that is the band’s performance; the crowd could just as easily metamorphose into a frenzied circle pit as it could remain stock-still in silent contemplation of the wall of noise barreling through them. For Fuck Buttons, it ran the full gamut: loud, soft, crazed and quiet, and it was beautiful and destructive chaos all at once. Continue reading “Show Review: Fuck Buttons with Growing and Chen Santa Maria at Bottom Of The Hill, 11/13/09”
Titus Andronicus is one of the unofficial official bands of Spinning Platters. This is because we saw them four times at SXSW last year, and hatched the idea for this blog upon our return. It got to the point where we were pretty sure they were sick of seeing us, even though we hadn’t tired of seeing them. So when we saw they were playing at Bottom of the Hill on Monday night, we recorded our podcast and headed right over.
Continue reading “Show Review: Titus Andronicus and The So So Glos at Bottom of the Hill, 9/21/09”
Jay Brannan has the kind of voice you dream of at night. Silky smooth and beautiful. My first voice teacher used to prod me to imagine a string, and while singing you’re slowly pulling the string out of your throat in this smooth never ending line. That’s what Jay Brannan sounds like, that elusive smooth perfect voice flowing on and on into the night. He backs that voice of his up with some great songs, good guitar playing, hilarious stage banter and a whole lot of hotness.
Continue reading “Show Review: Jay Brannan at Bottom of the Hill, 7/25/09”
Cut Off Your Hands live sound like their record turned up to 11. While the record sounds clean and poppy, live they are like madmen, jumping about, playing intensely and not missing a single note (including the four part vocal harmonies). It is wonderful to watch a band who really cares about what they are doing and sees the value in putting on a good show. This was their fourth to last show of their four month American tour, which is where most bands would have phoned it in just thinking of home (they hail from New Zealand); but they played as passionately as they did four months ago at SXSW.
Continue reading “Cut Off Your Hands at Bottom of the Hill, 6/18/09”
For some reason, I thought Jens Lekman would be very serious. I’m not sure why I thought this, but I assumed he’d stand up at his microphone, quietly singing his songs by himself. So I was more than pleasantly surprised to see him dancing happily along with his 5-piece band right from the very beginning of the show. He had a smile pasted on his face the whole time, and so did I. Continue reading “Jens Lekman at Bottom of the Hill, 6/2/09”