GWAR – Spinning Platters

Show Review: GWAR at The Regency Ballroom, 10/20/2024

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @ARPhotoSF

As with every four-year election cycle, this 2024 United States presidential election season has been equally as boring as it is annoying, with the 24/7 news coverage and the debates and the spam texts and emails and the constant ads on the social feeds as well as in the physical mailbox.

Thankfully, the greatest live band in the universe, Antarctica’s very own GWAR, has once again stepped up to help out the American public… by executing all of the presidential candidates, present and past.

Spinning Platters is never one to avoid a good ole bloody mess, and with the expensive camera equipment properly covered, GWAR marched onto the stage and wasted no time in chopping off heads, hands, arms, and anything else available to spew their fluids onto all of those awaiting their bloody destiny.

Continue reading “Show Review: GWAR at The Regency Ballroom, 10/20/2024”

Show Review: Scorching the Psychotherapy Sessions in Florida

Photos and review by: Alan Ralph @AlanHasPicks

Ten days after attending, photographing, and reviewing Overkill, Exhorder, and Heathen at Great American Music Hall, Spinning Platters’ resident metalhead took a trip to the extremely sunny, hot, and occasionally rainy shores of Florida to ring in his 50 years of existence with a weekend of metal with The Pyschotherapy Sessions at MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre in Tampa and another Overkill show at House of Blues in Orlando!

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Aftershock 2022: What you do not want to miss!

It’s not often that we leave the breezy confines of the San Francisco Bay Area, but on occasion, we like to venture outside of our comfort zone, and the annual Fall festival in Sacramento known as Aftershock is one huge reason to do so. They definitely didn’t hold back on the lineup this year, and it looks like a great opportunity to go and show off all the black t-shirts that we’ve collected over the past year of catching up on live events. Like any other music festival with multiple stages and dozens of bands, Aftershock doesn’t happen without a bit of scheduling conflicts that will make it impossible to try to decide which barricade to consider posting up on. Fear not though, as Spinning Platters will attempt to breakdown any major conflicts and present reasonably valid reasons to choose one band over another throughout the four-day weekend.

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Album Review: The New Dark Ages by Gwar

Metalheads are gonna hate this album.

But damn, Mike can sing.

This is GWAR’s 15th studio album and the 2nd studio album (or 3rd depending on how The Disc WIth No Name is counted) with Mike Bishop, slave to The Berzerker Blothar, at the mic. GWARs history in metal, and what influenced them, is on clear display. This album took me on a tour of metal history. From the gloom of Doom Metal to the sweaty LA club scene, over to an arena in England. I can already feel the heat and sweat pressing in when next I see them. I can tell which track will move the pit round, up and down, or give it a rest. I’ve been on this blood, and piss slick road for over 30 years, and The New Dark Ages is, in this Bohab;s opinion, not just an excellent album, but it’s more of a departure from what I would call their “sound”, you know it when you it. Let’s call it, AO, After Oderus. This album feels like a natural progression from The Blood of Gods T and I’m here for it.

The New Dark Ages is coming your way June 3rd. You can prepare for your listening in both the physical and virtual realms experience here!

Show Review: GWAR, Sacred Reich, Toxic Holocaust, Against The Grain at The Belasco Theater 10/24/2019

“GWAR LIVES!”

GWAR-4

I have a death wish. A metal death wish. So it was clear that I had to work 9 hours and high tail it straight to Downtown Los Angeles for a night of total fucking metal at The Belasco Theater. The occasion? GWAR. Need I say more?

Continue reading “Show Review: GWAR, Sacred Reich, Toxic Holocaust, Against The Grain at The Belasco Theater 10/24/2019”

Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 2016-05-23 – 2016-05-29

Grateful Dead — Appearing for another farewell bow at The Fillmore this week.

This week in The Bay Area we have refusals, memoirs, and those who wear purple. We have clowns, the dead, and war. Should be a pretty good time.

Now, let’s get to the previews. Preview time now. Let’s preview and then we’ll be ready for the week. Previews, starting now. Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 2016-05-23 – 2016-05-29”

Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 4/5/12-4/11/12

Welcome to April… The beginning of Fauxchella, when all of those bands that were paid an obscene amount of money to perform in the desert for rich kids on copious amounts of drugs get to play for normal people, in normal venues, where you get to hear a band with a soundcheck and a real venue. Not to say that festivals don’t have their place- I have a lot of fun at these things. But I both couldn’t afford a Coachella ticket, nor could I take the time off my day job. Which means that I’m seeing fIREHOSE at Slim’s. (Sorry Radiohead!)

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Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 11/18/2010-11/24/2010

Noomi Rapace, err, Carrie Browstein and Janet Weiss with their new supergroup, WILD FLAG, at the Doug Fir Lounge in Portland earlier this week. Photo by Inger Klekacz.

Check out the concerts around the Bay Area this week — after the jump.

Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 11/18/2010-11/24/2010”

Show Review: GWAR with Job For A Cowboy and The Red Chord at The Regency Center, 11/24/2009

One step into the Grand Ballroom at the Regency Center was likely to put the average concertgoer into a state of confusion and alarm. Aside from an abnormally high amount of snarling metalheads and angry-looking punks, the walls, floors, and stage monitors were covered with plastic wrap. The security guards for the night were dressed in raincoats and the photographers had bags wrapped around their cameras. Most of the crowd was dressed in white shirts, a stark contrast to the usual sea of black encountered so often amongst metal fans. What could possibly be coming? A monsoon? The destruction of the ceiling? Of course, to the average goer to this particular concert, it heralded only one very important fact: GWAR had returned to San Francisco.

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Spinning Platters Weekly Guide To Bay Area Concerts: November 18th-November 24th

Not playing Cafe du Nord on Monday, but their legacy is...

So, it looks like the people of the ABC are getting super angry, and are doing some nasty things to our DNA. It also looks like the economy is laying to waste one of San Francisco’s greatest venues at the end of the year. So, please, please help keep live music alive by going to a show or two this week. And next week is Black Friday, a day that you will be shopping early in the morning. I suggest all of our readers power shop, then power nap, and then attend an all ages show somewhere in town, then head to Annie’s Social Club afterwards for some late night punk rock karaoke. But, we won’t have an extensive Black Friday show guide until next Wednesday. Until then, here’s this week:

Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide To Bay Area Concerts: November 18th-November 24th”