Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
This was another trek from work directly to the venue, House of Blues Anaheim, where I had gone the previous year to see Hanabie on their co-headline tour with Kim Dracula. While I was incredibly excited for the evening, I was also a bit anxious because the sound mix of the aforementioned concert had left a lot to be desired. Fortunately, the FOH mixers of this evening would prove that anxiety baseless. Let’s get on with it, shall we?
Upon pulling up to the Lodge Room and parking my motorcycle on the street for the second show I would be covering that week, I made a discovery that is every photographer’s nightmare. In my rush to pack up and leave my house, I forgot to pack my SD cards. This part of Highland Park is relatively small and while there was a camera shop nearby, it had closed an hour or two ago, which meant I would have to haul ass to the closest target, panic coursing through my veins, mixing with adrenaline, where I would find the only SD card they had in stock. A quick purchase and a semi-reckless speeding jaunt back to the Lodge Room later, I had luckily made it with time to spare and also discovered that a guard rail had been set up —a first for my experience with this venue, rendering my previous panic somewhat unnecessary. After a celebratory beer, I readied my camera for a night of heavy metal.
Continue reading “Show Review: Baroness, Weedeater at The Lodge Room (Highland Park), 09-20-2025”
I love heavy metal. Shocking, I know, and there are still so many legendary heavy metal bands that I’ve never seen, so whenever a chance arises, I try to snap it up. So when I found out that Testament and Kreator were going to tour together and that, on top of that, they got Possessed to join in? I couldn’t beg fast enough for that press pass!
As one of the resident heavy music fans of Spinning Platters, it is often equal parts duty and pleasure that guide me from show to show. Duty in the sense that there aren’t many other writers in our humble group that cover punk and metal, pleasure in the sense that I absolutely fucking love it. It also helps that we’ve been in somewhat of a watershed year since 2023, for heavy music, with many bands releasing some of their best music to date, as well as a slough of new bands pushing their way into the lights. Nothing quite embodies that statement like the Chaos and Carnage Tour this year, so it was my absolute pleasure to leave work a bit early to zip on over to Downtown Los Angeles to see one hell of a metal music lineup.
Continue reading “Show Review: Chaos and Carnage at The Belasco, 05-24-2024”
It’s been quite some time since I’ve covered a show at a venue for the first time. I feel like I’ve been pretty much living at the Belasco, for example, so getting an address for a different venue is always a nice change of pace, especially when it’s somewhere I’ve never been. Boomtown Brewery has been kicking in DTLA north of the arts district for a while now, but they recently started a show booking partnership with The Knitting Factory, which hopefully will bear more fruit for future shows! So I left work half an hour early to brave the even rush hour traffic across town for an evening of hardcore metal music–shocking, I know–and some tasty beer.
Show Review and Los Angeles Photos by: Oliver Brink
San Francisco Photos by: Alan Ralph @AlanHasPicks
This one was a bit special for me. Sepultura is a band that I fell deeply in love with in high school, and their music and the continued projects of Max Cavalera have been with me constantly as I navigate my way through life. I always find moments where I just need a song like “Refuse/Resist” or “Troops of Doom” to help me get through a moment of angry energy. So, of course, I had to jump at a chance to see Max and Iggor Cavalera, finally, and when that opportunity arrived, I jumped right the hell on it, even if it meant going to one of my least favorite venues to photograph. More on that later; bands first!
Metal. Metal. Metal. I spent 8 hours refabricating metal at work, so why not end the day at The Hollywood Palladium for a night of epic metal, fantasy metal, and melodic death metal? Thank you Sweden. We don’t deserve you.
