Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
School is back in session soon, right? So you should go out and enjoy some shows before you have to return to the old grind!
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 8/22/13-8/28/13”
Find any official Stern Grove web presence, and you’ll see that the lineup will be announced May 2. Well, yesterday it leaked, and although it was quickly “unleaked,” you can’t truly unleak stuff on the Internet. This isn’t Orwell’s 1984 (yet), so because I know, I want all the music junkies to know. (Good thing we have a website for music nerds.)
Why should people want to know right away? Because Stern Grove on a Sunday in the city is one of the greatest traditions we have, and all my friends who work Sundays can start planning now. Check out Stern Grove’s website for more details come Monday, May 2, but you can put in your time-off requests now. Continue reading “The Stern Grove 2011 Lineup”
Could it be possible that Jakob Dylan actually prefers to exist in the shadows of others? I mean, seriously. First he makes the questionable decision to get into the exact same line of work as his father. And if that line of work was, like, plumbing or something, then fine. But if Bob Dylan is your father and you decide you’re also a folk-rock singer-songwriter? That’s like Janis Joplin’s (rhetorical) daughter choosing to become a boozy bluesy hippie, or Moses and Apple Paltrow-Martin deciding to start insufferable lifestyle blogs and rip off U2 for a living — your parents pretty much pioneered the concept, so why bother?
Feliz Cinco de Mayo de SpinningPlatters.com. He aquí una lista de formas divertidas y fabulosas para pasar sus vacaciones, así como la semana siguiente. Si me ves en cualquiera de estos programas, por favor, gracias a mi me entregando una margarita o tamal!
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 5/5/10-5/11/10”
In 2007, a strange and unexpected musical collaboration was released. It was the brain child of legendary producer T-Bone Burnett who decided that a full album collaboration between Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and modern day bluegrass icon Alison Krauss would be a brilliant idea. The album, Raising Sand, came out, and it was a moody collection of covers and originals that was both a critical and commercial success. It was a rare album that nearly everyone enjoyed, and was also the first album released on a independent label to win the Grammy for Album of the Year.
Fast forward three years, and a rather suspicious record gets released. Jakob Dylan, son of Bob and vocalist of 90’s buzz bin two-hit wonder act The Wallflowers, releases a record called Women + Country, featuring production by T-Bone Burnett and vocals by Alt.Country Super Heroine Neko Case. It all feels, I don’t know, impure? I was curious about this record, but also a bit skeptical. So, when I got an offer to review the record for this site, I decided to take it upon myself.
Continue reading “Album Review: Jakob Dylan — Women + Country”
by The Spinning Platters Staff
The past month at the Spinning Platters offices (everyone telecommutes) was spent passing albums around to try to determine a staff list of the Top 15 Albums of 2009. We chose 15 because we had 15 voters, so maybe everyone would get one of their pet favorites on the list. There was a nomination step, a finalist selection step, a final voting step, some senior staff picks, and then we had a list. No list is perfect (and we recognize that albums are still coming out this year), but ours is not only pretty darned good, it also manages to represent the wide variety of musical tastes among our team here (i.e. some of us hate some of these albums). Now, read and enjoy The Official List of the Top 15 of 2009. Continue reading “Spinning Platters Presents the Official List of the Top 15 Albums of 2009”
I have come to the second and final day of my adventure in the lovely Golden Gate Park. I have refilled my water bottle, stocked up on trail mix, and am ready for music.
This day already feels a bit different from the previous day. It’s still very crowded, but it’s noticeably easier to navigate. I can’t quite tell if fewer people came, or if people are spread out better. It might just be that people have the bearings down, because the crowd is moving a bit better.
Anyways, on with the show:
Continue reading “Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival Journal, 10/04/09”
Episode 5 of the Spinning Platters podcast features guest Caroline Hernandez of Spinning Platters joining us to discuss the upcoming Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. As always, we go off on our crazy tangents, and we invite you to listen to the crazy digital-delay blooper all the way at the end of the podcast.
We also discuss the following: Continue reading “Spinning Platters Podcast: Episode 5 — Digital Delay”
So, Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit is October 24th-25th. For those that aren’t already aware, Neil and Pegi Young have a school for the developmentally disabled. Every year, they put together an acoustic show with a few friends in the business. In the past, these friends have included Tom Waits, Paul McCartney, Green Day, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Ministry, and, well, the list can go on for miles. Today, I am going to try to predict six of the bands playing. They usually announce the bill about six weeks in advance, so we have a bit more time, and as some acts get confirmed, I will revise the bill. Well, on with the show: Continue reading “Spinning Platters Picks Six: An Early Educated Guess At Bridge School”
Normally, for a show like this, I would have arrived at the venue at 7:00 pm, then had a drink, made my way over to the front of the stage to plant myself there for the rest of the evening in anticipation of one of my favorite acts. However, after a stressful week it figures I didn’t get there until Neko was already on stage. Continue reading “Neko Case at The Warfield, 6/10/09”