Historically speaking, the vast majority of popular music consumed in the world is in English. In countries where they don’t speak English, they still primarily listen to music with English language vocals. I believe that the majority of this has to do with America’s overwhelming cultural influence on the world, so maybe it’s time for the United States to start embracing musicians that perform in a language that they don’t speak in. The Fox Theater in Oakland hosted an evening with two artists from Mexico City, who largely perform in their native tongue.
Givers. There is something about this band that piqued my interest before hearing a single note. It may be the publicity photo that I keep seeing, with the incredibly pretty girl in it. It may be the fact that there is absolutely nothing bad on their label, Glassnote Records. Or it could just be my sixth sense about bands. Anyways, I uncovered by copy of their debut full length record that was sent to me from the label. I started listening, and maybe a week later, I realized that it’s all I wanted to listen to. Then, I noticed that they were playing. So, as expected, I decided to seize the moment and go see this band.
SPOILER: This is how the show ended
Givers. There is something about this band that piqued my interest before hearing a single note. It may be the publicity photo that I keep seeing, with the incredibly pretty girl in it. It may be the fact that there is absolutely nothing bad on their label, Glassnote Records. Or it could just be my sixth sense about bands. Anyways, I uncovered by copy of their debut full length record that was sent to me from the label. I started listening, and maybe a week later, I realized that it’s all I wanted to listen to. Then, I noticed that they were playing. So, as expected, I decided to seize the moment and go see this band.
Friday night at the Independent saw and infusion of fuzzed out low fi, 60’s garage rock revival with New Yorkers, Woods and San Francisco’s own The Fresh & Onlys. This common bond of lo fi revivalism is about where the comparisons end with these two bands however. While Woods is known for their spaced out psychedelic jams that hover below singer Jeremy Earl’s haunting falsetto, The Fresh & Onlys play a much more straight forward style of rock and roll, relying on surf rock guitar lines. Where Woods will let their songs meander through dreamy solos, The Fresh & Onlys keep their songs straight forward and stick to their musical point.
I have received a lot of free music over the years and all of it has either been good enough to steal or bad enough to be free. I’m happy to say that this was a rare exception to my klepto habit from an up and coming Antioch rock group called Playing in the Streets and their new album Right There for You.
Nellie McKay is a woman that is dead set on trying to surprise us. She is one of the few artists to find her records in the “Easy Listening” department of the record store with an explicit lyrics sticker on the cover, only to eventually put out an album of Doris Day covers. She recently made one of the most interesting moves of her career, a operetta out the life of Barbara Graham, the 3rd woman to ever get sentenced to death in the state of California.
I’m not going to beat around the bush here… I really like Rihanna. I respect the fact that she doesn’t write her own music (or pretend to write their own music), because she doesn’t need to. I appreciate that, unlike many of her Rocafella peers, she doesn’t need to placate to the indie community for credibility. Because, quite frankly, I don’t need my pop stars hoping to get caught by the paparazzi at a Dirty Projectors show or swooning over Ratatat on their “blog.” Rihanna is a pure, classic pop star. And she knows how to handle an arena-sized live show.
In 2007, Alison Krauss recorded a record with classic rock crooner Robert Plant. That record led to several years of touring, appearing on every critics’ best of list, and eventually helped solidify Krauss’ reputation as the queen of the Grammy’s. It also led to a 4 year hiatus from her regular band, Union Station. Everyone dabbled in solo stuff here & there, but rumors of a follow up to Raising Sand (the hit record that Krauss & Plantr recorded together) led some fans to worry that Alison Krauss + Union Station was a distant memory. This year, they quietly released a follow up to 2004’s excellent Lonely Runs Both Ways, the subdued Paper Airplanes. This led to their first stretch of shows since 2005, and SpinningPlatters caught them in the middle of their summer tour.
The one thing more dangerous than the “supergroup” is the “super star collaboration.” We’ve seen a lot of them lately, and for every great one like Bjork & The Dirty Projectors or Kimya Dawson & Aesop Rock, there are 100 Jay-Z & R. Kelly’s floating out there. On a warm Thursday Night, I ventured to the Tenderloin to see which side of the coin this Thao & Mirah project fell on.
The headliner at the Rickshaw Stop on Tuesday night was supposedly Times New Viking, the Ohio based shoegaze band touring in support of their latest release Dancer Equired, but nobody informed the audience because the majority of them were there to see the denim jacketed, Crass t-shirt wearing King Tuff blaze through his 11 song set of mind altered sixties garage rock without give one fuck about those critical darlings Times New Viking who were there to close out the night. Continue reading “Show Review: Times New Viking, King Tuff, Spencey Dude and The Doodles at Rickshaw Stop, 6/14/11”
