On this first night of a completely sold out tour, New Jersey’s Gaslight Anthem showed that they are ready for the big time that’s around the corner for them. They didn’t do this by focusing on material from their forthcoming album, Handwritten, but by blowing through nearly two hours of their infectious combination of punk, pop, “New Jersey,” new wave and Americana. And the crowd sang along, every word. Continue reading “Show Review: The Gaslight Anthem with Dave Hause at The Independent, 7/5/2012”
Art Alexakis and Mark McGrath: Your Tour Organizers
When I first heard about this Summerland tour, I didn’t believe it. As a punker kid in high school, these were all bands that I was too good for. I would only listen to Live 105 or KOME in secret, while I told my friends that I was listening to bands like The Queers or cub. I did see Everclear back in the day, but only because they opened for Primus. Sugar Ray? I saw because Save Ferris and Goldfinger were opening. But I secretly enjoyed these bands. Even when this tour was booked, my gut was to be an angsty 16 year old and make fun of it. But, secretly, I really wanted to go. Since I am much more comfortable with my own skin, I decided to own my nostalgia and make the long trek from Oakland to Saratoga, a city that most Oaklanders aren’t even aware of.
There are so many artists that have been given the role of “New Dylan,” that it’s practically a genre unto itself. Kurt Vile is one of the many who have fallen victim to such a label. He has put out four great solo records, and countless EP’s of great singer/songwriter music, and although there is a bit if a Dylan influence, his sound is much more than that. SpinningPlatters had the pleasure to witness his recent performance at The Fillmore, alongside is fantastic backing band, The Violators.
It’s fairly easy to forget that one of the most important factors of a live performance that distinguishes it from a record is the sheer loudness of the music being played. Concertgoers far and wide are usually pretty good about remembering earplugs, as a result of this fact, and those that don’t can usually protect themselves with handy booths located within the walls of whatever theater they’re ready to get sonically disintegrated within. Generally, though, one can take a blast of churning riffs and thundering beats to the face for a few hours over the course of one evening, and come out relatively unscathed, albeit with their ears possibly ringing for a day or two afterwards. Thus, there lies an entire world of experimentation in the form of performing music at tremendously high levels of volume — although the songs can become almost painful in their intensity. Channel that sound into baleful, fearsome riffs, add a rhythm section that seeks to destroy bricks with its ferocity, and back it up with ludicrously powerful bass and howling, hellish vocals, and you’ll begin to glimpse what a set by the San Jose doom metal trio known as Sleep is like.
In 1997, Britpop was at an odd sort of crossroads. The Oasis/Blur feud had already sort of fizzled out. Coldplay and Snow Patrol were still trying to figure out their inoffensive brands of soft rock. During that in-between period, we got two of the most fantastic British rock records off all time: Radiohead’s OK Computer and Spiritualized’s Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. These two albums are both dark and intense bodies of work, and, to the surprise of nearly everyone, were both critical and commercial successes. The two bands even hit the road together, playing arenas around America, with their own different brands of apocalyptic, hypnotic, and vaguely psychedelic rock music. Of course, we all knew what happened to Radiohead- the remain one of the biggest bands in the world. However, Spiritualized ended up taking a very different path. Bandleader J Spaceman went through bouts of drug addiction and illness, causing trips to American to be few and far between in the last decade and a half. Thus making their recent trip to The Fillmore very special.
Kyle Gass and Jack Black. Or, as we like to call them, Tenacious D.
If you search my iTunes account for “Jack Black,” you’ll find results in two separate areas: comedy films like School of Rock, and hidden in the music of a band known as Tenacious D. Their music has the distinction of being the only band on my entire iPod listed with the genre I call “comedy rock.” But the truth is, I never paid the band much mind. See, I love Mr. Black’s movies, and frankly I quite like everything I’ve seen of him as well. I’ve noticed over the years that he’s got a pretty great voice, too, which is how I came to acquire these Tenacious D albums. But the truth is, I’ve never really listened to them. I’m not sure why, but there’s the truth. So when I noticed they were headed my way (The Fox Theater in Oakland, to be exact) this week (Thursday night) promoting their newest album, Rize of the Fenix, I couldn’t pass up the chance to finally check out this band loud and live, the way I suspected they’re best experienced. Continue reading “Show Review: Tenacious D with The Sights at Fox Theater, 5/24/2012”
Rising from the ashes of a former band can be a help or a hinderance to a new act that has cut their teeth in the music scene and is ready to unleash a fresh new set of tunes to the world. When you are as volatile and chaotic of an act as At The Drive-In, it can safely be said that people will be waiting to see where your musicians will head and what songs they will craft next. While the afro-clad frontmen of the El Paso post-hardcore quintet went on to form The Mars Volta, and burst back into the world with a mindbendingly-wild blend of fusion punk and Latin-flavored experimental prog rock, co-founder Jim Ward and drummer Tony Hajjar followed in their original band’s aggressive-but-pensive footsteps with the newly formed quartet known as Sparta. While both bands endured their respective sets of ups and downs in terms of popularity and following, and despite the titanic response of the reformation of At The Drive-In all but eclipsing the enthusiasm for their sister acts, Ward and his cohorts have lost none of the furious passion that drives the aptly-named four-piece, and on Monday night, they returned to San Francisco to prove just how excited they were to share their rekindled energy with their most devoted fans.
Mario Rubalcaba, Keith Morris, and Steven McDonald of OFF!
When a band comes to a local record shop to do an in-store appearance, it’s a really unique type of event. Songs are generally stripped down to a more acoustic and delicate format, conversations are had between the band and the crowd with greater regularity and openness, and it’s a guaranteed opportunity for a meet-and-greet that often costs nothing more than the price of the group’s new record — which, in all likelihood, you’re there to buy so that they can sign it. However, not all artists can comfortably fit the first item on the agenda — a quiet show, an intimate arrangement of instruments — into their setup, and when their output’s main focus is blisteringly-fast, unflinchingly-loud, viciously-penned hardcore punk music, it’s not even in the same galaxy. Thus, the four-piece supergroup known as OFF! unleashed their set in Berkeley’s own Amoeba Records very much like they had the previous night at Slim’s in San Francisco: amps piled about, drummer Mario Rubalcaba sandwiched in between the gear on the miniscule stage, and every single object capable of emitting sound cranked into the stratosphere for 30 solid minutes.
Don’t you hate it when you’ve totally been looking forward to an event and then when it actually rolls around, something comes up that completely hinders your ability to enjoy it as much as you’d planned to? Sadly, that was my experience Friday night last. The thing I look forward to is, of course, seeing great live music. In this particular case, it was Jay Nash I’d been anticipating seeing again, at the Red Devil Lounge. Jay’s newest EP, Of the Woods, was just released last week, so of course I was also excited to hear the new material.
