Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
The boys from Bristol are back. After a seven year waiting period, studio perfectionists and UK music pioneers Massive Attack return to full form with their newest and much delayed album, Heligoland. The second show of a two night stop in San Francisco, Massive Attack bring their eccentrically driven set for all to marvel at. Would their perfection pay off?
Continue reading “Massive Attack with Martina Topley-Bird and MNDR at The Warfield, 5/26”
While a great number of artists have passed through the doors of Ex’pression College to perform at the school’s Meyer Performance Hall, in intimate shows offered to a handful of lucky radio winners and passionate students, never before has one of these performances — dubbed “Ex’pression Sessions” — included more than one band at a time. It’s also not terribly easy to predict exactly who will be coming through the doors, since all manner of musicians, performers and artists have taken the stage over the last several years. With these considerations in mind, Monday’s performance was a never-before-attempted feat, as it involved two artists of a fairly well-known stature: Amanda Palmer, expert pianist and purveyor of all things art, and OK Go, arguably the Most Famous Band Thanks To The Internet. Continue reading “Show Review: Ex’pression Session: OK Go and Amanda Palmer @ Ex’pression College for Digital Arts”
Long live the super group. Established producer Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse) and his musical pal, James Mercer of The Shins, made their way to the Grand Ballroom in San Francisco Friday night to showcase their new experiment, Broken Bells. After what seems to have been the season of all star groups such as Them Crooked Vultures and Atoms for Peace, did this long anticipated show live up to all its hype? Continue reading “Show Review: Broken Bells with The Morning Benders at The Regency Ballroom, 5/21/10”
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?
WARNING:
The following review may contain the following:
*Explicit Language
*Violence
*Male Nudity
*Intelligent Discussion
Please proceed with caution. If your boss, or the coworker you have a crush on is looking over your shoulder, please point your browser elsewhere immediately. Continue reading “Show Review: Fucked Up, Hank IV, Hollerado at The Rickshaw Stop, 5/9/10”
If you’ve listened to the new Kate Nash album, My Best Friend is You, you wouldn’t have been surprised by what you heard last night at Bottom of the Hill. Unfortunately it seemed most of the audience hadn’t. Kate Nash played mostly new songs and while I was looking forward to dancing around with the crowd to those songs, I guess nobody else was. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Continue reading “Show Review: Kate Nash with Supercute! at Bottom of the Hill, 5/8/10”
Fellow Spinning Platters writer Marie Carney and I decided to take a different approach to writing a review of last night’s show from Everybody Was In The French Resistance… Now! at Bottom of the Hill. Taking a cue from singer Eddie Argos, best known from the band Art Brut where he also tends to speak-sing the lyrics, we decided to write a show review in conversation. I hope we would make Eddie proud. Continue reading “Show Review: Everybody Was In The French Resistance… Now! with A B and the Sea and Carletta Sue Kay at Bottom of the Hill, 4/27/10”
Before the show even started, and long after it ended, fans were gathered around the stage to take photographs of the famous synthesizer on stage at The Regency Ballroom on Monday night. This is the actual synthesizer that was used on “Lucky Man,” the classic track by Emerson Lake & Palmer that both kicked off their career and ended this concert. That prog nerds (like me; I was taking a photo, too) worship equipment is well known, but what about the people playing it? What about Emerson Lake & … well … nobody?
Continue reading “Show Review: Keith Emerson and Greg Lake at The Regency Ballroom, 4/26/10”
When I approached the Great American Music Hall box office last night to pick up my tickets for the Shelby Lynne concert, something very startling happened: the box office rep also handed me two backstage passes with the instructions to “come down and say hello” afterward. This has never happened to me before. And while I was giddily excited about the prospect of meeting Shelby, I was also a complete basket-case. My interactions with celebrities have ranged from moderately successful (when I have enough time to plan my words carefully) to sheer blood-curdling disaster (when the opportunity catches me by surprise). So how would tonight go?
Continue reading “Show Review: Shelby Lynne and Findlay Brown at Great American Music Hall, 4/23/10”
With this review, I hope to dispel a few stereotypes that people have about Ms Norah Jones. I feel that people have, rather inappropriately decided that she makes dull background music, and that she isn’t a very good live performer. I will agree that in her earlier days, she was a very shy performer. She rarely looked at the crowd, and usually hid behind her piano. I also feel that her debut record, Come Away With Me, the 2002 release that went on to sell 22 million records, is more of a mood piece than a work of active listening. But, in the 8 years since that release, Ms Jones has pushed her sound in many new and interesting directions, including a few very surprising collaborations and a really bizarre interpretation of punk rock.
So, how did her first show at The Fillmore since 2002 (opening for the great Willie Nelson) fare? Read on…
Continue reading “Show Review: Norah Jones, Sasha Dobson at The Fillmore, 4/21/10”