Tag: Stars

Show Review: Stars at The Masonic Lodge 11/29/17

A concert in a graveyard? Why not!

STARS-8

What exactly is it about Canada that produces such intriguing rock and roll acts? The great North is home to dozens of groups that broke through international barriers and still continue to impress to this day. Of course there are the obvious examples like Neil Young, Rush, The Guess Who, Arcade Fire, and NoMeansNo, but there is also that unique brand of indie/art with groups like Metric, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, The New Pornographers, and Broken Social Scene, the indie super band of which Amy Millan and Evan Cranley are members. Easily one of my favorites of all of them is Stars who take up a special place with their lush production and exploration of the various themes of love and heartbreak. In support of their recent double LP release, There Is No Love In Fluorescent Light, the band took over the Masonic Lodge at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery for three whole days of intimacy with their long-time fans and first timers alike.

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Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 9/12/13-9/18/13

Remember when Adam Ant was a guest star on Northern Exposure? Remember Northern Exposure? Am I the only one that watched this show as a kid?
Remember when Adam Ant was a guest star on Northern Exposure? Remember Northern Exposure? Am I the only one that watched this show as a kid?

It’s another good week for rocking… We have a known recluse doing a rare tour, a bunch of holograms of rappers, an R&B singer that cannot allow more than two e’s in one word, a bay area classic rock double header, and half of Bikini Kill. Not bad, if I say so myself!

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Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 11/4/2010-11/10/2010

Great Scotts! Delorean are playing Great American Music Hall on Wednesday!

I’d like to thank Jason LeRoy for taking over the list for the last couple of weeks. I hope that you listened to him, because if you didn’t, we’re just going to have to turn this website around and go back home…

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Show Review: Stars with Dead Child Star at The Independent, 6/19/2010

Excited Stars

Stars is one band that I like to think “gets it.” Their previous album, In Our Bedroom After the War, was released for sale the moment it was finished, letting their fans buy it before they were even offered the chance to download it. For their newest album, The Five Ghosts, they announced they were going to do a tour before the album “came out,” playing the entirety of the album. Not only that, but fans attending the shows could actually buy the album at the show as opposed to waiting for the release date. And to top it all off, each show had a website poll offering the chance for each city to pick the songs they wanted to hear in the remainder of the set. This is a band that gets how to interact with their fans in the new music economy. So how did it all go? Continue reading “Show Review: Stars with Dead Child Star at The Independent, 6/19/2010”

Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 6/17/10-6/23/10

Playing with the Dum Dum Girls next Wednesday at The New Parish

This is a really full week. There are multiple nights where I am trying really hard to figure out how to be in two places at once… Has anyone invented an easy way to clone oneself?

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Record Labels, Please Change Your Archaic Release Date Practices

Because I could never go home empty handed, I ended up with this
Because I could never go home empty handed, I ended up with this

For most of my life as a music nerd, Tuesdays were always my favorite day of the week.  On Tuesdays, I’d stop at Strawberries Records in West Springfield, MA and shop the new release rack.  I wouldn’t let myself leave without buying at least one thing.  This is how I ended up with The Bends, as I had liked “Creep” but not Pablo Honey, but there really wasn’t anything else interesting out that week.  As time has passed, Tuesdays have become less and less important, because now the release date for an album is somewhat random:  when it shows up online, it’s released.  Yet for some reason, the record labels are clinging to these release dates.  And in many cases, they still release albums on different dates in different countries.  This, for obvious file-sharing reasons, is beyond lunacy.  This post is a plea for record labels to end the archaic practice of release dates.  Not to help me–I’m well served by the Internet–but to help themselves.

The company I work for in my everyday life has a saying:  “We make it easy for our Customers to buy from us.”  When will the record labels adopt this attitude?

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