Aidin Vaziri | Interviews, Reviews and More

18 July 2010

Live Review: Justin Bieber at Oracle Arena

Big stage exposes Justin Bieber's limitations: Aidin Vaziri | The first big disappointment of the night was when he put on the Yankees baseball cap after the second song. There it sat on top of Justin Bieber's head through the rest of his sold-out concert at the Oracle Arena in Oakland on Saturday like a giant black fly on a flat-panel HDTV. It might not mean much to anyone who is over 12 years old, but this was a serious infraction between the young star and his even younger fans. Not only is Bieber's mop-top the most discussed and desired in all of pop music at the moment, but that stupid hat meant the phalanx of squealing girls that filled the arena were going to get cheated out of witnessing the thing they actually cracked open their piggy banks to see - that famous Bieber hair flip. (Seriously, look it up.) Read more.

Review: M.I.A., '/\/\/\Y/\'

Review: M.I.A., '/\/\/\Y/\': Aidin Vaziri | Maya Arulpragasam is really good at making a racket. Her breakthrough hit, "Paper Planes" - borrowing its main riff from the Clash - famously paired the sound of bullets popping and cash registers ringing. The video for her Suicide-sampling single "Born Free" is loaded with gratuitous images of redheaded kids getting their heads blown off. Better yet, when everyone's favorite Sri Lankan pop star took issue with a New York Times profile last month, she promptly broadcast the writer's personal cell number to her followers on Twitter. The only problem is, all the peripheral noise tends to drown out the actual music she makes as M.I.A. And with her third album, it's the music that deserves to be heard above all else. "/\/\/\Y/\" crackles with electricity as genres collide and ideas overflow. Using cheap drum machines, raw synth lines and vaguely recycled melodies, Arulpragasam constructs a set of undeniably great, fairly innovative pop tunes such as "Teqkilla" and "It Iz What It Iz." The single "XXXO" may sound like a leftover from the "Weird Science" soundtrack, but at the same time, it reveals she can hang with Gaga while blasting the self-absolving chorus "You want me be somebody who I'm really not." Meanwhile, "Tell Me Why," a song that sounds as if it were recorded inside an empty garbage bin, may do for her career what "Umbrella" did for Rihanna. All M.I.A. has to do is step out of the way.

The Dead Weather Comes Alive

Dead Weather singer not cowed by White's shadow: Aidin Vaziri | It can't be easy sharing the stage with Jack White - even if he's sitting behind the drum kit. But Alison Mosshart is better cut out for the job than most. As the wiry singer for the Dead Weather, the White Stripes front man's side project of the moment, she swaggers effortlessly with her blunt-cut bangs and demon howls. When she trades verses with White over the fuzzy garage-rock racket, stomping her boots and strangling the microphone with her black-painted nails, their voices are virtually indistinguishable. The other band members have taken to calling her Baby Ruthless. So it's a little strange to finally meet Mosshart, 31, and discover she's actually less concerned with tearing off my head - as most of the lyrics on the Dead Weather's second album, "Sea of Cowards," would indicate - than gushing about the cuddliest Bernese mountain dog she just met while on tour. "Its feet were almost as big as human feet!" she says. Read more.

Pop Quiz: Primus

Aidin Vaziri | Shhhh ... Les Claypool and guitarist Larry LaLonde have reformed Primus, and they're playing a secret hometown show tonight at the Great American Music Hall. (Details are at primusville.com.) But if anyone asks, you didn't hear it from us. We're just here to report the long-running Bay Area group is talking about a new album and about to embark on the second annual Oddity Faire tour with a lineup of like-minded performers, artists and musical acts. The only hitch is you'll have to make a road trip to catch it. We asked Claypool, a man who recently started his own wine label and played a preacher in the horror move "Pig Hunt," to explain Primus' latest comeback.

Les Claypool of Primus
Q: What made you want to get Primus up and running again?
A: We got some offers for some festivals. My band was finishing up an album cycle. We got Jay Lane, the original Primus drummer from the club days back, and it's been great. This is definitely the most enthused Larry and I have been about Primus in several years. There is this newness to it and this energy that's very exciting.
Q: Are you bummed you didn't break up in a dramatic fashion so you could cash in on the reunion bucks now?
A: I never really thought about it. I guess there's something poetic to the notion we all punched each other in the face one night and went our separate ways and are now coming back together for this grand thing.
Read more.

15 July 2010

Lil' Kim spectacle at Rrazz Room

Lil' Kim spectacle at Rrazz Room: Aidin Vaziri | It was a wardrobe malfunction of the highest order: The airline had lost Lil' Kim's luggage. For a hip-hop sex kitten who is as popular for her saucy rhymes as her outrageous outfits - the purple pastie she wore to the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards particularly stands out - this meant that the start time of her sold-out concert on Monday at the Rrazz Room at Hotel Nikko would have to be pushed back while she pieced together another worthy getup. After an hour, host Sterling James announced, "Lil' Kim is in the house!" Translation: It would be another hour before the 35-year-old rapper would actually take the stage. Read more.

Paul McCartney blows San Francisco away

Paul McCartney blows San Francisco away: Aidin Vaziri | "This is such a scene I'm just going to take a moment for myself to just take it all in," Paul McCartney said, addressing an audience that had spent the previous hour or so cramming itself into every possible corner of AT&T Park. So a mere two songs into his set on Saturday everything stopped while the 68-year-old pop titan stood at the edge of the stage, mugging as much for the sea of raised cameras at his feet as for his own enjoyment. The last time McCartney played in San Francisco was when the Beatles performed their final public concert at Candlestick Park in 1966. He returned on Saturday virtually unchanged - the same shaggy hair, titanium smile and desperate need to please. He was even wearing the same boots. "The only thing then is we couldn't hear a thing we were singing," he said, inspiring a fresh chorus of screams, only probably more ragged and breathless this time around. Read more.

Pop Quiz: Michael Franti

Aidin Vaziri | Michael Franti's seventh studio album, "The Sound of Sunshine," won't arrive in stores until later this summer. But the Oakland native and his band Spearhead, fresh from playing a string of arena dates in support of John Mayer, are already back on the road giving fans a taste of the new material. Judging by the cheery title track and second single "Shake It," it looks like the group will have little trouble repeating the Top-20 success of last year's hit, "Say Hey (I Love You)." The album was partially recorded in Kingston, Jamaica with producers Sly and Robbie, and finished with a portable rig while the band was on tour with Mayer.

Michael Franti
Q: You recorded most of this album while on the road with John Mayer. Is he really that boring to hang out with?
A: He's actually pretty fun to hang out with. We were in the middle of writing this record and "Say Hey" kind of exploded on the radio. Normally we would have just gone in the studio and finished the record but this offer came along so we said, "Let's go!"
Q: Was it difficult making a record in NBA locker rooms?
A: The only hard thing was pushing the recording equipment in and out of the arenas. We were playing to 95 percent of people who don't know us, so we decided to play mostly new songs since they didn't know the old favorites. Every day we would play a new song and then go in the locker room of whatever NBA or NHL franchise we were in and rewrite the songs once we figured out what worked and what didn't.
Q: So this whole album is totally geared exclusively for John Mayer fans who show up early at concerts?
A: I wouldn't say that. I would say it's geared for people. It's geared for music listeners. We look for universal elements in the song.
Read more.

Review: Sun Kil Moon, 'Admiral Fell Promises'

Review: Sun Kil Moon, 'Admiral Fell Promises': Aidin Vaziri | Mark Kozelek has been making incredibly intimate music for close to two decades. On his latest release under the Sun Kil Moon moniker, the San Francisco singer-songwriter has found a way to draw his fans even closer - "Admiral Fell Promises" is his first album that's recorded entirely acoustically, just his weary voice over a nylon-stringed guitar. In a way, the record's dreamy tone is a throwback to his early work with the 4AD band Red House Painters, forsaking the electric Crazy Horse-style blowouts of recent years for more hushed, contemplative musings. Many of the songs, such as "Sam Wong Hotel" and "Third and Seneca," serve as postcards from his various journeys, laced with beautiful scenery, lingering heartbreak and some truly exquisite fingerpicking. Close your eyes and you can almost imagine him sitting in the room with you, serenading you for an hour or so with his flamenco-flavored flourishes: "I long for one more day with you in my life." Someone got the Esteban DVD last Christmas.

Spirit, not sound, defines SFJazz lineup

Spirit, not sound, defines SFJazz lineup: Aidin Vaziri | The San Francisco Jazz Festival is set to return with another ambitious run of concerts that spans generations and genres. Yes, there will be plenty of straight-up jazz on offer as the nonprofit organization rolls into its 28th season, but there will be several more unexpected guests on hand to mix things up, such as Grammy-nominated R&B sensation Ledisi, the Western swing group Asleep at the Wheel and singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash, the daughter of country star Johnny Cash. Randall Kline, the executive director of SFJazz, said when it came to booking this year's festival, which covers various venues across the city between Sep. 24 and Nov. 14, it was about the spirit, not necessarily the sound. "I like to say we present music that jazz has influenced and music that has influenced jazz - which basically means anything," he said. "I'm just looking for a certain soulfulness." Read more.

Pop Quiz: Sarah McLachlan

Aidin Vaziri | Sarah McLachlan is back in a big way. After taking a chunk of time off to focus on family matters - including raising her two daughters and dealing with a separation from her husband - the Grammy-winning Canadian singer-songwriter has released an intensely personal new album, "Laws of Illusion," her first studio set in seven years. She's also resurrected Lilith Fair, the female-friendly music tour she founded and temporarily retired over a decade ago. Mc- Lachlan plays at the Shoreline Amphitheatre tomorrow, topping a bill that will also feature Colbie Caillat, Heart, Miranda Lambert, the Bangles and A Fine Frenzy. We spoke to the 42-year-old singer by phone from her home in Vancouver.

Sarah McLachlan
Q: Would you have had enough material for a new album if your personal life wasn't in such shambles?
A: It's hard to say. There's definitely a lot of intense, emotional fodder to draw from. Singing has always been such a comfort for me. I always look for the silver cloud: Change is painful but it's growth and forward movement.
Q: There are a lot of gory details in the songs. What are your daughters going to think about their mother when they're older?
A: I have no idea. I don't give those kinds of things thought. I live fully in the moment.
Q: So you're just going to bum everyone else out every night?
A: I love bringing everybody down! No, I recognize I'm closing a festival tour and people want to hear the songs they know and love.
Read more.