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09/30/08
I was pretty much blown away by the Seva Foundation's 30th anniversary concert at Oakland's Paramount Theatre on Saturday night. 60s icon Wavy Gravy put the show together as a benefit for Seva, an international organization that raises money for cateract surgery for people in impoverished countries. It's really an amazing cause, and the Seva crew have a charming spirit of the '60s hippie vibe. The show they put together was a knockout. Bonnie Raitt kicked things off with a nice mini set, including a beautiful acoustic version of John Prine's "Angel From Montgomery". The last song of Raitt's opening set was a "Love Reign Over Me" and she was joined by Elvis Costello, David Crosby and Graham Nash. Not a bad opening. Next, Jackson Browne tore through a nice set...
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09/23/08
A few years ago, I did a story about Berkeley resident Country Joe McDonald, the iconic 1960s folk singer who wrote "Fixin' To Die Rag". Joe had me over to his house in Berkeley and entertained me with some wild stories about the hippie days. So I was pretty excited to learn that he's opening a coffee shop/concert hall in the Gourmet Ghetto next month. Check it out: Gimme a Cuppa Joe
60s' Hippie Icon/Activist Country Joe McDonald Debuts Community Coffee House/Music Hall in Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto
WHAT: Berkeley, CA-Country Joe's Café will debut on Thursday, October 16th at 1600 Shattuck Avenue in the heart of Berkeley's popular Gourmet Ghetto. The new Coffee House/Concert Hall is located in the ground floor of the award winning Café de...
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09/17/08
Thursday night marks the annual William Shatner tribute night at the Cerrito Speakeasy Cinema in El Cerrito. My buddy Will Viharo, one of the great cult movie activists in the East Bay or anywhere else, puts this tribute to all things Shatner together each year, finding rare films the Star Trek captain made ove the years. Highlights in years past have included Kingdom of the Spiders (Shat plays a large animal vet in a town overrun by killer spiders) and Impulse (Shat plays a serial killer with a serious mommy complex. This year's feature is White Commanche, in which our favorite ham plays twin half breed Native Americans. More info here.
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09/16/08
I was reading Boxofficemojo.com the other day and came across a fun fact: If movie tickets cost the same price from the dawn of cinema to this summer's blockbuster THE DARK KNIGHT, then THE GRADUATE would be the 18th highest grossing film of all time. As much as I love that movie, I was surprised to see what a huge smash it had been in its 1967 heyday...after all, adjusted for inflamation, it would have grossed nearly twice as much as Finding Nemo, Shrek, or Spider-Man. 41 years after The Graduate made Dustin Hoffman a movie star, Lafayette's Town Hall Theatre Co. has resurrected the stage adaptation that was a huge hit on Broadway back in 2000. The production marks the...
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09/15/08
I've loved almost every Coen brothers movie since BLOOD SIMPLE back in 1985, so when a new one comes out, it goes straight to the top of my priotity list. This weekend, BURN AFTER READING hit theaters and I caught a screening in the magnificent Alameda Theatre. BURN AFTER READING is the Coen's send-up of CIA/espionage thrillers, filtered through a confederacy of dunces cast. An all-star cast by the way. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malcovich, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins, JK Simmons all create memorable characters in what is essentially a minor effort by the Coens—think Raising Arizona-lunacy meets Big Lebowski-vulgarity meets Fargo-black humor. While Burn doesn't reach the artistic heights of Fargo or No...
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09/08/08
I'd been trying to get to see Woody Allen's newest, VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA, for the past week, and finally got there on Saturday—a nice, air-conditioned matinee at the beautiful Orinda Theater. The movie is a real treat for a couple of reasons. The first three are location, location, location. Barcelona is beautiful through Woody's eye (and cinmeatograher Javier Aguirresarobe's lens), watching the movie made me want to have dinner after midnight that night. One of the great thrills I find at a matinee movie is the ability to escape through time and space to European cities and/or backwoods gothic nightmares (I also watched the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre this weekend). Another thing VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA has going for it is a pretty spectacular cast. The...
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09/05/08
Back in March, I wrote a story for Diablo that's one of my all-time favorites: the East Bay's Greatest Hits. This look at the biggest rock acts was a blast to put together and I spent a lot of time listening to Green Day, Counting Crows and Creedence Clearwater Revival while writing it. To this day, many rock fans assume Creedence really was "born on the bayou" and not in El Cerrito, East Bay. Well, those fans should know better—and they should also know that Creedence's first six albums have just been re-mastered and re-released on CD, with bonus live tracks. Here's a clip of "Lookin' Out My Back Door"...
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09/04/08
This has been amazing summer for country music in the East Bay. A few weeks ago, Dolly Parton put on an amazing show at Berkeley's Greek Theatre. Her vocal performance was stunning, and she charmed, entertained, and moved the audience with her heartfelt stories between songs, prompting me to blog, "I know who I want to vote for for President...Dolly Parton." Last night, I found her running mate out at Wente Vineyards...Willie Nelson. Backed by a terrific seven-piece band, Nelson captivated a sold-out Wente crowd with a 90-minute set of his country classics, including, "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys," "Always on my Mind," "Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground," "Whiskey River," and "On the Road Again." The...
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09/02/08
I was seven-years-old the summer Star Wars came out, and its no exaggeration to say that the film was the pop culture event of my childhood. That glorious experience of seeing the film for the first time on a Saturday afternoon at Walnut Creek's Festival Cinemas is still fresh in my mind, as was the anticipation of seeing th subsequent chapter, and greatest film of the Star Wars franchise, The Empire Strikes Back. So, I thought it was kind of funny that, 31 summers after Star Wars, the seventh feature film in the franchise is in movie theaters, and I don't know a single person who has seen it. Except me. I caught a 10:50 p.m. screening on Sunday night at the Concord Solano Drive-in. Because of the Clone Wars's atrocious...
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