Peter Zimmerman

Crooked Still: Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, CA 8/20/10

Peter Zimmerman September 6, 2010 No Comments

If you try to classify exactly what type of music it is that Crooked Still plays, you’ll find that you’re at a loss to find the perfect description. Part bluegrass, part folk, part old-time, part gospel—these are just the beginnings to best define the band’s musical genre. Never was this more clear than during their recent show at the historic Great American Music Hall in San Francisco—a city they haven’t played since touring behind their 2004 debut album Hop High.

Natalie Merchant: Fox Theater, Oakland, CA 8/11/10

Peter Zimmerman August 27, 2010 No Comments

Natalie Merchant recently broke a seven-year silence with her rapturous, albeit lengthy, double album Leave Your Sleep. The offering was met by many fans with resistance, and at some level ambivalence. It had been almost ten years since a fully Natalie Merchant-penned album, so while she wasn’t digging up and reviving older folk songs (as was done on 2003’s The House Carpenter’s Daughter), Leave Your Sleep is comprised of 26 songs whose lyrics come from 19th and 20th Century poetry, all dealing with or written by children.

Joanna Newsom: Fox Theater, Oakland, CA 8/2/10

Peter Zimmerman August 17, 2010 No Comments

To say that Joanna Newsom is a Bay Area favorite would be both selling her short and reducing her to a trend among the hipsters, techies and young cosmopolitans that propel a constant search for those artists, figures or places that are the most innovative, cultural conscious and thought-provoking. Certainly Joanna Newsom shares quite a bit of celebrity throughout the United States, but rarely have I witnessed such ardent fervor over her and her music as that of a Bay Area Joanna Newsom fan. Perhaps it comes from the fact that she grew up near here, or that she is second cousins with mayor Gavin Newsom; however, there is no exact answer save the fact that she holds the power to keep her fans always wanting more, while satisfying and exceeding their own expectations of her.