Bay Area people only have two more days to catch A Skin Too Few--the Dutch documentary on Nick Drake--at the Roxie, and hopefully people in other regions will get a chance to see it as well. Visually the film relies on location shots of Drake's home in Tanworth-In-Arden and in and around Cambridge, shot in beautiful, color saturated time-lapsed film. While it isn't the most informative of biographies, it does manage to convey a mood of sustained melancholy, aided by the taped interviews of his dead parents and what still shots exist of Drake. The only extant film footage of Drake closes the movie; it's a home movie and he appears to be about 18 months old.

An astonishingly excellent Charles Atlas show earlier this week which debuted all new material including a song that will make all the girls in the audience weep. Anyone in SF should go out of their way to catch them at the Great American Music Hall on the 25th.
Also a real surprise, thee (more) shallows who sadly had to change their name because of someone else, finally released their debut album which is awesome. They were also incredibly tight live although their live set was a little more geared toward the rhythm-propelled, vocal songs and stayed pretty much away from the instrumental tracks that grace the album. They have mp3s on their site. People should listen to them, they're good.