Archive: 2006

Circus Contraption, the Northwest’s premiere one-ring traveling carnival is not your Mama’s circus. Mixing traditional circus skills such as trapeze and aerial dance, acrobatics, juggling and clowning with elements of cabaret, vaudeville and physical comedy; the troupe also creates its own fantastical masks, costumes, puppetry, props, sets and banners.

The band announced their decision today, with the following statement: "The Organ are breaking up. We want to thank our friends, fans, and family for all the support you gave to us. Thank you. Shelby, Jenny, Katie, Debora, and Shmoo." In a short space of time, The Organ gained rapid exposure with the release of […]

Bob Weir & RatDog, Trey Anastasio, Gov’t Mule, Umphrey’s McGee, moe., Little Feat, The Derek Trucks Band, Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk, Trampled By Turtles, WookieFoot, The Everyone Orchestra and over 50 more bands will celebrate July in Minnesota next summer at the 5th annual 10,000 Lakes Festival.  More band announcements are expected shortly. For details see: […]

Welcome to the seventh edition of Grousing The Aisles — once again, it’s hump day. Last week I focused solely on Jerry Garcia, so we have two weeks worth of new torrents to catch up on. This week we’ll hit Tea Leaf Green, Billy Joel, My Morning Jacket, Phish, The Radiators, and The Rolling Stones.

Billy Joel 03/15/78 Munich, Germany PRO-SHOT Video(DVD)

Billy Joel was one of my favorite artists growing up. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that every summer I went off to sleepaway camp with a bunch of Jews from Long Island. Joel’s greatest hits album was required listening, and by the time I was in high school I couldn’t listen to Only The Good Die Young without vomiting. Years have passed and I once again have gained an appreciation for the piano man. Not only did he create some of the greatest songs of the late ’70s and early ’80s, he also put together a kick ass band that made his live shows incredible.

In early 1978 Joel had been on the road pretty much nonstop for four years. The band taped this performance for Germany’s Musikladen TV show, and the performance is amazing. The torrent above is for a newly remastered DVD copy of that performance, but nearly all of the songs can be found on YouTube as well…

I didn’t take to Wilco right away the way some of my friends did. For me, I had to discover their greatness on my own terms or it was never gonna work out. These days, though, I find myself drifting to their stuff more and more when I ride the subway on the way to […]

There’s nothing quite like watching a good idea become a cool reality.

About three weeks ago I attended and sang at a Diabetes Research Benefit Concert put on by my good friend, The Otrane. Otrane put together a band for the occasion, fittingly called Pancreas, and they put on an incredible show for the assembled crowd. Otrane called on his friends to sit in on songs he always hoped they would play. One of our friends was Jennifer Hartswick, who has recently been singing with the always in-flux band of Trey Anastasio.

Otrane thought no song can better show off Jen’s incredible range and vibrato than Sweet Child O’ Mine, so they decided to take’r out for a spin. That night, Jen and Pancreas pulled off an amazing version of the Guns N’ Roses classic.

Fast forward two weeks to this Saturday: Jen and her husband Wade, two of my favorite people in the world, entered my apartment for a little pre-game hang before the second night of Umphrey’s McGee‘s run at the Nokia Theater. Wade, Jen, Otrane, and our crew of rabid Umphreaks gathered, when someone asked Jen if she would be singing that night with the band. Jen told us that on the subway ride over she had been thinking about asking to sing Sweet Child O’ Mine instead of whatever they had previously agreed on. Otrane’s face lit up like a Christmas tree and the assembled troops agreed this was an amazing idea.

The first concert of the two-night run was just an average Umphrey’s show, which had its moments — hey, a mediocre Umphrey’s show is still on par with the best other bands of the genre have to offer. But we still entered the venue on that second night with high hopes, and we didn’t even have confirmation on what Jen would be playing with them — our crew has a firm “We don’t know want to know what’s going to be played” policy.

The band took the stage for night two and it became clear right away that this was going to be the keeper, this was going to be a serious show…

The Rapture always seemed ahead of the second New Wave, and this album, with two tracks produced by Danger Mouse (somebody has to teach them to be cool), shows them moving away from snagging riffs away from the Talking Heads and graduating to the funk and hip-hop of the Tom Tom Club.

The folks of Across-the-Way Productions, the Floyd County, VA based company that brings 4-days of spectacular music and fun to the Blue Ridge Parkway every year, don’t slow down for Christmas.  The 2007 theme and graphic has been announced, along with the preliminary line-up, with the traditionally un-traditional array of artists from every genre, those […]

The night before Halloween in the Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred Seventy-Six, Richie Manuel led The Band in an awe-inspiring rendition of Georgia On My Mind for a Saturday Night Live audience. It’s probably the most soulful thing I’ve ever seen a white man sing, and it’s high time we give this man his […]

The night before Halloween in the Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred Seventy-Six, Richie Manuel led The Band in an awe-inspiring rendition of Georgia On My Mind for a Saturday Night Live audience. It’s probably the most soulful thing I’ve ever seen a white man sing, and it’s high time we give this man his […]