Posts by Ace Cowboy

Film reviews are often expected to put into words why someone should like or dislike the finished product. For There Will Be Blood, I cannot do that, because it’s so self-evident that it’s rendered plainly unnecessary. There’s no possible way you can walk out of this movie disappointed — simply, it’s the best film I’ve […]

So last week’s embedded test run with our new friends at imeem went swimmingly, and we see no reason to halt a good thing. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I’m told, and I can add don’t feed a gift horse Beefarino. Rusty! This week’s edition is everywhere, starting out on the old-school […]

It’s difficult to imagine of a more inaccessible band for small children than Medeski Martin & Wood. In all my years of being the creepy guy in just a trenchcoat and knee high socks at the local playground, I’ve never heard a parent say, “You know what my kid loves? Acid jazz! And he adores five-minutes percussion solos!”

All photos by our main man Danfun

But there I was at 6 pm last night, draped in my weekday business casual in the Time Warner Center’s Borders book store, watching the always-entertaining trio play a bunch of tracks from their new kids album, Let’s Go Everywhere.

A crowd of children sat in front of the band, most of them seemingly digging the music about cats, pirates and choo-choos, while a throng of equal parts hippie and hipster watched behind them, trying their best not to rock out in such a public place. And of all the venues I’ve done the head-bob, right knee-bend and foot tap to live music, Borders may now be a top contender for the strangest of places.

Read on for more of Danfun’s photos from the book store…

So just how awesome is Microsoft founder Bill Gates? This guy can apparently pick up a phone and get Slash to play some Guns ‘N Roses licks any time, anywhere. That’s what happened during Gates’ last-ever keynote address at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Check out the video, four minutes into it. […]

With apologies to Chris Harford, it’s Chris Robinson that fronts the real Band of Changes. And today the oft-evolving Black Crowes — with Luther Dickinson affixed in the latest incarnation of the lineup surrounding the Brothers Robinson — announced they’ll be playing smaller venues for a run of one-time engagements.

Was the end of that last sentence oxymoronic enough for ya? Regardless of semantics, the Black Crowes sent out a note that they’ll be playing the new album, Warpaint, in its entirety on stage during a special run of “One Night Only” shows. The Crowes will play the material from its first new album in seven years (due out March 4th) at smaller theaters before moving on to “songs from their catalog and selected surprises.” That whole deal sounds pretty sweet to us.

“One Night Only” tour dates:

Mar. 02 – Sayreville, NJ – Starland Ballroom
Mar. 04 – New York, NY – The Fillmore @ Irving Plaza
Mar. 05 – Boston, MA – Somerville Theatre
Mar. 07 – Chicago, IL – Park West
Mar. 09 – Atlanta, GA – The Tabernacle
Mar. 15 – Austin, TX – SXSW @ Stubb’s BBQ (not part of the “One Night Only” shows)
Mar. 19 – San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore
Mar. 20 – Los Angeles, CA – The Avalon

Check out the full press release after the jump…but we summed it up fine.

We’re anxiously awaiting the late-Spring album release from the band whose namesake may or may not have bedded Mike Piazza. One month ago we linked to Sam Champion’s first downloadable song off that forthcoming album, Heavenly Bender, and now we’ve got our first sniff of the second: Check out the newly released single, So Good […]

I tried my best to attend my college classes as frequently as possible. Far too often, however, those efforts suffered drastically from a lethal combination of Chicago’s notorious inclement weather, a considerable distance to most of my classrooms and the insatiable urge to sit around and get high all the time. Most of my lectures […]

We’ll look back fondly on our first full year in action, a period that saw us publish 1,127 posts — not bad for two guys draped in business casual collecting fortnightly pay-stubs. We tried to inform and entertain and stay up with the ridiculous nature of the music business that so often frustrates but makes […]

We’re sure this one’s making the rounds virally, but our main man Coach just alerted us to a spectacular piece of video. You may have seen Sweet Child O’ Mine through the years covered by Texas, Sheryl Crow, Most Precious Blood, Akasha featuring Neneh Cherry, Schmoof, Flat Pack, Luna, Chester the Pup, Dead Tongues, DJ […]

Like my cool Uncle Frank back in the day, we’ve been playing around with imeem behind closed doors, probing its parts and figuring out what buttons to press. So instead of offering up our regular Friday mediafire-type download that requires you to take a few extra steps to listen, allow us to present our first […]

Shut down the Internet cafes — it looks like Pete Townshend’s coming to town. In what’s become the most buried story of the new year, the former Who guitarist joined Eric Clapton and Ringo Starr for a secret New Year’s Eve gig in Surrey, England. A group that combines The Beatles, Cream and The Who […]

Warning: Do not start playing with this if you have actual work to do. (SFW)

The highlight of my November in 2006 wasn’t the supple turkey breast or the Democratic takeover of Congress. Nope, that honor’s reserved for one half of The Duo: Marco Benevento set up his keyboard and toy shop for five Wednesday shows at the now-defunct Tonic, inviting a slew of superb musicians — musicians’ musicians, really — to join him for stellar improvisation and clever instrumentation.

Marco‘s at it again: Tonight, Benevento kicks off his five-Thursday Januarystand at the new and improved (paint job’d and floor wax’d) Sullivan Hall. All five shows are packed with fantastic guests, and while we can’t fluff this residency enough, the truth is that every word of anticipatory praise will show itself to be well-deserved. Benevento will be joined by members of The Slip, Sir Joe Russo, Steven Bernstein, Bobby Previte, Stanton Moore, Billy Martin and many more guests.

It all leads up to the January 31st Release Party for Marco’s new album, Invisible Baby (he’ll be joined by Andrew Barr and Reed Mathis that evening). And as part of our very special contest, we’re giving away one free pair of tickets to every single night of the residency, and a five-night pass that gets you and a loved one inside. Now, since we took our sweet-ass time with this, we’ve gotta work quickly. So the first commenter gets the tickets for tonight.

As for the five-night pass and the other shows, all you’ve gotta do is leave a comment telling us who’s your favorite keyboardist/pianist of all-time, and if your tastes match up with ours, you’ve got entry. Our favorite answer will get the (Corbin Dallas) multipass, and we’ll give out the remaining individual shows to our next favorites. Hurry up and enter now, ‘cuz we’re on borrowed time here.

• Read on after the jump for the full lineup, and enter the contest below…
• Previously on HT: Marco Benevento: A ‘Live at Tonic’ Interview
• And many thanks to the fine folks at HYENA Records for hookin’ you up…now get out there and buy some real albums, people!

Stephen Malkmus and his equal-opportunity band of Jicks will release Real Emotional Trash on March 4th (Matador Records). That, we already knew. But Pitchfork today has advanced the story, letting us know that two weeks after the release, Malkmus & Co. will be hitting the pavement, er, road. Ah fuck, I just broke my New Year’s resolution of no more bad music puns. Read on for dates…

Like Deacon Jones’ sacks and Bill Russell’s blocks, I didn’t keep my live show-going totals as an official statistic this year for the first time since the early aughts. But, conservatively, I saw probably no less than 106 and no more than 147 bands in 2007, many of which made my smile both downstairs and up, and only a few of which made me want to go home and cut myself.

We’ve already offered up our comprehensive Year in Review, and yesterday we posted our 10 Favorite Albums of 2007. So as we continue our late look-back at the Year of Our Lord Two-Thousand Seven, you’ll find my 10 favorite live performances of the year after the jump. We start out with a hint of old-time nostalgia — the triumphant returns of Stevie and Levon — but I’m pretty damn thrilled by how many bands on this list I saw for the first time just last year. And only one prototypical jamband? Fuck, man, what a hipster doofus I’ve become.

But whatever your pleasure, here’s to another wonderful year of music, one that’ll consistently bring out the uncontrollable smile in you, one that’ll make you mumble to yourself while the lights blind you and the smoke gets in your eyes…

The University of Georgia absolutely crippled overmatched Hawaii in last night’s Sugar Bowl, the Bulldogs making the islanders look more like Rainbow Flag-Waving Nancy Boys than Rainbow Warriors (though that’d be too long a nickname). The highlight of the game may very well have been the National Anthem, arranged and performed exceptionally by New Orleans’ […]

Like all well-intentioned abstinence pledgers, we wanted to wait. Some call us ‘lazy,’ others call us ‘prudent,’ and our mothers call us ‘special.’

But when it comes down to it, posting any kind of Best Of list after only 11 months seems rather hasty and foolhardy — everyone would’ve been sorry had Radiohead surprisingly released another kickass, unannounced album on December 31st, after their lists had emerged. So on the heels of our comprehensive and grandstanding 2007 Year in Review, we offer up another year-end superlative for you to devour on this feels-like-a-Monday Wednesday.

After the jump you’ll find my 10 favorite albums of the past year, and at this juncture I must stress the word ‘favorite,’ which is not necessarily interchangeable with ‘best’ (though I do adore myself so much that I may have deluded myself into thinking my personal faves were indeed the best — I also masturbate exclusively in front of a mirror to videos of myself, but that’s not important right now).

Some are obvious, but some will surprise you, and I hope my explanations make more sense to you than they did to me when I wrote ’em with a wicked hangover. As always, we want to know what you think, so weigh in with your thoughts or suffer stiff backhands to the face, neck, breast, chest and head…

It’s only fitting that the band generating the biggest industry buzz in 2007 would also make the biggest splash on New Year’s Eve. Clay Aiken-Yorke and the rest of the Radiohead fellers put in a solid 52 minutes of work last night, webcasting a dynamic (mostly) studio performance that showed off how the material off […]

“Is that the guy with the old balls?” –Julian McGrath, Big Daddy

That may have been the most asked question over the last 12 months. For the Year of Our Lord Two-Thousand Seven will long be remembered as the ultimate cash grab: Genesis, Van Halen, The Police, The Sex Pistols, Crowded House, and the pulse-having members of Led Fucking Zeppelin all rose from the ash(tray)s for long-coveted reunions, and we’re guessing all the little pills floating around backstage came from doctors prescriptions and licensed pharmacists instead of sketchy backstage characters.

As for your friendly Internet sherpas here at Hidden Track, we’ll look back fondly on our first full year in action, a period that saw us publish 1,127 posts — not bad for two guys draped in business casual collecting fortnightly pay-stubs. We tried to inform and entertain and stay up with the ridiculous nature of the music business that so often frustrates but makes our highs possible. Although, we really just hope that this site over the past year provided a modicum of escapism for your workaday world.

The year began ominously, with news breaking on January 3rd that former 70 Volt Parade lead singer Trey Anastasio had heroin in the car during his late-2006 arrest in Whitehall, New York. And as it continued, we had a little fun with the New Deal’s drummer being a SciUNTZologist. We attracted some serious vitriol with our Top 10 Reasons We’ll Miss String Cheese Incident. We poked a smartass stick at moe. for offering to write my company a jingle a la Full House Uncles Joey and Jesse. We asked whether Dave Clark was fucking Jann Wenner in exchange for Hall of Fame votes. But mostly we just added our voice to the growing cacophony of the world wide webosphere.

So read on after the jump for a full recap of 2007 and The Year That Was…

It’s been dead around here lately. It’s been dead everywhere lately. Scotty’s in Chicago for the Umphrey’s McGee New Year’s run, but I’m so far out of the music mindset right now that I’ve been using YouTube less for epic live performances and new videos and more for old-school commercials I once enjoyed. So let’s […]