Posts by Ace Cowboy

If Shakedown Street is the sketchiest block in all the neighborhood, then Sesame Street is clearly the funkiest. The kids are pickin’ up what Stevie’s layin’ down… I’m not claiming this is the freshest clip on the cyberwebs, but even if it’s an oldie to you, it’s always pleasant to force-feed yourself some Stevie Wonder […]

You know they gettin’ down in heaven or hell tonight. They makin’ it funky. You know, man, movin’ it, doin’ it. God of Our Souls, meet the Godfather of Soul.

The hardest working man in show business succumbed to heart failure early Monday morning, leaving behind a legacy as the funkiest bastard that ever lived, and the funkiest dude to throw a back-handed slap at someone with fallopian tubes. His transgressions off the stage aside, James Brown did more to till the cultural landscape of music than most who’d came before him. For that, he’s a national treasure.

The good people at Yahoo! have done my work for me, supplying youse with full coverage of the man in death as he was in life. So with my job done already, there’s only one thing left to say to the guy that made us all wish we’d been born with that kind of innate ability to move rhythmically through this world: May you get your young legs back now and do the splits for all eternity. Good god.

Related audio: If you’re feeling like today would be a fantastic day to stream some JB, check out The Godfather & The Dreamer, a solid collection of 27 tracks from 1966-68 that’ll remind you why he’s the greatest. (SugarMegs)

Related video: Just a quick search on YouTube can bring the greatness back to life: some old school sex machinin’, some gettin’ up offa that thing, some feelin’ good and a touch of superbadness. YouTube can also bring back the hijinx and hilarity: the TV interview that confused the world.

“As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from indie purgatory springs.” –J. Tetzel The Arcade Fire announced today it will play five nights in Greenwich Village’s Judson Memorial Church from February 13th through 17th. I usually don’t pay much attention to bands that get more hype than Gabbo’s debut, but I […]

It’s the end of another year, another revolution. So far we’ve abstained from posting the usual Best Ham & Swiss Sandwiches of 2006 type of lists that most bloggers employ this time of the year, but that all changes today.

After checking out MSNBC’s Year in Pictures, I felt a pang of motivation to scramble through my own photo archive and pick out the 10 best shots I took this year. This exercise taught me that I’ve got an unsteady hand and I’m not a great photographer by any means, but I still think there’s a bumper crop for youse.

Let’s start with the best, and nothing tops the most inconceivable happenstance of a photo I’ve ever taken in my life. I figured my first trip to San Francisco would be a smashing success after bumping into the former keyboardist for the popular rock band Phish and a former geographically excitable presidential candidate: Page McConnell and Howard Dean, Chairman of the Boards and Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, standing there like tourists waiting to be photographed together like old chums. Dean likes Page’s new shirt:

You never know what you’re gonna find in Washington Square Park. Sometimes it’s the acrobatic and comedic black twins doing flips and jumps and jokes simultaneously, sometimes it’s the French juggling unicyclist in the unitard, and sometimes it’s the old hippies that all meet up to sing Teach Your Children Well and pine for the days where longhairs ruled the world. And sometimes, or maybe just one time, it’s former Spin Doctors frontman Chris Barron belting out Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong with Buzz Universe (click that link for a video):

Read on for the rest of My Year In Mostly Crappy Photos (w/ a few gems)…

Update: Click here for some video and photo sets from the Pelosi Jam Anybody got a thousand bucks for a heady heady trade, brah? The new Speaker of the House is trying to show up Uncle Bobo. Vendors get your shit together, showgoers prepare your tuxedos and classiest gowns (with shoes, folks). It sure ain’t […]

We don’t plug shit from the parent company often, so when we do youse should all probably assume it’s something special. Read the fucking book. Glide Magazine today published its 4th Annual Best of 2006: From the Artists’ Perspective, a comprehensive look at the year that was from the people you pay to entertain you. […]

By now I’m guessing Jerry Garcia’s corpse is pretty well decomposed. But his skeletal remains must be rolling over in the grave today. His famous “When we’re done with it, you can have it” quip isn’t penetrating the Dead’s remaining organization like it should, nor has his advice been shared by the folks from Led […]

Let’s pull right into the interstate weigh station with this heavy haul of videos… I spent almost every summer from 1986-2001 up at one of those Northeastern sleepaway Jewcamps. As a staff member in some capacity for six of them, my cohorts and I would find ourselves in one of the area’s local watering holes […]

Talk about flying totally under the radar. Last year at this time the Noodling Community was abuzz with pre- and post-show chatter about the Warren Haynes Xmas Jam. And maybe it’s strictly the result of the lack of an exotic and limitless Serialpod debut, but this year’s event didn’t even register on most Google calendars, message boards or any of those newfangled “blogs.”

Did a subpar lineup keep the avalanche of buzz at bay? Was it Warren’s refusal to add any acts to the bill after the initial announcement? Or have people grown a bit weary of Haynes’ overexposure? No matter the reason, the 18th Annual Xmas Jam still managed to sell out 7,200 seats and provided the paying audience with hours of music. The Asheville Citizen-Times, not surprisingly, wrote a glowing recap of the event, the only media outlet to cover it apparently.

Branford Marsalis joins a strange balding dude and some homeless guy on stage on the 18th Annual Xmas Jam — credit: Paul Balicky (Asheville Citizen-Times)

Make sure to check out the Citizen-Times article, which contains a ton of multimedia from the show and the first ever Xmas Jam podcast. And read on below for the setlists from each band, many of which include Marsalis, middle-aged American Idol winner Taylor Hicks and Umphrey’s McGee geetarist Brendan Bayliss…

I’ve always been a big fan of incorporating mainstream popular culture into the not-so-mainstream culture, counter- or otherwise. In fact, I thought it was a grave misstep when every so-called jamband in the country passed on covering the This Is Budweiser song, perhaps sandwiching it in between an original anthem. Most of them have made […]

It’s synonymous with summer. And either you’ve got fond memories of a fucking awesome veggie burrito you bought in the lot or you’re making grand plans to see a show there when the popular rock band Phish inevitably returns.

Whichever camp you’re camping in, it seems like Live Nation’s about to pave paradise and put up a parking lot. Or a shopping mall. Or a Wal-Mart. Harsh buds.

First they sullied the glorious Deer Creek name when the venue became the Verizon Wireless Music Center, now it looks like the lights may go down forever. Hey, at least it’s for a good reason, reports the Indianapolis Star:

The area around the music center has become one of the Indianapolis area’s hottest sites for new commercial development and Live Nation wants to take advantage of rising property values in the area…

Sweet, it’s all in the name of profit-taking…that’s great news. Here I thought there was gonna be an explanation people would be pissed about. Nick Arterburn of CB Richard Ellis, the real estate company listing the property, apparently doesn’t believe in sugar-coating nor subtlety, so he clarifies the Live Nation position:

“We’re not against selling it to another entertainment group…as long as they are the entity that pays us the most money.”

And we all know that entertainment groups outside of Live Nation and its former parent Clear Channel have plenty of money with which to win a bidding war. So I’m guessing this spells the end of one of the most famous outdoor amphitheaters in the country. Deer Creek, we hardly knew ye…or we knew ye too well.

Read on for an impromptu edition of The B List and links to some of the best Dead and Phish shows in the rich history of the venue…

This week we finally learned the answer to that age-old lot question “Who’s got my pharmies?” Apparently they’re in a black 2004 Audi sedan piloted by a bearded redhead all hopped up on goofballs. Driving is no time for improvisation, Trey. But there was a far more underreported story this week. It’s with my humble […]

Ya know, for all the dreck on Saturday Night Live this season, the show is actually producing at least one quality sketch almost every week. Between the “Bobby McFerrin raped my grandmother” Awkward Carpool piece with Alec Baldwin and the new chick and the “Raps, raps, doin’ raps” MC Blizzard skit featuring Andy Samberg and […]

It’s always nice to walk into the office after a long day and a half on the road to read the news you’ve been waiting to see forever: Your favorite rock star finally has the street cred he’s been lacking. By now you’ve heard the news a hundred times: Former frontman for the popular rock […]

I’m off to the wonderful city of Tampa for a quick work adventure, so I’ll be out of commission today. Your first order of business: Watch this pretty cool clip of Waste by a fiddler, a bassist and an acoustic guitarist. Next: Scroll down to read Monk’s recap and see his disgustingly cool photos of […]

Can’t make it to one of the 417 Allman Brothers Band shows at the Beacon Theater every year? Want to see Gregg Allman look like Jon Voight dressed as Willie Nelson for Halloween from the comfort of your home couch instead of the deep balcony? Don’t wanna stand right behind Bill Walton’s enormous torso as One Way Out starts? Then get on over to the to the ABB site and vote in support of Butch Trucks’ new plan to stream the band’s Beacon run and beyond…

Read on for more details on this potentially awesome plan from a group of guys I wouldn’t automatically classify as all that tech-savvy…fix a laptop, eat a peach.

I’m not sure what kind of coincidence this is — after all, as a kooky Russian author told Elaine Benes, there are no big coincidences and small coincidences, there are only coincidences — but two of the first three randomized songs on my iPod this morning were Boston tunes. Maybe someone’s trying to tell me […]

I think it’s time to give our associate Chilly Jackwater a bigger platform ’round these here parts, maybe once a week. Nobody on the cyberwebs makes me spit milk out of my nose on a more consistent basis than this yuckster. And because I basically guffawed audibly in my boss’ face while reading his response […]

Some people might argue that a purple blouse may be a wardrobe malfunction in itself, but the master of androgynous style and ambiguous sexuality will be rocking Miami at the Super Bowl XLI Halftime Show anyway. That’s right, nothing symbolizes the brute force and awesome power of football quite like Prince. But what Prince lacks […]

Prepare to call your father from the road, hippies and hipsters. Unless you live on a farm in Tennessee, you won’t be celebrating Father’s Day with your pops this year. No, you’ll be down in the flood of heat and the stench of grilled cheese.   Superfly Productions and A.C. Entertainment are proud to announce the dates for the Sixth […]