Friday Mix Tape: That’s All She Wrote
Only three and a half days remain in a year that flew by, so this will obviously constitute the 52nd and final installment of the Friday Mix Tape for this revolution, the year of our lord two-thousand and seven. We’ve got a baker’s sixpack for this one, which starts off with my favorite track of […]
Pullin’ ‘Tubes: Anglophilin’ Wednesday
As you’ve no doubt noticed, we’ve taken our foot slightly off the accelerator. It’s tough to post a full slate of nonsense when there’s very little in the way of news coming from the music industry. It’s like Europe in August out there. Also, I’m in the middle of an English football marathon on the […]
RIP Oscar Peterson (1925 – 2007)
Some days they giveth gifts, and sometimes, on that same day they taketh, too. [youtube]_rn6AEVXpeo[/youtube] If Oscar Peterson wasn’t the greatest piano player, he’s certainly on the short list.
Picture Show: Holidazed & Confused (So Easy)
Like most other secular Semitic folk, the neurotic Jews that run Hidden Track typically associate the Christmas holiday with Chinese food, blockbuster movies, casino trips with the Asians and beach-dominated Caribbean vacations. Sadly we’re not publishing this post with the sand ‘neath our feet, so we’re loading up the molester-white van and taking you all to Jamaica, to a musical resort that Dave Chappelle tells me is “right near ‘da beach.” Boooyeeee.
Mid-December brought the respective and crossover fanbases of Umphrey’s McGee and the Disco Biscuits down to the Greater Antilles for an all-inclusive Caribbean Holidaze music vacation. Fans shuttled back and forth between the Hedonism III and Breezes resorts, the former of which featured early afternoon and evening sets from the two aforementioned bands, plus the stellar Benevento/Russo Duo, Keller Williams, Mad Professor, Tom Hamilton and the Beatles-Floyd supergroup known as Brain-Damaged Eggmen.
Our friend Dave Vann knows his way around an f-Stop, and he agreed to snap some photographic evidence of bands melting faces and fans raging their tits off. So read on after the jump for a full photo gallery from Caribbean Holidaze, featuring pictures and YouTube videos of all the live acts, the gorgeous scenery and a climate many of us long for at this very moment. And since we weren’t there ourselves, feel free to leave a first-hand report or observation in the comments…
The Week That Was: More For Your Stocking
We’ve twice discussed the unexpected gifts that some of our favorite musicians are proffering for Christmas, and now we can add Phil Lesh’s name to the growing list: The best bomb-dropper outside the U.S. military kicked down seven soundboards from his 10-night stand at the Nokia Theatre in New York. Ten crazy nights, like a […]
Pullin’ ‘Tubes: Ridiculousness for Everyone
The world moves on a woman’s hips; the world moves and it swivels and bops… It’s Friday, it’s 3 pm, and many of you will be off for the next few weekdays for a holiday that I believe celebrates the birth of Santa. So let’s get straight to the point here: The following video could […]
Once There Was a Way to Get Back Homeward
You walk into the Paul Robeson Theater, a former church tucked away in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene, and the first thing that springs to mind is the timeless middle-school assembly. Should we say no to drugs, or to crime, or is someone about to raise a little more awareness about The AIDS? Are the 8th grade elections coming up? Four-day school weeks, motherfucker, promise me!
So you take your seat next to a lovely blonde and wait for the band that’s scheduled to play this hidden gem. They come out, they begin to tune, and instantly your drawn to the awesome acoustics of the small auditorium. The music bounces off the walls and the band immediately sounds the best they’ve ever been. Then it hits you: This may be the coolest venue you’ve never heard of, and you want everyone you’ve ever fancied to play on that stage…post-haste.
American Babies took that stage at 10:30 last night, part of the Paul Robeson Concert Series that’s begun to bring more rock acts to this underutilized venue. I’ve seen the Babies — Tom Hamilton and Scott Metzger on guitar, Jim Hamilton on bass and Sir Joe Russo at the kit — more times this year than any other band, and last night may have been their finest show of 2007. Read on…
Pullin’ ‘Tubes: You Can’t Hear Jimmy
Widespread Panic struggled for many years to find an effective replacement for its deceased talismanic guitarist, Mikey Houser. Depending on who you asked between 2002 and 2006, the band ranged from “eh, alright” to “not very good” to “sucks donkey balls” under the six-string leadership of George McConnell. Then Jimmy Herring came along, and he […]
L. Braun: Am I Crazy, Or Is That a Lot of Gum?!
I’ve spent much of the past hour rifling through year-end revenue statistics for amphitheaters, festivals, concerts and tours, trying to come up with a joke smart enough to make fun of the 138,322 people in New Jersey that made Bon Jovi’s 10-night run with My Chemical Romance, Daughtry and others the fourth highest-selling concert in […]
Self-Promotion: How’d That Jerk Get In There?
Mike Greenhaus certainly looks Jewish, and for his gig as a Relix and Jambands.com scribe he’s been asking a whole lotta people the Four Questions. Only this ain’t for Passover; he’s been surveying musicians, managers, writers and many others for his multi-part year-end review. So what does some lowly yuckster blogger have to say about 2007? Find out in Set 2 of Greenhaus’ Auld Lang Syne effort (fourth man down), or read on after the jump for my silly excerpted answers.