Chad Berndtson

Whether in interviews, on drums or in a constantly renewing push to integrate technology and music, Butch Trucks isn’t one to hold back.

Having anchored the Allman Brothers Band’s drum assault for 40 years now, Butch is like the rest of his Brothers gearing up for what’s promising to be a batshit exciting Beacon Theater residency. You know the details and have heard the rumors: it kicks off March 9, with 15 shows total through March 28, and a rumored dazzling array of special guests.

In a recent interview with Hidden Track, Butch touched on a number of topics, including such hot potatoes over whether this is the start of an Allman Brothers Band scale-back (yes and no), some hints on what’s to come at the Beacon, and of course, Moogis – a brand new piece of the Beacon experience that will bring streaming, near-high-definition video to Web subscribers to capture each night of the run live.

READ ON for Chad’s interview with Butch Trucks to find out about the Allmans’ future, the upcoming Beacon run, Moogis and much more…

It’s precisely a band like U-Melt that allows me to keep faith that the jamband scene hasn’t morphed into a hippier, hettier (gah!), scruffier version of indie rock, filled to the brim with lightning flash buzz bands that are followed seconds after their debuts with heaps of backlash and hipster scorn. Too much to deal with, man; that kind of pressure makes bands essentially have to compete against themselves, let alone navigate the quotidian shitshow of trying to make it as a working musician.

[Photos by Jeremy Gordon]

No, U-Melt is that latter day jamband that’s done right by itself and its fans through earnest and steady growth. Where I was once skeptical of their “all-in” approach – so many styles, genres and components strained into a mass that wasn’t once much for hooks and songs and more on long, occasionally great passages of improvisation – every time I’ve seen them I feel like they’ve been a bit more “on”: more authoritative, more interesting, more assured and more fun. If there’s still such a thing as a grower band in this fractious scene, U-Melt is it.

Hidden Track caught up with keyboardist Zac Lasher at the start of the band’s extensive winter and spring tour, following a terrific kick-off show at Mulcahy’s on Long Island. If you haven’t checked ’em out in a while, or even if you have, do yourself a favor, as the saying goes…

HIDDEN TRACK: U-Melt really continued to hit the road hard in the last year. Looking back over 2008, any particularly great nights or individual sets come to mind?

ZAC LASHER: Oh yeah, two in particular. One was our moe.down show, which was pretty spectacular because we were fortunate enough for moe. to have invited us back—they don’t often do that for bands that have played moe.down before. We played the Beer Tent again and sometime during that day a friend of mine pointed out to me that it was Michael Jackson’s 40th birthday. So, we decided to do an impromptu Michael Jackson thing and I’ve never heard an ovation for U-Melt like we got for that Michael Jackson medley. And the other one was we started out the year with a bang, our New Year’s show late night at the Highline Ballroom was pretty excellent.

READ ON for more of our interview with Zac Lasher of U-Melt…

As Conan O’Brien goes, so must guitarist Jimmy Vivino, who despite appearing in any number of contexts over the years in his New York City base, definitely considers his role

Sometimes widespread speculation ends up totally bupkes…and sometimes it’s widespread speculation because, well, it just friggin’ makes sense. In that regard, saxophonist extraordinaire Jeff Coffin has confirmed that he is

I’ll spare you full reviews seeing how often I’ve sung the praises of this lineup, but with now two Phil & Friends Nokia shows under the ol’ belt for the run and a third on deck tonight, here are five off-the-cuff observations:

[Photo by Rob Chapman via Phillesh.net]

1. There’s a nice little debate kicking around the Phil faithful at the moment asking whether this year’s Nokia residency is better than last year’s. Most folks are hedging, but some glass-half-empty comments I’ve heard favor last year’s, saying that now that this incarnation of Phil & Friends is comfortable, it’s lost the surprise factor and settled into predictability.

Based on this year’s setlists, that seems a little absurd to begin with, but to me, that’s an apples-to-toothpaste comparison anyway. Last year’s Nokia run was essentially a test kitchen for this lineup to see just how chemistry it had and how much excitement it could muster, and on its last weekend, most observers agree, they clicked and became a band. This year’s model is the same personnel, give or take a guest, but a band utterly sure of itself after a long summer of touring and now confident in its ability to “get there”—aware of all its strengths, working on its weaknesses—with everyone willing to add a bit more of his (or her!) personality to the mix.

Most noticeably, Steve Molitz isn’t as reticent about slipping in the nutty keyboard effects this year—he’s been blasting off all over the place, and doing it tastefully, as in Tuesday night’s fierce Feel Like a Stranger second set opener. Teresa Williams, too, now qualifies as a full-fledged band member, and it’s been great to see her in places both logical (boy, did she nail that beautiful, beautiful Peggy-O on Sunday) and surprising (she and Jackie brought marvelous harmonies to Music Never Stopped on Sunday and Cassidy on Tuesday—both set two enders, both Bobby songs the Phil lineup doesn’t often play, and both terrific.)

READ ON for four more observations from Chad…