Hidden Track Staff

Cornmeal, Greensky Bluegrass & USPS @ Sullivan Hall, February 10

Words: Bob Frank
Photos: Rob Chapman

Get on the bus > take the train > catch the plane, your flight is boarding. During the second stop of the five-night SkyMeal tour at NYC’s Sullivan Hall, Cornmeal delivered and took its passengers to new heights. Destination unknown, everyone from the audience celebrated, danced and spun to a ripping Thursday evening of intense progressive bluegrass and roots music.

[All photos by Rob Chapman]

Setting the mood early at 8:45PM with intertwined accurate harmonies, timely riffs and a June Carter reminiscent attitude; Union Street Preservation Society played to the knee-buckling, swaying, attentive crowd. On mandolin and vocals, Sara Bouchard traded licks with Alex Borsody on his open-tuned round neck dobro, while Jason Bertone laid down a generous vibe on upright bass. The young and talented Harrison Hollingsworth carried the fiddle responsibilities with a command Vassar Clements would be proud of. David Leiberman sang with a unique voice and magnetic personality that kept the energy of the evening soaring. The youthful, eager quintet impressed the crowd as they filtered in for a major dose of pickin’ and grinning.

Cleverly paired on a five-night tour with Cornmeal, Greensky Bluegrass fell right in place with their second selection, Stop That Train. There was no stopping the uptown express intensity from reaching its arrival. The quintet from Michigan, led by Paul Hoffman on lead vocals and mandolin, created a sound scape all its own, veering sideways off the traditional expectations.

READ ON for more on last Thursday’s concert…

While Phish has famously kept its lineup intact for the past 25 years, guitarist Trey Anastasio has tinkered with the lineup of his solo band frequently since first forming TAB in 1999. Twelve years after that first tour, Anastasio seems to have settled on his ideal ensemble as he returns to the road on Friday in Portland, ME backed the same set of musicians from last year’s TAB tour.

[Photo by Adam Kaufman]

Just as he did on that first tour in 1999, Trey will start things off with an acoustic set before welcoming the rest of his seven-piece band for a full electric set. Reaction from the fans to the tour has been enthusiastic as tickets to 10 of the 12 shows on the run sold out quickly, including the septet’s first-ever west coast dates.

For the next five days, we’ll dedicate one post a day to previewing the upcoming solo jaunt as part of Hidden Track’s Trey Week. Today, we present the first part of our two-part e-mail interview with Anastasio in which Trey shares his thoughts on the current lineup of TAB, the return of the acoustic set, the signs that have popped up at Phish shows and much more…

Hidden Track: The size of your band has constantly grown and retreated over the years, but for this tour you will keep the size of the ensemble at seven pieces as you did in 2010. What was it about the size and composition of this group that made you want to keep the lineup the same for this tour?

Trey Anastasio: That’s a good question. We need a minimum of three voices in the horns if we want arrangements that use any kind of rich chord voicings, (which we do). When the section got up to five horns at one point, it was a big full sound, but it was overpowering the rest of the band a bit. I really don’t feel the need for alto or soprano sax right now. I love throatier, lower, brassier horn sounds.

Russell plays baritone and tenor, Natalie plays trombone and Jennifer trumpet. It’s an ideal combination for three horns. We also needed two female singers, and Jennifer and Natalie sound fantastic together, like sisters. We can cover a lot of territory now with only three people. Russell also doubles – or triples – on flute, and the flute has always worked extremely well in this band. [Anastasio suggests checking out the flute solo on the title track of his 2007 release, The Horseshoe Curve]

The miraculous thing was meeting Natalie last year. It was like the final puzzle piece falling into place. The rest of us have been friends and playing together for many years, and Natalie fit right in, both musically and personally. She is just a wonderful person to spend time with. We all feel really lucky to be playing and traveling with her.

READ ON for more of our chat with Trey Anastasio…

Longtime Phish fan Andy Silver has been seeing the band perform since 1992 and recently spent some time preparing a list that we think will be of interest to our readers. Take it away, Andy…

Trying to get a handle on the evolution of Phish can be a daunting task. For new fans and seasoned vets alike, surfing through nearly 25 years of performances may seem like an exercise in futility. Each of us has special language, tour short-hand, inside jokes, personal preferences and individual memories that shape our perspective on the band, its history and our place within it.

[Photo by Regan Teti Marscher]

Many of us have spent hours arguing the merits of 1992 versus 1995, or the cow funk of 1997 versus the juke box tour of summer 1998. Personally, I find these debates entertaining, albeit somewhat pointless, as beauty is always in the eye (or in this case, the ear) of the beholder. After all, what I choose to put on my iPod may be very different from what you consider to be “must listen material.”

Given this context, I set out to compile a list of shows (and multi-night stands) that roughly document the various stages of Phish, their sound and their emergence as a cultural phenomenon. It should be noted that the list is not intended to be a “best of.” Rather, it’s a guide for those that love the band and want to revisit key moments in Phistory.

READ ON for Andy’s list of 200 Essential Phish Shows…

[Originally Published: November 5th, 2010]

We welcome back an amazing writer, Sam Davis of Dog Gone Blog and Relix, who compiled a B List detailing his favorite songs about trains…

Railways and trains are so deeply rooted in the fabric of American music culture to the point where “train” songs actually predate recorded music. Whether it was the songs sung by the railway workers in the late 1800’s or the railcar songs sung by the freighthoppers during the Great Depression, trains came to symbolize the journey and the American working class.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the blues was literally born from the railroad tracks. It was at a train station in Mississippi where the “Father of the Blues” W.C. Handy discovered the sounds that led him to compose some of the the very first blues songs such as the famous Memphis Blues. Blues music and its musicians developed a strong connection to the trains, heard in timeless blues classics such as Rock Island Line, Freight Train and Midnight Special.

Countless blues and rock musicians have been inspired by the train, and there is an endless list of songs with themes surrounding this topic. For today’s B List, I’ve attempted to crack into that list to pull out ten of the best “train” songs. I hope you enjoy.

10. The Yardbirds – Train Kept A Rollin’

This was perhaps The Yardbirds biggest hit, and was one of the first songs to carry the blues train theme over to the rock world. It was originally written by Tiny Bradshaw, Howard Kay, and Lois Mann and was first performed by Tiny Bradshaw’s Big Band in 1951. This version features Jeff Beck, who uses his guitar to recreate the sound of a train’s whistle.

READ ON for the top nine songs about trains…

Last year we shared a few compilations of classic Grateful Dead shows put together by longtime HT reader Joe Kolbenschlag. We were overjoyed to find Joe’s latest Steel Cut Oats compilation in our inbox this week and wanted to share this 37-track set from a pair of 1973 shows in Denver…

Steel Cut Oats : Volume VII : A Mile High in ’73
Grateful Dead, November 20th and 21st, 1973, Denver Coliseum, Denver, Colorado

One of my all-time favorite live performance periods from the Grateful Dead is Fall 1973 – specifically, the shows beginning October 19th and running through December 19th. Those two months offer an overabundance of the X-Factor that quite possibly was never matched again for that long of a time frame. The noted bookends above have been officially released as part of the Dick’s Picks series (10.19.73, Oklahoma City, OK – Volume #19, 12.19.73, Tampa, FL – Volume #1), and several other shows have also been liberated to the masses in their two-track form by GDM/Rhino – all are worth seeking out.

Steel Cut Oats #7 focuses on the most glaring omission from a release perspective – the two stunning shows of November 20th and 21st from the Denver Coliseum. I would argue that these two gigs carry more collective fireworks than any of the other multi-night runs of the Fall – St. Louis, Winterland, Boston, and Tampa all cart excellent passages along the way, but these Denver shows really smoke from front to back. Oats #7 illustrates a band riding an incredibly high peak of performance – after five excellent home state shows in early-to-mid November (Winterland x3, San Diego, Los Angeles), the band begins to move eastbound for the duration of the year. The first stop is the Denver Coliseum…

• CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD STEEL OATS #7

The opening portion of this compilation concentrates on first set material that had become classic live staples of the Dead’s Americana vision – Ramble On Rose, Jack Straw, and Tennessee Jed to name a few. The set is also sprinkled with a particularly feisty Big River and a wonderful, but ‘not quite Tampa’ version of Here Comes Sunshine – still very powerful, yet slinky at the same time.

READ ON for more of Joe’s thoughts on SCT #7 and a tracklist…

Disco Biscuits Colorado Run: 01/13 – 01/16

Words: Alex Wolff
Images: Jason Woodside

While it’s never the best idea to make a generalization, it does seem sometimes as though the entire state of Colorado is a sucker for a good party. Perhaps that’s why The Disco Biscuits do so well here. After two sold-out nights at the Boulder Theater and two more shows at the Ogden Theatre in Denver, the Biscuits continue to bring it hard in the Rocky Mountain State. Clearly the most exciting part of the whole thing for fans and band alike, however, was Allen Aucoin’s triumphant return to the drum kit after health issues prevented him from playing the New Year’s run.

[All photos by Jason Woodside]

January 13 – Boulder Theater, Boulder CO

A high-energy King Of The World got things started Thursday night in Boulder. Jon “The Barber” Gutwillig came out swinging, shredding lead lines on his Gibson with gusto, if perhaps a little tastelessly. Lasers dropped for the first time during the jam in Morph Dusseldorf, angled perfectly throughout the entire run so as to only hit the ceiling and the balcony, providing a liquid laser-beam landscape free of blinding for all. The rest of the evening’s highlights were a Lunar Pursuit that started from a dead stop, which then segued into an inverted Crickets. Bouncy, energetic and fun, for a moment it was even reminiscent of another certain four-piece improv outfit. That segment, along with a searing hot Neck Romancer were what made the show. The end of that tune is one of the better peaks that they have composed recently, and the piece truly lends itself to Biscuits jamming.

Set 1: King Of The World, Morph Dusseldorf, Vassillios >Spacebirdmatingcall

Set 2: Pat And Dex, Lunar Pursuit > Crickets¹ > Portal To An Empty Head, Neck Romancer, Mulberry’s Dream

Encore: Highwire

^{1 –} inverted

[All setlists via Phantasy Tour – Bisco]

January 14 – Boulder Theater, Boulder CO

Friday night’s show saw another four-song first set. A startup jam featured bassist Marc Brownstein teasing Basis For A Day by interjecting sections of the song’s bassline, but before it could get there, they worked their way into Floodlights, which they left unfinished before launching into a rather exploratory first set. While it had its moments, there was quite a bit of meandering that didn’t go too far. What was immediately apparent despite the meandering was Aron Magner’s choice of keyboard sounds. His sound design has truly evolved, and the tones he is using these days are as futuristic, spacey and cutting edge as ever.

READ ON for more from the Biscuits’ Colorado run…