Posts by Hidden Track Staff

We linked this morning to the New York Times’ review of the first performance of the two-night American Beauty Project. But we like to do things a bit differently than the Gray Lady, so we sent HT reporter Specs Toporczer down to the World Financial Center for a first-hand account of the latest Grateful Dead tribute.

Who schedules anything during the middle of the AFC championship game?

I had to put the Brady-Manning Bowl on pause to hit the second night of the American Beauty Project — a cover tribute to the Grateful Dead’s album of the same name — in the Winter Garden of the World Financial Center. The trip down to Battery Park City was extremely strange; the streets were empty, save for neglected women, Asian delivery boys and the handfuls of frozen old hippies scurrying across the West Side Highway. Everyone else was watching the NFL.

Read on for more of Specs’ review and a few photos snapped from the event…

Hey, look! It’s another clever name for a glorified link dump! Those two cats really know how to slip the easy ones past the goalkeeper…shut up, Richard. It took a couple weeks (who says gotta-publish-now blogs are the only game in town?), but the good people at JamBase have finally put up a super-comprehensive look […]

The New Year’s reviews and Trey overload continue: Our friend Ashley Griffin left for Atlantic City with a Trey Anastasio ticket, a set of loaded dice and a giant sack of cash. She returned with this review and a shiny new Cadillac.

New Year’s Eve has always provided Phish fans a window of time bathed in the light of hippie mysticism. Dysfunctional holiday family fun traditionally left one longing for a stronger drink than a mug of eggnog, and a holiday run of shows was the festive cocktail of choice for improvisational junkies. Hmm, maybe “junkies” was a poor choice of words there given recent events.

Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.com

Anticipation of the tidal wave of cheers as the lights dimmed at MSG made suffering through painful conversations with distant relatives over turkey almost enjoyable. A New Year’s run was more than a string of shows. It was a celebration of the potential of the new year, both musically and communally.

Sadly those days are over now, but Trey still offered the promise of a new beginning this year with a string of holiday shows, culminating in a two-night run in the crown jewel of the Jersey shore. Atlantic City may be a cubic zirconium when compared to the debaucherous glitz of the Vega, but it sparkles nonetheless, shining brighter than ever on this evening as the newest incarnation of Trey’s horn-driven solo outfit tore through three sets to bring in the new year…

This post has been updated since its original publication…new information has come to light, maaan. That’s what we call follow-fucking-through. The Allman Brothers Band have officially announced its annual 744-show run at New York’s Beacon Theater for late March and early April. And while Bill Walton will almost certainly be there on all NCAA Tournament off days, the better […]

The Benevento/Russo Duo celebrated five great years on Wednesday night, throwing a late entry into the ring for Show of the Year. This was a case of two pros coming back to the ol’ playground and fuckin’ around for awhile, showcasing the greatness that’s propelled them to bigger things. Our friend Neddy‘s The Duo’s biggest fan out there — literally, he even got a sweet shout-out from Marco — and he was kind enough to reflect on the night, and the history.

Is five years a long time? When I think back on what my life was like half a decade ago, it feels like a geological epoch. I’m sure the same can be said for Joe Russo and Marco Benevento, who have gone from a pair of who-dats playing for free every week in a quonset hut of a venue to becoming a critical darling of the scene….not to mention play-acting as the latter half of Phish this summer, amongst other adventures and misadventures.

So, yeah, five years seems like a good time to pause and reflect. It’s also a good excuse to get shitty drunk in the dank underbelly of the Knitting Factory. And so it was: a 5th anniversary Duo party, not even in the Tap Bar, but all the way down in the 88-person capacity Old Office.

I got there a bit early, not sure what kind of zoo the crowd would be. As it turns out, the audience size was utterly manageable, and there was an incredibly friendly vibe from front to back. Unfortunately, the show started pretty late, all things considered, and standing around in a bar for two hours with a friendly crowd meant many, many, many whiskeys before the first notes were played. It’s probably fitting that much of the crowd was deep in party mode all night long…

As we plod ahead with all things Year End, piggybacking on The Four Questions and our Year in Mostly Crappy Photos, allow us to present a distorted look back at a truly fantastic year for being a smarmy douchebag ogling closely from the sidelines. Read on for the the best of the best from the Year of Our Lord 2006…

‘Twas the day after Christmas, when all through the city
Ace and Scotty thought a list would make them seem witty
But the pair quickly realized that they couldn’t hack it
Disliking most popular bands, save My Morning Jacket

The bloggers all posted their Best Ofs to dissect
While thoughts of The Hold Steady made them erect
But up on our high horse, as we saw it this year
My Chemical Romance gets pwned by Bob Weir

So here in our list, you won’t find Cat Power
We favor the folks that jam for an hour
Scroll down below for our highlights of 2006
Better than Pitchfork! Fuckin’ pretentious pricks…

We could probably continue the above poetic debacle for the remaining nine verses, but as it stands this thing’s already longer than black dong. As we plod ahead with all things Year End, piggybacking on The Four Questions and our Year in Mostly Crappy Photos, allow us to present a distorted look back at a truly fantastic year for being a smarmy douchebag ogling closely from the sidelines.

Read on for the the best of the best from the Year of Our Lord 2006…

Sure it ain’t Passover, but we’ve got four questions for you anyway… 1. What was your single favorite musical experience of 2006? 2. What band are you most excited to see in 2007? 3. What under-the-radar band didn’t get nearly enough buzz this year? 4. While everyone focuses on the “best of” this time of […]

It’s been two weeks since Tenacious D rocked New York City with its patented brand of fuck-your-face acoustic rock. But since the vibration of death that The D left behind is still reverberating throughout Manhattan, our buddy Hal Hansen decided to retroactively inform you of what you’ve been feeling for a fortnight…

Overheard in New York, December 1^st, 2006

“I check my dipstick, you need lubrication”
“Twas I who fucked the dragon, fuckalize sing-fuckaloo”
“Burrito supreme and a Chicken supreme and a Cutlass supreme”
“When I’m snackin’ on a tasty boosh, right after the show”
“I’m shooting my juice right in your caboose”
“Have you ever been worked on by two guys who are hot for your snatch”
“And then I’ll fuckin’ fuck you discreetly”
—34^th Street & 7^th Avenue

If any of the exclamations above seem a little out of place for a show review, or even the aforementioned and awesome Overheard in New York, please do not fret. They were all majestically sung at the most famous venue in the world, Madison Square Garden, by the greatest band in the world, Tenacious D — an incredibly rare combination of forces that left few asses intact.

Before we continue with the review, it should be painfully obvious by now that this is all just a big joke. Kyle Gass (KG, Kage, Rage Kage) and Jack Black (JB, Jables), who first met more than a dozen years ago as members of the Actor’s Gang troupe in Los Angeles, are undoubtedly actors first and musicians second.

Although Gass does have some serious chops on the acoustic guitar, and Black is arguably the closest thing to a rock star I’ve ever seen live, Tenacious D as the “greatest band in history” cannot be taken seriously. The key to thoroughly enjoying one of these ridiculous spectacles is to just go along with the joke: Accept that they are in fact the greatest band ever and indeed were born from Satan and slayed dragons on their way to this achievement. If you can tweak your sense of humor enough to get this far, you are ready for The D…

We sent our resident left-coast photographer and good friend Felonious Monk down to the 12/3 Primus show in the California capital to snap a few shots of the action and deliver us a brief report of the evening…

Monk’s cherry-popping experience in the pit was so bizarrely overwhelming that he decided to share with us the ridiculousness of being a credentialed photographer. Maybe that lead-in sounds a little boring, but when a half-naked girl magically appears in the story, you’ll realize how interesting a night up front can be.

Using cliché-riddled math, the pictures he sent over should be worth exactly 7,000 words. But because he’s such a good guy and he took such exquisite pictures, I think we can bump that up to, like, 7,150. Check these puppers out…

Even a perfunctory scan of the cyberwebs will lead you to hundreds of blog posts and professional reviews raving about the genius of Ryan Adams. His three-night run at NYC’s Town Hall received much of the same glowing praise. Not so, says our resident contrarian Chilly Jackwater, this guy’s not really, uh, very good. Before you get your […]

Rapid Fire Review Week continues with HT’s favorite Disco Biscuits Diehard Matt Quinn’s review of this weekend’s two Hammerstein shows:

It’s been a long year for The Disco Biscuits. With “new” drummer Allen Aucoin at the kit, virtually every fan of the band agrees that they are playing with the kind of vigor and creativity that’s been absent since the end of 2002.

Sure there were the brief flashes of greatness in the ’03-’05 era. But for the most part it was directionless and unfocused, a band very unsure of where it was going, a band running out the clock on its first incarnation. After an adequete NYE run, a short spring tour and a summer spent on the festival circuit, the Biscuits’ fall tour has seen them firing on all cylinders in venues across the country, and the shows at the Hammerstein Ballroom on 11/24 & 11/25 were certainly no exception.

The first night opened with a section that featured exactly the type of setlist creativity Biscuits fans have been craving. The Overture is normally a tightly composed, classical style piece that features a trance jam in the center of it. In lieu of the trance this night, the Biscuits dropped into a 30-second composed segment of Little Lai, then a 30-second composed segment of Bazaar Escape, then a 30-second composed segment of House Dog Party Favor, then directly into an entire Bach Invention (#13 in A Minor, to be exact), then picked up the end of The Overture where the trance section would normally end.

The entire segment was obviously rehearsed, and rehearsed well. There was no jamming between the segments; they were played as though it were one giant composed piece. Apparently the setlist had this labeled as “The OverBerzerk,” but I’ve taken to caling it “The Berzerkerture.” I just think it rolls off the tongue better. Whatever you want to call it, it was well-planned and flawlessly executed.

Read on for the rest of Quinn’s stellar review and download his recordings from both the 11/24 and 11/25 Hammerstein shows…

Rapid Fire Review Week continues with Hidden Track senior hipster correspondent Luke Sacks’ account of Wilco‘s 11/24/06 show…

Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy recently decked a fan that happened to be dumb enough to jump on stage, getting a little too close for comfort. That solitary action must have released years of hostility, because on Friday night at Chicago’s Auditorium Theater, Tweedy and his Wilco bretheren soaked up every ounce of fun in the room.

Wilco’s sound these days is a bit like Bob Dylan and Radiohead thrown in a blender and pureed. The lyrics — still as poignant and moving as ever — are now cocooned in building electronics and whirling riffs that flow from the all-shapes-and-sizes guitars of Nels Cline. Where Tweedy’s raspy voice and “angry-musician” personality once dominated, Cline’s assault on his instrument and frenetic body language have moved closer to center stage for an increasing share the spotlight. Pulsating and gyrating with each chord, Cline shakes and twitches and produces a spectrum of sound that spirals every which way before coming to a screeching halt in time to let Tweedy’s voice be heard loud and clear.

Tweedy began the show with two slower songs: the new “Shake it Off” and the similar-sounding “Hell Is Chrome” from A Ghost is Born. Unlike most bands that like to start things off rocking and/or rolling, Tweedy is known for beginning shows with slower, more brooding selections that give the show a more intimate feel. It wasn’t until the third tune, “Handshake Drugs,” that the energy between the crowd and band synched up with each other…

If the goal of a band on any given night in any given city is to both put on a kickass show for its veteran fans and leave the first-time newbs with an impression that the music’s worth delving into further, then RAQ‘s got our permission to hang a “Mission Accomplished” banner following Friday’s extravanganza.

Vermont’s second most famous quartet played a bona fide house party at Brooklyn’s Club Exit this weekend. The evening’s promoters (Slanted View Productions) swept out the typical Eastern European clientele and transformed the venue into a double entendre-laced “On The L” party, a psychedlic playland deep inside the heart of the eerily quiet Polish neighborhood of Greenpoint.

We walked in just before 9 pm, and it instantly became clear this was not going to be a typical rock show. From the hundreds of bulging pupils (is everyone here that runaway bride chick from Atlanta?) to the enormous Borat-speaking bouncers to the obnoxiously loud house music blasting through PA system, we sure weren’t at The Wetlands anymore. Shit, the silly hot bartenders alone made the show better than any jamband concert in recent memory…

We’d like to thank you all for entering the Johnny Cash: At San Quentin contest, and we really wish to give you all free DVDs. But we can’t, and now that we think about it we probably wouldn’t, because you’re all are bastard people. If you’re wondering, King of Rock won the three-disc set with […]

Like most music fans, we love to indulge our inner geek. HT reporter Kristian Telschow takes you to the frontlines for a better look at how to feed that beast…

It’s a quarter before midnight on an early November Monday as I pull into the 24-hour Wal-Mart in Amherst, New Hampshire. I’m strolling through the aisles toward the electronics department, and I begin to notice a scary sight: the late night Wal-Mart shoppers are out in full force.

I spy a horde of stoned college kids chuckling at some corny T-shirts, a couple who looked like zombies doing some late-night grocery shopping and a strange Indian fellow staring at a can of Pam cooking spray for a solid five minutes. It was a wild scene in the House That Sam Built.

So why, you might ask, am I hanging at the local Wal-Mart shortly before midnight on a Monday amongst the Wal-Mart dregs, instead of on my couch watching the Seahawks beat up on the Raiders? Because Guitar Hero II goes on sale at midnight, and the Veruca Salt inside me says I have to own it now.

For the uninitiated, the original Guitar Hero’s the critically acclaimed PlayStation 2 game — nay, experience — where players can jam out a variety of tunes spanning classic rock anthems to modern-day metal thrashers. As it turns out, with an updated songbook and more fan-friendly features, Guitar Hero II’s a great improvement on what was already the genuine article, and it’s everything I wanted it to be and more. It’ll challenge everyone from the jaded GH vets to the custie n00bz that are just discovering the game now. Allow me to explain…

One of the more eclectic collection of musicians since the early days of Lollapalooza gathered last night inside Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall to pay tribute to a living legend: the lucious Bobby Dylan.

Friend of HT Jeremy Welsh was on hand to report from the frontlines, and he’s done a great job of cobbling together a setlist from this once-in-a-lifetime event. And, yes, that’s actually Sandra “World’s Craziest Lesbian” Bernhard who played Like A Rolling Stone last night — now that’s a one-timer!

We at the Hidden Track home office rejoiced when we saw that Phil Lesh fulfilled his contractual and emotional obligation and played the gig. We can only hope his appearance means he’s well on the path to recovery.

Hopefully a recording surfaces soon, and when it does you can be sure we’ll post it here. I can’t even imagine how some of these songs sound. So without any more set-up, here’s a couple of words from Jeremy before we head into the specifics:

“Pretty amazing show last night at Avery Fisher Hall. The highlight of the night was most definitely The Roots’ cover of Masters of War (the first few verses were sung to the melody of the Star Spangled Banner). That was followed by Isis > Lovesick > Isis by Ryan Adams. Almost every other performance was top notch, except for Cat Power’s flake-out (House of the Rising Sun? wtf?) and the anti-climactic Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, despite the effort that Patti put in.”

Here’s an official review from the good people at Billboard. But read on for the setlist, more eyewitness commentary, a Ryan Adams video and a first-hand account of the event from The Roots’ ?uestlove…