Hidden Track Staff

We’re required by blog law to invoke the Cleveland Rocks Clause somewhere in the top of this post, but today we don’t feel like honoring the cliché contract. So let’s just all cool out, kick back and look at some pictures that our photo-gifted friend Christian James took of the Family Band and listen to the 5/2/07 show.

Read on after the jump for some amazing shots of the Family Band from the House of Blues, as well as links to stream the show’s entire audio recording, woven in throughout the post. Let’s start out with the hot opener…

We’re not exactly geeked up about the SummerStage lineup this year. Some good shows and some weak ones, but the only event we’re dying to see is Levon Helm’s return engagement on June

It’s Uncle Neddy to the rescue with a bag full of downloadable presents… Here’s a guest minimix for the Hidden Track crowd. It’s time to give the drummers some, as

As we promised yesterday afternoon, we’ve got some quality shit to share. The gifted ‘n talented Danfun returned from New Orleans with a boatload of sharp shots, and we’re very proud to feature his incredible pictures below. Neither of us were able to hit JazzFest this year, and if you couldn’t make it either, some of these will hopefully make you feel like you were there. Mmm, crawfish:

It ain’t a New Orleans party with Allen Toussaint. A frivolous blog asked an important query in the hours following Hurricane Katrina: “Did Allen Toussaint actually leave New Orleans or did he chain himself to the fairgrounds? Shouldn’t this hurricane have been named Sneakin’ Sally?” As it turned out, Toussaint did wait out the storm and went missing for a little while. But when we think of New Orleans, he’s one of the first faces that pops up. More than a year and a half removed, it’s good to see Allen in full effect.

Read on for 20 more photos that’ll make you wish you took photography as a kid…

We haven’t seen this announced officially anywhere on the world wide web yet, but a reliable source tells us that Farm Aid 2007 is coming to Randall’s Island in New

Our resident photographer Danfun has returned from New Orleans, and we’ll be featuring his incredible pictures here tomorrow. ‘Til then, here’s a quick taste: It’s always a bit disheartening to see a

Our friend NoBowls Brad only writes on legal paper, and only in a language so garbled you’d need some sort of degree to decipher it. But NBB stole a day away from The Firm at the end of April to catch the McDowell Mountain Music Festival, and he filed this tardy report from the Phoenix/Scottsdale area…

How’d it happen that the (second) best band got the third worst time slot?

It’s true. Tea Leaf Green took the stage at the Triple-M fest at 3:45 on Friday, the first afternoon of a two-day festival. They were the second band to play, and needless to say, no more than 300 people in the wide open field below the red mountains in the background got to see them shred. Those 300 people, however, were fortunate enough to see TLG play a stellar hour-long set that included These Two Chairs, One Reason, a two-minute bass solo and, of course, Got No Friends in Arizona. They’re wrong, though. I counted about 300 of ’em.

In some of the pictures, like the one above, you can see two guys sitting on a couch at the end of the stage. MMMF organizers brilliantly instituted a raffle for each band, and whoever won the raffle won the chance to sit on the couch on the side of the stage during that band’s set. These two guys didn’t get up the whole time, and people in the crowd were giving them shit for it: What would you do if you were sitting on a couch while Tea Leaf Green was playing? Despite the couch dwellers’ incredible lack of enthusiasm, by the time Tea Leaf Green walked off the stage, everyone was talking about how great they were.

Read on for more of NoBowls Brad’s review and more photos from the fest…

We are gonna switch things up for this week’s edition of GTA. Usually we review four or five shows in this space, but this week we’re featuring just one. ‘Cuz really, this show deserves it’s own post. Dale “Sociable Chappy” Chapman turned me onto this incredible Pavement soundboard from the Great American Music Hall in 1994, and it comes with a piece Dale wrote about his experience at the show:

Pavement 04/23/1994 SBD (MP3):

The buzz around Pavement started in 1990 or 1991. Nobody knew for sure if these guys were actually a band or if they would ever release anything other than quirky 7″ and 10″ vinyl singles. By early 1992, however, months before Slanted & Enchanted was released, Rolling Stone called it one of the best records of the year, or the decade, or the millenium. One of those things.

When tour dates were announced and I secured my ticket for the show at San Francisco’s Kennel Club (now The Independent), my mind was exploding with anticipation. The performance was tentative, awkward and aloof, but it was absolutely spectacular. The first song they played was Loretta’s Scars, and I regressed to that kid in a candy store. A pig in slop. Grin from ear to ear.

Read on for the rest of Chappy’s tale and the downloads themselves…

We’ve been wanting to see Rose Hill Drive for a while, yet we missed this weekend’s show. Thankfully, Neddy was there, and he filed this report…

I felt like there was a white duck following me around Mercury Lounge on Saturday, abruptly squealing “AFLAC!” every couple of songs. The occasion was the Rose Hill Drive show, and I spent much of it feeling the limits of my flesh and bones, wondering if I needed supplemental insurance.

It was about three songs into the set that I was wondering if my regular insurance would cover all the hemorrhaging my ears were doing. You see, Rose Hill Drive was making my ears bleed. Sharp, loud, intense — guitar, bass, drums — ouch, ouch, ouch. It was a cranking start to the show.

The room was crowded and loose for a Saturday night, and they lit right into it. There was a “Showdown” early on, and they wasted no time getting onto the Hendrix bus with Band of Gypsy’s “Power of Love,” but song titles didn’t seem to matter much to me and my ears. There are few bands doing what Rose Hill Drive can do every night — Wolfmother, Earl Greyhound and, um, you tell me.

But none are doing the base, primal power trio face-melter thing with as much talent and zest as these guys. Not many have ever done it — Jimi Hendrix, Cream and, um, you tell me. I’ll take these under appreciated boots-to-the-head over whatever you got. I hadn’t felt this way about a band since the first time I saw Gov’t Mule for the first time almost a decade ago. A couple songs into the set and my head was buzzing, my nose was running and my ears were bleeding. What would happen if I lost my hearing — or sense of smell or taste for that matter? The rock was burrowing deep into me like a parasite, nibbling away at my soul from the inside. [AFLAC!]

Read on to see if Uncle Neddy makes it through the night…

One week it’s the Flaming Lips at Brown, the next it’s The Hold Steady at NYU. Apparently it’s college time for our resident photographic genius Danfun.

Hey, NYU parents: Maybe this is what your $46,800 a year in tuition, room and board gets ya. For all that money, your kids can dance the Watusi (or however the devil it is you kids dance these days) at a semi-private rock ‘n roll show like the one on Thursday that brought The Hold Steady to NYU’s Kimmel Center.

The intimate concert did open itself to the public, and Dan managed to sneak his wiry frame through the doors to snap the following photos for us. He added, “The crowd was going crazy. NYU students were running up on stage and jumping in the crowd every couple of minutes. I haven’t been a pit like that in some time. In some ways it was really fun, in others it was just a little too crazy for me.”

Too crazy for all us older folk — we’ll just never understand these crazy kids and their newfangled electronic mail. Read on for some more shots from Dan…