Ryan Dembinsky

After the five day marathon of music that is CMJ, it’s easy to walk away wondering what the hell to make of it. The thing hosts about 1,200 bands from literally all over the globe across god knows how many venues, and the showcases that feature the bands anybody has actually heard of generally fill up to capacity long before those artists perform.

Thus, it’s better to just roll with it. There’s no point in trying too hard to make it to all the buzzy acts. Instead, the fun comes in just popping around neighboring venues, putting on your own personal critic’s cap and evaluating in an American Idol-eque vibe all these bands who are virtually all capable of grabbing your attention – sometimes with their music, but more often with their thirsty stage acts and attempted emulations of what they think will make them the next big thing.

You get everything from up-and-coming divas sporting ’80s garb in complement to their radio-ready pop hits (Spark), to nerd rockers cracking weird jokes about drinking from beakers (Crayon Fields), to hip hop megastars dropping by (Kanye, Chromeo and GZA at Brooklyn Bowl) unannounced. It’s over-stimulation at its finest, but there’s no shortage of quality. Hence, in our quest to pay attention to some of the lesser covered corners of the live music scene, we discovered some excellent new stuff. The following are just a few Hidden Track picks from the fest, including music, panels, and venues.

Jon Hopkins – The first of two of the supporting acts for the Four Tet at Webster Hall to make this list, Jon Hopkins was hands down the coolest show of my week. Hailing from London, Hopkins already has a huge following and has Brian Eno and Coldplay collabs on his CV. The classically  trained DJ/multi-instrumentalist has a knack for taking catchy minimalist, ethereal electronic music and slowly letting it carefully evolve to a fever pitch. His music calls to mind Eno himself and Phillip Glass at times, but he allows just enough catchiness in to attract a party crowd and make people want to dance. His video for Light Through the Veins is really something else.

READ ON for more winners from CMJ 2010…

MTV News anchor Kurt Loder spearheaded a short feature back in 1996 regarding Phish’s performance of the Talking Heads’ Remain in Light, which interspersed live footage of the musical costume, interviews

Set to the music of Booker T and the MGs, this savvy team of Youtubers compiled a montage of 100 well-remembered Seinfeld quotes. Amazingly, what’s most striking about the clip

Since this Tuesday marks the kickoff of the 2010 CMJ Music Marathon, this week’s mix tape gets the special treatment, as we have a meaty set of a few of

This segment from Frank Zappa’s Baby Snakes film, captured at the band’s 1977 Halloween performance at New York City’s Palladium, offers a number of entertaining tidbits. For example, have you

A couple weeks back, a writer by the name of Aaron Leitko penned an endearing article for the Washington Post that posited the idea that indie rockers are embracing the jam scene in growing numbers and that “jamband” is no longer a dirty word. The article focused primarily on musicians, but also quoted none other than Rob Mitchum for comment  – one of the quintessential critics at the mighty Pitchfork – who outed himself as a longtime Phish fan.

After keeping his phanhood under wraps for the early part of his near decade-long tenure at Pitchfork, Mitchum recently came out of the closet in a big way, committing his twitter feed as a channel to review every single Phish show from 1993 to present. A perfect candidate for our Writer’s Workshop column, we invited Rob to join us for our periodic segment to share his thoughts and stories about his career as a writer, the power of Pitchfork, and of course the Phish from Vermont.

Hidden Track: Might as well start at the beginning, how did you initially get the role at Pitchfork? Was that your first real music writing gig?

Rob Mitchum: I basically got the Pitchfork writing job by writing them hate mail. I was a poor lab tech living in very expensive Washington DC, and decided a good, free way to entertain myself at night was to start writing about music. I had written a few album and concert reviews for the Michigan Daily in college, but got busy with other collegiate activities and didn’t keep it up. Faced with a lot of free time (and having just read the Richard Meltzer anthology A Whore Just Like The Rest, which opened me up to entirely new ways of writing about music), I took it up again and wrote a couple practice reviews.

At the time (late 2001), there were probably a dozen different music websites I could have sent those “clips” to, but Pitchfork was my favorite, so I started there. Thinking (as many people do) that Pitchfork was made up of elitist assholes, I figured I needed to be an elitist asshole myself to get their attention, so I wrote an e-mail that basically said, “your reviews suck now, I can do better.” Ryan Schreiber, who at the time was the entire full-time staff of the site, wrote me back and said I was welcome to prove it by writing two reviews a week for him, for free. Then I had to grudgingly admit that I was actually a nice guy and very excited to write for them. My first review was the Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack, and nearly ten years later, here we are. READ ON for more of our chat with Rob Mitchum…

It’s been 28 years since the members of the Tombstone Blues Band graced the Fairbanks High School Gymnasium with their ambitious covers and crackling 15-year old voices. Most folks probably associate the Tombstone Blues Band with that funny picture of Mike Gordon and his band mates – Kerry Keefe (vocals, bass, harmonica), Dan McBride (lead/rhythm guitar, vocals) and  Bruce Diehl (drums) – but they were a pretty progressive band for a bunch high school kids, tackling Johnny B. Goode, Johnny Winter’s version of Bony Moronie, Riders on the Storm and Won’t Get Fooled Again.

Obviously, everybody knows what happened to that goofy guy who played bass and keyboards as he became a founding member of Phish, but Mike’s band mate Reverend B. Kerry Keefe has also kept with his playing as well, albeit in a different context. For Reverend Kerry, it’s been a windy road since high school, but after some tough times, he found his way to gospel music.  Just recently, he finished off a three-year long project called Glory To His Name, which features Keefe on guitar as well as Florence Knight and Pastor Thurman Hargrove, combines black gospel with classic rock and funk to form a powerful spiritual sound. Make no mistake about it, 28 years later “The Rev” still tears it up.

Hidden Track: So, let’s start at the beginning, can you talk about what you’ve been up to since high school and what drove you to become a reverend?

Rev. Kerry: Since high school, we all went on to college. I made it to Clark University, where I not only earned a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and English, but also a man-eating drinking habit. Everyone else kind of went on with their lives, and I proceeded to party like it was 1986 for about twelve years. Fast forward to 1996, a ruined marriage and me staring at my tired face in the mirror saying, “There’s got to be something better than this.” I stumbled upon prayer in my desperation, and I believed, and began a new life.

Ultimately, I was lead to the church where in addition to my sobriety, I learned I had gifts in the Word and ministry. God gave me my music gift back. I was lucky if I picked up the guitar a dozen times in the last five years of my drinking. Lots of folks picture rock stars partying and drinking, but it doesn’t seem to work too well. Long story short, I got my life back, my music back and God is still in the process of returning me to where I should have been: beautiful marriage, children and gainful employment as a counselor in the State Prison system in addition to my role as associate minister at the church.

READ ON for more of Ryan’s chat with Reverend Kerry…

For the encore of their 2007 performance at the quirky home of the London Symphony Orchestra, St. Lukes, Gillian Welch and long-time musical partner, David Rawlings, brought out the members

On one fateful evening at the state convention of the International Order of Rainbow Girls in Kansas City, a debutante society of sorts aimed to help girls “experience the excitement of what a productive life has to offer,” Alycen Rowse got her first taste of rock n’ roll. The year was 1984 and ironically enough, Van Halen happened to be staying at the very same hotel. The Hyatt Regency included a rooftop spa of sorts with a workout facility, sauna and a hot tub. While Alycen and a friend were chatting away in the tub, who else jumps in but David Lee Roth? And the rest is history…

[Alycen Rowse w/ B-Real of Cypress Hill]

“I was still 14, but nobody asked back then,” Alycen laughs. “It was the don’t ask, don’t tell policy.” Twenty-five years and 75 rock stars later, Alycen Rowse has become one of the more well-known groupies in the history of rock n‘ roll, due in large part to the fact that she spent the night with John Entwistle of the Who on the night he passed away.

After such a traumatic event as being attached to the death of a rock pioneer, one might think she’d call the groupie lifestyle quits, but Alycen still believes in her scene and believes with conviction. It’s her social circle, not some seedy world of drugs and dishonor, just an exciting way to live. “There’s been a lot of gossip due to John. I’ve been called a hooker, prostitute, murder, and druggie. That has all followed me around. It’s something that will never go away.”

READ ON for more of Ryan’s chat with Alycen…