Ryan Dembinsky

More than Zappa’s Joe’s Garage. More than Centerfield. More than the Indiana Jones Theme Song. More than AC/DC’s Thunderstruck. More than even Glen Miller’s In the Mood. If I ever got the once in a lifetime chance to request a single song for Phish to cover, there currently exists one song that I would rather hear over any other song. It’s called Indoda Yejazi Elimnyama by Amaswazi Emvelo and comes from a ridiculously good recording called The Indestructible Beat of Soweto, Vol. 1.

I suspect a lot of folks probably already know the story of the Indestructible Beat, but it’s essentially a collection of South African mbaqanga music compiled by a pair of visionary ex-pats named Trevor Herman and Jumbo Van Renan in 1985.

Within seconds of listening to any number of its songs, the aircraft carrier-wide influence of this music becomes painstakingly obvious. With Graceland released just one subsequent year later, Paul Simon typically takes credit as the most famous alum of the School of the Beat, but other graduates who borrow influence from this album include the heavyweight likes of David Byrne and Peter Gabriel. More recently, the wildly popular upstart Vampire Weekend even referred to their own sound as “Upper West Side Soweto.”

[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/04-indoda-yejazi-elimnyama.mp3]

READ ON for more on this incredible compilation…

Following the bold footsteps of UK regulators who earlier this month issued a preliminary challenge to the Ticketmaster-Live Nation proposed merger, US anti-trust regulators are following suit, not going as far as to rule out the merger entirely, but making it quite clear that in its current form the deal will not likely go through. According to an article in Bloomberg, the vertical integration of the various segments of the music industry pose a direct threat in affording a competitive marketplace for ticket sales.

Regulators are concerned the combined company’s presence in nearly every piece of live entertainment — including artist management, venue operation, concert promotion and ticketing — will undermine the ability for rivals to emerge and create competition that would bring down ticket prices, another person said.

Among concessions under consideration may be finding a way to allow a viable competitor in primary ticketing, one of the people said.

Now, in order to make concessions and ease some of the concerns regarding the concentration of power with regard to the ticketing element of the deal, reports show that the two companies are weighing their options with regard to possible divestitures, the leading candidate being a sale of Pacolian – a Ticketmaster acquisition from 2007 aimed to beef up the Ticketmaster client base. READ ON for more…

Today’s Friday Mix Tape represents a special edition of sorts, as we head into another year of New York City’s music industry extravaganza next week, the CMJ Music Marathon and Film Festival. The CMJ Fest provides industry mavens with a look at what is next on the indie music front and always spawns a good dozen or so big name acts for the years to come.

What I find amusing about the showcase is that in order to weed through the literally thousands of bands vying for slots, the evaluation process essentially becomes an exercise in 15-second music criticism.

In fact, once an acquaintance asked if I wanted to make some extra cash by using his login and get paid fifty cents per album/demo to provide a few words and a thumb up/thumbs down as a first line of defense. It wasn’t actually for CMJ, but rather another one that involves a lot of BBQ. Anyway, this dude told me his friend made over a $1,000 doing it the year before, so you do the math. I never did it, hence I cannot actually say for sure if that actually occurs or not, but given the sheer numbers, it is probably pretty spot on. Really, what other options are there; hire an army? Regardless, these folks do a pretty darn good job at it one way or another.

Anyways, after playing a game of darts with the CMJ Music Festival’s easy-to-read lineup, we’ve sorted through and come up with ten pretty damn good songs from some of the most compelling bands making the rounds. Keep in mind; this is just a tiny sample of the full list, so if you like digging up new music, poke around the lineup and drop by the various MySpace pages. You really can’t go wrong.

READ ON for the playlist and to listen to the mix…

Something about a young band on the cusp heading out on tour seems to bring about all sorts of antics and funny stories. Having first come to know of the Minneapolis-based Roster McCabe after finding their spirited take on Warren G’s rap classic Regulator for an old edition of Bust Outs, we have since seen the name bantered about plentifully in the jamband circles, most recently as the Jambands.com New Groove of the Month.

In poking around a bit on their website, it quickly became evident that these guys have a close knit friendship where the music comes first, but the tomfoolery a close second. So, naturally they seemed like a fun band to check out a bit further.

What is Roster McCabe all about musically? The original songs tend to see-saw up and down through big frenetic jams and mellow reggae breakdowns throughout the course of their extended, but not belabored song structures. The most distinguishing trait would be the lead vocals of keyboard player Alex Steele who brings a hip-hop, roosty reggae energy which easily staves away the dreaded “standard jam fare” label. It’s a fresh approach, particularly for anyone who likes reggae music with a more energetic and improvisational bent.

In chatting with the band between shows in the early stages of a hefty Colorado run, we learned more about the group’s camaraderie and their music, while scoring ourselves one hell of an entry for America’s Funniest Home Videos along the way.

Hidden Track: First off, congrats on being selected to the New Groove of the Month by Relix and Jambands. That’s a big step in the right direction. Do you get the feeling that things are really kicking into gear these days for the band to make the jump to the next level?

Roster McCabe: Thank you, we were honored to be selected as the New Groove of the Month. Things have been growing steadily for us. The touring, practicing and writing has been slowly paying off, so we are just going to continue those things and see what happens. We were recently in Billboard as one of five up and coming national jam acts, so that was nice to get a little recognition for everything we have been doing.

READ ON for more of Ryan’s chat with Roster McCabe…

I know what you’re thinking: This is going to be a bunch of layups like 2001: A Space Odyssey – or Being There, Star Wars and the James Bond theme song. That my friends, would be wrong. There were two critical criteria for this edition of Bust Outs: 1) it better be weird and 2) it better be funny.

Surprisingly, it took a good deal of digging to come up with a list of movie theme song covers that fit the bill as I would have expected to find dozens given the familiarity and fun of playing these numbers. Still, after a few days of searching, we finally have a pretty solid batch.

Wind Beneath My Wings (Beaches) – Phish, 11/28/95

To kick things off we have a gut buster of a one-timer from Phish, which doubles as my all time favorite Fishman tune. Paying homage to the one and only Colonel Bruce Hampton, Fishman sits him down in a chair on stage (with a newspaper from whatever reason) and serenades him with the question, “Did you ever know that you’re my hero?” Bette Midler may have just a slightly better voice, but Fishman has the love.

READ ON for more bust outs from the likes of Lotus and The Brew…

Sad as it may be, the passing of Labor Day weekend means for all intents and purposes one thing: Summer is officially over. The leaves are changing; school is session; and the NFL’s on Fox. But before you all go running off to buy your school supplies, pack away your casual Friday wardrobes, and cross the “t” on your crappy fantasy team names, there is one last summer rite of passage we almost forgot to mention: Mr. Blotto’s Blottopia Ten.

Ever since we started up the Cover Wars feature here at Hidden Track, the self-contained jamband from Chicagoland has emerged nearly unbeatable, winning not only a number of individual song challenges, but the whole shebang in the Cover Wars March Madness tournament as well. Hence, when their proprietary festival at Vasa Park in Elgin, IL rolls around every summer, we always like to check in to see what went down, particularly to hone in on the big day-two encore, the album performance.

A festive first day kicked things off, which included the tradition of opening with last year’s closing song, in this case Peter Today, an original tune which pays respects to both Peter Tosh and to last year’s cover album, Babylon by Bus. Blotto also treated fans to a scorching and hilarious Cheech and Chong encore in Earache, My Eye, a monster Wedge with some familiar teases, a funky clavinet take on Buju Banton’s Murderer sandwiched in between two halves of Fire on the Mountain and lots of extended takes on their original catalog. READ ON for more from Ryan on Blottopia Ten…

This week’s mix tape serves up a smattering of some good tunes from a diverse group of 2009 releases. Alongside the advent of the iPod has come a testing mechanism

Depending on how you look at it, being one of the world’s preeminent experts in the field of mastering could be considered either a) an under-appreciated role in the process of creating an album that doesn’t always get the respect it deserves, or b) the greatest job in the world.

A quick surf through Bob Ludwig’s credits at the All Music Guide illustrates that he not only very likely holds the world record for sheer number of album credits, but he has put the finishing touches on a who’s who of the greatest albums of all time including the Rolling Stones, Sam Cooke, Eric Clapton, The Band, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and the Who going back to the late 60s. To this day, Ludwig continues to lend his ear to a wide variety of music – big and small, commercial and not – as in 2009 alone he mastered Trey Anastasio’s Time Turns Elastic, Umphrey’s McGee’s Mantis, the Low Anthem’s Oh My God Charlie Darwin, the Pearl Jam Ten reissue and Wilco (the Album). In other words, it’s safe to say that the answer to our opening question would definitely lean towards (b).

Having graced so many great albums; applying the very finishing touches, tweaking the sound to make it just right , and undoubtedly running through some epic fire drills just days before the music heads out to the plant, Bob Ludwig has no doubt made a lasting mark on the music industry.

Hoping to rub off some of his wisdom, Hidden Track chatted with Bob Ludwig about his years of experience, the nuances of mastering, and of course the music. In speaking about these things, Ludwig likes to point to a quote by Floyd Tool of Harman International, ” The audio industry lives in a ‘circle of confusion.’ Loudspeakers are evaluated by using recordings which are made by using microphones which are evaluated by using loudspeakers which are evaluated by using recordings which are made by using microphones… etc. etc.”

Ryan Dembinsky: To begin, to the average music fan the difference between mixing and mastering might seem like one and the same, yet mastering is considered an art form in itself and rarely does the same set of ears handle both duties. Why is it that the mixer is not equipped to also master the tracks?

Bob Ludwig: Very few mixing engineers master their own work well and most mastering engineers would not want to be responsible for a professional quality mix.

It is hard to do both disciplines well but mixing is definitely the most difficult and the very best of the professional mixers really earn the points they make.

READ ON for the rest of Ryan’s chat with Bob…