Ryan Dembinsky

After patiently waiting over four years for Phish to reunite, we admit, we got a little excited. Now with two legs of a summer tour behind us and the Hampton shows feeling like they were actually about four years ago, it’s time to regroup and look around a little. Our other favorite bands have been playing too and it’s time to see what we missed.

Sure, Phish may have snagged the headlines throughout the summer, but there have been no shortage of big shows and bust outs around the horn, so lets share the wealth and see what’s been going down.

Frog Legs – The Disco Biscuits, Mariaville, NY 7/18/09

Billed as “The Perfume vs. Tractorbeam” at this summer’s Camp Bisco, the Disco Biscuits treated fans to a set of instrumental non-stop jamming and creative twists on their originals. Don’t quote me on this, but essentially Tractorbeam plays jammed out lyricless Disco Biscuits mayhem, whereas The Perfume takes the existing material and transforms it into alternative genres like honky tonk, techno, hip hop, etc. Here we have a sample from the Perfume in the form of a fun “Devo” version of Frog Legs.

Mantis Ghetts – Umphrey’s McGee, Des Moines, IA 7/15/09

Presumably named as such because it would make for some mean backround music to a ghetto gangsta rap tune (or not), Umphrey’s McGee busted out Mantis Ghetts for the first time ever at the great highway 80 food oasis, Des Moines, Iowa. Mantis Ghetts made for an exciting bust out as its only previous circulation came in level 8 of the special downloads made available by the bands innovative PUSH technology in conjunction with the recent studio release of Mantis. This all-instrumental beat-driven jam maintains the same dark feeling throughout, but remains fresh all the while with dueling guitar melodies, a big buildup, and an eerie keyboard lullabye to close it out.

READ ON for more jam band bust outs…

We begin with a funny story that took place the week following the 4th of July. My wife and I headed out to Caifornia to celebrate our good friends’ wedding in Pasadena and subsequently rented a car to drive up the PCH hitting Joshua Tree, Big Sur, Monterrey, Sonoma and San Francisco along the way. Midway through the week, on our Big Sur section, we stopped to eat at a random coffee shop (with a backyard that looks like the Ewok Village) when we experienced what appeared to be an all-time classic celebrity sighting.

As we sit there eating our lunch, none other than Flea walks in with his buddy and stands right beside us, momentarily perplexed as to whether or not the kitchen was still open or if they closed down for the slow period between lunch and dinner – siesta if you will. Not being the kind of person who attempts to chat it up with celebrities, I kinda just sat there dumbfounded trying to figure out if it was Flea for sure or not. My wife of course had no clue what was going on whatsoever.

It turned out that the kitchen did in fact close and Flea and his buddy turned around, hopped in his ride (a greenish Mercedes station wagon), and headed off down the windy coastal highway. I heard his voice briefly and that too sounded exactly like Flea’s, so I was pretty sure it was him, but still could not confirm it to myself nor my wife. It seemed too random.

READ ON for more of Ryan’s tale…

With record sales continuing to slide and the licensing of music becoming a bigger piece of the puzzle for musicians vying to make a living, placements in television and film can have a tremendous impact on the career of an artist.

[Photos by Martelli Photography]

For Bobby Long, a talented singer/songwriter from the UK with a penchant for music by Elliot Smith, Gram Parsons, Bob Dylan and the Felice Brothers, one particular song placement launched his career up into the night sky. Teen dreamboat Robert Pattison performed his song Let Me Sign (co-written with Marcus Foster) in the first film of the insanely popular Twilight series. The rest is history.

Now, Long plays for heaps of fans, many of them of the young female variety. Surely that’s not much of a dilemma, but curious to hear if this felt more like a blessing or a curse, I jumped at the chance to chat him up.

Ryan Dembinsky: At your university, you were working on a degree in film/video with an emphasis on writing soundtracks, correct? Is that in any way related to Twilight? In other words, did Twilight drive that decision to study soundtrack creation or alternatively, did your connections there help land the placement in the film?

Bobby Long: No not at all. I always kept my Uni and my music separate to the point that a lot of students at my Uni didn’t know my name. I only really studied to be in London and so I could afford to live there with my student loan.

READ ON for the rest of Ryan’s conversation with Bobby Long…

An evening at the Mercury Lounge often proves a real treat. The structure of their shows almost always includes four bands with a time slot of roughly an hour per act. In essence, the evening feels exactly like your run-of-the-mill showcase night a la Arlene’s Grocery. You know, the neighborhood venue trying to reel in a few patrons without giving away drink specials by offering up the stage to wet-behind-the-ears bands playing in front of their poor friends who were given no option but to drop by dressed all biz casual.

Well, the difference with the Mercury Lounge approach is that they put on a showcase night, but comprised of generally really talented on-the-cusp bands with plenty of buzz, generally with some level of overlap in fan tendencies with the other acts on the bill. Hence, it makes for a great way for bands to win over new fans, while fans happily catch the band they came to see, but often leave holding the CD of one they never even heard of. Should one or two of the bands not hit the spot, well there’s always the bar just outside the performance room. You can pop out and pop back in for the next band an hour later. Plus, the price is right.

This past Thursday, the Merc played host to a relatively new band on my radar that is quickly becoming a favorite, Leroy Justice. Having heard from a couple friends in different places and seeing repeat rave reviews from a couple of great writers whose tastes I share, Dave Schultz at Earvolution and Dennis Cook at Jambase, I picked up their new album. The album, called the Loho Sessions just happens to be produced by a guy you might recognize; he goes by the name of Siket. The Loho Sessions has breakout written all over it and it’s a contender for the best this year. The “sounds-like exercise” always reaches for the Black Crowes and Drive-By Truckers, but that makes them sound far too categorical.

READ ON to see what Ryan thought of LJ and Cornmeal…

Reading a biography, it’s easy to overlook all the behind the scenes work that goes into prepping the written material. If done well, these works read like a good flowing piece of narrative fiction, but there is far more upfront preparation required in the form of gathering articles, watching video footage, reading reviews, conducting interviews and – in the case of music biographies – becoming intimately familiar with the musical catalog. Hence, while the writing itself plays a huge role in the quality of a biography, the real masters of this craft are those who take the preparation to the next level.

In this installment of Writer’s Workshop, we had the chance to match wits with one of the true legends of the music writing landscape and particularly the music biography, Robert Greenfield. To put it in perspective, in Greenfield’s latest book, A Day in the Life: One Family, the Beautiful People, and the End of the Sixties – the story of Tommy Weber and Puss Coriat, a pair of London socialites who regularly rubbed elbows with the likes of the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and the Beatles – the section in back reserved to credit sources spans a jaw-dropping 40 pages. A rough estimate of twenty line items per page puts the total number of sources at around 800; not exactly lazy journalism.

Over the course of the interview, we discuss this arduous approach to the research process as well as other anecdotes detailing the ups, downs, ins and outs of Robert Greenfield’s life as a music writer.

Ryan Dembinsky: I understand you started your career as a sports writer. Could you explain the motivation and circumstances behind your move from sports to music, and ultimately to music biographer/historian?

Robert Greenfield: Because I grew up in Brooklyn when the Dodgers were still at Ebbets Field (and where I got to see Jackie Robinson play), I was like most kids in my neighborhood obsessed with sports, not just baseball but basketball as well. I was also obsessed with music and went to my first rock ‘n’ roll show, hosted by Murray The K, when I was 13 years old. When the world began changing in the late sixties, music seemed more interesting and important than sports on every level and so I began to write about it.

READ ON for more of Ryan’s chat with famed author Robert Greenfield…

There’s tireless chatter nowadays about the Internet, piracy, and the demise of the music industry as we once knew it. It is indeed a truism to say that album sales have entered a free fall and the major record labels are flailing about as they plunge toward their impending doom.

The thing is, they have it all wrong. The problem has little to do with the Internet or its savvy swashbucklers. They are not in fact the source of this industry implosion. Nope, the answer is much simpler. All it takes is a simple comparison of the great albums of today versus those at the height of the music industry bull market – the renaissance if you will: the 1980s. Today’s albums still have almost all the pieces in place: great songwriting, check; pleasing vocals, check; clever promotion, check; loyal fans, check. So, that leaves just one missing ingredient: a mean mother beast of a guitar solo.

Hit songs of the late ’80s almost always included a masterpiece of axe-wielding showmanship. On today’s albums, particularly on the great indie rock ones, the guitar solo is de-emphasized almost to the point of non-existence. Well, for this listener, long before the jam bands it was all about the glam bands and I for one love the guitar solo and miss it. So, with that in mind, let’s take a look back at the monster hits of the 1980s – the monster ballads to be precise – and take a close look at those epic guitar solos.

Skid Row – I Remember You (guitar solo from 2:37 to 3:18)

Listening to a monster ballad guitar solo is like judging a dive. There are myriad key factors to evaluate in unison over the course of a very short time. The key elements of these power solos include mastery of such variables as degree of difficulty, technical prowess, useless showboating, number of notes, and of course, squeal. While Sebastian Bach always stole the Skid Row thunder, in large part due to the fact that he kinda looked like a blonde Kristen Stewart, Dave “the Snake” Sabo co-founded the band before Bach ever joined and put the band on the map with guitar playing like this. Judges say? 9.2.

[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/10-i-remember-you.mp3]

READ ON for more legendary monster ballad guitar solos…

Ya’ll have probably heard this story many times, but in the interest of a few laughs, this week’s mix tape consists of some funny tribute songs to Doc Ellis and

As we’re sure you’ve heard by now, Michael Jackson passed away this afternoon after paramedics found him in a coma at his home near Los Angeles. We’d like to pay tribute to the “King of Pop” by re-running an old column from March 6, 2008 featuring jambands covering his songs…

You’ve probably heard the bad news by now, Michael Jackson is at risk of losing his Xanadu of weirdness, Neverland Ranch. Unless he can come up with a cool $24.5 million to avoid foreclosure, it’s so long to everyone’s favorite funny farm. Well, don’t fret folks. We’ve arranged a Michael Jackson tribute concert to help raise money to save Neverland Ranch.

This week’s edition of Bust Outs includes some of the best and brightest musicians we know paying homage to the King of Pop himself. We had no idea what we were getting into with this one, because we were quick to discover that the Neverland Ranch edition should probably be segmented into a 12 part mini-series, but regardless we’ve weeded it down into a single veritable powerhouse of Michael Jackson teases, jams, and full length covers. So, get out your tight black pants and dancing loafers, because this is undeniably the best Bust Outs yet.

Read on for Jacko covers from the likes of Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Santana, Phish, RAQ, The Biscuits, Miles Davis, PGroove and more…

Here in the U.S., when we think about a summer music festival, we automatically think of multiple days, stages, camping and lineups of artists ranging from established to mega-star. The Fete de La Musique in Paris, which translates ever so creatively to, “The Festival of Music,” takes a completely different approach. Each year on the summer solstice (June 21st), musicians of all kinds inhabit virtually every nook and cranny of the City of Lights and transform the beautiful metropolis into one massive celebration.

[Photo via Fete de la musique Flickr]

What is so striking about the Fete de la Musique is not necessarily jaw-dropping exhibitions of music or big name draws, but rather, simply, the spirit the city takes on. From the early afternoon to the wee hours of the night, Paris pulses with energy as both natives and tourists from every country under the sun dance, drink, stroll and sing their way around the city as the musicians perform not on stage but in the midst of magnificent stone archways, outside the sidewalk cafes, at the foot of Notre Dame, in pubs, on the bridges of the Seine, in the courtyard of the Louvre and anywhere else where there is a plot of open air.

Interestingly, nearly all of the musicians are asked to perform for free and hence the entire festival is free. This means that across Paris and throughout France over 10,000 groups lay down their chops and try to win over passersbys – some succeeding, others failing miserably. READ ON…

With most eyes of the music world on ‘roo hullabaloo and all of its showy splendor, the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, which takes place this weekend June 18-21, has quietly assembled one of the most electric lineups of the summer. As we can all attest, festival functionality tends to improve with age, so Telluride in its 36th year looks like it should be one of the best yet.

In addition to bluegrass stalwarts like Jerry Douglas (in his 25th fest!), Bela Fleck, Peter Rowan, Tim O’Brien, Sam Bush, Yonder Mountain Strong Band, and Railroad Earth, this year’s festival continues the recent trend of expanding the crossover fan appeal with a handful of huge draws including David Byrne, Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band, Elvis Costello & the Sugarcanes, Emmylou Harris and Jenny Lewis. Finally, to round out a great lineup, there are some newer swashbucklers in the bluegrass scene like the Punch Brothers featuring former child prodigy, Chris Thile – of Nickel Creek fame, Greensky Bluegrass, and one of my personal favorites, Irish music pickers, Gaelic Storm. Not bad for a festival with a maximum capacity of 10,000 fans nestled beneath a waterfall at the foot of the gorgeous Rocky Mountains, eh?

We’ve included a sampler playlist to get you in the spirit. Click here to download or just login to imeem and listen away. Also, see below for the complete TBF schedule.

READ ON for the schedule for the Telluride Bluegrass Festival…