Ryan Dembinsky

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Let’s face it, every single person in this “room” has air guitared a Trey solo or attempted to play their own vacuum like Fishman at some point along the way. But not too many people out there ever get the opportunity to take a real live stab at covering ’em. So today, we’ll take a look at some nods to the popular rock band as we highlight some truly stellar Phish covers.

Listening to bands cover Phish is entertaining, because generally speaking, you can really sense a sincerity by all of the band members to a) get it right and b) nail it. Plus, you know what they say: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

Benevento/Russo Duo: YEM -> Mike’s Song -> Freedom of Choice -> Mike’s Song 12/27/05

Duo Phish

Considering Marco Benevento closed out this Duo show with Mike Gordon by saying it’s the best they have ever played, it’s pretty clear that this one is special. The highlight of this phenomenal run has to be Marco’s ambient improvisation in the early segment of You Enjoy Myself and the subsequent interplay with Mike on the big build up, but just listening to Marco cover both the duties of Page and Trey with his arsenal of effects is jaw-dropping. If for some terrible reason you don’t already have this entire show, go get it, son.

READ ON for more Phish-y bustouts by the likes of moe., Phix and others…

Having waited about 14 years since last seeing the Smashing Pumpkins live, my anticipation soared last Thursday night at the United Palace. See, Billy Corgan and crew played an integral role in my formative years. The Lollapalooza show a million years ago was my first concert and I effectively took guitar lessons from Billy Corgan, learning power chords from Today, neck chords from Disarm, and octaves from Cherub Rock. While most of my friends were deep into Pearl Jam or dipping their toes into the Dead and Phish, I roamed around record stores and sketchy bootleg swap meets at the local Howard Johnson digging up recordings of the Smashing Pumpkins.

Not long after, I realized that while the Pumpkins were a truly fantastic band with a sound all their own, they were not a very reliable live act for a deep dive. While they always maintained a deep repertoire, shifted the sets around and cranked out quality fuzz, the sound often sucked and Billy Corgan’s voice was roughly as reliable as Sex Panther Cologne.

Some things haven’t changed. The show Thursday night left me with horribly polarized feelings. As per the yoosh, Billy Corgan, Jimmy Chamberlain and the other “Smashing Pumpkins” sans original bassist D’arcy and guitarist James Iha cranked up the sound and put on a freaking rock show. Yet, the basis for the unsettling and unsatisfying sentiments was that Corgan was hell bent on raging on his guitar with a result that sounded more like a bad Guns N’ Roses set.

READ ON for the rest of Rupert’s Smashing Pumpkins review…

While the dawn of the internet age has benefited the music fan in more ways than we can count on two hands, there’s one thing missing from the good old days: the countdown. For years, the highlight of the day used to be racing home from school to plow three Coke Classics and gear up to see if Patience would maintain the number one position on Dial MTV or if Skid Row would overtake GnR. Somewhere between then and now, album reviews became omnipotent, but highlighting the great individual songs – the hit single if you will – faded away. Besides, Adam Curry was the man.

So anyway, it’s with that in mind that we decided to churn out the HT Occasional Countdown – a top ten of sorts consisting of some of the best new songs across a variety of HT friendly bands. There’s no real basis upon what makes the list, besides what gets the most play on our respective iPods, but hopefully you will enjoy the selections.

10) Johnny Flynn & the Sussex Wit – Wayne Rooney from A Larum

There’s no way a song dedicated to one of footy’s top-selling Wallbangers doesn’t crack the top ten.

9) Lotus – Bellwhether from Hammerstrike

It’s about time somebody responded to the ubiquitous request for some more freaking cowbell.

READ ON for more of the first HT Occasional Countdown…

Sometimes the events surrounding a show garner it nearly impossible for a let down. For example, take an 80 degree sunny day on an October weekend packed with friends on a wedding getaway for the first time ever to the endearing city of Austin, Texas. Then add about a hundred thousand lubricated University of Texas Longhorns fans coming off their number one ranked football team’s takedown of the number six Oklahoma State Cowboys and put a thousand or so of the drunkest ones in Stubb’s BBQ for a nighttime serenade by Ben Folds. While normally this might sound like a recipe for disaster, it was a well behaved, yet euphoric populous to share in our cherry popping at the famed Stubb’s BBQ.

Before we dive into the nitty gritty of the Ben Folds show, I have two staunch recommendations for anyone taking a first time pilgrimage to Austin (warning: you veggies might want to skip ahead a couple paragraphs). Stubb’s is an obvious choice, but for a truly amazing barbeque feast, but you absolutely have to head a half hour outside town to the Mecca of food that is the Salt Lick. My friends and I, hung-over like you wouldn’t believe, rallied a group of 30 friends out to Driftwood, Texas to feast on juicy brisket, fatty spare ribs, giant sausages, barbequed chicken, cole slaw, every down-home side dish you could imagine, and some warm blackberry pie. The best of all was this amazing brown sugary sauce (more like barbeque gravy than a traditional barbeque sauce) that smothered over our heaping plates of food. If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is. Just get a load of this barbeque pit.

READ ON for more of Rupert’s review of Ben Folds in Austin…

While it can be tricky at times to gauge a crowd’s reaction to a band they are likely seeing for the first time, the litmus test is always the post-show merchandise table –that and loud screaming of course. This past weekend, the Selkirk, Scotland by way of Glasgow band, Frightened Rabbit, dropped by the Music Hall of Williamsburg as part of the U.S. leg of a three-month world tour, which culminates in a supporting role for Death Cab for Cutie spanning the whole of Europe throughout the month of November.

[Photo by Dave Gourley]

Well, Frightened Rabbit scored pretty high on the merch test, because after the show, the front room was packed wall-to-wall with wide-eyed pleased patrons grabbing up wares and already yearning for the band’s second headlining show in the Big Apple in January at the Bowery Ballroom.

The band continues to attract to fans and impress old ones on the heels of their April 2008 studio release and the subsequent October 2008 acoustic live release of The Midnight Organ Fight (the live acoustic version of Fight is titled Liver! Lung! Fr!) – a record with an appeal that never stops growing. Three of the four members of the Frightened Rabbit crew, founder, guitarist, and lead singer Scott Hutchinson, drummer and younger sibling Grant Hutchinson, and keyboard player and multi-instrumentalist Andy Monaghan were kind enough to chat with us before their show Saturday night over a Red Stripe.

Ryan Dembinsky: So, let’s start with the live album, Liver! Lung! Fr!. What made you decide to record an all acoustic version of Midnight Organ Fight in its entirety; given that the live shows are typically pretty high energy?

Scott Hutchinson: Well, part of it was the label’s idea, but we wanted to do something that even people who had come to the shows before hadn’t necessarily heard and make it a one off thing; strip the songs back and make it a big night in Glasgow. One of the main reasons we did it is we wanted to put out something for people to remember in Glasgow. Once you tour for so long, you get sick of playing the songs in that same context, so it was nice to refresh them again in our minds and strip the songs back.

READ ON for more of Rupert’s interview with Frightened Rabbit…

For the two-year birthday bash of the HT, I’d like to just say thanks – thanks to Scotty, thanks to Ace, thanks to the Dude, and thanks to everyone else who contributes to and reads HT. I never really even knew what a blog was nor how much I enjoyed writing (or trying to at least), but I started up a silly sports blog with a good buddy couple years back, and truth be told, I thought we were starting a business. So to fast forward a couple years and find myself lucky enough to chip in on Hidden Track after having been a long time Glide Magazine reader, puts a big ass smile on my face on a regular basis.

I would like to say that Ace Cowboy is one of the best and funniest writers I know and I thank him for asking me to participate over here. Whatever he writes, I will read. Ace taught me some valuable lessons he never even knew he was teaching and he is a good buddy.

And did you ever wonder if Scotty’s personality comes across in his articles? Well, I’ve only known Scotty for a short time, but it is obvious he lives for this music. In fact, I think he is the biggest music lover I have ever known and he was born for Hidden Track. I can only dream of knowing as much as Scotty about music. I hope you all see it, because he works his ass off for you and he is a very talented and kind person.

So that’s my heartfelt “thanks for having me.” Having an outlet to spew out the ramblings of an overactive imagination like this post here, fills a creative void that honestly makes my life better.

READ ON for Rupert’s epic’r than epic Phishy Toy Story…

We’re back with another installment of the Writer’s Workshop. This month, we have the writer who is widely regarded as the greatest rock critic of all times, Lester Bangs. Lester Bangs draws comparison to that other famed Gonzo for living the life he wrote about. You might remember him as the character in Almost Famous played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Unlike the “I can fit you on the calendar” interview and research format of today, Bangs befriended his subjects, got to know them inside and out, and likely passed out on their couch.

Hard livin’, alongside such notable partakers as Lou Reed, Captain Beefheart and the Clash, cut Bangs’ life short at the tender age of 33 – a true rock star. Thus, in order to include the wisdom of Lester Bangs here for the Writers Workshop, I’m piecing together this phony interview from a hilarious essay Bangs wrote entitled How to Be a Rock Critic, which is published in the back of the definitive Lester Bangs biography, Let It Blurt, by Jim DeRogatis.

Ryan Dembinsky: What would you say was the best part of the life as a successful rock writer?

Lester Bangs: Well, it almost certainly won’t get you laid. On the other side of the slug, though, are the benefits. The first big one is if you stay in this stuff long enough you’ll start to get free records in the mail, and if you persevere even longer you might wind up on the promotional mailing lists of every company in the nation. On Christmas you don’t have to buy anybody presents if you don’t want to: Just give your mother the new Barbra Streisand album Columbia sent you because Barbra’s trying to relate, your sister one of the three copies of the new Carole Kind that you got in the mail, your sister the Osmond’s double live LP you never opened because you’re too hip… all down the line, leaving you enough money saved to stay fucked-up on good whiskey over the holidays this year.

The final benefit (and for some people, the biggest) is that during most of these stages and at an increasingly casual level as time goes on, you’ll get to hobnob with the Stars. Backstage at concerts, in the dressing room drinking their wine, rapping occasionally with the famous, the talented, the rich, and the beautiful. Most of ‘em are just jerks like everybody else, and you probably won’t really get to meet any real Biggies very often since the record companies don’t need publicity on them so why should they inflict you on them, but you will become friends with a lot of Stars of the Future or at least also-rans.

READ ON for more of Rupert’s sorta-interview with Lester Bangs…

The idea behind Origins of a Song is to take a fictitious look at a scenario that may or may not have led to the birth of a select few of the most memorable of songs. This time, we’ll take a crack at the brilliant Townes Van Zandt’s classic folktale, Pancho & Lefty.

On a rickety porch attached to an old wooden house in the midst of a dusty Mexican desert town, a trio of old men adorned in cowboy hats, holsters, and full get up of western accoutrements, drink from bottles of Tecate as hey sway back and forth in their rocking chairs.

“It’s been a very long time amigo. What do you say you sing us a song,” asks the old federale.

“Nah, I don’t sing the blues anymore; I was a different person back then. Made deal with a devil or whatever it is they say about bluesmen,” Lefty says laughing to himself.

“Too bad, amigo; you had it in ya. So, what brings you back down here to Meheeco, Lefty,” ponders the other old federale.

“Oh… Redemption I suppose,” Lefty says lazily and half drunk as he ponders what he is doing there.

“What do you mean, redemption?”

“Well, I’m an old man now, but many years ago, I did something I’ve always regretted. They day I left town, I betrayed a friend.” Lefty returns pulling his lips together, breathing a deep sigh, and hunching his shoulders humbled.

READ ON for the conclusion of this month’s Origins of a Song…

The big question before delving into the August release from former HT Blip artist The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, The Whole Fam Damnily, is if the big sound from