Ryan Dembinsky

There’s no overarching theme today, just some old-fashioned bust outs. We’ve got plenty to share with you including a snippet of a surprise show out in the lot, a song revived after 13 years in hiding, a tune best known for its placement in a classic movie and some funkdafied Rolling Stones.

First and foremost, we’re headed to the Midwest back in 1994, including a parking lot in Bloomington where the good Reverend Mosier and the Phab Phour treated a lucky group of fans to a free parking lot bluegrass hoedown. Fortunately, there’s great quality audio of the whole thing, so we can all be there. I kick myself to this day; because I was not yet on board with the Phish back in ’94 and the whole run occurred right in back yard with three shows within a two-hour drive and one hometown gig. Damn.

READ ON after the jump for this week’s heady bust outs…

Folks, today we’re kicking off another new periodic department here at Hidden Track and we’re really excited about it. Since it’s the collaborative vibe of lots of writers and commenters that make this site tick – most of whom are pretty tuned in to the music writing landscape – we decided to try out what we call Writer’s Workshop.

As you may have guessed, it’s about writing and the idea is to rap with some great music writers who actually know what they are doing. Thus, our guests will drop some knowledge, a few tricks of the trade, and their tales of sweat and blood.

Our first guest is the one and only Amanda Petrusich of Pitchfork, Paste, Spin, and New York Times fame. Amanda just published her new book, It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music, and continues to make a name for herself as one of the music’s burgeoning young writers. So, without further ado, let’s dig in…

Ryan Dembinsky: Could you run through your standard protocol (if you have one) when you go to review an album? For instance, where do you listen to it? How many times? Do you look for particular elements or just wait to see what jumps out you?

Amanda Petrusich: I try to listen to every record I review at least twice before I sit down to write about it. I actually think it’s much easier to develop ideas about an album when you let it become a part of your life for awhile, even if it ends up being unwelcome. Twice is just a vague hallmark; I’ll do my best to listen until I think I have some larger notion of what a record is “about” – whether it’s a lyrical theme, a narrative, a certain guitar sound, whatever. Something needs to click. Trying to review a record when nothing clicks, that’s the real challenge.

READ ON for more of the premiere edition of Writer’s Workshop…

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 Suzanne Vega’s addictive sing along, Luka.

Around 5:30 on Friday evening, a visibly tired and frazzled, yet strikingly beautiful woman rambles into Finnerty’s Irish Pub. She drops her bags as though they weighed 75 pounds apiece and bellies up alone to the dark mahogany bar. As she let’s out a sigh that clearly carried the weight of a better part of a week, the bartender approaches. He’s not Irish, but emanates that neighborhood barkeep good guy vibe. He knows just about everyone in the room and carries himself in such a way that it’s obvious he likes being nice to strangers.

“Hey there lovely, you look like you could use a stiff one,” he introduces.

“You honestly have no idea. Lemme get a Bud Light and a shot of Patron,” the woman returns.

“Atta girl! No sense wasting any time. Mind if I join you for a shot; when in Rome, right? Hey you know something? You look sort of familiar. You from around here?” the bartender blabs as he chills the tequila, pours out a pair of shots, and passes a shot and a beer to his guest.

READ ON for more of the story behind the girl on the second floor…

In our never-ending quest to dig up some great bands that cost less than a corned beef sandwich at Katz’s Deli, we bring you another round of Blips. Blips highlights some great bands that are largely still in their larvae stage, but will soon morph into their beautiful butterfly. In this edition, we have some really cool new music, so take a sec, poke around their various websites, and see what you think.

The Station

Website / MySpace

On heavy Midwest touring behind the May release of their accurately named album, Speed of Sound, and nine years of tour experience, the Station is finally filling up with passengers ready to hop on the bandwagon (I should get fired for that one). While the band cites Rush, late-era Coltrane, and Skerik as influences, compositionally it’s impossible to ignore the Umphrey’s similarities as they meld intricate melodies and rhythms with touches of metal, funk and reggae. Still, The Station is quick to refute that they sound like pre-existing connotations of the jamband and rightfully so, as they defy categorization. The only deserving categorization that came to mind when listening to their Summer Camp set a couple months ago was music lovers with incredible technical ability and a mean case of ADHD.

Podcast #17: RR1 > Ms Ds jam, Revolving Door, Illuminator, The Plain Truth (Karl Denson Trio), Drink From My Well part 2, Questions, Halfway There [74:53]

• CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE STATION’S PODCAST 17

READ ON to read about Brett Ratliff (no, not that Brett Ratliff)…

How does a band follow up a surprise complete Gamehendge recreation with entirely original narration? They don’t; it’s impossible. Hence, Mr. Blotto did the logical alternative and turned about face and headed to the opposite end of the spectrum. For Blottopia Nine, the band’s festival last month at Chicago’s Vasa Park, the band did not hesitate to pull out all the stops for their rabid and lovable fan base, but this year brought a mellower mood so-to-speak.

[Photo by John F. Muzzupappa]

“Jah Rastafari, Ever Loving, Ever Faithful, Ever Sure, Slicey Eyed Friends”

While the annual Blottopia album cover in entirety doesn’t come out until the end of the second night, I’ll spare you the drama. For Blottopia Nine, Mr. Blotto tipped their hats to the Bob Marley live album, Babylon By Bus. As mentioned, it’s a decidedly softer choice and maybe a tad disappointing, but you gotta give the band credit for taking a crack at a live album. Paul Bolger’s booming, raspy vocals do nothing but justice to the Bob Marley originals and add a distinct sound, but the jams are somewhat confined, relatively speaking. Still the Marley album provide plenty of highlights, particularly in Rastaman Vibration, Punky Reggae Party, Concrete Jungle, and Lively Up Yourself.

For reference, some of the other Blottopia complete album covers include Led Zeppelin II, Some Girls, Terrapin Station, Dark Side of the Moon, and the Doors. They also encored number VII with Phish’s Harry Hood. READ ON for more…

This week’s mix tape is a Lazy Susan of Olympic-themed tuneskis. It kicks off with Glory from Umphrey’s, because it’s plain silly that all those Olympic athletes make such a

Following in the footsteps of the Grateful doppelgangers, Dark Star Orchestra, Strange Design is taking a similar approach to the Phish. This South Carolina foursome recreates classic Phish shows in their entirety at each concert.

While I have yet to see Strange Design in action, what looks particularly appealing about their approach to the Phish is that they really seem to emphasize the surprise factor, the energy, and the general idea that seeing Phish is bigger than just the music. They are not simply focusing on the setlists and songs, but the whole shebang from the segues and bust outs to Fishman tunes and vacuum solos. Hell, the guy even wears the moo moo on drums. If the Divided Sky on their My Space page is any indication, these guys are gonna be a big hit with the fans.

The following comes from a chat with Aaron Levy (keys) and Adam Chase (drums):

Hidden Track: How often do you recreate actual jam segments? Are there any particular versions you would point to that you really worked hard to recreate?

AARON: We try our best to recreate as much as the show as possible. Phish’s music as well as their jams is very complex, so to recreate every note of a show would be a stretch. However, we listen extensively to the shows we recreate and take notes on song lengths, order of solos, teases, any highlighted/unique aspects of that shows particular vibe and jams, etc. Phish had very distinctive styles/eras and we want to give people the taste of a ’91 show versus a ’97 show. As far as particular recreations to point out, when it comes to a well known recording/show, we will do our best to play it as it was played originally.

ADAM: I’ll add that we take notes of key changes within jams, style changes, time signature changes, effects and really as many specific details as possible. On many occasions, Mike has spoken about the spiritual aspect of playing music and being in the moment and Fishman has spoken about putting enough hours and hard work into practice that when you get on stage you don’t have to think about it. So, I’d say our approach is to spend enough time in the practice room that when we get on stage we can be in the moment and know that the amount we studied the show will come through without having to force the direction of the jam just to do what they did. With that being said, we covered 12-6-97 at the Georgia Theatre per a request on our message board and knowing that it was somebody’s all time favorite show and that they were in the audience gave us the extra motivation to be as accurate as possible.

READ ON for more with Adam and Aaron of The Strange Design…

Maybe you’ve heard; festivals are pretty popular nowadays. While seemingly effortless to concoct, the abundance of all this new festivage has led music fans to take for granted the grandiosity of work involved in building a festival from the ground up.

Think about the nightmare of just planning a Super Bowl party for example, where you had to coordinate keeping the Party Ball cold, picking up the Chicken Wings from Pluck U early enough to make kickoff-but not so early that they’d be cold-and making sure there were places for everyone to sit to see the television. Kinda puts it in perspective, when you realize that building a festival is kinda the same thing only you are arranging the party for anywhere from 500x to 5,000x more people, with the addition of high profile musicians, outdoors with nowhere to take a deuce, with food for everyone… And you have to get the A-ok from the community and the cops. You getting the idea? It’s awfully hard work to build a festival and run it smoothly.

So, we got in touch with Jimmy Hunt and Wes Hight (despite being Appalachian State fans, grrrr), the founders of the first-ever Music on the Mountain festival in Boone, NC to talk about the challenges and of giving it a go for the first time. Music on the Mountain takes place August 23rd in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains featuring Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and Perpetual Groove. The mission of the festival aims to raise awareness as well as donate a majority of the proceeds to the cause of renewable energy. We are planning to run this as part of a two part series: before and after. So, we’ll check back with Jimmy and Wes after the festival to see how it went. READ ON for more about the making of a festie…

With the Information Age in full swing, keeping up to date on the jambands just keeps getting easier: no more B&Ps, trader tape lists, or lot newsletters. Now, to keep up to date, there are a million tricks of the trade thanks to the internet.

One of my personal favorite of these tricks that I picked up to help stay current involves what I like to call the Jamband Charts. Essentially, I just poke through Live Downloads to determine the most popular downloads at both the aggregate level and for the more active individual bands. In doing so, you get a pretty good sense of the best bust outs at recent shows, which are almost always either monster jams, rarities, or kick ass covers. So, today I thought I’d put on my DJ hat and dedicate a Bust Outs column to what’s hot and climbing the Jamband Charts this summer.

As Bob Cormier from Stand By Me would say, “From the racks and stacks, it’s the best on wax! How ’bout another double-golden-oldie-twin-spin-sound-sandwich from K-L-A-M in Portland? Iiiiiiit’s… BOSS.”

Widespread Panic – Stir It Up

Do you want to get in a good mood? Just imagine being at Red Rock while JoJo leads this kinky reggae funkfest. I could listen to Panic play this song for hours. One thing to note for a laugh is when the guitar chords come in towards the beginning, you can tell that after all these years, Jimmy Herring is still having fun playing with a wah pedal. READ ON for more of this week’s Bust Outs…