Posts by Scott Bernstein

As another work week begins, take solace in the fact that Christmas is a mere two weeks from today, New Year’s Day just three weeks from today. So keep your chin up and your mind entertained with the best the interwebs have to offer: Trey Anastasio’s Buried Alive from The Warfield on Friday night is even better […]

This week dragged on and on, but we’ve finally made it to Friday. I wanted to raise the bar higher this week with plenty of links, so let’s get down to business: Trey Anastasio is also trying to raise the bar with his latest round of shows Another preview of Trey’s weekend shows in San […]

Now that December is moving along quickly, it’s time to look back at some of the best releases of the year. This week I’ll tackle DVDs, and this year there were plenty to choose from (with the exception of Okonokos and Heart of Gold, all of these DVDs are archival releases). And for the sake of […]

Welcome to the seventh edition of Grousing The Aisles — once again, it’s hump day. Last week I focused solely on Jerry Garcia, so we have two weeks worth of new torrents to catch up on. This week we’ll hit Tea Leaf Green, Billy Joel, My Morning Jacket, Phish, The Radiators, and The Rolling Stones.

Billy Joel 03/15/78 Munich, Germany PRO-SHOT Video(DVD)

Billy Joel was one of my favorite artists growing up. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that every summer I went off to sleepaway camp with a bunch of Jews from Long Island. Joel’s greatest hits album was required listening, and by the time I was in high school I couldn’t listen to Only The Good Die Young without vomiting. Years have passed and I once again have gained an appreciation for the piano man. Not only did he create some of the greatest songs of the late ’70s and early ’80s, he also put together a kick ass band that made his live shows incredible.

In early 1978 Joel had been on the road pretty much nonstop for four years. The band taped this performance for Germany’s Musikladen TV show, and the performance is amazing. The torrent above is for a newly remastered DVD copy of that performance, but nearly all of the songs can be found on YouTube as well…

There’s nothing quite like watching a good idea become a cool reality.

About three weeks ago I attended and sang at a Diabetes Research Benefit Concert put on by my good friend, The Otrane. Otrane put together a band for the occasion, fittingly called Pancreas, and they put on an incredible show for the assembled crowd. Otrane called on his friends to sit in on songs he always hoped they would play. One of our friends was Jennifer Hartswick, who has recently been singing with the always in-flux band of Trey Anastasio.

Otrane thought no song can better show off Jen’s incredible range and vibrato than Sweet Child O’ Mine, so they decided to take’r out for a spin. That night, Jen and Pancreas pulled off an amazing version of the Guns N’ Roses classic.

Fast forward two weeks to this Saturday: Jen and her husband Wade, two of my favorite people in the world, entered my apartment for a little pre-game hang before the second night of Umphrey’s McGee‘s run at the Nokia Theater. Wade, Jen, Otrane, and our crew of rabid Umphreaks gathered, when someone asked Jen if she would be singing that night with the band. Jen told us that on the subway ride over she had been thinking about asking to sing Sweet Child O’ Mine instead of whatever they had previously agreed on. Otrane’s face lit up like a Christmas tree and the assembled troops agreed this was an amazing idea.

The first concert of the two-night run was just an average Umphrey’s show, which had its moments — hey, a mediocre Umphrey’s show is still on par with the best other bands of the genre have to offer. But we still entered the venue on that second night with high hopes, and we didn’t even have confirmation on what Jen would be playing with them — our crew has a firm “We don’t know want to know what’s going to be played” policy.

The band took the stage for night two and it became clear right away that this was going to be the keeper, this was going to be a serious show…

It used to be cool and inventive when the recently separated Kid Rock sat in with Lynyrd Skynyrd, Aerosmith and Phish. But his sit-in last night with the legendary Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top and the legendary for sucking Nickelback offered up nothing more than a lame karaoke version of Tush, saved only by a […]

It used to be cool and inventive when the recently separated Kid Rock sat in with Lynyrd Skynyrd, Aerosmith and Phish. But his sit-in last night with the legendary Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top and the legendary for sucking Nickelback offered up nothing more than a lame karaoke version of Tush, saved only by a […]

Welcome back to another edition of The Workweek, which in turn means another edition of Hors d’Oeuvres. Just think of it like this: By the time you’re finished reading these articles, it will be that much closer to Friday. I promise. Some of Jerry Garcia’s first pieces of art go up for sale — consider this […]

Welcome back to another edition of The Workweek, which in turn means another edition of Hors d’Oeuvres. Just think of it like this: By the time you’re finished reading these articles, it will be that much closer to Friday. I promise. Some of Jerry Garcia’s first pieces of art go up for sale — consider this […]

There’s nothing quite like finishing the long week after the Thanksgiving holiday — we’re a mere three weeks from Christmas and four weeks from New Year’s. But before you get all weekend aggro out there, check out these sexy links: George Harrison passed away five years ago this week. In honor of one of my […]

There’s nothing quite like finishing the long week after the Thanksgiving holiday — we’re a mere three weeks from Christmas and four weeks from New Year’s. But before you get all weekend aggro out there, check out these sexy links: George Harrison passed away five years ago this week. In honor of one of my […]

Tickets go on sale tomorrow for the unofficial kick-off to festival season, the 5th Annual Langerado Festival. We’re counting the days ’til March…

Recently I spoke with one of the festival’s founders and promoters, Ethan Schwartz, about all things Langerado. He filled us in on the origin of the festival, the difference between Langerado and other festivals where police presence has been increased, bands he’d love to see play in the future and so much more…

I was hoping I’d wake up and it would be Friday. Since that didn’t happen, why not spend this lovely Thursday discussing the best ever rock side projects. It’s not easy to come up with a perfect definition for side projects, but since this is a dictatorship, we will say that the band must have started while one of the band members was performing regularly with a larger act.

1. The Traveling Wilburys: One of the few supergroups that has actually produced material that was not only good when it was released but has grown on me even more over the years. If rock n’ roll were like professional wrestling, Petty, Orbison, Lynne, Harrison, and Dylan would be the Five Horseman and could kick any other teams ass. Plus, you gotta love that they skipped right over Traveling Wilbury’s Volume 2, releasing Volume 3 two years after the first record.

Please read on for the rest of The B List…and let’s hear your thoughts at the end.

Sound Tribe Sector 9 keyboard player David “Lars Ulrich” Phipps has started using his laptop for things other than music. Phipps recently used his band’s message board, The Lowdown (snicker), to rant against the torrent site Oink. Your best bet’s to take a moment and read Phipps’ complete open letter from The Lowdown site, but […]

That graphic always makes me smile. I’m still waiting for someone to get the reference of the title of this department — come on people, dig deep. Anyway, since last week’s column featured no Grateful Dead or Dead-related projects at all, this edition of GTA is fully dedicated to Jerry Bear, the Godfather of Wook. Let’s get over that Wednesday hump together with some help from Jerome.

• Garcia On Broadway 10/25/87 LATE SBD/AUD (FLAC)

In 1987, Jerry hit Broadway for a series of 18 shows at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. Can you imagine the smell in that theater at the end of that run? Just a bit of a different crowd than those seeing Beauty and The Beast, which has been playing at the Lunt-Fontanne for the past seven years.

Garcia’s estate recently released the Halloween show as part of its Pure Jerry series, but we’re gonna focus on the night of the 25th here. Jerry and the acoustic band plays an amazing first set, presented here in all its soundboard glory. For the second set, Mr. Jorts himself, Bob Weir, joined his uncle Jerry for the final four songs of the evening. The second set was clearly taped in the audience, yet the sound is surprisingly good and the performance, while not tight, is interesting. The highlight is the first and only JGB All Along The Watchtower. Other shows from the run newly featured on etree are 10/23 and 10/24…

Can you believe we’re actually talking about shows in the Year of Our Lord Two-Thousand Seven? This year has just flown the fuck by, right?

Umphrey’s McGee this morning announced the beginning of their 2007 touring plans. Read on after the jump for the full list of dates…Bring your helmets, kids!

Rhino Records is finally starting to recoup some of the mucho dinero they laid out as part of a ten-year licensing deal with the Grateful Dead. Get your Christmas gift cards ready, folks — on January 23rd, Rhino will release Grateful Dead: Live At The Cow Palace as part of a three-disc set.

Luckily for the fans, Grateful Dead archivist David Lemieux is still on board. Read on to hear what he has to say about the 12/31/76 show and this release…

Thanksgiving’s over, and I’m pretty excited for a full week of work. Okay, not really, so let’s all pretend its not Monday. Check out these links to keep you busy: King Crimson has started to sell shows from their archives — thanks to Clownshoes for pointing out this great show from 1982, which is FREE! Original Black Sabbath […]

The Friday after Thanksgiving is all about the leftovers, and today is no exception. If you’re part of the 99 percent of people that are off from work or school today, be thankful. No, I’m totally not bitter I’m working today. Bob Doran interviews Trey Anastasio for the North Coast Journal (I bet he didn’t […]

The crew here at Hidden Track hopes you’re having a wonderful Thanksgiving. The eats and the family fun/drama maybe be all gobbled up, but there’s still time to enjoy these 10 shows around the country this holiday weekend… moe. — Chicago, IL: Al Schnier makes his trimphant return to playing guitar after a bad bout […]