Scott Bernstein

Barack Obama lovin’ Jeff Tweedy and Wilco return to the road in February for a string of dates in the States before heading to Australia. Wilco’s brief tour covers a lot of ground in just two short weeks, and they’ll play some of the best venues this country has to offer. Our resident expert Luke advises us that in typical Wilco fashion, they will probably add dates over the course of the next few weeks.

• Jason Isbell plans massive tour (kickoff: 1/12)
• Radiohead flesh out European tour plans (kickoff: 6/07)
• Umphrey’s McGee starts 2008 on the west coast (kickoff: 2/07)
• The Om Trio returns after a three year hiatus (kickoff: 2/15)
• Yo La Tengo Freewheel into ’08 (kickoff: 1/09)
• Dark Star Orchestra plans to cover a lot of ground (kickoff: 1/31)
• Billy Joel starts to put together a run of shows (kickoff: 2/26)

As if the 2007-08 Reunionmania wasn’t already out of hand, a UK developer has persuaded the original lineup of Spandau Ballet to reform in Las Vegas for one show by offering a two-million pound payday. True was a good song and all, but two million pounds?! We can only hope that P.M. Dawn opens the show.

The past few weeks have been crazy for your old pal Scotty B, leaving me little time to review some of the concerts I’ve recently attended. So allow me to kill two birds with one stone for this week’s edition of Grousing The Aisles.

We’ll start by looking at RAQ’s first-ever performance at the beautiful new Highline Ballroom before moving onto Ween’s Friday night gig at NYC’s newest shitty venue, Terminal 5. Luckily high-quality recordings of both shows have surfaced, so you can listen to the shows I’m reviewing. You gotta love modern technology.

RAQ 11/24/2007 DAUD [FLAC, MP3, STREAM]

Photo by Dave Vann

It isn’t hard to have fun at a RAQ show. While they may not be breaking any new ground sonically, the Vermont quartet plays a mix of quirky originals and killer covers that keeps the crowd both entertained and dancing. The energy that the crowd gave the band and vice versa at Highline Ballroom a few weeks ago was pretty cool to watch. Everyone in the venue (besides me) seemed like longtime RAQ fans, and they consequently hung on every note the band played.

Keyboardist Todd Stoops is a guy most people either think is the best thing since sliced bread or the most annoying musician they’ve ever heard. Personally, I think Stoops’ spastic style adds some originality to both the jams and songs themselves. Check out Shirley Be A Drooler for a taste of Stoops’ hyper organ-playing or Clamslide for a sample of what he can do on the piano. Guitarist Chris Michetti shredded his way through the evening, starting with rapid-fire runs during the cover of AC/DC’s It’s A Long Way to The Top that opened the show before exhibiting a more melodic side of his fretwork on Carbohydrates Are The Enemy > Freya > Carbohydrates Are The Enemy. Read on for much more…

Here’s a shocker: Stewart Copeland’s big mouth causes trouble again.

Copeland apparently disparaged current Chilean president Michelle Bachelet back in October, comparing her less favorably to another leader: “Look, the future President of Argentina would be good for one beer; yours [would be good] for four.” Copeland + beer goggles reference = international incident.

Not surprisingly, the people of Chile took The Police drummer’s words to mean he found Bachelet less attractive than Argentina’s hot president. Copeland apologized for the slight, and invited Bachelet and her party to see tonight’s concert in Santiago. If you haven’t seen The Police yet, be sure to see them next summer, because we’d be surprised if Sting ever goes on tour with Stewart again.

With The Pixies’ reunion fading into memory, the time’s finally come for Kelley and Kim Deal to get The Breeders back together. The Deal sisters have teamed up with producer Steve Albini to record Mountain Battles, an album that was put on hold in 2002 when Kim entered rehab. Mountain Battles hits stores on April 8th, and for Fuse’s sake we hope they don’t use any bong references on this album.

Let’s see what else is goin’ on ’round the world wide web this week:

• Live Nation teams with Costco to sell concert tickets
• Glide Magazine points us in the direction of Radiohead’s new video
• Bono promises U2 fans they’ll “feel a difference” from their next album
• Phil & Friends’ John Molo discusses his past and present with Blair Jackson
• Tom Petty talks to Rolling Stone about his decision to play the Super Bowl
• Jason and Jeff (of Jefitoblog fame) celebrate the 25 Days of Mellowmas
• Daniel Lanois offers the first digitally downloadable album to be released in high-resolution CD quality
• STS9 announces a few weeks worth of 2008 tour dates
• Runaway Dinosaur highlights some cool shit on Rock Art Wednesday
• John C. Reilly takes the stage as Dewey Cox during special screenings of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (watch trailer here)

Finally, be sure to watch on Friday night when Page McConnell names his favorite songs for ABC’s Nightline. He’s totally gonna pick Jennifer Dances.

You can excuse Martin Sexton for being a little tired these days. Sexton’s been touring these United States and the UK since April behind his latest album, Seeds. And aside from spreading good music, the singer/songwriter is also spreading environmental awareness by making the nine-month run a “green” tour.

On Friday, Martin will play the grand finale of the Seeds tour at New York City’s Roseland Ballroom, and we caught up with him as he prepared for the gig. We sat down to talk about life on the road, how NBC’s Scrubs came to use one of his songs, what makes a tour “green” and much, much more….

Scott Bernstein: What were some of the highlights of the Seeds tour?

Martin Sexton: A big one would be doing the whole Green thing: the biodiesel bus, organic posters, recycling everything and all of that was really successful and it make me feel great. It worked, and it wasn’t like pulling teeth; it was actually quite viable. Another highlight for me would be being part of the show on Earth Day last April. Just playing out there in that big beautiful park on a wonderful San Francisco afternoon on Earth Day.

Also I got to the UK for the first time. The reaction of the fans was wonderful. They really treat you well over there. It’s kinda different from in America. They treat you like an artist. I worked hard for what I have in America, and it’s a beautiful thing. But if I was new and up and coming in America, I would sure have a tough road to hoe. Read on for more from Scotty and Martin…

We’d like to congratulate “Saxilla” for winning our insanely popular contest giveaway for the Vegas ’96 release from equally popular rock band Phish. We polled our expert panel of 12

It looks like we may have to take back the virtual hand job we gave Bonnaroo promoters last night: Metallica’s management “flat-out denied” the band will be headlining next year’s

Ever since Justin Timberlake revealed Janet Jackson’s Nubian Nipple at Super Bowl XXXVIII, the NFL seems to exclusively tab classic rockers to perform during halftime at the Super Bowl as to not repeat that Awakening of Areola. The recent tradition continues, and the NFL yesterday officially announced that Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers got the gig at Super Bowl XLII on February 3rd in Phoenix.

Petty grew up in football crazy Gainesville, so we’re pretty sure he’s been to a big game or two. No word yet on whether Petty will dedicate Even The Losers to our woeful Jets, who finally played a good game yesterday. What else we got?

• The Disco Biscuits announce their first ever European tour
• Band of Horses plans a big world tour for next year
• Steven Van Zandt unveils a class about the history of rock music
• Revisiting the site of Otis Redding’s death forty years later
• Billy Joel takes a shot at the war with the release of Christmas in Fallujuh
• Saranac officially announces their deal with moe.
• Tea Leaf Green finally confirms their four-night New Years’ run
• Neddy lists the shows of the week
• Feel bad about downloading music illegally? Here’s your chance to atone

Finally, congratulations to Ryan Montbleau, Club D’elf and Martin Sexton for winning big at the Boston Music Awards…we enjoy all three.

Remember when 70,000 people showed up to an inaugural Bonnaroo for a lineup consisting exclusively of jambands and improvisatory musicians? The crowd hasn’t grown much in number since then, but the festival’s stature and credibility have increased tremendously. At this point you’d have to consider this camping behemoth one of the more preeminent festivals in the world.

And it’s possible that 2008 will continue to see to ‘Roo cement its reputation. The blogs and message boards are abuzz today after the Digital Media Wire passed on a rumor that Led Zeppelin and Metallica have just signed on to play Bonnaroo ’08. This wouldn’t be the first appearance of a member of Led Zeppelin at Bonnaroo — last year bassist John Paul Jones participated in the SuperJam at the festival and sat in with Uncle Earl and Gillian Welch on a few tunes.

If true, can you even imagine how much money Superfly and AC Entertainment had to have thrown at Zeppelin’s management to convince them to sign? Considering Bonnaroo grossed $17 million last year, we’re thinkin’ a million dollars isn’t out of the question. We don’t envy the competition: This summer’s festival season is sure to be intense with Lollapalooza, Coachella, Bonnaroo and the newly announced Vineland Festival all attempting to outdo each other. For now this is just a rumor, but it sure is fun to think about the possibilities.