Scott Bernstein

We couldn’t have been happier when the New York Times finally took down their Times Select pay wall, allowing free access to nearly all of the illustrious paper’s articles since 1981. While we love reading old reviews, news stories and columns from some of the best music journalists in the history of the game, we don’t like paying $3.99 to read a 500-word article. Mr. Sulzberger, tear down this wall!

We’ve been bookmarking some of our favorite articles from the vast NYT archives, and recently we realized we should probably share the links so people don’t have to enter 100 different search phrases like we did. This week’s B List compiles one great article from each year between 1981-2007:

1981: Tom Petty: Ready to Fight the Good Fight [May 6th, 1981]

”A lot of our fans have been with us for a long time, and I think they trust us,” the 29-year-old singer, songwriter and guitarist said recently. ”MCA has done a great job selling our records, but they couldn’t see the reality of what it’s like on the street – they couldn’t see that raising the album’s price wouldn’t be fair.”

1982: Talking Heads Fans Get a Night to Remember [August 23rd, 1982]

”THIS ain’t no party,” the Talking Heads warned gravely a year ago when they made their most recent concert appearance in the New York area. But the group’s expanded lineup, with a vocalist, guitarist, percussionist, extra bassist, and keyboard player added to the basic Talking Heads foursome, belied those words. Their shows were parties -joyous, celebratory, and loose.

1983: Police perform for 75,000 at Shea [August 20th, 1983]

”We’d like to thank the Beatles for lending us their stadium,” said Sting, the bassist and singer of the Police, near the end of the trio’s concert at Shea Stadium.

1984: Miles Davis Returns With Revamped Band [June 24th, 1984]

This revamped unit provides richly layered, rhythmically emphatic accompaniments for Mr. Davis and for two other absorbing soloists, the saxophonist Bob Berg and the guitarist John Scofield. The earlier group sounded like a collection of competent but uninspired individuals. Now Mr. Davis has a real band , and like all his better bands, it is an instrument that he plays as deftly and dramatically as he plays the trumpet, an extension of his own personal sound.

Read on for many more articles, reviews and columns from the Grey Lady…

You gotta love a band with a sense of humor, and no one keeps us in stitches like the Beastie Boys. The B-Boys summoned the immortal words of William Martin

Two of our favorite artists joined forces recently when the White Stripes took to the studio with Beck at the board producing three new tracks. Beck also contributed vocals and

Is there anything cooler than the Live Music Archive? Where else could you possibly download or stream more than 44,000 shows by 2,650 different artists? If you listened to one show from the archive a day, it would take you over 120 years to make it through all the shows currently on there.

This week’s edition of Grousing The Aisles looks at three shows that have been uploaded to the LMA over the past few days, and we’ll also point you in the direction in a buncha other cool shows on that site.

Derek Trucks Band 11/8/2007 DAUD [FLAC, MP3, STREAM]

It’s clear that Derek Trucks has been spending more time with his solo band than playing with the Allman Brothers Band. The chemistry between Trucks and the members of his band is undeniable. Keyboardist Kofi Burbridge excels at laying down beautiful melodies, allowing Trucks’ solos to soar. Vocalist Mike Mattison’s soulful voice adds an extra layer of bluesy goodness to the mix. The dynamic rhythm section of Todd Smallie on bass, Yonrico Scott on drums and Count M’butu on percussion have jelled nicely providing a steady danceable beat.

The Derek Trucks Band showed off their potent formula for a crowd that seemed to lap it up at a recent show in Collingswood, NJ. Gonna Move works oh-so-nicely as a peppy opener, leading into a more bluesy segment of Volunteered Slavery and I’ll Find My Way. Trucks finally works some of his instrumental magic during a powerful solo during the traditional Hurts Me Too. Other highlights include Mattison’s growling delivery of Get Out of My Life Woman, as well as the impressive interplay between band members during My Favorite Things. Derek and his band bring their powerful show to the ‘burbs this weekend hitting Bridgeport, CT on Thursday, Englewood, NJ on Friday and Mamaroneck, NY on Saturday. Read on for more downloads…

You should see the looks I get when I tell people that Crowded House put on the best concert I saw this summer. I saw about 30 concerts over that three-month period running the gamut of artists an styles including The Police, Muse, Tea Leaf Green and the White Stripes. But like James Brown and women, Crowded House’s epic performance at the Masonic Lodge in July beat them all.

Photos by Adam Kaufman

LiveDownloads.com started selling official recordings from every show on the band’s North American tour, so this week I finally downloaded the band’s August 19th gig from the House of Blues in Chicago to see if the magic continued throughout the run.

Most people don’t realize that Crowded House shows fit most of the criteria normally associated with jambands. First of all they never play the same setlist twice. The show from Chicago features many songs from 1991’s Woodface including There Goes God, Italian Plastic and Weather With You; all of which I didn’t get to see at the Masonic Lodge. The band played most of the songs from their five albums throughout the tour, giving them plenty of opportunity to mix things up nightly. Read on for much more…

We got a well needed chuckle this afternoon at these witty LOL-Cats pictures of Kurt Cobain singing on MTV Unplugged — we always thought there was something hilarious about Cobain’s

Warning: the following post contains more Phish geekery than journalistic integrity…but, really, who cares what you think? Ten years ago today the popular rock band Phish set off for a

Col. Bruce Hampton & the Quark Alliance release their debut album Give Thanks To Chank today featuring all new originals songs written by the esteemed Colonel and Jeff Caldwell. The

The first time I ever saw Tom Petty was when I caught the trippy Don’t Come Around Here video on MTV back in 1985. I was eight at the time

Bruce Springsteen loves Joe Torre, so when the former Yankee manager asked him to play a few songs at his Safe At Home benefit on Friday night, The Boss gladly