Posts by Scott Bernstein

John Lennon and Paul McCartney are by far and away the greatest songwriting team of all-time (save maybe Hall and Oates). But for all the good times, the two also bickered like dogs and cats after The Beatles broke up. I Guess I’m Floating does a fantastic job of reviewing all of the insult songs […]

Recently we told you the release of Shine A Light, Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones concert film, has been delayed until April. That delay really hurts after watching the amazing trailer for this flick. Shine A Light seems to be more a documentary about making a concert film than a concert film itself: Scorsese himself is […]

Our Grousing The Aisles columns usually employ a common thread or theme among all of the recordings featured each week. This column is, however, not one of those times. I can’t think of anything that ties together the four awesome shows below, so let’s just call this column The Mix-Up, in honor of the Beastie Boys’ latest album. And wouldn’t you know it, look who’s leading off…

Beastie Boys 07/14/2007 FM [FLAC, MP3]:

It seems like everyone who’s seen the Beastie Boys play this summer has emerged from the show raving about the band’s stellar performance. You can count me in that group as well, as the Beasties impressed the hell out of me a few weeks back at Central Park’s SummerStage (and Ace, too). A couple of meh-sounding audience recordings of their tour have popped up over the past few weeks, but yesterday I came across a crispy-as-fuck (CAF) radio broadcast of the Beasties’ set from the Nuke Festival in Austria. Jackpot!

The B-Boys set from Austria combines the best instrumentals from The Mix-Up with a slew of greatest hits. Mix Master Mike starts the show off with a solo that slowly evolves into Triple Trouble. The meat of the set is the sequence of Shake Your Rump, Gratitude, The Biz vs. The Nuge and Time For Livin’. Some of the other highlights include Body Movin’, Pass The Mic and Brass The Monkey. Off The Grid and The Gala Event were the best of the new tunes played at the Nuke. Hopefully the Beastie Boys will release a live album from this tour, but until then, this show will get plenty of play on my iPod.

Read on after the jump for three more great downloads in this week’s GTA…

Good news: One of our favorite musicians is coming out with a new album on October 30th. Levon Helm‘s Dirt Farmer will be the drawling drummer’s first album of new material in more than a decade. Larry Campbell, Teresa Williams, Amy Helm and George Receli contribute to the album, which was recorded at Helm’s studios […]

In the 10 months since our inception we’ve received albums from many artists, but none of them have caught my ear like New Monsoon’s latest release, V.

I’d really never heard New Monsoon’s music before listening to the album, but after one listen I grew most intrigued. What particularly struck me was the variety amongst the tracks, as each song seemed to be cut from a completely different fabric from the last. Some of the tunes on V are incredibly catchy, as I just can’t get Copper Mine out of my head. Legendary producer John Cutler of Grateful Dead fame produced, mixed and engineered the new album.

New Monsoon came into existence in 1998 when Penn State classmates Jeff Miller and Bo Carper reconnected in San Francisco. For the last few years the band has been extending its fan base further and further thanks to their dynamic live shows and multiple festival appearances each year. Miller was kind enough to answer a few questions for us about the V release:

Scott Bernstein: The first two tunes on the album have completely different sounds. Was that your plan?

Jeff Miller: It wasn’t necessarily “the plan,” but it seemed to be a great way to start the record. We wanted the first two songs to grab you and set you up for the rest of the record. We had compiled many different versions of the song order and felt these two tunes were best first.

SB: Did the songs on V develop in the studio or on the road?

JM: The songs developed mostly on the road. Our intention was to make a record of the the songs we felt were “road tested” but had yet to be given the proper studio treatment. It was a thrill to get inside these songs in the studio and make them sound how we envisioned them. I think we accomplished that.

Read on after the jump for the rest of our interview with Jeff Miller…

Neil Young on Friday continued a tradition he started in 1969, when he played material from his new album for about 100 people at his record label in Burbank. Young has recorded 10 songs for a new album entitled Chrome Dreams II. Word from the meeting is that two of the songs are monsters that clock in at over 10 minutes each. Look for Reprise to announce a release date for it soon…

We’ve got plenty of links from the weekend, so let’s get down to bid’ness:

• Gothamist interviews John Vanderslice about his blog tour
• Apparently Aquarium Drunkard likes The Faces as much as we do
• Producer Brendan O’Brien talks about the new Springsteen album
• Amoeba Records is releasing a Gram Parsons show from 1969
• Kermit The Blog re-envisions the top 25 college football teams as albums
• Medeski, Scofield, Martin and Wood, ALO and New Monsoon are among the artists playing Earthdance in Laytonville, CA on September 14-16
• TV Squad unearths the Beastie Boys’ infomercial from 1998
• Sam Bush’s new DVD shows off his musical schizophrenia
• The Wall Street Journal examines the origins of a few hybrid genres
• A.V. Club counts down the 15 Masters of Onstage Banter
• Pink Floyd’s Rick Wright speaks to Billboard about The Piper at the Gates of Dawn 40 years after it was originally released
• All hell broke loose at the DMB concert at SPAC after a mother served Grey Goose vodka to her underaged daughter and three of her friends
• San Francisco’s Mobile Beat blogger took in a Tea Leaf Green show
• Our good friend SuperDee advises that air guitar is here to stay
• JJ Grey & MOFRO and Los Lobos headline the Blackwater Sol Revue
  

And, as usual, after the jump we’ve got all kinds of setlists from the weekend, including the Allmans, the Crowes, Cake, Zappa Plays Zappa and many more…

Some epic programs permeate the telly this weekend, so either head inside and check them out or set your DVRs to record the following: Friday (all times Eastern): Andrew Bird performs a tune on The Late Show with David Letterman [CBS 11:35PM] Perry Farrell’s Satellite Party is Carson Daly’s musical guest on Last Call [NBC […]

We came across quite a deal for our Boston readers: free tickets for tomorrow’s Download Festival at the Tweeter Center. Modest Mouse, Guster and our boys Apollo Sunshine are among the acts playing throughout the day. Use this link to grab your “free” tickets which are subject to a $.75 fee per ticket and a […]

We’re pleased to report that the news of Deer Creek’s demise has been greatly exaggerated. Live Nation has decided to keep the venue after nine unfruitful months on the open market without any worthy offers. Hopefully my kids, my kid’s kids, and all our illegitimate kids will be buying veggie burritos and the phattiest of […]

Elvis Presley died at his home in Memphis, Tennessee 30 years ago today. Not altogether unusual when you consider reports that “his doctor had prescribed him 5,684 narcotic and amphetamine pills in the previous seven months.” Elvis was one of the pioneers of rock n’ roll, and his legacy is still heard in the music as well as the party habits of artists performing today.

Today we’d like to honor the King with a B List of Elvis-related YouTubes. Read on after the jump for our 10 favorite videos…