Hidden Track

As we mentioned in this space a few weeks ago, newly inducted Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is the new Bill Graham. Aunt Bobo, if you will. Pelosi’s put together a House band of Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Bob Weir, Bruce Hornsby, Warren Haynes and Mike Gordon for tonight’s heady fundraiser, and I think […]

Here’s why I think some of us obsess so much over both live music and sports: In themselves, there’s a natural beauty in watching something incredible and unscripted unfold in real time. But in addition to the ability to reflect upon a trove of both memorable and forgettable experiences, we also get to quantify those experiences through sheer statistics. After all, how often did you find yourself updating your Phish Stats after a nice run and smiling at the latest Notable Gap?

I’m always been a fan of keeping track of show stats, and I think ZZYZX probably created the best derivative form of entertainment in the music industry. Well, the accounting firm for Ace Cowboy & Associates has now officially crunched the numbers for this year’s annual report to the shareholders, and the results for 2006 are in: In all, I caught 86 live performances by 59 different bands at 60 ticketed shows in 37 separate venues. Not bad for my soul, not good for my wallet.

Most sites are done with all the Let’s Look Back at Last Year exercises, but I wanted to wait until every show was given a puncher’s chance to make the list. I’m not gonna break out into a rousing rendition of Mr. Kellerman’s “Let’s join in with one last chorus, visitors, staff and guests…” routine, but join me in taking one last peak at the best performances of the year, as I saw it.

I grew up in the days of Hair Metal, even staying up ever Saturday night to watch Headbanger’s Ball on MTV. At first Motley Crue, Def Leppard and Quiet Riot were my thing. Then as the ’80s turned into the ’90s I was more of a Poison, Guns N’ Roses, and Metallica guy. And while I loved the heavy shit, I also enjoyed when bands showed a completely different side and busted out the power ballad.

An ingenious formula was established in the late ’80s for a band releasing a heavy yet catchy single and following it up with a slow song to show the emerging artists’ more sensitive side. Examples of this major phenomenon include Firehouse (Don’t Treat Me Bad > Love of a Lifetime), Warrant (Down Boys > Heaven) and Europe (The Final Countdown > Carrie).

At first I was going to list the most popular and successful power ballads, but screw that. Even though Don’t Treat Me Bad and More Than Words sold the most records, songs such as Love Song and November Rain still hold up 13 years after Headbanger’s Ball went off the air. So this edition of The B List features my 10 favorite power ballads from the Hair Metal band era (1984 – 1993) — make sure to click on the song title to see the classic video for each of these songs:

10. Love Song – Tesla: Many Hair Metal bands sucked musically and were basically productions of record companies. Tesla broke that mold by combining honest songwriting with five truly talented musicians. Love Song provides an excellent example of the power-ballad formula of instrumental opening > sappy lyrics > powerful guitar solo that was a hallmark of many songs on this list.

9. Here I Go Again – Whitesnake: Tawny Kitaen introduced herself as the “girl from the Whitesnake video” to her castmates on VH1’s Surreal Life 6. That speaks volumes about the power of the music video, as well as the power of a hot chick rolling around on a Jaguar in a white negligee. Whitesnake’s singer David Coverdale was a lucky man, as he dated Tawny Kitaen during her best years, well before she started beating up baseball players and doing tons of coke. Oh, there was a song that we were talking about, right? That happens.

Read on for the rest of this week’s edition of The B List: Hair-Metal Power Ballads…

Apparently Xanax, Percocet, and Vicodin weren’t the only drugs Trey possessed upon his December arrest for driving while drugging. WNYT in Albany is reporting that police found heroin in the former 70 Volt Parade guitarist’s automobile: Ernest “Trey” Anastasio, the lead singer of the rock-jam band Phish, was in court in Whitehall Wednesday for his […]

Welcome to the first 2007 edition of Grousing The Aisles. We’re still waiting for someone to recognize from where the title of this department was taken. The winner may or may not receive a set of steak knives.

GTA this week checks out a few shows from this weekend’s NYE festivities and takes a look back at a classic Dead show and a must-hear Rick Danko project. Also added to the weekly mix are a few early ’70s gems from The Doors and David Bowie. Let’s jump right into the fray and see what’s what, shall we?

Rick Danko, Jonas Fjeld, Eric Anderson 12/04/94 SBD (FLAC)

Regular HT readers may have noticed at this point that both Ace Cowboy and I are totally geigh for The Band, and more specifically Rick Danko. Guilty as charged your honor, as no singer or musician can convey emotions in their voice like Ricky D. In 1991, Danko recorded an album with Jonas Fjeld and Eric Anderson — cleverly titled Danko/Fjeld/Anderson — on which all three musicians’ styles converge to form a new style all its own (the trio then followed up their debut with Ridin’ On The Blinds). This show features plenty of songs from both albums, as well as some traditional songs and a couple of incredible Band tunes. Highlights include Stagefright, Ragtop, and It Makes No Difference. Read on for more downloads…

This post has been updated since its original publication…new information has come to light, maaan. That’s what we call follow-fucking-through. The Allman Brothers Band have officially announced its annual 744-show run at New York’s Beacon Theater for late March and early April. And while Bill Walton will almost certainly be there on all NCAA Tournament off days, the better […]

It ain’t quite Nudie Magazine Day, but I’ll do my best to fill the void tonight… Sly & The Family Stone played a dominant role in both the musical background and musical discussion of our New Year’s Eve party. The band that most closely answers the test question “What group is the personification of chocolate […]

Prepare yourselves for an onslaught of song-related puns. Over the next few months, we’re all about to be subjected to clever doozies like “I’ve read the Message in a Bottle, and it says The Police are getting the band back together.” The language is still purposefully vague, the commitments missing completely. But the chatter flying […]

Ever since his Contrarian’s Guide To Ryan Adams, I’ve been trying to engage our friend Chilly JackWater in enough conversation that eventually some vitriol will spit out into the night. Following our meeting at the Greyboy Allstars show on Friday, I mentioned to Chilly that the band was a little too spacey and that this […]

Is anyone else feeling pretty groggy this new year? I returned home to New York yesterday after an amazing, yet brief, trip to Chicago for the Umphrey’s McGeestand at the Aragon Ballroom. But UM wasn’t the only band playing a gig on New Year’s Eve, which has become a major holiday on the calendar for many fans and bands.

So for this special Tuesday edition of Hors, here are a few links, followed by New Year’s Eve setlists from your favorite bands:

• Just what you wanted and needed for the holidays: A complete list of all the music videos on YouTube, sorted by artist (via LHB)
• Was anyone else a little creeped out by Michael Jackson’s appearance at the James Brown Funeral at the James Brown Arena?
• U2 is ready to take it to the next level
• Our friend Neddy took in the Widespread Panic NYE shows in Atlanta and reviews Saturday’s show on his site
• Former kings of the hill Strangefolk and The Samples will combine forces to play at Sugarloaf in late January
• Trey Anastasio returns to the scene of the crime
• Check out these seriously awesome videos of Paul Green’s School of Rock playing the songs of the Grateful Dead

Read on for the jam-packed NYE setlists from some of the usual suspects…

The year’s winding down fast…only five hours left in this revolution as of post time. Hidden Track has only been fully operational for two and half months, but it sure feels like it’s been at least 12 to 14 weeks. And whether you like us or you’re indifferent towards our existence, we plan to bring […]

After reading the setlists from the last few nights of Trey Anastasio’s December run, a guy I know has taken to calling this the Please Love Me Again Tour. Alumni Blues and Sex Machine in Boston, The Landlady and Peaches en Regalia in Albany — what’s in store for Atlantic City this weekend? A Lushington […]

The Benevento/Russo Duo celebrated five great years on Wednesday night, throwing a late entry into the ring for Show of the Year. This was a case of two pros coming back to the ol’ playground and fuckin’ around for awhile, showcasing the greatness that’s propelled them to bigger things. Our friend Neddy‘s The Duo’s biggest fan out there — literally, he even got a sweet shout-out from Marco — and he was kind enough to reflect on the night, and the history.

Is five years a long time? When I think back on what my life was like half a decade ago, it feels like a geological epoch. I’m sure the same can be said for Joe Russo and Marco Benevento, who have gone from a pair of who-dats playing for free every week in a quonset hut of a venue to becoming a critical darling of the scene….not to mention play-acting as the latter half of Phish this summer, amongst other adventures and misadventures.

So, yeah, five years seems like a good time to pause and reflect. It’s also a good excuse to get shitty drunk in the dank underbelly of the Knitting Factory. And so it was: a 5th anniversary Duo party, not even in the Tap Bar, but all the way down in the 88-person capacity Old Office.

I got there a bit early, not sure what kind of zoo the crowd would be. As it turns out, the audience size was utterly manageable, and there was an incredibly friendly vibe from front to back. Unfortunately, the show started pretty late, all things considered, and standing around in a bar for two hours with a friendly crowd meant many, many, many whiskeys before the first notes were played. It’s probably fitting that much of the crowd was deep in party mode all night long…

Yet another three-day weekend is upon us, and I’m about to jet to Chicago for the Umphrey’s McGee New Year’s Run at the Aragon. Have a terrific NYE, folks, and expect even more from Hidden Track in 2007. It’s so on. Bob Weir is making the rounds, this time sitting down with Jambands.com’s Taylor Hill […]

Some friends and I were camped out in the Old Office of the Knitting Factory last night, waiting for The Duo to take the stage for its 88-person fifth anniversary show. The recently departed James Brown serenaded the room through the speakers, and we began to discuss the potential frequency of JB covers we’ll hear […]

This week Grousing The Aisles takes a look at performers at the top of their game. Sure, it must have been cool to see The Stones and The Who at any point this year, but can you imagine seeing these bands in 1973? As a reference point for this particular post, when you head to a show hoping not to see “any new shit,” the band you are seeing has completely passed its peak. Let’s do this…

Primus 11/17/93 SBD (FLAC)

Looking back now, Primus’ live show hit its peak in 1993 with the inclusion of the material from Pork Soda. There aren’t too many soundboards from ’93 circulating these days, but recently this Bomb Factory show has begun to make the rounds. (There must be something about The Bomb Factory, because one of the best Phish concerts of all-time took place there six months earlier.) Primus opens with the high-energy Jerry Was a Racecar Driver and tears through Bob and My Name is Mud, continuing to hit many of the songs from Pork Soda over the length of the 80-minute set. Les Claypool’s bass sounds particularly good due to the sublime separation of instruments on this remastered recording.

Read on for more downloads from the recently deceased James Brown, Neil Young, Genesis, Leftover Salmon and God Johnson…

If Shakedown Street is the sketchiest block in all the neighborhood, then Sesame Street is clearly the funkiest. The kids are pickin’ up what Stevie’s layin’ down… I’m not claiming this is the freshest clip on the cyberwebs, but even if it’s an oldie to you, it’s always pleasant to force-feed yourself some Stevie Wonder […]

‘Twas the day after Christmas, when all through the city
Ace and Scotty thought a list would make them seem witty
But the pair quickly realized that they couldn’t hack it
Disliking most popular bands, save My Morning Jacket

The bloggers all posted their Best Ofs to dissect
While thoughts of The Hold Steady made them erect
But up on our high horse, as we saw it this year
My Chemical Romance gets pwned by Bob Weir

So here in our list, you won’t find Cat Power
We favor the folks that jam for an hour
Scroll down below for our highlights of 2006
Better than Pitchfork! Fuckin’ pretentious pricks…

We could probably continue the above poetic debacle for the remaining nine verses, but as it stands this thing’s already longer than black dong. As we plod ahead with all things Year End, piggybacking on The Four Questions and our Year in Mostly Crappy Photos, allow us to present a distorted look back at a truly fantastic year for being a smarmy douchebag ogling closely from the sidelines.

Read on for the the best of the best from the Year of Our Lord 2006…

You know they gettin’ down in heaven or hell tonight. They makin’ it funky. You know, man, movin’ it, doin’ it. God of Our Souls, meet the Godfather of Soul.

The hardest working man in show business succumbed to heart failure early Monday morning, leaving behind a legacy as the funkiest bastard that ever lived, and the funkiest dude to throw a back-handed slap at someone with fallopian tubes. His transgressions off the stage aside, James Brown did more to till the cultural landscape of music than most who’d came before him. For that, he’s a national treasure.

The good people at Yahoo! have done my work for me, supplying youse with full coverage of the man in death as he was in life. So with my job done already, there’s only one thing left to say to the guy that made us all wish we’d been born with that kind of innate ability to move rhythmically through this world: May you get your young legs back now and do the splits for all eternity. Good god.

Related audio: If you’re feeling like today would be a fantastic day to stream some JB, check out The Godfather & The Dreamer, a solid collection of 27 tracks from 1966-68 that’ll remind you why he’s the greatest. (SugarMegs)

Related video: Just a quick search on YouTube can bring the greatness back to life: some old school sex machinin’, some gettin’ up offa that thing, some feelin’ good and a touch of superbadness. YouTube can also bring back the hijinx and hilarity: the TV interview that confused the world.

Sure it ain’t Passover, but we’ve got four questions for you anyway… 1. What was your single favorite musical experience of 2006? 2. What band are you most excited to see in 2007? 3. What under-the-radar band didn’t get nearly enough buzz this year? 4. While everyone focuses on the “best of” this time of […]