Hidden Track

I’m feelin’ okay this mornin’
And you know,
We’re on the road to paradise
Here we go, here we go…

Here we are for my last post on Rothbury. I’ve not slept in over 24 hours, but I’m ‘feelin’ okay this mornin’ so to speak. I spent 4 hours of the 11 hour ride sleeping and the other 7 driving. During my driving shift I reflected a lot on this past weekend. With that in mind I’d like to focus this post on two things: the festivals greening efforts and Phish. I’ll also be giving a few pros and cons of the festival logistics and other things, so perhaps they can improve on for next year. Rumor has it that the Double JJ Ranch has already invited the promoters back.

[Trey & Mike, with Fishman in the background watching]

I don’t think I emphasized the greening efforts on behalf of the promoters. I don’t have the exact number, and I’m sure they will do a press release on it after the site is cleaned. But the festival was able to divert about 80% of waste produced each day into either recyclables or compostables. I also failed to mention that all the cups on site were made from corn. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, after enjoying your nice tasty Magic Hat Number 9 you can dispose of your cups by composting them. Who woulda thunk? I’ve already mentioned the trash cans, but the site also gave away free portable ashtrays for all the smokers in attendance. They also took several initiatives to offset carbon emissions. I must say I have NEVER seen a cleaner site, and most people were very good about cleaning up after themselves. Bravo Rothbury, job well done! READ ON for more…

The Phish is fried. Just as the fervor of internet-Phish-dorkdom reached its frenzied peak of reunion show madness, Phish keyboardist Page McConnell layeth down the smack. To paraphrase the open letter he posted recently on the band’s official website, the hypothetical reunion, “Ain’t happening, bitches.”

To be fair, there’s a lot left up to interpretation in his little four paragraph statement. He definitely doesn’t close the door on the possibility of a Phish reunion, and goes so far as to say that if it weren’t for Mike’s stupid new album about bird watching, they would have already made arrangements. Ok, that’s not exactly what he said. File that under ‘creative interpretation’. But he does say that Phish reuniting is “something I consider very seriously, and I think about it a lot.” Somewhere in America, a glowstick and an Uno card just read this and wet themselves.

As exciting as this all sounds, I’m not entirely sure I’m sold on a Phish reunion. I mean, what’s the point? They had their time and place, right? And let’s be honest, things aren’t exactly like they were at the peak of the Clinton ’90s when Phish was at their most culturally relevant. There’s two wars going on now, the world is melting, there’s nothing good on TV, dogs and cats living together- mass hysteria! Not to mention the fact that most of Phish’s core audience has all moved on to things like ‘lives’ and ‘families’, ‘mini-vans’ and ‘brunch’ and all that adult crap. Is there really room in this fucked up day and age of war and diaper changes for Phish tour? Maybe so, maybe not. READ ON for Neeko’s list of Phishy suggestions…

Another day, another blog. As you can see from my titles I’m having a sort of Talking Heads themed weekend at Rothbury. It all started on the car ride here when This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) played as the sun was rising. That and I was doing my best David Byrne dances in order to successfully keep my driver awake.

Crosseyed and Painless describes how I feel at this point. Crosseyed because Sound Tribe played so late and Painless because even though I’m sleep deprived it was all very much worth it. Yesterday I wasn’t able to get out and about on the site until the evening. HeadCount had David Murphy and Zach Velmer from STS9 at their booth for some political discussion in the afternoon, so I decided to stick around and see what they had to say. After they were done and I finished my blog from yesterday, I headed over to Medeski, Martin and Wood for a rousing performance of acid-latin-funk-jazz.

Later I headed over to see Michael Franti so I could count how many times he said “How you FEEEEEEELIN?!?” (it was 5, but I was only there for 3 songs). Next, I went back to the Sherwood Court stage to catch Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi’s Soul Stew Revival, where Col. Bruce made a surprise appearance. After that, I headed over to the headliner for the evening — Dave Matthews Band. I’ll be honest, I’m not much of a fan, I enjoy some of their songs but they aren’t one of those bands that speaks to me. Jeff Coffin sat in for LeRoi (who was in an ATV accident recently) and he did a phenomenal job pushing the band as much as his little saxophone could. Finally, I headed over to Sound Tribe and they closed the evening out for me.

Overall, the experience has been great. Still no potable water (I’m convinced they don’t exist) and the security has tightened up worse than going through airport security (I don’t think there are terrorists here). I’m going to cut this blog a little short because I need to head over to Trey so I can take some photos and see how well he’s doing.

READ ON after the jump for some pics from Saturday for your enjoyment…

So here I am again, a little later than I had planned but that happens when you spend the entire day running from stage to stage and back and forth to the camp site to grab some grub. Yesterday was fantastic, to the point that I’m almost speechless. I hadn’t realized until the fireworks that I had never seen a show on the 4th of July and a day long set of shows at that.

I still haven’t found the potable water and I doubt at this point I’ll buy any ice (thanks for lasting dry ice!), but I did find a few of the drink stations around the festival grounds. I saw TONS of music yesterday and did a little more exploring. I have a feeling that I’ve still not seen everything on the site yet — but that’s what is so nice about 3-4 day festivals (and much like the childhood trips to Disney World, where you explore a new park everyday). With the grounds and amenities I believe this festival to be the closest thing that we, as music fans, have to being a resort. Everyone has a choice of what to do, where to go, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be music. If I wasn’t typing this, I would be checking out the water park.

Being Independence Day, artists took the liberty to make their views known on certain issues and freedoms, and also pointed out things we should celebrate. The Wailers celebrated the music of Bob Marley, Snoop Dogg celebrated the freedom of gin & juice, Drive-By Truckers encouraged their fans to register to vote and exercise their independence, Yonder celebrated the return of Jon Fishman and objects turning brown, and Widespread got political, albeit poetically. I think it is no coincidence that they ended their 4th of July performance with a rousing rendition of Life During Wartime quite appropriate (but I’m not going to lie — also really fun to dance to).

Well, I’m going to wrap this one up as I need to get my laptop back to the campsite so I can go out and shoot some bands and enjoy the weather. Until then, READ ON after the jump for some more pics to tide you over:

Back in April, Eddie Vedder played a handful of rare solo dates up and down the West Coast – partly in support of his Into The Wild soundtrack. Come this

Well, the Rothbury experience has been an adventure thus far. In order to help take part in the ‘green’ aspect of Rothbury (and not to mention the cost of gas), I carpooled from Tennessee with a HeadCount volunteer. We left on Tuesday night from Nashville and my friend and I drove straight through the night. It’s been a few years since I’ve pulled an all-night driving session (Big Cypress) in order to arrive on site on time. After experiencing a little bit of ticketing problems and witnessing a down pour of rain we were finally allowed on site. At first, I was a little scared because the mud I saw gave me a flashback to Coventry but then I realized it was supposed to rain on Wednesday only. By Friday, the site has mostly dried up.

[Percussion Monkeys!]

Thursday I spent time exploring the vast site that is Rothbury. This is by far the most interesting festival site I’ve ever seen. The Double JJ Ranch has everything from horseback riding, to a water park, and you can even catch 18 holes if you’re so inclined. The lake is beautiful, and while you’re there you can catch a game of volleyball or challenge someone to horseshoes. This is all the stuff that is part of the ranch, I haven’t even started on the actual festival amenities.

READ ON for more on the first day of the first-ever Rothbury Festival…

I’m busting my proverbial cherry this week, first with a B List and now with my inaugural crack at a Friday Mix Tape. This one should be perfect to throw

A few weeks ago, we held Political Celebrity Death Match Round 1 in which we partnered one musician with one ‘hero’ for each of the candidates. After all the votes were cast and polls closed we finally have a winner to announce! By a landslide Luke Skywalker and Stevie Wonder took the first round — congratulations Barack supporters! Though I must say I was disappointed that no one supported Arnold. I mean how many actors and actresses has he killed throughout his career? Come on, he could have taken Luke and Stevie by himself!

But I digress as we must prepare for battle in Round 2. Since Hillary dropped out of the race, she has been eliminated from the competition (until the VP’s are announced at least). This week we’re going to do another tag team match up featuring musicians and business persons. If you don’t remember, Political Celebrity Death Match is where we look at celebrities and who they endorse and then we let them battle it out in our head (imagination style). So, welcome HT readers, to round two of Political Celebrity Death Match 2008. READ ON for more…

I’ve been writing full time here for about five months or so, and figured it was about high time that I took a crack at offering up a B List. Last week the HT Staff gathered Around The BBQ to gab about some of our favorite music of the year, so far. To continue on that theme I thought I’d give you a more focused list of my favorite albums of ’08 with my Top 6 Of The First 6.

Taking a quick glance at my iTunes I was a bit underwhelmed by the majority of the music that has been injected onto my iPod, but here’s the best of what I’ve heard…

6. Girl Talk – Feed The Animals

When I tell my friends how much I’ve been loving this album they seem to scratch their heads a bit. Not because this isn’t a killer party album, it’s just because I’m not the type to usually like killer party albums. But what’s not to like here? Greg Gillis has essentially taken the last 40 plus years of pop music and smushed it into a powered packed hour of samples and beats. Within one song he offers up hooks from Procol Harum, Fergie, The Band and 50 Cent – and that’s just scratching the surface. This is the feel good album of the summer and quite possibly the year. READ ON for more of the B List…

Back in February the surviving members of the Grateful Dead (sans Mr. Kreutzmann) put aside their difference and reunited on stage for a fund raiser for Barack Obama. Well, as