Hidden Track

Lassie’s face was perfect for close-ups, according to Orson Welles. Somehow, as I listen to Trey Anastasio call out to the old pup on David Bowie from Providence, Rhode Island on December 29, 1994, that makes a lot of sense. Lassie got his close-up, alright, before Phish slammed the hook home and then whipped out a beaut duo of Halley’s Comet>Lizards for shaggy dog-storied measure. Alas, Phish did indeed get their due—ahhh…the Jammys—but did Lassie? Of course, she did. She is flealessly hailed as a Screen Canine Legend. Welles? Citizen Kane, yes. Everything else? Maybe not.

The Orson Welles vintage has been woefully underappreciated for far too long. To many cinenewbs, the artistic bottle was dusty and so was the liquor. Then again…the man didn’t make it easy on himself, burning through cash like a dreamer on a weekend bender in Atlantic City. He never had complete creative control over his projects after Citizen Kane—a film he made when he was 25, and the equivalent of hitting 80 home runs as a rookie. He would either lose final cut, or the celluloid would languish in a vault somewhere, growing a third chin, a gray beard, and earning a poisonous critical rep, OR—the mightiest cut of all—he’d make a masterpiece [insert several titles here] and some studio clown would slice the thing into unwatchable oblivion—dubio blackholeish. READ ON for more…

Dear Kevin:

Hope this letter finds you well and deeply buried under stacks of CDs trying to find the best choice for the next Live Phish release.

With all due respect to Trey’s upcoming June release, I wanted to take a few moments and suggest a few gems for the next Live Phish installment. Trey’s releases are fine but as far as generating excitement and that “I can’t wait to hear THAT” feeling, they are…meh at best. You don’t exactly hear things like, “Man, I simply must have crispy copies of that raging Mud City.”

Through the years, Live Phish has put some truly magical archival shows out for our enjoyment, including 12-29-97, the incredible Island Run in 1998, the 1996 mayhem in Vegas and the back-to-back winter 1994 shows from Olympia and Salem. We thank you profusely for those.

READ ON to see Luke’s five suggestions for future Live Phish releases…

DaveO brings us today’s GraphJam parody: George Harrison and Eric Clapton: Taxman (Live In Japan) GraphJam: And In The End Previously on HT: Inspiration!, The Coal Ran Out, Big Red’s

I feel kinda awkward dedicating yet another post to Widespread Panic, but they keep making news. Yesterday the band announced the first release under the newly established Widespread Panic Archives

Les Claypool, MMW, Keller’s WMDs and Leftover Salmon are among the bands that will rock the aptly-named MSC Orchestra on January 4-9 aboard Jam Cruise 7. And it wouldn’t be

Here’s our latest take on the GraphJam: [Created by Halpua] Phish: Gotta Jibboo Part 1, Part 2 (Live at Roseland) GraphJam: What Shakira’s Hips Do Previously on HT: Inspiration!, The

Well it’s official, Mr. Blotto is the first member of the Cover Wars Hall of Fame. They have won back-to-back weeks including both last week’s Houses of The Holy edition and the week before with Pinball Wizard.

Sure, maybe it’s the same guy that keeps voting over and over again with different IP addresses, but I don’t care! Umphrey’s McGee is likely headed to the CW HOF, as well, as they were the only other entry to give Mr. Blotto a run for their money last week. While it’s clear that voting is just a popularity contest, it’s my opinion that these two artists did have the best covers last week. Many of our readers pointed out that I omitted Gov’t Mule from the running, as they have covered the entire album. Surely, we’ll make it up to Mule fans with a review of the official release when it comes out.

As always, I want you listening to the whole track and not just 30 seconds of it, so you need to register/login to Imeem first.

On to this week, and the second edition of Cover [Album] Wars, we’ve got Neil Young’s second solo disc Everybody Knows this is Nowhere. This is Neil’s first solo album and his first with Crazy Horse as his backing band. Fun fact about Neil’s songwriting lifted from the Decade liner notes, I’ll transcribe this chicken scratch the best I can:

READ ON to check out the specs on this week’s contestants…

Word on the street is that everyone’s favorite Scientologist, Beck Hansen, is set to follow in the footsteps of Radiohead, NIN and The Raconteurs by putting out his next album

I am not going to deny that I make full use of the immediate gratification that the internet provides. If some hard-working taper uploads a concert from his hotel room just hours after the concert, I am going to race to bt.etree or DimeADozen and jump on board the torrent. Or if I hear of a “must hear” show, I am going to head over to the Archive and see what I can find. Long gone are the days of waiting a week or two before groveling for tapes, or scouring lists with DeadBase open to once side, one eye on dates and the other eye on the generation and grade of the recording.

I am sure there are quite a number of people who would wax nostalgic about the loss of the trading process, the camaraderie, the research and discovery. And I will admit that I miss those things to some extent. But one aspect of tape trading that has been on my mind recently was the concept of fillers. I absolutely loved fillers. To me, they were like the Stockings on a Christmas Morning. Sure, I made a list of gifts that I was interested in and distributed it to my parents and family — the little surprises, the treats so to speak, were to be found in the Stockings. Fillers were these little treats that came at the end of the large, expected Gifts.

READ ON to find out Jeremy’s favorite fillers, and to list your own…

Radiohead kicked off the first leg of their North American tour last night, and as usual all of the reviews are absolutely glowing. Again, be sure to check out our