Hidden Track

If you live in NYC, you probably take the site of the Empire State Building for granted. If you live in San Diego, you probably take a sunny 72-degree day for granted. And if you are a rock fan, you probably take David Bowie for granted.

Bowie, who put out his first album, David Bowie, in 1967 has been a fixture on the rock landscape ever since and has crossed genre lines so many times, charting it would look like an airline route map in the back of those terrible in-flight magazines.

Whatever your pleasure, Bowie has something for you. You want straight up rock and roll? There’s 1974’s Diamond Dogs and 1980’s Scary Monsters. If it’s a red wine night at home, there is 1971’s Hunky Dory, with more piano-driven tracks, including the powerful “Quicksand” and “Life on Mars,” a song that has surfaced everywhere from Phish shows to Wes Anderson movies.

Read on for more Thin White Duke lovin’, and a few clips from his illustrious career…

I can’t help that I have Wilco on the brain – Jeff Tweedy and company wrap up their five-night career spanning run tonight and I’m off to see them in Philly on Saturday (mmm cheesesteaks and Wilco the perfect combination). So with that in mind I figured I’d dip into their catalog and offer up a mix of some of the rarities they have busted out at the Riviera in Chicago so far this week. Enjoy!:

Read on after the jump for a breakdown…

If you’re one of those people who just needs to have a bigger music collection then all your friends, we’ve got quite the opportunity for you. The world’s undisputed largest collection of recorded music is now on sale via EBay. A three million dollar opening bid gives you the chance to buy three million records and 300,000 CDs. Have fun importing all of those bad boys into iTunes.

Here are some links to help you fight the mid-week blues:

• Don’t try to bring more than 72 beers to Rothbury
• Thieves make off with $25k worth of Matt Costa’s gear
• Photo Gallery: A Day In The Life of The Beatles
• Did you know Tiger Woods digs Van Halen?
• Stereogum’s Oldstand looks at an old issue of Rolling Stone
• Spinner counts down the 25 Best Band logos
• Popdose offers The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Toto
• Jeff Miller reviews night four of the Wilco Residency

Finally, Mike Gordon sat-in with Melvin Sparks at Nectar’s this weekend. Read on for two incredibly funky clips…

New Zealand’s 4th most popular musical comedy band, Flight Of The Conchords, have put together a fantastically hilarious mockumentary about their experience at SXSW called A Texan Odyssey. So, if you have 44 minutes I highly suggest sitting down and watching… [googlevideo]8327424432005226305&q=flight+of+the+conchords+sxsw&total=7&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0[/googlevideo] In other Conchords’ news Bret and Jemaine’s self-titled, full-length debut for Sub Pop […]

If you aren’t able to attend Wilco’s five night “bust ’em all out” residency, you’ll still get a chance to listen to one show as it happens. Audio of tonight’s gig will be simulcast both over the radio and on the web starting at 8:30 EST thanks to WXRT. Does anyone have any predictions? We […]

Over the last few years our neighbors to the North have been exporting some of the most buzzed about bands around. So much has been written about these acts, that I won’t waste your time rattling off a laundry list of them. There is one band though that has been greatly overlooked among the art-rock and indie-pop that we’ve been eating up like plates full of poutine (and coincidently happen to be rather huge in their native land) – Sam Roberts Band.

Despite the rather mundane moniker the band has been nominated for multiple Juno awards – Canada’ version of the Grammy’s – for their last two albums; raking in a trifecta of them in 2004 for Artist, Album and Rock Album of the year for their major label debut We Were Born In A Flame. While I would normally avoid most things that resemble a radio-friendly mainstream rock band, it’s really hard to not like these guys. So don’t be a hoser and read on eh…

A little over a year ago longtime HT contributor DaveO and I were brainstorming column ideas, when he uttered the words “Cover Wars.” Pushed for details Dave suggested that we layout some basic facts for two or three different cover versions of the same song, and let the readers judge which version is better.

Considering our slogan used to be “my band can beat up your band,” we thought it was a fitting column. The time has finally come for the first edition of Cover Wars. Listen to all three versions of the “sequence,” read Dave’s notes and then cast your vote for the best of the batch. Take it away, Dave…

B-Side? Medley? Let’s just call it the Abbey Road “Sequence,” as that’s what the great folks over at “rec.music.beatles” have come up with. Speaking of RMB, it’s a great resource for all things Beatles.

Instead of writing a history of the album’s B-Side, I will direct you to two pieces that tell the tale of The Beatles’ true final album. First, the RMB article that goes into many details regarding the musical composition of the sequence. Second, the wikipedia entry for Abbey Road where you can learn such fun facts such You Never Give Me Your Money was written in part about The Beatles financial problems with Apple, or how Golden Slumbers is musically based on a Thomas Dekker piece from the 17th-century with the same name.

Read on for DaveO’s notes on the three versions, and to cast your vote for who does it best…

HT Contributor Eliot Glazer has tremendously terrible taste in music. But he makes everything sound so damn appealing, so we allow him this soapbox… On October 31, 2007, I felt I had reached the apex of my obsession with one musician whose signature vocal stylings had been – for years – some of the most […]

One of my top ten shows of ’07 was a New Pornographers performances at Webster Hall, which boasted the band’s full line-up; a rarity these days with the members other recording and touring obligations. While the New Porns excel when Neko Case brings her booming voice and beautiful harmonies into the fold, it was Dan […]

Wilco mixed never-played-before gems with live staples over the first two nights of their highly-anticipated residency at Chicago’s Riviera Theatre. Kudos to Greg Kot for providing the play-by-play for those of us who aren’t lucky enough to be at the shows in person. Friday night’s set skewed towards the Sky Blue Sky material, while Saturday’s […]