On October 12, our household welcomed a smiling baby boy named Nathaniel, and this week’s Stormy Mondays is here to herald him in. The mix kicks off with Jimi’s Belly
It’s hard to believe that the members of the Arctic Monkeys were still teenagers when they released their wise-beyond-their-years sounding debut Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
While Phish continues to toy with us about their musical costume for Festival 8, Rhode Island’s own Deer Tick is making the plans known for their recently announced gig at
If you live within viewing distance of New York City’s Empire State Building be sure to look at the legendary office building tonight for a special treat. The iconic skyscraper
The Widespread Panic/Allman Brothers Band co-bill tour came to an end on Saturday night in Houston, where the two acts each made sure to end on a high note. Panic kicked things off and welcomed ABB guitarist Warren Haynes to the stage for covers of Bill Withers’ Use Me and Neil Young’s Cortez The Killer. Panic hadn’t performed Cortez in nearly 500 shows and they also dusted off their cover of Warren Zevon’s Lawyers Guns & Money.
For their set, The Allmans welcomed WSP guitarist John Bell and percussionist Sunny Ortiz out for Guilded Splinters. Ortiz also came out later in the set for a Franklin’s Tower that also featured Jimmy Herring on guitar. Panic bassist Dave Schools lent his skills to a version of Dreams that Oteil Burbridge sat out for. Herring returned to play on one more Liz Reed before both bands assembled during the encore to end the tour with Southbound.
All told, the memorable tour contained 20 shows split between two legs. There were sit-ins aplenty and here’s a recap of who played on what…
Members of Widespread Panic:
John Bell – Guilded Splinters (8/21, 10/6, 10/17), And It Stoned Me (8/22, 9/2, 10/10), Highway 61 Revisited (8/26, 10/9, 10/16), Can’t Find My Way Home (8/29, 10/12), It Takes A Lot To Laugh It Takes A Train To Cry (9/2, 10/14), Southbound (10/17)
Domingo Ortiz – Guilded Splinters (8/21, 10/6, 10/17), You Don’t Love Me (8/30), Franklin’s Tower (10/7, 10/17), Southbound (10/17)
READ ON for the rest of our guide to ABB/WSP sit-ins…
In our never-ending quest to dig up some great bands that cost less than a corned beef sandwich at Katz’s Deli, we bring you another round of Blips. Blips highlights some great bands that are largely still in their larvae stage, but will soon morph into their beautiful butterfly. In this edition, we have some really cool new music, so take a sec, poke around their various websites, and see what you think of these three under the radar musical groups…
J. Tillman
Today marks a first, as we feature the solo work of a member of a band that was one of our very first Blips acts, Fleet Foxes. Known best as the the drummer for the bearded folk-rockers, J. Tillman has been steadily recording and putting out albums for the last five years, but it’s only been recently that he’s started to gain the attention he deserves. Tillman managed to put out two albums full of his hauntingly baritone vocals and sparse sleepy-folk arrangements this year with Vacilando Territory Blues
Tillman, who seemed to be playing at every SXSW showcase last March, has crafted a sound that doesn’t fall to far from the Nick Drake tree, and is currently providing me the perfect listen as we head deeper in the fall. J. Tillman hits the road for a cross-country headlining tour this November.
[youtube]OVPet3TWwHw[/youtube]
READ ON for two more unheralded Blips-worthy artists…
HT faves Frightened Rabbit are hard at work prepping the follow up to their fantastic debut album, The Midnight Organ Fight. While the new release doesn’t hit stores until sometime
Dave and Jay each bring out a big musical gun this week. Leno welcomes Rod Stewart on Monday night and Letterman counters with a repeat featuring Paul McCartney on Wednesday’s
Usually we find it hard to keep up with grueling pace of Rocktober, but that didn’t quite happen this week. In one of the slowest news weeks in recent memory,
Today’s Friday Mix Tape represents a special edition of sorts, as we head into another year of New York City’s music industry extravaganza next week, the CMJ Music Marathon and Film Festival. The CMJ Fest provides industry mavens with a look at what is next on the indie music front and always spawns a good dozen or so big name acts for the years to come.
What I find amusing about the showcase is that in order to weed through the literally thousands of bands vying for slots, the evaluation process essentially becomes an exercise in 15-second music criticism.
In fact, once an acquaintance asked if I wanted to make some extra cash by using his login and get paid fifty cents per album/demo to provide a few words and a thumb up/thumbs down as a first line of defense. It wasn’t actually for CMJ, but rather another one that involves a lot of BBQ. Anyway, this dude told me his friend made over a $1,000 doing it the year before, so you do the math. I never did it, hence I cannot actually say for sure if that actually occurs or not, but given the sheer numbers, it is probably pretty spot on. Really, what other options are there; hire an army? Regardless, these folks do a pretty darn good job at it one way or another.
Anyways, after playing a game of darts with the CMJ Music Festival’s easy-to-read lineup, we’ve sorted through and come up with ten pretty damn good songs from some of the most compelling bands making the rounds. Keep in mind; this is just a tiny sample of the full list, so if you like digging up new music, poke around the lineup and drop by the various MySpace pages. You really can’t go wrong.
READ ON for the playlist and to listen to the mix…
