Happy New Year: Have One
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
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
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
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
The album is filled with intricacies and complex instrument expressions that are there for the sake of the story. It’s art with a purpose, like Pete’s Townshend’s Tommy.
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
Pepper’s fourth studio album No Shame (Lava/Atlantic Records), produced by Nick Hexum of 311, Tony Kanal of No Doubt, and Paul Leary of The Butthole Surfers, set the Hawaiian trio into weaving island moods with So Cal surf rock ringlets complemented by reggae beats, alternative rock fuses, and ska accents.
James Brown was a giant, and in my opinion one of the four of five pillars of modern sound. One cannot imagine contemporary popular music without the influence of the Hardest Working Man in Show Business.
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…
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…
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…