April 4, 2007

I was expecting to head out of town on Saturday night when my plans suddenly changed. And since I was already in Manhattan, I decided to check out Railroad Earth at Irving Plaza with a few good friends. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and some basic inquiries about the band led me to believe they were a bluegrass outfit. A bluegrass band from New Jersey sounds about as appealing as Northern Barbecue, but in both cases, seeing is truly believing.

In contrast to last week’s Tea Leaf Green concert at the same venue, Railroad Earth went on very early. I arrived at the venue at 9:40 and the band was already on stage. When I walked up the stairs at the soon-to-be renamed Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza, I quickly noticed the crowd was much bigger than I had expected and much more into the band than I expected. Many people came from out of town, and there didn’t seem to be many newbs in the crowd besides me. The energy all around me was contagious, and I started dancing along with everyone else to the grassrock sounds of Railroad Earth.

Read on for more pictures and thoughts from the RRE show…

Keith Richards ain’t the only drugged-out rocker in the news this week… Top-form junkie Pete Doherty posted a clip of his new tune online yesterday, and the reaction to KP

This Internet thing is an amazing source for free music. Not only can you download sick audio of almost any live concert you want, there’s also plenty of video torrents for the taking as well. This week’s Grousing The Aisles takes a look at four great DVDs that you can download right now, free of charge…

Bob Dylan and The Band Compliation DVD:

In 1969, Bob and the boys combined forces for a gig at the Isle of Wight festival. Recently someone uploaded a compliation of rare footage from the festival, as well as some special added bonuses. The beginning of the DVD features Dylan’s performance on The Johnny Cash Show, before jumping into the Dylan/Band set from the festival. The Band plays an amazing emotional performance of The Weight before Bobby joins them to hit some of his songs. I wish the footage was a little crisper, but in this case, we takes what we can gets.

The added bonus at the end of this DVD might just be my favorite part of the disc. It features footage of The Band playing four songs from the Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh from 1970 that has recently been circulating on YouTube. Video of The Band from this point in their career is rare as fuck, so it is nice to have the best quality footage available on DVD. Read on for more Grousing…

I learned it from snorting you! Turns out, Keith Richards’ longtime manager claims the skeletal rocker was totally kidding when he said “I snorted my father. He was cremated and I couldn’t resist