How much does it suck to have a show scheduled in Boston this weekend during the World Series? Just ask a frustrated Ryan Montbleau…
The music industry hit a low point during the 1980s when nearly every band the record labels threw at us focused more on style than substance, makeup over music. Bands like Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Culture Club were more interested in selling their merchandise than concert tickets. The problem for those trendy bands is that once the trend was over, so were their careers.
Live touring bands didn’t have the same problem because they grew their fanbases organically. People that were into Stevie Ray Vaughan really liked his music and weren’t just interesting in buying a “Stevie Say Relax” T-shirt. This week we’ve got an all-new edition of Grousing The Aisles featuring four tremendous shows from the ’80s that have recently surfaced on the torrent sites.
Miles Davis 07/15/1984 FM [FLAC, MP3]
Since it seems so patently obvious to do so, we haven’t doused too much praise upon Miles Davis in our one-year existence, but we certainly recognize the legendary trumpet player’s contributions to both rock and jazz. Not only did Miles create incredible music, he also had a knack for discovering extremely talented musicians. One of those finds was John Scofield, who toured with Davis from 1983-87. Recently we came across a crispy Miles Davis recording from 1984 that features both Scofield and future Rolling Stones bass player Darryl Jones.
Miles was playing an accessible brand of jazz during the ’84 tour, but there were still plenty of mind-blowing improvisations each night. Scofield sounds great throughout the show, but the standout performer on this boot is Darryl Jones. Jones does a nice job of holding things down, while Scofield, Davis and keyboard player Robert Irving go nuts during a nasty version of Jean Pierre. Also of note are funky Miles/Scofield jam sessions in Code MD and Star People. Even Miles’ cover of Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time sounds terrific on this awe-inspiring recording thanks to Jones’ beautiful fills. We highly recommend this one for even the most casual of jazz fans. Read on for three more great GTA downloads…
You may remember Neeko from his oft-inane comments and his one-time contribution that he still uses to impress septuagenarian women…he’s ours now.
As a “huge fan” of The Hidden Track, it is my huge honor to now be called contributor to The Hidden Track. Not since my awkward threesome in that Bucknell U. sorority-house have I been so eager to “contribute”…I mean, man, I really dig this blog re-lig-i-ous-ly. I think Abe Cowboy, Robby Bernstein and the rest of the guys do a fantastic job and really give it their all. To paraphrase the Phil Lesh song, Donor Rap, these guys really have ‘a lot of guts’ to do what they do…
In spite of my overwhelming admiration for HT, I think it’s relatively easy to find it lacking. Sure, daily posts full of “links,” and “news,” and “jokes,” and “music” are ‘relevant’ and all…but where is the art, man? Where is the poetry? I haven’t seen one decent haiku in all the months this blog has been published! And that’s what the people really want, isn’t it? Haiku. That’s what they want.
Instead of boring you with my own self-indulgent art, I spent the last three weeks traveling back in time to visit with some of the great contemporary American poets. I schooled them in all things jam-band…I played them all the epic shows, the epic jams, the sit-ins, the bust-outs, the encores, the openers…and here is what they came up with. The finest American Poets of the past 150 years inspired by the crunchiest, headiest jams in the universe…so let’s hear it:
The Haunted Stolen Beard
Lo! That my ears were gently cupped in cotton!
My spirit soars aimlessly, bewildered by noodle jams.
Oh God! I weep. I weep!
Weary of Weir, he torments my ear.
Is it all that you wear, poor lost-soul Weir, but short shorts and short shorts?
Behold! Weir now wears abducted Jerry-beard.
-Edgar Allen Poe
Hippie, My Likeness
Hippie, my likeness,
You look so much like me, hairy, bearded there,
I now suspect a style of theft;
I now suspect there is some of myself in your patchwork, and
also in your sandals.
For nature-boy is enamored of me, and I of him,
But toward him it really pisses me off, honestly,
That hippie stole my god-damned nature-boy style,
getting all the hippie chicks,
I dare not tell you how pissed Walt Whitman is, brah.
-Walt Whitman
Read on for four more poems from Cummings, Frost, Pound and Ginsberg…
Sly Stone took himself higher than most, and the resultant burnout saw the funk legend living the life of a complete recluse. But the comeback trail beckons, and Sly and the Family Stone will make their first NYC appearance since 1974 on December 7th at B.B. King’s. How long Sly will actually take the stage that night remains to be seen. If the band’s recent European tour is any indication, don’t expect much more than 20 minutes worth of Sly singing inaudibly and banging on a keyboard. And oh yeah…expect to pay $85 for that opportunity.
And tickets for the upcoming Mighty Mighty Bosstones reunion concerts are harder to come by than World Series tickets. Who’s got my extraaaa?
Madison Square Garden could to be demolished and rebuilt two blocks away, if a new development plan gets the go ahead in New York. The legendary arena is part of
It’s perfectly appropriate Jorma Kaukonen writes the brief liner notes to this recently exhumed Jefferson Airplane concert recording. Sweeping Up the Spotlight documents Jefferson Airplane just as it was fracturing along the fault line that opened earlier in 1969 when the guitarist/vocalist/songwriter launched Hot Tuna with bassist Jack Casady.
On their third studio album, Mr. Patterson’s Hat (the title is a tribute to a local auto mechanic who haunts the local bars and music venues), Papa Grows Funk mostly does it right, displaying great respect for the musical traditions of the Crescent City, from funk to blues to R&B to jazz and beyond.
Lotus will release Copy Paste Repeat: Lotus Remixed. The album consists of 12 remixes by producers including DFA Records artist Juan Maclean, DJ Harry, and Lotus’s own Jesse Miller. Lotus’s
An assortment of B-Sides, early demos and previously unreleased tracks from Gorillaz will be released next month. ‘D-Sides’ will come out November 20 and includes War Child song ‘Hong Kong’,
Portishead‘s Geoff Barrow has announced that the band is one day away from completing their third full-length album. In a posting today (October 23) on the band’s website, Barrow wrote
