December 17, 2007

Our good friend Luke Sacks attended one of Neil Young’s New York concerts last Thursday, and he graciously filed the following front-line report…

Neil Young brought both halves of his genius to the United Palace Theater in New York City on Thursday night with the second of six acoustic/electric shows.

The first 11 songs of the show were just Young, surrounded by a ring of acoustic guitars and flanked by pianos on each side of the stage. He wandered between the three instruments and poured his heart into classics like Harvest and After the Gold Rush, as well as the buried treasure Ambulance Blues.

Photo by GRW95

Playing in front of a rustic-themed set-up with random letters, numbers and lights, Young wailed on his harmonica and filled the venue with his lone acoustic guitar.

Read on for more of Luke’s review, a live video of Cinnamon Girl from the run and some downloadable NYC torrents…

Mike Greenhaus certainly looks Jewish, and for his gig as a Relix and Jambands.com scribe he’s been asking a whole lotta people the Four Questions. Only this ain’t for Passover; he’s been surveying musicians, managers, writers and many others for his multi-part year-end review. So what does some lowly yuckster blogger have to say about 2007? Find out in Set 2 of Greenhaus’ Auld Lang Syne effort (fourth man down), or read on after the jump for my silly excerpted answers.

One of the best things to come out of Amy Winehouse’s downward spiral (besides Schadenfreude, of course) is that Sharon Jones got the Dap-Kings back. The Lovely Miss Jones heads

For this cold Monday — and just when was the last time that December was such a wintry month? — we present this warm set of acoustic music. And this cocoa.

Sorry, no cocoa. But a great Cassidy from 1980 opens this download, followed by The Slip doing Predicting the Rain from 2006. It’s not entirely acoustic, but Marc Friedman has a killer bass solo tucked in there. Next up is a pretty stunning rendition of Almost Cut My Hair from a CN&Y show from 1972, and an early Heart of Saturday Night from Mr. Tom Waits. To cap it all off, we’ve got Gov’t Mule doing Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys in ’99 — ‘nuff said.

• CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK’S STORMY MONDAYS
• Read on after the jump for a bonus download of acoustic tunes…

When bands team up with Web 2.0 companies, they usually come up with some lame gimmick to convince their fans to join their service. But kudos to Tea Leaf Green and Eventful for teaming up to create a contest that’s actually beneficial to their supporters. TLG fans who sign up for Eventful will have a chance to “demand” where the band plays an upcoming show. The city that gets the most demands gets a Tea Leaf show, including an opening set by acoustic alter ego Coffee Bean Brown. While Las Vegas is currently winning, our vote goes to Jena, Louisiana. They totally need to Address that Community.

Let’s start the week with the best link dump this side of Zelda:

• Largehearted Boy’s master list of 2007 Best Of lists continues to grow
• The New York Guitar Festival kicks off on January 18th with a unique Dylan-inspired concert that’ll bring you back 40 years
• Long Island’s Looney Tunes record shop returns after a devastating fire
• Here’s the strangest case we’ve seen so far of “pulling a Radiohead“
• Marvin Gaye’s divorce album finally will be reissued
• NYCTaper picks his five favorite shows of the year
• Uncut put together online footage from Led Zeppelin’s reunion
• Neddy runs down the shows of the week in New York City
• Hey hey, look who Gail Zappa is suing this week

Finally, we think we may have stumbled across the lineup for next year’s Vineland Festival. The show poster follows after the jump…