Archive: 2007

Get up offa that thing, and welcome my tired honkey ass home from what feels like a lifetime of traveling the wide open spaces of these United States. I’ve learned I’m way too soft for life on the road, yet my colleagues and I still negotiated eight cities in nine days over a two-week span […]

We’re getting closer and closer to Led Zeppelin’s return, which takes place in London just one week from Monday. The new issue of Rolling Stone contains a terrific feature by David Fricke about the circumstances that led up to the reunion, as well as a report from one of the band’s tightly guarded rehearsals. Jason […]

Neddy and I are off to see Andrew Bird this evening while the rest of this city hits Terminal 5 for Ween’s two-nighter…so in order to get Neddy on my good side before the show, we’re gonna pimp out another one of his efforts.

I’m letting ye olde algorithm choose the mix again this week, with the one caveat being that I’ve restricted the choices to music released or recorded during 2007. So here’s a random — literally and figuratively — mix of this year’s infinite crop of tunes, including a couple live tracks of varying sound quality. There’s even two songs performed within a day of each other, interestingly enough. Enjoy.

01 Can’t Leave Her Behind — Stephen Malkmus & Lee Ranaldo: I’m Not There
02 Welcome, Ghosts — Explosions In The Sky: All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
03 All This Time — Heartless Bastards: Atlanta 9 June 2007
04 Wet and Rusting — Menomena: San Francisco 8 June 2007
05 Underwater (You and Me) — Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: Some Loud Thunder
06 Firecracker — Steel Train: Daytrotter Session

• CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK’S FRIDAY MIX TAPE

Open Your Box is a dance mix collection of quintessential Yoko Ono songs. The unique feature here is that the lyrics are understandable, and quite often full of pain, not your typical mind-numbing dance fare. Even though the songs didn't originate as dance music, Open Your Box does contain one essential ingredient in successful dance mixes: sex.

Backed by an army of world-renown percussionists, Global Drum Project again explores the rich poly-rhythms of the world beat sound that the two musicians have journeyed through together for the past thirty years.

Band Of Horses have announced a 20-date tour of the US, kicking off January 20 in Charleston, SC. The jaunt will precede the band’s recently-announced 19-date European tour. The tour will support the release of the band’s second album ‘Cease To Begin’, release in October. The dates are: Charleston, SC Music Farm (Janury 20) Norfolk, […]

The recent show by Maximo Park and Travis at Seattle’s historic Moore Theatre was one to remember – high-energy, with great music and even better performances.  Opener Maximo Park, already big in Europe, is relatively unknown in the States, despite regular recent airplay on KEXP (90.3fm/KEXP.org) and other college stations; if the show they put on opening for Travis is any indication, they will soon be much better known.

Having just polished off a lengthy road stretch behind their first new album in four years, Ween will kick off another U.S. tour in January. The duo–who only have a pair of New York City dates beginning tomorrow night (11/30) left to complete on their current stretch–will hit primarily Southeastern destinations on Ween’s first trek […]

The Guardian’s list of the 10 Most Dangerous Musicians caught our eye when it was published a few weeks back. There have been some crazy motherfuckers that played music, but there are also a slew of rockers who retire to the bus after the show to read Harry Potter and sip on Orange Coolattas. If G.G. Allin, Spade Cooley and Jim Gordon are the among the most dangerous, who would qualify as least dangerous?

We asked our friends at Team HLA and on The Bort to come up with a list of 10 rock stars they wouldn’t run away from in a dark alley:

10. Beck:

Read on for nine more rockers who look meek, but could probably still kick my ass…

Rotary Downs was smack dab in the middle of recording their latest album when Hurricane Katrina forced the band to flee for higher ground. The New Orleans based quintet documented their experience both before and after the storm hit as they survived the odds to put out Chained to the Chariot. Current TV is currently […]

We came across the ultimate compilation of Prince’s unreleased studio tracks from 1982 – 1997 thanks to The Ultimate Bootleg Experience. T.U.B.E. constantly kicks down primo stuff, but this collection raises the bar. We especially like the demo version of what turned out to be I No from the Lovesexy album. Here’s hoping T.U.B.E. keeps […]

While many in the music world obsess over the schadenfreude that is Strumpet d’Winehouse, we’ll continue to celebrate the sheer awesomeness of the Dap-Kings’ best frontlady. So we couldn’t wait to share yesterday’s now-streaming interview with the Lovely Miss Sharon Jones from her appearance on NPR’s Fresh Air with Daptone co-founder and Dap-Kings bass player […]

2007 saw the Black Lips riding high on the accolades of their storied work ethic and raging live shows, releasing two critically acclaimed albums on Vice, touring the world, performing on national television, and announcing a starring role in a feature film to begin production in May 2008. Tour dates below. Pierced Arrows (ex-Dead Moon) […]

On March 4, 2008, Zoë/Rounder Records will release Kathleen Edwards’ Asking for Flowers her first new album in three years, and the acclaimed artist’s mostpenetrating collection to date. The album features eleven new songs, all written by Edwards, and finds her performing at the peak of her creative powers, supported by agroup of master backing […]

Widespread Panic is pleased to announce their third annual Tunes for Tots charity event which will take place on December 29th at the Roxy in Atlanta.All proceeds from the show will directly go to benefit music departments in Georgia area public schools. Tickets are $125 for the show, with a limitednumber of $500 VIP tickets […]

My Morning Jacket have announced the release of a vinyl picture-disc to benefit a New Orleans charity. The band will give the proceeds from sales of their ‘2006-2007 New Year’s Eve Skit Picture Disc Skit’ to the Sweet Home New Orleans Organization, a non-profit dedicated to revitalizing the music and community in New Orleans by […]

fter three successful albums of high-profile collaborations, Carlos Santana is preparing for a different endeavor for 2008. The guitarist and bandleader is teaming up with producer Bill Laswell for "The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost," a three-CD set Santana tells Billboard.com will reflect his myriad musical influences. "We still love (John) Coltrane and Bob […]

With their 11/2/07 performance at the Music Hall of Williamsburg—which used to be the hipster haunt Northsix, but was bought by the Bowery crew and transformed into one of the most promising new venues in New York City—Lotus demonstrated yet again their commitment to continued growth and developmen

Considering how much has been written, spoken and contemplated about Bob Dylan’s appearances at the Newport Folk Festival, especially his (literally and figuratively) electric set in 1965, it boggles the mind it’s taken forty years for the film of those shows to find broad circulation. But the wait to see Murray Lerner’s The Other Side of the Mirror is worth it, because the director lets the performances speak for themselves, and they constitute a profound statement indeed.

Sticks and Stones, the new album from moe., features eight new songs that have never been performed live and two previously unreleased songs. Produced by the band and John Siket (Dave Matthews Band, Dispatch, Yo La Tengo),  who worked with the band on several of their critically acclaimed records, including ‘Dither’, ‘Sticks and Stones’ follows […]