2007

This week’s Grousing The Aisles is all over the place. We start out by digging deep for some rare soundboards from Frank Zappa and Blind Faith before checking out an epic Leftover Salmon show in honor of its upcoming reunion. Finally, we’ll end with a set from the terrifically wacky Give Us The Money Lebowski.

Frank Zappa 2/15/78 SBD (FLAC):

Frank Zappa’s estate has done a superb job keeping the literal tons of soundboard tapes from his career out of bootleggers’ hands. In fact, there aren’t many great Zappa recordings that circulate that weren’t released directly by him or his estate. One of the better sounding shows that circulates, though, is this amazing concert from Berlin during FZ’s 1978 European tour. That ’78 tour featured an incredible lineup of Zappa, Adrian Belew, Tommy Mars, Peter Wolf, Terry Bozzio, Ed Mann and Patrick O’Hearn.

The show starts off with a crazed Dancin’ Fool, followed by a spot-on Peaches En Regalia. The band proceeds to tear through Zappa’s greatest hits, playing incredible versions of every song they played. Frank also kept it light with some funny banter throughout the show, although I wonder how much the German audience understood. My favorite part of this show is the closing combo of Camarillo Brillo and Muffin Man. Those two songs feature what I love best about FZ’s music: face-melting solos and absurd lyrics. Be sure to download this show while you can, before Gail Zappa finds a way to charge you for it.

Read on for more from Blind Faith, Leftover Salmon and GUTML…

Ween has added a bunch of June tour dates to their schedule — the dates start in Hartford on June 8th and run until the band’s appearance at Bonnaroo. I

In scanning the blog’s archives, I realized there’s one name that’s gone almost entirely unmentioned: Jaco Pastorius. A preliminary search turns up two drops of the Jaco name, but for

Not too long after the break-up of the popular rock band Phish, members of the (temporarily?) defunct group started to play live shows and record music individually. Trey Anastasio and Jon Fishman began recording music right away with various musicians, and Mike Gordon entered the studio with Leo Kottke.

Page McConnell was in a state of flux at the time and didn’t know quite what to do. Nearly a year elapsed, and McConnell started recording some songs he had written in the basement of his Vermont home. Page wasn’t sure what he was going to do with the music that he recorded at first, but as time went on it was clear he had enough cohesive material for a full-length album.

Today, McConnell released his first true solo album — cleverly titled Page McConnell — which features many autobiographical songs about the crossroads he approached after leaving the band he’d been a part of for 19 years. McConnell started work on the album two years ago, and he’s now finally ready to head out on the road to support the music into which he poured his heart and soul.

I recently had the chance to talk with Page about the album, his touring and recording bands, as well as his thoughts on leaving Phish behind. Read on for Scott’s insightful interview with the Chairman of the Boards…

Friday’ll be a tough day at the ol’ office. At week’s end I’ll be forced to endure a full day of occupational nonsense and anticipatory anxiety before heading out to Brooklyn for

Like the famed postal creed, neither Nor’easter nor visa restrictions nor Justice Department bureaucrats nor transportation delays could stay two badass musicians from excitedly kicking off their spring tour at New York’s Webster Hall.

It took quite a bit of effort for Mexican guitar duo Rodrigo Y Gabriela to emerge onto the stage last night, braving inter-government shenanigans, mistaken identity, record rainfall in the Northeast and their own version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. The pair began this epic journey in Mexico, moved through Los Angeles, were diverted to Atlanta, then flew up to — where the fuck?, Rodrigo asks — Baltimore, until finally a train brought them into New York proper. For us.

Hype can be a dangerous concept, and self-imposed hype can be even trickier. I couldn’t have been more excited about my first live glimpse of these characters, and not for one second did they let me down in any regard. Read on for more thoughts and pics and videos from an amazing night with Rodrigo Y Gabriela…