Archive: 2007

The folks over at KEXP, that venerable institution of all things musically cool, have put together a third mix tape, culled from their back catalogue of live, in-studio performances.

The title track that opens Delta Moon’s Clear Blue Flame is a song about moonshine. Yes, it’s that kind of album. The subject matter, however, is of little importance. This is an album where the gritty blues rock riffs, country twang and trademark duel slide guitars are at the forefront.

Tori Amos has a knack for picking male singer/songwriters with looper pedals types to open for her.  Thing is, she does a good job of it.  In a recent show at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre, singer Yoav (who has yet to release a full-length, and yet is somehow opening for Tori Amos) put on an excellent set.

Fifty-four albums were announced today (Dec. 21) as the nominees for the 2007 Shortlist Music Prize, which will be handed out early next year. The prize recognizes albums released between January and November 2007 that have yet to be certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for U.S. shipments of 500,000 units. Among […]

Everyone wants to escape from the douchebaggery of the bar scene and the jacked-up prices of restaurants, but many people are still struggling to find cool events at which to ring in the new year. Considering it’s already December 20th, now is probably the time to pull the trigger make a final decision. Let’s take a look at 10 of the more interesting concerts celebrating the beginning of 2008.

1. Boy We Wish We Lived in Australia: Girl Talk, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Kings of Leon and The Go! Team rock the Falls Festival in Marion Bay, Australia

2. From MSG to the middle of nowhere in 11 years: Blues Traveler hit the peak of their popularity on December 31st, 1996 when they performed to a sold out Madison Square Garden. This year the Traveler plan to play a place just a little bit smaller. If you happen to live in Anchorage, Alaska check them out at the Bear Tooth Theatre.

3. Well This Is Why Phil Isn’t Playing on NYE: Jackie Greene takes the stage with his solo band at Marilyn’s on K in Sacramento, CA. Will Phil show up? We’re guessin’ yes.

4. Aren’t You Supposed to Cover Albums on Halloween?: Rose Hill Drive covers Aerosmith’s Toys In The Attic on both December 30th and 31st at the Boulder Theater

Read on after the jump for more possible events this New Year’s Eve…

Our regular Thursday contributors Rupert and Stan from the acclaimed Ghosts of Wayne Fontes blog are back, ready to inject a sports needle into your musical ass…

What, you think we’re not gonna read the comments in our inaugural post? We are certainly not about to let a wiseass remark go unnoticed, particularly one that happens to be right in our wheelhouse. Soiled Dove, we’re granting your request to “compare epic Phish openers to epic leadoff homeruns.”

Okay, not really. That’d be a tough gig, and we’re not about to let the inmates run the asylum. So we’re opening up the parameters a bit, comparing epic openers from a variety of bands to what we’d consider to be their sporting equivalent. There really aren’t that many notable leadoff homeruns in the World Series, nor would we remember them, but hopefully our flex rules will still garner up some street cred.

Genesis Auditorium Theater, Chicago, IL, 11/20/1974 – The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (click here for full video)

The mighty Genesis opened the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour with, of course, the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. It’s the epic tale of the black cloud descending upon Manhattan, sucking the island into overwhelming doom and gloom.

We can only think of one situation suitable to play the sports equivalent of this opener, and it won’t make this blog’s proprietors very happy: the 2004 Boston Red Sox’s epic comeback in the ALCS. The Yankees laid down a colossal collapse, allowing the Red Sox to comeback from the only 3-0 deficit in playoff history. Doom and gloom indeed swept Manhattan that week, and somewhere, at the moment the Sox clinched, Phil Collins…didn’t care.

Read on after the jump for the sports equivalents of Psycho Killer, Mike’s Song, Once Upon a Time in the West and several other hot openers…

The holiday season used to be about exchanging gifts with friends and family, but now a buncha musicians are looking to stuff our stockings. Last week we told you about Bruce Hornsby’s holiday gift, and this week we’ve found some more presents. The boys in Cold War Kids bring good tidings in the form of […]

The popular rock band Phish doesn’t get enough credit for revolutionizing the music industry. The boys from Vermont came up with a number of innovative ideas that both made them money and made their fanbase extremely happy. One of those brainstorms was the launch of the Live Phish download program on December 31st, 2002.

Phish teamed up with Nugs.net to offer MP3 and SHN downloads for sale within 48 hours of the end of each show. For a mere $13, Phish fans were able to ignore unreliable audience recordings and download the band’s official mix each night.

To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Live Phish download program, Phish archivist Kevin Shapiro will stream a special edition of From The Archives on Live Phish radio at 1 PM. We can’t wait to see what Kevin has in store, as he never disappoints. We’re hoping we finally get the Albany YEM we’ve been seeking for 12 years.

• Previously on HT: Opening Up Phish Archivist Kevin Shapiro
• And read on for a must-see video of a unique and awesome take on Stash…

The girl in this video is Ann Marie Calhoun, and she’s currently out on tour with Steve Vai. But she’s also making these badass clips on YouTube — this one is fantastic.

Funk legend William "Bootsy" Collins is staging the first in a series of annual tribute concerts honoring his funk mentor James Brown on Saturday (Dec. 22). Proceeds from the event will go toward the rebuilding of Brown’s early recording home, Cincinnati-based King Records, and the eventual launch of a museum. Brown died Christmas Day 2006. […]

I’ve been to my fair share of Neil Young shows over the last 10 years. I’ve seen him on the HORDE tour with Crazy Horse. Twice on his solo acoustic jaunt in ’99. Twice again with his Friends and Relatives band in 2000. Three Greendale shows with the Horse in 2001. Five times with Crosby, Stills, and Nash. A little bit of everything, with each show being good, mixed with a little bit of great. Young’s performance at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis was a whole lot of great, and not much else.

The South By Southwest (SXSW) Music Conference and Film Festival are pleased to announce that Lou Reed will bethe keynote speaker for 2008. Reed’s keynote will be held in conjunction with a screening of Julian Schnabel’s film "Lou Reed’s ‘Berlin,’" which documents a recent performance of the landmark 1973 album. Reed’s groundbreaking work with the […]

Over the past few months we’ve been very lucky to have our friend Dale contribute some wonderful shows to the Grousing The Aisles mix. Dale doesn’t mess around with average shows — he only brings the best of the best from his collection. Every show Dale suggests to us winds up being a winner we’ve never come across before, so we asked him to pick three killer sets for this week’s column.

So excuse us while we put our feet up, and let Dale spread his wings and fly:

Pink Floyd 11/16/1974 SBD [MP3]

If you don’t already have this bootleg, stop whatever you’re doing (hell, even if it’s sexy time) and download it now. You have to hear this pristine multi-track SBD recording made by the BBC on November 16, 1974. This is the 2nd set and encore of the band’s performance that night: a full performance of Dark Side Of The Moon followed by an Echoes encore.

Now, even if you already have this recording in your collection, you’ll probably want to download this new version. All of the processing applied to previous versions has been eliminated through the use of a source closer to the original BBC tapes, and many previous versions in circulation did not include the Echoes encore. This is seriously an amazing treasure of a recording, possessing the ability to make Dark Side Of The Moon sound fresh and new to the ears. Best of all, it does not sound like a bootleg and it does not sound 33 years old.

Read on for two more epic downloads from Zeppelin and Zappa…

We’ve said often that 2007 will forever be known as the year of the reunion. And now it looks 2008 will offer more of the same. Return To Forever, one of the best bands you’ve probably never heard of, takes to the road next year for their first shows in 25 years. The legendary jazz-fusion […]

Every December our lord and savior Glide Magazine takes the “year end” shit to another level, pollsing artists across the entire music spectrum to find out which albums, performances and/or films they most enjoyed that year. Glide today released its 5th Annual From The Artist’s Perspective feature where some of our favorite musicians run down […]

Wired Magazine set up what many superlative speakers and tall tale tellers believe is the most epic meeting of musical minds since Bach met Mozart in 1764. The writer of Radio Head spoke with the leader of Radiohead about the distribution of In Rainbows, letting fans set their own price and and what others can […]

We’d like to nominate Jeffrey Sofer’s 40th Birthday celebration for best party of 2007. Sofer, heir to the Turnberry fortune, threw himself a $2 million bash at an executive airport near Miami. Most people usually pay a band to play Get Down Tonight or 1999 at their parties, but Sofer actually hired both KC and the Sunshine Band and Prince to perform at his event.

Prince played a full set at the party, chock full of classics like Cream, Controversy and Let’s Go Crazy. The Miami Herald reports that the Purple One seemed happy during his performance, but we’ll need to see a YouTube before we believe that. [via thedailyswarm]

So let’s see what else is goin’ down on this marvelous hump day:

• Jason Bonham plays coy when asked about a potential Led Zep tour
• Rhapsody jumps into Facebook with a taste of their subscription model
• Cold War Kids gives their fans a free EP for the holidays
• Jay and Conan returning without writers? More time for the musical guests!
• New York Mag breaks down Pitchfork’s Top 100 Tracks, pie-graph style
• You can hear a simulcast of Widespread Panic’s NYE concert on Sirius
• Rolling Stone’s Joe Levy finds out what everyone already knew about vinyl
• Benji and Mike get Dead Sirius on the latest installment of Cold Turkey
• Amy Winehouse spent some time talking to police yesterday
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s Carl sounds off on The Mitchell Report
  

Finally, Tori Amos interrupted a recent concert in LA to urge writers to “Stop sucking the cock of the infested corporate clone.” You fuckin’ tell ’em, girlfriend. Check out the video after the jump…

Everyone makes their standard "best of's," top 10s" and "year in review" lists, but each December we like to take that model a couple of steps further. We go straight to the artists to see where they found inspiration over the past twelve months, and we don't stop with just album choices. We dig a bit deeper and go for a broader picture of the past year in art. From classic moments on the road to their guilty pleasure confessions, this is a panoramic snapshot of "the best of 2006," and a peek into what to expect in '07.

Return to Forever, one of the most influential groups of the 1970s, have long heard calls from their many fans for a reunion tour. Now those calls have been answered, with the classic lineup of keyboardist Chick Corea, bassist Stanley Clarke, guitarist Al Di Meola and drummer Lenny White planning a tour across the U.S. […]

Creators of ‘The Simpsons Movie’ have recreated the cover of Pink Floyd‘s 1977 album ‘Animals’ to promote the film’s DVD release tomorrow (December 19). The original Pink Floyd cover features a pig flying over London’s Battersea Power Station. As an homage to the cover, a giant inflatable ‘Spider Pig’, which was Homer Simpson‘s pet in […]

The Smashing Pumpkins have announced that they will release a four-song, acoustic EP early next year. ‘American Gothic’ is due out on January 2 via US iTunes. Artwork for the EP will be available the same day on the Smashing Pumpkins’ website. Frontman Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlain co-produced the EP, along with Roy Thomas […]