2007

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…

Widespread Panic struggled for many years to find an effective replacement for its deceased talismanic guitarist, Mikey Houser. Depending on who you asked between 2002 and 2006, the band ranged

I’ve spent much of the past hour rifling through year-end revenue statistics for amphitheaters, festivals, concerts and tours, trying to come up with a joke smart enough to make fun

Excuse the passive voice, but it’s best to say this plainly: The Allman Brothers Band is a much better group since the filming of their last concert DVD in 2003.

With Peter Frampton, Jackson Browne, Bruce Hornsby and Bernie Worrell taking a lead role at Warren Haynes’ 19th Annual Xmas Jam in lovely Ashevegas, we were a bit unsure whether this year’s charity proceeds would be headed for the Habitat for Humanity coffers as usual or whether they’d already been spent on gallons of prune juice and Oops I Crapped My Pants for the green room.

But our man on the scene tells us the aging rockers brought their best, and combined with Grace Potter, G. Love, Jerry Joseph, Eric McFadden and the most excellent host, the Xmas Jam didn’t disappoint in the slightest.

The hometown Citizen Times has provided plenty of videos and pictures in its yearly wrap-up and in a special Smasheville section, and you can already download most of the concert (see below), but we asked frequent HT commenter and first-time contributor Frank Sturges to put a bow on the Xmas Jam proceedings, and he and his crew gave out the following awards at a ceremony that took place at the Waldorf Astoria earlier today.

Set of the night: Peter Frampton
The joke’s easy, but Frampton really came alive. We got some Humble Pie, a blues jam with Warren, a Motown tune, and most importantly, the sickest one-two punch I’ve ever seen at an Xmas Jam to close the set. A huge Do You Feel Like We Do followed by While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

Read on for more awards, photos, setlists and downloads from Xmas Jam…

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.