2007

When I saw RatDog last Monday night, a bunch of my friends told me Fake Bobby from the Dark Star Orchestra was playing better than the Real Bob Weir. I was stupefied — how could this possibly be? How can an imitator be better than the genuine article? I got my answer on Saturday when I saw the Dark Star Orchestra play a fantastic show at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park.

Here’s the backstory on DSO, for the uninitiated: On most nights they recreate old Grateful Dead concerts, song by song, in the exact style of the era in question. When you ask around about DSO, you typically get one of two responses. Either “That concept is really lame” or “Those guys are fuckin’ amazing.”

The former generally comes from people who aren’t into the Dead, while the latter comes from the Deadheads. I was in the That Concept Is Lame camp for a long time, but I finally got over myself and headed down to the partially gentrified streets of Asbury Park on the 14th and found out how wrong I was.

Read on after the jump for Scotty’s full review of a night with DSO…

No time period produced more one-hit wonders than the early 1980s. Back then it seemed like each and every week a new band would turn out a hit song and then disappear into oblivion, or what Mike Tyson calls “Bolivian.”

This week’s B List looks to 10 great early ’80s one-hit wonders. You’ll find that many of the songs on this list sound disturbingly like other songs, and we took the liberty of pointing out their musical doppelgangers. Perhaps the fact that all of these songs sound like other hit songs explains why none of these artists ever achieved success after their one hit. Read on after the jump for 10 greats…

They’re taking our call center jobs, and now our classic ’80s videos. Bastards. [youtube]LbvP7dT3Dx0[/youtube] I saw Indian Thriller for the first time almost a year ago, but our friends at Ickmusic just

This time last week we posted a full round-up of the surprisingly undreadlocked 77-member drum circle under the Brooklyn Bridge. Today, our good friend and oft-collaborator at NewmRadio is streaming the

Al Gore’s Internets are experiencing a diarrhetic explosion in the number of blogs and websites publishing quality mp3 bootlegs. We had been posting links to the best boots in our Hors d’Oeuvres,

While it would be easy to fill this column with the likes of Pearl Jam, Phish and the Grateful Dead every week, we’d also like to introduce you to some bands you may not have heard of or completely forgot about. So as promised, this week’s Grousing The Aisles looks at four bands that have flown under the radar. We start off with an incredible recording of the newly reunited Buffalo Tom, and then check out shows from Railroad Earth, Toad The Wet Sprocket and Lima Charlie. Clear some room on your iPod, and give these bands a chance to impress ya…

Buffalo Tom 7/13/2007 MATRIX (FLAC):

Boston’s Buffalo Tom is back with a vengeance this summer. The boys released a stellar album, entitled Three Little Pieces, and are following it up with a few record release shows. This past Friday night, Buffalo Tom played a precise set of power pop at the Bowery Ballroom that showed they haven’t lost a step, despite basically nine years off. The band and a taper named Christopher Jones have teamed up to offer a matrix recording of that show for download.

I first heard of Buffalo Tom when I saw the video for Sodajerk on MTV’s 120 Minutes. Sodajerk, still my favorite Buffalo Tom tune, is a rock tune that mixes the jangle of The Byrds with the emotional depth of The Replacements. While the Tom played a terrific version of Sodajerk and a few other tunes from the old days, the songs from Three Little Pieces were the main meat of their set. CC and Callas, You’ll Never Catch Him and September Shirt all sound terrific in concert. Also of note were the multiple diatribes by singer and huge Red Sox fan, Bill Janovitz, directed at all the Yankee fans in the room. Buffalo Tom continues their tour on July 25th at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.

Read on after the jump for three more GTA downloads…

Our main man Danfun hath returned from Canada, where he caught The White Stripes’ 10th Anniversary show. Hey, Dan: Get a job, ya hoser…

The White Stripes tour de Canada was nothing short of astounding. The duo played secret show after secret show, setting up in locations that moved from bowling alleys to public buses to the back of boats. The full tour built up to an exciting conclusion this past weekend, when the band played Nova Scotia.

I flew into Halifax early on Friday morning, and early in the day the band played a secret show located in a banquet hall that was just packed. Friday’s show featured a great set, which saw the band come out wearing kilts. The band set up was really crazy for Halifax: There was a makeshift catwalk platform on which Jack could play guitar while moving across it, and it gave off the illusion that his feet were putting off smoke. We’ll move on to the anniversary gig, but Union Forever and Catch Hell Blues stand out as highlights of the early Halifax show.

Read on for more great photos and videos from Danfun’s trip to Canada…