June 24, 2008

Any savvy concertgoer knows to temper expectations just a bit sometimes, even at the risk of jading. It’s so hard to find (and then bottle) lightning more than a few times a year that those who go looking for it wind up with a merely overcast sky time and time again—a long string of B and B+ shows with the rare A stuck in the days between.

[Photo by Rich Gastwirt via Phillesh.net]

Friends who don’t go to the 100-150 shows I average every year ask if going to so much music desensitizes me, and the answer is yes, of course—to a point. Glass half-full reasoning suggests that if you go to a lot, experience a different variety of all types of venues, styles and groupings, and when something really good happens you get that tingly feeling—the feeling you forgot, as the poet wrote.

In late 2007 the feeling I forgot came to me in an unexpected—but as it turned out, unsurprising—show last year: the final night of Phil Lesh & Friends’ epic 10-night run at the Nokia Theater here in New York. I’d been to the 11/6 show earlier in the week and it was a cursory delight—full of easy-mark crowd-pleasers, a safe level of stretching out, a few moments of A-level PLF work and enough mojo to convince me this fivesome warranted a place with at least the most capable PLF lineups. The final show of the run, however, was a game-changer, with a decently solid first set, a pretty, all-acoustic second set, and a stemwinder of a third set that, to these ears, remains to date the fullest, one-set expression of what this current PLF lineup can accomplish. READ ON for more of Chad’s PLF review…

Two weeks ago we took a look at a few versions of Solsbury Hill and we’ve got a Gold and a Silver medal to give out. The winner, by a landslide, is the a cappella group The Hyannis Sound – congrats guys. Coming in second was my good friends Rane. Sorry about the week off, how you all got by for 14 days without a playlist of covers to sit and judge, I’ll never know.

This week I’m returning to the original band featured in the first ever edition of Cover Wars, one of the most covered bands of all time: The Beatles. We’ve got six versions of Day Tripper here and don’t worry, there isn’t an American Idol clip anywhere near us this time. We’ve got a nice mix of some other artists of the ’60s covering the song while it was still ripe — and of course a few jambands rocking their way through the tune.

To quote Lennon himself from the book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon & Yoko Ono,

That’s mine. Including the lick, the guitar break and the whole bit. It’s just a rock ‘n roll song. Day trippers are people who go on a day trip, right? Usually on a ferryboat or something. But it was kind of-you know, you’re just aw weekend hippie. Get it?

Yep, we get it John. It’s also one of the songs that Lennon & McCartney disagree on the songwriting credits – but hey, all that matters is that it’s a great tune. You’re going to need to register/login to Imeem to hear the tracks in their entirety.

READ ON after the jump for voting, videos and descriptions…

With the July 4th right around the corner, we thought we’d get the HT gang together again to slap a variety of foodstuffs on the grill and throw back some Six Point Hop Obama’s for another edition of At The Barbecue. This time around we figured we’d find out what has been burning up the iPods of our faithful HT Contributors as we approach the mid-way point of 2008.

Much like Fight Club there were no rules – the albums could be something released this year, something you’ve just discovered or an old classic that’s just been getting a lot of play. So sit back and enjoy, the Best Music Of ’08 (So Far)…

Neddy:

Favorite album of the year has to be, no ifs ands or buts, John Zorn’s the Dreamers. You won’t find a more talented ensemble of musicians playing more soul-pleasing compositions in such amazing fashion anywhere else — I gar-uhn-tee. Your favorite genre — be it piano jazz, reverby surf, dirty funk or Lou Reed pop — is reinvented, dissected, exploded, imploded, impregnated and otherwise made to feel welcome in that cozy spot between the tiny hairs inside your ears and the squishy gray stuff beyond. All that and free stickers! Enjoy!

READ ON to see what albums your favorite HT bloggers can’t get enough of…