October 16, 2008

Trey Anastasio returns to the road tonight to kick off his first real tour since 2006. We’ll be on the scene with live updates from the Roseland Ballroom in New York City, so keep checking back early and often.

While we wait for the setlist/photos/commentary to start coming in, perhaps you’d like to click around on these old setlists.

Prior Trey/Phish appearances: 3-14-1992 (Phish), 2-5-1993 (Phish), 2-6-1993 (Phish), 5-23-2000 (Phish), 2-23-2001 (The Sextet), 11-13-2001 (Oysterhead), 11-14-2001 (Oysterhead), 2-10-2005 (Tsunami Benefit w/moe.), 11-8-2005 (70 Volt Parade)

READ ON for Hidden Track’s Trey @ Roseland live setlist and blog…

Well, I’ve got a big problem. It’s my turn to write an introduction to my favorite piece and to say thank you, but if I wanted to thank all of the people who helped make Hidden Track the 1,892 most read blog in New York City it would take up the whole front page of the site. I guess I could try to limit it and just say thanks to some. Yet, I’d feel awful not thanking each person who has written a post, gave us a tip, offered encouragement, shot photos, commented on a post, added HT’s feed to their RSS reader, gave us advice or made us better in some way, shape or form.

Yet I need to thank you – the reader. We’ve come so far in the last 24 months, and I still get a huge smile each time someone leaves a comment and responds to what we’re putting out there. Ace taught me so much and I’ll be eternally grateful to him for starting this site, bringing me aboard and putting together an amazing team. Most of all, he set an incredibly high standard as an editor and writer and made me realize that each post counts. Ace made sure to teach me about journalistic standards, because the reputation of this blog – and us as writers – depended on it. While I still struggle with grammar, I’ll never stop trying to keep this rag’s reputation as good as it was the day he left.

So, I wound up thanking quite a few people after all. Let me also thank Dave, Rupert and Some Dude – a guy who I seriously couldn’t do this without – for helping to establish HT’s current tone and contributing incredible posts each week. Thanks to the Glide guys for all of their unwavering help, support and of course deciding to start this blog. Thanks to the folks on PT, The Bort and Team HLA for linking, reading and lending a hand. I literally have a list of about 75 other people to thank, but I think I’ll just send them a note to spare y’all for any more self-serving ridiculousness.

So without further ado, it’s time for my favorite piece. This anniversary has made me extremely nostalgic and I can’t stop thinking about the beginning. The first good piece I ever wrote, and the day I knew I had a shot at this thing was a post about a band made up of 16 year old Umphrey’s fans, Tribute to Whigg.

READ ON to take a look at The Royal Tennenbrah’s Saga Continues…

As legend has it, I was the guy behind the guy that got this daily music site on its feet, and was also a huge fan from day one. When Ace decided to step down earlier this year, I got the call up to the big leagues after toiling over my own indie-jam blog for something like two and a half years to share daily writing duties with Scotty and have enjoyed every minute of bringing my writing style and my music tastes to a much broader audience.

Over my eight-plus months, I’ve tried to introduce you guys to some music that bridges the gap between jam and indie without using the dreaded P word with Better Than Noodling. Since not everyone obsesses over reading blogs to find new music, this has been my place to showcase some bands that I really dig that may not be as obvious, but I think you should be listening to. When I initially wrote this piece on Vampire Weekend I had a hunch they were primed for a big year, but little did I know that the band would explode the way did going from playing the Bowery Ballroom to three sold out shows at the cavernous Terminal 5 in less than a year’s time. It certainly feels good to get it right, but it was more about the fact that I couldn’t get enough of them.

Before we get to it just wanted to thank Ace for letting me get my feet wet over here and digging my initial idea behind BtN and to Scotty who is the hardest working man in show business and unbelievably supportive, thanks gents for bringing me on. This is truly a labor of love, so we hope you enjoy reading HT as much as we enjoy writing it…

READ ON for Better Than Noodling – Vampire Weekend…

The geeking out piece – this was fun. For me this was a great couple of days in Hidden Track history because it displayed a bit of the community that we’ve got going on right here inside the blog. We have thousands of people viewing the site everyday but often times well thought-out posts go by without a comment posted.

This wasn’t one of them, readers were eager to supplement the piece with information. For example, I had no idea The Radiators had logged such a rigorous consistent touring schedule over the years, but reader “chicofishhead” was nice enough to paste in the data for us. UM’s archivist McL chimed in and asked for an additional graph that displayed all bands on the same line chart – and he got it.

As a follow-up, here’s the raw numbers on what is on the books for 2008. The Disco Biscuits will close out the year with 56 shows assuming Barber stays out of the air ducts at the Nokia Theater this December. moe. (the inspiration for the piece in the first place) ends the year with 78 shows after sneaking in one extra appearance at Farm Aid after moe.down. While it could be argued Phish played one show in 2008, I think the real question is: With three shows already in the books in 2009, will Phish play more or less shows in ’09 than they did in ’03 (which was 44). UM shows no signs of stopping, logging 113 shows this year. With their next studio album set for an early 2009 release, I’d say it’s likely they will either meet or exceed this number next year.

READ ON for the original Geeking Out, We’ve Got Seven Line Graphs post…

For the two-year birthday bash of the HT, I’d like to just say thanks – thanks to Scotty, thanks to Ace, thanks to the Dude, and thanks to everyone else who contributes to and reads HT. I never really even knew what a blog was nor how much I enjoyed writing (or trying to at least), but I started up a silly sports blog with a good buddy couple years back, and truth be told, I thought we were starting a business. So to fast forward a couple years and find myself lucky enough to chip in on Hidden Track after having been a long time Glide Magazine reader, puts a big ass smile on my face on a regular basis.

I would like to say that Ace Cowboy is one of the best and funniest writers I know and I thank him for asking me to participate over here. Whatever he writes, I will read. Ace taught me some valuable lessons he never even knew he was teaching and he is a good buddy.

And did you ever wonder if Scotty’s personality comes across in his articles? Well, I’ve only known Scotty for a short time, but it is obvious he lives for this music. In fact, I think he is the biggest music lover I have ever known and he was born for Hidden Track. I can only dream of knowing as much as Scotty about music. I hope you all see it, because he works his ass off for you and he is a very talented and kind person.

So that’s my heartfelt “thanks for having me.” Having an outlet to spew out the ramblings of an overactive imagination like this post here, fills a creative void that honestly makes my life better.

READ ON for Rupert’s epic’r than epic Phishy Toy Story…

Given the daily volatility of the roller-coaster financial markets and the increasingly heated campaign-trail polemics, it would appear, looking back, that the events of October 16th, 2006 exhibit a level of painful dullness and ennui unseen since Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign.

That particular pre-Halloween day in history is a global meh. The two most intriguing events I could find, in fact, were: “American and Russian scientists announce the discovery of a new chemical element with the atomic number 118, temporarily designated as Ununoctium” and “The government of Hong Kong will not appeal a court ruling striking down the territory’s sodomy law.” Huzzah for inter-territorial chemistry and South Chinese sodomy. Otherwise, nuthin’ doin’.

But on that nondescript morning, this superfluous exercise in inanity called Hidden Track first plastered its guttural verbiage on the world wide web. Someday, “The HT Inception” will make it onto Wikipedia. Exactly two years later, its dead-weight founder having jumped ship for fear of a stress-induced psychotic break, Elton John’s got a song about this here rag, and it involves “still” and “standing.” Only this blog isn’t just standing still — it’s flourishing beyond my loftiest expectations and wettest dreams. I started it as a farce; it’s now become a force.

When the Glide Folk and I conceived this project in a West Village bar (not a leather daddy establishment), we had agreed to something along the lines of two or three posts per week. The Prolific-As-Fuck Scotty B wouldn’t hear of it when I asked him to come along for the ride; no, he wanted us to go all in, throw the kitchen sink at everyone. We did, and soon enough this site featured four-post days and tons of copy. Scotty had always been the true driver, and under his leadership over the last nine months, he’s taken it to new heights. The redesign, the columns, the features, the music: It’s Evander Holyfield here — I’m talkin’ the real deal.

So “happy anniversary” to this inanimate creation, and “job well done” to Mr. Scotty Bizzle. Like your old neighborhood, you love to see things get better in your absence; I’m truly proud to watch HT transform into a legit source of news, debate and opinion.

And now I present you with my re-run of choice. Of all my favorite posts, I like this one best strictly because I’m trying to spread the phrase “Mariachi Metal.” That’ll be my Pat Riley “Threepeat.” Shit, now I owe Riley four cents.

READ ON for thoughts and pics and videos from an amazing night at Webster Hall with Mexico’s Rodrigo Y Gabriela…