Archive: 2008

When the initial Mountain Jam lineup was announced a few weeks ago, we thought the promoters put together a fairly strong lineup. It turns out they had a few other bands up their sleeves. Today Radio Woodstock and Warren Haynes confirmed that RatDog, Umphrey’s McGee, Dr. Dog, Pete Francis and Larry McCray have all been […]

With his fourth LP and second release on Sub Pop, Kelley Stoltz is often surrounded by the “fi” words: low, mid and hi His latest Circular Sounds is a departure from the lo and mid-fi’s of his first three releases and explores the sonic rich production of hi-fi.

The first CD of the collaboration between Donna Jean Godchaux-Mackay and The Zen Tricksters is greater by far than the sum of its parts. Rather than merely an alliance of a former Grateful Dead vocalist and a once and future Grateful Dead cover band, Donna Jean & the Tricksters is a logical extension of the former's main influences and the band’s natural inclination to improvise.

Black Kids have announced their debut tour of North America, which they will embark on following their appearance at Coachella. The Jacksonville, FL band were the darlings of CMJ 2007 after creating much buzz with their debut EP ‘Wizard Of Ahhs’ which they made available through their Myspace page. They are currently at work on […]

Radio Woodstock and Warren Haynes (Gov’t Mule, The Allman Brothers Band, The Dead) have confirmed that Bob Weir & RatDog, Umphrey’s McGee, Dr. Dog, Pete Francis (of Dispatch) and Larry McCray have joined the fourth annual Mountain Jam Music Festival’s growing lineup. They join a list of previously announced acts that includes  Levon Helm, Gov’t […]

Lettuce, the seven-person all-star collective – featuring members of Robert Randolph’s band, John Scofield’s band and Soulive – returns to the funk-jazz forefront on April 22nd with their new full length. RAGE! is a tantalizing tribute to funk music – paying homage to all stripes of funksters, including James Brown, Sly Stone, Herbie Hancock, Tower […]

Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder will embark on his first solo tour this spring, in support of his Monkeywrench/J soundtrack to the acclaimed film "Into the Wild." Dates begin April 2 in Vancouver; Liam Finn will open. Vedder was uncertain about presenting the material live when he spoke to Billboard late last year. "I like […]

Since you’ll either be taking your girl out for a fancy dinner and some obligatory couch cuddling, or sitting home with your roommates knee deep in bong hits and pizza tonight, we thought we’d devote our Valentine’s Day edition of the B List to the best television theme songs of all time. With the advent of reality TV, and more airtime minutes going to advertisers than to actual television programming, the theme song has kind of become a ‘Nick at Night’ novelty.

When we went through the possible contenders, it was tough to come up with anything even remotely contemporary. Thankfully cable (namely HBO) threw us a few bones, but it was difficult to scrounge much up. It’s clear the best of the best were from a time of TV past.

So whether you’re spooning her while finishing off a bottle of red and some chocolates, or channel surfing and chain smoking alone on your busted Ikea futon tonight, here are some classics to set on the DVR.

10. Welcome Back Kotter

Long before the hipsters took over Brooklyn, Vinnie Barbarino was pulling down more ass than anyone in a black hoodie and Chuck Taylors could ever dream of. Written by former Lovin’ Spoonful frontman John Sebastian, “Welcome Back” is a mellow, 70s stroll through the graffiti-laden streets and subway overpasses of the now chic outer borough. Read on for a video of John Sebastian’s classic, as well as nine other incredible TV theme songs…

Our proud corporate papa Glide Magazine unveiled an unbelievably awesome photo gallery of Maceo Parker from last week’s concert at the Orange Peel in Asheville. Check out David Oppenheimer’s incredible shots of the funk legend and his band: Maceo Parker – Orange Peel, Asheville, NC 02/10/2008

In the past Bonnaroo has had rock stars as well as comedians on the bill, but today the Superfly folks have taken things to a new level with the announcement of their first rock star comedian adding none other then Chris Rock to the bill. Here’s some info about his special performance…

We are proud to announce that legendary comedian Chris Rock will perform at the 2008 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival.

Rock will do a special one-hour set on the What Stage, Bonnaroo’s biggest. The audience for this performance will be one of the largest ever for a comedy show! For more information about Chris Rock, click here.

More announcements about the lineup will be made in the coming weeks. Check back soon for more information!

Rock will be spending the next couple of months on the road honing his act with his No Apologies tour before hitting the stage for the Manchester faithful. No word at the moment on if Chris will also be one of Phil’s friends. Read on for a full list of dates…

We’re taking a page out of Tabitha Soren’s book for the theme of today’s Pullin’ Tubes. We figure she’s been out of work for some time now, so she can help us highlight some Buzz Bin worthy clips making the rounds. Plus, we always thought she was much cuter than Serena Altschul and Adam Curry. These are a few of the coolest tunes and their respective videos making the rounds off some recent album releases. Sadly, you won’t see them on MTV these days.

Our fearless leader Ace may have stepped down from the podium, but rest assured we haven’t forgotten where we came from. Check out this sick promo video for Marco Benevento’s Invisible Baby, set to the music of Bus Ride. If Reed Mathis’ head banging doesn’t get you pumped up, we simply can’t help you. Read on for videos by Marco Benevento, moe. and Matt Costa…

Back in the late ’70s a new style of music called 2 Tone originated in England. 2 Tone music combines groovy reggae beats and catchy pop melodies with a whopping dose of punk snarl. No one played 2 Tone quite like The Specials. The Specials took what some of their contemporaries were doing to the […]

We Brave Bee Stings and All begins and ends like it may be a simple twee pop album. Both songs have a thin, light pop sound that could be mistaken for a novelty. What happens between those two songs, however, is anything but.

n today’s modern digital downloading/streaming age of MySpace, iTunes, and Amazon providing listeners snippets and downloads of single songs, the concept of an "album," for many, has lost its plot. Believe it or not, there are still a few artists who are present their art through the musical translation medium of an "album." Philadelphia’s Trolleyvox is one of those few

Bonnaroo has announceed that legendary comedian Chris Rock will perform at the 2008 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. Rock will do a special one-hour set on the What Stage, Bonnaroo’s biggest. The audience  for this performance will be one of the largest ever for a comedy show. 

Recording rock concerts can be a hit or miss proposition. Sometimes the elements are just right for a taper to pull a perfect recording. Other times various factors lead to a tinny tape that just isn’t worth the trouble. Often new sources of a show turn up that puts what you have in your collection to shame.

This week’s Grousing The Aisles looks at a couple of recordings that are huge upgrades over the sources that previously circulated. One of the shows took place last month, while we recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of the other concert. Let’s jump in…

Phish 12/30/1997 FOB DAUD [FLAC, MP3 Pt.1 Pt.2]

December 30 was always a special day for a Phish show, but the concert the band played on that date in 1997 was some next level shit. The band blew past the union deadline by nearly an hour, during which they staged the best encore they ever played. Up until now mediocre sounding audience recordings were the only way to hear the madness that ensued that evening. Just this week an incredible version of this concert finally surfaced over at bt.etree offering a listening experience that put me right back in the world’s greatest arena. Read on for more about this show, a Mars Volta bootleg and links to five terrific soundboards…

If you didn’t get to see The Police last year during either of their U.S. tours, you’ll get one more chance before they call it quits. Billboard reports that Sting, Stewart and Andy will return to North America on May 1 for 30-odd dates in May and July, with a 15 show run in Europe […]

Just when we thought that promoters realized the marketplace for festivals was saturated as fuck, another one was announced today. The Rothbury Festival will take place July 3-6 at the Double JJ Ranch in Rothbury, Michigan. We were ready to bash the promoters (AEG and Madison House), but we’re kinda taken with the lineup and the lodging options they’ve offered up.

The headliners that appeal to us are Phil Lesh and Friends, Widespread Panic, Snoop Dogg and Primus. We can’t wait to see Snoop D-O-double G finally get his groove on at a hippie jam festival. John Mayer and Dave Matthews are also playing, so there should be plenty of women at this event. Other noteworthy acts scheduled to play Rothbury are Gomez, Zappa Plays Zappa and Modest Mouse. The former members of Phish have been noticeably absent from the festival lineups announced thus far in 2008, until now. Both Mike Gordon and Jon Fishman will be heading to Michigan. Gordon presumably with his solo band, and Fishman as a special guest of Yonder Mountain. We missed those guys!

As we mentioned earlier the promoters of Rothbury have offered a number of interesting lodging options. You can choose from log cabins, log homes, RV packages or the intriguing bunkhouse “party room” option. We’re not big on the camping aspect of festies anymore; so the ability to take a shower, charge our cellphones and be able to escape the wook factor makes us want to head to the shores of Lake Michigan. Early-bird tickets go on sale February 27th via the festie’s official website. Read on for the full lineup, and information about how the promoters plan to draw attention to climate change and clean energy alternatives…

We’re finally dealing with winter around here. And while I’ll probably be sick of seeing the snow the minute I step into one of those murky mystery puddles (if you live in New York, you know what I’m talking about). I was feeling a bit inspired by the weather for this inaugural edition of Mixology. […]

If you missed Sunday’s Grammy Awards ceremony – or just turned it off in disgust like I did – you can still watch the two or three good moments via YouTube. One of those who turned off the ceremony was Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein. She explains her reasons for flipping to The Wire at Monitor Mix.

We miss the good ol’ days when we use to talk about the massive snubs each year. Luckily Cracked lists the 7 best snubs, because we totally forgot about the lame version of Layla beating out Smells Like Teen Spirit for Best Rock Song back in ’92. Too bad Kurt Cobain didn’t pull a Kanye.

Now let’s all forget about the Grammys until 2009, and partake in some linkage:

• Does anyone care that the Stone Temple Pilots are back?
• Art Decade looks at a few covers of the Stones’ Paint It Black
• The Who’s Pete Townshend reveals what’s next for the band
• Pop Quiz: How well do you know your axes?
• Popdose offers the Complete Idiots Guide to Tom Waits
• The Mighty Mighty Bosstones will headline Bamboozle
• Gene Ween shares some intimate videos with us
• Yoko says O-No to an artist named Lennon
• Malnourish Your Dog: Trey spotting in NYC

Did anyone see two of our favorite critics, Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis, appearance on Late Night with Conan O’ Brien from Monday night? Kot tells the inside story of his seven minutes in heaven over at Turn It Up. If you missed the Chicagoans appearance we’ve got you covered after the jump…