2008

There is a reason almost every band on the planet breaks out a cover song now and then. Realistically, no band forms and instantly has original music. So it must perfect the works of others to see if it might come together as a unit. Or at least make some good noise.

And beyond that, good covers are just fun.

For Phish, the masters of musical mimicry, cover songs were part of the fabric of the band from the very start. From well-know takes that appeared in the regular rotation, such as Zeppelin’s Good Times Bad Times, Stevie Wonder’s Boogie on Reggae Woman and Edgar Winter Group’s Frankenstein, to rare treats like Robert Palmer’s Sneaking Sally Through the Alley, the Velvet Underground’s Cool it Down and The Mighty Diamond’s Have Mercy, covers were taken seriously and seriously enjoyed by the band and its fans.

But with so many songs and so many covers in the repertoire, and the somewhat sudden end of the band’s run as kings of the Jamband world, several one-timers were left dangling and deserving of another try.

Read on for five Phish one-timers that should have seen the light of day again…and someday, maybe they will.

Chuck Myers is back, and he’s about to debunk a myth about disco music…

Okay. Let’s have a show of hands. How many of you, at some point in your lives, scrawled the words “Disco Sucks” on a tattered spiral notebook, or smiled when some schmuck on the radio broke a copy of Saturday Night Fever, or regretted snorting that line of coke from Bianca Jagger’s asscrack at Studio 54?

Yeah, that’s what I thought. Well, here’s the deal. You were wrong. Disco didn’t suck. Disco was one of the most revolutionary forms of American music in the past 50 years, right up there with rock and punk and hip-hop. Disco is music about rebellion and revolution and equality and freedom and joy and sex and drugs and having a good time when the whole damned world is trying to keep you down.

In other words, disco is music about Love.

The music you probably know as disco was what mainstream culture spit out for the masses. The disco you know was about money, not love. So before you decide you hate disco, let me ask you something… Did The Grateful Dead stop mattering because Dave Matthews sold a zillion records to kids who shop at Abercrombie & Fitch? Did the Clash become meaningless the moment that Alvin, Theodore and Simon put out Chipmunk Punk? Could a thousand hairsprayed pretty boys from L.A. destroy the ass-kickery of Iron Maiden? Read on for more of Chuck’s defense of the disco era…

Yesterday moe. announced that they will be taking a break after the 9th annual moe.down this August. Here is what they posted on their website:

This summer, moe. will embark on one of its biggest summer tours to date. The band intends to spend most of June and July on the road. The tour will begin at Summer Camp and wind down in early August. moe. will finish out the summer at moe.down 9 in Turin, NY.After moe.down, moe. will not be playing any more shows for some time. The band is taking a break with the intent of returning again in 2009. Summer tour dates will be announced as they are confirmed.

And then a member of the moe. organization then did some clarifying:

People, please relax. They just need some time off. We realize that you guys enjoy your time off from work going to see moe., but they deserve some time off work as well.

Please do not read into anything or compare moe. to other bands. A few months of no shows does not mean the band is breaking up. last fall they did maybe 5 shows in the same time frame and everyone survived, you will survive again even without those 5 shows!!

they are going to go out with a bang, playing as many shows in as many places as they can squeeze in, then go home to not think about work for a bit. When they are rested, have the new roof up, painted the den, changed a few diapers, gotten a massage, paid some bills, taught a kid how to ride a bike etc. they will return to rock out!!

melissa
moe. marketing chick

So she asked not to compare moe. to other bands…Sorry Melissa, we are going to do EXACTLY that. Read on for some hard core stat geekin’…

I think it would be safe to say that interest in mopey singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen may be at an all time high right now. Last week as the result of

We’re getting awfully close to the long-awaited release of My Morning Jacket’s new album. MMJ played in Houston on Monday night, and Breakfast On Tour was on hand to capture

The votes are in and we can say the mandate from last week’s Cover Wars belongs to…….Grateful Dead.

This week’s edition features a song so fantastic that dudes in many bands have no problem whatsoever citing the opening lyrics, “I am an old woman named after my mother”. Three-chord songs really are a thing of beauty. Wikipedia tells me that, Songwriter Harlan Howard once said “All you need to write a country song is three chords and the Truth.”

That’s all that original performerJohn Prine has here, and it is most certainly was an instant classic. Let’s take a look at a few renditions after the jump.

How does an aging alt.rock band connect with a new generation of music fans? Well if your R.E.M. you hook up a the music discovery website iLike and allow people