2008

For this week’s B-List, a Scotty/Rupert collaboration, we’ve taken the liberty of handpicking some of the world’s finest locales where the pickin’s are ripe for a hippie festival. Some places are just begging for a few stages, several thousand hippies, and our favorite jambands. Where you ask? I’ll tell you where. Someplace warm. A place where the beer flows like wine. Where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I’m talking about a little place called…

Green Bay: Not only are the fans in green Bay fervid supporters of just about everything, but they are apparently quite skilled in coercing their idols out of retirement. Perhaps they can put those skills to work and convince Kang, Nershi, and crew to come out of retirement for a big festival group scream. You know those guys would be all about the Cheesehead hats.

Reykjavik: Of course the Sigur Ros headliner appeals, but also if the organizers time it right, this festival could exist entirely at night. This serves a dual function: A) the spun folk never have to feel bad for not sleeping over the course of 72 straight hours, because it would really be just one night and B) we all avoid the inevitable embarrassment of returning to work on Monday with 3rd degree sunburn.

Central Park: Self serving perhaps, but how fun would it be to camp out for the weekend in the middle of Central Park with bands set up throughout the horticultural masterpiece? Come on; throw us a bone. A lot of us poor saps in New York don’t have cars, so it’s getting tricky to make it to many of the good festivals without spending multiple thousand dollars. Besides, parking will be a snap for the rest of you.

Fallujah, Iraq: Maybe the Sunnis and Shiites can come together over a game of hacky sack while listening to the latest String Cheese Incident side project. We just want to see Michael Franti say “How ya feelin’, Fallujah?” READ ON…

I woke up with a huge smile on my face when I realized today is the day I’ll finally get to see Trey rip shit up on the ‘Doc for

I ended part one of my Newport Folk Festival review discussing Jim James’ sublime sit-in with She & Him during the mother of all rainstorms. That wasn’t James only cameo of the weekend, as he also sang Dylan’s Goin’ To Acapulco with Calexico on Sunday afternoon. I love that JJ fully embraced the Newport Folk Festival and stuck around for all three days, unlike Trey Anastasio who took off mere minutes after his set ended.

[Photo by Drew Granchelli]

While Jim James’ sit-ins were outstanding, the highlight of the whole festival was his solo set on Saturday afternoon. Just as the rain was dying down My Morning Jacket’s lead singer treated the soaked crowd to an fan-fucking-tastic performance that mixed old favorites with a couple’a gems from Evil Urges. Jimmy also busted out a scintillating cover of Gil-Scott Heron’s When You Are Who You Are that had many in the audience scratching their noggins trying to figure out what tune they were hearing.

JJ paced the set fantastically moving from new tune to old tune and back again. M. Ward added backup vocals and a second guitar to Wonderful (The Way I Feel), Golden and Look at You, which gave each tune some nice depth. James’ voice was in fine form throughout the set and the crowd cooperated by remaining extremely quiet in awe of what they were witnessing. My favorite part of the set was the final tune: Z’s Anytime. I didn’t imagine that a solo version of that tune would sound so good. JJ eschewed use of his guitar in favor of an Omnichord, which he worked to perfection on Anytime. Once he finished singing Anytime Jim pressed a few buttons on the Omnichord which increased the tempo of the beat and ran off stage. It was a weird ending to a marvelous set. READ ON for more…

We asked Claude Coleman for more information about his departure from Ween and we received this press release from the drummer: A multi-instrumentalist best known for his chameleon-like and acrobatic

When you’re onsite at a festival as delectably lively as the Gathering of the Vibes, inevitably a few cool trees get lost in the broad expanse of the forest. With

Yesterday Scotty gave us the first part of his three part Newport review, but Luke Sacks also attended Saturday’s festivities and offers his opinion:

The Newport Folk Festival holds a special place in the history of rock and roll and conjures up some great imagery. After all, Bob Dylan plugged in and changed the course of music forever at the festival back in 1965. Dylan was almost booed off the stage during his performance that year but since then, the music landscape, and that of the festival, which has been around since 1959, have both changed drastically.

[Photo by Drew Granchelli]

This year’s festival was heavy on the rock but light on the folk as far as the bigger acts went. Aside from some rock musicians playing solo acoustic sets of their electric songs, there weren’t many folk elements to be found in the music. There was plenty of mellow acts – She and Him, Richie Havens, Son Volt and the Cowboy Junkies to name a few – but no big folk name. READ ON for more…