Railroad Earth has confirmed to Hidden Track that bassist Johnny Grubb will leave the band at the end of the year. According to a spokesperson, Grubb’s last shows with the band will be its New Year’s Run concerts in San Francisco, CA (Dec. 27, 28) and Portland, OR (Dec. 30, 31).
[Photo by Lewis Cooper of GonzoShots.com]
Grubb first indicated he would leave Railroad Earth in a post to his personal blog on Wednesday. According to the bassist, the decision was one borne of a “medium-range plan that had me exiting RRE at the end of [2010]” and continuing into a career in production and computer programming.
“About a year and a half ago (as regular readers know), the flame of my creativity began lighting a different path than the one I was on with RRE,” Grubb wrote. “I’d always been pretty good with computers. I only recently realized that the main reason that I like recording and production so much was mainly because it involves using and being good with computers. It took an iPhone to spark the idea that I should take matters into my own hands and start learning how to program myself.”
Grubb writes that he accelerated his plans depart once it became apparent that Railroad Earth was about to sign a new record deal. The deal was hinted at by RRE’s Todd Sheaffer in an interview with Hidden Track earlier this week. READ ON for more on Johnny Grubb leaving RRE…
Now that we’ve had a few weeks to look at all of the photos from Phish’s Festival 8, we’ve put together our list of the best costumes at the event. It was a difficult decision as there were dozens of amazing ideas from multiple Festival 8 basketball teams to various Angry Mobs of Joggers to Pocahontas, but we whittled down the contenders to a list of ten.
10. American Gladiators
[Photo by Melany]
Thank god these characters ignored the recent version of American Gladiators in favor of the original ’80s edition. They really do look like Nitro and Blaze. READ ON for the top nine costumes at Phish’s Festival 8…
While My Morning Jacket continue their extended hiatus, they did manage an animated reunion. The Southern Rockers will be featured prominently in an upcoming episode of Fox’s American Dad entitled
Kevn Kinney’s an easygoing, disarmingly funny kind of guy, but when he gets down to brass tacks — singing and wailing away on guitar, that is — he packs quite a wallop of soul, R&B, power pop, rock, folk, country, blues and more than a little grit.
That’s long been the secret sauce for the music he’s made with Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ and solo: easy to get into, often lighthearted and even funny, but let it get to you, and you realize it’s loaded with heartbreak, wrenching drama and deep soul. The phrase “Drivin’ and Cryin'” — the band itself’s name taken from one of Kinney’s own songs — pretty much covers it. So does Straight to Hell, perhaps Kinney’s best-known song and something of an anthem in southern rock circles.
The band first formed in 1985, and why it never blew up much beyond its southeast U.S. fan stronghold is one of those music industry curiosities that just never made any logical sense. The present lineup, in place more or less since 2001, includes Kinney and co-founding bassist/mandolinist Tim Nielsen, along with drummer/percussionist Dave V. Johnson and guitarist Mac Carter.
This year yielded Drivin’ and Cryin’s first full-length studio album in 12 years, Whatever Happened to The Great American Bubble Factory.
Kinney lives in Brooklyn these days and often makes the rounds at his favorite New York country and roots haunts (his wife, Shayni Rae, runs the ongoing Shayni Rae’s Truckstop jam, now on occasional Wednesdays at the Bowery Electric). But this month is momentous for another reason: Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ itself has several gigs coming up that represent the band’s first northeast tour dates in more than a decade. HT checked in with the man to find out, well, what took so long.
HIDDEN TRACK: We don’t get to see Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ in the northeast too often. What gives, man?
KEVN KINNEY: Ha, yeah, Drivin’ hasn’t played up here — no, hasn’t played north of the Mason Dixon since we were on tour with The Who in, I want to say, 1997. I’ve been back and forth for seven or eight years — New York and Georgia — since 2001, and i’ve been up here full time for three years. We’ve been doing Shayni Rae’s Truckstop. It was me and Anton Fier and Catherine Popper and the Madison Square Gardens and others. What a great scene that was. READ ON for more of Chad’s chat with Kevn Kinney…
I caught an amazing Bruce Springsteen show this past Saturday night that was so good I was inspired to seek out some Boss bootlegs to add to my collection. Luckily,
We’ve been singing the praises of Van Ghost for over a year at this point and we were excited to come across the band’s first webisode featuring footage of the
Originally, the purpose for The Midnight Rambles at Levon Helm’s Woodstock home-recording studio – otherwise referred to as The Barn – was to serve as a way for the legendary drummer of The Band to recoup money from his mounting medical bills after battling and overcoming throat cancer. Helm’s iconic and unmistakable voice was down to barely a raspy whisper after radiation treatments which forced him into resting his vocal chords.
While he had to rely on his capable band to provide the vocals, Helm was able to return to his signature perch behind his drum kit for what must have provided a cathartic release till he was ultimately able to sing again. Over the years the legend of the Rambles have grown, with everyone from Elvis Costello to Dr. John to Donald Fagen to former bandmate Garth Hudson showing up and sitting in with Levon.
When an invite was extended to head upstate to take in a night at The Barn, as a monster fan of The Band I was salivating at the opportunity to see Levon in such an intimate and undeniably unique setting. Since I couldn’t make it out to Indio for Festival 8, a Halloween Midnight Ramble was the next logical choice. Pulling into the sleepy town of Woodstock in the late afternoon on an overcast and rainy late fall day, we were greeted to a full-on Halloween parade by the locals in the streets of the small downtown area that helped to set the tone and atmosphere for the rest of the evening.
READ ON for more of Jeff’s All Hallow’s Eve experience…
The rudimentary recording technique and amateurish quality of the audio/video content on this DVD is perfectly in keeping with the rough-hewn nature of John Lennon's performance with his pickup band at the 1969 Toronto Peace Festival. Even though the segment in which he appears constitutes less than half the running time of the disc, the Beatle's first solo performance in public is nevertheless a riveting experience to watch.
It takes more than a few hard knocks to keep Art Alexakis down. Riveting frontman and driving force behind the multi-platinum powerhouse Everclear, Alexakis has built up a devoted following based on songs culled from his own thorny past. Issues of abandonment, early demons with drugs, sobriety and divorce are all chronicled through 17 years and eight albums.
Now, here’s a book that delivers what it promises. White Light/White Heat is truly a day-by-day accounting of the band that was part of the root system for everything from glam to grunge. The funny thing is, if everyone who claimed (and still claims) to have been influenced by the Velvet Underground bought an album, their record sales would’ve been three times greater than they were … but no matter. The Velvets were too cool for this world and couldn’t have lasted any longer than they did.
