2009

Midlake Plans 2010 Tour

In January, Midlake, the acclaimed pastoral Indie-rockers whose song "Roscoe" was recently named "one of the top 100 songs of the decade" by Rolling Stone, will launch their eagerly awaited

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Coachella Returns To Indio April 16-18

Dates for the 2010 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival have officially been announced. The fest will take place April 16-18 in the new year, at the Indio’s Empire Polo

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Stormy Mondays: Classic Kimock

For the second in the ongoing Steve Kimock series here at Stormy Mondays, we go right to the heart of his music with the classic pairing of Cole’s Law >

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Hors d’Oeuvres: Phishy iPhone Apps

We’ve got two new Phish-related iPhone apps to tell you about and they both look pretty damn cool. First up is Phanatic which offers setlists and statistics from every concert Phish has played over the past 26 years and will be updated on the fly with future setlists as the shows happen. Also available is the iDIDN’TKNOW pack featuring five fun games about the band including Professor Mulchahey’s Phinal Exam, Phanagrams and Fuzzy Math.

Both apps are currently available through the iTunes store with a portion of sales from each going to The Mockingbird Foundation.

There’s plenty of links to share, so let’s get down to business…

Finally, The McLovins have just released a new EP entitled Virtual Circle that features the title track and Hell Yeah, both of which will be on the boys’ sophomore release come next summer. You can download both tracks for a mere $1.98 through the trio’s website.

READ ON for three more news stories of interest…

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Pullin’ ‘Tubes: Dave Against The Machine

Singer-guitarist-songwriter-producer David Rawlings is probably best known as Gillian Welch’s longtime musical collaborator, the duo have been singing and recording together since the mid-90s. While it’s been six years since

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Review: MMW @ House of Blues – Chicago

Words: Benji Feldheim

Medeski Martin and Wood have never done things simple.

The New York City trio have spent the last 18 years annihilating all the rules they learned growing up playing jazz and classical while recording and performing. Past shows see-sawed between mid tempo, raucous and dirty funk to shrieking, crashing and amorphous soundscapes that often left people slackjawed and staring. Neither side ever really took over at their concerts. MMW’s shows were in a constant state of flux.

800px-Medeski_Martin_&_Wood

[Photo by Xopher Smith]

Then they had this Radiolarians idea: write real basic roots for songs, tour, then record. Repeat twice. Now at the end of this experiment, the band just released the Evolutionary Set, a box set with all three Radiolarians albums, a remix disc, a live disc and a DVD directed by Martin. With this sizeable influx of new material to work with, the trio still played zealous and risky at their recent Chicago appearance, even while sticking to the new songs. Trying to figure out what songs the band was playing at past shows could be an exercise in desperate futility, as their sounds would snake like mercury in a blurred combination of composed and improvised music. But somehow MMW found a way to play more loosely, more at ease, maybe a little freer…while staying close to what they wrote.

With any experiment comes the afterbirth: the criticism. More specifically, critics that gave up on them throughout this recent chapter in their music by applying the jam band label. It’s not a curse word, but throwing that title on because they frequent the festival circuit and have a handful of dreaded folks at their shows paints the trio into an inaccurately narrow corner. These days, the band is not only working with their brazen disregard for melody found on The Dropper, but also with the simple fun of their children’s music record Let’s Go Everywhere. At their recent stop in Chicago, MMW showed their own commitment to even growing out of themselves and what has characterized their shows for many years by adding simplicity and more structured songs to their repertoire.

READ ON for more of Benji’s thoughts on MMW…

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