2009

In the spring of 1992, I entered a radio contest on KGON here in Portland. The deal was, Spinal Tap was coming to town. Now, Spinal tap tours are scarcer than The Who Farewell tours, but this contest had a twist.

Anyone who has seen the 1984 mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap would be familiar with the concept of the disappearing drummer. From tragic gardening accidents to excessive explosives, the throne behind the skins seemed cursed. So the concept put forth by the morning drive time team of Dave & Tom was to have an emergency percussion unit standing by in case the Tap’s touring drummer at the time (a back from the dead Mick Shrimpton in this case) didn’t survive the evening’s pyrotechnics.

Contestants who got through on the phone lines were pitted against each other in a drum-off each morning, the winner getting a pair of drum sticks as well as tickets to the show. The grand prize winner, chosen by another final drum-off the Friday before the show, would be feted to dinner, a limousine ride to the show, backstage, the whole enchilada. I had a trick up my sleeve for the final. Two thin screwdrivers for drum sticks and two ceramic coffee mugs for cymbals. A little razzle-dazzle into the phone on the desk and I held the title of Emergency Percussion Unit for Spinal Tap.

READ ON to find out how A.J. did and his thoughts on a recent show…

CLICK THROUGH for a quiz to test your knowledge of Indie Rock

The Dead – Sugar Magnolia (Live on Letterman)

Back in March, Ray LaMontagne performed Trouble and You Are The Best Thing for his debut appearance on NBC’s Saturday Night Live. That episode will be repeated, with guest host

The Dead are coming to the NYC-area tomorrow and will be in town through Wednesday night. They kick things off at the Nassau Coliseum before moving over to a sold

Now that Phish is back together, it’s easy to discount the band member’s solo projects, but you’d be missing out on a lot of good music. For reasons we still don’t understand, Phish’s management doesn’t allow the Live Music Archive to host audience recordings of shows by Phish or the members of the band. Thankfully, a collection of Etree tapers/collectors including Ned Struzz and jmaneval have been seeding torrents of Trey Anastasio solo recordings at a fast and furious pace over at bt.etree.org.

To keep you satiated until Phish kicks off their first post-Breakup tour at Fenway Park, we’ve put together a list of ten killer Trey recordings that are available through bt.etree.org. Many of these torrents don’t get much action, so it might take you a little longer than normal to download one of these shows, but good things come to those who wait.

1. 70VP: Midwest Soup – This compilation of some hot soundboard tracks from Trey’s Fall Tour 2005 was recorded by Garry Brown and Ben Collette and compiled by Ben Collette. Highlight: Spin Jam

2. TAB: 05/25/2002 – Trey played a couple of fantastic shows at the Mountain Aire Music Festival in 2002 both of which featured fun sit-ins. On May 25th, Big Red invited Derek Trucks up to jam on Cayman Review and Night Speaks as well as the Extra Action Marching Band for the In The Wee Wee Hours encore.

3. TAB: 03/03/2001 – Ernie’s first tour after Phish went on a hiatus is arguably the best TAB run of all-time. This newly-circulated show, recorded Front Of Board, contains a masterful 23-minute Sand and a number of well-played covers including It Makes No Difference, Mellow Mood and Signed Sealed Delivered.

READ ON for seven more Trey shows you need to add to your collection…

After spending the last week denying rumors that he was having an affair with a Monmouth County woman, you know Bruce Springsteen couldn’t wait to get back on stage to