Archive: 2009

While Jon Hochstat enjoys The City of Lights this week, I thought I’d chime in about one of my favorite food-related events of year – The Ninth Avenue Food Festival. On Saturday and Sunday, Ninth Avenue between 37th and 57th will be closed to drivers and open to over one million hungry New Yorkers for […]

As some of you may recall, last summer we ran a post detailing the work that goes into the upstart of a music festival. While the increasing incidence of music festivals – and the seemingly infinite corresponding announcements therein – across the nation makes it seem like an easy task; an awful lot goes into each and every one of these festivals. The idea behind this article was to befriend some entrepreneurial music fans in the infancy of creating their own festival. Thus, we met Jimmy Hunt and Wes Hight, the braintrust behind North Carolina’s Music on the Mountaintop music festival.

Continuing on with the series, we caught up with Wes and Jimmy yet again this year, now with a year’s experience under their belts, to look back at the trials and tribulations of last year’s event as well as to check in on how they plan to approach year two of their festie. Hopefully, for those interested in the business side of things, this annual series will provide a transparent ongoing look at the festival scene.

Hidden Track: In terms of scope of the project, are you looking to grow it significantly or keep about the same size? Any plans to go the camping route?

Jimmy: Well, the most exciting thing is this years festival. Our lineup is – in our opinion and all our fans that we’ve spoken – much better! This years lineup is: Keller Williams, Sam Bush, Acoustic Syndicate, The Steep Canyon Rangers, Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band, Jon Scales Fourchestra, Do it to Julia, The Naked Gods, Mike Alvarado, Uncle Mountain, The Lost Ridge Band, Hope Massive, The Moderate, Major Magick, Ample Example, Ascella Vega, Native Sway, Bafoodus, and more; w/ a very, very special guest appearance by someone which we can’t announce until closer to the date.

READ ON for more on what exactly goes into running a festival…

Hailing from Concord, NC – “a progressive city rooted in families, traditional values, southern hospitality and charm” – The Avett Brothers (only two brothers here: Seth and Scott) sailed into Birmingham, AL to showcase their unique blend of alt-country slamgrass on a mid-April’s night at the historic Sloss Furnace. With their boot-stomping, hi-lonesome/Appalachian sound mixed with impressive, earthy harmonies and texture-rich interplay, this night promised to be a culmination of brotherhood, heart and southern-fried fun.

[All Photos by Megan Case]

The quartet plays entirely acoustic: banjo, steel string guitar, cello and stand-up bass. The band’s camaraderie shows in each pluck and golden melody. The simplicity and minimalism of their stage setup is part of their draw and charm. No lasers, no fog machines, no light show, no BS. This is an enormously talented group, almost alarmingly so. Blood runs deep, as does the compassion, love and tenderness.

Tears can fall, as they do in their warm-hearted and moving performance of Murder In The City. This song is a glimpse of the true feeling and amour that exists in the Avett’s inner circle. The key lyric being “always remember, there is nothing worth sharing like the love that let us share our name.” Blood does run deep. READ ON for more of Matt’s review of the Avett Brothers…

Wilco – One Wing (Live @ Lollapalooza)

Earlier this week, the Dave Matthews Band announced they would be celebrating the release of their new album, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, by performing at the Beacon Theatre on June 1st for a concert that will be televised live commercial-free in high-definition on Fuse. On Saturday, you can catch DMB’s 2007 Live From […]

The Allman Bros. Band performing at the Fox Theater in Oakland, CA on May 12th, 2009.

Like the way of other recent music magazines like Harp and No Depression, Paste Magazine might be on the verge of folding its print editions, unless it receives so much needed financial help. Editor Josh Jackson recently sent the recent letter out to its subscribers. We are launching the “Campaign to Save Paste" to raise […]

Seattle-based quintet Minus the Bear are currently hard at work on their highly anticipated fourth studio album, still untitled. Excited to expand on their inimitable brand of rock n roll songwriting and explore their existing love of audio ingenuity, the band teamed up with Grammy Award winning producer Joe Chicarelli (My Morning Jacket, The White […]

Bonnaroo Music Festival and non-profit organization Conscious Alliance announce the 6th Annual Bonnaroo Food Drive benefitting the Good Samaritan Food Pantry of Manchester, Tennessee. Last year’s Food Drive brought in 7,000 pounds of food donations for Tennessee’s Coffee County.  This year’s goal is to collect 10,000 pounds or more. With America’s food banks experiencing an […]

When you go to your local used record shop, it's easy to determine if a record is in the desired condition.  A visual appraisal right there in the store will give you a really good idea of how the record will play.  Sure, it might look clean and still have some surface noise or have visible scuffs and still play clean, but by and large, when you get it home on your turntable, there shouldn't be tremendous deviation from your expectations at the time of purchase.

When The Dead announced their recent reunion tour, the band embraced a number of emerging technologies to keep the fans informed of tour news and setlist updates. Their latest integration comes in the way of a recently launched iPhone application that “includes streaming audio from all the shows, video and photo blogs from rehearsals, backstage […]

[Rana – Circa 1998] This weekend brings the return of RANA for a rare pre-Midnight gig at Sullivan Hall in New York City tomorrow night. The Jersey-bred rockers hit the stage around 9:30 and will fulfill the rockphecy until around 11:30. The action continues at midnight with Michetti featuring Chris Michetti and Greg Stukey of […]

Not sure how we missed this one, but earlier this week David Byrne announced the release of a new live four song EP culled from performances from his current world tour called – Everything That Happens Will Happen On This Tour – David Byrne On Tour: Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno – with […]

Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood – After Midnight (Live At MSG)

Fleet Foxes scored the number one slot on most Best Album Of 2008 lists with their eponoymous debut album. This Seattle-based five-piece also knows how to wow ’em live in concert as you can hear in a crispy soundboard recording of the band’s recent Fox Theatre show in Oakland that The Steam Engine shared earlier […]

The newest release from Richard Swift is The Atlantic Ocean; delivering strings, odd poppy stabs of synthesizer and varying whacky lyrics.  The constantly plunking western saloon style piano is omnipresent to a point that teeters on annoyance.

Tori Amos has announced her “Sinful Attraction Tour” in support of her forthcoming album Abnormally Attracted to Sin, in stores next Tuesday, May 19. The tour will launch this July in Seattle, with dates across the US. TOUR DATES:07/10: Seattle, WA @ WaMu Theater07/11: Portland, OR @ Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall07/13: Oakland, CA @ Paramount […]

Madison Square Garden’s national music network Fuse and MSG Entertainment today announced they will present Dave Matthews Band live at the Beacon Theatre on Monday, June 1. Fuse, the only national network dedicated to music, will also telecast “Fuse Presents Dave Matthews Band: Live from the Beacon Theatre” in high-definition and commercial-free on the eve […]

After a legendary 2-night run in Los Angeles, that included re-enactments by stars from the film, a video greeting from Jeff Bridges, a performance by 9-year-old guitar prodigy Yuto, and roughly 2,500 Los Angeles Achievers, Lebowski Fest is loading up the ‘Speed of Sound’ tour bus and hitting the road. In addition to the previously […]

Details of the forthcoming musical project by Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse and director David Lynch have been exclusively revealed to NME.COM. Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse have written a 13-song album called ‘Dark Night Of The Soul’ that features vocalists including The Strokes‘ Julian Casablancas, Iggy Pop, Frank Black, The Flaming Lips‘ Wayne Coyne and former Grandaddy […]