Archive: 2009

With Phish’s summer tour opener at Fenway Park in Boston officially less than one calendar month – and four dreadfully long work weeks – away, you know what that means; it’s time to play soothsayer. We all knew it was only a matter of time before the popular rock band made the step up a level to the big stadium shows, but to rock out at one of the greatest and last remaining historic ballparks in the country is, shall we say, fairly exciting.

To attend even a baseball game at Fenway leaves lasting memories and conjures up all sorts of good feelings about the good old days, playing little league, collecting baseball cards and dreaming of the making the bigs. Hence, for Phish to tackle the monumental home of the Green Monster all but guarantees an epic, one-for-the-ages nights. Hence, let’s take a little look at some possible tunes that might fit the big event.

Harry Hood – Phish

Why – While the story of Harry Hood as we Phish fans know it began in Vermont, the actually Hood Milk Company is headquartered in Boston. More importantly, the Hood blimp floats regularly above Fenway Park during Red Sox games, so keep your eyes peeled for the blimp and a legendary Harry Hood to accompany its flight. Plus, I hate to say anything negative about Hampton, but Trey did butcher the living shit out of the dark build up part right before “Thank you Mr. Miner.” It’s redemption time.

When – This could pop up anywhere, but the smart money is probably on the second set closer.

Likelihood – Harry Hood is a lock.

READ ON for more of Ryan’s Phish @ Fenway predictions…

Yesterday seemed to be Schedule Announcement Day as the schedules for the All Good, Wakarusa and Bonnaroo festivals were all released. Let’s start by pointing you in the direction of the schedule for All Good, a festie which is just about the best value this summer with the current discounted rate of $139 for a […]

Explaining the premise of this production is a chore when the person you’re speaking to is not as music-crazy as some of us. The conversation starts like this, “So it’s a production partially directed by Amanda Palmer, she was in the Dresden Dolls, and it’s got a lot of music from In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, that’s an album by this band Neutral Milk Hotel, they’re like Indie Gods, and it’s all based on Anne Frank and the Holocaust”, and all you receive is a vacant stare and you get told that you are crazy for going out to see a high school production on a Thursday night.

But for us crazies, this premise sounded extremely interesting and just had to be seen. This intriguing combination received a lot of both indie and local attention. I am glad to report that this production exceeded all my expectations. The two-hour-one-act performance begins with what Palmer’s website describes as the “Pre-show’ which was essentially 15 minutes of a bizarre vaudeville scene with a healthy dose of berating the audience.

And then the real show began, and it was real dark (they say not to bring children under 12, I’d say that’s fair). The play was written by the cast, Palmer called it a an “ensemble piece” at the conclusion of the night. The dialogue all came out of what I gather were improvisation sessions lead by Lexington High School drama teacher Steven Bogart. READ ON for more…

In what we’re hoping is a sign that Fuse plans to show some of Phish’s upcoming Bonnaroo performances as part of their coverage of the festival, the cable music network will debut a 30 minute special culled from the quartet’s recent Clifford Ball DVD release in a few hours at Noon. We’ll find out if […]

The Shotgun is a monthly column of shotgun CD reviews by Glide contributor Eric Saeger.

 Continuing the tradition of onstage collaborations; Camp Bisco VIII, the eighth annual three-day music and arts festival in Mariaville, New York this July 16-18, 2009 will play host to one of it’s most eclectic pairings yet, when Nas & Damian ‘Jr. Gong’ Marley take the stage together. The two have worked together before on ‘Road to Zion’, the second single […]

We don’t often make it out to the plethora of museums and galleries that are at our disposal here in New York City, but I think that a trip over to the Morrison Hotel Gallery is now in order as they will be hosting a six-week exhibition of My Morning Jacket photos called Still Moving, […]

In honor of Relix magazine being saved this week from what we feared to be certain death, this week’s B List pays tribute to one of our favorite columns in the magazine’s 36 year history. We Are Everywhere featured pictures of Deadheads in exotic locales and signs of retail establishments that featured popular Grateful Dead song titles or related song lyrics.

The column disappeared a few years back, so consider this a lobbying effort to get We Are Everywhere back in the jamband-friendly rag. We’ll kick off our We Are Everywhere series of B Lists with a visual look at ten restaurants from around the world that would make Jerry and the guys proud…

1. Stella Blue’s – Warren, RI

READ ON for nine more eateries including Sugar Mag’s and Terrapin…

Sgordo clued us in to this article from the Huffington Post about Trey Anastasio’s appearance last night at the 20th Anniversary of the Drug Court System in Washington, D.C. Besides giving a nice recap of the event, the article also shares a moving quote from Big Red that contains a bit of news… “My children […]

We received an unexpected taste of summer last week here in New York City – with temperatures soaring into the high 80s it created a bit of a perfect storm as The Dead rolled into the Northeast for a string of shows in and around the New York City area. After scheduled dates in Long Island, Manhattan and Hartford the band pulled into East Rutherford, NJ for the first of a two night run at one of their old stomping grounds: the venue formerly known as the Brendan Byrne Arena – now the corporate named Izod Center.

The Dead – Dear Mr. Fantasy (Live – 04/28/2009)

Despite my misstep of commuting out to New Jersey, my bus finally pulled into the lot as the denizens of Deadheads populated Shakedown basking in the warm weather and hawking the usual sundries we’ve become accustomed to finding. While some of things may have changed over the last few years – micro-brews, are now called craft beer and bootleg tapes have been replaced by a guy selling vintage vinyl records – it seemed as no one had missed a beat. With the jam-scene in a bit of hibernation over the last few years, I wondered what all these people have been doing since we last saw the likes of Phish and The Dead play large scale arena shows? It sure felt good to be roaming the isles of vendors enjoying one of the best pre-show rituals around, serving as a good kick-start to what we’re calling around these parts The Summer Of Jam.

For a band that was once known for their 1960s hippie ideology, The Dead have fully embraced 21st century technology announcing via their Twitter account and official band text alerts that their old friend, sax-whiz Branford Marsalis would be joining them over the course of their two night stand. While it may have took the element of surprise away from an unexpected sit-in, those going into these shows knew the boys would be peppering their sets with some of the band’s more jazz-infused numbers from their catalog.

READ ON for more on Jeff’s experience seeing The Dead…

Joni Mitchell – California

NYCTaper attended Sunday night’s Dark Was The Night benefit at Radio City Music Hall and has shared his recording of The National’s set. Included as a bonus track is the National/Bon Iver collaboration, Big Red Machine. Nice job! Here’s six bootlegs to keep your iPod hummin’ Nirvana: 1992-1993 – Dave’s Demo Tapes [T.U.B.E.] Spoon: 10/23/2007 […]

Sunrise in the Land of Milk & Honey, Cracker’s tenth studio album, is a great David Lowery record, but a bit confusing as a Cracker album. 

Pearl Jam have announced two headlining shows in North America, set to take place in Toronto and Chicago. The band have already been confirmed to play two US festivals- Outside Lands in San Francisco in late August and Austin City Limits, which this year will take place the first weekend of October. Frontman Eddie Vedder […]

I’ve always wondered what the real story was behind Roger Waters leaving Pink Floyd in the mid ’80s. Who knows what went on behind the scenes of Roger Waters and David Gilmour’s epic breakup better than the two of them? Britain’s Classic Rock magazine has been re-running interviews that the two rock legends did in […]

Phish guitarist and Drug Court graduate Trey Anastasio will host an event marking the 20th anniversary of the Drug Court program tonight from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington D.C. according to the Washington Post. UPDATE 10:50PM: Longtime HT commenter Oliver kindly tells us about his experience at […]

Last Week’s Sauce is a recurring column featuring recordings of shows that took place the previous week. Thanks to jimna for this week’s photo.

Artist & Title: …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – Isis Unveiled
Date & Venue: 2009-04-23 – Debaser, Malmö, Sweden
Taper & Show Download: Taper Unknown

I’ll let you in on my short-term goal with this weekly piece: I’m trying to go as long as I can, while still keeping it interesting, without repeating a band. This marks the seventh installment of Last Week’s Sauce and we’ve now featured 39 different acts. So that’s why I’m always excited to see bands show up on the LMA that you wouldn’t normally expect to see there, like this one. This track comes off the 2009 release The Century of Self. No current US tour dates, but our International readers have an opportunity to see this outfit live.

READ ON for four more tracks from the week that was…

This weekend at the Awesometown Festival in Morrisville, PA, founding GSW member Lo Faber returns to the stage for a set with his solo band on Saturday at 3:45PM. We recently spoke with Lo about what his fans can expect from the Lo Faber Band performance and here’s what he had to say…

Hidden Track: It’s been a while since the last Lo Faber Band gig, why did you decide to get the band together for this show?

Lo Faber: First of all to be clear, the players in this band aren’t the same folks from the last incarnation of the LFB – they’re the best of a bunch of folks I’ve been playing with locally for the last couple years since living in Princeton. While focused on my PhD I’ve played an occasional bar date, covers mostly, just for fun, and an occasional GSW tune… now since I’m gonna be moving to New Orleans for the next year to do full-time dissertation research, we figured it’d be fun to play as much as possible before I leave — including one or two dates actually focused on my own stuff — hence the Awesometown gig. READ ON to find out what Lo plans to play at Awesometown…

Singer/songwriter Joe Jackson does a stellar job covering Steely Dan’s Any Major Dude Will Tell You at one of his shows a few years back… Joe Jackson – Any Major Dude Will Tell You (Live)

Mazzy Star – Chicago, IL 11/12/1994 [MP3] There’s not too many Mazzy Star live shows floating around so being the fanboy that I am of this band, I’ll take what I can get. This is an amazing soundboard recording from the Cabaret in Chicago which I feel truly captures the feeling the mood of Mazzy […]