August 3, 2010

Our Jam Cruise Files column continues today as we chat with recent Jam Cruise 9 addition Joel Cummins. Joel has either been on or been at the dock for every single Jam Cruise. The Umphrey’s McGee keyboardist will treat Jam Cruise 9 attendees to a set of UM music arranged for solo piano.

Joel Plays Orfeo in Downtown Denver

Hidden Track: You’ve seen the growth of Jam Cruise from a small boat for the first trip to last year’s cruise on the massive Poesia. Do you feel the sense of intimacy and community has been compromised at all?

Joel Cummins: The intimacy of the experience is still definitely there. Here’s the thing, when you have four or five different stages and you only have 2,500 fans attending, you figure at the most there are 2,000 people out watching music, maybe 1,000 people at the main stage and 750 in the theatre at peak times? That’s like watching a show at a small venue. And the trade off for having real production on the stages is where its at.

I loved the smaller boats, but we couldn’t have a real stage, a real PA or a real light show on any of those boats. The fans are getting a much better experience all the way around and I still have no problem seeing and finding my friends. Plus, I think about 50% of the boat now has balconies, which makes the experience that much more enjoyable.

• Jam Cruise Files 2010: Julie McCoy

READ ON for more from Joel on Jam Cruise past and future…

Gov’t Mule just finished a four-show run through the south in support of the Dave Matthews Band. Warren Haynes sat in with the DMB at least once at all four

A fresh batch of artist additions to Jam Cruise 9 has been announced and includes a few familiar names to Jam Cruisers. Steve Kimock returns to the boat as a

I walked through the doorway, and was hit by the sound of a Porcupine Tree song:

All my designs, simplified

And all of my plans, compromised

Further down the hallway of the grand interior of what looked like the brain-damaged home of the owner of the Hidden Theatre, I spotted the instructions to a game that never seemed to exist:

The door opens at the Rhombus, and Colonel Forbin, an aging military man, his best years fading away into the past, sees a chance in the magical land of Gamehendge for a complete state of renewal. He can also save Gamehendge, the land of the enslaved Lizards, from Wilson, the evil King of Prussia, defeat its enemies, and get a girl by solving puzzles through acts of mental and physical discovery, finding the Key to It All, and taking part in a series of epic battles.

Further along, I walked into what looked like a refurbished hospital room. Simplified, I appeared to be in some lost kingdom, a lost continent, with hidden and lost secrets, which only games, wedded to music, could explain. Alas, there were no games, no music, just a film flickering on the wall of this room. Further down, further along, I sat down to gaze at its cryptic images amidst a counterpoint of harmonies, heavy and soft, tight but loose. Ahh…sweet strands with a clenched fist that always seems to play as if its palm is open, allowing melodies and ideas to drift away from the original point, the original note, and the Zeppelin flies onwards in this week’s Hidden Flick, Werckmeister Harmonies.

Co-directed by Béla Tarr and Agnes Hranitzky, and written by László Krasznahorkai, the 2000 film was made in Hungary, and details a small town in that Central European country. János Valuska, played with quiet simplicity and engaging pathos by Lars Rudolph, wanders a town seared by the presence of a bizarre and evil traveling circus that has served to undermine the convictions of its citizens, while derailing the curiously innocent view of the universe held by Valuska, a man intent in finding the sane in an insane universe. Trickster God? Not sure. But this film espouses a powerful theory about one as embodied by the mysterious Prince, who entrances and horrifies the townsfolk. READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…

Don’t expect to see Waterloo, IA resident “Hot” Carl Herold at the upcoming Phish shows in the Midwest. Herold despises “hippie tunes” so much that he went to jail after he started blasting an air horn at music-loving neighbors according to a report by the Associated Press.

The problems started when the Iowa man’s neighbors played their music at too loud a level for Herold’s comfort on a regular basis. Herold called the cops frequently yet the music never stopped. “Hot” Carl decided to take matters into his own hands and bought an air horn that was taken from an old dump truck. The 62-year-old man blasted the air compressor-driven horn “every few seconds” leading neighbors to call the cops themselves.

Officer Stephen Crozier investigated and found a very angry Herold who told the cop he was tired of constantly calling police to complain about the “hippie tunes” coming from across the street. “Hot” Carl was led away in handcuffs after he refused Crozier’s order to stop blowing the horn.

While we found a few articles on this story we can’t seem to find any indication of which “hippie tunes” drove Herold to the brink. READ ON to vote on which popular jam band would piss “Hot” Carl off the most…

Santeri Ojala, aka StSanders, started a revolution known as the “shred video” when he changed the soundtrack to a live Ozzy Osbourne clip and inserted audio of some godawful guitar