December 2010

While working at a deli during college, somebody once gave me a great piece of advice. We were screwing around and trying to devise ideas for tasty new sandwiches when this particular gentleman said, “Just make what tastes good to you. If you like it, other people will too.”

In retrospect, it’s a pretty obvious statement, but it really stuck with me as over the years I’ve come to realize that it applies to many other art forms beyond that of crafting a delicious sandwich, not the least of which is music. Sure, different people have different tastes, but by and large, if something is of high quality, it’s logical that it will likely be perceived that way by a broader group. So, with that little mantra in mind, I wanted to point to a specific personal musical preference (and equally obvious observation) as it pertains to Harry Hood.

Harry Hood jams tend to be significantly better with heavy distortion on Trey’s guitar.

I mentioned this in passing a while back (under R in our Summer Tour A to Z piece), but today I wanted to put a little meat on the bones so-to-speak. In the 3.0 era of Phish, it’s no secret that Harry Hood is one song that has been a little slower to make its full return to grace. Upon coming off the shelf post-breakup in 2009, the band initially fumbled for a period of time in getting the composed parts down, but they quickly resolved that issue. Yet, to this day – save for a few exceptions  like the Greek Theater, Thompson Boling Arena, and MSG I – the jams haven’t quite reached that “lift off” level. You know the ones where you’re in your car and get lost in the song, only to look down at the speedometer and realize your driving 95 miles per hour and missed the exit five miles back?

READ ON for a few examples of the Harry Hood X-Factor…

The Zappa Family Trust are celebrating what would’ve been Frank’s 70th birthday by releasing a new  Anything Anytime Anywhere For No Reason At All, Again Also (or AAAFNRAAAA) compilation on iTunes.

This mix tape of sorts, which is the third in a series of Birthday Bundles, starts out with a cover of Willie The Pimp performed by Ahmet Zappa with DMC (Run DMC), Talib Kweli and Mix Master Mike. Ahmet also takes the lead on his dad’s Bobby Brown, which is the second track on the mix. Frank himself also is featured on a number of the tracks including live takes on Treacherous Cretins, City of Tiny Lites, My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama, Jumbo Go Away and Stairway to Heaven.

Filling out AAAFNRAAAA 2010 is a cover of The Torture Never Stops by Robert Trujillo of Metallica and his wife Chloe, Macy Gray’s version of Your Mouth, multi-instrumentalist Holland Greco’s take on Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance and live cuts from Zappa Plays Zappa. The Frank Zappa AAAFNRAAAA Birthday Bundle is available at iTunes for $11.99.

READ ON for a full track list including personnel on each song…

2010 was a big year for 7 Walkers as the band, which features Bill Kreutzmann of the Grateful Dead on drums, Papa Mali on guitar, George Porter Jr. on bass and multi-instrumentalist Matt Hubbard, set off on multiple successful tours and put out a critically acclaimed self-titled debut album.

[All photos by Rob Chapman]

7 Walkers’ latest tour came to a close on Sunday at City Winery in New York, where photog Rob Chapman was on hand to capture the action. READ ON for a gallery of Rob’s photos from 7 Walkers at City Winery…

People like to discount Wikipedia for being a source of misinformation, but I’ll tell ‘ya, a quick read of the page for Ain’t No Sunshine nets you some pretty damn good factoids on this 1971 Bill Withers classic. 1) Produced by Booker T. 2) Donald “Duck” Dunn plays the bass 3) Withers was working at a factory making toilet seats when he wrote the song. Okay, #3 they claim to have a source for from Rolling Stone but the link is broken, but I *want* to believe them. I’m sure it’s true. Anyway, literally hundreds of people have covered Ain’t No Sunshine, a search of allmusic.com brings you 1,456 results. What we’ve got below is 10 renditions we think are worth a listen.

The Contestants:

This same Buddy Guy album (Bring ‘Em In) appeared two weeks ago in the I Put A Spell On You Cover Wars. Carlos Santana joined Guy on that cover while Tracy Chapman joins him on this one. This cover features an early key change, multiple vocalists, horns – the whole nine yards.

[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/buddysunshine.mp3]

READ ON for the audio and video of nine more Ain’t No Sunshine covers…

[Originally Published: May 11, 2010]

“I might choose not to risk my life for an uncertain cause. I might think that freedom won by death is not worth having. In fact…”

Yeah. I know. If you think I’m forgetting about writing about Heath Ledger, who stars in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus as a truly fucked-up passenger on board the Quadruple-Faced Traveling Circus, you just need to tune in to the next edition of Hidden Flick, which will cross the line between the living and the dead—focusing on his final surreal role on the large cinema screen. An extraordinarily gifted actor gone too soon…lost to the sands of time…faraday…far, far away.

Ahhh…but we’re here for a special purpose, aren’t we? This is season four where everything gets weird. Hidden underneath it all, the three-seasoned layers of cinematic strange bliss is that feeling that something else is going on here—that a pursuit of the next film to see, that one little thing that will be so very interesting to a handful of heady peeps, is somehow not the point. The Cosmic Trickster at Play? Not content to talk about just one obscure gem, we are introducing a new concept: the hidden actor in our game. This special edition of Hidden Flick will focus on the work of an actor who first began his career peaking on a 1992 Subaru commercial, segued into a promising career as a lesser actor in major and indie works, before going superfuckingnova as Daniel Faraday in television’s LOST. Yes, this week is all about our Hidden Actor, Jeremy Davies.

Hang on. The film reel is spun…just like punk, ‘cept it’s cinematic.

READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Actor, Jeremy Davies…

Cancer sucks for any number of reasons, but we’re reminded of one of those reasons today as Frank Zappa should be alive and enjoying his 70th birthday. Instead, the one-of-a-kind