You can always count on Warren Haynes’ benefit concert to be a highlight of December and from the looks of this year’s lineup, the 22nd Annual Christmas Jam should be
Penny Sparkle's release date is perfectly timed, because in many ways this album is a perfectly reflective album for the transition to fall and winter; it is an album by which to contemplate things of heady nature over a glass of something dark and swirling, a fire in the background, the wind howling outside. It is an album that pushes the listener to find a mechanism for uplift in sonically-downbeat mining of the human experience.
I can’t believe they came to Albuquerque!” exclaimed the young girl in the printed sundress. But I don’t think she was referencing President Obama and his entourage’s visit to the Duke City earlier that day. Rather, as we were standing in the upstairs bathroom of The Historic El Rey Theatre in downtown Albuquerque, she must have been talking about the true reason New Mexicans from all walks of life came together this night: Umphrey’s McGee was in town!
Donavon Frankenreiter is celebrating not only the release of his new album Glow, but his new record label, Liquid Tambourine, as well. Having just finished one phone interview, Frankenreiter graciously granted Glide another one from his home in Kauai while driving in his truck, getting ready to do some yard work.
Phish Fall Tour 2010 continued tonight at the 1st Bank Center in Broomfield, CO where the quartet just finished its second of three shows at the new venue outside of
We’re saddened to follow the news of Solomon Burke’s passing with word that keyboardist T. Lavitz passed away unexpectedly, in his sleep on the evening of October 7th. Lavitz first
Yesterday the world lost soul legend Solomon Burke, who died at the age of 70 shortly after arriving at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, where he was scheduled to play a concert.
A couple weeks back, a writer by the name of Aaron Leitko penned an endearing article for the Washington Post that posited the idea that indie rockers are embracing the jam scene in growing numbers and that “jamband” is no longer a dirty word. The article focused primarily on musicians, but also quoted none other than Rob Mitchum for comment – one of the quintessential critics at the mighty Pitchfork – who outed himself as a longtime Phish fan.
After keeping his phanhood under wraps for the early part of his near decade-long tenure at Pitchfork, Mitchum recently came out of the closet in a big way, committing his twitter feed as a channel to review every single Phish show from 1993 to present. A perfect candidate for our Writer’s Workshop column, we invited Rob to join us for our periodic segment to share his thoughts and stories about his career as a writer, the power of Pitchfork, and of course the Phish from Vermont.
Hidden Track: Might as well start at the beginning, how did you initially get the role at Pitchfork? Was that your first real music writing gig?
Rob Mitchum: I basically got the Pitchfork writing job by writing them hate mail. I was a poor lab tech living in very expensive Washington DC, and decided a good, free way to entertain myself at night was to start writing about music. I had written a few album and concert reviews for the Michigan Daily in college, but got busy with other collegiate activities and didn’t keep it up. Faced with a lot of free time (and having just read the Richard Meltzer anthology A Whore Just Like The Rest, which opened me up to entirely new ways of writing about music), I took it up again and wrote a couple practice reviews.
At the time (late 2001), there were probably a dozen different music websites I could have sent those “clips” to, but Pitchfork was my favorite, so I started there. Thinking (as many people do) that Pitchfork was made up of elitist assholes, I figured I needed to be an elitist asshole myself to get their attention, so I wrote an e-mail that basically said, “your reviews suck now, I can do better.” Ryan Schreiber, who at the time was the entire full-time staff of the site, wrote me back and said I was welcome to prove it by writing two reviews a week for him, for free. Then I had to grudgingly admit that I was actually a nice guy and very excited to write for them. My first review was the Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack, and nearly ten years later, here we are. READ ON for more of our chat with Rob Mitchum…
A few weeks back, Conor Oberst & The Felice Brothers teamed up for a California micro-tour leading up to their appearances at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco.
My Morning Jacket will make a late-night TV splash this week with two talk show appearances and a live webcast. The Southern Gentlemen will visit David Letterman on Tuesday and
