January 20, 2011

Normally, I find the month of January to be a pretty uneventful one in the world of live music. Bands play big winter tours often leading up to a big New Year’s Eve blowout, and the beginning of the calendar year seems to be a rest from the road. So I was surprised when I did my search of the Live Music Archive and found 84 recordings already uploaded at press time. We’ve got Cracker covering an album in its entirety (and that wasn’t the only album in that show), the Disco Biscuits getting drummer Allen Aucoin back onstage, Grace Potter busting out a MMJ cover, an interesting sequence of music from Tim Palmieri and a couple of classics from the Tom Tom Club.

You can download all of this week’s audio in one easy to listen to MP3 that we call the Last Week’s Sauce Podcast, click here to download.

[Thanks to vanark for this week’s photo]

Cracker – Loser
Date & Venue: 2011-01-14 – Highline Ballroom – New York, NY
Taper & Show Download: Barry Shoop

Camper Van Beethoven & Cracker played three joint shows last week and at each one Cracker performed their 1993 album Kerosene Hat and CVB played Key Lime Pie, their album from 1989. You can read a review of the NYC show from Richard Gehr over at SPIN.com. For the audio from Kerosene Hat, I have selected their cover of Loser by the Grateful Dead. Camper Van Beethoven [tour dates] next plays February 18th at New Parish in Oakland, CA. No future tour dates currently on the books for Cracker. The Camper Van Beethoven set has also been uploaded to The Archive.

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

Video of Low from the NYC show:

READ ON for tracks from the Disco Biscuits, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, Tim Palmieri and Tom Tom Club…

Disco Biscuits Colorado Run: 01/13 – 01/16

Words: Alex Wolff
Images: Jason Woodside

While it’s never the best idea to make a generalization, it does seem sometimes as though the entire state of Colorado is a sucker for a good party. Perhaps that’s why The Disco Biscuits do so well here. After two sold-out nights at the Boulder Theater and two more shows at the Ogden Theatre in Denver, the Biscuits continue to bring it hard in the Rocky Mountain State. Clearly the most exciting part of the whole thing for fans and band alike, however, was Allen Aucoin’s triumphant return to the drum kit after health issues prevented him from playing the New Year’s run.

[All photos by Jason Woodside]

January 13 – Boulder Theater, Boulder CO

A high-energy King Of The World got things started Thursday night in Boulder. Jon “The Barber” Gutwillig came out swinging, shredding lead lines on his Gibson with gusto, if perhaps a little tastelessly. Lasers dropped for the first time during the jam in Morph Dusseldorf, angled perfectly throughout the entire run so as to only hit the ceiling and the balcony, providing a liquid laser-beam landscape free of blinding for all. The rest of the evening’s highlights were a Lunar Pursuit that started from a dead stop, which then segued into an inverted Crickets. Bouncy, energetic and fun, for a moment it was even reminiscent of another certain four-piece improv outfit. That segment, along with a searing hot Neck Romancer were what made the show. The end of that tune is one of the better peaks that they have composed recently, and the piece truly lends itself to Biscuits jamming.

Set 1: King Of The World, Morph Dusseldorf, Vassillios >Spacebirdmatingcall

Set 2: Pat And Dex, Lunar Pursuit > Crickets¹ > Portal To An Empty Head, Neck Romancer, Mulberry’s Dream

Encore: Highwire

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[All setlists via Phantasy Tour – Bisco]

January 14 – Boulder Theater, Boulder CO

Friday night’s show saw another four-song first set. A startup jam featured bassist Marc Brownstein teasing Basis For A Day by interjecting sections of the song’s bassline, but before it could get there, they worked their way into Floodlights, which they left unfinished before launching into a rather exploratory first set. While it had its moments, there was quite a bit of meandering that didn’t go too far. What was immediately apparent despite the meandering was Aron Magner’s choice of keyboard sounds. His sound design has truly evolved, and the tones he is using these days are as futuristic, spacey and cutting edge as ever.

READ ON for more from the Biscuits’ Colorado run…

While a number of bands out of the modern day London folk movement have burst onto the global stage (i.e., Mumford & Sons, Noah & the Whale), one of the

January might be a slow period for actual concerts, but we can always count on the first month of the year to be filled with festival lineup announcements. Early this morning, the promoters of the 2011 New Orleans Jazz Fest unveiled the daily schedules for both weekends of the granddaddy of music festivals. Headliners include Arcade Fire, Wilco, Kid Rock, Bon Jovi, The Neville Brothers, The Strokes and Willie Nelson.

With hundreds of artists on the bill, no one does musical diversity quite like the New Orleans Jazz Fest. Not only does the list of headliners include legendary musicians from across the musical spectrum, the wide range of acts can also be found towards the bottom of each day’s lineup.  Where else can Bon Jovi follow the likes of The Dixie Cups and The Bahamas Experience?

HT faves are well represented by Arcade Fire, Wilco, The Avetts, Mumford & Sons, Dumpstaphunk, Amos Lee, The Low Anthem, Maceo Parker and Gregg Allman. Our friends at NoLaDefender – for our money THE best blog about New Orleans – live blogged the festival announcement, so check out this article for the local take on this year’s lineup. Tickets are currently available at the Jazz Fest website for $120 per weekend ($40 per day).

READ ON for the full New Orleans Jazz Fest schedule by day…