Akron/Family @ The Knitting Factory, February 17
Words: Jeffrey Greenblatt
Images: Jeremy Gordon
Last Thursday night, the sounds permeating the air at the Knitting Factory’s new outpost in Williamsburg were full of long improvised jams, yet you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in the room discussing Trey Anastasio’s impending solo tour or dissecting Umphrey’s McGee’s setlist from the night before. This night belonged to a completely different breed of “jamband,” as the Akron/Family put its brand of Cosmic American music on display, to a sold out crowd, that enthusiastically danced with abandon during the Brooklyn & Portland-based act’s hour and a half-plus tour opening show.
Declaring that they had lost a coin-toss with the universe, the three-piece act, whose music straddles the line between Animal Collective’s knob turning psychedelic weirdness and the Grateful Dead’s early ’60s primordial acid-drenched material, opened the night with an impromptu acapella cover of the chorus of Marvin Gaye & Tami Terrell’s Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing. With the debt paid to the music gods, the band used the majority of the night to showcase material from the highly recommended new studio album S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT.
READ ON for more on the night and a full photo gallery…
It’s been quite a busy day for announcements and we’ve got at least one more for ya. The Dave Matthews Band previously announced that the group would eschew a hiatus
Thirteen was originally released on the 1972 Big Star album #1 Record. Clocking in at 2:35 with three verses and no chorus, it is just a fantastic tune about young love with the third verse pressing the question, “Would you be an outlaw for my love?”
The Contestants:
Leading off this week we’ve got Ari Hest and his live performance from Mexicali Blues in Teaneck, NJ. Source: 11-7-2008
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/ari13.mp3]READ ON for four more covers of Thirteen…
HT faves Phish will set out on a 18-date tour starting with a three-night run at Bethel Woods in Bethel, NY over Memorial Day Weekend and concluding three weeks later at the nTelos Pavilion in Portsmouth, VA on June 19. This marks Phish’s first tour of 2011 after ending 2010 and starting 2011 at Madison Square Garden.
Phish Summer Tour 2011 takes the group back to a number of familiar venues from the past two summers including the Comcast Center in Mansfield, MA; the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden, NJ; the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatres in Charlotte, NC and Alpharetta, GA as well as the Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion in Raleigh, NC.
A pre-order lottery for tickets to every show on the band’s docket has started via Music Today and you can put your entry in through March 4. Summer Tour 2011 marks the first time Phish has offered different prices for pavilion seats and for lawn seats at these summer sheds. While face for lawns is $45, pavilion seats will go for $60. The public onsales are set to take place on March 11 and 12.
Here’s a look at the full itinerary…
May 27 – 29 = Bethel Woods, Bethel NY
May 31 & June 1 = PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel NJ
June 3 = DTE Energy Music Theatre, Clarkston MI
June 4 = Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls OH
June 5 = Riverbend Music Center, Cincinnati OH
June 7 = Comcast Center, Mansfield MA
June 8 = Darien Lake Performing Arts Center, Darien NY
June 10 = Susquehanna Bank Center, Camden NJ
June 11 and 12 = Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia MD
June 14 and 15 = Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, Alpharetta GA
June 17 = Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, Charlotte NC
June 18 = Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion, Raleigh NC
June 19 = nTelos Pavilion, Portsmouth VA
UPDATE: Phish’s Vimeo video page has been updated to read, “Additional summer announcements will be coming. Following the summer, the band has no touring plans for the remainder of the year.”
READ ON for a more in-depth look at each venue…
While the merits of playing full album shows have their pros and cons, it seems as if the trend is still one that music fans are enthusiastic about. The latest
One of the longest running music festivals in the biz returns in 2011 with a power packed lineup. The 15th Annual All Good Music Festival takes place at Marvin’s Mountaintop
Deception is a tricky thing. Then again, to be deceptively simple also requires some sort of weird ethereal sleight of hand that is neither here, nor there. Ahhh…we find ourselves awash in a deluge of ersatz clichés, and that is never our intent, is it?
Of course not. So when one thinks of a basic Japanese horror film premise, circa 1977, featuring some fairly groovy music, one expects some dated piece of shit, no? Well, not exactly. And certainly not in the case of the little house of oddness we have come to investigate in this edition of Hidden Flick, Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Hausu.
It is important to know a few essential things about Obayashi. One, he came from an experimental film and television advertising background, meaning he was used to capturing surreal imagery in a brief moment in time, regardless of its linear clarity. Who the fuck cares about a story when you can shock someone’s psyche instead. There was the avant-garde, and then there was Obayashi. Two, he knew how to use film to make a film, which could also be a comment on the nature of Japanese ghost stories in general, the horror genre, the beckoning blockbuster mentality in the wake of the ultra-popular Jaws, and that if you went completely over-the-top with special effects done in a clever and cheap way, one may be able to get away with it if presented with style and chutzpah.
READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…
The Governor’s Ball Music Festival will take over NYC’s Governor’s Island on June 18. The initial lineup announcement came down this morning and features Girl Talk, Pretty Lights, Empire of
On Sunday night in Brooklyn, Gene Ween took part in the debut of the Noncerts series. As part of Gener’s performance, he channeled Fiddler on the Roof’s Tevya as he
Nigel Hall Band @ Rockwood Music Hall, February 17
Nigel Hall moved down from Maine a year ago, and he has been very active in the New York music scene since coming to the Big Apple. As a member of the Royal Family Records musical collective that Eric Krasno spearheads, I like to think of him as Robin to Krasno’s Batman. Then again, Hall is no mere sidekick. This guy is a star on his own. And as of this week, he is now the new keyboard player in the Warren Haynes Band [version 2.0].
[All photos by Marc Millman]
So maybe it would be better to think of this growing posse of super freaks as the X-Men: Krasno as Cyclops (silent but deadly), Adam Deitch as Wolverine (crazy deadly assassin), Chris Loftlin as The Beast (a big monster with a bigger smile and heart), Nikki Glaspie as Storm (a woman to be reckoned with). And when you throw in the rest of the Lettuce/Soulive/Chapter 2 posse you have enough characters for summer blockbuster sequels to carry us into the next decade.
Since the first day of this year, I have seen Nigel sing and/or play keyboards with: George Porter, Bill Kreutzmann & Steve Kimock, Chapter 2, Lettuce with Maceo Parker and the Funky Meters. And that’s just gigs off the top of my head. But for the month of February, he has taken up a weekly residency at Rockwood Music Hall to showcase the Nigel Hall Band [actually Chapter 2 in a slight variation including two female backing vocalists]. His one-hour sets at 8PM are attracting rabid fans of classic funk and soul. But it is the soul side that is really being shown off in this intimate setting.
Sitting at the club’s grand piano, Hall leads the band, whose lineup does vary slightly week to week, through some classic soul covers, one or two originals composed by or with co-conspirators like Eric Krasno [he either plays bass in this band or guitar depending on who else shows up] and some great re-interpretations of classic rock/pop. This week’s version of the band included Chris Loftlin (bass), Adam Deitch (drums) & Krasno (guitar & backing vocals) with Mel Flannery & Tania Jones (backing vocals).
READ ON for more of Marc’s Musings on Nigel Hall…
