It’s over 25 years since Bruce Hornsby keyed the world in on “The Way It Is” – a hit that earned him Best New Artist Grammy and helped launch the pianist’s music into a diverse and collaborative career. From The Range to The Bruce Hornsby Trio and eventually The Noisemakers, Hornsby continues to reinvent himself with spontaneous creativity.
Tripper has more of a narrative focus than previous Fruit Bats efforts. On his fifth album, Eric D. Johnson consciously shifts to story-based songs.
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds will embark on their debut North American tour kicking off on November 7th in Toronto, ON at Massey Hall (see below for detailed ticketing information).
Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter announce more tour dates including a co-headlining run on the East coast with The Sadies. Tour dates:9/28 – Boise, ID / Alive After Five
With the full participation of original Beach Boys Al Jardine, Mike Love, and Brian Wilson, Capitol/EMI has, for the first time, collected and compiled the band’s legendary 1966-’67 sessions for
Hoxeyville Music Festival: Aug. 19 – 21
Set on 80 acres of northern Michigan field and forest, the 9th Annual Hoxeyville Music Festival proved once again that a homegrown music fest can give fans an experience that corporate sponsorships and venture capital simply cannot touch. However, one must also take heed that if the biggest festivals can be rife with organizational SNAFUs, then smaller fests can be a veritable logistical clusterfuck. As with many small festivals, the emphasis tends to fall as much on the overall experience as the music itself. To that end, Hoxeyville featured its own disc golf course, surprisingly tasty food from local vendors and an incredible a host of the best roots music that Michigan has to offer as well as regional up-and-comers and national headlining acts.
This year’s Hoxeyville Festival kicked off with a special Thursday ‘Soundcheck’ performance by Kalamazoo, Michigan stringsters Greensky Bluegrass. Those who arrived in time to see the band were witness to the chaos of fences still being erected, volunteers giving conflicting info to festivalgoers and other issues that shouldn’t have been. A word to festival organizers everywhere – if you’re going to invite people to come a day early, please be prepared for their arrival. But despite the low-level chaos, confusion and clamoring sounds of fence posts being pounded into the ground, I’d still return again and again if invited back.
Slated to play a 90-minute set on Saturday, HT favorites Greensky Bluegrass treated a smaller group of pre-sale ticket buyers, VIPs, and media to a somewhat relaxed but ultimately killer set of originals and covers. Highlights from the set included Dry County > Time (Pink Floyd cover) > Dry County, Little Red Corvette, Help! and Beat It as well as apropos renditions of Hoxeyville, and Tied Down (to Michigan) in addition to tunes from their recently released Handguns EP including the title track and I’d Probably Kill You. Mandolin player Paul Hoffman commented that they knew the names all of the couple of hundred people in attendance for the soundcheck set – rather fitting given this year marked Greensky’s eighth consecutive appearance, truly making them the Hoxeyville house band.
READ ON for more on Hoxeyville 2011…
Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe (KDTU) doesn’t have many gigs booked through the end of the year, but it appears as though they are going to make the ones they have
Great news for those of us unable to make it to Colorado for this weekend’s Phish shows – the band will webcast all three shows through LivePhish.com. You can purchase
When Van Ghost releases their forthcoming studio effort The Domino Effect, it will serve as a fitting allegory. The band is at the tipping point, the sweet spot where the grind becomes success. They have checked all the boxes: the catalog, the festivals, the press, the fanbase and the team. Now, it’s time to let the pieces fall into place and reach a broader audience.
Of all the exciting things on the docket, the development that has perhaps aided the success more than any other is the establishment of the permanent lineup. In the past, the band functioned as a bit more of a collective, but now the five-piece led by Michael Harrison Berg and Jennifer Hartswick is as Michael puts it, “the band.” This adds a challenge to the scheduling given the various members’ other projects, but it’s done wonders for cementing the sound and taking things to new heights musically.
We caught up with Michael Harrison Berg to catch up on the new music, the recent “Pick the Single” partnership with Grooveshark, the story of that curious guitar and a little fantasy football.
Hidden Track: To start, I’m dying to know the story of your electric guitar. I’ve been noticing it in a lot of pictures and it looks an awful lot like a Doug Irwin guitar. Could it be?
Michael Harrison Berg: A ton of people ask me that. It is actually called a Phiga from a custom shop luthier in Texas named Phil Gawen. It is an identical replica/tribute to Jerr’s Bolt guitar. Even though we don’t play Dead songs or sound like the Dead, it’s a cool way for me to represent for that community. Anyone who knows freaks and usually even the people who have no idea think it’s cool. It’s really buttery and stays in tune so well. I love it and have almost switched over to exclusively doing that even though I always write on my acoustics.
READ ON for more of our chat with Michael Harrison Berg…
Over the weekend, Medeski, Martin and Wood finished their month-long residency at The Whitney in New York during which they explored a number of facets of the MMW sound as
