Archive: 2011

As we continue to shake off today’s Super Bowl stupor, we thought we’d turn to the lovely ladies of Those Darlins to help us get through the day. Last week, the country-punk act, who will release their sophomore album Screws Get Loose on March 29, dropped the Andy Warhol screen-test inspired video for Be Your […]

Sir Elton John will be all over the small screen this week with a series of appearances to promote…the adoption of his baby? It’s more likely Elton is promoting his World Tour which will take him from from British Columbia, Canada on Valentine’s Day to Pori, Finland in mid-July. US stops include a pair of dates […]

The Sasquatch! Festival will return to The Gorge in George, WA over Memorial Day Weekend boasting a lineup jammed packed with indie faves who are on major labels such as Wilco, the Flaming Lips (performing The Soft Bulletin plus more), Modest Mouse, Death Cab For Cutie, Chromeo, The Decemberists and the Foo Fighters.

Four-day all-inclusive passes are currently available for $285.

[via Pitchfork]

READ ON for the full initial lineup…

While the Packers take on the Steelers in the Super Bowl, our thoughts at Hidden Track headquarters turn to April 2nd thanks to two big announcements that came down this weekend. Yesterday, we found out LCD Soundsystem will part ways after a final show at Madison Square Garden, while Umphrey’s announced the date and city […]

Where previous releases found the band plodding along with ten to twelve minute meditations about murderous butchers, mysterious fowl, and shape-shifting lovers, The King Is Dead hearkens back to the earlier days of the band where Colin Meloy and company littered albums like Castaways and Cutouts with compact, yet charitably worded, pastoral folk rock.  Boosted with appearances by alt-country superstars Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, and graced with guitar stylings courtesy of the legendary Peter Buck, this album gallops along like a pleasant country breeze, projecting an aura of calmness and satisfaction and providing a concise rejoinder to the stylized grandeur of releases like The Tain EP and The Hazards of Love. 

Bamboozle Festival, the annual three-day music extravaganza scheduled for April 29, 30 The and May 1 at the New Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, has announced additional main stage performers. Adding to an already exciting and diverse roster of today’s hottest artists, newly added main stage performers will include: Alkaline Trio, Sam Adams, […]

American music fans have an unprecedented opportunity to hear two masterful groups explore the common ground where bluegrass and jazz meet when the Del McCoury Band and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band release their collaborative American Legacies project on April 12th via McCoury Music and Preservation Hall Recordings.  Inspired by the success of the Del […]

Atmosphere, the preeminent independent hip-hop duo comprised MC Slug and producer Ant, will be releasing their most realized, streamlined effort to date, The Family Sign, due April 12th on Rhymesayers Entertainment. Slug and Ant have distinguished themselves from their peers by composing albums encompassing the entire spectrum of human emotion while tethering each piece to […]

It may have been a cold night on the streets of New Orleans but inside the legendary Howlin’ Wolf, it was hot with the sounds of the soulful rocking of Devon Allman’s Honeytribe. Traveling approximately twenty-two hours just to rock Louisiana, you couldn’t tell that these guys were actually on the verge of exhaustion. Playing with an uninhibited fire, this is what rock & roll is all about. If this band didn’t cause a jolt of energy in your bones, you weren’t listening.

Let England Shake continues where PJ Harvey's White Chalk let off– not in sound but in aesthetic endeavor. It’s a daring step forward for Harvey. Dissenters may cite alienation as their key grievance for this new era in Harvey’s career, wishing for a return to the lower register singing and gripping guitar playing that characterized much of her 90’s work. In many ways, they’re not wrong to feel frustrated at Harvey’s new sound; however, reinvention is central to her artistic process, and to deny expansion is limiting and hampers potentially new avenues for Harvey’s self expression.

Bassist Mike Gordon and the rest of his five-piece solo band will be Jimmy Fallon’s musical guest on the Friday, February 11th episode of NBC’s Late Night. This will  mark Cactus’ third appearance on Fallon’s show after having performed Kill Devil Falls for the June 9th broadcast and Loving Cup back on May 13th, 2010 […]

LCD Soundsystem have announced they will retire after playing a final gig later this year. James Murphy's band will play at New York's Madison Square Garden on April 2, after which they will be "retiring from the game, gettin' out, movin' on". In a statement posted on their official website, Lcdsoundsystem.com, the band hinted they […]

You can look at a number of different periods between 1994 and 2001 as Widespread Panic’s best, but for our money 1996 was the Georgia-based band’s most consistent era. The year started off with a unique 20 show jaunt through ski towns in The Rockies dubbed Sit-n-Ski. Fifteen years later, the band has finally released […]

This May Elvis Costello will finally answer his fan's prayers by reviving the "Spectacular Spinning Songbook" for an American theater tour. Originally staged in 1986, the tour will feature a large wheel of 40 songs that is spun between songs to randomly determine the setlist. According to a press release, the original wheel now resides […]

As we gear up for the annual day of gluttony otherwise known as Super Bowl Sunday, we couldn’t help but notice the uncanny similarities between a number of players on the rosters of the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers and those of the faces you’ll find at any number of summer music festivals. Sure plenty of players let their facial hair grow out, or let their manes go uncut for the playoffs, but a quick glance at the sidelines of both teams will find as many weird beards and long-haired players as you’d expect to see at a My Morning Jacket show.

So we here at Team HT decided to pick some of our favorite players that are letting their freak flag fly, and imagined where and to whom you might find these gridiron warriors rocking out to when their season is over…

Pittsburgh Steelers

Brett Keisel

Who Is Brett: Defensive End who has become a cult hero in Pittsburgh, inspiring the Fear The Beard movement and is quite possibly one step away from being found on Passed Out Wookies if the Steelers win the Super Bowl.

Where You Might Find Him: Ever since that transcendent night at Big Cypress, Keisel has become a full on grizzled tour vet, catching as many Phish shows as he can each year before training camp. When the Phab Phour rolls through the ‘burgh for a stop at the First Niagara Pavilion (which Keis will always call Star Lake), you’ll find his dirt-caked feet in patchwork overalls raging Page side with his Lushington sign, and post-show slinging some of the tastiest veggie burritos and headiest craft beers around.

READ ON for more of our picks…

After ending an amazing tour of the East Coast, I ended up in Brooklyn to find the world had frozen over. New York was starting to resemble Hoth. Dallas looked like the Winter Olympics. Lake Shore Drive looked like a scene out of a disaster movie. My travel plans were pushed back, forcing me to […]

Tonight, Brooklyn Bowl hosts the eleventh annual Freaks Ball, aka Freaks Ball XI, featuring a double dose of HT fave Scott Metzger. Metzger performs with his instrumental trio Wolf! as well as with Hendrix tribute act Some Cat From Japan. Instrumental post-rock duo El Ten Eleven headlines. Joining Metzger in this evening’s version of Some Cat will be Will Bernard on guitar, Corey Glover on vocals, Tony Mason on drums, Jason Crosby on keys and Ron Johnson on bass. Tickets are still available through the Ticketfly.

When you look at the lineups for the 11 Freaks Ball, you can’t help but be impressed at the collection of bands the leaders of the NYC-Freaks e-mail list have put together over the years. Take a look…

I (1/20/2001): Tribeca Blues

The Squad (Charles Haynes on Drums, Adam Schmeeans Smirnoff on Guitar, Mark Kelley on bass, Jeff Baskher on Keys, Sammy K; note: The Squad’s Jeff Baskher is now Kayne West’s keyboardist/musical director/occasional producer and is probably playing the biggest venues of all the past Freaks performers)
Robert Randolph and the Family Band

II (2/9/2002): Galapagos (now Public Assembly)

Butter >>>

Northsix (now MHOW)

Robert Randolph and the Family Band

READ ON for the lineups for Freaks Ball III through XI…

Recently, I had a friend in town for the month of January.  He came to NYC on a job hunt and he got the job they wanted.  My friend was born & raised in Italy, worked with me in Paris and now resides in Texas.  When he came here, he said “Take me to some places in NYC that I probably would not think about or go to”.  I happily obliged.  The one theme that kept recurring on our food trips was hitting Beer-centric places all around the city (five in all).  Here is a recap of our tour of NYC beer halls.

[Youngna Park courtesy of NY Mag]

I have to preface this story by stating that almost every beer hall we hit was completely unplanned and the decision only came when I realized we were near one of these places.

Here are the fives places we hit in the order we hit them (over a 3 1/2 week period)

1) Zum Schneider – 107 Avenue C 212. 598.1098

Zum Schneider’s history (from their website):

Zum Schneider was opened on August 19, 2000 by Sylvester Schneider, a native of Weßling am Weßlinger See, Bavaria, and long-time resident of Alphabet City. “I missed summers in the beergarden with friends, family and people of all kinds, coming together to relax and celebrate life. Embracing those yearnings, I created Zum Schneider”.

Our path to arriving at Zum Schneider started out on 9th Ave in Hell’s Kitchen on a lazy Saturday, then made its way through: Little Italy, Chinatown, East Broadway (the hidden Chinatown), the Lower East Side and eventually we found ourselves on Avenue C.  My friend’s request for food that evening was “A place that serves good beer with hearty food”.

READ ON for more on New York City Beer Halls…

Higher Ground in South Burlington, VT hosted a Hug Your Farmer benefit for Pete’s Greens last night that featured a wide range of Vermont-based – or one-time Vermont-based – musicians such as Page McConnell and Jon Fishman of Phish. The goal was to raise money for the organic vegetable farm in Craftsbury within the state’s […]

There are probably no other musicians that can lay claim to being not only an amateur boxing champion, but also a world freestyle break-dance champ, other than Noah Francis. Part singer-songwriter, part hard rocker, part soul singer, Francis has had his ups and downs in the music world, but will release his ambitious new studio […]