Archive: 2011

Followers of @Hidden_Track were alerted by this tweet of the passing of Scottish guitarist Bert Jansch who died this morning at age 67. The founding member of the influential folk band Pentangle had battled cancer for years, releasing his last solo album, The Black Swan, in 2006. Fans and fellow musicians have taken to Twitter to offer condolences and share how much the man and his music meant to them.

READ ON for more tweets about the passing of Bert Jansch…

Words: Pete Mason

In the fall of 2010, I went to a series of concerts over a three week span. At midpoint of these shows, October 30th in Atlantic City for Phish, I became acutely aware of a ringing and slight pain in my ears. I ignored the sensations, but they persisted the next day as well. Over the next week, the ringing faded to non-existence. When I later saw Cornmeal at Red Square in Albany, I found myself taking pictures near a speaker and then felt the ringing come back, strongly. The ringing this time did not go away. I continued to see live music but kept away from speakers.

[via EarPeace.com]

In December, I contacted my doctor and he informed me that I had tinnitus, a constant ringing sensation in my ears that did not go away, and was noticeable especially in the silence before I went to sleep each night. I decided it was time to invest in a good pair of ear plugs. For nearly ever show since last December, I have worn earplugs to shows and not missed a note, not had an earplug fall out of my ear and the ringing has subsided substantially. While I have a couple pairs of ear plugs that work well, I noticed many of my friends and regulars at shows did not wear earplugs, typically because they didn’t want to miss the sound of the show. After talking to them about how the sound doesn’t get lost in the process an the harmful noise is filtered out, it seemed that the benefits of earplugs were valuable to all live music fans and sought out different styles and brands of earplugs so that others may benefit from earplugs and not succumb to tinnitus, or worse, hearing loss.

I interviewed Dr. Michael Devito, an ear, nose and throat specialist, or Otolaryngologist, practicing in the Capital District area of New York regarding hearing protection, benefits of earplugs and what can happen without proper hearing protection. “Tinnitus is a subjective noise that some people describe as a motor running, a high pitch, etc…, but because it is subjective, there is no real objective way to solve it, and thus, treatment is difficult. It was originally thought Tinnitus came from the ear cells in your inner ear as they get floppy and move around, which gives a neural impulse to the brain and the sound is then interpreted as a ringing. However, instead it may originate in the auditory cortex of the brain.” Dr. Devito continued regarding the hazards associated with lack of hearing protection. “If it is continuing to ring for a month, then the ringing might not go away at that point. Hearing loss is the other concern for protracted, long term noise exposure. Depending on the music artists and your proximity to the speakers, the sound can greatly impact you. The more decibels, the worse it can be on unprotected ears.”

READ ON for the basics about how to wear ear plugs and how they can help as well as a comparison of different brands and types…

On Saturday night at Higher Ground in South Burlington, Vermont, Trey Anastasio and his current septet took the stage for their first show of the season. While Phish has only debuted one new Anastasio song in 2011, Steam, Trey’s solo band unveiled two new songs at Higher Ground featuring a pair of the songwriters he’s […]

Having just watched PJ20 this past weekend (it’s available On Demand for $6.99), I’m happy to say it crushes every expectation and more. The documentary captures the Seattle scene from a likeable insider’s view and spends ample time on the precursor bands – particularly Mother Love Bone. I never had a moment’s doubt, but the documentary is really quite […]

Growing up in and going to school in New York City, there was simply nothing more exciting for me than opening up the Village Voice to a colorful page of upcoming music events in the 1990’s. Before the age of Twitter and Facebook and the boom of social media, I got my fix by carefully planning my schedule off of this single calendar of events. And, more often than not that revolved around “jambands.” While the term has morphed over the years, and many of the old staples have since faded away or simply play sporadic, reunion shows nowadays, it got me thinking about whether the hey day of the almighty jamband had come and gone in the ’90s and early ’00s.

For a snapshot of exactly what I mean, let’s simply look at the city of New York during the 1990’s. After the punk and new wave movements of the late ’70s and ’80s at places like CBGB’s, for any suburban hippie kid searching for the next mind-altering rock improv band, there were a plethora of venues ot choose from – many of which catered to this type of act. Places like Irving Plaza and the Roseland Ballroom hosted mid-and larger sized acts that were well-known names in this circuit, but almost all cut their teeth in places like The Wetlands Preserve, just a stone’s throw from the Holland Tunnel downtown.

While I have traversed this country in search of the greatest musical experiences and have attended concerts in some of the most majestic venues ever built, there is still something in my heart of hearts that may rank The Wetlands at the top of that list. From the anything goes, cozy vibe (often oversold) to the free Dead Center Tuesday night sessions to the complete lack of air-conditioning (The “Sweatlands” or “Sweat Glands”), The Wetlands, as it is simply and affectionately known, opened my eyes, and more importantly my ears, at over roughly the 400 shows I saw there from ’94 through September 2001, when its final schedule was thrown off by the 9/11 attacks and its close proximity to the Twin Towers. It was due to close anyway after a lease dispute, but the “official” final show taking place on the evening of September 10th made the venue’s legacy even more magical after DJ Logic, Mike Gordon and friends played until near sunrise and actually saved a few of my friends lives who missed work downtown that fateful morning. READ ON for the rest of Postcards From Page Side…

With a careful editing eye and a reinvestment in the tools that made him so innovative as a male singer-songwriter, Howie Day can really go far again, despite the many blunders of recent memory.

Alex Schaaf recorded his debut album, The Mistress, alone in his Wisconsin bedroom. Under the moniker Yellow Ostrich, Schaaf’s music has the intimate feeling of poetry reverberating off the four walls of his confined space. The minimalist song structures use instruments to fill in gaps in the open-ended tracks. An occasional thud of a kick drum or piano chord have a jarring effect, seeming out of place with the flowing vocal melodies, but it is those vocals that provide the meat of the album.

Matthew Ryan’s 13th album, I Recall Standing As Though Nothing Could Fall (2011) continues to genre define, while evolving with the spare music accompaniment that accompanies Ryan’s raw lyrics.  Ryan said it best about his lyrical motivations in this interview with Glide – “I’m just documenting the life and observations of a fairly intelligent human that has a stubborn belief that we’re capable of so much more.”

Folk singer and Pentangle founding member Bert Jansch has succumbed to lung cancer after a long battle with the disease. He was 67. Jansch was considered by many to be one of the great Scottish bards, with several critics calling him the British Bob Dylan. During the height of the folk movement in the 1960s, […]

Taj Mahal Trio @ Brooklyn Bowl, Sept. 20 Photo and Words: Grace Beehler With a 50-year musical career under his belt, Taj Mahal and his band – Kester Smith on drums and Bill Rich on bass – took to the stage at the Brooklyn Bowl in late September with an arsenal of nearly perfected country […]

Sipping a cold beer and enjoying a Mike Gordon show at the Paradise in Boston in 2010, I had to scratch my head when Mike leaned into the audience and passed a young lady a small square device. After a moment of pointing and perhaps a word or two of instruction, a new groove blared from the stage and the band kept turning on a dime as the sounds continued to shift.

I turned to someone nearby and asked, “What the heck is that?” He nonchalantly answered, “Oh, that’s just Mike’s Kaossilator.” Curious when that was, I went home and Googled it and ended up buying one a few weeks later.

So what exactly is a Kaossilator and what can it do?

READ ON for more on the Kaossilator…

Trey Anastasio’s first solo show of the season took place at Higher Ground in South Burlington, Vermont on Saturday night and as of press time no audience recordings have surfaced. Considering the benefit performance was held in the heart of Phish Country, the lack of an audience recording is very surprising. Thankfully Trey and Nugs.net […]

Of the 25+ songs Sting performed from throughout his career at Saturday’s 60th birthday bash, The Police classic Demolition Man was nowhere to be found. The man born as Gordon Sumner righted that wrong last night, when he stopped by the Ed Sullivan Theater to perform the Ghost In The Machine tune augmented by a […]

We keep our eyes peeled for new tour dates announcements each week and compile them on Tuesdays for this handy column… Last year, former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters celebrated the 30th anniversary of The Wall by mounting an extensive world tour, that was touted for its updated multi-media presentation of the iconic album. Last week, […]

On a beautiful weekend in Canton, MA, more than 20,000 optimists gathered for a two-day music and fundraising festival hosted by Life is good®, a Boston-based company that spreads the power of optimism through its colorful collection of apparel and accessories and through its social mission to help kids overcome life-threatening challenges.  Drawing families and […]

Our quick, random stabbing of new albums

While they could continue to deliver solid sets of songs constructed in their conventional paradigm, their willingness to experiment and travel in new directions with their latest record– and do so successfully– both reinvigorates their catalogue and shows that they still have plenty to say, and it’s worth listening in.

The Mickey Hart Band has announced a 14-date tour to kick off in Eugene, OR at the McDonald Theatre on November 30th, concluding December 17th in Chicago.  In August, Hart’s new band debuted to packed houses in New York and San Francisco.  The line up for Hart’s new band features vocalists Crystal Monee Hall and […]

The legendary KATE BUSH will release a brand new studio album 50 Words For Snow on Anti-Records on November 21, 2011. The new album features a small number of special guest musicians including Elton John, Andy Fairweather Low and, on the title track, the British writer/broadcaster/raconteur Stephen Fry. The album features 7 new tracks set […]

Active Child, the musical project of choirboy-turned-indie-pop musician Pat Grossi, is proud to announce he will be hitting the road with electronic artist M83 for a series of dates beginning on Oct 28 in Washington, D.C. Having just recently wrapped up a successful headlining tour, Active Child will join M83 on a series of dates […]