In our never ending quest to keep you up to date on the latest and greatest festival news comes the announcement of the initial lineup for Warren Haynes’ Mountain Jam.
Originally, the purpose for The Midnight Rambles at Levon Helm’s Woodstock home-recording studio – otherwise referred to as The Barn – was to serve as a way for the legendary drummer of The Band to recoup money from his mounting medical bills after battling and overcoming throat cancer. Helm’s iconic and unmistakable voice was down to barely a raspy whisper after radiation treatments which forced him into resting his vocal chords.
While he had to rely on his capable band to provide the vocals, Helm was able to return to his signature perch behind his drum kit for what must have provided a cathartic release till he was ultimately able to sing again. Over the years the legend of the Rambles have grown, with everyone from Elvis Costello to Dr. John to Donald Fagen to former bandmate Garth Hudson showing up and sitting in with Levon.
When an invite was extended to head upstate to take in a night at The Barn, as a monster fan of The Band I was salivating at the opportunity to see Levon in such an intimate and undeniably unique setting. Since I couldn’t make it out to Indio for Festival 8, a Halloween Midnight Ramble was the next logical choice. Pulling into the sleepy town of Woodstock in the late afternoon on an overcast and rainy late fall day, we were greeted to a full-on Halloween parade by the locals in the streets of the small downtown area that helped to set the tone and atmosphere for the rest of the evening.
READ ON for more of Jeff’s All Hallow’s Eve experience…
A.C. Newman & Will Sheff – Lost Coastlines
With 2008 starting to look smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror and 2009 now in full swing, we’re sure that you’ve probably grown tired of some of the
Get Guilty, Newman’s second solo album following 2004’s Small Wonder, is less versatile than any of his New Porn releases, but grows on you more rewardingly. Mixing simple lush compositions with the typical he/she vocals we’ve grown accustomed to from the lispy voiced composer, there’s a lot going on here.
With Neko Case and Dan Bejar playing live with The New Pornographers, artists that had two of 2006’s best albums (Fox Confessor Brings the Flood and Destroyer’s Rubies), the evening’s performance in Tucson could have been billed as: The New Pornographers feat: Neko Case and Dan Bejar.
Bolstered with an impressive arsenal of instrumentation—piano, strings, banjo, harp, flute, French horn, harmonica and more—Challengers, the much-anticipated fourth album from The New Pornographers, is a positive step forward in the development of a band that has continued to evolve with each subsequent record.
