In their first album of new material in five years, Canada’s reining family of alt-country are back with 10 new songs of moody, sweet, sad, and strongly affecting sketches about
Now as they approach their fourth decade, The Cowboy Junkies continue to interpret songs from other artists, cover songs being a long defining element of their repertoire since their beginnings
We’ve rounded up this week’s tour announcements in this handy column.
As evidenced by the varied nature of the Nomad Series, the Cowboy Junkies do a lot of genres and styles well. For those that like the meandering whims and see-where-we-go improvisation of their stage dynamics, this album is made for you.
On July 20 and 21 of 1991, Phish played a two-day stand at Arrowhead Ranch in Parksville, NY, which was part of a short tour where the band was joined
While you might not think of the middle of March as “Festival Season”, we’ve got audio from two separate festivals this week in our audio & video recap of what’s been going on recently. Jam In The Dam returned to The Melkweg in Amsterdam after taking a year off in 2009, while moe. had their first festival of the year up in Rutland, VT for the appropriately titled snoe.down.
[Thanks to OtherOneK for this week’s photo]
We also check in with Widespread Panic as they played their first live shows of the year and we listen in on some of the acoustic mini-sets that Wilco has been throwing into the three-hour shows they’ve been playing. We lead off with a gorgeous Neil Young cover and also have some audio and video from Orchestra Morphine’s most recent gig.
And we continue to take all the selected tracks, normalize them, create some simple fades and put it into one easy to download MP3 for you. Click here to download Last Week’s Sauce Podcast #4
Artist & Title: Cowboy Junkies – Don’t Let It Bring You Down
Date & Venue: 2010-03-23 Space, Evanston IL
Taper & Show Download: darktrain
As Neil Young says on 4 Way Street, this next song is guaranteed to bring you right down. It’s called Don’t Let It Bring You Down. The Cowboy Junkies perform a fantastic rendition of it. Cowboy Junkies next play April 15th in Buffalo NY.
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/cowboysauce.mp3]Video from a very intimate gig in Davenport. Read more about it here:
READ ON for tracks from Les Claypool, moe., Orchestra Morphine, Widespread Panic and Wilco…
Helpless was written by Neil Young and released on the 1970 Crosby Stills Nash & Young album Deja Vu. There are three definitive performances by Young of this tune – the studio recording, Young’s performance with The Band that is captured in both audio and video formats at The Last Waltz where drugs were involved and the third is from MTV’s Unplugged.
We’ve got a lot of renditions this week, more than I normally allow, but when it was time to cut some, I thought they were all pretty damn good.
The Contestants:
Buffy Sainte-Marie: This cover was recorded just a year after the original release of CSNY’s version of Helpless. In fact, Neil Young plays on this album but I have been unable to determine if he plays on this track. For those of you listening on headphones, crazy reverb/delay on the snare drum in the intro to this song. I’m not sure if this is intentional as it disappears once the vocals kick in. Source: She Used To Wanna Be A Ballerina
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/buffyhelpless.mp3]READ ON for the rest of this week’s contestants…
Last Week’s Sauce is a recurring column featuring recordings of shows from the previous week. Thanks to bigperm for this week’s photo.
Artist & Title: The Breakfast – Rufus>Frankly Po Zest>Rufus>Frankly Po Zest
Date & Venue: 2009-10-16 River Street Jazz Cafe, Plains PA
Taper & Show Download: Keith Litzenberger
Tim Palmieri is one of the best shredders on the scene, and you get some good evidence why in this section of segued classic Breakfast tunes. The Breakfast will be all around the Northeast in the next couple of months, they are next playing this Saturday at Red Square in Albany. Tim Palmieri plays solo tonight in New Haven. Highly recommended.
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/breakfastsauce.mp3]READ ON to hear tracks from Cowboy Junkies, The Brew, and others.
With over 20,000 miles on my Junkies odometer, this is not the first time I’ve followed a tour. Eight shows in eight days is the most ambitious plan yet, although there is a seed of doubt about the sanity of the entire trip. I felt it rooting in my gut during the slow descent into California. Hours later, the opening notes of “Follower2” will rake through my gut and turn the soil. Where doubt once rooted, there is only the emotional release of each tightly wound song of love and loss. As soon as each song ends, a craving for the next release immediately floods the bloodstream. I’m addicted.
Everything Margo Timmins does is with pure elegance. The way she glides on stage, after the rest of her band has taken their places. The way she tells stories in between songs. The way she finds a pair of eyes in the audience and sings to them. They way she sips her tea and admires her flowers. The way she smiles while singing words her brother wrote.
