As we previously reported, the Gorillaz have been celebrating the holidays with an advent calendar on their website, which each day revealing exclusive band-related content. With just ten days to
This year’s batch of live concert DVD releases was more about quality than quantity. While there weren’t dozens of releases from the bands we love like last year, the DVDs that did come out make up for the lack of numbers. For this week’s B List, I continue a long-standing tradition of detailing my favorite concert DVDs of the year. I’ve included a taste of these releases, except the Avett’s DVD, so you can get a feel for these outstanding videos.
10. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band – London Calling
If 2009 was indeed the last year for the E Street Band, what a year it was. One of the highlights of ’09 for The Boss and his long-time backing band was a headlining set at London’s Hard Rock Calling in Hyde Park. London Calling contains 26 tracks from throughout Springsteen’s career as well as a few cool bonuses such as a memorizing version of The River from Glastonbury. As you’ve probably inferred from the title, the DVD contains a scorching cover of London Calling by The Clash that starts this release out right.
READ ON for my Top Nine Concert DVDs of 2010…
7 Walker's chemistry was magical, both the old and new material came alive, and the intimate setting put the audience right in the middle of it. For Papa Mali, this band might be the greatest project he had been a part of. For Matt Hubbard, it’s a great opportunity to showcase the music scene his talents. For George Porter Jr., it’s a chance to explore a whole new sound. For Bill Kruetzmann, it has already proven that there is surely life after The Dead.
[Originally Published March 26, 2009]
I’ll never forget the day late Grateful Dead keyboardist Brent Mydland passed away in 1990. I was playing hockey at Camp Westmont when a bunkmate’s brother came down the hill to tell us Brent had died. Now, I’ll be honest – I didn’t know a thing about the band at the time, but I wanted to find out. One of my Deadhead counselors turned me onto David Gans and Peter Simon’s well-written biography of the band, Playing in the Band,
Over the past twenty years, I’ve read a number of books on the Grateful Dead and some are spectacular and some aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. The latest tome on the band – Peter Conners’ Growing Up Dead: The Hallucinated Confessions of a Teenage Deadhead
10. Skeleton Key – David Shenk, Steve Silberman
I’ll never forget David & Steve’s book as the first time I ever saw the phrase 4:20. Skeleton Key offers bite-sized tidbits on phrases that are part of the Deadhead vocabulary – such as 4:20 – among its 400 pages of history, lore, and interviews about the band.
READ ON for nine more of Scotty’s favorite books on the Dead…
In an age of Facebook, Twitter and any number of social media outlets capable of documenting the minutia of your day to day life, sometimes something as simple as the lost art of the phone call serves as the best way to connect with someone on a personal level. For their latest social activism campaign, HeadCount is doing just that by taking a back to basics approach in order to remind people to head to the polls to exercise the Constitutional right to vote in next Tuesday’s mid-term elections.
The non-partisan organization, that was founded in 2004 by Andy Bernstein and Disco Biscuits bassist Marc Brownstein, and has helped register over 175,000 people, has enlisted a impressive roster of musicians from the indie to jam world, that includes Jim James (MMJ), Willie Nelson, ?uestlove, Matt Berninger (The National), Jon Fishman (Phish) and Warren Haynes (ABB, Gov’t Mule) to not only pre-record reminder messages, but also make live personal calls to a select number of the approximately 25,000 people who have made a “Pledge to Vote” via HeadCount.
In a media conference call yesterday to talk about the inventive initiative, HeadCount board member Bob Weir (Grateful Dead/Furthur) stressed the importance of a “Vote For You” mentality, saying that young people need to take the future into consideration and participate instead of letting a bunch of “crusty old folks” made the decisions that have direct impact on their lives and those of future generations. Weir, who joked that his call list was so large he better get to work on it immediately, said that would seize the opportunity to talk to people to help figure out where the organization’s efforts will be centered in the future.
READ ON for more from HeadCount’s conference call…
Furthur, the new vehicle for music exploration featuring Phil Lesh and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, just recently brought summer to a close with a swing of dates up and down the Pacific coast. After two nights in Oregon and another in Washington, the band headed to Southern California, playing the Santa Barbara Bowl and Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre on September 20th and 21st. For those who showed up for the band’s SoCal gigs, it was two nights of fantastic musicianship celebrating the Grateful Dead’s legacy, as well as a beautiful present and promising future.
Looking back on the early 1990s in Grateful Dead lore, it’s easy to understand why some folks view this as a less than heroic era for the band. Between the death of Brent Mydland in July of 1990, rumors of Phil quitting the band earlier that year and the transition into the Vince Welnick/Bruce Hornsby keyboard era not being met with entirely open arms, the bigger stories took precedent over the individual evenings.
However, when taken out of the broader context, some effortless digging uncovers countless gems from 1990 and 1991, as the band pulled out a lot of stops in the form of playful setlists, choice covers and impromptu jams. This edition of Bust Outs* hits on those high notes.
* Last Bust Outs [354 days]
It’s a Bullshit Lie! – Cal Expo, CA, 6/10/90
Let’s just clear one thing up right off the bat.
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/gd90-06-10d1t04_64kb.mp3]Stir It Up Jam – Capital Centre, Landover, MD, 3/21/1991
This is quintessential Bruuuuuce. In lockstep with Phil, Hornsby leads the band through a festive, uplifting improvisation on Bob Marley’s household tune, which didn’t culminate in anybody taking a crack at the lyrics, but this works better as just a jam anyway.
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/gd1991-03-21d2t05_64kb.mp3]READ ON for more Early ’90s Grateful Dead Bust Outs…
The timeline for Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn) is a bit more complicated than most Cover Wars because while the song was written by Bob Dylan, Manfred Mann officially released their cover of it two years before it would appear on Bob Dylan’s album Self Portrait. The song was written and first played with The Band during the recording sessions for The Basement Tapes, but the version penned during that session would not be released until 1985 as part of the Biograph release. Further complicating things, when Manfred Mann recorded the song they simply titled it Mighty Quinn. The song gets named a LOT of different ways.
The Contestants:
The Britpop band Cornershop released this cover on their 2009 release Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast. The entire album is recommended listening, and if you like what you hear, be sure to give their 1997 album When I Was Born For The 7th Time a listen as well.
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/quinncorner.mp3]Video from the Godiva Festival this year:
READ ON for the scoop on the rest of this week’s contestants…
A few days ago long-circulating video of the entire Grateful Dead show from Boston Garden on September 24, 1991 was uploaded to YouTube and I’ve been enjoying the hell out
After kicking off the second leg of their summer tour with a three-night stand in Berkeley, the members of Phish moved on to another beautiful venue – Town Park in
