As the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival gets set to celebrate its 10th anniversary this June, the influential festie is taking a hybrid of what they do each year in
Back in 2002, the large-scale music festival landscape in the United States was virtually nonexistent. So when Superfly Presents and AC Entertainment announced plans for a multi-day, jam-friendly fest, named
Last night, the National Academy Of Recording Arts & Sciences hosted its 53rd annual Grammy Awards ceremony, handing out trophies in 31 categories ranging from Song Of The Year to Best Hawaiian Music Album to Best Album Notes. While we generally don’t take much stock in who they had hand out awards to, there were a handful of noteworthy performances from last night’s telecast – Cee-Lo dressed like Elton John circa 1973 with The Muppets, Mick Jagger honoring the late Solomon Burke and John Mayer, Norah Jones and Keith Urban paying tribute to Dolly Parton with a cover of Jolene.
HT’s most anticipated performance of the night though was the impressive trifecta of Mumford & Sons, The Avett Brothers and Bob Dylan. The two rising stars of the roots-Americana scene each got to show off just what makes them must see live acts, as Mumford & Sons tore through a raucous version of The Cave, while the Avetts delivered a powerful crescendo building take Head Full of Doubt, Road Full of Promises. The performance climaxed with both acts backing Dylan for a ramshackle, foot-stomping take on Maggie’s Farm, with Zimmy front and center…
We’d like to congratulate HT faves The Black Keys, Ray LaMontagne, Mavis Staples, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Jeff Beck, Paul McCartney and Them Crooked Vultures for taking home Grammys, as well as Arcade Fire, who were the big winners of the night, walking away with Album Of The Year honors.
READ ON for a full list of winners from last night’s ceremony…
While we were smitten by the sounds of Mumford & Sons in 2010, we somehow let the music of their kindred compatriot Laura Marling elude us. Last year, Marling released
The lineup for this year’s Coachella dropped early this morning and it’s no joke. Goldenvoice put together a well-rounded bill that starts with headliners Arcade Fire, Kings of Leon, The Strokes and Kanye West and includes HT faves The Felice Brothers, Tame Impala and Trampled By Turtles.
Here’s a look at the lineup in poster form…
Coachella 2011 takes place at Empire Polo Club in Indio, CA on April 15 – 17. Tickets go on sale this Friday at 10 AM PST.
READ ON for an A to Z (or ! to Z) rundown of the bill…
Since we’ve spent the entire week recounting our favorite albums of 2010, and quite frankly you’re probably tired of reading about them, seemed like a no-brainer to end the week
We’re barely a week into 2011 and we’ve already got our first major summer festival line up announcement of the season that has us excited for the warmer months ahead. Earlier today the fine folks behind the Wakarusa Music Festival dropped a monster list of bands that will take to the variety of tents and stages over the weekend of June 2 -5 at Mulberry Mountain in Ozark, Arkansas.
Now in it’s seventh year, the jam-friendly festival will be headlined by the mighty My Morning Jacket, who are joined at the top of the bill by Ben Harper & Relentless7, Thievery Corporation and STS9.
Other acts set to head to Mulberry Mountain this year will be HT faves Umphrey’s McGee, Mumford & Sons, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, Galactic, Dark Star Orchestra, Perpetual Groove, Those Darlins and These United States.
A variety of ticketing options for the four day festival are currently on-sale, which include an early bird full event pass for the low price of $139.
READ ON for the full initial Wakarusa 2011 line up…
For the second consecutive year at Hidden Track, we concocted our innovative little experiment for the year-end Best Albums list. Instead of picking the old fashioned way – subjectively – we opted for something a little different: a collaborative, collective list that incorporates the opinions of everybody here at HT.
To begin, we devised an all-encompassing list of well over 100 nominees, whereby most everything our contributors recommended made the list. Then we invited our crew of writers to independently and blindly vote on the whole list on a scale of 1 to 20 (20 = five stars). We ended up with varying degrees of familiarity with the nominees as some folks voted on just about everything, while some just a few. From there, we deployed our egghead algorithm for rating albums: (two times the average rating) + (the total number of votes). At that point, we took the top 25 highest scores and presto: the Hidden Track 25 Best Albums of 2010. No bullshit, no big opinions; just the results.
We have hit the midway point of our week long countdown, let’s check out albums number 11-15…
15) Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record
Key Tracks: World Sick, Sentimental X’s
Sounds Like: Music for Zooey Deschanel to act cute to in her next movie
The Skinny: Forgiveness Rock Record is absolutely not an album that should be written about in just 100 words. In fact, there’s more to say than that about the opening track alone, World Sick, which opens the record with a cathartic, seven-minute space-out that’s custom made for a montage of one’s own daydreams and could easily be considered the song of the year. And the entire album flutters along with this same airy chamber pop vibe, giving off the feeling of a Jon Brion or Polyphonic Spree production, whereby each track weaves itself in and out of the mix like instruments in an orchestra, and the whole thing comes together to form a moving piece of music. Team Canada is back.
READ ON for the next four albums in our countdown…
With the year rapidly coming to a close, and the holiday season fully upon us, we wanted to get the HT Crew together for one last hang to talk music before we throw the cover on BBQ for the winter. Since ’tis the season to reflect back on what went down over the last 12 months, we thought we’d invite the gang over to HT Headquarters to warm up by the fireplace, throw some large hunks of meat on the grill and crack open a few Anderson Valley Winter Solsticeses for another rousing edition of At The Barbecue.
This time around, we thought we’d continue our year-end housecleaning by discussing our Break Out Acts of the year, which ranged from new discoveries to some acts that just hit it out of the park with a monster 2010.
Andy Kahn – The Morning Benders
Without a doubt The Morning Benders stood up and demanded to be noticed this year. Particularly on the heels of their sophomore album Big Echo & their relentless touring, the band has proven to be a force in the studio & on the road. The quartet from Berkeley, CA is led by multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Christopher Chu, whose impressive songwriting is filled with dreamy lyrics and catchy pop sensibilities. Whether on stage or in the studio the band creates a lush but airy sound tucked into a cool, laid-back vibe.
Excuses, their captivating single off Big Echo, was my song of the year after the first listen and has made it “big” being featured on a television commercial. The band is on a seemingly never ending tour, crisscrossing the States and beyond several times this year alone, opening for acts like Broken Bells, hitting festivals and headlining bills as well. Keep an eye out for these guys there’s a good chance they’re playing your town soon.
READ ON for more of our picks of the Break Out Acts of 2010…
Fresh off their much buzzed about sold out, two-night stand at MSG in New York, Montreal-based act the Arcade Fire have announced the details for their West Coast heavy fall
