The surviving members of The Monkees are heading out on a 12-date cross-country tour this fall.
A recap of last night’s Strangefolk show at Brooklyn Bowl.
Reid Genauer discusses his upcoming reunion with the original members of Strangefolk.
We have a lot of good audio and video to throw at you from last week, Furthur is back on the road for a major tour and Trey Anastasio is out on the road solo for the first time in over a year. Also Umphrey’s McGee seems to have worked their way into three different bands entries this week. Check out what’s below to see which band had a member sit-in with UM and which one took a veiled jab at either the band or the fans, or possibly neither.
[Thanks to j5brock for this week’s photo]
Artist & Title: Furthur – It Must Have Been The Roses
Date & Venue: 2010-02-06 Hard Rock Live, Orlando FL
Taper & Show Download: marcus
Somewhat quietly, Zoe Ellis and Sunshine Garcia have been added to Furthur to help out in the vocals department. This rendition of this great slow Jerry tune sounds fantastic and most certainly benefits from their addition. Furthur plays tonight at Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte.
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/furthursauce.mp3]Dear Mr. Fantasy Video from the night before:
READ ON to stream the rest of this week’s selections…
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…
This year at Hidden Track, we concocted a little experiment for our year-end Best Albums of 2009 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 around 100 nominees and populated it in a Google spreadsheet – essentially anything that anybody who writes for Hidden Track liked at all, made the list. Then we invited our crew of writers to independently vote on the whole list (omitting anything unfamiliar) on a scale of 1 to 20 (20 = five stars). We ended up with 33 voters with varying degrees of familiarity with the nominees; some folks voted on just about everything, while some just a few. From there, we eliminated anything that did not receive at least three votes, calculated the average scores, and sorted it. We took the top 25 scores and presto: the Hidden Track 25 Best Albums of 2009. No bullshit, no big opinions; just the results.
We’ve come to the end of our week long countdown, let’s check out our Top Five…
5) The Flaming Lips – Embryonic
Key Tracks: Evil, Gemini Syringes, Watching the Planets, Powerless
Sounds Like: Trent Reznor, Mars Volta
Skinny: Beware Yoshimi fans, there’s a lot less beautiful stuff this time around. Alternatively, what the Flaming Lips forgo in placating, they more than make up for with dark themes, mayhem and a heavy storyline. While at times Embryonic gets weighed down by knobs and buttons (see Aquarius Sabotage), with some fatty basslines, a heavy dousing of effects and a deeply cynical overarching theme, the Lips provide more to think about and less with which to sing along. If there’s a credit to Wayne Coyne and crew, it’s an ability to push way beyond the conventional, while somehow getting through to the conventional.
READ ON to see the final four albums of our Top 25…
Last Week’s Sauce features recordings of shows from the previous week. This week we’ll look at almost exclusively shows that took place on New Year’s Eve.
[Thanks to sonicsound for this week’s photo]
Artist & Title: Assembly Of Dust – Brown Sugar
Date & Venue: 2009-12-31 Tupelo Music Hall, Salisbury MA
Taper & Show Download: SmokinJoe
“You should have heard him just around midnight”. A few covers, an acoustic section and a fan requested bustout of Strangefolk’s Far From Yourself round out this New Year’s show from Reid Genauer and Assembly of Dust. Reid hits the road again solo for a few shows to start 2010. Catching him solo is highly recommended, I’ve said it before, Reid is one of the best screamers of our generation.
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/aodsauce.mp3]READ ON to hear highlights from many other bands New Year’s Eve shows.
[youtube]i1ej7P0KEx4[/youtube] Assembly Of Dust f. Richie Havens – All That I Am Now
Last Week’s Sauce is a recurring column featuring recordings of shows that took place the previous week. Thanks to spreetaper for the photo.
Artist & Title: BBVD – You & Me & The Bottle Makes 3 Tonight (Baby)
Date & Venue: 2009-07-15 Wednesday in the Gorge, Lewiston ME
Taper & Show Download: Adam Hudson
BBVD, that’s – yep, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. I know what you’re thinking, what year is it? Well you’re safe and sound here in 2009 and we are well over ten years removed from the swing revival (a movement that was accelerated by a GAP commercial of all things). According to the taper, the band just recently allowed audience taping. The band plays tonight at Lincoln Center in New York.
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/bbvdsauce.mp3]READ ON for more tracks from the likes of Mule and Son Volt…
A couple of months back, we told you about roots-jam-rockers Assembly Of Dust’s new guest-laden album Some Assembly Required which includes appearances from a who’s who of the jam scene.
