The year’s winding down fast…only five hours left in this revolution as of post time.
Hidden Track has only been fully operational for two and half months, but it sure feels like it’s been at least 12 to 14 weeks. And whether you like us or you’re indifferent towards our existence, we plan to bring you more of the same brand of boredom-killing imbecility and farcical balderdash that we’ve mixed in with actual news and information since the blog’s questionable inception. Stick around.
Before we proceed with our New Year’s gift below, allow us to re-visit the good times and bad times of this year: 2006 Superlatives: A Hidden Track Retrospective, The Year In Mostly Crappy Photos, and The Four Questions.
Scotty’s in Chicago for the Umphrey’s McGeestand, and I’m taking a much-needed night off from live music. It’s been an incredible week of ticket accumulation, though. Aside from the Jets’ playoffs-clinching affair at The Meadowlands today, I’ve spent the last four nights catching five great bands, running the gamut from jazzy rock to raunchy folk-rock to acid jazz-funk to raw rock to indie rock. In honor of this little run, here’s a New Year’s gift from me to youse, a sample of all five: The Duo, Tea Leaf Green, Greyboy Allstars, RANA and Spoon.
A wonderful evening to you and yours, and feel free to drop a note in the comments section with any mini-reviews you’ve attained from the various shows about town. Take care of yourself and each other. It’s gonna be a sweet 2007…
After reading the setlists from the last few nights of Trey Anastasio’s December run, a guy I know has taken to calling this the Please Love Me Again Tour.
Alumni Blues and Sex Machine in Boston, The Landlady and Peaches en Regalia in Albany — what’s in store for Atlantic City this weekend? A Lushington bustout? A complete Gamehendge with full narration? The long overdue and inevitable Fluffhead? I’m all for the tossed in nostalgia, if it helps Trey elevate his game back to a high level. And by the looks of this video from last night’s show at The Palace Theater, these fuckers can definitely pull it off (thanks to PT for the vid):
As a point of reference, let’s jump back in time to June 23, 1989:
Anyone manage to grab a video of Alumni Blues from the other night? I’ve only been waiting more than half my life to see it live. Lucky fucking Boston.
Related video: Suck on this quasi-crappy video of Zappa’s Peaches en Regalia
The Benevento/Russo Duo celebrated five great years on Wednesday night, throwing a late entry into the ring for Show of the Year. This was a case of two pros coming back to the ol’ playground and fuckin’ around for awhile, showcasing the greatness that’s propelled them to bigger things. Our friend Neddy’s The Duo’s biggest fan out there — literally, he even got a sweet shout-out from Marco — and he was kind enough to reflect on the night, and the history.
Is five years a long time? When I think back on what my life was like half a decade ago, it feels like a geological epoch. I’m sure the same can be said for Joe Russo and Marco Benevento, who have gone from a pair of who-dats playing for free every week in a quonset hut of a venue to becoming a critical darling of the scene….not to mention play-acting as the latter half of Phish this summer, amongst other adventures and misadventures.
So, yeah, five years seems like a good time to pause and reflect. It’s also a good excuse to get shitty drunk in the dank underbelly of the Knitting Factory. And so it was: a 5th anniversary Duo party, not even in the Tap Bar, but all the way down in the 88-person capacity Old Office.
I got there a bit early, not sure what kind of zoo the crowd would be. As it turns out, the audience size was utterly manageable, and there was an incredibly friendly vibe from front to back. Unfortunately, the show started pretty late, all things considered, and standing around in a bar for two hours with a friendly crowd meant many, many, many whiskeys before the first notes were played. It’s probably fitting that much of the crowd was deep in party mode all night long…
Yet another three-day weekend is upon us, and I’m about to jet to Chicago for the Umphrey’s McGee New Year’s Run at the Aragon. Have a terrific NYE, folks, and expect even more from Hidden Track in 2007. It’s so on.
What are your plans for the rest of the week and New Year’s Eve?
Some friends and I were camped out in the Old Office of the Knitting Factory last night, waiting for The Duo to take the stage for its 88-person fifth anniversary show. The recently departed James Brown serenaded the room through the speakers, and we began to discuss the potential frequency of JB covers we’ll hear around the country this week. Of course, I’m sure some bands will shy away from re-creating greatness in favor of blasting funktastic pre-show and setbreak music, but at the hundreds of shows that’ll take place before and on New Year’s Eve, I’m setting the Over/Under on James Brown covers at 74 times. What’s your take?
This week Grousing The Aisles takes a look at performers at the top of their game. Sure, it must have been cool to see The Stones and The Who at any point this year, but can you imagine seeing these bands in 1973? As a reference point for this particular post, when you head to a show hoping not to see “any new shit,” the band you are seeing has completely passed its peak. Let’s do this…
Primus 11/17/93 SBD (FLAC)
Looking back now, Primus’ live show hit its peak in 1993 with the inclusion of the material from Pork Soda. There aren’t too many soundboards from ‘93 circulating these days, but recently this Bomb Factory show has begun to make the rounds. (There must be something about The Bomb Factory, because one of the best Phish concerts of all-time took place there six months earlier.) Primus opens with the high-energy Jerry Was a Racecar Driver and tears through Bob and My Name is Mud, continuing to hit many of the songs from Pork Soda over the length of the 80-minute set. Les Claypool’s bass sounds particularly good due to the sublime separation of instruments on this remastered recording.
Read on for more downloads from the recently deceased James Brown, Neil Young, Genesis, Leftover Salmon and God Johnson…
If Shakedown Street is the sketchiest block in all the neighborhood, then Sesame Street is clearly the funkiest. The kids are pickin’ up what Stevie’s layin’ down…
I’m not claiming this is the freshest clip on the cyberwebs, but even if it’s an oldie to you, it’s always pleasant to force-feed yourself some Stevie Wonder throughout the year. I mean, talk about slapping down some serious funk…then as we pan out, you just realize that this is a friggin’ Sesame Street taping from April 1973. Good lord, now this is a musical education. I joked earlier this week that Nancy Pelosi is the new Bill Graham, but I may have sold Jim Henson short in this whole equation. Stevie, take us away with a little Superstition:
And now, little man, I give this watch…to you:
- If Sesame Street ain’t your bag, here’s a somewhat poppier and rockier Superstition from MTV that features the other famous musical Stevie. Well, it’s not Nicks, so I guess I didn’t limit the options far enough. I was referring to Stevie Ray Vaughn there. A reader named Matt D. sent me that link, along with the line “How the hell did MTV go from that to Laguna Beach?” The answer, Matt? Youth is wasted on the young.
- Everyone’s waiting for the inevitable reunion announcement from the popular rock band Phish. That can wait, methinks. It’s actually God Street Wine that tops my list of Bands That Must Reunite Soon, if only for a night. I’ve often conjectured that I’m one of 100 people in the world that own all five GSW studio albums, and some of my fondest memories involve those guys strumming in the background. Here’s Borderline from 3/3/98.
- I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if I walked by the following bag of ragtag musicians playing for change in Grand Central Station. They just look so…ordinary, no? Just take one look at Eric Gale on the guitar; that guy looks more like an extra in Uncle Tom’s Cabin than a traditional rock star. But the music, she is incredible. These dudes do it right — here’s Paul Simon with a cool cast of characters on Late In The Evening.
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An HT Tip: If you read Pullin’ ‘Tubes regularly, you won’t make much money, but you’ll get more pussy than Frank Sinatra. The Hawk told me that.
Written by
HT Staff on
12.26.2006 |
Beck,
Bob Dylan,
Cactus,
Disco Biscuits,
Festivals,
Grace Potter,
Grateful Dead,
Green Apple,
Greyboy Allstars,
Guns N Roses,
Hidden Track,
My Morning Jacket,
Phil Lesh,
Phish,
SCI,
STS9,
Scott Metzger,
Tea Leaf Green,
The Duo,
The Roots,
Trey,
Umphrey's McGee,
Ween,
moe.
‘Twas the day after Christmas, when all through the city
Ace and Scotty thought a list would make them seem witty
But the pair quickly realized that they couldn’t hack it
Disliking most popular bands, save My Morning Jacket
The bloggers all posted their Best Ofs to dissect
While thoughts of The Hold Steady made them erect
But up on our high horse, as we saw it this year
My Chemical Romance gets pwned by Bob Weir
So here in our list, you won’t find Cat Power
We favor the folks that jam for an hour
Scroll down below for our highlights of 2006
Better than Pitchfork! Fuckin’ pretentious pricks…
We could probably continue the above poetic debacle for the remaining nine verses, but as it stands this thing’s already longer than black dong. As we plod ahead with all things Year End, piggybacking on The Four Questions and our Year in Mostly Crappy Photos, allow us to present a distorted look back at a truly fantastic year for being a smarmy douchebag ogling closely from the sidelines.
Read on for the the best of the best from the Year of Our Lord 2006…
You know they gettin’ down in heaven or hell tonight. They makin’ it funky. You know, man, movin’ it, doin’ it. God of Our Souls, meet the Godfather of Soul.
The hardest working man in show business succumbed to heart failure early Monday morning, leaving behind a legacy as the funkiest bastard that ever lived, and the funkiest dude to throw a back-handed slap at someone with fallopian tubes. His transgressions off the stage aside, James Brown did more to till the cultural landscape of music than most who’d came before him. For that, he’s a national treasure.
The good people at Yahoo! have done my work for me, supplying youse with full coverage of the man in death as he was in life. So with my job done already, there’s only one thing left to say to the guy that made us all wish we’d been born with that kind of innate ability to move rhythmically through this world: May you get your young legs back now and do the splits for all eternity. Good god.
Related audio: If you’re feeling like today would be a fantastic day to stream some JB, check out The Godfather & The Dreamer, a solid collection of 27 tracks from 1966-68 that’ll remind you why he’s the greatest. (SugarMegs)
Related video: Just a quick search on YouTube can bring the greatness back to life: some old school sex machinin’, some gettin’ up offa that thing, some feelin’ good and a touch of superbadness. YouTube can also bring back the hijinx and hilarity: the TV interview that confused the world.
Sure it ain’t Passover, but we’ve got four questions for you anyway…
1. What was your single favorite musical experience of 2006?
2. What band are you most excited to see in 2007?
3. What under-the-radar band didn’t get nearly enough buzz this year?
4. While everyone focuses on the “best of” this time of year, we want to know, what was the worst live musical performance you caught in 2006?
We’ll keep this up at the top for a couple days…weigh in accordingly.
