Move over, Bustle In Your Hedgerow: The genuine article may be coming back.

The three not-quite-dead-yet members of a little rock band called Led Zeppelin are reportedly talking about a reunion, at least for one show. Bob Page, Jim Plant and the SuperJammy Jam John Paul Jones have discussed plans to get together for a one-off memorial concert for legendary record executive, Ahmet Ertegun.

And no-one can quite believe it, but during discussions about the concert they all gave the green light to a tour if it all does well and they don’t all fall out.

We’ll believe it when we see Plant in skinny pants on stage with Jimmy, John and Bonham’s kid. Until then, it’s still incidents and accidents, hints and allegations.

I’ve been called a manualist by several people, but that’s a thrice-daily habit I’d rather not discuss in a public forum such as this. The following video features another type of manualist altogether, a man who’s been probably waiting patiently for Web 2.0 to come along and blast his patented brand of sophomoric noise-making to the world at large. It’s strange, but it’s certainly a talent, and it’s Bohemian Rhapsody, so it qualifies for inclusion and necessitates your perusal.

• Manualist playing Bohemian Rhapsody on his hands [YouTube]
• A popular rock band’s take on Bohemian Rhapsody 12/31/96
• Click here for the most recent entries in the Pullin’ ‘Tubes archive

Breaking out the oft-employed Cleveland Rocks Clause, allow us to produce some fantastic Forest City shots from our friends at Christian James Photos. A handful of quality shows have rolled through the House of Blues in C-Town (don’t ever call it that) lately, and our Midwest shutterbug Chris has been front and center waiting for close-ups of open pores and sweat drips.

Newly appointed guitar wizard Ben Harper’s been just about everywhere lately: the Bonnaroo SuperJam, the National Anthem during the Game 3 of the NBA Finals, my most vividly erotic dreams. The night he played the Anthem at the Cavs-Spurs game he also showed up for a gig at the House of Blues, where the Cleveland Scene blog filed a full report (with no real conclusion either way).

Little Feat played the same venue a week earlier, and while the post-Lowell George era of this band is not everything it once was, they’ve made a nice career out of making peopel question whether they play funk-rock, funk-rock or funkrock.

So let’s take a look at a couple of sweet photo galleries from Chris of Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals and Little Feat in Cleveland, which I hear rocks.

No news is good news, they say. Only, when you’re trying to put together a link dump to start the week, it’s better to have some real, actual news. It seems our corner of the live music world rested this weekend, likely so the Hidden Track Birthday Boys could enjoy themselves without worry. (Ir)Regardless, the Internets have presented some interesting links for us, so let’s get our scroll on, baby…

• The Cure announces its first North American tour in three years
• Video surfaces of Lewis Black getting nailed in the head with a bottle during Gov’t Mule’s Bonnaroo set — where’s Akon when you need’m?
• Glide Magazine posts a sweet gallery of Bonnaroo photos
• The Clutch set from the ‘Roo has been the recipient of incredibly positive chatter — download it here from Traders Den (subscription)
• The Roots announce the coming of a new album
• Once again, the Grateful Dead Taper’s Section has another nice installment of goods for us this week
• Check out Mario & Luigi in The Lost Nintendo Sex Ed Tape
• Brooklyn Vegan’s featuring sweet pics from Glastonbury
• Neddy weighs in with his shows of the week list for NYC
• Congrats to Shaggenstein, the official winner of the Pearl Jam Giveaway

And as usual on Monday mornings, read on after the jump for a full list of the weekend’s setlists, including but not limited to the Lucious Bobby Dylan, Wilco, an Asia reunion, Bad Religion, Ween, Tortoise and a buncha hippie bands…

We saw the sun rising over this exact spot on the Atlantic last night/this morning, weary souls reviewing 10 straight hours of straight-up rock. We caught six bands yesterday at the School of Rock Festival in Asbury Park, New Jersey, just part of a day that began for me with the Benevento/Russo Duo and culminated in a Ween > Bustle In Your Hedgerow doubleheader. Gorgeous. But that review’s to come tomorrow — let’s instead look back at a sample of the week that was…

• The Austin City Limits schedule pits Wilco against My Morning Jacket and The White Stripes against Arcade Fire
• The White Stripes play small ball in NYC — one commenter compares them to the Presidents of the United States. Lumpy.
• Hippie nostalgia rules: SPAC Piper and Letterman Marquee Time
• The Bonnaroo SuperJam goes Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn
• We listed eight cover bands that don’t suck
• Steve Perry may currently be blowing David Chase
• Never too early to announce NYE gigs, eh moe.?

Asbury Park, the vacation spot of a lifetime. Mark that down, make a note.

Scotty’s on the way to Chicago for the Omega Moos show, part of his epic 30th birthday celebration, and I’m enveloped in the East Coast bias and will paint the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut tri-state area red for my own gala event. Tomorrow brings me to Asbury Park for some Skee-Ball theatrics and the School of Rock Festival, headlined by a small-time band called Ween that some people enjoy. It’ll be Brown Time in the Dirty Jerz, so let’s finish out a great week of HT Postage with this message I’ve been wanting to tell you guys for some time: Piss Up A Rope.

• Piss Up A Rope — Ween — 6/10/05 [YouTube]
• Click here to peruse recent posts in the Pullin’ ‘Tubes archive

It’s supposed to be a gorgeous weekend, so make like Janie in the backyard and do the outside dance. But, first, make sure to set your respective DVRs to record these fine musical programs:

Friday (all times Eastern)

• Def Leppard gets rocked on Jimmy Kimmel Live [ABC 12:05 AM]
• Rooney returns to Late Night with Conan O’Brien [NBC 12:35 AM]
• Go from n00b to vet by watching Genesis: A History [VH-1 Classic 10:00 PM]

Saturday

• Catch the television premiere of Jeff Tweedy: Sunken Treasure Live [Sundance 8:15 AM]
• Elton John, Ray LaMontagne and Nick Mason are among the guests on Later with Jools Holland [Ovation 1:15 PM]
• The History of Rock and Roll examines the punk movement [VH-1 Classic 7:00 PM]

Sunday

• BBC: In Concert features a Joni Mitchell concert from 1970 [Ovation 2:00 PM]
• Solomon Burke is joined by Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin and tons of other friends during a recent concert in Nashville [HDNet 4:45 PM]
• Willie Nelson performs live at Billy Bob’s in Ft. Worth, TX [HDNet 6:15 PM]

It’s Uncle Neddy’s mix tape time, so let’s all gather ’round the campfire and listen to what the man has in store for us this week…

Ah, that sweet gap between the Solstice and the Fourth, perfect for some good ol’ fashioned roots music. Today’s concentration: the banjo. At first I didn’t think I’d be able to scrape together enough tunes, but it didn’t take long before I was having trouble paring it down to my self-imposed six. While happy with what we’re left with, I’m not sure if it will have the intended effect, but it should be an interesting tutorial in the multiplicities of the ole banjo. One super caveat is that I’ve completely ignored Mr. Fleck, who now has a reservation for his own mix somewhere in the not-too-distant future.

01 Old Joe Clark / June Apple — Tony Trischka: Solo Banjo Works
02 Oh Asia — Illinois: Daytrotter Session
03 Don’t Ride That Horse — Old Crow Medicine Show: Big Iron World
04 Snake In The House — The Del McCoury Band: 14 June 1997
05 Jerry’s Breakdown — Old & In The Way: Breakdown
06 And Your Bird Can Sing — Yonder Mountain String Band: 22 April 2007

• Click here to download this week’s edition of the Friday Mix Tape

Soul music legends including Issac Hayes, Booker T and the MGs and Mavis Staples are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Stax record label tonight in Memphis. We’re not sure why, but tickets are still available for the show, which takes place at the legendary Orpheum Theater. Proceeds from the show will benefit the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, the world’s only soul music museum, located at the site of the old Stax headquarters on Memphis’ historic McLemore Avenue.

Otherwise, you can always count on the ‘net to provide many diversions:

• Zappa Plays Zappa will focus on material from Overnite Sensation and Apostrophe on their upcoming tour
• The Glastonbury Festival has gotten off to a rainy start
• The record companies are trying some new techniques
• Take the Discontinued Ben and Jerry’s Flavor or Band I Found On MySpace quiz
• Large Hearted Boy compiled Bonnaroo audio and video downloads
• Imeem announces a new partnership with a few of the majors
• Yoko Ono, Olivia Harrison, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney are appearing together on Larry King Live — Cleveland, you’re on!
• New Order is dunzo
• Girl Talk and Dan Deacon are touring together this fall
• Heaven and Hell added a bunch of September dates to their schedule
• Downtown Records signed Spank Rock to a four-album deal
• Jesse Jarnow kicks down the 22nd edition of his Frow Show podcast
• Rock Band, a video game from the makers of Guitar Hero, will feature a Stratocaster-shaped controller
• Umphrey’s McGee won over a new fan on their California trip

Have a great weekend, and join me in a round of singing Happy Birthday to HT’s fearless leader Ace Cowboy!

?uestlove‘s gotta be one tired motherfucker right now. Bonnaroo’s Man of the Match anchored three separate bands and logged countless hours on the festival’s various stages down in the dusty heat of Manchester, Tennessee.

HT Hip Hop Correspondent J-Cantor ain’t tired, though. He’s been combing the ol’ information superhighway for any information he can find about ?uestlove’s festival performances, be it with The Roots, The Philadelphia Experiment or the SuperJam with Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones and Ben Harper.

JC just alerted us to ?uestlove’s MySpace page, which documents the drummer’s tiredness and features an incredible behind-the-scenes video of the weekend’s powerest trio rehearsing together for the first time. There’s been less than 600 views as of post time, so you probably haven’t seen this — check out this cool clip of the three musicians feeling each other out at the Holiday Inn:

• ?uestlove, John Paul Jones and Ben Harper rehearsal footage
• Click here for a nine-minute clip of the SuperJam in action
• Click here for many more YouTube videos from Bonnaroo 2007 

One likes to do the splits…one likes banana splits, and lots of ‘em. But, together, James Brown and Luciano Pavarotti make one of the most badass singing tandems of all-time. Five years ago in the tenor’s hometown of Modena, Italy, megastars like Brown, Sting, Lou Reed and Grace Jones joined the tubby vocalist on stage for a charity concert benefitting Angolan refugees, and the following duet of It’s a Man’s World has ended up on YouTube for our perusal today. This video is, for lack of a less lame word, fucking beautiful. Let’s watch this epic collaboration:

• James Brown and Pavarotti ripping up It’s a Man’s World
• And click here to see Pavarotti tag team with Barry White

I’ve seen many cover bands in my day, and most have left me extremely cold. There’s just something that’s always annoyed me about bands that don’t have any original material. Lately I’ve started to change my tune, as a few innovative acts have done a nice job re-interpreting the classics. Sometimes you just want to go out, have a few beers and enjoy the music you have grown up with. Hey, artists die, but it doesn’t have to mean their songs should die with them. So for this week’s B List we take a look at eight cover bands that don’t actually suck…

1. Bustle In Your Hedgerow

Bustle is a Led Zeppelin cover band featuring Dave Dreiwitz, Joe Russo, Marco Benevento and Scott Metzger. What started out as a one-off gig has turned into an actual band that’s played shows in every U.S. time zone this year. Each member of the band is an absolutely incredible musicians who can handle Zeppelin with collective aplomb. Bustle shows cover a wide range of LZ material, sometimes played straightforward and occasionally with different arrangements. Wisely, the band refrains from singing the songs, with Scott and Marco playing the melodies on their instruments. The band rocks Cleveland tonight before heading to Asbury Park for this weekend’s School of Rock Festival, where Ace will drool for hours.

Read on after the jump for seven more cover bands that don’t suck…

Truthfully, I thought the mass e-mail about the last-minute set was a joke. So let me get this straight: My favorite band, the guys I’ve spent literally thousands and thousands of dollars on to entertain me in more than a quarter of the states of this union, the guys who I’d probably follow to the ends of the Earth, the guys who just announced they’ll never play again after August, the Phish from Vermont is playing right down the street from my office immediately at the exact time I leave work? And they’re playing atop the marquee of the Ed Sullivan? Seriously? Oh, okay, I guess I’ll go to that. I can’t think of anything better to do.

• 2001 > Wilson (with the Shred-It Truck rolling by) — 6/21/04
• Scents & Subtle Sounds for the Letterman Marquee — 6/21/04 

Try getting that echoing Wiiiiiillllllllsssssooooooonnnnnnn out of your head…

And if the former Journey frontman hasn’t been on his knees worshipping Chase’s junk in the aftermath of The Sopranos’ finale, he oughta give it some thought.

According to the good folks at Billboard.biz (via Idolator), the series finale of The Sopranos has put Journey back on the charts in a big way:

The use of Journey’s single “Don’t Stop Believin’” in the June 10 finale of “The Sopranos” — followed by oodles of media attention for the band and the show — yields big returns on the charts this week. The 1981 track re-enters Hot Digital Songs at No. 21 with 41,000 paid downloads. It’s up 371% in sales compared with the previous week. Concurrently, Journey’s “Greatest Hits” album sold nearly 11,000 units this week — a 111% gain — pushing the set 17-2 with Greatest Gainer honors on the Top Pop Catalog albums chart. It’s the biggest sales week for the album since Christmas 2005, when it shifted 19,000…  

Idolator also notes “the song is also holding steady at the No. 1 spot on iTunes’ Rock tracks list.” The Journey Resurrection is a damn fine story, and we can only hope it sparks a massive internal discussion about a Journey with Steve Perry reunion, regardless of whether or not he can still sing, which he likely can’t.

The real story here is Holsten’s, the diner-esque eatery where the final scene’s non-action takes place. Our well-placed informant tells us Holsten’s now goes through something in the neighborhood of 55 pounds of onion rings a day, three times the pre-Sopranos level. He added, ”…and people are all pissed cause they dont serve ‘em in the big salad bowl like they did on the show.” Fuckin’ people.

As you can probably tell, we love live music here at Hidden Track. But sometimes just seeing the music isn’t enough; we feel a nagging need to download the audio and video of shows we’ve either seen or wish that we saw as soon as we can.

Our favorite moments as music fans come when we stumble across recordings we didn’t think existed, or of shows we attended but had completely forgotten about. Just this week I had several “Holy Fuck!” moments when I came across three shows I never thought I’d see or hear. I’ll tell you all about them, and Paul McCartney’s “secret” show at the Highline, as we go Grousing The Aisles…

Steely Dan w/ Michael McDonald 08/12/2006 PROSHOT (DVD):

Nearly every shed in America these days has those screens that show video of the concert to people with bad views. Most of the footage from these screens either doesn’t get recorded or gets stashed in the archives of the venue or the performer. Once in a while, though, video from one of these concerts leaks onto the ‘net. The latest of these leaks comes from last summer’s Steely Dan tour, which featured special guest and longtime HT idol Michael McDonald.

The Dan was feelin’ it this night, rolling through magnificent performances of hits such as Hey 19, Green Earrings, and Josie. Mikey Mac adds his husky vocals to the last seven songs of the set, including the kickass My Old School closer. The Steely Dan Orchestra backing band is made up of extremely talented musicians. Keith Carlock is a revelation on the drums — at times there is so much going on that you wonder whether there are two drummers behind the kit. Backup vocalists Carolyn Leonhart-Escoffery and Cindy Mizelle both look and sing beautifully.

The quality of this footage is unbelievably good, allowing a nice look at the ladies as they sing their hearts out during Dirty Work. The crispy soundboard feed that supplies the audio is also top notch, and worth the download by itself. I can honestly say that in my four years of collecting live concert DVDs, this puppy may take the cake as the best in my collection. It’s that good.

Read on for some more great downloads of Bustle, Macca and the Other Elvis…