The crowd cheered wildly as Ryan Montbleau sullenly sang a song about death from his new album, Patience on Friday. But the audience hadn’t misinterpreted it — the Red Sawx had just busted Game 3 of the World Series wide open.

All photos by Adam Kaufman

Music and sports came together this past weekend when the Ryan Montbleau Band shared the stage with the Red Sox during two special shows in Boston. As we told you last week, Montbleau’s gigs at The Paradise took place at exactly the same times as Games 3 and 4 of the World Series, which featured the Red Sox humiliating the suddenly ice-cold Colorado Rockies. Ryan’s manager, booking agent and promoter all advised him to cancel Sunday’s show, but we’re glad to report that the RMB avoided potential disaster when their fans rallied to make the weekend an overwhelming success. No Rally Monkey required.

Instead of ignoring the games, Montbleau embraced the circumstances and set up a huge screen next to the stage which showed the World Series to the audience. Luckily for the band, by the time Ryan & Company hit the stage on Saturday night, the Red Sox had already jumped out to a 6-0 lead, allowing everyone to focus on the music for the first set. Read on after the jump for much more…

HT Contributor Eliot Glazer has tremendously terrible taste in music. But he makes everything sound so damn appealing, so we allow him this soapbox…

I had never been much of a Family Guy fan. I found the humor too easy and not silly enough to actually be smart. That is, until I witnessed this clip on the television. Apparently, the writers of Family Guy face the same non-existential crisis I do: Is Randy Newman retarded or brilliant?

I’m pretty sure he’s just schizophrenic, suffering from maintaining two separate personalities. There’s Randall, the husky-voiced composer who writes and performs melodically expansive ruminations that have always labeled him the self-effacing philosopher that can be found waxing intellectual in a nearby dark corner (see: You Can Leave Your Hat On, Political Science, and God’s Song).

Then there’s Randy, the middle-aged dude whose quirky, fun canon of kid-friendly work equate to your goofy uncle’s deepest belly laugh (see: Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear and every song from the Pixar soundtrack library…ever).

When the “Randy” from the Family Guy clip pronounces “first” as “foist” before literally narrating what his eyes see (”left foot, right foot…”), I’m led to believe that the guy has somehow cheated his way into the larger pantheon of American music. Because that’s exactly what he is: a legendary American musician who has been showered in awards and accolades throughout his entire career, and not without witnessing other coveted musicians paying their respects by covering his tunes. But is it a sham? Read on to find out more about the true Randy…

After nearly a year on the road, Nickel Creek’s farewell tour comes to a close on November 29th. If you haven’t had a chance to see them before they go their separate ways, be sure to check out NPR’s webcast of Friday night’s show live from the 9:30 club in Washington D.C. Although, we’d really prefer to instead say goodbye to Nickelback from the public consciousness, not the Creek.

• Power User Trent Reznor calls OiNK “the greatest music store of all-time”
• Today we all mourn the loss of Robert Goulet — Goooolay!
• The mid-November Bear Creek Music and Arts Festival has been moved to The Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, FL
• Van Halen extends their highly regarded reunion tour into 2008
• Elvis Presley ($49 mil) and John Lennon ($44 mil) head up Forbes.com’s list of the Top Earning Dead Celebrities
• Torrentfreak takes you inside the mind of a 9-year-old file sharer
• Heavy Mideast Metal: Baghdad’s Acrassicauda is truly a band on the run
• Die-hard fans of The Who will be offered access to a massive library of audio and video files for $50 a month
• Will Butler of Arcade Fire responds to Sasha Frere-Jones criticisms
• Check out the latest edition of Nedstalgia to find out how Neddy wound up in Dave Schools’ hotel room listening to the Dead

Finally, the full song list for the upcoming Rock Band video game looks absolutely incredible. We can’t wait to drum along with Epic or to sing Mississippi Queen when the game comes out on November 20th. Thanksgiving fun.

Dr. Neeko is back for Round II — before we begin, let’s point out that he loves his mother, his aunt, all his old lovers and Rue McClanahan…

When I was a kid, before I became a doctor of course, Halloween was all about the mad rush to stuff as much tooth-rotting, brain-zipping sugar as you could fit into an old pillowcase before the sun went down and you missed curfew. We usually made out pretty well. We knew which houses gave the full-sized candy bars, which houses turned off the porch light and pretended not to be home, and which houses you could get away with visiting multiple times.

Of course you got the occasional old lady who’d give out four pennies wrapped in Scotch Tape, or the big buzz-kill-do-gooder handing out pieces of fruit. Fruit? Handing out fruit on Halloween is like giving out cap-guns in a war zone. Handing out fruit on Halloween is like dispensing condoms at an Indigo Girls/Ani DiFranco double-bill. Handing out fruit on Halloween is like giving out handjobs at an orgy. But all in all, it was a good racket we had going back then…

Look, ma: These girls show up on Google Images under “Halloween sluts”

Then, sometime around college, Halloween took on a new meaning. It was still about candy, but a different kind of candy, an even sweeter candy, a candy for the eyes. In the same way that St. Patrick’s Day is a ‘free pass’ to start drinking at 9 am, Halloween is a ‘free pass’ for many women to dress slightly more revealing than a Mexican hooker in August. And I, for one, think that’s just great.

Now, you can’t appreciate this fine aspect of the holiday if you’re at the wrong location. Chances are, you’ll wait till the last minute to make plans, and you’ll end up sitting at home watching Heroes on the DVR, handing out your hard-earned candy to a bunch of ungrateful neighborhood brats. Not cool, man. So, in an effort to spare some of you hornball HT readers from that awful fate, I’ve decided to compile an in-depth review of the eye-candy potential for a handful of Halloween concerts around the country. Let me guide you in the right direction…let me help you realize the full potential this holiday has to offer. So read on for a full list of concerts and what you may expect in terms of post-show spank material…

Construction (In the Name of U2): “They plan to build Ireland’s tallest tower in Dublin and revamp their city centre hotel - to ensure their legacy lives on long after the music stops. Bono and The Edge have unveiled plans to redevelop the Clarence Hotel on the city’s historic quays, which they bought in 1992.”

Umphrey’s McGee was one of the first bands to sell official recordings of nearly every show they played when they introduced the UmLive program in 2003.

At first the Chicago-based sextet only sold discs at their merch table, but soon thereafter they started peddling downloads of most shows through disclogic.com. Disclogic went bust in 2006, so Umphrey’s partnered with LiveDownloads.com to sell their official recordings through a new website called Umlive.net. That history lesson-cum-introduction leads us to Umphrey’s McGee’s terrific show at the Nokia Theater from October 20th, which is our Live Downloads show of the week.

Photo by Adam Kaufman

During recent tours Umphrey’s has perfected the time-tested formula of sprinkling special guests, random covers and heady improvisations throughout two sets of well-written songs. The first set of Umphrey’s Saturday night show at the Nokia Theater in New York City featured the boys nailing some of their hardest compositions while also dropping two inventive song sequences that had never been played before. Andy’s Last Beer started with an intense buildup and ended with the band giving the young crowd a lesson on odd time signatures.

Bridgeless followed and quickly segued into a danceable jam that slyly slithered towards a rare cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Power To Love. Guitarist Brendan Bayliss’s voice sounded great throughout the evening, and he absolutely nailed Power to Love. Of course covering Hendrix is all about guitar tone, and UM’s other guitar player Jake Cinninger put on quite a clinic during his solo. Keyboardist Joel Cummins took control shortly after Cinninger’s solo and deftly led the band back through the end of Bridgeless. Read on after the jump for much more…

Warriooooors…come out and play-ayyyy. And by ‘Warriors’ I mean ‘Commenters,’ but Commenters would be a ridiculously shitty name for a hardcore street gang, even if they had the coolest jackets and/or get-up on the block.

Seriously, though, we didn’t see a noticeable decline in readership yesterday, but someone must’ve turned down the volume. Where’d everyone go? Is it that hard to read a Vegoose recap and make a snarky comment or relay a funny tale from the grounds? Nobody wanted to take a shot at some easy-as-pie Back Door Slam jokes? Hey, let’s get some chatter out of you Billy Ripken fuckfaces today.

So here’s a post that’s guaranteed to generate no comments whatsoever, a gratuitous romp through the Live Music Archive that will keep your dirty ears busy for a little while. We’ll start out with some drop-dead deep funk from the now 10-year-old Afroskull, move into more jamband territory with the young and talented Heavy Pets, hit up the afrobeat funk tip with the old Antibalas standbys, check in with the Midwest and a talented group called The Maji, and we’ll wrap that gavel up with a little ditty + cover from Scarecrow Collection.

• Space Chicken: Afroskull — 6/3/05 — New York, NY
• Madagascar: Heavy Pets — 8/9/07 — Syracuse, NY
• Talk-a-Tif: Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra — 12/3/03 — Baltimore, MD
• Promised Land: The Maji — 7/27/05 — Dayton, Ohio
• Act That Way > 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover: Scarecrow Collection — 8/18/06 — Gathering of the Vibes, Mariaville NY

Find anything worthwhile on the Live Music Archive lately? Share with the class.

You know when you see a precocious band comprised of young musicians with chops, and all you want to do is grab them by their fresh faces and beg them to stay true to this moment for the rest of their careers? That’s how I felt when I caught Back Door Slam’s rippin’ blues set at the Austin City Limits festival.

Guitarist Davy Knowles is legit, a talented shredder and singer that can, at his best, conjure up generous comparisons to a young Stevie Ray Vaughan. Knowles and his two bandmates — Adam Jones on bass and Ross Doyle on drums — aren’t necessarily Double Trouble level just yet, but they’re damn fine for a group of 20-year-olds that’ve been playing together for only about three years. Jones and Ross play the part of dexterous rhythm section for Knowles face-melting flash, and they’ve got the formula for power blues trio down.

Knowles is incredibly capable at leading this band, and the young Brit’s talent jumps right off the stage. His provocative, emotive playing and singing captivated the ACL audience, prompting much of the crowd to likely wonder how they hadn’t heard of someone so obviously beyond his years. But if you come across the Isle of Man band (Back Door Slam from the Isle of Man — that doesn’t lead to jokes, I’m sure), they’ll be smack dab in the middle of your radar for quite awhile.

The trio plays an 8:30 pm set at NYC’s Mercury Lounge on Tuesday night, and if you’ve got no concrete plans, I promise it’ll be much better than re-runs of Dharma & Greg, or whatever the devil it is you kids watch. To prove my point, take a listen to BDS from a show last summer — here’s Ain’t No City:

• Related Video: Back Door Slam — Red House
• Related Video: Back Door Slam at the Beale St. Music Festival

You don’t know how closely Hidden Track came to running a name-your-own-price promotion after Radiohead announced its own unique marketing plan. But then we realized that not only are we already an entity gratis, nobody’d pay a dime to read stuff ‘n nonsense from one guy with a strange nom de plume and one Jew-sounding dude. In any event, Paste Magazine is giving it a go…read on below.

Our intrepid reporter Sleepy Floyd probably can’t feel his face this morning…but he sent in this communication from the Vegoose festival this weekend:

This year’s Vegoose festival surely is different from the two prior incarnations. Sam Boyd Stadium — off the “lovely” Boulder Highway, lying next to a cookie-cutter subdivision that’s infinitely more Phoenix than Las Vegas — is still very much the same. But the lineup and the scene have each evolved in record time.

More closely resembling Lollapalooza than a typical jamband festival, there were more Daft Punk T-shirts than tie-dyes, and Trojan condoms were being passed out instead of free hugs. If a lineup of Mastodon, Queens of the Stone Age and Rage Against the Machine weren’t enough to scare the hippies away, try adding Public Enemy, Lupe Fiasco and M.I.A. And if that didn’t do the trick, maybe invite Muse, Ghostface Killah and the biggest anti-hippie of ‘em all: Iggy Pop.

Gogol Bordello makes people forget about Big Ten football

Although the “scene” itself has changed, the mission is still the same for the folks at Superfly: throw a ton of music our way at the same time and keep us running between stages. Not a bad way to be spending your afternoon, as long as it keeps you away from the $5-a-slice pizza. I love Spicy Pie? Maybe at $3 a slice I’d love you long time — talk about a markup. So read on after the jump for a recap of the festival and some quality photos from our man on the ground…