On the heels of their epic residency at the Riviera in Chicago, the boys from Wilco will make their first appearance on NBC’s Saturday Night Live on March 1 at 11:30 PM. Anyone want to wager a guess on what they’ll play?
Friday [all times Eastern]:
- Chris Thile and the Punch Brothers perform on the Tonight Show [NBC 11:35 PM]
- Shooter Jennings brings his alt-Country stylings to Late Night with Conan O’Brien [NBC 12:35 AM]
- Dweezil Zappa is Craig Ferguson’s musical guest on the Late Late Show [CBS 12:35 AM]
Saturday:
- Prince and Morris Day star in the classic film Purple Rain [VH-1 Classic 1:30 PM]
- The Dixie Chicks return for another helping of Austin City Limits [PBS Check Local Listings]
- Wilco are the musical guests on this week’s episode of Saturday Night Live [NBC 11:35 PM]
- PBS previews The Clash: Live [PBS Check Local Listings]
Sunday:
- CBS News’ Sunday Morning profiles Herbie Hancock [CBS 9:00 AM]
- The HDNet concert series presents the 2004 Jammys [HDNet 5:30 PM]
- Classic 60 Minutes looks at the long career of The Eagles [VH-1 Classic 8:00 PM]
“Other than that, I don’t know what else to say except I’ve never seen such a disproportionate amount of beautiful women with fucking loser boyfriends. There are so many smoking hot women in new zealand and their boyfriends and husbands look like a bunch of poofters. Not to mention the hot asian woman factor. If you woke up in auckland and didn’t know where you were you might think you were in japan.”
- Mickey Melchiondo aka Dean Ween on his blog [via Wilson]
There is something about summer and the smoothing sounds of James Taylor that just go hand in hand. The gentle bard will be hitting the amphitheater circuit this summer showcasing his reworked catalog material from his CD/DVD One Man Band – ironically with a full band in tow. So dust off that blanket that you stored in the back of the closet, because the summer concert season is right around the corner.
If you’re not into aging boomer acts, then maybe you’ll be into one of these tours:
Finally if you have no plans tonight and you’re in and around NYC you might want to consider stopping by The Housing Works Bookstore & Cafe for a special performance by Jim White. Fifteen bucks gets you in the door and gets you free beer, with your money benefiting a good cause – I think that equals some good karma if you ask me.
On Saturday, Chicago promoters Triple Dot Mas will celebrate its sixth anniversary in style at the Double Door with performances from the Tim Reynolds Trio and powerhouse upstarts Van Ghost. You don’t want to miss this exciting pairing.
Widely known for his work with Dave Matthews, Tim Reynolds has recently embarked on his first tour with a full band in eight years. The Tim Reynolds band (or TR3) promises to bring “a mix of updated Tim classics to wild covers of everything from James Brown to Prince to Tim’s newest catalogue of material he is preparing just for this tour,” according to his website. Read on for more…
It seems that the folks at Ticketmaster aren’t going to let Live Nation get away with starting their own ticketing service. According to Billboard, Ticketmaster is teaming up with Cablevision to purchase 49% of AEG Live, the second largest promoter in the world. We’ll see how Live Nation likes a taste of their own medicine. Regardless of the increase in competition for the giants, we’re sure concert goers will still wind up with the short end of the stick. As usual.
Here’s the last batch of links we’ll dump on you this week:
Finally, the lineup for the soundtrack to NBC’s Heroes seems pretty damn good to us. Besides the fitting title track from David Bowie, the album also features killer tracks from a slew of artists including Wilco, Nada Surf and My Morning Jacket.
On Monday we kicked off a new feature called Tour Diary with the first of four entries from the Umphrey’s McGee crew about their recently completed West Coast tour. Here’s UM Lighting Crew Chief Wade Wilby final installment:
02/15/08 The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA
OM Trio opened
Set I: Bridgeless> Much Obliged> Dump City, Partyin’ Peeps, The Fussy Dutchman, Sociable Jimmy> Bridgeless
Set II: Miss Tinkle’s Overture, 2nd Self> Der Bluten Kat> Gulf Stream1> Der Bluten Kat, Syncopated Strangers, Utopian Fir
Encore: Bombtrack2 3
1 First Time Played (Original) ; Portions played on 11/10/07 & 12/31/07
2 First Time Played (Rage Against The Machine)
3 Ilya Stemkovsky (Vocals) and Brian Felix (Keyboards)
All photos by Matt Ziegler, except where noted
San Francisco is a gorgeous depiction of West Coast vegetation and landscape; Rolling hills dotted with island-like real estate and a dreamy climate controlled by the waving palms. Besides its deep natural romance, the city has played host to some of music’s most famous live moments, classic venues and of course…The Fat Man. We would only come in contact with one of the aforementioned amenities in The Fillmore, and it would prove to be our last 3 night run there, making it a very special weekend at this institution of rock and roll. Read on for more…
Just one week from today the Langerado Music Festival kicks off at Big Cypress in the Florida Everglades. I’ve attended the last two Langerado festivals, but this year’s lineup takes things to a new level. As someone who doesn’t get to many festivals, I think the best part of going is the enjoyment I get from checking out artists I haven’t seen before. Here’s the second part of my list of ten bands I’m excited to see for the first time at Langerado:
1. The Avett Brothers – North Carolina’s Avett Brothers play deeply spiritual music that seems to appeal to a diverse range of music fans. The songs that Seth and Scott Avett write are gritty tales of life played on basic acoustic instruments. Their most recent release, Emotionalism, shows the wide range of styles in the fellas’ music. Within one song on the album you may hear elements of Calypso followed closely by a bluegrass stomp. I’m very interested to see how they pull of this melange of styles live. Read on for more on the Avetts and four other bands….
We were very impressed when the initial Bonnaroo lineup surfaced a few weeks ago. Now we’re feeling down right fluffy after hearing about the first two acts who are set to play late night sets, and a couple of interesting artist additions. Returning to the late night slot will be My Morning Jacket who delivered a legen, wait for it, dary late night set two years ago. Also joining in on the late night fun will be Phil Lesh & Friends – where one would hope plenty of sit-ins will abound.
Meanwhile, Cat Power and Zappa Plays Zappa head up the list of artist additions.
- Nas has an ax to grind with Maxim’s liberal review policies, too
- Which one is not like the others? .38 Special, Charlie Daniels, Sonic Youth
- Is that Muppet Rawk? Turn it up!
- The Alice In Chains biopic – Get Born Again – finds their Layne Staley
- Leftover Cheese let’s us know how to make the most out of less then $4
- If you’re not listening to The Virgins yet, you should be
Finally, there is some news swirling around that Rod The Bod (that’s what they used to call him folks) is interested in teaming up with The Black Keys to make a blues record. How about getting The Faces back together too? This way you will no longer have to be thought of as the King of Schmaltz.
When I looked at the date this morning I got a reminder of just how quickly time passes. Can you believe it’s been five years since the boys in Phish played one of the best shows of their career at the Nassau Coliseum? Not only did the band bust out Destiny Unbound for the first time in nearly 12 years, they also crushed everything else they played that night. It was truly an epic evening on the south shore of Long Island. I especially enjoyed seeing everyone’s blissed-out faces, as we happily made our way back to the car after the show. Phish was back… or so we thought.
While I can go on forever about the versions of Birds of a Feather, Tweezer and Bathtub Gin that Phish played that night, let’s focus on the return of Destiny Unbound. Mike Gordon didn’t write many songs for Phish, but he made the ones he did write count. Destiny Unbound tells the sad twisted tale of two characters on a sure path to ruin. The tune ties a funky rhythm with a beautiful weaving guitar line and a heavy pounding beat. The band only played Destiny 26 times in 1990 and 1991 before shelving it. Sadly, the band never played the tune again after busting it out at the house that Denis Potvin built. Here’s a video of the band performing Destiny Unbound in Ithaca on March 14, 1991:
So what’s your 2/28/03 story? Tell us all about your experience that night by leaving a comment below…
The internets were abuzz this week with news of a “new” Velvet Underground song. The guys at Dead Flowers unearthed a live VU recording from 1967, which features the previously unheard track I’m Not A Young Man Anymore. The other gem on this bootleg is the first known performance of Sister Ray.
Finally, we’ve got a couple of jamband podcasts to help us close out the column. Umphrey’s McGee just put out their 59th podcast, while Everyday Companion released their 61st PanicCast. Havin’ a good time, indeed.
Our resident guitar expert, Yair2k, hipped us to Paul Languedoc’s webpage, where the luthier has just released photos of the newest ‘doc. Languedoc started out making instruments before Phish’s Trey Anastasio convinced him to go on the road as the band’s sound engineer. Now that the band has been on hiatus for a few years, Languedoc has started building guitars full time. The new model will be called the G4, and should be a bit cheaper than his current batch. Here’s a pic:
On Monday we kicked off a new feature called Tour Diary with the first of four entries from the Umphrey’s McGee crew about their recently completed West Coast tour. Here’s UM Lighting Crew Chief Wade Wilby with a behind-the-scenes look at the San Diego and Los Angeles shows, and their day off in San Fran…:
02/12/08 House of Blues, San Diego, CA
Dub Trio opened
Set I: Get in the Van, Jimmy Stewart> Water, Higgins, Nemo> Sweetness> Jam1 2, Nemo
Set II: 40′s Theme, Example 13, Padgett’s Profile, Search 4, Morning Song, Ringo1
Encore: Show Biz Kids1 4, The Floor
1 – With Mike Keneally
2 – ‘Abacab’ jam
3 – Mike Mirro (Drums)
4 – First Time Played (Steely Dan)
Photo by Mike Sherry
The SD HOB is a bit tight to work in, but you sacrifice the space for the climate. The head lighting technician there is the funniest and most well versed HOB light guy, if not one of the best club guys in the country, so he is always a treat. He and (Umphrey’s LD Adam) Budney busted balls all day, while the boys awaited Mike Keneally from Frank Zappa fame to arrive. Jake, Joel and Kris recently recorded some great tracks with Mike on their trip to LA, and we got to listen to a few. Very scary. Very angular. Very Umphrey’s. I hope this stuff sees the light of day soon. It was decided by the group that Steely Dan’s stab at Hollywood Show Biz Kids would be the cover of the night. Read on for more from San Diego and LA…
The Disco Biscuits are returning to the stage for three shows at the Starland Ballroom starting tomorrow. If you weren’t able to purchase tickets, or you’re just scared to run into this guy, you can watch all three shows on iClips. The broadcasts begin each night at 9:30. Don’t forget your pacifier and dancing shoes.
The New York Mets will play the final baseball game at Shea Stadium this fall. Billy Joel, a quintessential New Yorker and baseball lover, will play the final musical notes at the stadium, which has been home to the Amazin’s since 1964, in July. From the Beatles historical concerts to Dwight Gooden’s fastball, Shea has provided some fantastic memories. Here’s a few remembered, mash-up style:
Scenes From an Italian Restaurant – Mike Piazza, who certainly provided his share of Amazin’ moments for the Mets, will probably best be remembered for his performance in the first baseball game played in New York in the post-9/11 era. On September 20, 2001, Piazza hit a two-run homer in the eighth inning that lifted the Mets over the Atlanta Braves 3-2 and brought the tiniest bit of joy to a still weeping New York City.
A Matter of Trust – The Mets lose the first two games of the 1986 World Series at Shea to the Red Sox setting off panic after a 108-win regular season and a dramatic NLCS win over Houston. Tim Teufel’s through-the-wickets error allows the lone run in Game One and Dwight Gooden is shelled for six runs on eight hits over five innings in a 9-3 Game Two loss. The Mets turn it around and win Games Three and Four in Boston.
Read on for eleven more Billy Joel songs that just drive Mr. Met absolutely crazy…
We’ve got a couple of more festivals to tell you about this week, and let’s begin with this year’s 10KLF event at Detroit Lakes in Minnesota. Phil Lesh and Friends, The Flaming Lips and P-Funk head up the initial lineup announcement, which also features Mickey Hart’s new band and Michael Franti. 10KLF offers four days of camping and music from July 23 – 26.
Here’s some more news and links to help you get over the hump:
Let’s end the way we started with a festival announcement. Next up in the never-ending parade is the Sasquatch! Festival, which takes place at the legendary Gorge Amphitheater on May 24 – 26. The promoters put together a lineup reminiscent of an old episode of 120 Minutes thanks to headliners The Breeders, The Cure and R.E.M. You gotta love nostalgia.
