Last weekend, I witnessed one of the coolest concert experiences ever. Hidden in the hills of McMinnville, Tennessee lies the Cumberland Caverns a national natural landmark. Inside the cavern lies the Volcano Room, which happens to be one of the best natural acoustic spaces on earth. A few months ago Bluegrass Underground – not to be confused with now defunct band Blueground Undergrass – launched.
Bluegrass Underground is a monthly concert held inside the cavern that is broadcast on the world famous WSM AM. This past Saturday, Those Darlins – along with Grand Old Opry legend Charlie Louvin – literally rocked the cave. Luckily, I had my camera in tow to capture the experience of a lifetime.
Last Week’s Sauce is a recurring column featuring recordings of shows from the previous week. Thanks to Kevin Browning for this week’s photo.
Artist & Title: Assembly Of Dust – Arc Of The Sun Date & Venue: 2009-09-25 Port City Music Hall, Portland ME Taper & Show Download:SmokinJoe
If you haven’t heard Assembly Of Dust’s 2009 release Some Assembly Required, what are you waiting for? It’s a great selection of tunes and the album overflows with collaborations from legendary musicians. Assembly of Dust plays tonight with the Emmitt-Nershi Band at NYC’s Bowery Ballroom.
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READ ON to hear tracks from the likes of Bruce Hornsby and Built To Spill
Have you ever watched a live video on YouTube that you really enjoyed and wanted to take the audio with you? Just copy and paste the URL of any video from YouTube at a new website called Dirpy and after a few short steps you’ll be able to download an MP3 of the audio from that clip.
I used Dirpy to create an MP3 of My Morning Jacket rockin’ Gideon with the Boston Pops on Letterman back in 2006 and it works well.
Finally, the folks at Wolfgang’s Vault will add 1,000 concerts to the 500 shows already available for purchase on their site. You’ll be able to buy MP3s or FLACs as well as stream each of the shows for about $10 each.
Way back in April of 2008, the surviving members of the Grateful Dead held a press conference to announce a deal they struck with the University of Califonia at Santa Cruz to house the band’s archives. We haven’t heard much about this project since that day…until now. UC Santa Cruz announced that they have been awarded a National Leadership Grant of $615,175 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)–the primary source of federal funds for the nation’s museums and libraries.
The grant will enable the UCSC Library to digitize materials from its Grateful Dead Archive and make them available in a unique and cutting-edge web site titled, “The Virtual Terrapin Station.”
UCSC is one of 51 institutions nationwide that received National Leadership Grants this year totaling nearly $18 million. Projects funded by the IMLS are designed to “advance the ability of museums and libraries to preserve culture, heritage, and knowledge while enhancing learning.” [UCSC Press Release]
We can’t imagine the conservatives behind the Tea Parties are going to be happy when they hear about this use of federal funds. Regardless, Deadheads everywhere will benefit from the fruits of the grant money. The money will ensure that the band’s fans from around the world will be able to view the contents of the band’s archives without having to make the trip to Santa Cruz.
Digitizing the archive should take about two and a half years according to UCSC head of special collections and archives Christine Bunting as per an article in the Contra Costa Times. Bunting also reveals that the band donated 2/3rds of the material in the collection while Deadheads have supplied the rest. We’ll look forward to the day in 2012 when we get to see this “Virtual Terrapin Station” and hope it doesn’t get delayed for over a decade like the band’s first attempt at a “Virtual Terrapin Station” back in 1997. The $615, 175 of federal funds should help this time around.
2009 has shaped up to be quite a year for HT faves Blind Pilot. The Portland-based act have logged a lot of miles on the road over the course of the last six-plus months with headlining tours, festival appearances and holding down the opening slot for a number of big name bands which include the likes of The Decemberists, Gomez and the Counting Crows. Showing no signs of slowing down, Blind Pilot will head out yet again for another round of dates with a two-month run that kicks off on October 9 – with The Low Anthem and Laura Veirs & The Hall Of Flames splitting opening duties.
If you’re not into a night with Blind Pilot’s brand of folk-rock, than maybe you’ll be interested in hitting one of these recently announced tours…
Finally, San Francisco is no stranger to the sounds of psychedelic music, with the city playing home to many of the scene’s integral bands during its 1960s heyday. Now, some 40+ years later, San Fran’s psych-rock scene is again thriving as it will play host to The Second Annual Frisco Freakout Psychedelic Dance Party – which is set to take place at the The Parkside on October 10. The single day event, which will run from 2 PM to 2 AM, will feature the likes of Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound, Heavy Hills, Powell St. John and the Aliens, Liquorball with Steve MacKay, Wooden Shjips, and more. Proceeds will benefit Creativity Explored, a non-profit group which provides studio and gallery opportunities for artists with developmental disabilities.
When the producers of Langerado canceled this year’s festival in February we had a sinking feeling that was the end of the road for the annual event. Our friends at Consequence of Sound tipped us to an interview with Langerado co-founder Ethan Schwartz that puts the final nail in the festival’s coffin…
Over beers at Davie’s Ye Olde Falcon Pub, Schwartz put to rest rumors of a 2010 Langerado (to be held out in the Everglades again, according to the Internet grapevine), saying that the festival was “probably” gone for good. While he insisted that he isn’t done promoting and producing shows in South Florida, he quickly added that he’d like to do shows all over the state as well as his new home state, which, to these jaded ears, sounded suspiciously like he’d be bringing bands to, say, Atlanta, Orlando or Tampa, rather than down here. [Metromix]
Good luck to Ethan and godspeed to the music fans of South Florida.
Oh! Sweet Nuthin’ is the last track on the 1970 Velvet Underground album Loaded. Loaded would be the last Velvet Underground album before guitarist/lead singer Lou Reed left the group to start a solo career.
I’ll tell ‘ya, if you do actually listen to all five versions of this tune – and you happen to listen to them all in a row, you’re going to have the overwhelming urge to blast some loud and aggressive tunes as soon as that’s done. 44 minutes of Oh! Sweet Nuthin’ might bring you a little bit down, so have something queued up – I went with a live version of Immigrant Song.
The Contestants:
$10,000 Gold Chain: Not a whole lot of information out there on this band, but I do know it’s led by Mike McCready (the lead guitarist in Pearl Jam). It’s possible the only song this ensemble ever recorded was this cover for a 1996 Jim Carrey movie. Source: The Cable Guy: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
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READ ON for the scoop on the rest of this week’s contestants…
One of my favorite bands was, is, and always shall be Pink Floyd if you haven’t noticed. And like the psychedelic pioneers of space rock, I never met an idea I couldn’t use more than once or thrice. So, here, this week, we present an amalgamation of several Hidden Flick thought patterns as we continue our thesis study on “What is Cinema?” Why are the alleged great films usually bores, while the weird flicks are the post-everything gems?
And yes…a mixture of patterns sleeping in the dirt outside the Hidden Theatre as we wait to get inside to start an evening of unexpected fun and heady pre-Halloween no-goodery. Press replay, repeat, and then play the new stuff, please (“thesis” is used in jest, brah).
Well…time for more popcorn, Red Vines, Raisinettes, and a refill of that 97-ounce soda. We take a break from our regular look at obscure films with another edition of Intermission, which means another look at a cinematic chestnut that may have been lauded or groundbreaking in the past, but has since been forgotten in history’s hourglass.
READ ON for more of this week’s installment of Hidden Flick…
Here’s the fourth video in the Lotus web series we told you about a few weeks ago. This installment features the world premiere of the band’s latest single, Simian, off the forthcoming EP, Oil on Glass, along with live footage from Rothbury, band interviews and much more…
