Friday ended another fast and furious week on Hidden Track as we presented a full slate of features, columns and news stories.  For this week’s Cover Wars, DaveO looked at one of the most covered songs of this new year, Neil Young’s Harvest Moon. In fact, Josh Groban covered the tune on Friday at the MusiCares 2010 Person of the Year celebration in L.A.

Groban was one of a number of all-star musicians covering Young’s songs at the party which also saw Wilco cover Broken Arrow, Stephen Stills and Sheryl Crow tackle Long May You Run and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, with new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, performing A Man Needs A Maid.

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Man Needs a Maid

If you didn’t get a chance to read HT this week, here’s what you missed…

• Radiohead raised over 500K for Haiti while Phish released 11/19/92 on LivePhish with proceeds going to the relief effort
• Jeff reviewed & Jeremy Gordon shot Vampire Weekend in NYC
• Randy Ray looked at Tsotsi for this week’s Hidden Flick column
• Friday 4 the Foodies went international with a trip to Paris
• Lost fans loved Ryan’s preview of Season Six, done Phish style
• Chad B.’s first B List was on 10 Bands That Didn’t Escape the ’00s
• Blips Update kicked off with a look at Will McCranie’s 52/52 project
• We came up with more conditions for Ticketmaster/Live Nation
• Last Week Sauce profiled Kung Fu, UM, moe., Mule and more

Finally, the Disco Biscuits shared the details of Camp Bisco 9 which Carla Danca wrote up for us. That same day, the Biscuits also announced the rest of the bill for this year’s Bisco Inferno which takes place at Red Rocks on May 29. Aeroplane, Pnuma Trio, The Crystal Method, Booka Shade and The Glitch Mob will join the Biscuits at their second Red Rocks headlining gig.

Jam titans Widespread Panic announced the full details of their Spring Tour this afternoon. The run starts after the Wanee Festival and includes two-night stands at the Warner Theatre in Washington D.C., Raleigh’s Walnut Creek and The National in Richmond, VA. Following Jazz Fest, Panic ventures to Tulsa, OK; Chattanooga, TN and Greenville, SC before finishing the tour with a two-night stand at The Wharf in Orange Beach, AL.

Check out widespreadpanic.com for full details on the tour.

Let’s take a final look at a few other stories of note…

• Spin explains the secrets behind Sunday’s Grammy Awards
• Learn to Ski & Ride with moe.rons at the Snoe.down fest
• Live Music Archive iPhone app now available thru iTunes
• Check out the premiere of the “new” Jimi Hendrix song
• Sly Stone sues one of his former managers for $50 million
• VH1 announces four new shows including a really morbid one

Finally, Ekoostik Hookah has pulled out all of the stops for the 33rd Hookahville Festival which takes place at Legend Valley in Thornville, Ohio on May 28 – 30. Joining Hookah will be Gov’t Mule, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Larry Keel & Natural Bridge and Jam Cruise MVP Zach Deputy. Tickets are on sale now for Hookahville 33. Have a good weekend, everybody!

Not counting the brief post-midnight hour or so of music during their epic New Year’s Eve performance at Madison Square Garden, last year was entirely devoid of My Morning Jacket concerts on American soil. During the Jacket’s “hiatus” front man Jim James kept busy – starting his own record label, releasing a George Harrison covers EP, appearing on an episode of American Dad, along with his duties as a member of the  Monsters Of Folk, while drummer Patrick Hallahan toured as part of Dan Auerbach’s solo band.

Well the waiting is over for those of us who have missed the band’s brand of Southern-psychedelic-soul-rock, as today they unveiled the dates for a brief Southeastern Spring run that kicks off on April 20 at the Alabama Theater in Birmingham, AL and includes a previously announced appearance at the New Orlean’s Jazz & Heritage Festival. Let’s take a look at the dates…

4/20 – Alabama Theater – Birmingham, AL

4/21 – Municipal Auditorium – Nashville, TN

4/23 – Chastain Park – Atlanta, GA

4/24 – Jazz & Heritage Festival – New Orleans, LA

4/27 – St. Augustine Amphitheater – St. Augustine, FL

4/28 – Family Circle – Charleston, SC

4/30 – Koka Booth – Raleigh, NC

5/1 – Merriweather Post Pavilion – Columbia, MD

5/2 – LC Outdoor Pavilion – Columbus, OH

Joining the band as the support act throughout run will be the legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Tickets for these shows will go on sale next Friday and Saturday, February 5th and 6th at 10 AM. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that more dates are headed our way, but in the meantime which if any of these shows do you plan on hitting?

This past May I went to Paris. It was my first time returning to the City of Lights since having lived there all of 1992 when I was part of the opening management team for Disneyland Paris. In the coming weeks, I plan on putting together a few postings about my food experiences from the trip.

The highlight of the Paris trip, though, was the day I took the TGV from the Gare du Nord in Paris to Pontarlier, which is near the Swiss border for a tour of a working absinthe distillery there.

Staring at the departure board in the Gare du Nord, looking for what platform my train was on. It was #17, all the way on the other side of the station

3 1/2 hours later, we were in Pontarlier.

READ ON for more of Jon’s trip to the Epicenter of Absinthe…

Keeping in the spirit of Scotty’s post yesterday, former Blips act Local Natives, whose debut album Gorilla Manor will get its stateside release via French Kiss on February 16, have just dropped the music video for their infectious first single. Check out the video for Airplanes…

Local Natives – Airplanes

We weren’t racing to set our DVRs for Michael Buble’s stint as the musical guest on this week’s Saturday Night Live until we read Brooklyn Vegan’s post advising us that the Canadian singer will be joined by HT fave Sharon Jones for a duet. The pair will sing Baby (You’ve Got What It Takes) off of Buble’s recent album, Crazy Love, on which Jones appears.

Friday, January 29 [all times Eastern]

• David Letterman: Julian Casablancas [CBS 11:35PM]
• Conan O’Brien: Grizzly Bear [NBC 11:35PM]
• Jimmy Kimmel: John Mayer [ABC Midnight]
• Carson Daly: Phoenix [NBC 1:35AM]

Saturday, January 30

• Austin City Limits: Steve Earle [PBS]
• Storytellers: Kanye West [Palladia 11:30AM]
• Spectacle: Bruce Springsteen [Sundance 7PM]
• Saturday Night Live: Michael Buble [NBC 11:30PM]

Sunday, January 31

• Iconoclasts: Batali on Michael Stipe [Sundance Noon]
• Unplugged: Adele [Palladia 2:30PM]
• Jason Mraz: Live on Earth [Palladia 4PM]
• Jay-Z: Live From MSG [Fuse 6PM]

As we leave the 2000-2009 decade behind, we’ve been looking at a lot of the bands that didn’t quite make it. Esteemed HT editor Scott Bernstein had his picks in a few months back, and here are some of mine. I was surprised to see we overlapped only once, but that says a lot more about the scope of bands that thrived in the decade but that we (probably) won’t see again.

I didn’t have room here for all the supergroups. I loved the JoJo Hermann/Dickinson Brothers combo Smiling Assassins, for example, and it’s hard to believe the Oysterhead tour (minus the 2006 ‘Roo reunion) was nine years ago. I felt like reaching back to Frogwings, too, but seeing as they became inactive in 2000, they weren’t really of this era, were they? And recent reunions by both The Word and Will Bernard’s Motherbug are enough to convince me those groups aren’t lost to the dustbin, either.

Then there’s the matter of Leftover Salmon. Salmon hasn’t been a proper touring outfit since at least the 2005 hiatus, but they continue to reunite and play, and as Drew Emmitt told us in recent site interview, they’re comfortable leaving it at that. Works for us, though maybe they should count for this list seeing as that probably means we won’t see new music or extended tour dates anytime soon. Hard to say.

Did I miss anybody? Am I crazy? Leave a comment below and argue.

10. Phil Lesh & Friends (2007-2008)

They didn’t top another PLF ensemble (see below), but this lineup – with Larry Campbell, Jackie Greene, Steve Molitz, John Molo and sometimes Teresa Williams and Barry Sless – was strong enough to make observers wonder if Phil would finally commit to a band again. It wasn’t to be, and their shows could be frustratingly inconsistent, but this particular band had a strong roots and country-rock jones that felt especially pronounced in Dead classics like Brokedown Palace, Brown Eyed Women, Beat It On Down the Line or, their signature, Cumberland Blues.

Not psychedelic enough for some – and at times lacking the finesse and guitar acrobatics of other PLF lineups – but they were plenty strong (rarely more, for my money, than 11/11/07, the last night of their first NYC residency). They also introduced an entire new group of fans to Greene, now a jam-scene favorite.

READ ON for nine more bands that didn’t make it out of the ’00s…

As we previously reported, the ever busy Jack White has teamed up with Wanda Jackson to produce the Queen Of Rockabilly’s latest release. The album, which will hit stores later this year via White’s Third Man Records, will feature Jackson backed by White and a number of his Raconteurs and Dead Weather band mates. As a taste of what’s to come, a double A-side single was released earlier this week that features covers of Amy Winehouse’s You Know I’m No Good and a take on the old rock ‘n roll song Shakin’ All Over. Both are currently available on a 7” or digitally via iTunes.

• List Time: 10 Best Whistling Parts In Songs
• Widespread Panic are currently working on a new studio album
• Cover Alert: Brendan Bensen & Corey Chisel tackle Tom Petty
• Captains Dead kicks down a killer Van Morrison show from 1970
• Wilco offers up two concert downloads to benefit Haiti
• Les Claypool is producing his own line of wines via Claypool Cellars

Finally, it seems rather hard to believe considering his long and storied career, but Bob Dylan will perform at the White House for his very first time as part of the In Performance at the White House: A Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement concert. Among the other performers joining Mr. Zimmerman and the event’s host the President and the First Lady in the White House’s East Room will be John Mellencamp, Smokey Robinson and the Blind Boys Of Alabama with the results airing on PBS on February 11.

The past few weeks have been extremely eventful for Umphrey’s McGee as the Chicago-based sextet kicked off the year with two weeks worth of killer shows and continue to announce more dates in 2010. Yesterday, the band announced that they will make their first trip to Australia in April for the Byron Bay Blues Festival, iClips will broadcast an upcoming show on February 4 and that Atlanta will host the next S2 event on February 6.

Last Saturday afternoon, UM hosted the latest S2/Stew Art event in Denver which yielded improv based on such themes as “Marc Brownstein vs. Jenn (sic) Hartswick,” “Iron Maiden Does Devo” and “How You Feel After Eating At Waffle House.” For more details on what S2 events are, check out DaveO’s review of the Washington D.C. S2 and this video from the Denver event. The next S2 takes place in Atlanta at The Tabernacle on February 6. Tickets go on sale tomorrow at noon eastern time.

Umphrey’s will continue to tour their way across the country starting on Tuesday in Omaha. The next stretch of the band’s never ending tour takes them through the Midwest to the South and ends in Baltimore on Valentine’s Day. Anyone who wants to check out UM’s show in St. Louis on February 4 can tune in to the iClips premium broadcast for $6.99. Finally, the prog-jammers will make their first trip down under in April for the Byron Bay Blues Festival in Australia.

READ ON for a full list of Umphrey’s McGee tour dates…

Every couple of weeks we take a look at a few under the radar bands for our beloved Blips column. Today, we kick off a new column, Blips Update, to take a more in-depth look at what one of the artists we’ve featured in Blips has accomplished since being profiled on our humble site.

Will McCranie [Blip'd: January 21, 2009]

Website / MySpace / 52/52 Project

When we last profiled Will, the Southern-bred singer/songwriter had just released a marvelous double EP called North/South and had moved up to NYC in an attempt to perform as much as possible. Will has succeeded not only in playing a shit-ton of gigs, but he has also written a huge batch of tunes. So what does an independent artist do with a boatload of songs to share? Will came up with the innovative idea of posting a song a week on a new website called the 52/52 Project.

Each week, McCranie posts a demo, live track, cover or whatever strikes his fancy on the 52/52 Project website with the goal of compiling the best tracks at the end of the year for a full length LP. He’s even opened the project up to his fans by encouraging them to remix or add their own tracks to any of his tunes. Everyone seems to win in this situation – Will gets his music out there, Will’s fans get a new song a week and the A&R staffers of the world get to check out the full range of McCranie’s music without leaving their desks.

While McCranie has obviously spent a lot of time on the website, he’s still playing a bunch of gigs. When we profiled Will for Blips he mainly performed solo but over the last six months he’s been performing with a band giving his originals a fuller sound in the live setting. Last Sunday, McCranie rocked a 52/52 Project launch party at NYC’s Rockwood Music Hall backed by the Not So Sober Novembers. Check out their version of Take Your Place…

Will McCranie’s next gig is at Asylum in Washington D.C. on February 9.