Words: Jason Gershuny
Images: Benjamin Slayter

Good afternoon wishes from the heart of the wooded wondrous wilderness of Horning’s Hideout. This incredible festival hosted by the String Cheese Incident is off and running and is cruising along at full speed. Words can’t properly describe the true depth of the artistic collaboration of all forms that join together to create a brilliant and organic ambiance palpable throughout this wooded paradise.

This year’s festival has evolved to include: multiple ornately decorated stages chock full of all sorts of styles and perspectives of music, informative workshops and discussion panels that bring issues like “Activism in the Music Industry”, and “Being Honest with Your Kids” to light, and artistic pockets of creations throughout the woods that the adventurous explorer may come across with just a little wandering spirit. You could even find yourself surrounded by a mossy wooded backdrop and a southing flowing stream deep in the woods with a world famous Voodoo doughnut in your hand from the Cascadia coffee house. There is so much to see and do here, that the term eye candy may need to be revamped to all five sense candy just to be fair to all of your senses.

Thursday’s at Horning’s Hideout in past years has been a day to greet friends, set up camp and ground oneself to prepare for the upcoming party with less of a focus on big stage music. This year was different, and on behalf of all the music lovers in the crowd, I thank you for it. To kick things off we had four sets of String Cheese Incident side projects that got the party fully started a day early. READ ON for more of Jason’s thoughts & Ben’s pictures…

Furthur will return to New York City for the fifth set of shows in just under a year within city limits on November 20 and 21. After performing at the Hammerstein last December, Radio City in February, Coney Island last month and the Nokia this week, Furthur will step up to Madison Square Garden for the pair of shows that along with a November 19 date at the DCU Center in Worcester, MA have been billed by the band as the “last shows of fall tour.” No word yet on what the rest of the tour will look like.

Keep your eyes on Furthur.Net for ticketing information for the run which hasn’t been divulged yet. All eight of the group’s previous NYC shows have sold out. Phil Lesh, Bob Weir and the rest of their Furthur band mates are currently on stage at the Gathering of the Vibes in Bridgeport, CT.

Brothers Brando and Dusty Rich started CashOrTrade.org last year to offer Phish fans a free place to buy, sell or trade tickets with like-minded fans. Since the site’s inception in February of 2009 CashOrTrade.org has brokered over 10,000 transactions between those who have “embrace(d) the face.” With the second leg of Phish’s tour kicking off on Thursday we wanted to remind our readers of this incredible, free service.

Let’s take one last look at what’s happening on the ‘nets…

• Contra Gal Ann Kirsten Kennis talks about the controversy
• Watch Of Montreal perform Sex Karma w/ Beyonce’s sister
• Red Rocks sell outs Pretty Lights offer up another free EP
• Beck kicks down the latest video from his Record Club series
• Umphrey’s McGee taps NoCal’s Big Light to open a few shows
• John Spencer hopes that “fucker” Jim DeRogatis will die

Finally, great news for us jam fans as BoingBoing reports that YouTube will increase the maximum length of videos you can upload from 10 minutes to 15 minutes. While that’s still not enough time for a full YEM or Dark Star, it will allow plenty of segments to be shown in their entirety.

Yesterday, Luke “The Prophet” Sacks shared his preview of the second leg of Summer Tour and laid out the ever-shrinking list of songs that Phish could possibly bustout that they have played at least once before. Today, we’re going to have a listen to some of the best songs written by the individual members during the breakup of Phish and scratch our heads trying to figure out why they haven’t made it to the big stage yet.

The GRAB tour of Summer 2006 that featured Trey Anastasio, Mike Gordon, Marco Benevento and Joe Russo had a number of originals and even more great covers that Phish should also steal at some point. But today we focus on originals. Leading off is the laid-back funky number Hap-Nappy. From the same tour there is also another tune titled Suskind Hotel, that Cactus has also played with his solo band. Speaking of Cactus, everyone seems to agree that Andelman’s Yard from the album The Green Sparrow is well-suited to have Phish give a whack at it. One song, Beauty of a Broken Heart, has successfully made the crossover from Page McConnell’s 2007 self-titled solo recording debut, perhaps Heavy Rotation could be next.

Moving on to the solo efforts of Trey Anastasio, Goodbye Head has always seemed like a Phish song with its intricate composition and Reba-esque (often not played) jam section. I’ve always thought A Case Of Ice & Snow, an honest tune Trey penned with John Cruz and “Captain Kevin” Hoffman, would make a good addition to the slow-tune rotation. Gordon’s rocker Only A Dream was at least once learned in full by Phish as they included it on their Party Time release. And finally, though not written by any member of Phish, but played frequently on the GRAB tour, we have the Benevento Russo Duo tune Something For Rockets, an anthemic instrumental that filled amphitheaters in that Summer of 2006.

“Neil Young” returned to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon yesterday to perform a bittersweet ballad about an epic double rainbow…

“Neil Young” – Double Rainbow Song

This marks Neil’s third appearance on Fallon after tackling Pants on the Ground and the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song during his last two visits. Check out the original version of the Double Rainbow Song if you haven’t heard it yet. Jimmy welcomes Green Day on tonight’s show.

The Avett Brothers are seemingly on a mission to play every music festival out there this summer. A quick count shows they will play over a dozen this year. With such a busy tour schedule stretching into October, it’s no wonder they couldn’t find the time to appear in their newest music video for Head Full Of Doubt/Road Full Of Promises and decided to go the animated route…

The Avett Brothers – Head Full Of Doubt/Road Full Of Promises

The Avett Brothers continue their assault on the road with an appearance at this weekend’s Newport Folk Festival at Fort Adams Park.

British soulstress Corinne Bailey Rae focuses on songs from her latest LP, The Sea, for a lucky audience at the intimate Hiro Ballroom in NYC on this week’s episode of Live From The Artists Den. Check the map on the show’s website to find out what time and channel you can watch the show on.

Friday, July 30 [all times EDT]

• Dave Matthews Band: Live From The Beacon [Fuse 9PM]
• David Letterman: Madonna [CBS 11:35PM]
• Jimmy Fallon: Green Day [NBC 12:35AM]
• Carson Daly: Bad Religion [NBC 1:35AM]

Saturday, July 31

• Austin City Limits: Dierks Bentley [PBS Check Local Listings]
• Documentary: Neil Young – Heart of Gold [Palladia 3PM]
• Documentary: The USA vs. John Lennon [Sundance 3:25PM]
• Saturday Night Live: Them Crooked Vultures [NBC 11:30PM]

Sunday, August 1

• Artists Den: Corinne Bailey Rae [PBS Check Local Listings]
• Behind The Music: Def Leppard [VH1 Classic 8PM]
• The Cure: 4Play in Charlotte [HDNet 10:50PM]

Earlier today we told you about Bob Weir’s difficulties during the first set of Wednesday night’s Furthur show at the Nokia in New York City. The Furthur guitarist – and original member of the Grateful Dead – couldn’t make it through the first line of El Paso and looked to be struggling mightily with playing his axe. Video of the ill-fated Marty Robbins’ cover has surfaced and paints a better picture of what went down…

Furthur – El Paso

UPDATE [7/29 - 8:34PM]: At last night’s show, Furthur’s Phil Lesh stepped to the mic and said “never drink out of something you haven’t poured yourself” and then hugged Bob Weir at the start of the gig insinuating that Weir was dosed with a psychedelic drug. Dosing a 62-year-old is just not right. [via TaperRob of the PhilZone]

We were saddened to find out that legendary musician/producer Ben Keith left this mortal coil on Monday at the age of 73. Keith is probably best known to our readers for his pedal steel work with Neil Young, but he’s also worked with The Band, Paul Butterfield, Patsy Cline, Warren Zevon and on and on.

For this week’s B List we wanted to pay tribute to Keith by dipping our toes into the YouTube vault for a few examples of his exemplary work…

1. Neil Young – Down By The River

We start with Ben Keith’s last appearance with Neil Young at the 2009 Bridge School Benefit.

READ ON for more clips featuring the work of Ben Keith…

I had a horrible nightmare, I dreamed that we went…back in time. It was terrible. Well…We’re safe and sound now, back in good old 2010. We’ve got a nice collection this week, opening up with long instrumental exploration, members of The Grateful Dead, a jamband’s first show in over a year and some topical humor dedication from our friends from down south.

[Thanks to Craig T for this week's photo]

And we continue to take all the selected tracks, normalize them, create some simple fades and put it into one easy to download MP3 for you.

Click here to download the Last Week’s Sauce Podcast

Artist & Title: Geoff Scott’s Public House – Unknown
Date & Venue: 2010-07-20 Atwoods Tavern – Cambridge, MA
Taper & Show Download: Andy Murray

I often write in this feature about one of Boston’s best kept secrets – Club D’Elf. Another one is Geoff Scott, guitarist formerly of Miracle Orchestra, that heads up Tuesday Night gigs at Atwood’s Tavern in Cambridge, MA. Geoff pulls from a similar pool of musicians that show up at Club D’Elf, and this 20-minute segment of music – which we are all having trouble figuring out song titles for – illustrates what this ensemble is all about. This past Tuesday’s performance featured Mike Rivard of Club D’Elf (Bass, Sintir, Kalimba), Johnny Trama (Guitar), Timo Shanko (Saxophone) and Brian Sayers (Drums). It’s not the most organized pickup jam, so I can’t even point you to a website that tells you when the next gig is.

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READ ON for tracks from String Cheese Incident, the Rhythm Devils and Widespread Panic…

Furthur played the first of two shows at the Nokia last night and the big story was Bob Weir’s performance. Bobby – who uses a teleprompter – struggled mightily with the lyrics in a particularly horrid Brown Eyed Women, El Paso sequence. Weir couldn’t get past the first verse of El Paso and after futzing around for a while announced he was going to start over. The second take on the lyrics was just as rough as the first.

There’s been tons of talk and speculation on the PhilZone and Ratdog.org message boards about what Bobby’s issue was, but nothing has been confirmed. Regardless, we hope Bobby’s okay and that Furthur pulls it together tonight. Take a listen to the sequence yourself to hear how bad it was. Brown Eyed Women starts around 16:35 and El Paso at 24:30…

READ ON to hear last night’s first set (warning: it autoplays)…

Back in early June, I centered my Phish Summer Tour Preview around a symbolic fork in the road, which is where I saw the band prior to their 19-date first leg. It wasn’t my most accurate column as I mistakenly called the cavernous Thompson Boling Arena in Knoxville small and was probably a little harsh in criticizing their playing in Hampton. But at the end of the column I laid out three options that I thought were available to the band for this summer, which was really my main point of the whole article.

[All photos by Adam Kaufman]

We all saw what went down in June and early July with Phish tearing it up on a nightly basis and surprising the hell out of fans with bust outs and new covers galore. This is what I referred to in the column as “Option A.” Every song the band had ever played was fair game. Among the most outstanding choices: Fuck Your Face was played in Charlotte after being on the shelf for over 23 years (or 1,413 shows). The Friday night Camden show opened with the first Alumni Blues in 222 shows sandwiched around the first Letter to Jimmy Page in 587 shows. Tela, which had previously appeared only five times since 1997, was played twice. In Raleigh, the show opened with the now-rare Llama and always-rare Roses are Free with Have Mercy and a scorching Light Up or Leave Me Alone in the second set.

The new covers included The Band’s Look Out, Cleveland and John Lennon’s Instant Karma! in Cuyuhoga Falls, Tom Waits’ Cold Water in Portsmouth, VA, Jumping Jack Flash in Merriweather and a heartfelt take on Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, a gutsy choice considering the high regard in which that song is held. And in Alpharetta, on July 4, the band whipped fans into a frenzy with a Harpua featuring a cover of Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name Of. That of course after already playing Colonel Forbin’s Ascent > Fly Famous Mockingbird in the first set. So far the covers have all been one-offs. Will that continue in the second leg or will we see more polished versions of some of these? I’m hoping for the latter.

READ ON for more of our Phish Summer Tour Leg 2 Preview…

This 17-minute infomercial promoting the Gathering of the Juggalos has been described as “the greatest thing on the internet” and we think that’s not too far from the truth. Can you believe Ron Jeremy, Willis Drummond, Slick Rick, Gallagher and Half Pint Brawlers will all be in one place? Sign us up!

Gathering of the Juggalos 2010 – Infomercial

Call it a sign of the times, but rumors that The Cars will reunite began to surface earlier this week after the seminal pop-rock band posted this picture to their official Facebook page showing the surviving members playing in the studio together with caption – “anyone in the mood for a reunion by The Cars?” The band, who broke up in 1987 shortly after the release of their sixth studio Door To Door, staged a comeback under the moniker The New Cars in 2005 without original lead singer Ric Ocasek and drummer David Robinson. Sadly, bassist Benjamin Orr passed away in 2000.

• List Time: Cinema’s Top 20 Music Geeks
• The Boss sat in with Alejandro Escovedo at The Stone Pony
• Cover Alert: Punch Brothers tackle Radiohead
• The Baseball Project pen an ode to Nats’ pitcher Steven Strasburg
• Download This: Deer Tick @ Maxwell’s (NYC Taper)
• Black Crowes Confess to 20 Years of Tall Tales

Finally, we’re just a day from the start of the Newport Folk Festival, which this year kicks off with a night of “banjo and bluegrass” at the International Tennis Hall Of Fame tomorrow night, before moving to the festival grounds at Fort Adams State Park. After a cut on his hand required 19 stitches Justin Townes Earle was forced to cancel his appearance at the fest. Through some good fortune and even better timing, Earle will be replaced by Elvis Perkins In Dearland – who had called inquiring about passes for the event and instead were offered the vacated slot. Individual and two-day passes for the Newport Folk Festival are still available and can be purchased here.

We’re approaching two years since the release of the eighth volume of the Bob Dylan Bootleg Series back in October of 2008 which was titled Tell Tale Signs and contained rare material from 1989-2006. We were starting to think ol’ Bob was done with archival releases until we saw today’s Rolling Stone article about Volume 9 finally hitting stores in October.

Rolling Stone, via a report on the Isis fansite, says that the upcoming installment will feature 47 studio tracks recorded between 1962 and 1964. The release contains early versions of beloved Dylan tunes A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall, Masters of War, Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right, The Times They Are A-Changin’ and Mr. Tambourine Man.

That’s not the only archival release on tap from Dylan…

Dylan will also reissue his first eight albums (from his 1962 self-titled debut through 1967′s John Wesley Harding) in mono format, which have never been issued on CD before. The reissues — reportedly mastered using “first issue copies of the mono LPs” in order to recreate the sound of the original LPs — will come packaged in paper sleeves with liner written by Rolling Stone contributing editor Greil Marcus. [Rolling Stone]

READ ON for the reported track list for Volume 9…