Our pal Ted Rockwell, of Everyday Companion fame, attended Saturday night’s Furthur show and enjoyed it so much he decided to submit a writeup on the evening urging our readers to check out the recordings…

So we’re all live music fans, right?

OK, now that we have that established, I will dispose of formalities like explaining what it feels like to go to a show at the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheater. And I will forego the description of the all-to-often occurrence of thoroughly enjoying a live performance, only to review the tapes and realize on second listen that the performance is full of flaws.

And I will skip right to the heart of the matter at hand.

[via @furthurband]

On Saturday September 25, 2010, Furthur played one of the best shows I have ever seen at Red Rocks. Period.

I realize that’s a big statement, but I can back it up. By anyone’s estimation I have seen my fair share of amazing shows at Red Rocks over the last 14 years; Neil Young in the rain, Radiohead, Bjork, Wilco, every single Widespread Panic show they’ve headlined, several incarnations of Phil Lesh and his friends, Gov’t Mule, Trey, The Arcade Fire, Sigur Ros… etc.

READ ON for more on Furthur on the Rocks…

M80 Dub Station, Conspirator, Ginger Kids & Tractorbeam @ Mishawaka Ampitheater, Sept. 18

Words: Alexander Wolff
Photos: Jason Woodside

There is something inherently cool about having a ticket to a Conspirator show and finding out that the Disco Biscuits are playing. See, the kids wanted Tractorbeam – an instrumental version of tDB. Between Allen Aucoin’s robotic drumming extremities being at a family reunion back East, not to mention the fact that it wasn’t even billed as a Biscuits show, it just wasn’t in the cards. Well, the demand was high and the strings were pulled, and in the end, it was indeed Tractorbeam the kids would get.

Jon “The Barber” Gutwillig’s push-and-play dubstep outfit M80 Dubstation came off as self-indulgent and sounded abrasive, but in the very least he was having fun. Conspirator played a better show with Adam Deitch on Thursday at Cervante’s, and the Ginger Kids experimental brand of break beat club bangers didn’t do all that much for this restless crowd. The party was set to go off though, and seeing as this may be the Mishawaka Amphitheater’s last great stand it feels in a lot of ways like a bash for the end of the world.

By far the best part of this non-stop, two-hour set was that instead of playing the songs that have come to be expected from Tractorbeam shows, the Biscuits flipped the script, rearranging songs that span mostly from the last seven or eight years of new music for this uncommon all-instrumental performance. Bombs, On Time, Portal To An Empty Head, Feeling Twisted and Neck Romancer are all songs that have showed up in the last year, and Tricycle is the oldest song performed having been debuted in 2000. They kept it fresh, and certainly took risks all night.

READ ON for more of Alex’s thoughts and Jason’s photos…

On October 7th HBO will air The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town – a documentary about the recording of Bruce Springsteen’s classic album. Check out the trailer as Bruce and members of the E Street Band discuss the extremely long process that led to the LP’s release…

Darkness on the Edge of Town Documentary – Trailer

In the past we’ve discussed some awesome Grateful Dead soundboards that were converted to MP3 and expertly tagged by our pal Duanebase. Well, Duanebase continues his move into the video realm as he’s been loading up his YouTube channel with hundreds of amazing clips. Most we’ve seen before, but never in this quality.

We wanted to present two different playlists worth of Duanebase’s videos. The first comes from backstage and sidestage footage videographer Justin Kreutzmann shot of his dad’s band, the Grateful Dead, throughout the late ’80s. There’s plenty of interaction amongst the band in hotels around the country as well as cool clips of the Dead in action…

Grateful Dead Home Movies Pts. 1 – 9

[via No Depression]

Duanebase also uploaded pristine footage of Phish’s first Halloween concert where they covered another artists’ album – October 31, 1994 at the Glens Falls Civic Center. Check out the full show including a complete performance of The Beatles’ White Album…

Phish – October 31, 1994

[via YEMblog]

We’ve been pimping this weekend’s Matador at 21 event in Las Vegas for a few months now, but none of us could make it out to Sin City for the three-day celebration. Luckily, those not in attendance will be able to witness many of the performances thanks to a webcast at MySpace Music.

Pavement, Spoon and Guided By Voices will be among the acts whose sets will be broadcast live. Click here for the official webcast schedule as more artists will be added in the coming days.

Here’s six other links you should check out this afternoon…

• Jimmy Vivino to lead the Conan house band on TBS
• UM’s blog offers a look at the latest Stew Art event
• Relix editor Josh Baron reviews Saturday’s Ramble
• Watch Bob Dylan’s appearance on History’s Pawn Wars
• Panic paid tribute to Vic Chesnutt this past Sat. night
• Lawyer: NJ ticket-scam defendants didn’t break law

Finally, the Wall Street Journal posted a great article examining whether video is killing the concert vibe. You’d have to be blind not to notice the proliferation of cameras and cell phones with cameras at concerts of late, but while every band has the right to set their own policies we’d hate to see a uniform ban on cell phones and cameras at shows. Who doesn’t love watching a clip of a noteworthy performance days after it happens?

As with everything in life, there are some concertgoers who are couth about shooting video while others don’t care if they hinder someone else’s experience. We hope the article makes some fans recognize that your shooting video is less important than the sight lines of the person next to you. The live experience comes first and foremost to recordings.

While a few of us on the HT staff love MGMT’s latest album, Congratulations, the band’s label – Sony/Columbia – aren’t big fans of the psychedelic LP’s sales figures. There’s no catchy single a la Kids or Electric Feel or Time To Pretend on Congratulations and we all know that label heads aren’t as interested in a band growing as an artist as they are in a band producing hits. Sony gave the band creative freedom for Congratulations, but according to an interview with MGMT’s Andrew Van-Wyngarden in the Daily Record the label will be much more involved with the creation of the third album.

“We’ve been looking at relationships with the label during the recording process and it’s quite different this time. They’ll be more involved and not give us as much freedom,” Van-Wyngarden told the paper before a recent gig in Glasgow. The singer/guitarist feels the band is in a completely different place, “I definitely think our music will change in the future because Congratulations is almost two years old now. We have some ideas and have been talking about possible directions of where to go next. We are just in much more positive mental states than when we wrote Congratulations.” No word yet on when the group will enter the studio, we can’t wait to see where their career goes from here.

In other MGMT news, the band’s touring drummer – Will Berman – left the stage with just two songs left in the group’s set last night in Manchester after getting hit with “an object from the crowd” according to a Spinner report. Berman’s band mates didn’t even realize he was gone until after the next tune, Kids, and pleaded for his return to no avail.

As we previously reported neo-soul singer John Legend and hip-hop act The Roots have teamed up to release Wake Up! – which hit stores last Tuesday and is a throw back to classic soul records. As a way of celebrating the album, the powerhouse combo played a special one-night only show at New York’s cavernous Terminal 5 last Thursday that was streamed live on YouTube as part of American Express’ Unstaged concert series. The concert, which was the second in a five part series, featured appearances from Common, Jennifer Hudson and Estelle and was directed by Spike Lee.

If you missed the live stream fear not as you can still watch it all, which includes an inventive take on The Arcade Fire’s Wake Up, via John Legend’s YouTube page.The night’s festivities also included this powerful, 12-plus minute take on Bill Withers’ socio-political anthem I Can’t Write Left Handed that includes some blistering guitar work from The Roots’ Captain Kirk Douglas. Let’s take a peek…

Not long after its ferocious East Coast debut in the fall of 2000, the Haynes, Herring, Barraco and Molo line-up of Phil and Friends returned to the road for a series of West Coast dates, including a pair in Denver, a pair in Portland and a set of four in San Francisco in 2001. And immediately the band was even better than before. They took all the raw power and excitement of those initial shows and harnessed it in the way only a collective of truly masterful musicians could, cultivating it to produce longer, far more textured and subtle music that truly traveled to new and wondrous places.

The increased length was crucial, allowing the ensemble to explore in a profoundly open-ended manner, to follow flights of fancy or darker urges or both plus any number of other moods. Many of the opening jams and segues, not to mention internal jams in tunes like Bird Song, featured two, three, even four distinct themes, creating a shifting psychedelic tide that made every night even more unique, profoundly individual, than just a varied set list.

The Jam > Bird Song that opens only the second date of 2001 clocks in at 30 minutes (although to be fair, Derek Trucks was in the mix that night, and he’s always quick to push the envelope). But that kind of number quickly became common place; the expansiveness was simply the way the band did business. In Portland there’s a 45 minute Jam > Scarlet Begonias > Uncle John’s Band and a 20 plus minute Passenger, not to mention an hour and ten minute Dark Star > Eyes > Dark Star > Low Spark the next night.

• Stormy Mondays: Phil Lesh Quintet, Year 1

READ ON for more from Dan on Year Two of the PLQ…

With Jam Cruise 9 set to depart from Ft. Lauderdale on January 4th filled to the brim with amazing artists and the band fans who love them, it’s time for another edition of Jam Cruise Files. Back in January, one-man band Zach Deputy made quite an impression on Jam Cruise 8 attendees – not only during his own sets, but also from his multiple sit-ins and ample time spent on stage in the Jam Room. In fact, Zach won the well deserved honor of the “Up All Night” trophy at the awards ceremony on the last day of the trip.

There wasn’t much doubt Deputy would be invited back for Jam Cruise 9 and that’s exactly what happened. We spoke to Zach for today’s installment of Jam Cruise Files…

Hidden Track: What were some of your favorite moments from last year’s voyage?

Zach Deputy: Playing in the jam room until 7 or 8 in the morning on the second night, and playing in the basketball tournament wearing a skirt.

HT: Honestly, how much sleep did you get during last year’s trip?

ZD: I don’t really know. I basically just took naps. But I was up probably until 10 every morning. I slept through Jamaica. I guess you could say I like the music better than I like Jamaica.

HT: Are there any artists on this year’s cruise that you are especially looking forward to interacting with?

ZD: Hold on, let me look at the line up real quick (lol). Wow. There’s so many people I can’t wait to hang out with and see again. Karl Denson, Robert Walter, Ivan Neville, Adam Deitch, all the guys from The New Mastersounds and Lettuce and Maceo Parker. You know, all the funk and soul cats.

• Jam Cruise Files 2010: Stanton Moore, Joel Cummins, Julie McCoy

READ ON for more of Jam Cruise Files: Zach Deputy…

Last year, The Flaming Lips released their most ambitious and overtly psychedelic album since their early years with Embryonic. The Oklahoma City-based act, who are no strangers to doing weird things both on and off the stage, have just release their latest music video that features a naked, blinded-folded girl walking the streets, a giant sphere that looks like it has a vagina, and well, you know what you just need to see this one for yourself.

READ ON to check out the slightly NSFW video after the jump…

Gorillaz will kick off their eagerly anticipated Escape to Plastic Beach World Tour on Sunday in Montreal. The band will hit North America in October, Europe in November, Australia & New Zealand in December and Asia in 2011. To gear up you can tune into Palladia on Thursday at 6pm for the group’s performance from April at the legendary Camden Roundhouse in England.

Monday, September 27

• Ellen DeGeneres: LL Cool J [Syndicated - check listings]
• U2: Rattle & Hum [Palladia 3PM]
• Classic Albums: Phil Collins, Face Value [VH1 Classic 3PM]
• George Lopez: Santana with Nas [TBS 11PM]
• The Beach Boys: Live at Knebworth [VH1 Classic 5PM]

Tuesday, September 28

• Paul McCartney: Live in St. Petersburg [VH1 Classic 11AM]
• Ellen DeGeneres: Vampire Weekend [Syndicated - check listings]
• Judas Priest: Behind the Music Remastered [VH1 Classic 11PM]
• David Letterman: N.E.R.D. [CBS 11:35PM]
• Jimmy Kimmel: Maroon 5 [ABC 12:05AM]

Wednesday, September 29

• The Who: Quick Ones [VH1 Classic 6:30PM]
• Will Smith: Biography [BIO 8PM]
• Jay Leno: Seal [NBC 11:35PM]
• Jimmy Kimmel: Sharon Jones & Dap Kings [ABC 12:05AM]
• Jimmy Fallon: Belle & Sebastian [NBC 12:35AM]

Thursday, September 30

• Ellen DeGeneres: Pete Yorn [Syndicated - check listings]
• Gorillaz: Live at the Camden Roundhouse 2010 [Palladia 6PM]
• David Bowie: Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars [Palladia 9PM]
• Daily Show: Justin Timberlake [Comedy Central 11PM]
• Jimmy Kimmel: The Avett Brothers [ABC 12:05AM]

The last time I was due up for Friday Mix Tape I put together a list of rock tunes written in 5. Well, let’s add two more beats to the measure as we take a look at songs with at least large portions of the tune written in 7.

Now count with me: One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.

Leading off we have to go with Estimated Prophet by The Grateful Dead, it’s in a nice slow seven count. From there we will follow up with the song that features the first licensed Dead sample and that’s Animal Collective’s What Would I Want? Sky. When you write a song in an odd time signature, it’s very popular to reference it in the song title as is illustrated in Dave Matthews Band’s Seven, Soulive’s One In Seven and Broken Social Scene’s 7/4 (Shoreline). You would think Radiohead’s 2+2=5 is a reference to a possible time signature, but that is not the case. And finally, of course we have Phish’s Harpua which starts out in 7. To hear just how weird things get when you attempt to play songs written in 7 in common time instead, listen to the Vegas ’96 rendition last on the playlist.