Levon Helm had an immeasurable impact on many members of our staff. We wanted to give our contributors a forum to discuss the key member of The Band and we couldn’t think of a more perfect person to start our Love For Levon series than Hidden Track founder Slade Sohmer.

To eulogize Levon Helm is to eulogize The Band.

The ‘key man on drums’ lost his decade-long battle with cancer on Thursday, thus extinguishing the torch of one of North America’s most unique and distinguished rock ‘n’ roll bands that Levon forever fought to preserve.

[Photo by Jeremy Gordon]

Eight years in bars. Eight years in arenas. Rocka-backing Ronnie Hawkins. Taking Bob Dylan electric. Deep South white soul, broken soul. A bone-rattling tale of rural sprawl. Cotton country. Rice country. The tortured, resolute spirit of Americana, that of traveling medicine shows and bruised postbellum pride. Schools should teach elementary lessons on how a quintet of musician’s musicians overcame a four-fifths Canadian handicap to churn out one of the finest Southern love letters ever written.

It was Levon who fought to keep The Band on the road. On his disapproval of the justifiably celebrated Scorsese-directed superstar-studded sendoff, The Last Waltz, Levon said: “Do it, puke, and get out.”

He had no desire to allow this band to go from “productivity to retirement” in the blink of an eye. He acquiesced, but he led partial reunion tours and recording sessions, raising Caine back up when he’s in defeat. After his initial throat cancer diagnosis, it was Levon who kept The Band alive at his Woodstock home in the form of the Midnight Ramble. In death, in a sense, Old Dixie goes down with Levon.

On July 28, 1973, about 600,000 people showed up to see The Band, the Allman Brothers and the Grateful Dead at Summer Jam at Watkins Glen, a racetrack in upstate New York (some perspective on that: 1 out of every 351 people in America at that time was in attendance). Legendary rock promoter Bill Graham took the stage to introduce The Band to the double-Woodstock crowd, and in a last-but-not-least moment, concluded the lineup with: “The key man on drums, Mr. Levon Helm.” Levon wasn’t the key man on drums. He was the key man, who happened to play drums.

After Richard Manuel committed suicide in 1986 and Rick Danko died of heart failure in 1999, The Band may have lost its heart and its soul. But in Levon it maintained its integrity, its composition.

READ ON

[Originally Published: March 10, 2009]

In honor of today’s anniversary of the Phish reunion shows, we wanted to reprint Hidden Track founder Ace Cowboy’s thoughts Hampton.

To accurately describe what it’s like having the popular rock band Phish back on the Hampton Coliseum stage, let me steal a quip from that lovable ol’ drunkard Arthur when he tells Linda about owning a yacht: “It doesn’t suck.”

[All Photos By Dave Vann]

This weekend was absolutely top-drawer, a once-in-a-lifetime gala event. This weekend was all about energy, and not in that typical hippie bullshit geodes and quartz kind of way; not “energy, brah.” This weekend was about everyone’s stories being interwoven with their own, connected by being part of something bigger, a participatory séance, the resurrection of a lost world. This weekend was about thousands of people at the exact same time falling collectively back in love with something they once adored so much.

Page is getting most of the accolades, and deservedly so. I’m not sure if he’s louder in the mix than ever before, but he played magnificently this weekend. Fishman and Gordon, as well. I made a joke on my Twitter page that Trey is now the worst player in the band, though I really don’t believe that. Page, Mike and Fishman clearly all had better weekends than Big Red, but there’s an unfair burden on Trey – no matter how well or poorly Page and Mike and Fish play, all eyes will always be on Crimson Dago. Everything he does on stage is magnified and parsed and agonized over.

Trey’s got the unenviable task of playing the hero or the goat every single night. It’s like he’s the A-Rod on a team full of Jeters. He’s become Trey-Rod. Let’s take him out from under the microscope for a while. He fucking nailed every single melodic, chirpy jam on the run; he just needs to find his sea legs on the so-called Type II jams. And he will. Anyone really want to go on record and doubt him? Just say so.

READ ON for the rest of Ace Cowboy’s thoughts on the Hampton run…

[Originally Published 7/4/07] We’ve got an abridged version of GTA for this week’s edition — well, less words, more links. There’s something for everyone on the list of streamable shows from SugarMegs, all concerts played on the Fourth of July. Clever, no? Shut it.

• Talking Heads — 7/4/82 — Rock Werchter Fest, Belgium
• Jimi Hendrix — 7/4/70 — Atlanta, Georgia
• Jeff Beck Group FEATURING ROD STEWART, RON WOOD AND TONY NEWMAN — 7/4/69 – Newport Jazz Festival, RI
• Stevie Ray Vaughan — 7/4/81 — Kansas City, Missouri
• Neil Young — 7/4/85 — Austin, Texas
• Pink Floyd — 7/4/77 — New York, NY
• Wilco — 7/4/01 — Grant Park, Chicago IL
• Buddy Guy — 7/4/92 — Sydenham, UK
• Creedence Clearwater Revival — 7/4/71 — Fillmore West, CA
• Radiohead — 7/4/00 – Berlin, Germany
• John McLaughlin — 7/4/86 — Hollabrunn, Austria
• David Bromberg — 7/4/92 — High Sierra Music Festival
• Doc & Merle Watson — 7/4/80 — Charlotte, North Carolina
• Ornette Coleman — 7/4/78 — Berlin, Germany
• Ray Charles — 7/4/96 — Lugano, Switzerland
• Grateful Dead July Fourth Shows: 1969, 1981, 1984, 1987 with the Lucious Bobby Dylan and 1990
• Phil Lesh & Friends — 7/4/01 — Snoqualmie, Washington
• Leo Kottke — 7/4/92 — New York, NY
• Yonder Mountain String Band — 7/4/06 — Cincy, Ohio
• Finally, here are a couple of Phish shows, if you’re into that sort of thing: 7/4/99 in Atlanta and 7/4/00 in Camden

Enjoy your holidays, and try not to blow off your fingers with idiocy…

In honor of funksters The New Mastersounds return to NYC on Friday and Saturday night at Sullivan Hall, we’re going to rerun a piece HT Founder Ace Cowboy wrote about the band way back in June of 2007.

The stature of the Leeds United football club is plummeting at a level wholly unseen in the wide world of sports. Just six years ago the perennial English power reached the semifinals of the Champions League, the most prestigious club tournament on the continent of Europe; but just five weeks ago the club was relegated to the lowly third division of their own country. The fall from grace would almost be comedic if it didn’t burn so many true supporters so badly.

But not everything in and/or from Leeds is headed down the loo. Almost in the same exact time frame as the diminishing local club, the stature of the Leeds-based The New Mastersounds has been increasing. The band’s experiencing the inverse of United’s steady, then sharp, decline: And after repeated appearances at High Sierra Music Festival and other States-side dates, this four-piece funk band is finally getting some serious attention from all corners of the live music scene.

Just take one look at this seriously funky video from this year’s JamCruise, and you’re sure to understand why. November 7 and 8 at Sullivan Hall:

• The New Mastersounds on the JamCruise V pool deck
• Here’s a clip of the Greyboy Allstars on the JamCruise V pool deck

Given the daily volatility of the roller-coaster financial markets and the increasingly heated campaign-trail polemics, it would appear, looking back, that the events of October 16th, 2006 exhibit a level of painful dullness and ennui unseen since Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign.

That particular pre-Halloween day in history is a global meh. The two most intriguing events I could find, in fact, were: “American and Russian scientists announce the discovery of a new chemical element with the atomic number 118, temporarily designated as Ununoctium” and “The government of Hong Kong will not appeal a court ruling striking down the territory’s sodomy law.” Huzzah for inter-territorial chemistry and South Chinese sodomy. Otherwise, nuthin’ doin’.

But on that nondescript morning, this superfluous exercise in inanity called Hidden Track first plastered its guttural verbiage on the world wide web. Someday, “The HT Inception” will make it onto Wikipedia. Exactly two years later, its dead-weight founder having jumped ship for fear of a stress-induced psychotic break, Elton John’s got a song about this here rag, and it involves “still” and “standing.” Only this blog isn’t just standing still — it’s flourishing beyond my loftiest expectations and wettest dreams. I started it as a farce; it’s now become a force.

When the Glide Folk and I conceived this project in a West Village bar (not a leather daddy establishment), we had agreed to something along the lines of two or three posts per week. The Prolific-As-Fuck Scotty B wouldn’t hear of it when I asked him to come along for the ride; no, he wanted us to go all in, throw the kitchen sink at everyone. We did, and soon enough this site featured four-post days and tons of copy. Scotty had always been the true driver, and under his leadership over the last nine months, he’s taken it to new heights. The redesign, the columns, the features, the music: It’s Evander Holyfield here — I’m talkin’ the real deal.

So “happy anniversary” to this inanimate creation, and “job well done” to Mr. Scotty Bizzle. Like your old neighborhood, you love to see things get better in your absence; I’m truly proud to watch HT transform into a legit source of news, debate and opinion.

And now I present you with my re-run of choice. Of all my favorite posts, I like this one best strictly because I’m trying to spread the phrase “Mariachi Metal.” That’ll be my Pat Riley “Threepeat.” Shit, now I owe Riley four cents.

READ ON for thoughts and pics and videos from an amazing night at Webster Hall with Mexico’s Rodrigo Y Gabriela…

Future Phish 2.0 lead singer Trey Anastasio shocked the unwashed masses when he reversed an earlier position and made the outrageous claim that he’d give his left nut to play You Enjoy Myself five times in a row every day until he dies.

[No Dogs Were Harmed In The Making of This Post]

Our anonymous friend consequently shocked the unwashed masses yesterday when he made an even more outrageous claim that he’d give his Black Labrador for a ticket to last night’s Classic TAB show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg.

Said friend couldn’t garner entry to the show, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. And his last ditch effort manifested itself in the form of the PETA-fucking Craigslist attempt that Scotty posted here yesterday. Of course it wasn’t serious, but since on the whole Disco Biscuits fans don’t exactly have a good credibility score, plenty of people wrote in to chide him for selling his Bisco lot dog Caterpillar for some unobtainable ducats.

The number of serious e-mailed responses to our friend overwhelmed the number of people that offered congratulations on a hoax well done, we thought we’d share our favorites with youse. So without further (Freddy) ado, here are the 10 best from some mindless folks with limited sense of humor:

HI…JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW WHAT A COMPLETE FUCKING SCUMBAG YOU ARE. ITS COOL…IT TAKES A LONG TIME TO BECOME COOL AND KNOW WHAT TO DO..AND WHEN I WAS 21, I GUESS I WAS AS DUMB AS YOU. TREYS A CRACKHEAD…THE TICKET IS OVERPRICED AND YOU CLEARLY THINK ITS COOL TO TRADE A LIVING ITEM FOR A CONCERT THAT WILL COME AND GO. YEAH YOU WILL HEAR A PHISH SONG….BUT I HOPE ITS THE LAST MUSIC YOU HEAR AS YOU WILL BE KILLED ON THE WAY HOME BY THE KARMA POLICE. I HOPE YOU DIE AND YOUR ANIMAL FINDS A BETTER HOME

READ ON for more of the responses our friend got about Caterpillar…

The Silver Jews’ David Berman took quite a shot at My Morning Jacket during an interview posted today on Sound of the City [via Pipe2k]:

“My Morning Jacket—love the way it sounds. . . until you’re on the subway, and you can concentrate on what he’s saying, and all of a sudden, you’re like ‘Oh my God, this guy had no idea what he was doing, and he was just hoping to get this stuff by without anyone really noticing.’ And he’s done a wonderful job of it, because if you don’t pay attention, you don’t notice these terribly embarrassing things.”

I’ll give Berman the benefit of the doubt because he created the single greatest opening line to an album I’ve ever heard. (Seriously, does it get better than “In 1984 I was hospitalized for approaching perfection”? No, it doesn’t.) But while I guess I understand the point he’s trying to make, I’d love some concrete examples. Better yet, I’d love to listen to Z with him and have him tell me the exact parts he’s describing. I’m sure I can be convinced by a guy who knows music a lot better than I will ever know it. Until then, I guess I’ll just continue to not notice what he’s talking about and let MMJ “get by.”

In case you missed it earlier this week, the New York Daily News on Tuesday reported that R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe used his interview in April issue of SPIN to officially venture out from the closet. Again. I think. No? First time? I thought…wait, didn’t this happen two or three times already?

Old news or breaking news, it don’t matter to me. I just hope that maybe now Monsieur Stipe will feel confident enough to publicly respond to my ad in Relix Personals: “GWM fanboy seeks GWM musician to dip his bald head in baby oil and rub it all over my body ’til I forget my troubles.” Fingers crossed, my friends.

The cynic in me thinks this reeks of extra publicity for the R.E.M.’s forthcoming album, Accelerate, but my Bambi-esque naiveté believes his motives are pure. Stipe’s quoted as saying, “I recognize that to have public figures be very open about their sexuality helps some kid somewhere out there,” and that’s admirable as fuck. With teenage suicide rates among young homosexters way out of proportion with the rest of society, it’s important for sexual role models to emerge. Where are the openly gay rock stars? The lead actors? The ballplayers? The Republican politicians? I mean, a confused 16-year-old boy needs someone cooler to look up to than Melissa Etheridge and Jim J. Bullock.

So yesterday I called Stipe on behalf of the longstanding and celebrated “Out” section of Hidden Track, and we sat down for a lengthy interview on the subject (no baby oil). Unfortunately my digital recorder jammed half way through the proceedings, and all I’m left with are the 10 original R.E.M. song titles that he felt obligated to change lest he out himself before he was ready. Interesting list:

• Shiny Happy People are Fabulous!
• Top or Bottom, Kenneth?
• Everybody Hurts (Hey, You Know What Else Hurts? Eleven Inches of Hard Black Dong In Your Intestinal Tract. Hurts So Good, Yo)
• Nightswimming; Cornholing
• It’s The End of the World as We Know It For Christian Evangelicals
• The One I Love (Loves Assless Chaps)
• Monty Got a Raw Deal [sic]
• Losing My Religion After Father Tony Showed Me His Holy Spirit
• Stand (And Now That You’re Standing, Grab Your Ankles)
• Man in My Moon
• Fall On Me, Bruce

Yup, the original parenthetical for Everybody Hurts surprised me too. Look, I don’t even work here any more. But, on the figurative serious, I asked the new HT Overlords for some brief air time in order to say one genuine thing (for once in my life): Good shit, Stipe. We kid ‘cuz we care. You may have surprised, well, nobody, but the public sentiment you’ve shared is golden. If what you said is true, I think that’s noble and honorable, and I’m behind you. Well, not too close — you’re about 25 years too old for me. Nonetheless, I salute you, sir. Eyes up here.

It’s been more than a month since I abdicated my daily editorial responsibilities at the helm of this here rag, and in many ways I miss it terribly, as I miss you all terribly down in my loins. But these days I’ve been busier than an indie rock band’s PR team, and I can’t have you right nobs bringing me down (Brrrrruuuuce).

Hidden Track has sprung me to great heights since my disappearance. In the past month I’ve won a Tony for writing and producing roles on my off-Broadway one-man show called Once Upon a Belding: From Principal to Vice President, a 237-minute comic romp starring acting and karaoke genius Dennis Haskins; I’ve written the world’s only known social commentary on Vampire Weekend’s education, appearance and historical significance (seriously, haven’t seen anything like this out there); I’ve gnarfled the garthog; I’ve played stellar goalkeeper for second-division Barnsley FC in their giant-killing victories over Liverpool and Chelsea on the way to the FA Cup semifinals; and just last night I had my head exploded by the series finale of The Wire. Busy as fuck, mang.

So there hasn’t been much time for love, Doctah Jones. I managed to catch a power poppy short set from Favours For Sailors at a cool little East London rock club that had Pete Doherty on the docket. It then hit me that I have never heard a note of this supposedly famous rock star’s music in my life. I can’t even name the genre of music he plays. Is it me? Have I just missed it? Fuck it; I’m ’bout to start smoking crack rock on video, possibly on a sex tape. It’ll be hot, I pinky swear. Then I’m putting drugs in your drinking water.

I also managed to catch up with Levon Helm and his friends at the Beacon Theatre on Friday night. It wasn’t nearly as good as last St. Patrick’s Day’s unbelievable throwdown hoedown, but it still had its world-class moments (horn section = total sickness!). Among my observations: Jimmy Vivino came dressed as Stevie Ray Vaughan in the Hamburglar’s get-up, and Levon at this point in his life could probably pass for Willem Defoe’s great aunt. One thing is for sure-as-shit — it doesn’t get better than The Band’s catalog.

I’ve not got a point to all this. But Scotty’s returning from Langerado and I’ve been called upon to stall you lot until he lands safely and securely. So after the jump I’ve embedded some fantastic videos, and I urge you to take a few moments and check out the pickings while they’re still going good…

The picture below has nothing to do with anything. But it’s pretty awesome, and you can file it under Monkey Torture, which is always sweet. I’m kinda brain dead today.

And the truth is, nothing nor nobody is cooler. Alright, let’s look back at the week…

• Bonnaroo lays down the gauntlet — hey, that’s quite a sweet lineup
• Trey Anastasio cleans up his act; plays a brand new tune at Road Recovery
• He’s no longer Phish’s polarizing figure: Catching up with The Dude of Life
• Back Door Slam from the Isle of Man ain’t as dirty as it sounds
• We present our preview of Wilco’s epic “anything goes” shows
• New Guy Rupert kicks off a brand new column for HT: Bust Outs
• Better Than Noodling introduces the jamband kids to Okkervil River
• The B List presents its Packed Domicile edition in honor of Crowded House
• Take a listen to some apocalyptic jazz: The Mitch Marcus Quintet
• And don’t forget about the week’s great downloads: Grousing The Aisles, MP3 Boot Camp and the Friday Mix Tape

Serving as this here rag’s editor and director of day-to-day operations couldn’t possibly be a better hobby-gone-wild. For the past 17 months it’s truly been a pleasure to serve as a part of your regular team of Internet sherpas, but man is this shit time-consuming — you people are fucking relentless. So as my real job heaps more and more occupational shenanigans on my proverbial and literal desks, I must make like Johnny Savage the day before Red, White & Blaine and unexpectedly quit the show.

Hidden Track, however, will thrive without the dead weight. The prolific and hyper-informative Scotty B will take the reins as editor beginning tomorrow morning, and several clever writers have already joined the cause. It’ll be business as usual at HT HQ, and I know you’ll continue to enjoy the chicanery contained on these pages. Well, that’s if you enjoyed it in the first place, which, well, you never know. I’ll be posting here and there, but today I turn in my keys to the store. So stick around; there are good times ahead. Onward and upward, folks. You’ve all smelled terrific.

For Back Door Slam, it all started with C-sharp.

Seventh grader and budding guitar prodigy Davy Knowles approached Adam Jones in their Isle of Man schoolyard and asked whether the young bassist could play in that key. Jones snickered and replied, “Of course,” and the rest will one day be history. Drummer Ross Doyle eventually joined his mates behind the kit, and now nearly a decade later, their Back Door Slam blues trio is touring thousands of miles from home to support their brilliant debut album, Roll Away.

BDS’ Davy Knowles at ACL 2007 — photo by Danfun

And even though “Back Door Slam from the Isle of Man” sounds more akin to the name of an XXX movie in San Francisco’s Castro District, they’re nonetheless building a solid name for themselves. The blues stars-to-be seem to constantly be on the road, headlining club gig after club gig and opening for more established [nostalgia] acts like REO Speedwagon, Styx and George Thorogood, earning their stripes the old-fashioned way by organically building an audience, rather than growing exponentially with hollow blog endorsements.

The precocious trio — think early Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble or Rory Gallagher — wrapped up another tour of the States last week, but they’ll be back here soon. They’re loving their growing slice of Americana so much that they’ll return for their fourth tour of the States later this month, a run that begins in Anaheim in late February and ends at the Beale Street Music Festival in early May.

I sat down with the three members of Back Door Slam before their recent show at New York’s Mercury Lounge, and since I try not to contribute to the delinquency of minors (only one of them is 21 years old, the other two are 20), we shared Cokes and Sprites as they shared tour stories and their impressions of the road to stardom. Read on after the jump for much more on the best young band of blues musicians on the road today…

You gotta love an edition of the Friday Mix Tape that begins with unreleased ’70s pornofunk and ends with Mason Jennings. If that doesn’t scream eclecticism, I suggest cleaning the shit from out yo’ ears. But that’s not all: The meat in this sandwich brings us plenty of goodies – Radiohead’s cover of The Smiths from the November webcast, some Dr. Dog from We All Belong, and live goodness from Derek Trucks and his long hair segueing nicely into Professor Longhair.

All six tunes in this edition are immense, but make sure to check out the jam at the end of that Professor Longhair number…pretty sweet stuff. Alright, time to stream a half-hour worth of awesomeness, courtesy of our good friends at imeem. And thanks to our main man Raketemensch for the Radiohead download.

• AND CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK’S FRIDAY MIX TAPE

I’m not gonna sit here and tell you The Special is the second coming of Bitches Brew, but I have no qualms declaring it the best new jazz album in years.

The left coast-based Mitch Marcus Quintet produced a seven-song odyssey that defies genres and busts through labels; the end result is a spectacular album of innovative, envelope-pushing jazz that features epic long-form narratives and overly competent and confident playing from each of the five musicians.

Fans of the Groove may be a little disappointed by some of the tracks, but this ain’t about rockin’ the fuck out. The MMQ’s pioneered a unique sound here, creating something fresh and exhilarating, borrowing parts and scrap from the legends heap that many jazz lovers unconsciously enjoy and cobbling together a new direction. It’s familiar and foreign, but all that doesn’t matter — it’s about the music, and this album’s better than blind adjectives in any derivative review.

See for yourself and stream a couple of tracks from The Special…

Last Mourning:

Inditranego:

Famed treadmillers OK Go spent the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans recording with funky soul tromboners Bonerama, and the five-song benefit EP comes out, appropriately, today. Read on after the jump for details on the Fat Tuesday iTunes release, and tune in next Monday when Bonerama and Damian Kulash from OK Go perform one of the songs on Letterman…