Last week, we reported on the funky limited edition Pollock and LEBO prints that HeadCount commissioned. Well, they upped the ante once again by launching their brand-spanking-new “Pledge to Vote” campaign and “Push the Button” contest.

If you pledge to vote in the November election through the HeadCount website you are automatically entered for a chance to win VIP tickets to Bonnaroo 2009. If you enter the “Push the Button” contest you’ll get a chance to win a trip for two on Jam Cruise 7 (plus airfare)! The “Push the Button” contest is widget that links to HeadCount’s on-line voter registration page – on any website, Facebook or MySpace page.

Once you sign-up for the “Pledge to Vote” campaign, you’ll also gain access to some awesome streaming and downloadable audio from HeadCount artists, including the recent Mike Gordon set from Rothbury featuring a sweet mini-Phish reunion.

I’m feelin’ okay this mornin’
And you know,
We’re on the road to paradise
Here we go, here we go…

Here we are for my last post on Rothbury. I’ve not slept in over 24 hours, but I’m ‘feelin’ okay this mornin’ so to speak. I spent 4 hours of the 11 hour ride sleeping and the other 7 driving. During my driving shift I reflected a lot on this past weekend. With that in mind I’d like to focus this post on two things: the festivals greening efforts and Phish. I’ll also be giving a few pros and cons of the festival logistics and other things, so perhaps they can improve on for next year. Rumor has it that the Double JJ Ranch has already invited the promoters back.

[Trey & Mike, with Fishman in the background watching]

I don’t think I emphasized the greening efforts on behalf of the promoters. I don’t have the exact number, and I’m sure they will do a press release on it after the site is cleaned. But the festival was able to divert about 80% of waste produced each day into either recyclables or compostables. I also failed to mention that all the cups on site were made from corn. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, after enjoying your nice tasty Magic Hat Number 9 you can dispose of your cups by composting them. Who woulda thunk? I’ve already mentioned the trash cans, but the site also gave away free portable ashtrays for all the smokers in attendance. They also took several initiatives to offset carbon emissions. I must say I have NEVER seen a cleaner site, and most people were very good about cleaning up after themselves. Bravo Rothbury, job well done! READ ON for more…

Another day, another blog. As you can see from my titles I’m having a sort of Talking Heads themed weekend at Rothbury. It all started on the car ride here when This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) played as the sun was rising. That and I was doing my best David Byrne dances in order to successfully keep my driver awake.

Crosseyed and Painless describes how I feel at this point. Crosseyed because Sound Tribe played so late and Painless because even though I’m sleep deprived it was all very much worth it. Yesterday I wasn’t able to get out and about on the site until the evening. HeadCount had David Murphy and Zach Velmer from STS9 at their booth for some political discussion in the afternoon, so I decided to stick around and see what they had to say. After they were done and I finished my blog from yesterday, I headed over to Medeski, Martin and Wood for a rousing performance of acid-latin-funk-jazz.

Later I headed over to see Michael Franti so I could count how many times he said “How you FEEEEEEELIN?!?” (it was 5, but I was only there for 3 songs). Next, I went back to the Sherwood Court stage to catch Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi’s Soul Stew Revival, where Col. Bruce made a surprise appearance. After that, I headed over to the headliner for the evening — Dave Matthews Band. I’ll be honest, I’m not much of a fan, I enjoy some of their songs but they aren’t one of those bands that speaks to me. Jeff Coffin sat in for LeRoi (who was in an ATV accident recently) and he did a phenomenal job pushing the band as much as his little saxophone could. Finally, I headed over to Sound Tribe and they closed the evening out for me.

Overall, the experience has been great. Still no potable water (I’m convinced they don’t exist) and the security has tightened up worse than going through airport security (I don’t think there are terrorists here). I’m going to cut this blog a little short because I need to head over to Trey so I can take some photos and see how well he’s doing.

READ ON after the jump for some pics from Saturday for your enjoyment…

So here I am again, a little later than I had planned but that happens when you spend the entire day running from stage to stage and back and forth to the camp site to grab some grub. Yesterday was fantastic, to the point that I’m almost speechless. I hadn’t realized until the fireworks that I had never seen a show on the 4th of July and a day long set of shows at that.

I still haven’t found the potable water and I doubt at this point I’ll buy any ice (thanks for lasting dry ice!), but I did find a few of the drink stations around the festival grounds. I saw TONS of music yesterday and did a little more exploring. I have a feeling that I’ve still not seen everything on the site yet — but that’s what is so nice about 3-4 day festivals (and much like the childhood trips to Disney World, where you explore a new park everyday). With the grounds and amenities I believe this festival to be the closest thing that we, as music fans, have to being a resort. Everyone has a choice of what to do, where to go, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be music. If I wasn’t typing this, I would be checking out the water park.

Being Independence Day, artists took the liberty to make their views known on certain issues and freedoms, and also pointed out things we should celebrate. The Wailers celebrated the music of Bob Marley, Snoop Dogg celebrated the freedom of gin & juice, Drive-By Truckers encouraged their fans to register to vote and exercise their independence, Yonder celebrated the return of Jon Fishman and objects turning brown, and Widespread got political, albeit poetically. I think it is no coincidence that they ended their 4th of July performance with a rousing rendition of Life During Wartime quite appropriate (but I’m not going to lie — also really fun to dance to).

Well, I’m going to wrap this one up as I need to get my laptop back to the campsite so I can go out and shoot some bands and enjoy the weather. Until then, READ ON after the jump for some more pics to tide you over:

Well, the Rothbury experience has been an adventure thus far. In order to help take part in the ‘green’ aspect of Rothbury (and not to mention the cost of gas), I carpooled from Tennessee with a HeadCount volunteer. We left on Tuesday night from Nashville and my friend and I drove straight through the night. It’s been a few years since I’ve pulled an all-night driving session (Big Cypress) in order to arrive on site on time. After experiencing a little bit of ticketing problems and witnessing a down pour of rain we were finally allowed on site. At first, I was a little scared because the mud I saw gave me a flashback to Coventry but then I realized it was supposed to rain on Wednesday only. By Friday, the site has mostly dried up.

[Percussion Monkeys!]

Thursday I spent time exploring the vast site that is Rothbury. This is by far the most interesting festival site I’ve ever seen. The Double JJ Ranch has everything from horseback riding, to a water park, and you can even catch 18 holes if you’re so inclined. The lake is beautiful, and while you’re there you can catch a game of volleyball or challenge someone to horseshoes. This is all the stuff that is part of the ranch, I haven’t even started on the actual festival amenities.

READ ON for more on the first day of the first-ever Rothbury Festival…

A few weeks ago, we held Political Celebrity Death Match Round 1 in which we partnered one musician with one ‘hero’ for each of the candidates. After all the votes were cast and polls closed we finally have a winner to announce! By a landslide Luke Skywalker and Stevie Wonder took the first round — congratulations Barack supporters! Though I must say I was disappointed that no one supported Arnold. I mean how many actors and actresses has he killed throughout his career? Come on, he could have taken Luke and Stevie by himself!

But I digress as we must prepare for battle in Round 2. Since Hillary dropped out of the race, she has been eliminated from the competition (until the VP’s are announced at least). This week we’re going to do another tag team match up featuring musicians and business persons. If you don’t remember, Political Celebrity Death Match is where we look at celebrities and who they endorse and then we let them battle it out in our head (imagination style). So, welcome HT readers, to round two of Political Celebrity Death Match 2008. READ ON for more…

Do you know what makes Music City so great? Well, I couldn’t tell you for sure until last week. That’s right ladies and gentlemen — we finally got Fat Tire in the great state of Tennessee! And on Thursday of last week I enjoyed said beverage while watching one of my favorite acts on tour today — Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit. The performance was stellar. The show kicked off with Sway and then quickly moved into one of my favorite tracks on Sirens of the Ditch — Chicago Promenade. “If I die now before I’m old my story will be less than told” are some of the simplest words, yet so meaningful — it gets me everytime.

[All photos by Jennifer Kirk]

The majority of the set was from Sirens of the Ditch. Eventually came Psycho Killer and I don’t know about you, but I love when bands cover the Talking Heads in any way, shape or form. It got the Mercy Lounge dancing that’s for sure. One of the highlights of the evening was a performance of It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue with Isbell on acoustic. Shortly after that Dress Blues was played and the performance left me with goose bumps. No, I’m serious. The song is a great story-telling piece and inspired me so much that I wrote a piece abou a couple of months ago. Overall, the show was a great one and I can’t wait to see Isbell the next time he’s in Music City — who knows maybe I’ll buy him a Fat Tire, or two.

READ ON for more pictures of Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit in Nashville…

What is it about a lyric or a guitar solo that evokes so much emotion in people? Or for that matter — even the lack thereof. For example, the part in Divided Sky when there is silence and Trey just waits and waits to feed off the crowd for that exact timing and then it just explodes into this momentary epic masterpiece of bliss. That, my friends, is why I love Phish so much. It was never, ever the lyrics that grabbed my attention (sorry Tom Marshall) — it was always about the sounds that the instruments made and the way the boys talked through their instruments. How many bands could do that and do it so fucking well?

Not to sound too cliche but music is my life. It has been ever since I can remember. You can ask anyone of my friends or even my family, I always prefer to go to a concert or a music festival over taking a vacation to the beach, mountains or a foreign country. And much to my families dismay, I prefer concerts over church. It’s simply because music speaks to me personally more than anything I have known or probably ever will know. It simply is and that’s it for me. I can’t imagine myself doing or being anyone else.

Now, I know music doesn’t speak to everyone in this way but music is an important part of our country and our world. It’s a form of communication that everyone can understand and relate to in one way or another. For this reason, it’s very important for political candidates to pick the correct theme song for their campaign. These songs are something that the candidate’s supporters can relate to and it helps to create a feeling, mood or even a memory. Much like the ending of The Sopranos these songs are meant to evoke an emotion and often times serve as inspiration to people to believe in the individual they are supporting. So now, let’s take a look at some campaign theme songs from some of the candidates from this race. READ ON to see what we think Obama’s theme song should be…

Today I find myself sitting on my couch next to my mounds of used facial tissue, Robitussin and other miscellaneous drugs procured from the local Walgreens, as I’m STILL recovering from this year’s ‘roo. On Saturday of last week I found myself getting sicker and sicker while working in Centeroo. It t’was a combination of cold and allergies according to my doctor. But no matter what it is — I’ll still call it the Bonnaflu. And let me tell you getting sick at a festival is the absolute worst — I would not wish it on anyone except Kanye West.

This was my sixth Bonnaroo, I’ve attended every year except 2005 when I opted for Summer Camp instead. It’s very hard for me not to go to Bonnnaroo as it’s less than 30 miles down the road. And over the years, I’ve learned how to pack for it and be prepared for anything because, unlike most of my friends, I have yet to attend the festival in the luxury of an air-conditioned RV.

For the second year in a row, I attended with HeadCount to register festival goers to vote. We arrived on Wednesday to absolutely wonderful weather. We got our booth in Planet Roo setup for the next day and setup our campsite as well. We spent that evening grilling out, catching up, watching the sunset and just having a good time. And even though I go to Bonnaroo for the music, sometimes the time spent at the campsite is just as important and just as fun. The team we had this year was fantastic. Every team member was top notch and I was once again, very proud to be a part of something as awesome as HeadCount.

READ ON for more of Jennifer’s thoughts on her ‘Roo experience…

As I sit here typing up this week’s LoC I am witnessing history and for the first time in a while, I’m actually proud to be an American. Why? Because unless you are living under a rock, you know that Barack Obama has become the first African-American presidential candidate to win a major party’s nomination in our country. And while Clinton would have ‘broke the glass ceiling’ for being the first female candidate, Obama’s nomination is just as important to our nation’s history.

But this week, I’d like to address something a little different that is a very pressing issue, not only for our country, but the whole world. The issue you ask? Poverty and hunger. This week, world leaders were discussing this very issue. While the numbers are a little skewed on the food production output needed and increase in prices to consumers, we need to address world hunger and poverty. The recent natural disasters and the increasing cost of fuel are forcing more and more people to rely on food banks to help supplement their nutritional needs. This includes our country. READ ON for more of this week’s LOC to find out what you can do…