If there was a such thing, keyboard wiz Nate Wilson would’ve won the 2007 Warren Haynes Award for being able to balance two time consuming gigs in the same year. The strain of fronting his own band and performing with Assembly of Dust seems to have caught up to Wilson, as he has decided to stop touring with the AOD after the upcoming fall tour to focus on the Nate Wilson Group full time.
While Nate won’t be adding his frenetic organ runs to the AOD live show anymore, he’ll stay involved with AOD on a creative level in their song writing efforts.
Let’s see what else is happening this Monday morning…
The Independent ponders whether album art can survive in the iPod Era
On the eve of the Democratic and Republican conventions, Blender polled Barack Obama and John McCain for their top 10 songs. Then they enlisted trusted sages Randy Newman and Girl Talk to analyze their picks.
I know I’ve been a little Beatles heavy as of recently, but who could blame me? Members of Phish getting together to play Beatles cover is a pretty big deal. Speaking of which, two weeks ago’s Day Tripper edition is way too close to call, so if you haven’t done so - navigate over there and place a vote if you are so inclined.
I was thinking about doing She Said as a Cover Wars just as soon as Mike Gordon’s new band played it in Northampton last week. Then I heard that Trey and Fish played it with him at Rothbury and THEN I heard that Gov’t Mule played their own rendition of it directly after that - so this could not be more topical.
If you don’t know the inspiration of the song - long story short: During an off week of The Beatles USA tour in 1965…they rent out a house, most of the band is on LSD as is Peter Fonda who is freaking out George Harrison and John Lennon by telling him that he “knows what it’s like to be dead”. Fonda accidentally shot himself at age 10 and apparently his heart stopped 3 times on the operating table. Fonda thought this was a good story to tell people that are tripping face and was even showing people his wounds from it.
Good Afternoon. I hope all of our readers had a fantastic long weekend and as we ease back into a shortened work week, I thought I’d supply some good ‘ol American Rock & Roll this week for the Cover Wars. So let’s take a look at the works of The Allman Brothers Band.
As you may have read last week, I’m diving into greatest hits and compilation discs to make life a little easier and I am continuing that this week with a few alterations. The release A Decade Of Hits (1969 - 1979) features 16 tracks off of five ABB releases. Well, this Cover Wars is going to feature 14 of those tracks off four of those albums. Don’t blame me for being a slacker, blame the thousands of bands out there who have yet to cover either Wasted Words or Crazy Love. It’s possible that I missed them, if I did PLEASE point me in the direction of some covers of these tunes.
As always, you must register/login to Imeem to listen to these tracks in their entirety (If you’re only getting 30 seconds, you’re not logged in).
That’s the audio for 12 of the tracks, we’ve got YouTube’s for two others, so READ ON after the jump for: The voting, the videos, my short write-ups on the tracks and the results from last week’s entry featuring the singles of The Police (Spoiler Alert: We’ve got another addition to the CW Hall of Fame)
Assembly of Dust returned home from its most recent tour and found itself answering questions virtually no folk-infused rock band has had to answer. The buzz surrounding the eight-show run with JJ Grey & MOFRO wasn’t necessarily about the quality of the music or the sad frequency of collaborations, but rather the bizarre backstage skirmish that followed the band’s gig at The Roxy in Boston.
Photo by Adam Kaufman
If you’re picturing frontman Reid Genauer standing over the Roxy’s manager like Muhammed Ali triumphantly towering over Sonny Liston, repeating “That’s folkin’ rock, motherfucker, that’s the taste of singer-songwriter fists of fury” over and over, then, well, you’re probably alone. So for the real story, and for much more from the tour and beyond, Genauer and I both took some time from our day jobs to discuss Assembly of Dust’s mini-tour with JJ Grey & MOFRO.
The reported ‘fight’ was only a small part of the story, and in the course of a half-hour we discussed some more pertinent topics, including but not limited to Radiohead’s label-less album, the reunion of the original members of Strangefolk at their tour manager’s recent wedding, the experience of an asskicking in business school, the joy of fatherhood, the awesomeness of chick books and much more. It’s unabridged, so make yourself comfortable, but it’s a great read…
Two of this here rag’s favorite touring bands are headed out on the road together next month: Assembly of Dust and JJ Grey & MOFRO will join forces for eight shows throughout, yes, the Northeast in late September and early October.
Photo of AoD’s Reid Genauer by Adam Kaufman
The bands will be alternating the headlining slot along the way, but no matter the order, this promises to be an evening of incredible music built on strong songwriting and cohesive musicianship. We’d just love to see some collaboration…
AOD and MOFRO on TOUR
TU Sep 25, 2007 - Washington DC @ 9:30 Club
WE Sep 26, 2007 - Millvale, PA @ Mr Small’s Theater
TH Sep 27, 2007 - Philadelphia @ The Fillmore @ The TLA
FRI and SAT Sep 28 & 29, 2007 - New York @ Highline Ballroom
TH Oct 4, 2007 - Boston, MA @ The Roxy
FRI Oct 5, 2007 - New Haven, CT @ Toad’s Place
SAT Oct 6, 2007 - Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground
The past few weeks in New York City have been hotter than two rats fuckin’ in a wool sock. To beat the heat, I usually retreat to my air-conditioned apartment and throw on some shows from my favorite artists. So this week’s edition takes a look at what’s been playing on my stereo recently: a few of my favorite things.
Dweezil Zappa is currently leading the Zappa Plays Zappa troupe on the road this summer for a second world tour. This year’s tour features a completely different setlist than last year, one that relies heavily on tunes from the ’70s. A few weeks back the band played a killer set at the 10,000 Lakes Festival in Minnesota, and luckily someone taped the show and uploaded it to etree. Zappa Plays Zappa played a truncated set at the festie, but they hit many of the highlights they play nightly on this tour.
The night started with Dweezil and the band nailing Echindna’s Arf (Of You,) one of FZ’s most difficult compositions to play. Some of the other standout tunes of the set include a nasty run through Willie The Pimp and a rockin’ version of San Ber’dino. ZPZ did a nice job of mixing up long compositions with more accessible pop songs: In the middle of the show the band plays a long, drawn-out Dupree’s Paradise, only to follow it up with a two-minute romp through Uncle Remus. Zappa Plays Zappa is currently finishing their U.S. tour, but they will be back in October.
Read on for three more great downloads in this week’s Grousing The Aisles…
For the life of me, I can’t think of a single thing that connects the artists on this week’s Mix Tape to one another, or each song to one another, for that matter.
Well, that’s not true — stealing from everyone’s favorite fictional postal worker, these are all people that have never been in my kitchen. Well, but that’s not true either – when I was a young tyke my mother regaled me with a story about how Otis Redding stopped by our house and made sweet love to her on our kitchen table, “because that’s just how Otis rolled back then, and that’s how special he made white women feel downstairs,” she said. Weird anecdote, mom.
Anyway, let’s take a listen to six quality tunes on this glorious Friday:
You know, with the weakening dollar and the currency exchange rates the way they are, I hear in England it’s now called “One for Onesday.” Financial jokes? Ugh.
Up first, the incomparably underrated Assembly of Dust:
First I slept through Thursday night’s kickoff show, an acoustic affair with the Benevento-Russo Duo, when a planned short nap before a midnight ramble became an unplanned 10-hour slumber through the night. Then Friday evening arrived, and the usually reliable and talented Grace Potter put on a less-than-stellar show with the Nocturnals at Southpaw, complete with three extremely creepy, balding middle-aged dudes taking as many pictures of her as possible — not a fun vibe trying to peek through compulsive masturbators to watch a show.
So I turned to the free shit to break me out of the funk. As we mentioned yesterday, the Green Apple organizers planned several sets gratis outside Grand Central Station for the second straight year, an oasis of quality tunes in a big, bad city. So I headed up to the makeshift hippie enclave for an Earth Day street fair to meet up with some good friends and try to salvage a piss-poor beginning.
Read on for more photos and videos from the sunny day in NYC…
We’re pretty geeked up about this weekend’s Green Apple Music Festival, even though overall enthusiasm for the event can only be considered “tempered” at best compared to last year. Organizers expanded the music and arts festival to three cities this year, adding Chicago and San Francisco to the mix, but there’s no question it’s flying well below the radar of many in its desired audience.
Regardless, we’re fired up. I had a stellar weekend last year and even started a one-weekend blog to document the cause of my permagrin. Part of that Cheshire Cat smile stemmed from the free music outside Grand Central Station, which may or may not have caused me to play hookey from work. Well, this year they’ve planned two days of free shit, and the festivies are currently underway.
The Paul Green School of Rock featuring Yes’ Jon Anderson, and later Gandalf Murphy, opened the outdoor shows earlier today, but there’s plenty more music following behind them in the pipeline. Here’s a look at the remaining acts on display outside Grand Central on Vanderbilt Avenue today and tomorrow:
Friday, April 20:
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals 4:30 PM
Ozomatli 5:45 PM
Saturday, April 21:
Zero 12:00 PM
State Radio 1:40 PM
Assembly of Dust 3:20 PM
I’ll see youse there tomorrow, unless I sleep through it, which is possible. And if anyone’s hitting up Grace Potter at Southpaw tonight, I’ll be the kid with the Jew-nose wearing the Cardiff City FC shirt that desperately needs a haircut.
