Following the terrorist attacks on 9/11 Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, The Madison Square Garden Company and The Weinstein Company came together to throw the amazing “Concert For New York City” that featured many of the biggest acts in rock history as a benefit for 9/11 victims. Those same companies will team up once again to raise funds for Hurricane Sandy relief on December 12th at Madison Square Garden.

Dubbed “12-12-12 (A Concert For Sandy Relief)” the lineup for the show has yet to be revealed, but is expected in the coming days. With those companies putting the concert together, you can trust it will feature plenty of top-drawing acts. Of particular note, both The Who and The Rolling Stones should be in town that week. The Robin Hood Relief Fund, which was established by the Robin Hood Foundation, will take care of distributing all money raised from the concert. An announcement claims, “Tickets for the concert will be available at a variety of price levels, ranging from individual tickets to special VIP packages.” We’ll keep you posted on lineup announcements.

After a couple of short weeks, we’re back to the grind with a full week of action. Don’t think of it as more work, think of it as more Hidden Track. To start you off on the right foot, here’s a handful of links to keep you occupied:

• Cold Turkey’s Benji Eisen and Mike Greenhaus offer us a look at the recently completed Jam Cruise
• Jimmy Vivino of the Max Weinberg 7 leads a tribute to Bill Graham and the Fillmore East days at BB King’s tonight
• For those who miss the smell of vinyl, check out this great gallery of classic rock album covers
• Elvis Costello channels Jerry in this moving version of Loser
• Download Axl Rose and Bruce Springsteen singing Come Together
• Glide Magazine has debuted a comic strip called the Concerted Comic
• A legendary house in Denver is up for sale
• The Times Daily presents an interview with Randy Poe, author of the upcoming Skydog: The Duane Allman Story
• Turns out that Velvet Underground acetate wasn’t as valuable as first thought
• A rare occurance: An unsigned band headlines The Garden
• Here’s another rare occurrence: A Michigan pastor will discuss spiritual themes in the music of the Grateful Dead
• Hipster darlings TV on the Radio will begin a seven-week tour in March
• On David Bowie’s 60th birthday, check out 60 things about Bowie (via Here Comes The Flood)
• An Aquarium Drunkard has released the 20th episode of its acclaimed podcast series
• Check out this glowing review of the new DVD release Van Morrison Live at Montreux 1980/1974 — gotta love Van the Man
• Arcade Fire confirms the tracklisting and release date of their upcoming release Neon Bible
• Ickmusic presents a Prince show from 1988 for download
• Remembering a strange encounter with Frank Zappa
• The Wanee Festival announces its Allmans-centric lineup

Did you see any good shows this weekend? Any interesting news that we missed? Don’t be shy, share with the rest of the class…

It’s been two weeks since Tenacious D rocked New York City with its patented brand of fuck-your-face acoustic rock. But since the vibration of death that The D left behind is still reverberating throughout Manhattan, our buddy Hal Hansen decided to retroactively inform you of what you’ve been feeling for a fortnight…

Overheard in New York, December 1st, 2006

“I check my dipstick, you need lubrication”
“Twas I who fucked the dragon, fuckalize sing-fuckaloo”
“Burrito supreme and a Chicken supreme and a Cutlass supreme”
“When I’m snackin’ on a tasty boosh, right after the show”
“I’m shooting my juice right in your caboose”
“Have you ever been worked on by two guys who are hot for your snatch”
“And then I’ll fuckin’ fuck you discreetly”
–34th Street & 7th Avenue

If any of the exclamations above seem a little out of place for a show review, or even the aforementioned and awesome Overheard in New York, please do not fret. They were all majestically sung at the most famous venue in the world, Madison Square Garden, by the greatest band in the world, Tenacious D — an incredibly rare combination of forces that left few asses intact.

Before we continue with the review, it should be painfully obvious by now that this is all just a big joke. Kyle Gass (KG, Kage, Rage Kage) and Jack Black (JB, Jables), who first met more than a dozen years ago as members of the Actor’s Gang troupe in Los Angeles, are undoubtedly actors first and musicians second.

Although Gass does have some serious chops on the acoustic guitar, and Black is arguably the closest thing to a rock star I’ve ever seen live, Tenacious D as the “greatest band in history” cannot be taken seriously. The key to thoroughly enjoying one of these ridiculous spectacles is to just go along with the joke: Accept that they are in fact the greatest band ever and indeed were born from Satan and slayed dragons on their way to this achievement. If you can tweak your sense of humor enough to get this far, you are ready for The D…

Pardon my thinly veiled East Coast bias here, but there’s no better arena in the country that matches up to Madison Square Garden. The stench of history, the sheer electricity, the kinetic energy, the $23 personal pizza…the life.

Good news: the friendly programming executives at the MSG Nework have brilliantly green-lighted a 10-episode series that will reveal “The 50 Greatest Moments at Madison Square Garden,” five at a time (each one-hour special airs every Tuesday night for those folks in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut tri-state area; check your local listings). Yes, I failed miserably in my duty to notify youse about the premiere last night — where were ya on that one, dipshit? — but an encore presentation’ll precede next Tuesday’s second episode.

With the midterm elections less than a week away, I should announce here that you can still swing by their surprisingly stellar website and cast your own online ballot. Save the old tour war stories for another series, though, for the Grateful Dead’s 52 sold-out shows at MSG have already hit the countdown, sliding in at 48th position. And maybe this is just nitpicking douchebaggery on my part, but I find it hard to comprehend how 52 concerts over a 15-year period can classify as a “moment” by definition. I, however, do appreciate the spirit of MSG’s gesture.

(By the way, check out the lede paragraph of the Dead article to which I just linked: “IF Madison Square Garden is the cathedral of rock, then the Grateful Dead are its high priests – and you might want to put an emphasis on high.” Genius! Dan Aquilante of the New York Post, you are a wordsmith and a scholar, a journalistic marvel with his finger on the pulse of fresh, hip comedy – and you might want to put an emphasis on overpaid hack. Oh, I didn’t say that in the original clause of that sentence? Shit. Sorry, Dan, I’m in an All Hacks Off The Stage kind of mood.)

I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen some incredible sights and lived some memorable moments at Madison Square Garden: Stephane Matteau’s overtime goal against the Devils to advance to the Cup finals, the popular rock band Phish’s first post-hiatus notes being drowned out by an truly insane crowd, King Kong Bundy defeating Special Delivery Jones in nine seconds and the Hulkster/Mr. T vs. Rowdy Roddy Piper/Paul Orndorff main event at the original Wrestlemania.

But it’s a moment I wasn’t in attendance to experience that still gets my vote for Greatest Moment at MSG. While I was out of the country on New Year’s 1997, many of my friends and some of you caught one of Phish’s finer shows in the venue. What happened immediately following that show is something that will forever be etched in the minds of many: Crazynakedchick’s Swan Dive.

I’m sure a handful of you have seen that story somewhere before, either on Gadiel’s original …