When the String Cheese Incident revealed they would return to Telluride Bluegrass this summer they also mentioned to expect the announcement of a full tour “next week.” Well that time is now as the group has just revealed where they will be playing this summer.

The tour starts with appearances at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and Electric Forest and continues with a three-night stand at The Backyard in Austin, Texas. SCI will play a pair of shows at Forecastle as well as a late-night gig in Louisville before ending their tour with two nights at Red Rocks and their annual Horning’s Hideout festival in North Plains, Oregon.

Tickets for all of the newly announce shows with the exception of the Forecastle late night will go on sale Thursday, March 7th at 10am MST via SCI TICKETING.

SCI has also revealed the initial lineup for this year’s Horning’s Hideout three-day festival. In addition to three shows from String Cheese Incident, Horning’s Hideout ’13 will see performances by The Traveling McCourys, The Del McCoury Band, John Scofield’s Uberjam Band, EOTO, Steve Kimock with Bernie Worrell, ALO, Kyle Hollingsworth Band, Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers, Break Science, Anders Osborne, Elephant Revival, The Mother Hips, Mountain Standard Time, Clare and the Reasons and Janover & Resunator.

Well, the Telluride Bluegrass Festival may be sold out, but those who have tickets are like the String Cheese Incident are in for a treat as the Colorado bred band will make their first Telluride Bluegrass appearance in over a decade this June in honor of the event’s 40th anniversary.

SCI is slated to play a “sunset set” on Friday, June 21st on the Telluride Bluegrass Festival’s main stage. In addition, the band also revealed that they will announce a full summer tour on March 4th.

The lineup for this year’s Electric Forest has been announced and mixes jam, rock and a heaping dose of electronica. The event is set to place in Rothbury, Michigan from June 27 – 30. As usual, the String Cheese Incident will headline and play a total of three shows. HT faves Passion Pit, Lotus, Railroad Earth, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Pretty Lights, Femi Kuti and the Positive Force and Greensky Bluegrass are just a handful of the many bands on the bill.

Also of note, the fest will see the return of SuckerPunch featuring Marc Brownstein and Aron Magner of the Disco Biscuits with Jamie Shields of the New Deal and Mike Greenfield of Lotus. Electric Forest will also see Umphrey’s side projects Digital Tape Machine and Cosby Sweater as well as STS9 side project Pigs On The Wing featuring Murph.

Weekend tickets are available now for $259.

Here’s the complete initial Electric Forest lineup…

The String Cheese Incident (3 shows), Pretty Lights, Passion Pit, Empire of the Sun, Knife Party, Dispatch, Lotus, Benny Benassi, Yeasayer, Beats Antique, Madeon, A-Trak, Tommy Trash, Grimes, HOLY GHOST!, NERVO, EOTO, Railroad Earth, Headhunterz, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Kill the Noise, Emancipator, FEMI KUTI & The Positive Force, Baauer, Noisia, Michal Menert, RL Grime, SuckerPunch ft. Marc and Aron of the Disco Biscuits, Jamie Shields of the New Deal, and Mike Greenfield of Lotus, Danny Brown, Greensky Bluegrass, 3LAU, Digital Tape Machine ft. Joel Cummins & Kris Myers of Umphrey’s McGee, The Werks, Treasure Fingers, Boombox, Future Rock, Craze, Le Castle Vania, OLIVER, Jeff Austin & Friends, Ana Sia, Pigs on the Wing ft. Murphy of STS9, Reptar, Nick Catchidubs, The Pimps of Joytime, Clockwork, Ryan Hemsworth, Just Blaze, Doldrums, Nahko and Medicine for the People, Robert DeLong, Up Until Now, Helicopter Showdown, Moon Hooch, LowRIDERz, Milkman, Samo Sound Boy, Twiddle, Tumbleweed Wanderers, The Stepkids, Manic Focus, Party Supplies, Cosby Sweater ft. Joel Cummins of Umphrey’s McGee, Christian Rich, Motion Potion, Bestfriends, Munson Meeks

The String Cheese Incident made their first full-band appearance at one of Warren Haynes’ annual Christmas Jams this past Saturday night in Asheville. SCI’s set marked their first live performance since their summer tour ended in July. In keeping with Christmas Jam tradition, the Colorado-based band welcomed plenty of guests throughout their performance. For the finale, a cover of Bob Dylan’s Quinn The Eskimo (Mighty Quinn), Cheese brought out host Warren Haynes, keyboardist Nigel Hall, guitarist Mike Barnes, sax wiz Karl Denson and percussionist Count M’butu.

Here’s a look at the guest-filled Quinn The Eskimo from Saturday night…

String Cheese Incident w/ Guests – Quinn The Eskimo

Head HERE for more videos from this year’s Warren Haynes Christmas Jam.

A yearly tradition will continue for the 24th time this December when Warren Haynes hosts another Christmas Jam in Asheville, North Carolina on December 15th. The multi-band event will take place at The U.S. Cellular Center Asheville (formerly The Asheville Civic Center) with all net proceeds from the concert and all Xmas Jam weekend event set to benefit Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity. The initial lineup has been announced and features a few Xmas Jam newcomers as well as some vets.

Recently reunited jam act The String Cheese Incident will make their first Xmas Jam appearance nine years after SCI mandolin player Michael Kang made his Xmas Jam debut in 2003. Superstar singer Sheryl Crow will also make her Xmas Jam debut. Haynes will appear with his Warren Haynes Band outfit and with Blind Boys of Alabama. Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue will bring the funk to the event, while Mike Barnes, Kevn Kinney and Anders Osborne are aboard as the first special guests to be announced.

A few different VIP packages are available and expected to sell out. A pre-sale will be available through Christmas Jam Ticketing starting on Thursday, October 11th at Noon ET and will run until Friday, October 12th at 5PM ET or until the allotment sells out if that happens before that time. A public on-sale will start at Noon ET on Friday, October 19th via Ticketmaster & The Civic Center Box Office.

For the first time since a December 31, 2006 performance at Concourse Exhibition Center in San Francisco, String Cheese Incident will play on New Year’s Eve as the band has just announced a three-night New Year’s Run at the 1st Bank Center in Broomfield, Colorado on December 28 -31. This will mark the return of the group’s year-end festivities to their home state of Colorado, which hosted SCI’s first four NYE performances in 1993 – 1996 and none since.

A limited number of tickets for all three Incidents will be available through SCI TICKETING starting Wednesday, September 26th at 10:00 AM MT. Tickets will go on sale to the general public on Saturday, September 29th at 10:00 AM MT. All tickets purchased through SCI TICKETING are “all-in” with no additional service charges. There are also VIP Packages available that include a “Meet and Greet”.

Past String Cheese Incident New Year’s Eve Gigs:

• 12/31/1993 @ The Depot – Telluride, CO
• 12/31/1994 @ The Depot –  Telluride, CO
• 12/31/1995 @ One World Cafe – Telluride, CO
• 12/31/1996 @ The Art Factory – Telluride, CO
• 12/31/1997 @ Kezar Pavilion – San Francisco, CA
• 12/31/1998 @ Henry J. Kaiser Aud – Oakland, CA
• 12/31/1999 @ Oregon Convention Center – Portland, OR
• 12/31/2000 @ Oregon Convention Center – Portland, OR
• 12/31/2001 @ Bill Graham Civic Auditorium – San Francisco, CA
• 12/31/2002 @ Bill Graham Civic Auditorium – San Francisco, CA
• 12/31/2003 @ Auditorium Theatre – Chicago, IL
• 12/31/2004 @ Radio City Music Hall – New York, NY
• 12/31/2005 @ Concourse Exhibition Center – San Francisco, CA
• 12/31/2006 @ Concourse Exhibition Center – San Francisco, CA

It’s hard to believe YouTube is only seven-and-a-half years old as the video portal has become a ubiquitous part of life on the internet. In that time music fans have filled YouTube servers with video from the past which brings us to today’s B List topic. We’ve compiled a list of the oldest video on YouTube for 10 of the most successful bands to develop out of the jam scene.

These classic clips bring us back to a time when Al Schnier, John Medeski and Page McConnell had full heads of hair and gives us a look at the days when the members of these bands stood nearly on top of each at small gigs before they achieved success. Now, keep in mind that the footage needed to be worth watching to make our list, so even though there might be older videos out there for a few of these groups, but if you can’t see the band it defeats the purpose.

1. Medeski Martin and Wood – September 12, 1993

In searching for the oldest MMW video(s) on YouTube we hit paydirt with this one-hour, professionally-shot episode of Live at Lucille’s which was recorded at the Knoxville jazz club on September 12, 1993. John, Chris and Billy talk about their signature sound and roll through such classics as Syeeda’s Song Flute, Chubb Sub, Hermentos Daydream and Wiggly’s Way.

READ ON

String Cheese Incident + Friends @ Horning’s Hideout 2012: July 19 -22

Words and Photos: Jason Gershuny

In many ways, a String Cheese Incident festival at Horning’s Hideout is a homecoming for the band and their fans. People come from all over the country, and even the world, to celebrate all things Cheese. Horning’s Hideout may be 1,300 miles from Colorado, but for one weekend a year, it is home to the String Cheese world. Luckily enough for me, I only had to travel 45 minutes from Portland to this wooded retreat full of peacocks, three stages of music, lakes and streams and mossy trees for a four-day journey into musical and multimedia artistic exploration.

The simplest way to sum up these Cheese shows is with one word, consistent. I mean that in the most positive way possible. Ever since S.C.I. took their break in 2007, it seemed somewhat difficult to find a complete run of shows that consistently captured the Cheese magic. This may have been connected to the limited number of shows that they played each year. But with this year’s summer tour more than tripling in length from the previous year’s summer tour (from 4 to 15 gigs), it really seems that the connection between the band, in terms of taking chances during jams, has grown and that their sound and repertoire has evolved.

Thursday always seems to act as the warm-up day for both fans and musicians alike. Although S.C.I. didn’t take the stage this night, there was still plenty of music to see. There were three String Cheese side project bands – Contribution, Kyle Hollingsworth Band and EOTO – that entertained the masses throughout the evening.

READ ON

String Cheese Incident’s Summer Tour rolled through California over the weekend for stops at the state’s two Greek Theatres – Los Angeles on Friday and Berkeley on Saturday and Sunday. In keeping with a long-standing Berkeley Greek tradition, the jam stalwarts took the stage in the afternoon on Sunday for a matinee performance. SCI kicked off the show with their version of Peter Rowan’s Panama Red into a bluegrass-fueled take on Hotel California by The Eagles. Band members Keith Moseley, Michael Kang, Bill Nershi and Kyle Hollingsworth sang the song’s famed extended guitar interplay in a style similar to what Phish does with their version of Freebird. Take a look…

String Cheese Incident – Panama Red > Hotel California (Live at the Greek)

Jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan can’t seem to get enough of the jam scene as he continues on what appears to be a quest to sit in with every major band in the community this month. That quest continued last night in Flagstaff, Arizona when he was brought onstage by the String Cheese Incident for Smile during the first set, Jellyfish > Impressions in the second set as well as the The Bridge, Rollin’ In My Sweet Baby’s Arms encore at the Pepsi Amphitheater.

Stanley with DMB – Rhyme and Reason

Jordan’s first jam-friendly guest appearance of the month came on July 5th when he sat in with Umphrey’s at Peoria’s CEFCU Center Stage. Then, the inventive axeman headed to Alpine Valley this past weekend for multiple guest spots with the Dave Matthews Band. Not only did Stanley sit in with DMB on Proudest Monkey > Satellite on Friday, he returned the next night for Rhyme and Reason, The Dreaming Tree and a cover of Sly Stone’s Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).

The next Jordan/Jam summit is scheduled to take place next month when he joins Umphrey’s McGee at sUMmer School and at moe.down. He might as well cross moe. of the list while he’s at their festival! In other SCI news, the band finally has a Twitter account.

Even though concerts at Red Rocks are said to take place “rain or shine,” organizers may cancel or bring the show to a halt when lightning threatens the historic Morrison, Colorado venue. One such occurrence took place on Friday night just as String Cheese Incident’s first set of the evening was getting started. A massive thunderstorm enveloped the natural amphitheater four songs into the SCI’s performance which led organizers to stop the show and call a rain delay. Two hours later, once the powerful storm passed, the jam titans returned to the stage and finished the concert for those who stuck around with a marathon second set and two encores.

SCI keyboardist Kyle Hollingsworth took the opportunity of the rain delay to film a rare backstage look at Red Rocks. We see the signatures and memorabilia that line the walls of the venue’s bowels as well as a peek at Kyle’s bandmates Bill Nershi, Michael Kang and Keith Moseley jamming in the rehearsal room while a party rages outside. Dominic Lalli of Big Gigantic even makes a cameo. Check it out…

Kyle Hollingsworth’s Backstage Tour of Red Rocks

As long as there have been live concerts, there has been the hassle of obtaining tickets. For many fans that means dealing with big, bad Ticketmaster and their hefty fees. In an age where scalpers, often by use of bots, scoop up the primo seat locations, which drives the market price up through the stratosphere, artists have often thought creatively to try and circumvent the system. One prevalent story of this upcoming concert season has been about the String Cheese Incident and their “No-Fee” ticketing program, which in theory allows fans to obtain tickets to the Colorado jam titan’s shows at exactly the face value of the ticket, and cuts out ticketing vendors such as Ticketmaster in the process. While the theory may seem to work, and be an applaudable idea, there is always more than meets the eye.

A recent New York Times article detailed the unorthodox steps SCI was going through to try and cut service fees for their summer shows. This included drastic measures like having groups of fans that they organized buy tickets directly at venue box offices ($20,000 in cash at the Greek Theatre in L.A. for instance), and then having the band re-sell these tickets back to their fans, at exactly the face value – with no service fees. In fact, SCI actually lost a little money on this venture, as bassist Keith Moseley told American Public Media’s Marketplace. But, it’s the principle that he, and the rest of the band, stand behind.

While saving fans service fees seems like a great idea on the surface, and something fans can rally behind, the amount of work it took to make this happen was simply absurd. As one of the most on-point music insiders and bloggers, Bob Lefsetz replied, there is more to the story than what the casual fan may know, or the NYT’s article suggested.

READ ON

Colorado’s String Cheese Incident will follow last year’s first tour in four years with a three-week jaunt this summer. The run kicks off at the band’s Electric Forest festival in Rothbury on June 29 – July 1 and continues with a three-night stand at Red Rocks on July 5 – 7. Following gigs in Park City, Utah; Flagstaff, Arizona and the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, the jam-meets-electronica-meets-bluegrass act will play a pair of shows at the Greek in Berkeley and ends the tour with four shows at Horning’s Hideout in Oregon on July 19 – 22.

The band, who jokingly refer to themselves as “String Cheese Lincident” in the tour announcement, will sell tickets to fans through SCI Ticketing service charge-free. Here’s the explanation…

Way back in the summer of 2003, the band filed a lawsuit in Federal Court against Ticketmaster. The basic gist of the lawsuit was that the band wanted to maintain the ability to sell a large amount of tickets directly to the fans with the intention of keeping the service charge as reasonable as possible. Some very pointed discussions took place, the issue was resolved and the band continued selling tickets as they had always done. Fast forward to today and pay attention….this is the exciting part….The String Cheese Incident is proud to announce that we have figured out a way to finally achieve the ultimate goal with this whole ticketing exercise! Every ticket bought through SCI Ticketing will be SERVICE FEE-FREE! That’s right….if you order tix thru the band’s website there will be no service charge add-ons aside from shipping (which is out of our hands)…..the ticket price that is listed is the price that you will pay. The band is going to cover the credit card fee….the band is going to cover the cost to take the orders and fulfill the tickets….the cost of a $49.95 ticket to Red Rocks will cost you $49.95…..the cost of a $49.95 ticket to the Greek will cost you $49.95….a $239 ticket to Horning’s will be $49.95…just kidding, it will actually be $239….that’s it….super simple. We’ve got a big batch of tickets to sell but the supply is not limitless….get ‘em while you can!

6/29 Electric Forest, Rothbury, MI
6/30 Electric Forest, Rothbury, MI
7/1 Electric Forest, Rothbury, MI
7/5 Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison, CO
7/6 Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison, CO
7/7 Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison, CO
7/10 Snow Park Amphitheater, Park City, UT
7/12 Pepsi Amphitheater, Flagstaff, AZ
7/13 Greek Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
7/14 Greek Theatre, Berkeley, CA
7/15 Greek Theatre, Berkeley, CA
7/19 Horning’s Hideout, North Plains, OR
7/20 Horning’s Hideout, North Plains, OR
7/21 Horning’s Hideout, North Plains, OR
7/22 Horning’s Hideout, North Plains, OR

Tickets go on sale March 6 at 10AM MT through SCI Ticketing.

String Cheese Incident @ United Palace Theater – December 3

Photos: Jeremy Gordon
Words: Brian Bavosa

After four-and-a-half years away from the Big Apple, the String Cheese Incident finally returned to New York City for a two-night run uptown at the United Palace this past weekend. Following the formula of several bands in our scene over the past years, SCI took time off the road in recent years before regrouping for smaller runs and mini-tours as of late. As this weekend proved, and especially the Saturday show which I caught, the band was firing on all cylinders and provided one of the most FUN shows I have seen in some time.

[All Photos by Jeremy Gordon]

Kicking off with a cover of  Talking Heads’ This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody), the announcement was clear: the band loves New York and would certainly be pulling out all the stops on this evening. With a first set also boasting a raucous Miss Brown’s Teahouse sandwich that segued seamlessly, led by the night’s MVP keyboardist Kyle Hollingsworth, into Herbie Hancock’s Chameleon and back again, the Colorado-based group was loose and poised to start the show.

READ ON

The String Cheese Incident will embark on their first tour since 2007 later this month and iClips will come along with them to webcast five shows from the run. iClips’ first SCI broadcast will take place on November 25 from the band’s tour opener in Asheville and then iClips will team up with String Cheese to webcast the last four shows of the tour on December 7 – 10. You can pre-order the broadcasts for $7.99 a piece until the day of the show when the price jumps to $11.99. The price for all three evenings of the Chicago run, which takes place from December 8 – 10, is $14.99 in advance and then $17.99 come December 8. A big discount comes in if you order all five webcasts for $21.99. Head over to iClips for more information or to purchase a webcast or five.

Here’s a look at six other stories of note…

• Philadelphia Weekly says dubstep poised to take city’s music throne
• Side-by-side evidence of the Grateful Dead’s influence on indie rock
• Watch VH1′s pop-up videos for White Stripes, Vampire Weekend 
• Sam Davis of Dog Gone Blog shares a November Mix of fantastic tunes
• R.E.M.’s Mike Mills talks to Jesse Jarnow about the band’s career
• Four things to expect from Google Music’s 5PM ET announcement

Finally, indie-jammers moe. may love improv but they usually don’t perform without a net, ie. they guide their jams and segues through the use of setlists. However that won’t be the case at tonight’s show at Ziggy’s in Winston-Salem, North Carolina where the group will “throw out the playbook and reinvent improvisation, calling the show as they go” according to a post on the official moe. Facebook page. We look forward to hearing the results.