Hence, this week’s mix tape takes a look at some Clash tracks that illustrate the band’s different sounds. Pressure Drop illustrates the reggae side of things with a personalized nod to Toots & the Maytals, while Robber Dub (dub mix of Bank Robber) takes the reggae deeper and highlights the band’s ability to jam and get a little weird. This is Radio Clash takes things in a completely different direction with straight up disco funk, while Train in Vain leans more toward straightforward pop. Safe European Home points to the punk edge for which the band is best known, while Police on My Back shows how well the band covers a song and makes it their own, as most people don’t even realize that the song was originally an Eddie Grant song.

Release Date – 09/26/2008
Highlights – The Illinois Enema Bandit and Norma Jean Bell’s sax work
The Skinny – The Zappa Family Trust shares a disc full of unreleased music recorded at William and Mary College on November 1, 1975.
Where You Can Sample This Disc – Ask Gail Zappa

8. moe. – Dr. Stan’s Prescription: Volume 1

Release Date – 09/02/2008
Highlights – Interstellar Overdrive, Recreation Chemistry, Farmer Ben
The Skinny – moe. archivist Dr. Stan Lobitz kicks off his series of archival releases with a tasty recording of a show from the moe. cruise featuring a killer filler from 1995.
Where You Can Sample This Disc – Amazon

7. The Clash – Live at Shea Stadium

Release Date – 10/07/2008
Highlights – Train In Vain and Police On My Back
The Skinny – We feel bad for The Who after they had to come on after The Clash dropped this powerful energetic set during the peak of popularity at Shea Stadium in 1982. If you’re looking for punk Clash look elsewhere, but if you want to see why they were considered the greatest band in the world at this point this near-perfect release is for you.
Where You Can Sample This Disc – The Clash Online

6. Grateful Dead – Winterland 1973: The Complete Recordings

Release Date – 04/01/2008
Highlights – Dark Star, Weather Report Suite and Eyes > China Doll
The Skinny – After releasing a ton of partials, Rhino drops a bomb by releasing every single note recorded at Winterland during the band’s historic three-night stand in November 1973.
Where You Can Sample This Disc – A Winterland Video Scrapbook

5. Neil Young – Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968

Release Date – 12/02/2008
Highlights – The Loner, Sugar Mountain, Mr. Soul
The Skinny – This stellar release gives us a taste of Young’s music before he found fame.
Where You Can Sample This Disc – NPR

4. Phish – At The Roxy

Release Date – 11/18/2008
Highlights – 2/20/1993 Set II, Funky Bitch (w/ Jimmy Herring), Good Times Bad Times > Paul and Silas > Pig In A Pen
The Skinny – At The Roxy features lovingly remastered recordings of Phish’s epic three-night stand from February 19-21, 1993.
Where You Can Sample This Disc – Hidden Track

3. David Bowie – Live In Santa Monica ’72

Release Date – 07/22/2008
Highlights – Life On Mars?, Space Oddity, Waiting For The Man
The Skinny – After years circulating as a bootleg, David Bowie finally released the master copy of this show from his first US tour.
Where You Can Sample This Disc – Last.fm

2. The Byrds – Live at the Royal Albert Hall

Release Date – 05/27/2008
Highlights – You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere, Baby, What Do You Want Me To Do?, Eight Miles High and Chesnut Mare
The Skinny – Founding Byrds member/guitarist/singer Roger McGuinn brought a new version of The Byrds to England in 1971 where this stellar set was recorded and sat in McGuinn’s basement until recently.
Where You Can Sample This Disc – Amazon

1. Ween – Cat’s Cradle: 1992

Release Date – 11/11/2008
Highlights – Don’t Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy), Big Jilm and Pork Roll, Egg and Cheese
The Skinny – The first official recording from the days when Dean and Gene toured the country accompanied by a DAT machine was well worth the wait.
Where You Can Sample This Disc – Cat’s Cradle minisite

Honorable Mention: Mooney Suzuki – CBGB Masters, The Doors – Matrix ’67, Michael Franti and Spearhead – Power to the Peaceful 2005, Grateful Dead – Road Trips Fall ’79 Complete Shows,

What did we miss and how does your list compare? Let us know by leaving a comment below…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Imagine Mike Gordon banging his head and starting For Whom The Bell Tolls on his overdriven bass. Not quite sure who would handle the vocals, but we’d love to see the boys give this one a shot.

8. Pearl Jam

Click here to view the embedded video.

Pearl Jam got huge around the same time Phish got huge and the Vermonters actually would tease and jam out Alive back in the mid ’90s. We’d be happy to see them cover any of their tunes, but for some reason I think they’d do a really good job with Wishlist off of 1998′s Yield.

7. Tom Petty

Click here to view the embedded video.

Back in 2006, future Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio opened a number of shows on Tom Petty’s Highway Companion Tour. As I’ve just learned today, Trey joined the Heartbreakers for a ripping version of Mystic Eyes in Detroit. There’s any number of classic Petty tunes Phish could cover, but how about Jammin’ Me? Kinda fitting.

6. U2

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sure, Trey reference U2 at Red Rocks on August 6, 1996, but that’s about as close as we’ve come to seeing the Vermont-based quartet cover the Irish rockers. The song Desire seems to leave a little room for the band to rock out, so we’ll go with that one.

5. The Clash

Click here to view the embedded video.

While nearly every jamband has covered The Clash, Phish has never played a song by the band that bridged the gap from Punk to New Wave. For instrumentations sake, and because it’d be fun to dance to, we’re going with Rock The Casbah. We’d also be down with London Calling, Garageland or Should I Stay or Should I Go?

4. Rush

Click here to view the embedded video.

Considering all of the proggy influence in Phish’s music, it’s surprising that the band never covered a Rush song. We’d love to see what Phish could do with YYZ.

3. Genesis

Click here to view the embedded video.

Another great cover for Phish’s first post-Breakup gigs would be Genesis’ Turn It On Again. Plenty of room for improv on this one.

2. Steely Dan

Click here to view the embedded video.

Back in July, Ryan Blitstein found many comparisions between the music of Steely Dan and Phish. In fact, according to Blitstein when Trey Anastasio first put up ads at UVM looking for a bass player it says something like “guitarist and singer into Steely Dan, Allman Brothers.” We’d love to hear Phish’s take on Josie, but there are so many other perfect tunes like Show Biz Kids, the Royal Scam and The Fez.

1. Radiohead

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s about time that one of the biggest bands of the ’90s shows some love for one of the other biggest bands of the ’90s. Two members of Phish have covered Radiohead with their solo projects, yet the full band has never rocked one of Thom Yorke’s tunes. Trey played Knives Out at Richmond in 2005, while Page offered a brilliant cover of Subterranean Homesick Alien with Vida Blue. We’ll go with McConnell’s Subterranean Homesick Alien call.

Other Huge Bands Phish Has Never Covered: Fleetwood Mac, Jethro Tull, The Kinks, Chicago, Beach Boys, Billy Joel, Yes, The Cars, Styx, Pixies, R.E.M., The Ramones, Guns N Roses, Nine Inch Nails, Faith No More

Thanks to Bloo2e, T$ and all of Team HLA for their feedback on this list. What songs would you like to see Phish cover when they return next year? Let us know by leaving a comment below…

Here are some links you can both see and believe…

• The Replacements move closer and closer to reuniting
• Did the promoters of Glastonbury deny Pink Floyd’s Richard Wright’s final wish to play that storied festie?
• Phish finally confirms the release of Phish at the Roxy
• Weird Al rushes to share a parody of Whatever You Like
• Boredoms to Unleash 77BoaDrum on Deluxe CD/DVD
• Steve Spears analyzes The Clash Live at Shea Stadium

On Monday we told you about the latest Frank Zappa archival release, Joe’s Menage. It seems most Zappa fans weren’t happy with the release and took to the Zappa.com message boards to share their disdain. Gail Zappa responded to the haters with a bizarre tirade. We’re not the biggest Gail fans, but Joe’s Menage looks like a great release to us.

Case in point, the title of this piece is referring to Night Watch and its sequel, Day Watch, which are two Russian science fiction films that are part of Sergey Lukyanenko’s trilogy of novels about the battle between the forces of light and dark, time and space, and the whole notion that a film has to progress in a linear fashion with comfortable images that tell you exactly what is going on. This isn’t always the case but what happens, is that often you are shocked by amazing brain-searing scenes of apocalyptic activity which only appear to transpire if you are willing to go along for the outrageously wild ride (or you’ve cracked the seventh level of the seventh chapter of that really heady post-21st century 4-D video game). Sound familiar? I call it the McConnell Factor—that “what crazy image can we come up with if we keep pushing ourselves?” idea—and I’ll apply it to a Hidden Flick while showing that one can bring a lot of that thinking right back home to music. After all, one just never knows if the needle will run down to the end of the record and another Train in Vain will blast out of nowhere.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Photo by Rod Monkey

The Clash rolled into Akron, Ohio in 1982 high on the success of their brilliant Combat Rock album. Joe Strummer and his mates put on a high-energy show chock full of their best songs. Recently an incredible soundboard recording of this show has surfaced, allowing us to almost be able to make out what Strummer is talking about in between songs. As much as Joe Strummer is a legend, the other members of the band made their presence felt in a big way on this night. Mick Jones got the biggest applause of the night when he delivered his spastic vocals during Police On My Back. Bassist Paul Simonon kept the music together with his driving rhythms.

If there was ever an opener that drove a crowd in a frenzy, it’s probably London Calling. From the moment Strummer started the staccato chords of that tune through the Janie Jones > Garageland encore the audience made their presence felt. Even on this terrific soundboard recording you can hear the hoots and hollers from the crowd. Some of the highlights from this show include Straight to Hell, Radio Clash and Guns of Brixton. The Clash broke up in 1986, but by 1983 their live shows were suffering from the disintegration of the band. Yet The Clash were one of the best bands in the world in 1982, as you can tell by listening to this show.

moe. 2/01/2008 DAUD [FLAC, MP3, STREAM]

Photo by Nate Ingraham

These are good days to be a moe. fan. The band just released Sticks and Stones, an album filled with well-written songs that have room to grow live. Last weekend moe. hit two of their biggest markets (Boston and Philadelphia), where they played two strong shows filled with oldies and many of the new tunes. Philadelphia stands apart from the rest of the shows they’ve played so far thanks to the killer setlist and more jamming than you’d find on a train in India. Thanks to taper T.J. Samulis, we can check it out only a few days after moe.’s performance.

moe. came out to the sounds of Also Sprach Zarathrustra over the PA, ala Elvis Presley. They opened with a dark and prodding Head before exploring one of my favorite tunes from Sticks and Stones, Darkness. Along the way moe. played stellar versions of fan favorites St. Augustine, Timmy Tucker and Buster. For good measure they ended with a fun version of The Faker that segued into the end of Timmy Tucker. moe. gets back on the road at the end of the month for another leg of the Sticks and Stones tour. Let’s hope they can keep the momentum goin’.

Here are five other shows to check out this week:

• Ryan Adams 1/28/2008 SBD [FLAC, MP3, STREAM]
• Garcia and Kahn 6/4/1982 SBD [FLAC]
• Uncle Tupelo 12/03/1993 SBD [FLAC]
• Club d’Elf 11/26/2007 DAUD [FLAC, MP3, STREAM]
• Muddy Waters w/ BB King 5/30/1973 SBD [FLAC]

What are you listening to this week? Let us know by leaving a comment below…

Make It Right aims to help the rebuilding of New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward by building 150 Earth-friendly, flood-safe homes for families that have remained or are returning to the area. WSP’s John Bell recently sent fans a letter asking them to participate in the offer or share the song without diminishing its fundraising potential. In other words, don’t upload the track to Waffles or What.cd.

Hopefully the single becomes a huge success, which would certainly lead to paparazzi photos of Schools hanging out with Brad and Angelina. Elsewhere:

• The Clash’s Mick Jones and Topper Headon recently appeared on stage together for the first time in a quarter-century
• Philadelphia’s Spectrum may be demolished within a few years
• Martin Scorcese’s Rolling Stones movie, Shine A Light, debuts at the Berlin Film Festival in February
• Rock Scully has more skeletons from the Grateful Dead’s closet to share
• The Radiators, Funky Meters and Railroad Earth headline the best looking Crawfish Fest lineup yet
• Kimya Dawson deals with sudden success after the Juno soundtrack
• Michael Stipe just says no to serving as a juror, due to past stalkers
• Robert Plant and Alison Krauss teamed up for a taping of CMT’s Crossroads set to air on 2/11

And The Weight remembers bands now buried in the Jamband Graveyard. We could totally go for a yeP!/God Street Wine double bill at the Wetlands tonight.

Click here to view the embedded video.

• It doesn’t get better than Stevie Vai shredding it up with Frank Zappa 
• Aretha Franklin sings for a Swedish crowd in 1968 
• This week’s edition of the Grateful Dead’s Taper’s Section includes a killer track from a 1974 soundcheck
• A 1973 radio show from Bob Marley and the Wailers
• Eric Clapton plays his greatest hits for a Minnesota crowd in 1987
• A Deeper Shade of Soul kicks down a vintage Prince bootleg
• Joan Jett rocks Tokyo during her heyday in 1982
• If you haven’t heard Jason Isbell’s new band, now is your chance
• Download all of Phish’s Summer Tour ’97, thanks to our boy Bizarro Jerry and the good people at sharefreemusic
• Check out this George Thorogood and the Destroyers’ radio broadcast
• Licorice Pizza is back with The Clash’s Vanilla Tapes
• R.E.M. was at their finest in 1983

Did we miss any boots? Please let us know by leaving a comment below…