New Multitudes at Webster Hall, March 14

Words: Jeffrey Greenblatt
Photos: Jeremy Gordon

Without Woody Guthrie there would have been no Pete Seeger, no Bob Dylan and no Bruce Springsteen, as his songbook  inspired multiple generations of budding musicians with his socio-political charged folk songs about the America he lived in and traveled around during the Great Depression. So there’s no shortage of reasons why the iconic folk singer’s 100th birthday is being celebrated in such a big way in 2012.

[All Photos by Jeremy Gordon]

As we’ve  previously mentioned, the all-star roots-rock conglomerate of Jay Farrar, Jim James, Will Johnson and Anders Parker we’re given the opportunity to honor the late Guthrie, by recording a new album culled from previously unseen and unrecorded material, under the moniker of New Multitudes. The quartet brought their brief ten-date, cross-country run to New York City’s historic Webster Hall on Wednesday night, a venue that, as it was dutifully pointed out from the stage, Guthrie himself had actually played, adding a sense that this was indeed one for Woody.

The night was broken into two distinct parts,  with the first section dedicated to bringing to life the songs of New Multitudes, ones that the singer-songwriters had crafted from notes and journal entries from the time that Guthrie had spent in Los Angeles. The confessional songs detail intimate moments of Guthrie’s life, touching on love, life and of course politics and society, often times all in the same song like the emotional wrought My Revolutionary Mind sung by James. The first part of the night came to close with the album’s title track, with all four members of the ad-hoc band out in front of the stage with acoustic guitars strapped on, as their voices blended beautifully on the Farrar sung track about challenging a new generation of activists to not be reticent and to take up causes for which to fight.

READ ON

Back in 1998, UK folkie Billy Bragg teamed up with up and coming alt.country act Wilco, to write and record new songs culled together from a treasure trove of previous unheard and unrecorded Woody Guthrie lyrics. Called Mermaid Avenue, for the street that Guthrie and his family lived on in Coney Island, the recording sessions yielded enough material to be spread across two albums, that were released two years apart, and feature a number of songs that both Bragg and Wilco still perform in concert.

With Guthrie’s centennial birthday being celebrated all throughout 2012, its no surprise that the sessions for these HT approved albums are being revisited, and will be released as four-disc box set. On April 21, Nonesuch Records will release Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, which will include the original two volumes of Mermaid Avenue, a third volume with 17 previously unreleased recordings from those sessions, plus the 1999 documentary on the sessions, Man in the Sand, as well as a 48-page booklet with new liner notes by Nora Guthrie. Mermaid Avenue, Volume III, will also be made available digitally, separate from the box set.

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• MMJ front man Jim James is working on a solo album to be released this year
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Finally, earlier this year the Brooklyn Academy Of Music announced that they would be turning over the keys to the building to The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner to curate a music festival this spring dubbed Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, after a Walt Whitman poem. The three-day fest, which is set to take place from May 3 – 5, will utilize all three spaces within the building and be headlined by The Walkman, St. Vincent and Beruit, and will features sets from the likes of Sharon Van Etten, The Antlers, Caveman, Atlas Sound and more. Three-day passes will run you $110 , and will go-sale to the public on March 6, with individual day-passes going on-sale on March 12, for $45.

As we previously reported Anders Parker, Jay Farrar, Yim Yames and Will Johnson headed into the studio to record a new batch of Woody Guthrie songs (think Billy Bragg & Wilco – Mermaid Avenue) which will be released on the album New Multitudes.

Now that we received an album release date of February 28, a tour has been announced. It’s unclear if this ensemble is going to get a name, if they are “New Multitudes” or they are simply going to be billed individually. Also unclear is which Showbox venue (The Market or SODO) in Seattle they will play.

Tour Dates:

March 6 – The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA
March 7 – Music Box – Los Angeles, CA
March 9 – Crystal Ballroom, Portland, OR
March 10 – The Showbox – Seattle, WA
March 12 – The Birchmere, Washington, DC
March 13 – Union Transfer – Philadephia, PA
March 14 – Webster Hall – New York, NY
March 16 – The Paradise – Boston, MA

(h/t Paste Magazine)

Roughly two and a half years ago we reported that Jay Farrar (Uncle Tupelo/Son Volt), Jim James (MMJ) and Will Johnson (Centro-matic) had headed into the studio to a record a new batch of songs inspired by Woody Guthrie’s unrecorded lyrics, a la Billy Bragg and Wilco’s amazing Mermaid Avenue records. According to Paste, the trio were personally invited by Guthrie’s granddaughter, Nora, to sift through the songwriter’s notebooks and scratch pads to gain insight on the artist and his unfinished work.

On February 28, the trio will help celebrate Guthrie’s 100th birthday, which will be celebrated all throughout 2012, with the release of Multitudes. The majority of the lyrics of the twelve-track set were “culled from Woody’s times in L.A…it’s a part of the story that is still mostly unknown. From Woody’s experiences on LA’s skid row to his later years in Topanga Canyon, they are uniquely intimate, and relate two distinctly emotional periods in his life.”

• List Time: Stereogum’s 50+ Most Anticipated Albums Of 2012
• Patrick Carney will produce Rolling Stone contest winner The Sheepdogs
• Cover Alert: The Flaming Lips tackle The Beatles
• Jack White to appear on an upcoming episode of American Pickers
• Download This: Jefferson Airplane, SUNY Stony Brook – 5/1/1970
• Bonnie Raitt to release her first new album in seven years this April

Finally, tomorrow marks the opening night of the New York Guitar Festival. To kick off the event, which runs from January 6 – 29 at venues across Manhattan, a free program paying tribute to Brian Eno’s landmark Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks will take place at the World Financial Center’s Winter Garden downtown. The album, which came out 30 years ago, was originally commissioned as the soundtrack to Al Reinhardt’s Oscar nominated documentary, For All Mankind. Phish bassist Mike Gordon, Levon Helm musical director Larry Campbell, David Torn, Noveller and Tortoise’s Jeff Parker will join Brooklyn ambient ensemble Itsnotyouitsme in offering their live interpretation of the album. For more, be sure to read Sam Davis’s interview with NY Guitar Festival producer David Spelman on Relix.com.

All week long we’ve been looking at our staff’s choices for the best albums of 2011 five LPs at a time. Our submissions include all styles of music from bluegrass to jazz, jam to indie, electronica to rap, as well as everything in between (but sorry Nefertiti’s Fjord it just wasn’t the year for lesbian-Afro-Norwegian-funk music). At the end of the day, we’re a music blog. Everyone is encouraged to write about what they like with no motives, no editorial biases, and no strings attached. We hope that comes across in our picks.

We’re in the home stretch so let’s check out numbers 10 through 6…

10) TV on the Radio – Nine Types of Light

Key Tracks: Second Song, Will Do, Caffeinated Consciousness

Sounds like: A producer cut through a bit of the fuzz of TVOTR to make a very listenable experience.

The Skinny: Sadly the last TV On The Radio record that will feature bassist Gerard Smith, who passed away only nine days after the release, Nine Types of Light showcases TVOTR at their most accessible and sonically pleasing timbre to date. If the album were to have a single it would be the love-longing song Will Do which proclaims, “I think we’re compatible I can see that you think I’m wrong” coupled with “Your love makes a fool of you, you can’t seem to understand – our heart doesn’t play by rules….” Sounds like the guy isn’t getting the girl and unfortunately, is stuck in a state of being ready to go if his hopeful partner ever were to change her mind. Caffeinated Consciousness ends with three minutes and twenty one seconds that you just wish could be heard (with the horn section) by 20,000 screaming fans in the encore slot at an arena – and no, Phish covering TV On The Radio doesn’t count.

- DaveO

• Previously: #25 – #21, #20 – #16, #15 – #11,
• Spotify: Best Albums of 2011 Playlist

READ ON

It’s safe to say that a majority of our readers are quite familiar with the musical history of Port Chester, New York’s Capitol Theatre. Built in 1926 and designed by the architect Thomas W. Lamb, who also designed the United Palace Theater in Upper Manhattan, the theater may be most famous for hosting the Grateful Dead an astonishing 18 times during an 11-month period, but also saw just about every major and influential music act grace its stage from Pink Floyd, Traffic, Joe Cocker and Janis Joplin (who played her next-to-last show there) in the early 1970′s to Phish, Blues Traveler, God Street Wine and Strangefolk in the 1990s. The 1,800-plus seat venue hasn’t hosted a rock show since 1997, but that is all about to change as it was announced that Pete Shapiro has struck a long term deal to present shows at the historic theater.

The Cap will undergo a four-month long, $2 million renovation that according to the New York Times “will include replacing carpets, repainting walls and upgrading bathrooms, as well as adding state-of-the-art light, sound and video systems,” with the Bowery Presents set to book a mix of rock, jazz, Latin and blues act, along with comedy shows. Maybe we’ll finally get that Trey show that was booked at the theater back in 2008, and then subsequently moved to the Roseland Ballroom.

• List Time: Paste’s 20 Best Cover Songs Of 2011
• Danny Clitch released an iPad app of his 1990s photos
• Cover Alert: My Morning Jacket tackle Gil-Scott Heron
• The Hive declares 2011 the year that music went social 
• Download This: Gillian Welch & David Rawlings – Snow On Albuquerque: The Songs Of Neil Young & Townes Van Zandt
• Captain Beefhart’s “lost” album Bat Chain Puller to be released next year

Finally, back in October we reported that the influential music site Pitchfork would be  curating their first-ever multi-day festival in New York City, with the help of the fine folks at Bowery Presents, that they had dubbed FORMS. The fest, which was set to take place from February 1 to 4, and “celebrate the interconnected and growing worlds of independent music, art, and gaming” with somewhere between 50 to 75 acts performing at a variety of Bowery booked venues around the city. Well those that were expecting the announcement of more details, may have been in for a bit of disappointment when earlier this week Pitchfork posted the following message on the website about the status of the event…

Pitchfork, The Bowery Presents, and Killscreen are postponing FORMS, the NYC-based event series we collectively created as a way to celebrate the best of music, art, games, and the intersections in between. As the series took shape these past few months, we found it growing bigger and more complex in very exciting ways. We followed those threads, expanded the vision, and simply ran out of time. Pitchfork, Bowery Presents, and Killscreen have a history of throwing spectacular events and producing great content, and we have decided to give ourselves more time to ensure that FORMS is the best it can be. For now, we plan to take a brief pause and provide more information later.

We’ll keep our fingers crossed that this only a bump in the road for what sounded like an interesting venture, and we’ll keep you posted as more information on the status of FORMS as its revealed.

HT faves My Morning Jacket’s final tour of 2011 is well underway and we’re glad to see they’ve been changing it up a bit this run. Tonight’s MMJ news doesn’t deal with their live show, it’s about the announcement of two new studio projects. Tomorrow on iTunes you’ll be able to purchase a special holiday EP called iTunes Sessions featuring a brand new track entitled Welcome Home, a batch of Christmas classics (Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, I’ll Be Home For Christmas and Please Come Home For Christmas) and a “beautiful rendition” of Wonderful (The Way I Feel). Seattle’s The Head And The Heart provide guest vocals on When The Bells Start Ringing, which was recorded last month in Amsterdam. You can download When The Bells Start Ringing free-of-charge from iTunes.

But wait! That’s not all…the Kentucky based rockers also announced an independent record store exclusive 7″. Friends Again, a song the band recorded for the Live Muppet Project that never happened is on Side A of the vinyl, while an “alternate universe take” of the Circuital track Outta My System is on Side B. The band advises to check with your local independent record store to see if they have it.

Start spreading the news indeed, My Morning Jacket will return to NYC’s Madison Square Garden for the first time since NYE ’08-’09 on December 14 with Band of Horses in tow as part of a December tour that will also find the group visiting San Francisco’s Bill Graham Memorial Auditorium on December 2 and the Sunset Cove Amphitheatre in Boca Raton, Florida on December 10.

Today’s announcement includes 12 shows in December starting with the December 1 show at the Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles we mentioned on Friday and running through the band’s second-ever Madison Square Garden headlining appearance.

Here’s the complete list of dates:

Dec 1st: Los Angeles, CA @ The Gibson (w/ Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings)
Dec 2nd: San Francisco, CA @ Bill Graham Civic (w/ Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings)
Dec 6th: Tulsa, OK @ Brady Theatre (with Delta Spirit)
Dec 7th: Dallas, TX @ Verizon Theatre (with Delta Spirit)
Dec 8th: Houston, TX @ Verizon Wireless Theatre (with Delta Spirit)
Dec 10th: Boca Raton, FL @ Sunset Cove (with Delta Spirit)
Dec 11th: Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock Live (with Delta Spirit)
Dec 12th: Greensboro, NC @ War Memorial Auditorium (with Delta Spirit)
Dec 14th: New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden (with Band Of Horses)

A pre-sale for members of MMJ’s Roll Call fan club starts today, while tickets for the general public go on sale this coming weekend.

Last October, HT faves My Morning Jacket came to New York City for an epic five-show run at Terminal 5 in which they played all of their studio albums from front to back while also littering each setlist with rarities and covers. Since those performances, the Kentucky-based band have not returned to the Big Apple. Yesterday, the group’s Twitter feed came alive with a message that gave NYC MMJ fans wood…

Speculation has been running wild about what the five-piece will announce come Monday. While we usually avoid rumors, MMJ’s tweet makes it fair game. Clearly My Morning Jacket will be heading out for a tour following their European tour in November. LA blog Scenestar recently published an article saying the group would play the local Gibson Amphitheatre on December 1, but that post was quickly deleted as was a livenation.com listing for that show. You can view a cached copy of the blog post here. Also, The Brady in Tulsa, Okla. put a December 6th date on a sign at the venue’s box office. This all leads us to believe the tour will start on the West Coast and head east, so we’re thinking they arrive in NYC towards the middle of December.

Now, where will My Morning Jacket perform in NYC? Your guess is as good as ours. They seem to love Terminal 5 for some reason, but we’re thinking positively that they will either play a short run of shows at the Beacon or will return to Madison Square Garden, the site of their epic New Year’s Eve ’08 – ’09 performance. A quick poll of the HT staff finds most of us thinking they would be able to sell out “The World’s Greatest Arena.” By process of elimination, Radio City Music Hall is off the table due to the annual Christmas Spectacular.

READ ON for more MMJ in NYC speculation…

On November 8, singer-songwriter Laura Veirs will release her first album of children’s music called Tumble Bee: Laura Veirs Sings Folk Songs For Children. Inspired by the birth of their son, Veirs and her longtime producer Tucker Martine dove head first into the history of children’s folk music to select songs for the 13-track album, which range from the traditional to contemporary from the likes of Woody Guthrie, Peggy Seeger and Harry Belafonte. The album will also feature an impressive array of guest spots that include Jim James, Bela Fleck and Colin Meloy (The Decemberists) – who will release his first children’s book , Wildwood, on August 30.

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• Lou Reed & Metallica album – LULU – due out on November 1
• Download This: Tom Waits Never Talk To Strangers BBC Studios ’79
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Finally, next month the Charles River Museum Of Industry & Innovation will play host to the multimedia plastics art exhibit Another Side Of In, that will feature the work of  a team of three artists, one of which happens to be Phish bassist Mike Gordon. According to the Boston Globe, the exhibit “blends the plastic Lexan with light and sound software for an interactive experience.” For his contribution, Cactus composed customized sound clips, for which his mother, Marjorie Minkin, created relief works for the looped sounds while listening to them. Jamie Robertson designed and built wireless electronics to enable viewers to interact with sound and light on each piece through proximity with the works.  The museum will also host a free opening reception for Another Side Of In—which will be on display from Sept. 11 through Dec. 23—on Wednesday, September 13 from 6:30PM to 9:30PM.

A true sign of a band’s heart is how they react to adversity. On Saturday night at the Kahbang Festival in Bangor, Maine HT faves My Morning Jacket made lemonade out of lemons, and showed they are true professionals with the heart of a champion, when they treated fans to a rarity-laden acoustic set without drummer Patrick Hallahan, who had an “allergic reaction to eating some shellfish.”

[The offending lobster roll via @PatrickHallahan]

The group set the tone immediately with the first Tonight I Want To Celebrate With You of 2011 as the crowd quickly noticed this was no ordinary MMJ performance. Jim James explained Hallahan’s absence and told fans the band wanted to play as a foursome rather than cancel. Hallahan tweeted, “My apologies for not being able to play tonight…first show I’ve ever missed. #mynightmarerealm.” It’s tough not to feel for the guy as he missed his first My Morning Jacket gig since joining the band in 2002.

[JJ Strums While The Bear Looks On - by John Gross]

The bust outs continued throughout the 14-song set, with Bermuda Highway, Look At You and I Will Be There When You Die each making an appearance on a My Morning Jacket stage for the first time in 2011. Hallahan’s drum stool was held down by the band’s mascot, a stuffed bear as his mates went on without him. We’ll be on the look out for audio and video, especially of what’s sure to be an interesting unplugged rendition of Dondante. So kudos to MMJ’s Jim James, Tom Blankenship, Carl Broemel and Bo Koster for not only playing a show most acts would have cancelled, but for making it such a special night for those in attendance. Let’s hope Hallahan recovers in time for tonight’s show in Boston.

[Thanks to Jamie Lairson for the report]

As we mentioned earlier this week, the mighty My Morning Jacket dropped their new music video for Holdin On To Black Metal on Monday via the somewhat struggling new social media service Google+. The Southern-psychedelic-soul-rock act’s latest clip mixes live performance footage, with a trippy story line that includes the imbibing of some dubious liquid called Lucifer’s Peach from a ghostly bartender…

My Morning Jacket – Holdin On To Black Metal

My Morning Jacket continue their lengthy summer tour in support of Circuital this weekend in Chicago at Lollapalooza.

Over the last few years, the legendary Booker T. Jones has experienced a bit of a career renaissance thanks in part to a couple of contemporary acts backing the influential organ player on his first studio albums in roughly two decades. In 2009, it was the Southern rockers the Drive-By Truckers, who gave the assist on the Grammy winning Potato Hole, which also featured Neil Young on guitar. For the follow up, Jones upped the ante by not only nabbing The Roots as his backing band, but by also recruiting an impressive roster of talent to contribute to the album.

Released early last month, The Road From Memphis features vocals from Lou Reed, Sharon Jones, The National’s Matt Berninger and My Morning Jacket’s Jim James throughout its 11 tracks. The pairing of Jones with The Roots gives the record a distinct vintage ’70s urban soul and funk vibe, which is highlighted by the track Progress that sees MMJ’s Jim James channeling any number of Stax recordings, whose sound Booker T. & The MGs helped define. Let’s check out the video…

Back in November certified yoga instructor and longtime Phish fan Chris Calarco put together a workshop connecting his two passions. Calarco’s Phish Yoga classes were an instant hit and he now offers them on a weekly basis at Stumptown Yoga in Portland, OR as well as at studios nationwide under a program he developed. Here’s more on his classes…

Surrender to the Flow classes are thematically arranged to connect the complementary worlds of Phish and yoga helping students explore both endeavors as sacred paths. Live mixes that span the band’s illustrious career help to deepen and extend the theme. Recent classes include: “Spanda and The Divine Pulse of Phish”, “A Celebration and a Practice”, “Live Your Phish Inspiration”, “Higher Consciousness Through Phish and the Body”. Chris and his students have found the inspiration of Phish to be sustaining and enlivening when practicing yoga. A blissful “Harry Hood” or deep, dark “Sand” can motivate us toward physical, mental, and spiritual growth.

Calarco, who contributes to Glide Magazine, will be holding these Surrender to the Flow classes next weekend at Phish’s Super Ball IX festival in Watkins Glen, NY and at Root Yoga in Denver during the band’s Labor Day Weekend performances. To find out more about these classes, in which students are encouraged to sing along, dance and move off the mat as the spirit moves them, be sure to follow Chris on Twitter and visit the Phish Yoga Facebook page.

Let’s look at a few more stories of note this week…

• Details emerge about MMW’s residency at The Whitney
• Cover Alert: Elvis Costello covers Purple Rain by Prince
• Prince hates digital music and won’t record any time soon
• Sly Stone returns with his first new studio album since 1982
• Wilco’s Glenn Kotche talks about the 2nd Solid Sound Festival
• While MSG is shut down for a redesign, NJ venues prosper

Finally, last night My Morning Jacket visited Conan O’Brien’s TBS show and delivered a killer version of Holdin’ On To Black Metal. Take a peek…

As we’ve repeatedly touted, Bonnaroo isn’t just about all the great bands that are playing amongst the tents and stages. There are a plethora of activities to keep you busy while you wait to see your favorite act. For all those cinephiles out there the Cinema Tent will once again be offering up 24 hours a day of  programming running from Thursday afternoon through Sunday night. This year’s highlights include special screenings of 30 Minutes Or Less and Garden State, which will feature a Q&A session with Aziz Ansari and Zach Braff afterwords, respectively.

Also of note will be a special performance by members of My Morning Jacket and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band following the screening of the documentary Live From Preservation Hall: A Louisiana Fairytale. Plus, the late Sidney Lumet will be honored with the Long Live Lumet series as folks will be able to enjoy three of the Oscar-winning director’s classic movies: Network, Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico. Check out the full schedule of events here.

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• High Sierra Festival released its daily line up schedule
• Cover Alert: The Low Anthem tackle Phosphorescent
• Check out Spin’s comprehensive oral history of Lollapalooza
• Download This: Uncle Tupelo – The Rare Essence Of
• VH1 names former Blips act Lissie an artist You Oughta Know

Finally, after eight years the wait is over, as Gillian Welch will finally release her long-awaited fifth studio album, The Head & The Harrow, on June 28. Produced by her longtime musical partner David Rawlings, the ten-track album is being heralded as Welch’s “back to roots-country” record, and has gotten some advance praise courtesy of The Decemberists’ front man Colin Meloy, who calls it “a new Southern sound with the sort of songs you wouldn’t be surprised to here issuing from some verdant, widowed hollow in Appalachia.”