Hidden Track

“Is that the guy with the old balls?” –Julian McGrath, Big Daddy

That may have been the most asked question over the last 12 months. For the Year of Our Lord Two-Thousand Seven will long be remembered as the ultimate cash grab: Genesis, Van Halen, The Police, The Sex Pistols, Crowded House, and the pulse-having members of Led Fucking Zeppelin all rose from the ash(tray)s for long-coveted reunions, and we’re guessing all the little pills floating around backstage came from doctors prescriptions and licensed pharmacists instead of sketchy backstage characters.

As for your friendly Internet sherpas here at Hidden Track, we’ll look back fondly on our first full year in action, a period that saw us publish 1,127 posts — not bad for two guys draped in business casual collecting fortnightly pay-stubs. We tried to inform and entertain and stay up with the ridiculous nature of the music business that so often frustrates but makes our highs possible. Although, we really just hope that this site over the past year provided a modicum of escapism for your workaday world.

The year began ominously, with news breaking on January 3rd that former 70 Volt Parade lead singer Trey Anastasio had heroin in the car during his late-2006 arrest in Whitehall, New York. And as it continued, we had a little fun with the New Deal’s drummer being a SciUNTZologist. We attracted some serious vitriol with our Top 10 Reasons We’ll Miss String Cheese Incident. We poked a smartass stick at moe. for offering to write my company a jingle a la Full House Uncles Joey and Jesse. We asked whether Dave Clark was fucking Jann Wenner in exchange for Hall of Fame votes. But mostly we just added our voice to the growing cacophony of the world wide webosphere.

So read on after the jump for a full recap of 2007 and The Year That Was…

January (archives)

• 1/12: Get MC Skat Kat on the horn — Paula Abdul’s wasted on national TV
• 1/16: LivePhish offers up the long-awaited Headphones Jam to raise money for charity — the charity did not turn out to be the Big Red Legal Fund
• 1/21: Arcare Fire & Brimstone rains down in Montreal — America’s Favorite Canadian Band plays a supersecret church show
• 1/25: Break out the tight pants — news breaks of a 40-show Van Halen reunion
• 1/30: Reunions aplenty, The Police announce they’ll be reuniting at the Grammys

February (archives)

• 2/5: Prince gives new meaning to Purple Rain at the Super Bowl
• 2/7: moe., apparently, believes the children are our future and subsequently sponsors an elementary school girls basketball team
• 2/7: Ron Artest prepares for String Cheese tour by malnourishing his dogs
• 2/8: Former Oysterhead sideman Trey Anastasio speaks at The Y
• 2/15: Internet Pioneer Al Gore announces he’s inventing a summer rock concert
• 2/23: Pitchfork reviews The Duo’s Play Pause Stop, only about a year too late
• 2/26: Kevin Kendrick’s A BIG YES and a small no throw down some Dope Pop

March (archives)

• 3/1: The local news awesomely picks up on the Dangers of Emo
• 3/2: The Knitting Factory celebrates 20 years of avant-garde noise
• 3/6: Bring out the gimp — Internet Radio continues to get fucked
• 3/8: Bob Weir breaks out the moves — ace power slide, cowboy
• 3/9-13: Langerado! Trey! Lots of bands! Photo galleries! Nonsense!
• 3/19: Now I can die in peace — Levon Helm dazzles at The Beacon
• 3/22: I Love Bad Music debuts on with Shine, Sweet Freedom
• 3/29: Trouble in Ashevegas — Hot Carl loves “the music RatDog”

April (archives)

• 4/3: Wade’s World provides an inside view of the USTORM Benefit
• 4/5: More Fillmores; Live Nation CEO changes name to Bill Graham
• 4/6: Play it, Leo: The Chairman returns to the boards in NYC
• 4/8: Bernie with the Allmans — From one awesome Derek to another
• 4/13: No jail time for Crimson Dego; Trey (kinda) walks away a free man
• 4/17: We coined the term “Mariachi Metal” to describe Rod y Gab
• 4/23: The HT Baseball Preview concludes with Rob Salzer’s Mets
• 4/26: Ithaca, New York coulda been renamed “n00b City” for a day

May (archives)

• 5/3: The Kidzz Are Alright — You Enjoy the Mall (with tramps and all)
• 5/9: Danfun kicks down a fantastic gallery of JazzFest photos
• 5/18: The most inexplicable double bill of all-time: !!! and Holy Fuck
• 5/20: A couple of aging Brits play Blind Faith tunes in the UK
• 5/25: Apollo Sunshine gets its rocks off on the Hudson River
• 5/30: Wade’s World provides an inside view of Summer Camp

June (archives)

• 6/1: Police Week ends with Stewart Copeland’s honest (and tough) review
• 6/5: Akon tosses a little white boy from the stage, Page McConnell gets mixed reviews from one guy and Wilco peddles Impossible Germany Car Company
• 6/8: Potato Waves Make Me Fries may just be the video of the year
• 6/12: The Year of the Cash-Grab Reunion continues with Genesis
• 6/15-18: Bonnaroo, motherfucker — check out Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four, videos and the SuperJam rehearsal
• 6/20: The White Stripes play small ball at the Irving Fillmore Plaza Whatever
• 6/26: School’s in for summer — a full day of festival rock from the keedz
• 6/28: It’s gonna be a showdown between Van Halen versus The Other Half

July (archives)

• 7/5: Rock Band offers us the first look at the future of video geekery
• 7/8: Hundreds of artists flew 220,000 (non-hybrid) miles for Live Earth
• 7/9: The impressive Dr. Dog streams 12 unreleased tracks on its website
• 7/12: That’s 77 phatty grilled cheeses and one monster drum circle
• 7/16: Whoa, who the fuck just played three nights at MSG?
• 7/19: Two words — INDIAN THRILLER (two more: Prisoner Thriller)
• 7/23: More reunions! Crowded House returns to New York
• 7/24: Havin’ a Bad Time — Girl Talk opens for Widespread Panic
• 7/31: Artist Jim Pollock opens his doors, Willa Wonka style

August (archives)

• 8/1: Joe Walsh really needs to go away, but Sharon Jones can stay
• 8/8: Marco Benevento talks to us about his Live at Tonic release
• 8/9: The Beasties Boys light up a hot-as-fuck Central Park
• 8/13: A pox on Nels Cline’s house…or at least a pox on his body
• 8/20: Fuckfaces always ruin it for the rest of us; PNC bans tailigating
• 8/21: Get rich or die tryin’ — we can only hope it’s the latter
• 8/24: Ladies and gentlemen, the Hipster Olympics (genius)
• 8/26: Ted Nugent’s officially batshit crazy, but we knew that already
• 8/30: When it’s the RIAA versus The People, we’re all losers

September (archives)

• 9/4: Finally, some business acumen; Akron/Family knows how to sell
• 9/10: Processing a three-night Tea Leaf Green run at the Blender
• 9/11: Hey, Indiana Jones: Heady crystals, yo! (and ACL loses everyone!)
• 9/12: Farm Aid — nothing says “farm-fresh” quite like New York City
• 9/15-18: I made it to Austin City Limits, where the streets are paved with vomit — check out Day One, Day Two, Day Three, the Fire and some videos
• 9/18: God Save Their Hips — another reunion, this one, The Sex Pistols
• 9/20: Suge Knight’s tired of fingering only his enemies
• 9/24: Meg White sex tape? Nah. But giving new meaning to Get Behind Me Satan
• 9/28: After months of build-up, Van Halen finally takes the stage (for real)
• 9/28: Ryan Adams does, what you all think he’s gonna do…which is just…

October (archives)

• 10/2: I Love Bad Music brings us the real 1, 2, 3, 4 (and a Winehouse joke)
• 10/8: LCD Soundsystem officially becomes my favorite band of the year
• 10/9: Ryan Montbleau sits down to talk Patience on Sunday
• 10/10: D-Day came and went — Radiohead’s In Rainbows caused boners
• 10/12: Dave Vann joined us, shooting up Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in SF
• 10/15: Dueling profiles on The Slip’s Brad Barr and Reid Genauer
• 10/15: Bruce Springsteen + Arcade Fire = Happy Webosphere
• 10/17-19: Echo Project in Photos: Day One, Two and Three
• 10/23: STS9 rejoices as international police shut down OiNK
• 10/24: Neeko joins the fun and HT goes all artsy bohemian poet

November (archives)

• 11/5: Eric Clapton decides to reunite every band…ever
• 11/6: Les Claypool’s Electric Apricot falls way short of Spinal Tap
• 11/7: Not enough people “Lishtening to their Britney Shhpears records”
• 11/13: Langerado finally gets around to announcing a [killer] lineup
• 11/13: Exit Chambers — Tea Leaf Reed takes over for Ben
• 11/19: Stevie Wonder and his Bar Mitzvah band rock my shit at MSG
• 11/26: moe. is not so much kidding about the jingles
• 11/26: You know reunion season is fucked when The Jackson 5 do it
• 11/28: Prepare the tanks — The Northeast finally lands a festival
• 11/29: The B List counts off the 10 Least Dangerous Rock Stars

December (archives)

• 12/1: I Wish I Wasn’t There, ‘cuz I’m Not There kinda sucks
• 12/3: Andrew Bird kicks off his shoes at The Beacon
• 12/4: Deadspin linked to our post about the Deadicated golfer (is it too much to send this guy out with Mike Weir and Sergio Garcia?)
• 12/5: Stewart Copeland’s not going hoggin’ in South America
• 12/6: Hillary Clinton may have sold burritos in H.O.R.D.E. lot in ‘93
• 12/10: Glide Magazine publishes its Top 20 Albums of the Year
• 12/10: Oh, the Humanity: Led Zeppelin’s back from the dead
• 12/12: Not quite Zep, but Plant and Krauss will play Bonnaroo
• 12/12: Chuck Myers takes on the increasingly lame history of a badass
• 12/13: The Ghosts of Wayne Fontes boys also join the staff
• 12/13: How did 2007 Robert Plant go back in time?
• 12/17: And how did some blogger jerk make it into a legit Year in Review?
• 12/17-18: Dueling reviews of Neil Young in NYC and Haynes’ Xmas Jam
• 12/19: Glide publishes its Best of 2007 from the Artists’ Perspective
• 12/21: American Babies breaks out the Abbey Road medley for Xmas

It’s been a great 2007, and we’d love to have you all join us next year — so don’t die tonight from choking on vomit, even if it’s not your own vomit. We should warn you: They can’t dust for vomit. So revel, but revel in safety. Happy New Year, folks.