I saw the Dave Matthews Band open for Phish at the Santa Monica Civic.
I do what Chip tells me. He’d told me I had to come see Phish at the Variety Arts Center and I’d watched them blow up. The DMB was his new band.
I didn’t know that the Santa Monica Civic had a false floor, that it was suspended in such a way that when they started playing “Ants Marching” and the college-aged audience dressed in the same exact clothing as the band members themselves erupted and started moving up and down that the floor would too. I’d never heard the number before, I haven’t forgotten it since.
During the break, before the headliner took the stage, I went with Chip to a side room, just east of the auditorium itself, that resembled nothing so much as an elementary school classroom, to hang out. It was there that I met Boyd, Carter and LeRoi. Maybe LeRoi, I can’t remember exactly, it was fifteen years ago…
This was before Dave became not only a TV star, but a cultural icon, before his humor became widely known. They were just another band. Who kept getting bigger and bigger, whose fanbase kept growing. I followed them to the Palladium, all the way to Staples and the Hollywood Bowl. And got to know their manager, Coran Capshaw, along the way. Not incredibly well. Which is probably why he wanted to have lunch on Tuesday. To talk in an environment different from backstage.
On the way to the Peninsula, I heard “Where Are You Going” on No Shoes Radio, Kenny Chesney testified not only about Dave, but the band’s drummer. I told Coran and Chip this when we sat down. Coran told me Kenny had a place on St. John too. They were buddies.
It was that kind of conversation. Catching up, filling in the little details. Telling me about the status of the band. How they’d mixed it up, how they were playing better than ever before, with Tim Reynolds on the road with them and two replacements for LeRoi.
Grateful Dead — San Francisco, CA (10/13/1980)
Acoustic Set
1. On The Road Again
2. Bird Song
3. To Lay Me Down
4. Heaven Help The Fool
5. Jack A Roe
6. Deep Elem Blues
7. Ripple
Jethro Tull — Song For Jeffrey
From The Rolling Stones’ Rock And Roll Circus (1969):
From French TV (1969):
Ween — The Mollusk
“You see there are three things that spur the mollusk from the sand…”
Cool brick-mation video here set to Ween’s “The Mollusk”.
Frank Sinatra — Sings Weather Report?
This of course is fantasy, but just imagine Francis Albert working with Sammy Cahn and Paul Anka to write lyrics to the monumental jazz album “Heavy Weather” by Weather Report. Sinatra and Jaco in the studio together? Jazz.com explores this fantasy:
Sinatra Sings Weather Report (RCA 121215)
From the LP liner notes:
“Sinatra and producer Quincy Jones were discussing the state of music one day last year and discovered they both enjoyed the music of jazz-rock pioneers Weather Report. ‘Q and I laughed about it. We wondered what damage these cats could have caused back in the heyday of the big bands,’ Sinatra joked. He continued, ‘You know, I’m not dead from the neck up. I have followed the trends in popular music and in jazz. I liked the Beatles and I dug that stuff Zawinul and those guys were doing with Miles.’
“Jones added, ‘Frank and I decided to get some lyricists to put words to some of our favorite Weather Report tunes and record them. We thought Frank’s voice would blend real well with the sound this band generates. We got Paul Anka and Paul Williams, and we were also blessed when the great Sammy Cahn agreed to write some words for us as well.’”
Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter were Sinatra fans, but they were not so sure this was a good idea. According to those in the know, it took some time for Jones to convince them that this could be a marvelous record. Weather Report’s mercurial bassist, Jaco Pastorius, was on the case the moment the opportunity arrived. He was apparently so excited that he demanded to do a duet with Sinatra! (He eventually settled for a little background singing.) But over several months and a few issues with its record company Columbia, the band agreed to do the album with Frank and Quincy for RCA.
Sinatra and Jones chose six Weather Report tunes and brought them to Zawinul and asked the band to perform them per Quincy’s special arrangements. Jones’s scores were rather generous, calling for Weather Report to take long and sometimes risky musical excursions. The shortest piece on the record is nearly 7 minutes.
Zawinul’s “In a Silent Way” opens the record. This interpretation is shorter than the original that appeared on Miles Davis’s album of the same name. But is still ten minutes in length. Williams’s lyrics, “In a silent way… you captured me away” are sung with a low-register three-bourbon sadness that only Sinatra could muster. Perhaps Sinatra and Jones knew that Weather Report’s sound could produce, if in a totally modern way, the same flow that the best big bands provided for Sinatra and all of the great big band singers. Jones arrangement of this piece, and on others on the record, found a wonderful way to make everything mesh. Continue Reading…
Phish — 13 Years Ago
Mr. Miner’s Phish Thoughts shares memories of one of my personal favorite Phish periods, Summer ’95:
With summer winding down, and visions of tours past dancing in our heads, I want to focus one more post on a summer tour- musically, my favorite summer tour of all time- Summer ‘95. This summer was not for the lighthearted, as Phish was at its peak of psychedelic experimentation in the truest sense. Continue Reading…
Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists
Here’s Rolling Stone‘s controversial list of the top 100 guitarists of all time. Most of the usual suspects are here. Where does your favorite rank? 100 Guitarists
Eric Clapton – Unplugged
It was 16 years ago today that Eric Clapton’s “MTV Unplugged” was released by Reprise Records/Warner Reprise Video. The album went platinum and the home video went gold only three weeks later.
Here’s one of my favorites from the special:
LeRoi Moore — Reflections On His Passing
moe. — Chuck Garvey Talks About Hiatus
Chuck Garvey of moe. talks with Dean Budnick about moe.’s plans post-moe.down:
Chuck Garvey is looking at an open calendar. This is rare for the guitarist, who has spent nearly two decades, steadily touring and recording with moe.. However, following this year’s moe.down which will take place over Labor Day weekend in Turin, New York, moe. will take an indeterminate time off the road, pledging to return in 2009. In the following conversation, Garvey looks ahead to his time off, describes the factors that led to it and also anticipates the group’s final’s performances for the immediate future, at this year’s moe.down 9.
DB- Before we dig in on moe.down and your upcoming plans, one topic that has interested me lately has been the skyrocketing gas prices and the live music industry. From your perspective, what impact do you think it’s had on bands and fans?It has a tremendous effect on everyone. I don’t know anyone that’s not affected. Even if you don’t have a car you’re affected, the overall economy is proof of that. But it’s especially difficult for a touring band to sustain itself. There are a lot of bands who tour just in a van and trailer and they get hit really hard. If they’re not making enough from gig to gig they don’t get to the next town. It’s not easy.
It’s definitely affecting us. We’ve had discussions with [manager Jon] Topper and Skip [Richman] our tour manager just about how much it costs to drive in a bus. I think per vehicle, it’s like $1.20 per mile. It’s ridiculous. It’s definitely better than flying around in jets (laughs) but it’s not necessarily the greenest thing in the world and it costs a lot, the overhead goes up for living on the road. It affects us and it affects people who are traveling from city to city. Everyone has to rein in and figure out what their real priorities are, I guess. It’s been pretty interesting all around to see how it’s affected people in the music industry and elsewhere.
DB- Can you notice from the stage that maybe some of familiar faces aren’t at as many shows?
Just by looking at the crowd I can tell if gas prices have gone up ten cents or not.
DB- Really?
No. (Laughs) You do notice it though. Some faces you take for granted, some cities you take for granted. I know it’s hard and specifically I have noticed, this just happened when we did a couple of shows in the northeast when we played on Cape Cod and then we played in Portland, Maine. People had to choose one or two shows over all four and you do notice that and it is kind of strange. I don’t think anybody’s overly stressed out about it but it is a fact of life and it’s unfortunate.
DB- In March the band announced that after moe.down you’ll be taking time off “with the intent of returning again in 2009.” It seems like this was very well thought out. Can you talk a bit about what led you to this decision?
I remember the day in 1994 when we incorporated. We had long since left our day jobs and were just looking forward to the future. And the next couple of years, over 300 days out of the year we were traveling somewhere or playing a show. And ever since then it’s been a process where we make that ratio of off days and working days more livable. And all of a sudden is 14+ years later that we’ve been doing this without a substantial break.
It’s difficult because we have a lot of people who work for us and we have a fan base that’s very loyal. So it’s easy just to say, “Keep going, keep going, keep going.” And you realize for the first time in 14 years we really haven’t taken a substantial break, taken a really big deep breath and then started up again. You’re right, we did think about it for a while because it affects our connection to each other as a band, it affects our entire organization because we have a lot of people on our payroll and it affects every fan that wants to go see shows. So we had to carefully weigh everything and say, “Okay, we can do this.” I guess we owe it to ourselves to be able to concentrate on our families and our lives outside of traveling and it’s great that we have the luxury of being able to do that. We’ve had to work hard to get to that point and now we‘re trying to take advantage of it a little bit. I think it’ll have a positive effect psychologically on everyone. I’m sure it’s going to feel really good to come back and start playing again.
The Doors — Not Without Morrison!
In 1970, The Doors got into a fight over Buick, the lumbering auto manufacturer that wanted to use the apocalyptic Los Angeles quartet’s “Light My Fire” to sell cars. The agreement that resulted demanded that no business decision be made without approval from all the of band members. Decades after Morrison’s death, that detente has just been fortified by the California Supreme Court.
The remaining Doors have been embroiled in a rerun of that earlier dispute ever since keyboardist Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger hit the road in 2002 with The Cult vocalist Ian Astbury and clumsily called themselves The Doors of the 21st Century, grossing $8 million in the process. Drummer John Densmore complained, arguing that “of the 21st Century” was barely visible on the tour’s promotional materials and that it used Morrison’s image at length, a clear no-no. Then he sued.
On Friday, according to the Associated Press, he won.
When the music is over/Turn out the lights, the Lizard King once sang. Time to hit those halogens
It is bizarre that nearly 40 years after its first copyfight, The Doors are still at war with each other over money. But Manzarek and Krieger have run out of options, now that Densmore and Morrison’s estate have teamed up to convince the California Supreme Court not to take up the case.
Densmore’s rationale was simple: Jim wouldn’t have approved. Morrison was the lone holdout against the Buick deal, and it was shelved over his disapproval. And while Densmore was originally for the Buick deal, when General Motors offered the surviving members of The Doors $15 million to use “Light My Fire” in 2001, he kept Morrison’s wishes alive by killing the offer. He did the same for a proposed iPod campaign with Apple.
“You can’t call yourselves The Doors because you can’t have The Doors without Jim Morrison,” argued Densmore’s attorney S. Jerome Mandel, summing up the legal conclusion of the disagreement that has torn the already fragmented legend into further shreds.
Fleet Foxes — Blue Ridge Mountains
Fleet Foxes is a five-piece Seattle based band signed to the labels Sub Pop[1] and Bella Union. The quintet describe their music as “baroque harmonic pop jams”.
Here they are on Letterman:
