If you like watching concerts sprawled on your couch in your skivies(sp), surrounded by your pets (a.k.a. jungle friends), computers and flashy devices - you're in luck. Check out these webcasts this week.

Phish Vermont Flood Benefit Show: Wednesday (tomorrow!) Sept. 14 live from Essex Junction, Vt.:
When Phish plays in Vermont, it's naturally a big deal. While none of the band members are natives of Vermont, they formed at UVM in '83 and have since become synonymous with the Green Mountain State. They also have a history of giving back to places near and dear to them, and back a couple of foundations, Mockingbird Foundation and Waterwheel Foundation.

Click here to order the webcast for $20 and test your audio/video capabilities.

Wilco, Live on Letterman: 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 21:
Stream Wilco live on Letterman's stage in New York City. Likely debuting some new tunes off their upcoming album, The Whole Love, and hopefully playing some staples #jesusect #iamtryingtobreakyourheart

Click here to watch the webcast free next Wednesday.

- J

Phish 3D to be shown in Burlington on 4/20

Rolling Stone today had the scoop on Phish 3D, which was filmed live at Festival 8, Phish's Halloween festival in Indio California this October.

According to the Rolling Stone blog post, "on April 20th, fans in Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Washington, D.C., Raleigh and, of course, Phish’s native Burlington, Vermont, will be the first to experience Phish 3D, with a rollout to other markets starting April 30th. Phish 3D will only be in theaters for one week."

The film will be previewed at Majestic 10 in Williston, VT on April 20 (4/20).

Check out the theatrical trailer on Glide Magazine's Hidden Track blog.

More stufff to look forward to.

Let's hope I can keep my mind in the present:

1. New Band of Horses! Infinite Arms is due out May 18. Should be nothing short of spectacular from the Seattle-based band. Band of Horses have left the Sub Pop label for this, their third, record -- arriving at Brown Records/Fat Possum/Columbia; home to the likes of Andrew Bird, The Black Keys, Crocodiles and other lesser-known bands. BoH will tour the U.S. in May, supporting Pearl Jam. Madison Square Garden on May 21 is the closest to my neck of the woods ...

For more, visit their Web site.

2. New Neil Young documentary I love all things Neil, so I was excited to hear about "Neil Young Trunk Show," hitting select theaters (which means nowhere near me) on March 19.

Check out the trailer!

3. Phish! It was just announced today that Phish's summer tour will make a stop within my radius: a two-night stand at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center on June 19 and 20.

Check out their summer dates.

They will also be releasing a 3D movie filmed at the Halloween fest, Phish Festival 8, in Indio, CA. Sounds pretty cool. We'll finally know how hippies look in 3D ...

Other notable news:

The Barrelhouse Brothers (the band I play in) got a Peavy P.A. system and will soon be announcing a 'It's Spring: Time To Come Out of Your Hole' show.

The Adirondack Park will not be closing this summer to balance the budget!

... and today is St. Patrick's Day. Happy St. Patrick's Day if you're Irish. If not, enjoy celebrating beer anyway.

-J

Take Action, Get Tunes

Hey y'all,

Head Count, the environmental advocacy group that uses music as its springboard, e-mailed me and tipped me off to a pretty cool deal: E-mail your state senators urging them to vote in favor of climate change legislation and get a 17-track compilation CD, "Best of Bonnarroo."

Included is music from Wilco, My Morning Jacket, Gov't Mule, Phish, moe., Phil Lesh & Friends and many more bands, all of which pledged their allegiance to Head Count and do their part to promote climate action while on the road each year.

Here's the catch: Head Count provides a canned letter you can send without any thought and you'll be done if five minutes. However, they urge you to express your own thoughts about climate change. Include specifics like the town where you live and businesses around you that do their part to be green. Include these in the first few lines to maybe get the attention of the senators if they actually peer over the e-mails.

In my e-mail, I noted where I lived and that I look around me every day and see people who really care about the environment and would be devastated if they couldn't share the wilderness with their children and grandchildren.

That said, click the link below to do your part and download the MP3's:

http://action.headcount.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1766

Dodging flashbacks: A bootleg story

My last post got me thinking about the Phish Hampton '98 bootlegs and how I ended up with them.

Truth is, they were a gift from my older brother, Pete. I'm the youngest of four brothers - Pete is eight years my elder.

He began a collection of bootlegs while attending LeMoyne college in Syracuse. His collection was mostly Dead and Allmans but he got his hands on some early Mule stuff (power trio of guitarist Warren Haynes, bassist Allen Woody 1956~2000 and drummer Matt Abts) and went to their shows often. He also saw the Dead with Jerry a couple times in '94 or '95. His usual road trip was Syracuse>Darien Lake>SPAC (maybe)>back to 'Cuse.

I remember the day he gave me the Hampton tapes rather well. He was packing to move out of the house and called me into his room, which was eerily empty -- all but one poster remained in a room normally plastered with posters (the trippy looking Jerry Garcia "A Long Strange Trip 1942~1995"- which still hangs today) . At the time I was just beginning to discover bands like The Allmans, Gov't Mule and The Dead thanks to Pete and brother, Ted.

He wanted to give me some tapes to keep me busy so he sat me down and we began sifting through the many shoe boxes he had full of neatly organized bootlegs. As we browsed he told me great stories of the many wild 'trips' he had taken to see shows.

All the while I was dodging flashbacks of when we were kids, only instead of tapes it was either his rock collection or his baseball card collection we were poring over. Both were meticulously organized as I remember; that is, until his younger brothers got their hands on them.

You'd think he would have given me the tapes he didn't like, but instead he gave me some of his favorites, the one exception being the four Hampton '98 bootleg tapes (I think he knew how good they were but wasn't concerned with Phish).

The others were:

Grateful Dead. Harpur College, Binghamton, N.Y. May 2, 1970 (a.k.a. Dick's Picks Vol. 8. The best show the Dead played on the East Coast? The late Dick Latvala, GD archivist and founder of Dick's Picks, thinks so)

Grateful Dead. Stanley Theater, Jersey City, N.J. September 27, 1972. (a.k.a. Dick's Picks Vol. 11. This is my personal favorite. The version of "Black Throated Wind" (click to play clip) is my favorite Dead song I've heard to date)



Grateful Dead, Pembroke Pines, Fla. May 22, 1977 (a.k.a. Dick's Picks Vol. 3. '77 is considered the Dead's best tour. This recording is days after the infamous "Cornell show" which is widely-considered the Dead's finest hour - stream it or download it for free here. I also just learned that this show was recorded just six days prior to Hartford '77, the newest GD release from Rhino records -- check it out here)

Bob Marley & The Wailers. Rufaro Stadium, Salisbury, Zimbabwe. April 17, 1980 ( I just did some research about this show and found out that Marley played in Zimbabwe immediately after a ceremony in which it gained independence and a riot ensued the first night during "I Shot The Sheriff." I think this is night two. Check out the video that accompanies this story)

The Allman Brother's Band. Walnut Creek Amphitheater, Raleigh, N.C. July 1, 1994. (Pete now lives in Raleigh and we caught the Allmans at Walnut Creek during the summer '07 tour. Interesting factoid: Walnut Creek's lawn seating is sponsored by none other than John Deer and is immaculate)

The Allman Brother's Band. New York State Fair, Syracuse. August 25, 1997 (which would place Pete at the show because he was at LeMoyne at the time)

So yea, he gave me some real gems. I plan on returning him the favor by giving them back as CD-Rs as well as burning him Hampton '09 which I'm sure he'll appreciate.

Pete is now a successful financial advisor at a wealth management firm in Raleigh, N.C. He lives with his wife Lana and they have two two daughters, my nieces Reilly Elizabeth and Reagan Mattingly.

He still rocks out to The Dead, Mule, Allmans, and Neil Young, only now it's from the confines of his living room littered with baby toys. The stage has taken the form of a 42-inch LCD-screen HDTV and wine is mandatory.

Well Pete, the music I can return, not so sure about the geodes or that Jeter rookie card, sorry.

Me, right, with my brother Pete
and my niece (one of two), Reilly. Photo taken by my
wonderful sister-in-law (and fellow deadhead) Lana.

Note: I wanted to link all the shows to downloadable music but they remove Dick's Picks from archive.org because of copyrights. Guess you gotta buy em!

FLUUFFHEAD!!! (shaking fist angrily)

I was one song away from guessing the opening song of Phish's Hampton reunion. I guessed The Divided Sky. Well...

Set One: Fluffhead, Divided Sky, Chalk Dust Torture, Sample In A Jar, Stash, I Didn’t Know, Oh Kee Pah Ceremony>Suzy Greenberg, Farmhouse, NICU, Horn, Rift, Train Song, Water In The Sky, Squirming Coil, David Bowie (such a sick Bowie)

Welcome back boys

Go to livephish.com and you can download the reunion shows for free (for a limited time)!

I wouldn't consider myself a Phish-head but, after listening to Night One, I can hear the same Phish I fell in love with on the Hampton Comes Alive (1998) bootlegs (I still have "Possum" on every mix on my I-Pod). At other times, most notably in "Farmhouse," the vibe just didn't develop and the jams weren't as fleshed-out. But hey, what's to be expected from their first show back? I'll be expecting them to rock "Farmhouse" in the near future.

For the record:

Set Two: Backwards Down The Number Line, Tweezer, Taste, Possum, Theme From The Bottom First Tube, Harry Hood, Waste, You Enjoy Myself*,

Encore: Grind**, Bouncing Around The Room, Loving Cup

Notes: SOUNDCHECK: The Squirming Coil, Funky Bitch

* Started and stopped, and restarted ** Acapella

Enjoy it.

(Do I get any brownie points if they played all the songs I guessed for openers?)

Phish's Hampton opener

Alright, I'm entertaining guesses on Phish's opening songs and/or encores for each night of the three-night renunion at Hampton Coliseum.

For those of you who aren't aware, Phish will be playing their first shows since Trey said "We're done," in 2004. The whole summer shebang, including the Bonnaroo headline spot, is sold out to the max, with tickets going for well over $1,000 (No, I don't have a ticket, didn't try and won't seek one). They are also heading to the studio for a new album soon so this "reunion" isn't just a spring fling.

Nice cover art for Phish's "Hampton Comes Alive" album.
You guessed it, the design is another
product of JDK in Burlington.

Here is a great preview/history article that ran in the Times today: "Phish's Breakup? That Was Then, But Tough Times Call for a Reunion"

I will print and ship a T-shirt (men's or women's) with a custom Phish design (that I will design within the confines of "going green without green" month) to anyone who guesses correctly.

Go ahead, take a guess (by commenting on this story). Good luck, there are a lot of choices.

This is nearly impossible but I'm going with:

Friday: opener: The Divided Sky encore: Axilla pt. 1

Saturday: opener: Stash encore: Chalkdust Torture

Sunday: opener: Train Song encore: Possum

-J

Phamily reunion

Ahhh the joys of screen printing. I really need to make myself a screen soon. Everytime I see a screen-printed poster or T-shirt I realize it's the style that I'm looking for.

One of these days ...

Here is a link to a small poster show coinciding with Phish's Hampton reunion concerts. The longtime Phish poster artist and graphic designer, Jim Pollock, will be on hand.

Check it out

If you like poster art like I do, here are a couple links to some of the best:

Higher Ground Posters by JDK

Wilco Posters (unfortunately this is a merch site)