The 7th Jammy Awards
May 9th, 2008
OK, so Matisyahu covered the Flaming Lips, Rose Hill Drive and Leslie West raged Mountain’s Mississippi Queen, Sheryl Jones and Booker T did Born Under a Bad Sign (”and that’s fine”), that “smokeshow” Grace Potter got Warren Haynes to take her to the river, Big Head Todd and Squeeze’s Glenn Tilbrook joined Tea Leaf Green for Pulling Mussles, Chevy Chase is buddies with jamclown Keller Williams, Joan Osborne belted Come Together, Stanton Moore dueled Doug E Fresh, and Page McConnell had the balls to lead jazz heavyweights Nicholas Payton, Christian McBride, James Carter, and Roy Hanes through two Phish songs.
Not too shabby, but that’s to be expected from the Jammys, Relix Magazine’s annual Theater at Madison Square Garden get-together that combines surprise collaborations with pleasant scene fluffing. Also, awards.
The only award that really mattered on Wednesday night, though, was Phish’s Lifetime Achievement Jammy (it’s fun to say!) because it was supposed to lure Trey, Mike, Jon, and Page out of rehab, seclusion, or wherever else they’ve been hiding since the 2004 breakup. The rumor mill had been churning hard, and it sort of worked: all four members showed up, sharing the stage for the first time since Coventry — but they didn’t play together.
Instead, Fishman made a joke, Page was sincere, Gordo wore purple pants, and Trey gave one of those heartfelt, halting speeches that have brought many a Phish show to a screeching stop — except this time he sounded more humble, and more final, than ever: “It was an honor to watch you all dance.”
Then they walked off, and it would have been terribly depressing if Trey hadn’t just finished playing with deliciously cheesy yet surprisingly tight Beatles cover band The Fab Faux. Phish or no Phish, sick or sober, Big Red can still — what’s the technical term? — melt faces. Here’s While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
- Full setlist at Hidden Track
- Photos at reax
- Relix
- Runaway Dinosaur
- Burlington Free Press
Last Tube
May 6th, 2008
Tim Borman (from Belgium) created a mashup that combines last.fm recommendations with an automated YouTube feed for your very own personal MTV. Here’s my channel. [via]
And if that’s no good, watch Trey playing Last Tube: “If I could surf in milk, this is what it would sound like.”
Haus der Lüge
May 5th, 2008
When I first visited Berlin (West) as a wide-eyed teenager, one of the highlights of the trip was running into Einstürzende Neubauten singer Blixa Bargeld in the back room of a shady Kreuzberg bar. Blixa, Alexander Hacke, and the rest of the Neubauten are still making beautiful noise, and watching their 2004 video Palast der Republik, I was happy to get reacquainted with Haus der Lüge, a catchy tune I’ve been singing on all the elevators in town.
Gott hat sich erschossen / ein Dachgeschoss wird ausgebaut!
Konsum: One More Saturday Night
April 7th, 2008
Fewer movies than usual because I’m working on several top secret plans for world domination, we’re still catching up with The Wire, and my obsession with Daniel Plainview shows no signs of abating. (Check out the new entries in the contest.) The notable exception was Etgar Keret’s Jellyfish, a sweet film that plays like minor-key Israeli version of Magnolia. I also tried to talk Marcy into watching Southland Tales, hoping that Richard Kelly’s sophomore disaster might improve upon second viewing. The answer was a resounding no — we didn’t make it past the 15-minute mark.
It’s been a good week for concerts, though. I never blogged about the March 19 benefit for Scotty Hard, a cause that brought all the champions of the downtown groove scene to the Highline Ballroom. My personal highlight was an outrageous and all-too-brief set by elusive dub god Bill Laswell, accompanied by Bernie Worrell. This weekend, Ratdog was back at the Beacon — unlike the Rolling Stones, they’re a band that actually belongs there. I missed Thursday’s sit-ins by Jimmy Herring, Warren Haynes, and Steve Molitz, but witnessed Friday’s ups (Tomorrow Never Knows! Hard Rain!) and downs (ridiculous sound problems during The Weight), as well as Saturday’s just-about perfect four hours of rock’n roll heaven. And now you’ll have to excuse me while I retire to my favorite secure undisclosed location.
The Wire. Season 3. ****
There Will Be Blood. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007. *****
Jellyfish/Meduzot. Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen, 2007. ***
Southland Tales. Richard Kelly, 2007. *
Ratdog
4/4/08 Beacon Theatre, New York NY
I: Jam > Playin’ in the Band > Tomorrow Never Knows > Tennessee Jed, Sitting in Limbo > West L.A. Fadeaway, Even So > October Queen > The Deep End > Big Railroad Blues
II: K.C. Moan, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, The Weight, Eyes of the World, The River Song > Stuff > Dear Prudence > China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider
E: Casey Jones
4/5/08 Beacon Theatre, New York NY
I: Jam > Help on the Way > Slipknot! > Maggie’s Farm, Row Jimmy, Dark Star > Weather Report Suite > Let It Grow
II: You Win Again, City Girls, Victim or the Crime, Lazy River Road > Jack Straw > Dark Star > Stuff, Days Between > Two Djinn > Slipknot! > Franklin’s Tower
E: One More Saturday Night
Muck’s Muxtape
March 31st, 2008
Like everybody else on the Internet, I made a muxtape. At the moment, it has a springtime feel to it, with a movie soundtrack subtheme. But the black arts of the mix tape are governed by arcane rules, and the order and selection of songs might change at any moment. (That’s what the feed is for.) Link your own tape in the comments if you’re so inclined.
Easter Leftovers
March 25th, 2008
I’ll have photos from holiday sojourn on Cape Cod later, but in the meantime I wanted to point to Commander König’s eerie and beautiful Easter-inspired photo series.
I just happened to mention Phish’s 1998 Prague shows the other day — turns out, the second night is being officially released on LivePhish today. You can listen to the Ghost for free. Some other time, I’ll tell you about how we stayed at an expat commune stalked by a mysterious “sickness” and the mirthless lectures on materialism I received from a future Park Slope real estate agent. I still have the poster we managed to rip off a downtown wall without being arrested by the Czech secret police.
Screening-wise, it’s been a slow week. I walked out of Olivier Assays’ Boarding Gate after it became clear that the tats on Asia Argento were the only interesting thing about it. Instead, I’ve been obsessing over my There Will Be Blood DVD — much more on this later.
Boarding Gate. Olivier Assayas, 2007. N/R
CK5
March 18th, 2008
From The Last Waltz to Shine a Light, most concert movies leave me wishing for a more democratic, inclusive view — even if they’re not directed by Martin Scorsese. Instead of focusing on faces and fingers, I find myself longing for wide shots, audience shots, the view of the stage and crowd as a whole. The usual approach implies that the camera is somehow superior to the regular flesh-and-blood attendee because it has VIP access to the close-ups. But the concert isn’t just in the guitarist’s fingers, and in my experience, the best bands know how to make the music fit the space and all the people in it. At the very best shows, it doesn’t matter where your seats are, or if you’re standing half a mile away.
More than any other band I’ve seen, Phish completely owned any place they found themselves in, from sweaty pubs to summer sheds, hockey rinks, Indian reservations, abandoned military bases, Madison Square Garden, and the top of air traffic control towers. There’s ample proof of this in a motherlode of videos I stumbled upon last night.
Among the stash of 300+ handheld clips (think Awesome! I Fuckin’ Shot That!) uploaded by YouTube user silverchair97, I want to draw your attention to a few choice tunes that emphasize the spectacular lighting design by Chris Kuroda, famous for improvising along with the band on the light board and sometimes referred to by fans as CK5 — the fifth member of Phish. (Once upon a time in downtown Prague, Kuroda paid Marcy a compliment — but that’s a story for another post.)
Who needs closeups of Mick Jagger’s cracked face (or Bono in 3D) when you can feast your eyes on Kuroda’s work, which manages to meld the sound, the crowd, and the stage into an oozing vessel of rock’n roll that can be appreciated from any angle?
Also Sprach Zarathustra (as always, a cover of the Deodato disco version from the Being There soundtrack rather than the Richard Strauss original Kubrick used in 2001):
The Velvet Underground’s Rock’n Roll in two parts:
The alien mothership has landed in this infamous jam out of Twist, from the Island Tour:
.. and a few more after the jump…
Medeski Martin and Wood
February 27th, 2008
Stumbling into a performance by John Medeski isn’t all that difficult in New York City — I’ve recently seen him with The Word, Warren Haynes, and John Scofield, (and he’s all over the I’m Not There soundtrack) — but his original groove jazz combo has proven much more elusive lately.
So on Saturday, Dan, Jocelyn, and I took the quick roadtrip up to the Fairfield Arts Center in Bridgeport, CT for a healthy dose of MMW. I expected Bubblehouse and other well-worn MMW tunes, but this year, the trio is up to new tricks. They got together to write new songs before the tour, they’re expanding them during the shows, and they’ll then return to the studio to record an album. They plan on repeating this process in the summer and fall for three new Medeski Martin and Wood albums this year.
The new material was mesmerizing. Fresh, unheard-of grooves, mercurially shifting between jazzy, spacey, freaky, and funky, sometimes ripping in that balls-to-the-wall MMW style, sometimes cute, like when Medeski played the B3 with his melodica. When one of the befuddled ushers tried to make me move in the middle of an extended improvisation, I was so absorbed I could barely defend my seat. I’m looking forward to the album evolving out of this and just might have to get their kids’ CD Let’s Go Everywhere for my niece.
Here’s a video of “Think”:
