jürgen fauth’s muckworld

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.

More on the Jammys:

• Full setlist at Hidden Track
• Photos at reax
• Relix
• Runaway Dinosaur
• Burlington Free Press

A cheerleader confesses her lust for another girl with “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” while football players tackle each other in slow motion all around her. Bono is the walrus. A platoon of soldiers schleps Miss Liberty through the jungle to the tune of “She’s So Heavy,” and Eddie Izzard, surrounded by over-sized Blue Meanie puppets, becomes ringmaster Mr. Kite: this is Julie Taymor’s Beatles phantasmagoria, Across the Universe.

In the fashion of a Broadway jukebox musical, Taymor marries a familiar songbook to an even more familiar plot, lifted wholesale from Hair. Jude (Jim Sturgess), Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), Max (Joe Anderson), Sadie (Dana Fuchs), and JoJo (Martin Luther McCoy) hit all the familiar stations of the Sixites: they drop out of college, they drop acid, fall in love, protest the war, hang out in the Village, burn their draft cards but are sent to Vietnam anyway, etc. etc. Whenever a Beatles tune can be shoehorned into the scene, they burst into song.

Some of the covers, many of them slowed down to ballads, are quite lovely, and in some of the more far-out setpieces, Taymor’s visual imagination thrills. But for every inspired moment, there are three flat-out embarrassing ones. The set-ups for the songs are so labored that you can’t ignore how arbitrary the entire project is. Oh my god, what’s wrong with our new friend Prudence? She locked herself in the bathroom and she won’t come out? Let’s sing a song for her! And what exactly is the point of setting “Strawberry Fields Forever” to images of the Vietnam War? Are you really dragging the assassination of Martin Luther King into this just so you can cue “While My Guitar Gently Weeps?”

The attention to Sixties detail and passing nods to cultural touchstones can be enjoyable (you have to be quick to see the striped shirt on Cowboy Neal or the mural on Leary’s house), but everything about Across the Universe feels canned and pre-digested. It’s candy-colored cute-weird without the threat, urgency, or madness of the truly weird-weird. It’s the counterculture domesticated, history defanged, and set to a catchy soundtrack. Yes, Across the Universe is slightly demented, but it’s not nearly demented enough.

Across the Universe. Julie Taymor, 2007. **

• Rotten Tomatoes: 52%
• The trailer:

With regular guitarist Mark Karan ill, Bob Weir’s Ratdog is currently touring with Steve Kimock, beloved originator of the K-Wave. Last week’s way-sold-out show at Summer Stage assured everybody who cared to know that wherever they play Grateful Dead music, it’s still “one of the safest places in the world“–and one of the funnest, too. More from Some Dude. Related: Dan compiles GD segues from ‘78.

July 9, 2007 - Central Park Summerstage -New York, NY
Jam > Tomorrow Never Knows > Playin on the Band > Ramble On Rose, El Paso, Corrina, The Weight, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl > Help on the Way > Slipknot! > Stuff > Dear Prudence > Bird Song (reprise) > Slipknot! > Franklin’s Tower
E: U.S. Blues

Listen to Dear Prudence or download the entire show from etree.

[audio:rd2007-07-09t12_Dear Prudence.mp3]

Kinky Boot-Beasts! Blue Meanies! Guy Lombardo! It’s all too much! Last seen around various hazy dorm rooms, Yellow Submarine has now become the favorite movie of a certain toddler of my acquaintance. It must be proof of something or other that the cheery high sixties psychedelia works equally well in both settings: iconic imagery, zany dialogue, “odyssey situations” and songs that will outlive us all. A Hard Day’s Night gets all the critical acclaim, but my day-glo heart belongs to Yellow Submarine. (The DVD happened to be the first I ever bought, and according to Wikipedia, it’s out of print and mildly collectible.)

Yellow Submarine. George Dunning, 1968. *****

All You Need Is Love:

Too many lousy movies, not enough rock’n roll: what this blog needs is more Freebird, more Bohemian Rhapsody, more Big Pimpin’ — as played by the popular rock band Phish.

Bohemian Rhapsody (with the Boston Community Choir)

Freebird (with Wynonna Judd)

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

99 Problems and Big Pimpin’ (with Jay-Z)

Some of Phish’s most ubiquitous covers are curiously absent from the ‘tube, but here’s the best of the rest: Mean Mr. Mustard - Wipeout - The Might Quinn - The Star-Spangled Banner - Also Sprach Zarathustra - Frankenstein - Sexual Healing - Born Under Punches - Champagne Supernova - Theme from the Peanuts - After Midnight - Peaches en Regalia - Good Times Bad Times - Auld Lang Syne - Jungle Boogie - Sabotage

Find any others? Add them in the comments!