If you’re in an indie-rock band these days and not involved in some sort of collaborative side project, then you’re in the minority. The latest merging of talents comes in the form of the Divine Fits, who feature Spoon front man Britt Daniels, Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade/Handsome Furs and Sam Brown from New Bomb Turks. The band, who released their debut album, A Thing Called Divine Fits, late last month, made their late-night debut last Friday night on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. The Divine Fits, who played a handful of warm up dates this summer opening up for The Black Keys, will head out for a fall headlining tour that kicks off on October 6, with a high profile appearance at the SoundLand Festival in Nashville.

If you’re not into a night with the indie-rock super-group, then maybe you’ll be interested in hitting one of these recently announced tours…

• Laura Marling: Working Holiday Tour (9/27 – 10/27)
• Ray LaMontagne: Solo Acoustic Tour (11/16 – 12/3)
• The Sword: Late Fall U.S. Tour (10/29 – 12/18)
• Roky Erickson: Late Fall U.S. Tour (10/27 – 11/18)
• Amy Helm Band: Fall North American Tour (9/12 – 11/27)
• Counting Crows: Late Fall U.S. Tour (10/23 – 11/24)
• The Mother Hips: Fall -> Winter U.S. Tour (10/26 – 12/31)

Also of note, HT faves Medeski, Martin and Wood have just announced a week-long residency at famed NYC jazz club the Blue Note. From December 11 – 16, the trio will perform two shows each night (8PM and 10:30PM). So far, three special guests have been revealed – Nels Cline (Dec. 12), guitarist Marc Ribot (Dec. 13), and saxophonist Bill Evans (Dec. 14).

Today marks the release of David Byrne’s long-awaited collaborative album with St. Vincent called Love This Giant. The pair visited 30 Rock yesterday to perform the album’s funky lead track Who and a web exclusive take on The Forest Awakes for Jimmy Fallon. If you missed it, we’ve got you covered…

The most well-known farewell concert in classic rock history took place on Thanksgiving night in 1976 when The Band played their final show together at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. Forever known as The Last Waltz, the Martin Scorsese helmed documentary of the star-studded event may not be beloved by the majority of the film’s subjects but it has become the benchmark for any final musical soiree. One of the most notable aspects of the evening was the inclusion of the wide swath of musicians that The Band touched, both personally and professionally. In that respect, The Last Waltz indirectly captured a facet of the music business that while well-known, often evades explicit discussion. Namely, that over the course of any musician’s career, they are formed by and help form dozens of other musicians along the way.

[Photo by Robert Bloom]

David Lott, a guitarist most likely known to Hidden Track’s readership from his time with Licorice and The Whitewalls as well as his recent solo work that includes the marvelous EP, The Gates Of Brooklyn, will be moving his base of operations from the hip environs of Brooklyn to the spacious mountains of Colorado. In leaving the Tri-State area with one final hurrah, Lott served as the focal point for the whimsically titled Lott’s Waltz, which gathered nearly every musician he’s worked with over the past decade for one last show. Never maudlin, Lott’s farewell soiree was one of the more musically satisfying, emotionally uplifting shows of the summer.

In addition to bassist Matt Epstein and drummer Josh Bloom, current members of The Whitewalls, the band into which Licorice evolved, musicians from all periods of Lott’s career appeared at the Bowery Electric. Licorice’s keyboardist Chad Dinzes and Josh Kessler, the producer of Licorice’s sole EP, sat in on an extended versions of A Million Grains Of Sand and Freeze. Singer Rebecca Hart, whom Lott, Epstein and drummer Dan Barman backed for many years as The Sexy Children, revisited covers of Miss Ohio and Whipping Post. Upright bassist Adam Roberts, lap steel guitarist Riley McMahon and guitarist Thomas Bryan Eaton, frequent collaborators on Lott’s solo material, periodically eased on to the stage to leave their distinctive mark on Lott originals and Eric Silverman (Silvertone) and Rob Ward (Food Will Win The War) enlivened covers of Breakdown, Million Dollar Bill and a medley of Where Is The Time and Say It Ain’t So.

[Photo by Robert Bloom]

Outside of a small circle of friends, the guests that appeared with Lott in the East Village may not be familiar names. Nonetheless, in the breadth of worlds from which they came and the seamless manner in which various combinations of musicians played together, Lott’s Waltz was just as satisfying an evening as its philosophical forbearer. Far from a melancholy affair, Lott seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, his enthusiasm coming through his guitar work, which shone brightly in its inspiration and energy.

At the close of the show, Lott borrowed a page from The Black Crowes, bringing everyone back onto the stage for a romp through The Rolling Stones’ The Last Time, letting the question of whether the song serves as ironic comment or prophecy go unanswered.

EIGHTH NOTES

Some interesting releases from the close of the summer season.

The Divine Fits, a supergroup of sorts consisting of Britt Daniel from Spoon, Dan Boeckner from Wolf Parade and The Handsome Furs (the group also includes the drummer of the New Bomb Turks but I cannot figure out how he or that band warrant equal billing to Spoon or Wolf Parade), released their debut album, A Thing Called The Divine Fits. The album demonstrates how good dance music can be when it’s played by musicians that love rock and roll.

As with every one of their albums, Animal Collective’s latest Centipede Hz will inspire much discussion over the next few weeks. Since releasing Strawberry Jam in 2007, the experimental psychedelic freaksters have made a concerted effort to make music that pleases as much as it challenges. While no longer antagonistic to the ears, Animal Collective is hardly sending overtures to the mainstream. Stephen Hyden, doing a fantastic impression of Chuck Klosterman, might be completely correct when he said on Grantland that Centipede Hz is for people who have already decided that they like Animal Collective.

Ten Mile Tide, who in the last decade flirted with success in the acoustic jam/jamgrass world, released The Finish Line’s Got Nothing On The Race, their first album in about four years. Less twangy than their prior effort, their latest compares favorably to Reid Genauer’s brand of laid-back, mildly funky rock. If The Finish Line marks a return by the San Francisco collective, it is a welcome one.

I am late to this bandwagon but let me finish this edition of Hitting The Trunk Road by heaping more effusive praise on Spotify. In addition to hosting nearly every Bill Cosby routine ever released on vinyl (still funny after 40 years) and Buckner & Garcia’s album full of homages to 80s arcade games, Spotify led me back to First Light, the Cleveland-based reggae band that was one of my favorites from my time in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Led by Carlos Jones, who still plays with The P.L.U.S. Band in and around Cleveland and its suburbs while also marketing his Positive Vibrations line of gourmet coffee, First Light played their last show in the late 90s, leaving legions of reggae lovers without a band to tell them where reggae comes from (because we want to know where reggae comes from). Live At The Empire not only captures the fun of Where Reggae Comes From, it has a fantastic version of Bend Yo Back.

The official Led Zeppelin Facebook page has come alive in recent days with a countdown that started at five on Saturday and stands at two as of today. According to respected metal site Blabbermouth, the countdown will end with the announcement of double-CD/double-DVD release of the group’s 2007 reunion show at 02 Arena in London.

The reunion show took place nearly five years ago, on December 10, 2007, as a tribute to late record industry pioneer Ahmet Ertegün and featured Jason Bonham filling his father John’s huge shoes behind the drum kit. While we wait for the official announcement and release, let’s take a look at the best copy of that concert currently on YouTube. A Led Zep fan who goes by meltingigloo edited all the fan-shot and official video, slapped on the best audience recording to surface as a soundtrack and shared it all for our viewing and listening pleasure…

Set: Good Times Bad Times, Ramble On, Black Dog, In My Time Of Dying, For Your Life, Trampled Underfoot, Nobody’s Fault But Mine, No Quarter, Since I’ve Been Lovin’ You, Dazed and Confused, Stairway To Heaven, The Song Remains The Same, Misty Mountain Hop, Kashmir

Encore: Whole Lotta Love, Rock and Roll

We’ll be sure to let you know when the official announcement comes down.

Now that Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel have left this mortal plane we may never know how much truth there was to Helm’s contention that he deserved more songwriting credit for the songs of The Band. American Songwriter dedicated their September/October issue to Helm and while they decided not to get into the songwriting debate in their cover story, a post about it featuring quotes from the man who did get the credit, Robbie Robertson, and Larry Campbell (Levon’s last musical director) has been posted on the magazine’s website .

Campbell’s take isn’t as pro-Levon as you might expect…

The breakup of The Band and the longstanding animosity with Robbie and Levon, did he ever discuss any of that with you?

Oh yeah. He had a lot of bitterness about that. My observation was, Levon was 50 percent right and 50 percent wrong. That’s all I could put it into because I wasn’t there. The thing Levon would do, once he got into a frame of mind about something, it was a logic-free zone. There was no changin’ his mind. … [and] I was not in a position to try and make him think otherwise about his experience. My take on it was always that I’m sure there’s plenty of legitimacy to what Levon was bitter about, but that he’s missing something, too; that things could have been different, had he approached the situation differently — that whatever inequity he felt with Robbie, he had some responsibility for that, too. That’s just what I feel about it. Don’t know the facts. All I know is Levon’s side of it.

While Robertson still feels credit was given when it was due as when Levon contributed to the song Strawberry Wine on 1970′s Stage Fright…

The only song that Levon ever really had any writing part of was ‘Strawberry Wine.’ He came back from Arkansas one time and said, ‘I’ve started this song; see if you think there’s anything there because I’ve got like, a verse and a chorus, and if you think it’s worthwhile, maybe you can help me finish it.’ So he sang what he had and I really enjoyed it. So I wrote some more verses to it. I loved the idea that he was willing to try and do some writing. On the other songs, he was there when I was writing these songs, and I really wanted to be encouraging for him to try and to participate in the songwriting. I just loved the feeling of him participating in that, and I was being a little bit naïve in the idea that some people write and some people don’t.

Yesterday we came across a performance of The Weight from the 1989 Canadian Hall of Fame induction ceremony for The Band. Levon refused to show, so Robbie Robertson handled Helm’s famous vocals. Robertson’s ragged vocals made us realize why he let Helm, Manuel and Danko sing his songs. The trio gave Robbie’s songs life and we wonder if these songs that are now known worldwide would’ve ever gained any attention if it wasn’t for Levon, Richard and Rick’s stirring vocals.

You’ve got to expect Robertson will share more of his take on the subject in his forthcoming autobiography. Be sure to read the whole article for more from Robbie and Larry about Levon.

I know, I know – you have zero need for another music streaming app or website.

Your smart-phone screen and browser bookmarks are already clogged up with scores of alternatives and there’s no need to add to the pile. Until recently, that’s how I felt too. I have my entire music collection at my fingertips with Subsonic, tens of millions of tracks with MOG (maybe you have Spotify or rdio or Slacker), 50,000 radio stations with Tune In Radio, tunes through the house with Sonos, personalized radio with Pandora and social music discovery with such things as This Is My Jam and Turntable.FM.

Why would you possibly need yet another source of music?

Songza resoundingly and clearly answers this question by putting a music expert right in your pocket or browser. Remember having that friend who could always find the perfect song for any occasion? Or the buddy that had the knack for creating the perfect “mix tape” for a road trip? Songza gives you a virtual music concierge so you’ll have the perfect playlist for any mood, day, or occasion.

After using Songza for a couple of days, I am pretty confident you too will want to find a prominent position on your home-screen or bookmark bar for this great music service.

Overview Songza is a music streaming service that can be listened to from the web at http://songza.com, from smartphone apps for either Android or iOS and even from wireless home music system Sonos.

What makes Songza so great? Songza’s goal is awfully simple: “To play the right music at the right time.” Unlike many other services that either seed your “music station” from a particular band or song, Songza crafts playlists based upon situations and day-parts. There’s no need to know what you particularly want to listen to (a conundrum many face when firing up Spotify or MOG). With Songza, simply answer a couple of questions, and in no time you’ll be listening to playlists put together by human beings and not computer algorithms.

So how exactly does that work? When first starting the app or going to the website, you’ll be greeted with a few questions based on time of day and day of the week. So for a Monday night at 7:00pm, I am given options ranging from “Cooking”, to “Spending time with the Kids” to “Evening Commute.” Selecting an option further drills down your selection. I selected “Evening Commute” and could chose from more categories including “Left Lane Driving” to “Cure for Road Rage: Indie.”  Finally, one more sub-category to choose from and your playlist is ready. In this case, I chose “Major Indie Cred.” Each playlist offers up a brief explanation and examples of what to expect.

[Selection screens are visual and beautiful]

How else can I find and play music? In addition to the “Concierge” feature there are several ways to find music. You can search for popular playlists, listen to playlists that you have previously ‘favorited,’ show playlists by genre or show recently listened to playlists.  There are thousands and thousands of playlists. The average playlist seems to have about 100 songs or so but some are much, much larger. For example, a playlist that I’ve enjoyed is “Bob Dylan’s Record Collection.” It includes songs he has spun on his XM Radio show and has over 1,200 songs.

Some of the playlists are static while many of them are constantly being updated, so you can listen to the same playlist and still discover new music.

How’s the catalog? The catalog is impressive and seems to have a ton more new music and smaller label stuff than other streaming competitors. Pandora can get pretty stale relatively quickly. However, as Songza has “music experts” constantly scouring new releases and past albums for perfect songs to add to playlists, it remains current, relevant and fresh.

I’ve only been using Songza for a few weeks but every time I listen, I am discovering fantastic music with playlists that absolutely crush it. Similarly, finding deep cuts on older albums is also a joy.

In the last couple of days I’ve listened to tons of music I otherwise would have likely never listened to with bands and performers including Patty Griffin, Middle Brother, Trampled By Turtles, Jack White, Dangermuffin and Animal Collective.

Other Cool Things About Songza:

• No audio ads! This is critical when using in a social setting like a party or gathering. Small text ads are present in the apps however.
• You can buy tracks easily if you find one you really like or share what you are listening to with built in sharing with Twitter, Facebook, email, etc.
• Gorgeous album art and overall visually appealing layout in both the apps and website
• Like any good music app can, will work in the background so you can stream and do other things
• Thumb up or thumbs down tracks to help Songza match you with appropriate music
• Blazing fast and responsive- music queues up quickly and lags, skips and dropouts are never a problem.
• FREE! No subscription needed.

Bottom Line There’s lots to love about Songza. Nicely designed apps, expansive music catalog and playlists put together by real people and not a computer program are a handful of reasons that make Songza a worthy addition to your smart-phone or bookmark bar.

So what do you say? It’s “Tuesday afternoon”- How about some “Office Crowd Pleasers” from the “70′s”?

______________________________

Hidden Track Technology Tuesday

email: parker@glidemagazine.com
twitter: @tmwsiy
voice-mail:  (781) 285-8696

Have an idea for an article? Product, app, or web service you are passionate about? Feel free to get in touch with me.

Here are two albums I’ve been seriously digging that I can’t help but share. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Enjoy the grooves…

Chicha Libre: Canablismo

Chicha Libre is the Monday night house band at Barbes in Brooklyn, and they play a unique take on Cumbia music. Regardless their origins, this album is a Technicolor romp in psychedelic guitar and organ with delectable Latin grooves and more fun than you can shake your ass at. Grabs you from the first strike on the timbale and keeps you moving throughout. One of those rare albums that I’m pretty sure all your friends will love.

MOG: https://mog.com/m#album/66245189

Amazon: http://amzn.com/B007RI3K5A

Rhapsody: http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/chicha-libre/album/canibalismo

Matthew E. White: Big Inner

Sometimes sexy is more what you can’t see than what you can. Grooviness can be the same way and in its slow burning, soulful way, White’s album is as groovy as it gets. On the burn-the-house down spectrum of funky tunes, White’s debut album, Big Inner, is less booty-shaking bonfire and more flickering candle, but that’s OK. Keep on listening the whole way through – subtly heady bass lines, sweeping orchestrations, and White’s steady indie-pop-meets-R&B singing — and you’ll be in soul-clap heaven.

MOG: https://mog.com/m#album/71661113

Amazon: http://amzn.com/B008S0K0L8

Rhapsody: http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/matthew-e-white/album/big-inner◘

Who would think in a million years that a band could tackle the Top Gun theme song, Danger Zone, without tongue in cheek sarcasm or nary a Tom Cruise joke. Yet, Calexico prepared a desert-tinged bluegrass take on the song and pulled it off masterfully. On a related note, this cover makes you realize that for all the ’80s nostalgia that Kenny Loggins’ songs conjure up, he should probably be mentioned in the same breath as Randy Newman as part of the highest echelon of movie theme song royalty (Caddyshack, Vacation, Top Gun, Footloose).

[via A.V. Club]

Coachella promoters Goldenvoice have been working with the city of Indio on a long-term pact which will keep the festival in the California desert town through 2030. This potential deal also would give Goldenvoice the right to stage an additional two festivals besides the two Coachella weekends and the Stagecoach festival. The deal would also grant the promoter a larger capacity for Coachella. Head over to the L.A. Times for a full rundown of the details behind Goldenvoice’s potential deal with Indio.

Here’s links to six more stories of interest this hump day…

• Velvet Underground lost a copyright claim to Andy Warhol’s estate
• Sonic Youth announce release of a live show recorded back in 1985
• Sigur Ros have released a new animated video for the tune Seraph
• Watch a “Prince Lookalike Contest” that took place way back in ’85
• Listen to an unreleased Sex Pistols track called Belsen Was A Gas
• The maker of the Tupac Shakur hologram has filed for bankruptcy

Finally, while the Bridge School Benefit lineup for this year’s concerts came out over the weekend, we’ve already got our first addition. HT fave Ray LaMontagne has been added to the event which takes place on October 20th and 21st at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif.

The number of projects to which Keller Williams is devoted as both a solo artist and collaborator would make most musicians’ heads explode, but for Keller, they’re all steps — very necessary steps — into what the irreverent guitarist and singer calls “the world of different.”

That’s part of what’s preserved Keller’s long-held reputation as one of the scene’s singular presences, and endeared him to an ever-growing list of friends and collaborators that stretches to the farthest reaches of the jam scene and elsewhere. In the past few years alone, he’s toured and jammed with countless musicians in a dozen genres, made a children’s music album, made an album entirely focused on his under-heralded skills as a bassist, and recorded at least two more albums’ worth of music that hasn’t even been released yet because there just hasn’t been time to properly slot it.

Keller still has plenty of 2012 dates left, including an appearance at the Jomeokee Music & Arts Festival, Sept. 14-16 in Pinnacle, North Carolina. But his next project — details of which he revealed to Hidden Track in a recent interview — may be his most intriguing yet. Read on for those details, what brought Keller together with the fabled McCoury clan among other recent co-conspirators, and why that “world of different” continues to hold so much appeal.

HIDDEN TRACK: So a lot to get into, Keller, but I wanted to start with this ongoing collaboration with the McCourys. You’re playing Jomeokee with the Traveling McCourys and you guys released a whole album, Pick, in July. This seems like it really went beyond just a basic collaboration. How long have you known the McCourys?

KELLER WILLIAMS: I’ve spent the past decade crossing paths at festivals with the Del McCoury Band. My love for bluegrass music is great and there’s something real special about the McCoury band — the word “perfect” comes to mind with that band when you’re talking about that genre. Look at the way they lean into the mic and they’re leaning back when other people are soloing and not hitting anyone with their instrument neck. They’ve got that dialed in and it’s so incredibly entertaining to watch. I’ve always been a huge fan of them.

In the past couple of years, they ventured out into the Traveling McCourys, basically the band without Del, and trying out guitarists when Del isn’t there. Me being a solo artist and jumping around to different projects, it seemed like a good thing to try. So we got together in Nashville and stood in a circle and picked songs for two hours before we even started to record anything. And we just kind of started winging at at gigs, and it turned the corner and now I’m part of this vocal corps I’ve never been a part of before. It’s been a long time since I got chill bumps on stage, and I do all the time with this.

HT: So you were simpatico with the McCourys pretty much right away?

KW: Pretty much. Their understanding of the formula of bluegrass is what really shines. Jazz, you know, is a similar genre to bluegrass in that you can gather a wide variety of musicians and they can work in the situation. They allowed me into their world, like they have with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the Lee Boys. All that shows just how incredibly open-minded they are and how fearless they are. They’ll play in the key of F, for example, which isn’t exactly normal for bluegrass.

HT: Bluegrass creeps into a lot of what you’ve done in the past, though. Had you ever considered doing an album focused entirely on bluegrass?

KW: Well, I did albums with the Keels that were bluegrass oriented but this was different from that in the sense of grooves and the spacing obviously. With that it was less instruments and more air, more space instead of notes. But the notes added by the McCourys are just incredible. We’d do a couple of versions of each song and each version would be great in its own way and be different — it was tricky to pick the ones that made that record. But it definitely wasn’t a stretch. It’s all about turning on people that wouldn’t necessarily be interested in bluegrass and the McCourys are all about that and accept it.

HT: Will there be more Keller-McCourys collaboration?

KW: I can only hope more shows. We’ve got Jomeokee coming up and we’ll do New Year’s in Nashville. We’re talking about hopefully putting together a West Coast run in the spring of 2013

HT: You keep moving, Keller. How are you choosing projects these days?

KW: I’m trying to venture out into the land of different. There are many years where I’ve continued the same projects and that’s just for the love of the project as well as the opportunity that arises. But it’s where my imagination takes me. I will tell you, I had my first rehearsals yesterday with an R&B band. I’ve got the original versions of my tunes, I’ve got bluegrass and reggae versions of my tunes, and now I’m working on these R&B soulful gospel versions. I’m playing with some incredibly soulful folks from Richmond, Virginia. That’s the newest thing I have. I am extremely infatuated with this and just the idea of writing arrangements for the songs in [this style].

HT: What kind of band is this?

KW: It’s a six piece group: bass, drums, keys, guitar and two female singers. This is so exciting and so different and so soulful. I mean, my songs are pretty simple — I stay away from math and a whole lot of counting, so it’s easy for these folks to pick up on them. These are folks very dialed in to the Virginia R&B scene. They all do church gigs. This is very, exactly what I want and I’m really looking forward to this.

Every year I do a string of shows between Christmas and New Year’s, and New Year’s like I said is going to be Nashville. But Dec. 26 to 30 we’ll be doing a string of shows. This is going to be really interesting. I’m going to try to rehearse this band once a week until then.

HT: I don’t think we’ve heard anything about this. How long have you been working on this band?

KW: Since yesterday! [laughs] The thought had been there to do this run with the McCourys and that was a possibility, but the time between Christmas and New Year’s is a sacred family time in the McCoury world. Children and grandchildren are home, they’re all home, and we finally just decided to save our show for New Year’s. So I was given the green light to go ahead with this.

It’s in the very early stages. My drummer, [Virginia staple and Keller alumnus] Toby Fairchild, who I played with in the Added Bonus a few years ago, assembled this band. I was able to sit in with them once — it was a Tuesday night gig at a local bar — and it was really special. So I kept that tucked away in mind, and the idea was finally ready to present itself. I probably shouldn’t be saying so much, but there, you’re the first to know about this.

HT: Much appreciated! Can you clue us into dates and locations for that late December run?

KW: They’re unconfirmed as of right now but the way I’m trying to lay it out is December 26 in Fredericksburg [Virginia], December 27 in Wilmington, N.C., December 28 in Charlotte, December 29 in Norfolk, Virginia, and December 30 in Richmond. Then for New Year’s I’ll drive to Nashville, play a loopless set — a natural acoustic set without any help from any kind of electronics — and then we’ll have the Traveling McCourys do a set and then let the Del McCoury Band close it up naturally.

HT: Sounds exciting and is something we’ll be watching. I did want to ask you, by the way, about Bass, which came out a year ago. What compelled you to do an album focused primarily on your bass playing?

KW: It’s another attempt to step into the world of different. I’ve done a lot of albums and never not had guitar on them, but it’s not a stretch for me to play the bass and sing and feel super comfortable with it. The amazing power the bass has, and just being able to direct a band while on bass, it’s just this incredible, audible power. It’s a whole different vibe than the acoustic guitar and a whole different energy. It was a blast.

My bass thing started with an infatuation with Jaco Pastorius, but also kind of started with Keith Moseley, too. I remember being on tour with String Cheese a while back and his wife was getting ready to have their first child. They asked me to learn like 20 or 22 songs on bass just in case Keith had to leave the tour early. The baby came on time, but then I was left with this 40-hour week I’d put in learning 20 String Cheese songs. From there, the bass made its way onto my stage and into the loops and all that.

HT: What else is on the horizon for you?

KW: One thing I’m doing is a follow-up to the [2006] Rex record I did which was Grateful Dead songs as Grateful Grass. There’s that. Also, I have an album called Keys that is just piano and vocals. That was made about a year ago and I never found the right spot to release it. Then, I want to do a full circle record with just me on acoustic guitar and vocals. The name for that is pending; there’s no real rush to do it. But that’s me and my crazy mind. Someday I will release all of this stuff.

HT: Jomeokee is one of the major dates for you this fall, but you’ve been out on the festival scene all over this year. What’s your read on the festival climate right now? Crowds good, people making it out?

KW: There was that period where festivals were on the rise and then there were so many of them. The ones still hanging in there now, you definitely give a lot of credit to them, people doing them have a grip on the correct way of doing things and the science in running them well. A lot of the ones still happening are really special for that reason. Jomeokee especially look to be an incredible event. I just saw the lineup of the day I’m playing and that’s got me so excited from a music lover sense. I see so many of my friends. It’s going to be very cool.

The pencil drawing of a roaring tiger that adorns the cover of Marco Benevento’s latest album suggests something shocking exists inside. However, what awaits between the flaps is a indeed a surprise, but it’s hardly the sensory assault alluded to by the tiger face. On the contrary, the album opens with a reinvention of Marco’s textured piano, bass and drum experiment as we know it. He introduces the album with a catchy dance song highlight by a concise vocal epigram.

Yup, that’s right; the album has vocals. It’s only on two songs, but Kalmia Traver of Rubblebucket lends an arresting lyrical melody to open the record. From there, TigerFace moprhs gradually into a more traditional Marco Benevento recording, but it’s a big step in a bold new direction – one that further blurs the lines of jazz, rock and popular music.

We caught up with Marco to learn more about the trailblazing collaborations on the record as well as a host of other topics includes his approach to employing loops in the live setting, his move from the city up to Saugerties, New York and how he widdled an eight minute block of ice into his most accessible song to date.

Hidden Track: Initially, I was almost thinking of attempting to do this whole interview about the first song on the album, Limbs of the Pine. We don’t really need to that that [laughs], but it is quite groundbreaking in the context of your music. It’s a cool way to start the album with such a different vibe compared to your other music. It‘s almost an indie, party vibe. Where did that come from?

Marco Benevento: Yeah sure; let’s see. Dave Dreiwitz, Matt Chamberlain, and I were at a studio in Brooklyn called Trout where I’ve recorded a lot of my stuff. Bryce Goggin is the engineer there, and he’s fantastic. He’s worked with Pavement, a lot of Trey’s solo projects and just so many people. So, we were there and we were tracking some of the tunes for the record, and I just had a tempo in mind. I had a concept, which was that I wanted heavy drums with a simple vocal melody, or a melody that I could play on the piano that would act as a vocal part. I wanted something that is upbeat with almost like a lyrical or vocal piano line. The first thing I thought of was MIA with lots of heavy drums and someone rapping almost over the top of it.

For a while as we were working on it, the song was just called MIA, because I wanted a song that had that MIA energy to it. Then, as we were working on it and discussing it in the studio, Matt came up with that drum breakdown. At the studio, Bryce has this old Roland 707 drum machine, which is that drum beat. Then Matt recorded a drum part to that drum machine and I improvised some keyboard parts. My idea and the MIA vibe is the part when it goes [hums the melody] through the bridge part of the song, that became the melody for the song. It was almost like a canned song with a drum groove and us just vamping in one key and me doing weird keyboard parts over it. It was a long eight minute track that had like a cool drum riff and I really wanted to add more to it. I felt like the song deserved more attention and maybe some cutting up and sculpting to turn it into a tune.

After sitting with it for a while as a jam, basically a couple months before I wanted the record to be done, I talked to Kal to coming to the studio and recording, and this is after we had done This Is How It Goes. That was actually the first song that Kal and I collaborated on, so after things going well – which was written a whole other way – but after hanging out with her, I thought I should have her up to have a songwriting pow wow up in Saugerties where I live now. I thought about bringing Stu up [Stuart Bogie], because I like Stu’s role in Superhuman Happiness. I really like his band and the way he writes music for that band. So, I thought maybe we could get a little Stu vibe and a little Kal vibe. Of course I’m a big fan of Rubblebucket and their song You Came Out of a Lady.

So, we just had a session up at that the studio. I basically played them my long track of what we had, the long seven or eight minute track. We ate dinner and drank a bunch of wine, and we had some whiskey, and went out in the studio at maybe 10 pm or later and we played it over and over and just had a stream of consciousness idea writing session. Stu came up with a handful of horn lines and layered himself, and Kal just basically wrote the words and that melody line on the spot in the studio and had a great time coming up with ideas. Kal did some harmonizing of herself and she also played flute. We just layered more things on top of something that already had so many layers anyway.

So, then I was basically left with a bunch of ideas from Kal and Stu. We knew that Kal’s melody line was going to be left in there. I sat with it for a while and it was like a whole thick brick of ice and I had a chance to take things away from it and make a song. Instead of being an eight minute chunk of time, I sculpted it down to three and a half minutes. It was the biggest collaboration that I’ve had with all these musicians just to come up with one song and it happened in different studios and in some cases a full year and a half later. It was kind of cool to sit with it with it for so long and finally give it a real song form with a melody, words, an intro, keyboards, a drum machine, a breakdown, and an outro as opposed to a big block of music with layers. It was one of my most favorite endings to a long process, which is just a three and a half minute dance party. It’s not an MIA song, but it has the right idea – a girl rock dance party.

HT: I hadn’t realized you moved out of the city. What happened, did you get tired of the city or want more space for kids or something?

MB: I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of the city. It was more of just a realization of, “You know, we don’t actually have to live here anymore.” Basically I’m just on and off tour, so we thought it would be nice to have some land and some space, because I have a lot of things in the music department [laughs]. I have a lot of keyboards and a lot of gear.

Plus, having two kids was another reason to want to split, because the apartment was getting smaller and smaller. We also had two cars, a van for touring and a little car for touring. It was pretty tricky to juggle, so for about three years we looked at houses casually whenever we had the chance. We found a great spot. We couldn’t see that house go to anyone else besides us. It’s just a great place out in the country.

HT: Obviously the vocals are an interesting story. How did you and Kal meet. You mentioned the collaboration earlier, but I was curious how the relationship developed.

MB: I saw Rubblebucket play a small festival in Vermont about two years ago and I was just floored by Kal’s presence and how the band sounded. It’s really modern cool rock that had a lot of cool elements of a lot of bands that I like. They had a Talking Heads element, good songwriting and good layering. It was all there.

Then I kind of put it together that I had actually done a gig with her with the Everyone Orchestra. We’ve kind of run into each other over the years and then that video for You Came Out of a Lady, my wife’s sister played it for us and we loved it on YouTube. Little did I know, I actually knew her and we had similar circles and played similar festivals. Our first connection was on This Is How It Goes and I had written the words and the melody, and I had done mock vocals with friends and my wife.

I wanted to get a singer that had kind of a thin voice, almost like Blondie or like the singer from Deerhoof. I actually wanted to call Debbie Harry, but I figured that might be impossible and that I was dreaming, but I wanted a thin high voice like that along with almost a cute Japanese-like tone about it. I told Kal that and I mentioned the songer from Deerhoof and she nailed it. So that was my first collaboration with her, and then we did it again up at my place about a month later and we knew each other and it went really well. She loved the way the tune came out. Then at this past High Sierra and some other gigs, she wound up sitting in with us as well as at a couple other shows.

HT: This one is a little more general with respect to your friends and playing music. You guys have an extended family so-to-speak and you go on tour, a lot of people will hop on and off and a lot of people sit in and stuff like that. How much time do you spend practicing for something like that, say when you play with Kimock or someone who comes on tour with you? Say you’re trying to do a whole show with someone, is that a month of practice or maybe you bouce ideas around on email or something like that?

MB: Yeah, it depends on the show I guess. Like when I’ve collaborated with Steve Kimock, we never  really do any emailing or talking about the gig, because I think we’ve kind of known we’d be able to pick stuff up on the fly, especially stuff that we both knew. Or maybe you can run through some chord progressions at soundcheck and then leave a lot of room for improvisation. Those are the gigs that are more orchestrated and put together by the venues or the musicians, and then there sit ins at a festival or a gig and there’s rarely ever any rehearsal, maybe backstage you talk about it for a second. Usually, you know each other or you’ve heard the song or talked about it before. I’ve never really been thrown into a mess where somebody says, “Hey, sit in on this one,” and it’s a really hard song to sit in on.

HT: I wanted to ask you a little but about using loops and the preparation of your songs in a live setting in terms of how much you think about the various layers, the timing of the loops, how much you want to replicate the studio, and that type of thing?

MB: Yeah, there are particular sounds that I like to replicate from the record. It’s not that hard. I have a looper to trigger say the Mellotron track, or the banjo track, or the circuit bent toy track from the song and I can just start or stop it with my foot and we can all play along to it.

Generally, it’s easy to throw that in there. It’s all pre-recorded and sometimes the loops are just intros to songs or eventually they sort of cut outs. Sometimes the whole song is to a loop, and we just make sure we have it cranked in the monitors and we can hear it and play along to it. It’s fun, especially when you make it to the end without messing up. [laughs] It’s like, “Hey, we nailed it!”

It’s like playing along with a click track sort of, but it’s at least a drum machine track that you made or something you have a connection to or actually created as opposed to some sort of beat that comes with the machine. It’s a tasteful musical decision to have the loop in there. We want the song to sound almost as good as it does on the record, so we want it to be piano, bass, drums and a ton of those things from the albums. It definitely is one of the trickier aspects of the band, but we’re definitely not avoiding songs that use loops or anything like that.

It’s more of just an evolution of the band after you make records and you want to make things happen live from the record. So, I use both a looper and a laptop. Sometimes the sound guys say, “Where do you want the background tracks in the mix?” But they aren’t really background tracks, you want people to really hear that stuff. I enjoy it, because it adds a whole different level of color to the band. It’s a more modern approach to piano, bass and drum instrumentation and helping to get it out of just a jazz category and into a rock category.

HT: Lastly, I wanted to ask you about the Terrapin Crossroads release party. That sounds super fun. Think you’ll do a lot of guests, play some Dead stuff maybe, or blow it out like that?

MB: We’ll probably have Phil sit in on a song and maybe some other people. We’re definitely going to stick to the album release feeling to the night, but we’ll probably have some people sit in, and hopefully we’ll have Phil sit in. It should be a lot of fun.

As it turns out, Phil did join Marco for a cover of Deerhoof’s Twin Killers during his show which also included Tea Leaf Green bassist, Reed Mathis. The TigerFace release tour continues this week throughout the Northeast and Midwest.

[Photo via TLG Instagram]

Way back in 1996, just two short years after the band came together, modern music television program JBTV aired much of Wilco’s homecoming performance at The Vic Theatre in Chicago from November 27, 1996. JBTV, a show which is still on the air today after over 27 years, broadcast 12 songs in all as well as a batch of often funny interview footage.

We came across a new-to-YouTube clip containing the hour-long program which kicks off with the show’s host chatting with the members of Wilco of which only Jeff Tweedy and John Stirratt are still in the band. Among the tunes included are both the “country” and “rock” versions of Passenger Side, a rollicking Monday complete with a horn section and a cover of the Goffin/King classic Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? Thanks to wilcoclubvideos for sharing…

Wilco – Full Concert Chicago 1996

Set: I Must Be High, Passenger Side (Country), Passenger Side (Rock), Outtasite, Monday, The Lonely 1, Box Full Of Letters, Gun, Someone Else’s Song,  Hotel Arizona, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, Sunken Treasure

The Purple One is getting ready for his three-date Welcome 2 Chicago residency at the United Center on September 24th – 26th and has prepared by visiting The View and unveiling a new song yesterday.

The track, which debuted on Clear Channel radio stations, sounds straight out Prince’s hey day and borrows some synth lines from 1999. Check it out…

And watch Prince’s appearance on The View…

[via Consequence of Sound]

In a perfect example of, “Wow! That’s so obvious – I can’t believe nobody has done this before!,” Swann has made a doorbell that I am absolutely thrilled finally exists.

An errant blasting from a pressure washer a couple of weeks ago rendered my doorbell button a fried mess and put me in the market for a new one.

Happily, it all turned out well as I was able to replace my existing doorbell from something that sounded like this:

To my current doorbell that sounds like this:

Similar to cell phone ring tones in the early 1990′s that were annoyingly shrill and digitally created beeps & bells, most doorbell tones haven’t changed since the 1950′s. Thankfully, the Swann MP3 Doorbell has done for homes what customizable ring tones did for cellphones years ago.

Swann MP3 Doorbell and Buzzer

Sweet! How does it work? As far as doorbell operation goes, it works pretty much like any other wireless doorbell you’ve ever encountered. Simply mount the battery powered doorbell unit on your doorway with the supplied super-strength double-sided tape. Then, position the speaker unit in a convenient spot within your house. As long as you are within about 200′ of the doorbell, you are good to go. Fortunately, this speaker unit is also powered by batteries (AA), so you can put it pretty much anywhere and even bring it  backyard or anywhere else you may wander and still hear your “doorbell”.

As far as getting your favorite tunes on the device, you have a couple of options. The MP3 DJ Doorbell can connect to a PC via an included USB cable or you can simply remove the SD Card to add or remove songs. While I used Audacity to clip my desired song to an appropriate length (you don’t really want a five minute song blaring every time your doorbell rings) the package also does include  MP3 editing software if you are in need of it.

How does it sound? The sound is actually pretty darn good! I didn’t expect anything more than being able to recognize my desired song but the speaker is very high quality. Swann markets this doorbell as a portable MP3 player as well. So theoretically, you could plop in a 32GB SD card and have thousands of songs on this “portable player”.  Built-in controls on the speaker allow you to use it just like any ordinary MP3 player. While the sound is very good, I’m not quite sure what types of people have a need for their doorbell to also double as a player.

What else should I know? This is a very versatile doorbell. As I mentioned, running off of AA batteries (which should last a couple of years) allows for positioning just about anywhere. If you have the receiver located near a computer, it can also be powered off of the USB cable. It looks great and can certainly be left on a shelf or other visible spot, but since the volume is completely adjustable, you can hide it in a closet, behind a cabinet, or anywhere else out of site. Mounting brackets also also for easy wall hanging. The round dial button lights up nicely with blue LED lights when ringing.

If you get sick of your own tunes, the doorbell does come pre-installed with 30 or so ring tones that you can also choose from. There’s a switch that toggles from your SD card with your own music, to the internal tones. If you add more than one, you can select which one to use with the left and right buttons on the dial.

Any drawbacks? Couple minor things to be aware of:

• The audio editing software that is included is only PC so if you have a MAC, you’ll have to find something else to trim your tunes.
• The doorbell button itself is slightly larger than I’d prefer and only comes in this one color. It may not be a perfect match with every exterior.
• There is a minor delay after the button is depressed of about a second or two. Although not too long to wait, I definitely like doorbells that are 100% instant.

Where can I buy this piece of awesome and how much does it cost? A quick Google or Amazon search should give you dozens of retailers selling this great doorbell. Price ranges wildly from $40 to $70 so be sure to shop around for the best deal.

Bottom Line: Great quality wireless doorbell that is attractive, has long range, and priced similar to regular wireless doorbells. With memory that can hold thousands of songs, you can load it up with great doorbell tones for every mood and season- why relegate yourself to the tired bing-bong any longer?

Happy doorbell ringing! (Hope it is friends coming over and not those blasted Jehovah’s!)

Swann Website

______________________________

Hidden Track Technology Tuesday

email: parker@glidemagazine.com
twitter: @tmwsiy
voice-mail:  (781) 285-8696

Have an idea for an article? Product, app, or web service you are passionate about? Feel free to get in touch with me.

Last month we told you about Mickey “Dean Ween” Melchiondo’s latest foray into the wilds of internet – AskDeaner.com. Over the last five weeks the guitarist has been answering dozens of questions posed to him by the site’s readers. We’ve found Deaner’s responses refreshingly candid and frank. If you haven’t been following along, here’s three particularly interesting answers.

Dean Ween on 2003′s Quebec LP

I really like that record a lot now that I’ve gotten away from it for awhile, but overall the experience of making it was pretty negative for a number of reasons. Aaron was going through a divorce/breakup at the time and it was a pretty hellish phase in his life. I was dealing with my own substance abuse problems at the time as well and it was a pretty dark period overall for the both of us. Just as we finished the demos for the album Claude was in a car accident that almost took his life. It’s a miracle that he was able to recover and return to form, for awhile it was questionable whether he would even walk again. That meant that we were forced to use a pool of drummers–I played some drums, Josh Freese filled in, Sim Cain played as well. Originally we wanted to do the basic tracks at Water Music in Hoboken, NJ so we took the band up there and it turned out to be a waste of time. Ween works best in home studio environments and the time we spent there served nothing except it cost us a lot of money. We used one track from that whole session there, the drums on “It’s Gonna Be a Long Night”. The majority of the best songs on the record have very depressing lyrics, like Zoloft, I Don’t Want It, If You Could Save Yourself, etc. I always associate our records with that chapter in our lives and not so much the music on the album. Now that we’ve moved on to happier places I can appreciate the music itself, but at the time we weren’t exactly doing very well and the making of the record was an overall unhappy experience. My only regret is that we didn’t use the song “Someday” as the final track on the album, for whatever reason it didn’t even make the cut and it’s one of the best songs we wrote at that time. It found it’s way onto Shinola at least.

Dean Ween on the possibility of a new outtakes record

At least 20 percent of the questions I get sent to me are about if and when Ween will release a second and third (etc.) collection of outtakes, the next installment in the Shinola series. I want to try and explain why this isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

It has been a long time since La Cucaracha came out, and before that it was a long time between Quebec and that one. I never liked the trend that developed where the band was constantly touring in support of a record that was 2 or 3 years old, or more. Shinola was a ton of work to put together that ultimately delayed the process of writing La Cucaracha. It was not a healthy process when I was still trying to write and release new material. It was like reading old love letters from an ex-girlfriend on the evening before your wedding. That or going through baby photos all day every day for months on end. You get it. Right now there are a lot of new musical endeavors in everyone’s lives, Aaron has his solo career, I’m very far along on my own record while working on the new Moistboyz album at the same time, Claude has a new Amandla record coming, etc.

I consider the first Shinola record to be as good as any proper Ween album and I simply don’t have the time or desire to work on archival material at the moment and bring it up to the standard that Ween has always set for itself. I’ve posted about a billion Ween outtakes online over the years, you can find them all on youtube or on browntracker.net

I’m not ruling out the possibility of someday releasing another installment of Shinola but I’m sorry to say it won’t be anytime soon.

Mickey talks royalties

Question::
Do you get paid anything if I listen to Ween / Moistboyz on
subscription music services such as Spotify? Even though I own all
your CDs, can I still kick some payment towards you by listening to
the music through this service instead of the disks?

A- I actually have no idea the answer to this question. I haven’t seen a royalty statement in years. I just kind of assumed that no one pays for music anymore. Does anyone know the answer to this? What I’d really like to know is how much Ween gets for a single ITunes download. I’m gonna ask our manager tomorrow and get back to you because I honestly have no clue.

Read more Q&A action over at AskDeaner.com.

Despite her serious looks and the somber tone of her music, Aimee Mann has a great sense of humor. She first showed it off on her appearances on Portlandia, but her new video is pretty hilarious. She and Jon Hamm team up on her new song Labrador to do a parody remake video of her 1985 hit video with ‘Til Tuesday, Voices Carry. I recommend checking out the Voices Carry video first to set the stage before watching this one, as it will a) probably blow your mind that Aimee Mann was the lead singer of that band, and b) make more sense out of Hamm’s impersonation of the video’s director, Tom Scharpling. Funny stuff.

In a world’s colliding moment for this writer, Ryan Adams has revealed that he will produce the new Lemonheads’ studio effort. For the upcoming record, Lemonheads head honcho Evan Dando will re-team with the band’s co-founder, Ben Deily, who separated from the group back in 1989. Plus, alt-rocker Juliana Hatfield – who has a long history with Dando and the Lemonheads’ brand – will play bass.

Adams’ tweet about his new behind-the-boards gig mentions he’ll bring the Lemonheads “back to the punker sounds” of the band’s early days. We can’t wait to hear the results.

Here’s a handful of stories to keep you entertained this hump day…

• The New York Times Magazine profiles legendary rocker Neil Young
• List Time: Paste details The 15 Greatest Sets of Musical Siblings
• Stream HT faves Frightened Rabbit’s new EP – State Hospital
• Looking to fill your NetFlix queue with Rock Docs? Check here
• R.E.M.’s Peter Buck discusses his forthcoming solo album
• Ben Folds Five tells the stories behind each track on their new LP

Finally, Primus has extended their 3D tour until the end of the year as the Les Claypool-led band will play a four-show New Year’s Run in California. The holiday action starts on December 27th at The Balboa Theatre in San Diego and moves to L.A.’s The Wiltern on December 29th before concluding with a pair of performances at The Warfield in San Francisco on December 30th and New Year’s Eve.

HT faves Wilco’s latest album, The Whole Love, has been has been out for nearly a year at this point but the band is still promoting the disc as today they’ve unveiled a video for TWL track Sunloathe.

This animated clip was made by Wilco crew member Nathaniel Murphy, who also provided several illustrations for the band’s Sky Blue Sky LP. We kinda wish we were tripping when we first saw this, but alas…

The already formidable Love For Levon lineup has gotten even more impressive with the addition of Roger Waters to the bill for the October 3rd concert. Set to be held at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey; Love For Levon is a star-studded benefit concert which aims to raise funds to help the late The Band drummer’s estate keep ownership of Levon’s home, barn and studio.

John Mayer, My Morning Jacket, Ray LaMontagne, Eric Church, Gregg Allman, Dierks Bentley, Marc Cohn, Patty Griffin, Warren Haynes, John Hiatt, Bruce Hornsby, Jorma Kaukonen, The Levon Helm Band, Robert Randolph, Mavis Staples, Joe Walsh and Lucinda Williams were the Love For Levon artists previously announced. Tickets are currently available for the event through Ticketmaster.

The next LivePhish release has been announced and it includes a show many fans have wanted to see officially released since the night it happened – a December 6th, 1997 performance at The Palace of Auburn Hills. Best known for the mind-blowing Tweezer > Izabella sequence from the second set, there are plenty of other gems included in this Fall ’97 beast of a show.

Set for release this coming Tuesday, September 25th, this show will be available both as a download from LivePhish.com and as a 2-CD set. Each source comes from former sound engineer Paul Languedoc’s DAT Stereo Soundboard Tapes and have been lovingly remastered by guru Fred Kevorkian.

Set I highlights include an intense second-song Run Like An Antelope, alien landscapes of Train Song and seamless pairings of Bathtub Gin > Foam and Fee > Maze. Set II was a unified, non-stop affair: Tweezer > Izabella > Twist > Piper > Sleeping Monkey > Tweezer Reprise. As they rounded the bend into the final week of this storied fall tour, the band had a confident swagger that exploded in The Palace with a flood of combined energy that flows through on the tapes. The Palace is deep in the suburbs but this Saturday night show in the home of The Pistons was a slam dunk that reverberated throughout Detroit Rock City and beyond.

Here’s the tracklist for the latest LivePhish release…

PHISH: 12/6/97 The Palace of Auburn Hills – Auburn Hills, MI Tracklist

Disc One
1. Golgi Apparatus (5:35)
2. Run Like An Antelope (16:30)
3. Train Song > (2:44)
4. Bathtub Gin > (12:36)
5. Foam (10:24)
6. Sample In A Jar (5:04)
7. Fee > (5:36)
8. Maze (15:10)
9. Cavern (4:50)

Disc Two
1. Tweezer > (22:25)
2. Izabella > (9:27)
3. Twist > (7:44)
4. Piper > (14:12)
5. Sleeping Monkey > (6:05)
6. Tweezer Reprise (4:33)
7. Rocky Top (2:53)