Daily Loaf

With the Thanksgiving holiday looming ahead in all its turkeylicious, cranberry sauce-drenched glory, I’ve decided to go obvious and give thanks for great music with a playlist of 10 of my favorite songs expressing gratitude, whether it’s for friendship, love, a great party or the gift of a fiber optic Jesus.

1. “Thank You for Being a Friend,” Andrew Gold, All This and Heaven Too (1978).
Gold’s hit reached No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in ’78, but the warm soft-rock number made pop culture history after it was shaved down to 46 seconds and recorded by singer Cynthia Fee for The Golden Girls. I watched a few hours of Golden Girls reruns on the Hallmark Channel recently and I let “Thank You for Being a Friend” — arguably the pinnacle of TV theme songs — play through every time. Yes, I watched six episodes in a row — so what? Golden Girls is ’80s sitcom gold (no pun intended) and bad old-lady fashion aside, it holds up rather well over time. Thus, this shout out is dedicated to the song and the show.

2. “Thank You,” Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II (1969)
Delicate swells of Hammond organ by John Paul Jones, the bright, full-bodied strumming of Jimmy Page on his Vox 12-string guitar, and Robert Plant’s vocals serenading like a soft caress, then growing stronger with his passion — Led Zeppelin’s “Thank You” is a flawless love song for a hard rockin’ band, with poetic lyricism like, “And so today my world it smiles / your hand in mine, we walk the miles / Thanks to you it will be done / for you to me are the only one.” Read the rest of this entry »

Routes Music is a documentary film acting as a roving music census, taking in the true musical passions (and disgusts) of the American people. We’re traveling all across the country, stopping along the way to interview local bands, take footage of live performances and chat with anyone and everyone. Learn more about the documentary here; check out all previous entries here.

“Where eeez yer pipe?”

A 6’4 security guard towered over me, glaring.

“Where eeez yer pipe?” he repeated in a thick Islands accent.

“What?” I replied, not sure he really just asked me what I think he just asked me.

“Where eeez yer pipe?” he asked again.

“My what?” I said again, still shocked.

“Yer pipe. Yer pipe.”

Now he was aggravated. I’m enjoying feigning ignorance.

“I don’t know what you’re saying, man.”

The guard switches tactics.

“Drugs?”

I smile.

“No, no drugs.”

“OK, go ahead.”

So began my very first experience at an extended-day music festival, and only my second time ever seeing the seminal jam band, Phish. Luckily, the rest of the three-day fest at the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio, Calif. went smoother than my entry.

Read the rest of this entry »

Right now, I’m sitting in a dark, one-bedroom basement apartment in the uptown section of New Orleans. To my right is Catman , a 28-year-old heavy metal fan who got the nickname two decades ago from some cruel children after his Tourette syndrome caused him to lick his hands repeatably and wipe them on his shirt. (These days, he’s lost the habit but still wears the moniker proudly.) On the table next to him is a small studio: mixers, drum machines, two guitars including a Lyon series Washburn electric, a microphone — all connected to a Dell Inspiron 530 desktop. In a thick British accent, Catman describes his musical tastes, his past bands (from the Nundown to Albino Spiders) and the first album he ever danced to (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band). He briefly stands up and hits a button the drum machine filling the room with a techno remix of the old Super NES game, Battletoads.

On my left, two music fans hover over Catman with three video cameras. One of them, Phil Bardi, probes Catman with questions, slowly getting the musician to open up while operating two cameras on a tripod. The other is Terrence Duncan, who pans and tilts and zooms around the room, catching Catman’s musical history on HD. These videographers are with me.

We’re Routes Music – a documentary film acting as a roving music census, taking in the true musical passions (and disgusts) of folks like you and me, and folks like him and her, all across a place we like to call America.

Read the rest of this entry »

A helping of music links to get you through the weekend.

• Despite Thom Yorke’s ongoing solo project, Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien says the band will be releasing a physical album sometime next year. I don’t care if you give me something online or on vinyl — just keep on playing, Radiohead.
• Amy Winehouse is “hopefully” going to be releasing an album in 2010, according to Island Records co-president Darcus Beese. She’ll also “hopefully” be sober next year. And “hopefully” eat a cookie or two. And “hopefully” wash her hair.
• Ozzy Osbourne promises to answer fan questions in an upcoming issue of Uncut magazine, and inquiries are now being accepted online. Whether or not anyone will be able to understand the answers he supplies remains to be seen.
• Method Man was arrested for tax evasion in New York and now faces four years in prison. Dude, didn’t you learn anything about the legal system from your days on The Wire?
• French electronic musician Alan Braxe has re-mixed Beyonce’s new single, “Broken-Hearted Girl.” It doesn’t matter how good it is, Braxe: Kanye’s comin’ after you.
• The Pixies are releasing limited-edition CDs and digital downloads from their current tour, where they’re playing Doolittle in its entirety. Even the indie rock crowd is jumping on the digital bandwagon. Are you taking note, Killers?
• If you can’t wait for Beck to release a new album, listening to Charlotte Gainsbourg’s IRM ought to curb your appetite.  Beck wrote the album’s music, co-wrote the lyrics, produced and mixed it, but it’s still Gainsbourg’s record. Really.
• Soulja Boy was arrested in Georgia for obstruction after telling police officers that people gathered at an abandoned home were there shooting a music video.  This is seriously the uncoolest thing a rapper has ever been arrested for. Read the rest of this entry »

VINYL:

David Bazan – Curse Your Branches

Lou Barlow – Goodnight Unknown
Lou describes this as, “a cross between my later work with Folk Implosion and my earlier work with Sebadoh.”

Boston Spaceships – Zero To 99
Robert Pollard.

Califone – All My Friends Are Funeral Singers

The Clientele – Bonfires on the Health
The Clientele are cited as an influence by bands such as Spoon and the Fleet Foxes.

Feelies – Crazy Rhythms
Feelies – Good Earth
Each with downloadable bonus tracks.

The Jesus Lizard - Goat
The Jesus Lizard – Head
The Jesus Lizard – Liar
The Jesus Lizard – Down
HQ-120 vinyl editions have also been packaged in deluxe gatefold album jackets with 12” x 24” double-sided color inserts. All editions feature bonus tracks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Phish announced they were calling it quits a month before dropping their 10th official studio album in 2004. Their last release under Elektra, Undermind was a brilliant work, moody and driving psyche rock studded with upbeat pop and the odd goof-off. But its dark and melancholy moments were too much a reflection of Phish’s own unhealthy state at the time and the shadow of their imminent demise hung over the music, making it easy to appreciate but hard to enjoy.

This year, Phish reunited, hit the studio with producer Steve Lilywhite (who’d worked with the band in 1996 on the masterful Billy Breathes), and laid down the tracks to their 11th full-length, Joy, which finds the foursome revitalized and at ease with each other again. It shows in the songwriting, their lyricism more introspective and sentimental than ever before. Much of Joy deals with the passage of time and touches upon grim subject matter — like the death of frontman/guitarist/singer Trey Anastasio’s older sister and his recovery from his very public substance abuse problems. But the dour cynicism and melancholy you’d expect are absent. Instead, the tone of the album is bright and buoyant as the band reminisces about the past, celebrates the present, and appreciates friends and family who’ve been there throughout. Read the rest of this entry »

Who the fuck is this person? you think with disgust as you read my apathetic reaction to Steely Dan’s performance at Ruth Eckerd Hall. You find yourself compelled to school me on my apparent lack of knowledge, compose an angry response listing all the reasons I am wrong, berate my abilities as a journalist and my failure as a music critic overall. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW AND WHY THE FUCK SHOULD I CARE? you conclude in all caps so I can’t ignore your ire. I can almost hear your self-righteous click of “Submit Comment” button. (Photo by jamesostrand.com)

You have a valid point. Who the fuck am I and why does my opinion matter so much more than those other idiots who came before me who you also thought were chattering out of their asses?

I am a near-native who’s covered all aspects of Bay area culture for Creative Loafing for nearly six years. While I never aspired to be the paper’s music editor, my love of music eventually and naturally led me to write about it, to attempt to put those intangible moments of joy and sorrow to paper and describe the seemingly indescribable, to relay a sound or a feeling or a mood or a texture with words, to try and offer an objective look at something inherently subjective, something based on experiences and background and taste and even my mood at any given time. I’ve been writing and listening to music for a long time. I don’t pretend to know everything but I approach all music with an open mind and a willingness to build upon what I already know. Read the rest of this entry »

Based on sheer numbers, Bonnaroo is a beast.  70,000 people invade Manchester, Tennessee, making it the 6th largest city in the state for over three days. Now your average Bonnarooian is quite a bit different than   your typical Tennessean — full of booze, THC and god knows what else.  It’s a crazy place.

Where else could you find Jimmy Buffett, Ani Difranco, Snoop Dog, Al Green and Bruce Springsteen? For better or worse, Bonnaroo is biggest and baddest of the American music festivals. With 13 stages and tents, hundreds of vendors, and a pretend Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the well-oiled machine of Roo is now in it’s 7th year and going strong.

Simultaneously a radiant clusterfuck and glorious throwdown, it’s hard to imagine a bigger party. And with any party, there’s always the good, the bad and the ugly. For our purposes here, let’s focus on…

Read more.

“I got to play with Bruce. That’s my hero.”

Trey Anastasio said that. After Phish jammed with Springsteen at Bonnaroo. The unlikely pairing joined forces for the R&B classic “Mustang Sally” as well as Springsteen’s “Glory Days” and “Bobby Jean.”

Read more.

Check out CL’s main music site.

I was poking around the Internet this morning, reading about last night’s Phish show in Mansfield, MA., when something hit me. The author kept referring to the concert’s venue, The Comcast Center, by its pre-sponsorship name of Great Woods. I started thinking about the big-three Bay area sports venues and their old names, and now I’m thinking about ditching the corporate sponsorship names too. I have my reasons, and they are as follows:

Building: That big stadium with red seats on Dale Mabry where they play football
Corporate sponsorship name: Raymond James Stadium
Old-school handle: Tampa Stadium. OK, technically it’s always been Raymond James Stadium, but it was built next door to, and replaced, Tampa Stadium.
Reason to switch back: It’s The Great Recession folks, and you want some investment bankers slapping their logo feces all over the local altar to the biggest sport in America? (On a personal note: I think Raymond James had a hand in the Loaf 401(k) program last year. Fell free to label me bitter in the comments.) Tampa Stadium is an excellent name, a simple-but-solid description of the place the moniker represents. Tampa Stadium sounds tough. Not to many players want to travel to Tampa Stadium, a blistering sand pit where opposing teams get the life suffocated out of them. Raymond James Stadium, on the other hand, is the type of place that sees cash from the hometown squad’s retirement account vanish quarterly for as long as they’re in the league.

Read the rest of this entry »

For news and reviews of this summer’s blockbusters, be sure and check CL’s Movies & TV site.

Ah, the bachelor party. The “last night of freedom” is a well-established rite of passage for dudes trading singledom for the restrictive bonds of marriage, and has long been fodder for the movies. In the 1980s, Tom Hanks was the groom-to-be in Bachelor Party. In the ’90s, Jon Favreau, Christian Slater and Cameron Diaz turned in a decidedly darker take with Very Bad Things. This summer, Hollywood grants us The Hangover, and it turns out to be a clever take on a cliché subject.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight, May 31, 2009, Phish returns to the road and kicks off the first leg of their summer tour at Fenway Park, home field of the Boston Red Sox and the oldest of all current MLB stadiums. Phish, the band that inspired this ongoing column (and changed the lives of me and everyone who reads this thing and plenty of others who don’t), will hit the stage at 6:55 p.m. and fill upwards of 30,000 fans (including my good friend AAAlex) with joyous satisfaction. (Screenshots of the first-night-back video — with Fenway’s organist playing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” then cracking his knuckles and launching into “Tweezer” while various appropos shots of the stadium flash by — after the jump.) The rest of us will watch from the sidelines, checking the regularly updated From the Road setlists, watching various #Phish Tweets from the show (my own not from the show here), and eagerly awaiting our own upcoming Phish adventures.

With a new spat of Phish shows to be reported on, Phish Saves America (PSA) is officially off hiatus. Not that it was ever really on hiatus, but I’ve admittedly took a bit of a break since Hampton, letting all the little Phish news bites fall through the cracks while I set some things in order. (Translation: I’ve been busy.) But the upcoming weeks will find both me and Tampa Calling contributor B.Treotch (also of Coventryblog.com) at several different upcoming Phish shows, which means plenty of coverage. B.Treotch will be at Asheville (maybe?) and Knoxville, and will serve as Creative Loafing’s on-site reporter at Bonnaroo with various Tweets and whatever else we can manage at the Tennessee fest, and a post-fest wrap with all the media we can manage. I will be road-tripping up to Knoxville in an RV with some Bonnaroo-bound friends and other taggers-on next Tuesday (look out for plenty of Tweeting and a post), then I’ll be hitting the last three shows (in Indiana and Wisconsin, respectively) the following weekend. The Gorge will follow in August if my husband and I can juggle the finances as planned.

But for now, let’s start with something fun — a “What If” of sit-ins that has Phish performing with a select roster of other Bonnaroo artists.

Phish Sit-Ins I’d Like to See at Bonnaroo: [READ MORE]

How fitting that the Cheap Bastard gets to post this freebie on the way out of town to enjoy the show.

Phish is offering free mp3 downloads (through a “pre-order”) of the 3 night run at the Hampton Coliseum.  Go to livephish.com and snag yours today.

From the website:

Says Trey Anastasio, “We really wanted to show our gratitude to all the Phish fans for their support and the overwhelming response they’ve had to these shows. It’s going to be an amazing celebration and we only wish everybody could be there,” Phish will be recording the Hampton shows in a mobile multitrack studio, and mixing the shows overnight for immediate delivery on LivePhish.com. 256kbps MP3s will be available for free download for a limited time. FLACs and CDs are also available.

Let Homer Simpson’s experience in the voting booth be a cautionary tale to us all. Are you registered to vote? If not, there are only 4 days left to get in the game.

• With the Veep debate looming, both parties fear big-time gaffes.
• Obama TV now on the air.
• Where in the world is … Steve Fossett’s corpse.
• Breakthrough: “Radioactive scorpion venom could be used to fight brain cancer.” And Spider-Man.
• Channel 10’s new weather babe is sure to cause a rise in Tampa Bay’s barometric pressure.
• In other CBS news, the Net is learning the pitfalls of turning loose an army of iPhone-wielding citizen journalists.
• Phish reunites. Joe is very happy.
• The Rays cash in. (They hope.)