oops, forgot one...

I've been slacking on the photos lately and when I went in to my camera to see if there was anything fun I could share, I realized I forgot to mention the awesome Paste Magazine release party at the Knitting Factory on Thursday night, Feb. 22. Way too much Makers Mark that night but it was really fun. Special surprise guests included Joseph Arthur and his band and the mighty Son Volt. And here there are from inside the depths of my digital camera:

Yeah yeah

Hey everyone... It's been a minute since I last saw you. Where does the time fly? A bit of an update:

Friday, February 23: Future Rock at the Delancey
Good times with Bronko and Pete as we made up lyrics to the otherwise instrumental Bisco-esque troupe, Future Rock from Chicago. Cool segues from dj's Orchard Lounge.

Saturday, February 24: A BIG YES... and a small no at Lakeside Lounge
It was Kevin Kendrick's birthday and his old Fat Mama bandmates came from all corners of the US to be this incarnation of A Big Yes and A Small No. Great night. Read what Ace had to say about it.

Sunday, February 25: Oscar Night with mom and dad on Long Island
I thought it was generally a pretty damn boring Oscar show this year. Ellen was great but the acceptance speeches were killing me. You people are supposed to be talented! Award winners, even! Come up with something interesting to say! Loved when Ellen posed with Clint Eastwood for "a picture for MySpace" that she has Spielberg take (and then criticized his photo taking abilities). Also, very nice to see Marty finally get his.

Monday, February 26: Gamble et. al at Bar 4
Just another typical Monday night at Bar 4... Experimental jazz that you'll hear no where else. Love Monday nights... Never know what you are going to get when you walk in there. Mike Gamble is really fun to watch. This week's show had a Latin flava to it. Forgive me, I am too lazy to look up who was playing that night.

Tuesday, February 27 (early): American Babies at Living Room
Finally got to see Tommy Hamilton's new(ish) band, American Babies, as part of his Tuesday night Feb residency at the Living Room. Tommy's live band is bassist Jim Hamilton and drummer Joe Russo (how many times can one see Joe Russo perform in one week's time?). Word is that the album is just about done but you can check out some of the great songs at the myspace page. This is such a refreshing change from the Brothers Past Tommy that we once knew. Acoustic and raw, this band really allows his voice to be showcased in a beautiful and emotional way. Great songwriting, too.

Tuesday, February 27 (later): The Slip at Maxwell's in Hoboken
From the LES to NJ... Last night The Slip had a rocker of a show at Maxwell's in NJ. The band looked healthy and confident. Lots of smiles and rocking out. Two new songs that I heard again last night are getting really good and substantive: "All I Saw Was You" and "There's A Lie" which featured a SICK guitar solo from Fried-dog. So awesome. For the encore, they did a Nathan Moore song called "Yeah Yeah" which was followed by the 2007 version of "Weight of Solomon" (aka "Rock Solomon") for the encore. This gave me slight mixed emotions... The Slip have obviously turned that corner without looking back into the realm of "we are a rock band." For a split second, I just missed the old Slip. But it's okay. I'm rolling with it! There were a few other new songs that I did not recognize but mostly it was your Eisenhower-era Slip in the house last night playing mostly stuff from the album: Even Rats, Children of December, Soft Machine, Moth Wing and If One of Us Should Fall (both with Marco Benevento on keys!), Airplane/Primitive, Life in Disguise (first time I've heard it live - just lovely), and Suffocation Keep. Opening the show was Brooklyn-based Phonograph. What I heard was very good and I'll be checking them out again for sure!

In other news: I have totally Googlefied my life. Rid myself of the dreaded MS Outlook and it's daunting 4000+ messages in the inbox that I can't bear to go through and file. Now I search instead of sort. I have my Gmail accounts rockin' and rollin', my Google Reader keeping me updated on all the things I give a shit about in the interweb and the blogosphere, Google Desktop installed to search high and low all over my machine for anything I am looking for, Google/Picasa has a sweet screensaver going with all my favorite pics... I gotta say, I am feeling pretty electronically organized right now.

Until next time...

Walkin' to New Orleans (through Park Slope)

It's a relatively quiet night on 5th Avenue in Park Slope and it's beginning to rain. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a little blur of purple and green. It's a woman sitting outside of a bar untangling strings of beads. She looks up at me and smiles and says, "Happy Mardi Gras!" Oh right! It's Fat Tuesday! And I'm on my way to see what's happening at Union Hall for Mardi Gras Brooklyn. It's quiet outside but when I walk inside, I'm somehow on Bourbon Street. Brooklyn's own Hungry March Band is raging on the bocce ball courts and the place is packed. Balloons, beads, masks, feathers, the works. I see a neighborhood yoga instructor GETTING DOWN with her friends to the music. Yep, the freaks are definitely out tonight.

I made it in time to see The Dansettes downstairs. Their plan was to mix their own music with some covers from the Crescent City. I first saw The Dansettes perform at the Freaks Ball a few weeks ago - I love this band! Hipster meets R&B - a Brooklyn version of The Commitments, if you will. They nailed the covers and I just want to share this one video with you all today. It's The Dansettes performing their cover of "Don't Change Nothing" by Mary Jane Hooper:



Les bon temps!

The phinest in the nation

Happy 2/20!

Us JamBase pholk have traditionally celebrated this day for one reason:

Reba - 2/20/93 - Roxy Theatre, Atlanta, GA

Best ever, dude.

Explosions in the Sky

When my good friend Scott Samuelson (aka Captain Sammy) tells me, "do whatever you have to do to get into that show," I take heed. He just knows. When I tell him about this awesome new band, he's like, oh yeah, "I have their last four albums." That kind of thing... Anyway, months ago, I was instructed to make sure and catch Explosions in the Sky at Warsaw on 2/19.

So, I did what I had to do and made it to the show on a cold Monday night. The genre of this music is called "post rock" according to Rhapsody which to me kind of equates to "post life" or "post apocalyptic." What Explosions creates is instrumental music that makes you really feel like you are out in space. Close your eyes and you are amidst the cosmic dust of the universe somehow. It's so uncannily human, though too. My friend and I were writing a movie for a little while during the show. Something about a papa coming home from war with the aliens (happy times) but something is just not quite the same (slightly eerie times) and then we are whirled off once again into space while taking a drive into the country (scary and unexplainable times).

After a while, I just closed my eyes and felt the music. The deep sounds vibrated through me at times and then the beautiful melodies would lift my mind. The band is leading the crowd through an intense shared experience. Fifty-five minutes of unique symphonic music later and you are placed gently back on the planet Earth to go forth and live your life as normal. Good luck with that!

I'm glad I got this sneak peek before their Langerado set... Check out more at explosionsinthesky.com and myspace.com/texasband.

Go Go Bisco Go!

I gotta give major props to my Disco Biscuits boys for putting on some great shows this weekend at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ. I have become quite a wimp to the cold since I've been in San Francisco for the last 7 winters. Only a few things have been able to get me out of the house for the last week. The Biscuits are one of those things...

Thursday's show was a lot of silly fun with their Spin the Wheel madness. Of course, all we kept hearing about for the next couple of days was how bummed everyone was that it never landed on Lesbian Makeout Session. Um, oh well. I skipped Friday night and hence missed one of my favorites, "Munchkin Invasion." I expressed my sadness to Brownie before Saturday's show and he said, "Yeah, it was sick, too." Thanks a lot, buddy.

Saturday's show was great for me. They pulled out a "Devil's Waltz" and I just love when they flex their classical muscles amidst the techno mayhem. It's so civilized. I want to be on the stage whenever they complete their rock opera with full string arrangement. It's gonna be epic whenever that day comes... But it was all about that second set:

Set II: Mulberry's Dream, Bernstein And Chasnoff > Rainbow Song > Bernstein And Chasnoff > Spacebirdmatingcall > OrchTheme > Spacebirdmatingcall > Bernstein And Chasnoff

Call me an old fart but that just rules. Nothing like a Bernstein sandwich. Nothing! (Andy B, if you're reading, I hope you didn't just pass out and hit your head.)

The Biscuits have the momentum right now. It's awesome to see their energy in such a good, positive place these days. See ya in a few weeks at Langerado!

Check out their newly designed website: www.discobiscuits.com.

WE WIN! WE WIN!

Is this the best band name ever?

Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.

http://www.myspace.com/getcapewearcapefly

Mardi Gras Brooklyn at Union Hall - Fat Tuesday!

Party down for a good cause this Tuesday, February 20th (aka Fat Tuesday) at Union Hall in Park Slope. It's Mardi Gras Brooklyn! All proceeds from this event will benefit the New Orleans Habitat for Humanity - an organization that has obviously been working TIRELESSLY since Katrina. Admission is 12 bucks for a kick-ass time.

Doors: 6pm

(Really) Happy Hour: 6 - 7pm

Music Downstairs:
7:15pm - Snuggle T and the Huggs
8:00pm - Blue Vipers of Brooklyn
9:00pm - M Shanghai String Band
10:00pm - The Dansettes (word is they are doing all NOLA covers!)
11:00pm - Stephane Wrembel

Upstairs:
Hungry March Band starts hitting the horns at 7pm & 9pm!
The World Famous Pontani Sisters, Dave Hill, DJ Grand Pah and DJ Gannon will keep it coming throughout the night.

Food donated by the delicious NoNO Kitchen. They will be serving their scrumptious jambalaya for $4 a plate. Get it while it's hot!

NoNO Kitchen located at 293 7th Ave (at 7th Street) in Park Slope. If you have not tried this restaurant yet, run over there. You'll need to get your metabolism going strong when you walk in because you won't be able to stop eating the deliciousness! NoNO will also be having their own Mardi Gras party on Tuesday night. They are currently showing bromoil photography by Zack Smith. Get over there! Eat some po'boys! Buy some art!

And while we're on the subject of New Orleans, as we seem to do often over here at SuperDee's House, buy a JamBase Calendar to help the kids of NOLA via KIDsmART!

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

My Boys Keeping Me Warm Today

I was awoken today to the sound of hail clattering against my bedroom window. All day so far, there has been a mixture of snow and sleet and bleakness coming down from the sky. Shall I hide under the covers and will this February 14th from existence? Or shall I revel in the fact that I've got a fridge full of food, a warm cozy apartment, and countless friends quite literally at my fingertips? I chose the latter and decided to spend my Valentine's with some of the classiest guys I know:

We begin with Astral Weeks from Van Morrison. This is probably one of my top ten albums of all time. I'm not even going to try and put this into words and let the legendary Lester Bangs do it for me. This article really spells it out...

Continuing on, I go spend some time with Neil Young for a while. Harvest seemed like a good place to go today. To give a love, you gotta live a love. / To live a love, you gotta be "part of" / When will I see you again? --- Sigh.

Let's pick it up a little bit... Get some Jersey love. Bruce Springsteen seemed up for the challenge today with Born to Run. Oh to be Wendy and be loved with all the sadness and all the madness in this man's soul! Hey Eddie, can you catch us a ride?

Billy, Billy, don't be jealous! You know you're my guy. Once a Long Island girl, always a Long Island girl... Time to relive my days with The Stranger, another of my top ten of all times. I do know that when the truth is told, I can get what I want or just get old.

Moving along now... Bob Dylan steps up to give me his Desire. You know I love the violin flowing throughout the whole album. Seriously, how many songs on this album just make you want to sing from the mountaintops? Isis, this day is for you. And the last song goes to my sweet niece Sara who is very excited to have a snow day today!

And what would Valentine's Day forevermore be without the darling Etienne de Rocher. He blew my mind last year with his debut studio album. I saw him live last year on good ol' Feb 14th at the intimate Cafe Du Nord in San Francisco. Talk about soul soothing music... You had me at "moonshine."

Ok, enough of this... I'm gonna let The Phish Band (from Vermont) take me the rest of the way home today. Let's see what LivePhish radio's got cookin.

Happy day, everyone. See ya later...

4 months, 19 days,11 hours and 4 minutes until HSMF 2007!

"Going to 11 in 2007!" - Captain Sammy

An Oddly Beautiful Video

Find out more at www.myspace.com/seventeenevergreen and www.seventeenevergreen.com.

Gnarls got robbed.

Seriously... it's CRAZY that Gnarls Barkley didn't win record of the year. Cee-lo's smile when they announced the nominees and the ROAR from the crowd in attendance at the Grammy's (and the fact that it was really the greatest song of the year) made it seem like it was just the natural thing to hand that gramophone to the genius hitmaking duo. But no... seems like the Grammy's were making some sort of political statement by making the Dixie Chicks their stars for the night. I've been listening to Taking the Long Way this morning and sure, it's a nice album. But "Crazy"! That was SO the song of the year! Did The Raconteurs, Ray Lamontagne and Cat Power do their own brilliant interpretations of "Not Ready To Make Nice"? I don't think so! I just heard this song for the first time TODAY. "Crazy" was EVERYWHERE!

Anyway, it's kinda dumb to get all upset about the Grammy's but I just think Cee-lo and Danger Mouse got robbed. Sorry, guys. Everyone knows you are the winner anyway!

Random Sunday Night Thoughts

Another crazy NYC weekend... Can't seem to collect my thoughts in a cohesive manner today so I thought I'd just share them in a somewhat aimless fashion.

1. They just said the word "jamband" on the Grammy's in presentation of the Grateful Dead's lifetime achievement award. A hush went over the crowd - not in awe but more like, "huh?" Billy and Mickey stood up to be acknowledged. They were waving excitedly and they kinda looked silly. Their moment was just that, a moment, and then Gnarls Barkley did a military-esque version of "Crazy."

2. Speaking of awards shows... The Plug Awards show at Irving Plaza was an eye opening experience for me. It's a nice scene they have there! There is a brushing of shoulders of what's going on there musically with what we've got over at JamBase. Lots of similar bands on their nominations as on our year end wrapup - much to the chagrin many of our jam-faithful readers that hate when we discover new and exciting music. How dare we?!

What I felt like I experienced last night was their community of music lovers very much like ours. Geeky ones, too. And there were more girls... Live girl blogging, girlie girl bass players, girl winners, and girl talk... The girls that blew me away the most were in Stephen Malkmus's band, The Jicks. The ladies provided the Jicks rhythm - Joanna Bolme on bass and Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss. Wow, they fucking kicked ass! Girl power!

2a. MALKMUS RULES! See ya in Florida, Jicks. Can't wait.

3. Emo is short for "emotional". I don't think I ever realized that. Discovered that at Midlake on Friday night at the Bowery.

4. The iConcertCal people have released their latest version of their iTunes app which I just downloaded today and it's super cool! They made friends with us at JamBase and are pulling tour dates from our system. Check it out!

5. Lionel Richie is performing "Hello" on the Grammys right now. Sweet!

6. I saw Brett Dennen for the first time last night at Joe's Pub. My good friend Steve Adams is playing bass in the band right now. I really enjoyed it. Great voice, great vibe. It just felt really nice - bringin' some Cali-soul into the cold city night.

7. Patron and orange juice is a very perilous cocktail.

8. Christina Aguilera is pretty damn impressive. Carrie Underwood is kinda lame. Mary J. Blige is one tough soul mama.

Ok, I think I've sufficiently dumped my brain for now. Have a great week out there...

It kills the time until you fill your heart, you'll see...

Looks like I'm gonna be a lucky attendee at the Plug Awards this weekend - "the Jammys of the indie-rock scene," someone said to me this week. The show will be hosted by the awesomely hilarious David Cross and the Silversun Pickups, El-P, Deerhoof & Tokyo Police Club will perform. AND the mighty Stephen Malkmus. I spent time today getting reacquainted with the magical music of Mr. Malkmus and his Jicks, mostly with the latest album, Face The Truth. Here's a clip of a Bonnaroo 2006 performance of one of my faves from the album, "It Kills," where he totally KILLS it at the end with his guitar:

So you wanna be in a rock and roll band?

Well, this sounds like a lot of fun:

THU 2/8: 8PM / FREE
Talent LTD presents
LIVE BAND KARAOKE
Your wait for rock stardom ends at Magnetic Field... Host Bunnie England will hand you a sheet of lyrics and his band, The New Originals, will accompany you on your road to rock glory! All you have to do is grab a beer, grab the mic, and as a wise man once said, "let the rock reign free!"

We had a similar event on JamCruise where Hogan was simultaneously running and stealing the show!

Magnetic tonight, anyone?

Mos Definitely

Just read about the BAM Music Fest in the Brooklyn Record today... I would love to see Mos Def but tickets don't seem to be available. Boo. So, I hit up my somewhat-new obsession, youtube, and found this gem:

"Brooklyn/my habitat/the place where it happen at"
—FROM "BROOKLYN" BY MOS DEF

Ladies and Gentleman... The Slip!

The Slip on Conan O'Brien last night!

Here's my new girl Lily...

Leave it to youtube:

Late night tv works! Introducting Lily Allen to my world...

I love my DVR. People weren't kidding when they said it would change your life. That may be a slight exaggeration but I really can watch whatever I want when I want. You all know I love live music so it's pretty rare that I end up catching Saturday Night Live while it's actually happening live. That's where the DVR comes in... I recorded this week's which had Drew Barrymore as the host. First of all, she was hilarious especially the skit when she was high on a frappuccino and had the most inappropriate job interview of all time.

Musical guest on Saturday night was the English and adorable Lily Allen. She seemed like such a nice girl singin' up there but upon further investigation, I find her album, Alright, Still, full of attitude. Her soft voice feeds you the thorny lyrics with a spoon full of sugar. She performed her rasta-flava'd single, "Smile," which has become my favorite song of the day:

When you first left me
I was wanting more
But you were fucking that girl next door
What'cha do that for?

When you first left me
I didnt know what to say
I've never been on my own that way
Just sat by myself all day

I was so lost back then
But with a little help from my friends
I found the light in the tunnel at the end

Now you're calling me up on the phone
So you can have a little whine and a moan
And it's only because you are feeling alone

At first when I see you cry,
yeah it makes me smile, yeah it makes me smile
At worst I feel bad for a while,
but then I just smile I go ahead and smile

Whenever you see me
You say that you want me back
And I tell you it don't mean jack
No it don't mean jack

I couldn't stop laughing
No I just couldn't help myself
See you messed up my mental health
I was quite unwell

I was so lost back then
But with a little help from my friends
I found the light in the tunnel at the end

Now you're calling me up on the phone
So you can have a little whine and a moan
And it's only because you're feeling alone

At first when I see you cry,
yeah it makes me smile, yeah it makes me smile
At worst I feel bad for a while,
but then I just smile I go ahead and smile

lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala lalala

At first when I see you cry,
yeah it makes me smile, yeah it makes me smile
At worst I feel bad for a while,
but then I just smile I go ahead and smile

lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala

Huh? What Superbowl?

Um, how much does Prince rock?! The world's gone crazy for Prince today!

The Slip boys on Conan tonight!

Our dear boys, The Slip, will be on tv screens across America tonight. They've been invited to play on Late Night with Conan O'Brien - that's kinda big time. Thinking about The Slip being on television is both thrilling and frightening. No doubt they will take the stage with grace as always and show the country the beautiful hearts that they wear on their sleeves.

Let's start out the day With Love from The Slip.

Good luck boys! I love you!

Constance: A Collection of 40 NOLA Artists

Constance is a design project that celebrates and explores the fragmentary life that is New Orleans. Publishing various mediums of art, including photography, painting, drawing, illustration, writing, graffiti and graphic design. Constance offers a fresh interpretation of a city that is in immense, and often times, overwhelming cultural and social flux. “Replicas and Replacements” aims to not only make sense of the fissured New Orleans identity, but to discover the creative and experimental possibilities of our present historical moment.

More info and buy a copy here.

I'm speechless...

I have no words for this one:

Oh SupaSaint, is there anything you can't do?