The 'Akron Family' Family

First time i saw these guys was at the very trashy Smog, located at Bard College. I was there with a good friend of mine, and neither of us had heard of any of the bands playing that night. The two opening bands were both just plain old bad but then Akron Family came on and to put it simply; our minds were blown. It's rare to see band members that have such great chemistry with each other, you can tell these guys are having the time of their lives plahying together. They had a great stage presence and knew how to get the crowd going, having everyone singing along to songs they just taught us there on the spot, even had us contribute with percussion; we were banging on just about anything in the spray paint covered room. Another impressive feature about these guys was that they would constantly trade off instruments or grab different ones from the back in between songs, it's not every day you see a band talented enough to be able to switch roles in between songs like that. These guys were originally from Williamsburg, Brooklyn when they released their first Self Titled
album on Young God Records, it's hard to define their sound; it's freaky, its folky, there's jammy improvisations, there are weird electronic noises, sounds, and clicks, they've done a fine job at defining their own 'Akron sound'. Part of their quick underground success is due to being the back up band for their label owner, ex Swans member, Michael Gira's band Angels of LIght. After many tours, albums and losing a band member who decided to become a buddhist monk, the band is now stationed in Portland, Oregon and is progressively building a larger and larger fan base. The live show i have posted here is for the die hard fans, if you haven't experienced this band yet, I highly recomend checking out their albums first to understand what's going on in the live recording because even though it's not an awful quality recording, it's not great either. Regardless, enjoy these crazy guys!

Copy/Paste link to access music:

http://www.mediafire.com/?3xr5aiwahk61h

Dark Star Heaven

 I'm very fortunate to have the close to home "Mountain Jam" fall on the week of my birthday every year. Very awesomely my birthday this year was on the same night as Dark Star Orchestra's set, and ended up being the best Dark Star show I have ever personally experienced. As most of you know; Dark Star almost always play a past Grateful Dead show, song by song, and waits til the end of the show to reveal to the crowd what show they reproduced. This night however was special and unusual in that they decided to play their own set, and whether or not that's the reason, this ended up being my favorite Dark Star experience to date. They opened with a nice light 'China Cat Sunflower' which of course segued into the epic 'Know You Rider', Warren Haynes and Danny Louis joined in for 'New Speedway Boogie' and 'Goin Down the Road'. Their Goin down the Road was absolutely amazing, so amazing that after the show I was jamming with a few guys under a tent in the pouring rain and when someone started to play the riff we all decided not to even go there because of our lack of ability to do it justice. The drum and space set was incredible as well, Space tends to be hit or miss for me but this one is definitely worth listening through, I wish I had a video of the light show for it because it complemented the sounds perfectly. The set ended with a 'Shakedown' segueing into a JGB 'Tangled Up in Blue', and then they 'Bid us Goodnight' for the encore. Although the recording isn't the same as being there, I'm sure you'll be able to sense the audible ecstasy we all did that night.

Setlist: China Cat > Know You Rider, Women are Smarter, Cats under the Stars, Me and My Uncle > Big River, New Speedway Boogie* > Goin Down the Road Feelin Bad*, Feel like a Stranger, Alligator > Drums > Space > The Eleven > Shakedown > Tangled Up in Blue.
Encore: And We Bid You Goodnight
*with Warren Haynes and Danny Louis

Enjoy:

http://www.mediafire.com/?7keydxzsvund5

There is no search party for a star gone dim. (Clouddead)

 

I was introduced to this experimental hip hop group in my freshman year of college, I wasn't really much of a hip hop fan beforehand but these guys definitely opened that door for me. Their self-titled lp and "Ten" became regulars on my ipod and pretty soon on all of my friends' as well. the group consists of hip hop experimentalists Does One, Why?, and Odd Nosdam, pretty weird names i know. If you haven't heard of these guys I would highly recomend you check out their album "Ten", along with all of their other work. Unfortunately they disbanded around 2004 due to growing tensions and a heavy workload. Here we have a live show of theirs in 2002, it consists of their earlier material and it is very weird, even weirder than their recorded material. So if you're not familiar with these guys yet, I would check out their 2 full lengths before indulging yourself in this, but do what you want, you might dig it anyway.


 Here is your link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?60r2bnn3ygd

Modest Mouse Origins

I was very lucky in my younger years to actually see Modest Mouse in my hometown a few years before they achieved mainstream success. I didn't know who they were at the time, I was there to see the band they were opening for, and they didn't put on that great of a show but it allowed me to discover their raw brand of indie rock. These guys are among the very few bands in which I like pretty much all of their albums (less so with their more recent mainstream releases). I figure this will only be of interest to the hardcore fans as this isn't great quality but the band recorded and released this on their own onto cassette tape in 1993, when they formed.  There were only less than 100 released which Issaac Brock (singer, guitarist) did all the art work by hand for. "Tube-Fruit, All Smiles and Chocolate" is only for die hard fans because it's of very poor quality, too long at times and has outbursts of pure madness but it's still a great gem showing us the beginning of one of the most recognized indie rock outfits of today. Hope y'all enjoy it now.

One for the collection:
http://www.mediafire.com/?emyunvhymr5

The One, The Only, The Beatles

I don't think there's any need for me to regurgitate information about these guys, I honestly don't know anyone who claims to not like the Beatles. My favorite Beatles recordings have always been the alternate recordings and/or rare tracks, they just have that rawer organic sound that I'm a sucker for. Also you're able to catch plenty of banter and sillyness between the four between the tracks. What's special about this bootleg album is that it's a compilation of recordings made at their own homes, and their friends', with a little bit from each year of the band's existence. There's even a cool recording from India. Ok, so enjoy the music!




Get it, Enjoy it:
Beatles - For No One (private recordings 1962-1969)

Burgess Meredith tells us of the importance bacon has in one's health

Growing up, I remember thinking Burgess Meredith would never leave this world, he just seemed invincible, he looked old in the first Rocky and that was in the 70s! I'm pretty sure they killed his role as Mickey in Rocky III because they were certain he wouldn't be around much longer. He certainly proved them wrong by surviving for 15 years after his last appearance as Mickey, excluding flashbacks in the later ones. Throughout the Rocky movies he's given us great inspirational speeches on life which we'll never forget, however, none of them compare to this one from one of the Grumpy Old Men movies where he talks about bacon's role in leading a long, healthy and prosperous life. Definitely a diet to live by:

 

PRIMAL DEAD - Jerry, Pigpen, and Bobby before they were Grateful Dead

Many of us, Deadheads, are under the misconception that the Grateful Dead first got together as the Warlocks, when in fact,  Jerry Garcia formed a jug band with both Ron "Pigpen" Mckernan, and Bob Weir called "Mother McCrees Uptown Jug Champions. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, jug band music is a type of folk music, popular in the 20s and 30s, that uses traditional instruments like guitar, mandolin and banjo, along with home made instruments like the washtub bass, the washboard, kazoos, and jugs that were blown into as if they were brass instruments. Jug band music went through a resurgence as part of the American folk music revival of the 1960s. As you'll hear in Mother Mccrees, the jug bands of the 1960s often played popular music from the earlier jug band era along with more contemporary folk and blues songs. Many of the songs you'll hear on here are written by the Memphis Jug Band, personally my favorite jug band, I'll be sure to post some of their material in the future. The recording you're about to hear was recorded by Stanford University students Peter Wanger (whom you'll hear in the intro) and Wayne Ott. The recordings were played on the folk music show "Live from the Top of the Tangent", broadcast on Standford's FM station KZSU. The tapes were believed to be lost to history until they were found in Wanger's Mother's attic in 1997, after her death. Being what they were, the recordings were almost immediately mastered and released on cd. Despite it being released on cd, this is still relatively unknown which is why I'm posting it. Some songs you might recognize from later on Dead concerts are 'Overseas Stomp' (also known as 'Lindy'), 'Ain't It Crazy' (aka 'The Rub), 'On the Road Again', 'The Monky and the Engineer', and 'Beat It On Down the Line'. Enjoy!

Got 2 links for you:

Mother Mcree's via megaupload 

Mother Mcree's via rapidshare

Gimme that Bass!

Bassnectar is a scholar of raging and getting down, don't know any other dj that can get the crowd to move the way this guy does. Some people misconceive Bassnectar as a dubstep artist but there is so much more to it, sure he uses massive wobbly bass lines typical of dubstep artists but his sound is so eclectic and unpredictable, he'll go from a dreamy dub beat to a slayer remix and then to a old jazz swing beat in the matter of a few minutes, the entire time just filled with raw energy. Unlike a lot of electronic artists he's also constantly changing the tempo, something he calls 'omni-tempo maximalism'. There's a little something for everyone at a bassnectar show, hence why you'll see quite the eclectic crowd at his shows, everyone from deadheads to metal heads to bro dawgs. It's an incredibly good time, some describing it as a 'social mosh pit'. The show i have up for your listening pleasure is a Bassnectar show from 2006 at the Fox Theatre in Colorado, and it includes some live freestyling by souleye. Listening to this now and then going to a bassnectar show today, you'll notice that he's gotten a lot crazier and intense but this is still a good listen.

download:

Bassnectar (featuring Souleye) live

Cirque de String Cheese

Twas the 2nd night of Rothbury and not one hippie was sleeping...

How could anyone sleep for String Cheese's one and only show for 2009? Up until that night my cheese répertoire was limited to just a few tunes, but after seeing a surprise practice set on the first day, lets just say i was as giddy as the other 30,000 people walking through a glowing magical forest to  converge at the Odeum stage. Now let me just say that the music alone blew my mind, Cheese's chemistry on stage was like nothing i've ever seen, as a friend of mine still states, it was "enlightening". Now on top of that there were giant 40 ft beach balls, flying acrobats, fire dancing, and on top of that a crowd of the coolest and happiest people you could hope to be with. I could go on but i'll stop boring you now, it's time to get your cheese on!


download here:

String Cheese Incident, July 2nd 2009 at Rothbury

Mark Lanegan

Definitely in my top 5 of favorite singer-songwriters, the best way i can describe the mysterious Mark Lanegan's voice is as the bastard child of Jim Morrison and Tom Waits. I first discovered Lanegan listening to Queens of the Stone Age, although he only sings on a few songs on each album, they also tend to be among the best songs on their albums, such as: Song for the Dead, In the Fade, and This Lullaby. Lanegan's music career began in 1985 as the lead singer for the Seattle grunge band The Screaming Trees. In 1992 the band released their 'breakout' album "Sweet Oblivion" which had the single "Nearly Lost You" peak at number 5 on the Charts. It was during his stint with the Trees that Lanegan began his solo career, his first solo album the "The Winding Sheet" was actually recorded after an incomplete collaborative project with Kurt Cobain aiming at being a tribute album to Leadbelly. The aborted project's recording of 'Where did you Sleep Last Night' was included on the album and was the basis for Nirvana's cover of the song for their MTV unplugged performance. Lanegan continued to record solo albums throughout the 90s and despite the rareness of Lanegan performing his solo songs, he gained a growing cult following and increased critical acclaim as the years progressed. After recording "Songs For the Deaf" in 2003 with QOTSA, the newly formed The Mark Lanegan Band released "Here Comes That Weird Chill", an ep which was followed by his biggest comerical and critical success "Bubblegum". Since then Lanegan has been taken part in numerous collaborations including: The Gutter Twins with Afghan Whig's lead singer Greg Dullhi, an electronic gospel group the Soulsavers, and a trifecta of albums with Belle and Sebation's Isobel Campbell, along with maaaany others.

If you're unfamiliar with Mark Lanegan, all his solo albums and collaborations are favorites of mine but if you want a reccomendation start off with Bubblegum because it contains a variety of his different styles of songs while fitting together perfectly. All three of his albums with Isobel Campbell are just beautiful and if you're into gospel I would check out the Soulsavers' album "It's not how far you fall, It's the way you land". Regardless of where you start though, you'll get hooked.




So here I give you a trifecta of live Mark Lanegan performances, the last being from his recent tour with Isobel Campbell. Enjoy!!!

Download:


Mark Lanegan Band - Live in Brussels 2003 (password: mundoeleven.blogspot.com)

Mark Lanegan live in Brussels, 6/5/10

Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell - live at the Barbican in London 2010