Would Lester Bangs Listen to the White Stripes?

I almost didn’t go to Birmingham on Monday. I read it on the White Stripes “Little Room” fan-board that Jack sounded sick on Sunday in South Carolina. I had to borrow $40 from my land-mate to make the bus-ticket. I had less than $3 in my bank account (and even though my monthly paycheck would be deposited at midnight, I feared that the hotel might reject my Visa debit card at check-in, just like in the movies when the star is suddenly destitute for whatever reason).

I was feeling just as my friend Kassi wrote recently on her myspace blog, saying it succinctly, surely, and sweetly: “i cannot afford my rock n roll lifestyle. but i also cannot afford not to live it.”

But we find the way to make it, no matter what, because the music pulls us in and pulls us to another rock and roll road trip, helpless addicts all of us—like the prostrate muslim during proper prayers or the worst crack-and-meth-afflicted-junky-ho.

So, I left the farm with my family and a flat tire in the trunk. We had to stop on the way to Nashville to repair the tire, and we almost didn’t make it downtown in time. The crowd in the bus station overflowed into the street. I had that awful moment of “What was I thinking?” But somehow, there were just enough seats on the bus. And I got to Birmingham just in time.

Checking into the hotel was without worry, but my “hard ticket,” allegedly being Fed-exed from the friendly publicist in New York was not waiting. A phone call and email later, I discovered that I would have the usual access at will-call after all. Within a short while after that, I’d connected with the amazing Anne from Houston and the fansite, and she’d agreed to give me a lift to the show. It turned into a carpool with Chris and Sandra from the Atlanta area. I love the serendipitous fan connections with folks who are willing to go into debt and sleep-deprivation and probably worse just to travel to a show.

On the way to and from Birmingham on the Greyhound, I read Let it Blurt—the amazing biography of rock writer Lester Bangs written by Jim DeRogatis. Since Lester, Jack White, and I all share some serious Detroit energy in common, I couldn’t help but wonder: “Would Lester Bangs like the White Stripes?” He certainly wouldn’t care for the fact that the band wrote a song for Coca-Cola, I mused. But the revival of the Detroit garage sound that the Stripes made famous and infamous still seems most insistently Bangsian.

But Janis and Jimi bless Google, someone had already posed the question. A blogospheric rock critic who claims to channel Kerouac and Bangs had already posed the problem in a sideways manner. (See http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/07/12/082244.php)

It began with a record review of Icky Thump that took the form of a fantasy involving the writer and Meg White (who can blame him, really). And them the comments raged with all things anti-Stripes and pro-Stripes and all things in between.

I tend to sympathize with the poster called “JC Mosquito” who wrote:

“Would Lester have liked the White Stripes? Hmm... historical (or hysterical) rewriting in the making - I'd say yes he would. He liked the Guess Who, he liked Metal Machine Music, and he took matters into his own hands when he started a band. He would've liked them becuse his sense of humour was right in tune with the lo-fi DIY Stripes' ethic.”

When my male-menopause-cum-midlife-crisis kicked in a few years ago and fully fueled my rock music fan obsessions, I felt blessed to find a burgeoning underground scene made even more palpable by the instant access provided to DIY by laptops and the internet. And almost with perfect synchronicity, while technology made everyone an engineer, a promoter, and producer, this same DIY ethos drove people away from the computer and back to more purely rootsy forms, which in part explains why so much of the old-time music scene is comprised of ex-punks.

So many bands keep me busy that it’s hard to think about just one. But the Stripes are one among the many.

Please see my 'official' review at Interference.com

Kings of Leon kick out their dirty south jams at the Orange Peel in Asheville!!

For my review of the show, please go here.

Photos by Jonathan Marx (jonathanmarxprophoto.com).

When Win wins, we all win!

Yesterday, I saw Montreal's Arcade Fire in Asheville, North Carolina. The band has bounced back after having to cancel some European shows due to Win's sinus surgery.

Before the show, I met lead singer Win Butler in the street. He made my night by confirming that the band would play "Windowsill" (lyrics follow) from the new record Neon Bible.

Even though the 14-song set did not include two of my favorites ("Antichrist Television Blues" and "Wake Up"), the overall overwhelming energy of the band and the fans made for an incredible evening.

When time allows, I will pen a proper review of this amazing show.

Don't wanna hear the noises on TV
Don't want the salesmen coming after me
Don't wanna live in my father's house no more
Don't want it faster, I don't want it free
Don't wanna show you what they done to me
Don't wanna live in my father's house no more
Don't wanna choose black or blue
Don't wanna see what they done to you
Don't wanna live in my father's house no more

Cause the tide is high
And it's rising still
And I don't wanna see it at my windowsill

Don't wanna give 'em my name and address
Don't wanna see what happens next
Don't wanna live in my father's house no more
Don't wanna live with my father's debt
You can't forgive what you can't forget
Don't wanna live in my father's house no more
Don't wanna fight in a holy war
Don't want the salesmen knocking at my door
I don't wanna live in America no more

Cause the tide is high
And it's rising still
And I don't wanna see it at my windowsill

MTV, what have you done to me?
Save my soul, set me free!
Set me free! What have you done to me?
I can't breathe! I can't see!
World War III, when are you coming for me?
Been kicking up sparks, we set the flames free
The windows are locked now so what'll it be?
A house on fire or a rising sea?

Why is the night so still?
Why did I take the pill?
Because I don't wanna see it at my windowsill

Don't wanna see it at my windowsill
Don't wanna see it at my windowsill
Don't wanna see it at my windowsill

Preview and Interview: THE BLACK ANGELS

many thanks for the photos of Alex by Briana! Visit her at:

http://www.myspace.com/bpurser

At the Mercy Lounge, Friday, March 30^th

The Black Angels are a youthful band in debt to the music that initiated the counterculture four decades ago. While the retro label suggests a kind of dated backwash, the Angels courageously deflect such implications. Lead singer Alex Maas insists, “When using the word retro—by definition meaning ‘old-sounding’—that’s fine with me. There’s tons of amazing music from the Sixties, and people should shed light on it.”

In transcendent fashion, the band’s war-sick and wigged-out theater of thump and drone digs deeper into the back catalog to invoke a lifestyle—not just the notable influences. As this particular past tense shamelessly fuses the Doors and the Velvet Underground alongside fellow Texans like the 13^th Floor Elevators and the Butthole Surfers, haunting vocals get fuel-injected with guts and groove, all held down by Stephanie Bailey’s stabbing drums. Hiding his good looks behind beard, bangs and pageboy cap, Maas cannot hide the brutal reckoning of his lyrics. In addition to tracks from last year’s Passover, the Angels’ upcoming set will include a sampling of new songs recently recorded and awaiting release, some of them due on a split EP with Vancouver’s Black Mountain. (www.theblackangels.com)

What follows is the transcript of a conversation between writer Andy Smith and Alex Maas, lead singer from the Black Angels from the morning of March 21, 2007.

AS: Wearing your debt to the Velvet Underground up front, with your vocal stylings being frequently compared to Jim Morrison, making music so strongly reminiscent of an era 40 years gone, discuss how you carry the weight of your influences?

AM: It’s not really a weight. We just have influences that we like. If anything, we feel like it is our duty to spread good music.

AS: Are you concerned with how people use the ‘retro’ label to describe your music?

AM: When using the word retro—by definition meaning old sounding—that’s fine with me. There’s tons of amazing music from the Sixties, and people should shed light on it.

AS: Yourselves and others have described what you do as psychedelic. What do think contributes most to the psychedelic sound that you have?

AM: 13^th Floor Elevators, the Red Crayola, even Butthole Surfers—a lot psychedelic music comes from Texas. There’s tons of psychedelic music—anything from like Can to modern psychedelic music like Psychic Ills.

AS: Is there something specific that you do musically? Is it what you call the drone machine? Is it the wah-wah pedal? What is it?

AM: It’s not just one thing; it’s everything. It’s the sound, the layers. Christian’s guitar is one of the main things—and Nate [bassist] as well. The overall feel of what we’re doing—I don’t think we never set out to be super, super, super psychedelic to where it’s stuff that doesn’t have a song in it.

AS: When the record first came out, there was a lot of talk about the fact that several you share a house together. How would you describe the relationship between communal living and the band’s writing and touring process as band.

AM: That’s definitely played a part in the cohesiveness of the band. We moved in with eachother—that’s kind of serious, like a big marriage or something. We all moved into the same house. We’re all sitting here listening to the same music, eating the same food, sharing the same stories. So, we’re definitely growing and evolving as a band. Living with each other creates ideas to bounce off of each other all the time. It’s a real positive thing that we all moved in with one another.

AS: Talk about some of the changes that success have brought for you personally.

AM: We still love to tour. Maybe our standards are rising. We’re not sleeping on people’s floors as much anymore.

AS: You get a hotel room instead of a couch?

AM: We get a couch instead of a floor. We sometimes get a room and that makes it an awful lot easier.

AS: Do you drive the bus yourself or do you have a driver?

AM: We have a 15-passenger pan we drive ourselves. We all share driving. We drive with eight or nine or sometimes 15 people in the van, so we’ve got plenty of drivers.

AS: Are you ready for Bonnaroo?

AM: I know it’s a big festival. I’ve never been. A lot of our friends are playing.

AS: You reference the Vietnam War and the Iraq War in your singing and lyrics. Coming of age during the wars since 2001, how has this affected you personally and as a band?

AM: We’re definitely freaked out by everything that’s happening. It’s a scary situation. I’ll never go to war—not unless it’s something I really believe in. I think it’s ridiculous that we’re over there. A lot of people are talking about it but a lot of people are just thinking it and being kind of complacent. There’s definitely parallels between the Sixties and what’s going on right now. It’s really easy to see that we’re falling into the same kind of problems; history’s repeating itself.

AS: Is there already a follow-up to Passover planned?

AM: We’ve got six new songs recorded. Right when we got back from Europe, we tracked six more songs in the studio. We have a lot of material; we’re just trying to figure out when’s the best time to release it. We’re about to do a split with Black Mountain, do you know them?

AS: From Vancouver, they’re phenomenal.

AM: We’re doing three originals, and we’re covering a Black Mountain song.

AS: Are they going to cover one of yours?

AM: I think so; that’s the whole plan.

AS: So you have a split record with Black Mountain and possibly another of your own? So, two new records coming out this year?

AM: Yes.

AS: So what can we expect when we see you on the 30^th?

AM: We’ll be playing a lot of new stuff in the towns we’ve been to before.

AS: So I better let you get to the rest of your calls. I’m sorry about the technical difficulties.

AM: Technology’s always difficult.

They put out the fire that can't be put out:
Cold War Kids, Tokyo Police Club, and Delta Spirit Just Kill it in Nash Vegas

Please see my 'official review' at interference.com/intermedia

Here's another excellent review of the show:

http://outtheother.typepad.com/blog/2007/03/cold_war_kids_m.html

Thanks to Kassi for this setlist:

more or less how it went down, probably with a few gaps:
We Used To Vacation
Red Wine, Success
Rubidoux
Hang Me Up To Dry
Saint John (all out jam session)
Robbers
Hospital Beds
God, Make Up Your Mind
Hair Down
Quiet Please
*Encore*
Tell Me In The Morning
Well, Well, Well – John Lennon Cover

These are some more of Landin King's pictures that did not make it up with the other story. There's one of CWK singer Nathan and me--as well as one I took of Landin and Nathan.

With warmer weather and lots of work, my Spring Concert Season is finally here! Hopefully this blog will get busy with photos, reports, and generally good-hearted buzz about all things about to rock.

Here is my dedicated and delicate itinerary:

3-24 Cold War Kids w/ Tokyo Police Club & Delta Spirit

3-30 Black Angels w/ VietNam

4-12 TV on the Radio

4-23 The Killers

5-2 Arcade Fire

5-26 TOOL

6-14 to 17 Bonnaroo

Jacketastic Still: I am ready to testify after Ogden night two

While I am generally skeptical of competition and comparisons and generalizations and platitudes, I am about to lay them down plain and simple. And while I hate to break it to the fans of other bands, I have seen the future of rock and roll, and its name is My Morning Jacket.

As students of great rock themselves, the Jacket channel their classic influences in a spiritual, non-derivative way. They are rock stars in terms of theatrics but not pretension or ego. We can hear the echoes of Radiohead, Neil Young, Lynard Skynard, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, and so many more.

On stage in strange costumes, Jim James holds court like a science-fiction action-figure protagonist carrying his band of brothers into ever more majestic and mystic moments of pure sonic poetry. This is what rock and roll was supposed to be in their bedrooms when they were fourteen and as it has been engraved on the souls of teenage air-guitarists everywhere. No-fucking wonder Cameron Crowe put them in a movie playing “Freebird.” Because that filmmaker appreciates the mix tape of the soul like few others in Hollywood, as evidenced by the story of Almost Famous and the cheesy but priceless ending of Elizabethtown.

To experience it in such intimacy two nights in a row is profound. To tell of its cinematic and religious qualities is point others to the sounds. But of course this means that the career should take these guys to the next level next time—which means I must cherish this closeness and ineffable camaraderie now. Someday they may hold stadiums rapt, and I can only pray they keep the same playful seriousness in tact. Meanwhile, mainstream radio ignores them, so we know it is through the albums and the shows, the internet and places like the theatrical screenings of Okonokos that we can gather like a tribe, each of us wearing the morning jacket of his or her choice.

In the last few years, I've seen the Flaming Lips, Tool, A Perfect Circle, Coldplay, U2, Scissor Sisters, the Killers, the Mars Volta, the Black Angels, the Black Keys, a wide array of awesome people at the 'roo from Bonnie Raitt to Radiohead to Matisyahu and many more, too many to name.

Over the years, I've seen a serious catalog of live rock shows including acts as diverse as Rush, the Stones, REM, the Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, Grateful Dead, Operation Ivy, Fugazi, the Butthole Surfers, Scratch Acid, Kiss, GWAR, you get the idea. Too many to name, truly.

And frankly, and honestly, and I can only say this heartfully after Denver MMJ for two nights, I've rarely seen a band put on a live show like the Jacket. Best live band on the planet right now.

Best old school rock band of our time. Great by any standards. Big words, yes, and deserving of them this band is.

Wildly, they're still relatively underground. I mean, I still can't get over how cozy the venues they sell out are. With 5 albums behind them, these late twenty-somethings are the music fringe's best kept secret, even after owning a share of what the American rock festival means from Coachella to Bonnaroo to Lollapalooza and many of the smaller festivals and on and on.

Who plays 2 hours or more every night? Who switches the setlist every night? While some nights are mirrors, at least one song will inevitably change. But the two-night stand in Denver shares with the fans some otherworldly shape-shifting ecstasy much like I imagine the multiple nights at the Filmore were.

I don't wish to rag on other hard-working acts, but the serious, traveling fans are paying your freaking bills for heaven's sake! Give us some love, give us some variety, stop settling for 70-minute sets produced every night on auto-pilot.

The Jacket have set a new standard for nailing each song as if the earth depended on it and playing each show as if it were their last. Other bands, please take some notes.

The crossover appeal to jam band fans everywhere should not be understated, but it should not be misrepresented or misinterpreted either. The Jacket groks the integrity of the song and gives its live rendition the space to breathe, but not the space to grow like mold into boring, self-referential, cock-rocking whateverland. They take us to the outer galaxies and back, sure. Yes, they can sustain a musical thought for more than ten minutes, and they can get tweaky and freaky and geeky in the most gifted manner. But they return to rock's mission statement in a way that's both refreshing and chilling, understanding a vocation to write and perform rock songs—not to randomly splash sounds on the sonic canvas.

MMJ has something so sincere to offer, frothing with showmanship but not showing off. I love how tight and completely communal the shows are now, but I imagine bigger things for these deserving guys. It's not a secret I can keep. If you love rock and roll and everything you thought it had lost through thirty years of shitty sell-out commercialism, go see the Jacket. At this point, I could confess, that asking me about this band would be like asking a nun about Jesus.

Hair on the Bear

This is Anu and Viva last night at the second My Morning Jacket show at the Ogden Theatre.

At the end of Golden, I threw my golden wig to the stage. I got a knowing, amused look from Two-Tone Tommy. A song or two later, the hard-working stage tech took the goldilocks mop and placed it on the bear's head. Looking for a picture of my hair on the bear.

Soaked in Reverb & Second-Hand Reefer Smoke: My Morning Jacket at the Ogden Theatre in Denver, night one

At 620 pm, we started the car and started scraping snow. On the road from Lafayette by 630pm. By 710, we're driving through the slippery streets of downtown Denver. God! the blackened piles of snow in the parking lots resemble the mountains in these parts.

Found parking on the street and walked quickly through the surreal chill. By 730pm, we're inside the Ogden. My, this place is small—and basically empty now, even so close to show time. I visit the coat check and get a PBR for only $4 (the cost of a sixpack of PBR, but still, a pretty cheap beer for a show). Rocky (my stepson) and I find a place by the first railing, just above the small section of front floor (the entire lower level being separated by tiers).

(My wife and anticipated date for the night is home with her daughter-in-law-to-be, nursing a cold and waiting on tomorrow night, when all four of us will check out the show.)

We debate about getting right up front, but this spot we found has such an incredible sight line and expected sound, that we decide to stay there. At this point, having only see 'em at the Ryman and the 'roo, I am still utterly shocked by both the small size of the venue and the sparse crowd so close to curtain. Are people just fashionably late or intimidated by the weather? Either way, I'm grateful for the generally mellow and not-too-crowded vibes.

Just after 8, Elvis Perkins and his band take the crowded stage. Speaking the pure language of what's come to be known as freak folk (and reminding me of Dylan, Nick Drake, and Devandra Banhart), this group grooves with acoustic guitar, harmonica, stand-up bass, trombone, and an antique marching-band bass drum. Center stage, there's also something strange and sounding from the keyboard family that my limited knowledge and vocabulary cannot surely name, perhaps a close relative to the concertina, squeezebox, or harmonium. Given the story that they got stranded on the way to Salt Lake and missed last night's show and how utterly tiny the crowd still is at this point, this ensemble puts on an emotive and playful set, only making me wish I'd made myself more familiar with their stuff before tonight.

Elvis Perkins and people exited the stage around 845pm. By this time, the club finally started to feel full, and during the break, more people came in from the cold. But, compared to some shows, it was still really easy to move around and get to the bathroom and bar and back in plenty of time for the buildup to lights down and jacket up. Around, 925pm, the place went black, the old-school pre-show music filled the room, and the Jacket was with us. “One Big Holiday” proves the perfect opener, and we're off.

The show had many breathtaking, mind-stretching moments. When Jim's pipes climbed to the high, high notes at the end of “Wordless Chorus,” the “weeowoohwah” or whatever-it-is-so-angelic-and-eerie-that he does struck itself inside my soul. He finds a similar synthesis of soul-soothing and spirit-shocking inside “It Beats For You.”

Just as Jim finds such elusive epiphanies with his vocal yoga, the band bends its own massive metaphors when channeling the classic-rock gods—as in the spacier, harder, longer, let's-not-call-them-jam-band-moments of tracks like “Lay Low,” “Run Thru,” Steam Engine,” and “Mahgeetah.”

As good as it is in such a small room with such great sound and friendly folks heating up a hideously chilly night, there's something just a little off about it all. Our bassist Two Tone Tommy needs a chair to sit for a few tracks and seems generally woozy or grumpy or something. In general, the whole band has an end-of-the-leg leeriness about it, an understandable “We just risked our lives getting here, and we're tired as fuck” mood.

In one of his few moments of speechifying between songs, Jim referred directly to the death-defying drives, of trusting the tour bus driver to face the snow drifts safely. He also mentioned a flu in the whole crew, suggesting that no-one kiss the band-members tonight.

When we think about the 115 minute set in the context of how utterly whipped they all must be, we can understand how heroic they still are in spite of it, giving 200% for the fans who risked as much just getting there, too.

Our family member reverb can be defined as “the acoustic environment that surrounds a sound.” One very cold Colorado Friday night, the Ogden Theatre patrons were soaked in sacred reverb and smoked-out by second-hand reefer fumes. By the end of the show, I could loosen my scarf and feel the heat of: Carl and Jim's dueling guitars; Patrick's cymbal-riffs rocketing through my head; Tommy's bass bad-assedly thumping my third-eye; and Bo's bopping keyboard cool keeping it soulful and real.

The show lacked any cover songs and several favorites we might wish for tomorrow tonight, when I expect they'll mix it up just a little and play longer, as Jim made more than one remark to those he expected to see two nights in a row.

Setlist (please forgive and correct any errors):

1. One Big Holiday

2. What a Wonderful Man

3. Gideon

4. The Way That He Sings

5. Wordless Chorus

6. Lay Low

7. Phone Went West

8. Off the Record

9. It Beats for You

10. Golden

11. Dondante

12. Run Thru

13. They Ran

BREAK

14. Bermuda Highway

15. Knot Comes Loose

16. Steam Engine

17. Mahgeetah

18. Anytime

photo by Anu

Zero Degrees and Waiting

This week, we traveled to Denver to visit family and friends—but also to catch the last two nights on My Morning Jacket's winter tour that included three larger-than-life nights to ring in the New Year in San Francisco.

My people here assure me that recent Colorado winters have not been so severe, but now that I'm experiencing the bone-chilling temperatures and colossal piles of snow first-hand, a part of me cannot help exclaiming inside “What were you thinking!?!?!” Checking the weather has become ritual, and now that Friday has arrived, we have temperatures around zero. Last night, there were flurries in the air, and another dusting is expected tonight. This report from last night's Jacket show in Salt Lake City deal directly with the snow:

“Many a band would have used the day-long snowstorm Thursday to duck out on a potentially disastrous show in Salt Lake City to assure their arrival for two sold-out gigs in Denver. But My Morning Jacket proved yet again that they are far from typical with an epic performance at The Depot.
The quintet lost its opening band on the way to Zion, and weren't sure if much of a crowd would show, but My Morning Jacket found much more than a packed room when they arrived at the venue Thursday. They found the inspiration to deliver a deadly, energetic set that will surely increase the positive word-of-mouth they deserve before their next visit. [. . .]
Who: My Morning Jacket When: Thursday Where: The Depot, Salt Lake City The Bottom Line: The Louisville rock act braved a blizzard to deliver two hours of far-reaching rock.”

(http://www.sltrib.com/themix/ci_4998610 )

The last time I attended a General Admission gig (the Killers in Philadelphia, about a month ago), the weather was so mild that we were able to come early and line-up outside for a prime space inside. Tonight, we won't have that luxury, but I'm hoping others will only show up when the doors open as well. As on the moment as the MMJ online forum is, there's no place we can look online to confirm that the tour bus has made safe passage from Utah to the parking spot closest to the Ogden Theatre's stage door.

When I was very young, my brother, Dad, and I attended a KISS concert at the Cleveland Coliseum. We had only been able to score rear-stage, obstructed-view seats. But the night of the show, a monstrous blizzard hit. Surprisingly, a lot of people stayed home but the show went on. We 'upgraded' to incredible seats and had an awesome, ear-bleeding time. A rock fan was born inside my 11-year-old body that night. The obsession for going to shows would follow me to middle age. Tonight, I can only hope that the Jacket are like KISS and that the fans are like we were in the respect that despite the snow, the show must go on.

Seattle gig Photo by Gregory A. Perez from

http://depts.washington.edu/kexp/blog/?p=1671

Confirmed: Jacket Fanatic

Photo by Angela Prazza from mymorningjacket.com

Back in the day (as in 1988), I resented it when people called me a Deadhead. While I still enjoy the music that the Dead made and have an honest respect for the nomads who lived on the road with them, my musical tastes and social demeanor never could fit the jammed-out pigeon hole.

Those who dubbed me a “peace punk” were perhaps closer to the mark, but really, there's no musicological page in the vast backpack of rock fandom on which to scribble my story. Rather, I'll fill notebooks until the day I die with sonic testimonials and still feel restless and unsatisfied with any singular label. One tag is too limiting, but multiple, meandering, effusive lists of combinations and revelations, well, that's another thing entirely. Which brings us to the Jacket, My Morning Jacket—the Kentucky-based, ass-kicking, reverb-breathing answer to my rock-and-roll prayers.

Jim James, Patrick Hallahan, Two-Tone Tommy, Carl Broemel, and Bo Koster—this quintessential quintet consistently justify the bushel of adjectives and elusive epiphanies that critics regularly harvest off an imaginary Kentucky farm to describe them. “Spontaneous, spacey, soulful” says August Brown in the Los Angeles Times.

Writing in the rival LA Weekly, and previewing a recent southern California show, Scott T. Sterling nails it like a Carl Broemel guitar riff: “What’s the story, morning glory? Jam bands not only got cool while you weren’t paying attention, they got good — really good, in the case of Louisville sluggers My Morning Jacket. The truest missing link between Coachella and Bonnaroo, MMJ pile on the reverb for headphone fiends but never lose sight of the song, no matter how far afield their telepathically tight improvisation takes them. It’s no surprise that their last album, Okonokos, was a live one, bordering on the epic majesty they’re known for creating in the flesh. If Phish were the Grateful Dead, Part 2, MMJ are the actual evolution, Jerry’s revenge in the form of an outfit wise enough to take sonic mind expansion and genuine musicianship to that hallowed next level. These fellas are an honest band for scarily dishonest times. Reality — what a concept.”

So, while I was much too young to really claim the Dead as my own—although I was privileged to see them twice with Jerry in 1987 and 1988—and frankly, I never could get behind the post-Dead delirium that coalesced around Phish and Widespread Panic. But my Kentucky neighbors and the veritable Bonnaroo house band combine a fierce, falsetto-driven, melodic edginess that belongs to popular alt-rock with a brain-bending blitzkrieg of banger blessings that only the heads with headphones understand. And you can dance to it.

When the breakthrough album Z pierced me to the core, the upbeat whiteboy funkiness of “Off the Record” struck my soul as inspired by the dervish-spinning nature of devotees always on tour. This Dead-meets-disco spirit comes fully realized on the recent New Year's Eve tapes—originally broadcast on the radio and available for download from archive-dot-org—where covers of Kool and the Gang's “Celebration” and Lionel Richie's “All Night Long” ushered in 2007.

This week, when the post-holiday, winter blues should have me buried, I'm instead anticipating two Jacket shows in Denver like Christmas morning. To be continued.

Best Records of 2006!

Yes, I know that "best of" lists are ubiquitous--yet ambiguous and ridiculous at best.

Who cares what records I wasted money buying or time downloading and actually loving this year?

But I read movie and music lists incessantly, so why not share my own? So, here are my faves from a calendar year when my collecting was particularly prolific.

1. Tool—10,000 Days

2. The Killers—Sam's Town

3. Red Hot Chili Peppers—Stadium Arcadium

4. Black Angels—Jerusalem

5. My Morning Jacket—Okonokos

6. The Flaming Lips—At War with the Mystics

7. TV On the Radio—Return to Cookie Mountain

8. Michael Franti & Spearhead—Yell Fire!

9. Ben Harper—Both Sides of the Gun

10. Gnarls Barkley—St. Elsewhere

11. The Black Keys—Magic Potion

12. Scissor Sisters—Ta Dah

13. The Strokes—First Impressions of Earth

14. Snow Patrol—Eyes Open

15. Thom Yorke—The Eraser

16. Espers—Espers II

17. Damien Rice—9

18. Sean Lennon—Friendly Fire

19. Goldfrapp—Supernature

20. Matisyahu—Youth

21. Cold War Kids—Robbers & Cowards

22. Bruce Springsteen—We Shall Overcome: the Seeger Sessions

23. Keane—Under the Iron Sea

24. Wolfmother—Wolfmother

25. Pearl Jam—Pearl Jam

26. Cat Power—The Greatest

27. Dresden Dolls—Yes, Virginia

28. Peaches—Impeach My Bush

29. The Rapture—Pieces of the People We Love

30. Raconteurs—Broken Boy Soldiers

31. Sonic Youth—Rather Ripped

32. Richard Ashcroft—Keys to the World

33. Chumbawamba—A Singsong and a Scrap

34. Belle and Sebastian—The Life Pursuit

35. Silversun Pickups—Carnavas

36. Muse—Black Holes & Revelations

37. The Mars Volta—Amputechture

38. Beck—Information

39. Live—Songs from Black Mountain

40. The Alarm—Under Attack