Monthly Archives: December 2008

Upcoming Show: Cracker at Mississippi Moon Bar in Dubuque, IA 2/7/09

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Why is David Lowery smiling?

Friday was a day of surprises for me– I found out a new venue just opened in Dubuque called Mississippi Moon Bar that is part of the new Diamond Jo Casino. Last week was their grand opening complete with a VIP show with Cheap Trick. The wife of a guy I work with works at the casino so he filled me in on the details. It looks like there will be a pretty good selection of upcoming acts (for Dubuque, anyway– Darius Rucker? The Doobie Brothers?). I was really surprised to see a Cracker show listed on the calendar in February. I jumped in and got first row seats. Apparently every seat in the house is less than 80 feet from the stage according to my brother, Steve.

Anyway, any reason to see either Cracker or Camper Van Beethoven is a good reason, and Dubuque is a pretty short drive and it’s on a weekend. Tickets are on sale now and at least as of today there are still fantastic seats available on the floor by the stage. Tickets are $25 for regular reserved seats (or standing) and $35 for fancy table seats or boxed seats. I’ve never seen the venue, so I don’t know what those are like (or if they are really worth more than front row?).

Click Here for Cracker’s Official Website

Click Here for Cracker’s MySpace Page (which they apparently hate).

Click Here for the Mississippi Moon Bar site.

Overheard on TV: The Heavy “Dignity” on Entourage

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Under doctor’s orders, Sherry was to get some rest so we took the opportunity to catch up on some TV. For some reason we forgot to set HBO’s Entourage to record for the season, so thanks to OnDemand, we watched the entire 5th season in one sitting. Man, that is the only way to watch that show! Next season looks pretty promising with Vince working with Martin Scorsese.

Next to Grey’s Anatomy, Entourage has been a constant source of new music for me. I first heard TV on the Radio on Entourage, in fact. In Episode 65, titled “Play’n With Fire” during the scene where Ari flies to the “Smokejumpers” set to try to salvage a bad situation, a very funky, grungy song called “Dignity” by the UK band The Heavy is playing. It features very prominently in the scene and with it’s lifted instantly recognizable slap and tambourine percussion from “Gimme Good Loving” by the Spencer Davis Group it sticks in yer skull.

The Heavy is a band from the UK who are on the great HipHop and Electronica label Ninja Tune. In addition to their own stable of artists, Ninja Tune distributes Quannum for the rest of the world. “Dignity” is from the band’s 2007 debut release Great Vengeance & Furious Fire. They are primarily guitarist Dan Taylor and vocalist Kelvin Swaby. This band kind of takes the stripped down blues of The Black Keys and funks it up a bit. Lots of interesting samples provide the beats. This album is going to ride on my iPhone for a while!

Click Here for The Heavy’s MySpace Page

Click Here for The Heavy’s Website

Click Here to Listen to “Dignity” by The Heavy on Hype Machine (click the play arrow)


Upcoming Show: Mark Olson & Gary Louris at CSPS in Cedar Rapids 2/19/09

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Mark Olson & Gary Louris by Steven Cohen Photography

Mark Olson & Gary Louris by Steven Cohen Photography

Ready for the Flood, the new album from former Jayhawks members Mark Olson and Gary Louris is due for release on January 27th according to Amazon.com and other sources. Ready for the Flood was originally supposed to be released on September 15th on Olson’s home label Hacktone but was moved to New West Records, current home of John Hiatt, The Old 97’s and The Drive By Truckers and other artists who compliment Olson and Louris’s country-influenced sound.

Ready for the Flood was recorded in January with production help from Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, who also worked on Louris’s brilliant solo album Vagabonds. Since both Louris and Olson had solo records released last year that still needed to be promoted and toured, they decided to delay the release until late this year, and now the release is moved to January with the label switch.

Shortly on the heels of Flood’s release Olson and Louris will kick off a tour during February in support of the album hitting small venues across the nation, wrapping up at a hometown show in Minneapolis at the Varsity Theatre. If any of the torrents of the live shows in Europe are any indication, these shows will be a Jayhawks fan’s dream pulling songs from the new album and songs from the Jayhawks catalog in an intimate stripped-down acoustic set.

Olson and Louris will be playing the (sadly) best-kept secret venue of Cedar Rapids, CSPS on February 19th. Mark Olson played a well-received show there in February this year– in fact it will be almost a year to the date! Tickets are $17 in advance and $20 the day of the show.

Feb 3 2009 7:00P
The Ark Ann Arbor, Michigan
Feb 4 2009 7:00P
The Mod Club Toronto, Ontario
Feb 6 2009 7:00P
Somerville Theater Somerville, Massachusetts
Feb 7 2009 7:00P
Zankel Hall @ Carnegie Hall New York, New York
Feb 9 2009 7:00P
Sellersville Theater Sellersville, Pennsylvania
Feb 10 2009 7:00P
Birchmere Alexandria, Virginia
Feb 11 2009 7:00P
The Arts Center Carrboro, North Carolina
Feb 13 2009 7:00P
Eddie’s Attic Atlanta, Georgia
Feb 14 2009 7:00P
Exit/In Nashville, Tennessee
Feb 15 2009 7:00P
Phoenix Hill Tavern Louisville, Kentucky
Feb 17 2009 7:00P
Blueberry Hill St. Louis, Missouri
Feb 18 2009 7:00P
Mojo’s Columbia, Missouri
Feb 19 2009 7:00P
CSPS Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Feb 20 2009 7:00P
Park West Chicago, Illinois
Feb 21 2009 7:00P
Varsity Theater Minneapolis, Minnesot

Click Here to visit the MySpace page for Ready for the Flood with song samples

Click Here to visit the Facebook Event I created.


Umphrey’s McGee Mantis Cover Art, Track List and another “leaked” track

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The UM camp released some more information about Mantis recently including a large version of the album artwork, the track listing, another track from the radio promo and some nifty wallpapers. From The Floor blog, we get the radio edit of “Spires” as well. Notably, the “Made to Measure” that the band made available to everyone who signed up for a UMLive account is the full version of the track at 3:12. If you want to hear “Preamble” it is the first song played in the player on the Mantis mini-site.

Here is the tracklisting for Mantis:

1. Made to Measure 3:12

2. Preamble 0:36

3. Mantis 11:49

4. Cemetery Walk 7:30

5. Cemetery Walk II 2:19

6. Turn & Run 7:25

7. Spires 7:41

8. Prophecy Now 2:47

9. Red Tape 5:43

10. 1348 4:49

Total Running Time : 54:04

In case anyone was worried that Mantis was going to be some exploration in radio-friendly pop music based on “Made to Measure,” check out the track times. There are four songs over seven minutes, and one song clocks in at 11:49! So, while this may be an album representing a change in the band, they aren’t eschewing extended workouts from their catalog.

Click Here to Download the Radio Edit of “Spires”

Click Here to go to the Mantis mini-site and pre-order the album, and download some nifty wallpapers.

“Again with the Mantis and the Madness?” More Mantis Updates

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Developments in the Umphrey’s McGee camp as it applies to the release of Mantis are keeping me pretty busy here. Mostly this is because I’m one of the folks who has invested in the pre-order of the album, so I’m eagerly awaiting any surprise freebies, downloads, etc. While the pre-order crowd waits for the stalled progress bar on the Mantis page to move to unlocking Level 7 and exposing the promise of Level 8 with baited breath, other events have transpired this week.

It seems that promos have been sent to radio stations who are “crunchy friendly” or would play Umphrey’s McGee in their rotation. This promo CD has radio edits of three songs apparently– the already-shared “Made to Measure” which is now freely available to anyone who clicks on the link on the page and signs up for a UMLive account, “Cemetery Walk” which is currently on the band blog complete with a posting talking about the development of the song which started back in 2007, and another track called “Spires” which was apparently aired on a couple of radio stations already.

Click Here to download “Cemetery Walk” (This is the obscured link on the blog page player– so if they take this down, this link won’t work).

In addition to all of this, Thursday this week (12/4) is when the pre-order folks will be able to download “Level 1” of the pre-order bonus material, which has some really cool stuff in it including four tracks of their 2005 Acoustic Christmas Benefit Show. More on that when I get to download that on Thursday.

Stay tuned!