DIRTY DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS TAKE IT BACK ON FADER MAGAZINE

A tip from largehearted boy, a boy, a girl, and his radio on the Drive-By Truckers being on the latest issue of The Fader on the June 2004 magazine cover. Cool story by wil welch and photography by danny clinch. Titled: "RISING SONS: THE DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS—THE SECOND GENERATION OF THE MUSCLE SHOALS SOUND—MAKE HISTORY". More on Drive-By Truckers .

Also see the strange relationship of the Drive-By Truckers to Lynyrd Skynyrd and Neil Young. Such is the Duality of the Southern Thing.

MOJO's Top 100 Epic Rock Tracks

A tip from The Rock and Roll Report on MOJO Magazine's Top 100 Epic Rock Tracks in the April 2004 issue. Here's a small sample. Interesting to See Neil Young with Buffalo Springfield's "Broken Arrow" at #79 -- right between Sonic Youth and Fleetwood Mac.

69 The Monkees - Randy Scouse Git
70 Sonic Youth - Tunic (Song For Karen)
71 The Stone Roes - Breaking Into Heaven
72 Roy Harper - The Lord's Prayer
74 McAlmont & Butler - Yes
75 Greateful Dead - Dark Star
76 Klaus Schulze - Friedrich Nietzsche
77 David McWilliams - The Days Of Pearly Spencer
78 Julian Cope - Safesurfer
79 Buffalo Springfield - Broken Arrow
80 Iron Butterfly - In-A-Gadda-De-Vida
81 Alex Harvey - Isobel Goudie
82 Flowered Up - Weekender
83 David Gates - Suite: Clouds, Rain
84 Fleetwood Mac - The Chain

More on The Buffalo Springfield .

No Depression with Patty Griffin

The latest issue of No Depression is out now with Patty Griffin on the cover.

Lots of great live reviews of Old 97's, Damnwells in New York City, NY; Gear Daddies in Minneapolis, MN; Chris Stamey & Peter Holsapple in Santa Monica, CA; Scott Miller & the Commonwealth in Hattiesburg, MS; Steve Earle in Boulder, CO; Jason Ringenberg in Chicago, IL; NRBQ in Chapel Hill, NC; Drive-By Truckers in Richmond, VA; Hank Williams III, Scott Biram in San Francisco, CA; Tribute to Townes Van Zandt in Utrecht, Netherlands; Tribute to Jack Emerson in Nashville, TN.

So No Depression now!

Tonight's The Night - Now Playing @ Chromewaves

Always good to hear folks picking up on Neil's doom trilogy over on .: chromewaves.net v5.0:

"Neil Young / Tonight's The Night - It's to my shame that I didn't have this record before now. Hell, I'd never even heard it before now - pretty lame for a self-professed Neil disciple.

In fact, I've let Decade stand in for his prime 70s material in my collection for too long now. I'm beginning the slow (but thankfully inexpensive) task of building up my collection of Neil. "

OK, but how about Time Fades Away? ;)

More on Neil Young's Tonight's The Night album and the "Doom Trilogy".

Businessmen, they drink my wine - Dylan & Italian Winemaker

From Wine Spectator 's Daily Wine News on an Italian winemaker producing a wine called Planet Waves after the Bob Dlylan album.

So Dylan's lyrics 'Businessmen, they drink my wine, None of them along the line know what any of it is worth' ( from 'All Along the Watchtower') may just well be true.

If all goes well, the winemaker and the musicmaker will continue their joint venture. 'I've been a Bob Dylan fan since the first time I heard him, and I didn't even understand English then,' winemaker Terni said. 'I never imagined we'd make a wine together.' "

Learning How To Die - A New Wilco Book by Greg Kot

A new book on the band Wilco is being released called Learning How To Die by Greg Kot. It includes many interesting stories on the band's history and acclaimed recordings. Also, the influence of Neil Young on Wilco's sound. From the site:

"The intimate story of one of the great American bands of our time, creators of the controversial masterpiece Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

When alt-country heroes-turned-rock-iconoclasts Wilco handed in their fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, to the band’s label, Reprise, a division of Warner Brothers, fans looked forward to the release of another challenging, genre-bending departure from their previous work. The band aimed to build on previous sales and critical acclaim with its boldest and most ambitious album yet, but was instead urged by skittish Reprise execs to make the record more “radio friendly.” When Wilco wouldn’t give, they found themselves without a label. Instead, they used the Internet to introduce the album to their fans, and eventually sold the record to Nonesuch, another division of Warner. Wilco was vindicated when the album debuted at No. 13 on the Billboard charts and posted the band’s strongest sales to date.

Wilco: Learning How to Die traces the band’s story to its deepest origins in Southern Illinois, where Jeff Tweedy began growing into one of the best songwriters of his generation. As we witness how his music grew from its punk and alt-country origins, some of the key issues and questions in our culture are addressed: How is music of substance created while the gulf between art and commerce widens in the corporate consolidation era? How does the music industry make or break a hit? How do working musicians reconcile the rewards of artistic risk with the toll it exacts on their personal life?

This book was written with the cooperation of Wilco band members past and present. It is also fully up to date, covering the latest changes in personnel and the imminent release of the band’s fifth album, A Ghost Is Born, sure to be one of the most talked-about albums of 2004."

An excerpt from the book discusses the influence of Neil Young on Uncle Tupelo, Jeff Tweedy, and Jay Farrar:

"Plenty of musical tributaries converged in the early recordings of Uncle Tupelo, but one of the most prominent was Neil Young - the off-the-cuff, midnight-of-the-soul Young of Tonight's the Night and On The Beach , as well as the hippie balladeer of "Harvest" and the primitive guitar genius of "Down By the River."

'You can't underestimate Young's influence on that whole scene,' says journalist Richard Byrne.

'I would say the main reason I got what was happening was because I was a huge Tonight's the Night fan, and Tonight's the Night was the album for all of these guys, for Brian Henneman, for Jay Farrar, for Jeff Tweedy. They were hearing the country and folk stuff that they grew up around, and they were listening to all their SST punk records, and Neil crystallized it for them.' "

More on Wilco and Neil Young.

What's Bob Dylan doing in a Victoria's Secret ad?

Well that's a good question.

In a Slate story titled "Tangled Up in Boobs" by Seth Stevenson on Dylan's use of "Love Sick" by Victoria's Secret:

"When Bob Dylan shows up in a Victoria's Secret commercial, it immediately triggers three questions. The first is: Am I hallucinating? Seriously, I think I'm hallucinating—can you see Bob Dylan, and did you eat the same shrimp I ate? The second is: Why on earth would Bob Dylan do this? And the third, and perhaps most puzzling, is: Why on earth would Victoria's Secret do this?"

And if you must see the commercial, you can view it on Victoria's Secret . Now that's really love sick.

Iraq Is Not Another Vietnam ... At Least Musically Speaking

From LA Weekly column by Nikki Finke on the music's difference between the Vietnam War era and now:

" Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young spoke for a generation with its plaintive 'Ohio' in the wake of the National Guard's murdering of four at Kent State in 1970 ' a far cry from Young's perversely jingoistic post-9/11 'Let's Roll.' Where is today's anti-war anthem? (For Chrissake, 'Mr. Blowin' in the Wind' Bob Dylan is doing Victoria's Secret commercials.)

Will anyone pen a musical liturgy for Thomas Hamill, the Mississippian taken hostage in Iraq who, faced with crushing debt, his wife's open-heart surgery bills, a family to support and a recession-plagued economy, took a last-resort job with a contractor supplying the troops in the most dangerous place on earth ...?"

More on the state of music today.

The Revolution In Radio

Well you know how slow the major media is in picking up trends.

Witness the article in this week's TIME.com titled "The Revolution In Radio" (Apr. 19, 2004):

"Just a few years ago, online radio heads were mainly tech geeks willing to put up with patchy, low-quality sound. These days about 19 million people listen to online radio at least once a week, up from 7 million in 2000, according to Arbitron. Online listenership is growing at an average 43% a year as more people get broadband connections at home and tune in for content that's unavailable or in short supply on commercial stations, from blues to folk to Al Franken's new liberal Air America network, which is broadcast in just a few markets on the AM/FM dial but was streamed 2 million times in its first week, according to its exclusive webcaster, RealNetworks.

'People are fed up with terrestrial radio,' says Dave Goldberg, who oversees Yahoo's music site and radio network, Launchcast, which draws 1 million listeners a week. "

Oh really? You mean folks are tired of corporate radio? What's next? Probably tired of weekly news magazines that lag a year or 2 behind the trends.

You can check out more on future of radio on a new blog put out by Mark (producer of The Rock and Roll Report) called The Community Radio Report. The Report's mission: "Listening to the world one community radio station at a time."

A Ghost Is Born

From chromewaves, our newest reliable Wilco news source, comes word that "A Ghost Is Born" is now available to preview on Wilco World.

Also, in the good news/bad news department, Jeff Tweedy has checked into a clinic according to the Chicago Tribune. Tweedy has had a history of migraines, and has unsuccessfully battled them with prescription painkillers.

Wilco has postponed release of 'A Ghost is Born,' to June 22.

Get well soon and take care Jeff.

And in a side note to the release of the new album which has been widely circulated in advance via file sharing, comes word from
Americana UK News that Wilco has established a site for fans to make a contribution after illegally downloading the album. The site, justafan.org is designed specifically for those Wilco fans who have illegally downloaded the upcoming album as a place to donate their money in compensation. Through word-of-mouth, the website brought in over $1,500 in its first day. All proceeds will go to the band's selected charity, Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Wilco manager, Tony Margherita, said:

"The band and I think this idea is great because it just underscores something we believe very strongly: that real music fans are prepared, even anxious, to prove their loyalty and support their favorite artists. They want to participate. These people are not the enemy... They're the backbone of what we all do. Plus, we get to support a charity that we think is very important, and I'm certain that a vast majority of the people who are downloading the record are going to want the real thing when it comes out in June."

Tweedy adds:

"The impulse to make music is as strong as it ever was... making CDs is not our reason to exist. We're a band because we like to play together, and feel good about playing in front of people, and we've always made our living doing that. That isn't going to change."

Carrie Snodgress: 1947 - 2004

Actress Carrie Snodgress, whose career included an Oscar nomination for 'Diary of a Mad Housewife' died on April 1, 2004 at the age of 57. Snodgress and Neil Young had a son named Zeke.

More on Carrie Snodgress and Neil Young.

Bob Dylan in Concert: April 3, 2004, American University, Washington D.C.

A raspy Bob Dylan made three appearances in Washington, DC this past weekend. We caught the middle show on Saturday, April 3, 2004, at American University, Washington D.C. A terrific show and lots of classic Bob tunes.

I was somewhat dismayed that he never played guitar and stuck to the keyboards the entire show. Aside from some harmonica breaks, it was all keys all the time. Not to worry though. Maybe he was trying to save his voice which sounded like he'd been on the road a long time.

Here's a short movie clip of Highway 61.

The Washington Post.com's critic Joe Heim had this to say about the previous night's 9:30 Club appearance:

"Barely acknowledging the sold-out crowd, he crouched behind his keyboards at the left side of the stage and faced his band instead of the audience. For the length of the two-hour show it was as if the exuberant fans who greeted each song with roars simply didn't exist."

From Bob Dates a review by Shoe Shine:

"From the get go, Dylan blasted out of cd's, books, and vinyl to give you
the real thing with full on throttle and delivered maggie's farm like it
was written hours ago. Some would say his voice is worn, but I'll say it's
just evolved and there were times throughout the evening when right out of
nowhere you heard a voice dead on pitch from 30-some years ago. Still
sings 'em like he knows his song well and each song was a keeper,
re-electrified as another would say and handled with care."

Setlist from Bob Links fro April 3, 2004, American University, Washington D.C.

Maggie's Farm
The Times They Are A-Changin' (acoustic)
Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
Ring Them Bells
Down Along The Cove
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Dignity
Ballad Of Hollis Brown (acoustic)
Highway 61 Revisited
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (acoustic)
Bye And Bye
Honest With Me
Standing In The Doorway
Summer Days
(1st encore)

Cat's In The Well
Like A Rolling Stone
All Along The Watchtower
(2nd encore)

Rainy Day Women #12 & 35

Also, over on bobdylan.com, some of the DC stand's concert cuts are available including "Tryin' To Get To Heaven" at Warner Theatre, Washington, DC, 4/4/04, An exceedingly rare performance of "Hazel", Washington, DC, 4/2/04, and "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine", Washington, DC, 4/2/04.

And check out the story behind Bob and Neil.

Kurt Cobain: February 20, 1967 - April 5, 1994

Kurt would have been 37 years old today. There has been a tremendous amount of coverage of the 10th anniversary of his passing including vigils held in Seattle.

Cobain wrote 'It's Better to burn out, than to fade away' from Neil Young's song 'My My, Hey Hey' lyrics in his suicide note and the mourning and grieving still continues.

Cobain's use of the lyrics had a profound impact on Young, who recorded portions of the 1994 'Sleeps With Angels' album in his memory. While there has been debate about whether Kurt Cobain or Neil Young is the "Godfather of Grunge", today it all seems to be a rather moot point.

From The Rock and Roll Report:

"You can toss all that "voice of a generation" crap out the window and summarize what Kurt Cobain did for rock and roll quite succinctly: he re-introduced both the guitar and attitude back into rock and roll while relegating the spandex and smoke bombs to the sideline and this is something rock and roll always needs once in awhile to keep its excessiveness in check.

The fact that he killed himself is a sad and tragic fact that will unfortunately always overshadow his contribution to rock and roll in the years to come as the way he died and not the music he created with the rest of the guys in Nirvana will be the lasting memory most people will have of Kurt Cobain. That is perhaps the saddest legacy of all.

If you really want to pay tribute to Kurt Cobain, don't bother with all the bullshit of why or how he died but listen to his music and those bands and musicians that influenced him. Then maybe try and pick up a guitar yourself and see what happens."

Well said Mark. Thanks.

Kurt is gone but not forgotten. So long live grunge!

Archived comments on Cobain's legacy.

The Moon Is A Lightbulb Breaking: In Memory Of Elliott Smith

From MAGNET Magazine a tribute to Elliott Smith's music by Corey duBrowa:

"Like Elliott Smith - as big a Beatles fan as there probably ever was - I never met John Lennon. I saw Nirvana as many times as most people of my relative age and musical proclivities (maybe even a few more, since I was practically in their backyard when the band and grunge 'broke'), but Kurt Cobain was always more of a generational icon to me than any kind of tangible presence. I was living in New York when Jeff Buckley emerged fully formed from his residency at Sin-e to go on to critical acclaim and superstardom. But standing several rows back from the stage in a Manhattan nightclub was as close as I ever got to him.

Elliott Smith, on the other hand, was decidedly real to me. Human. Humble. Flawed. Generous. Opinionated. Fragile. He was all of these things (and a good deal more) to countless others as well."

More on Elliott Smith and his musical legacy.

The 10 best rock bands ever

A provocative article on MSNBC by Blogcritic's Eric Olsen on "The 10 best rock bands ever". Actually, not really that provocative since most of the selections are pretty obvious. But there are a few surprises with Bob Marley and the Wailers, Sly and the Family Stone, The Ramones and The Velvet Underground.

And just as interesting is the accompanying poll asking "Which one of these bands should be dropped from the Top 10 list?"

Based on 71,449 responses here's a tabulation of who folks think should be dropped:

Sly and the Family Stone - 29%
Velvet Underground - 25%
Ramones - 13%
U2 - 10%
Bob Marley and the Wailers - 9%
The Grateful Dead - 7%
The Beatles - 2%
The Rolling Stones - 2%
Pink Floyd - 2%
Led Zeppelin - 1%

Interesting that Led Zeppelin comes ahead of Beatles & The Rolling Stones on being dropped from the listing. More commentary on the selections on The Rock and Roll Report.