
Friday night Chris Kasper performed at World Cafe Live (downstairs) opening for ALO ( Animal Liberation Orchestra ). Kasper is currently on tour with ALO. His touring band consists of Daniel Bower (drums, vocals) and Will Wright (bass, vocals). But for Friday night's show, the hometown show, there were a few special guest musicians added. Chris Kasper was also joined by Andrew Keenan (pedal steel, guitar), Jaron Olevsky (keys, accordion), and Kiley Ryan (vocals). I've seen plenty of Chris Kasper [...]

Born from a friendship nurtured during their days at Saratoga High School, the band calling themselves Django consisted of Zach Gill (Keyboards/Vocals), Steve Adams (Bass Guitar/Vocals), Dan Lebowitz (Guitars/Percussion/Vocals) and Matt West (Drums/Vocals). Changing names and drummers repeatedly, and evolving into a nine-piece ensemble featuring a brass section, the eventual Animal Liberation Orchestra began drawing enormous attention in the Santa Barbara area with their rousing stage shows. When Zach, Dan and Steve returned to their hometown Saratoga, they stripped back down to a quartet, playing with a wide variety of different drummers, including Shree Shyam Das, Matt Butler, [...]

Filed under: Concerts and Tours , News On Monday, Cloud 9 Adventures unveiled the itinerary -- including dates, lineup and port stops -- for the ninth incarnation of its flagship event, Jam Cruise . Billed as a "musical adventure at sea," Jam Cruise has become something of a grand prize for jam bands and their fans over the years and the annual cruise easily ranks among the world's best destination festivals. Jam Cruise 9 will depart from Fort Lauderdale on January 4, 2011 for a five-day journey [...]
Earlier this year, West Coast favorites ALO released their latest album Man Of The World via their pal Jack Johnson's Brushfire Records. The band has teamed up with photographer extraordinaire Jay Blakesberg to create a music video for Big Appetite - which features stop motion animation taken from over 22,000 still photographs of the band... ALO - Big Appetite ALO will hit the road this May for a string of headlining shows bookended by two festival [...]
A Look At Two Albums Lil Wayne, Rebirth - We're going to give Lil' Wayne lots of credit for branching out and trying to expand his music to a new genre. Not resting on his ubiquitous success in hip-hop, the...

Eye of the Tiger Freestyle-Fabolous Eye of the Tiger-The Rural Alberta Advantage E of the T-Josh Joplin zip of all three Eye of the Tiger-Animal LIberation Orchestra (direct link) EoftheT-Rev Tor Band (direct link) Eye of the Tiger-Barefoot Manner (direct link)

Filed under: Concerts and Tours , News , New Music , Exclusive Last April, ALO (Animal Liberation Orchestra) holed up in Hawaii with their longtime friend and cohort, Jack Johnson , at his north shore studio, Mango Tree. With Johnson in the producer's seat, the band was able to complete work on their new album, which will drop in February. "We had a great month experimenting and coming up with sounds, writing lyrics and songs with Jack," bassist Steve Adams tells Spinner. "It was a real sweet [...]

Am I the biggest Fleetwood Mac fan ever? Definitely not. I'm pretty much a Rumours and Greatest Hits guy, although I can get into Tusk now and then. Still, everyone's gotta recognize that Rumours is one of the greatest rock albums ever, and most of their hits are solid. Plus, lotsa indie folks have covered them. So, they get an A to Z. Their most covered song, by far, is "Dreams." In this A to Z, I'm gonna rate the Dreams covers against the original, which rates an A+ as a pop [...]

San Francisco's gayest looking straight bandleader, Huey Lewis burst on the music scene by slamming his whole head into a sink full of ice water in the video for "I Want a New Drug." It was a tight song, if a little cliche, and became wildly popular. Wow! If you sing about drugs and sex, you get a hit! Whodathunkit? Anyhow, I don't feel guilty for liking I Want A New Drug and, moreover, I don't really like it all that much . . . I Want a New Drug-Keller Williams [...]
Probably the only artist covered by more indies than Bob Dylan is Neil Young. Why do we love folks with such horrendously bad singing voices? Dunno the answer to that. But I do know that for the next few days, I'll be doing a Neil Young cover extravaganza, A to Z. At [...]
1. Cinnamon Girl-Smashing Pumpkins (live). A nasal growl is covered by a nasal snarl. 2. Cinnamon Girl-Mark Lanegan (live) 3. Cinnamon Girl-Backyard Tire Fire. A great underground alt-country rock band. 4. Cinnamon Girl-Brian Polenazi 5. Cinnamon Girl-Mother Hips. 6. Cinnamon Girl-Radiohead 7. Cinnamon Girl-Dream Syndicate 8. Cinnamon Girl-Toad the Wet Sprocket. [...]

It has been flurrying around here lately. I thought it would be a good time to hit the Archive for some snowy Christmas songs. The Big Wu ~ Let It Snow (live) The Big Wu ~ Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (live) Before Cowboys ~ Snow Day (live) Throwing Muses ~ Santa Claus (live) Mogwai ~ Christmas Song (live) Mogwai ~ Xmas Steps [...]

A few songs with " Thanksgiving " in the title to get you fired up for Turkey Day . Just so you know, The Duke will be taking a some time off for the holiday. Look for a return to posting on Wednesday the 28 . Arranged in order from longest to shortest . Listen: Dan Bern (with Moxy Früvous) ~ Thanksgiving Day Parade (live) Loudon Wainwright III ~ Thanksgiving [...]

One of my favorite songs of all time has to Rolling Stone's "Loving Cup". I heard it again a few weeks ago at a friend's wedding and I've really never seen the power of the song until I saw every single person on the dance floor acting like they've never heard this song before. The band that provided this great version of "Loving Cup" was a mix of members from Stealin' Strings and The Brimleys. And this is where my idea got started...who else has covered "Loving Cup"? Well here are some more covers that I [...]