Cloud 9 Adventures have just announced the latest addition to their roster of music destination events - Strings & Sol . S&S will bring Yonder Mountain String Band, the Infamous Stringdusters, Railroad Earth and Leftover Salmon to Tulum, Mexico between December 12 and 16 for three full shows a piece spread out amongst the festival's four days. The Dreams Tulum resort will host the inaugural Strings & Sol and packages are available with lodging at the hotel and without. Dreams Tulum is located 75 miles south [...]
We've got an unusually large post today, both to acknowledge a growing backlog of recent projects from familiar, beloved folk artists, and to make up for our recent vacation-driven absence from these pages. Read on for an unheard-of 20-track (Re)Covered set , focused around a plethora of new releases and recordings from singer-songwriters and bands previously featured on the Cover Lay Down radar screen... I've known of Halifax-based singer-songwriter Rose Cousins for years, though almost exclusively through her rich and ongoing collaboration with a number of local [...]
This week in NYC shows , we've got another big benefit at Carnegie Hall, the Allman Brothers continue their Beacon run, plus shows by The Black Keys, Megafaun, New Multitudes, and more. Read on for the weekly highlight reel...
Once again, we're off to spend the weekend at the always amazing Joe Val Bluegrass Festival out at the Sheraton in Framingham, MA. This year's lineup is stellar as always, with young sensation Sierra Hull, Steve Martin touring and recording companions the Steep Canyon Rangers, new Boston-based all-girl quintet Della Mae, long-time fave the Clare Lynch Band, and special guest spots from banjo master Bill Keith and folk singer-songwriter Jonathan Edwards holding down a powerhouse three days of music. We've covered most of these artists before, so instead of fishing for some new [...]
The initial lineup for the 2012 Electric Forest Festival is out. Resident headliners, the String Cheese Incident, lead the lineup alongside Bassnectar, STS9, Thievery Corporation, Girl Talk, and a bunch of other big names in the jam and electronic space (and just about everything else in between). Check it out... Electric Forest Festival - Initial [...]
In the next few days, when I gather up too many $100 dollar bills, I will spend them all on a fucking ticket. A ticket, my friends, to a motherfucking festival. Pardon the language but I tell you what, my ass is jazzed. After a 2011 spent purchasing tickets (Cotton Jones, The Sheepdogs, Iron & Wine, and GAYNGS) and then realizing as dates approached that holy shit dude, I'm a single mom with a job, there's NO WAY I'm making that gig, I had to bail. All that money down the drain, all those good times enjoyed by [...]
Wakarusa has come out of the gate nice and early with their initial 2012 lineup, including Pretty Lights, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, G. Love & Special Sauce, and an acoustic trio featuring Bob Weir, Chris Robinson, and Jackie Greene.
Happy holidays, dudes and dudettes! Hope you got everything you wished for and downed copious amounts of egg nog. Now, on to more important stuff than family gatherings and gift exchanges....live music! Naturally, there are ton of great shows going on this week in NYC as we lead up to New Year's Eve, including some multi-night holiday runs, some late-night throwdowns, and plenty of NYE parties that don't involve watching a ball drop in 10-degree weather.
Yonder Mountain String Band has always been more than a bluegrass band. Their sound touches on everything from reggae to rock, and even the occasional Ozzy Osbourne or Frank Zappa cover. Their jam band improvisational style sets them apart from most of their compatriots. Rather than merely trading solos of blistering virtuosity (which they do plenty), YMSB likes to take things out there, exploring harmonic and melodic territory away from the song's structure, weaving together songs with insane bursts of jamming, working through a completely different setlist every night. Usually, all those elements combine to deliver a [...]
Our buddy Matt Sury went and caught the Festy Experience (which we previously dropped a few photos from), and we've finally wrangled together all the amazing coverage that him and fellow friend and photographer Matt Manzano put together. Read on for their recaps from the weekend plus a ton of photos from the event including [...]
Although last week there were a ton of shows going on due to CMJ, I think I'm actually more impressed with this week's selection. Check it out...
The lineup for next year's Suwannee Springfest was just announced featuring Yonder Mountain String Band , Peter Rowan & Tony Rice, Justin Townes Earl and Emmitt-Nershi Band all topping the list of artists announced so far. The festival returns to Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, FL for the weekend of March 22-25, 2012 and three-day passes are now on sale for $125. Read on for the lineup... 2012 Suwannee Springfest confirmed lineup (so far): Yonder Mountain String Band Peter [...]
iClips.net will be broadcasting from this year's All Good Music Festival starting tomorrow at 2pm CST with The Werks . For the fifth year in a row, iClips .net will be on site at All Good to document a handful of the many guaranteed unforgettable performances in their entirety, in addition to backstage b-roll and interviews, festival features, and more. Then, the weekend following the festival, iClips .net will broadcast a highlights from the festival that have been hand-picked by the iClips and All Good Festival teams. The broadcast will [...]
photo by Adam George This week's must-see shows in NYC : TUES MAY 3 Peter Bjorn and John and Bachelorette @ Music Hall of Williamsburg (Brooklyn) ( more info ) The Indobox , Kinetix @ Brooklyn Bowl (Brooklyn) ( more info ) WED MAY 4 Foals and Freelance Whales w/ The Naked and Famous at Terminal 5 ( more info ) Gang Gang Dance [...]
Like every other festival in 2011, the All Good Music Festival is celebrating an anniversary. This year marks the jam fest's 15th year, and to celebrate, three of the genre's biggest names have been tapped to headline the festivities. Furthur, moe., and Umphrey's McGee will head this year's edition of All Good, set to take place July 14-17 at Marvin's Mountaintop in Masontown, West Virginia. Other confirmed heavyweights include Primus, Pretty Lights, John Butler Trio, Yonder Mountain String Band, and Keller Williams. Galactic, Toots & the Maytals, JJ Grey and Mofro, The Infamous Stringdusters, Papadosio, Toubab [...]
The Infamous Stringdusters received their first ever Grammy nomination for their song "Magic #9" in the Best Country Instrumental Performance category. It's probably safe to say that this live session features the best musicians we've ever had in the studio. For those unfamiliar with the band, they hail from Nashville and include session musicians who have worked with the likes of Earl Scruggs, Dolly Parton, Drew Emmit, Levon Helm, Jim Lauderdale and others. Their albums prove that they are no stranger to the Nashville scene, balancing expert technical musicianship with polished production. Their third album on [...]
Part four of my best albums of 2010 counts down numbers 40 to 31.
Words and Images : Allison Taich Northwest String Summit @ Horning's Hideout, July 16-18 The Northwest String Summit (NWSS) celebrated its ninth anniversary July 16-18, 2010 at Horning's Hideout in North Plains, Oregon. The three day music festival hosted by Yonder Mountain String Band (YMSB) included a cumulative nine hours worth of live YMSB, plus an outstanding roundup of string musicians including: Danny Barnes , Darol Anger and Great American Taxi . The Rhythm Devils [...]
Forceful contemporary acoustic and bluegrass sounds There's a power to this sextet's progressive acoustic and bluegrass sounds that leans into the listener like a poke in the chest. The instruments are mostly the standard acoustic assortment, but the verve with which they're picked, and the group's punchy vocal harmonies are heavier than one might expect from a contemporary acoustic outfit. As on their previous self-titled album, the band writes many of their own songs, generally avoids the standard bluegrass canon and stretch their genre with an acoustic reworking of U2's "In God's Country." The [...]
It's a conceit of modern music critics and bloggers to approach songs and albums as objects, and songwriters and performers as producers of those objects. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Nominally, at least, our purpose is to provoke fandom and sales; from a critical perspective, the act of listening is best done as a focused activity, the better to isolate and describe those elements which make a particular song, album, performer or performance worthy of our limited attention, and our purchasing power. But the coverfolk approach goes deeper by [...]
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