New Jamz, New Year

Happy New Year to ya'!

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty fired up about 2009. Despite all the horrible stories you hear on the network news, I'm relentlessly optimistic about the upcoming year. I hope you are too, but if your outlook is slightly more grim than mine there is no better escapism than music. I say keep the positive vibes flowing by taking a look and listen at some new music. Is it possible to listen at music? I don't know, but here's what we've listened to since the last time:

Kuroma - Paris

Cinemechanica - Rivals
Heartless Bastards - All This Time and Stairs and Elevators
Deerhoof - Green Cosmos, Reveille and Milk Man
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell and Show Your Bones
Deerhunter - Weird Era Cont.
TV On the Radio - Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes
Ween - Live in Chicago
Sleepy Horses - The Golden Light EP
Russian Spy Camera - Mutiny In The Kitchen With Knives
Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
Elf Power - Back to the Web
Battles - EP C
Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
Outkast - Stankonia
MEW - And The Glass Handed Kites
Tokyo Police Club - A Lesson in Crime
UGK - Underground Kingz
Peter, Bjorn and John - Writer's Block
Black Lips - Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo
A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
Jethro Tull - Extended Versions
Jay Reatard - Blood Visions
Arizona - Fameseeker and the Mono, The Sun and the Room EP
and most importantly,
Slaughter - Stick It To Ya'
and
Space Jam - Music From and Inspired By The Motion Picture

A handful of live comedy discs:
Mitch Hedberg - Do You Believe In Gosh?
Patton Oswalt - Werewolves and Lollipops, Feeling Kinda' Patton
Jim Gaffigan - Beyond The Pale
Todd Barry - From Heaven
Michael Ian Black - I Am A Wonderful Man

A few bits of vinyl:
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes, Sun Giant EP
Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers - Damn The Torpedos
Fonzi Thornton - Pumpin'
Blue Swede - Hooked On A Feelin'
Lionel Hampton - Soft Vibes Soaring Strings
Ashley Tappen - Plays A Hammond Organ Tribute to Ken Griffin
Bettye Lavette - Tell Me A Lie
Frankie Miller - Dancing In The Rain
Skip Castro - Fast Break
Loverboy - Loverboy
Pat Boone - The Favorite Hymns of Pat Boone
Patrick Juvet - Got A Feeling
Hooters - Nervous Night
Jacki Sorenson - Jackie Sorenson's Aerobic Dancing Encore
(The VHS tape cover picture is all I could find...)
John Davidson - Touch Me
Outlaws - Playin' To Win
Thumbs McDuff and The Boston Baked Beans - The Not-So-Gay 90's
Children of the King - Singin A Song: A Sing-Along for Kids-By Kids
(I really wish I could find this artwork because I'm pretty sure that the cover and group name is the inspiration for Children of the Corn. Sorry it's just too old.)
Firefall - Break of Dawn
Kim Carnes - Voyeur
Brown Bannister - Talk To One Another
Glen Campbell - Bloodline
Mike Douglas - My Kind of Christmas
The Watkinses - Introducing The Watkinses
(I'm pretty sure this is Johnny 5's family band from when he was a youngster before he joined Dead Confederate. Once again, the artwork is impossible to find.)
Marching Band '88 - Exciting New Music

Most of these were Christmas gifts, especially the vinyl. Thanks a ton to Vaughan, Brantley, Mary Katherine, my bro John, my bro Andy, J.J. and others for a great Christmas. J.J. feel free to chime in with anything I missed.

Select a few to seek out and listen to if you please, but be warned: most of that vinyl came from J.J. and is some silly shit. There's some really funny stuff in there that's hard to find. Be sure to check out the links for either a local band/friends of ours, or the funniest album artwork/band name you've ever seen. But as always, there's some good and bad. I wish everyone the best in the year 2009 and I sincerely thank everyone for reading and supporting our bands and Athens music.

Matt visits New Orleans

I flew to New Orleans yesterday. Widespread Panic is having their annual Halloween show tonight (and an additional one tomorrow) and the mgmt all came down to join the fun.

We landed and found ourselves in the middle of downtown by about 3pm CT. After checking-in and establishing an internet connection (for my own mental survival) at the ol' Iberville Suites, my boss and I went down to Acme Seafood to catch a much-needed meal. What was only going to be an easy shrimp po' boy and a beer turned into two pitchers of the local Abita brew, hushpuppies, po' boys, and six of the biggest half-shell oysters I have ever seen. Stuffed and quite nearly defeated, we left Acme a bit sluggish (and a good bit buzzed) and returned to the hotel

After we got back to the hotel, I went to my room, caught a movie on HBO and napped until dinner time. When I awoke I was still full from Acme Seafood and looking for something to do. The original plan was to head over to Jackson Square and see Vic Chesnutt and Elf Power play at One Eyed Jack's. Mulling it over, we come to the conclusion that we can catch both when they play Athens in February. As an alternative, the band's tour manager calls and has some extra tickets to offer us to the Rose Hill Drive show at the House of Blues. So, of course, we go.

When I first heard of Rose Hill Drive, I only heard their name. I thought they MUST be an emo band or perhaps something like Good Charlotte. I'm not at all knocking that type of music, it just is not my personal cup o' tea. However, I did remember seeing them on Conan months back, but I couldn't recall their sound. So I did what any logical person does these days and typed "myspace.com/rosehilldrive" into the computer and voila: "Sneak Out". They sounded like a nice mix of Stone Temple Pilots and Queens of the Stone Age--thus me being a diehard STP fan and my boss being all about QOTSA, off we went.

The crowd was pretty good--became bigger as the night went on, and these guys didn't disappoint. However, I was a little bummed that we missed the opening act: Colour Revolt (I've heard good things). Back to RHD, they lived up to the one song we heard online and also busted out a pretty decent version of Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun". The bass player has quite a set of pipes on him, and both he (and I think his brother) and the guitar player were well schooled on their crafts.

Afterwards, we went over to a bar called "Alibi" to catch up with some of the road crew as well as meet some new faces that would also be joining the festivities this weekend. One in particular was a NOLA local who has never seen Panic before, tonight being his first show. I always get excited when I meet someone who is about to go see the band for the first time. "You will not be disappointed" is what I kept reassuring him. I don't know if he believed me, but I'm looking forward to hearing about his reaction this evening.

The bar was a simple space, but the ceased to stop playing Panic on the stereo the whole time we were there--which was really weird and ironic. I'm not one of those people who listens to only Panic leading up to a show. In fact, I'm the complete opposite: I listen to anything but. It ruins the performance for me if I do.
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I was up at 8am this morning to catch and early-bird breakfast in the lobby and the complimentary USA Today. I've got to catch up on a little work and make sure all my ducks are in a row for the show tonight, and hopefully catch a nap before I head to the venue at 2. But I wanted to type a good bit about my trip.

I'll be back with more later.

*Rose Hill Drive and Colour Revolt will perform at the Melting Point in Athens next week on Thursday Nov. 6th. You should go.