calvino

I was able to catch the Kalamazoo show on Saturday. The venue (Wings Stadium) is great for a hockey rink. Low ceiling and very small. It was general admission on the floor and everyone around me was very enthused and dancing.

I was lucky enough to have tickets for the Obama speech in Grant Park and was looking forward to this show to top the week off and Dylan definitely delivered. I thought his voice and keyboard was pretty high in the mix and sounded great for the most part. The rest of the band also played very well. He only played his guitar toward the end of HWY 61 and it sounded great. He' played a hollow body Gibson --- I never seen him play a hollow body electric guitar before.

Seeing Dylan sing Maggie's Farm, Baby Blue, It's Alright, Ma, and Hattie Carroll, after witnessing Tuesday night was very interesting for me. I have seen him perform those songs in the past, but somehow now I have a different perspective on his performances of his songs.

Anyway it was another great show by Dylan.

1. Maggie's Farm

2. Rainy Day Women #12 & 35

3. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

4. Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum

5. Make You Feel My Love

6. The Levee's Gonna Break

7. Ballad Of Hollis Brown

8. Things Have Changed

9. The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll

10. It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

11. Workingman's Blues #2

12. Highway 61 Revisited (Bob on guitar)

13. Ain't Talkin'

14. Thunder On The Mountain

15. Ballad Of A Thin Man

(encore)

16. Like A Rolling Stone

17. All Along The Watchtower

Also check out Parker on Vandermark Powerhouse Sound CD (atavistic.com). His stuff with The Chicago Underground Trio/Quartet and Isotope 217 is also rather good. Lastly he's on a number of Fred Anderson disks (Live at the Velvet Lounge - Vol. Two and he is on a few tracks on the From the River to the Ocean.)

Regarding the Exploding Star Orchestra, there is a live show (11.1.08 from Germany), where Roscoe Mitchell sits in with the band up on the Dime a Dozen website. Definitely worth the download.

Vandermark does help curate the festival. But since you brought this up, I don't remember him ever playing during the festival. So I looked at the past schedules and indeed he in not any of the schedules. Perhaps he wants to use the funds available on other players, which is a good thing.

Vandermark is on tour in Europe this month and most of next month.

I am planning to go to many of the shows. I won't be able to catch Saturday's show because I'm heading up to Kalamazoo to see a Dylan show. But the festival will be a great way to unwind from the election. All the nights look great, but I'm most looking forward to the Alexander von Schlippenbach /Paul Lovens duo on Wed.

Tonight' show at Elastic (2830 N Milwaukee Ave) should be a great way to start the week. Elastic website states the show starts at 10pm, but in an email from Dave Rempis it showed a 9pm start.

Z

People really give a fuck who Mike Ditka is voting for?

No, not really. People from Chicago, like myself, might just a little. The post was meant to more of a joke.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/...ail-with-palin/

Oh no! See this is what happens when one votes early. I should have waited to see who the Da Coach stumps for.

Oh well, at least Lovie's a supporter.

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/football/be...earnt31.article

Obviously I'm not surprised by Ditka's stance. But Ditka sure seems to have his hand on the pulse of the job situation in this country.

"Departing somewhat from John McCain's argument that failures on Wall Street and in Washington have imperiled the American worker, Ditka argued that anyone seeking employment can find a job

Yup....its all over now Baby Blue....

 

LouieB

That's what I have been telling my wife, but she is still nervous so we heading over to LaPorte, IN to canvas for Obama tomorrow morning. It would be great to turn Indiana Blue for this election.

Last weekend we went to Fort Wayne to canvas, focusing on the early vote: for those who were home, most have voted already or were planning to before this Tuesday, so that was very promising.

It was a bit funny in Fort Wayne, near Obama's election office all the parking meters had bags over them and no parking signs were post all over the area. We later found out that a Palin rally was scheduled for later in the day. "Sadly" we needed to head back to Chicago and we missed it.

Anyway I agree with you Lou, I think it is a done deal.

Everybody just needs to make sure to actually vote!

Voted yesterday. Got in line at around 4pm and finally voted around 5:30pm. The polling place was on 64th and Stoney (in Chicago), so it is somewhat near Obama's backyard. The poll workers said the lines have been long since early voting started.

Anyway there was no complaints for the long wait and people were actually excited and happy standing in line. It was impressive and a very encouraging site to see.

Plus Dave Crosby and others were popping in to record at the ranch a bunch. Hadn't heard the Band connection before, though....

I did not mean to capitalize the "B", I meant the band (as in the band the Grateful Dead) ... sorry for the confusion.

Interesting - even though his Dad took off with a bunch of their money.

Yeah, from what I read, Mickey took it the hardest (and rightly so). Again this is just speculation on my part, but honestly I can see them keeping him on the payroll. I think he had a studio at his ranch/barn where the rest of the band rehearsed and recorded during this time. The Band might of paid him for this...

Plus the the rest of the guy's never blamed Mickey for his dad's activities.

It's very likely the Dead kept him on the payroll. Their payroll system (esp. in the early days) was pretty communal. This is just a guess on my part.

To those of you who have or will have the Rockin' the Cradle (Egypt '78): have you guys watched the DVD yet? I watched it last night, and although the footage is a tad spotty at times, WOW. Maybe it was the eclipse, I don't know, but I have NEVER EVER saw Garcia so animated. Go back and check out "Minglewood" - when Bobby sings "couple shots of whiskey" Gar almost channels Pete Townshend...I mean, he's jumping around and shit. Almost does a windmill! On other tunes he's bobbing his head like a metal dude. At one point him and Phil are front and center right beside each other just ROCKIN' OUT. The joy expressed by their body language is just unreal.

 

Everybody needs to see this stuff.

I thought the same thing when I watched it last week, I never saw Garcia so animated, ether.

Watching it was fun and I think the camera person must have been indulging in something: at times the camera would drift up or down or sideways. I can see why (if this is the only footage they have) they did not commercially release the footage shortly after the shows like I think they planned to do to help recoup some of the money it took to go there.

That being said, I am glad they finally released it.

What does Bobby's singing have to do with Clarence?

Now that's a good one!

Thanks for the review, Lou. Wasn't able to catch the show.

Talk about awesome, I already have tickets to ravi shankar at 3, then glenn and nels at 10, SWEET!

 

Anyone know what the cover is? I've tried calling the bar without any luck.

Usually it is a suggested donation on Sunday nights. Normally Josh Berman, one of the curators, walks around with a hat and you chip in what you want for for the most part. This Sunday may be different or it the suggested donation may be a bit more than the usual $6 to $10 range.

You probably can throw an email to contact@emergingimprovisers.org. and someone will let you know.

After a real quick search, I did not find this posted anywhere, I just came across it this morning:

http://www.umbrellamusic.org/

http://eiorg.org/index.html

This should be a great show. Jim Baker and Fred Lonberg-Holm are both excellent.

Just listened to Disk 1 and 2 of the latest Egypt run (Rocking the Cradle) disk from Rhino. The sound quality is indeed great and the stuff that are on the disks are rather good, the Looks Like Rain and most of Disk 2 (shakedown, esp.) are all played with vigor and I think the band played well. Haven't watch the DVD, yet.

With all the chatter of the Taping Compendium's lately, the write up of the Egypt run is great. Ken Genetti's trip account, I thought, is great and reading it while listening to the CD's was a trip in itself. This account as well as others from famous runs of shows make the books great.

I remember reading in a previous post, that someone doesn't read the Compendium's much anymore due to the internet and all, which is perfectly fine and understandable, but it is nice to read someone's account of a show or tape in the book and not have to read a number of people disagreeing or denouncing it post after post afterwards. Though I do understand that you can get a lot more info on various Dead shows on the internet now a days and the books are already, in some respect, outdated.

Anyway the Cradle disk is good and I looking forward to the DVD. Also got the latest Road Trip series, the after Egypt Winterland shows, and I'm looking forward to those. I have copies of the shows but I am of course looking forward to the enhanced sound quality.

Always liked the Bobby and the Midnites stuff. Could be cheesy at times, but always enjoyed it.

nice sounding show on wolfgang

http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/dt/bobb...049738-848.html

This is frankly the biggest fuck up by BEZ ever. Of course they don't play hardly any music anymore, but it used to be great to be able to listen to the fest and the interviews with the musicians between sets, etc. on BEZ. I don't know how much it cost them, but this lack of programming is inexcusable frankly.

 

LouieB

Couldn't agree more.

Thanks for your reports Louie.

I fucked my ankle up 'real good' Thursday, that left me pretty motionless since. Missed Fri and Sat, hoping the swelling and bruising will subside a bit so at least I could make it down tonight, but it's still not as good as I hoped it would be.

It would be nice if WBEZ were still broadcasting the fest like they used to do, for a while there at least. I need to hobble down to my storage space and find some of my old tapes of the broadcasts.

Anyway thanks again for the reports.

Yup...just wait and see.

 

 

Okay cool.

 

 

Just re-reading the line-up in The Reader makes me nuts. There is so much good stuff going on it is crazy. The daytime line-ups are nearly equal to the evenings. Even if you aren't that much into jazz, there is some really great rock and improv associated stuff going on. Hell the afterfest stuff is also pretty fine. I know most people here are indie rockers, but you can't ignore what is happening with some of these musicians. Since I plan to spend all day and all night at the regular parts of the fest, I won't have energy left for that stuff. And the weather promises to be decent too.

 

LouieB

The afterfest at the Hungry Brain on Sat. and Sun. does sound very promising...I say I am going to hit them every year and like you I'm pretty beat when 10pm rolls around. Yet seeing Misha at the Hungry Brain will make up missing Rollins tonight...well almost.

I know sonny is big and all but do you think its going to be that crowded?

Yes. I believe it will be packed, as long as the weather holds up.

Sadly I will be not be able to attend tonight...Will be there for the rest of the weekend, definitely looking forward to Coleman on Sunday and Dave Douglas on Sat.

Sadly I did not. I had not even heard of them until that gig, which prompted me to get their CDs, which incidently aren't that easy to find. I got the most recent one through CD baby, but the first two I got through some jazz CD site, they are not sold anywhere else as far as I can tell (I looked for hours on other sites..) Are you in Chicago? If so I can burn you their disks to check out if you like.

 

And they are in fact jazz.....their methodology and sound is completely jazz. (The Bad Plus is jazz also, so I think both groups are certainly jazz..)

 

LouieB

((((recommend any Dylan fan to see them play if they get a chance, (even if they are not necessarily into jazz).)))

The "they" in my previous post was referring to Dylan fans who are not necessarily into jazz should check them out.

Jewels and Binoculars is most a definitely jazz band.

That would be great to get the disks, I do live here in Chicago. They had their whole catalog for sale at the Hideout gig, but stupid me did not bring much cash with me that night, oh well.

My Dylan obsession is so deep I ordered all three albums by Jewels and Binoculars and they were even new. The two early ones came today so I haven't listened to them yet, but the newest one is pretty good I think.

 

LouieB

Were you able to catch Jewels and Binoculars at the Hideout last April? It was the first time I seen or heard them play and I was definitely impressed. Michael Vatcher's drumming is fun to watch and his playing is great. I guess one can say I'm obsessed with Dylan and seeing Jewels and Binoculars interpretation of Dylan's music was both enjoyable and the music of course was well played. They were completely "into" the music and a thrill to watch. I haven't gotten around to purchase any of their albums, yet, but I definitely recommend any Dylan fan to see them play if they get a chance, (even if they are not necessarily into jazz).