On the Oregon Trail with My Morning Jacket

Since I've been too busy to blog, I figured I'd offer up an article I wrote for my day job (with a bonus shot of me and MMJ). Enjoy and please stop by my digital offices at www.relix.com and www.jambands.com

On the Oregon Trail with My Morning Jacket
Mike Greenhaus
2008-05-23

The first time they traveled to Manhattan, the members of My Morning Jacket crammed into a small passenger van and drove straight to Brownies, a tiny, hip, now defunct indie ‘n alt-country club located on what was then considered “the outpost” of Avenue A and 10th. At the time, New York felt a world away from the group’s native Louisville, KY, probably as different as the tag hippie seemed from hipster. “We drove in, threw our gear in the club, parked our van, played and left,” singer/frontman/guitarist Jim James remembers about his band’s first trip to New York. “We were in and out in two hours or something crazy.”

At the time, James was a long-haired 23-year-old college-dropout with a relatively new band that rarely played outside Kentucky, and he spent most of their free time recording the soft, somewhat lo-fi indie-country songs that comprise their first two albums: the consciously murky The Tennessee Fire and the dreamy, psychedelic At Dawn, as well as a series of fan EPs, like the holiday recording My Morning Jacket Does Xmas Fiasco Style and Chocolate and Ice, which contains a 23-minute version of the exploratory jam “Cobra.” Oddly enough, outside the southeast, the group’s biggest audience was in Europe, where the ever-eclectic summer festival circuit prepared fans for MMJ’s mixture of folk, rock, jam, indie and folk.

Of course, a lot has changed since My Morning Jacket’s maiden voyage to Manhattan, a long strange trip that has seen the group organically grow from Brownies to Mercury Lounge to the Bowery Ballroom to Irving Plaza to Webster Hall to Roseland Ballroom, and once again the members of MMJ find themselves back in the Big Apple, this time for a few press days intended to promote the group’s fifth studio album, the experimental curve ball Evil Urges. It’s already been a long week of press ‘grips and grins’ for the group when MMJ arrive at the Slipper Room, a swanky burlesque club a few blocks south of HiFi, the rock-and-roll bar that has since replaced Brownies. But, the quintet agreed to devote a few hours to various interviews with the Relix family (print, digital, podcast), including a surprise Q&A with friend and fellow performer Grace Potter (please read the June issue of Relix for more on that conversation).

As they walk into the bar, mostly dressed in sweatshirts and hoodies that simultaneously clash and mesh with the Slipper Room’s swanky red curtains, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they’re exhausted from the press circuit. And, as when they walk onstage, the group band together for support as they make trudge through town and, finally, make themselves at home at one of the venue’s horseshoe-cushioned booths. Though James gets most of the attention and drummer Patrick Hallahan does most of the talking, they move as a unified band, something that hasn’t always been the case for this particular group of, as Potter would later say, “21st century Vikings.” While most groups start off as a band of equals and gradually produce a charismatic star, My Morning Jacket did the opposite. After scoring a record deal with the indie-label Darla, James assembled a band, taking the name My Morning Jacket from the initials embroidered on a discarded coat he purportedly found in the remains of a bar fire. The group’s sparse, early recordings focused around his reverb-drenched vocals and mostly acoustic guitar, but, over time, each member of the group gradually carved out their own three-dimensional personality and assumed a certain role: James, the mysterious frontman, Hallahan, a jovial, outspoken drummer who resembles Animal from the Muppets and Two-Tone Tommy, the shy, quiet bassist whose been with James since the beginning.

The group’s seen its share of turnover too, including James’ cousin/original guitarist Johnny Quaid and early drummers Danny Cash and J. Glenn, the latter of whom left the group to make waves in Hawaii. The arrival of Hallahan 2002 provided the group with the rock-and-roll battery it needed to move into larger clubs, while later-day members like Berklee-schooled keyboardist Bo Koster and guitarist Carl Broemel refashioned My Morning Jacket as a fully electric indie-rock outfit.

“I had an evil urge today,” Hallahan jokes as he takes a slip of the first drink on his band’s eventual $300 bar tab. “I wanted to kill our cab driver on the way over here.”

Almost a decade after My Morning Jacket’s first visit to New York, the five musicians have found themselves in New York more and more frequently and plan to return at least twice before the end of June: In May they’ll tape their first appearance on Saturday Night Live and, after touring Canada and making their fifth stop at Bonnaroo in six years, they’ll return to New York for an “evening with” performance at Radio City Music Hall---a grand celebration that sold out in only 22-minutes. While they remain mum about the details, rumors are already flying about which club---or arena---will host the group’s next New Year’s Eve celebration.

“I think we are doing New Year’s again this year and, if we do, it is going to be a sequel to the continual New Year’s saga that we started in 2006-2007,” James says. “So that will be part two of our epic Oregon trial saga.” “Only now we are all dead,” Hallahan interjects. “That’s’ right,” James continues. “We died and ascended to heaven on the stairway to heaven. Part two will start in heaven and continue onwards.”

“Oregon Trail was a great game, it really inspired me,” a reserved Two-Tone Tommy perks up to say dryly, his hands still tucked beneath his armpits. “I killed a few Oxen and lost a few children named things like Fart. You don’t really need them anyway.” “Poor little bugger has died of small pox,” James says, shaking what’s left of his curly hair. “We made up a recipe for malaria,” Koster says, jokingly referring to MMJ’s contribution to I Like Food, Food Tastes Good, a self-described “indie rock cookbook,” featuring contributions from the likes of Devendra Banhart and Death Cab for Cutie. “Sweet, sweet delicious malaria,” James says with a grin, chewing on the toothpick that remains fixed in his mouth throughout the night.

Indeed, while the members of My Morning Jacket have scored the cover of Spin, appeared in Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown and jammed with everyone from Eddie Vedder to the Boston Pops, they still joke like five old friends, finishing each other’s sentences and trying their hardest to steer the interview back to the topics any guys in their late-20s and early-30s would discuss over drinks: whiskey (bourbon), pizza (pepperoni) and the NCAA basketball tournament (go Kentucky, of course). When the conversation shifts to a two-night mock prom the group hosted in Athens, GA last spring, the quintet answers in rapid-fire succession, not unlike the verbal wordplay characteristic of Beastie Boys during the height of their MTV fame.

Did any of you attend your real prom?

James: That was our real prom. We even played “Wonderful Tonight.”

Hallahan: We’re not kidding…we did a little huddle before we went onstage and made a pact

Broemel: We all lost our virginity

Koster: And all puked

James: And one of us woke of up with a tattoo on his forehead

“These ideas usually start as conversations and kind of snowball,” Hallahan says, seamlessly shifting back into interview mode. “Yup, we try to be as stupid as possible,” James volleys without missing a beat. The members of My Morning Jacket are at an interesting stage in their career for sure, having gradually aged from cult heroes to critical darlings to, quite possibly when Evil Urges is released on June 10, crossover successes. James knows he’s a rock star for sure, he’s just not sure he wants to be…yet.

"We basically just say we are a rock band, but I don't really know what that means," Broemel says of seemingly every critic's quest to define My Morning Jacket's style. "I mean, if I am at the dentist's office and the dental assistant is like 'I like Kid Rock, would I like you?,' I'm like, 'well you may like us.'" And if she presses, I'm like, 'but we are a weird rock band,' so if she comes to see us, she isn't disappointed."

For a group that once hid beneath their long hair and a wall of reverb---to the point where the vocal effect often precluded James from speaking onstage---My Morning Jacket has grown surprisingly comfortable in the spotlight and James has become an increasingly open in his writing. In fact, as the group trimmed its hair, one could argue that his lyrics have become more personal and heartfelt than ever, addressing topics like longing ("Touch Me I'm Going to Scream (Part 1)"), politics ("I'm Amazed") and life on the road (“Smokin' from Shootin'”). And while My Morning Jacket may be the only band to truly hold dual citizenship on either side of the great Coachella/Bonnaroo divide, in certain ways, no band has come to symbolize both the spirit and sound of Bonnaroo more than My Morning Jacket. Since their first appearance in 2003, they’ve played almost every spot the festival has to offer short of headlining, from a Friday afternoon daytime showcase to a marquee late-night tent set to, this June, one of the festival’s signature all-night outdoor jam-sessions. It’s also somewhat fitting that at a time when every singer/songwriter sporting more than a 5 o’clock shadow has seemingly tailored their style to replicate the classic Jim James sound, My Morning Jacket has moved in the opposite direction, creating a dense, funky, psychedelic album that would fit more comfortably next to Flaming Lips or Prince than either At Dawn or It Still Moves.

If 2005’s breakthrough Z helped push My Morning Jacket to the forefront of the modern indie movement, than Evil Urges will likely push the boundaries of what is considered indie rock altogether. While early interviews suggested that My Morning Jacket was working on a gospel album, Evil Urges is stylistically all over the map, incorporating elements of the Prince (“I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man”), Lionel Richie (“All Night Long”), AC/DC (“Highway To Hell”) and Eric Clapton (“Wonderful Tonight”) covers the group introduced into their repertoire before entering the studio. “I think it has some gospel influence in that, for me personally, gospel has always been for my soul,” James says about his most personal collection of songs. “I am trying to find my own personal Jesus, as Depeche Mode would say. It does my heart good to hear people sing about something that they believe in so strongly, even though I can’t personally believe in many things or anything. So I think in that sense [Evil Urges] is a gospel record.”

In many ways, Evil Urges is actually two very different albums, conceptually spit down the middle by, appropriately enough, the song “Two Halves.” For lack of a better term, the disc’s A-Side is the more experimental half, driven by studio gimmicks and Hallahan’s big, funky beats. The album’s B-Side is more traditional MMJ, filled with modern classic-rock moments and a few more gentle interludes. And while the album’s A-Side was clearly sequenced upfront for a reason, it’s the record’s B-Side that echoes through my head, especially the soft, haunting “Librarian,” a vintage MMJ moment that could fit on Neil Young’s Harvest were it not for the malapropism referencing “the interweb.”

“We kind of had fun with the sequencing,” James continues. “When you get the vinyl, you can kind of see it. It is going to be a double-disc vinyl with four sides. I think the record kind of flows more in four quadrants than two-halves, though there is a song on it called ‘Two Halves’ halfway through.”

“Not a mistake,” he says with an assured wink. “We started out with more songs than we knew we’d end up with, so we kind of whittled the songs away. In that way, the album kind of makes itself work out, because sometimes you might want a song to work and it just won’t. So we recorded 15 we decided that these were the ones that kind of worked together and then we labored over the sequence and tried to make it a journey. “

The recording of Evil Urges itself was also somewhat of a journey. After playing a handful of spring dates that included a marquee spot at Langerado and the above-mentioned pair of mock-prom gigs, My Morning Jacket disappeared into the mountains of Colorado to flesh out James’ latest batch of songs. “We did a month of messing around and spacing out and then brought it to New York City and hammered it away,” James says. Though the quintet emerged for the occasional Colorado or New York performance, with the likes of Bob Dylan or Feist, it was their longest break from the road since signing with ATO in 2003.

“We all have lots of freedom,” Broemel says of James’ songwriting approach. “We all kind of all try to be as selfless as possible. If someone has an idea that is better than another idea, we all try to go with it. So that is our modus operandi.”

After finishing their first round of the drinks, the quintet huddles around a small, wooden piano for a photo shoot, but can’t help messing around with the melody to one of Young’s best songs, “After the Goldrush.” Like 2005’s Z, Evil Urges finds the Kentucky-bred quintet masking its raw country-rock muscle with glitchy studio wizardry rather than acoustic guitars and reverb-drenched vocals; in fact, James has tweaked his voice to such an extent that he now employs two microphones onstage. But, from start to finish, those classic MMJ touches are still there, buried beneath a thick layer of conscious fuzz, where one gets the sense James always felt they belonged. “For thoughtless folks like me and J, who'd pay, but can't afford, the finer things in life,” he once mused, “So we heist them all...”

And while the members of My Morning Jacket are a far cry from the Grateful Dead or Phish stylistically, more than almost any of their peers, they embrace the jam-scene’s improv-ready road warrior edict and dedication to creating a unique live show. Over the years My Morning Jacket has made a point to turn almost each-and-every one of its festival sets into some sort of theatrical performance: In 2005, the group hosted a puppet show during their afternoon Bonnaroo set and the following year they played a late night, cover-heavy tent show that drew in guests like Andrew Bird. At ACL they dressed like beach bums, at High Sierra they invited Brad and Andrew Barr onstage for a magic trick and at Lollapalooza they were backed by the Chicago Youth Symphony. Most recently, at Coachella they opened for Roger Waters and invited longtime friend M. Ward to sit in on a version of “Off the Record” that stood out in stark contrast from the festival’s slicker indie-rock acts.

In many ways, they’ve also come through the jamband pipeline, balancing support spots for Pearl Jam with gigs with ATO with label-boss Dave Matthews, The Slip and the Benevento/Russo Duo, as well as at festivals like Langerado, Mountain Jam and High Sierra. They have a trippy light show and, particularly on slower numbers like “Golden,” James’ voice resembles Garica-ish unpolished, high and lonesome voice.

“I'd do ‘Candyman,’ there's something about that song that's so awesome,” James told Jambands.com in 2005, when asked what Grateful Dead song he’d cover on the tenth anniversary of Jerry Garcia’s passing. “I'm more a fan of the real structured Grateful Dead songs, the acoustic Grateful Dead songs. On ‘Candyman,’ it's just like all the harmonies and all the amazing guitar parts and the lyrics...the whole thing. I'd do that or ‘Brown Eyed Women." I'm not even that huge of a Dead fan, but there's just something about Garcia that was so sweet and so awesome. The first time I ever heard him was on pedal steel on ‘Teach Your Children’ — pedal steel, I think, is one of God's gifts to people. I can sit there and listen to that song over and over and over and it makes me want to have kids and get married and cry. Just the way he emoted was to me more important than any song that he wrote or anything in particular. It was just his force and I think that's why people loved him so much. There was just something about him that was insanely magical.”

“Playing Mountain Jam and Bonnaroo, we’ve found that the jamband community seems to be very musical and very accepting, so we are happy to play in front of anyone,” James says a bit later at the Slipper Room. “I think people put up silly names and divisions and these indie-rock verses jamband scenarios, but we don’t really pay attention.” “It’s like an old friend you run into each year,” Hallahan continues. “It is so peaceful and community driven.” James adds: “You play Bonnaroo and you are in the middle of nowhere on this magical musician fantasy thing, and then you play Lollapalooza and you are right in the middle of the city and go out and see all your friends at night, so there are benefits of both.”

“Every Bonnaroo is really fun,” Broemel says backstage at another MMJ show in Philadelphia. “For me, my favorite moment was probably my first time there, which was the band’s second in 2004. We played a few songs and then it started to pour. It was something unexpected that made the show fun for us. It was so harmonious with the rain. It just cooled everyone down because it was so hot, but the day had this nice breeze. We try to make it different each year. Bonnaroo is always special, so we try to go more extravagant.”

With great power comes great responsibility and, in addition to spearheading a new genre of shaggy hair rockers that includes groups like Band of Horses, The Whigs and Fleet Foxes, My Morning Jacket has helped place the likes of Dr. Dog, M. Ward and The Slip in front of their most attentive national audiences yet. In fact, Dr. Dog wasn't even a full band until James personally asked them to open a series of My Morning Jacket tourdates. “M. Ward, Conor Oberst and myself have done several tours together called the Monsters of Folk,” James reminisces. “We’d play during each other’s sets and do our own sets as well. And M. went out on tour with us a few years ago. We were his backing band, and he’d come out and play with is.”

“We love The Slip and we love watching them,” Broemel says. “They are an interesting band and hard to characterize. I can't speak highly enough of them. We caught part of their show at High Sierra once and were intrigued.” “A few friends of mine played them for me and then I checked them out in the rain at Mountain Jam,” James admits. “They mix so many different styles.” Indeed, in an era when every festival is determined to program their setlist like a three-dimensional iPod, My Morning Jacket has set the template for the modern, post-jam playlist.

“Part of the post-jam concept definitely rings true for sure…it makes touring exciting for us to change things up every night," Broemel finally says. "We play High Sierra and Mountain Jam and then Coachella. Sometimes we feel a little bit out of our element at those festivals. But as long as we are freaking people out then its OK."

Me Have No Regrets...

I wrote the following for tonight's Jammys program

PHISH: AN APPRECIATION

Though they leave behind an impressive body of over a thousand carefully-annotated performances, a dozen studio albums and a web of carefully preserved digital shrines, it is still impossible to separate Phish's music from its cultural impact.

In many ways, they are both the first post-modern rock band and the internet age's first great success story; the first group to rub the avant-garde against mainstream, MTV culture with festival-size success while still reducing the meaning of life to the carefree, 1990s sentiment of "whatever you do, take care of your shoes." In an era of hard-rock testosterone and New Wave excess, the members of Phish emerged as the perennial everymen: four ordinary people known by their first names for their uncanny musical ability, personifying four tangible elements of post-Aquarius, suburban society.

While not the first rock band to embrace improvisational music, Phish turned the jam scene on its head with an original cocktail of rock, pop, jazz, bluegrass, reggae, funk and orchestral sounds that owed as much to Talking Heads and Frank Zappa as it did to Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead. In only 21 years, Phish challenged arena rock's rules, claimed cow-funk as their own and re-fused Brian Eno ambience with the indie-rock underground. Their studio work is equally varied: From the breezy statements of Junta and the dreamy concepts of Rift to the mature, rustic emotions of Billy

Breathes and the instrumental experimentations of The Siket Disc, Phish played by their own rules, setting the template for the modern festival, harnessing the power of the internet long before the blog and somehow turning a flying hotdog into an everlasting

cultural statement. Only a collegiate cycle since their curtain call, Phish's legacy is still being set...and we still have no regrets.

Mike Greenhaus, from somewhere south of Coventry

...and now to bed, I hope

Two Sentance Thoughts

Before I jump headfirst into my Coachella recap, I figured I’d offer another edition of Two Sentence Thoughts…

Working Backwards…

2008-04-20-Green Apple Closing Party: Surprise Me Mr. Davis, The Low End @ Sullivan Hall, New York, NY

The only thing better than seeing The Slip is seeing The Slip with Nathan Moore as Surprise Me Mr. Davis. But, unfortunately, this show started way too late, on the second night of Passover no doubt, and I had to leave halfway through the show when the band took a not too conspicuous 4/20 set break

2008-04-20-Green Apple:

Vienna Teng, Vusi Mahlasela w/Annie Calhoun, Bacon Brothers, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder @ Rumsey Playfield, New York, NY

The first of, hopefully, many afternoons I will spend seeing music in Central Park this summer. This show also answered the age old question of what does Rumsey Playfield look like without a layer of Astroturf (hint: not like a Green Apple)

2008-04-18-Green Apple: Tea Leaf Green featuring Steve Adams w/Aaron Redner (Hot Buttered Rum) @ Highline Ballroom, New York, NY

Like Umphrey’s McGee in 2005, Tea Leaf Green makes me want to be a better, or at least more dedicated, jamband fan. It was also cool to see my boy Steve Adams from ALO playing in front of the sold out crowd on guest bass .

2008-04-18-Green Apple: The Pnuma Trio, Jounce @ Blender Theater, New York, NY

Both Jounce and The Pnuma Trio are decidedly modern jambands, which means they improvise without really playing hippie-music. I wish I could have come back the following night to hear Jounce's choice version of "Marquee Moon."

2008-04-13-Under African Skies: Paul Simon with David Byrne, Ladysmith Black Mambazo,Vusi Mahlasela, Luciana Souza, Vanessa Jones and Tshidi Manye @ Brooklyn Academy of Music Opera House, Brooklyn, NY

Though the ticket stub read Paul Simon, this show was all about David Byrne, who stole the show with his energetic three-song performance. For his part Simon stayed in the shadows, acting more like a curator than the center of attention and somehow securing his indie-rock cred along the way.

2008-04-12-Hallucinigan Live, Shpongle @ Highline Ballroom, New York, NY

I’ll probably go deaf a few years earlier thanks to this show, which consisted of a three hour version of one of my favorite songs: Untz. Good times, if I could only remember them

2008-04-12-The Disco Biscuits @ Nokia Theater, New York, NY

2008-04-11-The Disco Biscuits, Shpongle @ Nokia Theater, New York, NY

These were two of the best Disco Biscuits shows I have seen in years. The new songs rocked, the old ones still sounded fresh and I even scored a "Little Betty Boop!"

2008-04-10-Man Man @ Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY

Before taking the stage Man Man looped a version of Bobby Mcferrin’s “Don't Worry, Be Happy” on repeat over the PA for 20 minutes which kind of set the tone for this evening of ironic art. Though I do find it ironic that of all the songs The Dead wrote, the freak folk hipsters choose to cover “drums ‘n space” on a nightly basis.

2008-04-10-Nate Company @ Rockwood Music Hall, New York, NY

My friend Phil from Skidmore plays in a few cool bands around the city, including this jazzy ensemble which features him on the upright bass. I hope he makes it big one day so I can reminisce about the time he played he 21st birthday part before it got shut down by the police on Behind the Music.

2008-04-10-Jason Collett @ Relix Magazine, New York, NY

2008-04-09-Jason Collett @ Mercury Lounge, New York, NY

Jason Collett is the only member of Broken Social Scene who sounds more like Ryan Adams than the Arcade Fire, which is why we love him here at Zenbu Media. After his Mercury show, I convinced him to come to come play and hang with us at Relix, where he spent an hour convincing us that Canada is way cooler than the U.S.

2008-04-08-Hot Chip @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY

Jamband Outing of the week: At the start of their encore, Hot Chip promised to play "a three our hippie jam" for one of their roadies, who apparently used to be on Widespread Panic's crew. Take that Time Out New York.

2008-04-08-JVC Jazz Fest Announcement Party: Marco Benevento with John Ellis, Dave Dreiwtiz and friends @ Metrazur at Grand Central Terminal, New York, NY

By the time my sure to be overbearing wife makes me relocate from New York to the suburbs, I swear I will have seen Marco Benevento and/or Joe Russo at every New York venue known to man on land (too many to count), sea (Rocks Off) or air (just wait for my 30^th birthday party).

The Sleepover Party

Before I was old enough to drive, my friends and I used to have what those of us who grew up in the suburbs affectionately referred to as “sleepover parties.” Each week or so we’d all gather at somebody’s house, have dinner, play basketball, maybe see a movie and eventually sprawl out in someone’s living room or basement to goof around until someone’s dad would come downstairs in his underwear and scare us all to sleep (which was usually followed by an inappropriate collective group laugh and an encore appearance by Dad). And while staying up to 1 AM seemed pretty badass at the time, in retrospect, it was a relatively innocent time, before sex, drugs and, rock ‘n roll truly infiltrated my social circle.

I’m a big fan of the sleepover party, not so much because I liked sleeping on someone’s floor (though those sleepless night did prepare me for life on the road with Phish), but because I enjoyed the after midnight talks I used to have with my friends back when girls first shed their cooties and hair first started to grow in strange and unusual places. As I’ve said time and time again, my brain usually wakes up when most of the world is sleeping and I often wished I could fast forward through the basketball, the movie and the obligatory parental scolding and start my night right at the late night talks. I made some of my best friends while working the sleepover party circuit (I hereby tip my hat to you Jon, Jon, Dave, Dan, Kirk, Devin, Tom, Dyer, Nick, John M., Dan, Chris and even Andy, though he usually refused to sleep on the floor and held court on the sofa) and truly believe you can tell a lot about who someone will become by their sleepover party persona: the kid who falls asleep way before everyone else and ends up with marker on his head tends to get married before all his friends to a woman who most definitely holds the marker in their relationship, the kid who gets hopped up on too much sugar and ends up running around the room telling dirty jokes usual ends up getting hopped up on other types of uppers (or becoming an actor), and, I suspect, the kid who starts mumbling random words in his sleep will end up having a midlife crisis and buying a new motorcycle and/or wife. Of course, there’s also the kid who gets up before everyone else in the morning and feels it’s his civic duty to systematically wakeup everyone else in the room, like a dog licking his master’s face for attention. I always secretly hated that kid, who enviably grew into the type of co-worker or boss who feels it is necessary to call you on your cell when you take a personal day with a “quick question.”

I distinctly remember my last “real” sleepover party. Andy came over, we played basketball, caught a movie and settled in for a late night talk and, when we were done overanalyzing some girl situation that seemed like the end of the world at the time (but is now a footnote in this here blog), he said, “you know I think I am going to drive home and stay in my own bed” and he did. After that night, the sleepover party was replaced by the drunken pass out, the post-show crash and, with more girls than I’d like, the plutonic spoon (an oxymoronic statement if I ever heard one, but that my friends is the subject of another blog altogether).

Jamband Outing of the Week: MGMT

I really, really, really wish MGMT put on a good live show. Especially since I’ve had “Kids,” “Time to Pretend” and/or “Electric Feel” alternately stuck in my head since my co-worker first played MGMT for me last summer. But, after now seeing MGMT no less than three times in two months, I'm going to place them in the same life changing album/poor live show pantheon that housed The Shins until they added an extra member before touring behind Wincing the Night Away. And hopefully like the Shins, in time they’ll learn to deliver. I mean, after all, they were Phish-kids back in college. Oops, did I just say that on the internet? Anyway, let’s take a step back and read this 2003 article from their college newspaper...back when they opened for Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. Silly hipsters, didn't anyway ever teach you to take any and all incriminating evidence off the interweb before buying your first bandanna? Speaking of incriminating evidence, I'm going to go put on "Electric Feel" and bounce around my room as if I was jumping on the floor piano from Big.

Two Sentence Thoughts…

For the second installment of two sentence thoughts, let’s pick up right where we left off, leaving Stephen Malkmus at the Bowery Ballroom (I love aimlessly bouncing around New York)…

2008-03-31-Jason Domnarski Trio @ Rockwood Music Hall, New York, NY

After leaving Malkmus, I walked around the corner to Rockwood Music Hall to see the final night of my college classmate’s weekly residency at Rockwood Music Hall (an intimate room that has quickly blossomed into one of my favorite New York City venues). Jason’s trio is sort of like a naked version of Marco Benevento’s current group, fusing jazz, piano-rock and avant-garde music into something both your hetty roommate and your sociology professor should really enjoy.

2008-04-01-Shine a Light: The Rolling Stones IMAX Movie

Though it seems sacrilegious to bash Martin Scorsese and the Stones in the same sentence, this movie was flawed for several reasons: The cameras moved way too quickly, the film focused way too much on Mick Jagger, the middle of the show was filled with too many 1970s/80s snoozers and Scorsese even cast himself as a character, which is the cinematic equivalent of writing an article in the first person and going off on a tangent about your family (maybe Marty should start a blog). In fact, the film’s highlights were its guests: Buddy Guy, Jack White and, yes I am going to say this, Christina Aguilera (who has a really nice voice when all the gloss has been stripped away).

2008-04-03-RatDog w/Warren Haynes, Jimmy Herring, Tom Pope, Steve Molitz and Fuchs @ Beacon Theater, New York, NY

I had a really good time bringing my friend Ben to his first Bob Weir show as part of his blog-experiment (see two posts below). Though RatDog certainly delivered on their own, the guests were the evening’s highlights, especially Jimmy Herring, who makes everything sound so smooth and easy.

2008-04-03-Marco Benevento @ Rockwood Music Hall, New York, NY

I’ve probably seen Marco Benevento and Joe Russo in more New York venues than any two musicians, from 12,000-person amphitheaters to 12-person bars (love you Bar 4). The highlights of my first Duo side-project at Rockwood included a stripped down version of “The Real Morning Party,” (which I will mash with MGMT’s “Kids” before Mark Ronson does),
a jazzy take on “Paranoid Android” (which I actually like better than the Radiohead original) and playing wingman for one of my buddies (a hit single that always seems to pop up at Duo-related events).

2008-04-04-The Blue Album Group, Dave Hill (Upright Citizens Brigade) @ Glasslands, Brooklyn, NY

As their name suggests, my friend Ezra’s new group is cover band specializing in Blue Album-era Weezer. I love that album like an awkward little brother I care deeply about, but don’t necessarily want to hang with on the weekends…yet I still managed to bounce high enough to almost hit my head on the ceiling (darn lofts).

2008-04-05-Widespread Panic @ United Palace Theater, New York, NY

As a Phishhead, seeing Widespread Panic is kind of like watching someone else have sex. But, hearing "Airplane" live for the first time was enough to finally turn me on...

2008-04-05-Lotus @ Irving Plaza, New York, NY

For any group visiting Manhattan, graduating from New York’s downtown clubs to Irving Plaza is a right of passage. And few bands in the scene deserve to take that step more than Lotus (shameless plus, for more on Lotus please read my recent feature in the current issue of Relix).

2008-04-05-Cliffside Push @ Bowery Poetry Club, New York, NY

Cliffside Push is a trance-rock band featuring my friends Eric, Jordon and Jon, all of whom have either had dinner at my house and/or puked on my porch (or both). So, naturally, their late night gig was a party filled with all the good friends and neurotic girls I could ask for at 2 AM (and a handful I didn’t really need).

From the Archives: Seven and Seven's Last Call

In light of Ben's recent weekly "New Year's style" resolutions, I figured I'd pull this one out of the archives, if only because I failed miserably at it...who knows, if I can survive Coachella without any 7 & 7s thanks to Passover, maybe I'll be able to finally break the habit...

Seven and Seven's Last Call

If left to my own devices, I’d rather order a tall glass of chocolate milk than just about any other mixed drink. But, unfortunately, chocolate milk stopped being socially acceptable sometime around the second grade and for the past eighteen years I’ve been forced to hide my lingering childhood addiction like a premature bald spot on a teenager’s scalp (a Band-Aid which usually comes off as natural as a bad comb over). Back in the heady days of yore, aka college, I managed to squeak by living on a steady diet of Magic Hat and Stella. But, as my taste buds have evolved past kegs and my metabolism has slowed to the speed of a stoned snail, beer has crushed my six pack into a pile of hairy mash potatoes.

Fortunately, the summer after I graduated college I found a new signature drink, the Seven and Seven. As far as I can tell, I stole it from my friend Jon who stole it from our friend Dyer who is actually so retro he manages to be one of my most forward thinking friends. I fell hard for the Seven and Seven for several reasons (besides the fact that it making for good alliteration): First, it’s a somewhat mysterious drink which always starts conversation. Second, it has a girly taste, but macho ingredients, which immediately makes its cooler than your average vodka cranberry. Third, it contains whisky which automatically squashes any comparisons to its sophomoric younger sibling, the Rum and Coke. From August 2003 through February 2007 I ordered a Seven and Seven on almost every occasion I could, to the point that both my parents and my employer immediately placed it on my tab at all family/phamily functions. Its name served as more than a few conversation starters at bars and its alcohol content served as the catalyst for even more unnecessarily feuds with members of the opposite sex. But, now, after all this time together, I’m forced to retire my whisky to the cabinet and search for a new drink at my favorite watering holes.

Why you might ask? Well, for one thing, as the collegiate cycle has rolled on a new crop of alcoholic freshmen have claimed the drink as their own, rendering it the new Rum and Coke and, therefore, just about as socially acceptable as freshman Fridays in the dorms (or, more accurately, Falstaffs for those of you from Saratoga Springs). I’ve also noticed that it does wonders to my breath and as I’ve gained confidence in club-like environments that has posed quite the problem. And, in an effort to smooth out all my unconscious nervous habits, I’m trying to stop myself from chewing ice in public (we’ll deal with paper crumbling and blogging in future entries on the subject). So, for now, I am officially retiring the Seven and Seven as a dietary staple. Perhaps it will pop up again at a party or two, but, as of now, I’m searching for a new signature drink. That is, of course, until chocolate milk becomes so retro is its once again cool.

Hyperliving

My friend Ben is currently 13 weeks into a year of “hyperliving,” where he pledges to pick a task to either accomplish and/or blog about each week throughout 2008. So far his experiments have included everything from running everyday for 45 minutes to going to bed before 10:30 PM. Last week’s task involved seeing a show for seven days in a row, something I’m personally a lot better at doing than, say, either running everyday for 45 minutes or especially going to bed before 10:30. Before he was a full blown Brooklyn indie-rock blogger, Ben was (apparently) a jamband message board dweller and mentioned that he was interested in seeing RatDog at the Beacon as part of his 7 night stretch. And since he said both "blog" and "jam" in the same e-mail, perhaps my two favorite words in the entire English language (except, of course, "neurotic" "Jewish" and "girl"), I hooked him up with my +1 for the show. In general, I think he enjoyed time traveling back to his high school Deadhead glory days and the following night we traveled even further back in time to middle school when we saw our friend Ezra’s not-as-ironic-as- it-sounds Weezer cover band at Glasslands.

Ben did a pretty great job recapping our experiences, so I’ll leave the rest to him...Since week 23 involves "listening to nothing but pre-2000 Phish," I'm sure we'll check back with Ben then, but, until then, anyone know where there's a live performance of the Transformers: The Movie soundtrack tonight? I loved that sh*t in Elementary school.

Stephen Malkmus

I saw Stephen Malkmus at Bowery Monday. My initial reaction was "good show, but sloppy," but if one artist its allowed to be sloppy it's Malkmus. The clear highlights for me were the bouncy "Gardenia," which could have been a later day Phish song, and the 15-minute "Real Emotion Trash," which I'm pretty sure was a later day Phish song. In the more traditional Pavement-style, we got a set closing "Church on White" and some serious drum drum work from Janet Weiss (who made her name in bands like Quasi and Sleater-Kinney). But the real reason I love Malkmus this morning is this quote from the A.V. Club:

How is making an indie-rock record now different from what it was, say, 10 years ago?

STEPHEN MALKMUS: Well, 10, it's probably not so different. But 15 years ago, or when we started, obviously [the scene] was smaller. I just got back from England, and with the advent of these groups like Arctic Monkeys, and, I don't know, there are other ones--I can't remember who was on the cover [of NME] this week. But the major youth music is "indie." So I don't know. We just do what we do. I would quantify our sound as more underground than indie, in that it's not catering to a fashion, so much as indie happens to be a fashion now. But the underground lives on regardless. It always does. Because there are so many people making music, and there are enough people just making it to their own taste. In-your-face type music. The indie moniker has obviously grown with movies like Juno and The Arcade Fire or whatever. U2 wants to hang around with Arcade Fire. U2 didn't want to hang around with Pavement. It's too different, you know? Maybe they're better or something. Or maybe we were, you know, not a threat. The difference between U2 and Pavement was quite vast. It's grown narrower--closer, I guess. Radiohead being the biggest band in the world.

Two Sentence Thoughts

I’m extremely lucky that I get to see a lot of live music, but all too often I get tangled in my typos and end up reviewing only a quarter of the shows I see. So I figured I’d start a new weekly column, recapping my recent musical adventures in two sentences or less. Sometimes I’ll focus on the music, other times I’ll talk about the experience. Every time, I’ll probably include some run-on sentences…

Drive By Truckers, Terminal 5, New York, NY-3/26

The Drive-By Truckers turned in an energetic, 2 ½ hour set that fell somewhere between Bruce Springsteen and Widespread Panic, both in terms of the crowd's energy and whisky consumption. The clear highlight of the night was a surprise cover of one of my favorite songs, Jim Carroll Band’s post-punk, Basketball Diaries classic “People Who Died,” that featured Whigs guitarist Parker Gispert playing Patterson Hood’s guitar while being fed shots of whiskey!

Dave Brubeck, Jazz Lincoln Center, New York, NY-3/27

My friend and Skidmorian protégé Matt gave me a free ticket to see Dave Brubeck at Jazz Lincoln Center and, though I unfortunately missed most of the show because of work, I still managed to catch a glorious version of his signature “Take 5.” At 83, Brubeck’s band is full of “young cats” in their 50s and 60s, which somehow managed to put the whole rock and roll-era in perspective for me.

Ghostland Observatory, Webster Hall, New York, NY-3/28

Silver cape aside, Ghostland Observatory are an awesome dance-band that my hetty intern eloquently described as “kind of like Rage mixed with the New Deal or Lotus.” The only thing better than the actual show, which I rode the rail for, was the Japanese food I ate afterwards (though I’m still not exactly sure what I ate).

Fleet Foxes, Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY-3/29

Thanks to some positive blug buzz and a some standout shows at SXSW, Fleet Foxes managed to sell out their first New York play---at Bowery Ballroom no less---four months before their first album even hits stores. Like their recent EP, the evening’s highlight was the haunting “English Houses,” which meshes the best elements of CSNY, The Shins and My Morning Jacket with harmonious bliss.

Strawberry Fields, Brandeis High School, New York, NY-3/30

Along with some of my friends, I went to see the popular Beatles cover band Strawberry Fields play an afternoon benefit at an uptown high school. The band delivered, the event helped a great cause and the family-approved crowd scared me enough to include a “no smock” clause in my pre-nup.

Nathan Moore, Pete’s Candy Stores, Brooklyn, NY-3/30

Seeing pacifist singer/songwriter/Slip-mate Nathan Moore in New York is always a treat. Seeing a free show is even more exciting, especially when Moore is loose enough to balance his songs with his equally enjoyable/bizarre stories.

Bittersweet Me

I’m not entirely sure when or where I first heard R.E.M., but in retrospect it probably had something to do with MTV. What I do remember is that alt-rock was red hot, even hotter than indie is now or jambands were eight years ago, and that R.E.M. was definitely my favorite band of the era. At a time when the radio was ruled by the big, loud guitar riffs of Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Soundgarden, R.E.M. stood out as softer, more intellectual and, most importantly, more emotional. After school, I’d scan the local pop-rock radio stations hoping to hear “Losing My Religion,” “Everybody Hurts” or, if I was really lucky, “The One I Love,” and each Hanukah I’d creep one step closer to completing my R.E.M. collection. I started with the blockbusters: the baroque Out of Time, the grungy Monster and the “modern classic” Automatic for the People, which at the time, at least, was hailed as R.E.M.’s defining moment. Then I worked backwards, exploring the I.R.S. collection and the Minus 5 before settling on “Driver 8” as my favorite song. The first time I ever heard the phrase “B-Sides Collection” was in reference to R.E.M.’s grossly underappreciated Dead Letter Office, and I distinctly remember looking up the meaning of the word “eponymous” after reading it on the cover of R.E.M.’s first greatest hits album. I liked Nirvana, still love Pearl Jam, but felt I could only truly relate to R.E.M., four dorky college friends who seemed to over think life just as much as I did.

But, as I grew up and alt-rock splintered beyond repair, R.E.M. and I slowly began to drift. Bill Berry left the band, I discovered the Grateful Dead ‘n Phish, and Michael Stipe started acting more like a celebrity than a rock-and-roll frontman. In high school, Jerry Garcia taught me that silence between songs is often golden, Trey Anastasio reminded me of the old David Byrne saying that “singing is a trick to get people to listen to music longer than they would” and the jam-scene in general shifted my musical interests from emotion to improvisation. 1996’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi featured one of my five favorite R.E.M. moments, the moody, rough “Bittersweet Me,” but I don’t think I even bothered to buy its sequel, Up. Now and then I’d check in on the guys, usually via VH1 or an event like the Vote for Change Tour, but by and large, my interests drifted elsewhere. I think the last time that little band from Athens, GA crossed my mind was when I pulled out an old concert shirt I bought at SPAC my first day of college to attend my final show at CBGBs. I’m not sure if R.E.M. ever played there, but they still seemed to fade with that era.

But, like so many things in life, the musical current has changed once again and now, a decade later, the jangle-rock sound R.E.M. helped pioneer is back style and the trio is ready to reclaim their indie-rock crown. Last month alone they headlined Langerado, played a SXSW showcase at Sutbb’s and scored the cover of Spin for the first in 13 years. Even my most jaded music-loving friends think Accelerate is R.E.M.’s best, and certainly most rocking, album since Monster, but something still feels wrong. Perhaps its because the interweb has rendered MTV irrelevant or that the group’s “lost” celebrity years revealed the sad truth that, at heart, most musicians would rather hang at a trendy night club than CBGBs…or that those grungy Monster riffs I loved so much in ’95 feel as dated as the Rolling Stones’ stab at psychadelia, Her Majesty's Satanic Request.

In a way, its nice to know that R.E.M. is still around, trying their hardest to produce good music, like an old friend from middle school you rarely see, but still keep tabs on. But, as much as R.E.M.’s return to fame is a sign that, as I’ve said time and time again, styles come and go in cycles, something about R.E.M.’s sudden comeback still feels forced. And, its safe to say, R.E.M. has aged into one of my generation’s first real nostalgia acts. It’s a sad fate and one that’s not entirely their fault: If he had sold thousands, not millions, of records, Michel Stipe would be Morrissey and if R.E.M. had broken up after Green and reformed in 2004 they’d be the Pixies. But, instead, R.E.M soldiered on, combating alt-rock’s lean years face to face, and now Stipe is forced to use his emotions, or at least his sexual ambiguity, as equity to bait the media into paying attention. Like so many oldies acts before him.

At Langerado, I’d guestimate about 2,000 kids left R.E.M.’s set early to pre-game in their tents before the Disco Biscuits’ late night set and I can’t really blame them. It must be hard to watch a band tour behind its Behind the Music story if you weren’t around when those stories took place. But, for me, hearing those songs still feels bittersweet.

I move across, innocence lost
All flashing pulsar
I move across the earth in my new pattern shirt
I pass satellites

"You're so bitter," your complaint
I can't give you anything
I don't know who you're livin' for
I don't know who you are anymore

I'd sooner chew my leg off,
Than be trapped in this
How easy you think of all of this as bittersweet me

I couldn't taste it
I'm tired and naked
I don't know what I'm hungry for
I don't know what I want anymore

I move across, candy floss
I move like a tank
I move across the room
With a heart full of gloom,
Stronger than you think

Oh my peer,
Your veneer is wearing thin and cracking
The surface informs that underneath,
Underneath is lacking

You move across, innocence lost,
All static and desire,
You're blue in the face from navel gaze,
You set yourself on fire

You strip down and lay yourself out,
I know you can't fake it,
But are you tired and naked?
Are you tired and naked?

I couldn't taste it
I'm tired and naked
I don't know what I'm hungry for
I don't know what I want anymore

I move across, candy floss
I move like a tank
I move across the room
With a heart full of gloom,
Stronger than you think

-R.E.M., “Bittersweet Me”

A Moment with My Morning Jacket

Above: Bouncing with MMJ...find me as if I was Waldo

I heard the new My Morning Jacket album from start to finish yesterday, before it was turned off, packed up and returned to the vault where it will remain until each-and-every writer/critic/blogger/scribe with an @ symbol attached to their name dissects it from start to finish, claiming every kernel of noise as their own (read: no, I don't have a copy handy, so I can't burn it for you, even if it would help you score with your girlfriend, boyfriend and/or that guy who used to sell you goo balls in the lot).

I honestly can't remember the last time I was so excited to hear a new album and definitely can’t remember the last time I tried to review a new disc in just one sitting. Yet, there is something refreshing about hearing a CD as a complete work and then letting it sit for a while, before its tracks begin to take on all sorts of other extraneous meanings.

I also find it somewhat fitting that at a time when every singer/songwriter sporting more than a 5 o’clock shadow has seemingly tailored their style to replicate the classic Jim James sound, My Morning Jacket has moved in the opposite direction, creating a dense, funky, psychedelic album that would fit more comfortably next to Flaming Lips or Prince than either At Dawn or It Still Moves. Like 2005’s Z, Evil Urges finds the Kentucky-bred quintet masking its raw muscle with glitchy studio wizardry rather than acoustic guitars and reverb drenched vocals; in fact, James has tweaked his voice to such an extent that he now employs two microphones onstage. But, from start to finish, those classic MMJ touches are still there, buried beneath a thick layer of conscious fuzz, where one gets the sense James always felt they belonged. “For thoughtless folks like me and J, who'd pay, but can't afford, the finer things in life,” he once mused, “So we heist them all...”

In many ways, Evil Urges is actually two very different albums, conceptually spit down the middle by, appropriately enough, the song “Two Haves.” For lack of a better term, the disc’s A-Side is the more experimental half, driven by studio gimmicks and longtime drummer Patrick Hallahan’s big, funky beats. The album’s B-Side is more traditional MMJ, filled with modern classic-rock moments and a few more gentle interludes. And while the album’s A-Side was clearly sequenced upfront for a reason, it’s the record’s B-Side that echoes through my head, especially the soft, haunting “Librarian,” a vintage MMJ moment that could fit on Harvest were it not for a somewhat obtuse reference to “the interweb.”

But as much as I want to call Evil Urges the post-jam-era’s answer to Pet Sounds or Revolver, initially under appreciated experimental concepts that blossomed into cornerstones of the classic-rock canon, more likely it will either be the album that propels MMJ out of their comfortable critic’s corner or alienates their original fans…or both. For even though Evil Urges is both a product of the studio and the group’s least accessible work since signing with ATO, it’s also tailored for the big, arena stages My Morning Jacket are finally ready to frequent, especially the album's 7-minute climax, "Touch Me I'm Gonna Scream (Part 2)."

I guess that’s all until I give Evil Urges a proper listen and, I’m sure, a proper review. Until then I’ll leave you all with my favorite line from my first sitting. Go ahead and add it to your yearbook page before all your friends:

“Do you live your life on the road, losing out on love, asking for nothing, running for something that isn't there…”

Indeed Jim, I sure do…

Langerado Leftovers

Benjy and I spent a few days down in sunny Florida in March at the 6th annual Langerado Music & Arts Festival, recording a variety of backstage interviews. As in years past, we also recruited a mix of performers to deliver exclusive acoustic performances for Cold Turkey. Beloware the first batch of performances and interviews in five different links. Press "play" above to stream each individual episode or click "save target as" to download an mp3.

Matt Pond PA

New Mastersounds

Dr. Dog

Matisyahu and 311

Bassnectar

Also, please check www.relix.com/radio in the coming days for another batch of Langerado-centric podcasts.

Homecoming Kings

In January, Aaron and Deanna crashed at my apartment for a few days during a two week setbreak from their current "world tour." Aaron and I worked together at Relix from 2003-2007, sharing a thin cubicle wall for a good chuck of that time, and, while living in such close corners occasionally led to the obligatory co-worker eye roll, the place hasn't felt the same since he left last summer to travel the world with his equally awesome girlfriend/now fiancé Deanna.

The happy couple, who are the subject of both a blog and a mock-blog of their own, came home shortly before New Year's and spent about a week in the city, catching up with friends, family and former co-workers before heading off to southeast Asia in mid-January. Since both Aaron and Deanna left their jobs on good terms, they also stopped by their old offices for quick victory lap, which brought me back to one of my favorite Rye Country Day School memories: My first trip back to high school after starting college.

As much as I hated my high school with the passion of a thousand suns (a phrase I never really understand, but seems to mean "a lot"), there was something strangely heroic about that first trip back, when those awkward adolescent scars hadn't quite healed, but the main hall still felt like home. In retrospect, I'd only been gone for about 4 months, yet it felt like I'd come home from a year at sea: older, wiser and suddenly able to grow facial hair. My younger friends looked up at me with wide eyes and, for the first and only time, my teachers treated me more like a peer than a peasant. By my next trip back a for my brother's graduation , all the underclassmen I knew had long since graduated and I'd become just another name in the alumni directory to most of my former teachers.

In a way, I guess fitting that my favorite high school memory took place after a graduated, not just because as Zach Morris liked to say, "I love high school, too bad classes get in the way," but because it's impossible to really see something when it’s right in front of you, even if what you happen to be looking at bares an uncanny resemblance to Lord of the Flies.

Hopefully Aaron and Deanna felt the same way about their short stay on my sofa, Lord of the Flies reference not withstanding. Safe travels guys and we'll continue to look at you with wide eyes until we're forced to share a cubicle wall once again!

Jammys Season is Here Again

After a short hiatus, the Jammys will return to the Theater at Madison Square Garden on May 7. The Jammy Awards was of the first projects I got involved with at Relix, back before I started spending more time in my cubicle then my bedroom, and is always one of my favorite days of the year (expect that time I lost my cell phone in the snow while setting up, but once again I digress). I’m pretty confident this year is going to be the best Jammy Awards yet, not just because four-time Jammy Award Winner and seven-time Grammy Nominee Warren Haynes and our most recent New Groove Winner Grace Potter are going to co-host, but because Phish is taking home the Lifetime Achievement Award. And even though I look a lot better in button downs than bajas, I still like Phish. A lot. And, apparently, so do MGMT, The National, Earl Greyhound, 311, Vampire Weekend, Incubus, Maroon 5 and pretty much every other great rock band with a good ear that came of age in the era of flying hotdogs and “Harry Hood” chants. So I hope you all stop by the Theater at MSG on May 7 for what is sure to be a most blogable evening of live improvisational music. And if I happen to lose my cell phone again, let’s just meet Page side, OK?

and for fun, here is a shot of me and Magner stuffing programs at the 2005 Jammys. I look young, he looks younger….

Winter Hat Hair

After being spoiled with unseasonably warm weather for the past four months, winter finally arrived in New York in late February. Though I'm pretty sure every jacketless January day is just another sign that the end of the world in already in pre-production, I’ve certainly enjoyed bouncing round the city without my winter clothes. But, as I’m reminded each morning, every dream must eventually come to an end and, for the first time in months, last week I dug out my winter hat and gloves for my daily walk across the Red Sea divide that is 14^th St.

And after trudging to work in the snow and taking off my beloved knit wool hat, I was also reminded of one of life’s simpler problems: hat hair. Not just baseball cap-style hat hair, mind you, but knit wool cap hair which, if you have thin, silky hair like me, is impossible to tame without a shower. Now, over the past quarter century, I’ve invested a lot of time trying to figure out a way to prevent winter hat: I’ve tried drying my hair before putting on my cap, wetting it before work and, even, dunking my head in my office sink in-between sips of my morning coffee. But, in the end, I’ve come to the realization that the only way to avoid winter hat hair is to brave the cold without any sort of above-ear protection.

In all honesty, I’ve never minded the cold enough to wear a hat, even when I lived in frigid upstate New York or after my college girlfriend insisted on keeping our thermometer at 98 degrees all winter, thus raising my body temperature just enough to demote winter to my least favorite season (right behind summer, spring and the beauty that is fall). But, occasionally, I find myself succumbing to peer pressure and wearing a hat to work. And, yes, you did read that right: peer pressure. You see, for some reason, people, especially adults, love asking me if I’m “cold.” In certain ways, it’s a rhetorical question (of course I know if I’m cold or not) and in other ways it’s a strange sort of under the breath insult, much like calling a friend “big guy” or “boss” or telling someone their shoes are untied when they are obviously already aware (as if to say, my day may suck, but at leas my shoes are tied). Yet, every winter, I can usually only take people asking me if “I am cold or not” or “why I’m not wearing a hat” for so long, so inevitably I eventually cave and accept my winter hat hair until its warm enough for people to start commenting on my bad bowl cut again.

So, if you happen to work in the winter sports wear industry, a plea on behalf of all of us with thin, silky hair: please try to invent a knit cap with a little less static. I can’t promise that you’ll make as big s splash as Ned Flanders’s Left Handed store in The Simpsons, but I swear I’ll never tell you if your shoes are untied.

The Third Wives Club

As some of you may have noticed, and my dear friend Jon Peck recently pointed out, this space has been relatively quiet recently. It’s not that I haven’t had plenty of things to blog about (SXSW, Langerado, mini-Steel Train tour, the occasional cock block et. all) it just happens that all of those assignments have pulled me a bit farther from my desk than my average Relix work week usual allows (yes, even the cock block). But, after a short hiatus from all things 9-5, I’m back in New York and ready to make sense of my increased tinnitus.

I’m also sad to report that since we last spoke I’ve had to lay my beloved iPod to rest. About two weeks ago a black mark appeared on her otherwise colorful screen and, over the past 14 days, that darkness has slowly consumed her facade to the point where she is no longer usable. It’s a sad day, though one I should have seen coming given her rough-and-tough lifestyle and occasional run-ins with my hardwood floor.

She wasn’t my first sonic love: I was with my first ipod from 2003-2005, but, just two days before her warranty expired, I traded her in for a newer model. And, like many second wives, her replacement was a bit slimmer, a bit more exotic and a bit all around sexier. Of course, like any first wife, my original iPod got everything in the divorce, including all my mp3s. But, over the past three years, I’ve started a new life with my second ipod and, I’m not embarrassed to say, have become rather attached to her (though I never really gave her a name). So it is with bittersweet joy that I introduce my third iPod to the world this evening (check out that ass!):

Learning from my past mistakes, I’m thinking of giving her a name, perhaps “Number 3” or Trey for short, but then again we’re still in the courting phase. For now, I’m still figuring out how to press her buttons and why she keeps speaking to me in Spanish. But I’m sure in time I’ll come to love her as much as her predecessors…though this time I’m proud to say I was smart enough to sign up for Tekserve’s prenuptial Apple Cares program before I signed any papers.

I hope you missed me more than my spell check did,

Mikey Greenhaus

The Last Sober Picture Taken of Me Was at My Bar Mitzvah

Middle School, oddly enough right before a first kiss during spin the bottle

My best friends in the world and the worst shirt I ever owned

Sometime around New Year’s Eve, I realized that I own no pictures. I mean, besides a few random photos lying around, mostly from formal events or graduations, I can count the photos I own on two hands: a collage of college/high schools friends circa 1996-2003, an odd photo series Jenny and Rebecca made of “the three sides of Mikey G” (innocently happy, happily intoxicated and, um, hungover) and this random picture Rebecca and I took in a movie theater photo booth in high school (probably the best picture ever taken of me, oddly enough). But, if someone were to ask me “what do your friends look like,” I’d probably have to use the internet to show them. Which made me realize two things: First, that the last time someone took a sober picture of me was at my Bar Mitzvah and, second, that pictures have taken on a different meaning in the increasingly accessible, internet/social networking–era. While people will always use pictures for decoration, and to document significant moments in their life, it is no longer necessary to collect pictures of your friends as if they were trading cards. If I want to say, “this is what my friends Rebecca or Jenny” look like, I can just go online and show them a picture. Which leads me to my second point: with the exception of formal portraits, I’ve come release that 90% of all people think that they “look bad” in any given photo, while everyone else who will see the same photo will tell them that “they look fine.” I guess that’s because, in some strange way, we’re never used to seeing ourselves.

In any event, after coming to this realization, I stole some photos off my friend’s various pages, and compiled a little photo album I’ve affectionately dubbed “Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Be More Meaningful Than They Appear.” Much to my surprise, it’s been pretty cool to look back at the 30 or so nights I now have documented, to remember what life felt like in bad turtlenecks (before they were ironic) and when my world revolved around certain people or places I’ve long since forgotten (or at least consciously avoided thinking about). And, of course, to remember that the last time someone took a sober picture of me, I really was 13.

The 2007 Mikey Award

For a list style look at my thoughts on 2007, please check out my Village Voice Pazz and Jop ballot. The following entry appeared on Jambands.com last night:

Since I’m about as good at creating decisive ‘best of’ lists as I am at proofreading my articles, I started hosting my own little typo-plagued award ceremony a few years ago when I should have been learning the oh so tricky difference between ‘than’ and ‘then.” I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did procrastinating from those pesky grammar lessons.

Best Non-Jamband Album by a Former Jambands.com New Groove: American Babies, Self-titled
I never thought I’d say there’s a fine line between untz and Americana, but American Babies has proven once and for all that beneath every great jam lies an even greater song. With any luck, one day “Brooklyn Bridge” will be an anthem, but, for now, it’s just the soundtrack to my 2007.

Best Multi-Band Festival Disguised as a Civilian Vacation: Jam Cruise
Jam Cruise’s equation is simple: take the best musicians from the jam-world’s three most vibrant scenes (San Francisco, New York and New Orleans), add an all-you-can-eat buffet, subtract bad weather and divide by an infinite number of sit-ins and you get the only festival that makes even non-music lovers jealous. Just don’t tell them you’ve renamed the Shuffle Board court Shakedown.

Best Reason to Agree with Every Other Top Ten List Published Between Radiohead Releases: Arcade Fire, Neon Bible.
The inner-lot kid in me wants to hate the hype and the very principles that first ignited the Arcade Fire: the self-righteously dark lyrics, the baroque excess and especially the religious overtones, but, for some reason, I still listen to Arcade Fire every day. Perhaps I’m attracted to the grandeur or maybe I think I can see Anakin beneath Win Butler’s Dark Vader shell. Or maybe it’s just because Arcade Fire is the new Phish, only with less hemp and more hairgel!

Most Poignant Collection of Emo-Lyrics Published Anywhere Outside a High- School Yearbook Page: The Nation, Boxer
Besides having college to look forward to (probably paying better attention in English class), the only reason I still wish I was back in high school is so I could steal these lyrics from 2007’s best album for my yearbook page:

“Falling out of touch with all my/friends are somewhere getting wasted, hope they’re staying glued together/I have arms for them”

“You know I dreamed about you/for twenty-nine years before I saw you/
You know I dreamed about you/I missed you for/for twenty-nine years”

“They’re gonna send us to prison for jerks/ for having vague ideas of the way to turn each other on again/

“Your mind is racing like a pro, now/Oh my god it doesn’t mean a lot to you/
One time you were a glowing young ruffian/Oh my god it was a million years ago

I could go on and on, but my thesaurus is tired.

Also see for the above two: Best Reason to venture above (1)14th Street: Arcade Fire/the National at United Palace Theater, New York, 5/8

Best Reason to Ponder the Meaning of Life with a Member of the Opposite Sex You Last Saw Around the Release of Garden State: The Shins, Wincing the Night Away
I resisted embracing the indie-pop revolution until I saw Garden State and then the Shins changed my life. And, while no single moment can recapture that moment in time, Wincing the Night Away comes pretty close, offering a seamless mix of dark themes, light sounds and easily bouncible beats.

Best Reason to Turn on, Tune in and, Even, Chill Out: High Sierra
Being a neurotic, Northeast suburbanite I didn’t get High Sierra the first time I went and wanted to go home. But sometime between the Slip’s sunset show, the Disco Biscuits’ old-school meadow throw-down, ALO’s late-night sit-in fest and Page’s workshop (which somehow healed that “Velvet Sea” wound), this time I didn’t want to go home. And, in many ways, my Cold Turkey co-host never did (he’s currently writing a novel in San Fran).

Also see: ALO, Roses & Clover

Most Obvious Proof that the Grateful Dead are the Original Hipsters, Yo La Tengo, Port Washington, NY, 10/19
If Yo La Tengo covering “Ripple,” in Long Island, on a Friday during CMJ isn’t proof that the Grateful Dead were the original indie-rockers, then look no further than Jerry Garcia’s tight, black t-shirts or Bob Weir’s short-shorts.

Best Performance by a Group of Robots not Involving a Single Transformer: Daft Punk, Lollapalooza
Ever since my parents placed me in a Jolly Jumper when I was 2, people have judged how excited I am by how high I bounce. And let’s just say no robots make me jump higher than Daft Punk (except maybe Optimus Prime).

Best Reason to Trade in Your VW Bus for, Well, a Volkswagen: Wilco, Sky Blue Sky
Since the demise of Uncle Tupelo, Jeff Tweedy has used Wilco to define alt-country, defy indie-rock, revive avant-gardism in the mainstream and, now, even sell Volkswagens. But, then again, there is something to be said for aging with your fanbase.

Best Non-Musical Performance by My Favorite Living Musician: Trey Anastasio, 92nd St. Y, 2/7
Since high school, I’ve spent well over 100 nights watching Trey Anastasio perform onstage and far more time talking about that band he played in between Space Antelope and 70 Volt Parade. But, besides his set at the Tsunami Relief Benefit, this open conversation with Anthony DeCurtis was his most genuine performance since Coventry.

The First-Person Award: AGP, Mercury Lounge, 3/1
I’ve been lucky enough to have a number of amazing, but self-indulgent, musical memories from 2007 and even luckier to have a place (www.greenhauseffect.com) to reveal enough personal information about those moments to ensure that my family never sleeps a full night again:

The show Barber and Brownie played “Little Betty Boop” for me when the Biscuits surpassed Phish as the band I’ve seen the most, the night I spent seguing between electronic shows throughout the city, seeing a band that played my college radio show headline MSG (Dispatch), having American Babies play my birthday party (or what I remember of it), the afternoon I spent outside during Green Apple (breadsticks), cake at Camp Bisco, the Sopranos photo shoot at the School of Rock Festival and pretty much every musical performance we managed to score on Cold Turkey (especially Apollo Sunshine with Brad Barr at Langerado!), but my most meaningful musical moment from the past year has to be my final AGP show at the Mercury Lounge. AGP was the soundtrack to my college years, first band I ever wrote about for Jambands.com and one of the reasons I scored my editor post at Relix. Their final show should have been an incredibly sad moment, but, at the end of the night, things didn’t really feel like they ended. They sort of just faded into the night, like so many things in life.

Beauty School Dropout

On Saturday the time came for my bi-monthly haircut. Since I’ve pretty much had the same haircut for as long as I’ve been able to grow hair---and will likely keep the same ‘due’ until I ultimately lose that precious ability---I’ve always felt that getting my hair cut is kind of like going into a fancy restaurant and ordering a Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwich (which I’ve also done on occasion). But since the mop top went out of fashion a few years before even my parents met in high school (henceforth known as the beginning of time), I’ve been forced to get my hair cut at least once every two months for the past 26 years, if only to remind myself that I do in fact have ears. Luckily for me, long ago salons and nail parlors replaced firehouses and Rotary Clubs as my quaint, Nuevo-rich hometown’s focal points, so I learned how to deal with high-stress scissor artists at a very young age.

From what I can remember of those blurry pre-Propecia years, every time I’d try a new barber shop, or “salon” as they are called in scenic Westchester, NY, the guy or girl operating on my hair would give me some sort of “slight makeover” and the next morning I’d wake up with the exact same bowl haircut. I tried using gel, growing out my latent Jew-fro, shaving off my sideburns and, even, during one particularly heady summer, cultivating a neo-bohemian beard (which my bartender said ”gave me age,” my girlfriend said “scratched her face” and my Grandma said “made me look like a terrorist”). In fact, I think a major reason I decided to pursue a career in music journalism is because the kid in Almost Famous had my haircut and managed to score a job at Rolling Stone (as well as Kate Hudson).

Yet, even without factoring in the obvious trauma of watching my last remaining hair cells float slowly to the ground like Edward Scissorhands operating on the American Beauty bag, I’ve always found getting my haircut an utterly awkward experience. First off, I’m never sure how to say “just a trim” without somehow insulting the artist working my scalp and, no matter how old I get, I still find it impossible to look in the mirror for 30 minutes without making some sort of 2^nd grade silly face Worst off all, though I have absolutely no problem emotionally undressing myself online, I’m really, really bad at making small talk in person and, let’s face it, they don’t teach you about hippie chic in beauty school. Also, I’ve always feared that one day I’d find out that I shared a barber with one of my co-workers, which I feel is the only thing more awkward than bumping into your high school teacher at the mall.

But, since moving to the New York, I’ve found a decidedly not-hip, back ally hair cut place which falls somewhere between a turn of the century Barber Shop and the type of establishment Tony Soprano would probably hang around at before heading over the Bada Bing Club. In fact, as if they were pitching an HBO pilot, each employee seems to represent a different facet of the hair cutting community: the Italian guy who still speaks more Sicilian than English, the Russian guy whose answer to every question is usually “buzz cut,” the fair skinned guy who is either a homosexual or metro-sexual (or both if that’s possible) and the Jewish guy who, according to stereotype, only seems to handle the money. Interestingly enough, they are all named Sal.

Like entering any mafia organization, it took them a while to truly let me into the family, but, once I figured out how to tip without using my cell phone calculator, my shaves got softer, my waits got shorter and my reading material went from People to Playboy.
We’ve also managed to bond over some good old fashioned rock-and-roll, particularly, Elvis Presley, whose mug is plastered across the room like Phish posters in my college dorm (I like his music, they like his sideburns). Since I have a good six weeks before my own sideburns start to double as ear plus, I’m also toying with the idea of either compiling some highlights from www.greenhauseffect.com to bring in as a loose script or creating some sort of completely fabricated story about myself that I can develop a visit at a time until I really start losing my hair. Or until the mop top is cool again.