D’oh! #Trey
Posted: January 6, 2010 Filed under: Concerts | Tags: Trey Anastasio Leave a comment »
Ah man. Trey’s pre-sale for 930 club sold out quick, and I got none. I bet the tickets available to the public will go pretty fast too.
As much as I love 930, I think a better venue for Trey might be DAR Constitution Hall. More capacity, but still intimate.
#Trey Playing 930 on February 9
Posted: January 5, 2010 Filed under: Concerts | Tags: Trey Anastasio 2 Comments »I saw today that Trey Anastasio is taking his band out on the road next month, including a February 9 stop at the 930 Club here in old D.C. I am definitely going to try for tickets.
I last saw Trey at 930 back in December 2006. I didn’t stick around for the whole show, but from what I remember, it was great. The venue was packed, and Trey was energized and sounding good. Here’s the set list for that night via Trey.com.
Set One
- Shine
- Simple Twist up Dave
- Mud City
- Mozambique
- Last Tube>
- Love is Freedom
- Undermind
- Cincinnati
Set Two
- Host Across the Potomac
- Plasma
- Drifting
- Night Speaks to a Woman
- Push on Til the Day
- Air Said to Me
- Inlaw Josie Wales@
- Sweet Dreams Melinda@
- Goodbye Head
- Tuesday
Encore
- First Tube
His Favorite Band Ever?
Posted: October 25, 2009 Filed under: Artists | Tags: phish, primus, Trey Anastasio 2 Comments »Via PhishTwit today, Anastasio on Primus:
“They might be my favorite band ever.”
Two Phish Hits
Posted: September 15, 2009 Filed under: Concerts | Tags: Carnegie Hall, Mike Gordon, Mr. Miner's Phish Thoughts, phish, The New York Times, Trey Anastasio Leave a comment »Well, more like one Mike hit and one Trey hit.
- Mr. Miner’s Phish Thoughts has a review up of the September 12 Mike Gordon show at the State Theater.
- The New York Times has the goods on Trey’s outing at Carnegie Hall that very same evening. You know how you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.
I’d Like My Guitar Amp to Run on Solar Power
Posted: September 1, 2009 Filed under: Technology, Videos | Tags: blip.fm, Devotion, hydrogen, Les Claypool, Oysterhead, solar power, Stewart Copeland, Trey Anastasio, wind power Leave a comment »More bits and pieces.
- This isn’t directly related to music, but Climate Progress has a post up about the “holy grail” of clean energy: affordable energy storage for wind and solar power. Read that one together with this item from Physorg.com on how a solar-hydrogen economy could supply the world’s energy needs. It’s stories like these that keep me from thinking humankind is doomed.
- I’m going to check out blip.fm.
- Via Devotion, a clip of Oysterhead playing “Pseudo Suicide.” I think there are better Oysterhead songs, but this video is worth at least a look to see Trey playing a guitar with antlers on it.
Metro Shuffle: Coldplay and Beardfish
Posted: August 31, 2009 Filed under: Deep, Listening | Tags: Beardfish, Coldplay, deep thoughts, Frank Zappa, Guyute, Steve Vai, Trey Anastasio 2 Comments »Couple of bits and pieces this evening.
- I got home from work this evening, and there was a full blown Michael Jackson dance party going on in my living room. I joined right in.
- As I noted here, I paid five bucks for the GarageBand lesson of Sting teaching “Message in Bottle.” The file for the lesson was 699 MB. I shudder to think what kind of file size would be required for Trey teaching a lesson on how to play “Guyute.” I’d probably pay about $10 for that action. Maybe $15!
- On the Metro home this evening, I first hit, quite deliberately, Coldplay’s Viva la Vida. That tune has to be one of the all time great songs for travel on public transport.
After that, I forwarded manically for another good tune and found one in Beardfish’s “The Hunter” off “Sleeping in Traffic.” No link for that one on Grooveshark, alas.
Now, the juxtaposition of Coldplay (mega pop humongous) and Beardfish (relatively obscure Swedish prog) prompted me to recall an overcaffeinated meta reflection I had this morning: the tension between community and individuality in music.
In one sense, the love of music is about communing with others, like the MJ dance party that took place a few hours ago, or this blog, or learning to play “Message in Bottle” – just like Sting! I also think of the community around Phish, one I’m getting more familiar with online these days. Or Metallica – half the fun of going to see those guys live is to commune with the other jonesers who love the band just as much as you do. You all bang your head together.
On the other hand, love of music is the search for originality, a chance to be unique or close to it. For example, I admit I get some satisfaction in knowing that probably less than 1 percent of my friends knows what the heck a Beardfish is. I’d also wager that a very low percentage of my friends would even like to listen to Beardfish, if given the chance. There’s satisfaction there too: being apart from all the others. Artistically, I guess Frank Zappa is a good example of the musician’s quest to be sui generis. Here, along those lines, is a clip of Steve Vai talking about auditioning for Frank:
Thoughts on ‘Time Turns Elastic’
Posted: June 15, 2009 Filed under: Listening | Tags: phish, Trey Anastasio 3 Comments »I’m giving a preliminary thumbs down to Trey Anastasio’s ‘Time Turns Elastic.’ Why preliminary? I’ve only listened to it once – maybe it’ll grow on me. That happens.
I was looking forward to hearing this record, which is billed as a composition for “for vocals, guitar and orchestra” by Trey and Don Hart. It’s orchestral rock, in other words, with the emphasis on orchestral.
One interesting thing about this record was that Trey also adapted Time Turns Elastic into a 14 minute song for Phish. After that tune was released, I consulted with MPomy to settle something: is this prog or not? MPomy wrote up a fine bit of commentary, which not only answered the question but also helped spark the creation of this blog.
I like the Phish adaption of “Time,” but, by my quick read of comments at iTunes, a lot of the band’s fans didn’t. “What the hell is this?” one guy said.
Well, if those folks didn’t like Phish’s rendition, I bet they are going to really have issues when/if they hear Trey’s full blown orchestral piece.
My problem with this one is that it feels a bit like Muzak: a bunch of rock songs that got arranged, like you’d hear at the Academy Awards or something.
A sort of related issue is role the guitar plays here. Trey had this to say about the project: ”Neither of us had ever heard anything that uses a guitar as a serious instrument intermingled with an orchestra in the same way one would write a concerto for a violin and orchestra.”
More accurate would be to say “uses rock guitar,” I think, because that’s what’s going on. Trey sounds great, definitely, but anytime he puts some rock/blues into his playing, the contrast with the strings and so on seems a little jarring to me.
That’s just after one listen though. And I definitely think this is a brave piece of music – no regrets at all about downloading and no diminution of my deep admiration for Trey and Phish.
Now, am I going to see the band when they play in Columbia, MD on 8/15? Couldn’t get tickets during the 12 minutes that they were available before selling out, and StubHub prices are scaring me off right now.
