Burning Dervish

Man, Halloween in NYC! Always a hoot. This year I planned on spending it taking my boy trick-or-treating and then seeing the Stones at the Beacon Theater...not to be tonight...will still get the trick-or-treating in but Sir Mick has fallen ill and the show is rescheduled for tomorrow night...that's ok, still living off the glow from Sunday's show...more on that to come...in the meantime, I will spend tonight in the way-back machine visiting the ghosts of Halloween past, hop in!

Jerry Garcia Band: Shining Star
from Meadowland Arena, East Rutherford, NY, October 31, 1996

Beck with the Flaming Lips: Do You Realize? - The Golden Years
from Beacon Theater, New York, NY, October 31, 2002

On this date in 1984 the Grateful Dead played their first show with an officially-sanctioned taper's section, thus triggering the largest single outbreak of obsessive-compulsive disorder known to man.

Today's MP3 is the first song, from the first set, from the first taper's section.

Grateful Dead: Hell in a Bucket
from Community Theater, Berkeley, CA, October 27, 1984

...has been fairly active recently, releasing an album in 2004 and actually performing live a few times a year. The occasion of what would have been John Coltrane's 80th birthday has drawn her back to the stage as well.

There is a nice online exclusive with Alice on the Way Poetics site - part interview, part profile, part tribute.

You don't have to love her music or even jazz in general to groove on her message. And yes, she has one: "...music heals...The mind is really the ruler; it controls everything that we do. We have to appreciate the power of the mind and know that it can do greater things than just the external things that we perceive. If the mind will embrace music in a pure way, it can heal."

Every once in a while I think to check in with the CREEM Magazine website...I will get around to posting about those folks another day...Anyway, I popped by this morning to see that they had a review of Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs & Englishmen – 36th Anniversary Deluxe Edition.

Now I love this record for what it is - Joe, live, with a swinging backing band led by Leon Russell - but stumbling across this article also reminded me of how great Leon is. I first heard him around this time of year my freshman year of high school, walking to a keg party on a cool autumn night, a buddy of mine toting a boombox cranking out The Concert for Bangla Desh...Leon's take on Jumpin Jack Flash made my hair stand up - and still does.

Today's MP3s are one Leon song covered by someone else and Leon covering someone else's song! I wanted to include B.B. King's version of Leon's Hummingbird, too, but realize I only have that one on vinyl. Sorry, for another day...

Dig:

Joe Cocker, Delta Lady
from Mad Dogs and Englishmen
Leon Russell: Medley: Jumpin' Jack Flash/Young Blood
from The Concert for Bangla Desh

...turns 80 today!

Chuck Berry means a lot of things to rock and roll. Here are some of the things he means to me:

Maybelline

Promised Land

Johnny B. Goode

Chuck videotaping women peeing

Fighting with Keith Richards

The Stones' version of Carol from Get Yer Ya-Yas Out

Not to mention covers by the Beatles, the Dead, jamming with Lennon on the Mike Douglas show, etc etc etc...

Long live Chuck!

...is 59 today - happy birthday, Bob!

So many people find Bob hard to like, others hard to hate. He must be doing something right - at least people can get riled up about him! And hey, at least he isn't Mickey Hart (who you may remember from at least one previous post I have no use for). I don't know if the world could stand two of that guy.

Bob's alright in my book for the only reason that matters to me - he has written some great songs over the years. He could have written nothing other than the Weather Report Suite and Lost Sailor/Saint and it would have been all good...Nevermind the fact that he put out the best solo album of any of the members (so what if they were all on it!), Ace, AND that the band played one of their best sets on his birthday in 1989...

Rummage through your tapes, your CDRs, your .SHN files or whatever it is you use to keep your jams on, dig out some Bob and give the old guy a little love.

Bob Weir: Playing in the Band
from Ace
Ratdog: Black Throated Wind
from Vic Theatre, Chicago, IL, November 4, 2003

I would have assumed he is much older, actually...man, he was out of Van Halen before he was thirty, wild...

YouTube comes through once again, with a great video called, "david lee roth drunk"...Happy Birthday, Diamond Dave!