Cracker Acoustic Duo

- Live at Moe's Alley in Santa Cruz, CA - April 1, 2009

Today's Date In Music History







Taped by: Todd Fleisher
Transferred by: Todd Fleisher


Disc 1
Set 1
01. Intro
02. One Fine Day
03. Sunrise In The Land Of Milk & Honey @
04. Been Around The World
05. Teen Angst
06. Guarded By Monkeys
07. Friends
08. Lonesome Johnny Blues
09. Turn On Tune In Drop Out @
10. Another Song About The Rain
11. Sweethearts #
12. All Her Favorite Fruit #$
13. Eurotrash Girl
14. Dr. Bernice

Disc 2
01. St. Cajetan
02. Crowd
Encore:
03. Big Dipper
04. Be My Love


Notes:
@ - acoustic debut
# - Greg Lisher on guitar
$ - Johnny on harmonica

(Download here)

Thanks to Cracker Acoustic Duo for allowing audience & soundboard recordings.

Previous Cracker posts

visit David Lowery's blog, 300 Songs

He liked to say simply that he played “jazz over a funky beat.”

RIP Melvin Sparks

Melvin Sparks (March 22, 1946 – March 13, 2011) was an American soul jazz, hard bop and jazz blues guitarist. He died on March 13, 2011 from complications from diabetes.




Melvin Sparks is the Essential Guitar Player! He’s The Master Of The Groove! The Acid-Jazz Pioneer! The Originator of Soul Jazz, Old School Acid Jazz & BarbecueFunk(FUNKJAZZ)

Over the last thirty years he has played with some of Jazz’s greatest musicians: David "Fathead" Newman, Lou Donaldson, Hank Crawford, Reuben Wilson and John Patton (are amongst the many). During the 1970s, Sparks backed up Lou Donaldson on the Funk-Jazz classics "Everything I Play Is Funky" and "Hot Dog".

Sparks recorded seven albums of his own and played on over 100 other albums. As a session man for Blue Note and Prestige Records, Sparks laid his signature guitar work on many other musician’s albums without ever being in spotlight. It was during this time that Melvin defined the jazz-guitar sound of a generation.

Melvin Sparks is still a much sought-after studio player, both new and old talents seek him out now more than ever. He continues to perform with the greats of this genre such as Leon Spencer Jr., Mike Clark and Idris Mohammed and is now breaking out his legendary guitar wizardry with many younger bands and artists such as Galactic, The Greyboy Allstars, Karl Denson's Tiny Univers, Derek Trucks and Robert Walter's 20th Congress.

Melvin is geared up to show us all what he does better than anyone else. Groove hard and in the pocket. Melvin Sparks has perhaps the most inspiring and soul-energizing guitar chops on this planet or another. He is admired by many performers, and audiences old and young alike, but continues to be a hidden treasure for music fans worldwide. He is Soul-Jazzy and Funky to the core! .

In the player below,

Melvin Sparks Band Live at Muddy River Smokehouse on May 28, 2004






Tr-01 Fire Eater
Tr-02 Alligator Boogaloo
Tr-03 Charlie Brown
Tr-04 Miss Riverside
Tr-05 Hot Dog
Tr-06 Pick up the Pieces
Tr-07 Texas Twister
Tr-08 Give Me the Night
Tr-09 Cherokee

Hayseed Dixie Live at Mercy Lounge

For Today's Date In Music History I'll feature a performance from NYC's Mercury lounge on November 7,2003.

Hayseed Dixie performs a mixture of cover versions of hard rock songs and original compositions in a style that is a cross between bluegrass and rock music.



Formed in 2001 with the release of their first album, titled A Hillbilly Tribute To AC/DC, Hayseed Dixie are acknowledged as the creators of the musical genre "Rockgrass."

The band consists of:
Barley Scotch - vocals, guitar and fiddle
Reverend Don Wayne Reno - banjo and vocals
Deacon Dale Reno - mandolin, guitar and vocals
Jake "Bakesnake" Byers - bass and vocals

Their sense of humor is evident in their bio, which claims that the band hails from Deer Lick Holler, "deep in the heart of the Appalachia," where its members grew up playing the traditional hillybilly music of their forefathers. But as fate would have it, they just so happened to stumble across AC/DC's back catalog of recordings when a stranger driving through the boy's hometown crashed his car and perished, but his records were saved.





Disc 1
01. Dirty Deeds
02. You Shook Me
03. Best Friends Girlfriend
04. I Know your Married >
05. Hells Bells
06. I Wanna Rock & Roll All Night
07. Deliahs Gone
08. Have a Drink on Me
09. Charlotte Mtn. Breakdown
10. Detroit Rock City
11. Cat Scratch Fever
12. The Lunch Story
13. Feel like Makin Lunch....err Love
14. Big Bottoms

Disc 2
01. Fat Bottom Girl
02. Keepin your Poop in a Jar
03. I wish I was You
04. T.N.T.
05. Paradise
06. Ellie Schaffer >
07. Shady Grove
08. Foggy Mtn. Breakdown * >
09. Doreen*
10. Katy Daley >
11. Rollin in my Sweet babys Arms
12. Highway To Hell*
Encore:
13. In the Pines * >
14. Will the Circle be Unbroken*

*w/ Scott “Sweepy” Walker on Harmonica

Download full show

Bonus: Here's a short documentary film from 2005 of the story and origins of Hayseed Dixie, the creators of the Rockgrass music genre.



More video

TDIMH: NOLA Brass Funk Rock

Bonerama Live at Tupelo Music Hall on October 24,2009

"Even in a city that doesn’t play by the rules, New Orleans’ Bonerama is something different. They can evoke vintage funk, classic rock and free improvisation in the same set; maybe even the same song. Bonerama has been repeatedly recognized by Rolling Stone, hailed as “the ultimate in brass balls” (2005) and praised for their “…crushing ensemble riffing, human-feedback shrieks and wah-wah growls” (2007). Bonerama carries the brass-band concept to places unknown; what other brass band could snag an honor for “Best Rock Band” (Big Easy Awards 2007)? As cofounder Mark Mullins puts it, “We thought we could expand what a New Orleans brass band could do. Bands like Dirty Dozen started the “anything goes” concept, bringing in the guitars and the drum kit and using the sousaphone like a bass guitar. We thought we could push things a little further.”

New Orleans’ fertile club scene was directly responsible for Bonerama getting together. Trombonists Mullins and Craig Klein were both members of Harry Connick’s band, where they’d been since 1990. Both were looking to supplement this gig with something a little less structured. “Harry sets the bar pretty high, and you have to play it the same way every night for everyone to follow.”

The big chance came in the summer of ’98, when Mullins had a weekly residency at Tipitina’s in the French Quarter. The club was then turning weekly slots over to some of the city’s favorite musicians, including Allen Toussaint and Cyril Neville; Mullins got charge of Wednesdays. Word got out one week that he and Klein were staging their trombone super-session and everybody they knew wanted to get involved. “It seemed that half the trombone players in town showed up,” Klein recalls. “At the end of the night we had them all onstage, maybe fifteen trombones at once. It sounded like a freight train; a big wall of sound coming right at you.”

Along with his jazz connections, Mullins is Bonerama’s resident rock ‘n’ roller: It was Mullins who instigated the offbeat classic-rock covers that have become a band tradition. Edgar Winter’s “Frankenstein” was the first nugget to get the treatment and songs by Hendrix, Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and the Allman Brothers Band have since appeared in their set right alongside the funk and jazz-flavored numbers. “There’s definitely something about the guitar and the trombone that are related,” Mullins figures. “You compare the fretboard to the slide; there’s a lot of similarity there.” Indeed, the sounds Mullins makes by playing through a guitar amp and wah-wah pedal may explain why he’s named Jimi Hendrix as one of his favorite trombonists. “It’s great to grab people with the rock songs, and then turn them on to some New Orleans music at the same time,” Klein says.

The buzz on Bonerama grew with hometown acclaim (with the band winning numerous OffBeat Magazine Awards; and Mullins regularly topping OffBeat’s trombone category), lots of roadwork, and three live albums – the first recorded close to home at the Old Point in Algiers; the second on tour in New York and the third album, Bringing It Home, recorded live from New Orleans’ world famous nightclub, Tipitina’s. The Boston Herald called them a “bonehead’s dream”; the Vail (CO) Daily noted that “the sound is fat and wet; sometimes downright lusty.” As hometown music zine OffBeat put it, “That nerdy kid in the band room with the trombone just might have the last laugh after all.”"


www.BoneramaMusic.com

set one (66:11)

01. intro
02. Funky Miracle
03. Bap Bap
04. Hero
05. Big Fine Woman
06. A Deeds Well Done
07. I Want To Ta-Ta You Baby
08. Yer Blues
09. I Don't Mean Nothin'


set two (74:25)

01. I'm Tellin' Ya
02. Bayou Betty
03. Whipping Post
04. Louie's Perch
05. Folsom Prison Blues
06. Down By The Riverside
07. banter/band intros
08. Moby Dick
09. encore intro
10. Blues For Ben

Download

Justice For All

A native of West Virginia, folksinger Dick Justice blended both blues and folk patterns on his recordings of the late '20s.
Born Richard Justice in 1906, he played with many black musicians as a youth and listened to blues records as well.
Justice recorded a total of ten sides for Brunswick during 1929 (some as a duo with Reese Jarvis), including a version of "Henry Lee" that later gained inclusion on Harry Smith's 1952 folksong collection Anthology of American Folk Music.
Little is known about the rest of Justice's life, though he often worked in the coal mines.
Many of his sides were compiled on the Document collection Old-Time Music from West Virginia (1927-1929).



1.) Brown Skin Blues; 2.) Cocaine; 3.) Henry Lee; 4.) Little Lulie; 5.) Old Black Dog; 6.) One Cold December Day; 7.) Guian Valley Waltz; 8.) Muskrat Rag; 9.) Poca River Blues; 10.) Poor Girl's Waltz

"The Dirt Underneath"

Today's Date In Music History:

Drive-By Truckers Live at Cannery Ballroom on September 27, 2007.

In 2007, the alternative country/Southern rock band, Drive-By Truckers, performed a string of acoustic shows called The Dirt Underneath Tour.

“We also wanted to go out a do something a little different. Maybe revisit some songs in a different light, maybe try out some new stuff on a smaller scale, maybe tell some stories and sing some songs. Pull up some chairs, have a few drinks and tell some stories to each other and some friends. We know how to do that but just never really get around to it. THE DIRT UNDERNEATH is a show I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.”- Patterson Hood



Set list:
The Home Front, A Ghost To Most, Bulldozers and Dirt, Daddy Needs a Drink, Panties in Your Purse, Tails Facing Up, Gravity's Gone, Bob, Nine Bullets, Where The Devil Don't Stay, After the Scene Dies, Self Destructive Zones,(Something's Got To) Give Pretty Soon, Marry Me, The Deeper In, Sink Hole, Check Out Time In Vegas, Goode's Field Road, Monument Valley, Zip City, The Opening Act, Love Like This, Buttholeville > State Trooper

Lineup:
Patterson Hood - guitar, mandolin, vocal
Mike Cooley - guitar, vocal
Shonna Tucker - bass, vocal
John Neff - pedal steel, guitar, vocal
Brad "The EZB" Morgan - drums
Spooner Oldham - keyboard

Download full show

"Friends"

Cracker Accoustic Duo performs "Friends" at Shank Hall Milwaukee 2-17-2010 featuring David Lowery & Johnny Hickman.

Lyrics:

Well I'd never sleep with your ex-girlfriend
Even if she starts to flirt with me again.
Allow me apologize for my slightly wicked thoughts;
'Cause that's the kind of friend that you've got.

If a fight breaks out and you're the cause of it
In some redneck bar where you've been talking shit.
I would not forsake you later in that parking lot
'cause that's the kind of friend that you've got.

Well through the laughter and the tears,
we go stumbling through the years.

A bit dysfunctional well folks might say

Well I've got the dirt on you.

Hey, I've got plenty on you too.

So I pray we stay together all our days.

So when you're on a date
and you finally bring that girl home.
You put a little Captain Beefheart on the stereo
and you disconnect the phone.

Then I show up drunk and raving
and then I pass out on the spot.
'Cause that´s the kind of friend
That you've got.

Well through the laughter and the tears

we go stumbling through the years.

A bit dysfunctional well folks might say

You can say that again.

Well I've got the dirt on you.

Hey I've got plenty on you too;

So I pray we stay together all our days.

Oh dear lord

Yeah I pray we stay together all our days.

.

"Erinstock"

Erin's Birthday Party aka "Erinstock", featuring Cracker (in Erin & Tim's living room!) on Saturday, May 16, 2009.



A separate audio recording of this is available here: http://www.archive.org/details/Cracker2009-05-16.KM140

Here's the setlist in case you want to skip around during the video:

01. intro
02. Turn On Tune In Drop Out
03. Happy Birthday to Me
04. I See the Light
05. Sweet Magdalena Of My Misfortune
06. Lonesome Johnny Blues
07. Mr. Wrong
08. Seven Days
09. Eurotrash Girl
10. Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey
11. Duty Free
12. Be My Love
13. I Could Be Wrong I Could Be Right
14. Friends
15. Nothing to Believe In
16. St. Cajetan
17. I Want Everything
18. Can I Take My Gun up to Heaven
19. Shiner Song
20. Up Against The Wall Redneck Mothers
21. One Fine Day
22. Gimme One More Chance
23. Low

Thrash-Grass

Today's Date In Music History: Split Lip Rayfield Live at Stage 5, Walnut Valley Festival on September 16, 2006

Split Lip Rayfield is a vocal and acoustic instrumental group from Wichita, Kansas. Though they are sometimes classified as a bluegrass, alt-country or cowpunk, their music draws on a wide array of influences.
Split Lip Rayfield helped pioneer what came to be known as the "Stage Five" sound, named for the notorious "unofficial" Stage 5 at the annual Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas.
Typically, bluegrass musicians played traditional folk and country songs on acoustic string instruments. Bands like Split Lip faithfully used traditional acoustic instruments, but played songs that were more closely related stylistically to rock, punk or heavy metal.
... and ya gotta love that gas tank bass!





1. Intro
2. Flat Back Rag
3. Devil
4. Old # 6
5. Pinball Machine
6. Hundred Dollar Bill
7. Redneck Tailgate Dream
8. Record Shop
9. Don't Believe That You're Someone
10. Love Please Come Home
11. Outlaw
12. Never Make It Home
13. San Antone
Encore:
14. Crowd
15. Kiss Of Death

Download here

300 Songs

-A song by song history of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven

David Lowery, founding member of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, has a new blog in which expounds upon 300 of his songs--one at a time!

Lowery explains,

"So i came up with this idea to randomly select a hundred or so songs and write a few comments about each of the songs. like: with whom i recorded, what the song is about, Or simply something funny or interesting that happened in the session. Nothing too in depth. Sometimes i'll also provide the lyrics and basic guitar chords for the fans who like that sort of thing."

From the latest Cracker album:



A Grateful Dead Cover:



A Classic:

*Related Posts*

Today's Date In Music History:

Cracker - Pappy & Harriet's Pioneertown Palace - September 8, 2007

Recorded live at the 3rd Annual Cracker-Camper Van Beethoven Family Reunion Campout in Pioneertown, CA.




1.) pre intro, 2.) intro, 3.) Kerosene Hat intro, 4.) Low, 5.) Movie Star, 6.) Get Off This, 7.) Kerosene Hat, 8.) Take Me Down To The Infirmary, 9.) Nostalgia, 10.) Sweet Potato
11.) Sick Of Goodbyes, 12.) I Want Everything, 13.) Lonesome Johnny Blues, 14.) Let's Go For A Ride, 15.) Loser, 16.) silent tracks, 17.) Eurotrash Girl, 18.) silent tracks, 19.) I Ride My Bike, 20.) encore break, 21.) encore intro, 22.) One Fine Day, 23.) introductions and acknowledgements, 24.) outtro

Download full Set

***

Carolina Chocolate Drops

Today's Date In Music History (MC birthday edition):

Carolina Chocolate Drops Live at Festival Park - Greensboro, NC on August 29, 2009


Dom Flemons: 4-string banjo, guitar, jug, bones, snare
Rhiannon Giddens: 5-string banjo, fiddle, kazoo, akonting
Justin Robinson: Fiddle, jug


*Note: LMA has been experiencing some some problems with their players lately, so you'll have to advance manually after each track.

d1t01. Little Rabbit

d1t02. banter
d1t03. Don't Get Trouble in Your Mind
d1t04. banter
d1t05. Cindy Gal
d1t06. banter
d1t07. Gambia
d1t08. banter
d1t09. I Know I've Been Changed*
d1t10. banter
d1t11. Viper Mad
d1t12. banter
d1t13. Will Adams' Breakdown
d1t14. banter
d1t15. Short Life of Trouble
d1t16. banter
d1t17. Salty Dog
d1t18. banter
d1t19. Cornbread and Butterbeans
d1t20. banter
d1t21. Snowden's Jig
d1t22. banter
d1t23. Black Annie
d2t01. banter
d2t02. Old Rattler
d2t03. banter
d2t04. Yonder Comes the Blues
d2t05. banter
d2t06. Hit em Up Style
d2t07. Sourwood Mountain
d2t08. crowd > banter
d2t09. Chopsticks

Download show here (MP3)

Voyagers Trailer

Trailer for the upcoming movie "Voyagers" coming in 2012. Based on the theory of ensuring our existence by traveling backward in time before the end of this universe to an earlier stage in the life cycle of the universe. By inhabiting different parts of the universe we would be able to avoid detection as Voyagers from the future.



NoiseCollector's Channel (youTube)

"People Are Brave"

Surreal film imagery applied to Brave Combo's polka version of "People Are Strange".



Stream/Download Brave Combo Live Shows

Last night of the tour, great set list, they played and gave it their all for 2 hours and 45 minutes. Thanks to Wayne and the band for a great evening

Today's Date In Music History:

Wayne Hancock Live at The Mystic Theater, Petaluma, CA - August 8th, 2008



01. Kansas City Blues
02. Viper
03. Lousiana Blues
04. Thunderstorms and Neon Signs
05. Lonsome and Blue
06. I Don't Care Anymore
07. I'm So Lonesome I could Cry
08. Wild, Free and Reckless
09. Wine, SpodieOdie
10. 87 Southbound
11. Juke Joint Jumpin'
12. Miller, Jack, Mad Dog
13. Johnson City
14. Johnny Law
15. Big City Good Time Gal
16. Kansas City
17. Flatland Boogie
18. Draggin' Me Down
19. Summertime
20. That's What Daddy Wants
21. Cold Lonesome Wind
22. We Three
23. Stardust Memories
24. Old Man Winter Gonna Rock and Roll Tonight
25. Locomotive Joe
26. Blue Suede Shoes
27. Instrumental ?
28. Walkin' the Dog
29. Lost Highway
30. Milk Cow Blues
31. Cow Cow Boogie
32. Lose Your Mind
33. Encore: Crowd_Tuning
34. Honky Tonk Man

35. Hoy, Hoy, Hoy

Download full show here

DBT

Today's Date In Music History (August 8, 2009):

Drive-By Truckers Live at Hal & Mal's in Jackson, MS



01. Devil Don't Stay
02. Man I Shot
03. Gravity's Gone
04. Buttholeville
05. Ronnie and Neal
06. Three Dimes
07. Huston
08. Everybody Needs a Love
09. Love Like This
10. Too Much Sex
11. Sinkhole
12. Women Without Whiskey
13. Patterson Banter
14. George Jones
15. Rebel
16. Uncle Frank
17. Puttin People on the Moon
18. Marry Me
19. Steve McQueen
20. crowd

ENCORE:
21. Great Car Dealer War
22. Home Field Advantage
23. Zip City
24. Let There Be Rock
25. Lookout Mountain

Download here

"Hey Jude" Flowchart

Special thanks to robthewordsmith

Rob Crooks - Misogyny III

Sample-based punk-pop



1. Hey! Hey!
2. No Hands
3. Ghost
4. Not Cool
5. Not Meant to be Happy
6. Love Me

Download link

Must've Been High

This album is essential listening.

"HONEST. Pure. Simple. These are the qualities that attracted us to punk rock. The fact that the four of us, or any like-minded jackasses for that matter, could get up on a stage and just rock out is something that we find immeasurably appealing. And it has been our search for the best that rock-n-roll has to offer which has inevitably led us down that old dirt road to the country. Simple, (there's that word again) three chord songs, sung from experience, played on an old beat up acoustic guitar--that's what we're talkin' about here. We're no virtuosos, but we had a damn good time makin' this record and we're hoping you have a damn good time listening to it. We must've been high."

- The Supersuckers

Here's an outstanding live performance from the band.

"Nashville Radio"

'

A modern renaissance man, Jon Langford is not only a musician, but also a painter and comic artist. As a founding member of The Mekons, Langford was one of the leaders in incorporating folk and country music into punk rock. Over the years, he has released a number of solo recordings as well as recordings with other bands outside of The Mekons, most notably the Waco Brothers, which he co-founded after moving to Chicago in the early '90s.
He is strongly involved with the Chicago-based independent label Bloodshot Records.
Langford also runs a group called the Pine Valley Cosmonauts, a country music cover band, whose high-powered members take turns interpreting music by some of the genres' great songwriters like Johnny Cash or Bob Wills.
Jon is also a prolific and respected visual artist best known for his striking portraits of country music icons like Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley. His paintings appear on bottles and other items for the Dogfish Head Brewery.



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