Jason Crowther’s Blog

Recently, while digging through the Live Music Archive for something new to listen to, I stumbled on Umphrey’s McGee (excellent website too!). I had see the name a lot on both the Live Music Archive and etree; mainly when I scroll past them to find Dave Matthews Band stuff.

This particular time, I stopped on their 20070228 show. I saw Baba O’reilly (aka Teenage Wasteland) from the Who, in the set list. Hmm, don’t think I ever heard anyone cover that before. So I gave the show a spin. A huge shout out to the Live Music Archive for their awesome in page flash player. Hold the phone, we’re on to something here. These guys rock. Intrigued, I listened to the rest of the show.

Hmm, what else can these guys do? I scanned for some more shows. I was pretty intrigued when I saw 20070303. Oh yeah, baby, covers of Pink Floyd’s the Thin Ice and Another Brick in the Wall. Now we’re talking. Good stuff. They go traditional with just enough of their own stylings to keep it interesting. They also rock on with Neil Young’s Cinnamon Girl. To wrap up that show, they also pulled off a great cover of Nirvana’s In Bloom.

So, for the last few weeks, I’ve been digesting a show or two per day. Its been a while since I was excited about a band, but these guys have been doing a pretty good job keeping me entertained. I came for the covers originally, but their originals are pretty spicy on their own. A little hard to describe; kinda like a jumble of Greatful Dead, Dave Matthews Band, phish (though I’m not enough of a fan to know for sure), Rusted Root, and some others I can’t put my finger on. My current UM originals are Party’n Peeps and Resolution.

Check ‘em out, I bet you’ll dig ‘em.

Keep listening and you’ll find more excellent covers:

• King Crimson (Thela Hun Ginjeet)
• Motley Crue (Dr. Feelgood)
• Beatles (Come Together)
• More Pink Floyd (Fearless) One of my all time favorite songs.
• Metallica (though, I can find which show, doh!)

A while back I found Apocalyptica, good stuff.  Today (via fark), I stumbled on Judgement Day (sic).  Same idea, but equally interesting.  Their trailer video on youtube rocks.  Looking forward to some good stuff from in them in ‘07.

Fark had a pointer to this article, where they have some the same of old story about the popularity of Dark Side of the Moon. The newsworthy bits are a new upcoming book, The Dark Side of the Moon: The Making of the Pink Floyd Masterpiece and some random facts like the album’s was almost released with the title Eclipse, due to the fact that another band had already released an album with the Dark Side… name. Equally interesting is that the album is popular enough to warrant its own CD-pressing facility!

Update: further down on the fark page, there was also a review of Roger Waters latest concert.   Yet another floyd opportunity lost for me.

My iTunes update said the John Mayer performance from the Today Show last week was available for download. On the off chance it was a freebie, I fired up iTunes and poked around.

Turns out they want $3.99 for a 22 minutes of footage. Sandy DVR’d the broadcast and what they showed wasn’t worth it. So, my wallet stayed firmly shut.

A couple of reviews agreed that $4 was pretty much a rip. I was surprised to see the following review:

Why thank you, kdo. A quick scan of MSNBC, and here’s the same content for free, except you can’t download it, and you have suffer through a few commercials. Good enough substitute for me.

I hope this is pure bunk. Jessica Simpson? Geez, John, I think you can do better…