by David Burn | Feb 23, 2006 | Music
This vintage 1969 sticker may be purchased from Wolgang’s Vault for $83.
Wolfgang was Bill Graham, the man whose genius for bringing performer and audience together shaped the rock concert as we have come to know it. Born Wolfgang Grajonca in Berlin in 1931, he escaped Nazi Germany to grow up in a foster home in the Bronx and anglicized his name at the age of 18. Bill Graham, who would come to be known as the midwife of the modern rock concert, was smart and forward-thinking, an opportunist and a listener, fair and ferociously demanding, and he remembered his roots: in the 1980s he opened a small San Francisco club and named it Wolfgang’s.
Graham’s creative vision led him to commission true works of art to promote his shows and, fortunately for the modern collector, his entrepreneurial instincts led him to overprint and preserve the exceptional art, photography and recordings that came from these shows. For over 30 years, his company accumulated and stored this material in newly minted condition. Until Wolfgang’s Vault, if you could even find a Bill Graham Presents poster, it was frequently in less than mint condition because it was torn from walls or telephone poles as a concert souvenir.
The vast majority of material in Wolfgang’s Vault comes from the exquisitely preserved, original archives of Bill Graham Presents, which we now own and manage.
[via Live Music Blog]
by David Burn | Feb 22, 2006 | Politics
Merrill Markoe of the Huffington Post discusses the sad fact that many of our nation’s leaders are really just figure heads for consortiums of international corporations.
When one of them gives an impassioned speech about the first amendment, are they really just a mouthpiece for ClearChannel? When they support the invasion of a struggling impoverished country in the name of freedom everywhere is it because they are seeking real estate to build a Home Depot? Understanding this stuff is like watching a foreign movie without subtitles.
Usually it isn’t my job to propose solutions to these kinds of problems, but I think I have a way to try and minimize the confusion we are all having trying differentiate truth from lies. Maybe it would make everything clearer if we just let the corporations run for office.
Okay, I know it isn’t a perfect system, but it makes as much sense as what goes on now. And at least it’s completely up front. If the current administration had simply run as the Pennzoil/ Halliburton ticket, no one would have had the slightest doubt about what was going to happen to the country in the next eight years.
by David Burn | Feb 21, 2006 | Music
Simply put, Brad Serling’s Live Bonnaroo is the shit.
Live Bonnaroo offers downloads of high fidelity, mastered remixed multi-track recordings, all of which have been approved by the artists. Sets are available from the 2004 and 2005 Bonnaroo Music Festivals. Downloads are available in both MP3 and CD-quality lossless formats (FLAC), powered by nugs.net’s state-of-the-art delivery system. Live Bonnaroo files may be burned freely to CD, transferred to portable mp3 players, or played through your PC or Mac. Each Live Bonnaroo set comes with custom printable booklets, tray inlays, and labels if you elect to burn your files to CD.
I’ve purchased three discs from the site in the past two days–2005 performances from Yonder Mountain String Band, Donna The Buffalo and John Prine. There are many more to choose from, and Serling’s Nugs.net empire also includes sites offering live downloads from Gov’t Mule, String Cheese Incident, Galactic and more.
Sure, iTunes has the media’s attention. But Serling has ours.
by David Burn | Feb 20, 2006 | Politics
“The dispossessed of this nation—the poor, both white and Negro-live in a cruelly unjust society. They must organize a revolution against the injustice, not against the lives of the persons who are their fellow citizens, but against the structures through which the society is refusing to take means which have been called for, and which are at hand, to lift the load of poverty.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.
In the last 40-plus years we’ve had a War on Poverty, a War on Drugs and countless wars on smaller nations. But we have precious little to show for it. Maybe someday we can get past all this war stupidity and actually address the real issues before this nation.
From The Observer:
A shocking 37 million Americans live in poverty. That is 12.7 per cent of the population – the highest percentage in the developed world. Each year since 2001 their number has grown.
Under President George W Bush an extra 5.4 million have slipped below the poverty line. Yet they are not a story of the unemployed or the destitute. Most have jobs. Many have two.
Even families with two working parents are often one slice of bad luck – a medical bill or factory closure – away from disaster. The minimum wage of $5.15 an hour has not risen since 1997 and, adjusted for inflation, is at its lowest since 1956. The gap between the haves and the have-nots looms wider than ever. Faced with rising poverty rates, Bush’s trillion-dollar federal budget recently raised massive amounts of defence spending for the war in Iraq and slashed billions from welfare programmes.
While 45.8 million Americans lack any health insurance, the top 20 per cent of earners take over half the national income. At the same time the bottom 20 per cent took home just 3.4 per cent.
Almost a quarter of all black Americans live below the poverty line; 22 per cent of Hispanics fall below it. But for whites the figure is just 8.6 per cent.
Dealing with poverty is not a viable political issue in America. It jars with a cultural sense that the poor bring things upon themselves and that every American is born with the same chances in life.
by David Burn | Feb 19, 2006 | Food & Beverage, Place
On Friday night, we dined at Zink American Kitchen in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. A unit of Harper’s Restaurant Group, Zink’s purpose is to hold down the modern bistro space in the tarheel state’s largest city. With plentiful cocktails and fine wines to choose from, a full sushi menu, entrees like Amish chicken, Idaho trout and grilled ahi tuna, plus sides like mac & cheese, Zink clearly has “eclectic” nailed.
After dinner, we stepped outside and instantly hailed a cab. Said cab whisked us down Elizabeth Avenue to the Visulite Theatre for Yonder Mountain String Band, our kinfolk from Colorado. The club was cozy and chill. And the show rocked. It’s hard to ask for more on Friday night in America.
by David Burn | Feb 18, 2006 | Music
Yonder Mountain String Band is acoustic music at its finest. The band has great songs, and their singing and playing is inspired. I really can’t say enough nice things about this band. I can say that we saw another terrific performance from the Boulder quartet last night at a sweet club in Charlotte, NC.
image courtesy of Flickr user “a superhero by night”
02/17/06 (Fri) – Visulite Theatre – Charlotte, NC
Set 1: Bloody Mary Morning, Little Rabbit> Free To Run, Idaho> Think For Yourself, High On A Hilltop, Damned If The Right One Didn’t Go Wrong, Easy As Pie, Hill Country Girl, Town, Peace Of Mind> Robot Jam> Peace Of Mind
Set 2: Mother’s Only Son, Jesus On The Mainline> Swing Low Sweet Chariot> Granny Woncha Smoke Some> Jesus On The Mainline, 40 Miles From Denver, Another Day, Winds Of Wyoming, Crooked Hitch, Part One> Metallica Tease> Dawn’s Early Light> If There’s Still Ramblin’ In The Rambler> Crazy Train> Ramblin’ Reprise, Death Trip E: Get Me Outta This City
Setlist via Setlist.com
“Peace of Mind” to close the first set was outstanding, as was “Dawn’s Early Light” in the second. And “Crazy Train” near the ned of the show was delightful and hilarious, all at once.
by David Burn | Feb 17, 2006 | Music
In the February issue of Spin, Ryan Adams is interviewed by Melissa Maerz.
Here’s my favorite part:
Q. What did going through therapy teach you?
I used to go out onstage, and I couldn’t hear any of the clapping. I could only hear, “Fuck you!” or “Jeff Tweedy’s better!” And I’d be thinking, “I know he’s better, but I’m louder! And I’m standing on one leg!” I turned what I did into such a negative thing that it paralyzed me. So now it’s not like someone’s not going to shout “Summer of ’69,” but I can choose to not let that ruin my evening.
by David Burn | Feb 17, 2006 | Go Big Red
KUTV in Salt Lake City reports that members of the Latter Day Saints church weigh more than non-LDS Utahns.
The study found that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were 14 percent more likely than nonmembers to be obese. That was 18 percent for men, and 9 percent for women.
The study was made by BYU health science professor Ray Merrill from data obtained in 1996, 2001 and 2003-2004 by the Utah Health Status Survey.
Merrill’s study suggests Mormons may be using excessive eating as a substitute for prohibited indulgences such as smoking and drinking.
I refute the learned man’s theory. The real reason Mormons weigh more is tied to their well-documented obsession with Jell-O, particularly of the lime variety. In fact, some have even called Utah the Jell-O Belt.
by David Burn | Feb 12, 2006 | Politics
Dru Clements writing on the Beaufort Gazette blog:
A recent letter stated that the “liberal media” hates Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The secretary’s strongest, most scathing critics come from a long list of military top brass that reads likes a “Who’s Who” of individuals who are neither liberal nor Republican bashers but are people who wore a uniform and fought in wars.
Some of these people served in presidential administrations, such as retired Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, National Security Adviser to President George H.W. Bush; retired Gen. William E. Odom, former head of the National Security Agency during the Reagan Administration; James Webb, decorated Vietnam veteran and Reagan administration secretary of the Navy; and retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former commander of the U.S. Central Command and special envoy to the Middle East under the current president until he resigned in disgust.
When people with these kinds of credentials speak out against the conduct of the war, they are raising critical questions that go directly and unequivocally to the competency of President Bush, his advisers and in particular Secretary Rumsfeld (most of whom avoided military service).
I do not know Mr. Clements, but I do know Beaufort, SC is home to two Marine Corps bases. With Parris Island in your back yard, “soft on defense” is not exactly a popular position.
Veterans on the Hill like Rep. Murtha (PA Dem), Senators John Kerry (MA Dem) and Chuck Hagel (NE Rep) have all been vocal in their opposition to the President’s “handling” of the war in Iraq. I hope more Republicans speak out. This is bigger than party affiliation. We’ve deployed a small city of Americans to Iraq and we plan to be a “stabilizing force” in the region for 50 years, or until the oil runs out.
Every American has the right to say, “I reject war.” Or the mishandling of war, whatever their position is. My position is we need to move rapidly to energy independence which means a massive shift to renewable energy from sun, wind and water. There’s a ton to do and money to be made. For this cause, I believe we can all just get along.
by David Burn | Feb 12, 2006 | Go Big Red
There’s something incredibly romantic about this image of Bobby Jones at Pinehurst’s “Maniac Hil” in North Carolina.
Click to buy
I was pleased to learn last week from a gentleman on Hilton Head that Jones played from a mixed set of irons, as I do. I knew I was old school, but I didn’t know I was in such good company.
