Music

Guero: It's everything Beck does best. Nothing more to say here.

Seeking some spur-of-the-moment music therapy, went to the Berkeley Community Theatre to see Phil Lesh and Friends and some assorted warm-up acts. Mostly, I'm a Wavy Gravy fan and I like to support Camp Winarainbow and SEVA.

Phil's new quintet features Al Schnier (from moe.) and Barry Sless on guitar, somebody named Mookie on keys and the usual Molo on drums. The Jerry Girls also contributed some background vocals and even led on Aretha Franklin's "Think". Phil has the band more bass-driven then ever,,, to the point where everybody is playing behind him. The opening Help On The Way > Slipknot! was as fierce as any I've heard played, but the Franklin's Tower came down a notch. And so it goes with the last of the remaining jambands.   read more »  

Piano legend and St. Louisan Johnny Johnson just passed a way. Johnny Johnson was the guy who gave Chuck Berry a job and was the subject of Chuck's classic "Johnny B. Goode". Johnny will always be the quintessential rock-and-roll piano player. This was not lost on subsequent generations... he was on the staff of Bob Weir's Ratdog for a while and occasionally sat in with The Dead. He lived to a ripe old age, but he will be sorely missed by musicheads everywhere.

Posted April 6, 2005 on Easytree...

Hello gals and guys,

We're very sorry having to tell you that we had to shut down EZT just a couple of minutes ago.

We got a call from our provider, they had received a few letters from a couple of lawyers. They requested EZT to be shut down immediately, otherwise we and the hosting service would be sued.

As you may imagine, we do not have the funds to fight a battle we most probably can't win anyway.

We would like to thank everyone here for their contributions to EZT, one way or the other, for sharing the music, sharing an ideal, for all your mails, rants, praises...   read more »  

Allman Brothers Band - Southeast, then southwest, then southeast.
The Beach Boys - Coming to a casino near you.
Brian Wilson, meanwhile, is playing theatres and festivals in Europe and America. Looking ahead, he plays Berkeley's Greek Theatre over Labor Day weekend.   read more »  

SXSW is throwing up a giant bit torrent (2.6 gigs) with 750 songs. For free. That's a lot of exposure to take in, but we'll manage to free our ears for bits at a time.

Here's the Wired story and the download page at SXSW.

Thanks for saving us a trip to Texas!!

Danny Barnes is back in a studio up in Seattle, recording another album for Terminus for summer release. We never know what to expect, but whatever flavor of mutant bluegrass it turns out to be, it's probably all the same to Mr. Barnes.

Aware of Mr. Barnes' contempt for musical "categories", we asked him what direction the record is heading, and stumped him. Whether it'll sound traditional or punk or electonica or combo thereof, he just can't say. And we just can't wait.

We do know that Brittney Haas (the youngster in Darol Anger's Fiddle Ensemble) is part of the project, and so is Gary Shelton (on bass).   read more »  

Visit the Hall of Douchebags, a repository of band promo pics.

Not much to say,,, he was the greatest.

If you are adventurous and have not yet traveled to Planet Sun Ra, here's where you start... Supersonic Jazz. This otherworldly gem from 1958 gives us several reasons to recommend it as Sun Ra Starter:

1) We consider it his most "accessible" album aside from his earlier vocal/big band projects. The melodies are sweet, the instrumentation is playful, and compared to most of his works... less tweaky.   read more »