The preliminary line-up for the 10,000 Lakes Festival includes Bob Weir & RatDog, Trey Anastasio, Umphrey's McGee, Gov't Mule, Little Feat & The Derek Trucks Band.

Slate will premiere the new Bob Dylan video for "Thunder on the Mountain," from his latest Modern Times tomorrow. The video features archival footage of Dylan performing over the past four decades and Slate will also be hosting a contest where you can try to identify the years various pieces of footage were shot with the winner getting a guitar signed by Dylan.

Mp3s worth checking out -

Kristoffer Ragnstam: "Breakfast By The Mattress"

The Slip: "Even Rats"

Jeremy Enigk: "Been Here Before"

Robbers On High Street: "The Fatalist"

Pablo: "Loser Crew"

Glasgow's The Cinematics - a band I think we'll hear a lot more of in 2007 - will include this cover of Beck's "Sunday Sun" on their debut full length A Strange Education is due out in February and the lads hope to do some extensive US touring in support. That's a show I will surely try to catch. Viva Scotland!

Keller Williams is about to kick off a winter tour and announced his new record will hit stores February 7th - dream will feature appearances from various luminaries including Béla Fleck, Bob Weir, Martin Sexton, Michael Franti, Steve Kimock, The String Cheese Incident and Victor Wooten.

Labels: Bob Dylan, Jeremy Enigk, Michael Franti, Mp3s, Robbers on High Street, Scotland, Spearhead, The Slip, Trey Anastasio

Matisyahu will be a guest host on Sirius' reggae channel (32) "Reggae Rhythms" starting Friday, December 15, and airing through sundown on on Saturday, December 23 – the duration of Hanukkah.

Keegan DeWitt and the Sparrows will be at the Knitting Factory in NYC this Thursday night. Keegan says they are also doing a record release show January 12th with Roman Candle (V2 Records) at Sin-e.

If you're in the Philadelphia area, you can check out the Pawnshop Roses on NBC affiliate WCAU's "The 10! Show" this coming Thursday morning, December 14th.

Oslo's Bonk, who have toured Europe with the Hives and Franz Ferdinand, has a new video for the track "Homecoming" and are set to hit the US and SXSW in 2007.

Eryc Eyl says: "Paranoid, desperate and utterly danceable, the music of the Photo Atlas blends the angularity of Fugazi, the gut-punch of At The Drive-In and the relentless rump-shaking of the Rapture into a dangerously sexy dancefloor detonator." Check out the track "Handshake Heart Attack" here.

Bent Left and Outlaw are coming East on their "KC Punks Invade" tour and have a couple NY dates: The Bug Jar on Wednesday, Jan. 3 - 219 Monroe Ave. in Rochester and Friday, January 5th at Sputnik - 262 Taaffee Place in Brooklyn.

Speaking of Brooklyn, Odd Czar is throwing a cd release bash this week on December 14, 2006 @ Galapagos Art Space in Williamsburg, with special guests: The Attorneys.

Simon Dawes just did a handful of dates with Wolfmother. Their live video for "Awful Things" is up on YouTube and you can check out a previously unreleased track called "Everybody Knows" here.

Speaking of Wolfmother, another band who knows the glory of old school rock is Earl Greyhound. You can catch them twice in NYC this week: the 14th @ Snitch & the 16th @ Delancey.

Sierra Swan has an interesting voice. She's signed to Linda Perry's Custard label (through Interscope) and you can check out her video for "Copper Read" here. Sierra has also teamed up with Aimee Mann on "Get Down To It" - listen here.

My Morning Jacket, The New Pornographers and Cat Power have been added to the Langerado Festival, which already boasts OAR, Trey Anastasio, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Tea Leaf Green and a couple dozen more great bands.

Labels: Michael Franti, Spearhead

By: David Schultz

If you didn't know any better, you would think, based on the number of times Michael Franti asks his audience "How you feelin'?" that the dreadlocked singer has a raging problem with insecurity. The phrase has become so synonymous with Franti's live shows that his fans have created a drinking game around his catch phrase, sipping or finishing their drink whenever it's asked. Franti's heard of the game and has been known to get his fans sloshed. Exuding confidence in his ability to enthrall and entertain a crowd, Franti didn't abuse his signature phrase during his Veterans' Day show at New York City's Webster Hall. Although whenever he did ask, he received a rousing affirmation that yes, the crowd was feeling pretty damn good.

With his dreadlocks flying to and fro, Franti literally bounced around the stage with a boundless energy, inspiring the audience to jump and move throughout the entire show. Leaving the music primarily to his Spearhead band mates, bassist Carl Young, guitarist Dave Shuh and drummer Manas Itene, Franti played some rhythm guitar while playing a two hour set focused on Yell Fire!, his latest release of populist anthems. Franti persuasively gets across his powerful activist ideals through simple expressions: the music is not incredibly complex, incorporating many reggae beats; the messages aren't expressed in convoluted language, gaining poetic strength through their simplicity; and the feelings Franti invokes often tap into your most basic childish memories, only the grinchiest of souls could fail to enjoy the band's brief segue into Sesame Street's theme song and Franti's Cookie Monster growl through "C Is For Cookie."

It's near impossible to not have a great time at a Michael Franti & Spearhead concert. Franti's "power to the peaceful" philosophy and worldview permeate the music and his shows thrive with an uplifting, life affirming vibe. While Franti's opinions are hardly veiled, they transcend political parties and religious affiliations; he focuses on the similarities amongst us all that go beyond nationalities, ideologies and cultures. In fact, during one song Franti exclaims that God is too big a concept for just one religion. Having recently spent more than a year in some of the most dangerous territories in the Middle East, a trip captured in the documentary I Know I'm Not Alone, Franti's not shy about proselytizing his hopes and prayers for peace. His Veterans' Day suggestion was that the best way America could support their troops overseas would be to bring them home where they can be safe with their families. While he doesn't hide his distaste for the war in songs like "Yell Fire" and the anti-recruitment "Light Up Your Lighter" or his pleasure over the recent elections, Franti leaves the serious politicking out of his music. In song, Franti speaks often of the unifying strength of love and before "One Step Closer" accentuated his most heartfelt message, treasuring the friends in your life. It's no small feat that Franti & Spearhead's relatively early Saturday night set seemed to raise everyone's spirits. As they do with every show, they mixed the right amounts of Sixties-style spirit with modern day beats, managing to convey a message while keeping everyone joyously grooving.

Labels: Michael Franti, Spearhead

At roughly 4:15, Umphrey's McGee, the Indiana based jamband took the stage at the Prospect Park Bandshell as part of the 2005 Big Summer Classic. The crowd, which was baking in the late afternoon sun, greeted the band by producing numerous beach balls and took great delight in batting them about while the band started to groove. The largest, a globelike green beach ball, made its way towards the sound booth and came to rest in an empty row. A squat bald overweight man came over and grabs the ball but rather than send it back amongst the crowd calmly pierces it with his lit cigarette. Fans O the Jamband: Welcome to Brooklyn!!

The Big Summer Classic is this year's top touring jamband festival. Finding its roots in Monterey and Woodstock, the Summer Classic's proper progenitor is the H.O.R.D.E. festivals of the mid nineties. Following the success of Perry Farrell's Lollapalooza concerts, John Popper and Blues Traveler created Horizons of Rock Developing Everywhere. Gathering their musical comrades like The Spin Doctors, Widespread Panic and the Samples, the H.O.R.D.E. festival toured the country spreading good vibes everywhere.

Jamband festivals have maintained their link to their 60's ancestors by fostering social awareness and political activism. War protestors, environmental activists and marijuana decriminalization supporters gather with the purpose of rallying their brethren to support their cause and using the momentum to achieve social change. The politics and beliefs of the crowd were usually echoed back to them by the musicians on stage creating one big communal atmosphere of peace and love. It is in this respect that the Big Summer Classic separates itself. Despite an unpopular ongoing war in Iraq, Michael Franti was the only one to even mention it much less denounce it. The 2005 jamband crowd doesn't seem to want to their groove disturbed by the outside world.

That is not to say that there weren't some relics of the old hippie festivals. Concert goers were encouraged to proceed through the "Karma Wash" in which Karma technicians would ward off the bad vibes from your person through their proficient use of feathers and goodwill. Relix magazine had a prominent presence with spontaneous drum circles erupting between sets by their tent. Most entertaining were the twenty foot high inflatable Sumo wrestlers, the symbols of the tour, that towered over the back of the park grounds. Although there was a good smattering of tie dye, the clothing of choice of today's concert-goer seems to be a simple T and shorts.

Oh yes, there was also some music -- a lot of good music. With the sun beating down on the stage, the early arriving fans fell into two groups: those crushing up against the stage to get as close to the band as possible and those laying back on the lawn in the shade with a beer. As the concert progressed and the sun set, more and more people abandoned the lawn to the get closer to the music.

San Francisco based New Monsoon opened the show to an enthusiastic response. Possibly owing to its brevity, the band's 4 song set, heavy on percussion and middle Eastern rhythms, was the tightest of the day. Amidst band staples Blast and Daddy Long Legs, the band covered Pink Floyd's Echoes in its near 18 minute entirety, creatively employing a balloon and the sides of their drums to achieve the spacey interlude.

Umphrey's braved the mean spirited beach ball popping troglodyte but still played an underwhelming set. Distracting everyone from the music, the band marred their set by bringing out a horde of dancing girls in ill fitting bikinis and fishnet stockings to writhe around arythmically and unsexily.

Michael Franti and Spearhead attempted to enlighten as well as entertain. The Umphrey dancing girls were put to better use as they paraded throughout the crowd with placards containing aphorisms from the likes of Teddy Roosevelt, Alice Walker, Ghandi, Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. Spearhead's set also contributed the only mention of the Iraqi war with Franti exhorting "Bush War 1, Bush War 2, Got a war for me and a war for you" during Everyone Deserves Music's We Don't Stop.

Musically, Spearhead brought the crowd to their feet with reggae infused socially aware songs like Yes I Will and Yell Fire. String Cheese Incident's Michael Kang joined the band halfway through the set, notably contributing his violin to a rousing version of Everlast's What I Got. In a stranger accompaniment, a large muscular gent with black militant shades joined the band -- for a flower arrangement solo, which didn't last long enough as it seemed there were some lilies to add to the mix.

Playing barefoot, Keller Williams brought his unique blend of acoustic guitar mastery and backing audio loops. Onstage, Williams is an overgrown child having fun with all his various bells, whistles and theremin. Like a talented and funnier version of Carrottop, he brings the instruments out at random intervals and adds them to the backing loop. The one drawback to the loops is that it is difficult to tell when Williams is playing and when you are listening to a recording.

Williams uses his technical and musical acumen to great effect and his "one-man band" is truly unique and something to see live. Quite likely, someone will eventually outdo Williams at his own game and gain a larger audience with a similar act. Hopefully, they will have the humility to acknowledge Williams as the progenitor of this inventive mix of man and machine. Until that time though, there is noone else doing this better

His set included his normal batch of eclectic originals as well as covers of Gin and Juice, Candyman and Fly Like An Eagle. The set also contained another standard of the jamband festival -- the seamless transition with the next act. As Williams wound his set down, he was progressively joined by members of the Yonder Mountain String Band. With the whole String Band finally on stage for the Steve Miller closer, Williams finished up, waved goodbye and without stopping the YMSB took off with an hour of their brand of bluegrass and country. The collaborations between the bands continued as String Cheese's Bill Nershi joined the band for last third of their set.

With the sun set, the show was closed by the undisputed headliner of the Classic, String Cheese Incident. While most of the Brooklyn crowd came to see the Cheese, a theory supported by the multitude of enraptured spasmodic arhytymic dancers, they failed to enthrall the entire crowd. String Cheese's studio sound is grounded in bluegrass but onstage their sound is reminiscent of Graceland era Paul Simon fused with an inspired jamheavy Miami Sound Machine with the whole conglomeration seeking Harry Belafonte's approval to use calypso.

This night, the band made some odd choices. In the musical equivalent of sitting LeBron James in the 4th quarter of a close game, Michael Kang, an amazing and inventive violin player, played mandolin and guitar for most of the set. The band was also ill-equipped to tackle their cover of Stevie Wonder's I Wish. Missteps aside, String Cheese does have moments where they command attention and did so during the closing tunes One Step Closer and Search. Frustratingly, the frequency of those moments pales in comparison to their predecessors like the Grateful Dead and Phish.

Bringing back members from Umphrey's McGee and Spearhead, SCI appropriately ended the show with an encore of the Beastie Boys No Sleep Till Brooklyn. Michael Franti came onstage mid song for a little free style before being joined by dancing trees who helped lead the crowd in a chant for MORE - TREES -- IN -- BROOKLYN!

Labels: Bill Nershi, Keller Williams, Michael Franti, New Monsoon, Spearhead, String Cheese Incident, Umphrey's McGee, Yonder Mountain String Band