Million Dollar Idea

The Pet Rock, Whacky Wall Walkers and now comes this story from the Washington Post about a guy who created the Million Dollar Home Page. Basically the idea was to create a web page with a million blank pixels and then sell the pixels for a dollar a piece. In a mere five months this guy had made a million dollars - not to shabby. Read the full article here.

Stub Hub

Wondering what to do with your concert tickets after the show? Well apparently someone else was wondering the same thing and came up with this interesting idea to preserve your stubs....

Basically it's a clear lucite frame you insert your ticket into that has magnets on the back. Not a bad idea to keep your stubs from getting mangled.

Check out their site Ticket Stick-It.

Self-Promotion

Here's my latest review for Glide Magazine....

The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike

Buy it here.

'Roo Predictions

So before the initial artist announcement hits I figured I'd take the time to play the role of Jimmy The Greek (without the racists remarks) and throw out some odds on who will be performing for the '06 incarnation of Bonnaroo.

We'll start off easy with some of the obvious jamband-y acts...

Widespread Panic
My Morning Jacket
Allman Brothers Band
Trey Anastasio
Umphrey's McGee
moe.
Galactic
Gov't Mule
String Cheese Incident
Jack Johnson

All these bands have been there before and no reason to think they won't be there again this year - they have all become staples of the festival.

Odds: Even

Phil & Friends
Ratdog

Not really a surprise - some members of the Dead will be playing this year.

Tea Leaf Green

Most buzzed about band on the jamband circuit right now - I'd say these guys are all but a lock.

Matisyahu

He's career is hotter then a Hannukah menorah right now with the help of his appearance from last year.

Disco Biscuits

Now that they've finally found a new drummer I'd expect them to make their return to the 'Roo for a raging late night set.

Odds: 2:1

The Secret Machines
The Shins
Drive-By Truckers
Flaming Lips

These guys all have albums coming out later in the year and Flaming Lips, TSM and DBT have been to Manchester before - so I'd pencil them in. The Shins seem like a perfect fit for the fest as well - plus thanks to the Garden State soundtrack their a familiar name to most.

Odds: 3:1

Broken Social Scene
Bright Eyes
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Magic Numbers
Arcade Fire
Stellastarr*
The Hold Steady
Spoon

Any of these indie-rock acts would be great. I think BSS would blow people away with their live show. Arcade Fire & Magic Numbers have already had a taste of things with their Vegoose appearance. Due to their schedule Brights Eyes couldn't play last year - so maybe Connor can squeeze in an appearance this year.

Odds: 5:1

Animal Collective
Sufjan Stevens
Devendra Banhart

These acts are part of the new psych-folk movement and should fit right into the friendly hippie vibe.

Odds: 8:1

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Neil Young
The Who

There will be a classic rock act there. Early word on the street is it's going to be Tom Petty, but The Who have a summer tour planned and Neil Young rocked Manchester before.

Odds: 10:1

Ryan Adams

Ryan has endeared himself to the jamband fan by playing the Jammys and touring with P&F, but will he have a meltdown and just be a no show? Or get 'food poisoning' a couple days prior to the fest??

Odd: 25:1 (he's on the bill), 100:1 (he actually shows up)

George Clinton and the P-Funk All Stars

Can't you imagine 70,000 people chanting 'We Want The Funk, Give Up That Funk'. How awesome would that be??

Odds: 30:1

Oysterhead

The guys from SuperFly helped form this super group, so no reason to believe they couldn't get them back together again.

Odds: 50:1

The Strokes

Love to see these guys on the bill. They'll probably be on tour promoting their album, no reason they can't schedule a stop in Tennessee.

Odds: 100:1

SerialPod

Trey, Mike & Billy reunited for another one off - think it would one of the more buzzed about performances if it happens.

500:1

Arrested Development

Just to come up on stage to open up the festival to play 'Tennessee' - who wouldn't love to see that??

Odds: 1,000:1

Sly Stone

Sly's my wildcard for the Artist In Residency spot. If anyone can lure him out of hiding my bet is on the guys from SuperFly.

Odd: 1,000,000:1

The big rumor is Radiohead is set to headline so I avoided giving odds on that. I'm sure I missed out on a ton of bands so feel free to post your own odds in the comment section. Looking forward to seeing what they actually announce in the coming weeks.

I Love Tuesdays...Hipster Buzz Band Edition

Here's the lone purchase for the week.....

We Are Sceintists - With Love And Squalor

These guys are the latest in the line of indie-rock buzz bands that the cool NYC kids are listening to. Looking forward to giving it a spin and seeing what all the hype is about.

Alone, Jealous & Stoned

No the title of the post is not how I spent my Saturday night it's the first single off the new Secret Machines album Ten Silver Drops. The album is tentatively set to hit the streets in mid- to late March. You can download the the song here (via Live Music Blog). First impression - it's everything that you've come to love from them.

The New York Sound That's Hitting The Tri-State Area

New York magazine's got a interesting and rather lengthy article about The Strokes. The article covers a lot of ground and it's definitely worth checking out. Read it in it's entirity here.

No update on the rumored January 17th show at Hammerstein yet - I'll keep my fingers crossed though.

Buy their new album here.

Here's a show off their recent European tour, where they debuted a bunch of their new material.....

The Strokes - 2005-12-05 - Maria Am Ufer, Berlin, GER

Worst Game Ever

The title of the post explains everything. Probably the worst Giants game I've ever been to - I guess now I can just focus my attention on GW Basketball till the baseball season starts in a few months. The Colonials managed to pull out a squeaker in overtime last night versus Marshall. Definitely too close for comfort.

Go Colonials!!!

Go Big Blue!

I'm up at 8 am on a Sunday and it's not because I'm still awake from last night. I'm off to the Giants playoff game and should have the my first beer in less then two hours which is either a good or a bad thing - guess it depends on how you want to look at it.

Think it might be all up to the guy on the right here if the Giants are going to win. The need to score early and get the ball into Tiki's hands as often as possible. Oh and they are also going to need to stop Steve Smith. Anyway got to get ready to head out should be a great game.

The Post Show

Wanted to give a quick plug to a great site - The Post Show. If you guys haven't check this out yet it's friggin' hilarious and has the HFTB seal of approval. It's is the brainchild of my friend over at My Blog Is Poop and his roommate, so if you enjoy his site your sure to fall out of your chair laughing from this sketch comedy show. Also if you're in New York this weekend come out to the Season 1 DVD release party happening tomorrow night at Croxley Ales. See you there!!!

Linkage

Been have some major computer issues over here at the home office of HFTB so that's why there has been a lack of posts over the last few days. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out what the hell is wrong with my computer soon - it's frustrating the hell out of me.

So while I've been dealing with that their have been some posts I figured I'd link to in the meantime...

Live Music Blog's on Phish's Live Download Series & Late Night Langerado Shows

Brooklyn Vegan's got info on a pontential 'surprise' Strokes show happening at the Hammerstein on January 17th and Belle & Sebastian/New Pornographers Tour Dates

Jambands.com is reporting on this interesting show going on in San Fran this weekend....

The Fillmore Acid Test at 40
As previously reported, this weekend the Fillmore in San Francisco will host an event to mark the birthday of celebrated concert promoter Bill Graham. Graham, who died in a helicopter crash on October 25, 1991, would have turned 75 years old this year. On Saturday, Mickey Hart, the Neville Brothers and Jackson Browne are all confirmed to participate at a show which will benefit the Bill Graham Foundation. However, a second performance has been added which, in addition, will mark the 40th Anniversary of the Merry Pranksters’ Fillmore Acid Test. Slated to appear at the Sunday night show will be Tea Leaf Green, Samantha Stollenwerck and Eric McFadden along with members of ALO, Hot Buttered Rum and The Ritual. One can anticipate that some Pranksters will be on hand as well.

Sounds great - if I lived in the Bay area I'd most definitely be hitting that up.

Slack LaLane might have topped all those with the potential Ashlee Simpson sextape (nice work Ace!)

And finally some music to get the weekend started right. As I had the 'Ol IPod on shuffle earlier today Phish's version of 'Sea & Sand' from their recentely released '95 NYE show came on - which Page plays solo acoustic and it's utterly amazing. Well that got me to thinking about The Who when I stubbled across this show on Dimedozen....

The Who - 1969-10-19 - Electric Factory - Philadelphia, PA - Early Show

I've seen them twice - once on the Quadrophenia tour and then doing more of a greatest hits type show, though they dug pretty deep into their catalog - and they were amazing.

Enjoy!

Fallout From The Philzone

I've never really been much of a fan of band message boards (i.e. Phantasy Tour) I look at them from time to time and I'll post something maybe once in a blue moon. For the most part the people posting on them genuinely care about the band and their music, but there are always the people on there that just like to cause trouble and controversies for pretty much no real reason other to just entertain themselves. Well things seemed to have gotten pretty out of hand over on the Philzone.com boards and Phil Lesh himself intervened and asked for the boards to be taken down after one of his employees received a 'threatening email' from a frequent poster. Phil posted about this decision here....

Phil's Response

He also takes the time to talk about some topics that were floating around the boards - Jimmy Herring, the future of the The Dead, Archive.org and Ryan Adams.

Buy the t-shirt here.

I Love Tuesdays Part Deux

So while I was in Tower today multi-tasking - I was both waiting on line to get Giants playoff tickets and cd shopping - I had to buy this as well since I've heard such amazing things about it....

Thelonious Monk Quartet w. John Coltrane - At Carnegie Hall

Jazz is really a genre I don't know too much about (especially old school stuff), but figured this would be a good starting point for both these guys. Feel free to throw out some recommendations in the comments section. My roommate owns a bunch of Miles Davis so I'm set with that, but anything else fire away....

I Love Tuesdays

Well here's the first (and certainly far from the last) purchase of the New Year.....

The Strokes - First Impressions Of Earth

NYE Downloads

Check out Live Music Blog for all your NYE downloads....

NYE Downloads & Torrents

There's a bunch up already and I'm sure the list will continue to grow over the next few days.

Enjoy!

NYE MSG

Brooklyn Vegan's got some links to some great picture (like the one below) from the Black Crowes/Trey/NMAS NYE show.

Thought the show was pretty solid. I skipped out on NMAS, but walked in as Trey was ripping through 'Push On Til The Day'. Sticking to exclusively almost all older material - just one song off the new album - Trey came to rock his 90 minute set. As he's said in the past he loves playing the Garden and you could tell he was in high spirits. It was amazing to see how much of a BCs crowd it was - while there were a good amount of people up and dancing for Trey the place went nuts when the Crowes hit the stage. The Crowes set was marred by a bad mix at the get go. Chris's vocals were muddy, the back-up singers to loud and you could really only hear Rich's guitar - the sound did get better as the set progressed, they seemed to finally get it right a few songs in. I'm by no means an expect on the Black Crowes - I've only seen them twice, both times this year. I did enjoy their set though, they're just a great rock n' roll. Go see them if you haven't - they're sure to be on the road more in '06. All in all left satisfied being at my home away from home for NYE - I've spent 6 of the last 10 at MSG.

Here's the setlists....

Trey Anastasio
Set I: Push on 'til the Day, Sand, Tuesday, Plasma, Mr. Completely, Night Speaks to a Woman, Last Tube, Money Love and Change, Come As Melody, First Tube

The Black Crowes

Set I: No Speak No Slave, Sting Me, Lickin', Think 'n' Thin, Jealous Again, Bad Luck Blue Eyes Goodbye, Soul Singing, Space Captain, NYE countdown, Auld Lang Syne*, Will the Circle Be Unbroken*#^, Thorn In My Pride

Set II: Wiser Time, My Morning Song, Ten Years Gone, Wanton Song, Seeing Things**, Hard To Handle**#, Twice As Hard, Remedy
Enc: Street Fighting Man

Notes: * First time played. # With Trey Anastasio on guitar. ^ With Luther and Cody Dickenson. ** With the Left Coast Horns.

I'll get some links to downloads up later.

Happy New Year

Saw this great picture over on Justin Kreutzmann's blog Rock & Reel and just had to put it up here. Check out Justin's blog some great stuff over there.


Happy '06!!

Happy Valentine's Day From The Drive-By Truckers

Well New Year's Eve is over and while you might be still shaking off that hang over next up on the schedule of major holidays you'll need to find a date for is Valentine's Day. So while you try and remember just exactly who you kissed at midnight last night and just who is that new number is your cell phone - enjoy this track from the new Drive-By Trucker's album 'A Blessing And A Curse' (due out in April) Feb. 14 via Stereogum.

ESPN & MMW

I know I'm a bit late on posting about this, but Medeski, Martin and Wood have recorded a version of the SportsCenter theme song that will be used on ESPN this month. You can download here via Ropeadope.




Here's a show from earlier this month for you to enjoy as well...

Medeski, Martin & Wood - 2005-12-2 - Blue Cats - Knoxville, TN

More Year End Stats

After posting about all the concerts that I attended it got me thinking about what else I did in the '05. So after scrounging through some more stubs this is what I found....

20 Yankees home games, including 1 playoff game
1 Yankees away game vs. Baltimore at Camden Yards
1 Mets game
1 Brooklyn Cyclones game
1 Washington Nationals game at RFK Stadium
1 Knicks game
3 New York Giants games
1 GW Colonials Men's Basketball game at the Smith Center
1 TV Taping - Last Call with Carson Daly - Kings of Leon were the musical guest, hence attending the taping

Roughly 120 CDs bought, burned or given to review - damn that's a lot of music. And finally I saw 25 movies in the theater.