harDCore

I have been pretty vocal to people who'll listen to me about Umphrey's McGee. If I had to grade them on a scale from 1 to 10 (with 10 being WSP/Phish and 1 being New Kids On The Block/String Cheese Incident), I'd give them about a 6.5. I'd say about every fourth song/jam I hear them play gets my toes a-tappin'. And 9 times out of 10, that song is a cover. To quote Brian Fontana, "60% of the time, it works EVERY time."

Which brings me to today's post. I gre up in the mean suburbs of Washington, DC where DC Hard Core ruled. Welll, it did if you hung out at surf shops, watched skate videos, and ate Double Stuf Oreos until your blood sugar rose to Richard Simmons-type levels. Now, I'll admit, I was never the biggest DC Hard Core guy, but when a friend of mine played Fugazi for me, I was hooked.

"Waiting Room" - Fugazi

Umphrey's does a pretty good cover of this as usual, although, I'd still prefer Ian McKaye singing it any day over Brendon.

And if you don't have Fugazi's seminal album, "13 Songs," well, shame on you and your jamband-centric mind.

Welcome To The New Era

I'm back with a new exploration in '06. And while it may not be as exciting as Derek Small's Jazz Odessey, I think it'll be an interesting twist on the jamband music blog. (Justin over at LiveMusicBlog.com has lots of great information, insight, along with links to live audio posts and poscasts, for example.) But I got to thinking about all the obscure covers that we hear jambands do. I mean, along with being some amazing musicians, a lot of the players are veritable encyclopedias music knowledge. The songs they choose to cover oftentimes are ones most of us have never heard of. Sure, "Watchtower" gets covered a ton, but more often than not, it'll be a relatively unknown soul tune that sends us googling "Ya Mar" the next morning.

So without further ado....

"Get Out My Life Woman" - Allen Toussaint

Jerry covered this one on his amazingly, appallingly underrated live album from the early 90s. Both his version and Allen Toussaint's version drip with smirking, bitter emotion. Toussaint is one of those wonderful songwriters who get a far too little recognition for their influence on a wide range of music. He's the kind of artist who would probably be listed on Top Ten lists of guys like Jerry, Trey, and Jojo Herman. And you say to yourself, "Who???" Then you'd go listen to his stuff and you'd say to yourself, "Wow! That sounds just like 'Moma Dance,' except that it was recorded in 1968!"