Several Species Of Small Furry Thoughts - what a weekend!!!

So on Thursday we had our history-making Widespread Panic in-store. One might think that was enough excitement for one weekend. Not for me.

Friday - flew to Philadelphia where my college buddy Banky picked me up and took me to his great little seafood restaurant Seafood Unlimited. If you are ever in Philly check it out. That night we had a different kind of sea creature when we saw Phish in Camden, New Jersey. A very memorable show as it turned out. They opened with two songs they hadn’t played in years: “Alumni Blues” and “Letter To Jimmy Page.” They also broke out a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Free Man In Paris” (the audience was silent and mystified - I don’t think hardly anyone knew what it was). During the second set they played an enormous version of “2001: A Space Odyssey” that contained a tribute to Michael Jackson (who died exactly a year earlier). They teased “Billie Jean” “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” and “Thriller.” The crowd went bonkers when they went into “Thriller.” The other interesting, and somewhat upsetting development was the crowd actually booed the band when they played a new song they weren’t into (“1989”). This is entirely not cool in my opinion and sort of pissed me off. The band did an outstanding show and gets booed for one song??

Saturday - Banky and I take a bus to New York City (city of my birth) and meet up with my wife and daughter - Jill and Sarah. We go to The New York Historical Society and see the Grateful Dead exhibit. Go see it if you can! I wish it was a little bigger - but what you do get is totally memorable. Some of the highlights included Jerry and Bob’s guitars, the dummies from the “Touch Of Grey” video, heartfelt fan letters and gloriously decorated envelopes to the band, the handwritten schematics for “The Wall Of Sound,” and on and on. My favorite thing though was Dick Latvala’s notebooks with his handwritten notes about shows. What an uber-fan he was. Displayed are his notes on the Closing Of Winterland show, and he just gushes in clear longhand about how this was the greatest show and when people hear this the Dead will finally be recognized as… and so on and so forth. I found it incredibly touching. We bid adieu to Banky and we are off to the Picasso exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum Of Art. Not only is this museum one of the wonders of the world, the exhibit was mind-blowing. It followed Picasso chronologically, and there must have been six rooms full of stuff - sculptures, linoleum block prints, an entire room of sketchbooks, photos, films and, of course, hundreds of paintings. Picasso is one of those artistic figures whose achievement and influence are so immense and so hard to get your arms around that he almost doesn’t seem real. This exhibit both allowed one to gain a better understanding of the man (it was all below the waist for that guy) and reinforced that sense of disbelief at his greatness. Again, if you get to NYC - don’t miss this one. That night we had a classic NYC experience sitting at a table on the sidewalk on The Upper West Side eating spaghetti.

Sunday - My friend Rob comes into the city to meet me for lunch. Rob owns probably the best record store on the East Coast, Vintage Vinyl, and I always greatly value our conversations about, music, business and life in general. Like Twist and Shout, his store is hanging in there, doing in-store concerts, selling vinyl, appealing to collectors - same as us. We walked around the area known as The Bowery. When I was a boy, my father took me down there to illustrate the dangers of alcohol. It was the skids in those days -wall to wall bums. There are no bums in Manhattan any more. Since Rudy Guliani’s time The Bowery and all of Manhattan has been cleaned up. In many ways it saved the financial life of the city as a tourist destination, but in another way it stole a necessary element to the alchemy of the city. We ducked into CBGB’s - the club that spawned punk in America. It is now a “Rock and Roll Boutique” selling $1400 used leather jackets and used Styx albums for 40 bucks. It was a nice metaphor for the loss of soul in that part of the city. That night, we went to Fela, a musical stage show interpretation of the revolutionary African musician’s troubled times. I am not usually an appreciator of Broadway shows but this was a startlingly dynamic show, with a real live kick-ass band playing a credible version of Fela’s groundbreaking music. It also was extremely poignant, explaining the influence of his incredible mother (who deserves her own play) and his lifelong struggle with the government in his native Nigeria. It is an extraordinary tale of courage and music. I understand it might come to Denver. I highly recommend it if it does.

Monday - Jill and I sneak over to the Museum Of Natural History. I haven’t been there since I was a child, and it is still a completely magical place. It’s the museum from Night At The Museum and it brings out the child in anyone. That night we take our daughter and her boyfriend out for her birthday and say goodbye on a glistening New York street. It is thrilling, and unbearably hot and humid, and endlessly fascinating, and painfully expensive, and bursting with multi-cultural-hyper-sophisticated-poly-sexual life. It remains the most fascinating place I’ve ever been.

Tuesday - We are ready to return to Colorado. I can’t wait to get back to dry heat and clear sky and long views, and my store. When we get home the first things we see are a doe eating grass in front of our house and a red fox peacefully sleeping under a tree in the back. So very different than NYC, and yet, there’s no place like home. On Sunday Rob had asked me when I stopped feeling like a New Yorker. I thought for a minute and finally said, “You know, I think it was once I opened Twist and Shout, and actually became part of the fabric of our own great city, that I started proudly thinking of myself as a Coloradan.”

--Paul

Widespread Panic at Twist & Shout 6/24/2010

OK, so I am often fairly over-the-moon after a good instore. And everyone knows Twist & Shout has had a long and loving relationship with the boys from Athens, Ga. And we also know that this great American band has been very kind to our store, our state and our venue (Red Rocks). In fact this was the third time they have come to Twist & Shout and generously shared their time with us. But over-the-moon does not begin to describe the emotions I am feeling tonight. Widespread Panic came to Twist & Shout Thursday night and gave all of us a rare and amazing experience. We were told to expect a low-key three or four song acoustic set. Instead we got a 45-minute balls-out, full-on, seven song electric set. Damn, if this wasn’t the loudest, most intense, most fulfilling live music we have ever hosted. They just killed it. What did they play? Here’s the abbreviated setlist I got off a message board as it was happening – hilarious

Honestly, the whole experience was like a dream. It really was. They came in with a big sound system and it didn’t feel or sound like an instore - it felt like a real show. There was incredible energy in the room and the band was obviously feeding off of it. Everyone in the audience had huge grins on their faces and the band looked genuinely stoked about the whole thing. The music just poured off the stage in waves. Jimmy Herring is a perfect guitar player for the band and his increasing confidence with them is a marvel to behold.

Then they sat there and signed every single person’s copy of Dirty Side Down and the special poster we made for the event. They were total sweethearts to everyone. We sold a stupid amount of their new album and best of all it was about 50% more vinyl than CD. Sweet!

Special thanks go out to Red distribution, ATO records, Terry Mcgibbons, Doug Wiley and the amazing WSP family and management: Lopez, Buck, Eric, Gary and everyone with the Panic crew... what pros! You guys are truly the best at what you do. And Schools, JB, Todd, Sunny, JoJo, Jimmy... wow - there aren’t words to explain my humble gratitude to you guys for doing this, but even more for being such a righteous band. This was truly a high-water mark for Twist & Shout and me personally.  -- Paul Epstein

Widespread Panic - Dirty Side Down

It is not surprising that Panic’s first studio album with guitarist Jimmy Herring on board is their most satisfying work since original member Michael Houser passed. It is a mature album filled with carefully crafted songs and great playing, and feels like a band back on top after a shaky few years. Having longtime collaborator John Keane back in the producer’s chair and contributing guitars and vocals is the first thing you notice. It sounds like Widespread Panic again. His spacious and lean production gives the band the room they need to inhabit their songs, allowing them to approximate the vibe they get on stage (listen to the instrumental “St. Louis” for a nice example). Principal songwriter and vocalist John Bell has never sounded better vocally as he demonstrates on “Shut Up and Drive” (which includes a completely deranged solo by Herring -almost like Zappa) or the complex opening song “St. Ex.” His vocals are an acquired taste for some, but he has grown into his voice and expanded his range enough to accommodate more difficult ballads, in addition to the warm growl he employs on up-tempo numbers. Two of the best songs on the album are written by familiar friends of the band; Jerry Joseph’s “North” is a song that they have been playing for at least a decade and goes back to Joseph’s Boulder based band Little Women before that. It is a perfect song for Panic and this is a nice version to memorialize it. It captures much of the live excitement. The recently departed songwriter Vic Chesnutt is paid tribute on his haunting “This Cruel Thing” which JB does proud. Saving best for last is the new song “Cotton Was King” which is an immediate classic and fertile ground for live treatment. A classic album cover often bodes well, and in this case it looks and sounds like a big return to form for Widespread Panic.

So you may have heard we are doing a Widespread Panic instore on June 24th. Yes, hard to believe-they are actually going to perform in a record store. That is indeed the good news. The slightly less good news is if you don’t already have your golden ticket the boat has already sailed. In an unbelievable display of internet connectedness, we made one tweet, and one mention on facebook and within 12 hours we had sold out the event and the Onion was making snarky remarks about hippies on Colfax. We have a long history with the band and this is their third time visiting Twist & Shout, but this happened fast! So what can we do for you? How’s this: Submit your favorite Widespread Panic memory to contests@twistandshout.com and we will pick our two favorites. Those people will get a very special poster that we're making for the Widespread Panic event at the store that will be signed by the band. Unfortunately we're already at capacity and can't give out tickets to the winner, because the fire marshall may have an aneurism, but we'll post a handful of essays here on Spork... Is that incentive to write like you haven’t written since ninth grade study hall???

Mile High Music Festival

Multi-day music festivals have been popping up all over the country in recent years.  Bonnaroo and Coachella are the two biggies, while Lollapalooza has reconfigured itself from a touring festival to a huge weekend fest in Chicago's Grant Park.  Here in Colorado, we've seen a couple of big name fests establish themselves in the past couple of years (of course we've had the Telluride Bluegrass Festival for years, but that's another story).  The indie-oriented Monolith Festival will take over Red Rocks in September and this past weekend was the Mile High Music Festival at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.  I was there Saturday and here's my report.



I'll be honest, most of the acts on the bill aren't exactly my cup of tea.  Too mainstream and not enough innovation.  There were, however, a couple favorites of mine who did deliver (more on them below).  The festival grounds are set up on the practice soccer fields and lots just outside the stadium at the Dick's complex.  They cover a huge amount of ground, enough for two main stages at opposite ends, two tent stages holding a couple thousand, and another smaller outdoor stage.  Yes there was a lot of open space too.  Other than food vendors and a few crafts vendors there weren't any events or activities.  The music was the main thing happening, which is a good thing, but if there was a point where there were no bands you wanted to see playing, there was pretty much nothing to do.  The sun was beating down hard all day and there were several tents sent up for shelter and the exciting activity of sitting under a tent.




My friend Eric and I walked in mid-day, just as Lyrics Born was performing a spirited set of live band hip-hop on the Firstbank Stage.  He was definitely the most entertaining of the acts I wasn't that familiar with, but as it was seriously hot out there, we decided to move around some.  I heard bits and pieces of sets by Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Incubus and Greyboy All-Stars.  I caught about a half-hour of G. Love and Special Sauce, mainly because they were playing in a tent.  As the hour of 7:00 began to approach we headed over to the Westword Tent for one of the bands I was actually looking forward to, The Black Keys.  The tent was packed all the way through and we were lucky to get a nice spot by the soundboard.  The duo of Dan Auerbach (guitar, vocals) and Patrick Carney (drums) churned out a fantastic hour-plus set of high-energy blues-rock.  The crowd was energetic and appreciative, while the band played with dynamic enthusiasm.  For just two guys they make a helluva racket.



Next it was time to find a spot on the grass in front of the massive West Main Stage for the evening's headliner, Tool.  At first glance, Tool might seem out of place on this lineup, with Incubus being the only other band approaching hard rock.  But Tool's appeal crosses many genre lines, attracting prog, jam and experimental fans as well.  Like Radiohead, they are a band that has achieved massive popularity while keeping their independent spirit and creative energy intact.  A Tool show is always a spectacle and they had their full compliment of lights, videos, backdrops and lasers.  Strong versions of "Stinkfist" and "Schism" came early in the set.  The highlight was when Patrick from The Black Keys joined in for an extended rendition of "Lateralus."  My one complaint is that they only played for about an hour and 15 minutes.  A festival headliner should play for at least two hours, in my opinion, and they were scheduled to play for about that time anyway.  Everything they did play was great, I just wish there were more of it.



After Tool, a good portion of the crowd headed towards the exits.  All that was left was Widespread Panic's late night set.  I'm sure all the 'Spreadheads had a blast but if you weren't a fan there was really no reason to stick around.  Over all, Mile High proved to be a fun, if hot, fest with a laid back atmosphere.  In the future, I'd like to see a little more diverse and adventurous lineup (The Pitchfork Music Festival was the same weekend, so many of the top indie bands were most likely there).  I don't think it will ever rival the big fests but will hopefully turn in to a strong tradition on the Denver music scene.

-- Adam R.