One of my older brothers saw them at Maggie Valley in NC way back when. By the time I saw them for the first time in '75 in Savannah, GA Duane was obviously long gone. Even these days with Derek, they're still a force to be reckoned with. That's next to impossible to say about most any other band that's been around as long as they have.

Gordon & Smith Fibreflex skateboard decks, developed in the early 70s in California.

Left to right is Chris Mars, Bob Stinson (R.I.P.), Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson.

The Replacements

It worked for Peter Tosh.

Loaded Tosh.

The first time I can remember hearing them was in a rented VW band travelling through Europe in November of 1972. The album was Led Zeppelin IV on an orange cassette that my brother had purchased overseas at the beginning of our trip. The setting couldn't have been more perfect; lots of foggy mornings, rolling hills, misty mountains and beautiful castles. As for their impact, I eventually picked up some of their earlier albums over the years which led to me seeking out blues artists such as Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters. Still a fan to this day and thanks to this board, I've learned much more about them than I ever thought possible through the pages of Creem, Circus, Rolling Stone and Hammer of the Gods that I'd studied so closely in my younger days.

Never been a big fan but I saw Phish there in '92. I was working for a radio station at the time so the ticket was free and one of my friends I went with is a big Phish fan so it was worth the journey just to check them out. Probably one of my favorite concerts by the water was a reggae festival on the coast of NC back in the 80s.

For no particular reason, I never saw the Allmans after the Shades of Two Worlds tour in the early 90s (the last with Dickey) until around three years ago when Derek had become a full time member and I must say he did a very admirable job. They're also a very different band these days, perhaps leaning more heavily in a jazz direction with Derek but still just as vital as they were with Dickey.

The oldest operating brewing company in the United States, established in 1829 at the Eagle Brewery on Center Street in Pottsville, PA.

Aside from the obvious privacy issues, I get the impression that Page isn't exactly that tech savvy when it comes to the innerwebz, despite the launch of his new website. I believe there was one comment in a recent interview where he said something to the effect that fans shouldn't be expect to see him blogging and using Twitter.

When it comes to post Yardbirds stuff, it seems this group is often overlooked. Their debut album, released in 1984 was very promising. Their second one, Strange Land, which came out in 1986, didn't exactly deliver on that promise but still had it's moments. For the uninitiated, there's more info here.

I need to expand my Yardbirds collection. All I have is the one recorded live at the Anderson Theatre, and a couple of cheap knockoffs on the Pickwick label, one with Jeff Beck and the other with Eric Clapton (all on vinyl).

I had come onboard with Zep around '72 via IV and became a diehard fan in the years to come. By the time of In Through the Out Door I was just as big a fan as ever. Unfortunately, I didn't see them when they played Greensboro, NC in '77 (the only opportunity I ever had to see them) and never had a chance after that as history took it's course.

Wilco!!!

From the Tower Records Facebook page: ON THIS DATE (44 YEARS AGO) July 24, 1967 - The Yardbirds Little Games is released. Allmusic 3/5 stars Little Games is an album by The Yardbirds, released on this date in 1967. Successful singles producer Mickie Most was called in to assist The Yardbirds on what was to be their final album before the group disbanded in 1968. Jimmy Page used his guitar-bowing technique on "Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor" and "Glimpses". The song "White Summer" would later be performed live at Led Zeppelin concerts as a medley with "Black Mountain Side". The album peaked at #80 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart. The album title track is the first of several tracks that producer Mickie Most would exempt Chris Dreja and Jim McCarty from participating in. The Yardbirds' U.S. Epic record label, having made several printing errors with Yardbirds material in the past, made yet several more with this album. Chris Dreja's surname on all his songwriting credits for this album was misspelled on the LP labels as "Ereja". This misprint also appears on the U.S. "Drinking Muddy Water" single and the tracks "Smile On Me" and "Drinking Muddy Water" from the 1970 Epic Records compilation The Yardbirds Featuring Performances By Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page. The U.S. single of "Little Games", written by Harold Spiro and Phil Wainman, only credits Phil Wainman as the writer. On top of this, his last name was misspelled on the label as "Wiemann" Epic Records (US) mistakenly released a number of stereo versions of the LP in mono version sleeves, with the mono version catalog number, and a mono version record label. The only ways to identify true mono copies is by listening to the album or by examining the 3-letter prefix of the master numbers on the record labels or in the LP trail-out grooves. "XEM" indicates genuine mono copies, stereo copies show an "XSB" prefix. Counterfeit copies of the album exist also. Genuine copies have deep, dark purple album covers, counterfeits have brighter or "bleached" purple covers. TRACKS Side one No. Title Writer(s) Length 1. "Little Games" Spiro, Wainman 2:25 2. "Smile On Me" Dreja, McCarty, Page, Relf 3:16 3. "White Summer" Page 3:56 4. "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor" Page, McCarty 2:49 5. "Glimpses" Dreja, McCarty, Page, Relf 4:24 Side two No. Title Writer(s) Length 1. "Drinking Muddy Water" Dreja, McCarty, Page, Relf 2:53 2. "No Excess Baggage" Atkins, D'Errico 2:32 3. "Stealing Stealing" trad. arr. Dreja, McCarty, Page, Relf 2:42 4. "Only the Black Rose" Relf 2:52 5. "Little Soldier Boy" McCarty, Page, Relf 2:39 1992 Expanded edition An expanded Little Games edition entitled Little Games Sessions and More, was released as a 2 disc set featuring additional sessions and alternate takes from the period, plus the singles "Ha Ha Said the Clown", "Ten Little Indians", and "Goodnight Sweet Josephine".

Drive-By Truckers

Some newer favorites: Mount Moriah Megafaun The Love Language Mumford and Sons The War On Drugs The Decemberists

Watch and listen as DIckey tears "Blue Sky" a new one.

I remember AMC when there were no commercial breaks. It seemed the fare then leaned much more towards black and white fare. I enjoyed that because I got to catch up on lots of films I'd never seen, plus some off the beaten path gems you probably wouldn't see anywhere else on cable.

Not sure if you picked up the 25th Anniversary editions of Murmur and Reckoning (which both included live shows from those respective eras) but my only complaint about those would be that they aren't the entire concerts. Then again, some of the tunes left off were covers so that may have something to do with it, at least from a licensing standpoint. Fables is my favorite R.E.M. record but since purchasing the 25th Anniversary edition of it last summer, I haven't exactly found myself going back to revisit the demos from it very often (if at all). Maybe that's because they aren't markedly different from what made the finished album, at least not from a lyrical and musical structure perspective. However, the demos for Pageant offer just enough differences in those two departments that I feel like I will be listening to them more. In fact, like the demos on the Fables reissue, they are the first thing I listened to before giving the remastered version of the album itself a spin. One of the first things that struck me about the Pageant demos is the glimpse into the future they offer via the early versions of "King of Birds" (labeled as "March" here) and "Bad Day" (which would be reconfigured as "It's the End of the World As We Know It [And I Feel Fine]") which portend the more discordant and crunchy sounds that would characterize much of Document. Since I haven't listened to either on high end audio equipment and I've never exactly been an audiophile, I can't say I've ever really noticed the compression thing but I've heard similar complaints about Accelerate. That, I can sort of notice but it's never really bothered me, at least not as much as it's bothered other people. In regards to the "Loudness Wars", I just posted a new article on that very topic to the The Loudness Wars thread in the Ramble On section of the board that you may enjoy reading.

From TheAtlantic.com: The Loudness Wars: Is Music's Noisy Arms Race Over? High-volume sound engineering may finally be falling out of fashion Sleigh Bells Flickr user Erica Cassella The loudest album of 2010 was almost certainly Sleigh Bells' acclaimed Treats, a collection of songs with the volume and distortion of nearly every element pushed into the red. Drums became blasts of noise, the lyrics were nearly impossible to decipher, and even though it was very much a pop album, it was almost painful to listen to. That, of course, was precisely why it thrilled. Sleigh Bells had designed the album to sound that way. "I love the physical aspect of music," guitarist Derek E. Miller said in an email to The Atlantic. "I want people to have that experience of standing in front of a rack of sub-woofers, being blasted with air and feeling the center of your chest crush a little. I usually blur the vocals so people spend less time thinking about the lyrics and more time responding on a purely emotional level. Overdubs, hard pans, extremely short delays." To read the rest of the article, click here.

By Little Steven Van Zandt: And the river opens for the righteous, someday I was walking with my brother And he wondered what was on my mind I said what I believe in my soul It ain't what I see with my eyes And we can't turn our backs this time And I ain't no Communist, and I ain't no Capitalist And I ain't no Socialist and I sure ain't no Imperialist And I ain't no Democrat And I ain't no Republican either And I only know one party and it's name is freedom I am, I am, I am, I am a Patriot