Greatest hits comps are a necessary evil. Since obtaining an iPod I've found myself picking up my fair share of greatest hits collections (on CD) just for a song or two. That leaves a lot more to discover but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to do so. Maybe I already have some of their music on vinyl, or maybe I've heard enough of their other material to determine whether I want to seek out their back catalog or not. In the case of Mothership, in addition to already having the Zep collection on vinyl, I also picked up the two box sets when they came out so that pretty much has me covered as far as their studio albums. There's been no real need to buy any of the greatest hits collections. As has been previously mentioned, if a new fan were to be bitten by the Zeppelin bug, it wouldn't take too long to catch up on their studio records. One thing that does concern me is, the recordings I have aren't sequenced as "albums" so the seques from the original records aren't the same. Well, I guess they are the same but they're faded out, whereas the original recordings were seamless from one song to the next such as Black Mountain Side into Communication Breakdown from the first album.

They may not be a household name but anytime you hear heavily layered vocals, 10cc are usually cited as the influence. I know they were for this track.

Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights w/ Ponderosa at the Pour House in Raleigh tonight. I still haven't seen an entire set by Ponderosa but what I have seen, I've enjoyed so I'm looking forward to catching a complete (albeit an "opening") set from them this evening. I'm unfamiliar with the headliners but understand they have a heavy Black Crowes/Humble Pie influence.

Ryan's Pax American label site has launched. Actually, I think the site has been around for a while but now it's been updated. Well, sorta. It's design was used on Ryan's old site during his time with the Cardinals. Which brings me to this next bit of news. A few months back he promised some previously unreleased Cardinals era material in the form of two new albums, III & V. It appears he's made good on that promise: SIDE A Breakdown Into The Resolve Dear Candy Wasteland Ultraviolet Light Stop Playing With My Heart SIDE B Lovely And Blue Happy Birthday Kisses Start Wars The Crystal Skull Users SIDE C No Numbers Gracie Icebreaker Sewers at the Bottom of the Wishing Well SIDE D Typecast Star Wars My Favorite Song P.S. Death And Rats Kill The Lights

There's a band playing my area soon named Bled Crepplein, a Zeppelin/Black Crowes tribute.

Gary Louris of the Jayhawks backed by The Sadies on a Byrds classic:

From Spinner.com: Pearl Jam Celebrate 20th Birthday With New Live Album by Carter Maness Gareth Cattermole, Getty Images Pearl Jam are celebrating their 20th anniversary and they plan to party the year away in style. On top of their new Sirius XM radio channel, the band recently announced that a brand new live album entitled 'Live on Ten Legs' will hit stores on Jan. 18. The title, which references Pearl Jam's debut LP, their first live album ('Live on Two Legs') and the beginning of their reign over modern rock, highlights the band's legendary touring prowess and penchant for wildly different live shows. 'Live on Ten Legs' features 18 Pearl Jam tracks recorded during the band's tours from 2003-2010 by longtime recording engineer John Burton. Fans will be happy to find rarities such as 'State of Love and Trust' and covers of artists such as Public Image Ltd. to Clash leader Joe Strummer. The band's engineer Brett Eliason has done a new mix on the tracks, which have also received a sparkling remastering job. Continuing a streak of using different media to deliver their records to obsessive fans across the globe, Pearl Jam say that the album will be available through digital retailers, as well as CD, vinyl and a European-only version that includes a CD, double LP, four tour posters, five live photos and a tour laminate. Pre-orders for 'Live on Ten Legs' are currently up and running at the band's Ten Club website.

From RollingStone.com: Mike Mills On New R.E.M. Album With Patti Smith, Eddie Vedder 'Collapse Into Now' is reminiscent of 'Automatic for the People', says Mills Larry Busacca/WireImage By Andy Greene When R.E.M. began recording Collapse Into Now last year they decided to throw out the guidelines they imposed on their last album, 2008's Accelerate. "On the last one we tried to make everything focused, short, fast and sharp," Mike Mills tells Rolling Stone. "We took most of the rules off this time, picking the best songs regardless of whether they were fast, slow or mid-tempo." The disc, which is due out early next year, reminds Mills of the band's 1992 classic Automatic For The People. "The songs go from one type into another really easily and it all seems to fit as a piece," Mills says. "It makes sense as a whole the same way that Automatic For The People did." Produced by Jacknife Lee, the disc was recorded over the past year at studios in Portland, New Orleans, Nashville and at Berlin's legendary Hansa Tonstudio—where David Bowie and Iggy Pop recorded The Idiot and later where U2 cut Achtung Baby. "There's so many, not exactly ghosts...but vibrations in there," says Mills. "It's as very, very vibey place." While in Berlin the band met up with longtime friend Patti Smith, who contributed vocals to the track "Blue." "Patti totally changed the song and added a whole other dimension to it," says Mills. "It was a powerful thing to watch." Another track, "It Happens Today," featured vocal contributions from Eddie Vedder. The songs are also less political than the material on Accelerate. "It's more of a personal record than a political one," says Mills. "Current events do come into our mind when we write, but the themes here are more universal." Other songs include the piano ballad "Walk It Back," a rocker called "All The Best" that features Mills and Michael Stipe sharing lead vocals and "Everyday Is Yours To Win"—which Mills describes as a "slow, beautiful song built around a guitar riff." Mills says the group didn't always see eye-to-eye while recording the disc. "This one certainly has its share of difficulty—but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing," he says. "It just means you have creative tension, which is what happens when three strong-willed people manage to find a consensus."

A few years back a friend of mine starting going on and on about black helicopters, D.B. Cooper, etc. and the Moon landings being a hoax. He was quickly reminded by an older brother of mine about a trip they took via charter plane back in the 70s to watch one of the Apollo missions lift off from Cape Canaveral. I think my brother worded it something like this, "do you think that was all staged just for our benefit"? Our friend never said another word about it after that.

Love what I've heard from Neko but I'm still in the process of discovering her work. Her former record label, Bloodshot, had a sale a year or so ago and I racked up several of her older records at around $5 a pop. Now, for something nearly completely different. I got news today of a new documentary about Jerry Jeff Walker (probably best known as the man who penned Mr. Bojangles) called Ok, Buckaroos!. More info at the movie website here.

Very intense, edge of your seat excitement. Just what I needed after the disappointment of Pirate Radio.

As a proud owner of the Nuggets collection I am without a doubt a fan of garage rock (past and present) but having a few friends that play in bands that perform that kind of music I found it grows monotonous very fast. So, in that respect, a little goes a very long ways with me. It's just too limited in scope to hold my attention for very long.

From NPR: What's With All The Garage Rock? by ROBIN HILTON The garage rock revivalists Burnt Ones are one of the groups featured on this week's All Songs Considered. Rumi Sakuraeda Around this time last year, when we were putting together our list of important recordings from the previous decade in music, we looked for recurring themes or sounds that tied them all together. Among other things, it was a decade of hip-hop and the mainstreaming of hip-hop. In another ten years, when we look back at the period we're in now, I think we'll call it the decade of garage rock. On the current edition of All Songs Considered, Bob and I share some of the new bands we've been listening to, and can't help but notice how much popular music from the '50s and early to mid '60s is influencing today's young artists. You hear it in the simple but infectious rhythms, the messy, noisy guitars, and the free spirit of the lyrics and melodies. The question is: Why now? Is it just cyclical? One theory Bob and I discuss is that artists are tired of making quiet, introspective music by themselves. After years of lo-fi home recordings, musicians now just want to have fun and play simple, easy music together that's loud and cathartic. What do you think?

From Spin: R.E.M. Tap Eddie Vedder, Patti Smith for Next Album By William Goodman R.E.M. have finished their fifteenth studio album, called Collapse Into Now (due in early 2011) — so what can fans expect? According to multi-instrumentalist Mike Mills, a more "expansive" sound than on 2008's Accelerate and some special guests, including Eddie Vedder, Patti Smith, and Peaches! "With Accelerate we were trying to make a point by making the songs as short and as fast as possible," Mills tells Spin. "So we wanted this new one to be more expansive. We wanted to put more variety into it and not limit ourselves to any one type of song. There are some really slow, beautiful songs; there are some nice, mid-tempo ones; and then there are three or four rockers." Mills adds that while Accelerate's lyrics were politically-inspired, Collapse Into Now is a "very personal, very human record. Not only to [singer] Michael [stipe], but personal and human in the sense of the narrative of the songs, the protagonists of the songs." The 12-track release — produced by Garret "Jacknife" Lee (Snow Patrol, U2), who plays alongside R.E.M.'s Peter Buck in alt-country supergroup Tired Pony — includes rocker "All the Best," and the album's closing song, "Blue," which features vocals from Patti Smith. A yet-to-be-named song, which Mills promises will feature the word "alligator" in its title, features Peaches on vocals and Smith's longtime collaborator Lenny Kaye on guitar. "It Happened Today" features Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder on vocals. Another, "Walk It Back," was written during studio sessions in New Orleans, the product of the band's new approach to writing and recording. Instead of penning a batch of tunes and tracking them in a marathon session, R.E.M. scheduled sessions in different cities -- Berlin, Nashville, New Orleans -- with breaks between to write and rewrite songs. "It's also fun for us to go to the cities we really love and spend some time," says Mills. After a day's work in the studio, the band would go out to dinner. "It's really important to go out, get great food, shrug off the debris of the day, and just be friends and have a good time. In Berlin you drink beer and eat wurst. In New Orleans you eat Cajun food and drink Sazerac. In Nashville we ate a lot of fried chicken."

Seems like I read an article on this board recently that stated Plant intends to continue to work with the members of the Band of Joy beyond this current tour and album and that he and Buddy Miller have already worked on some new, original material. I'd post the actual article but I've been unable to find it.

That's why I didn't want to offer up my opinion beforehand. The music is good enough but that "whoop" did more than annoy me. I barely made it through the entire song because of it. Thanks, I didn't understand a single word of it but liked the music well enough so I'll give it a 6.9. Also glad to see something posted in this thread aside from the tried and true. I would think it'd be a given that we're all familiar with the majority of music posted in this thread since so much of it is played day in and day out on "Classic Rock" radio so it's refreshing to see someone post something besides that. Now, for your listening and viewing pleasure, Jimmy Buffett in his natural element in the Keys back in the mid-70s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7thbWZTMTE

Did you ever see Pioneer House, a reality series that aired on PBS several years back? The premise was for the cast to go to Montana and attempt to live as people did in the 1800s. During the very last episode a member of one of the families threw out this question, would people from the 1800s find it just as difficult to adjust to life in the present with fax machines, the internet, cellphones, etc. as the people in the show did adjusting to life as it was in the 1800s? I resisted buying a cellphone or iPod for years for various reasons. After becoming homeless following Hurricane Ophelia in 2005 I had no choice but to buy a cellphone; that is, if I wanted to stay in touch with people and have a way for them to reach me. A couple of years ago a friend gave me an iPod shuffle. It took me a while but finally I started using it and haven't turned back since. While I'm still anti-mp3, I find it much more convenient to travel around with that pocket-sized device as opposed to lugging 100s of CDs with me everywhere I go. I also recently upgraded my phone to better enable me to respond and/or send text messages. For me, it's either adapt and learn the new technology or else be left behind. I'm sure at some point in the future it will all become too much for me and I'll just give up but for now I've found it really has been that hard to learn the new technologies. Back to movies, I watched this last night: I would love to say I recommend this but it really didn't do much for me. Yeah, it had some good music and some funny scenes but overall it failed as a movie. I'm all about learning more about pirate radio but this wasn't the place to start.

I first heard about this band several years back when they did the opening honors for the now defunct Patty Hurst Shifter at King's in Raleigh. After catching Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit at the newly opened Casbah in Durham Friday night I slipped back over to Raleigh in time to catch the last few songs of their set (which included covers of Whole Lotta Love and Stranglehold) at Slim's. The band is Leslie from South Carolina who are also part of this writeup about bands from that state which includes such notables as Band of Horses.

This clip hasn't made it to YouTube yet so there's no way to embed it here but it is on Vimeo: The Love Language "Heart To Tell"

From the Salt Lake Tribune: Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame legend Gregg Allman will release his first solo record in 14 years on January 18. Called Low Country Blues for the coastal Georgia region Allman calls home, the record was produced by T Bone Burnett and features Dr. John on piano, guitarist Doyle Bramhall II, and Burnett's seasoned go-to rhythm section: bassist Dennis Crouch and drummer Jay Bellerose. The track listing for the record is: 1. Floating Bridge (Sleepy John Estes) 2. Little By Little (Junior Wells) 3. Devil Got My Woman (Skip James) 4. I Can't Be Satisfied (Muddy Waters) 5. Blind Man (Bobby Bland) 6. Just Another Rider (Gregg Allman & Warren Haynes) 7. Please Accept My Love (BB King) 8. I Believe I'll Go Back Home (Traditional) 9. Tears Tears Tears (Amos Milburn) 10. My Love is Your Love (Samuel Maghett) 11. Checking On My Baby (Otis Rush) 12. Rolling Stone (Traditional)

I feel very fortunate to have seen a couple of early acoustic solo shows myself, both at The Brewery in Raleigh (now a metal/hardcore club). The first was with Chip Robinson (ex-Backsliders), Kenny Roby (ex-Six String Drag) and special guest Caitlin Cary. They each performed separate sets (with Caitlin sitting in on a few songs with both Kenny and Ryan) and then jammed together at the end. The second solo show was around the time of Heartbreaker but in addition to those songs he also did a lot of then "new" stuff that still hasn't appeared on an album such as Statuettes With Wounds. Both shows were great but the second one I mentioned is probably the best Ryan show I've ever seen. There was just something in the air that night, it even inspired someone to write this on the chalkboard outside of the men's room at The Brewery during the show: "Ryan Adams writes songs like some people breathe".

Is there really any need for two nearly identical threads on the exact same subject?