X are playing here soon and from all reports their reunion shows haven't been coming with the usual trappings and shortcomings so I hope to see 'em.

I haven't heard it yet myself but I understand the new album they've just released with John Doe from X is pretty good. You can sample some tunes on the John Doe & the Sadies MySpace site.

That's not a bad place to start but like their other early recordings (Gangstabilly and Pizza Deliverance) it's a little rough around the edges production-wise. Still, it's damn good stuff. For those that are new to the Truckers I usually recommend Decoration Day. It was recorded after Jason Isbell (who has since gone his own way) joined the band and is somewhat more accessible. The Bottle Rockets are kickass as well. So many folks only seem to know 'em from Radar Gun but there's so much more to 'em than that. I still haven't purchased a ticket yet, I just hope it's still not sold out. The last time I saw him (along with his wife Allison Moorer) it was also all acoustic, which I'm guessing this upcoming show will be given the nature of the Townes record as well as the size of the venue. I still don't own Copperhead Road on CD so hopefully when I take the plunge it'll be the deluxe edition. Sadly a lot of folks seem to think he dropped off the face of the earth after Copperhead Road but he didn't. Some of the records he's recorded since then are some of the very best of his career, at least to my ears. Especially El Corazon and Train A' Comin' (the first album he recorded after getting out of prison).

I think Eddie Van Halen's in a similar situation. He had been reduced to scoring a porn film prior to the reunion with Roth. Plus, who else would even want to be in Van Halen at this point? The other alternative would be Eddie joining another band (which I just don't see happening) which would leave his brother Alex in the lurch. I just kinda think it's either Van Halen or nothing at this point for all of them (well, except for maybe Wolfie who's probably being groomed for a career of his own someday).

I think at this point it wouldn't make any sense not to have Roth in the band. I also don't see him not coming back especially since he's the one that's wanted it so badly for all these years. While I'm sure he's no walk in the park I think it's become crystal clear that neither is Edward, that's why Anthony isn't with them now. If they were to go with another lead singer at this stage it would only push them even further into Spinal Tap territory. If they're going to continue with Roth they definitely need to record some new material or else they're going to amount to little more than a nostalgia act. I saw them on that last tour and have no problem saying that's the main reason I went (I hadn't seen them in any formation since 1979) but they do need some fresh tunes. On that tour they did the same setlist night after night with the same scripted banter. I enjoyed it but not if I had wanted to catch multiple shows on the tour.

Like Big & Rich? If you do like your country with more of a rock edge I suggest checking out the Bottle Rockets (Robert Kearns from that band as well as Cry of Love will be filling in for Skynyrd's ailing bassist Ean Evans on their upcoming tour) as well as the Drive-By Truckers. I believe you said you picked up Steve Earle's Copperhead Road. Was it by any chance the newly released deluxe edition (see below)? If so, it includes a show recorded at the Pier in Raleigh many moons ago. By the way, he also has a new album coming out of Townes Van Zandt covers entitled Townes appropriately enough. He is going to be playing a very intimate show in nearby Carrboro for that tour in June. Amazingly enough there are still tix available.

The article I posted in this thread back in February says that according to Edward, Roth will be taking part in the upcoming sessions though it also mentions Roth "couldn't be reached for comment on his future with the band". Edward also plans to tour with the same llneup again. Personally, I wish they'd lose Wolfgang and bring Michael Anthony back into the group but that just isn't going to happen.

They haven't updated the years 1978-1981 but there's a list of shows N.R.P.S. played from 1968-1977 on their website (included the concerts they did with the Grateful Dead).

I'm not sure how extensive it was but I know they at least did some dates together (the Blues Brothers were also on the bill, see poster below). They also played some shows together in the early days of N.R.P.S. If I'm not mistaken, it was with the New Riders that Garcia first started learning how to play the pedal steel. I believe some footage of him playing steel with the New Riders can be seen in the Last Days of the Fillmore documentary. Dick's Pick Vol. 8 is also from one of the early N.R.P.S./Dead gigs yet the New Riders don't appear on the disc itself (I do think their performance is available elsewhere though). I think it was also around this same time that Garcia and Page met up (if my memory serves, I believe Page coached him on steel or vice versa) and Garcia played steel on CSN's Teach Your Children.

It's been 10 years now so believe me it's not been easy. Sad thing is, I don't seem to be getting any closer to being reunited with my record collection. I simply just don't have enough room where I am now.

They're an offshoot of the Grateful Dead. Garcia and Mickey Hart were even official band members at one point but found they just didn't have the time outside of the Grateful Dead to devote to being in the New Riders so they only appear on the debut N.R.P.S. record. The band is still touring today albeit without original frontman John Dawnson (aka "Maraduke") who is apparently quite ill and unable to tour anymore. If you like the early "country rock" of the 70s such as the Flying Burrito Brothers, Pure Prairie League, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, etc., they should be right up your alley.

Both of these were part of Slim's 10th anniversary celebration. The ViBeKiLLeRs Friday, April 24th Slim's Downtown Distillery Raleigh, NC The Yayhoos Saturday, April 25th Slim's Downtown Distillery Raleigh, NC

How are you liking this one? Some of their latter day records are a little spotty but this one captures them at their zenith.

R.E.M. To Reissue Reckoning From Pitchfork: The R.E.M. reissue campaign continues with a 25th anniversary deluxe edition of their second album, 1984's Reckoning, due out June 23 on I.R.S./A&M/UMe. Like last year's deluxe treatment of R.E.M.'s debut, Murmur, the deluxe Reckoning is a two-disc set. The second disc contains a live show taped at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago on July 7, 1984 and aired on Chicago radio station WXRT. The Aragon show features eight Reckoning songs, old songs "Gardening at Night" from Chronic Town and "Radio Free Europe," "9-9" and "Sitting Still" from Murmur, and new songs "Driver 8" and "Hyena", which would show up on Fables of the Reconstruction and Lifes Rich Pageant, respectively. 180 gram vinyl versions of the reissued Reckoning and Murmur will also be released on June 23.

Princeton embraces Southern Rock: Southern Rock Symposium Thing is, it's not just Southern Rock as people tend to think of it: Skynyrd, Allmans, Marshall Tucker, etc. it encompasses a much broader range than that. Like nearly all music that's originated from the South.

Part travelogue, part concert film and behind the scenes documentary. I always find films like that much more enjoyable to watch than straight up concert footage. I think that's what made Pearl Jam's Immagine In Cornice work so well for me. And while Kicking Television is a fine documentation of the Wilco concert experience, Ashes of American Flags captures them at what may very well be their peak as a live band.

Paste Presents the Bob Dylan Takeover I haven't tried my hand at the Brain Bustin' Trivia Quiz yet but I plan to here shortly.

I'm only one listen in but so far, so good. I wasn't exactly taken with a couple of the slower songs but I think in time they will grow on me. My very first impression is that the album has a very "South of the Border" feel thanks in no small part to David Hidalgo's accordion work. As for where it fits in with Dylan's other more recent albums (Love & Theft thru Modern Times), that's going to take several more spins.

They were due to play NC on the Street Survivors tour but as we all know history took it's course so I never got to see them. I don't feel bad about having seen the Tribute Tour in 1987 or any of the other Skynyrd concerts I attended after that. To me, Skynyrd ended in that plane crash but attending those shows felt like the next best thing at the time since I never got to see the original Lynyrd Skynyrd. I can't say I think of them as a cover band since they do record new material but so much of what they perform live is by the pre-crash version of the band I know what people mean by that. I love Rossington-Collins as well but I never got to see them either. I think they were off on the right foot with that project but it was destined to come apart at the seams. The Drive-By Truckers' Southern Rock Opera has already been mentioned in this thread but it's well worth mentioning again. This song from it pretty much fits my younger concert going days to a tee, right down to seeing the Johnny Van Zant Band, Molly Hatchet, Bon Scott with AC/DC but never seeing the original Lynyrd Skynyrd: Dropped acid, Blue Oyster Cult concert, fourteen years old, And I thought them lasers were a spider chasing me. On my way home, got pulled over in Rogersville Alabama, with a half-ounce of weed and a case of Sterling Big Mouth. My buddy Gene was driving, he just barely turned sixteen. And I'd like to say, "I'm sorry", but we lived to tell about it And we lived to do a whole lot more crazy, stupid, shit. And I never saw Lynyrd Skynyrd but I sure saw Molly Hatchet With .38 Special and the Johnny Van Zant Band. One night when I was seventeen, I drank a fifth of vodka, on an empty stomach, then drove over to a friend's house. And I backed my car between his parent's Cadillac's without a scratch. Then crawled to the back door and slithered threw the key hole, and sneaked up the stares And puked in the toilet. I passed out and nearly drowned but his sister, DD, pulled me out. And I never saw Lynyrd Skynyrd but I sure saw Molly Hatchet And the band that I was in played "The Boy's are Back in Town". Skynyrd was set to play Huntsville, Alabama, in the spring of 77, I had a ticket but it got cancelled. So, the show, it was rescheduled for the "Street Survivors Tour". And the rest, as they say, is history. So I never saw Lynyrd Skynyrd but I sure saw Ozzy Osbourne with Randy Rhoads in '82 Right before that plane crash. And I never saw Lynyrd Skynyrd but I sure saw AC/DC With Bon Scott singing, "Let There Be Rock Tour". With Bon Scott singing, LET THERE BE ROCK!

Since I never saw the pre-crash version of the band I must say I was quite excited at the prospect of their reunion tour in 1987 and attended one of those shows along with several more after that (though none that included the Hughie Thomasson/Medlocke line up). Even the best of the post-crash material has never lived up to the work they did when Ronnie Van Zant was alive but I kept buying those albums in hopes of it coming close. I simply lost interest after a while. To me, they hit rock bottom once they started using outside writers and turned out absolute crap such as Red, White and Blue. As for Johnny Van Zant and Medlocke, I love Johnny's first solo album No More Dirty Deals as well as the majority of work Melocke did with Blackfoot, especially Strikes.

I thought the wall from the stage shows was there because it was representative of the metaphor for the wall used on the album. It may have also been there because of Waters' relationship (or lack thereof) with Pink Floyd's audience but it also brought the conceptualization of The Wall to life.

It's actually a "bookazine", the second one since No Depression magazine stopped publication. So far, so good but I've only thumbed through it.