Disc Jam 2015 announced a funk heavy lineup today that’s perhaps the best ever for the central Massachusetts located festival.
“I feel this year’s line up is by far our best yet. We pride ourselves on the quality of music we put out each year which has gained Disc Jam the reputation of being one of the more sought after festivals to play in the Northeast.”
The 2015 edition – June 12-14 in Barre, Ma – will feature headliners Lettuce, The Heavy Pets, two sets of Twiddle, Kung Fu, Pink Talking Fish, Dopapod, and Consider the Source. Coming along for the ride are the red hot Tauk, Cabinet, Soul De Monde, Albany’s Mister F and Formula 5, and many more.
This atypical festival also includes a lot more than music for attendees – 2 Disc Golf tournaments, a silent disco, flow and hula hoop workshops, and lots of vending. Music runs continuously on two side by side stages allowing fans to catch every band if they so choose.
The Camp Coldbrook location is also loaded with amenities such as hot indoor showers, two swimming pools, an arcade, and a fully stocked bar that will no doubt get a lot of traffic over the three day festival.
Big Something has announced the lineup for their The Big What? festival in North Carolina, and it includes popular funk bands Vulfpeck, Kung Fu and the Mantras.
Other acts include Barefoot Manner, Big Daddy Love, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, Cabinet, Dangermuffin, Spiritual Rez, The Fritz, Electric Soul Pandemic, Imperial Blend, The Family, Fat Cheek Kat and Broccoli Samurai.
Big Something is a six-piece alternative funk rock band based in Burlington, North Carolina.
This is the fourth year of The Big What? It was originally held at Possum Holler in Prospect Hill, North Carolina, but this year will take place at at 300-acre farm in Mebane, North Carolina. The festival, which runs June 25-27, is billed as “3 days and nights of music, art, camping, love and mystery.”
What could be better than partying on the beach in downtown West Palm Beach? Five days of live music while you’re doing it. SunFest’s 2015 lineup includes plenty of heavy hitters: Fall Out Boy, Pixies, Lenny Kravitz, Paramore, Hozier, Kaskade, Boston, Sammy Hagar and the Circle, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Wilco, 311, Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley, SOJA, Awolnation, Matisyahu, ScHoolboy Q, and Eddie Money, among many others.
Sammy Hagar’s band The Circle consists of Michael Anthony of Van Halen, Vic Johnson – who has played with Hagar since 1997, and Jason Bonham – son of Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham.
The lineup also includes Stone Temple Pilots minus Scott Weiland. They have added Chester Bennington, who is also the lead singer of Linkin Park.
Florida’s largest waterfront music and arts festival – which has been held annually since 1982 – runs April 29 to May 3 this year.
Attendees can choose to buy one, two or five-day tickets, which are on sale now. Advance pricing lasts until April 25.
In an unexpected – and completely appropriate move – Faith No More have released new track “Superhero” from their upcoming album (May 19) Sol Invictus via Marvel.com.
18 years have passed since the last FNM release Album of the Year and fans have been foaming at the mouth for more ever since. The latest track features the typical grunge meets metal meets groove style of earlier FNM and the apropos repeated lyric: “Leader of men, will you be one of them?.” Check it out below! (h/t marvel.com)
Two years ago today – brothers Matt and Ben Pickering and axe man Andrew Chamberlaine came together with multi-instrumentalist/sit-in wizard Scott Hannay to form Albany’s Mister F. Despite their short tenure – the F have grown exponentially – building crowds up and down the coast and deep into the mid-west. They are also attracting some top name attention with Umphrey’s Joel Cummins sitting in at a recent F show.
BDL Photo
Mister F is celebrating the occasion by releasing three brand new videos to say thanks to their fan-base – known as F-Squad. The first is “Don’t Lose Your Watch”. NYS Music caught up with keys man Hannay who shared the thought process behind the song’s creation:
When we were writing and had the song pretty much put together, we decided it would be cool to lay down vocoder vocals for this one. I ended up getting hooked on the game Portal 2 that same week, and there is an omnipresent computer talking to you the whole game, taunting you and playing mind games with you. I thought to write it from the perspective of a similar computer, as the human is trying to get it to understand music based in 5 beats per measure (most of the song itself). The computer is basically saying “yeah, not gonna happen. doesn’t really matter, I’ll still be around when you’re gone” but encounters some frustration when it really tries to figure it out. In the end, the computer doesn’t really need to understand it, because it’s a computer, and tells the human to stop wasting its time with such a futile endeavor – “Don’t lose your watch, your time is wealth” – Scott Hannay
Check out the new tune below and watch for two new videos the next two Sundays. After all three videos are released the songs will become available on the F bandcamp page as a new EP titled: The Snow Day Sessions.
The Jauntee will play a New York City show – plus one in Boston -before heading out for a West Coast run.
The hard-touring jam band from Boston will hit Church in Boston before a show at Pianos on March 15 in New York City.
Then they’re set to play play a number of concerts throughout Colorado, plus stops in Ohio and Kentucky before returning to the Northeast with a New Hampshire show on April 11.
The band, which bills itself as “Psychedelic-JazzBluesFunk with a touch of Latin based Reggae” consists of Caton Sollenberger on guitar, Tony Cerullo playing keys, John Loland on bass, and drummer Scott Ferber.
Full tour schedule:
3/14 – Church – Boston, MA
3/15 – Pianos – New York, NY
3/17 – Stanley’s Pub – Cincinnati, OH
3/18 – Hideaway Saloon – Louisville, KY
3/20 – Old Town Pub – Steamboat Springs, CO
3/21 – Currents Restaurant – Salida, CO
3/22 – Mountain Sun Brewery – Boulder, CO
3/23 – Sanchos Broken Arrow – Denver, CO
3/25 – Cervantes Other Side – Denver, CO
3/26 – The Little Bear – Evergreen, CO
3/27 – Hodi’s Half Note – Fort Collins CO
3/28 – Black Nugget Saloon – Carbondale, CO
4/01 – Fly Me to the Moon Saloon – Telluride, CO
4/02 – Fly Me to the Moon Saloon – Telluride, CO
4/03 – The Barkley Ballroom – Frisco, CO
4/04 – Quixote’s True Blue – Denver, CO
4/08 – Woodlands Tavern – Columbus, OH
4/11 – Stone Church – Newmarket, NH
Snapcase’s fierce driving riffs and aggressive vocals defined them as one of the premier genre bands for the ’90s hardcore music scene.
Originally conceived in a basement in West Seneca NY in 1989 – the five piece built quite the frenetic fan base over the course of the next 16 years before mostly disbanding in 2005. Since then they have played occasional shows – usually in Buffalo – but none since a finale show with the closing of Mohawk Place in 2013.
That all may be changing soon as the band indicated on their website today that they are practicing.
With their next and only 2015 tour date scheduled for Montebello, Canada’s Amnesia Rockfest way off in mid June fans will no doubt be wondering if more tour dates are in the works – or perhaps (hold your breath) some new music? Stay tuned!
Atlanta, Georgia rap metal pioneers Stuck Mojo, who recently played in their hometown back in December, announced last week they are working on new material. This marks the first time since 1998’s Rising that the original lineup of Rich Ward (guitar), Frank Fontsere (drums), Bonz (vocals), and Corey Lowery (bass) have worked together.
Ward, who has kept busy with Fozzy with Fontsere has stated:
“[Bonz is] doing great, he looks great, we’re getting along great, and so far, knock on wood, he seems like he’s dealt with all his demons and he’s sorted that part of his life out that [he needed to take care of in order] for me to move forward with him. So I’m feeling good about it. And I also have four other partners in FOZZY that, obviously, are wanting to tour and stuff, so I need to be mindful and respectful to everything — not only the guys in STUCK MOJO, but also to my FOZZY family — and make sure that if I’m working on STUCK MOJO, it’s because Chris (Jericho) is back in the WWE doing a little, short run, which he does from time to time. And that works out good for me. That way he’s working on something else, and I can do the same.”
On Saturday, Stuck Mojo announced their second reunion show at the Amos’ Southend in Charlotte, NC on Friday April 17. No further shows announced as of yet.
Digital men and analog kids: wave a magic wand, and presto! Rumors of a tour can materialize just like that. With the mean, mean pride of a 40+ year career since the early ’70s, Rush was driven by their love of performing to announce a 34-show North American tour this spring and summer. The RUSH: R40 Live Tour begins May 8 and wraps up August 1.
It was the course of natural science that Rush, made up of Dirk, Lerxst, and The Professor (Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart), was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, a long overdue token according to many fans. Through 20 gold and platinum studio albums and several live releases the band has built a strong, loyal following yet maintained subtle obscurity in the limelight of general popularity. Let’s face it: if someone auditioned for American Idol by whipping out “A Passage To Bangkok,” Paula Abdul would likely fall out of her chair in confusion over what band’s song she just heard.
Make a headlong flight over to Ticketmaster.com or LiveNation.com for tickets, available January 30. A special pre sale period is available January 23-26 for those who subscribe to the Rush email newsletter, which can be signed up for anytime.
Since time doesn’t stand still, R40 will likely be the band’s last tour of this magnitude. However, this isn’t necessarily yet a farewell to the kings of progressive rock.
While the major story in the music world the past few days has been the July reunion of the ‘Core Four’ members of the Grateful Dead featuring Trey Anastasio, Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti, news that Phish may be returning to Watkins Glen International Speedway later this summer was lost in the mix.
Two years ago, ‘s Johnny Goff spoke to WGI President Michael Printup to get the low down on the potential for a 2013 festival at the track. We got a firm ‘no’ from Printup but this year we haven’t heard anything official, leading to plenty of local media and fan speculation.
Photo by Andy Hill
Based on reports from Syracuse and Ithaca newspapers, it looks like the track season ending early paves the way, literally, for Phish to perform at the track. Paving at the track in early August opens the potential for a large-scale concert at the racing grounds, and leaves open much of August for Phish to play at the site of their 2011 Superball IX festival. This is of course dependent on paving ending in time for a music festival or large scale concert to be held. With Trey playing at Soldier Field in early July, that would potentially push Phish tour dates back a few weeks into late July, leaving a summer-ending festival lined up nicely for Watkins Glen.
Considering the great deal of money that was added to the local communities as a result of Superball IX, and with the Southern Tier region of the state always in need of a good economic boost, a potential Phish festival couldn’t come at a better time. Phish could of course return to Maine, where they held three successful festivals in 1997, 1998 and 2003, but those festivals made sense back then, not now when there are a great deal of music festivals to compete with. Plus, Watkins Glen just makes more sense being geographically-centric to the Phish fan base in the Northeast and remote enough to have the built in intimacy that all Phish festivals have manifested.
Phish playing the Finger Lakes goes back more than a decade, with memorable shows at Darien Lake, Canandaigua and Watkins Glen. According to ‘s Johnny Goff, in 2002, the County Executive of Chemung County reported that Great Northeast Productions contacted him to seek out a 300 acre space between I-90 and I-86 to hold a music festival. The region has long been a site with potential for a Phish festival, and with that in mind, the Finger Lakes region is prime for a Phish festival once again.
Speculation from media outlets adds to this potential and keeps all eyes focused on August, likely before or after Peach Festival (August 13-16). We will keep you updated on any news of Phish’s potential festival as speculation develops.
If Phish played Watkins Glen in August, would you also plan to attend ‘Fare Thee Well’ in Chicago over Fourth of July weekend?
