Funk It’s Bear Creek Music Festival 2011 teaser video

As you can image, Bear Creek Music Festival was magical! The Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park was amazing, the artists were amazing, and the people were amazing (and my close friends know that I don’t use that word often).

The music park is perfect, all of the stages are very close together yet there is very little audio bleed through. The vibe is loose and open and everyone is there to party and have a great time. I met a ton of people and I have never seen soo many audio and video tapers in one place. I was very surprised by the amount of people shooting video on either video cameras or SLR cams with external mics. From what I hear, this is one of the only festivals that is a complete free for all as far as shooting video is concerned.

Needless to say, I was a wild man and I ended up shooting 14 hours of video over the course of 3 days. I could have done much more, but I ran out of space and had to borrow a memory card on the last night (thanks Bob!).

Over the next few months I will be featuring many of these videos here. For now, check out this teaser video to whet your appetite.

Funk It’s Bear Creek Music Festival 2011 teaser video:

Funk It’s Bear Creek Music Festival 2011 teaser video:
01. The Funky Meters – Cissy Strut
02. Marco Benevento Trio with Johnny Vidacovich – Junco Partner
03. The Trio: George Porter Jr, Johnny Vidacovich & Jennifer Hartswick with Freekbass – Don’t Be Squeezin’ My Heart
04. Jon Cleary’s Piano, Bass & Drums – Tipitina
05. Eric Krasno’s Chapter 2 – Nautilus
06. John Scofield’s Piety Street Band – unknown
07. Freekbass & Skerik – Improv in the Silent Disco
08. Dr. Klaw with Jamie McLean & Sam Kinninger – Higher Ground
09. Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio – unknown
10. Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey with Jonathan Lloyd, Chris Noonan, Mark Southerland & Skerik – The Burning
11. Orgone – Break In The Road
12. Medeski, Martin & Wood with Pee Wee Ellis – Where’s The Music?
13. The Lee Boys with Matt Grondin, Khris Royal, ?Shamarr Allen? & unknown trombonist – Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough
14. The New Mastersounds – Carrot Juice
15. Russell Batiste Band with George Porter Jr – Cissy Strut
16. The Coup – 5 Million Ways To Kill A CEO
17. Chali 2na Band – Get Focused
18. Snarky Puppy with Louis Cato – unknown
19. Garage A Trois – Rescue Spreaders
20. Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood – A Go Go
21. Anders Osborne, Eric Bolivar, Jamie McLean & George Porter Jr – Ya-Ya
22. Breakestra – unknown
23. Dumpstajam with Nigel Hall, Louis Cato, Eric Krasno, Freekbass & The Shady Horns – What Is Hip?
24. Lettuce – Sam Huff’s Flying Ragin’ Machine
25. Dumpstaphunk – Put It In The Dumpsta
26. Robert Walter, Eddie Roberts, Jamie McLean, Louis Cato & Ivan Neville – Standin’ On Shaky Ground

Primus – Louisville, Kentucky – videos + exclusive radio audio

Primus 10/10/11 Louisville, KY @ 91.9 WFPK
Interview – Lee Van Cleef – Interview – Tragedy’s a’ Comin’

Primus ripped through Louisville, Kentucky, last Monday with their original lineup of Les Claypool, Larry LaLonde and Jay Lane. I’ve seen them over the years with each of their three drummers (Tim “Herb” Alexander” and Brian “Brain” Mantia) and I can honestly say that Jay Lane is my favorite. After all, he was the one that helped develop the original Primus sound in the late-1980’s and he did co-write most of the songs on Frizzle Fry & Sailing The Seas of Cheese. To me, his playing is groovier and tighter than the other drummers. Also, to his credit, his return to the band rekindled the Primus spark and inspired Claypool to write and record a new album, so you can’t fault him for that.

Early in the afternoon of October 10, 2011, Primus entered the studio at our favorite independent radio station, 91.9 WFPK Radio Louisville. Here I bring you the exclusive recording of their interview and performance. You can stream it at the top of this page, or press the down arrow on the soundcloud bar to download the 83mb lossless FLAC file (Sidenote: Although it was recorded from the webstream, which was most likely a lossy MP3-quality stream, I chose not to downgrade the quality further by compressing it to MP3 again. And that’s why you get a FLAC file and not an MP3. But really is that extra 60mb really gonna tip the scales and fill your hard drive to the bursting point?).

Here I also present the videos I shot from the front row. The audio has been upgraded with my friend’s recording with schoeps microphones, which is available to download over at etree. The video starts out with Extinction Burst (one of my favorite tracks off the new album), and then there is nearly 5 minutes of Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers, including most of Claypool’s bass solo jam middle part. It ends abruptly about 1.5 minutes before the end of the song due to “security.”

Phish used to get funky; here’s twenty seven minutes of proof.

Phish – Ghost – July 23, 1997 Atlanta, GA @ Lakewood Amp.

I’ll admit that I’ve never been a big Phish fan. A few of their tunes interest me (mainly the instrumental passages, crazy prog epics like YEM, and funk work-outs like Meat) and many do not. But when a friend of mine forwarded me this 26 minute version of Ghost from a 1997 show, it gave me a newfound appreciation of the band.

I always heard that they were capable of “transcendant” musical moments, etc. but I rarely had the patience to get past the vocal heavy song beginnings and the many goof-ball choruses. One listen to this track caused me to revisit their 1998 album, The Story of the Ghost. Since then, I’ve learned that 1997 was the year of their “funk” sound period. And I do believe I may search out more 1997 live recordings in the future.

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