moe

Festival Schedule Announced for 15th Annual All Good Music Festival

With summer Held this July 14-17 at Marvin’s Mountaintop in Masontown, WV, the 15th Annual All Good Music Festival has announced the complete schedule and list of artists performing the event which can be found here. Fans can rest easier than most other festivals because the All Good Festival features no overlapping sets with the two adjacent stages alternating music non-stop from noon to late night/early morning.

The Grassroots Stage event schedule was also announced today, including the moe. fan challenge which may yield another set of moe. at All Good; special talks Furthur drummer Joe Russo; Social Change Through Music panels with members of Hot Buttered Rum and Tara & Jeb of Donna the Buffalo; Greensky Bluegrass doing ‘Rock N’ Roll in Disguise’;  members of Dark Star Orchestra performing as Terrapin Nation for a special Rex Foundation benefit; plus an extremely rare “Rebel Alliance Jam” featuring Keller Williams with members of Umphrey’s McGee, Toubab Krewe.

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The complete list of artists confirmed for this year’s All Good Festival include:

FURTHUR featuring PHIL LESH & BOB WEIR
Primus
Pretty Lights
moe.
Umphrey’s McGee
STS9
John Butler Trio
Dark Star Orchestra
Warren Haynes Band
Yonder Mountain String Band
Keller Williams
Rebelution
Galactic
Toots and the Maytals
JJ Grey & MOFRO
Karl Denson's Tiny Universe
The Bridge
Big Gigantic
Donna the Buffalo
The Infamous Stringdusters
Beats Antique
Papadosio
Toubab Krewe
Greensky Bluegrass
That 1 Guy
Hot Buttered Rum
Marco Benevento
Zach Deputy
These United States
The Werks
Everyone Orchestra
J Roddy Ralston & The Business
Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad
Dana Fuchs
Lubriphonic
Dangermuffin
Orgone
The Recipe
All Mighty Senators
Fletchers Grove
The Rex Jam Hosted by Matt Butler & The Everyone Orchestra

Tickets available now at www.allgoodfestival.com

A limited amount of advanced tickets are available now until they sell out at http://allgood.missiontix.com or charge by phone at 800-760-9008. All Good Festival 2011 ticket prices are as follows:

3-Day Passes (Friday-Monday) available for $169
4-Day Passes (Thursday-Monday) available for $199
Even Better VIP Passes are sold out

THE NINTH ANNUAL MOE.DOWN AUGUST 29 - 31

photos by Tim Hurley- for the Grateful Web

The Ninth Annual moe.down will be held August 29, 30 and 31 at the Snow Ridge Ski area in Turin, NY. moe.down has become known as Upstate NY's most musically diverse festival. moe. will perform a total of six sets throughout the weekend. A limited number of tickets are available at $105 until they are sold out or until August 5th. Please visit: moe.org/moedown for up-to-the-minute information and to purchase tickets.

moe. has finalized this year's line-up: moe., The Levon Helm Band, Yonder Mountain String Band, Sparrow Quartet featuring Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleck, The Presidents of the United States of America, Fishbone, Benevento-Russo Duo, Cornmeal, American Babies, U-Melt, The Macpodz, The Bridge, Lynch, The PMG, Swampadelica, and The Brew.

Over the past nine years, more than one hundred bands have performed at moe.down, including: Flaming Lips, Perry Farrell's Satellite Party, The Roots, They Might Be Giants, Meat Puppets, Medeski Martin & Wood, Ani DiFranco, Matisyahu, Blues Traveler, Leo Kottke, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Nellie McKay, Cracker Van Beethoven, David Grisman, and Les Claypool.

The moe.down festival promises three days of music, camping and fun at the Snow Ridge Ski Area in Turin, NY. The site is about an hour northeast of Syracuse, at the edge of the beautiful Adirondack Mountains. Ski lifts will be open, so bring your mountain bikes!

About moe.

Formed in Buffalo, New York in 1991, moe. is one of the finest groups in the jamband movement today. Their tours have taken them from Woodstock '99 to New York's Central Park, as well as to Japan and Europe. moe. has toured with legendary acts such as The Dead, The Allman Brothers Band, Robert Plant, and most recently, The Who. The band is also critically acclaimed for its songwriting and studio work; the group's 2001 studio album, DITHER, was awarded four stars by Rolling Stone. 2003's WORMWOOD received four stars by Blender Magazine. THE CONCH received rave reviews including Rolling Stone, Paste, Blender and many more. moe. is currently on tour supporting its latest studio effort, STICKS & STONES, again a highly admired album. In addition to moe.down, moe. also hosts Summer Camp each Memorial Day Weekend in Chillicothe, IL.

moe. is also becoming recognized for its charitable work: the band hosted a Tsunami Benefit concert at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City on February 10, 2005 and raised $150,000 for Tsunami survivors. The concert earned moe. its second Live Performance of the Year Jammy Award. moe. also raised over $100,000 for various charities, including the Red Cross for Hurricane Katrina survivors and for the music department at Bradley Elementary in Utica, NY, to help keep music in children's lives.

moe: Sticks and Stones

photos by Tim Hurley- for the Grateful Web

Short.  Sweet.  Simple.  That is the best way to describe the newest release from New York's favorite jam kings, moe.  Coming in a just over forty minutes, Sticks and Stones is a clean and concise recording of songs that were all written in the studio, versus the band's usual method of writing material on tour and road-testing them prior to tracking.

Recorded with famed producer John Siket (Phish, Sonic Youth) at the Cathedral in Massachusettes, this disc touches on the progressive rhythms displayed on last year's release of The Conch, arguably one of the best rock albums released in 2007.  Though it pales in comparison it is still a quality, warming album.

The disc starts out strong with the aptly named "Cathedral", a breezy rock tune that profits greatly by the haunting fiddle work added by guest Allie Kral (Cornmeal).  Following is the title track, "Sticks and Stones", which has a great retro vibe reminiscent of mid-70s pop-rock, and is highlighted by Al Schnier's passoniate vocals.

The flow of the album slows substantially with the sleepy tracks "Darkness" and "Conviction Song".  Though they are good in their own right, they lack the musical energy displayed throughout most of this album.

Things pick back up with the Zappa-esque intrumental piece "ZO2", spearheaded by percussionist Jim Loughlin's tickly vibraphone, followed by the rockin' blues rendition of "Deep This Time".  The latter boasts bassist Rob Derhak's introspective nature as he proclaims, "Lookin' at forty / acting like a child".

"All Roads Lead to Home" might be familiar to some fans as this was one of the only songs here previously played in concert.  It has a very deep Jackson Browne appeal to it, which might account for why it seems a little tired and not all that original.

The finest tune on Sticks and Stones might be "Queen of Everything", which rolls out with a slow and dirty slide guitar before giving way to rollicking drum kicks and lyrical scats by Derhak.  The apex of this song has some sweet, smoking guitar interplay between Chuck Garvey and Schnier.

The album finishes off in fine form, with the Irish-style drinking tune "Raise A Glass", which beckons the listener to do just that.  Some extra vocal help from friends Umphrey's McGee give it a great bar room feel, and surely leaves you thirsty for a pint.

The idea of going into the studio without having performed these songs in a live setting was indeed a novel idea for the group.  However, one can't help but wonder if they might have benefitted more from the old method of shaping the numbers throughout some live performances before deciding on how it should or could sound differently.

Nevertheless, it will be exciting to hear how these songs grow in concert once the band has had a chance to gauge fan feedback and see which direction some much needed improvisation will take them.  It is very refreshing to learn that even after 16 years of playing together, moe. can still deliver some incredibly respectable music.  It is certainly worth raising your glass and toasting another project well done.

Mon Jun 17 23:26:01 2013