The Band.

Right but this was weird demo about a dog that seems to be clearly from that period. Plus voice sounded like Richard Manuel whose photo is also on screen immediately afterwards.

Dominique is even referred to as Dominique Robertson. Maybe she kept her married name after divorce, not that it’s any of my business really. Not even sure how I knew they were divorced except for rock and roll Last Waltz extrapolation and various photos of Robbie plus arm candy du jour.

“Kickin’ My Dog Around”

Hint to Tom D: it wasn’t Peter Gabriel what said that either

Considering bird's tales of regal demands re mixes, somebody up or down there might dig this serving ov the 50th Anniversary Larks' Tongues In Aspic:

...This set comprises two blu-ray audio discs and two CDs. The first blu-ray contains Steven Wilson’s brand new Dolby Atmos Mix which is described as “more expansive than the earlier mixes as released in 2012, while still retaining and enhancing the core power of the original material”. Since Wilson’s Atmos process involves going back to the multi-track tapes and first building a new stereo mix and then a 5.1 surround mix, we are presented with three brand news mixes for this product.

While Steven was working on this aspect of the material Alex R. Mundy and David Singleton were mixing every single take of the original studio sessions. These unreleased early takes are presented not as traditionally blended pieces, but with maximum separation, with the idea being to mimic “the experience of sitting in the studio with the individual elements being performed around you”.

David Singleton’s ‘Elemental mixes’ apply this same approach to the main album takes to give a fresh view on the familiar, with the focus often falling in unusual places, some originally hidden, some unused. Four of the album’s core tracks feature: extended mixes of ‘Larks’ 1’ and ‘Talking Drum’ along with ‘Easy Money’ and ‘Larks’ 2’. This material is also on the first blu-ray alongside Wilson’s three mixes and some instrumental mixes.

Thanks to the capacity of the blu-ray audio format, the second blu-ray disc contains the complete recordings of every session recorded for the album. As stated, all of this material has been newly mixed from the original performances and is presented on disc for the first time in hi-res 24/96 stereo. This second blu-ray also includes the original stereo mixes of the album and David Singleton’s audio documentary of the album recording Keep That One, Nick. These are the sole previously released elements in this package (both were included in the 2012 box set).

As if all that’s not enough, there’s two CDs. The first includes the 2023 stereo mix and instrumentals of the album and the second offers the elemental mixes and selected master reels...

All that talk about his first wife made me wonder what his second wife might be like. This seems to give us a pretty good idea:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cpsa5pPrGcy/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Ask Greil today ends with quite the kicker.

Ha, Robbie himself talks a bit about that in his WTF episode

https://greilmarcus.substack.com/p/ask-greil-september-5-2023

Dalton sings Manuel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr46KHgjkso

Manuel sings and/or writes lyrics about Dalton, 'tis long said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxRsiO8KdKg

Never knew about this, but Dylan apparently wanted the reunited Band (without Robbie but with Richard still alive) to back him in 1986 - they didn't because their manager nixed the idea.

This is according to Jim Weider in a new interview.

That's a really interesting interview, thanks for posting.

Yes, enjoyed reading that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnPdY2n5rxI

!

Cool.

Getting 'video unavailable', has it been taken down already? What was it?

Howard Tate covering Jemima Surrender. Still works for me!

And me.

Yeah it's back for me now, don't know what was up with that.

Martin Scorsese will direct the filming of a Robbie Robertson tribute concert in L.A. Thursday night for a future release, it was announced Tuesday morning.
...The lineup of artists performing at the show at the Kia Forum Thursday includes Trey Anastasio, Eric Church, Eric Clapton, Warren Haynes, Bruce Hornsby, Jim James, Daniel Lanois, Taj Mahal, Van Morrison, Margo Price, Robert Randolph, Nathaniel Rateliff, Allison Russell, Mavis Staples, Bobby Weir and Lucinda Williams.
The house band will feature Ryan Bingham, Jamey Johnson, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Don Was, John Medeski, Dave Malone, Terence Higgins, Cyril Neville, Mark Mullins and the Levee Horns.
Robertson acted as either music supervisor or scorer for Scorsese films in the decades from “The Last Waltz” through his death in 2023, the last of which was the score for “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Robertson’s posthumous nomination for best original score for that film was his first.

Amy Helm, daughter of Levon and recently deceased Libby Titus, performed w Levon's Midnight Ramble Band and Olabelle, recently returned to Mountain Stage w her real good touring band, can download here (w Todd Snider, Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors, Randall Bramblett) https://mountainstage.org/podcasts/

I haven't heard Libby much,though The Band info archive sez (referring to her second s/t LP):

On the 1977 Libby Titus, Robbie produced "The Night You Took Me to Barbados in My Dreams" (by Libby and Hirth Martinez), a marvelous tune with Garth on keyboards, and "Miss Otis Regrets" (by Cole Porter) with Robbie on guitar. Of note to Band fans is a Libby Titus/Carly Simon song "Can This Be My Love Affair" (sound sample available below) which is obviously about Levon Helm. She also co-wrote (with Eric Kaz) "Love Has No Pride" which was covered by Bonnie Raitt (on her Woodstock-session LP, "Give it Up"), and later by Linda Ronstadt.

...Libby Titus can also be heard on the Band's album Cahoots, where she is part of the backing vocals on the track "The River Hymn."

Insta served up them and emmylou Harris doing “Evangeline” and it was so great. Ricardo on drums

It was a rehearsal I guess? Not the LW version?

oh cool, thanks.
That Libby Titus entry mentions

Robbie produced "The Night You Took Me to Barbados in My Dreams" (by Libby and Hirth Martinez), a marvelous tune with Garth on keyboards,

Hirth Martinez: Hirth from Earth [Warner Bros., 1975]
Martinez sings like Dr. John out of breath from doing the samba: he is interested in UFOs, not really as stars to guide us but as occasions for metaphorical speculation. Unclassifiable funky objects of this sort used to appear at a rate of about a dozen a year; now they're down to three or four. Thank Robbie Robertson, who produced. B+

Any of yall heard it?

Oh, he did another one! Produced by John Simon, who I think we've talked about on here---xgau again:

Big Bright Street [Warner Bros., 1977]
I like a man whose dream of utopia goes "And they never grew old/And they never caught a cold," and I like this record. Hirth has learned to use his wizened voice more forcefully without relinquishing any of the amateurism that is his special charm, and since John Simon is a relatively reticent and eccentric producer, the funky gloss that so often accrues to El Lay favorites never turns to glitz. B+

^^Both of those are on Spotify (and presumably other streamers).

There's a high school radio station here that switches to all-Christmas songs during the holidays, providing a more interesting mix than the commercial stations that do similar. Every year I hear them play "Christmas Must Be Tonight" by the Band more than a few times, a song that I don't think I've ever heard anywhere else. Islands is the one album of theirs that I've never bothered with and I see that this song was never released as a single... is it widely known?

Screen Prints did a lovely cover of that one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0jSj4sb2SE

I have that Hirth Matinez lp, i’m pretty sure it was a Goodwill find. I didn’t check out the liners, so I had no clue there was a Band connection. For a record I had never heard of that probably cost a buck, it was a really nice surprise. It’s definitely wacky but not painfully so. It sorta sounds like the sort of album that Gene Ween could make. The voice is very different, but the tonality of the songs is bent like some of Ween’s more subtle tunes.

wtf… that’s totally a re-recording. Blech nevermind don’t listen to that

(Xp)

So weird, I can't remember if it was here or where it was, but I literally just read some account of iirc a band being pressured by a producer or label to cover "Christmas Must Be Tonight"? I can't remember what it was or what I was reading ...

Auspiciously, the Pogues!!!!!

The Pogues had decided to record a Christmas single. In the second half of 1985, in between bouts of touring, they’d been rehearsing and recording a number of new songs with Elvis Costello, some of which would materialise on the ‘Poguetry In Motion’ EP.

Frank Murray had given each group member a tape of a song by The Band, ‘Christmas Must Be Tonight’, suggesting that it might be an ideal cover. Shane MacGowan and Jem Finer had other thoughts, setting their minds to an original composition. MacGowan was dreaming of something sumptuous, with strings, while Finer chewed over ideas for lyrics and melodies. It may have been a deliberate attempt to write a seasonal hit record, but whatever they came up with, it had to have quality too.

Finer had only just mastered the art of writing full-length instrumentals. Now he intended to venture into whole, structured songs.

“I thought the idea of a cover was a bloody stupid one,” he says. “We thought, ‘If we’re going to do a Christmas song, let’s write one. Come on – we’re songwriters! Why do someone else’s song that isn’t even very good?’

“The idea had been knocking around for a while of Shane and Cait doing a duet. I wrote one song, a duet. It’s embarrassing to think about, cos it wasn’t very good. At that time, I’d started to write songs without words – a melody and chords and instrumental bits – or songs with words which I’d always expect Shane to rewrite because his lyrics were going to be better than mine. So I’d written this duet with crap words. Often, I’d try out my new material at home on Marcia. On this occasion, I played her this song. It was very banal, a miserable song about a sailor being away from home. He was singing his bit and his wife or lover back home was singing her bit. I think at the end he committed suicide or something. Rubbish. Marcia said the sailor romance thing was naff, that it didn’t ring true and how Christmas was always a battle with the true events or circumstances of anyone’s life – the way the call to have fun, go shopping, kiss under the mistletoe and all that crap appears like some evil spotlight and only shows up how miserable, poor or furious you might be in your circumstances.

“I said, ‘Okay, well, you tell me a better story.’ I remember her saying that I should think of something that was more like the sort of song I’d want to hear. She suggested a couple having a row at the time of peace and goodwill, trying to crank up some Christmas spirit but failing and fighting, lost in recriminations about money and other disillusions. The guy takes what they have got, and he’s meant to be out buying stuff for Christmas. He goes out to the bookies and the pub and he drinks and gambles it away, which causes an altercation. But she warned that the song shouldn’t end on a bleak note and there should definitely be some kind of redemption for the end of the story, that it should end in a weird romantic truce that just couldn’t be helped, a little glimmer of uncanny hope amidst the torture of packaged party time. I thought, ‘Okay, I take the point.’

“I wrote a second song which had that plot to it. It was based on the people who lived across the street from us. We went into the studio and we rehearsed ‘Body Of An American’ and, I think, ‘London Girl’. I took these two songs of mine along. Shane took them away and he wrote ‘Fairytale Of New York’ using the melody of the first song I’d written and the storyline of the second one, which he then transposed to New York, and he made it into what it is now.

RIP Garth

goodbye garth

i always wanted to be able to play piano like him, never quite could manage it. guess i will have to settle for growing a beard like him, instead

Sad lol

He was some kind of quiet fire mad genius, that's for sure.

he could make his organ sound like anything! he was that mysterious fifth element that elevated the group from traditionalists (not just folk tradition, but rock and blues) into something strange and wonderful.

what's "cripple creek" without the bullfrog clavinet? or "tears of rage" without that mournful hammond?

His grinning on their Ed Sullivan show appearance is so infectious. They were a charming bunch.

A couple of decades ago I was walking down the street behind the Continental Club in Austin in the middle of the day and there happened to be a limo parked there. As I passed by, Garth Hudson emerged from the car and I was completely taken aback at the surprise of seeing him, legendary figure that he was. Turns out he was there to play with Sneaky Pete later that night.

rip garth </3

listening to this, which is ... pretty awesome?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uXUVhDw7ZQ

A few of the sounds on Our Lady Queen of the Angels are not instruments, but Maud Hudson and Richard and Arlie Manuel "singing" to sound like instruments, along with a variety of Californian Wren calls with stream-side and pool-side frogs recorded by Hudson himself in Malibu. In the middle of it, Charlton Heston reads a poem to Los Angeles written by Ray Bradbury.

missing from the video posted above

B-b-but how can it possibly live up to the billing of that description?

here's the "poetic invocation" — 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvZC2oBZ6vw

_A few of the sounds on Our Lady Queen of the Angels are not instruments, but Maud Hudson and Richard and Arlie Manuel "singing" to sound like instruments, along with a variety of Californian Wren calls with stream-side and pool-side frogs recorded by Hudson himself in Malibu. In the middle of it, *Charlton Heston reads a poem to Los Angeles written by Ray Bradbury*._


missing from the video posted above

That thing is totally giving me a Beneath the Planet of the Apes vibe.

Jamie Saft has tons of never-before-seen video of Garth playing in the studio from the late 2010s and he still sounds amazing despite looking frail. He is beginning to post them on Instagram.

Never heard of Jamie Saft before, but liking those Garth videos and his own stuff seems like it might be good as well.