Wounded Messenger’s Best of 2009 Week Begins!

With not only a year but an entire decade of music to celebrate, we’ll be bringing you our “Best of” 2009 lists all week long. We begin with our favorite 10 live shows of the year, followed later this week by our favorite albums of the year and our 101 favorite albums of the decade.
Nothing [...]

Halloween Concerts Provide Unusual Covers, Inspired Performances

Everyone knows by now that Phish presented The Rolling Stones‘ Exile on Main Street in its entirety for their “musical costume” on Halloween. Featuring the incredible Sharon Jones on vocals, along with the necessary horns, the performance is deserving of the immediate praise it received. But what about the rest of the holiday shenanigans across [...]

Album Review: OHMphrey – OHMphrey

OHMphrey is a quintet featuring half of Chicago rockers Umphrey’s McGee – keyboardist Joel Cummins, guitarist Jake Cinninger, and drummer Kris Meyers – along with Chris Poland (Megadeth, OHM) and Robertini Pagliari (OHM). Their eponymous debut album, out on Magna Carta, is a fiery, expansive instrumental opus that will please a wide range of listeners.
Gearheads [...]

High Sierra Wittily Announces 2009 Lineup

In case you couldn’t make some of that out:
John Butler
Umphrey’s McGee
Ani DiFranco
Galactic
The Disco Biscuits
Del McCoury Band
Tea Leaf Green
The Wailers
Steve Kimock’s Crazy Engine
Olabelle
ALO
Mike Farris and the Roseland Rhythm Revue
Vieux Farka Toure
Dr. Dog
The Travelin’ McCourys
Devil Makes Three
The Lee Boys
Cornmeal
Bonerama
Marco Benevento Trio
Pretty Lights…
…and more, check it out at the High Sierra site.

Live: Umphrey’s McGee in Asheville and Charlotte, NC, February 21 & 22, 2009

When Umphrey’s McGee first ventured to North Carolina in 2002, they weren’t exactly welcomed with enthusiasm. The crowd numbered in the dozens instead of the hundreds, even though the music was routinely spectacular. Few of the attendees of those “intimate” gigs could have predicted that, within the same decade, the band would be one of [...]

My Top Ten Bonnaroo Moments

With the 8th Bonnaroo Music Festival on the horizon, I thought it would be interesting to gather my personal 10 best moments from my experiences at the festival. I have only attended 4 of the 7 iterations of the event (2002 and 2006 – 2008), but I have a lifetime of memories to show for [...]

Umphrey’s McGee – Mantis

Listening to Mantis (CD – MP3) is like watching a longtime friend suddenly peel back his skin to reveal circuitry and wiring underneath. The friend is showing traces of the human emotion you’ve come to expect, but also morphing into something more machine than man, like Darth Vader. On Mantis, it seems that Umphrey’s McGee’s [...]

Back from DC

It was a wild and historic trip to DC, and it’s good to be back home…though I was surprised to find snow still lingering on the ground here!
My job for 5 days was to sell the official merchandise of the Inauguration Committee. My station was the Marriott Washington on 22nd St. between M and N [...]