phrog blog

Another free concert in Steamboat Springs! I must admit, I’m not a Los Lonely Boys fan. I just don’t like the “Texican” sound I guess. I try to record everything I can in Steamboat Springs mainly for archival purposes. Somebody always asks enthusiastically “Did you tape that show?!” and I like to make that person happy.

I was quite surprised with the turnout. Despite a wet, soggy, muddy, Howelsen Hill many came from the baseball games and condos to come see them. It was quite odd to me.. It seemed as if every kid in on every triple crown team was singing along, knowing all of the lyrics.

The sound system was a bit muddy and there was a pretty awful humm coming through it the entire performance. It was not the same rig they have been using so far this season. I hope they get the go back to the other one, the recordings sound much better with it.

You can download a flac copy of the recording via bittorrent or you can grab ipod ready mp3s from the LMA.

When I heard from Joe Kboudi that MoFro was coming to play the Steamboat Springs free concert series, I was stoked! This guy reminds me of when I was a Florida redneck hagging out at the fish camp with my buddy Darren in Bellview about 20 minutes from Lochloosa, JJ Grey’s hometown.

The show at Howelsen was kickin and the recording sounds awesome! You can obtain a copy of it in high quality flac format via bittorrent thanks to cotapers.org. If you prefer to listen now streaming or grab a mp3 copy for your ipod check out the concerts entry on archive.org.

As usual I plan on recording as many of these free concerts as I can for your listening pleasure. I hope you enjoy.

Here is a track for my podcasters.

 

 JJ Grey & MoFro - Nare Sugar - Steamboat Springs [3:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (576)

The free concert series is here! Last night it got kicked off to a great start with The Wailers jamming all your favorite old school Bob Marley and the Wailers music. The stage was set up nice and the sound system was super tight. I love it when It’s loudy and last night it was. From an audio nerd standpoint the show was fucking awesome. I taped it about twenty feet from the stage in a sea of lambsbread, sandy bare feet and an occasional body surfer. Honestly there was body surfing.. crazy. The fiah was everywhere and the crowd was mostly cool but lacked um.. something. Oh Yeah! I remember now (short term loss) someone fucked up and forgot to file some something so there was NO BEER! I know.. you just can’t believe it, however it is true.

“The permit was approved,” said Dan Hartman, acting director of the Colorado Liquor Enforcement Division. “It was just that the applicant put the wrong date on the application.”

I hope somebody got shit canned for that one. WHO SCREWED UP ON THE BEER? We deserve to know. I know one thing for sure.. If you are throwing the party make sure you have beer. If there is no beer and the Wailers are playing for free in Colorado be prepared for the medical cutchie to get passed around a bit. Thats what happened.

Super phat props to everyone who hung out with me that day. Lock for the electricity, Ken for the PBR’s, Rhys for sneaking the PBR’s in, Gene and Becca ( <- donno spelling sorry) for the jedi services, and Tery for everything.

Some bumboclots to be mentioned.. The guy who threw the bottle from the first row and it went real fast right at me, the VERY ANNOYING radio announcer that came out halfway through the show and started screaming “DO YOU WANT MORE” like we were stupid enough to believe it was going to end then, Oh and one more.. Whoever that guy was with the video camera running around like he owned the place shoving everyone else around and generally not being mindful. Oh and the guy who fucked up on the beer.

If you would like a copy of the show, you can download it via bittorrent thanks to cotapers.org

If you need some Wailers right now, listen below.

 

 Wailers War Steamboat Free Concert [5:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (443)

 

 Next Time We Will Have Beer [0:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (60)

Summertime in Steamboat Springs brings one very exciting thing ever year, FREE CONCERTS! The summer 2007 Lineup is here, plan your stay at the country club.

This year’s Free Summer Concert Series, which features five shows at the base of Howelsen Hill, kicks off Wednesday, June 20 with a reggae performance by The Wailers. The series continues with the “gospel-fried funk” and rock band Mofro on July 13, Texas rockers Los Lonely Boys on July 27, bluegrass mandolin prodigy Sam Bush on August 8, and a fifth, to-be-announced performance.

As usual I plan on recording as many of these free concerts as I can for your listening pleasure. To get your ears ready for this summer joy, here is a track from last year for you to listen to.

 

 Susan Tedeschi [6:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1611)

Well It’s 11:35am or so and I’m drinking my second cup of coffee, getting a grasp on all the entertainment I experienced last night at the Steamboat Mountain Theater. <-- they have beer!

When my dearest friend, Laura Lamun, world famous for “Tired Old Ass Soak” and many other healing bath products over at Little Moon Essentials invited me to come see her sing her ass off.. I got excited.

The band is called “The Easy Peaces”, they don’t seem to have a website or I would link to it for them. What they do have is a great group of Steamboat Springs area musicians covering somewhat psychedelic music from the 1960’s. They are a very warm fuzzy band with most everyone in the audience knowing the band members personally, everyone smiling and drinking and maybe a few who took some LSD and tried to foolishly dance around.

I have to get some work done today so I’m going to cut this short (it’s now noon) and let the music speak for itself.

 

 The Easy Peaces [3:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (326)

Well Thanks to Bud Fucking Light we once again have a “Rocks the Boat” concert series. The Pilot newspaper announced “Ski area announces concert lineup” heres an excerpt:

Steamboat Springs — The Bud Light Rocks the Boat Concert Series begins Feb. 17 with a lineup of five nationally known bands.

“This is absolutely the best lineup of bands to take part in the Bud Light free concert series, period,” said Andy Wirth, vice president of sales & marketing for the Steamboat Ski & Resort Corporation. “This is the seventh season of the Bud Light Rocks the Boat Series and, as evidenced by the talented array of artists, has reached an entirely new level.”

The bands will appear in this order: Joseph Israel and the Jerusalem Band, North Mississippi Allstars, The Freddy Jones Band, Sister Hazel and Big Head Todd and the Monsters. All of the bands will appear on stage in Gondola Square, which each concert beginning at 3 p.m.

While I am looking forward to some live music in Steamboat Springs I can’t help but remember the past “Rocks The Boat” performances and what a disaster some of them were. In the past the stage has been set up facing the Bear River deck from the gondola entrance with the audience entirely blocking the walkway to gondola square from the skiers and riders that are exiting the mountain. A steady flow of cross the audience, skis in your face, stumbling in ski boots traffic during the performance is an incredible annoyance for the concert goers, who are forced to stand in the melting spring slush.

Andy Wirth claims in the article “This is absolutely the best lineup of bands to take part in the Bud Light free concert series, period,” and that the event “has reached an entirely new level”. I would like to know how he has
arrived at such a conclusion. My opinions differ. please share yours by commenting.

When I last blogged SkiJam I mentioned I would “be back to comment on the rest of the evening when time allows me.” Well the car got smashed so I took a few days to deal with insurance and stuff but now I’m back.

I sat down this morning and gave my Zilla tape a listen and cut tracks. Then it hit me, this band is BORING. “JAMATHON” ends the run with a trance band with a drummer and a mac book. The sound was very reminiscent of another drum based trance band that played around Steamboat Springs around 2002 called Earthtone. While everyone in Steamboat seemed to enjoy Earthtone we all knew it was due to the few cute girls they would prance on stage and all the mushrooms the band would hand out before the show. While I was wavering during the Zilla performance I looked around the room at all the underage drinkers, one gave me a shot of his Jager. This was the highlight of the set for me.

As I listened to the recording attempting to cut songs into tracks I noticed a pattern. All the songs sound the same! So I just cut it into chunks like an idiot. No clue of what the songs title was, or when it ended, or the next song started. I was just glad to get through it without needing some uppers.

So here it is, for those of you who were too wasted to remember the performance you enjoyed so much at SkiJam, grab it via torrent thanks to our friends at cotapers.org

If you need instant trance satisfaction check out the podcast.

 

 zilla skijam 2007 [8:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (273)

Live music has been a large part of the Steamboat Springs experience for many that come visit. A few years ago you could ski all day, see some live music for FREE at Slopeside Bar and Grill, sit in your hot tub for a bit, head out for dinner somewhere where a musician was in the corner picking on a guitar and then off to Level’z for some serious entertainment till 2:00am.

Unfortunately I believe those days are gone. Since the Strings In The Mountain Tent was moved off the mountain and put into the parking lot it seems that the support for live acts at Slopeside is gone as well. There has not been a performance at Slopeside for at least a year, a tremendous loss for the local music lovers. And Level’z has been dead since the building was damaged during a performance when the floor gave out under the patrons feet and was evacuated before anybody was injured.

Well here in Steamboat Springs we have been fortunate enough to have a concert here for the last few years called “SkiJam“. In the last four years it has created a reason for concertgoers to come to Steamboat Springs and ski. Over the years Skijam has had some great artists perform, including Gov’t Mule, Michael Franti & Spearhead, and Steamboat’s favorite transient Keller Williams.

This year SkiJam has The String Cheese Incident.. almost.
The big ticket for the event consisted of:

Zilla with drummer and founder Michael Travis
Kyle Hollingsworth and his band
Honkytonk Homeslice featuring Bill Nershi

Okay so now we have three bands and they are all cheesy. Printed on the ticket it says “JAMATHON” like this is some kind of marathon of jamband festivals. As I walk in I hand over this ticket and they don’t rip it they just take it, no souvenir ticket stub. The ticket stated doors at 3:30pm and I got there about 4:20 and by that time the band featuring Bill Nershi was on stage playing when I walked in. The place was EMPTY! Seems many of the SkiJammer’s were here to do some SKIING! They chose to miss this opening act so they could get out of the ski pants, boots & helmets they wear while skiing, go figure. I was kinda bored so I went to the bar. I’m a beer drinker and in previous years at SkiJam I have enjoyed overpaying for the favorite beer of Colorado concert goers “Fat Tire Amber Ale“. This year I was denied. The ONLY beer they offered at all was Bud Light. What kind of jam band event has only one beer? Then its only Bud Fucking Light! I just grumbled.

Okay so I’ll try to stop bitching.

By the time Honkytonk Homeslice was wrapping it up quite a few SkiJammers piled in for Kyle Hollingsworth. I set up my taping gear and got a garbage can to block in front of the microphones and two very good wingmen Lock & Keith. The sound check seemed on the fly, it took a while to get them out and jamming but they figured it all out and we were off and rolling. Kyle got the tent jamming and everyone seemed to have a great time during his performance. My recording from this is available via torrent thanks to cotapers.org check out a sample on the podcast below.
I will be back to comment on the rest of the evening when time allows me.

more here.

 

 Kyle Hollingsworth skijam 2007 [10:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (299)

With the recent passing of the Godfather Of Soul, James Brown, I feel very thankful to have seen him perform. The 4th of July 2002 will be a day to remember for the rest of my life and hopefully Steamboat Springs will also. Recently in the news, the name of the bridge that the people of Steamboat Springs named themselves “The James Brown Soul Center Of The Universe Bridge” came into question. (see this from the newspaper and the feedback) I’m glad the dummies in charge of the City of Steamboat Springs didn’t screw that up. It’s the name of that bridge and concerts like the one on July 4th 2002 that I love. They are some of the reasons I am proud to call Steamboat Springs my home.

James Brown in Steamboat Springs 1993, Taking it to the bridge!

In recognition of James Brown and of this wonderful event in Steamboat Springs history I will be making my audio recording of the 4th of July 2002 James brown performance available to all via bitorrent. You can download it as flac here tracker provided by cotapers.org

Check out the sample mp3 below.

 

 Sex Machine [4:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2933)