This installment of Notes From The Jazz Underground features the playlist based on the January 31st show.This was the show broadcast the day after found Umphrey's McGee drummer Mike Mirro had passed so NFTJU host Paul Abella built the playlist around some UM material.First featuring Mirro, "Nothing Too Fancy" from Local Band Does...

Based on activity in the jamband blogosphere, I'm guessing we may have crossed threshold of peak jam bracketology. In 2013, bloggers (and official band sites) flooded the Internets with their own fields of 64 to prove what the best show, song, jam or run from the band of their choice would be, but this year things seem...

Twitter turns 8 today and introduced a new feature which allows you to view the very first tweet from any account without all sorts of onerous scrolling. I thought I'd pick a couple of significant tweeters in the music world out of the 590 accounts that I follow and see how it all began for them. I...

That thing we pretty much knew about since last year? It's been announced now.Phish will return to FirstMerit Bank Pavillion on Northerly Island for three shows on July 18-20, just about one year to the day of their debut at the venue.Once again, Phish will offer tickets both up front (GA/Reserved) and...

Mike's long, engaging introduction for guest Sugar Blue at the end of his first set was certainly informed by the type of comedic improv that he experienced first hand during his encounter with Second City at last year's Phish Chicago run. He was personable, funny and interesting.What followed were three perfect choices for a...

City Winery has made a habit of pairing their excellent wines with musical tributes to some of their favorite artists.When it came time to paying tribute to Phish, beverage director RachelDriver Speckan decided to leave the wine in the casks and introduce fans to the hand crafted brews of Ale Syndicate.Chicago's finest Phish...

There's some pretty interesting math that went into creating this map, so definitely check it out in its original context at musicmachinery.com. Using days analysis, the author is trying to identify an artist that is popular in one state, that doesn't get as much love elsewhere.  A few states that I had...

One way for constantly gigging musicians to change the way they sound: change up their axes. But most equipment switches are subtle here's something that may be a bit more radical.The Roli Seaboard takes a traditional keyboard, eliminates the indvidual keys, and allows the user to manipulate the sound via a soft, continuous surface....

As with last year, I'm not going to try to rank the best shows, songs or albums of the year (though some thoughts on albums are here and here). I want to use my year end list to capture the musical things that had the biggest impact on me -- and also provide an excuse...

Here's a follow up to our Best Of The First Half of 2013 post. Thanks again to @WeirScrewed for contributing the first part of this list (the six albums with the more detailed write-ups).I (Steve - @thebarnpresents) have added some additional selections, and some one-liners of my own, at the end of the post. You...