[photo credit]

This was just officially announced a few minutes ago. The rumors of a co-tour are true, and tour dates are now posted. Drive-By Truckers and The Hold Steady will be doing a co-headlining tour from October 30 through November 25. The NYC dates are November 6 and November 7 at Terminal 5.

The pre-sale for this tour begins on Tuesday (tomorrow) August 19 at 10 a.m. There is no public on-sale date listed yet, and in fact this tour information is neither on The Hold Steady page, nor on the Terminal 5 listings yet.

As our readers are aware we recorded Drive-By Truckers in March (at Terminal 5), and The Hold Steady last September, so we expect to be capturing both of these sets.

Now this is a really excellent triple bill that we’re excited about. We received an invitation from Bar/None founder-president Glenn Morrow to attend this gig at Mercury Lounge on Tuesday August 19.

Hotel Lights is Darren Jessie’s band, who was the drummer of the Ben Folds Five. Darren’s underrated vocal chops and songwriting talents are in the forefront in Hotel Lights, and Tuesday’s show marks the release of his second album Firecracker People.

As I was setting up my equipment at Wednesday’s Wilco show, by complete coincidence Darren came up and stood with the group of people in front of me. I immediately recognized him and struck up a conversation about this show and my invitation from Bar/None to capture it. Darren was really upbeat about the new CD and his plans to play more shows after the Mercury show and his in-store show at Vintage Vinyl on August 20. There was a point from 1997 to 1999, when Wilco and Ben Folds Five were my favorite bands and it was a nice kind of surreal to be standing with one of “The Five” while watching Wilco perform a decade later.

Sample Hotel Lights:
Firecracker People – MP3 [download]

Shannon McArdle spent nearly a decade with the Mendoza Line, and when her marriage to fellow Mendoza Line member Timothy Bracy broke up, so did the band. After a year of writing and recording Shannon will release Summer of the Whore next week. The Village Voice did a nice write-up of Shannon and the new CD [here].

The opening band on this bill is Starling Electric, a psychedelic pop band from Michigan whose self-released CD caught the attention of Robert Pollard (Guided by Voices) and for whom they opened a series of shows. Bar/None signed them this year, and will release Clouded Staircase next week.

The Mercury Lounge showcase is an early show that begins at 6:30pm.

[photo credit]

A long time friend of mine has been friends with a member of Phish for years. This past weekend, at a wedding party for another friend of the band, it was revealed that Phish will reunite for a tour next Summer. Readers can give this information whatever credibility they feel it deserves. However, this source has never provided me with incorrect information about any Phish-related non-public news or any music news for that matter.

Wilco opening Lollapalooza with “Misunderstood” 1997-style

As longtime readers of nyctaper are aware, I have seen Wilco on almost every trip they have made to NYC since our first Wilco concert at Mercury Lounge in 1996. Our recording of their Hammerstein show last June has been one of the more popular downloads in the history of this site, as well as has been the vintage 1997 recording we offered from the archives.

So when the McCarren Pool show sold out in minutes and craigslist posters were asking $100 per ticket, we decided that we would miss this trip to NYC. It was only after I watched Wilco’s excellent Lollapalooza performance via webcast (see youtube clip above) that I decided that Wilco was playing too well to miss them this year. The old closer-to-the-show-the-easier-to-buy trick worked, as we just got a ticket for face via craigslist. See you there!