Dave Matthews Band is planning for the release of their first Greatest Hits record. This will be the first compilation album for the band and it appears they plan to mix past studio recordings with previously unreleased live material. A couple of things make this event worth noting.
Fan's Asked To Vote
Fans are being polled as to what songs they would like to see on the Album. Over ninety songs are listed on the official DMB web site. The page says "Feel free to include a show date next to the song choice if you have a favorite from a live show." Some fans have questioned whether a consensus could possibly be built around a specific song and show date.
Dave Matthews band has been invited to open for The Rolling Stones at the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas.
The Stones' "A Bigger Bang" world tour began August 21st, 2005 at Fenway Park (recently played by DMB) and has spanned Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand and South America.
The Rolling Stones have invited a number of varied bands open for them in the past. For "A Bigger Bang," they've had Black Eyed Peas, Beck, Metallica, Trey Anastasio, Nickelback and the John Mayer Trio open.
Red Light Management, representing Dave Matthews Band has donated 2 tickets to the legendary concert at night 3 of the Gorge on Sunday September 3rd. (Bid Now)
Travelocity has donated a travel package for up to $2,000 in airfare and car rental, to be auctioned off with the tickets...
Robert Randolph & The Family Band is preparing to release their new album Colorblind. The album is Randolph's first after the Grammy-nominated Unclassified. Besides a cameo from Eric Clapton on "Jesus Is Just Alright With Me, Randolph has Dave Matthews, LeRoi Moore and Rashawn Ross guesting on "Love Is The Only Way.
Weekly Davespeak Give-Away
To help Randolph celebrate, Weekly Davespeak is giving away $100 in Robert Randolph Merchandise including a free copy of Colorblind. To enter, simply post in this thread. (Only one post necessary for entry into our random drawing and only one entry will be counted per person no matter how many posts made in the thread.) The winner will be picked at random after the Pre-sale order priod closes on September 23rd.
We're pleased to introduce a new piece of software designed to make your experience listening to Weekly Davespeak Live an easier one. With this new tool for Windows XP, you can now listen to WDS Live without having to open a browser.
After you download and install WDS Live Tray Thingy, you'll see the above login page. Fill in your Weekly Davespeak forums user information and click Login. You're good to go...
A Weekly Davespeak member had the opportunity to shoot Dave Matthews Band on July 4th at Virginia Beach, VA. David Beloff was kind enough to share a few of his high resolution photos with the community.
A selection of very high-resolution photos from his shoot are available in high resolution here or the comments link below.
For this shoot, David used two cameras; a Nikon D100 digital SLR and and a Fujifilm finepix F10. Most shots were taken with the Nikon..
According to the Wall Street Journal and the PR Newswire Live Nation has purchased a majority stake in MusicToday. Live Nation is a recently spun off company from Clear Channel.
In the past Clear Channel has been rallied against by fans and artists alike for its monopolistic practices of using its control of nearly 1,200 radio stations and 10% of the radio market to bully venues and artist service providers.
Dave Matthews has come out very clearly against Clear Channel in the past, having said he would play Gorge dates just to say, "Well, f*** you." to the company. A stir seemed inevitable when it was discovered that the somewhat ill-fated Dave and Friends was planned by Clear Channel...
We're pleased to introduce a new piece of software designed to make your experience listening to Weekly Davespeak Live an easier one. With this new tool for Windows XP, you can now listen to WDS Live without having to open a browser.
After you download and install WDS Live Tray Thingy, you'll see the above login page. Fill in your Weekly Davespeak forums user information and click Login. You're good to go...
Ben Pezzner has put together a new Dave Matthews Band piano and cello medley. After releasing the piano only version, he was gracious enough to give Weekly Davespeak an exclusive on the new cello version.
The single mp3 track recording that sixty songs from Dave Matthews Band's recorded albums, the new songs from the 2006 summer tour, Dave's solo album, Some Devil, and unreleased Dave and Friends material.
A number of things make this particular recording special. One is that it is from Ben, who we profiled back in 2004 for his acapella covers of Dave Matthews Band. But there are also some cool notes about the recording...
A Weekly Davespeak member had the opportunity to shoot Dave Matthews Band on July 4th at Virginia Beach, VA. David Beloff was kind enough to share a few of his high resolution photos with the community.
A selection of very high-resolution photos from his shoot are available in high resolution here or the comments link below.
For this shoot, David used two cameras; a Nikon D100 digital SLR and and a Fujifilm finepix F10. Most shots were taken with the Nikon..
Dave Matthews Band performed Sweet Caroline at Fenway Park, home to the Red Sox.
Sweet Caroline was written by Neil Diamond 1969, and over the years become a favorite sing-a-long for fans during live sports games. Thanks to Amy Tobey, the song started getting semi-regular play at Fenway Park starting in 1998. In 2002 the song began being performed every game in the eighth inning.
All the news that is fit to print. What follows is a list of notable DMB events from the past week or so.
Mad Scientists - Can't Stop
Experimentation! What has really been setting this tour apart from the past few years is the level of experimentation the guys are doing on stage. This is illustrated well in the continued performance of Can't Stop (Download) which is in infancy. Strong parallels can be drawn to how Loving Wings grew in 2002.
However, 2002 did not feature the addition of powerful new songs that that we're seeing these right now...
Weekly Davespeak will be reporting live from Bonnaroo 2006, issuing updates from press conferences with a variety of artists with connections to Dave Matthews Band.
We'll be posting updates and news from the festival in the forums. You can follow along using the link below.
Some of the artists that will be giving press conferences include G. Love, Robert Randolph and Matisyahu. (Both G. Love and Matisyahu have joined DMB on stage this tour)
With luck we'll have media downloads related to these conferences available over the course of the weekend.
Dave Matthews Band brought out yet another new tune in Toronto (6/13/06) called Break Free. Amidst a setlist that was basically unimaginable a year ago, Break Free is complex, moody and has a fantastic integration of Rashawn Ross.
The first performance of the tune boasted a sweet but restrained jam at the end. The jam has enormous potential and with some aggressiveness from the guys, the song could be a show closer before this tour is out.
After last night's show there is potential for 2006 to be the most important tour for the band since 2000. They're spacing out the tunes and working with a rich set of songs from the catalogue. Everyday and Stand Up are given small nods while fan favorites are in full effect.
Dave Matthews Band trotted out another new song at Star Lake (6/10/06) called Shotgun. The song is slower than the other two new songs from the 2006 summer tour, The Idea of You and Kill the King.
With a darker tone the lyrics also reflect darker themes. Here are the lyrics from the debut of the tune...
Dave Matthews Band performed a new song this evening in Clarkston, MI titled "Kill The King." The song was performed full band with Butch Taylor featured heavily throughout and strong work from Rashawn Ross at the end.
The song sounds further along and more practiced than the other new song from DMB's 2006 tour, The Idea of You. It is also totally different sounding, with Dave on an electric and varying tempos between the verse and chorus...
June 2nd , 2006 Updated June 3rd: Dave's New Guitar Info Updated June 4th: New Download, Cleaner Source
Center in Nobelsville, Indiana. They brought fans the first new song for road-testing in just under two years. (On 6/17/06 they dropped the big four of 2004.)
The Idea Of You was performed full-band with Butch Taylor, though Rashawn Ross did not play on the song.
The current recording isn't clear enough to pull the full lyrics off it, but sounds like a love song with several comparisons to childish behavior, "...I think of you as a kid...So I'll pull your hair..I might go kick you in your shins."
Most importantly this song does not sound like Stand Up...
DMB put on a huge first night opener at UMB Bank Pavilion in St. Louis. A big show went off with a bang opening with Granny and moving right along until they dropped Raven in slot four.
Raven has been out of totally out commission (no teases or partials) since 10/24/02. Also, in our recent interview with Boyd Tinsley, he said that of Raven, Kit Kat Jam and Busted Stuff only one was likely to return. (Process of elimination here says KKJ and BS are out for the rest of the tour)
Perhaps more telling is that Boyd also specifically said that he thought Dreaming Tree would come back this year. Hopefully that information holds as well.
The new songs soundchecked yesterday did not show up, so either the guys aren't ready to play them out yet or they're holding on to them for a later.
Weekly Davespeak is giving away a free Live Trax CD to the winner of the Weekly Davespeak group over at DMBGame.com.
DMBgame.com is a free site for competing against other DMB fans in guessing the setlists for any given DMB show. It's easy to register and get started:
Register at dmbgame.com if you're not signed up already.
Go to My Groups (under the login link)
Group ID: 8
Password: wds
Pick your setlists!
It keeps track of scores in the WDS group and on DMBgame.com as a whole.
At the end of the summer tour, the person with the highest score will get a Live Trax CD of their choice.
ans are looking at a potentially huge opener tonight night at UMB Bank Pavillion. A few people heard the soundcheck from outside:
Everyday
Jazz jam
New Song #1
Slow ragtime intro to..
When the world ends x 2
Ayhee
Diggin a ditch
Last Stop Reprise > American Baby Intro
JTR
New Song #2
Jazzy intro to...
Grey Street
The first new song is supposedly a jazzy tune, reminescent of Seek Up. Ayhee makes a somewhat surprising entry into DMB territory, having previously only been performed with Dave and Friends and Dave solo. As Boyd made clear in his interview with Weekly Davespeak a few weeks ago, JTR seems to be returning as well...
Rashawn Ross has posted on his myspace profile that he will be joining Dave Matthews Band on tour this summer.
Rashawn is a trumpet player hailing from the bands Yerba Buena and Soulive. DMB had Yerba Buena open at four shows in 2002 and Soulive four in 2005.It wasn't until 6.18.2005 when Rashawn joined the guys on stage as a guest on Louisiana Bayou. Since then he has guested at 16 shows, including most of the Red Rocks shows and even the renewal of JTR at Jazzfest.
Rashawn's most recent side project has been filling the horn section of Soulive with Ryan Zoidis. According to the Soulive website "the pair are an integral part of the band, traveling everywhere they go." This won't be the case with multiple Soulive dates conflicting with DMB's tour. (Soulive opens for DMB in Hartford) Talib Kweli's most recent album, Right About Now, gives trumpet credits to Ross...
Hip hop group Jurassic 5 will feature Dave Matthews band on their next single titled "Work It Out." Rapper Marc 7even posted on the Jurassic 5 message board on the 15th saying:n/m
"Our first single off our still entitled lp will be a song called Work It Out featuring Dave Matthews Band the video will be shot in the next 40 days and we will drop another 12 inch off our album before the video is released. When i get more info ill hit you guys up."
The members of J5 have a long list of collaborative efforts including Perry Farrell, Incubus, Blackalicious, Soulive...
As it began to rain this evening. Dave Matthews band performed JTR at the New Orleans Jazz Fest for the first time in five years.
The performance of the song was particularly surprising because the tune has been out of live rotation for so long, and band hints that the song would not come back.
JTR's return is perhaps only rivaled by #34's comeback this past summer. The song took the E1 (first song of the encore) position with Rawshawn Ross guesting...
Read on for Stefan's recanting of JTR's doom, IEM nuggets from Jazzfest and links to JTR Mp3 and Video Downloads
After all of the well-deserved praise for the Karmageddon master of the Lillywhite Sessions last week, we decided to hunt down the guy who put the work into making the leaked album sound like a real release.
He goes into quite a bit of background on his history as a recording engineer and the other work he's done. If you're interested in going into music production you might especially enjoy the latter portion of the interview. Here are the questions:
The Lillywhite Sessions are back better than ever after someone known only as Karmageddon released a new mastering of DMB's original uncompressed recordings. The new versions of the album sound nothing short of amazing, and after hearing them you'll likely throw out your old copies.
This mystery recording engineer included an explanation of his work, which we've published below.
"Well I was never a fan of DMB in the first place. Back in 2002 an online friend asked me to take a whirl at putting the "final" touches on [the Lillywhite Sessions] for his own personal collection, as he was very pleased with my other work. We worked out a deal and I took the original SHN files to a very nice (now out of business) studio I had contract work with..."
DMB bassist Stefan Lessard gives unprecidented live updates regarding progress in the studio; A revamped recording process with Batson and no immediate plans to cut an album this year.
Just a few weeks ago there wasn't so much as a peep about what was going on with Dave Matthews Band--but now the information is coming fast and furious. The updates have been occurring on Stefan's sports/clothing/music website izstyle.com.
For people who don't have the time to go digging we've collected, summarized and interpreted the main points here and expounded on items such as the recent release of the full DMB catalogue to iTunes and Dave's comments about changes to the recording process from Stand Up. Because this is a long piece, here's an index to keep you sorted...
New Carter Beauford Video, Acapella Old Dirt Hill, New Dave Interview
March 20th, 2006
Beauford Records New Instructional Video
Carter Beauford is filming a follow-up video to his Under the Table and Drumming DVD. RLM is currently taking questions from "drum enthusiasts" for inclusion in the video. You can send questions about Carter's drumming style and techniques to carterquestions@redlightmanagement.com.
You may remember an article Justin "BeaufordBuddy" Scott wrote for us last year about Carter's Drum Kit Setup. Worth another look if you haven't seen it yet.
New from the Pezzshow
Ben Pezzner, an old friend of Weekly Davespeak recently released his take on Old Dirt Hill...
The donation drive and server move has taken up a lot of time so we're wrapping three news items into one.
Fenway News
The official word from DMB Fenway is that there is no Fenway. But the Boston Herald has reported that Sheryl Crow will perform with Dave Matthews Band at Fenway Park in July.
Looking at the DMB 2006 tour dates for July we have that the band is on a break for the greater portion of the month. The break is due to DMB's bassist, Stefan Lessard who is expecting his second child with Jaclyn Burton in mid-July. The tour dates that were leaked and sent out in our weekly newsletter turned out to be right on, and listed July 7th and 8th for Fenway.
Update 3/16/06: DMB has been going in and out of the studio. They are not 'locked up there until its done.' Yesterday Gawker.com had a report that Dave was seen in Manhatten. Although that site functions on anonymous tips, that information shouldn't be discounted. "There's a lot of back and forth travel going on."
We've been holding on to some exclusive footage from Red Rocks. The video was captured on 9/8/05, a day prior to the historic four-day run by Dave Matthews Band in Boulder, CO.
The venue was open to the public allowing unprecidented public viewing of the load-in and setup of the DMB stage parts. This video is 3 minutes, 44 seconds long and shows the road and local crew struggling to move huge awkwardly packaged stage peices off a flatbed truck and up through a tunnel leading to the Red Rocks stage....
We have received word that Dave Matthews Band is now back in the studio. Originally the guys estimated that they would be in there for three weeks, but now that time is uncertain. Make it happen.
What's Going On?
Last week Weekly Davespeak suffered a service outage that was a result of repeated overload of the server we are hosted on. We need to move to a "dedicated" server.
Costs
The server that we would like to move Weekly Davespeak to costs $130/month plus a $99 setup fee. The newsletter costs $40/month to run. Finally, there is a $30 fee to keep the bulletin board license up to date.
Update: Paypal takes ~5% off the top of donations, I did not realize this before but it needs to be included into our fundraising target. So the revised total to operate Weekly Davespeak for one year will be $2277.45.
How Much Should I Give?
WDS has 1349 active board members. Active means that they visited the forums or website in the past 30 days. As it stands, donations of $5-$10 should be enough. Donating more is greatly appreciated but should not be necessary...
Dave Matthews performed another new song in at his solo performance in London this evening. The setlist on paper included a mean encore of Warehouse, Crush, Ants/Everyday Save Me, but was replaced by a new song, "I Won't Give It Away" and Everyday.
Reviews from the show are reporting that Dave mentioned that the guys were going back into the studio soon. Dave also spoke briefly about the new song saying that he had not given a name to "I Won't Give It Away," so that can be considered a tentative title for the tune.
Charlottesville, VA - Dave Matthews Band gave the Charlottesville City Center for Contemporary Arts $550,000 for half a $1.1 million building campaign.
The City Center for Contemporary Arts began operation in the fall of 2003. It is a collaborative effort from three local nonprofit arts organizations: Live Arts, Second Street Gallery and Light House.
Percussionist Carter Beauford said: "I believe strongly that everyone should have a chance to participate in the arts. We feel that there's a role we can play to help people have access to creative opportunities..."
Dave Matthews is performing on February 28th at The Kings College Student Union, London.
Tickets will be available to the public on Tuesday 21st February 2006. UK ticket outlets will be posted here when available.
The show is believed to be taking place at Tutu's. The venue is spread over the main and mezzanine floors at the top of the Macadam Building on the Stand Campus...This news continues.
Dave performed the song "Ayhee" for the first time on the Dave and Friends Cruise. If you haven't heard it yet, grab it from our forums and listen while you read this. (requires registration)
Will Ayhee Be on the New Studio Album from DMB?
There are a couple of reasons to pay attention to Ayhee. It is the first new song that's been debuted on tour since Good Good Time was performed at Bonnaroo in June of 2004 and therefore constitutes a road test.
Dave Matthews Band created most of the songs in its collection by practicing, evolving them night after night on the road. Many fans consider road testing songs to be a fundamental element of DMB. Before These Crowded Streets, widely held as the best studio album from the band, was similar to Stand Up in that nearly all the songs were road tested before being recorded.
The difference is that going into the Stand Up sessions..
The official New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival site has confirmed that DMB will be playing the event again in 2006.
DMB played Jazzfest last year, debuting three songs from Stand Up. Generally festival setlists are shorter, around 12 songs in all.
There have been rumors that a number of other very large bands would play the show, including U2, Prince, Jimmy Buffet, Rolling Stones, and Elton John but none of these bands have been announced yet.
Here is the full list of other performers on the 2006 New Orleans Jazz Festival Lineup:
February 6th, 2006 UPDATE: Cruise Ship Venue info, Picture
UPDATE: "Good Good Time" Video Download UPDATE: "Ayhee" NEW Song mp3 Download
It was drama in the Caribbean as Dave and Friends went on to play an enormous setlist strung over nine hours in three locations. Reports are still coming in, but here are the highlights:
Dave and Tim opened around 6:45PM EST with a strong set, followed immediately by Dave and Friends who opened with Dodo around 7:30pm EST. A storm was brewing and began to take its toll on the concert. There was no cover over the stage, so all of the instruments and equipment were completely exposed to the wind and rain. One by one the instruments began to fail, starting with organist Ray Paczkowski, eventually the sound from percussionist Brady Blade's cymbals became distorted and more equipment began to short out.
Dave had a shot at a solo performance of Some Devil only to have his guitar short out, it was aborted...
An article published in the January 29th Miami Herald indicates that the Dave and Friends Cruise is the result of a team-up between Royal Caribbean and Clear Channel Communications. What follows is our investigation into the recent relationship between Dave Matthews, DMB and Clear Channel Communications.
Dave Matthews Previously Rejected Clear Channel
In the January 22nd, 2004 Rolling Stone (RS 940), Dave said: "We're not going to exclusively tour with Clear Channel. We may work with them because in some markets it's hard not to. They often approach us to tour exclusively with them, and that's absurd. We certainly keep a healthy distance. Like, 'We'll give a show or two at the new amphitheater in Seattle, and we'll do a show or two at the Gorge - because you don't own that one.' Just to say, 'Well, f*** you.'"
Rumors have been swirling that Radiohead, Tom Petty and Beck will headline Bonnaroo 2006. Ateaseweb has reported on it, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones have already said they will play on Sunday at the massive summer festival. A major lineup announcement is expected on the first of February from Superfly.
While there are no indications that Dave Matthews and Friends, or DMB will be playing this year,we realize there are a lot of Bonnaroo goers who frequen WDS. Recently we came across a guide to Bonnaroo that goes over some of the simple yet important things you can do to survive the weekend.
The guide's author, Leo, (see bottom for bio) updates it regularly. Leo was kind enough to give us permission to republish his 1/30/06 version--but be sure to visit his site for the most recent incarnation. This is a must-read for all first time Bonnaroo attendees.
As we look forward to another full year with Dave Matthews Band, we thought it would be worthwhile to catalogue some of the best DMB moments of 2005. Best moments were nominated by WDS members listed below and put in order by DMB superfan Dave E.
In a new stumble for the promotion behindthe Dave and Friends Caribbean Cruise, a couple from the Bay Area had their wedding plans cancelled. The couple received news coverage on San Francisco's KRON4 because their entire wedding party was dismissed in favor of chartering by the Dave and Friends Caribbean Cruise.
This is the latest in a string of gaffes that have troubled the marketing of the D+F cruise from the start. The D+F cruise at first required membership to the Warehouse to book a cabin, but later opened it to the general public..."
Mix Online has reported that just before 2005 gave way Dave Matthews recorded new music at Robert Lang Studios in Seattle, WA. Apparently he was working with John Alagia.
Alagia has done a number of projects for the band, most recently production work on Weekend On the Rocks.
Reading the article on Mix you might get the sense that Dave was off recording tunes for himself for some kind of new solo project ala' Some Devil...
After a long and difficult decision process, we are excited to announce the winner of the "The Song that I Like" Contest.
We had more than ten submissions, and it is always an agonizing process narrowing it down to a select few. We do have more contests planned for the new year, so if you didn't hook it up this time--don't worry you'll have another shot.
With that here are our winners:
Best Effort: Matt L. for his Essay on Pig. (Published below) Prize:Imagine We Were and a two year subscription to Rolling Stone or Spin Magazine. Courtesy of Hugh Patton. Runner Up One: Peggy L. for her
Essay on Grey Street Runner Up Two: Annie Waring
Runners up will recieve an official WDS keychain to booze it up with. Thanks again to everyone who took the time to participate. You rock.
, gives trumpet credits to Ross...
The donation drive and server move has taken up a lot of time so we're wrapping three news items into one. 
Mix Online has reported that just before 2005 gave way Dave Matthews recorded new music at Robert Lang Studios in Seattle, WA. Apparently he was working with John Alagia. 
After a long and difficult decision process, we are excited to announce the winner of the "The Song that I Like" Contest. 
