Darkstar Orchestra, renowned for their covering of Greatful Dead music, has just released their first non-Greatful Dead album, Where's My Middle Finger. Unfortunately for the band, the album was not just panned by critics but fans alike.  Josh Hughes, 28 year old college sophomore at Bowling Green University, stated "I always dug Darkstar and the crunchy way they grooved the trip.  But this album, man..it's just like..you know..it's just like not the Dead man."  John Kadlecik, lead guitar and vocals for Darkstar Orchestra, provided the reasoning behind the album, "we thought that by not ripping off the Dead anymore and branching off to rip off non jam bands, we could broaden our audience and give our current fans something as well." Rolling Stone editorial staff all pretty much agreed that, "I know those guys were trying to do something new and exciting but releasing a cover album of Korn seemed like a bit of a stretch for that type of band."  Bruce Little , 18 year old Korn fan, provided this description of the album, "what the fuck are those pussies trying to pull here, they're a bunch of bitches". He added that he was on his way to the record store to wipe his (slang) all over every Where's My Middle Finger album he could find.
 

In other news.  This summer's biggest tour, All The Dope is Dope to the Doobie Jam,  featuring Moe and Keller Williams among eighty-two other bands was abruptly cancelled last Monday.  It was supposed to be a 28 day music-a-thon but only made it three days.  Apparently, all of the music fans came down from their euphoric highs at the same time on Monday, listened for a brief period of time and then all departed the festival.  The reasons were immediately unclear until, speaking on conditions of anonymity, one of the organizers was quoted as saying, "we never anticipated the fans would have had clear heads to critically listen to the music and make an evaluated judgment regarding its quality.  We probably should have made it easier for them to bring more weed instead of setting up all those police check stations. Oh well.  Next year I guess we will have to get bands that don't flat out suck."
 

Chicago, IL - Area Man has JamDar

Thursday night local resident Kurt Nishi informed friends that he could pick a jam band out just by listening to them.  The occurrence happened while Kurt aka Fredrick Neechee German Philosopher, Neechee, Nish, Neech, Neecher-Creature, Neecher, Kurtles, Kurtikins was playing darts with friends Joe Hubeny and Ed Collins and listening to a mix CD made by Matt Swift, known long haired hippie.  During one particular song, Kurt informed the group, "this sounds like one of those jam bands."  When Ed replied to Kurt that the song was indeed a Phish song, Kurt responded, "See I can totally pick out a Jam Band when I hear them."  While Ed and Joe were not overwhelmed with Kurt's supposedly amazing new skills, Ed, the Jam Band columnist for the popular online editorial 'The Leek' vowed to give Kurt's JamDar further study.  When asked how he intended to study Kurt's new power, Ed responded, "I am going to take twenty songs. Ten Phish tunes, ten Metallica tunes and play them in a mixed up order.  I think that if Kurt can correctly pick out 15 or 16 correctly as Jam Band or not Jam Band, then he may be onto something."  No word whether Kurt picked up his new skill recently or whether he may have picked it up in college on a road trip to Memphis.
 

August 2005
Special congratulations are due this summer to one of America's favorite purveyors of pointless music.  Wide Spread Panic is celebrating almost 20 years of music since the inception of the band in 1986.  The band has had many highs and lows over the years from record setting crowds at Red Rocks to the unfortunate untimely death from cancer of founding member Michael Houser.  Many bands would have hung it up right there, with their most talented member and everything about them not sucking gone, but not Widespread.  As the band plods on everyone can agree on one ultimate Widespread fact.  The music is very difficult to listen to!  While many have compared listening to a live show as being put into an agonizing agitated hibernative state others have better opinions of the band.  Mike Thompson, of Chicago Il, had these thoughts on the group he grew up with and continues to listen to today.  "I love Wide Spread because I love to step over the line at times.  You should see how upset my friends get when I sneak a Panic disc onto their stereo.  I thought Ed was going to throw up this one time when he realized what he was listening to.  Awesome.  Totally awesome." Fans and foes alike look forward to another twenty strong years.  Some excited to hear what the band has to bring, such as their release scheduled for later in the year titled 'Hairy Armpits', and others to violently vomit when their friends make them listen to it.