The National reveal more details on Grateful Dead tribute; Alex Bleeker doing Dead in Brooklyn
photo: Matt Berninger w/ EL VY over the weekend (more by Amanda Hatfield)
We mentioned earlier this year that The National began recording their long awaited Grateful Dead tribute album in Woodstock at Dreamland Recordings. A new Stereogum feature on the band reports that the wait will finally be over in early 2016, and that they’ll once again be teaming up with the Red Hot organization to release it (the same organization the Dessners did Dark Was the Night with).
More details since the initial announcement on who’s contributing to it keep coming to. The band told Stereogum that the album has “somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 contributions,” now including Perfume Genius, Tunde Adebimpe (of TV on the Radio), Marijuana Deathsquads (doing “Truckin'”), Unknown Mortal Orchestra (“Shakedown Street”), Fucked Up, Daniel Rossen (of Grizzly Bear) on two songs including “Terrapin Station,” Phosphorescent main man Matthew Houck, Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus and more. Plus there’s all the previously-mentioned names like Bon Iver, Sharon Van Etten, Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Ira Kaplan (Yo La Tengo), Kurt Vile & J Mascis (doing “Box of Rain” together), The War On Drugs (“Touch of Grey”), and of course The National themselves (including their take on”Peggy-O,” a traditional the Dead played a lot). The latter two have been played live before, and you can check out videos of those below.
The wait for this compilation has been long, but it sounds like it’ll be worth it. The National’s Bryan Devendorf said, “Some of the interpretations of the songs, you hear it, and you go, ‘My god, this is fucking killer.'” With a solid group of some of the best indie artists out there covering the Dead, it’s hard to go wrong.
In other “indie musicians covering the Grateful Dead” news, Real Estate’s Alex Bleeker and his band The Freaks doing another of their Dead tribute shows, and this one’s in Brooklyn. It happens at Rough Trade on December 30. Tickets will be on sale on Wednesday (11/18) at noon. Alex Bleeker & The Freaks just played Brooklyn Bowl last week and are currently on tour in support of their new album.
All of The Freaks’ upcoming tour dates are listed, with the National and War on Drugs videos, below…
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Alex Bleeker and the Freaks — 2015 Tour Dates
Nov 11 Bar Nightclub New Haven, CT
Nov 12 Brooklyn Bowl Brooklyn, NY
Nov 13 Vassar College (Villard Room) Poughkeepsie, NY
Nov 14 Iron Horse Music Hall Northampton, MA
Nov 15 The Monkey House Burlington, VT
Nov 16 Divan Orange Montreal, Canada
Nov 17 The Smiling Buddha Toronto, ON
Nov 18 Blind Pig Ann Arbor, MI
Nov 19 The Empty Bottle Chicago, IL
Nov 20 Double Happiness Columbus, OH
Nov 21 DC9 Washington, DC
Nov 22 Boot & Saddle Philadelphia, PA
Dec 04 Fortune Sound Club Vancouver, Canada
Dec 05 Barboza Seattle, WA
Dec 06 Mississippi Studios Portland, OR
Dec 08 Sweetwater Music Hall Mill Valley, CA
Dec 09 The Independent San Francisco, CA
Dec 10 Don Quixote’s International Music Hall Felton, CA
Dec 11 Fernwood Tavern Big Sur, CA
Dec 12 The Echo Los Angeles, CA
Dec 30 Rough Trade Brooklyn, NY (Dead tribute show)
