DMB2023-12-10 Sunbet Arena at Times Square Casino, Pretoria, Gauteng
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The Ants Podcast
Episode 74 - You have Got Questions, We dance around them June 5th, 2016
The Crew was merely 2 Live this week; Jake and Joe M took the helm whilst Matt felt the Bern, so to speak. With the band off this past week and based on twitter feedback, this episode is listener question heavy. Also addressed is the latest release announcement (a Dave Solo from 1996), the Bernie Sanders Dave Solo performance, and the latest DMBHub update that you dont want to miss!
Posted by Joe M in Site News at 7:14am on Sunday, Nov 5th, 2023
Going to be in Charlottesville for the hometown shows next week? Want to get an opportunity to tour the Rockbridge Guitar shop, optionally play/demo the different style of guitars, and meet Brian Calhoun Rockbridge co-founder (along with Chickapig and latest rage TinkerTar)? Well here's your chance, both if you are a musician or just an interested DMB fan, here's how.
If you aren't familiar with Rockbridge Guitars they are the maker of the acoustic guitars that Dave Matthews primarily uses, along with being among the collections of Tim Reynolds and Stefan Lessard. And also popular among many other talented musicians, including Brandi Carlie, Tim Hanseroth, Keith Urban, Jason Mraz, Ray LaMontagne, Warren Haynes, and Lukas Nelson, just to name a few. (Many of which have visited the guitar shop themselves.) Rockbridge is known for making custom, hand-built, high-quality guitars, some with unique and custom inlays. (You may have seen the rhino inlay guitars over the years that were raffled off for preservation causes.)
The guitar shop is located right in downtown Charlottesville, in a charming late nineteenth century historic home, just a couple blocks off the downtown walking mall. And, as you'd expect with such a specialty maker, the shop is small, only a handful of guitars in the making process at any time.
So, to help make it the best experience possible, going to manage flow. First smaller groups of those that are musicians / acoustic guitar players (and their guests) to allow for some guitar demo time, and then additional time for more casual visitors. For now, we are gathering those interested to finalize timing.
If you want to come by the shop here's what need to do:
How: Please send an email to staff -at- antsmarching.org with subject 'Rockbridge' and let us know if you're an acoustic guitar player/musician interested in demo'ing, or if you're just generally interested in checking out this unique shop.
When: Saturday (11th), we'll start at 12pm for musicians, and then have casual fans through a little after that (dependent on musician interest). Estimate experience time about 30 minutes (+/- 10 mins). Will follow-up with those that have reached out, via the above directions, with better timing details.
Where: Downtown off the walking mall. Will also follow-up with address/directions.
Bonus: Heard of TinkerTar yet? (The new guitar toy and education device teaching young new musicians how to play guitar-with only ONE string. And now available at/on Amazon, Target, Walmart.) Brian Calhoun also is the creator, and if you bring one with you, he's offering to give it a founders autograph as a Thank You.
We're excited about this great experience and looking forward to all the other great activities coming this weekend in Cville!
Posted by Joe M in Album News at 7:34pm on Thursday, Oct 19th, 2023
After waiting 20+5 years (smile), the highly desired and highly requested new vinyl pressing of the Dave Matthews Band - Before These Crowded Streets album, has moved into a new 'highly' category, highly sought after. So much so that official DMB store BTCS vinyl pre-orders have sold out, including the exclusive Red and Blue Swirl edition, and the Yellow variant (though it's still available for pre-order from Walmart). That leaves just the standard Black variant left in the store, until today that is.
The band has announced "due to overwhelming demand" that a new option of Ultra Clear is available, exclusively through the official store. And if the behind-the-scenes inventory counts are accurate (which, they seemed to have been for the other editions) the Ultra Clear edition is already about halfway to sold out (also). So if you want one, or in need of a holiday gift for a very appreciative DMB fan (I'm 'not' talking about me), you may want to jump on it now. But, not to fret. (Random "fret" side note: origin of fret in this context is not of the stringed musical linage, instead Old English freton meaning to 'consume' your thoughts. Digress...) Not to fret, as we would anticipate the Black edition will have enough quantity for those needing a copy at a later date.
Editorial Opinion: You haven't heard BTCS until you've heard it on vinyl with headphones. I know how snobby that may sound, but I truly reserve that bold of a statement for a conclusion that will deliver. It is a whole experience. If you haven't had that chance yet (which let's be real, it hasn't been the easiest to be in the presence of original BTCS vinyl), then I implore you to indulge this opinion. BTCS vinyl + headphones = core (musical) memory
And if you needed more than that, this pressing, marking the 25th anniversary, includes a new insert booklet with some new photos. Preorders are expected to ship on November 1st, with the official release date of November 3rd.
May this release increase the fervor of the forever debate of what is the best song from this album, or even more relevant to this release, which vinyl 'side' (of the 4) is the best. Cheers and happy listening to one of the band's greatest albums.
While Matt and Joe have been able to enjoy some face time over the last couple of years, the podcast has definitely not been as fortunate. The fellas return with aplomb after a 20-month hiatus with hot takes abound on the band's latest effort, Walk Around the Moon. You might be surprised at what they have to say, as opinions develop in real time during this episode. Enjoy!
While Apple's built in Podcast app is a great app for listening to the Ants Podcast, an alternative that some might enjoy has emerged: Overcast. Overcast is a great, free podcast app that has gained a lot of popularity since its release. If you're looking for another app for your Ants Podcast fix, give it a try!
We are also now on Spotify! Check us out!
If you prefer to check out the video of the podcast, it's up on YouTube.
Posted by Joe M in Album News at 6:25pm on Monday, Apr 24th, 2023
The new Dave Matthews Band - Walk Around The Moon studio album will be released just a few weeks from now on Friday May 19th (also the day the US Summer Tour kicks off in Woodlands, TX.) And considering over 60% of homes have a streaming music subscription (and even more if you include ad-supported streaming) chances are youre planning to stream the new album when its released. But before you do, give this some consideration: your vote for future DMB studio albums.
How much music do you stream? Across how many artists does that cover? Do you value all those artists equally? Is DMB in the same standing as [insert band that randomly appears in a daily playlist here, or default to OneRepublic]? Should all things be equal? Well they pretty much are if you only plan on streaming the album. If you get to cast a vote on future DMB studio albums that vote is now with this album, not down the road.
The most important factors for future music and possibly a studio album are the bands level of creativity and ambition, both of those are hard for anyone to foresee. However there is one thing that can kindle and influence the future: the commercial success of most recent work, both as validation and encouragement.
At this point, are studio albums important/needed? Note: Not asking if new music is important, but specifically studio recordings. This band very easily could still be creative and ambitious with new music, perform and record the live performance, and then make it available for similar wide consumption as an album. None of that is that new, and to that point, 7 of the 12 tracks on Walk Around the Moon had been played live prior to the official album announcement on January 24, 2023, and now 8 have been played following Monsters performance in February. (And Break Free has been played going back to 2006.) So does studio album/recordings at this point warrant the bands time/money/effort if we dont consume it any differently than live content? Said another way, is this studio album changing your buying habit or not? (ELI5: Are you buying the album?). If not, then maybe its worth considering how much you value studio work, and if you want to make a vote for the possibility of future studio work. (Plus get some cool album art and/or extras, while at it.)
So, if you havent yet and would like to vote (aka buying/owning), we compiled a cheat sheet of options to compare that may not have all been previously spelled out.
To start, vinyl is where all the love is. No joke, last year for the first time since 1987 that more vinyl were sold than CDs in the US. (Thats before some of you were born, but also lets not age ourselves on that.) DMB is all over this vinyl trend/direction. The new album is available in 8 (yes 8) versions. (side note: Remember the days when we clamored and wished for any kind of vinyl, and now we have 8 for a single album. Wild.) And vinyl is also the gatekeeper to the extras. Particularly the 180g Vinyl which includes printed inner sleeve, a 12 page booklet with exclusive (extra) photos, and 12 x 12 numbered Art Card (presumably the collage of all band members done by Dave Matthews, using photos by Aaron Farrington.) The other vinyl's look to include an 8 page 12 x 12 booklet, and the CD version of the album with the same/similar booklet just in a smaller format.
Heres details on the (8) different choices of vinyl (with links):
If someone gets all 8 of these, please take a photo of them together, wed love to see it! (preferably opened to see the discs, but beggars can't be choosers.) This would run you about ~$240 to get the complete set (plus some shipping costs, at least from the official site.) Before you scoff at that being crazy, weve seen single posters go for more than that, so not so far fetched.
Outside of vinyl (with links):
The band didnt pitch us with an incentive to pre-order this time around, but why wait. If youre planning to buy, might as well help support the band you enjoy on mission to extend their record and have an 8th consecutive studio album to debut at the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200. (For more on that read our article DMB New Studio Album Details Revealed.) Count down to happy streaming listening.
Posted by Joe M in Album News at 5:36pm on Monday, Apr 24th, 2023
One month before the release of Walk Around The Moon the Dave Matthews Band release Monsters along with a visualization video by artist Justin Zielke.
Monsters song debut was earlier this year at the Dave and Tim Mexico weekend where it was played twice (acoustically.)
The studio release brings the full band to the song with strong bass, spacey electric guitar notes followed by big rock strums, and subtle organ backing.
Give a listen and discuss on the forums your thoughts.
Two months into the release of the first single off of new album Walk Around the Moon (due 5/19/23), Madmans Eyes continues to represent well on the Billboard Charts for weekly radio spins. Actually, Madmans Eyes is Dave Matthews Bands best charting song in the last 10 years, going back to 2012 when the song Mercy charted better.
Billboard has a number of music performance charts, released weekly. When it comes to radio play, DMB falls to the Adult Alternative Airplay (AAA) chart primarily (occasionally breaking into the Billboard (general) Top 100, or Hot 100 over the years, again lastly with Mercy.)
Madmans Eyes debuted on the AAA chart at #23 and steadily moved up the charts each week since then. Moving up to #11 in week 2, then #8 and then #5. And then for the last 4 weeks the song has stayed consistent at the #4 spot. Pretty respectable holding power, and as mentioned better than DMB songs have performed in recent years.
Peak position of #4 isnt bad, but it would be a nice cherry if the song could make it to a number 1 position. So if youre one of those that is still a radio listener and have the opportunity to give this favorite band a boost with radio song request(s), you may be able to give it a bump. (Madmans Eyes is currently being topped by The National, Death Cab for Cutie, and Depeche Mode. So dont request them too, ha.)
But Madmans Eyes staying power on the charts raises some interesting timing questions on when it makes sense to release the 2nd single for the album. Youd expect timed to help with approaching album release, however if Madmans Eyes is doing good, no particular rush, which may mean longer to wait.
What will be the 2nd single off the album? Well now that production versions of the album are starting to make it out in the wild (as seen on social media posts from the band members), we may have a clue. Stickers on the album that highlight featured songs list a second song as Walk Around the Moon, which you can likely infer as being the second single from the album, similarly titled conveniently. Time will tell. Until then, happy Madmans Eyes listening. Heres the youtube link if you want to jump back in.
UPDATE: Stickers lie, it's a trait of theirs. Never trust a sticker. Unless it's a 'Hello My Name Is', those you can sometimes trust. Anyway, the second single from the new album is Monsters.
Posted by Joe M in Album News at 9:54pm on Thursday, Jan 19th, 2023
This time it's not a drill, but 'walk' don't run. On the day that the Ants discussion thread on'New Album coming soon?' hit over 1.6 million views and 23,000 posts (over the course of 28 months of desperation that is), things are getting real. The wait has been long since DMB's last studio release (55 months. Should we admit we count?) But we have some new details about (what appears to be) an impending new DMB studio album announcement. Thanks goes to the dedicated fanbase for sourcing these details (they know who they are, but also don't desire the wrong spotlight, if you know what I mean.) DMB's next studio album will be titled Walk Around The Moon. That will sound familiarto most, but if you're not maniacalwith the DMBcatalog it's the title of a song the band debuted live in 2021 and has played the last two years, and if you've been following along with us as we reported the progress over the last couple years on development of a new album, you'll recall Walk Around The Moon was "the song" that spurred Dave to get the band together to record (check out previous news coverage for more details/history.)
Besides the name of the new album, we also have details about what format it will be available in, one of which is Vinyl (!!! Picture Jonah Hill Excited Hands GIF Here !!!). And not just one type, how about a Black version, a Lavender version (shout out Taylor Swift?), a White version (but that one will be exclusive to Warehouse members), and a 180-gram version (that's the heavier vinyl version, get your head out of the gutter.) There will also be a CD (yay artwork!!), and a digital download (is that what people did before streaming?) There's a lot of other details speculated at this point, which you can head over to the previously mentioned discussion thread if you wish to participate, but it would appear official news of the album will be on its way to you very shortly, along with an announcement of 2023 summer tour dates. (Yes, we haven't taken a moment to comment, but tour date rumors are in full swing with a lot of gravity behind them. Head over to the tour forum for the 2023 summer tour rumors thread if you want the latest.)
There is some speculation of when the album will be available, which we don't know quite yet. But with the band having a chance to have an 8th consecutive studioalbum to debut at the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200, there should be some consideration on the details.DMB currently holds the record for the band with the most consecutive #1 studio album debuts at a total of 7. (A stat that dedicated DMB fans, and marketing execs, hold on to probably more than the band much cares about.) An 8th would further DMB's lead over Metallica (who has 6 consecutive #1 debut studio albums). (You may want to note the reference to the keyword of "band" with the most consecutive, because non-"band" artists Kanye West and Eminem have 10, and Taylor Swift (lavender reference!) leads with 11. (How about #carters-version releases? just saying.)
Now, how Billboard #1 is calculated these days has changed significantly, even just over the 5 years since Come Tomorrow. They tally using amulti-metric consumption called album equivalents (which one album equivalent unit equals "one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.") (whew, say all that without a breath.) At the moment, the #1 on the Billboard 200 has a metric of125,000 album equivalents, as a rough idea of what it will take. (Come Tomorrow debuted with292,000 album-equivalent units in 2018 methods.) So if you want to support this effort foran 8th debut at #1, get ready to buy the CD (artwork!), vinyl, and get to streaming! (Oh, and don't forget to"Sleepify" the album. Ya know, before you go to bedstream the album on repeat, but turn your audio all the way down so it can run all night and rack up the streams. That wouldn't be cooking the books would it? People wouldn't actually do that would they? [Note: Actually yea they would. AMichigan-based bandactually made $20k from fans streaming their album while they slept.) For all your efforts, Billboard tracks weeks starting Friday to Thursday, so if there's any interest tomaximizean attemptat an 8th consecutive studio album debut, the rocket scientists have calculated a Friday in the future would be an ideal official release date.
We'll leave it at that for now. As mentioned, you can follow further details in the discussion thread, view the rumored tour dates in the tour discussion, and catch up on the history of the album and new songs in our previous news postings. Look forward to covering furtherdetails with you all in the near future.
Posted by Joe M in Tour News at 11:31am on Saturday, Oct 22nd, 2022
For those on the east coast, your all-things-DMB-2022 doesnt have to end in November. Starting December, Tim Reynolds, along with Mick Vaughn and Dan Martier, aka TR3, are hitting the road for 13 tour dates, fresh off studio time.
The band spent October in the recording studio working on a fresh set of acoustic songs and is anxious to bring them out and perform them live this December. But the shows this tour wont only be acoustic, as sets will include a mix of the familiar high energy electric rock. The tour starts December 1st in Tampa, FL and continues north finishing in Massachusetts on the 17th.
Stops: Tampa, Stuart, & Boca Raton, FL; Asheville & Charlotte, NC; Winchester, VA; Harrisonburg, VA; Philadelphia, PA; Hudson Falls, NY; Morristown, NJ; Fairfield, CT; Concord, NH; Fall River, MA.
Posted by Joe M in Tour News at 11:30am on Saturday, Oct 22nd, 2022
No, Daves not running for office, but he is performing at several Get Out the Vote events in support of senate midterm contests, taking place the following week on Tuesday, November 8th. For anyone thats followed this band for a while or attended a show this year, Daves message of voting importance wont come as a surprise. Dave will join 3 events. The first is on Monday October 24th in Columbus, OH. The second the following day in Raleigh, NC. And the third the day after that, the 26th, in Pittsburgh, PA. The events are free, with asks to RSVP (however admittance is first come, first served in most cases if demand exceeds capacity.) With elections happening everywhere, its not unlikely there may be other events in the days leading up to election day. More details on the 3 events with RSVP links are available on davematthewsband.com
Posted by Joe M in Tour News at 11:28am on Saturday, Oct 22nd, 2022
The band is getting back out on the road for a run of indoor shows this November, and this time its coast-to-coast even with some love for Canada. The Dave Matthews Band 2022 Fall Tour will be 11 dates starting in Vancouver, British Columbia and ending in the Big Apple, with the only 2-night stand of the tour, at Madison Square Garden. Dumpstaphunk has been announced as a very special guest AND opener for the Chicago show. (Dumpstaphunk played similar role for MSG shows in 2021, including few members guesting on Corn Bread, Jimi Thing, and I Want to Take You Higher.) No support act has been announced for this years tour ending MSG shows at this point. MSG has consistently had an opener when other shows havent, except in 2018 which instead was filled with string of different guests.
The fall tour dates mark the end of planned full band commitments for 2022 (and beyond at this point.) Add the shows you plan to attend via the DMB Hub app or via Tour Central. And get ready for fast paced, no room for error, up for the taking, Fall Setlist Game.
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