Buzzfeed recently reported on a curious feature that Google offers as a part of its Google Drive (formerly Google Docs) product.  Many spreadsheet jockeys have been known to start a series in the first two cells of a worksheet (e.g. Days Of The Week, Months of the Year, etc.) and use the autofill feature to [...]

Are you annoyed when you see “Year In Review” type articles start popping up around the end of November?  If so, I hope you’re not offended by a late-January 2012 summary… The Barn is offering a few different attempts at 2012 recap. The first is my list of the best musical things of the year [...]

Any day with great music is like a holiday, but there are certain days on the calendar that make the live music experience even more celebratory. Even without music, the transformation that occurs in late autumn takes on a surreal, ominous tone, it’s no wonder that ancient societies create myth and ritual that mirrored the [...]

While searching for an online Venn Diagram creator for my Springsteen at Wrigley Recap, I came across an interesting site that generates Venns automatically based on the most common Google Suggest autocompletes for any given question.  You just provide it with a query and  three common search terms, and it finds the most likely searches [...]

[flbike] Okay, I like some of these bands — some an awful lot — but it is nice to see critic’s darlings get raked over the coals a bit in LA Weekly’s list of worst “hipster bands” Disappointment department.  Pearl Jam is playing a corporate event in October and this guy is pissed about it. [...]

Jimmy Herring humbly offers his considerable musical gifts to those who enjoy a rigorous musical workout.  For a music writer, having Subject To Change Without Notice as the title of the guitarist’s lastest release is like wrapping that gift with flowing ribbon and shiny bows.  The album’s name easily suggests not only the confident stylistic swings that gives [...]

The Barn’s 2010 Holiday Mixtape was subtitled A Very Jamband Christmas and justifiably so — it’s intent was to collect a CD length holiday playlist that showcased the style of improv-leaning bands on Christmas classics.  Though at the time I thought I had cultivated the cream of jamband holiday fare, it became obvious that more [...]

There is something special when the worlds of rock and classical music collide. After months of preparation, the end products are only performed a handful of times, creating something truly unique for the lucky attendees. The Barn will feature a different rock / symphony fusion weekly over the next several weeks in a new feature: [...]

Lots of Chicago related links this week: A Chicago musician writes and records his way around all 50 states and returns home Chicago based The AV Club covers the use of Chicago landmark Marina Towers for Chicago band Wilco’s cover art for the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album Friends of The Barn and Chicago blues-rock staples [...]

Well, that timing worked out just perfectly.  After tackling an Abbey Road song, in order,  each day of their Spring Tour, Furthur arrived at The Beatles’ two album closing musical suites just in time for Phil Lesh’s 71st birthday.  Tucking the so-called Sun King and Golden Slumbers in the middle of a beefy second set [...]