art of the jam 19

looks like the little wreck room's wednesday night jam could be pre-empted next week (september 28th) by a katrina benefit nobody seems to know much about. more 'n' likely, we'll wind up playing in the little room before it starts and in between bands. this week jam-meister lee allen delivered a cd of toonage for the regular jammers to learn, so we've got more of a repertoire of stuff to fall back on. (the ignominy of woodshedding black sabbath and chili peppers songs is mitigated by the knowledge that "standing on the verge of getting it on" appears to have acquired "jam standard" status.) and in two weeks (october 5th, i do believe), james hinkle and ponty bone are supposed to pay a visit.

last night damien stewart made his first jam appearance in awhile, playing double drums w/joe cruz. they did a good job of staying out of each other's way, altho later damien said it's hard to get a groove happenin' with two kits and maybe they should have alternated songs or something. both drummers got to play bass 'n' drum duets w/lee, too. fern and jeffa showed up to do their mellow gtr thang (altho the sleeplab cd jeffa laid on me last week shows that they can do more, much more). later on, a coupla shaolin death squad musos showed up and sat in on gtr and drums. i'm gonna have to give their cd another listen, 'cos i dug what i was hearing last night a lot more than i remember digging it when i heard it.

i did on ok job of not smoking cigs (andre sez take ten deep breaths every time you wanna smoke; usually i lose count and forget after two or three) until late in the evening when i was well into being a garrruuunnnk asshole and wound up bumming a couple. i'm a-thinking that from now on, if i'm going to get there two hrs before we start playing, i need to take a walk through the neighborhood or something after i finish setting up my shit (which takes all of five minutes) -- just walk for half an hour, turn around and walk back. otherwise the beers just go down too quick, which is a problem not so much from the alcohol-as-non-performance-enhancer angle as it is from the not-wanting-to-comport-myself-in-a-manner-i'll-be-ashamed-of-later side. as my friend ryan sez, maturity is needed in this matter. or as g. clinton said, "if you don't like the effects, don't produce the cause."