art of the jam 24
you never know when the good stuff is gonna walk in the door. that's a recurring theme at the wreck room on wednesday nights. as lee and carl's invitational jam enters its sixth month, the thing that keeps me coming back is that you never know what's gonna happen. a night that looks like it's gonna be a dead dog can turn out to be...something entahrly _other_.
starting out last night, things didn't look too promising. c.s.s. -- that's the confusatron side-project consisting of sometime-wreck-room-jam-participant josh clark on traps and the skates brothers, andrew and matt, on gtr and bass respectively -- was being recorded by darryl wood over at the black dog, where they've evidently taken over wednesday nights from dave and daver. (fear not, real-jazz fans; wreck room jam-meister lee allen plans to book karnes 'n' williams' crew on the patio at funky fred's.) that meant that a lot of prospective jammers and audience members would prolly be over at tad gaither's soon-to-be-relocated watering hole and not at the little wreck room. indeed, after playing our first set, lee and i briefly considered bagging the jam for the night and heading over there ourselves. later on, we were mighty glad we didn't.
(i should say here that i see it as a strong _positive_ that on more frequent occasions, i'm having to choose between two or more good options when i wanna go out and catch some live music -- a sign that the scene in this town is gaining, not losing vitality. dig it: what we have is _working_, ppl; we don't need a music ghetto like austin or dallas.)
the other theme o' the evening: spontaneity without simultaneity. when damien stewart showed up with his kit, wreck room wizard o' sound andre edmonson discouraged him from setting up. "it's too loud with two kits," he said, perhaps a tactful way of saying that the string players tend to turn up too loud when there are two trapsets churnin' and burnin' onstage. in any event, it was decided: whatever drummers showed up would play sequentially, not in tandem. and there were a few of 'em, too. besides damien (who provided his trademark scintillatin' trapwork through much of the first set) and joe "drumzilla" cruz (who was a consistent percussive presence through three sets), there was bukowski-esque scribe and recent fort worth weekly coverboy william bryan massey III, who led the house trio into something raging and cacophonous that somehow morphed into a mutated "manic depression;" jam veteran wyatt, who courageously accepted the challenge of "la fiesta" and wasn't disgraced, even though he inexplicably apologized when i went up to thank him for sittin' in later; and a left-handed cat who tested the house kit during a break and elected to sit out (dude, come back next week; it's okay if you wanna move stuff around).
a real treat was the plethora of singers that showed up and performed -- a first in my experience outside black blues clubs, where the jams tend to focus more on hot-shot singers than on gtr-slingers. as jam-meister lee likes to point out, everything that happens on the jam-night stage is extemporaneous and completely off the top of the jammers' heads (and sometimes out of their asses). sure, there are some standard forms that get used as jumping off points for improvisation and invention: the aforementioned "manic depression" and "la fiesta," f'rinstance, or funkadelica in the form of p-funk "maggot brain" and "standing on the verge of getting it on" (the latter of which holds the record for consistent repeat plays in a night -- and that by request, not just 'cos we ran out of schitt to play), the chili peppers' "freaky styley," or the fonky meters' "cissy strut;" local heroes sally majestic's reggae-tinged "bobo likes to do it from behind;" even the heaviosity of system of a down's "aerials." all of the above are warped and twisted at will to meet the needs o' the moment. as often as not, when lee's singing, he's overlaying lyrics from one toon onto another, or the music is being moshed up by the jammers into a form other than that in which it originated. (you shoulda been there for the trip-hop "come together" last week.)
what's rarer is to have a vocalist onstage improvising lyrics in the moment while the jammers blow in the background. ex-pop poppins gtrist bill hitri has done it, altho he's been scarce on jam nights for a few months. last night, wreck room patrons had the pleasure of hearing _four_, count 'em, _four_ singers doin' the spontaneous-creation thang onstage (altho not at once). first up was a kid named daxx from a band whose name, of course, escapes me (i suck), who had impressive gtr chops as well as vocal and lyrical skills. (and daxx, if you're reading this, i'm _not_ pissed off about the string-breaking thang. the 15 minutes it took me to change it just gave lee and joe a chance to go off into bass 'n' drum-land. no worries, bro; all part of the fun of the jam.) pablo and the hemphill 7 frontman joe vano (who's writing the introduction to a new bryan massey book about the dog star, where vano first hosted open-mic poetry a few yrs back) couldn't sleep after watching his beloved astros blow the world series, so he came out to the wreck to extemporize reggae lyrics while lee provided dub-spacious accompaniment. kyle "monkey brainz" showed off a nice organic approach to sangin' and acoustic gtr playin', including a pretty groovy solo style. and john price, who was the unwitting victim of a last-set trainwreck last week, when lee and i failed at great length to agree on a key, allowed us to redeem ourselves last night before a crowd of ppl seemingly imported from the torch (not that there's anything wrong with that).
haven't heard the tape yet, but my preliminary impression is that energy-and-vibe-wise, if not always musically, this might have been the best jam night yet. the next oppo to crash 'n' burn or shine comes next wednesday night around 10pm. y'oughtta come out.
starting out last night, things didn't look too promising. c.s.s. -- that's the confusatron side-project consisting of sometime-wreck-room-jam-participant josh clark on traps and the skates brothers, andrew and matt, on gtr and bass respectively -- was being recorded by darryl wood over at the black dog, where they've evidently taken over wednesday nights from dave and daver. (fear not, real-jazz fans; wreck room jam-meister lee allen plans to book karnes 'n' williams' crew on the patio at funky fred's.) that meant that a lot of prospective jammers and audience members would prolly be over at tad gaither's soon-to-be-relocated watering hole and not at the little wreck room. indeed, after playing our first set, lee and i briefly considered bagging the jam for the night and heading over there ourselves. later on, we were mighty glad we didn't.
(i should say here that i see it as a strong _positive_ that on more frequent occasions, i'm having to choose between two or more good options when i wanna go out and catch some live music -- a sign that the scene in this town is gaining, not losing vitality. dig it: what we have is _working_, ppl; we don't need a music ghetto like austin or dallas.)
the other theme o' the evening: spontaneity without simultaneity. when damien stewart showed up with his kit, wreck room wizard o' sound andre edmonson discouraged him from setting up. "it's too loud with two kits," he said, perhaps a tactful way of saying that the string players tend to turn up too loud when there are two trapsets churnin' and burnin' onstage. in any event, it was decided: whatever drummers showed up would play sequentially, not in tandem. and there were a few of 'em, too. besides damien (who provided his trademark scintillatin' trapwork through much of the first set) and joe "drumzilla" cruz (who was a consistent percussive presence through three sets), there was bukowski-esque scribe and recent fort worth weekly coverboy william bryan massey III, who led the house trio into something raging and cacophonous that somehow morphed into a mutated "manic depression;" jam veteran wyatt, who courageously accepted the challenge of "la fiesta" and wasn't disgraced, even though he inexplicably apologized when i went up to thank him for sittin' in later; and a left-handed cat who tested the house kit during a break and elected to sit out (dude, come back next week; it's okay if you wanna move stuff around).
a real treat was the plethora of singers that showed up and performed -- a first in my experience outside black blues clubs, where the jams tend to focus more on hot-shot singers than on gtr-slingers. as jam-meister lee likes to point out, everything that happens on the jam-night stage is extemporaneous and completely off the top of the jammers' heads (and sometimes out of their asses). sure, there are some standard forms that get used as jumping off points for improvisation and invention: the aforementioned "manic depression" and "la fiesta," f'rinstance, or funkadelica in the form of p-funk "maggot brain" and "standing on the verge of getting it on" (the latter of which holds the record for consistent repeat plays in a night -- and that by request, not just 'cos we ran out of schitt to play), the chili peppers' "freaky styley," or the fonky meters' "cissy strut;" local heroes sally majestic's reggae-tinged "bobo likes to do it from behind;" even the heaviosity of system of a down's "aerials." all of the above are warped and twisted at will to meet the needs o' the moment. as often as not, when lee's singing, he's overlaying lyrics from one toon onto another, or the music is being moshed up by the jammers into a form other than that in which it originated. (you shoulda been there for the trip-hop "come together" last week.)
what's rarer is to have a vocalist onstage improvising lyrics in the moment while the jammers blow in the background. ex-pop poppins gtrist bill hitri has done it, altho he's been scarce on jam nights for a few months. last night, wreck room patrons had the pleasure of hearing _four_, count 'em, _four_ singers doin' the spontaneous-creation thang onstage (altho not at once). first up was a kid named daxx from a band whose name, of course, escapes me (i suck), who had impressive gtr chops as well as vocal and lyrical skills. (and daxx, if you're reading this, i'm _not_ pissed off about the string-breaking thang. the 15 minutes it took me to change it just gave lee and joe a chance to go off into bass 'n' drum-land. no worries, bro; all part of the fun of the jam.) pablo and the hemphill 7 frontman joe vano (who's writing the introduction to a new bryan massey book about the dog star, where vano first hosted open-mic poetry a few yrs back) couldn't sleep after watching his beloved astros blow the world series, so he came out to the wreck to extemporize reggae lyrics while lee provided dub-spacious accompaniment. kyle "monkey brainz" showed off a nice organic approach to sangin' and acoustic gtr playin', including a pretty groovy solo style. and john price, who was the unwitting victim of a last-set trainwreck last week, when lee and i failed at great length to agree on a key, allowed us to redeem ourselves last night before a crowd of ppl seemingly imported from the torch (not that there's anything wrong with that).
haven't heard the tape yet, but my preliminary impression is that energy-and-vibe-wise, if not always musically, this might have been the best jam night yet. the next oppo to crash 'n' burn or shine comes next wednesday night around 10pm. y'oughtta come out.
posted by stashdauber at 3:59 PM
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