art of the jam 25
what we have here, ladies 'n' gents, is a case of "from the sublime to the ridiculous." there'd been a funny vibe in the air since the previous weekend, and it came to full fruition wednesday night at the wreck room, during lee and carl's invitational jam.
last week's jam had been such a gas all around that it seemed like a foregone conclusion that this week's would continue in the same vein, especially with some of the musos who said they were coming out. drummer damien stewart's been a frequent participant since the jam's inception, and his goodwin riddim sectionmate matt hembree's been showing up when he can for the last month or so. but this week, there were rumblings goodwin's evil dictator daniel gomez was gonna show up, even tho gomez adamantly maintains that he 1) doesn't jam and 2) can't play anybody else's music -- uh, nevermind the cure and wings covers goodwin routinely plays. (says hembree: "he _plays_ them, but he didn't _learn_ them -- there's a difference!") to make things even more interesting, jam-meister lee allen's partner in the fort worth academy of music, drummer dave karnes, said he planned to make an appearance. since karnes usedta play with gomez and hembree in muffinhead too many yrs ago, the occasion seemed ripe for a reunion. besides that, a coupla me-thinks and most of kulcha far i were promising to stop by. and hearing all of this, jesse sierra hernandez (who's playing with sleeplab as well as showing some pieces at experience the art of music in december) decided to set up his congas.
in the event, damien was a no-show and karnes was a late starter, so the evening started off with joe "drumzilla" cruz on the house kit. after a few tentative stabs at funk by the two-bass quartet of allen, hembree, cruz, and me, the regulars (part of whose weekly task is to scan the audience for musos they can pull up onstage) noted the presence of gomez and karnes at a table and proceeded to armtwist them into taking over the gtr and drums. this is where things got, um, interesting. at the same time the ex-muffinheads were coming up, jam veteran kyle aka monkey brainz and a friend of his whose name i regrettably missed started loading their gear -- kyle's acoustic gtr and f/x and his friend's frankenstein's monster of a keyboard -- onto the stage. now, the thing to remember here is that this is an "invitational" jam, altho the keyboard cat told wreck room wizard o' sound andre edmonson after the fact that he'd thought it was an open mic. (then again, you usually have to sign up at those things, too. but i digress.) anyway, while gomez and hembree were struggling to remember toons they hadn't played together in over a decade, the keyboard cat was apparently playing some stuff into his instrument's sampling function. since he hadn't really told anybody what he was up to, though, it just sounded like obtrusive noodling. when the muffinheads unassed the stage after aborted run-throughs of three or four toons (sounding like caffeinated teenagers on a red hot chili peppers kick -- they've all matured a lot since those days), kyle's bud took over the drums while his sampled keyboard part played and kyle toook the mic and began declaiming. well, for a minute, anyway.
"whatthefuck is going on here?" jam-meister lee wanted to know, and since no one could tell him and the proceedings looked to be deteriorating to gong show levels, he took somewhat heavy-handed but prolly necessary steps to get things somewhat under control again. specifically, he unplugged the dude's keyboard from his direct box, took the mic back from kyle, and declared, "GONGGG!!!" it was the first time i'd ever seen anybody bumrushed at the jam (altho lee _did_ give me the look of death the time i almost let a garrruuunnnk cowboy take my gtr), and it def left a bad taste in the keyboard dude's mouth, at least, along with an air of tension that never really dissipated.
when lee, dave, and i got back up, it was to play an _angry_ set. lee turned up and kicked on his f/x, so i turned up in self-defense. some cats mistake velocity for excitement and play everything with one dynamic level: too high. lee's not one of 'em, but when he kicked off "standing on the verge of getting it on," every note he played dripped vitriol and bile. we ripped through a few toons in like manner: "come together," "aerials," "cissy strut," maybe something else i've forgotten. midway through a land-speed-record trio "chameleon," matt hembree stepped up and fired up his bass again, he told me later, "because lee looked like he needed to blow off some steam and i figured it'd be easier for him if i was there." bless you, matt. several times during this tumult, i'd look back over my shoulder and see dave karnes digging in and it felt like when we were playing together with nathan brown a coupla yrs back, only a lot more aggressive and energetic. in a perverse way, i dug it. somewhere in there, wyatt (whose band plays their first gig at the wreck on november 19th, the night after woodeye's last show) played some drums, too. by the time lee guided us through black sabbath's "hand of doom" (which i need to woodshed, i guess) with karnes attempting unsuccessfully to hand off the drumsticks to joe cruz, it looked like lee had managed to quiet his demons.
then we took a break. gomez and karnes departed, taking the remaining positive energy with them, and new daddy marlin von bungy favored me with a burned cd-r of neil diamond's hot august night. (jayzus, i make a tongue-in-cheek blog post and all of these neil diamond freaks come out of the closet. weird.) the second set was dominated by some extemporaneous rapping by wreck room impresario brian forella, over some discofied wonderment like "good times" and i forget what from the house trio. whatthehell, it's his place, he can do what he wants. on the positive side, dre edmonson joined in on jesse's congas. by the end of the second set, i was starting to feel the way i usedta playing at tucker's catfish haven in north richland hills with the worst band on earth -- hoping against hope that the set would end already or i would die, whichever. when we finished, the house was pert near empty except for kulchafarians ron geida, john shook, and jeffrey williams (who'd been rehearsing with jasper stone for a sat'day night wreck room gig) and mad scientist caroline collier (on a rare break from the cellar). it seemed like an optimal oppo to pull some more jammers up onstage, but by that time, joe cruz had already broken down the house kit and was absconding with his cymbals, so it'd have to wait for another day.
jam-meister lee is fond of saying, "it's not an open jam -- it's a reality show!" myself, i figure it's the dogshit in life that makes you appreciate the diamonds. that said, i'm recommending to andre that he save the muffinhead portion of the night's tape and burn the rest. some things are best consigned to the dustbin of history.
only explanation i can think of: must be the season of the witch.
last week's jam had been such a gas all around that it seemed like a foregone conclusion that this week's would continue in the same vein, especially with some of the musos who said they were coming out. drummer damien stewart's been a frequent participant since the jam's inception, and his goodwin riddim sectionmate matt hembree's been showing up when he can for the last month or so. but this week, there were rumblings goodwin's evil dictator daniel gomez was gonna show up, even tho gomez adamantly maintains that he 1) doesn't jam and 2) can't play anybody else's music -- uh, nevermind the cure and wings covers goodwin routinely plays. (says hembree: "he _plays_ them, but he didn't _learn_ them -- there's a difference!") to make things even more interesting, jam-meister lee allen's partner in the fort worth academy of music, drummer dave karnes, said he planned to make an appearance. since karnes usedta play with gomez and hembree in muffinhead too many yrs ago, the occasion seemed ripe for a reunion. besides that, a coupla me-thinks and most of kulcha far i were promising to stop by. and hearing all of this, jesse sierra hernandez (who's playing with sleeplab as well as showing some pieces at experience the art of music in december) decided to set up his congas.
in the event, damien was a no-show and karnes was a late starter, so the evening started off with joe "drumzilla" cruz on the house kit. after a few tentative stabs at funk by the two-bass quartet of allen, hembree, cruz, and me, the regulars (part of whose weekly task is to scan the audience for musos they can pull up onstage) noted the presence of gomez and karnes at a table and proceeded to armtwist them into taking over the gtr and drums. this is where things got, um, interesting. at the same time the ex-muffinheads were coming up, jam veteran kyle aka monkey brainz and a friend of his whose name i regrettably missed started loading their gear -- kyle's acoustic gtr and f/x and his friend's frankenstein's monster of a keyboard -- onto the stage. now, the thing to remember here is that this is an "invitational" jam, altho the keyboard cat told wreck room wizard o' sound andre edmonson after the fact that he'd thought it was an open mic. (then again, you usually have to sign up at those things, too. but i digress.) anyway, while gomez and hembree were struggling to remember toons they hadn't played together in over a decade, the keyboard cat was apparently playing some stuff into his instrument's sampling function. since he hadn't really told anybody what he was up to, though, it just sounded like obtrusive noodling. when the muffinheads unassed the stage after aborted run-throughs of three or four toons (sounding like caffeinated teenagers on a red hot chili peppers kick -- they've all matured a lot since those days), kyle's bud took over the drums while his sampled keyboard part played and kyle toook the mic and began declaiming. well, for a minute, anyway.
"whatthefuck is going on here?" jam-meister lee wanted to know, and since no one could tell him and the proceedings looked to be deteriorating to gong show levels, he took somewhat heavy-handed but prolly necessary steps to get things somewhat under control again. specifically, he unplugged the dude's keyboard from his direct box, took the mic back from kyle, and declared, "GONGGG!!!" it was the first time i'd ever seen anybody bumrushed at the jam (altho lee _did_ give me the look of death the time i almost let a garrruuunnnk cowboy take my gtr), and it def left a bad taste in the keyboard dude's mouth, at least, along with an air of tension that never really dissipated.
when lee, dave, and i got back up, it was to play an _angry_ set. lee turned up and kicked on his f/x, so i turned up in self-defense. some cats mistake velocity for excitement and play everything with one dynamic level: too high. lee's not one of 'em, but when he kicked off "standing on the verge of getting it on," every note he played dripped vitriol and bile. we ripped through a few toons in like manner: "come together," "aerials," "cissy strut," maybe something else i've forgotten. midway through a land-speed-record trio "chameleon," matt hembree stepped up and fired up his bass again, he told me later, "because lee looked like he needed to blow off some steam and i figured it'd be easier for him if i was there." bless you, matt. several times during this tumult, i'd look back over my shoulder and see dave karnes digging in and it felt like when we were playing together with nathan brown a coupla yrs back, only a lot more aggressive and energetic. in a perverse way, i dug it. somewhere in there, wyatt (whose band plays their first gig at the wreck on november 19th, the night after woodeye's last show) played some drums, too. by the time lee guided us through black sabbath's "hand of doom" (which i need to woodshed, i guess) with karnes attempting unsuccessfully to hand off the drumsticks to joe cruz, it looked like lee had managed to quiet his demons.
then we took a break. gomez and karnes departed, taking the remaining positive energy with them, and new daddy marlin von bungy favored me with a burned cd-r of neil diamond's hot august night. (jayzus, i make a tongue-in-cheek blog post and all of these neil diamond freaks come out of the closet. weird.) the second set was dominated by some extemporaneous rapping by wreck room impresario brian forella, over some discofied wonderment like "good times" and i forget what from the house trio. whatthehell, it's his place, he can do what he wants. on the positive side, dre edmonson joined in on jesse's congas. by the end of the second set, i was starting to feel the way i usedta playing at tucker's catfish haven in north richland hills with the worst band on earth -- hoping against hope that the set would end already or i would die, whichever. when we finished, the house was pert near empty except for kulchafarians ron geida, john shook, and jeffrey williams (who'd been rehearsing with jasper stone for a sat'day night wreck room gig) and mad scientist caroline collier (on a rare break from the cellar). it seemed like an optimal oppo to pull some more jammers up onstage, but by that time, joe cruz had already broken down the house kit and was absconding with his cymbals, so it'd have to wait for another day.
jam-meister lee is fond of saying, "it's not an open jam -- it's a reality show!" myself, i figure it's the dogshit in life that makes you appreciate the diamonds. that said, i'm recommending to andre that he save the muffinhead portion of the night's tape and burn the rest. some things are best consigned to the dustbin of history.
only explanation i can think of: must be the season of the witch.
posted by stashdauber at 4:34 PM
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