art of the jam 41
"i hate to be the one to tell you," jam-meister lee allen told me last week, "but nobody else is gonna do it: you have _annoying buzz_."
i felt great shame. i knew it was true. sure, single-coil pickups are always noisy, but the indo strat had developed some kinda short that was making the stage at the wreck room's wednesday night invitational jam sound like a nest of hornets. something had to be done.
so i carried my ailing axe over to sessions music, where player/owner/teacher john zaskoda promised to fix el short and set up my action (remember, brotha, not too low and _don't_ put those extra two springs in the back -- i like my action high 'n' elastic), and even let me borrow a gtr so i could make my reg'lar wednesday gig. i chose a semi-hollow washburn with a nice action and a pickup switching setup that wasn't as cornfusing as the one on z-man's jazzmaster that he originally offered me. it'd been yrs since i played a gtr w/humbuckers on it and i was wondering if my feedback-scorched ears could even hear some of those freqs, but it turned out to be a real nice piece o' wood -- even the jam-meister approved. (should have my varsity axe back by this weekend, tho.)
mid-day on wednesday, i got word from lee that we'd be on the li'l stage over at "wreck west." seems the crossover on the big p.a. failed in the middle of jon hill's birthday party during the fwac acoustic monday thingy, and wizard o' sound andre edmonson was gonna be busy making some emergency repairs (altho he still took time to get us set up and sounding as good as we were gonna sound on the small stage, bless him). we wound up starting late, as i had to go to the airport to pick up my sweetie (returning from seattle, where they had the memorial mass for her mom the day before) before collecting gtr ace ron geida (whose fretwork on kulcha far i's as-yet-unreleased we are one shiny silver disc i've been diggin' much of late), and the jam-meister was busy at fonky fred's, where they were celebrating texas independence day with eleven hundred springs a day early due to predictions of inclement weather (altho jeez, you could make money betting against the weatherman here in tejas).
when ron and i rolled into wreck west, we were greeted by joe "drumzilla" cruz, who'd already been there long enough to set up the house kit, and a coupla dudes (robo and jinx) who were wanting to know if they could jam. i gave 'em my stock answer, which is 1) it's an "invitational" jam, and 2) i ain't the jam-meister. in the event, we wound up having enough jamcats on hand that we weren't able to get 'em up, but hopefully they'll make it back another time. steve "vikingo" huber was in the house, taking a break from a knuckle-busting repertoire that maestro harth-bedoya is inflicting on the cats in vikingo's _reg'lar_ band (that'd be the fw symphony) to make his fiddle sing sassy and vocalize on a coupla toons (by, um, cake and tom petty) that he'd rehearsed with ron and mr. geida's musical twin, low end theorist john shook (sporting a new look, having divested himself of his dreads since last jam, p'rhaps 'cos he doesn't wanna be typecast as a "reggae bassplayer," thankfully retaining his powers on the four-stringed instrument in spite of having lost his locks).
after timely pause, lee showed up and we opened with "a happy song" [NOT] -- failure's "daylight." besides that, 'twas a bluesy first set, highlighted by I-IV-V's both fast ("ice cream man") and slow ("sexual harassment in the workplace"). the jam-meister dug deep in his songbag and pulled out a coupla jam staples we hadn't played in awhile -- "la fiesta" and "manic depression." cody, a gtrist who'd played acoustic on a few jams back in the summer, showed up with his paul reed smith and some beads to help us celebrate "mercredi gras," and burning hotels drummer wyatt adams (who has a lot of r&b grit in his style for a trendy young cat) did his usual yeoman stickwork on a few numbers.
lee sang on the slowest version of thomas dolby's "hyperactive" ever performed, and a quartet of cody, shook, drumzilla and me played a version of funkadelic's "cosmic slop" that was more of the latter than the former, although it did boast a nice bass solo from shook and gave drumzilla a chance to frenzy out a bit. playwright rob vasquez showed up along with some jubilant teatro de la rosa peeps, obviously stoked at the imminent opening of claudia acosta's recuerdos de mi mama, which opens this friday and runs through march 19th. rob provided some vocalismo on "maggot brain," my part of which was dedicated (once again) to my sweetie's mama and also to jeremy hull's dad. as my sweetie's nephew would say, fun and love to y'all.
last set was the loosest and funnest, at least from a muso's point of view, with lee busting out some rush "spirit of the radio" action, somehow managing to interpolate our latinate take on jimi's "third stone from the sun" in the middle of it. ray liberio took a break from prepping for the me-thinks' first gig in a year (that'd be this saturday at the wreck with darth vato) to sing "war pigs" with the jamcats and spread the spirit of haltom city brotherhood. then there was some no-fooling amorphous fonky improv action, followed by a drum 'n' bass interlude by drumzilla and the jam-meister, culminating in a version of "teen town" with lee and shook doubling jaco's line on bass and gtr. yeah, john shook was definitely the jam's "most valuable player" this week.
this saturday, as gawd is my witness, andre and i are gonna get together with lee and upload some mp3's up on the impulse of will myspace thingy. we were gonna do it a coupla wks ago, but that was the weekend i had the crud and slept for 36 hours. we still have something like four months' worth of jam video to review, but that task is gonna have to wait a bit. in any event, there'll be no new recordings through mid-march, as we'll be comfortably ensonced in wreck west with elvis behind the bar as the big room plays host to a buncha sxsw peeps. you oughtta check it out.
i felt great shame. i knew it was true. sure, single-coil pickups are always noisy, but the indo strat had developed some kinda short that was making the stage at the wreck room's wednesday night invitational jam sound like a nest of hornets. something had to be done.
so i carried my ailing axe over to sessions music, where player/owner/teacher john zaskoda promised to fix el short and set up my action (remember, brotha, not too low and _don't_ put those extra two springs in the back -- i like my action high 'n' elastic), and even let me borrow a gtr so i could make my reg'lar wednesday gig. i chose a semi-hollow washburn with a nice action and a pickup switching setup that wasn't as cornfusing as the one on z-man's jazzmaster that he originally offered me. it'd been yrs since i played a gtr w/humbuckers on it and i was wondering if my feedback-scorched ears could even hear some of those freqs, but it turned out to be a real nice piece o' wood -- even the jam-meister approved. (should have my varsity axe back by this weekend, tho.)
mid-day on wednesday, i got word from lee that we'd be on the li'l stage over at "wreck west." seems the crossover on the big p.a. failed in the middle of jon hill's birthday party during the fwac acoustic monday thingy, and wizard o' sound andre edmonson was gonna be busy making some emergency repairs (altho he still took time to get us set up and sounding as good as we were gonna sound on the small stage, bless him). we wound up starting late, as i had to go to the airport to pick up my sweetie (returning from seattle, where they had the memorial mass for her mom the day before) before collecting gtr ace ron geida (whose fretwork on kulcha far i's as-yet-unreleased we are one shiny silver disc i've been diggin' much of late), and the jam-meister was busy at fonky fred's, where they were celebrating texas independence day with eleven hundred springs a day early due to predictions of inclement weather (altho jeez, you could make money betting against the weatherman here in tejas).
when ron and i rolled into wreck west, we were greeted by joe "drumzilla" cruz, who'd already been there long enough to set up the house kit, and a coupla dudes (robo and jinx) who were wanting to know if they could jam. i gave 'em my stock answer, which is 1) it's an "invitational" jam, and 2) i ain't the jam-meister. in the event, we wound up having enough jamcats on hand that we weren't able to get 'em up, but hopefully they'll make it back another time. steve "vikingo" huber was in the house, taking a break from a knuckle-busting repertoire that maestro harth-bedoya is inflicting on the cats in vikingo's _reg'lar_ band (that'd be the fw symphony) to make his fiddle sing sassy and vocalize on a coupla toons (by, um, cake and tom petty) that he'd rehearsed with ron and mr. geida's musical twin, low end theorist john shook (sporting a new look, having divested himself of his dreads since last jam, p'rhaps 'cos he doesn't wanna be typecast as a "reggae bassplayer," thankfully retaining his powers on the four-stringed instrument in spite of having lost his locks).
after timely pause, lee showed up and we opened with "a happy song" [NOT] -- failure's "daylight." besides that, 'twas a bluesy first set, highlighted by I-IV-V's both fast ("ice cream man") and slow ("sexual harassment in the workplace"). the jam-meister dug deep in his songbag and pulled out a coupla jam staples we hadn't played in awhile -- "la fiesta" and "manic depression." cody, a gtrist who'd played acoustic on a few jams back in the summer, showed up with his paul reed smith and some beads to help us celebrate "mercredi gras," and burning hotels drummer wyatt adams (who has a lot of r&b grit in his style for a trendy young cat) did his usual yeoman stickwork on a few numbers.
lee sang on the slowest version of thomas dolby's "hyperactive" ever performed, and a quartet of cody, shook, drumzilla and me played a version of funkadelic's "cosmic slop" that was more of the latter than the former, although it did boast a nice bass solo from shook and gave drumzilla a chance to frenzy out a bit. playwright rob vasquez showed up along with some jubilant teatro de la rosa peeps, obviously stoked at the imminent opening of claudia acosta's recuerdos de mi mama, which opens this friday and runs through march 19th. rob provided some vocalismo on "maggot brain," my part of which was dedicated (once again) to my sweetie's mama and also to jeremy hull's dad. as my sweetie's nephew would say, fun and love to y'all.
last set was the loosest and funnest, at least from a muso's point of view, with lee busting out some rush "spirit of the radio" action, somehow managing to interpolate our latinate take on jimi's "third stone from the sun" in the middle of it. ray liberio took a break from prepping for the me-thinks' first gig in a year (that'd be this saturday at the wreck with darth vato) to sing "war pigs" with the jamcats and spread the spirit of haltom city brotherhood. then there was some no-fooling amorphous fonky improv action, followed by a drum 'n' bass interlude by drumzilla and the jam-meister, culminating in a version of "teen town" with lee and shook doubling jaco's line on bass and gtr. yeah, john shook was definitely the jam's "most valuable player" this week.
this saturday, as gawd is my witness, andre and i are gonna get together with lee and upload some mp3's up on the impulse of will myspace thingy. we were gonna do it a coupla wks ago, but that was the weekend i had the crud and slept for 36 hours. we still have something like four months' worth of jam video to review, but that task is gonna have to wait a bit. in any event, there'll be no new recordings through mid-march, as we'll be comfortably ensonced in wreck west with elvis behind the bar as the big room plays host to a buncha sxsw peeps. you oughtta check it out.
posted by stashdauber at 10:31 AM
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