art of the jam 44
a real mixed bag, this night, starting out with great enthusiasm and ending up as a pretty conclusive argument against j.w.i. (jammin' while intoxicated).
when we rolled into the wreck room for this week's wednesday night jam, friday happy hour chanteuse amy royer was bending ears with the tale of the day she'd just spent at the hard rock cafe in dallas, auditioning for some reality show ("this is my autograph pen! i was signing fuckin' _autographs_ after i played!!!").
bartender / ex-woodeye bassist / proud papa of a soon-to-be-one-year-old / connoisseur of da good schitt graham richardson was effusively praising the previous night's headliner, the hard lessons ("their drummer was a dwarf!!!"), a hard-rawkin' trio from the motor city who'd worked the room as if there were 300 ppl there, even tho there were only eight. graham also told a funny story about the guy from the same night's opening band who offered to do a _comedy act_ to fill time when one of the scheduled acts canceled.
after timely pause, jam-meister lee allen arrived, dead on his feet from doing demolition at fred's in preparation for this week's reopening (burgers 'n' beers on the patio only, thursday thru saturday, until the main building gets refurbished) and hunting locations for the summer session of the fort worth academy of music's rock camp (if you know of a space with four 10' X 20' practice rooms and an office for $4 a square foot or less, contact lee via fred's, the wreck, or his myspace thingy).
to my highly jaundiced ears, first set was the best. we improv'ed more than we had in awhile, with the jam-meister calling toons by key and mode ("let's stay in A, only make it minor this time, and _dorian_ -- that's the one with the F#"). sunward gtrist jerko dabelic had set up his matchless in the window of "wreck west" -- a lot of amp for a small room, and a striking contrast with darrin kobetich's mini-marshall from last week. as a result, "tomorrow never knows" was pretty much an orgy of f/x, with the rest of the jamcats inaudible. after claudia acosta added some spoken word to "maggot brain," the set ended with the jam-meister trying to conjure "a blues with no solos," which didn't eventuate -- seemed like cats weren't listening, to lee's direction or each other.
with his musical twin (kulcha far i, jasper stone) john shook taking over from lee on bass, ron geida essayed a j.b.'s-style riff that morphed into a stab at jeff beck's "you know what i mean." jerko started playing something by radiohead, i believe, and i walked into the other room to hang with my sweetie (last week of spring break for her school) and me-thinks frontguy ray liberio (who'd done his usual vocal turn on "war pigs" earlier). from graham's bar, i could hear fiddle man steven "vikingo" huber attempting to initiate his opus "dry hump burn" (the very first toon i ever played at the jam), but collin herring band drummer billy walters (who'd stepped in for joe "drumzilla" cruz) wasn't feelin' the 7/4 (in spite of the fact that billy's been overheard at his straight job singing oddball time signatures with his sectionmate jeremy hull) and eventually one of the gtrists took the toon down a more prosaic rock path that sounded like "all along the watchtower" or something. (next time maybe just say "it's in 7," steve?) by the time justin pate (ph7 / confusatron) got up to front the jamcats during the last set, the collective level of inebriation had risen to a point where further attempts at description would be futile. and that's all i have to say about that.
a wednesday night first: there were actually more civilians checkin' out the jam than the "real" bands in back. one thing i like about sxsw season: i'm not sure why, but i get to see more asian dudes and wimmin in bands than i do the rest of the yr (like the bassplyer from bailer, three nice cats from denver who came to check out the jam before playing their own set). when we walked back in the big room during coexist's set, the band (from huntington beach, cali) was closing with a toadies cover ("i come from the water") as though they knew whose town this was.
next week: back on the big stage, with an andre edmonson mix. yippee!!!
when we rolled into the wreck room for this week's wednesday night jam, friday happy hour chanteuse amy royer was bending ears with the tale of the day she'd just spent at the hard rock cafe in dallas, auditioning for some reality show ("this is my autograph pen! i was signing fuckin' _autographs_ after i played!!!").
bartender / ex-woodeye bassist / proud papa of a soon-to-be-one-year-old / connoisseur of da good schitt graham richardson was effusively praising the previous night's headliner, the hard lessons ("their drummer was a dwarf!!!"), a hard-rawkin' trio from the motor city who'd worked the room as if there were 300 ppl there, even tho there were only eight. graham also told a funny story about the guy from the same night's opening band who offered to do a _comedy act_ to fill time when one of the scheduled acts canceled.
after timely pause, jam-meister lee allen arrived, dead on his feet from doing demolition at fred's in preparation for this week's reopening (burgers 'n' beers on the patio only, thursday thru saturday, until the main building gets refurbished) and hunting locations for the summer session of the fort worth academy of music's rock camp (if you know of a space with four 10' X 20' practice rooms and an office for $4 a square foot or less, contact lee via fred's, the wreck, or his myspace thingy).
to my highly jaundiced ears, first set was the best. we improv'ed more than we had in awhile, with the jam-meister calling toons by key and mode ("let's stay in A, only make it minor this time, and _dorian_ -- that's the one with the F#"). sunward gtrist jerko dabelic had set up his matchless in the window of "wreck west" -- a lot of amp for a small room, and a striking contrast with darrin kobetich's mini-marshall from last week. as a result, "tomorrow never knows" was pretty much an orgy of f/x, with the rest of the jamcats inaudible. after claudia acosta added some spoken word to "maggot brain," the set ended with the jam-meister trying to conjure "a blues with no solos," which didn't eventuate -- seemed like cats weren't listening, to lee's direction or each other.
with his musical twin (kulcha far i, jasper stone) john shook taking over from lee on bass, ron geida essayed a j.b.'s-style riff that morphed into a stab at jeff beck's "you know what i mean." jerko started playing something by radiohead, i believe, and i walked into the other room to hang with my sweetie (last week of spring break for her school) and me-thinks frontguy ray liberio (who'd done his usual vocal turn on "war pigs" earlier). from graham's bar, i could hear fiddle man steven "vikingo" huber attempting to initiate his opus "dry hump burn" (the very first toon i ever played at the jam), but collin herring band drummer billy walters (who'd stepped in for joe "drumzilla" cruz) wasn't feelin' the 7/4 (in spite of the fact that billy's been overheard at his straight job singing oddball time signatures with his sectionmate jeremy hull) and eventually one of the gtrists took the toon down a more prosaic rock path that sounded like "all along the watchtower" or something. (next time maybe just say "it's in 7," steve?) by the time justin pate (ph7 / confusatron) got up to front the jamcats during the last set, the collective level of inebriation had risen to a point where further attempts at description would be futile. and that's all i have to say about that.
a wednesday night first: there were actually more civilians checkin' out the jam than the "real" bands in back. one thing i like about sxsw season: i'm not sure why, but i get to see more asian dudes and wimmin in bands than i do the rest of the yr (like the bassplyer from bailer, three nice cats from denver who came to check out the jam before playing their own set). when we walked back in the big room during coexist's set, the band (from huntington beach, cali) was closing with a toadies cover ("i come from the water") as though they knew whose town this was.
next week: back on the big stage, with an andre edmonson mix. yippee!!!
posted by stashdauber at 4:32 AM
1 Comments:
art of the jam #44? wow...
i can remember reading #14 or something close to that.
nice to see you've helped to keep it going.
jam on good sir.
Post a Comment
<< Home