art of the jam 45

"hard to believe we've been holding down this gig for _45 weeks_!" said jam-meister lee allen wednesday night, "which puts the one-year anniversary around the third week in may." actually, i looked back in the musty, dusty stashdauber archives and found that the first time i showed up to chronicle events (before i commenced actually _playing_ on the gig) was april 27th last year, and i think he ran a coupla sessions before that, but who the funk am i to argue with the jam-meister? ideas are being booted around regarding how best to commemorate this momentous event; you gots any, hit lee up at fonky fred's (patio now open for biz thursday thru sat'day), the wreck room, or on his impulse of will myspace thingy.

this particular week was made memorable by the presence of rob from velvet jive, a groovy dallas cover band that plays material by zappa and the chili peppers, among others (they actually play "mother people!") and opened up for impulse of will the time we had to fill a sat'day date (with dave karnes on drums, no less) after somebody else cancelled out. in a previous life, rob played dueling basses with lee in a band called the kind buds that specialized in 311 and chili peppers covers (do you detect a pattern here?) when they were both students at west texas a&m university a few yrs back. these days, rob plays contrabass in "a buncha _little_ orchestras" like the las colinas and arlington symphonies. his presence gave me a chance to play "magic fingers" from 200 motels, which i'd drooled with envy watching velvet jive perform a few months ago. (now if i can just get lee the lyrics...) for me, the musical high point of the night was listening to lee pull percussive harmonics out of ron geida's les paul while jamming a fishbone toon with rob and joe "drumzilla" cruz. (later on, the jam-meister took up my long-suffering indo strat to do gtr honors on "stone cold bush.")

it was really drumzilla's night, and not just because he was the only drummer in the house and _couldn't_ sit down even if he wanted to. in addition to lighting some fireworks behind rob 'n' lee, he also got to back the addnerim boyzzz through their now-traditional mini-rush set and an eric johnson cover that had the jamcats collectively shaking their heads in amazement (that young cat tyrell was _breakin' thangs_ on gtr). it's no wonder the jam-meister has called joe "the neal peart of fort worth." steve "vikingo" huber got to flash his classical chops on "eine kleine nachtmusik." (mozart! at the wreck room! why the hell not?!?!?)

there were a coupla ex-brokers in the house -- bassist mark mcpherson, who sat in on an extra-super-ultra-loose soundcheck attempt at jeff beck's "you know what i mean," and trombonist marcus brunt, who moved the big column of air with sufficient force to be the loudest instrument onstage, _unamplified_. one can only hope that his contribution made it onto the recording that wizard o' sound andre edmonson was making on his new mini-digital audio recorder. (dre and the jam-meister are figuring out how to video the jams direct to dvd, too. can a _multi-media jam experience_ be far off? film, as they say, at 11.)

i'm taking next week off from jammin' to do a special thang with my sweetie, but i'll fill this space with some general jam ruminations, and if someone feels inclined to post a blog or bulletin on myspace to cover next week's jam events, that would be groovy too. it's about _continuity_, see?