art of the jam 57
to paraphrase harper lee of to kill a mockingbird fame: summer came, and summer meant kobe.
that's right, you heard right: darrin kobetich has returned to the invitational jam wednesday nights at the li'l wreck room.
thangs have been kicking off later the last few weeks, since jam-meister lee allen's been acting manager at fonky fred's in his compadre quincy's absence (visiting noo yawk city). he's brought back tales of stellar times as "josh clark and fort worth's finest" throw down on the patio stage wednesdays from 7 to 10pm. haven't been out there yet myself, but that's a temporary condition. in fact, i may join josh's mob onstage next week, since it's my berfday and i figure what better way to spend the anniversary of my arrival on the planet (within rock-throwing distance of a half century ago) than with a gtr in my hands for seven hours (other four: the wreck jam and then another installment of "stooges at midnight" in preparation for stoogeaphilia's next black dog stand the following night).
my fellow stoogeaphile matt hembree -- aka katboy, aka muffy, better known as four-string scientist with goodwin, the underground railroad, and pablo and the hemphill 7 (who be's at 8.0s for the fweakly music awards thingy this sunday) -- was onhand to kick things off, but for want of a drummer, we woodshedded some toonage but didn't really light any sparks (were i a charging rhinoceros o' the gtr like da kobe, such might not have been the case), and after timely pause, we retired to the bar.
awhile later, lee showed up with his bass 'n' li'l amp, with word that da kobe and joe "drumzilla" cruz were on their way over from fred's. drumzilla wasn't in a playing mood, tho, and i began to regret not having called brandon wallace prior to rolling out of mi casa. "confusajohn" stevens, who can kick the traps as well as light up the strings, was in the house with his sweetie, but they were on the way out when i approached him. josh clark his own self fell by for a beer but told me he'd shot his load at fred's earlier and was prolly heading home soon. then, by lucky happenstance, i looked out the window and saw jeffrey williams hanging up fliers for jasper stone's friday night appearance at el wreck (opening for the estimable eleven hundred springs). jeffrey's a great, if reluctant drummer, and while he initially agreed to "help out for a coupla songs," whatever enthusiasm he held for the prospect seemingly evaporated when he walked in and saw that the shakey-but-faithful house kit wasn't set up yet.
as luck would have it, he wound up at a table where darrin was chillin' out pre-jam. da kobe was insistent: "you're playin', _right_?" he said. it was more an answer than a question. next thing i knew, old jed was a millionaire and darrin was helping jeffrey set up the kit. leave it to a pushy-ass expatriate lawn guylander not to take no.
the starting lineup was the jam-meister, da kobe, matt, jeffrey, marcus brunt on trombone, and me. the sounds emanating from the stage during the opening improv were downright menacing, and L-O-U-D. at times it was hard to tell who was playing what, but somehow it all coalesced nicely. big d was def the dominant onstage presence, with his seemingly endless supply of riffs 'n' ideas, and his forceful solo attack, following the introductory onslaught with a riff from "bag drag" by '70s hard rawkers cactus. these days, he's added to his elecric bag o' tricks, playing a lotta slide on a standard-tuned gtr and sounding damned fine. the jam-meister seemed to get a kick out of not having to call _all_ the toons 'n' changes. he declared it a "no song night," and with josh clark on drums, the jamcats extemporized a bit of hardcore thrasharama on three chords called by an audience member at lee's prompting (that'd be C, F#, and B). hembree hit on a spanish-sounding groove, and there was a lee-initiated improv that built off a lydian mode in G ("that's like an F major scale, but it starts in G," he said helpfully).
at some point, barber mack honcho john shook took over from hembree on "first bass" and spun off inventive lines that had the jam-meister yelling out "bob weir! jerry garcia!" (shook's providing the music for the play goose dance that runs this weekend and next at the rose marine theater; teatro de la rosa leading lights claudia acosta and rob bosquez were in da house, altho regrettably neither of them got to flow verse over the jams this time around.) there were threads of country shuffle, reggae one-drop, 'n' slow blues; most valuable player o' the night jeffrey williams navigated the manifold styles seamlessly, imbuing all of them with seemingly effortless groove. here's a cat who knows intuitively where the pocket is -- lives there, in fact.
it seemed like just a brief flicker of time when wreck room wizard o' sound andre edmonson announced, "you've got ten minutes left." wtf -- two 'n' a half hours flew by like they was nuthin'. there was a fair-sized crowd in the house, too -- several of whom i spoke to said they'd been there several months before (altho i had little recollection of any of 'em, which is more indicative of my general state of mind than any personal qualities of theirs; thanks in particular to the cat who bought me the crown shot -- hope you find a singer for yr band, man). i'd been debating whether to ask the jam-meister if he wanted to pull the plug on the project, what with josh's jam at fred's, the moon's jazz night moving from tuesday to wednesday 'n' like dat. don't think i'm gonna do that, tho. i wouldn't wanna miss out on a summer of jammin' wit' musos of the caliber of da kobe, hembree, shook, jeffrey, marcus 'n' lee. greedy bahstid, me.
that's right, you heard right: darrin kobetich has returned to the invitational jam wednesday nights at the li'l wreck room.
thangs have been kicking off later the last few weeks, since jam-meister lee allen's been acting manager at fonky fred's in his compadre quincy's absence (visiting noo yawk city). he's brought back tales of stellar times as "josh clark and fort worth's finest" throw down on the patio stage wednesdays from 7 to 10pm. haven't been out there yet myself, but that's a temporary condition. in fact, i may join josh's mob onstage next week, since it's my berfday and i figure what better way to spend the anniversary of my arrival on the planet (within rock-throwing distance of a half century ago) than with a gtr in my hands for seven hours (other four: the wreck jam and then another installment of "stooges at midnight" in preparation for stoogeaphilia's next black dog stand the following night).
my fellow stoogeaphile matt hembree -- aka katboy, aka muffy, better known as four-string scientist with goodwin, the underground railroad, and pablo and the hemphill 7 (who be's at 8.0s for the fweakly music awards thingy this sunday) -- was onhand to kick things off, but for want of a drummer, we woodshedded some toonage but didn't really light any sparks (were i a charging rhinoceros o' the gtr like da kobe, such might not have been the case), and after timely pause, we retired to the bar.
awhile later, lee showed up with his bass 'n' li'l amp, with word that da kobe and joe "drumzilla" cruz were on their way over from fred's. drumzilla wasn't in a playing mood, tho, and i began to regret not having called brandon wallace prior to rolling out of mi casa. "confusajohn" stevens, who can kick the traps as well as light up the strings, was in the house with his sweetie, but they were on the way out when i approached him. josh clark his own self fell by for a beer but told me he'd shot his load at fred's earlier and was prolly heading home soon. then, by lucky happenstance, i looked out the window and saw jeffrey williams hanging up fliers for jasper stone's friday night appearance at el wreck (opening for the estimable eleven hundred springs). jeffrey's a great, if reluctant drummer, and while he initially agreed to "help out for a coupla songs," whatever enthusiasm he held for the prospect seemingly evaporated when he walked in and saw that the shakey-but-faithful house kit wasn't set up yet.
as luck would have it, he wound up at a table where darrin was chillin' out pre-jam. da kobe was insistent: "you're playin', _right_?" he said. it was more an answer than a question. next thing i knew, old jed was a millionaire and darrin was helping jeffrey set up the kit. leave it to a pushy-ass expatriate lawn guylander not to take no.
the starting lineup was the jam-meister, da kobe, matt, jeffrey, marcus brunt on trombone, and me. the sounds emanating from the stage during the opening improv were downright menacing, and L-O-U-D. at times it was hard to tell who was playing what, but somehow it all coalesced nicely. big d was def the dominant onstage presence, with his seemingly endless supply of riffs 'n' ideas, and his forceful solo attack, following the introductory onslaught with a riff from "bag drag" by '70s hard rawkers cactus. these days, he's added to his elecric bag o' tricks, playing a lotta slide on a standard-tuned gtr and sounding damned fine. the jam-meister seemed to get a kick out of not having to call _all_ the toons 'n' changes. he declared it a "no song night," and with josh clark on drums, the jamcats extemporized a bit of hardcore thrasharama on three chords called by an audience member at lee's prompting (that'd be C, F#, and B). hembree hit on a spanish-sounding groove, and there was a lee-initiated improv that built off a lydian mode in G ("that's like an F major scale, but it starts in G," he said helpfully).
at some point, barber mack honcho john shook took over from hembree on "first bass" and spun off inventive lines that had the jam-meister yelling out "bob weir! jerry garcia!" (shook's providing the music for the play goose dance that runs this weekend and next at the rose marine theater; teatro de la rosa leading lights claudia acosta and rob bosquez were in da house, altho regrettably neither of them got to flow verse over the jams this time around.) there were threads of country shuffle, reggae one-drop, 'n' slow blues; most valuable player o' the night jeffrey williams navigated the manifold styles seamlessly, imbuing all of them with seemingly effortless groove. here's a cat who knows intuitively where the pocket is -- lives there, in fact.
it seemed like just a brief flicker of time when wreck room wizard o' sound andre edmonson announced, "you've got ten minutes left." wtf -- two 'n' a half hours flew by like they was nuthin'. there was a fair-sized crowd in the house, too -- several of whom i spoke to said they'd been there several months before (altho i had little recollection of any of 'em, which is more indicative of my general state of mind than any personal qualities of theirs; thanks in particular to the cat who bought me the crown shot -- hope you find a singer for yr band, man). i'd been debating whether to ask the jam-meister if he wanted to pull the plug on the project, what with josh's jam at fred's, the moon's jazz night moving from tuesday to wednesday 'n' like dat. don't think i'm gonna do that, tho. i wouldn't wanna miss out on a summer of jammin' wit' musos of the caliber of da kobe, hembree, shook, jeffrey, marcus 'n' lee. greedy bahstid, me.
posted by stashdauber at 4:08 PM
1 Comments:
Point: DORIAN we Played. Lydian mode is like Major Mode with a raised 4th. If Darrin is a charging rhinoceros, Ken is a Stampeding Mastodon. Shimamoto, you are THE man. See you Wednesday.
LA
Post a Comment
<< Home