art of the jam, um, 65

it had been a real long time (september? i thought it was july. crikey!), but the combo platter of listening to the old cats that used to play at the cellar (legendary fort worth beatnik dive that lasted from 1958 to 1972 where jfk's security detail dallied, the waitresses wore bras and panties, and the music never stopped, even when an obstreperous patron was getting thrown down the stairs) talk story for the teen a go go doc, and the news that the evening's jam would be a "healing party" for a coupla muso buds who just had all their gear (and in the case of one of them, the entire contents of his music store) stolen made it mandatory that last night would mark my return to the li'l wreck room's wednesday night invitational jam. and so it did.

it seems there's been a scarcity of gtrists at the li'l jam of late -- incredible in a town like fort worth where seemingly every other person you meet plays the damn thing. but that's what jam-meister lee allen reports: a lot of times in recent weeks, it's been a three-way bass symposium between hisself, barber mack / jasper stone low-end theorist john "johnny peckerwood" shook, and ruben from denton-based jazzy hip-hoppers liquid bounce with not a six-stringer in sight. not a problem on this particular night, howevah. besides myself, git-fiddlers in attendance included my pal ron "the velvet hammer" geida, confusajohn stevens, jerko dabelic from sunward, andrew skates and sessions music bossman john zaskoda (if i forgot to mention it, 'twas shook and z-man who lost their respective rigs.) only two gtr amps onstage, tho, since confusajohn's ampeg was having tube issues. also onstage: a _fourth_ bassplayer, chuck brown; sunward frontguy doug kershaw, running his fiddle through ron's pedalboard; and ubiquitous drum cat josh clark, the one man who can't leave the stage (except for intervals when lucas white wasn't playing with james norris' keybs 'n' synths). in the house but not jammin': matts hembree and skates, jonathan irwin, joe vano, caroline collier, william bryan massey III. missing in action: evan jones.

my sweetie had to cut out early, so right out of the box, lee-boy called "maggot brain" and claudia acosta got up to flow verse. (i dedicated the piece to fast eddie. a weird year, thisun, full of grief 'n' loss for ppl we know.) then "manic depression" and "cosmic slop" (jeez, wonder if lee missed playing our "standards"?). doug kershaw (not the ragin' cajun, altho they share a name and axe) got up to weave chromatic wonderment with his gypsy fiddle (why do these string players all wanna make their shit sound like gtrs?!?!? if i had an instrument that sounded like that, i wouldn't put _anything_ on it!). lee and josh made damn near everything fonky, this particular night. then the velvet hammer 'n' i sat down and it was time for jerko and confusajohn to go head to head (imagine johnny greenwood and srv trading solos over a deep, deep groove and you have some idea of what the goings-on were like; for my money, the best "set" of the evening). then things got bloozier as zasko and stevens reprised their respective roles from their merchants daze. with andrew skates and geida up, it was time for josh to fire up the one-drop for a li'l barber mack mini-set, and then ray liberio (clearly pleased that he finally got the me-thinks' double e.p.'s in, only four days after the release party) got up to sing the most bottom-heavy "war pigs" of all time. jordan franz requested a mellower groove before she got up to improv some lyrics, so that's what she got. finished out with lee-boy and shook playing dueling basses on stanley clarke's "school days."

throughout the proceedings, graham the master o' libations was collecting donations for shook 'n' zasko in a manila envelope behind the bar. prior to the event, one wag commented, "that'll do a lot of good: 20 musicians who give a dollar each." there was actually a fair sized crowd for a wednesday night, more 'n i'd seen in a few months before i disappeared from jamdom for awhile. not sure how they did monetarily, but there'll be other oppos to help the fellas out: this saturday afternoon at fonky fred's and next wednesday (which wreck impresario brian forella sez is the best bar night of the yr) at el wreck; the lineups will be announced, but bands who wanna play should contact lee. i repeat, contact lee. contact lee. you get the idea.

all night long i was thinking about the cellar cats and the way, in this setting, styles and genres crash into each other and occasionally meld; it's always been that way in the fort. "where else can you do this?" lee asked afterward. "wherever it is, i wanna go there!"