art of the jam 30
ok, skipped a week due to weather. back in the little room ("wreck west") this week 'cos wizard o' sound andre edmonson is still in colorado with ahummin' acoustical acupuncture. i'm kinda bummin' 'cos i tore my right calf muscle doin' something stupid (if you ask me, i'll lie), so i get there earlier 'n i need to so i can figure out how i'm gonna work my pedals with this monstrous giant ski-boot looking immobilizer thingy on my leg (funny what creatures of habit we are). it kinda blows but at least when i walk around the house i get to make noises like captain ahab and scare the bejeezus out of the cats. in the event, i discover that i'm incapable of playing gtr sitting down and wind up doing a lot of bending fwd from the hip to try and work the wah. ng. gotta practice this or sit out a few weeks, as much as i'm loth to. fuck.
the li'l room sounds extra super trebly for some reason (curtains cracked? dunno and no andre to help resolve this); all night long, there's not a shred of low end on _anything_. jam-meister lee allen opines that maybe he needs to bring his big bass rig over to the little side, or something with a 15-inch spkr in it, at any rate; the 12- in his small rig (which he's used in bluesclubs and been asked to turn down) is clearly unequal to the task of cuttin' through two gtrs, violin, and drums.
steve "vikingo" huber's back on the set with his mad gypsy-country hoedown-near eastern reelin' fiddle, and the string players from kulcha far i -- that'd be ron geida on gtr and john shook on bass -- are back to add their flavors to the stew. so is paul the left-handed gtr player cat who got up to jam for the first time two wks ago, and when mark mcpherson from the brokers gets up to check out jam-meister lee's bass at the end of the night, i tell him he shoulda gotten up earlier. maybe next time. joe "drumzilla" cruz is holdin' it down with his dbl bass pedal for most of the night except for a brief interval when wyatt from the burning hotels (who seem to be playing a gig every time i turn around these days) takes over for a coupla toons and later on, when the jam-meister gets up to kick the traps behind kulcha cats and vikingo. it ain't always pretty, but connections are being made.
we get an extra helping of spoken word action when claudia acosta, actor-playwright-director and latin arts association outreach coordinator, gets up to try out a coupla politically-themed poems she just penned (i particularly dug the one on "patriotic assimilation"). william bryan massey III is there as well and recites one over the jammers, then does another with, um, miminalist accompaniment from me and wyatt at the request of the wreck room regular for whom he wrote it. in fact, the thing i'm digging the most is the way the li'l jam has kinda become a meeting place for creative folk of all stripes -- from poets like acosta, massey, and tammy gomez to graphic artists like jesse sierra hernandez, ray liberio, calvin abucejo, and fernando palomo (gettin' their pieces ready for experience the art of music at axis this weekend) to filmmaker phil fagan (visiting the fort from chicagoland, where he's hard at work on a feature that he sez might be his best work yet). there's even a city councilman hangin' out in the main bar (maybe next time _he'll_ get up to jam). even better (for me, at least), my sweetie, my newly-legal middle dtr, her b-f and a high school friend who did basic training in between junior and senior yrs and just got back from iraq and afghanistan (glad you're back, collin -- hope you stay safe in germany).
as for the jam-meister, he's in a _seasonal_ mood, and his fave part of the evening's ebb and flow is the oppo he gets to conflate jam standards with christmas songs, most memorably in the unholy hybrid of "ba dum" (the name he bestowed on a funk jam in E), the beatles' "helter skelter," and the "carol of the bells" that he conjured in the first set. if you weren't there, you'll have to take my word, 'cos there's no recordage going on until wizard o' sound andre gets back christmas week.
the li'l room sounds extra super trebly for some reason (curtains cracked? dunno and no andre to help resolve this); all night long, there's not a shred of low end on _anything_. jam-meister lee allen opines that maybe he needs to bring his big bass rig over to the little side, or something with a 15-inch spkr in it, at any rate; the 12- in his small rig (which he's used in bluesclubs and been asked to turn down) is clearly unequal to the task of cuttin' through two gtrs, violin, and drums.
steve "vikingo" huber's back on the set with his mad gypsy-country hoedown-near eastern reelin' fiddle, and the string players from kulcha far i -- that'd be ron geida on gtr and john shook on bass -- are back to add their flavors to the stew. so is paul the left-handed gtr player cat who got up to jam for the first time two wks ago, and when mark mcpherson from the brokers gets up to check out jam-meister lee's bass at the end of the night, i tell him he shoulda gotten up earlier. maybe next time. joe "drumzilla" cruz is holdin' it down with his dbl bass pedal for most of the night except for a brief interval when wyatt from the burning hotels (who seem to be playing a gig every time i turn around these days) takes over for a coupla toons and later on, when the jam-meister gets up to kick the traps behind kulcha cats and vikingo. it ain't always pretty, but connections are being made.
we get an extra helping of spoken word action when claudia acosta, actor-playwright-director and latin arts association outreach coordinator, gets up to try out a coupla politically-themed poems she just penned (i particularly dug the one on "patriotic assimilation"). william bryan massey III is there as well and recites one over the jammers, then does another with, um, miminalist accompaniment from me and wyatt at the request of the wreck room regular for whom he wrote it. in fact, the thing i'm digging the most is the way the li'l jam has kinda become a meeting place for creative folk of all stripes -- from poets like acosta, massey, and tammy gomez to graphic artists like jesse sierra hernandez, ray liberio, calvin abucejo, and fernando palomo (gettin' their pieces ready for experience the art of music at axis this weekend) to filmmaker phil fagan (visiting the fort from chicagoland, where he's hard at work on a feature that he sez might be his best work yet). there's even a city councilman hangin' out in the main bar (maybe next time _he'll_ get up to jam). even better (for me, at least), my sweetie, my newly-legal middle dtr, her b-f and a high school friend who did basic training in between junior and senior yrs and just got back from iraq and afghanistan (glad you're back, collin -- hope you stay safe in germany).
as for the jam-meister, he's in a _seasonal_ mood, and his fave part of the evening's ebb and flow is the oppo he gets to conflate jam standards with christmas songs, most memorably in the unholy hybrid of "ba dum" (the name he bestowed on a funk jam in E), the beatles' "helter skelter," and the "carol of the bells" that he conjured in the first set. if you weren't there, you'll have to take my word, 'cos there's no recordage going on until wizard o' sound andre gets back christmas week.
posted by stashdauber at 3:36 PM
2 Comments:
wow, sounds like you gotta a nice little collective of all diff'rnt kinds o' artistes to spiel with at your jam sesh. i'll bet there's all kinds of trippy perspectives being bounced around the wreck room when they gather. i dig that.
our friends here in philltown have a nice little group of diverse cats all 'bout the arts too. most of my chums do the music thang, but we got a couple painters, cats who draw, several filmmakers and screenwriters, scrawlers, some dancers, and whatever it is MY talent is (the jury's still out on that one, but one day, maybe, i'd like to be thought of as a writer in some repsect.) i just dig surrounding myself with people who can bring a trippy new perspective to the table and get my thoughts jumping in a diff'rnt direction. it's good for the soul.
i hope you leg feels betta soon!
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