Thursday, February 01, 2007

art of the jam 1.1

ok, i can't remember what number in this series we were up to before i took some time off from jamdom back in the fall, and it appears that things are not well in google's evil empire this morning, as both this blog and my gmail account have been on the fritz. no matter. to paraphrase penthouse forum, i am a muso-scribe in a small southwestern city, and i never thought i'd be writing you [again], but this week, i had an experience i just _had_ to share. but first, some promo hype.

as it appears forella has let the "wreckroomfortworth" domain go south for the last time, it's fortunate that he's now updating the li'l wreck room's myspace thingy more frequently. taking a gander at his page there this morning, i feel an air of _finality_ approaching. when he announced that the wreck was going to be closing its doors this spring, brian said he was going to book as many bands that'd played there through its 10-year existence as he could, and he's kept that promise. the lineup on his calendar for the next three months includes all braves no chief (feb. 2nd), blood of the sun (feb. 17th), confusatron (mar. 1st), a killer spot reunion / goodwin / velvet love box bill (mar. 2nd), two nights of aaa (mar. 30th with sleeplab, mar. 30th with villain vanguard), eleven hundred springs (apr. 6th), flametrick subs (apr. 14th), and pablo and the hemphill 7 (on apr. 20th, natch). apr. 28th, which looks to be the _last_ night, will see two reunions: daddy's soul donut and woodeye -- the latter of which, depending who you talk to, was the first band to ever play the wreck (which makes it fitting that they should be on hand to bring the curtain down), and a guarantee that there won't be a dry eye in the house (as if carey wolff's songcraft needed any help in that regard; why, i got a tear in my eye listening to woodeye's terminal ceedee such sweet sorrow while i was typing this).

it seems colossally ironic, then, that for the last three weeks, the impulse of will jamcats have actually had a reg'lar crowd -- sleeplab at embargo and amy royer at 6th street live notwithstanding. the merkin boyzzz (who open the legends of the south show this sat'day, feb. 3rd) brought 'em in the first time, and they seem to mostly work in the hospitality industry, but they (and another factor i'll get to in a moment) have given the li'l jam a kick in the ass that it prolly needed (because it's always more _motivating_ having ppl to play to than not having etc.). and several of these folks have told me that they'd never been to el wreck before, so hopefully they'll get as much enjoyment as they can out of it for the next few weeks (and stick with the jamcats when we migrate, if allah is merciful and fortune smiles, to 6th street live after they turn out the lights and lock the door at 3208 w. 7th for the last time).

so at the end of the day, it comes down to this: jam-meister lee allen on voxxx and dueling basses with barber mack leader john shook, with shook's barber mack / ex-kulcha far i / occasional jasper stone bandmate ron geida and yr humble chronicler of events (who also playeth with stoogeaphilia) on gtrs. the drum chair has been problematic of late, but on this particular night, lucas white (confusatron stickman who's now working with shook in both barber mack and top secret, as well as teaching lessons together at sessions music) kicked the traps and was _the secret ingredient_. lucas kept saying how out of practice he felt, but to these ears (and indeed, evabody's on the stand), his energy and _situational awareness_ brought thangs to a fever pitch where they haven't been in awhile, making tonight's jam one of the very best evah. here's hoping he comes back next week (when we'll be sho' nuff doin' it on the big stage along with dallas metalheads adenine).

first set ran almost two hours, second one to about 15 minutes after closing (by bar time), and i think all of the ppl involved could have gone on for another hour if the clock on the wall hadn't said it was time to close. what we play? lessee...i remember zappa's "sexual harassment in the workplace," failure's "daylight," meters "cissy strut," hendrix "manic depression" into "third stone from the sun," chili peppers "freaky styley" (with gideons frontguy / jam godfather carl pack on voxxx), jaco "teen town," zep "dazed and confused," sabbath "war pigs," a first attempt at jeff beck's "'cause we've ended as lovers," some p-funk here, some rush there, a little z.z. top "jesus just left chicago" at the end (earlier, jam-meister lee favored us with a reading from the song of solomon). what it sound like? hard to describe, but i once said "rawkbluesfunkreggaemetaljazz" and i still think that covers it. so there.

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