Jam – 2009-06-08 – Carroll’s | my Steal Your Space book

Playing Monday night and without Kevin on bass presented Deadstein with a new challenge in sustainability. The buzz-word of the day. Al D. proved to be out little blue pill bringing his nice sounding Fender bass to the jam to fill in for Kevin. Al is quite the relaxed musician because he just and jam with and go with the flow. He may not know how to play a song but he knows how to play a song. When we got to Carroll’s we surprised them because they didn’t have us in the book. They had to scramble to get us set up but they did so with a smile and grace. Actually we found out the David Byrne was rehearsing at Carroll’s earlier this week in preparation for his concert he was playing this night in Brooklyn. They told us he rides to the rehearsals on his bicycles. Pretty cool.

I enjoyed the Al D. bass thing. Wes tuck with lots of Garband and Al does play more like John Kahn than he does Phil so being the only guitarist meant the Garband trick was the thing to do. Most of it was good, but the music was at a much more accessible range than is typically so it was fun to play in the added space.

Scott was playing the tiny jazz drum-set that was left there by Ron Carter and with the help of an espresso with 5 extra shots, Scott was able to play through the entire night with out really tiring. Drumming was good. Rich used the non-PZM microphone to amplify the piano and it sounded nice again, witht he lower volume, we were able to turn down the gain on the mic and the whole room sounded more natural due to it.

We new Al had to leave at 10:00pm so we were going to be bassless for the last two hours. Not a good prospect, but Deadstein still moves on. As 10:00 approached, Al had 1 or two more songs in him. Somehow we hood-winked him into playing 6 or 7 more songs, so we really go the most out of Al as we cold. He probably left at around 10:45 and we really appreciate his effort.

Jason was to play lead for us but wasn’t scheduled to show up until about 10:00 himself. As Al left well after 10:30 Jason was still a no show. No big deal. After Al left, we hung for a few minutes and then we manned our instruments. We played a few songs, mostly Beatle songs, not done to well, but we were making music and that is what it is all about. As we a just going through some motions to complete a jam, to make sure we got the most out of our expensive evening, at about 11:40 Jason comes walking into the room. He had candy and apologies in his hand but no guitar. We were wrapping up anyway. We hung for a little bit and then I gave him my guitar to play and then he Rich and Scott spaced for 15 minutes or so.