Jam – 2011-09-27 – Caroll’s | my Steal Your Space book

Back at Deadstein with no guests this week and no agendas, just a night to make good music. We did have a few guests including Rob and Miriam and a friend of theirs. Additionally, Rich had a buddy stop by and we also had the inevitable Scott Bayer with his friend Carol live via the cell network.

I had some new stuff to deal with that made my night a fulfilling experience. Since I ruined Alan’s MXR envelope filter 2 weeks ago, I found a Proton Envelope Filter by 3LeafAudio last week and had it delivered on Monday and ready for Tuesday’s jam. As I was off on Monday, I had some time to set up the new effect in my effects rack and practice some new things. I worked on Operator, New Speedway, Stranger and Brown-Eyed at home at playing them at the jam was really good. We did Operator twice and they were both really good and the New Speedway was the best Deadstein has ever done.

In addition to the new envelope filter which I have to say was pretty darn good and solid. It was filled with more good sounds than bad ones and handled chords with some decorum. I added by Boss compressor to the effects tray as well as my chorus. I didn’t use the chorus at all but I did find my compressor useful, which I had previously had trouble doing. The use of both envelope filter and compressor really get you in touch with your touch to make both effects work properly. I felt as if I was within their grasps throughout the night.

Coupled with all this changed effects stuff I also changed my guitar from my 1979 Stratocaster to my mid 2000 Epiphone Les Paul Standard. I have never been comfortable with the Les Paul but I’ve been playing with it more at home and I changed the strings this weekend, lowered in the action and intonated it. This all lead to my best use of the Les Paul to date. I really enjoyed it during the night, the touch, the action and the sound.

I think as a band we played better than usual this night. Our first set was really solid. Our only great faux pas was the Help -> Slip -> Estimated and some (Kevin and Scott) slipped into Estimated without the knot! That hurt that segment of the night, but short of that we did pretty well. We had lots of meaty songs starting with the Stranger Shakedown, very few blues, ended the first set with the Playing à Morning Dew that was one of our better Dews.

For the second set we picked up the playing following the Uncle John’s we dished out. I had some nice feeling leads during the Looks Like Rain and the While My Guitar Gently Weeps. I totally flubbed the Help on the Way lead. You can get them all, but I got enough, more Ying than Yoink. Next week promises to deliver even more Ying, so stay tuned.

To hear what we played go to:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/09-27-11/