Jam – 2012-03-21 – Carroll’s | my Steal Your Space book

Another crazy night of Deadstein is what we encountered on this March 21, 2012. For the second week in a row, Stagger Lee joined us and Scott to give us a two-man rhythm section. This redundancy proved to be quite fortuitous later on in the evening. For the first set we also had Andy Trister playing lead guitar which always bring the level of music up a notch or two. A lucky man, he walked away with the final available version of the Jerry Garcia Song Book, version 8, with the bonus supplement.

In addition Lee and Andy, we had Howie Weiner in the studio to hangout. Howie and I were discussing 1987 Grateful Dead which he is planning on making the theme of his next book. There are so many great memories from that time period. Stevie and Lindsey, who made it through almost the entire jam with us, are becoming regulars to our scene much like Steve and Edie on the Andy Williams show. Finally, we had the headache man himself in the room, Scott Bayer with his bongos. While annoying, by the time he was playing them later in the evening, I didn’t care.

The music was marginal I think for the first set and for some part, I am going to blame it on the Rand-O-Matic. While it concurred with Andy’s request to open with a Getatway, the selection of a Bucket as the second songs sent us down a pathway of difficult massive mushiness which became difficult to wade through. Nevertheless, we made not even close to the best of it, and marched on. A song like a Bucket is a great challenge, especially early on and right out of a Getaway. It requires precision, which Deadstein possesses like Trister’s nearly 50-year old eyes. If nothing else, there probably were not too many other people sloshing their way through a Hell in a Bucket on March 21, 2012 like we were. In that, you have to derive some comfort.

We had some sound issues through the night. The PA never had the bang it needed and hearing vocals and Rich’s piano was difficult. Kevin’s bass, guitar amp split combo was failing him on the guitar amp portion as that was buzzing and distorting throughout the entire night. All the guitars and drums seemed normal though.

The Bucket’s jammed droned on in thick boring mode that was carried on in several songs in the first set. We eventually played and Victim or the Crime into a Hard to Handle that had the same characteristics and even the Here Come Sunshine had the same feel. This is why I blame the Rand-O-Matic a bit, but now that I think of it; the Rand-O-Matic only selected the Bucket. I was the buffoon that selected the Victim, Hard to Handle. Someone else called for the Here Comes Sunshine.

As negative as I may seem, I bet the tape proves me wrong, because the music came forth for the most part and it was valid. I guess that’s the best I can come up with, “valid,” which isn’t too good. But as I said before, who else pulled a Victim –>Hard to Handle out of their asses on this night? No one!

We took the long obligatory set break chatted, had fun. We lost Howie, Trister and Scott and gained Scott Bayer. Who made this trade the Mets? The second set we were going into with Lee solo on drums. I let him call the songs and that certainly helps a lot and we had a good second set. Brothers and Sisters we are pretty familiar with and the Halfstep is a challenge at that late hour but we did it justice. Lee called for the Eyes at 11:20 and here’s where his youthful energy, though he is technically 1 year older than Scott, invigorated us through a long song like Eyes and the inevitable loss of momentum never really materialized. The redundancy of the dual drummer has some great benefits for Deadstein and I look forward to it developing. When I think of Lee drumming, I think of him playing clay bongos on a Not Fade Away. I went into the Not Fade from Eyes to close the night. It turned out to be a big, fun, crazy wacky, topsie, turvie night of Deadstein. I can’t wait to do it again.

For next week’s jam, I think I am going to get a set list prepared and send it out to everyone so anyone who cares to can prepare for the night’s music. I think this will help. It will at least help me. Freak out people and get prepared for next week.

To hear what we did, go to the following links:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/03-21-12/