Jam – 2012-08-22 – Carroll’s | my Steal Your Space book

The Wednesday found us all together again for a standard 6-man Deadstein jam; ’twas good to be. Well at least that was for the the first part of the night as Alan had to tend to some family matters and wasn’t able to stay for the end of the second set. That gave us some time to catch up on some overly neglected Jerry Garcia Band tunes.

Regarding the first set, we didn’t have an agenda for the night, so we were wondering what should we start with that has neglected itself from the starting position. Here Comes Sunshine came to the fore and got us moving down the freaky avenue we call Deadstein. That lead us into a rousing Viola Lee Blues which was slammed to a merciless halt when I forced us into a Me and My Uncle. We got into the groove by the time it was time to go into the Mexicali Blues. While maybe not one of the shining moments our lives, the Uncle Mexicali definitely grounds you back to the Grateful Dead and prepares you for the rest of the night.

When we finished the opener, Lindsey commented, wow, that was a half hour, that’s crazy. She and Steve were our only guests for the night. She was right it is crazy, but it does help secure the beefiness of the evening with a long, strong opener. It was a help to me because I am on a very rusty set of string that 4 jams ago I was totally disgusted by when I took the guitar out of its bag. Fast forward another 4 weeks, these ultra-rusty strings are even more gnarly making me want to just grab the thing and start sweating to dissolve the dry bumpy residue that I left from a week ago. It got me in an “I don’t care, just jam and make music” type of attitude. There will be no pussy-footing around.

The wackiness of the first set continued and we stretched the boundaries of what we do, what should be done and what goes in a first set. This was all very good because it presented us with quite a bit of variety, but in a good way. From old to new, easy to hard, familiar to “what?” the first set song selection was one of our most interesting, ending in a weird way, on an Estimated Prophet. Which was ultra relaxed.

Alan did join us for the Scarlet, Sugaree opener of the second set but when he got the call to duty, we headed to the GarBand. This was all pretty good, including the long, drawn out Lucky Ol’ Sun. This has never been a easy one for Deadstein as it usually occurs late at night and it has a tendency to put you to sleep. Fortunately we did have Lee there to keep the momentum going when Scott eventually drifted in and out of rolling ‘round heaven.

The Midnight Moonlight was a good cap for the evening; crisp and fun following the lucky ol’ dirge. Too bad it was a couple of minutes too short, because it left us the need for one more quickie to get past the 12 o’clock finishing line. That lead to a One More Saturday Night, seemed to be a mistake with only one guitar. I felt naked out there for some reason. Whatever, the song is only 3 minutes so we grabbed it, spun it and tossed it around like a flimsy rag doll. It was our 19^th song, one short of the 20-song high water mark but a great effort nevertheless. 19 songs is nothing to sneeze at. G-d bless you.

With Kevin and Scott scheduled to be out of town, next week is looking sketchy at this point, but hope is eternal and Deadstein will hopefully rise like a phoenix.

Until that time happens, you can listen to the crap we played this week at the links provided below.

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/08-22-12/