Joint Dragons 2010-06-04 – Carroll’s

05 Jun 2010 Leave a comment

by deadstein in Jams Tags: , , ,

On this rare Friday night Rich organized a reunion jam of his old time band the Joint Dragon Travel Agency.  This was a 20-year or so reunion of Chris Law on Bass, Marc Sugarman on drums and Rich on piano.  They haven’t been together for a long time so it was a nice treat for me, playing rhythm and Bil, who jams with Chris playing lead on some of our favorite Dead songs, and a couple of Brotman originals, 33rd Street Blues and some other love song and they were probably the best versions yet played of those songs.  I think I have played those two before.

Being a Friday night, there was a slew of traffic getting into the city but I got there just after 8:00 and we got going by about 8:30.  I guess we will see the song list when Rich gets it uploaded.  There was some good, some bad, but fun and jamming nevertheless.  Low points were probably Dark Hollow and Mama Tried but highlights included the Samson, Eyes, Not Fade Going Down Not Fade Combo.  The room never seemed to cool down to a cod level and we were struggling not to break a sweat.  I had a good time, nice meeting those guys and paying with another bunch of peeps.  Heard an inspiring dog story from Chris about his dogs long-term survival with cancer and we all seemed to share stories and pictures of our dogs.  Speaking of which, I had to get up at 6:30 to get to a dog agility trial with Scraps the Dog.  I’m proud to say he went 5 for 5 and qualified on each course he ran.  He has never done that before and this was at a more advanced level than beginner, so that pretty good and worth waking up for.  Check out http://ScrapsRags.Wordpress.com for more info on that.

To listen to the music from the night, click on the songs below.

Jam – 2010-06-01 – Carroll’s

03 Jun 2010 4 Comments

by deadstein in Jams Tags: , , , , , ,

This was a week where we had a bunch of problems and the music probably displayed our issues.  First of all we were like amplifier whores this week, blowing any PA we could get our mouths on.   We went through 1 PA, 2 amps and probably could have easily blown the 3rd replacement PA if we didn’t show a little restraint.  There was something wrong in the room this week.  Maybe it was Liza Minelli who rehearsed at Carroll’s earlier in the day.  It was a tough day, all of 55th Street was a Tow-Away-Zone due to paving and lo-and-behold, when we left there was actual paving going on, so if someone did park on 55th, they would have been towed.  When not getting towed is the best part of the night you know the jam has issues.

We got through the jam somehow, even though Alan left a little early to leave us to our own devices, which I can’t blame him for, there was obviously nothing worthwhile going to happen in the room that night. It was going downhill pretty quickly from the get-go.  A good thing is we had Rob and Miriam join us so at least we had some happy guests other than the ubiquitous and babbling Scott Bayer.

If you want to hear the music, and I suggest everyone avoid this week, it is at:
http://www.deadstein.com/audio/06-01-10/

Jam – 2010-05-25 – Carroll’s

27 May 2010 5 Comments

by deadstein in Jams Tags: , , , , , ,

This was a week that we jammed in the big studio with the Live-Five setup including Alan on rhythm, me on lead, Rich, Kevin, who is still using the Roland dual amp set up and Scott on drums.  Kevin has new round-wound strings on his bass, may be they were flat-wound, I forget, but they were new strings.   We did the Here Comes Sunshine into Bertha to start the evening and I thought Kevin with his new string was right there and on his game.  That only lasted so long.  Eventually during the big Estimated ->Eyes combo I notice Kevin slipping into oblivion and decided to end the Eyes of the World with a straight forward rocking Not Fade Away à Going Down the Road.  It may have worked a little but playing after that whole combo seemed a bit more laborious despite the Jolt gum Kevin was chewing.  The other big combo we did was the Help Slip Franklins which had its moments both up and down.

With it being Bob Dylan’s birthday, we attempted to end the evening with a Like a Rolling Stone which was not very good.  We also did a Good Morning Little School Girl in the 1st set where Rich instructed us to jam in A during the middle of the song jam.  After the song was over Rich was quite dismayed as he heard Kevin playing the song structure in his head in opposition to his previous instructions.  To be honest with you I don’t think I heard Kevin playing the 4 or the 5 to the A jam so I guess we will have to wait for the recordings to hear what really went on.

We also did a bit of a Beatle segment in the middle of the night which was highlighted by the Savoy Truffle.  The Here There Everywhere wasn’t too good.  Finally, there was only the lone Scott Bayer as our guest for the night who was pounding the skins on the bongos during a song or two.  Until we freak out again next week, Freak Out and enjoy the holiday week-end.

If you want to hear the tunes from the night, go to the following folder, or just click and pay the song.

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/05-25-10/

Jam – May 19, 2010 – Carroll’s

20 May 2010 7 Comments

by deadstein in Jams Tags: , , , ,

Wednesday, May 19, 2010 brought us nice weather, little traffic and a Grateful Dead anniversary that is worth playing.  Yup, 33 years ago Jerry and the boys played their phenomenally interesting show at the Fox Theater in Atlanta with one of the great post space portions of a show I know of.  While it would have been nice to play the entire show it wasn’t gonna happen.  We had played a couple of the first set songs over the past couple of weeks and didn’t want to repeat them.  Additionally, Alan had somewhere to go in the middle of the jam for 45 minutes or so and that broke the jam into three distinct segments.

The first part of the night we played a few of the first set songs including the opening Promised Land Sugaree.  We were having PZM mic issues during the first songs and PA-EQ for a song thereafter so the night got off to a slow start with lots of warble in the room.  These issues eventually corrected themselves, we got a new PZM and tweaked the EQ and by the end of the night the system sounded pretty good.  We also played the El Paso and Loser from the 1st set before Alan left.

During Alan’s departure we played a few Garband songs including That What Love Will Make You Do, When the Hunter Gets Captured b the Game and the Dear Prudence.  When Alan got back we played a Row Jimmy from the first set.  I think we worked out the structural issues and got it right for what may be the first time.  Following that we tried the seldom pulled out, You Ain’t Going No Where which had a nice beat to it.  Since we didn’t have lyrics to that song I used my iPad to look up the lyrics and ironically and unbeknown to me I found a website that had mock lyrics set to that song which I sang for the first two verses until I realized I was reading and singing fake lyrics.  Fortunately, I was able to quickly use the iPad on my music-stand and Safari’s backspace to find a different site with the correct lyrics during a keyboard lead.  That was crazy stuff that was circulating my mind as I was going through all of this.

For the rest of the night beginning at 10:30 p.m. we figured we would tackle the entire second set of the Fox show.  We did the opening Samson and Ramble on Rose and then embarked on the combination of Playing, Uncle Johns, Terrapin, Drums, Space, Wheel China Doll and closing with Playing.  We did this combination of songs for the most part without stopping and even transitioning nicely between tunes.  We got done with the whole thing by 11:45, just enough time for me to sing a closing It’s All Over Now Baby Blue.  This was a nice night-cap on the evening.

I have always loved the Fox 5-19-77 show and this night was an opportunity to pay it the homage it so richly deserves.  Until the next time we play-to-pay homage to the Grateful Dead and on behalf of all the folks from Deadstein, Freak Out!

Jam – 2010-05-12 – Carroll’s

13 May 2010 13 Comments

by deadstein in Jams Tags: , , , , , ,

Drawn on the iPad by Kevin using Art Studio

Wednesday night and the 5 of us assembled at Carroll’s to do what we do which is to do our best jamming the music of the Grateful Dead. We opened with the Bertha and closed with the Weight and had a lot of substance in between.

The were plenty of squeals in the room. The PZM had a 12k dog style type of badness to it but it didn’t prove to be too much of an issue as the night went on. Kevin’s combo of JC-120 and old school Ampeg had a pulsating squeal to it which turned out to be Scott Bayer’s cell phone. Lastly, Alan also had a squeal in his rig which caused him to pull on of his effects out of his Arsenal. Scott Bayer turned out to be our only guests.

We started strong and drive through the finish line though the Weigh was like a weight around us as we approached the midnight finish line. We had some good substance prior to all of that including an early Scarlet Fire and a nice combo of He’s Gone –> Other One –> Smokestack Lightning –> Other One –> Stella Blue. We a pretty on top of it So Many Roads which is surprising considering it was late in the night, we hadn’t played it in a long time and I never sang it before.

For the second week in a row, this week’s art work is courtesy of Kevin who created it with my iPad during the jam. Until next week, Freak Out.

If you want to hear what we played go to:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/05-12-10/ or just listen to the MP3s below:

Kevin want a cracker or a dozen

Jam – 2010-05-05 – Carroll’s

06 May 2010 7 Comments

by deadstein in Jams Tags: , , , , , ,

This was a Wednesday night jam for us this week.  The weather was beautiful and there was no reason not to have a good jam.  Lou Reed was rehearsing next door and even though he wasn’t a guest, we shall treat him as such.  The only other guest we had for the night was Scott Bayer who was all hyped up playing a mean bongo.  He did manage to contact Carol on the cell phone and we played a Werewolves of London for her.

Short of having no real guests we just had the typical 5-man rotation with me on lead, Alan on rhythm, Rich on keys, Kevin on bass and Scott on the skins.  Kevin got Carroll’s to get him a different amp setup tonight including a Roland JC-120 for the high end and some other amp for the lows.  He’ll have to comment on its sound compared to the normal sound he guest.  The PZM under the piano was squealing so Chris from Carroll’s put in the Beta 57 under the piano and I thought it sounded pretty good.

The real new news for the night was the introduction of my new iPad which I used in lieu of my book.  It worked very well as a PDF display showing score in very crispy and zoomable detail.  It will all be great until it spills over and cracks, like Kevin’s books fell over at least on 2 occasions throughout the night.  The artwork above was created by Kevin at the jam using one of my new iPad art apps.  There is alot of good and fun to come from that machine.

I think my hilight of the night that I can remember was the Same Thing.  I like mine and Alan’s leads on that thing.  The big mistake for me was to attempt the Sing Me Back Home.  I was no where close on that thing as it was a total disaster.  The rest of the night was hit and miss bt at least we always have next week to hit or miss again.  Until then, Freak Out.

To hear the MP3s from the night’s songs go to the following link or just click the MP3s below:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/05-05-10/

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