Jam – 2010-07-07 – Carroll’s

After enjoying a week of playing with Terez, Deadstein was back to its standard setup with me playing lead and Alan on rhythm.  I was featuring a new set of silicone coated strings, thanks to Larry Brent, and an intonated guitar which I took care of when I changed my strings the night before.  The guitar was feeling especially good in my hands from the perspective of the new strings and and inotation and it helped me play well throughout the night.  Since it was super hot outside and Carrol’s air conditioning was struggling to keep the room cool, 73 degrees was as cool as it got which is hot by Deadstein standards, so hopefully the silicone on the strings will help them last because last night my hands were like liquid salt.

There was some good music last night and as it was time for us to poop-out as the 5-hour energy drinks were wearing off, in came Mike from Georgia and he acted as an energy stimulant to give us a boost to finish the night with a little dignity.  The closing Jack Straw was a forceful ending to the long hot jam.  The only other guest of the night was Scott Bayer who for the first week in many was without the bongos. Hallelujah!  Our big long segment of the night was a Scarlet –> Estimated –> Terrapin –> Birdsong -> Gloria –> Birdsong.  That kept us busy for an hour or so in the middle of the night and was quite and undertaking.  I thought the Terrapin was the weakest of that grouping but still nothing to write home about.  We also did a nice Here Comes Sunshine -> China/Rider combo earlier in the evening.  It was a fun, hot, sticky night and there is more fun to be had furthur down the road, so get your bus pass out and come join us as we go down road freakin’ bad.

Jam – 2010-06-30 – Carroll’s

What a nice night a Carroll’s we had tonight as we had the return of Terez after several years of not jamming with Deadstein.  The impressive thing is that we seemed to be able to play all her songs and that she was able to lead Deadstein through and entire night of  music.  I think we played the stuff well and in many respects it could have been our best Terez music to date.  One could only imagine how much better it could be  if we did it more than once every 4 years.  It was a lot of songs considering.

We had al sorts of speaker PA issues early in the evening but those were ironed out and it sounded pretty good.  We played relatively softly and dynamically so it was some good sounding stuff.  There was a hodge-podge of recordings since Rich’s MP3 recorder lost it’s charge.  Some of the music was recorded on my iPhone and some on video tape.  Scott Bayer was there to video the Come Together and the video was also used to record some of the songs while Rich was desperately trying to charge his MP3 recorder in the meantime.  At least we got some YouTube.

To listen to most of the songs from the night go to the following ink or just click the MP3s below:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/06-30-10/

Jam – 2010-06-21 – Carroll’s

Last night was as classic of a Deadstein night of Deadstein as one could expect in 2010 with Larry Brent filing in playing lead guitar and singing the Jerry stuff throughout the entire jam.  We had played 3 or 4 songs with Larry about 2 months ago but this jam was our first entire jam with Larry for years.  I was back to playing rhythm as Alan was out of town and we had Kevin, Rich and Scott to fill out the rest.

Besides Larry, we had lot of guests this week including Ken with 3 Dominos pies and Phil the vet.  There was also Ken Levine and his two happy, go lucky friends from San Diego Fred and Jo.  Last year on 6/17/2009 Fred was enjoying his 40th anniversary of his first Dead show with us and I guess he was enjoying his 41st again with Deadstein this year.  The Fred and Jo experience may become an annual June event.  Time wil tel with it.  And of course we also had Scott Bayer banging the bongos by the end of the night.

This was also my annual birthday show with my birthday coming up on June 23 so I was able to select the songs of the night.  This gave me the ability to keep the setlist moving and vibrant based on the energy levels in the room.  I think having Larry as a newish or rehashed, however you want to view it, musician in the room gave us a little energy boost but I also wanted to keep the setlist filled with some standard beefy Grateful Dead titles.

It’s funny because I started with the slow the get going Deep Elem but then launched into the carving station with a Music Never Stopped.  I think we had lot of good music. I made the mistake to be convinced to play the Picaso Moon but by the end of the song it was sounding good and tight and if we played it a second time, G-d help us all, it would have been pretty good.

We kind of ended a first set with the Terrapin and started the second set with the Samson.  We were slowing down through the second set but we kept the momentum going with the beefiness of the songs including ending the night with the Jack Straw which we can play even while gasping for breath.  Hey 20 songs with pizza in the room is pretty good.  We never accomplished that in the old days.

The music from the night is available from:
http://www.deadstein.com/audio/06-21-10/

Jam – 2010-06-17 – Carroll’s

Late in the week Thursday night jam meant we were weak from the grind of the week and the lure of the weekend wasn’t enough to excite the jam into overdrive. In addition, we had no guests so we had nothing to play for except ourselves. As I said, we had nothing to play for. Kev, was late as he typically is for a Thursday night jam so Scott played with my iPad art program and created this week’s artwork. Well done.

The music of the night is available from:
http://www.deadstein.com/audio/06-17-10/

Jam – 2010-06-09 – Carroll’s

Wednesday night jam and I thought we played better than the previous week and it felt pretty good for much of the night.  We had a few guests who stayed, listened and enjoyed, so they helped prop u our spirits and playing.  The guests included Ken Levin and his buddy Rob as well as the other Ken who came baring pizza’s for us all.

Thanks to Rich and his recording, we have the setlist below with the MP3s available. for your so-called listening pleasure.

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/06-09-10/

Joint Dragons 2010-06-04 – Carroll’s

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.

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