Jam – 2012-08-16 – Carroll’s

21 Aug 2012 Leave a comment

by lgindoff in Jams Tags: , , , , , , ,

This was a very special week for us at Deadstein because Alan was out and to fill in for Alan was Tefillin Ken.  Ken has not been around Deadstein for about 10 years now and to see and jam him after all those years some of that new is old and freaky that we try to get in our Deadstein experience.

Though Ken has probably been busy with his very busy life, it seems like he managed to get some guitar practice in between all his Torah studies.  If he didn’t get any practice in than it is even that much more impressive.  Needless to say, I think Ken sounded great both on guitar and on vocals.  It was a real pleasure and it gave me and chance to use my Bob muscles.

Ken’s rendition of the Night They Drove ‘ol Dixie Down was great, more Band than GarBand, yet you can’t take the “Gar” out of Deadstein, no matter how hard you try.  Speaking of which, I did my best to get the “Gar” out of me as I attempted to learn the Beatles “And Your Bird Can Sing.”  This is a challenging song for me as it involves a long riff-line, which I couldn’t help but giving a Cassidy/Jack Straw sound to.  Some how, Ken remembered the riff from his childhood and was able to play that song with us, giving it some real support that I couldn’t provide in that song.  Since the song is under 2 minutes we tried it a few times which I was psyched about.

Speaking of support, our fan base of Meg (Maggie) Ryan and Fleetwood, Steve and Lindsey Mac were there to support us. I think we had a good jam to give them, A little more Stein than Dead then they are used.  Maggie was celebrating her pending 33rd birthday in a joyous way so Happy Birthday to Maggie!

We didn’t have much a plan for the night but we wanted to keep it kind of simple to keep the jams flowing and not running into sharp curves.  That was the reasoning behind the That’s What Love Will Make You Do to open the night.  I think that was a good decision and got us on the way.  The Dixie we discussed above, but it was a moment in the night that made us realize it was gonna be a good one.  As usual the Beat It On Down the Line was good, but getting the 18-count correct was more challenging than it should have been.  A few more Dead song followed by the GarBand Lullaby and Catfish were the end of the 1st set.

We did a couple of And Your Birds Can Sing to start the second set, first was jammy, second was more direct were fun and the Hey Pocky Way was just powerful and went to some cool places.  It may have been my highlight for the night.

At this point you would think we were setting up to poop out but nothing could be further from the truth.  We dove deep and hard into the High Time, Shakedown.  We kept going strong and hard to finalize with more good stuff including a Deadstein best Don’t Let Me Down.  Music Brokedown to close was also hot and a great way to close a great night.

I hope it’s not 10 years till Ken fills in again.  Freak out.

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

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/08-16-12/

 

 

Jam – 2012-08-06 – Carroll’s

10 Aug 2012 Leave a comment

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

To accommodate Rich’s ever increasing busy schedule, Deadstein played on Monday this week, leaving a large gap, or a gultch, between this Monday jam and next week’s Thursday jam.  What this week also represented was a celebration of Alan’s birthday which is scheduled to occur on August 11; Happy Birthday Alan, Freak Out!  With that day looming, Alan had the privilege and more importantly, the obligation to select the night’s setlist as it unfurled right in front of us.

He picked a nice setlist, jam, show, to get Deadstein flowing in the right direction.  As is typical for Deadstein in 2012, we had our 2 drummer setup, including Scott and Stagger Lee.  I think Steve was our only guest for the night until Scott Bayer came later on in the evening.  He whipped out his bongo and I told him “no way” and he was soon out of the room.  No bongos and not Scott Bayer, a win-win.

Alan was under a lot of pressure to keep up the grueling pace of recent Deadstein and he did a great job of it.  We got 20 songs on tape and that with Rich missing a few of the songs at the beginning of the night.   I do not recall what we did early on, but Rich placed the Getaway –> Promised Land at the beginning of the first set, when in actuality they were played somewhere in the middle of the first set.

It was a nice long beefy first set ending right at 10pm.  We took a standard break and seem to have energy going into the 2nd set.  Alan seem to pull songs out of his ass at the last second on several occurrences to keep the set going.  When a song didn’t come to air at the end of the Eyes of the World, the second set took a nice, easy natural turn into Drums Space. This was a real good thing as it did set us up to finish the night up with gusto.  The drums space is like the 7th inning stretch of a baseball game and is a nice last final break.

The final segment of the night featured two combos; Other One à Speedway Booggie and Wharf Rat Comes a Time.  Looking at it now, it would have been cooler to put the Speedway Boogie after the Wharf Rat, but the whole thing was a lot of fun.  Playing in the Band reprise was just a quick nice capper.  Werewolve of London for the Olympics (?),, is that why it was selected, was straight on and powerful.  It was a complete evening that never died down, running the finish line like Usain Bolt in world record time.

To hear any of this gold medal playing, go to the Olympics, to hear what Deadstein did, use the links below:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/08-06-12/




		
	
	


	

			




		
			




			
Jam – 2012-07-31 – Carroll’s
	
	
06 Aug 2012 1 Comment


			

			by deadstein
				in Jams
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Wow what a big month of July and what a big night to end it all, just in time to commemorate what would have been Jerry’s 70th birthday. First let me talk a little about this prolific month of July we just finished. If you count up the songs, we played 112 songs in the 5 jams in July 2012, by far, this has to be a record. We have a “take no prisoners” attitude these days, leaving nothing on the table or at least trying to get our monies worth.


The reason we chose to play on this Tuesday night instead on Jerry’s birthday on the next night was the fact that Ollablle was playing a free one-hour concert at the City Winery between 6:30 and 7:30. Perfect timing to enjoy a super-dooper cool scene filled with free phenomenal music and then take a nice easy 60-block or so trip up to Deadstein. First of all I must mention that Ollabelle has such a great positive vibe and you couple that with the same vibe provided by the City Winery and the weather and you have the makings of a perfect evening. They played an hour, there was a great crowd with lots of friends, taping, close viewing and just great music. I suggest you check out Scott’, Rich’s or my videos. What an up-lifting experience to get you psyched to play your own music.



After the Ollablle show I drove Rich and Scott up to the jam, enabling Scott to leave his car at home. By the time we got there just minutes after 8:00 o’clock, everyone was there waiting to play, including Andy Trister who accompanied us for the first half of the night during one of his all too infrequent jams with us. We played some great music during this set.


For some reason I guess like to start jams with Trister on an Uncle John’s Band, I think I hope it is at a tempo and energy level that gets us underway in a controlled manner considering we have 3 guitars in the room. Out of the Uncle John’s I tried to segue us into a Hey Pocky Way, but the train wasn’t going to that town. It was bee-lining to Aiko-Aikoville and we ended up there, which wasn’t a bad thing. As we forged through the first set most of the stuff was good and a lot of fun. I don’ think Andy wanted to leave, but a full night with him just isn’t in the cards. We formulated a nice 12-song first set with lots of good moments. I gave Stagger the Same Thing he asked for, a first for him with us. We tried the Bucket once again, but this time with Andy, it gave it a lot more legitimacy. After that the rest of the first set just kept getting better and better.


With Andy gone for the second set, we decided to get back to business and focus on Jerry’s 70th birthday. This was not until we played the I Shall be Released which we saw Ollabelle play a few hours earlier, which we have never seen them play before. They did it a lot better than we. Out of the Terrapin I entered into the Stephen without the standard intro, I thought that would get us going, and it helped, but we struggled a bit. We don’t do the Stephen enough. Our 12 o’clock quitting time reared its ugly head at the end of the Going Down the Road but that meant we were into August 1. This meant it was the big guy’s birthday, so we stayed a little later to play one additional Black Muddy River in honor of Jerry. This was 21st song capper on a long and great night, so I thought.


Since I drove Scott and Rich uptown from Ollabelle, I decided to give them a lift home, downtown, and take the Holland Tunnel home myself. We all walked to my Honda Fit parked in Scott’s secret spot on 54th street and I hit the button on my key-fab to open the trunk, but it didn’t unlock. I don’t think there is even a key hole on my trunk to manually open the truck. I used the key to enter the driver’s side and to my dismay, the car was deader than we were. Lee drove around the block to go home and saw us standing there and had jumper cables, so we tried jumping the car, but we are 4-Jews and I guess car maintenance is not in our DNA. We couldn’t get it jumped and Lee almost shocked himself to death in the process. I’m sure we did something wrong. Scott then whipped out his AAA Card and a service call from a 54th street station was dispatched. It probably took them a half hour to get there and 5 minutes to jump the car. Just after 1am, I was driving Rich and Scott downtown as my alternator was charging my battery. I was praying I didn’t stall my car out, which I didn’t. After some bad maneuvering to get out of Scott’s neighborhood to the Holland Tunnel coupled with some tunnel traffic meant I wasn’t in NJ until just before 2am and didn’t get home until around 2:45. I long happy ending to a great night, that’s what she said.


When life looks like easy street there is danger at your door.


To hear any of the music we played, go to the MP3 provided below:


http://www.deadstein.com/audio/07-31-12/


	


	

			




		
			




			
Jam – 2012-07-25 – Carroll’s
	
	
27 Jul 2012 1 Comment


			

			by deadstein
				in Jams
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Deadstein has been on a real roll recently, a rock and roll, where we play hard a generate a lot of music.  I’m sure July 2012 will end up being the month that Deadstein played more songs than any other month of the past 22 years.  That’s the type of roll we have been on but we had to keep our eye on the ball this week.  With both Rich and Alan out of town this week we called in the help of Larry Brent to take over the Jerry role blues.  With that we would be tempted to slip into the old ways of Deadstein when a second set was a monumental effort to mount.


This is not classic, old Deadstein and in 2012, we play hard and and we are prolific, no matter who is in the room.  I’m a music pusher and I make no bones about it, so I did my best to keep the music rolling.  In the end we almost, arguably reached the 20-song level as China/Rider really is 2 songs, yet we split the Dark Star in 2.  In any case, 19 or 20 songs is laudable for the night.  In classic Deadstein times  in the past, it would have been a record.  Even the big, famous 3-set first jam in October 1990 only had 17 songs.


We had a pretty good sounds for most of the night which I borrowed an MP3 recorder to capture, then I mastered it a bit and posted it below.  Sounds pretty good, a bit woofy and loud for most of it, but a pretty good effort.  The Stranger got us going for the night in the right direction.


For the first part of the night we had our only guests LeeJ and Arlene.  They haven’t been around in ages, so it was good to see them.  LeeJ may have even taken a video or 2, who would a thunk?  The first set was straight forward in proper order and gave use some good focus during it.  Ten quality songs without a clunker, gotta be happy about that.


We did the second set with the Eyes of the World with the 1974 ending, and that didn’t go over too well but the rest of it before hand was good.  Dark Star Uncle Dark Star was a trip and a serious endeavor, a good reason for not getting to 20 songs.  We never got to the Wharf Rat I was trying for as it was preempted by Larry with a Stella Blue.  That was a bit busier than it had to be, Larry wasn’t thrill with Kevin’s heavy-hand during it.  We then ended it with a really hot Music.  Somehow we pulled of the Beautifully Broken. Playing it was probably a tremendous surprise to everyone.  The Attics to close was as Deadstein does to Attics.  It ain’t pretty Freak out!


Next week we play following the free Ollabelle show at 5:30 at City Winery, I’m looking forward to that whole experience.


To hear the songs from this week, go to the links below:


http://www.deadstein.com/audio/07-25-12/


	


	

			




		
			




			
Jam – 07-19-2012 – Carroll’s
	
	
22 Jul 2012 Leave a comment


			

			by deadstein
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After the July 12, 2012 Deadstein marathon, this week was expected to be a letdown since we could never live up to the energy we had last week for the Dead/Dylan Giant’s Stadium tribute.  There was no plan or a theme for the night which sometimes results in a bunch of nothing being played.  For this week, nothing could be further from the truth as this isn’t Deadstein from 15 years ago, but this is a re-”Jew”-vinated band that can’t be held back.


With little traffic to deal with all of us, with the exception of Alan, were at the jam at least 30 minutes early.  We decided to get going, get warmed up and get a few songs under our belts before the 8 o’clock hour.  This got us a 2-song appetizer, Mississippi Halfstep and the Cats Down Under the Stars, and set the tone for the night, which was we were taking no prisoners.


When Alan got there we started into our six-man assault, starting with a pretty good Shakedown Street which I moved right into a C.C. Rider.  This prevented us from taking a break and taking time to reflect on what just happened.  This is a good technique to keep us moving forward in a positive fashion.


Eventually, a few of our guests showed up including Steve and Willow and for the second set, Ryan and Maggie showed up.  It was toward the end of the night when they were there but we still had a little fire in our bellies and give it to them big.  As Scott’s fire was dissipating a bit at that hour, he handed the sticks over to Ryan for a song toward the end of the night.  We ended pretty strong considering all the distractions and once again, ran through the 12 o’clock finish-line past the end the night with power yet fully exhausted when we finally left.  Leaving everything on the strings realizing there is a week to replenish what was depleted.  It is the way you want to pace yourself.


One cool thing about this week’s write up and blog posting is that I am using the new Office 365 Home Premium Preview which was just made available to test drive for free at Microsoft.com.  I am testing it out on my consumer preview of Windows 8 and all I can say is this isn’t your grand-daddy’s operating system and office suite.  On October 26, 2012, all this stuff should be released for real and Microsoft should be moving us into their vision of the future, which has lots of new cool stuff in it.  Stuff is now fast and agile, such as downloading, installing and using a new office suite which just takes minutes.


Back to Deadstein, which hasn’t quite been pushing forward at the break-neck speeds of technology, but we still move forward, react and adapt.  The firsts et continued with some nice normal firsts et material, pounding away at playing the songs, and they were good.  I think the Birdsong turned into the highlight of the first set as we took it to all different far-off Birdsong lands.  That was an interesting jam.  We finished the 1st set just after 10 with a repeat of the Bucket we have done a few time recently.  It still needs a lot of work.  With lots of songs under our belts we were able to relax with a halftime break.  Not rushing through it like we have been doing.


We opened the 2nd set easily with an Aiko and headed to an Estimated to start our journey.  We didn’t do a drums space this week, but the second set had the feel of a second set with a first half, a second half and one last song to end the night.


It was another full filling Deadstein jam night with lots of good music and fun that made leaving a bummer and making you want for more.  With more to come, it looks like this week will be a non-core-4 jam with Rich and Alan out of town.  Nevertheless, I’m sure it will be something short of spectacular so stay tuned and freak out.




To listen to the 21 songs we played this week, use the links below:


http://www.deadstein.com/audio/07-19-12/



 


 

	


	

			




		
			




			
Jam – 2012-07-12 – Carroll’s
	
	
13 Jul 2012 5 Comments


			

			by deadstein
				in Jams
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This week Deadstein found itself celebrating the 25th anniversary of the great July 12, 1987 Dead/Dylan show at Giants Stadium.  It was good that all of Deadstein was there to celebrate and try to recreate this great show which all of us, with the exception of Kevin, attended.  We all had great memories of the show and having the privilege to try to play it was and honor.


I had prepared for the week nicely in that I broke out my cassette master from the show and digitized and mastered it for distribution to the band.  It was one of the great sounding tape I had ever made. Patching out of my friend Tom’s Sennheiser 441’s located close to the stage in front of the board gave the tape great energy, presence and sound.  From second 1 of the Hell in a Bucket, you could tell both the Grateful Dead and the Giants Stadium crowd was in for something epic.


In addition to distributing the music to everyone I also had to chart out several new songs to Deadstein that we never played before.  Of the 31-song 3-set show, we would have a nice handful of songs that were new to us.  In the Grateful Dead world we had the Tons of Steel and it was really a nice experience to play.  It worked for us.  In the Dylan world we had Tomorrow is Such a Long Time, Highway 61, John Brown, Wicked Messenger and Chimes of Freedom.  These were all new songs for us and even when we got to these Dylan songs late into the night they were played with gusto; much better than I would have expected; a really nice night of music.



Having to attempt to play 31 songs in three sets, excluding drums and space, is a bit more than can realistically be done in 4 hours of studio time but I was determined to try.  I was rushing in and out of songs throughout the night, much to the detriment to the beginning of many of them, but a bit a urgency was needed.  I thought that was the energy of the night 25 years ago anyway.  The Bucket was a mess at the beginning due to this but by the end of it I think we got it as a band.  So not to digress into self-loathing and as the show dictated, we went right into theWest LAwhich set us straight for the night and was a good Deadstein effort.  We went old-school with the Greatest Story which Donna D, one of our guests seemed to enjoy.




Other guests from the night included Steve and Lindsey who caught our 2nd set and part of the 3rd sets.  By the time they left it was time ever-so annoying Scott Bayer to show up.


The room sound seemed especially good this night, I was able to hear Rich’s piano much better than usual and the vocals were even coming through short of a very infrequent squeal.


We continued to ram through the first set finishing the 10 song powerhouse in about an hour.  It felt good and was a nice sprint through 10 songs that almost felt like one big one.  We took the quick break and started the 2nd set with the Morning Dew and had a meaningful Playing, drums, space Other One that represented the extend of our real jamming for the night.  The Stella Blue, Throwing Stones, Not Fade Away were the close to the classic quick set getting us prepared for Dylan set.


As had to be the case, we did have enough time to complete the entire Dylan set, with double encore in the allotted time.  We made a great attempt though as we played hard and fast; not wasting anytime between songs.  I did cut a verse or two from the songs here and there and the leads were all short, but besides that, these Dylan songs were all pretty beefy and took a lot to play.


Slow Train has been in the Deadstein repertoire for years and so has Memphis Blues, so that got us going with the Dylan stuff and the momentum from this start got us through the two new songs to come next.  Tomorrow’s Such and Long Time and Highway 61 were really a lot of fun to do.  I got to give Kevin credit for holding up nicely through all these Dylan songs that he did really know.  As I stated before, he was the only one that wasn’t at this show


Baby Blue and Ballad of a Thin Man are also songs we do which also helped get us through, the simple and groovy new songs to follow; John brown and Wicked messenger.  Again, I was kind of surprised how good these were for us to play.  I was kind of shocked how we got it and played it with the type of feeling I sensed from the show 25 years ago.  Queen Jane seemed funny to do at that time of the night, but that is what was on tap and we went into the last of the new songs, Chimes of Freedom at about 11:55 which carried us through the 12-midnight deadline.  Like all the other new songs of the night, the freshness and fun of the Chimes of Freedom was flashing.  This song had quick chord changes and kept us on out toes and almost had a little Reggae beat to it.  There were lots of words to spit out and I got most of them.  This was a real challenge as the eyes really begin to blur by that time of the night.  I many respects I was amazed how well I was able to get through all the words and they came upon me in the book at breakneck speeds in the time of music.


Alan and I looked at each other after the Chimes of Freedom and thinking how could we abandon the Watchtower which was such an epic moment of the concert.  With that we decided to extend the am into the next day as we played the Watchtower and the Times They Are a Changing to end the night.  Even at this late hour both renditions were worthy of the effort.


July 12, 1987 was an epic show and recreating its vibe 25 years later was an epic challenge and one I was very happy to undertake.  It got me to break out the cassette, crank some great sounding Grateful Dead, master the cassette with my great new tools and enjoy learning how to play these songs.  With the 5 new songs I now have established a new working version of the Jerry Garcia Song Book version 9, to one-day replace the existing version 8, sooner than later.  Iteration in the 21st century is quick.  Before I put my box of cassettes away and put the old Sony D5 back into basic storage, I saw a nice little cassette from Madison Square Garden 9-18-87 that I think I’m going to give my mastering treatment to my master.


To listen to the MP3s of Deadstein playing the tribute the the 7-12-87 show, use the links below.


http://www.deadstein.com/audio/07-12-12/




	


	

			




		
		
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