Jam – 2011-05-12 – Carroll’s

13 May 2011 5 Comments

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

With Scott at the Warren Haynes show with my brother Jay at the Beacon, we were able to wrestle Coffee-Boy to come back and play a week with us.  He was feeling good as he had recently setup his kit in his house and has been playing a bit.  Not as much ferrous oxide on those sticks as the last time and it showed.

We had a few glitches to start the night.  While parking was good, when we got to the lobby of Carroll’s the elevator was shit out of order.  That means six long hard flights up to Carroll’s hauling my guitar crap all the way up.  After a couple of weeks of non-stop bike commuting, my thighs were burning hauling that crap up the stairs.  I guess I was doing better than Alan because I caught him resting somewhere around the 4th floor before getting psyched for the final climb to six.

When we got there things were good, after getting them to fix the one bad channel in the PA, it all seemed to work and sound good.  I thought were were playing pretty well all of us.  More relaxed than I would have expected, and tat was a good thing.  Hopefully Coffee-Boy gets his juices flowing from all the good stuff that happens.

We had Coffee select most of the songs for the night and I like the selection.  Fifteen songs seems weak in comparison to the previous several weeks where we used the setlists and achieved great numbers, so there is something to be said for that. I’ll be excited to hear this weak, hopefully our recording issue is resolved, I’ll know as soon as I click on one of the MP3s.

To hear the MP3s, take a stab at the links below:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/05-12-11/

Jam -2011-03-16 – Carroll’s

17 Mar 2011 3 Comments

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

With the Allmans, Furthur and Langfest in town, Scott decided to skip a week with Deadstein.  This gave us the opportunity to put Coffee on the throne.  He hadn’t played with us since August and he said he hadn’t played drums since that time either.  Too bad, because I was gonna need him for the challenge of the night, which was playing the Terrapin Station in it’s album version format.  The part that includes the At a Siding segment with all the drums and everything.  This was Deadstein’s 1st attempt at this and Coffee was there to do it with us.

Before that all started, and as a way to commemorate the passing of Owsley this week, we played Bear’s Choice in it’s entirety to start the night.  Rich sang the Katie Mae to get us going and we did a nice Wake Up Little Susie, which I also newly charted out like the At a Siding in preparation for the jam.  It’s good that we now have those two new songs under our belts or at least in our quivers.  I thought we did the album justice.  Alan played the harp at the appropriate places and the whole experience had an authentic feel including the ways we did the Peter, Smokestack and Hard To Handle.

The Terrapin was also as good as I could have expected.  There is a lot of tough stuff going on, and just a lot of stuff but the whole big Terrapin Experience has been expanded in a big was and for the better.  We also played lots of big songs and the night continued including the Single versions of Shakedown, Scarlet, Help On the Way. The big Garband songs included the Lucky Old Sun and Rhapsody in Red.  For the second week in a row we had the energy and will to play well past the 12:00 quiting hour.  It’s a good sign, a good sign we are playing well, having fun and don’t want to quit.  Coffee don’t make it 6 months to get back in the throne.

To Listen to the MP#s from the music from this jam go to the links below:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/03-16-11/

 

Jam – 2010-08-16 – Carroll’s

16 Aug 2010 1 Comment

by deadstein in Jams Tags: , , , ,

With Scott and Alan unavailable and little hope of a jam, Kevin was able to pull one together on Monday, the only possible night for the jam, and in addition it might a jam with Trister and Coffee. The only disappointment is the 11:00 exit leaving Kevin, Rich and I with nothing to do but post about the jam at the jam Itself.

We must have done something good as Trister was regretting having to leave as Deadstein was hitting it’s peak during the So Many Roads and Deal. There were no guests to hear us so anyone wanting to get into this “scop” as we used to say will have to listen to the MP3s when they get uploaded.

To hear the few songs that were played go to the link or MP3s below:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/08-16-10/

Jam – 2009-12-23 – Carroll’s

24 Dec 2009 1 Comment

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

Mitch and Adam with new toys, 335 and FlipIt was one of the biggest nights of Deadstein ever.  We had lots of everything.  To start with Scott was on vacation in Hawaii so that enticed us haul Coffee-Boy’s ass in and sit him down on a drum throne.  On his coattails came the contingent of other Baysiders including Mitch who was slinging his new Epiphone 335 (”Dot”) as well as his new Canon 5D DSLR, both being quite impressive.  If he only purchased the Gibson 335 and a shitty camera in 10 years his guitar would be worth what his new camera is worth instead of vice-versa.  In any case, a guitar can’t record memories and won’t make Mitch money the way a camera can.

To continues, we had Bayside Al on guitar and Bayside Russell on the other drumset.  Finally, Alan Wikler was able to make it in time from his Florida trip and also made the jam.  This left us with a whole bunch of bunches including 2 Alans, 4 guitarists, 2 drummers, 2 DSLR cameras and a whole bunch of sound.   The wall of sound wasn’t enough to describe the music.  We should have called it the “Room of Sound.”  Ironic, as Coffee pointed out, was the fact that in this whole big room of musicians there wasn’t a sip of alcohol anywhere to be found.  That was until Adam showed up who was accompanied by a slim silver flask of high quality Scotch.

Sensing the density of the aura before me, and the pre-song sounds in the room sounding like a 100-piece orchestra warming and tuning up I decided to call for the Dark Star opener which got us sounding and jamming for a while until I wrestled down the mess and brought it into a Feel Like a Stranger.  The whole trip was a long one and definitely set us on the path that was our jam for the evening.

Our only guests for the night were Bayside acquaintance, Adam who was using this opportunity to have some fun away from his family.  Pretty cool how Adam has seen us at a Short Hills gig since he is friends with those guys and in addition, he is also friends with John and Mitchell Spitz.  It’s a small freaky world.  He really seemed to have a good time relaxing in the Deadstein spirit of Hanukkahs past.  In addition, their friend Jason with long, curly, brown locks was also there.

I can’t say there was a first set, vs. a second set, all I know is that the nigh ended about 30 minutes early as Coffee didn’t seem to have enough caffeine in his midst to keep the mother rolling and he was driving Rich home, not have Scott for a ride, the jam ended at 11:30, but with all the talk and post-mortem, we weren’t out any earlier and we could have gotten in a few more songs.

I also had some new equipment which was a Boss OD-20 distortion box which I enjoyed throughout the night, enabling myself to cut through the morass. I also had new strings on my Strat which also helped my tone.  I liked it for the most part as I teamed up the new OD-20 with my pedal board including a compressor, chorus and Alan’s MXR envelope filter which I used and liked.  I used it for the Stranger, Ramble on Rose and Catfish John.  I then quieted down the masses with a less intensive Friend of the Devil which had a plethora of leads associated with it.  Other items of note include mixing up the selection a bit with a surprise Walking Blues which was pretty good.  We also had, in no particular order an Althea, Ramble on Rose, All Along the Watch Tower, China/Rider, Tore Up, Lovelight, Brokedown Palace and we closed with a Music Never Stopped that was initiated by Coffee Boy.  It must be some of those Scottisms rubbing off on him.

To listen to the music go to the following link or click on the songs below:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/12-23-09/

T’was a big night before Christmas and at the Deadstein  jam, everything was smoking, except for a ham.  Let’s try to get one more jam in for 2009 and start 2010 with a bang.

Jam – 2009-08-25 – Carroll’s

26 Aug 2009 2 Comments

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

IMG_0214Tuesday night at Carroll’s, Nine Inch Nails were playing next door so we had to park on 54th instead of 55th. No big deal, Kevy risked parking in the tow-away-zone and got away with it.

It was a night were we had no guests yet we seemed to have to have two of our favorites, Coffee and Trister. They were there for most of the night and it was great to play with them. Trister was there last week, if you read, but I missed it due to car troubles.  Additionally, Coffee Boy bailed on last week so this week was like a reunion jam for all of us.  Quite a bit of fun.  I was gloating about my new pickup truck to replace my old Jetta.  Take a Look.

IMG_0200We played well, some great solid grooves and the feeling was positive for the most part.  I warned Andy about going for the Big River but he didn’t listen.  Somehow we made it through the whole thing.  In the same vein, we were using the iPhone with shuffle to select random songs for us to play.  We didn’t listen totally to it but it did provide us some good suggestions.   What it does do is let us listen to a sample of the song before playing it and what you realize, with examples like the Big River is how many songs we play at a molasses pace and how hard it is to play at a pace and liveliness that ironically is the Grateful Dead.  Something to seriously understand and work on.  The random song selector got us to play What a Wonderful World, which everyone knows I’m a sucker for.  I got us to play a Garband Masterpiece with Andy singing.  Likewise, it got us to play a really nice You Never Can Tell.  So the random song selector impacted the night but did not dominate it. 

After both Andy and then Coffee left we played a good 4 or five more songs, primarily based on the random song selector.  After starting the late night Core-4 we played the How Sweet It Is and then the iPhone got us to play a Birdsong, Victim Dear Mr. Fantasy.  We were done at 12:00 midnight but due to tunnel traffic I didn’t get home until 1:30.  I was a little tired this morning but still enjoying the thrill of last night.  Until we jam again. That’s what she said.

To hear what we did, listen below:

  • 01 Hard To Handle.mp3
  • 02 Brother Esau.mp3
  • 03 When Push Comes To Shove.mp3
  • 04 Mama Tried Big River.mp3
  • 05 When I Paint My Masterpiece.mp3
  • 06 C’est La Vie.mp3
  • 07 Dire Wolf.mp3
  • 08 Let It Grow.mp3
  • 09 Wang Dang Doodle.mp3
  • 10 Big Railroad Blues.mp3
  • 11 Scarlet Begonias.mp3
  • 12 Brokedown Palace.mp3
  • 13 How Sweet It Is.mp3
  • 14 What A Wonderful World.mp3
  • 15 Bird Song.mp3
  • 16 Uncle Johns Band.mp3
  • 17 Victim Or The Crime.mp3
  • 18 Dear Mr Fantasy.mp3

    • Jam – 2009-06-24 – Carroll’s

    25 Jun 2009 Leave a comment

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

    Band of ConeFreaks

    Band of ConeFreaks

    We were playing Wednesday this week which meant we had access to both Andy and Coffee so we were able to enjoy their company for a little while.   Being they live the furthest and don’t have the stamina of the rest of use meant the two of them were out of there shortly after 10:00 leaving Kevin, Scott, Rich and I to finish out the night in classic Core-4 fashion.  No big deal, that’s what we do, but Scott did go down quickly by 11:30.  It was a a fun Deadstein night though, as most are.

    IMG_3251_edited-1When we arrived at 55th Street the club next door was having and show which meant parking was more difficult that usual.  I parked a block away, but on 55th. Kevin parked in the newly illegal spot across the street but got by.  Kevin was the first on there  and the rest of us arrived simultaneously to great Kevin who was hanging out with Chris the cool Carroll’s manager.

    From second one you could tell this was going to be a loud night and the PA and the PZM in the piano was having trouble dealing with it.  The othernon-PZM piano microphone is definately better in both feedback rejection and lack of “uch”.  I was also rationing the access to the PA by only having the mics that were to be used in that song on.  This helped a lot  and enabled me to boost the channel of the primary singer.

    IMG_3240_edited-1With respect to guests, Stu was there looking dapper in his lawyer outfit and he was cool to take pictures of us in action.  Check out his cool pose to the right. Ken Levine was there still buzzing from the excitement of last week.  Finally, Scott Bayer also showed, blowing his harmonica, getting us to call Carol to play to her over the cell phone and asking Stu for civil law advice while Stu claimed ignorance to knowing there were actually laws that controlled the civil world.  Nevertheless, talking to Scott Bayer is always an adventure.

    A day later, trying to remeber songs is tough but I’ll try.  I recall a Brown-Eyed Women, Big Boss Man, we didn’t play Lied and Cheated.  Trister ended his night with a Brokedown played a full step higher than we traditionally play it (eighties style) and that f-up Kevy a bit.   End of the night Core-4 included Run for the Roses, Simple Twist of Fate, Harder They Come.

    Below is the setlist from thenight as well as the links to the MP3 recordings thanks to the fforts of Rich and his recorder.

    http://www.deadstein.com/audio/06-24-09/

    In the world Ed McMann died, Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson all just died. There were beautiful rain clouds and splatters of sunshine all over on the way in though it never rained on me.

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