Jason | my Steal Your Space book

Jam – 2011-01-27 – Carroll’s

30 Jan 2011 1 Comment

by deadstein in Jams Tags: Carroll's, Jam, Jason, Kevin, Larry, Rich, Scott

The Return of Jason It sounds like a horror show but it was anything but a horror show. We haven’t played with Jason for over a year, but with Alan enjoying the sunshine of the Caribbean, it gave us an opportunity to plug him into his Jerry slot. More importantly, it threw me back into my more natural Bobby slot from which I took the opportunity to break out the Heritage Hollow-Body and emulate that Early 1970’s sound and feel. I liked the sound of the clean Hertage throughout the night.

We had some great jams the five of us. The Same Thing strayed from our late Dead manner of playing the song to more of the late 60’s way of playing. This included a jam in the middle of the song instead of a lead. That was pretty good. We only captured half the night and I recall also playing the Help –> Fire but we also played several additional songs that I do not recall. If any one remembers any of the additional songs, speak it up, before it leaves our existence forever.

To hear what we did for the first half of the night go to the links below:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/01-27-11/

Jam – 2010-01-27 – Carroll’s

30 Jan 2010 1 Comment

by deadstein in Jams Tags: Carroll's, Jam, Jason, Kevin, Larry, Rich, Scott, Wikler

Elevator Music

This week we were fortunate enough to be able to organize a jam where we had Jason and Alan joining us for a full and fulfilling evening of Deadstein. Three guitars is often a recipe for disaster but it didn’t rear its ugly head on this night. We jammed well, found our space and made some great music.

I set Jason up with a guitar rig, pretty much my rig I’ve been playing over the past few weeks, with the ’79 hard-tail Strat and the new fangled Boss OD-20 distortion pedal. The good new is my set up sounded great, out of the fingers of Jason, so I know any excuses I can think of into the future are based on my own abilities and techniques, or lack thereof, as opposed to the equipment. I know I have a good sounding setup because Jason sounded great throughout the night. Starting with the first song, Jack Straw, it was apparent we were going to have a good night of music.

With Alan playing Bob and Jason playing Jerry I decided to break out the old ’96 Roland Ready Strat and the GR-33 midi box. I haven’t played this thing in probably 3 years so I broke it out at home 30 minutes before leaving for the jam to make sure it still worked, the cord can be temperamental, and it sounded good and off I went with it. When I got to Carroll’s I obtained a Roland Cube keyboard amp and I was set; guitar directed to the Fender Twin and midi sounds directed to the Roland Cube. From the first moment on it felt good and how to use the whole thing came back to me and I was happy with it for a night. It was able to fill in lots of nice sounding B3-esqu sounds that Deadstein lacks. It made for an enjoyable escapade through the world of pre-rendered sounds and the disciplined playing that the midi-guitar requires. It was fun for a night but over time playing like this and the tones played by the setup get monotonous. I have to say though, it was fun at times playing the sounds of the “Keyboardist-du-Formage.” I do look forward to getting back on the Jerry band-wagon and rocking out in a way that doesn’t wreak of a “Music-Quesadilla.”

We played 23 songs which is really quite and achievement and most of them were meaningful and engaging. It made for a night that didn’t drain on you too much but also a following day that was a chore to survive. Speaking of which, I unfortunately came home and my main desktop computer died, once again and I’m tired of reviving it so it’s time for me to rebuild my studio computer. I’m saying this cause I’m now stuck with laptop computers to do my work which isn’t fun, especially when it comes to dealing with images and photos. The research is probably gonna take me a week or two to figure out what to do, so don’t expect much graphically in the near future. That doesn’t mean I can’t get you an occasional terrible video that was recording and streamed up to our Ustream repository. We got as few moments from the other night so don’t forget to check that out at:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/deadstein

In addition, the hear the MP3s Rich recorded from the night go to:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/01-27-10/

Plenty more to say and write about, but I don’t like the experience on this netbook but it still gets the job done. Speaking of which, today was the day Steve Jobs announced the new iPad which will come out in 2 months. Yeah, $500 entrance fee but the ability to have a Deadstein app to keep the books synchronized and and ever expanding is a physically shrinking footprint is exciting. Our requirement won’t be great of a iPad wanna be that reads PDFs well may be our $179 answer. Just expect to cleanup the wreckage as they tumble from the music stands.

Speaking of the book, remember the current versions of the book are available on the new Songs page on the blog at:

https://deadstein.wordpress.com/songs/

It’s available from the top banner of the blog. Till we get together again, Freak Out!

Jam – 2009-10-13 Carroll’s

14 Oct 2009 3 Comments

by deadstein in Jams Tags: Carroll's, Jam, Jason, Kevin, Larry, Rich, Scott

It seemed as if we were back to a semi-normal jam this week. Jason was scheduled and psyched to play and he got there by the 2nd or 3rd song. He came in with a nice Dunkin Donut Dozen (alliteration) and by happen-chance, I brought in a thermos of coffee and it was a nice mix. We now jam like my mother plays canasta, it’s embarrassing; not quite rock and roll, but when we were ready to play we left it up to the random iSpinomatic. And the iSpinomatic spun us up a Morning Dew to play as our first song with Jason. It all worked and we pulled out one of Deadstein’s best played Morning Dews to date. Really sweet stuff. It must have been the donuts. Maybe it was the Halloween cookies Ken brought. Whatever it was, we played it very solidly and relaxed.

Ken was there, the friend of Phil the Vet who seems to really dig us. His positive vibe engages us to play it up a notch when we can. Eventually Ken’s friend, Art came in to dig us also. Besides Scott Bayer, that was the extent of our guest list, but I get the sense we are really beginning to amass a following. We have Carol on the cell-phone that feels as if she is in the room with us on the speaker phone. It’s a crazy world. When we later played Stella Blue, Art got all excited and got the idea of playing the song live to his daughter, also over the cellular network. We are such a forward looking and far reaching band, allowing our fans, known as Deadsteinheads, to transmit our shows over the cellular network. Too bad the Stella Blue’s lead was masqueraded.

Looks Like Kevin's Playboy Interview Photo Shoot

Jason was only able to play for 6-8 songs until he got pulled away. Too bad because I think we were gelling nicely. Oh well, Deadstein moves on. We got into a lot more GarBand and ended the night a few minutes early with a very unsatisfying Satisfaction. Not to worry, the bad Satisfaction was the exception and not the rule. For the most part we played well with feeling and sensitivity. We played with a pink tone for Breast Cancer Awareness month. Whatever it was, it was pretty good. Good enough to get Ken to ask Scott for his number to keep tabs on the Deadstein experience. We must be doing something right.

In the world, global warming concerns peaked during the jam as I had a tremendous case of the winds. It was advisable that Ken and Art found seats that were not behind me.

As you can see from the song list provided through Rich’s recording, we only got to 15 songs, way short of last week’s 24 songs. Anyway, it’s about quality and not quantity. To hear them all you can go to the website or just click the song below.

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/10-13-09/

Jam – 2009-07-28 – Carroll’s

28 Jul 2009 1 Comment

by deadstein in Jams Tags: Carroll's, Jam, Jason, Kevin, Larry, Rich, Scott

With the new iPhone I am able to pre-post in the car while sitting in traffic at the Holland Tunnel. Pretty cool but there isn’t much to say except I’m looking forward to the jam on this hot, muggy day in July. It could down pour at any second, but then again, the sun is showing it’s shining countenance in my rear-view mirror. Maybe I’ll check in during the jam. And I thought I was going to be getting there early.

Well I did get there early to meet Scott and Rich who beet me to the studio. Kevin showed up shortly thereafter and we were playing by an early 8:15 with an overly ambitious Jack Straw. During this pre-Jason Core-4 period we also played a very long Memphis Blues as I went through all 3 Fender Twins trying to find one I like.

Jason showed up by around 9:00 and we played a To Lay Me Down. He had a different guitar which was a cool 1973 reissue of a 1958 black Gibson Les Paul. It was like the one Jerry played in the 60’s with the funky front pickup. We did a nice New Speedway, Other One Franklins Combo and revisited the Other One later on in the evening as we did the entire That’s it for the Other One into a Johnny B. Goode to end the night. I only sang the first verse of the Cryptical the first time we did it and sang the second verse only during the second playing of it. That’s It for the Other One had a nice tinkery ending to it. We also did a Mason’s, Brokedown and a few others. One strange thing about the night is we had no guests, not even Scott Bayer.

Till we meet again, this time in August. By the way, I did pull a coke out of my ass when Kevin needed it the most. The beverage vending machine was out of order and Rich had to run for a few waters early in the evening.

To hear the songs on MP3, go to:
http://www.deadstein.com/audio/07-28-09/

Jam – 2009-07-22 – Carroll’s

22 Jul 2009 1 Comment

by deadstein in Jams Tags: Carroll's, Jam, Jason, Kevin, Larry, Rich, Scott

This was another crazy night and I am now relying on my new iPhone to post this night’s jam using a free WordPress app. Well I typed the first sentence on it but went to my new Acer Aspire One mini netbook to complete it. These are two new amazing pieces of gadgetry in my life and I found the iPhone distracting as I played since I was thinking about it all night. I just picked it up at 5:00 just prior to the jam.

It wasn’t just the electronics that was distracting, we had a virtual full house with 5 guests in addition to the five of us including Jason. As far as guests we had sock-hoppy and dangerous with an egg Rob and Miriam as well as Scott’s friend Phil the vet and his friend Ken. Of course we had Deadstein crier Scott Bayer who also showed up.

We got 4 and a half songs in before Jason joined us who came in like a storm and left within seconds for butts and coffee. The he found his way back into the jam and played all the way through 11:52 at night where we ended with around and around. I appreciate the fact he came directly from the airport to get to the jam.

Rob spilled G-d knows how many beers and it smelled like a college dorm by the end of the night. Nevertheless, it looked like he was having the time of his life and how much more could we want from a Deadstein jam.

I recall some good moments in an interesting Dancing in the Streets jam. We had mostly good moments and jams and enjoyed some explorations in jams including the Dacing, China Cat and I sure a few others.

If you want to hear the music it is here below:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/07-21-09/

Jam – 2009-07-16 – Carrolls

17 Jul 2009 Leave a comment

by deadstein in Jams Tags: Carroll's, Jam, Jason, Kevin, Larry, Rich, Scott

We were playing Wednesday night this week and were scheduled to Jam with Bayside Al, but a last minute remembrance meant he was out. Jason was clutch enough to be available at the last moment, on a night that’s typically tough for him, and we were off to play. Nothing new or special and the only guest we had was Scott “Live from Hell’s Kitchen” Bayer and the dozen donuts brought in by Jason. Let’s us not forget the great big Smarties that Jason found somewhere. Those were pretty darn good.

We got in a couple of songs while Jason was gettng ready including a How Sweet It Is followed by a Ramble on Rose. Kevin’s been listening to Fox Theater 5-19-77 and was in the mood to play some ’77 Dead so the Ramble on Rose it was. Jason strapped it on and we did the Cassidy that went places we’ve never gone before. Really solid stuff. We struggled and never made it through the Big River but the Looks Like Rain and Desolation Row were top notch for us. We also ended the night with what is probably the best Don’t Ease Me In. Overall we played pretty well this night and it was satisfying and not tiring.