my Steal Your Space book

Kev is smoking

At the end of last week Kevin asked for a standard set list nothing new to learn, no practice just good ol’ Grateful Dead songs.  Just out of nowhere I decided let’s play the 11-5-1977 show as a way to appease Kevin.  It makes sense since 1977 equated to good old standard material.  Amazingly enough, it contained the 4 songs we worked on last week, Jack Straw, Dire Wolf, Looks Like Rain and Sugar Magnolia.  A pretty amazing coincidence when you come to think about it.  I didn’t try to do that but it just turned out that way. It gave us some good reinforcement practice on those  songs.  In addition, we worked on Samson quite a bit which taught us the proper groove on that song which have have been hacking away at for the past 19 years.  All these new improvements to existing material have to compete with years of ingrained misplaying of songs but it all makes it better.  In addition, when you play it correctly, it is easier.  I found that true with the Samson last night.

Scott is thinking about something

This was historic for Deadstein, we played the entire setlist from the 11-5-1977 show in the spirit of the show itself.  The Minglewood opener was to the period.  I didn’t play any slide all night and Jasonbrought the Travis Beam.   Scott survived the big, never-ending second set Estimated –> He’s Gone –> Drums –> Other One –> Peter –> Sugar Mag combo without getting up.  Pretty enduric of him.  Speakng of Scott, Scott Bayer was our only guest and was only there for the pre-show mischagaus.  He seemed impressed with our level of intelligence and provockative discussions in the early hours of the jam compared to what it descends to later on.  In addition, we got to Carroll by cell phone during the encore for the show the One More Saturday Night,  Lots of great jamming.  It’s easier when it familiar.

No, but thanks for asking.

A cool cloud formation I found last week 10-18-2008

It is a crazy week, with the Dow going up 900 points yesterday after a week of tumbling.  Gas prices keep going down and global warming seems to have taken a Canadian vacation.  Yesterday, remnants of a noreaster hit my area hard.  Highways were closed due to ice, winds tore down trees and brought down power-lines and parts of Morris County had over 10 inches of snow.  It’s October may I remind you?  I live in the center of Morris County not in the mountainous west and therefore we the snow didn’t stick and it was mainly rain.  This meant a cold, windy bike ride through the woods on the way home that included peddling through flooded river at 10 inches deep at some parts.  I got soaked and wasn’t ready to ride to work this morning.  One of the first times in a long time that I pussied out of riding due to weather.  The only thing that seems to be normal is the abnormal and that is Deadstein.   At least I am ready to play tonight.

10-29-2008 Scott and Rich at the end of the night.

Maybe the world is reaching it’s equilibrium somewhere around the abnormality of Deadstein.  It’s not normal that the abnormal becomes normal but welcome to the future.  I think it is going to include me, Kevin, Scott, Rich and Jason, but when you open that door to Studio 2, you never know who or what you are going to see.

I got to 55th Street by 7:30 and found a spot easily.  I made my way upstairs to find Scott and Rich in the room and Kevin arrived shortly thereafter.  We hung, kibitzed for a bit and then got the instruments on.  We knew Jason was coming but he wasn’t there yet so we decided to play a couple of Garband songs until he arrived.  Rich sang a “Stop That Train” and I labored through a “Simple Twist of Fate” that seemed like it would never end.  Jason arrived at the beginning of that thing and had to endure through 85% of it without being a part of it.

The might neck of Jasons guitar

When he got there Jason discussed a little about dynamics and volume and then Rich enlightened us with his analogy about playing to fill the roomhalf way so we have plenty of air space to work with when we want to.   It seemed to work for a song or 2 at most, but we were not really too quiet thereafter.  Scott was recovering from a cold so he didn’t sing all night but he seem to play well and drummed through the 12:00 finish line.  So did we as the midnight hour hit us unexpectingly early.  We threw down a solid “Hey Pocky 
Way” and bolted out of there with me chiding the band about being lemmings following the masses into the new  Obamanation.  At least now our plate of life has personal variety and isn’t government provided soylent green. The future’s here, we are it and we are on our own.  Actually we will have Barak looking over our shoulders to make sure everything is okay as provided by the Obamanation.  It is all so comforting.  You still have an opportunity not to be a party to all of this.  The future’s here, we are it and we can be on our own if you all help.  So back off the soap box.

What is this? Scott probably knows

We worked on a few of the songs we updated last week and most notibably Sugar Magnolia and the ending of the singing part.  We went over that many times and my explanation to Kevin that the first half of the last line is the same as the ending “Sunshine Daydream” jam until you hit the “D” finally hit him when we played the whole song and he played it in context.  We then did it again.  We also practiced the groove of the Suuplication jam with me outwardly counting the 7 beat.  That really worked well.  Maybe some day we can conquer the entire song.  As long as we have that 7 grove entrenched, the rest should be easy.  We worked on and failed with the IF I had the World to Give and The Eleven.  We weren’t on the same pages with those two.  While I didn’t play it all that well, we did a nice Help on the Way.  With Merl Sauders’ passing Scott got us to play the “Like a Road.  That was marginal, I didn’t feel we were on the same page on that thing either.

On a side note, this week I joined Facebook.com and have had a great time with it.  It tookmuch time from me working on the new Deadbook revision but I recommend it.  An amazing concept and do you think I should start a Deadstein group on it?  Is there any point?

On the prior Sunday (10-26-2008) there was still some beautiful autumn color to be had around the streams of Morristown, NJ

You have to go to every show.

It’s getting into late October and it is no longer as nice as it has been and the days are getting shorter. Not that all is lost because through it all Deadstein shall play. Tonight it appears as if it is going to be Kevin, Rich, Scott and I with Jason on the lead. I’m not sure if anyone else is going to show up but it wouldn’t shock me if Scott Bayer was there for a song and a photo-op.

I sent Jason a copy of the Deadbook a couple of weeks ago and just last night Jason sent me a bunch of corrections via email that got me working on updating the book. Some were things I didn’t know about, the Emaj7 in Jack Straw as opposed to the G# and the Cdim7 in Looks Like Rain as opposed to the G# once again. Actually, anywhere where I have a G# I should investigate it because it is probably some other passing chord. Then there were other corrections that I knew how to play and never really looked at the book to realize the book was wrong. There was one of these in the Dire Wolf. Finally, I had the opportunity to redo the entire transcription of Sugar Magnolia so that enjoyed a nice improvement. In addition to learning to play these songs correctly, hopefully this little session will get me to eventually publish the next edition of the songbook. It has gotten me in the right direction be establishing a new file called Deadbook2009.doc. Let’s see if I can follow through on the endeavor and get something out in early 2009.

Another great autumn moment captured on my bike ride home. Speedwell Lake, Morristown, NJ

Scott Bayers unsolvavble quadratic equation.

Scott warned us that there is a show at Terminal 55 so parking may be a hassle. I’ll try to get there early and claim my spot. If I miss out I will be counting my blessings that I have a rack unit that is on wheels. Can’t wait to jam.  As an after thought.  Friday after the jam I was speaking to someone at work who was mentioning how she was allowing her 16 year old son to see some band 3 night in a row in NYC, and it happened to be the band Scott told us about playing at Terminal 55.  It may be Terminal 5 for all I know.

The Band 10-22-2008

Chris manages to keep Deadstein in good shape.

So I’m driving up the West Side Highway, watching the Lou Dobbs Show on CNN through my Sllingbox on my cell phone in the car and I’m in my own world looking forward to getting there and I see this giant Lincoln SUV honking me and lo-and-behold, it is Rich and Scott racing to 5th Street.  I told them I would race them but I lost once again getting lost in Lou’s diatribe.  When I got to 55th street I discovered I was screwed that there were no parking spots due to the show at Terminal 55.  I saw Scott in the giant Lincoln waitng in front of the door at Carroll’s parked illegally in the construction zone and I pulled up behind.  Scott was looking for affirmation to park illegally, for which I could not provide, and therefore we decided to find parking somewhere else.  I took and conservative approached and parked atleastone and a half blocks further than I had to.  Thank G-d for the rollers on my rack unit.  Kev gave me a ride back there at the end of the night. 

Smarties on the Piano

Kev plays a big amp and a colorful bass.

We all arrived around the same time and got going in good order.  We started with a Getaway and Jason was out for vengence playing with a very high level of distortion.  I picked an Esau next and we were off to the races.  I introduced the changes to the Sugar Mag, Dire Wolf, Looks Like Rain and Jack Straw on paper and we took to them and played all of them through the night and in each case, the versions showed significant improvements.

Scott Bayer showed up in the middle of the night for 2 songs and I don’t recall that we played to Carol over the cell phone.  This may have broke a streak unless Rich can confirm that we played for her.  Kev had a different bass rig, some giant one piece thing but it sounded good.  We had the cheap Berhinger mics which didn’t help anything, but by the end of the night it sounded okay. We had a few nice long combos like an Other One Smokestack Wheel Miracle Me and My Uncle.  The we ended with a big Estimated Eyes Dew.  I was amazed Scott made it through it all but he hung in there, good for him and good for us.  It was a fun night and I can’t wait to do it again.  It looks like Wednesday. Maybe I could have a new improved song or two for then.

It is no longer summer as the coats on the wall inidcate