Jam – 2011-09-08 – Carroll’s

11 Sep 2011 2 Comments

by deadstein in Jams Tags: , , , , ,

As written by Alan:

This was another difficult week to schedule and was almost cancncelled at the last moment but as always we found a way to make it happen. With The Gind at doggie camp (with his dogs), we were short a lead guitarist. Although we have a strong bench of past and temp lead guitarists to call upon, all were otherwise engaged. Al D. was in town but his appearence, and our fate,  was contingent on the weather, as he had tickets for an outdoor event. The weather held up, which is more than I can say for our luck.

Despite some understandable hesitency on Alan’s part to play the “Jerry” role, on Kevin’s encouragement he stepped up to the plate and a revised “Core Four” jammed. All concerns about this makeshift quartet vanished with the warm-up opener Tore Up, which sounded like…Deadstein. To see if we could go beyond the simple 1-4-5 blues/rock format, we did a stand-alone Scarlet Begonias, which again was a success. Other first set tunes included And it Stoned Me, and a number of Pigpen songs, not only for their simplicity but because it was Pigpen’s birthday. To celebrate the end of several consecutive days or rain we played Here Comes Sunshine, a good bookend to the Looks Like Rain we played weeks earlier before Hurricane Irynne.

The centerpiece of the second set was a heavy jam of Dark Star, The Other One, and Caution (Do Not Step on the Tracks), which was a Deadstein first. It was a lucky unplanned occurance that developed out of a rhythm created by Alan’s digital delay repeat. The soporific slow Friend of the Devil was a bad choice for 11:30 PM. The Gind would have known better. His absence was felt thoughout the night, not just for the leads, but for his leadership and song choice. We have learned to use more eye contact to cue changes so there were surprisingly few crossed signals on leads between me an Rich, who also deserves kudos for singing all of the songs. Kevin and Scott both made it past the finish line on two (or is that four) feet. Our only guest was Scott Bayer, who appeared mid-Dark Star and left some welcome food and left. if not for the food we would not have been sure his appearence was just our imagination.

We look forward to Larry’s return next week for a “Full Five” (or more) jam.

To hear the MP3s from this week, click the links below:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/09-08-11

 

 

Jam – 2011-08-29 – Carroll’s

30 Aug 2011 Leave a comment

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

Monday was the only night we could get together this week for a jam.  We collectively decided it was best the ruin the rest of the week in order to get the jam in on Monday.  From the perspective of a jam, I think it is helpful in that we are well rested from the weekend and ready to put forth a good effort.

We didn’t have a theme for this week but Kevin kept asking for songs that were indicative of a great Dead show that you would go to.  I started the evening’s song list as such with the Stranger opener and the night had a lot of promise.  The Stranger was hot and well done and set us in the right direction.  Speaking of which, the Love Each Other fell right in line thereafter.  I kept us moving going right into a Minglewood out of the Love Each Other.  Trying to keep us moving forward with momentum.

It took us a while to eventually veer from this concept but eventually we did with the closing of the first set with a Good Night Irene.  While Hurricane Irene from the weekend was a non-event for the most of us, I was still out of electricity as I came to the jam.  By about 8:30 I received word that I finally had power back after about a week ad a half, and it was Good Night Irene.

Rob and Miriam commented how that one started terribly, but by the end of the song they were amazed how much fun it was and how good it was.  Scott Bayer showed up later in the night so he and Rob and Miriam were our only guests.  Rob and Miriam seemed to really like the Loose Lucy we gave them.  Seem to hit a chord within them.

Second set was surprisingly strong for a second set.  We closed with a few Beatles songs prior to finishing the night with a Brokedown in the modern key.  It is a little more fun playing in G rather than F.  Just my two cents.

As I am in dog camp next week and will have a week off, I sure everyone will hold the reigns of the Ying-Yoink experience so I am expecting a full report.

Jam – 2011-08-24 – Carroll’s

27 Aug 2011 4 Comments

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

This week we were jamming on Wednesday, August 24 and we were scheduled to have the whole band back together again. This was almost the case as Rich was late so we played a not-so-core-4 first set without him and without a recording.

During this first set I decided to try to try to sing some song I usually do not sing since Rich handles the vocals on them.  This was true for the Shakedown, Deal,Gomorrahand Tennessee Jed.  I liked the sound of the first set. Alacommented on how open it all seemed and we discussed how the room can be so much softer and cleaner when the Piano mic is not on.  It’s a different feel.

Rich arrived and we played solidly and recording for the rest of the night through the midnight deadline with a pretty strong While My Guitar Gently Weeps.  As I am writing this blog posting on Saturday afternoon; awaiting the arrival of Hurricane Irene, I don’t remember much and the MP3s haven’t been released yet. “Saturday night I got whammied…Goodnight Irene, Goodnight Irene, I’ll see you in my dreams…,”   I don’t recall any guests but the music was fun and good. We did the creative and well executed Estimated Eyes of the Maker, I thought that was pretty cool, and considering it was late in the night, we did the Eyes of the Maker as well as we do it.  Additionally, we all stayed vertical all night so that was a bonus.

As we are scheduled to play the night after Irene leaves, playing on Monday night will be a bonus that I will truly appreciate.  Be safe and can’t wait to see everyone on Monday.

  • Shakedown Street
  • Deal
  • Gomorrah
  • Tennessee Jed
  • Tangled Up in Blue
http://www.deadstein.com/audio/08-24-11/

Jam – 2011-08-18 – Carroll’s

21 Aug 2011 2 Comments

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

This Thursday night was a tough Deadstein to get together, but we pulled it off.  With Scott no able to play and Alan on the mend, it was not easy to find people to play.  Fortunately, Rich was all over it and got Bill Sloan to play drums while Bayside Mitch filled in for Alan on rhythm guitar.  He was playing his nice, sweet Gibson Les Paul Studio.  Short of these two guests, we had no others on this night with the exception of Scott Bayer.  He brought a bag of popcorn for us to munch on and that was the beginning of the end  of Kevin.

Some stuff toward the middle of the night approached our best including the Althea, Jack Straw and Fire.  By the ed of the night the limitlessness of it all just about knocked the socks off of everyone, but it seemed to hit Kevin the hardest as we completed the last song and a half without him.  It was a fun night though that had a different feel than usual.

If you want to hear the song we played, go to the links below:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/08-18-11/

Jam – 2011-08-11 – Carroll’s

14 Aug 2011 6 Comments

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

This week in Deadstein we were celebrating Alan’s birthday, which actually fell on this August 11.  In typical Deadstein tradition, it was both Alan’s privilege as well as obligation to select the songs to play. This was both a blessing and a curse.

Alan had a plan that he wanted to pull off which was first playing Skull and Roses followed by Live Dead.  It was a plan with a path and we started off on the right track with a Bertha.  With Hook once again as a guest musician for the night, Alan decided to take the first exit off the road into Blues County to accommodate Hook’s projected desire to eat there.  It seemed a little too early in the trip to hit an exit and eat and in the end; we never really got back on the road that we set out on.

It’s not that we didn’t take a nice little journey into the hinterland along side the highway, because we did, it just seemed that every time we approached getting back on it, we decided to jump right back off.  I am so preoccupied with the highways because I was in the car for some many hours getting to and from this week’s jam.  It took me almost 3 hours to get there with miserable traffic in New Jersey and Obama on the West Side for a fund raiser.  Couldn’t he just raise the debt ceiling a little more? We got to drive this guy out of town!  On the way home the Lincoln Tunnel, named after an actual great president Abraham Tunnel, was backed up so I headed down to the Holland which was no better.  I didn’t get into the tunnel until 1:00am meaning I pulled into my driveway around 2:00.  It was a long night.

One big surprise of the night was the ultra-rare appearance of Lisa Gibson with two friends to check out the festivities.  They provided sandwiched and cookies for the jam, excellent addition, and all we gave them were two songs we don’t play; Neil Young’s Down by the River and the Band The Weight.  The Weight was the weight around their necks that eventually drove them from the studio and back into the streets.  Hook was scheduled to play the Weight with Levon Helm’s Ramble this weekend and thought practicing it with Deadstein would be helpful to him. That will teach him.  Just playing it as transcribed would have been a train wreck but switching it up ½ step to B-flat was an unmitigated disaster that drove everyone from wanting to hear or play that song ever again.  I thought the Down by the River was pretty good though.  I’m not sure if Rich didn’t hit record or not as to the reason I don’t see the MP3s, but I recall that being pretty good.  I would like to hear it.

I think coherency hurt the night a bit as we were all over the place and never got our footing.  I think we were most solid during the Playing and the Dancing once again proving why we are a jam band and not the blues band that some portray to go hand-and-hand with rock and roll.  I think blues comes with a liquored-up up-bringing that just did not sink into Deadstein’s Jewish, suburban, middle-class up-bringing.  It’s the yoink-ying of it all turned on its head; time to get back to a little more ying-yoink.  I hope we can get it together this week, if not, see you in two.

To hear most of what we played during the night, go to the links below:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/08-11-11/

 

 

Jam – 2011-08-03 – Carroll’s

04 Aug 2011 8 Comments

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

Wednesday, August 3 was this week in Deadstein and right in the middle of Jerry Week; the week between his birthday and the day he died.   Deadstein had never really celebrated Jerry Week before but for some reason in 2011, it seemed to have some momentum.  It may have been Facebook and all the mentions up there.  In any case, I decided we should try to play all Jerry songs as the theme for this jam.

We started with the typical 5 of us playing a few songs before Larry Brent joined us and other guests began to arrive.  I chose to open with a Stella Blue and Gomorrah.  I recall in some interview with Jerry in the 80s he said those were his two favorite songs he and Hunter composed.  The Stella Blue was a mistake as it was incoherent, but the Gomorrah was nice.  Larry joined us during the Althea and Hook arrived much later and played during the end of the night.

Other guests for the jam include Michael B who was spinning to the groove like no one else can.  We also had 3 friends of Scott who also dug us.  They seemed into us, Michael was way into it and so was the band.  It made for a momentous evening commemorating the songs of Jerry Garcia.

We played on-and on, never really taking a break and as such, it proved to be a pretty exhausting evening.  We went strong for good 3 and one-half hours.  We broke our adherence to the Jerry only theme late in the night and played an Other One out of the He’s Gone which opened up the flood gates to play the subsequent Morning Dew.  This was followed by a bunch of other songs which were more conducive to the harmonica and the stylings of Hook. We did some real good stuff with him to end the night.

There was lots of good fun stuff this jam, with lots of pos and good energy.  More ying than yoink.  Let’s keep the ying going!

To hear the first set on MP3s use the links below.  The second set’s MP3s are not publicly available due to licensing restrictions we are Hooked into, believe it or not.

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/08-03-11/

Previous Older Entries Next Newer Entries