It’s a beginning of the week Monday jam and Carroll’s took us out of the book and did not have a room set for us when we got there. No big deal, three of the cool dudes from Carroll’s quickly cleared the room and loaded the Deadstein setup. It was there stuff anyway. Carroll’s continues to be the coolest place! Chris the manager even told us he checked out our website and said it was really cool. Almost makes it all the blogging worthwhile. Fortunately Kevin got there 45 minutes early and got them into action.
Further (Grateful Dead remnants) are playing at Radio City this week, 30 years from the Grateful Dead’s run, so Scott had to rest up for the shows over the next couple of days. This gave us the impetus to contact Bill Sloan to play drums with us. Us being me, Kevin, Rich and Alan. It was good to play with Bill again. He knows the music and plays it well. For those who don’t know, Bill and I used to play squash together at the SUNY Albany gym courts in 1986 when we were college roommates. There are pictures of our house on the review I did of the Albany Dead shows from 2009. Check it out.
As I was saying, it was a pleasure playing with Bill, we fell apart once or twice but nothing of great concern. I’ll take much of the fall for much of the fall. I never really got my legs under me all night playing leads. It felt like an opportunity lost on my part. Nevertheless, you have to forge ahead and make it work for everyone else. Speaking of which, Scott Bayer was there beating his hands on the bongos for a while.
With Rich’s Mac on the “britz”, as they say where they manufacture those things, who knows if we will get the MP3s he recorded or not, so I will try to remember what we played. We opened with the Cold Rain and Snow which it is doing right now as I type. There was the Big Boss man which I never fully got the riff on, but came close. The Cumberland was weak, but the Mama Tried was strong. Crazy Fingers was something I can’t forget remembering but it was on Alan’s list and we did it. On Bill’s list was the Althea which I sang. I like doing that song these day but not that I did it well this evening. Kevin was not wearing his ear plugs for the first time for 4 or 5 weeks and I remember he commented that he hit the Mama Tried perfectly for the first time in his Deadstein career. The same could be said for the Devil where he was oblivious the the existence of the Am in the break. I knew about, I just didn’t hit it. We played a Cassidy early in the night, That was a perfect example of me failing in all the good things I have been learning over the past two or three months. My modal playing just wasn’t there and I couldn’t get it going and there you have it. Stagger Lee took a restart but it finished well. At some point we played an Uncle John’s Band. We ended the night with a Stella Blue –> Throwing Stones -> Note Fadeaway. The close was the Brokedown Palace and a Feel Like a Stranger. I can’t say I was thrilled with too much of it from my own perspective in missed opportunities. I think the Throwing Stones –> Not Fade I was able to get comfortable on but that was primarily cause I was focusing on rhythm and singing. “Whatch” you gonna do? I don’t even want to mention the Other One that was a difficult paddle upstream but we did reach the end point. We probably played 5 or 6 other songs in addition. At midnight Bill said wow the 4 hours goes quickly even though going into it he thought the four hours would be a long time.
I hope the Further shows are good and Scott come back psyched and eager to play. Nothing like seeing some shows to get you juices flowing. Till we jam again. Freak out. Don’t forget to follow Deadstein on Twitter to know when updated to the blog are posted or videos get uploaded. By the way, I brought my shitty little compact digital camera cause I was tired of my iPhone shots and I can’t believe it, the iPhone take’s better pictures. That thing sucks, it doesn’t focus anymore. Oh well. Freak-Out!
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.”
Monday night jam and we continue forging into the new year with reckless abandon. While me and my right leg were feeling pretty good heading into the evening, after standing and jamming for four hours, I left as a wimp, a gimp with a limp. By the way, as an aside, GIMP is a free open-source software that is an excellent Photoshop replacement. I have been using it in part for the past 2 months and is a worthwhile download for those that do image editing and don’t have modern software to modify the images. Check it out at: 
my Steal Your Space book 