Scott | my Steal Your Space book

Jam – 2013-01-30 – Carroll’s

30 Jan 2013 1 Comment

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

Wednesday night, or “Woo’sday” night as we have been euphemistically calling it, and the entire band was back together, including Donna D. for a portion of the first set. I we were there early and ready to jam. Kevin was itching to go by 7:40 and Lee had gotten to Carroll’s hours earlier so no one wanted to wait for 8:00 pm to start. It should be noted that Lee came toting a giant frozen apple pie which we began to woof-down by halftime.

Lee suggested a Halfstep. He kind of was challenging me saying I really didn’t like to play it; he’s right you know, so we played it and it was really strong. From the first few notes we knew it was going to be a pretty good jam. The sound was good in the room and this lead to some well played music. The Halfstep had a good long powerful Rio Grande-O lead and felt good. We then went to a 2nd set mode in the first with an Estimated –> Eyes with the whole 1974 Eyes ending. That was pretty good. Sure there were rough spots, but there were comforting sweet spots. The Eyes jam ends in Dm and naturally segued us into a Shakedown Street. At the close of the Shakedown, Donna came in and we went into a nice set working with her until the end of the first set. We did some songs she really didn’t know but easy ones to try to jump in on the harmonies. Row Jimmy was a good example of such a song as was the Forever Young. I think we did pretty well on that one.

We took a standard halftime break, saying good-bye to Donna, eating the apple pie, making our obligatory phone calls,etc. Then we got going again shortly after 10:30 For the second set Ryan jumped in and sat in for Lee and Scott for a song a piece, so we got some of that going with the Candyman and something else. As a matter of fact, Ryan was our only guest, with the exception of Scott Bayer who came in later on in the night and video taped a song or two?

Midnight hit us pretty quickly as the passage of time cannot be stopped, either in music or life. We were about to leave at the last song and Ryan goaded us into playing one last song, You can say an encore and we gave him a Quin the Eskimo to go home with.

I look forward to being able to listen to it, until then all we can do is smile, smile, smile.

Now we have it, listen the the MP3s below:

http://deadstein.com/audio/01-30-13

Jam – 2013-01-23 – Carroll’s

23 Jan 2013 2 Comments

by deadstein in Deadstein Forums, Jams Tags: Carroll's, Fred, Jam, Kevin, Larry, Rich, Scott, StaggerLee

With Alan vacationing, enjoying some warm tropical weather, Deadstein would have to brave the cold weather outside to enjoy some of the nice “woo” inside. Joining us at the unlimited table of “woo” in lieu of Alan for the second time was Fred. With Fred on lead and me playing Bobby, it made for a strong night of music.

We only had Steve in as our guest for the night, so there was little to disturb us in our quest to play good music. This kept us moving forward with determination. The equipment seemed fine so we had few excuses to make, and listening to the the recording should hopefully bear this out.

Scott had just come from a show seeing a performance of Dylan’s “I’ll Be You Baby Tonight” so we decided to take a crack at that song and had a good time with it. It was good that we selected to do it early on because we were focused and stayed with it. We also had a 1972 vibe going on during the first set and did a nice He’s Gone –> Truckin’ –> Birdsong triple combo, extra meat and no tomato, if you know what I mean. This seemed to be the main entree of the set.

By the time the second set hit, we needed some help. I had just showed Fred how to use the Deadstein.com online song database to access PDFs of song write-ups. He noticed the Rand-O-Matic portion of it and I demonstrated it. Next thing we know, the clutch Rand-O-Matic pulled a very entertaining night of 2nd set jamming for us out of its gorilla glass and on we went. Another pat on the back to Deadstein.com.

To listen to what we did go to the following folder:
http://deadstein.com/audio/01-23-13

Set 1

Set 2

Jam – 2013-01-17 – Carroll’s

17 Jan 2013 3 Comments

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

After several weeks of working on material that can bit a bit outside of our range, Deadstein embarked on a jam that was closer to its roots. With Donna in Jamaica, and the standard six-man lineup, we had nothing to think about in our song selection except what would make us happy.

Everyone but Alan got there early, he had trouble getting a cab from his new home’s location and was a little late. Nevertheless, we started a little before 8pm as we were eager to play. I was therefore thinking Garband until Alan arrived and initially suggested a How Sweet It Is opener. Kevin hemmed and hawed and said he wanted a song that was a little less feminine. A song he could be proud of when someone asks him what Deadstein opened with. With that in mind I then suggested a Jack Straw which was met with enthusiasm and Lee requested it go into a Franklins Tower. With that type of meaty buffet served Kevin and the rest of Deadstein was set for a satiating evening. It was a hot opener. We then went into a Little Red Rooster as Lee was thinking we don’t play enough of that standard Grateful Dead blues stuff anymore. During the second lead of Rooster Alan came in and bum-rushed the microphone with his harmonica. Having nice monitors these days, and not sound-checking his microphone, caused his harmonica to overwhelm the room and bring the vibe of that song to a grinding halt.

We continued on with our Grateful Dead onslaught from there on. Playing lots of fast and just lots of A1-Dead-songs; steak sauce. Ryan was our only guest and he played drums for a songs or two with us. For the second set we somehow found ourselves, attacking Live Dead performing the Dark Start, Stephen, Eleven, Death as a coherent medley of music. We capped it off with a Watchtower to close. This still gave us time for a nice Uncle John’s band based mini-set to close the evening. An excellent, back to our roots jam.

To listen to the music, go to the links below:

http://deadstein.com/audio/01-17-13

Jam – 2012-01-09 – Carroll’s

09 Jan 2013 3 Comments

by deadstein in Jams Tags: Carroll's, DonnaD, Jam, Kevin, Larry, Scott, StaggerLee, Wikler

When we got to Carroll’s this Wednesday night something was askew. We were in the large Studio 4 , but there was Alan, the Studio tech’s, rig set up in half the stdio so they set us up sideways in the remain portion of the room. Not that there wasn’t plenty of space, it was just sideways, maybe out of phase. That may have had something to do with the night’s music because Alan and I had to got through a half dozen amplifiers to settle into ones that were even usable; I won’t say good. Additionally I got two shocks from the microphones while singing so I know something was not right.

It was too bad the vibe was skewed for the night because it was Donna’s birthday and she had been practicing a whole slew of new songs to get in the groove to celebrate it. She was scheduled to go to dinner with Carolyn, from last week’s jam, to party with her before they would both come and jam with us, but Carolyn was sick and that didn’t happen. Rich was also out of town so we had no piano for the night, I therefore was to take on the bulk of the singing for the night. That would prove to be a bit false.

To begin with, me, Kevin and the drummers were there early We got setup early so I decided I wanted to work on a little of the “We’re not going to take it” jam with the band because Donna was to sing it later for real. It was a lot of fun as we played it twice as Donna came in during our second attempt. It’s cool stuff to do and we are pretty close in some aspects. The first real song of the night was the New Speedway Boogie which is one of her favorites and I think it had an excellent groove got us going on the right foot.

I thought I would take that opportunity of momentum and bring us to the Look Like Rain, I know, it was a bit early but it seemed right at the time. I was wrong as it was a bit premature and took my momentum and confidence down a notch or two. With respect to guests, my Brother Jay showed up with his college roommate Ken and he had is college-age daughter and niece in tow. His niece was a singer and we set her up with a microphone and a book and threw her in the lion’s den. She did an In My Life with Donna, which is pretty good and then sang lead on a Son of a Preacher Man, which was great. You just never know what walks through the doors of Deadstein do you.

During all this, both Alan and I were struggling with out failing amplifiers putting a wet blanket on what should have been a better experience. Worrying about the guitar tone and lack thereof was a preoccupation of mine all night long. I couldn’t get it out of my head. For the second set we got new amps from the storage room, but the only I could get to sound okay gave me shocks in the kisser when I touched the microphone with my lips. After the college people left we had a good set and a half with Donna that was kind of marred by the technical issues. Nevertheless, you have to always move forward and make the best of it and if you listen to the recordings, there are some excellent moments showing great promise!

To hear most of what we played, go to the links below. Unfortunately, I ran out of recording space and lost the last 3 songs.

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/01-09-13/

Set 1

Set 2

Jam – 2012-12-28 – Carroll’s

28 Dec 2012 Leave a comment

by deadstein in Jams Tags: Carroll's, DonnaD, Fred, Jam, Kevin, Larry, Rich, Scott, StaggerLee

The end of 2012 featured the 51st jam of the year and what a year it has been in Deadstein land. For the night we had a surprise guest guitarist, Fred. He was new to all of us but Rich and he played Jerry lead for the entire night leaving me to stick with the Bob rhythm guitar. He was good and it made for a fun night of music. Additionally, Donna was there for most of the night and stayed through the 12 o’clock hour. Maybe it was the fact that we were jamming on the ultra rare Friday night. This was the result of Christmas and New years being on Tuesday nights this year messing up Carroll’s schedules. No big deal, the Friday night jam seemed like a bonus. It was a long separation between the previous Monday jam and this Friday jam, so we were all ready to play. Our guests for the night included Steve and Lindsey. It’s time to get it all going again starting off strong for 2013.

To hear what we did to close 2012 go to the links below:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/12-28-12/

Jam – 2012-12-17 – Carroll’s

17 Dec 2012 Leave a comment

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

This week, our Stagger was back but Alan was out. Donna D. once again sang a few songs during the first set and left us to our own devices for the second set. She came in sporting a new set of braided polyester extensions in her hair, kind of a surprise to all of us, and provided us a little lesson in things we know not of. We did get lots of songs in for the first set and I think we found the second set more challenging. For the night we had no guests and we were on our own to flounder as we must.