Wikler | my Steal Your Space book

Jam – 2011-05-12 – Carroll’s

13 May 2011 5 Comments

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

With Scott at the Warren Haynes show with my brother Jay at the Beacon, we were able to wrestle Coffee-Boy to come back and play a week with us. He was feeling good as he had recently setup his kit in his house and has been playing a bit. Not as much ferrous oxide on those sticks as the last time and it showed.

We had a few glitches to start the night. While parking was good, when we got to the lobby of Carroll’s the elevator was shit out of order. That means six long hard flights up to Carroll’s hauling my guitar crap all the way up. After a couple of weeks of non-stop bike commuting, my thighs were burning hauling that crap up the stairs. I guess I was doing better than Alan because I caught him resting somewhere around the 4th floor before getting psyched for the final climb to six.

When we got there things were good, after getting them to fix the one bad channel in the PA, it all seemed to work and sound good. I thought were were playing pretty well all of us. More relaxed than I would have expected, and tat was a good thing. Hopefully Coffee-Boy gets his juices flowing from all the good stuff that happens.

We had Coffee select most of the songs for the night and I like the selection. Fifteen songs seems weak in comparison to the previous several weeks where we used the setlists and achieved great numbers, so there is something to be said for that. I’ll be excited to hear this weak, hopefully our recording issue is resolved, I’ll know as soon as I click on one of the MP3s.

To hear the MP3s, take a stab at the links below:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/05-12-11/

Jam – 2011-05-03 – Carroll’s

04 May 2011 8 Comments

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

Jerry 5-3-87

We seemed to get to Carroll’s early on this jam night as there was no traffic and no show at Terminal-5 so we got good spots and were set for a jam. Being May 3 we decided to try another anniversary show, and this week’s tribute was to 1977 and the long Palladium show that happened 34 years ago.

We had an epic setlist to get through in 4 hours and we rushed through it a bit to achieve its completeness, but some how we finished the Uncle John’s Band encore as the clock turned 12. It was quite an accomplishment for us. It took a few songs to tune in the PA system but once we got it we sounded pretty good.

Scott was alert and consistent and it helped us stay steady and easy through out the night. Lazy Lightning took a few leaps forward on this night. Speaking of Lazy Lightning, this show we were playing was filled with many giant songs so it really was quite a big evening of music. We moved Rich’s MP3 recorder to see if we could get a sound out of it that wasn’t so over-loaded, so when the MP3s come out we shall see or hear.

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/05-03-11/

In the end the MP3s sound good.

In the world, this is the week the U.S. hunted down and killed Osama Bin Laden, almost 10 years after the 9-11 attacks.

Jam – 2011-04-27 – Carroll’s

30 Apr 2011 2 Comments

by deadstein in Jams Tags: Jam, Kevin, Larry, MGoodman, Rich, Scott, Wikler

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the great 4-27-71 Fillmore East Dead show with the Beach Boys, we decided to try to replicate the Grateful Dead portion of the show. It is a great long setlist and took a lot of persistence to get through, and through we got as we finished the show’s song list with room to spare, enabling us to play to additional song. Unfortunately, Rich’s MP3 recorder was set to high or the preamps we overwhlemed, but the MP3s came out filled with distortion. To bad because we had some good moments.

As far as guests we had Marty Goodman playing keyboard, B3 sounds for the last two-thirds of the night. His sounds we limited since his zip disk was on the fritz, I think Pigpen used a zip disk to get his sounds on the keys way back when, so you know it’s time for Marty to invest in a new storage medium. Nevertheless, I jest and it was good to have Marty there that night, he has played with us at our two Short Hills gigs.

Though they are tough to listen to due to the overloaded distortion, the songs are available at the following locations.

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/04-27-11/

Jam – 2011-04-21 – Carroll’s

26 Apr 2011 1 Comment

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

For the first week in several weeks we didn’t have a setlist to play when we arrived and picked one out of the air as we played. It was good to be back in Carroll’s with the five of us. That’s right we also had Scott Bayer with his beaded gourd and desire to have a 10-minute telephone consultation with Scott on the fine art of drumming. If that conversation ever took place, I would be interested in how it went. We also had Rob and Miriam show up and one of their friends also hung out for a while. He seemed interested in buying Carroll’s. Let’s hope that never happens because Carroll’s is where it is at.

There was a little hamper on our night as a crowd of like 200 girls played in the studio next door and we could play too loud and upset them. Then after we all thought they were gone and we were free to let our proverbial hair done, at 11:15 came another bus-load. How did they get them all in the elevator?

Anyway, I am posting this on the Tuesday night, the night before we have our next jam just to make sure I get this thing posted. You never want to get behind on this stuff because you find yourself never ahead again.

I had an agenda coming into the jam to play the Help-Slip Franklins that I had been practicing for a week anticipation for the 4/12 Binghampton show that never materialized the week before. I also wanted to try the Lazy Lightning again which we are getting closer to doing well. Both were fair at best, but there were moments in the night, I’ll have to see if I can get to the MP3s before the next jam.

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/04-21-11/

Jam – 2011-04-06 – Carroll’s

08 Apr 2011 Leave a comment

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

This week was Deadstein’s ode to the 29th anniversary of one of my favorite shows; Philadelphia Spectrum, April 6, 1982, or 4-6-82 as we affectionately refer to it. It’s been fun that we have played several complete shows recently. It’s an homage to some of the greatness the Grateful Dead provided us as well as a chance for us to reflect back at being at specific shows or listening to specific tapes. Lots of good memories.

In my case, 4-6-82 was a set of high quality soundboard tapes my friend Bruce Levine somehow obtained just weeks after the show. He was enrolled in University of Pennsylvania at the time, Brotpen’s alma mater, and stumbled upon the soundboards. My first Dead show was the Nassau Coliseum, Easter Sunday 4-11-82, a week after the 4-6-82 Spectrum show, so this tape was early in my Deadhead life and my first really high quality current board. I grew to know this show like the back of my hand and some of the moments are classic. They include the Shakedown jam with the keyboard/Jerry interchange and the post space from trucking through the Morning Dew, which still may be one of the best Dews ever!

We didn’t do the Dew quite justice but the Shakdedown was pretty cool. I studied a bit of the show and write-ups for specific songs leading up to the jam. The Cold Rain, Candyman and Sailor/Saint all have new updated PDF tabs associated with them. Check them out below:

The Sailor Saint has been tough, and will probably always be tough, but hopefully the new writeup will be better for us. The significance of the Candyman change is not stepping up chromatically between the and F and G throughout the song. This actually isn’t reflected in the new tabs but is a good thing to remember. The tabs were just clarified a bit and helped us as we played.

Though we pooped out a bit toward the end of the night, we did the entire show with room for an additional song so it was a satisfying night. There was a lot of good playing going on, especially in the first set. The good thing about following a real set list is that it keeps you in focus and in your role so you can settle down and execute because for the most part, the songs are standards with an occasional one to keep you wanting to come back for more so you can do better; hello Sailor-Saint.

It looks like next week we maybe be playing Binghamton ’83, Kevin’s first show so get that Help on the Way under your belt and look forward to another crack at the Sailor Saint. Lots of good stuff from that show. Until we freak again.

To hear the MP3s of what we played go to the following links:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/04-06-11/

Jam – 2011-03-23 – Carroll’s

24 Mar 2011 8 Comments

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

Spring is here and so is the snow, but it wasn’t falling hard enough to stop the train wreck we call Deadstein. We got there kind of early, got into some iPad based Youtube jams through the PA, how things have changed in 20 years. While listening to a Dancing in the Streets we somehow got inspired and pulled into playing it right out of YouTube version. It was Furthur I believe. It was a good technique to get us going for the rest of the night’s music. We didn’t have a set-list or a plan this week, so that stalled us a bit. I think I’m going to try to walk into every jam with a strategy from here on to keep us focused and moving in a positive direction.

Alan walked into the studio during the end of Dancing in the Streets and we were set to go on for the rest of the night. We worked a tad on the Wake Up Little Susie this week, which we introduced last week, and that was a nice surprise. We did the same thing with the entire Terrapin Suite and that also showed some improvement and level of comfort. The Terrapin was a big end to the first set that included a big Let It Grow into the Terrapin.

Always tough to get the same results in the second set after pooping out after the first. In any case, we played with tenacity all the way through midnight. Trying to keep the song selection short and fast.

May be it was the never ending mouth of Scott Bayer that showed up at 11:30 to play his new beaded coconut, or what ever he has, that kept us going through the finish line. One thing he did have was a big bag of Bachman’s popcorn which was a major distraction toward the end of the night. Let us not forget the Tequila and limes Scott brought and the large value cookies now available in the vending machines. In the world of Deadstein, these are high value benefits.

To listen to the music that we made on this night go to the MP3 links below:

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/03-23-11/