INSCRUTABILITY

Last night we had a bit of a party at the house. The jams lasted roughly four hours, yielding approximately two hours of tape. I have taken the liberty of posting the highlights below for you to listen to. I consciously tried to cut things shorter, because I have a tendency to be long in the ear when it comes to editing. Usually files are a few minutes too long, so these are more concise.

Allow me to set the scene. The room was dark with the lone source of light coming from a solitary red bulb and dampened white bulb positioned above the room. On the far side of the room was the six-piece kit. The organ and Peavy Bandit 112 was flush against the wall on the left side of the room. On the near side was my Twin Reverb and Ian’s Dual Showman Reverb, and directly in front of me, also in front of the far drum kit, was a second drum kit facing the center of the room. It was packed rather tightly with lots of wires and microphones scattered across the floor. I’m romanticising it slightly, but you get the idea.

All of these vestibules for sound were working together to (at times) make some pretty music. The cast of musicians was myself (who stuck mostly to guitar, but sang for a few minutes and played drums for even fewer minutes), Ilya (who stuck to bass mostly, but drummed and played guitar for a while), Dan (who played one of the two drum sets and some guitar), ken (who played drums exclusively), Adam (who played organ and drums) and Mike (who played bass and drums and melodica, screamed his head off and was mostly drunk).

Introduction of Ken and Adam (SYNOPSIS – it’s a decent clip from the two or three minutes at the beginning of the evening when everyone is trying to feel each other out (which comes just before everyone tries to feel each other up) and grows accustomed to the improvisational format.)

The Highlight (SYNOPSIS – not much i need to say other than the title speaks for itself. i enjoyed this jam the most. it’s got some scraggly little bad notes but that’s live music for ya. music verite, i call it.)

Rich and Filling (SYNOPSIS – another cute little thing, it’s like the american analog set if their guitar strumming was more “chunky”.)

Stable Will (SYNOPSIS – a will oldham song that ilya sings and plays bass on, ken and dan drum on, and i play guitar on. supposedly ilya doesn’t know any of the words (which i find hard to believe given his obsession with oldham). frequent collaborator jack called my guitar playing “magesterial,” whatever the fuck that means!)

Jam in E (SYNOPSIS – it’s okay for a moment)

A Little More (SYNOPSIS – from the tail end of the night)