Tales from the Jam Room
 

TALES... FROM... The Jam Room...

So, after about 3 years of posting, disappearing, re-posting, going on hiatus, and then coming back again I've decided to start one of these journal things. I've participated on music forums for a good decade at this point and this is the only one still kicking with solid traffic and a place specifically for this type of thing. Unlike the album review journals that seem rather popular in this subforum this one is going to be a bit more personal, though not as personal as Above's Live Transmission (wow courage). No, mine is far more egocentric and whiny, rife with daddy issues, first world problems and the kind of manic depression I only wish I could caress, and kiss, and kiss...

The bulk of this journal is going to be about my experiences as an artistic musician. I feel the need to make a distinction between an artistic musician and a commercial one not necessarily for pretentious reasons (but still super pretentious) but also because I feel a strong difference between Song and Music. Simply put an artistic musician is more concerned with the immediate expression of the self through sound thereby being more focused on Music, whereas a commercial musician ends up more focused on the Song side of the spectrum due to their need to make a living with their craft. It IS possible to balance both aspects but generally speaking most people tend to lean a bit more on the Song side of the fence - whether or not they want to own up to the commercial angle I see it as is a whole other can of worms.

First some background, I'm yet another one of those people who'll claim they've been a musician forever and that's its an intrinsic part of their being. Fact is, I AM and it IS. My father peaked (for lack of a better term) as a one hit wonder in 1970 - I've been rocking out since I was monocellular! (As flippant and lighthearted as that might sounds it's still quite unnerving to admit).

http://a3.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/i...93f85ed7/l.jpg

He's holding me to the keys, not because I can't reach, but because I don't know how to stand yet. I was ready for the clubs not long after that.

http://a3.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/i...e41169cd/l.jpg


So that's where it started. I saw my path, started laying down my building blocks of personal development and started growing into a big boy. Then the awesomeness of the so-called Rock and Roll lifestyle that got celebrated so much by so many (so long as it's not happening to them) reared its head. My initial collection of blocks got crushed by an issue so large and so lame no one wanted to address it directly. I become a very sullen and introverted boy. Another 10 years later I finally hear the Red Hot Chili Peppers for the first time and a lightning bolt was shot through my teenaged skull and the desire to rock out returned. A year later I scored my first guitar. A few years after that I took off for college, and met my first real musical peers and the ones who'd further refine my perspective on what being a musician was and my first 'real' jam room. After college there were the basement jams and the summer of gigs; the move to the warehouse; the first big hiatus; the return to the warehouse; and finally, the flood. And now as of this past week, I'm entering into a new phase, a change in my living arrangement is requiring a change in my employment arrangement which will require a change to pretty much everything.

----

I'll be expanding most of those statements into full entries eventually (though not necessarily chronologically). If anyone wants to read about something specific sooner than later just ask. The other thing I wanted to add in my journal was personal deconstructions of various pieces of music that I feel are either pertinent to the journal entry or something I think should be more widely recognized.

----

As if I'm not going to spotlight my old man's single for this first one.



Mashmakhan - As The Years Go By.


First a bit about the band. Allmusic and Wikipedia both claim the name of the band is derived from illicit drugs or hashish. I don't doubt that my old man experimented back in the day. I've heard people call hash - cheese, wax, bull, black, brown but never mash, or mashmakhan - I don't buy it. For whatever reason drug use is an issue my father and I have never bridged, I'm positive he's tried in the past, he's seen my pipe, but we've both taken the cowards way out :( Personally I think the band name is a play on words of a Quebecois' expression relating to hash smoking - Mash My Can (and turn it into a hash pipe).

My father cut his teeth playing saxophone for various soul / r&b bands around the Montreal area starting in the late 50s. The only name I know from those earliest days is Sammy Ambrose and stories of a small tour in New York state - $2 steaks in restaurants, a hotel that was 'closed' for the season but let them stay and subsequently flood, and being the only white face in the Apollo theater to see the one and only Ray Charles. By the end of the 60s my old man was still in Montreal and gigging with old friends and backing up soul singer Trevor Payne (who went on to found a pair of well recognized gospel choirs). Apparently producer Bob Hahn discovered the backing band and convinced the backing band to move to Toronto, sign with a major label, and become one of the first Canadian bands actively pushed towards having commercial success State-side.

Now for the song, it was actually the B-Side to their lead single and album opener Days When We Are Free. There's a 30 second organ solo tacked onto the start of the single that isn't featured on the album to fill it out a bit more or something. I've seen writeups describe their debut album as one of the more accessible prog / fusion albums due to the pop sensibilities throughout. As The Years Go By was actually just a filler track, they never expected it to amount to anything and my father claims that the bulk of the lyrics came to him awhile taking a bath and most of the song was written within the next 15 minutes.

It's a novel little song too. It's easy to write it off as a stupid hippie fluff tune if you only listen to the "And as the years go by... True love will never die" chorus. A little attention to the verses show that the song is in fact exploring the idea that love is an ambiguous feeling that means very different things to everyone throughout the various stages of their lives and within the various relationships they keep. There's at least 1 line within the song that absolutely everyone out there can directly relate to right now, and I think that's why it was a hit despite beginning as a novelty song, despite being a B-side, it rang true to listeners far and wide.

Musically it's rather interesting as well, being a rock tune with a raggae feel at a time when most people were implementing folky / country elements to their rock music. The choice of having the organ take lead while the guitar sits back and either adds subtle embellishments to the lead melody or sticks with dry staccato rhythm to keep the reggae feel also helped the song stand out from the crowd. There's also a pretty groovy bridge that seems like a great launching pad for solos / live jam action but neither of the 2 live versions I've ever heard went that direction (though other live tracks from their show in Japan did).

Thanks to anyone who's read to this point, I'm hoping to update once a month or so. Happy New Year to everyone :pimp:

*edited for typos

As a fan of you, your writing, and what I've heard of your music, I'm really looking forward to this thread Dave! I've been curious if I knew your dad's music or not since the first time you mentioned a long time ago but was reluctant to push you for more info. Turns out it's not something I was familiar with but I dig it and really interesting to hear. I can't wait to read more! :)

This is going to be one of the great journals. What stories! And I love the idea of you sitting at the keyboard as a baby. If only I had started out that young, maybe I'd be able to play something more than just chords with melodies that happen to fit with those chords, but that no-one would seriously recognise as music. And damn my short term memory! Can never remember the chords or notes to any song I learned.

And another thing, I can never remember the chords or notes... :D

And Happy New Year back atcha both!

Trollheart, serviced, revamped and updated for 2012 (but still basically the same *******...) ;)

Thanks for the positive comments :D


*edit* - I'm going to try posting a major entry every other week, at least until I run out of stuff to blab about. Where it's dealing with personal stuff I'd rather write it out first then let it percolate for at least a few days before posting it. Hope no one minds hehe

I'm loving the pictures of you as a baby at the keyboard! The're pretty damn cool! I think I'm going to enjoy this journal a lot! :)

So my dad was a Rockstar(technically)...
 

From what I understand it's not entirely uncommon for children who grow up in broken homes to project fabrications as to why one of their parents left, it's a coping mechanism. In my case it wasn't, it was the truth but it didn't make it any easier, especially not with the lack of details or clarity I needed to wait 25 years for. Everyone has read a story about the debauchery and decadence of the rock and roll lifestyle, the sex, the drugs, the parties, and the fame. Considering the state of the modern entertainment industry I think it's quite safe to say most people have fantasized about that lifestyle as well (and many still do).

Here's the flipside though, when one of your parent's is an entertainer, as a child, you don't recognize it as anything out of the ordinary, it's just what mommy or daddy does for a dollar. In my eyes my father was always just 'Dad', though unlike an average 9-5 guy, when my old man took off for work I wouldn't see him again for 3-4 sometimes 6 weeks. That's a pretty huge amount of time when you're 4. In my childhood mind there wasn't a whole lot of difference between going on tour across 3 provinces and going on tour on the other side of the world.

Then it happened. Three weeks after I turned 5 (early November 1981) he got back from a tour of another province; I remember waking up early with my little sister the next morning, excited that Dad was home again and we snuck to our parent's room. I remember the weird blue of the carpet. I remember him sitting up and starting to cry. My mom got out of bed and said something about him being sick (I found out much later her words were 'He's sick in the head'). He asked for us to comfort him. My little sister did. I stood in the doorway, thinking he'd been sick in the bed, as in he made a poopy in the bed and well... gross man... I wasn't getting near that. Turns out he'd gotten home late the previous evening and confessed to my mom that he'd been sleeping with another woman. Except it wasn't just another woman, it was his youngest brother's girlfriend (if not fiancé) who also happened to be the new singer for the band he'd just setup that summer - with his youngest brother. He was 40, she was 20. That band would go on to persist for longer than my original family.

I've said the phrase 'There's a whole lot more to music than just the sounds you hear' for years now. This is where a lot of it stems from. Modern song, especially on the pop side of the mainstream, was and continues to be used as a tool to manipulate people who worship celebrity, little different than prayer for the devout. It's the kind of social conditioning that's lead my mom to say that in the event that the roles were reversed and she was in a position of fame and glamour with men throwing themselves at her on a regular basis that she would have probably cheated too - WTF!??! I'm still having a hard time with that one but whatever, it made me consider other angles. As a result I don't put all the blame on him, because I'm pretty sure his family is kind of insane and honestly believed that the end result of a bit of public fame would justify any sort of private travesty. When this first went down his mom actually called my mom and convinced her to cover up his crap and get her family to ignore it around us because if my father was forced to take responsibility for his actions in the eyes of his children we wouldn't have a father anymore. Whether that was a warning of possible suicidal depression or a threat to the possibility of fame she figured her family was entitled too, who knows. That family now conveniently skips over the 80s whenever anyone reminisces about the past. My uncle will try talking to me about music on the rare occasions our paths cross; but when I tried bringing up their band from the 80s the last time we talked it was like the decade never even existed (in his defense he used to drink A LOT so maybe he really does have a decade long memory blackout).

---

I really don't want to turn this journal into a woe is me pity party, but that event is a HUGE factor in how I've grown to deal with music and life (the 'professional' opinion on the matter at the time was that 4 and 5 year old kids were 'too young' to actually be affected). Yes, I definitely DO recognize that there are plenty of kids who had it worse, for anyone to have ever reminded me of that fact has never helped anything (though it did always make it easier for them to ignore my attempts to talk it out). It's an aspect of my past that I feel I absolutely need to share with anyone who wants to understand me as a musician while feeling equal amounts of shame and guilt for wanting to express it outwardly. A rare few actually get it and fully respect my limits; others were just smart enough to say the things necessary to keep having access to the jam room every week.

On that note...



Dun a nuh nuh Dun a NA nuh Dun a nuh nuh DUN DUN DUN DUN...

COMING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN!!!!!

Back in September of 1998 I was living in my first dorm room in college. My friends from home had all advised me to absolutely 100% leave my door open at all times unless I was sleeping or out as it's by far the best way to meet people. It's true and I strongly recommend the practice to any new student in a dorm (at the very least make the effort for the first week). I met all sorts of people, mainly just polite 'Hellos' as they walked by but whatever. They also noticed my guitar and amp; and when the first dorm parties started happening people remembered that guy at the end of the hall with a guitar - I was that guy. One fine dorm party in late September there were about a half dozen people hanging out in my room, me and another guy playing some guitar but nothing special.

Then I notice this dude in the corner near the door, I'd never met him before. I remember he looked like Slater from Dazed and Confused (Rory Cochrane's character). He asked me if I had a bass - it was clearly visible in the opposite corner of the room. We get him plugged in and hooked up and he asks, "You ever heard of Jane's Addiction? You know the Mountain Song?"

… HELL. YES.

Except, he didn't. He knew how the song went but he didn't actually know the specific bass line:

------------------------------------------------
-------------5----------------------------------
----5h7-7-7----7-7-7—5h7-7-7-----------------
---------------------------------0-0-0-0-------

After a few minutes of trying to teach him the actual line he just asked me to start playing the guitar riff and we'd go from there... and we did. First the verse, then the chorus, then the verse again, then the solo... and something happened. I stopped giving a crap because this dude wasn't actually playing the song, he'd never actually been playing the song, but I'll be damned if the two of us weren't playing music. We finished up a few minutes later. He put the bass down, thanked me for the mini-jam and excused himself because he'd left his room open and unattended for the last 20 minutes or so. One girl looked at us and described it as a 'musical orgasm'. I'd never actually played 'music' like that before that moment and I didn't even know his name!

Turned out he was one of the 200 or so people registered in my department and we'd be hanging out and jamming a whole hell of a lot more over the next 2 years (and for a few more years a few years later).

Personal experience aside I still think The Mountain Song is one of those great rock tunes every new guitar / bass player should learn. From a technical standpoint the song is dirt simple, it’s just alternates between D to E and G back to E, even the chorus doesn’t really change that dynamic. What the chorus does offer is a chance for guitar players to expand their voices and the way they approach chords by alternating between full ringing chords, octaves, and power chords to emulate Dave Navarro’s penchant for layering his guitar tracks. Those differences are rather subtle in regards to what your hands end up doing on the guitar neck, but the variety of sounds that hit your ears as a result of those subtleties are everything but. The solo itself isn’t the most complex, though pretty much impossible to play ‘properly’ without some sort of delay or echo effect unit, but unlike most rock tunes, nailing that solo is irrelevant. If you want to play The Mountain Song and have people feel that you played it ‘right’ you NEED to nail that bass line.

I will forever argue that Eric Avery is one of the most underrated / underappreciated bass players of the late 80s / early 90s and this song is one of the defining examples. That bass line picks up and carries the entire song and band, from start to finish without ever once deviating from its course. It provides the perfect sonic footing for everyone else in the band to vamp and freak out over. The simplicity and focus of that line underscores a very self-disciplined musician who not only understood the role of his instrument within the ensemble but one who also took pride in it. There was no need to peacock for attention, then again when you’re backing up Perry Farrell peacocking is kind of futile hahaha.

Seriously though, it’s a three chord song - LEARN IT!

Probably one of the most personal journals I've read, ever, but unlike two others which place(d) more of an emphasis on gaining pity or sympathy --- at least as far as I understood it --- or even sharing their rage/depression/morbidity, this one seems to take what I look at as being a pretty pragmatic if not openly optimistic view of their life. Yes, bad things have happened to you, but you don't seem to (as you say yourself) turn your journal into a cry for pity/attention. You use your own experiences as a way to explain why you make, and love, music, and it's extremely refreshing.

Of course it must have been hard being a "rock child". We all fantasised about being rock stars, but having a parent as one must, in some ways, have been similar (though not anywhere near as boring) as having your father drive long-distance or be in the army, professions that kept him away from home for long periods of time. I personally did not go through any such ordeal: my parents were always here (often to my chagrin, in respect of my father) and were typical and I guess boring. But it's not at all surprising and yet interesting that you essentially followed in your father's footsteps, as it were, by taking up playing music (are you in a band? I don't remember you saying...) when in a very real way, music must have been seen as the fulcrum around which all your early dark feelings ---loneliness, hurt, anger, loss, resentment etc --- turned, and some people would perhaps have shied away from music; as Homer Simpson might have said: "Music bring pain!"

But you embraced it, and fair play to you for that. And in so doing, probably --- almost certainly --- gained a deeper insight into what made your father tick, why he did what he did, why he was prepared to be away from the family he loved, and the strains it put on his wife. Of course, you may not have completely understood his motives, but it is surely akin to walking a mile in someone's shoes; you get a better appreciation of how they fit and how they feel, particularly when their feet ache.

I do a lot of updating of my journal, but it's all mostly just music --- good music, well written and selected I believe --- but still just music. Occasionally I've reminisced back to what music means to me, how I grew up with things like record players, radios, cassettes and no itunes or even web for some of my life, but in general I haven't put much of my own personal life into my journal. I guess the deepest, darkest revelation I made was recently when, spurred by a similar admission from another MB member, I let it out that I am a crossdresser, though it's hardly a huge revelation to say you enjoy wearing a skirt and panties, but for me it was a big thing. Other than that though, I've concentrated on the music.

I look forward to this journal probably the most of any I'm currently reading. It's almost like reading someone's life story, and I wait in breathless anticipation for the next chapter! Well done, again.

Thanks for this. That's pretty much it, I just want to get it out there so I don't have to keep holding it in haha.

Music has very much been a double edged sword in my head. Really though, consider the purpose of adolescent rebellion for typical teenagers, and... well, how the hell do you rebel against a rockstar?

I'm not in a band anymore, though any of the 'bands' I was in were never really more than superficial titles to apply to the random jams we made.

As for the crossdressing thing I've thought about it in the past, mainly as a lark for Halloween but my physique is slender enough that with a padded bra and some butt pads I could definitely provide some good Aphex Twin level WTF-ery for people noticing me from behind first hahaha (especially since I wouldn't shave my face hahaha)

I want a new cake
 

One that won’t make me fat, one that won’t make me buy new pants, or make me feel like a bag of crap.

I used to pull out this big analogy about the sun and cosmic space travel to relate song and music. It worked to a certain extent so long as you wanted to perceive things in black and white, and for a while I was happy to do so. Lately I’ve been revisiting my positions on various matters and I think I need a new metaphor / analogy to reflect my views - with CAKE!

Cake is awesome. You get the chewy satisfaction from the baked batter combined with the sweetness from the frosting for a mouthful of glory. For those of you who don’t like cake… GTFO! my thread.

At this point I see music like the batter and song like the frosting, different people are going to like different ratios of both. Personally I don’t mind cake without frosting (music in its rawest form), at the same time I don’t mind a little frosting on my cake either (composed songs), but I’m generally not a huge fan of a mouthful of frosting with no actual cake inside (the vast majority of commercial pop music).

Just like a real cake there’s something to be said for the difference you’ll enjoy between something homemade from scratch versus homemade from a box versus something mass produced when it comes to music. One of the biggest challenges I faced when dealing with other musicians was getting them to recognize the difference between homemade from scratch vs. homemade from a box. The majority of independent musicians I’ve met have all convinced themselves that making it from a box will garner them the same respect and appreciation as the people who made it from scratch before them; OR that loading on the frosting but having originally baked the cake themselves (by following the directions on the box) like creating some homemade mass produced garbage retains their integrity. I obviously disagree.

On the other hand it’s kind of hard to blame the listeners. If they’ve never been exposed to anything more than frosting with a few crumbs of actual cake how are they supposed to know that it was originally intended to be mostly cake with just a bit of frosting on top? The other issue I see is the inherent insecurity found within the majority of musicians – we’re always looking to prove ourselves or our creations as being valid. That’s understandable; the problem I see is when people start limiting what they’ll attempt in order to maintain that level of external validation. It’s like trying to talk to a music fan who claims to ‘like everything’; they are, generally speaking, the most boring people to try discussing music with because they end up being more concerned with appearing to like everything than actually liking anything.

That inherent insecurity also seems to limit the scope of creative experimentation most people will publically attempt. It’s like they won’t deviate from the norm to a greater degree than their influences deviated from their own baseline back in their day. Going back to cakes let’s call a plain vanilla cake with plain vanilla frosting the mainstream baseline. Then someone came along and decided to drop some chocolate shavings onto that frosting, and people LIKED it. Well alrighty then! A slight twist to the frosting makes for a ‘new’ cake for a lot of people, so another band/baker comes along and decides to add candy sprinkles to the frosting on top of the chocolate shavings. NEW! Except, it’s not, it’s just another minor addition to (an ultimately superficial) major element. Now if the change would have been from Vanilla to Chocolate cake batter then yeah, that would be like a new style or genre becoming established and recognized, but for the most part it seems most people are content to just tweak the frosting.

Problem being, due to the proclivity of exposing everything on the internet and our social desire for the recognition of individual cultural/commercial exclusivity it’s become damn near impossible for any worthwhile subculture to germinate into anything of real worth or substance (can you tell I read a lot of William Gibson?). In the time it would take to bake a new cake the public has already decided what the new flavor or topping will be called, what it will look like, how it will taste, be consumed, and ultimately rejected for the next proposed ‘big thing’. If anything I thought the shift to the internet as the new defacto media distribution medium would increase the amount of creativity. Instead it’s proven to be just the opposite and obscured the vast majority of legitimate creativity with an exponential order of magnitude worth of derivative crap. Napster and P2P sharing didn’t lead to an increase in creativity or a wider range of listening, nor did they lead the way to the destruction of the recording industry, just way more of the same, only now you can download an artist’s entire discography with one click. Whooptee-dooo. Quantity wins over Quality yet again.

Even with a new flavor for the batter, like the example of Vanilla and Chocolate above it’s still the same basic cake. Flavored baked batter topped with sugary frosting. I want a new kind of cake! Like the difference between a typical layer cake and a Baked Alaska (for those unfamiliar it’s a personal sized cake, covered in meringue, served hot – with ice cream in the middle). That’s not to say there aren’t people experimenting in their kitchen, bedroom studio, or jam room, but most of them don’t seem to willing to replicate those experiments on a stage and that bums me out. It’s only rock and roll after all right? Don’t sweat the details and just rock it the hell out.

----------------------------------

You. Do not know. The rules.

snargle bargle - you do not know the rules

(Unfortunately this clip is stuck on Google video, it was too large for youtube back in the day and GVs embedding code doesn't work so a link will have to suffice. Music starts at about 3:20)

I’ve been lucky, both with the people I’ve jammed with, and with the materials available to me during those periods. At this point I’d say about 90% of anything I’ve created with other people was recorded in one form or another, though a fair amount of it has been lost to time, dead hard drives, deteriorated cassette tapes, laziness in getting something digitized etc. I still have LOTS of personal material though, and for the most part that’s what it will remain as – personal material. It’s not that I worry about how people will react to it, so much as I recognize a lot of it is filler and would be boring to pretty much anyone who wasn’t there when it happened. At the same time though, there’s almost always at the very least a fleeting moment or two when everything clicks and something special comes through, even if it’s just for a few seconds, it’s worth it to me.

This clip is my 2nd performance in front of people and the most substantial result of my first real jam room (which was really just a storage room for the lecture theatre at our school). I look like such a grungy kid with my hair down over my eyes haha (I also really miss that White Zombie t-shirt). We had a prepared tape intro (featuring some Trans Am / RHCP / and a French proto-Gollum mini aria) but the soundguy kept killing the mic volume because he thought something was messed up due to ‘weird feedback’ even though we warned him we’d have a lot of weird feedback. Whatever.

It was a college variety show, and organized as such so some friends and I decided to put together a one shot thing. All the performers were supposed to meet at the bar an hour before the show was supposed to start to figure out the order of the acts. Yeah… they ‘organized’ a variety show and had no idea of the talent or scope involved, no tryouts, rehearsals, just add your name to a list and show up at the venue on the day and we’ll do stuff. My kinda gig :D The only thing we planned was to play in A because the keyboard guy only knew how to play in either A or C and playing in A was easier on guitar (just skip the bottom string). Also this was normally a dance bar, the ‘stage’ was 4 feet wide, tops.

The girl organizing the show decided we should be first even though our bass player had become AWOL between the earlier part of the clip and the bar footage (turns out he was taking a nap). Not that it really mattered, he showed up 10 minutes after everything was supposed to start while another couple were doing their best Mazzy Star impression, then we spent about 20 minutes on stage helping with the sound guy to get all the gear mic’ed up. I think her logic was that since we’d be using most of the gear we should use it first and get as much of it out of the way as soon as possible. I don’t remember more than one other band using the drums that night. We were also only supposed to be up there for about 10 minutes, all said and done with the setup time counted we were probably up there for most of an hour.

Musically we had planned the tape intro (obviously) and the introductory crescendo from open A to its octave, there was also a plan to lift the ‘Poppies! Poppies! Poppies!’ bit from Mr. Bungle’s cover of The Existential Blues which was pretty much the main reason for the vocalist everything else happened on the fly. As stated earlier the guy on keyboards knew how to play in A and C but mainly only because he knew it meant only hitting white keys. The drummer actually studied at PIT (Percussion Institute of Technology) in LA back in the early 90s and was in every way shape or form the superior musician in the group by a lot. Bass player is the same dude as from The Mountain Song story. The guy who filmed everything happened to score a spot at the top of a flight of stairs that happened to put him parallel with the ceiling over the dance floor where the stage was setup. We also had 2 friends in the dj booth with one handling getting Geiss running on a projector while the other worked the light for the club part-time already. He was so happy that he was able to push the light machine all the way since the normal club dancers would normally get uppity when things got too trippy; like when the strobe lights make the footage pixelate midway haha.

One thing to note, when the bass player pretty much stops everything to call for a switch to a ‘reggae’ / rasta jam he also cranked both his and my amps at which point (we were later told) people had to step back from the stage because the highs from my guitar were too painful haha. I remember thinking of how awesome my tone was on the stage at that point, I had never fully cranked that little Marshall all the way before that. It kind of becomes a 3 person thing after that with the voice and keys being completely drowned out though the light show makes it look like the keyboard guy is head banging pretty hard throughout (he’s not).

About 9 minutes in is one of those points I alluded to earlier. Where everything just falls away and you just play music in that moment for however long it lasts. For myself it was only about a minute haha I remember ending that lead bit while thinking of how Clapton apparently had recorded a solo with Cream where it was all played entirely on one string and tried doing something like that. Never liked how that ended. Then again I’m also proving the old adage of ‘If you’re thinking, you’re stinking’ true with that reflection. But the switch at 11:20 blows my mind every time, where all 3 of us just change time on the fly with trade-offs and just run with it.

We all knew we had to end eventually and were waiting on the vocalist to come out and do his thing but it didn’t quite pan out, you can kind of see me shrug my shoulders at him before kicking into a final crescendo. Which I screwed up and played in G hahaha.

Turns out the girl organizing the show had been shooting him death stares and pointing at her watch, then at him, then at us, then at OFF THE FREAKING STAGE!!! for the last couple of minutes. Whatever. All she did was some Cranberries cover or something, we rocked the hell out. hahaha :pimp:

Wel, I TRIED to read your article but my eyes just kept darting back up to that YUMMY CAKE! Man, now I am so HUNGRY! Thanks a buncheroonie! :)
(All cake shops closed, where will I get cake now? Oh, Marie Antoinette...?)