Carroll's 55th Street

12/20/2021

Pre-Christmas Jam has Us All Over the Map

I was all excited to have the lead guitar roles for myself, with the Les Paul in tow and the mini Joyo BanTampP xL Amp to give a spin. As fortune would have it, Wendy's didn't agree with me that night and I spent too much time sweating bullets on the throne rather than playing with my gear early on. I know TMI, but the jam go going early Beetles jams as I was still recovering and setting up. By the time I got my guitar on and joined the Nowhere Man, already in progress, I was feeling fine, but I never got into a comfortable groove as I was feeling very rushed. So rushed, I left the lens cap on the camera shooting behind Rich and never got that angle.

As we were coming off the show at the City Winery last week, we were all a bit out of sorts. Scott forgot his AC adapter for his Camera so we were down to 2 camera angles with Kevin typically locking the view over to Rich's keyboard. Regardless, the recording and the music was still pretty good for what it was. The setlist had no coherency but there were some nice moments.

The Beetle stuff at the start with Rennie singing it all through the was was good. On drums we had Lee and Scott this week. Once were were setup and ready to go we officially kicked it off with a Touch of Grey though we fumbled the song on our first attempt not successfully communicated when the lead would end. We did a second cut and we were off to the races. The Walkin' Blues was energetic, felt real. Row Jimmy we had another failure in communication as I was trying to get us to play the lead with the correct timing on the holding-D chord but it was a wreck. Dark Hollow also took a few false starts to get us going, but once we were there, it was a nice comfortable little tale. I ended up singing the Slow Train as Rennie wasn't all too familiar with the lyrics of Slow TTrain which roll upon you like a fast train if you aren't all over them. Dylan? Lee called for the Lazy Lightning, and I liked how we did it, I think one of our better ones with Rennie. I think we also had a little trouble in the communication of the timing of the lead in this song, otherwise it was good, but the trouble with being in structural synch seemed to be a bigger issue than usual. The Miracle Standing on the Moon was pretty cool to close what hardly felt like a set, but there we had it.

For the second set we stayed in familiar waters for the first couple of songs with the Jack Straw Victim but we soon found ourselves in the uncharted waters of the packet and all the troubles and rewards it brings. Beetles and Pink Floyd dominated it with the quirky Happy Deadstein (Work Is Over) parody of Lennon's Happy Christmas (War Is Over) which sucked but reminds me how great the words are. In a life and There's a Kind of Hush closed, both were OK, though the Hush had a nice jam to close the night.

Last jam before Christmas Holiday weekend and second to last jam of the year which had so many moments and nuances to it that it makes 2021 a memorable one. and Freak Out!