Carroll's 55th Street

12/27/2021

Last Jam of 2021 and Reflecting Back on a Strange Year

The last jam of 2021 at Carroll's has us jamming while looking back at such a stranger 2021. In April we got back to jamming after a 15 month hiatus due to the Covid Pandemic. With all the rise and falling of the pandemic, Deadstein was able to thread the needle and played more public shows in 2021 than any other year. This was a very exciting development in Deadstein's life. It doesn't mean it's all free and easy and playing out has it's costs, but it also has rewards. By the end of the year we would have played 35 times, and considering we didn't start till April 27,2021, that is very respectable.

Drew was nice enough to bring in the now traditional end of the bottle of bubbly and non-chocolate cake for us to celebrate the end of the year and the coming of the new. It was a very nice touch, to get us past the haunting times we all face. We wold end up canceling the first jam in 2022 due to concerns over the spreading new variant of the Corona virus, so we must all remember to cherish whatever blessing we continue to hold on to.

As far as music god we did some great stuff. I had my Red Squire Strat and Andy was playing his newly refretted Ibanez. Rennie has a new PRS and Rich was futzing way too much with trying to get his mellotron and/or organ sounds working, or something of the sort. The Help On the Way was marginal as we were totally tight on it, but once we got into the Slipknot we were off to one of our more solid versions. Likewise the Estimated, Terrapin Throwing Stones Morning Dew to end the first set and Andy's night was epic.

The second set found me on lead guitar and we has a big start to that segment with the Truckin' --> Eyes --> SugarMag --> Surprising Deep Elem to end this little set of songs. Rennie hung out for the lackluster Quinn and then left me to finish the night, month and year with a respectable Deal and It's All Over Now Baby Blue. That's all she wrote for one of the stranger, yet productive years of Deadstein.

I suggest everyone hold onto their seats for 2022 before we Freak Out!