Carroll's 55th Street

6/20/2013

All seven of us are jamming on Larry's last jam in his 40s

The whole band, including Donna, was able to get its act together this week for a night of Deadstein music. Getting there was half the trick, surviving the night is the other half. For the most part, the majority of us survived the experience, but only by a slim majority. Donna left for home after the first set and our only guest of the night, Bill Sloan, picked up the sticks for a song while Scott took stepped out for a breather.

While Scott went out to take a breather, it ended up being a full-blown nap as I don't think we saw him for the second half of the night. When Kevin went to check up on him toward the end of the evening he ended up succumbing to the same malady Scott had and seemed to be out for the count only leaving 4 our use to hold up the fort. I found the cure for Kevin's woes which was picking up his bass a playing it. This woke Kevin up and got him back into the jam, but playing my guitar instead of his bass. We finished up the night with me on bass and Kevin on guitar working our way in and out of a free-form jam based on Dark Star and Other motifs. It is always fun to partake in that type of activity. For me surviving and thriving during the last jam in my 40s was a good way to end this decade of my life, I just hope the others in the band learn to endure the long nights of Deadstein.

Not only were physical difficulties hampering the experience, we were also having our share of technical problems. Kevin's sensor-round bass shook the solder out of the top Fender Bassman amp on his rig requiring a mid-jam amp replacement. As far as the recording goes, only the soundboard recorder worked so the MP3s are missing the room microphone leaving a very disturbing recording made up of mostly open vocal mics, the piano mics and muffled room sounds as picked up through the vocal microphones. As such, listening to these MP3s is suggested for the truly hardcore Deadstein fans and freaks.