3/20/2015

In order to accommodate Kevin's vacation of visiting his daughter in Europe, Deadstein ended up deciding on a Friday night jam to coincide with his return. Friday nights are a rarity for Deadstein and it makes it difficult to assemble a full crew. For this Friday night we only had three. It was me, Lee and Kevin for the power trio. In actuality, I ended up overdubbing some organ as well as guitar at critical junctures throughout the recordings. So while we jammed with three people, there were several songs with four musicians on the recording.

Friday nights, especially with only three people, give you a bit more flexibility than other times when you jam. First of all, there was a snowstorm on the way in (4-6- inches) which was strange considering we were commemorating the first day of spring with this jam. While it helped in minimizing the level of traffic coming in to the city, the drive-in did have its challenges. The good thing is I got out of work a little early and was able to get there early where I met Lee and Kevin all waiting for the 6 o'clock parking spot to open up where we squeeze all three vehicles at the western end of 54th Street. Therefore we will all there early ready and eager to jam.

To start tonight we opened with the Deadstein classic, "Food", consisting of hamburger and cheeseburger deluxes to stuff our faces. We haven't done this in a long time and this one was an especially enjoyable Shabbos meal. I'm glad I ordered the extra coffee for later on in the night 'cause that thing was clutch no matter how cold it was at 11 o'clock. In addition I stop at the Wine Library prior to the jam to pick up some wine I had pre-ordered and brought up a bottle of this "While I'm at it" (nice Siri) or Willamette Valley Pinot Noir which we enjoyed through the night. We also had quite a bit of beer and with it all we had quite a nice buzz on our shoulders.

I was having trouble thinking about what to play in this configuration and I thought I wanted to keep it small and personal and that's why decided did to open with the It Takes a Lot to Laugh, it's pretty easy and felt pretty good. And then I wandered into a whole Grateful Dead mode first set style and that'll seem to work well. I transitioned out of it when I did the Masterpiece in the Jerry Garcia Band style. I didn't feel good about the Looks Like Rain it felt old and uninspired and the lead was off. West LA Fadeaway and Dear Prudence I thought had a very good feel to them. The Think and Evangeline with the organ actually sounded pretty good and up and exciting for the trio. The Music Never Stopped to close the first set is always a challenge for me and I decided to just play Bob parts during the song thinking I fill in the Jerry parts when I get home, and that is what I did.

The Day Job in Jack Straw were pretty good so I thought but I really enjoyed the feel and the mellowness of the China Doll for most of it, I thought that was one of the better moments of the night. Not Fade Away was also pretty powerful long and Jammy. We didn't really jam too much during the music played during the night.

So to close the long evening of music we decided to go into the packet and break out some songs that were non-Grateful Dead related. We attempted the Who's We're Not Going to Take It which closes Tommy which some how had some nice feel to it I kind of enjoyed it and would like to do that again. We close with the Midnight Rambler as a power trio which also it Was much better than I could've expected. I think the fact that it was just 3 of us made the tempo changes in the Midnight Ramble much easier to get through, because no one really knows what to do during the song. That's about it so with that I say, "Freak Out!"