Smash Studios A

1/13/2004

Bill Siegel sits in for Brotpen's broken leg in Smash Studio A for a hot jam.

  
It was a night that Rich Brotman couldn't attend as his leg is still on the mend.  Bill Siegel of www.Everlounge.com fame was gracious enough to sit in for him on keys as well as singing a few songs.  It was a night where there were no guests in the newly improved Studio A at Smash so it was just us five freaks to play the music to ourselves.  It seemed pretty special from the outset as most of the songs we were playing were tighter than usual.  Trister had his Gentleman Jack out for all to sip on but it didn't seem to make too much of an impact on our sloppiness.  Almost everything we played seemed better than usual.

Kev, Coffee and I worked on Slipknot before the jam and Bill and I worked on it the night before at Carpetsteen, another in the long list of Deadstein cover bands.  In any case, the practice seemed to have a positive result in the Help --> Slip Franklins was much better than usual.  While not perfect it was close, especially the second portion of the Slipknot riffing that came after the Slipknot jam.  Good stuff to be a part of.  Rhapsody in Red was excellent until Trister broke his string during the end jam and wouldn't be there to bail us on the Rhapsody riff.  Nevertheless, it was smokin!  We played right up to the red light at 11:00 p.m. when I called a halt to the Sugar Magnolia due to red light conditions.  Smash was also kind enough to respect the $47 credit they owed us from last week so the very nice sounding Studio A even seemed like a bargain.  It won't feel that way next week when we are back to $47/hour.  We also get through our first Hava Nagila which was a bit of a lark but with a bit of practice could turn into a real fun little jam.  Shakedown was really good even the jam at the end that we used to be so bad at.  It's hard to be more positive about a jam so I will contain it but it was a good one.  Hopefully Coffee got the kind tape of it all.

Kevin, Coffee-Bro and I met at the Fresco Taco where I had my typical C-5.  Almost as good as the Rhapsody.  There was little traffic getting in but the temperature was frigid..