Carroll's 55th Street

1/29/2025

Grateful Music is Not Dead

This was one of those jams for me like Phil described that when it was all over it was disheartening, but then you listen to the recording and all of that disappears. It was a big night in that we had Drew, Andy and Rich joining us with Lee, Kevin and I for a Deadstein ritual jam. We play a great first set with Andy lead position and he departs after a powerful first set and the rest of the skeletal remains make the most of the second half of the evening. That second half for me at least is just as rewarding as the first half of the night as we tend to get a little freakier and outside our comfort zone. Rich introduced riffing on Low Spark of High Heeled Boys which I called a Barley Corn Won't Die in all of my ignorance to the song. I was a cool jam anyway. Likewise Drew referenced the Beautiful jam so I try to perform it out of total ignorance also as a jam as well as spots doing the Uncle Johns later in the night.

Listening to the recordings, the music is really high quality, with respect to performance and sound. I liked the sound of us as a band this week.Estimated Eyes was a highlight to me. The Terrapin Samson was also nice a relaxed to the point it was more enjoyable than usual.

For the second week in a row, I played through my new Headrush Flex Prime profiling amp and effects unit and monitoring it through one of the Carroll's OPA monitors, instead of using a real amp. That coupled with the SG made it a little more unsettling in trying to obtain a tone and proper volume levels, especially as I was playing in the middle pickup selection position for most of the night balancing the two pickup volumes. That lead to my dismay leaving the jam, but I liked the sound in the recording. Kevin got his Rickenbacker cord back so we recorded him in stereo in addition to me. Andy had his heavy Ibanez which also has a price to pay to play with its weight, but it does sound pretty.

Freak Out!