Well, I've finally calmed down to the point where I can write a
semi-coherent accounting of my experience of last Friday's Pearl Street
show. I'll be going on at some length here, and it's probably much more
interesting to me than to you, so if it gets to be a bit much, all I ask is
that you skip down to the last paragraph before hitting the Back button.
Thanks.
Here're the vital stats, already mentioned by others previously:
Throbbing Washes intro > Pearl Street Downtempo jam > Nellie Jean >
Headshot > Mr. Meowskers, The Woods, Children of December, Cut From the
Cloth, Moanin' slide intro > "Please Baby Please (title?)" > Poor Boy, Steel
drum intro > Jumby!!! E: Yellow Medicine, Soft Machine
Let me start of by saying this may have been the deepest set I've ever
personally seen them play.
The introductory piece was defined by a combination of a throbbing pulse
laid down by Marc and chordal washes from Brad's Strat, accented by steel
drum work from Andrew. At one point, Brad tried to play a cassette player
through his pickups, but couldn't get it to work.
The intro coalesced into an AMAZING downtempo groove that would have sounded
right at home on a chillout compilation or an ambient groove collection. I
asked Andrew afterwards if it was a spontaneous jam or something they'd been
working on. He said that they had discovered the groove at the previous gig
(on the 15th, I think?) and liked it so much that they were working it out a
bit. If I may be so humble, I would like to suggest that since it looks like
we'll be hearing it again, (oh please let it be so) we give it a temporary
identifying name such as Pearl Street Downtempo, just so we'll know what
people are talking about when they mention it. (Of course people won't be
able to identify it until the discs get out, but they will get out and then
we'll all know what the title refers to.)
The downtempo groove slid into a section of feedback from Marc and the usual
god-like behavior from Andrew while Brad strapped on his Gibson and lead us
all into the most rock n' roll Nellie Jean I have ever witnessed. A sure
sign of this show's greatness is that I don't have much to say about this
Nellie Jean. It was only the usual, great Nellie Jean. But, boy it sure did
rock.
Another jaw-dropping turn from Andrew while Brad tapped out complementing
rhythms on the Gibson brought us to Headshot. A highlight of this one was
Brad's resonator cup solo, sliding the open end of a large cup on the
strings of his guitar over the pickup while tapping on the closed end. From
Headshot, we moved somewhat predictably, but thankfully, into Mr. Meowskers.
This was my first time for both these tunes, so I was quite happy.
Finally, BAM stopped and we all got a chance to catch our breath. Brad then
told us that he was suffering from some pretty serious vertigo that came on
during dinner. This explained, for me at least, the otherworldly quality of
what we'd been hearing up until then. Brad seemed to be searching and
exploring even more than usual. Pulling all kinds of weird sonics from his
rig. He wasn't afraid to try anything. The sounds he was producing were his
way of communicating to us the disorientation he was experiencing. When I
spoke to him afterwards, he told met hat he had been asleep (trying to shake
off the vertigo) until 15 minutes before they walked on stage, so he felt
like he was in a deep dream state. It's a sign of how much of an artist he
is that he was able to transport us to the space he was inhabiting.
What came next was a pleasant surprise for me - a completely reworked The
Woods, less country-ish and more ballad, with some cool beatbox work from
Andrew that he looped with his Jamman. Like Nellie, this tune also got
pretty rocked-out, an interesting re-interpretation.
Then we got to see just how spaced-out Brad was feeling. He pulled the plug
from his Strat and started tapping out a rhythm on the end of it, as he's
done at other shows, tweaking his pedals until he got the sound he was
looking for. (One thing I loved is how Andrew and Marc gave him all the time
he needed to get it right.) Then he came down to the edge of the stage,
tapping the plug on the hands and heads of people in the front row. This bit
of audience participation lead into a raucous Children of December during
which Andrew single-handedly tore the tops of many heads.
Another short breather, and Andrew began creating rhythm loops in the Jamman
by tapping his vocal mic with his fingers and beatboxing. I own one of those
Jamman boxes and am quite familiar with them. Let me tell you, Andrew can
really make that box dance. I've been saying for some time that Andrew may
be the best living drummer on the planet. With his use of the Jamman, he's
now the best 2 or 3 drummers on the planet!
While Andrew laid down his loops, Brad switched to acoustic, Marc picked up
his SG bass, and they slid into a very intense Cut From the Cloth. At one
point, Brad got up from his chair and walked back to his amp, waving his
guitar all over the place in front of and around the amp to create some
phased out feedback. There was a definite tease of "Song" in there towards
the end, but not enough, IMO, to list it as a separate tune.
Up to this point we'd traveled from interstellar space to the trenches of
rock n' roll and back. Where next? How about the swamps of the delta? Brad
sat down with the acoustic and his slide and played some serious moanin'
blues, all wordless vocalizations and stinging slide. This lead into a tune
I never got the name of. Someone else mentioned lyrics of "freeze, baby,
freeze." I heard it as "please, baby, please," followed by "my love for you
won't change." Whatever the title, it was great, a clear demonstration of
this band's absolute command of a wide spectrum of musical styles.
All signs had been pointing to Poor Boy for quite a while, and it finally
came out next. My friend introduced me to the term "ear worm" the next day
(a perfect description for that tune that you CANNOT stop singing to
yourself) and Poor Boy definitely fits the bill. This one was loads of fun,
as always.
Another pause and Andrew once again started building a loop, this time with
snare and high hat. Once that was established, he turned to the steel drum
and Marc gave us a workout with "that shaker-type thing with the handle"
(We really need to give that thing a name.) This lead into a most welcome
show-closing Jumby that was every bit as happy and bouncy as one could hope.
All I can say is "Yay!!!"
So, the band has played a truly epic show that traveled the length and
breadth of styles and moods, all while Brad is struggling to keep from
spinning off his feet with vertigo. They'll probably come back for a quick
encore and call it a night, right?
Wrong.
The Yellow Medicine that followed was long, far-ranging, and typically
intense. Marc turned in a signature solo that left mouths gaping and Brad
then stepped across stage to stand toe-to-toe with his brother (separated
only by the kick drum) as they locked into a deep rhythmic space that only
comes from knowing someone your entire life. It was so intense that when
Brad finally broke the spell and stepped back, I realized I hadn't been
breathing the entire time. Brad then started playing entirely behind the
bridge of his Gibson, plucking and tapping out rhythms of high, staccato
notes while Marc created low pulses beneath, both of them slowly modulating
the same 2-chord pattern. This section reminded me very much of Pink Floyd's
"One of These Days," but I know I'm dating myself with that reference.
Finally, just before returning to the head of the tune, they spent some time
with the riff from Phase One, which had me hoping against hope that we'd
hear the whole tune, but instead, they slid gracefully back into the head
and ended the song triumphantly.
Contrary to what I expected, they didn't leave the stage and instead played
a "Soft Machine'" highlighted by Brad and Marc dueting on slides and Brad
playing his wind up music box through his pickups and looping that to play
off of.
And then it was done.
A couple of comments:
The new gear BAM has been accumulating has added enormous new dimensions to
what they can do on stage. With both Brad and Andrew looping and Marc now
using a midi bass pedal rig so that he's playing with both hands and feet,
the depth and layering of their sound grows exponentially as they push the
limits of how all these boxes and instruments interact.
Finally:
Let's be very clear: this band is a gift. These three young men are tapped
into something very powerful and they are committed to sharing it with us as
honestly and purely as they can. Remember that they are human beings doing a
very hard thing. It's important that we cherish them and savor every moment
we have with them.
Peace,
hoby
**********
If you want a new day
It's only a choice away
It's not the falling down that matters
It's the getting up again
-Sounds From The Ground
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