jam band heaven

Post 78 of 90.

I stopped by Stanley's Pub for the first time in a long time to check out that latest happenings in the "jam band" scene.

While I waited at the bar for the music to begin, I chatted up a little hippie girl. I asked her if she was by any chance a belly dancer; she was not, although we both noted the pint of Guinness in her hand and agreed that she was indeed working on her belly.

Both the bands I saw were really good, with some very good players, although by Guitar Craft standards they were doing a lot of things "wrong" with their right hands. One of the guitarists in the first band looked a lot like a young Tom Verlaine of Television, except with a more pointy nose and a receding chin.

All the bands I saw leaned heavily on a James Brown groove for their overall sound, maybe leavened with a bit of a bluesy jazz fusion kind of thing, sort of like a few Derek Trucks Band tracks I've enjoyed over the years, except not nearly as exotic. Having been a latter-day Deadhead, I don't find many jam bands these days making much of a go at melodicism and/or balladry.

The second group had a very good lead guitarist, and they broke up the James Brown groove here and there with some stop-time arrangements and melodic, guitar-lick based "heads." Very good players. This player had the thing of cocking his wrist into an upward posture above the centerline of the forearm, the opposite of the droopy "speed metal wrist" posture.

I have no idea what these groups' names were. They never bothered to stop and say, "Thanks, we are _____________."

Early in the evening, I caught up with JT over the phone. He spotted a technical writing certificate program at University of Washington and sent a link. I'll look at that tomorrow.