November 25, 2006

If I can creep in here and prop-a-tize the killer 'Mindless Dribble" and it's 2 fantastic jams, plus that great Brownie fall '06 ''palunk'' & "falunk" picking in the bottom registers. Barber sounded so great this tour too. That patient Strat sound in a keyboard tempo. The following 'Digital ~> Don' is worth the praise as they really gel well as a band, especially in the goosebump bridge in 'Buddha' before 'Mr. Don' , supreme moments by Barber. [While lazy, Mr. Don knows that the best music can be created through a broken heart....while having tremendous metaphorical premunition to the current days of the "false self" / "the online you" in "Where lying in the sunshine might be the very best that we know gab of what's in mind - the trading post of your libido" perhsps Barber sees a future of A.I. sex, fake relationships or at the very least, non-contact relationships. Apathito? one-eyed monster? the phallus?'

Way off or on the mark, the best Supermen are often called Clark.

What a band.

Mulberry’s Dream begins the show with two mediocre, forgettable jams. Basis intro, on the other hand, is very, very good. Nothing too weird here, just a great Basis intro that sounds like a great Basis intro. Second Basis jam is extremely well-played as well and just a very good jam overall. The Spacebird jam back into Basis is forgettable. This feels very repetitive, and just uninteresting overall. The jam in Echoes begins with some not wholly interesting, low-tempo jamming that is mostly exploratory guitar from Barber and FX from Magner. I don’t hate this, but this just isn’t building anything in my mind, and this style of jamming just never does much for me. With that said, at 13:49, they ditch the drums altogether and mess around with an ambient jam. Absolutely wonderful. Awesome, tripped out, psychedelic stuff. Very cool. This lasts for over 15 minutes, with 2-3 minutes of the tracks being the looped portions of Barber and Magner’s noises, which the band left on loop for setbreak. Cool little thing.

Memphis first jam is pretty standard stuff. Not bad, but nothing outstanding here. Memphis second jam is very cool. This begins as a nice downtempo jam (with absolutely beautiful tone from Barber). At around the 17-minute mark, the tempo increases, and the band begins its transition toward Hot Air Balloon. This develops into a very pretty little Blissco jam right before the switch. Most of the HAB jam is a I-II-IV-V progression that just never really gets interesting for me. I’m generally a sucker for their major key jamming, so this is saying something here. To clarify, this is not “bad,” it is just very generic. First Dribble jam doesn’t do much for me, although Barber’s tone is very nice throughout. Love this fall ’06 tone he had. The second Dribble jam into Buddha is okay, and I enjoyed the little Crickets tease. Buddha jam is short, but there’s a part where I really thought they were going to hit the next level. It felt like Magner’s melody had a logical progression that he just never hit, and even Barber felt like he was leading him there. Missed opportunity, I suppose. Don jam is just way too short to be memorable, and Spraypaint encore is just okay.

Highlights: Basis (Intro*, 2*), Echoes**, Memphis (2*)