October 15, 2007

one of the better Bazaar's I can think of. beautiful jam into Betty. Nice segue into Pygmy as well, which by the way, is primo. Just listen to this Mags-led psychedelic funhouse....very good stuff.

the second set is a monster too; perhaps a little lack of flow at the end but that's very minor. Hope is fantastic...a version that will go into your notes. According to my BIG black book, this Shem is the second best of the year behind Oct.19 just 4 days after this one :)

Mags plays ALL of his pedals and effects this show. He is very present on pretty much every tune in between the chasms of guitar peaks and valleys.

Love me some October '07! A buffet to please all.

** Strain 'o the Day :::  A hammerhead might taste the blood,  a ladybug might see the red**
[Strawberry Dream] this 50-50 hybrid has a nice thc count of around 18%. You get lit...no worries.  One of my favorite strains. You will have a perma-grin for a while and listening to music!? Better than a Sunday morning BJ.

Peace & Nugs

I’m not sure what it was about 2007, but they sure jammed out Bazaar Escape a good amount. This one has a great little rock jam in it. There is basically nothing electronic about this, and an uptempo rock jam generally doesn’t sound up my alley. However, this is really solid and I enjoyed it a lot. The jam out of Boop gets a little spacier than the usual funk nonsense, but this is still in essentially the same realm. This doesn’t do a lot for me. They jam into the beginning of Ladies, which I always enjoy. I felt like this was telegraphed a bit and the resulting transition lasted a little too long for my tastes, but I like the slide into Ladies beginning so I’ll let it go. There is no jam out of Ladies, just an instant drop into Pygmy. I have a love/hate relationship with this Pygmy. People like to remember Barber on his MIDI keyboard and conjure only thoughts of jams like 11/3 Spacebird. Admittedly, that jam was one instance where the MIDI keyboard paid off massively and added an interesting component to the jam. In this Pygmy jam, Barber is mostly a distraction for me. Magner and Brownstein have a great groove going for a good portion of this jam, and Barber doesn’t really add anything to this. He sounds like an amateur keyboard player trying to play keyboards, which makes sense since that’s exactly what he is. There were a couple moments where he laid down a couple chord stabs where I thought, “Oh, this could be neat.” Then he dropped it immediately. As they get into the uptempo dance portion, Magner has some really nice leads. I love that Barber is trying something new, and I felt around that time that they should be embracing a more digital sound. I love the attempt, but this one falls flat for me. Barfly is jamless, of course.

No “Gentle Nature” jam here. Shame! The jam out of Hope is a DNB jam instead, and Magner begins using the plucky synth from the 06/13/08 Memphis outro jam. You know the one. I actually enjoyed a good amount of this jam, including the return to Bazaar Escape. This is one of those things that you hear and hope you’re hearing it right, because it would be awesome if they do it. Then they do it. Great return, and I wish they would do this more. Shem-Rah Boo features more Barber on MIDI keyboard, but this is a stark contrast to the first set effort. Instead, Barber here provides some interesting textures to the odyssean leads from Magner. Admittedly, there are still portions where Barber’s play is borderline distracting, but this is a lot better. The 42 jam has some excellent, restrained, patient play from Barber. The band crafts a little bit more of a subdued jam, and even though this didn’t really “wow” me, it’s very solid, and very well-played. This develops into a darker trance jam featuring some e-drums from Allen before ultimately returning to the major key 42 ending theme. In a departure from the norm around this time, there is not SITA jam in this version of Astronaut. Neither of the I-Man jams did a whole lot for me. The first features Barber on MIDI keyboard yet again, and this just goes absolutely nowhere. The second has a dub feel for a bit, but not really any themes here worth revisiting. The Safety Dance encore is, predictably, jamless.

Highlights: Bazaar*, Hope, SRB*, 42*