January 17, 2008

It's an all time Crix, no doubt aboooot that. The final 9 minutes is the elevator music you hear on the way up to heaven. Now take that evil, nasty Helicopters then add a dash of the fantastic 'Mindless ~> Hell" and you are spiritually ready for the day ahead. Oh and please do not omit the encore...it's terrific.

I thought I heard a clear Franti & Spearhead's "Positive" teased in the 'Story' jam but then again I sometimes have a noise-cancelling brain.

Bless this great Colorado run.

Q: How many Biscuit fans does it take to replace a light bulb?
A: 7, 6 to watch it burn out and 1 to tape it.

I WILL get you out of that funk you've been feelin'....that I promise. 
-- if you interested in a 3 hour mix of the absolute greatest instrumental jazz-funk, acid jazz, neo-soul and psychedelic electronica. E-me at  skyscoutATliveDOTca   it's already made and ready to fly. I took a LONG ass time to make it truly excellent in each song, therefore I am pretty sure you'll love it.....
Peassse.

RLH begins with a 10+ minute intro jam that starts as a dance jam, turns into a breakbeat jam, then back into a dance jam. The band is focused from the very beginning here, though the first 10 minutes here are basically a vamp with no real movement forward other than some interesting melodic work and a great pocket from Brownstein and Allen. Around 9:30 the little descending riff from Barber is great, and this sort of breaks way into the second stage of the jam. Around the 12-minute mark, Barber hits on the teaser notes which eventually become the descending note pattern that almost sound like the band is teasing North American Scum by LCD Soundsystem. Not sure this is called a tease as they’re really just messing with the theme (and could be purely coincidental), but very neat and this turns into a great, great jam. The second jam begins as a pretty straightforward dance jam, and in this first section, it’s generally pretty solid. However, around the 23-minute mark, the entire band drops out and they steadily come back in and build this psychedelic wall-of-sound, which then turns into this interesting progression. The communication here between Barber and Brownstein while Magner just plays noise is really great. The second jam out of RLH is cohesive from the band, and this is another long, drawn-out jam. Barber’s guitar riffs here are really interesting, and Magner plays his plucky synth over the top of the increasingly fast trance jam. I enjoyed parts of this a lot, albeit much less than the intro and the first jam, but this is still solid, and the jam into Crickets is nice as well. I think this jam goes several minutes too long, as the last several minutes just feel like they’re jamming just to jam at this point. The jam out of Crickets has another solid jam. There is some absolutely great communication between Barber and Magner. Magner has this repeating riff that he uses throughout the jam, and Barber calls back to it several times. This theme is so catchy, and they develop it really well. There’s a very brief dissolve before they start up the Spy ending section. This is perfect placement.

Story begins the second set with an intro jam. This is pretty obviously a Story jam from the start, given that Barber mostly riffs on the Story melody. This is pretty, though forgettable. The jam in Story itself is forgettable. This just felt monotonous to me. I really liked the bassline that Brownstein comes up with early on in the jam, but it just never really evolved and they seemed to be content to just vamp forever. The end of this jam is really nice as the band gets to the Helicopters transition. The first six minutes of the Helicopters jam is some dark, mysterious jamming. This sounds like a jam headed toward Abraxas, and then lo and behold the band starts essentially playing an Abraxas intro. This eventually gives way to a dark, plodding jam that sounds as though the band is descending into the very pits of hell. While this little segment only lasts a few minutes before getting into a Robots transition jam, it’s very neat and unique while they’re here. The Robots jam is forgettable, meandering drum and bass that just leads absolutely nowhere. Allen is doing so much in this jam, and it just doesn’t do anything for me at all. The Dribble first jam almost feels like the band is trying to tease a weird version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” at parts. That said, almost all of this is wholly forgettable for me. The second Dribble jam quickly turns into a spacey dance jam. Magner plays on the Rhodes-y patch for a while here, and he sort of noodles around in the upper registers in a pleasant way. This jam has a weird juxtaposition of the dance themes from Brownstein/Allen, mixed with the almost ethereal play from Magner. Honestly, Magner’s portion of this is really what drew me in the most, and while I’ve labeled it as a highlight, I would have loved for Barber to tease out this ethereal aspect a little more as well, rather than turning this into the peak back into RLH in such a straightforward way. The Abraxas > Helicopters encore is about as straightforward a jam into the ending of Helicopters as the band can have, but this is really well-played, and they at least manage to keep this mostly interesting while building a fairly quick peak into the end of the song.

Highlights: RLH (Intro**, 1*, 2), Crickets*, Helicopters, Dribble (2), Abraxas

crickets is the star of this show. Theres a nice unannotated glastonbury 'buried in the helicopters >