December 14, 2008

excellent show. bad soundboard mix...many major digi-monsters(i.e. beg. of '42' ouch) and overall the recording has hot levels and is oversaturated. This is a bummer because the KOTW ~> 42 as well as Vass are some of the best versions of the year. get a good crowd source on the archive or make a trade...'member those?

KITNO is jamless. KOTW begins with a jam out of the “industrial” section which turns into a neat, Magner-led jam. Barber shows solid restraint here as Magner builds some interesting thematic work over the top of the jam. This never quite gets to the second level, but it’s solid throughout.

The 42 jam is 12 minutes long or so, and most of this is very good. Magner utilizes an array of arpeggiated patches and long, drawn out washes that color the upper registers while Barber plays around in the middle of it all with some solid licks littered throughout. Great stuff. Around the 14:30 mark, Magner plays this Arabic, Middle-Eastern theme. This turns into a bit of a “repeater” jam where Brownstein and Barber are stuck on the same rhythmic riff for a bit, but resolves into the major key ending of 42.

The jam in Vassillios is absolutely incredible. I have heard this jam so many times, and it’s so permanently engrained in my head that I can pretty much hum every single note, from each of the four members. The band famously wrote “Rotations Jam” on the setlist for Vassillios, and it’s clear that’s what they did. From the beginning of the jam, each band member finds a motif, and sticks with it while the rest of the band builds around them. After Magner adds a new motif, Barber lets this stick around for a bit before he changes what he’s doing. At 8:15, Barber adds this perfect descending little melody to his motif. Allen drops the kick prior to the 9-minute mark, only to bring it in after a nice little build. Magner’s square wave patch here is absolutely flawless. At 9:18, the repeated, two-note pattern that Barber comes up with just perfectly cuts through the mix, and what results is a hypnotic sound where his tone and Magner’s swirl around each other. When Allen cuts the kick again at 9:53, Brownstein uses a VI-VII-I progression, and Magner and Barber continue to dance around each other. It’s hard to put into words just how perfect the interplay between these two is here. The greatest moments of The Disco Biscuits, of which this is absolutely one, feature the band seemingly reading one another’s thoughts. In this case, Barber and Magner somehow know exactly what the other is going to be playing, and the two complement each other absolutely perfectly. I will say that if they simply continued down this minor key path, this would have been an all-time classic. At the 11:00 mark, Magner has this up-and-down, bouncy melody that perfectly accents Barber’s more straightforward, drawn out melodies. The real moment where this jam hits the next level for me is at 11:53. Barber’s change in melody during the build is incredible, and he has this two-stanza riff that leads Brownstein flawlessly to a major key transition, and what results is a breathtaking peak. There are a ton jams that I think are in the conversation for “best jam ever” by The Disco Biscuits. I personally feel that this jam is in the conversation for “best jam ever” by any band, period. This is a perfect piece of improvisation between a band, and it should be celebrated as such.

After the incredible Vassillios jam, the band immediately turns to an Orch Theme intro jam which is long and drawn-out. Not much interesting here, though what would be in comparison to that which preceded it? The jam out of Orch Theme features a lot of Magner, while the rest of the band plays a fairly straightforward dance jam. I enjoyed this, particularly the interplay between Magner and Barber. The last few minutes contain an airy little jam that leads into the beginning of Astronaut. The SITA jam gets a little more into type 2 territory than usual, and I liked this. They jam out of Astronaut from the Suspended In The Air section. This jam has sort of an off-kilter, odd meter to it. It feels very much like a KOTW middle jam from the start. I wasn’t blown away by this, although I didn’t hate it as a segue back into KOTW.

Crickets begins with an airy, uptempo dance that features Allen mixing in an array of different beats here and there. Around the 10-minute mark they drop into a dub jam that eventually has Magner using the pan flute patch. I might like this if it weren’t for the awful yelling Brownstein does throughout. Nobody needs to hear you say “boombaklat,” Marc. The last half of this the band shifts back uptempo for a very cool build into the Waves peak. The first few minutes of the Waves jam have a great display of Allen’s prowess. They eventually switch into a major key theme and drop to halftime. The switch to halftime is awkward, to say the least. Brownstein feels like he is out of tempo with the others, but fortunately they’re able to recover into something that’s actually very pretty. This is very much a jambandy sound from the band, but I enjoyed it a lot regardless. Around the 21-minute mark the band drops things down very low and continues a lot of the same themes. They eventually ditch the major key themes for a spacey, minor key feel and a shift back uptempo. They vamp for a little bit and then eventually do this sort of will-they-won’t-they transition into the end of Confrontation. Multiple times, the band plays a four-bar portion that sounds like they’re just going straight into the end of Confrontation, only to pull back into the jam. Eventually they pull the ripcord and head towards Confrontation. The jam out of Confro begins with an eerie theme, with the entire band playing fairly minimally. After only a couple minutes of this, they abruptly shift keys and Brownstein begins a four-chord progression. Not bad, not great. Magner make some attempt at some interesting melodic play, but ultimately there’s nothing really special about this jam. The last 3 to 4 minutes of the Confro track, Brownstein tips the band’s hand towards a transition into Air Song. The band builds a neat little major key jam around Brownstein’s transition theme, continuing the trend from around this time of interesting segues into Air Song which follow out of uninteresting jams. The Shelby jam is about as straightforward as it gets.

Prior to the beginning of the encore, Brownstein announces an amendment to the famous Bonnaroo Nughuffer story. Specifically, Brownstein notes that the story is expunged, after the charges were dismissed and expunged. I’m actually fairly curious if the band actually got those charges expunged, as people often confused dismissals and expungements that said, it is fairly humorous. The Memphis encore is a relative rarity for this time period. For the most part, around this era the band used Memphis as a launchpad for multi jam segments. However, in this case it is a standalone Memphis with a single jam. The jam itself is a relatively straightforward, rock-oriented jam. This is one of those that I’m sure was very fun to be at, but it is not all that fun to listen to. The band are clearly having a good time, but this never really gets out there all that much. Either way, a decent and fun end to a very good show.

Highlights: KOTW, Vassillios**, 42*, Orch Theme, Astronaut (1), Crickets,