January 16, 2009

2009. What a fantastic year for this band, and this is the show that started it all. Uber Glue begins the show with a jam. This is notable as this is the first time the band jammed out of Uber Glue. Brownstein hops on the MIDI keyboard for the bassline in this jam, and Barber uses a lot of his “reverse” guitar effect (not sure how to better describe this sound). I wasn’t crazy about this jam, as it never feels like they locked in fully, and really were just kind of treading water until they hit the intro for Spacebird. The jam out of Spacebird has some really interesting melodic work from Magner, though Barber is a little aimless here. I noted this as a highlight, though this is really mostly Magner, at least initially. Brownstein starts with this sort of death march sound, and I’m not sure if this is him trying to get the rest of the band onboard with the switch to Air Song, but it certainly works to slow them down. This is a very unique sounding jam for the band, and they wind up this in this sort of dark, mysterious sounding theme prior to changing things up for the switch to Air Song. Barber does at least get a little more focused as they near the end of this, so I did not it as a highlight. As they near the end of the Spacebird track, they get into some really interesting stuff, particularly around the 17-minute mark, with some great interplay between Magner and Barber. As they transition into the Air Song track, there is some gorgeous stuff from Magner, with long, psychedelic washes over the top of the jam as things slow down into a (pun intended) airy, Air Song intro. Brownstein switches over to the MIDI keyboard and Magner switches to a plucky, square wave with a healthy amount of delay, and the band crafts this interesting, swirling jam.

The jam out of Air Song is absolutely incredible, and extremely unique. The band begins with a downtempo jam coming out of the composition, and Magner is again using the square wave patch. This might be my favorite version of Air Song. While Magner begins on the square wave lead, he quickly shifts into an arpeggiator using this same tone. The band starts with this repetitive jam that feels a little off initially. It quickly becomes apparent that the band is jamming in 3/4 time, and the effect is this hypnotic, cyclical jam that feels like it could last forever. Brownstein and Barber mostly repeat the same rhythm while Magner absolutely destroys the top end of this jam, and Allen throws in some great e-drums that provide great textural complements. This is absolutely awesome and very unique for the band. This is one of those situations where forcing themselves to do something different turns into a really great, memorable outcome. The peak into Spacebird is fine, but the real meat here is the jam preceding the build. Tamarin Alley is jamless.

Humorous little banter at the start of the second set. Marc talks about how cold it is outside, and how one of their crew members used to wear shorts year round. M80 is of course jamless. The first several minutes out of Shimmy have a jam featuring Magner on piano, and Middle Eastern themes abound. This mostly goes nowhere, and while they eventually develop a little bit more interesting themes in the form of a dance jam, basically nothing during the 10+ minute improv really turned my head and any meaningful way. In my opinion, the Spraypaint ending is way, way, way too drawn out. From the moment that the band begins to indicate it’s headed to the ending of Spraypaint to the point where they actually play the ending composition is nearly 8 minutes. This is way too long. I don’t mind a big build up, but at some point, it’s like just get on with the song. Triumph begins with a straightforward, dark jam. The first few minutes of this are totally forgettable. However, around the 7:40 mark, this turns into something much cooler. Magner has this cool, digital arp that he messes around with, and Allen uses a lot of e-drums here, including some thirst quenchers. Barber lands on some major key riffs while Brownstein switches to MIDI keyboard. This has almost like a happier hip-hop Memphis feel to it. As they switch into the Basis track, this gets off-track for me, and the next few minutes are pretty run-of-the-mill as far as Basis intros go. However, around the 3:45 Magner drops in a set of pad washes atop the jam, and the rest of this through the Basis drop are just absolutely fantastic. Overall, this jam is really great, particularly given the transition from happy-to-dark. Great stuff. The jam out of Basis into Ladies is not bad, but it’s nothing outstanding either. That said, this is still very solid and Brownstein has some really catchy bass hooks in this jam. It speaks to how great they were in 2009 that this jam is considered just a solid jam. This is also only 3-4 minutes of jamming before they hit the Ladies peak. This doesn’t peak quite as hard as I’d like it to, but what can you do? The jam out of Ladies and back into Basis begins with Magner playing around with some bouncey synths, and Allen lays on the ride cymbal for a bit, creating a sort of laid back dance jam. After initially using some digital distortion, around 9:30 Barber switches to strummed eight notes and engages in a sort of hypnotic dancing around Magner’s bouncier melody. This section is again, just solid, but solid nonetheless. I thought this was the better of the Basis/Ladies jams here, so I did note this as a highlight. Brownstein has the famous “dusting” banter here where he talks about being arrested for a “dusting” of weed in Massachusetts years ago. The Munchkin encore is a very short, ultimately forgettable jam. Meh.

Highlights: Spacebird*, Air Song**, Triumph**, Ladies

This was just a fun show. I remember packing the car with some friends and heading up to NoHo for a crazy weekend.

This was an era where they were really included a lot of new material into their sets. Which had mixed reviews at the time. Looking back I can say these “new” songs were classics for us.

Set 1 was an Uber opener that really was a song that took the pole position for much of 09. SBMC > air song (inv) > SBMC was tight. You could tell that they were eager to start of the year knowing they had a lot of shows for the first time in a while. Here they were getting the rust off. Closed with tamarin, Classic brownie/electron jam.

Set 2 started with m80. Another instrumental jam that is fun and has its place as a set 2 opener. From there they paid homage to 12/27/07 where they completed a dyslexic shimmy and ended with a victory. It was cool cuz not many people knew about that sequence finished those versions. But I’m telling you lol

The final sequence is probably the reason this show didn’t stand out among the best of 09. Again they were just starting a big tour and ya know sometimes it takes time to build momentum. It was apparent here. They never really got going with significant jams. They had the right idea with song choices tho. Rather just some long transitions within this 4 song segment.

Encore was a short munchkin.