January 29, 2009

<< Warehouse Party in SoBro >> Love this show in 2 beautiful long chunks and a Moon. {{ Sometimes I just LOVE an "average" show :) }}

Story Of The World ~> Tricycle ~> Shelby Rose [in the 1st]

** 3 familiar songs in a familiar position. The meat of this 12 inch meatlball sub with marinara sauce is that each jam is 2009 perfection. Truly great versions. The Jam to finish out this triple / set is tremendous. & Highwire ~> Cyclone ~> And The Ladies Were The Rest Of The Night ~> Little Betty Boop ~> Helicopters / tVM [in the 2nd]

** One of the most killer jams of the winter (IMO) is the 'Cyclone' outro jam into and through the inverted 'Ladies' there are a few Cyclone ~> Ladies combos but we need to hear more of the 'Cyclone' into inverted 'Ladies' cause Damn! it works to a T. Superb momentum shift. As Boop comes closer and closer the name of the game is frenzied and fun at it's finest...fist-pumping time AKA The Tennessee handshake. The first quarter of the tune sees a repetitive theme with eventual great Barberisms in between the sweeping keyboard and thunder bass. It has a different feel for sure. The great Betty crescendo jam happens at around 10mins which goes straight to the final chorus. Boom! we are in full disco sprockets mode, Allen was genius here choosing to double up the speed of the groove which absolutely gives the tune a whole new wardrobe. Boop ends with a slow n' sexy 80's movie theme as they open the door to finish up on a Helix that started a few shows back. It's a straight ahead jam-rock until the end. ** The Very Moon ~> SotW (Johnny Rabb sits in for Allen for a while) Standard. Well, besides Mr. Magner that is. They seem to be glued to the Untz cement until Johnny keyboards kills it with every pedal, and terrific dance fever tones throughout. He is MVP of the Moon. 3/4 through and you feel the beginnings of a TERRIFIC end jam and segue into the end of SotW. So damn funky !!!

rating set 1:: 7.9 / 10 2:: 8.60 / 10

A perfect strain for a hot and humid show or just having a few pops and a BBQ::::::

[Fatso] yes, fatso. This indica cross between GMO Cookies and Legend OG surely does the trick with high thc counts and a tasty draw/exhale (lemony). You can easily set aside your worries, anxiety etc with this herb. You don't need much. At the end of the night, take hits off the bong and you're dreaming about that pretty chick in apt. 4C.

Love.

Standing on the Verge of Getting it On and Tamarin Alley are jamless, and Rivers has its usual short jam. Standing on the Verge is one of those classic Biscuits stories where they learn a new song, then overplay the hell out of it. Story begins with a relatively generic funk dance jam for the first several minutes, and then around the 8-9 minute mark, the band shifts into a theme ultimately resulting in a build into Tricycle. I wound up noting this as a highlight, despite the enjoyable part of this jam effectively being all build and peak in Tricycle. This peak is so well done that I listed it, despite typically not doing that. Magner in particular has some absolutely fantastic phrasing and great choices of patch/tone. The jam out of Tricycle into Shelby is all filler. The only neat thing about this jam is that they jam into the beginning of Shelby, rather than an inverted version, which is a little unusual for this time period. The Shelby jam is solid. There is a good amount of communication between Barber and Magner, and Barber has some neat little minimal riffs that he throws in here and there. They never get too far outside the box, but that doesn’t stop them from absolutely crushing this peak as well.

Set two begins where set one left off. Namely, there is a decent jam out of Highwire that turns into an extended, awesome peak prior to dropping into Cyclone. The first several minutes of Cyclone are fairly straightforward. Brownstein switches on to the MIDI keyboard, and Allen utilizes lots of e-drums, including a heavy e-kick. Around the 10:30 mark, Magner starts playing a melody almost identical to one he played the week before in Lunar Pursuit on 01/25/2009. I’m not sure if this is just a melody that he really enjoyed, or if this was something he was tinkering with at the time, but some of the runs are the exact same. Around the 12-minute mark, this jam picks up dramatically. Magner switches on to one of his arpeggiated patches that he use a lot in 2009. This patch is known to most as the patch that was used in the 4/20 Crickets jam, and has a great rhythmic, syncopated sound to it. Around the 14-minute mark, Magner starts incorporating a chord in the background that provides the band‘s first hint that it’s headed towards inverted Ladies. The next minute or two is just aggressive, balls-to-the-wall trance. Barber throughout has an awesome array of quick, rapid-fire riffs that color the jam very nicely. At 15:42, Marc ends his bass loop with a chord change in measures 7 and 8. It’s clear he realizes quickly how cool this sounds, because for the majority of the remainder of the gym after this, he adds this chord in for the second grouping of four measures. Barber responds absolutely brilliantly with this fun, adventurous riff, and the band crafts a wonderful theme with lots of communication from everybody. Magner is fairly subtle here with mostly textural pads and chords, but he ultimately was the driving force which form of this jam. Oddly enough, this jam is thematically similar, and even shares some sounds with, the 4/20 Crickets jam. Magner‘s Arp is the exact same, but Barber even has some of the same note choices, and the chord progression that they’re jamming on is – I believe – the same. The major difference is that this is obviously a fast-paced trance jam. Still, very cool, and interesting parallel between the two jams.

Ladies begins with a standard dance jam, and Allen again quickly drops the heavy e-kick drum, followed by incorporation of other e-drums. Magner has a steady eighth-note pattern for much of the early part of this jam, and Brownstein shifts on to the MIDI keyboard to round out this overtly digital sound. Barber is focused on minimal playing here, and he fits in really nice with the electronic sound coming from the rest of the band. While I thought this was solid, this never really reaches the next level, unfortunately. The “blues” jam in Boop does nothing for me. The second jam begins with a standard fast-paced trance jam. This is fine for a few minutes but it’s clear that they’re angling to make some sort of change. Around the 17-18 minute mark, the band drops to half time in a way that’s actually pretty clever. The resulting half time jam features Magner on piano, and almost has a bit of a dub vibe to it. Around the 20-minute mark, Barber comes up with this little three chord progression. This is neat, although they don’t really do a whole lot by way of developing it. They do develop a totally separate theme immediately thereafter which also serves as the impetus to increase in tempo. This little transitory theme is very cool and has some phenomenal, subtle work from Magner. I felt like the last few minutes of this, they tried getting a little too cute with key changes for the return to Helicopters. I noted this is as a highlight but the transitory theme was really the part that I enjoyed. The Very Moon first jam is a straightforward type 1 jam.

The second jam begins with The Very Funk, and initially is similarly, straightforward. However, around the 10-minute mark, Allen drops the four-on-the-floor beat, and about a minute thereafter Brownstein switches onto the MIDI keyboard. Over the next couple of minutes, the band begins laying the foundations for an extremely satisfying dance jam. Barber begins with some simplistic, minimal riffs, and Brownstein does the same on the MIDI keyboard. Allen’s patience here is great, and he allows the rest of the band to build around him. Magner begins with some simple plucky synth notes, just adding in one or two at a time to start. Around the 13-minute mark, Allen cuts the beat completely for eight bars and then comes back in with a small build. My only complaint here is this felt like the ideal time to start dropping his snare hits, but I will almost never be upset about more patience. He does ultimately brings in the snare hits eight bars after that, which coincides with Magner getting a little more activity in his melodic work. Allen‘s snare work here is subtle and interesting. He’s hitting on the two and rather than hitting on the four he’s hitting on the end of four, which almost gives the second half of each measure a reggaeton feel. This subtle rhythmic shift is crucial to how cool this jam is, and Magner continues to build around the rest of the band, adding more and more. One interesting note is that throughout the most interesting parts of this jam, Barber almost doesn’t sound like he’s in the mix. This is because he is primarily just using guitar effects, as textural sounds, using his array of digital effects. This is a byproduct of the band’s attempt in 2009 for a more overtly electronic sound, and jams like this are exactly why this year is so highly regarded. All in all, this is an extremely cool, danceable jam, featuring the band firing on all cylinders. It says a lot of the band is able to maintain this energy and momentum when Brownstein switches back to bass guitar around the 17-minute mark. The remainder of this jam is a straightforward, albeit very solid, build into the ending of Story. The peak is well done, though not nearly as well done as the fantastic jam proceeding it. Therapy encore is jamless.

Highlights: SOTW, Shelby, Cyclone**, Ladies, TVM (2**)