January 31, 2009

Uber Glue and Rockafella are both jamless. The Caterpillar jam to open the show is fairly straightforward. However, this does not necessarily mean bad in this context. This is a dark, Magner-led jam, and this is generally very cool throughout. The band restricts itself to very minor key, very dark themes, and Magner has some cool synth play throughout. The last few minutes of this are a little bit more straightforward jambandy jamming, which doesn’t do much for me. Pygmy begins with the usual mid-tempo funk jam, but around the 5-minute mark, the band shifts to half-time. This next section features Brownstein on the MIDI keyboard, Allen utilizing a heavy array of e-drums, and the band just generally being dark, droning, and ominous. Virtually the entirety of the remainder of the Pygmy track follows this same dark, digital sound. As they switch to the Abraxas track, it’s sounds a lot like they are just going to immediately get into Abraxas. Instead, after a couple minutes, they pull back and continue with more dark, digital jamming. There is an incredibly cool part at 5:53, where it almost feels like the band is set to dissolve into nothing and just begin the next song. Instead, Allen has a huge snare hit, and the band begins yet another build. Very, very cool stuff. The jam out of Abraxas is very good too, but nothing nearly as cool as the Pygmy jam preceding it.

M80 is also jamless. Hope and Liquid Handcuffs begin the second set with two mediocre, forgettable DNB jams. The Memphis first jam is meandering, with nothing really interesting going on. The second jam, on the other hand, is absolutely terrible. This was so all over the place and each band member is just off of their own world doing whatever they want. Waves is jammed out of the “Coronado swam like hell on fire” guitar riff section, and this slowly turns uptempo into Gangster. Not much going on here for the first several minutes, but at least a cool spot to segue out of. In any event, they have a drawn-out Gangster intro jam that is fairly straightforward, but very long, very cohesive, and pretty good. This never really gets out of first gear, but I still enjoyed it. Marc does the “I wish I was a gangster” lyrics for some reason, including “I wish I was a gangster, fuckers.” Okay then. The first I-Man jam is repetitive and at one point Marc starts chanting “heart and soul,” saying that Allen is the heart and soul of the Disco Biscuits. The second jam in the is a type one jam throughout, which never really goes anywhere.

Highlights: Caterpillar, Pygmy**, Abraxas*, Waves