September 08, 2010

__ 'In a native centered world, one picks the fruit right off the trees' __

Another Magner MVP show. The king of subtractive synthesis. Almost all "New Deal" ish or "EOTO" ish.

In retrospect, should the boys have taken summer and fall off? Well, when we see 2011 > 2013 it would seem so but there are jobs at stake etc,etc. I believe it would have been the best thing they could have done for Jon and the band in general but I am not privy to their lives. Just another freak.

Not as well rounded or straight ahead fun as the next night, it does retain some excellent moments. Sept. 2010 has tremendous shows, this one lies in the middle.

Mr. Mags is the MVP tonight without a doubt. Incredible. Barber is playing a little "shy" tonight. Great rhythm, not enough type 1 solos/approach. The 2nd set is a heater (IMO) and pounds ahead of the 1st.

[A Pile: Best of the night; Highlight; Minor Magic]

Ladies(><); (best tune of the first by a mile)

SotW(><); {simply by it's inverted nature, it's a winner, winner, chicken dinner. Power jam from go. This is the pizazz we have been lacking a bit tonight. You can tell because Brownie adds extra melodic touches to the low end, his bass is shouting "". Quite beautiful. Then BANG!!! to the beginning we go. Right to the suddenness of having a vacuum. This one is special (to me) in large part to Barber's vocals. I don't do that often enough. He delivers them without fault, with passion without over doing it and with a little extra hot sauce...he's shaking your shoulders, looking you in the eyes and pleading for you to understand the wiseness of these lyrics. 12 minutes in= final jam until the driving winds of Tempest. Very funky bass and drums highlighted by graceful sweeps of sympathetic guitar notes inside the perfect synth plucks.

[B Pile: Very Good to Excellent]

Astronaut(1); (good jams but just under the wow factor)

M.Dribble: (although it sort of peters out to a water treading tempo involving nice grand piano, the 1st half is a little flat. The good stuff comes at around the 10 minute mark) This is nice and calculated space rock with keyboard emphasis.

Floes: [at 5:37 it gets fun. Big Red plays his rhythm through the toms which is great then adding a softer high hat / pedal board stuff. Magner jumps in with an effective jam with 3 different sounds going at once. Brownie is in rhythm mode, like a LOT of this set.

Basis(1): not a bad intro with tasty atmospheric psychedelicatization. The jam starts at around 13:30. Laser like imagery coming from Magner (he's on fire tonight) while Barber adds just enough to not overfill the punch bowl with sound...he's so good at that...less is more. The Untz crescendo jam ends the tune as we climb invertedly(word?) into Story. btw, the final horn keyboard solo is very cool.

Tempest: Terrific! but is it too cookie cutter? hell no. This version has the juice for sure. Great portions of the tune sound like they have 2 guitars rolling along.

Bombs: (very good mid solo by Barber with Magner being his wingman softening the piercing guitar notes in the middle with a mini-mood sound.

[C Pile: Ok to Good, The motions, almost bad]

Necro;

Astronaut(2) (not a bad 3 minutes and 30 seconds! decent power solo by Barber)

Bombs; (nothing new, no real "college try")

Set 1: 6.10 / 10 Set 2+e: 7.10 /10

This is pretty much a pass-through once only type show, unless there are personal reasons for this show being important to you of course.