We had a rehearsal the day after 911. I distinctly recall an
outstanding session, but unfortunately the tape wasn’t rolling that night. We
used to jam in my basement in Fairfax, but moved out to Marin Headlands in
November of 2001 after playing at a rather large Samhain party. 911 tension was
still heavy, and it showed on the night of 11.07.01. This time the tape was rolling.
We set up in a circle with a single mic in the middle of us connected to a Sony
DAT deck. We started noodling around, one joining in after the other, and next
thing you know, at least 35 minutes had passed before we stopped playing. Then
we did it again.
Headlands Jam
https://soundcloud.com/mysky-music/headlands-jam
https://soundcloud.com/mysky-music/headlands-jam
Headlands Jam came first. Headlands Jam, the name we
attached to it, was completely unscripted from start to finish, with the
exception of the ‘parts’ we had previously rehearsed. But, when we started, we
had no idea when or where or even if we would be using those parts. I have
edited it down to 26 minutes. I took off most of the noodling and loose jamming
from the front end of it. D Jam came just moments after Headlands Jam ended.
We wrote these ‘parts’ and would insert them into these jams
when we felt there was a good place for them. It involved a lot of listening.
Someone might insert a riff somewhere and repeat it, while the rest of us would
look at each other and think, ‘I know where this is going.”
D Jam was based on something that Mark had been working on,
but never finished to that point. Except for the central theme at the onset,
it's all total improvisation, not knowing where we as a band would be going
with the jams. Half way through, we abandoned that theme and took off for parts
unknown before returning to the theme to resolve the jam.
You can’t really listen to these as you would a 4 or 5
minute song. You listen to them as you would the Allman’s ‘Mountain Jam’, or ‘Dark
Side of the Moon’, or ‘Thick As A Brick.’ I described it as Phish meets the
Allmans, but it has recently been suggested that it also sounds like Seattle
grunge.
Mistakes were made, to be sure, but we played right on
through them never skipping a beat. The sound quality is certainly better than
listening to a CD in a car with the top down or all the windows open. I find
them to be very listenable. If anyone gets a quarter of the enjoyment out of
these that I get, then I'm really happy. I've often dreamed of adding a 2nd
drum track, percussion, keyboards, lyrics and vocals to this. Or possibly
rerecording the whole thing.
I found Mark and Hunter on Facebook last year.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on these two works.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on these two works.
