Music from 2001

In 2000, I met Mark Gigliotti (lead guitar) and Sean Horton (bass guitar.) None of us had any extensive band experience, so it was a good fit for all of us. Those 2 were heavily into Phish, and also the Dead. None of us wrote, but we did like to jam, so we would learn songs as a platform for jamming. Hunter Pipes (guitar) joined in 2001.

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

D Jam
https://soundcloud.com/mysky-music/d-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.