John Hancotte's Bass Desires: AMTAG @ JM July '12

Thursday, July 12, 2012

AMTAG @ JM July '12

Sketch from an audience member and donated to the tip jar. Thanks!

July 11 was set as the third in a series of shows performed by Absynthe Makes the Art Garfunkel: a semi-regular gathering of Matthew Smith, J.T. Allesi, Jeff Fritz, Adrian Ash, and myself. As fun to say as it is to taste! The first show was a Simon & Garfunkel showcase, the 2nd introduced many Paul Simon solo tunes. This time the original vision returned, with the solo tunes placed near the end of the night as a climax of sorts. I had a better time than I had planned. For whatever reason, this gig felt a bit rushed in planning and scheduling. I wasn't craving the opportunity to do this again. Hard to put into words.

We had a different percussionist this time out: William "Don" Whitaker (aka "Drum-Ho"), my old acquaintance from the rather short-lived-but-don't-count-them-out-just-yet combo Uncle Fishstick and the Special Purpose. Richie chose to sit this one out. Don brought an adventurous touch to the precedings. He made it to the Further show the night before, so he may have been inspired in ways that we weren't. He fit right in, I'll tell you that. What can I say? Matthew and J.T., along with Jeff, sang their hearts out and generally had a perfect show. Adrian really knows this music - he never got tripped up by the errant bar of 2 or the unusual 3rd verse form. I kept my nose to the page for the most part, looking up early on when I knew the form after getting through it a couple of times. We were starting to get comfortable as a band and it sounded all the better. I think it's safe to say that all in all we were significantly tighter than back in May.

3 fantastic shots from the camera of Jeff Fritz

Highlights this time out: Matthew rocking us out on a biting rendition of Richard Cory; J.T. and Jeff's guitars in sync during the solo J.T. vocal of Kathy's Song; A very nice build over the uber-classic The Sounds of Silence; an early-in-the-first-set romp through Kodachrome; a very cool reggae-infused Mother and Child Reunion with a very hip arrangement via J.T. of reprising the intro for the coda (it sounds obvious, but I might have never thought of it); Matthew's vocal turns at some of the latter day stuff, including The Boy in the Bubble and quite honestly, his harmony on Under African Skies, I might have to say it's better than Linda's! True. You need to catch it some day in the near furture. The show just felt right. I started out the show with the Ashbory rubber bass - turned out to be the right frame of mind for me and I played well: grooved hard, kept the volume in check, and nailed the changes on everything. I was thinking at the time that the Ashbory's upright-like thud was a good fit for the folk songs of Simon & Garfunkel that we were presenting. It also allowed me to slide in and out of notes, being fretless, for that cool baritone guitar lick that I end up playing on Richard Cory; actually employed an extremely heavy pick on that song, given to me by J.T. just before we started up. That first set felt good and we fed off of the crowd's energy. I played my Precision for a good chunk of the rest of the night, switching to fretless for the final set when those wicked Graceland tunes reared their heads in my direction. Back to the P-bass for the slap-angled You Can Call Me Al - don't think I nailed my 2-bar solo quite as well this time out... It happens so fast. The trouble with that part is I usually practice it as a loop - live I need to jump right back into the vamp. It's so darn quick! Mind over matter. These guys are real pros. A pleasure to try to make the magic happen with them once again.