Sunday, December 30, 2012

We All Will Be Received In Graceland


A cold, blustery night has descended upon Atlanta.  It must be the time for my return to Java Monkey.  I've been there during the hottest and the coldest temps.  The wind was particularly harsh.  Had to bring the brunt of the PA system.  Don't tell a soul.  My PA is less than my bass system, for the most part.  Still. it involves a couple of mains and a powered mixer.  Plus, I was giving Jeff a ride, along with his guitar, weighted electronic piano/keyboard, amp, and various accessories.  The jalopy was loaded down.

I had spent the better part of the morning, not to mention the better part of the day before, making and improving charts for the said gig.  Well, as luck would have it, I decided to mix up my arsenal.  To the detriment of my self esteem, my book of charts was left in the pocket of my bass gig bag that I chose to leave at home.  No charts after all.  Well, the decision was made and I found myself alone on the chart front - until, JT came to the rescue!  He had printed out some older, weaker charts from the first time we made a notion in public.  Horway!!!  I probably would have died a slow death without these fabled charts.  It was an awesome realization.  I cannot discount the level of wonderfulness I might have for Mr. J.T. at this moment in time.  Are you with me?  Here is the kicker: my wife and our 2 sons make their way through the curtain of disdain into the heated patio area as the set was winding down.  What a shocker!  From Marietta to Decatur, with the boys!  She could have brought the book of charts!  If only I had alerted her!

We performed the entirety of Paul Simon's Graceland album for our second set.  This was quite an undertaking, even without our attempt to recreate it note for note.  We didn't have horns or even one saxophone, and we certainly weren't from Africa.  I gave it my best to cop the lines on my fretless bass.  We had done a few of these tunes before.  It felt like the climax was the a capella tune Homeless.  All in all, it worked well, perhaps a bit slow and pensive.  I was given the low register, which in many ways is the easiest to hear.  The PA system that I brought was indeed am adequate one for the vocals, keyboards, and percussion.  My little GK combo that I had recently worked on was plenty loud, although I felt like I could have nudged it up a bit more.  On this stage, smaller was better.

Highlights of the night:

a great groove on Richard Cory, with a sense of tightness that we haven't felt in the past.  Kind of wishing I could do that one on a tapping instrument to realize the baritone guitar/Fender VI old-school bass lick in conjunction with the standard bass.  What I do is still nice - Adrian prompted me during the rehearsal to detune my low E on the Fender down to D.  That way, I'm hitting the lick in the correct octave and then getting the real bottom from the low D.

set 2 with all of Graceland - not too bad!  We had played some of these before, so it wasn't all brand new.  However, the arrangements have continued to become more fleshed out.  Jeff brought a great neo-accordian  vibe to The Boy In The Bubble, which before was simply acoustic guitar.  Don added so much, evoking washboard effects through his use of shells and inventive percussives.  It wasn't noticeable until I heard the audio playback.

a most excellent Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes, where we had a great vocal intro (nailed in the key  of E), thus launching into the melodic shimmering guitar in F.  Matt nailed that beautiful guitar figure that is jsut so flowing and wonderful.  My bass was virtually on; as good as I've ever been on the fretless glissandos and subsequent slap on the weird 2 beat delayed chorus vamp.

the aforementioned Homeless, sung by all of us with an ear on each other.  Deep and forlorn, it was rather nice how well it worked.  I'd like to see us try this again on a different stage where we could all come up front, stand in a line, and sing it without our instruments.  Simple ideas like this can come together for each song to make it more of a show.

A few shots from Sabina's lens...




Here are some that I took of the guys before we began the first set - warming up, so to speak.  Note the debut of Matthew's new Ibenez electric!





My family showed up, making this a most memorable occasion!  Thank you Sabina!  You rock!







Note audience members John Marsh, keyboardist and vocalist from Deep Blue Sun, as well as our other percussionist Richie Jones with his lovely wife Samantha (yes, that's J.T.'s sister!) (that couple are new parents on their first date since their baby girl was born - congrats!).

No comments:

Post a Comment