AHHHH!!!!!!
What a fun night! Y'all missed a pretty good time at Bobby's last night. My one-week layoff did me the world of good, as I was in fine fettle for the play. The only disappointment was the fact that my drum-proteg`e Lady Sheila elected to take an additional night off from the jam, leaving me to do the do solo. However, she did send me off with a "Tear something up GOOD for me tonight;" as things turned out I was able to do just that.
I got a warm welcome back from Ron C. and the Core lads - Dave, Stu, Brian, and good ol' Hank - as soon as I ambled in. I returned the greetings and lost no time in ordering up some chow. Dave wandered over and embarrassed the hell out of me when he told me he really enjoyed my writing; I had no idea he'd even read these silly ramblings here! Soon enough, it was suddenly Old Home week when a cat I hadn't seen for 25 years - one Mark Winkler - strolled in toting his bass. We did the "LONG time no see" bit and briefly caught each other up on this and that. See, Mark is one of perhaps two other high school classmates of mine that has kept his music going ever since, and he was impressed that I've been fighting the Good Fight just like he has all these years.
By now I was already in an excellent frame of mind for the play, and this is precisely when one Chris Odell appeared on the scene. We met at my initial SNJ a couple weeks back, hit it off instantly, and in the interim we cooked up some ideas to try out together, should we get the chance. Once the opener and the first Aggregation were done {and after the Cardinals finally lost to Pittsburgh, after nineteen innings!}, Chris and I got our chance. By mutual agreement, we kicked things off with - what else - "Hey Joe." Since Stu was with us on bass, I relaxed all the way and prepared to unleash a bit of "Classic Animal." Chris obviously felt the same way, 'cos he EXPLODED immediately after I made my entrance. It was all I could do to restrain myself from joining him in some early frenzy, but I had a firm plan in mind.
In essence, I applied my Clapton-inspired "build-up, climax, tag-out" formula to the tune, as the way to best complement Chris's fire and brimstone. He seemed a little puzzled that I wasn't wailing like he was at first, but he soon got the gist of what I was doing as we cooked merrily along. I carefully raised the temperature as we approached the first bridge; once we hit it, that's when I began to explode. As soon as Chris heard me start to go off, he really began to shred and I mean turning confetti into dust motes-type shredding. I egged him on as best I could, and stone me if he didn't hit me with a Smile just before dragging me headlong into a wicked counterpoint throwing-match.
Regular readers of my old MySpace blog in 2008 will recall the frequent times Buffalo Bob and I threw as much as we could at each other, just for the sheer fun of it. Wellsir, last night's "duel" with Chris easily eclipsed any throwing-match I've done in the last ten years, if not fifteen or twenty. Totally spur-of-the-moment improv, and highly contagious as it turned out. We toned things down somewhat for the last couple verses, but went straight back at it again for the second bridge. This time around I took to some increasingly outrageous cliff-dives, which set Chris off even more, if such a thing was possible. Right in the middle of a particularly insane cliff-dive, Stu caught my eye with a look that said "No way are you gonna be able to come back from that, Dude!" When I did though, there was nothing but admiration on his face; he even threw some shit at me a short time later, which I took as a sincere compliment.
Once Chris scratched his itch thoroughly, we finally wound Hey Joe down to a very nice reception. Before the clap could die out, we were off into Neil Young's "Cortez." I started off utilizing the same basic approach as HJ, with some heavy dynamics thrown in for good measure. I'd done this particular drum arrangement at my third or fourth Woodshed blow earlier this summer, but a few bars in Stu asked me to "crunch it up" a bit, which I obligingly did. The dynamics got switched out in favor of heavy stomp for the main body, but I did employ them as overlays on my accents and embellishments. Chris meanwhile was once again having a high old time displaying his abundant shredder-skills. Between the three of us, we concocted a pretty dramatic re-imagineering of the piece, and our combined efforts worked well enough to earn us our second warm reception, which is all that really matters in the end.
This concluded my first set of the evening; I happily ran the compliment-gauntlet on the way back to my table. After a few more Aggregations went up, I was startled to be called up to help close the set of the third one. This Aggregation was basically a whole band, save for the drums; Brian opened with them, and I closed. "Steve on Wheels" as they were called made me feel welcome straight away, and I quickly settled down so we could kick off The Doors' "Hands on the Wheel." Since it was basically a vocal vehicle for Steve himself, I saved the bombast for the instrumental breaks {going totally over the top with several of them}, and made a fine overall showing despite having not played the song in ages {my rust has cobwebs on it}.
The dudes were all Smiles and praise at the end, and the effort was decently clapped. Myself, I was just happy to be a small part of it all. Last night was Steve's birthday, and he's also making a slow musical comeback just like I am. His is the heavier slog though; some of the obstacles in his path are voice-related, meaning that his instrument can't be fixed or replaced as easily as a guitar or drum kit. I sympathize deeply with that scenario, and told Steve as much during our post-blow chat. Hopefully he'll rally quickly; I'd dearly love to have a proper full outing with him in the near future.
Although a bit pithy, last night's play for me was a pleasant bread-and-butter excursion, with more than a few extended passages of my usual mayhem. A fine sophomore effort, in other words. As the night wound down, Chris and I deepened our nascent bond some more as we talked about scratch-band possibilities. We both agree that our wonderful chemistry together needs to be thoroughly explored as soon as we can, so the next several weeks and months ought to be mighty interesting. On a final note I concluded my evening with yet another small burst of old-school Animal, when I sauntered up to the one and only Philmo Montgomery and said "Hey! You're Johnny Winter! I'm a huge fan of yours!"
Despite us being total strangers, Philmo didn't miss a beat before answering me with "Hey, I love Johnny Winter!!" and a bark of laughter. Ice thus broken, I introduced myself and we had a short but decent chat. Philmo's something of an SNJ legend, and his blow last night certainly convinced me. I quickly put forth a suggestion of us going up together at a future play, he agreed heartily, and that was that. The developments will be reported here as they happen, but between you and me I'd say it would be a safe bet that Bobby's Place hasn't seen the last shred-fest I'm drumming behind by a long shot.
Yeah, pretty good play. More is on the way, too. Although the daily grind is still relentlessly grinding along, I'm almost to the point of actually relaxing for more than a day or two at a time. The plays have been a huge help of course, and are getting better each time out. For now, All Is Well.
More shortly.............
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