annathepiper: (Musical Jack)
[personal profile] annathepiper
In which astute readers will notice that I actually didn't report on the last Jam, oh well; in which there is quite a bit of piratical goodness; in which in no small part this is the All Requests Jam; and in which we have the debut of one of [livejournal.com profile] solarbird's new songs in Jam as well as a track off the new GBS album. Songs: "Captain Kidd", "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate", "Chemical Worker's Song", "Mari-Mac", "Stars", "The Shanty Formerly Known as General Taylor", "Pirate Bill and Squidly", "Straight to Hell".

I completely spaced on doing a jam report for the previous session, for no real good reason. So this is me trying to make sure to get one written out today, post-jam, before I forget to do it. And, because he hasn't shown up in the icon rotation in a while, y'all get Musical Jack this time.


I jumped the gun and started playing a little early, before anybody showed up this afternoon. Fired up "Paddy Murphy" on the stereo just so I could try to play with my new capo on the zouk, and that was fun; still can't play the bridge all the way through along with the recording, but at least I got a few bars here and there.

I was in the middle of doing "Goin' Up" when folks started to show up, though, so had to put a stop to that! [livejournal.com profile] radarrider and [livejournal.com profile] technoshaman were first up, shortly followed thereafter by [livejournal.com profile] kendaer. We hung out for a while waiting for the others, and wound up doing an initial run through "Captain Kidd" just for giggles--since JT mentioned that that would probably wind up being the first thing he played on guitar with us due to it having the simplest chords.

Just as [livejournal.com profile] mamishka and [livejournal.com profile] cflute showed up we were informally futzing through "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate", just because Nevada wanted to play with it--and that turned into an actual take. I was pleased to actually get out my piccolo, which I hadn't done in a while. Nevada's guitar and Dara and on the mandolin are more than enough strings for that purpose, and the piccolo can handle the whistly bits in the song. I need to think more about what I'd like to ad-lib through this, though. A few more attempts may be required.

JT requested "Chemical Worker's Song", always a favorite. We wound up kind of bottom-heavy on the vocals, though, which made it amusing for me as I was trying to sing high--and the keys we'd selected weren't really conducive to that for my voice, unfortunately. *^_^*;; This led to jokes about the Chipmunks Edition of "Chemical Worker's Song". Which of course then led to Mimi doing the Chipmunks Edition of "Chemical Worker's Song". The moral of this of course being that you should always be scared of asking Mimi to do the Chipmunks Edition of anything, because she will.

Next it was Mimi's turn to throw in a request: "Mari-Mac". Muahaha. JT is scared of this song. As he rightly should be. ;) I did go through the chords again for Nevada's benefit, noting as I did for both him and JT that the chords are actually dead easy for this song--it's the tempo that's lethal. So I had to jump back to the guitar for this. It was neat to have Dara break out her flute part, though.

My turn next for a request: "Stars", Dara's new and thoroughly awesome mandolin piece. We took a couple of runs through this just to introduce it to everybody. Callie finagled a bit with a flute part; Mimi and JT and Glenn worked on drumming. Nevada and I tried our hand at the backup chords, and Dara wound up having to advise us to be sure, during the nifty plucky bits, to be very simple on the chord strikes. She needs 'em monolithic, an arrow strike of sound. The fun parts for me here are trying to keep up with Dara during the verses, where the chord patterns get interesting.

There are no lyrics to this yet, Dara informs us, though some will be coming eventually.

Multiple calls went up for "Zombie Taylor" next. Everybody sounded way better on this than me. *^_^*;; Apparently it was just not a good singing day for Anna; I kept having issues trying to find the key. However, it's always giggle-inducing to do this. JT thinks squishy eyeballs should be thrown out into the audience if this is performed live; Glenn countered by showing off the glow in the dark skull shaker he's got for playing during this very ditty.

Callie took a turn next for the requesting, wanting "Pirate Bill and Squidly". Dara's actually been doing this in busking for a while now, so arguably, she's got the strongest string part of any of us at this point. I can more or less stumble my way through it; Nevada doesn't have the Heather Alexander songbook yet. So we had a kind of messy take of this, and just the one before we had a request to do "Captain Kidd" again, since Meems and Callie had missed it the first time.

Of course, then Mimi buggered off to go find the cats, since she was curious as to where George and Fred were hiding... so we wound up with two more takes of "Captain Kidd" minus Meems. I've been sloppy on this lately, dropping words and some of the chords, too; I'm going to have to practice it more. Grf.

However, the second time through we did an all-instrumental take, which was kind of fun. Callie did a lead part on one of her smaller instruments, and I actually broke out the zouk. Woot!

Last but not least, I introduced "Straight to Hell", the coolest track off the latest GBS album, to everybody. I immediately learned two things trying to perform this thing in Jam: 1) like many things GBS does in G, I have to capo it up at least two frets to get it into a key that's better for my voice, and 2) Rags is insufficiently badassed to really play this song properly. Of course, I say this as someone who has played the recording repeatedly and therefore has heard the electric guitar growling in the background, but hey. ;) The point remains: Rags cannot growl. Playing this song, however, I find myself wishing for the first time that I had an electric guitar. ([livejournal.com profile] spazzkat's electric does not count, as it is not mine, even though it's in the house; I'm always scared to play anybody else's instruments, lest I break them.)

And just in case [livejournal.com profile] kohaku1977 is reading this, we did not try to play the bridge properly during the actual Jam--though we did have the chords for it. I did however take a stab before Jam at playing through the solo at much slower speed. And, Dara looked interested when I noted that said solo is in fact written out in mandolin tabs. So we'll see if one or the other or both of us can actually figure out how to play it properly.

Nevada called Pie at that point, and we all descended with glee upon the Pie. For yea, Callie had brought us a pie fresh out of the oven: a Marie Callender apple pie, onto which she'd sprinkled extra cinnamon and sugar. It cooled during the entire Jam, but by the time we got to it, it was still warm. And quite, quite tasty.


Next Jam is tentatively scheduled for the 28th, since Dara actively vetoes trying to Jam on the 21st--the first Sunday after my surgery. We'll see how I hold up by the 28th. It would sit well with me to do "Straight to Hell" once more in Jam before I go to see my B'ys do it right.

Date: 2008-09-08 03:22 am (UTC)
ext_3294: Tux (Default)
From: [identity profile] technoshaman.livejournal.com
"Straight to Hell" has *both* a straight folk and a growly electric in it... and I think he's doing a high Zouk and/or that cheezy Casio keyboard in the chorus... and def with the zouk on the bridge, that's what with those mando tabs....

What is it with you and all these pirate-y badass songs? You just like being a Johnny Reb? :)

Date: 2008-09-09 02:55 am (UTC)
ext_3294: Tux (Default)
From: [identity profile] technoshaman.livejournal.com
Didn't say it was *just* you, but you seem to derive some particular enjoyment from them...

Date: 2008-09-08 09:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fleetfootmike.livejournal.com
Someday, when I get to your part of the world....

Date: 2008-09-08 09:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kohaku1977.livejournal.com
Of course I'm reading this, sweetie. I was waiting for it. :D

Sounds like an excellent jam! And yay for managing the solo at slower speed. That means you will be able to speed it up someday, which is just great!

And you played Captain Kidd! Awesome. I love that song. AFter reading this, I'm in the mood to practise "Here and Now" again, but it's very late at my spot of the planet, but I think I'll try tomorrow. With several other songs. ;)

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