WEGO: Return to the Gypsy Cafe!

Jesse's Opening Set (41 megs)
WEGO Set 1 (56 megs)
WEGO Set 2 (55 megs)

Here are both sets from last Saturday's Woodland Experimental Groove Orchestra show at the Gypsy Cafe, featuring the first public additions of Woody Frank and Ian McKagen (both on guitar and vocals), and the second-set addition of Jenny Freeling on djembe. (Also in the Orchestra for the evening were Dennis Jolin (guitar and keys), Jesse Silvertrees (djembe, keys, and voice), and Me Woods (keyboard-bass, miscellaneous, and voice).

Jesse's stellar homoerotic baths-of-Star-Trek themed invite eventually went out to something like 400 people and set a wild-but-sensual mood for the sizeable crowd that responded. The show opened at around 9:30 with a fantastic 35-minute solo set of piano and voice by Jesse himself (first link above). WEGO went on a little after 10pm, and managed to stuff in two 45-minute sets before midnight.

It may not have been our tightest or "groovinest" show yet, but 4-part cycling vocals and a densely interlocked guitar-heavy sound drove us to new levels of energy and abandon. Chaotic, sprawling versions of everything from Def Leppard to Beyonce collapsed into and returned from psychedelic free-space as the revelers shouted and filled the Gypsy Cafe with bubbles and the crackle of bubble-wrap. I even saw a couple of people dancing! At a coffee house!! Mission accomplished. :))

Oh yeah, one other thing: In addition to his guitar, Dennis set up a keyboard that he'd never brought out before. He had carefully selected some weights to lock down various keys to create adjustable droning chords. At the time, I was in a really noisy spot in the mix, so I didn't notice it consciously, but I'm looking forward to a second listen to see what he ended up doing with the rig!

And finally, whether you were there at the time or are just listening to the downloaded sets at home or on the road, I'd like to invite you to call out your own highlights and/or add any other thoughts in the comments below.

(Bubbles in the image above from a photo I found on Flickr by Glenn Loos-Austin ... and adapted under the terms of a Creative Commons license 2.0 )

WEGO at the Shipwreck

Set 1 (39 megs)
Set 2 (68 megs)

Here are the recordings from the (2nd ever!) Woodland Experimental Groove Orchestra show at the Shipwreck Tavern in West Seattle. The Quartorchestra for the evening consisted of TQ Berg (guitar and voice), Dennis Jolin (guitar and voice), Jesse Silvertrees (djembe and voice), and Me Woods (keyboard-bass, keys (first performance with the new soft-synth rig) occasional percussion and voice).

It was my turn to do the opening set for this one, so I did my usual Guitar-and-Voice-with-shakers thing (a short 6-song set of originals, including an arrangement of my latest long-distance-collaboration with 5-track, "Under the Tent"). After that, it was two sets of WEGO.

The first set was fairly traditional WEGO -- well realized as I recall … with inspired mid-tempo grooves and a suite of our core lyrical standards.

The second set was just a touch more open, with a few less changes (longer sections of modal jamming), more odd-time overlapping measures, and even a 20-ish-minute section where I was working from a short sheet of clever lyrical inspirations provided by a lady we'd never seen before (thanks for those!).

All in all, it was a great high-energy night (thanks to everyone who made the trip to see us!), which really re-affirmed the power of the format for me and seemed to kick up the momentum looking ahead to October's Gypsy show.

(Finally, whether you were in the group that night, listening from the house, or just grabbing the recordings over the net, please add your thoughts/highlights/etc… in the comments below!)

Keyboard Circle

Clip 1 (22 megs)

Here is the first half of our Sept 1st WEGO rehearsal with Jesse and me and two brand new recruits: Jenny Freeling (on Djembe) and Aaron Sarnat (Piano and percussion) ... both fantastic contributors who I hope will join us again! Nothing but hand-drums and keyboards this time. Damn hippies and their keyboards!! I've edited around a bit of the obvious learning and reviewing here, but even with half the group consisting of brand-new players, the evening was chock-full of sensitive counterpoint and inspired wackiness, and so the remaining material is quite good.

Nevertheless, if you're tight on time, the clear highlight so far is the last 4 minutes of Clip 1 (starting at the 14-minute mark) : "Piggy Toe".

(more soon!)

WEGO First Ever Public Performance! (Gypsy Cafe)

Set 1 (53 megs)
Set 2 (71 megs)

Thanks to everyone who came out to the first 'Woodland Experimental Groove Orchestra' show!! In spite of the fantastic weather, a few of our core members being unavailable for the date, and the unfortunate coincidence with the 'Tool' show at Key arena, we managed to mostly fill the Gypsy Cafe with generous listeners. (This was my first ever show at the Gypsy. Man, what a sweet space! Feels great, sounds great. I really hope they'll have us back again.)

All in all, it was a super-solid, and occasionally awesome first-show for the project, featuring a well-seasoned quintet of Michael Chapman (horns, percussion, and vocals), Dennis Jolin (ukelele and vocals), Abraham Neuwelt (electric and acoustic percussion and vocals), Jesse Silvertrees (djembe, keyboards, and vocals), and Me Woods (keyboard-bass, treble, and vocals).  The 'Lyrical Standards' were hitting pretty hard throughout, including a first-ever version of a rather-well-known song by Queen.  In talking with friends at set-break and closing, I was psyched that long-time listeners seemed to genuinely appreciate both the sound and the concept, and felt that the group already showed great potential beyond some of my previous all-improv experiments. I fully agree! And the fact that most everybody in the group is actually offering constructive criticism and helping plot our next-steps makes it feel like we might be onto something good here.

Check out the recordings and let me know what you think!

(Photo stolen from Dennis' FB page -- which explains why he's not in it … another friend was taking photos as well, so I'll probably post a couple of those when I can get them.)

******

Update (August 29th) ... finally found the other photos from David and Naoko in my inbox!  (...still no sign of Dennis, but some closer looks at Abraham and Michael here)

WEGO Rehearsal #7

June 30th Set 1 (64 megs)
June 30th Set 2 (33 megs)

Here are the recordings from our last get-together (on June 30th) before our first show (at the Gypsy Cafe on July 10th). The lineup for this recording is Chapman, Jolin, Kristmann, Silvertrees, and Woods.

There are a couple of slow patches near the top here, so I've done a tiny bit of pruning right at the beginning of the first set -- removing a tad of the opening build-up and the first half of Crazy Train (which, with the exception of the remaining chorus, is better represented in our earlier recordings). I did, however, decide to leave in the brief call from Tina right after we started up. The background banter, which I hardly noticed at the time, cracked me up on first playback. Beyond that, and some solid versions of several of our established lyrical standards, this rehearsal also features our first ever "Light My Fire" (lifted from the radio on my way over), and our first inclusion of the 7/4 motif in Tom Sawyer.

WEGO Rehearsal #6

WEGO Rehearsal 6, Set 1 (27 megs)
WEGO Rehearsal 6, Set 2 (39 megs)

Okay, I know I said I wasn't going to put any more clips of the new group up until after our first show, but these are just too good! (And there are some even better ones from last week's rehearsal, that I'll probably have bundled up by the middle of next week.) Besides, nobody but the band is really following this blog right now… right?

These are from our June 6th get-together, our first with Daniel (need to look up his last name) on guitar and voice -- mostly sitting out as he absorbs the general concept (you'll hear quite a bit more of him in the next post). Players for the evening were Dennis, Ian, Michael, Abraham, Daniel, Jesse, and me. After our usual rehash of the basics for newcomers and a special presentation of the Gestural Signaling Language (…near the end of the previous get-together, we had decided to convert most of our pre-codified verbal signals to hand-signals and I had written up a rough pass at them in the interim), we started the night still missing Michael (who showed up mid first-set) and Ian (who arrived just as we were wrapping up the first set).

The first set seemed to start a bit slow, and I made quite a few edits for its presentation here, but it's still chock-full of interesting movements, including a surprisingly emotional version of 'Crazy Train' right near the top and a pleasantly loose and lively 'Pour Some Sugar' later on. At the break, we set up Ian's rig and launched into a solid (and here unedited) second set that ran the gamut before closing with our first ever version of 'Tom Sawyer'.

Sadly, this jam marked Ian's departure for 2 months to fish in Alaska for the Summer, so he won't be there for the show on the 10th. But I'm greatly looking forward to roping him (and hopefully his fishing partner -- and fantastic guitarist/vocalist -- Woody) back into the lineup when August returns him to Seattle.

Man am I looking forward to the Gypsy Cafe show! Here's a flyer:

Split Key Soup with Elephant

SplitKeySoupWithElephant (16 megs)

Before I tell you about the recording for this post, I wanted to say that the new group-project is sounding great and growing well! (If you haven't been back to the blog here in a while, I've been silently updating the previous post with new recordings of each rehearsal, so you can just scroll down there to hear a bit of where it's been headed.) In fact, just this past week, we booked our first show for Saturday, July 10th at the Gypsy Cafe on Stone Way between Wallingford and Fremont. The group is going to be called the "Woodland Experimental Groove Orchestra". And for now, I'll just say that it's an all-improv dance band with -- as you might expect -- a couple of key twists. In order not to reveal too much more of what we're up to, I'll probably keep the next couple of rehearsal recordings off of the blog here, but if for some tragic reason you can't make it to the show on the 10th, check back here in mid July for the recordings from our first show!

In the groove orchestra, I've dropped my traditional role as a player of stringed-instruments and am instead holding down the bass (and a bit of harmonic counterpoint) with an old Yamaha keyboard run through a Boss wah/leslie modeling pedal, the overdriven channel of my Carvin tube guitar head, and out through the ported Aguilar 12"-with-horn bass cabinet that I used with Neon Brown. By splitting the keyboard (bass for the left hand and some form of "keys" for the right) and using a couple of simple effects (the wah and the tube-fuzz) to warm up the diverse (often cheesy) built-in voices, I think I'm getting a surprisingly versatile and pleasantly classic sound.

Which brings us to this week's recording. I haven't really touched a keyboard more than once or twice a year since finally leaving the cover-band business (1993?), so it seemed like maybe I should practice a bit. Keys (as opposed to all but my most electric stringed instruments) have the added bonus of being quiet enough to play in the next room while Lucy is asleep, so I've been spending 15-30 minutes noodling around each evening at around 10pm, and have even started recording these sessions for the last couple of weeks.

The clip above is from the first one that I recorded -- some time last week. Here, as with all of my evening noodling, I'm not running through the amp-configuration that I use with the group. …just through a simple solid-state fuzz-box that's part of the wah-modeler and then straight into the board (which I monitor with headphones). The clip drifts through some mellow improvised changes which occasionally showcase one of the polymeters I've been playing with. Listening back, I'm happy with how easy it is to generate relaxed momentum and spontaneous counterpoint with no looping or delays. It seems I'm playing more like my two-hand 'plank' technique than how I used to play the piano those many years ago, and I'm liking the effect. The vocals are another story… :)) While I sort of like the secretive-sounding hushed tones of the 10pm hour, it doesn't feel like my best lyrical dexterity. So, In spite of the evidence of the last 3rd of this recording, I want to assure you all that I haven't turned to late night solo-drinking. I was just a bit sleepy.