WEGO: May 2013 at the Seamonster!

Set 1 (26 megs)
Set 2 (20 megs)
Set 3 (37 megs)

Here are the recordings from WEGO's hosting of the open-mic at the Seamonster Lounge for the month of May (2013). The orchestra for the evening was Woody Frank (guitar and voice), Ian McKagan (guitar and voice), Zach Milstead (bass and voice for sets 1 and 2), and Me Woods (trumpet, percussion, and voice … and bass for set 3). Plus, "Phoenix" (an open-mic participant) joined us on vocals for Set 3.

The usual teeming crowds of participants seemed noticeably thinned for this Memorial Day evening, so the band was able to fit in a bit more of its thing than usual. This was Zach's first time on bass, and he held up the tent beautifully. Even so, with no drummer and me typically-out-of-practice on the percussion-pile, our first set was probably a little rougher than usual. So if you're tight on time, maybe skip ahead to the Set 2 -- by which point the traditional WEGO format was cooking along nicely. Some great stuff also happened in Set 3, after Zach had finally succumbed to the remnants of his flu, and Woody and Ian and I continued on in an even more open-ended format.

WEGO: March 2013 at the Seamonster!

Set 1 (32 megs)

Set 2 (26 megs)

Here are the recordings from WEGO's hosting of the open-mic at the Seamonster Lounge on March 25th, 2013.  The orchestra for the evening was Woody Frank (guitar and voice), Ian McKagan (guitar and voice), Zach Milstead (harmonica and voice), John Roth (drums), Evan Strauss (bass and voice), and Andrew Woods (percussion, trumpet, and voice).  

This was a fun show throughout, with the usual lyrical and harmonic shenanigans resting nicely atop an extra cushy bed of groove provided by Evan Strauss -- whose brief return to town happily lined up with this show -- and John Roth -- in his first ever appearance with the orchestra!  

WEGO: Feb 2013 SeaMonster Open Mic

Set 1 (26 megs)
Set 2 (28 megs)

Here are the recordings from our February 25th hosting of the open mic at the Seamonster Lounge. The orchestra for the evening was Woody Frank (guitar and voice), Ian McKagan (guitar and voice), Jesse Silvertrees (djembe and voice), and Me Woods (bass and voice), with the addition of Zach Milstead (harmonica and voice) for the second set.

There was a decent third set too, but by that point Jesse had left, and things were clearly winding down. Since the first two were so strong, I'm just going to include those for now.

This was the first appearance by Zach, and it was a great one, fueling at least half of the second-set action. Look for more of him with us in the future!

WEGO: January 2013 Seamonster!

Set 1 (26 megs)
Set 2 (31 megs)
Set 3 (10 megs)

Here are the recordings from WEGO's first open-mic hosting of 2013 at the Seamonster Lounge! The orchestra for the evening was Woody Frank (guitar and voice), Ian McKagan (drums in sets 2 and 3), and Me Woods (bass and voice).

I was a little worried that Jesse couldn't make it for this one and that Ian didn't get off work until 10pm on this particular evening, but the first set with just Woody and me was as full and diverse as ever. So by the time Ian showed up and hopped on the kit, it was all smiles. From there, things loosened up even a bit more and some great high-energy peaks rose from the fresh interplay.  I think I enjoyed the open-mic players more than ever on this one.  Still, the highlight of the night for me is probably Woody's Rick-rolling from our first set.

WEGO: November Seamonster

Set 1 (25 megs)
Set 2 (34 megs)
Two From Woody (10 megs)

Here are the recordings from WEGO's second attempt at hosting the open mic at the Seamonster Lounge on Monday, November 26th, 2012. The Orchestra for the evening was Woody Frank (guitar and voice), Ian McKagan (guitar and voice), Jesse Silvertrees (djembe and voice), and Me Woods (bass and voice) … with the addition of Dana (? I *think* that was his name…? I'd never met him before, but he played some sweet stuff) on trombone and Shellita (sp? … one of the fantastic open-mic regulars there) on voice for Set 2.

Just like last time, a stellar crowd of open-mic participants streamed into the expertly-remodeled Seamonster and started signing up well before 10pm.  By 10:15, the place was pleasantly packed.  We probably let the list get a little long.  Even limiting everyone to two songs, we decided to forego a third WEGO set so we could hear everyone from the original list before closing time.  Still, the two short sets we did play were pretty solid, and -- as this week's bonus item -- I also managed to record Woody's slot in the open-mic rotation.

WEGO: First Seamonster Open-Mic-Hosting!

Set 1 (30 megs)
Set 2 (29 megs)
Set 3 (15 megs)

Here are the recordings from WEGO's first gig at Wallingford's Seamonster Lounge, hosting the 4th-Monday Open Mic (Monday, October 22nd)! The Orchestra for the evening was Woody Frank (guitar and voice), Ian McKagan (guitar and voice), Jesse Silvertrees (djembe and voice), and Me Woods (bass and voice) … with the 3rd-set addition of Colin Higgins (acoustic guitar) and Shelita (sp? … voice).

There were some minor ups and downs with getting used to the format -- both in terms of our open-mic-hosting duties and in finding our groove with 20-minute set-times. But in the end, we did manage to squeeze in everybody who signed up (witnessing some truly inspiring singer/songwriter material from across the spectrum, and even an awkwardly-hilarious set of comedy), in addition to 3 short sets of WEGO, the 3rd of which included guest sit-ins and a spontaneous mini dance-party to close out the evening. Each of the WEGO sets went about 5 minutes over the 20-minute goal and simultanously felt constrained, but I'm thinking this can be a great learning experience if we stick with it.

Highlights abound, but are perhaps most concentrated at the very beginning and very end of the night (except for our extended introduction of "Logan" at the end of Set 2). However, the final set was certainly the most inspired. Sadly, when I looked to make sure I was recording mid way through Set 3, it turned out I had neglected to take the Edirol out of standby and so I'd like to drop a compliment here for Woody's kick-ass first-time take on Paul Simon's "Call Me Al", which happened right before I figured out I wasn't recording.

So for me, a great time overall! And I'm already looking forward to the next one. (Post your "woot!"s here for posterity, as comments to the FacePlant alert for these postings will all float away into the ignored proprietary ether.)

AWUR live in Olympia!

Opening Jam
Set A
Set B

Here are my selections from last Sunday's all-improv set with John Beezer (guitar), 5-Track (bass), and Patrick Lenon (drums) at Le Voyeur, in Olympia WA. Oh yeah, Ian McKagan is on the kit for the opening movement.

A good deal of excitement had built up for me by the time this happened -- a rare opportunity to play with most of these guys. (Additionally, this was my first time playing back in my old college town in quite a while. I think the last time was at the Eastside club where I filled in for James Whiton's guitarist. But even that was several years ago.) And overall it was an enjoyable and often high-energy experience.

Unfortunately, it was also marred a bit by the "activities" of a particularly drunk and relatively insensitive local, who began to show up at the mic about 10 minutes into the warmup-movements and became progressively more difficult to dislodge until he was finally evicted about 2/3rds of the way into the set … sadly, not before most of our audience had headed out to the front for a break from the awkwardness. He wasn't even that bad of a singer, but it seemed clear enough that he didn't have the presence of mind to be able to determine how long of a guest-appearance was appropriate. (Helpful guideline: If you don't know the band, maybe join in for 3 minutes and take a break. If it was great, maybe they'll invite you back up. And give up if your dozenth request for "blues" is not granted!) And, as I mentioned, he was soooooper drunk. It's tempting to include some of the footage here, for the record and the laugh. But generally, this was a sad thing that I don't want to encourage. I was really looking forward to stretching out with these guys. We're all seasoned-enough improvisers to make lemonade, but it seems to me that this diminished what could've been.

Nonetheless, the audience, *did* actually return for another brief series of movements, and even before that, plenty of interesting high-energy (almost tribal) groove-spaces materialized in quick succession. For some weird reason, it feels like I'm only using about 5% of my vocabulary in this set and the lyrical content never really takes-off, but the rest of the players are simply tearing it up and so it all works quite well.

So those are my clips! Beezer also recorded the set, with somewhat better placement (his nearly inaudible guitar is sometimes audible in his versions). He pulled out 4 solid sections more as "tracks" and posted them as an album on gemini.fm. I think I like his results better in this case. Check those out at: http://gemini.fm/awe91612/